Jean-Guihen Queyras / Alexander Melnikov LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Complete Works for Violoncello & Piano

Two regular Harmonia Mundi artists here join forces for fascinating, polished performances of Beethoven’s works for cello and piano, embracing the five sonatas and the three sets of variations – on Mozart’s “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” Op 66, on Handel’s “See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes” WoO45 and on Mozart’s “Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen” WoO46. Both Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov have made distinguished recordings on their own, but they have also collaborated before on chamber music by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorák and Weber, Melnikov having also played the Beethoven violin sonatas with Isabelle Faust.

The fact of their having worked together previously shines through in the instant rapport of the opening work of the first disc, the “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” variations. The playing is as clear as a bell, spirited, poised and as bold as the music itself. Some might find that the bleached tone that Queyras adopts in some exposed moments is an obtrusive factor. On the other hand, there are those who will say that this sparse vibrato goes with the historical territory, so it all remains a matter of taste – a quality that Queyras and Melnikov have in abundance.

In the Handel variations, and in the more or less contemporaneous two sonatas of Op 5 that Beethoven dedicated to Frederick William II of Prussia in the late 1790s, Queyras seems not to go so determinedly for that pallid timbre, and the result is that the performances combine a spectrum of tonal warmth with an exhilarating thrust of momentum, unanimity in matters of phrasing, dynamic shading and expressive detail and, altogether, a compelling, energised interpretative plan.

The second disc contains the A major Sonata Op 69, the two sonatas of Op 102 together with the “Bei Männern” variations. Here the two instruments are even more emancipated than in the earlier Op 5 sonatas, independent of line and yet united in expressive purpose.

The playing here combines breadth and urgency with, for example, a touching tenderness in the simplicity of the slow introduction to the C major Sonata Op 102 No 1 of 1815, shattered by Queyras’s and Melnikov’s muscular drive in the ensuing Allegro.
It all adds up to a valuable set for admirers both of Queyras and Melnikov, and of Beethoven. (Geoffrey Norris)

Paul Lewis SCHUBERT The Late piano Sonatas D. 784, 958, 959, 960

Paul Lewis spent much of the two-year period from 2011 to 2013 performing and recording the late piano music of Franz Schubert, focusing on pieces written during the last six years of Schubert's life, from 1822 to 1828. After previous instalments in the series which included various sonatas and other pieces such as the 'Wanderer' Fantasy and the Impromptus, we now have a new volume of four sonatas, including the final three which were written in the last months of Schubert's life.

The significance of the chosen time period is that it was in 1822 that Schubert contracted syphilis, and for Lewis this marked a complete change in the composer's musical voice. You can hear this, I think, in the A minor Sonata D784, composed in February 1823, and therefore the first of the sonatas to be written after his diagnosis. Although usually when one thinks of the late Schubert piano sonatas, it's often just the final three that come to mind, I'm glad that Lewis has also included this sonata, as it's a wonderful piece, full of tragic, poignant nobility.

He really brings out the heaving turmoil that is present from the very first bar, and his playing acquires an appropriately heavy tread in the initial statement of the first movement's principal theme. A good proportion of this movement is in bare, unharmonised octaves, and Lewis plays up this bleakness to great effect. It's a powerfully affecting performance.

Alfred Brendel, Lewis's mentor and a renowned Schubert interpreter in his own right, described the Sonata in C minor D958 as “the most neurotic sonata Schubert wrote”, and that is an aspect that Lewis seems not afraid to confront, notably in the last movement, a kind of nightmarish tarantella. Furthermore, his way with rubato in the first movement is quite magical, and his always-thoughtful dynamics and phrasing highlight the unexpected harmonic twists and turns that Schubert throws at the listener.

The range of colours that Lewis draws from one bar to the next is superb; soft, tender lyricism seamlessly giving way to crisp, immaculately clean passagework. In the Adagio second movement, Lewis judges the transitions back and forth between the sublime opening melody and the somewhat stormier sections perfectly.

While there's no doubt about the virtuosity and authority of Lewis's playing, there's certainly nothing superficially flashy about his performance either. I remember reading an interview with him in which he mentioned that when he attends concerts, he sometimes feels the focus is more on the performer rather than the music they are playing, noting that this is something he is constantly at pains to avoid. I definitely feel he has achieved that here: throughout these sonatas I sensed a deeply considered performance where the primary concern was merely letting this extraordinary music speak for itself.

The set is completed with a second disc containing Lewis's previous recordings (from 2002) of the final two sonatas, D959 and D960. Although one might argue that it would have been nice to have had new recordings of these as well, I can understand why Lewis didn't feel the need to do so, as these are fine performances, particularly of D960, where he beautifully captures the serenity of the first movement. In any case, the album has been priced as if it were just a single disc, so especially if you don't already own the final two sonatas, this is an absolute bargain, with masterful recordings of all four works. Thoroughly recommended!

