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Newsletter and October 2021 New Releases

Watch and listen to our October newsletter, and browse a large selection of new recordings, plus a book, a film and various concerts

Classical Music Daily publishes a monthly newsletter, normally on the first day of each month. Our October 2021 newsletter, No 153, has been published as an eleven minute video. You can watch and listen to it here:

Watch and listen — October 2021 Classical Music Daily Newsletter :

The video can also be downloaded as an HD MP4 file by following the link below:

DOWNLOAD THE HD VIDEO NEWSLETTER

To watch, listen to and read our previous newsletters, please visit the newsletters page. To register to receive an email every month, when each newsletter has been published, please visit the updates page.

Below is our list of new releases, mostly of albums becoming available during October 2021. There's also a list of festivals, concerts, operas and broadcasts which we've been invited to review, and details of a book and a film.

Our regular writers will receive an email about this list, and will choose which items they would like to review. If your album is chosen for review, we will request a review copy from you, your label or its UK distributor.

The list is very large and has been prepared quickly. Apologies if the information is not up to our usual standards, and please let us know if you find any mistakes.

Extra information about some new releases can also be found here.

RECORDINGS

ACCENTUS MUSIC

1 October 2021
Ludwig van Beethoven: The Violin Sonatas
Clara-Jumi Kang, Sunwook Kim
ACC80558 (4 CDs)
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 10 Violin Sonatas between 1797 and 1812. The Sonatas 1 to 9 were written between 1797 and 1803 before almost ten years passed until his opus 96. The composer premiered all his early piano works himself, which might be why he called them ‘Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin.’ In the spirit of W. A. Mozart’s redefinition of the genre, who elevated the violin from its previously only accompanying role, and in spite of today’s common designation as ‘violin sonatas,’ both instrumental parts in Beethoven’s sonatas are on an equal musical footing. In 2020 - the anniversary year surrounding Beethoven’s 250th birthday - the Korean violinist Clara-Jumi Kang and her partner on the piano, Sunwook Kim, took on this special cycle of chamber music works. Kang first worked on one of Beethoven’s sonatas, the Fifth, at the tender age of eight and can already look back on an extremely successful international career. With Sunwook Kim, she has an exceptionally experienced Beethoven interpreter at her side, whose recordings of the piano sonatas, among others, have received high accolades around the globe. Together they have developed an inspiring and very personal reading of Beethoven’s sonatas, of which this complete recording bears impressive witness.

1 October 2021
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No 4 in E-flat, 'Romantic' - the three versions
Bamberger Symphoniker / Jakub Hrůša
ACC30533 (4 CDs)
The Fourth Symphony occupies a special position in Anton Bruckner’s symphonic cycle. It heralds the cycle of his ‘mature’ symphonies and with it the composer addressed his audience directly and wanted to be understood by them. He succeeded in this - today the ‘Romantic’ is one of Bruckner’s most popular symphonies. Still, he revised it time and again and today there are three versions of it. With the Bamberg Symphony, which can draw on many years of Bruckner interpretation, Jakub Hrůša has now recorded all versions of the Fourth Symphony. For a conductor, it is a unique opportunity to be able to record all versions of a symphony. In addition, as Hrusa says, the project enables the interested audience to form their own opinion of the quality and tailoring of the respective version. In this way, listeners can decide for themselves whether the composer was right in his doubts, and whether it makes any sense at all to ‘pit’ one version against the other. ́ This release also includes a fourth CD with the alternate finale (‘Volksfest’) to the second version as well as more excerpts from early drafts.

ALBANY RECORDS

1 September 2021
Musical Connections
James Ricci and Arnold Schoenberg
David Holzman, piano
TROY1875
The arc of 'Musical Connections' conveys a story on several levels. The album comprises nine standalone solo piano works by composer James Ricci and a retrospective rehearing of Arnold Schoenberg's historic Five Pieces for Piano Op. 23. The assorted musical tracks - which contain interesting musical associations and mirror-like reflections between individual works - combine to hint at a human sub-theme to the album. Holzman and Ricci reflect on their common history, mutual influences (including Schoenberg), common mentors, esteemed teachers, and artistic ideas throughout the threads of this disc. There is both depth and breadth to the selection of pieces, and plenty of contrast between them.

ANALEKTA

1 October 2021
New Jewish Music Vol 3 – Azrieli Music Prizes
First recordings by the winners of the 2020 Azrieli Music Prizes
We find on this album: Keiko Devaux (The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music), Yotam Haber (The Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music) and Yitzhak Yedid (The Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music). The three inspiring pieces are brought vividly to life by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (le NEM) under the direction of Lorraine Vaillancourt. Mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó joins for Yotam Haber's Estro Poetico-armonico III. Also featured on the album is Jonathan Monro's arrangement of Dissidence by the celebrated Canadian composer Pierre Mercure, created specifically for le NEM and soprano Sharon Azrieli, who joins the ensemble.
This album serves as part of the prize package each AMP laureate receives, alongside a cash award of $50,000 CAD; a gala world premiere; and two subsequent international performances – bringing the total package value to $200,000 CAD. Established in 2014, the Azrieli Music Prizes seek to fulfill the Azrieli Foundation's pursuit of its belief in music as a vital human endeavour that allows humankind to express its creativity; to expand its worldview; and to foster positive cultural exchanges.

APR RECORDINGS

1 October 2021
Harold Samuel: The complete solo recordings
Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Christain Bach, Muzio Clementi, Franz Schubert, Christoph Willibald Gluck
Harold Samuel, Isolde Menges, Josef Stopak, Arthur Lora, Frank Black
APR_6036 (2 CDs)
Harold Samuel was the first pianist to specialize in the performance of Bach’s original keyboard works in the concert hall and achieved worldwide acclaim in doing so. His pioneering HMV and Columbia recordings of the composer (all the Bach works included here, except for the first Prelude & Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, were premiers on disc) sound as fresh and inspiring today as they did when new and reveal that great Bach playing is timeless. A unique live 5th Brandenburg Concerto from New York and a studio E major Violin Sonata with Isolde Menges round out his Bach and this landmark release also includes his remaining solo discs, notably some rare repertoire by Clementi and two of Bach’s sons which was recorded for the ambitious Columbia History of Music educational project. These new 2021 transfers by Seth Winner were made using the latest technology and present these historic documents in the best possible sound, revealing more detail of Samuel’s playing than has ever previously been captured.

ARCANA

8 October 2021
Rossini: Petite messe solennelle
Giulio Prandi, Coro Ghislieri, Francesco Corti, Sandrine Piau, José Maria Lo Monaco, Cristiano Gaudio, Edgardo Rocha, Deniel Perer, Christian Senn
A494
This is the third recording to represent Giulio Prandi’s interpretative research on the great Italian choral repertory, after the special and successful releases of works by Jommelli and Pergolesi, cornerstones of the golden age of the Neapolitan school. Faced with the challenge posed by Rossini’s essential masterpiece, Prandi has chosen an original and courageous path, following deep reflection. The new critical edition of the Rossini Foundation of Pesaro is used here for the first time in a recording studio; three rare instruments roughly contemporary with the work – pianos by rard and Pleyel, a D bain harmonium – have been selected to ensure an authentic, vital, luminous sound, guaranteed by the artistry of the keyboardist and professor at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Francesco Corti; four illustrious soloists have been engaged: Sandrine Piau, Jos Maria Lo Monaco, Edgardo Rocha and Christian Senn. Finally, the fundamental contribution of the Coro Ghislieri, an acknowledged world-class ensemble in early repertory, sets the seal on a recording of rare merit.

ARTALINNA

1 October 2021
Sergei Prokofiev Vol 1
Marcos Madrigal, piano
ATL-A028
For this solo album for Artalinna, Cuban pianist Marcos Madrigal plunges into the protean universe of Sergei Prokofiev. Two Sonatas, the well-known Seventh and the more discreet Fifth, frame the sumptuous collection of Visions Fugitives. Throughout this recital, Marcos Madrigal demonstrates his scrupulous respect for the score. Prokofiev’s keyboard works span his entire career, from his initial studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory until his death in 1953. It includes eleven piano sonatas (two of which have remained unfinished, and several were destroyed during the years of training), sixty small pieces, either isolated or grouped together in a cycle such as the Visions Fugitives, as well as transcriptions of his ballets.

1 October 2021
Severin von Eckardstein
Chopin, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Dupont
ATL-A032
A formidable interpreter of the works of Robert Schumann, the German pianist Severin von Eckardstein here offers an intense version of rare narrative force of one of the most complex cycles of the 19th century, the Davidsbündlertänze Op. 6. This dazzling kaleidoscope of moods is coupled with works by Chopin, Tchaikovsky and the lesser-known Gabriel Dupont, all of particularly passionate resonance. Great musical moments that confirm Severin von Eckardstein’s status as one of the most poetic musicians in the world of the piano. The recording was made on 29th January 2020 at Les Nuits Oxygene Festival in Eglise Saint-Jean de Montmartre, Paris.

AZICA RECORDS

17 September 2021
Aaron Jay Kernis: Elegy ... for those we lost (first recording)
Yolanda Kondonassis, harp; Michael Sachs, trumpet
CD single
After contracting and recovering from COVID-19 early in the pandemic, Kernis felt moved to write a work memorializing the victims and paying tribute to the grieving families of all those lost to the disease. Kernis writes, 'I strived to create music to counterpoint the terrible pandemic and honor the dead — to try to give some measure of solace to families by sharing a personal expression of grief.' Kondonassis adds, 'Kernis’ Elegy illuminates the emotional nuances of our collective experience in a manner that only music can do, taking us on an artful sonic journey that travels through the stages of deep sadness, resignation, despair, and rage, leading us towards hope, sublimation, resolve, acceptance, and finally peace.'

20 August 2021
With Malice Toward None
Apollo Chamber Players
ACD-71340
Globally-inspired compositions and collaborations, with each composer sharing their own personal interpretations of folk music. Works include a title track by Vietnam War veteran J. Kimo Williams with a performance by electric violinist Tracy Silverman, Pamela Z’s The Unraveling, What is the Word? by Christopher Theofanidis and Mark Wingate, new arrangements of a trio of Armenian folk songs by pioneering Armenian composer Komitas, and Eve Beglarian’s We Will Sing One Song for duduk, string quartet, percussion, and track. The Pamela Z, Theofanidis and Wingate, and Beglarian pieces are part of Apollo’s 20x2020 project, launched in 2014 with a mission to commission 20 new multicultural works before the end of the decade.

BIDDULPH RECORDINGS

9 November 2021
Brahms: Violin Concerto
Oscar Shumsky, violin; Philharmonia Hungarica / Uri Segal
85007-2
Oscar Shumsky has been hailed as one of the greatest violinist of the 20th century. Having recorded the Beethoven Violin Concerto, the complete solo sonatas and partitas by Bach, and the complete Mozart violin sonatas, this release of the Brahms Violin Concerto is the remaining violin masterpiece to complete Shumsky’s extensive discography. Although the violinist recorded a LP of extracts from the concerto for Music Appreciation Records, a complete performance of the work by Shumsky has never been available until now. Made in 1984 with the Philharmonia Hungarica with Uri Segal conducting, this digital recording had remained forgotten for over 40 years. Finally, with permission from the family, Biddulph Recordings is proud to be able to release this magnificent performance of one of the greatest violin masterworks to the general public.

15 October 2021
Mozart: Violin Concerto No 5
Oscar Shumsky, violin
85006-2
This CD offers Oscar Shumsky’s first commercial recording of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5 in A, K.219, made originally for the Music Appreciation Society in 1955. This work has a special place in Shumsky’s repertoire as he performed this concerto with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was only eight years old. As it turns out, this work would also feature as Shumsky’s first digital concerto recording after making his triumphant comeback in the UK in 1981. This CD also includes all the RCA Victor recordings of Shumsky playing solo violin obbligato in arias and songs. These include the two magnificent arias – Laudamus te and Benedictus – from Bach’s Mass in B minor, L’amero saro costante with the German soprano Erna Berger, and four Rachmaninov songs with the American tenor James Melton. Shumsky ravishingly plays two beloved violin solos from the stage: the famous Pas de deux from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, and Massenet’s Méditation from the opera Thaïs. The Tchaikovsky was a private recording made especially for the conductor Joseph Levine with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The Massenet with orchestral accompaniment receives its first CD release.

BIS

1 October 2021
Arvo Pärt: Passio
Helsinki Chamber Choir, Schweckendiek, Sampo Haapaniemi, Martti Anttila, Nils Schweckendiek
BIS2612 (1 hybrid SACD)
Composed in 1982, Arvo Pärt’s Passio has retained its place as one of the foremost works of sacred music of the late 20th century. It has been called a minimalist masterpiece, and is a seminal work in the composer’s oeuvre – the culmination of his so-called tintinnabuli style, and the first in a line of large-scale choral works on religious themes. Passion settings have a long history, with polyphonic settings for choral performance beginning in the 15th century and continuing up until the high baroque and the monumental works by Johann Sebastian Bach. In his Passion, Pärt looks back to an older tradition, however – the medieval one of a single voice chanting the text. As a result, the narrative –chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel of St. John –becomes the basis for sustained spiritual contemplation rather than the drama of Bach’s Passions. Another important distinction from earlier Passion settings is Pärt’s treatment of the Evangelist, who narrates the story. Rather than a single voice, he employs a quartet: soprano, alto, tenor and bass, accompanied by an ensemble of four instruments. The only other instrument used in the work is the organ, again in contrast to the larger instrumental forces of the Bach Passions. This contemplative work is here performed by the Helsinki Chamber Choir under Nils Schweckendiek.

1 October 2021
Joseph Canteloube
Chants d’Auvergne
Carolyn Sampson, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Pascal Rophé
BIS2513 (1 hybrid SACD)
That Baïlèro, a shepherd’s song from the highlands of Auvergne sung in the Occitan dialect of the area, should become a favourite with singers ranging from Victoria de los Angeles to Sarah Brightman by way of Renée Fleming and Karita Mattila, is all because of Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret. As a budding composer in Paris in the 1900s, Canteloube was unable to interest himself in the various musical cliques and currents. Instead he looked for inspiration in Auvergne in central France where he was born, starting to collect the songs of the farmers and shepherds that lived in the mountainous region. But he did so as a composer rather than a musicologist, and between 1923 and 1954 he published a total of thirty Chants d’Auvergne, arranged, harmonized and sumptuously orchestrated. The result is, one might say, idealized folk music: Canteloube largely respects the melodic line of the originals, but adds instrumental introductions, interludes and postludes, and gives an important role to the woodwind section. For the present disc, Carolyn Sampson and Pascal Rophé have selected 25 of the songs – ranging from love songs and lullabies to working songs and laments. They perform them together with Tapiola Sinfonietta, bringing sparkle to Canteloube’s luxurious scores halfway between the impressionism of Debussy and the bucolic lyricism of d’Indy.

1 October 2021
Ludwig van Beethoven
The Violin Sonatas, Vol 3
Sonatas 8-10
Frank Peter Zimmermann
BIS2537 (1 hybrid SACD)
Previous instalments of the Beethoven sonata cycle from Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen have met with wide acclaim. Described as ‘conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ in BBC Music Magazine, the discs have received a Choc in Classica and the recommendation of German website klassik.com, respectively. This the third and final volume brings together Beethoven’s last three works in the genre, composed between 1801 and 1812. The centre-piece is the ninth sonata, the famed ‘Kreutzer Sonata’. The title page of the first edition described the sonata as ‘written in a highly concertante style’ and it does indeed surpass everything that had previously been written in the genre, in terms of scale as well as technical and compositional complexity. It is preceded by the more lightweight Sonata No. 8 in G major, in which ideas and motifs chase each other until the end of the whirlwind finale. Also in G major, Beethoven’s tenth and final violin sonata closes the disc. It was composed almost ten years after the Kreutzer, and is certainly less spectacular. In no way is it a step backwards in artistic terms, however: exchanging drama and heroics with songful intimacy, it is rather one of the works through which Beethoven freed himself from the depression into which he had fallen after renouncing his ‘Immortal Beloved’.

1 October 2021
Camille Saint-Saëns: Symphonies No. 3 ‘Organ’ & ‘Urbs Roma’
Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Thierry Escaich, Jean-Jacques Kantorow
BIS2470 (1 hybrid SACD)
The present album is the second of two recorded by the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and Jean-Jacques Kantorow to commemorate the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Saëns. On the first instalment the team offered us ‘deeply impressive performances in stunning sound’ (theclassicreview.com) of the composer’s first and second symphonies and the unnumbered Symphony in A major, but now the time has come for Saint-Saëns’ crowning glory in the symphonic genre: his Symphony No. 3 in C minor, generally known as the ‘Organ Symphony’. The work was composed in 1886, and Saint-Saëns had planned to dedicate it to Liszt but the latter’s death the same year caused the dedication in the published score to be modified to ‘in memory of Franz Liszt’. It is written for a larger orchestra than his previous symphonies, with the unusual addition of a piano and an organ – the two instruments that Liszt (and Saint-Saëns himself) favoured. Without being a virtuoso vehicle, the organ part is central to the work – especially in the grandiose ending – and it is here performed by the renowned organist Thierry Escaich, playing the great organ of Liège’s Salle Philharmonique. On the disc, the symphony is preceded by the ‘Urbs Roma’ symphony, composed in 1856 by a 21-year-old Saint-Saëns. It was written for a competition, and its title – ‘the city of Rome’ – was one of the subjects prescribed by the organisers. In the absence of an explanation by the composer, it is unclear how the music relates to the subject. Another enigma is why Saint-Saëns omitted the symphony from his catalogue of works, even though it actually won him a first prize. In consequence, ‘Urbs Roma’ remained unpublished until 1974 and is rarely heard even today.

1 October 2021
Remembering
Per Nørgård and Kaija Saariaho Cello Concertos
Jakob Kullberg, BBC Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, Michael Francis, John Storgårds, Szymon Bywalec
BIS2602
On Remembering, the Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg continues his collaborations with two of the foremost Nordic composers: Per Nørgård and Kaija Saariaho. Praised internationally for his performances of the modern cello concerto, Kullberg regards the concerto form as the encounter of an individual soloist with the sound world of a composer. With living composers this approach often results in an unusual degree of collaboration, as the works gathered here bear witness to. Since 1999, Kullberg has enjoyed a close and unique partnership with Nørgård which has resulted in a large number of works. Between, the opening work on the disc, hails from a time before this, but Nørgård’s viola concerto Remembering Child in its version for the cello is very much an example of Kullberg’s process. He has not only transferred the concerto to his own instruments, but has also – in consultation with the composer – written his own cadenza as well as added details to the score. Likewise, at a climactic point exactly halfway through Saariaho’s concerto Notes on Light, Kullberg creates an expressive space of his own, with a two-minute cadenza he has composed himself. In this work, as well as in Nørgård’s Between, Kullberg is supported by the BBC Philharmonic, with Sinfonia Varsovia appearing in the closing concerto.

1 October 2021
Sergei Prokofiev
The Symphonies
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Litton
BIS2594 (5 hybrid SACDs)
Celebrating the 130th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev (1891 – 1953), the present box set brings together recordings of his seven symphonies made by Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra between 2012 and 2017. Released on separate discs, the series has received acclaim from international reviewers, variously highlighting the orchestra (‘Bergen Philharmonic plays gorgeously...’, ClassicsToday.com), the conductor (‘It is clear that Litton has a deep understanding of Prokofiev’s complex, protean style ...’, MusicWeb-International) and the recordings themselves (‘BIS’s blockbuster sound...’, Fanfare). The symphonies appear with their original couplings, including the popular suites from the film score to Lieutenant Kijé and the ballet The Love for Three Oranges. As an added bonus, the set includes the team’s very first recording for BIS: an innovative and highly praised version of Prokofiev’s three suites from Romeo and Juliet, with the 20 movements reordered to follow the ballet score.

BLUE GRIFFIN RECORDING

24 September 2021
Bold Beauty - Songs by Juliana Hall
Molly Fillmore, soprano; Elvia Puccinelli, piano
BGR559
American art song specialist Juliana Hall has composed some 60 song cycles, monodramas, and works of vocal chamber music described as “brilliant” (Washington Post), “beguiling” (Times of London), and “the most genuinely moving music of the afternoon” (Boston Globe) for renowned singers Brian Asawa, Stephanie Blythe, Molly Fillmore, Anthony Dean Griffey, Zachary James, David Malis, Randall Scarlata, Dawn Upshaw, and Kitty Whately. Hall’s music has been presented at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Wigmore Hall.

BR KLASSIK

1 October 2021
Giuseppe Verdi: Messa Da Requiem
Chor & Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Riccardo Muti
900199 (2 CDs)
The Munich performances of Verdi’s MESSA DA REQUIEM in October 1981 with Jessye Norman, Agnes Baltsa, José Carreras and Yevgeny Nesterenko, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Riccardo Muti were concert events that have hardly been equalled since, let alone surpassed – so powerful were the chorus and orchestra, so strictly did the maestro keep his eye on the interpretation, and so superb were the renowned soloists - singers of international renown who gave their all to achieve the best possible result. And they all succeeded brilliantly. Finally – four decades later - BR-KLASSIK can now present this absolute pinnacle in the performance history of Verdi’s MESSA DA REQUIEM on CD. The audience was spellbound and totally captivated, and there was glowing praise from the critics: the powerful work, they said, had hardly ever been heard like this on this side of the Alps; Riccardo Muti had demonstrated how Verdi’s Requiem should sound; this performance of Verdi’s requiem mass was authentic, frightening, tender and terrifying, providing a timid yet hopeful glimpse of transcendence; all in all, a truly resounding success.

