20th Century (1900–1970)
Modernism, serialism, neoclassicism. Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Britten.
2959 products
SCHOENBERG: Moses und Aron
Rubbra: Choral Sacred Works / Christophers, The Sixteen
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REVIEW:
Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, with their signature balance and textual care, make articulate advocates for a composer who is much more than a late echo of Holst of Vaughan Williams.
– Gramophone
Harry Christophers balances the soaring soprano solo of Julie Cooper caressingly against the ensemble singers, in a performance which achieves ecstasy without any element of overstatement. This is a disc which anybody remotely interested in Rubbra will want to purchase.
– BBC Music Magazine
Martinu: Symphonies Nos 2 & 4 / Fagen, Nso Of Ukraine
The Very Best Of Rachmaninov
Includes work(s) by Sergei Rachmaninov.
Nostalgia / Magdalena Kožená, Yefim Bronfman
On her third PENTATONE album Nostalgia, Magdalena Kožená presents Bartók’s Village Scenes, Mussorgsky’s The Nursery and a selection of Brahms songs, together with acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman. Sung in Slovak, Russian and German, these songs on love, longing and innocence show three master composers transforming folk traditions into their unique musical styles. Kožená demonstrates her vocal mastery once more, and this recording with Bronfman is the result of a two-decades-spanning congenial artistic partnership.
Nostalgia is star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená’s third album as part of her exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after having presented the baroque cantatas recital album Il giardino dei sospiri and the songs in chamber-musical setting project Soirée in 2019. Yefim Bronfman, whose commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike, makes his PENTATONE debut.
REVIEW:
Mezzo Magdalena Kožená’s third release on Pentatone is easily the best yet – which is really saying something. Kožená and Yefim Bronfman make a thoughtful partnership, the Israeli-American pianist a collaborator more than capable of matching Kožená’s storytelling commitment. The dramatic give and take between them is the principal joy here in songs by Brahms, Mussorgsky, and Bartók united by ideas of childhood, innocence, and love.
-- Limelight
Forgotten Melodies / Polina Leschenko
Starting her program with two wonderful Waltzes by composer and pianist Mischa Levitski, Polina then proceeds with a stunning performance of Rachmaninov second sonata -in the revised version of Horowitz -. The second half of the program is devoted to a highly moving rendition of the complete first cycle of the Forgotten Melodies-including the Reminiscenza Sonata- by romantic composer Nikolai Medtner.
This Hybrid Super Audio CD surround, recorded in the world renowned acoustic of 'La Chaux de Fonds'(CH), is a must have for any piano lovers."
Prokofiev, Khachaturian: Piano Concertos / Arghamanyan, Altinoglu, Berlin Radio Symphony
– BBC Music Magazine
“Arghamanyan's playing is compulsive, emotional yet remarkably "complete" for such a young musician – sensitive, unaffected, genuine.” -- Jessica Duchen, The Independent [10/2011]
“Nareh Arghamanyan impressed with wonderfully sparkling articulation, imaginative dynamic shaping and a convincing dialogue between bass and melody. -- Thomas Schacher, Neue Zürcher Zeitung [10/2011]
“Arghamanyan’s utter confidence in her technique allowed the work to bloom fully, and it was unquestionably the most thrilling and fluid Islamey I’ve ever heard played live.”-- Ken Iisaka, San Francisco Classical Voice [3/2012]
“It’s encouraging to hear a young pianist who plays with a distinctive personality and technique to burn, handles soft lyrical passages, and has an intuitive feel for flexibility and rubato playing that suggest that Romantic piano playing may not yet be dead.” -- James C.S. Liu, Boston Musical Intelligencer [10/2012]
Scriabin: Early Works
Russian composer Alexander Scriabin is known to enthusiasts for his theory of musical colors, innovative piano works that pushed the boundaries of tonal writing, and for his untimely demise brought on by an unsanitary razor blade. American pianist and music professor Russell Hirshfield has now recorded an ambitiously-broad selection of the composer's early works which may well provide a novel talking point. There are relatively few recordings of Scriabin's music these days, possibly because it's a daunting task: The compositions demand a high level of virtuosity, but also a natural musical expressiveness that few performers are able to capture. Often, as in the case of the 24 Preludes, the performer is required to condense the emotional depth of an entire sonata movement into one minute or less. It's a well-crafted but fragile kind of music: if any one component, say, the phrasing, is off-color, the whole piece can fall apart. Luckily, Hirshfield is more than up to the challenge. His pianistic sentiment, technical command and interpretive clarity is not only impressive, it's the perfect fit for Scriabin. The level-headed yet profoundly empathetic playing truly brings out the shine in Scriabin's idiosyncratic compositional voice. This rendition isn't drenched in pseudo-Slavic drama which often mars contemporary recordings of Russian composers: instead, it rightfully portrays the pieces as the works of the individual. And it's a success. ALEXANDER SCRIABIN: EARLY WORKS couldn't be more aptly titled: Even though they constitute a selection, one would be hard-pressed not to imagine them as the sole recordings of the true, unadulterated Scriabin. Russell Hirshfield adds another exceptional merit to his great pianistic mastery: that to be a good musician is not only to be a performer, but to be an ambassador.
