This is a perfect disc. Andrew Litton’s Prokofiev symphonies have been inconsistent so far, ranging from an excellent Sixth to a ho-hum Fifth. Here absolutely everything goes right. The revised, enlarged version of the Fourth Symphony can sound bloated and too long for its material. This performance, by contrast, has passion, color, and drive aplenty. Especially in the outer movements, you’d never know that the leaner, meaner first version exists, and no praise can be higher than that.

The Seventh has always been, for me at least, a better work than many commentators allow. It contains, for example, one of Prokofiev’s best lyrical melodies in its first movement and finale. The waltz-like scherzo is wholly delightful, the slow third movement touching. Prokofiev often indulges a deliberate simplicity, and Litton takes him at his word, never for a moment lapsing into artifice or affectation.

The finale, which we get to hear twice complete, once with each of its endings, is particularly breezy and exhilarating. Through it all the Bergen Philharmonic plays gorgeously, and the SACD sonics are state-of-the-art. A wonderful release.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

This will look good on your shelves next to the Boult-Lyrita disc of Finzi miniatures … one of those “ah, yes” moments one sometimes gets with Finzi when everything seems so utterly right.

Though the LP has long held pride of place on one's shelves how good it is to welcome the CD remastering of Yo-Yo Ma’s Cello Concerto coupled with John Denman’s lissom performance of the Clarinet Concerto. Back in the old days the Cello Concerto stood proudly alone, all forty-one minutes of it.

It was Yo-Yo Ma’s first recording and alerted many to the sheer bigness of Finzi’s inspiration, especially those for whom bigness in Finzi had been confined to the vocal and choral works. The power of the opening movement resides in the declamatory, decidedly non-vocalised orchestral writing and its relationship with the lingering songfulness of the cello; how the orchestra, initially cool, relents to join in the narrator-hero’s limpid beauty of utterance; how Orpheus tames the implacable beasts. And almost as surprising for those who had him pegged as a miniaturist, was the frenzy of the Brahms-leaning cadenza. But the heartbeat of the work is the rapt slow movement, one of those “ah, yes” moments one sometimes gets with Finzi when everything seems so utterly right. The pastoral-pensive writing is beautifully conveyed here – I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it done better – and so too are the animating orchestral pizzicati and the verdant winds which join the cello in its journey. There’s a real narrative here, an encompassing one, faithfully and richly projected by soloist, orchestra and conductor alike. The finale is a drama of drumming pizzicati and wind solos coiling around the cello line like vines.

It’s precisely the vigorous vocality of the companion concerto that gives it such a sense of elation and verve. The clarinet’s mellifluous femininity immediately tames and quells the orchestra in much the same way that the Cello did in the later work. It’s a feature of both concertos that the solo line is vested with such power of oratory that it acts as an instrument of control. Note as well the propulsive, kinetic way that Denman and Handley manoeuvre to the end of the first movement. Apposite string weight is a feature of this performance as well and the delicate solo arabesques are met by the diaphanous orchestration. There have been a number of recommendable performances of this Concerto but in its swiftness and ease this performance still earns the highest accolades.

This will look good on your shelves next to the Boult-Lyrita disc of Finzi miniatures on SRCD239.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Sergei Prokofiev was an adept composer of violin music. Nathan Milstein once described his first violin concerto as “indeed one of the best modern violin concertos… a brilliant piece, perhaps the finest of all Prokofiev’s works.” This work, along with Prokofiev’s second concerto is performed on this new release by Vadim Gluzman, who is critically acclaimed for his performances of the works of the virtuosos of the 19th and 20th centuries. Neeme Jarvi and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra join Gluzman for this recording. The ensemble has been applauded for their interpretations of Prokofiev’s music.

