SOMM Recordings marks the 150th Anniversary of the great French-American conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964) with his live performances of Claude Debussy's Images pour orchestre and Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. These 1961 broadcasts, featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, have been superbly remastered by Lani Spahr, whose critically acclaimed audio restorations for SOMM have received high praise from Gramophone, BBC Radio 3, and The Sunday Times, amongst many others. While Monteux was born 150 years ago this past April, his death came 61 years ago-still within the lifetime of many present-day music lovers. He was, therefore, a link with the musical past, and enjoyed professional relationships with both the composers on this recording. By the early 1910s, Monteux had a reputation as the leading French conductor of the younger generation, and Debussy chose him to prepare the world premiere of Images pour orchestre, which Debussy himself conducted in January 1913. Debussy's colourful orchestration of his original piano work opens with "Gigues," inspired loosely by English and Scottish folk-tunes. At the heart of Images is "Iberia," of which Manuel de Falla said, "There is more real Spain in 'Iberia' than in all of Albeniz's work." The more veiled final movement, "Rondes de printemps," ultimately brings Images to a superb full-orchestra climax. Monteux's first conducting position was with Paris's Colonne Orchestra, which Sergei Diaghilev engaged for the 1910 season of the Ballets Russes, and Monteux came into contact with Stravinsky's music when he played viola in the company's premiere of The Firebird. At the request of Stravinsky, he conducted the premiere of Petrushka in 1911, and he led the famously riotous first performance of The Rite of Spring in 1913. When Monteux was conscripted into the army during World War I, Diaghilev persuaded the French government to discharge him so that he could direct the Ballets Russes on a North American tour. The success of this tour led to Monteux's five-year tenure as chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His successor there was the Russian maestro Serge Koussevitzky who, in 1931, commissioned a number of leading composers-including Stravinsky-to write commemorative works marking the 50th anniversary of the BSO. Stravinsky's offering was his Symphony of Psalms for chorus and orchestra. Composed in a Neo-classical style with a nod to Bach's oratorios, it is one of the great choral works of the 20th century, creating a unique, ritualistic atmosphere in the setting of three psalm texts in Latin. These live recordings from late in Monteux's life, demonstrating his profound and personal insights into the works of Debussy and Stravinsky, are paired with a Pierre Monteux tribute from violinist Alex Nifosi.

For the latest instalment in their Mahler series, the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of Osmo Vänskä presents what many consider to be the pinnacle of the Austrian composer’s entire work, the Ninth Symphony, his last completed symphony. After a vast and emotionally intense first movement that shows an astonishing fluidity of form, theme, texture and tonality, ‘the most glorious thing Mahler has written’ according to Alban Berg, the second movement brings joy and playfulness and seems to evoke both an urban Straussian world and folk music cultures. To the bitter irony and anger of the third movement the last movement, a mystical Adagio, seems to respond with ineffable tenderness. Often regarded as the composer’s monumental – both in terms of scale and emotional scope – leave-taking of the world, the Ninth Symphony can also be understood as a requiem for his daughter who died a few years before, an acknowledgment of the transience of life, a memorial to Vienna, an evocation of fading Austrian and Bohemian landscapes, a homage to a vanishing European cultural world.

Edward Gardner's series of Nielsen symphonies with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra continues with this recording of No. 5, complemented with the overture Helios and the Clarinet Concerto, featuring Alessandro Carbonare as soloist. Nielsen composed Helios in 1903 on a trip to Greece, as his wife, Anne Marie, a sculptor, had won a grant to copy sculptures on the Acropolis. Over it's ten-twelve-minute duration, the work depicts sunrise, noontime, and then sunset over the Aegean Sea, and is one of the composer's most performed works. The Clarinet Concerto dates from 1928 and is cast in one long movement falling into four sections. It is dedicated to Nielsen's friend Aage Oxenvad who gave the first performance. Composed between 1920 and 1922, the Fifth Symphony is unusually laid out in just two movements - the only piece by Nielsen to adopt this structure. Unlike his other mature symphonies, the fifth lacks a subtitle, and so could be considered to be more 'pure music' compared to the descriptive nature of the others. Nielsen described the symphony as 'the division of dark and light, the battle between evil and good' and the opposition between 'Dreams and Deeds'. Considered by many as a "war symphony", Nielsen insisted that he had not been thinking of World War I whilst he was composing the work, but also commented "not one of us is the same as we were before the war".