1 October 2021
Olivier Messiaen
La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jesus- Christ; Poemes pour Mi; Chronochromie
Chor & Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Jenny Daviet, Matthias Ettmayr, Moon Yung Oh, Kent Nagano
900203 (3 CDs)
Few performers are more familiar with the musical language of the French composer Olivier Messiaen than the American conductor Kent Nagano. Nagano has had Messiaen’s orchestral works and oratorios in his programme for several decades now, and he also participated in the world premiere of ‘Saint François d’Assise’, Messiaen’s only opera. During the year 1982 Nagano spent his time with Messiaen in Paris, where not only an artistic relationship but also a close personal one developed between the two musicians. BR-KLASSIK has now released three masterpieces by the French composer with the magical sound, presented by Kent Nagano to the Munich concert audience in recent years as conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks: the oratorio ‘La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ’ (The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ) for chorus, seven solo instruments and orchestra, the song cycle ‘Poèmes pour Mi’ for soprano and orchestra, as well as ‘Chronochromie’ for large orchestra. These three live recordings document outstanding artistic events from the Munich concert programme of June 2017, July 2018 and February 2019.

BRILLIANT CLASSICS

1 November 2021
Arvo Pärt: The Collection
Spiegel im Spiegel; Für Alina; Tabula Rasa; Fratres; Cantus in Memoriam; Symphony No 5; Magnificat; Stabat Mater; St John Passion etc
Benjamin Hudson, Sebastian Klinger, Jürgen Kruse, Leslie Hatfield, Jeroen van Veen and many others
96389 (9 CDs)
Arvo Pärt (born 1935) is without doubt one of the best-known and - loved composers of today. His highly personal style, influenced by Gregorian Chant, is based on slowly shifting patterns, tintinnabuli (little bells), creating a meditative and hallucinatory effect, a visionary world of spiritual contemplation. Pärt’s sacred choral works enjoy a huge popularity with both the traditional classical audience as well as an open-minded new generation. This substantial collection brings together Pärt’s best-known and loved works, both instrumental and vocal: Spiegel im Spiegel, Für Alina, Tabula Rasa, Fratres, Magnificat, Berliner Messe, St John Passion, as well as organ works and the complete piano works.

1 November 2021
Rossini: The String Sonatas
Francesco Manara, Daniele Pascoletti, Massimo Polidori, Francesco Siragusa
95092 (2 CDs)
These sonatas, saucy and urbane, are the work of the young Rossini, who was possibly though not certainly 12 at the time of their composition while spending his summer holidays on the family estate of the Ravenna aristocracy. They are great fun, for the composer wrote them originally for two violins, cello, and double bass, and set a variety of obstacles for his friend the double bassist Agostino Triossi. Rossini’s youth in any case quickly becomes immaterial when listening to these works, which demonstrate a fluency and finesse that many composers would struggle to emulate whatever their age. The pieces were later transcribed by others for normal string quartet, for woodwind quartet, even for full string orchestra, in which capacity four of them were recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic and Karajan. However, Rossini’s original version retains an unrivalled freshness of expression, and no one can fail to be entertained by the overt drama of No 6, with its last movement rising in the chromatic waves so beloved of Berlioz, or the occasional galloping efforts of the double basses, taking their turn at figurations more at home on the violins.

1 November 2021
Valentini: Recorder Sonatas Op 5; La Villeggiatura
Cappella Musicale Enrico Stuart
96050 (2 CDs)
Roberto Valentini (1671–1747) was born in Leicester and most likely remained in England until his 21st birthday, when he emigrated to Italy, settling in Rome. A multi-instrumentalist, Valentini began his career in the papal city as a violinist, cellist and oboist, but is best known as a composer for the recorder, an instrument at which he excelled as a performer. After an initial and almost total adherence to the Corellian style, he gradually began to embrace the sonata collections being published in northern Europe and the stylistic features of a nascent galant style. His extant musical output consists solely of instrumental music, primarily dedicated to the recorder. Vaentini was also active as a recorder pedagogue, and he capitalised on the popularity the instrument was enjoying in his day among amateur musicians. As an expatriate who maintained close contact with his homeland, he may have even imported and marketed English recorders in his adopted country. There were two great makers active in London at the time – Peter Bressan and Thomas Stanesby – so copies of their instruments were selected for use on this recording.

1 November 2021
Malipiero: Complete Songs for Soprano & Piano
Vanìsiem Lied Duo - Paola Camponovo, Alfredo Blessano
96153 (3 CDs)
Belonging to the generation of Respighi but dying several decades later, Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973) is a far more varied composer than listeners to his post- Romantic chamber and orchestral music would guess. This album is both the most comprehensive publication ever issued of his song output on record, and a valuable opportunity to reappraise an often under- rated 20th-century composer. Malipiero wrote songs throughout his career, and in his late 20s found an affinity with the visionary and influential poet Gabriele d’Annunzio. Their artistic partnership began in 1909 with I sonetti delle fate, full of Wagnerian yearning in the spirit of Debussy’s incidental music to d’Annunzio’s St Sebastian play. The composer’s literary leanings and gifted word setting soon produced equally idiomatic settings of French poetry in a set of Cinq mélodies and an elliptical cycle of three poems (titled in English) by Georges Jean-Aubry, Keepsake. With Le stagioni italiche, however, Malipiero shows himself up to date and in sympathy with the latest developments in expressionist song writing from the pens of Mahler, Schoenberg and Webern, and with an ambition to match: a 40-minute cycle of four varied texts ranging from the 15th century to Malipiero’s own day.

1 November 2021
Telemann: 100 Menuets TWV 34:1-100
Andrea Coen, harpsichord
96249 (2 CDs)
“The most exciting thing on this journey of a hundred stages was to find in each individual minuet a unique and unrepeatable sense of originality: a hundred miniatures comprising a kaleidoscope as rich and coherent as was ever heard.” – Andrea Coen
Coen views the 100 Menuets as a continuation of his earlier recording on Brilliant Classics of Telemann’s Kleine Kammermusik, intended by the composer for any of various melodic instruments and figured bass accompaniment, or for the harpsichord alone. In accordance with performance practice of the time, Coen realized unwritten harmonies on the basis of the very detailed figured bass line Telemann provides, and he takes the exact same approach on this recording of Telemann’s two sets of 49 + 1 miniatures, which take up right where the Kleine Kammermusik ends – with a minuet. Telemann’s 100 Menuets are well-crafted miniatures of 16 to 40 measures; those of the second set of 50 (from 1730) are generally briefer than those of the first (from 1728). In both collections, the keys are arranged alphabetically so that each group of seven menuets (eight in the last) is confined to one or two tonal centres, a system Telemann may have devised in order to encourage novice players to master one small group of tonalities at a time.

1 November 2021
Galliard: 6 Sonatas for Recorder and Harpsichord Op 1
Fabiano Martignago, recorder; Angelica Selmo, harpsichord
96328
John Ernest Galliard (1687–1747) was a German composer, oboist, flautist and keyboard player active in England in the first half of the 18th century. He learned flute and oboe with Pierre Maréchal, a French player in the Celle court orchestra, which he himself joined in 1698. Shortly afterwards he studied composition in nearby Hannover with Agostino Steffani and Jean-Baptiste Farinelli. In 1706 the Celle orchestra was disbanded and Galliard went to London, where he became a court musician for Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, subsequently serving as capellmeister at Somerset House. He enjoyed a considerable reputation as an oboist, and as such he joined the orchestra of the Queen’s Theatre, playing in various productions of operas by Handel, who wrote oboe parts specifically for him. As a composer, Galliard’s output is not insubstantial, with principal works including numerous pantomimes, 6 English cantatas, 6 Solos for the Violoncello, 6 Sonatas for the Bassoon or Violoncello with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord, and the Six Sonatas for a Flute and a Thorough Bass recorded here – his Opus 1.

1 November 2021
Italian Contemporary Music for Harpsichord
Antonioni, Cacciatore, Capogrosso, Colasanti, Fedele, Filidei, Francesconi, Galante, Gervasoni, Lanza, Montalti, Morricone, Palumbo, Solbiati, Taccani, Vacchi
Luca Quintavalle, harpsichord
96408 (2 CDs)
The neoclassical composers of 20s Paris were among the first to revive the harpsichord as a ‘modern’ instrument, inspired by the stirrings of the ‘early music’ movement in the hands of musicians such as Nadia Boulanger and Wanda Landowska. However, the postwar modernists found little use for it and only in the last few decades, not least thanks to the skill and imagination of virtuosos such as Elisabeth Chojnacka, Mahan Esfahani and Luca Quintavalle, has the harpsichord become once more as viable and respectable an instrument for new music as it was in the days of d’Anglebert and Couperin. Indeed the earliest pieces on this survey of modern Italian music for the harpsichord date back to 1988: Mordenti and Neumi by Ennio Morricone, doyen of film and specifically spaghetti Western composers but whose training was thoroughly Classical. Formed of two interlocking chromatic canons, Mordenti in particular deserves wider attention. Plenty of other works here make play with the history of the instrument as well as its sonorities, such as Rumbling Gears, a hyperkinetic toccata by Sylvia Colasanti, and a Ricercare by Fabio Vacchi. Scarlatti is the inspiration for another piece of Vacchi’s as well as an ornate elaboration of the same idiom by Jacopo Baboni Schilingi in Scarlet K141. The Petit Ordre by Carlo Galante explicitly returns to the world of Couperin but now tinged with modern Quando il passato era ancora presente by harmonies to evoke a lost world. There are several pieces from the last two years that inevitably reflect on the experience of solitude enforced by the pandemic, such as Short Stories by Vittorio Montalti and Leonardo Marino.

1 November 2021
Gilardino: Guitar Music Inspired by Spain
Antonio Rugolo, guitar
96411
In this the year he turns 80, Angelo Gilardino has amassed a vast and varied oeuvre, has received numerous prestigious awards and is performed regularly by musicians of the highest calibre, like the excellent guitarist on this recording, who plays his music all over the world. The pieces assembled on this recording highlight a particular aspect of Gilardino’s poetic spirit: his combining of the popular and the mystical, built predominantly around modal and diatonic writing, which allows all listeners to rediscover places of love and of suffering. With its roots in Hispanic and Mediterranean culture, the music showcases better than any other the depth embedded in the guitar’s sound: dark yet crystal clear, as piercing and fleeting as humanity’s most authentic experiences of love on Earth.

1 November 2021
Heinrich & Carl Baermann: Music for Clarinet & Piano Vol 2
Dario Zingales, clarinet; Fausto Quintabà, piano
96449
The Italian clarinettist Dario Zingales studied in Milan with Luigi Magistrelli, another fixture on the Brilliant Classics roster of inquisitive pioneers in the field of Classical and early-Romantic chamber music. Zingales made his debut on the label in 2018 with the first volume of a fascinating series dedicated to the father and son who revolutionised clarinet playing – and therefore composing for the instrument – during the first half of the 19th century. Heinrich Baermann inspired Weber to write his clarinet concertos and show pieces. His son Carl then developed the instrument’s range and action so that it could ever more uncannily resemble the human voice in liquidity and shades of tonal colour. Both father and son also composed, so that their playing and technical innovations would be showcased by repertoire which exploited their virtuosity. This second volume of chamber music presents five pieces, four of them still unpublished and here receiving their first recordings. They include three theme-and-variation sets by Heinrich Baermann, originally written for clarinet and orchestra and here performed in an arrangement with piano accompaniment. They alternate demanding moments of virtuosity with cantabile sections ideally suited to the clarinet’s nature as a vocal instrument, emphasised by Baermann with operatic recitative sections.

1 November 2021
Dauprat: Music for Horn
David Fliri, horn; Wolfgang Brunner, piano
96480
Louis-François Dauprat (1781–1868) was a French hornist, horn teacher and composer active in Paris. As a child he was a chorister at Notre Dame Cathedral, and from 1794 he was taught to play a cor basse (low horn) by Philip Kenn, first at the Institut National de Musique and later in the first horn class of the Conservatoire. After touring Italy and Egypt with various musical groups between 1799 and 1801, he played at the Théâtre Montansier from 1801 to 1806. Dauprat later decided to return to study at the Conservatoire, this time for harmony and composition. He also studied with Anton Reicha, who composed the horn parts in his quintets for woodwinds specifically for Dauprat. Dauprat can be seen as the pioneer of the Parisian horn tradition. His compositions move stylistically between the classical and romantic periods. In addition to operas and symphonies, he composed a whole series of works for solo horns: horn duets, horn trios, horn quartets, horn sextets, horn with string quartet and much more. These works are almost completely forgotten today, but they are precious treasures of early- Romantic chamber music, not only because of their enormous virtuosity but also because of the special cantabile qualities of the horn parts.

1 November 2021
Vivaldi: Le Quattro Stagioni; Tartini: Devil's Trill Sonata - for violin solo
Mauro Tortorelli, violin
96491
Both of these Baroque masterpieces have proved themselves perenially adaptable to any number of arrangements, for ensembles from string quartet to wind ensemble. However, Mauro Tortorelli has devised the genuinely novel concept of arranging them for solo violin. This entails playing not only the elaborate solo parts but filling in as much of the accompaniment – string orchestra in Vivaldi’s case, basso continuo for the ‘Devil’s Trill’ – as can be fitted on the four strings of a violin. Tortorelli’s arrangement make good
scholarly sense in its concentration on the ‘art of the violin’ which stimulated so much composition for the instrument in 18th- century Italy. However, his performance, vibrant and imaginatively registered, makes vivid musical theatre on its own terms. The effect could be compared to a professional- standard busker, playing with familiar texts and bringing an improvisational fantasy to them. Long established as one of Italy’s most distinguished teachers as well as performers, Mauro Tortorelli is presently professor of violin at the Gesualdo conservatoire in Potenza as well as an active chamber musician.

CANTALOUPE MUSIC

1 October 2021
Tyshawn Sorey
For George Lewis
Alarm Will Sound
CA21172 (2 CDs)
Composer and musician Tyshawn Sorey has been described, in a recent feature for the New York Times magazine, as ‘arresting a figure in contemporary classical and experimental new music as he is in jazz.’ A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2017, Sorey has carved out his own territory as an artist and thinker whose range of vision, emotion and visceral power has made him a driving and defining force behind a young Black vanguard in new music. This pristinely recorded double-disc collaboration with the vaunted chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound documents two unique works — the stately, still For George Lewis (dedicated to the legendary avant garde trombonist and composer) and the thorny, dramatic Autoschediasms (inspired by the real-time improvisational ‘conductions’ of Butch Morris, with a special nod to Anthony Braxton’s ‘language music’ system). Taken together, these performances — part of which were recorded in a video chat during the pandemic — find the composer testing the limits of the ensemble’s imagination and concentration, and paint a wide-angle sonic canvas that is by turns taut, trenchant, and profoundly moving.

CAPRICCIO

8 October 2021
Alfred Schnittke Film Music, Vol 5
Rundfunk Chor Berlin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin / Frank Strobel
C5350
Alfred Schnittke‘s film music encapsulates almost everything that characterises the Russian composer‘s compositional style. A self-described polystylist, he began writing for film in the 1960s, penning 66 film scores between 1962 and 1984 for Soviet film companies. His method of drawing on the past was rejected by the avant- garde but embraced by filmgoers and – after he invited the film music expert Frank Strobel to condense his film scores into suites – concertgoers too. Volume five in this series of Schnittke‘s film music presents music from the films Tagessterne (‘The Stars of the Day‘), Der Liebling des Publikums (‘The Favorite‘) and Vater Sergius (‘Father Sergius‘), recorded with Strobel and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.

8 October 2021
Hans Werner Henze: Das Verratene Meer (The Sea Betrayed)
Josh Lovell, Vera-Lotte Boecker, Bo Skovhus, Eric Van Heyningen, Kangmin Justin Kim, Stefan Astakhov, Martin Habler, Jorg Schneider, Simone Young
C5460 (2 CDs)
‘I find myself increasingly occupied with matters of the human soul, its sublimation and spiritual abyss. Certainly my opera The Ocean Betrayed betrays this preoccupation. This music has been to Hades and back, with Monteverdi and myself. ‘Hans-Werner Henze based the story for Das verratene Meer (‘The Sea Betrayed‘) on Japanese writer Yuko Mishima‘s 1963 novel, Gogo no Eiko (‘The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea‘). The book offers an unsettling scenario’ in which the struggle for normality is doomed to failure‘. A young widow, Fusako, falls for a merchant navy officer, Ryuji, creating tension with her son, Noboru, who belongs to a violent gang that will exact revenge on the widow‘s lover. Through symphonic interludes, the ‘angry, betrayed sea‘ becomes the drama‘s witness and its narrative voice in Henze‘s painfully dark and brutal opera.

8 October 2021
100 Christmas Meditation
Wiener Sängerknaben, Vienna Boys’ Choir, Dresdner Kreuzchor, Thomanerchor Leipzig, Regensburger Domspatzen, Rheinische Kantorei, Ruth Ziesak, Ann Monoyios, Maria Zadori, Jochen Kowalski, Alex Kohler, David Cordier, Concerto Köln, Deutsche Bachsolisten, Neues Berliner Kammerorchester, Dresdner Barocksolisten, Lautten Compagney, Academy of London
C7371 (5 CDs)
Following the success of 100 Christmas Classics (Capriccio C7331) comes Christmas Meditation, featuring 100 choral and instrumental works from across the centuries. The set encompasses sacred Renaissance treasures including Bach‘s Christmas Oratorio and Bach/Gounod‘s Ave Maria, Handel‘s Baroque masterpiece Messiah (‘He shall feed his flock‘) and classic Christmas carols such as It Came Upon A Midnight Clear by Richard Storrs Willis and Franz Xaver Gruber‘s Stille Nacht (‘Silent Night‘). Featuring some of the most renowned choral institutions, Christmas Meditation offers listeners a classical Christmas to remember.

CEDILLE RECORDS

8 October 2021
Ludwig van Beethoven
Complete String Quartets, Volume 2: The Middle Quartets
Dover Quartet
CDR 90000 206 (3 CDs)
The Dover Quartet, ‘the young American string quartet of the moment’ (The New Yorker) unveils the second installment in its critically acclaimed Beethoven quartet cycle on Cedille Records. The Dover’s three-disc set of Beethoven’s ‘Middle Quartets’ includes the three Op. 59 ‘Razumovsky’ Quartets, infused with Russian folk tunes; the graceful ‘Harp,’ Op. 74, named for its plucked string figures; and the intense Op. 95 ‘Serioso,’ a forward- looking experiment that Beethoven originally intended ‘for a small circle of connoisseurs.’ The Dover Quartet’s first Beethoven release, a traversal of the Op. 18 quartets, has garnered international praise. England’s The Strad said the ensemble exhibits ‘a beguiling freshness and spontaneity that creates the impression of these relatively early masterworks arriving hot off the press.’ In concert, the quartet has presented three complete Beethoven cycles, including the University at Buffalo’s famous ‘Slee Cycle’ — which has offered annual Beethoven quartet cycles since 1955 and has featured the likes of the Budapest, Guarneri, and Cleveland Quartets.

CHAMPS HILL RECORDS

22 October 2021
Reels, Drones & Jigs
Fenella Humphreys, Andrew Berridge, Cara Berridge, Lindsey Ellis, James Turnbull, Sara Sarvamaa, David Horwich, Eanna Monaghan, Libby Burgess
CHRCD154
Perpetuo ensemble presents Reels, Drones & Jigs inspired by the tumultuous weather and landscape of the British Isles. The pieces recorded here, several for the first time, flow from the land and the traditional music of those who survived or struggled because of it. There are laments and sad airs, jaunty dances and haunting echoes of the past from such composers as Judith Weir, James MacMillan, Peter Maxwell Davies, David Matthews and Aidan O’Rourke. Perpetuo founder James Turnbull comments: ‘At its heart this repertoire reflects the way in which composers have been inspired by traditions while breathing new life into the ideas they explore. Perpetuo works in much the same way. We love discovering new music and making it appealing and relevant to new and existing audiences.’

CHANDOS

29 October 2021
Brahms Viola Sonatas 1 & 2; Schumann Adagio and Allegro
Philip Dukes, viola; Peter Donohoe, piano
CHAN20146
Recognised as one of the world’s leading viola players, Philip Dukes has enjoyed a career spanning over thirty years as an accomplished concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He joins forces with Peter Donohoe, acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for this extraordinary recording of works by Brahms and Schumann. As he writes in his booklet note, Philip wanted to find a new approach to these works: ‘I wanted [my interpretation] to sound fresh and alive, almost as when I was looking at the scores
for the first time all those years ago, but with the secret benefit of all that
subsequent experience under my belt. So, I did just that. I purchased a new, excellent,
well researched edition, I listened to all manner of different recordings (of the versions both for clarinet and for viola), and I devoted three months to the project, the culmination of which is what you will hear.’

29 October 2021
Evoke
Ferio Saxophone Quartet
CHAN 20140
Evoke is the third album of the Ferio Saxophone Quartet, following their previous critically acclaimed albums Flux and Revive. In this recording the Quartet are joined by the pianist Timothy End for a programme of original works and arrangements for piano and saxophone quartet. Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite opens the proceedings, followed by Iain Farrington’s extremely descriptive Animal Parade. Next is Carmen Suite, a virtuosic arrangement of excerpts from Bizet’s opera, before the programme closes with the quintet Memorias by the Spanish composer Pedro Iturralde Ochoa. All the arrangements are by Iain Farrington and recorded here for the first time.

