“An album that features composers whose music speaks deeply to me. Music in which I have found a refuge and a wellspring of goodness. Music that is sometimes imbued with finesse, or even purity, fragility, or with meditative gentleness and that can provide an introspection into one's emotions. An IMMERSION in oneself.” (Angèle Dubeau) Angèle Dubeau has pursued a career as a classical musician for over 40 years and has played in as many countries, always with the same passion, zest and generosity. Beyond her virtuosity as a musician, this exceptional woman has other qualities that have earned her a special place in the hearts of her audiences. While her virtuosity and musicality have won over critics, audiences adore Angèle Dubeau for her captivating music, her uncommon gift as a communicator, her generosity, and her outstanding ability to connect with listeners. She has garnered many awards over the years, and she is one of the few classical violinists in the world to earn gold records. She has sold over 600,000 albums over her career, and works from her discography have been streamed over 100 million times in over 100 countries.

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Opera Recording!

Composed in 1911, Bluebeard’s Castle is Béla Bartók’s only opera – a radical masterpiece which has secured a place alongside the other innovative music dramas of the same period, from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande to Berg’s Wozzeck. Planning to write a one-act opera, Bartók settled on a libretto by Béla Balázs with the kind of surreal and/or macabre themes that would soon feature in his two ballets, The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin. The main source for the libretto text was a play by Maeterlinck, a retelling of Perrault’s gruesome tale of Barbe-Bleue, the sinister yet strangely seductive wife-killer. Balázs turned the drama into what he called a ‘mystery play’, however, and his stylization of the story throws the weight of the drama onto stage-setting and music. The single act centers on the successive opening of the castle’s seven doors, and Bartók’s music brings across the horrors of the blood-drenched torture chamber, the steely power of the armory and the glitter of jewels in the treasury as well as the interplay of increasingly feverish questionings from Judit and defiant responses from Bluebeard. Susanna Mälkki and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra have already proved their Bartók credentials with a disc of his ballet scores which was chosen as Record of the Week in BBC Radio 3 Record Review and earned top marks in Diapason and on the website Klassik-Heute. Joined by Mika Kares as Duke Bluebeard and his Judit, the Hungarian mezzo-soprano Szilvia Vörös, the team here performs Bartók’s darkly glittering, shimmering and threatening score in a live recording from 2020.

REVIEW:

Mezzo soprano Szilvia Vörös copes very well with the demands of her role. When the Fifth Door is flung open, Vörös’s scream - for that’s what it is - is simply hair-raising. As always, BIS complete the package with excellent notes, and, in this case, a legible, attractively presented libretto.

Although Mälkki’s Bluebeard doesn’t supplant the best in the catalogue, it deserves a place alongside them; as for the sound, it’s well up to the high standards of the house.

– MusicWeb International

Avishai Cohen, one of the most innovative bassists and composers today, will release Gently Disturbed, his first release with his newly configured trio, from May on his own Razdaz Recordz label. While to outward appearances the trio would seem to be the standard piano-bass-drum formula, the music they've created on Gently Disturbed is far from the standard jazz trio repertoire. Featuring nine original compositions (written either by Cohen or by the trio collaboratively), including one traditional Israeli song, Gently Disturbed is an amalgamation of melody and groove, complexity and simplicity that nearly redefines the concept of jazz. With the departure of long-time pianist Sam Barsh, Cohen has slightly reconfigured his trio with the addition of Israeli pianist Shai Maestro. Since Cohen is an accomplished pianist in his own right and has performed on bass with such acclaimed jazz pianists as Danilo Perez, Brad Mehldau and of course Chick Corea, and because the previous keyboard players in his bands (Sam Barsh and Jason Lindner) have been exceptional, it is even more striking to note that Maestro is just 21 years old. Rounding out the trio is the brilliant Mark Guiliana on drums, who has been playing and touring with Cohen since 2003 and who Modern Drummer Readers Poll 2007 cited as "one of the best up-and-coming stars of today's drumming scene." Cohen's releases on Razdaz, which he founded with manager Ray Jefford in 2003, have consistently earned critical approbation, beginning with 2003's Lyla, followed by at Home in 2005, and through to 2006's critically acclaimed Continuo then followed by last year's Double Live CD/DVD release, As Is... Live at the Blue Note (Razdaz / Half Note).

This recording of the Symphony No.8 (Edition Haas) marks the start and the first live recording of the Bruckner cycle tour, which began in October 2019 in the much-celebrated concert at the Musikvereinssaal in Vienna. The Vienna Philharmonic, who have premiered four out of Bruckner’s 9 symphonies are familiar to his music unlike any other orchestra. With Christian Thielemann they have one of the few Bruckner experts on their side who has since 2000 been a musical partner of the orchestra. Thielemann has also conducted the New Year’s Concert for the first time in 2019.

The Vienna Philharmonic initiated a new Bruckner symphony cycle with Christian Thielemann in 2019. The new cycle is planned to last until 2024, the the 200th anniversary year of Anton Bruckner’s birth. We will release the live performances from the Musikvereinsaal, Vienna.

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REVIEW:

Thielemann draws fulsome, richly burnished playing from the orchestra. Orchestral textures are transparent, and he has a full grasp of the work’s architecture. Each climax is carefully prepared and powerfully executed. Melodic phrases are shaped with great affection and he uses a wide color palette from his players. Every ingredient is there, carefully measured out and expertly blended, poured into the pan and placed into the oven with care. Sony’s engineers capture the Musikverein’s exalted acoustic and the orchestra’s glorious sound with enviable precision and warmth. This is an exceptionally beautiful performance, with orchestral playing that cannot be bettered.

