A genuinely great instrumentalist who certainly left his mark on the music world was cellist Heinrich Schiff, who died last year and is not adequately represented in recordings. He can be heard here in his full-on vigorous musicality with a partner who is unusually his equal, in three major works of the cello repertoire, the Sonata op. 40 by Shostakovich, the middle sonata by Beethoven and the last one by Brahms. The Austrian cellist and conductor, Heinrich Schiff, began playing piano when he was 6, and took up cello at the age of 10. His major teachers with Tobias Kühne and André Navarra, with whom he shares the qualities of a lean, centered, yet singing tone and a lyrical approach to the instrument.studied cello with Tobias Kühne and André Navarra. He studied conducting with Hans Swarowsky, one of the great conducting teachers of the time. Heinrich Schiff played the famous "Mara" Stradivarius made in 1711 and "Sleeping Beauty" made by Montagnana in Venice in 1739.
This is a truly first-rate recording of the three Brahms Sonatas for Violin and Piano. This album has the added bonus of the Scherzo in C minor from the Brahms F-A-E Sonata for Violin & Piano, WoO2. Federico Agostini is a violinist renowned as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. He has appeared in various international music festivals in Europe, the United States, and Japan and has performed chamber music with many distinguished artists, including Bruno Giuranna, Jaime Laredo, Joseph Silverstein, and Janos Starker as well as with members of the American, Emerson, Fine Arts, Tokyo, and Guarneri quartets. Derek Han is without a doubt among the leading American pianists of his generation. Though he was originally identified with the concertos of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven he possesses a vast repertory that includes the concertos of Mendelssohn, Chopin, and MacDowell, as well as individual concertos by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich, in addition to a large body of solo and chamber works. Han's style is original though fairly straightforward in it's lucid tones, spirited character, and technical fluidity and accuracy.
Although Johannes Brahms is best known for his symphonies, string quartets and piano music, he was also a prolific writer of lieder, composing over 200 pieces in the medium. This charming collection celebrates his wonderfully rich; lyrical style through detailing 27 such works - ones which span much of his 40-year song career.
The Greek word 'kosmos' is our ethos in a nutshell. It means the world, the universe, people, order from chaos, honour and is also the name of a flower. Kosmos transcends boundaries, and connects people from all around the world. With our shared passion for music from across the globe -from Argentina to Japan-we create bridges between classical and non-classical music, and our music dances across them. All the music on this album is arranged and composed together by us for our signature combination of violin, viola and classical accordion. This recording is a one-off performance, just as each and every one of our concert performances is always novel and singular. Kosmos is a trio of award-winning, international musicians who have performed worldwide, with live broadcasts on national radio including BBC Radio and Classic FM. They regularly tour international festivals (including Poland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Scotland, Channel Islands). In 2018 acclaimed composer Errollyn Wallen wrote a Triple Concerto for Kosmos, which was premiered at the Jersey Royal Opera House and Chichester Cathedral. Their previous album released by Nimbus, Pomegranate, was highly acclaimed as 'a delight from start to finish' by Guy Rickards of Gramophone Magazine.
Belle epoque / Wauwe, Bloch, Lille National Orchestra
PENTATONE
SACD
$21.99Aug 16, 2019
Belgian clarinettist Annelien Van Wauwe revives the golden glow of a bygone age on her PENTATONE debut album Belle époque, together with the Orchestre National de Lille and its music director Alexandre Bloch. The programme is built around treasures of French turn-of-the-century music such as Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie, Pierné’s Canzonetta and Widor’s Introduction et Rondo (the latter two in arrangements by Jelle Tassyns). Belle époque also offers works that display a spiritual kinship to the age, such as Brahms’s first clarinet sonata, arranged by Luciano Berio, and a world-premiere recording of Paris-based contemporary composer Manfred Trojahn (Rhapsodie pour clarinette et orchestre). Annelien van Wauwe is a former BBC New Generation Artist and winner of the renowned Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2018. She kickstarts an exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE with this first solo album. The Orchestre National de Lille and Alexandre Bloch release their second PENTATONE album, after their 2018 recording of Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles, crowned with a Diapason d’or.
The second volume in what one hopes will be a complete Brahms piano music cycle from Jonathan Plowright charges from the starting gate with engines ablaze and fingers primed for action. In other words, behold the most incisive, dramatic, and multi-dimensional account of the composer’s Piano Sonata No. 2 on disc since Katchen and Arrau!
