Clair Obscur (Alpha 727), dedicated to German lieder with orchestra, explored the antagonism between light and shadow. Reflet conjures up the nuances and transparencies of French melodies. There is in reflection the idea of an echo, the shadow of a disquieting double, of a plural, diffracted sparkle… A clash of deceptive mirages, a kaleidoscope of senses and flashes of light, it interweaves in strange parallels the score of our lives, adorned with gold and illusions", writes Sandrine Piau. Berlioz, Gauthier, Britten, Hugo, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Duparc, Koechlin, Ravel, Mallarmé... the encounters between these composers and poets"create in me a firework display of colours and shimmers", concludes the French soprano, who is making her 14th recording for Alpha Classics.

REVIEW:

Here is a whole album that makes up a single, sublime musical utterance. One feels that every note is almost foreordained as the program opens with classic orchestral songs from Berlioz, Henri Duparc, and the less common Charles Koechlin, proceeding into darker, more mysterious realms with Ravel’s Three Mallarmé Songs, and ending with the youthful ebullience of Britten’s Quatre chansons françaises. Piau’s voice is delicate, soaring, and richly beautiful; one of the miracles of the current scene is its durability and versatility. Her support from conductor Jean-François Verdier, leading the Victor Hugo Orchestra, is confidently smooth, never intruding on the spell Piau weaves.

 

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

The basic idea of this album was to play in threes… Not to play 'something', but to experiment 'in threes' with sound worlds as different as those of Bartók, Poulenc and Schoenfield. With his Contrastes, composed in 1938 for Benny Goodman, Bartók broadened his penchant for traditional music and turned it into a more universal work, influenced by jazz. Poulenc was a child of the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, influenced as much by Stravinsky, Ravel and Satie as by cabaret songs and operetta. Paul Schoenfield, born in Detroit in 1947, also likes to combine styles. Each of the movements in his trio is based on an Eastern European Hasidic melody… not forgetting the breathtaking klezmer dances of Romanian Șerban Nichifor. Almost ten years after Take 2 (Alpha211), Patricia Kopatchinskaja reunites with two great accomplices, clarinettist Reto Bieri and pianist Polina Leschenko, for a programme based around trios that celebrate the roots of these three musicians.

Olivier Messiaen composed his eight-movement Quartet for the End of Time in 1940 while imprisoned in Germany. He drew his inspiration from the Apocalypse written by Saint John the Evangelist, one of the few works he was allowed to keep in the camp. Het Collectif explores this work, never forgetting that it was at the heart of this harsh winter of war, in a context of misfortune, confinement and deprivation, that Messiaen had an angel speak, promising paradise and the end of time... Stalag VIIIa, composed by Tristan Murail, whose title refers to Olivier Messiaen's place of detention in Görlitz in 1940, completes this programme.

"Johann Sebastian Bach used the recorder in two Brandenburg concertos and some twenty cantatas and oratorios, but alas, he left us no sonata with harpsichord," say Julien Martin and Olivier Fortin. Arranging chamber music for a variety of instrumental ensembles was a widespread practice in the eighteenth century. Bach himself seems to have created a number of works that did not necessarily require the use of a specific instrument. Here Julien Martin and Olivier Fortin, musical partners for many years, present the Sonata in F major, originally written for transverse flute and continuo, transcriptions of the Trio Sonata for organ No. 3 in E minor, the Partita for violin No. 2 in G minor, and the Chorale 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland', whose extensive ornamental flourishes elongate and transform the chorale melody to the point of rendering it unrecognisable.

‘Enigma’ is the Greek word for ‘riddle’, ‘mystery’, ‘secret’. At the moment of entering or leaving life, there is always a sound: the cry of a newborn baby or the last sigh of a dying person giving up the ghost. Soprano Sarah Aristidou sets out in search of the original sound in this program, which opens with Andreas Tsiartas’s Lamento Turco. The voice emerges from silence in a wordless lament on the vowel ‘A’. The piece ends with a heart-rending, ‘archaic’ scream... Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise also uses the vowel ‘A’ ... In Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, a shepherd sings across the valley: ‘The farther my voice carries, the clearer it comes back to me.’ In Messiaen’s Répétition planétaire, the singer’s call ‘Ahi’ is accompanied by the music of the planets and stars... After visiting music by Wolf and Ravel, the odyssey ends with a work by Jörg Widmann for clarinet, soprano and piano founded on the vowels ‘A’ and ‘O’. Naturally, it is Widmann himself who plays the clarinet part, as he does in Schubert’s Hirt auf dem Felsen, with Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg at the piano.

