For the first time with naïve, the counter-tenor Andreas Scholl joins the Accademia Bizantina and Alessandro Tampieri to present a Neapolitan programme, centred on the Virgin Mary.

Andreas Scholl and the Accademia Bizantina have for several decades enjoyed a successful musical partnership, encompassing the whole Baroque repertoire. As usual, this new album together includes both renowned and less well-known vocal and instrumental pieces. The figure of Mary, which has inspired a huge repertoire, both sacred and profane, runs through this Easter programme of exquisite affliction, virtuosic for both voice and orchestra. “Neapolitan music has a unique melodic vein and a great capacity to communicate emotion profoundly," says Alessandro Tampieri.

Thus, Vivaldi’s iconic Stabat Mater, which the German counter-tenor has enjoyed singing for many years, is placed alongside lesser-known airs from oratorios by Nicola Porpora and Leonardo Vinci, which had the character of the Virgin sung by a castrato. “I endeavour to place humanity before gender," says Andreas Scholl, “and I interpret the role of Mary with the greatest sincerity, without the slightest notion of 'travesty’. Love, despair and pain transcend the notion of gender."

We also find a Salve Regina by Pasquale Anfossi, requiring a particularly participative orchestra, a sonata by Angelo Ragazzi and a violin concerto by Pergolesi, both strongly echoing Pergolesi’s famous Stabat Mater. The solo violin parts are played by Alessandro Tampieri, first violin of the Italian ensemble, who conducts here from his instrument in the purest tradition of the Baroque orchestra.

There is still much we do not know about the veritable mandolin-mania of late 18th-century Europe, particularly Vienna, which in that period was home to the three greatest musicians of the Classical period: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The instrument certainly enjoyed dazzling success in Viennese musical circles, embraced by the cultured aristocrats who resided in the Habsburg capital, and its meteoric rise was supported by some extraordinary virtuosos who helped promote its high-quality and fast-growing repertoire.
Giovanni Hoffmann’s refined chamber music featuring the mandolin was warmly received among the Viennese elite, making him one of the foremost figures behind the burgeoning mandolin repertoire of late 18th-century Vienna. Very little is known about his life; the Italianate first name alongside a clearly central-European surname adds to the mystery shrouding his birthplace and sphere of education.
Hoffmann was both a mandolin virtuoso and an esteemed composer. In 1799, the music merchant Johann Traeg advertised a list of the mandolin scores available to purchase from his shop on Vienna’s Singerstraße. It included a Trio for mandolin & bass by Hoffmann, and that same year, the composer released a further number of manuscript works through Traeg including his Quartets for mandolin, violin, viola & cello and
Serenatas for mandolin & viola. Hoffmann’s work is recorded again in Austria in the early decades of the 19th century, but – like his birth – the place and date of his death have not yet come to light. His music, however, lives on, a testament to his talent for composing delightful music in a Classical style evoking the fascinating gatherings of the Viennese literati.

Recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Pulitzer Prize, and a GRAMMY Award, William Bolcom is one of America’s most senior and internationally acclaimed composers. Commissioned to expand upon the under-represented horn trio repertoire, Bolcom has written a modern counterpart to Brahms’ Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, Op. 40, in which he incorporates multiple styles into a substantial composition. The Suite No. 2 for Solo Violin is by turns frenzied, melancholic and light-hearted. Bolcom states, “Both works are performed beautifully and well recorded. Bravi tutti!”

Although he is best known for his film scores and The Godfather in particular, Nino Rota’s concert music combines traditional tonality and forms with characteristically heartfelt melodies and appealing clarity. Contrasts abound in this selection of chamber works, from bassoon buffoonery in the Toccata to the Brahmsian eloquence of the Clarinet Sonata, and from the dramatic Improvviso and melancholy moods of the recently discovered Fantasia, to the jocular instrumental exchanges in the exquisite Trio.

The four works on this first CD of Komarnitsky’s music are all that remains of his copious output of chamber music. Featuring the London Piano Trio, they “audibly believe in every note, and their dedicated performances are set within a bold sound frame […]” (Gramophone Classical Music Guide).

REVIEW:

I was bowled over by the music on this record and sincerely hope that there is more to be discovered of this composer’s works, perhaps lying in some archives somewhere which is often where such things end up. It is tantalising to have heard this music and not to be sure of being able to explore further examples of it. I wait with bated breath and great hopes that more from him will emerge.

The members of the London Piano Trio play all of this music with passion, commitment and great skill making me want to seek out music where they play as a trio. Robert Atchison’s notes are a useful commentary on the background to the pieces.

-- MusicWeb International

Sekles (1872–1933) was a leading figure in German music in the first decades of the20th century. In 1928, as director of the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt, he established the 1st academic program in jazz studies, an act of courage that unleashed furious attacks from Nazi press. His music was banned during the 3rd Reich and was virtually forgotten until now.

•These three early works of the French composer Maurice Emmanuel (1862–1938) show him emerging from under the influence of César Franck. The ambitious Violin Sonata is here receiving its first recording. The Greek Folktunes Suite attest to Emmanuel’s deep knowledge of Greek music. The texts of the song-cycle Musiques, here receiving only its second recording, are by the poet, geologist and historian Louis de Launay.

REVIEW:

The performances here are persuasive and committed. We of course don’t have any points of comparison, and I could perhaps imagine something even more successful with a violinist and a singer with more inherently beautiful timbres. But these are at a level that is more than serviceable, and they convey the essence of the music thoroughly. Pianist Killian is particularly strong. The recorded sound is very well balanced and natural in the violin-piano works, though I find just a bit too much air around the voice. But do not let that stand in your way. The helpful, informative notes and texts and translations round out what is a very important release of music that should be a wonderful discovery for most listeners.

