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Solo Cello / Nina Kotova

Delos

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $14.99

Apr 21, 2023

Nina Kotova astounds listeners with this dazzling album for cello alone. “Solo Cello,” her third album for Delos, reveals her spectacular technique, heartfelt passion and profound comprehension of the extraordinary program she has chosen.

Along with a brilliant rendition of J. S. Bach’s C Major Suite for Solo Cello, the Baroque era is represented by Handel and Marin Marais, both with musical fireworks that leave the listener breathless. Works from the 20th century include Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Cello (four of the five movements were written in one night!); Alfred Schnittke’s haunting tribute to a cellist, Klingende Buchstaben (Sounding Letters); and Gaspar Cassadó’s charming and challenging Suite per Violoncello Solo.

The repertoire for this album is a fascinating combination of well-known and little-known compositions for solo cello. The two transcriptions (of works by Marais and Handel) sound like they were written for solo cello.

REVIEW:

There is an attractive gutsiness to the tone of Nina Kotova’s cello playing...it is a beautiful sound but one with the tinge of a life lived to it. Her manner of playing is similarly unabashed. If anything, her passionate, unbridled playing steps up a gear in Hindemith’s bristling Cello Sonata. I have always downgraded Hindemith as a bit dry, one for the musicologists. Not a chance with Kotova’s feverish advocacy.

...I found the sound a real pleasure. With a lot of cello writing concentrated on the upper strings, it is nice to hear the depths of the instrument’s sound so ripely presented.

I have a suspicion that this recording reflects a regular concert programme of Kotova’s. The way the pieces work together has the feel of practical experience and, unlike many recital discs which hang together on account of a clever idea or theme, this one makes good musical sense and sends the listener home (so to speak) satisfied. This is the sound of a seasoned musical talent in her absolute prime playing with confidence, sensitivity and flair in carefully and imaginatively chosen repertoire that suits her musical personality perfectly. What more could a listener ask for?

-- MusicWeb International

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Solo Cello / Nina Kotova

~~$18.99~~ $14.99
CD

Delos

Apr 21, 2023

DE 3588

Creation

Delos

Available as CD

$18.99

Jul 08, 2016

The Poulenc Trio is an impressive chamber ensemble made up of respected oboe, bassoon, and piano virtuosi. This release is the ensemble’s debut album for Delos. For the programme, the ensemble presents a fascinating mixture of old and new from Beethoven, Octavio Vasquez, and the centerpiece of the album, Alfred Schnittke. “From the first notes, we knew that this was a group of first-rate chamber musicians, who took as much delight in the joys of intimate playing as they gave.” (Ken Keaton, Palm Beach Daily News)

Creation

$18.99
CD

Delos

Jul 08, 2016

DE 3516

Exile

Alpha

Available as CD

~~$20.99~~ $15.99

Jan 24, 2025

This programme brings together composers who, for the most part, were compelled to flee their homeland. In 1920, Ivan Wyschnegradsky took refuge in Paris, where he wrote for a quarter-tone piano at a time when, in Russia, the slightest dissonance was considered a political provocation. Andrzej Panufnik left his native Poland in 1954. Alfred Schnittke settled in Hamburg in 1990, eight years before his death, having spent most of his life in the Soviet Union. Although Schubert never moved away from Vienna, the pain and solitude of his inner exile are palpable in his music. Finally, the Belgian violin virtuoso Eugene Ysaye emigrated on account of the First World War and it was in the United States, in 1917, that he wrote the melancholy musical poem recorded here, which he called Exil! Is exile nothing but pain and isolation, or also a source of inspiration which, with music, expresses what words cannot say, acting as the ultimate refuge? 'Let's listen to what they have to say', suggests Patricia Kopatchinskaja, herself 'uprooted for ever'. She is joined by cellist Thomas Kaufmann and her friends from Camerata Bern.

