Patrick Gallois' contributions to Naxos' Haydn series have been some of the best, and this latest release is no exception. Symphonies 9-12 are a nicely varied lot, and rare enough on disc to make this release very useful to collectors looking to plug a gap in their Haydn discographies. The first and last have three movements (No. 9 ending with a minuet); No. 10 has the traditional four movements, and so does No. 11, but it begins with an Adagio (so-called "church-sonata form"). No. 12 features a very impressive, dramatic, minor-key Adagio that lasts some eight minutes, and has more than enough musical substance to justify its length, and the repeats.

The performances are stylish, lively, and perfectly played by the Sinfonia Finlandia, and my only criticism (once again) concerns the excessively obtrusive continuo part. Haydn didn't ask for it, the music doesn't need it, and the problem with modern performances, even purportedly "authentic" ones, is that the harpsichord player is always tempted to do too much, to fill out the part like a genuine Baroque figured bass, whereas we pretty much know that by this time any keyboard participation was likely limited to occasional bits of harmonic filler or stiffening of rhythm for ensemble purposes. This is very much a matter of individual taste, and certainly the problem, if it be such, isn't serious enough to undermine enjoyment of these well-recorded performances.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Having been unimpressed with previous releases by Slatkin and the Lyon orchestra in music by Ravel and Berlioz, I am happy to report that the team finally rises to its potential in this enterprising disc of Saint-Saëns’ music for organ and orchestra. First, however, we need to discuss the organ, because this release is as much about that instrument as it concerns the orchestra. The Lyon auditorium houses the famous Paris Trocadero organ built by the illustrious Cavaillé-Coll in 1878. It was one of the first, and certainly the greatest, concert hall organ in its day. As presently restored, the instrument incorporates changes made in 1939 from a prior refurbishment, and so is not in its original condition, but it does still contain many of the imitative “orchestral” stops that made these “symphonic” organs so revolutionary for the period.

By the time noted organist Edwin Lemare made his transcription of the Danse macabre decades later, the concept of the symphonic organ had expanded to include complete divisions of (allegedly) string-toned pipes. Some of these were more successful than others at creating the proper illusion. Lemare’s own organ in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example–recently restored–had both violin and cello vibrato, celeste and orchestral violin stops in its string division. None of these except the vibrato-producing celeste were present in the Trocadero instrument, and so organist Vincent Warnier has had to modify Lemare’s registration accordingly. This he has managed with great sensitivity, and his performance, while a touch on the slow side (inevitably, in order to keep the rhythms clean), is still remarkably convincing, and an excellent example of how a symphonic organ can be used to play highly entertaining transcriptions of basic repertoire.

Cyprès et Lauriers is a diptych consisting of an elegiac organ solo linked to an organ-and-orchestra finale. It’s not great Saint-Saëns, but its 13 minutes pass by enjoyably, and it gives the organist the opportunity to display his instrument’s power and coloristic subtleties equally well. It has to be said that the current restoration has created a very pleasant-sounding instrument, with few of those excessively reedy, nasal stops that we often hear in 19th century organs, especially in France. Some aficionados love that particular gravelly sonority, but I’m not one of them.

And so to the symphony. Slatkin has finally whipped the orchestra into shape and they deliver a very enjoyable performance. The first movement is basically unplayable if you take Saint-Saëns’ double-note rhythms seriously, and so most performances kind of mush them together, creating an atmosphere of generalized agitation. This works perfectly well, but Slatkin has his players really articulate the principal theme of the allegro, and while it robs the music of some of its potential excitement, the result is effective and expressively apt. The same rhythmic precision characterizes the scherzo, whose 6/8 theme begins on an upbeat, which often somehow degenerates in many performances (Ormandy’s on Sony, for example) to the point where the tune seems to enter on a downbeat. Not here.

