Between 1934 and 1949, Allan Pettersson, one of Sweden’s foremost composers of symphonies, wrote chamber works that differ greatly from his later production. With his Two Elegies, composed at the tender age of 17, Pettersson drew the enthusiasm of his teacher, who saw in him the makings of a composer. The Four Improvisations for string trio recall Bartók’s music with their rhythmic vitality. The Andante espressivo is more personal with its experimental melodic and harmonic leanings. After his forced return from Paris in 1939, where he had gone to study, Pettersson composed a tender and lyrical Romanza and, three years later, his only piece for solo piano, the elegiac and meditative Lamento.

The most important work on this recording is the Concerto for Violin and String Quartet, a harsh, dense work that places great demands on the musicians. Initially rejected by the critics, the work now appears almost unique in terms of its radical tonal language and experimental use of extended techniques. For this recording, Ulf Wallin has brought together colleagues and friends to perform these lesser-known works, which nevertheless constitute an essential milestone in the career of the great Swedish composer.

REVIEW:

The Concerto for Violin and String Quartet of 1949, which opens the program and makes up over half of the album’s run time, is a lush work with numerous challenges for performers, both technically and harmonically, that from the outside would seem likely to limit the scope of listeners who would enjoy it. However, credit to the present performers, for these demands are met, and the results are thoroughly interesting and thought-provoking. The Concerto is the latest included work, chronologically, and it is a clear step toward the composer’s symphonic writing. The earliest works here are the Two Elegies for Violin and Piano, from 1934. These lovely, short tunes reflect the schooling the composer had undertaken; one could perhaps mistake these as having been written in the previous century.

Pianist Thomas Hoppe, Wallin is another draw. Aside from ideal backing on the violin and piano works, Hoppe delivers a beautiful reading of Pettersson’s Lamento for Solo Piano. There is a lot to take in here, and listeners will be rewarded with subsequent hearings.

-- AllMusic.com (Keith Finke)

This album by violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, together with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Paavo Järvi, is dedicated in the memory of their longtime artistic partner, pianist Lars Vogt (1970–2022). At the heart of this album is Brahms, one of Lars Vogt’s favorite composers, and his late orchestral masterpiece, the Double Concerto. Brahms himself had admired one of Viotti’s violin concertos so much that he included material from the violin concerto into his work. With Christian Tetzlaff’s recording of the violin concerto, this album finally brings these two works together. Also included is Dvorák’s beautiful Silent Woods for cello and orchestra, a work by another composer that was very close to Lars Vogt’s heart.

Paul Watkins presents three enduring masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire, Johannes Brahms’s two cello sonatas and the Clarinet Trio. Joining Mr. Watkins are two musicians of the highest caliber, the pianist Ian Brown, his established duo partner, and clarinetist Michael Collins. Completed in 1865, the Cello Sonata No. 1 is somewhat reserved in character, with an elaborate fugal finale that pays homage to Bach. Some twenty years later, Brahms composed his more adventurous, expansive and extroverted Cello Sonata No. 2. The Clarinet Trio, op. 114 was written for clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, an artist who inspired Brahms to compose a series of works for the clarinet considered some of the supreme masterpieces in the instrument’s repertoire. “Perhaps no clarinetist around today is capable of floating a purer, smoother and more beautifully contoured melodic line than Michael Collins, and he is often heard at his best in [Brahms’s] four late masterpieces.” - BBC Music Magazine “Paul Watkins [is] unquestionably, in my opinion one of today’s foremost cellists.” - Fanfare

Along with Vivaldi’s ‘Seasons’ or Beethoven’s ‘Fifth’, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos belong to those works that are so well-known that we risk taking them for granted. In order to (re-)discover the special qualities that can inspire us today, in 2001 Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra decided to contact six contemporary composer, asking each of them to compose a companion piece to one of the concertos. Seventeen years later, in 2018, it was time to present the result, with a performance at the BBC Proms of all the works – new and old. Recorded over a period of 18 months leading up to this event, the present boxed set provides a unique opportunity to experience six very different musical minds and idioms entering into conversation with Bach: Mark-Anthony Turnage, Steven Mackey, Anders Hillborg, Olga Neuwirth, Uri Caine and Brett Dean. Bach’s concertos are remarkable in that they are all scored for different instrumental combinations, and part of the brief to the group of composers was to reflect this. In her Aello, Olga Neuwirth has for instance used several ‘instruments’ to stand in for Bach’s harpsichord, including a synthesizer, a milk frother and a typewriter. Brett Dean, on the other hand, has stayed very close to Bach’s instrumentation, but has chosen to write his work as a preparation for Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 – an Approach to Bach’s extremely tight canonic writing. In performing the twelve works the orchestra and Dausgaard are joined by leading soloists including Clare Chase, Mahan Esfahani, Håkan Hardenberger, Pekka Kuusisto and Tabea Zimmermann.

