The Norwegian six-member a cappella group, Nordic Voices here presents the extraordinary polyphonic music of Tomas Luis de Victoria, a Spanish composer whose music has continued to move people for more than 400 years, crossing geographical, cultural, and even religious barriers. This surround-sound recording comes ten years after a "warm, consistent and moving" (BBC Music) album of Lamentations, which featured pieces by sixteenth-century composers, including Four Lessons by Victoria. Examples of the composer's exceptional output, characterized by a careful setting of the text and an ability to control texture by a constant grouping and regrouping of different voices, here meet the artistic resourcefulness, versatility, technical precision, and freshness of the young ensemble.
The electrifying and long-standing collaborative partnership of Tasmin Little and Piers Lane returns to Chandos for this double-album featuring Schubert’s complete works for violin and piano, combined with the ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata and the Adagio in E flat for piano trio, all highly emotive masterpieces.They are joined by cellist Tim Hugh, ‘a musician with compelling insight into the creative urge behind the notes’ (The Times). Gramophone praised this duo’s album (CHAN 10749) for the artists’ ‘complete understanding and spontaneity’ and ‘moments of true musical virtuosity’.
Ichmouratov: Letter from an Unknown Woman / Bushkov, Belarusian State Chamber Orchestra
Chandos
CD
$21.99Aug 23, 2019
Montreal-based since 1998, Airat Ichmouratov (b. 1973) traces his musical roots back to the dominant culture in his native Tatarstan in Soviet times: ‘It was definitely the Russian school of composers’, he says, without rancour. ‘I’m influenced to this day by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky. My own musical style has evolved out of this rich heritage.’ There’s more. The Volga Tatar-born Russian-Canadian composer learned to play klezmer music while busking, together with his viola-playing wife, as new immigrants on the streets and Métro of Montreal. ‘I’ve been touring the world for twenty years as a clarinettist with the Montreal band Kleztory and find myself, a Muslim-born musician, playing klezmer. This, too, is now a distinctive part of my musical language.’
This much awaited recording offers keenly idiomatic performances of the most famous works by Grieg, played by the composer’s own orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic, and its Chief Conductor, Edward Gardner. The drama and passion of such favourite pieces as the incidental music to Peer Gynt and the Piano Concerto are superbly captured in surround-sound with exemplary Chandos sound quality. Unlike most existing recordings, offering only the orchestral suites, this disc presents numerous extra excerpts from Peer Gynt, which follow the sequence of Henrik Ibsen‘s dramatic poem, including sections for the unique Norwegian 'Hardanger Fiddle’. Having collaborated with the orchestra on several occasions, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is the soloist in the Piano Concerto, a piece that stands out as a shining example of a single great thought captured and expressed in music. The power of this conception is evident throughout the concerto in the pianist’s faithful, yet highly romantic interpretation.
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REVIEW:
In the Piano Concerto, Gardner brings to the table flair, drive, and an almost Tchaikovskian lushness to the string sound, which matches well Bavouzet's commanding manner in the piano's opening flourish. Bavouzet bewitches in the slow movement, not just in the clarity of his lines but also in the sense of ebb and flow. He fully claims his status as a supreme virtuoso in the work's finale.
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade / Oundjian, Toronto Symphony
Chandos
CD
$13.99Aug 26, 2014
Recording with Chandos for the first time, this album marks the beginning of a new partnership with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A regular presence in concert halls throughout the US and Canada, this recording also comes as the TSO embarks, in August, on its first European tour since 2000 under the baton of Peter Oundjian, who this year celebrates his tenth anniversary as Music Director. He also conducts in this performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ever-popular symphonic suite Sheherazade.
Many composers have drawn inspiration from the collection of folklore known as the Arabian Nights but none has captured the imagination so vividly as Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov in Sheherazade, composed in 1888. In the story, Sheherazade escapes the murderous intent of her husband, the Sultan Schariar, by entertaining him with fascinating tales every evening for 1001 nights. Rimsky-Korsakov’s four movements allude to individual episodes and images from the stories in dazzling orchestral colour.
