Search results: Search results
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- Colombo / Green Fingers
- Miniatures
- Simple Trio No. 1
- Eventually Lapse
- Albatross
- At Night
- Eastwood No. 4
- Simple Trio No. 2
- Aura for M
- Baptism in the Field
- Pattern Shells
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Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie / Frank Shipway, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra
BIS · Sep 2012SACD$21.99 -
Bernstein: Serenade After Plato; Music of Bloch & Barber / Gluzman, Neschling
BIS · Nov 2009SACD$21.99 -
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SaleRudnev: Music for Guitar / Mamedkuliev, Begutov, Rudnev, Mityakov, Illarionov
Brilliant Classics · Feb 2022CD$31.99$23.99 -
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Ariosti: Stockholm Sonatas Vol 3 / Georgi, Harris, Yamahiro Brinkmann, Kirkby
BIS · Dec 2008CD$21.99 -
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Fano: String Quartet & Piano Quintet
Albéniz, Granados et al.: Master of Guitar vol. 4, Spain 1926-63 / Rodes, Anido, Diaz Cano, Gómez, Llobet, Sainz de la Maza, Iglesias, Angel
Brink: Utility Music
Julian Brink is a South African composer. Born in Johannesburg in 1989, he first picked up his mother’s guitar at the age of ten and grew up playing in rock bands. He discovered a love of contemporary classical music through the films of Paolo Sorrentino and Paul Thomas Anderson. Hearing Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will be Blood, in particular, was what led him to pursue composition. Although he didn’t learn to read music until he was 19, while studying guitar at undergraduate level, he went on to complete a master's degree in film scoring through Berklee College of Music and relocated to California in 2015. Brink works in film music and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Maddie Hasson.
In collaboration with eminent classical label Sono Luminus, Utility Music is Brink's first standalone release. Originally composed in 2019 as a score for an abandoned film project, the music was arranged for piano, harp and string trio. It was later repurposed, reorchestrated and combined with a few older pieces into what is its current form. The album features performances by several distinguished musicians, with the heart of the music being the string trio of Moldovan violin virtuoso Dan-Iulian Drutac; Nick Revel, violist of the Grammy Nominated PUBLIQuartet; and Joe Zeitlin who was the lead cellist on Mica Levi’s Oscar-nominated score for Pablo Lorraín’s Jackie.
TRACKS:
REVIEW:
For his first standalone release, Julian Brink has repurposed and re-orchestrated an incomplete score for an unfinished film. The 11 short, delectable tracks ‘toss boundaries’, as the trombonist provocateur Juliane Gralle observes. Taken together, it feels like there might still be a movie in there, somewhere.
‘Miniatures’ has the feel of a haunted, southern Viennese waltz surrounded in fog, its central beauty emerging serenely through the mist accompanied by drops of ringing pizzicatos. ‘At Night’ features cellist Joe Zeitlin creating other-worldly shadings of tone and colour then lifting them gently from the musical score. The two ‘Simple Trio’ tracks, which offer a vade mecum of ‘uncomplicated transitions between notes to make the samples sound more realistic’, feature the trio of Zeitlin, violinist Dan-Iulian Druțac and viola player Nick Revel of PUBLIQuartet, which Brink describes as ‘the heart of the album. I try to forget that they haven’t all met each other and aren’t playing together in the same room.’
‘Albatross’ channels John Cage and Morton Feldman with mesmerisingly deceptive, irregular beats, wonderfully quiet. The last track, ‘Pattern Shells’, influenced by Villa-Lobos, is a spontaneous splurge of brass and tropical birds.
