This new release is part of the Best Loved series, covering a substantial selection of iconic and entertaining works from the Naxos catalogue. This series will be accompanied by supplementary online playlists. Includes works by Purcell, Bach, Handel, Couperin and Rameau taken from recordings such as Wolfgang Rübsam’s Goldberg Variations (8.573921), Byrd’s Fantasias performed by Glen Wilson (8.572433), and Carillon from Poulenc’s Suite française played by Christopher D. Lewis (8.573364).

Classical Music

Despite his tragically short life, Nikos Skalkottas has now become recognized as one of the most important Greek composers of the 20th century. The modernist style of his earlier period is balanced by the four important mature neoclassical works presented here. Both the Sinfonietta and the Classical Symphony are expressions of the deep regard Skalkottas had for traditional forms blended with his unique musical language. Skalkottas was a violinist with the Athens State Orchestra, who are honoring his memory with this and future recordings of his works.

Grammy Award-winning clarinetist Todd Levy, who holds the principal chairs with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Santa Fe Opera, presents Rhapsodie, an astonishing array of classic 20th century works for his instrument. The rich palette of colors and immense versatility of the clarinet is on full display in impressionistic Debussy and Ravel, Cubanisto-style Bernstein, pastoral Finzi, the folk idioms of Bartok, klezmer inspiration by Bela Kovacs, blues-infected Libby Larsen and genre-bending Paquito D’Rivera. Todd’s technical wizardry is flawless throughout and is matched by his collaborators, pianists Jeannie Wu and Elena Abend, and guitarist Rene Izquierd. Todd Levy has received critical acclaim throughout his career. “It takes but a single solo at a Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert to fall under the spell of principal clarinetist Todd Levy’s fluid tone and expressive phrasing. In his new CD, Brahms/Schumannn… the Avie label has given the classical music world compelling evidence of an artistic treasure that belongs to Milwaukee.” (Milwaukee Magazine)

Members of the Brodsky Quartet meet the internationally famous flautist Lisa Friend in an album of key works of the flute repertoire: Mozart's flute quartets. Highly praised for previous recordings, her own compositions, solo recitals in Europe, the US, and Asia, as well as appearances with prestigious orchestras, Lisa Friend devotes her very first recording on Chandos to witty, colorful interpretations or Mozart. The flute quartets of Mozart are central to the classical flute repertoire - and deservedly so: the composer's characteristic charm, wit, beauty, and elegance are in evidence throughout. These works convincingly embody Mozart's desire to compose music that engages trained musicians, while also entrancing lay listeners without their necessarily knowing, precisely why.

A vibrant mix of creole heritage. The music of Sakili is from the island Rodrigues, a small volcanic island just east of Mauritius. The island’s European and African influences - waltzes, polka, mazurka, Scottish - all blend harmoniously with the ségadrum rhythms to intertwine the past musical traditions of African slaves with the western world. The three members of Sakili (Francis Prosper, Vallen Pierre Louis and Ricardo Legentil) had their own solo careers and were put together in 2019 by Mauritian artistic director Percy Yip Tong. The purpose of the group’s formation was for a European tour to introduce the rarely heard music of the Rodrigues island.

This new collection of pieces for Lyrical Clarinet follows Michael Collins’ first volume which included sonatas by Poulenc and Saint-Saens. This varied repertoire ranges from short, cheerful numbers to romantic and enchanting, and brilliantly displays the incredible technical and dynamic range of the instrument. Clarinetist Michael Collins has won multiple awards for his performance, namely the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year Award in 2007. He has also become increasingly regarded as a conductor, and currently serves as Principal Conductor of the City of London Sinfonia.

This is the third volume in the EP series ‘The Library’ – a series that explores both the history, and the new horizons, of The King’s Singers close-harmony repertoire. Close-harmony is the part of their work for which they are best known, and their library of thousands of arrangements is one they’re determined to explore, maintain and develop. The track-listing is designed to celebrate some old favorites from the library alongside brand new arrangements and adaptations, created especially for these recordings, which may perhaps become ‘old favorites’ of the future. The King’s Singers were founded on 1 May 1968 by six choral scholars who had recently graduated from King’s College Cambridge. Their vocal line-up was (by chance) two countertenors, a tenor, two baritones and a bass, and the group has never wavered from this formation since.