The suite opens with a stern and strident brass theme representing the bloodthirsty Sultan. A winding melody for solo violin that returns throughout the work represents the answering voice of Sheherazade. The kaleidoscopic second movement has the character of a scherzo while the third is tender and lyrical. The finale is a boisterous and exuberant carnival, calmed by the return of Sheherazade’s theme which brings the work to a serene conclusion. - Chandos
Review Quote
"Both conductor and orchestra make a very positive impression in Sheherazade. Oundjian shapes the music with passion and affection and pulls off some powerful climaxes. He is not afraid to go all out when the music requires it. But Oundjian is also a man who attends to details. The precision of the playing is first-class.
Rimsky’s score abounds in virtuoso opportunities for principle players in the orchestra and it is a joy to hear the TSO musicians show off. It is the concertmaster who gets the most opportunities and Jonathan Crow clearly demonstrates why he is such an asset to the orchestra..." - Paul E. Robinson, Musical Toronto
Wagner: Tristan Und Isolde, An Orchestral Passion - Arranged By Henk De Vlieger / Jarvi, RSNO
Chandos
SACD
$21.99Feb 22, 2011
Neeme Järvi is back conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the third of four albums featuring Henk de Vlieger's bold arrangements of operas by Wagner. Of the first album (CHSA 5060), Classic FM wrote: 'Dutch composer Henk de Vlieger builds a penetrating symphonic poem that reflects the dramatic depths of The Ring.' In Volume 3, De Vlieger turns to Wagner's tragic romantic opera Tristan und Isolde, which is here treated symphonically. The key themes of anticipation, longing, rapture, separation, hope, death, and transfiguration are expressed solely through orchestral forces. A particularly striking feature of the lovers' duet, a movement entitled 'Nachtgesang', is the conspicuous presence of the violin and the clarinet, which pick out the sung parts of the two lovers. The movement ends on an unresolved chord followed by a compelling caesura, which symbolises the painful realisation that it will never be possible for them to fulfil their great love. This disc also includes the overture to Wagner's Die Feen. This was the composer's first great romantic, although less well-known, opera. The overall style of the work, based on La donna serpente by Carlo Gozzi, owes its essentials to Beethoven, Marschner, and Weber - something that Wagner himself never hid in the least. However, the opera also displays clearly audible foreshadowings of the composer's later works, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, in particular. Wagner based Das Liebesverbot on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, and included on this disc is the overture to the opera. It is perhaps the most Mediterranean-sounding of the composer's operas, something especially apparent in the brimming vitality of the overture in which the tone is set straight away by the sparkling contributions of castanets, triangle, and tambourine. Described as a 'große komische Oper', it was composed in 1834, and Wagner conducted the premiere at Magdeburg in 1836. The first performance poorly attended and involving a lead singer who forgot the words and had to improvise, the opera was a resounding flop and its second performance had to be cancelled after a fist-fight broke out backstage between the prima donna's husband and a leading tenor before the curtain had even risen. The opera was never performed again in Wagner's lifetime.
Hummel: Mass In D Minor; Salve Regina / Hickox, Collegium Musicum 90
Chandos
CD
$21.99Oct 01, 2005
The third eagerly awaited volume of the masses by Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The first volume featuring the celebrated period performance ensemble Collegium Musicum 90 under the inspired direction of Richard Hickox scooped 'best choral recording' at the Gramophone Awards. Both works on this disc are premiere recordings. The CD features an impressive line-up of soloists, including Susan Gritton who constantly receives rave reviews.