Classical Music

Separately, both Freddy Kempf and the team of Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton have recorded music by Prokofiev for BIS, resulting in highly acclaimed releases. Freddy Kempf's 2003 Prokofiev solo recital was described as 'a superb disc' in Gramophone, whose critic went on to write: 'Kempf is joyfully exuberant, flashing through every savage challenge with the assurance and instinct of a born virtuoso.' Four years later, the Bergen orchestra and Litton recorded the twenty movements from the composer's three Romeo and Juliet suites, performed in the order the music appears in the ballet score. The outcome of this original approach was widely praised, for instance by the reviewer on the German website Klassik Heute: "a European top orchestra and an American conductor with great insights into the Russian repertoire meet up, and the result is sparkling, colourful, ardent and with great presence..." Kempf, Litton and the Bergen PO now join forces in an all-Prokofiev programme that includes the most popular of his five piano concertos, namely the Third, a spontaneous work, vigorous and melodic in turns and full of striking material presented in a typical Prokofiev manner. This is coupled with the Second Piano Concerto, which Prokofiev himself premièred in 1913, shocking the audience with its modernistic sounds and jagged rhythms. The original score was lost during the Russian Revolution and Prokofiev reconstructed the work in Paris in 1923. According to the composer himself, the new version was so completely rewritten that it almost constituted a new work. Between the two concertos Freddy Kempf performs the Second Piano Sonata, a key work in Prokofiev's development and full of striking and individual ideas.

Sono Luminus proudly presents Celebrating the American Spirit, performed by Essential Voices USA and directed by Judith Clurman, which reconfigures musical expressions of nationhood. EVUSA comes together with guest soloists and instrumentalists, including singers Kelli O'Hara and Ron Raines, and composer arranger Larry Hochman. There is even a new lyric by Sheldon Harnick, the famed lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof. From beginning to end, EVUSA delivers imaginatively conceived performances that articulate new visions of community and civic responsibility in the 21st century. At the core of the CD is 'Sing Out Mr. President', a series of sixteen newly commissioned works set to quotations by U.S. presidents stretching from George Washington to Barack Obama. Judith Clurman initiated this inventive project in response to 9/11, after she conducted the Juilliard Choral Union in a wrenching memorial concert at a firehouse in New York City.

Leonard Bernstein's own version bettered? Yes, indeed! This is, handily, the best sung, best played, most intelligently interpreted recording of Mass currently available. Of course, Bernstein's rendition always will have sterling qualities, including some wonderful solo singers with really characterful "pop" and Broadway voices, but for its sheer musical integrity combined with the advantage of the composer's final revisions to the score, this version is unbeatable. Jubilant Sykes, as the Celebrant, easily outclasses Alan Titus' very fine premiere recording of the role. His voice has more edge; he's more at ease with the various pop idioms; he sounds radiant at the work's opening and grows increasingly desperate as it proceeds. This only serves to make his climactic breakdown tragically believable.

The various street singers are, one and all, terrific. "God Said" becomes the work's comic climax, which is as it should be. "I believe in God", "Confession", "World Without End", and "Thank You" are both idiomatic and beautifully sung. The children's choir sounds luminous in the Sanctus, while the adult chorus, from Morgan State University, sings with gusto as well as immaculate diction, with every word clearly comprehensible. Marin Alsop knits the whole ensemble together with infallible insight and verve. Her tempos, a bit different from Bernstein's, quicker here ("God Said"), a touch slower there (the wild dance in the Offertory), are no less right.

It's all fabulously recorded with a glittering impact that never turns unduly aggressive. The multi-textural layering in the climactic Dona Nobis Pacem comes across as both musically and physically overwhelming. Mass has its detractors, but when performed with this kind of conviction the piece can be inexpressibly moving. Alsop never has made a finer recording--it's both a tribute to her mentor Leonard Bernstein, as well as to her exceptional talent as an exponent of his music.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

Classical Music

Susan Gritton, Sylvie Brunet, Soile Isokoski, Susanne Resmark, Helene Guilmette, Bernard Richter, and Alain Vernhes star in this Bayreuth production of the Poulenc opera conducted by Kent Nagano and directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov.

Torleif Thedéen and Roland Pöntinen, who with this disc give us the larger part of Schnittke's chamber music for the cello, are long-time partners whose first joint recording for BIS was made in 1986 - entitled 'The Russian Cello', it incidentally included a performance of the first of Schnittke's cello sonatas. Since then the two have appeared on a number of discs together, performing works by Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Hindemith and Anton Webern among others. Their recording of the Chopin Sonata, coupled with works by Robert Schumann, was highly acclaimed in The Gramophone, whose critic found that the team gave 'this wonderful music a sweep and gradeur that's immensely satisfying'.

