Anthony McGill, principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, and pianist Gloria Chien, a frequent performer with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, make their commercial recording debut as a duo on Here with You, an album of early and late German Romantic masterworks they’ve treasured throughout their 15 years of mutual admiration and musical collaboration. It’s a project that embodies, in the artists’ words, a “shared expression of beauty and friendship.” Johannes Brahms and Carl Maria von Weber were accomplished pianists who wrote for — and performed with — the leading clarinetists of their day. Brahms’ Sonata No. 1, Opus 120, spotlights fast-paced, intense dialogues between the two players, while his Sonata No. 2 explores the clarinet’s entire tonal range. Weber’s Grand Duo Concertant has been described as “a double concerto without orchestra” showcasing sheer virtuosity for both instruments. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s newest Mead Composer-in-Residence, Jessie Montgomery wrote Peace in 2020 as a response to the global pandemic. McGill and Chien offer the world-premiere recording of the clarinet and piano version.

Santtu conducts Strauss is a 2-volume album featuring four works by Richard Strauss conducted by Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, two of which are live recordings of Santtu’s 2021/22 opening concert and first concert as Principal Conductor at Royal Festival Hall. Eine Alpensinfonie and Also sprach Zarathustra are live recordings of Santtu’s opening concert of the 2021/22 season, and his first concert with the Philharmonia as Principal Conductor. The concerts received great reviews. Tim Ashley (The Guardian) said “With the Philharmonia on tremendous form, Rouvali proved a fine Straussian, measured in his approach, and careful in his attention to detail and colour”. Rebecca Franks (The Times) awarded 5-star reviews: “There were “wow” moments aplenty as the Philharmonia laced up its hiking boots and happily hit every waymark in Strauss’s mountain journey: the glorious sunrise, the resplendent summit, the violent storm with wind machine, thunder sheet and organ.”

Founded in 1945, the Philharmonia Orchestra creates thrilling performances for a global audience and has premiered works by Richard Strauss, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Errollyn Wallen, Kaija Saariaho and many others. The Philharmonia has an extraordinary 77-year recording legacy, and has recorded around 150 soundtracks, with film credits stretching back to 1947. In the 2021/22 season the Orchestra performs in Romania, Spain, Finland, Greece and Germany. Santtu-Matias Rouvali is a Finnish conductor and percussionist, and is currently principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. Rouvali continues his relationships with orchestras across Europe, including with the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Phillharmonic and the the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

REVIEW:

This is an Alpine Symphony where the thrills are just that much more thrilling, the sublime moments more sublime, the lyrical line more lyrical. I’d place this Alpine Symphony beside the Karajan, and it comes in much better sound. I consider every performance here nothing short of a triumph, so the strongest recommendation naturally follows.

-- Fanfare

There's nothing like Christmas to bring out a composer's more unapologetically clever and enthusiastically indulgent, prodigiously inventive ideas, in apparent realization of childhood's most extravagant fantasies and enchanted imaginings, to say nothing of providing a wonderful excuse for an artist to simply go happily and uninhibitedly wild. The collection of Christmas-inspired orchestral "fantasies" on this CD is certain to become one of your favorite holiday listening traditions as you join these five composers in an upbeat--and sometimes unconventional--celebration of some of the season's most familiar Christmas carols and songs.

Of course, you can treat the material in a variety of ways, from the more straightforward yet impressively adroit fantasias on easily recognizable (if often rhythmically or melodically altered) tunes offered in Bryan Kelly's five-movement Improvisations on Christmas Carols to Victor Hely-Hutchinson's more deliberate attempt at symphonic style and structure in A Carol Symphony, where he actually incorporates carols such as Adeste fideles, God rest ye merry gentlemen, The Coventry Carol, The first nowell, and Here we come a-wassailing into a legitimate four-movement theme-and-development framework

At the program's mid-point we're treated to a string-orchestra arrangement (by composer and liner-note writer Philip Lane) of Peter Warlock's famed carol Bethlehem Down, followed by Lane's own three-movement Wassail Dances from 1973. This latter work shows a fine command of orchestral color and a healthy respect for the power of rhythm and momentum. Finally, we hear Patric Standford's A Christmas Carol Symphony, a big, robust, ruddy-cheeked tribute to this most happy and optimistic of holidays that proudly and relentlessly exerts its sparkling, brassy, brightly colored atmosphere through a mélange of at least a dozen carols, from Deck the hall and Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen to Ding dong merrily on high, The holly and the ivy, and We wish you a merry Christmas. The City of Prague Philharmonic proves a first-rate interpreter of these scores, conveying all the music's exuberance and spirit with flawless technical prowess and Technicolor-grade contributions from the winds and brass. Conductor Gavin Sutherland deserves credit for inspired leadership in these all-too-rarely performed works--any one of which would make a guaranteed audience-pleasing addition to a holiday concert. Having these together on one budget-priced CD is truly a gift worthy of the season it celebrates. And Naxos complements the whole production with top-grade sound. Adeste fidelis!

