Following their début album, Belle Époque, the Orsino Ensemble turns its attention to music from Bohemia. There is a strong tradition of Czech wind playing, and hence a wealth of great repertoire on which to draw.

Antoine Reicha was a contemporary (and friend) of Beethoven. His E flat Quintet, published in 1817, demonstrates his harmonic ingenuity and talent for idiomatic instrumental writing. Mládí, described by Janácek as ‘…a sort of memoir of youth’, was composed in 1924 in celebration of the composer’s own seventieth birthday, and the mood of the piece is optimistic throughout.

Born in Brno, Pavel Haas studied at the city’s conservatory, under Janácek – indeed Haas is widely considered to be Janácek’s greatest pupil. Composed in 1929, the Wind Quintet typifies his quirky musical imagination and affinity for instrumental timbre.

Bohuslav Martinu came from the small town of Policka, on the Czech-Moravian border, but received his early musical education in Prague, where he also played second violin in the Czech Philharmonic. A government scholarship enabled him to move to Paris in the early 1920s to study with Roussel. Martinu immersed himself in Parisian musical life, the works of Stravinsky and the Jazz scene proving two considerable influences on his own compositions. His Sextet for Wind and Piano is considered one of his most successful Jazz-inspired pieces and, although an early work, demonstrates the natural melodic style so typical of his later works.

REVIEW:

Reicha’s Quintet pairs different combinations of instruments together with delightful felicity, and the bubbly horn writing is a constant delight. It’s a well-paced reading, too, coming in at 28 minutes. The Orsino Ensemble’s performance of Janáček’s Mládi is crisp and tight and I especially appreciated Walker’s pipy and lithe piccolo playing.

The church acoustic has been well judged and there’s no sense of billowy or unfocused sound, rather a warm, uncloying well-cushioned directness. There isn’t – or, at least, I’ve not been able to find – an exact competitor to this disc so the excellence of the performances stands in the Chandos team’s favor as does the adventurous repertoire. Carping critics like me may suggest alternatives in individual works but overall this is a highly effective disc.

-- MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

German composer Hans Werner Henze’s (1926–2012) admiration for the great masters of the Baroque and musical Classicism manifested in compositions born from a desire to transcribe, rework and transform 17th- and 18th-century masterpieces into new orchestral textures. The project Travestimenti (Disguises), managed by conductor Marco Angius and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, from which this CD was created, makes reference to Henze’s ‘reinventions’ of masterpieces by Mozart, C.P.E. Bach and Vitali, clothed in new, modern fashion.

For the Drei Mozart’sche Orgelsonaten, Henze takes up three of Mozart’s one-movement Kirchensonaten (church sonatas or trio sonatas). Sonatas 17 and 15 are in an Allegro tempo, whereas the Sonata K.67 is marked Andantino, so Henze, in his transcription, places the latter between the two livelier tempos, thus reconstructing the tripartite structure of a classical three-movement sonata. Scored for an ensemble of 14 players that includes the less common, softer variants oboe d’amore and viola d’amore, it aims to underline the darker instrumental timbres, favouring the sombre sonorities of the alto flute in G, the bass flute in C, the bass clarinet and the bassoon. During the last year of his life, in 1787, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed a Fantasia libera per tastiera sola (Free Fantasia for keyboard alone) which he expanded into the Clavier-Fantasie mit Begleitung einer Violine (Fantasy for harpsichord with violin accompaniment), one of his most personal and expressive works.

Henze transcribed it for solo flute, harp and strings, aiming to project the extremely interesting and expressive harmonic material of the composition into a larger instrumental apparatus, thus making its future-oriented harmonic structures more manifest and moulded. He proposed two options for division of the: string quartet + string quintet or string quartet + tutti (the latter version is recorded here).

Although it was probably composed in the early 18th century, Vitali’s Ciaccona ‘Il Vitalino’ – whose musical form is inspired by dance and consists of variations on a ground bass – was only rediscovered in 1867, published by the German virtuoso violinist Ferdinand David. Henze’s Il Vitalino raddoppiato – called “raddoppiato” (“doubled”) because of his extension of the composition by means of interpolated variations of each original section in the style of 18th-century doubles – retains Vitali’s bass almost throughout the entire composition. It alternates Vitali’s variations on his chaconne theme with Henze’s variations of Vitali’s variations, in an ever-changing dialogue between the 18th-century past and Henze’s present.

Grammy Award-winning Chicago-based percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion (Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, David Skidmore) presents Between Breaths, an album of world premieres of works by four contemporary composers, plus a work by the quartet itself.

Known for their captivating performances and innovative approach to modern classical music, TCP has been praised for “commandingly elegant” (New York Times) performances and the “rare power” (Washington Post) of their recordings. Between Breaths, a follow up to TCP’s widely praised album, Perspectives, “continues to push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners” (NPR).