-- Gramophone
GOOD NIGHT
Shand: Guitar Music / La Rocca
CUBAN SYMPHONIC MUSIC
Respighi: Roman Trilogy / Neschling, Sao Paulo Symphony
Ottorino Respighi's Roman Trilogy (the tone poems Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome and Roman Festivals) holds a very special place in the orchestral repertory, challenging almost any other composition for sheer sonic audience appeal. Spectacular scenes such as Fontana di Trevi in the glitter of the mid-day sun, children playing under the pine-trees of the Villa Borghese or gladiators fighting at Circus Maximus provided the masterly orchestrator with the opportunity to employ the full palette of the large-scale symphony orchestra, to which he added various instruments, including organ, piano, celesta, glockenspiel, mandolin and tambourines. In fact, in the third part of the Pines of Rome Respighi went even further and specified, for the first time ever in classical music, the use of a gramophone, playing a recording of a nightingale singing. As a result, these works glitter, shimmer, blare and thunder: a true feast for the ear which here has found worthy exponents in the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) and John Neschling. Previous releases by this team include recordings of music by Villa-Lobos and his Brazilian colleagues Camargo Guarnieri, Francisco Mignone and Claudio Santoro, and individual discs have been described by reviewers as 'the most vibrant, colorful, rhythmically vital and virtuosic performances imaginable' (on website Classics Today.com), 'an orgy of colours and rhythms' (in Diapason), and 'an assured blend of lush colours, pulsating rhythms and supple phrasing' (in International Record Review.) Such qualities certainly work in the Old World, too - and nowhere better than in Ottorino Respighi's Rome!
REVIEW:
The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra is a superb ensemble by any standards, and displays their virtuosity in the three Respighi symphonic poems.
-- SA-CD.net
Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie / Frank Shipway, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra
Called a 'symphony' by its composer, Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony is nevertheless a symphonic poem, and as such it is the last in a series of works that includes such masterpieces as Don Juan, Also sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben. In 1900, when Strauss first mentioned any plans for the work, he spoke of a symphonic poem in two parts that would begin with a sunrise in Switzerland. When he returned to the idea some ten years later, the work soon grew so vast that he decided to be content with one single movement, depicting the 'worship of eternal glorious nature'. To regard the Alpensinfonie simply as an impression of landscape would be a mistake, however. It does make use of Strauss' entire repertoire of orchestral pictorialism, but behind it are ideas much less simple: nature is being worshipped in the intoxicated spirit of Nietzsche's superman, the liberation of the soul is achieved through hard work - the climber's struggle to gain the mountaintOp.The work is divided into 22 sections that flow in an unbroken sequence, marking the ascent and descent of the mountain, from before sunrise to after sunset. It was scored for the largest orchestra ever used by Strauss for a purely orchestral piece, and he later said that it was in the Alpine Symphony that he had 'finally learned how to orchestrate'. The experience must in any case have been useful when he composed his next work, the opera Die Frau ohne Schatten, with an even more opulent orchestration. The opera was premièred in 1919, but it wasn't until 1946 that Strauss, in his 82nd year, returned to the score in order to make his Symphonic Fantasy, based on high points from the opera. These huge, and enormously colourful works are performed here by the eminent São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, whose highly praised recordings of the Choros by Villa-Lobos have been described as 'an orgy of colours and rhythms' (Diapason) and 'an assured blend of lush colours, pulsating rhythms and supple phrasing' (International Record Review). The orchestra is conducted by Frank Shipway, with fine credentials in late-Romantic Austro-German repertoire.
Bernstein: Serenade After Plato; Music of Bloch & Barber / Gluzman, Neschling
The three works for violin and orchestra gathered here testify both to the versatility of Vadim Gluzman as a performer and to the richness and variety of the influences at play in American music during the 20th century. Like the text by Plato which inspired it, Bernstein's Serenade, from 1954, is a series of statements in praise of love. Musically it is typical of its maker, with allusions both to his own music and to works by Bartók, Mendelssohn and Stravinsky, and with a hint of jazz in the finale. Composed some thirty years earlier, Ernest Bloch's Baal Shem turns to the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe, dealing specifically with aspects of the Chassidic movement. Its second movement, Nigun (Improvisation) is probably Bloch's most famous work for the violin, an attempt to recreate the ecstasy generated by fervent religious singing. Samuel Barber, on the other hand, was deeply fascinated by the music of J.S. Bach and Brahms, although this is not always obvious in his music. His Violin Concerto, which he began to compose in Switzerland in 1939, while war was breaking out in Europe, has been described as having 'a chastened and aristocratic classic style'. That violinist Vadim Gluzman possesses the musical convictions and the supreme command of his instrument to do justice to all of these works will be clear to anyone who has encountered his previous concerto disc, with works by Tchaikovsky and Glazunov. The recipient of numerous distinctions, it was glowingly reviewed, for instance in International Record Review: 'The variety of tone, lithe, sinuous and febrile ... is truly exceptional.' Gluzman is here supported by the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) under John Neschling, a team that has demonstrated its versatility on a number of recordings ranging from Villa-Lobos' Choros to Liszt's piano concertos.
