The London Symphony Orchestra, led by formidable conductor Yondani Butt, presents this outstanding recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique,’ and The Voyevoda- Symphonic Ballad. The programme was recorded in 2012 at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London. Yondani Butt was born in Macau. He studied conducting with Wolfgang Vacano (1906-1985) at Indiana University, majoring in chemistry. He continued to study conducting with Josef Blatt (1906-1999) at the University of Michigan while pursuing his chemistry degree. Hailed by Robert Marsh of the Chicago Sun Times as “an outstanding talent,” Yondani Butt has received acclamation from critics and audiences for his many album recordings and concert performances. He died on August 28th, 2014.

Christopher Tyler Nickel's contemporary classical compositions pack a bracing and emotional punch. His award-winning works for the concert hall, stage and screen have been heard in over 160 countries by audiences in the tens of thousands. His experience as an oboist instills a confidence to compose with an exhilarating freedom to explore the vast expressive range of the instrument, from lyrical and plaintive to acerbic and brittle. The world-premiere recordings of these three concertos for oboe and it's lower-pitched siblings the oboe d'amore and bass oboe receive dazzling performances by Mary Lynch, principal oboe of the Seattle Symphony, and Harrison Linsey, oboist with the Washington D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra. Grammy Award-winning David Sabee, a tireless advocate of contemporary classical music, conducts the Seattle-based Northwest Sinfonia.

Raphael Wallfisch recorded the First Cello Concerto for Chandos, one of the very first CD releases on that label, coupled with the Barber Concerto. It was a good performance, but it pales in comparison with his remake here. This set offers what is, hands down, the finest pairing of the two Shostakovich Cello Concertos since Heinrich Schiff and the composer's son--with all due respect to Rostropovich--set the modern standard in this music (on Philips). The First Concerto comes across with positively frightening intensity, a product not just of Wallfisch's strong projection of the solo, but also owing much to the take-no-prisoners accompaniments of Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony. Just listen to the interplay between Wallfisch and the sneering, threatening woodwind section--it's what this music is all about.

At the opening of the second movement, Wallfisch adopts a dusky, gamba-like sonority: think of Dowland's Lachrymae. The instrument truly seems to weep through the music, while the finale acquires an extra degree of bitter edge by being played very rhythmically, but not too quickly. Wallfisch really comes into his own in the cadenza, holding the entire movement together through perfect timing and a wide range of tone colors and dynamics. It's a great performance, as is that of the comparatively neglected Second Concerto.

Again we find soloist, conductor, and orchestra keenly attuned to the music's overt emotionalism. In the first movement, Wallfisch and Brabbins subtly characterize both the first and second subjects, preventing any hint of monotonous sameness in the exposition section. The development rises to a splendidly impassioned climax, followed by a ghostly coda that never drags.

In the central scherzo, once again a comparatively deliberate tempo combines with punchy rhythms to the music's expressive advantage, while the lengthy half-sweet, half-grotesque variation-finale never has been so colorfully projected. This is such a beautiful work; only the fact that it ends quietly and mysteriously conspires to keep it in the shadow of the First Concerto. In some ways it's even more melodically appealing, and this is a performance that captures its wide-ranging expression as well or better than any other.

The inclusion of the Cello Sonata and the cello arrangement of the late Viola Sonata, along with two miscellaneous short pieces, completes a package offering all of Shostakovich's music featuring solo cello. In the chamber works, John York is the sensitive piano accompanist, and both he and Wallfisch offer excellent interpretations of both large works. The finale of the Viola/Cello Sonata is particularly well held-together, with the youthful freshness of the earlier "true" Cello Sonata enthusiastically captured.

The engineering in the concertos is absolutely outstanding: balances between cello and orchestra are perfectly judged, but the microphones still capture a tremendous amount of ear-catching detail. Obviously a great deal of credit for this has to go to Brabbins and the orchestra, who offer none of that generic, lazy professionalism so common today. These performances display an idiomatic style of a kind that you seldom find even inside Russia today (witness Pletnev's often bland Russian National Orchestra, or Gergiev's mediocre Kirov band). The result is an absolutely irresistible set that no fan of Shostakovich will want to miss.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

One of Greece’s most esteemed composers, Michalis Terzis presents this new release, The Art of the Green Bouzouki. The bouzouki is one of Greece’s most representative instruments, and the pieces on this release showcase this unique instrument. Terzis described the pieces on this album as “Music for a get-together with family and friends, enjoying Greek wine and each other’s company.”

