Throughout his life, Bach showed exceptional talent as a pedagogue. As an orphan who had been obliged to learn everything by himself, he retained the deep-rooted urge to teach and pass on his knowledge. His cantatas are spiritual lessons, just as his keyboard works constitute a tutor in the instrument. It was with his children, first and foremost, that he exercised this talent as a born teacher, and particularly with his prodigiously gifted eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. For him he wrote the Two-part Inventions and Three-part Sinfonias; for him too The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Orgel-Buchlein (Little organ book); and this extraordinary method culminated in the Trio Sonatas for organ. The cantata Geist und Seele wird verwirret (Spirit and soul are dumbfounded) BWV 35 is one of the three written for solo alto without choral participation and with reduced instrumental forces. The work comprises two parts, for performance before and after the sermon. Soloist and organ engage in a dialogue charged with the elation of trust in God, brimming with coloratura passages and runs. Also for alto solo, the cantata Vergnugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (Contented repose, beloved heart’s desire) BWV 170 dates from just six weeks before Geist und Seele. It too features a solo organ part, later transcribed by Bach for flute and continuo. The cantata is based on a passage from the Sermon on the Mount in which Christ urges his listeners to live in peace with others.

The discography of trio of Guillaume de Chassy, Arnault Cuisinier and Thomas Savy treads a path that skirts and blends the edges of jazz improvisation and classical repertoire. With their second release, "Bridges" adds baritone opera star Laurent Naouri in an intriguing collection comprised of Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Songbook, composed in 1943 with texts by his Los Angeles companion-in-exile, Bertolt Brecht with songs filled with nostalgia and suggested a Hollywood far outside the limelight shot through with an expatriate's sorrow. Completing the collection are bold improvisations based on de Chassy's transcriptions of Sergei Prokofiev pieces with added texts by Russian poets including Pushkin, Lermontov, Tsvetaeva among others. Recorded with pristine results in the 13th century Noirlac Abbey.

Served by very high level interpreters, the fourth volume in this series underlines and strengthens the public's growing interest in this previously unpublished repertoire. Fondation Bru plans to organize an international symposium in Venice about this unjustly forgotten composer. This new volume reveals a Lucien Durosoir somewhere between impressionism and modernism, confirming the genius of his very atypical language. Blending in with the shimmering colors of Le Balcon, for choir and string quintet, we find a tender lullaby (a French melody), a virtuoso trilogy for piano and cello, an Idylle where music becomes Poem... Ut poesis musica !

Despite constant persecution under the communist regime, Shostakovich created a fascinating and personal music language, such as the violin, cello and piano trio opus 67. (Alpha)

Nino Rota was not only the man who wrote film scores for Fellini (La strada etc), René Clément and King Vidor. He was also a twentieth-century great composer. A child prodigy, he studied in America with Fritz Reiner, crossed paths with Toscanini, Igor Stravinsky and many others. Éric Le Sage, Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Daishin Kashimoto, Aurélien Pascal and their partners from the Salon de Provence festival pay tribute to his music with the Piccola Offerta Musicale (Little Musical Offering), composed in 1943 at the age of twenty-two, alongside a Nonet and a Trio for flute, violin and piano, both written in the late 1950s. The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano (1973) comes from Rota’s last creative period and has all the characteristics of his mature works.

REVIEW:

The performances from the talented group of musicians here are impeccable; they respond with vitality and a gratifying sense of interplay. Memorable, too, are the polished playing, impeccable ensemble, and range of tone colours created. I’m unsure why the eleven players have not given themselves a name.

This is an entirely compelling album of Rota chamber works. If you know Rota’s music only from his film scores, this would be an ideal place to start exploring his legacy. Those familiar with Rota’s music, even if there are duplications, will find this a valuable addition for the quality of the playing alone.

– MusicWeb International

Handel is best known to the wider public for his large-scale choral and orchestral works, but his organ music is equally precious. It was the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels who, diverting him from a career in the law, spotted his exceptional abilities on the instrument. By the age of seventeen, Handel was already the resident organist at the Domkirche in Halle, and he was later to defeat Domenico Scarlatti in a contest of virtuosity during his time in Rome. Martin Haselböck and the Orchester Wiener Akademie have recorded the Organ Concertos opp.4 and 7 in the prestigious Vienna Musikverein, world-famous for its acoustics. Haselböck plays on the hall’s imposing Rieger organ in what is one of its very first recordings. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the fourth organ in the Musikverein since the hall opened in 1870. With its considerable dimensions – much larger than the organs Handel used to play on – the instrument offers a tonal palette rich in contrasts.

