Raphaela Gromes IMAGINATION

 

IMAGINATION

 

Liliana Kehayova / Kristina Miller NIKOLAI MYASKOVSKY Cello sonatas NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Serenade for Cello and Piano Op. 37

 

CELLO SONATAS -  SERENADE FOR CELLO AND PIANO

 

Oksana Volkova / Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra / Constantine Orbelian POISON D'AMOUR

 

POISON D'AMOUR

 

Aida Garifullina / ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien / Cornelius Meister AIDA GARIFULLINA

 

AIDA GARIFULLINA

 

Piano Trio Then-Bergh – Yang – Schäfer THE SOUL OF RUSSIA

 

THE SOUL OF RUSSIA

The Kanneh-Masons CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

 

CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS

Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko NIKOLAY RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Capriccio Espagnol - Russian Easter Festival Overture - Scheherazade

 NIKOLAY RIMSKY-KORSAKOV

Natalya Romaniw / Lada Valešová ARION

                                                  VOYAGE OF A SLAVIC SOUL

Margarita Gritskova / Maria Prinz RUSSIAN SONGS

The songs on this album are not as well known as other works by these three composers, but this more intimate form of expression often goes straight to the heart and soul of their work. Tchaikovsky wrote songs throughout his life, and it is easy to find autobiographical parallels in his chosen themes of love and longing. Rimsky-Korsakov’s songs are characterized by tender lyricism, while Rachmaninov’s wordless Vocalise has become one of his most famous melodies. Margarita Gritskova was born in 1987 in St. Petersburg. She is a prizewinner of the Luciano Pavarotti Competition in Modena, and the Concurso Internacional de Canto ‘Villa de Colmenar Viejo’ in 2010. She has performed in Carmen under the direction of Mariss Jansons in St. Petersburg, and appeared at world renowned festivals across the globe.

Vasily Petrenko / Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra STRAVINSKY The Firebird RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Le Coq d'Or

After the critically acclaimed Rite of Spring (ONYX4182) the award - winning team of Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO continue their survey of the Stravinsky ballets with The Firebird. As with the earlier album, the coupling is a fascinating one. Stravinsky was Rimsky’s star pupil, and his influence on Stravinsky can be detected clearly in the opulent and exciting score of The Firebird. Rimsky’s Golden Cockerel suite was arranged from music from his 1909 opera based on the story by Pushkin.

Nemanja Radulović BAÏKA

More than a violinist, Nemanja Radulović is a fully rounded artist who breathes new life into everything he plays, as can be seen from his Deutsche Grammophon discography (which ranges from core repertoire for violin and orchestra with the concertos of Bach and Tchaikovsky to Journey East, a collection of shorter works and perhaps his most personal album so far, dedicated to his mother). A musician who plays with the utmost passion and sensitivity, he appeals to all kinds of audiences, not just habitual concert-goers but also those with little or no experience of classical music.

“If I have a mission as an artist,” he says, “it’s that I want to share the things I love with all my heart with everyone!” This is why he loves creating moving musical narratives that transport listeners, taking them on distant journeys of the imagination. There’s always a story behind his vision of the works he performs.

Radulović has already looked eastward for some of his Yellow Label recordings. Journey East evoked the classical past of Central and Eastern Europe with works by Brahms, Dvořák, Shostakovich – composers inspired by traditional music and Slavic folk songs. After this album, the violinist turned to the eternal Bach, creating versions of the Violin Concerto in A minor and the Double Violin Concerto that offer a Bach of our times, and also including a viola concerto by Johann Christian Bach. Next came an album of standard repertoire: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Rococo Variations (world premiere recording of new arrangement). And now, with Baïka, which means “story” or “tale” in Serbian, he’s once again exploring the music of Eastern Europe and beyond.  

