R E V I E W S:

"This follow-up to La Serenissima’s anthology ‘Vivaldi in Arcadia’, is particularly interesting for the Concertos RV212 and RV554a, which have been reconstructed by Adrian Chandler. The former is a violin concerto, composed in 1712 for a festival in Padua and played by Vivaldi himself. A set of parts surviving in Dresden was damaged; the booklet note remarks, seemingly without irony, that this was ‘whilst in safe-keeping’ during the Second World War. Chandler has added the harmony here and there, and selected one of the three slow movements and two cadenzas. The result is a delight... In Laudate pueri Dominum, Mhairi Lawson sings with great passion, wonderfully responsive to the meaning of the words. In the surprisingly meditative Gloria, her vibrant soprano and Chandler’s violin sigh like lovers.The Salve regina is just as good...
Chandler’s direction is as gripping as his playing. As ever, one is lost in admiration at the skills of the girls who sang and played at the Ospedale della Pietà, to whom this is a noble tribute."
- Richard Lawrence, GRAMOPHONE

"The mastermind behind this terrific CD, Adrian Chandler, is not only Director of La Serenissima and a violinist of flair and distinction; he is also a meticulous scholar, as his excellent booklet notes reveal. He has clearly engaged in much fruitful research in preparing for this recording, even carrying out imaginative reconstruction where necessary.
The result is a rich musical treat. All of this music was written by the ‘Red Priest’ for use in the Chapel of the Pietá, the Convent School for orphans (or ‘foundlings’) in Venice. The music on the generously filled disc consists of three instrumental concerti and two solo vocal cantatas, Laudate Pueri and Salve Regina. These are sung by the Scottish soprano Mhairi Lawson, who turns in thoroughly delightful performances... This, and all the other instrumental music, is realised superbly by the players of La Serenissima, the enlarged chamber ensemble named after the city of its inspiration; the name being, of course, a poetic soubriquet for Venice itself. The string sound is pure and bold, yet capable of great subtlety when required. They are underpinned by a continuo section of great richness: the harpsichord of Joseph McHardy, the theorbo (bass lute) of Richard Sweeney, and the organ playing of Robert Howarth.
Despite the scholarship, there is nothing ‘academic’ about the performance of this music. Indeed, it is exuberant and often full of élan and humour."
- Gwyn Parry-Jones, MusicWeb International

The 200th anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn’s birth in 2009 raised the popularity of his music to new heights. This new recording of his beloved Piano Trios is a rarity, performed on period instruments. The Benvenue Fortepiano Trio is lead by the enterprising violinist Monica Huggett, whose numerous recordings for Avie have consistently resulted in critical acclaim and sales success. Her partners here are two of America’s foremost period instrument practitioners, cellist Tanya Tomkins (making her second appearance on Avie) and Eric Zivian playing on an 1841 Viennese fortepiano.

John Wilson is probably best known for his light-entertainment orchestral work, especially his restorations of classic film scores – a background which, it turns out, equips him well for this anthology of British musical landscapes. Most celebrate an idealised pastoral view of rustic Avalon...George Butterworth's Two English Idylls", based on Sussex folk songs, and the title of Arnold Bax's "The Happy Forest" aptly conveying its excessively cheerful tone, which seems to derive from some pre-Wordsworthian Edenic paradise. But Vaughan Williams is the king of this domain: "The Lark Ascending" was recently voted Britain's favourite classical piece, and is airily rendered here by James Clark." - Andy Gill, The Independent

Classical Music

Following a critically acclaimed recording of music from the Eton Choirbook, More Divine Than Human (AV 2167), The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford returns with a second volume from the vast collection of 15th-century English sacred music, Choirs of Angels. The works range from John Browne's richly scored eight-part O Maria salvatoris mater, the first piece in the Eton Choirbook, to William Cornysh's exquisite miniature Ave Maria mater Dei, the choirbook's shortest work. The compositional range in the Eton Choirbook demands extraordinary virtuosity from its performers, and Stephen Darlington and his choir of men and boys do this glorious music tremendous justice. "hugely appealing ... natural, spacious, rich, expressive performances." - The Sunday Times "They do a fantastic job and the soundworld is terrific." - BBC Music Magazine

Unaffectedly straightforward with a disarming simplicity in which charm lifts imperceptibly into the most intense utterance, moving us compellingly through the salon-like early pieces to the increasingly desolate soundscapes of old age. Exemplary. Classic. Spellbinding.



