Includes work(s) by Jean Sibelius.

Classical Music

Composer, conductor and pianist Thomas Adès has been described by The New York Times as ‘among the most accomplished all-round musicians of his generation.’ His ‘Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face’ reflects the glamor of the opera’s subject in the grand manner of Liszt or Busoni, while ‘Still Sorrowing’ and ‘Darknesse Visible’ explore John Dowland’s haunting lute works. Heard here in its world premiere recording, competition piece ‘Blanca Variations’ is lyrical and flowing in character, and ‘Traced Overhead’ is a vivid description of ascent and flight. Adès captures and transforms Polish style in his ‘Mazurkas,’ and the spirit of Satie and Ravel in a ‘Souvenir’ from the film ‘Colette.’

REVIEW:

There is Lisztian panache in the 2009 “Concert Paraphrase,” some almost Japanese sounding Dowland-lute-influenced expression with dampened strings on “Still Sorrowing” (1992) and the epically stretched and trilled impact of the companion piece “Darkness Visible.” The world premiere recording of “Blanca Variations” shows us a thoughtful, pensive side, lyrically robust. You can hear a kind of Modernist post-Scriabin on “Traced Overhead” (1996). Then there are haunting, mysterious post-Chopin explorations and playfulness on the “Mazurkas for Piano” (2009). “Souvenir” (2018) closes out the program with a kind of heartbreaking lyricism. It sounds like peak experience filtered in somewhat melancholy memory.

The music has some teeth, some bite. It challenges the player with original ornateness yet never seems to lose the center of its melodic-structural thrust.

It’s a vital set of works played with obvious relish and sympathy. Anyone who lives to hear the ivory-ebony towers of sound possible in our times will no doubt find this one as fascinating as I have.

– Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

Surging sounds of the sea, over them the whistling or even the calling of birds - or so it might seem. An instant later, we only hear the ebb and flow of choral sounds, with individual male voices whistling rubato glissando tones over them. These sounds are typical of Martin Smolka's style. He evokes magically realistic sounds with his compositions.

One of Spain’s most internationally admired living composers, Lorenzo Palomo is the natural successor to Joaquin Turina. His orchestral music shares a sense of rhapsodic freedom with Turina’s, perfectly exemplified by the Sinfonia Cardoba. This rapturous portrait of the city conjures its architecture and spirit with dance rhythms and vivid, poetic lyricism. Written for the unique combination of guitar, violin and orchestra, Fulgores skillfully blends these three voices in music that possesses a wealth of tonal color and expressive beauty.

Classical Music

While the unifying thread which links these works is that of loss, the underlying focus is an uplifting celebration of life and love. Gabriel Jackson's Requiem combines traditional solemnity with poems which embrace wide-ranging spirituality, resulting in images of light and radiant optimism. Contrasting poignancy of expression is heard in personal tributes from John Tavener and Francis Pott, while Bob Chilcott uses Pachelbel's famous Canon to set Oscar Wilde's Requiescat. Vasari Singers' Great British Anthems (8.572504) was described as 'essential listening' by Gramophone. Founded in 1980, Vasari Singers is among the leading chamber choirs in Britain, performing music ranging from Renaissance to contemporary. The choir performs regularly in London as well as visiting many of England's cathedrals to sing services, with recent trips to Canterbury, Salisbury, Bath and Ripon. The choir and Jeremy Backhouse are deeply committed to contemporary music and have commissioned over twenty works since 2000, including works by Francis Pott and Gabriel Jackson.

Aside from his only opera Fidelio, Beethoven's general link with the theater in Vienna came about largely with incidental music or songs to be inserted into the works of other composers- insertion arias. Konig Stephan was written to celebrate the politically significant opening of a new theatre in Pest, it's triumphant mood honoring the ruling Austrian Emperor. Standard Bearer of female heroism Leonore Prohaska is commemorated with a Soldier's Chorus and a Romance with harp accompaniment. In Friedrich von Matthisson's poem Opferlied ('Sacrificial Song'), a young man prays to Zeus to bestow upon him beauty and goodness in youth and old age. Two of Beethoven's four settings are heard on this wide-ranging programme.