REVIEW:

The performances, while undoubtedly in good Baroque style (the period Wiener Akademie are excellent), offer the latent thrill of a large instrument in a large hall. If for some this might not seem the stuff of a definitive recording, it is certainly fun to listen to.

– Gramophone

Johann Sebastian Bach has made the reputation of Caf� Zimmermann ever since the ensemble was formed in 1999. This new recording presents the music of the Leipzig Kantor from a different angle, that of the notebooks in which musicians wrote down pieces and movements they particularly liked. This recording brings together works composed by Bach in the late 1740s which may be described as intimate in character, including the famous trio sonata from his Musical Offering. The Baroque idiom of this 'experimental' sonata is contextualized by the innovative style developed by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel in one of his own trio sonatas. A number of arias by J. S. Bach are also presented here with exclusively instrumental forces. Under the direction of violinist Pablo Valetti and harpsichordist C�line Frisch, the ensemble even ventures into Mozartian territory with the Aria and Fugue K404a, taken from two pieces by Bach that Mozart himself had annotated and arranged in his own musical notebook. Finally, a chorale that Bach was particularly fond of, a three part fugue played here by harpsichord and flute. Carl Philipp Emanuel had it printed at the end of his father's musical testament, The Art of Fugue: 'Before thy throne I now appear'.

After two volumes praised by the international press (Diapason d'Or, Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik etc.) the Tonhalle-Orchester Z�rich presents the third release in it's Tchaikovsky cycle, featuring the Sixth Symphony and Romeo and Juliet. A boxed set of the orchestra's complete Tchaikovsky recordings under Paavo J�rvi is issued simultaneously. Tchaikovsky said he 'put his entire soul' into the Sixth Symphony. He admitted that his program was 'more subjective than ever' and that he 'often [...] wept copiously' while working on it. The overall atmosphere is created by the somber key of B minor and an obsessive sighing motif that recurs throughout the symphony. In Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky focused on thematic areas, setting them to music in different ways: the peaceful, chorale-like gesture associated with Friar Lawrence in the introduction, the bitter struggle between the Capulet and Montague families, and the intoxicated love of Romeo and Juliet. The work ends with the return of a chorale of reconciliation and the transfiguration of the lovers.

2008 will be the centenary of the births of Olivier Messiaen and Daniel-Lesur. To mark the occasion, Catherine Simonpietri and the vocal ensemble of soloists Sequenza 9.3, whose achievements were awarded a Diapason d'or in 2006, have decided to honour the composers with this beautiful recording.

This album celebrates a musical rapport that has lasted for twenty years and, above all, a true friendship: ‘We’re like two sisters, on stage and in life’, as Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Sol Gabetta like to say. In parallel with their dazzling solo careers, they have frequently got together for concerts in trio or double concerto formation (like the one written for them by Francisco Coll, recently released on ALPHA580). But they have conceived their new recording for a rather rare combination, the violin- cello duo – with the aim of choosing pieces they found interesting either stylistically or for the way they use the instruments. The programme includes the Duo written by Zoltán Kodály in 1914, which was not premiered until 1924, two years after Maurice Ravel’s Sonata for violin and cello, along with a few forays into the Baroque period (Leclair, Scarlatti, Bach) and, of course, works by twenty-first- century composers to whom the two soloists are very close: Jörg Widmann, Francisco Coll and Julien-François Zbinden are on the itinerary of this introspective journey into the generous world of two total artists.

"Pastime with Good Company" is a recording that celebrates the 5th Anniversary of the Alpha Productions label. Every artist on the roster (including such notables as Gustav Leonhardt, Cafe Zimmerman and L'Arpeggiata) recorded a piece of their own choice for this production. It is a wonderful sampler of the artists and repertoire featured on the label, and because all of the tracks were specially recorded for this disc, none of the music is duplicated on other releases. It was released in 2003 and includes the current catalog through that year.

