In the space of three ballets, a previously unknown Russian composer revolutionized the music of his time. With The Firebird and Petrushka, respectively fairytale and folktale, and of course The Rite of Spring, a telluric invocation with it's insanely innovative harmonies and rhythms, Stravinsky dynamized the Late Romantic orchestra, taking it to literally unheard-of places. Among the very first musicians to perform these works on the instruments that witnessed their birth, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles inaugurated a far-reaching rediscovery of these seminal pieces, giving today's listeners an opportunity to appreciate to the full their audacity and their harsh, savage power.

 

REVIEW:

 

This is a labour of love for conductor François-Xavier Roth. His research into the famous Ballet Russes shows that not only was that organisation they involved intimitely with Stravinsky's three famous ballets recorded here (Le sacre du printemps, Petrushka and L'oiseau de feu), but the Ballets Russes also enjoyed a wide repertoire. To hear some of that repertoire here - in the form of Les Orientales, which contains music by Glazunov, Christian Sinding, Anton Arensky and Grieg - and all performed with a period authenticity (for Stravinsky!) is nothing short of revelatory. Roth conducts his group Les Siècles with gusto but also with the skill of a master restorer - the thickest textures in Le sacre and Petrushka become crystal clear; his rhythms are lighter than many listeners will be used to, taking us back to the dance while adding an extra layer of buoyancy to the performances.

 

– Classical Music Explorer (Colin Clarke)

This set assembles for the first time the Beethoven legacy of the Trio Wanderer. The group's superb interpretation of the Triple Concerto is now presented alongside it's masterly recording of the composer's complete original works for piano trio, a genre inherited from Haydn and Mozart in which Beethoven opened out new horizon.

Four symphonies were enough for Robert Schumann to leave his mark. Without allowing himself to be overawed by Beethoven's shadow, he succeeded from the outset in coining a highly personal idiom, with an astonishing combination of formal rigour and freedom of inspiration. Pablo Heras-Casado and the Munchner Philharmoniker offer their interpretation of this corpus, more mysterious than it appears, which tells of it's composer's passionate and tormented soul.

Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin - Mozart: Gran Partita - The great art of musical entertainment When Mozart takes over the popular genre of serenade, it is to transcend it and give it it's nobility. A festive masterpiece of simplicity and emotion, his Gran Partita quickly became a hit! Thanks to the sliced and captivating colours of their period instruments, the members of the Akademie f-r Alte Musik Berlin give full flavour to these two extraordinary serenades, where a tremendous wind of freedom blows. 2021 release.

In the early eighteenth century, London become the capital of Italian opera. The 1720s witnessed a feverish demand for music that led many foreign virtuosos to move to the city. Concert-loving Londoners relished the last sonatas in the style of the old master Corelli and the works of the youthful newcomer Handel. On their first recording for harmonia mundi, La Reveuse invite us to relive this lively scene.

Isabelle Faust has gone back to the original manuscript sources to offer US her personal vision of these iconic masterpieces of the violin repertoire. In Bach's time, music for solo instruments was still little explored territory, and his Sonatas and Partitas immediately established themselves as a benchmark, technically challenging and brimming with creativity. On the second and final volume of the set, Faust plays the 'Sleeping Beauty' Stradivarius of 1704, kindly loaned to her by the L-Bank Baden-Wurttemberg.

Accompanied by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Teodor Currentzis, Alexander Melnikov captures this feeling admirably in the two Piano Concertos, and perhaps still more poignantly, - "with disarming sincerity and fearless directness," to quote his booklet note - alongside Isabelle Faust in the Violin Sonata Op.134.

Shostakovich's String Quartets Nos. 6 to 12, written between 1956 and 1968, are marked by the relative freedom regained after the death of Stalin. In the second volume of their complete set, the Cuarteto Casals explores this period of a dozen years in which the composer never ceased to innovate, constantly handling new geometries and ideas in his structures. This is a key moment in the history of the twentieth-century quartet.

