This six album boxed set comprises Tanya Ekanayaka’s Twelve Piano Prisms performed by the composer (GP785); works by Valentin Silvestrov performed by Elisaveta Blumina (GP639); Philip Glass’ piano music played by Nicholas Horvath (GP692); and Haro Stepanian’s Preludes (GP760) and Baal HaSulam’s Melodies of the Upper Worlds (GP808) performed by Mikael Ayrapetyan, alongside the pianist’s own A Whole in 12 (GP809). These contemplative contemporary piano miniatures have been expertly curated from the Grand Piano discography, and are sure to leave listeners and critics alike extremely satisfied.

Past praise for previously released volumes included in this set:

Stepanian: 26 Preludes for Piano / Ayrapetyan

Haro Stepanian was a fellow student of Aram Khachaturian. Stepanian himself was certainly a fine composer, based on this collection of preludes written between 1947 and 1965. There are three sets of eight here, completed in 1947, 1948, and 1956, plus two individual preludes written near the end of his life. His style is consistently folk derived, nothing one could call revelatory, but simply well-crafted work across a broad spectrum of emotional expression. The young Armenian pianist Mikael Ayrapetyan is a very fine advocate for this decidedly obscure music.

-- Fanfare

Ekanayaka: 12 Piano Prisms

Tanya Ekanayaka certainly hits her musical mark with these piano pieces. At times contemplative, sometimes raucous, these works have been injected generously with beauty and Rachmaninoff-like technique and drama. These works are certainly recommended to pianists to program for recitals: not only do they take the audience on a lovely, dark journey through the music of different cultures via the lens of a classically-trained pianist, but they sound enjoyable to play.

-- American Record Guide

Silvestrov: Piano Works / Blumina

Silvestrov seems well served by pianist Elisaveta Blumina. All is played and recorded with close and calmingly fervent engagement. Silvestrov’s surprising but pleasing commitment is to a vocabulary chronologically distant from the predominance of the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first. If he occasionally sounds briefly like Einaudi it is only to remind us that once we listen for more than a couple of minutes Silvestrov is not a minimalist. In this context he is just a composer, one strand of whose creativity is inextricably in thrall to a style that, while familiar, serves his expressive needs better than any other. It is one dimension of the man.

-- MusicWeb International

Left unfinished at the death of the composer, Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony has exerted an enormous fascination on musicologists as well as musicians – a kind of Holy Grail of 20th-century music. Recognized as an intensely personal work, it was initially consigned to respectful oblivion, but over the years, Alma Mahler, the composer’s widow, released more and more of Mahler’s sketches for publication, and gradually it became clear that he had in fact bequeathed an entire five-movement symphony in short score (i.e. written on three or four staves). Of this, nearly half had reached the stage of a draft orchestration, while the rest contained indications of the intended instrumentation. Over the years a number of different completions or performing versions of ‘the Tenth’ have seen the light of day. One of the most often performed and recorded of these is that by Deryck Cooke. Cooke himself insisted that his edition was not a ‘completion’ of the work, but rather a functional presentation of the materials as Mahler left them. Cooke’s performing version of the symphony is the one that Osmo Vanska has chosen to use for the seventh installment in his and the Minnesota Orchestra’s Mahler series, a cycle characterized by an unusual transparency and clarity of sound as well as musical conception.

REVIEW:

From the outset, Vänskä’s handling of the opening Adagio is sublime, its long themes opening up in endless waves thanks to the clean-toned Minnesota strings and the conductor’s perfectly judged balance between purposeful progress and emotional repose. BIS’s engineering is immaculate, simultaneously spacious and detailed, and presented with convincing weight and clarity. The contrast between the pristine pianissimo strings and the moment the Adagiofinally heaves its heart into its mouth is overwhelming.

The first Scherzo is nimble and fleet of foot, Vänskä’s insistence on delicacy over grotesquery tying it neatly to the first movement. Again, incident is brought out with considerable imagination and there’s some superb solo work from the Minnesota principals. This is musical storytelling at its finest.

In Vänskä’s hands the “Purgatorio” movement is a gossamer reflection of the younger composer in the carefree days of the Fourth Symphony upon which the clouds occasionally darken. Building his argument, Vänskä urges the fourth movement second Scherzo along while ensuring plenty of contrasts. “The devil is dancing this with me; madness, seize me and destroy me,” Mahler wrote at the top of this movement, ending with, “You alone know what it means. Ah! Ah! Farewell my lyre! Farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell. Ah! Ah!”.

