On the occasion of conductor Georges Prêtre's 100th birthday in August, the label SWRmusic will release an 8CD box-set containing a wonderful collection of representative orchestral works by eleven composers, thus showing the fruitful collaboration between the French conductor and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO). Most of the recordings are being released for the first time, with the exception of the works by Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss, which have previously been released by this label.

The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1945 and has developed into one of Germany’s most important musical ambassadors over the following seven decades. World-renowned conductors, as well as some of the world’s greatest soloists, have been guests of the Stuttgart RSO, including Carlos Kleiber, Ferenc Fricsay, Karl Böhm, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Knappertsbusch, Sir Georg Solti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Kurt Sanderling, Gary Bertini, and Herbert Blomstedt, as well as Maria Callas, Mstislaw Rostropowitsch, Maurizio Pollini, Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Brendel, Hélène Grimaud, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Elina Garanca, Rolando Villazon, Hilary Hahn, Sol Gabetta, and Lang Lang, to name just a few.

50 American Patriotic Military Songs is presented as a four-vinyl LP set of the greatest patriotic music available! This album features over fifteen traditional favorites such as 'This Land is Your Land', 'God Bless America', 'You're a Grand Old Flag', and 'God Bless the USA', along with all the service songs, and Naval and Air Force hymns. This best-selling album also features original compositions by members of the military band including the songs 'The Flag Still Flies High', 'They Died For You, They Died for Me', and 'Honor With Dignity'. This is a great patriotic collection with over two and a half hours of marches, concert band, choral, sing-a-long, and contemporary songs for all to enjoy!

By the time of the ‘Ottocento’ (19th century), opera was the dominant force in Italian musical culture, with bel canto composers such as Rossini and Donizetti creating a public appetite for opera that eclipsed achievements by Italy’s musical sons in other genres. Some of these composers who focused their energies instead on instrumental music, swimming against the operatic tide, remained in their native land, while others found a home (or were forced to find one) abroad.

Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) is one who stayed. A gifted pianist, he bypassed the operatic path and wrote music with a kind of fluent synthesis of Italian lyricism and German, dialectic approach to form that reached an early peak in his Cello Sonata of 1880. Yet Martucci, as a teacher of composition in Bologna and then Naples, urged the teenaged Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) to study abroad.

Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968) is among the few composers in this set whose entire career centered in Italy, and he wrote a substantial body of instrumental music.

Before the war and eventual exile, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) succeeded in reinventing an essentially Romantic model (of both form and harmony) for his own time with his Cello Sonata Op. 50 of 1928.

From seven years earlier, Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Sonata of 1921 is a more gloomy, even tortured affair. The Cello Sonata of Francesco Cilea (1866-1950), while unmistakably cast as an ‘operatic’ work from its opening solo, features a protagonist scarcely burdened by the existential angst to be found in comparable works from northern Europe.

Like Cilea, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876–1948) is known for his operas but unlike Cilea’s cello sonata, Wolf-Ferrari’s Op. 30 dates from the final three years of his life and belongs to a mature output of instrumental music.

Virtuoso cellists Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) produced many trifles and showpieces to display his artistry to his adoring public in London. He was most proud of the set of six sonatas included in this set. In 1844 he made his first appearance in the English capital and soon settled there, playing both as a soloist and in one of the first celebrity string quartets.

The Cello Sonata by Mario Pilati (1903-1938) is another product of the fast-moving 1920s, formed in a Romantic tradition but inflected – like the music of Casella, Pizzetti, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco – by contemporary trends in impressionism and futurism.

From the next generation of composers, the Cello Sonata composed in 1948 by Eliodoro Sollim (1926-2000) fluently incorporates the kind of modal harmonies and cross-rhythms adopted by the likes of Bartók and Janáček from the folk traditions of their own cultures.

From the outset of his career, Jean Sibelius was recognized as an outstanding representative of a musical language perceived as typically Finnish. In Finland, the dawn of the 20th century saw a veritable outbreak of nationally inspired artistic activities., It was a time of cultural and national self-discovery for Sibelius, too. He allowed himself be stimulated by the whole of Finland’s folklore tradition, without resorting to specific examples of folksong.

For many years, Carl Nielsen was viewed outside his native Denmark as the poor cousin of his more famous Scandinavian counterparts, Grieg and Sibelius. Yet his achievements as Denmark’s greatest symphonist of the 20th century were, if anything, even more remarkable than the successes of his geographical neighbors. Nielsen’s symphonic output is some of the most remarkable of its time.

The Norwegian conductor and composer Johann Svendsen was born in 1840 in Christiania (now Oslo). in 1867, he finished his Symphony No. 1, a work that Grieg later described as showing scintillating genius, superb national feeling and really brilliant handling of an orchestra. In 1872 Svendsen returned to Christiania beginning a fruitful period that saw the creation of his Symphony No. 2 in B flat major Op. 15.

Hugo Alfven's First Symphony (1897) has a melancholy Sturm und Drang mood that recurs at intervals in his later compositions, but there is also a life affirming side that flourished in his Second Symphony, two years later. Of his Third Symphony, he stated "it depicts neither concrete nor abstract. It is an expression of the joy of living, an expression of the sun-lit happiness that filled my whole being.”

Wilhelm Stenhammar's Symphony Op. 34  saw the light of day in 1907, dedicating it to “my dear friends, the members of the Goteborg Symphony Orchestra.” He was to remain its chief conductor until 1922. That symphony, which had its first performance under the composer’s direction in 1915, was in fact Stenhammar’s second and is today called Symphony No. 2, even if the composer himself never gave it that number.