Respighi: Concerto All'antica / Alogna, Di Vittorio, Chamber Orchestra of New York
Davide Alogna performs the Concerto with unbridled dexterity, and his virtuosic gifts enable him to surmount all the challenges that Respighi sets with consummate ease. Faultless performances from Di Vittorio and his New Yorkers complete an enchanting disc full of amiable yet at times vibrant momenti musicali all’antica. Sound and annotations are first-rate, while the playing time is generous indeed.
– Classical Music Daily (Gerald French; 3/2021)
Illuminations - Faure, Debussy, & Britten / Nicholas Phan
A New York Times 25 Best Tracks Selection for 2018 - Fanfare
Following acclaimed albums devoted to Britten, baroque lute songs and German lieder, Grammy Award-nominated tenor Nicholas Phan continues to spread his wings with Illuminations, an album featuring compositions by Benjamin Britten, Claude Debussy and Gabriel Faure who were each inspired by the poetry of two nineteenth century French literary titans, Paul Verlaine and his protégé and eventual lover Arthur Rimbaud. The intertwined lives of the French poets and composers manifested themselves in Faure’s impassioned Verlaine-inspired ‘La bonne chanson’ and Debussy’s ‘Ariettes oubliees’ drawn from Verlaine’s ‘Romances sans paroles.’ Just decades later Britten was inspired by Rimbaud’s influential prose-poetry ‘Les Illuminations.’ Critical acclaim for Nicholas Phan has been widespread.
REVIEW:
Britten captures the blend of bizarre, beautiful, decadent, and courtly elements in Rimbaud's symbolist poems. These mingled emotions enliven Mr. Phan’s singing on this recording, starting with the opening “Fanfare,” in which, in trembling voice, he declares that he alone holds the key to this savage parade (of life).
– New York Times
Strauss: Rosenkavalier Suite; Tod und Verklärung; Macbeth / Lan Shui, Singapore SO
Generally acknowledged as one of the great masters of the late-Romantic symphony orchestra, Richard Strauss understood like few others how to use the rich palette of instrumental colours to portray larger-than-life passions and emotions. He did so in a series of pioneering symphonic poems – often choosing as his subject extraordinary characters such as Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel and Don Quixote. But before either of these, in his very first tone poem, he composed a portrayal of Macbeth, his ferociously ambitious wife and their downfall. It is with this rarely played work that Lan Shui and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra open their all-Strauss disc. Also included is another early tone poem, Tod und Verklärung, which Strauss started composing very shortly after Macbeth, and which was actually premièred before that work. In his new work, Strauss didn’t make use of an existing character or story – instead he set out to depict the emotions of a man struggling against and finally giving in to death. These two works, which both end in death, frame a suite from one of the composer’s most lighthearted ventures – the opera Der Rosenkavalier, set in mid-eighteenth century courtly Vienna. Premièred in 1911, this sophisticated aristocratic comedy, proved a perennial favourite and towards the end of his life, Strauss gave his blessing to the Suite recorded here, which manages to include a fair selection of the opera’s best-loved moments.
