20th Century (1900–1970)
Modernism, serialism, neoclassicism. Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Britten.
2959 products
Zador: Sinfonia Technica / Smolij, Budapest Symphony Orchestra MAV
Hindemith: Mainzer Umzug; Symphonic Metamorphoses / Bäumer, PSO Mainz
On 23 June 1962, in the Mainz City Theater, Paul Hindemith conducted the premiere of a commissioned work that he had composed together with the writer and dramatist Carl Zuckmayer for the two thousandth anniversary of the former Roman castellum “Mogontiacum.” In their Mainzer Umzug the two authors had the city’s extraordinarily long history, from the Celts to current times, march before the mind’s eye of the public, whose members were delightfully amused by the explanations given by the commentators in dialect and at the end applauded all the participants with tremendous ovations. Despite this success, the Mainzer Umzug has continued to the present day to be a rarity in the catalogue of Hindemith’s works. After two repeat performances in Vienna and Berlin, it disappeared into the publisher’s archive until the conductor Hermann Bäumer again brought it into public view one and a half years ago. This General Music Director of the Mainz State Theater introduces his most recent cpo release with this practically forgotten parade, continues with the popular Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber and the prelude to the Requiem When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d, and rounds things off with a stylistically genuine bonus that is an absolute must: the Narrhalla-Marsch with which the military musician Georg Karl Zulehner, one of the founding fathers of the Mainz Carnival Society (MCV), created the »theme song« for all female and male Carnival revelers.
Prokofiev: Ivan The Terrible / Strobel, Berlin Radio Symphony
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REVIEW:
The music is well worth the listener’s time: it is very inventive and highly atmospheric owing to the composer’s uncanny ability to depict the characters, moods and historic aspects of the story. As mentioned, the performances are quite fine and Strobel, who earlier gave us the world premiere recording of the complete film music from Alexander Nevsky, has a grasp on Prokofiev’s film music style that few other conductors do.
– MusicWeb International
Reger: Organ Works, Vol. 7 / Weinberger
At long last our successful Reger Edition continues on its way. The critics have been more than enthusiastic about the previous releases, and Musik & Theater even stated: “These recordings number among the best currently available in the field of Reger’s organ music.” This month we are releasing Vol. 7, again with two albums in the best SS, and this time featuring Reger’s five easy-to-play Preludes and Fugues op. 56. Although the composer termed this composition “an organ work of small caliber” in a letter to the publisher Lauterbach & Kuhn, the critics reacted positively, and the organist and composer Robert Frenzel numbered its pieces, which form anything but a secondary work, “among the most poetic phenomena in the most recent organ literature.” And we absolutely have to agree with him. The generic combination of “Prelude and Fugue” is frequently assigned to the realm of so-called absolute music, but Reger’s op. 56 does not seem to belong to this world in which only the musical structure is of significance; instead, particularly the preludes, which mostly practice dynamic moderation – like many of the “pieces” from op. 59 and other works – are distinguished by a pronounced poetic character.
PRELUDES & APRELUDES
Copland, A.: Clarinet Concerto / Mckinley, W.T.: Clarinet Du
A Prophecy of Peace: Choral Music of Samuel Adler
Messiaen: Catalogue d'Oiseaux / Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Renowned French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard kicks off his exclusive engagement to PENTATONE with a recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (1956-1958). The pianist had intimate ties to the composer himself and his wife, Yvonne Loriod, for whom Messiaen wrote the Catalogue.
Praised by The Guardian as “one of the best Messiaen interpreters around,“ this is Aimard’s first recording of Messiaen’s most extensive, demanding and colorful piano composition. The luxurious release set contains an accompanying bonus film, on which Aimard shares his vast knowledge of and love for Messiaen’s work from behind the piano.