As for the two movements with organ, the balances with the orchestra are very naturally caught by the Radio France engineers. The transfer to disc is a bit low level, so you really need to turn up the volume for the best effect, and there’s plenty of room around the instruments. You won’t be overwhelmed by the organ’s sonority–no 747 jet engine revving up for takeoff here–but that’s a good thing. You get music, not noise. The interplay between the orchestra and the organ is a constant source of delight, and the finale still builds to a truly rousing conclusion. Altogether this is a very pleasing and worthwhile release, and a belated vindication for Slatkin and the Lyon players.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire played with a keen advocacy.

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire, played with a keen advocacy by soloist Henning Kraggerud and Dalasinfoniettan. Excepting the works of Ole Bull, the remaining pieces were composed between 1910 and 1930. However, none of this music embraces the radically dissonant sounds found in Austrian-Germanic music of this period. Anyone with a love of Holst and Vaughan Williams, Grieg and J.P.E. Hartmann will positively revel in this repertoire.

The CD opens with six modestly arranged Norwegian folksongs by Carl Olsen. The first movement begins with violin alone, played here with great sensitivity and refinement. Olsen ensure that even when the orchestra enters, the melody always stands out, keeping the harmonic writing fairly simple so that it compliments, rather than competes, with the melody. Throughout these songs, Kraggerud’s sound is burnished and rich, varying his vibrato to give greater shape and ardor to his phrasing, while the orchestra led by Bjarte Engeset, prove to be equally sensitive partners.

Atterberg’s Suite No. 3 was originally intended for a violin and viola soloist; this arrangement, for two violins, is its premiere recording. Both solo parts are played by Kraggerud, and while there is nothing to fault in his playing or in the engineer’s dubbing, I found myself resistant to this idea, as I would have liked to hear him interact with another player. Nevertheless, the playing is stunningly beautiful, the forlorn atmosphere of the first two movements gently dispelled by the final movement’s more uplifting waltz.

The Two Sentimental Romances very much reminded me of Vaughan Williams, in both their use of modes and constantly shifting textures. The first Romance, in A Major, is bright and inviting, a perfect evocation of a beautiful summer day, while the second F-minor Romance, marked Allegro patetico, brings greater intensity and a return to that forlorn atmosphere that many Nordic composers easily inhabit.

Ole Bull was considered the “Nordic Paganini”, well known not only for his great virtuosity but also his improvisational abilities. Memories of Havana was composed during Bull’s 1844 tour of Cuba. The score and solo part are lost, but a complete set of orchestral parts survives, so Kraggerud has reconstructed the solo part. The work’s structure is similar to Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies: several sections based on a national folk tune, connected by interlude material that is meant to give the listener (and performers) a break between moments of virtuosic writing. Mountain Vision features a tune by Bull that became incredibly popular in Norway, so much so that a text was written for the tune, called “The Herdgirl’s Sunday.” Similarly structured, the work includes not only includes Bull’s melody, but four other folk tunes. Both are performed with plenty of fire and beauty, without ever becoming over sentimentalized.

The final selections feature the music by the better known composers, Halvorsen, Sibelius and Sinding. Halvorsen’s Norwegian Dance No. 3, as the title suggests, is predominantly light-hearted and joyful in its outer sections, though the middle section features gentler, less rhythmic music that features a long-breathed, arching melody. Sibelius’s Six Humoresques express what the composer called “the sadness of living a life that was only occasionally illuminated by the sun”. These are performances of great sophistication and delicate beauty, more affecting that the rather heavy-handed treatment they receive in the Mutter/Staatskappelle/Previn 1996 DG recording.

Evening Mood clearly shows the influence of Sinding’s four years of study in Leipzig, featuring warmth of color that gently dispels the somewhat despondent mood of the previous Sibelius set, making for a satisfying hour plus of gorgeous music-making.

The recording itself is truly excellent, the soloist well integrated into the sound-picture. The engineers have fully captured the room’s warm ambience without any loss of clarity and there is a good front to back perspective. Notes are excellent and informative, but printed in a font size that might actually be in negative numbers. I look forward to more recordings from these performers.