Edvard Grieg’s Symphony in C minor, which the composer withdrew, saw scholar after scholar writing about it disparagingly, with much discussion of the its style, all too often based on the question: what are its unoriginal or unsuccessful features? But it was Grieg himself who began the tradition with his admonition that it “must never be performed”. Now, however, very few feel, on moral grounds, that the work should not be performed.

The Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia was founded in 1965 by Anshel Brusilow, then concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Brusilow, who studied conducting and played under Pierre Monteux, George Szell and Eugene Ormandy, auditioned more than 1,000 musicians for the 36 full-time positions and conducted the ensemble from 1966 until 1968, when it was disbanded for want of adequate philanthropic support in the city for a second orchestra. But over the course of two-and-a-half 34-week seasons it had already performed more than 200 concerts and made six albums for RCA Victor.

Sony Classical is now issuing all these LP recordings by the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia on CD for the first time. The original LP releases were praised by High Fidelity, which called the Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia “an orchestra of rare quality”. Reviewing its début release, Brahms’s D major Serenade, the US classical music magazine opined: “Brusilow could hardly have chosen a better work to show off the capabilities of his new orchestra – every first-chair woodwind and brass player has his chance to shine (and each does shine, brilliantly).” The Brahms was followed by a series of choice couplings: Tchaikovsky’s “Mozartiana” Suite with Arensky’s Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky (“Brusilow is thoroughly at home in this literature, and his players respond beautifully to his direction” – High Fidelity); symphonies by Haydn and Cherubini; a French programme of Ravel, Ibert and Françaix (“Perhaps a reflection of the Monteux influence … this record … carries true stylistic conviction in matters of phrasing, texture, and timbre” – High Fidelity); and Richard Strauss’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme as well as Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade.

The orchestra also premièred and recorded a new sacred choral work by Richard Yardumian, the Philadelphia-based composer championed by Eugene Ormandy. Come, Creator Spirit for mezzo-soprano, chorus (or congregation) and orchestra was the first mass setting by an established American composer in the English vernacular following the Vatican Council’s 1963 decision. The work was lauded for its integrity, spiritual fervor, and power to communicate the essence of devotion in all its nuances from praise to supplication.

Following Sony Classical’s 16-CD release of Artur Rodziński’s New York Philharmonic recordings, here is the label’s eagerly awaited 13-disc collection of his complete recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra, which Rodziński headed from 1933 to 1943. The fiery, volatile Polish conductor (1892–1958) – whose lean, propulsive style emulated that of his idol Toscanini – earned a reputation as a builder of great orchestras: he led and developed the Los Angeles Philharmonic before taking up his position in Cleveland. In 1935, he brought nationwide attention to the midwestern orchestra when he conducted it in the US première of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. During his tenure in Cleveland, Rodziński moulded its orchestra into a brilliant ensemble which his successor, George Szell, would then elevate to international pre-eminence. Meanwhile, Rodziński was also active in Europe, becoming the first naturalized American to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival. There Toscanini admired his work and in 1938 picked him to train his new NBC Symphony Orchestra. In Cleveland between 1939 and 1942, Rodziński conducted a number of important recordings for Columbia Masterworks, all of them contained in this new set.

With dedicatee Louis Krasner as soloist, he made the first studio recording of the Berg Violin Concerto. His other acclaimed 78-sets include the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (“among the finest statements ever given this incorrigibly popular score” – High Fidelity), Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, the Fifth Symphony of Tchaikovsky (“Remarkable here is the tension of the second movement and the heroic close to the first” – Gramophone) as well as those of Sibelius and Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet (“Unsullied excitement” – Gramophone), Debussy’s La Mer and the orchestral “scenario” from Jerome Kern’s Show Boat – plus a previously unreleased recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein. Until now, most of these albums have only been released on 78s and reissued on LP. Thus Sony Classical’s meticulously transferred and mastered 13-disc collection of Rodziński’s Cleveland recordings fills a large gap in this still widely admired conductor’s CD discography.

This refreshed Chopin Edition from Brilliant Classics retains many of the definitive recordings from its predecessor of 2015, but boasting some exciting updates. The Concertos and piano concertante music are consolidated in a bright new cycle from Czechia, recorded last autumn by Siberian superstar Ekaterina Litvintseva and the KFPar under Mardirossian. Schmitt-Leonardy’s sonatas are joined by No. 1 – recorded late in 2015, and therefore just missing inclusion in the previous edition – bringing the complete cycle under his fingers. Alwin Bär’s own Scherzi performances are reunited with his iconic 1998 recording of the Barcarolle, Fantasy and Berceuse. The Études are featured in a stunning complete cycle recorded in 2014 by the phenomenal Chopinist and 2023 OPUS KLASSIK double-nominee Zlata Chochieva. Finally the complete Nocturnes are given over to another noted young Chopin interpreter: the 2018 Geza Anda winner Claire Huangci, who recorded the set two years earlier, in 2016.

