Note: This set is a collection of previously released recordings.

It was apparently Rimsky-Korsakov, himself a member of the “Mighty Handful” of Russian nationalist composers, who encouraged his students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory to go out and collect Jewish folk music and music sung in the synagogues, getting thus the ball rolling for a specific Jewish classical music. The movement led in 1908 to the founding of the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music and, in 1923, of the Society for Jewish Music in Moscow. The success of the latter and its members was however, short-lived. The antisemitic, anti-cosmopolitan forces that started to brew under the new soviet regime led many potential members of the society to emigrate. The ones that remained were forced to focus on proletarian themes and, even when complying to the requirements, still found themselves often repressed or incarcerated outright.

The last notable concert with the society’s music in the Soviet Union took place in Moscow, in April of 1929. Most of this music had then lain dormant for decades until the pianist Jascha Nemtsov (himself the son of a Gulag survivor) and his musical collaborators unearthed it in the last few years of the 20th century. The present collection contains on five discs the recordings – many of them world premieres – realized between 1999 and 2004.

REVIEWS:

One of the real strengths of this program is the number of pieces that received their world premiere recordings here and it’s probably the case that many of them can still only be heard in these performances. I make it around 42 pieces in total – which includes the individual movements of suites and cycles – made their disc premieres here, a tribute to the industry, application and ardent appreciation shown principally by Nemtsov.

Fortunately, these discs make an appeal on recital-by-recital basis. Yes, there are generic settings and yes, nothing is developed extensively so that the pleasures here are of a localised, focused and specialised nature. Nemtsov may be disheartened by the relative obscurity of much of this music still, feeling it, perhaps, funnelled to the outlying ethnic borderland where folk, cabaret and lighter classical meet and mingle. He, however, in particular, and his disc confreres, have made a real contribution to the vivacious and continuing life of this music on disc and are deserving of high praise.

-- MusicWeb International

This is a fascinating five-disc collection that shines light on a short-lived movement in early 20th-century Russia to bring about a Jewish classical music idiom. Fine performances, too, from the likes of Tabea Zimmermann, Jascha Nemtsov, and Wolfgang Meyer.

-- BBC Music Magazine

SWR’s imaginative five-disc chamber collection From Jewish Life (recorded 1999-2004) should be of interest to listeners whether or not you’re religious or indeed of the Jewish faith. The excellent line-up of performers consists of Jascha Nemtsov (piano), Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet), Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Ingolf Turban (violin), David Geringas (cello) and Helene Schneiderman (mezzo-soprano). The chosen repertoire includes Bloch’s masterly Suite for viola and piano, Joseph Achron’s Stempenyu and other works, music by Julian and Alexander Krein, Alexander Weprik, Joachim Stutschewsky and Solomon Rosowsky and much more. This is, musically speaking, a most nourishing collection, and the digital sound is excellent. 

-- Gramophone

Earthdrawn Skies explores deep connections between humankind and the natural world through the distinct lenses of four composers forging personal relationships with the soil and the stars. These works by Hildegard von Bingen, Eleanor Alberga, Komitas Vardepet and Jean Sibelius are rooted in a sense of tradition and connection to the land, even as the composers seek something beyond their reach: an understanding of God, the physics of the cosmos, homeland, happiness. The music on this album draws from the earth as it reaches upward and outward. these composers share an impulse to understand the sky, the heavens, the larger things in life. This is music we have kept returning to as a quartet, as it speaks to us in deeply personal ways. We cherish playing this music together, and we hope it resonates as much with you as it does with us.

Justin Holland was an important African American figure in the national US anti-slavery movement as well as being a significant figure in guitar composition and methodology. As a composer he synthesized European models and embraced popular, church and parlor songs generating a rich variety of works. A master of virtuosic variations, his arrangements are witty, elegant, and colorful, culminating in Carnival of Venice, which shows the full range of his gifts, sweeping in breadth and dazzling in effect.

