The music of Estonian organist-composer Süda (1883–1920) combines contrapuntal mastery with virtuosic command of the Romantic organ. Süda’s brief life and his perfectionism meant that his output – exclusively for the organ – remained small, but it is beautifully crafted and highly expressive.

Classical Music

Still in his twenties, Pétur Sakari studied in his native Finland and in Paris and made his recording début at the age of 18. On his previous disc for BIS, he performed works by five French composers, receiving international acclaim with top marks in Diapason as well as on the Klassik-Heute website. For the present disc, Pétur has chosen to focus on César Franck, performing the composer’s Three Pieces and Three Chorales ‘pour grand orgue’ on an instrument perfectly suited to the repertoire. Completed in 1880, the great organ in the Sainte-Croix cathedral of Orléans is a major – and well-preserved – example of the art of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, the same maker who had previously built Franck’s beloved organ in Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. (‘My new organ? It’s an orchestra!’ was Franck’s verdict.) Together the two gave the French organ tradition a new impetus with Franck laying the groundwork for a French symphonic organ style while Cavaillé-Coll constructed hundreds of organs capable of producing a sound that was full, homogeneous and modern. The Trois Pièces, which closes with the famous Pièce héroïque, were written for a Cavaillé-Coll instrument built for the 1878 World Fair in Paris. Twelve years later, and only weeks before his untimely death, Franck completed the Trois Chorals. The idea of writing organ chorales was inspired by Bach, but Franck composed them ‘with quite a different plan’: instead of traditional hymns they use an original, freely composed melody which is gradually revealed ‘with great imagination’, as Franck himself put it in a letter to his publisher. Both the Pieces and especially the Chorales have become central works in the repertoire of concert organists.

Tchaikovsky has long maintained his position as among the most popular of all composers, his unequalled gift for melody and colorful orchestration given added depth through a rich Russian soulfulness. The Second Piano Concerto has always lived under the shadow of the famous First but, played here in the composer's original version, is full of life-enhancing character and emotion. Both this and the Concert Fantasia also contain beautiful chamber music sections allowing unique interaction between soloist and orchestra.

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REVIEWS:

Nebolsin opts for a reading that is refreshingly mellow, almost intimate and, above all, profoundly lyrical. His focus is on the shape of the phrase, inflected with the most delicate rubato. Stern and the New Zealanders mirror this rhetorical flexibility with great skill and subtlety. The finale has a fleet lightness, heightening the overall golden bravura of the concerto.

– Gramophone

Nebolsin hardly puts a foot wrong, and Michael Stern secures rhythmically vibrant playing from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

– BBC Music Magazine

Contemporary American music for wind band is among the most varied, colorful and brilliant to be heard anywhere, not least when performed by one of the genre’s leading young ensembles. Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Schwantner is represented by his evocative concerto “Luminosity.” David Maslanka has helped to reshape the wind band sound and “Hosannas,” some of which are based on chorale melodies, are full of moments of self-reflection. These qualities of quiet and timelessness are shared by the first movement of Steven Bryant’s “Alchemy in Silent Spaces.”

This album is part of the 25-disc box set Un siècle de musique fracaise, which explores French music from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. This disc profiles French composer Pierre Boulez, and includes his famous Le Marteau sans Maitre.

Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia

Composer Kenneth Fuchs and conductor JoAnn Falletta completed their fourth recording with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, August 30–September 1, 2013. The recording features baritone and Naxos artist Roderick Williams and is produced by Grammy Award-winner Tim Handley. The repertoire includes Falling Man (for baritone voice and orchestra); Movie House (seven poems by John Updike for baritone voice and chamber ensemble); and Songs of Innocence and of Experience (four poems by William Blake for baritone voice and chamber ensemble). Fuchs’ music continues to find its visual counterpart in the work of Abstract Expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose art adorns the cover of this disc.

Classical Music

This budget-priced set includes two of the popular 19th century composer's early and most recognized masterpieces, the Symphonie Fantastique and Romeo et Juliette, with Charles Munch and the BSO.