Siesta - Ibert, Ravel, Piazzolla, Etc / Petri, Hannibal
FANFARE: Robert Schulslaper
Devoted To Debussy - Estampes, Preludes, Etc / Roberta Rust
DEBUSSY Estampes. Pour le piano. Suite bergamasques: Clair de lune. Préludes: Feux d’artifice. Des pas sur la neige; La puerta del vino; Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest. Etudes: pour les sonorities opposes. Berceuse héroique. Morceau de concours. Ballade. Pièce sans titre. Elégie • Roberta Rust (pn) • CENTAUR 2867 (71:18)
This is my first encounter with the playing of Roberta Rust, a pianist who has studied with John Perry and Ivan Davis, among others. She now has an active international career and her previous recordings include piano works by Haydn, Villa-Lobos, and Prokofiev. On this disc she proves herself a first-rate Debussy player, someone who listens acutely to each sound she makes, who characterizes the music in a personal way while at the same time honoring Debussy’s very detailed notation, and who has an arsenal of touches—and a beautifully recorded piano—at her disposal. The disc provides a fine cross section of Debussy piano output, from the early, ubiquitous “Clair de lune” (1890) to his great triptych Estampes (1903) and his final piano pieces, including the sad little Elegie (1915). For me, Estampes is the highlight, with the numerous fade-ins and fade-outs of ideas under superb control in all three movements: “Pagodes” and “Soirée dans Grenade” come across as wonderfully evocative improvisations—and not even a Richter has always been so successful at this; and “Jardins sous la pluie” is truly a tempest in a théière. In Pour le piano, the Prelude and Toccata are never dry—and the latter concludes with tremendous reserves of speed and color. Imagination and virtuosity are equally in the service of “Feux d’artifice” and “Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest” (technically the two hardest of Debussy’s 24 Préludes ), and the hypnotic mood of “Des pas sur la neige” (the slowest and easiest of them) is captured perfectly. This is quite simply one of the finest Debussy discs I have heard in recent memory, and I hope that it won’t be long before Rust gives a complete set of the Préludes or the two sets of Images. Very highly recommended.
FANFARE: Charles Timbrell
Nepomuceno: Orchestral Works / Mechetti, Minas Gerais Philharmonic
Alberto Nepomuceno was a herald of Brazilian musical nationalism. He was one of the first composers in his country to employ elements of folklore in his compositions, he encouraged younger composers such as Villa-Lobos, and his music was conducted by Richard Strauss. The Prelude to O Garatuja, an incomplete opera, is one of his best-known works and an example of a truly Brazilian lyric comedy. Serie Brasileira is a vivacious suite that employs maxixe rhythms and ends with the feverish batuque dance, while the Symphony in G minor is one of the earliest such examples by a Brazilian, a heroic and lyric structure revealing the influence of Brahms.
REVIEW:
Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) was a major force in the development of Brazilian music at the turn of the twentieth century. He worked as a composer, conductor, and educator, tirelessly promoting Brazilian music and the use of Portuguese as an “art language.” The three orchestral works presented here are typical of his work. The Prelude to O Garatuja (1904), an incomplete lyric comedy, uses obvious national themes and offers nine minutes of high-spirited fun as well as a lightness and elegance found in all of the pieces on this disc.
The Brazilian Suite of 1891 had me immediately thinking “Grieg,” and it came as no surprise to learn that Nepomuceno befriended the Norwegian composer during his studies in Europe and saw him as a model. All the same, the work is beautifully scored and in several places quite personal in expression–its four movements representing “Dawn at the Mountains,” a gentle Brazilian dance intermezzo, “Napping in a Hammock,” and a gutsy concluding “Batuque” with a notable part for some native percussion (a reco-reco, or guiro).
