César Guerra-Peixe was one of the most versatile Brazilian musicians of the 20th century, gaining a particular mastery of orchestration and creating his own inimitable sound through extensive work in radio, television and cinema. The toe-tapping dance rhythms and lyrical expressiveness in his two Symphonic Suites were inspired by research into Brazilian folk traditions, further enhanced by a broad range of vibrantly eloquent global influences. The light-hearted Roda de Amigos mischievously caricatures Guerra-Peixe’s musical circle of friends and their various woodwind instruments.
REVIEW:
This may be the finest release to date in Naxos’ ongoing Brazilian music series. César Guerra-Peixe (pronounce it “Gweha-Peysh,” more or less) had a relatively long and productive life–1914-93. He was a violinist, teacher, arranger, creator of music for radio, television and film, and an ethnomusicologist, among other things. In his early years, he dabbled in serial (twelve-tone) composition, and it served him well in these two colorful symphonic suites. Both works date from the 1950s, and celebrate the rhythms and percussive sonorities of Brazilian dance music–from the states of São Paulo and Pernambuco respectively–but with a combination of harmonic sophistication and crystal-clear orchestration that makes them models of their kind. Guerra-Peixe’s folk inspirations come out sounding thoroughly modern, more like Bartók, for example, than the early romantic nationalists, and so the result, with its ample use of ostinatos and repetitive gestures, gives the impression of simplicity without ever turning simplistic. They are fresh, vital, and wholly winning.
Roda de Amigos (“Circle of Friends”) is a witty suite in four movements capturing the characters of some of Guerra-Peixe’s musician colleagues: grumpy, stubborn, melancholic, and mischievous respectively. Scored for small ensemble, each movement features a difficult and brilliant woodwind solo, starting with the bassoon and working through the section with clarinet next, then oboe, then flute. The music is genuinely witty, and admirably suited to the emotional character that each movement describes. Kudos to the woodwind soloists of the Goiás Philharmonic, who sound absolutely world-class in each of their turns in the spotlight. Indeed, conductor Neil Thomson galvanizes his forces to deliver performances of all of this music that, in their clarity, vitality and drive, present this splendid music in the best possible light, and the sonics are really vivid too. If you’re looking for a new discovery that you’ll play and enjoy often, then you’ll definitely want to get this terrific disc forthwith.
--ClassicsToday.com (10/10, David Hurwitz)
Another exceptionally interesting and valuable release as part of Naxos’ “The Music of Brazil” series.
Apart from the specific quality of these individual scores, a significant part of the value of this disc is to add another name to the lengthening list of Latin American/Brazilian composers of real worth and talent. For too many years Villa-Lobos alone represented his country’s music to the wider world. Certainly César Guerra-Peixe deserves to be placed alongside his compatriots such as Camargo Guarnieri, Claudio Santoro, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Edino Krieger, Alexandre Levy, Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez, Francisco Mignone, Alberto Nepomuceno, and, of course Heitor Villa-Lobos.
This historic broadcast recording was always counted as one of the best recordings of this opera. With the best singers of the Frankfurt opera after WW II like Heinrich Bensing, there was always a demand for a release of this recording. Thanks to a collector who made a direct master copy of the original broadcast tape in the early 50's, Walhall is able to release it in great sound.
A pianist of keen musicality and sweeping virtuosity, Xiayin Wang returns to solo repertoire with this fascinating exploration of works by Enrique Granados, revealing a technically challenging and complex musical language, yet full of color and emotional intensity. Perhaps because the source of their inspiration was so close to the composer’s heart, the Goyescas piano pieces are the most liberated examples of the genius of Granados. “I have written,” he said, without exaggeration, “a collection of great sweep and difficulty,” which Xiayin Wang addresses with complete mastery. Across the repertoire featured here, this album reveals the genius of Granados, a composer of wide contrast whose music deserves to be heard more often. While the brilliance of Granados as a composer of piano music in a more conventional idiom is convincingly exemplified in the Allegro de concierto and in Zapateado, inspired by Andalusian flamenco, the Ochos Valses poeticos are unique and uncharacteristic in that they are neither virtuosic in their piano scoring nor Spanish in style.
