Themes of art song, poetry, and spirituality run throughout Poème Mystique, the second solo album by Korean-American violinist Danbi Um. Following Danbi’s acclaimed solo debut album Much Ado – a showcase for her virtuosity and gilded tone – Poème Mystique explores works of lyrical beauty and profound personal expression. Richard Strauss’ Violin Sonata, written in the year he met his future wife, is imbued with romance and intimacy. Ernest Bloch’s Second Violin Sonata, the title work of the album, is by turns ecstatic, spiritual, and fantasy-like. Inspired by a dream, Bloch incorporates a vast range of spirituality, including motifs from his Jewish-themed works, the Gregorian Credo, Mass Kyrie, and traditional Amen. Danbi weaves two shorter works amongst the sonatas. Gabriel Fauré’s Après un rêve (“After a dream”), originally a French art song, becomes an exquisite song without words in this transcription for violin. The album concludes with Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria, likewise originally for voice and piano, presented here in an arrangement by August Wilhelm. Danbi’s refined collaborator is Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen. Together they deliver a performance that is at once technically virtuosic and emotionally nuanced.

Versatile cellist Christoph Croisé indulges in his passion for romantic Russian repertoire, coming together with close collaborators violinist Andrey Baranov and pianist Alexander Panfilov for a recording of works by a young Rachmaninoff. All of the works on this album were written before 1917, the year that the composer left Russia in the wake of the Revolution, and eventually emigrated to the United States.

The prodigious Rachmaninoff wrote his single-movement Trio élégiaque in G minor in 1892, when he was just 18 years old. A year later, he put pen to paper to compose his second Trio élégiaque, in D minor, on the eve of the death of his friend and mentor Tchaikovsky, to whom he dedicated the work. Both trios are imbued with an air of nostalgia and melancholy that belie the composer’s youthfulness. Christoph and his colleagues offer as encores a selection of songs arranged for piano trio by Alexander Panfilov: “How Fair This Spot” and "Lilacs" from Rachmaninoff’s 12 Romances, Op. 21, part of a set written during his honeymoon; and "The Dream" and "Daisies" from his Op. 38 collection Six Romances (1916). The album ends appropriately with an arrangement of "Autumn Song" from Tchaikovsky’s solo piano work The Seasons.

If you’ve seen the Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro”, you’ve seen and heard The Orchestra Now, the exceptional ensemble that appears in the movie’s Tanglewood Music Festival scene. The Orchestra Now (TON), a New York-based graduate-level training orchestra comprised of the most vibrant young musicians from around the globe, was founded by conductor, educator and music historian Leon Botstein, whose insatiable curiosity has resulted in rescuing countless musical works from oblivion. Their first recording for AVIE, “The Lost Generation”, brings together three German-speaking composers who were contemporaries of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, but whose music became supressed by historical events of the 20th century.

In November 2022, TON gave the US premiere of Hugo Kauder’s Symphony No. 1, a “splendid” work that “made a splash” (New York Classical Review). The largely self-taught Moravian-born composer had a distinguished career in Vienna until he was forced to flee the Nazis and arrived in New York in 1938. The first of Kauder’s five symphonies was dedicated to Alma Mahler. Whilst his musical language is rooted in the tradition of Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler, he forged an individual voice with his ease and flexibility of harmonic and metrical shifts.

German-born, Austrian composer Hans Erich Apostel studied with Schoenberg and Berg. His works incorporated his mentors’ expressionism and 12-tone methods in equal measure. The Nazis deemed Apostel’s music “degenerate”, but he lived out his life in Vienna until his death in 1972. His Variations on a theme by Haydn, performed frequently in the mid-20th century, is an homage to the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 103, the “Drum Roll, which itself comprises variations on a theme.

Adolf Busch, one of the most celebrated violinists and chamber musicians of the 20th century, was also a prolific composer. A staunch opponent of Nazism, he left his native Germany, arriving first in Switzerland and eventually the United States in 1939. A late Romantic compositional style imbues his Variations on an Original Theme, originally for piano four hands and presented to his wife as a Christmas present in 1944. Busch’s longtime chamber music partner and son-in-law, the pianist Rudolf Serkin, frequently performed the work with his son Peter, who made this orchestration of his grandfather’s composition, in a familial labor of love.

