Tullochgorum: Haydn - Scottish Songs / Art, The Poker Club Band
BIS
SACD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Jan 03, 2020
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.
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.
Kurek: Symphony No. 2 - Tales from the Realm of Faerie and Other Works
Navona
CD
$8.49$16.99Save 50%Oct 14, 2022
Navona Records presents Michael Kurek’s SYMPHONY NO. 2: TALES FROM THE REALM OF FAERIE, a rich musical tapestry intertwining the colors and characteristics of many fantastical worlds the composer has entered and loved. Performed by the European Recording Orchestra, a certain spirit of unspoiled beauty, innocence, nobility, hope, and heroic goodness stretches across four movements, each giving the listener creative control of the worlds they conjure. With a well-balanced lineage of traditional compositional techniques running throughout his symphony and other works for choir to follow, Kurek presents a dynamic assortment of work that keeps the spirit and heritage of classical music alive.
This 3CD collection highlights past releases by the young renowned recorder and blockflöte virtuoso, early music specialist and OehmsClassics artist Stefan Temmingh. CD1, ‘Corelli À la Mode’, features, among other works, the groundbreaking op. 5 sonatas in world premiere recordings of the 18th c. ornamented versions. CD2, ‘The Gentleman’s Flute, follows on with works by Handel and the last disc features select excerpts from the French and English works by J.S. Bach and other Bach miscellany.
MODERN LULLABIES is an original album created on the initiative of an outstanding flautist, Agata Kielar-Dlugosz. She invited renowned harpist Carlos Peña Montoya to participate in the project. The album contains premiere recordings of works by outstanding Polish and foreign composers for a rare combination of instruments, a duo of flute and harp. The presented collection of miniatures includes lullabies only, i.e. pieces derived directly from the utilitarian tradition of folk song, which over time, permanently and quite seriously, became part of world music. The most famous and well-established compositions in the history of music in the form of a lullaby include Johannes Brahms's Wiegenlied, Op. 49 No. 4 for voice and piano, Fryderyk Chopin's Berceuse in D-flat Major, Op. 57 for piano, or Gabriel Fauré's Berceuse for violin with piano accompaniment.
The importance of Christmas inspired many composers to write music for the occasion, some designed to be performed in church services, others for concert or secular celebration. This 6 album set combines oratorios and concertos by Schütz, Telemann, Bach, Corelli, Rinck, Saint-Saëns, Herzogenberg, Clarke, Nicolai. Some of the finest artists and ensembles in the Hanssler catalog are showcased on these recordings, including Iona Brown, Joachim Held, Hannoversche Hofkapelle, Collegium vocale Siegen, Monteverdi-Orchester Munchen, Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra, and many more.
REVIEWS:
Christmas has inspired many composers to compose magnificent music, on the one hand for church services and on the other hand for festive concerts outside the church. This masterful box with 6 CDs contains oratorios and concertos by Schütz, Telemann, Bach, Corelli, Rinck, Saint-Saëns, Herzogenberg and Clarke, performed by some of the best artists and ensembles in the Hänssler catalogue, including Iona Brown, Joachim Held, Hannoversche Hofkapelle, Collegium vocale Siegen, Monteverdi-Orchester Munchen, and the Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra.
-- Stretto
As Christmas approaches, an avalanche of familiar Christmas tunes rumbles in the distance. Even in the case of large-scale Christmas compositions, the same works seem to be repeated too often, but Hänssler's six-disc box set reminds us that the repertoire is much wider.
The greatest work is Heinrich von Herzogenberg's (1842–1900) idyllic oratorio "The Birth of Christ" (1894), which spreads the event into a spectacle borrowing familiar and lesser-known Christmas carols based on the Old Testament and the Gospel of Luke. Herzogenberg, who was one of Brahms's supporters, represents full Romanticism at its tenderest, sometimes generously sweet. Schütz's "A Christmas Story" is more familiar and would work better as a period-style performance. Arnold Bruckhorst's (c. 1675–c. 1725) twenty-minute "Christmas History" is, on the other hand, a new acquaintance, as is Christian Heinrich Rinck's (1770–1846) even shorter classic Romantic Christmas Cantata. All performances are homely and competent, without causing great artistic tremors. Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio can be found in more sophisticated recordings, but why, for example, Otto Nicolai's charming Christmas Overture is never heard in concerts?
Telemann's big and handsome oratorio Heilig, heilig, Heilig ist Gott (1747) is useless to look for elsewhere. The documentation only includes lists of works and performance information.
Voyage is the newest release from the Cincinnati Pops conducted by John Morris Russell and features the world premiere recording of the title track by Academy Award-winning composer Michael Giacchino, written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing and the historic “giant leap for mankind.” This 96th Cincinnati Pops album draws inspiration from the stars and also features selections from Holst’s The Planets, as well as science fiction favorites from both the big and small screens.
