When William Steinberg was appointed music director of the Boston Symphony in 1969 as successor to Erich Leinsdorf, he attained the pinnacle of his career. No previous conductor had headed two top-ten US orchestras simultaneously. It was a condition of his Boston position that he could continue to work in Pittsburgh with the orchestra that he had headed since 1952.

Born as Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne on 1 August 1899, he studied at the local conservatory with the conductor Hermann Abendroth and the pianist Lazzaro Uzielli, a Clara Schumann pupil. On graduating in 1920 he became Otto Klemperer’s assistant at the Cologne opera house. In 1929 he was appointed music director in Frankfurt. Relieved of his post by the Nazis in 1933, he conducted concerts in Frankfurt and Berlin under the auspices of the Jewish Cultural League before emigrating to Palestine in 1936 to take over the Palestine Orchestra (now Israel Philharmonic Orchestra). At Toscanini’s invitation he went to the United States in 1938 to assist in forming and training the new NBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1945, he assumed the music directorship of the Buffalo Philharmonic, where he liked to refer to himself as “Buffalo Bill”.

The Steinberg/Boston collaboration with RCA was unfortunately ill-fated and short-lived. Not because of the repertoire, but plummeting sales and spiraling costs plaguing the American recording industry in general persuaded RCA to let its contract with the Boston Symphony lapse after 52 years’ association. Gramophone magazine’s Peter Quantrill claimed in 2018 that Steinberg was “the most under-recorded of great conductors in the second half of the last century.”

In 2004, the critic Richard Freed wrote of the Schubert Ninth (CD 1) and Bruckner Sixth (CD 2) Symphonies: “Both [are] vital and inspiring performances, free of the monumentalizing all too often inflicted on such music: they are among the best entries in his discography and among the finest recordings of the works.” According to John L. Holmes in Conductors on Record, they were also Steinberg’s favorites among his own recordings. Mendelssohn’s own orchestration of the Scherzo from his Octet and Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique and Scherzo à la russe, coupled on CD 3 with formidable virtuoso renderings of orchestral showpieces by Dukas, Richard Strauss and Saint-Saëns, were originally prepared for release on LP LSC-3155 but remained unpublished – until now.

This survey of RCA Boston Symphony recordings during the Steinberg era is rounded off with 1970 tapings of Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony and Carnival Overture (CD 4) from the same recording period by Arthur Fiedler, former BSO violinist and longstanding conductor of the Boston Pops. His recordings of mainly light repertoire for RCA generated total sales of well over 50 million. Nevertheless, it was his ambition to record a major symphony, and here RCA belatedly granted his wish, placing the full Boston Symphony Orchestra at his disposal for the first and only time.

All recordings in the set have been newly transferred and remastered from the 3-track (CD 1), 4-track (CDs 2, 3 [1-6], 4) and 2-track (CD 3 [7-9]) analog tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology.

For his latest release on Sony Classical, pianist Lucas Debargue turns to one of the unsung treasuries of the piano repertoire: the works of Gabriel Fauré.

In a remarkable undertaking, Debargue has recorded every note of his compatriot’s piano music, all on a newly designed piano rarely heard on record until now. Throughout each recording, he retraced Fauré's musical path, from his earliest works to his final compositions. "Recording it," says the pianist, has "transformed my life both as a person and as a musician."

Debargue’s recording of Fauré’s complete piano works is a major recording event of the Fauré anniversary, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1924. A comprehensive set of sleeve notes notes includes the pianist’s own commentary on each piece, an analysis of Fauré’s approach to writing for the piano, and full details of the Paulello Opus 102 instrument he plays on the recordings.

Violinist Movses Pogossian continues his admirable advocacy for the work of Armenian composers with this extensive 4 disc collection of new works, a follow up to his Modulation Necklace release in 2020 (FCR244). Divided into four volumes that focus on instrumental chamber music, art song, and solo piano music, Serenade with a Dandelion is an invaluable resource to explore 20th and 21st century Armenian repertoire, performed with the utmost sensitivity and commitment by Pogossian and his colleagues.

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.

Admiration for the French composer, harpsichordist and organist, Louis Couperin continues to grow steadily today, but it was not so during his lifetime. The first important edition of his work in modern times, in its latest revision by Thurston Dart (used for this set), catalogues 129 pieces as authentic. Collectively, they help to place Couperin among the greatest composers of the 17th century alongside Frescobaldi, Chambonnieres, Froberger, and D’Anglebert.