REVIEWS:

[This] recital is a mixture of the very familiar and the totally unfamiliar, starting on an exotic note with Tsiartas’s lament, an unaccompanied, wordless vocalise that seems quite a workout for the singer. This is followed by Rachmaninoff’s VERY familiar ‘Vocalise’, also beautifully sung[.] The performance here of the lesser-known ‘A-Oo!’ is warmly expressive. Despite its brevity, this is not really a lightweight song. Ms. Aristidou climbs the vocal heights of Schubert’s ‘Shepherd on the Rock’ with aplomb...a radiant performance, with glowing clarinet playing from Jörg Widmann.

The album notes describe the title work, ‘Enigma’, as “the meeting of the wind and the strings of an Aeolian harp [that] creates a mysterious sound, while soprano and pianist improvise on the search for the answer.” It’s formed around a short text by Mr. Gerzeberg based on a Yiddish poem: “The world asks the old question / stars without mystery / disrupted love / as I fell through the clouds / you became faceless”. I’m not going to claim I’ve worked out what it means yet. It certainly IS an enigma—and a very effective introduction to Wolf’s well-loved song. Ms Aristidou’s [rendering of Wolf's "To an Aeolian Harp"] is gorgeously ecstatic and deeply expressive.

Ravel’s Greek song ["Song of the Lentisk Gatherers"] continues the mood of the Wolf in a more introspective vein, as does Schubert’s Chopinesque vocal ‘Nocturne’, with Ms. Aristidou and her accompanist navigating each twist and turn of reflective melody with aplomb. Messiaen’s spiky "L'escalier redit," with its sparkling accompaniment and vocal leaps, brings a definite change to the mood. Clarinetist Widmann wrote and performs in the long (14 minutes), improvisatory closing work, the Sphinx’s sayings and riddles being based entirely on the vowels A and O, representing Alpha and Omega. It ends on a tentative, questioning note.

This recital is a little more “out there” than Carolyn Sampson’s, but I found it riveting, even the decidedly ambitious closing improv. I like the combination of excellent performances of familiar songs with new, unfamiliar works. Kudos to Ms Aristidou and her partners for endeavoring to give us more than just a boilerplate song recital. The recorded sound is, by the way, excellent, with plenty of spaciousness in the otherworldly closing work.

-- American Record Guide

This Mediterranean-inspired album opens with Andreas Tsiartas’s striking Lamento Turco, an increasingly imploring vocal meditation delivered with passion and imagination by Aristidou. Rachmaninov’s oversentimental Vocalise is then dispatched swiftly, before his ‘A-oo!’, a weighty song of yearning.

 

[The] performance [of Schubert's "Shepherd on the Rock"] benefits from Widmann’s bright, glowing sound and an expansive, arch-Romantic approach from Aristidou (whose voice is really terrific).

Aristidou’s approach is fine in the earlier repertoire but really comes to life in newer works, including Messiaen’s ‘Répétition planétaire!’ (from the cycle Harawi), depicting the music of the universe. Gerzenberg shines here, too, layering colours and textures with care and craft. The exotic improvisation ‘Enigma’ works well and does not outstay its welcome.

The move to Wolf’s setting of Mörike’s paean to an Aeolian harp is successful, not least because of the exquisitely judged piano sound. Ravel’s popular Greek song ‘Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques’ is breathtakingly intimate, hazy with sunshine. Schubert’s ‘Nachtstück’ is a touch bland and woolly but redeemed by a luminous rendition of ‘L’escalier redit, gestes du soleil’ (also from Harawi). Widmann’s substantial and otherworldly Sphinxensprüche und Rätselkanons is the perfect close.

This is intriguing and original music making...the performance is tremendously versatile, seductive and white-hot.

