L�szl� Kecskem�ti was born in 1972 in Budapest and is proud to have been a pupil of L�szl� Czidra. Since completing studies in 1993, and in the class of L�rincz L�szl� in 1997 in Szeged, he has performed frequently as a soloist and as a member of different early music ensembles. He also teaches at a music school in Budapest. Kecskem�ti is joined in five of the concertos by oboist L�szlo Hadady. Undergirding these performances is the fine and often virtuosic harpsichord and cello continuo played by Borb�la Dobozy and Gy�rgy Kert�sz respectively. The bassoon joins the fray in four of the concertos and is played by the redoubtable Gy�rgy Olajos. The two violinists are Attila Falvay and Katalin P�rk�nyi. The little cadential flourishes that all the soloists make at appropriate moments are delightful.

Anton Bruckner is a composer with an unmistakable musical language: darkly glowing, overwhelmingly beautiful, but also energetic and innovative. For the Berliner Philharmoniker, this music has been part of their artistic identity for over a hundred years. The orchestra now presents Bruckner’s symphonies in an exclusive edition, recorded over the last ten years together with some of the foremost Bruckner interpreters of our time. Bruckner’s symphonies are a universe of immeasurable tonal, expressive, and metaphysical dimensions. It is precisely the changing perspectives of different conductors that make it possible to explore this diverse wealth. The edition is moreover a document of a successful artistic collaboration with highly esteemed partners of many years’ standing: Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Christian Thielemann and Simon Rattle. The high-quality hardcover edition presents the recordings on nine albums as well as pure audio and video recordings. The extensive booklet contains an essay by the renowned musicologist Richard Taruskin plus portraits of the conductors, introductions to the individual symphonies and numerous photos.

REVIEW:

This may be a premium-priced product but the set undoubtedly offers premium quality, which justifies the price tag, with terrific audio and video as well as excellent documentation. Even more importantly, you get all nine symphonies played by a peerless orchestra. Furthermore, as I hope my comments on the individual performances have shown, there are some considerable interpretations in this set – and not one that is less than very good. I think it’s a decided asset that we see and hear at work not just one conductor but several, all of them excellent Bruckner interpreters.

So, though it’s an expensive proposition, this is a set that will grace any Bruckner collection. With it the Berlin Philharmonic has set out to celebrate their proud Bruckner tradition and they’ve certainly achieved that.

— MusicWeb International

In the 13th century, the rich merchants of Novgorod mock the dreams of far-away journeys and of commercial conquests brought forth by Sadko, a musician and singer. But Volkhova, the Sea King’s daughter, is enchanted by Sadko’s voice, and promises to help him fulfill his dreams... Sadko is a decisive work in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s aesthetic evolution. As in many operas, the composer draws his artistic material from Russian folk and fairytales, but also from old musical and poetic forms. The result is a prodigious opera, whose modernity - both dramatic and musical - erupts from the fabulous resources of traditional Russian epics, but also from the wonders of the marine universe, close to his former navigator self’s heart. A subtle analyst of the slavic soul, stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov comes back to the great stage of the Bolshoi Theater and devises a surprising production that perfectly underlines the ambiguities of this paradoxical opera, between past and present, fantasy and reality. He surrounds himself with magnificent Russian soprano Aida Garifullina, but also some of his favorite singers : Mikhail Petrenko, Ekaterina Semenchuk... In the pit and at the head of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, young Russian conductor Timur Zangiev breathes in this little-know masterpiece all the energy, all the poetry, and all the passion it requires.

Morten Lauridsen has been very fortunate in his treatment by choirs and record labels. Part of the reason is because his music is just so sonorous, singable, and sellable. But, sticking with the alliteration, it's also "serious" in the sense that his style seems to come from a genuine and personal conviction rather than from some external, commercial or image-driven influence. His music is functional, if you want it to be, but it also serves very well as pure concert material, and the three choral cycles Lux Aeterna, Les Chansons des Roses, and Madrigali have achieved a degree of success in that role. I've commented in detail regarding Lauridsen's style in previous reviews, and you can find such a description by typing Q8554 in Search Reviews, which refers to a Hyperion recording by Stephen Layton and Polyphony that duplicates two-thirds of the program presented here.