The opening salvo of Wagner's tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), Das Rheingold establishes immediately the epic nature of Wagner's intentions in a epochal tale that owes much to Old Norse and Icelandic sagas. Featuring the acclaimed conductor Jaap Van Zweeden with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, this production is graced with the presence of noted soloists such as Matthias Goerne, Kwangchul Youn, Eri Nakamura and Michelle DeYoung, among others.

Strongly inclined towards neo-romanticism, Richard Danielpour's music is a rich unity of energy, intensity, and serenity. First Light reveals these elements perfectly with it's rhythmically charged writing contrasting with hypnotic chant melodies. The Awakened Heart is a kaleidoscopic three-movement work that ranges from darkness and passion through a stately chorale to an exuberant and breathless conclusion. Symphony No. 3 charts a triumphant ascent from "the dream of death and our own fearful existence" to a belief "in a world of hope and love." "Danielpour is an outstanding composer for any time - one who knows how to communicate deep, important emotions through simple, direct means." (The New York Daily News)

Winfried Zillig arranged this recording in 1948 with a unique cast. The young Christa Ludwig, in one of her first recording sessions, gives an excellent interpretation of this opera.

This release features the work of Julius Rontgen, a German-Dutch composer who produced a great deal of classical repertoire. The composer’s grandson wrote of this release, “This deliberate selection from Julius Rontgen’s extensive song repertoire represents an important new step towards a revaluation of his total oeuvre and the unlocking of Dutch musical heritage in general…” (Jurriaan Rontgen) Robbert Muuse and Micha van Weers are passionate musicians who are constantly pushing themselves to explore the field of forgotten works. Muuse is a baritone who is frequently sought after for both operatic and concert repertoire. Pianist Micha van Weers has performed alongside Muuse for many recitals.

Estonia provides both starting point and goal for this disc of sacred music for male choir, with a traditional hymn followed by works by composers such as Kreek, Eespere and Lemba, and the closing De profundis by Arvo Pärt. But in between, Orphei Drängar and their conductor Cecilia Rydinger Alin make a grand tour of Europe, taking in music by composers from the Nordic countries, France, Italy, Central Europe and the UK. Biblical Psalms have provided many of these with their texts, such as Milhaud (in French), Langlais (in English), Kreek (in Estonian) and Pärt (in Latin). Others - Lemba, Söderman, Sandström - have set portions of the text of the Catholic mass. Grieg and Biebl were both inspired by prayers in Latin, while Rossini chose to set one in Italian. For Nattlig madonna ('Nocturnal Madonna') the Finnish composer Nils-Eric Fougtstedt selected a poem depicting the Virgin Mary with her newborn child by his compatriot Edith Södergran, while Bob Chilcott has chosen one by the Guyanese-British poet John Aagard, whose version of John Newton's Amazing Grace gives the background to the conversion of this 18th-century slave-trader turned abolitionist. Throughout a programme ranging from Rossini's Preghiera from c. 1860 to Sven-David Sandström's Sanctus, composed for the choir in 2010, Orphei Drängar and Rydinger Alin once again demonstrate the versatility and exalted standards that habitually causes the choir to be described as the finest male-voice choir in the world.

Classical Music

Widor’s cycle of organ symphonies sits at the heart of his compositional achievement. They are vivid and innovative – none more so than Symphony No. 8 in B major, which takes performer and listener alike to the limits of the genre: its glittering sonorities, lyric intensity and technical power offer a tour-de-force of organ writing. The artfully woven Symphonie romane, the last of the ten, utilizes a Gregorian chorale in music of increasing splendor, melancholy and, finally, sublime peace. Christian von Blohn graduated from the Musikakademie Saarbrücken in 1987 with a first-class degree in Church Music and also with a degree in Music Education, majoring in the organ. Since 1993, von Blohn has been deanery music director for the diocese of Speyer and currently provides musical supervision for the two St Ingbert parishes of St Hildegard and St Josef. He recorded Vol. 3 in this series (8.574206), featuring Symphony No. 7, Op. 42, No. 3 and Symphonie gothique, Op. 70, released in September 2020.