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

The Beethoven year is about to begin and the first contributions by various artists to the anniversary are already being published The focus will be on the evergreens that will attract the attention of the public As a versatile and extremely productive artist, Beethoven has also created a number of works that are virtually unknown today This extensive 9 album edition is dedicated exactly to these works and its tracklisting reads like a sparkling treasure chest Rarely heard arias in various languages, Contredanses, minuets, Ländlers the Piano Concerto No 0 music for a knight's ballet, fun loving and sometimes not entirely youth free canons Over 10 ½ hours full of works by Ludwig van Beethoven, which were written throughout his life and cast a new, unusual glance on his musical oeuvre and his perhaps sometimes not so serious character.

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.

Vincenzo Bellini’s first great operatic success I Capuleti e i Montecchi is based on an Italian version of Romeo and Juliet in which the feuding clans seek reconciliation through the wedding of Giulietta and Tebaldo. Giulietta’s lover, Romeo, begs her to elope with him, but fate has other plans for the couple. Topped with the ‘agile coloratura runs and lyrical grace’ (New York Times) of soprano Jessica Pratt, this acclaimed production takes place in the historical and beautifully atmospheric Teatro La Fenice, the same venue in which I Capuleti e i Montecchi had its triumphant premiere in 1830.

REVIEWS:

Ruben Amoretti makes for fierce Capellop and Luca Dall’Amico’s solid bass lends gravitas to Lorenzo. Omer Meir Wellber conducts a sympathetic account of the score, well played by La Fenice’s orchestra.

--Gramophone

Naxos has recently been reaching back into archives from the not too distant past for some of its home video releases of opera. The latest one is this recording of a performance of Bellini’s sixth opera taken from a staging in Venice in 2015. The staging by Arnaud Bernard in most respects observes a traditional interpretation of Felice Romani’s libretto...Bernard achieves some really striking friezes, as seen in the closing tableau for Act Two and a wonderful visual effect for Giulietta’s funeral procession.

Capellio, Giulietta’s father is given an imposing performance by Rubén Amoretti. His bass is strong and solid with an appropriately sepulchral aspect to his tone. His contribution is my choice for the most fearsome Cappellio available.

Vocally [Sonia Ganassi's] mezzo has a fine sheen to it, especially in the upper register where her tone could be described as glowing...[she] gives a fine performance of Romeo. Jessica Pratt’s Giulietta is notable for her polished acting. Her every gesture is in tune with the heroine’s increasingly desperate situation. Her concentration on her character doesn’t lag for an instant, as witnessed her performance of the long opening recitative before “Oh! Quante volte”, in which she presents a singularly riveting, three-dimensional portrait. Platt’s voice is in splendid shape on this occasion, her singing is poised and the tone is always brightly expressive. There is little of the uneven vocal production which sometimes affects her singing. Both stars’ voices meld quite beautifully in their duets and leave nothing to be desired [in] some of Bellini’s most ravishing music.

The chorus and orchestra are in excellent form and respond beautifully to the energetic baton of Omer Meir Wellber. He offers plenty of rhythmic drive but rarely did I sense that the music was rushed, as is so often the case in recent performance practice of early 19^th century operas. The production has some incredibly beautiful costumes from the late Renaissance period and the High-definition camera work does real justice to that aspect of the production.

--MusicWeb International (Mike Parr)

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

What’s not to love? JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic offer another appealing and wholly successful program. Granted, there are wilder version of the Dances of Galánta out there, particularly from the likes of Reiner (Sony-mono) and Ormandy (also Sony), but Falletta’s view of the work is as cogent in its steady build to a brilliant climax as just about any. She’s even more effective in a remarkably well-sustained and unified Peacock Variations, and an irresistibly lively Dances of Marosszék.