It takes only a few minutes of listening to discern some of the primary features--some would say "formulaic traits"--characteristic of Lauridsen's more popular works, exemplified in O magnum mysterium and the Lux aeterna cycle. But it's hard not to luxuriate along with the choir in the rich-textured sound and affectingly simple melodic phrases. The work here that's not on the Polyphony recording is the choral cycle Les Chansons des Roses. Premiered in 1993, the five songs are set to poems about roses by Rainer Maria Rilke. The final one, Dirait-on (here with the composer at the piano), has become a concert favorite, but the others are equally worthy of attention by accomplished choirs. The Lux Aeterna cycle is a masterpiece of Lauridsen's kind of choral sonority and word-setting, the organ accompaniment a perfect complement to the singers' "organ-like" textures and timbres.


My only real criticism of Polyphony's performances (that disc also includes Ave Maria and Ubi caritas et amor) was its dreadfully slow reading of Lauridsen's now-ubiquitous O magnum mysterium, which retained the resonance of the harmonies but sapped the energy from the long, flowing phrases. Well, if I thought that version was slow, Nicol Matt and his Chamber Choir of Europe--unquestionably one of the world's top-tier ensembles--had a surprise in store: this one is nearly a quarter of a minute longer! Aside from some sort of odd competition (the score clearly, wisely, indicates a much faster tempo), I can't understand the purpose for the snail's pace, notwithstanding the fact that it's effortlessly sung. At any rate, this is another excellent Lauridsen program that will please choral enthusiasts and hopefully will expand this composer's reach to listeners who still haven't made his acquaintance. The sound, from two different church venues in Germany, is very good if a touch bright and weighted toward treble at louder volume on some tracks. [11/9/2006]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Composer Matt McBane and the renowned Sandbox Percussion ensemble team up on Bathymetry — a 40-minute piece in eight movements scored for monophonic Moog analog synthesizer and percussion. Drawing on classical minimalism, electronic production, ASMR Youtube aesthetics and the diverse palette of ambient modular synth music, Bathymetry features McBane’s Moog synth with Sandbox Percussion performing on a veritable playground of found instruments (mixing bowls, ping pong balls, glass bottles, etc.), orchestral percussion (vibraphone, tam tam, etc.), and drum sets.

Young Ukrainian pianist Tetiana Shafran is the First Prize Winner of the 2019 Olga Kern Competition. Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Tetiana Shafran started playing piano at the age of 3. She graduated from the Lysenko Special Music School and the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine where she studied with Andriy Vasin and the Oxana Yablonskaya Piano Academy where she studied with Professor Yablonskaya. Tetiana is the prize-winner of about 25 International piano competitions: For her debut album on the Steinway & Sons label, she performs a beguiling program of music by Chopin, Ravel, and Mikhail Pletnev's brilliant arrangement of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.

REVIEW:

Tetiana Shafran, born in Kyiv, makes her Steinway debut here with an impressive recital. She was the first place gold medal winner in the 2019 Olga Kern International Competition, and has earned prizes in about 25 others. It is always great to hear a young pianist who appears to be making it in the performance world. Shafran has a lot to offer, and the Sono Luminus recording studio has captured her piano sound with its customary excellence. This disc from Steinway is an excellent way to get to know her.

— Fanfare (James Harrington)

In his liner notes, Yevgeny Sudbin remembers falling in love with Tchaikovsky's music when he was introduced to classical music. On this album, the pianist presents a collection of piano pieces and arrangements for piano, solo and four hands, of orchestral works by the great Russian composer, preceding it with a curtain raiser much-loved by Tchaikovsky himself: Mikhail Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila. The piano pieces selected by Sudbin spans some twenty years of Tchaikovsky's career and takes in the ever-popular Barcarolle (June) and Troika (November) from The Seasons as well as three pieces from the composer's last work for piano, the 18 Pieces, Op. 72. To these are added two waltzes from The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, here performed in four-hand piano arrangements with Sudbin's 12-year-old daughter Bella playing the ‘primo’ part. The pièce de resistance of this album, however, is Sudbin's arrangement of the famous overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet in which the composer, according to Sudbin, ‘lays bare his soul and where some of his most incredible music can be found’. To the pianist, the rawness and vulnerability of human emotions' displayed in Tchaikovsky's music is almost unparalleled, something which his own performance here serve to confirm.

