tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43835563553016041342024-03-06T00:24:48.461-08:00Tom FicUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-74730800852637861542019-03-13T20:53:00.000-07:002019-03-13T20:53:05.083-07:00Patricia Kopatchinskaja MICHAEL HERSCH End Stages - Violin Concerto <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoPS2TpDisbbZKutybS5_203KqzVncnssEITDheLeoJslc1FZTi8_sIeJ45vh-Ls7bWoz0drRSkP0k7rabwqkKyhynDtoTPLxXBJFaQz1TbKu2HQzY0wPojPY4HywvKs0sOBzkf5Pyxxs/s1600/A1%252B9nyMpW%252BL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoPS2TpDisbbZKutybS5_203KqzVncnssEITDheLeoJslc1FZTi8_sIeJ45vh-Ls7bWoz0drRSkP0k7rabwqkKyhynDtoTPLxXBJFaQz1TbKu2HQzY0wPojPY4HywvKs0sOBzkf5Pyxxs/s400/A1%252B9nyMpW%252BL._SL1500_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Virtuoso violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, for whom Michael Hersch's Violin Concerto was composed, wrote recently of the piece that it ''is an open wound, there is no other way to say it.'' She continued, the work ''is so convincing ... moves me so deeply, makes me speechless, tolerates neither doubt nor objection. It is like a mountain one can't ignore ... everything is crystal clear, there is no decoration, no superficial beauty, no compromises. Everything is exactly in place, has found its perfect form.'' A follow up to his haunting ''Images from a Closed Ward'', New Focus releases <a href="https://mega.nz/#!zCJ2FK6B!9gj_lAVGlHddSnkCfoGjXmhqfuVfvS-zCMcegAwpUjo">Hersch's Violin Concerto</a>, performed by Kopatchinskaja with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and end stages in a performance by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. With both pieces, Hersch reinforces his reputation as a composer of gripping music, unafraid to tackle through sound the most vulnerable and difficult corners of the human psyche. Patricia Kopatchinskaja displays remarkable versatility in her diverse repertoire, ranging from baroque and classical often played on gut strings, to new commissions and reinterpretations of modern masterworks. Called ''America's foremost new music group'' by The New Yorker, the ICE is an artist collective that is transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, ICE explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. Committed to innovation and artistic excellence, Orpheus is considered among the finest chamber ensembles in the world. Orpheus was founded in 1972 by a group of like-minded young musicians determined to combine the intimacy and warmth of a chamber ensemble with the richness of an orchestra. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-48538685657630684622019-03-13T13:15:00.000-07:002019-03-13T13:15:11.720-07:00Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin MOZART La Clemenza di Tito<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the fifth instalment of DG’s series of seven Mozart operas conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and initiated by Rolando Villazón, in collaboration with Festspielhaus Baden Baden and with the generous support of ROLEX For <a href="https://mega.nz/#!PfAClagI!jHhsEjcCW_S2s0fAWuEK6N-SVeGYMOF5khtJTpDVZng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">La Clemenza di Tito</a>, Mozart’s last opera about the benevolent Emperor Titus who pardons an attempt on his own life, Rolando and Yannick – new music director of the MET – are joined by outstanding partners: A stellar cast in every role and specialist handpicked orchestra playing at their best in the stunning venue of Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Rolando adds yet another intriguing Mozart role to his already large discography. This time it is his role debut as Tito, reinforcing again his love for Mozart: “No composer has spoken to as directly as Mozart. I feel like I have a soul mate in him.”</div>
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In addition Rolando has been named Artistic Director of the Salzburg Mozart Week Previous productions in this series are: Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Grammy Award Nomination) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Grammy Award Nomination & Echo Klassik Award).</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-81207886296944371402019-03-13T13:13:00.000-07:002019-03-13T13:13:50.481-07:00STEPHEN HOUGH'S DREAM ALBUM<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A bran tub of bonbons, yes, but much more than that: it is also a portrait of an artist in love with music of all sorts (including, with no apology, the unfashionable and the second-rate if it happens to appeal to him), of a master transcriber and of that rare animal, a concert pianist who is not afraid to mix high jinks with high art. </div>
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The first two items set the tone for the whole album: Hough’s own take on the <i>Radetzky March</i> transformed into a waltz in the style of Grünfeld with plenty of mischievous Godowskian figurations along the way – virtuoso, musically knowing and pianistically sophisticated. Then <i>Das alte Lied</i>, second of the 15 Hough transcriptions and original compositions featured on the album. It’s a nostalgic song that many will know from the recording by Richard Tauber accompanying himself on the piano (it’s known as the ‘Whispering Record’). Tauber was one of those magicians with the power to transform base metal into gold. Hough is another. I found this among the most moving pieces of the 27, along with Sibelius’s ‘The Spruce’, Chaminade’s <i>Scarf Dance</i>, ‘Somewhere a voice is calling’ and ‘Blow the wind southerly’ (the last two both simple Hough transcriptions). In all these we are eavesdropping, listening from next door to the pianist’s private reverie. Hough’s masterly use of the pedal and exquisite phrasing are very special accomplishments. </div>
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Everyone will have their own favourites; but elsewhere and by contrast are powerful readings of Liszt and Dohnányi, <a href="https://mega.nz/#!vLY1WQBQ!MuB8xajUCvcEcXDb5D7kAMaXtrLO9f3pTE09kaH5zTA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">‘Waltzing Matilda’</a> as a rhumba with lashings of Villa-Lobos, two transcriptions of dances from <i>Don Quixote</i> (the ballet) which teeter amusingly on the kitsch and, to end, Mompou’s ‘Jeunes filles au jardin’, one of the earliest pieces Hough ever played, his companion as an encore for 40 years, which he first heard as a child on a mixed album ‘much like this one’ (writes Hough), played by Clive Lythgoe. </div>
