Having demonstrated their musical excellence with three well-received recordings on PENTATONE of orchestral works of Antonin Dvorák, Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada now present an album that comes closer to their cultural roots than ever before. Dance rhythms, jazzy harmonies, bright colors, city sounds; everything one associates with The Americas can be heard on this recording. With George Gershwin’s 1928 piece An American in Paris, Silvestre Revueltas’s Sensemayá (1938), Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961) and Ástor Piazzolla’s Tangazo (1970), it brings together composers from across the twentieth century, all connected by their belonging to the Americas. Moreover, all of these composers reconfigured the barriers between classical and popular music, combining them to produce a sound that illustrates their home region. In choosing these particular works, Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada have aimed not to cover the entire continent but rather to provide ‘impressions’ of America and to ‘illuminate’ as many colors in the music as possible.

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REVIEW:

What a nice disc from Pentatone. All the works here are well played by the Houstonians, under the baton of the orchetra's music director. The recording is a fine one. Microphones are well placed giving an in-the-hall listener perspective. Surrounds are used for ambiance, and they successfully recreate the sound of a live orchestra.

– Audiophile Audition

This timeless collection is pretty much every piece you would expect to be included, and then some; a good variety of music to please every palate. PENTATONE has some of the finest interpreters in it's catalogue to draw from and over 150 surround-sound albums - each and every one a top-quality DSD recording. This compilation will be enjoyed by both the curious beginner and classical aficionado.

Reviews:

The moments of hustle and bustle are wonderfully easy-going, while the Berlin RSO's corporate virtuosity is often breathtaking - I can't remember when I last heard the finale's final couple of minutes, from the outrageous whooping horns to the finish line, rattled through with such apparently nonchalant ease.

– Gramophone

Those who don't know the least often heard of the symphonic poems should be amazed by Marek Janowski's sympathetic, detailed interpretation; but even Straussians don't often get to hear Die Tageszeiten. I fell in love with the work, contrary to all previously held common wisdom on its not being very good, and have played it over and over. This would be worth the cost of the disc alone, but Janowski's Domestica is also up there among the best, as you get to hear more inner detail than on any other recording.

– BBC Music Magazine

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

WAGNER Siegfried • Marek Janowski, cond; Stephen Gould (Siegfried); Christian Elsner (Mime); Tomasz Konieczny (Wanderer); Jochen Schmeckenbecher (Alberich); Matti Salminen (Fafner); Violeta Urmana (Brünnhilde); Anna Larsson (Erda); Sophie Klussman (Woodbird); Berlin RSO • PENTATONE 5186408 (3 SACDs: 227:30) Live: Philharmonie, Berlin 3/1/2013

This set has much to recommend it. In many ways, it is by far the finest installment of the PentaTone series so far, including the non-Ring items, and as such increases the impression that Janowski’s is a Ring that evolves and improves as it goes along (Rheingold got a lukewarm reception from me in Fanfare 37:2; Walküre was better: see Fanfare 37:3). The sound quality is superb in this Siegfried throughout. Perhaps this is shown best at the very beginning, where the timpani roll is just there, but audible. If, as it continues, this opening is not quite as evocative as Furtwänger at La Scala (who is more primordial), it remains an impressive achievement. The evil undercurrent of that roll seems to be mirrored by the descending bassoon figure. Janowski keeps it moving, and his orchestra is astonishingly well disciplined; yet there is space for lyricism, too. Janowski’s achievement is to provide a terrific sense of momentum, while never rushing.

The cast is strong, although inevitably one always finds oneself pining for perfection. (From this stance, it is easy to see Richard Caniell’s point over at Immortal Performances with his “Dream Ring.”) Christian Elsner’s Mime is wonderfully angry, not a caricature at all (Peter Bronder’s Mime, in Barenboim’s Ring at the BBC Proms this year, was lighter, and clipped and wheedling in the more traditional way). The Wotan/Wanderer here is Tomasz Konieczny, as it has been in the previous two installments. Here he seems to come into his own, a completely different take to that of Hotter yet still big enough of voice and interpretatively sound. Ironically, perhaps, for Head God, Konieczny’s Wotan is one of the most human interpretations on the market today. A darker sound would also have emphasized the differences between Wanderer and Alberich in the second act.