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REVIEW:
Both books of Goyescas are essentially sensual and/or passionate love poems, something that she conveys with sensitivity and obvious affection.
This recording of orchestral works by Karol Szymanowski form part of the Polish Music series on Chandos, and is performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner. These performers have impressed in their Lutoslawski survey, which is part of the same series; in a review of volume 1, Gramophone described them as a veritable ‘dream team’.
Symphony No. 2 by Szymanowski is a work of great power and ingenuity, with many passionate and varied contrasts in its use of solo instruments. Composed in 1909 – 10, it is widely considered the greatest orchestral work of the composer’s early period, not to mention one of the most important Polish symphonic compositions to date. Szymanowski himself thought very highly of it, and in August 1911 wrote in a letter to his fellow Polish composer Zdzis?aw Jachimecki: ‘How happy I am that this Symphony impressed you as I had wanted. I will frankly admit that I feel somewhat proud about its value. In some miraculous way I have managed during my work on it to resist all those garish phantoms which seduce “young and inexperienced” artists and to produce pure and uncompromising beauty in the way I personally understand it.’
The internationally acclaimed pianist Louis Lortie joins the orchestra and conductor in Symphony No. 4 of 1932, which the composer subtitled ‘Symphonie concertante’ in recognition of the near-soloistic role played by the pianist. Whereas Szymanowski’s early and middle works clearly reflect Wagner, Strauss, and Scriabin, this work is strongly influenced by Prokofiev, particularly in the finale, an agitated and daring movement reminiscent of the Russian composer’s Piano Concerto No. 3, composed about a decade earlier.
Written in 1904 – 05 in a style recalling Wagner and Strauss, the Concert Overture is characterised by enormous expressiveness and gusto in the way it handles the expanding themes. Szymanowski inscribed the original score with part of the poem Wite? W?ast by his friend Tadeusz Mici?ski: ‘I will not play you sad songs, O Shades! but will give you a triumph proud and fierce…’. This vivid imagery is perfectly in keeping with the music’s exuberant and vivacious character.
Weinberg: Symphony No. 17 & Suite for Orchestra / Lande, Siberian State Symphony
Naxos
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Oct 14, 2016
Mieczys?aw Weinberg – whose music was virtually unknown in the West until quite recently – composed, despite the incredible difficulty of the circumstances of his life, an enormous amount of music, including seventeen string quartets and no less than twenty-six symphonies, which puts him, in sheer prolificity among twentieth century symphonists close to Myaskovsky (27), but lagging somewhat behind Havergal Brian (32). Outstanding among Weinberg’s symphonies is the trilogy made up of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth symphonies, collectively entitled On the Threshold of War. This refers to what is known in Russia as The Great Patriotic War, or, in other words, World War Two.
So here we have no.17, ‘Memory’; it is a four-movement work with what might be thought a relatively conventional profile. But the way Weinberg handles the symphonic form and his material is, in all aspects, highly personal, and it is an unquestionably powerful statement. The movements are: an opening slow movement - Adagio sostenuto - of great intensity; then a fast, furious and lengthy Allegro molto; a much shorter Allegro molto, pesante; and another long movement, marked Andante, to complete the work.
There is, as far as I can ascertain, only one other recording of this symphony, that of a 2013 concert performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedoseyev. Though that is a committed performance, the sound is rather ‘raw’, and orchestral ensemble is often rough round the edges. The Siberian State Symphony Orchestra, on the Naxos recording, plays well, even if the strings do lack the bloom of a really top-class outfit. The recording is extremely well-balanced, so that wonderful moments, such as the entry of the harpsichord in the second movement, make the maximum impact. In fact, I found this the finest movement of the four; Weinberg constructs the movement so consistently from the various melodic motifs, and the scoring, particularly its use of the two keyboard instruments – piano and harpsichord – is outstandingly atmospheric. The way it eventually resolves into a searing elegy for the high strings is compelling, as is the sense of disintegration at its close.