FAURÉ Nocturnes (complete) • Charles Owen (pn) • AVIE 2133 (79:36)


Fauré’s son, Philippe Fauré-Fremiet, described the composer’s playing: “His hands were strong and looked heavy; in fact they were supple and light. He hardly raised them above the keys but was able to obtain any effect he wanted. He had a horror of virtuosity, of rubato and effects aimed at making the audience swoon. He followed the printed notes meticulously, keeping strict time. What was so overpowering about his playing lay below the surface, in the areas of thought and emotion where teaching is helpless to guide you.” To which Jessica Duchen, in her annotations for David Jalbert’s unfortunate tilt at the nocturnes (Endeavour 1014, Fanfare 30:1), adds, “To play Fauré’s piano works successfully, a pianist must have a tremendously flexible technique, a strong sense of contrapuntal voicing and, perhaps above all, the ability to convey those sensuous, intertwining lines and subtle harmonies without allowing structural rigor to slacken. While playing this music with no expressive fluctuation whatsoever could seem excessive, a healthy respect for his ‘pudeur’—modesty veiling the immense sensuality beneath—is as essential to faithful Fauré interpretation as good posture is to the dance.” Both observations describe Charles Owen’s way with the nocturnes—unaffectedly straightforward, rhythmically steady (but breathing and never rigid or inflexible), the pedal sparingly used, allowing a light touch (graciously deft in animated passages) to articulate with absolute clarity while imparting moments of aquarelle-like color (rather than the heavily sustained impasto of the average pianist), all making for a disarming simplicity in which charm lifts imperceptibly into the most intense utterance, moving us compellingly through the salon-like early pieces, the opulent ecstasies of the middle nocturnes, and the increasingly desolate and despairing soundscapes of old age. Duchen confects a final elegance with other, no less gracefully penetrating, annotations. Avie captures Owen closely, at the optimal point where clarity flares into spaciousness. Exemplary. Classic. Spellbinding. And enthusiastically recommended.


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

Pastoral tableau and earthly delights are on display in this vibrant and varied selection of Vivaldi’s arias and concertos for mixed forces. Vivaldi in Arcadia, the follow-up recording to Adrian Chandler’s Avie debut, Per Monsieur Pisendel (AV 0018), features the expanded forces of his ensemble La Serenissima, with the stunning string soloists engaging in a contest of style and beauty. The sparkling soprano of Mhairi Lawson, a member of English National Opera, joins them for arias from Dorilla in Tempe.

Adrian Chandler’s passionate explorations of Vivaldi’s music have led to numerous critically acclaimed performances, including the UK premieres of several of the Red Priest’s stage works.

TUDOR CITY • New York Polyphony • AVIE AV2186 (62:51 Text and Translation)


Music of BYRD, CORNYSH, TALLIS, LAMBE, DUNSTABLE, TAVERNER, TYE, A. SMITH, ANON


This four-man vocal ensemble, based in the Big Apple, has given its second disc a title with a double meaning. Tudor City is a familiar residential landmark in midtown Manhattan, and the program consists largely of music of the Tudor era. Dunstable’s Speciosa facta es and one anonymous piece from the Worcester fragments are earlier than the Tudors, while four works by Andrew Smith (b. 1970), commissioned by the ensemble, are contemporary. Two of his pieces are juxtaposed with earlier works using the same texts, Flos regalis (the Worcester piece) and Magnificat by Taverner.


I cannot find Flos regalis on any previous recording, going all the way back to Denis Stevens’s full LP devoted to the Worcester fragments. The title appears as the cantus firmus of a Mass by Walter Frye, twice recorded ( Fanfare 16:6 and 24:2), but the Mass has been linked to a lost antiphon or a lost responsory, neither of which matches this text after the first two words. The Dunstable is familiar from the Gothic Voices (11:2, reissued in 33:6) and the Orlando Consort (24: 1), but there were three earlier versions in the LP era. Lambe’s Stella caeli has been recorded by Harry Christophers three times, for Meridian (9:4), Hyperion, and Collins (17:5), and by the Orlando Consort (26:4). For Gaude Virgo Mater Christi , William Cornysh should not be dated as “died 1523,” for the composer of this work, which survives in the Eton Choirbook, died in 1502. It has been recorded by Andrew Carwood (21:2), Peter Phillips (12:5), and Harry Christophers (9:2). Most of the Tallis selections comprise five of the nine brief tunes for Archbishop Parker’s psalter, recorded complete by Peter Phillips (10:3, since reissued) and Alistair Dixon (in the sixth volume of his complete Tallis). The longest work on the program is Taverner’s Magnificat à 4, recorded most recently by Harry Christophers (17:4).


