While children' voices have been heard in church music for centuries, music specifically composed for young choristers is a relatively recent, and most welcome, development. As the attractive and diverse music by the fourteen composers represented on.

“It cannot be easy to write for solo piano: so many magnificent sounds of the 18th and 19th centuries abide in the ears of today’s pianists and concertgoers. By including some of my favorite Chopin miniatures alongside three major piano pieces from the 1990’s, I could well stand accused of an all-too-common reluctance to break from the past. I prefer to treat with this vexed situation pragmatically, acknowledging the reality that most of my listeners will perceive the new refracted through the lens of the old, and that some will simply be more inclined to keep listening when given a dose of the familiar together with the strange. All three recent works recorded here bear some imprint of the pianistic past—each in a different way—and yet all three successfully outrun it.” (Thomas Saur)

Bruckner, A.: Symphony No. 6

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach published the first collection in his series 'for Connaisseurs and Amateurs' in 1779, at the age of 65, and the sixth and final in 1787, a year before his death. Throughout the series he continues to develop the three genres which are featured in it – sonata, rondo and fantasia. In the sixth collection, the fantasias and rondos continue to resemble each other in structure and in stylistic features: abrupt tempo changes, disruptive rhythms, and constant harmonic non sequiturs. Bach gives them ample dimensions, but as in previous collections he continues to reduce the length of the sonatas, to the point that Sonata No. 1 is the shortest work of the collection, although it is in three distinct movements. On this amply-filled album, Miklós Spányi also includes four other works from Carl Philipp's last decade which in various ways underline the composer's boundless curiosity. The Sonata in G major, Wq 65/48 was composed for an experimental keyboard instrument with a bowing device coupled to it – a 'Bogenclavier' – while Bach in the set of variations Wq 118/9 gives us his own take on La Folia, the harmonic scheme that almost a century earlier had inspired composers such as Corelli, Marin Marais and Vivaldi, as well as his own father, in the famous ‘Peasant Cantata’.

A real bargain and the best way to have these symphonies at very affordable cost.

This release is in many ways even more attractive than volume 1, containing the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 6 and reviewed here earlier. For those who do not know Nielsen’s music, this would be the perfect place to start.

Both of these symphonies represent the composer at the height of his maturity and both contain many memorable tunes. They are also very well orchestrated and contain both power and poetry. There is not a dull moment in either symphony. Highlights include the Allegro comodo e flemmatico second movement of the Second Symphony and the Andante pastorale second movement of the Third Symphony with its ethereal vocalise by tenor and soprano. But then there is also the Third’s first movement with its great waltz and the symphony’s noble finale. Likewise, the Second has one of the most joyous finales I know of.

Schønwandt and his Danish forces have the measure of both symphonies and for my money beat out the competition in both. The main rival for these works, as with the symphonies in volume 1, is Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony on Decca. I did an A/B comparison and feel that the balance is just tipped in Schønwandt’s favor. There is a certain rightness, a natural pace, that’s hard to explain, but is definitely there in these accounts. Furthermore, the warmth of the Danish Radio Concert Hall is a real advantage in these particular works — not as crucial in the Sixth Symphony, though. At the same time, there is a clarity and lightness that allows all the detail to register. Blomstedt’s accounts tend to be more brilliant, as is Decca’s sound, and at times can seem a little relentless. For example, his faster tempo for the Second Symphony’s finale pushes the music a little harder than Schønwandt’s slightly slower, but clearer version. Also, the sound as recorded in San Francisco’s Davies Hall can get muddy in the bass and make the textures clotted. Schønwandt sets an ideal tempo in this movement and there is a real feeling of joy in this Allegro sanguineo. I still like the Blomstedt performances of these works for their power and the brilliance of the orchestra. For example, those horns in the waltz climax of the Third Symphony’s first movement are pretty spectacular, even if Schønwandt’s more backwardly balanced ones (at 6:09) allow the rest of the orchestra to come through better. Schønwandt also achieves a perfect placement with his vocal soloists in this symphony. They are treated as instruments and blend well with the rest of the orchestra, creating a feeling of distance. Nonetheless, I would not want to be without either recording of these works. Then there is Myung-Whun Chung’s highly regarded BIS recording of the Second Symphony (see review) coupled with the Aladdin Suite to be considered. I haven’t heard that one for a number of years, but it was also high in my affections.