This is certainly an impressive work, which deserves a distinguished place among the great World War Two symphonies – Vaughan Williams 6, Prokofiev 6, Shostakovich 7 and 8, Copland 3 and Honegger’s Symphonie Liturgique, to name a few of the best known. Inevitably not the most cheerful piece, and some will find it grim. I would prefer the word ‘bracing’, for Weinberg maintains the concentration and the symphonic argument strongly throughout the work’s forty-five minute duration.
But it is demanding, which is why it was such a good idea to begin the CD with something as hugely entertaining as the little Suite for Orchestra of 1950. This is pure delight, and I’d be very surprised if this piece was not now taken up by other orchestras (this is the first recording). The opening Romance has a gorgeously lachrymose theme, first heard in the trumpet, while the Humoresque has deliciously light scoring. The spirit of Shostakovich hovers very close; Weinberg’s third movement recreates perfectly the mood of those haunted and very Russian waltzes found in both of the older composer’s Jazz Suites.
An impressive and enjoyable disc then. And one other thing; we don’t often credit the writers of booklet notes, so I wanted to mention the exemplary notes provided for this issue by Richard Whitehouse. Genuinely helpful and informative, unlike some writers who sometimes appear simply to want to blind us with their musicological ‘insights’. After all, how many of us want - or need – to know what key the music modulates to in bar 63 etcetera, etcetera?
British pianist Imogen Cooper has studied with some of the finest in the piano world, including with Kathleen Long in London, with Jacques Fevrier and Yvonne Lefebure in Paris, and with Alfred Brendel, Jorg Demus and Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna. She is widely recognized for her interpretations of Schubert and Schumann. This release follows her three very successful recordings of Schumann. For this album, Cooper has chosen some of the greatest works of Chopin. The album programme makes up an outstanding recital. Coopers virtuosity and emotional wisdom creates a new lense through which to view this frequently performed repertoire. Following this release, Imogen Cooper will embark on a world tour, performing recitals that will include the repertoire included here, and visiting several of Europe’s most prestigious venues before venturing to other continents.
The Codex of Guardiagrele includes several compositions by artists (from Abruzzo and other regions) that worked in Guardiagrele at the Santa Maria Maggiore church. These compositions expose the then-richness of polyphonic music in this region. The Codex includes several early 15th c. manuscripts of liturgic missals conserved until 1979 in Guardiagrele. Directing the De Bon Parole ensemble in this world premiere recording is Marco Giacintucci, who also realized the reconstructions.
Leroux: Nous / Claude Delangle, Odile Catelin-Delangle
BIS
SACD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Jan 01, 2021
The collaboration between composer Philippe Leroux and the husband-and-wife team of Claude and Odile Delangle began in the early 1990s and has grown ever closer over the years. In October 2019 the three met up again for a few intense days, in order to record Noûs, a programme of works for soprano saxophone and for solo piano. The album is bookended by two duos for the instruments – the opening SPP a reworking by the composer of an earlier score, and the closing Noûs that Leroux wrote for the Delangles only a few months before the recording. In both of these – albeit in different ways – the composer explores a couple of his favorite principles, namely those of continuity and transformation. Between them we hear works from the past decade, beginning with AMA for solo piano, from 2009. The other two piano works, Répéter… Opposer and Dense… Englouti are both tributes to Claude Debussy, a composer who occupies an important place in the musical universe of Philippe Leroux. At the centre of the disc, finally, is the highly virtuosic Conca Reatina for soprano saxophone. Loosely inspired by the contours of the mountains surrounding the Rieti Valley (Conca reatina), the piece is a dizzying sonic Möbius strip which keeps returning the listener to his point of departure.
Strauss in St. Petersburg / Jarvi, Estonian National Symphony
Chandos
CD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%May 19, 2017
This is a double-anniversary release, offering a rare collection of lively works to celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra as well as the eightieth birthday of its principal conductor, Neeme Järvi. Cheerful marches and dances here trace the career of Johann Strauss II as it manifested itself in his much acclaimed seasons in St Petersburg, at the ‘Russian summer’ concerts in the Vauxhall pavilion in Pavlovsk, where he appeared for eleven seasons (1856 – 65 and 1869), ten of them consecutively. It is an unmissable start to a year-long celebration for Neeme Jarvi that will include concerts, promotions, and subsequent album releases.
