Igor Levit releases a new album as his personal artistic reaction to the October 7 attacks on Israel and the current rise in anti-Semitism worldwide. The album contains his selection of “Songs without Words” by Felix Mendelssohn and concludes with one Prelude by French Romantic composer Charles-Valentin Alkan. Igor Levit and his team have given their time pro-bono and his proceeds will be donated to two German organizations fighting anti-Semitism - OFEK Advice Center for Anti-Semitic Violence and Discrimination and the Kreuzberg Initiative Against Anti-Semitism.

Igor Levit explains, “I made this recording out of a very, very strong inner necessity. I spent the first four or five weeks after the attack on October 7th in a mixture of speechlessness and total paralysis. And at some point, it became clear that I had no other tools than to react as an artist. I have the piano. I have my music. And so, the idea came to me to record these works, the “Songs without Words” and to donate my proceeds from this recording to two wonderful organizations that work in my hometown here in Berlin to help people who experience anti-Semitism and to help young people avoid falling into the clutches of anti-Semitism. It is my artistic reaction, as a person, as a musician, as a Jew, to what I have felt in the last few weeks and months. Or to put it more precisely, it is one of many reactions that came to mind.”

REVIEWS:

Aside from altruistic reasons, one should buy this disc for Levit’s exceptional pianism and fresh insights.

He addresses Mendelssohn’s E minor Op. 102 No. 1’s agitato directive without the usual tendency to push and pull the composer’s basic Andante tempo. On the other hand, he takes the famous E major Op. 19 No. 1’s con moto on faith, yet keeping the long melodic phrases afloat. The E minor Funeral March stands out for Levit’s impeccably balanced chords, plus a sense of split-second timing that takes both notes and rests into equal account.

Levit’s hypnotic, long-lined legato and subtle dynamic gradations justify his measured pacing of three Venetian Gondola Songs, while his linear independence in the A-flat Duetto is akin to Ignaz Friedman’s, albeit by stricter, more modern-day standards. It may be rather cheeky to end a Mendelssohn Songs Without Words recital with Alkan’s Op. 31 No. 8 Prelude, but the music’s inherent sadness and gripping slow-motion trajectory in the piano’s high register makes a profound effect in Levit’s remarkable hands. Hear for yourself.

-- ClassicsToday (Jed Distler, 10/10)

Star pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard presents Ländler, a collection of delightful dances composed by Franz Schubert. Rustic and cheerful, these miniatures display a fascinating side of Schubert’s musical persona. Their simplicity is deceptive, as these dances are frequently shaken up by Schubert’s harmonic wandering soul, yet remaining lyrical, picturesque, and tuneful. For Aimard, there is a kinship between Schubert’s Ländler and Kurtág’s Játékok, pieces that he often performs side by side, sharing a combination of playfulness and Modernism that also calls the great twentieth-century miniaturist Anton Webern to mind. By avoiding almost any repetition, Aimard evokes a sleepwalker’s journey rather than a series of dances.

A renowned champion of twentieth-century music, Pierre-Laurent Aimard has released multiple acclaimed albums in his exclusive contract with Pentatone, including Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018) and Visions de l’Amen (2022), along with Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021). He also joined Tamara Stefanovich in Etudes and Frames (2023), with music by Vassos Nicolaou, and recorded Bartók's Piano Concertos with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen (2023).

Ondine’s third album devoted to the music of Lithuanian-American composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) focuses on her music for unaccompanied chorus. On this album, four of her works are performed by the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Sigvards Kļava.

REVIEW:

The four a cappella choral works by Zibuokle Martinaityte on this haunting album unfold in a world beyond language. There are no texts, just free-floating vowels and tremulous ululations. And yet the emotional impact of this bewitchingly beautiful music is direct and at times devastating.

— New York Times

This sequel to the Gramophone Award-nominated Americascapes album (ODE 1396-2) by the Basque National Orchestra and Robert Trevino is a thrilling and a deeply personal journey into the music of three American composers. All three composers had very unique aesthetic worlds and with two of the composers conductor Robert Trevino also had direct artistic collaboration. Where my first 'Americascapes' album looked at lesser-known major American works that had influenced European composers (rather than the other way around), for this follow-up, I went back to a more basic thought - "What is America?". Since America is many things to millions of people, I realise that my question had to mean, "What is America to me? (...) Selecting the composers for this American Opus took well over a year. Yet I eventually refined the list to these three composers, with all of whom I feel a close kinship and all of whom are deeply meaningful to me. Two of them I even had a direct artistic relationship with. As a group, they also embody some of the diversity and the radically different aesthetics that thrive in the Americas." (Robert Trevino)

REVIEW:

The hunt for buried treasure is quite an industry these days, but coming up with gold is far from guaranteed. No problem, it appears, for Robert Treviño and the Basque National Orchestra. American Opus is the sequel to 2021’s excellent Americascapes (Ondine ODE 1396-2) and once again the Mexican-American conductor demonstrates a gift for sorting the wheat from the chaff. With the Revueltas set beside the Crumb and the Walker, Americascapes Volume 2 is a complex, thoroughly satisfying national portrait.

— Limelight

This album is dedicated to the compositions of Federico Mompou, a composer and pianist of profound sensitivity. He exhibited an early inclination for the piano but, inspired by a Gabriel Fauré concert, he shifted his focus to composition, making his way to Paris to further his study. Mompou’s compositional approach was channelled through the piano, which he considered a fundamental tool for connecting with music’s essence, so he composed primarily on and for the instrument. There are some exceptions, however: notably his guitar compositions Suite Compostelana (1962) and Cançon i Dansa No.13 (1972).

In the guitar’s melancholic and evocative timbre, Mompou discovered an ideal medium to express his contemplative and gentle poetic world. The guitar becomes the canvas where sound and silence intertwine, evoking emotionscapable of transporting the listener to archaic places suspended in time.

In 2018, Brilliant Classics released Ramelli’s recording of Mompou’s original guitar compositions. This new album furthers his exploration of the composer’s works, taking his piano compositions and reimagining them for the guitar. The collaboration between the guitarist and James Beneteau, who presented Ramelli with these exquisite transcriptions of Mompou’s pieces, has been profound.

Throughout the transcription journey, Ramelli and Beneteau followed Mompou’s scores as a map, transmuting each piece through the lens of contact with the geography of the guitar’s unique resonance. Decisions about transcription, instrumentaltechnique, tempo, and dynamics are all intertwined with this listening to the instrument itself. Playing Mompou’s music transcribed for guitar is a journey aimed at heightened listening and sensitivity, exploring the spaces between notes through tactile contact with the instrument. This recording captures this creative process and marks the beginning of this ongoing artistic journey.

Pianist Sophia Weidemann and actress Tinka Kleffner present a musical-literary encounter with the exceptional composer Fanny Hensel in their new GENUIN album, "Das Jahr" (The Year). The album includes a remarkable piano cycle along with letters and diary entries to and by Hensel. Through their interpretation, these two highly acclaimed artists offer a high-level, intimate glimpse into the life and work of one of the most significant 19th-century female composers and enlightened thinkers, Fanny Hensel. Hensel's piano cycle covers a whole year, and the chosen and thoughtfully read excerpts mirror the emotionally rich and skillfully constructed music in the most delightful way!