The fifth Naxos recording of works by Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by JoAnn Falletta, won the Grammy Award in 2018 for Best Classical Compendium. This new album reveals his mastery of the band medium and features the exceptional United States Coast Guard Band, in definitive performances of seven works for symphonic winds by one of America’s leading composers. Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers, and has written music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. This release features the alto saxophone concerto Rush, in its version with wind ensemble, presented by soloist Greg Case, who is co-principal saxophonist of the United States Coast Guard Band and has been a member since 1997.

Hailed as an “epic traversal of solo violin repertoire” and a “monumental achievement” (Chicago Tribune), American violinist Jennifer Koh’s complete Bach & Beyond recordings, pairing J.S. Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas with 20th- and 21st-century works inspired by Bach’s groundbreaking masterpieces, are now available in a convenient, economical boxed set offering all three albums for the price of two. Bach & Beyond Part 1 features Koh’s “alluring performances” (The New York Times) of Bach’s Partitas Nos. 2 and 3, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 2, Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne, and the world-premiere recording of Missy Mazzoli’s Dissolve, O My Heart, commissioned for Koh by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Newark Star-Ledger cited the violinist’s “distinctive voice over a range of styles.” Toronto’s The Whole Note said of Bach & Beyond Part 2, “Koh, as always, is superb, her intelligence and interpretation always matching her outstanding technique” in Bach’s Sonata No. 1 and Partita No. 1, Bela Bartok’s Sonata for Solo Violin Sz. 117, BB 124, and Saariaho’s Frises. Koh’s Bach & Beyond Part 3 earned BBC Music Magazine’s and ClassicsToday.com’s highest ratings for performance and recording quality. The Strad admired Koh’s “eloquent, artful, yet unadorned playing” in Bach’s Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VIII, and the world-premiere recording of John Harbison’s For Violin Alone, written for Koh. AllMusic said, “Koh’s series is highly recommended to those in search of an experience that will reward repeated hearings.” Audiophile Audition called it a “remarkable three-disc effort, recommended to all with a good degree of urgency.”

Excerpts of reviews from previously released volumes included in this set:

Bach & Beyond, Part 1

Koh makes short work of the Bach pieces—not in a bad sense: she just nails these works with a confident technique and a free-flowing, un-mannered style that remains true to Bach yet reminds us that a modern violinist is at the helm. Although ostensibly “modern”, the works by Saariaho and Mazzoli still incorporate time-honored traditions of solo-violin writing and don’t stray into what some might call “experimental” territory. These are both very ingratiating and accessible works to anyone who appreciates interesting, involving, intelligently written new violin music.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

Bach & Beyond, Part 2

Koh’s Bach is amazing as usual–so fluid and delivered with such a sensitively nuanced, confident authority. A personality emerges: is it Koh? is it Bach? It’s either or both, but ultimately, who cares? This is exceptional Bach playing. Throughout, Koh is in command, from the dazzling explications of the Bartók Fuga and Presto movements, to the sometimes frighteningly audacious dynamic and timbral assertions of the Saariaho.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

The c/o chamber orchestra is a collective of thirty young musicians from a dozen different countries. Playing without a conductor, the orchestra is dedicated to that particular collaborative process which is the essence of chamber music. For their first album, the members have chosen to highlight a genre more difficult to pin-point than one might think. Its very name, divertimento, implies that it is simply a diversion, light music for entertainment – but many of the best-known examples of the form transcend that definition. And as many composers have learned, even light-hearted music should be taken seriously: humor requires a master’s touch. The four works recorded here offer different perspectives on the genre, starting with Ibert’s seven-movement suite in which the composer constantly plays with the listener’s expectations. Some forty years before Ibert, his compatriot Émile Bernard composed a very different Divertissement. It is scored for double wind quintet, reminiscent of Mozart’s divertimenti and serenades for winds. But even though the music is melodious and carefree, the debt owed by Bernard to the German romantic composers is never far from the surface. A very special case is Bartók’s Divertimento for strings, composed just before the outbreak of World War II. The closing work on the album reunites the winds and strings of the c/o orchestra in a work written especially for this project by the American composer Michael Ippolito, who in his Divertimento pays full tribute to the contrast-rich nature of the genre.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