Szymanowski: Symphonies No 3 & 4 / Antoni Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]
Szymanowski’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Song of the Night’ creates a potent atmosphere of Persian mysticism in its rich blend of voices and exotic orchestration. His Symphony No. 4 is largely extrovert in character and has a prominent rôle for piano. Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 can be found on NBD0021. The CD release of Symphony No. 3 was Gramophone Editor’s Choice and given 5 STARS by ClassicFM (8.570721), and Symphony No. 4 an ‘unbeatable’ 10/10 from ClassicsToday.com ( 8.570722); the complete cycle acclaimed as ‘revelatory’ (ClassicalCDReview.com).
Reviews of the CD versions of these recordings
"Antoni Wit almost always can be relied on to deliver very thoughtful, beautifully musical, even inspired results, and there's no question that he conducts these works extremely well. The performances of both symphonies have a confidence and warmth about them that bespeaks a thorough understanding of Szymanowski's richly textured idiom. The Song of the Night (a.k.a. Symphony No. 3) has many of the same qualities that made Wit's Mahler Eighth so special: terrific choral singing, a bigness of conception that never precludes physical excitement, and very natural balances between vocal and instrumental forces."
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
"As previous issues in this series have shown, when Antoni Wit and his forces are in top form in the music of Szymanowski, they're pretty much unbeatable...The performance of the Symphonie Concertante, one of Szymanowski's greatest works, is superb. Pianist Jan Krzysztof Broja plays the solo part beautifully. He's got the chops for the big moments in the outer movements, but it's his delicacy at the start of the central andante that's most memorable. Wit, typically, directs the orchestra with remarkable clarity as well as power. The finale in particular never has sounded less "clogged" texturally, while the very natural engineering always leaves plenty of room for the sound to expand and fill the hall at those ecstatic climaxes that are such a hallmark of this composer. A splendid release!"
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Gershwin & Ravel: Music for Piano Duo
Britten: Piano Concerto - Violin Concerto
Tying in with the 100-year anniversary in 2013 of the composer’s birth, we here present two such works, performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Edward Gardner with Chandos stars Tasmin Little and Howard Shelley. The Violin Concerto, here performed dazzlingly by Little, is essentially tragic and weighty in tone, perhaps reflecting his growing concern with the escalation of war-related hostilities. Under Shelley’s fingers the Piano Concerto – in a rare recording with the original third movement, “Recitative and Aria” – is generally lighter and brighter, more transparent and simpler in style.
Gorecki: Sanctus Adalbertus, Op. 71 / Blaszcyk, Silesian Philharmonic Symphony
Eller: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 2
This 2nd release continues Toccata Classics’ pioneering releases of music by Baltic, and Estonian, composers. Eller (1887–1970) was one of the founding fathers of Estonian music – the best-known of his students is Arvo Pärt. His huge output of piano music encompasses some 200 works, almost none of which have been recorded before.
Shostakovich: Piano Concertos & Piano Trio No. 2 / Trpčeski, Măcelaru, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava
In the second of his recordings for Linn, charismatic pianist Simon Trpčeski performs Shostakovich’s two Piano Concertos with the outstanding Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava under Orchestre National de France’s new Musical Director Cristian Măcelaru. Shostakovich’s impish First Piano Concerto exudes the carefree attitude and sassy swagger of the young composer, and proves a perfect match with Simon’s playful pianism and Andrei Kavalinsky’s thundering trumpet. Written as a birthday present (and what a present!) for the composer’s son Maxim, the Second Piano Concerto is an uncharacteristically light-hearted piece given the doom and gloom of the time. Simon’s fiendish virtuosity and musical intelligence revel in this energetic piano favourite. As a generous encore, Makedonissimo’s violinist Aleksandar Krapovski and cellist Alexander Somov join Simon for Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2. A must have album!
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring & Dumbarton Oaks
American Classics - Barber: Capricorn Concerto / Alsop
Includes work(s) by Samuel Barber. Ensemble: Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Conductor: Marin Alsop.
The Unknown Enescu
Enescu is one of the great composers, although the world has yet to realise the extent of his achievement. His small published œuvre of 33 opus numbers belies the amount of music he produced: he composed prolifically but, as he was both a perfectionist and a busy performer, much of his music is still unknown, allowing us to present herein, the Unknown Enescu.