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My only cavil is that the empty concert-hall acoustic at Wyastone leads the upper treble at <i>forte</i> and above to fly away, sounding disembodied from the lower register. Obviously, Hough and his longtime producer Andrew Keener like the effect. It is a small matter, one of personal preference perhaps. No matter. Witty, wistful, extrovert, introspective and cheeky by turn, this is a masterclass in a certain style of piano-playing, and a dream of an album. <b><i>(Jeremy Nicholas / Gramophone)</i></b></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-43156225402415102092019-03-12T08:26:00.000-07:002019-03-12T08:26:02.787-07:00Ulf Wallin / Roland Pöntinen ROBERT SCHUMANN The Violin Sonatas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Robert Schumann's three Sonatas for violin and piano were all composed between 1851 and 1853. They – especially No.3 – have to some extent suffered from <span class="details" style="display: inline;">the same neglect and incomprehension that has been the fate of other works from this period in the composer's life, only a few years before he died in a mental institution. During the same years a number of other works for the violin saw the light, including the Violin Concerto and the Fantasy for violin and orchestra. The concertante works were written for the violinist Joseph Joachim, but it may have been a letter from Ferdinand David, concert master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, that provided the initial impulse to compose chamber works for the violin: ‘I am uncommonly fond of your Fantasiestücke for piano and clarinet; why don’t you write something for violin and piano? … How splendid it would be if you could write something of that kind, that your wife and I could play for you.’ Here the performers are <a href="https://mega.nz/#!7XhDmJoI!OSs9lyirWE_8aaZfzEydURftucGH4B-90kU0G9v2gak" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen</a>, a team who recorded their first disc for BIS in 1991, and whose partnership has been described as 'masterfully cultivated ensemble playing' on website ClassicsToday.com. Wallin's credentials in Schumann must also be regarded as firmly established, after his recently released recording of the violin concerto, the Fantasy and the arrangement for violin of the cello concerto. The reviewer in Daily Telegraph found it 'hard to imagine more sympathetic and insightful performances of these wonderful pieces’, and his colleague on the German website Klassik-Heute agreed, describing Wallin as 'violinistically brilliant and musically perceptive'<span class="re-collapse"> </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-82532208715631314512019-03-11T09:42:00.000-07:002019-03-11T09:42:00.936-07:00Helen Callus / New Zealand Symphony Orchestra / Marc Taddei BRITISH MUSIC FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSPE0F8KleCCy460gvEEnyWmx3ElV8LnHY-g7_CIRUy8UgiylL5gzPJNGkRwy1pexm_pJHknMxq84EFCcd-6Nmqw4jUEHG0jDCO8fZeimCw64mY-HtrP6v25qK-Fb2KP764yAYQy981u0/s1600/front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1412" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSPE0F8KleCCy460gvEEnyWmx3ElV8LnHY-g7_CIRUy8UgiylL5gzPJNGkRwy1pexm_pJHknMxq84EFCcd-6Nmqw4jUEHG0jDCO8fZeimCw64mY-HtrP6v25qK-Fb2KP764yAYQy981u0/s320/front.jpg" width="320" /></a>The British-American violist Helen Callus has an intensely lyrical tone that instantly grabs your attention in the excerpts from the 1934 Suite for viola and orchestra of Vaughan Williams, a pastoral work in the truest sense. One of the few questionable moves here is that the work is presented in excerpted form, although there isn't room for the whole thing on a single CD, and it's hard to make a case for omitting any of the other works. The mood deepens and darkens in Herbert Howells' Elegy for viola, string quartet, and string orchestra, Op. 15, written in memory of a young musician killed in action in World War I. Callus applies the same lyrical approach to the Walton Viola Concerto in A minor, which comes in zippier renderings, but the consistent passion here is impressive. And it effectively sets up the less common Viola Concerto in C minor, Op. 25, of York Bowen, composed in 1907. This is a neglected gem of the viola repertory, a broad, Brahmsian work with splendid melodies. Sample the slow movement of Andante cantabile or the finale with a new cadenza by Callus herself. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Marc Taddei provide idiomatic support in their home base of Wellington, and in all, if the idea of a program of <a href="https://mega.nz/#!vfRwHAAA!KMflOkY0cHYSpZOnB2TiYjXkXT3v76XCkFKbS5U0LPw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">British viola music</a> doesn't fill you with excitement, listen and reconsider. <b><i>(<span itemprop="author">James Manheim)</span></i></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-54677700562270371212019-03-11T08:15:00.000-07:002019-03-11T08:15:01.948-07:00Alexei Lubimov / Slava Poprugin STRAVINSKY / SATIE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For this Alpha-Classics album of modernist music arranged for two pianos, Alexei Lubimov and Slava Poprugin play four essential works that yield some surprises in their keyboard versions. Three of the pieces are transcriptions of instrumental music, specifically Igor Stravinsky's arrangement of his Concerto in E flat major, "Dumbarton Oaks," John Cage's reduction of Erik Satie's Socrate, and Darius Milhaud's four-hand transcription of Satie's Cinéma (composed as a soundtrack for the short Dadaist film Entr'acte, used in the ballet Relâche), with Stravinsky's Concerto for two pianos solo performed as it was originally written. Lubimov and Poprugin play three pianos, a 1906 Gaveau, a 1909 Bechstein, and a 1920 Pleyel, so the vintage sonorities of the early modern era are used effectively to create the appropriate ambience and authentic period feeling. The pianists' lively playing and crisp attacks accentuate the unique character of these instruments, and overall the performances offer distinctive timbres a world away from the familiar sound of modern pianos. <a href="https://mega.nz/#!TawhUbxI!87TemkiFYySlsXQbm7e9kCai0mxSjwaUZ51Ch7zjc5E">This is a fascinating exploration of modernism</a> in a medium that was quite familiar to all of the composers of the time, though startling details will emerge, especially for listeners who can hear these pieces with fresh ears. <b><i>(<span itemprop="author">Blair Sanderson)</span></i></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-67818990441062329692019-03-11T06:35:00.000-07:002019-03-11T06:35:09.885-07:00 STEVE SWELL Music for Six Musicians: Hommage à Olivier Messiaen <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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« What we have here is new music. Free music. Ellington and Armstrong were right in not wanting to call it anything else but Music. Why put it in a sub-category? This belongs with the best of any new music, period. And this new music is created (with the assistance of Swell’s scores and direction) by an ensemble that knows how to both play and listen geometric and mystical constructions: some preconceived by the skillful pen of <a href="https://mega.nz/#!yCQ0GABK!H-Mz6i9DuilaYSgArS8FcqyTLAstBL4d3T70vbhIarE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Steve Swell</a> and some spontaneously shaped and formed. Lean in. Listen again. And swim upstream and down with the band – it’s completely worth it. » <i><b>(Ann Arbor, July 2017)</b></i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-48405156458839279652019-03-09T08:51:00.000-08:002019-03-09T08:51:08.083-08:00 Jacob Greenberg HANGING GARDENS<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Claude Debussy and the Second Viennese composers followed different paths of philosophical development, inspired by the trends of art and literature in their age, but they were aligned by a common embrace of sensuality in music. Theirs was a strongly shared language, and my interest as a pianist is to explore fields of intersection between these two musical worlds often thought to be opposite in character. Writing for the piano, an instrument equally wide-ranging and intimate, helped all these composers to explore decadent dimensions of harmony, form, and sound color.</div>
