Caroling is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years as a joyful part of the winter holiday season. Since the Eisenhower administration, the Singing Sergeants have been caroling at the White House each December for guests from around the country and throughout the world. In the spirit of that tradition, this album contains some of the band's favorites, including songs that tell the Christmas story, celebrate the Hannukah tradition, and inspire hope, peace and joy. All of the songs are performed in the a cappella tradition. Caroling, directed by Captain Chad A. Steffey, is dedicated to all of the men and women of the United States Air Force who are away from home during the holiday season.

Bhajan is a free-wheeling yet meditative four-section work for electric violin and live electronics, which one critic described as “a pas de deux between violin and electronics,” was written for and features noted new-music violinist Robin Lorentz. Nicholas Chase has headlined festivals in Europe and the US as a composer, performer, and improviser, His interactive, site-specific composition NOVA: Transmission was exhibited as part of the Whitney Biennial in New York and his Ngoma Lungundu opened the New Music+ Festival at the Jana ek Academy, Czech Republic. He was an inaugural Composer Fellow at the 2011 international Other Minds Festival in San Francisco and in 2015 was honored by the International Center for Japanese Culture, Tokyo, Japan.

Christopher Glynn continues his series of late Schubert song cycles in English, joined by celebrated soloists Sir John Tomlinson, Sophie Bevan, Julian Bliss and Alec Frank-Gemmill. Titled by the works first published following Schubert’s death, ‘Swansong’ D 957 sets the words of poets Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine and Johann Gabriel Seidl in songs that cover a variety of different emotional states. The lighthearted ‘Love Message’ with its rippling accompaniment, addresses a murmuring brook with the hope of true love. The bone- chilling ‘Doppelganger’ with its stark, slowly tolling chords, finds the protagonist crazed with a nocturnal vision of himself agonizing at the empty doorstep of his lost love. Renowned for his clear diction and powerful voice, Sir John Tomlinson brings his insight and nuance to these profound works. Reminiscent of the scoring for The Shepherd on the Rock and composed in the same year, ‘On the River’ combines soprano, clarinet and horn in a setting of a poem by Ludwig Rellstab. Originally given to Beethoven who did not live long enough to set it, Schubert took up the words in a work that is a subtle homage to the composer. The 1828 work The Shepherd on the Rock sets words by Wilhelm Muller and German playwright Helmina von Chezy, and was composed in gratitude to the soprano Anna Milder-Hauptmann. Here performed by Sophie Bevan and Julian Bliss, it tells the story of a shepherd lamenting the distance between him and his beloved before a reflection on loneliness and grief. The final section celebrates the arrival of spring in a hopeful conclusion.

The American Brian Asawa, who died tragically young in 2016, became one of the world’s foremost countertenors before he was 30, acclaimed for the exceptional size, richness, agility and beauty of his voice. In 1991 he was the first countertenor ever to win the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and soon he was singing with opera companies all over the world. He was also a gifted recitalist and made a notable series of recordings for RCA/BMG. All reissued here, they range from Elizabethan Lute Songs to a disc of songs by Ned Rorem and include excerpts from the complete recording of Handel’s opera Serse conducted by Nicholas McGegan, in which BBC Magazine singled out for praise Brian Asawa’s “luscious legato” in the role of Arsamene.

The Heritage of the March Collection remains the largest single march music record series in history. Altissimo is continuing the release of this series with Volumes 5 & 6 in a two-CD set. Volume 5 features the marches of Frank Losey & Gian Mantagazzi. Volume 6 features the marches of Charles Barnhouse & Viktor Widqvist.

This is the third and final volume of the string quartets of the important but long-neglected Basque composer Andres Isasi (1890-1940). Initially influenced by Grieg and Dvorak, Isasi studied under Humperdinck in Berlin, where he acquired a love of Germanic culture, reflected in both quartets heard on this recording. Much of the violin sonata's thematic material has tangible links to Basque melodies and songs though there is also an element of Richard Strauss. His remaining quartets can be heard on Naxos 8.572463 and 8.572464, while Isasi's symphony no. 2 and suite no. 2 are available on 8.557584.

The other three pieces have all received previous recordings but that doesn’t lessen the interest when they are presented as persuasively as they are here by Stanislav Khristenko. The Piano Sonata No.4 dates from 1948 and is a four-movement work of powerfully contained expression. The conjunction, in the slow movement, of both extrovert and more interior gestures is amplified by Krenek’s precise application of sonorous incident – brief but telling – amidst a generally refined tonal color. Marked con passione this is the work’s core but the Rondo offers a rather whimsical example of Krenek’s sort-of modified Boogie patterns with the Jazz references powerfully engaged. His ear for the vernacular was, after all, long practiced. The finale is a Minuet, perhaps surprisingly – perhaps that’s the point – and its variations, one or two a touch crepuscular, or withdrawn, mark a telling way to end the sonata.