– TheClassicReview.com

Behzod Abduraimov joins Alpha for several recordings, starting with this ‘kaleidoscope of miniatures’ – miniatures that are in fact fairly gigantic, and showcase the Uzbek pianist’s extreme virtuosity and sensitivity. ‘Each movement is in itself a miniature, and taken together they form a kaleidoscope of human emotions and images of all kinds,’ says Behzod Abduraimov. In his view, the pieces in Debussy’s Children’s Corner are not intended for young piano students, but ‘for adults, so that they can immerse themselves in the world of children with a little nostalgia and a lot of humor.’ When it comes to Chopin, ‘each prelude has a different musical essence, creates its own atmosphere. Together they form an arc spanning the distance from the first prelude to the last. So I tried to consider them as a whole.’ Finally, Mussorgsky evokes in ten highly expressive movements the paintings at an exhibition held in posthumous tribute to his friend Viktor Hartmann. A ‘Promenade’ heard several times suggests Mussorgsky himself strolling through the exhibition. For Behzod Abduraimov, the “Promenades” play a key role in this cycle: they create the atmosphere before each painting.

REVIEW:

Each of the three works that Behzod Abduraimov presents in this program consists of small, strongly individual pieces that ultimately add up to more than the sum of their parts. Abduraimov’s impressive interpretations bear this out; he manages to tap into each piece’s character, while unifying them by way of timing and carefully thought out tempo relationships.

In Debussy’s Children’s Corner, for example, the pianist’s measured pace allows breathing room to his distinctions between legato and detached articulation. The foreground and background components emerge in clear and consistent perspective throughout Jimbo’s Lullaby and Serenade for the Doll, while the clipped phrasing of Golliwog’s Cakewalk conveys more bite and rhythmic spring than usual.

Even in a catalog awash with distinctive Chopin Preludes cycles, Abduraimov’s stellar technique, intelligent musicianship, and feeling for nuance stand out. Note No. 3’s alluringly shaded left-hand runs, No. 5’s cross-rhythmic definition, and the crystalline shimmer of No. 8’s busy textures. Abduraimov’s fleet poise in virtuoso showpieces like Nos. 16, 19, 22, and 24 veer closer to the classicism of Pollini’s 1974 traversal than to the improvisatory Argerich or Arrau’s epic dynamism.

A few textual observations: Unlike Pollini, who executes No. 9’s controversial dotted eighth- and 16th-note pattern to conform to the accompanying triplet, Abduraimov plays it as written. However, like Pollini (as well as Alfred Cortot and Ivan Moravec), Abduraimov favors the “traditional” E-natural on the final beat of No. 20’s third measure, rather than the “controversial” Urtext E-flat that Arrau, Rudolf Serkin, and Alexandre Tharaud prefer.

If anything, Abduraimov opens himself more to the inherent drama in Mussorgsky’s Pictures, yet without doing violence to the music. It’s true that the pianist reinforces octaves here and there, and adds effective right-hand tremolos to Gnomus, yet such emendations enhance rather than distract from Mussorgsky’s intentions. Abduraimov’s steady tread in the Promenades allows the music’s asymmetry to speak for itself. He takes his time over Bydlo’s oxcart ostinatos, yet never drags, and eschews the capricious and cutesy tempo changes that younger pianists deem necessary in the Unhatched Chicks Ballet.

The repeated notes of Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle are as perfectly aligned and voiced as the rapid alternating chords of the Limoges Marketplace coda. And to hear how one can produce massively resonating sonorities without banging, check out The Great Gate at Kiev’s climactic pages. Debussy, Chopin, and Mussorgsky add up to a triumphant triumvirate in Abduraimov’s hands, together with Alpha’s first-class engineering.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Jed Distler)

Classical Music

Also available on Blu-ray

Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words is a ballet feature film created by the International Emmy Award-winning Michael Nunn and William Trevitt. It stars the dancers of The Royal Ballet in Kenneth MacMillan’s classic ballet and is set to Sergei Prokofiev’s original score. Highlighting the essence of MacMillan’s world-renowned choreography, Nunn and Trevitt’s Romeo and Juliet takes us into the action with striking intimacy. Through detailed portrayals by The Royal Ballet dancers, we experience Shakespeare’s iconic characters in a new and intimate way, and this groundbreaking film captures the kind of extraordinary performances that have earned The Royal Ballet their world-class reputation. Filmed on location, Nunn and Trevitt’s Romeo and Juliet has been re-imagined for the camera, in a production that is internationally recognized as being at the zenith of dance storytelling. This is a story everyone knows, told in the universal language of dance, presented in a way never seen before.

Now regarded as one of the world’s leading soloists on his instrument, Pablo Sáinz-Villegas embodies “the soul of the Spanish guitar” and has long been internationally acclaimed as an ambassador of Spanish culture. He is the first guitarist in almost four decades to be invited by the Berliner Philharmoniker to perform in the Berlin Philharmonie, and also the first guitarist within that period to perform at the orchestra’s traditional New Year’s Eve concert. At the end of 2020 he will play Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez under Kirill Petrenko. After some thirty prizes at international competitions and after concerts in over forty countries Pablo Sáinz-Villegas is rightly seen as the worthy successor of the legendary father of the classical guitar, Andrés Segovia. On the Sony Classical label he takes his place in the famous tradition of outstanding guitarists that includes John Williams and Julian Bream.

When supreme virtuosity is coupled with lightness of touch, when passion is combined with melancholy and when the six strings of the guitar vibrate like a single heartbeat, then Pablo Sáinz-Villegas is in his element. For his latest album this exceptional artist has chosen ten works that are especially close to his heart: “Spanish music represents a blend of different influences,” he explains, because “the harmonies, rhythms and melodies of a whole range of folk traditions” come together here. These traditions are not just Arab and Christian but others, too. In the music that has been written for the Spanish guitar, listeners may recognize “the voice of an entire nation”. Here is a language based on “the centuries-old peaceful coexistence of a variety of different cultures”.