REVIEW:

In 2015 Brilliant Classics issued a complete Chopin edition culled from both original productions and licensed recordings from other labels, and featuring a variety of musicians. The label’s revised 2023 Chopin edition retains roughly two-thirds of the contents, while substituting about six CDs worth of alternative performances. Is it “new and improved”? Mostly yes. Here is a rundown of the contents:

Discs 1 & 2: The 2015 Chopin box featured Eva Kupiec in the two concertos (amazingly conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski), with Abbey Simon in the other concerted works. Here we have less individual yet elegantly transparent performances of the entire Chopin piano/orchestra oeuvre with Ekaterina Litvintseva, supported by Vahan Mardirossian leading the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice.

Discs 3 & 4: The well-played chamber works with violinist Duccio Ceccanti, cellist Vittorio Ceccanti, and pianist Simone Gragnani are held over from 2015. So are Anna Haase’s slightly tremulous yet heartfelt Polish songs, superbly accompanied by Lucius Rühl.

Disc 5: Zlata Chochieva’s Etudes count among my top five recommendations in these works, wisely replacing Alessandro Deljavan’s mannered and overloaded readings.

Disc 6: As before, we have Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy’s intelligently paced and imaginatively detailed Ballades and Impromptus.

Disc 7: Folke Nauta’s broad and sonorous readings of the standard seven Polonaises are back, along with his rather underplayed Andante spianato e Grande polonaise.

Disc 8: The youthful Polonaises plus unimportant minor works like the Bourées, the Largo in E-flat, and the Fugue again turn up in Alessandra Ammaro’s splendid and mindfully virtuosic renditions.

Disc 9: The label replaces Fred Oldenburg’s good, workmanlike recording of the First sonata with a superior version from Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy, while retaining the latter’s wonderful Second and Third sonatas. Recently I compared his recording of the Second sonata’s strange Finale next to those of Horowitz and Rubinstein, and actually found Schmitt-Leonardy’s creative inflections more engaging (sound clip).

Disc 10: In place of Ivan Moravec’s Four Scherzos (originally issued by Dorian), we have Alwin Bär’s scintillating 1998 cycle, coupled with his equally compelling Fantasy in F minor and Barcarolle, along with a rather fussy Berceuse.

Disc 11: A hodgepodge of performances. I raved in detail about Schmitt-Leonardy’s reference-worthy Op. 28 Preludes when they first came out. Paolo Giacometti shines in the C-sharp minor Prelude Op. 45, Oldenburg serves up the Three Ecossaises quite well, while Marian Mika plays two versions each of the Waltz in F minor Op. 70 No. 2 and the Funeral March Op. 72 No. 2 using alternative texts.

Discs 12 & 13: Rem Urasin’s Mazurka cycle evokes the high rhetoric and subjectivity of pianists like Jean-Marc Luisada and Andrew Rangell, minus their eccentricity. Just don’t expect lightness, humor, or snappy embellishments.

Discs 14 & 15: Claire Huangci’s rippling and graceful pianism in the Nocturnes differs from the seasoned drama of the Earl Wild cycle that appeared in the 2015 box. The Duo Pianistico di Firenze’s Rondo Op. 73 and Variations in D fill out CD 15.

Disc 16: Alessandro Deljavan works overtime trying to emulate the great Romantic pianists, yet his lurching phrasings and contrived voicings throughout the Waltzes often belabor the obvious and fail to ring true. The piano itself sounds poorly regulated, and doesn’t always hold its tuning.

Disc 17: Frank van de Laar basically picks up the slack, playing the Rondos, the Variations brilliantes Op. 12, the Bolero Op. 19, the Allegro de concert Op. 46, and the Tarantella Op. 43 with plenty of finesse and good taste, if not quite matching Vladimir Ashkenazy’s ebullience.

For its attractive price tag and overall consistency (have Rubinstein’s Waltzes and Mazurkas handy, though!) Brilliant Classics’ 2023 Chopin Edition holds its own alongside similar multi-artist complete Chopin collections on other labels featuring bigger names. It should appeal to general music lovers just getting started with Chopin’s music who wish to take a deep dive into the composer’s oeuvre.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Autumn 2020 offered Daniel-Ben Pienaar an opportunity, not because the world was in lockdown but rather for the benefit it provided. A professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Daniel-Ben was allowed overnight access to the RAM’s Angela Burgess Hall. Solitary, with a Steinway and a single pair of suspended omni-directional microphones, surrounded by silence and the darkness of the night, Daniel-Ben recorded this inspired eight-CD set of Haydn’s Piano Sonatas over a four-month period.

Daniel-Ben’s choice of Haydn’s 48 Piano Sonatas is based on his own meticulous research. The cycle comprises authenticated works plus earlier compositions presumed by scholars to be penned by Haydn. This deluxe box set follows in the footsteps of Daniel-Ben Pienaar’s acclaimed surveys of sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

A slipcase containing four 1CDs and a 2CD with archive recordings of the SWR which go as far back as 1952. The recordings belong to some of the greatest singers of all times, the repertoire consists of art songs (lied), arias and baroque arias.

Sony Classical is pleased to announce an important reissue of works by Carlos Chávez, one of the most influential figures in the history of Mexican music. Most of these recordings, which span the years 1938 to 1980, are conducted by Chávez himself and have never appeared before on CD.