Linking the two final movements is a dramatic coup. The sudden impact of the muffled drum – inspired by a funeral procession that Mahler and Alma witnessed from the window of their New York hotel room – is heart-stopping, as is the following progression in which the musical spools of Mahler’s life seem to gradually unravel towards that final page where Mahler scribbled, “für dich leben! für dich sterben! Almschi!” (To live for you! To die for you! Almschi!). Over 25 unmissable minutes, Vänskä interweaves the moving with the mercurial in a riveting demonstration of musical storytelling.

As this Minnesota cycle enters the final furlong, this Tenth is a major achievement.

– Limelight (Clive Paget)

This panoramic survey of Argentine tangos shows the genre in all its rich variety of moods and virtuosity. It salutes Angel Villoldo, the father of tango, whose El choclo (‘The Corncob’) is one of the most famous tangos of all time, and charts the music’s evolution towards the romanticism and lush harmonies of Augustín Bardi. Improvisatory styles, syncopation and jazz harmonies were introduced by such great composers as José Pascual and Orlando Goñi, whilst Enrique Francini developed his personal qualities of dissonance and rhythmic flair into the 1960s. This survey is the first in a series that will document around one hundred rare and classic tangos, all performed by the Argentine pianist Mirian Conti.

REVIEW:

Tangorama: a wonderful aural trip to the southernmost South American nation

Tangorama, Vol. 1 is the first of an upcoming series of tango albums lovingly selected and superbly played by the terrific Argentine-American pianist Mirian Conti. This first in the series features over two dozen gems that trace the development of the Argentine tango from its humble origins rooted in Afro-Argentine and Cuban-influenced dance forms birthed in the bars an dives on the shores of the River Plate to the sophisticated compositions of mid-20th century composer-performers that inflected the form with European harmonies and counterpoint while retaining the syncopated underpinning of the original dance form.

– Rafael's Music Notes (Rafael de Acha)

Argentine-American pianist and recording artist Mirian Conti has recently released her new solo album, Tangorama, performing a collection of 25 vintage tangos, written over the span of half a century. Tango originated in Argentina and Uruguay in the late 1800’s as immigrants poured in from all parts of Europe. They brought their music with them: waltzes, polkas and mazurkas, which blended with Cuban habanera and African candombe music and rhythms to create early forms of tango music and dance. These early years, from about 1895 to 1925, are known as Guardia Vieja, the Old Guard, when tango began to develop structure and identity. One of the early composers was Angel Villoldo (1861-1919), generally considered the father of the tango. Three of his tunes are included on this disc, all in early tango 2/4 duple meter. In 1903 Angel composed the well-known El Choclo, one of the best of the early tangos, which became a popular hit song again in 1952 as “Kiss of Fire”. Mirian performs these piano arrangements with a light, graceful touch and a delightful sense of rhythm, timing and phrasing. Another early tango is the famous La Cumparsita, the most popular tango ever written. It was composed in 1917 by Geraldo Matos Rodriguez (1897-1948), and originally written for a marching band. The tune is driven by the bold arrastre sound of slurring chords mixing with crisp staccatos.

The tango period known as Guardia Nueva, or New Guard, lasted roughly from 1925 to 1955. This included the Golden Age of the 1940’s, which was the hey-day of the big tango orchestras. Generally coinciding with the explosion of the Big Band era, tango began developing and maturing in form and complexity. Alfredo Gobbi (1912-1965) was a violinist and composer who wrote El Andariego in 1951. The tune features a smoother 4/8 meter, slower tempo, heavy rubato, and delicate staccato passages. From 1955 to 1970, tango went through an Avant-Garde period of development and began moving in new directions. Julian Plaza (1928-2003) was an outstanding musician and composer who wrote Melancolico in 1960 and Nostalgico in 1962. The tunes are intoxicating with dramatic tango rhythms, melodies and dissonant harmonic structures. Mirian presents them with beautiful dynamics and phrasing, meticulous keyboard technique and solid intuition.

