Isata Kanneh-Mason SUMMERTIME

 

SUMMERTIME

Ferenc Snétberger / Keller Quartet HALLGATÓ

 

HALLGATÓ

Patrick Messina / Fabrizio Chiovetta SONGS

 

SONGS

 

James Gilchrist / Anna Tilbrook SOLITUDE

SOLITUDE

Marianne Lambert MÉLODIES PASSAGÈRES

MÉLODIES PASSAGÈRES

Liya Petrova / Boris Kusnezow BEETHOVEN - BRITTEN - BARBER

BEETHOVEN - BRITTEN - BARBER

Xiayin Wang / Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Peter Oundjian AMERICAN PIANO CONCERTOS

                                                  AMERICAN PIANO CONCERTOS

Metis Piano Duo ENSUITE

                                   FAURÉ - DEBUSSY - RACHMANINOFF - BARBER

Hauser / London Symphony Orchestra CLASSIC

                                                                            CLASSIC

Johan Dalene / Norrköping Symphony Orchestra / Daniel Blendulf TCHAIKOVSKY - BARBER Violin Concertos

                                                           VIOLIN CONCERTOS

Wiener Philharmoniker / Gustavo Dudamel / Yuja Wang 2019 SUMMER NIGHT CONCERT

Central to the programme of the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2019 Summer Night Concert is a musical history of the United States of America: the works that are heard this year were composed in or for the USA, while also constituting links with the Viennese musical tradition. At the same time the concert venue – the historic park at Schönbrunn Palace – is celebrating a double jubilee this year. It was 450 years ago that the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II bought the land and the buildings on it and a century ago that Schönbrunn became the property of the newly founded Austrian Republic. This is the second time in the orchestra’s history that the Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel has been in charge of a Summer Night Concert – he first did the honours in 2012. The soloist is the Beijing-born pianist Yuja Wang, who is making her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in Vienna – she has already appeared with the orchestra on tour.

Yolanda Kondonassis / Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra / Ward Stare AMERICAN RAPTURE

"Yolanda Kondonassis’ enthusiasm for her instrument is infectious," says Jennifer Higdon when describing working with her to create a new harp concerto. This world premiere recording by Yolanda Kondonaiss with Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is a showcase for the grandeur of the harp through this beautiful composition by Jennifer Higdon. The harp as well as the orchestra is challenged with virtuosic and beautiful moments. The recording continues with the triumphant First Symphony of Samuel Barber, and rounds out with "Rapture" by Patrick Harlin described as being similar to extreme emotional states, musical elements in this piece start subtly and are magnified to their extremes, echoing throughout as inspired by the incredible experience of ultra-caving.

On the world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon's mercurial Harp Concerto, the crystalline precision of Yolanda Kondonassis's harp, the rhythmic buoyancy of Stare's conducting, and the cohesion of the orchestra achieve a kind of mystical alchemy. Barber's Symphony No. 1 receives a revelatory performance, uncovering a wild and unfettered side to the composer's lyrical neo-Romanticism. (Daniel J. Kushner) 

Shani Diluka ROAD 66

Diluka brings appreciable nuance and delicacy to Adams’s China Gates and Beach’s Young Birches, and infuses the churning minimalist patterns of Glass’s Etude No 9 with more dynamic and colouristic range than one often hears from so-called contemporary music specialists. In most lyrical pieces, however, softer dynamics often recede and wilt to the point of fading away, especially when Diluka makes diminuendos. You hear this in the two Bernstein Anniversaries, Ginastera’s ‘Danza de la moza donosa’ and Grainger’s gorgeous transcription of Gershwin’s ‘Love walked in’. Her spineless performance of Copland’s Piano Blues No 1 lacks the sinew and projection heard from Leo Smit, the work’s dedicatee, although such a style befits Hyung-ki Joo’s noodly, shapeless Chandeliers. 

