SOME NOTES ON THE AUDIO/RECORDING PROCESS WE USED The singular sound of "Dreamspace" comes from fusing two sonic goals. By using a number of different microphones in various positions and distances, we create a comprehensive perspective on the piano and Michael Mizrahi's dynamic approach to performance, as well as a� realistic and life-like final "image" of the piano and Mizrahi's playing. The listener is situated in a specific place in the performance space while simultaneously experiencing sounds that could be heard from a number of listener positions. Bringing those two goals into harmony, aiming for both a multi-perspective and realistic soundworld, is what leads to the sounds you are hearing.� NOTES ON DREAMSPACE Dreamspace is a destination and state of mind.� Give dreams space. This record gives space for dreaming. Keep dreaming.

Pieter Wispelwey is finally back! Research on Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s music is very much ongoing, and several previously unknown works have been discovered in recent years. Perhaps most surprising of these is the Cello Concertino op. 43bis. The Fantasy for cello and orchestra op. 53 was written a few years later, during one of the darkest periods of Weinberg’s life. The Chamber Symphony no.4 is Weinberg’s final completed work. He wrote it in April-May of 1992, by which time he was housebound with the illness that would ultimately claim his life. The work is scored for string orchestra with an obbligato clarinet.

Iberi invite you to a supra feast full of gorgeous Georgian polyphonic singing! With sacred songs, historical ballads, lullabies, work songs and ‘table songs’ for feasting, they celebrate the age-old tradition of supra and its popular toasting themes. This traditional style of polyphonic singing is inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Iberi have released an accompanying cookbook to provide the full Georgian experience – the holy trinity of food, wine and song! “They look like warriors and sing like angels!” (Nick Hobbs, Charmenco Music Agency)

A new recording of two major Reger cycles, by a fast-emerging British piano talent. 'To fathom his all-powerful might, no human may accomplish' - this is the text, from a duet in Bach's Cantata BWV128, which Reger takes as the subject of his Bach Variations, and it may fairly be advanced that Reger accorded Bach a comparably divine status. At the age of just 31, Reger had by this stage assimilated not only Bachian counterpoint but it's transformation through the ears and imaginations of Schumann and Brahms and others, and he proceeds to treat the theme with astonishing freedom, testing the technique of the performer while reaching for the limits of the theme's musical possibilities over the course of 14 variations. The cycle concludes with a mighty fugue - or fugues, on separate subjects (of Reger's own devising, eventually welded with the Bach theme). In his booklet essay, Eden Walker remarks that the final bars are 'some of the most colossal and victorious of any in the entire piano repertoire.' By contrast, as a salutary demonstration of Reger's versatility, the Traume am Kamin present him at his most relaxed and intimate, and anyone who has found it hard to warm to Reger will surely find in this cycle a delightful entry-point to an often forbidding catalogue. 'Dreams by the Fireside' - Reger's knotty chromatic harmony still underpins the progress of these Romantic sketches, but now disguised by a touch of the 'lateness' that comes over many artists towards the end of their lives or careers, whether or not they were aware of it. This cycle was Reger's final piano cycle before his death in 1916, aged 41, and the mood of the cycle is perhaps also marked by a necessary escapism from the violent bloodshed around him. Born in 1995, Eden Walker has become a specialist in the ultra-virtuoso end of Romantic piano writing at the hands of composers such as Alkan, Busoni and Godowsky (and Reger). Based in Hamburg, he now teaches at the Staatliche Jugendmusikschule, as well as furthering his own studies and giving concerts across Germany and the UK.

With this first Toccata Next album of Mexican music for harp, the American harpist Janet Paulus pays tribute to her adoptive country and to three composer friends, each with a concertante work and music for solo harp – several of them recently written for her. The predominant style is gently Neo-Romantic, occasionally animated with echoes of Mexican folk-music.

New, fun-filled arrangements—with historical authenticity on their side—bring bright and breezy curtain-raisers by a once-celebrated contemporary of Mozart to life.

In a career not much longer than Mozart’s, Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) wrote an astonishing total of 64 works for the stage—as well as substantial collections of symphonies, concertos, and sonatas—that were performed across the length and breadth of Europe.

Cimarosa specialized in lighthearted comedies, for which he supplied stylishly upbeat scores, shot through with Italianate lyricism, and a kind of impetuous vigor which was all his own. This quality makes his overtures particularly suitable for transcription to the kind of plucked-ensemble chamber versions heard on this enterprising new album. During the period after unification, the mandolin became a popular instrument much as the ukulele and the balalaika did elsewhere: relatively easy to learn, highly portable, and well suited to being played in ensemble as a kind of instrumental choir.