29 October 2021
Mendelssohn String Quartets Vol 2 - Op 13 in A minor, Op 44 No 1 in D and Op 44 No 2 in E minor
Doric String Quartet
CHAN 20257(2) (2 CDs)
Following an exceptional critical reception of their first volume of Mendelssohn Quartets, the Doric String Quartet now completes the project. As in the case of the previous volume, the players juxtapose one of the early quartets (No. 2) with two of the later compositions (Nos 3 and 4), composed a decade or so later. Composed in 1827, the Second Quartet pays homage to Beethoven’s outstanding contribution to the genre (Beethoven died in March of that year), but this is no simple pastiche. It is a confident work, Mendelssohn’s individual voice already clearly present. The later quartets are perhaps less overtly revolutionary – Mendelssohn was now an established figure and a recipient of Royal commissions – but nevertheless remain clear milestones in the development of the genre.

29 October 2021
Britten Les Illuminations; Canteloube Chants d’Auvergne
Mari Eriksmoen, soprano; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra / Edward Gardner
CHSA 5289 (Hybrid SACD)
Following successful appearances at the Opéra- comique, in Paris, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Oper Frankfurt, Komische Oper Berlin, and Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, the Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen is undoubtedly a rising star. On the concert stage she has made important recent appearances with the Orchestre de Paris, Berliner Philharmoniker, Oslo Philharmonic, and Münchner Philharmoniker, among others. Here she joins the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner for a powerful album of orchestral songs, coupling Britten’s Les Illuminations and Four French Songs with a selection of Canteloube’s inimitable Songs of the Auvergne. Eriksmoen spent a year studying in Paris, and proves an effective and natural singer in the French language. As she mentions in her programme note: ‘It is highly demanding to sing in French when it is not one’s native tongue, but I have always felt at home when singing in French and nurture an emotional attachment to the French language.’

CONVIVIUM RECORDS

1 October 2021
Hugh Benham
For Piano by Hugh Benham
Natalie Tsaldarakis, Panayotis Archontides
CR061
For Piano is a collection of pieces composed in a broadly classical style. It explores the variety of col-our, sound and tone achievable from one of the most versatile of all instruments, and is designed to be accessible to a wide range of players and listeners.’- Hugh Benham

CON BRIO RECORDINGS

21 Sept 2021
Debussy: Complete Préludes
Woori Kim Smith, piano

CORO

1 October 2021
Bob Chilcott, Jan Sandström, Matthew Martin, Leontovich, Cecilia McDowall, Kim Porter, Bennett, Alan Bullard, Eric Whitacre, Jonathan Dove, Gustav Holst
Carol of the Bells
The Sixteen / Harry Christophers
COR16188
The Sixteen contrasts traditional with contemporary in this choral feast of festive music. Bob Chilcott’s sumptuous Advent Antiphons based on plainsong melodies anticipate the coming of Christmas and feature alongside Mykola Leontovich’s much-loved Carol of the Bells, Richard Rodney Bennett’s stunning Susanni and Eric Whitacre’s shimmering Lux aurumque. Interspersed with the beautiful simplicity of traditional carols, this is a Christmas collection to savour.

CPO

1 October 2021
Georg Philipp Telemann
Complete Violin Concertos, Vol. 7
The Wallfisch Band, Elizabeth Wallfisch
777881-2
Each of the three violin concertos by Telemann on the seventh volume of our complete series merits separate consideration in view of its singular musical character and special transmission history. In two cases, stylistic descriptions and evaluations are bound up with the question of the authenticity of these compositions. This applies to the Overture Suites TWV 55:A8 and TWV 55:A4. Our expert booklet author Dr. Wolfgang Hirschmann regards the attribution of the first suite to Telemann as entirely justified, even though it involves a rather early example of this composer’s concerts en ouverture. The interpretation of this work by the Wallfisch Band is multifaceted and just as virtuosic rendering that makes a compelling case for this piece situated between the concerto and suite genres. Although the second overture suite really should be assigned to the ranks of the anonymous, Adolf Hoffmann categorically labeled it as a piece by Telemann in his dissertation on the orchestral suites (1969) and classified it as a ‘masterpiece’.The solo violin is highly effectively employed along with a finely developed feeling for tone-color effects, and the movements are ambitiously elaborated in length and form. No matter how plausible the case for Telemann’s authorship may be – these works enable us to participate in a fascinating journey back in time to European music culture around 1720.

1 October 2021
Henri Bertini
Nonetto Op 107 in D; Grand Trio Op 43 in A
Linos Ensemble
555363-2
In his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik Robert Schumann gave numerous fellow musicians who rubbed him the wrong way blunt criticism, but he never found anything to hold against Henri Bertini, a French composer who was twelve years his senior. Although he was a little indirect in his praise, he was right: in the music of this once highly esteemed pianist, piano teacher, and composer there is nothing irritating, nothing that might offend good taste – and yet we never have the impression that here we have a composer who eliminated every trace of ‘modernity’ merely to win public favor. Friendliness apparently was a characteristic trait of this musician who was born in London in 1798 and died in Meylan, near Grenoble, in 1876. He never attempted to go at everything headfirst to prove that it was possible to shatter the sound barrier. His countless études and learning pieces were so very popular internationally because a natural music flows in them, offering welcome expressive opportunities to the pupil. And his finely crafted chamber compositions – from the duo sonata to the nonet – form a catalogue’s trove of treasures combining a very fine ear with great narrative talent. Two of these magnificent pieces from the late 1830s – the Piano Trio op. 43 and the Nonet op. 107 – inaugurate this vibrant work series that would be a top wish for a complete recording edition and definitely in every way represents a valuable contribution to the repertoire.

1 October 2021
Franz Ignaz Beck
L’Isle deserte, Opéra comique in one acte
Ana Maria Labin, Samantha Gaul, Theodore Browne, Fabian Kelly, La Stagione Frankfurt, Michael Schneider
555336-2
Franz Ignaz Beck is one of the most fascinating composers of the eighteenth century, a musical visionary as well as a ‘genuine European’ with roots in Mannheim. His opera L’isle déserte, long regarded as lost, has resurfaced in a score manuscript in France and now is celebrating its recording premiere with La Stagione Frankfurt. Magnificent music and a magnificent text! Beck’s L’isle déserte is particularly interesting in the context of music history: first, because it is by a composer who continued to await discovery; second, because a composer active in France availed himself of an Italian libretto – which continued to be an exception before 1780, especially when Metastasio was the librettist. Beck’s L’isle déserte is thus a model example of a material and text-historical adaptation and even more so of a transfer to the music theater. In other words, in Beck’s version of ‘The Deserted Island’ Italian libretto artistry and French music theater meet, while special appeal is generated by this composer from Germany, an émigré, so to speak, who was not operating with French as his genuinely native language.

1 October 2021
Ignaz Pleyel
Preußische Quartette 10-12 (Benton 340-342)
Pleyel Quartett Köln
777779-2
When Ignaz Pleyel concluded his work on the last of his twelve “Prussian Quartets”, he had already garnered a great deal of experience as a composer of string quartets. His unmistakable musical voice had brought him countless admirers – including, not least, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who enthusiastically wrote of the Quartets op. 1 in a letter to his father. The dedicatory preface suggests that Pleyel had composed all of its pieces in Italy. He described them as ‘musically profound’, thereby indicating that Haydn’s Quartets op. 20 may have been their immediate model. The fugue movements in the Quartets Benton 328 and 330 are fascinating. Although Pleyel claimed that he had written them in the Italian style, Mozart was not fooled here: in their refined elegance he recognized the unique signature of Pleyel’s teacher Joseph Haydn. Nevertheless, the pupil had succeeded in writing a brilliant series of quartets in keeping with his own ideas and combining the clarity of the Italian style with the wealth of technical imagination characterizing the Viennese style.

1 October 2021
Vespro da Camera: Monteverdi & Friends
Biagio Marini, Giovanni Rovetta, Dario Castello, Claudio Monteverdi, Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Rovetta, Giovanni Rigatti
Marie Luise Werneburg, Alexander Schneide, Johannes Gaubitz, Dominik Wörner, Musica Fiata, Roland Wilson
555317-2
There can be no doubt that Claudio Monteverdi was a great composer and that he wrote many a magnificent work for St. Mark’s Cathedral. Yet, after many long years, we are now gradually coming to the realization that the Venetian musical universe was not limited to San Marco. Without wanting to diminish Monteverdi’s genius, we have to admit that this master was a member of a gifted, innovative circle of composers whose creative production was also beneficial to him. On the present new release we hear sacred works, including rare Psalm settings, not only by Monteverdi himself but also by Giovanni Rovetta, Antonio Rigatti, and Dario Costello. The musical language employed by Monteverdi in his later sacred works displays a theatrical character, rich affections, and a predilection for strong contrasts that can hardly be distinguished from the style of his late madrigals and operas. His substitute Giovanni Rovetta and his pupil Giovanni Antonio Rigatti used the very same language. They more clearly combine the instruments with the singers, at times have them imitate the song lines, and in other places fill out the textures of the tutti segments with them. With their four vocal parts, two high instruments, and the plenum sound of the organ, the homophonic passages create the illusion of a much larger ensemble. Might it be possible that Monteverdi was influenced by his younger colleagues, just as they were influenced by him?

DANACORD

1 October 2021
Cello Stories
Ida Riegels
DACOCD 848
When the Cello Speaks - A cello speaks a language without words that everyone understands. It tells more clearly and more directly than anything else about that, which is most important. About everything that can not be said with words. Stories from another dimension without physical realities, where one can soar with weightless tones, lose the sense of up and down in the metamorphosis of harmonies and forget oneself in the hypnosis of rhythm. TRAVELING WITH A CELLO - After graduating from The Royal Danish Academy of Music I had an immense thirst for taking my cello out on adventures. I went to the East and West, and traveled in Bhutan, India, Thailand, Japan, USA, Canada and Europe with my cello on the back. Travelling with a cello is like an invitation for adventures. I could never have imagined the kind of surprising, odd and eye opening experiences my cello has caused. It is as if a cello makes anybody friendly. I think it is true that with music the distance between people disappears.

1 October 2021
Thomas Jensen Legacy, Vol 3
Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Endre Wolf, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir / Thomas Jensen
DACOCD 913 (2 CDs)
Two previously unissued broadcast performances of Brahms make major additions to the recorded legacy of Thomas Jensen. A long unavailable, newly remastered studio recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto also contributes to an appreciation of the Danish conductor as a dynamic figure who could inspire the most exciting and flexibly moulded interpretations of the central orchestral repertoire.

DECCA CLASSICS

5 November 2021
Muse
Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason
4851630.SIG
A Concert Program of Works by Barber and Rachmaninov, including each composer's Cello Sonata and a selection of songs transcribed for cello and piano

DECCA GOLD

15 October 2021
Cameron Carpenter: Bach & Hanson
American organist Cameron Carpenter releases his first album on Decca Gold, a recording of J.S. Bach’s The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 juxtaposed with his own transcription of Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 in D-flat Major, Opus 30, W45, "Romantic." Both works are performed on the International Touring Organ, the American digital concert organ designed by Cameron Carpenter. Written to showcase the technical and virtuosic possibilities of keyboard instruments in general, The Goldberg Variations is as much a look into the baroque master’s sense of compositional invention as it is a tour de force for performers. Bach originally wrote the variations for harpsichord with two keyboards, and Cameron Carpenter’s version for organ reinterprets its roots, even as it forges in a different direction. His custom-made organ beautifully serves the many technical demands of the piece and adds a palette of tonal variations to the composer’s harmonic and melodic inventions. American composer Howard Hanson’s (1896-1981) Symphony No. 2, the "Romantic", was commissioned by Maestro Serge Koussevitzky to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930 and has become his best known work. The theme for the symphony was supposedly written while visiting Interlochen Center for the Arts, and in 1931, the composer would gift the piece to Interlochen founder Joseph Maddy as the theme song for its new music camp. The haunting nature of the melody would become a part of movie history as the theme played over the end scene of the iconic 1979 science fiction film, Alien.

DELPHIAN RECORDS

29 October 2021
Pyrotechnia: Fire + Fury from from 18th Century Italy
Bojan Čičić; The Illyria Consort
DCD34249
Bojan tackles four violin concertos by Vivaldi, Tartini and Locatelli with unbridled virtuosity, digging deep in this repertoire which is rarely performed due to the near-impossibility of the writing. Including the premiere recording of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in D major RV213a, this is album is the culmination of many, many months of research, practice and resolve.

22 October 2021
Robert Fayrfax: Music for Tudor Kings & Queens
Ensemble Pro Victoria
DCD34265
In that golden age of British choral music half a millennium ago, when polyphonic voices soared in the vaulting of the great late-Gothic churches and chapels that seemed to have been built for them to fill, one composer was in especial favour with the royal family: Robert Fayrfax. A newly reconstructed movement from a mass for the private wedding of Henry VIII and Cathe- rine of Aragon, later treasured in darker times by the recusant gentry for its Catholic associations, sits here alongside exuberant masterpieces from the Eton Choirbook and, in intimate contrast, Fayrfax’s seven surviving courtly songs, brought together on a single recording for the first time. An exciting new signing for Delphian, Ensemble Pro Victoria’s young professionals bring both freshness and individuality to Fayrfax’s music in the five hundredth anniversary year of his death.

22 October 2021
Song
The Hermes Experiment
DCD34274
Hot on the heels of their acclaimed debut HERE WE ARE, The Hermes Experiment’s second Delphian album is an equally bold statement. Songs commissioned specially for the ensemble – by Philip Venables, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and others – are interleaved with new arrangements (of composers including Barbara Strozzi, Clara Schumann and Lili Boulanger) for the group’s distinctive line-up of voice, clarinet, harp and double bass.

22 October 2021
The Myth of Venice: Sixteenth Century music for Cornetto & Keyboards
Gawain Glenton; Silas Wollston
DCD34261
With the arrival of Adrian Willaert at St Mark’s Cathedral in 1527, Venice at last boasted a musician of international reputation to match its growing image as a ‘city rich in gold but richer in renown, mighty in works but mightier in virtue’. The establishment of Venice as the world leader in music publishing, and the coming and going of international musicians, made the Floating City anything but insular, and artistic competi- tion was order of the day, with organists duelling to outdo each other in invention and grace; while on the streets a different culture of lively dances gave rise to more opportunities for instrumentalists to show off their improvisational skills. Intimate yet exuberant, scholarly yet unre- strained, Gawain Glenton and Silas Wollston’s exploration of the often dazzlingly virtuosic repertoire shows how the enduring ‘myth of Venice’ was built in sound just as much as it was in marble.

15 October 2021
Lliam Paterson: Say it to the Still World
Sean Shibe; The Choir of King’s College, London
DCD34246
Multi-award-winning Sean Shibe, widely recognised as the leading guitarist of his generation, joins Delphian regulars The Choir of King’s College London in these beguilingly conceived works by Shibe’s friend and compatriot Lliam Patterson, for the rare combination of choir with electric guitar. Say it to the still world casts Shibe as Orpheus with his lyre, in a work which draws fragments of text from poetry by Rilke to meditate on language, loss and the transcendent power of song. Elegy for Esmeralda is a rawer, angrier response to grief, while poppies spread – composed especially, like the other two works, for the performers who bring it to life here – is a further testament to art’s ability to reflect and transform the outer world.

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

24 September 2021
Florence Price: Symphonies 1 & 3
Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin
The digital release launches a planned series of recordings celebrating the achievements of the first African-American woman to have a work performed by a major American orchestra. The Philadelphia Orchestra recorded the symphonies in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in early 2021 and will perform Price’s Symphony No. 1 at Carnegie Hall in February 2022. “We’re delighted to record the music of Florence Price for Deutsche Grammophon,” comments Nézet-Séguin. “So much important music around the world has been neglected, not because of the quality of the work, but for superficial reasons. It’s so important to me and to The Philadelphia Orchestra to look at these works, bring back the music of composers we believe in, like Florence Price, and continue broadening the repertoire to give a much more diverse representation of who we are as a society today.” Born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1885, Florence Price received instruction in music from her mother and went on to study composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston and privately with its director George Whitefield Chadwick. After her marriage, she and her family moved to Chicago to escape the racial conflicts of the south. She then divorced her abusive husband and focused on bringing up her children, supporting the family by working as a pianist, organist, teacher, and composer. Her Symphony No. 1 in E minor (1931–32), winner of the Rodman Wanamaker Contest in Musical Composition, was first performed in 1933 by Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Stock’s support encouraged Price to create other large-scale works. Her Third Symphony, originally commissioned by the Federal Music Project during the Great Depression, was first performed in 1940.

DIVINE ART

8 October 2021
Eugène Ysaÿe: Violin Discoveries
Sherban Lupu, violin; Henri Bonamy, piano; Liepāja Symphony Orchestra / Paul Mann
DDA 25222
First recordings of recently-discovered works by one of the greatest violin virtuosos of the 19th and early 20th centuries, whose legacy has inspired generations of musicians. This album presents for the first time several works for violin and piano ranging from 1885 to 1924, and a previously unknown Violin Concerto in G minor from 1910. Romanian violinist Sherban Lupu is accompanied by pianist Henri Bonamy, and the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann.

8 October 2021
Ghost Songs: Contemporary music and words from Ireland
Síle Denvir, vocals, harp; Laetare Vocal Ensemble / Róisín Blunnie
MSV 28599
A unique collection of words and music by mainly contemporary poets, authors and composers from Ireland revealing the rich and deeply meaningful musical and literary traditions of Ireland, inspired by folk tales, fantasy and the reality of centuries of ‘trouble’. Readers are authors Marina Carr, Paula Meehan and Dairena Ní Chinnéide, radio presenter Carl Corcoran, with Síle Denvir (vocals, harp) and the Dublin-based Laetare Vocal Ensemble conducted by Róisín Blunnie.

8 October 2021
Seria Ludo - piano music by Graham Lynch
Albert Kim, piano; Paul Sánchez, piano
DDA 25221
The main focus of the album is the two suites from the White Book series, based on artwork by Sir Christopher Le Brun and other major artists, played by two American pianists, Albert Kim (who gave the US premiere of White Book 2 in 2018) and Paul Sánchez, for whom Graham Lynch wrote the new suite White Book 3. The album also includes a work derived and inspired by the baroque keyboard works of Couperin, and the flamenco-tango Ay!

8 October 2021
Eric Craven: Pieces for Pianists Vol 2
Mary Dullea, piano
MSV 28602
Eric Craven and Mary Dullea continue their creative partnership with a fascinating program containing another 25 pieces written in Craven’s unique non-prescriptive style, a sequel to Volume 1 released at the beginning of the year.

8 October 2021
Hybrids, Hooks and Hints - violin works by Dan Dediu
Irina Muresanu, violin; Valentina Sandu-Dediu, piano
MSV 28621
First recordings of music for violin/piano and solo violin by the brilliant Romanian composer, Dan Dediu, which the composer states are all characterised by a process of “hybridisation” – taking a piece of existing music, transforming it and combining with new material, such as in the ‘SonatOpera’ Don Giovanni/Juan, which brings together elements of Mozart and Richard Strauss.

DYNAMIC

15 October 2021
Gaetano Donizetti Le Nozze in Villa
Orchestra Gli Originali, Coro Donizetti Opera, Gaia Petrone, Omar Montanari, Fabio Capitanucci, Giorgio Misseri, Manuela Custer, Claudia Urru, Daniele Lettieri, Stefano Montanari
CDS7908 (2 CDs)
This early, long-forgotten opera by Donizetti was staged during the 2020 edition of the Festival dedicated to the composer, with full-Covid 19 safety measures on. Fondazione Donizetti and its scholars took on the challenge to stage a work which had no original printed copy of the libretto, no autograph score and a second act quintet – ‘Aura gentil, che mormori’ – which was completely missing. This latter was commissioned to Elio and Rocco Tanica with the collaboration of Enrico Melozzi, who created a new version which ‘seamlessly blended with the rest of the score.’ (Bachtrack). The mise-en-scène is contemporary, imaginative and playful.

15 October 2021
Echo - Works for Harpsichord
Johann Sebastian Bach
Alessandra Artifoni
CDS7922
Johann Sebastian Bach‘s Clavier-Übung II elevates two differing national styles to create a pair of incomparable masterpieces. The Italian Concerto uses the spectacular effects available from a two-manual harpsichord to represent contrasts between different groups of instruments, while the French Overture, Bach’s longest keyboard suite, explores French harmonies, rhythms, ornamentation and melodic invention in the dark and dramatic key of B minor. Both the multiple counterpoint of the Fantasia and Fugue in A minor and the unusual harmonic richness of the Sonata in D minor further represent Bach’s mastery of the keyboard and genius as a composer. For the Dynamic label, Alessandra Artifoni has recorded two double CDs dedicated to J.S. Bach’s harpsichord music, the French and English suites. Alessandra Artifoni teaches harpsichord and basso continuo at the ‘Centro Studi Musica & Arte’ in Florence, where she also coordinates the Early Music Laboratories, and at the Bergamo Conservatory.