David A. McConnell , MusicWeb International

PLEYEL String Quartets: in E?, op. 2/4; in B?, op. 2/5; in D, op. 2/6 ? Ens? Quartet ? NAXOS 8557497 (56:38)


Throughout his long and distinguished career, Ignaz Pleyel (1757?1831) composed a total of 57 string quartets, and by the time he wrote the half-dozen quartets that were engraved in 1784 by Graeffer in Vienna as op. 2, Haydn had already composed his ops. 20 and 33 sets, both of which expanded the scope and breadth of the form. Mozart was familiar with Pleyel?s work and it may have been Pleyel?s op. 2 that prompted Mozart to write his father, ?You will find them [the quartets] worth the trouble. They are very well written and most pleasing to listen to. You will also see at once who [Haydn] was his master. It will be a lucky day for music if later on Pleyel should be able to replace Haydn.?


Indeed, the presence of Haydn is unmistakable in these works, although it is not as if he were guiding Pleyel?s quill, for these quartets are not knock-offs. Rather they are as annotator Allan Badley noted, ?a remarkable achievement for a young composer and it is one of the cruel quirks of fate that works of such vitality and imagination could be forgotten for so long.? I add to Dr. Badley?s remarks that this music impresses immediately by way of its tunefulness, memorability, and tight, but never pedantic structure. It flows beautifully from page to page and movement to movement with the ease of a brook gently making its way down a hillside


The Ens? String Quartet?an American ensemble, by the way?is made up of violinists Maureen Nelson and Tereza Stanislav, violist Robert Brophy, and cellist Richard Belcher. The quartet takes its name from a Japanese zen painting of a circle ?that represents many things, perfection as well as imperfection, the moment of chaos that is creation, the emptiness of the void, the endless circle of life, and the fullness of the spirit.? In 2003, the group won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and in the same year was awarded top prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs in Ohio. They have appeared in leading venues across the land including Lincoln Center and the Merkin Concert Hall (New York) and have been the guests of Bill McLaughlin on St. Paul Sunday Morning , heard nationwide on member stations of National Public Radio.


Lacking the first of the two Naxos discs that make up Pleyel?s op. 2, I placed this arrival in my player with no preconceptions as to what I might hear. It didn?t take long for me to determine that I was privy to extraordinary talent. The performances are replete with enthusiasm and momentum and, drawing upon a winning combination of instinct and convention, they evoke not only a distinct personality, but also exhibit poise, coupled with an exceptional sense of vitality and elegance. The energy generated by these young musicians is obvious from the get-go, as is their commitment to the repertoire. Vital and intellectually challenging, these curiosities repay the listener?s interest time after time by way of their memorable and affable nature.


Without doubt, these quartets stand their ground with similar works of Haydn and Mozart, and with advocacy this strong, they will certainly begin to emerge from musical oblivion, taking their long overdue place in the repertoire.


FANFARE: Michael Carter

For many decades one of the leading figures in Dutch musical life, Julius Röntgen came from a distinguished musical family and counted Brahms, Grieg, Grainger and Nielsen among his friends. + In his later years he composed an important series of works in many genres, among them a sequence of String Trios written for Röntgen to play with his talented sons. + The last four, composed between 1925 and 1930, are works of considerable warmth, verve and inventiveness, not least No. 15 in C sharp minor whose fourth movement, Finale automobilistico, was inspired by a Fiat 509A Torpedo car and a family incident-filled holiday in Germany, France, Switzerland and northern Italy.

Conan the Barbarian is a 1982 adventure film, directed and co-written by John Milius. It was his intention to create an opera in the form of a film. Since the opera contains very little dialogue, he used the music to support the story line. The music composed by Basil Poledouris (1945-2006) conveys a sense of power and energy but also expresses many tender moments. The superb Glatter-Götz/Rosales organ in Claremont, California was designed to inspire creativity and innovation, and Philipp Pelster's vision in making a complete film-score transcription especially for the unique possibilities of this instrument transforms the orchestral colors of the original to generate a completely new and richly rewarding musical experience.