A leading authority on Bach, conductor Masaaki Suzuki now tackles his first album by a twentieth century composer. Collaborating with the acclaimed ensemble Tapiola Sinfonietta, Suzuki has chosen the works of Stravinsky for this release. Tracks include Pulcinella Suite, Apollon Musagete, and Concerto in D for Strings.

Classical Music

Soo-Jin Hong, violin, Soo-Kyung Hong, cello, Jens Elvekjaer, piano.

Classical Music

SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartets Nos. 13, 14, 15. SCHNITTKE String Quartet No. 3 • Pacifica Qrt • CEDILLE 145 (2 CDs: 104:28)

With this fourth volume, the Pacifica Quartet brings its survey of Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets to a close. As with the each of the earlier two-disc sets, a bonus is offered in the form of a string quartet by one of Shostakovich’s contemporaries, this time the String Quartet No. 3 by Alfred Schnittke. Previous discmates were Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, and Weinberg.

Between two hospitalizations in 1970, Shostakovich managed to complete his 13th Quartet in August of that year. Alone among the composer’s 15 quartets, this Bb-Minor work is in a single movement and exhibits a palindromic form—ABCBA. Like the 12th Quartet before it, this one, too, is based on a tone row encompassing all 12 semitones of the chromatic scale. Shostakovich’s endgame, however, is to confirm tonality rather than to deny it.

Much of the composer’s music seems to dwell in dark, brooding, baleful places—that’s nothing new—but this 13th Quartet arguably surpasses in mood and atmosphere even the spectral chill and ghoulish humor of his earlier works. It unmasks the face of death, and it’s a visage so hideous to behold that gazing upon it will freeze your eyeballs in their sockets. I can only describe the Pacifica Quartet’s reading of the score by saying it achieves a sub-zero degree of cold that can penetrate and shatter your bones. Never have I heard such a graphic representation in music of the daemon Thanatos, not by the Fitzwilliam, Emerson, St. Petersburg, Brodsky, or Alexander String Quartets. This is scary stuff.

Shostakovich’s next quartet, No. 14 in F# Minor, reverts back to a key more convenient for string players, three sharps, allowing for the use of some open strings, and being a lot easier to finger than the five flats of the previous quartet. The composer began work on the piece in 1972, but took time off for a trip to Ireland and England, where he visited his friend, Benjamin Britten, in Aldeburgh. That delayed completion of the Quartet until the following spring, after Shostakovich had returned to Moscow.

The score is dedicated to Sergei Shirinsky, the original cellist of the Beethoven Quartet, and contains a cryptogram in the third movement on “Seryozha,” a familiar or affectionate form of address for Sergei. However, the pitches—D#-E-D-E-G-A—make no sense unless transliterated into their Cyrillic equivalents. The “E,” for example, represents the Cyrillic letter “ë,” which I’m given to understand is pronounced “yo,” thereby denoting the second syllable in “Seryozha.”

Compared to the 13th Quartet, No. 14 is positively playful. Still, being by Shostakovich, the music does have its bleak and menacing moments, but also one passage in particular in the third movement, beginning at 4:49 in this performance that’s of utterly aching beauty. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the score, but if my ears don’t deceive me, it sounds like the viola playing in double stops for a number of bars, accompanied by gentle pizzicatos in the violins. If I’m right, and it is the viola, then Masumi Per Rostad’s playing at this point is simply breathtaking; which is not to take anything away from Simin Ganatra, Sibbi Bernhardsson, and Brandon Vamos, whose playing throughout this entire series has been nothing but phenomenal.

Shostakovich’s last quartet, No. 15, is clearly a valedictory work in much the same way that Beethoven’s final quartets are. Completed in May 1974, a year and three months before his death, Shostakovich chose for this score what Stephen Harris calls “the mysterious but traditionally morbid key of Eb Minor.” “Morbid” may be one word for it, but with a key signature of six flats most string players would call it by a word or words not to be spoken in polite company. Had Shostakovich lived to write a 16th quartet, one can only wonder if he’d have upped the ante to seven flats with a score in Ab Minor or Cb Major.