FS RECORDS

1 October 2021
A Ceremony of Psalms - Works by Paul Drayton, Gerald Finzi, Owain Park, John Rutter
St Mary’s Singers, Abbey Brass, Carolyn Craig, Esmée Loughlin-Dickenson, Joseph Wicks
FSR191
St Mary’s Singers and Abbey Brass join forces to present the world premiere recording of Paul Drayton’s A Ceremony of Psalms (2016), alongside the piece which it was conceived as a companion to, John Rutter’s much-loved Gloria. Also featured is the first recording of Drayton’s Three Places in Old Cornwall, a vivid triptych celebrating the unique and beautiful Cornish landscape and played here by its dedicatee, Cornish trumpeter Paul Thomas and organist Joseph Wicks.

GENUIN CLASSICS

1 October 2021
Inspired by Bach: Works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ferruccio Busoni, Franz Liszt, Francis Poulenc, Damian Scholl, Eugène Ysaÿe
Samira Speigel
GEN21756
Samira Spiegel is an exceptional talent: she has won prizes at international competitions on both the violin and the piano! She now presents an exciting CD featuring music for both instruments inspired by Bach. On the piano, the works range from Franz Liszt’s ‘Fantasie und Fuge’ to Busoni’s adaptation of the ‘Chaconne’ and Francis Poulenc’s ‘Waltz Improvisation’ to Damian Scholl’s ‘une fleuve tranquille’ from 2013. On the violin, she juxtaposes Eugène Ysaye’s fifth solo sonata, which is genuinely haunted by Bach, with the original ‘Chaconne’ by the great Leipzig master. An adventurous and ludicrously virtuosic ride through styles and centuries!

1 October 2021
Ludwig van Beethoven
String Trios, Op 3 and Op 8
Trio Boccherini
GEN21757
Ludwig van Beethoven left only a few works for the string trio, and, unlike his quartets, they are played far too seldomly. The Trio Boccherini now presents a complete recording of these trios on the GENUIN label to draw attention to this. The program includes Beethoven’s first two works in this genre, the Trio op. 3 and the Serenade op. 8. Ranging between evening entertainment and the concert hall, between music from his youth and maturity, the works are in any case true Beethoven: full of spirit, profound and with great élan! The Trio Boccherini plays historically informed without being dogmatic, technically sophisticated without being hard-nosed – in other words, with passion and verve!

1 October 2021
Ernsthaft?!
Alexander von Zemlinsky, Maurice Maeterlinck, Sven Daigger, Arnold Schönberg
Alice Lackner, mezzo-soprano; Imke Lichtwark, piano
GEN21758
Frivolous young ladies, sisters with suicidal desires, crows, a depressed wanderer, and many other strange characters meet in colorful musical garb on the GENUIN debut CD of the lied duo Alice Lackner (mezzo soprano) and Imke Lichtwark (piano). Music by Schönberg and Zemlinsky, written for the legendary Überbrettl cabaret in Berlin, is combined with contemporary music by Sven Daigger, two of which were written specifically for this CD. Lackner and Lichtwark approach the art songs straddling all genres with seriousness and extraordinary lightness. Listeners can expect sharp character sketches ranging from passionate love to honky-tonk and the dark abysses of the soul.

1 October 2021
Grand Nonetto
Johannes Brahms, Louis Spohr
Ensemble Obligat
GEN21759
Twenty-five years of ‘Ensemble Obligat’: reason enough to celebrate and honor an extraordinary chamber music formation. On its anniversary CD on Genuin, Ensemble Obligat has expanded into a chamber orchestra with soloists to present Johannes Brahms’ Serenade No. 1 and Louis Spohr’s large Nonet in F major. These are two pieces that require a balance between soloistic leadership and overall sound, a quality that the ensemble embodies perfectly. Brahms’ youthful work takes on a chamber-music-like sonority in this version. The nonet of the ‘German Paganini,’ who broke exciting new ground in his time, benefits from the ensemble’s harmonious spirit.

GRAND PIANO

15 October 2021
Solitude - Piano Works by Florent Schmitt
Biljana Urban
GP850
Florent Schmitt was a strikingly original composer whose influences were as varied as his own restless and imaginative music. A number of his solo piano works are little known and offer an important insight into his compositional development. Neuf Pièces, Op. 27, which includes a Spanish-infused Gitanella movement, was composed during his first period of travel. The expressive and vivid elements of Crépuscules, Op. 56 are infused with harmonic richness and quiet melancholy, while Ritournelle, Op. 2 No. IIbis displays an airiness and wit characteristic of French music of the Roaring Twenties.

15 October 2021
Liadov - Pomazansky - Piano Music from a Russian Dynasty 1839-1940s
Konstantin Nikolayevich Liadov, Eugeny Ivanovich Pomazansky, Konstantin Afanasievich Antipov, Ivan Aleksandrovich Pomazansky, Anatoly Konstantinovich Liadov
Dmitry Korostelyov, pianpo; Olga Solovieva, piano
GP858
The uniquely influential Russian musical and theatrical dynasty of the Liadov, Antipov and Pomazansky families supplied Russian culture with nearly 20 musical and theatrical performers, conductors, composers, and ballet dancers over the course of 150 years. Including numerous world première recordings, these wonderful pièces de salon are gems of Russian dance music, full of charming grace, melodic delicacy and nobility. A quote from Anatoly Liadov can stand as representative for all: ‘such is my character: do everything so that every bar gratifies.’

15 October 2021
20th Century Foxtrots Vol 3
Central and Eastern Europe
Gottlieb Wallisch, piano
GP854
Gramophones and radios brought the voice of America, its fashion, its carelessness and joie de vivre into every corner of Europe during the Roaring Twenties, and no composer could remain immune to the hot jazz influences of the Foxtrot, Shimmy and Charleston. This third volume of jazzy piano dances features composers from nine Central and Eastern European countries, from Misha Spoliansky’s hypnotising Valse Boston ‘Morphium’ to Leonid Polovinkin’s extremely entertaining and refreshingly futuristic approach to the genre. Gottlieb Wallisch continues his ‘most surprising and consistently charming recording project’ (The New York Times on Volume 2, GP814).

GREYFADE

19 November 2021
Christopher Otto: rag’sma
003 (vinyl + digital)
The full-length compositional debut of Christopher Otto, violinist and founding member of the internationally acclaimed JACK Quartet. With its exacting mathematical construction, a harmonic language bridging just intonation and triadic tonality, and a dazzling, immersive sound, rag'sma announces the arrival of an important new compositional voice. Recorded by JACK Quartet x 3.

HÄNSSLER CLASSIC

1 October 2021
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Serenades
Berliner Barock Solisten, Reinhard Goebel
HC21013
The ‘Sei Suonate à Cembalo certato è Violino Solo’, as Bach’s six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord (BWV 1014–1019) are entitled in the oldest surviving fair copy, are undoubtedly among those works which have set new standards in chamber music. They have long established themselves on the world’s concert platforms. n all, Bach in his set of six sonatas exploits the full potential of Baroque formal language, casting new light upon it. These Sonatas delicately open the door to a new era of chamber music – to the galant style of Johann Joachim Quantz, say, or Johann Stamitz – and remain to this day a proving-ground of approaches to the construction and expression of musical ideas. Rahel Rilling, born in Stuttgart in 1976, is a versatile, internationally sought-after artist. She comes from a celebrated family of musicians and was given her first violin lessons when she was four. Her father is Helmuth Rilling, the conductor and Bach specialist. Even in her youth, she was playing as a violinist on many of his concert tours, in programmes that made Bach’s music better known all over the world. Rahel Rilling plays a violin built by Tomaso Balestrieri, Cremona, in 1767. Born in Berlin in 1957, Johannes Roloff was given his first piano lessons by his mother when he was six. He studied piano in Berlin and Munich between 1977 and 1983. Since 1983, he has been living and working in Berlin.

1 October 2021
Joseph Haydn
Die Schöpfung, The Creation
Elisabeth Speiser, Werner Hollweg, Karl Christian Kohn,
Chor der Bayerisches Staatsoper, Bayerisches Staatsorchester / Karl Richter
HC20076 (2 CDs)
The present recording is taken from a live transmission of the Academy concert of May 8, 1972, from the Nationaltheater in Munich. The early death of Karl Richter in February 1981 frustrated the intention of releasing one of the great oratorios from his performing repertoire, Joseph Haydn’s ‘Creation’, in a studio recording. Happily, it has proved possible to obtain the present sound recording from the archives of the Bayerische Staatsoper. This audio document gives a particularly fine impression of the ambience and the authenticity of a live performance with conductor Karl Richter - complementing, as it were, the many available studio recordings of his wide-ranging musical repertoire. The audio material from which we prepared these CDs was made from a technically very poor recording. As this recording is in many respects a unique and previously unreleased sound document, however, which has captured Karl Richter’s creativity and imaginative interpretation and presents the soloists and choir of the Bayerische Staatsoper in top form, the Iabel and its mastering studio has decided to restore this Iive recording - to the extent that this was possible - and to make them available to a wider audience.

1 October 2021
Pure Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach: Six Violin Sonatas
Rahel Rilling, Johannes Roloff
HC20082 (2 CDs)
The ‘Sei Suonate a Cembal o certato e Violino Solo’, as Bach’s six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord (BV’N 1014-1019) are entitled in the oldest surviving fair copy, are undoubtedly among those works which have set new standards in chamber music. They have long established themselves on the world’s concert platforms. In all, Bach in his set of six sonatas exploits the fulI potential of Baroque formal Ianguage, casting new light upon it. These Sonatas delicately open the door to a new era of chamber music - to the galant style of Johann Joachim Quantz, say, or Johann Stamitz - and remain to this day a proving-ground of approaches to the construction and expression of musical ideas. Rahel Rilling, born in Stuttgart in 1976, is a versatile, internationally sought-after artist. She comes from a celebrated family of musicians and was given her first violin lessons when she was four. Her father is Helmuth Rilling, the conductor and Bach specialist. Even in her youth, she was playing as a violinist on many of his concert tours, in programmes that made Bach’s music better known all over the world. Rahel Rilling plays a violin built by Tomaso Balestrieri, Cremona, in 1767. Born in Berlin in 1957, Johannes Roi off was given his first piano lessons by his mother when he was six. He studied piano in Berlin and Munich between 1977 and 1983. Since 1983, he has been living and working in Berlin.

1 October 2021
Joseph Haydn
The Complete Symphonies, Vol. 25, Symphonies Nos 18, 2, 20, 17 & 19
Heidelberger Sinfoniker / Johannes Klumpp
HC21035
This recording contains the symphonies nos. 18, 2, 20, 17 and 19. ‘Our shared path begins quite a long way down the hill. We propose to present the symphonies still missing from our complete cycle in chronological order - allowing us to take a close look at the compositional development of this symphonic Titan. We invite you to get to know Joseph Haydn through his originality, to observe him and take him to your hearts. His early music is scarcely ever played, even well-informed insiders among our colleagues are almost completely ignorant of it. We ourselves regard each of the recorded symphonies as a discovery that brings us real pleasure!’ Johannes Klumpp The Heidelberger Sinfoniker have named conductor Johannes Klumpp as their Artistic Director for the 2020/2021 season. In so doing, they have chosen him as successor to their founder Thom as Fey, who established the ‘HeideIberg Symphonists’ as one of the leading historically informed orchestras for the Classical and early Romantic periods. Johannes Klumpp is regarded as an established expert on period performance practice.

HARMONIA MUNDI

29 October 2021
Marc Antoine Charpentier: Molière: Le Malade imaginaire
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
HAF8901887.88 (2 CDs)
The year 2022 marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of one of French literature’s greatest geniuses: Molière.

29 October 2021
A Medieval Christmas - Hodie Christus Natus Est
Boston Camerata / Anne Azema
HMM905339
Drawing on a wide variety of sources, mingling liturgical Latin with French, English, Italian and Iberian vernaculars, these magnificent songs, hymns and processionals show the multitude of ways in which the birth of Christ was celebrated in medieval times. The trio of female singers is accompanied by harp, fiddle, bells and wind instruments : together they touchingly evoke all the tenderness, hope and joy of medieval Christmas songs.

29 October 2021
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Te Deum; Missa 'Assumpta est Maria'; Litanies de la Vierge
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
HAF8901298
Re-packaged from back catalogue

22 October 2021
Louis de Caix d'Hervelois: Dans le sillage de Marin Marais
La Rêveuse
HMM902352
After the release of their debut album devoted to English music, La Rêveuse now introduces us to the sound world of Louis de Caix d’Hervelois. As heir to Marin Marais and one of his most brilliant pupils, Caix brought the bass viol new prestige in an era that was gradually abandoning the instrument. This composer skilled in expressing the elegance and grace of the Enlightenment era left us a substantial and varied corpus of music, a vivid portrait gallery in which bass viol, ‘pardessus de viole’ and flute shine with especial lustre.

HYPERION RECORDS

1 October 2021
British solo cello music
Steven Isserlis, cello
Benjamin Britten, William Walton, John Gardner, Frank Merrick, Thomas Ades
CDA68373
If Britten’s Cello Suite No 3 is the undisputed masterpiece here, the other works are no less deserving of attention, Frank Merrick’s ‘Suite in the eighteenth-century style’ being a particular delight. As ever, Steven Isserlis’s booklet notes offer fascinatingly personal perspectives on the composers and their music.

1 October 2021
Jacob Regnart: Missa Christ ist erstanden
Cinquecento
CDA68369
Two substantial Mass settings, sounding here as though Regnart might have written them specifically for the glorious voices of Cinquecento: this is a welcome contribution to the restoration of an important but still under- appreciated figure.

1 October 2021
Georg Benda
Piano Concertos Vol 8
London Mozart Players, Howard Shelley
CDA68361
Of the same generation as Mozart’s father and Bach’s children, Georg Anton Benda was highly regarded in his day (not least by Mozart himself). Howard Shelley brings his customary probing, intelligent musicianship to this selection of four early classical concertos.

IBS CLASSICAL

8 October 2021
panDEMiCity
Josu de Solaun, piano
IBS162021
Fire is what Josu De Solaun shed with his improvisations to the audience of the City of León Auditorium on 13th March 2021. It was an exceptional concert in which improvisations full of warmth and light now have a second life thanks to this album. panDEMiCity is the musical document - the still photo - of a unique event, an unprecedented hic et nunc in the artistic career of the great pianist born in Valencia and raised in New York. Undoubtedly, this is a milestone which makes Josu De Solaun an essential demiurge of the current world improvisation scene. De Solaun’s exuberant idiomaticism, his vast musical background, provokes vertigo in the listener. De Solaun not only pays a moving tribute to Keith Jarrett, but also visits and inhabits the music of numerous composers who have been nesting in his prodigious fingers for decades, such as his favourite composers: Schumann, Janá ek, Bartók, Chopin, Brahms, Enescu, Carter, Liszt or Debussy, 20th century and interwar music, music close to Russian composers such as Shostakovich, but, above all, jazz, always jazz, because for Josu De Solaun this music is his “link with popular music, folklore... Jazz has very strong vernacular roots and this music keeps me with my feet on the ground, in the atavistic, in the ancestral.

LYRITA

1 October 2021
Lennox Berkeley
The One Act Operas - A Dinner Engagement; Castaway; Ruth
BBC Northern Singers, BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra, BBC Northern Orchestra, Norman Lumsden, Marjory Westbury, Cynthia Glover, Pamela Bowden, Johanna Peters, Edward Darling, Derek Williamson, English Opera Group Chorus, English Chamber Orchestra, Meredith Davies, Elisabeth Robinson, Soo-Bee Lee, Alfreda Hodgson, Peter Pears, Thomas Hemsley, Ronald Harvi, Geoffrey Chard, Patricia Clark, Jean Allister, James Atkins, Malcolm Rivers, Kenneth MacDonald, Maurice Handford
REAM2144 (3 CDs)
Berkeley’s first opera, Nelson, was put on at Sadler’s Wells in 1954. The others were performed by the English Opera Group which had been founded by the young Benjamin Britten, Joan Cross, Eric Crozier and Peter Pears in 1946. In the same year as the Nelson premiere Berkeley’s first one-acter, A Dinner Engagement, featured at Aldeburgh. Aldeburgh was also the scene of Ruth in 1956 and Castaway in 1967. Each work inhabits its own world, and each finds Berkeley’s musical imagination delivering new sounds to match the drama.

1 October 2021
Josef Holbrooke
Late Piano Music
Simon Callaghan
SRCD395
The music on this disc dates from the composer’s later years, and are largely based on themes from his earlier successes. The inspiration for Holbrooke’s music was almost always literary; hence, the large number of symphonic poems and pieces with literary titles or subtitles in his work list.

MEMO MUSIC

1 October 2021
Mystic of the Horizon
Chabuka Amiranashvili
MM6172
Memo Music (a division of CuGate Classics) presents a new album by the prolific Georgian musician and producer Chabuka Amiranashvili. The richness of styles and moods makes Mystic of the Horizon an imaginary soundtrack for a non-existent movie. All tracks were composed and arranged by Chabuka Amiranashvili – and he plays all of the instruments as well!

MSR CLASSICS

October 2021
Flair - Works for Cello and Piano
Samuel Barber, Manuel De Falla, Astor Piazzolla, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Miriam K Smith, cello; Jacob Miller, piano
MS1780
Young American cellist Miriam K. Smith is rapidly gaining recognition as a gifted concert soloist. Smith made her orchestral debut at age 8 playing Joseph Haydn’s Cello Concerto No.1 with the Seven Hills Sinfonietta in Cincinnati, and played Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations in a series of children’s concerts with the Cincinnati Symphony and Louisville Orchestra. She was also a featured soloist with the Wright State Chamber Orchestra, and with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra on a subscription concert, and during summer Concerts on the Square. In addition, she has been a featured soloist with the Blue Ash Montgomery Symphony Orchestra in Ohio and the 2020 subscription series of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra. While on tour, Smith has given interviews for radio and television, as has taken part in numerous private and public community outreach events. Her first performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor took place with the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra for an in-person and live-streamed educational concert, and on the orchestra’s 2021 subscription series. Smith is also active in the chamber music setting, performing recitals and concerts throughout the United States.

September 2021?
C P E and W F Bach: Keyboard Sonatas
David Murray, piano
MS1716
Known internationally for his advocacy of performing pre-Classical repertoire on the modern piano, award-winning pianist David Murray has performed extensively throughout the United States, making his New York debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005 in a performance described as “First-rate, perfect” in the New York Concert Review. In 2013 he was awarded an Emmy for his performance of Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, performed with the Georgia Southern University Symphony Orchestra. Murray is a contributor to International Piano and Piano Magazine Online, writing articles on topics ranging from early keyboard sonatas to the works of living American composers. He holds advanced degrees from the University of Kentucky and Arizona State University and counts among his teachers Robert Hamilton and Stewart Gordon. Since 2007, he has been a member of the faculty of Georgia Southern University, where he currently serves as Professor of Music and Head of Keyboard Studies.

September 2021?
J S Bach Vol 1: Goldberg Variations
Peter Tomasz, piano
MS1791
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, a masterpiece of unique musical attributes, is comprised of an Aria and thirty diverse variations. Unlike traditional variations, where the composer bases the variations on a melodic theme, Bach composed a beautiful Sarabande (Aria) and bases the variations on the harmonic progression of the left hand.
The variations are masterfully crafted. There are nine canons, placed every third variation, except in No.30, where Bach composed a Quodlibet (“what you please”). There, Bach wrote two German folk songs, “I Have So Long Been Away From You,” (an innocent love song), and “Cabbage and Beets Have Driven Me Away, Had Mother Cooked Beef, I would have chosen to Stay,” (a Good-bye Song), – which was often sung at the conclusion of a dance party.

September 2021?
Discovering the Classical String Trio 3
John Antes, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Leopold Hofmann, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, Paul Wranitzky, Francesco Zannetti
The Vivaldi Project
Elizabeth Field, violin
Allison Edberg Nyquist, violin and viola
Stephanie Vial, cello
(period instruments)
MS1623
The string trio is often viewed, according to the hindsight of chamber music history, as a kind of minor sub-genre, a “quartet minus one.” We at The Vivaldi Project, however, propose that the 18th-century string quartet might more aptly be described as a “trio plus one.” The Classical string trio, as the successor to the immensely popular Baroque trio sonata (exemplified by Antonio Vivaldi and his contemporaries), would out-publish the string quartet in the 1760s by a ratio of more than 5 to 1. The resulting body of works includes more than 2000 trios from many of the century’s most revered and eminent composers. Volume 3 of our series, Discovering The Classical String Trio, continues to explore this vast and essentially unknown repertoire with seven newly recorded works—from the string trio’s early origins in Italy to its expression at the height of the Classical period in Vienna.

September 2021?
Rapture and Regret
Music of Daron Hagen
Ariana Wyatt, soprano
Brain Thorsett, tenor
Tracy Cowden, piano
Benjamin Wyatt, cello
First recordings
MS1713
Rapture and Regret was commissioned by the William Douglas Dancers as the ballet score And the Air, and was premiered under that title in December 1987 at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio at the Westbeth Center for the Arts in New York. Soprano Karen Hale, cellist Robert La Rue and pianist Eric Sawyer gave the performance under the direction of the composer. Hagen revised the score during the summer of 2005, excising linking material and music conceived purely for the dance, creating the version we hear in these recordings. Hagen’s concert diptych explores and celebrates the sensuality and intelligence of Virginia Woolf (from The Waves) and Isak Dinesen (from Out of Africa). In the first panel of the diptych, Woolf captures the protagonist at the dawning awareness of one’s nascent sexuality; in the second, Dinesen’s protagonist views sensuality from the valedictory, sunset standpoint of maturity.