But it is the titular hero that carries the work. Gould has a wonderfully lusty voice (a shame he sounds a tad rushed, by Janowski, in the Forging Song). His exchanges with Mime throughout are expertly managed, and the extended Wanderer/Siegfried part of the final act is enlivened by Gould’s splendidly healthy voice, even at this stage.

Each act fits neatly onto a single disc (Janowski is generally not one to linger). Act II begins with a perfect sense of darkness and foreboding, and both Alberich (Jochen Schmeckenbecher) and Wotan are in top form, especially perhaps Schmeckenbecher in his invoking of Fafner. The grumpy (and excellent) Fafner on this occasion is the experienced Matti Salminen. For the final act, perhaps the “Heil dir, Sonne” is only well done by Urmana rather than radiantly done, but the fault really lies with Janowski, who after excelling so much in this reading does not quite step up to the final moments. Ecstasy is not quite achieved. The final act suffers from a loss of momentum around half way through, which contributes to this.

Despite this, this remains a valuable, involving and rewarding Siegfried that demands to be heard.

FANFARE: Colin Clarke

All the elements for a great recording are present here. Each of the three works is a masterpiece by one of the great composers of the 20th century. Each exploits the potential of a virtuoso string orchestra, and each includes brilliant solo- as well as ensemble-writing. Gordan Nikoli?, violin virtuoso and conductor, and the excellent Netherlands Chamber Orchestra are powerful interpreters of these scores, and PentaTone has delivered their performances in rich, resonant, and, where appropriate, biting surround sound. Thanks to the two-channel layer on the disc, those with conventional CD players can also find sound and performances of the highest quality.

All three composers were working under the gathering shadows of the century’s greatest catastrophe. Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), the youngest of this trio, composed his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge in 1937, in time for its performance by the Boyd Neel String Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival. As Austria had not yet fallen to the Nazis, there is no political significance to this; Bela Bartók (1881–1945) composed his Divertimento on commission from the Swiss conductor Paul Sacher in the summer of 1939. This also was free of political inspiration; yet both Britten and Bartók would soon sail to the United States, escaping a Europe suddenly torn by war. By contrast, Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905–1962) had withdrawn from the musical life of Germany after the Nazis took power in 1933. He sent his haunting Concerto funèbre for solo violin and string orchestra (1939) abroad, as a musical protest against the cynical division of Czechoslovakia accomplished in Munich, his hometown, in 1938.

Britten’s masterpiece shows amazing skill and originality in orchestration. His variations encompass several styles and periods of music, but each also is charged with original musical thought and observation—there is no mere imitation here. One becomes aware of a certain debt to Stravinsky, but perhaps most of all to Frank Bridge himself, a complex and gifted composer and teacher. Bartók’s piece is considerably more profound and complex than the name divertimento implies. The outer movements both begin in a folksy, cheerful way, but both contain more serious passages, unexpected dynamic shifts, and moments of considerable profundity. The Adagio begins in a veiled, mysterious fashion, and goes on to be an altogether serious and perhaps tragic statement. One might more properly think of this work as Bartók’s Concerto for String Orchestra. Finally, Hartmann’s work is written in (for him) a rather conservative musical language, while remaining uniquely original in its effect. The composer’s penchant for atonal or trans-tonal composition is present, if at all, in the angry third movement. But even there, firm tonal foundations are almost always evident. The brief introduction, the following Adagio, and the final Chorale/Slow March are deeply sorrowful, but also quite lovely, and the music ends with a full chord in D Major, as if to say that truth and beauty, however derailed in the turmoil of the time, would someday prevail.

Robert McColley, FANFARE

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

"We have here more of the early 1970s quadraphonic recordings made by Philips but which had remained in their tape boxes untouched for 30 years or more because of the realization that none of the quad LP formats of the time was really a viable means of releasing these excellent surround sound recordings to the general public. Since they started in l970 by this time the Philips engineers had perfected their micing to achieve the utmost realism and naturalness in discrete four-channel recording."

--John Sunier, Audiophile Audition

A most impressive sense of drama and excitement.

