Rossini’s Neapolitan theatrical debut in 1815 won him overnight esteem as well as the favor of the Bourbon dynasty, ensuring lucrative contracts and commissions. The following year he composed Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo, an allegorical cantata on the theme of the wedding between the sea goddess Thetis and the hero Peleus. Written to celebrate a royal marriage, it is an intensely theatrical work in which Rossini drew on some of the greatest contemporary singers, specialists in the ornamented bel canto style, and created a staged spectacular with chorus and a wealth of colorful orchestration.

This album is the second release in the Naxos Czech Music Masters from Vienna series, and features the world premiere recording of Kozeluch’s magnificent coronation cantata. The coronation of Leopold II in Prague in 1791 came at a difficult time for European monarchs, although Leopold himself enjoyed a reputation as an enlightened ruler. Two musical works were commissioned for the occasion: Mozart’s opera ‘La clemenza di Tito’ and Kozeluch’s cantata ‘Heil dem Monarchen.’ The cantata, by turns celebratory, serene and darkly dramatic, was well-received and enhanced Kozeluch’s reputation in royal circles. It almost certainly played a part in his appointment in 1792 to the court of Leopold’s son and successor, the last Holy Roman Emperor Franz II.

“Occurrence is the third, and at least for now the last, in a hugely illuminating series devoted to works by contemporary Icelandic composers, as performed by Iceland’s 70-year-old national orchestra. Speaking for myself – and surely for many others, as well – the series has been a milestone project, one that any conscientious collector of symphonic music simply must have on the shelf. Across three albums now, Sono Luminus has capitalized shrewdly on swelling global interest in the music of Daniel Bjarnason and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, using their works as a means by which to introduce seven more composers with original, substantial voices. Three of the composers represented on Occurrence return from previous installments in the series. In addition to Bjarnson – who also has served as an insightful, sympathetic conductor throughout – we hear new works from Þuri´ður Jonsdottir, whose Flow and Fusion opened the initial disc, Recurrence, and from Haukur Tomasson, whose Piano Concerto No. 2 was a highlight of the second release in the series, Concurrence. These repeat engagements prove serendipitous, showing off fresh facets of these newly familiar creators. One, Bjarnason’s own Violin Concerto, scarcely requires introduction, having proved its merits and attractions already on concert platforms around the globe since its 2017 world premiere at the Hollywood Bowl. Pekka Kuusisto, the violinist for whom the piece was written, demonstrates his consummate skill as a technician, a melodist, a collaborator and – not least – a whistler, and the orchestral accompaniment, no surprise, is vivid and alert.

REVIEW:

‘Recurrence’, ‘Concurrence’, and now ‘Occurrence’. The Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s three-disc survey of new orchestral music from its homeland has reached its end point and it’s easy to conclude that no country on earth has reinvented the language of the symphony orchestra on such distinctive and locally relevant terms as this one. So much so that a Canadian such as Veronique Vaka can fall for Iceland and cook up a piece like Lendh, an extraordinary canvas with an umbilical connection to the landscape of the place. Lendh is a marvel.

Haukur Tómasson’s In Seventh Heaven is full of ear-catching orchestration, as raw and unconventional as Jón Leifs’s, ulterior harmonies tugging while colours shift as rapidly as the Icelandic weather above. The orchestra’s handling of the exposed passages for high strings and characterised woodwind-writing demonstrate technically how far it has come in the past decade alone.

Þuríður Jónsdóttir's Flute Concerto, "Flutter", features sampled insect noises and other electronics, including a promotion of the ubiquitous Nordic pedal note to a general hum. Structurally it feels like a road movie – a journey through textural landscapes more than anything developmental.

Conductor Daníel Bjarnason own Violin Concerto has dedicatee Pekka Kuusisto’s puckish spirit all over it, from the infectious soloist whistling (used to moving effect when it returns late on as the violin’s sole accompanist) to the grunge-improvisatory elements and clear-cut, eyemoistening tune.

As an appendix we hear from a dead composer, Iceland’s great 12-tone pioneer Magnús Blöndal Jóhannsson (1938-2005). His Adagio for strings and percussion of 1980 marked a shift in style following the death of his wife and a battle with the bottle. This is a bleak, translucent elegy that places unison sheets of wannabe-lyrical string melody over held pedal notes and drones, ending with a sudden rush of air as the last pedal falls away. A quizzical gesture to wrap up an outstanding and historic series, one that affects the mind as much as the ears. 

– Gramophone

Maltese composer Karl Fiorini is a European without frontiers – the compositions in this album reflect his early detachment from a Mediterranean identity towards a more varied and intense sound world. Trio Lamina features elements of Bartók’s ‘night music’ in its complex sub-sections, whereas Fiorini’s two piano studies, which predate his move to Paris, already exude a Gallic ambience. Influenced by North African folk music, the Piano Trio expands his global reach, and the Piano Sonata, a gritty virtuoso concert piece, shifts geographical influence towards Eastern Europe to powerful effect. All of these world première recordings were recorded in the presence of the composer.

REVIEWS:

This program is a shining example of a 21st-century composer who has stepped back from the extremist styles of the mid-late 20th century to re-embrace communication with an audience, but has taken elements from those styles into his own armory.

