Composed in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the founding of S�o Paulo, Amer�ndia is the composer's largest symphony. Effectively a hybrid symphony and oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra, it is memorable for it's stylistic variety and breadth, drawing on many different sources of Brazilian music. This recording is based on a newly revised edition made by Editora Criadores do Brasil (the S�o Paulo Symphony Orchestra's publishing house) in collaboration with the Academia Brasileira de M�sica. Born in Brazil in 1934, Isaac Karabtchevsky studied conducting and composition in Germany under Wolfgang Fortner, Pierre Boulez, and Carl Ueter. He has held posts at the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra (OSB), La Fenice in Venice, and the Tonku�nstler in Vienna. He is currently director of the Petrobras Symphony of Rio de Janeiro and the Heliopolis Symphony, an orchestra composed of young musicians, most of them from disadvantaged communities in S�o Paulo.

Philippe Graffin’s virtuosity combined with his skills as a sleuth have led to the world-premiere recording of a “Posthumous” solo violin sonata by Eugene Ysaye, an astonishing discovery that extends the Belgian composer’s canon of his essential six sonatas for the medium. Philippe unearthed the nearly-completed manuscript in the library of the Brussels Conservatoire, and polished off the final movement in the most Ysaye-esque manner possible. Philippe’s penchant for intuitive programming I brought to bear on Fiddler’s Blues, combining two Ysaye works - including another premiere, with a pair of folksy, Bohemian-flavored works by George Enescu, another virtuoso violinist/composer who emigrated from his native Romania and like Ysaye settled in Paris.

Enescu was a classmate of Maurice Ravel, whose Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure is an affectionate nod to their teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, whilst his azure-tinged Violin Sonata influences the album’s title. Ravel’s slightly older contemporary Claude Debussy befriended Ysaye. Whereas Ysaye soared writing works for solo violin, Debussy wrote none. Suggesting how such a work may have sounded, Philippe contributes his own arrangement for solo violin of Debussy’s enduring piece Claire de lune.

REVIEWS:

This duo’s rapport comes across in sparky performances. Premieres of pieces by Ysaÿe are a draw, but the Enescu sonata and Hora Unirii are a real treat and leave you feeling anything but blue. ★★★★

-- BBC Music Magazine

The big story here is the first recording of a previously undiscovered seventh unaccompanied violin sonata by Eugène Ysaÿe…Played with flourishing panache and easy command, it makes an electrifying opening to this deceptively titled recital: essentially a survey of the early 20th-century Parisian scene…There’s a real feeling of dialogue.

-- Gramophone

Busoni never came closer to his dream of Italian music than with that night on May 11, 1917 of double performance in Zurich, which he calls himself "La Nuova Commedia dell' Arte" I ("Turandot") and II ("Arlecchino"). In the unusually short time from December 1916 to March 1917 Busoni reworked the already existing material to the Incidental Music of Gozzis "Turandot" into an opera. This happened 4 years before Puccini started to work on the same content. "Arleccino", though in immediate neighborhood to "Dr. Faust" looking almost like a secondary work, is perhaps the composer's actual key composition. The speaking hero of his "theatralische Capriccio" represents a role model, which is at times more important to him than his aesthetic Faust, especially as the World War was increasing in intensity.

REVIEW:

Gerd Albrecht (so persuasive in unusual repertoire) conducts a spirited account of Turandot, attentive to both its smaller detail and its more majestic moments, and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra respond with some stunningly inspired playing. Coupled with some excellent contributions from RIAS Chamber Choir and a vivid, suitably atmospheric recording.

Josef Protschka is a particularly fine and formidable Kalaf, and a superb trio of performances from Robert Worle Johannes Werner Prein and Gotthold Schwarz as Truffaldino, Pantalone and Tartaglia (the equivalent of Puccini's Ping, Pang and Pong).

Albrecht's reading of Arlecchino is equally authoritative.

– Gramophone

The first two of Three Motets of op. 110, all dedicated to the Thomanerchor, present a demanding challenge to choral singers. On the other hand, in the Acht Geistliche Gese�nge op. 138, Reger shows his mastery of the straightforward setting - a masterly "new simplicity" - in which the composer spanned the bridge to his earlier choral works.

The English composer John Ireland drew his inspiration from his country' heritage, it's poetry and it's landscapes. He emerged as a celebrated composer towards the end of World War I, having destroyed almost all of his student works.