So to The Ring! Marek Janowski’s epic Wagner cycle enters the final strait as it begins the great tetralogy that crowned Wagner’s life’s work. Few conductors get to record The Ring twice, but Janowski is privileged to have done so. His first recording was from Dresden in the early 1980s, the third out of only five studio Rings to be recorded. It was blessed by the phenomenal playing of the Staatskapelle Dresden and first rate digital sound captured in the city’s Lukaskirche. However, despite some excellent individual turns, the set was often hobbled by the choice of solo singers, most notably Theo Adam’s desiccated Wotan and the rather overwhelmed Brünnhilde of Jeannine Altmeyer. It is interesting that, almost for the first time in Janowski’s Berlin Wagner cycle, we can now make some informed comparisons. I’m pleased to say that this Rheingold shines up very impressively.

I haven’t always praised Janowski’s approach to Wagner’s dramas - I found his take on Tristan maddening - but this Rheingold finds him at his best. He uses his preference for fast speeds to his advantage to make the drama buzz along from one exciting episode to another, pacing the work by tapping right into the sense of quickfire elation. At times it feels as energetic as a soap opera - a compliment - and the opera’s series of conversations has seldom sounded so energised. The Prelude, for example, has a sense of expectation that can hardly wait to get started, but in spite of the fast speed I never found it rushed. The transitions between scenes seem natural and well judged, and the showpieces are never less than excellent. The descent into Nibelheim is thrilling, threatening to overwhelm the listener at the entrance of the anvils, and you can sense the fragility of the rainbow bridge in a sound that is commanding yet ephemeral. Janowski controls the sound of the orchestra impressively, too: I particularly loved the sound made by the strings during Erda’s scene, menacing with a subtle sense of decay, casting a dusky veil over her warnings.

The orchestra and the clarity of its recording have been two of the principal assets of this series, and so it proves here. They take every opportunity to reveal Wagner’s score in all its astounding, delectable colour, as if holding it up to the light for fresh examination. There are lots of highlights - the trumpet at the first appearance of the gold, the clearly delineated semiquavers on the violins as the water ripples around the rejoicing Rhinemaidens, the delicate flecks of harp as we arrive in Valhalla, the rhythmic, almost comical, swagger of the giants’ theme, the ominous brass depth of the dragon, the stunning trombones of the curse - but we can summarise it by saying that the orchestra do a magnificent job of bringing the colours of Wagner’s score to the surface. Likewise, the Pentatone engineers have captured the whole performance brilliantly, both in stereo and surround.

So what of the singing? Well, I admit this doesn’t get off to a good start, probably due to the limitations of the live concert setting. The opening is not auspicious, with a rather hollery group of Rhinemaidens and an Alberich that, initially at least, struggles with accurate pitching. However, things settle down once everyone has warmed up. The Rhinemaidens’ invocation to the gold is very effective, and Schmeckenbecher manages a thrilling renunciation of love. What is more, by this time a momentum seems to have taken over the scene, so that Alberich’s curse on love launches us headlong into the swirling eddies of the transformation music that transport us, via some daring timing from Janowski, up to the cloudy heights of Valhalla, clearly and atmospherically enunciated from the brass. Elsewhere Schmeckenbecher is fantastic in the Nibelheim scene. His fantasies of world domination are played as the furious rantings of a deranged mind and it’s very effective to listen to. However, he then sounds remarkably pitiable when he pleads for Wotan not to take the Ring from him and he sings a masterclass curse that begins as a resentful whimper but grows into a powerful denunciation.

Tomasz Konieczny is a slightly gritty Wotan. He doesn’t have the grandeur or poetic beauty of, say, Hans Hotter or, more recently, René Pape, but he is undoubtedly dramatic. This feels like a lived-in performance, not a “mere” concert. He is brilliant at depicting the god’s conflicted sense of inner dilemma. Even when he is at his most contented, surveying his new home in the final scene, you can sense the unease that plagues the god, and the sense of entrapment that encircles him in the second and fourth scenes is well worth hearing. Christian Elsner makes a slightly nasal Loge, but I found him very effective. The vocal colour reinforces his role as the outsider among the gods and helps to enrich his character as the slightly disreputable fixer among the immortals. He is delightfully derisive during the passages after Freia’s departure when the gods begin to age and his interaction with Alberich in the Nibelheim scene is a case-study of wheeling and dealing. You can even sense a touch of pity for the despairing Alberich in the fourth scene. Elsewhere among the men, Andreas Conrad makes a surprisingly humane, sympathetic Mime, and the same is true for Günther Groissböck’s Fasolt. Timo Riihonen has enough darkness in his voice to mark out Fafner as the nastier of the two brothers.