The George Washington Variations, Op.120 followed two years later, the result of a commission from a wealthy Los Angeles businessman for his daughter. This genial and clever set of variations takes in the ballroom and subjects its material to deconstruction and reconstruction, as the notes suggest, with much playfulness. Washington’s Grand March is a central focus, and subject to pithy and witty examples of lightly applied atonalism, jazz-hinting rhythms and much more. Playfully ironic in places it in no way outstays its thirteen-minute length. The brief two-minute Prelude packs quite a punch for so short a piece. As Peter Tregear notes in his excellent booklet, the application of twelve-tone is accomplished here with the utmost of lyricism.

The final piece is Krenek’s completion of Schubert’s Sonata in C major, D840, which he wrote in 1921, just less than a century after Schubert had left it a torso. The first two movements had been completed as had the trio of the Menuetto and the first 272 bars of the finale. It was the pianist Eduard Erdmann, a prominent musician then and later, who encouraged Krenek to take Schubert more seriously. In time he came to understand and share Erdmann’s enthusiasm and undertook a study of the composer’s work. His completion of the sonata is a valuable sidelight to his interests at the time and also of his application of compositional process. As Krenek wrote: ‘in both unfinished movements the thematic material was completely established…so Schubert was [not] still composing by proxy, as it were, but I had only to use my knowledge of, and feeling form Schubert’s style and technique in order to supply what he might have done. I think I did a fairly creditable job.’ He noted that the finale might have been longer had Schubert actually gone through with it.

Given the quality of this inaugural volume we can look forward to the second volume with confidence.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

In nineteenth-century Portugal, Italian opera was king. During this time, however, instrumentalists still emerged. Piano prodigies Jose Viana de Mota and Guilherme Daddi did considerable work to advance concert life in Portugal throughout their careers. Not only were these gentlemen outstanding pianists, they were also virtuosic composers. Their entertaining and challenging pieces helped to draw Portugal into the scene of European music-making. Performing these works is Sofia Lourenco, an outstanding pianist and educator.

This recording brings together eleven leading composers whose origins in or strong associations with Canada are manifest in their central position in Canadian musical life. In a program through which the power of tradition and faith flows strongly, themes are explored ranging from paradise and heavenly fulfillment to tragic loss; and from timeless hymn and psalm texts to an exploration of the brevity of human existence in the title work, I Saw Eternity. One of the finest chamber choirs in Canada and beyond, the Elora Festival Singers' 'must-have' (Gramophone) program of Eric Whitacre (8.559677) is just one of their many acclaimed recordings.

Franz Schmidt’s Third Symphony was composed in 1927–28, dedicated to and premièred by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, winning a first prize from the Columbia Graphophone Company of New York for the best symphony in the spirit of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony as part of the centenary commemorations of Schubert’s birth. Schmidt’s symphony is lyrical, includes a set of variations, a Ländler-like Scherzo and finale rich in thematic invention. In 1931 Schmidt added wind and percussion instruments and a large body of strings to his monumental Chaconne for organ, in which form it too was premièred by the Vienna Philharmonic.

Bruce Levingston is one of today’s celebrated figures in contemporary classical music. The New Yorker has called him “a force for new music” with “a gift for innovative and glamorous programming.” The title of pianist Bruce Levingston’s haunting new album is taken from the beautiful suite by acclaimed American composer James Matheson, heard here in its world premiere recording. This evocative, richly-colored work depicts the exquisite stained glass windows of Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse inspired by ancient imagery and scripture. These works, which reflect a myriad of overlapping artistic influences, led Levingston, an artist known for his cutting-edge programming, to seek out other composers who have been inspired by multiple art forms. Robert Schumann was an immediate choice. His intimate Kinderszenen, a series of distilled little jewels that offer fleeting glimpses of childhood, is paired with the urbane, elegant Arabeske.

Distinguished British-American composer David Bruce is also heard here in the premiere recording of his touching work, The Shadow of the Blackbird, inspired by the music of Schumann as well as the moving poetry of Wallace Stevens. It seemed fitting for Levingston to program these three inspired, and inspiring, composers together. Their works, old and new, represent aural windows through which their extraordinary visions may be heard, sensed and felt.

REVIEW:

The label's resonantly ample engineering particularly lends itself to Matheson’s vibrant writing and Levingston’s compelling, colorful pianism.

