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July 2021 New Releases

A selection of new recordings

 

You may be interested to see this list of new releases, mostly of albums becoming available during July 2021.

Some of the items in this varied list come from lists of new CDs provided directly by the labels, some come from distributors and publicists, and some have been sent directly by the artists appearing on the recordings. Although the list is long, this is only a selection of the items being released in July.

Our writers have been asked to choose items they would like to review before 12:00 UCT/GMT on Friday 25 June 2021, so you should see reviews of some of these albums begin to appear during July.

The date at the start of each item indicates the release date, where known. Unless otherwise specified, each item is a single CD.

ACCENTUS MUSIC

25 June 2021
Astor Piazzolla
Aconcagua; Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas
Martynas Levickis, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Mikrookéstra, Modestas Pitrenas
ACC30552
The accordion is an instrument that is deeply rooted in Lithuanian folk music. Today, the accordion is also recognized as a versatile instrument of classical music, a change in perception that has largely been promoted by Martynas Levickis, one of the most internationally sought-after musicians in his field. With its lightness and melancholy, Astor Piazzolla’s music has fascinated the young accordionist from an early age, and so it goes without saying that he is dedicating himself to this exceptional composer in his anniversary year. Together with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra he recorded “Aconcagua” live in concert. For conductor Modestas Pitrenas, Piazzolla’s concerto - named posthumously after the highest mountain in the Americas - “conveys the climb to the roof of the earth in all its facets and symbolism: freedom, longing, loneliness, pain, transfiguration, peace.” Levickis has a long and close collaboration with the chamber orchestra “Mikroórkestra”. Together they present their interpretation of “Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas,” Piazzolla’s timeless masterpieces of many styles that capture in music the four seasons in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires.

ALBANY RECORDS

1 June 2021
Quest
Elisabeth Remy Johnson, harp
Music by Amy Beach, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Kati Agócs, Freya Waley-Cohen and others
TROY1863
Elisabeth Remy Johnson has been the principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra since 1995, with whom she has performed concertos by Debussy, Handel, Mozart and Ginastera. She is principal harpist with the Grand Teton Music Festival, and has been the invited guest principal with the Boston, Houston, and Milwaukee symphonies. In addition to her orchestral work, Ms. Remy Johnson performs solo and chamber music recitals across North America and throughout the world. She has performed with the Atlanta Chamber Players, and at the Carolina Chamber Music Festival, the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Emory Chamber Music Society, and is a frequent guest at the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival on Cape Cod, MA. Other solo titles in addition to Quest include A Christmas Collection (2015), Whirlwind (ACA Digital Recording, 2000), and a duo album Encantamiento (ACA Digital Recording, 2008, with ASO principal flutist Christina Smith), and she has performed on dozens of recordings with the ASO.

 

BEMUSE

20 June 2021
Meant for Two - chamber music by Brendan Moir
Brendan Moir & Various Artists
793519155704
Meant for Two is exactly how it sounds: a collection of chamber works meant to be performed by two people or experienced by two people. The ways in which he accomplishes this aesthetic is through the various dance forms used throughout the album and the overall Neo-Romantic expression. It was recorded in his final semester at Baldwin Wallace University, amidst the pandemic, 21 college credits, and a part time job. Despite having to change recording locations 6 times due to school protocols, experiencing multiple computer crashes, and learning the ins and outs of music mixing, he managed to capture a unique and enchanting atmosphere for each and every piece while still maintaining his academic integrity.   Brendan Moir is a composer, writer, and all around performer. At present, he lives in West Virginia and works mainly from his home studio. His overall art style is very traditional with the incorporation of modern techniques (such as using multifaceted tonalities and particularly thick textures in traditional dance forms). His philosophy and goal is “to create art that will make one think; to properly reflect the entirety of our human experience.” His artistic endeavors have led him across many different fields, and he wishes to further develop these skills in order to “create an epitome of art by combining all the arts.”

 

BIDDULPH RECORDINGS

2 July 2021
Henri Vieuxtemps, Edourdo Lalo, Camille Saint-Saëns, Pablo de Sarasate
Zino Francescatti plays Lalo & Vieuxtemps
Zino Francescatti, Eugene Ormandy, Dimitri Mitropoulos, William Smith
85001-2
This CD features four recordings by violinist Zino Francescatti. Noted for his immaculate technique and brilliant tone, Zino Francescatti was regarded as one of the premier violinists of the 20th century, he was a direct descendent of Niccolò Paganini. Francescatti emigrated to the U.S. during the WWII, and recorded for Columbia until his retirement in 1972. This CD features four recordings Francescatti made with orchestra in 1957. Including Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole. This colorful showpiece was one of the most popular works for violin and orchestra in the 1950s. Yet even among recordings by such giants as Heifetz, Milstein, and Menuhin, Francescatti’s spectacular performance stands out. This recorded performance was the first stereo LP of the Lalo Symphonie espagnole ever to be made. Also on this CD is Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No.4 in D minor. The expansive orchestral passages prompted Hector Berlioz to describe Vieuxtemps’s Concerto as ‘a symphony with solo violin’. The two other works on this CD, Saint-Saëns’s Havanaise and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, are well suited to the sunny exuberance of Francescatti’s playing.

 

BIG ROUND RECORDS

9 July 2021
Circadian World Clock
The World in a Day: Field Recordings & Music Interpretations
David Haney
David Haney, piano with EBows & mallets
Dave Storrs, multiple instruments
Bernard Purdie, drums
featuring The Circadian Consort
BR8970
Circadian World Clock from David Haney and Big Round Records is a captivating exploration of nature’s musical landscape. In this groundbreaking recording project, Haney challenges participants from around the world to submit 2-3 minute field recordings, each recorded at the specific hours of the day prescribed by the monastic Liturgy of the Hours. These field recordings from the United States, Russia, Brazil, and many other locales make a powerful statement about our interconnectedness as a species. The soundscapes are interpreted by Haney and his fellow musicians with piano, mallets, EBows, drums, percussion, didgeridoo, and an assortment of brass and reed instruments, offering performances the likes of which inspire reverent contemplation.

 

BIS RECORDS

2 July 2021
Alfred Schnittke: Choir Concerto; Three Sacred Hymns; Arvo Pärt: Seven Magnificat-Antiphons
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Kaspars Putniņš
BIS2521 (1 SACD)
As Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt both adopted the Orthodox faith in the 1970s, Orthodox choral traditions became increasingly prominent in their work, but both composers also looked to the music of the Western church. Schnittke’s Three Sacred Hymns set three prayers, familiar in the West as Ave Maria, the Jesus Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, and evoke Orthodox chant. His Choir Concerto, on the other hand, draws on Russian choral music of the 19th century and the tradition of large-scale concert works based on Orthodox choral music. The texts by the medieval Armenian poet Gregory of Narek are informed by a humanistic individualism, with the poet directly expressing his emotions and often writing in the first person. In the case of Pärt, his detailed study of Orthodox chant caused him to develop his so-called ‘tintinnabuli’ system of composition as an extension of the harmonic practices of Orthodox choral music. He wrote his Seven Magnificat-Antiphons in 1988, applying the tintinnabuli technique to texts from the Catholic liturgy in the German language – a striking East-West hybrid. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Kaspars Putniņš have combined sacred works by Schnittke and Pärt before, their previous release on BIS earning them a prestigious Gramophone Award in the Choral Music category.

2 July 2021
Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint-Saëns
Piano Trios
Sitkovetsky Trio
BIS2219 (1 SACD)
In 1892, when Camille Saint-Saëns started on his Piano Trio No. 2, almost 30 years had passed since his first, widely celebrated work in the genre, his Op. 18. In the meantime the composer had come to be regarded as hopelessly old-fashioned by many of his colleagues. In writing the trio, Saint-Saëns remained true to his principles as a composer, striving for balance and clarity and avoiding the chromaticism that had become so prevalent in the wake of Wagner. It is nevertheless an unexpectedly personal work, cast, in the unusual form of a symmetrical arch in five parts: two substantial and dramatic Allegros frame three shorter movements, without a proper scherzo or a true slow movement. Some 20 years later, shortly before the outbreak of World War I, Maurice Ravel set about composing his own piano trio, in spite of his conviction that the percussive sound of the piano and the sustained singing of the string instruments were fundamentally incompatible. According to Ravel, only Saint-Saëns –who he admired greatly – had managed to solve this problem. If Saint-Saëns was an inspiration to Ravel when composing his Piano Trio in A minor, there were also other influences: the work was written during a stay in the Basque country where Ravel was born and the theme that opens the first movement displays what he himself called ‘a Basque colour’, employing the characteristic rhythms of the zortziko. The two works are here performed by the Sitkovetsky Trio, who have previously won great acclaim for their recordings of Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Dvořák.

2 July 2021
Sebastian Fagerlund Nomade; Water Atlas
Nicolas Alstaedt, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hannu Lintu
BIS2455 (1 SACD)
During the 2010s, Sebastian Fagerlund focused on a series of orchestral compositions and concertos, making one single excursion into vocal music: the opera Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata, 2017). One of his most important works, the opera has influenced his subsequent music, with an increase of long melodic lines alongside his signature rhythmic drive and energy. Dedicated to Nicolas Altstaedt, Fagerlund’s cello concerto Nomade consists of six movements played without a break. Its title refers to searching and to movement, and the work can be likened to a journey by the cellist- wanderer through various landscapes, moods and events depicted by the orchestra. Fagerlund has enjoyed a close relationship with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Hannu Lintu, who has premiered several of his works, including Nomade. Among the fruits of this collaboration is Water Atlas, of which the orchestra is one of the co-commissioners. The work is the third part of a trilogy for orchestra, also comprising Stonework and Drifts, which the same team recorded for BIS in 2017. As a whole, the trilogy deals with basic elements, albeit in an abstract manner: stone, wind (or currents) and water. In Water Atlas Fagerlund was interested in the ever-continuous water cycle: the evaporation of water into the atmosphere and its return to the earth as rain – a cycle that is currently under threat from pollution and climate change.

2 July 2021
Max Reger, Fritz Kreisler, Eugène Ysaÿe, Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev, Mieczysław Weinberg, Isang Yun, Alfred Schnittke, Krzysztof Penderecki
Journey Through A Century
Sueye Park
BIS2492 (1 SACD)
For her third disc, the young Korean violinist Sueye Park has explored the repertoire for solo violin, and chosen works spanning exactly 100 hundred years –from Max Reger’s Prelude and Fugue from 1909 to Penderecki’s Capriccio, composed in 2008. Framing the 20th century, the programme starts as a relay race of famous violinist- composers; Reger dedicating his piece to Kreisler, who dedicated his Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice to Ysaÿe, who wrote his Sonata No. 6 for the Spanish virtuoso Manuel Quiroga. In this series of names, that of Richard Strauss may come as a surprise, but his little-known Daphne-Etüde from 1945 is also dedicated to a violinist – his young grandson. The journey now turns eastwards with two solo sonatas, by Prokofiev and Weinberg, that were both composed in Moscow, albeit 20 years apart. These are followed by Isang Yun’s ‘Royal Theme’. The Korean-born composer uses the theme from Bach’s Musical Offering, but takes it on ‘a walk through the Asian tradition’ in the course of seven variations. In A Paganini, Alfred Schnittke revisits another colleague from the past – and one closely associated with the violin. Finally bringing us into the 21st century is Penderecki, whose early training as a violinist stood him in good stead when he composed his virtuosic Capriccio.

2 July 2021
Erik Satie
relâche - cinéma: Noriko Ogawa plays Erik Satie on an 1890 Erard piano, Vol. 4
Noriko Ogawa
BIS2335 (1 SACD)
For the fourth instalment in her acclaimed Satie cycle, Noriko Ogawa has gathered music written for the stage – from the pantomime Jack in the Box (1899) to the ballet Relâche (1924) – one of Satie’s last works. Several of the pieces exist in different scorings, but the piano versions heard here are all Satie’s own. Throughout the programme, what comes across strongly is the influence of music hall and cabaret; composed in 1900, Prélude de «La mort de Monsieur Mouche» even offers a hint of the ragtime, one of the first appearances of the genre in European music. Stage projects are as a rule collaborative efforts, and among Satie’s collaborators were some of the leading names of the art world at the time. In 1924 he worked on Mercure with Jean Cocteau, Picasso and Léonide Massine, the same team that in 1916 had produced the ballet Parade, and the same year came Relâche, Satie’s collaboration with the Dadaist poet and painter Francis Picabia. For the intermission, Picabia and Satie involved the film director René Clair who made the film ‘Entr’acte’: a truly Dadaist offering which included disjointed episodes with a bearded ballerina, a hunter shooting a large egg, and a funeral procession with the hearse drawn by a camel. For the film, Satie provided a separate score, Cinéma, which has been called one of the first synchronized film scores.