However, Diluka’s faster-than-usual tempo for Cage’s In a Landscape rescues this music from its usual frozen dream state. Her enervated, flaccid approach to Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans is alien to these jazz icons in both spirit and letter; in fact she misreads Waltz for Debby’s fourth-to-last chord. But Diluka plays the piano part to Raphaël Merlin’s brilliant, harmonically imaginative arrangement of Cole Porter’s ‘What is this thing called love’ gorgeously, abetted by special guest Natalie Dessay’s sultry singing. Had the two paired up for an entire CD’s worth of Merlin-arranged standards, I would have stayed up all night behind the wheel to listen, rather than squirming in the back seat to the tune of ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ (Jed Distler / Gramophone)

Quatuor Modigliani PORTRAITS

Modigliani, one of the greatest portrait painters, is the inspiration for this journey made up of pieces with unique characters. Designed as a portrait gallery, this new opus brings together masterpieces and discoveries. The look or here the ear, linger on the curves, the lines, the singular melodic drawing of each of these partitions. Filigree is another portrait, that of the quartet.

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Manfred Honeck SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5 BARBER Adagio

Shostakovich’s music abounds with ambiguities and coded references that beckon to us to read between the lines. In the Fifth Symphony, art and politics are so entangled that extramusical speculation is unavoidable. Yet what is the practical, interpretative effect of our conjecture? As for the symphony, the only significant point of textual contention concerns the final pages and whether the printed metronome mark of crotchet=188 should actually be quaver=188, as on Mravinsky’s 1938 recording and later corroborated by Shostakovich’s son, Maxim. Otherwise, though, the score is clearly notated, down to subtle details of pacing. If we trust the composer to have communicated his subversive intentions so artfully, do we really need to second-guess him?

Manfred Honeck seems intent on wringing every last drop of drama from the symphony in this live recording. He seizes upon the first movement’s stark juxtapositions. Rhythms in the jagged opening phrases are razor-sharp and urgently dispatched – though at a speed considerably faster than the composer’s metronome mark – then the pace eases as the mood becomes more lyrical. The tempo careens back and forth like this, highlighting the character changes, although the result sounds more like a film score than a coherent symphonic essay.

In the Scherzo, Honeck again characterises vividly but is freewheeling with the text, adding a slew of heavy accents that have an effect akin to rough jabs to one’s ribs. Isn’t the music’s Mahlerian bite – as Shostakovich notated it – sufficiently vicious? And then, when Shostakovich does indicate accents later in the movement, they don’t stand out. The Largo, however, is beautifully done. Honeck’s cinematic approach is touchingly effective here, with the opening section unfolding in long, flowing phrases, like a slow-sweeping panoramic shot. The finale packs a powerful sonic punch, thanks to impassioned playing by the Pittsburgh Symphony and stellar, rumble-the-floorboards engineering. Still, Andris Nelsons, in his recent DG recording (also live), is generally more faithful to the score while maintaining a tighter grip, and Haitink’s intense sobriety (Decca) remains a benchmark.

On paper, following this with Barber’s Adagio for Strings might appear anticlimactic but on disc it’s convincing. Barber’s idiosyncratic nod to Tudor polyphony – Honeck writes that he transferred vocal-style phrasing from the composer’s choral version – serves as a elegiac yet soothing benediction. (Andrew Farach-Colton / Gramophone)

The American String Quartet AMERICAN ROMANTICS

These recorded performances (16 March 2011; the Dvorak 5 June 2017) mean to celebrate the 45^th anniversary of the American String Quartet—Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violins; Daniel Avshalomov, viola; Wolfram Koessel, cello—specifically by featuring works that embrace the “national” experience as Dvorak had defined it for our composers, to avoid the imitation of European models. The so-called “American” Quartet in F Major (1893) came to quick fruition in the course of seventy-two hours in Spillville, Iowa. The use of pentatonic scales, Native American rhythmic motives, and the particular color of the viola make the first movement Allegro, ma non troppo immediately gripping.  In the momentum of its lyric and vivid energies, Dvorak finds room for some strict counterpoint in the development. The famous Lento has the violin in a melody set above an undulating bass line. The cello assumes the duties of poignant lyricism. The pulsations and mixed colors combine to create an extremely affecting moment in chamber music literature. The melody has tremolando effects to accompany its last page. The Molto vivace scherzo utilizes Dvorak’s patented contrast between the major and minor modes of F. A lively dance in rondo form, the music pays homage to a scarlet tanager which had made a nest outside of Dvorak’s home window. The Finale: Vivace, ma non troppo exploits another rondo form, this time built upon both a folk dance and a chorale that recalls a Czech hymn, the latter’s giving some sense of Dvorak’s potent homesickness. The sonic image, captured by vivid microphone placement from Judith Sherman, endows the performance with gracious “presence.”