This music was recorded on 15-24 September 2020 on two Yamaha Disklaviers, one each at Conti Studio in Buenos Aires and at Yamaha Artists Service in New York. Mirian Conti and G. Richard Glasford were the producers, and Aaron David Ross was the engineer. Joseph Patrych performed the mastering. A 28-page booklet is included, with photographs and commentary in Spanish and English. The sound quality is excellent.

--MusicWeb International (Bruce McCollum)

This recording focuses on Claudio Santoro’s output from the 1960s – a significant decade in the composer’s ever-eventful life. It features world premiere recordings of his charged Cello Concerto, fuelled by his experiences in East Berlin, the dramatic Eighth Symphony and the encore piece One Minute Play, alongside Três Abstrações and Interações Assintóticas, Santoro’s only work to use quarter-tone tuning.

Learn more about this title on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

REVIEW:

I knew nothing of Santoro’s music until I began listening to these releases in the Naxos Music of Brazil series. Recently a number of his Symphonies and other works have been released and here No 8, from 1963, is placed alongside the slightly earlier Cello Concerto and three other works from the same decade. Another informative and enjoyable production.

-- Lark Reviews

Final volume in the first-ever complete recorded cycle of symphonies by Talivaldis Keninš (1919–2008), one of the most prominent post-WW2 composers in Latvia and Canada. This album includes three of the composer’s eight numbered symphonies performed by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra under Andris Poga.

Although born in Latvia, Keninš lived most of his life as an exile. He was educated in Paris, where he studied under Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen, and won several awards. Keninš emigrated to Canada in 1951 and became a respected pedagogue and a very influential figure in Canada’s music life. Alongside his eight symphonies, the composer also wrote 12 concertos. However, he also included many concertante elements in his symphonies and the Symphony No. 2, “Sinfonia concertante” (1967), scored for three wind instruments and symphony orchestra, is very close to a triple concerto. The symphony’s extensive second movement is based on a lullaby of the Mi’kmaq First Nations people. Symphony No. 3 (1970) was completed few years after its predecessor and is a step forward in the composer’s journey as a symphonist. Here we encounter the idea of a lyrical hero, which, in the ears of the listener, could be personified. Although many consider Kenins’ 8th Symphony to be his symphonic climax, the 7th Symphony (1980) is by no means a lesser work: it could be even considered as one of the composer’s most personal and intimate creations. The symphony ends with an aria based on a text by the composer’s father and the atmosphere of the work seems to stem from the composer’s emotional trauma on the occupation of his native Latvia by the Soviet troops.

REVIEW:

Ķeniņš composed his first symphony when he was forty and almost a decade elapsed before he turned to the genre again. However, his Symphony No 2 “Sinfonia concertante” does not strictly adhere to any symphonic mould. That the composer had a trio of wind instruments as some sort of a concertino tends to show that he was not completely sure of how to tackle that form again. This also shows is the lay-out of the piece, i.e three movements of strongly contrasting character as well as weight. In fact, the whole weight of the symphony lies in the long central movement whereas the brief opening Lento and the equally brief final Molto animato e marcato merely function as a prelude and epilogue of some sort. Moreover, the central Molto moderato: Tema e variazioni is twice as long as the two other movements put together. The weighty central movement is cast as a theme and variations on a lullaby of the Mi’kmaq First Nations people which the composer also used in his Suite in D major for organ. Anyone interested in what the Mi’kmaq First Nations people may be referred to Wikipedia for it all seems a rather long story. The variation movement of the Second Symphony is an impressive piece of music in which Kenins’ contrapuntal mastery is already fully displayed.

The Symphony No 3 is Ķeniņš’ first large-scale work for large symphony orchestra and again the composer demonstrates his assurance in his handling of form and counterpoint. The central movement Lento inquieto, though shorter than that of the Second Symphony, is again the emotional heart of the piece but it is nevertheless counterbalanced by two outer movements of fairly equal length but of quite different character. Georgs Pelēcis is quoted in Orets Silabriedis’ excellent notes as saying that “Kenins rejects seemingly essential symphony ingredients, such as the sonata form. That does not appear in any of the three movements … only one main theme is developed in each movement, and they are all interrelated. The unifying element is the rich chromatic intonations …”. The Third Symphony is clearly a work by a composer in full command of his aims and means, which shows in the way that the composer handles polyphony – an essential component of his music making. The first and second movements end with uncertainty, preparing for what is to follow, but the final movement Molto animato e brioso ends with an assertive gesture. As Silabriedis puts it: “I am responsible for everything that I have said and done”. (Incidentally, one might be reminded of RVW, whose Fourth Symphony also ends abruptly with a fist banging on a table and a door brutally slammed.

