Classical Music

BERLIOZ: Requiem, Op. 5

The solo concerto emerged in Northern Italy in the first quarter of the 18th century and rapidly became popular across Europe. The five works here demonstrate how concertos for the flute differ in Germany, Italy, and France. Outer movements usually retain the virtuosic elements that characterize the concertos of Vivaldi, but the Frenchman Michel Blavet infiltrates an exquisite Gavotte into his work, while Telemanns superb melodies and rich harmonies are characteristic features of his Flute Concerto in D major. All five works exemplify the Baroque ideal of singing lyricism and passionate expression. Barthold Kuijken is an eminent leader in the field of early music. A virtuoso traverse soloist, teacher and conductor, he has shaped the fields of historical flutes and historically informed performance over the last 40 years. His book, The Notation is Not the Music, is an artful summary of his research, ideas, and reflections on music.

Conducted by The Sixteen’s Associate Conductor, Eamonn Dougan, this release is the fourth volume in this critically acclaimed series. This installment explores the music of Italian composers who lived and worked within the Polish court during Sigismund III Vasa’s reign. When Sigismund III began to reorganize his music ensembles in 1594, he modeled his new structure after the chapels of Rome, and thus brought in several highly esteemed Italian musicians. Some of these notable musicians included Luca Marenzio, Asprillo Pacelli, and Vincenzo Bertolusi. The arrival of these composers heralded a new age of sacred Polish music. Most notable on this release is Marenzio’s magnificent Missa super Iniquos odio habui. While the Kyria and Gloria movements remained, the other parts of the Mass went missing after World War II, and have only been rediscovered since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is the world premiere recording of the Mass in its entirety.

Originally conceived by the maker Adriana Breukink in 2008, the "Eagle" recorder has rapidly developed into an instrument which combines a large sound with a wide range, making it ideal for playing with modern instruments. When the Swedish recorder virtuoso Dan Laurin first encountered it, he was fascinated but also puzzled. What kind of music could he play on this instrument? Coming into contact with the Dutch composer Chiel Meijering he soon found out. Meijering, who had started to write for the recorder as early as 1979 – had developed a passion for the new model and was composing Eagle concertos with string accompaniment at a rapid pace. In fact, if there was a problem with repertoire for the Eagle, it was what to choose. As their correspondence developed, Laurin was struck by the very personal language in the compositions that he kept receiving from the composer. Dividing his own music into four cate­gories dreamy, nostalgic, rocking and heavy metal. Meijering told him that the roots he had always had in pop music had gradually become more and more important. Soon thoughts of making a recording emerged, and took definite shape when the third, vital piece of the puzzle was found: the fresh, young string ensemble 1B1 from Stavanger in Norway, and its founder, the dynamic violinist Jan Bjøranger. Their collaboration has borne fruit in this disc with fifteen individual movements, selected by the performers and the composer during the recording sessions.

Mauro Giuliani was regarded in his day as "perhaps the greatest guitarist who has ever lived", making his name in Vienna and mixing with the likes of Beethoven. On his return to Italy in 1820, he consorted with Paganini and Rossini which resulted in his arranging four of the latter's overtures for two guitars. These versions abound in lyrical melodic lines, fast arpeggios, subtle colors and technical virtuosity also to be heard in the Gran variazioni concertanti. The Tre Polonesi concertanti are also full of joie de vivre, lively dance rhythms and elegant melodies.

Fryderyk Chopin transformed the scherzo into an autonomous, independent work, rather than a part of a symphony or sonata as it was previously part of during the Classical era. Expanding this genre gave it a newer, more romantic and dramatic expression. The composer's polonaises give us a glance into his Polish patriotism. The polonaise is the most important national dance of Poland, and Chopin composed 18 over his lifetime. Polish pianist Raphael Alexandre Lustchevsky performs these works brilliantly. He has won multiple international awards, and has performed with some of the world's leading orchestras, such as the Krakow Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Oman Philharmonic.

Classical Music

Vivaldi, more than any of his Italian contemporaries, left a great number of works composed for diverse and highly imaginative combinations of wind and string instruments. The source of this inspiration can be traced back not only to the composer’s own personal tastes, but especially to his good fortune to have worked for an institution such as the Pietà, which had at its disposal an unrivalled wealth of instrumental forces. This interest is a constant element throughout his entire production.