The Anedda Quintet have devised a unique synthesis of the two approaches, adding a strong bass component to the classic quartet line-up. This collection of Cimarosa is mainly comprised of modern arrangements by the composer Michele Di Filippo, who had already collaborated with the Anedda Quintet for a previous Brilliant Classics album of Rossini arrangements (95904). In adapting these orchestral scores, Di Filippo aimed to make the melodies sing out while preserving a sense of dialogue, tension, and drama between instruments.

This recording is a reflection of several performances that took place over time and in varying acoustic environments, including collaborations with contemporary and aerial/vertical dance.

The Cage works tend to be binary in form, and while meditatively free flowing in spirit, the architecture is clean and easily understood. The Bach works—four movements that make up a sonata—offer a multitude of interpretive options, including an approach that wanders through the harmonic labyrinth without regard to pulse and traditional notions of time, magnifying minute rhetorical statements along the way. It can be such that the Bach works represent the dreamscape while the atonal prepared piano pieces of Cage represent structure. This might be in opposition to many listeners’ expectations.

New recordings of late Beethoven at his
most heroic and visionary.
Andrea Molteni plays Scarlatti with ‘ringing
tone and virtuosic agility’ reported Fanfare
magazine of the Italian pianist’s collection of
sonatas on Piano Classics (PCL10233). The
Art Music Lounge praised his bold
juxtaposition of Petrassi and Dallapiccola
(PCL10222) as ‘a strange but wonderful
album’, noting that ‘Molteni sparkles as he
rips through the music with energy and
élan’.
These qualities hold him in good stead for
the rigours of late Beethoven. With his
‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata of 1818, the
composer challenged pianists and listeners
alike to assimilate a work unprecedented in
its length and complexity. Motivically linked
by a descending third through the eventful
course of its four movements, the Sonata
opens with a precipitous Allegro. A mordant
Scherzo then introduces a long and
spiritually engaged slow movement, before
the mighty finale hurtles towards its epic
conclusion through a densely wrought
fugue. In each aspect, then, the Sonata
outlines blueprints for what would become
known as Beethoven’s late style, whether
expressed in solo, chamber, orchestral or
vocal music. The most celebrated single
result of that late style is the Grosse Fuge
which Beethoven wrote as the finale to his
String Quartet Op.131. Persuaded by his
publisher to substitute it for a less arduous
conclusion, Beethoven left this mighty fugue
to stand on its own, and so it has stood ever
since, as a ferocious yet rewarding exercise
of concentration and contrapuntal art.
Molteni presents it in a 19th-century
arrangement made by Louis Winkler which
has attracted surprisingly few recordings.
At the centre of Molteni’s recital, the Sonata
Op.110 offers salutary contrast. Here too are
examples of heroism, rustic humour and
melancholy, but distilled to an essence of
vitality.

Takashi Yoshimatsu's wide-ranging musical influences often combine jazz and rock elements with classical, folk and world music. This album focuses on a unique series of three solo piano works for the left hand, inspired by his great friend Izumi Tateno. These lyric and beautiful miniatures are saturated in nature and birdsong, as can be heard in the evocative Tapiola Visions and in the seven bouquets that form Ainola Lyrical Ballads which are dedicated to Sibelius. In Gauche Dances, we hear a sequence that includes the tango and boogie woogie, displaying how eagerly and ebulliently Yoshimatsu breaks boundaries.

The acclaimed pianist and composer Francesco Tristano, returns to his first love – early music for his new studio album  ‘On Early Music’. The album presents Renaissance and early-Baroque works with five of his own Baroque-inspired piano pieces. Interspersed with these are works by some of early music’s greatest English composers and organists – Orlando Gibbons, John Bull, and Peter Philips – and one of Tristano’s greatest inspirations, Italian composer Girolamo Frescobaldi. Yet On Early Music is not merely a fitting homage to this repertoire; the works are given a fresh, contemporary twist thanks to Tristano’s production skills, studio mastery, and keen eye for detail.

All the works featured are tonally and melodically complimentary, and while some have been faithfully reproduced, others have been re-worked and reinterpreted. “I wanted to bring something new to them,” he says. “Something original.” That led him to works that reflected another of the album’s main themes, and something he wanted to focus on and bring to the fore – the gentle majesty of sunrise.