2 July 2021
Jacques Ibert, Émile Bernard, Béla Bartók, Michael Ippolito
Divertissement!
c/o chamber orchestra
BIS2499 (1 SACD)
The c/o chamber orchestra is a collective of thirty young musicians from over a dozen different countries. Playing without a conductor, the orchestra is dedicated to that particular collaborative process which is the essence of chamber music. For their first disc, the members have chosen to highlight a genre more difficult to pin-point than one might think. Its very name, divertimento, implies that it is simply a diversion, light music for entertainment – but many of the best-known examples of the form transcend that definition. And as many composers have learned, even light-hearted music should be taken seriously: humour requires a master’s touch. The four works recorded here offer different perspectives on the genre, starting with Ibert’s seven-movement suite in which the composer constantly plays with the listener’s expectations. Some forty years before Ibert, his compatriot Émile Bernard composed a very different Divertissement. It is scored for double wind quintet, reminiscent of Mozart’s divertimenti and serenades for winds. But even though the music is melodious and carefree, the debt owed by Bernard to the German romantic composers is never far from the surface. A very special case is Bartók’s Divertimento for strings, composed just before the outbreak of World War II. Possibly the diversion aimed at here is rather that of the composer, trying to forget about the state of the world – something which Bartók finally succeeds with in the joyous last movement. The closing work on the disc reunites the winds and strings of the c/o orchestra in a work written especially for this project by the American composer Michael Ippolito, who in his Divertimento pays full tribute to the contrast-rich nature of the genre.

2 July 2021
Dmitri Shostakovich The Symphonies
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra,
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Mark Wigglesworth
BIS2593 (10 SACDs)
Mark Wigglesworth recorded his cycle of Shostakovich’s symphonies between 1996 and 2010, collaborating with two different orchestras, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In spite of the long gestation and the change of orchestra midway, the cycle was described as one never ‘compromising its particular characteristics of high seriousness, fine detailing and a certain fierceness of articulation’ (Gramophone). Already the first instalment –Symphony No. 7, ‘Leningrad’ – raised expectations, for instance with the reviewer in The Sunday Telegraph: ‘There is plenty of competition among Shostakovich cycles, but this one will deserve serious consideration.’ And 17 years later, on the release of the final disc, The Guardian could report that ‘Wigglesworth’s cycle emerges as one of the finest of recent time’. What particularly impressed reviewers was Mark Wigglesworth’s faithfulness to the score and sharp ear for detail, and the structural clarity he achieved even with the most complex works – without sacrificing any of their impact and emotional power. Also receiving acclaim throughout the series were the recordings themselves and their superior sound quality – an aspect that has been enhanced even further for this boxed set, now that the five symphonies that were released first, and on CD, have been re-mastered for Surround Sound and SACD to match the rest.

 

BR KLASSIK

2 July 2021
Mark Andre
musica viva
Stephan Heuberger, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Matthias Pintscher
900637
The German-French composer Mark Andre (born 1964) is one of the most important representatives of New Music. His twelve “Miniatures” for string quartet were composed in 2014/17 as a commission from the Arditti Quartet, Bavarian Radio’s “musica viva”, the Festival d’Automne à Paris and the ProQuartet-CEMC, funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. Andre created his organ work “Himmelfahrt” (Ascension), funded by the Siemens Music Foundation, in 2018 on behalf of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The orchestral work “woher... wohin” was written between 2015 and 2017 as a composition commission by BR’s “musica viva” in conjunction with the Happy New Ears prize for composition from the Hans and Gertrud Zender Foundation. The live recordings of all three works are now being released in the CD edition of Bavarian Radio’s “musica viva” concert series on BR-KLASSIK.

BRIDGE RECORDS

16 July 2021
William Bland
Piano Sonatas
Kevin Gorman
BRIDGE 9556
William Bland’s cycle of 24 piano sonatas, one in each of the major and minor keys, was composed between the years 1998 and 2014. The cycle is the West Virginia-born composer’s magnum opus, and is a summation of an extraordinarily wide range of cultural influences. The musical content of the sonatas merges strains of the simple and complex, popular and classical, romantic and modernist. American pianist Kevin Gorman, in his debut recording writes: “the essence of these sonatas is passion, which beckons me as a pianist to reciprocate the intensity with which these originally had been composed.”

16 July 2021
Claude Debussy, Georges Enesco, Gabriel Faure, Jules Mouquet, Charles-marie Widor
Paris: La Belle Epoque
Robert Langevin, Margaret Kampmeier
BRIDGE 9555
New York Philharmonic principal flutist Robert Langevin is heard in a charming and sumptuous feast of Parisian music of the golden age. Simply put, this is flute playing of the highest order! Music of Widor, Mouquet, Fauré, Enesco, Gaubert, and Debussy.

16 July 2021
Alan Shulman
The Tattooed Stranger
RKO Radio Pictures Orchestra, Herman Fuchs
BRIDGE 9560
Alan Shulman’s most extended orchestral writing appears in his film scores, made for RKO in the 40s and 50s. These soundtrack recordings have been restored and are being issued for the first time. “The Tattooed Stranger”, RKO Radio Pictures feature, 1950; “Tennessee Valley Authority”, RKO-Pathé documentary, 1946; “Freedom and Famine”, RKO-Pathé documentary, 1946; “Port of New York”, RKO-Pathé documentary, 1946; “Behind Your Radio Dial” (excerpt), RKO-Pathé documentary, 1948.

16 July 2021
Robert Kyr
In Praise of Music
Antioch Chamber Ensemble, Joshua Copeland
BRIDGE 9558
Robert Kyr has composed twelve symphonies, three chamber symphonies, concerti, and more than 100 works for vocal ensembles of all types. The ten beautiful choral works on this recording reflect the arc of Kyr’s music over the past twenty years, the titles acutely illustrative of the composer’s spiritual interests: “In Praise of Music”, “O Great Spirit”, “Veni Creator Spiritus”, “Santa Fe Vespers”, “Dawnsong”, “Voices for Peace”, “Freedom Song” “Alleluia for Peace”

 

BRILLIANT CLASSICS

1 August 2021
Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder, Siegfried Idyll, Träume; Sciarrino: Languire a Palermo
Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Marco Angius
96119
Richard Wagner began composing his Wesendonck Lieder during a stay in Zurich between November and December 1857. Originally conceived for female voice and piano alone, the five songs were later orchestrated, first by the Austrian conductor and composer Felix Mottl in 1893, and then later in 1976 by the German composer Hans Werner Henze, in a chamber setting. In fact Wagner had already orchestrated a version of "Träume” to be performed by chamber orchestra (with violin playing the voice part) on the occasion of his wife Minna’s birthday in 1857. Later, in 1870, for his second wife Cosima’s 33rd birthday, he enacted a similar gesture. Mixing new motifs with themes from his Ring cycle, he composed the Siegfried Idyll and had it performed by a small orchestra as a birthday surprise. Hanz Werner Henze’s orchestration of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder highlights the relationship between the words and the sounds. The agile yet intense scoring for ten wind instruments, harp and small string ensemble appears to be Henze’s way of finding an alternative to the original piano without taking the cycle outside the realm of chamber music or altering the lieder’s original image.
Siegfried and Brünnhilde sing from the depths of their hearts returns here with the grace of a child’s nursery. Salvatore Sciarrino’s Languire a Palermo (Languishing in Palermo), composed in 2018, is predominantly built around the melody Tempo di Porazzi, a fragment composed by Wagner during a visit to Sicily in late 1881 and early 1882. Sciarrino describes the ‘allure of a distant unaccompanied melody, played by someone for their own benefit and entrusted to the wind’ and hypothesises that it may correspond ‘to the sounds in Sicily that stimulate and amaze the ears...Mediterranean charm gushes from the throat of every street vendor.’

1 August 2021
Louise Farrenc: Music for Violin and Piano
Daniele Orlando, violin; Linda Di Carlo, piano
95922
Born in 1804, Louise Farrenc became a professional-standard pianist while still a teenager, and later music teacher to the household of the Duke d’Orléans and from 1842 professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire. Her substantial legacy of composition was largely forgotten after her death in 1875 and is only now being revived. She wrote mainly in the field of orchestral and chamber music: ‘I would defy anyone,’ says the pianist Linda Di Carlo in a personal introduction to this new recording of Farrenc’s music for violin and piano, ‘to cast aspersions on the chamber music in particular on the grounds of her gender.’ No less than Théophile Gautier wrote admiringly of the First Sonata from 1848: ‘an excellent addition to her catalogue of works, and written, like most of them, in an austere classical style reminiscent of the great masters.’ It was Joseph Joachim, no less, who gave the Second Sonata’s premiere in March 1850 at the Salle Érard in Paris. The sonata opens with a distinct echo of Beethoven’s ‘Spring’ Sonata, and the opera buffa spirit of Mozart hovers over the finale, but the elfin dance of the Scherzo is entirely Farrenc’s own, characteristic inspiration. The Variations Concertantes on a popular Swiss melody has more of the perfume of the salon: a work of light and easy charm, written to display the prowess of any soloist. On this recording, the violinist taking up the challenge of Farrenc’s subtly challenging music is Daniele Orlando, concertmaster of I Solisti Aquilani with a distinguished discography to his name, including a much-acclaimed recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This 2019 recording is the only budget- priced album available of Farrenc’s music for violin and piano: an ideal introduction to a significant figure in 19th-century French music belatedly receiving her due.

1 August 2021
Kuhlau: Complete Sonatas for Flute & Piano
Maria Caturelli, Michele Tozzetti
96329 (2 CDs)
Friedrich Kuhlau (1786 - 1832) lived and worked during a transitional period of classical music. A contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert, his works remain almost unknown to this day, except for some compositions for the flute. The compositional style of the sonatas featured in this recording perfectly identifies with that of his contemporaries, while showing some differences in content; the structure of the sonatas is that of the classical period, but the use of melodic themes and harmony looks to the romantic period. These interpretations of the sonatas for flute and piano highlight the constant dialogue between the two instruments; in fact there is a continuous thematic exchange, which the artists found interesting to discover and highlight. The synergy is perceived above all in choppy tempos, while in every Adagio or Andante the flute assumes the role of the solo instrument, and the piano accompanies and responds. The themes in the slow movements are sweet and moving, and the composer manages to evoke emotions that are always different from each other, thus bringing out his predisposition for this type of tempo, present even in the most brilliant movements: in fact in every allegro, even in the one characterized by the greatest energy, there is a moment of tranquility in which the composer takes the time to make performers and listeners ponder.

1 August 2021
Couperin: Complete Solo Harpsichord Music
Yago Mahúgo, harpsichord
95459 (2 CDs)
Towards the end of the renowned Couperin dynasty, Armand-Louis was born in 1727 as the nephew of François Couperin (‘le grand’), and in due course he became titulaire organist at the Église Saint-Gervais in the Marais district of Paris, as generations of Couperins in a continuous sequence stretching back to 1653. In 1752 he married Elisabeth-Antoinette Blanchet, daughter of the harpsichord-maker François-Étienne Blanchet and herself the third generation of a family of musicians and luthiers. They had four children, three of whom lived to maturity and became musicians, including their son Pierre, who succeeded Armand-Louis at Saint- Gervais after a tragic accident with a runaway horse brought about the composer’s premature end in 1789. It has been suggested that personal modesty, as well as the demands of a schedule which saw him in demand at churches across Paris, was the cause of Armand-Louis publishing so little of his music. Certainly it was highly esteemed during his lifetime. These Pièces de Clavecin were published in 1751 as his ‘Opus 1’ and succeeded only by lesser- known collections of violin sonatas and trios. The Pièces de clavecin deserve consideration alongside the viol fantazias of Purcell and the Lachrymae of Dowland for their rich, saturated exploitation of an idiom passed its high noon. The collection is divided into two parts by key, G major/minor and B flat major/minor. The titles allude to friends and well-known figures of the time, and much is lost or rather buried within and between the notes in this kind of portraiture, yet the pieces spring to life in the right hands. The Spanish harpsichordist Yago Mahúgo won glowing reviews for a Brilliant Classics volume (94479) of the harpsichord music by Pancrace Royer, another little-known figure from the generation before Armand-Louis Couperin: ‘performed with elegance and refinement... If you purchase [Mahúgo’s] recording you won't regret it.’