His performance style is impossible to reduce to a simple formula. He is open to all influences, notably that of the HIP movement, but has no qualms about giving free rein to a form of modernity when performing the kind of virtuoso showpieces that are sadly still seen as somehow second-rate repertoire. He also takes delight in new arrangements of existing works – extrapolations of the originals that can reveal entirely new worlds. When putting together a programme, he is more than willing to be inspired by meetings with other musicians, well aware that such meetings can generate new stories. Such was the case when it came to the making of Baïka.

The seeds for this album were sown during the first tour that Radulović undertook with Sascha Goetzel and the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, on which Bruch’s First Violin Concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade were among the works performed. During the tour, the violinist used to sit in the auditorium for the second half of each concert and became increasingly captivated by Scheherazade’s solo violin part, which represents the voice of the sultan’s eponymous young bride as she spins her fantastical tales. With the idea of taking that line and expanding on it, Radulović asked his Serbian composer friend Aleksandar Sedlar to develop it into a piece for solo violin and his ensemble Double Sens. The resulting suite – to which the violinist contributed by helping to write the solo part – is a worthy successor to the kind of late nineteenth-century bravura violin works composed by Sarasate and Wieniawski, among others.

Since that first tour, violinist, conductor and orchestra have continued to work together on a regular basis, and they all met up in Istanbul to record the Khachaturian Violin Concerto for Baïka. The concerto dates from the Soviet era and reflects modern Armenia, rather than the fairy-tale east conjured by Scheherazade.

Nemanja Radulović has a soft spot for the Armenian-born Khachaturian, whose celebrated Sabre Dance he recorded for Journey East. For Baïka he chose not only the Violin Concerto, but also the composer’s Trio for clarinet, violin and piano. The key role played by the clarinet in both works makes them companion pieces. Here again Radulović was keen to record with musicians he already knew well and whose talents he hugely respected: clarinetist Andreas Ottensamer and pianist Laure Favre-Kahn.

The album closes with Aleksandar Sedlar’s Savcho 3, a work studded with folk tunes from the shores of the Black Sea. Sedlar created the work by taking an excerpt from his Concerto for saxophone and orchestra and adapting it for solo violin and Double Sens. Baïka is, then, an album rich in colour and texture, as Radulović’s violin is heard with full orchestra, then with string ensemble and piano, and finally in two chamber pieces. The locations in which it was recorded – Berlin, Belgrade and Istanbul – add to the idea of the eastern travels involved in its making.

Daniel Müller-Schott / Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Aziz Shokhakimov TRIP TO RUSSIA

This new release features the willfully diverse compositional and emotional landscape of newly discovered and rediscovered nineteenth-century Russian music, performed with dedication and delight in the musics individual detail and perspective. Daniel Muller-Schott ranks among the worlds best cellist and can be heard on all of the foremost international concert stages. A fearless player with technique to burn (New York Times), he has made his mark by delighting audiences for two decades. Muller-Schott works with leading international orchestras: in the US with the orchestras in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles, in Europe with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Radio Orchestras of Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Paris, the London Symphony, and more. In the present recording, he plays the Ex Shapiro Matteo Goffriller cello, made in Venice in 1727, and a bow made by FX Tourte of Paris in c. 1820.

Orchestre du Centre National des Arts du Canada / Alexander Shelley THE BOUNDS OF OUR DREAMS

The works on this recording paint stories in music, vividly evoking the characters, places, and periods that they depict.

Rimsky-Korsakov unfolds an epic tableau from One Thousand and One Nights as he conjures to life the brilliant and cunning Scheherazade, continually evading death and emerging victorious in her resistance against the evil Shahriar.

Using an equally grand musical canvas, Walter Boudreau explores the compelling life of visionary poet Claude Gauvreau. The piece was written for soloist Alain Lefèvre who, through the fiendishly challenging piano part, represents the character of the Québécois poet, ultimately finding redemption and transfiguration in death for this unique literary figure.

