For over 100 years the only opera by a woman to have been performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Der Wald is a taut, brooding drama where the simplicity of village life comes under threat from the uncontrollable desires unleashed by the darkness of the forest. Richly orchestrated, harmonically daring, and demanding a huge expressive range from the cast, the narrative drives relentlessly forward from wedding to tragedy in a single act, observed pitilessly by the eternal spirits of the forest. John Andrews conducts the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and an international cast in the first ever recording of this work, using Smyth’s English version of the libretto.

Huw Watkins’ song cycle Echo, composed for soprano Ruby Hughes and premiered in 2017 at Carnegie Hall, is at the center of this artfully crafted recital. Setting texts by five different poets, the cycle is a work centered on melancholy – on transience, remembrance, and in the final song a numbed cry of inconceivable loss. As such it permeates the entire program, adding a new and unexpected depth to that which precedes as well as follows. Another strand of the recital is the idea of how composers across the ages have addressed and echoed one another lovingly in their music – often in the most nuanced and unconscious way. Bach’s solo keyboard works capture something of a sense of timelessness, or more accurately, inspire an emotional connection that transcends time. A similar affinity seems to inform Britten’s folksong arrangements and his realizations of Bach’s Geistliche Lieder as well as the Purcell realizations by Thomas Adès and Tippett. A different kind of echo is created by the inclusion of Britten’s version of Dafydd y Garreg Wen(David of the White Rock) – a nod to the performers’ shared Welsh heritage. Closing the disc, three songs by contemporary British composers admired by both Watkins and Hughes also resonate with the previous works, bringing the program full circle.

REVIEW:

Here, in a recital that includes two world premieres, Hughes and longtime collaborator Huw Watkins combine contemporary works with works from centuries past. Somber themes connect them: the transience of life. Loss. Grief.

Watkins’s five Echo songs are exceptionally beautiful. Listen to the falling cascades in his setting of Emily Dickinson’s “For Each Ecstatic Instant.” Admire how vocally responsive Hughes is in the Purcell, how fragile and precious she sounds in Errollyn Wallen’s “Peace on Earth,” and how much she can communicate with barely a whisper of sound. Marvelous.

-- Stereophile

Byrd’s first song collection was published in 1588. In the following year he writes that he had ‘bene encouraged thereby, to take further paines therein, and to make the pertaker thereof, because I would shew my selfe gratefull to thee for thy loue, and desirous to delight thee with varietie, whereof (in my opinion) no Science is more plentifully adorned then Musicke.’ This 1589 collection, therefore, offers songs of 3, 4, 5 and 6 parts, ‘to serue for all companies and voyces: whereof some are easie and plaine to sing, [while] other more hard and dificult.’ Byrd clearly sought to be as inclusive as possible for all musicians, amateur and professional. With the 1589 collection, Byrd’s complete early song collections are now committed to recording. Together they provide a variety themes and textures, as well as vocal and instrumental combinations, demonstrating the richness of Elizabethan courtly music.

The Handel and Haydn Society celebrates Haydn with a dazzling pairing of two of the composer’s masterpieces. In one of his final performances as Artistic Director of the Society, Harry Christophers leads the ensemble and a stellar cast of soloists in Haydn’s monumental ‘Theresienmesse’ (Mass in B-flat major - Hob.XXII:12) and his Symphony No. 103 in E-flat major (Hob.I:103) the ‘Drumroll’ - one of Haydn’s twelve ‘London’ symphonies composed between 1791 and 1795 when London was the indisputable musical capital of Europe. “This chorus is consistently excellent, but something had lit a special fire under them...Of the “Theresienmesse” the chorus and orchestra made a brilliant tapestry.” (Boston Globe)

Having released their debut album In motion in 2020, the musicians that make up United Strings of Europe (USE) return with another innovative program: Renewal. The title refers in part to the fact that the majority of the works included are heard in arrangements and adaptations tailormade for the ensemble by Julian Azkoul, who also directs it from the violin. In Winter’s House by Joanna Marsh and Caroline Shaw’s and the swallow are both originally choral works while a second work by Shaw, Entr’acte, was conceived for string quartet, but is here heard in the composer’s own version for string orchestra. A similar treatment has been given Mendelssohn’s F minor String Quartet, one of the composer’s final works, written in reaction to the unexpected death of his beloved sister Fanny. For the centerpiece of the disc, Osvaldo Golijov’s Three Songs, USE is joined by soprano Ruby Hughes. The three songs were written for different occasions, but were rearranged by the composer to form a single work, capturing various strands of his immigrant identity as well as specific moments of inspiration, both felicitous and tragic. This is the first time all three songs appear with string orchestra on album.