The acclaimed pianist Mark Bebbington marks his Resonus Classics debut, and the start of a new French music series, with a major new recording of works by Francis Poulenc. Joined by conductor Jan Latham-Koenig, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, this varied programme of works for piano features the Piano Concerto (the last of his five concertos) and the rarely-recorded piano version of the Concert champêtre so often performed by Poulenc himself. Bebbington is also joined by oboist John Roberts and bassoonist Jonathan Davies for the Trio for Piano, Oboe & Bassoon, and the Sonata for Oboe & Piano.

In order to take a respite and, in his own worlds, “to recuperate,” from his own compositions, Max Reger frequently engaged in “piece work,” in which he would arrange works by other composers. This release includes Reger’s original work 5 Orchestral Songs, as well as Reger’s arrangements of songs for voice and orchestra from Edvard Grieg, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, and Franz Schubert. Conductor Gregor Buhl has made his mark as an opera conductor. He also frequently performs on the concert stage with the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Berlin, Hamburg, and Leizip, and the Helsinki Philharmonic.

For decades, Fritz Kreisler left the music world under the misapprehension that he had found compositions by Cartier, Couperin, Dittersdorf, Padre Martini, Porpora, Pugnani, Stamitz or Vivaldi in monasteries and castle archives and arranged these himself for violin and piano. He left questions as to the original sources unanswered. At sixty, he publicly and freely admitted that he had played a superb joke around thirty years before: he had concealed most of his own works behind the names of masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Many of these initially controversial compositions have become staples for violinists today.

'These performances are a joy to listen to' BBC Record Review

Also available on Blu-ray Audio

Leoš Janá?ek’s dramatic Glagolitic Mass is set to a ninth century Old Church Slavonic text. With its highly individual synthesis of thunderous brass outbursts, rhythmic energy, radiant melodies and interludes of rapt contemplation, the work has established itself as a unique contribution to the choral repertoire. An avowed statement of his belief and patriotic pride in Czechoslovakian national independence, Janá?ek’s Sinfonietta uses spectacular large-scale orchestral forces. Both of these works belong to the composer’s last and most inspired decade, and represent his mature musical language at its most communicative.

Rued Langgaard’s (1893-1952) inner division can be experienced at its extreme in the chamber music written between 1913 and 1924, in which the secure world of his youth is undercut by a dark musical understream. This is most apparent in the work for piano, Music of the Abyss, which is presented here in a transcription for chamber ensemble by Allan Gravgaard Madsen (born 1984) of which this is the first recording. This meeting between Langgaard and Gravgaard brings to a climax the work’s view of modern man’s destructive strength in a crazy ride towards the abyss.

Now at Last: Vox humana by Allan Pettersson. “Ever since I began my work as a producer with CPO, I’ve wanted to release Allan Pettersson’s cantata Vox humana from 1974 as part of our edition of his works. However, we could not find the right Swedish soloists and a Swedish choir for the job. Now we’ve finally found the ensembles we wanted and can release this magnificent work on CPO. Vocal works occupy a relatively modest place in Pettersson’s oeuvre; after the composition of the Barfotasånger from 1943 to 1945, almost thirty years passed before he again decided to write a work for the human voice. In 1973 / 74 he wrote his twelfth symphony based on texts from Pablo Neruda’s Canto general and immediately thereafter, in 1974, the three-part cantata Vox humana, which is also often termed a song cycle and likewise is based exclusively on South American texts. And as a bonus the album also contains Pettersson’s Six Early Songs for Middle Voice and Piano, here in a special arrangement by Staffan Storm for string orchestra and harp from 2016. A gala premiere event!”