Recorded in: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall 8 & 9 November 1991 (Symphony No. 1) 29 April & 1 May 1995 (Symphony No. 2) Producer(s) Ralph Couzens (Executive) Charles Greenwell (Recording) Leslie B. Dunner (Associate) Sound Engineer(s) Dan Dene Robert Shafer
Samuel Barber's 'Vanessa' has long been in need of reconsideration. The Pulitzer Prize-winning opera is a remarkable study of sex, delusion and disillusionment. Enthusiastically received at its start-studded premiere (the director was Gian Carlo Menotti; the designer, Cecil Baeton; the conductor, Dmitri Mitropolous and the tenor part of Anatol was taken by the young Nicolai Gedda), it sparked controversy - some reckoned that the score, undeniably influenced by Puccini and Strauss, was too European to be a model for contemporary American opera. Leonard Slatkin is one of the greatest champions of the works of Samuel Barber. He conducted an all-star concert performance of 'Vanessa' at the Barbican last year - one of the few performances of the work ever to be staged in the UK, and the only one to assemble the calibre of cast worthy of this work. It received extraordinary reviews. It was from this concert that this recording is taken.
Elgar: The Light Of Life / Hickox, Howarth, Finnie, Davies, Shirley-Quirk, LSO
Chandos
CD
$13.99Jul 31, 2012
"Hickox's superior Elgarian credentials are immediately established in the glorious orchestral "Meditation", where his conducting demonstrates a noble flexibility, sensitivity to dynamic nuance and feeling for climax that are wholly beguiling. Equally, the Chandos production team see to it that the familiar Elgarian 'glow'-.-a component largely missing from Sir Charles Groves's rival Liverpool recording—is in generous supply; indeed, the engineering, sumptuous yet nicely detailed, comes close to the ideal. The LSO respond for their Associate Conductor with playing that is both warm-hearted and alert; as ever, the London Symphony Chorus contribute to proceedings in exemplary, splendidly disciplined fashion..."
- Gramophone, (From the original 1993 release.)
This re-release of The Light of Life by Sir Edward Elgar forms part of the new Hickox Legacy commemorative series on Chandos Records, leading up to (and continuing beyond) the fifth anniversary, in Nov 2013, of the conductor’s untimely death.
The Light of Life, an oratorio for soprano, contralto, tenor, and baritone soloists, full choir and orchestra, is a lesser-known but imposing work by the composer who brought us the mighty Dream of Gerontius. The story concerns the blind beggar whose sight Christ restored. The words are taken from the Gospel of St John, with additions by the Reverend Edward Capel Cure.
Elgar proposed to call this his first oratorio Lux Christi, but his publishers persuaded him to provide an English title: as the work was written with the 1896 Three Choirs Festival at Worchester in mind, the concern was that an Anglican cathedral festival might detect a Roman Catholic bias… Elgar complied, and the work was given the more suitable title by which we know it today.
Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus were joined on this recording by the soloists Judith Howarth, Linda Finnie, Arthur Davies, and John Shirley-Quirk.
Opera In English - Berg: Lulu / Daniel, Saffer, Perry, Et Al
Chandos
CD
$27.99Feb 01, 2006
The 2002 production of Berg's Lulu by Richard jones is generally agreed to be one of the best things to come from troubled English National Opera in recent years. Chandos has done everyone a favour by transferring its 2005 revival lock, stock and smoking revolver from the opera house to the studio...This is important for several reasons. Lulu can seem forbidding to the uninitiated. Its amoral characters, its sordid plot, its enigmatic anti-heroine, its complex (and masterful) formal design: all these aspects repel some as much as they attract others. Yet cabaret burlesque is as integral to the opera's make-up as high operatic tragedy. Paul Daniel and the Chandos engineers don't let us forget it. Piano, saxophone and vibraphone get the prominence they deserve...Richard Stokes has rendered Wedekind's demotic text aptly and brilliantly...For Lulu in the raw, a Rosenkavalier with no underwear, I'll take this. - Peter Quantrill, THE GRAMOPHONE
Opera In English - Berg: Wozzeck / Daniel, Shore, Et Al
Chandos
CD
$27.99Apr 01, 2003
