In today's world, one often perceives a division between art and academia, and composers and musicologists generally don't have much to say to one another. But that division has not always existed. Brahms himself was surrounded by a circle of academics who for him were also a source of animated comradeship. With some of them, Brahms would go on long walks outside Vienna and even on summer holidays.+ The men enjoyed long and sometimes loud, discussions about their shared obsessions, discoveries and findings. Brahms had these very discussions to thank for his lifelong interest in "early music". He even collaborated intensively on the critical editions of Couperin, Handel and Bach's sons and received interesting and useful advice form his friends. Since adopting a new artistic profile, The Hague Philharmonic is demonstrating more than ever that symphonic music can still be meaningful to large and diverse audiences in the 21st century. The ensemble performs regularly at various major concert halls around the world. Their ambitions are spreaheaded by a proactive education policy and are the driving force behind music education in the region.

From simple folk melodies to symphonies in the concert hall, Americans listen to music that encompasses all styles and tastes. As the Musical Ambassadors of the Combat Soldier, the Army Ground Forces Band travels throughout the nation performing the various kinds of music that contribute to our national heritage. This album is a small sampling of the many great tunes that are Made in America. The works of several famous composers are showcased on this album, including Henry Fillmore, Percy Grainger, and Aaron Copland.

In 1757 the young Catalan composer Antonio Soler was appointed to a distinguished position at the Escorial, the palace of the Spanish Court. The keyboard sonatas he wrote there, many specifically for the son of King Carlos III, Don Gabriel, constitute his best known achievement as a composer. The Sonatas heard on this fifth volume once again reflect the influence of Domenico Scarlatti and the latest central European models but Sonata No. 57 also draws inspiration from Spanish folk music while Sonata No. 61 ends with use of the Scotch snap rhythm.

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

Alfonso Romero Asenjo's distinguished career has resulted in numerous awards and distinctions, highlighting an unmistakable and very particular musical language whose appetite for spirituality and selective use of the avant-garde is now an established aspect of the so-called 'Generacion del 51.' The String Symphony has a cinematic restlessness that conjures hauntingly unsettling images, while the Cello Concerto pits the luminous and extended melodic phrases of the soloist against dense darkness from the orchestra. The Concerto for Two Violins is in part a tribute to J.S. Bach's work in the same setting, endowing Baroque resources with a mysterious and attractive modernity.

Telemann wrote a portfolio of fantasies for unaccompanied instruments, and in addition to those for violin, keyboard and viola da gamba was the set of Twelve Fantasies for Solo Flute, dating from 1732/33. Although written with an eye to the amateur or student market, these are highly inventive and original works. With their eloquent melodies, frugal writing, and contrasts of register and phrasing they make an enchanting set, played here by Giovanni Roselli on a conical ring-key flute, which has quieter keys allowing for more elegant trills. Born in Italy, Giovanni Roselli has performed worldwide, and in 2009 was invited to play at the concert for Sir James Galway's 70th birthday celebrations at the Teatro alla Scala.

Musical life in Greece draws on a legacy that has as much richness and depth as the nation’s long and complex history. The vibrant and colorful works on this recording, while representing the country’s lively contemporary music scene, make use of traditional melodies and rhythms combined with wider stylistic influences. This unique programme of premiere recordings includes works dedicated to the Aeolos Woodwind Quintet. The Aeolos Woodwind Quintet was formed in 2009 in Athens by leading woodwind soloists. Their aim is to draw attention to the rich Greek repertoire that remains largely unknown, promote Greek composers, and enrich the existing repertoire with commissions for new works.

-----

REVIEW:

If you do not readily connect Greece as a haven for Wind Quintets, you will be surprised and delighted to discover this disc of works from 20th century Greek composers. Vannis Constantinidis’s folk-music inspired piano collection, 44 Children’s Pieces on Greek Folk Tunes haa a simplicity to which he adds a degree of pungency when played by a wind quintet. Using a similar starting point, Takis Kalogeropoulos’s Epirote Chronicle is much more complex score, subjected to the added sounds of modern contemporary influences.