“Welcome to my country, which is ready to open its heart to you.” Pablo Sáinz-Villegas’s latest album features some of the best-known works ever written for the guitar. But it is two composers above all who are central to his interest: Francisco Tárrega, who is represented by Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Capricho Árabe, Gran jota de concierto and Lágrima, while Isaac Albéniz’s contributions include Asturias and Mallorca. “I have a particularly close relationship with each of these pieces as they represent a different part of the Spain that I love so much.” Taken together, the works that have been recorded here form nothing more nor less than “the essence and soul of the Spanish guitar”. Among the central sources of inspiration of these works is folk music, notably the jota, a dance that Pablo Sáinz-Villegas often performed in his youth. The Intermezzo from Gerónimo Giménez’s La boda de Luis Alonso constitutes a tribute to the zarzuela, a quintessential Spanish genre that is a synthesis of one-act opera, theatre, drama and comedy.

An exclusive Sony artist, Pablo Sáinz-Villegas was born in Logroño in the La Rioja region of northern Spain. He has given the world premieres of numerous works, including Rounds, the first guitar piece by the Academy Award-winning composer John Williams. In 2018 Pablo Sáinz-Villegas had the privilege of working with Plácido Domingo on a joint album, the successful Volver, leading Domingo to describe him as a true “master of the guitar”. In 2006 Pablo Sáinz-Villegas founded The Legacy of Music Without Borders, a project whose aim is to bring together people in order to encourage a deeper understanding of different cultures. He has already been able to reach over 45,000 children. Pablo Sáinz-Villegas now lives in New York and Madrid.

Carolyn Surrick writes of this new release: “When I called Ronn McFarlane in January to ask if he wanted to play a house concert in April, he checked his calendar and said, “Sure, sounds great!” Members of Ensemble Galilei... are spread across the country, and we don’t usually get together until right before a performance. But Ronn and I live about twenty miles away from each other, so we started rehearsing. February turned to March in this year of COVID-19. There would be no house concerts. But we kept meeting on Saturday mornings... It was a few weeks into March when I turned to him and said, “Hey, let’s make a recording in June.” It was a crazy idea. We didn’t have much shared repertoire... That meant a huge investment of time and energy. I did not receive a resounding affirmative response. But days passed and the reality of the pandemic settled in. Nothing else was going to be happening this spring. No concerts. No tours. Cancellation after cancellation, with no end in sight. “Yes,” he said, “let’s do this.” I called Lindsey Nelson, Ensemble Galilei’s wonderful executive producer, and Collin Rae, the master of strategic marketing at Sono Luminus. I texted our producer, Dan Merceruio. Totally on board. We added rehearsals. Wrote harmony parts. Wrote new music. Arranged our favorite tunes for lute and viola da gamba… All in the shadow of the pandemic. Would we have done this a year ago? Not a chance. We were too busy… The recording exists because of this moment in time...”

REVIEWS:

This instrumental pairing, lute and viola da gamba, occurs only occasionally in Baroque and Renaissance literature. They augment Dowland’s Adew for Master Oliver Cromwell with newly composed works by McFarlane and with arrangements by both players. These are delightfully varied, taking up such works as The Allman Brothers’ Little Martha (originally an acoustic guitar solo by Duane Allman, so not as odd as it sounds), Amazing Grace, and Gounod’s Ave Maria. Some of the selections veer toward the Celtic folk side, including an intriguing version of Blackwater Slide modeled on one by Scottish musician Bert Jansch. Sono Luminus’ sound is, well, luminous, a pleasure throughout. Falling into a class of pandemic-time recordings where musicians rediscovered the enjoyment of home music-making, this is an unusually satisfying example of the genre. 

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)
What is wonderful and becomes most fascinating are the new compositions and the threading of two or three songs into one. Carolyn Surrick’s viola da gamba has a rarity in its ability to provide shadings of emotions that add great chemistry. Equally, Ronn McFarlane’s investments are worthy and in their own right.

– ConcertoNet.com (Christie Grimstad)

This program represents American orchestral music in all of it's verve and expressive variety. Following the sensational success of Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin's Concerto in F was his first foray away from jazz bands into the concert hall, recorded here for the first time in a new critical edition by Timothy Freeze based on the composer's own notation and performances. John Harbison's Remembering Gatsby is a foxtrot that evokes the sonorities of1920s dance bands, while Joan Tower's Sequoia reflects her fascination with these silent giants of the tree world. Walter Piston's contribution to the development of 20th-century American music cannot be underestimated, and his Fifth Symphony successfully blends twelve-tone modernity with reflective profundity and a finale that evokes a spirit of joy and optimism.

When a double volume featuring Ivan Moravec was included in the 1999 “Great pianists of the 20th Century” box set (Philips Records), many a music lover was taken aback. Although Americans knew the Czech artist, owing mainly to the Connoisseur Society, a lot of European listeners and critics had overlooked him – yet the recordings contained in the edition certainly attested to Moravec being a pianist of global calibre. Repertoire magazine referred to him as the “most closely guarded secret of the classical music world”. The 90th anniversary of Ivan Moravec’s birth is a very good reason to for come up with a special project. The most complete collection of his recordings to date, the present Supraphon release encompasses 11 albums and a documentary and unique, previously unseen footage from the Czech Television archives. Moravec recorded his core repertoire for the Connoisseur Society, Supraphon, Dorian, Nonesuch and Vox labels. Some of his recordings are now being released on album for the first time. A number of older recordings have been remastered from the original analogue tapes. The set includes the complete Moravec repertoire of Beethoven, Schumann, Debussy, solo Franck, Janácek and Chopin’s Mazurkas. The booklet provides an exhaustive account of one of the greatest 20th-century pianist‘s artistic development, from the early 1960s to the end of the millennium. Most significantly, the release affords the listener the opportunity to revel in the music that – due to its sheer profundity, myriad colour shades and irresistibly personal delivery – touches one’s very heart. A portrait of a great artist.

