Previous BIS releases of works by John Pickard have mainly featured instrumental compositions. This recording presents another facet of the British composer’s work, with compositions for choir under the expert direction of Martyn Brabbins as well as two instrumental pieces.

The five short Latin motets as well as Ozymandias, Pickard’s opus 1, can be described as ‘occasional pieces’ composed during the composer’s student years or for the choir he conducts at the University of Bristol. They display solid tonal grounding and mainly homophonic writing and provide a stepping-stone to some of the more dissonant style found in the latter works. Written for the BBC Singers, whose reputation is well established, the Mass in Troubled Times is an ambitious work bearing witness to a context of global uncertainty. The Mass is a collaboration with the writer Gavin D’Costa, who conceived a complex text based on multiple sources in five languages, combining Western and Middle Eastern religious texts with poetry evoking the plight of refugees. Orion for trumpet and organ, which is partly programmatic, evoking the most splendid constellation and allowing trumpeter Chloë Abbott to shine, and Tesserae for solo organ, with its dazzling virtuosity, played here by the work’s first performer, David Goode, complete this disc.

Also available: Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1 / Zimmermann

Since the mid-1980s, Frank Peter Zimmermann has earned recognition as one of the world’s leading violinists, admired not only for his technical skill and interpretive intelligence, but also for his versatility in a wide-ranging repertoire. His extensive discography ranges from Bach concertos and Beethoven sonatas to works by composers such as Martinu, Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg and Brett Dean. He waited until the fourth decade of his career, however, to take on Bach’s Sei solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato, the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin. The first disc (BIS-2577) dedicated to this absolute pinnacle in the repertoire for the instrument was released in February 2022 to great critical acclaim. Now comes the much-awaited conclusion to this collection. Zimmermann compares these works to ‘a mighty tree, which protects me and crushes me at the same time’, the music giving him hope and strength at the same time as it confronts him with his limits as a violinist. On this new release, he now offers us the Sonata No. 1 in G minor, as well as the B minor Partita No. 1 and the Sonata No. 3 in C major.

Having celebrated his 90th birthday in 2022, Per Nørgård is undoubtedly one of the most important Danish composers since Nielsen. His important production that covers all genres is a highly personal travel document based on his endless incursions through the sonic labyrinths of this world.

Based on material from Nørgård’s viola concerto from 1986, Three Nocturnal Movements for violin, cello and orchestra came about on the initiative of the violinist Peter Herresthal and the cellist Jakob Kullberg, two of his long-term collaborators. The work was creatively developed for two soloists by Kullberg, who decided on the form of the movement after making a selection of musical fragments described as ‘nocturnal’.

Dedicated to the conductor John Storgårds, Symphony No. 8 appears bright, transparent while its atmosphere is somewhat mysterious and filled with tension. This symphony, his most recent work in this genre, can be compared to latter works from other Nordic composers like Sibelius and Nielsen. Finally, Lysning, a short piece for string orchestra, has been described by Nørgård as a ‘glade’ and is made of an alternance of darker and brighter variations of the same musical ideas heard in different instrumental colourings and nuances.

Ronald Brautigam performs some of Franz Schubert’s most profound and beloved works: the eight Impromptus. Schubert’s name has become closely associated with this genre, often characterized by a lyrical melody and a free-flowing structure, with a sense of spontaneity. With it, Schubert seems to have found an ideal setting for the expression of his genius. The Impromptus, D 899, are reminiscent of a four-movement sonata. The first begins theatrically, before giving way to a funeral march of sorts, in which the melody is harmonised, amplified and constantly renewed. In the second, everything appears light and fluid. In the third, Schubert offers us one of his most inspired songs with one of his most beautiful melodies. The fourth takes us back to the waterworks of a fairy-tale park. The Impromptus, D 935, were published after Schubert’s death. The first is a great rhapsodic poem in which expression reaches into the deepest recesses of the Schubertian soul. The second demonstrates how Schubert manages to rise high with simple material. The third impromptu is a series of variations on ‘Rosamunde’, one of the composer’s most famous themes. The fourth is a lightning-fast scherzando – a free and whimsical piece that ideally concludes this disc.