Alkis Baltas’s Little Suite, five contrasting movements lasting just over six minutes, gives members of the quintet some pleasing solo moments. Georgios Poniridis’s Quintet promises to be in ’absolute dissonance; don’t be put off, this is modernity in friendly guise that never offends the ear. A Blackbird in the Cricket’s Gorge, by Giorgos Koumendakis, is a charming work. Theodore Antoniou’s Second Wind Quintet is in his own sound world not far removed from tonality. Andreas Makris’s 1993 Woodwind Quintet goes all the way back to tonality in the West European culture.

The Greek-based Aeolos Woodwind Quintet are obviously a very fine group who sweep away technical demands, and individually are outstanding in solo passages. Very good and immediate sound quality.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

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

This is the accomplished and stylish Russian debut of Tianwa Yang – one of the most unusual and energetic violinists of our time. To an enthusiastic audience within the walls of the beautiful Court Capella in St Petersburg, she performs the much-loved concertos of Tchaikovsky and Brahms with the St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra under the sensitive direction of Vladimir Lande. The remarkable intensity of her playing is just as apparent in both her encore– Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonata No. 3 – and her separate performance of Bach’s solo Partita No. 2. Tianwa Yang has quickly established herself as a leading international performer and recording artist. She has recorded critically acclaimed interpretations of the complete music for violin andpiano, and for violin and orchestra, by Sarasate. Her recording of Mendelssohn’s two violin concertos (8572662) has won the highest praise.

Infusion Baroque draws new audiences to early music through a truly captivating concert experience, deftly combining seasoned musicianship with theatrical elements. Described as “dynamic and alive” (Early Music America) with “polish, energy, and finely-honed style… merrily breaking established traditions” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), the four women of Infusion Baroque enthrall audiences across North America with their creative and interactive programming. Their debut album 1747: C.P.E. Bach was released in 2017 and reached #3 on iTunes Canada Classical chart. Infusion Baroque's second album is the debut recording of six rare quintets by Georg Anton Kreüsser. Joyful and elegant, these pieces for flute, violin, viola, cello, and basso continuo feature the instruments engaged in a lively musical conversation that are sure to delight and charm listeners.

Towards the end of the renowned Couperin dynasty, Armand-Louis was born in 1727 as the nephew of François Couperin (‘le grand’), and in due course he became titulaire organist at the Église Saint-Gervais in the Marais district of Paris, as generations of Couperins in a continuous sequence stretching back to 1653. In 1752 he married Elisabeth-Antoinette Blanchet, daughter of the harpsichord-maker François-Étienne Blanchet and herself the third generation of a family of musicians and luthiers. They had four children, three of whom lived to maturity and became musicians, including their son Pierre, who succeeded Armand-Louis at Saint- Gervais after a tragic accident with a runaway horse brought about the composer’s premature end in 1789. It has been suggested that personal modesty, as well as the demands of a schedule which saw him in demand at churches across Paris, was the cause of Armand-Louis publishing so little of his music. Certainly it was highly esteemed during his lifetime. These Pièces de Clavecin were published in 1751 as his ‘Opus 1’ and succeeded only by lesser-known collections of violin sonatas and trios. The Pièces de clavecin deserve consideration alongside the viol fantazias of Purcell and the Lachrymae of Dowland for their rich, saturated exploitation of an idiom passed its high noon. The collection is divided into two parts by key, G major/minor and B flat major/minor. The titles allude to friends and well-known figures of the time, and much is lost or rather buried within and between the notes in this kind of portraiture, yet the pieces spring to life in the right hands.

The composing career of Simon Bainbridge (born in London in 1952) is spanned by the four chamber works in this album, all of them cast as single narrative spans. The First String Quartet, written when its composer was not yet twenty, blends lyricism and pointillism, rather as if it were recasting abstract poetry in sound; and the recent Second offers a kaleidoscopic tableau of color and nervous energy inspired by visual art. In his Cheltenham Fragments, as the title suggests, Bainbridge uses mosaic technique to build up textures and thematic outlines. And the long lines of the virtuosic Clarinet Quintet generate fleetfooted whirlwinds as they unfold. Linda Merrick and the Kreutzer Quartet worked closely with the composer on the preparation of these recordings.

Selected from the 1578 Obras de Musica published by blind keyboard master Antonio de Cabezon's son Hernando, these glosas enrich the vast resource of Renaissance vocal music through variation and elaboration. Extra layers of polyphony and ornament crystallize the tradition of improvisation on pre-existing works, both in the splendour of the sacred, and in chansons and madrigals with more secular emotions. Antonio de Cabezon's Tientos y Glosados can be heard on Naxos 8.554836, and Glen Wilson's acclaimed recording of his complete Tientos and Variationsis on 8.572475-76.