Best of all, we get a virtuosic and characterful performance of the relatively rare Concerto for Orchestra instead of the obvious Háry János Suite. That makes this collection unusually generous as well as desirable, especially when the playing of the orchestra clearly rises to the challenges that Kodály presents. The sonics, as usual from this source, as very good indeed. Here are seventy-seven minutes of music that you really can sit down and play straight through. Give it a try and listen for yourself.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur was inspired by the real-life story of a celebrated actress at the Comédie-Française who was much admired by Voltaire. Hailed as a masterpiece, the opera was triumphantly staged in cities around the world after its premiere in 1902. The dramatically effective narrative is a passionate love triangle filled with intrigue and complicated plot twists set in the gallant 18th century. Its subtle ironies and gorgeous cantabile style of music provide a perfect vehicle for the star cast in this stunning production from the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

REVIEWS:

The playing is admirably sensuous: Cilea knew his Wagner and Debussy, and Harding pointedly emphasizes the debts, while also giving us plenty of Italianate passion and lyricism.

-- Gramophone (DVD/Blu-ray of the Month, January 2023)

This Maggio Musicale production from Florence boasts a genuine star at its heart...María José Siri marks out her own territory, thanks to her lustrous voice and honestly theatrical characterization...The remaining star turn here is the conductor Daniel Harding in full-on verismo mode, notably sensitive to his singers’ needs, and inspiring the Maggio Musicale orchestra to project Cilea’s score with refined virtuosity.

-- Opera

Mieczyslaw Weinberg's powerful Holocaust drama Die Passagierin channels his and his family's ordeals of wartime and Soviet persecution, applying them musically to Zofia Posmysz's autobiographical novel. The score was praised by Shostakovich for it's 'beauty and greatness', with a narrative that unfolds on an ocean liner bound for Brazil on which a former Auschwitz guard and one of her Polish prisoners confront impossible moral conflict and harrowing flashbacks in music that is sparse, dark, sardonic and intermittently tender. This acclaimed Oper Graz production draws us movingly into the raw unimaginable madness of this imperishable moment in history.

Elsewhere in this issue, in choosing the records of the year, I have singled Out the new version of Handel's opera Admeto for its broadly successful attempt at a true Handelian style. Well, those words were no sooner in the post to the Editor than I heard this new set, which considerably surpasses it in almost all regards: indeed this seems to me comfortably the best Handel opera recording I have heard. It is an easier opera to perform than the heroic ones of the 1720s (at least, to perform on records; perhaps it is not so easy on the stage— though I remember with pleasure its only English revival, at Abingdon in 1961). Partenope was written in 1730, for the first season of what was called the 'new Academy', run by Handel himself and his manager, after the collapse and the discrediting of the Royal Academy, of which Handel had been salaried musical director and which had organized opera in London since 1720. Handel now had a new team of singers, and the operas he wrote for them show distinctly the influence of the works he encountered during his talent-spotting trip to Italy. Partenope does so in particular. It is to a libretto by Silvio Stampiglia, markedly influenced by the vein of ironic humour popular in Venetian opera. The plot concerns the founding queen of Naples, Parthenope, and her various suitors, one of whom (Arsaces) deserted his betrothed (Rosmira) to woo her, and is pursued by Rosmira who in male clothes is herself masquerading as an admirer of Parthenope. The musical idiom beautifully catches the vivacity, the ironic wit, the gentle ardour and the charm that distinguish the plot. The musical textures are for the most part light and airy; there is more of rapid music than in most of Handel's operas; the phrase structure is simpler; and the vocal colour is different from usual—dictated, to be sure, by the particular cast Handel had at his disposal, yet characteristically he turned to positive ends the fact that he had only one soprano (Parthenope), one tenor, one baritone and all the rest altos of one kind or another. The orchestral texture, more often than usual, consists of just a violin line and continuo: the occasional more fully-scored aria, like Emilius's in Act I with its rich semi-contrapuntal string writing, or Rosmira's brilliant hunting aria with oboes and horns to end the act, accordingly makes a striking effect—and none more so than Arsaces's G minor lament, with muted violins, moaning flutes, theorbo and pizzicato basses, near the end of the opera. There are several ensemble numbers, including a trio and a quartet, but as the characters rarely sing simultaneously this does not make a geat deal of difference.