SOMM Recordings highlights the pianistic mastery of Francis Poulenc (1899�- 1963) with a release of extraordinary historic recordings including two of his four major concertante works and selected solo piano pieces. To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Erik Satie (1866�- 1925), this recording also features Poulenc performing piano gems by Satie, whose distaste for academic routine and Romanticism had a profound influence on Poulenc and the other members of the ad hoc music group, Les Six. These performances, ranging from 1930 to 1950, have been brilliantly remastered by long-time SOMM collaborator, Lani Spahr, about whose work Gramophone has said, "There are historic releases that make the grade because they are just that - 'historic' - and there are releases that make history because they are musically overwhelming." This release opens with Poulenc's Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra, commissioned by American-born heiress Princess Edmond de Polignac specifically to be premiered by the composer and his friend, Jacques Fevrier, at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice in 1932. The vibrant colouration inherent in the piece was inspired by Balinese musicians whom Poulenc had heard at the Paris Colonial Exhibition of 1931. The performance heard here with Georges Pretre conducting the Orchestre National de France was recorded the year before Poulenc's sudden death, and again pairs Poulenc and Fevrier, thirty years after they created the world premiere. While on tour in New York during the winter of 1949 /1950, Poulenc recorded selections of his piano music along with twelve of his favourite compositions by Erik Satie. Poulenc's own music ranges from his earliest works, Trois mouvements perpetuelles, to the C major Nocturne from a set of eight, and the neo-classical Suite francaise of 1935-a homage to his 16th century compatriot, Claude Gervaise. Erik Satie was not as gifted a pianist as Poulenc, and his technical limitations largely confined his output to the shorter forms, particularly for piano, where his singular creative genius shone at it's brightest. Amongst some of Satie's deliberately absurd titles-like "Tyrolean Turk" and "Skinny Dance"-Poulenc also chose to record one each of Satie's exquisitely crafted Gymnopedie and Gnossienne. Aubade (Morning Song), a 1929 concerto for piano and chamber orchestra of eighteen instruments, is the final work on this release. It exists as both a Concerto choreographique, based on the Roman myth of the virgin huntress Diana, and also a concert version, as heard here. The positive response to Aubade led to a commercial recording with the Orchestre Straram conducted by Walther Straram, the 78rpm discs capturing Poulenc's only recording of this work.

“From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields” – this is how we might sum up the shared roots of these four composers. Vaclav Pichl (World Premiere Recording) and Johann Baptist Vanhal penned their works in an early classical style, while Bohuslav Martinu and Roland Leistner-Meyer deployed the aesthetic means of expression of their own period to enrich the repertoire while still invoking the ideals of the classical era. This program is the perfect treat for listeners who enjoy discovering new works and expanding their musical horizons!

SOMM Recordings is proud to extend it's celebration of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Holst (1874�- 1934). The label was one of the few to mark the anniversary with it's double CD release last September of Holst: Savitri, Choral Hymns from Rig Veda, 4 Songs, The Evening Watch, Hammersmith, The Perfect Fool Suite & The Planets, ARIADNE 5030-2. These never-before-released live recordings from the 40s, 50s, and 60s were issued in meticulous restorations by long-time SOMM collaborators Lani Spahr and�Paul Baily. Now, SOMM continues it's outstanding mission of issuing lesser-known music of interest with a pair of gems to enrich the catalogue of historic performances:�a stereo recording of Holst's three-movement suite Beni Mora (the fictional name for Biskra, Algeria) and a live performance of the Choral Symphony. Both are played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent, who brought a personal acquaintance and a deep understanding of the composer's inspiration to the works. Once again, the suburb audio restoration is by Lani Spahr. Holst's The Planets is a justifiably well-known suite, but the great originality and skill in his writing is still largely under-appreciated. He lived a retiring life playing trombone in theatre orchestras as a younger man and teaching for much of his career at the St Paul's Girls' School in London. Yet, his abiding interest in cultures of North Africa, the Levant, and India were reflected in his rare musical expression. While spending time in Algiers in 1908, Holst heard an indigenous musician playing the same phrase repeatedly for two hours on a bamboo flute. This melody became the basis for the final movement of Beni Mora, where Holst repeats the eight-note tune 163 times in a manner foreshadowing minimalism. The first two movements of the suite evoke the mysticism, lively rhythms, and exoticism of the Arab world, juxtaposed with more reflective moments. Following the success of The Planets, Holst received a commission from the 1925 Leeds Triennial Festival, and he used the opportunity to revise the draft of his Choral Symphony. The work consists of a Prelude and four movements, in keeping with an idea of conventional symphonic structure. Holst's inspiration came from a widely diverse collection of poetry by John Keats-ranging from the famous Ode to a Grecian Urn to lines scribbled on the flyleaf of a book of plays. The response to the Choral Symphony was not initially favourable. Even Holst's lifelong friend, Ralph Vaughan Williams, admitted that he felt only a "cold admiration" for it. But within months of the first performance Holst wrote, "I think the work as a whole is the best thing I have ever written." This recording is evidence of that belief.

