Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Erik Satie.

Violinist Tianwa Yang turns her attention to one of the great 19th century violin concertos, coupled with two of Mendelssohn's youthful yet astonishingly mature works.

REVIEW:

Young violinist Tianwa Yang has exceptional technique, and her vision in the great E minor concerto is unfailingly intelligent. The first movement is taken a touch on the slow side, giving the music added weight and seriousness. In the finale, too, Yang refuses to rush or indulge in empty showmanship, while the Andante’s singing melodies do just that. If there is any down side to her interpretation, it is this: older, wiser violinists such as Nathan Milstein shape the many moments of passagework to more purposeful effect, just as a masterful singer understands that coloratura expresses virtuosity but also can be phrased and articulated so as to heighten the emotion and intensity of the phrase. Yang isn’t quite in that league yet, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the playing as such. The accompaniments, similarly, won’t compare to the best versions featuring major orchestras, but they offer distinguished contributions nonetheless.

What makes this disc such a smart one, though, is the inclusion of the youthful D minor concerto and the F minor violin sonata. Most Mendelssohn discs couple another major violin concerto (usually Bruch’s or Tchaikovsky’s), and God knows we don’t need another recording of those works any more than we need another Mendelssohn E minor concerto. Both youthful works are vintage early Mendelssohn, and he was not a composer who invariably got better with age. Yang plays them very well indeed, and there’s far less competition here than in the more famous companion pieces. Pianist Romain Descharmes accompanies very sympathetically, and both in the concertos and the sonata the engineering is very clean and well-balanced. In sum, the couplings make this disc worth acquiring even if you’d never think of buying another version of the E minor concerto. As for Yang, she remains an artist to watch.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Spaniard Joaquin Rodrigo is probably the most outstanding composer of guitar music of the 20th century. He composed numerous works for solo guitar and guitar duo, including some of the most substantial pieces in the classical guitar repertoire. This release from Dale Kavanagh and the State Philharmonic of Arad presents several of his works for guitar and orchestra and solo guitar. Canadian-born Dale Kavanagh is one of the guitar world’s most gifted interpreters. She has been a top prize-winner in Spain’s “Segovia Competition,” Italy’s “Gargnano Competition,” Switzerland’s “Neuchatel Competition,” and Finland’s “Scandinavian International Guitar Competition.” She performs internationally as a soloist and in the Amadeus Guitar Duo, and has given more than 1,500 concerts in more than 70 countries.

-----

REVIEW:

The music of Rodrigo simultaneously traverses the technical limits of the guitar and a broad emotional range; thus, it is perfect for guitarist Dale Kavanagh. Like her personality, the playing is direct and personable, while at the same time precise and deeply passionate. Having honed these works on many a concert stage, Kavanagh gives each phrase an unencumbered intention and direction that never fails to communicate to the listener.

– American Record Guide

In celebration of Norrington's 75th birthday, this special DVD is released featuring performances of these Haydn symphonies plus a newly produced portrait of conductor Norrington, an invaluable contribution to understanding this modest man.

In a performance that charms as well as moves in abundance (BBC Music), Andrew Parrott directs a hand-picked team of singers and instrumentalists in this classic recording. (Avie)

“For me jazz music is without bounds, a sanctuary for creativity,” says the Cuban-born and New York-based pianist Fabian Almazan. This is apparent in all the exciting aspects of his double album: Almazan made use of the time during the SWR NEWJazz Meeting to create music that he cannot under conventional conditions. When in 2015 the jazz department of the broadcasting station SWR gave him a blank check for the SWR NEWJazz Meeting, he spontaneously assembled for the improvisation sound lab the band “Realm of Possibilities.” It is comprised of six ambitious performers who are the spearhead of the young New York scene but who worked together for the first time in the band: Anna Webber (tenor sax, flute), Ryan Ferreira (guitar), Chris Dingman (vibraphone), Linda Oh (bass) and Henry Cole (drums). All of them are strong creative personalities, with extremely different musical backgrounds.

When Kodály constructed a suite of music from his opera Háry János, he further immortalised the braggart soldier of the title. Dreamlike and fantastic, the six scenes are imbued with imaginative writing of sweeping intensity, embracing a love-duet, a mock-epic battle, a folk song, and a vigorous recruiting dance. In the Dances of Galánta he again employed the Hungarian verbunkos recruiting dance tradition to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society. The Konzertstück of his compatriot and nearcontemporary Ern? Dohnányi is a full-scale cello concerto of considerable lyric beauty.

Classical Music

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Composed for Sergey Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Ravel’s ‘symphonie chorégraphique’ Daphnis et Chloé is based on a classical Greco-Roman love story set on the island of Lesbos. He described the work as ‘a vast musical fresco’, and with its extraordinarily passionate music, lush harmonies and orchestration, is considered both his masterpiece and the epitome of Impressionism in music. Orchestrated from the third of his Miroirs for piano, Ravel’s Une barque sur l’océan is an evocative portrayal of the ever-changing moods of the sea.

