Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Recorded 1962)

Baroque Bass Cantatas from Mügeln Archive offers a representative sampling of cantatas for bass voice from St. John’s Kantorei Archive, established in Mügeln (Saxony) in 1571. The cantatas presented here are from the first half of the 18th c. and were copied during the tenure of the music director Daniel Jacob Springsguth. All the composers were from the Saxony and Thuringia regions. The CD, featuring bass baritone Klaus Mertens and the Accademia Daniel under conductor Shalev Ad-El, demonstrates that even minor masters operating in the countryside could compose on a very high level.

A unique collaboration: the All-Star Orchestra's Music Director Gerard Schwarz guest conducts the United States Marine Band. Founded by an Act of Congress in 1798, it is America's oldest continually active musical ensemble. Three programs feature masterpieces for symphonic band and the history of the famed ensemble.

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s influence as composer and teacher was profound in Russia and beyond, yet his chamber music has been overshadowed by his operas and orchestral works. The unfinished Piano Trio in C minor was completed by his son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg to reveal a substantial work of considerable depth. César Cui’s charming and lyrical Farniente is an arrangement from a piano original, while Borodin’s Piano Trio in D major is reminiscent of Mendelssohn in its joyous agility and nostalgic beauty. The Brahms Trio is one of the leading Russian chamber ensembles. Since its foundation in 1990, the trio has regularly appeared at prestigious international concert venues. Legendary musicians such as Tatiana Gaidamovich, Alexander Bonduriansky (Moscow Trio), Valentin Berlinsky (Borodin Quartet) and Rudolf Barshai have had a significant influence on the formation of the performing style and career of the trio. The Brahms Trio has made an invaluable contribution to enlarging the chamber repertoire by rediscovering unknown piano trios of Russian composers of the late 19th and early 20th century.

REVIEW:

The latest release in this excellent Naxos series of Russian Piano Trios features Rimsky-Korsakov’s rarely performed Piano Trio in C Minor, César Cui’s À Argenteau No. 2. Farniente (version for piano trio), and Alexander Borodin’s Piano Trio in D Major. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s chamber music has been overshadowed by his operas and orchestral works. The unfinished Piano Trio in C minor was completed by his son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg to reveal a substantial work of considerable depth. César Cui’s charming and lyrical Farniente is an arrangement from a piano original, while Borodin’s Piano Trio in D major is reminiscent of Mendelssohn in its joyous agility and nostalgic beauty. The outstanding, award-winning Brahms Trio, founded 1988, has performed and recorded much of Russian piano trio repertoire and has made a significant contribution to enlarging the chamber repertoire by rediscovering unknown music by Russian composers of the late-19th and early-20th century.

– New-Classics.co.uk

There are instruments and then there are instruments … On the one hand a violin, trumpet or lead guitar so firmly planted in the spotlight that everyone else on stage is reduced to a supporting role. On the other a bassoon, double bass, drum set or Hammond organ, providing the harmonic and rhythmic backdrop against which the soloist can shine But what if the background instruments rebel? What if they strike back? ORBI – the Oscillating Revenge of the Background Instruments – is the result: four musicians making their bass-heavy instruments howl and growl (and sing!) in a mix of symphonic rock, thrusting metal and a little blues, 100% instrumental and lead-singer free. Of this Dutch quartet, Bram (on bassoon) and Rick (double bass) both pursue high-profile careers in classical music. Marijn (percussion) is classically trained but also studied in West Africa and India, and is active in many musical genres as well as multimedia projects. And keyboardist Sven Figee, finally, plays jazz, pop and rock in various constellations. Choosing from their own favourite playlists, and with the help of arranger Marijn van Prooijen, they have come up with a mix of music and sounds that is as weird and wonderful as it is surprising and addictive.

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REVIEW:

There are a couple of old favourites – it was great to hear, for example, the Led Zeppelin classic ‘Since I’ve been Loving You,’ especially in this attractive, novel arrangement.

This disc is far, far more than a novelty album. It easily bears repeated listening – and in doing so effortlessly raises a smile. Moreover, it provides an object lesson in the art of arrangement; it is a sublime example of ‘genre-bending’. I only hope that this quartet find time outside their busy schedules to make ORBI II at some point in the not too distant future.