Featuring ten premiere recordings and a number of recently discovered ‘Sins of Old Age’ manuscripts unassigned to specific volumes, this album brings together a notable diversity of genres and instrumentation. They include the catchy ‘Allegretto’ for violin and piano that Rossini used as his musical calling card, the ‘Tarantelle pur sang’ for choir, harmonium, clochette and piano, and a harmonization of the simple folk melody ‘Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre’ that transforms it into a little musical gem. The Ars Cantica Choir was established in 1988 in Milan and today, as a body of professional singers, has won a reputation for its versatility and ability to tackle repertoire from the Renaissance to the contemporary.

These arrangements for string orchestra of works by Alban Berg take their cue from Berg himself: he arranged three of the six movements of the Lyric Suite for string orchestra; the Dutch composer Theo Verby arranged the other three. The CD includes an arrangement of Berg’s Piano Sonata for strings by Wijnand van Klaveren. Ernst Kovacic arranged Berg’s early works especially for this recording. The arrangements chart Berg’s development as a composer, from prentice pieces composed under the tutelage of Schoenberg to the rich, mature style of one of his masterpieces, the Lyric Suite, written to express an impassioned and illicit love. Ernst Kovacic is one of Austria’s best-known violinists as well as a conductor. Among the composers who have written works for him are Krenek, Holloway, Gruber and Schwertsik. Ernst Kovacic and the NRM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra’s previous Toccata release of music by Ernst Krenek (TOCC 0199), was received with universal enthusiasm, the reviewer for Fanfare writing: ‘This Toccata Classics CD is a model of fine production values…(and) magisterial performances…an absolute must for Krenek fanciers’.

REVIEW:

The Lyric Suite is played complete. It gains from the extra players, not only in obvious richness of sound, but in nuances of phrasing. The arrangements accomplish a broad range of expressive tonecolor, with nearly every conceivable string effect on display. In the trickier parts where there are several extremely chromatic legato lines playing against one another, they play accurately and in tune. The album is a curiosity for a limited audience, but they’ll be happy.

-- American Record Guide

Mario Pilati was a leading member of the Italian generation of composers born around the turn of the 20th century. His love of the Baroque can be felt in the sunny and joyful immediacy of Preludio, aria e tarantella, originally conceived for violin and piano. His other abiding passion was for the folk traditions of his native country, exemplified by his beautiful settings of Quattro canzoni popolari italiane- light, elegant, and suffused with subtle humor- and the delightful Bagatelles. In the strikingly inventive ‘Divertimento’ for brass ensemble, he draws on cinema, jazz and the vibrancy of Neapolitan street life. Pilati’s Concerto for Orchestra and Suite for Strings and Piano can also be heard on Naxos.

Kuhlau: Fantaisies & Divertissements for Solo Flute

Kerry Turner made his mark on the global music community through his association with the illustrious American Horn Quartet. Turner’s compositional goal is to communicate to the listener a vivid picture through his highly melodic musical language. Many sources provided the inspiration for the works on this album, ranging from the spiritual, to the literary, and even Turner’s powerful response to the music of J.S. Bach.

It was African-Americans with little or no formal music training that mostly drove America’s ragtime revolution. During Ragtime’s height, (c.1890-1920), thousands of pieces were written, most notably by Scott Joplin (1868-1917) and Joseph F. Lamb (1887-1960). German pianist Marcus Schwarz specializes in Ragtime-era music and in the rediscovery and revival of long-neglected composers. Included in this recital are works by three talented Ragtime-era female composers, including two by the melodically gifted and chromatically inclined May Frances Aufderheide (1888-1972).

William Mathias wrote some of the most imaginative, communicative and joyful choral music of the mid- to late 20th century. These qualities are perhaps most clearly represented in his substantial catalogue of works for choir and, in particular, his settings of sacred texts, notably the invigorating A Babe is Born and the hauntingly beautiful Ave verum corpus, one of his last compositions. This selection also includes the both serious and entertaining sequence of Riddles and the rapt, ecstatic A May Magnificat. More Mathias choral music can be heard on prior Naxos releases.