Michael Terzis is one of the most important contemporary Greek composers. He studied piano and music theory at the Macedonian Conservatory in Thessaloniki and in Athens with A. Ainian and K. Chronopoulos. He started his music career in 1973, playing piano and songs by Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Hadijdakis and New Wave as well as his own compositions at music theaters in the historic part of Athens beneath the Acropolis. He recorded his first piece in 1976 using the lyrics of the great Greek poet Yannis Ritsos. His works have since been performed and recorded by the most famous Greek musicians in the world. This release features delightfully varied instrumental Greek music reflective of a beautiful and proud nation. It presents new and authentic bouzouki music by Michalis Terzis.

Oleg takes the music in exciting new directions while still retaining that Russian Gypsy magic... nothing less than incandescent virtuosity for the duration of the show..." - The Scotsman This recording includes the Lautary piece featured in the film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

The duduk is a wind instrument peculiar to Armenia and is presented on this recording by Djivan Gasparian, one of the greatest masters of this instrument and who has played it in films such as the Last Temptation of Christ and Gladiator. The music has a haunting, meditative quality, on some pieces accompanied by a dool (drum).

An intoxicating album with a riveting collection of Gypsy music. 16 pieces from Hungary, Russia, Central Asia, Romania and the Balkans, over an hour of music, from the very traditional to today's modern renditions, presented by some of the finest exponents in the genre.

MY FAVORITE THINGS • Stephen Hough (pn) • NIMBUS 2540 (63:07)


MACDOWELL Hexentanz. CHOPIN (arr. Liszt) The Maiden’s Wish. QUILTER (arr. Hough) Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal. The Fuchsia Tree. DOHNÁNYI Capriccio in f. PADEREWSKI Minuet in G. Nocturne. SCHLOZER Etude in A?. GABRILOVICH Melodie in E. Caprice-Burlesque. RODGERS (arr. Hough) The Sound of Music: My Favorite Things. WOODFORDE-FINDEN (arr. Hough) Kashmiri Love Song. FRIEDMAN Music Box. SAINT-SAËNS (arr. Godowsky) Carnival of the Animals: The Swan. ROSENTHAL Papillons. GODOWSKY Java Suite: The Gardens of Buitenzorg. LEVITZKI Waltz. PALMGREN En route. MOSKOWSKI Morceaux: Siciliano. Caprice espagnole


The superb British pianist Stephen Hough is no stranger to contemporary music. He is a composer himself. And yet this collection of bon-bons is unapologetically old-fashioned, or to put somewhat less pejoratively, quaint. These pieces are of the sort that appeared as encores on solo programs generations ago. Of course, this is not intended as a challenging recital; they don’t all have to be. Many of the works are transcriptions made by concert pianists, such as Liszt, Godowsky, and Hough himself, or original compositions from such giants of the fin de siècle golden age of pianism as Paderewski, Gabrilovich, Rosenthal, Friedman, and Godowsky again, and so there is no little razzle dazzle here. Lots of notes! And yet Hough’s playing is lovely rather than showy, with great finesse, delectably shaped phrases, and a celebration of pretty melodies. Nimbus gives us warm and colorful sound. If this material appeals to you, you are not going to get a better presentation than we have here. A bit of candy now and again won’t kill you.


FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco settled in California in the 1940s. Like many another musician cast adrift by the fascism that held sway in Europe from the 1930s to the mid-1940s he found a niche in the artistic life of the States. Hollywood embraced his music for films although none of the great films featured his work – he did however score several of the Lassie films. He moved in the same stratosphere as Heifetz and Piatigorsky; indeed the former commissioned his The Prophets Violin Concerto (No. 2 of 3) and then went on to record it (RCA); as did Perlman.

Among the operas, concertos, oratorios and solo piano music (Naxos, Somm SOMMCD 032) there are two guitar concertos, a serenade for guitar and orchestra, a concerto for two guitars and orchestra and many pieces of chamber music involving the instrument. The first concerto was written partly in Mussolini's Italy and partly in America. If the middle of the three movements of the op. 99 First Concerto sometimes drifts close to Tatiana's Letter Song it is delectable sentimental stuff. The flanking movements are sanguine and proud. They will certainly appeal to anyone who likes Rodrigo's Aranjuez. It's a lovely concerto and well worth tracking down in this very generously timed disc. I hope there is a volume 2 with the Second Concerto, the Serenade and the Concerto for two guitars.

Golondrinas (Swallows) suggests a relaxed saunter along the corniche - a summer evening with the swallows of the title diving and soaring. It's a virtuoso piece as is the eager and bustling La Primavera. The Platero suggests a delicate spray of lilies. The Rondo has some of the aristocratic elegance of the finale of the op. 99 concerto. The three movement op. 133 Suite is a work of beguiling emotional suggestion. This enchanting disc ends with the three movement op. 143 Guitar Quintet. The writing is full of interest with some incidental echoes of Ravel and of Russian nationalism. Again it is cheerful, subtly allusive, dynamic, poetic, playful and at times sweetly eerie. Unlike the much younger Brouwer this music has no truck with dissonance. Its milieu is impressionistic poetry. The string quartet writing is most inventive and by no means a dull stooge to the guitar.