The five new choral works on this album – by James MacMillan, Will Todd, Anna Semple, Eoghan Desmond and Lisa Robertson – all grew from a meditation by St John Henry Newman. Newman was a theologian of towering stature and broad influence and his meditation resonates with great clarity in our present age of the re-evaluation of what we can and cannot do without, and of the profound human need for a sense of meaning and purpose. Canonized in October 2019, Newman's writings represent a rich and thought-provoking legacy and, alongside the new works presented, are immortalized in three well-known hymns and Sir Edward Elgar’s exquisite elegy 'They are at rest'. Also included are two of Elgar’s psalm settings – Great is the Lord and Give unto the Lord. These are monumental works for choir and organ, full of grandeur and drama, but also inherently simple. The album ends with a ’Bonus’ track by Bob Chilcott - also a Genesis Foundation commission - based on Psalm 139.

Eckart Runge and Jacques Ammon, who with their last album "Revolutionary Icons" already explored the field of tension between Beethoven and the rock/pop heroes Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse and David Bowie, now devote themselves to the baroque and jazz. A closer look reveals how many connections there are despite the 200 yeas in between and what bridges ca be built between the two styles: "Walking basso continuo", the joy of the spontaneous and the high art of improvisation. From Vivaldi to Amanti, from bach to Miles Davis and from Gluck to George Gershwin - an outstanding potpourri of the highest musical quality on cello and piano.

Written for the Opéra in Paris, Gaetano Donizetti’s La Favorite contains some of his most famous arias. This superb production from the Donizetti Opera Festival in his birthplace of Bergamo returns the work to its rarely heard 1840 French grand opera origins, and uses the critical edition by Rebecca Harris-Warrick which includes all of the original ballet music and the cabaletta of the duet between Léonor and Alphonse. Set in 14th-century Spain, the tragic story is of a pious novice (Fernand) who falls in love with a noble lady and abandons the cloister. He becomes a war hero and asks the King for her hand, later finding out to his horror that she is Léonor de Guzman, the King’s beloved mistress.

Born in 1972, Albert Schnelzer belongs to the most widely noticed Scandinavian composers of his generation. He has written in all genres, and the present album includes a concerto as well as both orchestral and chamber works. Schnelzer’s orchestral output has attracted great attention, with A Freak in Burbank belonging to his most often heard works. Inspired by Haydn as well as by the filmmaker Tim Burton, it has been played more than 70 times to date, in venues such as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Royal Albert Hall. It here appears on album for the first time, performed by the Västerås Sinfonietta conducted by Simon Crawford-Phillips. The same team has also made the premiere recordings of two other works: Burn My Letters – a commission for Clara Schumann’s 200th anniversary – and the violin concerto ‘Nocturnal Songs’, composed for Ilya Gringolts. Interspersed with these are three chamber works – Dance with the Devil, Apollonian Dances and Frozen Landscape – performed by some of Sweden’s foremost instrumentalists.

REVIEW:

A Freak in Burbank is an exciting and vivid work, full of insistent rhythms, quixotic harmonies, and colorful orchestration. There is a capricious spirit in it that grabs the attention of the listener, much as, for example, Haydn’s music does.

Dance with the Devil is for solo piano, and also grabs the attention of the listener from its very first notes. The opening, in fact, is cut from the same musical cloth as is Bartók’s Allegro Barbaro, and like that seminal work Dance never lets up in its energy level. The notes aver that the piece is influenced by heavy metal music.

Burn My Letters—Remembering Clara is scored for chamber orchestra and depicts in music the voluminous correspondence between Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. In this rather neo-Romantic work, the composer has attempted to capture something of the energy and lust for life of Clara Schumann, in addition to representing the hectic life she lived as a touring pianist. In this work, he has attempted to assimilate (successfully, I think) the frankness in which Schumann writes about her doubts, fears, and sorrows. Despite such heavy concepts, the piece has a lightness and airy quality about it that I find most attractive.

The program turns back to the realm of chamber music with Apollonian Dances for violin and piano. Violinist Cecilia Zilliacus and pianist David Huang are both clearly masters of their respective instruments, and the work simply couldn’t be in better hands.

Frozen Landscape remembers a vivid experience from Schnelzer’s youth when he was up in the mountains of northern Sweden. This piece’s unrelenting quiet dynamic level sustains interest throughout its seven-and-a-half-minute duration. Both cellist Jakob Koranyi and pianist Huang pull off exquisitely what must be a difficult work to bring across.

The concert concludes with Schnelzer’s Violin Concerto No. 2, “Nocturnal Songs,” a 25-minute work from 2018.

The work was written for violinist Ilya Gringolts, who performs it at the highest level here, even the finger-busting finale. First-class orchestral support is supplied in the pieces that require it by Simon Crawford-Phillips and the Västerås Sinfonietta, an ensemble of which I’ve been previously unaware but glad to have become acquainted with.