Nepomuceno’s Symphony in G minor dates from 1893, the same year as Dvorák’s “New World.” It’s a much more conservative piece than that, although the opening movement has a nice rhythmic swing to it, and both the slow movement and scherzo feature characterful melodic ideas. The scherzo, in particular, mixes a sort of Mendelssohnian delicacy with sudden military interjections from the trumpets and timpani that are very effective. The finale, though, as with so many late romantic symphonies, disappoints. It’s based on the rhythm of the first allegro in Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony, repeated endlessly. Despite a charming second subject, the movement never really gets off the ground, and the ending, with piccolo, cymbals and triangle making a predictable entrance, is unmotivated and ineffective. A good effort, in other words, but a true symphonist Nepomuceno evidently was not, and that’s no crime.
The Minas Gerais Philharmonic, a relatively new group founded only in 2008, plays all of this music very well under Fabio Mechetti. The ensemble has good discipline, and reveals some fine players occupying the principal woodwind and brass chairs. They are also quite well recorded in what sounds like a flattering acoustic space, the Sala Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. I look forward to further releases from these forces. Minas Gerais is a region perhaps best known as a source of gems and minerals for collectors, and I’m happy to report that the region’s jewels include more than just the rocky kind. Nepomuceno’s output may have been uneven, but his music is worth getting to know, and a disc like this offers an ideal introduction.
– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
Rudnev: Music for Guitar / Mamedkuliev, Begutov, Rudnev, Mityakov, Illarionov
Violino Latino - Piazzolla, Etc / Steinbacher, Von Wienhardt
VIOLINO LATINO • Arabella Steinbacher (vn); Peter von Wienhardt (pn) • ORFEO 686 061 (65:04)
PIAZZOLLA Libertango (arr. Wienhardt). Adios nonino (arr. Calo). Milonga del angel (arr. Calo). Oblivión (arr. Wienhardt). Revirado (arr. Calo). PONCE (arr. Heifetz) Estrellita. FALLA La vida breve: Danse espagnole (arr. Kreisler). Canciones populares españolas: (arr. Kochanski) Nana; Polo. El amor brujo: Ritual Fire Dance. KREISLER La gitana. GINASTERA Pampeana No. 1. Rhapsodie. ALBÉNIZ Tango, op. 165/2. MILHAUD Scaramouche: Brazileira (arr. Heifetz). VILLA LOBOS O canto do cisne negro. WIENHARDT Salsa for BBWL. MOWER Bossa merengova (arr. Wienhardt)
Arabella Steinbacher and Peter von Wienhardt sound like names worlds apart from the program on Orfeo’s CD, “Violino Latino.” But Steinbacher comes out punching in Piazzolla’s Libertango and Milonga del angel . While the description of the tango as a vertical expression of a horizontal desire may not capture the mood of the program or the performances, and if there’s more fire than smoke even in pieces like Falla’s familiar “Danse espagnole,” nobody should object. Stewart Spencer attributes to Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer (who plays this repertoire regularly), Yo-Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich, Emanuel Ax, and Gary Burton the opinion that you can’t play Piazzolla’s compositions without getting your hands dirty. Steinbacher and Wienhardt certainly don’t. Steinbacher plays with an extremely wide dynamic range on the 1736 Muntz Stradivari, a violin that has impressed me in the past as sounding somewhat tubby. That clotting occurs only briefly in moments on the lower registers in Milonga del angel ; otherwise, it’s as steely as a saber (or Steinbacher makes it sound that way). Steinbacher and Wienhardt breathe a dragon’s breath into Kreisler’s Gitana , and play Heifetz’s signature Estrellita and his boffo transcription of Milhaud’s “Brazileira” with the kind of panache with which Heifetz himself wowed audiences. In Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance,” Steinbacher employs hair-raising timbres to generate extra electricity, but Wienhardt certainly helps turn the crank, keeping the duo’s rhythmic verve from flagging. Albéniz’s Tango may be the only piece on the program to bear unfavorable comparisons with other performances; Arthur Grumiaux brought to this Kreisler transcription a smoldering warmth that haunts my memory almost 20 years after I first heard it. On the other hand, Steinbacher’s more aggressive reading may fit better into the overall program. Nevertheless, she settles into a sultry yet elegant reading of Falla’s “Nana” (she sounds somewhat hoarse in Villa Lobos’s similarly suggestive miniature). The two most recent pieces, a jaunty one by Wienhardt and a jazzy one by Mike Mower hold their own as more recent updates of the program’s older repertoire.
