Recorded following an acclaimed solo concert tour, renowned performer, composer and conductor Thomas Adès performs a collection of Leos Janácek’s works for piano. Nearly all of the music for solo piano written by Leoš Janácek (1854-1928) dates from before the First World War and thus belongs to the period before the composer’s remarkable late creative surge, which was triggered by the hugely successful 1916 production in Prague of his third opera, Jenufa (1894-1903; rev. 1907-8), and facilitated by his retirement from his teaching position at the Brno Organ School. Nevertheless, all three of Janácek’s major solo piano works – On an Overgrown Path (1900-1911), From the Street 1 October 1905 (1905-6) and In the Mists (1912-13) – contain music that is both profoundly individual and also integral to the now widespread view of the composer as one the most original musical voices of early twentieth-century music.

REVIEWS:

Adès’s account of On an Overgrown Path eschews sentimentality and refuses to duck the suppressed violence that occasionally erupts. His care shown over Janácek’s inner part writing is often revelatory, and he seems very much at one with the near improvisatory nature of these pieces. There is perhaps less delicacy in his approach to the more elusive soundworld of In The Mists, but his performance is impressive for its clarity and cohesion.

– BBC Music Magazine

It’s apparent from the get-go that Adès is determined to check all expressive clichés at the recording studio door, accept Janácek’s plain-spoken syntax and lack of artifice for what they are, and simply play the music straight. Adès seems less interested in colour or moody subtext than rendering text with intensive clarity in the two-movement Sonata. An illuminating release.

– Gramophone

In Great Britain Christmas carols are an integral part of Christmas just like plum pudding and turkey, paper crowns and mistletoe. They are sung in all big cathedrals and churches at Christmas, first and foremost in the time-honored chapel of King’s College. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols- a Christmas mass featuring King’s College Choir, nine short readings and, of course, carols- has been broadcast live on the radio every year since 1928 on Christmas Eve. The a cappella choir SWR Vokalensemble belongs worldwide to the best choirs, renowned mostly for its exquisite performances of modern music. This album however contains traditional, centuries old Christmas Carols, arranged by British composers like Benjamin Britten, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Byrd, to name just a few.



REVIEW:

An entire program of English music recorded by a German choir doesn’t happen all that often, and a disc of “very English” Christmas repertoire may be rarest of all. However, the top-tier Stuttgart-based SWR Vokalensemble is one group for whom this sort of thing is not so unusual. In fact they’ve not only recorded several discs that feature works by British composers such as Britten, MacMillan, and Vaughan Williams (including his rarely recorded Mass in G minor); they’ve gone where even American choirs fear to tread, recording the complete choral works of Elliott Carter(!), ten of Ives’ Psalm settings, and a disc of American works that includes pieces by Cage, Reich, and Feldman.

The program itself, chosen with obvious care by one who knows his way around the repertoire, is marked by first-rate performances that stand solidly alongside similar offerings by this ensemble’s “native” British counterparts. As good as the program and performances are, potential listeners may find the disc’s curious, cursory title misleading: “Christmas Carols” does not accurately describe the program at hand. While the music is almost exclusively Christmas-themed, only perhaps three of the 19 selections (to be generous) could be labeled as “carols” in the traditional sense. Although the liner notes do include a very brief but informed history of the true carol, our attention is quickly directed to the “carol” as it’s come to be identified via inclusion in the popular annual carol service at King’s College, Cambridge: that is, virtually any choral piece—original or arrangement—with a sacred, Christmas-centered text. The programming here all makes sense when you know that conductor Marcus Creed is not only British, but was a student and former singer at King’s College.

Just looking at the list of composers, most of whom are as English as they come—Boris Ord, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Herbert Howells, David Willcocks—and the works at hand, each one ingrained in the very soul of every English-speaking, Christmas-music-loving listener—sets you up for what you hope will be an hour of pure pleasure, born of the special traditions of a season that is uniquely associated with its music. And, be it from Germany or Lower Slobovia, it doesn’t matter: this program does not disappoint.

Whether you choose this for the iconic repertoire—Ord’s Adam Lay Ybounden; Britten’s A Hymn to the Virgin; Howells’ A Spotless Rose; Thomas Ravenscroft’s Remember O Thou Man; David Willcocks’ Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day; Elisabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree; Holst’s In the Bleak Midwinter—or just for the world-class singing (hopefully both!), you can be assured of a listening experience that will endure many hearings throughout the entire season—and the next. This choir knows the music well and obviously enjoys singing it, demonstrating a mastery of both language and style.

