It is always good to welcome to our company a musician of the stature of Burkard Schliessmann, and also to present our first multichannel SACD in luxury packaging.

This album demonstrates once again the sheer genius of Bach but also the individual and highly considered interpretative style of the performer. Schliessmann is not a purist demanding rigid tempi and 'traditional' baroque styling but recognises the inner soul of the music and brings it to life in a new way - thus this recording will be welcomed as a new approach even to those who know the works very well.

Also a special inclusion on the disc is BWV 906, which Bach left as a Fantasia and an unfinished Fugue. The Fugue was completed by Busoni who also inserted the Adagio, BWV 968, which was arranged for piano either by one of Bach's sons or by the publisher Altnickol. It makes for a highly rewarding complete work.

Carl Maria von Weber's achievements as a composer were considerable and influential, demonstrating new possibilities in opera and orchestration, particularly in the handling of wind instruments. His attractive, lyrical style is ideal for the making of arrangements, and the impressive and beautifully proportioned Flute Sonata is a virtuoso masterpiece, as is the operatic Grand Duo Concertant. There is a feeling of solemnity in the G minor Trio, an unusual work with an enigma at it's heart: the song-like Schafer's Klage or 'Shepherd's lament'- the origins of which remain a source of conjecture.

World Travel - Bellydance

The Guerra Manuscript, named after its copyist José Miguel de Guerra y Villegas, is a repository of one hundred of the greatest secular songs (tonos humanos) circulating in the Madrid court of seventeenth-century Spain. The songs were composed by the leading figures of the Spanish Baroque and include many by the most prestigious of all, José Marín and Juan Hidalgo. Ideally accompanied by one of the principal Spanish baroque instruments, the arpa de dos órdenes (double harp), they explore ideas of love, praise, and beauty. This volume includes perhaps the best-known song of all, Corazón que en prisión.

Brahms' fascination with music of the 16th to the 18th centuries was nurtured during his appointment in Vienna as conductor of the Singakademie. His own choral compositions had gradually moved from an almost pastiche Renaissance style towards a fully mature, Romantic approach, culminating in his large-scale choral masterpiece Ein deutsches Requiem. This performance is sung in a new English translation prepared by Lara Hoggard that fits the original German declamation and with the piano four-hands accompaniment written by Brahms himself.

French composer Francois Devienne enjoyed great esteem with his successful operas in the Revolutionary years of 1792-97, but it was as a composer for wind instruments that he has won his place in musical history. The four Flute Concertos in volume 2 of the complete set show a combination of melodic elegance and graceful virtuosity that characterizes much of his work. Especially notable in this respect is No. 6 in D major, a compositional tour de force, rich in thematic material and panache, and one of the finest wind concertos of its epoch.

This series is as addictive as ever, and for newcomers to some of the finest baroque-era lute music, Volume 11 would be a good introduction.

I ask to review each new issue of Robert Barto’s series, comprising the complete lute sonatas of Silvius Leopold Weiss, even though I know every review is going to sound exactly the same: this is at or near the pinnacle of baroque lute music, nearly every sonata generous with its lyrical breadth, emotional engagement, and dance elements, and there could hardly be a better performer for the music than Robert Barto. By now, on the eleventh volume, the uniquely piquant sound of his thirteen-course baroque lute, constructed by New Yorker Andrew Rutherford, is as familiar to the series’ devotees as the sensitivity with which Barto plays it. Familiar, too, is the close miking which yields maybe the only gripe I’ve had about these discs: turn the volume up too much and you’ll hear the performer’s every breath.
 
The three sonatas on this disc present Weiss in his happier, more placid vein. Sonata No 96 packs seven tiny movements (mostly peppy court dances) into fifteen minutes, posing fewer challenges to the performer but offering the listener bite-sized delights. No 39 in C, by contrast, is known as the ‘Partita Grande’ because it takes up nearly a half-hour. In it Weiss takes care to work out his material to an unusual degree of development, including a courante with a long, leaping main theme which seems to flow as one stream through the movement, and a weighty presto finale whose complexes of motifs are dispatched with Barto’s typical unruffled clarity. Sonata No 30 opens with a free-form prelude which the booklet says is representative of Weiss’s improvisatory way with the form. The improvisational feel returns at the end, in a sprightly movement titled ‘Le Sans Souci’ that bounds along for just two-and-a-half minutes.
 