Sandrine Piau / Susan Manoff CHIMÈRE

After a number of appearances in Alpha productions Sandrine Piau now joins the label for several recordings. With Chimère, she invites us on a voyage into the intimate and infinite territory of dreams. ‘Chimera: an illusory, unsatisfied quest, the graveyard of our illusions...’ She and her long standing partner, the pianist Susan Manoff, have thought up a programme combining the German lied (Hugo Wolf, one of Schumann’s Mignon songs, a scene from Goethe’s Faust by Carl Loewe), Mélodies by Debussy and Poulenc (his Banalités), and Art Songs by Barber along with discoveries of more rarely heard composers like Ivor Gurney and the Dickinson Songs of André Previn – the celebrated American conductor is less well-known for his compositions, which include this magnificent cycle written for Renée Fleming. Equally at home in French, German and English, Sandrine Piau is at the peak of her artistry. Fantoches, Clair de Lune, Solitary Hotel, Will there really be a morning?: set out for the world of dreams following this unique poetic itinerary. ‘The land of chimeras is the only one in this world worth living in’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).

Daniil Trifonov CHOPIN EVOCATIONS

Daniil Trifonov’s last release was an impressive and exhilarating two-disc programme of Liszt’s Studies (10/16). It was an Editor’s Choice and shortlisted for this year’s Gramophone Awards. The only prize his latest recording will win is an egg from a curate – and a fairly hard-boiled one at that. There are already commercial releases of Trifonov in both Chopin concertos (No 1 on Dux, No 2 on Medici TV) and goodness knows how many on the DG label alone, but of all the dozens of versions of Op 21 I have listened to over the years, this latest is one of the most lacklustre. Both the orchestral and piano expositions seem devoid of purpose. This, however, is not just any orchestral exposition. This is the world premiere of the re-orchestration of the concerto by Mikhail Pletnev, one of several who, over the years, have felt that young master Chopin needs a lesson in how to use the resources available to the best advantage.

Having raised an eyebrow to the clarinet (instead of strings) as the leading opening voice, the limp first movement crawls home at 15'41" (the average is between 13'00" and 13'30") with little acknowledgement of Chopin’s maestoso. This and several other moments make this performance hors de combat as a recommended recording. Listen to the horn note at 12'24" sounding like a bedside alarm clock, or the piano’s two bars of dolcissimo and legatissimo semiquavers in the slow movement (7'09") resembling the drips from a partially turned-off tap. The brillante passage after the cor de signal measures in the finale help redeem proceedings.

It is with this latter spirit that Trifonov approaches the Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’, a rare opportunity to hear this played as a solo and quite possibly the finest ever committed to disc. With the orchestral interludes played on the piano, it turns the piece into a kind of ‘Pictures at a Chopin Exhibition’. The way in which Trifonov executes Var 3 and the contrasting touch and dynamics he brings to the repeat is quite masterly. Some Chopin-inspired morceaux follow – inventive programming – but when you hear two of them (the Grieg and Tchaikovsky pieces) played by Jonathan Plowright on his ‘Hommage à Chopin’ disc (Hyperion, 4/10) you wonder who has the stronger affinity with this music.