The theme of this album is the birth of Christ, reflected in the words and music of twenty-two carols spanning more than six centuries. Some of these carols have long been widely known and loved; others have become so thanks to the annual Christmas Eve Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge; a few are newly written. But all of them focus on the central event of the Christmas story – the birth at Bethlehem – and on the characters in that story: the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and the mother with her child.

John Rutter writes: “This has always been my favorite among the Christmas albums I have devised and conducted, but digital sound restoration techniques have made huge advances in the years since it was recorded and it was time to give it a spring-clean. In remastering it, it has been possible to bring the sound of the choir and the orchestra to life, and I have been able to enjoy it anew. The Cambridge Singers in 1985 were at the top of their game, and the choir list includes at least two singers who are now internationally renowned as soloists. We hope you will enjoy this classic recording in its newly restored form.”

CONTENTS:

• In dulci jubilo
• Ord: Adam lay ybounden
• Christmas Night
• Once, As I Remember
• Howells: A Spotless Rose
• Darke: In the Bleak Midwinter
• Rutter: There Is a Flower
• The Cherry-Tree Carol
• Niles: I Wonder as I Wander
• Rutter: Candlelight Carol
• Tannenbaum
• Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
• A Virgin Most Pure
• Hadley, P: I sing of a maiden
• Ballet: Lute-Book Lullaby
• Cornelius: The Three Kings
• Richard R. Terry: Myn Lyking
• Bach, J S: O Jesulein süß, BWV493
• Ebeling: All my heart this night rejoices
• I Saw a Maiden
  
• Kirkpatrick: Away in a Manger
• Rutter: Nativity Carol

For those who are new to an instrument, the first question is often: where to start? The ‘Best Loved’ series offers an easy answer to that question and a perfect introduction to the wonderful, varied world of classical music. Spotlighting individual instruments in some of the best-loved pieces ever written, and with a mix of solo, chamber and orchestral works, the series provides a convenient introduction to classical music’s infinite variety of instrumental sounds and styles. The focus in these releases is a light and relaxed approach, rather than academic and theoretical: a joyful exploration and celebration of individual instrumental sounds. The present release is devoted to music for trumpet.

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Choral Performance!

** Physical package includes CD and Pure-Audio Blu-Ray with high-resolution and surround formats, and video selections of the world premiere concert and complete liturgical performance. **

Benedict Sheehan’s landmark setting of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in English grows out of the tradition of the great Russian liturgy settings by Rachmaninoff, Gretchaninoff, and Tchaikovsky. Reminiscent of medieval Eastern chant, minimalism, American folk singing, and the high tradition of Western church music, it is also hailed by Metropolitan Tikhon of the Orthodox Church in America as “a new milestone for Orthodoxy in America.”

Sheehan’s sweeping and virtuosic a cappella Liturgy represents a fresh and vibrant voice for choral music today.

The Saint Tikhon Choir was founded in 2015 by Benedict Sheehan, the group’s artistic director, and Abbot Sergius of St. Tikhon’s Monastery. It is the first professional vocal ensemble connected with an Orthodox monastery in America, founded with a mission to foster and build up the American Orthodox choral tradition at the highest artistic level.

ABOUT THE RECORDING

Sheehan’s Liturgy is the first of four planned releases on Cappella Records produced by multi-GRAMMY® Award winner Blanton Alspaugh and the engineering team at Soundmirror. Soundmirror’s outstanding orchestral, solo, opera, and chamber recordings have received more than 100 GRAMMY® nominations and awards, with releases on every major classical label.

This is also the first release of The Saint Tikhon Choir on Cappella Records. The Choir recently recorded a collaboration on Naxos with three other choirs and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Leonard Slatkin, which debuted at #1 on Billboard. They also previously recorded the sacred works of Benedict Sheehan for Saint Tikhon’s Monastery Press.

The 2-disc deluxe set features both CD and PureAudio Blu-ray™ media with high-resolution 2.0 Stereo and 5.0 Surround versions (DSM192K/24bit), recorded in DSD and downloadable to audio servers and devices. The Blu-ray™ also contains three video performances: two concert selections from the world première performance and the complete liturgical première sung at St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC. The accompanying booklet provides an extensive essay by the composer, the full text of the Divine Liturgy, and beautiful photography.

BENEDICT SHEEHAN

Also available on Blu-ray

Toy maker Dr. Coppelius (Gary Avis) seems to have a beautiful young woman in his house: Coppelia (Ashley Dean), who sits and reads on his balcony. Franz (Vadim Muntagirov) and his vellow young villagers are curious about her and how she ignores them all. Franz’s fiancée Swanilda (Marianela Nunez) is not pleased by Franz’s interest in another woman, but equally curious. When Dr. Coppelius goes to the local tavern, the young villagers slip into his house to introduce themselves to the strangely silent young woman but are met with a house full of mechanical dolls and, seemingly, magic… A classic returns to The Royal Ballet repertory with Ninette de Valois’ charming and funny Coppelia- a story of love, mischief and mechanical dolls. The intricate choreography is set to Delibes’ delightful score and shows off the technical precision and comedic timing of the whole Company. Osbert Lancaster’s designs bring a colorful storybook world to life in this Christmas treat for the whole family.

Anna Clynne’s enormous palette of colors and special effects coalesce into an aural three-dimensional experience of striking originality. Equally there’s a comforting familiarity to her music, as she draws inspiration from historic styles that she transforms into a new musical dialect. Anna’s background in electro-acoustic music and her fascination for a variety of multi-media – including poetry, visual art and videography – combine to create rich and exhilarating textures of popular appeal.