The Symphony No 7 “Symphony in the form of a Passacaglia” is scored for large orchestra and a mezzo-soprano in the final aria. Half the duration of the piece is purely orchestral and cast as a fully developed Passacaglia capped, so to say, by a short Allegro molto before the final aria for mezzo-soprano on a poem by the composer’s father, Atis Ķeniņš (1874–1961), who was also a statesman and one of the founders of the Republic of Latvia in 1919. The poem must have had a particularly personal resonance for the composer. “The mezzo-soprano solo links the composer more tightly with his family roots, expresses itself in more trusting and optimistic feelings; however, the unease in the harmonies and rhythm likely cannot hide the composer’s fears about out era. The concluding epilogue is like an Agnus Dei. The finale should express hope and faith, which stands over life’s troubles, soothing our darkest predictions, and suppressing our fears” (the composer’s words quoted in Silabriedis’ notes). The text, as translated in the booklet, may seem somewhat dated but has now acquired some new relevance in our troubled times and the symphony now carries a most welcome and needed appeal for peace. Nonetheless, Ķeniņš’ Seventh Symphony is quite an impressive piece of music in its own right and its “message” (if such there is) may be heard by any man of goodwill.

This final installment in Ondine’s Ķeniņš cycle has been carefully prepared and is as immaculately performed as the preceding ones. These are committed performances throughout, in excellent sound, up to Ondine’s best standards and Orests Silabriedis’ notes are excellent.

Ķeniņš’ symphonic cycle is on a par with other largely forgotten similar cycles that would probably have remained ignored or little known, were it not for brave and enterprising recording companies who have invested in similar projects. Examples that immediately come to mind are BIS’ recordings of Tubin’s symphonies and the hopefully ongoing Wordsworth cycle by Toccata. One cannot but hope that ventures such as these will encourage others to follow suit.

Ķeniņš’ music is too good to be ignored and these performances do it full justice; I am sure that they will play a part in securing his music its deserved status.

-- MusicWeb International

REVIEW:

Nielsen was a high energy composer, perfectly suited to a “muscle” orchestra like the New York Philharmonic. Listening to these two performance we are reminded how the world of classical recordings has been taken over by orchestras of the second rank–professionally adequate, ambitious, able to fund their own recording programs and often to get released on major labels, but singularly lacking in the sort of corporate virtuosity and ensemble balances at all dynamic levels so tellingly in evidence here. If you like your Nielsen big, bold, and gutsy, then this is the cycle you need to own.

This doesn’t mean that Gilbert and his players are in any way crude. The opening of the Fifth Symphony emerges with gossamer delicacy, and the solo wind playing is as sensitive as one could wish. But the hostile snare drum entrance carries real menace, while the movement’s adagio second half, beautifully spun out by the strings, features the best percussion cadenza since Horenstein, leading to an absolutely apocalyptic climax. Similarly, Gilbert brings thrilling energy to the start of the second movement. The ensuing quick fugue isn’t as swift as some, but the orchestra’s weight of tone, its attention to detail, makes the music unusually vicious, while the race to the closing bars has seldom sounded more exhilarating.

The Sixth Symphony can come off as sort of a bitter, denatured coda to the previous five. Again, without minimizing the work’s etherial moments and often stark instrumental textures, Gilbert and the orchestral put the meat back on the music’s bony skeleton. The climax of the first movement is really terrifying, the Humoresque vividly grotesque. In the Adagio “Proposta seria,” the strings dig into their parts with painful intensity, leaving a finale in which Gilbert ensures that each variation has its own vivid character. The wacky waltz, even in it’s ghostly early stages, seethes with a latent energy that makes sense of the violent eruptions from the brass and bass drum that rip it apart shortly afterwards.