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Exile

~~$20.99~~ $15.99
CD

Alpha

Jan 24, 2025

ALPHA1110

Brahms: Five Sonatas For Violin & Piano, Vol. 2 / Wallin, Pöntinen

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $10.99

Jan 03, 2020

Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen made their first duo-recording for BIS in 1991 and have released acclaimed recital albums ranging from Schumann and Liszt to Alfred Schnittke, by way of Schoenberg and Hindemith. With the present disc they bring their most recent project to a close: a recording of all the works by Johannes Brahms for violin and piano. These include not only the three well-known and -loved numbered violin sonatas, but also the Scherzo from the so-called F.A.E. Sonata and the composer’s own violin versions of the two sonatas for clarinet and piano. Wallin and Pöntinen open the present release with Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 120, composed in 1894 for clarinet and transcribed for the violin a year later. As the clarinet part extends further down than the lowest note on the violin, Brahms made considerable revisions to the clarinet part, which entailed changes in the piano part, and consequently the printing of a new piano score. This is followed by the second and third violin sonatas, in A major and D minor respectively. Both works were composed during the summer of 1886 in Thun in Switzerland and are clearly related, even though they inhabit completely different expressive worlds.

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Brahms: Five Sonatas For Violin & Piano, Vol. 2 / Wallin, Pöntinen

~~$21.99~~ $10.99
SACD

BIS

Jan 03, 2020

BIS-2419

Mysterious Nativity

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

$13.99

Nov 18, 2014

Despite our increasingly secular society, many modern composers, inspired by ancient religious texts, have written music that is spiritual, pure and remarkably peaceful. + This release, a celebration of modern sacred music composed 1983-2011, and much of it of Russian or East-European origin, includes young Ukrainian composer Dimitri Tchesnokov’s Three Sacred Songs, Alfred Schnittke’s Three Sacred Hymns and more established works such as Arvo Pärt’s Magnificat. + The young conductor Léo Warynski directs Les Métaboles, who sing Russian and Latin with excellent diction and clear focus.

Mysterious Nativity

$13.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

Nov 18, 2014

BRI95080

Russian Music For Cello & Piano / WarnerNuzova Duo

Cedille

Available as CD

$19.99

Aug 31, 2010

American cellist Wendy Warner pairs a huge, lustrous tone with diamond-edge virtuosity, apt for a protégé of Russian icon Mstislav Rostropovich. She is ideal in this set of 20th-century Russian pieces with Moscow-bred pianist Irina Nuzova. The Adagio from Prokofiev's ballet Cinderella" could melt the hardest heart, especially when played with Warner's passion. The Sonata No. 2 by Nikolai Miaskovsky, an elder contemporary of Prokofiev, brims with dark lyricism; the duo make its neglect seem unjust. A Scriabin etude transcribed by cello great Gregor Piatigorsky comes across like an operatic aria, while Alfred Schnittke's "Musica Nostalgica" is a post-modernist dream of old Russia. Rachmaninoff's big Cello Sonata is another experience in melodic melancholy, with Warner's tonal palette all woody brown and smoldering red." -- Bradley Bambarger, Newark Star Ledger

Russian Music For Cello & Piano / WarnerNuzova Duo

$19.99
CD

Cedille

Aug 31, 2010

CDR120

Frid: Symphony No. 3 / Gazarian, Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt

Capriccio

Available as CD

~~$21.99~~ $16.99

Aug 02, 2019

With his opera The Diary of Anne Frank (1968/69), by virtue of the subject alone, Grigory Frid could be sure of attracting attention beyond the borders of Russia. The remaining enormous oeuvre by the composer, covering mainly instrumental works, songs, radio and film music, still remains to be discovered and explored in depth. Both prior to and after the collapse of the Communist USSR, Frid was awarded the highest honors, e.g. the title of Artist of Merit (1986) and the Moscow Prize (1996). It is not erroneous to view Frid’s aesthetic position in a propinquity to Dmitri Shostakovich, as well as a generation of younger composers such as Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke. As in the cases of these composers, Frid’s music is also positioned within a field of tension between following the great Russian tradition and the quest for possibilities of expression in keeping with new, modern and international trends.

