Mathew Arnold observed: “It always seems to me that the right sphere for Shelley’s genius was the sphere of music, not of poetry”. Certainly, music was both a major influence on Shelley’s work, and a frequent subject of that poetry. In turn, his work has repeatedly attracted the attention of composers. Amongst English composers there are fine settings by, amongst many others, Geoffrey Bush, Roger Quilter, Vaughan Williams, Granville Bantock, Delius and Tippett; a less expected English setting can be found (‘Adonais’) on the B-side of The Cure’s 1996 single ‘The 13th’! Amongst modern American composers, there are intriguing settings by David Diamond and Ned Rorem. The number of settings, indeed, is such as to justify the publication in 1974 of Burton R. Pollin’s Music for Shelley’s Poetry: an annotated bibliography of musical settings of Shelley’s Poetry (New York, Da Capo Press).

Of immediate relevance to this particular CD, Italian composers attracted to Shelley’s work include Giorgio Ghedini, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco – and Ottorino Respighi. Respighi set several poems by Shelley, in Italian translations. Amongst them is the gorgeous Il Tramonto, which sets a translation by Roberto Ascoli of Shelley’s early poem ‘The Sunset’ (written in 1816). A minor masterpiece which belongs in a sound-world compounded of, say, Mahler and Zemlinsky, Strauss and Puccini, Respighi’s music beautifully complements and articulates Shelley’s poem of love and death, of “gentleness and patience and sad smiles” and “wisdom-working grief”, of “passionless calm and silence unreproved”. The vocal line is exquisitely handled by Stella Doufexis, her voice at times floating raptly where “lines of gold / Hung on the ashen clouds” and at times unbearably pained in evocation of the bereaved woman’s death-in-life. There are other fine recordings, including performances by Magdalena Kozena with the Henschel Quartet (Deutsche Grammophon 4715812) and Anne Sofie von Otter with the Brodsky Quartet (Vanguard Classics 99216). Kozena’s performance is part of a recital of songs by Ravel, Shostakovich, Schuloff and Britten; von Otter’s performance is part of an all Respighi programme along with the Quartet in D major and the Quartetto Dorico. Doufexis and the New Hellenic Quartet are not seriously disadvantaged by comparison with such big names – this is a dignified, moving performance, which refuses excessive melodrama.

Respighi played both violin and viola. While studying with Rimsky-Korsakov he played viola in the orchestra of the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg; in Italy played viola in the Mugellini Quartet from 1903-1908. Not surprisingly, his writing for string quartet is clearly founded in secure knowledge of instrumental possibilities. The Quartet in D minor is perhaps not especially individual in idiom, but is thoroughly well made. The opening allegro is full of rich harmonies and warm humanity; the second movement – marked lentamente con tristezza – is steeped in romantic yearning, with some long melancholy melodic lines; the third movement is neatly made, a model of balance, with some attractively lyrical episodes; the finale sparking with controlled energy. A satisfying piece which deserves to be heard more often.

The Quartetto Dorico – written some fifteen years later – is, however, an altogether more distinctive work. It was written at about the time when Respighi – in part because of the influence of his wife, the singer and composer Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo – was reshaping his musical thought in the light of his study of Gregorian chant – an interest also reflected in such compositions as the Concerto gregoriano (1921) and the Concerto in modo misolidio (1925). The quartet is written as a single long movement, though made up of clearly distinct sections. There are passages indebted to folk materials; there are alternations between contrapuntal and homophonic writing; there is much fine writing for the viola, in particular. There is suggestion of subdued passion in much of the writing, a sense of passion reflected upon and contained, its sources and outcomes only hinted at in the insistent returns to a single theme. The whole has a strange beauty, simultaneously – somehow – both lush and austere.

In both quartets the New Hellenic Quartet play with commitment, intelligence and instrumental assurance. Their work resonates with honesty and freshness. The singing of Stella Doufexis is of a similarly high standard – any listener wanting to explore Respighi beyond the familiar orchestral works could do a great deal worse than start here.

-- MusicWeb International (Glyn Pursglove)

With 17 symphonies in his list of works, not to mention operas and concertos, it is easy to forget that Kalevi Aho also composes chamber music. He has in fact written some ten quintets alone, for various combinations of instrument. Two are ‘normal’ wind quintets and it is these that the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet (BPWQ) perform on the present release. The ensemble came into contact with the Finnish composer’s Wind Quintet No. 1 in 2010, and was immediately struck by the qualities and challenges of the score. The composer himself has described the difficulties in writing for wind quintet, in terms of achieving a balanced and homogeneous sound and soft dynamics. In his first quintet he therefore included unison passages and sometimes even reduced the music to one or two parts. In the fourth movement he also added a spatial dimension by having all of the players perform from offstage at some point. Having played the work a number of times on their many tours, the BPWQ decided to commission their own quintet, and in 2015 they gave the first performance of Wind Quintet No. 2. This time, Aho found another solution to the inherent difficulties – by making the flutist and oboist change instruments to piccolo or alto flute and cor anglais at various points, the piece achieves an even wider spectrum of unusual and innovative tone colours and moods.

The 26th Volume of Bach Cantatas with Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan consists of three works composed for performances during the last three months of 1742. They are part of the composer's projected (but discontinued) Chorale Cantata Year, in which every cantata for a whole year was to be based on a well-known chorale rather than on the traditional gospel reading for the Sunday in question. The text of the chosen hymn was thus reworked by the librettist into poems suitable for setting into recitatives, arias, duets etc. Of the three works in question, BWV 180 (Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele) is the most famous -- based as it is on a communion hymn by Johannes Crüger. Among Bach connoisseurs, its opening chorus -- which also opens the disc -- has long been regarded as one of the most beautiful in any of the cantatas. ('One can tell from the composition that the master was working on one of his favourite melodies', wrote Albert Schweitzer.) BWV 122 (Das neugeborne Kindelein) was intended for the Sunday after Christmas, which in 1742 was also New Year's Eve, and is a meditation on the future, seen in the light of the recent birth of the Saviour. The BIS Cantata Cycle has recently been earning even more praise than usual. In the yearly best-of-lists of the critics of the German magazine Fono Forum, the whole series is put forward as Edition des Jahres, and Volume 24 was named Choc de l'année in the influential French review Le Monde de la musique, while Diapason gave it their November Diapason d'Or. In the same month Volume 25 was chosen as Disc of the Month by BBC Music Magazine, while in the December issue the Gramophone critic wrote: 'Suzuki projects the unity of each work with carefully sculpted opening choruses, well-leavened recitatives and urgent, radiant orchestral playing -- a recording series, reaching near its mid-point, of outstanding consistency.' This the 26th volume will surely be seen as a worthy successor!

Miklós Spányi is one of the world’s most acknowledged scholars and performers of the works of C.P.E Bach. On this release he splits Bach’s large “Fortsetzung” Sonatas over two discs and includes the embellished versions that Bach may have intended as study material for his students.