What’s not to love? JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic offer another appealing and wholly successful program. Granted, there are wilder version of the Dances of Galánta out there, particularly from the likes of Reiner (Sony-mono) and Ormandy (also Sony), but Falletta’s view of the work is as cogent in its steady build to a brilliant climax as just about any. She’s even more effective in a remarkably well-sustained and unified Peacock Variations, and an irresistibly lively Dances of Marosszék.

Best of all, we get a virtuosic and characterful performance of the relatively rare Concerto for Orchestra instead of the obvious Háry János Suite. That makes this collection unusually generous as well as desirable, especially when the playing of the orchestra clearly rises to the challenges that Kodály presents. The sonics, as usual from this source, as very good indeed. Here are seventy-seven minutes of music that you really can sit down and play straight through. Give it a try and listen for yourself.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Beethoven wrote in his diary that he wanted “to show the British what a treasure they have in God Save the King”, a reference to his set of variations on the national anthem, composed in 1803. Sarah Beth Briggs recorded the virtuoso set precisely one month before the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, and the recording heralds the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023. The lesser-known Variations on an Original Theme in F major (1802) represent Beethoven the revolutionary. Uniquely, each variation was written in a different key which would have jarred the ears of the composer’s contemporaries. Sarah Beth Briggs’ collection of Variations underlines a lineage of the genre through the classical and Romantic eras. Opening the program is 9 Variations on a Minuet by Duport by Mozart, whom Beethoven greatly admired. The work takes a theme by cellist Jean-Pierre Duport, chamber music director of the court of the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm II, from whom the composer hoped to gain favor. Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses was written as a tribute to Beethoven, and was included in an album of works that raised funds for the now famous bronze statue of Beethoven in Bonn. Mendelssohn’s near contemporary Brahms paid tribute to his troubled friend Robert Schumann, using a melody from Bunte Blätter (“Colorful Leaves”) in his poignant Variations on a Theme by Schumann.

REVIEWS:

Briggs’ execution is fluidly graceful and well-modulated. She approaches this repertoire with a studied care that betrays a love for the period and composers.

-- Wild Mercury Rhythm

All nine of Mozart’s Variations on a Theme by Jean-Pierre Duport, K 573 are quite delicate, sounding here almost as if they were played on a toy piano. Only the finale includes authoritative sounds. Beethoven’s 7 Variations on `God Save the King’ is sturdier; I especially enjoy the lively, witty, chordal IV. Also included is Beethoven’s 6 Variations on an Original Theme. In Variations Serieuses, Mendelssohn managed to write 17 imaginative ones. That number only slightly outdoes Brahms, who came up with 16 Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann. Lovely music, elegant playing.

-- American Record Guide

The soulful sounds of the oboe and oboe d’amore infuse the expressive, lyrical new album of solo and chamber works by award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel. The star of the show is Seattle Symphony principal Mary Lynch VanderKolk, whose artistry plays a vital role in Chris’ compositional process. He explains, “I find ways to incorporate her strengths and personality into expressing the music’s emotions.” The Oboe Sonata, dedicated to Mary, is by turns haunting and pastoral, navigating the full three-octave range of the instrument. The Sonata for Oboe d’amore demonstrates the large timbral and emotional range of the oboe’s lower-pitched cousin, from darkness to light.

Undaunted by the historic canon of iconic solo instrumental works already in existence, Chris – an oboist himself – created a tour de force with his Suite for Unaccompanied Oboe, a work Mary describes as “more cinematic” than his other concert works, not surprising perhaps given his countless award-winning TV, film, and theatrical scores. The album concludes with what is surely the only Oboe d’amore Quintet ever composed. The instrument’s plaintive tone takes center stage against the backdrop of string quartet, as the work moves from serenity, melancholy, and nostalgia, before ending with an invigorating finale that brings the inspiring album to a close.