CONTENTS:

• Buxtehude: Ciacona in E minor, BuxWV160
• Chávez: Danza a Centeotl (from the Ballet 'Los cuatro soles')
• Chávez: El venado
• Chávez: Huapango de Vera Cruz
• Chávez: La bamba
• Chávez: La paloma azul
• Chávez: Los Cuatro Soles
• Chávez: Pirámide (Ballet in four acts)
• Chávez: Soli I
• Chávez: Soli II
• Chávez: Soli IV
• Chávez: Sones Mariachi for Small Mexican Orchestra
• Chávez: Symphony No. 1 ‘Sinfonía de Antígona'
• Chávez: Symphony No. 2 ‘Sinfonía India'
• Chávez: Symphony No. 3
• Chávez: Symphony No. 4: ‘Sinfonía Romántica'
• Chávez: Symphony No. 5
• Chávez: Symphony No. 6
• Chávez: Violin Concerto
• Chávez: Xochipili
• Chávez: Yaqui Music de Sonora

Sony Classical is pleased to present a special edition of Leonard Bernstein’s American Columbia recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the conductor-composer’s most celebrated interpretations and works are collected here on these carefully chosen 10 original albums on 11 CDs. 

There is, of course, the still-astonishing album that launched Leonard Bernstein’s international reputation as the most dynamic and charismatic conductor of his era, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring recorded in January 1958 – two months after his appointment as the youngest music director in the New York Philharmonic’s history. Reviewing a 2013 reissue, ClassicsToday.com declared: “It has an excitement, spontaneity, and primal fury that no other version quite matches.” 

The Bernstein recording that launched the “Mahler Renaissance” in the 1960s is also here: his Third Symphony with the New York Philharmonic, which has arguably never been surpassed. And while we’re talking about Third Symphonies, Bernstein’s “Eroica” still sounds “wonderfully vibrant” (Gramophone) a half century after its first release. There is also his reading of Dvořák’s most popular symphony – “There’s no such thing as a ‘definitive’ recording [of the “New World”], but if there were, this one would come close to that imagined ideal” (ClassicsToday) – and two from Haydn’s magnificent “Paris” set: “It’s debatable whether there have been better performances” (ClassicalNet).  

Bernstein himself conducts and plays Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (“The one indispensable recording of this familiar work, paired with an equally fine American in Paris” – New York Times). Bernstein the pianist also accompanies Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, at the peak of his matchless career, in an acclaimed album of Mahler lieder. The ballets Rodeo and Billy the Kid by Bernstein’s mentor and friend Aaron Copland are included: “Even the composer couldn't make [them] dance the way Bernstein does” (New York Times).  

Bernstein the composer is also generously represented. The original Broadway cast recording of Candide from 1956 is included, as is the definitive version of his most famous work: the original Broadway cast recording of West Side Story from 1957. 

The re-masterings in this new collection are the best ever issued of these thrilling recordings by one of the last century’s greatest musicians, selected from the Grammy® award-winning Leonard Bernstein – The Composer and the Leonard Bernstein – Remastered editions. Sony Classical’s new 11-CD Leonard Bernstein box set is the perfect introduction to the work of this American genius.

Past praise of previously released recordings included in this set:

Mahler: Symphony No. 3 / Lipton, Bernstein, NYP

This was the finest performance of Mahler’s Third when it was first issued back in 1962, and in some ways it has never been surpassed. Bernstein catches the riotous vulgarity of the first movement march music like no other conductor–not even his own digital remake reaches the level of sheer abandon he whips up here, and he also has the best of all fifth movements (bright and cheery, with dazzlingly prominent percussion).

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 / Bernstein, NYP

There’s no such thing as a “definitive” recording, but if there were, this one would come close to that imagined ideal. Its special qualities haven’t dimmed a bit in decades since it was recorded, and every interpretive decision comes across with the inevitability of fate itself. First, you get the first-movement exposition repeat (very unusual for its time), then there’s the very slow (but still very flowing) Largo, gorgeously played and far from the trudge-fest that Bernstein would make of for DG. The scherzo goes like the wind, the fastest ever, and the finale offers simply the last word in excitement. If you don’t own this performance in some form, then you don’t know the “New World”.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Among the best-selling composers of our time, Ludovico Einaudi has won a following of millions through his distinctively calm, smoothly unfolding works, which spin unbroken songs from the simplest material and cast a spell of relaxed enchantment over their audience. Jeroen van Veen is the Dutch pianist who has likewise won an international following for his many albums of Minimalist piano music on Brilliant Classics, including a previous collection of Einaudi’s music, ‘Waves’ (9452). ‘Clouds’ is another 7CD collection, which ranges across 30 years of Einaudi’s oeuvre, from the Stanze (‘Verses’) of 1992 to the Underwater collection from 2022. In fact, as a relatively early work, Stanze contains intriguing and uncharacteristic elements: as the composer himself explained, ‘I had one goal: to remove, and leave space. The title refers to the poetic stanzas but also to invisible spaces to be inhabited with the mind.’

In 2012, Einaudi produced a project called Elements as a tribute to the memory of his mentor and teacher Luciano Berio. Each instrumental song of Elements evolves from a small gesture or motif, evoking a journey through fragmented thoughts and feelings. In a similar way, but on a much grander scale, the Seven Days Walking project of 2019 developed from a walking tour of the Alps, where Einaudi had the idea of observing and evoking the times of day and moods across the cycle of an entire week. This cycle finds the composer at his most bewitchingly minimalist, drawing in the listener to a space of private reflection. The Underwater collection thrives on the interplay of pure, sparkling and warm, melancholic sounds and invites you to forget the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The tempo is restful and the pulse flowing even in a seascape such as ‘Swordfish’.

