CD · 7 discs
Sony Classical is pleased to announce an important reissue of works by Carlos Chávez, one of the most influential figures in the history of Mexican music. Most of these recordings, which span the years 1938 to 1980, are conducted by Chávez himself and have never appeared before on CD.
CONTENTS:
CD · 17 discs
Sony Classical is pleased to announce the release of a 17-CD box set collecting the recordings made between 1940 and 1956 for American Columbia by the renowned Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti.
Szigeti had a remarkable career. Born in 1892 in Budapest, where he studied with Jenő Hubay, one of most celebrated virtuosos and teachers of that golden era of violin playing, he was praised by the iconic German violinist Joseph Joachim at his Berlin debut in 1905; lived in London for several years following his acclaimed 1907 debut and played chamber music with, among others, Myra Hess and Ferruccio Busoni; was a frequent visitor after the war to the Soviet Union, where he introduced Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto; made his triumphant American debut at Carnegie Hall under Stokowski in 1925; toured the world during the 1930s before finally settling in the US in 1940.
It was in that year that Szigeti renewed his friendship with fellow Hungarian émigré Béla Bartók, and in April the two gave a now-legendary recital in Washington which featured Bartók’s First Violin Rhapsody of 1928 – a work dedicated to and premiered by Szigeti in Europe. In May 1940, Columbia recorded their interpretation of this “vehicle for Szigeti’s biting and wholly magnificent fiddling” (MusicWeb International) in New York. That performance appears here for the first time on CD, along with another important work by Bartók, the classic first recording of his Contrasts for clarinet, violin and piano, written for and performed with Szigeti and Benny Goodman.
The rest of the new collection displays many more treasures of Szigeti’s passionate dedication to chamber music: in Bach, Handel, Tartini, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Dvořák, Debussy, Ravel, Bloch, Busoni, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Henry Cowell, collaborating with such artists as Andor Foldes – another Hungarian émigré – as well as with Mieczyslaw Horzowski, Myra Hess, Pablo Casals and Igor Stravinsky.
There are, of course, major orchestral works represented in the new Szigeti edition, including two towering concertos in D major – the Brahms, recorded in 1945 with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Beethoven, recorded in 1947 with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic (“an account of impassioned grandeur” – MusicWeb International) – along with Busoni’s early Violin Concerto in D major, recorded in 1954 with Thomas Sherman conducting the Little Orchestra Society. Szigeti’s numerous Bach concerto recordings for Columbia are here as well, conducted by Casals, Fritz Stiedry and George Szell.
As Nathan Milstein, one of his great colleagues, said in a touching tribute to Szigeti, who died in 1973: “He was an incredibly cultured musician. Actually, his talent grew out of his culture. … I always admired him, and he was respected by musicians.” In his late years, Joseph Szigeti finally got the appreciation he deserved from the general public as well. Sony Classical’s new collection his Columbia recordings, many never before released on CD at Sony Classical, can only further enhance that appreciation.
REVIEWS:
Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973) was the violinistic equivalent of a “kunst diva”, just as Gidon Kremer is today. He never had a particularly beautiful tone, while his bowing and intonation grew less dependable with age. Yet Szigeti never put a wrong musical foot forward. His phrasing communicated form, character, architecture, and astute harmonic awareness, with musical considerations always taking precedence over physical expediency.
Sony/BMG’s 17-CD collection of Szigeti’s complete Columbia Masterworks recordings stands out for exemplary remasterings that stem from the best possible source material. His intense yet thoughtful collaborations with Mieczyslaw Horszowski in Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 1, 5, 6, and 10 have never sounded so full-bodied and detailed as they do here. The same goes for the 1947 Beethoven Concerto, where the New York Philharmonic turns in firm and insightfully aligned playing under Bruno Walter’s direction. It contrasts to the conductor’s relatively casual and deferential backing in Szigeti’s 1932 recording, which, however, finds Szigeti on far better form.