Steinbacher’s way with Piazzolla makes for quite a more passionate affair than did Gidon Kremer’s archer wit. Throughout these miniatures, in fact, Steinbacher recalls Kyung Wha Chung’s fiery intensity. Wienhardt, who made some of the arrangements, as well as Orfeo’s startlingly lifelike recorded sound, add to the excitement of already exciting playing and music. Strongly recommended.
FANFARE: Robert Maxham
Naissance de la bossa nova - Rio de Janeiro, New York, & Los
GOOD NIGHT
Mexican Piano Concertos
ZYMAN Piano Concerto 1. ROLÓN Piano Concerto, op. 42. 1 El Festin de los Enanos • 1 Claudia Corona (pn); Gregor Bühl, cond; Nuremberg SO • TYXART 13024 (58:33)
It is always gratifying when musicians seek out obscure works to record, thereby broadening our knowledge of the repertoire. Although I have listened to many anthologies of 20th-century Mexican music, José Rolón (1876–1945) has never come to my attention before. He was a pianist, teacher, orchestra founder, and composer who studied in Paris with, among others, Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger. His two works on this disc reveal a French influence in their orchestral finesse and polish, combined with the rhythms and melodic contours of Mexican folk music. Along with this large-scale Concerto he wrote symphonic poems, a Symphony, and a String Quartet, all of which I would very much like to hear. (One movement of the Quartet is accessible on YouTube, but there does not seem to be a complete recording available.)
The Concerto, begun in 1928 but not completed until 1935, is in three movements, played without a break. It has been performed rarely if at all since its 1936 premiere. For this recording pianist Claudia Corona revised and clarified the orchestral parts—a true labor of love. The work abounds in Lisztian figuration and colorful orchestral textures; the Piano Concerto it reminds me of is that by Khachaturian, composed around the same time, except of course that the themes have a Mexican rather than Armenian flavor. Structurally it is somewhat ramshackle, but its high spirits and the profusion of ideas keep it interesting. Rather like certain works of Villa-Lobos, you simply have to relax and go with it. Corona and the Nuremberg forces under Bühl attack the work with all the gusto it requires, especially the frenzied closing section.
The eight-minute symphonic scherzo Feast of the Dwarfs, op. 30, is built on a syncopated rhythmic figure (a triplet followed by a duplet), which the composer dresses up in sophisticated orchestral textures and develops skillfully. Dukas’s influence is obvious here, although the piece is no mere imitation. Again the mood is joyous.
Samuel Zyman (b. 1956) is the more familiar name. Born and educated initially in Mexico, he now resides in the U.S. and has taught at Juilliard since 1987. This Piano Concerto may be an expanded arrangement of an earlier Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra; the latter is the only Piano Concerto mentioned in Zyman’s list of published works. That chamber concerto was recorded in 1989 (by Mirian Conti), whereas this new recording is advertised as the premiere of the “symphonic version.” It was first played by Corona in concert in 2005. Again in three movements, it is similarly a large-scale showpiece but more tightly structured and tougher than the Rolón. The piano’s relentless scale passages in the first movement and the somewhat monolithic lyricism of the second both bring to mind the Concerto by Chávez (which recently received an excellent new recording, coupled with solo works by Zyman and others: see reviews by Peter Burwasser and myself in Fanfare 37:1). Zyman is warmer than Chávez, and this warmth comes to the fore in the vivacious Presto movement that closes the work. That final movement also contains a quiet, introverted passage of lyrical beauty for the piano, before scampering off towards the abrupt final cadence.
I cannot over-emphasize the care and zest with which these musicians approach this enjoyable program, and the recording quality is excellent. Without question, this disc is a delightful discovery.