Due to its radical naturalism, the Catalogue d’Oiseaux is exceptional within the repertoire for solo piano. It is the grand hymn to nature from a man who never ceased to marvel at the stupefying beauty of landscapes or the magic of bird song. With his Catalogue, Messiaen tried – in his own words – “to render exactly the typical birdsong of a region, surrounded by its neighbors from the same habitat, as well as the form of song at different hours of the day and night,” suggesting an almost scientific approach to his subjects. The idea of ‘reproduction’ may have been central to Messiaen’s conception of the Catalogue d’Oiseaux, but in the finished work we hear a great composer at work, a master of innovative structures who finds an astonishing range of piano sonorities. In a world that is increasingly being destructed by man, Aimard views this cycle as “a musical refuge that resonates with an audience ever more concerned, expanded and affected.”
REVIEWS:
Unsurprisingly, Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s interpretations are anything but tame. His dynamic range is formidable, his voicing of chords scrupulously faithful, his clarity unimpeachable. It’s hard to imagine the textures having greater impact or precision, or the continuity and discontinuity being projected with greater concentration. Nigel Simeone’s essay for Pentatone is exceptionally informative on factual background. One can only salute this outstanding achievement.
– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, April 2018)
Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s long association with Olivier Messiaen’s music dates back to the early 1970s, when the teenaged pianist was a protégée of both the composer and his wife Yvonne Loriod. His 2000 recording of Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus has long held sway as a version of reference. In August 2017 Aimard set down the complete Catalogue d’Oiseaux, now released by Pentatone on three SACDS, accompanied by informative booklet notes by Nigel Simone and a valuable DVD where Aimard presents succinct overviews of each piece from the piano and offers interesting insights into Messiaen’s methodology and personality.
As the set reveals time and again, Aimard has long digested and internalized Messiaen’s colorful keyboard syntax. The pianist voices and balances extended sequences of chords with the utmost clarity and specificity. Minute variations in rhythmic asymmetry are scrupulously articulated, while Aimard never shortchanges the music’s frequent moments of silence. He also brings impressive timbral and characterful variety to low-register passagework that can sound muddy or indistinct in the wrong hands. Cases in point include Messiaen’s playful evocation of mating mallards in Le Merle de roche’s opening pages, and Le Loriot’s slow-motion chords that contrast with lively high-register dialogues depicting Garden Warblers.
Le Rousserolle Effarvatte, the cycle’s epicenter and longest movement, emerges as a dramatic and virtuoso tour-de-force, showcasing Aimard’s remarkable concentration throughout sustained contemplative passages, along with his sophisticated gradations in dynamics and touch that seemingly project the gnarly, tumultuous sequences in three-dimensional perspective. To be sure, the pianist’s fortissimos convey an edgy, even metallic patina (so do Yvonne Loriod’s, in fairness), and his occasional vocal grimaces distract. Moreover, there sometimes is more humor to the music than Aimard is willing to concede.
Aimard’s technical, stylistic, and musical authority build upon Loriod’s interpretive legacy, and set modern-day standards that will both inspire and intimidate future generations of Messiaen pianists.
– ClassicsToday (Jed Distler)
Strauss: An Alpine Symphony - Ciurlionis: Miske
First Day / Metcalf, Varga
Cellist Laura Metcalf enjoys a thriving career performing as a soloist, orchestral musician, and performing in the ensembles Break of Reality and Sybarite 5. Joined by pianist Matei Varga, this release is Laura’s debut solo recording. Following this release, Laura has scheduled a series of concerts which will begin in New York City in April. The program for this album features works by Martinu, Enescu, Poulenc, and more.
Gould: Symphonettes Nos. 2-4 & Spirituals for Orchestra / Fagen, Vienna Radio Symphony
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REVIEWS:
The attractive and inventive light orchestral music of Morton Gould is still delightful when listened to in the right mood — and particularly when delivered with the panache to be found on this disc. The Symphonettes represent Gould’s best crossover work — the Symphonette No. 4 deriving its character from Latin-American dance forms to make it one of his most popular compositions.
– Classical CD Choice (Barry Forshaw)
The multi-functional ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, with conductor Arthur Fagen, play in an American style ‘to the manner born’, the orchestra’s trumpets enjoying the Symphonetts, sound suitably jazzy in the Second. You will have to play the disc at a high volume level to breath life into it. Most strongly recommended.