REVIEW:

Collectors of a certain age may remember this attractive pairing of Mozart’s 17th and 27th piano concertos through its original LP release on Vox’s subsidiary label Candide. It also turned up on CD as part of Vox’s long gone budget Prima series. Newly remastered for Vox’s new Audiophile Series, this 1978 Elite Recordings production supervised by Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz retains its vivid impact and vibrant detail.

Notice the orchestral ritornellos’ ebb and flow under Stanisław Skrowaczewski’s leadership, and how the forward woodwinds and singing strings conversationally interact. Even in loud tuttis one can take dictation from each orchestral strand. Pianist Walter Klien’s Mozart playing is a model of clarity, projection, poise, and proportion, and he never puts an unbalanced or uneven phrase forward. He’s also one of the few pianists on disc who doesn’t approach Mozart’s final concerto with kid gloves, meaning that his slow movement is full-bodied and fluent rather than ethereal and wispy, and that he doesn’t underplay the finale’s scampering thrust. Sometimes Klien’s phrasing falls into square and tinkly assembly line patterns.

You won’t find the witty inflections and dabs of color that you hear from Peter Serkin or Maria-João Pires in K. 453’s wonderful theme and variations finale. Nor does Klien’s clean yet regimented articulation in K. 595’s first-movement development section match Richard Goode’s harmonic subtlety and feeling for chamber-like repartée. Still, these interpretations won’t steer you wrong. And while I have the floor, we need a truly complete boxed set edition of Skrowaczewski’s Vox recordings!

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Richard Danielpour is one of the most decorated, frequently performed and recorded composers of his generation. His commissions include works for some of the most celebrated artists of our day. Each of the Twelve Études is dedicated to a particular pianist with its own substantial technical demands, but all are conceived as concert pieces with a self-contained narrative. The variations in the Piano Fantasy are based on the final chorale of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. All of these world premiere recordings were made in close collaboration between the composer and acclaimed pianist Stefano Greco.

REVIEW:

In the 40-minute cycle, Twelve Etudes for Piano, the composer roams through a wide variety of moods, but also presents challenges to the pianist such as playing with the left hand on the keys and plucking strings inside the piano with the right hand. Stefano Greco masters all of this with aplomb.

In addition to two miniatures, the Piano Fantasy subtitled ‘Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden’ from 2008 is also heard. It is based in continuing variations on the final chorale from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, although the theme does not appear until the end of the work. This piece also shows Greco as an excellent performer.

-- Pizzicato

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678, in a period during which the cello was acquiring popularity in the world of concerts and an important role in musical entertainment. The Red Priest ennobled the soul of the cello. It gave him the inspiration for no less than twenty-seven concertos for solo cello, a concerto for cello and bassoon (rv 409 in E minor), another one for two cellos, string instruments and basso continuo (rv 531 in G minor), a considerable number of works with the indication “violoncello obbligato”, and nine sonatas for cello and basso continuo (in addition to the beginning of a tenth sonata which has been lost). For these works, musicological research has often placed the name of Vivaldi side by side with that of Antonio Vandini, whose six sonatas for cello and basso continuo have been recorded for Tactus by Bologna Baroque in 2018 (TC 692202). For the recording, we used two cellos of the Fondazione Orpheon that belong to Maestro Jose Vasquez: a cello of the Montagnana School (circa 1750) for the solo part and a Simone Cimapane from 1692 (that according to some written evidence had belonged to Arcangelo Corelli’s orchestra) for the basso continuo part.