FANFARE: Phillip Scott
Romances For Saxophone And Orchestra / Banaszak, Et Al
Bruzdowicz, a pupil of Messiaen with a gift for Gallic-accented melody, launches this collection with her Largo. It's from her film music for Jacquot de Nantes (1991) - Rachmaninov's Vocalise out of Fauré and with a decidedly sombre curve. Away from the soprano saxophone to the alto with Raman's gentle Aria which was inspired by the Bozza Aria. Raman was a pupil of Paul Chihara - who himself wrote a saxophone concerto (1981) which was premiered by Harvey Pittel in Boston. Raman's Aria moves in dove-gentle tones between Barber and Vaughan Williams. Kilar's Vocalise, with solo parts for harpsichord and piano, unfolds at unhurried leisure. It has the mien and plaintive droop of the quieter parts of Nyman's Where the Bee Dances. The Villa-Lobos is well enough known from the soprano original - a pity we do not get the whole thing. Leatherbarrow was born in England but is how studying in the USA. His Don Quixote in Love is an offshoot from a work-in-progress, tone-poem The Last Dream of Don Quixote for soprano saxophone and full orchestra. The work heard here is tender and melodic with a Delian susurration over which the saxophone slowly glides and courses. Gleaming strings melt their way from phrase to phrase. The sound recalls an intensely romantic take on the ‘seagull music’ from Watership Down. Bozza's equable and feminine Aria is the oldest piece here. It was dedicated to Marcel Mule. The apt orchestration is by Hunter Ewen. While Bozza cannot quite match his likely models, the Ravel and Fauré Pavanes, this is certainly an agreeable and moodily pleasing piece.
David Morgan (not the same David Morgan whose Contrasts recently featured on Lyrita), based at Youngstown University, writes for both the jazz and classical worlds. The triptych that is the Three Vignettes was written specially for Greg Banaszak. The first vignette is The Secret of the Golden Flower and moves without effort between Vaughan Williams and an Oriental sway: fast, punchy and meditative. Consolation has the contours of a primitive church hymn moving through a mist of melancholy. The final First Light makes play with Latin-American dance. Elements of rumba and tango are married to 1950s-style commercial sophisticated light music. Morgan's writing is delicate and luminously orchestrated. An undemanding delight.
The Hovhaness concerto was written for the New England Conservatory, then performed once by the Chatauqua Symphony and forgotten. The composer's widow assures us that like many works of its vintage the solo line was written with her high coloratura voice in mind. This seems completely plausible and by all means listen to the later Poseidon CDs for further proof. The three movement concerto pleases with its high sinuous solo line and breathing string figuration. The second movement is a surprise: its instrumental solo melody suggests sentimental British music-hall rather than Eastern esoterica. The composer also draws here on a dashing Mozartian effervescence which only once reconnects with Hovhaness's core lingua franca. The finale carries the archetypical title Let the Living and the Celestial Sing. It returns us to the composer's 'campground' with delicate pizzicati, great wheeling yet grounded angelic paeans and sinuous foregrounded solos. These are lent airy movement by surprising interactions with the warm string choir. Intriguingly, even in this last movement, Hovhaness admits elements of sentimentality to interact with the devotional.
The helpful notes are by Dr Myron Schwager and provide us with pretty well everything we want to know about this music. It's a shame we don't get birth years for some of the composers and dates of some of the compositions. Also regrettable are persistent little errors such as Hovhannes for Hovhaness and Rubenstein for Rubinstein. These are small flies in the ointment in what is a pleasingly consistent collection for those wanting melodic tonal music for saxophone and orchestra.