Ravel, a musical figure who in many ways links the Russian school of Rimsky-Korsakov with the Québec inheritance of Boudreau, leaves us, in his miniature musical masterpiece, a perfect and enduring vision of a beautiful young princess, whose dance echoes through the ages. (Alexander Shelley)

Nada Radulovich / Cullan Bryant UNEXPLORED

The four works on UNEXPLORED, offer an expansive variety of musical genres while introducing listeners to previously unrecorded cello repertoire. Premiere recordings of works by Tchaikovsky, Cassadó, Rudnytsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov are presented by cellist Nada Radulovich and pianist Cullan Bryant. 

Tchaikovsky’s Six French Songs, opus 65, dedicated to Madame Desirée Artôt de Padilla, are settings of works of three French poets. The intensity of these poems is amplified by Tchaikovsky’s music. They find a convincing voice in this transcription for cello. Although this is a fully instrumental program, Radulovich provides the only available English translation of this poetry with this album at Navona Records. Published by Ovation Press. 

The passionate and compelling voice of Cassadó (1897-1966) in his Sonata of 1924, deserves to be widely shared and enjoyed . This four movement work is dedicated to Donna Giulietta von Mendelssohn who was said to ‘sing like a mermaid and play the piano like Liszt’ . This compelling work, presented here for the first time, represents various moods and dances. At times poignant, dramatic, playful, or uplifting, it is an effective synthesis of tradition cast in striking harmonic terms.

Romantic Fantasie for Cello and Piano, Op 43, by Ukrainian composer Antin Rudnytsky (1902-1975), displays a conservative 20th-century harmonic language, while exploring the folk idioms of the composer’s native land. The intricate dialogue between the instruments illustrates the composer’s skill at evoking a variety of moods within a single composition. 

One of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s best-known works, The Flight of the Bumblebee, evokes the effortless yet driven path of the tiny insect. This unique transcription of the work was created by pianist Bryant in his effort to remain truer to the original score than previous transcriptions, and was inspired by his years of collaboration with Radulovich.

Christian-Pierre La Marca / Lise De La Salle PARIS-MOSCOU

There has always been a mutual fascination between France and Russia. And it continues today at the heart of this programme that we based on a unique coupling of works from the great repertoires of two superb composers of the same era: Gabriel Fauré and Sergei Rachmaninov. Following in the footsteps of the Romantic Movement begun by Chopin (who directly inspired Rachmaninov’s sonata) and Schumann (whose vocal oeuvre inspired Fauré), we are transported into a musical world at the very heart of an age, at the crossroads of late Romantic music and new experimentation with musical languages.

Our aim was to highlight the unique and different styles and languages created during the same period. This allowed us to underline the aspects of heritage and transmission, with Saint-Saëns, who taught Fauré who in turn would perpetuate a typically French tradition, or with S.Rachmaninov who, despite their occasional differences, was greatly inspired and influenced by P.I.Tchaikovsky, himself one of the guardians of Russian romanticism. Indeed the latter showed a special attachment to France by making frequent visits to Paris – he was a regular at the Café de la Paix – and his admiration for the work of another French composer, E.Lalo.

During my research, it became evident to me that I wanted to link the instrumental approach with a vocal approach according to writing and style. This is undoubtedly due to my numerous partnerships with great singers who continue to fascinate me. In my mind, the voice is the symbol of all that is natural and evident in a musical phrase. This has given rise to unique programmes (such as the previous albums – French melodies in “L’Heure Exquise” and sacred vocal pieces in “Cantus”). 

“Paris-Moscou”, an album devoted above all to the wide repertoire for cello and piano, also includes opera through transcriptions of French and Russian pieces of the same period. It is the result of a quest, which, through these musical gems, emphasizes both the tender lyricism and great virtuosity of the cello. (Christian-Pierre La Marca)

Lidia Baich / Matthias Fletzberger VIOLIN IN MOTION

The Violinist Lidia Baich and Pianist Fletzberger are a successful duo with optimum tonal differentiation, phenomenal virtuosity and incredible sense of style. Together they breathe life into the great works of music literature and expand their passion with genuine arrangements.

