Kalevi Aho is one of today’s most prolific composers of large-scale orchestral scores, including 17 symphonies and 32 concertos to date. Less well-known is the fact that he has also written chamber music, as well as an ever-expanding series of solo pieces – starting with Solo I for violin from 1975, the most recent in the series, for clavichord, is the 17th. Some of these pieces has originated as part of Aho’s preparations when composing a concerto for the instrument in question, while others have been written for competitions, including Solo III for flute and Solo IV for cello on the present release. This first volume of Solos gathers seven pieces in all, four of which have previously appeared as part of separate discs. Aho’s Solos share the characteristic that they pose great technical, interpretative and often also physical challenges to the performer. Most of those heard here are performed by the musicians for whom they were written, including Hiyoli Togawa (Solo XII), Piet Van Bockstal (Solo IX), Simon Reitmaier (Solo XIV) and Marie-Luise Neunecker (Solo X).
One of the 20th century’s great conductors, Leopold Stokowski was also a prolific transcriber of music for the symphony orchestra, creating a unique repertoire by bringing masterpieces to the concert hall that were often unfamiliar to audiences of the time. José Serebrier was Stokowski’s associate conductor in New York, and drawing on memories of his special quality of orchestral sound has revived and revised the best of these sumptuous arrangements. These include a GRAMMY nominated Mussorgsky recording and Stokowski’s signature piece, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, immortalized as part of the soundtrack to Walt Disney’s film Fantasia.
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REVIEW:
Anyone who doubts the sustained power of Stokowski’s most famous transcription, Bach’s mighty Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, should experience Serebrier’s enthralling performance.
Our knowledge of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji is based more on his reputation than on his work. A marginal figure in twentieth-century music, he is renowned for the length and complexity of his compositions. After forbidding the performance of his music, he earned a small income through his writings as a critic and essayist of great wit. His best-known works are for solo piano, many of which have been released by BIS. This disc presents first recordings of his music for chamber ensemble and chamber orchestra plus several world premiere recordings of art songs, including a new arrangement and the first completion of a fragment. The American collective Wild Beautiful Orchestra, made up of instrumentalists and singers renowned for their versatility and enthusiasm, and it's founder, conductor Chappell Kingsland, together with flautist Sharon Bezaly in the longest work, present this programme featuring previously unreleased music by the maverick composer. There is no doubt that this extraordinary variety will expand our collective appreciation of Sorabji's genius and that this album will serve as an entry point to his unique musical imagination.
Sebastian Fagerlund’s orchestral music, which has held a central position in his work, is known for its pounding rhythmic energy and the quiet, gripping intensity of the more static passages. The flute concerto ‘Terral’ was written in close collaboration with Sharon Bezaly. Referring to a land breeze in Spain, ‘Terral’ is like a constant variation in a transparent and airy soundscape reminiscent of the soil taking on a new appearance when blown by the wind.
Strings to the Bone for string orchestra features Fagerlund’s typically intense and virtuosic writing as well as elements of the musical heritage of Ostrobothnia. Finally, the Chamber Symphony came to existence thanks to his collaboration with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Ottawa-based National Arts Centre Orchestra, where John Storgårds has been principal guest conductor since 2015. According to the Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet, this work shows “a thematically consistent symphonic construction with an authentic symphonic tension integrated into the dramaturgical gesture”.
This recording is dedicated to two recent concertos by Kalevi Aho, one of Finland's foremost contemporary composers. The author of a body of work as important as it is varied, Aho enjoys collaborating with exceptional soloists, for whom he composes works that highlight their musical qualities, inventiveness and personality. The Concerto for Alto Flute and Strings features an instrument with a soft tone, well suited as a soloist with a small orchestra of strings alone. The work is in six movements played without interruption, and the soloist, Sharon Bezaly, sometimes switches to the bass flute, which brings a mystical feel to the music. The St Michel Strings and their conductor, Erkki Lasonpalo, contribute to the mysterious atmosphere in which lyrical and dramatic episodes abound. The Double Concerto for Viola, Percussion and Orchestra, entitled 'Moonlight Concerto', was composed at the initiative of a Berlin-based musician couple, violist Hiyoli Togawa and percussionist Alexej Gerassimez. Here we are immersed in a Japanese atmosphere that reveals echoes of the 1,000-year-old tradition of ritualistic gagaku music. In this work, the percussionist plays instruments that are not usually heard in orchestral concerts, such as the moon gong, the waterphone, a hang drum and nine Thai gongs. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Anja Bihlmaier, provides the rich orchestral commentary.