REVIEW:

Evgeny Sudbin releases an entire SACD of piano music by Piotr Tchaikovsky. These are partly original works from the well-known piano cycles or Sudbin’s own transcriptions of pieces such as Waltz of the Flowers, Waltz from Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture and Glinka’s Ruslan & Ludmila Overture. All of this is played with virtuosity, elegance, and brilliance. Sudbin has a phenomenal technique, he is a virtuoso of the best kind, for his playing is very musical and sensitive.

-- Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

Sudbin and daughter sparkle fairy dust over Tchaikovsky’s works for piano.

Despite our emergence from the global pandemic – some of us sooner than others – lockdown projects keep popping up on disc. This one, from Russian-born, British pianist Yevgeny Sudbin, is especially rewarding, featuring enjoyable arrangements of Tchaikovsky ‘s orchestral music alongside miniature gems that are often underrepresented in recital.

Sudbin opens with a bravura take on one of Tchaikovsky’s avowed favourites: the showstopping overture from Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila. In his sleeve notes, the pianist recalls the countless times he’s been forced to wait in the wings listening to the swirling strings and thundering timpani that drive this most ubiquitous of orchestral works. His arrangement, he laughs, is by way of revenge, but the joke’s on him as it is the pianist who has to grapple here with fiendish fingerings, virtuoso flourishes and hand-numbing glissandos. That aside, it’s a rip-roaring way to open a disc and Sudbin – hands flying across the keyboard – gets the spirit of the thing just right in a no-holds-barred performance.

The disc concludes with a real coup: Sudbin’s arrangement of the Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet, a work easily taken for granted, but one that reveals remarkable depths in its solo piano guise. From its brooding, Russian-infused opening (which here exudes the spirit of Mussorgsky), through the fireworks of the rival houses and the Lisztian swell of the famous lovers’ theme, this tour-de-force transcription really hits the mark, especially in Sudbin’s astute and heartfelt reading.

-- Limelight

Singing together binds us together. From the Protestant Reformation in Europe during the 1500s to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, there have been countless moments in history when songs have united nations, cultures and causes. This is still the case in today’s world. Finding Harmony is evidence that music has always been our common language. A unique collection of pieces that span the globe – including music that’s too often forgotten – each song is the key to a powerful true story about who we are and how we’ve got here. Together, Finding Harmony proves how deeply we can be moved by all kinds of stories when songs connect us to them, and to each other.

REVIEW:

For the most part, this album is a virtuoso piece of work. The Singers' vocal inflections and scoops are adaptable to a wide variety of styles, and they push themselves in that respect here, connecting pop sounds to the classic folk of Malvina Reynolds and to Eastern European traditions. In the main, it all holds together, and it is very much of the moment.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

"Bavouzet’s Haydn is unmatched in its zest and its wit. But it is also substantial, informed and deeply rewarding."

--The New York Times on Bavouzet's Haydn Sonatas cycle, 2022

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s survey of Haydn’s piano sonatas reaches its conclusion with this 11th and final volume. As with the previous releases, the acclaimed pianist has included repertoire from different periods of Haydn’s career to create a recital of interest in its own right, as well as the completion of the series.

Jean-Efflam notes: ‘It has been eleven years since the launch of this project to present Haydn’s sonatas, not in their chronological order, but as collections juxtaposing works from different periods. The program for this final album was actually the first one to be devised: I wanted to place side by side the very first and the very last sonata. Then the idea of fleshing out the sonata cycle with other major pieces began at volume four, with the addition of the famous Variations in F minor, and finally this last volume is made up of as many sonatas as other types of works. The complete series is thus able to offer music lovers all the sonatas identified to date, together with the other major keyboard works.’