Finally, Jeroen van Veen has selected an album’s worth of Einaudi’s prolific work in the world of film, in which his songs often present a mirror to troubled souls and an oasis of calm amid violence.

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

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.

Multi-award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel has created a truly unique magnum opus: The Gospel According to Mark, a seven-hour oratorio setting the disciple’s text from the King James bible in its entirety.

What originated as an idea to distill the text, as most passion music does, Chris quickly became more interested in setting the complete prose. He chose to compose a work employing an English Protestant text, rather than the more traditional Latin or German, envisioning The Gospel According to Mark as a seven-hour-long prayer. With the text as Chris’ starting point, the musical motifs and melodies followed, setting concepts including the themes of teaching, healing, miracles, forgiveness, death, and resurrection.

The scope of the text is illuminated by scaled-down forces – chamber-sized string orchestra plus two horns, oboe (doubling oboe d’amore) and cor anglais (doubling bass oboe), with soprano, alto, tenor and bass solo voices. Unlike other oratorios, the singers do not represent any particular person but rather act as a chorus of storytellers. Chris explains, “This nebulous use of the voices, which sidesteps role assignment, keeps the vocal parts more abstract and hence the listener focused on the text.” With Chris’ faith as his guide, The Gospel According to Mark takes the listener a journey through the contrasts of peacefulness and agitation, darkness and light.

This collection stands as a valuable time capsule from which one comes away with a fuller understanding of Iturbi’s prominence in American wartime and postwar culture.

The complete RCA Victor Recordings by José Iturbi from 1933 to 1953, include his piano duo recordings with sister Amparo Iturbi as well as Amparo Iturbi’s solo recordings on 16 CDs, restored and remastered from the original lacquer discs and analogue tapes using high-resolution 24 bit/192 kHz mastering technology with about 95% of the recordings appearing on CD for the first time and 23 pieces previously unreleased. As well as a new, captivating essay by Grammy-nominated singer, pianist, and music anthropologist Michael Feinstein on the life and work of José Iturbi and a photo book with previously unseen photos and facsimiles from the Iturbi Archives in Hollywood.

There was a time when classical music was a natural part of Hollywood. From the moments with Jascha Heifetz in They Shall Have Music (1939) to the unrivaled performances of Oscar Levant and Isaac Stern in Humoresque (1946). In its Golden Era, Hollywood adorned itself with the Who's Who of classical music. Today, alongside icons such as Marylin Monroe and James Dean, the names of Leonard Bernstein, Maria Callas and Arturo Toscanini, as well as Rudolf Serkin, Joseph Szigeti, or José Iturbi were immortalized on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. This edition is a loving homage to Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, made possible through the generous support of the José Iturbi Foundation and the Hollywood Museum Board of Directors, who contributed to the lavish restoration of many previously lost unpublished recordings. The publication was also made possible by contributions of singer, pianist, and music archivist Michael Feinstein, the Ambassador for the Great American Songbook.

REVIEW:

During the 1940s and 1950s the “World’s Most Popular Classical Pianist” mantle fell comfortably upon José Iturbi (1895-1980). His recognition as a radio personality led to a movie career that yielded ten feature films between 1943 and 1951 where the pianist mostly starred as himself. Yet for all of Iturbi’s renown, he was hardly a poseur. He worked with Wanda Landowska in Paris, and gave Stravinsky’s Piano Rag Music its world premiere, as well as the first complete Carnegie Hall performance of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes.

He also conducted. When Eugene Ormandy assumed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music directorship in 1936, his chief rival for the position was Iturbi, who wound up taking charge of the Rochester Philharmonic that same year. Once Hollywood beckoned, however, Iturbi became the brunt of intellectual critics, who basically wrote him off as a sell-out and an artistic lightweight.

Time, of course, brings perspective, and Sony/BMG’s lavishly produced 16-CD collection containing Iturbi’s complete RCA Victor recordings invites a fairly thorough examination of the musician behind the personality, plus an opportunity to reassess a largely forgotten body of recorded work. A 188-page coffee table book contains photos in abundance, with all original-jacket artwork represented, including the most politically incorrect cover art ever to grace Dvorák’s “New World” symphony. We get complete session and release discographies, an Iturbi filmography, plus a brilliant in-depth biographical essay by Michael Feinstein, who co-produced this collection with Robert Russ.

It’s a pity that the session discography is not cross-referenced to corresponding CD tracks, not to mention the absence of a discography by composer. This makes it difficult to navigate the contents with ease, especially in works that Iturbi recorded more than once. For example, it took some sleuthing on my part to discover that Discs 5 and 11 each contained the Liszt Liebestraum No. 3, Schumann Arabeske, Debussy Reverie, and Chopin Polonaise in A-flat Op. 53, and that the performances were not identical.

With few notable exceptions, Iturbi’s solo recordings mostly consist of short, encore-length pieces. He’s especially at home in Spanish music: Iturbi’s accentuation, phrasing, and timing throughout Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance define perfection, while he shapes Granados’ Spanish Dance No. 2 (“Oriental’) with sensitivity and tenderness. Classical selections also stand out for Iturbi’s bracing articulation. True, the outer movements of his Mozart K. 331 and 332 sonata recordings are overly facile and insufficiently inflected when measured alongside contemporaneous Mozartean rivals like Schnabel, Gieseking, Fischer, and Haskil. Yet the sheer evenness and poised symmetry of Iturbi’s finger-work easily explains why pianists like Julius Katchen and William Kapell praised his Mozart.