-- Fanfare

On her second volume of Polish violin works, Jennifer Pike presents works by Bacewicz, Poldowski, and Szymanowski. Renowned for her “dazzling interpretative flair and exemplary technique” (Classic FM), violinist Jennifer Pike has taken the musical world by storm with her unique artistry and compelling insight into music from the Baroque to the present day. (Chandos)

Encapsulating the voluptuous sound of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s strings, Tasmin Little is both the soloist and conductor in this unique coupling: Vivaldi’s ever-popular ‘Four Seasons’ meets Roxanna Panufnik’s ‘Four World Seasons,’ the premiere recording of a set of highly inspirational pieces. As a complete cycle, ‘The Four Seasons’ offers a set of vivid tableaux, imaginative, enticing, and wonderfully contrasted, with ample chance for the violin soloist to display technique, sensitivity, and color. These are qualities that the British composer Roxanna Panufnik also sought for her own Seasons tribute, Four World Seasons, written for the violinist. Three of the pieces are dedicated to her, while the fourth, ‘Autum in Albania,’ is dedicated to the memory of Panufnik’s father, Polish composer Sir Andrzej Panufnik, who, his daughter says, was born, loved, and died in autumn.

This is the first ever album devoted to the chamber music of Helena Munktell, one of the earliest female composers in Sweden. The daughter of an industrialist, Munktell received private lessons in piano and song from an early age, but soon also training in music theory and composition. In 1877 she visited Paris, where two of her sisters lived, and during the next thirty-odd years the city would be a second home to her. Here she studied with composers such as Benjamin Godard and Vincent d’Indy, and became a member of Société Nationale de Musique (SNM), an organization promoting French music and providing opportunities for young composers to have their works performed. A selection of Munktell’s songs had been performed, in Swedish, at a Society concert in 1892 and in 1900 they were heard again, but now in the French versions released the same year by the reputed musical publisher Alphonse Leduc. The Dix Mélodies are finely crafted musical scenes displaying a wide expressive range and variety of moods. Five years later another SNM concert saw the first performance of Munktell’s Violin Sonata in E flat major, by none other than the renowned Romanian violinist George Enescu. Franck’s famous A major Sonata, which Munktell knew well, served as an important source of inspiration in regards to the cyclic form and harmonic writing. The sonata soon appeared in print, now from E. Demets, another French music publisher. The third work on this album is a small-scale piano trio, probably an early work and possibly composed for performance at one of the musical salons at the Munktell family home in Stockholm.

Rachel Barton Pine’s ‘Testament’ is one of the best of this set of peerless works to have been released since Isabelle Faust’s definitive volumes of 2010 and 2012.

There is in her interpretation a surprisingly striking contrast between its crystalline voicing, clear articulation, and warm tone that makes the listener feel that it is concerned with the plain and simple beauty of the music as much as with the genius of its counterpoint and relationships between movements. All this is further supported by the sensible combination of Baroque bow and metal strings on a period instrument in modern set-up – the tuning is unfailingly accurate and the strength of the bowing means there is never any interference with the musical line by a squeak or break.

These are thoughtful and generous performances amplified by great maturity and depth.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice; June 2016)

“The project is inspired by the moment before the realization of something that drastically changes your life, the moment of just being, existing in the moment. That moment in time is free and full, mindfulness-ish and unaffected by misery, sorrow, regret, shame, anxiety and depression. In my mind it is bright and has a sense of nostalgia. The title also refers to a daily tradition on Icelandic radio Ra´s 1, where a song, “last song before the news” would be played just before the news hour at noon. The song would typically be an Icelandic one, sometimes a lullaby, a love song or an ode to scary and gorgeous nature. Or an Icelandic traditional, sometimes an Italian canzone or a Scandinavian sorrow. Jo´runn Viðar’s piece Icelandic Suite sums up all these elements, a piece written for the 2000 years anniversary of inhabitation in Iceland in 1974. The lightness and the longing are with us throughout the program except in the title piece of mine, Last Song before the News, where apocalyptic visions are awfully obvious and take over early on. The album is dedicated to my father, Sveinbjorn Rafnsson, whose lightness and passion for music, poetry and history along with his sense of humor has been a lifeline to many people.” (Una Sveinbjarnardottir)

REVIEW:

The chief attraction of this disc is to be found in the program. There is so much interesting music for the adventurous listener to discover that I can recommend this CD on those grounds. The performances of those works are more engaging.

-- Fanfare

Grigoriu (b. Moldavia, 1926) is one of the major Romanian composers in the period after Enescu. His vast output is little known outside his own country, although it includes oratorios, symphonies, cantatas, chamber music, film-scores, and much more. His musical roots reach back to Romanian folk-music and the modal melodies of ancient Byzantium.

Angelo Berardi (1636–94) maintained in his day that modern music had reached “greater perfection compared to the past” and that the practice of music was more important than theory; he asserted, moreover, that a good composition should also elevate the soul to virtuous thoughts. In terms of his stylistic profile, Berardi shows great richness of inspiration, so much so that this, his only work assigned to the violin, seems to cover the entirety of the instrument’s abilities and expressive variety.

Gypsy Strings is a collection of arrangements of traditional gypsy music together with a selection of original compositions. The disc was conceived to display the talents of London Concertante’s leader, Adam Summerhayes, and the Bulgarian fiddle player Emil Chakalov. The music becomes a jousting match between the two, backed by London Concertante’s twelve-player string section. The ensemble enjoys an ever growing reputation for exciting and memorable performances, thanks to exceptional players and inspired programming.