The occasion for the composition of Mozart’s Missa longa is still a matter of speculation, but the Mass remains an exceptional work with its elaborate choral writing, extended orchestration and dramatic changes. The symphonic qualities of the Coronation Mass reveal influences from Mozart’s travels in Paris and Mannheim, as well as a move towards a more operatic style – the memorable soprano solo of the Agnus Dei clearly anticipates the aria ‘Dove sono’ from Le nozze di Figaro. The richness and variety of this work ensures that it has deservedly remained one of Mozart’s most frequently performed Masses. Working with many top orchestras throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Asia, Christoph Poppen is currently principal conductor of the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hong Kong Sinfonietta. He is former artistic director of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and former music director of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern. Greatly sought-after as a pedagogue, he has been Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich since 2003 and was also appointed Professor of Violin Chair at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía Madrid in 2021.

Naxos have come a long way in three decades. Their product is no longer as cheap as chips, but they have few rivals when it comes to yearly volumes or breadth of repertoire. I’m particularly grateful for some of their long-running series, especially those devoted to Americana and music for wind band. I’ve reviewed a fair few albums from both strands, a number of which contain world premieres or works otherwise unknown to me. At the same time, I’ve noticed a general improvement in recording quality, with some newer releases sounding as good as those offered by premium-price labels.

The American Classics project is probably the one I value most, not least for its ability to surprise and stimulate. And just as Naxos’s technical standards have risen, so too has the quality of ensembles and conductors featured. This pleasing state of play is epitomised by a very recent Michael Daugherty album, Trail of Tears: three brand-new concertos, one with the peerless percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, music and musicians well served by fine sonics. As it happens, that release introduced me to the conductor David Alan Miller, who also directs this mixed programme of 20th- and 21st-century works by Carl Ruggles, Steven Stucky and John Harbison.

Ruggles’ Sun-Treader, which takes its title from Robert Browning’s poem, Pauline, is a technically rigorous construct that’s also very accessible. Although the piece was premiered in Paris in 1932, it had to wait another 34 years for its first US performance, with Jean Martinon and the Boston Symphony. And while the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic isn’t exactly a household name – it’s an ad hoc band, drawn from members of the National Orchestral Institute each June – they are highly accomplished players, for whom this music holds no terrors.

Full, firm, and remarkably forensic, Miller’s Sun-Treader is more detailed and, yes, more colourful than Tilson Thomas’s. Producer-engineer Phil Rowlands’ spacious, recording certainly helps to ‘open up’ a work that can seem impenetrable at times. All of which adds up to a thoughtful, exploratory performance that’s very different from MTT’s more urgent, intensely dramatic one. The latter still sounds pretty impressive – the visceral timps a special treat – but I daresay an up-to-date remaster, similar to that provided for the recent BD-A of William Steinberg’s Planets and Zarathustra, would improve things even more. Top-notch accounts of Charles Ives’s Three Places in New England and Walter Piston’s Symphony No. 2 complete this bona-fide classic.

Steven Stucky’s second Concerto for Orchestra, premiered by the LA Philharmonic in 2004, received the Pulitzer Prize for music a year later. In his liner-notes, Robert Lintott says the piece is ‘rife with musical puzzles’, although I doubt most listeners will be aware of the composer’s compositional tricks and tributes. More apparent is Stucky’s homage to the genre – Bartók’s seminal concerto springs to mind – with soloists and various instrumental groups (‘combos’) allowed to strut their stuff. I can well imagine performers relishing both the good writing and the composer’s seemingly boundless good nature.

That’s certainly the case here, with Miller a sure and steady guide; indeed, he takes us on a fascinating trip, pointing out so much of interest along the way. What a tumble of tantalising ideas and sonorities, and how superbly rendered they are in this fine recording. Also, singly and severally, the players respond to this clever and compelling score with a zeal that most composers can only dream of. And as much as I admire Lan Shui, his performance lacks the chutzpah that makes Miller’s seem so rum and rakish. That said, the sound is refined, the playing light and luminous. The all-Stucky programme, which includes Dame Evelyn in Spirit Voices, is attractive, too.

