Still in her 20s, the French pianist Lise de la Salle has established a reputation of being among the best of the next generation of gifted classical performers with an impressively inquisitive catalog and a reputation for mastery of tonal nuances. This collection taken from de la Salle’s 2013-15 Artist in Residence with the Opernhaus Zürich presents live performances of Rachmaninov’s late Romantic piano concerto masterworks along with his transcription of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini together with the Philharmonia Zürich led by General Music Director Fabio Luisi.

Valentina Toth writes: “Although they were not musically trained, my parents taught me to love Bartok and Kodaly. I treasured their music from the time I was young, and only became acquainted with Dohnanyi’s work much later, when I came in contact with it by accident. It was romantic, virtuosic, and incredibly well written for the instrument. What more can you ask as a concert pianist? And although he may only seem rather less distinctly Hungarian than Bartok, many aspects of his country are reflected in his work. I remember when I was working on the Ruralia hungarica, my father recognized many of the melodies from the songs he had learned as a boy.” Dohnanyi wrote Ruralia hungarica in 1923 and gave it a real Hungarian touch by including a wide range of folk melodies in all movements. The Humoresken Op. 17 from 1907 date from when he taught in Berlin. They are basically romantic in nature and now and then reminiscent of Brahms’ piano music. As the name suggests, these are more or less light-hearted character pieces, in which he draws on musical forms from the eighteenth century.

Der ferne Klang by Franz Schreker (1878-1934) premiered on August 18, 1912 at the Frankfurt Opera House. Schreker had already begun composing his first full-length opera in 1901, after the text he had written in just a few weeks. Now the work, which was initially considered impossible to perform, but which made Schreker suddenly famous, is returning to the location of it's premiere for the first time after 1945. Almost half of all operas by the Austrian, who with one exception was both composer and librettist for all of his stage works, performed or premiered in Frankfurt. The Choir of the Oper Frankfurt and Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester perform under the direction of Sebastian Weigle.

"Oper Frankfurt is arguably the “right” company to produce this Der ferne Klang recording, because Austrian composer Franz Schreker (1878-1934) had a special connection with this opera house. It was here that he scored his first big success with this opera, followed by the premiere of his complete version of Die Gezeichneten, two of his most definitive works. His musical idiom is decidedly Late/Post Romantic, yet uniquely his own, beguiling in its lush and translucent tone colours. His style can also extend into an intensely expressionistic and harmonically adventurous, if unsettling, musical soundscape. At the height of his fame during the early years of the Weimar Republic, Schreker was the most performed opera composer after Richard Strauss. He was also a noted pedagogue, as director of Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik, and counted Berthold Goldschmidt and Ernst Krenek as his students. But by the late 1920s, with the rise of National Socialism and its inherent antisemitism, Schreker, who was Jewish, lost his academic appointments and his compositions were banned. Sadly he descended into obscurity, suffered a stroke and died at the age of 56. It was only in the 1980s, through Decca’s “Entartete Musik” series, that Schreker reemerged from a decades-long obscurity. His revival gathered momentum both in Germany and America. Salzburg Festival’s striking 2005 Die Gezeichneten garnered critical and audience accolades, reaffirmed by the more recent Warlikowski production in Munich, which made a powerful (if nightmarish) impression on me in 2017...

Thankfully, Oper Frankfurt’s production of Der ferne Klang was revived before COVID shut everything down, and it is now commercially available on CD. It features a strong ensemble cast led by tenor Ian Koziara and soprano Jennifer Holloway as the two lovers. Both sing beautifully, with Koziara taking top vocal honours for his free, beautiful, never stentorian, ringing tone. Holloway is equally impressive, a few fleeting moments of steely sound notwithstanding.