Chandos presents the English language recording premiere of 'Wozzeck', Berg's powerful and fatalistic tragedy, now regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century opera. Paul Daniel and the Philharmonia Orchestra receive consistently excellent reviews in this series, and are aided by a superb cast and theatrical Chandos sound. Recorded in: Watford Colosseum 14-18 July 2002 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Michael Common (Assistant)
Contains the composer's complete works for strings Dedicated to the memory of our beloved mentor and dear friend Jenö Lehner (1906-1997) - Schoenberg Quartet Recorded in: Oud-Katholieke Church, Delft, The Netherlands ; Waalse Kerk, Amsterdam; Maria Minor, Utrecht; Main Hall, Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, Utrecht; Musis Sacrum, Arnhem Recorded between 29 June 1991 and 11 June 2001 Sound Engineer(s) Benno Torrenga (Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra) Adriaan Verstijnen (other works) Adriaan Verstijnen (Editing)
"In the era of the great romantic pianists, it used to be the fashion at piano recitals to offer an improvisation in the same key as that of the piece that was scheduled to follow, in order to get the audience ‘in the mood’. To compensate for this lost art, I have thought of always playing one of the nocturnes before a major piano composition by Chopin. It makes these nocturnes appear more like an improvisation, to serve as counterweight to the very dense content of the Ballades, Scherzos, and Sonatas. This practice transfers smoothly the logic of a piano recital to a CD and makes more sense by allowing the listener to enjoy the contents in one stretch." - Louis Lortie
The immensely respected French-Canadian virtuoso Louis Lortie celebrates the Chopin anniversary with an album of Nocturnes and Scherzos for solo piano. These works stretch the pianist’s technique in every possible way. This Canadian pianist has long had an association with Chandos, and is recognized as one of the finest interpreters of Chopin. He first recorded Chopin’s Études for Chandos more than 20 years ago; it was named as one of the ‘50 great performances by superlative pianists’ by BBC Music Magazine. Since then he’s enjoyed an exceptionally rich performing and recording career. He won First Prize in the Busoni Competition in 1984. He was also a prize-winner at the Leeds Competition. He’s been named an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.
P. De Manchicourt, C. De Morales, Etc / Nordic Voices
Chandos
SACD
$21.99Jul 01, 2007
REGES TERRAE • Nordic Voices • CHANDOS 5050 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 48:52 Text and Translation)
MANCHICOURT Reges terrae. Laudate Dominum. O virgo virginum. Missa Reges terrae: Agnus Dei. MORALES Regina caeli. Exaltata est. CLEMENS NON PAPA O magnum mysterium. GUERRERO Hei mihi Domine. GOMBERT Ego sum qui sum
This collection of 16th-century polyphony is subtitled “Music from the time of Charles V,” but only one of the composers, Gombert, ever worked at the imperial chapel. His motet was recorded recently by Philip Cave (24:1). But all of them moved in the orbit of Spain and the Low Countries that constituted the emperor’s stamping ground. Manchicourt is the central person here, his selections distributed throughout the program. Two of his motets were included in Paul van Nevel’s disc (21:1), and the third was on Edith Ho’s second disc (30:3), but his Missa Reges terrae has not been recorded complete. Guerrero’s motet was included in a program by James O’Donnell (21:3). The two motets by Morales are not common, for while Exaltata est was made by Wolfgang Schäfer (13:3), the Regina caeli is not the same as a setting made by James O’Donnell (17:3). A real find is Clemens non Papa’s motet, which also seems to be a first recording, sadly overlooked until now.
The ensemble of six mixed voices was formed in Norway a decade ago. They give strong interpretations of the music. The moods are varied and the group is involved throughout. There were two sessions two years apart, with a change of mezzos in the process, but the credits are detailed and the ensemble is pictured once with each mezzo. While we hear so many discs from the provinces focused on local repertoire, this is a refreshing example of Norwegians singing repertoire from another part of Europe. It arouses curiosity about their next program.
FANFARE: J. F. Weber This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
