On this release, the Trondheim Sinfonietta, founded in 1998, has gathered four works from the three decades encompassing the ensemble’s existence. All four seem to be haunted by an even deeper past: Bent Sørensen’s Minnelieder is the composer’s third version of a work originally sparked-off by a book about the 14th century, while Toshio Hosokawa’s Drawing, from a decade later, was inspired by the very start of life. Kristin Norderval’s Chapel Meditation began its existence as an improvisation, but looks back to music from centuries earlier, while the most recent work, Mantra by Ellen Lindquist, also mines a venerable musical tradition, that of the age-old Indonesian gamelan orchestra that for over 100 years has had an influence on Western composers such as Debussy, Britten, Steve Reich et al. Set for varying forces and numbers of performers, the four works together form a fascinating picture of the kaleidoscopic possibilities open to composers around the turn of the millennium.

After a highly successful recordings of works by Brahms, the Schumanns, and Chopin, Imogen Cooper plunges into the world of another great romantic, Franz Liszt, and places him alongside that other giant, Richard Wagner. This is an evocative programme of original compositions and intimate transcriptions, ranging from poetic movements from the Années de Pèlerinage: Italie to dark and deeply elegiac pieces, including Liszt's La lugubre gondola I and Wagner's Elegie. It also features a transcription by Zoltán Kocsis of the intensely passionate prelude to Tristan und Isolde. The famous pianist and conductor died prematurely in November, 2016. It was his work that inspired this recording to begin with, and Imogen Cooper dedicates the album to his memory. Breathtaking music in unique interpretations: romanticism without melodrama, virtuosity without fuss.

The 2020 GRAMMY Award winner for Best Classical Solo Vocal Performance, honoring Sarah Brailey and Dashon Burton!

August 18th marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting women in the US the right to vote. A fitting time then for our release of the World Premier Recording of Ethel Smyth’s late masterpiece The Prison. Smyth left home at nineteen to study composition in Leipzig. In the company of Clara Schumann and her teacher Heinrich von Herzogenberg, she met and won the admiration of composers such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvorák, and Grieg. Smyth was the first woman to have an opera performed at the Met, in 1903. (The second was Kaija Saariaho, whose L'Amour de loin appeared there in 2016!) Smyth later became central to the Suffragette movement in England, writing the March of the Women. Her gender politics and sexuality were cause for attacks by critics, and she famously went to prison herself for throwing a stone through an MP’s window. Composed in 1930 and premiered in 1931 in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, The Prison is a Symphony in two parts, ‘Close on Freedom’ and ‘The Deliverance’, set for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus, and full orchestra. The text is taken from a philosophical work by Henry Bennet Brewster and concerns the writings of a prisoner in solitary confinement, his reflections on life and his preparations for death.

REVIEWS:

Ethyl Smyh's late work, The Prison (1929-30), is uncategorizable. The 64-minute “vocal symphony” for bass-baritone (The Prisoner) and soprano (his Soul), with chorus (philosophical commentary) is in two parts: Close To Freedom and The Deliverance. The heavy-ish text, by Smyth’s dear friend (and perhaps lover, though her relationships tended otherwise to be lesbian) Henry Bennet Brewster centers on the gloomy ruminations of a prisoner considering the end of his life, and his soul, which is guiding him toward peace. In Part 1, He, for instance speaks of his anxiety and inability to sleep, and wonders about immortality and if he will be emancipated; in Part 2, the Soul tells him the end of his struggle is near and he learns to “disband his ego”. The chorus has a further calming effect: immortality is everywhere, human passions remain. He finally finds peace. As you can see, a regular Offenbachian satire–not.

From the very opening moments – “I awoke in the middle of the night” – the mood is weighty with disquiet. The bass-baritone voice of Dashon Burton has both substance and gentleness, his attention to the text that of a Lieder singer. Violin and harp circle his words. Sarah Brailey’s Soul, from the start, sings with subtlety and a type of fleeting loveliness. She opens the second part with a solo on the words “the struggle is over”, intoning much of her words on one note while first a trio of winds, then a solo violin, then the full body of strings and chorus–all pianissimo–join her above and below. Chant? Hymn? Both, really. Smyth layers the orchestra; a brass choir during a passage about immortality makes a grand effect. Later, a painfully beautiful pastoral section precedes the Prisoner’s feeling of metaphysical freedom.