One textural note: these performances seem not to be using the latest Critical Edition of the symphonies–you can tell from the fact that the loud timpani triplets are still present towards the end of the finale’s opening section, to cite one example. This is not a wrong decision; the Critical Edition took an excessively dogmatic view in its efforts to present Nielsen’s first thoughts, eliminating revisions based on the practical realities of performance, even if these were accepted–whether tacitly or explicitly–by the composer. Nielsen was never faced with a situation like Bruckner’s, in which a crew of well-meaning but misguided supporters altered and manifestly falsified the basic text. Additions and modification to his scores were limited mostly to small but sometimes telling details, such as the additional timpani part just mentioned.

The excellent live sonics add to the tactile immediacy of the performances. If the foregoing sounds as though this team saved their best for last, well, I would say that they did. One quibble though: the booklet notes, by Jens Cornelius, are surprisingly poor. He seems to think that the snare drummer in the Fifth Symphony is a timpanist, and his language is both pretentious and stilted. Normally I wouldn’t care or mention it, save for the fact that it seems so odd and uncharacteristic. Never mind, it’s the music that matters, and about that there can be no question whatsoever. This is fantastic.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

All World Premiere Recordings

Grammy Award-winning Third Coast Percussion, whose artistry blends “creative fearlessness with reverent precision” (BBC Music Magazine), offers an album of enterprising collaborations and world-premiere recordings of works written or arranged expressly for the Chicago-based percussion quartet, representing four different approaches to composing concert music.

Danny Elfman’s Percussion Quartet, structured like a four-movement symphony, shares distinctive traits heard in his Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated films scores, as well as hints of African balofon, Indonesian gamelan, and Shostakovich. Great admirers of composer Philip Glass, Third Coast arranged Glass’s solo piano Metamorphosis No. 1 for marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and melodica. Rubix emerged from Third Coast Percussion’s improvisational collaboration with virtuosic, cutting-edge flute duo Flutronix, who also perform on the recording. Critically acclaimed electronic musician and composer Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) composed her seven-movement Perspective as electronic tracks, without music notation. Third Coast transformed this work of “beautiful complexity” into a version they could perform live as a quartet.

REVIEW:

Unlike a lot of academic music for percussion ensembles, Danny Elfman makes his quartet sing sweetly, leaning heavily on the warm sounds of the marimba interlocking with tinkling tubular chimes and pitched metal pipes.

The flute duo Flutronix's piece, Rubix, features punchy flutes dancing over a chilled out vibraphone, and foggy episodes where marimba, whirly tube and bowed flexatone provide an evocative backdrop of light and shadow.

Footwork is the hyper-beat music born in Chicago's underground dance competitions and house parties in the late 1990s. On Third Coast Percussion's album, the style undergoes a mesmerizing transformation in a seven-movement suite called Perspective, by Jerrilynn Patton, who goes by Jlin.

Third Coast Percussion, with albums like Perspectives, continues to push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners.

-- NPR. org (Tom Huizenga)

REVIEW:

This release...offers an excellent musical programming concept, with all three works captured live in performances that are absolutely stunning and fully competitive with the best available. Both the Bartók and Martinů pieces were composed during their respective composers’ exile in America, while Gideon Klein’s Partita (an arrangement for string orchestra of his String Trio), is the result of “internal exile” in the Terezín concentration camp. All three men found ways to continue making music despite displacement, personal misfortune, and against the background of the rise of Nazism and the onset of war. More to the point, the program works because it offers plenty of purely musical contrast and variety.

Martinů’s Memorial to Lidice, a town wiped out by the Nazis as an act of retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, is a harrowing but ultimately hopeful orchestral elegy that receives the most gut-wrenching performance yet recorded. Eschenbach is about 50 percent slower than Ancerl (or anyone else), but he uses the extra time to excellent effect, revealing every luminous detail of Martinů’s orchestration and building the music to a shattering climax, with Beethoven’s Fifth balefully intoned by the horns. Klein’s Partita has much in common with Bartók’s Divertimento, with its folk-inflected thematic material. Its central movement is a very attractive set of variations on a Moravian theme, and it’s clear from this performance that the Philadelphia tradition of great string playing is very much alive and well. Eschenbach leads a performance both warm and incisive, revealing a major work in the process.