REVIEWS:

Featuring the talents of oboist Mary Lynch VanderKolk, the new album Christopher Tyler Nickel: Sonatas and Chamber Music for Oboe and Oboe d’amore masterfully explores the full range and lyrical aspects of the oboe while spiritedly challenging its technical capabilities. Opening with the Oboe Sonata specifically composed for VanderKolk, Nickel’s own familiarity with the oboe is clearly demonstrated as he insightfully captures the strengths of the player – creating beautifully sweeping lines that showcase VanderKolk’s colourful and lyrical capabilities as she artfully navigates the dynamic and rhythmic passages in a way that only the most consummate performer could. Imagining the pensive sadness of the lone instrument at twilight is what one may experience as they listen to Nickel’s second piece of this collection, the Oboe d’amore Sonata.

The album concludes with the Quintet for Oboe d’amore for the namesake instrument and string quartet in a uniquely distinctive composition drawing the listener in with the dark, melancholic timbre of the double-reed instrument traditionally only heard in Baroque music, making this piece the first of its kind and a true testament to this Canadian composer’s proclivity for the oboe family and ability to fashion narrowly defined aspects of both music and the instrument into a broader phenomenon.

-- The Whole Note

Providing an overview of almost a century, this album reflects the aspirations of Polish nationalism through the works of three pivotal figures: Karol Kurpinski, whose Fantasy for String Quartet is both serious and ingenious in design, Zygmunt Noskowski, whose witty piece on a theme of Viotti includes the use of a polacca, and Stanislaw Moniuszko, whose quartets balance the hymnal with the rustic.

Heinrich Sutermeister (1910–95) belongs to the generation of Swiss composers after Bloch, Honegger, Martin and Schoeck. His operatic version of Romeo and Juliet soon spread his reputation far afield, and conductors as prominent as Bohm, Karajan and Sawallisch championed his works, although since his death his music has not had the attention it deserves. These four big-boned works – a powerful setting of Boethius, an extract from Romeo und Julia and two sets of moving love-letters from genuine historical figures in Renaissance, Baroque and Enlightenment Germany and Switzerland – attest to the acuity of his ear in balancing voice and large orchestra and confirm his instinct for drama.

Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits (b. 1969) belongs to his country’s most prominent composers. His works are rich with delicate atmosphere possessing a particularly Northern feel combined with a romantic and Impressionistic touch. This new album by the award-winning Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and conductor Risto Joost is the final volume in a trilogy of works for choir and orchestra. Moorland Elegies (ODE 1306-2), You Are Light and Morning (ODE 1363-2) and The Sound of Wings form a kind of a trilogy, albeit this was never a purpose in itself. All three works were performed first by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Risto Joost. The first two cycles are linked to the elements of earth and water. In this final part of the trilogy everything is carried by the element of air, and those existential themes which Tõnu Kõrvits has dealt with for decades in his works – nature, life, death, suffering, love – find a liberating and soaring solution. The composer has said that it is “the brightest work in the trilogy (...), which emanates the most light. It is a song of flying, of dreaming, of courage and unconditional love.”

One of the sources of inspiration for The Sound of Wings was Amelia Mary Earhart’s attempt to be the first woman in aviation history to fly around the globe together with navigator Fred Noonan, which was cut short whilst crossing the Pacific Ocean. On her specially adapted red Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart was supposed to make a last land stop on Howland Island, but due to a fault in the navigation system she was unable to find it. Neither Earhart or the remains of her plane have ever been found. Earhart’s last radio transmission – inspiring due to the steadiness and matter-of-factness of the pilot’s voice – gave the titles to the two instrumental parts of the work. The element of air, the wind, the emptiness, flight and liberation in the music are embodied by the solo viola. The flageolet passages of the solo viola, the trills, the motifs which sway up and down pass through the entire piece, introducing as well as completing it. Wind images painted through sound can also be found in the orchestra and choir parts. Kõrvits’ instrumentation is sensitive and imaginative, just like his extraordinary talent of using the choir in the most varied but always singing way.

