The origins of the tango are debatable, but few would disagree in naming Carlos Gardel the first great figure of the genre. Beginning his career as a folk singer, Gardel is also generally regarded as the creator of sung tango, tango canción. In the course of some 25 years, he wrote a large number of songs, recorded numerous discs and acted in several films, achieving international stardom. All the Gardel songs heard here featured in films produced between 1932 and 1935. Lending its title to the present album, Guitarra, guitarra mía was the last song Gardel recorded, shortly before he died in a plane crash in June 1935. Only months earlier, he had encountered a young boy who had a walk-on part in his last film – a striking coincidence, as the boy was Astor Piazzolla, alongside Gardel the most influential figure in the history of the tango. In contrast to Gardel, however, Piazzolla was for a long time the black sheep of traditional tango, eager to explore art music and jazz and to incorporate elements of both in his own music, which became known as nuevo tango. Written for the ensembles that he played and toured worldwide with, pieces such as La muerte del ángel and Vuelvo al sur became immortal. Himself a bandoneon player, Piazzolla often included guitar in his ensembles, but did not compose for solo guitar until in the 1980s, when he wrote the Cinco Piezas that close the disc.

Along with numerous arrangements, these have entered the guitar repertoire and are here performed by the German guitarist Franz Halász, who on recent releases for BIS has impressed the critics to the point of winning a Latin Grammy Award in 2015 with a disc of chamber music by Radamés Gnattali.

REVIEW:

Not only does this bring the music of Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla to a wider audience, with beautifully phrased performances throughout, but it leads us—for those like myself with little background in the Tango—to extensive video clips from the films Gardel made in the 1930s. Both well worth investigating.

-- Lark Reviews

London in the early 1700s offered a dazzling mix of virtually every European musical style. This bustling environment attracted both students of music (such as the young Swedish composer Roman) and established musicians, eager to make their mark- Handel and Geminiani being two of the brightest shining stars. But new influences did not only come from across the Channel. The recent union between England and Scotland led to an increased cultural exchange, and English audiences were entranced by the rhythms and colours of the traditional tunes of Scotland. Various collections, such as the settings by the recorder virtuoso Francesco Barsanti, were published and even handel could not resist a few turns at the hornpipe in his Water Music. This state of affairs is reflected in the present mix of four baroque sonatas, by composers associated with London in various ways, and nine Scottish tunes in arrangements based on the Barsanti settings. This imaginative programme is characteristic of the approach adopted by Parnassus Avenue, an ensemble which is constantly challenging 'baroque standards': according to Parnassus Avenue there is no 'early' music, just a never-ending 'now'. In lending a John Stanley Adagio the same melancholy expressivity as the mournful Waly waly, and applying the same virtuosity to the hypnotic Clout the Cauldron as to a Handel Allegro, Dan Laurin and his colleagues also demonstrate that there are no genres, only one seamless musical whole. Corelli & Co., the group's previous CD on BIS, was hailed as 'a truly inspirational disc for anyone who regards the baroque original as a starting point for individual expression' in Early Music Review. Chances are that many will receive just as much inspiration from this new disc.

This composer portrait opens with Tommie Haglund's first score for full orchestra - the cello concerto Flamnis aura. Composed in 2001 and rewarded 13 years later with Sweden's most important composition prize, the work is in a single movement with a slow basic pulse, the work is in a single movement with a slow basic pulse, and thus conforms to a recurring pattern within Haglund's production. Its Latin title describes a state immediately prior to a religious revelation, and the music forms an exploration of both the human interior and the cosmos - towards the end of the work a tape with space sounds recorded by NASA is heard: a ''Song of Earth''. Performed by Ernst Simon Glaser and the Gothenburg Symphony, the concerto is followed by another composition from 2001, the string quartet Il regno degli spiriti, and the string trio Sollievo. Both these works are here performed by the highly regarded string trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen, joined by Julia Kretz-Larsson on second violin in the quartet. Sollievo... was composed for ZPr in 2013, and its title - ''relief after teh storm'' - refers to the end of a period of painful treatment following a back operation. With a generous playing time of close to 84 minutes, teh album closes with Serenata per Diotima from 2014, interpreted by the strings of Malmo Symphony Orchestra with substantial violin solos from Hakan Rudner. Celebrating the female philosopher of Greek antiquity, the piece was also inspired by the birth of teh composer's first grandchild.

