Four years after a highly successful Bartok recording with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner here returns to the composer on SACD, with James Ehnes as solo violinist, and his Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. The central piece in this recording is the Concerto for Orchestra, the largest work that Bartok completed during the last five years of his life and described by the composer, in the program notes for its 1944 premiere, as ‘a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.’ It is joined by the Dance Suite, the immediate predecessor, among Bartok’s few works for full orchestra without a soloist, of the Concerto for Orchestra, though by more than two decades; and by the violin Rhapsodies, the colorful folk influences of which are revealed by James Ehnes, a specialist in the repertoire, who already has recorded the complete sonatas as well as the concertos for violin and for viola to critical acclaim.

After acclaimed recordings of the Third (‘Dausgaard… makes the music sound vital and even revolutionary’, Fanfare) and Sixth (‘This persuasively played work could be no better served’, MusicWeb International), Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra now present Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, ‘Romantic’ in its second version (1878-1880), the one with which this work has become widely known. “Nothing like this has been written since Beethoven” conductor Hans Richter is said to have declared after the successful premiere of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony in Vienna in 1881. This success finally gave the 56-year-old composer the attention and recognition he sorely needed and one can affirm that it was from this day onwards that Bruckner was actually cultivated in Vienna after years of public humiliation. Despite its nickname given by the composer himself, this symphony in no way expresses existential pain. Rather, the romanticism refers to the experience of nature – from sublime forest magic to hunting scenes – emphasized by the horn, the quintessential romantic instrument, which is given a prominent role.

REVIEW:

Dausgaard emerged early on as one of the most convincing HIP conductors of standard repertoire, and he has earned the right to express his individuality in Bruckner under normal conditions, one might say. His involvement with the score is undoubted, which makes the issue of fast tempos mostly irrelevant. Being different is worthwhile only when the difference is musically meaningful. I think that Dausgaard easily passes that test, in a Bruckner Fourth that is among the most striking in years.

-- Fanfare

This year, we celebrate the thirty-year conducting career of Neeme Järvi with Chandos records, as well as the conductor’s own seventy-fifth birthday. Chandos marks the occasion with this two-disc set of highlights, featuring a varied selection of concert hall rarities and core classics, along with some popular showpieces and examples of Järvi’s championing of Estonian and American music. Gramophone said of his recently concluded Halvorsen series, “Järvis finds in the music a drama and pathos that might come as a revelation even to the composer.”

Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen is undoubtedly a rising star at the moment, following successful appearances at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Oper Frankfurt, Komische Oper Berlin, and Teatro alla Scala in Milan. On the concert stage she has made recent important appearances with the Orchestre de Paris, Berliner Philharmoniker, Oslo Philharmonic, and Münchner Philharmoniker among others. Here she joins the Bergen Philharmonic and Edward Gardner for a powerful album of orchestral songs, coupling Britten’s Les Illuminations and Four French Songs with a selection of Cantaloube’s inimitable Songs of the Auvergne. Eriksmoen spent a year studying in Paris, and proves an effective and natural singer of the French language. As she mentions in her program note: ‘It is highly demanding to sing in French when it is not one’s native tongue, but I have always felt at home when singing in French and nurture an emotional attachment to the French language.’

REVIEWS:

One cannot can’t praise Eriksmoen enough for the accuracy of her singing, its tonal beauty, and her absorption in the text. There are running passages, exposed intervals, and those chromatic steps to contend with. She faces every challenge with ease.

-- Fanfare

In Britten’s Les illuminations, the generally belllike accuracy of Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen’s singing is more than matched by the expressive truth of her interpretations. She is most beguiling when floating her voice weightlessly and with a serene joie de vivre in ‘Antique’, perfectly partnered by the lovely violin playing of the Bergen Philharmonic leader Melina Mandozzi.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Berio had an abiding fascination with reconciling the past and the present, which can be seen in his orchestral realisations of works by Mahler and Brahms, and most notably, in Rendering (1990), his typically creative completion of unfinished symphonic sketches by Schubert. In Rendering, Berio - in his own words - sets himself the target of 'following those modern restoration criteria that aim at reviving the old colours without, however, trying to disguise the damage that time has caused, often leaving inevitable empty patches in the composition'. In the 'restoration', Schubert's sketches have been beautifully orchestrated in period style, and the 'empty patches' have been filled with music composed by Berio himself, in his own voice - thereby successfully combining the musical worlds of the early nineteenth and late twentieth centuries into one convincing whole. The Clarinet Sonata by Brahms embodies the composer's taut and concentrated compositional style. In transcribing the work, Berio felt that, when experienced in the less intimate surroundings of today's concert halls, the extreme compression of Brahms's late chamber music style was in need of some additional support, and his version, recorded here, includes a fourteen-bar orchestral introduction to the first movement, leading into Brahms's own, much shorter opening phrase, as well as five additional bars at the beginning of the second movement. Berio completed his orchestration of six early songs by Gustav Mahler in 1987, and conducted the first performance with the Toscanini Orchestra on 7 December that year,with Thomas Hampson the baritone soloist. The six songs in this orchestrated set are 'Hans und Grete', 'Phantasie', 'Scheiden und Meiden', 'Erinnerung', 'Frühlingsmorgen', and 'Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald'. The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Edward Gardner, with Roderick Williams the baritone soloist in the songs by Mahler and Michael Collins the soloist in Brahms's Clarinet Sonata.