This never-before-released-in-any-format, newly re-mastered, 1960 live performance of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman features the soprano Anja Silja (b. 1940) as Senta in her electrifying Bayreuth Festival debut. +Ms. Silja was a sensational presence on the Bayreuth stage throughout the 1960’s. + Conducted by the eminent Wolfgang Sawallisch, this recording also features tenors Franz Crass and Fritz Uhl, and bass Josef Greindl, noted Wagnerians all, in leading roles.

Icelandic cellist, singer, and composer Gyða Valtysdóttir, a founder of the band múm and 2019 winner of the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize, releases Epicycle II. Gyða Valtýsdóttir came to prominence with electronic experimentalists múm, the lauded Icelandic group leading the charge in the country’s fertile underground scene in the early 00s, rightfully gaining international recognition. She left the band to pursue her studies as a cellist; gaining a twofold Master’s degree from Musik Akademie, Basel, both as a classical player and a free-improvisational one. Since then she has journeyed with a colorful palette of collaborators, including The Kronos Quartet, Josephine Foster, Damien Rice, Colin Stetson, Jónsi (of Sigur Ros fame), Skúli Sverrisson, Ólöf Arnalds, Ben Frost, Aaron & Bryce Dessner (from The National) and visual-artist Ragnar Kjartansson. To name but a few.

REVIEWS:

Some of the musicians, like her fellow art-pop renegades Ólöf Arnalds and Jónsi, emphasize her crystalline, eldritch voice. Others, including Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Daníel Bjarnason, deploy her cello in yearning lines and voluptuous waves. Altogether, the album offers otherworldly transport.

-- The New Yorker

Epicycle II is a wonderful experience and a tantalizing look into the future of experimental music collaboration.

-- San Francisco Classical Voice

Epicycle II is her crowning achievement to date.

-- A Closer Listen

From atmospheric micro-polyphony to heart-rending moments of electronic intimacy, the music is interesting and powerfully drawn.

-- Music City Review

A deeply cinematic score at times, this album is often transporting with great lift, giving the listener long opportunities to soar, bird-like, over the Icelandic landscape and beyond, for the most part leaving us safely and gently deposited on the earthly shore.

-- The Whole Note

Expanded Edition: This album contains new tracks that were not available on the original, limited release version, released on-demand in 2015

The essence of The King’s Singers has always been live performance. On Christmas Presence, the beloved acapella group gives the listener the experience of being at a live King’s Singers concert in one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, from the comfort of their own home. The program for this special holiday concert takes the listener through various ages and styles of music, from the Renaissance to the present day. A sublime accompaniment to the holiday season, the King's Singers open with sacred music, move through modern carols, and end with festive musical favorites.

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REVIEWS:

This live performance catches The King’s Singers in particularly fresh, spontaneous fettle, as their 50th anniversary approaches.

– BBC Music Magazine

Recorded live at King’s College, Cambridge in 2015, the King’s Singers are as alluring as ever. All is given with that familiar, deliciously fragile refinement.

– The Sunday Times (UK)

Classical Music

• Includes the work of Dmitri Shostakovich and Mieczysław Weinberg, who were both friends and rivals. • Violinist Lyonel Schmit plays most often in chamber music settings. His international performance engagements have taken him to Japan, Argentina and Amsterdam. • Pianist Julien Guénebaut is a frequent solo and chamber music recitalist. • Booklet notes in French and English include performer biographies, Anton Chekhov's short story “Rothschild's Fiddle, and the impetus behind the music performed.

Classical Music

Tatiana Nikolaeva's prophesy about her pupil Nikolai Lugansky - "He is the next one"- has come true. Lugansky is now regarded as one of the major pianists from the Russian Piano School, enjoying a dazzling career across all the continents, playing with the most important orchestras and conductors in world renowned concert venues. He is universally praised for his sincere interpretations, his honesty, his deep burning passion and (last but not least) his limitless and unbelievably perfected technique. This Schumann program offers two major large scale works, played with grandeur and nobility, and a dazzling performance ofsynthesize the fiendishly difficult Toccata. Splendid sonics are featured on this recording dating from the mid-nineties.

BAUER: Orchestral and Chamber Works

• These sonatas of Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770), form the most important composition for solo violin after Bach.
• At six hours in duration, it is the largest integrated work for the instrument.
• Peter Sheppard Skærved's discography stretches from Telemann to many of the works written for him. He is the leader of the Kreutzer Quartet and Viotti Lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music, London.
• ‘(an) opportunity to hear all of the sonatas. Recommended.’ Robert Maxham, Fanfare

Matei Varga’s artistry has received standing ovations from audiences around the world and superlative reviews from prominent critics. Noting that “it is hard to find the right words to describe the beauty” of Mr. Varga’s playing, Corriere della Sera’s chief critic Paolo Isotta praised the young artist as a “true poet of the keyboard, a musician of depth, and a genuine artist.” Other critics have found his performances “impressive” (Gramophone, 2016), “magical” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2009), “colorful, vivacious [and] engaging” (Le Diapason, 2012). Discovered at age 10 by soprano Mariana Nicolesco, he went on to win top prizes at the George Enescu International Piano Competition and the International Maria Canals Piano Competition. Mr. Varga is also a recipient of the Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant and a runner-up at the Vendome Prize in Lisbon, where he was singled out by Elisabeth Leonskaja who awarded him a special prize. This release features rarely heard and recorded works by Dinu Lipatti and Tudor Dumitrescu, the theme throughout the album being the undercurrent of sadness that all of these pieces possess.

