Although he had initially declined the commission, Delius was persuaded to write the incidental music for Hassan by the actor and director Basil Dean in July 1920, for performances he was planning for His Majesty’s Theatre, London, the following year. Much of the music was drafted within a few weeks, and the score would eventually prove one of the greatest successes of Delius’s career. Dean’s plans for the project encountered significant obstacles and delays, however, and he had to commission additional music from Delius to cover the production’s complex scene changes. The London première eventually took place on 20 September 1923 and was a critical sensation.

Flecker’s play is a sinuous double-narrative that intertwines the twin stories of the lovelorn but worldly-wise Hassan, confectioner at the court of the cruel and vindictive Caliph Haroun al Rashid (called Haroun ar Rashid in Flecker’s play), and the young lovers Pervaneh and Rafi, caught up in the aftermath of a failed uprising and condemned to a terrifying and brutally protracted death. In tone and setting, Flecker’s text drew on nineteenth-century English translations of One Thousand and One Nights as well as other heavily fictionalized accounts and travel literature. Very much a product of the racial and class-based attitudes of its time, the play revels in imaginary scenes of a despotic Eastern court and its gruesomely barbaric practices.

Rossini drew a line under his hugely successful operatic career at the age of 37 and wrote little until his final years in Paris, where he became renowned for his musical salons. For these he wrote numerous short piano pieces which he jokingly called Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age): sometimes experimental miniatures that can raise a smile or touch the heart, blurring boundaries between the irreverent and the serious. Rossini’s publisher Antonio Pacini considered the composer’s late works as his most illustrious period: ‘what he composes daily is a series of masterpieces that seems as though it will never end.’ Including songs and fascinating novelties, this acclaimed complete edition contains a myriad of rarities and numerous world premiere recordings.

Winner of a 2022 German Record Critics’ Award!

To welcome the spring, British ensemble I Fagiolini puts aside its beloved Monteverdi to uncover its own national heritage: the best of John Wilbye's classic Golden Age madrigals. Whilst his oeuvre may have been small (just 75 works that we know of and most just a couple of minutes long), time and again, in these exquisite cameos, Wilbye delivers what might be reckoned the ultimate madrigal experience. The plangent dissonance of ‘Draw on, sweet night’ and ‘Weep, weep, mine eyes’ perfectly evoke English melancholy, while ‘Sweet honey-sucking bees’ and ‘Adieu, sweet Amaryllis’ are such sheer pleasure to sing that many listeners will scrabble to unearth old scores. This album is, in a nutshell, 75 minutes of madrigalian bliss! Rediscover or enjoy anew this central part of English choral culture, strangely out of fashion for so long, sung by a group that has matured into the repertoire like a good wine.

REVIEW:

In the early 1730s Bach revised his E flat major Magnificat of 1723, transposing it to D major and omitting the interpolations peculiar to Christmas performances in Leipzig. (Recent research suggests such richly scored Latin Magnificats could be performed in Lutheran churches at some 15 annual festivals, not just the three – Xmas, Easter, Ascension – previously supposed.) The D major was apparently Bach’s preferred version and is the one commonly played today, as on this latest instalment of Masaaki Suzuki’s acclaimed survey of Bach’s sacred vocal music. Suzuki’s Magnificat, like his earlier Bach recordings, is sharply focused and performed with engaging conviction. My benchmark disc, by Philippe Herreweghe, grips with its palpable air of excitement. Suzuki’s reading is cooler, more nuanced and has a clearer acoustic; yet Herreweghe’s soloists retain a slight edge – few could match Barbara Schlick and oboist Marcel Penseele in rapt duet on ‘Quia respexit’. Herreweghe’s coupling is the splendid Cantata, BWV 80; Suzuki offers a trio of fascinating rareties. The Magnificat by Kuhnau, Bach’s predecessor at Leipzig, resembles Bach’s in instrumentation and division of text: it’s a lively, attractive piece, trumpets ringing out boldly in the bright opening chorus. Two shorter Magnificats by Bach’s Dresden-based contemporary Zelenka represent a very different and highly individual approach, the C major’s tripartite structure creating an almost concerto-like framework for soprano soloist. Suzuki’s excellent, scrupulous performances should provoke greater interest in Kuhnau’s and Zelenka’s church music – the latter’s Missa Dei Filii, by Tafelmusik/Frieder Bernius (DHM), is also highly recommended. Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Graham Lock, BBC Music Magazine