The difference between this all-male ensemble and the other groups (only Orlando is all-male, but it has a countertenor on top) are evident. To compare only the closest rival, this group takes the Lambe work a whole tone lower than the Orlando, and the latter is noticeably livelier, though not all that much faster overall. The new version of the Dunstable is even lower than the Orlando rendition, but here this group moves right along. So if you should have a sizable collection of these pieces, the new disc will demonstrate equally fine interpretations with a darker tone of voice. This is an ensemble to reckon with, and its versions are worthy of close comparison.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Includes work(s) for chorus by various composers. Ensemble: Handel and Haydn Society Chorus. Conductor: Grant Llewellyn.

R E V I E W S:

"A highly visible figure as leader of the renowned English Consort for the past three decades and, in Canada, as the former music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Trevor Pinnock has recently defected from the podium to resume his career as a keyboard virtuoso with these brilliant performances on the 18th-century Goermans-Taskin French harpsichord from the collection of the University of Edinburgh. The generous selection of 80 minutes includes two 1728 Suites in A minor and E minor flanked by six selections (L’Entretien des Muses, Les Tourbillons, Les Cyclopes, L’Enharmonique, L’Egyptienne and La Poule) from Rameau’s most beguiling character pieces. Avie’s recording of this remarkably well-voiced instrument is exemplary. Special recognition is due to the exquisite tuning of the instrument in French unequal temperament by John Raymond, which allows us to truly appreciate the boldness of Rameau’s tonal excursions."
- Daniel Foley, TheWholeNote.com

You’ve doubtless been wondering about it for some time. Now that the English Consort has folded, what will Trevor Pinnock do? Well, worry no longer. This album provides the answer, at least in part: he’ll record. In a real way, this Rameau is a return to Pinnock’s roots, as he’d performed the Pièces de Clavecin en Concerts with the Gailliard Harpsichord Trio while in his teens, and recorded Rameau’s harpsichord works in the 1970s.

This latest release shows him in excellent form. “La poule” is attentive to rhythmic values, without pushing the poor fowl’s tempo immoderately. The subtle hesitancy at the beginning of each clucking phrase works well, in a piece that is more difficult to play correctly than it seems at first glance. Both the “Musette en Rondeau” and the famed “Tambourin” from the same suite have a folklike insistence on their respective drones that never gets in the way of the relentless but judicious momentum.

While the “Fanfarinette” is faster than that recorded so well by Sophie Yates (Chandos CHAN 0708) and less inclined to maintain the piece’s skipping rhythm, Pinnock still applies notes inégales extensively and to great effect at phrase starts and conclusions. “La triomphante” is moderate and brash, with the strumming effect subtly emphasized: occasionally in the bass chords, or in the figuration, or in the rhythm accorded the right-hand melody. Ornamentation is always sensibly selected.

Pinnock isn’t afraid to bring his own interpretations to the mix on occasion, which is a nice way of saying that at times he moves into areas that turn their back on tradition as it’s currently understood. Is this necessarily wrong? I think you risk the hazard of the die when you enter the game, but Pinnock’s perceptions are interesting, usually convincing, and never made me think for once that I had a party recording on my hands. The A-Minor Sarabande is one good example in the “interesting” camp. Taken at a relatively slow, steady tempo, the ornamentation is paced for a much faster piece. This focuses attention on the stately, gliding theme, though in some instances only the final note of the ornament registers. I don’t consider the results successful, but I can understand the reasoning behind the approach. More persuasive is Pinnock’s unusual handling of “La rappel des oiseaux.” The opening section and close are handled much quicker than usual, emphasizing the repetitive nature of the bird calls, while the middle section is taken slowly and freely, the better to emphasize the shifts in harmony. The harpsichordist makes use as well of his instrument’s 4? set of strings at the start to bring the music up an octave, then switches down to the 8? set for the central section, but only moves up an octave once more midway through the final section. It’s an imaginative effect, and one that again chips away at the prevailing myths that all harpsichords sound alike, and possess no variety of touch...