When the minimalism movement originated in the early 1960s, it sprang up organically – some composers played by the rules (even if they were rules of their own invention), while others experimented freely, unaware or unconcerned about how music 'should' be composed. One of those young mavericks was Dennis Johnson, who has now faded into almost complete obscurity after he gave up his musical ambitions for a career in mathematics. But his 1959 composition November can be considered one of the first, if not the first, properly minimalist work. It later went on to inspire La Monte Young to write his prolific Well-Tuned Piano. Complete recordings are few and far between, and this new recording by Jeroen van Veen is the perfect introduction for anyone looking to get back to the roots of Minimalism. Jeroen van Veen is one of the Netherlands' most prominent recording artists. This collection of Minimal Piano Music follows two previous successful albums, available on Brilliant Classics (BC8551 and BC9171). The last album provided a snapshot into the extensive scene of minimalist music today; this one takes us back to how it all began. Featuring several famous pieces from the original minimalist canon – including Philip Glass's Music in Contrary Motion and Terry Riley's Keyboard Studies – there are hours of beautifully relaxing and inspiring music here to enjoy. This release brings the listener back to the roots of Minimalism, all works were written in the seventies of the 20th century, a time when the new aesthetics and perception of music, sound, repetition and time experience were creating a new chapter in music history. The longest piece is the 5 hour “November” by Dennis Johnson, a work in which the player is free to build the intervals and chords according to his own timing and spacing. The other composers in this set are Philip Glass, Tom Johnson, Peter Garland, Terry Riley, Harold Budd and La Monte Young.

"Over the years, the pianist Jorge Federico Osorio has garnered extraordinary praise. Osorio’s interest in wrongly neglected repertoire continues on [this] recording, which explores salon music written around the beginning of the last century by four Mexican composers: Manuel Ponce, Ricardo Castro, Felipe Villanueva, and José Rolón.

"I suspect that even the purists will be impressed and moved by many of these gentle and quirky works—the four Ponce works, the Castro Mazurka and Barcarolle, and the half-dozen or so Villanueva and Castro waltzes deserve to be singled out.

"I have never heard a Çedille recording that deserved less than a perfect score in the sound engineering department, and this one is no exception. In sum, a delightful recording that confirms Osorio’s outstanding artistry."

--FANFARE (Radu A. Lelutiu)

"• The AAM celebrates its 40thanniversary year with this landmark new recording of Bach's St. John Passion. • The second release on the newly launched AAM label. • Features a cast of superb soloists. • Rare recording of the work's first version, dating from 1724. • Further content available online. • “No better team could be assembled anywhere...Pity, terror, consolation...joy” - The Ark Desk (March 2013) reviewing a concert performance of this work with this same cast. "

AVE MARIA 3 POLISH MASSES 4

Listen to the Naxos Podcast episode on this release to learn more!

Randall Thompson’s choral works retain the affection of American choral singers and conductors alike. The Requiem is his masterpiece, written in response to the loss of close friends and colleagues. Using a wide-ranging selection of Biblical verses, it takes the form of a dramatic dialogue between two choirs, a "chorus of mourners" and a "chorus of the faithful", concerning eternal life. Recorded here for the first time in its complete form, this Requiem is an emotional and dramatically intense journey of conflict and resolution, and entirely unique within American music history and the requiem tradition as a whole.

REVIEW:

The performance is very well done by The Philadelphia Singers, a professional choir that after 43 years disbanded in 2015, the year after this recording was made. Although it’s an often strange and imperfect work, we’re fortunate to have the recording, as it fills an important gap in Thompson’s recorded catalog and gives a first-class opportunity to experience aspects of his compositional style that we don’t hear anywhere else in his output.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Vernier)

The Philadelphia Singers, under the tireless, polished leadership of David Hayes, sustain an impressively high level of musicianship over the course of this long and demanding unaccompanied piece. Thompson’s Requiem is revealed here as a major work, unique and masterful, by an important American voice of the last century. I highly recommend it.