– David's Review Corner (David Denton)
Weigl: String Quartets Nos. 7 & 8 / Thomas Christian Ensemble
Following Karl Weigl’s Cello Concerto, we are now releasing his last two String Quartets, his seventh and eighth such works, which were neither commissioned works nor performed during his lifetime. The premiere of Quartet No. 7 was held at the Austrian Institute in New York in 1956, seven years after the composer’s death, and the Concord Quartet premiered Quartet No. 8 at Lincoln Center in New York only years later, in 1973. Weigl completed his next-to-last quartet in January 1942 and in this work much more clearly than in its successor adheres to the finely felt lyricism generally distinguishing him as a composer. It is a work without »screams« and hardly anything would lead us to suspect that it is not a composition from Weigl’s years in Vienna. The same cannot be said of his eighth and last quartet. Weigl knew how to shock his listeners without needing to seek refuge in unresolved dissonances. And this quartet indeed is shocking. The first movement is blunt and mysterious at one and the same time. With its dotted motif the fugued development section strives toward a coda that in the end modulates from minor to major without prior warning. An agonizing but tender melancholy marks the following movement: only Weigl was able to send waves of gloomy brooding through such gentle pondering. The conclusion has the effect of a lonely, mute scream in the night.
Strauss: Don Quixote, Cello Sonata / Müller-Schott, Davis, Melbourne Symphony
During his long and exceptionally fruitful creative life, Richard Strauss (1864–1949) composed only a few works for the cello. Only three have survived and small as that number may seem, those cello works are critical to the composer’s development. Daniel Muller-Schott sees the early Sonata for cello and piano op. 6 and the late tone poem “Don Quixote” op. 35 as marking the path that was to lead Strauss within the space of a few years from Romanticism to the Modern era in music. The cellist highlights this watershed in Strauss’s artistic development with his own transcriptions, expressly made for this album, of the Lieder “Zueignung” op. 10/1 and “Ich trage meine Minne” op. 32/1.
AQUARELLES
Britten, Prokofiev & Shostakovich: The Cello Sonatas
This new CD by Daniel Müller-Schott and Francesco Piemontesi offers three sonatas for cello and piano, works that sum up several chapters of 20th c. history that go far beyond the merely musical. Sergei Prokofiev displays a masterly serenity in his songlike Sonata in C, op. 119, composed in 1949. It makes evident his adjustment to the cultural politics of the Soviet Union – to which this world-famous composer had returned just twelve years before – but is also tailor-made for an exceptional cello-piano duo. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sonata in d minor, op. 40 is no less marked by fate. It was on the program of a concert tour given by the composer and his cello partner Viktor Kubatsky in 1936 when Shostakovich was put on the Stalinist index of undesirables, on orders from the very top. Finally, Benjamin Britten’s Sonata in C, op. 65 marked the beginning of a productive, creative friendship with Rostropovich that was established, despite many a problem posed by the Cold War, in Aldeburgh in 1961 when performed by the composer and Rostropovich.
Ginastera: Música de Cámera y Cançiones
Britten: Turn of the Screw, Op. 54 / Wilson, Sinfonia of London
Henry James’s novella has become notorious as at once the most stylish and elusively ambiguous of all nineteenth-century ghost stories. In June 1932, the eighteen-year-old Benjamin Britten heard a radio adaptation of James’s story and noted in his diary that it was ‘wonderful, impressive but terribly eerie & scary’. He read the novella for himself in January the following year, telling his diary that he still found it ‘glorious & eerie’ and judging it to be an ‘incredible masterpiece’. His subsequent operatic setting is unequivocally a masterpiece, and here receives a first-class production made for television with an outstanding cast led by Robert Murray and Rhian Lois, accompanied by Sinfonia of London and conducted by John Wilson.
Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier
Britten, Canteloube: Vocal Works / Eriksmoen, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen is undoubtedly a rising star at the moment, following successful appearances at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Oper Frankfurt, Komische Oper Berlin, and Teatro alla Scala in Milan. On the concert stage she has made recent important appearances with the Orchestre de Paris, Berliner Philharmoniker, Oslo Philharmonic, and Münchner Philharmoniker among others. Here she joins the Bergen Philharmonic and Edward Gardner for a powerful album of orchestral songs, coupling Britten’s Les Illuminations and Four French Songs with a selection of Cantaloube’s inimitable Songs of the Auvergne. Eriksmoen spent a year studying in Paris, and proves an effective and natural singer of the French language. As she mentions in her program note: ‘It is highly demanding to sing in French when it is not one’s native tongue, but I have always felt at home when singing in French and nurture an emotional attachment to the French language.’
REVIEWS:
One cannot can’t praise Eriksmoen enough for the accuracy of her singing, its tonal beauty, and her absorption in the text. There are running passages, exposed intervals, and those chromatic steps to contend with. She faces every challenge with ease.
-- Fanfare
In Britten’s Les illuminations, the generally belllike accuracy of Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen’s singing is more than matched by the expressive truth of her interpretations. She is most beguiling when floating her voice weightlessly and with a serene joie de vivre in ‘Antique’, perfectly partnered by the lovely violin playing of the Bergen Philharmonic leader Melina Mandozzi.
-- BBC Music Magazine
The Sound of Black and White / Raffi Besalyan
This program is a loving tribute to A. Khachaturian, the towering musical figure from my native Armenia and to G. Gershwin, the musical genius from my adopted home, the United States. These two composers are bridged here by the phenomenal pianist/ composer and Hollywood superstar, Oscar Levant. Some of the works on the album have been my loyal recital companions since childhood, the others have become such upon my immigration to America as a young adult. The release includes a world premiere recording of Oscar Levant’s jazzy Sonatina.
REVIEW:
Pianist Raffi Besalyan presents a collection of works from his native Armenia and his adopted U.S, and indeed, he offers vigorous performances of music by Aram Khachaturian and George Gershwin. Most interesting are the points where the two composers meet. Highly newsworthy is the world premiere of the Piano Sonatina by Gershwin specialist Oscar Levanty. The Sonatina has a unique post-Gershwin language and makes one wants to hear more of Levant’s original music. One is left with the impression of an odd kinship between Khachaturian and Gershwin that no one else has quite caught. The presence of some of Earl Wild’s Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin also works; the pieces bring a bit of the Russian virtuoso school, Besalyan’s specialty, to the proceedings. The whole thing is brilliantly performed and benefits from superb engineering at Sono Luminus’ Virginia studios. A satisfying cross-cultural essay.
-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)
MAHLER SYMPHONY NO. 1
Turina: Piano Works / Martin Jones
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REVIEW:
Martin Jones, one of Britain’s most highly-regarded pianists since first coming to international attention in 1968 when he received the Dame Myra Hess Award, offers a beautiful rendering of Spanish composer Joaquin Turina’s piano works, compiling an earlier recording from 1999 with some newer ones. These are miniatures that evoke dance rhythms of Spain. Cinco Danzas is especially well done, but there could be some small disagreements with interpretation. IV has a wonderful rhythmic feel, with evenness of playing. 'Fiesta’ has a sense of dynamic growth, with a constant ostinato-like rhythm. 'Danza Ritmica’ could have a quieter opening (it is marked pianissimo and lighter). To nitpick a little, the work could be a hair faster. Jones could aim for longer phrasing, especially in the running 16th notes that occur often. His range of sound is impressive. 'Seguriya’, marked allegro vivo, could be approached with a quicker pace. His use of the left hand articulation, slightly non legato, brings out the melodic line perfectly, and the work comes to a wonderful finish. The start of El Castillo de Almodovar is extremely beautiful, but I do wish for a more ominous and softer turn, as that movement is marked ppp. Still, besides these quibbles, this recording is a delight.