“Early music has a reparative power, just like an early sunrise,” he says, “and these works give me an uplifting feeling. There’s something really primitive about them, but something rejuvenating too.” For Tristano, this repertoire remains as joyful and inspiring as when it was composed over 500 years ago, and is thoroughly deserving of a contemporary audience.

Turkish pianist KCS is the Grand Prize winner of the 2022 Alexis Gregory Vendome Prize, where he was also awarded the Recording Prize.   has performed in concert halls such as the Morgan Library & Museum’s Gilder Lehrman Hall in New York, Wiener Saal in Salzburg, Verbrugghen Hall in Sydney and in other venues in cities such as Paris, Nice, Brussels, Cleveland, Verona and Istanbul. He has appeared in festivals such as the Gümüşlük Classical Music Festival, Antalya Piano Festival and Bellapais Music Festival. This season, he will appear at the 2024 Sydney Festival as the winner of The Rex Hobcroft People’s Choice Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition, as well as in concerts with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Judd and New Manhattan Sinfonietta conducted by Gürer Aykal.

Born in 1999 in Ankara, he began his musical education with Gamze Kırtıl at the Bilkent University’s Music and Ballet Primary School at the age of seven. After studying with Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he received his bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he was a recipient of the Ahmet Ertegün Memorial Scholarship and the Susan W. Rose Piano Fellowship twice. In 2018, he was accepted as a scholar of “Young Musicians on World Stages” (YMWS), led by Güher-Süher Pekinel. During his studies, he has had the chance to work with musicians such as Jacques Rouvier, Pavel Gililov, Boris Berman, Ilya Itin, Michel Beroff, Jean-Francois Heisser, Gabriela Montero and Emanuel Ax. He is currently pursuing graduate studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the direction of Maestro Babayan.

With this second volume of ¡Colombia Viva! – a series capable of infinite expansion, as is indeed intended – Mauricio Arias-Esguerra embarks on another lightning tour of the recent piano music of his native country, displaying the wide variety of styles on offer there, from atmospheric modernism to catchy folk dances, a recurrent element being striking rhythmic vivacity.

Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words simply defy ordinary description. Refined and nuanced, they constitute some of the composer’s finest and best-known works. For nearly two hundred years, they were regarded as charming relics, select romantic gems performed in small concert halls and salons. While their subtle, ornamental qualities certainly shine brightest in more intimate settings, closer inspection reveals an unexpected depth and complexity to these miniature masterpieces. Their interpretive and technical demands are considerable, requiring sensitivity to voicing, pedaling and dynamic control. Meant to enchant rather than dazzle, they evoke myriad dreams revealing some of the composer’s innermost reflections. Like private entries in a musical diary, they offer a rare glimpse into this reserved but passionate artist’s thoughts.

REVIEW:

The Mendelssohn gems of course I was familiar with and very fond of, while Price Walden’s music was a most rewarding discovery of compositions that reflect keen sensitivity, a delicate overall feel, and expansive melodies underpinned by equally clear and open harmonies that never muscle into the crystalline quality of the melodies. These are intensely American works and a joy to listen to.

Bruce Levingston’s insights into Mendelssohn provide many moments of delight – his ever-sensitive approach bringing out everything that is joyful about that chapter of Mendelssohn’s oeuvre.

As is always the case the engineering of the album is peerless and the album itself well annotated.

A winner through and through.

-- All About The Arts (Rafael de Acha)

Like alchemists of old, attempting to recombine the four elements, here Fábio Brum presents four distinct musical languages in a program forged during lockdown. Gabriele Roberto’s Tokyo Suite charts the astonishment of a traveler dazzled by the vast megapolis, whereas Dimitri Cervo’s The Brazilian Four Seasons offers a colorful, energetic panorama of the natural and human worlds. Fábio Brum’s very personal musical journey is highlighted by the contrast between the Talmudic contemplation of Menachem Zur’s De Profundis and the abstract ruminations of Nicola Tescari’s Trumpet Concerto ‘Nine Moods.’

The trumpet has had many concertos written for it by composers from the Soviet era and beyond. Appealing in its unabashed melodies and colorfully nostalgic feel, Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto became popular in the West, while Weinberg’s emotive Trumpet Concerto in B flat major was summed up by Shostakovich as a ‘symphony for trumpet and orchestra’. Shostakovich’s own playful Concerto No.1, Op. 35 is recorded here with Timofei Dokschizer’s extended trumpet part, bringing it closer to the Baroque ‘double concerto’ model that the composer may initially have intended.