Harpists Eva Tebbe and Ekaterina Levental remark that Debussy makes the invisible visible and turns the unspeakable into a musical world full of mysticism, layers of ambiguity and evocative meanings. A century after his death, he is being celebrated across the world in 2018, and this album promises to make a special contribution on record with arrangements of works, most of them relatively unfamiliar, which particularly lend themselves to the ethereal and exquisite combination of voice and harps. Much of the music here was written while Debussy was composing his only opera Pelléas et Mélisande, a Symbolist drama based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, who recognized that in many ways Debussy had not only set his play to music but even outstripped and further enriched his original. There is the early and peaceful Ballade from 1890, then the Proses lyriques from 1892-3 and the seductive Trois Chansons de Bilitis (1897), from which this musical partnership takes its name. Bilitis is the fictional poet of Classical antiquity invented by Pierre Louÿs, writing in an erotic, symbolist vein after the fashion of Sappho: and when in 1900 Debussy came to use the texts of Louÿs again for the Musique de Scène pour les chansons de Bilitis, the music accompanied a tableau vivant in pre-Raphaelite style of winsome and scantily clothed young women. The recital is completed by the Danse sacrée et danse profane – originally composed for harp and orchestra in 1904, here with the orchestral parts arranged for a second harp – and the six Epigraphes Antiques from 1914, which return to the musical material of the Bilitis works but in the composer’s more allusive late style which would lead to his final masterpiece written for Serge Diaghilev, Jeux.

The musicians working with soprano Maacha Deubner take us to exotic worlds of sound on their new GENUIN album, which is exclusively comprised of world premiere recordings. These include works by the Russian composer Elena Firsova and fellow composers, set in dialogue with the oeuvre of the poet Ossip Mandelstam. In addition to Firsova's works, we make acquaintance with music by Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denissov, and Valentin Silvestrov. Maacha Leubner and her colleagues from the KAPmodern ensemble of the Kammerphilharmonie Potsdam devote themselves to the invariably highly expressive music, performing it with great seriousness and mastery.

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10. TCHAIKOVSKY The Snow Maiden: Melodrama. RIMSKY-KORSAKOV The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh: Hymn to Nature; The Battle of Kerzhenets • Yevgeny Svetlanov, cond; USSR St SO • ICA ICAC 5036 (62:17) Live: London 08/21–30/1968


As mentioned in my review elsewhere of the Dvo?ák Cello Concerto in a three-CD set of live Mstislav Rostropovich performances issued by BBC Music, this recording is the other half of the famous—or perhaps notorious—Royal Albert Hall concert of August 21, 1968. Hours before, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring effort to advance “socialism with a human face” that threatened to crack the solidarity of the Iron Curtain. Consequently, the contents of the program—the celebrated concerto masterpiece by the iconic master of Czech music, and the profoundly brooding symphony of the Soviet Union’s greatest composer—could not possibly have been more ironic choices. The irony is further compounded for us by subsequent knowledge that the symphony’s scherzo is Shostakovich’s musical depiction of the brutal dictator Josef Stalin, who imposed upon the Eastern bloc the repressive tyranny that the invasion was now enforcing anew.


When the Russian orchestra—whose members (unlike Rostropovich) most likely had no inkling of what had occurred—came on stage, instead of being greeted with the usual round of applause, they encountered an uproar of shouted political slogans by protestors seeking to disrupt the concert. The yelling and scuffling persist through the first several measures of the symphony’s first movement, almost obscuring the quiet, somber opening on the lower strings, before coming to a sudden halt. However unnerving the uproar may have been to the players, they show no signs of it in any loss of steadiness of musical execution. Much the same can be said of conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov, who I presume was cognizant of the situation. However fairly or unfairly—the matter is a subject of dispute—Svetlanov is often characterized as being something of a Soviet party hack; while his real musical abilities cannot be denied, it is sometimes asserted that he rose to his prominent positions in part through political intrigues, and was regarded by apparatchiks as being more politically reliable than figures such as Kondrashin, Mravinsky, or Rozhdestvensky. In any case, he too rises to the occasion. Long on visceral emotional impact but short on subtlety, as was his wont, Svetlanov here produces a powerful musical juggernaut that, akin to the army tanks then rolling into Prague, moves forward with an inexorable, implacable power that upon its close is rewarded with a tumultuous, roaring ovation from the audience. While not my favorite version of this, my favorite post-Sibelius 20th-century symphony—my two top choices remain live performances by Yevgeny Mravinsky with the Leningrad Philharmonic from March 31, 1976, and Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic (in Moscow) from May 29, 1969—it belongs in the upper echelons of recordings of the work, and should not be missed by anyone who values it.