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For this recording, Debussy’s two books of <i>Préludes</i> and selected individual pieces offer a chance to view the music of Arnold Schoenberg’s school, assumed to be arid and formalist, through a tinted lens. The <i>Préludes</i>, influenced by otherworldly Symbolist poetry and the aesthetic of ancient classical art, give snapshots of places, objects, natural phenomena, and fleeting moods. Small musical forms bely the ambition of Debussy’s endeavor: he conjures minutely detailed scenes, each of the twenty-four pieces wholly distinct in feeling.</div>
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Both Schoenberg and Anton Webern thrive in similarly miniature constructions. Schoenberg’s song cycle <a href="https://mega.nz/#!aSAg3agB!VyPmFNn_lENEgKDLbHf_p0UlcZG-tnNAJsz3FDBJnIY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>The Book of the Hanging Gardens</i></a> portrays a doomed, desperate romance in brief tableaus set in a mythic, lush landscape. Featuring some of Schoenberg’s earliest atonal pieces, the cycle is energized by its intentional instability. Its richly ambiguous harmonic language is well-matched to Stefan George’s poetry of emotions stretched to the breaking point. The heightened poetic sensitivity is reflected in the composer’s tactile approach to sound: this can be heard especially in number 11 of the set, which depicts the lovers touching each other lightly in the afterglow of passion. This movement can be compared to the exotic flirtation of Debussy’s <i>Voiles</i>, and the heat of <i>La puerta del vino</i>.</div>
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Alban Berg’s whole-tone patterns in his early <i>Sonata</i> draw a clear link to Debussy. The innovative, pervasive development of a simple motive leads Berg to coloristic extremes. And Webern’s <i>Variations</i> finds expressive continuity and intense energy in spare sounds or silence. Webern forges a totally original piano texture: notes become points of light, forming shapes in a gorgeous void. Debussy and the Second Viennese opened music to a sensual, seductive unreality that diverse composers, to our own age, have accepted as a promise of possibility. <b><i>( Jacob Greenberg)</i></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-23156797117699258322019-03-07T11:32:00.000-08:002019-03-07T11:32:07.165-08:00SERGIO CERVETTI Transits: Minimal to Mayhem<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Transits: Minimal to Mayhem, his fifth full Navona Records release, is an abridged sequence of five works from a set time and concrete place that maps composer Sergio Cervetti’s creative progression over four decades of composing. The Concertino for piano, woodwinds and timpani (2013) is a rowdy and raucous array of South American rhythms tempered by a tender quote from Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. One of Cervetti’s last minimalist works, Exiles (1980) begins with a slow piano rendition of a melodic theme from the Uruguayan patriotic song Mi Bandera, which is soon overwhelmed by electronic textures. In contrast, 1975’s Guitar Music, (the bottom of the iceberg) is an early minimalist work for solo guitar that experiments with “restricted pitch-classes”. The two works completing the album are based on the history and culture of the Río de la Plata where Cervetti was born and raised. <a href="https://mega.nz/#!bfIBFaSS!wzPFH-RZmTqfEf6hzRT9U_zn4JolYS2WhpJTchQ6u78" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">El Río de los Pájaros Pintados</a> (1979) seamlessly integrates the bandoneón with electronics. Candombe for Orchestra is the 1996 orchestration of Candombe for Harpsichord (1984), both works indebted to a Uruguayan national dance of African origin. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-7776578067956133472019-03-07T08:03:00.000-08:002019-03-07T08:03:03.650-08:00The Myrthen Ensemble SONGS TO THE MOON<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This first recording from The Myrthen Ensemble is a 2-CD presentation of solo and group art songs inspired by the moon. The group was formed by pianist Joseph Middleton with a quartet of his regular vocal collaborators including Mary Bevan, Clara Mouriz, Allan Clayton and Marcus Farnsworth. Warlock, Barber and Maconchy contribute English-language art songs, which are used to introduce each disc. Brahms and Schumann fill the remainder of disc one. There are performances of individual distinction—Mouriz in Brahms’s Ständchen and Bevan in Schumann’s Mondnacht, for example. Were it not for a similar recording from Graham Johnson’s The Songmakers’ Almanac (Hyperion), then The Myrthen Ensemble would be without competition, but Johnson and company come out on top largely due to experience rather than any lack of musicality on the part of these newcomers. The second disc ranges across French-language solos and duets with a greater sense of nuance by Mompou, Hahn, Debussy, Massenet, Duparc, Fauré and Szulc. Clayton proves a useful tenor and Farnsworth a sonorous baritone;, they both complement Bevan and Mouriz with sensitivity. Joseph Middleton reinforces his reputation as the finest accompanist amongst younger generations, keenly realising the inferences that his part brings to the songs. <a href="https://mega.nz/#!vKB3QYoQ!WX4uYc0DYS4CuS2f8sqL50sX8mRXQHd2SRhRyOz0y0E" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Excellent sound</a>, authoritative notes from Middleton and Richard Stokes, as well as texts and translations add to this rewarding nocturnal journey. Well worth exploring. <b><i>(Classical Ear)</i></b> </div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-54028936298859417062019-03-05T06:31:00.000-08:002019-03-05T06:31:01.821-08:00Anita Watson / Anna Starushkevych / Nicky Spence / James Platt / Navarra Quartet / Lada Valešová FATA MORGANA Song by PAVEL HAAS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s good to see commitment to Pavel Haas’ legacy from the rather unlikely environs of a British label and to see the name of, say, tenor Nicky Spence amongst the singers. But look a little closer and you’ll also see the name of the pianist and artistic director the project, Czech-born, London-resident Lada Valešová, whom I have praised here before for her idiomatic performances of her native country’s music where she played, inter alias, Haas’s Suite, Op.13 and the <i>Allegro Moderato</i> of 1938. She also provided the vital language coaching in this new disc.</div>