A couple of extra-musical details should be mentioned. First, the order of the works as listed above is the order on the disc. Why they placed the Symphony No. 3 ahead of No. 2 is a mystery. However, it also followed this order on the original Dacapo CD. It really does not matter as the player can be programmed to play in either order, if one were wanting to hear the works in the sequence in which they were composed. Second, as in the earlier Naxos disc mentioned above, the notes in the booklet are briefer and less detailed than on the original release — but very good all the same. Finally, since I have a copy of the Dacapo disc, I was able to do a sound comparison. I heard no difference between the original and the new budget release.

This, then, is a real bargain and the best way to have these symphonies at a very affordable cost. Indeed, I would recommend them at any price!

-- Leslie Wright, MusicWeb International

Epic poetry set to powerful music, brought to life by a cast of legendary performers: Ask Your Mama is an original musical setting by four-time Emmy Award-winning composer Laura Karpman of the 1961 masterpiece by Langston Hughes, delivered with majesty and magnetism by sopranos Janai Brugger and Angela Brown, hip-hop innovators The Roots and Medusa, jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon and others, conducted by Grammy-nominated George Manahan.

Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods For Jazz is the most modernist, defiant work by Langston Hughes, an icon of the Harlem Renaissance known as the pre-eminent voice of the African-American experience. It gives voice to the outrages and the joys of African-American life through the eyes of a child and the man he becomes, alternating between the fury of indignation and wild comedy, taking us on an odyssey from Africa to the Americas, high art to low art, from south to north, from cities to suburbs, from opera to jazz – and in Hughes’ own words, “from shadows to fire.” Hughes conceived his epic 12-part poem as an interdisciplinary creation, including in the margins suggestions for types of music including hot jazz, German lieder, cha-cha, patriotic songs, post-bop, Arabic and more.

Laura Karpman’s composition is the first musical setting of Hughes’ complete masterpiece. Her score takes its cue from Hughes’ boundary-exploding text and musical notations. Integrating 21st century technology, Hughes’ words are brought to life with orchestral music, live singers, rap artists, and recorded voices of African-American icons from Louis Armstrong to Leontyne Price to Pigmeat Markham. The result: an exhilarating tapestry of jazz, carnivale, tent revival, film, opera and poetry slam.

Ask Your Mama premiered to a sold-out Carnegie Hall in 2009 and has since played from Harlem’s Apollo Theater to the Hollywood Bowl, and has reached millions more through media coverage by National Public Radio, PBS, NBC TV, The New Yorker and the Huffington Post. The release appropriately comes in the wake of Independence Day: as Hughes says in his poem, “your country is your mama.”

Tracklist:

Ask Your Mama
Music by Laura Karpman
Poetry by Langston Hughes

CD 1
DEDICATION (4:20)
CULTURAL EXCHANGE (12:53)
RIDE, RED, RIDE (4:16)
SHADES OF PIGMEAT (7:42)
ODE TO DINAH (10:37)
BLUES IN STEREO (5:12)
HORN OF PLENTY (7:39)
GOSPEL CHA-CHA (11:00)
Total time CD 1: 62:15

CD 2
IS IT TRUE? (2:52)
ASK YOUR MAMA (6:51)
BIRD IN ORBIT (12:12)
JAZZTET MUTED – SHOW FARE, PLEASE (17:04)

Total time CD 2: 38:19

Vocal Soloists:
Janai Brugger
Blackthought, The Roots
Nnenna Freelon
Angela Brown
Medusa
Taura Stinson
Monet Owens
Tesia Kwarteng
Erin McGlover
Langston Hughes