Violinist Lidia Baich was born in St. Petersburg. At the age of eight years she won her first international competition - numerous other top-prices followed. In 1998 she won the Grand Prix d'Eurovision and was nominated European Musicians of the Year. Since then she performs in all  major concert halls around the world with the worlds best orchestras (including the New York Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic) and conductors such as Lorin Maazel, and Vladimir Fedoseyev.

In 2002 Lorin Maazel invited her to join star-tenor Andrea Bocelli on his world tour. The following year, she took part in the ten-year anniversary of Pavarotti and Friends in Modena. In 2008 she released her first CD on the Deutsche Grammophon label. In 2009 she was the official ambassador of the Haydn year. Lidia Baich also serves as a jury member at prestigious violin competitions such as the Eurovision Competition or the Menuhin Competition.

The musical talent of the Viennese Pianist Fletzberger was discovered at the age of 5, when he was accepted as a student of the University of Music in Vienna in Violin and piano and was soon known as a piano prodigy. He won top prizes the ìBusoniî- and ìRubinsteinî-competition. His career took him to all continents as soloist playing more than 1.000 concerts in only five years - he has performed with major orchestras (including the Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre de Bordeaux) and conductors as Ferdinand Leitner, Carl Melles or Jesus Lopez Cobos.

After several years of collaboration with the world famous soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, he started a second career as a conductor (Vienna Festival, Salzburg Prague State Opera, etc.). Following a ten-year time-out he decided to return to the classical music scene in 2009, when he started his comeback as a classical pianist and conductor.

In 2011 the two artists released the CD / DVD Violin in Motion on the Deutsche Grammophon label, featuring their own arrangements of symphonic ballet-music. Plans for 2014 include a new CD with late-romantic violinsonatas by Richard Strauss and Joseph Marx.

Anita Rachvelishvili / Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI / Giacomo Sagripanti ANITA

Anita Rachvelishvili was born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. She at first studied piano at the Mukhran Machavariani School and then singing at the Vano-Sarajishvili Conservatory with Manana Egadze. She received a stipend from the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, and in 2007 won the Paata Burchuladze Prize. While still a student at the conservatory, she debuted at the Opera in Tblisi as Maddalena in Rigoletto and as Olga in Eugen Onegin, subsequently joining the ensemble of the theater in the fall of 2006. In 2007 she was invited to join the Accademia at the Teatro alla Scalla, it was there she was heard by Daniel Barenboim, who then invited her to star in the new production of Carmen which opened the 2009/2010 La Scala Season.

She  became internationally known when on December 7th, 2009, the opening night of the La Scala season, she sang the title role in Carmen opposite Jonas Kaufmann as Don José, in a production staged by Emma Date and conducted by Daniel Barenboim. This performance, which was her first of any major role in the West and which was her debut in the role, was also televised all over the world.

Ekaterina Mechetina SERGEI RACHMANINOV Variations on a Theme of Corelli - Piano Transcriptions

One harrowingly difficult set of variations by Rachmaninoff and a variety of his best-known transcriptions: this is not debut material for the pianistically faint-of-heart. But then, Ekaterina Mechetina is anything but faint-hearted. This collection was shrewdly chosen to emphasize some of her more spectacular qualities, and in general, it succeeds well.

Mechetina is an aggressive player and a superb technician, facts that immediately become apparent in the Corelli Variations. She plays with complete mastery of the music at any tempo, and seems especially to relish the challenge of the faster, more complex variations—such as the furious seventh, marked vivace, with its giant bell in the bass never obscuring the theme and avalanche of figurations riding above it, or the quicksilver 10th variation, with its extremely clean and even articulation. The late Romantic rhetoric of the fourth and 15th variations find her warm and committed, with a natural rubato and long-breathed phrasing. Similarly, she doesn’t lose her way in the freer passages of the 14th, cimbalom-like variation; while the arpeggiated runs that twice erupt during its length coruscate. The way the pianist plays the opening theme demonstrates yet another useful virtue, all too rare these days: the ability to perform slowly, solemnly, without any trace of nerves or need to push ahead.