This CD is splendid in every parameter, and I am truly delighted to become familiar with the work of such a talented member of the newer generation of Swedish composers.

-- Fanfare

After its first album devoted to Schumann’s first two piano trios, the Kungsbacka Piano Trio now presents the conclusion of this series with the Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor, to which they add the Six Studies in Canonic Form, originally for pedal piano and performed here in an arrangement for piano trio, and an early work, the Quartet in C minor for violin, viola, cello and piano, which was only published in 1979. Composed in 1851, the third Piano Trio achieves the tonal balance Schumann was aiming for with an utmost independence of the three instruments while having ‘obsessive impulses’ running through it, to quote pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips. The Six Studies in Canonic Form that follow appear as small contrapuntal jewels that testify to Robert Schumann’s keen interest in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. Finally, the Quartet composed when Schumann was 18 reveals a wildly creative mind at work, inspired in turn by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin. Yet, despite these influences, one perceives a distinctive voice that reveals the obsessive qualities that would characterise Schumann’s later works. “A thrilling ride for performer and listener”, promises Crawford-Phillips.

REVIEW:

In Schumann’s Piano Trio 3 in G minor, the Kungsbacka Trio is precise and spry for the entire 26 minutes, and the sound quality is pristine. These musicians find an elegance in the composer that other artists sometimes miss.

The 6 Studies in Canonical Form appear here in their transcription for trio by Theodor Kirchner. The quality is high, but just a few might have sufficed.

The Piano Quartet in C minor is from 1829, making it one of Schumann’s very first attempts at composition. He never finished the piano parts, and so they are completed here by musicologist Joachim Draheim. The Minuet is especially lighthearted, with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips leading the way. At 33 minutes, this piece is a bit long, with many mercurial shifts of mood and dynamics. Still, this is an impressive album, a happy meeting of performers and material.

-- American Record Guide

Vladimir Guicheff Bogacz's music thrives on surprises. Behind every note, there are unexpected twists and turns, which in turn lead to an exuberant sea of sound. Genre boundaries are deliberately crossed or not recognised at all. New music meets jazz meets South American folklore. Booklet author Rainer Nonnenmann summarises Guicheff Bogacz's musical approach as follows:"Hardly anything in his music is what one would expect from a particular instrumentation, genre, section or style. Existing traditions and narratives are questioned anew, turned around or dissolved."

In “encuentros casuals”, for example, the Uruguayan-born composer draws on the music of jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy or makes the cello in “igualito, igualito, igualito” sound like the guitar of Chilean singer Violeta Parra. “Vos, seguime” – recorded by Ensemble Musikfabrik – reflects on the classical piano trio, with its expansion simultaneously leading to its deconstruction. Finally, the members of Kollektiv3:6Koeln are allowed to complete an almost 35-minute tour de force in the ensemble composition “Heimlich”: In it, Vladimir Guicheff Bogacz explores the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, in order to develop a grab bag of artistic possibilities.

In the course of their research for the five-part recording production "Beethoven's World 1799-1851" (2020), the casalQuartett came across not only Carl Czerny, one of Beethoven's two pupils, represented by his 28th String Quartet in A flat major, but also the Viennese composer Anton Eberl (1765-1807), who was Mozart's friend and pupil. As an outstanding pianist and composer, he achieved great popularity and, after returning to Vienna from St. Petersburg, had even more prominent supporters than Beethoven. His life ended unexpectedly at the zenith of his success in 1807. His music, as can be seen in the excellent recordings of the symphonies by Concerto Köln and the piano sonatas by Luca Quintavalle, is often surprisingly modern for its time. Like Mozart's late works and those of the new Beethoven, they augur the revolutionary dawn of Romanticism. The casalQuartett has received numerous awards, including the ECHO KLASSIK 2010, 2015, 2017, the Pizzicato Award Luxembourg, the DIAPASON Decouverte, the DIAPASON d'Or, the German Record Critics' Award and has been nominated three times for the ICMA Award and the American Grammy.

In his later years, SHURA CHERKASSKY (1909–1995) was regarded as one of the last ‘Romantics’ – a throwback to the so-called ‘golden age’ of pianism in the first decades of the 20th century. As a pupil of Josef Hofmann, he had an impeccable pedigree, but we tend to forget his long career meant he was already playing and recording in that ‘golden age’. Here then are these early recordings, complete for the first time, starting in the acoustic era with the young prodigy’s 1923 Victor discs. Much of the repertoire is unique in his discography, including his only recording of chamber music – the Rachmaninov cello sonata. The Tchaikovsky 2nd Concerto, Cherkassky’s earliest concerto recording, has never previously been reissued and reveals the 36-year-old artist at his virtuoso peak.

REVIEWS:

It is a joy to have all these recordings available together. Cherkassky was a supremely gifted and communicative pianist and there is something to admire in every piece in this collection.

