Like the Brahms symphony series by Lønskov/Llambias piano duet (KPT 32120, KPT 32128, KTP 32138, KTP 32148) which are enjoying continuing success in many markets in the world, this series of Tchaikovsky’s orchestral works for four hand piano is the original arrangements by the composer. And like the Brahms series, these are premiere recordings.

In the summer of 1910 Carl Nielsen was asked to write incidental music for the inauguration of Denmark’s first open-air theatre in the royal deer park (Dyrehavbakken) just north of Copenhagen. This theatre was in use for about three decades and Nielsen composed for a few dramas for this theatre. As the scores have never been published, the music was little known to the later generation. In collaboration with Odense Symphony Orchestra, Kontrapunkt revived these “unknown” Nielsen works to add to our Nielsen series. Though the scoring is limited to voices, wind instruments and some percussion due to the open-air circumstances, music is very typically Nielsen from his most creative period.

Telemann remains a paradox: The deeper one delves into his oeuvre, the more boundless his legacy seems - like entering a mysterious treasure trove where the eyes gradually adjust to the wealth amassed within, yet never fully grasp it's true extent. The sheer abundance of his orchestral works and concertos seems to grow exponentially with each new publication. When previously lost compositions unexpectedly resurface - such as these six overtures from 1736, of which only a single printed copy had survived - we are left speechless. Suddenly, an exquisite assortment unfolds before us, featuring "classical" Baroque dance forms interspersed with exotic elements such as the Polonaise and Murky, imaginative character sketches, and various fashionable pieces, all presented in a kaleidoscope of colors. How effortlessly time flies by!

Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) is a pianist fully deserving of the epithet 'legendary'. His rigorous intellect and sense of the sublime found expression in his transcendent technique and sumptuous, yet lucid sonorities. The recordings in this 24CD collection, a significant portion of Arrau's legacy from the years between 1921 and 1962, are indispensable to his extensive discography. They can now be heard in their full glory, thanks to a process of restoration and HD remastering using the original tapes (for recordings from the LP era) or the best available source (for 78s). Among them are four world premiere releases: Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, op. 109, a Chopin �tude, and two pieces by Liszt.

Classical Music

On Bach Inventions & Sinfonias, pianist Simone Dinnerstein reconnects with the foundation of her musical career and what she’s best known for – a solo album of J.S. Bach’s keyboard works. Dinnerstein gained an international following with the remarkable success of her self-funded recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Released in 2007, the album was #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many “Best of” lists including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the New Yorker. Her Sony Classical debut album, Bach: A Strange Beauty, was also #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart when it was released in 2011. Bach Inventions & Sinfonias (commonly known as the 3-part inventions), features beautiful, well-known music by one of the most popular composers of all time, performed by the pianist that is one of the top Bach interpreters of all time.

Simone Dinnerstein, a graduate of the Juilliard School, is an inventive artist who is motivated by a desire to find the musical core of every work she approaches. The Independent praises the “majestic originality of her vision” and NPR reports “She actively listens to every note she plays, and the result is a wonderfully expressive interpretation.” Dinnerstein’s schedule has taken her around the world since her tri- umphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005, performing with such world famous orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and she has also performed at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and the Ravinia Festival.

Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu first teamed up on disc in 1984 with the Mozart D major sonata and Schubert Fantasia, setting benchmark standards for sharply honed and tonally cultivated piano ensemble playing. The gorgeous engineering gains warmth and amplitude in this new transfer for Sony's Masterworks Expanded Edition series. Likewise, the not-inconsiderable Mozart-Busoni and unhyphenated Mozart fillers yield sonic improvement. My list of all the wonderful things that transpire through the pianists' sublimely synchronized fingers, minds, and hearts would take longer to read than for you to listen to this disc all the way through.


Where do I start? The effortless, impeccably calibrated runs tossing back and forth in the Mozart sonata's first movement? The exquisitely scaled dynamics, acute harmonic and linear cogency, and split-second timing of transitions and phrase endings in the Schubert? Or the pianists' mutual sixth sense for divining perfect tempos? Two-piano mavens familiar with Busoni's retooling of the Mozart F minor Fantasia for Mechanical Organ will notice that Perahia and Lupu rightly restore passages from Mozart's original score that Busoni cut (notably in the finale). If you love the piano, you need this disc. [2/21/2004]
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com Reviewing Sony 93015

Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497) was one of the most celebrated musicians of the fifteenth century and one of the greatest composers of all time. He was every bit the equal of J.S. Bach in contrapuntal technique and profound expressivity, and like Bach able to combine the most rigorous intellectual structure with a beguiling sensuality. His two dozen songs set French lyric poetry in the courtly forms of his era—rondeau, virelai, and ballade—to exquisitely crafted polyphony in which all voices are granted equally beautiful and compelling melodies.