"The beautifully produced Çedille album of Jewish cabaret music broke new ground. Yet more depths were revealed in a ravaged culture: modest, entertaining, and humane." -- Paul Ingram, Fanfare

The booklet accompanying this release is so thick that it requires a double jewel case to accommodate it and the single CD it documents. So extensive are the essay, annotations, and bibliography to this production—assumed to have been authored by the New Budapest Orpheum’s director, Philip V. Bohlman, though nowhere is he credited as the author—that I will not even try to summarize their contents, which cover the history, politics, and poetics of Yiddish song in stage, screen, vaudeville, and cabaret. The program of Jewish cabaret songs contained herein complements some of the volumes that appeared in the massive Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, though the composers represented on the current CD were not necessarily transplants to American soil. Of those who enriched the Jewish cabaret literature, some did make it to U.S. shores, notably Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill, and Arnold Schoenberg. But others, such as Viktor Ullmann and Pavel Haas, perished in the Holocaust.

The disc is divided into seven sections: (1) “The Great Ennui on the Eve of Exile,” featuring songs by Edmund Nick and Erich Kästner; (2) “The Exiled Language—Yiddish Songs for Stage and Screen,” featuring unattributed songs, but at least one by Abraham Ellstein; (3) “Transformation of Tradition,” presenting songs by the aforementioned Eisler; (4) “The Poetics of Exile,” offering songs by Kurt Tucholsky, as well as additional songs by Eisler; (5) “Traumas of Inner Exile,” featuring songs by Ullmann; (6) “Nostalgia and Exile,” presenting additional unattributed songs; and (7) “Exile in Reprise,” offering songs by Friedrich Holländer.

The songs were chosen to reflect the various phases of exile—physical, emotional, and psychological—that European Jewry experienced in the period leading up to and during WW II and its immediate aftermath, roughly 1935 to 1945, a period that accounts for the second great exodus of Jews from Europe. Primarily then, these are songs from the smoke-filled nightclubs and entertainment halls of Berlin and other European cities before the rise of Hitler, from the barracks of the concentration camps during the Holocaust, and from the months and years following the liberation. The before, during, and after the Shoah aspects of the recorded material frame and reflect the corresponding attitudes, mindsets, and living conditions of the times—from a song like Elegy in the Forest of Things, expressing a kind of resigned world weariness; to Ellstein’s Deep as Night that tries to deaden the senses to the pain of the outside world with the surrogate internal pain of a longed for love; to the bitter sarcasm of Eisler’s Sweetbread and Whips and Georg Kreisler’s Poisoning Pigeons, a song about spreading arsenic on graham crackers and feeding them to the birds in the park; and finally to I’m an Irrepressible Optimist, a song from the aftermath which cannot erase memories and finds optimism only in the release of death. 

The New Budapest Orpheum Society is an ensemble-in-residence at the University of Chicago. A mixed group of vocalists (Julia Bentley, mezzo-soprano and Stewart Figa, baritone) and instrumentalists (Iordanka Kisslova, violin; Stewart Miller, string bass; Hank Tausend, percussion; and Ilya Levinson, piano), the NBOS performs regularly at Chicago’s universities, synagogues, and cultural institutions, and has also appeared at the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum and the American Academy in Berlin. Philip V. Bohlman is the group’s artistic director; and Ilya Levinson, in addition to her role as pianist, also serves as music director and arranger.