REVIEW:

Tonu Korvits (b 1969) is possibly the most prominent Estonian composer of his generation, known particularly for his choral music. His music is lyrical and firmly tonal, though smooth, bluesy chromatic tones give it an elusive, hypnotic quality. He writes with genuine beauty, finding a kind of magic in tonality that is all too rare these days.

The Sound of Wings (2022) concerns Amelia Earhart. The text doesn’t so much follow a narrative but rather a succession of abstract meditations on emotions, aspirations, and sensations she might have felt while in the air. A solo viola evokes the ephemeral but liberating qualities of air with harmonics; it reaches its apex in a full-blooded solo in the last movement. The choral writing is consistently tender and lyrical, with attentive, natural text-setting. It is slow and often reserved, but always interesting and often quite moving. We also get the short but achingly beautiful ‘Sunday Wish’ (2020/22).

Wonderful performances from the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Risto Joost. The choir is particularly exceptional, singing with a consistently gorgeous tone. Notes and text in Estonian and English.

-- American Record Guide

Sony presents the next installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic - the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor.

The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Anton Bruckner’s nine symphonies, including No. 4 in 1881 and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873. Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival since 2013 and Music Director of the Bayreuth Festival, is his generation’s most esteemed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire. In the midst of a mutually stimulating relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, he conducted his first New Year’s Concert with the orchestra in 2019.

REVIEW:

From expectant pizzicatos and hallowed strings to the blazing brass at the finish, for eighty-two minutes Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic engage and illuminate us with this majestic, sonorous and deeply expressive account of the mighty Fifth (Nowak’s edition), captured during March last year in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, resplendently and with focus within the generous acoustic.

It’s an eloquent and powerful performance, detailed, dynamic, as capable of cathedral hush and awe as being sonically magnificent in Heaven-reaching fortissimos, the latter avoiding coarseness and brass-heavy balances. Drama, too, in the way Thielemann adjusts tempos without losing the movements’ threads and invests such as a quiet bass line with significance.

-- Colin's Column

Towards the end of the 19th century, ´several composers were taking a new interest in folk music. Folk tunes, or imitations of them, had previously mainly been used in order to provide ‘local colour’ or as a way of catering to nationalist sentiments, but it was now seen as a means to revitalize art music itself, opening up for new possibilities in terms of rhythm and harmony as well as melody. At the forefront of this development was Béla Bartók, who also considered the use of folk elements as a tool to transcend boundaries – to achieve a ‘brotherhood of peoples’. For his new recital disc, Can Çakmur has devised a program which juxtaposes four composers’ different responses to folk music. Bartók’s Piano Sonata is followed by Passacaglia, Intermezzo e Fuga with which Dimitri Mitropoulos made a clean break with earlier works in a more nationalistic vein. Next comes Çakmur’s compatriot, the Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun, who in 1936 accompanied Bartók on a field trip in Turkey collecting music. His Piano Sonata was composed some fifty years later, however, and refers to folk music primarily on a theoretical level. Closing the disc is George Enescu’s Piano Sonata No.?3 in D major, which Çakmur in his own liner notes describes as ‘radiating a natural affinity for the village, without sacrificing the compositional value of the work.’

All World Premiere Recordings

Grammy Award-winning Third Coast Percussion, whose artistry blends “creative fearlessness with reverent precision” (BBC Music Magazine), offers an album of enterprising collaborations and world-premiere recordings of works written or arranged expressly for the Chicago-based percussion quartet, representing four different approaches to composing concert music.