Instrumental Soloists:
Questlove, The Roots drums
Ben Wendel tenor saxophone
David Loeb piano
M.B. Gordy world percussion
Bart Samolis bass
Firaz Hussein Arabic percussion

Featuringa:
Jelly Roll Morton
Cab Calloway
Lucky Millinder
Mahalia Jackson
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Ella Fitzgerald
Bo Didley
Shirley Temple
Bill Bojangles
Jessye Norman
Marian Anderson
Leontyne Price
Charlie Parker
Louis Armstrong
Pete Seeger
Pigmeat Markham

Bronislawa Kawalla, the first prize winner at the International Bach Competition in Washington, comes from a well-known musical family. She graduated from the Secondary Music School in Krakow in the class of Maria Bilinska-Riegerowa and studied at the Higher State School of Music in Warsaw (currently the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music) in the class of Professor Jan Ekier. She polished her skills in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Monique Haas, as well as at the Academie Internationale de Maurice Ravel with Philippe Entremont. She has recorded for Polish Radio and Television recordings, and has performed in renowned concert halls all over Europe, Canada, the USA, Latin America, and Asia. Kawalla is also devoted to pedagogical work, being a professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. Appropriately, for this release she has chosen a programme of music by Chopin.

WEBERN Ricercata from Bach’s “Musical Offering.” 5 2 Songs, op. 19. 4,6 5 Movements for String Orchestra. 6 2 Songs, op. 8. 1,5 5 Pieces for Orchestra, op. 10. 6 4 Songs, op. 13. 1,5 6 Songs, op. 14. 1,5 5 Sacred Songs, op. 15. 1,5 Das Augenlicht. 4,6 Variations for Orchestra. 5 Second Cantata 2,3,4,6 • Robert Craft, cond; Tony Arnold (sop); 1 Claire Booth (sop); 2 David Wilson-Johnson (bs); 3 Simon Joly Ch; 4 20th Century Classics Ens; 5 Philharmonia O 6 • NAXOS 8.557531 (79:32)


Craft was the first to record Webern’s “complete” works, back in the 1950s. His four- LP monaural Columbia album was a revelation—and a tribute to the commercial daring of Columbia’s Goddard Lieberson. Although there had been four or five earlier recordings of single Webern works, Craft’s set joined only one other Webern piece in the 1957 Schwann catalogs. It was to remain available for more than two decades, until succeeded by Boulez’s stereo remake in 1979, dubbed—at the last minute—Vol. 1 because a trove of previously unknown works had been discovered. While the stereo LPs were a great improvement, both for their sound quality and their performances, the latter were due to the singers and players more than to the conductor. Webern had gained respect—indeed, had become the guru of musical academia—and musicians were leaning how to perform his works. The learning curve continued well into the CD era; an appropriate punctuation being the 1992 appearance of a superb Webern disc by the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra (nla). Now everyone could play Webern (if not yet sing him), not just the avant-garde specialists. Listeners of my generation learned Webern from that first Craft set, and we are forever in his debt. If he could not then convince us of the music’s beauty, he drew our attention and piqued our interest.


The Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble is a group contracted for Craft’s recordings, its players handpicked by cellist Fred Sherry. Personnel listings for each piece show it to include the best of free-lance American musicians—I am almost afraid to name some, for fear of slighting equally superb colleagues: Charles Neidlich, William Purvis, Paul Neubauer, and Sherry are so well known that I don’t even need to list their instruments. Soprano Arnold, professor of voice at SUNY Buffalo, is a renowned new-music specialist; she sings Webern with glorious panache. These recordings were made during 2007 and 2008—the Philharmonia sessions at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio No. 1, the American ones at SUNY Purchase, New York, and at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City. The solo songs (at SUNY) are clean and clear, but the chorus (at Abbey Road) is set in a reverberant acoustic that denies us the exact words, even with libretto in hand. As usual with Naxos, librettos are posted on the Internet, but the texts of Das Augenlicht and of the Second Cantata are missing.