The longest work in Brahms’s entire oeuvre, A German Requiem was almost certainly triggered by the death of his mother, although it also seems likely that the tragic loss of his friend Robert Schumann, some years earlier, added to its depth and eloquence. Taking inspiration from Bach’s contrapuntal genius but avoiding overt religious tradition, Brahms chose the texts himself, placing an emphasis on an affirmation of life with the suggestion that he would gladly have substituted ‘human’ for ‘German’ in the title. This release joins Antoni Wit’s ‘richly satisfying’ (Gramophone) recording of Brahms Choral Music [8.572694].

"The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir, a highly capable of the most subtle gradations of tone, is always here the centre of creativity, creating the music’s existential continuum and arising to sombre unexpected splendour at ‘Die Erlöseten des Herrn’ and ‘Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes Hand'...There is some beautiful orchestral playing."
-- BBC Music Magazine [5/2014]

"The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir sings beautifully throughout…Of the soloists, Christiane Libor and Thomas E. Bauer are excellent singers and the orchestra is also first-class...Wit conducts with considerable insight and interpretative command and the recording quality is equally first-rate."
-- International Record Review [5/2014]

"The Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir outdo themselves, with some especially fabulous singing that is worth the price of the disc alone. As for the orchestral contributions, Wit uncovers all sorts of wonderful details in the low strings and winds, his expansive vision allowing for a huge emotional expressive range. Attention to dynamics, especially in the singing, is simply tremendous. This is really moving."
-- Brian Wigman, Classical Net [6/2014]

Indulgently romantic piano concerto performed with bravura assurance.

Does Marco Polo still exist as a label? Created under the mantle “the label of discovery” it used to be the Naxos main outlet for music from the world’s highways and byways. Now that Naxos seems to embrace all and every style of music and at a bargain price I’m guessing Marco Polo has quietly slipped away. Over the years Naxos has reissued many earlier Marco Polo discs and this is one such – a straight reissue of the 1999 disc. I missed it first time round and I am sorry that I did – it is a CD of rare but instantly appealing music convincingly performed.

Ildebrando Pizzetti is one of a group of Italian composers – the others included Respighi, Malipiero and Casella - who sought to modernise Italian opera as well as establishing a body of non-operatic Italian music. All of the music presented here is intensely dramatic – not surprising in a composer who produced more than a dozen operas as well as incidental and film music. Even the piano concerto here Canti della stagione alta is intensely pictorial. The disc opens with the prelude to Pizzetti’s first Opera Fedra. This opens with a strangely hypnotic sinuous melody (monody really) from the violas that immediately flags up one of Pizzetti’s great interests – Gregorian Chant yet this seamlessly moves into an impassioned lyrical outburst for the full orchestra within half a minute – it is powerfully dramatic and makes one want to hear more of the full opera. If you think that Puccini had yet to write Il Trittico or Turandot at the time Fedra was first performed you can hear what a new path Pizzetti was trying to forge. It is still very romantic and lyrical but quite different from the music of his more illustrious contemporary.