Though he wrote religious works as well as chamber music, harpsichord music forms the lion’s share of Louis’s nephew François Couperin’s output: 235 pieces in all, most of them published in the four volumes (or Livres) of Pièces de Clavecin, divided into 27 ordres.

Like the better-known Jacques Duphly and Claude Balbastre, Armand-Louis Couperin belongs to the last generation of French harpsichord composers. The modesty and success which profited Armand-Louis handsomely during his lifetime rather dimmed the light of his creative legacy. He published little during his own lifetime. One of only a few opuses, the magnificent volume of Pièces de clavecin deserves consideration alongside the viol fantazias of Purcell and the Lachrymae of Dowland, examples of lateness in music, where the fruit has ripened beyond high summer, yet there is much of interest in these pieces, beyond their historical value at the end of a distinguished family line.

Armand-Louis’s son, Gervais-François Couperin, studied with his father then replaced him at the Sainte-Chapelle organ. His keyboard compositions reveal a profound understanding of the delicate nuances and expressive capabilities of the harpsichord, characterized by elegance, refinement and meticulous attention to ornamentation. Yet Gervais-François was also a virtuoso on the new instrument of his day, the fortepiano, and this set features his music performed on that keyboard of greatly expanded expressivity.

REVIEW:

— Gramophone

The most comprehensive survey ever made of Reger’s organ music, on a range of superb Austrian, German, and Swiss instruments: a fitting tribute to the composer on the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Roberto Marini's feat of performing Reger's entire output for organ in Italy within a single year (2002) was followed in 2011-13 by this remarkable achievement on record. On the basis of authoritative new critical editions compiled by the Max Reger Institute, Marini recorded the works on historical instruments of Reger's time, which with their orchestral richness of color and dynamic possibilities correspond to the soundworld of an epoch that believed in progress in every dimension and embodied a kind of striving heroism as an attitude to both life and art.

First released in individual albums on the Fugatto label, this box compiles Roberto Marini’s Reger albums complete for the first time, together with an authoritative essay by Suzanne Pepp on Reger’s output for organ.

Franz Schmidt 150 (1874-1939)

“In conversations about Franz Schmidt the recurring theme emerging for many is that listening to a performance of his music at a young age became the turning point in their lives the realization of how powerful music can be,” says Jonathan Berman, whose longtime love of Franz Schmidt’s work has its origins in a performance preparation for his Fourth Symphony.

Berman’s passion for Schmidt’s work and the composer’s upcoming 150th birthday in 2024 were key reasons for the conductor to approach the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to record all four symphonies together – a major project that also marks Jonathan Berman’s CD debut.

The recordings were realized between 2020 and 2022 at BBC Hoddinott Hall, the home of the BBC NOW in Cardiff. In November 2023, Accentus Music releases all four symphonies in a high-quality box set that will also be made available across all digital platforms. BBC Music Magazine wrote about the digital pre-release of the first symphony in March 2021: “Jonathan Berman and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales deliver a terrific performance which provides a fine alternative to the excellent version from Paavo Järvi. […] What really makes this new recording so enticing is the sheer energy and enthusiasm with which conductor and orchestra communicate the vigour and optimism of the opening movement.”

Produced in association with BBC Radio 3 and BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

REVIEW:

Following their highly acclaimed streamed recording of his First Symphony, Jonathan Berman and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales have now completed their Franz Schmidt symphony cycle. Packaged together in this sumptuously designed and luxuriantly recorded set, the performances of all four symphonies, released in celebration of the 150th anniversary of his birth, pay worthy tribute to an undeniably major late-Romantic Austrian composer who, despite the passage of time, continues to divide opinion.

With almost evangelical zeal, Berman staunchly defends Schmidt from his detractors by providing some insightful personal observations in the booklet notes and by investing sufficient energy and dedication in his interpretations to allow the music to speak directly and fervently to the listener.