Three composers, Tedeschi, Galeotti and Mortari, with three completely different musical styles: what they share is the sound of the harp and the rediscovery of its late-Romantic, early-modern Italian repertory, which is mostly still unknown, or very nearly so. Completing with highest honors her diploma and post-grad work at the Conservatory of Parma, prize-winning harpist Eleonora Valpato was until January 2011 was First Harp Philharmonic Orchestra of Santiago de Chile. Since 2009 she has played with Nicholas Vaiente in the unusual harp and marimba ensemble Step Two.
Michael Byron’s music, which has appeared on four previous Cold Blue CDs, tends to be harmonically rich, rhythmically detailed, and virtuosic. It is often praised for its ability to create uniquely dense constructions out of relatively limited means: “Byron creates maximalist effect out of minimalist means.” (ClassicalNet) “One is reminded…of the mobiles of Alexander Calder, which are both fixed and moving. And, like Calder’s work, Byron’s music is immediately comprehensible and beautiful, while it remains experimental.” (San Francisco Bay Guardian) “Byron’s music, like Ligeti’s, is instantly recognizable, perceptually challenging, beautifully proportioned and deeply satisfying.” (Paris Transatlantic) In the Village of Hope is a restless (and in some ways relentless) virtuosic harp solo performed stunningly by Tasha Smith Godínez. This ever-changing, ever-churning, ever-developing music is unlike anything else in the solo harp repertoire. A 23-minute CD EP/single. Musicologist/critic/author Eric Smigel wrote of this CD, “In the Village of Hope simultaneously lulls and rouses the listener with elegantly cascading counterpoint and lush harmonies animated by complex rhythms. Its kaleidoscopic variations evoke ethereal wind chimes, rendering both the calm and the storm in a single gesture.” Sequenza 21 called it “gorgeous music…a single 23-minute track that unfolds with such delicacy and grace that an hour of it would not seem too much.” Fanfare magazine wrote, “Originally categorized as a minimalist, [Byron] has composed music over most of his career that more accurately might be described as maximalist, because it is in a state of constant and often rapid flux…. In the Village of Hope sounds like the kind of music a harp might play on itself, for itself, and by itself…. One associates the harp with angelic matters, and while In the Village of Hope doesn't confound that association, this is a heaven that is far from being regular and predictable, and where one is ruled not by immutable Bible truths but by the constant fluctuations of the natural world. This is very pretty listening, and, as such, recommendable.” And Julien Cowley wrote in The Wire, “Harp notes trickling and tumbling like eddies in a stream…. Byron has compared In The Village of Hope to the play of wind chimes, an image that not only suggests the range of timbres elicited by harpist Tasha Smith Godinez, but also fits the character of a piece that seems to occupy its own space while some animating spirit runs through it.”
Vapeurs De Son: Original Works For Natural Horn And Erard Harp From The Napoleonic Age
Vermeer Records
CD
$8.49$16.99Save 50%Mar 10, 2015
Hornist Luca Delpriori has been involved in the Italian classical music scene since the early 1980’s. Since 2006 he has devoted himself to the deepening of the classical repertoire through the recovery of unpublished material and performing on period instruments, in particular the rediscovery of the rich and often forgotten literature intended for the horn-harp duo that characterized the Napoleonic period. He and harpist Paola Perrucci are heard here in a program of works further reflective of his research.
American-Australian harpist Emily Granger makes her solo debut recording, In Transit, with a collection of contemporary works that reveal the breadth and beauty of harp music from her two countries.
Memories and moods infuse Tristan Coehlo’s evocative title track as well as the composer’s The Old School, recalling an artists’ residence in Australia’s Blue Mountains where he first met Emily. Laura Zaerr’s rhythmical River Right Rhumba is inspired by West African drumming, whilst Sally Greenaway’s Liena, named after Melbourne-born harpist Liena Lacey, draws upon jazz and Latin dance music. Ross Edwards evokes a fantasia in his hypnotic The Harp and the Moon, whilst Libby Larsen’s bold Theme and Deviations is a tease on the traditional musical form. Sally Whitwell’s Undiminished is just that both harmonically and in spirit. Emily’s virtuosity is on full display in Kate Moore soaring Spin Bird, inspired by Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and in Nancy Gustavson’s Great Day, steeped in colorful glissandi showing off the harp in all its glory. Turning her hand to arranging, Emily has adapted Elena Kats-Chernin’s Blue Silence, originally for cello and piano, underscoring the works calming, healing and meditative properties; and Augusta Read Thomas’ Eurythmy Etude “Still Life”, originally for solo piano, stemming from the Greek meaning for beautiful and harmonious rhythm. Emily closes the album with Deborah Henson-Conant’s The Nightingale, one of her earliest musical memories as a young harpist.