In Adnseto I questioned the wisdom of using so small an orchestra. Here the orchestra is much the same size, but it is about right since the music is so much less heroic in temper. It would perhaps be cynical to suggest that Handel, now he had to pay the bills himself, wrote music that worked well with fewer players; but with Partenope it could be not far from the truth. The group here p1a(s superbly: there is a dash and a sparkle to the string playing that makes the rapid passage work a real joy to listen to; the bass is firm and shapely; the wind playing is on the whole very well tuned; and the continuo playing provides sensible and unobtrusive support. Above all, the direction has the kind of rhythmic breadth and sense of purpose that I had despaired of meeting in an 'authentic' performance. Too often Handel's stature is diminished, the grandeur of his designs whittled down, by short-breathed and finicky phrasing. Here, in authentic timbres, Handel emerges as the giant he always did under the Woods and the Sargents, but without any over-inflation. This is greatly to the credit of the musicianship of Sigiswald Kuijken and his players. His orchestra has strings numbering 5.5.2.3.2, with four oboes and two bassoons, and pairs of flutes and horns and a trumpet as needed.

As for the singing, there are two names new to me of which I shall hope to hear very much more. One is the Parthenope, Krisztina Laki, a fluent and agile soprano with a happy glitter to her voice. She copes comfortably with the difficult divisions, and brings a suitably light expressive touch to the slower arias; altogether an accomplished and promising performance and an intelligent interpretation. Even more striking, perhaps, is the Rosmira of Helga Muller Molinari—plumb in her intonation (more so than anyone else in the cast), and capable of infusing her passage work with genuine vigour and passion. The angry C minor aria in the Second Act is magnificent, a real musical explosion of wrath; but the love music too is finely done. The timbre itself is not extraordinary, but the voice is perfectly focused and controlled. With the Arsaces (and this is the biggest part, composed for the famous castrato Bernacchi) I am less happy; as in Admeto, René Jacobs swoops and swoons too much, in a mannered way, and is not dependable over pitch. John York Skinner gives a capable account of the role of Armindus, Parthenope's ultimately successful lover, best in the direct style of his Act III aria than in the more expressive earlier ones. Martyn Hill as Emilius is firm and clear in the tenor arias, and accurate and expressive too; and Stephen Varcoe does his single aria in a pleasantly clean and light manner, without any booming or ranting.

Handelians may object, with some justification, that there is insufficient ornamentation in this set. That is true. Here and there a cadence crying for a trill is . . . well, left crying; and even the da caps sections of the arias are mostly sung without elaboration, which we know is contrary to Handel's expectation. Still, it is far better to do nothing than to do something wrongly or tastelessly, and that is particularly true in recordings, where one does not want to hear the same piece of bad decoration every time. Jacobs decorates a little, and some of the others do, too, very modestly. I wish a little more effort had been made over achieving a performing style a little more accurate and historical in this respect. On the other hand, I have nothing but praise for the execution of the recitatives, which (given in a form more complete than in the Handel-Gesellschaft score) move along quickly and conversationally, with the cadences correctly elided, while losing nothing of their dramatic force or their meaning from these excellent, and obviously well coached, singers. Altogether this set can be warmly recommended to lovers of Handel operas—and indeed to others too, who might find themselves drawn to become lovers of these masterpieces.

-- S.S., Gramophone [12/1979] Reviewing original LP

For the first time; this edition makes available Herbert von Karajan's previously unpublished early live recordings from the Lucerne Music Festival - made in a decade in which Karajan was rebuilding his career. Included are legendary soloists such as Clara Haskil and Géza Anda; Robert Casadesus and Nathan Milstein. The Lucerne International Music Festival (today's Lucerne Festival) was the first organiser outside Austria to engage Herbert von Karajan after his ban from performing and denazification proceedings; thus enabling him to return to the international podiums. "I will never forget that," Karajan later confessed. For almost four decades; from 1948 to 1988; he was to make his mark on Lucerne Festival. His annual guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic (from 1958) enjoyed cult status. But already in the decade before; which this edition documents; Karajan thrilled audiences and critics alike in Lucerne and quickly rose to become the defining artistic personality alongside Wilhelm Furtwängler: with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra; but above all on the podium of the Swiss Festival Orchestra; which he held in high esteem and which he conducted in a total of nine concerts.