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Frid: Symphony No. 3 / Gazarian, Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt

~~$21.99~~ $16.99
CD

Capriccio

Aug 02, 2019

C5353

Transitions - Kapustin & Schnittke: Cello Concertos

Capriccio

Available as CD

$21.99

Aug 07, 2020

In recent years, the jazz-like, classical and modern music by the Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin (*1937) has become an inside tip on classical concert stages. During a visit to Nikolai Kasputin in Moscow ten years ago, the composer entrusted the cellist Eckart Runge with the notes for his Cello Concerto No. 1 op. 85, which, unlike the second one, had neither been performed nor recorded. The work vibrant with energy combines in unparalleled manner colorful symphonic music with the groovy sound of the big band tradition and the virtuosity of a Charlie Parker with the chamber music intimacy of a Miles Davis into a new and fulminant musical diction. With his fascinating, poly-stylistic realm of sound, mirroring an absolutely personal diction, two decades after his death Alfred Schnittke has become one of the composers of the 20th century permanently established in the repertoire. The Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 1 was commissioned by the City of Munich for the inauguration of the Gasteig Cultural Centre in 1985/86.

Transitions - Kapustin & Schnittke: Cello Concertos

$21.99
CD

Capriccio

Aug 07, 2020

C5362

The Invisible Ink / Fridman, Kool

TRPTK

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $9.49

May 19, 2017

This album discusses the invisible connection between Alfred Schnittke, Peteris Vasks and Arvo Pärt, and Fridman's personal connection with them. It explores three pieces, each written approximately at the end of the 1970s, during the period of the Soviet Union. History always creates an imprint on the composers' output. However, apart from a possible historical link between Schnittke, Vasks and Pärt one might imagine, I felt something more than that. In these three pieces, I felt a sense of timelessness and an urge for an ultimate truth, to be explored through a juxtaposition of extreme emotions, and found in the musical representation of silence. When I heard Schnittke's Sonata for Cello and Piano for the very first time, I envisioned an endless circle of birth and death, with a quick disastrous gallop of life in between. This sonata has had a deep and transformative influence on me, and it epitomized to me what I was looking for in music: the experience of catharsis. To me, the music of Vasks has a certain resolute force of veracity as told straight from the heart, a truth that can only be found through investigating the biggest opposites: peace through unrest, light through darkenss. The Book, in its two movements, is about one's voice emerging and elevating above the turmoil of one's psychological reality. Fratres feels to me like two brothers going through life, side by side. One frantically and emotionally trying to grasp the secrets of life and death, the other ever so still and stable, providing a frame of reason for his sibling. One brother as the instant, the other portraying eternity, and the two of them represent the perpetual struggle within oneself. The Invisible Link is not only about th einvisible connection between Alfred Schnittke, Peteris Vasks, Arvo Pärt, or about the relationship between the three pieces. It is about the invisible link connecting the purest and most extreme of emotions, with the everlasting stillness of time itself.

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The Invisible Ink / Fridman, Kool

~~$18.99~~ $9.49
CD

TRPTK

May 19, 2017

TTK 0001

Serene Ecstasy - The Light & Sorrow Of Orthodox Russia

Delos

Available as CD

$18.99

Jan 01, 2000

The Spiritual Revival Choir of Moscow was created in 1992, at the end of the Soviet era, a time when religious freedom was once again permitted in Russia. The choir's repertoire includes music of the renaissance, baroque, classical and romantic periods, as well as music by contemporary composers such as Alfred Schnittke. 'Serene Ecstasy' features the choir in sacred music by Russian composers from the 19th and 20th centuries.
The choir opens the program with "The Russian Soil," a hymn dedicated to Russian saints that is memorable for its rhythmic drive and exalted tone. Two sacred pieces by Tchaikovsky are marked by drama and, in "Eucharist" from the 'Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom,' a sense of joy. The group's lush tonal quality is ideal in Ippolitov-Ivanov's pacific "Praise the Lord, O My Soul."
This recording consistently impresses with its excellent singing and fascinating repertoire; surely it's an ideal recording for all lovers of sacred music.