This CD is the companion to Blue Heron’s 2019 release, Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Volume 1, which was named to the Bestenliste of the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik and acclaimed in Gramophone as “performances of absolute clarity, beautifully in tune, beautifully balanced and beautifully recorded”; Early Music enthused that “the Boston-based ensemble is at its finest—a summit quite sublime.… The group’s extraordinary rapport with the music is evident everywhere in the recording; each melodic line is not only clear and precise but also imbued with obvious affection.”

Besides twelve of Ockeghem’s songs, the disc includes two related works (Gilles Binchois’s Pour prison, quoted by Ockeghem in his song La despourveue, and Johannes Cornago’s Qu’es mi vida, arranged by Ockeghem) and an anonymous instrumental arrangement of Ockeghem’s Je n’ay dueil. The CD booklet contains complete texts and translations, and notes by music historian Sean Gallagher and Blue Heron’s artistic director, Scott Metcalfe.

Camargo Guarnieri’s catalogue of works represents a legacy of incalculable worth for Brazilian culture, as has his influence as a teacher on several generations of younger composers. His association with the poet and musicologist Mario de Andrade led to the birth of the Brazilian Nationalist School and the ideals of using traditional Brazilian music in classical forms. The series of seven Choros and the Seresta for Piano and Orchestra represent Guarnieri’s personal approach to the concerto form, with striking contrasts between potent rhythm and dense, emotionally charged soundscapes and melodies full of Brazilian inspiration. This volume forms part of the first complete recording of the Choros.

Artistic director and conductor of the Orquestra Petrobras Sinfonica, Isaac Karabtchevsky is also artistic director of the Baccarelli Institute and the Heliopolis Symphony Orchestra. He was awarded the Premio da Musica Brasileira four times for his recordings of the complete symphonies of Villa-Lobos with the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra on Naxos. He has served as the musical director of the Teatro La Fenice, the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and the Tonkunstler Orchestra.

REVIEW:

Each of the four short works on this disc proves to be thoroughly entertaining. Rhythmically they bounce along in the allegros, often driven by Brazilian syncopation, while the slow movements are heartfelt and tender without being over-Romanticized. The performances are excellent. The soloists are members of the São Paulo orchestra—Davi Graton is also a renowned teacher—and Isaac Karabtchevsky boasts a long pedigree in conducting Brazilian music. (He led the same orchestra in Naxos’s first-rate series of the complete Villa-Lobos symphonies.) This initiative to record lesser-known Brazilian repertoire got off to a great start, and the new disc promises even more.

-- Fanfare

When Ignaz Pleyel concluded his work on the last of his twelve “Prussian Quartets,” he had already garnered a great deal of experience as a composer of string quartets. His unmistakable musical voice had brought him countless admirers – including, not least, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who enthusiastically wrote of the Quartets op. 1 in a letter to his father. The dedicatory preface suggests that Pleyel had composed all of its pieces in Italy. He described them as “musically profound,” thereby indicating that Haydn’s Quartets op. 20 may have been their immediate model. The fugue movements in the Quartets Benton 328 and 330 are fascinating. Although Pleyel claimed that he had written them in the Italian style, Mozart was not fooled here: in their refined elegance he recognized the unique signature of Pleyel’s teacher Joseph Haydn. Nevertheless, the pupil had succeeded in writing a brilliant series of quartets in keeping with his own ideas and combining the clarity of the Italian style with the wealth of technical imagination characterizing the Viennese style.

Leopold Stokowski's transcriptions have been getting a lot of attention on disc lately. Most particularly, DG reluctantly released an excellent disc of Mussorgsky pieces featuring Oliver Knussen and the Cleveland Orchestra, magnificently played and very different in conception from Stokowski's own. That disc vindicated his work by showing convincingly that these arrangements can have a successful existence independently of the great old wizard himself. José Serebrier's interpretations, while not quite so radical in their emphasis on laser-like clarity of texture, achieve much the same sort of validation while preserving more of the physical excitement and cinematic flamboyance of the original recordings.