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None of these song cycles are so commonplace on disc that one can easily pass by this latest, focused disc. The Seven Songs in Folk Style are delightful miniature settings irradiated by the deft, often dappled piano writing, well brought out by Valešová. Both Anita Watson and the pianist prefer quite an expansive view of the songs, especially the slower ones. The baritone Petr Matuszek sang them with pianist Aleš Kaňka on Supraphon SU 3334-2 231 and they are altogether bluffer than the Resonus duo; more rustic, faster by far in almost all settings, and digging out the burlesque piano writing of the last setting with graphic wit. Even though he only sings two of the cycle Karel Průša’s old Bonton recording on a mixed recital disc adheres to the Czech tempo norms in this cycle. The Resonus team prefer a more melancholic, expansive view and are less tersely unsettled as a result.<br />
Haas sets two lots of Chinese songs. His 1944 Four Songs on Chinese Poetry is the one that has been investigated more often than the much earlier Op.4 set of three songs. The wartime settings are again slower than the Czech pairing on Supraphon. Possibly this is a question of the naturalness of Matuszek’s singing of his native texts, but it’s also a question of conception. The Resonus team is more clement, preferring a lateral rather than a vertical response. It’s noticeable that the Czech team’s accents and articulation are that much more incisive, the word painting that much more involving – though neither James Platt nor Valešová is undramatic in any way. The difference in tempo in the third of the songs tells its own story: 6:16 for Resonance and 4:55 for Supraphon. To further contextualize this, baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber are similarly much faster in their recording on a marvellous DG disc [477 6546] that functions as a homage to composers incarcerated in Terezín.</div>
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The Op.4 set was composed in 1921 and is, as yet, not quite characteristic of his more natural settings of over two decades later, but does reveal subtlety in interpretation.</div>
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The big news is that we have here a world première recording in the shape of <i>Fata Morgana</i>, Op.6, a two-part, half-hour setting of Tagore composed in 1923. It’s written for voice, here Nicky Spence, string quartet and piano – which is to say the same combination as Vaughan Williams’ earlier <i>On Wenlock Edge</i>. This is a fascinating if somewhat over-extended work, saturated in eroticism – though not the erotic exoticism of Szymanowski, more the eroticism of a conflation between Debussian sensuous languor and Janáčekian urgency. The latter is hardly surprising, obviously, as Haas was one of Janáček’s best-known pupils and the little moments of quartet fluttering inevitably remind one of the Moravian master. This is a work that, despite its relative length, has a lot going for it – nocturnal wind motifs, the way each voice – the literal voice of the singer, as well as the piano and quartet - embody characteristics derived by Haas from Tagore’s hothouse poetry. Then there is tension through repetition, evanescent melancholy and echoes of <i>The Diary of One Who Disappeared</i>. Spence sings highly effectively and the Navarra Quartet really makes the most of its numerous opportunities for sensuality.</div>
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Questions of idiomatic textual declamation and tempo decisions aside this is a well selected disc, bringing to the table <a href="https://mega.nz/#!vGgwlSwQ!zw2UwYxdc_YYeZnO-lcOdKS9O1Hch9RlFfrosfhIlvE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">two of Haas’ most attractive cycles</a> and that première recording. It sits splendidly in the current discography.<b><i> (Jonathan Woolf)</i></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-24847524981954130032019-03-05T05:45:00.000-08:002019-03-05T05:45:01.313-08:00Frankfurt Radio Symphony / Andrés Orozco-Estrada RICHARD STRAUSS Eine Alpensinfonie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With its epic sweep and grandeur and compelling drama, there has rarely been such a spine-tingling and vivid depiction of nature as found in Richard Strauss’s magnificent tone poem, An Alpine Symphony. Calling for gargantuan orchestral forces, this lavishly illustrated journey is Strauss’s crowning orchestral achievement. Using a vast musical canvas packed with vivid and exquisite details, it’s a bold, optimistic and passionate work, unleashing ecstatic blazes of orchestral colour alongside moments of awestruck contemplation in a continuous narrative of 22 sections, which Strauss threads together with his usual mastery and aplomb.<br />
The work is performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony conducted by podium sensation Andrés Orozco-Estrada. It marks their fourth release in a critically acclaimed <a href="https://mega.nz/#!neRy1QaB!Sa8SwrjPcS2Uwu7tnZv9vqKcnW6SbULG_F1MM4pwd_I" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">series for PENTATONE</a>. Their performance of Strauss’s Salome earned Gramophone magazine’s Editor’s Choice (January 2018). Gramophone also praised their Ein Heldenleben “...the playing has an easy virtuosity … the love music swells and swoons magnificently”. And for their first recording, the Stravinsky ballets The Firebird and The Rite of Spring, Gramophone lauded their ability “to unearth an astonishing amount of detail at relatively spacious tempi” and “PENTATONE’s awesomely precise recording”.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-89606562231570786962019-03-05T05:43:00.000-08:002019-03-05T05:43:04.432-08:00Andrè Schuen / Daniel Heide SCHUBERT Wanderer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This collection of Schubert Lieder is Andre Schuen's third album for CAvi. Together with accompanist Daniel Heide, Schuen has chosen songs on the theme of wandering.</div>
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Andrè Schuen: "This time, as a point of departure, we chose the idea of "wandering", of a "journey", a "path", and tried to come up with all possible variants. Three major themes emerged. On the one hand, we have Romantic "wandering" per se, which plays an important role in Schubert (as in Der Wanderer on a poem by Schlegel). Secondly, the path to the beloved as in Auf der Bruck as well as in Willkommen und Abschied. The third theme is the journey to the afterlife or to death, as in Totengräbers Heimwehand Im Abendrot. In my view, these three principle themes imbue our programme with a kind of ambivalence, reflecting a general ambivalence that is <a href="https://mega.nz/#!yLZSwILK!eblROi2eKiXaDynlIYdhBU0SxPla9Qoo3tHZ-5BDhSE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">omnipresent in Schubert</a>. </div>
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Daniel Heide: The overwhelming quantity of songs that are often slow and address themes of sadness and yearning is actually one of the core issues in Romantic Lied repertoire ? indeed, why do they have to be so plodding, so sorrowful, so full of longing? Where is the cheerfulness? Is there any life-affirming element to be found? </div>