Mahler 5
Sound Escapes
Claude Debussy’s music, as his String Quartet (1910) illustrates, reveals characteristics justifying the Impressionist painter comparison, creating landscapes of sound that can draw the listener into the middle of the picture. Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet (1903) had to be and was compared with Debussy’s. His musical diction – based on Debussy’s – prepared the way for French Modernism. Briton Thomas Adès (b. 1971) is capable of fusing traditional elements from music history, including existing composition references, with modern sound production into an individual, appealing style.
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 (Fassung Erwin Stein)
Palmeri, Piazzolla: MISA TANGO / Gérard, Astoria, New Baroque Voices
MisaTango was composed between September 1995 and April 1996 by the Argentine composer Martín Palmeri. The first performance was given on August 17, 1996 at Teatro Broadway in Buenos Aires by the Orquesta Sinfonica nacional de Cuba, the Choir of the Law Faculty of the University of Buenos Aires and the Polyphonic Choir of the City of Vicente López (choirs to which the work is dedicated). MisaTango is a choral mass on Tango sounds. It is composed on the same movements as a mass in classical Latin, in which the harmonics and syncopated rhythms of tango are mixed. The composer also introduces the emblematic instrument of tango, the bandoneon, soloist alongside a string orchestra (violins, violas, cellos and double bass) and the piano. A mezzo-soprano solo part punctuates the work, responding to the mixed choir. The work gained much notoriety when it was performed in Rome in October 2013, in the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola, during the International Festival of Music and Sacred Art in the Vatican. The MisaTango was chosen that year to pay tribute to the enthronement of the former cardinal of Buenos Aires who became Pope Francis in 2013, in reference to the Argentine origins of this former Tango dancer. "This work was written with the intention of offering my choirs a choral symphonic work that could bring us closer to the tango repertoire. Indeed, working with my choirs, I have found how difficult and complex the interpretation of traditional tangos by choirs is. This work is therefore a tribute to choirs and tango as well as to its creators. But it is also the result of a spontaneous production, the fruit of my experience as a choir director, pianist and tango arranger.”
Bartók, Martinů, G. Klein: Orchestral Works / Eschenbach, Philadelphia Orchestra
REVIEW:
This release...offers an excellent musical programming concept, with all three works captured live in performances that are absolutely stunning and fully competitive with the best available. Both the Bartók and Martinů pieces were composed during their respective composers’ exile in America, while Gideon Klein’s Partita (an arrangement for string orchestra of his String Trio), is the result of “internal exile” in the Terezín concentration camp. All three men found ways to continue making music despite displacement, personal misfortune, and against the background of the rise of Nazism and the onset of war. More to the point, the program works because it offers plenty of purely musical contrast and variety.
Martinů’s Memorial to Lidice, a town wiped out by the Nazis as an act of retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, is a harrowing but ultimately hopeful orchestral elegy that receives the most gut-wrenching performance yet recorded. Eschenbach is about 50 percent slower than Ancerl (or anyone else), but he uses the extra time to excellent effect, revealing every luminous detail of Martinů’s orchestration and building the music to a shattering climax, with Beethoven’s Fifth balefully intoned by the horns. Klein’s Partita has much in common with Bartók’s Divertimento, with its folk-inflected thematic material. Its central movement is a very attractive set of variations on a Moravian theme, and it’s clear from this performance that the Philadelphia tradition of great string playing is very much alive and well. Eschenbach leads a performance both warm and incisive, revealing a major work in the process.
The Philadelphia Orchestra already has at least two recordings of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra to its credit, both with Eugene Ormandy--a fine early stereo version on Sony, and a mediocre early digital remake on RCA. This newcomer clearly is finer than either of those, as exciting a rendition as any available. Eschenbach thankfully eschews the excessive slowness that has marred his recent Mahler performances and lets the various sections of the orchestra display their considerable prowess in what remains one of the repertoire’s great showpieces. Listen to the rush of excitement in the transition to the first-movement allegro, or to the beautiful balance between woodwinds and harps in the second subject; notice the brilliant brass fugato that initiates the recapitulation, and the driving coda. It’s the real deal, from the very first note.