Tracks

1 L'Arpeggiata, La Rosina
2 L'Arpeggiata & Marco Beasley, Un Cavalier di Spagna
3 Quatuor Habanera, Astor Piazzolla, Michelangelo'70
4 Diabolus in Musica, Gaudeat ecclesia
5 Café Zimmermann, Johann Sebastian Bach, Trio en Sol Majeur
6 Nima Ben David, Tobias Hume, Good again
7 Gustav Leonhardt, Louis Couperin, Prélude en Do
8 Eugène Green, Tirsis s'en alloit mourir d'aise
9 Hélène Schmitt, Nicola Matteis, Passagio rotto e fantasia a violino solo senza basso
10 Frédéric Désenclos, Guillaume Lasceux, Flûtes
11 Brice Duisit, Viadeira
12 Joël Grare, Bela Bartok a-t-il souri dans la nuit ?
13 Bruno & Esther Cocset, Sally Gardens - Fischer's Hornpipe - Ladies's Hornpipe
14 Arthur Schoonderwoerd, Ludwig van Beethoven, Für Elise, 1810
15 Les Witches, Slieve Russel - Wellington's advance - The three little drummers
16 Le Poème Harmonique, Clément Janequin, Toutes les nuits

This programme reflects the full flavour and richness of English music and the instrumental and vocal repertory it inspired in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The rhythmic impulse of this repertory – sometimes making use of ostinato – culminates in the grounds, jigs, contredanses and soon that were all the rage at the time and led to the publication of John Playford’s collection The English Dancing Master in 1651. Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, showing their familiarity with early sources from England, Scotland and Ireland, also emphasise the melodic aspect of these dances, which in the course of time became sungairs–the soprano Fiona McGown and the baritone Enea Sorini complete a colourful instrumentarium. Finally, the light-hearted dimension of entertainment is present everywhere in this repertory, which was popular in the sense that it was universally practiced at the time, achieving a fame that spread far beyond the British Isles.

Alexandre Bloch, who has been Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lille since 2016, has chosen to devote a whole season of concerts to Mahler’s symphonies. The Seventh (1904-05) is the most rarely recorded of the cycle – unjustly, because this work later nicknamed ‘Song of the Night’ testifies as clearly as its companions to the metaphysical grandiloquence that haunted Mahler during its gestation. From the gloomy Adagio of the first movement to the thundering Rondo that concludes the work, Alexandre Bloch and his orchestra lead us from the anguish of twilight to the ecstasies of dawn.

As in its Schubert recording in 2018, the Quatuor van Kuijk likes to delve into a composer’s youthful output and then measure his evolution by confronting it with his mature works. Hence, after recording two of Mozart’s early string quartets in 2016, the French group, here joined by violist Adrien La Marca, voted ‘Revelation’ at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2014, now offers the String Quintets K515 and K516. These two large-scale works dominate Mozart’s instrumental output in the year 1787, which ended with the premiere of Don Giovanni. They show us a composer at the height of his creative powers, in a genre to which he had not returned for fourteen years and which he here brought to a high degree of formal perfection.

In 1680, Francois Chaperon, maître de musique of the Sainte-Chapelle, entrusted the setting of some verses from the Lamentations of Jeremiah to Michel Richard de Lalande and Jean-Fery Rebel, Lalande’s brother in law. The Lecons de Tenebres of 1680, now lost, probably provided material for the Tenebrae compositions that have come down to us. Although Lalande had written his Lecons and his Miserere for solo voice for the nuns of the convent of the Assumption, they were actually sung- like many of his works for female voices- by his daughters. The Lecons de Tenebres and Miserere must have therefore been composed some time before 1711, for that year Jeanne and Marie Anne de Lalande died in the smallpox epidemic. For this interpretation of the Miserere, the musicians have chosen the version presented in Brossard’s autograph manuscript of 1711, in which the alternate verses are sung by three voices in faux-bourdon, a practice that was still in vogue at that time in France. Fragmentary notation for a treble instrument is found throughout this manuscript version, thus attesting the practice, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of improvising the countermelody at sight.