In six movements, the 15th Quartet is the composer’s longest, playing for some 36 minutes in the Pacifica’s performance. Moreover, each of the six movements is in the same Eb-Minor key and in one degree or another of Adagio . As quoted by Elizabeth Wilson in Shostakovich: A Life Remembered , the composer himself gave this performance instruction: “Play the first movement so that flies drop dead in mid-air and the audience leaves the hall out of sheer boredom.”

The music obviously speaks of facing death, but it’s not macabre and malignant like the 13th Quartet; rather, it’s mostly melancholy, sorrowful, and resigned, with the occasional defiant outburst. If I singled out violist Rostad for his playing in the 14th Quartet, I have to note first violinist Simin Ganatra’s superb execution of the third-movement cadenza in the 15th Quartet.

Shostakovich’s string quartets have been extremely fortunate from the very beginning to have received quite a few outstanding recordings. A number of them are cited above, but there are earlier ones by the Beethoven and Borodin Quartets that have historical significance, as well as more recent ones by the Sorrel and Mandelring Quartets (the last two of which I’ve not heard). But of those I have heard—and that would include all the others named in this review—I believe I’m prepared to say that this cycle by the Pacifica Quartet is the top contender. Whether you already have one or more Shostakovich quartet cycles in your collection, or you have none, the Pacifica’s is a must-have for anyone of the conviction that these are the most profound musical utterances in the realm of the string quartet since Beethoven.

Disc two closes with a performance of Alfred Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3, composed in 1983. Seth Brodsky, assistant professor of music and the humanities at the University of Chicago (no connection to the Brodsky Quartet), notes Schnittke’s “anti-classical” or “polystylistic” approach, which “depends on shattering classical norms of balance, purity, and wholeness for a multiplicity of styles.” “Schnittke’s Third Quartet,” Brodsky continues, “shatters all three within its first minute. We hear only broken pieces from other times and other works—first from Orlando de Lassus’s Stabat Mater (later 1500s), then from Beethoven‘s Grosse Fuge (1825), and finally from Shostakovich‘s famous ‘musical signature,’ ‘D-S-C-H,’ first used in his Fifth String Quartet of 1952. Schnittke takes these three musical modules, from disparate traditions traversing half a millennium, and puts them directly after one another, only to have the whole thread snap and fall to the ground.”

As works by Schnittke go—at least among those I can claim to have heard—this Third Quartet is fairly accessible, an impression borne out by its relative popularity. Not counting the present version by the Pacifica Quartet, the work has received six recordings, one of which, with the Borodin Quartet on a Virgin Classics CD, to my surprise, I found on the shelf and dusted off for comparison. Once again, for playing of arresting graphic detail, the Pacifica wins hands-down.

This is a Shostakovich cycle for the ages.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Includes work(s) by Jean Sibelius. Ensembles: Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tempera String Quartet, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki University Chorus, Dominante Choir. Conductors: Osmo Vänskä, Neeme Järvi. Soloists: Leonidas Kavakos, Dong-Suk Kang, Anne Sofie von Otter, Bengt Forsberg, Monica Groop, Folke Gräsbeck.

Includes work(s) for gtr by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Soloist: David Leisner.

Classical Music

"Yolanda Kondonassis’ enthusiasm for her instrument is infectious," says Jennifer Higdon when describing working with her to create a new harp concerto. This world premiere recording by Yolanda Kondonaiss with Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is a showcase for the grandeur of the harp through this beautiful composition by Jennifer Higdon. The harp as well as the orchestra is challenged with virtuosic and beautiful moments. The recording continues with the triumphant First Symphony of Samuel Barber, and rounds out with "Rapture" by Patrick Harlin described as being similar to extreme emotional states, musical elements in this piece start subtly and are magnified to their extremes, echoing throughout as inspired by the incredible experience of ultra-caving.

