Gypsy Strings is a collection of arrangements of traditional gypsy music together with a selection of original compositions. The disc was conceived to display the talents of London Concertante’s leader, Adam Summerhayes, and the Bulgarian fiddle player Emil Chakalov. The music becomes a jousting match between the two, backed by London Concertante’s twelve-player string section. The ensemble enjoys an ever growing reputation for exciting and memorable performances, thanks to exceptional players and inspired programming.

The choice of works on this amply filled album, as well as the performances are the result of Lorenda Ramou’s research into the artistic environment of Nikos Skalkottas, in Berlin (1921–33) and in Athens (1933–49). The programme is organized as a triptych, focusing on three distinctive compositional styles. First, all surviving Berlin works for piano solo are presented in chronological order, showing how the young composer was reacting to the new and exciting jazz/dance music, but also to the people around him and to events in the musical world of Berlin in the 1920s. This is followed by Suites Nos 2, 3 and 4, a group of mature works composed at the beginning of World War II (1940–41). Closing the release, finally, is the dance suite The Gnomes, probably composed in 1939 and one of a group of piano scores for ballets with Greek subjects. Lorenda Ramou has previously released ‘The Land and the Sea of Greece’ – an album of precisely such scores by Skalkottas – which earned her praise from the reviewer in Gramophone: ‘Her playing is full of verve and alive to the delicacy of Skalkottas’s writing.’

This new album release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu presents a new contemporary voice within Finland’s contemporary music scene: Antti Auvinen. This album includes three recent orchestral works by the composer marked by highly pressurised and explosive rhythms and sounds.

The premieres of Antti Auvinen’s (b. 1974) Junker Twist (2015) and Himmel Punk (2016) in the mid-2010s electrified the scene of Finland’s contemporary music: music critics felt that a new major voice in the country’s music scene had been born. Auvinen’s works are often thematically connected to events in the surrounding society. Junker Twist (2015) deals with the topic of rising neo-Nazist ideologies, while Himmel Punk (2016) takes a stand against religious discrimination. The most extensive work of this album, Turbo Aria (2017/2018), is partially based on arias sung by Finnish sopranos a century ago. These ‘arias’ sung by Alma Fohström, Aino Ackté and Järnefelt and the sounds of the accompanying instruments are augmented by the crackles, pops, hisses and other mechanical noises made by the original discs. Yet the work also has a second underlying theme: the refugee crisis. Is this program music? Perhaps – but it does not matter, because the music is equally impressive with the narrative or without it. In 2016, Auvinen was awarded with the Teosto award, one of the biggest music awards in the Nordic countries.

With his tango nuevo, Astor Piazzolla has been welcomed into the world of classical music in a way that no other ‘non-classical’ composer has experienced. His music is played in concert halls around the world, and has been arranged for the most varied forces: symphony orchestra, string quartet, brass ensemble, mandolin orchestra, harpsichord… Taking their name from Piazzolla’s Escualo (‘Shark’), written in 1979 for his Quinteto Tango Nuevo, the five musicians that make up ESCUALO5 have a different approach, replicating the formation that Piazzolla performed with for much of his career: bandoneon, violin, piano, guitar and double bass.

The aim isn’t to recreate Piazzolla’s own performances, however – based in Munich but hailing from respectively Brazil, Germany, Greece and Belarus, the members are soloists in their own right, bringing their individual talents as improvisers and arrangers to the recordings. The program that ESCUALO5 have devised for their first album includes some much-loved as well as less familiar pieces for the quintet setup – Primavera Porteña, Soledad, Adiós Nonino, Fracanapa – as well as arrangements of Tango Suite and Histoire du Tango, originally for two guitars and flute and guitar, respectively.

REVIEWS:

Several of the pieces are arranged for new combinations, the Tango Suite for guitar and piano, and the Histoire du Tango, the masterful tracing of tango styles since 1900, for accordion, guitar, and double bass. The biggest thing is that without violating Piazzolla's musical texts, the group brings to his music a new and intense spirit. It is as if, having been established as part of the classical canon, Piazzolla's music is now subject to what has been called the chain of interpretation. It's a tremendously exciting release, consisting of Piazzolla standards like the Primavera Porteña from the Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas and lesser-known pieces like Fracanapa; Escualo5 adds something new to every single one, and the album will appeal to heavy Piazzolla collectors and newbies alike.

