Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards!

Counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and and the viol consort Fretwork present a new recording of works for viol consort and voice drawn from 17th-century Germany, following their critically-praised 2019 album of works by Michael Nyman and Henry Purcell. Featuring performances from organist Silas Wollston and counter-tenor Hugh Cutting, the recital ranges widely over the 17th century – from the early years with three curiously similar sounding friends: Schein, Scheidt and Schütz, to the most significant member of the Bach family before Johann Sebastian, Johann Christoph Bach. From their they travel down North Sea to the foothills of the Alps, including Buxtehude’s predecessor at the Marienkirche in Lübeck – Franz Tunder (whose daughter Buxtehude was to marry) and another north German composer who worked in Copenhagen, Christian Geist. Giovanni Felice Sances is an outlier here: he was born in Rome, but spent the second part of his life working for three successive Emperors in Vienna, where viol playing was still very much in vogue. In 2021, Fretwork celebrates its 35th anniversary. In the past three and a half decades they have explored the core repertory of great English consort music, from Taverner to Purcell, and made classic recordings against which others are judged. In addition to this, Fretwork have become known as pioneers of contemporary music for viols, having commissioned over 40 new works. Iestyn Davies is a British countertenor widely recognised as one of the world’s finest singers celebrated for the beauty and technical dexterity of his voice and intelligent musicianship. Critical recognition of Iestyn’s work can be seen in two Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, a RPS Award for Young Singer of the Year, the Critics’ Circle Award and recently an Olivier Award Nomination. He was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2017 for services to music.

Named by Musical America as the 2018 Composer of the Year as well as the most-performed composer of his generation, Grammy-winning composer Mason Bates is widely renowned for his pioneering practice of creating music for conventional performing forces enhanced by electronic sounds. Of the two works presented in this remarkable album, Mass Transmission- in its world premiere recording- is a particularly winning example of Bates’ use of “electronica,” blended here with music for mixed choir and organ. ‘Sirens,’ lacking electronica, still achieves mesmerizing vocal effects through its complex scoring for 12-part a cappella choir. Grammy-winning choirmaster Ragnar Bohlin and his superb chamber choir Cappella SF deliver astonishing performances that will not only thrill Bates’ growing legions of fans, but serve as an ideal introduction to Bates’ unique electronics- enhanced music for those unfamiliar with his art.

The present album is the second of two recorded by the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and Jean-Jacques Kantorow to commemorate the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Saëns. On the first instalment the team offered us ‘deeply impressive performances in stunning sound’ (theclassicreview.com) of the composer’s first and second symphonies and the unnumbered Symphony in A major, but now the time has come for Saint-Saëns’ crowning glory in the symphonic genre: his Symphony No.?3 in C minor, generally known as the ‘Organ Symphony’. The work was composed in 1886, and Saint-Saëns had planned to dedicate it to Liszt but the latter’s death the same year caused the dedication in the published score to be modified to ‘in memory of Franz Liszt’. It is written for a larger orchestra than his previous symphonies, with the unusual addition of a piano and an organ – the two instruments that Liszt (and Saint-Saëns himself) favored. Without being a virtuoso vehicle, the organ part is central to the work – especially in the grandiose ending – and it is here performed by the renowned organist Thierry Escaich, playing the great organ of Liège’s Salle Philharmonique. On the album, the symphony is preceded by the ‘Urbs Roma’ symphony, composed in 1856 by a 21-year-old Saint-Saëns. It was written for a competition, and its title – ‘the city of Rome’ – was one of the subjects prescribed by the organizers. In the absence of an explanation by the composer, it is unclear how the music relates to the subject. Another enigma is why Saint-Saëns omitted the symphony from his catalogue of works, even though it actually won him a first prize. In consequence, ‘Urbs Roma’ remained unpublished until 1974 and is rarely heard even today.

- This recording illustrates the development of the Tuscan organ school of the 19th century. The collection ranges from Father Antonio Casini’s brilliant compositions, with their echoes of contemporary opera, to the classical refinement of Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata, whose work occasionally reveals a recourse to counterpoint, and to the heartfelt romanticism of Giovacchino Maglioni, where melodic élan and imposing sound require extraordinary virtuoso skills, including the extensive use of the Pedal.