Serene Ecstasy - The Light & Sorrow Of Orthodox Russia

$18.99
CD

Delos

Jan 01, 2000

DE 3264

Schnittke & Part: Choral Works / Putnins, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $15.99

Jan 05, 2018

2018 Gramophone Magazine Choral Album of the Year

Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt lived through times of remarkable change in the last decades of the Soviet Union. From the 1970s, state restrictions on religion were gradually relaxed and this was reflected in the arts and especially in music. Schnittke’s adoption of Christianity was triggered by the death of his mother in 1972, and culminated in his later conversion to Catholicism. Pärt was from a nominally Lutheran background in Estonia, but embraced the Orthodox faith in the 1970s, following intensive study of liturgical music. Both composers began to incorporate religious themes into their work, moving away from the modernist abstraction that had characterized their early careers. Schnittke’s large-scale Psalms of Repentance were composed in 1988 for the celebrations for the millennium of Christianity in Russia. The texts come from an anonymous collection of poems for Lent, written in the 16th century, and in his settings Schnittke engages with the traditions of chant-based Orthodox liturgical music. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Kaspars Putninš have chosen to combine Schnittke’s Psalms with two shorter works by Arvo Pärt, whose music they are well-known exponents of. Like the Psalms, Pärt’s pieces are composed in a quasi-liturgical style, and with its serene atmosphere, his Nunc dimittis forms a natural counterpart to the Magnificat even though the two were written more than a decade apart.

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REVIEW:

The Estonians have always rejoiced in a warm, rich sound and perfect blend, and guided by the utterly precise and dynamic Kaspars Putninš they give here a truly outstanding rendition that picks up every emotional and spiritual nuance with no sacrifice of technical perfection. This work has been waiting for choirs able to do this, because the technical challenges are not the most important thing about this music.

– Gramophone

On Sale

Schnittke & Part: Choral Works / Putnins, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir

~~$21.99~~ $15.99
SACD

BIS

Jan 05, 2018

BIS-2292

Cerrone: Beaufort Scales / Lorelei Ensemble

Cold Blue Music

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $9.49

May 17, 2024

Beaufort Scales is Grammy-nominee and Pulitzer finalist composer Christopher Cerrone’s lush, dramatic, alluring music for women’s voices and electronics, performed by the acclaimed Lorelei Ensemble. Its text is drawn from the Beaufort Wind Force Scale (an early-19th-century wind speed measure), as well as writings by Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Anne Carson. Cerrone’s music has been commissioned and performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, the Louisville Symphony, Third Coast Percussion, violinist Jennifer Koh, pianist Shai Wosner, and many other noted ensembles and individuals. The Lorelei Ensemble, praised for its “full-bodied and radiant sound” (The New York Times) and “stunning precision of harmony, intonation … spectacular virtuosity” (Gramophone), has recorded the music of numerous living composers, as well as historical works by William Billings, Guillaume Du Fay, Alfred Schnittke, Toru Takemitsu, and many others.

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Cerrone: Beaufort Scales / Lorelei Ensemble

~~$18.99~~ $9.49
CD

Cold Blue Music

May 17, 2024

CB0068

Tchaikovsky & Babajanian: Piano Trios / Gluzman, Moser, Sudbin

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $10.99

Oct 04, 2019

This recording of the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio might well may be among the best.