Rehearing Szigeti’s 1949 Bach Sonata No. 3 in C major for violin solo reminded me just how much more fluent and controlled this performance is in comparison to the violinist’s relatively tenuous Vanguard remake. Likewise, his masterful 1940 account of the D minor concerto based on Bach’s keyboard concerto BWV 1052 is technically, musically, and sonically superior to the bloated 1950 reading under Pablo Casals’ direction. Szigeti’s Casals Festival contributions are admittedly uneven.
His collaborations with Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, and Henry Cowell are both historically important and musically illuminating. Somehow the older Szigeti’s wiry tone imparts welcome character and tension to sonatas by Hindemith, Ravel, and Busoni, as well as the rarely heard Prokofiev solo sonata and Busoni concerto. It must be said, though, that the latter’s final scherzando-like passages are heavy going for the veteran violinist, as are the Busoni sonata’s overextended fugal sequences.
Listeners expecting suaveness and elegance in Brahms’ G major Op. 78 and D minor Op. 108 sonatas with Horszowski may wince at Szigeti’s tremulous and effortful execution. Still, he makes every note count, and the aching fragility that emerges from Op. 78’s outer movements and Op. 108’s deliberately unfolding third movement compels my undivided attention. Yet this Brahms D minor pales next to the power and authority of Szigeti’s great 78 rpm edition with pianist Egon Petri. As for the short encore-type pieces favored in the shellac era, Szigeti plays them dutifully rather than lovingly; he wasn’t a charmer like Kreisler, Elman, Milstein, or Ricci. Or Heifetz, for that matter.
The booklet includes full discographical data, an informative essay by Tully Potter, and Szigeti’s own notes for a 1970 Japanese reissue of his Schubert recordings. Even if just half of this collection represents Szigeti at his best, Sony/BMG’s comprehensive and meticulous production values deserve the highest accolades. In the meantime, a complete edition of Szigeti’s pre-war European 78s is long overdue.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
The 31 works, from sonatas to chamber works to concertos, span Bach and Beethoven to Debussy, Ravel, Busoni and Henry Cowell. Bartók is pianist in his own Rhapsody No 1 for Violin and Piano. All the Brahms, including the Trio No 2 in C major with Hess and Casals, is to treasure. Szigeti plays Dvořák with grace and melancholy, and gives bite and attack to Stravinsky. The style may be redolent of another era, yet still this playing speaks to us.
– Guardian (UK)
This is a quite wonderful set, one of the highlights being an all-Busoni disc, the Second Sonata with Mieczysπaw Horszowski and the Violin Concerto with the Little Orchestra Society under Thomas Sherman. No one listening could fail to grasp the profound level of Szigeti's musical understanding.
– Gramophone
SET CONTENTS
DISC 1: Bartók: Violin Rhapsody No. 1, Sz.87 (Remastered) Bartók: Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin and Piano, Sz.111 Bloch: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life for Violin and Piano (Remastered) Milhaud (arr. Lévy): Saudades do Brasil, Op. 67: No. 9, Sumare (Remastered) Falla (arr. Levy): El Sombrero de Tres Picos, Parte I, Danza de la molinera (Remastered) Mozart: Divertimento No. 15 in B-Flat Major, K. 287, "2. Lodronsche Nachtmusik" (Remastered)
DISC 2: Mussorgsky-Rachmaninoff: Sorochintsy Fair, Act III: No. 5, Gopak (Remastered) Dvorák (arr. Kreisler): Slavonic Dance in E Minor, Op. 46, No. 2 (Arr. in G Minor) (Remastered) Dvorák (arr. Kreisler): Slavonic Dance No. 3 in A-Flat Major, Op. 46, No. 3 (Arr. in E Minor) (Remastered) Hubay: Scènes de la Csárda No.4, Op. 32, "Hejre Kati", I. Lento ma non troppo. Allegro moderato (Remastered) Hubay: Scènes de la Csárda No.4, Op. 32, "Hejre Kati", II. Allegro molto (Remastered) Kodály (arr. Szigeti): Háry János Suite, IZK 26: V. Intermezzo (Remastered) Brahms: 21 Hungarian Dances for Orchestra, WoO 1: No. 5 in G Minor (Remastered) Debussy: Violin Sonata No.3 in G Minor, L. 140 (Remastered) Hubay: The Zephyr, Op. 30, No. 5 (Remastered) Schubert, Francois: Bagatelle Op. 13, No. 9, "Die Biene" (Remastered) Stravinsky: Duo Concertant for Violin and Piano Stravinsky: Pastorale, Song without Words for Violin & Woodwind Quartet Stravinsky: Russian Maiden's Song