This isn't just a question of the exceptionally splashy and colorful use of heavy percussion at the end of A Night on Bare Mountain or Pictures at an Exhibition, impressive (and necessary) though that is. Serebrier, who worked as Stoki's assistant conductor at the American Symphony Orchestra for about five years, brings a keen ear for those luscious string sonorities that also give these editions much of their magic at lower dynamic levels. I'm thinking, for example, of the shimmering closing pages of the Boris Godunov Symphonic Synthesis, among other places. Serebrier also captures the tragic intensity of the Khovanshchina Entr'acte as well as Stokowski ever did: he's slower, darker, and heavier than Knussen, more raw and "Russian" sounding, as he also is in the terrifying Catacombs section of Pictures at an Exhibition.


There's further icing on the cake that you won't find on the Knussen disc: the two lovely Tchaikovsky transcriptions (the Humoresque will be familiar to knowledgeable listeners from its use in Stravinsky's The Fairy's Kiss), and Stokowski's own Traditional Slavic Christmas Music, a setting where once again Serebrier shows himself able to conjure a truly authentic "Stokowski sound". Mind you, these aren't mere imitations. Serebrier's flexible approach to tempo and willingness to inject a jolt of extra electricity make something quite special out of the climaxes in A Night on Bare Mountain, and it's very clear that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is having as much fun playing this music as you will have listening to it. The engineering stands among the best from this source as well. Spectacular, sensational, skirting the boundaries of "good taste"--this is the real deal. [6/17/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Three examples of Leonard Bernstein’s vocal art can be heard in this recording. His Symphony No. 3 ‘Kaddish’ shuns traditional symphonic ideas in favor of an eclectic theatrical and oratorio-like form with a prominent rôle for speaker. For this recording, Marin Alsop has returned to the work’s original narrative text, heard before the 1977 revision. The Lark – heard in a concert version with added narration – derives from Lillian Hellman’s adaptation of L’Alouette on the life of Joan of Arc, and it was this music that Bernstein reworked into his Missa Brevis many years later. Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony since 2007 and Principal Conductor the São Paulo Symphony since 2013, the NYC-born Marin Alsop is recognized across the world for her innovative programming as well as her bold, audience-expanding community and education outreach initiatives.

REVIEWS:

Under Alsop's baton, the Baltimore Symphony realizes Bernstein’s extraordinary orchestral effects in ways that will both scarify you and tug at your heartstrings; and while the text is still the embarrassment it always was, narrator Claire Bloom delivers it as if it were Shakespearian prose. She believes in the part and gives it a powerful reading. Soprano Kelley Nassief will melt your heart in her “Kaddish 2” movement solo, and both the boy and adult choirs are superb. I’m really glad to have this performance, especially since my Columbia LP has disappeared and this is now the only recording I have of the original 1963 work. It’s a fantastic performance and a spectacular recording.

– Fanfare

Kaddish is recorded here in a performance of great conviction from Marin Alsop, with the wonderful Claire Bloom achieving a happy medium between the declamatory and the confidential. There are instances of pure gold - a consoling lullaby at the heart of the piece (featuring limpid soprano Kelley Nassief) which Bernstein called his 'Pietà'.

- Gramophone Magazine

MADLANDS marks the PENTATONE debut of pianist and composer Yang Bao, offering a stunningly beautiful and audacious journey into what it means to be human amid the rising tides of artificial intelligence and ecological upheaval. Written for piano, six strings, and a palette of analog synthesizers-including the Korg PS-3300 and MiniMoog-Bao's eleven compositions reimagine identity and belonging in a world where human, machine, and nature coexist in delicate, suspenseful symbiosis. The album opens with a powerful trilogy-The Riddle, Baby Beast, and Hold Your Breath-where classical form meets electronic sound, creating a visceral, futuristic landscape. Across works such as Human and I and First Run, Bao blurs the boundaries between organic and artificial, past and future, transforming music into an immersive, living environment. Drawing on his visual art practice, Bao pairs this sonic vision with his striking artwork, reflecting the duality between the visible and the invisible. MADLANDS is an album for the future-a contemplative, bold, and deeply human exploration of consciousness, connection, and the fragile beauty of a world in flux.