Julie Cooper: Continuum / Andoh, Davidson, Cottis, The Oculus Ensemble
Signum Classics
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Mar 04, 2022
British composer Julie Cooper presents her commercial album debut, composed during the COVID-19 lockdowns. This musical diary represents Cooper’s reflections on the continuous cycle of life as experienced so vividly by many during this time. This theme is explored most prominently in the central 4-movement work, the ‘Contemplation Suite’, featuring the soprano Grace Davidson, where the changing of light and dark in the day and its effect on our circadian rhythms is brought to light. The album opens with the title track ‘Continuum’, written and narrated by celebrated Bridgerton and Dr Who actor Anjoa Andoh, poignantly setting the tone and message for the rest of the album. Julie Cooper is an award-winning British composer whose music is broadcast extensively on Film, all BBC television and radio channels, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 and all visual media worldwide. She has scored multiple cinematic orchestral and intimate chamber albums for television drama, film, wildlife documentaries, advertising and video game music, along with numerous drama commissions for Theatre, BBC Radio Drama and the concert platform.
Julian Brink is a South African composer. Born in Johannesburg in 1989, he first picked up his mother’s guitar at the age of ten and grew up playing in rock bands. He discovered a love of contemporary classical music through the films of Paolo Sorrentino and Paul Thomas Anderson. Hearing Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will be Blood, in particular, was what led him to pursue composition. Although he didn’t learn to read music until he was 19, while studying guitar at undergraduate level, he went on to complete a master's degree in film scoring through Berklee College of Music and relocated to California in 2015. Brink works in film music and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Maddie Hasson.
In collaboration with eminent classical label Sono Luminus, Utility Music is Brink's first standalone release. Originally composed in 2019 as a score for an abandoned film project, the music was arranged for piano, harp and string trio. It was later repurposed, reorchestrated and combined with a few older pieces into what is its current form. The album features performances by several distinguished musicians, with the heart of the music being the string trio of Moldovan violin virtuoso Dan-Iulian Drutac; Nick Revel, violist of the Grammy Nominated PUBLIQuartet; and Joe Zeitlin who was the lead cellist on Mica Levi’s Oscar-nominated score for Pablo Lorraín’s Jackie.
TRACKS:
Colombo / Green Fingers
Miniatures
Simple Trio No. 1
Eventually Lapse
Albatross
At Night
Eastwood No. 4
Simple Trio No. 2
Aura for M
Baptism in the Field
Pattern Shells
REVIEW:
For his first standalone release, Julian Brink has repurposed and re-orchestrated an incomplete score for an unfinished film. The 11 short, delectable tracks ‘toss boundaries’, as the trombonist provocateur Juliane Gralle observes. Taken together, it feels like there might still be a movie in there, somewhere.
‘Miniatures’ has the feel of a haunted, southern Viennese waltz surrounded in fog, its central beauty emerging serenely through the mist accompanied by drops of ringing pizzicatos. ‘At Night’ features cellist Joe Zeitlin creating other-worldly shadings of tone and colour then lifting them gently from the musical score. The two ‘Simple Trio’ tracks, which offer a vade mecum of ‘uncomplicated transitions between notes to make the samples sound more realistic’, feature the trio of Zeitlin, violinist Dan-Iulian Druțac and viola player Nick Revel of PUBLIQuartet, which Brink describes as ‘the heart of the album. I try to forget that they haven’t all met each other and aren’t playing together in the same room.’
‘Albatross’ channels John Cage and Morton Feldman with mesmerisingly deceptive, irregular beats, wonderfully quiet. The last track, ‘Pattern Shells’, influenced by Villa-Lobos, is a spontaneous splurge of brass and tropical birds.
Jheronimus Vinders (fl.1525/6) is best known for the oft-recorded lament on the death of Josquin Desprez (d.1521), O mors inevitabilis, which has led many to presume that he was a disciple or even a pupil of the great master. Now that his surviving works have recently been published in a modern edition, we are better able to place him among his contemporaries. He belongs to a rather small group of Flemish musicians who form the link between the Josquin generation and that of the mid-sixteenth century, featuring composers such as Clemens non Papa and Crecquillon. He boasts a wonderfully imaginative ear with a preference for dark sonorities, and his music often surprises and delights. This is the first recording devoted to a selection of Vinders’s works along with the polyphonic models that inspired them.
In a new arrangement for solo harp, celebrated harpist Gwyneth Wentink presents Dutch composer Simeon Ten Holt's Canto Ostinato and Aforisme No. 2 (a transcription by Jeroen van Veen on behalf of Simeon Ten Holt). "I first heard Canto Ostinato on piano in 2011 and I felt as if I was on fire. THIS is something I wanted to play on the harp: I clearly recall the zeal and enthusiasm I felt at the time. I was buzzing with curiosity, excitement and vitality. Exploring various musical genres, arranging music for the harp and working in interdisciplinary settings is something that has always been important to me. Playing the harp, one is being confronted with a rather restricted repertoire, and one almost evidently scans the horizon for what else one can arrange, commission and/or discover" - Gwyneth Wentink.