NAVONA RECORDS

22 October 2021
Piano Fantasies
Pavel Gintov, piano
NV6379
Gintov demonstrates the versatility of the musical fantasy in a remarkable fashion: Mozart, Haydn, Johann Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach are rendered with restrained rationality, as (interestingly) is the latter’s greatest admirer, Ludwig van Beethoven. Ukrainian impressionist gem Akimenko and the colorful Scriabin, on the other hand, glow with exuberant tenderness. Gintov’s greatest revelation, however, arrives in the form of Chopin, whose Fantasy in F minor is played with such classicist precision that one is instantly reminded of Schubertian depth.

22 October 2021
Modern Muses - contemporary treasures for soprano and cello
Josefien Stoppelenburg, soprano; Jean Hatmaker, cello
NV6377
An entirely new presentation of captivating music in its first commercial recording and release, showcasing works composed by women and works representing female perspective. Inspired by Greek and Roman mythology, Josefien Stoppelenburg’s arresting soprano is juxtaposed with Jean Hatmaker’s poetic cello in this recording, fostering a rich musical dichotomy that blends together in a refreshingly powerful way. Join these two female performers on a journey through exotic soundscapes and empowering instrumentation in this diverse assortment of modern music.

8 October 2021
Division of Memory
Lydia Jane Pugh, George Holloway, Ben Yee-Paulson, Jonathan Chenette, Elizabeth Start
Thomas Mesa, cello; Yoon Lee, piano
NV6373
A comprehensive collection featuring a variety of sound production methods displayed on the cello by Thomas Mesa. The works of composers Lydia Jane Pugh, George Holloway, Ben Yee-Paulson, Jonathan Chenette, and Elizabeth Start are featured on this album, each with their own compositional personality and a repertoire dedicated to the multifaceted soundscape of the cello. Music inspired by traditional Paiute Indian melodies, sounds borrowed from Asian bowed string instruments, traditional fiddle playing, and more are echoed throughout. Mesa is accompanied by pianist Yoon Lee in this cello-oriented collaboration.

8 October 2021
Virtuoso
Dmitry Ishkhanov, piano
NV6372
A collection of works by Frederic Chopin performed by piano prodigy Dmitry Ishkhanov. Featured on this album are the pieces Ishkhanov cites as Chopin’s most meaningful: the four Mazurkas of Op. 17, the Nocturne in C sharp minor of Op. 27, and the Etudes of Op. 25, considered by many as one of the most challenging repertoires to master. Ishkhanov approaches these works with Chopin’s intentions in mind, conjuring a smooth singing voice from the piano in contrast to the instrument’s percussive nature. Ishkhanov performs a fresh iteration of Chopin’s work with integrity and finesse in this recording.

NAXOS

22 October 2021
Malcolm Arnold: Complete Symphonies and Dances
National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland; Queensland Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Penny
8.506041 (6 CDs)
Recorded in the presence of the composer, Andrew Penny’s survey of the Complete Symphonies and Dances by Sir Malcolm Arnold has long been considered to contain benchmark recordings. Born in 1921, Sir Malcolm Arnold quickly established himself as a fluent and versatile composer, a gifted tunesmith and a brilliant orchestrator. His music is typically lucid in texture, rich in melody and clear in draughtsmanship yet there are frequent signs of a complex musical personality and dramatic tensions not far beneath the surface. The Dances are light-hearted, vivid and jaunty, yet the nine symphonies explore the composer’s darker side, painting a picture of his private ‘journey through hell’ as he struggled with physical and mental health issues. They are masterworks which exert continued appeal and stimulate repeated listening.

22 October 2021
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876–1948): Complete Overtures & Intermezzi
Oviedo Filarmonía / Friedrich Haider
8.573582
With his early theatrical successes, Wolf-Ferrari brought a transparency of sound and a sense of lightness and charm to the realm of Italian opera. Alongside these qualities came a renewal of opera buffa, of which he proved to be a master – exemplified in the overtures and excerpts heard here. The comic energy and vibrancy of Il segreto di Susanna, the melodic beauty of Il campiello and the sweeping lustre of I gioielli della Madonna show how Wolf-Ferrari reinvigorated the genre through his incomparable passion and expression.

22 October 2021
Italian Tenor Arias
Donizetti; Leoncavallo; Mascagni; Puccini; Verdi
Azer Zada, tenor; Kiev Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra / Dmitry Yablonsky
8.573499
The Italian operatic repertoire offers some of the most passionate and much-loved music in the classical canon. In this outstanding collection, Azer Zada has selected music of moving intensity, dramatic power and spiritual resolve in works by Donizetti, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini and Verdi. Favourite tenor arias such as Nessun dorma!, Una furtiva lagrima, Recondita armonia and E lucevan le stelle are included, as well as three essential intermezzi by Mascagni.

22 October 2021
Lord Berners (1883–1950): A Wedding Bouquet; March; Luna Park
RTÉ Chamber Choir; RTÉ Sinfonietta / Kenneth Alwyn
8.555223
Lord Berners’ compositions, often satirical in intention, include ballets for Diaghilev and for Sadler’s Wells. While his first ballet, The Triumph of Neptune, is an ambitious and inventive example of his art, the choral ballet A Wedding Bouquet is Berners’ most original and successful work, if somewhat influenced by Stravinsky’s Les Noces. Written to a text by Gertrude Stein and choreographed by Frederick Ashton, this is music full of vivacity, festive brilliance and pathos. Set in a freak show pavilion, Luna Park is a ‘fantastic ballet in one act’, succinctly scored and wittily characterised.

22 October 2021
Arthur Farwell (1872–1952): America’s Neglected Composer
Songs, choral and piano works; String Quartet ‘The Hako’
William Sharp, baritone; Emanuele Arciuli, piano; Dakota String Quartet
8.559900
Arthur Farwell has been called ‘the most neglected composer in [American musical] history.’ Hounded by accusations of ‘cultural appropriation,’ he has posthumously fallen prey to changing notions of cultural authenticity. As the leader of the ‘Indianists’ movement, Farwell believed it was a democratic obligation of Americans of European descent to try to understand the indigenous Americans they displaced and oppressed. To this end, he merged Indian music and lore with Western concert forms – today, a controversial practice. The performances here recorded originated at a landmark PostClassical Ensemble festival at Washington’s National Cathedral.

22 October 2021
Louis Vierne (1870–1937):
Complete Piano Works, Vol 1
Suite bourguignonne
Sergio Monteiro, piano
8.574296
Louis Vierne is renowned as one of the most brilliant of all French organ composers. His piano works are little known despite their colourful, imaginative and inspiring treatment of the instrument. The early Deux Pièces owe their lyrical style to Mendelssohn, while the Suite bourguignonne exudes an atmosphere of joie de vivre and romantic contentment. Impressionism can be heard in the Trois Nocturnes, the third of which is considered one of Vierne’s masterpieces with its evocative use of birdsong, while the shadows of war echo in the solemn Poème des cloches funèbres. This is the first of two albums covering repertoire that deserves a place in the pantheon of French piano music.

22 October 2021
Robert Schumann (1810–1856): Arrangements for Piano Duet, Vol 6
Eckerle Piano Duo
8.572882
In the days before sound recording, orchestral music was often arranged in versions for piano duet as a way for the public to hear, play and enjoy music by the great composers of the day. As a result, the number of arrangements made available soon exceeded that of original piano duet compositions. Robert Schumann, who loved to play duets together with his wife Clara, often supervised and occasionally created many of his own arrangements in the form. This is the penultimate album in this seven-volume series containing all of Schumann’s orchestral works arranged for piano duet.

8 October 2021
Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953): Violin Concertos Nos 1 and 2; Sonata for Solo Violin
Tianwa Yang, violin; ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra / Jun Märkl
8.574107
Prokofiev first became fascinated by the violin upon hearing the playing of his private teacher, Reinhold Glière. A dozen years later Prokofiev wrote his Violin Concerto No. 1 – a work of contrasting open-hearted lyricism and whimsical playfulness that features a wild central Scherzo with dazzling technical gymnastics. By contrast, the Violin Concerto No. 2 is emotionally reserved and sardonic with an inspired plaintive and long-arching slow movement. Composed to an official Soviet commission for an ensemble piece to be played by talented child violinists in unison, the witty and upbeat Sonata for Solo Violin can also be played by a single performer.

8 October 2021
Paul Wranitzky (1756–1808): Orchestral Works, Vol 3
Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice / Marek Štilec
Symphony in D major ‘La Chasse’; Symphony in C major; Mitgefühl – Overture; Die gute Mutter – Overture
8.574289
Paul Wranitzky moved to Vienna from his native Moravia at the age of 20, mixing with the likes of Haydn and Mozart. As the most important symphonist in Vienna in the late 1790s, his style influenced the early symphonies of Beethoven. The Symphony in D major ‘La Chasse’ reflects the popularity of hunting music, and is heard here for the first time in its expanded version. The overtures to Mitgefühl and Die gute Mutter represent Wranitzky’s skill as a composer for the theatre, as does the masterfully scored Symphony in C major in which the composer repurposes some incidental and ballet music.

8 October 2021
César Franck (1822–1890): Hulda (Opera in 5 Acts)
Meagan Miller and Irina Jae Eun Park, sopranos; Katerina Hebelková and Inga Schäfer, mezzo-sopranos; Anja Jung, Contralto; Joshua Kohl, Roberto Gionfriddo and Junbum Lee, tenors; Seonghwan Koo, John Carpenter and Mateo Peñaloza Cecconi, baritones; Jin Seok Lee and Jongsoo Yang, basses; Choirs of Theater Freiburg; Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg / Fabrice Bollon
8.660480-82 (3 CDs)
Most of César Franck’s works received scant attention at the time of their composition and Hulda was never performed in his lifetime. The narrative is set in 14th-century Norway at the time of the great tribal kings, with marauding hordes spreading fear and terror throughout the land. Hulda is kidnapped and transferred from one tribe to the other, her family is killed and she herself is humiliated. However, Hulda’s spirit cannot be crushed, and she survives with revenge as her goal in life. Franck’s music portrays raging clans, bloodthirsty murderers and shattered lives, but also moments of exquisite tenderness in this acclaimed revival of a forgotten masterpiece that places the role of Hulda among the great tragic stage heroines.

8 October 2021
Long Ago and Far Away
Classic Songs of Love and Romance
All arrangements by Richard Balcombe
Mary Carewe and Graham Bickley, vocalists; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Richard Balcombe
8.574258
This album of some of the 20th century’s most captivating songs and standards are heard here in dazzling new arrangements by Richard Balcombe. With a perfect marriage of words and music, these classic songs have a timeless appeal. Whether written for movies, revues or musicals, or specifically for the most renowned singers of the day, all the greatest composers and lyricists of the time are represented in this outstanding new collection.

8 October 2021
Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992): Histoire du Tango
Works for Flute and Guitar
Kazunori Seo, flute; Vicente Coves, guitar
8.573571
The combination of flute and guitar was a feature of early tango recordings – instruments central both to the genre and to the music of Astor Piazzolla. The composer’s quintessential Histoire du Tango charts the form’s evolution from its appearance in the barrios of Buenos Aires to its eventual assimilation by classical composers. The Six Études tanguistiques for solo flute is Piazzolla’s only work for a melodic unaccompanied instrument. The remainder of the programme presents a sequence of arrangements by Vicente Coves and Kazunori Seo and includes some of Piazzolla’s most famous and beautiful compositions as well as preserving a historically important, previously unreleased recitation by Horacio Ferrer.

8 October 2021
Roots - 21st Century Greek Music for Guitar
Klampanis; Tsalahouris; Maroulis; Antoniou
Dimitris Soukaras, guitar
Lotte Betts-Dean, mezzo-soprano; Audentia Ensemble; L’Anima String Quartet; Ensemble Ryan Bair
8.579115
The music in this programme covers a spectrum of genres that have flourished in Greece in recent years, from jazz to contemporary avant-garde. These have all had a strong impact on guitarist Dimitris Soukaras' development as an artist, and in making this recording he took the opportunity to invite some of Greece's leading composers to write for his instrument for the first time. All works are first recordings.

NEW FOCUS RECORDINGS

22 October 2021
Kermès
Julia Den Boer, piano
The album's four stunning works by experimental female composers include Giulia Lorusso’s Déserts, Linda Catlin Smith's The Underfolding, Anna Thorvaldsdottir's Reminiscence, and Rebecca Saunders' Crimson. The album is named after the Kermes ilicis and Kermes vermilio insects, found in Mediterranean kermes oaks, from which brilliant red pigment can be ground. The red kermes dye became incredibly prized during the Middle Ages, although the practice of using kermes insects eventually died out in favor of other methods. 'The quest for deeper, richer, subtler, stable sources of color unite the four pieces on this album,' says American conductor, composer Nicholas DeMaison, in the liner notes. The album’s four composers unveil their unique techniques for drawing out the piano’s sonic possibilities and creating pianistic coloration. DeMaison continues, 'Julia Den Boer's unfolding of these pieces is not just a presentation of these deeper, richer, and subtler colors, but a rejoicing in the process of sonic creation.'

NIMBUS ALLIANCE

1 October 2021
Gavin Higgins
Ekstasis
Piatti Quartet, Fidelio Trio
NI6421
Gavin Higgins (born 1983) is one of the most exciting and gifted compositional talents of his generation, described as ‘boldly imaginative’ (Times) and ‘a talent to watch’ (New York Times). From a long lineage of brass band musicians, Higgins was born in Gloucestershire and grew up in the Forest of Dean. He studied French horn at Chetham’s School of Music and composition at The Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal College of Music. His work has been commissioned by some of the UK’s leading festivals, including three commissions for the BBC Proms: Der Aufstand (2012), Rough Voices (2020) and the ‘fast, exciting and brilliantly scored’ (Telegraph) Velocity which opened the Last Night of the Proms (2014). In 2019 his first opera, The Monstrous Child, commissioned by the Royal Opera House, opened to critical acclaim, being described as ‘a triumph’ (Guardian). In 2020 Higgins was appointed Composer-in-Association with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

NORWOOD RECORDINGS

1 October 2021
Fairy Tales: Recital music from Eastern Europe for saxophone and piano
Alexandre Tcherepnine, Sergei Prokofiev, Eduard Tubin, Eduardas Balsys, Ivan Markovitch, Tonu Korvits, Krzysztof Herdzin
Kyle Horch, Yshani Perinpanayagam, Anya Fadina
NR202101
It is a curious fact that, although the saxophone is often thought of as being a ‘French’ or ‘American’ instrument, Eastern European composers were among the earliest to use the saxophone in scores of great quality. Shostakovich and Prokofiev both used the saxophone in orchestral and ballet works during the 1930s-40s, and Glazunov wrote one of the major concertos for the instrument in 1934. With the aid of Ravel, the saxophone is perhaps best known as an orchestral instrument from the famous solo – ‘The Old Castle’ – in his 1922 orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. So, the saxophone and Eastern European music go back quite a long way together. Fairy Tales is an exploration of some of the very fine recital works for saxophone and piano by composers from Eastern Europe. Today, there is a rich repertoire of original and arranged works from which a saxophonist can choose. Beyond the geographic theme, the selected pieces also share other affinities: strands of poetic storytelling, references to folk-music, and magical fairy-tale imagery. The booklet contains informative notes from Kyle Horch on all of the pieces featured on this release.

OEHMS CLASSICS

15 October 2021
Dark Spring
Shachar Lavi, Anna Hybiner, Christopher Diffey, Magid El-Bushra / Alan Pierson
Hans Thomalla, composer; Joshua Clover, poet
German-American composer Hans Thomalla and American poet Joshua Clover's 90-minute song-opera Dark Spring saw its live, in-person world premiere at the Mannheim Opera in fall 2020 in an unprecedented pandemic collaboration described as 'a remarkable musical panorama' by Mannheimer Morgen. The opera takes place over 11 scenes and was recorded over five live performances at the Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim, with conductor Alan Pierson leading mezzo-soprano Shachar Lavi as Wendla, contralto Anna Hybiner as Ilse, tenor Christopher Diffey as Melchior, and countertenor Magid El-Bushra as Moritz. Barbora Horáková Joly served as the production's director.

15 October 2021
Singer Pur
Among Whirlwinds
OC1723
‘According to a dictionary, a whirlwind is: 1. A small rotating wind; and 2. A wild person, moving briskly and violently. Both associations inspired us to choose this title for our recordings. In earlier centuries, women composers rocked many conventions, and today women composers sometimes still have to contend with considerable resistance or prejudice. The women who took up the pen for us in this project are all vibrant, strong and inspiring personalities with enormous focus and concentrated creative energy. The selection of works originate from female composers all over the world.’ - Singer Pur

1 October 2021
Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner, Sergei Rachmaninov, Antonin Dvořák, Bela Bartók
Love and Despair
Andreas Bauer Kanabas, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Latvian Festival Orchestra Riga, Karsten Januschke
OC490
With the Latvian Festival Orchestra Riga directed by Karsten Januschke, German bass Andreas Bauer Kanabas unleashes passions of love, treason and despair in a well-chosen programme of arias. At the point of deception, the soul not only experiences the greatest disappointment, but also clarity and truthfulness. Andreas Bauer Kanabas traces these moments of deep longing and melancholy with interpretations that are rooted in great emotional power.

1 October 2021
Lou Koster
Singer Pur
Der Geiger von Echternach
Singer Pur, Sandrine Cantoreggi, Claude Weber
OC1721
Der Geiger von Echternach (‘The Echternacht Fiddler’) deals with the origins of the Echternach Jumping Procession, which dates back to the Middle Ages and is now included on the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List. The ballad tells the story of the musician Tall Veit, who on his return from the Orient is sentenced to death by hanging for allegedly killing his wife. The composer and poet are equally interested in a detailed description of Veit’s different emotional states, which modulate his violin playing and increasingly move the listener until they fall into a dancing rage, from which only Saint Willibrord can free them.

ONDINE

1 October 2021
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonatas, Op. 30
Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt
ODE 1392-2
The award-winning duo ensemble formed by Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt are returning to the masterworks of European chamber music with this new album that includes Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770–1827) three violin sonatas Op. 30. The expressive and intimate chamber music recordings by the star duo have gathered numerous awards and their previous album also received an ECHO Klassik award in 2017.

1 October 2021
Charles Martin Loeffler, Carl Ruggles, Howard Hanson, Henry Cowell
Americascapes
Basque National Orchestra, Robert Trevino
ODE 1396-2
All four American composers on this new album by the Basque National Orchestra and conductor Robert Trevino wrote music that was known, played and esteemed during their lifetimes, but none of them ever had a huge ‘hit’: the pieces here are likely familiar only to musical scholars. Yet while it is uncommon enough to find Charles Martin Loeffler, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles and Howard Hanson sharing the same album, the conductor Robert Trevino has taken his exploration still further, into the recesses of their repertory – complete with a Hanson piece, Before the Dawn, that has had to wait a century for this, its premiere recording. Robert Trevino’s debut album with the Basque National Orchestra on Ondine featured orchestral works by Maurice Ravel and has received excellent reviews in music media around the world.

ORCHID CLASSICS

22 October 2021
Richard Pantcheff: Vol. 2, Music for Choir and Orchestra
London Choral Sinfonia / Michael Waldron
ORC100175
Orchid Classics presents its second volume of choral music by Richard Pantcheff in world-premiere recordings performed by the London Choral Sinfonia directed by Michael Waldron, with tenor Nick Pritchard, and Peter Mankarious on trumpet and flugelhorn. The composer has orchestrated a number of the pieces specifically for this recording. With an emphasis on Pantcheff’s larger-scale output, this second volume brings together a rich selection of works by this composer right across the spectrum of his oeuvre. It includes works for unaccompanied choir, choral/vocal pieces with string orchestra (including solo brass), and two works for orchestra and solo brass alone. Many of the choral works featured date from the periods in Pantcheff’s life when he held musical appointments at Christ the King, Frankfurt, (1993-1995), including the unaccompanied Evening Canticles and uplifting Laudem Dicite; and St. George’s, Johannesburg (2010-2019), including his Missa Brevis, the anthem Domine Exaudi and the meditative Prayer of St Columba.

15 October 2021
Frederic Mompou
Música Callada
Lilit Grigoryan, piano
ORC100178
Following the success of her Orchid Classics debut, Variations sérieuses, Lilit Grigoryan returns with an album devoted to the hypnotically beautiful Música callada by Spanish composer Frederic Mompou, hailed during his lifetime as the successor to Debussy. Mompou’s Música callada (meaning ‘Quiet’ or ‘Silent Music’) was published in four volumes between 1959 and 1967; his final burst of solo piano music and one of the greatest achievements in the Spanish piano repertoire. The concept of ‘silent music’ comes from the Spanish mystic, St John of the Cross, whose writings inspired Mompou as he composed these pieces. The result is a collection of exquisite miniatures of varied colours and mesmerising depths, performed with nuance and sensitivity by Lilit Grigoryan.