The spirited New York City-based ensemble East of the River debuts on AVIE with "Ija Mia: Music of the Sephardic Diaspora." Directed by the dynamic duo of internationally renowned "recorder virtuosos" (The New York Times) Daphna Mor (a regular collaborator with Apollo’s Fire) and Nina Stern, the album is inspired by love and commemoration of the musicians’ collective cultural backgrounds – Nina’s Venetian Jewish ancestry, and Daphna’s Ladino heritage. Spanning a vast range of Sephardic folk and traditional musics - stories and dances, prayers and anthems – "Ija Mia" is by turns haunting, soulful, and exuberant. Daphna and Nina’s cosmopolitan collaborators include an astonishing assortment of musicians, including renowned Armenian-American oud player Ara Dinkjian, Silk Road percussionist Shane Shanahan, the phenomenal Israeli bassist Tal Mashiach, and Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Zafer Tawil on qanún, violin, and percussion.

Harpist Lauren Scott’s debut album, Beyond the Horizon, was a breakout sensation. Her scintillating follow-up, Sea of Stars, promises to follow in its footsteps. Lauren explains: “Scintillating … the act of light hitting a many faceted object, sparks flying or the execution of something with panache and brilliance. The harp, with its quicksilver sound and ever-shifting resonances, easily fits these definitions.” Sea of Stars casts Lauren’s own compositions and arrangements alongside original works by Grace Evangeline Mason, Rüdiger Opperman and Monika Stadler. Throughout, Sea of Stars is a brilliant showcase for Lauren’s inimitable style and virtuosity, demonstrating her consummate skill as both a lever and pedal harpist.

Celebrating the sesquicentenary of Charles Ives’ birth, New England-based pianist and Ives scholar nonpareil Donald Berman releases a recording of the composer’s “Concord Sonata” using his own newly prepared edition which reveals fresh insights into the iconic work. Berman’s immersion into Ives’ sound world began under the tutelage of pianist John Kirkpatrick who gave the New York premiere of the “Concord Sonata” in 1939. Throughout many years of study and reflection, Berman discovered numerous notes and alterations that Ives made within the Concord’s manuscript pages, each one “a step toward realising his vision for a three-dimensional auditory experience.” Berman concluded that the first movement of the Concord, as Ives imagined it, is quite different than today’s commonly accepted version; his new edition includes two pages worth of material, masterfully recorded here for the first time.

The album opens with the elegiac “The St. Gaudens (Black March)”, referring to the eponymous sculpture in the Boston Common that depicts the Massachusetts 54th, the first Union army regiment of African American soldiers, that is known widely in its orchestral version as the first movement of Ives’ Three Places in New England.

Sebastian Bohren’s world-premiere recording of “In Evening Light”, the second violin concerto by Pēteris Vasks, comes 25 years after the celebrated Latvian composer’s first, “Distant Light”, one of the most successful, oft-performed and recorded concertos by a living composer. “In Evening Light” seems certain to follow in its forebear’s footsteps, destined to become another modern classic.

“In Evening Light” – a three-movement, 38-minute work – is beautiful and contemplative, evoking a twilit world immersed in muted colours and permeated with deep shadows and dramatic contrasts. The album ends as it begins, with another atmospheric Vasks work. “Lonely Angel” is an homage to his late mother who lived through practically the whole of the 20th century. The composer explains, “This piece is the vision of an angel flying alone above humankind, filled with grief at how cruel and aggressive we are to each other. Like a guardian angel he touches the earth with his wings and in that way offers us comfort and healing.”

Sandwiched in between is the contrasting, classical-era Rondo in B minor by Franz Schubert, arranged for violin and strings. Preceding Vasks’ works by nearly two centuries, Schubert similarly revels in exploring ambiance and spaciousness.

San Francisco-based early music ensemble Cantata Collective continues its major series of J. S. Bach’s choral works with the Mass in B Minor, a towering testament of sacred music and the composer’s crowning achievement of his final years. With celebrated conductor Nicholas McGegan, four of today’s most distinguished early music vocal soloists and a refined chamber choir, this live recording exudes a spontaneity that reveals the depth and passion of Bach’s glorious affirmation of faith.

REVIEW:

Some of the most impressive choral singing in this recording is heard in the central three choruses of the Symbolum Nicenum, the crowning glory and some of Bach’s best music in the entire Mass. The Cantata Collective’s choral forces shine in their expressive use of color and dynamic shading in the long arching lines of “Et incarnatus est” and “Crucifixus” and are able to hold their own in “Et resurrexit” — due, in part, to McGegan’s careful balancing and phrasing.

— EarlyMusicAmerica.org

Japanese-American cellist Yoshika (“Yoshi”) Masuda makes his recording debut with Hidden Flame, an album containing music by Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, Rita Strohl, Nadia Boulanger, Maria Theresia von Paradis, and a world-premiere by Reena Esmail.

The works on Hidden Flame span over two centuries and collectively tell a story of how women have moved from the margins of the classical repertoire to somewhere closer to the centre. Whilst the quality of the music these women composed is indisputable, there are also fascinating background stories for all these pieces which often illustrate the personal and societal pressures faced by creative women in history.