The sonics are markedly superior to what Sony, RCA, and EMI used to get in any of the various venues that they used, at least in stereo. The microphones are close to the players, the better to reduce the occasional noise from the audience (the occasional light cough isn’t at all bothersome), but the orchestra can take the exposure, and the sonic impact is pretty thrilling. I’m pleased (and honestly relieved) to be able to recommend it to you in the strongest possible terms.
-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
Dodgson: Chamber Music, Vol. 5 – Music for Winds II
Penderecki: Concertos, Vol. 8 / Tworek, Jerzy Semkov Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra
The Double Concerto for Viola and Cello was written in 2012 to mark the bicentenary of the Musikverein in Vienna. It is a work with a clearly defined, neo-romantic architecture. Even though the composer employs profuse semi-tones as a form-shaping element, the music also abounds in consonances that soften the many tensions therein. The narration’s starting point is determined by the opening cantabile for the two solo instruments, which is of a romantic character. As the music proceeds, the two architectural planes start to be mutually interwoven, with a free dialogue between them lasting until the end of the piece. It is worth drawing the listener’s attention to the highly inventive solo cadenzas that are introduced by the composer in order to differentiate the mood of the work’s various sections. The version for accordion and orchestra which is featured in the present recording casts a fresh light on the composition. All the contrasts that are responsible for the structural fragmentation unexpectedly gain even sharper contours. Moreover, all the solo interludes, in view of the distinctly different character of the accordion, make the polemics between the neo-romantic and playful aesthetics even more exciting. Concerto per flauto ed orchestra da camera was written in 1992. Commissioned by L’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, it was dedicated to flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal. The work falls into two extensive movements: Andante and Allegro con brio. Lyrical fragments of a somewhat impressionistic provenance predominate in the first movement. In contrast to the Double Concerto for Viola and Cello, this work is notable for its highly autonomous solo part, which on the one hand constitutes an intriguing counterpoint with the orchestral interludes, while on the other being very much to the forefront. Brief but strongly chromaticised melodic motifs are an important element that shapes the architecture of the first movement.
Silvestrov: Ode to a Nightingale - Symphony No. 7 - Piano Concertino / Galatenko, Bezborodko, Lyndon-Gee, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra
Dutilleux: Piano Works / Armengaud
The music in this album spans a forty-year period from 1948 to 1988 and reflects Dutilleux’s stylistic development as a composer. He considered the Sonata to be the first main work in his catalogue and it represents a turning away from tradition and embraces the transformative musical explorations of the day. The Three Préludes are pieces of concentrated atmospheres, ‘a kind of study of timbres’, in the composer’s words, and each are dedicated to a renowned pianist: No. 1 to Arthur Rubinstein, No. 2 to Claude Helffer, and No. 3 to Eugene Istomin. Dutilleux’s lively music for the ballet Le Loup (‘The Wolf’) is heard here in a première recording of the original piano solo version.
REVIEW:
The pianist here is the veteran Jean-Pierre Armengaud, who has recorded a great deal of French piano music and also works as a musicologist. He studied under Geneviève Joy and was also given advice by Dutilleux and, not surprisingly, his performance is much like hers. If it sounds rather more full-blooded that may well be because the excellent new recording is rather better than that provided for Joy in her own recording of 1988 on Erato. Dutilleux also approved of his performances of the Prèludes. His performance of the piano version of Le Loup is sparkling and convincing and sounds like idiomatic piano music. The sleeve notes, in English and French are really helpful and this is a valuable issue.
-- MusicWeb International
Satie: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 3 / Horvath
This third volume of Erik Satie’s complete solo piano music using Satie scholar Robert Orledge’s new Salabert Edition focuses on music composed between 1892-1897, including theatrical scores such as the revolutionary uspud, and the Danses gothiques and famous Vexations written while the composer was hiding from a tempestuous love affair. The period closes with Satie composing in what he called “a more flexible and accessible way withthe final Gnossienne and the six Pieces froides.” Recognized at once as a great interpreter of Liszt’s music, Nicolas Horvath became in recent years one of the most sought after pianists of his generation. Holder of a number of awards, like the First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions, he frequently organizes events and concerts of unusual length, sometimes over twelve hours, such as Philip Glass complete piano music or Erik Satie’s Vexations.