Friedrich Schiller no doubt reckoned his Lied von der Glocke (The Song of the Bell) among his best poetic creations. He is supposed to have been inspired to write it by a 1788 visit to a bell foundry in Rudolstadt, Thuringia, and carried the idea for his bell founder´s song around with him for years. When Schill failed to finish it on time for the Musenalmanach in 1797, Goethe, the alamac´s editor, gave him the good advice and encouragement that „The bell will now have to sound all the better since the ore has been kept longer in the flux and has been rid of all slag“ (Goethe´s letter of 14 October 1797). The poem was published three years later in the Musenalmanach of 1800. Andreas Romberg set the whole long poem of 424 verses at one go - it was published by Simrock in 1809.

The composer Andreas Romberg, who certainly did not know Schiller´s wishes, made this idea a reality and set the whole long poem of 424 verses at one go. A bass part is assigned to the honest bell-founder master. His ten strophes all have the same design and the same simple melody, with the latter being varied or modulated now and again in what is a well-crafted composition. As the master directs the casting of the bell, so too the bass moves from station to station of the poem. The master´s big hour comes at the conclusion, when the bell is inaugurated. His solemn word of inauguration (Und dies sei fortan ihr Beruf) has him sing tones reminiscent of Sarastro.

This box set concludes the recording of all 18 String Quartets by Gaetano Donizetti, who loved these works as if they were his own children. The Mitja Quartet is the first Italian ensemble to have recorded these works in their entirety.

Originally released in 1979 and reissued on CD in 1996 with bonus material, G1128 stands as a vibrant snapshot of two masterful trumpeters—John McNeil and Tom Harrell—at a pivotal moment in modern jazz. Now, for the first time, this landmark session returns in stunning 24bit/96kHz remastered fidelity on heavyweight 180g vinyl, preserving the warmth and swing of the original analog tapes. Backed by a stellar rhythm section featuring Kenny Barron (piano), Buster Williams (bass), and Billy Hart (drums), McNeil and Harrell engage in a spirited, lyrical dialogue that’s as respectful of tradition as it is forward-looking. Their interplay is marked by mutual admiration rather than rivalry—Harrell’s bright, unflappable tone contrasts beautifully with McNeil’s introspective, saxophone-inspired phrasing. For audiophiles, collectors, and jazz devotees alike, this is not just a reissue—it’s a rediscovery. “...it’s never a duel of trumpets here but it’s the duet of trumpets... When the two trumpeters share technique and inspiration, one cannot but enjoy the inevitable result...” (Alain Tercinet, JAZZ HOT).

Franz Ignaz Beck is one of the most fascinating composers of the eighteenth century, a musical visionary as well as a “genuine European” with roots in Mannheim. His opera L’isle déserte, long regarded as lost, has resurfaced in a score manuscript in France and now is celebrating its recording premiere with La Stagione Frankfurt. Magnificent music and a magnificent text! Beck’s L’isle déserte is particularly interesting in the context of music history: first, because it is by a composer who continued to await discovery; second, because a composer active in France availed himself of an Italian libretto – which continued to be an exception before 1780, especially when Metastasio was the librettist. Beck’s L’isle déserte is thus a model example of a material and text-historical adaptation and even more so of a transfer to the music theater. In other words, in Beck’s version of “The Deserted Island” Italian libretto artistry and French music theater meet, while special appeal is generated by this composer from Germany, an émigré, so to speak, who was not operating with French as his genuinely native language.

An eclectic collection, colourful and often arresting.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures were originally composed for the piano. In that form he created a spacious canvas necessitating something of a symphonic sound from the piano. This proved exquisitely demanding and only a few brave pianists, including Prokofiev, dared to scale its fearsome crags. Maurice Ravel, to whom we owe its renown, was paid 10,000 francs to orchestrate it for Serge Koussevitzky. But as one might look at and interpret a picture in many different ways so then different sonic paint brushes might offer alternative views and insights? Thus Leonard Slatkin’s notion to bring together an eclectic selection of arrangements, some quite outlandish, might seem fresh and appealing?