Arditti String Quartet & Stefano Scodanibbio JULIO ESTRADA Chamber Music for Strings

Estrada was born in Mexico City, where his family had been exiled from Spain since 1941. He began his musical studies in Mexico from 1953–65, where he studied composition with Julián Orbón. In Paris from 1965-69 he studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen and attended courses and lectures of Iannis Xenakis. In Germany he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1968 and with György Ligeti in 1972. He completed a Ph.D in Musicology at Strasbourg University from 1990–1994. Since 1974 he became researcher in music at the UNAM Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, where he was appointed as the Chair of a project on Mexican Music History and as the head of "Música, Sistema Interactivo de Investigación y Composición", a musical system designed by himself. He is the first music scholar to be honored as member of the Science Academy of Mexico, and by the Mexican Education Ministry as National Researcher since 1984, and since 1985 at the top level. He created the Laboratorio de Creación Musical at UNAM, where he has been teaching theory and philosophy of musical creation.

Neo-renaissance man Julio Estrada has already made his mark clearly through publications in Mexican musicology, aesthetics, and music theory. Now for the first time, his groundbreaking music is available outside of Mexico. Armed with Xenakis-mathematics and a poetic heart, Estrada has welded his research in Native American music with the most radical compositional techniques to forge an absolutely new sound! Glissandi and "noise" effects constitute Estrada's new language, capable of discourse on the 21st-century relevance of Aztec mythology. Structurally, Estrada's escape from time fits with the Scelsi-Nono-Dumitrescu continuum. Excellent notes and bibliography enhance this essential recording. (Robert Reigle)

The Choir of Trinity College Cambrdige / Orchestra of The Age of Enlightenment / Stephen Layton BACH Christmas Oratorio

 Two new Christmas Oratorio recordings in time for Christmas, and both from forces that give regular concert presentations of the piece, one at St Thomas’s Church, Leipzig, and the other at St John’s Smith Square in London. As such they are not greatly challenging to ‘normal’ expectations, but then that is the point: what you get here are good, sound performances that will not upset anyone and will surely give pleasure to most who hear them.

I mean that about not upsetting anyone: not so long ago a recording of this music by the 84-strong Leipzig Thomanerchor and the Gewandhaus Orchestra would have stayed many a buying hand, but things are different now. Germany has become the place where ‘modern-instrument’ orchestras play Baroque music best; and, except for a slight blandness in the continuo, the once-stodgy Gewandhaus’s grasp of current Baroque stylistic orthodoxy under Thomas cantor Biller seems total, while their technical ease (particularly in the brass) is a genuine enhancement. As for the Thomanerchor, the relevance to listeners of its tradition as ‘Bach’s choir’ is probably more romantic than realistic but the thrill of it is still there and can perhaps be detected in a recording at least partly made at live concerts in St Thomas’s. What we can say is that they have a typically fruity German boy sound, never seem like 84 singers (in a good way), and, despite strong underlying discipline, seem able to enjoy the more joyous moments with true enthusiasm. Except for the tenderly comforting Ingeborg Danz, the soloists (including two boy sopranos) are adequate without offering any particular insights.

Older, though not by all that much, are the 38 mixed voices of Trinity College Choir, again very well trained, especially in matters of firm text enunciation. They are less raw in the lower voices, more focused overall than the Thomaners and more agile, too, in numbers such as ‘Ehre sei Gott’ or the opening of Part 5. The soloist line-up here is in general superior both technically and interpretatively, especially the ever-incisive James Gilchrist. Newcomer Katherine Watson’s fresh-voiced sound is a world away from the Leipzig boys but lestyn Davies’s impressive messa di voce in ‘Schlafe, mein Liebster’ is not the start of a performance to match the protective warmth of Danz. If not quite at its best, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment sounds thoroughly at home (David Blackadder gives a very suave trumpet solo in ‘Grosser Herr’), and Stephen Layton conducts with care and expertise. But of the two recordings it is somehow the Leipzig one that has that little bit more heart. (Gramophone)

The Brabant Ensemble / Stephen Rice JEAN MOUTON Missa Tu Es Petrus

Jean Mouton was a Renaissance French composer and choirmaster, much acknowledged but more rarely recorded, who wrote a body of music that’s both technically inventive and immediately appealing. Here Stephen Rice and The Brabant Ensemble—renowned exponents of sixteenth-century Franco-Flemish repertoire—perform all Mouton’s eight-part music, two four-part motets, and his only five-part Mass setting, the Missa Tu es Petrus. The latter is characterized by light, clear textures and a soaring cantus firmus, while the double-choir Nesciens mater is rightly famous for its ingenious canon. Sheer compositional skill aside, all these works demonstrate Mouton’s vivid and original imagination—one that has the ability to speak directly to our time.

