“Elegance and poetry... silvery tone, beautifully controlled… phrases flowing and immaculate.” (Okinawa News) Italian virtuoso flutist Raffaele Trevisani continues to exemplify such praise in this, his ninth Delos recording. His graceful elegance and interpretive warmth are evident in this all-Mozart program containing some of his loveliest music despite his rather low regard for the flute. A rare bonus is the faithful transcription for flute of the masterly Quartet for Oboe, K370. Mr. Trevisani’s three collaborators are members of the renowned Suk Chamber Orchestra.
Mauro Giuliani was a composer deeply rooted in the everyday musical life of the Vienna of his era, a city on which Mozart had recently left his mark, where Haydn's art had come to his final flowering and where Beethoven and Schubert were soon to tower above all others. Never in the history of the guitar has the instrument been so close to and so in tune with the great names of classical music. On this release, Antonio Puccio presents Giuliani's complete Rossiniane and Pot-Pourris. Giuliani arranged many nineteenth century opera themes for the guitar. His work Le Rossiniane includes numerous themes from the operas of Rossini, including Otello, L'Italienne a Alger, Cendrillon, and others. He wrote his Pot Pourri in 1811, more than a decade before his Rossiniane. These two sets of pieces have been rarely performed and recorded, and quite unfairly so. Originally recorded and released to great acclaim in 1999, this album is now available nearly twenty years later, and still just as significant.
Can we get into Beethoven’s creative mind, especially in the last phase of his life when he was coping with severe hearing loss? Tom Beghin’s new recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Opus 109, 110, and 111 is an artistic exploration of how Beethoven’s musicking was shaped by the work environment he created with the help of colleagues and friends. Not only does pianist Tom Beghin perform Beethoven’s trilogy of pianistic masterpieces on a magnificent new replica of Beethoven’s Broadwood piano, he uses a reconstruction of the Gehormaschine that was mounted on the composer’s piano so he could continue to create music as his hearing declined. “You do hear better when you bring your head under this machine, don’t you?” Andre Stein asked Beethoven. Two centuries later, we too can bring our heads under the machine and wonder: Do we hear Beethoven differently? Beghin draws us inside the hearing machine, where we feel as well as hear the essence of Beethoven’s rambunctious and irresistibly poetic musical vibrations. Inside the Hearing Machine invites us into the multisensory playground of a deaf composer for whom the machine was more than a hearing aid and who interacted with his instrument through much more than sound.
This release is the first volume in a series of new recordings in which the illustrious pianist Roman Rabinovich will record all of the piano sonatas written by Haydn for FHR. Haydn was a prominent and prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period and composed 62 keyboard sonatas. Written over a 40 year period or so, and displaying a variety of styles, the earlier sonatas were written for harpsichord and the last for the newly developed hammer-action fortepiano. Rabinovich is a brilliant interpreter of Haydn. Indeed, The New York Times hailed Rabinovich’s Haydn performances as ‘admirable interpretations, performed with a rich, full-blooded sound, singing lines and witty dexterity’. Each album will feature artwork illustrated by the pianist. Rabinovich has earned critical praise for his explorations of the piano music of Haydn, which include his 42 sonata cycle at the 2018 Bath International Festival. Rabinovich has performed throughout Europe and the United States in venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and the Millennium Stage of Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Lauded as ‘a master of tone-color’ (International Piano, 2018), Rabinovich made his Israel Philharmonic début under the baton of Zubin Mehta at age ten. He was a top prize winner at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2008.
Apotheosis, Vol. 2: Mozart Piano Quartets / Yang, Alexander String Quartet
Foghorn Classics
CD
$18.99Jul 27, 2018
Maintaining focus on Mozart’s last years, members of the Alexander String Quartet join with electrifying and much-lauded pianist Joyce Yang on this recording of the two piano quartets. This is the second of a three-volume set which will include many of Mozart’s great chamber works from that period. Eric Bromberger’s liner notes contextualize these works within the canon: “Some have claimed that Mozart invented the piano quartet, but he did not. Other composers- including the fourteen year old Beethoven- had written quartets for piano and strings earlier, but Mozart was the first to face squarely the challenges of this difficult form, and he wrote the first two great piano quartets.” Now in its 37th season, the Alexander String Quartet’s discography includes major cycles by Bartok, Kodaly, Mozart, Shostakovich, and Beethoven. ASQ is also an important advocate of new music, with over 35 commissions and premieres. In addition to extensive concertizing on five continents, the quartet is on the faculty of San Francisco State University where they direct the Instructional Program of the Morrison Chamber Music Center. They have been feted as Ensemble in Residence with San Francisco Performances for more than a quartet century and at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis for 15 years.
Haydn: Piano Concerto in D major, Symphonies Nos. 80 & 81
Fuga Libera
CD
$20.99Oct 11, 2019
Bart Van Reyn and Le Concert d'Anvers delve into two of Joseph Haydn's lesser-known symphonies. Dating from the autumn of 1784, when Haydn was nearing the end of his employment at the Esterházy court, both seem to anticipate the Paris symphonies that would shortly follow. Having been largely overlooked by historically informed performance specialists, Van Reyn's reading highlights the pair's mutual sense of artistic ambition, drawing out their concise but powerful musical drama. These are accompanied with Haydn's effervescent Piano Concerto in D major, featuring Belgian fortepianist Lucas Blondeel. Blondeel demonstrates his clear affinity with Haydn's solo writing, rendering a performance that captures the concerto's elegance while always sparkling with it's composer's characteristic wit.
Dreams, illusions, nightmares, tender and formidable images: all this can be heard on the new, third GENUIN CD by the Japanese flutist Atsuko Koga. From the first lost melodies by her fellow countryman Akira Miyoshi and the yearning musical arcs of Carl Maria von Weber to the playful, even euphoric figurations of Bohuslav Martinu, Koga and her partners succeed in taking us into ever-new musical and spiritual landscapes.
The Edition Primavera already consists of numerous commendable CDs, produced by GENUIN in collaboration with the German Music Competition! The latest offering in this series is the debut CD of pianist Frank Dupree (b. 1991), the 2014 prizewinner. His clever program spans an extremely wide range of music: bracketed by Beethoven's first and last piano sonatas, works of the 20thand 21st c. – a world-premiere recording of Peter Eötvös, as well as Berio's Encores and Alban Berg's first sonata, are performed, all-in-all an intellectual as well as a sensual musical pleasure.
Rounded, differentiated and balanced: this describes the sound of the Quatuor Sine Nomine on their second GENUIN CD, already the 13th of the Artist Consort Edition-a series on which artists dedicate themselves to matters truly dear to their hearts. The works exude a warmth that goes directly to the listener's heart.
Found: Piano Trios by Haydn, Schneider & Klughardt
Genuin
CD
$20.99May 13, 2016
This is the debut CD from TrioSono, a trio made up of members of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Dresden Staatskapelle.+ The three piano trios on this album are from three composers from different stylistic periods- Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Friedrich Schneider (1786-1853), and August Klughardt (1847-1902). Schneider’s Klaviertrio in Es-Dur op. 38 and Klughardt’s Klaviertrio in B-Dur op. 47 are receiving their world premiere recordings on this release.
If a string quartet wins two of the most important competitions for their instruments within only a few months, this is something of a sensation – even if the Amaryllis Quartett, whose debut GENUIN CD is now being released, had long been a household name among chamber music fans. Now listeners can revel in the refined tone and technical perfection of their playing.
