A classic recording of a classic pairing of French song cycles. Composed some 60 years apart, Berlioz's Les Nuits d'ete and Ravel's Sheherazade both visit romantic, mysterious and exotic locations, evoking a wealth of moods and sensations. Janet Baker, an irresistible storyteller, is accompanied on her journey by Sir John Barbirolli, conducting the New Philharmonia Orchestra with sensitivity and imagination.
Intimate and inspiring communication is of the essence in chamber music. Here Beethoven's characteristically masterly works in the genre are interpreted by musicians who defined their era as star soloists and were also close collaborators and friends: Barenboim, du Pre, Perlman, Zukerman, Harrell and others. Dating from the years around 1970 and from the early 1990s, these recordings do full justice to the spirit and scope of Beethoven's genius.
Doomin Kim, who makes his recording debut with this album of piano music by Mendelssohn, is a 16-year-old from South Korea, currently on a programme for exceptionally talented students at Paris's Ecole Normale de Musique. 'Mendelssohn's music is like reading a book, a romantic story, a fairy tale or a poem. I hope that people will find peace in their hearts when they listen to it.' The best-known works on the programme are the mercurial 'Rondo capriccioso in E major' and the 'Fantasia in F sharp minor', known as the 'Scottish Sonata'.
The piano duo and twin sisters, Christina and Michelle Naughton, pay tribute to their homeland with the album 'American Postcard'. It offers music by four US composers: John Adams, Aaron Copland, Conlan Nancarrow and Paul Schoenfield. As the sisters explain, 'These pieces show the diversity and variety of American music, but one thing that ties them together is an exuberance that, to us, feels deeply American.'
The world is looking forward to seeing Paris's Notre-Dame restored to it's familiar physical glory. In the meantime, the musical joys of the great cathedral can be experienced with the singers of it's choir school, Maitrise Notre-Dame de Paris. Backed by more than 800 years of choral tradition, the Maitrise offers training and performance opportunities to talented children, teenagers and adults. On Cathedrale d'emotions they and the professional singers of the Ensemble vocal de Notre-Dame de Paris perform music that spans the entire history of the cathedral, including works premiered at Notre-Dame in the 21st century.
Dating from the years between 1928 and 1948, the recordings in this collection were all made during the lifetime of Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). They can be credited with playing a substantial role in propagating his works around the world and in cementing his international reputation as one of the towering figures of 20th century music. The seven CDs constitute a wide-ranging survey of the composer's music. Rightly, the seven symphonies are at the heart of the collection. Symphonies No.s 1, 2, 3 and 5 are conducted by the Finn Robert Kajanus, whom Sibelius described in 1934 as "the best conductor my music ever had... he worked and studied and sought unceasingly to play my works exactly as I wanted them to sound." Kajanus was Creating a biographical panorama of his career, the British tenor Ian Bostridge has personally selected each track in this 7CD Autograph collection. With a focus on both song (in German and English) and opera (from Monteverdi to Ades by way of Handel, Mozart and Britten), it demonstrates just why he is recognized as one of today's most distinctive, intelligent and compelling singers. The tenor also complements his performances with an exclusive and illuminating audio interview. This is the fourth release in the Autograph series, launched earlier in 2015 with collections devoted to Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson and Jose van Dam. Each box focuses on a single artist, providing a biographical panorama of his or her career through a series of thematically programmed CDs and fascinating documentation. Each collection is devised in collaboration with the featured artist and includes a newly-recorded exclusive interview, Illustrated with musical extracts and conducted by the distinguished journalist and broadcaster Jon Tolansky, discussing his or her life and work. Bostridge, a former Oxford academic who has written three books and has been described as "something of a polymath" by the New York Times, can be relied upon to provide articulate and stimulating opinions on his career and the music he performs. Bostridge is a highly distinctive artist, an interpreter of exceptional intensity who uses his fundamentally lyrical voice to powerful dramatic effect. When he appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall in 2011 the New York Times wrote: "... this was a Dichterliebe in which an insightful vocal artist had a compelling idea about the words and music of every phrase." [Schumann's song cycle Dichterliebe appears on CD6 of this collection.] Bostridge expressed his philosophy as a performer to the Financial Times in an interview in 2013: "It may not be obvious at first why such music is enjoyable but it is consciousness-raising. It makes you think about what is valuable in life - the things music ultimately wants to address... Art is part of the good life but it's also part of what it means to be a human being... Art has transcendent value and if you live in a democratic society, you want to bring it to as many as possible."