Between 2005 and 2020 the Trio Wanderer explored all the piano trios of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms with the unique combination of rigor and poetry for which they are renowned. A landmark in the discography, this boxed set assembles for the first time their complete recordings of these masterpieces of German Romanticism.

I want these two CDs to represent a tour - one as adventure-packed as possible - of Satie's piano and chamber music, covering the whole period of his life. More than fifteen years ago, Alexandre Tharaud gathered together several like-minded celebrity artists to paint a sensitive and subtle portrait of the Master of Arcueil. This re-release revives that double album, one that has since become a benchmark of Satie discography, with more than 150 million streams! Here is a poetic voyage through the singular world of a composer who remains unclassifiable.

On the border between genres, Das Lied von der Erde celebrates the intoxication of life as well as the serenity of renunciation - a far cry from Mahler's early 'Wunderhorn' period. This later Mahler is portrayed by Francois-Xavier Roth and Les Siecles, following their critically acclaimed First and Fourth Symphonies released over the past few years. They approach this visionary work with their usual stylistic elegance, with two superlative singers - and as usual, with carefully chosen Viennese instruments of the period.

The two splendid works on this album were the result of Manuel de Falla's encounter with the husband-and-wife team of dramatists Martinez Sierra-Lejarraga. El amor brujo takes us to the very heart of the flamenco repertory and the brilliant pantomime, El sombrero de tres picos, whose sets and costumes were originally designed by Picasso, are magnificently actualized by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of maestro Pablo Heras-Casado. Mahler Chamber Orchestra & Pablo Heras-Casado

This coupling is a popular one, and with good reason. The Sextet marks the beginnings of Dvorák in “Slavonic” mode, with a second movement “Dunka” and a “Furiant” for a scherzo, while the String Quintet comes from his “American” period, with all that this entails as regards melody, harmony, and rhythm. Both works are drop-dead gorgeous, and so beguiling that you’ll never notice the remarkable sophistication and craft that went into their creation.

There have been several excellent releases featuring this music, most notably the Panocha Quartet’s versions on Supraphon, now found in that label’s boxed sets of Dvorák’s complete chamber works. The Jerusalem Quartet and friends doesn’t play with the Panocha’s silky smoothness of timbre, but that’s not a criticism, merely a reflection of a different school of playing and aesthetic sensibility. Their more grainy (but never harsh) sound has its own appeal, especially in the Sextet’s exotic slow movement, its scherzo, and everywhere in those open-air, “hoedown” passages that pepper the Quintet. And in terms of intonation and ensemble balance, these players rank second to none.

Interestingly, both works include sets of variations. In the Sextet it’s the finale, and in the Quintet, the third movement Larghetto. It was Donald Francis Tovey who first pointed out Dvorák’s skill as a writer of variations, calling his movements and larger pieces in the form “perfect.” They are also highlights of these performances, in which the musicians seize with relish every opportunity to display their individual excellence. Their playing offers a very satisfying, wide range of color, combined with the necessary intelligent pacing and attention to long-range coherence. Beautifully engineered to boot, this release stands with the finest. It’s a joy.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Following on from their recording of the sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord, Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout are now joined by Kristin von der Goltz for an exploration of the wonderful pieces Bach composed for violin and basso continuo. They reveal the full the elegance and poetry of these rarely recorded works.

In this album, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles have chosen to present Mahler’s First Symphony in its second version, that of Hamburg/Weimar (1893-94) - a unique opportunity to hear the symphonic poem Titan. By allowing us to follow the genesis of this first large scale work, Titan opens the doors of Mahler’s artistic workshop at a crucial moment in the creative process: the transition from the youthful effort of 1889 to the Symphony in D major of 1896, which established Mahler as one of the foremost symphonists of the modern era.

 

REVIEW:

 

The recording sticks a feather in the cap of Les Siècles, among the most adaptable and engaging of today’s historically informed ensembles formed in the image of their director… I applaud, too, Roth’s unabashed commitment to those passages where Mahler himself later had second thoughts – deft and ingenious ones, to be sure, but thinning out its red blood cells in the process.. a required supplement to any decent-size Mahler library.

 

– Gramophone