Nielsen’s epic Violin Concerto was premiered in Copenhagen in February 1912, by violinist Peder Møller. Nominally the work is set in two movements; both open with a slow section and move to a faster one. Whilst unusual, this could be seen as a more usual fast – slow – fast three movement form, but with an extensive slow introduction to the first movement. The music moves quickly from one idea to the next, and overall has a bold, playful and optimistic feel. In stark contrast, although written only a few years later, the fourth symphony is more cohesive and unified as a work.

Written against the background of the first world war, the work is a celebration of life itself. Just before the premier in 1916, Nielsen described it as: ‘Music is Life, and, like it, inextinguishable.’ Composed in the usual four movement form, each movement continues from the last without a break. The final movement features two sets of timpani battling each other across the orchestra. The recording was made in Bergen’s Grieghallen, in Surround Sound, and is available as a hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio.

REVIEWS:

Nielsen's Violin Concerto couldn’t have a better advocate than James Ehnes: strong in his lyricism when he needs to be, alert to all dynamics and a sense of fantasy which is outstanding in the two cadenzas.

-- BBC Music Magazine

James Ehnes – that most elegant and unflashy of players – seems to relish all that is unexpected about the piece...Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic give it real backbone and play like its greatest champions.

-- Gramophone

In Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, Gardner succeeds handily. The orchestra plays outstandingly well for him in all departments and he keeps the symphony moving. This is appropriate because all the movements are connected. I found his slightly quicker tempo for the second movement convincing with the woodwinds as delectable as one would expect and the dynamics quieter than in some recordings.

-- MusicWeb International

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic continue their survey of Shostakovich’s late symphonies with this recoding of the 14th, with Elizabeth Atherton and Peter Rose as soloists. Completed in the spring of 1969, and premiered later that year, the symphony is written for soprano, bass and small string orchestra with percussion, setting eleven linked setting of poems by four authors. Most of the poems deal with the theme of death, particularly that of unjust or early death, and indeed all four of the poets had died prematurely and / or in unnatural circumstances – Wilhelm Küchelbecker in Siberian exile for his part in the 1825 Decembrist uprising, Federico García Lorca assassinated during the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, Rainer Maria Rilke of blood poisoning following an accident in 1926 and Guillaume Apollinaire in 1918 during the Spanish influenza pandemic. The Six Verses of Marina Tsvetayeva were composed in 1973, originally for contralto and piano, and subsequently arranged for chamber orchestra (the version we hear here, with Jess Dandy as soloist). The recording was made at Media City in Salford, Manchester, in Surround Sound, and is available as a hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco's chamber works were composed early and late in his career. He considered the Piano Quintet No. 1 in F major from 1932 to be the best of all his chamber works from that period. It exudes Romantic candour and contrapuntal richness, full of lively themes and with a colourful atmosphere. The beautiful Piano Quintet No. 2, composed in 1951, draws on the composer's memories of a serene and rustic Tuscany. Quartetto Adorno's 'reference-worthy performance' (Classicstoday. Com) of the complete string quartets is on 8. 574580.

Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1931-2018) was one of Russia’s greatest conductors along with Evgeny Mravinsky and Kirill Kondrashin. His close personal and musical relationship with Shostakovich began in the 1950s and continued until the composer’s death in 1975. Rozhdestvensky said at the time, ‘It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of my relations with Dmitri Shostakovich since he opened before me a musical universe like a gigantic magnifying glass reflecting our fragile world’.

Rozhdestvensky conducted the first western premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No.4 in Edinburgh in 1962 and after many subsequent performances internationally, it was also the inaugural piece in his tenure as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1979-81). Composed in 1936 but condemned by the Soviet authorities, it did not receive its first performance until 1961 in Moscow. The epic Symphony No.11, given a dramatic performance by the BBC Philharmonic in 1997, is based on revolutionary folksongs relating to the 1905 Russian Revolution, and received the Lenin Prize in 1958. Despite this, questions arose as to whether Shostakovich was denouncing the Soviet regime’s brutal treatment of its opponents in it, specifically the 1956 invasion of Hungary or the Tsarist tyranny and oppression of 1905, to which there are no conclusive answers.