– Gramophone

Philippe Hersant (b. 1948) was once a student of Andre Jolivet, and since then has embraced tonality and modality, and found his own eclectic voice, establishing himself as one of the most noticeable and successful modern French composers. This new recording focuses on Hersant’s bassoon music, brilliantly showcasing an often neglected instrument. Featured are duos for bassoon and viola, 8 Pieces for bassoon and instrumental ensemble, and several works for solo bassoon. Italian bassoonist Andrea Bressan performs these works. Bressan is notable in the chamber music community, and has won several awards in international competitions for chamber music.

The lockdown of Spring 2020 allowed Sonya Yoncheva and conductor Leonardo García Alarcón to make the album they had been considering for ten years. Rebirth is a message of hope but also the exploration of an idea: that silence and inactivity are the best prelude to creative renewal. Yoncheva’s fourth solo album for Sony Classical includes music spanning more than five centuries, from folksong to pop, via some of the most powerful moments in seventeenth-century opera. All the music, in Yoncheva’s view, is contemporary. ‘Certain styles of musical composition have remained surprisingly close to us through 500 years of history, combining enormous emotional thrust with great simplicity,’ she says. From the dawn of opera and music by Monteverdi, the album plots a thematic journey from the Italy of Cavalli, his pupil Strozzi and heir Stradella to the England of Dowland, Gibbons and Ferrabosco – whose motet Hear me, O God employs the same four-note theme as ABBA’s Like an Angel Passing Through My Room. After dance-inspired works from Spain and Latin America, and Alarcón’s reconstruction of an aria by Antonio Draghi, Yoncheva offers a traditional folksong from her Bulgarian homeland. Media were full of praise after Sonya Yoncheva performed her album repertoire at the Salzburg Festival after the lockdown in August 2020. ‘Music that moves you to tears’ wrote the APA and the FAZ raved about her Bulgarian folksong ‘Zableinano mi agunce’ being “an unforgettable emotional experience.” Rebirth was recorded in the concert hall of La Chaux-de-Fonds, with Alarcón and his ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, during the first European lockdown. The feeling of the acoustic, Alarcón says, was equivalent to ‘playing inside a vast lute.’

One of the 20th century’s great conductors, Leopold Stokowski was also a prolific transcriber of music for the symphony orchestra, creating a unique repertoire by bringing masterpieces to the concert hall that were often unfamiliar to audiences of the time. José Serebrier was Stokowski’s associate conductor in New York, and drawing on memories of his special quality of orchestral sound has revived and revised the best of these sumptuous arrangements. These include a GRAMMY nominated Mussorgsky recording and Stokowski’s signature piece, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, immortalized as part of the soundtrack to Walt Disney’s film Fantasia.

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REVIEW:

Anyone who doubts the sustained power of Stokowski’s most famous transcription, Bach’s mighty Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, should experience Serebrier’s enthralling performance.

– Fanfare

Lara Downes’ new album For Lenny celebrates the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein with a special friends-and-family tribute to the man behind the music. The recording features Bernstein’s aptly-named Anniversaries for Piano, new arrangements of his songs, and world premieres of works dedicated to Bernstein by leading American composers including Stephen Sondheim, John Corigliano, and Stephen Schwartz. The album is introduced by an essay from acclaimed New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik.

Taking her inspiration from Bernstein’s boundary-breaking approach to music-making, Lara has invited a diverse group of guest artists: opera legend Thomas Hampson, roots singer Rhiannon Giddens, superstar beatboxer Kevin “K.O.” Olusola (a member of the chart-topping a cappella group Pentatonix), and Mexican/American clarinet prodigy Javier Morales-Martinez.

Describing FOR LENNY, Lara says: “Leonard Bernstein reminds me of what a musician can be. Of what music can do in this world – how it can reach and teach and make things happen. Just imagine what American music was before Lenny came along, everything he changed. I’m only here at all, I think, because of the rules he broke and the doors he knocked down. Imagine the thousands of other musicians who feel the same way.”

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REVIEW:

In the midst of all of this abundance, pianist Lara Downes seems to have homed in on the sweet spot for giving this hard-working musician with a larger-than-life reputation a tribute recording that manages to be sincere without going over the top with adulation.... Downes’ recording may well have qualities that will endure long after the celebratory shouts of “Bravo!” have evaporated into the ether.

– The Rehearsal Studio (Stephen Smoliar)

• Milan-born pianist, composer and conductor Giorgio Gaslini is a jazz musician of international fame, who to his credit has given more than 3,000 concerts, recorded 100 CD's and is a ten-time Critics Award winner. The flute works were composed between 1955 and 2011. Their performer and dedicatee is Roberto Fabbriciani, with whom Gaslini has had a long collaboration."