Readers who acquired and enjoyed the three volumes from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music titled “Songs of the American Yiddish Stage” (Naxos 8.559405, 8.559432, and 8.559455) will find much in “Jewish Cabaret in Exile” to their liking. One needn’t necessarily be Jewish, however, to appreciate this material, much of which had its origins in the dives, dance halls, and strip joints of Bertolt Brecht’s, Kurt Weill’s, Lotte Lenya’s, and Marlene Dietrich’s Berlin. Some of it is pretty heady stuff, with the gender-bending sexual stereotyping and absurdist satire of a decadent, Dada-costumed culture on the verge of imploding. Recommended then if you love it. If you don’t, best leave it.
-- Jerry Dubins, Fanfare

Track listing details:

I. The Great Ennui on the Eve of Exile
Edmund Nick (1891–1973) & Erich Kästner (1899–1974)
1 Die möblierte Moral / The Well-Furnished Morals (1:48)
2 Das Wiegenlied väterlicherseite / The Father’s Lullaby (4:49)
3 Die Elegie in Sachen Wald / Elegy in the Forest of Things (3:29)
4 Der Gesang vom verlorenen Sohn / The Song of the Lost Son (5:13)
5 Das Chanson für Hochwohlgeborene / The Chanson for Those Who Are Born Better (2:43)
6 Der Song “man müßte wieder . . .”/ The Song “Once Again One Must . . .” (3:59)

II. The Exiled Language — Yiddish Songs for Stage and Screen
7 Moses Milner (1886–1953): In Cheider / In the Cheder (5:46)
8 Mordechai Gebirtig (1877–1942): Avreml, der Marvikher / Abe, the Pickpocket (5:12)
9 Abraham Ellstein (1907–1963): Tif vi di Nacht / Deep as the Night (3:07)

III. Transformation of Tradition
Hanns Eisler (1898–1962):
From Zeitungsausschnitte, Op. 11 (Newspaper Clippings)
10 Mariechen / Little Marie (1:49)
11 Kriegslied eines Kindes / A Child’s Song of War (2:32)

IV. The Poetics of Exile: Songs by Hanns Eisler and Kurt Tucholsky (1890–1935)
12 Heute zwischen Gestern und Morgen / Today between Yesterday and Tomorrow (2:35)
13 Bügerliche Wohltätigkeit / Civic Charity (3:01)
14 Zuckerbrot und Peitsche / Sweetbread and Whips (2:20)
15 An den deutschen Mond / To the German Moon (2:46)
16 Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit / Unity and Justice and Freedom (1:53)
17 Couplet für die Bier-Abteilung / Couplet for the Beer Department (1:26)

V. Traumas of Inner Exile
Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944)
Three Yiddish Songs (Brezulinka), op. 53 (1944)
18 Berjoskele / The Little Birch (4:18)
19 Margaritkele / Little Margaret (1:37)
20 Ich bin a Maydl in di Yorn / I’m Already a Young Woman (1:30)

VI. Nostalgia and Exile
21 Georg Kreisler (b. 1922): Tauben vergiften / Poisoning Pigeons (2:46)
22 Hermann Leopoldi (1888–1959) and Robert Katscher (1894–1942): Ich bin ein unverbesserlicher Optimist / I’m an Irrepressible Optimist (3:46)
23 Misha Spoliansky (1898–1985) / Marcellus Schiffer (1892–1932): Heute Nacht oder nie / Tonight or Never (3:22)

VII. Exile in Reprise
Friedrich Holländer on Stage and Film
24 Friedrich Holländer (1896–1976): Marianka (2:32)
25 Wenn der Mond, wenn der Mond . . . / If the Moon, If the Moon . . . (3:00) Lyrics by Theobald Tiger (Kurt Tucholsky)

Around the time The King's Singers was starting up, one of the most productive periods of songwriting in history was coming to a close in America, starting with composers such as Gershwin, Kern, Berlin and Porter in the early 1920s, and continuing through to the early 1960s. In this new 2-CD studio recording - featuring brand new a cappella arrangements by jazz composer and arranger Alexander L'Estrange, and swing-orchestra performances with the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra - The King's Singers bring their own unique performance style to this wonderful music.

Twenty five years after their last recording of piano duets on Chandos, the Canadien pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier return in a watershed collection of magnificently played duets by Rachmaninoff including the two suites and an arrangement for his Symphonic Dances. The Lortie/Mercier piano duo have known one another since their early teens, and have a considerable collaborative discography that showcases their affinity for the art of 4 hands and 2 pianos performances and repertoire.