-----

REVIEWS:

This performance and recording comes close to fulfilling all of Ravel’s requirements. Slatkin paces the score admirably, even when he sets a spanking pace for the opening of the pirates’ dance. The orchestra find no difficulties in coping with the articulation of the notes here or in the final dance. I would put this Daphnis high on the list of currently available recordings.

– MusicWeb International

The shimmering orchestration and lush harmonies that epitomize impressionism are lovingly rendered by Slatkin and the French orchestra. While Daphnis et Chloé is most often presented as two suites for orchestra, this performance also includes the atmospheric choral parts, sung by Spirito, a body consisting of the Choruses and Soloists of Lyon and the Britten Chorus. Naxos provides remarkably clear and deep sound, so the finer points of Ravel’s scores are easily heard.

– All Music Guide

Taking its title from the village in which Leoš Janáček was born, this album of chamber works by the prize-winning Portuguese composer Sérgio Azevedo reveals his deep affinity for the music and personality of the great Czech composer. Using fragments from Janáček’s In the Mists and On an Overgrown Path has allowed Azevedo to create a ‘doppelgänger’ a of the original material. It draws his music in unsuspected directions, either abandoning the fragments as the music develops or generating new aural contexts. The resultant music represents an unclassifiable but profound communication between two composers from two different epochs.

The Brodsky Quartet joins the 2014 Andrzej Panufnik centenary year of reminiscence and celebration with Messages, recordings of works by both Andrzej and his daughter Roxanna. + In ‘Modlitwa’, originally a vocal work, both father and daughter composed sections, with Roxanna subsequently making this string sextet arrangement. + ‘Song to the Virgin Mary’, dedicated to his wife, also began as an a cappella work. + His three string quartets reveal his innovative and expressive musical language. + The Brodsky Quartet commissioned ‘Memories of My Father’ especially for the centenary.

Today, there is no doubt that Johann Sebastian Bach took Baroque music to its sublime zenith. Just how much Bach was ahead of his time can be gauged by the fact his ‘piano’ music engaged the greatest among his successors: Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Debussy and Shostakovich. Four pianists perform Bach on this album. They stand for different periods in interpretational history, beginning with the ‘New Objectivity’ of Carl Seeman, born in 1910, up to the highly virtuoso art of Konstantin Lifschitz, born in 1976 and also taught by Alfred Brendel. The four personalities of the pianists on this album merge with Bach’s music, giving a notion of why it is accorded universal magnitude.

“Schumann soaked into my life not too fast. It might have been the over intertwining of inner voices…it might have been the broad spectrum of his emotions that needed time to mature and grow within myself….. I did not fall in love with him at first sight as I did with Chopin. Processing his music at times felt heavy. It was like a map in which I had to discover the evolvement of my own searching. The inner struggles, the layers of his wandering spirit embedded in his music either subtle or obvious way (with his own marking) brought me deeper into the cave of my own inner world. To understand him and to ultimately empathize with him required integrity and effort. Nevertheless, contrary to this weight, the duality of Florestan and Eusebius and many between them lift off the certain seriousness in my approach to his music. His music evokes the lightness of the existence. Perhaps the distance which enabled him to observe the alter egos within himself is the humor to his music. I learned to love him in time more than any other composers, most firmly, closely and freely to my heart.“ (Klara Min)

In November 1949, at the age of eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF (Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) in Paris and made her first recordings; these were works by Couperin, Bach, Beethoven and Debussy. In the following decades she made nearly 100 LPs and CDs, released on ten record labels (Pretoria, Vega, Decca, Atlantic/Finnadar, Pantheon, EMI, Naxos, Marco Polo, Alpha, BMP) and many recordings for radio and television stations around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as the Sonatas of Boulez and the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is now bringing together her past and present recording; as the copyrights are obtained, old recordings no longer available commercially are being released together with her new recordings. The current album features showcases her interpretations of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Glazunov’s Piano Sonata No. 2, recorded in March 2017, and Balakirev’s Islamey “Oriental Fantasy,” recorded in concert at the Lille Festival 1993.

Percy Grainger was an extraordinary human being and musician- a precocious pianist, colorful composer and world traveller, a peculiarly passionate and emotive eccentric whose fertile mind produced an expansive oeuvre of original and inventive works. Above all Grainger is best known for his most enduring musical endeavor- his exploration and dissemination of folk music. With this release, soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn, who have spent decades delving into Grainger’s folk music output, document their fascination with the multifaceted firebrand, and bring his alluring music to a wider audience. Grainger’s success resulted in multiple versions of his folk song settings, for orchestra, wind band, chamber ensemble and choir. But it’s perhaps his versions for voice and piano that are the most characteristic, bringing out Grainger’s own highly individual style at the keyboard. Claire’s and Christopher’s survey, one of the most comprehensive available on the market today, offers a variety of transcriptions of songs found in collections from the British Isles as well as discoveries Grainger heard as he roamed throughout the field. The album concludes with Grainger’s most celebrated piece, English Country Gardens, in which Claire makes a cameo appearance on piano, joining Christopher in a rousing duet.