For her new, and Alpha debut, recording, pianist Olga Pashchenko has chosen the combination of Beethoven’s two Opus 49 sonatas and three sets of his variations, thus tackling what are commonly called ‘smaller forms’ but which remain important works nonetheless, especially the Variations, op. 35. • This young pianist commands admiration for her way of always enlarging her route, already a long one (she gave her first recital when she was 9, in New York), relying on certain great influences (in particular, Alexei Lubimov) and thereby further affirming her personality as an exceptional musician.

George Gershwin composed his "Rhapsody in Blue" in 1924. His masterpieces, such as An American in Paris and the opera Porgy and Bess, greatly enriched the American musical heritage. Jos van Immerseel has always been fascinated by Gershwin, and he and his companions in Anima Eterna have got closer than ever before to the composer’s intentions with this recording, making use of the appropriate instruments. (Alpha)

A thrilling performance of both physical impact and deep emotional intensity.

Conductor Krzysztof Urbanski writes: “Shostakovich’s Fifth is without doubt one of the greatest symphonies ever written, and it is also one of my personal favorites. This genuine masterpiece represents a mirror image of the world around Shostakovich: in it he depicted in music the reality of life in Leningrad in 1937 from his own perspective. For him this was the ‘worst of times’. After the premiere of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the official denunciation of the opera prompted by Stalin’s stormy reaction to the work, the composer was closely watched by the Party… This sense of threat however did not silence his need to compose. He had to find a way to cope with the sense of pressure, and to create new music which would please the authorities and keep the danger of public criticism at a safe distance. His Fourth Symphony had been denounced for its dissonances, its bleak atmosphere, and its ending, fading away into silence. So for his Fifth Symphony the composer deliberately simplified his musical language in order to produce a work that might be considered ‘accessible’ by the Party: one that would be perceived as full of positive spirit, with a resoundingly triumphant conclusion. One might imagine that such dubious circumstances could have destroyed the talented young composer, and turned him into a Soviet propagandist. For on the surface, the piece appears to be full of orchestral bravura, optimistic, ‘happy’. On the contrary, I believe the symphony to be actually extremely tragic….”

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REVIEW:

A thrilling performance from NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester of both physical impact and deep emotional intensity.

– MusicWeb International

The young tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen, whose career is currently in full flower, appears as a guest soloist with today’s leading conductors of Baroque music. He has decided to devote his first solo album to a composer whom he interprets with elegance and contagious joy: Johann Sebastian Bach. The title ‘Erbarme dich’ naturally evokes for music lovers the celebrated alto aria from the St Matthew Passion; but it is also the incipit of a sorrowful, sensuous aria for tenor and flute from the Cantata BWV 55. In fact, a substantial corpus of cantatas written by the Kantor in Leipzig between 1724 and 1726 feature a close dialogue between tenor voice and flute. Bach excels in this art of discourse and enjoys underlining or contradicting the text by sketching with the flute lines full of exacerbated vocality. This art of interweaving voices attracted Reinoud Van Mechelen and the flautist Anna Besson, who have chosen, along with the organist and harpsichordist Benjamin Alard, to structure their programme around Bach arias featuring obbligato organ and traverso. This album marks the birth of the ensemble founded by Reinoud Van Mechelen, A Nocte Temporis, and the start of his collaboration with Alpha, which will extend over several years.

Following on from his critically acclaimed Lutoslawski programme, the conductor Krzysztof Urbanski pursues his collaboration with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester on Alpha. The New World Symphony is a work that has always fascinated Krzysztof Urbanski: "It was only when I studied Dvorák’s other symphonies that I came to understand the principal characteristic and strength of the Ninth: simplicity. I wanted to dig deeper, and so I examined the manuscript and parts used for the New York premiere. There I discovered things that changed my view of it, like the fact that the first four bars of the third movement shouldn’t be played on the repeat. That gives them a completely different meaning when they recur at the da capo . . . The coupling, the rare Hero’s Song, shows an entirely different side of Dvorák. The way he transforms the initial four-note motif to evoke so many varied feelings, from joy to tragedy, shows his immense compositional mastery."