Iturbi also revels in the Haydn C major Theme and Variations’ sly wit. By contrast, introspection and sobriety characterize Iturbi’s measured unfolding of Beethoven’s Andante favori. Similar gravitas elevates Paderewski’s Minuet in G to near-masterpiece status. Iturbi’s virtuosic glitter befits his dashing Saint-Saëns Allegro appassionato more than in his glib Liszt Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este.

Iturbi’s Chopin hits and misses. His Mazurkas lack the ardency and rhythmic snap that distinguishes a Second Scherzo that gets better as it progresses. Also note the pianist’s dotting the duple rhythms in the A-flat Polonaise’s main theme that Horowitz, Rubinstein, and Lhevinne play straight on their rival RCA versions.

The later recordings reveal Iturbi’s pianism losing some of its erstwhile luster and subtlety, possibly exaggerated by the close microphone placement and twangy patina typical of late 1940s/early 1950s piano recordings stemming from RCA’s Hollywood recording studio. For example, the two Debussy Arabesques recorded in New York in 1939 have a supple elegance missing in their glassy-sounding 1950 Hollywood counterparts (sound clips). The blustery, hard-toned, and harshly engineered Liszt Concerto No. 1, Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1, and Beethoven Concerto No. 3 were non-starters in their day, with the piano way up in the mix, relegating the crackerjack RCA Symphony musicians to doormat status. Still, the Mendelssohn’s outer movements feature some of Iturbi’s most scintillating pianism on disc.

While Iturbi’s two-piano distribution of the solo part of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is surprisingly effective and discreet, he and his pianist sister Amparo turn in a crass, alternately whipped up, and sappily sentimentalized interpretation. Works of Mozart, Debussy, and Milhaud better represent their dazzling ensemble rapport, but again, the boxy, claustrophobic engineering undermines their efforts. Similar dryness typifies Amparo’s idiomatic solo recordings of Spanish repertoire. Still, it’s nice to have her rare 1954 Granados Goyescas back in circulation, although it pales alongside Alicia de Larrocha’s far more nuanced and texturally differentiated interpretation from the following year.

The collection also showcases Iturbi’s work on the podium. His 1940 Rochester Philharmonic versions of the Mozart D minor and Beethoven C minor concertos are more judiciously balanced than his orchestrally superior 1952 RCA Victor Symphony remakes. Each contains lively and engaging outer movements that flank wooden, hard-toned slow movements.

Iturbi’s 1951 Liszt Hungarian Fantasy with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra has a snarling rawness that differs from the sheen and suavity of the 1952 Arrau/Ormandy and late 1940s Solomon and Moiseiwitsch editions. As with many second-tier American orchestras in the 1940s, the Rochester Philharmonic boasted strong strings but less proficient winds and brass. Consequently, Iturbi’s Mendelssohn “Scottish” Symphony took a back seat to Mitropoulos’ powerful 1941 Minneapolis version, while the aforementioned Dvorák New World lacked the Szell/Czech Philharmonic recording’s flavorful ensemble discipline.

The prize of Iturbi’s Rochester discography is a snazzy and brilliantly turned-out Morton Gould “Latin American” Symphonette, which is surprisingly well-engineered for its 1944 vintage. Another delightful curiosity is William J. Reddick’s Espanharlem, a brief orchestral work whose quick changing moods and jazzy underpinnings wouldn’t be out of place in a Carl Stalling Bugs Bunny cartoon soundtrack. There’s also a previously unpublished recording conducted by Werner Janssen of Iturbi’s orchestral composition Soliloquy. The piece amounts to 14 and a half minutes’ worth of rambling 1940s film music clichés filtered through third-rate Lecuona. Why Iturbi is credited as piano soloist when there’s no piano to be heard is anyone’s guess!

Notwithstanding the artistic unevenness of Iturbi’s recorded output he always had the self-respect to keep his technique in world-class repair, unlike his rival classical pianist turned media personality Oscar Levant. Still, music lovers who don’t want to go the whole hog, so to speak, are directed to APR’s 2016 three-disc solo Iturbi compilation. I also hope to see Iturbi’s post-cinema EMI recordings restored. However, beyond purely musical considerations, Sony/BMG’s collection stands as a valuable time capsule from which one comes away with a fuller understanding of Iturbi’s prominence in American wartime and postwar culture.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

CONTENTS:

