Lisa Friend leads this collection of original works and transcriptions for flute and guitars, joined by Craig Ogden and the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet. The wide-ranging programme includes Fauré’s Pavane and Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise. Lisa Friend (Flautist) has appeared as a soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Prague Philharmonic, Virtuosi Pragenses Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Oxford Philharmonic and has toured throughout much of Europe, Asia and the USA. Lisa has recorded as a solo/chamber artist for Silva Screen, Universal, Chandos, Champs Hill and Signum Records. Her previous album 'Essence' has been aired on Classic FM, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio London, WQXR Classical Radio, New York and WFMT Radio, Chicago.

During the first decades of the last century, Paris took over from Vienna as the center of the art-music’s universe. Ideas and styles exploded like fireworks from the French capital, and among the first figures sending them into the wider world was Claude Debussy. His Première Rhapsodie began life as a competition piece for clarinet, first performed in 1911, and while the later orchestral version is now more commonly heard, it is instructive to revisit the composer’s original, more subtly allusive first thoughts. Seven years later, by now dying of cancer, Debussy completed the last of three works in which he returned to the traditional form of sonata which he had avoided through much of his career in favor of tone-pictures such as the Préludes and suites for piano. The Violin Sonata counts among his most concise and refined works in an output touched throughout by those qualities, demanding the greatest subtlety and passion from its interpreters. In the same year as the Première Rhapsodie, Stravinsky had scored his career-defining succès de scandale with the premiere of Le sacre du printemps, and by 1918 he was established as a darling of the Parisian avant-garde when he composed L’histoire du soldat for a septet of instruments and narrator. The following year he arranged five self-contained numbers from the score into a suite, further reduced for a spiky instrumental trio and featuring the marvelously sly tango as well as the Rite-like final Danse du soldat. Milhaud’s Suite and Bartók’s Contrasts date from two decades later, but they are still infused with the absinthe and lemon of 20s Parisian culture. Heard together, the five works paint a portrait of a world of dazzling colours and restless momentum, sometimes bewildered by its own precosity, taking what it wanted from old cultures and always breaking new paths.

The Skride Piano Quartet is made up of four likeminded musicians who have each achieved success as a soloist at the highest levels. The 2016-17 season included performances at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Musikverein Wien, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Malmo Chamber Music Festival, and BASF Ludwigshafen. Upcoming performances include the Concertgebouw, Philharmonie Essen, Great Guild Hall Riga, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Making their North American debut in the 2018-19 season, the Quartet offers programs featuring highlights from the piano quartet repertoire. The quartet is violinist Baiba Skride, violist Lise Berthaud, cellist Harriet Krijgh, and pianist Lauma Skride. This debut album includes the most famous Piano Quartets of Classical literature, by Mozart and Brahms as well then the unique Quartet movement by Gustav Mahler.

From its origins as one of the oldest musical instruments known to man to the sophisticated mechanics and elegant design today, the flute has been highly significant for every culture and historical period. Prized for the vocal character in its sound, composers such as Bach and Mozart used it for some of their most beautiful, aria-like melodies. Spectacular virtuosity later became part of the flute’s nature as can be heard in Doppler’s Rigoletto-fantaisie, while impressionist composers such as Debussy saw its timeless qualities as a window into nature or the sensual mysteries of a distant and mythological past.

Can you hear the music? Do you hear it play? It’s telling you the story of the first Christmas Day… Perfect for children of all ages, this album of classical and traditional works is a charming and engaging retelling of the nativity through music, song, and rhyme. Well-known composers like Mozart, Rutter, Lutoslawski and Brahms are included here, alongside traditional Christmas carols like “While Shepherds Watched their Flocks,” and “Mary Had a Baby.” Each of these songs has been taken from an album in the Naxos catalogue, and the works are performed by world-renowned vocalists and instrumentalists. Listen to this music, read the story, and enjoy.

This recording is a tribute to the chromatic harp, which, with its rich colors and theatrical effects, was perfectly tuned to the impressionist and art nouveau atmosphere of the turn of the 20th century. Geoffrey Gordon’s Jeux de Creation is inspired by music from the 1920s using both traditional and extended techniques, drawing on themes by Milhaud and Debussy to portray the past and present. Reflecting this aesthetic, the other works in this program include the artistry of Ravel and Faure, the quasi-orchestral effects of Debussy’s Danses, and Caplet’s sensuous and spectacular Divertissements.