LOOSENING is a double album of five works by award winning composer GRAHAM FITKIN. Each one has the string quartet at it's core but every work includes it's own additional soloist. The string quartet is a really homogenous group, steeped in history and tradition, in which timbrally similar instruments create a well-honed sound through trusted communication and shared purpose. Each work has clearly defined roles for the two protagonists - quartet and solist. Each piece allows for two perspectives, two distinct approaches to the material and yet each protagonist is affected by the other. Approaches often evolve through the works, perhaps the quartet splits their honed homogeneity to focus more on individual constituents or conversely maybe they subsume the incomer into their group creating a larger group. An album of world premiere recordings: Four of the five works have never been recorded before, and the fifth is a new arrangement (also never recorded). DISTIL won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for Chamber Works in 2015.
British born composer Lydia Kakabadse enjoys a multi-cultural heritage (Greek/Austrian mother and Georgian/Russian father) which deeply informs her musical output. Her new album, recorded in London, features an even more diverse range of music than her previous albums, incorporating ethnic instruments into Western music. Making much use of the 'alternative string quartet' (violin viola, cello and double bass), the title track Kefi also introduces the Greek Bouzouki and 'Greek oud' or politiko laout. While demonstrating a wide diversity of textures and styles, overall the music is coloured by use of the double harmonic scale. As well as a number of chamber works the highlight of the album is the choral work Thirty Steps commissioned by the Hellenic Institute at Royal Holloway whose choir, widely regarded as among the best mixed-voice choirs in Britain today, perform the work here. The other performers here are all experienced and very well regarded in their own fields. Lydia Kakabadse, celebrated for her diverse music, specialises in choral, chamber, and vocal compositions. Influenced by her multicultural background and upbringing in Greek and Russian Orthodox traditions, she draws inspiration from Orthodox Church music, medieval melodies, and Greek and Middle Eastern dance. Trained in piano and double bass from a young age, she pursued music studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her works, including string quartets, choral pieces, and concert requiems, have garnered critical acclaim and have been featured on recordings by labels such as Naxos and Divine Art. Notable commissions include "I Remember" for Forest Preparatory School and "Odyssey" for The Hellenic Institute. Her compositions have been performed internationally at festivals and by esteemed ensembles, and her string quartet "Russian Tableaux" has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Currently pursuing a PhD in ethnomusicology, Lydia continues to enrich the musical landscape with her distinctive and vibrant creations.
Indiana Collectanea: The Music of Michael G. Cunningham / Various
Navona
CD
$8.49$16.99Save 50%Feb 14, 2020
Navona Live is proud to announce the release of INDIANA COLLECTANEA, which celebrates and preserves composer Michael G. Cunningham’s residency at Indiana University School of Music from 1969-1973. This live recording of Cunningham’s work comes on the heels of his acclaimed album ECUMENICAL SPIRIT from Navona Live earlier this year. This latest release captures a significant moment in time, when Cunningham’s work helped channel the talents of 30 burgeoning musicians. In INDIANA COLLECTANEA, Cunningham expands his palette beyond traditional tonality, painting with chromatic, timbral, and rhythmic nuances. The work opens with Prisms, a four-movement piece in which dense tone clusters shift and refract among the strings like a kaleidoscope. This is followed by Polyphonies, a wild-eyed percussion piece that manipulates instrumental timbres to an exhilarating effect. As the album progresses, each piece is a surprise to the listener’s ears, with its unique assortments of instruments and sounds jolting the audience into new appreciation. The frenetic horns at the start of Concertant are further evidence of this. The penultimate track, Scenario, is particularly inventive, opening with a prelude of ethereal bells. Each musician is assigned to multiple instruments, showcasing both their own skills and that of their composer. Lastly, the album ends with the dramatic Noetical Rounds, which concludes with a soft, descending glissando into oblivion. Despite the decades that have passed since the performances on INDIANA COLLECTANEA, each piece is as startlingly fresh as it was the day of its performance. Listen to hear this collection of talented musicians pushed to their utmost by the challenging and thoughtful compositions of Michael G. Cunningham.
Choral music has always played a significant and central role at Belfast Cathedral, since its consecration in 1904. This strong choral tradition continues to this day with the recently formed all-adult, fully professional vocal ensemble. This ‘new’ cathedral choir brings together some of the finest singers in Northern Ireland who lead the liturgy and worship of Belfast Cathedral and are featured here in their debut album for Resonus Classics. Featuring a varied program of seasonal carols from composers including Elizabeth Poston, John Rutter and Philip Ledger, this album celebrates Christmas from Northern Ireland’s national cathedral.