In Russian chamber music, a rather special tradition evolved around the piano trio, with a number of composers turning to the genre to write ‘instrumental requiems’. First out was Tchaikovsky with his Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, ‘à la mémoire d’un grand artiste’, and he was followed by composers such as Rachmaninov, Arensky and Shostakovich. In the case of Tchaikovsky’s trio, the ‘grand artiste’ was the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, and Tchaikovsky chose the trio genre as he felt that a piece for solo piano would be too lightweight and one with orchestral accompaniment would be too showy. The work is in two movements, a Pezzo elegiaco (‘elegiac piece’) and a set of variations, and it begins with the cello playing a moving lament which sets the tone for the entire first movement. The theme returns at the end of the second movement in the form of an impassioned funeral march. Seventy years later, when the Armenian composer and pianist Arno Babajanian (1921—83) wrote his Piano Trio in F sharp minor, he didn’t give it any subtitle, but there’s a grandeur and breadth of scale which rivals Tchaikovsky’s work – and the second movement is thoroughly elegiac in character. The trio is Babajanian’s best-known work, composed in the Romantic style of Rachmaninov, but also rooted in Armenian folk music, melodically as well as rhythmically. Performing the two works are Vadim Gluzman and Yevgeny Sudbin, both with Russian roots, joined by cellist Johannes Moser, and the three close the album with Sudbin’s arrangement of a brief Tango by Alfred Schnittke.

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REVIEW:

I will begin with what, strictly speaking, is merely the “other piece” on this disc: the piano trio by Arno Babajanian. I have never heard of him or what appears to be his best-known work, but the outstanding recording and startling advocacy of this starry chamber group makes me think I should have.

The piano trio opens with the violin and cello playing a dark theme together. The piano comes in with some lovely runs reminiscent of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto (no bad thing, in my view). The second movement starts with a long violin melody over a syncopated piano accompaniment, not a million miles from Korngold or Prokofiev’s second violin concerto. The final movement opens with something of a shock, a jazzy passage in 5/8 time, but then the cello comes in with a lovely theme, and the two moods alternate until the end.

It is a delightful work with strong melodies and rhythmic complexity, which this trio plainly adore. It is wonderfully recorded, giving plenty of power to Johannes Moser’s cello work. I shall be taking it off my shelves frequently.

I have so far had to make do for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio opus 50 with an old Naxos recording by the Ashkenazy Trio (8.550467), still available. The coupling is Arensky’s trio, and I would not want to be without that. But this disc blows that version out of the water, both in terms of performance and recording. I cannot pretend to have heard all the hundreds of recordings of the work by world-renowned musicians which are out there – but this well may be among the best.

Once again, the recording of Moser’s cello has all the resonance of the real instrument; Sudbin’s piano is alert but self-effacing when it needs to be; Gluzman’s violin soars and inspires. Above all, the trio give the impression they are listening to each other and adjusting their performances accordingly.

The disc ends with a little bon-bon which I assume the group put in because they were enjoying themselves so much: the Tango from the opera Life with an Idiot by Alfred Schnittke. It is not really necessary, since the disc lasts almost seventy minutes without it, but it is great fun, for us as well as for the artists.

– MusicWeb International

On Sale

Tchaikovsky & Babajanian: Piano Trios / Gluzman, Moser, Sudbin

~~$21.99~~ $10.99
SACD

BIS

Oct 04, 2019

BIS-2372

Silvestrov: Ode to a Nightingale - Symphony No. 7 - Piano Concertino / Galatenko, Bezborodko, Lyndon-Gee, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $13.99

Aug 14, 2020

Valentin Silvestrov’s elusive post-modern style is rich in nostalgia for the lost music of a barely remembered past filled with beauty and spiritual aspiration. Ode to a Nightingale is a masterly response to Keats’ unsentimental reflection on human mortality, contrasting with the beauty and affecting intimacy of the Cantata No. 4 and the resonant emotional world of its companion piece, the Concertino. Starkness set against elegiac melancholy are the shared features of Moments of Poetry and Music and the Seventh Symphony – an embodiment of Silvestrov’s dual musical nature of anguish and tenderness. Valentine Silvestrov’s music has become widely acclaimed and appreciated through numerous recordings, and he has been dubbed ‘one of the greatest composers of our time’ by the likes of Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Part. Naxos and Grand Piano have added to his catalogue with significant releases and ‘beautiful, sensitive performances that make a strong impression even though they never raise their voices.’ (Fanfare)

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Silvestrov: Ode to a Nightingale - Symphony No. 7 - Piano Concertino / Galatenko, Bezborodko, Lyndon-Gee, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra

~~$19.99~~ $13.99
CD

Naxos

Aug 14, 2020

8574123

In paradisum

Footprint Records

Available as CD

$18.99

Nov 15, 2019

The Sofia Vocal Ensemble invites you to step into paradise, courtesy of ten of the most beautiful choral works written by composers of our time. For nearly 25 years, Bengt Oll�n has fashioned his chamber choir Sofia Vocal Ensemble into one of the finest and most distinctive ensembles of it's kind in Sweden and the world. Here, the choir presents a selection of it's favourite works of the last half century - music that has inspired and shaped it's sound. We hear works by Swedish, Estonian, Russian, Scottish and Welsh composers, separated by contrasting traditions but united by striking beauty. These masterpieces include Alfred Schnittke's hopeful Three Sacred Hymns, James MacMillan's keening Miserere, Arvo P�rt's meditative Nunc Dimittis, Karin Rehnqvist's shimmering Jag lyfter mina hander, Paul Mealor's consoling Beatitudes and Sven David Sandstr�m's radiant In Paradisum. The works are more than personal favourites. They are each, in different ways, highly suited to Sofia Vocal Ensemble's warm, lyrical sound (and in some instances tailored to it) - a meeting of Swedish choral discipline with Oll�n's longstanding work to widen the group's dynamic and expressive range. The sound is embracing and alluring, rooted in finesse of blend and perfection of diction.

In paradisum

$18.99
CD

Footprint Records

Nov 15, 2019

FR112

Beethoven: Violin Concerto - Schnittke: Violin Concerto No. 3

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $15.99

May 07, 2021

After acclaimed recordings of the great Romantic violin concertos by Brahms, Bruch and Tchaikovsky, Vadim Gluzman takes on the work that in the beginning of the 19th century mapped out a new course for the genre: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op.?61. With this work, Beethoven rejected the idea of a virtuoso display piece with a largely irrelevant orchestral accompaniment. Instead he presented a symphonic reinterpretation of the concerto principle, with soloist and orchestra becoming equal partners in a texture that is interwoven on many levels. Largely forgotten for several decades after the first performance in 1806, it is now considered one of the greatest violin concertos. However innovative Beethoven was in his opus 61, he nevertheless remained true to the tradition of allowing the soloist several cadenzas. Over the years, a number of composers and great violin virtuosos have proposed their own cadenzas for the concerto, with Alfred Schnittke being one of the more unexpected names. For this recording, Gluzman has chosen to perform Schnittke’s cadenzas, as a link to the second work on the disc: the composer’s Concerto No.?3 for violin and chamber orchestra. To Schnittke, the relationship between soloist and orchestra is quite different from that demonstrated in Beethoven’s score: ‘It seems to me that this relationship is never harmonically equitable and balanced… The soloist and orchestra are in fact adversaries.’ However they may be labelled, James Gaffigan and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester nevertheless provide unstinting support to Gluzman in both scores.

On Sale

Beethoven: Violin Concerto - Schnittke: Violin Concerto No. 3

~~$21.99~~ $15.99
SACD

BIS

May 07, 2021

BIS-2392

Schnittke: Choir Concerto - Pärt: Seven Magnificat Antiphons

BIS

Available as SACD

$21.99

Jun 04, 2021

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Choral Performance!

As Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt both adopted the Orthodox faith in the 1970s, Orthodox choral traditions became increasingly prominent in their work, but both composers also looked to the music of the Western church. Schnittke’s Three Sacred Hymns set three prayers, familiar in the West as Ave Maria, the Jesus Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, and evoke Orthodox chant. His Choir Concerto, on the other hand, draws on Russian choral music of the 19th century and the tradition of large-scale concert works based on Orthodox choral music. The texts by the medieval Armenian poet Gregory of Narek are informed by a humanistic individualism, with the poet directly expressing his emotions and often writing in the first person. In the case of Pärt, his detailed study of Orthodox chant caused him to develop his so-called ‘tintinnabuli’ system of composition as an extension of the harmonic practices of Orthodox choral music. He wrote his Seven Magnificat-Antiphons in 1988, applying the tintinnabuli technique to texts from the Catholic liturgy in the German language – a striking East-West hybrid. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Kaspars Putninš have combined sacred works by Schnittke and Pärt before, their previous release on BIS earning them a prestigious Gramophone Award in the Choral Music category.