The five works on Anna Clyne: Mythologies were written over a 10-year period between 2005 and 2015. The performances on the album feature the BBC Symphony Orchestra and four internationally-acclaimed conductors. Masquerade, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to open the Last Night of the Proms 2013 and conducted by Marin Alsop, captures the spirit of that quintessentially English tradition. The title evokes an 18th-century outdoor festivity featuring fireworks, acrobats and street entertainers. This Midnight Hour, conducted by the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo, encapsulates the modernity and decadence of two European poets, Nobel Prize-winning Spaniard Juan Ramón Jiménez and Frenchman Charles Baudelaire. Oramo also conducts The Seamstress, a single-movement violin concerto in all but name, featuring soloist Jennifer Koh as well as the whispered voice of Irene Buckley reciting the work’s inspiration, a poem by William Butler Yeats.

More poetry by a Nobel laureate, the Irishman Seamus Heaney, inspired Night Ferry; conducted by Andrew Litton, the work conjures crashing waves and weathered seafaring. The album concludes with rewind, conducted by André de Ridder. It’s a wild romp imagining the backwards scroll of a video tape complete with glitches, skips and freezes.

Mythologies became an instant media and popular success when it was released in October 2020 – “hands-down one of the half-dozen best classical albums of 2020”, according to New York Music Daily. The album is now presented in both a CD version and as a magnificent 2-LP set. The splendor of the glossy gatefold and 180-gram vinyl in particular is an appropriate match for Anna’s enormous palette of colors and special effects.

REVIEWS:

I found her music colourful, full of energy and overflowing with ideas which grip you from first to last. The present release of her compositions spanning the decade from 2005 up to 2015 thus offers a fine survey of her recent orchestral music and there is no better place to begin with than the first work recorded here, the short Masquerade, a brilliant concert-opener if ever there was one. The music skips along with high spirits until it concludes with a quotation from John Playford's The English Dancing Master which comes as a surprise - although I for one would not be surprised to learn that that very tune had already been there since the very beginning but cleverly and subtly disguised. Anyway, this short and brilliant work presents Anna Clyne's music-making in a nutshell, as it were.

These superb works receive committed readings from all concerned and, besides singling out the BBC Symphony Orchestra playing at its customary best, I would like to draw attention to Jennifer Koh's impressive take on the violin part in The Seamstress, one of the gems in this collection. I hope that many will derive as much musical pleasure from this very fine release as I have, and that it will not take too long before more of Clyne's orchestral music is committed to disc.

-- MusicWeb International

Mythologies is an apt title choice for this striking collection by London-born composer Anna Clyne (b. 1980). However ancient mythological tales might appear at the surface level, their archetypal themes resonate across the ages, as relevant today as when they were born, and they're fantastical in nature too, populated as they are with gods and mythical beasts. In similar manner, Clyne's music exudes an era-transcending quality in these phantasmagoric pieces, some of which stretch out for twenty minutes at a time. The Grammy-nominated composer is a tale-spinner whose creations transport the listener to dazzling realms.

Certainly a key part of the recording's appeal has to do with unpredictability: in not conforming to long-established scripts, the pieces are able to unfold in any number of stylistic directions, even if ultimately each develops in accordance with her sensibility.

-- Textura

Osmo Vänskä has been described as ‘our greatest living Sibelian’ (The Sunday Times, UK), a reputation which is founded not least on his two symphony cycles on disc, both released by BIS. The first one was recorded in 1996-97 with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, and firmly established Vänskä as a force to be reckoned with. 14 years later he returned to the studio for a second cycle, now with the Minnesota Orchestra, of which he has been music director since 2003.

The Minnesota recordings were released on three discs during the years 2012 – 2016 to critical acclaim: besides top marks from reviewers around the world, the series garnered distinctions such as Editor’s Choice (Gramophone), Orchestral Choice (BBC Music Magazine) and Recording of the month (MusicWeb International). The disc of Symphonies Nos 2 and 5 was included on the New York Times list of the Best Classical Music Recordings of 2012 and nominated to a Grammy for Best Orchestral Recording, an award which its sequel (Nos 1 & 4) received the following year. Recommended by the German web site Klassik.com upon its release, the final album, with Symphonies Nos 3, 6 and 7, was recently included on Gramophone’s list of ‘Top 10 Sibelius recordings’. The three releases have now been gathered into a box set, with the addition of the same team’s 2016 recording of Kullervo, Sibelius’s first large-scale orchestral work and sometimes called his ‘choral symphony’.

Past praise for previously released volumes included in this set:

Sibelius: Symphonies No 1 & 4 / Vanska, Minnesota:

The passion and sweep of the First is even more electric than in the Lahti First. The Fourth emerges equally well as a hugely powerful utterance. With superb sound as always from BIS, this new disc has set the bar for all to follow and past ones to be measured against.

– Gramophone

Sibelius: Symphonies No 2 & 5 / Vanska, Minnesota:

These fearless, magnificently played performances, recorded in astonishing detail by the BIS engineers, and accompanied by an authoritative note by Robert Layton, join a very exclusive and elevated class of the finest recordings of these works.

– MusicWeb International

Also available on Blu-ray

Russian dance superstar Natalia Osipova joined The Royal Ballet as a Principal in 2013 and has since filled each of her leading roles with an unforgettable passion, fiery energy and technical prowess. This collection brings together some of her most spellbinding performances: her dramatic dual performance of Odette and her rival Odile in Swan Lake; outstanding solos and flair for comedy as the young lover Lise in La Fille mal gardée; and her electric stage presence in the title role of the quintessential Romantic ballet Giselle where she was hailed as ‘technically and artistically supreme… ethereal and desperately moving’ (The Daily Telegraph). The set is completed with an in-depth portrait, Force of Nature Natalia, which provides an unparalleled opportunity to become closely acquainted with one of the leading ballerinas of her generation, and invites you to discover why critics and audiences all over the world call her a ‘force of nature’ of the dance world.

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Choral Performance!