REVIEWS:

They beautifully manage the contrasts between simplicity and immense sophistication that all these songs regularly provide; it makes a really engaging sequence.

– Guardian (UK)

This disc affords tremendous pleasure; it’s well recorded and intelligently annotated, too. Warmly recommended.

– Fanfare

This release features five outstanding operas from Bregenz Festival’s amazing lake stage: Aida, Andrea Chenier, Die Zauberflote, Turandot, and Carmen. The reviews of these individual performances were gleaming. “Stage director Graham Vick and set designer Paul Brown conjure up an open-air spectacle of superlatives.” (Die Zeit about Aida) “A gigantic set with iconic qualities- a masterly achievement.” (Die Welt about Andrea Chenier) “David Pountney finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding The Magic Flute.” (Der Togesspiegel about Die Zauberflote) “A bit of Hollywood in Bregenz: Melodies for millions, impressively staged grand opera.” (ZDF heute journal about Turandot) “… Kasper Holten’s production of Carmen on Es Devlin’s extraordinary set was a knockout…” (The Telegraph) Elisabeth Sobotka, the artistic director of the Bregenz Festival, sums it up by saying “Art doesn’t belong to a clique in society. Art is a jewel, a rich resource that must be made accessible to a large audience. See, and hear, for yourself… and enjoy the richness of the artistic offerings on the incomparable lake stage.”

With 49 tracks spanning two CDs, DISCOVER-FILM MUSIC is an informative package designed to lure the casual listener into the larger world of film music. Disc One largely consists of major Hollywood releases, including KING KONG, BEN HUR, STAR WARS, and SPIDER-MAN. Disc Two explores the more classical-centric foreign film scores, originating in Britain, Europe, and Japan. The set is accompanied by a 72-page booklet / learning guide, composed by British film music lecturer John Riley.

A New York Times 25 Best Classical Track Selection for 2019

Violinist Jennifer Koh’s Limitless, based on her groundbreaking recital project of the same name, bridges the modern divide between composer and instrumentalist, celebrates artistic collaboration, and revives the grand tradition of composers performing their own music. The album features world-premiere recordings of Koh-commissioned duets by a diverse roster of highly accomplished contemporary composers, which she performs with the composers themselves. Premieres include Quasim Naqvi’s The Banquet for violin and modular synthesizer, exploring a convergence between acoustic string and electronic sound worlds; Lisa Bielawa’s Sanctuary Songs for violin and voice, three settings of texts by American women poets of the 1920s; Du Yun’s give me back my fingerprints for violin and voice, representative of what The New York Times calls her “adventurously eclectic” style; and Tyshawn Sorey’s In Memoriam Muhal Richard Abrams, dedicated to Sorey’s beloved mentor, the avant-garde pianist, composer, and founding president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Limitless also offers the first recording of Nina C. Young’s Sun Propeller for violin and electronics, inspired by traditional Tuvan throat-singing; Wang Lu’s Her Latitude for violin and electronics, with a quasi-improvised piano part and electronically processed sounds of Buddhist chants and old Korean pop songs; and jazz luminary Vijay Iyer’s The Diamond for violin and piano, inspired by an early Buddhist text. The album concludes with Missy Mazzoli’s A Thousand Tongues for violin, piano, and electronics, an intense response to a line in a Stephen Crane poem; and Vespers for violin and electronics, “deliciously disorienting” (National Public Radio) with a soaring solo violin.

REVIEWS:

Koh, needless to say, is sensational throughout: responsive to each composer’s demands, and fiercely committed to making each piece sing true in collaboration with its creator. The project is a paradigm shift in thinking about composers who perform, and about representation on the concert platform; the result is a beautiful, compelling collection of intimate conversations and collective statements.

– National Sawdust

Part of Ms. Koh’s double-disc project of collaborations with composers who also perform alongside her, Du Yun: ‘Give Me Back My Fingerprints’ rises from quietly uneasy to rabid and raw, then back again. Violin lines emerge, as if from far away, to mingle with Ms. Du’s earthy, murmuring, sometimes choking voice.

– New York Times (Zachary Woolfe)

Pianist Eugen Indjic Made His First Public Performance at Age Nine, Playing Mozart's D Minor Piano Concerto. Between 1961-71, Invited By Arthur Fiedler, He Appeared Often Each Season with the Boston Pops Orchestra. In 1968, He Met Arthur Rubinstein, Who Called Indjic a World-Class Pianist of Rare Musical and Artistic Perfection. His Discography Includes Works By Chopin, Debussy and Schumann As Well As Works By Stravinsky and Beethoven. He Continues to Play Regularly on the World's Great Stages, and Often Teaches Master Classes in Europe.