1 August 2021
Cavazzoni: Complete Organ Music
Federico del Sordo, organ, Nova Schola Gregoriana / Alberto Turco
96192 (3 CDs)
The most comprehensive collection of organ music by a major forerunner to Monteverdi, recorded on a historically significant instrument by an organist with a distinguished catalogue of 17th-century repertoire.
Born in northern Italy around the turn of the 16th century – no more precise data is available – Girolamo Cavazzoni became organist of the cathedral in Mantova in 1621 and soon after entered the service of the Gonzaga family whose lavish artistic patronage sponsored and encouraged many of the finest Italian composers of the day. During his Mantuan years Cavazzoni taught the organ to Costanzo Antegnati (1549–1624), son of the organ builder at S Barbara, Graziadio Antegnati. Costanzo's L'arte organica (Brescia, 1608) recalls Cavazzoni as ‘Hieronimo d'Urbino già mio honorato maestro’. In 1565–6 he supervised the building of the organ in the church of S Barbara, Mantua, and also played the organ there at Mass. This is the very instrument played by Federico Del Sordo, lending his recording a unique authenticity and powerful sense of place and time. The restoration of the single-manual Santa Barbara organ (1995-2006) was undertaken by Giorgio Carli with the aim of returning the instrument to its original pristine state as far as possible, rather than extending or ‘improving’ it, and thus the colours of the instrument closely resemble those with which Cavazzoni was familiar. Much of the music here was written for liturgical performance in the alternatim fashion, whereby verses of the Mass text, the Magnificat or an antiphon are alternatively played and embroidered by the organ and then chanted by a choir. Federico Del Sordo draws on two original volumes, printed in Venice in the 1540s, plus a pair of ricercars to be found in multi-authored collections of the time. Together they build a portrait of a composer as stylish as he was pragmatic.

1 August 2021
Legrenzi: Bass Cantatas & Sonatas
Mauro Borgioni, Mvsica Perdvta, David Brutti, Renato Criscuolo
96239
The Venetian composer Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690) wrote a total of eight cantatas and canzonettas for bass voice with a continuo accompaniment, all but one presented here in new, historically informed recordings by a distinguished Italian ensemble specialising in Italian chamber music of the Baroque. His cantatas are longer than those of other Venetian composers of the period, with richer counterpoint between the vocal part and the continuo and freer movement between recitative and aria. Just as the recitatives are often rich in pathos, so the arias reveal great variety of form in both the vocal and the continuo part. While the continuo part is sometimes spare and at other times more elaborated, it supports the vocal line with naturalistic illustration of the text. Legrenzi often conjures up comical situations for the bass voice: for instance, in the canzonetta Son canuto e d’un bambin, where the words revolve around the idea that there are slaves of love even in old age; or in the cantata Dal calore agitato, where the subject is the erotic dreams of a poor Arcadian shepherd. The three trio sonatas on this recording are among Legrenzi’s best instrumental compositions. They come from the six printed collections of instrumental sonatas, and are all à violino (played in this version on the cornett, which was common practice in the 17th century) and viola da brazzo). Within conventional formal structures, Legrenzi invests these works with a remarkably advanced sense of melody. The impression is Legrenzi was most at home working with a small ensemble, rather than with the larger groups of instrumentalists that had become common in 17th-century Venice.

1 August 2021
Fuchs: Clarinet Chamber Music
Luigi Magistrelli, Italian Classical Consort
96305
Where next after Mozart’s Clarinet •Quintet? Try these duos and trios by
Georg Friedrich Fuchs in newly recorded period-instrument performances. Born in the German city of Mainz in 1752, Fuchs was a pupil of Haydn’s before becoming a wind-band leader and composer. Aged 32, however, he moved to Paris, and established his name there, teaching at the conservatoire and composing for many French publishers with an eye to the fast-developing market for attractive music for winds, especially the clarinet, accessible to amateurs. His experience as a working musician in the French National Guard prompted him to produce Harmoniemusik – wind-band music – for various combinations of such instruments, without string accompaniment, as the duos and trios found on this album. There is also a brief Pot Pourri on arias of Paisiello conceived for the unusual combination four clarinets, two horns and two bassoons. Between 1803 and 1805 he produced six trios for three clarinets, and Luigi Magistrelli has chosen to record three of them, along with Fuchs’s ingenious arrangements of six arias from Mozart’s Magic Flute, which weave melody and accompaniment between the two instruments, producing pieces satisfying to both play and listen to on their own terms. As a clarinettist and ensemble leader, Luigi Magistrelli has built up a considerable Brilliant Classics discography of lesser-known repertoire from the Classical and early Romantic eras. Most of his albums feature first recordings, and he is joined by Italian colleagues who have equally extensive experience in historically informed performances (using instruments of the time, often returning to the original manuscripts) of 18th- and 19th-century music.

1 August 2021
Galuppi: Piano Sonatas
Fernanda Damiano
96346
A debut album from a gifted young pianist, who has stylishly reimagined the world of the Venetian Baroque on a modern piano.
At a time when only Bach and Scarlatti were Baroque-era composers in the repertoire of pianists rather than harpsichordists, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli pressed the cause of Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785) with performances and recordings of sonatas. Galuppi’s style was defined during his lifetime as ‘gay, lively and brilliant’, and this description certainly capture the style of the keyboard sonatas which he wrote throughout his career. Born on the island of Burano in the Venetian lagoon, Galuppi trained with Antonio Lotti (then organist of the Basilica San Marco) and quickly became noted across Europe for a string of operatic successes which supplied both audiences and singers with dazzling entertainment. He was no musical revolutionary and continued to compose in a well-turned vein of elegant Baroque conventions while composers further north in Europe were experimenting with larger-scale forms and more daring harmonies. However, the keyboard sonatas which Galuppi wrote throughout his career delighted audiences at the time and have continued to do so since. Several collections were issued during his lifetime (and designated with Opus numbers) but a great deal of his keyboard music remains unpublished. collection of 12 three-movement sonatas, drawn from this otherwise unpublished body of work, was edited by Giacomo Benvenuti (1885-1943) and issued by the Francesco Bongiovanni publishing house in 1920, and it is from this collection (familiar to audiences of the 50s through Michelangeli) that Fernanda Damiano plays six sonatas on the present album. Born in Taranto in 1995, Fernanda Damiano made her concerto debut with Haydn’s D major concerto at the Teatro Impero in Trani at the age of 10 and went on to perform as a soloist across Europe and North America. At a young age she is now a teacher herself, professor of piano since 2017 at the Conservatory of Pavia. She is also a teacher of International courses for Musical Interpretation for the Umbria Classica Association of Foligno. ‘The young pianist Fernanda Damiano is a real marvel; she has a very remarkable pianism. She is destined, I am sure, to a very brilliant career’ (Aldo Ciccolini).

1 August 2021
Dufay, Ghibellini, Di Bonaventura, Agricola, Binchois, Palestrina, Mouton
IN SPIRITUM - Music for Cello and Bandoneon
Federico Bracalente, Daniele di Bonaventura
96381
This recording, from friends and collaborators Federico Bracalente and Daniele di Bonaventura, stems from an idea they had almost 10 years ago: to merge the sounds of their respective instruments, the cello and the bandoneon, into a single sound. After a long period of research and experimentation the artists settled on the polyphonic vocal repertoire of the 15th and 16th centuries to realise their vision, reworking it through the inclusion of free and improvised parts. The practice of improvising pieces to alternate with other writings was commonplace during this musical period. Tinctoris in ‘Liber de arte contrapuncti’ describes the custom of Cantare super librum - the ability of the performers to elaborate a counterpoint to the mind. Taking advantage of the vocal characteristics of the two instruments – the extensive range and singing likeness of the cello and the two liturgical registers of the bandoneon (left hand and right hand) – the artists perform this music as if they are three singers, inserting it into a new tonal instrumental framework. In two pieces, Bracalente and di Bonaventura use an overdubbing technique to enable the cello to simultaneously perform the parts of Superius and Bassus (in Alexander Agricola’s De tous biens plaine II) and create a polyphonically more complex fabric in Jean Mouton's 8-voice motet Nesciens Mater. In addition to the compositions by Agricola, Du Fay, Palestrina, Mouton and Binchois, they also include an unpublished and never- recorded madrigal, ‘Tu Dormi et Amor veglia per mio danno’, by fellow countryman Eliseo Ghibellini, as well as two other original contemporary compositions written in polyphonic style by di Bonaventura.

CEDILLE RECORDS

9 July 2021
Frank Ferko, Leo Sowerby
Organ Music by Frank Ferko & Leo Sowerby
David Schrader
CDR 90000 204 (2 CDs)
Versatile keyboard virtuoso David Schrader, heard on more than two dozen Cedille Records albums, performs attractive 20th- and 21st-century solo organ works by Frank Ferko (b. 1950) and Leo Sowerby (1895–1968), prolific composers known for their organ mastery and closely associated with the city of Chicago. Ferko’s works, all world-premiere recordings, are heard on three different mechanical-action organs at The House of Hope Presbyterian Church, St. Paul, Minnesota. The intimate Music for Elizabeth Chapel is performed on the organ it was written for: the 19-rank Jaeckel, Opus 41. Variations on a Hungarian Folk Theme, also written for the textures and colors of a small instrument, is heard on an authentic Romantic-era French organ, with 13 ranks, built by Joseph Merklin in 1878 for a church in southern France. Ferko compositions performed on the 97-rank C.B. Fisk Opus 78 (1979) include Variations on “Veni Creator Spiritus,” based on a ninth-century plainsong hymn; Angels — Chaconne for Organ, Missa O Ecclesia: Communion, and Mass for Dedication, all based on chants by 12th-century abbess, composer, and Christian mystic Hildegard von Bingen; Symphonie brève, dedicated to Schrader; and Tired Old Nun, a novelty piece scored for pedals alone, with waltz, slow blues, and boogie variations.

 

CHAMPS HILL RECORDS

16 July 2021
Hans Gal, Robert Fuchs, Franz Schubert
The Viennese Viola: Emma Wernig (Austrian rarities for viola and piano)
Emma Wernig, Albert Cano Smit
CHRCD163
Champs Hill is delighted to release the debut recording from “viola star in the making” (The Strad) Emma Wernig, following her success at the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition.Wernig explores works for viola and piano by 19th and early 20th century Austrian composers. “The viola’s voice is at its most beautiful bringing hidden gems to life through a uniquely Austrian lens. Growing up in an Austrian/German family in the United States, I always sought to feel a deeper connection to my roots. Exploring these works has allowed me to better connect to my heritage and my instrument and feel closer to my cultural and musical identity. Pianist Albert Cano Smit has joined me on this journey of discovery and offered musical inspiration, collaboration, and friendship in making this personal and deeply special disc.” - Emma Wernig

 

CHANDOS

30 July 2021
More Honourable than the Cherubim
PaTRAM Institute Male Choir
CHSA 5287 (1 SACD)
Recorded in the Church of the St Nicholas Monastery, Saratov, Russia. Bringing together singers from five countries – including an unprecedented nine octavists – the fifty-six-member international PaTRAM Institute Male Choir presents a compendium of sacred masterpieces by various composers, glorifying the Most Holy Lady Theotokos. This is Russian Orthodox choral music in its highest possible form, uniting deep spirituality, a profound love for the rich traditions of Orthodox Christian singing, and an uncompromising standard of musical professionalism rooted in the great traditions of Russian choral composers.

30 July 2021
BBC Philharmonic / Juanjo Mena
Bruckner: Symphony No 6
CHAN 20221
Juanjo Mena made this recording of Bruckner’s sixth symphony in 2012, during his first season as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, and just a month before their acclaimed performance of the work at the BBC Proms.

30 July 2021
Peter Donohoe
Busoni: Elegien, Toccata, Sonatina super Carmen; Bach/Busoni: Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue
CHAN 20237
Peter Donohoe returns to Chandos for his first solo recital on the label. His programme includes three of the pinnacles of Busoni’s virtuosic output: The Toccata, BV 287, the seven Elegien, and the Sonatina on Bizet’s Carmen, alongside Busoni’s much earlier Bach transcription.