• Mozart: Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra No. 10 in E flat, K365
• Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466
• Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S124
• Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
• Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
• Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
• Chambers, J C: All American
• Gould, M: Symphonette No. 4 'Latin-American'
• Reddick: Espanharlem
• Iturbi: Soliloquy
• Mozart: Sonata for 2 pianos in D major, K448
• Chabrier: Trois Valses Romantiques
• Iturbi: Spanish Dance
• Debussy: En blanc et noir
• Milhaud: Scaramouche, suite for two pianos, Op. 165b
• Nepomuceno: La siesta
• Infante: Guadalquivir
• Infante: Sevillana
• Debussy: Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune
• Liszt: Liebestraum, S541 No. 3 (Nocturne in A flat major)
• Debussy: Rêverie
• Beethoven: Für Elise (Bagatelle in A minor, WoO59)
• Schumann: Arabeske in C major, Op. 18
• Debussy: Deux arabesques, L. 66
• Falla: Dance of Terror (from El amor brujo)
• Rachmaninoff: Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 in C sharp minor
• Liszt: Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este, S. 163 No. 4)
• Falla: Ritual Fire Dance (from El amor brujo)
• Saint-Saëns: Allegro appassionato, Op. 70
• Albéniz: Malagueña (No. 3 from Espana, Op. 165)
• Chopin: Étude Op. 10 No. 12 in C minor ‘Revolutionary'
• Chopin: Polonaise No. 6 in A flat major, Op. 53 'Héroïque'
• Debussy: Estampe No. 3 - Jardins sous la pluie
• Schumann: Romance in F sharp major, Op. 28 No. 2
• Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 9 in E major
• Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 10 in C sharp minor
• Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 15 in D flat major ‘Raindrop'
• Chopin: Nocturne No. 9 in B major, Op. 32 No. 1
• López-Chavarri: El viejo castillo moro
• Iturbi: Cancion de cuna
• Granados: Orientale (No. 2 from 12 Danzas españolas)
• Chopin: Mazurka No. 6 in A minor, Op. 7 No. 2
• Chopin: Mazurka No. 7 in F minor, Op. 7 No. 3
• Chopin: Mazurka No. 24 in C major, Op. 33 No. 3
• Chopin: Mazurka No. 27 in E minor, Op. 41 No. 2
• Chopin: Mazurka No. 25 in B minor, Op. 33 No. 4
• Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 31
• Debussy: Children's Corner
• Ravel: Jeux d'eau
• Guastavino: Gato
• Mozart: Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra No. 10 in E flat, K365
• Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466
• Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
• Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
• Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
• Bach, J S: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV582
• Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K331 'Alla Turca'
• Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 12 in F major, K332
• Chopin: Impromptu No. 4 in C sharp minor, Op. 66 'Fantaisie-Impromptu'
• Chopin: Waltz No. 6 in D flat major, Op. 64 No. 1 'Minute Waltz'
• Chopin: Waltz No. 7 in C sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2
• Chopin: Mazurka No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 7 No. 1
• Albéniz: Sevilla (from Suite Española, Op. 47)
• Granados: Goyescas: Quejas ó La Maja y el Ruiseñor
• Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K27 in B minor
• Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K159 in C major 'La caccia'
• Paradies: Toccata in A
• Iturbi: Pequena danza espanola
• Beethoven: Andante Favori in F, WoO 57
• Albéniz: Cantos de España (5), Op. 232, No. 4
• Lazăr, F: Piano Sonata No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 15: III Tempo di Marcia funebre
• Saint-Saëns: Caprice arabe, Op. 96
• Debussy: L'isle joyeuse
• Infante: Danze andaluse (for 2 pianos): No. 2 Sentimento
• Debussy: Deux arabesques, L. 66
• Bach, J S: Fantasia in C minor, BWV906
• Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 10 'Melancólica'
• Gould, M: Boogie Woogie Etude
• Gould, M: Blues
• Falla: Ritual Fire Dance (from El amor brujo)
• Falla: Dance of Terror (from El amor brujo)
• Debussy: Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune
• Liszt: Liebestraum, S541 No. 3 (Nocturne in A flat major)
• Chopin: Polonaise No. 6 in A flat major, Op. 53 'Héroïque'
• Schumann: Arabeske in C major, Op. 18
• Debussy: Rêverie
• Haydn: Theme and Variations in C major, Hob.XVII:5
• Paderewski: Minuet in G major, Op. 14 No. 1
• Beethoven: Für Elise (Bagatelle in A minor, WoO59)
• Schumann: Träumerei (from Kinderszenen, Op. 15)
• Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
• Rachmaninoff: Humoresque in G major, Op. 10 No. 5
• Infante: Danses andalouses
• Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b: June (Barcarolle)
• Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b: November (Troika)
• Mussorgsky: Une Larme (A Tear)
• Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 'Scottish'
• Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 'From the New World'
• Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody, S244 No. 14 in F minor
• Falla: El sombrero de tres picos: Dance of the Neighbours (Seguidillas)
• Falla: El sombrero de tres picos: Danza del molinero (farruca)
• Falla: El sombrero de tres picos: Final Dance (Jota)
• Palau Boix: Marche burlesque
• Palau Boix: Hommage a Debussy
• Iturbi: Seguidillas
• Cuesta: Danza valenciana in A major
• Falla: Siete Canciones populares españolas
• Turina: Homenaje a Lope de Vega, Op. 90: I. Cuando tan hermosa os miro
• Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 8 'Sardana'
• Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 12 'Arabesca'
• Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 9 'Romántica'
• Turina: Mujeres Españolas, Series 1, Op. 17: 2. La andaluza sentimental
• Turina: Mujeres Españolas, Series 1, Op. 17: 3. La morena coqueta
• Infante: Pochades andalouses: Canto flamenco
• Infante: ochades andalouses: Danse gitane
• Infante: Pochades andalouses: Aniers sur la route de Seville
• Infante: Pochades andalouses: Tientos
• Albéniz: Granada (from Suite española No. 1, Op. 47)
• Albéniz: Córdoba (No. 4 from Cantos de España, Op. 232)
• Cuesta: Danza valenciana in G major
• Lecuona: Malagueña
• Griffes: The White Peacock
• Infante: Guadalquivir
• Infante: Pochades andalouses: Ritmo
• Mozart: Sonata for 2 pianos in D major, K448: Allegro molto
• Granados: El Pelele
• Granados: Goyescas (piano suite)
• Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales
• Chabrier: Scherzo-valse (No. 10 from Pièces pittoresques)
• Chabrier: Idylle (No. 6 from Pièces pittoresques)
• Chabrier: Bourrée Fantasque
• Schubert: Valses Sentimentales, D 779 Op. 50 (Excerpts)
• Schubert: 12 Valses Nobles, D 969 Op. 77: selection
• López-Chavarri: Danza de las labradoras Valencianas
• Shostakovich: Prelude for piano, Op. 34 No. 2 in A minor
• Shostakovich: Prelude for piano, Op. 34 No. 14 in E flat minor
• Shostakovich: Prelude for piano, Op. 34 No. 24 in D minor
• Fauré: Impromptu No. 3 in A flat major Op. 34
• Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 13 in B flat major, K333