The preserved Lucerne live recordings range from Bach's C major Concerto for Two Keyboard Instruments BWV 1061 (with Clara Haskil and Géza Anda) to Arthur Honegger's Symphonie liturgique. The exciting; rhythmically tightly formed interpretations show Karajan to be an extremely form-conscious; textually faithful conductor of great expressive power. He spurs his orchestras on to top performances; but also acts as a sensitive and at the same time extremely present accompanist - for example in Brahms' Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein or in Mozart's dramatically pointed C minor Concerto K. 491 with Robert Casadesus. As a digital bonus; the edition includes Bach's Mass in B minor; which Karajan celebrated at the end of the 1951 festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra; the Vienna Singverein and a top-class quartet of soloists (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf; Elsa Cavelti; Ernst Haefliger and Hans Braun): a stylistically distant; but nevertheless fascinating audio document due to Karajan's very personal approach. The sound of the live recordings on the 3-CD box set has been carefully restored. The 62-page; trilingual booklet contains essays by Wolfgang Rathert and Erich Singer on Karajan's new career start in the post-war years and on his special relationship with Lucerne Festival. It contains numerous previously unpublished photos.

REVIEW:

Included among the contents of this set are quite a few gems. Most unexpected but welcome is Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein. Karajan and his Swiss Festival Orchestra are fully ablaze, Milstein’s tone typically lean and sinewy. Overall, this is an intriguing batch of musically worthwhile live Karajan discoveries, very well transferred from clean analogue sources.

— Gramophone

While playing Brahms’s clarinet sonatas for clarinet and piano, there is no hiding; and I hear [Manno's] masked, yet suggestively mournful, techniques in a more pronounced manner. Sonatas 1 and 2 (op. 120, 1894) were among Brahms’s final compositions. Manno plays the sonatas with a sad, dreamy, wistful quality. [Compared to others,] the Manno version is more “inside the cranium” of dear Brahms, a self-described “melancholic,” and tenderly resigned to his fate.

This Oehms Classics 2009 reading of Ralph Manno’s clarinet and Alfredo Perl’s piano opens new doors for me to the autumnal Brahms clarinet sonatas, together with their reading of the elegiac Brahms Clarinet Quintet (op. 115). These readings are the most sensitive interpretations of these pieces I’ve yet heard: less lugubrious than Kell, a tad more thoughtful than Spaendonck, a smidgeon less shrill than Cohler, and nice to have in one Brahms collection, a two-CD album mostly of the clarinet music. Serious collectors, take note!

The sometimes low-profile approach to the early Brahms Piano Quintet (op. 34) is in contra-distinction to the usually bloated Beethovenesque aggression so frequently presented. I’m not saying it’s too obviously slow. More precisely I mean it leans toward understatement in an extremely thoughtful way, and without slowing the progress to a crawl. It is a piece that dates back to Brahms as a student, and it has something of Beethoven’s swagger, played with Brahms’s sense of restraint. That is not to say that Brahms lacked for self-assertion; as we know, he seemed also to have a feel for choral works such as Ein Deutches Requiem, his “Lullaby,” and other delicacies. Brahms’s restraint is on display, at least in those moments where other groups go over the top for the big effect, and we can see how Alfredo Perl’s playing in the Piano Quintet often moves toward low-balling, or toward whatever is the opposite of over the top.

This release supports my sense that these are really strong readings where less is more.

-- Fanfare

The music in this album spans a forty-year period from 1948 to 1988 and reflects Dutilleux’s stylistic development as a composer. He considered the Sonata to be the first main work in his catalogue and it represents a turning away from tradition and embraces the transformative musical explorations of the day. The Three Préludes are pieces of concentrated atmospheres, ‘a kind of study of timbres’, in the composer’s words, and each are dedicated to a renowned pianist: No. 1 to Arthur Rubinstein, No. 2 to Claude Helffer, and No. 3 to Eugene Istomin. Dutilleux’s lively music for the ballet Le Loup (‘The Wolf’) is heard here in a première recording of the original piano solo version.

REVIEW:

The pianist here is the veteran Jean-Pierre Armengaud, who has recorded a great deal of French piano music and also works as a musicologist. He studied under Geneviève Joy and was also given advice by Dutilleux and, not surprisingly, his performance is much like hers. If it sounds rather more full-blooded that may well be because the excellent new recording is rather better than that provided for Joy in her own recording of 1988 on Erato. Dutilleux also approved of his performances of the Prèludes. His performance of the piano version of Le Loup is sparkling and convincing and sounds like idiomatic piano music. The sleeve notes, in English and French are really helpful and this is a valuable issue.