This recording includes no less than three Canadians— bass-baritone Gordon Bintner, baritone Iain MacNeil, and mezzo Julia Dawson—all members of the Oper Frankfurt Ensemble. Bintner, as the Graf, has the most music to sing, including a very nice aria, “In einem Lande,” which he handles beautifully, particularly at the top. MacNeil and Dawson have less to sing but both offer fresh voices and vivid imagination. All supporting roles are well taken, perhaps with one painful exception. I debated whether to mention it as it involves a singer I have admired in the past. I heard soprano Nadine Secunde (Alte Frau Mama) as a marvelous Sieglinde and Elsa 30 years ago. Here she is in shockingly poor vocal estate, afflicted by a painful wobble —perhaps in character for an ‘Old Lady’, but does it have to be this way? Sebastian Weigle shows his fine understanding of Schreker, leading the Frankfurt forces with strength and eloquence— the Zwischenspiel in Act III is a highlight. This piece might not delight everybody, but if you are fond of Strauss and early Schoenberg, and have an inclination to stories with a Freudian bent, you are in for a treat.

The opera’s story has little to do with logic, yet is strangely suited to Schreker’s lush and atmospheric score. As the listener, one takes a journey of poetic imagination that’s oddly satisfying. This is a perfect opera to illustrate that one should listen not with the head but with the heart. As with a lot of Schreker, the visual element is important, if not crucial, to the total enjoyment of the work, so it’s regrettable that this isn’t a DVD release. That said, it is still very enjoyable and an important addition to the discography of a much neglected composer. Highly recommended." —— Joseph So

Spanish music reached a peak early in the 20th century, with Enrique Granados’ Goyescas numbered amongst the crowning masterpieces of its day. Infused with the innovations of Debussy and Ravel, and inspired by the colors and emotional depth of Goya’s paintings and engravings, the Goyescas are like brilliant and psychologically elaborate improvisations filled with seductively ornamented harmonies. The cycle also conceals a narrative of love and death that Granados would later develop into an opera. Multi-award-winning pianist Viviana Lasaracina’s playing was admired for its ‘beautiful liquid tone’ and summed up as ‘breathtaking’ in the New York Concert Review.

Ghena Dimitrova and Giuseppe Giacomini one splendid evening at the opera in Genoa nearly thirty years ago. Two powerful voices which could stir the emotions like few others: on this particular evening in Genoa Ghena and Giuseppe were in good shape and immediately made that audience connection which makes an evening special, as the often-crazed applause proves. In the treble, their notes rang out with clarity, power and a lightning-fast attack; their phrasing was as imposing as it was tireless; their emotional tension sent shivers down the audience's collective spine; and, most importantly of all, they phrased their notes and articulated their words with a severity and intensity which makes the difference between a fine evening of operatic thrills and an interpretation deserving to be recorded for the benefit of those who were not lucky enough to be there on the night.

Lawrence Foster conducts Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West (1910), together with the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, Cluj-Napoca and a cast of seasoned Puccini singers, including Melody Moore (Minnie), Marius Vlad (Dick Johnson) and Lester Lynch (Jack Rance). Puccini’s “Spaghetti Western” is not only an exploration of the New World, with the delightfully charismatic saloon owner Minnie running the show, but equally of new music; a pioneering work full of harmonic innovation and state-of-the-art orchestration effects. The depth of the orchestration, as well as of the various ensemble scenes that are characteristic of the opera, fully comes to life in this studio recording. Lawrence Foster has a vast PENTATONE discography, including operettas and operas such as Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus (2018) and Der Zigeunerbaron (2016), as well as Verdi’s Otello (2017). The latter album features Melody Moore and Lester Lynch, who have also starred in recordings of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Puccini’s Il Tabarro (both 2020). Marius Vlad and the Transylvania State Philharmonic and Choir, Cluj Navoca make their PENTATONE debut.

Represented by the Ludwig van Beethoven Association, the Ksiazek Piano Duo is one of the most interesting piano duos in the world; the ensemble is made up of two outstanding Polish pianists, Agnieszka Zahaczewska-Ksiazek and Krzysztof Ksiazek. Since 2012, which marks the beginning of their cooperation, the multi-award-winning duo has given a number of concerts in Switzerland, France, Thailand, Great Britain and South Africa, winning recognition of the audience and critical acclaim. The present album contains works for two pianos by Anton Arenski and Sergei Rachmaninoff, which play an important role in the compositional legacy of both artists. In both cases, the formation of two pianos is an individually-approached creation, although in the case of Rachmaninoff it manifests itself to an exceptional extent; the said creations feature a piano technique using a wide range of possibilities and advantages of the instrument, a technique that both composers perfectly understand.