-- BBC Music Magazine

For me, whenever I play the Bach suites, all of a sudden I find myself visualising Giacometti's hands incessantly moulding the earthen clay until a face appears. Getting to grips with the Bach suites is very closely related to that sense. You have to dig deeply into the string to give birth to the phrase, to make sure it breathes correctly: a phrase that is perpetually becoming, endlessly making and remaking itself. I waited a long time before recording these suites. Then one day, or rather one night, I began. Then there was my meeting with Sarah Moon. When I first felt my longing to record the Bach suites, I dreamt constantly of her images; because whenever I look at them I think of the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the earth appearing, all before the beginning of history. (Sonia Wieder-Atherton)

The pianist Lukas Geniušas has recorded the original version of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata no.1 in the composer’s Swiss home Villa Senar (Sergei & Natalia Rachmaninoff) and on his own piano, an unusually long Steinway & Sons model, presented to the composer and concert pianist by the manufacturer to mark his sixtieth birthday. The difference between the original version of Sonata no.1 and the second version, shorter by more than 100 bars, is not just a question of length, according to Lukas Geniušas: ‘There is a lot lost between the first and second editions. I know it goes against the grain, but I would name this sonata to be one of, if not the best Rachmaninoff’s solo piano work. Its shattering might, its splendor and scale can only be likened to the Third piano concerto, which was written soon after.’ The programme is completed by four preludes from the Op. 32 set.

The baritone Matthias Goerne, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mikko Franck launch a trilogy of Shostakovich’s works for baritone and orchestra with a recording of Symphony No.14. This will be followed by Symphony no.13 (Babi Yar) and the Suite on poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The soprano Asmik Grigorian joins Matthias Goerne for this monumental yet highly subtle symphony setting poems by García Lorca, Apollinaire, Küchelbecker and Rilke. Drawing on their vast experience of the work and the passion that characterises them, they successfully embody all its dimensions: ‘The interpretative difficulty of this symphony is the need to hunt out subtle clues that are not immediately perceptible; a formidable expressive force is generated by their multiplicity, which, like a jigsaw puzzle, eventually makes sense’, writes Benjamin François. ‘It is Shostakovich’s fundamental affirmation that the inhuman actions of the executioners, Stalin and his henchmen, may well cause physical death, but cannot prevent the continued spiritual existence of works of art.’

Ravel composed his Piano Trio M67 just before enlisting voluntarily in the First World War. Inspired by the Basque country and its zortziko dance, the Trio ends with a sombre, almost anguished fourth movement. A mood inspired by the impending war? In his Piano Trio No.2, op.67, Shostakovich too is affected by the horrors of war and the death of a close friend. For the first time in the Russian composer’s output, we hear a Jewish theme, a danse macabre echoing the terrible events of the time. Another point in common between the two works is that both include a passacaglia. For the Busch Trio, it was self-evident that these two heart-rending works should be brought together on the same album.

REVIEW:

The Busch Trio has the depth of musicianship to encompass the very different emotions of these great 20th-century chamber works. In the Ravel, the music’s dreamlike quality comes across particularly vividly, without any indulgence. At the same time, there’s no lack of urgency in the more agitated full-blooded sections that have a tremendous visceral energy.

After the Mediterranenan glow of the Ravel, the Shostakovich come as something of a shock. The Finale is the most challenging movement both for the players and the listeners. The Trio focus on holding back for as long as possible, so that when the climax is eventually reached – with the forceful restatement of the Trio’s opening material – the impact is absolutely overwhelming.

-- BBC Music Magazine

At just twenty-five years old, Théo Ould sees musical expression as a total art form, and explores all the possibilities of his instrument, the accordion, which he champions with great pride: ‘When I entered the conservatoire and held the instrument in my hands, I was fascinated by the sound as much as the object itself, halfway between a typewriter and an extra-terrestrial contraption: a “playing machine” in every sense of the word … I also discovered what its sound was like and what you could do with it. I learnt what stops that sound from expanding and how to use my whole body as a soundbox.’ The programme of Laterna Magica blends the Baroque music of Bach and Rameau with melancholy melodies by Granados and Tchaikovsky, before moving on to the contemporary repertory with Campo and Gubitsch (including three new pieces for accordion and electronics). For this recording, Théo is joined by two guests, cellist Lisa Strauss (for the finale of Shostakovich’s Sonata for cello and piano) and violinist Luka Faulisi (for the finale of Mozart’s Sonata for violin and keyboard in E minor, K304).