The major work presented here is the piano concerto of 1930 Canti della stagione alta (Songs of the High Season). Keith Anderson’s erudite - as usual - notes capture the sound world of this piece well. The music is immediately ‘open-air’, modal in flavour and with a rhapsodic feel - the long singing lines of the strings show a composer of a naturally lyrical bent. The way the woodwinds ornament and muse over their opening material is very beautiful. It doesn’t grab your attention by the use of great arching melodies instead it creates its effects by use of texture and atmosphere – Pizzetti handles the orchestra and soloist with great confidence. Certainly if you like your piano concertos big-boned, tonal and of a romantic cut this is for you. Running at a shade under thirty minutes this is not a huge work but it feels bigger than that. Not to imply that it outstays its welcome – far from it. As the first movement develops it moves away from the pastoral to something altogether more dramatic with double octave passages in the piano tossed off with conspicuous ease. There is a heraldic quality to some of Pizzetti’s brass writing that I really enjoy. Yes it could be argued there is a cinematic element to it but it works for me! The slow second movement is altogether simpler although once again the central climax is heavily brass led but I do like the way this immediately gives way to a quietly modal string passage with some distant brass figures – sounding deliberately archaic – decorating the music. Not having seen a score it is hard to know exactly how Pizzetti achieves the effect but the metre of the work is very flexible with a strong sense of regular predictable bar-lines removed. Instead we can feel the underlying basic pulse – once again this seems to be a stylistic nod towards the melodic fluidity of plainsong. The finale is played attacca leaping straight from the final notes of the second movement. This is a true rondo which – again I agree with Keith Anderson here – has echoes of an Italianate Rachmaninov although the quirky string led fugal passage and a final exciting brass peroration are uniquely Pizzetti’s own. This proved to be a very pleasurable discovery indeed. The disc is completed by music Pizzetti wrote for a silent movie in 1914 – Cabiria. What an extraordinary event this must have been – the bulk of the music for this two and a half hour epic was assembled - as was so often the case with early silent film scores - from standard orchestral repertoire. However for a key sequence – involving the sacrifice of 100 children to the God of Carthage Moloch! – Pizzetti was commissioned to provide this ten minute sequence involving large orchestra, baritone soloist and chorus. That it is pictorial is clear from the very first bars and again benefits from a performance of great flair. To be honest it is the piece on this disc I would least often return but it is not trying to be anything but colourful and illustrative – there is none of the subtlety or emotional weight that marks out the other pieces here. Conversely I cannot think of another example of so early a dedicated film score of this originality and power. Well worth a listen in that historical context alone. Quite how it sat next to excerpts of Mozart Mendelssohn and Gluck I do not have a clue!

The price of discovery for many of the early Marco Polo discs was the dubious quality of the performances and recordings. I’m pleased to say that this is not the case here. The Robert Schumann Philharmonie play this unfamiliar repertoire with great sensitivity and technical assurance. Only a couple of brief moments of string edginess in the second movement shows that the concerto was taken from live performances but in fact the balance and sound stage is excellent and the audience is totally inaudible. The rapport between the husband and wife team of Oleg and Susanna Stefani Caetani is excellent and the liner notes make clear that the concerto is part of her active repertoire. This clearly benefits the piece with a thoroughly convincing performance in every respect. Likewise the two filler pieces which are studio recordings from the same period – powerfully performed and well recorded.

Running to less than fifty minutes this is a rather under-filled disc although we would have been happy with that in the days of LP’s and at Naxos’ bargain price given the quality on offer I don’t really feel I can complain. All in all a disc of far greater musical and technical quality than I was expecting. It makes me want to hear the recently released Concerto dell’estate (Naxos 8.572013) as well as the complete Fedra.

Indulgently romantic piano concerto performed with bravura assurance.

-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

The past three decades have seen a slow but steady discovery of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's extensive solo piano output. Listen to this remarkable music without knowing the composer's identity, and you might guess Fanny's younger brother Felix, although her idiomatic keyboard mastery charts darker, Schumann-esque waters and also looks ahead to Brahms. Some of Fanny's adventurous harmonic forays are pure César Franck, albeit 30-odd years before that composer's heyday.

Heather Schmidt's Mendelssohn-Hensel recital presents a well-contrasted selection of works in large and small forms. My Schumann comment applies to the swirling and intense C minor Allegro molto that opens this disc. If Brahms had rewritten a Felix Mendelssohn Song Without Words in the manner of his own late-period Klavierstücke, he'd come up with Fanny's G minor Notturno, while the D minor Allegro molto agitato's Bachian demeanor and gothic octaves (effortlessly executed by Schmidt, incidentally) suggest Busoni in embryonic form.

The three-movement C minor sonata oozes melodic inspiration in every bar, especially in the slow movement's moving introspection and modulations that give Schubert a run for his money. Although Schmidt plays this movement as a true Andante con moto and with little rubato, would a slower, freer approach make a stronger expressive impact? On the other hand, she fully comprehends the four-movement G minor sonata's inherent power and passion, and delivers more dynamically charged renditions of the Allegro molto agitato and Adagio movements than the equally fluid yet more restrained Beatrice Rauchs on BIS.