The Philadelphia Orchestra already has at least two recordings of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra to its credit, both with Eugene Ormandy--a fine early stereo version on Sony, and a mediocre early digital remake on RCA. This newcomer clearly is finer than either of those, as exciting a rendition as any available. Eschenbach thankfully eschews the excessive slowness that has marred his recent Mahler performances and lets the various sections of the orchestra display their considerable prowess in what remains one of the repertoire’s great showpieces. Listen to the rush of excitement in the transition to the first-movement allegro, or to the beautiful balance between woodwinds and harps in the second subject; notice the brilliant brass fugato that initiates the recapitulation, and the driving coda. It’s the real deal, from the very first note.

The sonics are markedly superior to what Sony, RCA, and EMI used to get in any of the various venues that they used, at least in stereo. The microphones are close to the players, the better to reduce the occasional noise from the audience (the occasional light cough isn’t at all bothersome), but the orchestra can take the exposure, and the sonic impact is pretty thrilling. I’m pleased (and honestly relieved) to be able to recommend it to you in the strongest possible terms.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Seventy years ago, on the 29th July 1951, Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at a concert marking the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival after seven years of silence following the Second World War. It was a momentous occasion, and the concert was broadcast by Bavarian Radio and transmitted across the world, for instance by Swedish Radio. Using the analogue mono tape as digitized by Swedish Radio, the present disc reproduces the broadcast as it would have been heard by listeners in Sweden: we have chosen to not change anything, not to ‘brush up’ the sound, not to clean and shorten the pauses or omit audience noises within the music, but to keep the original as it was. In this way we hope to recreate the feeling of actually sitting in front of an old radio in 1951, listening to this concert – a true historical document.

REVIEW:

Nothing else in the realms of recorded music is quite like it and I would urge you to share the experience...I’m not claiming that this performance will suit every mood or even every taste, but if and when it does hit target it will leave you changed for ever.

-- Gramophone (Editor's Choice, March 2022)

That (these recordings) are now available at budget price is a cultural achievement by [Berlin Classics]. Seize the opportunity. -- MusicWeb International

The fusion of lyricism and music in the Lied style, a form in which Schumann succeeded so subtly, finds a particular parallel in the interpretations of Schumann’s work by Peter Schreier and Norman Shetler. Their recordings, dating back half a century, are still regarded as reference works for their calmness and composure, as well as their warmth and intimacy. These works are presented with the same care and devotion as the music itself in these liner notes, as we are invited to experience the personal struggles and triumphs of one of the most famous composers of the Romantic era.

REVIEWS:

I don’t think I exaggerate if I state that Peter Schreier, among tenors, was the pre-eminent interpreter of German Lieder during the second half of the twentieth century...his verbal acuity, his ability to adjust the colour of the tone in order to express feelings and atmosphere and his sense for nuance set him apart from almost any other singer during that period.

Is Schreier dragging [tempi, compared to other singers]? No - that is not my feeling. His deep involvement and the hushed intensity in his declamation invest the text and music with such importance that any criticism is silenced.

This Dichterliebe should satisfy even the most discriminating connoisseur. This also goes for the other two cycles, Liederkreis Op. 24 and Op. 39. Besides the 37 songs that constitute the three cycles there are another 75 from various groups that Schreier for some reason preferred not to record in their entirety. These 75 are just as idiomatically performed. I am full of admiration for the consistency of Schreier’s singing – consistency in this case means that he treats each song according to its contents.

For those who are only familiar with the most well-known of his songs there will be revelations aplenty. Some of the “new” songs may need a couple of hearings to reveal their greatness, for instance the four Lieder aus dem Schenkenbuch im Divan. More immediate are perhaps the Fünf Lieder Op. 40, even though the second of them, Muttertraum, is uncommonly chromatic for Schumann. Der Soldat and Der Spielmann are charming and Verratene Liebe is quite irresistible. Here also is one of Schumann’s most touching songs, the Rückert setting Der Himmel hat eine Träne geweint, followed by Ich hab’ in mich gezogen and don’t miss Zum Schluss.

On CD 4 there are more gems. Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner Op. 35 is a longstanding favorite. I thought nobody would ever outdo Thomas Hampson, but Schreier is possibly even more involved. No. 2, Stirb, Lied’ und Freund’! is heart-rending in Schreier’s hands, Auf das Trinkglas eines verstorbenen Freundes (No. 6) is magical and Stille Tränen is so exquisitely interpreted. At first hearing this group of songs — it isn’t really a song-cycle — may seem rather alien to those who only know the “usual” Schumann. They are more akin to Brahms’ late songs. Give them a chance and they will open up and Schreier is the best possible guide into this new world.