After you have rifled Rodrigo's guitar treasury you must try this. This composer is no Rodrigo epigone but his music shares the Spanish composer’s mood and gift for beguiling invention. You can add this composer's name to that of Manuel Ponce as someone whose guitar music needs to be explored. By the way, do not overlook Ponce's Concerto del Sur for guitar and orchestra. Like so much else from that era including these works by Castelnuovo-Tedesco - it was written for Segovia – recorded by him and also by Alfredo Moreno with Enrique Batiz.

These recordings were originally issued in 2004 on MusicMasters. I hope that there is more to come and if not that Nimbus might find funding for a collection of this composer's concertante works for guitar. It's that good.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Fischer brings his Haydn cycle to a more than satisfying conclusion with this superb volume.

Adám Fischer and the Austro­Hungarian Haydn Orchestra go from strength to strength. This culminating volume of their Haydn symphony cycle – built up over 14 years – is in many ways the most enjoyable of all‚ not just because it covers a fascinating range of works written in the 1760s‚ when the young Haydn was busy experimenting‚ but in the performances too. In most previous volumes the advantages of Fischer’s cycle as against those of Antál Dorati’s ever­fresh pioneering Decca cycle‚ have been relatively slight. Here the new performances‚ with lighter‚ more transparent textures and generally faster speeds‚ take far more note of period practice while staying faithful to modern instruments. More than ever one registers the individual virtuosity of the various soloists in the orchestra‚ often challenged to the limit by fast speeds. So a movement such as the variation finale of No 31‚ The Hornsignal‚ features a sequence of brilliant soloists such as Haydn himself might have been writing for in the Esterházy orchestra – violin‚ cello‚ horn and so on‚ even double­bass. That symphony‚ in Professor Robbins Landon’s description one of the most spectacular of the early works‚ is here presented with panache‚ with the four horns braying out superbly‚ and the fast opening Allegro adding to the intensity. The immediately preceding symphony‚ No 30‚ nicknamed Alleluia after the chant quoted‚ is hardly less striking‚ the more so here when Fischer has adopted‚ with brilliant results‚ the option for this C major work of having trumpets and drums as well as horns – a later addition as Robbins Landon suggests in Volume 1 of his monumental Chronicle and Works (Thames &Hudson: 1976­78). The horns are prominent throughout these performances‚ helped by the recording balance‚ bringing out the boldness of inspiration. Symphonies Nos 30 and 31 evidently date from 1765‚ but generally the regular numbered sequence from the old Breitkopf edition is even more misleading than usual. So No 26 in D minor‚ Lamentation‚ another work that quotes a chant‚ is in the darkly intense Sturm und Drang style of the middle symphonies‚ where No 37 in C is evidently one of the earliest works here‚ dating from the brief period from 1759 when Haydn was Kapellmeister to Count Morzin. Fischer in the Lamentation Symphony again makes the music more biting with his emphasis on sharp dynamic contrasts and his very fast Allegro – faster even than with Christopher Hogwood in his period performance on L’Oiseau­Lyre (4/94). Even more strikingly‚ No 39 in G minor‚ the last of the numbered symphonies here‚ is a wonderful example of Sturm und Drang‚ enhanced by Fischer at the start by the way he exaggerates the pauses between the nervily tentative opening phrases‚ leading to the fierce and urgent Allegro. The finale too is vehemently Sturm und Drang‚ with its rushing strings and four horns‚ again brilliantly used as in the Hornsignal‚ No 31 – as Robbins Landon puts it‚ ‘a tight­fisted work’. Throughout this set Fischer consistently relishes the originality of scoring‚ as in the Trio of the Minuet of No 29 in E‚ where suddenly in E minor the horns in octaves hold a sustained note‚ an effect made the more eerie here with the strings stilling their vibrato in period style‚ as they regularly do in these performances. The Symphonies ‘A’ and ‘B’‚ the one dating from the Morzin period‚ the other from the early 1760s‚ make an apt supplement as they come from the same period. These are both works which were only identified as symphonies rather than string quartets when in recent years wind parts were discovered. Whether or not Fischer and his orchestra of selected players from Vienna and Budapest will go on to record other supplementary works and alternative versions (for another record company following Nimbus’s demise)‚ as Dorati did‚ theirs is a superb achievement‚ with the cycle of numbered symphonies now most satisfyingly completed.

-- Gramophone 1/2002