-- MusicWeb International

Internationally acclaimed Swedish pianist Peter Jablonski is known as a fervent champion of Polish music. In this album Jablonski returns to some of his dearest piano music – Chopin’s Mazurkas. For Chopin, the Mazurkas became a deeply personal, intimate statement of his feelings as an émigré Polish composer living in Paris. From some of his very first compositions to his last, it is the only form that Chopin composed regularly throughout his life. Similarly, Chopin’s Mazurkas have followed Peter Jablonski throughout his entire career as a pianist in nearly every solo recital.

REVIEW:

Peter Jablonski is no stranger to Chopin’s Mazurkas, having recorded the Opp 6, 24, 50 and 68 groups in 2008. He’s now setting down the complete Chopin Mazurkas for Ondine.

This first volume reveals an authoritative, idiomatic, and individual stylist. He’s generally an epic, large-scale player who favors a wide range of dynamics and articulations. He can be yieldingly lyrical, yet he’s not afraid to get dirt underneath his fingernails.

He playfully inflects the cross-rhythmic phrases in the central section of the B flat Op 17 No 1. While he takes his time over the A minor Op 17 No 4’s decorative tracery, his grounded tempo is fluid and flexible.

Each of Op 30 No 2’s echoed phrases has its own character and color, words that succinctly describe Jablonski’s edgy way with No 3. The tension and release of No 4’s trills wouldn’t be out of place in Scriabin. Op 33 No 2 is not especially fast yet it still conveys boisterous lilt, and with very little sustain pedal for the most part. Jablonski’s effectively understated Op 33 No 3 sets the stage for a strikingly contrasted and personalised B minor No 4. An angular, questioning take on the short and swift B major Mazurka stands out in the well-played Op 41 group.

Needless to say, I look forward to this excellently engineered and annotated release’s follow-up volume.

-- Gramophone (Jed Distler)

Hailed as an “epic traversal of solo violin repertoire” and a “monumental achievement” (Chicago Tribune), American violinist Jennifer Koh’s complete Bach & Beyond recordings, pairing J.S. Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas with 20th- and 21st-century works inspired by Bach’s groundbreaking masterpieces, are now available in a convenient, economical boxed set offering all three albums for the price of two. Bach & Beyond Part 1 features Koh’s “alluring performances” (The New York Times) of Bach’s Partitas Nos. 2 and 3, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 2, Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne, and the world-premiere recording of Missy Mazzoli’s Dissolve, O My Heart, commissioned for Koh by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Newark Star-Ledger cited the violinist’s “distinctive voice over a range of styles.” Toronto’s The Whole Note said of Bach & Beyond Part 2, “Koh, as always, is superb, her intelligence and interpretation always matching her outstanding technique” in Bach’s Sonata No. 1 and Partita No. 1, Bela Bartok’s Sonata for Solo Violin Sz. 117, BB 124, and Saariaho’s Frises. Koh’s Bach & Beyond Part 3 earned BBC Music Magazine’s and ClassicsToday.com’s highest ratings for performance and recording quality. The Strad admired Koh’s “eloquent, artful, yet unadorned playing” in Bach’s Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VIII, and the world-premiere recording of John Harbison’s For Violin Alone, written for Koh. AllMusic said, “Koh’s series is highly recommended to those in search of an experience that will reward repeated hearings.” Audiophile Audition called it a “remarkable three-disc effort, recommended to all with a good degree of urgency.”

Excerpts of reviews from previously released volumes included in this set:

Bach & Beyond, Part 1

Koh makes short work of the Bach pieces—not in a bad sense: she just nails these works with a confident technique and a free-flowing, un-mannered style that remains true to Bach yet reminds us that a modern violinist is at the helm. Although ostensibly “modern”, the works by Saariaho and Mazzoli still incorporate time-honored traditions of solo-violin writing and don’t stray into what some might call “experimental” territory. These are both very ingratiating and accessible works to anyone who appreciates interesting, involving, intelligently written new violin music.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

Bach & Beyond, Part 2

Koh’s Bach is amazing as usual–so fluid and delivered with such a sensitively nuanced, confident authority. A personality emerges: is it Koh? is it Bach? It’s either or both, but ultimately, who cares? This is exceptional Bach playing. Throughout, Koh is in command, from the dazzling explications of the Bartók Fuga and Presto movements, to the sometimes frighteningly audacious dynamic and timbral assertions of the Saariaho.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)