After acclaimed recordings of music by the great masters, Lucas Debargue shines much-needed light on a composer he is determined must be heard: Milosz Magin (1929 – 1999). ‘Magin’s style is capable of both enchanting and surprising us,’ the French pianist says. ‘Few composers of his time were so open to cultivating the art of writing beautiful melodies.’ Born in Poland in 1929, Magin settled in Paris in 1960. After a car accident in 1963 he traded a career as one of Poland’s greatest pianists for that of an imaginative composer who would never forget the traditions of his homeland. Magin’s greatest inspiration was Chopin, another Pole who made Paris his home and whose piano works Magin recorded for Decca. The two composers are buried next to one another in Paris. Magin’s music shares much of the same lucid, distilled quality as that of his forbear, as well as a pianistic elegance that speaks of France and Poland in equal measure. ‘His music has been resonating in my mind’s ear for the last twenty years,’ says Debargue, whose first piano teacher was a student of Magin and ‘admired him not only as an inspired composer but also as a pianist and as a teacher whose advice on interpretative matters had often proved invaluable to her. His music has played a crucial role in my life. I grew up with it’, continues the French pianist. The pieces written for children, especially Magin’s Miniature Polonaises of which he presents Nostalgie du pays, were one of the first works he learnt with his first piano teacher.  When Debargue included Magin’s Nostalgie du pays at a recital in Paris, the composer’s granddaughter Alexandra contacted him. A correspondence began and a world of unpublished music saw the light of day.TRACKLIST1.           Andante pour violon et piano    Concerto No. 3 pour piano, cordes et percussions    2.           I. Allegro con fuoco - Allegro Appassionato    3.           II. Allegro    4.           III. Presto    5.           IV. Adagio    6.           V. Allegro con fuoco    7.           Vocalise No. 2 - Andantino    8.           Vocalise No. 3 - Vivace    9.           Nostalgie du pays, extrait des Miniatures Polonaises    Concerto Rustico pour violon, cordes et percussions    10.         I. Allegro    11.         II. Andantino    12.         III. Presto    13.         Vocalise No. 1 - Andante    14.         Vocalise No. 4 - Andantino    ​​​​​​​15.         Stabat Mater pour cordes et timbales

The late, great Dave Brubeck surely would appreciate this album, which is a tribute to the legacy of jazz giant. Sabine Kuhlich and Laia Genc have chosen some of Brubeck’s greatest work to cover, including possibly his most well-known pieces, Unsquare Dance and Take Five. Vocalist and saxophonist Sabine Kuhlich has studied jazz in New York City as well as Amsterdam. She is also a passionate composer, and an incredible arranger. She has been teacher of the Jazz Department at the Conservatory Maastricht since 2006. Laia Genc is a modern jazz pianist also based in Germany. She performs frequently with Blue Art Orchestra and Miss Jones Big Band, and is active at jazz festivals across Europe.

Towards the end of his life, short of money and heavily in debt, Mozart had the opportunity to visit King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia – a famous patron of the arts and a keen and above-average musician. Mozart performed for the King and left with some cash and a commission for a set of six string quartets, of which these are the only three he completed. They are ground-breaking in the way in which Mozart utilised the voicing of the instruments. King Friedrich was a viola da gamba player turned cellist, and these works feature extensive melodies for the cello, usually in a high register, thus emancipating the cello from the bass line and introducing a more evenly blended texture. Firmly established as one of the leading quartets of their generation, the Doric String Quartet enjoys a worldwide reputation and has performed at festivals and concert halls around the globe. Exclusive Chandos artists, the Quartet has drawn widespread critical acclaim for its recordings and won a number of prestigious awards.

REVIEW:

Their collective tone is both sweet and sinewy, with vibrato used for expressive effect rather than as a default setting. Contrapuntal textures are ideally lucid.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, Sept. 2021)

Krzysztof Meisinger writes of his new release: “When I was asked to write an introduction to my début album for Chandos, I wondered for a long time what it should be about. My artistic path? The key to the program selection for the album? Or maybe my subjective description of the pieces I have recorded? I decided to explain in a few words my relationship with the guitar – a difficult relationship, full of passion, but also of doubts. It all started with delight. The guitar has always been a magical instrument to me. While playing, the musician is in direct contact with the string and the sound. The players, these ‘magicians’, whose recordings fascinated me at the beginning of my musical education were Andrés Segovia and Julian Bream. Thanks to them, I understood that the guitar is the instrument of my life, and that it is to its kind that I want to devote my artistic energies.

"A little time later, I started to notice some imperfections, which made me ask different questions. Why is the guitar repertoire so small, when you compare it to that of other concert instruments? Why is the guitar not able to convey all those emotions which I want to express? It took me some time looking before I came upon the answer. And the answer was this: to turn all those ‘disadvantages’ into virtues. After all, a guitar cannot be pretentious. It is what it is, a guitar –an intimate, sublime, beautiful instrument... It is the most honest mirror of the musician. It reaches the deepest corners of the soul, and allows both the performer and the listener to touch heaven in a nasty world.”