For her first recital, Juliette Journaux evokes the figure of the Wanderer: a wayfarer, a traveller, a man who walks alone, without apparent purpose. He confronts a Nature that is beyond him and his deepest thoughts. The wanderer's drifting is also inseparable from the dream, the acceptance of a dilated time. Musically, one immediately thinks of the worlds of Schubert, Mahler and Wagner... Another aspect of this project is Juliette Journaux's passion for transcription. In tackling the difficult task of transcribing vocal or orchestral works for solo piano, she draws on her knowledge of the orchestra and the operatic voice thanks to her three masters degrees in piano, vocal accompaniment and voice direction from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris... The album opens with Schubert's Lied Der Wanderer in a piano transcription by Liszt, followed by his three Klavierstücke D.946; then comes her transcription of Mahler's last two Lieder eines fahrendes Gesellen, full of pain and sorrow. She also evokes Wagner and his opera Siegfried where Wotan becomes the Wanderer. The farewell and renunciation of the world that is the Abschied from Mahler's Song of the Earth concludes the programme.

REVIEWS:

Enhancing the appeal of pianist Juliette Journaux’s first recital is the concept she used to shape its selections into its nearly hour-long form. In using the figure of the wanderer, a nomad walking alone with no apparent goal or destination, as a guide, she’s sequenced works by Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, and Mahler into an epic travelogue. As a result, the Romantic self-questioning and angst of the prototypical wanderer dovetails seamlessly with the inwardly probing character of the material and lends the recording a satisfying arc and design.

Making the project even more special, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris graduate doesn’t simply perform piano works created by others but for the most part plays personalized transcriptions of the material.

Recorded in October 2022 at Cultural Centre Gustav Mahler in Dobbiaco, Italy, Wanderer Without Words includes two pieces by the great Austrian composer, Journaux transcriptions of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” from Rückert-Lieder and “Der Abschied” from Das Lied von der Erde. Augmenting the Mahler selections are a Liszt piano transcription of Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen” (from Siegfried), and other Schubert settings. The journey begins, aptly, with Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” our protagonist setting out in the hope that his journey will bring answers and resolution. As tormented as that traveler is Wagner’s Wotan, whose questions to the all-knowing goddess Erda are met with confounding riddles.

In notes included with the release, Journaux clarifies the difference between reduction and transcription. She says of her Wagner transcription that it’s primarily based on the principle of reduction, “a concentration of all the elements of the orchestral score into two staves that can be played with two hands.” Whereas reduction aims to retain in pianistic form as much as possible of the orchestrated original, transcription, in her view, is a more personal interpretation of the score in that the transcriber might choose to bring greater attention to certain aspects of the work than others. She writes, “When Liszt faithfully adapts a Beethoven symphony for piano, he is making a reduction; when he arranges a Schubert lied for ten fingers with great freedom of writing (arpeggios, octaves, even re-harmonizations), he is making a transcription.”

“Der Wanderer” finds our protagonist embarking on his journey with determination and resolve, his steps guided by the conviction that answers to his questions will materialize and allowing himself moments of rapture as he confidently makes his way. That alternately serene and dramatic statement’s followed by Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen,” it similarly oscillating between episodes of tenderness and violence. The focus returns to Schubert for the three-part Drei Klavierstücke, the chorale-like “Allegro Assai” first tempestuous and then lyrical, the subsequent “Allegretto” gently pretty in its reminiscing but also turbulent, and the closing “Allegro” rousing and buoyed by optimism. With “In Der Ferne,” a Journaux-transcribed lied from Schubert’s Schwanengesang, the album moves into its second half and shifts the thematic focus to renunciation, specifically renunciation of the self.

In one of the album’s strongest performances, Journaux imbues her gentle reading of Mahler’s “Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen” with a poetic intimacy that reflects a thorough grasp of the material and emotional connection to the composer’s sensibility. The seven-minute performance creates the impression of the wanderer having temporarily stopped moving to wholly surrender to an inner reverie. That peaceful quality carries over into the final Schubert setting, “Wandrers Nachtlied II,” both pieces setting the stage for the closing movement of Das Lied von der Erde, “Der Abschied.”