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Baritone Andrè Schuen has been regularly invited to appear in Salzburg Festival productions since 2009, collaborating with conductors Ingo Metzmacher, Riccardo Muti, and Ivor Bolton ? most recently in the role of Morales in Carmen with Sir Simon Rattle as conductor. From 2010 to 2014 he was a member of the ensemble of soloists at Graz Opera, where he covered roles including Prince Yeletzky (Queen of Spades), Belcore (L'elisir d'amore), Ford (Falstaff), Papageno (Magic Flute), Heerrufer (Lohengrin), and Roi Alphonse (La favorite). At the Theater an der Wien (Vienna) he was invited to perform under the baton of Nikolaus Harnoncourt in the title roles of Don Giovanni and Nozze di Figaro, as well as in the role of Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte; he has likewise sung Don Giovanni in Perm (Russia) with Teodor Currentzis conducting. The Theater an der Wien has invited him back for further role debuts including the title role in the world premiere of Anno Schreier's Hamlet and the Count in Richard Strauss's Capriccio; he also covered Marcello in La Boheme for the Grand Theatre de Geneve. In parallel, Andre Schuen pursues a widespread career on concert podiums, collaborating with conductors such as Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Riccardo Muti, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Paavo Jarvi, and Trevor Pinnock.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-51920256779841554132019-03-05T05:17:00.000-08:002019-03-05T05:17:10.751-08:00Michael Barenboim / Daniel Barenboim / Wiener Philharmoniker / Pierre Boulez SCHOENBERG Violin & Piano Concerti<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Peral Music—Daniel Barenboim’s digital record label “for the thinking ear”—is proud to release the Vienna Philharmonic’s debut recordings of Arnold Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto and Piano Concerto, featuring the iconic composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, and violinist Michael Barenboim. The new release captures the esteemed Vienna Philharmonic’s first performances of both works.</div>
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Dating from 2005 and 2012, these are the Vienna Philharmonic’s first recordings of two of Schoenberg’s works: the Piano Concerto with Daniel Barenboim under Pierre Boulez and the Violin Concerto with Michael Barenboim under the direction of his father.</div>
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The Vienna Philharmonic has enjoyed a close bond with Schoenberg’s music, since he himself conducted two performances of his Gurre-Lieder in 1920 and afterwards wrote a personal letter of thanks, expressing his gratitude to the musicians for their work together. Since then there have been more than 100 performances of his works, and the orchestra even played an important part in the foundation of the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna in 1998.</div>
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It is all the harder to believe that the Vienna Philharmonic had never previously played either of these two works. For Daniel Barenboim the orchestra’s performances of Schoenberg’s music are full of “tenderness, good-natured informality and naturalness.” Their “playing is very much inspired by the venue.”</div>
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This makes it all the more inconceivable that these works by arguably the greatest composer of the 20th century, and a native of Vienna to boot, had been overlooked by the orchestra for so many years.</div>
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It was not until 2005 that Pierre Boulez conducted the Vienna Philharmonic’s first performance of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, when the soloist was <a href="https://mega.nz/#!SCxAHCID!zfaa7e21TevSZUmygvA_znhcW23XrkG7y5W3wznbXak" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Daniel Barenboim</a>. Seven years later Barenboim returned with his son Michael and the two of them gave the first performance of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto op. 36 with the orchestra. “Highly explosive music,” Michael Barenboim describes Schoenberg’s piece: “Every bar is aflame.” The work’s difficulties are plain. When it received its first performance in 1940, the composer’s daughter, Gertrud Greissle, remarked that “The difficulties are not purely intentional, but they are unavoidable.” Even today the virtuosity of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto instils a sense of awe in many violinists. For a time Jascha Heifetz regarded the work as unplayable.</div>
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But for Barenboim, “Where other orchestras wrestle with the difficulties, the Viennese may do so as well, but they then discover themselves in the music, and this is really wonderful.”</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-71960398285896886582019-03-05T04:21:00.000-08:002019-03-05T04:21:03.784-08:00Rautio Piano Trio MOZART Piano Trios KV 502, 542, 564<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mozart’s piano trios don’t come out to play as often as Haydn’s, despite being among his finest chamber works. (Similarly neglected are the string quintets, not counting the G minor, K516.) So a new recording of any or all of them is always to be welcomed. This disc adds interest by being performed on period instruments, making it something of a rarity in this repertoire. </div>
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The ear is immediately struck by the fortepiano, a 1987 Derek Adlam copy of an Anton Walter instrument from the mid-1790s, which formerly belonged to Christopher Hogwood. It’s beautifully set up, and remarkably little action-noise is captured in the Potton Hall recording. As delightful as it is to listen too, it is evidently a joy to play, and Jan Rautio leads performances notable for their buoyancy and vivacity.</div>
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I know from experience that piano trios are notoriously difficult to record and, much as the Rautio players extol the balance advantages of period instruments, this seems to be a problem that has not been entirely overcome. Cellist <a href="https://mega.nz/#!OCxUXQCa!Z8TP8E_hvIj4q-sCDOLqC4mFatSJ5Pa0ZRIL5_7fhbE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Adi Tal offers elegant support</a> to the piano’s left-hand lines but Jane Gordon’s violin often dominates. (Neither string instrument is identified in the booklet.) Hers is a full-bodied sound, only occasionally warmed by vibrato, but can become oppressive as sustained notes reach the middle of the bow. Not only that, but Gordon fights shy of exploiting a true <i>piano</i>, meaning that quiet passages are rendered less tenderly than they might have been. The piano in many places is all but swamped by the string tone – which is a pity, as I liked the piano the best. <b><i>(David Threasher / Gramophone)</i></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-28889853951355215742019-03-04T13:59:00.000-08:002019-03-04T13:59:02.961-08:00Reiko Fujisawa BACH Goldberg Variations TAKEMITSU Rain Tree Sketch II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Bach’s Goldberg Variations consists of an aria and 30 dazzling variations. The opening aria is a highly ornamented <i>Sarabande</i>. Melodic contour is wonderfully crafted as Bach explores a descending five-note pattern in a typically French style. However, from the first variation it becomes clear that melody is not the theme. Instead Bach produces variations on the bass line and its chord progression. In other words, it is a harmonic universe that Bach explores.</div>
