Includes work(s) by Sergei Lyapunov, various composers. Ensembles: USSR State Radio Symphony Orchestra, USSR Radio/TV Large Symphony Orchestra. Conductors: Sergei Gorchakov, Alexander Kovalev. Soloist: Julian Sitkovetsky.

Born in Vienna in 1897, Franz Peter Schubert was expected to teach school for a living. His father, a teacher and founder of a modest boys’ school in Vienna, was insistent that the young Schubert train to join him on the faculty. And indeed, in his teens, he briefly taught younger students at the school. But his passion- and genius- was for music. He grew up in the city (and shadow) of Beethoven and studied music composition with Salieri, a nemesis of Mozart, learned to play violin, viola and piano from his family members, and was discovered to have a remarkable gift for singing. His short life yielded an abundant outpouring of compositions that is almost unfathomable. Over 600 art songs, ten symphonies, an immense catalog of chamber music, over 20 piano sonatas, operas, masses, and more. Tragically, many of his works from his final years weren’t published or performed until after his death. Today, the three “sonatinas” for violin and piano are misnamed. The composer called these pieces “sonatas,” and were most likely intended for advanced amateurs who could enjoy playing the duos at home. The C major Fantasy, in contrast, was clearly intended to challenge both virtuoso violinists and pianists to the utmost, and to be performed in a concert setting. This masterpiece is one of the Olympian summits of the violin and piano duo repertoire. Composed in a blaze of creativity in one month, it is in seven large, connected sections lasting almost half an hour.

Includes work(s) by Robert Schumann, Sergei Rachmaninov, Jules Massenet, Gregor Piatigorsky, Ludwig van Beethoven. Soloists: Julie Albers, Orion Weiss.

This Artek new release features three new works by multiple Emmy award nominee and Meet the Composer Grant recipient Bernard Hoffer, composer of numerous hit TV series including "Thunder Cats", as well as the PBS MacNeil-Lehrer Report music & theme! The three concertos, for violin, piano and English horn respectively, are played by internationally renowned violinist Elmar Oliveira, pianist Randall Hodgkinson and American hornist icon, Thomas Stacy. Mr. Oliveira remains the first and only American violinist to win the Gold Medal at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Int'l Competition, and the first violinist to receive the coveted Avery Fisher Prize, among other honors. Grammy� nominee Thomas Stacy, responsible for the largest expansion of English Horn repertory in history, became the instrument's most recognized soloist during his 39 seasons with the New York Philharmonic. Randall Hodgkinson achieved recognition as a winner of the Int'l American Music Competition, and as a featured soloist with major orchestras in America and abroad.

LIEBERMANN Flute Trios: No. 1; No. 2. Flute Sonata • David Fedele (fl); Matthew Herren (vc); Robert Koenig (pn) • ARTEK 34 (57:06)


Lowell Liebermann has achieved a reputation of writing some of the most melancholy, even gloomy, music on the planet. It is difficult to know why this is, and I have been unable to find any clues in a multitude of album notes and interviews that I have seen. As I do not regularly subscribe to the notion of a composer’s worldview or mood making its way into his music, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly depressed about the man himself, who turns out a plethora of compositions every year and has rightly garnered a great deal of popularity and performance options. Many call his music “conservative” or “neo-Classical,” and while there is truth residing in each of these terms, his art is far broader than that, as are the ensembles that he composes for. His voice is perhaps not distinctive and unique, but in my experience these days, few are, except for those I can’t stand and whom I question as to whether it is really music they are writing to begin with.


Raymond Tuttle covered a “complete” Liebermann flute album on Koch in Fanfare 27:3 to generally good notice, and while I did not hear that album I have no doubts as to Alexa Still’s abilities, having heard her play other composers. David Fedele, whose name heads up the ensemble here (along with cellist Matthew Herren and pianist Robert Koenig), found hanging out in the summers at the International Institute for Young Artists at the University of Kansas, plays with a gracious manner that feels especially attuned to Liebermann’s more spectral and wandering moments (especially the opening Lento of the Flute Sonata). I can’t imagine it done better, though Still’s fans might argue. But the real prizes here, and composed (2002, 2004) too late for inclusion on the Koch disc—which ran out of space anyway—are the two new flute trios. Lieberman has upped the ante in these works and has created some wonderfully evocative and siren-like pieces that glue the attention even when the specific momentary musical matters defy such attraction. Aside from the classical elegance of the first and the superior lyrical leanings of the second—where the flute and cello often play in octaves, and often with the cello the higher line, his mood setting is such that he gets away with murder during the down times. You have been so seduced into his world that the times of musical neutrality become anxious waiting rooms for the next excursion into his mysterious moods.