The premiere of Franz Lachner’s Symphony No. 6 was held in Munich on 19 April 1837 with the composer as the conductor. The Munich press termed it a “magnificent work” and an “outstanding masterpiece,” and in this truly extraordinary work Lachner refrains from the confrontational juxtaposition of large-format thematic blocks (above all occurring in his third and fifth symphonies), instead presenting a “more organic” compositional style in which motivic-thematic developments are realized step by step. Lachner’s Concertino for Bassoon and Orchestra is a work from 1824, composed during his Vienna years. He dedicated it to Theobald Hürth, who was then the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra’s principal bassoonist. It is not known whether or not Hürth ever performed this work in public, and performances of it are not documented. It is one of the earliest extant compositions by Lachner and possibly his first work with orchestra. Here Chia-Hua Hsu, the solo bassoonist of Taiwan’s Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, interprets its recording premiere.

Autumn 2020 offered Daniel-Ben Pienaar an opportunity, not because the world was in lockdown but rather for the benefit it provided. A professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Daniel-Ben was allowed overnight access to the RAM’s Angela Burgess Hall. Solitary, with a Steinway and a single pair of suspended omni-directional microphones, surrounded by silence and the darkness of the night, Daniel-Ben recorded this inspired eight-CD set of Haydn’s Piano Sonatas over a four-month period.

Daniel-Ben’s choice of Haydn’s 48 Piano Sonatas is based on his own meticulous research. The cycle comprises authenticated works plus earlier compositions presumed by scholars to be penned by Haydn. This deluxe box set follows in the footsteps of Daniel-Ben Pienaar’s acclaimed surveys of sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

The three concertos featured on this album were composed together in 1782 / 83 – shortly after Mozart had left his patron and position in Salzburg to establish himself as a freelance composer and performer in Vienna. The concertos were all performed by the composer in a series of subscription concerts that he gave in the city. All share the same form – opening movement in sonata form, slow movement in ternary form, and a bright rondo finale. Despite these similarities, though, each piece has its own distinct character and identity; such was the extent of Mozart’s genius for invention. Although formally scored for strings with wind, horns, trumpets, and timpani, Mozart also offered them to his publisher to be performed ‘a quatro’ – for strings only. These would be the last concertos he wrote in which this would be possible, and it is certainly likely that it reflected a need to earn greater income as opposed to being a purely artistic decision. As in the rest of this series, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is joined by the Manchester Camerata and Gábor Takács-Nagy, who open the album with a dazzling performance of the Overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which dates from the same period.

This second volume of Septura’s brass chamber music series takes us back to the 17th century and the music of Baroque opera, in four contrasting works by Rameau, Blow, Purcell and Handel. The astounding variety in content, colour and character of the originals demands especially inventive arrangements, and these pieces are vividly brought to life by incorporating stylistic elements from ‘period performance’. The exhilarating result is a stunningly virtuosic set of new Baroque works for brass.

Nearly all of Daniel Purcell’s surviving solo harpsichord music consists of arrangements, the only clear exception being the short Toccata, a brief essay in the style of the preludes from Henry Purcell’s harpsichord suites. The Suite is a simple but effective arrangement of movements from the composer’s own suite

Welsh pianist Llyr Williams is widely admired for his profound musical intelligence and the expressive and communicative nature of his interpretations. The complete 8 album collection of Llyr Williams’ Schubert series – previously released as individual digital volumes over 2019 to 2020. These recordings were made following a critically-lauded recital series at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama by Williams. Together they showcase the detailed examination given by Williams to these pieces, which is “warm, yet detailed” (Piano International). The accompanying booklet includes background notes on each piece, as well as an essay by US composer William Bolcom on his completion of Schubert’s unfinished Sonata in C major, D. 840. “These precious five minutes alone are worth a whole string of concerts” (Le Devoir) “ease into melting loveliness” (Classical Source) “Remarkable artistry and authority” (The Guardian)

REVIEW

In live performances such as these, one would expect a certain amount of casualness and distraction, a tendency to slur over passages, rush an accelerando to impress the audience and miss the occasional staccato dot or complete grace note. That is not the case. Williams brings to each work, no matter how slight or monumental, the same integrity and an honoring of the composer’s voice. Technically, I can’t help but be impressed, even amazed, by the strength of his playing and the consistency of pressure on each finger. Yet, there is an overarching individual expressiveness that conveys, as few others can, the unique wistfulness of the Schubert “sound”, the composer’s yearning for recognition and, later, for health, and knowing full well what little time he had in which to accomplish so much. I have never before heard the essential Schubert discerned and revealed at this level of perfection.