 

COL LEGNO

14 June 2021
Christoph Zimper
The Millennials Mass
BCE 1CD 16011
Just a few years into his career, Christoph Zimper found himself the solo clarinetist with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and in great demand as an orchestra- and chamber musician. In 2018, he decided to leave the orchestral jobs behind and find out how to express existential matters – like an “intensely perceived moment”, for example, “that may look perfectly unremarkable from the outside” – in a musical language of his own. Or how one might use musical means to get Millennials – to which he belongs himself – to ponder the eternal questions of life. Here now is Zimper’s fascinating debut album as a composer, for which he has asked a selection of hand-picked soloists, the Eggner-Trio, and the group Plattform K+K Vienna to join him in the studio.

 

CONVIVIUM RECORDS

2 July 2021
Carson Cooman, Euan Tait As We Are Changed
Sarah Fox, Robert Murray, The Choir of Royal Holloway, London Mozart Players, Rupert Gough
CR060
“Our world and our lives are transformational and in constant transformation, and this work is the music of those transformations. The earth we live on does not stay still but evolves and changes; our lives are changed through our own personal struggles, through meetings with those whose difference from us becomes a teacher, with sudden catalytic events, and from the daily, determined creativity of love working and spreading outwards from our humanity.” Carson Cooman

 

CUGATE CLASSICOS LATINOS

9 July 2021
Cuban Lutenist Noslen Noel
'Con Sentimento'
CLL008
El Carretero (Guillermo Portabales); Paisajes Naturales (Jose M. Rodriguez) ; La Sitiera (Rafael Lopez) ; Camina Y Ven Pa La Loma (Celeina Gonzalez) ; Midley Cubano (Rafael Hernandez, Abelardo Valdes) ; Siboney (Ernesto Lecuona); Camino Por Vereda (Ibrahim Ferrer); El Gallo Pinto (Pancho Amat); Habanera Tu (Edmundo Sanchez); Con Sentimiento (Noslen Noel) Born February 15th, 2002 in Guines (54 km south of Havana), Noel Noslen already has an impressive CV. At the age of 12 he started performing at the Casa de la Trova, toured as soloist in Mexico and Venezuela in 2016 and a year later (age 15) Noslen won the first prize in the instrumentalist category of the prestigious “Eduardo Saborit Competition”. Hardly surprising as Noslen’s teachers were great Cuban lute players like Nisito, Jorge Félix, Mario Francisco and the famous Barbarito Torres. CuGate Clásicos Latinos now present this incredible and highly promising talent to audiences outside Cuba. ‘Con Sentimiento’ displays not only the fantastic instrumental and artistic virtuosity of this young musician but also his skills as a composer and arranger (the title track has been penned by Noslen himself). Ten tracks of classic Cuban music that everybody knows and loves from the time of the famous Buena Vista Social Club (including Ibrahim Ferrer’s “Camino por Vereda“) and that deliver the unmissable nostalgic and touching “Cuban flavour“.
 
2 July 2021
Alejandro Valdés "Calles del Olvido"
CLL009
Award-winning guitarist Alejandro Valdés and his band Palo De Agua present their debut album “Calles del Olvido”. A mesmerizing collection of New Flamenco from Cuba. Alejandro Valdés (born 1988) is considered to be one of the best Flamenco guitar players in Cuba. As a teenager, Valdés attended courses for guitar and percussion and from 2004 onwards he was musical director of various groups before he founded Palo De Agua in 2016. The sextet gained the hearts of their Cuban audiences right from the start with their infectious live shows where a group of dancers join the ensemble to give the audience a complete and unforgettable Flamenco experience. In their 2nd year, Palo De Agua won the prestigious national prize “Cuerda Viva” in the Flamenco category. It took another two years to record the debut album “Calles del Olvido”, a collection of finest tunes of what Valdés himself labels “New Flamenco of Cuba” - it is the result of what  Cubans have been developing with Flamenco for more than four generations plus all his experience as a Cuban Flamenco musician.

 

DANACORD

9 July 2021
Emil Reesen
The Art of Emil Reesen, Live and Sudio Recordings from the 1950s
Aksel Schiøtz, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Danish Radio Concert Orchestra, Emil Reesen, Thomas Jensen, Arne Hammelboe, Erik Tuxen, Hans Peter Aase
DACOCD 899
Composer, arranger, conductor, entertainer: Emil Reesen (1887-1964) cut a dash through Danish 20th-century music. His own pieces were always stylishly crafted for the occasion, whether to commemorate a Polar explorer or celebrate a famous castrato. Danacord’s wide-ranging tribute includes many live and broadcast recordings never previously issued.

DELPHIAN RECORDS

23 July 2021
J S Bach: Goldberg Variations
Samuele Telari, accordion
DCD34257

25 June 2021
Elena Fischer-Dieskau, piano
Schumann: Kreisleriana; Brahms: Two Rhapsodies; Seen Fantasies
DCD34255

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

4 June 2021
Ludovico Einaudi: Cinema
Various Performers
28948559121
The album is a collection of his greatest works from TV and cinema, as well as two unreleased tracks.

DIVINE ART

9 July 2021
Marian Sawa
Music for Organ
Carson Cooman
DDA25219
Marian Sawa (1937-2005) began serious studies at the age of 14 at the Salesian Organ School, Przemyšl, Poland. He toured actively as an organ performer and from 1966 taught organ at several prestigious schools. As a composer he wrote about 800 pieces in various genres, centred round his music for organ. His music builds on the Polish post-Romantic tradition, knitting fragments from folk tunes and hymns into his work, drawing strongly on Gregorian chant and traditional Polish material. Sawa’s personal and individual voice makes his music very recognizable and though little known in the West to date, he can be considered perhaps the greatest Eastern European organ composer of the 20th century. The pieces on this album, composed between 1971 and 2005, demonstrate vividly the range, variety and often enormous power of his compositions. Carson Cooman (b.1982) is an American composer with a catalog of hundreds of works in many forms – ranging from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. His music has been performed on all six inhabited continents. As an active concert organist, Cooman specializes in the performance of contemporary music. Over 300 new works have been composed for him by over 100 composers from around the world, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of recordings of which this is his fifth for Divine Art.

9 July 2021
Il Maestro e lo Scolare: Piano Duets for Teacher and Student
Antony Gray
DDA21234 (2 CDs)
For the first time, here is an album full of piano duets written expressly for teacher and student, from the first in the genre, Haydn’s Il Maestro e lo Scolare, through many well known composers of the 19th and 20th centuries up to the current decade. Very few of these works have attained any sort of public awareness apart from Stravinsky’s Easy Pieces, but though written deliberately with one ‘easy’ part for the learner, the pieces are thoroughly delightful, tuneful and never simplistic: indeed they display all the hallmarks of Romantic, Impressionist (and in two cases jazz-inspired) music-making of high quality and all make more extremely entertaining and pleasant listening. Antony Gray is a London-based pianist and teacher with acclaimed recordings to his name. His work with students of all ages, those that wish to pursue advanced training and even those who do not, produces a wonderful rapport which shines through in these recordings. Over 50 of Gray’s students are represented on the album.

 

DOREMI

16 July 2021
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jean- Marie Leclair, Louis Spohr, Henryk Wieniawski, Sergei Prokofiev
Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman Live
DHR-8099
LECLAIR: Sonata for two Violins in E minor, Op. 3 No. 5
SPOHR : Duet for two Violins in D major, Op. 67 No. 2
MOZART: Duo for Violin & Viola No. 1 in G major, K. 423
WIENIAWSKI: Two Etude-Caprices for two Violins, Op. 18 No. 1 & No. 2 PROKOFIEV: Sonata for two Violins in C major, Op. 56
Encores:
LECLAIR: Sonata for two Violins in A major, Op. 3 No. 4: Mvt III Giga
MOZART: Duo for Violin & Viola No. 2 in Bb major, K. 424: Mvt II Andante cantabile Massey Hall, Toronto, February 9, 1976

16 July 2021
Felix Mendelssohn, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Johannes Brahms, William Schuman
Isaac Stern Live, Vol. 8
Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de l’Ortf, Boston Symphony, Isaac Stern, Pierre Monteux, Eric DeLamater, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Erich Leinsdorf
DHR-8143/4 (2 CDs)
MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
Philadelphia Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, January 13, 1945
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Eric DeLamater, Mvt I Feb. 3, 1946 (NBC - “The Standard Hour” broadcast) San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, Mvts II & III Feb. 10, 1946 (NBC - “The Standard Hour” broadcast)
PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19
New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Feb. 26, 1956
BRAHMS: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
Orchestre National de l’ORTF, Erich Leinsdorf, Lausanne, June 16, 1973
William SCHUMAN: Violin Concerto (1947)
Boston Symphony, Pierre Monteux, February 10, 1950

 

DYNAMIC RECORDS

16 July 2021
Camillo Sivori, Carlo Andrea Gambini, Giovanni Serra
Chamber Music in Genoa after Nicolò Paganini
Quartetto Ascanio
CDS7905
Camillo Sivori, considered Paganini’s only pupil, was the most illustrious member of the Genoese violin school. He was also a significant composer whose Piccolo tema con variazioni is both polyphonically rich and operatic, while the Rondò in D major is flecked with virtuoso panache. His teacher in the city had been Giovanni Serra who dedicated his subtle String Quartet in F minor to Sivori. The third Genoese composer is Carlo Andrea Gambini whose String Quartet in E minor was much admired by Rossini. “This programme exclusively consists of world première recordings and has recovered part of the 19th-century Italian chamber repertoire worthy, indeed, of rediscovery.” – Quartetto Ascanio

16 July 2021
Nikolai Myaskovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Cello Sonatas
Liliana Kehayova, Kristina Miller
CDS7901
A lifelong friend of Prokofiev and frequently performed outside of Soviet Russia in his lifetime, Nikolai Myaskovsky is best known today for his 27 symphonies. His lyrical and intensely passionate First Cello Sonata was one of his first important works, finished not long after completing his studies in St Petersburg. Premiered by Rostropovich, the Second Cello Sonata became immediately popular amongst cellists for its imaginative blend of folk-music styles with a sweet Romanticism that recalls Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. The award-winning duo of Kehayova and Miller complete this recording with the perfect encore – Rimsky-Korsakov’s melodious Serenade.

 

GENUIN CLASSICS

2 July 2021
Felix Mendelssohn
Erwachen
Robert Pohlers, Friedrich Praetorius
GEN21746
Awakening is the title of tenor Robert Pohlers’ solo debut CD on GENUIN. Together with his pianist Friedrich Praetorius, he brings to life a unique compilation of lieder by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Songs of Nature, Life, and Love, sung mainly from the new edition of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Why this is only now available is because the beautiful lieder are predominantly of private origin, and many of them were not originally intended for publication at all. With their intimate character, they are sonorous heart-to-heart messages, brought to us by the gentle voice of the former member of the Thomanerchor Robert Pohlers and the clear piano playing of Friedrich Praetorius.

16 July 2021
Contrasts: Dresden Solo
Annette Unger
GEN21750
From the very first note, violinist Annette Unger’s new GENUIN CD will captivate you with an eclectic program featuring early and contemporary music from Dresden, full of electrifying contrasts. The oldest composition is by Bach contemporary Johann Georg Pisendel, while the most recent by Manfred Weiss was premiered by Annette Unger as recently as 2015. Aside from Pisendel’s great work, all the other pieces in this production are world premiere recordings. Annette Unger, who plays flawlessly and with a wealth of color, presents a kaleidoscope of violinistic possibilities, compositional ideas, and intellectual approaches to music, intimately connected to the musical city of Dresden.

23 July 2021
nothing but tuba
Constantin Hartwig, Fabian Neckermann, Steffen Schmid, Severin Stitzenberger
GEN21753
21 meters 60: that’s the length of the tubes of the three instruments that give us an extraordinarily low- frequency experience on a new GENUIN CD: Tubists Constantin Hartwig, Fabian Neckermann, and Steffen Schmid perform music from Monteverdi to the present on their trio’s debut CD. Their creative arrangements combine a wide variety of styles and genres: Monteverdi’s canzonettas are given a completely new warmth and roundness. Astor Piazzolla’s famous Libertango surprises us with pulsating rhythms and rough edges. And finally, the three tuba players take us to the cinema, to a tongue-in-cheek and breathtaking homage to Morricone. Our recommendation: take a deep breath and immerse yourself in this extraordinary world of sound!