-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
Ariosti: Stockholm Sonatas Vol 3 / Georgi, Harris, Yamahiro Brinkmann, Kirkby
ARIOSTI “Stockholm” Sonatas: No. 15 in f; No. 16 in G; No. 17 in B?; No. 18 in d; No. 19 in a; No. 20 in g; No. 21 in a. Pur alfin gentil viola 1 • Thomas Georgi (vda); Lucas Harris (lt, gtr); Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann (vdg); Emma Kirkby (sop) 1 (period instruments) • BIS 1675 (63:57 Text and Translation)
Attilio Malachia Ariosti (1666–1729) led an amazingly varied life, one that could only have played out amid the opulence of the Baroque era. He started out as an altar boy in Bologna and later took monastic vows, possibly also entering the priesthood. All along he assiduously pursued his musical studies, eventually assuming the post of organist at the basilica of Santa Maria dei Servi. There he attracted the attention of the Duke of Mantua, for whom he began composing operas. Ariosti’s first opera, Tirsi (1697), was such a success that the Duke was encouraged to lend him out to the Berlin court, whose ruler was Sophie Charlotte of Hanover, Electress of Brandenburg and sister of the future George I of England. Ariosti quickly became Sophie’s favorite court musician (Bononcini was employed at the court as well), and became friends with the great Gottfried Leibniz. After Sophie died in 1705, Ariosti declared his (reluctant) desire to return to his monastery, by way of Vienna. The Vienna sojourn at the court of Joseph I stretched to seven years, where he composed operas, oratorios, and cantatas. After Joseph’s widow, Wilhelmina, kicked him out of Vienna (for his ostentatious, non-ecclesiastical behavior) in 1711, Ariosti found employment at the court of the Duke of Anjou (the future Louis XV), in Munich, Württemberg, Durlach, Baden, Lorraine, and at the court of the Duke of Orléans. In 1716 Ariosti sailed for England, where his opera Almahide had been staged in 1708, albeit with two-thirds of the numbers replaced by arias of Bononcini. Ariosti’s first appearance on the London stage was on July 12, 1716, when he played his “New Symphony … upon a New Instrument call’d Viola D’Amour,” between the acts of a Handel opera. Subsequently, the Royal Academy was to commission several operas, but Ariosti was still preoccupied with his diplomatic intrigues and had trouble meeting the deadlines; only one of the operas, Caio Marzio Coriolana (1723), was an unmitigated success, thanks in part to the participation of Cuzzoni and Senesino.
Exactly 21 viola d’amore sonatas survive from the pen of Ariosti; 15 of them owe their existence to Ariosti’s contemporary Swedish musician Johan Helmich Roman, who copied them down while on a visit to London. These survive in manuscript form in a Swedish library, hence the designation. The concluding cantata, Pur alfin gentil viola , is a valedictory work that survives in manuscript in a Darmstadt library. Written in an idiom reminiscent of Handel, the sonatas are remarkable for their brevity. Most movements are less than two minutes; only two of the Adagios are more than three. The structure is usually simple bipartite: AABB, or even ABa (the lower case indicating a brief restatement of the opening theme). The suites typically consist of four movements, in the traditional slow-fast-slow-fast grouping of the Italian sonata da chiesa.
The viola d’amore is one of those colorful “accessory” instruments so popular with Baroque composers. Played under the chin like the violin, it has six or seven sympathetic strings running under the fingerboard that are responsible for the instrument’s characteristic silvery sound. Like the oboe d’amore and the voice flute, the viola d’amore was newly invented; it came into use during the second half of the 17th century, but never became a permanent member of the orchestra. Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi, and Quantz wrote sparingly for the viola d’amore, but it dropped out of sight during the Romantic era. Surprisingly, the instrument has persisted until the present day; composers as diverse as Strauss, Janá?ek, Hindemith, Martin, and Villa-Lobos have been attracted to its gentle, ethereal sound.
Thomas Georgi is an American who performed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra of Australia for many years, and since 1989 has been a member of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra of Toronto. After joining that group he began to champion the viola d’amore, and has recorded two previous volumes of Ariosti for BIS. Apparently those CDs were never received by Fanfare for review. Georgi is joined by two excellent instrumentalists, lutenist Lucas Harris and gambist Mimi Yamahiro Brinkmann, and the renowned English soprano Dame Emma Kirkby. The performances are models of their kind, with colorful, expressive playing from Georgi, and first-rate contributions from the two continuo players. I applaud the decision to employ archlute (theorbo) and guitar as continuo instruments; a harpsichord would have overwhelmed the delicate sound of the viola d’amore. Of particular interest is the cantata—it demonstrates that Dame Emma’s voice is as beautiful and controlled as ever, even after nearly 40 years before the public.
When the pressures and madness of modern life press in, I can think of nothing better than to retreat into the delicate sound world of Ariosti for rejuvenation. Highly recommended.
FANFARE: Christopher Brodersen
The Wild Sound of the '20s - 1923
October 29, 1923 - a date steeped in history. In the midst of a year of political and economic crisis, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde", from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. The composers assembled on this album not only profited from these developments, but also, in part, actively shaped them.
The composer Ernst Toch experienced the crisis year of 1923 in Mannheim, where his "Dance Suite" op. 30 was premiered on with great success. In this work, Toch was able to realize his interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and new forms of expression. His imaginative use of instruments is one of the most fascinating aspects of the suite.
