Christmas carols have a universal appeal stemming from the tradition of music being played; sung; re- arranged and rewritten by different generations in many different countries and over a number of centuries. Louis Halsey’s Nova! Nova!; a collection of new arrangements of many of the most well-known and beautiful carols from as far back as medieval times; represents perhaps the largest collection of carols by a single composer for many years. Hertfordshire Chorus and David Temple have recorded 24 of these carols in this beautifully presented new collection; including English; German; French; Czech; Basque; Welsh and Irish melodies. “What I love about Louis Halsey’s arrangements is that they are both tasteful and simple; allowing the beauty of each carol to shine through. We are thrilled to share these with a wider audience with this new recording.” David Temple

Charming salon miniatures and a grand funeral march by the verismo composer of La Gioconda.

Most of the pieces issued here were published in the 1870s and 1880s, and some of them are far more substantial than mere album-leaves. Yet they are hardly known at all; Riccardo Muti recorded an orchestration of the sombre and touching Elegia funebre from 1881, but Ester Fusar Poli’s new recording is the only available version of the piano original. Even more imposing in scale is the 16-minute Funeral March which Ponchielli wrote late in 1872 to honor the passing of the publisher Francesco Lucca. However, no Ponchielli album would be complete without a version of the ‘Dance of the Hours’ immortalized by Walt Disney’s hippos in Fantasia.

Ester Fusar Poli presents a beguiling sequence of elegies, nocturnes, polkas and tone-poems, demonstrating the composer’s expressive range and deft piano writing. An extensive essay by Gabriele Galleggiante Crisafulli considers Ponchielli’s piano output in the context of his career as a whole, making this album an important contribution to our understanding of a figure who was much more than a ‘one-hit wonder’.

Includes work(s) by Ernst Toch. Ensemble: Louisville Orchestra.

The Ebor Singers, with director Paul Gameson, returns to the Resonus Classics label with an album of American Christmas music. The contemporary American Christmas choral tradition is a remarkable confluence of stylistic confluences, sacred and secular, which reflect the country’s cultural vibrancy more so than other times of year. Featuring works from composers including Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, Stephen Paulus, Susan LaBarr, Abbie Betinis, Timothy C. Takach, Jake Runestad, Matthew Culloton, René Clausen, Alfred Burt, Dan Forrest and Melissa Dunphy, the ensemble is joined by harpist Rachel Dent and oboist Jane Wright.

In Great Britain Christmas carols are an integral part of Christmas just like plum pudding and turkey, paper crowns and mistletoe. They are sung in all big cathedrals and churches at Christmas, first and foremost in the time-honored chapel of King’s College. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols- a Christmas mass featuring King’s College Choir, nine short readings and, of course, carols- has been broadcast live on the radio every year since 1928 on Christmas Eve. The a cappella choir SWR Vokalensemble belongs worldwide to the best choirs, renowned mostly for its exquisite performances of modern music. This album however contains traditional, centuries old Christmas Carols, arranged by British composers like Benjamin Britten, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Byrd, to name just a few.



REVIEW:

An entire program of English music recorded by a German choir doesn’t happen all that often, and a disc of “very English” Christmas repertoire may be rarest of all. However, the top-tier Stuttgart-based SWR Vokalensemble is one group for whom this sort of thing is not so unusual. In fact they’ve not only recorded several discs that feature works by British composers such as Britten, MacMillan, and Vaughan Williams (including his rarely recorded Mass in G minor); they’ve gone where even American choirs fear to tread, recording the complete choral works of Elliott Carter(!), ten of Ives’ Psalm settings, and a disc of American works that includes pieces by Cage, Reich, and Feldman.

The program itself, chosen with obvious care by one who knows his way around the repertoire, is marked by first-rate performances that stand solidly alongside similar offerings by this ensemble’s “native” British counterparts. As good as the program and performances are, potential listeners may find the disc’s curious, cursory title misleading: “Christmas Carols” does not accurately describe the program at hand. While the music is almost exclusively Christmas-themed, only perhaps three of the 19 selections (to be generous) could be labeled as “carols” in the traditional sense. Although the liner notes do include a very brief but informed history of the true carol, our attention is quickly directed to the “carol” as it’s come to be identified via inclusion in the popular annual carol service at King’s College, Cambridge: that is, virtually any choral piece—original or arrangement—with a sacred, Christmas-centered text. The programming here all makes sense when you know that conductor Marcus Creed is not only British, but was a student and former singer at King’s College.