GUDMUNDSEN-HOLMGREEN: Chamber Music

The four works on this first CD of Komarnitsky’s music are all that remains of his copious output of chamber music. Featuring the London Piano Trio, they “audibly believe in every note, and their dedicated performances are set within a bold sound frame […]” (Gramophone Classical Music Guide).

REVIEW:

I was bowled over by the music on this record and sincerely hope that there is more to be discovered of this composer’s works, perhaps lying in some archives somewhere which is often where such things end up. It is tantalising to have heard this music and not to be sure of being able to explore further examples of it. I wait with bated breath and great hopes that more from him will emerge.

The members of the London Piano Trio play all of this music with passion, commitment and great skill making me want to seek out music where they play as a trio. Robert Atchison’s notes are a useful commentary on the background to the pieces.

-- MusicWeb International

"Bavouzet’s Haydn is unmatched in its zest and its wit. But it is also substantial, informed and deeply rewarding."

--The New York Times on Bavouzet's Haydn Sonatas cycle, 2022

This is Volume 4 in Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s project to record the complete piano sonatas of Haydn. The last volume in the series was a Critic’s Choice in Gramophone, an Instrumental Choice in BBC Music, Editor’s Choice in Classic FM, and Recording of the Month in MusicWeb International.

In the words of Bavouzet himself: ‘Each volume of this ambitious, extended project will arrive over the years like a postcard, dispatched during my travels with scant respect for chronological considerations, but undertaken with the greatest passion for trying to convey as vividly as possible to twenty-first-century ears the boundless treasures of this sublime music.’

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet received a BBC Music Award in 2012 and a Gramophone Award in 2011 for his recording of works by Debussy and Ravel (with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier). His recording of Bartók’s Concertos (with Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic) was short-listed for a Gramophone Award, and he has won multiple awards for his recording of the complete works for solo piano by Debussy.

REVIEWS

Bavouzet doesn’t disappoint. He leans towards passion...but melancholy also surfaces through rubato, embellished repeats, control of line, pace and dynamics. This is a performance of stature with not a trace of the slick superficiality that mars matters elsewhere.

--Gramophone

These are marvelous works: every one of them has something inspired to capture your attention. In Sonata No. 38, that would have to be the central Adagio, one of those touchstone classical melodies that seem to sum up all that was most beautiful in 18th century music. Sonata No. 40 has only two movements, an intricate opening Moderato and a charming concluding Minuet.

Like No. 38, Sonata No. 30 is a substantial work in three movements[.] Bavouzet’s aptly spiky articulation of the main theme reminds us that Haydn’s early sonatas were likely composed with the harpsichord in mind, but they lose nothing (and gain much) from being played on a modern piano. This program also includes the moody Variations in F minor. Bavouzet’s interpretation is aptly pre-romantic...Haydn’s original, shorter cadenza/coda, without that astonishing tragic eruption that vaults the music forward into the 19th century...Haydn lovers are in keyboard heaven.

--ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Rising-star period keyboardist Julian Perkins makes his solo Resonus Classics debut with a new recording of the French Suites by J.S. Bach. Seldom recorded on the clavichord, thought to be Bach's keyboard instrument of choice, the Suites' versatile, expressive, and lyrical qualities are expertly revealed by Perkins on this, the gentlest and most intimate of all keyboard instruments. Performing on two instruments by the maker Peter Bavington, the program is completed with two further suites: one earlier partita by Johann Jakob Froberger, and one more contemporary suite by Georg Philipp Telemann, previously attributed to Bach himself.