Friederike Chylek, born in Starnberg, began playing the piano and the recorder at age seven. Whilst still attending secondary school in Stockdorf and Gräfelfing, she began her artistic education in Munich with the harpsichordist Michael Eberth. Starting in the year 2000, she studied harpsichord and figured bass at the world renowned Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with professors including Jesper Christensen, wtih Rudolf Lutz and Edoardo Torbianelli. She performs regularly in numerous concert halls in Germany and abroad and is a welcome guest at such select festivals as the Cadenza Baroque Days in Berlin, the Handel Festival in Göttingen and the Festival Maj z Muzyka Dawna, Wroclas, amongst many others. With the present album, Friederike Chylek puts an end to prejudices against English music - England was long denigrated as the "Land without music" - bringing time to a standstill with works from the Golden Age of Virginal Music, numerous performance and compositional techniques of which provided decisive impulses for the development of European keyboard music.

"Completed in Wahnfried on November 21, 1874. I say nothing further!!” With these words written at the bottom of his Götterdämmerung score, Wagner thus finished his composition of the entire Ring Cycle. The Frankfurt Opera also concluded Vera Nemirova’s highly praised production of the work in January, thus raising the bar.

REVIEWS:

Tempos and forward-movement are well-judged…The characters play off one another, diction is close to flawless; we can hear the sarcasm in Hagen as well as the craziness in Alberich…

The quiet evil with which the second act begins…is about as creepy as anything I’ve ever heard, with the high strings nervously stuttering and the winds and brass roiling—not to mention those trills on the Wagner tubas as the scene changes! Wagner’s solos for winds are as suddenly noticeable as Mozart’s. You are never bombarded by sound save for the truly big moments: the end of the prologue, the scene with the vassals, Siegfried’s Funeral March, and the final cataclysm, making these moments all the more powerful.

The cast is worthy. Lance Ryan…remains a bright-voiced hero…both of his high Cs are amazing…in general he is in solid voice. He is very moving in his death scene, phrasing handsomely and with a quiet resignation that is unbeatable on recordings.

Susan Bullock continues the Cycle as Brünnhilde…Every word counts: her conviction in the Waltraute scene; her horror when a stranger breaks through the fire; her reaction to Siegfried’s entrance for the Wedding Scene…and a fine Immolation Scene…suffice it to say that as far as wedding the words and music, she’s second to none, and her enunciation is spotless.

Gregory Frank[’s]…voice is big and dark enough…and he has an audible sneer that can send chills down the spine. His hatred, jealousy, and cunning are omnipresent, and he’s a fine phony in the first act.

Jochen Schmeckenbecher’s Alberich is about as unnerving as any you will ever hear in his scene with Hagen. Anja Fidelia Ulrich is a good, alluring Gutrune. The three Norns are excellent (Mahnke is the second; Meredith Arwady is the first; and the deliciously-named Angel Blue is the third); the Rhinemaidens are very expressive…

The chorus…is another of this set’s glories. Along with Weigle’s non-intrusive, clear-as-a-bell story-telling and the stunning playing of the Frankfurt Opera, this set is a winner. It’s among the most committed sets around. The sonics are spectacular.

-- ClassicsToday (Robert Levine)

The story of Beowulf, although thousands of years old, is still loved by many all over the world. This recording of a new musical telling of the story, composed by Toby Young, blurs traditional sense of the genre of classical music by merging it with folk and popular music. This fusion is what makes Beowulf a fantastic story. The greatest versions of the story are not those defined by a simplistic clash of good versus bad, but the ones which involve slight ambiguous points; ones which allow the reader/listener to make his/her mind up about what is exactly going on. The combination of Toby Young’s score and Jennifer Thorp’s libretto create this perfectly – with characterful narration by celebrated actor Timothy West, beautiful performances by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.

REVIEW

This disc is really a lot of fun. The English composer Toby Young (b. 1990) studied at King’s College, Cambridge (with Robin Holloway) and New College, Oxford. This work is a retelling of the classic story of Beowulf, involving a script by William Towers, based on ideas by Danny Coleman-Cooke, and a sung libretto by Jennifer Thorp. Famed actor Timothy West is the superb narrator, and the young choral forces sing music to accompaniment of a small instrumental ensemble. Coleman-Cooke’s treatment of the story introduces ambiguity rather than hewing to a simple good vs. evil dynamic. Young’s music feels perfectly gauged. Each “cue” is never too long. The overall style is both completely of the present while also evoking the “ancient” era of the story. It is beautifully recorded and performed, and makes for a most enjoyable hour of storytelling in words and music.

--Fanfare

Classical Music