The wonderful Conspirare chamber choir, known for its interpretive depth and other-worldly sonic lushness, offers another of its captivating programs — this time joined by three superb guitar quartets — in a program remarkably relevant for our time. The choir is joined by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, the Texas Guitar Quartet, the Austin Guitar Quartet, and cellist Douglas Harvey for this release featuring compositions by Reena Esmail, Craig Hella Johnson, Nico Muhly, and Kile Smith. Conspirare is a virtuoso choir. The Grammy-winning ensemble comprises distinctive solo artists who are also committed to the highest level of ensemble performance. These professional singers travel to Austin from around the country to perform together, providing their audiences with a rare level of choral music making.

REVIEW:

Conspirare’s new recording featuring the Austin-based choral group and three guitar quartets bookends impressive large-scale works by Nico Muhly and Kile Smith with small jewels by Reena Esmail and founding conductor Craig Hella Johnson.

Smith’s The Dawn’s Early Light features only one guitar quartet but the most beautiful texts, from Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins’s 1883 autobiography, one of the earliest books by a Native American woman.

The participation of three guitar quartets from LA and Texas adds texture and warmth to Muhly’s How Little You Are, a thoughtful 40-minute meditation on the words of American pioneer women in the 19th century, its lovely solos sung by Estelí Gomez.

Esmail’s When the Guitar—inspired by a 14th-century Persian lyric, ‘When the guitar can forgive the past, it starts singing’—uses the intriguing sounds of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet as one of the layers of a fabulous wrap for the chorus. Johnson’s serene The Song That I Came to Sing, which sets a Rabindranath Tagore poem for cello and treble voices, was composed as a framing piece for the program ‘which would reflect aspects of unfulfilled purpose and a longing for intimacy with the Divine’.

-- Gramophone

The Conspirare chamber choir, known for its interpretive depth and otherworldly sonic lushness, offers another of its captivating programs—this time joined by three superb guitar quartets—in a program remarkably relevant for our time. Conspirare’s debut album on Delos, The Hope of Loving, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance in 2020. Here, the combination of guitar quartet and chorus is so successful that one wonders why more composers have not written for it. The works on this album were written by four of America’s greatest living composers: Nico Muhly, Reena Esmail, Kile Smith, and Craig Hella Johnson.

-- WFMT Chicago

The Dover Quartet, “the young American string quartet of the moment” (The New Yorker), launches its emerging, three-volume complete Beethoven quartet cycle with the six Opus 18 quartets, often cited as the epitome of the classical string quartet as developed by Haydn and Mozart while foreshadowing Beethoven’s future innovations. 

In 2019, at the age of 22, Alexandre Kantorow became the first French pianist to win the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition. Before then he had released three acclaimed albums, awarded distinctions such as Diapason d'or de l'Année and Gramophone's Editor's Choice and earning Kantorow descriptions ranging from 'Liszt reincarnated' to 'a firebreathing virtuoso with a poetic charm and innate stylistic mastery'. The present recital, his first release since the Tchaikovsky Competition, offers plenty of scope for virtuosity, poetry and charm, always filtered through an acute stylistic consciousness. The programme is constructed around three rhapsodies, a genre whose improvisatory character corresponds perfectly with the spirit of Romanticism but here interpreted by three highly distinct artistic temperaments: Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and Béla Bartók.

REVIEW:

Kantorow is obviously an outstanding pianist and musician with an agile technique that allows him perfect clarity in the most complex textures, abundant sensitivity and refinement, and maturity well beyond his years. Arrival finally at the 11th Liszt Rhapsody feels like the achievement of an oasis of purest classicism and succinct expression, and provides a showcase for Kantorow’s ability to maintain clarity and poise at breakneck speed.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, Novembere 2020)

“Selige Stunde” (roughly translated as Blessed Hour) is the first recital in a small series of recordings that Jonas has made during the Corona crisis. Recorded at home, the intimate sound reflects the warm, personal and endearing mood of the songs. The listening experience is like a home concert by the fireside. The varied and heart-felt selection of songs covers the most prominent Lieder composers. All tracks are short and are often performed as encores. The theme of the lyrics center around love, longing, peacefulness and farewell.

The Sacred Veil - a project led by Eric Whitacre and Charles Anthony Silvestri - was created following the passing of Charles’ wife, Julia in 2005. It represents a journey towards the answer for many questions, including whether departed loved ones are truly gone, and how can we mourn those we have lost whilst still moving forward? In Charles’ own words, the project became “a significant part of my journey toward healing and wholeness after great loss.”

Poet, author, composer, and speaker Charles Anthony Silvestri has worked with other artists from all over the world to create texts tailor-made for their commissions and specific artistic needs. He enjoys the challenge of solving these creative problems and has provided custom choral texts, opera libretti, program notes and other writing for composers including Eric Whitacre, Ola Gjeilo, Kim Arnesen, and Dan Forrest, and for ensembles ranging from high schools to the Houston Grand Opera, from the King’s Singers to the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, from Westminster Choir College to Westminster Abbey.

Grammy® Award-winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre is one of the world’s most performed living composers. His works have been programmed worldwide by millions of amateur and professional performers, while his ground-breaking Virtual Choirs have united singers from over 120 different countries. Eric, a graduate of the prestigious Juilliard School of Music, is presently Artist in Residence with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, following five years as Composer in Residence at the University of Cambridge, UK.As conductor of the Eric Whitacre Singers, he has released such chart-topping albums including Light and Gold and Water Night. In high demand as guest conductor, he has drawn capacity audiences to concerts with the Netherlands Radio Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Flemish Radio Choir, and Minnesota Orchestra.

REVIEWS

The Sacred Veil is notable simply as one of the most deeply personal pieces of concert music heard in quite some time. Yet there is more to its profound effect than this. Whitacre responds to the texts with a sober language akin to but quite distinct from his usual style, something like the dark language cultivated by Renaissance composers for the requiem mass and other serious texts. The performances by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, under Whitacre's direction, are superb, and the sound, from California's Musco Center for the Arts, is exemplary.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Composer Eric Whitacre and poet Charles Anthony Silvestri, longtime collaborators and close friends, come together for their most personal and expansive work to date. Whitacre has created a powerful score for Silvestri’s heartfelt poetry in the 12-movement work The Sacred Veil. Silvestri’s wife, Julie, died of ovarian cancer at age 36 in 2005, leaving two young children. His texts, written collaboratively with Whitacre, and the intimate, compelling score tell a story of courtship, love, loss, and the search for solace. Whitacre leads the Los Angeles Master Chorale in the world-premiere recording.