Part of the excitement lies in the pianist’s absolute rather than approximate observation of Brahms’ difficult-to-execute articulation marking in the first-movement exposition, the vivacity and point of his arpeggiated chords, and his ability to project the keyboard writing’s textural mass with minimum pedal and equal attention between registers. Using very little rubato, Plowright conveys the Andante’s “con espressione” largely through minute dynamic gradations and quality of touch. He makes effortless light of the Scherzo’s rapid broken chords while insightfully contouring the finale’s imitative right-hand writing against leaner than usual left-hand pedal-points. In the Op. 21 No. 1 Thema, Plowright’s straightforward tempo anchors all sorts of delicious inflections and altered voicings, although the variations themselves cohere by virtue of the pianist’s tightly-knit tempo relationships and relative simplicity from an expressive standpoint.
The three Op. 117 Intermezzi are no less masterful. Plowright plays No. 1 with a kind of classical understatment that avoids underlining the central section’s across-the-barline phrasings and lush harmonies. By contrast, No. 2 is measured, rounded, and more wistful in relation to the faster, business-like interpretations many younger pianists favor. Rather than veil No. 3’s unison opening in mystery, Plowright parks it in neutral, so to speak, with little hint at the more impassioned than usual major-key climax just around the bend.
If the Op. 4 Scherzo’s opening motive is not so characterfully spelled out as in the old Backhaus, Friedberg, and Kempff recordings, Plowright’s awesome legato control and supple rhythmic sense convey a lithe, elfin shimmer rarely heard in this score. Malcolm McDonald’s terrific booklet notes and BIS’s bracing surround-sound engineering are worthy of their own review. Even in a catalog packed to the rafters with great Brahms piano recordings, this stunning release should not be missed.
Bold, turbulent defiance sits alongside pained introspection and bittersweet reverie in this penetrating recital of Brahms piano works by the acclaimed young Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin in his eagerly awaited second recording for Pentatone.
The seven pieces comprising the Fantasias, Op. 116 are quite different in mood but are nevertheless intricately constructed to produce poetic miniatures of great depth and sonority, requiring sensitive artistry to convey their sense of unity and poignancy.
Brahms is in a more full-bloodied and demonstrative mood with the four character pieces in the much earlier Ballades, Op. 10, but these too show moments of transcendent beauty. And in the rarely heard Theme and Variations, Op. 18b, Brahms's sumptuous and instantly seductive arrangement of the second movement of his String Sextet, he produces an arresting and magisterial work with exquisite tone coloration and a hushed, sublime ending.
-----
These are masterfully crafted renditions, expressive and passionate, perfect in their timing, phrasing, and dynamic structure, as well as grandly conceived in scope.
There's no stopping the Price/Johnson bandwagon just now. Here is yet another profoundly enjoyable and well-considered offering from the pair. With Johnson to devise intelligent, logical programmes, Price and himself to interpret them, a remarkable unanimity of thought and confidence of manner is being achieved, the delights there for the taking.
Here we begin with six contrasted settings of Heine, all reasonably familiar songs, each given with a nice balance between breadth of phrasing and warmth of feeling, on both sides admirably tailored to the Brahms ethos and melos in the matter of song-writing. Some of these pieces appeared some years ago on an Orfeo recital by Price (2/87): the readings have matured like a good wine and now-as in Sommerabend-go to the very heart of the matter with a marvellous intertwining of voice and piano. The account of its companion-piece, Mondenschein, not before recorded by the soprano, fully realizes its autumnal melancholy in phrases that seem to linger endlessly in the air. As an emotional relief comes the charm and lightness of Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze!.
The judicious choice of Volkslieder settings once more indicates Brahms's deep understanding of the originals and just how to clothe them in appropriate harmonies, as in the antique Dorian mode of Sehnsucht and Vergangen ist mir Gluck und Heil, both sung and played here with an exquisite sense of longing. The singer changes colour, brightens her tone, for the bantering duologue of Spannung. Then there is the Schwung given to the repeated lines at the end of Madchenfluch, characterizing the girl's spite and frustration. Da unten im Tale is entirely free from the sophistication, admittedly effective, brought to it by Schwarzkopf on so many occasions: here the sad little plaint is allowed to speak for itself, but the verdict goes the other way in Vergebliches Standchen where Price is a trifle too staid.
Finally, the partnership lavish a winningly uninhibited elan on the Zigeunerlieder. If we are occasionally aware of a momentary strain on Price's present resources, we are consoled by the passionate spontaneity of the results. The recording is ideally balanced, intimate yet open.
Price must surely now be placed in the royal line of female Lieder singers that runs from Gerhardt and Lehmann, through Seefried, Schwarzkopf and Ludwig, to Ameling. The length of her actual discography of Lieder must now at least rival theirs. Being greedy, I wish she and Johnson would now turn their attention to Hugo Wolf.