Synergy / Sharon Bezaly, Swedish Chamber Orchestra
BIS
SACD
$10.99$21.99Save 50%Sep 02, 2022
On Synergy, flautist Sharon Bezaly and her musician friends demonstrate that one plus one can be much greater than two. Featuring works that celebrate the coming together of like-minded musicians, this project is a reminder, after more than two years of a pandemic that has affected all of us, that true musical synergy can only be achieved 'face-to-face’, rather than ‘remotely’. With his Concerto for flute and recorder, Telemann not only creates a fusion of different musical styles of his time – namely Italian, German and French – but also shows a gift for borrowing elements from popular music. Saint-Saëns brings swirling colors and energy with a Tarentelle for flute, clarinet and orchestra, that at times displays obsessive, even threatening undertones. From the same period, Doppler’s Concerto for two flutes is not far from the world of opera, providing the two soloists with ample opportunity to shine like two singers in front of an orchestra. In addition to celebrating the synergy created between musicians, the last two works featured on this disc, Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6 and Suite from the Orchestral Works, are telling examples of synergy between composers: it is as if Villa-Lobos and Mahler were shaking hands with Johann Sebastian Bach across distances of thousands of miles and hundreds of years.
REVIEW:
The principal attraction of this SACD, as good as the performances are, is the uniqueness of the program. Sharon Bezaly, one of the outstanding flutists of our time, has brought together composers not particularly associated with each other, and from different eras. While each performance is enjoyable, the real success of the disc is how the imaginative program flows in such a lovely way.
On Telemann’s Concerto in E Minor for Recorder, Flute, and Strings with harpsichord continuo. Bezaly is joined by one of the world’s premier recordists, Michala Petri, and their interplay is delightful. The final Presto is particularly inventive and sparkling in the way the two soloists play off each other.
Michael Collins and Bezaly play Saint-Saëns’s Tarantelle with total communication, lingering lightly over lyrical passages while clearly enjoying their virtuoso moments as well.
The big surprise for me was the Concerto in D Minor for Two Flutes by the flute virtuoso and composer Franz Doppler (1821–1883). The music is almost vocal in its melodic shape, but the remarkable aspect of the score, surprisingly, are the passages where the two flutes must play in unison. Bezaly and Walter Auer come close to making us believe that they are a single flute.
Next comes the one work without orchestra, Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No. 6, scored for flute and bassoon. Bram van Sambeek is a brilliant technician, but more importantly he produces a rich sound from his bassoon and provides harmonic support for Bezaly’s flute.
Her combination of rich tone and rhythmic precision is just right for The Mahler-orchestrated selections from the Second and Third Orchestral Suites. While no one would mistake this for an historically informed performance, it is an extremely stylish one. Michael Collins and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra bring elegance to the Air and energy to the Gavotte from the Third Suite. As an encore Bezaly give us a repeat of the Badinerie from the Second Suite.
BIS’s usual high standards of engineering and informative program notes round out a truly lovely disc.
Masterworks For Flute And Piano 2 / Bezaly, Brautigam
BIS
SACD
$21.99May 01, 2010
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Another imaginative, well-executed offering from BIS.
3424690.zz4_MASTERWORKS_FOR_FLUTE_PIANO.html
MASTERWORKS FOR FLUTE AND PIANO II • Sharon Bezaly (fl); Ronald Brautigam (pn) • BIS 1729 (SACD: 59:23)
POULENC Sonata. MARTIN Ballade. REINECKE Sonata, “Undine”. MARTIN? Sonata. MESSIAEN Le Merle noir
This is the second volume of this series, the pithy and ecstatic review of the first by Peter J. Rabinowitz (where he quotes from other equally impressed Fanfaristas) appearing in 29: 6. There is really nothing much more to say about Bezaly’s playing; she is, if not the greatest, then one of the most outstanding exponents of her instrument today, and Bis was lucky enough to latch onto her some 20 albums ago and continues to make these wonderful Super Audio recordings.
On this disc we are a little more mainstreamed in approach, with several of the selections quite familiar, at least to flute lovers. Poulenc’s sonata leads the pack, one of his best from around 1957, simply effervescent and joyous from start to finish, the aural equivalent of dancing on clouds. I had to hunt down Wolfgang Schulz’s recording with James Levine from a mandatory 1989 issue of Poulenc’s chamber music (DG) to find a worthy comparison. The Reinecke, also a standard, was written in the composer’s 40s (1882) under the influence of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s story about a mermaid who marries a young knight and acquires a human soul only to have her heart broken because of his infidelities; should have stayed in the water, I guess. But the story line is only ancillary, the sonata a wonderful example of romantic structure that characterizes a verbal outline without becoming slavish to it. My favorite to this point—now supplanted—is Jeffrey Khaner’s reading on Avie, a recording that should not be missed if for no other reason than its attractive romantic program.
