Eugen Suchon: Symfonietta Rustica; Baladicka Suita; Metamorfozy
Chandos
CD
$21.99Apr 28, 2015
Eugen Suchon (1908-93) was the most influential and respected Slovak composer of the 20th c. This new Chandos CD features the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and it's artistic director Neeme Järvi performing three of Suchon's greatest symphonic works, composed during the years he spent teaching in Bratislava, both pre- and post- WWII. His interest in the origins of Slovak folk music and extended tonality are to be heard. Winner of two Grammy® Awards, in 2004 and 2010, the ENSO is the longest, continually operating professional orchestra of it's kind in Estonia and tours worldwide.
Martinu: Suites from Spalicek & Rhapsody-Concerto / Jarvi
Chandos
CD
$21.99Feb 26, 2016
Review:
The Estonian strings sing their hearts out…the woodwind solos are very lovely, too. Viola-player Mikhail Zemtsov impresses with the sheer beauty of tone.
– BBC Music Magazine
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This album with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and its artistic director, Neeme Järvi, features two mature works by Bohuslav Martinu, recorded in the splendid acoustic of the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn.
One of the most wide-ranging composers of music for the stage, Martinu was also enthusiastic about the theatrical possibilities of including new media in his operas. Špalícek in many ways belongs to this experimental tendency. Although it was published and billed at its first performance as a ballet, it might best be described as an opera-ballet, as alongside the many dances there are extensive roles for chorus as well as tenor, soprano, and bass soloists. Martinu described the work on his manuscript as deriving from folk games, customs, and fairytales.
The lyrical Rhapsody-Concerto was written in 1952, at a time when Martinu was fighting homesickness and depression, worsened by the political situation in his native Czechoslovakia. The work is a marked move toward a more romantic sound world. The soloist here is Mikhail Zemtsov, principal violist of the Residentie Orchestra The Hague since 2001 and a prize winner at the first International Viola Competition (Vienna) and the Elisa Meyer String Competition (Hamburg).
The exploration by Järvi and the ENSO of hidden gems from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has proved highly successful, their recent recording of works by Suchon awarded the Choc de Classica
Eller: Violin Concerto, Fantasy, Symphony Legend & Symphony No. 2 / Elts, Skride, Estonian National Symphony
Ondine
CD
$18.99Nov 09, 2018
Heino Eller (1887-1970) can be considered as one of the founders of Estonian professional music culture. Eller’s legacy is twofold – in his prolific instrumental compositions he forged an elaborate style that successfully combined both modern and national elements, and as a prominent professor of composition during half a century he influenced generations of Estonian composers. This new recording by the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Olari Elts and featuring violinist Baiba Skride includes some of the highlights from the composer’s catalogue of orchestral works and is a fitting tribute to the centenary of Estonia’s independence. Heino Eller’s Violin Concerto in B minor was the first in its genre in Estonian music. First written in the 1930s the one-movement work was scheduled to be performed in Tallinn on June 1940. For reasons unknown, the work was withdrawn until March 1965 when Neeme Järvi conducted the premiere. Another work for violin and orchestra, Fantasy, was first written in 1916 and orchestrated in 1964. Fantasy is one of the earliest compositions that bears the hallmarks Eller´s individual style, and its sensitive lyricism and charming simplicity give the work an enduring appeal. The Symphonic Legend is Eller’s largest score prior to the First Symphony (1936). It was premiered on June 1923 in Tartu, and Eller revised the score for performance in 1938. A work with a wealth of musical material and masterly orchestration, Symphonic Legend was next performed only in 2014 by Olari Elts with the Estonian NSO, and the current recording is the first. Heino Eller wrote three Symphonies between the 1930s and 1960s. Unlike his other two Symphonies, the 2nd Symphony has only one movement. The severe and at times tragic nature of the music was incompatible with the demands of the official Soviet cultural ideology.
Korvits: Hymns to the Nordic Lights / Joost, Estonian National Symphony
Ondine
CD
$18.99Jan 03, 2020
Tõnu Kõrvits (b. 1969) is together with Arvo Pärt and Erkki-Sven Tüür among the most interesting Estonian composers of our time. This album by the Estonian NSO and Risto Joost consists of orchestral works written between a period of ten years, from 2007 to 2018. These works have been inspired by a variety of themes and are rich with delicate atmosphere possessing a particularly Northern feel combined with a romantic and Impressionistic touch. Azure and Leaving Capriare the most recent pieces of this album. First of the pieces is a transcription of a work which was originally written for the male choir. Leaving Capriis a homage to Estonian painter Konrad Mägi who is well-known for his colorful and sunny paintings of Italy’s landscape. Orchestral work Hymns to the Nordic Lights (2011) was premiered by Britten Sinfonia conducted by James MacMillan. This 5-movement suite evokes the magic of the Northern landscape with Nordic Lights. Silent Songs (2015) is a work of three pieces for bass-clarinet and orchestra where the soloist’s part is improvisatory, lyrical and meditative. Tears Fantasy (2011) is an orchestral fantasy dedicated to conductor Risto Joostand inspired by the work of English Renaissance composer John Dowland. Elegies of Thule (2007) is the earliest piece of the album, a suite for strings which is based on different folk tunes from Estonia. The result isa fascination combination of romanticism influenced by folk elements.
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REVIEWS:
Performed and recorded to impeccable high standards, this is the kind of release that can restore your faith in the power of contemporary music. Tõnu Kõrvits’ voice is very much one that invites rather than repels the listener, creating gorgeous sounds to go along with imaginatively conceived and expressively grounded material. There’s plenty of depth and poetic emotion to get your teeth into, so sharpen your senses and dive in.
– MusicWeb International
The Estonian National SO play throughout with the greatest of conviction and the glossiest tone, driven on by Risto Joost’s unique understanding of Kõrvits’s work, and the recording is everything one would expect from Ondine.