The "Frauentanz" for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon op. 10 by Kurt Weill, written in the summer of 1923, reflects the interest in chamber music line-ups typical of the time. The decisive factor was not only a new ideal of sound and expression, but also the experience that in times of crisis, pieces with small ensembles had better chances of being performed.
Ernst Krenek had found essential impulses for his work in Berlin; when the crisis came to a head in the summer of 1923 he composed the "Three Mixed Choirs" a cappella op. 22 on poems by Matthias Claudius. Krenek designed these folksong-like works written by a lyricist from the epoch of Empfindsamkeit as parables.
For the festive concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of the cities of Buda and Pest to form the capital and residence city of Budapest in the autumn of 1923, Béla Bartók created his "Dance Suite" for orchestra - a "rather touchy issue", as the internationalist-minded composer explained in a private note.
REVIEWS:
Given [the events of 1923 in central Europe], you might imagine a CD of mostly German music entitled 1923: Wild Sound of the 1920s might sound a bit, well, wild. Far from it. If anything, it shows the opposite: surrounded by violence and the threat of chaos, the four composers represented here by works they composed in 1923 responded by raising their art to the nth degree of refinement and subtlety. Take Ernst Krenek, a composer who nowadays is remembered for a smash hit opera about a Black jazz musician, and for writing later in life some of the most fearsomely intellectualized, complex works in the entire history of music. He’s represented on this disc by three settings for choir of the 18th-century poet Matthias Claudius, of a ravishing otherworldly beauty caught to perfection in these performances.
Kurt Weill, known to the world for his bitingly satirical music dramas, appears as the composer of seven exquisitely allusive, bittersweet songs based on medieval German poems. Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is a brilliantly imagined set of six “character” pieces for just a handful of instruments, with titles like The Red Whirling Dance and Idyll. Standing somewhat to one side of all this German romantic/modernist intensity and compression is the Dance Suite by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, with its rumbustious evocations of Balkan and North African Music.
The occasional whiff of expressionist harshness or a gently satirical distortion of a waltz shows these composers were not completely cocooned in their composing studios. They were alert to the jarring, shifting currents outside. But what the CD reveals most strongly is how much these composers were focused on their own internal, imaginative world – and how much they cared about craftsmanship. Every bar in all four pieces is exquisitely made, and that quality is caught in the performances, which are all of enormous refinement.
-- The Telegraph
The year 1923 was a year of crisis in Germany; inflation was heating up and far right-wing parties were jockeying for power. In October, the first broadcast of public radio in Germany took place from the “Berliner Funkstunde” station on Potsdamer Platz. This provocative new disc from the Choir and Symphony of Bavarian Radio includes four works written a hundred years ago by a group of innovative composers who all made use of the new, disruptive technology of radio.
Kurt Weill’s Frauentanz is a suite of seven medieval songs, scored for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Weill helped to create the familiar soundtrack for Weimar Berlin, and this performance by Anna-Maria Palii and the fine instrumentalists of the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra provides the authentic feel of a society that was becoming increasingly decadent and hysterical in 1923 and beyond.
Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is another clever and imaginative piece with interesting orchestration: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass and percussion. The Berlin sound is also evident here, something a bit harsh and raw, in contrast with the softer-focused, more lyrical and pastoral modernism of Paris.
The Ernst Krenek work is a bit of a surprise: his 3 Choruses for a cappella choir . The ‘antique’ sound of these pieces remind me of two of my favorite works: Vaughan Williams’ G minor Mass, from 1921, and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Missa São Sebastião, from 1937. All three provide old wine in new bottles: ancient cadences with a modernist twist.
The final work on the disc is probably the best known: Bela Bartok’s Dance Suite for Orchestra. This is an orchestral showpiece, a kind of try-out for his Concerto for Orchestra written more than two decades later. Both pieces treat orchestral instruments in a solistic, virtuosic way. The source material might be folkloric, but this is definitely written in a modernist idiom.
Inflation, far right-wing agitation, disruptive technology: yes, we’re talking about 1923, not 2023. And the music on this disc is as fresh and forward-looking as some of the best music written today.
-- Music for Several Instruments (Dean Frey)