Composer Hans Gál was born near Vienna in 1890. He rose to fame in the 1920s as a composer and scholar. His compositional style was considered more traditional than other composers, but his music is nonetheless fresh and infused with chromaticism and counterpoint. He was an extremely successful composer of all genres, especially opera.

John Wilson and Sinfonia of London release their second album of Rachmaninoff. The Second Symphony was mostly composed in Dresden – where Rachmaninoff was escaping the political and professional pressures of Russia – in 1906 – 07. An hour’s worth of music, the symphony is one of his largest works after the operas, and is widely viewed as one of his greatest works. It was possibly of some significance to the composer, following the less than auspicious début of his First Symphony (which he withdrew after the première). First performed in St Petersburg and Moscow, conducted by the composer, the Second Symphony was an immediate success with audiences and critics alike, and remains a mainstay of the orchestral repertoire to this day. Rachmaninoff dedicated the score to his teacher Sergei Taneyev, who was a pupil of Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff composed the Prélude in C sharp minor in 1892, originally for piano, at the beginning of his career. Stokowski’s orchestration, performed here, whilst not the only one in existence, is certainly the best known and arguably the most successful.

Nikolay Roslavets was one of the great musical innovators of the 1920s, described by Stravinsky as "the most interesting Russian composer of the 20th century," but vilified by the Soviet regime on account of his constant experimentation. His Piano Trio No. 4 is notable for it's romantic and passionate spirit and complex polyphony. Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 is one of the most harrowing and revered of all his chamber works. The Piano Trio No. 1, a remarkable composition for a 16-year-old student, is a work of romantic intensity cast in a musical language recognisably that of Shostakovich.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vaughan Williams, we are proud to reissue this outstanding symphony cycle. Started in 1999 by Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra, this was the first Vaughan Williams symphony cycle to be recorded in Surround Sound and released on Hybrid SACD. Tragically, Richard Hickox died before he was able to complete the project – a task that was undertaken by Sir Andrew Davis and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. This reissue is priced at 6 discs for the price of 2, and features almost an hour of bonus material – broadcast interviews with Sir Adrian Boult and Sir John Barbirolli, and reminiscences from both Ursula Vaughan Williams and the composer himself.

Praise for previously released recordings included in this set:

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 2 / Hickox, London Symphony

Richard Hickox gives us the chance to hear VW's original, hour-long canvas – and riveting listening it makes too! Sprawling it may be, but this epic conception evinces a prodigal inventiveness, poetry, mystery, and vitality that do not pall with repeated hearings. An essential purchase for anyone remotely interested in British music.

-- Gramophone (2001 Recording of the Year)

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 / Hickox, London Symphony

This is an exceptionally powerful yet deeply moving account of the Fifth. Aided by glowing, wide-ranging engineering, Hickox's is an urgently communicative reading. The first and third movements in particular emerge with an effortless architectural splendour and rapt authority, the climaxes built and resolved with mastery.

-- Gramophone

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8, "Sinfonia Antartica" / Davis, Bergen Philharmonic

The Bergen Phil finds a clear affinity with the Sinfonia Antartica...There’s an inexorability about this performance and a strong tragic undertow that makes it a compelling listen throughout. Davis authoritatively builds up the tension without any fussiness.

-- The Sunday Times (UK)

This third release marks the end of the recording of all the orchestral works written by Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz over the course of her not exactly long life. And once again, the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Lukasz Borowicz unfolds a representative range that extends from the phenomenal artist's early neoclassical works to her late phase, in which tonal innovations were at the forefront of her creative work, without losing the indispensable communication with the audience. As a world premiere recording, this album contains the composer's first symphony, while the early Polish Overture and the late In una parte, with which Grazyna Bacewicz created a final "sonoristic" marvel in 1967, two years before her death, can also be heard as concert hall rarities.

Collectif9, well-known for its innovative programming and its unique arrangements of the classical repertory, here tackles the music of Debussy, following a first recording devoted to Mahler (ALPHA770). With Clair de lune, La Mer and Des pas sur la neige, the Montreal collective invites us into a sumptuous theatre of shadows and waves: ‘Could we, as nine string players, perform Claude Debussy’s La Mer and do it justice? In a musical style where timbre and color are paramount, attempting to interpret this emblematic work seemed outrageous; but come to think of it, we like a challenge. This is certainly a reinterpretation. Being fewer in number allows us to otherwise reveal a rich rhythmic interplay already present in the work while shedding new light on the balance of voices and harmonies.’ A work by composer Luna Pearl Woolf completes the program: Contact, ‘a sonic view into the underwater world of beluga whales in the St Lawrence Estuary’.