The two cello sonatas by Johannes Brahms are in very stark contrast to each other. This is not solely due to the more than twenty years separating the works. Brahms had a preference for pairs of works with the same instrumentation, which he frequently composed according to the principle of contrast. In the case of the cello concertos, it is above all the character and mood of the respective pieces that describe the contrasts. In the version for cello, the Violin Sonata op. 78, one of Brahms’ finest chamber works, supplements the two original cello sonatas in a charming way. Daniel Müller-Schott and Francesco Piemontesi team up once more for this all Brahms program after the great success of their release of cello sonatas of the 20th century (C872151).

REVIEW:

Poetry, power, and passion are all here, to an unquestionable degree. There were more times when I was struck by the piano’s beautiful tone than the cello’s, but at 44 Müller-Schott has grown into the kind of maturity that still expresses the joy of music in the face of temptations to become a much-in-demand professional repeating the same handful of popular pieces. I haven’t previously associated him with passionate playing, but he’s struck a bond with Piemontesi, whose Liszt can be quite ardent. Every desirable quality is present here.

– Fanfare

The Jasper String Quartet writes of their new release: “This Album marks the culmination of our decade-long journey with Aaron Jay Kernis’ music for string quartet. From the moment we put bow to string for Aaron’s Second Quartet, we realized his special voice and our connection to his music’s ability to capture both the complexity of the world and the simplicity of a moment. This depth fascinated us, inspired our playing and prompted us to dream of commissioning Aaron’s 3rd Quartet. Six years later, after performing and recording his first two Quartets and organizing the commission, we received the first movement of his Third Quartet “River”. As the movements accumulated in our inbox, so did our sense of excitement and dread. It was clear that this piece surpassed its two preceding quartets in complexity and difficulty. The route forward was clear enough, but still daunting. Practice, rehearse, repeat. Through the spring and into the summer the piece started to take shape. Coalescing first a little at a time - glimmers of cleverness, brilliance, atmosphere amid the musical and technical challenges. As those moments grew to sections and then movements that began to make sense, we started to build them into the larger arc. The quartet is subtitled “River”, an analogy for the constancy of change in our lives. The music too is constantly evolving, from moment to moment never predictable, never repeating itself. The flow of ideas isn’t one but four-dimensional, swirling constantly backward and forward in time and space. Yet there is a calculation of purpose, a consideration of form and care to structure that keeps the music grounded and allows a story to build out of the organic chaos…”

The term étude first started to turn up in musical literature in the late 1700s, and came into common usage in the first half of the 19th century. The notion of a piece of music exactingly engineered to promote some specific aspect of technique was nothing new; in her public presentations of “The Étude Project,” pianist Jenny Lin traces the concept back to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Clavier-Übung, four volumes of keyboard exercises published between 1726 and 1741 — the final volume known more widely as the “Goldberg” Variations.

Countless composers have risen to the challenge of the étude. This album, the first documentation of a sweeping project conceived by Lin, includes some of the most famous examples – Debussy, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Messiaen, Ligeti, and Glass – alongside equally noteworthy contributions to the format by such mavericks as Ruth Crawford Seeger, Toshio Hosokawa, and Unsuk Chin. Lin further pairs each of her canonical selections with an entirely new work by a member of ICEBERG New Music, a determinedly heterodox collaborative of 10 gifted young composers who represent a broad range of stylistic inclinations, but who are united by their enduring faith in substance and craft.

Bucking a current fad, the new études were not proposed as sequels or responses to existing works. Lin simply asked the ICEBERG composers to challenge her, and then used her own keen ear and sure instincts to find sympathetic pairings. Driving rhythms and rich harmonies link pieces by Alex Burtzos and Chopin. Rangy scatterings of notes present a frolicsome affinity between Victor Baez and Unsuk Chin. Stephanie Ann Boyd and Debussy both deploy dreamy arpeggios in rippling waves; and so on. In each case, hearing the new piece enhances your understanding of the older one—and vice versa. Identifying affinities among old and new music, and among familiar and unknown pieces, is a knack Lin has demonstrated again and again throughout her career—and it’s part of what makes her not only a persuasive interpreter, but also an invaluable guide and companion. Stated simply: you are in extraordinarily sure hands, here.