The present collection commemorates the long-standing cooperation between Gary Bertini, born in today’s Republic of Moldova, and the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, beginning in 1978 with Hector Berlioz’ 'Symphonie fantastique'. Their last recording featured on this box was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, performed in 1996 in Tokyo. Bertini conducted several Israeli orchestras for many years. Even though he had never wanted to set foot in Germany, he was convinced to travel to Hamburg by the offer to conduct the 1971 premiere of the opera Ashmedai by Josef Tal. He later became chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, then director and highest-ranking conductor at the Frankfurt opera and in 1998 went on to serve as artistic director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

Anton Bruckner and Sankt Florian, an incomparable and authentic relationship: In the monastery of Sankt Florian, Bruckner’s home and resting place, not a single stone has changed since Bruckner’s time. Conductor in Residence Rémy Ballot and the Altomonte Orchestra of St. Florian have been using the annual gathering at the St. Florian Brucknertage festival for more than ten years now to devote themselves intensively to a selected Bruckner symphony and to present it to the audience in one or two celebrated concerts. From the live recordings this 10-part cycle was created and in 2023 completed with the recording of the “Nullified Symphony WAB 100” and is now being released as an exclusive complete edition. In the entire history of Bruckner’s reception, this is the only cycle to have been performed live in its entirety by a single conductor – Rémy Ballot – exclusively in Sankt Florian. The acoustics of the St. Florian Abbey Basilica are problematic due to their reverberation time of up to ten seconds, and are only suitable for a few works, as there is a danger of “harmonic mush” if the tempo is too fast and the harmonic changes too rapid as a result. Far from this trap, on the contrary, music is made in alliance with the acoustics in the present recordings. The architectural and acoustic conditions of the basilica require a consciously specific articulation and dynamic shaping. The Altomonte Orchestra, made up of local musicians reinforced by members of the most important Austrian orchestras, is traditionally deeply familiar with these, as well as is the Upper Austrian Youth Symphony Orchestra, which has been performing Symphonies VI and VIII for this edition.

This 7-SACD collection includes recordings made by Brazilian-born conductor John Neschling of the orchestral works of Ottorino Respighi, alongside Puccini the best-known Italian composer of the first half of the twentieth century. Widely praised by the press, including BBC Music Magazine, which described them as ‘the finest-ever survey of the composer’s orchestral output undertaken by a single conductor’, these recordings reveal Respighi’s extraordinary range.

His transcriptions of works from the baroque period bear witness to his great musical refinement and are an example of the way in which people dared to adapt to current tastes at the beginning of the 20th century. His original compositions, whether symphonic poems, ballets or symphonic works, often call for a large orchestra, sometimes with the addition of numerous percussion instruments, piano, organ and even, in Pines of Rome, a phonograph, present a synthesis of the musical traditions of his native Italy and contemporary romantic, impressionist and neo-classical trends while remaining resolutely closed to modernist developments and atonality. Respighi’s lavish sound palette and the spirit that fills his scores were to find an echo in Hollywood film music, and John Williams considers him to be one of his most important influences.

Past praise of the previously released recordings included in this set:

Respighi: The Birds; Ancient Airs & Dances

These performances are uncommonly airy. Much of this music is suffused with an autumnal melancholy, and Neschling and his orchestra capture that very well.

-- Fanfare

Respighi: Metamorphoseon, etc.

All of the performances here are expert, but conductor John Neschling deserves particular credit for keeping things movement purposefully forward in the first two long, and mostly slowish, movements of the Belkis suite. The same work’s vulgar (let’s not kid ourselves) concluding Danza orgiastica also sounds more musical than usual–less like a back-alley gang bang–but with no loss of energy. The Liège orchestra plays with great bravura, and BIS’s SACD sonics, typically, are just terrific. In short, a very worthy entry in this ongoing series.

-- ClassicsToday.com

Respighi: Roman Trilogy / Neschling, Sao Paulo Symphony

The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra is a superb ensemble by any standards, and displays their virtuosity in the three Respighi symphonic poems.

-- SA-CD.net

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.

The most complete collection ever issued of the Dutch Minimalist master, including the famous Canto Ostinato but also many previously unreleased recordings, all made by a pianist with an international reputation in the field of Minimalism. ‘Given his music’s virtuoso demands, and its spirituality, it is tempting to call him the Franz Liszt of minimalism.’ This assessment of Simeon Ten Holt by an American reviewer points to Ten Holt’s originality, his industry and his influence over modern Minimalism in the generations after its 1960s birth in America.