While much of it is gripping, its slow pacing and didacticism can dehumanize the story that the Prisoner and Soul are stuck in. The Prisoner’s “prison”, both metaphorical and real, is presented with such humanity and openness by Burton that his eventual spiritual freedom makes a glorious sound, despite–rather than due to–the orchestrally and chorally weighted underpinnings. Some Elgar shows up, and is not very welcome.

The performance, I suspect, could not be bettered. The New York City-based Experiential Orchestra and Chorus both perform with luscious tone and poise. James Blachly’s leadership brings the work’s lyricism to the forefront; it would be easy to over-emphasize passages but he works best within the dramatic arc of the narrative. Much of The Prison is gorgeous and unexpected – who does Smyth sound like? And while some moments seem inert, they are few and far between.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Robert Levine)

Smyth’s haunting music, given here in conductor James Blachly’s new edition, is beautifully constructed and highly evocative (with quotes or allusions to earlier Smyth scores). Her orchestration is limpid and masterly, rendered lovingly here by Blachly with the Experiential Orchestra. The choral contribution is relatively minor, the focus rightly on the two soloists, but again superbly performed. The only miscalculation is Smyth’s use of ‘The Last Post’ in the concluding pages, adding a martial resonance that may jar to modern ears; to Smyth, a major-general’s daughter, it may just have been an echo of (her) youth which she wanted at this point. Magnificent sound from Chandos, too. Very strongly recommended.

– Gramophone

Edward Gardner leads the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Schubert’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 in this second volume in the acclaimed series. Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra since October 2015, Edward Gardner has led the musicians on multiple international tours, which have included performances in Berlin, Munich, and Amsterdam, and at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival. He was recently appointed Principal Conductor Designate of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, his tenure commencing in September 2021. In demand as a guest conductor, during the previous two seasons he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Wiener Symphoniker, as well as at The Royal Opera, Covent Garden in a new production of Káťa Kabanová, praised by The Guardianas a ‘magnificent interpretation’. He returned to the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano. In April 2019, he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Lincoln Center in New York.

For its second album on Chandos, the young Ferio Saxophone Quartet presents a set of unique arrangements of milestones from the baroque repertoire, from Corelli via Bach to Handel. Including many premiere recordings, these fresh interpretations, full of flair and vitality, played on instruments that combine elements of brass and woodwind, bring the tunes and counterpoint to a fascinating new register. The Ferio Quartet plays with power, warmth, and dexterity. “Playing is of the highest level throughout.” (Classical Music) “Intensely musical performances… the artistry of the performances is beyond question.” (Gramophone) “The Ferio Quartet plays with a nimble technique, mature phrasing, exquisite and forceful dynamics, and excellent balance, blend, and teamwork.” (American Record Guide)

Lush, impressionistic, exotic, erotically charged even, Karol Szymanowski’s music appears as a world in its own right, a refuge from the harshest aspects of reality, but also a place in which, paradoxically, the dreamer can find the strength and solace needed to cope with the real world and is drawn into an alternative, heightened state of consciousness. Sueye Park and Roland Pöntinen take us on a journey through the Polish composer’s works for violin and piano.

While the early Violin Sonata in D minor already shows Szymanowski’s precocious talent in writing for violin, the Romance in D major and the Nocturne et Tarantelle indicate the emergence of a feverish and exotic atmosphere as well as the musical expression of physical intoxication, a characteristic of the composer’s mature works. Mythes (1915) represents Szymanowski at the zenith of his artistry, creating ‘a new mode of expression for the violin’ and through this an other-worldly musical language. La Berceuse d’Aïtacho Enia concludes this disc in a dreamy yet troubled mood, as if the pains of the real world had ultimately found a way to reach us.

Mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately trained at Chetham’s School of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the International Opera School of the Royal College of Music. Having won both the Kathleen Ferrier Award and Royal Overseas League Award in the same year, she attended the prestigious Academy of the Verbier Festival. She writes of this project: ‘It has been my great pleasure to record with Joseph once again. We have long shared a mutual passion for early-twentieth-century-romantic Lieder and talked of making a disc including songs by Mahler and Strauss. The opportunity to discover and research lesser-known composers from their era has been thrilling and fascinating. As the world endured the pandemic, we all experienced fear and danger and loss in a way that most of our generation never did before, on such a global scale. Joseph and I felt drawn to reflect on grief, mortality, and bereavement.’ The two lesser-known composers featured in the recording are Johanna Müller-Hermann (who studied with several of the most prominent teachers in Vienna – Josef Labor, Guido Adler, Alexander Zemlinsky, Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Franz Schmidt) and Margarete Schweikert, who’s upbringing and life in Karlsruhe and studies with Joseph Haas in Stuttgart could hardly provide a greater contrast – clearly audible in their music.

CONTENTS:

• Müller-Hermann: Wie eine Vollmondnacht, Op. 20 No. 4
• Müller-Hermann: Der letzte abend, Op. 2 No. 4
• Strauss, R: Befreit, Op. 39 No. 4
• Strauss, R: Allerseelen, Op. 10 No. 8
• Schweikert: Wolke I
• Schweikert: Totenhausen
• Schweikert: Zusammen sterben
• Strauss, R: Auf ein Kind, Op. 47 No. 1
• Strauss, R: Rückleben, Op. 47 No. 3
• Strauss, R: Morgen, Op. 27 No. 4
• Müller-Hermann: Die Stille Stadt, Op. 4 No. 1
• Müller-Hermann: Herbst, Op. 20 No. 2
• Müller-Hermann: In Memoriam, Op. 28 No. 5
• Schweikert: Unser Haus
• Schweikert: Die Entschlafenen
• Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
• Müller-Hermann: Widmung, Op. 20 No. 1
• Schweikert: Einem Vorangegangenen

REVIEW:

Throughout Whately and Middleton prove highly persuasive guides; the pianist bringing the accompaniments vividly to life and the mezzo fully committed to the works and impressive, in particular, in getting the texts across.

-- Gramophone

Johannes Brahms's soul shines through in his chamber music. Following in the footsteps of Mozart and Schubert, Brahms wrote two string quintets that rank among his greatest chamber music masterpieces. He took up this genre rather late in life, but in it he was able to express both the joy and the nostalgia he carried with him into his maturity. The Quintet in F major, Op. 88, held a special place in the composer's heart, and he considered it to be his finest work. A bucolic spirit and a gentle joie de vivre pervade the work, sometimes referred to as the 'spring quintet'. A majestic, pastoral first movement testifies to this cheerfulness, followed by a melancholy movement before the spirited finale. The Quintet in G major, Op. 111, also radiates vigour, expressing the composer's strength, nostalgia and exuberance. With echoes of Viennese folk music, the piece has been referred to as the 'Prater quintet', a reference to the famous Viennese park.

These two deep and melancholic works are played by the Gringolts Quartet, whose previous recordings for BIS, particularly those devoted to Arnold Schoenberg's quartets, have won high praise, and who are joined by sought-after Finnish violist Lilli Maijala.

REVIEWS:

There’s a wealth of characterization within this richly unified, bronze-dark ensemble. A deep-dug, chunky tone, often quite rugged, is offset by moments of intense sweetness, as well as great delicacy and refinement.

— BBC Music Magazine

The players adapt effortlessly to the disparate range of styles Brahms melds into a coherent unity.

— MusicWeb International

Left unfinished at the death of the composer, Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony has exerted an enormous fascination on musicologists as well as musicians – a kind of Holy Grail of 20th-century music. Recognized as an intensely personal work, it was initially consigned to respectful oblivion, but over the years, Alma Mahler, the composer’s widow, released more and more of Mahler’s sketches for publication, and gradually it became clear that he had in fact bequeathed an entire five-movement symphony in short score (i.e. written on three or four staves). Of this, nearly half had reached the stage of a draft orchestration, while the rest contained indications of the intended instrumentation. Over the years a number of different completions or performing versions of ‘the Tenth’ have seen the light of day. One of the most often performed and recorded of these is that by Deryck Cooke. Cooke himself insisted that his edition was not a ‘completion’ of the work, but rather a functional presentation of the materials as Mahler left them. Cooke’s performing version of the symphony is the one that Osmo Vanska has chosen to use for the seventh installment in his and the Minnesota Orchestra’s Mahler series, a cycle characterized by an unusual transparency and clarity of sound as well as musical conception.