–ConcertoNet.com (Linda Holt)

This substantial set dedicated to the vocal music of Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) features the great cycle undertaken (to date) by Krijn Koetsveld and the singers of Le Nuove Musiche: all nine books of madrigals, the music in Monteverdi collections such as the Selva Morale e Spirituale (1641), the posthumous Messa a quattro voci ed salmi (1650), and the individual works by Monteverdi compiled in the collections of others, the so-called Fragments. To this is joined the cycle of operas directed by Sergio Vartolo and sung by casts of Italian early music specialists, including the first recording of the five-act version of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria.

These thoroughly researched, historically informed interpretations demonstrate Monteverdi’s pioneering and transformative role in the emergence and development of staged, dramatic vocal music. Also featured are the grand Vespers – sacred music in the Gregorian plainchant tradition but on an operatic scale – in a fantastic recording with fine Italian soloists and authentic period instruments including the early brass of La Pifarescha. Federico Bardazzi and Ensemble Felice make scrupulous interpretative decisions about the order of movements, interpolating the choral motets within the prescribed sequence of psalms to great effect. Finally, there are Monteverdi’s youthful three-part canzonettas, written when the composer was 17. They are rather simpler than the madrigals, both to sing and to appreciate, but their musical worth is amply demonstrated by the largely female voices of Armoniosoincanto joined by a mixed period-instrument ensemble of flutes, violas, theorbo and harpsichord. They impart just the right light-hearted mood and dramatic impact to the playful, folkloric secular strophic poetry.

CONTENTS:

• Monteverdi: Il primo libro de madrigali, 1587
• Monteverdi: Il secondo libro de madrigali, 1590
• Monteverdi: Il terzo libro de madrigali, 1592
• Monteverdi: Il quarto libro de madrigali, 1603
• Monteverdi: Il quinto libro de madrigali, 1605
• Monteverdi: Il sesto libro de madrigali, 1614
• Monteverdi: Il settimo libro de madrigali, 1619 'Concerto'
• Monteverdi: Il ottavo libro de madrigali, 1638 'Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi'
• Monteverdi: Il nono libro de madrigali, 1651
• Monteverdi: O ciechi il tanto affaticar, SV 252
• Monteverdi: Voi ch'ascoltate
• Monteverdi: È questa vita un lampo
• Monteverdi: Spuntava il dì, SV 255
• Monteverdi: Chi vol che m’innamori
• Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi III alla francese, SV267
• Monteverdi: Gloria a 7, SV 258
• Monteverdi: Crucifixus, SV 259
• Monteverdi: Pianto della Madonna 'Iam moriar, mi fili' (sopra il Lamento dell'Arianna), SV 288
• Monteverdi: Et resurrexit, a quattro
• Monteverdi: Et iterum
• Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum in sancta Eius
• Monteverdi: Salve Regina, SV 285
• Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum
• Monteverdi: Beatus vir (from Selva Morale e Spirituali)
• Monteverdi: Sanctorum meritis (Primo)
• Monteverdi: Dixit [Dominus] Primo
• Monteverdi: Ab aeternum, SV 262
• Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi Domine, SV266
• Monteverdi: Memento Domine David
• Monteverdi: Laudate pueri Primo
• Monteverdi: Salve Regina, SV 284
• Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum omnes gentes II
• Monteverdi: Magnificat Primo
• Monteverdi: Gloria (1641)
• Monteverdi: Dixit Dominus secondo a8 SV 192
• Monteverdi: Deus tuorum militum sors et corona
• Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi, Domine
• Monteverdi: Iste confessor
• Monteverdi: Beatus vir (second setting)
• Monteverdi: Ut queant laxis, hymnus sancti Joannis
• Monteverdi: Laudate pueri (Secondo)
• Monteverdi: Deus tuorum militum sors et corona
• Monteverdi: Credidi propter quod locutus sum, SV 275
• Monteverdi: Jubilet a voce sola in dialogo
• Monteverdi: Magnificat (Secondo)
• Monteverdi: Salve Regina
• Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum
• Monteverdi: Canzonette
• Monteverdi: Vespro della beata Vergine (1610)
• Monteverdi: Cantate Domino
• Monteverdi: O beatae viae
• Monteverdi: Currite populi
• Monteverdi: Ego flos campi
• Monteverdi: Venite, venite
• Monteverdi: Christe, adoramus te
• Monteverdi: O quam pulchra es
• Monteverdi: Salve Regina
• Monteverdi: Fuge, anima mea
• Monteverdi: Sancta Maria
• Monteverdi: Domine, ne il furore
• Monteverdi: Ego dormio
• Monteverdi: Ecce sacrum paratum
• Monteverdi: Salve Regina
• Monteverdi: O bone Jesu, o piissime Jesu
• Monteverdi: En gratulemur hodie, SV 302
• Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum omnes gentes
• Monteverdi: Adoramus te, Christe
• Monteverdi: Messa a 4 voci da Cappella (1650)
• Monteverdi: Dixit [Dominus] Primo
• Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi, Domine
• Monteverdi: Nisi Dominus a 6, SV201
• Monteverdi: Laudate pueri
• Monteverdi: Laetatus sum
• Monteverdi: Lauda Jerusalem a 3, SV202
• Monteverdi: Beatus vir (from Selva Morale e Spirituali)
• Monteverdi: Magnificat Primo
• Monteverdi: Missa 'In illo tempore' (1610)
• Monteverdi: Dixit Dominus II
• Monteverdi: Confitebor tibi Domine II, SV194
• Monteverdi: Nisi Dominus a 6, SV201
• Monteverdi: Laudate Dominum, SV197a
• Monteverdi: Laetatus sum
• Monteverdi: Laetaniae della Beata Vergine a 6 voci
• Monteverdi: Lauda Jerusalem a 5, SV203
• Monteverdi: L'Orfeo
• Monteverdi: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
• Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea

This refreshed Chopin Edition from Brilliant Classics retains many of the definitive recordings from its predecessor of 2015, but boasting some exciting updates. The Concertos and piano concertante music are consolidated in a bright new cycle from Czechia, recorded last autumn by Siberian superstar Ekaterina Litvintseva and the KFPar under Mardirossian. Schmitt-Leonardy’s sonatas are joined by No. 1 – recorded late in 2015, and therefore just missing inclusion in the previous edition – bringing the complete cycle under his fingers. Alwin Bär’s own Scherzi performances are reunited with his iconic 1998 recording of the Barcarolle, Fantasy and Berceuse. The Études are featured in a stunning complete cycle recorded in 2014 by the phenomenal Chopinist and 2023 OPUS KLASSIK double-nominee Zlata Chochieva. Finally the complete Nocturnes are given over to another noted young Chopin interpreter: the 2018 Geza Anda winner Claire Huangci, who recorded the set two years earlier, in 2016.

REVIEW:

In 2015 Brilliant Classics issued a complete Chopin edition culled from both original productions and licensed recordings from other labels, and featuring a variety of musicians. The label’s revised 2023 Chopin edition retains roughly two-thirds of the contents, while substituting about six CDs worth of alternative performances. Is it “new and improved”? Mostly yes. Here is a rundown of the contents:

Discs 1 & 2: The 2015 Chopin box featured Eva Kupiec in the two concertos (amazingly conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski), with Abbey Simon in the other concerted works. Here we have less individual yet elegantly transparent performances of the entire Chopin piano/orchestra oeuvre with Ekaterina Litvintseva, supported by Vahan Mardirossian leading the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice.

Discs 3 & 4: The well-played chamber works with violinist Duccio Ceccanti, cellist Vittorio Ceccanti, and pianist Simone Gragnani are held over from 2015. So are Anna Haase’s slightly tremulous yet heartfelt Polish songs, superbly accompanied by Lucius Rühl.

Disc 5: Zlata Chochieva’s Etudes count among my top five recommendations in these works, wisely replacing Alessandro Deljavan’s mannered and overloaded readings.