Just looking at the list of composers, most of whom are as English as they come—Boris Ord, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Herbert Howells, David Willcocks—and the works at hand, each one ingrained in the very soul of every English-speaking, Christmas-music-loving listener—sets you up for what you hope will be an hour of pure pleasure, born of the special traditions of a season that is uniquely associated with its music. And, be it from Germany or Lower Slobovia, it doesn’t matter: this program does not disappoint.

Whether you choose this for the iconic repertoire—Ord’s Adam Lay Ybounden; Britten’s A Hymn to the Virgin; Howells’ A Spotless Rose; Thomas Ravenscroft’s Remember O Thou Man; David Willcocks’ Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day; Elisabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree; Holst’s In the Bleak Midwinter—or just for the world-class singing (hopefully both!), you can be assured of a listening experience that will endure many hearings throughout the entire season—and the next. This choir knows the music well and obviously enjoys singing it, demonstrating a mastery of both language and style.

The program’s one non-English-language work is Robert Parsons’ Latin-texted Ave Maria—a most welcome inclusion of one of the 16th century’s greatest masterpieces, and a highlight of the disc. Another plus: the all-too-rare inclusion of a list of publishers of each work (choral directors, take note). Highly recommended.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Vernier)

“Music? You can’t destroy that…” Anita Lasker-Wallfisch – Why was classical music so important to Hitler and Goebbels? The film centers around two people who represent musical culture during the Third Reich – albeit in very different ways. Wilhelm Furtwängler was a star conductor; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the cellist of the infamous Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. Both shared a love for the classical German music. The world-famous conductor made a pact with Hitler and his henchmen. The young woman, brought to Auschwitz for being Jewish, was spared death for her musical talent. German music was used to justify the powerful position the Third Reich claimed in the world, and to distract listeners from Nazi crimes. This music documentary by Christian Berger features interviews with musicians like Daniel Barenboim and Christian Thielemann; the children of Wilhelm Furtwängler; and of course 97-year-old survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. Her memories are chilling. Archive film footage, restored and colorized, brings the story to life, and bears witness to an agonizing chapter in history.

The last years of Schubert’s life were clouded by illness, so thoughts of the afterlife cannot have been far from his mind. For their latest recital for BIS, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton present an all-Schubert recital themed around Elysium, the mythical idea of a blessed and happy eternal future, with texts that explore different states of the afterlife by well-known authors such as Goethe, Rückert and Schiller as well as by lesser-known ones. Opening with a hymn to the divine in nature, this recital in turn evokes distant realms, blissful eternity and dream-filled sleep, before concluding with a farewell to the earth; from the passion and doubt of Die junge Nonne (The Young Nun) to the beautiful and touching Du bist die Ruh (You are peace).

Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have released several acclaimed discs for BIS, including Album für die Frau, a collection of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann and A Soprano’s Schubertiade, a Schubert anthology, named ‘Recording of the Month’ by MusicWeb International and ‘CD-Tipp’ by BR Klassik.

REVIEW:

I love it when a conceptual framework provides an occasion for performers to program music they might not always prioritize. This sagely programmed and beautifully sung (and played) recital of Schubert Lieder offers an attractive balance between Schubert’s most beloved songs and songs that rarely appear on recital programs – all connected via their texts’ exploration of the blissful attitude toward death exemplified in the concept of Elysium, from which this album takes its title.

This SACD boasts the superb sound quality that one associates with BIS. Hardly a damper sound or an audible breath intrudes on the performance; we are presented with the full dynamic range of each musician; and we hear the kind of warmth and resonance we might enjoy in a private chamber performance. I give this album my highest recommendation.

-- Fanfare

Yolanda Kondonassis writes: FIVE MINUTES for Earth is a project that both celebrates our planet and illuminates our challenge to preserve it. In 2020, I asked each of the composers featured in this collection if they would consider contributing a work for solo harp of approximately five minutes in length that expresses a powerful experience inspired by Earth in one of its many conditions or atmospheres. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of immediate responses and set about assembling this labor-of-love project. The endeavor quickly expanded to include a live, multi-media concert, fifteen unique videos for each track, a separate published collection of Earth-inspired solos for younger harpists, and most importantly, the opportunity for harpists all over the world to perform these innovative, Earth-inspired works for solo harp by some of today’s most lauded composers; in doing so, every verified performance of any of the works from the FIVE MINUTES for Earth collection, anywhere in the world, will result in a monetary contribution to a recognized earth conservation organization, sponsored by my non-profit organization, Earth at Heart. FIVE MINUTES for Earth is also a metaphor for the urgent and compressed timeframe that remains for our global community to embrace and implement solutions to our fast-growing environmental crisis.” 