The sound is excellent, with all instruments allowed the requisite amount of resonance. This is truly an important album of some moment, and for me a mid-season Want List nomination.


FANFARE: Steven Ritter

Phillip Evans Plays Béla Bartók

This is a very fine live performance of Mahler's Fourth. Gerard Schwarz has many ideas about the music, and they work very well. Consider, for example, his adroit tempo adjustments in the first movement's third subject group, bringing out all of the music's playful character. In the scherzo he slows down dramatically for the trio sections, but justifies his choice by encouraging the woodwinds to project extra vividly, and they certainly rise to the occasion. The Adagio is aptly serene in the calm portions, anguished yet appropriately flowing in the minor-key variations. The "heaven opening" climax toward the end sounds grand, but not shrill.

Schwarz has found an excellent soloist in soprano Maureen Mackay, indeed one of the better singers to take the part. She has the right lightness of tone, the right innocence, and no feeling of strain in her upper register. The audience is very quiet, but for some reason the recording level is substantially higher in the scherzo than elsewhere, which is distracting. Still there's a lot to enjoy here, and if you know the symphony well you will surely relish many of the details that distinguish this performance and give it real personality.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

SZYMANOWSKI: Nocturne / CHOPIN: Nocturnes / WIENIAWSKI: Capr

MAHLER Symphony No. 6, “Tragic” • Gerard Schwarz, cond; Royal Liverpool PO • ARTEK 46 (78:36)


Gerard Schwarz’s Mahler cycle, recorded in 2005 but appearing on silver disc just now, continues with this solid reading of the Sixth Symphony. While for me it misses the deeply felt angst of the Bernstein-Vienna Philharmonic version (DG 427697, on two CDs), it certainly would not discredit anyone’s collection. In many ways it resembles Bernard Haitink’s first Concertgebouw version, which I always rather liked until Bernstein pinned me to the wall.


One feature of this recording that scores points over both Haitink and Bernstein is the transparent, almost 3D orchestral detail achieved by engineer David Pigott, and in this very difficult work I commend him highly. One of my complaints with so many modern classical recordings, particularly orchestral, is the tendency towards ambient goop that distorts details. Schwarz and Pigott have outdone themselves in making every string pizzicato, bell, piccolo, and muted horn passage sound with extraordinary clarity. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so particular about this aspect had this been a symphony of Haydn or Beethoven (though they, too, deserve proper balance), but I’ve always considered Berlioz and Mahler to be special cases, which is one reason I have (and appreciate) very few monophonic recordings of either composers’ work. In addition to the instrumental clarity, Pigott also uses the wide range that digital recording makes available to present a “terraced” sound in which one can discern quite clearly the many fine gradations that Schwarz achieves—not only pianos and mezzo-fortes and fortissimos, but also pianissimos, sforzatos, and every shade in between.


For a good comparison of Bernstein’s reading to Schwarz’s, listen to the last few minutes of the first movement. With Schwarz, everything is in place, conducted at steady tempos that almost border on metronomic, the varied sections of the orchestra diverging and coalescing towards a splendid climax. Then listen to Bernstein: a flatter perspective, not as discrete an orchestral texture, and a tempo that works its way from somewhat slow and trudging to a martial pounding that almost seems to want to burst your speakers. The orchestral sound is much rawer, but so is the feeling: the flutes and trumpets almost sound hysterical, at the end of their emotional rope. A tightening of tempo is suddenly relaxed for a few seconds before the last eight bars come crashing down around you.


Schwarz and annotator Barbara Heninger are at odds on the order of the middle movements. Heninger says that though the second score edition and Mahler’s own performances placed the Andante before the Scherzo, “he is said to have wished his original order restored in later years. It is in this order, Scherzo followed by Andante, that the symphony is generally presented, as it is in today’s concert.” She then discusses Scherzo before Andante, but Schwarz follows the opposite route. Personally, I like this sequence better, if for no other reason than that the Scherzo resembles the first movement too closely to follow it immediately. Schwarz’s reading of the Andante suspends time: one is not aware of a forward momentum so much as a floating of slow notes in space. I’m not sure I like the effect, but it is different and consistent with Mahler’s own description of it as an ascent into the calm, pastoral atmosphere of the hills.