J.S. Bach composed his St John Passion during his first winter in Leipzig, in advance of the Good Friday Vespers service of 1724. It is written for an intimate ensemble (much more modest than the scoring of his later St Matthew Passion) and was originally to be performed in the Thomaskirche, being moved to the Nikolaikirche at short notice. The music is a vivid representation of Christ's Passion as told in St John's Gospel, constructed of recitatives and choruses, with commentary in reflective chorales, ariosos and arias. The music is, by nature of the story, inherently dramatic, and tells the story of Jesus' death through the words of the Evangelist (tenor), Christ (bass) and a number of smaller roles including Pilate and Peter. Few who attended the service in the Nikolaikirche can have experienced, outside of the opera house, a work on the scale of the St John Passion, one that included such a large proportion of recitative. Today it, together with the St Matthew Passion, is regarded as a masterpiece of devout Lutheran church music, but in it's day it must have sounded radical. That being said, the chorales (or "hymns") within the work were designed to involve everyone in the performance, and these would have been familiar to the congregation (Melchior Vulpius's melody, for instance) - whether or not they ended up singing them. Some of the most affective moments of the work occur in these chorales as well as in the arias, which are remarkable for their range of expression as well as their instrumentation. Take, for instance, the poignant use of the bass viol in the accompaniment of Jesus' last words on the cross in the expressive aria 'Es ist vollbracht'. A masterpiece of expression and theatricality such as the St John Passion requires a masterful interpretation; in this recording, under the baton of Ludwig G�ttler - who shot to fame as a Baroque trumpeter - the Hallenser Madrigalisten and Virtuosi Saxoniae rise to the challenge, giving a "technically accomplished and expressive" performance (Gramophone). They are joined by acclaimed tenor Christoph Genz in the role of the Evangelist and Egbert Junghanns as Jesus. Bach's Johannes Passion may be on a smaller scale than the Matth�us Passion, it is by no means less monumental or dramatic. This reissue of a Berlin Classics recording achieves with it's relatively small ensemble and choir an intimate yet powerful performance in which the drama of Christ's suffering is presented in deeply moving arias and chorales. Played on modern instruments the Virtuosi Saxoniae under Ludwig G�ttler adhere to the principles of Historically Informed Performance Practice. The soloists include Christoph Genz, Christiane Oelze and Egbert Junghanns.

BRAHMS: SERENADE NO 2, ETC TI

Classical Music

Adolfo Fumagalli (1828–56), one of four musician brothers from Inzago, near Milan, made a name for himself across Europe as ‘the Paganini of the piano’, astonishing audiences with dazzling technique and acquiring a reputation for performances using his left hand alone. Fumagalli composed a large body of piano music – over 100 opus numbers – many being operatic fantasies and virtuosic studies of the type presented in this anniversary recital given in his home town. The CD also features several virtuoso studies from the set of 24 in Fumagalli’s École du pianiste modern, published in Paris in 1854.

It remains an open question whether Bach’s six trio-sonatas fall into the category of keyboard music or chamber music. Bach adopted the then quite common form of the Italian trio-sonata not only for compositional but also for pedagogic reasons. It is also difficult to say how much of the musical material was written specifically for this cycle. At the same time they are exercises demanding an extremely high level of artistry in playing three independent voices with two hands and pedals. The student-originally in this particular case this was probably Wilhelm Friedemann Bach- is to learn thereby not only manual dexterity but also compositional technique. At first sight these pieces may look rather complex, but in fact the upper voices with their richly embellished lines proceed from a quite normal solid harmonic structure that is essentially a product of the basso continuo style. In addition, music for three independent voices provides an excellent opportunity for showing how an organ, with its distinct separate manual and pedal sections, can really sound like three different instruments simultaneously. This music is performed on The Organ of Joachim Wagner in Siedlce, an instrument discovered in 2002 in the village church in Pruszyn.

With this new release the Naxos catalog now includes all extant versions of Bruckner's much massaged Symphony No. 3. Georg Tintner's imposing account of the 1873 original made a powerful and seemingly irrefutable case for Bruckner's first thoughts. But Johannes Wildner is equally persuasive in his compelling rendition of the second version from 1877. Here Bruckner tamed the sometimes discursive quality of his original inspiration, giving it a tighter and more or less conventional structure--at least as defined by Brucknerian standards. Though this came at a sacrifice of some of the music's more radical passages, the symphony remains a powerful and affecting work.


Wildner's conviction is immediately apparent in the first movement: Listen as he builds the opening's two great climaxes with arresting force, then infuses the following lyrical second subject with an ingratiating warmth. Fine as the first movement is, it's actually the Adagio and Finale that benefit most from Wildner's probing conducting, as both movements sound with a rare formal coherence married to dramatic impact. As a bonus, the first disc of this double set also includes the composer's intermediate version (1876) of the Adagio.


Bruckner's 1889 revision of the symphony is controversial for its sometimes ungainly melding of his early and late styles, as well as for the cuts--reportedly influenced by Franz Schalk--that gouge out large portions of the finale. However, Wildner miraculously smooths out the symphony's rough edges by adopting swift tempos (the first movement now has lost nearly four minutes), streamlined phrasing, and light textures; he also imparts an early-romantic, almost Mendelssohnian feel that makes this last version sound paradoxically like the earliest, contemporaneous with the Second Symphony.


The Westphalia New Philharmonic members perform with the same enthusiasm and expertise they displayed in their recording of the Ninth Symphony. And though the strings still don't match the richness of their world-class competition, the brass project more boldly and surely than before, and the orchestra as a whole cultivates an authentic yet distinctive Bruckner sound. Naxos' recording offers impressive clarity and dynamic range, though the dry hall acoustic doesn't provide much warmth. No matter--the heat generated by Wildner and his players more than compensates. [2/21/2004]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com