Alexandre Tansman’s guitar music was almost exclusively created as the result of his friendship with the legendary Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia. The true extent of this catalogue has only recently become apparent, with unknown works emerging from archive sources. Performed after careful research into the original manuscripts, Andrea De Vitis’s programme brings together pieces that reference Tansman’s favorite musicians from history, in particular Bach and Chopin- masterfully intertwining personal affections with sophisticated techniques to create some of the most important guitar repertoire of the 20th century.

With this fourth volume, Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen completes his cycle of Sibelius' numbered symphonies.

The custom of marking the name-day of Princess Esterhazy with a newly composed Mass began in the 1790s and for many years was carried out by Joseph Haydn. In 1807 Beethoven was commissioned and responded with his Mass in C major. Coolly received at court, it is a celebratory work of large-scale brilliance. The cantata Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt is set to Goethe’s poems and contrasts calm with exuberance. In 1803 Beethoven set two numbers from Vestas Feuer, written by Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of Mozart’s die Zauberflote.

Hector Berlioz remains to this day the arch Romantic composer. His imagination knew no bounds and through his often-extreme visions, he revolutionized the way composers would approach the orchestra in the future. Spooky, wild, tender and utterly without inhibition perfectly describes the "Symphonie fantastique". But even some of his overtures are not for the faint-of-heart, especially when two masterful conductors at the helms of two of Europe's finest orchestras give these colorful scores full rein. Unquestionably, Berlioz at his best! - Hänssler Classic

Both Black Pentecost and Stone Litany share a symphonic scale and an Orkney setting. Premièred by Simon Rattle in 1982, Black Pentecost is an impassioned plea against environmental destruction, taking its words from Orcadian author George Mackay Brown’s novel Greenvoe, and cast in the form of a vocal symphony. Chamber-like restraint is matched by tense, dark writing that embraces threnody and cataclysm. Beautifully orchestrated and featuring elaborate melismas from the vocal soloist, Stone Litany, subtitled ‘Runes from a House of the Dead’, evokes the haunted landscape of a Neolithic burial mound plundered by Vikings.

French pianist Lise de la Salle's new album is an outstanding, shining and subtle concept album built around Bach's music. Lise de la Salle selected pieces of Bach and works composed as a tribute to the giant of Leipzig: Busoni, Liszt, Roussel e.a. Four additional pieces have been commissioned to French classical and jazz pianist Thomas Enhco. Since 2001, Lise de la Salle has enjoyed an impressive international career that has seen her perform in every leading concert hall in Europe, the United States and Asia. She works closely with the conductors Fabio Luisi, James Conion and Osmo Vanska, among others, and has also played under the direction of Ludovic Morlot, James Gaffigan, Sir Andrew Davis, and others. She is regularly invited to perform with orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Her previous albums have garnered her critical acclaim.

Zelmira was the last opera Rossini wrote for Naples, knowing it would also be his calling card to Vienna where he had been assured performances. Keen to reconcile the alleged incompatibility between 'Italian' melody and 'German' harmony, Rossini employed exciting and daring harmonies and a raft of dazzling orchestral effects in this tragedy in which a daughter saves her father, the king, and her son, from usurpers to the throne. The opera was acclaimed wherever it was heard, and this recording presents the revised and triumphant Paris version.

Roger Norrington and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra SWR continue their survey of the major works of the 19th Century symphonic repertoire with two symphonies by Schubert. Throughout his decade of working with the RSO, Norrington has transformed the sound of a modern symphony orchestra into an ensemble capable of delivering authentic historically informed music making. By employing both the benefits of authentic performance practice and technically superior modern instruments, Norrington has left a legacy that has opened the ears of romantic "purists" as well as delighting devotees of authentic performance practice.

Compositions for piano have held a prominent position throughout George Rochberg’s long career. The earliest works on this recording, the Twelve Bagatelles, are fully-formed lyrical pieces each of which, despite its brevity, is a complete and fully evolved story. His Three Elegiac Pieces comprise a distinct set with a clear emotional progression. Sonata Seria (composed in 1948, revised during the mid-1950s and published in 1998) is an overpoweringly intense tour de force.