Maurice Ravel composed many works which stand as classics for both solo piano and for orchestra. On this disc, all except one work were first conceived for piano, which raises the question how it is possible to transfer such pianistic music to the orchestra without making it sound like a mere ‘colorized’ version. Ravel’s orchestral writing was the result of a long apprenticeship and careful study. Although his skills as an orchestrator are much admired today, his ability to coax new sounds out of the orchestra wasn't always appreciated in his own time, however – in 1907 the critic Pierre Lalo complained that ‘in Ravel’s orchestra, no instrument retains its natural sound…’!

Among the works performed here by Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra are some of Ravel’s earliest compositions, including the much-loved Pavane pour une infante défunte, but the album closes with a later work: La Valse, written in 1920 as one of only four works by Ravel originally conceived for orchestra. The idea of composing a tribute to Johann Strauss had pursued Ravel since 1906, but it took a commission from Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes for him to return to the project. When Diaghilev found it unsuited for ballet, Ravel gave it the subtitle ‘choreographic poem’. It was premiered in concert in 1920 and enjoyed immediate success.

REVIEW:

The ostensible title of this disc is “La Valse,” which is actually the least interesting performance on it. Oramo delivers a quick, lithe and lean interpretation of a work that ought to sound like a decadent, high cholesterol indulgence that explodes in a giant orchestral aneurism at the end. Here, he leaves the music no room to increase in urgency through the apocalyptic closing pages, although the playing is excellent and the sonics, as usual, first class. No, the real treat here is Le Tombeau de Couperin, here given with the two movements of the piano original that Ravel left off the orchestral version (Fugue and Toccata) very idiomatically arranged by Kenneth Hesketh. I particularly like Oramo’s decision not to take the opening too quickly, so that we get to savor the melody as well as Ravel’s gorgeous harmonies. It’s a splendid performance all around.

After Le Tombeau, the highlight of the program must be Une barque sur l’océan, still something of a rarity (even the score used to be hard to find), and I suppose a work that seems to fail next to Debussy’s La mer. The truth is that it’s a totally different beast, mostly dark and mysterious, and that’s just how Oramo plays it. The remaining works are mostly good. The inevitable Pavane for a Dead Princess and the Minuet antique are unkillable, but Alborada del gracioso needs more swagger towards the end. Why doesn’t Oramo give the trombones a chance to inject a little healthy vulgarity into the concluding bars? Of course, it’s not as if we’re short of worthy alternatives in most of this music, but the excellence (and novelty) of Le Tombeau and Une barque make this release impossible to dismiss.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

New recordings of Goethe and Heine settings by a master Russian song-writer, by performers thoroughly versed in the composer’s complex harmony and heritage. While Nikolai Medtner only emigrated from Moscow to Berlin in 1921, eventually settling in London, the Russian composer traced a deep connection to German culture through the ancestry of his mother. He was familiar with the German language and culture from his childhood, and made his first visit to Berlin in the winter of 1904-5, then returned for most of 1907 and the summer of 1909. It can be no coincidence that these original-language settings of two of Germany’s greatest poets date from this period in Medtner’s life. In his mid-20s at this point, Medtner had become internationally known as a pianist of formidable technical and interpretative gifts, but he continued to compose and to teach, taking up a post at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1909. While Medtner’s pianism often lends the quicker songs a scintillating brilliance, such as the Elfenliedchen which is third in the Opus 6 collection of Goethe’s songs, the overall mood of the collection is imbued with the feelings of love and longing which are key-signatures of Romanticism (German or Russian). Medtner was always drawn towards musical contemplation of life’s deeper themes, and he accordingly sets both poets at their most philosophical and visionary, in the Wandrers Nachtlied of Goethe and the Bergstimme of Heine.

On this album, recorded in 2022, Ekaterina Levental and Frank Peters couple the Opp 6, 15 and 18 settings of Goethe with the three Op 12 settings of Heine: a unique but natural pairing on record. The booklet includes both original texts and English translations.