After several recordings with Anima Eterna and Jos Van Immerseel, the French violinist Chouchane Siranossian tackles a programme of extremely virtuosic concertos that few Baroque violinists dare to face. Thanks to her technical gifts and to partners ideally suited to this repertory – the Venice Baroque Orchestra and its conductor Andrea Marcon, a specialist in the Italian Baroque style – she takes up the challenge with brio. This album is released to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Tartini’s death in 2020. Of special interest is a completely unknown and unpublished concerto in G major, the manuscript of which was recently found by the musicologist Margherita Canale.

Erkki-Sven Tüür, born in Estonia in 1959, writes music that is characterized by intense energetic transformation. The intuitive and rational approach is synthesized into a complete organic system. He is the composer of nine symphonies, ten concertos, numerous chamber works and an opera. Dedicated to his compatriot Paavo Järvi and composed to mark the centenary of the Estonian Republic in 2018, Tüür’s Ninth Symphony is entitled Mythos. According to the composer, this refers to the myths that arise about nations and how they have acquired their independence, and also deals with the long history of the Finno-Ugric peoples. Paavo Järvi and his Estonian Festival Orchestra have made the world premiere recording of this work, along with The Incantation of Tempest (Ormiloits, 2004), dedicated to the Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, and Sow the Wind, composed in 2015, inspired by climatic ‘gusts of wind’ and ‘whirlwinds’.

The young mezzo-soprano Adele Charvet has joined Alpha for several upcoming projects. In 2017 she received the Prize of the Verbier Festival Academy. While she has already attracted attention in the opera house, Adele Charvet is also passionately interested in the song repertory. For her first album, she has devised a very personal programme, deriving in part from her musical partnership and friendship with the pianist Susan Manoff. Both of them have drawn on their New York childhoods: ‘Long Time Ago weaves together the threads of our lives’, says Susan. Adele continues: ‘The musical journey is immense, from the central repertory of American music – Barber, Copland, Ives – to cabaret songs (Heggie, Bolcom), with a detour by way of England: Britten, Vaughan Williams . . . For example, Jake Heggie’s Amor describes the journey across the city of a faux-naïf sex maniac. The police, the ice cream vendor, the gospel choir all shout “AMOR!” when they see him. Samuel Barber’s Solitary Hotel is like an Edward Hopper painting in music; Aaron Copland’s At the River invites pilgrims to the church meeting: “Yes, we’ll gather at the river”... The programme unfolds like a wheel, a cycle that traverses the cardinal points of a life.’

Alpha continues to explore its catalogue and this year again offers a wide variety of combinations. After a box assembling the gems of the Baroque era (Masters of the Baroque - Alpha 372), the piano is now given pride of place. The box set Masters of the Piano brings together 10 albums in which great contemporary interpreters (Nelson Goerner, Alexander Lonquich, François-Frédéric Guy, Eric Le Sage, Edna Stern, Anna Vinnitskaya) retrace three centuries of creation on the piano, from Bach to Shostakovich, by way of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Debussy. The piano will also be at the heart of a 7-release box set devoted to Alexei Lubimov’s recordings. Fortepiano, piano, prepared piano . . . the Russian musician has distinguished himself in every repertoire. Finally, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, the Beethoven Rediscovered box highlights 16 albums that offer a chance to rediscover his symphonies, concertos and sonatas on period instruments, the fortepiano, etc.

Longstanding partners Sandrine Piau and Christophe Rousset have frequently performed the Stabat Mater, an emblematic work of the eighteenth-century Neapolitan repertory, both together and with other musicians. It was therefore a natural step for them to record this supreme masterpiece of sacred music. They are joined here by a relative newcomer to Les Talens Lyriques who has also become a regular partner with the ensemble, the American countertenor Christopher Lowrey (already heard on an Alpha album devoted to Monteverdi, Alpha 216). The programme is completed by a Beatus vir by Leonardo Leo (1694-1744), sung by Sandrine Piau, and a Salve Regina for alto by Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), two totally unknown works by two composers who were nevertheless very famous at the time – Porpora, for example, was Farinelli’s singing teacher and mentor to the youthful Haydn. Christophe Rousset finds in this music ‘an expression of very Mediterranean, very highly flavored piety, in which one moves from tears to laughter quite quickly’. Sandrine Piau sees in Leo ‘an elegance of style, a certain distance in sorrow’.