In 2019, when Alexandre Kantorow, at the age of 22, became the first French pianist to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky competition, his program included no less than three works by Johannes Brahms. Two of these, Piano Sonata No. 2 and the Rhapsody in B minor, he went on to record for release on his previous, highly praised recital disc, which was awarded distinctions such as Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice, Diapason d’Or, and Choc de Classica. The Brahms interpretations won Kantorow particular praise – the Guardian (UK) described them as ‘magisterial’ while the website ResMusica placed his sonata ‘among the great reference recordings of the piece – if not the modern one.’ There is much to look forward to, then, when Kantorow releases an all-Brahms album with a playing time of no less than 85 minutes.

He opens with music by a composer of a similar age as himself: Brahms wrote the Four Ballades in 1854 while only 21 years old, taking up a fashionable genre introduced by Chopin as late as 1840. The set is followed by the even earlier Sonata No. 3 in E minor which forms the center of the program. The sonata is of almost symphonic dimensions and it was indeed, along with its predecessors, famously described as a disguised symphony by no one less than Robert Schumann. To bring this stormy, impassioned album to a close, Kantorow has chosen a later, and contrasting work: With a lifelong admiration for Bach, Brahms in 1879 made a piano arrangement, for the left hand alone, of the iconic Chaconne from Partita No. 2 for solo violin – a composition that Brahms himself described as ‘a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful impressions’.

REVIEW:

When he made this recording in 2020, Kantorow was just a couple years older than the 20-year-old Brahms who composed the Piano Sonata No. 3. He finds a youthful quality in the sonata and the Ballades that nobody else has quite touched on. Kantorow's Ballades are mysterious, with ghostly quiet passages and mighty climaxes -- again, not what one thinks of usually for Brahms, but again carefully constructed. Only in the Bach arrangement does Kantorow falter a bit. However, he takes chances, and this is all to the good. If one needed any more evidence that Kantorow is a young pianist to watch, it is here in abundance.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

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.

It was Antje Weithaas’ own idea to jointly record Johann Sebastian Bach’s six sonatas and partitas for solo violin in conjunction with Eugene Ysaye’s six solo violin sonatas. “The works by Bach are rather well-known,” she remarks. “But what about the Ysaye sonatas? Ysaye is invariably shoved into the virtuoso corner, but as a composer he is to be taken quite seriously!” These solo works by Bach inspired Belgian violin celebrity Eugene Ysaye to write his Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, op. 27, dedicating each one of them to a great violinist of his time. Ysaye is regarded as the main representative of the Franco-Flemish violin school, closely associated with the fin-de-siecle period when architecture was awash with flowery ornaments. In painting and poetry, meanwhile, symbolism and sensuality abounded. Artists either adored or detested Wagner, who became the main subject of musical discussions throughout Europe. Ysaye is said to have conceived the plan of the Six Violin Sonatas within the course of one day in 1924, when he was 66 years old.