-- AllMusic.com

The release of a new recording of music by Piazzolla is, in my opinion, always a very welcome occurrence. Here we have passionate performances from the ensemble Esucalo5 which consists of violin, accorion, guitar, piano and double bass. Alongside the more familiar and extensive Tango Suite and Histoire du Tango is another longer piece Contrabajisimo (unknown to me) and a number of shorter pieces. A lovely production.

-- Lark Reviews

REVIEW:

This release...offers an excellent musical programming concept, with all three works captured live in performances that are absolutely stunning and fully competitive with the best available. Both the Bartók and Martinů pieces were composed during their respective composers’ exile in America, while Gideon Klein’s Partita (an arrangement for string orchestra of his String Trio), is the result of “internal exile” in the Terezín concentration camp. All three men found ways to continue making music despite displacement, personal misfortune, and against the background of the rise of Nazism and the onset of war. More to the point, the program works because it offers plenty of purely musical contrast and variety.

Martinů’s Memorial to Lidice, a town wiped out by the Nazis as an act of retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, is a harrowing but ultimately hopeful orchestral elegy that receives the most gut-wrenching performance yet recorded. Eschenbach is about 50 percent slower than Ancerl (or anyone else), but he uses the extra time to excellent effect, revealing every luminous detail of Martinů’s orchestration and building the music to a shattering climax, with Beethoven’s Fifth balefully intoned by the horns. Klein’s Partita has much in common with Bartók’s Divertimento, with its folk-inflected thematic material. Its central movement is a very attractive set of variations on a Moravian theme, and it’s clear from this performance that the Philadelphia tradition of great string playing is very much alive and well. Eschenbach leads a performance both warm and incisive, revealing a major work in the process.

The Philadelphia Orchestra already has at least two recordings of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra to its credit, both with Eugene Ormandy--a fine early stereo version on Sony, and a mediocre early digital remake on RCA. This newcomer clearly is finer than either of those, as exciting a rendition as any available. Eschenbach thankfully eschews the excessive slowness that has marred his recent Mahler performances and lets the various sections of the orchestra display their considerable prowess in what remains one of the repertoire’s great showpieces. Listen to the rush of excitement in the transition to the first-movement allegro, or to the beautiful balance between woodwinds and harps in the second subject; notice the brilliant brass fugato that initiates the recapitulation, and the driving coda. It’s the real deal, from the very first note.

The sonics are markedly superior to what Sony, RCA, and EMI used to get in any of the various venues that they used, at least in stereo. The microphones are close to the players, the better to reduce the occasional noise from the audience (the occasional light cough isn’t at all bothersome), but the orchestra can take the exposure, and the sonic impact is pretty thrilling. I’m pleased (and honestly relieved) to be able to recommend it to you in the strongest possible terms.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

This BR-KLASSIK CD features recordings of concerts on February 28 and March 1, 2013 in the Philharmonie im Gasteig.

Zubin Mehta is closely associated with the city of Munich and the orchestras based there. From 1998 to 2006, he was General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and has similarly close ties with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Symphony No. 5 in E minor, op. 64, the so-called "Fate Symphony,” in 1888. All four movements of the work are permeated by the so-called “fate” theme. Together with his fourth and sixth (“Pathétique”) symphonies, the fifth is one of Tchaikovsky's most popular.

Franz Liszt's symphonic poem "Mazeppa" is based on a poem by Victor Hugo and uses musical material from the composer’s fourth "Etude d'exécution transcendante" from 1846. The symphonic poem was composed in 1850 during Liszt's tenure as court conductor in Weimar, and was first performed on April 16, 1854. Liszt's symphonic poem describes the wild ride across the steppe of the emaciated and exhausted Ivan Masepa (Mazeppa), tied to the back of a horse. He is finally rescued by Cossacks, who take him to Ukraine.

Cantata Collective, an ensemble “of San Francisco early music luminaries” (San Francisco Chronicle) inaugurates a major series of J. S. Bach’s choral works with a live recording of the composer’s St. John Passion. With celebrated conductor Nicholas McGegan, the toast of today’s new generation of vocal soloists and a three-to-a-part chamber choir, the Cantata Collective conveys the emotional intimacy and dramatic power of this monumental passion in a highly polished performance that led Early Music America to implore: “To the excellent musicians of Cantata Collective: More Bach Please!”