DISC 3: Beethoven (Cadenza: Joseph Joachim): Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
DISC 4: Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 Brahms: Violin Sonata No.3 in D Minor, Op.108: II. Adagio
DISC 5: Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.1 in D Major, Op. 12, No. 1 (Remastered) Schubert: Violin Sonata in D Major, D.384 Schubert (arr. Friedberg): Piano Sonata No.17 in D Major, D.850: IV. Rondo. Allegretto moderato (Remastered) Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.7 in C Minor, Op. 30, No. 2 (Remastered)
DISC 6: Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No.1 in F Minor, Op. 80 (Remastered) Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94bis (Remastered)
DISC 7: Bach, J.S.: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005 Bach, J.S. (arr. Reitz): Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052
DISC 8: Schubert: Fantaisie for Piano & Violin in C Major, Op.Posth. 159, D. 934 Corelli (arr. H. Leonard): Violin Sonata in D Minor, Op.5 No.12 "La Folia" (Variations Serieuses) Debussy (arr. Roelens): Suite bergamasque, L. 75: No. 3. Clair de lune Lalo (arr. Szigeti): Aubade from "Le Roi d'Ys" (Act III) Tchaikovsky: 6 Pieces, Op. 51: No. 6, Valse sentimentale Bach, J.S. (arr. Szigeti): Violin Partita No.3 in E Major, BWV 1006: VI. Bourrée (Remastered)
DISC 9: Bach, J.S.: Concerto for Flute, Violin and Keyboard in A Minor, BWV 1044 (Remastered) Bach, J.S.: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, (arr. BWV 1052/1056) (Remastered) Bach, J.S.: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050
DISC 10: Schubert: Rondo in B Minor for Piano and Violin, D.895 (Op.70) "Rondeau brillant" Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.10 in G Major, Op. 96 (Remastered) Schubert: Violin Sonata in A Major, Op. 162. D. 574 "Grand Duo" (Remastered)
DISC 11: Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 60 Brahms: Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major Op. 87
DISC 12: Cowell: Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano (1945) (Remastered) Shapero: Sonata for Piano Four Hands (1941) (Remastered) (Harold Shapero, piano; Leo Smit, piano) Cowell: Celestial Vision: How Old Is Song? (Remastered)
DISC 13: Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.5 in F Major, Op. 24 "Spring" Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 6 in A Major, Op. 30, No. 1
DISC 14: Bach, J.S. (arr. Szigeti): Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056 (Remastered) Handel: Violin Sonata in D Major, HWV 371 (Remastered) Tartini (Cadenzas: Szigeti): Violin Concerto in D Minor, D. 45 (Remastered) Tartini: Violin Sonata in G Major, B. G19 (Remastered)
DISC 15: Ravel: Violin Sonata No.2 in G Major, M. 77 Hindemith: Violin Sonata in E Major (1939) Prokofiev: Sonata for Solo Violin in D Major, Op. 115 (Remastered) Prokofiev: Five Melodies for Violin and Piano, Op. 35bis (Remastered)
DISC 16: Busoni: Violin Concerto, Op.35a, BV 243 Busoni: Violin Sonata No.2, Op.36a, BV 244
DISC 17: Brahms: Violin Sonata No.1 in G Major, Op. 78 "Regen" (Remastered) Brahms: Violin Sonata No.3 in D Minor, Op.108 (Remastered)
