Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton burst upon the global opera and concert scene in recent years after having won many of the world’s most prestigious prizes for vocal excellence and accomplishments. Delos has scored a major coup in releasing her debut album. Jamie’s well-chosen program of late-Romantic repertoire begins with eight of Gustav Mahler’s finest lieder- including his wonderful Five Ruckert Songs- before treating us to the rare delights of Antonin Dvorak’s song cycle Gypsy Songs. Her album concludes with even more seldom-heard selections from the many lovely Swedish-language songs of Finnish master Jean Sibelius. This sublime release- further graced by pianist Brian Zeger’s peerless collaboration- will take your breath away, and leave you hungry for more from Jamie Barton, considered by many of the world’s top vocal and operatic experts to be the rising mezzo of our time.

The Jupiter String Quartet feels a strong connection to the core string quartet repertoire. they also frequently commission and premiere new works, including string quartets by Syd Hodkinson, Hanah Lash and Dan Vixconti, as well as a quintet with vocalist Thomas Hampson. This release has a well-known classic by Dvorak, an arrangement of African-American spirituals and a contemporary reflection on the music of Tin Pan Alley.

Following the successful edition featuring Dvorák's complete string quartets, the Vogler Quartet releases more chamber music by this composer. During the course of his life Dvorák penned more than forty works for chamber ensemble. While most of his symphonies are most famous, they were often "sandwiched' between numberous chamber works.

REVIEW:

It is always an unexpected and very special surprise to receive a disc of very familiar works you already have multiple recordings of and have heard countless times, but one of such singular beauty that it causes you to fall in love with the music all over again, as if you were hearing it for the first time. Such is the magic of these performances of Dvořák’s String Quintet in E♭-Major and Piano Quintet in A Major, op. 81—I include the distinguishing opus number here because the composer wrote an earlier piano quintet in the same key, designated op. 5.

I’m not usually at a loss for words, but there’s not much else I can say other than that these are the most enrapturing performances of these two works I’ve ever heard, either live or on record. The balance between the instruments is such that tiny details emerge that one simply doesn’t hear in other recordings.

— Fanfare (Jerry Dubins)

Venezuelan-American cellist Carmine Miranda is a renowned international soloist and recording artist. He studied first at the Carabobo State Music Conservatory in Venezuela, then at the Latin-American Academy of Violoncell, the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. For this release, Miranda has chosen cello concerti by Schumann and Dvorak. When Miranda was only twenty two and twenty three years old, he recorded Bach’s Six Cello Suites, as well as Alfredo Piatti’s 12 Caprices for Solo Cello. He was one of the youngest in the world to ever record these works. “It’s natural, then, that Miranda’s performance of the Schumann Cello Concerto sounds like a love letter—attention is paid to moments of delicacy and tenderness.” (Huntley Dent, Fanfare Magazine)

Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6 in D major was composed for the Vienna Philharmonic, and dedicated to its principal conductor at the time, Hans Richter. Following the Symphony No. 6, this programme includes Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance Op. 72, No. 3, and Slavonic Dance Op. 46, No. 8. Performing these outstanding works is the Houston Symphony, conducted by Andres Orozco-Estrada. Colombian violinist and conductor Andres Orozco-Estrada began taking conducting classes in 1992, and in 1997 he began studying conducting at the Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien, under such teachers as Uros Lajovic. He has been Music Director of the Houston Symphony since 2014.

REVIEW:

Orozco-Estrada and his musicians play with great warmth and energy, and this live multichannel recording brings out all the rich colors and textures of Dvorák’s symphonic score. The two Slavonic Dances are welcome choices for their close thematic resemblance to the symphony and jubilant feeling, bringing the program of this hybrid SACD to a lively close.

-- AllMusic.com (Blair Sanderson)

Since its premiere in Prague in 1890, Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony has become one of the composer’s most-performed works. Josef Suk, Dvořák’s son-in-law and student-is obviously influenced by Dvořák, but displays his compositional skills in his own right in his Serenade for Strings. Consistently praised for his interpretation of Slavic music, Mariss Jansons conducts the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in this live recording.

REVIEW

This disc contains three very fine performances and I thoroughly enjoyed it all. The BR Klassik recording is very good indeed. I’ve come to expect clarity and very pleasing, natural sound from this label and this latest disc is another excellent example of their work.

--MusicWeb International (John Quinn)

Born in 1934, the Czech jazz composer Milan Dvořák, no relation to his better-known classical composer namesake, has been active since the 1960s leading big bands and swing ensembles and remains active today. This is the debut recording of his 45 Jazz Piano Etudes which combine transcriptions of popular songs with classical influences and features the pianist Milan Franěk.

Following on from their most successful album “sound escapes” (Capriccio C5239) the young, aspiring Signum Quartet address Bohemian music culture. Beside Antonín Dvorák’s famous String Quartet Op. 106 and Josef Suk’s Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale ‘St. Wenceslaus’ (1914), an impressionistic offering on the beginning of WWI, is the 1923 composed Five Pieces for String Quartet by Erwin Schulhoff, which experiments with dance forms and provides a most virtuosic challenge. “… the Signum Quartet, which must already be counted among the best ensembles of its generation…” (Pizzicato)

Dvořák composed the Biblical Songs op. 99 in 1894 during his time in America (1892-95), working as artistic director and professor of composition at the New York Conservatory of Music. His 9th Symphony, appositely termed ‘From the New World’ was to be followed by a further symphony, but Dvořák opted instead for treating the Biblical Songs, which, in their austerity, hardly allow scope for an American scent but rather are possibly reminiscent of the composer’s Czech homeland. Dvořák, the Catholic, had long demonstrated his faith with numerous works of fervent piety: Stabat Mater (1876), Requiem (1890), the Mass in D major as well as the pieces for solo voice and organ, for instance, the works that can be heard on this CD - Ave Maria, Ave Maris Stella and Hymnus ad laudes in festo Sanctae Trinitatis (1877-79) as well as the organ preludes and fugues of 1859 by the then 18-year-old composer.