GRAMOLA

9 July 2021
Amy Marcy Beach, Sonia Eckhardt- Gramatté, Louise Farrenc, Mélanie Hélène Bonis, Julia Frances Smith
It’s a Girl! Piano Trios by Female Composers
Thomas Albertus Irnberger, David Geringas, Barbara Moser
99225 (1 SACD)
The violinist Thomas Albertus Irnberger, the cellist David Geringas and the pianist Barbara Moser play piano trios by female composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Amy Marcy Beach artfully combines French modernity with late romantic and American folklore elements in her trio from 1938, Sonia Eckhardt-Gramatté’s work “Ein wenig Musik” (A Piece of Music) impresses with originality, melodious ideas and diverse rhythmic components, Louise Farrenc’s trio from 1857 shows that she was a contemporary of early Romanticism, but also dealt with Ancient music, Mélanie Hélène Bonis’ pieces for piano trio “Soir” and “Matin” were created in 1907 and reflect the different moods of a day, while Julia Frances Smith’s Cornwall Trio from 1966 expresses the funny, playful energy of the gifted composer that she was.

9 July 2021
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn
Symphonies
Klangkollektiv Wien, Rémy Ballot
99239
The musicians of the multinational ensemble Klangkollektiv Wien, comprised of members of renowned Viennese orchestras, feel the need to interpret works from their everyday professional lives in another manner, outside of the music industry, in their own right and for the audience. The co-founder, violinist and conductor Rémy Ballot, born in Paris and living in Vienna, a student of Celibidache, has for years now had great success as musical director of the symphony cycle at the Brucknertage festival in St. Florian. On this album Klangkollektiv Wien presents a concert recording of Mozart’s Figaro-Overture, his equally popular “Jupiter Symphony” and Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 “The Clock”, which he wrote for his London journey. Connecting element of the program is Joseph Haydn’s famous saying to Leopold Mozart: “I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me in person and by name; he has taste, and, what is more, the most profound skill in composition.”

9 July 2021
Anton Bruckner
String Quintet & String Quartet
Altomonte Ensemble: Rémy Ballot, Iris Schützenberger, Stefanie Kropfreiter, Peter Aigner, Jörgen Fog
99241
The Altomonte Ensemble, consisting of Rémy Ballot, violin, the violinist Iris Schützenberger, the violists Stefanie Kropfreiter and Peter Aigner and the cellist Jörgen Fog, presents two chamber music works by Anton Bruckner: the string quartet, composed 1861/62 at the suggestion of Joseph Hellmesberger, and the string quintet, composed in 1878/79, which is considered the highlight of Bruckner’s chamber music oeuvre. The latter work was premiered by Hellmesberger and his extended quartet only after prolonged hesitation, since he originally had considered it in part as unplayable. The quintet has quite symphonic dimensions in terms of length and complexity. After the mentioned performance in 1884, a music critic wrote about the 3rd movement of the work: “This Adagio has an effect as if were something that had only been now unearthed in the vestiges of Beethoven’s papers... a deeply felt work, inspired by inspiration and stemming from the composer’s final years.”

 

HARMONIA MUNDI

23 July 2021
Johannes Brahms : Sonatas & Liebeslieder for cello and piano
Emmanuelle Bertrand, Pascal Amoyel
HMM902329

16 July 2021
Théotime Langlois de Swarte, William Christie
Jean-Baptiste Senaillé & Jean-Marie Leclair: "Générations" - Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord
HAF8905292

9 July 2021
Javier Perianes
Frédéric Chopin: Piano Sonatas No 2 ‘Funeral’ & No 3; Mazurkas Op 63
HMM902391

2 July 2021
Les inAttendus
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue
HMM905313

25 June 2021
Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth
Igor Stravinsky: 'Ballets Russes'
HMX2905342.43 (2 CDs)

 

HYPERION RECORDS

2 July 2021
Love Songs - Angela Hewitt
CDA68341
Angela Hewitt’s new album is clearly destined to become a favourite. Some of the best-known musical declarations of love across the centuries, heard in transcriptions by some of the great pianists (including Angela herself); this is simply exquisite and not to be missed.

2 July 2021
Johannes Brahms
CDA68334
Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2; Op. 79 Rhapsodies
Garrick Ohlsson
Both sonatas recorded here are the work of the young Brahms—still a teenager when he wrote Op 2—and perfectly complement the much later rhapsodies. These are magisterial accounts from a pianist noted for his mastery of the Romantics.

2 July 2021
Voyage of a sea-god
Laurence Perkins, Michael Hancock, Carducci String Quartet, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, William Goodchild
CDA68371/2 (2 CDs)
Beginning in 1900 with Richard Henry Walthew and ending in 1999 with David Bedford, the intrepid musical journey undertaken by Laurence Perkins and friends celebrates the extraordinary versatility of the twentieth- century bassoon.

May 2021
Vladigerov: Exotic preludes & Impressions
Nadejda Vlaeva
CDA68327
'The early works presented here date from before Vladigerov’s return from Western Europe, and offer us a fascinatingly eclectic, yet also personal, meeting point for the physical and rhetorical character of Russian romantic pianism with a chromatic language that is Gallic in flavour as often as Slavic, Hispanic or Middle Eastern. It is to be hoped that the present recording will mark a major step forward for his compositional legacy.' - Francis Pott

 

KING'S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

1 June 2021
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986): Complete organ works
Thomas Trotter, organ
KGS0053-D
Thomas Trotter is a prize-winning concert organist and one of the UK’s most admired performing musicians, reflected in Her Majesty The Queen awarding him The Queen’s Medal for Music on St Cecilia’s Day 2020.

 

MODE RECORDS

16 July 2021
John Cage, Morton Feldman
The Works for Piano, Vol.2
Aki Takahashi
MOD-CD-327
CAGE – SATIE – FELDMAN – TAKAHASHI sums up the focus of this album. All of these works by Cage are influenced by Satie. Cage’s friend and colleague Morton Feldman made an arrangement of Cage’s solo piano “Cheap Imitation” for a trio of piano, flutes/piccolo and glockenspiel. Feldman’s admiration for the pianist Aki Takahashi caused him to gift this arrangement to her. And, full circle, we have the repertoire of this album.

 

MOZART RECORDS

5 July 2021
31 Pieces
Edward Chilvers
(3 CDs)
“Conventional Western music is like a statue, my music is like a tree”. A bold statement perhaps, but one that Edward Chilvers justifies on his forthcoming album, entitled ‘31 Pieces’ and is released on a 3CD package on 5 July 2021 on Mozart Records.  He is different. Edward Chilvers’ approach on ‘31 Pieces’ is not a rejection of traditional form or structure, but rather of beginning and endings, constraints and repetition; it is an ongoing reflection of Nature.  Edward Chilvers frees music in order to allow it to blossom and follow the laws of Nature, rather than being trammelled by convention.

 

MUSIC & ARTS

16 July 2021
Johannes Brahms
The Complete Sonatas and Variations for Solo Piano
Carlo Grante
MACD1303 (3 CDs)
Carlo Grante is among the most prolific recording pianists today. His recorded repertoire is broad in scope and includes everything from his critically acclaimed series The Complete Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti to works by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Busoni, Godowsky, Ravel, and contemporary composers. This release marks Grante’s first recording of the music of Johannes Brahms.

 

NAVONA RECORDS

23 July 2021
Stanley Grill: Transfiguration
Brett Deubner, violas
NV6355
From online performances to benefit albums, musicians kept their art alive throughout the most dire days of the coronavirus pandemic. Among them are composer Stanley Grill and violist Brett Deubner, who collaborated via remote recording sessions to transform Grill’s multi-instrumental chamber pieces into an intimate collection of multilayered works for viola. The resulting album, TRANSFIGURATION, showcases a singular connection between composer and performer. Throughout three works—Sonatine, Sea and Sky, and Transfiguration—lush, crisp soundscapes fill the ears as the viola’s soothing timbre and Deubner’s seamless technique create a pastoral quality that underscores the spiritual and introspective themes of Grill’s compositions.

23 July 2021
I Love You Like Spain
Art songs by Monika Gurak
Chelsea Melamed, mezzo-soprano; Jo Greenaway piano
NV6357
Monika Gurak certainly is no ordinary songwriter: not just because of her academic  background, but also because of her love of foreign cultures. Her linguistic fluency in English,  Spanish, and Polish heavily influences her work on I LOVE YOU LIKE SPAIN from Navona Records: the songs are sung in English, but the music comes with a generous helping of both Iberian exoticism as well as Polish sensibility. Love and freedom are the central subjects here, and Gurak profoundly explores the depths of  these sometimes contradictory values in her lyrics. Solemn declarations of love, hope, and the levity of new romance form an alternating current which remains eternally relatable – a unifying theme even beyond all ideas of culture and language.

23 July 2021
Psalms - sacred songs by Eloise Hynes Stowe
Stella Roden, soprano
Jon Hynes, piano
Lorraine Miller, flute
David Hays, violin
NV6354
One does not have to be religious to appreciate the depth, inspiration, and melodiousness of PSALMS, Eloise Hynes Stowe's new album from Navona Records. Scored for voice and piano, and occasionally supplemented by flute and violin, these psalms and hymns immediately demonstrate the literary and emotional grasp of the biblical texts and ecclesiastical interpretations. Stowe effortlessly manages to clothe the scripture into a tonal tapestry which is equal parts tender and listenable, in an appealing style which wouldn't be out of place in a Christian musical. Exuberant and optimistic, they are a testament not only to the church’s teachings, but also to the intuitive power of music.

9 July 2021
Words Adorned
The Crossing / Donald Nally
Dalal Abu Amneh, soloist
Al-Bustan Takht / Hanna Khoury
NV6356
The Grammy-winning professional chamber choir The Crossing, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, and Navona Records present WORDS ADORNED. Conducted by Donald Nally, with Takht musical direction by Hanna Khoury, the combined forces interpret lush scores from Kinan Abou-afach and Kareem Roustom; the music is at times driven and passionate, at others mystical and lyrical, responding to ancient Andalusian poetry in the Muwashshah tradition. The takht – masterfully handling the oud, qanun, violin, cello, and percussion – guides the kaleidoscopic sounds and colors in these poems of love, revelry, and war, with additional solo work by the virtuosic singer Dalal Abu Amneh. True to their commitment to honor tradition while constantly blazing new ground, The Crossing’s latest offering is steeped in history, deeply relevant to modern listeners, and bridges cultures seamlessly.

9 July 2021
Sound Visionaries
Christina Petrowska Quilico solo piano
Claude Debussy
Olivier Messiaen
Pierre Boulez
NV6358
Claude Debussy, Olivier Messiaen, and Pierre Boulez are stunningly reconciled in Christina Petrowska Quilico's Navona Records release SOUND VISIONARIES. Boasting a track record of over 50 recorded albums and having recently been named to the Order of Canada, the veteran pianist proves that despite all difficulties, finding common ground between these three composers can be done spectacularly. The works in question are cleverly chosen: Debussy's ethereal Preludes, Book Two is contrasted with Messiaen's quasi-spiritual Vingt Regards Sur L'Enfant Jésus, and the album rounds off with Boulez's atmospheric Première Sonate and Troisième Sonate. Petrowska Quilico unearths the modernity in the impressionist, the impressionism in the mystic, and the mysticism in the modernist. Sagacious, riveting, and indeed – visionary.

11 June 2021
Reimagine Beethoven and Ravel
Inna Faliks, piano
NV6352
Pianist Inna Faliks’ new album Reimagine features her performance of Beethoven's Bagatelles, Op 126, alongside works she commissioned by Paola Prestini, Timo Andres, Billy Childs, Richard Danielpour, and half a dozen others to respond musically to Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit and the Bagatelles. The world premiere recordings are collected on her new album, which also includes music by composers on faculty at UCLA: Richard Danielpour, Mark Carlson, Ian Krouse, David Lefkowitz, Tamir Hendelman, and Peter Golub

 

NAXOS

23 July 2021
Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732–1809)
Baryton Trios
Treasures from the Esterháza Palace
Valencia Baryton Project – Matthew Baker, Baryton; Estevan de Almeida Reis, Viola; Alex Friedhoff, Cello
8.574188
Much of Franz Joseph Haydn’s long career was in service as a court musician to the wealthy Esterházy family. It was early in Haydn’s time at the Esterháza palace that Prince Nicolaus took a liking to the hypnotic sound of the baryton – a bowed instrument with an extra set of strings that vibrate sympathetically or are plucked for tonal contrast. The baryton was considered the pinnacle of 18th-century aristocratic instruments, and the outstanding beauty of Haydn’s trios represent its final renaissance, placing this remarkable antique firmly into the poised and tasteful Classical style of the day.