15 October 2021
The Jukebox Album: Vinyl Edition
Elena Urioste, violin; Tom Poster, piano
ORC100174 (1 LP - vinyl)
When the pandemic struck early in 2020, violinist Elena Urioste and pianist-composer Tom Poster responded by channelling their creative energies into #UriPosteJukeBox, a portmanteau of their surnames and a nod to the retro feel of the jukebox with its eclectic selection of songs to be chosen by the listener. The original intention was to produce one video of the duo performing together for every day of the lockdown (which at the time was anticipated to be relatively brief). What followed was a project that took off in ways the pair had never dreamed of, capturing the imaginations and hearts of listeners across the globe, embracing requests that traversed many musical genres, featuring commissions by contemporary composers, and entertaining followers with increasingly elaborate costumes, props, additional instruments, and multi-tracking. In all, they made 88 videos – one for each key on a piano. The impact of the endeavour and the joy it brought in an extraordinarily challenging time were more formally recognised when the Jukebox won a Royal Philharmonic Society Inspiration Award. This album captures the spontaneous and varied feel of the original videos, drawing together some of the duo’s favourite pieces in a way that celebrates this joyous project and all those who contributed to it.

8 October 2021
Eugène Ysaÿe
Six Sonatas for Solo Violin; Poème élégiaque
Jack Liebeck, Daniel Grimwood
ORC100179
Following his acclaimed release of the Brahms and Schoenberg Violin Concertos, Jack Liebeck returns to Orchid Classics with Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, as well as the lyrical Poème élégiaque for violin and piano, for which Liebeck is joined by Daniel Grimwood. Ysaÿe was hailed as the greatest violinist of his day until illness cut short his career as a soloist, prompting him to channel his energies into writing these sonatas dedicated to six of his most outstanding contemporaries, including George Enescu and Fritz Kreisler. Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas were inspired by hearing Joseph Szigeti play J.S. Bach’s Sonata for solo violin in G minor, BWV 1001, and Bach’s influence is palpable throughout, alongside folk idioms that reflect the nationality of each dedicatee, and more characteristic 20th-century elements such as dissonance and quarter tones. This mixture is bound together by the dazzling virtuosity one would expect from a master of the instrument. Liebeck navigates these nuances with the combination of delicacy and bravura demanded by these stunning pieces.

PHASMA MUSIC

1 October 2021
Lament for Theodore Antoniou, Vol 1
Iwona Glinka
PHASMA-MUSIC 031
This exceptional album by the outstanding Greek-Polish soloist, Iwona Glinka, with solo compositions for flute, was recorded in December 2020 and includes 22 works by 22 contemporary composers, which are released for the first time. The albums Lament for Theodore Antoniou Volumes 1-3 consist of 66 (22 each) new works dedicated to the memory of the deceased Greek composer Theodore Antoniou. The main idea of the miniatures, like lamentations, came from Antoniou who wrote seven laments for friends and colleagues who were no longer with him: Lament for Michelle for solo flute (for Michelle Sahm, flutist of Alea III), Lament for Manos for solo clarinet (for Manos Hadjikakis), Lament for Walter for solo viola (for the violist Walter Trampler), Lament for Yiannis Mantakas for mixed choir, Lament for Joseph for solo flute (for Joseph Castaldo), Lament for John for solo horn (for John Daverio) and Lament for Lukas (for Lukas Foss). All Antoniou’s laments were based on a dirge (moiroloi) from the area of Mani in Greece.

1 October 2021
Lament for Theodore Antoniou, Vol 2
Iwona Glinka
PHASMA-MUSIC 032
An exceptional album LAMENT FOR THEODORE ANTONIOU Vol. 2 of the outstanding Greek-Polish soloist, Iwona Glinka, with solo compositions for flute was recorded in December 2020 and includes 22 works by 22 contemporary composers, which are released for the first time. The albums Lament for Theodore Antoniou Volumes 1-3 consist of 66 (22 each) new works dedicated to the memory of the deceased Greek composer Theodore Antoniou. The main idea of the miniatures, like lamentations, came from Antoniou who wrote seven laments for friends and colleagues who were no longer with him: Lament for Michelle for solo flute (for Michelle Sahm, flutist of Alea III), Lament for Manos for solo clarinet (for Manos Hadjikakis), Lament for Walter for solo viola (for the violist Walter Trampler), Lament for Yiannis Mantakas for mixed choir, Lament for Joseph for solo flute (for Joseph Castaldo), Lament for John for solo horn (for John Daverio) and Lament for Lukas (for Lukas Foss). All Antoniou’s laments were based on a dirge (moiroloi) from the area of Mani in Greece.

1 October 2021
Lament for Theodore Antoniou, Vol 3
Iwona Glinka
PHASMA-MUSIC 033
An exceptional album LAMENT FOR THEODORE ANTONIOU Vol. 3 of the outstanding Greek-Polish soloist, Iwona Glinka, with solo compositions for flute was recorded in December 2020 and includes 22 works by 22 contemporary composers, which are released for the first time. The albums Lament for Theodore Antoniou Volumes 1-3 consist of 66 (22 each) new works dedicated to the memory of the deceased Greek composer Theodore Antoniou. The main idea of the miniatures, like lamentations, came from Antoniou who wrote seven laments for friends and colleagues who were no longer with him: Lament for Michelle for solo flute (for Michelle Sahm, flutist of Alea III), Lament for Manos for solo clarinet (for Manos Hadjikakis), Lament for Walter for solo viola (for the violist Walter Trampler), Lament for Yiannis Mantakas for mixed choir, Lament for Joseph for solo flute (for Joseph Castaldo), Lament for John for solo horn (for John Daverio) and Lament for Lukas (for Lukas Foss). All Antoniou’s laments were based on a dirge (moiroloi) from the area of Mani in Greece.

1 October 2021
Michail Travlos
Twenty One Concert Studies
Tamara Licheli
PHASMA-MUSIC 034
Michail Travlos’s third album is dedicated solely to his own music, a follow-up to the award-winning albums Progressions (ICMA nomination 2018, Global Music Awards, Akademia Music Award, Clouzine International Music Award etc.) and Night Visions. In Twenty One Concert Studies, the listener experiences virtuosic works of diverse styles and aesthetic perspectives, proving once again that Travlos is one of Greece’s most interesting and convincing living modern composers. In this album, featuring twenty-one brilliant works, Travlos has managed to create an exciting and often challenging personal voice that is always interesting and very appealing.

PIANO CLASSICS

1 November 2021
Dutilleux: Complete Music for Piano Solo
Vittoria Quartararo, piano
PCL10167
Though Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013) began composing at an early age and undertook the rigorous course of study at the Paris Conservatoire, culminating in the much sought-after Prix de Rome in 1938 with a cantata, he regarded his Piano Sonata of 1946-8 as an Opus 1. This attitude was characteristic of a remarkably fastidious and self-critical composer who dedicated his life to composition – and the nurturing of young composers – and yet whose published output is influential out of all proportion to its size. He wrote the sonata for the pianist Geneviève Joy whom he married in 1946. The musical language is as much modal as tonal, owing as much to Bartók’s methods of musical organization and the 19th-century Germanic concept of the large-scale masterpiece as contemporary developments in harmony. Everything he wrotes seems to repudiate the commonly held idea that French music is essentially frivolous and charming, but Dutilleux’s music can smile and relax, too: while working at French radio he composed a series of short pastiche pieces as air-filler, later compiling them as a suite, Au gré des ondes. Blackbird is Dutilleux’s sole trespass on the territory of his contemporary Messiaen: knowingly brief and non-naturalistic by comparison, a portrait of the blackbird’s soul more than its song. The Debussian heritage of painting on the piano comes to the fore on the set of Three Preludes composed between 1973 and 1988, while Resonances is a study in timbre built with the composer’s individual technique of pivot notes and chords.

1 November 2021
Grieg: Piano Sonata; 14 Lyric Pieces
Matthieu Idmtal, piano
PCL10239
Having completed his studies at the Brussels conservatoire and won first prizes at several distinguished competitions for young musicians, Matthieu Idmtal quickly became known as a specialist in the music of Alexander Scriabin. His debut on record was dedicated to a sequence of the Russian composer’s Etudes and Preludes, and it won him golden reviews: ‘I have listened to Sofronitsky, Gilels, Richter and Ashkenazy – great Scriabin players all. Young Matthieu Idmtal has the potential to join that lofty group.’ (American Record Guide)
His Scriabin disc was followed by an equally well- received album of the violin sonatas by Edvard Grieg, in company with his regular violin-recital partner Maya Levy. The natural sequel is this focus on the Norwegian composer’s solo output. Grieg composed seven books of Lyric Pieces across the course of his career: songs without words that amount to a diary of his compositional evolution as well as testament to enduring preoccupations such as the artistic transformation of folksong and the evocation of natural phenomena such as sunlight and the movement of water. Idmtal’s sequence ranges across all seven books, and does not shy away from established classics such as the Arietta and Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. However, he also includes several lesser-known and introspective masterpieces such as the Vanished Days and Homesickness from the Opus 57 set. Even by their side, however, the Piano Sonata Op 7 is an almost forgotten masterpiece. Grieg wrote it at the age of 22, recently graduated from the conservatoire in Leipzig, yet even within the first movement’s opening exposition there are shapes and harmonies that instantly identify the composer’s artistic fingerprint. The sonata reflects the ambitions and character of the young Grieg: high-spirited, virtuosic, impetuous, and permeated with brusque mood swings.

PROFIL

1 October 2021
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Early Recordings an anthology
PH20074 (7 CDs)
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is undoubtedly one of the greatest vocalists of the past century - and one of those with the most extensive discography . Yet we constantly note the disappearance from the catalogue of early recordings for radio or gramophone, particularly those which covered less popular repertoire. And there are a number of recordings that have simply never been issued on CD. The present anthology aims to bridge this gap. The ‘Four Serious Songs’ by Johannes Brahms (CD 2) recorded in November 1949 for Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG) are the first gramophone recordings of Lieder to have been made by the future grand master of the German Lied repertoire. The first ever sound recording by Fischer-Dieskau - so far as is known - is also in this anthology: the live broadcast from the Stadtische Oper Berlin of Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos (in German, as was then customary) by RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) on November 18, 1948 ( CD 3). The third of our ‘firsts’ is the maiden opera recording for gramophone by a baritone later acclaimed on almost all the world’s stages. Fischer-Dieskau sings the part of Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff, recorded in January 1951 (CD 3).

1 October 2021
Robert Schumann
Lieder on record
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerhard Husch, Lotte Lehmann
PH21025 (4 CDs)
The first three CDs contain ‘Lieder in historic recordings’. A fourth CD completes the set with three song cycles by Schumann in legendary interpretations. The Lied or art song, in contrast to the folk song, came into full flower at the dawn of the Romantic era about 1810 in Germany. The art song really was a largely German phenomenon, known in French (le Lied) and English (the Lied) by its German name. It is Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Joh an nes Brah ms who represent the land marks and reference points for the composition of Lieder in the German-speaking territories. Soon after the arrival of phonographic recording at the end of the 19th century, they began to sing into the record companies’ recording horns - so that the earliest sound recordings of this Edition date back as far as the year 1901. The duty of the Lied composer, declared the arch-Romantic Schumann, is ‘to embroider the poem with its more delicate features in a finer musical fabric’. Altogether, Schumann wrote more than 260 Lieder for a single voice before his suicide attempt in 1854.

1 October 2021
Jaques Thibaud plays Franck, Debussy, Faure, Ravel, Saint-Saens, Mozart
Albert Cortot, Pablo Casals, Tasso Janopoulo, Pierre Fournier, Orchestre de la Societe du Conservatoire / Charles Munch
PH21031
Jacques Thibaud is considered to be one of the early 20th century’s leading violinists and chamber musicians. Such composers as Eugene Ysaye and George Enescu dedicated works to him . His memory Iives on in such bodies as the Jacques Thibaud String Trio, faun ded in 1994, who pay homage to his lifelong love of ambitious and eloquent Music-making in ensemble.

PROPHONE

8 October 2021
Adam Forkelid: 1st Movement
Adam Forkelid, Niklas Fernqvist, Carl Mörner Ringström, Daniel Fredriksson
PCD265
Sometimes, all of a sudden, everything lines up and a clear path is shown to you. That is what happened the very first time I played with the band you hear on this album. Everything seemed to fall in to place and the feeling that a permanent group had formed was immediate. So after a couple of gigs and rehearsals we went into the studio and this record was born. Music and life sometimes make great leaps. Gnossienne is a word I borrowed from the great Eric Satie, to whom I also want to dedicate the song. Nocturnal of course has its fair share of maestro Chopin. And The Beat I would like to dedicate to the late and great Chick Corea. Without you, I would never have gotten started in the first place. Your spirit will live on forever. - Adam Forkelid

REFERENCE RECORDINGS

22 October 2021
Brahms: Symphony No 4
MacMillan: Larghetto for Orchestra
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Manfred Honeck
FR-744SACD (SACD)
Reference Recordings proudly presents the Symphony No. 4 of Johannes Brahms, with James MacMillan’s Larghetto for Orchestra, in exceptional performances from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. We are excited that this release coincides with the orchestra’s 2021–2022 season and triumphant return to live concerts! These works were recorded live in beautiful and historic Heinz Hall, now celebrating its 50th Anniversary season.

RESONUS CLASSICS

1 October 2021
Franz Schubert Piano Trios, Vol 1
Gould Piano Trio
RES10289
In their second album for Resonus, the Gould Piano Trio returns with a recording of Schubert’s Piano Trios. Apart from a very early single movement written when he fifteen years of age, Schubert came to the piano trio late in his short career and left only two full-length works in the form, written in 1827–8. By the time Schubert came to write his piano trios, the form had taken on a new stature thanks to work from composers such as Beethoven. Here, Schubert’s Trios in B-flat major and the ‘Notturno’ in E-flat major are joined by the delightful Valses nobles D969, composed for solo piano and heard here in a world premiere recording in this arrangement for trio by Julius Zellner.

1 October 2021
Elisabeth Lutyens
Piano Works, Vol. 1
Martin Jones
RES10291
The name Elisabeth Lutyens is synonymous with music that is overtly serial, uncompromisingly modernist, and of daring and fearless individuality. Yet there is much to explore behind the naturally combative and provocative façade of this extraordinary composer, whose music is at various times sensual, thoughtful and delicate, as well as dark, turbulent and even violent. With a programme of works all composed in the last decade of her life, and containing world premiere recordings, the first volume of pianist Martin Jones’s survey of Lutyens’s piano works includes five works at times startling in their stark beauty, and bursting with both vivid imagery and lyrical fluidity.

1 October 2021
Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tomkins, Thomas Weelkes
See, See the Word is Incarnate
The Chapel Choir of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Newe Vialles, Orpheus Britannicus Vocal Consort, Andrew Arthur
RES10295
In succession to the Tudors, the flourishing court culture of the Stuart royal dynasty fostered one of the greatest periods in the history of British music. Director and organist Andrew Arthur unites his forces in this compelling programme of works by three composers who flourished in the Jacobean period – Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Tomkins – around the theme of the Word of God. The choral items on this disc exemplify a rhetorically-aware sense of what it means to sound the Word enriched with music in order to teach, move and delight.

RUBICON CLASSICS

24 September 2021
Shall We Gather
Lucas Meachem, baritone; Irina Meachem, piano
RCD1071
Works include Gene Scheer’s American Anthem; “Song of the Deathless Voice” from Arthur Farwell’s Three Indian Songs; William Grant Still’s Grief; “Beat! Beat! Drums!” from Kurt Weill’s Four Walt Whitman Songs; “Litany” from John Musto’s Shadow of the Blues with text by Langston Hughes; Richard Hageman’s The Rich Man; Florence Price’s Night; “That Moment On” from Jake Heggie’s Pieces of 9/11, as we mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks; Irina Meachem and Steve White’s arrangement of Carrie Jacob-Bonds’ A Perfect Day; traditional American folk song Oh, Shenandoah; Charles Ives’ arrangement of In The Mornin’; Ricky Ian Gordon’s We Will Always Walk Together; Stephen Foster’s Hard Times Come Again No More; and “The Boatman’s Dance” and “At The River” from Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs.

SERIOSO

1 October 2021
Innocence & Experience
Daniel Höhr, piano
The central idea of Daniel Höhr's album Innocence & Experience is that of the mature artist looking back to childhood, directly in Schumann’s Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) of 1838, obliquely in the mature and nostalgic piano music which Brahms wrote in the 1890s, at the end of his long life. The album was recorded in January and August 2021 at Hansahaus Studios in Bonn, Germany, engineered and mastered by three-times Grammy winner Klaus Genuit.

SIGNUM RECORDS

19 November 2021
The Tree
Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge / Andrew Nethsingha
SIGCD691
Andrew Nethsingha and The Choir of St John’s, Cambridge present a tribute album to two former directors, Christopher Robinson and David Hill, who celebrate their 85th and 65th birthdays respectively. Taking the idea of new growth as a starting point, the album develops from the seed of a single treble line, gradually adding organ, then lower voices, a second choir (Yale Schola Cantorum), 150 additional singers, and eventually combining nearly 500 voices together (former members and friends of the college choir). The programme spans Hildegard of Bingen to a new commission by James Long (b.1987) and also includes works by three ex-St Johnians: Herbert Howells, Johnathan Harvey and Christopher Robinson.
The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is one of the most well-known collegiate choirs in the world, having earned its place through broadcasts, concert tours and recordings. Founded in the 1670s, the Choir is known for its distinctive sound, its expressive interpretations and its breadth of repertoire.

19 November 2021
Labyrinths
Orchestra of the Swan
SIGCD694
Following the success of their last album, Timelapse, this new album from Orchestra of the Swan is a collection of works connected by ideas of pilgrimage, contemplation, exploration and enlightenment through the works of composers such as Richter, Respighi, Britten, Piazzolla, Brian Eno, Nico Muhly, Joy Division and more. As with Timelapse, the joy is to be found in discovering the surprising and delightful connections between culturally disparate and musically contrasting time periods. Labyrinths have been an important part of humanity’s cultural landscape for thousands of years; from the Ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur to the intriguing stories of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco. This recording encapsulates our intrinsic desire to find patterns in life using the subversive and complex vistas of music.
Formed in 1995, Orchestra of the Swan is a British chamber orchestra which, under the artistic direction of David Le Page, is passionate about audience inclusivity and blurring the lines between genres, through its adventurous and accessible programming.

19 November 2021
Handel’s Eight Great Harpsichord Suites
Bridget Cunningham
SIGCD679

5 November 2021
Gerald Barry: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground
Irish National Opera
SIGCD695
Signum Records and Irish National Opera begin their official partnership with the release of the world premiere recording of Gerald Barry’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, following its premiere at the Royal Opera House last year. Having been unable to stage its own performance this year due to COVID restrictions, INO is instead releasing this recording alongside a film of the opera, with a cast including renowned Irish singers Claudia Boyle, Clare Presland, Gavan Ring and Alan Ewing. Based on the Alice books by Lewis Carroll, Barry’s libretto and score evoke a strange world of fantasy.
Irish National Opera is Ireland’s biggest, newest and most enterprising opera company which aims to produce high-quality and accessible opera in venues throughout Ireland as well as further afield. It champions Irish creativity in its casting, its choice of creative teams and in its commitment to the presentation of new operas. Already boasting critical acclaim from the press, its recent lockdown production ’20 Shots of Opera’ was called “an exhilarating jaunt” by the Wall Street Journal.

SOLO MUSICA

15 October 2021
Komponistinnen, Women Composers Compositrices
Franziska Heinzen, Benjamin Mead
SM378
The duo’s second album on Solo Musica celebrates the song repertoire of women composers from Romanticism to Contemporary Music with 24 songs by 24 women composers. The Swiss soprano Franziska HEINZEN and British- Polish-German pianist Benjamin MEAD set out to research the work of women composers for Clara SCHUMANN’s bicentenary in 2019 – and discovered a valuable treasure of relatively unknown music. Beginning with a life journey through refreshing spring feelings, the album goes on to describe painful hours of loneliness and uncertainty as well as anxious premonitions of death and dark fears. Five examples of self-confident female characters, whose experiences are concluded with wiser, reflections on life, as seen retrospectively.

8 October 2021
Niccolò Paganini
24 Capricci, Op 1
Sergey Malov
SM382
This CD is already the artist’s second encounter with Niccolò Paganini. After the 2014 CD ‘Hommage á Paganini’, this is now the complete Opus 1 of the great Italian. The versatile Russian searches for starting points for creativity in dealing with the highly virtuoso music. Thus the 24 Capricci once again become a continuous story. The fast tempi, the lightness in seemingly unplayable passages is only the surface. Rather, Malov searches for the depth, the wit, the variety of colours in this ingenious music. In addition to the improvisations and ornamentations, effects (forest echo, birdsong) can sometimes be heard. Before the last, 24th Caprice, there is a subjective summary of what has been heard so far. In October 2021, the artist will be awarded with the German ‘Opus Klassik’ in the category ‘Solo Recording Instrument of the Year’ for his most recently released album ‘Bach - 6 Suites for Cello Solo played on a Violoncello da Spalla’.

1 October 2021
Beethoven: Sonata No 21, Op 53 Waldstein; Schumann: Carnaval, Op 9
Jean-Nicolas Diatkine
SM373
At the time he composed this sonata, Beethoven was already struggling intensely against the handicap of his deafness. After his attack of deep despondency, accompanied by the suicidal thoughts, his extraordinary vitality regained the upper hand. This renewed energy led first to his Sonata op. 53, dedicated to Count Ferdinand von Waldstein. Schumann’s work Carneval op. 9 is mischievously subtitled ‘Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes’ (delightful scenes on four notes). This is a reference to the four letters A S C H, which make up the name of the birthplace (Asch) of Ernestine von Fricken, his sweetheart of the moment. Jean-Nicolas Diatkine comes from a family of recognised doctors and considers commitment to others to be the basis of his profession. It seemed impossible for him to do without this basic attitude in the exercise of his profession, which is why he always sees his artistic development as a return to the essential artistic values to which he has devoted himself over the last thirty years.