There is an Icelandic saying, “mergur málsins”, which directly translates to “the marrow of the matter,” and these Suites, to me, speak directly to the essence of being human. As for many cellists, these Suites have been my steady companion throughout my life with the cello, first as a vehicle to learn counterpoint, style, and harmony, then as material with which to explore personal expression and interpretation, and today they are a mirror, reflecting the deeper truth of the human experience, revealing more layers of meaning each time I come back to them.

As far as we know, these Suites were not written for the church, and by 1720, they were not written for people to actually dance to, but rather as forms with familiar rhythms and style. In contrast to the Violin Sonatas and Partitas which were written around the same time, the Cello Suites each have the same movement structure, which includes a Prelude and two pairs of dances (Allemande and Courante, Sarabande and Gigue) with an added “wildcard” of pairs of Menuets, Gavottes, or Bourées. Rather than hindering expression, this structure seems to enable more creativity to flow, as Bach pushes the boundaries of the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument with each succeeding Suite.

During the heart of the pandemic of 2020, I found comfort and refuge in these Suites. As I began to play them not just individually but as a set, an arch started to emerge, a true Hero’s journey: starting with the innocent 1st Suite in G major, the first taste of bitter disappointment in the d minor 2nd Suite, a renewed optimism in the 3rd Suite in C major, the bold and brash 4th Suite in Eb Major, the dark tragedy of the 5th Suite in C minor, and finally the glorious redemption of the 6th Suite in D Major. My hope in presenting these Suites without repeats is to more clearly illuminate this arch of their presented order so that we may more closely follow this universal storyline. - Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir

REVIEW:

Recordings of Bach’s six Cello Suites aren’t in short supply, so what does this latest new one have going for it? Icelandic-American cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir is known as a contemporary music specialist, returning here to what she describes as “mergur málsins” (“the marrow of the matter” in Icelandic), a constant companion throughout her musical life. Thorsteinsdóttir found solace in the suites during the pandemic and celebrated the 2020 summer solstice by playing each suite in a different church in Iceland’s remote Westfjords region. Thorsteinsdóttir views each work as part of a sequence, “a true hero’s journey” which takes the listener from innocence to redemption, tasting disappointment, optimism and tragedy along the way.

Knowing this isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying the performances, and Thorsteinsdóttir’s poised, lyrical playing makes this set a front runner among recent recordings.

-- The Arts Desk

This is a Blu-ray Audio disc, playable on Blu-ray players only.

“In the Summer of 2019, we recorded our album Once Upon a Time, our first recorded version of a “story concert.” Although we had explored this concept for several years prior with storyteller Sarah Walker, Once Upon a Time was our first collaboration with Benedict Sheehan, who composed incidental music (almost like a choral movie score) to accompany Sarah’s dialogue and to connect the musical dots between existing works by an array of composers. That summer, it became clear that we had stumbled onto something unusual and special. First, the idea of a continuous choral story score – combining elements of classical performance, storytelling, film scoring, and theatricality – seemed to be a rich new idiom for choral performance art. Second, the collaborative team of the project seemed like a dream come true – there was a strong sense of mutual respect for everyone’s unique talents, and a rare ability for creative push and pull…” (Matthew Guard, Artistic Director)

The figure of George Frideric Handel cast a long shadow over musical London in the first half of the eighteenth century; casting many of his contemporaries – fine composers themselves – into centuries of obscurity. This recording throws light into forgotten corners and discovers some glittering gems; some of them demanding dazzling vocal fireworks from their performers. Several of these composers set scenes from Classical mythology or Old Testament narratives – but they also explore the underside of the Baroque psyche in one of David’s darkest psalms and in a representation of Arcadian madness.

How do we even measure time? It is sometimes said that time is as old as humankind, but of course it isn’t. It’s just something we created out of a need for... what exactly? Earliest known evidence suggests we were measuring time already 5000 years ago. That way we could create predictability, for example concerning planting and harvesting. From there on we could more easily schedule and organize, which then helped us building a more sustainable life. When we had found a mutual understanding of what we would call time then other systems could be developed, kind of like a third-party software.