These two patrician French musicians were leading lights at American Columbia from the 1940s until well into the 1960s. During World War II, violinist Zino Francescatti and pianist Robert Casadesus began performing as a duo (they were both also collaborators with Ravel early in the careers), and in the decades since then the Columbia/Sony catalogue has documented this partnership distinguished by interpretive grace and technical polish. Although Francescatti is probably best remembered for his wide-ranging concerto recordings with Bernstein, Ormandy and Bruno Walter and Casadesus for his sparkling Mozart concertos with Szell, their duo recordings were also greatly admired by music lovers, especially their landmark interpretations of the Beethoven Violin Sonatas. The first of these recordings – made in mono between 1949 and 1957 in New York, when both musicians were living in the US – comprised Nos. 3–9. A remake, this time the complete cycle, was recorded in stereo in Paris in 1958 and 1961. Now Sony Classical is reissuing all of these performances in a single 7-CD box set. All of their recordings of Beethoven violin sonatas were held in the highest critical esteem. The mono recordings earned special praise from Gramophone in the UK for expressiveness without undue romanticism and from High Fidelity in the US for an equality between the two musicians not often found in recordings of these works. Similar plaudits for the stereo versions, Gramophone commending Francescatti’s “cool, relaxed ease and sweet tone [in the “Spring” Sonata] … Casadesus is wonderfully good, too … The playing is effortless and relaxed in the true chamber music way … Both in this [Op. 96] and the C minor Sonata they give the kind of limpid, poetic classical performances in which every detail falls miraculously into place. This is playing with a lifetime of musical experience behind it … The perspective is faultlessly calculated; but of course not even the best engineer in the world could have produced such a result without a ‘marriage of true minds’ between the performers.” High Fidelity’s reviewer referred to the players’ “general tendency towards objective clarity, rhythmic brio, and superb instrumental refinement … The entire set – flawlessly well articulated, cleanly reproduced, and with every element of Beethoven’s writing meticulously set into proper perspective – can be highly recommended.” The new box contains two performances never before issued: the duo’s 1957 New York recordings of the “Spring” Sonata and of Op. 30 No. 1, which were apparently withheld because of the imminent commencement of the cycle’s complete remake in stereo.
DVD · 1 disc
“Lou Harrison and Cultural Fusion”A PostClassical Ensemble “More than Music” filmWritten and produced by Joseph HorowitzVisual presentation by Peter BogdanoffFilm six in the six-film Naxos series:“Dvorak’s Prophecy: A New Narrative for American Classical Music”
Joe Horowitz writes of this film: "No non-Western musical idiom has so impacted on the Western concert tradition as Indonesian gamelan, beginning with the Javanese Pavilion at the 1889 Paris Exposition: an epiphany. Sampling gamelan-inspired works by Debussy, Poulenc, Messiaen, and McPhee, we arrive at a paragon exemplar of cultural fusion – Lou Harrison – and a pair of concertos, for violin and piano, unsurpassed by those of any other American. The composer/scholar Bill Alves demonstrates the layered complexity of Javanese gamelan, and how it translates into keyboard textures composed by Harrison for Keith Jarrett. For Harrison’s Concerto for Violin and Percussion, we tour the “junk percussion” – including flowerpots and washtubs – that Harrison made sing and dance."
He goes on to write "We now inhabit a “postclassical” musical aesthetic that, rather than piling on modernist complexity, draws inspiration from a variety of sources, Eastern and Western, “high” and popular. The prophetic figure, it seems to me is Lou Harrison, who practiced world music before there was a name for it. Harrison was certainly a composer who discovered a usable past – including music from Indonesia, China, and Japan. In the New World, a usable starting point was and remains the sorrow songs of African Americans, so eloquently celebrated around the turn of the twentieth century by W. E. B. Du Bois and Antonin Dvořák. Dvořák’s 1893 prophecy that “negro melodies” would foster a “great and noble” school of American music has never seemed more pertinent.”