The program’s one non-English-language work is Robert Parsons’ Latin-texted Ave Maria—a most welcome inclusion of one of the 16th century’s greatest masterpieces, and a highlight of the disc. Another plus: the all-too-rare inclusion of a list of publishers of each work (choral directors, take note). Highly recommended.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Vernier)

Timelapse creates a space where sounds of the past and present collide to form a unique musical landscape. Although the pieces were written, in some cases, centuries apart and in culturally disparate eras, it is striking how much these contrasting works inhabit such similar emotional territory. Intriguing pairings of works by Rameau and Radiohead, Schubert and The Smiths, Adés and Grieg, Satie and Reich, compliment each other beautifully in the context of Timelapse. This recording by Orchestra of the Swan provides a place where notions of time and style have become irrelevant.

Volume 2 in Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia's collaborative performances of the works of Beethoven and Barry; specifically the Beethoven Symphony Cycle and a selection of Barry’s works. This CD features Beethoven’s 4th, 5th and 6th symphonies, interspersed with Barry’s 'Viola Concerto' (featuring Lawrence Power) and piece for orchestra and bass 'The Conquest of Ireland' (featuring Johsua Bloom).

Gerald Barry grew up in rural Ireland. His music shows us how his upbringing had an effect on his compositional style - giving a piece a title such as Beethoven would suggest an attempt at emulating his legacy nearly two centuries after his death. Do not be fooled by this however; his music shows his major influence from radio, moving from the sublime and the ridiculous with carefree abandon. "...the most striking orchestral contribution to this year’s anniversary celebrations that’s come my way." (Presto Classical) "This set cuts pristine interpretations of Beethoven’s early symphonies with Gerald Barry’s 21st-century zesty homage ... Adès and the Britten Sinfonia present tightly knit performances [of the Beethoven Symphonies], and dynamic subtleties are largely preserved in the concert recordings." (BBC Music Magazine)

REVIEW:

Volume two of Thomas Adès’s Beethoven symphony cycle with added Gerald Barry continues to illuminate both composers. Under Adès, the Britten Sinfonia provide lean, though certainly not mean, performances of Beethoven’s middle three symphonies. There are a few scrappy moments, the wind almost getting ahead of themselves in the Fourth’s slow movement, but generally this is stylishly incisive Beethoven. Barry’s pieces are no mere filler.

– BBC Music Magazine

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.”

In the Autumn of 2021, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra together with its new chief conductor, Nicholas Collon, arranged a Thomas Adès festival in Helsinki devoted to the world famous composer’s music in addition to works by other composers chosen and conducted by Thomas Adès (b. 1971). One of the highlights of the festival’s program was the world première of Märchentänze in its version for violin and orchestra performed by violinist Pekka Kuusisto, Adès’ long-time artistic partner. This new album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra includes four recent and exciting orchestral works written by the composer between 2016 and 2021 in world première recordings.

In addition to the Märchentänze, this album includes Adès’ orchestral Hotel Suite from Powder Her Face, an adaptation based on the music from the opera through which Adès first made a widespread name for himself in the mid-1990s. The orchestral version of Lieux retrouvés, originally written for Steven Isserlis, could be described as a cello concerto in the spirit of Marcel Proust. Orchestral work Dawn was written for the 2020 London Proms for ‘orchestra at any distance’, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Adès’ Dawn comes across as timeless music floating in a serene universe of beauty all its own.

REVIEW:

These performances by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO) under their current Chief Conductor, British-born-and-trained Nicholas Collon (b. 1983) are magnificent and bring out all the subtle colorations in these superbly scored works. That said, Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto gets a big hand for his superb playing in Märchentänze [T-10 thru 13]. And the same goes for Finnish cellist Tomas Nuñez in Lieux retrouvés [T-6 thru 9].

The recordings were made in October 2021 (Hotel… & Lieux…) and April-May 2022 (Märchentänze & Dawn) in the Helsinki Music Center’s Concert Hall. They present consistently generous, dynamically wide-ranging sonic images with both soloists centered, well captured and effectively highlighted. As for the orchestral timbre, it’s characterized by titillating highs, a pleasant midrange and clean bass. While these recordings are good on headphones, this colorfully scored music is even better over a good home theater system.

-- Classical Lost and Found (Bob McQuiston)

This book + 2-CD set will ship on or after 21 June 2024.

Read about it in the New York Times!

Music in Time of War, the new double album from pianist Kirill Gerstein, places the music of Komitas, pioneer of ethnomusicology and founder of the Armenian national school of music, alongside that of Claude Debussy, a seminal composer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who held a deep admiration of Komitas’s music. This 2-CD release comes with a 172-page hardcover book.

Both composers were profoundly affected by the implosion of their worlds – Komitas by the Armenian Genocide, Debussy by the First World War – and their music reflects a close emotional alignment. Music in Time of War grew from Gerstein’s fascination with music’s power to reflect a narrative. The project will be released as a double CD album and will be accompanied by a hardcover book containing a series of illustrations and detailed essays in three languages commissioned by the pianist.