23 July 2021
Joan TOWER (born 1938): Strike Zones; Small; Still/Rapids; Ivory and Ebony
Evelyn Glennie, percussion; Blair McMillen, piano
Albany Symphony / David Alan Miller
8.559902
Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of today’s most important American composers. The works heard here in their world premiere recordings are part of a growing legacy that one pundit has described as “The Power of Tower.” Strike Zones is tailor-made for percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s dazzling technique and impeccable musicianship. The work’s orchestration is crafted to enhance a stage filled with percussion instruments – while in Small they are contained on a single table, the soloist working like a brilliant chef. The piano concerto Still/Rapids was inspired by the glistening beauty and powerful force of water, and Ivory and Ebony, written as a test piece for an international piano competition, is infused with Tower’s “high-energy” signature.

23 July 2021
Paul WRANITZKY (1756–1808): Orchestral Works, Vol 2
Symphonies – ‘La Tempesta’; Op 16, No 2; Op 33, No 3
Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice / Marek Štilec
8.574255
Czech by birth, Paul Wranitzky settled in Vienna where he became highly respected as an orchestra leader and composer. Today overshadowed by his friends Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, Wranitzky was the most important symphonist in Vienna in the late 1790s. The colourful overture to Der Schreiner (‘The Carpenter’) is followed by three contrasting symphonies. The dramatic ‘La Tempesta’ contains elaborate storm effects, which predate Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ by over a decade. The compact Symphony in A major represents Wranitzky’s early symphonic period of the mid-1780s while the Symphony in F major is notable for its catchy themes and masterful scoring.

23 July 2021
Albert KETÈLBEY (1875–1959) A Dream Picture – Piano Pieces
Rosemary Tuck, piano
8.574299
Albert Ketèlbey reached such a pinnacle of eminence and popularity that in 1929 he was named as Britain’s greatest living composer, based on the number of performances of his works. His original pieces for solo piano range from serious concert works to salon charmers, always characterised by strong melodies, distinctive rhythms, and unexpected phrases, as can be heard on this album. One of his most well-known pieces, In a Monastery Garden, is featured in its original version for solo piano.

23 July 2021
John Philip SOUSA (1854–1932): Music for Wind Band, Vol 21
Selections from Chris and the Wonderful Lamp, Sisterhood of the States, Showing Off Before Company
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Wind Orchestra / Keith Brion
8.559863
This current volume of Sousa’s music for wind band presents three exceptional examples of Sousa’s musical creativity. Chris and the Wonderful Lamp is an enchanting retelling of the Aladdin legend, while Showing Off Before Company is a clever routine Sousa often used to open matinee concerts. The painstaking reconstruction of Sisterhood of the States allows us to hear the ‘ballet’ that incorporated music from each of the 48 states for a spectacular show in 1916.

23 July 2021
Mario CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO (1895–1968): Guitar Quintet; Fantasia for Guitar and Piano; Eclogues for Flute, Cor anglais and Guitar; Sonatina for Flute and Guitar
Leonard Becker, guitar + various artists
8.574319
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was one of Italy’s most influential and important composers during the 20th century. He was inspired to write for the guitar after meeting Andrés Segovia, and in the years that followed he wrote over one hundred works for the instrument. The Quintet for Guitar and String Quartet, a rare combination, reveals perfect sonority and construction with a serene Iberian mood. The Sonatina for Flute and Guitar contrasts joyfulness with poignant melodies, while the Eclogues are bucolic and lively. Written for Segovia and his wife Paquita Madriguera, the Fantasia for guitar and piano presents an expertly blended texture for this combination of instruments.

9 July 2021
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS (1887–1959)
Complete Violin Sonatas
Emmanuele Baldini, Violin; Pablo Rossi, Piano
8.574310
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s three violin sonatas date from a key period in his career: the moment at which he matured as a composer, established his personal idiom and achieved his first professional triumphs. Each sonata shares some influence from French late Romanticism or Impressionism, as well as revealing Villa-Lobos’s skill as a string player. The First Violin Sonata’s subtitle of Désespérance (‘Despair’) suits its melancholy lyricism, while the ‘infinite abundance of musical ideas’ in the Second Violin Sonata is characterised by a wide range of emotions. The sophisticated Third Violin Sonata is steeped in the influence of Debussy, but also anticipates Villa-Lobos’s new directions in the 1920s.

9 July 2021
Double Echo
New Guitar Concertos from the Americas
KERNIS • PIAZZOLLA • SIERRA
David Tanenbaum, guitar; Coco Trivisonno, bandoneon; Lisa Lee, violin; New Century Chamber Orchestra / Thomas Derthick and Aaron Jay Kernis
8.574298
This album of guitar concertos from the Americas features pieces composed for David Tanenbaum. Building on a tradition of prominent guitarists generating repertoire through new commissions, these works present the guitar in a variety of settings. Kernis’s concerto dips with ease into the world of pop music, whereas his Lullaby and Soliloquy are reflective, lyrical and romantic. Sierra’s concerto asserts a rhythmic and percussive character, while Piazzolla’s dark and sentimental double concerto is one of his least-known works.

9 July 2021
Fernando LOPES-GRAÇA (1906–1994): Songs and Folk Songs, Vol 2
Susana Gaspar, soprano; Ricardo Panela, baritone; Nuno Vieira de Almeida, piano
8.579082
Fernando Lopes-Graça was one of the greatest Portuguese composers of the 20th century. He composed songs in many genres, including folk-song arrangements, modernist settings of Portuguese poetry, and songs connected to political and historical events, all of which are represented here in this second volume (Volume 1 is on 8.579039). Early songs reveal the harmonic influence of Debussy, while Lopes-Graça’s utopian vision of international fraternity can be heard in his harmonisations of Greek, Czech and Slovak songs, which range from lament and defiance to pastoral sentiment.

9 July 2021
History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol 5
DYCK, STERNBERG, YOUFEROV
The Brahms Trio – Nikolai Sachenko, Violin; Kirill Rodin, Cello; Natalia Rubinstein, Piano
8.574116
This album concludes The Brahms Trio’s five-volume survey of the piano trio in Russia with remarkable works by composers whose names have all but disappeared from the musical world’s collective memory. Vladimir Dyck, a student of Widor at the Paris Conservatoire, took French nationality in 1910 but his life came to a tragic end when he and his family were arrested in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz. His Piano Trio, Op. 25 contrasts Russian soulfulness with the lightness and deft scoring he brought to his film compositions. Constantin von Sternberg’s genial Op. 104 reflects his career as a virtuoso pianist, while Sergey Youferov’s expansive and nostalgic Op. 52 is a farewell to the Russian ‘Silver Age’, a world about to be destroyed by revolution.

9 July 2021
Paul ABRAHÁM (1892–1960): Ball at the Savoy
Libretto by Fritz Löhner-Beda and Alfred Grünwald
English translation by Hersh Glagov and Gerald Frantzen
Alison Kelly, Cynthia Fortune Gruel and Rose Guccione, sopranos; Bridget Skaggs, mezzo-soprano; Gerald Frantzen, tenor; Ryan Trent Oldham and Matt Dyson, baritones; Folks Operetta / Anthony Barrese
8.660503-04 (2 CDs)
Hungarian composer Paul Abrahám enjoyed huge success across Europe with his ‘jazz operettas’, not least in Weimar Berlin where his works scored for an orchestra augmented by a jazz band caused a sensation. Ball im Savoy (‘Ball at the Savoy’) has a plot reminiscent of Die Fledermaus and its variety of influences, some European and some reflective of contemporary American popular song, won the kind of acclaim only equalled by Franz Lehár. The premiere, which took place in December 1932, was for some the last major cultural event of Weimar Germany.

9 July 2021
Arthur SULLIVAN (1842–1900): Incidental Music - The Merchant of Venice; Henry VIII; The Sapphire Necklace; Overture in C
Emmanuel Lawler, tenor; RTÉ Concert Orchestra / Andrew Penny
8.555181
Arthur Sullivan achieved worldwide fame as the composer who joined librettist W.S. Gilbert to create the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. However, his success with these ‘Savoy Operas’ has overshadowed his other works, including a considerable amount of music for the theatre that was wildly successful in its day. Sullivan’s suites of incidental music for Shakespeare are among his most attractive compositions, with Henry VIII becoming extremely popular. Charles Dickens was ‘perfectly enchanted’ by The Sapphire Necklace, and the Overture in C is both a memorial for Sullivan’s father and a celebration of Victorian Britain.

 

NOTEFORNOTE MUSIC

16 July 2021
Craig Safan / L.A. Ex
Notefornote Music has announced the Friday, July 16 release of veteran film composer Craig Safan’s (TV’s Cheers, films The Last Starfighter, Son of The Morning Star, Stand and Deliver) third album of original electroacoustic music – L.A. Ex, in which he explores his memories of growing up in Los Angeles with a musical celebration of life in the City of Angels. Safan says about the collection, “I’ve always boomeranged back to L.A.  It has a deep hold on me.  My father was born here as was I.  I’ve lived in Boston, New York, London; but L.A. is home.  L.A. Ex is my musical impression of growing up in Los Angeles, parts of which no longer exist.  Musical memories and a resonance with the past guided my composition.” He added, “I wanted each track to have its own individuality, to evoke a specific location and time, and so each piece is treated very differently. That’s why the musical styles are so variable from one track to another. These musical impressions are like film music without the film. Hopefully on each one you can close your eyes or look at an image and picture that place, or something like it within your own memories. “  

OEHMS CLASSICS

16 July 2021
Le violoncelle à l’École de Paris
Oliver Triendl, Wen-Sinn Yang
OC489
After the devastation of World War I, young, hopeful, gifted composers trooped into the French capital. In 1925, the publisher Michel Dillard coined the term École de Paris (‘Paris School’) for the foreign composers then living there, especially Hungary’s Tibor Harsányi (1898–1954), Poland’s Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986), Czechoslovakia’s Bohuslav Martinņ (1890–1959), Russia’s Alexander Tcherepnin (1899–1977), and Romania’s Marcel Mihalovici (1898–1985), whose works he specialised in disseminating. All five composers featured in this album came to Paris from Eastern Europe and all, with the exception of Martinņ, died there. They initially attempted to translate the essence of folk music from their homelands, using standard musical notation to express idiomatic subtleties that were difficult to capture. The programme includes the world premiere recordings of Harsányi’s Rhapsodie and Sonate Pour Violoncelle et Piano, and Mihalovici’s Sonate dans le caractère d’une scène lyrique.

16 July 2021
Soundmaps: Extended Realities
Valeria Zorina, Evgeny Sinaiski
OC492
These works explore the possibilities of a violin’s scordatura i.e. alternative tunings of the violin strings. Such experimentation with the potential effects was already present in the works of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and runs right through the history of music, from Ysaÿe and Camille Saint-Saëns to contemporary works that are recorded here for the first time.

 

ORCHID CLASSICS

9 July 2021
Claude Debussy, Carl Nielsen, Witold Lutosławski, Aaron Copland
Blaz Sparovec, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Anna Skryleva, Vincenzo Milletarì
ORC100168
Orchid Classics presents one of two releases showcasing winners of the Carl Nielsen Competition 2019. Slovenian clarinettist Blaž Šparovec was praised by jury member Michael Collins as “the deserving winner ... he showed immense qualities from the start and is able to communicate with the audience his joy of music-making. His technical skill and warm sound will make him stand out as a true individual.” With the Odense Symphony Orchestra, Blaž Šparovec performs four masterpieces: Debussy’s breathtaking Première rhapsodie, written as a competition piece for the Paris Conservatoire; Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, often described as the greatest of the 20th century; Lutosławski’s folk-like Dance Preludes; and Copland’s demanding, jazzy Clarinet Concerto, performed in its original state – unaltered by simplifications made by its dedicatee, Benny Goodman.

9 July 2021
Carl Nielsen, Theodoor Verhey, Jean Françaix
Joséphine Olech, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Anna Skryleva
ORC100169
Orchid Classics presents one of two releases showcasing winners of the Carl Nielsen Competition 2019. French flautist Joséphine Olech trained with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Academy and is currently principal flute of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. For her first concerto recording with the Odense Symphony Orchestra and conductor Anna Skryleva, Joséphine Olech chose a trio of 20th-century works reflecting countries with which she feels a personal connection as an artist: Nielsen’s beautiful, witty Flute Concerto (1926); the scintillating Flute Concerto No. 1 (1902) by Dutch composer Theodor Verhey, and Jean Françaix’s dazzling Flute Concerto of 1966.