"These six beautiful films reveal a compelling, inclusive musical tradition, deeply interwoven with American culture." – J. Peter Burkholder, author of 'A History of Western Music' and 'Listening to Charles Ives'.
CD · 10 discs
SACD · 1 disc
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)
Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen made their first duo-recording for BIS in 1991 and have released acclaimed recital albums ranging from Schumann and Liszt to Alfred Schnittke, by way of Schoenberg and Hindemith. With the present disc they bring their most recent project to a close: a recording of all the works by Johannes Brahms for violin and piano. These include not only the three well-known and -loved numbered violin sonatas, but also the Scherzo from the so-called F.A.E. Sonata and the composer’s own violin versions of the two sonatas for clarinet and piano. Wallin and Pöntinen open the present release with Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 120, composed in 1894 for clarinet and transcribed for the violin a year later. As the clarinet part extends further down than the lowest note on the violin, Brahms made considerable revisions to the clarinet part, which entailed changes in the piano part, and consequently the printing of a new piano score. This is followed by the second and third violin sonatas, in A major and D minor respectively. Both works were composed during the summer of 1886 in Thun in Switzerland and are clearly related, even though they inhabit completely different expressive worlds.
CD · 1 disc
This new album continues Ondine’s award-winning series of orchestral works by Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994) together with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The series has gathered several accolades, including a Grammy nomination, a BBC Music Magazine Awards nomination, and several recording of the month awards and best recordings of the year nominations. This album includes the composer’s early hit, his folklorish masterpiece Concerto for Orchestra, which is among his most performed compositions.
The album also includes Partita for Violin and Orchestra (with Christian Tetzlaff as soloist), a virtuosic 5-movement work which in its orchestral version is not short of a Violin Concerto. The rarity in the album is Lutosławski’s Novelette from 1979, which, although fragmentary, is already pointing toward the ideas of his 3rd Symphony.
This illuminating program constitutes an ideal introduction as well as a must for the composer’s admirers. In the early Concerto for Orchestra, the orchestra plays with surging vitality, but also great delicacy. In the later works on the program, the playing is again incisive rather than heavy. This is a recording to cherish.
— American Record Guide
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.
This Chandos re-issue of Max Bruch’s Violin Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, recorded in 1998 by Lydia Mordkovitch (1944-2014) with Richard Hickox and the LSO is released in tribute to the late Russian-British violinist. • In the Violin Concerto No. 2, “Hickox draws radiant sounds from the LSO, and Ms. Mordkovitch ... plays with rapt dedication [and] breathtaking beauty…” (Guardian) • The third Violin Concerto’s robust, heroic opening concertante movement precedes a slow movement reminiscent of the same in the famous First Concerto and a rondo Finale dominated by a strongly rhythmic perpetuum mobile.
Four years after a highly successful Bartok recording with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner here returns to the composer on SACD, with James Ehnes as solo violinist, and his Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. The central piece in this recording is the Concerto for Orchestra, the largest work that Bartok completed during the last five years of his life and described by the composer, in the program notes for its 1944 premiere, as ‘a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.’ It is joined by the Dance Suite, the immediate predecessor, among Bartok’s few works for full orchestra without a soloist, of the Concerto for Orchestra, though by more than two decades; and by the violin Rhapsodies, the colorful folk influences of which are revealed by James Ehnes, a specialist in the repertoire, who already has recorded the complete sonatas as well as the concertos for violin and for viola to critical acclaim.