REVIEWS:

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is best known for his cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, which brought him international success as well as propelling his career at home in the UK – success which was remarkable in stuffy late-Victorian England because of his mixed race and humble origins. Born out of wedlock to Daniel Taylor, a medical student from Sierra Leone, and Alice Holmans, Samuel was brought up by his mother and step-father, George Evans, a railway worker, in Croydon, south London. The three pieces recorded here were all composed during his time as a student at the Royal College of Music. They were destined to remain unpublished during his lifetime, and indeed for some ninety years following his untimely death from pneumonia at the age of only thirty-seven. Performing editions were eventually prepared from the surviving manuscripts – which had remained in the RCM’s archive – in the early 2000s, offering modern performers and audiences the chance for the first time to savour exactly how precocious the creative talents of the teenage Coleridge-Taylor had been. The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective has consulted the manuscripts and corrected numerous inaccuracies in these editions. Described by The Arts Desk as ‘a sparky, shape-shifting ensemble of starry young musicians’, the Collective has been thrilling audiences with its charismatic programming and outstanding musicianship.

REVIEWS:

This disc is a delight from first to last… For anyone interested in rare British chamber music this is warmly recommended.

-- MusicWeb International

What a glorious disc this is! From beginning to end the music just flows in an unending stream of pleasure. There is such skill and maturity in every aspect of the writing…These works could not hope for better performances[.]

-- British Music Society

The music’s youthful joie de vivre is matched by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s warmth, enthusiasm and finesse … Elena Urioste is an ever-eloquent first violin, Tom Poster’s silvery pianism glistens and flows as if effortless, and all of their colleagues match them with a spontaneous, collegial and well-balanced playing, making the whole more than the sun of its already excellent parts.

-- BBC Music Magazine

[The] Piano Quintet and Nonet in particular are assured, determinedly structured and richly scored statements, abundant in melody and a gutsy inner harmonic strength…The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective…clearly love performing this music [and] take the listener on joyful and impassioned journey – great players cherishing special music for a new generation to discover[.]

-- International Piano

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

Nielsen’s epic Violin Concerto was premiered in Copenhagen in February 1912, by violinist Peder Møller. Nominally the work is set in two movements; both open with a slow section and move to a faster one. Whilst unusual, this could be seen as a more usual fast – slow – fast three movement form, but with an extensive slow introduction to the first movement. The music moves quickly from one idea to the next, and overall has a bold, playful and optimistic feel. In stark contrast, although written only a few years later, the fourth symphony is more cohesive and unified as a work.

Written against the background of the first world war, the work is a celebration of life itself. Just before the premier in 1916, Nielsen described it as: ‘Music is Life, and, like it, inextinguishable.’ Composed in the usual four movement form, each movement continues from the last without a break. The final movement features two sets of timpani battling each other across the orchestra. The recording was made in Bergen’s Grieghallen, in Surround Sound, and is available as a hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio.

REVIEWS:

Nielsen's Violin Concerto couldn’t have a better advocate than James Ehnes: strong in his lyricism when he needs to be, alert to all dynamics and a sense of fantasy which is outstanding in the two cadenzas.

-- BBC Music Magazine

James Ehnes – that most elegant and unflashy of players – seems to relish all that is unexpected about the piece...Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic give it real backbone and play like its greatest champions.

-- Gramophone

In Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, Gardner succeeds handily. The orchestra plays outstandingly well for him in all departments and he keeps the symphony moving. This is appropriate because all the movements are connected. I found his slightly quicker tempo for the second movement convincing with the woodwinds as delectable as one would expect and the dynamics quieter than in some recordings.