The works on Between Breaths explore aspects of meditation in sound, incorporate unconventional timbres and tones, and invite listeners to lose themselves within a captivating sonic landscape. Missy Mazzoli’s five-movement Millennium Canticles transports listeners into a vivid realm where a group of people strive to recreate the rituals and stories of human life after an apocalypse. Mazzoli skillfully crafts an evocative soundscape using diverse elements such as wooden planks, resonant metal pipes, tone chimes, drums, discordant metallic tones, a resounding lion's roar, and an array of vocal expressions.

In Practice, a collaborative composition by TCP, began as a sound meditation drawing upon the personal rituals of the quartet’s members, from a warm-up routine to using sounds created with everyday objects. This source material laid the foundation for the work, which developed its own sense of direction and purpose, with an atmosphere of meditation and balance.

Tyondai Braxton's Sunny X juxtaposes otherworldly acoustic and electronic timbres against a steady rhythmic drive. Within this sonic tapestry, resonant wooden planks, metallic pipes and plates, and an array of gongs and woodblocks contribute to a distinctive and immersive experience.

Chicagoan Ayanna Woods’ Triple Point refers to the unique state where a substance simultaneously exists as a gas, liquid, and solid due to temperature and pressure conditions, which results in liquids bubbling into gas, rapidly freezing, exploding, and melting into liquid again. Woods’ composition mirrors this phenomenon, as it encapsulates moments of dynamic energy and musical elements that rise to the surface and dissolve again.

Gemma Peacocke’s Death Wish, composed in tribute to Hinewirangi Kohu-Morgan, a Maori artist, poet, and activist, has become a staple of TCP’s repertoire. Performed by four players on two marimbas, the music creates a powerful landscape of melancholy, personal devastation, and hope.

REVIEW:

Third Coast Percussion’s Between Breaths is another fresh and thought-provoking album in what has been a steady stream of recordings from the Grammy-award winning quartet over the past seven years. Released Sept. 8 on Cedille Records, Between Breaths returns to many themes explored on the ensemble’s debut EP, Ritual Music (2006): relationships between individuals, communities, and ritualistic acts. The highly programmatic and hypnotic new album showcases the quartet’s vision for commissioning works by living composers and features world premiere recordings of works by Missy Mazzoli, Tyondai Braxton, Ayanna Woods, and Gemma Peacocke, and by Third Coast Percussion itself.

-- I Care If You Listen (Forrest Howell)

The inspiration for Hugo Distler’s gem of a Christmas narrative can be found in the German-language protestant sacred music of the early baroque era, especially the music of Heinrich Schütz. Drawing on Schütz’s example, Distler composed his Christmas story exclusively for vocalists – soloists and a 4-8-voiced ensemble – in what is, in Distler’s own words, described as an “Oratorium mit kammermusikalishem Charakter." We also hear parts of the beautiful choral Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, which appears seven times during the course of the narrative. – every time in a new harmonic colour. The story of Hugo Distler’s life is a tragic one. Born in Nuremburg in 1908, he would go on to teach at the School for Church Music in Spandau before being appointed professor of church music in Stuttgart in 1940. Distler, who was a deeply religious man, has been recognized as a forerunner of the New German Church Music, an important musical movement which developed in the 1930s. The Nazis stigmatized Distler’s compositions as “degenerate art”, and when he received his conscription papers, he took his life. Sadly, Distler’s music is seldom performed outside of Germany even to this day. Hailed by Gramophone as “a choir worth listening to for their beautiful singing, which can deliver performances of pure, natural eloquence,” the 16 voices of the award-winning vocal ensemble Concert Clemens, founded by conductor Carsten Seyer-Hansen in 1997, has established itself as one of the leading vocal ensembles in Scandinavia. Their stylistic versatility has been seen in numerous collaborations exploring the connections between jazz and classical music as well as note-perfect interpretations of standard repertoire. The evangelist, tenor Adam Riis, is one of Denmark’s leading voices. Recorded in the DXD format by the Danish “Wizard of Sound”, Preben Iwan, in the resonant sonics of Skt. Markus Kirken, Århus.

For his series called Schubert+, pianist Can Çakmur juxtaposes the complete major piano solo compositions by the Viennese composer with works by others who were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert’s completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-contained recital.

In this third instalment, Çakmur presents not only a work by the 20th-century composer Ernst Krenek but also Krenek’s completion of an unfinished sonata by Schubert. In the process, Krenek assimilated the Schubertian language so well that the result is astonishing. As Çakmur says, ‘I would find it difficult to spot where Schubert ends and Krenek begins if it wasn’t specified in the score.’ Krenek, whose career spanned more than seven decades, was a prolific composer who embraced a host of styles. For his Second Piano Sonata, composed in the 1920s, he pays homage to Schubert by adopting some of his techniques, though the music owes much more to early 20th-century Paris than to 19th-century Vienna. A fascinating and neglected work to be discovered through the prism of Schubert.