The sound is intimate and warm; the breathing mentioned earlier doesn’t much bother me, to be honest. This isn’t concert-hall music anyway. The booklet essay provides a very good introduction to the enterprise. To sum up: Weiss’s sonatas may not always feature the concentrated intellectual and emotional power of the solo sonatas by Bach, but each has its own delights and pleasures. I am a hopeless addict to this music and to the outstandingly high quality with which it is presented; there are a great many sonatas left to record even after eleven CDs, and if MusicWeb International doesn’t keep sending me review copies the alternative may be bankruptcy.
 
-- Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

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Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) wrote approximately 83 billion lute sonatas, and this release constitutes Volume 11 in Naxos' ongoing complete series. The tray card describes them as "prodigiously attractive works of great emotional power." Attractive they certainly are, very much so, but "great emotional power"?--not so much. Let's face it: there's only so much that you can do with an overture or prelude and a standard suite of baroque dances--unless you're Bach, of course, and Weiss may have been an exact contemporary but he was no Bach.

That said, there is a wide range of size and shape to these three sonatas. No. 39, the "Partita Grande", is indeed substantial, lasting nearly half an hour and containing some extensively developed movements (including the virtuosic concluding Presto). The other two works, while ostensibly lighter in tone, pack a lot of variety into their respective groupings of seven movements apiece. Certainly Robert Barto plays beautifully, with crystal clear articulation and sweet timbre on a lovely-sounding baroque instrument.

I wouldn't listen to all 20 tracks at a sitting, but this well recorded disc does make great background to a Sunday drive (I tried it), and will keep you entertained whenever your attention becomes engaged. Really, there's no need to make greater claims for this music than it deserves: it's good stuff, performed with great insight and sympathy. Surely that's enough.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Jacques Loussier achieved immense worldwide popular success combining the music of J.S. Bach and jazz improvisation with his Play Bach Trio. + Loussier’s focus has since turned more towards composing, his predilection for fusing jazz and classical elements expressed at its most economical in these two Violin Concertos. + Eloquent expressiveness and colorful use of percussion characterize the First Concerto, while the Indian influence in the Second Concerto emerges through violin improvisation and rhythmic counterpoint from the tabla. + Like Loussier, Paderewski was a piano virtuoso who turned to composition in later life, the Violin Sonata being one of his finest earlier works.

The final volume in this revelatory song series charts a twenty-year period during Bohuslav Martinu’s life. The early The Three Virgins, H 73 exudes an impressionist atmosphere enhanced by Martinu’s advanced harmonic language whilst the New Slovak Songs, H 126 was the result of a highly successful rapprochement between Czech and Slovak art, reflected in music of beauty and inventiveness. Nursery Rhymes, H 283bis, though composed in perilous times, is full of wit and joy. American Record Guide wrote of Volume 3: ‘[Jana Hrochova] has a golden tone and crisp diction, and Koukl plays with warmth and clarity.’

Recorded with Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO), under the baton of Mihhail Gerts, Mihkel Poll's new album features the Everest of piano repertoire - Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.3 along with the Concertino by pianist's compatriot, Eduard Tubin. The release follows the album featuring Artur Lemba's Piano Concerto No.1 recorded equally with ERSO under Neeme Jarvi. This is Mihkel Poll's third album released by DUX Records. Born in 1986 in Estonia, Mihkel Poll studied at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre with Prof Ivari Ilja, recently receiving the PhD in Music, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Prof Ronan O'Hora. He has also attended the masterclasses by prof Eliso Virsaladze at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Italy. Mihkel Poll has won several prizes in important international competitions including 1st prize at the Rina Sala Gallo International Piano Competition in Italy, 1st prize at the Tallinn International Piano Competition in Estonia and 1st prize at the Ferrol International Piano Competition in Spain.

MCKAY: Suite for Viola and Piano / My Tahoe Window / An Apri

Winner of several important international competitions, including the 2006 Michele Pittaluga Guitar Competition, Alessandria, Italy, Artyom Dervoed started playing guitar at the age of six.

This re-release by Naxos brings together music from two of Prokofiev’s best known film scores on one disk. The cantata came from the original film score for Eisenstein’s film, Alexander Nevsky, and the suite from the Alexander Feinzimmer film Lieutenant Kijé.

The first thing to note is that this CD was in fact recorded live, although it’s not clear until the applause at the end that this is the case. There is no audience noise and the recording is very sharp, clear and close to the orchestra.

Alexander Nevsky opens with “Russia under the Mongolian Yoke”, with harsh open octaves setting the scene perfectly. This is followed by a song about Alexander Nevsky recalling an earlier battle. The chorus in this recording are the Latvian State Choir and, although I am not a Russian speaker myself, the words seem to be very clear and the choral singing excellent. The song about Nevsky is beautifully interpreted with a clear contrast being drawn between the more reflective parts of the song at the start and finish and the recollection of battle in the central section. The third section suggesting the appearance of Teutonic knights in the city of Pskov, with brass and percussion blaring out a bleak warning, is performed in this recording with enough gusto to bring a chill to one’s spine!