This recital brings together two established classics from the 20th century with lesser-known works from the repertoire for violin and piano. Alongside Ravel’s Sonata, a work that reveals the influence of jazz on the French composer, and Prokofiev’s wartime Sonata, Op. 94a, an idiomatic arrangement of its original version for flute, we find compositions by Arvo Pärt, Lili Boulanger and Grazyna Bacewicz, which, at times meditative, at times lyrical, at times folk-inspired, testify to the richness of this repertoire. These works are here performed by Johan Dalene, the Swedish-Norwegian winner of the 2019 Nielsen Competition. The present disc is violinist’s fourth release on BIS, following a recording of the Nielsen and Sibelius Concertos named Editor’s Choice by Gramophone and awarded the 2023 Swedish Grammis Award for Best Classical, the Tchaikovsky Concerto described as ‘one of the finest violin débuts of the last decade’ in BBC Music Magazine, and ‘Nordic Rhapsody’, a violin and-piano recital that was awarded distinctions such as Diapason d’or and Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice. As with that release, Dalene is given here the expert support of Christian Ihle Hadland who has also appeared on other much-lauded recordings, most recently one dedicated to Saint-Saëns’ violin sonatas.

REVIEW:

The young violinist Johan Dalene was named Gramo­phone’s Young Artist of the Year in 2022 and has performed with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Czech Philhar­monic, and San Francisco Symphony. He’s also made his mark in Halls Wigmore and Carnegie, and on this brilliantly assembled collection of works by Arvo Part (Fratres), Maurice Ravel (Sonata in G major for violin and piano), Lili Boulanger (Nocturne), Sergei Prokofiev (Sonata No.2 in D major for violin and piano), and four short works by Grazyna Bacewicz.

The collection’s common thread is a pen­chant for piquant harmonies, atmosphere, and mysticism. Bacewicz’s early “Witraz” (Stained-Glass Window), which she com­posed in 1932 at the age of 23, is unforget­table. If you can begin to imagine magical flashes of light and color diffused through a stained-glass window, dancing across the room as they metamorphosize into sound, you’ll get a sense of how special this miniature sounds. Dalene’s Strad whispers, flashes, darts, and whirls as Hadland shines beside him through light and shadow.

Thanks to the iconic ECM New Series recording by Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett, Part’s early mystical masterpiece achieved fame just a few years after it was completed. Where Kremer begins with a whisper, Dalene is far more forthright, his tone irresistibly fresh and gleaming, and the recording benefits from superior engineer­ing. The touching poetry of Boulanger’s subtle miniature stands in sharp contrast to Prokofiev’s fabulous scherzo and circuslike finale. Ravel, too, revels in character, humor, amiability, and spice. The finale brings to mind someone chasing a mosquito around the room with a rolled-up copy of Stereophile in hand.

-- Stereophile

Concertante works featuring the recorder, tenor saxophone and accordion are few and far between. Stimulated by daring soloists, the prolific Finnish composer Kalevi Aho has composed such works, contributing in his own way to the development of an original and attractive repertoire. The Concerto for Recorder requires the soloist to play four types of recorder, from bass to sopranino. The work explores extended techniques and also does not shy away from flashbacks to the golden age of the instrument. Aho received the initial impetus for his Concerto for tenor saxophone after a concert by Esa Pietilä. Aho wrote a concerto with contrasting sections that gradually exploits the full potential of the tenor saxophone and also makes use of an oriental goblet drum (darabuka) that sometimes also takes centre stage. The origins of the Sonate Concertante for accordion and strings goes back to Aho’s first Sonata for accordion of 1984. Noting its orchestral character, soloist Janne Valkeajoki suggested making a concertante version with strings. Here, Aho sought to extend the technical possibilities of the instrument to the maximum and to write for it a work of astounding virtuosity, like Franz Liszt’s most demanding piano compositions.