The brief filler pieces of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov concert-hall rarities are likewise given committed, heartfelt performances. The sound quality is a bit murky in spots and has some background tape hiss but is generally quite fine for a live recording of this vintage. The Rimsky-Korsakov excerpts are asserted to be in stereo, though I can’t hear any real difference between those and the monaurally recorded pieces. One wishes that the Shostakovich presented here and the Dvo?ák concerto published by BBC Music were issued as an intact concert in a single two-CD set on a single label; as it is, we can be grateful for the opportunity to acquire them as presently available. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: James A. Altena


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How’s this for a page ripped from history? On the night of 20-21 August 1968 tanks from the Warsaw Pact rolled into Czechoslovakia, bringing the ‘Prague Spring’ to an end. In that raw, angry atmosphere it’s no surprise that Svetlanov and his Soviet orchestra were given a rough reception at the BBC Proms just hours later. Indeed, the opening bars of the symphony emerge from what sounds like a near riot in the hall, the music growing in strength as the clamour subsides. What irony that this symphony - written in the year of Stalin’s death - should be the curtain-raiser for another age of repression. And the cover photograph of Svetlanov - finger to his lips - is a strong visual metaphor for the day’s momentous events.
 
There’s no way of knowing what went through the minds of this conductor and his players that night, but there’s little doubt that these extra-musical tensions - added to the purely musical ones - spawned a gaunt, hard-driven performance of this great work that’s impossible to forget. Extraordinary circumstances aside, does this recording rank alongside those of Kondrashin, Järvi, Karajan et al? Emphatically, yes; unsparing and idiomatically rough-edged, it will grab you by the scruff and pin you to the wall for fifty relentless minutes.
 
The BBC sound isn’t bad either - I imagine ICA remastered it for this release - the martial second movement as lacerating as I’ve ever heard it; indeed, this music can so easily be heard as a grim accompaniment to the newsreel footage of the day. The darkly menacing bass drum in the next movement is especially well caught, as are the wobblesome winds. One can only imagine the tension in the hall that night, and no one could have known how the audience would react at the end. As it happens, the sheer guts and cathartic power of this performance silence all criticism, the hardy Prommers - not easily won over - responding with cheers and applause.
 
The fillers are barely that; signposted as ‘bonus’ items they’re pleasing enough. Blink and you’ll miss the Tchaikovsky, but the excerpts from Kitezh are most enjoyable; no evidence of extra-musical tensions in the band’s easeful playing. As I was reminded when listening to Svetlanov’s Rimsky box, this is natural territory for him. One could have wished for more, but the symphony takes centre-stage - and rightly so.
 
ICA must be congratulated for issuing so much intriguing, good-quality material in the short time they’ve been in business. I was very impressed by the Rozhdestvensky Tchaikovsky Fourth and look forward to more of the same. Indeed, their very active Twitter feed suggests we won’t have long to wait.
 
Taut Shostakovich, stretched to breaking point by contemporary events.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

Playing pieces from “Miroirs” and “Gaspard de la nuit,” empathetic pianist Ragna Schirmer reveals the essence of Ravel’s artistic compositions with delicate brilliance. These musical works are animated by an incomparable union of mechanical precision and aching fantasy. In such moments it becomes clear that these mournfully beautiful sound creations are the essence of the artistic soul whose fibers Maurice Ravel wove into his compositions so assuredly. Ragna Schirmer’s exquisite interpretations bear witness to Ravel’s passionate sensibilities and that which could not be said, something he himself concealed from those around him during his lifetime. This virtuoso recording is also a bold interpretation that demands the attention of the listener. With her distinctive interpretations, Ragna Schirmer enjoys an exceptional reputation far beyond the borders of Germany. She has won the highly regarded International Bach Competition in Leipzig twice- a unique achievement in the history of the prize. Numerous awards from national and international competitions, ecstatic reviews and the receipt of two of Germany’s top classical music awards, the ECHO Klassik, reflect her remarkable career. Her teachers include Bernard Ringeisen in Paris, himself a student of Marguerite Long, friend and student of Maurice Ravel.