REVIEW:

Someone will eventually write a book about how and why so many excellent guitarists emerged from Eastern Europe, a region in whose music the guitar played only a minor role. This album, the Chandos debut of Krzysztof Meisinger, is one of the best so far.

The title, Elogio de la Guitarra (or "Praise of the Guitar"), makes it sound like a spiritual essay, but in fact, this is a piece of virtuoso display. None of Meisinger's selections is even close to being a chestnut, and fans will welcome these commanding performances... Chandos backs Meisinger with excellent sound, picking up the physicality of the guitarist's performances but not loading them down with extra-musical noise. An exciting, impressive debut.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

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.

On her second volume of Polish violin works, Jennifer Pike presents works by Bacewicz, Poldowski, and Szymanowski. Renowned for her “dazzling interpretative flair and exemplary technique” (Classic FM), violinist Jennifer Pike has taken the musical world by storm with her unique artistry and compelling insight into music from the Baroque to the present day. (Chandos)

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.

Judith Bingham is established as one of the foremost British composers writing for the organ. The powerfully atmospheric and evocative music in this recording richly demonstrates her gift for creating compelling works which draw inspiration from a broad range of historical, literary and artistic sources. The Åkerman & Lund organ of Västerås Cathedral is the perfect vehicle for this colorful program, and both Heaven and Earth and Eternal Procession for two organs also feature the cathedral’s Fredriksborg choir organ. Tom Winpenny’s acclaimed recording of Bingham’s Jacob’s Ladder and other works for organ can be heard on Naxos 8.572687.

In April, the United Kingdom celebrated the birthday of the longest serving monarch in British history. This release is the perfect soundtrack to the celebrations. Some of Britain’s most popular artists and ensembles have gathered together for this two-disc set, which includes patriotic anthems and popular tunes. Musicians include Russell Watson, Jonathan and Charlotte, The Band of H.M. Royal Marines, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

MESSIAEN Visions de l’Amen. DEBUSSY En Blanc et noir • Ursula Oppens, Jerome Lowenthal (pn) • ÇEDILLE CDR 90000 119 (60:51)


In 1941, Olivier Messiaen was released from Görlitz prison camp, where he had been taken following the fall of France in the Second World War. Visions de l’Amen for two pianos was his first large work after this. The listener will search in vain for any shred of a reaction to the war in this music: Messiaen was inhabiting an intellectual and spiritual space far removed from the ravages of war. It was premiered in Paris in 1943 by the composer and his brilliant 19-year-old pupil, and eventual wife, Yvonne Loriod. Her part—taken by Ursula Oppens on the current disc—“has the rhythmic difficulties, the bunches of chords, everything concerned with speed, allure, and quality of sound”; his had “the principal melody, the thematic elements, everything demanding emotion and power.” So Messiaen wrote in the preface to the score.


Messiaen offers seven meditations on various theological subjects, somewhat tenuously linked by the idea of “Amens,” much as he was to do in his next great cycle, Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus , where another difficult-to-translate word, regard , is used to provide cohesion to the 20 meditations on the birth of Christ. In Visions de l’Amen , the first piece represents an act of creation—no less than the Creation of the Universe—while the last describes the final Consummation. The second and fifth illustrate the adoration of God by cosmic and celestial creatures; the third and sixth describe the suffering of Jesus and of humanity; the central fourth piece is about desire “in its highest spiritual sense,” as the composer put it.


A considerable degree of cohesion over these disparate pieces is achieved by the use of a single theme, the theme of Creation, in four sequences of chords. This provides the material for most of the seven movements. As he was to do with Vingt Regards , Messiaen allots the first movement to a statement of the theme. In this case, over 39 measures, it is played five times by Lowenthal while Oppens contributes metrically complex, bell-like music (“bells shivering in the Light,” as the composer put it). The opening, pianissimo , is wonderfully evocative. The low chords of Creation, deep inside the piano, are barely more than a cosmic growl, Oppens and Lowenthal drawing in the listener compellingly. This opening Amen of Creation is one long crescendo and the players sculpt the increasing dynamics with complete conviction so that the apparently abrupt cut-off is surprising, even on repeated listening.