For his third album for Chandos, the saxophonist Marco Albonetti turns to the rich tradition of film music from his native Italy. Marco writes: ‘Film music has been described as the defining new genre of classical music in the twentieth century. It engages both the ear and the heart of an audience. The masterpieces composed by two Italian film composers in particular, Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone, embody the cultural identity of most Italians and they have become recognised and loved by audiences around the world. The film themes on this album capture the magical combination of romance, melancholy, friendship, and violence. The notes vibrate with such passion that the compositions continue to engage the listener, bringing the work of these great Italian composers to life wherever and whenever it is performed.

Film music is meant to be an accompaniment to the action on screen. However, the music of the great Italian composers is so powerful and enduring that these melodies can stand on their own merit, transporting us to another time and place, evoking memories of past experiences or introducing us to new worlds, places which we can only see in our imagination. This album is a tribute to the Italian spirit, to my spirit, expressed through a musical journey: it offers Postcards from Italy.’

This recording of Corigliano's chamber arrangement of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan featuring soprano Laura Hynes, is coupled with Vincent Ho's virtuosic and mystical Gryphon Realms for piano trio. World premiere recordings. Corigliano's orchestration of Mr. Tambourine Man can be heard on 8.559331.

I had always heard, by reputation, of the high regard accorded the folk-ballad singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. But I was so engaged in developing my orchestral technique during the years when Dylan was heard by the rest of the world that I had never heard his songs. So I bought a collection of his texts, and found many of them to be every bit as beautiful and as immediate as I had heard – and surprisingly well-suited to my own musical language.

I chose seven poems for what became a thirty-five minute cycle. A Prelude: Mr. Tambourine Man, in a fantastic and exuberant manner, precedes five searching and reflective monologues that form the core of the piece; and Postlude: Forever Young makes a kind of folk-song benediction after the cycle’s close. Dramatically, the inner five songs trace a journey of emotional and civic maturation, from the innocence of Clothes Line through the beginnings of awareness of a wider world (Blowin’ in the Wind), through the political fury of Masters of War, to a premonition of an apocalyptic future (All Along the Watchtower), culminating in a vision of a victory of ideas (Chimes of Freedom). Several years after composing the vocal/piano score I orchestrated the work, and some years later transcribed it for Pierrot ensemble, a chamber group. This is the first recording of the chamber version. - John Corigliano

Gryphon Realms is a three-movement work, inspired by gryphon mythology, that explores the coloristic, virtuosic and expressive possibilities of the piano trio while highlighting my more personal musical language. - Vincent Ho

As a winner of numerous national and international youth competitions, Robert Neumann (born 2001) was awarded with the International Classic Music Discovery Award 2017. In 2018, the Jury of the SWR (radio broadcasting corporation in Southwest Germany) chose Robert as the"SWR New Talent". For his debut CD at SWRmusic, Robert was awarded the OPUS KLASSIK Young Artist of the Year 2021. The young pianist made his orchestral debut with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra when he was eight, and since then he has appeared with other orchestras, including the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, German State Philharmonic Ludwigshafen, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchestra, Praga Philharmonic Camerata and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. For his second album, Robert Neumann chose two works which can easily be placed side by side and that are both close to the pianist’s heart. Robert Schumann‘s Kreisleriana is about a character from several tales by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition describes walking from one work of art to the next. Both are programme music pieces with somewhat comparable ideas but, as Neumann puts it: „One idea deals with a real character, the other one doesn’t […]. And I think both show in an exemplary manner how flawlessly and also in different ways a great Romantic cycle can be structured, formed.

The Schumann Quartet dedicates its latest studio production "1923" to that year in which new musical paths were sought, found, or questioned, and at the same time, the birth of radio heralded a new age for composers and the dissemination of their works. The CD program combines selected quartet music by Paul Hindemith, Alban Berg, Erwin Schulhoff, and Leoš Janácek.

The latest instalment in this popular series focuses on the life and music of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Illustrated with some of Mussorgsky’s finest works the biographical narrative includes excerpts from Songs and Dances of Death; Boris Godunov; Night on Bald Mountain and Pictures at an Exhibition.

Hardly any combination of instruments is more appealing than a string quartet and a clarinet; together they make a magical melange. The Hagen Quartet and Jörg Widmann have recorded Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, a 'work among friends', in this irresistible blend. Jörg Widmann, clarinettist and composer in equal measure, picks up on the omnipresent themes of 'floating, love, and chant' in Mozart's notes and creates a weighty counterpart to Mozart's popular work with his own clarinet quintet, which is available here in a world premiere recording.