– American Record Guide (Sang Woo Kang)
Crumb: Metamorphoses, Books I and II / Barone
Bridge's Complete Crumb Edition reaches Volume 20 with the first complete recording of the great American composer's recently completed Metamorphoses cycle. The "20 Fantasy Pieces After Celebrated Paintings" are Crumb's "Pictures at an Exhibition"- aural interpretations of famous paintings from our recent past including works by Picasso, van Gogh, Chagall, and Dali. Critic David Hurwitz writes: "Bridge's decision to embark on a complete edition of George Crumb's music remains one of the most significant recording projects currently in progress, as well as one of the most artistically successful."
Varèse, Lutoslawski, Ligeti & Baldini: Orchestral Works
This is an album featuring path-breaking works for orchestra and for violin and orchestra. Lutoslawski, Verese, and Ligeti certainly need no introduction. Conductor Christian Baldini is also a first-rate composer. Two superb violinists, Miranda Cuckson and Maximilian Haft are featured performers. "Christian Baldini brings symphonic revival" commented the Buenos Aires Herald on Baldini's recent concerts at the Teatro Argentino featuring Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Varèse's Amériques. Based in California, Baldini conducts regularly several international orchestras including the Munich Radio Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra (of Argentina and the US), Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto (Portugal), San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Ensemble Dal Niente. Baldini recently made his debut conducting Verdi's Aida in London for English National Opera, and has conducted new productions at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where he received the National Critics Association Award for best operatic performance.
Solo Piano Works 1 / Frank Huang
Russian composer Nikolai Medtner left behind an amazing body of works for solo piano. This is the first volume in what will be an integral recorded edition of Medtner's solo piano works, performed by Frank Huang. Frank Huang is a Steinway Artist and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Piano at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Previously, he was a faculty member at The College of Wooster and The Cleveland Institute of Music. Described by New York Concert Review as a "thoughtful and accomplished performer" and that his playing was "impressive for it's maturity and refinement," Mr. Huang has gained international recognition for his artistry and technical command.
Genzmer: Solo Concertos / Matiakh, Berlin Radio Symphony
Harald Genzmer was a composition pupil of Paul Hindemith in Berlin from 1928 to 1934. Whoever studies Genzmer’s enormous oeuvre in detail will recognize in the pupil’s music many Romantic gestures and a sensual imagination rarely occurring in the teacher’s works. What Genzmer adopted from his mentor was the masterly craftsmanship, an awareness of classicism and form and joy in performing in itself and in the colours of the most differing instruments. The broadly educated scion of an academic family never regarded himself as a genius transcending boundaries, but as the servant of performers and the public: ‘Music should be zestful, artful and comprehensible. As practicable, it may win over the interpreter, and then the listener as graspable’. Musicians have always enjoyed performing Genzmer’s inspired music, which is affectionally adapted to the most varied instrumentations, and are now continuing to do so in increasing measure.
Early Songs of Alban Berg / Steven Kimbrough, Margaret Jackson, Mary K. Jackson
Alban Berg left behind a wonderful group of songs. These early songs were unpublished during Berg's lifetime. They deserve a serious listening. This album presents these songs in the excellent performances they so richly deserve. Steven Kimbrough is an internationally known operatic, concert, and musical theater singer (baritone), and recording artist, who has performed on the professional stages of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. He has been described as a remarkable singer, with a cultivated, easily flowing baritone of fine quality and a rare command of words and rhythms. (The New Yorker) Margaret Jackson is a professionally trained opera singer who has traveled all over the world. She is also an expert in musicology and Western music history.
Weinberg: Works for Violin & Piano, Vol. 2 / Kirpal
This is the second volume of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's works for violin and piano. Weinberg's Violin Sonata No. 1 covers the path from C minor to C major, a popular tradition of the time while Sonata No. 2 reveals his increasing creative ambitions. Sonata No. 3, has a lyrical tone which dominates the first movement. The structural design is more economical and grows more elaborately throughout.
Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works / Steffens, Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic
Together with his friend Holst, at the beginning of the 20th century Ralph Vaughan Williams deliberately took the course of liberating himself from ''German influence'', as they called it, working for original British music. He found models and inspiration in original English folk music. Most of the works recorded here rank among the less known pieces by the composer, but all of them very clearly reflect the personal hue, the absolutely ''personal style'' of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