Schubert: Music for Violin, Vol. 2 / Daskalakis, Giacometti
BIS
SACD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Jan 01, 2021
The extant music for violin by Franz Schubert fits comfortably on two discs, and Ariadne Daskalakis released the first disc of her survey in 2019, to critical acclaim. The disc included works for violin and piano as well as three pieces with orchestral accompaniment, in performances described in The Strad as having ‘a litheness and shimmering delight that capture the music’s innate charm and dance-like vivacity with a beguiling sureness of touch.’ The second installment focuses on the chamber music with piano, and once again Daskalakis is joined by Paolo Giacometti, playing a fortepiano by Salvatore Lagrassa. The instrument, of the Viennese school, was built around 1815 and is thus almost exactly contemporary with the sonatas recorded here, the ones in D major and A minor dating from 1816 and the Sonata in A major from the following year. Schubert, who was around 20 years old at the time, had learned the violin from an early age, but the sonatas were probably intended for his older brother Ferdinand, who led the family string quartet in which Franz played the viola. The disc opens with a later work, however – the so-called Rondeau brilliant, from 1826. As the nickname indicates, the B minor Rondo is virtuosic, composed for Josef Slavík who before his early death was hailed as Paganini’s successor by the Viennese critics. In her liner notes, Ariadne Daskalakis describes the piece as ‘in turn dramatic, playful, gentle, seductive and wild’ and together with Paolo Giacometti she brings out each of these aspects.
A Bohemian in London: Violin Sonatas by Gottfried Finger / Duo Dorado
Chandos
CD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Aug 23, 2019
Gottfried Finger was a Moravian composer and virtuoso viol player. Born in Olomouc, in the modern-day Czech Republic, and arriving in England in 1685, Finger worked for the court of James II before becoming a freelance composer. Hazel Brooks has spent a great deal of time researching the music for this recording, all of which may be found in the British Library manuscript Add. 31466, the single biggest source of violin sonatas by Finger. She writes: ‘Finger’s sonatas contain a quirky mix of styles. Bohemian features from his homeland, simpler Corellian traits, and the occasional nod to the English Purcellian school are fitted together like crazy paving. This is what gives them their unique charm. Many are made up of contrasting short sections rather than separate movements, sometimes linked by short passages for basso continuo alone, both features characteristic of the Biber school. Finger left a large number of sonatas for violin and basso continuo. We performed them all, immersing ourselves in the style, and this recording presents the finest selection from his output. Because he is known principally for his copious published recorder pieces, aimed at the amateur market, Finger has sometimes been dismissed as a composer of trivial, unadventurous music. I hope that this recording will help to change that mindset, so that Finger finally receives the recognition he deserves.’
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REVIEW:
Brooks and her keyboard partner David Pollock provide thoroughly clean and competent performances, respectful of the music and careful of overbearing it with excessive ornamentation and other additions – which is not to say that Pollock’s continuo-playing does not succeed in finding variety from just a harpsichord and a firmly focused chamber organ. Not compulsory listening really, but certainly a well-executed presentation.
This is the third volume in the EP series ‘The Library’ – a series that explores both the history, and the new horizons, of The King’s Singers close-harmony repertoire. Close-harmony is the part of their work for which they are best known, and their library of thousands of arrangements is one they’re determined to explore, maintain and develop. The track-listing is designed to celebrate some old favorites from the library alongside brand new arrangements and adaptations, created especially for these recordings, which may perhaps become ‘old favorites’ of the future. The King’s Singers were founded on 1 May 1968 by six choral scholars who had recently graduated from King’s College Cambridge. Their vocal line-up was (by chance) two countertenors, a tenor, two baritones and a bass, and the group has never wavered from this formation since.
