These composers were all affected by the carnage of World War I, and their elegiac music expresses regret and lost innocence, love won and lost, sacrifice and death. George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, conceived as an epilogue to his Housman song cycles, encapsulates the poet’s sense of life’s transience. Ivor Gurney was both shot and gassed in 1917, and The Trumpet pleads with mankind to set aside the folly of war. Heard here in a new completion, Gerald Finzi’s Requiem da Camera mourns the death of his mentor Ernest Farrar and those of other fallen artists, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s An Oxford Elegy recalls lost friends with an intense and magical nostalgia.

Decades before World Music became an established category, Béla Bartók was roaming the Eastern European countryside, collecting folk tunes with fellow composer Zoltan Kodaly. He snapped up songs from his native Hungary, but also toted his phonograph on tune-gathering trips to Romania, Slovakia and Turkey. He spent much of 1943 on a research fellowship at Columbia University transcribing Serbo-Croatian folk songs.

As violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong demonstrate on this new recording, Bartók fashioned some vibrant and colorful arrangements from his folk journeys.

Ehnes has been a familiar face in New York lately; last summer, he performed on a New York Philharmonic broadcast from Van Cortlandt Park and also made a stop for a WQXR Café Concert. He’s been busy in the recording studio too; this wraps a three-part Bartók cycle.

The three sets of folk songs on this recording illustrate how Bartók embraced the tangy exotic modes and wild irregular rhythms of the countryside, which freed him from "the tyranny of major and minor scales," as he put it. Two sets of Hungarian Folks Songs features some jaunty dialogues with the piano and some added effects – pizzicato, harmonics – to make a splash. The Romanian Folk Dances ratchet up the momentum further, particularly in the final “Polka” and the rollicking “Fast Dance.”

The sonatas offer a striking contrast but there's much to admire here too. A Bach-like grandeur underscores the unaccompanied Sonata (1944), written in the in the final months of Bartók's life for Yehudi Menuhin, and yet more traces of Hungarian folk melodies turn up in the Violin Sonata in E minor, written a half-century earlier.

-- WQXR, Album of the Week [1/20/2013]

An important centre for iron production in 17th-century Sweden, Leufsta Bruk came into the hands of the De Geers, a Dutch family, in the 1640s. In 1730 the young Charles De Geer inherited the estate and the ironworks, and it was here that he kept his extensive collection of sheet music, including many volumes imported from Amsterdam but also works by composers based in or visiting Sweden, such as Hinrich Philip Johnsen and Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch. Charles played the cello and the harpsichord, and it is probable that much of the music in the Leufsta collection will have been performed by members of the De Geer family themselves. The collection, now housed in the library of the University of Uppsala, thus offers fascinating insights into domestic music-making in 18th-century Sweden. This is the third album to present music from the collection, and the first to focus on vocal music. It also features the famous organ in the church belonging to the estate, built in 1728 by Johan Niclas Cahman. Ranging from Swedish chorales to French opera, the varied selection is performed by soprano Elin Rombo and members of Rebaroque, one of the leading baroque ensembles in Sweden.

Alexey Stanchinsky was considered an outstanding student by his teacher Taneyev, his work anticipating Stravinsky, Prokofiev and others, paving the way towards many aspects of twentieth-century style. His tragic early death and publishing difficulties meant that his music was hidden for decades. Volume 1 of this complete edition contains his entire output until 1910, including several world premiere recordings and revealing his early melodic gift and sophisticated virtuosity. Pianist Olga Solovieva was born in Moscow, graduated from the Russian Academy of Music, Moscow, and took a postgraduate course as an assistant to Leonid Blok. Since 2004 she has been a professor at the Gnessin State Musical College, and has given masterclasses in Ireland and Belgium. Solovieva was a prizewinner of the 1999 Taneyev Competition of Chamber Ensembles, a finalist of the 2000 XX Chamber Music Competition in Trapani, Italy, a 2010 Boris Tchaikovsky Society Award Winner, and was awarded the Best Accompanist Prize at the XII International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In May 2019 she received the Russian public award for her contribution to the development of the musical art and the Glinka Medal.