– WFMT-FM (Lisa Flynn)

The Choral Scholars is an internationally acclaimed chamber choir of gifted student singers led by founding Artistic Director, Dr. Desmond Earley, based at University College Dublin College of Arts & Humanities. Scholars come from various academic disciplines and commit to an intensive programme of choral study. Be all Merry is one of three new pieces especially composed for the Choral Scholars. This lively carol for choir, orchestra and violin by Irish composer Eoghan Desmond evokes the joyful play of Christmas in the lines ‘Be all merry in this house/Exultet celum laudibus!’. The recording contains a remarkable setting of the Advent plainsong hymn Christe Redemptor Omnium for tenor solo, chorus, violin and violoncello by Ivo Antognini, crafted for Choral Scholars with the kind support of the Swiss Embassy in Dublin. The Adoration of the Magi by American composer Timothy Stephens is a breathtaking setting of W. B. Yeats’ poetry. A beautiful Irish-language lullaby – Cró na Nollag – set by father and son, Adhamhnán and Uinseann Mac Domhnaill, and the much-loved Scottish tune simply titled Suantraí, are also included. The Irish Chamber Orchestra are also featured on a number of tracks including The Wexford Carol and Carol of the Bells. The choir closes the album with the song most associated with friendship, hope and the promise of a new year, Auld Lang Syne. The post-production phase of this recording project took place as the world grappled with the outbreak of COVID-19. American composer Linda Kachelmeier’s piece – We Toast the Days – serves as a reminder of the strength, love and hope that resonates throughout the world not simply at Christmastide but also during periods of hardship.

REVIEW:

Like the Winchester Quiristers, the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin are unique – a relatively new group of collegiate singers who trade a chapel for an intriguing commercial instinct. Be All Merry is a slick album of new, largely unrecognisable settings of old carols woven through with the sound of Gaelic folk song, much of it from the fiddle of the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s concertmaster. It provides that one thing we badly need from Christmas albums – something different that’s still consistent and festive – and only occasionally edges into processed cheese despite every track being suitable for a TV chat show’s play-out. If you can take a degree of Gaelic mistiness there is plenty to enjoy. The jagged arrangement of the Carol of the Bells by conductor Desmond Earley caught my ear, sung by a choir very well trained with an idea of its own sound.

-- Gramophone

In celebration of the great Israeli-American violinist’s 75th birthday, Sony Classical is proud to present the first-ever collection of Itzhak Perlman’s complete recordings for RCA and CBS/Sony in a single box set: 18 CDs spanning the years 1965 to 2012.

Itzhak Perlman has dominated the world of violin virtuosos for half a century. His TV appearances had already made him a household name in the US by the time he was 13. A few years later came his Carnegie Hall debut, then the prestigious Leventritt Award, followed by triumphant tours of Israel, North America and Europe between 1965 and 1968. By then he was an international celebrity and recognized “not just as the finest violinist of his generation but as one of the greatest musical talents to emerge since World War II” (leading string authority Tully Potter writing in the NEW GROVE).

And it was then that Perlman began his illustrious, virtually unparalleled career as a recording artist. His first sessions for RCA, accompanied by pianist David Garvey – with works ranging from sonatas by Handel, Leclair and Hindemith to showpieces by Paganini, Bazzini, Sarasate and Falla – took place in New York in 1965 but were not issued for nearly 40 years because the label felt concertos would make a more suitable commercial debut for the rising star. When an album of these pieces was finally released – as “Perlman Rediscovered”, in 2004 – it was hailed “an outstanding tribute to one of the great names among violinists of any age, as well as a remarkably varied and interesting recital in its own right” (ClassicsToday). These tracks are, of course, included in the new collection.

Perlman’s first concerto efforts for RCA – the Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Prokofiev Second, with Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony – were set down in 1966/1967 and released the following years as his recording debut. ClassicsToday acclaimed them in a recent reissue as “offering playing that is gutsy and shamelessly virtuosic, and with a sharper rhythmic focus than Perlman often achieved subsequently. The finale of the Sibelius remains a potent example of the playing’s youthful fire.” In 1969, Perlman recorded what was arguably one of the finest albums of his career, the two Prokofiev Sonatas (which he never remade), partnered by pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy at the beginning of their long and distinguished collaboration: “Delicate where needs be … and yet with a Heifetzian resilience that both sonatas willingly respond to … Perlman and Ashkenazy play with astonishing virtuosity” (Gramophone).

Itzhak Perlman’s work for American Columbia began in the mid-1970s and – apart from Bach and Vivaldi multi-violin concertos with Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman and the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta – cover a wide swath of chamber music with special partners: pianists Daniel Barenboim and Emanuel Ax, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell and guitarist John Williams. The Mendelssohn Piano Trios with Ax and Ma, first released in 2010, appear here for the first time in a Perlman collection (“…ensemble balance, clarity of inner part-writing, drama, lyricism, and phrase shaping of the highest order … I find these performances not just outstanding; I find them astounding” (Fanfare).

That other John Williams, the legendary composer for the silver screen, was Perlman’s collaborator in another medium, the movies: his two best-selling “Cinema Serenade” albums arranged and conducted by Williams, with Perlman featured in selections from such classic films as Modern Times, Gone with the Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Out of Africa, Cinema Paradiso, The Color Purple and, of course, the theme that Perlman memorably performed on the soundtrack of Williams’s Oscar-winning score for the Spielberg masterpiece Schindler’s List.