Danny Elfman’s Percussion Quartet, structured like a four-movement symphony, shares distinctive traits heard in his Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated films scores, as well as hints of African balofon, Indonesian gamelan, and Shostakovich. Great admirers of composer Philip Glass, Third Coast arranged Glass’s solo piano Metamorphosis No. 1 for marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and melodica. Rubix emerged from Third Coast Percussion’s improvisational collaboration with virtuosic, cutting-edge flute duo Flutronix, who also perform on the recording. Critically acclaimed electronic musician and composer Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) composed her seven-movement Perspective as electronic tracks, without music notation. Third Coast transformed this work of “beautiful complexity” into a version they could perform live as a quartet.

REVIEW:

Unlike a lot of academic music for percussion ensembles, Danny Elfman makes his quartet sing sweetly, leaning heavily on the warm sounds of the marimba interlocking with tinkling tubular chimes and pitched metal pipes.

The flute duo Flutronix's piece, Rubix, features punchy flutes dancing over a chilled out vibraphone, and foggy episodes where marimba, whirly tube and bowed flexatone provide an evocative backdrop of light and shadow.

Footwork is the hyper-beat music born in Chicago's underground dance competitions and house parties in the late 1990s. On Third Coast Percussion's album, the style undergoes a mesmerizing transformation in a seven-movement suite called Perspective, by Jerrilynn Patton, who goes by Jlin.

Third Coast Percussion, with albums like Perspectives, continues to push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners.

-- NPR. org (Tom Huizenga)

What Carl Orff created with the Prometheus score is neither an opera in the traditional sense nor an oratorio, but also not a play with music or even “authentic” classical tragedy: far more is it an extremely individual musical interpretation of Aeschylus’s tragedy that concentrates primarily on the symbolic imagery of the scenes, which – as Orff himself said – “is accentuated and visualized by the music” and the spectator and hearer thereby enlightened.

The work is sung in Ancient Greek; the booklet contains a plot synopsis in English and German languages, plus liner notes.

REVIEW:

This CD of Carl Orff's Prometheus, released on the Orfeo label, is based on live recordings by Bayerischer Rundfunk from October 1st and 2nd, 1975 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. Two concert performances were recorded, which took place in honor of Orff's 80th birthday. Of all the events held in Munich to mark the composer's milestone birthday, these two were considered the greatest. But that's no wonder, because the work, which was successfully premiered on March 24, 1968 at the Stuttgart State Opera, is a real masterpiece. Here we are dealing with a real rarity.

The very informative booklet shows that Orff did not in any way claim that this was an educational theater for the initiated, but only drew the consequences from the mythical power of language of Aeschylus. Orff's decision was good. The ancient Greek language gives the whole, both sung and declaimed passages, an extremely strong, haunting expression that is typical of this type of musical theatre. Ultimately, Orff was concerned with capturing the spirit of ancient theater by evoking it again with thoroughly modern means, with the aim of interpreting it anew and for our time (booklet). Orff has completely succeeded in this. His intention has worked in every respect. The impact of Prometheus is even greater than that of his predecessors, Antigone and Oedipus, previously written by Orff. Particularly impressive are the fully sung prophecies of the eponymous hero chained to the rock as well as the choruses, which are only entrusted to women. These breathe enormous intensity and lead the listener away from a normal opera to a new form of music theater for which Orff was the godfather.

Although the orchestra with the brilliant percussion, which is only joined by wind instruments and double basses, is not very pronounced, its outbursts are nevertheless powerful...Rafael Kubelik succeeds in exploring the diverse and quite unusual musical structures. Under his proven leadership, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra has surpassed itself. The conductor relies on a distinctive, rhythmically concise and often almost violent sound that corresponds excellently to the content of the work.

The singers put themselves entirely at the service of this great piece. The first to be mentioned here is Roland Hermann, who impressively proves that even a modern game like Prometheus can be mastered with a fantastic Italian technique. His beautiful baritone manages the balancing act between expressive singing and pathetic declamation magnificently. In her own way, Colette Lorand comes up with a very complex portrayal of the role of Io Inachis.

Conclusion: An interesting recording of an unusual work, the acquisition of which is definitely to be recommended.

-- Das Opernfreund