D. Wilson-Ochoa is the Nashville Symphony’s Principal Music Librarian and former horn player. His neat opening ‘Promenade’ [1] was arranged, using woodwinds, at first, then pizzicato strings. This walking bass/cello line leads into the orchestral build-up, to give the impression of the visitor arriving at the gallery with mounting excitement and anticipation of seeing its treasures. Sergey Gorchakov’s portrait of Gnomus [2] is simpler, more sober and menacing than Ravel’s; his colours darker. Walter Goehr’s ‘Promenade’ [3] is calmly introspective as the visitor passes thoughtfully on; it features sensitive use of solo strings, double woodwind and muted brass. Emile Naoumoff’s entrancing arrangement of Il vecchio castello [4] has, at its heart, a glistening piano solo with woodwinds and cellos sounding the lilting Italian Sicilienne – absolutely gorgeous. Van Keulen’s ‘Promenade’ [5] is a much grander walk while his Tuileries [6] is a perky arrangement full of childish mischief and high spirits. Wind and brass are delicately mixed - woodwinds supported by muted trombones and trumpet – to create an appealing pastel. Conductor/pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy makes an impact with four horns in unison. Low strings and heavy percussion are used to underline the heaviness of Bydlo his picture of the Polish cart on enormous wheels [7].

Carl Simpson’s ‘Promenade’ [8] is brief and straightforward but with an unexpected cheeky cheep anticipating – Ballet of the unhatched chicks [9]. Lucien Cailliet was a student of Vincent D’Indy, His arrangement exerts his imaginative faculties to the full, out Ravel-ing Ravel. He makes exuberant use of wood-block, rattle and a flutter-tonguing blast from the trumpet. Sir Henry Wood’s vision of the Two Jews … [10] markedly underlines the differences between the two: the rich one glowering and overwhelming and the cowering pauper. The next ‘Promenade’ [11] (and the one that Ravel left out) is by Lawrence Leonard. It’s grand too , in terms of its rich harmonies and orchestrations; carrying on the self-regarded magnificence - one might say - of the rich Jew. Leo Funtek’s picture of French women arguing around a market square in Limoges, Le marché [12] makes for a snappy riot of colour. Funtek surmounts its challenges of articulation through its brief 1:26 of presto writing. The Catacombae [13] of John Boyd, demonstrates his experience with wind, brass and percussion. It is a haunted subterranean vision and is more menacing than Ravel’s portrait. It leads seamlessly into Ravel’s own arrangement of Con mortuis in lingua mortua [14]. As David Nice says, “the French master’s subtle halos and shadows remain uniquely evocative.’ That wonderful orchestrator, Leopold Stokowski, adds his characteristically vivid colouring to The hut on fowl’s legs (Baba-Yaga) [15]. This is a satanic portrait using four trumpets and eight horns supported by shrill whistling upper woods, to evoke Baba-Yaga’s terror-filling flight.

The concluding The Bogatyr Gate at Kiev [16] is the most substantial picture. Douglas Gamley paints this massive gate in resplendent colours using to fine effect the chorus of the Nashville Symphony and an organ. What magnificence - magnificence to rival 1812!

Liszt’s first surviving piano concerto was sketched out in 1832, when the composer was 21. It was only orchestrated 17 years later, with the help of the young composer Joachim Raff. Its first performance in 1853 at Weimar was conducted by Berlioz. Revisions followed in 1857. Its three movements are cyclically connected. This striking live recording of Peng Peng’s articulate and polished reading is sturdy in the portentous episodes and sensitively shaded in the quieter and more introspective passages. Slatkin gives sterling support.

Rob Mathes’s arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Leonard Slatkin. It was conceived as a eulogy on the tragedy of 9/11. This performance - part grandiloquent, part restrained - is affecting.

Instead of the familiar Ravel orchestrations of Mussorgsky’s Pictures here is an eclectic collection of alternatives, always colourful and often arresting.

-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International

Recorded live in Lisbon, this programme brings together the voices of celebrated early music soprano Ana Quintans and popular fado singer Ricardo Ribeiro, as well as traditional Portuguese instruments. Incorporating medieval cantigas, works of the 18th and 20th centuries and traditional fado in its purest form, the result is a vivid portrait of Portuguese music from the 13th century to the present. The Portuguese soprano, Ana Quintans, finished her studies in sculpture in 1998. She then started studying singing at the Conservatory of Lisbon with José Manuel Araujo. She graduated from the Workshop La Musique des Mémoires with the French composer Claire Renard at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Ana Quintans is known for her playful lightness in voice and movement as well as for her touching and profound interpretation of characters. Ricardo Ribeiro is a fado singer from Portugal with a traditional style whose full-length solo album releases are few and far between yet popular. Born on August 19, 1981, in Lisbon, he is primarily influenced by fado legend Fernando Maurício.

Classical Music

Dvořák’s chamber music is amongst the most extensive and significant of the 19th century, and the four surviving piano trios embody his command of the form. The first two were written in rapid succession, with No. 1 in B flat major marrying Schubertian lyricism with Slavic inflexions, serenity with joy. No. 2 in G minor is rather more classically conceived, though it shares the same formal structure as No. 1 and exudes a similar quotient of lyric beauty.

The Elora Festival Singers, conducted by internationally acclaimed director Noel Edison, is one of the most exciting of contemporary choirs. Their disc of Eric Whitacre’s choral music was nominated for a GRAMMY® in 2010. Now they turn to the art of the Christmas carol, a genre covering a variety of styles, both popular and refined, each piece expressing religious sentiments and beliefs. The music ranges from much-loved settings to new works, from polyphony to more straightforward melodies, in a recital stretching from the Middle Ages to the music of today.

Led by the excellent and award-winning mandolinist Anna Torge, the ensemble on this album is dedicated to the small but exquisite legacy of a musician about whom, apart from his name and the key dates of his life, almost nothing is known - Abbate Ranieri Capponi (1680-1744). And even this incredibly modest proof of existence would have disappeared if his brother Ruberto Capponi, after Abbate's death in Florence, had not printed twelve of his sonate da camera for several instruments and dedicated them to the Archbishop of Cologne Clemens August. And so, in the endless expanse of history, the delicate traces of a man were preserved. He was clearly well versed in the instrumental forms of his time and had mastered the art of intellectual entertainment, as Anna Torge and her colleagues from Continuo enjoyably demonstrate with six of Capponi's delightful chamber sonatas.

Xiaogang Ye's interest in mysterious and beautiful plants has led him to write many pieces inspired by subtropical flora - The Faint Gingko, the oldest tree species in the world, represents an expression of Ye's care and concern for nature. Heard here in a version without words, Song of Farewell is an opera with exquisite textures, beautiful melodies and refined orchestration. World premiere recordings.

Following her lyrical and witty complete recording of Mozart’s Keyboard Sonatas, issued by naïve in March 2023, Yeol Eum Son invites Svetlin Roussev to join her in enfolding himself in the enticingly subtle harmonic intricacies of Germanic post- Romanticism.

For their second recital as a duo, the Bulgarian violinist and the Korean pianist follow the course taken by works written over a period of slightly more than half a century by composers or famous performers upon whom Richard Wagner exercised crucial influence. They take on almost every genre – cinema, opera, chamber music, transcription – treating it in the lyrical, large-scale manner of the Bayreuth master. During their unexpected, fascinating journey, Svetlin Roussev and Yeol Eum Son chart a variety of pathways, from Waxman to Strauss.

So many different worlds! To begin, two figures who made their indelible mark on the music written for Hollywood. Of German-Polish origins, in 1946 Franz Waxman (Rebecca, Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun, Prince Valiant) wrote, at Jascha Heifetz’s request, a paraphrase on themes from Wagner’s Tristan et Isolde, actually an adaptation of a section of the score he composed for the film Humoresque (Warner Brothers, 1947). In summary, a manifesto in music of an impossible love – to which, at the end of the disc, an extremely rare transcription one of the better known Wesendonck-Lieder, credited to the great virtuoso Leopold Auer, forms a response.

The programme continues with Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a child prodigy in Vienna during the 1910s. The famed Mariettas Lied – the best-known moment in his opera Die tote Stadt – and the sublime nocturne from his incidental music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (the Scene in the Garden) remain as much moments of lyric intensity as truly cinematographic, deliciously intoxicating love scenes. But lovers also know how to frolic, and if already in Korngold they readily do so, the three more light-hearted pieces by Fritz Kreisler will place them in everyday, commonplace scenarios, where laughing reigns.

The keystone of the programme is unarguably the magnificent Sonata for Violin and Piano that Richard Strauss composed in 1887. He was 23 years old, and still heavily influenced by Schumann and Brahms, even Grieg. Svetlin Roussev and Yeol Eum Son make its case with radiant commitment, sensitive to the spirit stirring in the young Richard, then already in love with the soprano Pauline de Ahna, who would become his wife.

Beyond Wagner, this highly original album above all celebrates that moment of falling in love when, overwhelmed, the heart quivers, to the point of being transformed.