As with Liszt in Weimar during the 1850s and 60s, many paths have led to and from Ten Holt’s music. It has long been recognised that with Canto Ostinato, his flexible sequence of 92 variations on a simple bass-line, Ten Holt built a masterpiece to stand alongside the likes of In C by Terry Riley, and Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. However, this box-set shows how much more there is to Ten Holt.

The boy Simeon was introduced to the world of music by hearing his father play the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata one night, and from then on he was entranced by the possibilities of stretching time through patterns. Late in life, he remarked: ‘I am the time, and I have the time.’ This box traces his development as has never been possible before, from the early untitled Compositions, comparable to the Abstract Expressionist canvases of the time, through miniatures such as sets of Epigrams and Aphorisms, to the triumph of Canto Ostinato, and then far beyond, to the mystical cycles of Lemniscaat, Horizon and finally the renewed vigour of Eadem Sed Aliter (‘The Same but Different’), a late piece which, as the composer remarked, ‘takes away the limits of the concepts of ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’, ‘before’ and ‘after’.’

As he explains in a personal introduction, Jeroen van Veen first encountered the music of Ten Holt as a child, listening to the radio to (as he discovered much later) the premiere of Horizon: ‘the notes melted together to create such a rich tapestry of colour.’ He has since performed Canto Ostinato and the rest of Van Veen’s music many times and in many countries, and in 2001 he became the founder chair of the Simeon Ten Holt Foundation. His performances, as recognised by critics in publications worldwide, are beautifully recorded and bear the stamp of complete authority in this music.

ICA Classics, via its long-term contract with BBC Worldwide, are proud to release a fourth volume of the best-selling BBC Legends box, featuring 20 CDs of some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Volume one was released in 2013 and comprised 20 CDs taken from the critically acclaimed BBC Legends catalogue which has been unavailable since 2010. The second volume was released in 2017 and is now out of print, while the third volume came out in late 2022. A beautifully packaged clamshell box with individual wallets for each main artist featuring full details of tracks, dates and venues.

Sony Classical releases the full cycle of Bruckner’s symphonies recorded by the Vienna Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann on 11 CDs. The box set, featuring the composer’s nine numbered symphonies, his ‘Study Symphony’, his ‘Nullified’ symphony, and a 172-page booklet. This release constitutes the first complete recording of the Austrian composer’s symphonies from the orchestra under a single conductor. Christian Thielemann enjoys a strong rapport with the Vienna Philharmonic and has established himself as one of his generation’s most esteemed interpreters of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire.

Past praise for previously released CDs included in this set:

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

This new Bruckner Fourth deserves a strong recommendation. It is a reading of undeniable power and presence.

-- Fanfare

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 / Thielemann, Vienna Ohilharmonic

Overall, there’s an aliveness to the music, inspired by the concert setting, which adds another reason this Bruckner Eighth is so satisfying. If you want to hear Thielemann at his best, conducting a stupendous orchestra, that’s precisely what we have here.

-- Fanfare

Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 . Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic

Thielemann's interpretation has intimacies hard to find in other versions, and a vulnerability movingly communicated in the Vienna Philharmonic’s super-empathetic playing.

-- BBC Magazine

On the occasion of Cambreling's 75th birthday the label SWR Classic releases a 10-disc boxed set of recordings made by SWR between 1999 and 2011.

Sylvain Cambreling was the chief conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg between 1992-2016. When he took up his position at the broadcasting corporation Südwestrundfunk, he knew only too well that he was the successor to charismatic colleagues such as Hans Rosbaud, Ernest Bour, and Michael Gielen. He met with an orchestra that was young, efficient, and enthusiastic, and whose members were eager and willing to fulfill the task the broadcasting corporation had set: a strong commitment to New Music.

Cambreling was and still is enormously hard-working, curious about anything new and complex, displays a versatility that is without competition, and is a great communicator: therefore, he was the ideal cast for this orchestra and its tasks. The hymns of praise, specifically those of the foreign press, regularly (and not without envy) point out the qualities and possibilities of the orchestra and also the apparently reliable sponsorship from the broadcasting corporation. Just as reliable were the invitations from Salzburg, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence.

Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent have made a lasting impression on the Bach discography with their many recordings devoted to the Kantor. They have also explored other sacred repertoires by Beethoven, Haydn, Dvorák and Bruckner, to which they have brought all their excellence and sensitivity. Here they are together for the first time in a boxed set of 11 CDs.

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)