- To capture the original sound and spirit envisaged by the composers, for this recording organist Matteo Venturini has selected two period instruments. With its brilliant, direct voice, the monumental organ at Corsanico lends itself perfectly to the brilliant compositions of Father Antonio Casini. The organ in the Basilica di Santa Maria di Nazareth in Sestri Levante, with its intriguing solo register sound and magnificent tutti voices, was chosen for the works by Casamorata and Maglioni. The technical specifications of these instruments are included in the booklet.

- Matteo Venturini, one of the foremost organists of Italy, has already successfully recorded for Brilliant Classics, works by Gronau, Weckmann and Müthel.

The German composer Felix Woyrsch was born in 1860 in Troppau (then the capital of Austrian Silesia and now, as Opava, in the Czech Republic) but became prominent in the musical life of Altona, now part of Hamburg, as organist, choirmaster and teacher; he died there in 1944. Woyrsch’s late-Romantic organ music, with distant roots in Bach’s counterpoint, inhabits a harmonic world somewhere between Brahms and Reger, its dark colors reflecting the upheavals in the times through which he lived.

The Cremonese composer Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535/36–92) is chiefly remembered as the teacher of Claudio Monteverdi while, for well nigh 500 years, his own achievements were left to sit in the shadows. This third in a series of pioneering recordings from the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, reveals Ingegneri to have been one of the masters of his age, writing music of breathtaking richness and beauty: the works heard here combine learned, intricate counterpoint with the kind of sheer sonic thrill that brings a shiver of physical excitement. It is, of course, religious music, but it is also extraordinarily passionate, to a degree not previously heard, nor for centuries to come, until the rise of the great Romantic choral works.

Blind from the age of two, a prodigiously gifted student, Jean Langlais (1907-91) produced an immense quantity of music. His organ works alone exceed in number those of of Bach. Many have hardly ever been performed. Perhaps not more than half a dozen works are regularly played or recorded today, which is what makes this new complete survey of his organ music – the first ever attempted on record – both unique and invaluable, as the authoritative document of a high point in the distinguished lineage of the French organ heritage.

The first volume of this projected complete survey ranges from his early set of 24 pieces written in the late 1930s and composed in all the major and minor keys, to the sublime economy of his Suite in Simplicitate from 1991. This major project has been undertaken jointly by the Italian organists Giorgio Benati and Fausto Caporali. Benati is a former student of Langlais, and Caporali has a string of successful French organ recordings to his credit. They have made these new recordings on Italian instruments, lending Langlais an ‘Italian accent’ while faithfully observing his expressive and registration markings in his scores. Booklet notes for each piece have been written by Giorgio Benati.

REVIEW:

Benati and Caporati offer an extensive survey of Langlais's sacred and secular output, including several liturgical collections that were published posthumously by his second wife, Marie-Louise Jacquet. The playing is energetic and committed. An excellent introduction to this neglected music, the best of which should be heard more often.

-- American Record Guide

Whether or not they actually traveled south of the Alps, as Handel did early in his career, all 18th-century German composers of note were influenced by the Italian style of vocal and instrumental writing at the time. Manuel Tomadin’s latest album for Brilliant Classics explores the connections between these apparently disparate traditions, beginning with the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue BWWV564 which stands among the most striking examples of JS Bach’s work during his years as Capellmeister to the ducal court in Weimar (1710-1717). The Italian qualities of the concerto-like nature of the opening Toccata in BWV564 and then the pathos of the Adagio, with its walking bass and Neapolitan harmonies, are underlined by the following transcription made by Bach of a Vivaldi Concerto, the A minor RV522, and then Walther’s transcription of a concerto by Torelli. Just as Bach was later influenced by the violin playing and writing of the virtuoso Pisendel, German-born but widely traveled in Italy, Johann Gottlieb Graun was a pupil of Pisendel’s who had also studied with the prince of Italian violinist-composers, Giuseppe Tartini, and so Tomadin includes a solo-organ concerto of Graun’s which abounds in violinistic figuration. An arrangement of Handel’s opening Sinfonia to his oratorio Esther, another Vivaldi concerto and Bach’s magnificent A minor Prelude and Fugue BWWV543 complete this stimulating program.