After Máximo Diego Pujol (born 1957) discovered a guitar in a closet at his parents’ home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the eight-year-old Máximo took his first lessons from Don Gaspar Navarro, neighbor, and friend, as well as a fine tango and milonga player who taught all the children in the neighborhood. Later he studied with various authorities of the guitar including Alfredo Vicente Gascón, Abel Carlevaro and Leo Brouwer, graduating from the Juan José Castro Conservatory with the Superior Professor of Guitar diploma. In a place where tango was constantly floating in the air, he honed his skills as a performer by playing at Buenos Aires night clubs, both as a soloist and as an accompanist. He also played in a number of duos, trios, and quartets, immersing himself fully in every aspect of tango music. Since his earliest days as a professional musician and composer, Pujol has strived for a fusion of traditional Argentine tango and formal academic concepts. This musical quest stems from a thorough study of the works of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Leo Brouwer, who revolutionized guitar music by incorporating the instrument and its particular musical vocabulary in their own works. Máximo Diego Pujol’s music is the guitar testimony of such a complex country as Argentina, but it is also, and above all, the expression of a universal lyricism, feeding on eternal feelings like melancholy, nostalgia, sensuality, passion, anger, and love. This new recording contains the Variaciones sobre un tema de Atahualpa Yupanqui, Elegia por la muerte de un tanguero, Sonatina, and Suite del Plata, no. 1.

When Franz Liszt took over the court orchestra in Weimar in 1848, people there lived on the memory of Goethe, who had previously directed the court theatre. Liszt is the direct heir to this renowned stage - but as a musician. With his Faust Symphony, which was premiered on the same day as the dedication of the Goethe and Schiller monument in front of the theatre, psychology makes its way into music; Liszt's ambition was the renewal of music through its more intimate connection with poetry"". The Faust Symphony demonstrates the power of sound, of tone painting, to evoke a fantastic, epic and psychological world. Each movement corresponds to a character whose character and psychology it depicts. This is programme music, but it does not tell a story and is certainly not descriptive music. Liszt describes the profound nature of the characters musically, offering a subtle and analytical interpretation of the story of Faust as told by Goethe. The three character pictures are sonorous psychological tableaux in which Liszt does not simply tell the story of the characters or describe their feelings: He evokes their psyches. Kirill Karabits leads the Staatskapelle Weimar in this repertoire that so defines them."

Julian Brink is a South African composer. Born in Johannesburg in 1989, he first picked up his mother’s guitar at the age of ten and grew up playing in rock bands. He discovered a love of contemporary classical music through the films of Paolo Sorrentino and Paul Thomas Anderson. Hearing Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will be Blood, in particular, was what led him to pursue composition. Although he didn’t learn to read music until he was 19, while studying guitar at undergraduate level, he went on to complete a master's degree in film scoring through Berklee College of Music and relocated to California in 2015. Brink works in film music and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Maddie Hasson.

In collaboration with eminent classical label Sono Luminus, Utility Music is Brink's first standalone release. Originally composed in 2019 as a score for an abandoned film project, the music was arranged for piano, harp and string trio. It was later repurposed, reorchestrated and combined with a few older pieces into what is its current form. The album features performances by several distinguished musicians, with the heart of the music being the string trio of Moldovan violin virtuoso Dan-Iulian Drutac; Nick Revel, violist of the Grammy Nominated PUBLIQuartet; and Joe Zeitlin who was the lead cellist on Mica Levi’s Oscar-nominated score for Pablo Lorraín’s Jackie.

TRACKS:

• Colombo / Green Fingers
• Miniatures
• Simple Trio No. 1
• Eventually Lapse
• Albatross
• At Night
• Eastwood No. 4
• Simple Trio No. 2
• Aura for M
• Baptism in the Field
• Pattern Shells

REVIEW:

For his first standalone release, Julian Brink has repurposed and re-orchestrated an incomplete score for an unfinished film. The 11 short, delectable tracks ‘toss boundaries’, as the trombonist provocateur Juliane Gralle observes. Taken together, it feels like there might still be a movie in there, somewhere.

‘Miniatures’ has the feel of a haunted, southern Viennese waltz surrounded in fog, its central beauty emerging serenely through the mist accompanied by drops of ringing pizzicatos. ‘At Night’ features cellist Joe Zeitlin creating other-worldly shadings of tone and colour then lifting them gently from the musical score. The two ‘Simple Trio’ tracks, which offer a vade mecum of ‘uncomplicated transitions between notes to make the samples sound more realistic’, feature the trio of Zeitlin, violinist Dan-Iulian Druțac and viola player Nick Revel of PUBLIQuartet, which Brink describes as ‘the heart of the album. I try to forget that they haven’t all met each other and aren’t playing together in the same room.’