A symphonic profile of eight outstanding French composers of the 19th & 20th centuries, with the majority of recordings featuring Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Csurgo Zenekar: Music of Hungary

Vienna around 1900 was a melting-pot in several ways: a city attracting artists from the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire where bohemian writers and musicians rubbed shoulders with aristocrats and establishment figures, and where late-Romanticism co-existed uneasily with the Wiener Moderne aesthetic of the fin-de-siècle. In the visual arts, Jugendstil (or Wiener Secession) was all the rage: its curlicues, floral patterns and fluid lines were seen everywhere – in architecture, interior design and graphic arts. In music, the term is usually associated with composers such as Mahler, Zemlinsky and Korngold, but also early works by Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. Following on three previous acclaimed recital albums on BIS, Camilla Tilling and Paul Rivinius have devised a programme with songs by these very composers, written between 1898 and 1916. The songs range from the Einfache Lieder by a teenaged Korngold to Zemlinsky’s set of Walzer-Gesänge based on Tuscan folk poems and the much-loved Rückert-Lieder by Mahler. Schoenberg is represented by his Op. 2 collection 4 Lieder and his student Berg by the set of Sieben frühe Lieder, from 1905–08.

The Philadelphia-based baroque orchestra Tempesta di Mare here reveals an unparalleled musical legacy, presenting long forgotten works by the German baroque composer Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, confined for centuries to unexamined archives. The works formed part of an enormous music collection which belonged to Sara Levy, the great-aunt of Felix Mendelssohn. She was a distinguished harpsichordist, collector, and influential figure in the musical life of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Berlin. Removed from the Berlin Sing-Akademie towards the end of World War II, her musical library was for many decades considered lost or destroyed. It was unearthed in Kiev only in 1999 and returned to Germany in 2001, where it is now again accessible to the public. While there can be no doubt that the instrumental oeuvre of Janitsch matched the diversity of that of some of his more prominent Berlin colleagues, the emphasis of his compositional output lay on chamber music, especially Quadros, four of which are featured here. The typical, prevailing dialogic structure of the Ouverture grosso highlights the influence which thematic play had on the rest of his work.

This is the seventh album in the first complete recording of the 72 cantatas from Georg Philipp Telemann's collection Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, published in Hamburg in 1726 — the first complete set of cantatas for the liturgical year to appear in print. The cantatas are designated for voice, an obbligato instrument (recorder, violin, transverse flute or oboe) and basso continuo, and generally take the form of two da capo arias with an intervening recitative. Although intended for worship, both public and private, Telemann's cantatas are a masterly blend of tunefulness with skilled counterpoint and vocal and instrumental virtuosity. Bergen Barokk was established by Frode Thorsen and Hans Knut Sveen in 1994 in connection with a concert series supported by the city arts department in Bergen and is today one of the leading early-music ensembles in Norway. The group has performed in concerts and radio broadcasts in Europe, Russia and the USA. Its recordings on Simax Classics, BIS, Bergen Digital Studio, LAWO and Toccata Classics include German, English, Italian and French repertoire.

Remember Soyeon Kate Lee’s 2008 Zankel Hall recital, where she appeared in a concert gown constructed from 6000 recycled grape juice containers? Not surprisingly her outfit got more press than her actual music making, but the fact is that Lee is a splendid pianist who doesn’t need gimmicks. Her first appearance in Naxos’ complete Liszt piano music cycle attests to this.

Lee’s shapely and sonorous handling of the thick pianistic hurdles throughout Liszt’s transcription of the Sarabande and Chaconne from Handel’s Singspiel Almira holds interest in terms of technique and stamina, although the music is deadly dull. By contrast, Liszt’s paraphrase based on Gounod’s Hymne a Sainte Cecile thoroughly improves upon the original composition, where Lee’s contouring of the multi-thematic textural layers proves more pliable and forward moving than in Leslie Howard’s comparatively square (though no less sensitive) rendition.