This album is also a valuable record of the historically significant organ in St Peter’s Church in the Dutch town of Leens. Dating from 1733-34, and thus contemporary with the music recorded here, the instrument is the work of the Dutch organ-builder Albertus Anthoni Hinsz. He modelled his designs on the instruments by the Schnitger family who dominated North-German organ-building at the time, and the example in Leens is a superbly preserved and scrupulously restored example of this heritage. The booklet is generously annotated with an essay by Manuel Tomadin exploring the Italian connections between the music on the album, a history of the organ, a full stop-list and a record of the specific registration used for each piece.

Louis Vierne inhabits a unique place in the development of the Organ Symphony. Following in the footsteps of his teacher, Charles-Marie Widor, Vierne brought the organ symphony to its pinnacle with his six symphonies, written between 1895 and 1930. Symphonic in style, structure, and form rather than forces, these solo organ works are exquisite composition examples of the last great late French Romantic organ composer. As the thirty-one movements of these symphonies offer a staggering variety of character, from majestic to whimsical, and from deep despair to unbridled joy; the venues offer an equally broad variety of organs and acoustics.

Concert Organist Eric Plutz performs the Complete Organ Symphonies of Louis Vierne superbly and spectacularly on six separate organs around the United States from New York to Texas. This album is the culmination of “The Vierne Project,” a series of performances of the complete Vierne organ symphonies in celebration of the composer’s 150th birthday in 2020. The University Organist at Princeton University, Plutz is one of only a handful of organists to embark on such a venture. As an organ concert soloist, he has performed on distinguished and historic instruments across the United States and abroad including in Germany, Austria, and France.

Largest church organ in Denmark

The great organ of Aarhus Cathedral is a true masterpiece of North European organ building tradition through four centuries and with 96 stops the largest pipe organ of Denmark. 2018-20 the organ was carefully restored and enlarged by the Danish organ builder Marcussen & Søn Orgelbyggeri Aps.

This publication tells the story of the restoration through text and extensive photo material and for the ?rst time documents the beautiful sounds of the restored instrument in a 2 CD anthology of organ music from Buxtehude to present time. Performers are the two organists Kristian Krogsøe and Anders Johnsson.

A Saami Requiem is an extraordinary meeting-place of musical cultures – western classical, Saami yoik, folk-dance, electric rock, blues, improv and more. It takes the form of a journey to Saajva, the Kingdom of Death in Saami religious practice. In this death Mass the Swedish organist Gunnar Idenstam and Saami artist Ola Stinnerbom provide a parallel to the Christian Requiem, with Ola Stinnerbom as noite, the shaman who acts as guide to the Kingdom of Death – and back to this life, celebrated in the uplifting closing hymn. Some of the percussion sounds are sampled from traditional Saami drums made by Ola Stinnerbom after ancient models; the electric guitars provide a link to rock groups like Deep Purple, and Gunnar Idenstam’s unmistakable style marries the French organ tradition with the captivating world of Swedish folk-music.

REVIEWS:

Is it recommended? It is, and not least on account of its amalgamation of traditional with composed music such as leaves a tangible emotional resonance. Idenstam and Stinnerbom’s succinct annotations cover the background to this project and take the listener deftly yet surely through its various stages.

-- Arcana.FM

There is, naturally, only a small region which sings in Danish. The psalms sung by religious communities during the time of the Reformation in Denmark were, for the most part, borrowed from other languages and used with existing melodies. With this recording, the Copenhagen based vocal ensemble Musica Ficta explores the Danish Reformation hymnody from an international perspective, with links to European musical works from the 16th century. Musica Ficta is a professional vocal ensemble, founded in 1996 by the composer and conductor Bo Holten. With this group he has realized his vision of a highly flexible ensemble, where the classical Oxbridge early music ideal is combined with the warmth of the Scandinavian choral sound.