-- MusicWeb International

Anna Lapwood is a trailblazing musician. Alongside her work as a conductor, Director of Music and public speaker, she performs an extensive number of organ recitals on some of the greatest instruments across Europe each season. In 2022 she was announced as Associate Artist of the Royal Albert Hall and Artist in Association at BBC Singers.
Directed by Anna Lapwood, The Chapel Choir of Pembroke College has one of the most exciting and varied ranges of choral endeavours among Oxbridge choirs. Alongside their primary responsibility of contributing to worship in the College’s Chapel, they engage in regular artistic collaborations, media appearances and outreach work.

REVIEWS:

I thoroughly enjoyed this CD. The repertoire has been well chosen in such a way as to separate the disc out from the usual run of Christmas fare. The quality of every piece – including those I haven’t mentioned – is very high and though the music is largely contemporary it’s all accessible and enjoyable to hear. The performances are uniformly excellent. The two Pembroke College choirs have clearly been prepared very well by Anna Lapwood; the singing is disciplined and accomplished. But more than that, it sounds as if the choir members are enjoying themselves and they are certainly committed to the music. The programme contains many challenges but all of them are successfully met.

The recording was in the highly experienced hands of producer Adrian Peacock and engineer Dave Hinitt. With their pedigree, it comes as no surprise that the choirs have been recorded very sympathetically and clearly.

This is an enterprising disc which will give a lot of pleasure at Christmas.

-- MusicWeb International

Nina Kotova astounds listeners with this dazzling album for cello alone. “Solo Cello,” her third album for Delos, reveals her spectacular technique, heartfelt passion and profound comprehension of the extraordinary program she has chosen.

Along with a brilliant rendition of J. S. Bach’s C Major Suite for Solo Cello, the Baroque era is represented by Handel and Marin Marais, both with musical fireworks that leave the listener breathless. Works from the 20th century include Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Cello (four of the five movements were written in one night!); Alfred Schnittke’s haunting tribute to a cellist, Klingende Buchstaben (Sounding Letters); and Gaspar Cassadó’s charming and challenging Suite per Violoncello Solo.

The repertoire for this album is a fascinating combination of well-known and little-known compositions for solo cello. The two transcriptions (of works by Marais and Handel) sound like they were written for solo cello.

REVIEW:

There is an attractive gutsiness to the tone of Nina Kotova’s cello playing...it is a beautiful sound but one with the tinge of a life lived to it. Her manner of playing is similarly unabashed. If anything, her passionate, unbridled playing steps up a gear in Hindemith’s bristling Cello Sonata. I have always downgraded Hindemith as a bit dry, one for the musicologists. Not a chance with Kotova’s feverish advocacy.

...I found the sound a real pleasure. With a lot of cello writing concentrated on the upper strings, it is nice to hear the depths of the instrument’s sound so ripely presented.

I have a suspicion that this recording reflects a regular concert programme of Kotova’s. The way the pieces work together has the feel of practical experience and, unlike many recital discs which hang together on account of a clever idea or theme, this one makes good musical sense and sends the listener home (so to speak) satisfied. This is the sound of a seasoned musical talent in her absolute prime playing with confidence, sensitivity and flair in carefully and imaginatively chosen repertoire that suits her musical personality perfectly. What more could a listener ask for?

-- MusicWeb International

Richard Danielpour is one of the most decorated, frequently performed and recorded composers of his generation. His commissions include works for some of the most celebrated artists of our day. Each of the Twelve Études is dedicated to a particular pianist with its own substantial technical demands, but all are conceived as concert pieces with a self-contained narrative. The variations in the Piano Fantasy are based on the final chorale of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. All of these world premiere recordings were made in close collaboration between the composer and acclaimed pianist Stefano Greco.

REVIEW:

In the 40-minute cycle, Twelve Etudes for Piano, the composer roams through a wide variety of moods, but also presents challenges to the pianist such as playing with the left hand on the keys and plucking strings inside the piano with the right hand. Stefano Greco masters all of this with aplomb.

In addition to two miniatures, the Piano Fantasy subtitled ‘Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden’ from 2008 is also heard. It is based in continuing variations on the final chorale from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, although the theme does not appear until the end of the work. This piece also shows Greco as an excellent performer.

-- Pizzicato