Between 1791 and 1804, Joseph Haydn arranged some 400 traditional songs for publishers in Scotland and England. Almost all of the songs were Scottish and the most common setting was for voice and piano trio. There have been numerous recordings and performances of the arrangements by these forces, but on this disc The Poker Club Band offer their listeners something quite different. Taking its name from one of the Edinburgh clubs at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment, the ensemble consists of four early music specialists and a traditional singer. They have retained Haydn’s violin and cello, but the keyboard part has been adapted for harp and guitar following indications that the harp was commonly used for contemporary performances of Scottish traditional repertoire. The Gaelic singer James Graham, with his idiomatic Scottish timbre, and the period instruments – of which Masako Art’s single-action pedal harp from 1809 is known to have been in Scotland around the time – brings us that much closer to what a performance in an Edinburgh salon might have sounded like around 1800. The songs themselves range from the cautionary tale of a girl who married for love and now is doomed to a life of hard and dirty work on her husband’s farm (The Mucking of Geordie’s Byer) to love songs such as Oran Gaoil, with a text by Robert Burns. Providing variety, some instrumental 18th century arrangements of Haydn originals are included while the album ends with the well-known atmospheric Lament by the Scottish fiddler Niel Gow.

With this programme of music for cello and piano, Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih transport us to the world immortalized in Marcel Proust’s a la recherche du temps perdu – the Parisian high society and its glittering salons. For the composers of the time these provided a perfect platform for the introduction of new works, performed by the finest musicians in France for a sympathetic, educated and rich (!) audience. And for the music-loving Proust they offered countless opportunities to meet the composers that he so admired (and others that he may have admired a bit less…) The first of these to make his appearance in the programme is no one less than Proust’s one-time lover and lifelong friend, Reynaldo Hahn, with a brief set of Variations chantantes on a theme from a baroque opera. He is followed by Gabriel Faure, whose music Proust gushed about in a letter to the composer: ‘I could write a book more than 300 pages long about it.’

Proust was less expansive about Saint-Saëns’ music even if he admired him as a pianist, but the composer’s First Cello Sonata is nevertheless the centrepiece of the programme, before Henri Duparc and Augusta Holmes make their appearance. These were both students of Cesar Franck, whose iconic Violin Sonata in A major (here in the version for cello) closes this programme of ‘salon music’ – in the best possible sense of the term.

REVIEW:

The writings of Marcel Proust are suffused with music. Proust depicted the world of the Parisian salons of the late 19th century, where both music and literature flourished. This release by cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Connie Shih does not depict a specific event, but it does plunge the listener into Proust's world. Isserlis brings the necessary heat to the Franck sonata, an arrangement of the composer's cello sonata that the composer himself sanctioned. Another draw is Shih's accompaniment work, distinctive and appropriately intense. For lovers of French music, this is a standout release.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Internationally acclaimed for his music for orchestra (17 symphonies and 31 concertos to date), Kalevi Aho has also composed chamber and solo works. The present disc combines six such pieces, ranging across the composer’s career. The earliest work on the disc is the Bach-inspired Sonata for solo violin from 1973, reminding us that during his years at the Sibelius Aacademy (1968 – 71), Aho studied the violin as well as composition. Another early piece, Prelude, Toccata and Postlude, also started out as a solo work – this time for the cello – before developing into a duo. From the other end, chronologically speaking, is the ample Piano Sonata No. 2 from 2016, with a duration of some 25 minutes. This time it is Beethoven who has provided inspiration, and the composer describes the work as ‘a commentary on the Hammerklavier Sonata, in which Beethoven’s motifs are frequently “misquoted” and developed in a different direction.’ The sonata closes the programme but not before giving us an opportunity to hear three further works involving the violin – a second solo piece, In memoriam Pehr Henrik Nordgren, written in memory of Aho’s fellow composer and friend, Lamento for two violins and Halla (‘frost’) for violin and piano. Performing these works are four highly respected Finnish musicians, the violinists (and brothers) Jaakko and Pekka Kuusisto, Samuli Peltonen (cello) and Sonja Fräki, pianist and Aho specialist.