Many of the same features are shown elsewhere on this release. The Bach selections are bright and cleanly articulated, with an assertive attack that the pianist softens well. Not that this is soft playing, however, but vibrant, angular, and often rich, in keeping with the personal and deliberately non-authentic nature of these piano transcriptions. I did find a couple of passages in the Gavotte hard in tone, however. It points to the one fault in Mechetina’s rendition of this music: a certain want of color. She’s certainly not steely-fingered on this recording, but tends to deploy the panoply of techniques used to control this aspect of pianism (dynamics, fingering, pedaling, etc) far more discreetly than she does the others. As a result, the Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsakov lack gossamer, though they have all the point, clarity, and accuracy at caffeinated tempos one could desire. Her versions of Lilacs and the Cradle Song are persuasively lyrical, but the two Kreisler numbers are just a bit too prosaic despite their virtuosity to be completely convincing. (Barry Brenesal)

Zurich Ensemble SCHEHERAZADE

Sheherazade as chamber music? Reduced to four members? Somewhere up there, Leopold Stokowski, the man who made this music a big-orchestra showpiece, is having a fit – especially since this recording is so successful in terms of the transcription and performance by the Zurich Ensemble. The four musicians – violin, piano, cello and clarinet – have the music in their souls and, through a combination of cunning and artistic will power, have made the piece their own.

The small-might-be-better trend was also manifested over the summer with Ensemble Festivo playing Schumann’s Fourth Symphony with 10 instruments – somewhat convincingly but not nearly on the level of this group, whose transcription by Florian Noack and Benjamin Engeli is full of shrewd insights that save their endeavour from palm-court kitsch and give the music a greater sense of dramatic narrative. The solo violin (beautifully played by Kamilla Schatz) is pretty much intact, though the violin joins in with the cello and piano to create rhythmic momentum when necessary. Orchestral strings are replaced by piano, which also covers the harp arpeggios. The clarinet creates a primary voice in the texture when the solo violin is otherwise occupied. Of course, limitations are to be expected. With less sound to work with, grand rubatos aren’t possible. Also, the group practises certain sleights of hand with spatial effects that are possible in the recording studio. If this four-person group isn’t about to summon an imposing Cinemascopic span of sound, why can’t depth of field replace lost grandeur?

Sheherazade is framed by lesser-known works: a suite of incidental music by Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1955) for A Thousand and One Nights (pleasant enough but incidental) and Khachaturian’s Trio for clarinet, violin and piano, a 1934 piece that’s a bit of a find, full of attractive ideas that never fall back on the animal energy of his better-known works. (David Patrick Stearns / Gramophone)

Olga Peretyatko RUSSIAN LIGHT

Olga Peretyatko has announced her new album for Sony Classical.

The Russian soprano announced the news via Facebook as she posted a picture of the album’s cover art. alongside the picture she said,”Are you ready for my new CD? Coming very soon!!! Stay tuned!”

No track list was revealed but based on the title, “Russian Light,” audiences can expect it to be an all-Russian album.

The new CD will mark Peretyatko’s fourth solo album. She first released “La Belleza del canto” in 2011 followed by “Arabesque” in 2014. In 2015 she released “Rossini!,” which was conducted by the late Alberto Zedda.

Peretayatko is currently at the Metropolitan Opera reprising the role of Gilda, which she performed earlier in the winter. She will next perform Verdi’s “La Traviata” at the Bolshoi Theatre before returning to the Staatsoper Berlin for Bizet’s “Les Pêcheurs de Perles.”

Next season she returns to the Met for Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” and also performs in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” at the Hamburg State Opera. She is also scheduled for “La Traviata” at the Vienna State Opera and the Deutsche Berlin Oper.