Following its acclaimed Linn debut recording, Copland & Chávez: Pan-American Reflections, The Orchestra of the Americas releases its sophomore album with its Music Director, Carlos Miguel Prieto. Prieto is joined by fellow Mexican and celebrated pianist Jorge Federico Osorio, who brings his superb musicianship, powerful technique, vibrant imagination and deep passion to this all-Spanish programme. Osorio is the soloist in Falla’s highly atmospheric piano concerto, Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a set of symphonic impressions which conjures up the enticing sounds and scents of a summer’s evening. Conductor and pianist received critical acclaim following their performance of this work in Ireland: ‘Prieto elicited a diaphanous palette of colors [and] as Osorio’s arpeggios shimmered up and down the piano we were magnetically drawn into this highly evocative world full of lush sounds and sensuous possibilities’ (BachTrack). Falla’s masterpiece The Three-Cornered Hat is both vibrant and colorful and showcases the ‘superb precision’ of The Orchestra of the Americas. Falla’s finely crafted and meticulous work ensures that the piece’s folklore-based melodies are consistently accompanied by exquisite background music. The programme is completed by the Interlude & Dance from Falla’s La vida breve and the well-known Intermezzo from Granados’ Goyescas.

Rozhdestvensky is considered to be one of the greatest Tchaikovsky conductors today. Given his Russian background and his outstanding leadership of the Bolshoi in the past, it is not surprising that his performances of the composer's works are entirely idiomatic. This live performance of Tchaikovsky's popular Symphony No.5 comes from the 1978 Flanders Festival in Belgium and has been recorded in excellent stereo. It is both exciting and poetic, and it confirmed Rozhdestvensky's new appointment as music director of the BBC Symphony the same year. The fill-up consists of Jan+�cek's rhapsody Taras Bulba recorded at the 1981 Proms. This work is a new addition to Rozhdestvensky's discography. Taras Bulba is arguably Janacek's most powerful and dramatic work. Here, it is given a searing performance in superb stereo, which fully captures the large orchestra used, complete with organ, brass and percussion.

In this album Clara Andrada, solo flutist of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, performs three 20th century flute concertos together with the orchestra conducted by Jaime Martín. Malcolm Arnold’s delightful Flute Concerto No. 1 makes a pleasant addition alongside Nielsen’s and Ibert’s flute concertos. Jaime Martín, himself an excellent flutist, is a perfect companion to these works. This is the orchestra’s second album for Ondine, and continues the fruitful collaboration between Jaime Martín and Ondine that has already produced three albums previously. Clara Andrada de la Calleis one of the leading Flute players of her generation currently holding Solo Flute positions of both the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Born in Salamanca, she commenced her musical studies with Pablo Sagredo and Magdalena Martínez at the Syrinx School of Music. Scholarships from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the London Wall Trust Foundation enabled her to continue her studies at the Geneva Conservatory of Music under Prof. Emmanuel Pahud and Prof. J.D. Castellon as well as the London Royal College of Music under the guidance of Jaime Martín. As a Principal Flute player, she has worked with many leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under esteemed conductors including Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Valery Gergiev, Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Myung-whun Chung, and Lorin Maazel.

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REVIEW:

Competition abounds in Nielsen’s Flute Concerto of 1926 but Andrada is totally inside the unsettled, quixotic nature of the music and communicates lyrical passages with ardent conviction. Jaime Martín, himself a distinguished flautist, provides lithe and vibrant accompaniment in both the Nielsen and Ibert concertos, while Andrada herself directs the strings with impressive authority in the Arnold concerto. The quality of the recording in all three works is as bright and vivid as the performances.

– Gramophone

On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the composer’s birth, six internationally acclaimed soloists are now presenting chamber music by Francis Poulenc, and what these young musicians, all of them active in Switzerland, charm onto the stage, grips us from the very first measure.

The incomparable combination of breathtaking virtuosity and playful lightness as well as songlike melos and deep emotion long ago qualified this anti-Romantic rebel of the 1920s as a modern classic. Already the opening Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet emancipates itself from the chains of convention. Not a one of the movements designed in classical form adheres to a fixed metrical pattern. Shifts of meter and tempo again and again relax the structure. The resultant extremely entertaining impression pervades the entire program, from the early Trio for Piano, Oboe, and Bassoon to the later Duo Sonatas. Poulenc’s preference for wind instruments may perhaps be explained by his French origins and his predilection for song – since it is not without reason that he ranks as one of the most important song composers of the twentieth century. Even without texts his chamber music is highly expressive and dynamic.

This brand-new Super Audio album offers high-resolution sound and three-dimensional imaging, transports audiences deep into the music, and makes us forget the highest degree of technical difficulty involved in the scores. A disc for mirthful entertainment on the very highest level!