REVIEW:

From the outset, Vänskä’s handling of the opening Adagio is sublime, its long themes opening up in endless waves thanks to the clean-toned Minnesota strings and the conductor’s perfectly judged balance between purposeful progress and emotional repose. BIS’s engineering is immaculate, simultaneously spacious and detailed, and presented with convincing weight and clarity. The contrast between the pristine pianissimo strings and the moment the Adagiofinally heaves its heart into its mouth is overwhelming.

The first Scherzo is nimble and fleet of foot, Vänskä’s insistence on delicacy over grotesquery tying it neatly to the first movement. Again, incident is brought out with considerable imagination and there’s some superb solo work from the Minnesota principals. This is musical storytelling at its finest.

In Vänskä’s hands the “Purgatorio” movement is a gossamer reflection of the younger composer in the carefree days of the Fourth Symphony upon which the clouds occasionally darken. Building his argument, Vänskä urges the fourth movement second Scherzo along while ensuring plenty of contrasts. “The devil is dancing this with me; madness, seize me and destroy me,” Mahler wrote at the top of this movement, ending with, “You alone know what it means. Ah! Ah! Farewell my lyre! Farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell. Ah! Ah!”.

Linking the two final movements is a dramatic coup. The sudden impact of the muffled drum – inspired by a funeral procession that Mahler and Alma witnessed from the window of their New York hotel room – is heart-stopping, as is the following progression in which the musical spools of Mahler’s life seem to gradually unravel towards that final page where Mahler scribbled, “für dich leben! für dich sterben! Almschi!” (To live for you! To die for you! Almschi!). Over 25 unmissable minutes, Vänskä interweaves the moving with the mercurial in a riveting demonstration of musical storytelling.

As this Minnesota cycle enters the final furlong, this Tenth is a major achievement.

– Limelight (Clive Paget)

An instant success, Charles Hubert Hastings Parry’s oratorio Judith premiered in Birmingham in August 1888. The work consolidated his reputation as a composer of large-scale orchestral and choral writing. With its vigorous choruses and dramatic solo roles, the work is of persistent quality. Yet somehow, the work has been largely neglected for the last century. On this release, the work is presented by the Crouch End Festival Chorus and the London Mozart Players led by William Vann. Soloists Sarah Fox, Kathryn Rudge, Toby Spence and Henry Waddington round out the recording with enthusiastic performances.

REVIEWS:

Every aspect of this performance sounds like a labour of love. Rudge’s soaring, expressive singing as Meshullemeth gives the piece its real heart, and she’s accompanied with intense sympathy by the conductor William Vann, who avoids any suggestion of bombast or sentimentality, and builds Parry’s great paragraphs so eloquently and with such assurance that you’d think he’d been conducting this music all his life.

– Gramophone

You don’t have to be Parry’s champion Prince Charles to feel a thrill as the soprano Sarah Fox rings out as Judith, the Crouch Enders exult, the tenor Toby Spence sonorously conveys the vacillating king Manasseh and Parry creates sequences of stirring clamour.

– Sunday Times (UK)

This is the premiere recording of Vaughan Williams's opera The Poisoned Kiss. This romantic extravaganza contains some of the composer's finest music, and a sense of fun runs through the delightful score. Vaughan Williams began writing The Poisoned Kiss, his fourth opera, in 1927. He was also working on Sir John in Love and had begun sketching the first scenes of Job. he was at the height of his musical powers, yet The Poisoned Kiss has remained unperformed, unrecorded and unknown. The reason for this neglect lies mainly in the rather dated text and the lengthy sections of spoken dialogue (some of which is omitted in this recording). It did not help that the composer and the librettist were uncertain about the balance between comedy and drama in the opera, a dilema that led to major revisions of the work by Vaughan Williams in 1936 and again in 1956-57. In the final version the composer's lyricism dominates the humour and we are treated to an extraordinary wealth of expressive and heart-felt music whcih does not deserve to be ignored. Recorded in: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 3-6 January 2003 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Matthew Walker (Assistant)

Recorded in: Dr Anton Philipszaal, The Hague, The Netherlands 24-27 September 1989 (orchestral works); 18-20 April and 3 & 4 July 1990 (symphonic songs) Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Ben Connellan (Assistant: orchestral works) Peter Newble (Assistant: symphonic songs)