Continuing their series of orchestral works by Sir Eugene Goossens, Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra turn to the Phantasy Concerto for Violin and the Second Symphony. Goossens was born in London in 1893, into a family of Belgian conductors and musicians. He trained in Brugesand at the Royal College of Music (studying composition under Stanford), played violin in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood, and became Sir Thomas Beecham’s go-to stand-in because of his ability to conduct the most demanding programmes on little or no rehearsal. Goossens gave the first UK concert performance of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, in 1921, and in 1923 became the first music director of the newly formed Rochester Philharmonic, before succeeding Fritz Reiner, in 1931, as chief conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He spent nine years in Australia, as chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was instrumental in the planning of the Sydney Opera House. Both works recorded here were composed towards the end of his life. The Second Symphony, dating from 1942–45, is a vivid and personal response to WWII. The Phantasy Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was originally promised to Heifetz, who never performed it. Having returned to London, Goossens gave the work’s premiere in a BBC broadcast in July 1959, and this was followed by a Proms performance in 1960; on both occasions the soloist was Tessa Robbins. Sir Andrew Davis and his Melbourne forces perform these rarely heard works with care and finesse, and Tasmin Little shines as the soloist in the Phantasy Concerto. The album is recorded in Surround Sound.
CD · 13 discs
The horn was one of the instruments that Johannes Brahms learned in his youth, from his father who played it professionally. His fondness and familiarity with the instrument is clear from the glorious solos that he provided it with in his symphonies, and he gave it pride of place in the Horn Trio that he wrote in memory of his mother Christiane. Even so, he never composed any other chamber work involving the horn – an oversight that horn players have regretted ever since. Following up on two highly acclaimed BIS albums, Alec Frank-Gemmill decided to rectify this, and enlisted the help of pianist Daniel Grimwood and violinist Benjamin Marquise Gilmore. It goes without saying that the resulting disc includes the Horn Trio – which Frank-Gemmill has chosen to perform on the instrument played by Aubrey Brain on his legendary 1933 recording of the work. But leading up to this are two works originally written for violin and cello respectively. The sometimes controversial subject of transcriptions is discussed by Frank-Gemmill in his liner notes where he also explains his selection of works. In the Scherzo that Brahms wrote as his contribution to the F-A-E Sonata (which also included movements by Schumann and Albert Dietrich), he finds that the very fabric of the piece is made up of horn calls, while the galloping 6/8 theme reminds him of the final movement of the horn trio. Wanting to also include a sonata, Frank-Gemmill settled on the E minor Cello Sonata, Op. 38 as the one best suited for the horn, and together with arranger Daniel Grimwood the decision was made to transpose the work a third up, into G minor. Through their efforts, we are able to present a Brahms recital that hornists – and the rest of us – could only dream of.
Conductor Robert Trevino’s fourth album release on Ondine is focused on the late works of composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016), one of Finland’s most celebrated composers after Sibelius and known worldwide for his Neo-Romantic, even mystic compositions. Together with violinist Simone Lamsma and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra the artists are presenting four final orchestral works by the celebrated composer.
Two of the works are world première recordings. In his late period, Rautavaara received several communications from the world’s leading violinists requesting him to write works for them. He was able to oblige them, creating several extensive works featuring solo violin. Fantasia (2015) for violin and orchestra is a work of soft Neo-Romantic harmonies and soaring melodic lines. In 2014, Rautavaara was asked to write a new Violin Concerto. This commission resulted in Deux Sérénades for violin and orchestra which remained unfinished at Rautavaara’s death: the second movement was sketched out, but only its beginning was orchestrated. Kalevi Aho, an accomplished composer of symphonies and concertos who studied composition with Rautavaara at the turn of the 1970s, fleshed out the orchestration in 2018. Lost Landscapes (2005/15) was originally written as a violin sonata, but Rautavaara began orchestrating the work in 2013. The first movement was premiered at the contemporary music festival at Tanglewood in July 2015, but the full premiere of the work took place in Malmö in March 2021, with Simone Lamsma as soloist. In the Beginning (2015) is a concise overture-type work commissioned for a concert opener. The titles of his works were important for the composer, forming part of the ‘aura’ of the work and often even constituting the initial impulse for writing the piece in the first place.