Schmidt matches Rauchs' delicacy in the gorgeous Scherzo at nearly twice the basic tempo--a good call. However, Rauchs' supple, forward-moving Presto finale scores over Schmidt's slower, slightly square-toed approach. All told, this is a valuable addition to the Mendelssohn-Hensel piano discography.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

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MENDELSSOHN-HENSEL Piano Sonatas: in c; in g. Allegro molto in c; Notturno in g; Lied in E?; Adagio in E?; Andante con moto in E; Sonata o Capriccio; Allegro molto agitato in d; Schluss • Heather Schmidt (pn) • NAXOS 8.570825 (67:25)


Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel composed some 500 works, mostly piano miniatures and songs. She wrote one orchestral overture, a few larger-scale choral works, and a handful of chamber compositions, her masterpiece being the lovely Piano Trio in D Minor, op. 11, which deserves to be a repertoire staple. Most of her output remains unpublished—her op. 1 appeared in print only in 1846, just a year before her untimely death—which, on the evidence presented here, is a great shame. True, her works are not on the same compositional plane as those of her renowned brother Felix, being rather foursquare in formal design; but then the social circumstances of her time did not allow her to cultivate her muse to the same degree. For her, music had to remain an avocation, subordinated to what her father wrote to her in 1828, a year before her marriage: “your real calling, the only calling of a young woman—I mean the state of a housewife.”


This disc presents works falling into two distinct periods. The juvenile pieces from 1823–24 are the C-Minor Sonata, Sonata o Capriccio, Allegro molto agitato , and Schluss ; the remainder, from her maturity, were composed between 1838 and 1846. Stylistically, they resemble those of her sibling so closely that he even published a few of her pieces under his name. For example, the Allegro molto in C Minor, the Allegro molto agitato in D Minor, and the finale of the C-Minor Sonata all immediately recall the volatile opening Allegro of Felix’s Piano Concerto No. 1. That said, she was no mere imitator; these are solidly crafted compositions with their own voice, particularly in their gift of winning melody. In general, Fanny uses a longer, more continuously flowing melodic line, and is more overtly emotional, more given to passionate outburst, more inclined to explore introspection and melancholy. The weaknesses are overly regular metrical phrasing, over-reliance on alternating runs of triplets and of eighth (or 16th) notes for contrast, and unadventurous harmonic progressions. Although the turbulent G-Minor Sonata is the major work here, the Adagio and the Andante con moto , both in E?, deserve special mention as particularly lovely brief essays.


This is the only available recording of the C-Minor Sonata and some (not all) of the shorter pieces. Peter J. Rabinowitz ( Fanfare 21:4) highly praised the BIS issue of the G-Minor Sonata and accompanying miniatures with Béatrice Rauchs, while noting that “she sometimes plays down the music’s dramatic and expressive potential.” The identical observation applies here. Heather Schmidt is a thoroughly accomplished pianist, who plays with lovely tone, fluent technique (an absolutely pearling legato), and expressive insight and sensitivity. My only reservation is that—dare I say it?—the playing is a bit too feminine; even more could be gotten out of these pieces with the occasional application of a more masculine assertiveness in accent and phrasing, a willingness to punctuate the seamless flow and delicacy with something a bit more rough-hewn. But that is a very minor caveat; this music and this performance, at half the cost of the BIS issue, both deserve to reach a much wider audience. The recorded sound is clear, warm, but not too resonant. Recommended to all lovers of early-Romantic piano repertoire.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

RÜTTI Requiem • David Hill, cond; Olivia Robinson (sop); Edward Price (bar); Bach Ch; Jane Watts (org); Southern Snf • NAXOS 8.572317 (55:02)


The music of Swiss composer Carl Rütti (b. 1949) is not particularly well known in America. Though many CDs devoted to his music have been released in Europe on small labels, this internationally distributed Naxos release should help to bring his work to wider and extremely well-deserved attention. Rütti’s choral music is the most-performed part of his output, and his pieces have developed a following particularly in England where a number of significant choruses (especially the Cambridge Voices and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge) have featured his choral music in high profile contexts.