The headline act is the Harbison symphony, commissioned by the Seattle SO for their centennial celebrations in 2004. In five movements – but not composed in that order – the work’s opening Fanfare reminds me of Leonard Bernstein in St Vitus mode. What exhilarating music this is, and how joyfully executed. The gnarly Intermezzo, with its gently shimmering gong in the background, is similarly engaging. The central Scherzo is catchy – goodness, there’s a lot going on here – and the Threnody has something of late Mahler about it. That said, Harbison’s ‘voice’ is very much his own, the Finale gaunt but not emaciated. Pinpoint playing and a strong pulse predominate.

This is a riveting work, delivered with deftness and dynamism, and I commend it to those looking for a way into the composer’s symphonic output. And given the impassioned authority of this performance, I’m tempted to forgo comparisons.

So often in comparative reviews I sign off with comments like: ‘This newcomer is pretty good, but…’. I’m happy to report that, with the possible exception of Miller’s still excellent Sun-Treader, there’s nothing to criticise here. Yes, Naxos really have come a long way since 1987. And that goes for this series, too; it just gets better – and becomes more valuable – with each new instalment.

Thoroughly modern Miller; plenty more, please.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan )

"When the Wigmore Hall Live label released an archival recording of a 1998 recital by the great mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson last year, it raised the hope of more such posthumous finds. And just as that hope had begun to fade, here comes another treasure, this one unearthed from the archives of Emmanuel Music in Boston.

As it happens, this release serves as tribute not only to Hunt Lieberson, who died in 2006, but also to her frequent close collaborator Craig Smith, the founder of Emmanuel Music, who died in November. And the material is choice: spacious arias from two Bach cantatas and extended excerpts from Handel’s oratorio “Hercules.”

The disc begins with a 1992 recording of the aria “Kommt ihr angefochtnen Sünder” from Bach’s Cantata No. 30: Something of a tease as the opening instrumental passage heightens the anticipation of Hunt Lieberson’s entrance, more than two minutes into the disc. But that glorious Voice, when it appears, meets every expectation.

The “Hercules” excerpts, from 1999, trace the travails of the hero’s wife, Dejanira, culminating in a harrowing mad scene.... Although Hunt Lieberson’s compelling stage presence added mightily to any performance, the voice alone amply conveys her characteristic intensity here....

Dare we hope for more?"

– James R. Oestreich, New York Times [8/10/2008]

The early death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson deprived the world of an exceptional artist and one, moreover, who left all too few commercial recordings. However, some archive recordings are now beginning to emerge and this new release, featuring previously unissued live recordings is one such. The CD also forms a tribute to one of her mentors, Craig Smith, Music Director at Emmanuel Church, Boston from 1970 until his death in November 2007 at the age of sixty.

Smith founded Emmanuel Music, which, besides fulfilling a liturgical function at the church, evolved also into a concert ensemble of no little distinction. Perhaps Smith’s greatest achievement was to inaugurate the practice whereby each Sunday between October and April, the main Sunday morning church service includes a cantata by Bach appropriate to the day. That tradition continues to this day and later this year the thirty-ninth consecutive season of liturgical cantatas will commence.

It was through Emmanuel Music that the then Lorraine Hunt took some of the first steps on her solo singing career and she maintained the connection, I believe, for the rest of her life, including appearances in the Sunday cantata series. This disc, therefore, takes us back to her singing roots.

The disc begins and ends with arias taken, I presume, from complete Sunday service performances of Bach cantatas. The aria "Kommt ihr angefochtnen Sünder" comes from the cantata Freue dich, erlöste schar, written for the feast of St. John the Baptist. Alfred Dürr writes thus of the cantata: "The underlying mood is joyful, relaxed and unproblematical, not only in the opening chorus but in the four arias, where a dance-like style is often clearly evident." Unfortunately, to judge by this aria at least, Craig Smith seems to have a different conception. Presumably with the agreement of his soloist, he sets and extremely slow tempo and the aria lasts 8:46.