‘Albatross’ channels John Cage and Morton Feldman with mesmerisingly deceptive, irregular beats, wonderfully quiet. The last track, ‘Pattern Shells’, influenced by Villa-Lobos, is a spontaneous splurge of brass and tropical birds.

-- Gramophone

Sony Classical is pleased to announce a new batch of reissues from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor/BMG back catalogues. This latest instalment of the popular series showcases Mozart and Chopin along with conductor Robert Craft’s pioneering Webern recordings and the global journeys of that irrepressible musical explorer Yo-Yo Ma.

Sir Colin Davis was indisputably one of the greatest Mozart conductors of the last century, both in the opera house and in the recording studio. In Munich in the early 1990s, near the end of his tenure as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, he recorded several of the popular serenades and wind concertos (“Davis is completely at home in this music and brings to it grandeur and delicacy in good measure and judicious balance” – Gramophone). And in 1998, as the Dresden Staatskapelle’s first-ever conductor laureate, he recorded twelve opera overtures (“Beautifully turned string playing, wonderful contributions from the wind section, and transparent textures: it all represents splendid ‘big band’ Mozart in the modern tradition” – Classics Today). These superb RCA recordings are now reissued in a 4-album box set.

REVIEW:

Colin Davis’s RCA Mozart CDs from the 1990s, mostly with the Bavarian RSO, tend towards more relaxed tempos than on his earlier analog recordings, a live coupling of the Posthorn Serenade and the Bassoon Concerto recorded at the Mozartfest in Würzburg in June 1992 claiming among its many virtues textural opulence (Eberhard Marschall’s bassoon is among the richest in tone that I’ve ever heard) and, as Christopher Headington noted in these pages (9/94), an unhurried finale ‘despite the Presto marking that tempts less experienced conductors’. You might additionally note Davis’s Toscanini-like vocalizing at the start of the Andantino, a romantic reading that works wonderfully well. Also included are similarly affecting accounts of Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Wind Serenades Nos 10-12, the Clarinet Concerto (with a mellifluoussounding Karl-Heinz Steffens), and the one CD featuring the Dresden Staatskapelle, an hour’s worth of overtures. I’d never clocked on previous occasions the strong similarity between the very brief Bastien und Bastienne Overture and the opening of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. As Mozart orchestral compilations go, this is among the best, one that you should return to with constantly renewed pleasure. The recordings are full-bodied.

--Gramophone

This album is the culmination of an extraordinarily fruitful artistic collaboration that took place at the 2022 Boulder Bach Festival in Boulder, Colorado. The recordings were made immediately after the public concerts concluded. They document four of the many memorable musical interpretations at the Festival, which occurred not just because of the many talented artists, but also thanks to the kindness and generosity of countless members of the community and region. Although many musicians converged on Boulder from all over the globe, the Festival also featured several remarkable local artists. The entire project took place against the backdrop of some of the most majestic natural scenery in the world.

REVIEW:

Under artistic director Mina Gajić, and music director Zachary Carrettin, the Boulder Bach Festival of Colorado has progressed steadily in its artistic aims as well as providing an attractive setting for music lovers. The present recordings, made immediately after the public performances in the 2022 Festival, bear witness to this, in sparkling accounts of two concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach and two choral settings by Johann Christian Bach, an earlier sprig on a very prolific family tree.