– MusicWeb International

Albert Camus once wrote ‘when I describe what the catastrophe of modern man looks like, music comes into my mind – the music of Gustav Mahler’. If asked to specify a particular work, it is quite possible that Camus would have proposed Symphony No. 6 in A minor – the symphony that Bruno Walter claimed portrayed ‘a terrifying, hopeless darkness, without a human sound’. Nevertheless, the period during which Mahler wrote his Sixth was one of the most successful and happiest of his life – prior to any marital difficulties, at the time of the birth of his second daughter Anna, his professional reputation growing. Alma Mahler, in her memoirs, suggested that the symphony was in fact predicting instances of future distress in the composer’s own life, and she and various commentators have proposed various interpretations of different elements. Most famous of these are possibly the hammer strokes in the Finale, falling, according to Alma, like ‘blows of fate’ on the ‘hero’ of the symphony. But Osmo Vänskä has a reputation for engaging with even the most iconic scores at face value, avoiding preconceived ideas and ‘time-honored’ traditions.

His and the Minnesota Orchestra’s recording of Mahler’s Sixth follows upon the 2017 release of the composer’s Fifth Symphony. Nominated to a 2018 Grammy Award, that interpretation has been described as ‘at once committed and detached, intense and transcendentally timeless’ (Norman Lebrecht) and ‘an exceptional performance that promises great things to come’ (allmusic.com).

REVIEWS:

The Finnish maestro opts for the revised order of middle movements, the searing andante preceding the scherzo, with its “old fatherly”, Ländler-like trio. The Minnesotans shine in the eerie sonorities of the finale, building to another allegro energico, but ending, movingly, in the minor tonality.

– Sunday Times (UK)

The interpretation here is intensely focused and utterly compelling, and the playing is impassioned and unnervingly vivid in the multichannel format, so listeners who loved the exceptional analog versions by Solti and Tennstedt or modern digital recordings by Abbado, Tilson Thomas, and Pappano can be sure that Vänskä's audiophile version ranks just as high in quality. The integrity of the performance and the expressive heights that are achieved carry the day and make Vänskä's recording essential for Mahler buffs.

– All Music Guide

The compositions on this new release by The President’s Own Marine Band were all composed during the last century. They draw, however, on traditional American spirituals, ballads, folk tunes, and rags from the American Revolution to the present. The title of this release, “Be Glad Then, America,” is taken from New England Triptych by William Schuman, which is included on this album. Particularly notable are the three world premiere recordings: “For The President’s Own,” by John Williams, Aaron Copland’s “Third Symphony,” and a set of songs by Charles Ives set for this world class ensemble.

"These two symphonies - the fourth premiered in 1942 in Cleveland, the ninth in 1969 in Philadelphia - are full of arresting moments, both emotionally and in terms of orchestral effects. . . These pieces are layered with dark mysteries that make you want to hear them again and again. Also, the recording quality drawn from Seattle's Benaroya Hall is outstanding." - David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, May 29th, 2005

"...Though separated by decades, the two war symphonies are exceptional -- exemplary showcases of "The American Sound" in symphonic music (i.e. athletic, modal, spacious, dramatic, starkly songful). They are soundscapes full of mass sonority, vigor and seriousness. The performances and recordings are brand new and superb." - John Simon, Buffalo News, Sunday, May 22nd, 2005


Click Here for the complete Naxos American Classic Series

The pianist Anthony Spiri is considered among today's most respected vocal accompanists, chamber musicians and soloists. Born in the USA, he received his training in Cleveland and Boston before removing to Europe where he completed his studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Mr. Spiri is a professor of piano chamber music at Cologne's Musikhochschule. Special attention in the pianist's discography is given over to his modern piano recordings of Bach, father & sons, as is demonstrated here via this W.F. Bach release, his follow-up to his earlier OehmsClassics Faure release.

Without doubt, Linus Roth is a serious and thoughtful musician with a technical gift that allows him to be unfazed by even the most demanding writing. The Shostakovich gets a strongly individual and brooding reading; indeed, this is as fine a concerto recording as I have heard in recent times. The Tchaikovsky is just about as good. The sound is excellent. The orchestra surrounds the soloist without hemming him in, orchestral detail is weighty without being synthetically highlighted. The wide range of tone Roth draws from his "Dancla" Stradivarius is beautifully caught.

– MusicWeb International

The second half of the 18th c. and beyond witnessed the widespread popularity in Germanic and Hapsburg regions of a particular type of wind ensemble of varying forces known as Harmonie. The repertoire consisted of divertissements, cassations, serenades and nocturnes, performed for the most part outdoors, as well as “dining music” played at important banquets, and Harmoniemusik heard at parties and ceremonies. Original pieces were performed together with transcriptions of celebrated works, such as this adaptation by Wenzel Sedlak of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Encapsulating the voluptuous sound of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s strings, Tasmin Little is both the soloist and conductor in this unique coupling: Vivaldi’s ever-popular ‘Four Seasons’ meets Roxanna Panufnik’s ‘Four World Seasons,’ the premiere recording of a set of highly inspirational pieces. As a complete cycle, ‘The Four Seasons’ offers a set of vivid tableaux, imaginative, enticing, and wonderfully contrasted, with ample chance for the violin soloist to display technique, sensitivity, and color. These are qualities that the British composer Roxanna Panufnik also sought for her own Seasons tribute, Four World Seasons, written for the violinist. Three of the pieces are dedicated to her, while the fourth, ‘Autum in Albania,’ is dedicated to the memory of Panufnik’s father, Polish composer Sir Andrzej Panufnik, who, his daughter says, was born, loved, and died in autumn.