Sergey Rachmaninoff's two Elegiac Trios became the pinnacle of Russian musical symbolism, forming an epigraph to the revolutionary upheavals that split Russian civilisation and Rachmaninoff's life in two. The moods of nostalgia and echoes of soulful longing found in these works are infused with ideas of death. The beautiful theme of the Trio elegiaque No. 1 in G minor transforms into a funeral march in the epilogue, while the complex Trio elegiaque No. 2 in D minor is a memorial to Tchaikovsky filled with powerfully prophetic symbols most notably the Dies irae motif.

Sir Adrian Boult began his long association with the music of Vaughan Williams in 1918 when he conducted A London Symphony earning praise from the composer. Thereafter Boult gave many first performances of Vaughan Williams’s works including the 3rd, 4th and 6th symphonies and Job was dedicated to him. Boult also recorded all the symphonies extensively in the studio for Decca and EMI during the 1950s and late 1960s.

The pastoral 5th symphony (1938-43) is considered a masterpiece based on Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress which some critics have suggested was a vision of peace for a war-weary nation, whereas the angry 6th symphony (1944-47) bears the marks of the war years in the opposite extreme, a portrait of a world laid to waste by a nuclear holocaust. Boult’s performances here, caught live at London’s Royal Albert Hall Promenade Concerts in 1972 and 1975, have even more adrenaline and excitement compared to their studio equivalents. Anthony Payne (Daily Telegraph) described the 1975 Prom performance of Symphony No.5: “one of the most taut and concentrated interpretations I have ever heard of the work”. When it comes to Symphony No.6, Martin Cotton, the music critic and writer wrote: “what Boult achieves in the four linked movements of Symphony No.6 is a sense of overall direction, and as he did in Symphony No.5, a strong feeling for the structure and emotional depth of the work’.

Anybody who has entered into the cosmos of Medtner’s music, and especially of his songs, will be aware of its introvert, secretive, sometimes even hermetic character. His mixture of Russian and German philosophy and art, indebted to the bicultural upbringing in his family, was unique. Yet the outstanding quality of his songs does not lie in their stylistic singularity, but in their resistance to cliches of the genre and their musical and psychological insights. Medtner digs deep into his chosen texts. Even his choice of the poet Lermontov for his first published song ('The Angel') is significant for a composer who always professed his belief in the divine nature of art and the artist’s vocation. Testifying to a similar artistic credo, Goethe’s poem ‘Geweihter Platz’ (‘The Sacred Grove’) was first set by Medtner as an introduction to the Sonata-Vocalise Op.41 No.1. He recomposed the song in his Op 46 set but then returned to it once more for this Suite-Vocalise, which opens with a wordless evocation of the lofty mood established by the poet. The finale alludes to Schumann (‘Was der Dichter spricht’) while returning to the rapt opening. The Suite-Vocalise as a whole is one of Medtner’s most experimental works, paying homage to an exemplary reflection about the sacred quality of art and the mysterious secrets of artistic inspiration. The Pushkin songs Op.52, finished in summer 1929, are Medtner’s last authored song collection. The chosen poems focus on longing, unfulfilled love, or love connected to death and murder. His settings once more reach powerful heights of expression, both in his description of despair and torment and in his peculiar way of finding to hope and joy despite of all tragedy.

Between 1953 and 1967, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968) wrote 53 works for various instrumental ensembles that were collected together as Opus 170 and given the title Greeting Cards. Castelnuovo-Tedesco described them as ‘alphabetic pieces’: he derived their musical themes derived from ascending and descending chromatic scales, in which each note is combined with a letter of the alphabet. On this new album, Cristiano Porqueddu plays the 21 Greeting Cards composed for the guitar. They are small, unexpected homages that Castelnuovo-Tedesco liked to give his friends, to musicians who played his works, to his pupils and occasionally also to people who were not musicians. He later declared them to be minor works, but each of them is filled with affection, regardless of the professional status of the subject. In this imaginary gallery there are thus portrayals of legendary musicians such as Jascha Heifetz and Andrés Segovia alongside several of his students, including André Previn, Christopher Parkening and Eugene Robin Escovado. Castelnuovo-Tedesco made each Greeting Card a vivid portrait of the dedicatee, usually by combining rhythms and atmospheres that reflected nationality, as with the Tonadilla sul nome di Andrés Segovia or the Canción venezolana sul nome di Alirio Díaz. However, there are also more abstract references, such as the Rondel on the name of Siegfried Behrend (No.6) or evocations generated by the name itself: the Fantasia sul nome di Henry e Ronald Purcell (No.38), for instance, or the Volo d’Angeli sul nome di Angelo Gilardino (No.47). What they all have in common is a depth of feeling that transcends their superficial status as ‘occasional’ pieces.