-- MusicWeb International

Of special note are the many Chopin pieces and a smashing performance of the Fantasy in F minor from 1950. The latter has reasonably decent sound and gives us the opportunity of hearing what Cherkassky can do with one of Chopin’s masterworks.

Outstanding in-depth notes are supplied by Jonathan Summers, and special praise must be given to Seth B. Winner for his detail about restoration techniques. No lover of the art of the piano can afford to be without this set.

-- American Record Guide

An unobtrusive figure in the British music scene and despite her self-stated lack of ambition, KATHLEEN LONG (1896–1968) was a musician of the highest order. She taught for 44 years at the Royal College of Music and was a major Decca artist for two decades, having recorded for several other labels before that. Her first recording was made in 1928, and her first Decca recordings (of Mozart’s Piano Concertos K449 and K450) were made in 1935. Her first Decca solo recordings are those on this release. On disc, she made premiere recordings of several Mozart concertos and sonatas and was renowned for her Scarlatti and Fauré. For her service to French music, she was made Honorary Member of the Académie de France.

Born in Sussex in 1877, Roger Quilter was a fellow-student of Percy Grainger, Cyril Scott, and H. Balfour Gardiner at the Hoch Conservatory, in Frankfurt, where he studied for almost five years under the guidance of the German professor of composition Iwan Knorr. He is best known for his contribution to English art song, having composed around 150 songs, many of which remain regular recital favourites. For this album, the tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Anna Tilbrook explore his output from early works such as 'Now sleeps the crimson petal' through to late examples such as 'The Ash Grove'. All of the songs are settings of English texts, with the exception of the Four Songs of Mirza Schaffy, which set German texts by Friedrich von Bodenstedt. The musicians have arranged their selection of twenty-seven songs into thematic groups - Shakespeare songs, songs about flowers, folksongs, songs of love etc. - which makes for a fascinating and rewarding programme.

Following their acclaimed mix-tape series on Signum Classics, Earthcycle is the fifth album from Orchestra of the Swan and David Le Page. Earthcycle is an innovative and timely project which finds a compelling way to engage with humanity’s most urgent threat. Through three initial performances, a recording and a film, Earthcycle contem- plates our impact on Earth’s environment and the disruption of its natural rhythms. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons they have commissioned a new version from our Associate Artist, baroque/jazz musician and composer David Gordon which is interspersed with traditional folk songs related to the theme of the seasons and performed by singer Jackie Oates. Earthcycle highlights the 21st century’s greatest concern whilst celebrating nature and our place within it.

Continuing their project to record all the Shostakovich String Quartets, award winning artists the Carducci Quartet return to Signum Classics for their third album of string quartets: String Quartet No. 9 in E flat major and String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor, Op. 144.

Praise for SIGCD559 Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos. 1, 2 & 7
4 Star Performance, 4 Star Recording, "Beautiful honed" – BBC Music Magazine

The Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar is a two-part work for voices and orchestra composed in 1900 to text by John Henry Newman. Widely regarded as Elgar's finest choral work, and by some his masterpiece, Gabrieli’s first-class performance, and McCreesh’s superb interpretation demonstrate why their recordings are seen as some of the best in classical music today.

REVIEW:

This strong performance is apparently the first to use historically appropriate instruments. The trombone, just to give the listener an idea, was owned by Elgar. Tenor Nicky Spence, in the lead role, offers a rich, serious performance. McCreesh’s interpretation focuses on the chorus, placing the work in the grand English oratorio tradition.

— AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

German pianist ELLY NEY’s posthumous reputation has, perhaps justifiably, been tarnished by her links to the Nazi regime, but 80 years on it’s easier to focus on her pianism and acknowledge she was one of the finest pianists of her generation. A previous APR release (APR7311) presented her interpreting a wide range of composers, but she came to be regarded as one of the great interpreters of the Austro-German repertoire and here she tackles two of the masterworks, including a monumental performance of the Brahms Second Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the first version recorded by a woman. Brahms specialist, Max Fiedler, ostensibly conducts, though our booklet note reveals Alois Melichar as the uncredited conductor who completed the project after Fiedler’s sudden death. The suite of Schubert dances which completes the release appears never to have been reissued before.

Christopher Glynn continues his Lieder in English series by joining three of today’s foremost singers to perform Robert Schumann’s best-loved song cycles in new English versions by Jeremy Sams – a new way to encounter and enjoy some of the most romantic and atmospheric songs ever composed. ‘Schumann is one of music’s great storytellers – and never more so than in the song cycles of 1840. These vivid new translations by Jeremy Sams recreate the immediacy and intimacy of his storytelling for modern English-speaking listeners, offering a new perspective on these famous songs of loneliness and love, joy and sorrow, marriage and separation.’ – Christopher Glynn