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REVIEW:

The Ensemble Confoederatio players evidently have fun in the Sextet. Bassoonist Axel Benoit phrases nicely in the first-movement bridge which heralds the slow section. There isn’t quite the sense of Gallic humour summoned up by Rogé and friends, but it’s a close call. Portuguese flautist Rute Fernandes plays her sonata suavely, especially the jocular finale. Maria Sournatcheva captures the tragic introspection of the Oboe Sonata well. Sérgio Pires delivers a rollicking Clarinet Sonata, fuller and rounder in tone than Michel Portal's. Overall, individual performances stand up well and this disc should provide a lot of pleasurable listening.

– Gramophone

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

This new Pelléas et Mélisande from the Opernhaus Zürich should be remembered as one of Dmitri Tcherniakov's most innovative production. Forget about the fountains, the caverns, the forest, the castles and the towers : here, the density of Maurice Maeterlinck’s and Claude Debussy’s symbolism becomes the starting point of an analytical journey into the human mind : it is now the psychoanalyst, ‘‘doctor’’ Golaud, who has to uncover the secrets of Melisande, an unfortunate and traumatized creature he brings home, and whose silence and puzzling attitude eventually bring him on the verge of insanity. But this production is also the occasion for a reunion between Dmitri Tcherniakov and French conductor Alain Altinoglu, after the tremendous success of the Tchaikovsky diptych Iolanta / The Nutcracker - arguably one of the most successful titles of the Bel Air Classiques catalogue. Their artistic complicity is intact : the precise, analytical but also nuanced and poetic baton of Altinoglu proves to be the best possible response to Tcherniakov’s subtle exploration of the human psychology. Corinne Winters, as Melisande, Jacques Imbrailo, as Pelléas, and especially Kyle Ketelsen, as Golaud, embody with an incandescent realism these characters plagued by a form of evil and violence that we will never quite understand.

Benjamin Britten’s music formed one of the pillars of the Czech Philharmonic’s concert programmes under its chief conductor Karel Ančerl. The famous Variations on a Theme of Purcell was in all likelihood the most frequently performed work (in 1962 also in England), and this CD contains the previously unreleased 1958 recording in the original version without narration.

The enchanting and joyous Spring Symphony, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, was presented in Czech in Prague by Ančerl, the Czech Philharmonic and the finest soloists of the time. Forming a stark contrast to these two works is the War Requiem, a grand piece commemorating the victims of the most gruesome armed conflict in human history. Britten dedicated it to the memory of four friends of his who died in WWII while serving in the British navy or army. The work’s Czech premiere, with the participation of superlative foreign soloists (Gerald English, John Cameron), took place less than four years after its world premiere. So enthused was he by the work that in November 1969, following his emigration to Canada, Ančerl included the War Requiem in one of his first concerts in Toronto. The conductor’s personal profound experience of the senseless barbarity of the war imbued his conception of the work with a chilling authenticity. Both of the two previously unreleased concert recordings were made by the former Czechoslovak Radio.

On this disc internationally acclaimed bass Sir John Tomlinson and pianist David Owen Norris bring together settings of Michelangelo poems by Britten, Wolf and Shostakovich. This unique program is frequently played by the duo in theatrical Michelangelo-themed performances and can now be heard on CD for the first time.

Teach me! The students of Nadia Boulanger is the Boulanger Trio's first album on the Berlin Classics label, an album dedicated to the trio's eponymous heroine. The three musicians present music by Bernstein, Piazzolla and Françaix alongside Quincy Jones, Aaron Copland and Philip Glass. The works are very varied in style, yet a common bond unites their composers: they were all students of Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger's special personality as a teacher and her charismatic engagement as a source of inspiration for composers from all over the world lie at the heart of this album. Would Piazzolla have ever discovered Tango nuevo without Nadia Boulanger? What form would Philip Glass's repetitive structures have taken, and would West Side Story have turned out as we know it today? Generations of music-makers were influenced by Nadia Boulanger, who supported them in their quest to evolve their own personal style. She composed no works of note, nor did she write a guide to composition or harmony. Her work focused on her relationship with her students, on exchange of ideas with them and conversations with them. The repertoire of this album is wide-ranging and imaginative. The Trio pour violon, violoncelle et piano (1986) by Jean Françaix rubs shoulders with the well-known Cuatros Estaciones Porteñas by Astor Piazzolla. The melodious love song Maria from Leonard Bernstein's celebrated musical West Side Story is side by side with Philip Glass's repetitive Head On. Other musical excursions whirl listeners away to the avant-garde with Aaron Copland's Vitebsk - Study on a Jewish Theme (1929) before landing them in film music with the main title theme to the film The Color Purple by Quincy Jones.