REVIEW:

Richard Strauss described his two-act opera 'Intermezzo' as a 'bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes'. The soprano role of Christine with her shimmering cantilenas represents Strauss's wife Pauline, while the successful Court Conductor Robert Storch is Richard Strauss's alter ego in a reality drama that was avant-garde for it's time. This acclaimed production from director Tobias Kratzer brings 'Intermezzo' into the present day, highlighting Strauss's own clever switches between reality and fiction with stunning visual effects and a superbly characterful cast.

George Enescu (*1881 Liveni, Romania - 1955 Paris) "In Enescu, music became the voice of humanity per se, a voice uttering what cannot be said." Yehudi Menuhin George Enescu, far from being only Romania's most important composer, is one of the most colourful musical personalities of the twentieth century. A real citizen of the world motivated by humanistic ideas and a patriot at the same time, he was born in the North-East of his native country but educated in Vienna and Paris, where his extraordinary talent already became apparent at a young age. Pablo Casals considered him "the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart", and the Viennese press enthused about the "little Romanian Mozart", who was admitted to the Viennese Conservatory at the tender age of seven. Enescu's genius unites a great composer, an inspiring conductor, one of the most prominent violinists of his time and a highly esteemed pianist.

Paavo Berglund, born in Helsinki in 1929, was, until his death in 2012, among the greatest of all contemporary interpreters of Sibelius’s music. His idiomatic and convincing recordings have done much to fire the revival of interest in the composer, with vivid performances that capture its unique qualities of grandeur and instrumental color. Furthermore, Berglund, who deplored some of the textural changes which had evolved over the years, made every effort to ensure that the editions of the scores used were correct. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) had for many years a special rapport with the conductor and it was the orchestra who suggested that they perform and record all the Sibelius Symphonies with him. This took place at the Edinburgh International Festival followed by studio recordings for Finlandia and finally, at the Helsinki Festival in August 1998.

Francesco Piemontesi, a BBC Music Magazine award-winning pianist and lauded as a 'wonderful Mozartian', has an intense curiosity about his fellow artists - their pianos, the sonorities they cultivate, the secret elements that animate their playing, and what drives them. In this documentary by Jan Schmidt-Garre, filmed over one year, Piemontesi talks with some of the world's leading performers, including his mentor Alfred Brendel, Maria Joao Pires, Stephen Kovacevich and Antonio Pappano, in a series of revealing encounters that illuminate their individual approaches to the instrument, it's colour and form. The film is complemented by a bonus 60-minute recital by Yulianna Avdeeva, Zlata Chochieva and Francesco Piemontesi, played on Rachmaninoff's Steinway piano at Villa Senar, his home in Switzerland during the 1930s.

One of the boldest and most radical composers of all time, Alexander Scriabin had a lifelong obsession with occult and mystical ideas. Initially under the influence of Chopin, Wagner, and Liszt, his music later became more complex, taking on an expressive power which provoked extreme reactions from audiences – of adulation as well as repulsion. Not shying away from hyperbole, Scriabin once declared: ‘I am the apotheosis of creation – I am the aim of all aims – I am the end of all ends.’

The three works featured on this release belong to Scriabin’s final compositional period where the music seems to veer between voluptuous languor and striving energy. Composed back-to-back, the Poem of Ecstasy and the Fifth Piano Sonata are drenched in bitter-sweet harmonies and carefully constructed dissonances. The scores of both works make reference to the same poem – by Scriabin himself – which ends with the lines ‘thus the universe resounds with the joyful cry: I AM!’. In his last symphonic poem, Prometheus — The Poem of Fire, Scriabin aims even higher. Here he expresses the evolution of the world from formless chaos, through the appearance of mankind, fertilized by the divine spark, towards spiritual liberation and ultimate transcendence. The unusually large orchestra and a wordless choir produces a kaleidoscope of contrasts, colors and sounds caught up in an ecstatic whirl.

REVIEWS:

In Scriabin’s work, the Prometheus myth is focused less on the creative element of Prometheus and more on the theft of fire, which allows the composer to create ‘light-filled’ images. Lan Shui creates a very great tension from the very first bars, giving expression to the fantasy nature of the composition. We thus hear music with those detaching particles of sound that, like the flock of birds in flight, create effects from ever-changing forms. Shui thus proves to be an imaginative conductor who spurs his orchestra and choir on to an outstanding performance. Evgeny Sudbin blends perfectly into this feverish sound...A great performance!