I had a chance to hear the recording of this work by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and it is interesting to note that Reiner adopts a much slower tempo than Casadesus for the second and third parts, which seems to me to work better, even if there is the slightly off-putting factor of Reiner’s recording including the text in English.

The fourth section (Arise, ye Russian People), allows a distinct contrast to be drawn between the different emotions; the call to arms which opens this song, along with the more reflective middle section. Again these contrasts are handled excellently in this recording.

It is the fifth section (The Battle on the Ice), which is the longest. In fact this section took up a large part of the film. The performance is clean and precise. Perhaps it is this precision that takes away a little from the tension that one would expect in a battle scene; for me there is still enough there to get the adrenaline going. Special mention should go to the percussion section, who are able to drive the music on without overpowering it, no mean feat with such music. On balance, I would have to say that the Reiner/Chicago SO recording narrowly wins in terms of building tension, but there’s not a lot in it.

The sixth section (The Field of Death) is where we hear the mezzo-soprano, Ewa Podles, lamenting the lives lost in battle. Her wonderful deep voice carries these sentiments perfectly, assisted by some sensitive playing.

The final section (Alexander’s Entry into Pskov) ends the work on a triumphant note, aided by another excellent piece of chorus singing; they are able to hold their own to the very end and are not overpowered by the orchestra.

Overall, this is an excellent performance of Prokofiev’s colourful and exciting score, which I would recommend highly.

-- Euan Bayliss, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

BEST OF OPERA, VOL. 5

• 2014 marks the 250th anniversary of Locatelli’s death • I Musici”, founded 1951, made this very important recording of Locatelli’s Tre Concerti Grossi op. 1 in 1959 • This performance is still considered as one of the best ever realized of this little known masterpieces. • At the end of this CD there are the Vivaldi’s three Concerti, op. 4, recorded 1962

Everbest Music presents a reissue of two classic Virgil Thomson albums: Portraits and Self-Portraits and Mostly About Love. Performed by pianist and New York Times chief classical critic Anthony Tommasini, these out-of-print gems are now available as Portraits, Self-Portraits and Songs in a 2-CD set, digital download, and streaming formats. Previously released on Northeastern Records, these definitive recordings feature 22 of Thomson’s chamber and vocal works, showcasing his signature wit and shrewd musical style.

Luigi Boccherini occupies a special place in cellists' hearts: he must have been a phenomenal player, and, happily, he was also a composer. His exceptional knowledge of the technical possibilities of the cello helped him create a completely knew sound-palette This is particularly evident in his chamber music, with its splendid vocalic lines, often revealing an undertone of melancholy, combined with impressive virtuosity, and with a wink or a smile appearing now and then from under the surface. The settings are very varied: not only calling for two celli, but also for two violas, and for a wide variety of solo instruments with string quartet: violin, oboe and guitar.

This release is the fourth album in the ten-part series “Songs inspired by wandering the globe,” a series based on Mike del Ferro’s worldwide travels. Neapolitan songs, particularly arias by Puccini and Verdi are meshed together with jazz, blues, and Afro-Cuban rhythms to create a truly unique soundscape. Pianist Mike del Ferro is an internationally renowned artist. He has appeared in 116 countries across the globe, with performances varying from solo recitals to contemporary crossovers. Ferro is joined here by guest singer, US born Claron McFadden. Her highly distinctive voice allows her to flow effortlessly between classical and jazz, opera and concert, and traditional and modern repertoire.

The present release is one of a pair of distinctive Debussy recordings, made with the Philharmonia Orchestra and remastered here. Geoffrey Simon's programme expands several of Debussy's piano works into lavish orchestrations, including arrangements here from Stokowski, Grainger, Gleichmann and B�sser. Australian conductor Geoffrey Simon is resident in London and has appeared there with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, and English Chamber Orchestra. Internationally he ahs appeared with the Adelaide, Atlanta, Israel, Moscow, and American Symphonies, among others. He is Music Director Emeritus of the Northwest Mahler Orchestra in Seattle, with which he has conducted the Mahler symphonic cycle and Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony. He is Consultant for Classical Special Projects for Arts Global, and has served as a jury member for Young Concert Artists, PianoTexas, Australian Cello Awards and Royal Over-Seas League.