The oboe has held a special place in France's culture since the time of Louis XIV, and on Bienvenue en France the oboist Francois Leleux, partnered by pianist Emmanuel Strosser, performs works originating from the 20th century. The composers are Debussy, Saint-Saens and Dutilleux, the lesser-known Pierne, Bozza and Sancan, and the contemporary Thierry Pecou. This music could not find a more eloquent advocate than Leleux, praised by The Scotsman as "a remarkably charismatic, flamboyant performer, matching immaculate technique with a dazzlingly vivid identification with his music
Emphasizing it's reputation as probably the greatest of all violin concertos, Perlman has described Beethoven's masterpiece as "classical and transparent", saying "You can't hide behind it". In this live recording, made with with Daniel Barenboim and the Berliner Philharmoniker, his playing is as fearless and authoritative as it is beautiful.
I find it fascinating how each piano is different from the next, says the 30-year-old Munich-based composer. "Some instruments really open up your creativity. To play on a lot of different ones is the best way to come up with new ideas.[...] It's this fascination which drives CORRELATIONS. Having begun playing at an early age [...] CIPA launched his recording career in 2012 [...]. Since then he has expanded his artistic range, collecting instruments and building his own studio, culminating in 2019's Retronyms, an album he describes as "dedicated to the idea of creating my own sound world". With this new release, however, he has decided to return, in a sense, to his roots. "I wanted to simplify the process," he says, "by focusing again on the piano, but spreading the concept. " For CORRELATIONS, CIPA carefully selected six grand pianos, three uprights, a square piano and a Rhodes.
Martin Kohlstedt's 2020 album, Flur is the German composer's way forward in a time of no clear paths. To deliver it's ten tracks, Martin turns inwards - not for answers, but rather, for a way of working with doubts and uncertainties themselves.
This album is a real dream come true for me. From my childhood days I've been absolutely passionate about musical theatre, which I discovered while taking my first steps on the stage. It's a genre whose magical power" to tell a story through theatre, song and dance I find utterly compelling. In this debut album I wanted to bring a French touch, an entirely personal sound, to the Broadway repertoire by including some French songs that were just as much a part of my first musical experiences. The combination of these two musical worlds is hugely meaningful for me, representing as it does my background and the songs, I used to sing all the time while growing up.
The young Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, praised for the luminosity and rich colours of her voice, makes her recording debut for Warner Classics with El Nour. Her enticing and absorbing recital programme crosses cultures, combining art songs by French, Spanish and Egyptian composers with Egyptian folk songs and popular songs from the Middle East. As she explains, "'El Nour' in Arabic means 'the light', and this album sheds light on how music that has been interpreted many times can be perceived in a different light. The idea is to connect three cultures - Arabic, French and Spanish - and to show how much, despite cultural, geographical and historical differences, they have in common when it comes to music".
Piotr Anderszewski takes a characteristically creative approach to Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-tempered Clavier). Rather than recording all 48 of it's prelude-and-fugue pairings, he has focused on 12 pairings from Book Two. "I decided to put the pieces together in a sequence of my own subjective choosing, based sometimes on key relationships, at other times on contrasts. The idea behind this specific order is to create a sense of drama that suggests a cycle: 12 characters conversing with one another, mirroring each other." Anderszewski's last Erato album of Bach prompted BBC Music Magazine to write: "For anyone who loves Bach (or the piano)... this life-enhancing disc is required listening."
Maurice Ravel's music reflects the cultural and creative ferment of his times, as the heady sensuality of the Belle Epoque made way for neo-classicism, the Jazz Age and modernism. Strikingly diverse in mood and scale, his works assert his distinctive identity, expressed through craftsmanship of the utmost finesse and beauty: deeply sensitive and balancing sincerity, irony and a touch of provocation. An essential collection of landmark performances, this 21-CD box of Ravel's complete works brings together major interpreters of the present day and preceding generations. There are even contributions from the composer himself, as conductor, pianist (on piano rolls) and artistic supervisor.