Very little is known about the origin of J. S. Bach’s seven Toccatas (BWV?910–916) or of their use. They are believed to have been written before 1717 or the end of Bach’s Weimar period – but it is quite possible that at least some of them were drafted before he arrived there in 1707, at the age of 22. The Toccatas are usually performed on harpsichord or piano – but even though they are ‘manualiter’ (intended to be played by the hands only) and do not call for pedal parts, they are also occasionally heard on the organ. In terms of style they are examples of the so-called stylus phantasticus – ‘the most free and unfettered method of composition’ – and belong to the North German organ tradition of the late 17th century. Each piece consists of several distinct and contrasting sections, interweaving strict counterpoint and fugal passages with freely rhapsodic material, and as such the toccatas differ from the two-movement prelude-and-fugue format which Bach later would put his own, indelible stamp on. With this disc, Masaaki Suzuki takes on some of the earliest of Bach’s extant harpsichord compositions, after having released acclaimed recordings of a wide range of later works, from the two-part Inventions to the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier. However, he also brings his experience in performing the music of Bach’s North German predecessors to bear, for instance Buxtehude (BIS-1809) and Nicolaus Bruhns.
REVIEW:
Since completing his Bach cantata cycle, conductor and keyboardist Masaaki Suzuki has turned to Bach's keyboard music. The results have been consistently satisfying, as one would expect from this great contemporary Bach interpreter, but even Suzuki fans might have wondered what he would do with these six rarely played toccatas. There are more purely dramatic readings of these works, mostly played on piano, but Suzuki is attuned to this music, and his performances are not in the least colorless. Bach's intense Adagios, like that of the Toccata in E minor, BWV 914, and the irregular structures of the music have snap and surprise. Suzuki's 1982 harpsichord, based on an enlarged Ruckers instrument, is an excellent choice for the music, and anyone whose Bach collection is missing these remarkable works can do well with this choice.
There’s a very serious talent at work in this music by Stacy Garrop. Silver Dagger is a folk-song setting for piano trio, along similar lines to Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, and it’s extremely beautiful and quite fetchingly composed for the three instruments. In Eleanor’s Words is a cycle of six songs drawn from the newspaper columns of Eleanor Roosevelt. The concept is a good one: Roosevelt’s prose often approaches poetry, and her unfailing intelligence makes for texts that are worth reading on their own, and for which Garrop has found a similarly conversational musical style that fits them perfectly. The music is attractive and approachable, but not facile. There’s a version for chamber orchestra that I would dearly love to hear, but it would be difficult to imagine a more affectingly sung performance than that by mezzo Buffy Baggott—and Kuang-Hao Huang accompanies beautifully.
Gaia is an ambitious string quartet in five movements lasting about 34 minutes...I loathed Garrop’s Second Quartet “Demons and Angels”, and this one strikes me as far more appealing and successful. The sonics are just great...this disc makes an excellent case for exploring more of Garrop’s music.
Without doubt, Linus Roth is a serious and thoughtful musician with a technical gift that allows him to be unfazed by even the most demanding writing. The Shostakovich gets a strongly individual and brooding reading; indeed, this is as fine a concerto recording as I have heard in recent times. The Tchaikovsky is just about as good. The sound is excellent. The orchestra surrounds the soloist without hemming him in, orchestral detail is weighty without being synthetically highlighted. The wide range of tone Roth draws from his "Dancla" Stradivarius is beautifully caught.
This is L.A. Opera's latest production of Giuseppe Verdi's ''Macbeth'' featuring Placido Domingo in the title role alongside the Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk as Lady Macbeth. The opera is staged by Darko Tresnjak, who won a Tony Award for his direction of the Broadway music ''A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.'' ''Placido Domingo commands the stage and the music he sings...He was genuinely impressive.'' (Los Angeles Times) ''When I was a young tenor, I loved playing romantic or heroic leading roles. When I began to add baritone parts to my repertoire six years ago, I was particularly interested in playing fathers, as I could draw from my own experience as a family man. Macbeth is a completely different kind of role for me. He is a murderer, but I think that he is also something of a victim, drawn into his crimes by the witches and by Lady Macbeth.'' (Placido Domingo)
![Verdi: Macbeth / Conlon, Domingo, Los Angeles Opera [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3241446-2477070.jpg?v=1788122046&width=800)
![Verdi: Macbeth / Conlon, Domingo, Los Angeles Opera [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3241446-2477070.jpg?v=1788122046&width=400)