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The thirty variations are generally divided into three groups: dance, canon and arabesque. Every third variation in the set is a canon that increases by its intervallic answer, beginning at the unison until Variation 27 which is a canon at the ninth. This final canon is particularly impressive as Bach leaves out the bass line, leaving a ‘pure’ canon between the upper voices. Such a feat is in itself a contrapuntal exercise in genius; more so as these variations are not heavy with cerebral skill, but instead, dance with sparkling lightness.</div>
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Tōru Takemitsu composed his <a href="https://mega.nz/#!LHAVVKYa!r65Fi7KtxdAcAdGRflEQPcOdDh8xuFJXsTOLaNLNX3I" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Rain Tree Sketch II</i></a> in 1992, in memory of Olivier Messiaen, the French composer who was a strong influence on Takemitsu. The title of the work was probably inspired by a quotation from a novel by Kenzaburo Oe, <i>Atama no ii, Ame no Ki</i>: “it was named the ‘rain tree’, for its abundant foliage continued to let fall rain drops from the previous night’s shower until the following midday. Its hundreds of thousands of tiny, finger-like leaves store up moisture, whereas other trees dry out at once.” The work is a dreamy meditation on the flow of life, and was Takemitsu’s last piano piece. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-71104960523558771152019-03-04T12:40:00.000-08:002019-03-04T12:40:04.392-08:00Polina Osetinskaya / Ilya Hoffman SERGEY AKHUNOV Sketches<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVLpasjmXKfEg4spQ4wxhpGzsDU7JxqpYxzDo23Bg8EtjkokNvE_RVgHKwcdEVLaktc8uEt_aANv5kD2qsMRxoc3WLH0pzlv27FRoQR-mNg02GXYTirYMLDleoW22TZEMN3U4FYNS9Y_g/s1600/cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVLpasjmXKfEg4spQ4wxhpGzsDU7JxqpYxzDo23Bg8EtjkokNvE_RVgHKwcdEVLaktc8uEt_aANv5kD2qsMRxoc3WLH0pzlv27FRoQR-mNg02GXYTirYMLDleoW22TZEMN3U4FYNS9Y_g/s400/cover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Art tends to elude direct expression. </div>
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Or, rather those ideas appealing to artistic language are scarcely ever plain and direct. Therefrom a musical statement grows metaphorical. </div>
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Yet what elements – language and style – are inherent to this statement? And what integral challenges emerge for the artist and interpreter? </div>
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At first we take a metaphor as somewhat complex, deliberately ambiguous, however, when the statement engenders new degrees of comprehension the metaphor takes root, appearing conventional and natural - similar to a math proposition, proven and evolved into a world-renowned theorem...</div>
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Then a new rank metaphors stems from the previously established layer... Presumably, the artist may again face the alternative? Whether to plunge into the metaphorical language evolution? Or withdraw to supposedly well-known tools yet creating a completely new context? </div>
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The author, indubitably, opts for the latter. </div>
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Ultimately, his music remains unprotected and particularly susceptible to the performance. The slightest interpretation inaccuracy may invoke a spurious association thus frustrate the statement’s metaphoricity... </div>
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I hope our efforts succeeded to reveal <a href="https://mega.nz/#!DfwFQQRY!r9kgqF8VntVpZbdG4Dek6HDiIVaTVh7S2QDI8bgs3Fw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">author’s conception</a> in its modern rendition where archaisms along with contemporary expression and avant-garde ideas give birth to a new dramaturgy. <b><i>(Ilya Hoffman) </i></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-58612388912846575332019-03-03T20:24:00.000-08:002019-03-03T20:24:16.223-08:00Alessio Bax RACHMANINOV Preludes & Melodies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With this intricate and enterprising recital the wondrously gifted Alessio Bax fulfils, in his own words, a long-cherished dream. Here he couples the Op 23 Preludes with early works showing the influence of Tchaikovsky while at the same time remaining indelibly Rachmaninov, and a selection of transcriptions. These include his own arrangement of the <i>Vocalise</i> where, without surplus decoration (as in the Zoltán Kocsis transcription), he finds all of the composer’s dark-hued melancholy, playing with an impeccable sense of vocal line and with an intense and stylish rubato. </div>
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You would have to have a heart of stone not to be beguiled by Bax’s romantic warmth and freedom in “Lilacs” and “Daisies”, and if his Op 23 Preludes lack the classic quality of, say, Lympany or Osborne, his vividness and personality weave their own intoxicating spell. Bax’s depth-charge virtuosity in No 2 will set everyone’s pulse racing but he takes a no less gentle hand to No 6’s meandering sweetness. He captures all the restless energy of No 8 and spins his way through the treacherous double notes of No 9, a Russian <i>Feux follets</i>, with dizzying expertise. </div>
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Bax has written his own touching notes which help to erase the absurd ignorance concerning Rachmaninov of both the 1954 contributor to <i>Grove</i> and Percy Grainger quoted by Stuart Isacoff. Signum’s sound is bold and exemplary, and I can scarcely wait to hear this ardent and dazzling young pianist in the Op 32 Preludes, the <i>Etudes-tableaux, Moments musicaux </i>and much else besides. <b><i>(Bryce Morrison / Gramophone)</i></b></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-12413616491360406932019-03-03T20:22:00.000-08:002019-03-03T20:22:15.304-08:00Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra / Anthony Armoré JOHN ROBERTSON Symphony No. 1 <div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg986opnzftUZBhalh7LJG9kUoUFUh2dzRWIbPdItl_H0YpfV7FkDJD-8hNJxZpC8L0lWvEecZwnat1d6hQh5aARu_owyTWbQgbTr6FzrT0ukspgprL8W-dSOm-ReGidO4Sth-Pw6vuVRg/s1600/folder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg986opnzftUZBhalh7LJG9kUoUFUh2dzRWIbPdItl_H0YpfV7FkDJD-8hNJxZpC8L0lWvEecZwnat1d6hQh5aARu_owyTWbQgbTr6FzrT0ukspgprL8W-dSOm-ReGidO4Sth-Pw6vuVRg/s320/folder.jpg" width="320" /></a>Deeply committed to a beauteous aesthetic, composer John