The women are also very strong, led by a marvellously imperious Fricka from Iris Vermillion. Ricarda Merbeth does a good job with what limited material she has as Freia, but Maria Radner’s Erda is extremely impressive. She actually manages to sound quite youthful, even affectionate, avoiding any of the elderly warble that sometimes afflicts singers of this role. Her warning of the “dark day” that dawns for the gods is made all the more impressive by the spellbinding playing of the orchestral strings. The trio of Rhinemaidens grow into the first scene and sound good from offstage towards the end.

So the final chunk of Janowski’s Wagner cycle has got off to a good start. I would certainly choose to listen to this Rheingold over his Dresden one, mainly because of the conductor’s more impressive sense of drama and excitement. Now let’s see how the rest of this Ring is going to unfold.

-- Simon Thompson , MusicWeb International

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Given his magnificent achievement in the field of art song, and the vast volume and consistently high quality of his Lieder oeuvre, it is not surprising that Schubert’s songs have been recorded numerous times. It is not surprising either that many composers, such as Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Benjamin Britten, Hector Berlioz, Max Reger and Anton Webern made arrangements of Schubert’s songs. What is surprising, however, is the fact that these arrangements - made by some of the greatest composers in musical history - are so seldom heard either in concert or on record.

With the release of this album, hopefully that situation will change. It combines 17 Schubert compositions, of which 13 were orchestrated by late-romantic German composer Reger Max, and four by a member of the Second Viennese School, Anton Webern. When listening to these songs, the listener will discover that these arrangements are made with such craftsmanship that they themselves became unparalleled works of art.The performers on this SACD are the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and German tenor Christian Elsner, conducted by Maestro Marek Janowski. The album’s accompanying booklet contains the lyrics to the songs both in German and English, as well as programme notes and artists’ biographies.

This selection is a Hybrid Multichannel Super Audio CD. The Stereo Hybrid SACD program can be played on any standard compact disc player. The DSD Surround and Stereo programs require an SACD player for playback.

If I were pressed, I would have to say that this series is the most consistent in an advanced-resolution format at providing excellent sound. Listen to the Beethoven piano concertos, for instance. The listener is placed in row ten, center, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra sounds rich, full, and focused. You sense immediately that you truly do have the best seat in the house. The solo piano enters and what a sound. It is like a magnificent, properly tuned piano! The overall sound is just right. And so it goes, with every release in this series. -- Rad Bennett, Radical Sounds

A welcome pairing of the two “second-string” Beethoven piano concertos in superb performances….Brent Town Hall in London was the recording site in 1974, and the phantom center image of the soloist couldn’t be better. -- John Sunier, Audiophile Audition

Mr Kovacevich was a killer interpreter of Beethoven back then, and Davis an ideal accomplice….Played with dispatch and recorded with a full-bodied sound that doesn’t lose its characters in the quietest moments, these are performances that will never grow stale. -- Dr. Phil Muse, Classik Reviews

If you don’t already have this recording in another format, it’s worth acquiring even if you don’t have an SACD player. It’s proof audibly that the best analog (and Philips were very good at it) was better than any digital until the present, and it is ironic that the SACD format shows off how good these masters were in the 70s. -- Andrew Marshall, Audio Ideas Guide

Premier siècle; One Century of Music celebrates the centenary of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. The boxset contains a collection of rare radio recordings that have never been released before, spanning French, German, Russian and twentieth-century repertoire. A unique asset of Premier siècle is the 1943 recording of the musical legend Les Armaillis (1906) by Swiss composer Gustave Doret. The album showcases the rich history and musical development of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and contain performances by all it's musical directors, from founding father Ernest Ansermet until current musical director Jonathan Nott, including all their intermediate colleagues: Paul Kletzki, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Armin Jordan, Fabio Luisi, Pinchas Steinberg, Marek Janowski and Neeme Järvi. The release comes with a voluminous, full-color booklet with texts on the orchestra's history and the repertoire presented in English, French and German as well as unique photos and archival materials.