1 October 2021
Intersec#ion - Classic meets Jazz
Exequiel Mantega, Uri Brener, Pedro Laurenz, José María Contursi
Ensemble Clazzic
SM371
Pushing boundaries, daring to experiment and breaking new ground: through its extraordinary interpretations of arrangements and commissioned works, Ensemble Clazzic has found a musical language all its own. Sometimes filigree and playful, sometimes virtuosic or melancholic, but always rousing and unique. Four artists with roots in different musical genres find unity on stage, a melange of different styles and cultures. Baroque meets jazz, faithfulness to musical notation meets improvisation, beauty of sound meets new playing techniques. Founded in 2009 by flutist Martina Silvester and pianist Susanna Klovsky, the ensemble has since made a name for itself. The Russian-Israeli composer Uri Brener dedicated a suite to the ensemble that seems to have been written for them. Classical flute themes, for example, appear in a new, never-before-heard context. Accompanied by the grooving sound of the double bass, restructured by the rhythm of the drums and commented on by the sometimes jazzy, sometimes classically sparkling sound carpet of the piano. Chamber music with rules, but without a corset.

SOMM RECORDINGS

15 October 2021
Thomas Beecham Conducts Sibelius
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Beecham
ARIADNE 5013
SOMM Recordings is thrilled to announce the first release on disc of the only known live recording of Sir Thomas Beecham conducting Sibelius’s Symphony No.1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to mark the orchestra’s 75th anniversary. The disc has been curated by Tolansky, the original founder of the Music Performance Research Centre. The archive was created in 1987 to preserve the heritage of public performances which included among its collection the Sibelius First Symphony. In 2001 the archive was renamed Music Preserved and transferred to the Borthwick Institute at the University of York. The Symphony, together with Tolansky’s other discovery, Scènes historiques have been brilliantly restored by acclaimed engineer Lani Spahr. SOMM’s ground-breaking The Beecham Collection spans 24 volumes, many of them with the RPO. It includes the partnership’s coupling of Sibelius’s Fourth and Sixth Symphonies (SOMM-BEECHAM 18) and their earliest-known recordings, dating from 1946, featuring Wagner, Mendelssohn, Mozart’s ‘Great C minor’ Symphony (No.40), and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Moura Lympany the soloist (SOMM-BEECHAM 19).

15 Oct 2021
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Chamber Music
Eusebius Quartet, Alasdair Beatson
SOMMCD 0642
SOMM Recordings throws new, invigorating light on the Chamber Music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, performed by the Eusebius Quartet and pianist Alasdair Beatson. Hailed by musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky as ‘the very last breath of the romantic spirit of Vienna’, Korngold’s stellar beginnings in Europe’s concert halls and opera houses were later overshadowed by his success in America where his soaring symphonic signature forged the template for the Hollywood soundtrack. Praised as ‘excellent’ by The Sunday Times, the Eusebius Quartet was formed in 2016 and is making its debut on SOMM Recordings. Alasdair Beatson’s previous SOMM releases include his enthusiastically reviewed recording debut, coupling Schumann, Grieg, Brahms and Berg (SOMMCD 086), and a Mendelssohn recital (SOMMCD 104) hailed by Classic FM for its ‘highly sensitive playing of rare insight’.

SONO LUMINUS

22 October 2021
Wild at Heart - Reincarnations of Bach's Chaconne
Pauline Kim Harris, violin
DSL-92253
A collection of contemporary chaconnes which Harris envisions as reincarnations of Bach’s iconic Chaconne, by composers Annie Gosfield (Long Waves and Random Pulses, 2012), Elizabeth Hoffman (morsels, 2018), John King (C-H-A-C-O-N-N-E, 2013), and Yoon-Ji Lee (Shakonn, 2014). The album is the second in Harris’s Chaconne Project, following her celebrated 2019 release of Heroine, also on Sono Luminus, a reimagining of the Chaconne which included Ambient Chaconne and Deo Gratias – both co-composed by Harris and Spencer Topel.

1 October 2021
Resonance Lines
Hannah Collins
Music for Solo Cello by Colombi, Kaija Saariaho, Caroline Shaw, Britten, and Thomas Kotcheff
DSL-92252
Making her label debut with this album, Collins created a tribute to people with whom she has had inspiring interpersonal connections, celebrating the rich collaborative worlds that lead to these works which are performed alone. The album features music by composers from the Baroque to the 21st century: Giuseppe Colombi, Kaija Saariaho, Caroline Shaw, Benjamin Britten, and a world premiere recording by Thomas Kotcheff. Cellist Hannah Collins is a dynamic performer who uses diverse forms of musical expression and artistic collaboration to build connections and community. Winner of the Presser Music Award and De Linkprijs for contemporary interpretation, she takes an active role in expanding the repertoire for the cello by commissioning and premiering solo works by composers such as Caroline Shaw and Timo Andres, and by co-creating interdisciplinary projects—most recently working with visual artist Antonia Contro and violinist Clara Lyon on Correspondence, a multimedia installation exhibited at the Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago.

STEINWAY & SONS

1 October 2021
Sounds for the Soul - Music to help overcome cancer
Min-Jung Kym, piano
STNS 30186
Music can be a powerful therapeutic tool and it has been shown to bring about positive emotional changes and reduce anxiety. For cancer patients, music and music therapy can also be used to develop positive coping skills that come with a cancer diagnosis. This album is a personal selection of works that pianist Min-Jung Kym played or listened to during her treatment. ‘The power of music and what it can inspire helped me through this period of my life. I wanted to share my experience because music contains the altruistic dimension of sharing, and perhaps, as a result, others may also find it easier to cope with their cancer.’ – Min-Jung Kym

1 October 2021
Franz Liszt
Harmonies poétiques et religieuses
Jenny Lin, piano; Adam Tendler, piano
STNS 30189 (2 CDs)
Performed here by pianists Jenny Lin and Adam Tendler, Liszt’s rarely heard Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is a sublime example of Liszt’s early compositions. Lin and Tendler alternate movements of this monumental piano cycle. ‘We’re raised on this stuff. It’s in our bones. And now we can come at this music with a different kind of lens.’ — Adam Tendler ‘This is definitely a very private Liszt, one who’s retreated to his inner self.’ — Jenny Lin

STERLING RECORDS

1 October 2021
Maurice Ravel
Ravel que J’ Aime
Brenda Lucas Ogdon
CDA1855 (2 CDs)
Although Ravel (1875-1937) was a pianist, and composed his keyboard pieces with a sure knowledge of the instrument and what it was capable of, he lacked the technique of the likes of, for instance, Chopin, Liszt or Rakhmaninov as an outright composer-pianist. Because of this, Ravel’s piano works were not written as vehicles to demonstrate pianistic virtuosity as a goal in itself, even if some of them - such as the suite Gaspard de la Nuit - present enormous challenges for the prospective performer.

STRADIVARIUS

15 October 2021
Vincenzo Capirola
il piu bel secreto et arte
Paul Beier
STR37192
Vincenzo Capirola is a slightly mysterious figure. It has been revealed that he was from Brescia, born into a wealthy mercantile family in 1474 and that he lived a long a life until he was in his mid-seventies. He is last recorded alive in 1548 when he was seventy-four. His parents died while Vincenzo was still young: his father when he was two, and his mother later in his youth. Documentary evidence confirms his presence in Brescia in 1489, 1498, and 1548. He was in Venice in 1517, there has been unconfirmed speculation that he may have travelled extensively in Europe and that he may even have been the same renowned Brescian lutenist who was at the English court of Henry VIII in 1515. The music of this lute book reveals Capirola as a consummate lutenist who had already attained a high level of stylistic maturity. This can be seen in all the musical genres in his book, especially in his intabulations of vocal polyphony that transform their models into attractive idiomatic solo lute music, and in his ricercars that assimilate inherited styles into engaging and coherent rhetorical narrative.

15 October 2021
Ricardo Nillni
Surface
Ensemble Alternance
STR37194
I am very interested in the approach of Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt, François Morellet, Ellsworth Kelly, Doug Wheeler ... I am touched by the purity ofthe forms of their works, by their false pure appearance. In detail, there is chaos, a false symmetry, a disorganization. My music has not a functionto represent these works. It is just their geometrical aspect which I incorporate, a vibratory geometry. Unstable edges give this vibration as that ofa cell moving in the space. It is the vibration which gives this unstable shape but it moves in a fixed structure: it is a simple metaphor of the organic cell.It is not completely a coincidence if I am attracted by visual forms proposing courses. The labyrinthic shape is a musical source of inspiration for me aswell as the kaleidoscopic shape and moreover my way of writing the music brings me towards labyrinthic forms. - Ricardo Nillni

15 October 2021
Domenico Scarlatti
Alio Modo
Amaya Fernández Pozuelo, harpsichord
STR37197
In front of a score, the performer - as in a play of shadows - is always and unfailingly faced with difficult interpretative choices be-tween appearance, reality and imagination. Domenico Scarlatti’s language in its simplicity and immediacy goes beyond the direct meaning of notation. What should be read according to convention for other authors, in Scarlatti’s pieces a potential changeable meaning is to be sought, never exactly the same. Everything becomes more understandable if one thinks of Scarlatti as a composer who performed his sonata before noting it on paper. The development and the definitive draft have always perfectly blended the alea of improvised execution and formal completeness. The limits of notation, almost perfect for those times, lie in the performer’s profound understanding of the author style and of the relationship intertwining structural rigour, stylistic-formal perfection, and free inventiveness. For this to occur, the musician-per-former’s intuition is to transcend and make the written signs meaningful and make them his or her own. Only in this way can the non-writable, the unsaid but thought of, the changeable meaning, emerge as well as the allusion to and participation in the vast panorama of human emotions. In my interpretation of Scarlatti sonatas and of his imitators and epigones on the CD, I intended to make these hidden elements audible, palpable: its effects and affects, which are rich, varied and manifold.

15 October 2021
Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin
Facets
Mariangela Vacatello
STR37203

SWEETHAVEN RECORDS

22 October 2021
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
(Music from the National Theatre Production)
Jherek Bischoff
The official album release from Los Angeles-based composer, arranger, producer and multi-instrumental performer Jherek Bischoff of his score for the National Theatre’s critically acclaimed adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s best-selling novel of the same name. The official soundtrack will be available to buy, stream and download on all major platforms from 22 October, to coincide with the production opening at The Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End.
CDs featuring artwork from the production will also be available to buy online via Bandcamp and the National Theatre Bookshop and in person at the NT Bookshop and The Duke of York’s Theatre in London UK. A special limited-edition vinyl will also be released in the new year.
Nominated for the 2020 Stage Debut Award’s Best Composer category, Bischoff’s work deftly underscores the journey of a man returning to his childhood home, where he finds himself standing beside the pond of the old Sussex farmhouse where he used to play. He’s transported to his 12th birthday when his friend Lettie claimed it wasn’t a pond, but an ocean… Plunged into a magical world, their survival depends on their ability to reckon with ancient forces that threaten to destroy everything around them.

SWR CLASSIC

8 October 2021
Michael Gielen Edition Vol. 10: Music after 1945
Bernd Alois Zimmermann, György Ligeti, George Crumb, Jorge E López, Luigi Nono, György Kurtag, Mauricio Kagel, Pierre Boulez, John Cage
SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR / Michael Gielen
SWR19111CD (6 CDs)
Six years after its launch, the Michael Gielen Edition now concludes with the release of this tenth instalment. It contains more than seven hours of music composed after 1945, including two of Gielen’s own compositions. There are many first releases of live recordings, including the German premiere recording of Breath – Hammer – Lightning and the world premiere recording of Dome Peak, both by Jorge Lopez. Listeners are duly advised about the extreme dynamic contrasts in Lopez’s output. Nearly all the works on this album are by composers who enjoyed a long, personal association with Gielen, some of them as close friends. Gielen supported them throughout his career, which ensured that he was able to perform their works with great skill and authority; he always went to great lengths to promote works he believed in. The results of his extraordinary skills can be heard on this final instalment of SWR Classic’s monumental project.

8 October 2021
Hans Rosbaud conducts Sibelius: 3 Lieder, Sinfonien 2, 4 & 5
Südwestfunk-Orchester Baden-Baden, Kim Borg, Hans Rosbaud
SWR19105CD (2 CDs)
Rosbaud is not generally recognised as a conductor of Sibelius’ works to the extent that he is as an interpreter of the music of Mozart, Mahler, Strauss or the radical modern music of the 1950s. Music enthusiasts with high expectations, however, got to know him as a result of the well-received 1954 recording he made for Deutsche Grammophon of some of the Finnish composer’s shorter orchestral works. Rosbaud combined a meticulous approach, unmistakable intuition, extensive experience with complex genres and extraordinary liveliness. His studio recordings from 1955 and 1961 of three Sibelius symphonies and three songs for voice and orchestra clearly demonstrate his optimum artistic approach to the music of the great Finnish master.

8 October 2021
Ida Haendel plays violin concertos (The SWR Recordings 1953 - 1967)
Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Peter Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvořák, Aram Khachaturian, Béla Bartók
Ida Haendel, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart / Hans Müller-Kray
SWR19427CD (3 CDs)
Ida Haendel was a phenomenon. The grande dame of the violin continued to serve as a jury member at acclaimed competitions and to teach masterclasses well into old age, always retaining her mental freshness and the physical capability to tour with spirit and verve. No other violinist has ever enjoyed such a long, successful stage career. Seventy years after her debut, Ida Haendel was still enthralling audiences with her inimitable combination of impassioned virtuosity and discipline. The recordings of the concertos by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Khatchaturian, Dvořák and Bartók, which she played pre-1967 under the baton of Hans Müller-Kray, then chief conductor of the SWR (SDR at the time) are among the most valuable treasures in today’s Southwest German Radio archive.

TACTUS

1 October 2021
Sylvano Bussotti
Works for flute and percussion
Roberto Fabbriciani, Jonathan Faralli
TC 931902
On the ninetieth birthday of one of the most singular and emblematic composers on the international contemporary scene, this record production comes as a tribute to the figure of Sylvano Bussotti (1931-2021), thanks to Jonathan Faralli on percussion and Roberto Fabbriciani on flute, an equally emblematic performer and constant point of reference in the musical production of our century, as well as a great friend and close collaborator of Bussotti himself. A must for lovers of the genre, in which the masterful work of the two performers stages Bussotti’s famous and theatrical scores, full of dramaturgy, poetry and scenographic both for the eyes and for the ears.

1 October 2021
Pietro Antonio Locatelli
Sei concerti a quattro opera VII
Ensemble Baroque 'Carlo Antonio Marino' / Natale Arnoldi
TC 691203
The Baroque Ensemble “Carlo Antonio Marino”, directed by Natale Arnoldi, already protagonist of important Classical and late Baroque productions, within this album is faced with the concerts from the seventh opera by Pietro Antonio Locatelli, well known composer and violinist from Bergamo. When it appeared, this collection was not particularly successful; probably the mixture of different musical styles in the Concertos was not appreciated by the public, which by then was moving towards the new sensitivity of the galant style. Op. 7, in any case, is an excellent and occasionally brilliant work of Locatelli’s: a musician who, in spite of the fact that in 1741 he had already attained fame and glory, did not hesitate to run the risk of attempting to renew the waning Italian Concerto, by experimenting with approaches that might accommodate the new trends, without however denying his own origins.

1 October 2021
Giuseppe Unia
Opere per pianoforte
Massimiliano Génot, piano; Andrea Vigna-Taglianti, piano
TC 812101
At last it is possible to present to the public the first monographic recording of works by Giuseppe Unia, who in the eighteen-sixties could boast the title of ‘court pianist-composer to His Majesty the King of Italy’, like his better-known colleague Hans von Bülow, court pianist to Ludwig ii of Bavaria and his friend Alfred Jaëll, pianist to the King of Hannover. Giuseppe Antonio Unia is one of the many Italian musicians whom history – or, should we say, time – has separated from us with the thin veil of oblivion. Yet his more than two hundred publications for publishers such as Ricordi, Canti and Vismara testify to a considerable degree of success, and the dedications of his works show that his friends were important people, both from a social point of view and from an artistic one. The pianists Massimiliano Génot and Andrea Vigna Taglianti here are proposing a careful selection of the piano works by Unia, fully reflecting the style and musical taste of Europe of his time, of which he was a profound connoisseur thanks to his numerous artistic experiences in Italy, Paris and Vienna.

1 October 2021
Goffredo Petrassi Monologhi: Solo Works
Alessandro Cazzato, Lapo Vannucci, Francesca Tirale, Arcadio Baracchi, Vanessa Sotgiu, Alessio Toro
TC 901603
Planned by the violinist Alessandro Cazzato, this project is as a fascinating musical path that unfolds between the pieces for solo instrument by Goffredo Petrassi with the aim of understanding, in a single glance, the intimate and virtuosic compositional writing of the six instruments, focused on authentic instrumental monologues. It is very interesting to follow two different listening paths: the first based on listening to the pieces in chronological order, as presented in the text of the booklet; and the second, more evocative and allusive, as presented in the tracklist, based on the amazing web of associations, connections, sound analogies, unraveling between the first piece and the last one. Thanks to all the people who made this project possible, with the hope of reaching new listeners who love his music.

TOCCATA CLASSICS

1 October 2021
Nikolai Myaskovsky
Vocal Works, Vol. 1; Violin Sonata in F major, Op.70
Elizaveta Pakhomova, Tatiana Barsukova, Marina Dichenko, Olga Solovieva
TOCC 0355
The dignified bearing and quiet wisdom of Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881–1950) gained him the sobriquet of ‘the conscience of Russian music’ – and those qualities are reflected in the unemphatic strength of his music. His orchestral, chamber and instrumental works are regaining the currency they once enjoyed, but his large corpus of songs, many of them understated masterpieces, has yet to attract systematic attention – a situation this series hopes to remedy. The pairing here of his late Violin Sonata with his last two song-cycles for soprano and piano mirrors the Moscow concert in 1947 when all three were given their first performances.

1 October 2021
Hans Winterberg
Piano Music, Vol 2
Brigitte Helbig
TOCC 0609
The tale of Hans Winterberg (1901–91) is a strange one. A survivor of the Terezín concentration camp, where he had been interned as a Czech Jew, he settled in Munich after the War as a German citizen, and his music enjoyed a number of broadcasts – but with his death his estate disappeared into a legal limbo, emerging only in 2015. This second album of his piano music reveals an unusual and individual voice, an idiosyncratic blend of Janáček, Ravel, Schoenberg and other mid-twentieth-century masters, animated by a hard-edged, freewheeling energy and grim humour reminiscent of his close contemporary, Nikos Skalkottas.

1 October 2021
Peter Fischer
Complete Music for Wind Ensemble
Jens Lindemann, Middle Tennessee State University Wind Ensemble, Reed Thomas
TOCC 0625
The four works for symphonic wind band composed by Peter Fischer – born in 1956, across the bay from San Francisco, in Martinez, California – are almost textbook examples of American eclecticism, mixing inner-city vibrancy with a sense of the timeless outdoors, bringing in flavours from jazz and rock and moving easily between vigorous dance-rhythms and sultry nightscapes. Dance, indeed, lies at the heart of most of this music, which gives the mambo, the tango, the tarantella and the waltz a new and spirited twist amid echoes of Stravinsky, Revueltas and Bernstein.

1 October 2021
Malcolm Arnold orchestral music
Grand Concerto Gastronomique, Op 76; Symphony No 9, Op 128
Anna Gorbachyova-Ogilvie, Liepāja Symphony Orchestra / John Gibbons
TOCC 0613
These two works present two sharply contrasting sides of Malcolm Arnold: his limitless resources of knockabout fun, and a sense of existential tragedy. But each score presents its own surprises: the jocularity of the Grand Concerto Gastronomique – written for a Hoffnung concert – conceals some seriously good (though not seriously serious) music; and the delicately scored Ninth Symphony, written after five years when its composer had, in his own words, ‘been through hell’, irradiates its emotional restraint and elegiac tone with moments of light and warmth.

1 October 2021
The Birth of the Etude
Ludwig Berger, Alexandre Boëly, João Domingos Bomtempo, Johann Baptist Cramer, Hélène de Montgéroult, Daniel Steibelt, Joseph Woelfl
Anna Petrova-Forster
TOCN 0005
The best-known piano studies are the 27 by Chopin, most of them composed in the 1830s. But Chopin did not create the genre: a number of prominent pianist-composers had already established the piano study, or étude, in the decades before Chopin sat down to write his. Although this repertoire is as good as unknown today, it is a treasure-trove of miniature jewels, many of them announcing the dawn of Romanticism in their combination of Classical delicacy and a new harmonic warmth.

1 October 2021
Echoes of Autumn and Light, New Chamber Music from Luxembourg
Camille Kerger, Marcel Reuter, Georges Lentz, Markus Brönnimann
Kammerata Luxembourg
TOCN 0011
The ensemble Kammerata Luxembourg has set itself the goal of promoting works by Luxembourgish composers or those living in the Grand Duchy by means of commissioning and performing works at home and abroad, juxtaposing them with the classical chamber-music repertoire. The four composers brought together on this recording are all closely linked to Luxembourg. These five pieces – all written by Luxembourgeois composers within the past decade – draw on the flexible forces of Kammerata Luxembourg to generate a kaleidoscopic range of colours and textures. Though the music is unapologetically modernist in style, it is presented in instrumental combinations remarkable for their delicacy and gentle contours – in the aural equivalent of a walk through autumn woods.