-- Pizzicato

Lan Shui and his Singapore Symphony Orchestra...inflame the subject; they delight in lascivious sensualities, the better to suddenly cause volcanoes to burst. All this is of a dizzying control and a sonic refinement...

The pianist is none other than Yevgeny Sudbin...He touches on genius in Prometheus, but you also have to hear him burn his keyboard, all hammers and iron, for a 5th Sonata that sounds as if it had just come out of the forge. A great album - totally unexpected, and recorded with striking fidelity.

-- Artamag'

Impressions d’enfance, Ensemble Raro’s and Gilles Apap’s new recording, is dedicated to chamber music works of George Enescu. The Piano Quintet in D is one of his earliest compositions. Written in 1896 at the age of fifteen during his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, it is certainly inspired by Brahms’ chamber works. Enescu himself confessed about Brahms’ enormous influence on his development: “the God of my youthful adoration is Brahms and I wrote my early works in the style of the immortal Johannes in an almost flagrant way”. The Quintet was premiered in 1897, in Enescu’s first recital of his own works in Paris at the age of sixteen; Massenet and Cortot were in the audience. The two charming works for Piano and String Trio, Aubade and Serenade Lointaine, illustrate the point that Enescu’s beloved teacher Gabriel Fauré expressed very beautifully: “the greatest technical ability is not worth anything without poetry”. Even in the cleverly constructed short piece Hommage for Piano, which is based on a motive representing the letters of Fauré’s name, the poetic, dreamy quality prevails. Enescu’s late masterpiece Impressions d’enfance for Violin and Piano takes us back to the very first occasion when three year old George heard a street fiddler for the very first time. Impressions is an evocation of a childhood through a sequence of dreams, memories, imperceptible sensations and sounds. It results in one of Enescu’s most glorious climaxes where the old fiddler’s tune merges with cosmic piano harmony and the the noble, healing force of music triumphs over all. In Enescu’s own words: a man always “carries the music in himself. In the loneliness of the mountains and plains, it is his comrade; it calms his fears, it helps him sing his dor, that inexpressible nostalgia that breaks his soul”.

The Forgotten Rite, from 1913, is one of Ireland's earliest orchestral compositions. The symphonic rhapsody Mai-Dun was inspired by the Dorset countryside – Thomas Hardy Country – a landscape that exerted a lifelong influence on Ireland. While it was commissioned for the national Brass Band Championships in 1932, Ireland later arranged the central two movements of A Downland Suite for strings. The first and last movements were later arranged by his pupil Geoffrey Bush. The overture Satyricon was one of Ireland’s final large-scale works, and is based upon texts by the Roman writer Gaius (or, in some sources, Titus) Petronius Arbiter, a courtier of Nero. A London Overture and the Epic March were both commissioned by the BBC – the latter as a morale-booster during World War II. It was during this period that Ireland orchestrated The Holy Boy – a piano piece composed on Christmas Day in 1913. John Wilson and Sinfonia of London present these works with care and conviction, revealing the great quality of this unjustly neglected composer.

REVIEW:

I am very enthusiastic about the recorded quality we get here. A mildly reverberant acoustic gives a perfect cushion for the orchestra, and the strings in A Downland Suite are splendid in their unanimity and fullness of tone. The rest of the very fine orchestra play as expertly as one would expect given that the Sinfonia was re-established in 2018 as a recording orchestra, staffed by top players from British and international ensembles. It has also given public performances, and is scheduled to appear at the BBC Proms on July 16^th, in an all-English program of Elgar, Vaughan Wlliams and Bax, amongst others.

I am also enthusiastic about the performances, conducted with the necessary verve or gentleness as appropriate.

The presentation is up to Chandos’s normal high standards, with a very detailed analysis of each work and a history of the orchestra, accompanying a brief biography of John Wilson, all in English, French and German."

--MusicWeb International (Jim Westhead)

Without doubt, the German lieder tradition came to maturity during the first decades of the 19th century. Examples exist throughout the 18th century, and the general song tradition in Europe goes back many centuries earlier. But the first significant outpouring of German song emerged with Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. Such is the great simplicity of the form - just voice with piano accompaniment, setting texts that touch on powerful emotions - that composing lieder remained relevant well into the 20th century and beyond. The present recording demonstrates the genre's enduring attraction for both composers and performers, as well as it's expressive range.