'This gorgeous album presents all the works for eight voices which are certainly attributable to Mouton, plus one for five and two for four voices … these pieces are refreshingly airy and transparent. Mouton's exquisite music and The Brabant Ensemble's graceful performances are well-served by Antony Pitts' production and the acoustic of St Michael and All Angels, Oxford … highly recommended' (BBC Music Magazine)

'The lucidity of both The Brabant Ensemble's singing and Rice's direction is hugely accomplished … [Missa Tu es Petrus is] a work of radiance and clarity … strikingly well sung … Hyperion is still setting the standard in this infinitely rewarding repertory' (International Record Review)

András Schiff BEETHOVEN Sonatas opp. 109, 110 and 111

When I'm so deeply absorbed in a composer, as I have been with Beethoven, then I physically and mentally begin to feel like him. Beethoven changed me as a person. There are composers who enrich you and uplift you - Beethoven is the best example. As a composer and as a person, I feel he has a lot of generosity, I have enormous choices. (András Schiff, The Guardian, September 2008)

In his final program Schiff unflinchingly abandoned his principle of live recordings. Beethoven’s music, he maintains, “needs great moments and spontaneous instants that only happen ‘live’ – if we’re lucky. And what happens if the concert doesn’t work? Then you don’t have to issue the results. For this reason I decided to record the last three sonatas again in the empty hall of the Reitstadel in Neumarkt, Germany, a few months after the Zurich performance. The recordings of all the other sonatas took place at the matinees in Zurich, with small corrections from the rehearsals. What we were trying to achieve were ‘valid’ performances of the works, and for that reason we deliberately did without any applause, which is always somehow disturbing in recordings.”

Trio Mediaeval AQUILONIS

Trio Mediaeval offers a collection of music from the medieval to the modern with the group’s sixth ECM New Series release, Aquilonis, titled after the North Wind. One can sense a reference in that title to the Nordic roots of the three Scandinavian singers, as well as to the bracing purity of their voices; moreover, the album’s repertoire travels from Iceland to Italy, from north to south like the Aquilonis wind. Trio Mediaeval re-imagines Icelandic chant and early Italian sacred songs, along with performing custom arrangements of timeless Norwegian folk melodies – with the vocalists often accompanying themselves with textural instrumentation. The group also sings 15th-century English carols, as well as contemporary works written by the Swede Anders Jormin, American William Brooks and Englishman Andrew Smith. The trio’s own composing can be heard in a sequence of atmospheric interludes. In his liner notes to Aquilonis, John Potter aptly describes the group’s ability to “create a synthesis of sound and atmosphere… history and geography blending seamlessly.”
With Potter as recording supervisor, Trio Mediaeval convened for Aquilonis in the label’s favored venue for vocal repertoire, the Alpine monastery of St. Gerold in Austria. Alongside founding trio members Anna Maria Friman and Linn Andrea Fuglseth was Berit Opheim; although she has sung with the group regularly since 2010, Opheim joined Trio Mediaeval full-time at the start of 2014, so this is her first recording with the group.
Trio Mediaeval’s ECM discography is marked by a distinctive blend of the ancient and the modern. In praising the “mellifluous” quality of the group’s “pure, cool sound,” the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph went on to note that this “makes everything they sing – from the earliest polyphony to newly composed pieces that, to some extent, inhabit the same sound-world – wonderfully rewarding.” Trio Mediaeval’s aim is “making medieval music come alive in the present, alongside modern compositions and our own arrangements,” Friman explains. “This is very exciting for us. The contemporary music has dissonant chords and independent lines that do not appear to the same extent in the medieval music we perform, but we feel that it all melts together in the Trio Mediaeval sound world. For this recording, we have for the first time arranged medieval monophony to create something new. Previously, we had only arranged folk songs, but we find that ‘gentle’ arrangements of chant work very well, merging with the folk music and the rest of the repertoire.”
For the first time on record, the singers of Trio Mediaeval accompany themselves instrumentally on some pieces, with traditional Norwegian hardanger fiddle, portable organ and melody chimes. Also for the first time on a Trio Mediaeval album, there are interludes composed by the singers: Morgonljos, Klokkeljom and I hamrinum, each with atmospheric accompaniment on the portable organ by Fuglseth or the hardanger fiddle by Friman. The moving arrangement of the Norwegian folk tune Ingen vinner frem til den evige ro ("Eternal Rest Is the Reward") also features Friman on hardanger fiddle.
Regarding the arrangements of chant associated with St. Thorlak, the patron saint of Iceland, Friman explains: “The antiphons and psalms in the Office of St. Thorlak were originally monophonic, but we immediately felt inspired to color the beautiful melodies and arrange them both vocally and instrumentally. We first sang it all through in unison, and then we improvised parts that gradually evolved into arrangements, with the instruments adding a new texture to the material.”