One of the pleasures of any Craft release is reading his feisty, superbly informed, damn-the-torpedoes program notes. As usual, he insists that these performances are the only correct ones: “[W]e can blame the failure to understand this piece [the op. 30 Variations] on the ignoring of Webern’s admonition to follow his metronomic markings. The present recording is the first attempt to play the work at metronomic speed. Thus, the DGG [Abbado? Boulez?] trudges along at about 116 for the fast pulsation, as against the required 160, and continues at nearly the same 116 for the slow beat.” In addition to his chutzpah, Craft is usually right. Despite that statement, Craft’s Webern performances are generally softer and more listener-friendly than either Abbado’s sophisticated, highly polished renditions or Boulez’s careful but often stolid performances. Although dubbed the BBC Singers, Boulez’s chorus is also directed by Simon Joly; with the Webern œuvre now doubled, Boulez’s DG recordings fill six CDs and are currently distributed only in a complete set. For the op. 30 Variations , however, I recommend the vibrant, superbly recorded performance by Jac van Steen on a surround-sound SACD, MDG 901 1425.


FANFARE: James H. North

A unique coupling of chamber works from the German Romantic composer Eduard Franck currently undergoing a small revival after decades of neglect. This is finely crafted music inspired by Mendelssohn and Schumann.

Ireneusz Wyrwa (b. 1975) started playing the organ while at the Frederic Chopin State Secondary Music School. In 1999, he graduated with honors in organ performance from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music. For over 20 years, Mr. Wyrwa was an active church musician in several Polish dioceses. He is currently professor in the Department of Church Music of Fryderyk Chopin Music University in Warsaw. This DUX organ recital features works written between the 17th -19th centuries.

The great writer Stendahl wrote of Il viaggio a Reims that “this opera is a feast”. The plot is a contemporary farce tailor-made for a particular occasion – the coronation festivities of Charles X – though Rossini valued the music so highly that he preserved at least part of the score three years later in the opera Comte Ory. This sparkling work is heard complete for the first time and in accordance with the critical edition.

Review:

Wildbad’s Antonino Fogliani leads a staging that doesn’t hang fire for a moment. The piano-accompanied recitatives are vividly delivered; the performance has a vividness and theatrical ‘carry’ that confirm that Il viaggio is indeed ‘a feast’.

– Gramophone

D’ANGLEBERT Harpsichord Suites: No. 1 in G; No. 2 in g; No. 3 in d; No. 4 in D • Elizabeth Farr (hpd) (period instruments) • NAXOS 8.570472 (2 CDs: 134:26)


Jean-Henry D’Anglebert (1629–1691) published only one book of his works, all of it for keyboard instruments, in 1689. It quickly became popular, appearing in a second, probably unauthorized edition, engraved in Amsterdam. Aside from the four suites that Farr has recorded here, it contained 15 dance transcriptions from Lully’s operas, four other transcriptions of anonymous origin, five fugues for organ on the same curiously angular subject, a Quatuor sur le Kyrie for organ, and a treatise on basso continuo. Though the composer wrote in his preface that he hoped to furnish at some future date existing works in other keys, they never found their way into print. More music written by D’Anglebert, however, has turned up in an autograph manuscript entitled Rés 89ter . It is believed to have been written largely in the composer’s hand, and includes 76 pieces, 54 of which are his transcriptions of lute music. Nine are earlier versions of his published works; four in C Major, were possibly meant for a second book; while the rest are pieces by Chambonnieres, Louis Couperin, Marin and Richard Marais.


So what Naxos and Farr have provided here is all of D’Anglebert’s original, extant, and known music for harpsichord, minus the four pieces in C Major. It is almost uniformly of substantial quality, favoring polyphonic mastery and fanciful invention in a lute style brisé over the richer vertical textures and descriptive pieces of other, later French Baroque musicians. It also possesses an expressively melancholy intimacy that brings to mind at times François Couperin.