Gerstein pairs Debussy’s 12 Études from 1915 and Komitas’s Armenian Dances for piano, composed the following year, and includes a selection of Debussy’s late piano pieces composed to raise funds for the war. The artists featured on the album include Armenian soprano Ruzan Mantashyan, and pianists Thomas Adès and Katia Skanavi – they join Gerstein in a selection of works for voice and piano, piano four hands as well as for two pianos. Accompanying the recording are four in-depth essays from historians Annette Becker and Khatchig Mouradian, musicologist Artur Avanesov and composer Heinz Holliger, that explore the impact of war and genocide on society, and the reaction of artists to such events. These essays give socio-historical context to the music of Debussy and Komitas, and their response to creating in times of catastrophe.

Music in Time of War epitomizes both Kirill Gerstein‘s creative curiosity and his insightful approach to curating projects. The album will be released as a double CD including the high-quality 172-page hardcover book by myrios classics.

Huw Watkins’ song cycle Echo, composed for soprano Ruby Hughes and premiered in 2017 at Carnegie Hall, is at the center of this artfully crafted recital. Setting texts by five different poets, the cycle is a work centered on melancholy – on transience, remembrance, and in the final song a numbed cry of inconceivable loss. As such it permeates the entire program, adding a new and unexpected depth to that which precedes as well as follows. Another strand of the recital is the idea of how composers across the ages have addressed and echoed one another lovingly in their music – often in the most nuanced and unconscious way. Bach’s solo keyboard works capture something of a sense of timelessness, or more accurately, inspire an emotional connection that transcends time. A similar affinity seems to inform Britten’s folksong arrangements and his realizations of Bach’s Geistliche Lieder as well as the Purcell realizations by Thomas Adès and Tippett. A different kind of echo is created by the inclusion of Britten’s version of Dafydd y Garreg Wen(David of the White Rock) – a nod to the performers’ shared Welsh heritage. Closing the disc, three songs by contemporary British composers admired by both Watkins and Hughes also resonate with the previous works, bringing the program full circle.

REVIEW:

Here, in a recital that includes two world premieres, Hughes and longtime collaborator Huw Watkins combine contemporary works with works from centuries past. Somber themes connect them: the transience of life. Loss. Grief.

Watkins’s five Echo songs are exceptionally beautiful. Listen to the falling cascades in his setting of Emily Dickinson’s “For Each Ecstatic Instant.” Admire how vocally responsive Hughes is in the Purcell, how fragile and precious she sounds in Errollyn Wallen’s “Peace on Earth,” and how much she can communicate with barely a whisper of sound. Marvelous.

-- Stereophile

Cellist Sophie Shao is a winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant. She has been described by The New York Times as "eloquent and powerful." This is a beautiful program of great works from the past and the present, from Couperin to Chopin to Adès.

“Inspirations and imaginings, evolving, changing English usage, landscapes, friendships and passings lie behind this album... Loosely, the songs we’ve selected embrace multiple interpre- tations and nuances of ‘divine’. As well as, I could argue, that sentiment of English song and English speaking composers embodying the [Blake/Parry] ‘Jerusalem-Builded-Here’ trope. The world I came from (singing in choir stalls), along with how countertenors are perceived generally, has been hard to escape. So here perhaps I’m taking on the challenge. As well as an opportunity to include songs written for me that for some while I’ve been needing to put down on disc.” (Iestyn Davies) ‘Divine Music’ marks Iestyn Davies’ third recital album on Signum Classics. The ‘Four Songs’ (Purcell/ Adès), Spoons Aria (Adès), Four Traditional Songs and Old Bones (Muhly) are world premiere recordings. Muhly’s Four Traditional Songs were also written dedicated to Iestyn Davies.

REVIEW:

It’s lovely to hear Butterworth’s Shropshire Lad songs in this pairing, a countertenor voice adding a wan fragility to ‘Is my team ploughing?’ and a wistful sense of perpetual youth and innocence to ‘The lads in their hundreds’.

-- Gramophone

The London Sinfonietta combine two works from Thomas Adès, one of the most distinctive and popular voices in modern composition. Both works feature accompanying films (by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements) that are included in this CD/DVD set. This is the second CD for the London Sinfonietta with Signum. It follows their October release of music by Louis Andriessen, featuring the UK premiere of Anaïs Nin, alongside his famed work De Staat. In Seven Days is a musical interpretation for piano and orchestra of the biblical 'creation' by Thomas Adès, composed in collaboration with a film-piece by the artist and filmmaker Tal Rosner. Both music and film evoke the processes of the creation rather than the objects described in the movement titles, using simple elements in repeated and evolving contexts in a perpetual state of flux, change and growth. The Piano Studies Nos 6 & 7 are arrangements of player-piano works by the American composer Conlon Nancarrow. An influential figure to generations of composers, Nancarrow's studies for the player-piano (or pianola) allowed him to generate music of extreme rhythmic complexity in a multitude of inventive ways. These arrangements for two pianos by Thomas Adès capture the strange magic of the originals, where fragmented musical ideas are played off against each other in a wild, almost jazz-like way. The works are accompanied by film-visualisations by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements.