75 Years Ysaÿe & Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition

75 Years Ysaÿe and Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition

Classical Music

The new album 8 CANARIAN COMPOSERS, performed by the acclaimed Phace ensemble under the direction of Nacho de Paz, offers a unique journey through contemporary composition linked to the Canary Islands. Eight composers-Cecilia D�az Pestano, Dori D�az Jerez, Gustavo D�az Jerez, Jos� Luis Perdig�n de Paz, Laura Vega, Juan Manuel Ruiz, Leandro Mart�n, and Rubens Askenar-present a kaleidoscope of musical languages that reveal the vitality and diversity of today's creation. Far from regional or stylistic labels, the project invites us to listen to how territory, memory, and personal experience continue to resonate in contemporary sound. The works, inspired by motherhood, the sea, science, folklore, and spirituality, showcase multiple ways of inhabiting and reimagining music from the islands. With Phace-resident ensemble at the Wiener Konzerthaus-delivering extraordinary precision and artistry, and Nacho de Paz, one of Spain's leading conductors of new music, shaping it's expressive landscape, 8 CANARIAN COMPOSERS becomes both a portrait of a living scene and a reflection on the creative power of place.

Classical Music

Founded at the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, Switzerland, Philon Trio is a chamber ensemble consisting of David Dias da Silva on clarinet, Adam Newman on viola, and Camilla Köhnken on piano. It’s in the context of a residency at Canada’s Banff Center for Arts and Creativity in Alberta that they recorded the excellent work 8 Pieces, Op. 83 by the German composer Max Bruch. Bruch was 72 in 1910 when he composed Acht Stucke Op. 83 for his son, Max Felix, already a professional clarinetist. Written in a late but conservative Romantic style, far removed from the language of Bruch’s contemporaries Stravinsky, Bartók, and Schoenberg, this work is deep, intense, passionate and intimate.

The Salzburg Chamber Soloists were formed by Lavard Skou-Larsen in 1991 with the goal of performing chamber music with the freedom and expression of soloists. Vivaldi's Four Seasons are instantly recognizable even to those with a low affinity for classical music, and they are performed here by the Salzburg Chamber Soloists with intensity and passion. Piazzola's Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas provide the perfect foil to Vivaldi's seminal work, in the form of four sensual tangos.

8 Suites In French Style BWV 8

80 ROOTS

2018 release. 80s SYMPHONIC combines the original classic tracks of 15 iconic 80s tracks from David Bowie, a-ha, Foreigner, Simple Minds, Simply Red, Tina Turner, Pretenders, Ultravox and more with brand new symphonic and string arrangements performed by the 50 piece London Studio Orchestra creating brand unique versions of these timeless tracks like you've never heard before.

Chicago tenor saxophone legend and proprietor of the longest standing and most adventurous avant garde jazz club in Chicago, Fred Anderson celebrated his 80th birthday this past March and Delmark was there to capture it. All three of Fred's earlier Delmark albums were live at the Velvet but the excitement level here is unmatched as the show was sold out weeks in advance. Fred is joined by Kidd Jordan - tenor saxophone, Jeff Parker - guitar, Harrison Bankhead - bass, Chad Taylor - drums. Also available: On the Run (DMK 534), Back at the Velvet Lounge (DMK 549), Timeless (DMK 568, DVD 1568).

Chicago tenor saxophone legend and proprietor of the longest standing and most adventurous avant garde jazz club in Chicago, Fred Anderson celebrated his 80th birthday this past March and Delmark was there to capture it.

Double vinyl LP pressing with 28-page 12 x 12" book. On March 15, 2018, legendary saxophonist, composer and jazz mystic Charles Lloyd celebrated his 80th birthday at The Lobero - his hometown venue in Santa Barbara, CA. He was joined by an unprecedented group of musicians including guitarist Julian Lage, pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Eric Harland.

In what ways can music commemorate a catastrophe? This is the question posed by Adam Swayne in his program for this album, conceived on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and featuring works by three American composers dealing with the events and aftermath of that horrific day. Adam Swayne works with a vast range of musical media and styles that go beyond conventional labelling. He is just as at home giving a solo piano recital or conducting an orchestra as he is organizing musical installations in art galleries or composing for amateur ensembles. He takes an inclusive, informative and innovative approach to music-making and has gained a large audience for his work.

At times a Cab Calloway-type zany MC, at others a crooner (who makes the language of Goethe look noble in terms of seduction), a big-band entertainer A la francaise like Henri Salvador, or even a whimsical character revisiting French chanson, Robeurt Feneck seems to come straight from the opium-dens of the Roaring Twenties. As a solo excursion for the Pink Turtle drummer (a worldfamous outfit if ever there was), the Mad in Swing orchestra has an excellent fealing for parodies and plays host to almost every style in jazz, from Swing (of course) to Cool Jazz — note the sauce added by Francois Biensan to bring even more zip to the pop of the 70s and 80s — via Cuban music or New Orleans-type gospel. Yes, Robeurt Feneck, the dandy and seducer, sure knows how to please the ladies… Setting the record straight for everyone, this is a disc where pants that don’t reach your ankles never looked so good! Augustin BONDOUX

BAVARIA

The Places
The Road of Romance, in South Bavaria, leads through the countryside to the great castle of Weikersheim, former residence of the Counts and Princes Hohenlohe. Further exploration of Bavaria and the Bavarian Forest leads to Prunn Castle on its rocky eminence, and finally to Würzburg on the River Main and the Marienberg Fortress.

The Music
Max Bruch, a native of Cologne, enjoyed a career that took him, as a conductor, to Liverpool, Coblenz, Breslau and Bonn, before his final years in Berlin. His first Violin Concerto remains among his most popular works. Carl Maria von Weber led an even more varied life that took him to musical centres in Germany and Austria. He was a pioneer of German romantic opera, and three opera overtures are chosen here. Der Freischütz (The Marksman) evokes the spirit of the German forest, while Euryanthe explores more exotic territory, as does Oberon, Weber's final opera, written for London in 1826, the last year of his life.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Dolby Digital / DTS Surround
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 53 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (US and Canada)

Classical Music

A Bach Family Album

This recording is a celebration of the famous Johann Sebastian and ten other lesser-known Bachs, re-imagined for trumpet and piano. Bach specialist Daniel-Ben Pienaar arranged music from a great uncle, close cousins, distant cousins, and five sons, all related to the great J. S. Bach in a unique recital program.

Classical Music

Starring Mike Seeger, Reed Martin, Laura Boosinger.

John Rutter writes: “Revisiting this 1993 Cambridge Singers recording, I realize I should never have withdrawn it from the Collegium catalogue – and all because of an obscure musicological question in my mind over a Gregorian chant, long since resolved. We assembled a stellar team of forty voices, offering a sumptuous programme of music for multiple choirs, with the dazzling Tallis 40-part motet as the centerpiece. Allegri’s Miserere, now a firmer audience favorite than ever, and the most magnificent of Bach’s six motets, Singet dem Herrn, are among the other choral masterpieces featured on an album that truly is a banquet of voices. For the first time, modern digital sound restoration has allowed the music to be heard in its full sonic splendor, and we are confident the album will once again take its place in the treasured family of Cambridge Singers recordings.”

Includes work(s) by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Henry Purcell, various composers, F-André Danican Philidor. Ensemble: New York Kammermusiker. Conductor: Ilonna Pederson.

The celebration of the Nativity has always been a source of inspiration for composers. The different elements of the evangelical narrative evoke numerous images: tender feelings before the Baby Jesus; the gentleness of his mother, the Virgin Mary; the procession of the three Wise Men; the angelic choirs in Heaven; and these shepherds gathered in the manger. All that appears in the musical repertoire linked to this holiday, as well as the presence of colourful instrumentations and themes connected to folk traditions. This set, released by Ricercar, brings together all these elements, drawn from the repertoires of the Renaissance and Baroque eras.

The famous pastoral music in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and in Handel’s Messiah are central parts of a development which spans two hundred years, from about the second half of the seventeenth century until well into the nineteenth. Connoisseurs and experts still disagree on whether the stimulus came from the secular pastoral music of the Renaissance, or whether the Shepherds In Adoration provided the initial inspiration for the composers.

Arcangelo Corelli’s (1653—1713) Christmas Concerto is the oldest of the works. His concerto op. VI No. 8 fatto per la notte di Natale appeared in 1714 a year after the master’s death, in Amsterdam. It undoubtedly belongs to the last period of Corelli’s work and is among his most famous — not only by virtue of its festive Christmas spirit, but more specifically because it constitutes one of the most impressive and accomplished examples of the Concerto grosso. The balanced beauty of the many movements of the ecclesiastical work is in happy concordance, as can be felt in the depth of the sentiment, the vigour of expression, the enchanting sounds of the strings, the supreme virtuosity of the arrangement of the solo parts, and the classical harmony. The Pastorale exhibits in its unique perfection the combined stylistic features of pastoral music: the swaying Sicilian rhythm, the tender, peaceful interval of the thirds and the imitation of the bagpipe’s drone. As J. N. Forkel understands it, Corelli in composing this work had a vision of the Angel on High over Bethlehem. Whatever the case may be, one readily agrees with Einstein who called this Pastorale "the musical companion-piece to Sandro Boticelli’s Nativity".

Johann Christoph Pez (1664—1716) was a contemporary of Corelli. Despite his studies in Rome, his whole professional life was spent in South and West Germany, in Munich, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf. Pez underlines the festive and pastoral character of his Concerto through the treble parts which are intended for the two flutes. He acquires a delightful textural contrast by his masterly juxtaposition of violin with two viols or violas.

Two of the movements are designated as Pastorale; the others (with the exception of the Chaconne) are called Aria by the composer, who thus freely concedes a secular and in parts popular character. Francesco Manfredini‘s (ca. 1680—1748) opus III appeared in Bologna in 1718, where the composer had finished his apprenticeship under Torelli. Manfredini too designated his three-movement Concerto fatto per la notte di Natale,that is, for performance at the Christmas Mass. The transition from the Concerto grosso to the purely instrumental concerto can be traced in this work. In some sections the two solo violins have to master tasks which can be attributed to a solo violin in a violin concerto. In style too, this late Baroque composition foreshadows a possible future gallantry and sensitivity of expression, without meanwhile sacrificing the gravity and elevation of an authentic sonata da chiesa to the sweetness and pleasance of the sound.

Giuseppe Tartini’s life (1692 1770) reads rather like a novel. Throughout his life he was very closely connected with the Franciscans; his teacher was the famous Bohemian master, Cernohorsky, a Franciscan monk from Prague who lived a long time in Assisi. It seems almost inconceivable that the same master who envisaged “the devil’s trill” in a hell-like vision, could also have composed simple Franciscan church music. In this three-movement symphony for strings, the transition from Rococo to true Classicism can already be noted.

Carl de Nys

From the pipe organ at the Sono Luminus studio in Boyce, Virginia, we are pleased to present a fine selection of baroque organ music for the Christmas season. Felipe Dominguez (b. 1983) is a Chilean/American organist, harpsichordist, clavichordist, and musicologist. A graduate of Brigham Young University (B.M. 2010, M.M. 2012), he studied organ and harpsichord with Douglas Bush and Don Cook. He has pursued further postgraduate organ instruction in Europe with Edoardo Belotti, Hans Davidsson, Harald Vogel, and Leon Berben. Mr. Dominguez has performed as a soloist and in ensembles in Chile, Argentina, the United States and Europe.

Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (Oh, Come thou Savior of the Gentiles) is a German chorale normally sung during advent, and is a call for the Lord to come to Earth.

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming is a well known and beloved traditional chorale on the original harmonization by Michael Praetorius.

The chorale Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich, (Praise God, you Christians, All Together) is set in verse 1 with the melody in the soprano and counterpoint in the two lower voices, and in verse 2 with the melody in the pedal and two lines in imitation on top.

Noël cette Journée (Christmas day today) imitates the French musette with a sustained pedal note, a sweet melody and elegant ornaments, painting an image of the French countryside.

Zipoli’s Pastorale also centers on the image of countryside landscape, which was a popular Christmas theme at the time in the spirit of the biblical annunciation to the shepherds.

Michau qui causoit ce grand bruit is a traditional French Noël treated in a very common structure of variations with different character, the first with a royal feel and the second with a courtesan air.

A ricercar is an imitative form that uses a melody as its main source of material for development. In the case of the Ricercare on “Ave Maria Klare”, a hymn for the Virgin Mary is used as the main source material.

Buxtehude’s Fantasia on “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern” (How brightly Shines the Morning Star) is one of his greatest masterpieces. He uses small phrases of the chorale melody to develop contrasting sections full of color, energy, and beauty, which also provide an opportunity to highlight the wonderful colors of the organ.

Louis-Claude Daquin wrote a large collection of Noëls and his own performances were legendary in 18th Century Paris. His Noël variations normally present the melody first, followed by variations, at times very virtuosic as it is in this case.

Selections from the Oratorio “The Messiah” by Handel have long been a staple of the Christmas repertoire. This version of the pifa transcribed for the organ is highly ornamented and with its triple meter and dance character intends to take the listener back to the annunciation to the shepherds.

Böhm’s setting of “From Heaven Above,” a popular Christmas chorale, sets the melody as a solo, largely unornamented so it is easy to recognize, against a contrapuntal backdrop.

Voluntary V, Op. 6, by John Stanley though not a Christmas piece has all the hallmarks of a royal entrance. It begins with a contrapuntal section similar to a string ensemble, followed by a virtuosic trumpet solo (Oboe 8’).

This second setting of “From Heaven Above,” by Pachelbel is much different than the previous one, the melody being in the pedal with a Principal 8’ against Koppel Flute 4‘ and Quint 1 1/3‘ in the Swell that dance in counterpoint above the melody.

This 18th Century setting of a pastorale by Bernardo Pasquini is much more elaborated, making more use of counterpoint and varied harmonies throughout the piece. However, it stays true to the countryside character of pastorals.

In Sweet Rejoicing! (In Dulci Jubilo) Is a popular upbeat Christmas hymn. The first 16th Century version from the Fridolin Sichers Tablature is highly imitative, with phrases overlapping over each other very actively. The second version by J.S. Bach, written in his youth, is a highly ornamented version of the hymn that works in scales and arpeggios with a majestic end only as Bach can deliver.

REVIEW:

What distinguishes this release (other than the fine playing and sound) is the inviting combination of a few absolute Christmas classics with a treasure trove of lesser-known but vibrantly lively period works. In the end we get a good listen to the newly installed Sono Luminus organ, which sounds just right. And then the program scores big to my ears with a wide-ranging, musically ravishing collection of Baroque gems for the season. Highly recommended.

-- Gapplegate Classical Modern Music Review

The inspiration for this album came from a bassoon, which Donna Agrell acquired in the mid-1980s. The instrument was a Grenser & Wiesner, and had been built in Dresden around 1820. The rare instrument came with an address label on its original case, which indicated that it had been delivered to Stockholm. This label inspired Ms. Agrell to investigate the music that was popular in Stockholm around that time. The works that Ms. Agrell has chosen for this album are chamber works which were all premiered by Frans Preumayr, a bassoon virtuoso who inspired composers such as Berhard Henrik, Edouard Du Puy, and Franz Berwald to write pieces for him. Other artists on this recording include clarinetist Lorenzo Coppola, violinists Marc Destrube and Franc Polman, violist Yoshiko Morita, cellist Albert Bruggen, bassist Robert Franenberg, and pianist Ronald Brautigam.

The Danish piano auteur Carsten Dahl and the dynamic American trumpeter Tim Hagans meet the acclaimed Swedish bassist Johnny Åman and the Finnish master drummer Jukkis Uotilaon on the new album A Beautiful Blue Moment, now available on Storyville Records. This rare quartet had never played together before they gathered at the scene of the historic jazz club Montmartre in Copenhagen and played the music recorded here over three sold-out evenings in August 2021. Quite the beautiful moment indeed!

The quartet mainly played free music with an original searching idea of being composing musicians and playing composers, who constantly found new horizontal and vertical directions in music. The original idea for the quartet arose, when Dahl and Hagans taught together at a jazz college in 2019, and realized that they shared musical understanding, humor, fervor and curiosity, when it comes to exploring the essence of music creation. They have been close friends ever since. Dahl, Uotila and Åman had their very first musical encounter at Montmartre, but it turned out to be a truly magical and flying journey. The combination of the four musicians is simply an explosive, poetic and ground-breaking meeting, where their common breathing in music is free, effortless and at the same time linked to their great habitus in tradition and in the many expressions of jazz music. After three great evenings, where musical sparks flew in abundance, the four musicians went directly in the studio for a 6 hours spontaneous recording session. The result is a once in a lifetime jazz voyage, so fasten your seatbelt and get ready for a ride!

Track Listing
1. All in Love Is Fair
2. Skip-A-Long Sam
3. Send in the Clowns
4. Least You Can Do Is the Best You Can, The
5. They Needed Each Other
6. I Loves You, Porgy
7. Until It's Time for You to Go
8. Life Is a Wheel
9. Summer Knows, The
10. Beautiful Thing, A
11. Time for Farewell, A - (bonus track)

Personnel: Cleo Laine (vocals); James Galway (flute); Tony Hymas, Don Grolnick (keyboards); Cliff Morris, Bob Rose (guitar); John Miller (bass); Roy Markowitz (drums).

Producers: Mike Berniker (tracks 1-10); Kurt Gebauer, John Dankworth (track 11).

Engineers: Mike Moran, Ed Begley (tracks 1-10); Frank Catero (track 11).

Recorded at RCA Studios B & C, New York on July 10-12, 1974 and Studio D, Sausalito, California in August 1993.

Recording information: New York, NY (07/10/1974-07/??/1993); RCA Recording Studios, Studio B&C, New York, NY (07/10/1974-07/??/1993); Studio D, Sausalito, CA (07/10/1974-07/??/1993).

Photographer: Nick Sangiamo.

Arrangers: Tony Hymas; John Dankworth.

Choral music has always played a significant and central role at Belfast Cathedral, since its consecration in 1904. This strong choral tradition continues to this day with the recently formed all-adult, fully professional vocal ensemble. This ‘new’ cathedral choir brings together some of the finest singers in Northern Ireland who lead the liturgy and worship of Belfast Cathedral and are featured here in their debut album for Resonus Classics. Featuring a varied program of seasonal carols from composers including Elizabeth Poston, John Rutter and Philip Ledger, this album celebrates Christmas from Northern Ireland’s national cathedral.