Jerome Lowenthal observes in his CD notes that, on its first performance, Visions de l’Amen aroused immediate enthusiasm in some and annoyance in others, and it is in pieces like the fourth movement, Amen of Desire , that the possibly annoyed listener is tested the most. Messiaen has two themes of Desire, the first somewhat sweet, the second extraordinarily saccharine, if vigorous. Yet it is essential that we remember that Messiaen was completely sincere and unironic in this writing. It places a huge burden on the performers, who have to play with complete conviction if all parties are not to collapse in laughter. Paul Griffiths in his book Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time describes this second theme as “[moving] through ever splashier paroxysms of cheapened harmony” and it is to their credit that Oppens and Lowenthal pull this movement off triumphantly.


If the first movement is a composed crescendo, the last, Amen of the Consummation , is a more or less continuous fortissimo . It is a tour de force in this recording: Lowenthal hammers out the Creation theme in the middle register while Oppens manages seemingly superhuman feats in the extreme upper and lower registers simultaneously, peal upon peal of bells pouring out. And, not content with starting this movement seemingly flat-out, both players are able to summon even more energy for the final measures, which are awe-inspiring.


Turning to the fine performance by Katia and Marielle Labèque on Erato, still sounding very good, it is clearly a recording one could live with very happily (as one has). However, the newcomer has the edge in terms of sheer weight of sound. That fuller sound picture emphasizes the intensity of Oppens’ and Lowenthal’s reading, which really takes no hostages. When the sustain pedal is finally released to cut off the huge reverberation of the final chords of the work, one realizes that the attention has been held for 46 minutes through the sheer conviction of all (composer and players) concerned.


Rather than provide more Messiaen, Cedille has opted for Debussy’s two-piano work En Blanc et noir (In White and Black). The link here is that Debussy wrote this music in the France of the First World War. If you’ll look in vain for references to war in Messiaen’s music, here there are a number of allusions, more or less elliptical, to it. The middle of three movements, Lent, Sombre , opens very somberly, and Oppens’ and Lowenthal’s performance brings out all the subsequent mercurial, shadowy shifts of mood and harmony. Their reading of En Blanc et noir is warmer than some—entirely to the advantage of the music—entirely clear and recommendable.


Ursula Oppens turns in a performance of the Messiaen whose “speed, allure, and quality of sound” are impeccable while providing a large amount of “emotion and power” as well, while Jerome Lowenthal is no less compelling in his performance. It’s a shame that Cedille provides only 10 seconds to recover from Visions de l’Amen before the Debussy breaks in, but this is a trivial cavil, faced with such a commanding and excellent disc.


FANFARE: Jeremy Marchant


What a great idea to pair two major 20th-century French two-piano works, both composed in wartime. More importantly, Ursula Oppens and Jerome Lowenthal prove an inspired pair, pianistically speaking. Throughout Visions de l'Amen's seven movements the pianists navigate the composer's tricky rhythms and frequently thick textural hurdles with impressive ensemble exactitude, uninhibited dynamism, and cogent organization of melodic and decorative elements. One good example of this can be found in the third movement, Amen de l'Agonie de Jésus, where, in the Bien modéré section, the second piano's fortissimo tune is perfectly contoured against the first piano's chords in the same register (left-hand forte, right-hand mezzo-forte). Similarly, the duo's long-lined animation and textural diversity in the seventh movement prevents the music from sounding long-winded and from bogging down.

Oppens commands the first piano part's big chords and wide leaps with the utmost solidity, definition, and rhythmic focus, and always knows when to dominate and pull back. Lowenthal has all of the good tunes (as well as the bad ones; I still cannot get through the second piano's sickly sweet fourth-movement solo without wincing), and he relishes accents more than certain of his discographical competitors. He also allows himself freedom in solo passages when expressively appropriate, such as in his ever-so-slight yet heart-quickening accelerandos under certain crescendos in the second movement.

In contrast to the lean and streamlined profile characterizing the Kontarsky brothers' reference recording of Debussy's En blanc et noir, Oppens and Lowenthal opt for full and generous sonorities, even when playing quietly. Although they seemingly employ as little sustain pedal as possible, a mellifluous yet strong legato quality emerges from massive chords, rapid bass-register rumblings, and fleeting flourishes. Who said you can't be impressionistic and clear at the same time? Save for slightly congested climaxes, the full-bodied engineering is excellent. Lowenthal's superb, highly informative annotations add further value to this desirable release.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

LECUONA TORINO; POLISH RADIO S.O./BARTOS THE PIANO MUSIC

Famed for his operatic music, Jake Heggie has always been a devoted and prolific songwriter. Three early song cycles for soprano and piano feature in this release, each cycle exploring the many varied facets of the three women depicted, who include Ophelia and Eve. Each was written for a specific singer and they all reflect Heggie’s very personal and exciting lexicon of musical influences, which range from folk and jazz to art song and music theatre.