-- Opera News

For his new recital disc, the acclaimed Finnish guitarist Ismo Eskelinen had the aim of creating a programme that works like a story: ‘a modern guitar album that lends itself to continuous listening from beginning to end’. The pieces that he has selected are united by the fact that, with the exception of Tan Dun, Eskelinen has collaborated closely with all the composers. In the liner notes to the album he expresses his admiration for how intuitively they all understood the essence of the guitar, even though none of them is a guitarist. ‘Everyone has found a unique way to bring his own musical style to the guitar, and each of the composers is clearly recognizable.’ Opening the album are Kromos by Sebastian Fagerlund and Solo XI by Kalevi Aho, two pieces that in technical terms come close to the limits of what is possible on the guitar, but with a completely convincing musical logic. Olli Mustonen’s Sonata No. 2 contains drama but also lyricism, qualities which are emphasized in Tan Dun’s multi-movement collage Seven Desires with inspiration from the different traditions and characteristics of Spain’s flamenco guitar and China’s pipa (lute). Jukka Tiensuu is among the pioneers of modern Finnish guitar music and wrote his first work for the instrument as early as 1974. His Daydreams from 2016 is composed for guitar and electronics, but the sound world is strongly guitaristic, as the electronic part is modified from fragments played by Eskelinen on the guitar. Sometimes the use of electronics produces echo effects alongside the live guitar, and sometimes the sound image expands into that of a guitar trio. The very brief closing number is an arrangement, by Eskelinen himself, of Timo Alakotila’s calm and soothing Psalm.

What happens if the composer and the listener are the same person? This is exactly what Jo Kondo’s way of composing implies. If the composer is to be nothing but a curious listener, he must be able to surprise himself. He must rid himself of all prior knowledge or intention. Born in Tokyo in 1947, Jo Kondo was influenced throughout his entire education almost exclusively by traditional Western art music. Like so many of his Western colleagues, he feels this to be both a limitation and the greatest challenge to the creative process. “The music one grows up with is like a cage one has to break out of.” The type of improvisation that Jo Kondo employs is only loosely related to improvisation as it is commonly understood. Kondo does not improvise using an instrument, but with music paper, note by note. “I write down the first note, which can be anything, and then I try to listen to it again and again in my head until the second note appears. Then I write it down, and then I listen to these two notes again and again until the third note comes up. And then, repeating this process, I always go back to the top of the music to find the next note. That means that when I have 150 notes already in succession on my paper, I find number 151 by going back to the top of the piece and listening through from the top to the 150th note to find the next note. That’s what I mean by improvisation.” - Jo Kondo All of Jo Kondo’s pieces have been written using this method. The result is a completely linear music that avoids any kind of obvious phrasing, melody, or motivic development, permitting the individual note to retain “its own entity of life”. Since even a musical line can endanger this fragile autonomy, Kondo distributes the notes among the various instrumental parts. This “hocket” technique, which has been used since the thirteenth century, demands enormous rhythmic virtuosity from the performers to avoid disrupting the organic unity of the extremely fragmented line. Thus, there is space left for the listener to create his own phrasing out of it.

The real life marriage of two great concert pianists, Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung, has led to one of the leading piano duos of their generation. To cite the UK magazine Music and Arts, "Theirs is a marriage of wondrous colours and dextrous aplomb, subtly balanced to make a musical performance sound as one." Stavinsky's Pétrouchka was originally arranged for four-hands by the composer as a rehearsal score for the Ballet Russes production of the same name, but in this stripped-down it brings Stravinsky's melodic, rhythmic and harmonic inventiveness to the fore. Brahms's 16 Waltzes Op.39 are an enchanting collection of Romantic miniatures that simultaneously nod to the musical lineage of the composer's home in Vienna whilst asserting his own flair and individuality. The final four tangos by Piazzolla are a full of Argentine flair and vigour, and were arranged especially for this recording by Bax & Chung.

Classical Music

Holzhey Organ: Rot an der Rot

During his lifetime Dmitri Kabalevsky was considered by the authorities to be one of the top 5 composers of Russia, on a par with Prokofiev and Shostakovich. He was praised for his formalism, general popular style and patriotism. He was not a revolutionary, and this caused his fame to decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His music however has a strong identity, vigorous, alternating power with lyricism, and rooted in the rich folklore of Russia. This new recording contains his effervescent 3rd Piano Sonata and the complete 24 Preludes, Op. 38, written during World War II, each based on a Russian folk song, presenting a wide variety of moods, from the pensive melancholy to fiery passion. Played by the highly talented young Italian pianist Pietro Bonfilio, who expresses his love for the Russian culture with this beautiful recording.