Pinnock’s harpsichord is a double-manual instrument by Goermans from 1764, significantly modified 20 years later by Taskin. It is a richly beautiful instrument, robust yet capable of delicacy, and caught to perfection with little action noise and just enough resonance to capture the bloom... This is a fine album, and one well worth your purchase.

Barry Brenesal, FANFARE

Augustin Hadelich’s first major concerto recording paired the Violin Concertos of Sibelius and Thomas Adès (AV 2276). Universally acclaimed, it was nominated for a Gramophone Award, was one of The New York Times’ Top Classical Albums of the Year, and was chosen by National Public Radio as one of the broadcaster’s 50 Favorite Albums of 2014, a list that included all genres of music. Augustin follows up with another provocative pairing, the ever-popular and melodious Mendelssohn with Bartók’s iconic Second Violin Concerto. Augustin revels in the concertos’ contrasts, as well as the similarities that emerge when the works are played together. Augustin’s penchant for programming has quickly caught on; as BBC Radio 3’s CD Review noted of the Adès-Sibelius coupling, “It all makes perfect sense in this performance of [Adès’] ‘Concentric Paths’ which in turn makes more sense of the performance of the Sibelius Concerto. It really does work as a double header.” Augustin’s latest, in which he’s superbly supported by his frequent collaborator Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, is sure to strike a significant chord as well.

about the release In a short space of time Augustin Hadelich has become one of the most respected and admired violinists of his generation. Two critically acclaimed and Billboard Classical Chart-topping releases for AVIE, a string of major debuts with the likes of the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco, St. Louis and National Symphony Orchestras, multiple awards including an Avery Fisher Career Grant and Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, have resulted in major media coverage in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer, among many others, and an ever-widening and adoring fan base. On Histoire du Tango, Augustin conjures a dark and sultry night of fiery, hot-blooded dancing. Partnered by award-winning Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, Augustin traces the history of Argentina's national dance in Piazzola's title track, stirs up folk, gypsy and flamenco dances which inspired De Falla's Six Popular Spanish Songs, and tosses off a fusillade of pyrotechnics in works by the pinnacles of 19th-century violin performance, Paganini and Sarasate. critical acclaim for Augustin Hadelich "If a layer of surface noise were added to Augustin Hadelich's recent solo-violin recording on the Avie label, you might think you were hearing a virtuoso out of the Golden Age." - The New Yorker "behind Hadelich's talent was a molten intensity, a determination to explore the music's passionate, earthy sides with gritty articulation and tender lyricism." - Cleveland Plain Dealer "impressive -- intonation dead-on, with a luscious tone and an Old World grace that you don't hear very much from young violinists anymore." - Los Angeles Times "he easily confirmed his place on the shortlist of today's top violin virtuosos" - The Denver Post, on Augustin's New York Philharmonic debut at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival

Monica Huggett and her ensemble Sonnerie scored a hit on Avie with their recording of Handel's Trio Sonatas, Op. 2 (AVI33). They continue their traversal of Handel's chamber works with the Organ Concertos, Op. 4, featuring soloist Matthew Halls, a brilliant young soloist who spins out Handel's endlessly tuneful works with an improvisatory flair that the composer - himself a virtuoso organist - would surely have approved of. On this CD, he plays a replica of a Baroque style chamber organ, built by Jaap Fama and Henk Klop, and owned by the Dutch Bach Society.

R E V I E W S:

"Sonnerie elect to open this delectable recording with the bright, extrovert Concerto No 4, which Handel based on music he had rejected from his autograph of Alcina. Matthew Halls begins this with a fabulous flourish on the organ before Sonnerie launch in, setting the pace for this lively and engaging disc. Halls, using a fascinating Dutch chamber organ which is perfect for the intimately balanced ensemble, plays the solos in Concerto No 6 (the 'harp' concerto) with admirable delicacy and affection...Although Halls is sometimes accompanied only by six musicians, the slow movements are surprisingly lush and evocative. Inspiring interpretations that are a joy from beginning to end"
- David Vickers, GRAMOPHONE

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music