-- Audio Video Club of Atalnta (Phil Muse)

A Saami Requiem is an extraordinary meeting-place of musical cultures – western classical, Saami yoik, folk-dance, electric rock, blues, improv and more. It takes the form of a journey to Saajva, the Kingdom of Death in Saami religious practice. In this death Mass the Swedish organist Gunnar Idenstam and Saami artist Ola Stinnerbom provide a parallel to the Christian Requiem, with Ola Stinnerbom as noite, the shaman who acts as guide to the Kingdom of Death – and back to this life, celebrated in the uplifting closing hymn. Some of the percussion sounds are sampled from traditional Saami drums made by Ola Stinnerbom after ancient models; the electric guitars provide a link to rock groups like Deep Purple, and Gunnar Idenstam’s unmistakable style marries the French organ tradition with the captivating world of Swedish folk-music.

REVIEWS:

Is it recommended? It is, and not least on account of its amalgamation of traditional with composed music such as leaves a tangible emotional resonance. Idenstam and Stinnerbom’s succinct annotations cover the background to this project and take the listener deftly yet surely through its various stages.

-- Arcana.FM

Note: this double-disc release contains both a CD and a Blu-ray Audio disc. The latter will only play on devices with Blu-ray read capability.

Hugi Guðmundsson writes: “The title piece, Equilibrium IV: Windbells, was the seed this whole album grew from. It was premièred under rather unusual circumstances at the 2005 World Expo in Japan in a venue that more closely resembled a stadium than a concert stage for classical music. I was an integral part of the performance due to the interactive electronics in the piece. We had practiced that I would maintain eye contact with the musicians during performances, just a few meters from the stage. However, the mixer I was operating at the concert was housed in something that resembled an air traffic control tower some 100 meters away from the stage. Or at least it felt that way. From my perspective, the musicians were like tiny ants in one corner of the enormous stage and they could not see me at all. Despite these outlandish circumstances, we somehow managed to perform the piece.

"It has since become one of my most performed chamber pieces and has received several awards and recognitions. It has never been recorded in a studio up until now. So, after a recent performance with Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, where it received very warm reviews, we decided it was time to do something about it. That snowballed into what is now this album…”

REVIEWS:

Icelandic composer Hugi Guðmundsson has crafted an idiom combining neo-tonality and modernist inflections, with deliberate rhythms often based on slowly evolving ostinatos. Aspects of rhythmic construction loom large here on this portrait CD for Sono Luminus, as well as Guðmundsson’s incorporation of electronics into chamber works. Guðmundsson’s inclusion on the label is most welcome. He has a distinctive creative voice, and Windbells is a thoroughly persuasive recording.

-- Sequenza21.com

Performances throughout are distinct and characterful, but the bold musicianship of flautist Áshildur Haraldsdóttir deserves special mention; her playing is assertive and daring in its breathy ferocity, while equally capable of singing with the sweetest clarity.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Matei Varga writes: “To paraphrase Tolstoy, all happy memories feel more or less the same; but the unhappy times are experienced differently by each one of us. We’ve all had some really tough weeks, which sometimes turned into months, and (with a bit of bad luck) into years… I like to think that “off” years help us grow and prepare for the beautiful things that will undoubtedly come our way (I am an optimist at heart), but living through dark times is a complicated process.

The year 2020 was complicated indeed. The world was put on hold and we hardly remember what we did in February, or May, or September… Many suffered from isolation and the inability to socialize - and they probably prefer to think back to 2020 as a year that never happened… I, on the other hand, felt liberated by the lack of schedules, appointments and the pressure to be productive - that horrid word which is killing our souls, slowly but surely. Instead I embraced seclusion and enjoyed the time off which was forced upon us. Yes, I did miss performing in front of a live audience and traveling to beautiful places, but I found that staying home, with my piano, offered me a better view towards my inner self and a chance to experience the joy of a new discovery. That was for me the Cuban master Ernesto Lecuona…Two years later, the pandemic isn’t over and neither is the collective anxiety- but at least I can offer you this very personal recording, which I hope will take your mind away from current realities. This is music’s most phenomenal power- to bring joy when we really need it!...”