So far as Liszt’s transcription from Joachim Raff’s forgotten opera König Alfred, Lee does not differentiate the opening Andante finale’s foreground and background material with Leslie Howard’s variety, yet she’s more animated and energetic in the subsequent Marsch. Lee also plays the Gounod transcriptions from Romeo et Juliette and La reine de Saba with a lovely lyrical sensitivity. The better known Valse from Gounod’s Faust paraphrase features scrupulous and crisply dispatched fingerwork, but the interpretation is a bit cut and dried, falling short of Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s glittery panache or the dynamic and rhythmic heft of Earl Wild and Egon Petri. However, she takes the opening section of Liszt’s transcription of Spohr’s Die Rose Romanze at a faster clip and with more vocally oriented phrasing than in Howard’s slower, more static traversal, heightening the music’s rich harmonic invention in the process. Annotations and engineering are first rate. In all, a strong entry in Naxos’ ongoing Liszt series.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Bernard Herrmann was famous for his film scores, but he was also a leading figure in music for radio, to which he brought his inimitable palette of mood and sonority. Whitman, whose subject is Walt Whitman’s collection of poems Leaves of Grass, was a 1944 radio drama, a genre now much neglected but revived in this newly restored version. Psycho: A Narrative for String Orchestra is not a suite or excerpts from the film but a concert work, re-ordered and re-composed, while Souvenirs de voyage is one of the most polished and seductive of all American chamber works.

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REVIEWS:

Gil-Ordóñez and the PostClassical Ensemble have plenty of experience with Herrmann and perform the music with the proper heated quality. The result is an album that will be essential for Herrmann fans but also of great interest to general listeners.

– AllMusic Guide

With a narrator as Whitman, and a chamber sized orchestra to add impact and color, these many years after the end of the WWII (around the time of its original broadcast), it still carries a profound message. Souvenirs de voyage came towards the end of Herrmann’s life, and was proof of his range of genres that today are overlooked in favor of his film scores. It is a beautiful score, blessed with attractive melodic material and couched in subtle colors. Herrmann was to re-compose music from Psycho years later to form a concert work. It was rediscovered by conductor John Mauceri in 1999.

It would be difficult to imagine finer performances from a number of performers, Whitman, being a World Premiere Recording with the conductor, Angel Gil-Ordonez and the Washington-based PostClassical Ensemble, William Sharp the ideal narrator. Top quality sound, and It comes with an excellent booklet.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The organ compositions of Olivier Messiaen firmly established the composer as a figure of 20th century music. This release features his well-known works L’Ascension and Le banquet celeste, along with two pieces which were discovered posthumously in 1997, Offrande au Saint-Sacrement, and Prelude. Organist Tom Winpenny does an outstanding job in these performances, which were recorded at the organ at St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland.

The German violinist Friedrich Seitz was born in Günthersleben near Gotha in 1848 and died in Dessau in 1918. He served as a conductor in Sondershausen, where he had studied, as concert-master in Magdeburg and from 1884 as Court Concert-Master in Dessau. He was particularly active as a teacher, and is remembered for his Schülerkonzerte, teaching concertos, which introduce pupils to something of nineteenth-century concerto technique and remain a part of teaching repertoire. On this new release, violinist Hyejin Chung and pianist Warren Lee explore his five Concertos for Violin and Piano- by far his most successful works. Hyejin Chung studied with Takako Nishizaki at the Academy for Performing Arts in Hong Kong and graduated with an Advanced Certificate in violin performance. Subsequently she went to Russia and studied with S.I. Kravchenko, a student and assistant of Leonid Kogan, at the Moscow State Conservatory. After settling in Hong Kong, she focused on playing chamber music and teaching advanced students at the Takako Nishizaki Violin Studio. This is her second recording for Naxos.

Perhaps no other musical style has exerted a greater influence on the culture of the first half of the 20th century than Jazz. This utterly American music travelled to every corner of the globe: From Shanghai to St. Petersburg; from New Orleans to New Dehli, from Harlem to well... Haarlem. While classical composers embraced the rhythmic vitality and melodic freedom of their own compositions, others sought to legitimize Jazz in the concert hall including: Debussy, Stravinsky, Hindemith and Shostakovich and of course Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington.