There are other links to Couperin le Grand, as well. The most important for our purposes was their mutual insistence upon notational faithfulness in performance, without changes to tempo, rhythm, or further ornamentation. Couperin wrote as much in the Preface to his first volume: “I have already added all the necessary ornaments, and I have observed the correct vertical alignment of the notes.” James R. Anthony, in turn, remarked about D’Anglebert’s music in his French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau that “the music is extremely travaillée ,” or worked up in a very detailed fashion. Just how worked up it is can be judged by D’Anglebert’s preface that provided an ornament table with 29 symbols, including some he invented, and many that he employed frequently throughout these pieces. (A copy of this table in Bach’s handwriting survives, indicating that he probably knew D’Anglebert’s work.)


Music as elaborate as this, with its rhetorical flourishes and pauses, could easily become mired in particulars. However, that’s not the case on this recording. Farr is very careful not to lose the forward pulse of the music while phrasing appropriately, as the Allemande in the G-Minor Suite illustrates. Nor does this force her into hectic tempos or rhythmic stiffness. The Courante II in G Minor, for example, shows how she can sustain an almost majestically gliding sense of movement in a piece played on the slow side of adagio (66 bps). Conversely, the Gigue I from the G Major Suite is a fast moderato (116 bps) treated with exceptional metrical flexibility, yet never loses its core dance-like element. It is this knife’s edge balance between rigidity and freeness, clarity of ornamentation and momentum, as much as it is a pursuit of clarity and loving sculpted phrasing that defines Farr’s performance on this release. She does a marvelous job, aided and abetted by a pair of fine instruments crafted by Keith Hill: a fine double manual harpsichord after François Blanchet, and a delicate lute harpsichord created using the description found in Adlung’s posthumously published Musica Mechanica Organoedi (1768).


Though each of these suites has been recorded by one or more harpsichordists other than Farr, I can find no instances of all four available in a single, current release. Byron Schenkman is both vital and distinguished on Centaur 2435, offering the Second Suite and excerpts from both other suites and the lute transcriptions. Céline Frisch is stylish if slightly less relaxed than Farr in the First Suite (minus the Gavotte and Minuet) and the Second on Alpha 74. She has the advantage of offering all five of the fugues, played on the organ, as well as several of the Lully transcriptions and the originals, performed by Café Zimmerman, of which Frisch is a founding member. Neither the Third nor the Fourth Suite is included, however. Barbara Maria Willi offers the First, Third, and Fourth Suites on Musicaphon 56827 (which I have not heard), but foregoes the Second. This makes the current set recommendable even if it weren’t such a delight to hear—which, fortunately, it is.


It only remains to note that the sound on this recording is bright but close, with none of the mechanism noise or over-reverberant hall sounds that sometimes bedevil harpsichord albums. Farr supplies excellent and lengthy notes focusing on the music, while Hill offers some background on both D’Anglebert’s own harpsichord, the instruments we hear, and the practice of ravalement , adding wood to extend either the treble and/or bass of an older instrument.


Full praise to Farr and Naxos for the good they’ve wrought here. Get this if you enjoy French Baroque harpsichord music.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

ARSO Ensemble is made up of the leaders and soloists of the Podkarpacka Philharmonic Orchestra - Robert Nasciszewski and Orest Telwach (violin), Anna Nasciszewska (cello) and Slawomir Ujek (double-bass). The ensemble plays Rossini's lesser-known Six sonatas a quarttro, penned by Rossini in 1804 at the age of 12.

Described by critics as a 'bona fide angel playing' and an 'electrifying pianist', the young Ukrainian-born, North Carolina-based Valentina Lisitsa has been receiving rave reviews ever since her debut in Avery Fisher Hall for the Mostly Mozart Festival.