REVIEW:

The Year That Never Was in Romanian pianist Matei Varga’s title here is 2020; he writes of how he came to embrace the COVID-era isolation and explored the work of Ernesto Lecuona, a composer about whom he had previously known little. The output of Cuban composer Lecuona is sometimes categorized as salon music, and while it includes a few classical hits like the opening Andalucía (from the Suite española), much of his large production of some 600 works remains little explored. Here, the excerpts from the Danzas cubanas del siglo XIX and Danzas Afro-Cubanas will be worth the price of admission for Lecuona fans. He wants to expand the notion of salon music to include some of its predecessors, not only Chopin but going back as far as Domenico Scarlatti. That pandemic seems to have produced a boomlet in recordings of salon music, which is probably understandable, and Varga’s release is a novel take on the idea.

-- AllMuic.com (James Manheim)

After their first successful duo album Crescent where pianist Atzko Kohashi and bassist Tony Overwater celebrated the John Coltrane album Crescent, they now recorded a new album in celebration of drummers. They selected 8 compositions by drummers and added three songs dedicated to drummers.

Clarinetist Anthony McGill and violinist Rachel Barton Pine are featured soloists on a new recording of two concertos composed in response to societal injustices by Syrian composer Malek Jandali, performed by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and led by Marin Alsop, a champion of the composer’s work.

Malek Jandali, called “deeply enigmatic” by Gramophone, has been praised for writing “heart-rending melodies, lush orchestration, clever transitions and creative textures” (American Record Guide). His repertoire, which ranges from chamber music to large scale orchestral works, integrates Middle-Eastern modes into Western classical forms and harmony. Rachel Barton Pine, “an exciting, boundary-defying performer” (The Washington Post), performs Jandali’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2014), a work that honors “all women who thrive with courage” according to the composer. Jandali’s concerto is in recognition of the women of Syria, continuing his aim to preserve the cultural heritage of his homeland.

The Violin Concerto incorporates Syrian melodies and idioms into Jandali’s Western-inspired harmonies and forms. Jandali calls upon an array of Syrian and Arabic music forms and folk melodies including multiple sama’i and bashraf (instrumental pieces), and longa (dances), from different maqam (modes). He also makes use of the oud (Arabic lute) in his symphonic scoring to infuse the work with the authentic sound and feeling of Syria. A particularly notable sama’i inspired by traditional Syrian folk music from the area along the Silk Road Is used for a “Women’s Theme.” This theme is representative of the folk music that is a source of comfort and healing for unjustly detained, peaceful Syrian activists and other women and mothers living in fear.

Jandali’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (2021) is dedicated to its performer Anthony McGill (“the total package… stylish, passionate and limitlessly fluent on the clarinet,” Bachtrack), “in memory of all victims of injustice.” McGill says of the work, ”In the midst of the pain and the violence and injustice in the world all we are left with is the ability to pour our hearts and our souls into something more beautiful, into something more powerful, so it can communicate throughout all time and live on.” Like all of Jandali’s works, the clarinet concerto is infused with ancient themes from Jandali’s homeland as a means of preservation. Jandali explores variations on themes from old and traditional Syrian musical forms and modalities, with striking musical effects and wide ranging highs and lows in the orchestral writing.

Watch our Live Roundtable with Marin Alsop, Malek Jandali and Anthony McGill!

REVIEW:

The soloists shine, and Alsop and her Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra accompany them faithfully through every mood.

Jandali’s Violin Concerto has a long and thoughtful opening moment, an introspective middle section and a dancelike finale. He uses the Arabic oud in conversation with the violin, as plaintive voices crying out with dignity and restraint. (Kudos to oud soloist Bassam Halaka.) And maybe that buoyant feeling in the finale represents not exuberance but defiance, as a protest against suppression.

The 25-minute clarinet concerto operates mostly on a mysterious plane, one we associate more obviously with Arabic elements. Some of the subtle, sinuous playing and percussive rhythms would not be out of place in a good Hollywood soundtrack – that’s a compliment – as Jandali slowly brings us into his sound world.