New to Perlman CD editions are two complete soundtrack albums: John Williams’s “elegant and thoughtful score” for Memoirs of a Geisha in which the violinist is joined by Yo-Yo Ma and to which Perlman “brings a magical and peculiarly oriental sound to his violin-playing” (Gramophone), and the music for Yimou Zhang’s Hero by Tan Dun: “Few composers today write more effective melodies for bowed strings” (Gramophone). And to round off this uniquely wide-ranging survey of the violinist’s musical passions and triumphs, in its first appearance in a Perlman collection, the artist is joined by golden-voiced cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot in Eternal Echoes, a highly praised album of liturgical and traditional selections which the violinist has affectionately described as “Jewish comfort music – everything that I recognize from my childhood is in this program.”

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63   
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

DISC 2:
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, TH 59
Dvořák: Romance in F Minor, Op. 11, B. 39   

DISC 3:
Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 80   
Prokofiev: Violin Sonata in D Major No. 2, Op. 94bis   

DISC 4:
Lalo: Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21   
Ravel: Tzigane, M. 76 (Version for Violin & Orchestra)   

DISC 5:
Paganini: Centone di sonate, Op. 64, MS 112 (Sonata No. 1 in A Minor)   
Paganini: Sonata for Violin and Guitar in E Minor, Op. 3, No. 6, MS 27   
Paganini: Sonata concertata in A Major, Op. 61, MS 2   
Giuliani: Duo concertante in E Minor, Op. 25 "Grand Sonata"   
Giuliani: Cantabile in D Major, Op. 17, MS 109   

DISC 6:
Dohnányi: Serenade in C Major, Op. 10   
Beethoven: Serenade in D Major, Op. 8   

DISC 7:
Bach, J.S.: Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043   
Vivaldi: Concerto for 3 Violins in F Major, RV 551   
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in E-Flat Major, K. 364   

DISC 8:
Chausson: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet in D Major, Op. 21   

DISC 9:
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78   
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100   
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108   

DISC 10:
Mozart: Duo for Violin & Viola in G Major, K. 423   
Mozart: Duo for Violin and Viola, K. 424   
Leclair: 6 Sonatas for 2 Violins, Op. 3, No. 4   

DISC 11:
Lubbock/Rosenbaum/Jones/Temperton: The Color Purple: Main Title   
Gardel: Scent of a Woman: Tango (Por Una Cabeza)   
Legrand: Yentl: Papa, Can You Hear Me?   
Bacalov: Il Postino: Theme   
Bernstein: The Age of Innocence: Theme   
Williams: Theme (From "Far and Away")   
Legrand: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg: I Will Wait for You   
Previn: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Theme   
Williams: Sabrina: Theme   
Barry: Out of Africa: Main Title   
Bonfa: Black Orpheus: Manha de Carnaval   
Williams: Main Theme (From "Schindler's List")   
Morricone: Love Theme (From "Cinema Paradiso")   

DISC 12:
Raksin: Theme from "Laura" (1944)   
Steiner: Theme from Now, Voyager (1942)
Chaplin: Smile from "Modern Times" (1936)   
Rózsa: Love Theme from Lost Weekend (1945)
Young: St. Patrick's Day from The Quiet Man (1952) (Traditional)   
Korngold: Marian & Robin Love Theme from "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938)   
Hupfeld: As Time Goes By from "Casablanca" (1942)   
Walton: Touch Her Soft Lips and Part (From "Henry V")   
Young: Stella by Starlight from The Uninvited (1944)   
Young: Theme from My Foolish Heart (1949)
Steiner: Tara's Theme (From "Gone with the Wind" 1939)   
Newman: Cathy's Theme from "Wuthering Heights" (1939)   

DISC 13:
Tan Dun: Works

DISC 14:
Paganini: 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1, MS 25   
Ben-Haim: Berceuse Sfaradite   
Sarasate: Navarra, Op. 33   
Handel: Violin Sonata in E Major, Op. 1 No. 15, HWV 373   
Hindemith: Violin Sonata, Op. 11 No. 1 in E-Flat   
Leclair: Violin Sonata, Op. 9 No. 3 in D   
Bloch: Baal Shem: II. Nigun (Version for Violin & Piano)   
Falla: Spanish Dance No. 1 (from La vida breve)   
Bazzini: La ronde des lutins, Op. 25   

DISC 15: John Williams: Works

DISC 16:
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49   
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor Op. 66   
Mendelssohn: Songs without Words, Op. 19, No. 1 Sweet Remembrance" - Andante con moto"
Mendelssohn: Songs without Words, Op. 38, No. 2 - Allegro non troppo

DISC 17:
Berditchever: A Dudele   
Shenker: Mizmor L'Dovid   
Goldfaden: Shoyfer Shel Moshiakh   
Schwartz: Romanian Doyne   
Rosenblatt: T'filas Tal   
Traditional: Yism'chu   
Schloßberg: R'tzay   
Traditional: Dem Trisker Rebns Khosid   
Schorr: Sheyibone Bays Hamikdosh   
Traditional: Kol Nidrei   

DISC 18:
Tchaikovsky: Sérénade mélancolique, Op. 26, TH 56   
Tchaikovsky: Valse-Scherzo, Op. 34, TH 58   
Dvořák: Romance in F Minor, Op. 11, B. 39
Dvořák: 8 Humoresques, Op. 101, B. 187: No. 7, Poco lento e grazioso (Transcribed by Oscar Morawetz for Violin, Cello & Orchestra)   
Dvořák: Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 90, B. 166: "Dumky", V. Allegro   
Dvořák: Slavonic Dances, Op. 72, B. 147: No. 2, Dumka. Allegretto grazioso   
Halvorsen: Passacaglia and Sarabande for Violin and Viola (With Variations on a Theme by Handel)   
Walton: Canzonetta from Henry V   
Williams: Air and Simple Gifts