REVIEW:

Aligning with composers of ICEBERG New Music, pianist Jenny Lin gave its ten members absolute freedom of style and pianistic approach when crafting new etudes for her. In addition to her Herculean playing, the fearless pianist brings curatorial prowess to bear in pairing each new etude with an existing work from the canon. Have a listen to this disc and then have another. The Etudes Project will repay you manifestly.

– The Whole Note (CA)

Nicole Cabell and Alyson Cambridge, acclaimed sopranos and close friends, record together for the first time on an album of opera duets by Mozart, Offenbach, Humperdinck, and Delibes and specially commissioned duet arrangements of classical songs, folk tunes, and African-American spirituals. Cabell, 2005 winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, is “a faultlessly gleaming soprano” (Financial Times). Cambridge is “radiant, vocally assured . . . and artistically imaginative” (Washington Post), known for her “revelatory, sensual, smoky readings” (Opera News). Joining them in the “Soave sia il vento” trio from Mozart’s Così fan tutte is the “mellow-voiced and charismatic” (New York Times) baritone Will Liverman. They’re accompanied on their Cedille debut by the Lake Forest Symphony under 2015 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award winner Vladimir Kulenovic. Inspired by opera stars Kathleen Battle & Jessye Norman’s spirituals recording from the early 1990s, the sopranos describe their album as a “dream project” that’s “uniquely us,” reflecting their multi-ethnic heritages and showcasing songs that profoundly influenced them both. Composer-arranger Joe Clark, whose music has been performed by Renee Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, and jazz singer Kurt Elling, among other classical, jazz, and pop artists, created arrangements expressly for Cabell and Cambridge’s distinctive voices.

Distinguished international pianist Jorge Federico Osorio brings his flair for French music to works of the Baroque, Romantic, and early 20th century eras by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Emmanuel Chabrier, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel. Fittingly, Osorio opens The French Album with Fauré’s exquisite Pavane and concludes with the ever-popular Pavane pour une enfante défunte by Fauré’s student, Ravel. The Mexican-born, European-trained pianist offers eight of Debussy’s pictorial Préludes, each with its unique sound world, including the mystical La Cathédrale engloutie, one of the most stunning pieces ever composed for piano. Another audience favorite is Debussy’s evocative Claire de lune from his Suite bergamasque. Providing contrast, Rameau’s whimsical Les Tricotets conjures the back-and-forth motion of knitting needles. A set of Spanish-flavored works include Chabrier’s Cuban-inspired Habanera; Debussy’s lively La Puerta del Vino, depicting sailors carousing and enjoying their wine, and La soirée dans Grenade, where the piano imitates the sound of a guitar; and Ravel’s Alborado del gracioso, brimming with Iberian rhythms.

REVIEW:

What appears to be a hodgepodge of French pieces actually emerges as a carefully crafted program. Pianist Jorge Federico Osorio begins with Fauré’s famous Pavane, where his elegant phrasing and fluid “walking” tempo assiduously segue into a well-contrasted Debussy group. He brings a strong rhythmic profile and dry-point clarity to works dominated by rapid passagework such as Les collines d’Anacapri, Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest, and Feux d’artifice, as well as Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso.

While Osorio certainly embraces the sensual undercurrents in Clair de lune, Voiles, Feuilles mortes, and La cathédrale engloutie, the climaxes have plenty of backbone. The pianist similarly integrates curvaceous lilt and unsentimental grit in Chabrier’s Habanera and Debussy’s habanera-like La Puerta del Vino and La soirée dans Grenade. Three selections from Rameau’s G major Suite stand out for Osorio’s care over ornaments, although his slightly heavy way with the final selection, Ravel’s Pavane, misses the animation and flexibility of the old Gieseking and Casadesus recordings. All told, an enjoyable and well-put-together recital.

– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)