"Increasingly, Shostakovich's music is captivating people all over the world and appealing to their deepest emotions. Almost like no other, it bears witness to a traumatic political epoch while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. For me personally," said conductor Mariss Jansons, who died two years ago, "Shostakovich is one of the most serious and sincere composers of them all." Now BR-KLASSIK is releasing two more outstanding performances by this important Soviet-Russian composer: his impressive Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, and his Ninth Symphony - performed live by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under its long-time principal conductor Mariss Jansons.

Shostakovich's (first) piano concerto features impressive pianistic virtuosity, bold experimentation, satire, and caricatures of different musical styles. The composer wrote it in the summer of 1933, only a few weeks after the completion of his opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk". This concerto in particular demonstrates the immense versatility and magnificent talent of the still carefree 26-year-old Shostakovich. He blends a wealth of musical thoughts and ideas into a colorful and fascinating kaleidoscope. Despite the wealth of different stimuli, the concerto does not seem chaotic or overloaded: the young composer effortlessly maintains the balance. Shostakovich performed a similar balancing act between creative work and conformity to the state in his Ninth Symphony, which premiered on November 3, 1945. Instead of the expected heroic, regime-conformist orchestral thunder along the lines of his Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad”, the music heard here was playful, without pathos, somewhat witty, full of allusions – yet something did not seem quite right. This musical conundrum, full of ironic refractions and caricatures of melodramatic and triumphant music, was recognized by the censors as a masquerade, yet one that was not easily decipherable.

REVIEW:

I don’t think of any first-rate recording as needless, and this release, despite its short timing, features two excellent performances, even though Yefim Bronfman already has a recording of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on Sony. That version, from 1999 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Phil, is nimble and quick, and it finds Bronfman more scintillating than he is in Munich in 2012.

The new Symphony No. 9, BRSO version is a live account from Vienna’s Musikverein in 2011, and in every way it is splendid. Superb recorded sound captures every detail and instrumental color in the score, and the orchestra shows off its world-class status. Jansons’s touch is light and lively, giving the symphony an irresistible buoyancy.

Thanks to some highly individual solo playing from the BRSO’s first desks, which expressively ranges from soulful melancholy to dizzying brilliance, this concert performance displays great emotional variety, including wit and suspense. I can warmly recommend it as one of Jansons’s best efforts in Shostakovich, and you can bypass the stingy timing of the CD by resorting to digital downloads and streams.

This CD is extracted from BR Klassik’s 68-disc Jansons Edition. Final applause is briefly included.

-- Fanfare

Christoph Croisé channels his prowess as a cellist – “he’s got it all – technical chops, impeccable musicianship and imaginative daring” (Gramophone) – into compositional ingenuity on the first album devoted entirely to his own works. Christoph draws inspiration from a variety of musical role models, including contemporary and centuries past, paying homage to the time-honoured evolution of classical music that has melded current conventions with popular styles. Traditional forms, such as sonata and concerto, are imbued with jazz, blues, bossa nova and improv to create, as Christoph puts it, “a musical and cultural melting pot.”

Christoph’s compositional urge was spurred by the pandemic and lockdown. The four works on Voyage Exotique were written between 2020 and 2022. He also cites current world events as a motivating influence. His first cello concerto, imbued with high-wire virtuosity that makes full use of the cello’s – and Christoph’s – capabilities, opens a programme that also includes an imaginary intergalactic journey in the form of a clarinet trio, and a sonata for cello and piano that is by turns pensive, agitated and longing, yet ultimately hopeful. The title track, a “Grand duo” for two cellos is, in the truest sense of the word, an “exotic journey” through foreign sound cultures and myriad cello effects.

REVIEW:

It is a bit difficult to categorize this release by cellist Christoph Croisé. The music borrows heavily from popular traditions, bossa nova and other tropical sounds, lots of jazz, and, in the finale of the grim, Ukraine-inspired Cello Sonata No. 1, Op. 9, Eastern European folk rhythms. Several pieces, most of all the Cello Concerto No. 1, are quite virtuosic, and this fits with the general concept; Croisé is adept at writing lines that show off his abilities on the cello, but he is also an alert chamber player who interacts well with the other musicians in the chamber pieces. A genuinely fresh album.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)