Music notation works as a fine example. Today our life is synchronized “to the beat.” Not only is every single footstep kept track of by our telephones or every breath by our smart wrist watches – even our thoughts are as good as monitored as we scroll casually through advertisements on social media. Without us even realizing, the idea of time and synchronicity is apparently encrypted so deep in our consciousness that the thought of viewing the world without it is beyond our comprehension. That doesn’t change the fact that time as we understand it has not always been the same. Our ideas on time have changed throughout the centuries and will most probably continue to do so. The works on Sonic Alchemy are of composers who offer a new perspective on how we can perceive time, each in their own way. - Páll Ragnar Pálsson

From the pipe organ at the Sono Luminus studio in Boyce, Virginia, we are pleased to present a fine selection of baroque organ music for the Christmas season. Felipe Dominguez (b. 1983) is a Chilean/American organist, harpsichordist, clavichordist, and musicologist. A graduate of Brigham Young University (B.M. 2010, M.M. 2012), he studied organ and harpsichord with Douglas Bush and Don Cook. He has pursued further postgraduate organ instruction in Europe with Edoardo Belotti, Hans Davidsson, Harald Vogel, and Leon Berben. Mr. Dominguez has performed as a soloist and in ensembles in Chile, Argentina, the United States and Europe.

Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (Oh, Come thou Savior of the Gentiles) is a German chorale normally sung during advent, and is a call for the Lord to come to Earth.

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming is a well known and beloved traditional chorale on the original harmonization by Michael Praetorius.

The chorale Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich, (Praise God, you Christians, All Together) is set in verse 1 with the melody in the soprano and counterpoint in the two lower voices, and in verse 2 with the melody in the pedal and two lines in imitation on top.

Noël cette Journée (Christmas day today) imitates the French musette with a sustained pedal note, a sweet melody and elegant ornaments, painting an image of the French countryside.

Zipoli’s Pastorale also centers on the image of countryside landscape, which was a popular Christmas theme at the time in the spirit of the biblical annunciation to the shepherds.

Michau qui causoit ce grand bruit is a traditional French Noël treated in a very common structure of variations with different character, the first with a royal feel and the second with a courtesan air.

A ricercar is an imitative form that uses a melody as its main source of material for development. In the case of the Ricercare on “Ave Maria Klare”, a hymn for the Virgin Mary is used as the main source material.

Buxtehude’s Fantasia on “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern” (How brightly Shines the Morning Star) is one of his greatest masterpieces. He uses small phrases of the chorale melody to develop contrasting sections full of color, energy, and beauty, which also provide an opportunity to highlight the wonderful colors of the organ.

Louis-Claude Daquin wrote a large collection of Noëls and his own performances were legendary in 18th Century Paris. His Noël variations normally present the melody first, followed by variations, at times very virtuosic as it is in this case.

Selections from the Oratorio “The Messiah” by Handel have long been a staple of the Christmas repertoire. This version of the pifa transcribed for the organ is highly ornamented and with its triple meter and dance character intends to take the listener back to the annunciation to the shepherds.

Böhm’s setting of “From Heaven Above,” a popular Christmas chorale, sets the melody as a solo, largely unornamented so it is easy to recognize, against a contrapuntal backdrop.

Voluntary V, Op. 6, by John Stanley though not a Christmas piece has all the hallmarks of a royal entrance. It begins with a contrapuntal section similar to a string ensemble, followed by a virtuosic trumpet solo (Oboe 8’).

This second setting of “From Heaven Above,” by Pachelbel is much different than the previous one, the melody being in the pedal with a Principal 8’ against Koppel Flute 4‘ and Quint 1 1/3‘ in the Swell that dance in counterpoint above the melody.

This 18th Century setting of a pastorale by Bernardo Pasquini is much more elaborated, making more use of counterpoint and varied harmonies throughout the piece. However, it stays true to the countryside character of pastorals.

In Sweet Rejoicing! (In Dulci Jubilo) Is a popular upbeat Christmas hymn. The first 16th Century version from the Fridolin Sichers Tablature is highly imitative, with phrases overlapping over each other very actively. The second version by J.S. Bach, written in his youth, is a highly ornamented version of the hymn that works in scales and arpeggios with a majestic end only as Bach can deliver.

REVIEW:

What distinguishes this release (other than the fine playing and sound) is the inviting combination of a few absolute Christmas classics with a treasure trove of lesser-known but vibrantly lively period works. In the end we get a good listen to the newly installed Sono Luminus organ, which sounds just right. And then the program scores big to my ears with a wide-ranging, musically ravishing collection of Baroque gems for the season. Highly recommended.

-- Gapplegate Classical Modern Music Review