This sent me scurrying to my shelves for comparisons. John Eliot Gardiner, in his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage performance takes a mere 5:27 but he is surely too fleet – at his pace the aria sounds like a gambol through the Elysian meadows. So that might seem to suggest that Smith is "simply" old fashioned in his conception. But turn to Fritz Werner’s 1971 performance and you find a tempo that seems to me to be just right – he takes 6:03. Beside Werner I’m afraid Smith sounds laboured. What saves the performance is the sheer beauty and inwardness of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s singing. On its own terms the performance is quite lovely and no admirer of the singer will be disappointed but I just think the basic conception is wrong.

Things are much more satisfactory in the other Bach aria, which is placed at the opposite end of the programme. This aria is from the cantata Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, which is for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. Again, Miss Hunt Lieberson’s singing is beautiful and communicative and this time the pace is much more sensible, I think. The conductor here is the composer, John Harbison, who has also had a long association with Emmanuel Music and who, in fact, is currently the Acting Artistic Director. He adopts a slow pace, but this aria can take it. Again comparisons were instructive. Eliot Gardiner’s tempo is almost identical and he takes exactly as long as does Harbison. Werner didn’t record this cantata but another celebrated Bach traditionalist, Karl Richter, did. In his 1976/7 recording he takes 9:34 but his soloist, Julia Hamari, sounds cool besides either of her rivals and she and Richter, whose direction is smooth and relaxed, convey no real sense of trepidation. Nathalie Stutzmann, for Eliot Gardiner, is perhaps a touch more inward than Hunt Lieberson but she’s equally involving and it’s only by the merest whisker that I come down in favour of this present, excellent performance.

The remainder of the disc is devoted to excerpts from Handel’s oratorio, Hercules and these excerpts contain all the music for Dejanira, the wife of the eponymous hero. I presume, though it’s not clear from the documentation, that these extracts are taken from a live account of the complete work.

The role of Dejanira is an exceptionally demanding one, both vocally and emotionally. She is, in Craig Smith’s words, a "monumental character." I can well imagine that Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was a pretty formidable presence in the performance of the oratorio for these extracts show us a vivid character portrayal.

In her first aria, "The world when day’s career is run," she is fully the grief-stricken wife, yet she still retains dignity. Much of Dejanira’s music is in moderate or slow tempo but when swifter music arrives, in "Begone, my fears, fly, hence, away," Miss Hunt Lieberson excels in the passagework.

As her jealousy of the captive princess, Iole, begins to take hold and her certainty that Hercules has been unfaithful increases there’s great sadness in the aria ‘When beauty sorrow’s liv’ry wears’ and that is splendidly conveyed here. Particularly outstanding is the account of "Cease, ruler of the day, to rise," where the singing is particularly expressive. Writing of this disc elsewhere, but of another aria in the programme, the critic Michael Kennedy spoke of Miss Hunt Lieberson’s "power to humanise every note and bring the music to new life." How I agree and I’d say that this comment applies even more strongly to this deep aria.

The final excerpt is the Mad Scene. Here Miss Hunt Lieberson is intensely dramatic without ever going overboard. This is extremely demanding music and she performs it vividly and, once again, when the divisions arise she displays fine vocal agility. Hers is a tremendous performance of this recitative and aria and, unsurprisingly, it sparks an ovation from the audience who, otherwise, are commendably silent throughout.

These extracts contain some superb Handel singing. Frequently I was reminded of Dame Janet Baker’s assumption of Handelian roles and I can pay no higher compliment than that.

Despite my reservation over the one Bach item – a reservation that does not concern the singing per se – this is a superb disc that all admirers of this much-missed singer will want to have. And if you’ve not heard Lorraine Hunt Lieberson before, buy this disc and discover for yourself what all the fuss is about.

– John Quinn, MusicWeb International