The third movement (Scherzo here) is the most disappointing, completely lacking the grotesque feeling that both Haitink and Bernstein achieved, though it is beautifully played. The opening of the last movement also misses the ecstasy of yearning for something better that is later countermanded by the mounting tension, but again one hears orchestral details not always evident in others’ recordings. The hammer blows are stunningly engineered, and the closing minutes of the Symphony are as powerful as anyone’s.


A good reading, then; a little quirky at times but showing an independent mind filtering the score and finding a few different things in it. I still wouldn’t consider it a first choice. Bernstein-Vienna and Haitink’s readings of the score strike me as more valid, but it’s certainly worth a listen.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Avery Fisher Career Grant winner, violinist Jennifer Frautschi is capturing the attention of audiences and critics round the world, with edge-of-the-seat performances of an adventuresome, wide-ranging repertoire from Bach and Schumann to Stravinsky and Davidovsky. Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debut series, she made her New York recital debut at Weill Hall in April, 2004. As part of the European Concert Hall Organizationís Rising Stars recital series, Ms. Frautschi made debuts in ten of Europeís most celebrated concert venues. Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi was a student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles and the University of Southern California School of Music. She also attended Harvard, the New England Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann.

BORODIN: String Quartet No. 2 / SMETANA: String Quartet No.

About this album Elmar Oliveira writes: "All of the pieces are works that I have always wanted to record. These works have particular connection to specific violinists in my memories. The Massenet Meditation from Thais, for instance, is one of the first pieces I heard the remarkably gifted Michael Rabin play. The beauty of his tone and purity of musical expression made a lasting impression on me. The transcriptions of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Ravel's Valse Nobles et Sentimentales, Achron's Hebrew Melody and Kroll's Banjo and Fiddle are pieces every serious violinist associates with the great Heifetz. No doubt those performances remain in our minds and hearts forever. In the Smetana Aus Der Heimat, as well as the Novacek Perpetuum Mobile and Mussorgsky's Hopak, I pay remembrance to a friend and mentor Nathan Milstein. These are pieces I associate exclusively with him, and his performances of these works glisten in my memory as if I heard them yesterday. And, of course, there is the great Kreisler who if not for his inimitable style and golden tone the violin world would be half empty. These are the memories I cherish and the reasons for this album. With this CD I hope that I can take my listeners back in time, to an era when one could express the special joy and uniqueness of the golden age of violin playing." 4009410974570 409410974572 Audite AUD 97457 "NOVAK, Jan

FRAUTSCHI, Jennifer: Solovision

"The recording of Mahler’s Ninth offers a fine interpretation, with a particularly well conceived reading of the first movement. As spacious as his conception of this piece may be, it is also possesses a dynamism that makes it compelling...As he would do later with the Ninth, Schwarz maintains a sense of direction that allows the structure to emerge in the opening movement of the First Symphony." - Opera Today

Since his first-place victory in the 1987 International Naumburg Competition, pianist Anton Nel has maintained a busy career divided between performing and teaching, and he appears to be playing as wonderfully as ever. The virile demeanor, forceful articulation, and subtle rubatos Nel brings to Mozart's A major sonata freshen up this overplayed staple with little trace of self-conciousness. A strong sense of projection and robust lyricism similarly inform Sibelius' D-flat Romance, a work that often comes off sounding flaccid and inconsequential. Nel's vivacious, idiomatic account of Granados' Allegro de Concierto does full justice to the composer's slithering syntax and meaty textures. And if you like your Debussy sinewy and linear rather than tinted and misty, Nel's Estampes certainly will please you with its strong left-hand underpinnings in the outer pieces and hotheaded central climax in La Soirée dans Grenade.


At times you might wish for likeminded abandon and big dynamic contrasts throughout Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, yet there's much to savor in Nel's crisp and clean pianism. I especially like his terse, headlong, and sparely pedaled treatment of the Adagio, and how his light touch keeps the difficult Allegro airborne and unclotted. In sum, this is a solid and often stimulating release from a pianist who records all too little.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com