Delights & Dances, the Chicago Sinfonietta’s first recording with its new music director, award-winning conductor Mei-Ann Chen, does what this singular ensemble does best: it captivates listeners of all ages and diverse ethnic backgrounds through irresistible music and superb musicianship. This release includes three world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

This disc contains three enterprising works for string quartet and orchestra, an unusual but effective combination too seldom exploited, plus an entertaining encore, Saibei Dance by Chinese/Canadian composer An-Lun Huang. The most important piece on the disc is Benjamin Lees’ Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, which was recorded by RCA in the middle of the last century by Igor Buketoff and the Royal Philharmonic, and issued in tandem with Roger Sessions’ Third Symphony. It has been long due for a new recording, and this one is outstanding. The work is pure neo-classicism, close in style to the Hindemith of the Kammermusik series, containing arresting but modern-sounding ideas presented in a crystal-clear formal context. The finale, for example, is a rondo whose recurring idea is a motoric theme for string quartet punctuated by irregular strokes on the drums (sound clip). It’s instantly identifiable in whatever form it returns, and it places the intervening episodes in high relief.

Michael Abels’ Delights and Dances, a single movement for string quartet and string orchestra, offers a more modern take on Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for the same forces. Beginning moodily with solo strings, it gradually increases in energy through to the jazzy conclusion. Finally, Randall Craig Fleischer has arranged a selection from Bernstein’s West Side Story for string quartet and orchestra. I am not wholly convinced by his calling this suite of 10 movements a “concerto”, despite the addition of two “cadenzas” along the way. This is not, incidentally, an arrangement of the Symphonic Dances, since it includes numbers (“America”, “Quintet”, “Tonight”) that are not part of that work. Not surprisingly, the arrangements work best in the more lyrical episodes, many of which feature solo strings or solo voices anyway, but the fact is that the tunes are so memorable that they could be played on a ukelele and still sound wonderful (no offense to any ukelele players out there). Anyway, the piece certainly is fun as it stands.

The Harlem Quartet, dedicatees of Abels’ piece, play all of this music very beautifully indeed. They have a warm, well balanced corporate sonority, rock solid rhythm, and the ability to play hard without coarsening the tone unnecessarily. The Chicago Sinfonietta under Mei-Ann Chen is a virtuoso group that accompanies with impressive technique, and the sonics are typically excellent. This is a very, very fine disc.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The flourishing genre of the comic opera had its roots in eighteenth-century Italian opera buffa, whose irrepressible brio was soon taken up outside the country’s borders. In France it produced opéra comique and operetta, and in German-speaking countries Spieloper and Viennese operetta. Some of the world’s most popular comic opera overtures, filled with gorgeous tunes, brilliant orchestration and race-to-the-finish endings, are presented here. They include staples of the concert repertoire such as Hérold’s dramatic Zampa, the textual delicacy of Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna and the vivid colour of Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann.

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)

Franz Schmidt’s Third Symphony was composed in 1927–28, dedicated to and premièred by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, winning a first prize from the Columbia Graphophone Company of New York for the best symphony in the spirit of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony as part of the centenary commemorations of Schubert’s birth. Schmidt’s symphony is lyrical, includes a set of variations, a Ländler-like Scherzo and finale rich in thematic invention. In 1931 Schmidt added wind and percussion instruments and a large body of strings to his monumental Chaconne for organ, in which form it too was premièred by the Vienna Philharmonic.