Robertson's second album Symphony No. 1 once more delivers a neoclassical triumph with tremendous potential for repeated listening. This release flaunts an unapologetically exuberant elegance ever-present in the composer's oeuvre. The heart of the album is, of course, Robertson's Symphony No. 1, a three-movement epos that explores the vast realm of classical tonality. While the first movement starts out touching upon 20th-century harmonies reminiscent of Prokofiev, the second one already harkens back to the late Romantic school. Still, remaining very much a contemporary composition in its essence, this symphony offers plenty of innovation: not only does it push the limits of the traditional symphonic fast-slow-fast movement order, it also spearheads intensely lyrical soloistic parts such as the third movement's elaborate solo violin introduction, from which all other instruments organically spring forth. In the same vein, the Suite for Orchestra Op. 46 is easy on the ear, oscillating between the exaltation of the introductory Fanfare, the natural grace of the subsequent Waltz, the profound tristesse of the Elegy, and the uplifting, resolute splendor of the concluding March. The form of musical variations, the calling card of a composer's skill and craftsmanship throughout the ages, receives an apt treatment in the form of Robertson's Variations for small orchestra, Op. 14. In just over 18 minutes, they explore the possibilities of thematic development from every imaginable angle, ranging from the solidly-classical to the breezingly and self-confidently outlandish. John Robertson's straightforward formal choices render all of these compositions intuitively accessible, yet make no compromises in terms of technical and musical complexity, which remain sophisticated throughout. Symphony No. 1 proves that new music can be rooted in tradition, yet offer a breath of creative fresh air – effortlessly and naturally. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-45357739120639397222019-03-03T11:26:00.000-08:002019-03-03T11:26:07.595-08:00Carson Cooman CARLOTTA FERRARI Women of History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Divine Art Records continues its series of recordings with American organist Carson Cooman, who is organist at the Memorial Church at Harvard, as well as being a teacher, writer, speaker, music critic and incredibly prolific composer. Following three recordings including organ works by German composers Andreas Willscher and Raimund Schächer, Cooman has recorded an album of music by the Italian composer <a href="https://mega.nz/#!KG51SA4T!7KF_1c3Y2AcqY9yhJYRry-ZU9uMBvQTVwI216ir3f6M" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Carlotta Ferrari (b.1975)</a>. Ferrari’s compositions have been performed frequently around the word and appear on many recordings including six all-Ferrari CDs. She is currently professor of music composition at the European School of Economics in Florence, Italy.</div>
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Ferrari has written many works based on historical figures, and the five works on this album are all inspired by the lives and works of famous women, lending to the album’s title, ‘Women of History’. She writes in a distinctive modal style, utilising the modal harmonic system of ‘Restarting Pitch Space’ which was actually developed by Cooman in 2005.</div>
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Cooman’s own compositions continue to appear, performed by Erik Simmons, in the ongoing series from Divine Art, with three more volumes scheduled for 2018.</div>
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The release is also timely as 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s novel <i>Frankenstein</i> which is the inspiration for the first piece.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-80007847016876780972019-03-03T10:07:00.000-08:002019-03-03T10:07:01.142-08:00Vivica Genaux / Bach Consort Wien / Rubén Dubrovsky HOMMAGE À VIVALDI<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With an unique personal narrative beginning in Fairbanks, Alaska, and an international career now spanning more than two decades, mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux beguiles audiences and critics alike with her charisma, dedication, and astounding vocal technique. After noting that she 'has stage presence in spades,' Clive Paget wrote in Australia's Limelight Magazine that Vivica 'demonstrated complete mastery with her exemplary phrasing and effortless vocal dexterity. Add to that a voice of great richness, easy at the top, yet with an ability to plunge at will into a beefy bottom register, and you have what can only be described as the real deal.' </div>
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During 2018, Vivica's concert and recital itineraries take her to Europe, Asia, Mexico, and the USA. Duelo Barroco partnered her with Ann Hallenberg in performances in Spain of music by Händel and Vivaldi. Concerts featuring music made famous by Farinelli and Senesino, the latter's music being interpreted by Sonia Prina, transport Vivica to Denmark, France, Germany, and London's Wigmore Hall. A collaboration with Les Accents and Thibault Noally premièred in Paris's Salle Gaveau, Deux genies en Italie explored arias composed by Alessandro Scarlatti and the young Händel. After visits to Chicago and Miami, a tour of Asia with Europa Galante, and a series of concert performances of Händel's Serse with Il pomo d'oro, Vivica ends 2018 in Australia with her rôle début as Mandane in Johann Adolf Hasse's Artaserse with Sydney's Pinchgut Opera.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-25465054816672550932019-03-02T14:27:00.000-08:002019-03-02T14:27:02.896-08:00Rest Ensemble ROBIN HOLLOWAY Trios<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“As a young composer I wanted to be a Modern among the Moderns. Now I don’t want to shock anyone - I want to please, to stir, to delight, to move and to invigorate.” (<b><i>Robin Holloway)</i></b><br />
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An introspective, brooding work, it's compellingly played by young violist Henrietta Hill. Performances throughout are excellent, with wind soloists Oliver Pashley and Rees Webster outstanding in the two trios. <a href="https://mega.nz/#!PL4mACIT!gk2uMJMAZzC3JvGL0WeDo7v1fbOKDbBKLaXZoW5L-gM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Holloway’s own sleeve notes</a> are informative and unpretentious.<i><b> (<span class="c-product-review__byline">The Arts Desk, July 2018)</span></b></i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-31424316910418802682019-03-02T08:45:00.000-08:002019-03-02T08:45:09.906-08:00Polina Osetinskaya ROTA - DESYATNIKOV<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF9RbRB6tqwHpt_299JH-0TwcGKJ8oX9P4rTE1t19ep-OK75f29RiupxaVU6BABgAZ7rMi_5autCXJwniuE8uNc4mcbgB_1ow9cw7-9FWRiF4xqWg0MpDUhF_e2Db4XMiiFHPgXQUXAls/s1600/cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF9RbRB6tqwHpt_299JH-0TwcGKJ8oX9P4rTE1t19ep-OK75f29RiupxaVU6BABgAZ7rMi_5autCXJwniuE8uNc4mcbgB_1ow9cw7-9FWRiF4xqWg0MpDUhF_e2Db4XMiiFHPgXQUXAls/s320/cover.jpg" width="320" /></a>This disc of pieces played by the pianist Polina Osetinskaya brings together the music of Giovanni (“Nino”) Rota and Leonid Desyatnikov. An odd combination? – actually, no, Rota (1911-1979) lived entirely in the 20th century; Desyatnikov was born in 1955; but what these composers have in common is not just the century they lived in but the way their work challenges what academic music had become. Neither Rota nor Desyatnikov has ever been part of any musical movement and they have written no theoretical tracts, as was all the rage in the 20th century but we can still see their music as a riposte to contemporary isolationism, arrogance and fear of the listener.</div>
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At the conservatoire in Rome the student Rota was groomed to become the next Puccini. At the age of 12 this wunderkind wrote an oratorio which was instantly performed in Rome and Paris but by the middle of the 20th century, with the triumphant avant garde on one side and bloodless traditionalism on the other, there was no place for a second Puccini and Rota’s ten operas (the first written in 1942, the last in 1977) were always overshadowed by his film music. Rota was arguably the most important film composer of the 20th century, Federico Fellini’s friend and in many ways his co-author.</div>
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Like Nino Rota, Leonid Desyatnikov has a comprehensive list of works in traditional forms to his credit: symphonies, operas, ballets. In his early days the composer worked in a number of different theatres in Leningrad and beyond. Later he reworked several of these scores as a piano cycle, which is how his concert suite Echoes of the Theatre came about. Here, eccentrically but with a certain artistic inevitability, he brought together music from puppet shows, a vaudeville for Conservatoire students, a cartoon and motifs from the songs of Vertinsky and Efim Rosenfeld.</div>
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The waltz In honour of Dickens was created from music written for the Leningrad Youth Theatre play The Cricket on the Hearth. Titry is from the soundtrack to Valery Todorovsky’s film Moscow Nights. Nocturne comes from Alexei Uchitel’s film Giselle Obsession. Happiness is the only solo piano number from Alexandr Zeldovich’s film The Target. Albumblatt was written for the birthday of Yulia Volk-Boreiko, wife of the conductor Andrei Boreiko.</div>
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This disc demonstrates that Stravinsky’s famous dictum – “Film music exists only to enrich the composer” – was really just an idle slander. Actually, even Stravinsky’s own greatest compositions exist in genres which before Tchaikovsky, were considered merely decorative. After Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky nobody ever again spoke in a derogatory way about ballet music, for example.</div>
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In one way at least <a href="https://mega.nz/#!HOpRmISD!_3yQ8iikr_XxagE_9HuoNKUkZIYoDdefbTzn7gz2mf8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rota and Desyatnikov</a> are both like Stravinsky – their music can stand perfectly well on its own and in Desyatnikov’s case it always surpasses the genre it was born from.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-80838327448058049162019-03-01T09:35:00.000-08:002019-03-01T09:35:00.568-08:00Musique des Lumières / Facundo Agudin VIKTOR ULLMANN Der Kaiser von Atlantis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Viktor Ullmann arrived in Theresienstadt on 8 September 1942. He was 44 years old, a Jew and a former officer of the Austrian army. Being an accomplished composer, well known for his organizational skills, he was immediately solicited by the Freizeitgestaltung to organize concerts and conferences, to write musical reviews (he authored 26 such texts), and to compose. In fact, during the two years before his transport to Auschwitz, he wrote several instrumental and vocal works, including <a href="https://mega.nz/#!jOxXFIRB!7z17AlA7rOoAR2phwnoZr_UJYSoHy3N5Ht_028MCvGY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">song cycles for baritone and piano</a>, one sonata for violin and piano, his third string quartet, three piano sonatas (numbers 5, 6 and 7) as well as an opera in one act on a libretto by the young poet Peter Kien Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder die Tod-Verweigerung (The Emperor of Atlantis, or the Disobedience of Death). Ever since his arrival in the ghetto, Ullmann seems aware of the precariousness of his future, as is shown in the quite openly ironic remark on the manuscript of his piano sonata nº 7, dated 22 August 1944: “The performance rights are reserved by the composer until his death”, so, not for long.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4383556355301604134.post-85700260897098845592019-03-01T08:21:00.000-08:002019-03-01T08:21:08.484-08:00François Salque / Eric Le Sage BEETHOVEN Les Sonates pour Violoncelle et Piano<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4KMI5fjwFj1qN4yewOCXnoTpiPgOWcFvCEA7nNTROxD32zjCknFuijhhv6ZlTYxtrmP_UNEyfuOSGSyq_Lkd-W3qvpDLji7ELDzJ5ux6jnsLCbIRTwMb6e9qk2nrz4KT1lCj5CQ-wBVE/s1600/Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4KMI5fjwFj1qN4yewOCXnoTpiPgOWcFvCEA7nNTROxD32zjCknFuijhhv6ZlTYxtrmP_UNEyfuOSGSyq_Lkd-W3qvpDLji7ELDzJ5ux6jnsLCbIRTwMb6e9qk2nrz4KT1lCj5CQ-wBVE/s320/Cover.jpg" width="320" /></a>Beethoven's cello sonatas were among the first works to explore the potential of the cello as a solo chamber instrument. French cellist François Salque catches the nature of this status in his splendid recordings of the early Op. 5 sonatas on this two-disc Sony set: it's a lively recording in which the cello seems to grow into its new role. Sample the unexpectedly massive (16-minute) opening movement of the Cello Sonata No. 1 in F major, Op. 5, No. 1, a sort of extended essay in the development of new sonorities for cello and piano; in Salque's hands the cello seems constantly to be stepping to the forefront in unexpected ways. Salque and pianist Eric Le Sage deliver suave readings in a classic French tradition, and their approach works wonderfully in the Op. 5 sonatas, less well in the middle-period Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, Op. 69, and once again excitingly in the late fourth and fifth sonatas, which also were stylistically transitional works and among the first in which Beethoven's late style really showed itself. Here again, the precise ways of Salque and Le Sage yield results in terms of clarity in the big new fugal finale of the <a href="https://mega.nz/#!rH5hTYoa!i2vPsOZyeQx4oK8kZG3SdQidd1hftWDh__mTPXaAq_c" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cello Sonata No. 5</a> in D major, Op. 102, No. 2, and especially in the complex ebb and flow of the two-movement (or is it four?) Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, Op. 102, No. 1. With fine sound from the Salle de la Conservatoire de Liège, this is Gallic Beethoven playing at a high level. <b><i>(<span itemprop="author">James Manheim)</span></i></b></div>
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