REVIEW:

In 2020 harpist Yolanda Kondonassis asked each of the composers featured in this collection to consider writing a short solo harp piece that expresses “a powerful experience inspired by Earth in one of its many conditions or atmospheres.” Needless to say, the musical results prove as diverse as the planet’s ecosystems.

Takuma Itoh’s new-agey Kohola Sings shows how one can imitate a humpback whale song on a harp. For Hear the Dust Blow, Michael Daugherty checks his customary dazzle at the door and channels Roy Harris in slow motion. On Hearing Nightbirds at Dusk showcases Aaron Jay Kernis’ textural sensitivity and harmonic refinement at their best.

Chen Yi’s Dark Mountains offers wild contrasts in texture and touch. Reena Esmail’s Inconvenient Wounds utilizes a wide array of evocative scraping effects, while the subtle microtonal writing throughout Keith Fitch’s “as Earth dreams” mesmerizes. Sparsely deployed melodies and murmuring repeated notes hold attention throughout Zhou Long’s Green.

Perhaps Stephen Hartke’s Fault Line is the collection’s most probing, dramatic, discreetly resourceful, and least formulaic work: a substantial conclusion to a beautifully engineered contemporary harp collection that offers something for every musical taste. Well worth hearing.

-- ClassicsToday.com

Since its founding, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) has maintained an unfaltering commitment to commissioning new music, resulting in substantial new works from a diverse array of composers including Aaron Copland and Philip Glass. For the 2015-16 season, three exciting international composers originating from three different continents, Sebastian Currier, Thierry Escaich and Zhou Tian, were each commissioned to write a new concerto for orchestra, showcasing the virtuosity, style, and sound of the CSO, thus furthering a genre championed by the likes of Bartók and Lutoslawski. The resulting three works featured on this live recording represent the culmination of this exciting project, and once again affirms the CSO’s core value of being a place of experimentation.

The monumental third part of the Clavier-Übung (1739) is perhaps one of J S Bach’s greatest musical sequences with its explorations into both Lutheran hymnody and the ‘German Organ Mass’. As a didactic work, it also pursues virtually every contrapuntal device and structure. In giving voice to this immensely varied work, fascinating, inspiring and spiritual in equal measure, it seems particularly apt to make through it an ‘organ tour’ of Saint Thomas Church, with its rich and rewarding instrumental resources.

REVIEW:

Each piece is played with fastidious care, with its mood and scale perfectly matched to an appropriate organ. Jeremy Filsell provides yet another masterclass in manual and pedal dexterity, packed with interpretative insights and always mindful of a sense of flow and grace. Recorded by David Hinitt in the very best sound, this is a Clavier-Übung III to savor and revisit.

-- Gramophone

The trumpet has had many concertos written for it by composers from the Soviet era and beyond. Appealing in its unabashed melodies and colorfully nostalgic feel, Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto became popular in the West, while Weinberg’s emotive Trumpet Concerto in B flat major was summed up by Shostakovich as a ‘symphony for trumpet and orchestra’. Shostakovich’s own playful Concerto No.1, Op. 35 is recorded here with Timofei Dokschizer’s extended trumpet part, bringing it closer to the Baroque ‘double concerto’ model that the composer may initially have intended.

Hans Sitt (1850–1928) was an extremely important personality in the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, and also a remarkably prolific composer. Among all this activity, he found the time to transcribe all (!) of Beethoven's nine Symphonies, among others. 

His decision to transcribe them for violin and piano instead of for two piano so common in hus era, allows him to make the violin a part among parts, to immerse it in the (very rich) piano fabric, sometimes giving it a thematic role and sometimes not. 

His transcription of the Ninth ends up revealing many aspects of the original score of which one had never been aware. In addition to being splendid to listen to, if only in that obvious sense of the formidable challenge it poses to the performers, it becomes an important and unexpected tool for delving deeper into the structure of the Beethovenian masterpiece. And for this we shall forever have to thank him.