Classical Music

Written during the summer of 1875, Antonín Dvorák's Symphony No. 5 in F Major, Op. 76 is considered the first work in which Dvorák found his way to a new symphonic idiom. It's noticeable inflections of Bohemian folklore, accompanied by almost Schubertian phrases, infuse the symphony with light and give it buoyancy. Two of Dvorák's many one-movement orchestral pieces, In Nature´s Realm Op. 91 and the Scherzo capriccioso Op. 66, serve as considerable, substantial encores. Karel Mark Chichon (OBE) is Chief Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbru¨cken Kaiserslautern.

For its second album on Chandos, the young Ferio Saxophone Quartet presents a set of unique arrangements of milestones from the baroque repertoire, from Corelli via Bach to Handel. Including many premiere recordings, these fresh interpretations, full of flair and vitality, played on instruments that combine elements of brass and woodwind, bring the tunes and counterpoint to a fascinating new register. The Ferio Quartet plays with power, warmth, and dexterity. “Playing is of the highest level throughout.” (Classical Music) “Intensely musical performances… the artistry of the performances is beyond question.” (Gramophone) “The Ferio Quartet plays with a nimble technique, mature phrasing, exquisite and forceful dynamics, and excellent balance, blend, and teamwork.” (American Record Guide)

Apollo descends to earth and proposes marriage to Oebalus' daughter Melia. But when he goes to play discus with her brother Hyacinthus and his friend Zephyrus, a tragic accident occurs, after which nothing will ever be the same again... Classical Opera's series of Mozart's complete operas on Signum continues with the addition of Apollo et Hyacinthus, the second of his two stage works from 1767. The opera is sung in Latin, and is based on a colourful story from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Mozart was only eleven years old when he wrote this remarkable work, but the music is astonishingly accomplished, frequently anticipating the wonders of his maturity.

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Orchestral Performance!

Pulitzer and Erasmus Prize-winning composer John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of American music. His works stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. Adams describes My Father Knew Charles Ives as “an homage and encomium to a composer whose influence on me has been huge.” Harmonielehre was a deliberate move by Adams to expand his musical language beyond Minimalism, keeping its energetic pulse but embracing the rich tonal resources of the past to create a work that has accrued an aura of timelessness. Six-time GRAMMY Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrerois music director of the Nashville Symphony and the NFM Wroc?aw Philharmonic in Poland, as well as principal guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal. He has championed contemporary American music through numerous commissions, recordings and performances with the Nashville Symphony, presenting eleven world premieres of works by Michael Daugherty, Terry Riley, and others. As part of this commitment, he helped guide the creation of Nashville Symphony’s Composer Lab & Workshop initiative.

 

REVIEWS:

 

In point of fact, John Adams’ father did not know Charles Ives, but imagined that they had a good deal in common, and that was a springboard to a work that is unlike any other among Adams’ output. It’s not at all clear why My Father Knew Charles Ives has been so neglected. The work gets a detailed, sympathetic treatment here from Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Guerrero and the Nashvillians have done a major service by reviving My Father Knew Charles Ives.

 

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

 

Given the difference in ambiance and style between the two works, these brilliantly played and recorded performances might just make an ideal point of entry for those new to the composer.

 

 

– MusicWeb International

In 2015, Sony Classical reissued Die Walküre and Siegfried from the first digital recording of the Ring. “It has stood the test of time remarkably well”, observed ClassicsToday.com when the complete set, originally released in 1983, was last reissued. “The Staatskapelle Dresden plays spotlessly for Marek Janowski … An excellent ‘Ring’ experience.” Now the remaining two music dramas from this acclaimed cycle are again available separately. Gramophone in 1997 praised the “marvellously clean, spacious digital recording” and “Janowski’s fast, lyrical, wholly cogent reading [which] has the Dresden Staatskapelle playing with the utmost beauty from start to finish – try the start of Act 3 of Götterdämmerung – and with lean power when that’s called for … Voices and players are in an ideal relationship, which is not say that such [orchestral] passages as the Rhine Journey and Funeral March want anything in visceral excitement … Matti Salminen is a commanding, often subtle Hagen … The smaller parts, especially Rhinemaidens led by Lucia Popp, are well taken …