There is a transcendent intensity to Rautavaara’s music which is heightened by this writing for strings. All of the music here is relatively recent, the earliest from 2005, but here rearranged for these forces. Lost Landscapes, Fantasia, In the Beginning and Deux Serenades (completed by Kalevi Aho, after the composer’s death) are the four works here. Music to be immersed in and a fitting presentation of some of Rautavaara’s last work.
-- Lark Reviews
All these violin concertante works are attractive, but they are also all rather similar, and there is a preponderance of slow music. So they are best not listened to all at the same time. In the Beginning is different: it shows another side of the composer and perhaps has the best music on the disc.
We have a cosmopolitan team here. The soloist, Simone Lamsma is Dutch, has performed widely and already made a number of recordings. Robert Trevino is American and is a rising star. The Malmö Symphony Orchestra is one of Sweden’s leading orchestras. They all provide assured performances. The recording is sympathetic and the booklet informative. The Fantasia and Deux Sérénades have each been recorded by their commissioners but coupled with different composers, so the Rautavaara fan will find this the most convenient way to collect these works.
-- MusicWeb International
As core members of the ensemble Wigmore Soloists, Michael Collins, Isabelle van Keulen and Michael McHale present four works for clarinet trio composed over a period of some 130 years. Mozart’s Kegelstatt Trio was long believed to have been composed during a game of bowling. The writing is reminiscent of a conversation between three friends in which contrasts are not excluded: we hear affection, divergences and even disagreements. This atmosphere of friendly, playful, and sometimes very intimate exchange also pervades Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tales). While its spirited conviviality might give the impression that this work was the product of idyllic times, it was actually composed during Schumann’s last full year of sanity before his final mental collapse in 1854. There is a similar atmosphere of warm intimacy in Max Bruch’s Eight Pieces, written in 1910. Four of them are presented here, giving not a single hint of the approaching First World War. Based on a Russian folk tale, Stravinsky’s stage work L’Histoire du Soldat may be less good-natured than the preceding works. But the music is wonderfully entertaining, borrowing from various genres, including jazz. The composer’s trio version consist of five movements and has deservedly become his most frequently performed chamber composition.
As expected, the performances are excellent. The Mozart is wonderfully lyrical; the Stravinsky crackles with energy; and the Schumann and the Bruch have the intensity and heartfelt phrasing the composers require. Collins leads with his clear and resonant timbre, dazzling fingers and articulation, and superb musicianship; and McHale lends splendid tone, touch, technique, and sensitivity. Van Keulen demonstrates terrific versatility all through, from warm contralto utterances to spunky fiddle playing, though sometimes her viola lines are a little thin and scrappy. Even so, the profound devotion to each score makes this album very worthwhile.
-- American Record Guide
One of the foremost musicians of his generation, James Ehnes continues to dazzle audiences around the world. Here he joins the BBC Philharmonic and Sir Andrew Davis in a recording of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Written for the Polish virtuoso Samuel Dushkin, the four-movement work takes the music of Bach as its inspiration, and is built around a chord of the notes D, E, and A, which Stravinsky described as his ‘passport to the concerto’ and with which the solo violin part opens each movement. Dushkin gave the premiere, conducted by Stravinsky, in Berlin in 1932.
Apollon musagète, a ballet in two parts for string orchestra, was written in 1927-28, and demonstrates the composer’s complete rejection of the Russian folk music and idioms that had been so instrumental in his previous ballets (The Firebird, Petrushka). They are replaced by a concentration on ‘pure form’, which became known as his neo-classical style. The album is completed by his two orchestral suites – light-hearted music arranged from piano duets he had written in the 1910s – and Scherzo à la russe, a showpiece for the Paul Whiteman band that he composed in the early 1940s when newly arrived in California.
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