Rütti’s Requiem is an extended work for soprano and baritone soloists, double chorus, strings, harp, and organ. He uses the traditional Latin text and, unlike a number of recent composers, he does not interpolate other texts into the narrative. The work was commissioned in 2005 by the Bach Choir of London, which performs it on this recording under the expert direction of David Hill. Though several of Rütti’s previous pieces (notably a terrific Pavane for violin and organ, which is quoted in the Requiem) had been inspired by death, he was initially somewhat reluctant to write a Requiem. However, after reflecting on personal losses, he decided (like many composers) that such a piece would be a meaningful way to express what he felt. The result is an absolutely magnificent work, and the best new Requiem setting of the many that I have heard in recent years.


Though there is a definite “British choral” influence on Rütti’s style, there are also Eastern European and Baltic characteristics that all combine to produce his personal voice. The resulting blend produces a truly wonderful mix of the practical melodic and modal character of much British music, and the poignant mysticism of many Baltic composers. The work begins and ends evocatively with an unaccompanied soprano solo, which the composer intends to represent the soul “alone before God.” Particular highlights of the work include the transcendently beautiful choral writing in the mostly unaccompanied Introitus that follows the opening soprano solo. The powerful and urgent Kyrie is extremely memorable. The most extended movement is the central Offertorium, which is packed with spine-tingling climaxes and textures. A memorable recurring motive throughout the whole Requiem is a sequence of shifting chords with false relations on the word “Jerusalem”; it is particularly glorious.


The common danger with Requiem settings is that the overall quiet mood of the text causes there to be far too much slow music; and when there is occasionally something fast and powerful (think Dies irae ), it ends up being earth-shattering. Rütti intentionally avoided a Dies irae because it did not fit with his beliefs about God. However, through a remarkable variety of texture and mood, Rütti manages to avoid this fatigue entirely. In the service of musical variety and dramatic shape, he ends up making some choices that other composers rarely do: the Kyrie, for example, is dramatic and powerful. Likewise, the main statement of the concluding “In paradisum” is thrillingly exciting and forms a major final climax to the work. The overall result is a perfectly balanced piece.


Perhaps what is most impressive to me about Rütti’s piece is how much genuine musical interest and variety he creates, despite the small forces. In terms of the creative spirit (though only rarely the actual sound of the music), James MacMillan’s seminal early pieces, such as Seven Last Words , are called to mind. In recent years, MacMillan’s large-scale works tend to use enormous orchestral palates, which are very appealing; however, it’s not nearly as difficult to create a lot of color with so many resources at one’s disposal.


The performance and recorded sound are excellent. Though I was somewhat “jaded” upon receiving the disc to see yet another new Latin Requiem by a contemporary composer, Rütti’s superb piece completely won me over. I cannot say enough in praise of this work, which is one of the finest Requiem settings of our time; I am absolutely convinced it will join the great ones from the past. It is a disc to which I will return frequently, and is Want List material, without doubt.


FANFARE: Carson Cooman

Francesco Cilea is best remembered for his operas L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur, but his final opera Gloria is a genuine rarity. Set in medieval Siena against the backdrop of conflicts between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, Gloria is a tragic tale of love and revenge that can be seen as a variation on the story of Romeo and Juliet. Filled with beautiful melodies accompanied by rich and refined orchestral sonorities, Gloria reveals itself after years of neglect as a precious masterpiece in this acclaimed production from the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari.