On disc 2, after a tremendously vivacious account of the Rondo for two pianos with his erstwhile teacher Sergei Babayan, Trifonov is once more in thrall to Pletnev and his version of Chopin. The opening of the re-orchestrated E minor Concerto has all the energy of someone dragging themselves off the sofa after a heavy lunch. While there are passages thereafter where everything threatens to come to a standstill, things eventually pick up, just as they do in the F minor, and normal service is pretty much resumed. But then compare Trifonov’s reverential Romance (11'06", against Argerich’s 9'24" and Kissin’s 8'26"), in which every note is squeezed dry, with Josef Hofmann’s improvisatory ease and imagination (live in 1936). By and large, Pletnev’s scoring is unobtrusive and does not overly distract, though the woodwind ensemble at the opening of the finale sounds like Chopin hijacked by Tchaikovsky. One thing is constant throughout and that is the sublimely wonderful sound Trifonov produces right through the register. When allied to the clarity and evenness of his fast passagework (2'09" to 4'52" in the finale, for instance) it makes one regret even more the exaggerations and excesses heard elsewhere.

The programme ends in the more intimate world of Mompou’s Chopin Variations (the A major Prelude from Op 28), a consummate, unfussy reading, unlike the remarkably self-indulgent central section of the Fantaisie-impromptu (Op 66, not Op 6 as labelled) quoted in Mompou’s Var 10 and which concludes these evocations. (Gramophone)

Christian-Pierre La Marca CANTUS

The originality of this album’s programme is its focus on famous sacred pieces transcribed for the warm and lyrical voice of the cello, an instrument whose tone is certainly one of the closest to the singing voice. The words of the Magnificat, Requiem, Stabat Mater or Ave Maria - well known in the repertoire of vocal sacred music - fade here to better reveal the development of musical emotion aroused by the melody itself, and the subtlety of the accompaniments (organ, viola, theorbo, voice) in reinforcing and supporting the expressiveness of the singing. Inspired by sacred texts, the melodies by Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and Pergolesi reveal the strength and intensity of their expression, even without words, and reinforce the idea developed from the late eighteenth century that music, by its power of suggestion and evocation, goes beyond words to express the unspeakable, sometimes with simplicity and depth. From Taverner to Thierry Escaich, and also Allegri, Handel, Franck and Fauré, the recorded repertoire covers a period from the sixteenth to twenty-first century and includes some of the most important names in sacred music. (Presto Classical)

Xiayin Wang / Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Peter Oundjian AMERICAN PIANO CONCERTOS

The young Chinese-born pianist Xiayin Wang, now resident in the USA, has been enthralling audiences worldwide and gaining ever greater international acclaim with her winning combination of consummate technical brilliance, fine musicianship, and personal verve. Equally renowned as a recitalist and chamber musician, she is here the soloist in three great piano concertos by the American composers George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Samuel Barber, performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Peter Oundjian.

The Concerto in F by Gershwin, composed in 1925, represents one of his finest syntheses of the classical and jazz traditions. His extraordinary skill as a tunesmith is heard in full force within the concerto’s three movements, the work expressing his ‘unabashed delight in the stridency, the gaucheries, the joy and excitement of life as it is lived right here and now’. Xiayin Wang has already shown her natural affinity with Gershwin’s music in her previous Chandos release, playing Earl Wild’s Gershwin transcriptions with ‘verve, brilliance and sheer delight’, as American Record Guide put it.

Copland’s Piano Concerto from 1927 is another work influenced by jazz. At the time of its premiere, comparisons were inevitably drawn between this and Gershwin’s Concerto but Copland dismissed the influence of Gershwin. Rather, his style reflects the jazz elements used by composers living in Paris in the 1920s, such as Milhaud and Stravinsky. The work’s two distinct sections reflect what Copland believed to be the two basic moods of jazz, ‘the slow blues and the snappy number’.

Barber’s Pulitzer Prize winning Concerto for Piano dates from 1962. Like the other two works on the disc it shows the diversity of influence in American music in the twentieth century. Moments of harmonic ambiguity and muscular dissonance reflect Barber’s interest in Russian music, a subtle jazz influence enriching the musical language, especially in the rhythms of the compact finale. The music manifests a dramatic and rhetorical style, however, that is deeply rooted in a romanticism which pervades all of Barber’s output.