23 July 2021
Georg Philipp Telemann
12 Fantasias for Solo Violin
Iryna Gintova
ORC100171
Ukrainian violinist Iryna Gintova performs Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for solo violin, one of the pinnacles of the Baroque repertoire for the instrument. Telemann’s 12 Fantasias embrace an array of European styles fashionable at the time, including Italianate concerto-style movements inspired by Corelli, contrasted with pieces in the French style. Telemann was an able, self-taught violinist and relished showcasing the instrument’s varied colours and techniques in these works, including multiple stopping, implied counterpoint, improvisatory lines, and tussles between traditional Baroque intricacy with newer, lighter and more forward-looking virtuoso melodies. Iryna Gintova performs these wide-ranging works with the nuance and fluidity for which she is increasingly known in performances that have taken her to major venues, competitions and festivals around the world.

OUR RECORDINGS

25 June 2021
Ta’ Mig Med (Take Me Along) – Kim Larsen
Songs for Classical Guitar
Jesper Sivebæk, guitar
8.226915
Kim Larsen (1945-2018) – the much-loved Danish rock & pop musician and songwriter – captures the Danish soul in music and words. With his 500 recorded songs and 40 albums he is known by Danes of all ages. Guitarist, and head of guitar department at The Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Jesper Sivebæk, had two heroes in his youth: Andrés Segovia and Kim Larsen – and they have followed him ever since. For more than 10 years Jesper Sivebæk has worked on the pieces on this album. Utilising his  great experience, Jesper has recorded  an album which showcases the songs and at the same time follows the classical tradition of making instrumental versions of folk songs – in the way of  Miguel Llobet’s arrangements of Catalan folksongs, Benjamin Britten’s English and Chinese folksongs arrangements, and Bela Bartok’s Hungarian folk songs. Sivebæk is true both to the beauty and the simplicity of Kim Larsen’s songs, and to his instrument – the classical Spanish guitar. In these arrangements, classical guitar players around the globe now have 12 new pieces to discover and put in their concert programs.

 

PHASMA MUSIC

2 July 2021
Alkis Baltas
Piano Trio & String Quartet
Athens Trio, +Kinisis
PHASMA-MUSIC 028
Alkis Baltas’ Piano Trio was written in 1989 in Thessaloniki and is dedicated to the Athens Trio. It is a composition that refers to the personal experiences of the composer. The first form of String Quartet was written in 2000. The composer decided to rework the composition in the summer of 2008. Some of the original ideas of the composition were kept, others not. The current form of the quartet is almost completely different from the original 2000 version.

2 July 2021
Alkis Baltas
Daniel in the lion’s den
Patmos Festival Orchestra, Patmos Festival Chorus
PHASMA-MUSIC 029
The work Daniel in the Lion’s Den was composed in 2017 for the 16th Patmos Sacred Music Festival in Patmos, Greece. It is a modern, free adaptation of the homonymous liturgical drama, based on the monophonic melodies that were sung in the Middle Ages, when the drama Daniel in the Lion’s Den was performed. The harmonic elaboration, the accompaniment of the orchestra and the orchestral interludes, with the exception of the choir, are my own free composing choices. The narrator recites texts in Greek and English, taken from the Old Testament. The work was recorded live at the premiere on August 30th 2017 at the 16th Patmos Sacred Music Festival -“The Divine Revelation of Music”, at the open-air theatre of the Holy Cave of the Apocalypse. (Alkis Baltas)

2 July 2021
Louis Sauter
Les noces de chounette and other works for piano
Vicky Stylianou
PHASMA-MUSIC 030
This new release presents a selection of works for solo piano by French contemporary composer Louis Sauter (b. 1955), recorded by world-class Greek pianist Vicky Stylianou. The highlight of the album is Les Noces de Chounette, a set of 12 pieces in styles ranging from a prelude & fugue to a foxtrot and a samba, all celebrating the composer’s wedding to his wife Hélène. Also featured are Sauter’s Apophtegmes – a candy box of short miniatures, Vagabondages – a set of pieces depicting locations where the composer lived, the intriguing Umbriel, and the astrophysics-inspired Suite Cosmique. The album concludes with Sauter’s brilliant variations on the Provençal tune Digo Janeto.

 

QUARTZ

16 July 2021
Frédéric Chopin
Piano Sonatas No. 1, No. 2, No. 3
Alexander Kobrin
QTZ2140
Chopin’s piano sonatas span a wide creative period, from his time as a student to five years before his death, when he was still in good health and his relationship with George Sand had not yet begun to deteriorate. Two of the three Chopin piano sonatas are cornerstones of the romantic piano repertoire; the first sonata is heard far less frequently in performance or recording. Chopin has been most revered as a miniaturist; much has been written discussing Chopin’s larger-scale works: some have criticized his seeming lack of formal skill, while others have come to praise his compositional anomalies as innovation and ingenuity. Regardless, Chopin’s characteristically transcendent, fluid melodies, unique pianistic beauty and distinctive poetic voice permeate these three sonatas.

 

RESONUS CLASSICS

2 July 2021
Johann Pachelbel
Organ Works, Vol. 1
Matthew Owens
RES10285
A close contemporary of Buxtehude, Johann Pachelbel was by all accounts an outstanding keyboard player himself, and his compositions provide a fascinating stylistic bridge between early-Baroque composers such as Frescobaldi and Froberger (both of whom influenced him) and the later music of Bach and his contemporaries. Organist Matthew Owensembarks on a major exploration of the many extant organ works of Pachelbel beginning with this first volume recorded on the iconic 1965 Frobenius Organ of The Queen’s College Chapel in Oxford, considered a vital instrumentin the classical organ revival in Britain. Demonstrating the huge range of his abilities as a composer, the diverse forms and styles Pachelbel used are revealed in this compelling recital.

2 July 2021
Con arte e maestria: Virtuoso Violin Ornamentation from the Italian Baroque
Oliver Webber, Steven Devine
RES10282
The decades around 1600 bore witness to the flourishing of a remarkable musical tradition: the art of diminution, in which simple melodies were given exquisitely virtuosic embellishments, effectively creating new works. One such creation, Francesco Rognoni’s ornamentation of Palestrina’s Io son ferito, was captioned ‘con arte e maestria’ – with art and mastery – referring to the consummate craftsmanship displayed in its invention and performance. Giving new life to this tradition was the inspiration for this unique programme: alongside iconic works from the diminution canon, Monteverdi String Band members Oliver Webber and Steven Devine present newly ornamented versions of a selection of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century works.

 

SIGNUM CLASSICS

C‎hristopher Gunning: Symphony No 5 & String Quartet No 1
R‎OYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
C‎HRISTOPHER GUNNING conductor
T‎HE JUNO QUARTET
SIGCD676
Continuing to showcase the classical output of a multi-BAFTA-Award-winning composer, Signum Classics has recorded Christopher Gunning's Symphony No 5 & String Quartet No 1. The symphony—ambitious in scale and form—is performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, while The Juno Quartet provides the coupling.

 

SOLO MUSICA

2 July 2021
Franz Schubert, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Yuri Levitin, Paul Hindemith
Sonatas for Solo Double Bass and Piano
Petru Iuga, Oliver Triendl
SM342
The double bass is an instrument that can all too often be misunderstood and is often lightly dismissed: due to its impressive size, it is assumed that the instrument is only capable of ponderous, heavy, grumpy sounds. The fact that there is not a grain of truth in either of these urban myths is borne out by the double bass sonatas on the present album and the soloist, Romanian double bassist Petru Iuga: music is innate to this instrument that is anything but cumbersome; it is in fact capable of producing sensuous melodies, virtuoso forms of expression suit it just as well as contemplative ones do, and its spectrum ranges from the deepest gruff growl to the brightest, most heartfelt burst of laughter. The Romanian double bassist Petru Iuga is one of the most successful classical musicians of his generation. During his musical training in his homeland, the 20-year-old student came to the attention of Yehudi Menuhin, who enlisted him for his International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad (Switzerland). One can hardly imagine a more devoted champion of neglected and rarely played composers than pianist Oliver Triendl. His tireless commitment – primarily to romantic and contemporary music – is reflected in more than 100 CD recordings. The scope of his repertoire is surely unique, comprising some 90 piano concertos and hundreds of chamber music pieces. In many cases, he was the first to present these works on stage or to commit them to disc.

 

SOMM RECORDINGS

23 July 2021
Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, Sally Beamish
Birdsong
Roderick Williams, Andrew West
SOMMCD 0633
SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Birdsong, a fascinating crossgender exploration of art songs associated with the female voice by baritone Roderick Williams, accompanied by pianist Andrew West. The recital features signature songs from the height of Romanticism by Brahms and Clara and Robert Schumann alongside a more recent quartet of sensuous songs by Sally Beamish. In his revealing foreword, Williams recalls having his choice of Brahms’s Sapphische Ode refused by competition organisers because it was “a woman’s song”. Returning recently to the work prompted him to question why some songs are considered gender specific. Birdsong is his response.

23 July 2021
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphonies for Piano Duo, Vol.1
Tessa Uys, Ben Schoeman
SOMMCD 0637
SOMM Recordings announces the launch of a major six-volume series of Franz Xaver Scharwenka’s transcriptions of Beethoven Symphonies featuring the label debut of the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman Piano Duo. Formed in 2010, the Duo began their in-concert exploration of Scharwenka’s four-hand Beethoven transcriptions in 2015 and now bring that experience to disc for the first time. Volume 1 includes the premiere recording of Scharwenka’s piano duet transcription of Symphony No.3, the ever-popular Eroica, and Debussy’s two-piano arrangement of Robert Schumann’s Six Studies in Canonic Form.

 

STERLING RECORDS

2 July 2021
The Swedish Smorgasbord in orchestral music
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Erik Saedén, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Västerås Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Nicolini, Gävleborgs Orkesterförening, Bo Linde, Sten Frykberg, Björn Hallman, Göran W. Nilson, Harry Damgaard, Gunnar Staern
CDS1129 (2 CDs)
This is a collection of Swedish orchestral recordings, originally released on LP and now transferred to CD. The music spans the Baroque era of Johan Agrell through to the mid-20th century of Bo Linde. There are many premiere recordings here, including Peterson-Berger’s May Carnival in Stockholm, an exciting work celebrating the end of winter and the Stockholm Spring. Other highlights are Erik Saedéns wonderful singing of the Peterson- Berger ballads, the brooding Romanticism of Adolf Wiklund’s Symphonic Prologue, and the timeless melodies of Lars-Erik Larsson long appreciated by Swedish audiences. Hugo Alfvén’s short piece, part of a cantata, was said to be the composer’s own favourite composition. Varied and rich, as it should be - a Smörgåsbord of Swedish orchestral music.

 

STRADIVARIUS

9 July 2021
Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sviatoslav Richter live in Jouques & Zug
STR37189
Sviatoslav Richter was the first pianist of international repute to create in his repertoire a reasonable balance between Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, the quadrumvirate of the Wiener klassik. No other concert pianist has ever included in his repertoire such a conspicuous number of Viennese compositions, nor gone back so far (the early Haydn sonatas are from the 1760s) in his research info the Wiener klassik.Richter is far more interested in the pre-Beethoven aspects of Haydn than in the pre-Schubert ones. The use of the terms “pre- Beethoven” and “pre-Schubert” does not signify that such aspects are exclusive to these composers, merely that we are used to identifying them thus, despite the fact that they are the foundations of the Viennese classical period. Richter has rarely performed Schubert since 1986 - although his interpretation of the Sonata in G major astounds and stupifies those who hear it - and equally rarely performs Mozart; only the Fantasia K475, the Sonata K457 and the Sonata K 533/494. His interpretation of the drama of the Fantasia and the Sonata K457 draws parallels with the darkest moments in Don Giovanni.

9 July 2021
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Notes
Duilio Meucci, Quartetto Felix, Vincenzo Meriani, Matteo Parisi, Francesco Venga, Marina Pellegrino, Antonella D’Andrea, Marco Salvio, Pietro Locatto
STR37177
A monograph on the chamber music for guitar by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is not a new operation, nor is it particularly original: the numbers of works that the Maestro be-queathed to the six strings significantly occupy the entire last season of the Florentine composer’s life and work. It was evident in his perception that “chamber music would be the salvation of the classical guitar”. However, this disc is not born from a compiling urgency, from a need to combine a catalog and observe it with fetishism in its entirety, - after all, there are many chamber pieces missing from the entire corpus, not to mention the vocal chamber music and the music for two guitars, here only partially addressed. Rather, from the desire to contemplate in a different perspective some elements of a rich legacy that still today stimulates and fascinates the interpreters who approach it. The title “Appunti” (Notes) is anything but casual, as are the works chosen to represent it. In recounting this repertoire, my will - with the help of a homogeneous time span going from 1950 to the last days of the Maestro’s life - has been to highlight the possibilities of salvation that the guitar assumes through chamber music, with compositional skills that can still be defined as exemplary acts of bravura and happy inspiration, unsurpassed to this day. As on a notebook, the notes collected take shape, and become the argument for possibilities, then become thesis, evidence, and, eventually, memory.