-----

REVIEW:

On the world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon's mercurial Harp Concerto, the crystalline precision of Yolanda Kondonassis's harp, the rhythmic buoyancy of Stare's conducting, and the cohesion of the orchestra achieve a kind of mystical alchemy. Barber's Symphony No. 1 receives a revelatory performance, uncovering a wild and unfettered side to the composer's lyrical neo-Romanticism.

– Rochester City News (Daniel J. Kushner)

Here is yet another intelligent project from Cedille, and a real bonanza for chamber music lovers. Turina’s chamber works are gorgeous. True, the early Piano Quintet in G minor is a touch heavy and faux-Franck, but after that it’s basically smooth sailing. This two disc set contains, first of all, the complete music for piano trio, expertly played with passion and precision by the Lincoln Trio. Most collections of this music contain only the two numbered trios plus the dawn-to-dusk tone poem for piano trio known as Circulo. Here we also get the large early trio in F major, a lovely work that brings the total playing time of the disc to over 73 minutes.

The second disc offers the late Piano Quartet in A minor, the above-mentioned piano quintet, and the sunny, lyrical sextet in two movements subtitled Escena Adaluza. Turina’s mature works exude Spanish color in the cast of their melodies, but his music is also formally elegant and beautifully shaped. Several of these pieces, such as the Quintet and the Trio No. 1, contain spontaneous but intellectually sophisticated fugues, and there isn’t a routine note anywhere. The Lincoln Trio’s colleagues, especially violist Ayane Kozasa, who has a major part in the Sextet, blend seamlessly with the basic ensemble, and they are flawlessly recorded.

I never cease to be amazed at how, with a little thought and intelligence, it’s still possible to put together worthwhile programs of serious classical music that are wholly winning and simply delightful. This release would grace any collection; it’s a treat.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The electrifying Pacifica Trio is back with the highly anticipated third installment of their acclaimed Soviet Experience series. This release focuses on Shostakovich’s string quartets of the 196s, Nos. 9-12. Ranging from a balanced neoclassical form to an unpredictable riot of tonal and atonal themes, these quartet s rank among the finest of Shostakovich’s later works. The adventurous String Quartet No. 6 of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Shostakovich’s friend and colleague, provides another vantage point to view this period in Soviet history. (“The playing is nothing short of phenomenal, bringing new dimensions of interpretative depth and a subtle fusion of intensity and clarity. . . . When the series is complete, it looks set to be the one to own.” The Telegraph, London)

Classical Music

Summer

Considered one of Broadway’s most important composers in the post 1950s era, and still active today nearing 90 years old, John Kander is responsible for the music to such acclaimed shows as Cabaret, Chicago, and Kiss of the Spider Woman to name just a few. This extraordinary 2-CD set spans 55 years of his compositions along with rare demos included featuring Kander with his longtime lyricist Fred Ebb and new recordings of some of his classic songs. Including a deluxe lavishly illustrated 64 page booklet with extensive notes and comments on the songs by Kander. A milestone in musical theatre music releases

This final disc in our trilogy of the chamber music of Schoenberg and his disciples is dedicated to the works for piano solo. Covering almost all of Schoenberg's output in his genre - including two fragments never previously recorded - the programme also includes Alban Berg's Sonata No.1, composed at the age of 23 under the influence of his teacher's Chamber Symphony. There is also a first recording of a fragment by Berg, originally intended for a sonata but later used almost unchanged in his opera Wozzeck. The previous two instalments in this series have received great acclaim. 'An impeccable balance between precision and expressivity' the critic in Le Monde de la musique wrote in reviewing 'Schoenberg: Works for Violin and Piano' (CD1407) and Klassik Heute gave 'Schoenberg/Webern Chamber Music (CD1467) top marks: 10/10/10. Eminent pianist Roland Pöntinen participated on both of these discs, and now he closes the trilogy with this solo programme.

Classical Music

Includes song(s) by Maurice Ravel. Soloists: Inva Mula-Tchako, Valérie Millot, Claire Brua, Gérard Théruel, Laurent Naouri, David Abramovitz.

Classical Music

Classical Music

"An immensely gifted musician…who combines the technical mastery of a virtuoso with the musical sensitivity of a poet."

- The New York Times, (Review of David Northington's debut recital at Carnegie Recital Hall.)