Yoshi describes the album’s concept: “to present the compositions of women as masterpieces by truly great composers. Musicians and music lovers often feel confident that great works that exist in this world must already be a part of the standard repertoire. However, this album proves that there are hidden gems that deserve more recognition are still out there! It is my aspiration that, in encountering both the familiar and the unfamiliar within this collection of pieces, listeners will transcend considerations of gender or race and recognise these compositions simply as expressions of profound beauty crafted by masterful composers”.

French pianist Vincent Larderet inaugurates a definitive, four-volume series of the composer’s complete works for solo piano, signifying Vincent’s fulfilment of a decades-long devotion his compatriot. This first-ever Urtext compilation of Ravel’s complete works for solo piano is a landmark collection that embraces numerous world-premiere renditions. Many works, whilst familiar, are prepared and recorded from personal scores that were annotated by pianist and pedagogue Vlado Perlemuter during his private study and close collaboration with the composer between 1927 and 1929. These scores reveal invaluable insights to interpretation of such aspects as tempi, pedalling, phrasing and tonal colours. Through his tutelage under Perlemuter’s student Carlos Cebro, Vincent Larderet is a direct inheritor of Ravel’s ethos and interpretive style.

Volume 1 of Vincent’s Ravel survey includes original solo piano versions of the popular Valses nobles et sentimentales and Pavane pour une infante de´funte, alongside the five-movement suite Miroirs and Sonatine.

The world-premiere recording of the complete Violin Concerto in E Minor by Belgian virtuoso violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe has arrived! Following the recent discovery of a first movement, further manuscripts which complete the work have come to light – one a full orchestration, others for violin and piano – which were found on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Philippe Graffin’s close collaboration with Ysaÿe aficionado Xavier Falques led to a page-by-page analysis and painstaking reconstruction of the musical puzzle pieces, resulting in this recording of the full, three-movement concerto which displays Ysaÿe’s trademark ardour, intensity and originality.

For reasons unknown, Ysaÿe abandoned his Violin Concerto in E minor in 1885, but some years later embarked on another, Poème concertant, which was also recently discovered in manuscript form and is imbued with passion and the love Ysaÿe felt for his pupil Irma Sethe. Their love was mutual but their relationship could not endure, possibly sealing the fate of Poème concertant which lay undiscovered for over a century but is now brought back to life with this world-premiere recording.

Philippe rounds out the recording with three Ysaÿe gems for violin and piano: 2 Mazurkas de Salon, Op.10, works the violinist / composer frequently performed and gained popularity throughout Europe and Russia in his lifetime; and Rêve d’enfant (“A child’s dream”), which he dedicated to his youngest son Antoine.

The world-premiere recording of Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel’s Requiem marries the placidity of plainchant to complex rhythmic energy, powerfully communicating an intensely personal listening experience.

“In my music, peace and restlessness co-exist continually”. So explains award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel, describing his setting of the Requiem, which marries the placidity of plainchant to complex rhythms and meters. Scored for chamber orchestra, choir and solo soprano, and setting the complete standard Latin text, this world-premiere recording posseses a steady current of energy that propels the work ever-forward, whilst Chris’ contemplative musical language enhances a sense of intimacy that makes its communicative power feel intensely personal.

1883 was a fruitful year for cello composition as Christoph Croisé’s new recording reveals. That year marked Edvard Grieg’s return to composition after a period of conducting the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Sonata in A minor, his only work for cello and piano. Also that year, Richard Strauss was writing for the same combination at the age of just 19, producing his Sonata in F. Gabriel Fauré embarked on a cello sonata in 1880; only the slow movement transpired and was published and premiered as the stand-alone piece Élégie in 1883. Christoph’s regular performing partner, Oxana Shevchenko, joins him in this beautifully balanced recording of works for cello and piano.

Valentine Michaud was the first ever saxophone soloist to perform with the Vienna Philharmonic. She and her regular collaborator, pianist Akvilé Silekaité, comprise the award-winning AKMI Duo. They debut on AVIE with Beyond the Wall, an album of contrasting 20th century sonatas linked by history and geography. Edison Denisov’s Soviet serialism, tinged with forbidden jazz influences, took a cue from the American modernism of William Albright. Austro-Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff embraced avant garde and jazz idioms, leading the Nazis to brand his music “degenerate”; he perished in the Wülzburg prison camp in 1942. Paul Hindemith fell in and out of favour with the Nazis, leading him to immigrate to Switzerland and later America. His popular Saxophone Sonata is by turns lyric and dramatic, imbued with irony and humour.