Johann Forkel, the biographer of J.S. Bach, numbered Müthel among the most remarkable of Bach’s pupils. Another of the great chroniclers of 18th century music, Charles Burney, described Müthel's works as 'so full of novelty, taste, grace, and contrivance, that I should not hesitate to rank them among the greatest productions of the present age.’ Nevertheless, today Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-88) is very far from being a household name – or indeed known at all. One reason for this may be that shortly after his encounter with Bach and an ensuing study tour during which he met other greats of German music – Hasse, C.P.E. Bach and Telemann – Müthel disappeared from the musical centre stage. In 1753 he moved to Riga, the capital of what was then the Province of Livonia, a part of the Russian Empire. There he worked as Kapellmeister at one of the aristocratic households of the city, before becoming organist of St Peter’s Church, a position he probably held until his death. In Müthel's five concertos for keyboard and strings we nevertheless meet a composer very much of his time: the ‘era between eras’ between the Baroque and Viennese Classicism. Although based on the pattern of J.S. Bach's keyboard concertos they are distinctly individual, displaying sophisticated rhythms and harmonic playfulness. Through the alternation of orchestral effects and chamber-music character Müthel achieves an unusual degree of variety, and also includes operatic ingredients, such as the recitativic episodes in the opening movement of Concerto No.5 or the dramatic Adagio middle movement of Concerto No.4. Presenting them on this set of two CDs, the young Polish harpsichordist Marcin ?wi?tkiewicz is also making his début on BIS. He is supported by his compatriots in the acclaimed period band Arte dei Suonatori, who clearly relish the often intricate and always eventful orchestral parts.

Ever since his very first disc, released by BIS some thirty years ago, Hakan Hardenberger has earned recognition for his performances of the classical repertory, but also as a pioneer of significant and vituosic new music for the trumpet. Collaborations with composers such as Takemitsu, Part, Henze, and H.K. Gruber have resulted in numerous works, of which the two recorded here are among the more recent. Brett Dean's concerto Dramatis personae is named after the term used for the list of characters in a stage work, and casts the soloist in the role of the ''Hero''. Dean's protagonist is a complex one, however, with traits inspired by comic book super heros as well as the classical flawed heros of literature and legend: ''Soliloquy'', the second movement, is a reference to Hamlet, while Charlie Chaplin's character in Modern Times has inspired the work's finale, ''The Accidental Revolutionary''. If there is a hero in the concerto by Luca Francesconi, it is Miles Davis. In his comment sto the work, Francesconi talks of Davis as ''a musician who transcends all labels'' with ''a delicate, cracked sound'' and a voice which speaks directly to the listener. Hard Pace, the title of Francesconi's work, is an allusion to a difficult journey, but it is also a conflation of the names of the performers for whom it was written: Hardenberger, Antonio Pappano and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. On the present recording it is the Gothenburg Symphony and conductor John Storgards who provide Hakan Hardenberger with expert support in these demanding and rewarding scores.

As Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach published successive collections of the Kenner und Liebhaber series, he explored new genres and styles. In the second collection he added his idiosyncratic rondos, and in the fourth he included free fantasias. The fifth collection, composed between 1779 and 1784, contains no new genres, but displays more variety in terms of textures and thematic ideas than any of the previous volumes. In fact, Bach’s preoccupation with variation is almost obsessive – it is as if he cannot finish phrases without varying either texture, tonality, rhythmic pulse or dynamics. To the six Sonatas, Rondos and Fantasias that make up the collection, Miklós Spányi adds two independent works. Bach initially composed 17 variations on the folk-like tune Ich schlief, da träumte mir in 1752 (included in Vol. 19 of this series) but returned to it almost twenty years later, publishing seven new variations. Closing the album is another set of variations, now on an original theme, an Arioso sostenuto in A major. Miklós Spányi began his survey of the Kenner und Liebhaber collections on the clavichord but the following releases have featured the tangent piano. And 35 albums into this monumental series, individual volumes are still being warmly greeted, for instance on EarlyMusicReview.com where the reviewer of Volume 32 (BIS-2205) professed to be ‘invariably struck not only by the originality of C. P. E. Bach’s keyboard writing, but also the high level of performance consistently maintained by Miklós Spányi.’

Saxophonist Harry White and pianist Edward Rushton present this album of 23 etudes by composers such as Ravel, Dukas, Poulenc, Villa-Lobos, and more. The history behind these works dates back to 1906, when a voice professor at the Paris Conservatoire, Amedee-Landely Hettich, made it his mission to change vocalises and etudes from monotonous scalar exercises to works of art in themselves. In the three decades that followed, Hettich persuaded some of France’s most respected composers to write etudes that would not only challenge the performer’s skills, but also exude musicality.