TŌNSEHEN

15 September 2021
Trumpet Music of Robert Levy
Chris Gekker, trumpet
TSN-004
This album features University of Maryland Professor of Trumpet Chris Gekker along with cellist Stephen Czarkowski - Chris’s frequent collaborator and treasured colleague, saxophonist Rick Humphreys - long-time friend of Chris, as well Chris’s wife, clarinetist Suzanne Gekker, and daughter, pianist Lianna Gekker.
What started as an invitation to a Summer teaching gig has turned into a life-long friendship and series of professional collaborations between Chris Gekker and Robert Levy. Trumpet Music of Robert Levy collects those strong personal connections and showcases the phenomenal compositions of Robert Levy and the exquisite playing of Chris Gekker.

TUDOR

15 October 2021
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms
Clarinet Quintets
Karl-Heinz Steffens, Scharoun Ensemble Berlin
TUD7137 (hybrid SACD)

15 October 2021
In the Music Hall
Victor Ewald, Werner Pirchner, Christian Mühlbacher, Joseph Horovitz, Jan Koetsier
Gabor Tarkövi, Guillaume Jehl, Thomas Jöbstl, Mark Gaal, Alexander von Puttkamer, Wien-Berlin Brass Quintett
TUD7204
Baroque masters were already playing to the gallery with brass players’ fanfares; Mozart and Haydn composed wonderful concertos for trumpet or horn; then the Romantics Brahms and Dvoˇrák did their bit, followed by orchestral wizards Berlioz and Richard Strauss who triumphantly ushered trumpet, horn and trom-bone into the symphony orchestra. Jazz brought the great liberation, and light entertainment contributed to the overdue recognition of their possibilities. The wide spectrum of the present album illustrates the boundless popularity of this musical genre. The com-posers of these works enjoy life, and are proof positive that brass ensembles are to be taken seriously – whether performed in venerable concert halls, the Music Hall or the circus. The Wien-Berlin Brass Quintett radiates a cheerful, vibrant atmosphere, offering musical fireworks, sparkling wit and humour along with quite unique and breathtaking virtuosity.

WARNER CLASSICS

23 September 2021
The Leeds International Piano Competition 2021 – Gold Medal Winner
Alim Beisembayev, the 23-year-old pianist from Kazakhstan, won the 20th edition of the Leeds International Piano Competition, a triennial event widely regarded as among the most prestigious prizes in the musical world. He was awarded a recording contract with Warner Classics and management by Askonas Holt as part of his career-changing prize package. This digital-only release is a selection of Alim’s performances, featuring solo works Scarlatti, Ravel and Ligeti, recorded live during the competition at Leeds Town Hall.

WINTER & WINTER

15 October 2021
My Choice
Uri Caine
9102762
The border crossing: Uri Caine and Stefan Winter met for the first time in New York 30 years ago. A musical adventure begins, there is no goal, but a path. Two outstanding jazz albums are created on JMT, then Caine breaks through the boundaries between jazz, classical and new music like no other artist on Winter & Winter. New, exciting, groundbreaking things are emerging. Caine embodies sound, composition and improvisation merge, Bach and Monk meet as in a completely new duo drama and conduct a dialogue. Caine: ‘When Stefan Winter asked me to choose music from the past to put on an album, I hesitated. The selection of works is as difficult as if someone asked you which of your children is your favourite child.’ Caine made a completely surprising choice: worth hearing, enlightening, remarkable!

YARLUNG RECORDS

1 October 2021
Fire and Fancy
David Lefkowitz, Diego Schissi
Sibelius Piano Trio
YAR944225-638V (1 LP - vinyl)
The gentlemen of Sibelius Piano Trio feel at home in any musical style. When they play Nene, written for them by Argentine composer Diego Schissi, you hear Latin musicians offering you South American sunlight and Argentine dance rhythms. Nene celebrates the daydreams and fantasy world of a young boy. When Sibelius Piano Trio performs Ruminations by David S. Lefkowitz, the Trio conjures the mystical fire of Persian poetry. One can hear musical instruments including the oud, nose flute and Eastern European Klezmer in David’s rhapsodic work inspired by the great 13th Century Persian poet and Sufi mystic Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Rumi. ‘Ruminations and Nene were audience favorites at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, where the Trio gave their premieres. As a proud Finn and as a representative of the Finnish government, I salute Sibelius Piano Trio for their talent. Petteri, Juho and Samuli embody and exemplify the best of our country, and as someone who lives in Los Angeles, it gives me great pleasure that the Trio is so intimately connected with California and Yarlung Records.’

A FILM

Fazil Say: Black Earth
Anzhelika Kovalenko, piano
Punchline Studio - Film & Ton
With an impressive live video and a fascinating performance of Fazil Say's piece "Black Earth (Kara Toprak)", the Ukrainian pianist Anzhelika Kovalenko is currently causing a stir. The 25-year-old, who describes herself as a great admirer of the Turkish composer and pianist Fazil Say, performed live on the stage of the Parktheater Lahr in Germany at the end of May for the german concert film series "WeLive on Tour". 15 cameras filmed the Ukrainian's performance. Kovalenko insisted on recording the work only once for the film and deliberately avoided repetitions in order to preserve the live character. The piece has now been published. "This music is very close to me," Kovalenko describes her approach to Fazil Say's work. "Fazil Say is one of the few contemporary composers who, despite his musical experiments, still remains within the framework of tonal music," says Kovalenko, whose interpretation probably struck a chord with the Turkish classical composer himself. Fazil Say also posted the elaborately produced live video on his official Facebook page one day after the premiere. An accolade for Kovalenko, who dedicated her performance to her recently deceased teacher Khalisa Humetska.

A BOOK

Christopher Russell:
Notes on the Piano - A Series of Essays on the Playing and Teaching of the Piano
Michael Terence Publishing
ISBN: 9781800940413 (paperback), also available on Amazon Kindle
Nearly three decades of teaching the piano has gone into Christopher Russell’s ‘Notes on the Piano’ - subtitled ‘A Series of Essays on the Playing and Teaching of the Piano.’ For anyone who has previously played the piano, this book would be extremely helpful in guiding them back into playing the instrument. It is packed with detailed advice surrounding the various stages of playing the piano and each chapter goes into detailed guidance and helpful explanations around the fundamental aspects of playing the instrument. The book is very clear and easy to dip in and out of as the student grows in confidence at the keyboard. It’s also a motivator. It’s suitable for all types of people with an interest in the piano, whether beginners or experienced pianists. Above all else, it is a totally enjoyable read, the advice and guidance written in a way which is very engaging and interesting. Check out the 'Some Piano-teaching Anecdotes' at the end - some amusing stories which will bring a big smile to your face over a well-earned cuppa. Christopher Russell is a qualified piano teacher who has taught the piano for the last 28 years. He was a concert pianist but discovered in his late twenties that he enjoyed teaching the piano the most. He studied the piano with Phyllis Sellick, O.B.E., right from the beginning for nine years. After this, his teachers included Yonty Solomon and Raymond Banning. He has never had a pupil fail a grade exam and in the last few years two of his pupils achieved marks of 141 out of 150 in their grade exams.

FESTIVALS / CONCERTS / OPERA / BROADCASTS

AUSTRIA

Juan Diego Flórez, Étienne Dupuis, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Ildar Abdrazakov and Paolo Bordogna
Vienna State Opera / Michele Mariotti
Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia
28 September - 14 October 2021

CANADA

SMCQ and Musique 3 Femmes :
Triptyque — Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes
Sunday 10 October 2021, 19:30
Salle Bourgie, Montréal
Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) and Musique 3 Femmes (M3F) unveil the operas by the 2020 laureates of the Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes
Justine et les machines by Sonia Paço-Rocchia and Marie-Ève Bouchard (2021, excerpt)
Vanishing Point by Parisa Sabet and Nika Khanjani (2021, full premiere)
Plaything by Anna Pidgorna and Maria Reva (2021, excerpt)

Georges Bizet: Les Pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers)
Jeunesses Musicales Canada (JM Canada) / Centre de créativité du Gesù
Le Gesù Amphitheatre, 1200 De Bleury Street, Montréal, QC H3B 3J3
Tuesday 19 October 2021, 20:00
Bizet's first operatic work, which he wrote at the age of 25, is a tragic tale of betrayed friendship, impossible love and sacrificial rituals told through one of the most beautiful duets of French opera. The fishermen Zurga and Nadir and the object of their desire, the priestess Leïla, form a love triangle, bound by an oath that is doomed to failure.
Set on the island of Ceylon in South Asia, this rarely performed opera will allow you to discover young local talent: soprano Carole-Anne Roussel (Leïla), tenor Louis-Charles Gagnon (Nadir), baritones Bruno Roy (Zurga) and Olivier Bergeron (Nourabad) and pianist Holly Kroeker. With stage direction by Alain Gauthier and musical direction by Esther Gonthier.
JM Canada is presenting a one-hour-and-a-half chorus-free version of this three-act opera from the libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. Presented in French with English surtitles.

Duo Stephanie and Saar
Chapelle Historique du bon Pasteur, Montreal
28 November 2021, 15:00
To include four-hand works by Bach, Fanny Mendelssohn, Schubert and Beethoven including the mighty Grosse Fuge

FRANCE

Body & Sound
Julien Desprez, Julien Derouault
Danseurs apprentis du CFA du Théâtre du Corps
2 October 2021, 20:30
Théâtre du corps, Alfortville

ITALY

32nd Concorso di Violino Citta di Vittorio Veneto
27 Sept-2 October 2021 - livestreamed

SWEDEN

Älskade stråkkvintetter! (loved string quintets)
Britten and Brahms
Uppsala Chamber Soloists
Thursday 7 October 2021, 19:00
Älvkarleby kyrka, Uppsala
Friday 8 October 2021, 18:00
Bälinge kyrka, Uppland, Uppsala
Saturday 9 October 2021, 17:00
Österbybruks kyrka, Uppsala
Sunday 10 October 2021, 15:00
Magdalenakyrkan, Bålsta
Tuesday 12 October 2021, 19:00
Missionskyrkan, Harbo
Thursday 14 October 2021, 19:00
Tingshuset, Enköping
Friday 15 October 2021, 18:00
Lagga kyrka
Saturday 16 October 2021, 16:00
Lövstabruks kyrka

UNITED KINGDOM

Le Gateau Chocolat/Tommy Bradson: Liminal
Robert Barbaro, Grace Nyandoro, Honey Rouhani, and Dan D’Souza
29 Sept - 23 Oct 2021
King’s Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, London N1 1QN
Press shows: 1 Oct, 7pm and 8.45pm; 2 Oct, 3pm and 7pm
Exploring the bittersweet richness of the dark, with the creamy decadence of the light, Le Gateau Chocolat joins forces with King’s Head Theatre to create a brand new show. Each night, a specially curated operatic song cycle will offer a meditation on where do we go and who do we become when we lose our anchor? For years, in a small room at the back of a pub, audiences have seen the greatest operas reworked, reimagined, and updated. But what happens when Tosca takes her taxi home at the end of the night? When Figaro has a zoom meeting at 11.00am? King’s Head Theatre favourites and some exciting new voices explore the space between the persona and the person in a new honest and emotional response to the world away from the glamour. Developed and directed by Le Gateau Chocolat, this is a raw personal look at opera and the people who perform it. Different for each cast, opera doesn’t get more intimate than this.

ARISE: Legacy and Hope for Black History Month 2021
Pegasus Opera Company's concert
Greenwich Theatre, Crooms Hill, London SE10 8ES
1 October 2021, 13:00 and 19:30
2 October 2021, 19:30
An eclectic array of music from traditional classics in opera, caribbean folk songs, music inspired by the black diaspora, music written by black composers and our new commission ‘Rush’ inspired by the Windrush generation. With two evening performances only and a matinee intended for younger school audiences (where audience participation is encouraged!) Arise: Legacy and Hope is the perfect first-time opera audience experience and just as joyful, entertaining and rich for the everyday opera enthusiast.

Martin Jones 80th Birthday Concert
Jerwood Hall, LSO St Luke's, London
Saturday 2 October 2021, 19:30
Martin Jones, piano
Liszt: Variations on a theme by Bach
Debussy: Images Book 1
Grainger/Strauss: Ramble on the love duet from 'Der Rosenkavalier'
Albéniz: El Albaicin from 'Iberia'
Gershwin/Wild: Fantasy on 'Porgy and Bess'

Rites: Santtu conducts Stravinsky
Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Matias Rouvali
Pekka Kuusisto, violin
Revueltas: La Noche de los Mayas Part III: Noche de Yucatán
Bryce Dessner: Violin Concerto (first UK performance)
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
Sunday 3 October 2021, 7.30pm
Southbank Centre, London

Mozart in Worcester with Zoë Beyers
Zoë Beyers, violin; English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
Sunday 10 October 2021, 15:00
Swan Theatre, Worcester
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture
Mozart: Violin Concerto No 5 in A, ‘Turkish’, K 219
Mystery piece – TBA on the night!
Schubert: Symphony No. 3, D. 200

St Andrews Voices Festival
St Andrews, Fife, Scotland
13-17 October 2021
Scotland’s singing festival will take audiences on journey of a musical discovery for the 2021 event, with its electric programme showcasing vocal performances across a variety of genres, with the theme of pilgrimage at its heart.

Schubert Octet at Great Malvern Priory
English Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players
Thursday 14th October, 1.00pm
The Priory, Great Malvern, Worcestershire

Philip Glass: Koyaanisqatsi, Life Out of Balance
Philharmonia Orchestra / Michael Riesman
Philip Glass Ensemble
Synergy Vocals
Philip Glass: Koyaanisqatsi
Performed to a screening of Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 masterpiece.
Thursday 21 October 2021, 7.30pm
Southbank Centre, London

Handel: Dixit Dominus
Eboracum Baroque / Chris Parsons
Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge
23 October 2021, 19:30

Fauré’s Requiem: Music for Reflection and Hope
Katy Hill, soprano
Gareth Brynmor John, baritone
The Bach Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra / David Hill
Gabriel Jackson: The Promise (World premiere)
Tallis: Hymn
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Richard Blackford: Vision of a Garden (first performance)
Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine
Fauré: Requiem
Sunday 24 October 2021, 3pm
Southbank Centre, London

Sarah Beth Briggs in Cheltenham
Sarah Beth Briggs, piano; English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
Monday 25 October 2021, 19:30
Town Hall, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Sawyers: The Valley of Vision
Mozart: Piano Concerto No 22 in E flat, K 482
Beethoven: Symphony No 6 in F, Op 68 ‘Pastoral’

Byrd, Tallis, Weelkes, Wilbye and Kerry Andrew
Orlando Chamber Choir / Lucy Goddard
28 October 2021, 19:30
St Peter's, 119 Eaton Square, London

Birdsong: Aimard plays Messiaen and Ravel
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Philharmonia Orchestra / Pablo Heras-Casado
Ravel: Miroirs
Messiaen: Réveil des oiseaux
Ravel: Daphnis and Chloé Suite No 2
Thursday 28 October 2021, 7.30pm
Southbank Centre, London

Autumn Elgar Festival
Raphael Wallfisch, Corra Sound, Misha Mullov Abbado Group, Mark Wilde, David Owen Norris, Elgar Chorale, English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
29-31 October 2021
Various venues in Worcester and around Elgar Country

Jill Jarman: The Language of Bells (first performance)
Evelyn Glennie; Chelys Consort of Viols
A prelude to the 2022 Norfolk and Norwich Festival
4 November 2021
The ringing of bells has meant many things to people for centuries: the call to worship, a marking of time, an alarm for danger, the joy of marriage, the sorrow of death. Jill Jarman’s new piece for Evelyn Glennie with viols and voices mixes the sounds of old and new, life and death, celebration and mourning, and examines the call of bells pealing across centuries of human experience.

Santtu conducts Wagner’s Ring Without Words
Miah Persson, soprano
Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Matias Rouvali
Strauss Four Last Songs
Wagner The Ring Without Words
Thursday 4 November 2021, 7.30pm
Southbank Centre, London

Cotswold Festival of Music - Bonfire Night Classical Concert
Robin Bigwood and Steven Devine on double harpsichords; Devine Music Baroque Ensemble
Church of St Peter and St Paul, Northleach, Gloucestershire, GL54 3HZ
5 November 2021

Hilary Hahn: The Lark Ascending
Philharmonia Orchestra / Elim Chan
Hilary Hahn, violin
Gabriella Smith: Tumblebird Contrails
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No 1
Brahms: Symphony No 2
Sunday 7 November 2021, 7.30pm
Southbank Centre, London

Mahler: The Song of the Earth
Philharmonia Orchestra / Xian Zhang
Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano
Andreas Schager, tenor
Alina Ibragimova, violin
Beethoven: Violin Concerto
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Thursday 11 November 2021, 7.30pm
Southbank Centre, London

First performances of 'Raymonda' by Tamara Rojo
English National Ballet
London Coliseum
13-23 January 2022
The eagerly awaited world premiere of Raymonda by English National Ballet’s Artistic Director Tamara Rojo CBE, after Marius Petipa, will take place at the London Coliseum from 13 - 23 January 2022. Marking her debut in choreography and direction, Rojo adapts this 19th- century classic for today’s audiences, revisiting this important but rarely performed work of the ballet canon which is not, in its entirety, in any other UK dance companies’ repertoire. Bringing the story into the setting of the Crimean war and drawing inspiration from the groundbreaking spirit and work of the women supporting the war effort, including Florence Nightingale, Raymonda is recast as a young woman with a calling to become a nurse. With a new narrative and developed characterisation bringing women’s voices to the fore, Rojo’s Raymonda introduces a heroine in command of her own destiny.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

National Symphony Orchestra / JoAnn Falletta
Kennedy Center 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert
1 October 2021, 21:00 EST
PBS broadcast throughout the USA, also on pbs.org and the PBS Video App

Susan Merdinger, piano
University of Chicago: Logan Center for the Arts Performance Penthouse (9th Floor), 915 E 60th St
2 October 2021, 12:15pm
Solo piano music by contemporary composers Aaron Alter, Elbio Barilari and Ilya Levinson, as part of the Ear Taxi Festival

Duo Stephanie and Saar
La Grua Arts Center in Stonington, CT.
2 October 2021, 17:00
Music by J S Bach, Fanny Mendelssohn and the monumental Sonata for Two Pianos in F minor by Johannes Brahms.

Juan Perez Floristan, piano - Gold Medal Winner of the 2021 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition
14 October 2021, 19:00
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York
Chopin: Selections from Twenty-Four Preludes, Op 28
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No 23 in F Minor, Op 57, 'Appassionata'
Gershwin: Three Preludes
Ginastera: Danzas argentinas, Op 2
Juan Pérez Floristan is the First Prize and Audience Favorite Prize at the 16th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, which took place in April-May 2021. His previous achievements include First Prize and the Audience Prize at Santander Piano Competition “Paloma O’Shea” 2015, First Prize at the Berlin Steinway Competition 2015 and the Medal of the City of Seville. Juan Pérez Floristán is at the young age of 28 a benchmark among the new generations of Spanish and European musicians.

Cameron Carpenter, organ
17 October 2021
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA

Devilish Inspirations: Summoning Witches, Demons, and Black Magic at the Piano
Thursday 28 October 2021, 19:00 PST - livestream
Ross McKee Foundation Fundraising Concert
Join hosts Edwin Outwater (Music Director, San Francisco Conservatory of Music) and Peaches Christ (horror icon and owner of Into the Dark: Terror Vault) for an evening of Devilish Inspirations, a tour of the piano repertoire's most haunting moments. Featuring new music videos created by Bay Area pianists, the program focuses on works inspired by the devil and other spooky Halloween themes while Edwin and Peaches provide historical context, witty repartee, and a touch of ghoulish glamour. Proceeds from ticket sales and donations to this fundraiser benefit the Ross McKee Foundation, an organization that has supported Bay Area pianists with over $2.5 million in grants, scholarships, and its piano competition for young artists since its inception in 1989. Given the unprecedented decimation of artists and arts funding around the world during the COVID-19 shutdowns, your contributions are more essential than ever to keep pianists living, working, and performing in the Bay Area. Please consider making a donation of any size to help the Ross McKee Foundation continue the vital work of keeping the Bay Area's dynamic piano scene alive for years to come.

28-30 October 2021
Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
Dallas Symphony Orchestra | Dallas, TX

4-7 November 2021
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello
The Cleveland Orchestra | Cleveland, OH

4-7 November 2021
Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra | Baltimore, MD

11-13 November 2021
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello
Debut with New York Philharmonic | New York, NY

11-22 December 2021
Nochebuena - Santa Fe Desert Chorale traditional Winter Festival
Santa Fe Desert Chorale / Joshua Habermann
Performances in Albuquerque and Santa Fe
Following their virtual Home for the Holidays concert, presented amidst the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the Chorale is thrilled to once again offer their full Winter concert program, Nochebuena, running December 11-22, 2021. In this program, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale builds on its long-standing commitment to music by Hispanic composers. The rich tapestry of our New Mexico heritage informs this seasonal celebration with new works as well as
beloved carols from Spanish and Anglo traditions.

Posted 1 October 2021 by Keith Bramich

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