Born in 1946, Vladimir Martynov is one of several composers from the former USSR whose music taps into a vein of perpetual memory and farewell. Literally so in the case of Der Abschied, an eight-movement cycle for small ensemble which stands on the threshold like a guest at a gathering of friends, unable or unwilling to shut the door behind them and venture out alone. One of Martynov’s most distinguished contemporaries was the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, who talked of a ‘genetic aural well’ for Russian music which, like Orthodox prayer, cannot be learnt as a text, but which exists beyond any text. Silvestrov explicitly recognized his own output as ‘meta-music’ or even ‘post-music’, and the same could be said of many pieces in Martynov’s output. Tiny motifs and gestures are layered and expanded across a meditative space in a distinctively Russian form of Minimalism that bears certain similarities with the better-known outputs of Pärt and Schnittke but pursues a consciously more austere path: both the Requiem and Stabat mater are imbued with the timeless qualities of chant and ancient melisma. Martynov’s music began to attract a certain cult following in the West during the 1990s with performances and recordings made principally by the violinist Gidon Kremer and his former partner, Tatiana Grindenko. As both a violinist and conductor, Grindenko has continued to keep Martynov’s flame burning, and she leads most of the performances here, which were made mostly in Moscow over the course of several years and in several cases receive here their first international release.

To mark their 30th Anniversary, Britten Sinfonia and Thomas Adès are releasing their acclaimed Beethoven and Barry cycle as a box set. The works were recorded between 2017 and 2019 at Barbican Hall, London and Theatre Royal, Brighton. Thomas Adès: “This collection is the fruit of two parallel passions. After twenty years of performing and often premiering Gerald Barry’s works, I was frantic to record as much of it as possible. I had also loved working on Beethoven Symphonies with Britten Sinfonia, and suddenly an idea was born: why not dare the two firebrands to join hands? As soon as this idea took hold, everything fell into place. I believe Ludwig van Beethoven must be treated as a living composer, and I find Gerald’s music to be entirely classic. So the two complement each other ideally.” Gerald Barry: “Tom Adès decided on this pairing. It startled me. The first record I bought when I was about 13 was Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. We didn’t have a record player so all I could do was study the cover and advertisements on the back. I could look and see but not hear. I would take the record out and smell it. I used my nose as a stylus going round and round.”

The importance of Christmas inspired many composers to write music for the occasion, some designed to be performed in church services, others for concert or secular celebration. This 6 album set combines oratorios and concertos by Schütz, Telemann, Bach, Corelli, Rinck, Saint-Saëns, Herzogenberg, Clarke, Nicolai. Some of the finest artists and ensembles in the Hanssler catalog are showcased on these recordings, including Iona Brown, Joachim Held, Hannoversche Hofkapelle, Collegium vocale Siegen, Monteverdi-Orchester Munchen, Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra, and many more.

REVIEWS:

Christmas has inspired many composers to compose magnificent music, on the one hand for church services and on the other hand for festive concerts outside the church. This masterful box with 6 CDs contains oratorios and concertos by Schütz, Telemann, Bach, Corelli, Rinck, Saint-Saëns, Herzogenberg and Clarke, performed by some of the best artists and ensembles in the Hänssler catalogue, including Iona Brown, Joachim Held, Hannoversche Hofkapelle, Collegium vocale Siegen, Monteverdi-Orchester Munchen, and the Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra.

-- Stretto

As Christmas approaches, an avalanche of familiar Christmas tunes rumbles in the distance. Even in the case of large-scale Christmas compositions, the same works seem to be repeated too often, but Hänssler's six-disc box set reminds us that the repertoire is much wider.

The greatest work is Heinrich von Herzogenberg's (1842–1900) idyllic oratorio "The Birth of Christ" (1894), which spreads the event into a spectacle borrowing familiar and lesser-known Christmas carols based on the Old Testament and the Gospel of Luke. Herzogenberg, who was one of Brahms's supporters, represents full Romanticism at its tenderest, sometimes generously sweet. Schütz's "A Christmas Story" is more familiar and would work better as a period-style performance. Arnold Bruckhorst's (c. 1675–c. 1725) twenty-minute "Christmas History" is, on the other hand, a new acquaintance, as is Christian Heinrich Rinck's (1770–1846) even shorter classic Romantic Christmas Cantata. All performances are homely and competent, without causing great artistic tremors. Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio can be found in more sophisticated recordings, but why, for example, Otto Nicolai's charming Christmas Overture is never heard in concerts?

Telemann's big and handsome oratorio Heilig, heilig, Heilig ist Gott (1747) is useless to look for elsewhere. The documentation only includes lists of works and performance information.

-- Rondo Classic