Journaux’s musicianship and performances...are stellar from start to finish. This exemplary pianist brings virtuosic command to the pieces but even better a thoughtful and sensitive sensibility that allows her to probe the material deeply, whether it be Mahler, Schubert, or Wagner. It’ll be interesting to see where her next venture takes her.

-- Textura

In this programme, the soprano Mariana Flores pays tribute to the women of Latin America, and depicts their loves, their sorrows, their joys in music with popular songs from Argentina, its wine-producing region of Cuyo and elsewhere. Accompanied by Quito Gato, who made the arrangements, on piano and guitar and Romain Lecuyer on double bass, this recital is an opportunity for listeners to discover some of the most beautiful popular songs of the twentieth century from the musicians’ homeland, including Dorotea la cautiva and Alfonsina y el mar from Ariel Ramírez’s collection Mujeres Argentinas, published in 1968.

REVIEWS:

What a joy to discover a great baroque soprano in this popular Argentinian music which has never stopped flirting with the baroque heritage! On the guitar, Quito Gato has concocted subtle accompaniments that weave a secret link between the baroque and popular worlds.

-- Le Soir

This disc is full of gems that it would be stupid not to pick up. Mariana Flores and her friend Quito Gato offer us a shot of vitamin D and pure emotion that feels good!

-- La Voix du Nord

This album presents the songs from The Threepenny Opera in a new French translation by Alexandre Pateau. The recording was made at the 2023 Festival d'Aix-en-Provence during the run of the new production of the legendary work by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann, which features the troupe of the Comédie-Française and the musicians of Le Balcon, conducted by Maxime Pascal with Thomas Ostermeier as stage director. In this parody of an opera, the songs are the driving force behind the action and the characters ape the bourgeois lifestyle of the audience, the better to denounce the period of moral confusion they are going through. With Maxime Pascal at the helm of a dozen multi-instrumentalists from Le Balcon, we hear a version based on that of the first performance – hard-hitting and as close as possible to the tremendous creative energy deployed by the two creators of the work in the summer of 1928 – acted and sung by the troupe of the Comédie-Française, who rise to all its challenges with brio. Other special features of this album are a previously unrecorded song on a text by Yvette Guilbert and the linking texts between the songs read in French by Ostermeier himself. As Diapason wrote of this production, ‘Almost a century after its premiere, The Threepenny Opera has lost none of its subversive power.’

Johann Sebastian Bach hardly ever left his native Saxony; yet he was always up to date on what was going on elsewhere in Europe. Naturally; he paid close attention to innovations from Italy; the cradle of the concertante style; and instilled transalpine sparkle in his brilliant counterpoint; especially in his keyboard works. Proof of this may be found in the pieces based on originals by the Venetians Antonio Vivaldi and Benedetto Marcello; in which Bach transcends everything with his polyphonic genius. In the large-scale Italian Concerto; the future composer of the Goldberg Variations revisits Corelli and; once again; Vivaldi. After several solo recordings devoted to musical dynasties (La Famille Forqueray; La Famille Rameau and Les Frères Francoeur); Justin Taylor sets off on a voyage of exploration of Bach and Italy.

Tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen concludes his trilogy dedicated to hautes-contre with "Legros; Gluck's haute-contre". Joseph Legros (1739-1793) was a singer at the Paris Opéra; renowned for his extraordinary musical abilities; wide range and brilliant high notes. “His contemporaries appreciated the fact that his vocal delivery was not forced and that his taste was less mannered than that of his predecessors. His pronunciation was perfect and his face pleasing; although he did not cut a graceful figure and his stage acting left something to be desired” writes Benoit Dratwicki; of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles; which is a partner in this series... Legros sparked renewed interest among modern composers for the haute-contre voice. The first to write for him were La Borde; Trial and Berton. Then came Gossec (Alexis et Daphné) and Grétry (Céphale et Procris). In 1774; Gluck's arrival in Paris marked a turning point in Legros's career: he made a name for himself in Orphée et Eurydice; caused a sensation in Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride... The title roles in Amadis de Gaule by J. C. Bach and Piccinni's Atys were the last roles in which he shone. After Legros; the haute-contre voice gradually disappeared; giving way to that of the "true tenor"; a more powerful voice; but one that had difficulty tackling the high register of the old repertoire...