REVIEW:

Sitt has succeeded magnificently in distilling the original material, but it also presents a great technical challenge for the two performers, which Loguercio and Piemonti meet with bravura. But it is not only the virtuoso that they rise to, for their playing is musically satisfying as well, especially in the slow movement, where they make the music effective with subtle moods.

-- Pizzicato

This boxed set brings together Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s cycle of Brahms’ symphonies, originally released as four separate discs. Each symphony is coupled with carefully selected works to provide a well-rounded idea of the composer’s orchestral output.

Favorites such as the two concert overtures are included – the laughing and the weeping one, to paraphrase Brahms himself – as well as the beloved Haydn Variations (on a theme likely not by Haydn at all…). Another perennial favorite is the Alto Rhapsody, here with Anna Larsson singing the solo part, but there are also less-heard works – Brahms’s orchestrations of his own Liebeslieder-Walzer for instance, and of six songs by Schubert.

Throughout the set, the composer’s Hungarian Dances run like a thread. Brahms's orchestrations of Nos. 1, 3 and 10 have pride of place on disc 1, with the remaining 18, in much praised orchestral versions by Dausgaard, spread over the remaining three discs. In reviews of the individual discs, critics used words such as ‘freshness’, ‘transparency’, and ‘urgency’ to describe the performances, with Fanfare expressing pleasure at hearing ‘Brahms from the edge of one's seat’.

REVIEWS:

Exciting in quite a different way is Thomas Dausgaard’s invigorating cycle of Brahms symphonies (with interesting additions) with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. ‘The real purpose of using a small orchestra’, Dausgaard told Andrew Mellor regarding his recording of Brahms’s Second, ‘is to allow us to appreciate all the music that’s there, so that it comes to life in every corner, rather than becoming a mesh of sound'...Dausguaard [conducts] with a sense of style.

-- Gramophone

If you are sympathetic to the ideas that Brahms’s orchestral works can be played successfully by a smaller ensemble, and that the music does not lose its effectiveness when somewhat faster tempos are used, then there is no reason not to explore what Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra have done here. He is an intelligent conductor who infuses his ideas with personality, and Brahms is in good, un-arthritic hands. The recordings, made between 2011 and 2018 in the Örebro Concert Hall, sound wonderful.

-- Fanfare

With this new album the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Kļava is turning its attention to the music of Alexander Grechaninov (1864–1956), one of the masters of Russian liturgic music. Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil is a fitting continuation to the choir’s albums of sacred music by Sergey Rachmaninov and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Together with the two latter names, Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil, completed in 1912, belongs to the central repertoire of Russian liturgic music. Unlike the Vigils by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, Grechaninov’s work was written primarily for concert use. Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigilis a bright, optimistic work full of light. Grechaninov used old traditional Slavic chants as the basis of this work and selected the uplifting, solemnly glorious chants to emphasize the character of joy, exultation and jubilance.

The Latvian Radio Choir (LRC) ranks among the top professional chamber choirs in Europe and its refined taste for musical material, fineness of expression and vocal of unbelievably immense compass have charted it as a noted brand on the world map. The repertoire of LRC ranges from the Renaissance music to the most sophisticated scores by modern composers; and it could be described as a sound laboratory –the singers explore their skills by turning to the mysteries of traditional singing, as well as to the art of quartertone and overtone singing and other sound production techniques.

REVIEW:

While there is no mistaking the urgency of the composer’s calls for mercy in his ‘Great Doxology’, or the joy unleashed in the final hymn to the “Victorious Leader”, the overall tone of the work is gentle, soothing, and altogether loving. As the composer told us, his aim was “to create a harmonic dress for our simple church songs”. For Slavic fire and brimstone, then, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

The Latvian Radio is one of the world’s finest choirs and sounds it here. Informative notes, texts, and an English translation round out an offering that any choral aficionado would be proud to claim.

-- American Record Guide

This current volume of Sousa’s music for wind band presents three exceptional examples of Sousa’s musical creativity. Chris and the Wonderful Lamp is an enchanting retelling of the Aladdin legend, while Showing Off Before Company is a clever routine Sousa often used to open matinee concerts. The painstaking reconstruction of Sisterhood of the States allows us to hear the ‘ballet’ that incorporated music from each of the 48 states for a spectacular show in 1916. Keith Brion, one of the world’s most knowledgeable and most-recorded Sousa conductor leads his own New Sousa Band and is a frequent conductor of light music orchestral concerts throughout America and internationally. He is a specialist in Sousa’s period style and has published numerous performing editions of his music.