REVIEW:

The two pieces written to mourn fellow musicians are, in fact, the best. Lamento was created for the funeral of the violinist Sakari Laukola, who died young in 2001. Jaakko Kuusisto’s sincerity obvious and his tone particularly strong and beautiful high up.

– Gramophone

What would it mean to 'compose like a woman'? The present collection answers the question, in a literal sense, while undoing the premise on which the question was asked in the first place. In social and historical terms, it means enjoying privileges of upbringing, education, and/or wealth that were historically denied to the vast majority of women. It means, on the part of the women represented here, a single-minded determination in pursuit of their vocation, helping them to overcome prejudice and sexism in a cultural, social and political milieu that has consistently denied women the opportunity to find and express their own voice in music. Only with movements of emancipation in the last century, and much more rapidly in the last 50 years, has this situation begun to be addressed and corrected. What composing like a woman does not mean - as the music in this collection makes clear - is a definable set of qualities or characteristics to the music itself which would distinguish the work of female composers from the music composed by men.

This remarkable set gathers many individual recordings of music by women composers, which Brilliant Classics has quietly yet actively championed in their catalogue for decades, uniting it with exciting new outings, so that a comprehensive historical picture of the highly varied struggles and successes of women composers through the ages to our present time are chronicled and celebrated.

Other information:

- Recordings date from 1994-2024

- Booklet in English contains liner notes by Peter Quantrill

- The revival of interest in female classical composers reflects a growing recognition of their overlooked contributions to music history.

For centuries, women composers were marginalized, their works overshadowed by their male counterparts. However, recent efforts by musicians, scholars, and institutions have brought these composers into the spotlight, highlighting the richness and diversity of their compositions.

- This renewed focus stems from a broader movement toward inclusivity in the arts, challenging traditional narratives that have historically excluded women. The rise of feminist musicology has also played a key role, offering fresh perspectives on these composers' lives and works.

- This comprehensive box set offers a wide spectrum of works by female composers, from the Medieval mystic Hildegard Von Bingen (1098-1179), through the Renaissance Isabella Leonarda (baptized 1620-1704), Francesca Caccini (1587-1640) und Barbara Strozzi (baptized 1619-1677), traversing the Baroque and Classical eras, and arriving in the contemporary field, with composers such as Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) and Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969).

- A long due homage to the art and voice of female composers, spanning nearly a thousand years!

The central thread linking all the works featured in this recording is their assimilation of various elements of Jewish music, whether directly stemming from Chassidic folk traditions, or relating to material directly associated with religious worship. Each composer responds to this music in different ways, attempting in varying degrees to integrate it within the structural conventions of a Western European musical mainstream. By doing so, the music projects a multitude of emotions and feelings.

“There is not enough music which highlights and celebrates the diverse background of composers and the fact that this album focuses on Jewish musical traditions makes it a hugely important progression in how the classical music industry is moving into a more culturally representative industry.” -- Jocelyn Lightfoot, Managing Director of the LCO

There is no better recordings of the strio trio repertoire than those you will find here. - David Hurwitz (ClassicsToday.com)

In 2007 Frank Peter Zimmermann was able to realize his long-cherished dream to establish a string trio, together with Antoine Tamestit and Christian Poltéra. Three individually superb string players do not necessarily add up to a top-flight trio – even if they all play on instruments by Stradivarius, as here – but Trio Zimmermann immediately made a name for itself at international festivals and prestigious concert venues.

In 2010 the trio released its first album – with Mozart's seminal Divertimento – to critical acclaim. (More than 10 years later, that recording was the top recommendation in the Record Review series Building a Library on BBC Radio 3.) On following offerings, the ensemble explored the later repertoire for string trio: two discs with Beethoven's contributions to the genre, and a third with works by Hindemith and Schoenberg which have garnered distinctions such as Diapason de l’Année, the Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine and a ‘Jahrespreis’ from the German Record Critics’ Award association. For their fifth disc to date the trio went back in time, however, as the three members together prepared a performing version of Bach's Goldberg Variations, described as ‘a triumph of combined technical ingenuity and musical insight’ in The Strad. These five discs have now been collected into a boxed-set retrospective, offering lovers of chamber music more than 5 hours of glorious music-making, in top-notch sound and including the original booklets with full documentation.