-- WDAV (Classical Public Radio, 89.9FM, Lawrence Toppman)

Every sound in Bent Sørensen's music has been considered with the greatest care and refinement. His quietly spoken universe incorporates loneliness, nostalgia and a feeling of loss and leave-taking. His triple concerto, L’Isola della Città (2015), has a purity that makes it one of Sørensen’s most immediate and gripping orchestral works. As he has said, 'this music unfolds at night, as most of my music does, because it was written at night’. The concerto's solo parts are performed by Trio con Brio Copenhagen who has played Sørensen's music extensively. Sørensen’s Second Symphony (2019) is a ‘classic’ symphony. The work dives into the resonance of music’s history: the imagination showers itself in melodies, sounds and structures while at the same time, from a rational perspective, it can be seen both from outside and from a distance.

REVIEWS:

Sørenson is a composer whose pieces strike me as truly dreamlike. There is often a core of something familiar, tonal, pleasing at its heart, but it is also layered over with distortions and inflections that make it less familiar. One might say that it takes something attractive and comfortable and renders it uncanny.

The two works here fall very much into this description. L’Isola della Cittá is a sort of concerto grosso for piano trio and orchestra. It is more intimate, poetic, and the contrasts and juxtapositions are more extreme, even though they are subtly modulated. (The “island” of the title is the composer’s home in Copenhagen; one senses the world constantly encroaching on the precious quiet of the creative space). The symphony, not surprisingly, is more abstract, its rhetoric more forceful. But its meaning remains elusive—as I assume is the composer’s intent. And that’s a positive.

This is music that projects genuine mystery, but it’s a mystery that comes out of the familiar. While Postmodernist, it doesn’t engage the more “classic” Postmodern practice of quotation and pastiche. Everything is a very personal creation of this composer.

I note that Sørenson won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award a few years back (for L’Isola), and now I can see why. Highly recommended.

-- Fanfare

Although Sørenson is often regarded as an introspective writer there is much here that is bold and exciting. This is a welcome release of world premiere recordings of the title track (L’Isola della Citta) and his Second Symphony.

-- Lark Reviews

With this recording of Book VII of Claudio Monteverdi’s madrigals (1619, Venice), Rinaldo Alessandrini and his Concerto Italiano devote themselves to a love theme with a very pastoral edge the composer particularly savored. The Italian harpsichordist and conductor once again offers us a collection of Monteverdi madrigals of the highest quality, in which the poems not only lead the singing, but also determine the arrangement of the madrigals by poet. Inspired by “the hitherto unpublished stamp of a literary intention” indicated by the composer at the start of the collection, Rinaldo Alessandrini and his ensemble, accustomed to enlightening dramatics, offer a sparkling polyphony varying from one to six voices, in a wide range of pitches.

REVIEWS:

Claudio Monteverdi’s Seventh Book of Madrigals have been recorded well by several early music groups, but one expects superior readings from harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini and his vocal-instrumental ensemble Concerto Italiano, and indeed, one gets them here. He presents the madrigals not in the order in which they were published, instead grouping the texted pieces by poet. This points to the stylistic features an audience of Monteverdi’s time would have been interested in, and Alessandrini supports these features with readings that differentiate the pieces sharply from one another. This is an ideal recording of music by the later Monteverdi.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

This is Book 7, but not as you know it. A must-read booklet essay by Alessandrini himself frames the new recording as a philosophical and dramatic undertaking rather than an exercise in completism. This is opera without the stage – a riveting and incredibly stylish account of this vast and varied book of music.

-- Gramophone

This album provides a peek into Paul von Klenau's vast collection of music created during World War II where he produced works, almost obsessively, until his passing in 1946. The album includes world premiere recordings of Klenau's Violin Concerto, Piano Concerto, and Symphony No. 8, showcasing his mastery of both tonal and atonal sonorities, his distinctive introspective style, and his exceptional talent for venturing into uncharted musical realms.