Also lend an ear to the inwardly sung Schneeglöcken (CD 4 tr. 14). Finally Schreier takes us to the realm of darkness in Sechs Gedichte von Nikolaus Lenau und Requiem...Schreier is great here.

These recordings were originally produced by VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, which was the only record company in the German Democratic Republic. In the West they were also available on Deutsche Grammophon through a license agreement. That they now are available at budget price is a cultural achievement by Brilliant. Seize the opportunity.

--MusicWeb International (Göran Forsling)

With his tango nuevo, Astor Piazzolla has been welcomed into the world of classical music in a way that no other ‘non-classical’ composer has experienced. His music is played in concert halls around the world, and has been arranged for the most varied forces: symphony orchestra, string quartet, brass ensemble, mandolin orchestra, harpsichord… Taking their name from Piazzolla’s Escualo (‘Shark’), written in 1979 for his Quinteto Tango Nuevo, the five musicians that make up ESCUALO5 have a different approach, replicating the formation that Piazzolla performed with for much of his career: bandoneon, violin, piano, guitar and double bass.

The aim isn’t to recreate Piazzolla’s own performances, however – based in Munich but hailing from respectively Brazil, Germany, Greece and Belarus, the members are soloists in their own right, bringing their individual talents as improvisers and arrangers to the recordings. The program that ESCUALO5 have devised for their first album includes some much-loved as well as less familiar pieces for the quintet setup – Primavera Porteña, Soledad, Adiós Nonino, Fracanapa – as well as arrangements of Tango Suite and Histoire du Tango, originally for two guitars and flute and guitar, respectively.

REVIEWS:

Several of the pieces are arranged for new combinations, the Tango Suite for guitar and piano, and the Histoire du Tango, the masterful tracing of tango styles since 1900, for accordion, guitar, and double bass. The biggest thing is that without violating Piazzolla's musical texts, the group brings to his music a new and intense spirit. It is as if, having been established as part of the classical canon, Piazzolla's music is now subject to what has been called the chain of interpretation. It's a tremendously exciting release, consisting of Piazzolla standards like the Primavera Porteña from the Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas and lesser-known pieces like Fracanapa; Escualo5 adds something new to every single one, and the album will appeal to heavy Piazzolla collectors and newbies alike.

-- AllMusic.com

The release of a new recording of music by Piazzolla is, in my opinion, always a very welcome occurrence. Here we have passionate performances from the ensemble Esucalo5 which consists of violin, accorion, guitar, piano and double bass. Alongside the more familiar and extensive Tango Suite and Histoire du Tango is another longer piece Contrabajisimo (unknown to me) and a number of shorter pieces. A lovely production.

-- Lark Reviews

Vasari Singers is one of the UK’s leading chamber choirs with a series of acclaimed albums released on Naxos. Music on a Christmas Morning presents an uplifting seasonal programme including the world premiere recording of Helena Paish’s beautiful setting of words by the youngest of the Brontë sisters. Vasari Singers’ previous Christmas release A Winter’s Light is available on Naxos 8.573030.

The only available complete recording, newly made by a stylish Italian early-music ensemble, of a landmark collection of Baroque chamber music.

Antonio Veracini's innovative music forms the bridge between the styles of Vitali, Bononcinim and Stradella on the one hand, and the post-Baroque fashions of his nephew and of Tartini and Locatelli on the other. He played a central role in the civic musical life of Florence during the later 17th and early 18th centuries.

Veracini’s Opus 1 collection, published 1692, consists of ten ‘church sonatas’ of the newer sort exemplified by Vitali's op. 9 collection published two years later, though Veracini’s style is also comparable with Corelli's church sonatas published during the 1680s. Most of the sonatas have two extended quick movements, each preceded by a slower and gravely expressive introduction. Dance rhythms infuse the finales with momentum, and Veracini is fond of trumpet-like fanfares and echo effects. These ten sonatas made a tremendous impression on Veracini’s fellow composers at the time, and it is a wonder that they have only been recorded in selected form until now.

The complete collection abounds in high-spirited diversity, especially in these recordings made by an ensemble with a track record of success in exploring the lesser-known corners of Baroque repertoire.