Disc 6: As before, we have Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy’s intelligently paced and imaginatively detailed Ballades and Impromptus.

Disc 7: Folke Nauta’s broad and sonorous readings of the standard seven Polonaises are back, along with his rather underplayed Andante spianato e Grande polonaise.

Disc 8: The youthful Polonaises plus unimportant minor works like the Bourées, the Largo in E-flat, and the Fugue again turn up in Alessandra Ammaro’s splendid and mindfully virtuosic renditions.

Disc 9: The label replaces Fred Oldenburg’s good, workmanlike recording of the First sonata with a superior version from Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy, while retaining the latter’s wonderful Second and Third sonatas. Recently I compared his recording of the Second sonata’s strange Finale next to those of Horowitz and Rubinstein, and actually found Schmitt-Leonardy’s creative inflections more engaging (sound clip).

Disc 10: In place of Ivan Moravec’s Four Scherzos (originally issued by Dorian), we have Alwin Bär’s scintillating 1998 cycle, coupled with his equally compelling Fantasy in F minor and Barcarolle, along with a rather fussy Berceuse.

Disc 11: A hodgepodge of performances. I raved in detail about Schmitt-Leonardy’s reference-worthy Op. 28 Preludes when they first came out. Paolo Giacometti shines in the C-sharp minor Prelude Op. 45, Oldenburg serves up the Three Ecossaises quite well, while Marian Mika plays two versions each of the Waltz in F minor Op. 70 No. 2 and the Funeral March Op. 72 No. 2 using alternative texts.

Discs 12 & 13: Rem Urasin’s Mazurka cycle evokes the high rhetoric and subjectivity of pianists like Jean-Marc Luisada and Andrew Rangell, minus their eccentricity. Just don’t expect lightness, humor, or snappy embellishments.

Discs 14 & 15: Claire Huangci’s rippling and graceful pianism in the Nocturnes differs from the seasoned drama of the Earl Wild cycle that appeared in the 2015 box. The Duo Pianistico di Firenze’s Rondo Op. 73 and Variations in D fill out CD 15.

Disc 16: Alessandro Deljavan works overtime trying to emulate the great Romantic pianists, yet his lurching phrasings and contrived voicings throughout the Waltzes often belabor the obvious and fail to ring true. The piano itself sounds poorly regulated, and doesn’t always hold its tuning.

Disc 17: Frank van de Laar basically picks up the slack, playing the Rondos, the Variations brilliantes Op. 12, the Bolero Op. 19, the Allegro de concert Op. 46, and the Tarantella Op. 43 with plenty of finesse and good taste, if not quite matching Vladimir Ashkenazy’s ebullience.

For its attractive price tag and overall consistency (have Rubinstein’s Waltzes and Mazurkas handy, though!) Brilliant Classics’ 2023 Chopin Edition holds its own alongside similar multi-artist complete Chopin collections on other labels featuring bigger names. It should appeal to general music lovers just getting started with Chopin’s music who wish to take a deep dive into the composer’s oeuvre.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

During his thirteen years as chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of SWR Sir Roger Norrington conducted and recorded an important part of Berlioz's core repertoire. The present boxed set brings together on seven CDs the Requiem, the opera Benvenuto Cellini (concert performance), the oratorio L'Enfance du Christ, the overture Les Francs-juges and of course the Symphonie fantastique.

Norrington's style has caused a stir internationally with what has come to be termed ‘The Stuttgart Sound’: a synthesis of historically-informed performance practice with the technical capabilities of a modern orchestra. Whether in Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner, or Berlioz, Norrington seeks to capture the performance experience of the time, adjusting the orchestra’s size and seating plan to create an authentic sound without vibrato.

Hector Berlioz had to surmount a variety of challenges before he was able to pursue his musical vocation. His father, a respected physician in the provincial South of France, was not readily willing to come to terms with his son's intention to quit his medical studies and turn instead to music. He therefore made all further financial support subject to Hector's climbing up the musical ladder at lightning speed. Alas, it didn't work so easily. Berlioz's road to success was tedious and marked by adversity and struggle, his personal life tumultuous. The uniqueness and originality of his musical style are no longer disputed, but this insight came at the end of a decades-long process.