ALFANO Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano. Cello Sonata • Samuel Magill (vc); Scott Dunn (pn); Elmira Darvarova (vn) • NAXOS 8.570928 (60: 06)


These days Franco Alfano (1875–1954) is remembered more for his controversial and much maligned 1926 completion of Puccini’s Turandot than for his own well-crafted and often quite striking music. His career started promisingly. In 1904, his opera Risurrezione , based on Tolstoy’s last full-length novel, made him internationally famous (see Henry Fogel’s review in Fanfare 28:4). In 1918, he rose to the directorship of Liceo Musicale, Bologna, and two years later helped to found the society Musica Nova. His career remained on the ascendancy until 1926, when Toscanini’s de facto damnation of his completion of Turandot made him an odd man out in Italian music. Add to this that two of his contemporaries, Malipiero and Respighi, were changing the focus of Italian music from opera to purely instrumental, while Alfano continued doggedly in the operatic realm with Madonna imperia (1927), Cyrano de Bergerac (1936), Don Juan de Manara (1941), Il dottor Antonia (1949), Vesuvius (1950), and Sakùntala (1952). Then further add that Alfano was on favorable terms with Mussolini’s fascist government and one has a pretty good recipe for his subsequent obscurity.


Then there is the music itself, as illustrated by these two chamber works—soft edged, introspective, and quietly luminous in a most Debussian manner. Cellist Samuel Magill, in his liner notes to this release, points out that Alfano was half French (on his maternal side), and spent the years from 1899 until about 1905 in Paris, where he composed light music for the Folies Bergère. It is plain from these two pieces that he soaked up the atmosphere and found it most congenial. The earlier of these two works, the Cello Sonata, was commissioned in 1928 by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. It is a tour de force in its exploitation of the cello’s full compass and coloristic possibilities. The high A-string writing makes it seem a super violin, and the use of harmonics in combination with quiet sustaining pedaled piano figurations creates moments that would have made both Ravel and Debussy proud. It is a long and discursive work that opens serenely, as if to say “I will reveal a great mystery,” and then travels from the elementally abstract toward the more and more intelligible; unfathomable mystery gives way to unbridled passion, and then to a moment of sublime peace.


The Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano of 1932 is similar to the Cello Sonata, but given the third instrument, the violin, it is richer in tonal possibilities. Its opening revealing a kinship with Renaissance polyphony, indeed farther back than that, shows how easily those languages can dovetail into that of the French Impressionists. Alfano, like Bruckner and Brahms, was an antiquarian. In both of these works, Debussy’s idea that pure sonority should be an element of music equal with melody, harmony, and rhythm, is writ large.


All three performers are excellent and play with razor-edged accuracy, passion, and insight in these two world-premiere recordings. The recording, alas, is harsh in its upper register, requiring treble cut on my system, but, on the other hand, it reveals everything, as if under a microscope. The piano, however, is splendidly registered throughout.


FANFARE: William Zagorski

The Moravian Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst is a dazzling example of the nineteenth-century violinist-composer, of whom the greatest was Ernst's sometime rival, Paganini. Indeed it was the Italian who persuaded Ernst to follow the life of a touring virtuoso, in which role he was to perform with the greatest musicians in Europe, earning the admiration of men such as Chopin and Mendelssohn. The Elegie sur la mort d'un objet cheri, mentioned by Tolstoy in the Kreutzer Sonata, was one of the best-known violin works of the century, and the Polyphonic Studies offer a compendium of violin technique on a par with the works of Paganini himself.

Legendary tango performer and composer Astor Piazzolla gained experience of jazz in New York and classical form and technique through studies with Alberto Ginastera. His work lends itself perfectly to arrangement for all kinds of ensemble, and this is the first recording with solo trombone. These popular pieces showcase the stunning playing of multi-award winning soloist Achilles Liarmakopoulos in a variety of moods, including the famous Oblivion, and Le Grand Tango, a virtuoso show-stopper originally written for cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

'I haven't sat right through a CD of tangos until this one. Greek trombonist Achilles Liarmakopoulos, who plays with Canadian Brass, is an astonishing player, a musician of extraordinary subtlety and understatement. With the sweetest, most seductive tone imaginable, he glides through the Piazzolla classics, including the full Histoire du Tango, all three movements of the beautiful Serie del Angel, Michelangelo, Oblivion and a heart-wrenching, soulful rendition of Soledad. His group, including the great bandoneon player Hector del Curto, is superlative. An outstanding disc.' (Herald Scotland)