BALADA: Hangman! Hangman! / The Town of Greed

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

What a pompous and exquisite gala to celebrate opera legend Plácido Domingo in the breathtaking Arena di Verona! 50 years ago the young Madrilenian singer Plácido Domingo gave his debut at the ancient open-air theatre: the beginning of a lasting and exceptional relationship. To mark the anniversary, Domingo presents a programme entirely dedicated to Verdi, performing three of his most complex and majestic baritone roles. No effort was spared to create an unforgettable evening in a unique atmosphere in the completely sold-out amphitheatre, which has been at the heart of Italian entertainment for almost 2,000 years. Whether as Babylonian king Nabucco, Scottish general Macbeth or as Doge Simon Boccanegra: Domingo’s versatility and aura is more than impressive, with “top phrasing and articulation, his baritone with full and sonorous intonation and a unique timbre – all this substantiates his exceptional position” (Das Opernglas). At the side of Domingo shines an excellent cast including Anna Pirozzi and Arturo Chacón-Cruz, supported by a perfectly rehearsed ballet under the baton of conductor Jordi Bernàcer who sovereignly leads the Orchestra of the Arena di Verona from scene to scene. A triumphal, almost historic moment for Domingo and the Arena di Verona!

A 2020 GRAMMY nominee for Best Choral Performance!

After the success of his opera The Shining, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec has once again collaborated with librettist Mark Campbell to create the second of his “American historical oratorios.” Sanctuary Road draws on the astonishing stories to be found in William Still’s book The Underground Railroad, which documents the network of secret routes and safe houses used by African American slaves to escape into free states and Canada during the early to mid- 1800s. The epic nature of these stories of courage, perseverance and sacrifice is transformed into an enthralling saga, heard here at its world premiere performance at Carnegie Hall- a performance acclaimed by BroadwayWorld for its “riveting, pulsating wall of sound and stellar soloists.”

REVIEWS:

Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road is unique. Moravec terms it an oratorio, and indeed; yet there’s plenty of dramatic action of an operatic sort. The soloists, all African American, are an able group, but bass-baritone Dashon Burton, as Still, has an especially compelling, authoritative quality. The performance was recorded live at the work’s 2018 premiere at Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Oratorio Society of New York Chorus under Kent Tritle is both precise and energetic in the pressure-packed situation of a single recorded performance.

– AllMusicGuide.com (J. Manheim)

Santuary Road's eminent singability, colorful scoring, and uplifting messages would seem to guarantee its future success. Moravec’s setting of the material makes it unquestionably an oratorio in the full quasi-operatic sense, rich in character, action, and vocal display, and also cinematic in rhythm, cutting from intimate moments to breathless chase scenes and back.

The performance largely belonged to the five soloists, four portraying various fugitives plus the clear-voiced bass-baritone Dashon Burton in a sturdy turn as William Still himself.

Mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis had the showstopper aria as the appropriately named Ellen Craft. Strong in the lower register, her voice blossomed on top, bringing loud applause at the close.

In recurring segments titled “Run,” Joshua Blue depicted the lone fugitive’s terror and grit in his powerful tenor. With clear diction and dry humor, baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather as Henry “Box” Brown told of his 26 hours traveling in a shipping crate to Philadelphia.

Soprano Laquita Mitchell’s solo came late but was worth waiting for. By the aria’s climax, she was in full-throated dramatic mode, to marvelous effect.

Between Moravec’s sensitive scoring and conductor Tritle’s astute management of balances, all the solos came across clearly, even though not all the voices were extra large. In fact, all the sonic and dramatic elements of the piece came together smoothly in a well-paced performance whose final crescendo on the word “Free” brought a tear to the eye and the audience to its feet.

– New York Classical Review by David Wright

It is extremely well crafted in musical terms and it sets off the text so that the experience is commemorative, rightly honoring, remembering but of course still providing a history-as-art experience. I come away with a feeling of satisfaction, of approval. You should hear this.

– Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

All the soloists, including the lovely soprano Laquita Mitchell, the sonorous bass-baritone Dashon Burton and the heavy-lifting narrator, the superb baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather do sterling work with the unstinting support of maestro Tritle and his orchestra and chorus.

– Rafael's Music Notes