Karl Fiorini (b. 1979) references Minimalism alongside Lisztian bravura in the first of his Piano Études (2007–08), Middle Eastern syncopation in his 2017 Piano Sonata, and Neoclassical momentum plus Webernian fragmentation in the Trio Lamina (2002).

He draws on the characteristics of recent schools without adhering to their strict rules or specific aims. He knows his instruments, and his chamber music on this showing is bracingly virtuosic. Like other contemporary composers such as Francisco Coll, he has created a strong voice by synthesizing disparate elements so they emerge as subtle flavors, to use a cooking metaphor. (Much 21st-century music resembles modern fusion cuisine.)

The latest work on this program is a quartet, In the Midst of Things (2019), utilizing the same instrumental combination as Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. I think Fiorini deliberately echoes that seminal work in the first movement, which begins with a languorous cello melody accompanied by full, stately chords from the piano, but he soon turns away from it. By the time we reach the closing Presto movement we are in a bustling world of earthy joie de vivre of a type Messiaen never attempted. Again, Eastern rhythms feature.

I greatly enjoyed these examples of Fiorini’s work. He may be an instinctive composer as he claims, but his instinct is clearly based in a solid grounding of acquired knowledge and continual exploration. The sound and performances are excellent. For those interested in new music, this disc is an exciting and not overly demanding example.

-- Fanfare

The early Trio Lamina (2002) for violin, clarinet, and piano sports an arch form and a spooky atmosphere reminiscent of Bartok. The Two Piano Etudes (2008) have a Gallic neo-Impressionism; and the Piano Trio (2005) has echoes of North African folk music in the use of hexachords and modes in retrograde and inversion. The Piano Sonata (2017) is a dense and demanding concert piece inspired by the music of Eastern Europe.

In the Midst of Things (2019) is a four-movement work for clarinet and piano trio that takes a Beethoven-like approach to structure, balancing intricate theory with carefully timed emotion. The performers bring out the best in the scores, rendering them all with marvelous skill, vigor, transparency, and commitment[.]

-- American Record Guide

Also available in Blu-ray!

The award-winning Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has become one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras on period instruments. These concerts reveal some of the foundations of Beethoven’s genius, and capture vital performances from the 2020 SWR Schwetzingen Festival, the biggest radio festival for classical music in the world. Robert Schumann pointed out similarities between Méhul’s First Symphony and Beethoven’s Fifth, and these third and fourth concerts in the cycle also include a tempest by Holzbauer that precedes Beethoven’s by half a century, plus the little-known Le portrait musical de la nature by Justin Heinrich Knecht, a work that also anticipates Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony. The first and second concerts are also available on Naxos.

Also available in DVD!

Rameau’s first opera Hippolyte et Aricie delivered a lyrical tragedy of such extraordinary intensity it changed the course of French music, stunning and overwhelming its audiences. This breathtaking spectacle involves prince Hippolyte, who asks his mother-in-law Queen Phédre for help in wooing the beautiful Aricie, little knowing that Phèdre secretly wants Hippolyte for herself. In a single work Rameau re-invented tragédie en musique with dramatic expressiveness and shocking harmonic innovations. It is seen here in an acclaimed Opéra Comique production that personifies Rameau’s assertion that ‘music must speak to the soul, its true aim must be to express thoughts, feelings, and passions’.

Also available in DVD!

The award-winning Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin has become one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras on period instruments. These concerts reveal some of the foundations of Beethoven’s genius, and capture vital performances from the 2020 SWR Schwetzingen Festival, the biggest radio festival for classical music in the world. These first two concerts of four see Beethoven’s revolutionary development through his first three symphonies set against C.P.E. Bach’s novel orchestration, Mozart’s pre-echo of a theme from the ‘Eroica’ Symphony, and Paul Wranitzky’s richly narrative Grande Sinfonie caractéristique, a work banned by the Viennese authorities of the day. The third and fourth concerts are also available on Naxos.

For those who are new to an instrument, the first question is often: where to start? The ‘Best Loved’ series offers an easy answer to that question and a perfect introduction to the wonderful, varied world of classical music. Spotlighting individual instruments in some of the best-loved pieces ever written, and with a mix of solo, chamber and orchestral works, the series provides a convenient introduction to classical music’s infinite variety of instrumental sounds and styles. The focus in these releases is a light and relaxed approach, rather than academic and theoretical: a joyful exploration and celebration of individual instrumental sounds. The present release is a showcase of the horn.

Alexander Rahbari’s My Mother Persia is a cycle of symphonic poems suffused with the rich melodies, rhythms and improvisations of Persian traditional music in which he is profoundly versed both as composer and conductor. Originally written as a violin concerto, Symphonic Poem No. 9 ‘Nohe Khan’ – the name relates to a singer at religious ceremonies – was recast for baritone saxophone in 2018. Symphonic Poem No. 10 ‘Morshed’ vividly explores ritualized song in the context of ‘ancient sport’. Volume 1 is on 8.574064 and Volume 2 on 8.574065. Alexander Rahbari is a remarkable figure in the music world, taking a leading position in the cultural development of his country from a young age, winning numerous awards as a conductor and becoming closely associated with the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra as assistant to Herbert von Karajan. Rahbari has conducted numerous successful Naxos recordings, but this is the world premiere release of his cycle of symphonic poems My Mother Persia.