9 July 2021
Agoraphilia Duo Agorà
STR37184
Agoraphilia is an invitation to raise awareness and love for open spaces, spaces of Being and visual spaces. This is the reason why this work offers a strong synergy between musicians, eras, repertoires and literary hymns, responding to the particular situation of closure and forced introversion caused by the pandemic events. The Duo Agorà, formed by Domenico Luciano on Saxophones and Eugenio Catone on Piano, was born in 2008 with the aim of exploring new repertoires, starting from sharing the urban sound space and from the sensorial message that the languages of new music bring to the modern society. Defined by the critics as two courageous pioneers (criticaclassica.it) and exceptional virtuosos (Novi List), they propose original works composed by living artists, but also pieces composed by themselves or dedicated to them, using different types of saxophones and electronic instruments during their concerts. They received numerous awards in international chamber music competitions including TIM competition, Rovere d’Oro Award, Zinetti Award.

 

TACTUS

2 July 2021
Barbara Strozzi
Sacri Musicali Affetti opera quinta, 1655
Aurata Fonte
TC 611990
World Premiere recording of the complete edition of the Sacri Musicali Affetti by Barbara Strozzi, a figure of great importance among the various women musicians of the seventeenth century. Her works went on printed editions for her to be recognized and appreciated as a composer, and not just as an instrumentalist or singer. She was on the Venetian intellectual scene thanks to her connection with the poet and playwright Giulio Strozzi (of whom Barbara is most likely an illegitimate daughter), a fundamental figure in the institution of the Venetian musical theater, and soon appreciated by musicians and writers of cultural circles from Venice. The Aurata Fonte ensemble, specialising in the Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, accompanies the sopranos Anna Simboli and Miho Kamiya with period instruments in the performance of this collection of sacred motets for solo voice where the composer’s mastery and refinement is revealed by alternating theatrical and dramatic effects in the name of a marked vocal virtuosity. To be noted at one point the explicit mentioning of the great Claudio Monteverdi, placing by right her work in his musical wake.

2 July 2021
Alessandro Scarlatti
Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. VII
Francesco Tasini
TC 661991
With this seventh 2CD volume, Francesco Tasini terminates the recording of the Alessandro Scarlatti’s opera omnia for keyboard, that is completed in parallel with the printed edition also by Tasini. The fifteen fugues contained in the first CD are performed at the historic 1836 Carlo Serassi organ of the Santa Maria di Campagna basilica in Piacenza, constitute a rich handbook of models for teaching contrappunto techniques developed by Tasini according to the practice of the time. The second CD instead contains some pieces, again for organ, and three toccatas for harpsichord in the typical Scarlattian articulation in several movements (the instrument used is an original eighteenth-century by an anonymous artist from Ferrara complete with a pedalboard).

2 July 2021
Diego Conti
Music for Violin and Piano
Daniela Cammarano, Alessandro Deljavan
TC 950301
Two talented musicians - Daniela Cammarano and Alessandro Deljavan - are the protagonists of Diego Conti’s music for violin and piano, on a CD as world premiere only a few months after the edition of the works for cello and strings. Also in this case the inspiration for his works are multifaceted and eclectic; they range from science fiction to pop ‘contaminations’ passing through classic forms and personal moments. It should also be noted how Diego Conti - also great virtuoso of the violin (see Pietro Antonio Locatelli, L’arte del violino op. III) -manages to maintain a great balance in writing for the two instruments, not relegating the piano to the role of mere accompanist, but rather making it a protagonist like the violin itself.

 

THE STATE51 CONSPIRACY

30 June 2021
Murmures
Les Passagères
Murmures from French baroque ensemble Les Passagères explores the contrasts and influences of Italian and German repertoire in the early 18th century, including works by Corelli, Pergolesi and J S Bach. This carefully considered programme moves through a variety of forms - such as vocal duet, trio sonata, solo harpsichord and obbligato keyboard - and is brought to life by the ensemble’s deep understanding of the repertoire and sheer musicality.

 

TOCCATA CLASSICS

2 July 2021
Ferenc Farkas Chamber Music, Vol.5
András Adorján, Lajos Lencsés, András Csáki, Balázs Szokolay, Antál Váradi
TOCC 0440
This twelfth release in the Toccata Classics exploration of the music of Ferenc Farkas (1905–2000) once again puts his chamber music with flute in the spotlight – here with an oboe chaser. As with previous albums in this series, the music highlights the characteristics that make Farkas’ music so appealing: catchy tunes, transparent textures, buoyant rhythms, a fondness for Baroque forms and a taste for the folk-music of his native Hungary that marks him out as a true successor to Bartók and Kodály. The works in this recording are all reworkings – by Farkas or the two soloists here – of music first written for different forces and now taking on a new lease of life.

2 July 2021
Yevgeny Zemtsov
Chamber & Instrumental Music & Arrangements
Ekaterina Levental, Daniel Rowland, David Zemtsov, Julia Dinerstein, Mikhail Zemtsov, Anna Fedorova, Björn Lehmann, Utrecht String Quartet
TOCC 0564
The Russian composer Yevgeny Zemtsov (1940–2016) may be better known for the dynasty of musicians – most of them violists – that he fathered than he is for his own music. This first album ever to be devoted to his music features works from the beginning and end of his career: some early violin works, influenced by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, a Bartókian string quartet, three spirited and spiky piano miniatures, an oblique piano elegy and five late, enigmatic, almost ritualistic settings of Japanese haikus. Late in life, too, he discovered a fascination with tango, and the album also features his elegant arrangements for string quartet and quintet of two Piazzolla favourites.

2 July 2021
Émile Naoumoff
Piano Music
Gregory Martin
TOCC 0603
Emile Naoumoff, born in Sofia in 1962, was a child prodigy as pianist and composer in his native Bulgaria but was soon taken under the wing of Nadia Boulanger in Paris – ‘the gift of my old age’, she said. Naoumoff himself has tended to record the music of other composers, and so this recital of his piano music has been recorded by Gregory Martin, who has worked with him in various capacities. It presents music from across Naoumoff’s career - from that gifted childhood to a piece inspired by the sight of Notre Dame Cathedral in flames in 2019 – absorbing influences from Slavic folk-dance to Gabriel Fauré, whose ‘grand-student’ he is.

2 July 2021
Joel Feigin
Music for Chamber Orchestra
Yael Weiss, John Savournin, Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Kirk Trevor, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, Misha Rachlevsky
TOCC 0612
It might seem that modern classical music rarely expresses happiness – but Aviv, a piano concerto by Joel Feigin (born in New York in 1951), suggests the warmth and optimism of the coming of spring. The angular, even anguished, essay for strings Surging Seas, by contrast, was inspired by the devastation wrought by the tsunamis of 2004 and 2011. The Two Songs from Twelfth Night have their origins in the tradition of American orchestral song established by Samuel Barber. And in the diptych Mosaic, also for strings, a first ‘panel’ of heartfelt lyricism is succeeded by an outburst of buoyant energy.

16 July 2021
Mauricio Arias-Esguerra, Blas Emilio Atehortúa, Ian Frederick, Jaime León, Gustavo Parra, Germán Darío Pérez
¡COLOMBIA VIVA! - Piano Music
Mauricio Arias-Esguerra
TOCN 0015
In this album Mauricio Arias-Esguerra offers a kaleidoscopic view of recent Colombian piano music, highlighting its striking stylistic variety. Germán Darío Pérez sees a traditional dance through a jazzy lens, and Blas Atehortúa takes a post-serial approach in his Preludio, Variaciones y Presto Alucinante, Op. 190. The influence of progressive rock and ‘90s rock music can be heard in Gustavo Parra ́s Pavec Lingus, as can Jaime León ́s love of US American music in his Made in U.S.A. preludes; and there is techno and angst in Ian Frederick ́s Suite Catrina. Arias-Esguerra’s own contributions are highly contrasted, with lyricism in his Arizona Mirage and rhythmic drive in his Toccata Bachkovsky.

16 July 2021
Music for a Prince, Music by a Prince
Jeremy Huw Williams, Theodore Buchholz, Edward Reid, Jason Carder, Paula Fan
TOCN 0009
This unusual recording brings princely offerings of two different kinds. In 1970 Prince Charles – who had studied cello and trumpet – was presented with a leather-bound volume containing pieces written for his entertainment by the composers on the council of the Performing Right Society. These fourteen bonnes bouches are complemented by fourteen German Lieder written by Prince Charles’ great-great-great-grandfather, Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, whose style owed something to that of his good friend, Felix Mendelssohn.

 

ULYSSES ARTS

18 June 2021
Frédéric Chopin: Clara Rodriguez, piano
Includes Sonata No.3, Ballade No.4, Barcarolle Op.60, Polonaise-Fantaisie Op.61, Nocturne Op.62 No.1, Mazurka Op 24 No.4 and Op. 63 No.2
'The thought has always amazed me: my teacher's teacher was a pupil of a Chopin pupil! George Mathias - Chopin's student - taught Isidor Phillip, who in turn was Phyllis Sellick's teacher in Paris.   My connection with Chopin's music is deep: his unique emotional span and his exceptional way of writing for the piano is unavoidable for us pianists. I could live my life playing and teaching his music: in reality, that is what I have done up to now  - with the exception of the rest of the repertoire that you can listen to on my other recordings or concerts, of course. The works I have had the privilege of recording for this Ulysses Arts Chopin album include the  Piano Sonata Op. 58 No. 3 in B Minor of 1844, composed during a period that was particularly dramatic in Chopin's life. It included the death of his friend Jan Matusysnsky of tuberculosis, tension in his relationship and eventual separation from George Sand, and the moral and physical decline of his own health. The pieces on this album represent great challenges in the pianist’s repertoire: all of them are great intellectual and emotional journeys, and the result of a long process of distillation. I would like to thank the unconditional support given to me by Nelly and Bertrand Soux from Caracas, to fulfi l the dream of any pianist respect the performance and recording of these masterpieces by Frederic Chopin.' - Clara Rodriguez

9 July 2021
Silent Sirens
Debut album of Stephen Horne, pianist in residence at the Southbank Centre British Film Institute and one of the world’s leading silent film live performers.
Stephen Horne comments: 'I have been a silent film pianist and composer for over thirty years. What began as an intriguing musical sideline developed gradually into a full-time nomadic career, accompanying more than a thousand films in more than twenty countries. During that time I developed hundreds of musical themes and it has long been my ambition to record an album, incorporating some of these into musical pieces. The tracks on this album are intended to stand alone from the films by which they were initially inspired. However, most of these films have two things in common. Firstly, they share a certain haunting quality, leaving unanswered questions to reverberate in the viewer’s mind long after ‘The End’. Secondly, at least for me, the strongest impression is made by the films’ leading women – the actresses and their roles. Combining these two elements suggested the theme of Silent Sirens.'

 

WARNER CLASSICS

2 July 2021
Bliss
RIOPY, piano
A collection of eleven titles unveiled one by one every month, each a jewel of pure emotion, will allow neo-classical pianist RIOPY to enter into an uninterrupted conversation with the fans of his music. His inspiration has been guided by his will to pay tribute to the anonymous but true heroes of “normal life”. Although he has rejected tricks of over-produced music, preferring the sheer power and shine of an amazing Fazioli piano, he manages to create incredibly cinematic music, built chapter by chapter, character by character, growing into a piano tale – a piano tale that, for the listener, will become an unforgettable experience of Bliss.

 

WINTER & WINTER

9 July 2021
my choice - Fumio Yasuda
Fumio Yasuda
9102742
The poet among contemporary composers. Magical arrangements of the world successes of Verdi, Satie and children’s songs from the Mother Goose collection. Fumio Yasuda describes his music succinctly with the attempt to invent something new. He names the late romantic compositions of Franz Schmidt as decisive influences, but also John Cage’s transgressions of boundaries. Nobuyoshi Araki brought Yasuda together with Stefan Winter 20 years ago. Over ten albums were created. For the anniversary of Winter & Winter, Yasuda meets his selection: “My Choice”. The FAZ writes: “If you get involved in your music - which is not a question of free will: once ... put it on, you will want to hear it again and again.”

 

Posted 24 June 2021 by Keith Bramich

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