There are indeed many recordings of Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, but the special thing about this particular recording is that it was produced following the performances of a scenic interpretation with the Spanish stage director Calixto Bieito. What now follows is a musical exploration forming a sequel to scenic occupation with the Vespers. Since 2017 Il Gusto Barocco has been the guest ensemble for the four-part Monteverdi cycle initiated by opera director Albrecht Puhlmann at the Mannheim National Theater. From the musician’s perspective, the scenic exploration of music rooted in the liturgy does in fact clearly differ from a performance during a religious service or a non-scenic concert performance. During the time-intensive process prior to the staging of an opera, scenes, images, and figures gradually take shape. In each stage figure the quest is for an emotional truth from which her or his artistic nature, aesthetic character, and credibility result – and ultimately word and tone, in order to produce empathy and engage the public. Another important aspect of this recording is the great number of diminutions in all the instrumental and vocal parts, all of which were improvised at the particular moment. During the shared scenic preparation for the opera stage, the individual movements of the Marian Vespers obtained a definite emotional space in the dramaturgical sequence. Accordingly, sections and their basic characters were defined and invented at the particular moment for each performance and for this recording.

This new release is the latest title in The American Bandmasters Association’s Commemorative Recording Series, and focuses on the legacy of John R. Bourgeois. Colonel John R. Bourgeois, USMC (Ret), was the 25th Director of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. His acclaimed career spanned nine presidential administrations from Presidents Eisenhower to Clinton. A native of Louisiana, Colonel Bourgeois is a graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans. He joined the Marine Corps in 1956 and entered The President’s Own in 1958 as a French Hornist and arranger. Named Director in 1979, Colonel Bourgeois was promoted to his present rank in 1983. He retired from active duty on July 11, 1996. As director of The President’s Own, Bourgeois was Music Adviser to the White House. He selected the musical program and directed the band in its traditional place of honor at the US Capitol for four presidential inaugurations, a Marine Band tradition dating back to 1801. He regularly conducted the Marine Band and the Marine Chamber Orchestra at the White House, appearing there more frequently than any other musician in the nation.

Among various dance forms cultivated by Frederic Chopin, the polonaises appear to be the most significant. They are the beginning of his creative journey and are not only proof of his geniues but they are also the unique genre that shows the pianistic and stylistic evolution of Chopin's work. Andrzej Pikul has many awards and accolades under his musical belt, having given many performances throughout his time as a pianist. He is a Laureate of the Polish Piano Festival, the International Competition Foundation Dziffra and the European Broadcasting Competition.

Influenced at a very early age by the music of the Middle East, trained in classical music and jazz, Omri Mor is a young virtuoso pianist with a flourishing style and multiple influences. Spotted very early in his career by Avishaï Cohen (double bass) who was impressed by Omri’s great knowledge of Arab-Andalusian, Chaabi and jazz, the music is sure to shine as this trio performs together on the biggest stages of Europe and the rest of the world in 2018. It is under the artistic direction of drummer / percussionist Karim Ziad that he records this first album "It's About Time!", surrounded by the exceptional line-up of Avishaï Cohen on the double bass, Michel Alibo on the electric bass and Karim Ziad on the drums. The repertoire is composed mainly of originals and displays the great talent of Omri Mor as a composer who also possesses an incredible sense of performance and melody. The piece "Marrakech" (Hamid Zahir) leads the listener to new lands and wild rhythms, giving his piano style a unique combination of swing and freedom.

Also available on Blu-ray

Stefano Landi was an influential early opera composer, and La morte d’Orfeo is regarded as a milestone in the development of the genre. The narrative starts where Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo ends, taking us through the remaining adventures of Orpheus in the underworld. Beaten to death and torn apart by the fearsome maenads, Orpheus survives as a wandering soul and is finally reincarnated as a star in the sky. Landi succeeded in turning Greek tragedy into timeless music-drama, the starting point of all opera, and Seen and Heard International declared that it had ‘never before encountered such technical perfection’ in Pierre Audi’s Amsterdam production.

Volume 6 of this complete edition focuses in the main on Albéniz’s richly varied, early salon style. + It includes the dazzling Chopin influenced Vals Champagne, the Estudio de concierto which rivals Liszt for virtuosity, and the famous Tango from España: Seis hojas de Álbum, a set which conjures up Spain in its rhythms, harmonies and sense of drama. + Written a year before the composer’s death, Yvonne en visite! includes a humorous scene during a pupil’s reluctant performance, while the Marcha militar is Albéniz’s earliest work, composed at the age of eight.