REVIEWS:

The BIS catalog already boasts a fine version of Schnittke's Choir Concerto, but this newcomer surpasses it; and the music of Pärt is stitched into the choir’s DNA.

– BBC Music Magazine

This is an outstanding disc. The music is both eloquent and compelling and the EPCC gives memorable performances. The quality of their singing is matched by the excellence of the BIS recording.

– MusicWeb International

Schnittke: Choir Concerto - Pärt: Seven Magnificat Antiphons

$21.99
SACD

BIS

Jun 04, 2021

BIS-2521

Voices of Angels / Stotijn, Power, Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $10.99

Jul 03, 2020

The Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble is – as the name implies – based in Stockholm, and consists of five of the city's leading musicians. Project-based and often inviting guest performers, the SSE is known for its imaginative programmes built around a particular event or concept and bringing together music from various genres and eras. For its first release on BIS the ensemble has taken Brett Dean’s Voices of Angels as their point of departure, a work scored for the same forces as Schubert’s ‘Trout quintet’ and inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s first two Duino Elegies: ‘Angels (it’s said) are often unable to tell whether they move amongst the living or the dead.’ Dean’s work from 1996 opens a programme which ranges from Bach to Sofia Gubaidulina, and includes various scorings for between two and six performers. The angels reappear in songs by Wagner and Gubaidulina performed by Christianne Stotijn, one of the ensemble’s guests on this disc – but it is also safe to assume that they are standing around the heavenly throne which Bach approaches in the chorale prelude ‘Vor Deinen Thron tret ich hiermit’ – here transcribed for strings. The same prelude is the subject of Gubaidulina’s Meditation, while the disc closes with a work by Gubaidulina’s friend Alfred Schnittke, namely his Hymn for cello and double bass.

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Voices of Angels / Stotijn, Power, Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble

~~$21.99~~ $10.99
SACD

BIS

Jul 03, 2020

BIS-2344

Journey through a Century / Sueye Park

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $15.99

Jun 04, 2021

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards!

Exploring the repertoire for solo violin, the young Korean violinist Sueye Park has chosen works spanning exactly 100 hundred years – from Max Reger’s Prelude and Fugue from 1909 to Penderecki’s Capriccio, composed in 2008. Framing the 20th century, the program starts as a relay race of famous violinist-composers; Reger dedicating his piece to Kreisler, who dedicated his Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice to Ysaÿe, who wrote his Sonata No. 6 for the Spanish virtuoso Manuel Quiroga. In this series of names, that of Richard Strauss may come as a surprise, but his little-known Daphne-Etüde from 1945 is also dedicated to a violinist – his young grandson. The journey now turns eastwards with two solo sonatas, by Prokofiev and Weinberg, that were both composed in Moscow, albeit 20 years apart. These are followed by Isang Yun’s ‘Royal Theme’. The Korean-born composer uses the theme from Bach’s Musical Offering, but takes it on ‘a walk through the Asian tradition’ in the course of seven variations. In A Paganini, Alfred Schnittke revisits another colleague from the past – and one closely associated with the violin. Finally bringing us into the 21st century is Penderecki, whose early training as a violinist stood him in good stead when he composed his virtuosic Capriccio.

On Sale

Journey through a Century / Sueye Park

~~$21.99~~ $15.99
SACD

BIS

Jun 04, 2021

BIS-2492

SOVIET CHAMBER MUSIC

NORTHERN FLOWERS

Available as CD

$16.36

Nov 15, 2024

A collection of chamber music from popular Soviet era composers including Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina and Arvo P�rt.

SOVIET CHAMBER MUSIC

$16.36
CD

NORTHERN FLOWERS

Nov 15, 2024

NRHN99159.2