The Martin? might be called a “sub-standard” not because of quality but because more flutists haven’t seemed to pick up on it yet. Like almost all of this composer’s work, it contains wonders aplenty and umpteen ear-opening examples of structural genius, aside from Martin?’s own deliciously unparagoned way with melody. Marc-André Hamelin (piano) and Alain Marion (flute) offer a somewhat different view on Analekta, perhaps more enervating and lively, but I doubt Bezaly will have you searching for alternatives. Two pieces here were written for competitions; Frank Martin’s inventive Ballade was written as a compulsory piece for Geneva in 1939 while Olivier Messiaen’s Le Merle noir (The Blackbird) was for the Paris Conservatory in 1951, the prototype of a series of pieces that explored the very intentional grounding of birdsong into the very fabric of an instrument. The Martin can be found in its orchestral guise (done a few years later by the composer) on a wonderful recording by Celia Chambers on an all-Martin album of his ballades (Chandos, conducted by Bambert).
So in short, this is terrific stuff, bedrock material for any serious collection and absolutely foundational for anybody claiming to have a good series of flute albums.
Sharon Bezaly and Ronald Brautigam are two of the brightest stars in the musical firmament, so BIS are indeed fortunate to have them on their roster of artists. Bezaly first came to my attention in Seascapes, but has since caught my ear in a number of recitals, among them Nordic Spell and From A to Z. Paradoxically, hers is a powerful yet unassuming talent, whereas Brautigam – whose Beethoven sonata series continues apace – strikes me as a much bigger, more forceful musical personality. That said, he scales the Mendelssohn piano concertos most beautifully qualities I was looking for here as well.
At first glance it’s quite an eclectic selection, but that’s no bad thing. All too often programmes clustered around broadly similar repertoire (stylistically at least) are apt to pall after a while. But three-quarters of a century and several musical traditions separate the pieces by Carl Reinecke and Francis Poulenc; the latter’s Sonata gets this disc off to a promising start. The ‘rolling boil’ of the flute’s opening phrases – not to mention the seemingly effortless trills – are well matched by Brautigam’s nicely nuanced pianism. There are no really extreme dynamics here – well, not unless one counts the mercurial Prestogiocoso – and that, along with BIS’s warm, well-balanced recording, makes for a most relaxing listen.
A hugely encouraging start, and a riposte to all those acid audiophiles who insist that non-DSD Super Audio CDs recorded at lower bit rates are a compromise too far. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find a better blend of sonic virtues than those on show here. Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Ballade is a case in point, the restless murmur of piano and flute at the start superbly captured. Bezaly’s range and control at both frequency extremes is just remarkable; high notes are firm and clear, the lower registers wonderfully liquid, especially in the solo passage that begins at 3:06. There’s a pleasing sense of proportion too, and one feels this really is a marriage of true minds, Brautigam scaling the music’s more rugged terrain with ease.
Predictably perhaps, Carl Reinecke’s ‘Undine’ sonata has all the evanescent charm one expects from such fare. And no, predictable does not mean humdrum; Bezaly conjures up the lightest, loveliest sounds, building a rainbow bridge under which the piano part flows most agreeably. But it’s the third movement, marked Andante tranquillo, where Brautigam seems to get the upper hand. As seductive as the flute playing undoubtedly is, I found myself following the pianist more carefully than before. And just listen to those giddy upward spirals in the final movement, Brautigam bringing the music back to earth with a mix of passion and power. As for the restraint and repose of the closing bars, it’s most sensitively done. No, it isn’t great music, but when it’s played this well who could possibly complain?
The soloists shadow each other to great effect in the Martin? Sonata, a work whose carapace conceals a surprisingly lyrical centre. Brautigam and Bezaly are very well matched in the animated first Allegro, the latter’s tone characterised by an appealing breathiness in the lower registers. As flute recordings go, this recital really does capture the velvet and steel duality of the instrument most effectively. Indeed, I can see this being used as a demonstration disc, especially when it comes to the long, sustained phrases that round off the Adagio. As for the piece itself, those who don’t know it will engage with its easygoing, yet entirely individual, character. Another nugget in this most desirable pot, and a piece I will return to with great pleasure.
But it’s Messiaen’s Le merle noir (the blackbird) that’s the most inspired choice here. For a composer who rejoiced in the monumental it’s good to be reminded that he is every bit as persuasive in miniature. And just as Hopkins delighted in the wonders of The Windhover, so Messiaen’s blackbird soars and sings above an undergrowth of dark, fleeting dissonances, Bezaly despatching those microtones and flourishes with great skill and confidence. Outwardly Le merle noir might seem a tad austere, but even those who don’t usually warm to Messiaen’s cooler idiom will surely respond positively to this miraculous miniature.
So, another imaginative, well-executed offering from BIS. I have yet to hear the first volume in the series, but if the present disc is anything to go by it should be on the wish-list of all those who enjoy the genre. It’s certainly on mine.