Classical Music

This OehmsClassics release of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony coupled with sole Mahler-completed movement (Adagio) from the Tenth signals the completion of the Markus Stenz led Mahler cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra, Köln. Critical acclaim for this cycle has been outstanding, with the Third and Seventh Symphonies in particular being singled out as among the finest recordings currently available. 2013-14 marked Mr. Stenz’s tenth and final season as Principal Conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra.

Hanns�Eisler composed more than five hundred songs, and his very first extant compositions include songs with piano accompaniment. On the fourth and last volume of their selections from Eisler's songs, Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher focus on his early works and bring to light an absolutely astonishing discovery: the young�Hanns�was an autodidact who had an incredible feel for the song part, and his artistic aspirations are also evident in the piano part. Eisler transcends by far the mere imitation of models. Here we encounter free-tonal�compositions�as well as music of revue character, expressive passages as well as laconic ones. His choice of texts is likewise very broad. While Brecht became the focus in Eisler's later work, here he concentrates on poems by Eichendorff and Buchner and by�Trakl�and Morgenstern. The songs set to Far Eastern poetry, in translations by Hans Bethge and�Klabund, are very much in keeping with their times. Eisler even set newspaper advertisements to music! Eisler composed his very first songs while�as yet�reflecting on World War I, most of which he spent in military hospitals. The texts and the mood are correspondingly gloomy, for example, in "Tod" or "Der�mude�Soldat." By contrast, the Songs op. 2 borrow from the style of the Viennese school led by Arnold Schoenberg, with whom Eisler studied counterpoint beginning in 1919. Broad intervals and extreme registers require the singer to give his all- something very typical of vocal works from Schoenberg's immediate circle. Holger Folk masters such difficulties with bravura and finds just the right tone for this challenging music. Steffen Schleiermacher lends the difficult, sometimes harmonically unwieldy compositional texture a transparency that conveys the character of�each and every�song in the most advantageous light. The magnificent conclusion of an ambitious project!

This re-release features Gerald Finzi's Requiem da camera, Britten's Deus in adjutorium meum, Chorale on an Old French Carol and Cantata misericordium, and Holst's Psalm 86 and Psalm 148. All are performed by Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia with the Britten Singers and various soloists. Available at a special price on the Classic Chandos label.

This new OSR recording presents the two most ambitious musical responses to Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 epoch-making play Pelléas et Mélisande. Conductor Jonathan Nott has created a new suite of Debussy’s opera, which is much more extensive, and focuses more on the actual drama and symphonic development than existing suites that rely heavily on Debussy’s interludes. Schoenberg’s Pelléas und Melisande is often perceived as relatively “amorphous”, its narrative structure obscure, leaving concealed all but the most explicit references to the drama on which Schoenberg based it. In this recording, Jonathan Nott introduces a novel track division and analytical track titles that make the music’s relation to the story much more tangible to the listener. Programming it next to the music of Debussy’s opera allows us to compare both works, and to see how the most important innovators of turn-of-the-century music responded to this haunting, Symbolist story. The arrangement of Debussy’s music on this recording is the work of Jonathan Nott.

REVIEW:

For many listeners, conductor Jonathan Nott's new version of Debussy's work will be reason enough to check this album out. While his task was a difficult one, the results give a feel for the flow of the opera. But there's more. Nott has configured the track divisions and track titles of Schoenberg's single-movement Pelleas und Melisande in a novel way. In part, he seems to have relied on Alban Berg's analysis of the work as a combination of four-movement sonata form and the Wagnerian leitmotif technique, and the track titles, Nott's own, reflect this. One might debate what has been done in the cases of both Debussy and Schoenberg, but there's no debating the value of his effort; comparing the Debussy and the Schoenberg side by side is fascinating. Nott further emphasizes the direct comparison with his relatively straightforward performances of the two works, avoiding operatic gestures in the Debussy, and the venerable Swiss orchestra follows him well through unfamiliar interpretations. This is highly recommended for aficionados of the early 20th century.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

Classical Music