Also available on standard DVD

This is L.A. Opera's latest production of Giuseppe Verdi's ''Macbeth'' featuring Placido Domingo in the title role alongside the Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk as Lady Macbeth. The opera is staged by Darko Tresnjak, who won a Tony Award for his direction of the Broadway music ''A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.'' ''Placido Domingo commands the stage and the music he sings...He was genuinely impressive.'' (Los Angeles Times) ''When I was a young tenor, I loved playing romantic or heroic leading roles. When I began to add baritone parts to my repertoire six years ago, I was particularly interested in playing fathers, as I could draw from my own experience as a family man. Macbeth is a completely different kind of role for me. He is a murderer, but I think that he is also something of a victim, drawn into his crimes by the witches and by Lady Macbeth.'' (Placido Domingo)

During his time William Schuman (1910?1992) was a notable part of American musical life, as a teacher, administrator, and composer. His legacy of musical compositions is significant and distinctive, and this release couples two striking examples of his art.


Symphony No. 7, premiered by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony in 1960, is in four movements played continuously, beginning with a pregnant, sinewy, and dark, slow movement that is succeeded by a brief Scherzo that is typically pugnacious and characteristically scored, not least in the percussion. The slow mood returns for a radiant Cantabile intensamente that grows in emotion, and the symphony concludes with a propulsive finale that begins skittishly (reminding us of Copland and developing an exuberance that suggests Leonard Bernstein) and ends in thrilling clamor. Whether this lively movement is quite the expected corollary to what has gone before is a moot point, although there is no doubting the sheer quality of the music, and the uplift of the final measures.


Symphony No. 10, ?American Muse,? was first heard in Washington, DC, in 1976, Antal Dorati conducting the National Symphony Orchestra. Leonard Slatkin and the Chicago Symphony then took it up, and Slatkin recorded American Muse , dedicated ?to the country?s creative artists, past, present and future,? and other works of Schuman, for RCA with the Saint Louis Symphony in either 1991 or 1992 (RCA?s booklet doesn?t specify what was recorded when). It?s a great piece, the last of Schuman?s 10 symphonies (the first two were withdrawn by the composer), a vindication of writing real symphonic music, and begins with a sustained, brass dominated Con fuoco that is a virtuoso display of considerable import; a tidal wave of communication. The lengthy Larghissimo that follows is hauntingly beautiful, very personal, even private, but it steals to the listener?s heart, and the finale, having begun in exploratory fashion, is an optimistic summation.


Both Slatkin and Gerard Schwarz are deeply sympathetic conductors of Schuman?s music, but I imagine Slatkin?s version of ?American Muse? is now deleted. Schwarz?s leading of both symphonies is excellent; so, too, the sound quality; and the music is superb. With Schuman 4 and 9 already released from Seattle, one hopes the other four symphonies will follow. Very important.


FANFARE: Colin Anderson

Vol.2 in the Toccata Classics cycle of the complete string quartets of Matthews (b. 1943). The American critic Reilly described the music on Volume One as ‘some of the most concentrated, penetrating writing for this medium in the past 30 years or more. It is musical thinking of the highest order and quartet writing in the great tradition of Beethoven, Bartok, Britten, and Tippett’.

Classical Music

The Brook Street Band has easily earned its reputation as “the smartest new baroque band around” (The Times, London). Among today’s most notable Handel specialists, the group’s founder, cellist Tatty Theo, and harpsichordist, Carolyn Gibley, turn their attention for only the second time to the music of J.S. Bach as well as his son Carl Philip Emmanuel. Like father, like son, each wrote three Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. These works have long been a valued part of the cello repertoire, but this recording is the first to make use of a regular four-string baroque cello.

A complete edition of all Gaspare Spontini’s vocal chamber-music pieces currently known is presented here for the first time. These pieces were composed for all sorts of purposes and performed in the circles of private drawing rooms. This recording, which is the outcome of an extensive, meticulous work on the sources, includes the collections, the independent tunes and, in the appendixes, the modified or translated pieces, the drafts and sketches, and the original contemporary arrangements.