Past praise for previously released albums included in this set:

Bach: Goldberg Variations

The expertise and fluency of the Zimmermann's playing is evident. Their approach to dynamics is refreshingly flexible, and all three players bring a graceful approach to ornamentation.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Beethoven: String Trios, Op. 9, Nos. 1-3

These musicians are in command of the meticulously written extremes in expression, sforzandos not indiscriminately stabbed at but gauged according to the contexts in which they appear. Tempi are gauged to a nicety too. In sum, they do Beethoven proud throughout this exceptionally fine disc.

-- Gramophone

Hindemith & Schoenberg: String Trios

The Trio Zimmermann play them both Hindemith works with such energy, panache, and attention to the minutest detail that they are totally convincing and make a perfect foil to the rigors of the Schoenberg that follows.

-- The Guardian

Trio Zimmermann play Mozart & Schubert

The Zimmerman Trio plays with remarkably accurate intonation and a ravishing tone that’s also mindful of the Classical style. In other words, they don’t lay it on too thick, but they aren’t afraid to let the melodic lines sing. Schubert’s single-movement trio makes the perfect coupling.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Beethoven: String Trios, Op. 3; Serenade, Op. 8

The Zimmermann Trio offers what must be the finest recording of Beethoven's Op. 3 since the classic mono Heifetz/Primrose/Piatigorsky version. They bring out all of the first movement’s requisite brio, paying heed to the syncopated rhythmic underpinnings that support the scampering triplet passages. The ensemble lightens its sonority for the Andante without sacrificing body and definition, while they articulate the Menuetto’s two-note phrase groups and subito dynamics in strict tempo yet in a way that’s oblivious to the bar lines. While the Finale is a model of controlled ferocity, the musicians are not afraid to let the lyrical sections sing out sweetly (never cloyingly).

Power and delicacy effortlessly coexist in the Serenade’s opening March, while subtle dynamic gradations distinguish the Menuetto’s loud arpeggiatted tuttis. The Adagio’s long unison lines offer cogent proof that one can employ minimum vibrato and still retain a focused and alive sonority. The March returns da capo at the end of the piece, with slightly more emphatic fortes and lighter pianos this time around. The warmth, clarity, and ambient realism of BIS’s surround-sound engineering holds equal appeal when experienced in conventional stereo playback mode. This release is not just a worthy follow-up to the Zimmermann Trio’s magnificent Mozart K. 563 and Beethoven Op. 9 Trio traversals, but a reference disc in its own right. Bravo!

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Jed Distler)

Katerina Izmaylova - Symphony for full Orchestra after the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk“ by Shostakovich, arranged by Benjamin Basner.

"The Katerina Izmaylova symphony is much more than an opera arrangement. It intensifies opera music to instrumental music, to a symphony exposing the perversion of power in a very direct and therefore highly penetrating way." Franzpeter Messmer

Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2022, the Brodsky Quartet has performed more than 3000 concerts on the major concert stages of the world and has released more than seventy recordings. A natural curiosity and insatiable desire to explore have propelled the group in many artistic directions and continue to ensure it not only a place at the very forefront of the international chamber music scene but also a rich and varied musical existence. As they comment in their booklet note: ‘It seems fitting to mark the milestone by recording this epic and most celebrated of chamber works, Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, a piece which we have lived with since childhood, and which we have played with a long line of illustrious cellists. One of our earliest performances took place with Terence Weil, our mentor at college, at his retirement concert, just as we were starting out on our professional journey. Now the wonderful young Laura van der Heijden, who comes to this recording with a maturity which belies her years, represents with respect to us a similar age gap, proving that age is insignificant where there is a meeting of musical minds. Now we look forward to whatever our sixth decade might bring.’

REVIEW:

In this exceptional interpretation of Schubert’s C major Quintet, there are plenty of moments where the players individually or collectively make something happen – a tiny inflection in the phrasing here, an applied touch of color there. Yet nothing is overdone, and the music always flows as it wants to.

-- BBC Music Magazine