Less well known among his works, the Missa sacra, Op. 147, bears witness to Robert Schumann’s late interest in sacred music – and in particular in Catholic church music. The work would have a rather difficult fate: during Schumann’s lifetime, it was neither published nor performed in its entirety. Even after its posthumous première, opinions were lukewarm. Wrongly so: the Missa sacra is a fascinating attempt to update sacred music through a refined post-classical musical language. It was originally conceived for orchestra, but Schumann also made a version for organ, presented here. This version allows great vocal transparency and immediacy, thus contributing to a clearer vision of the work. The Vier doppelchörige Gesänge for mixed choir a cappella, Op. 141, are also undeservedly neglected works: they constitute the high point in Schumann’s music for choir. These four songs unite both secular and religious-themed, the latter component being musically emphasised by the effect of multiple choirs. These two fascinating works are performed by the Swedish Radio Choir under the direction of Kaspar Putninš. Among his recordings for BIS is the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom by Rachmaninov (BIS-2571), which has received widespread critical acclaim, for example being awarded a prestigious Diapason d’Or by the French magazine Diapason.

REVIEW:

Schumann’s Missa Sacra, Op. 147, was one of the last things he wrote, and it wasn’t published until after his death. As it happens, it is marvelous, and it was probably just waiting for a top-notch reading of the sort that it receives here. Schumann attempts to merge the rather conservative structure of the Classical mass with Romantic stylistic ideas, and the work is really not like anything else he ever wrote. The Four Songs for Double Choir, Op. 141, close out the program; written slightly earlier, they are rare and quite persuasive. Yet it is the mass that may rewrite the choral repertory lists a bit; in this lovely performance, it is a gem.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

This album was released in the summer of 2023; it may not have been intended as a Christmas album, but it would make a wonderful purchase at that time.

The fourth volume of Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach works for organ series features one of the most important surviving instruments of Bach’s time, made by the German organ builder Christoph Treutmann the Elder. Widely known for its extraordinary tonal quality, the instrument was built between 1734 and 1737. A recent general restoration preserved all essential structural elements or renewed them, remaining faithful to the originals, making it an ideal instrument for Bach interpreters who wish to come close to the sound ideas of the Leipzig Thomaskantor.

Suzuki now takes up the Orgel-Büchlein (literally, ‘little organ book’), a collection of 45 short chorale preludes on melodies from the Lutheran hymn book, a project that came into being in connection with Bach’s appointment as organist and chamber musician at the Duke’s court in Weimar in 1708. Presenting chorales for different periods of the church year, this collection serves as a general guide to text-based composition focusing on specific word-sound relationships and content-specific musical expression. Two Preludes and Fugues complete the first volume dedicated to the Orgel-Büchlein, illustrating the principle of variety and structure historically practised by concert organists in order to demonstrate the tone colours and expressive possibilities of their instrument.

REVIEW:

The great Masaaki Suzuki’s traversal of Bach’s keyboard music is well underway, and several attractions have become clear. In general, he is a bit less concerned with a pearly surface and a bit more with direct expression. In works for organ, he has shown a willingness to delve into period instruments, and the one here is a real find. Suzuki is willing to take a bit of time to bring out its colors; there is nothing too radical, but there are subtle adjustments to the tempo throughout that define the profile of each little ornamented chorale, and all the performances are vivid. This album was released in the summer of 2023; it may not have been intended as a Christmas album, but it would make a wonderful purchase at that time.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

The Transcendental Études form a cycle of twelve pieces whose composition began in 1826 and was completed in 1851. Starting from the idea of an encyclopædic collection which, in the manner of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Liszt’s Transcendental Études became something of a seismograph of his compositional aesthetic, first strongly under the influence of Paganini, later more in the style of character pieces. These études are among the most difficult works ever written for the piano. Together with Chopin’s Études, they serve as a basis for piano technique, some of them already prefiguring musical impressionism, and they had a significant influence on subsequent piano music, most notably that of Debussy, Rachmaninov, Bartók, and Ligeti.

In 2009, Haochen Zhang was the youngest pianist ever to receive the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Since then, he has captivated audiences worldwide with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination and spectacular virtuosity. After two releases devoted to concertos (Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, BIS-2381 and Beethoven, BIS-2581), Zhang returns to the solo recital with this disc devoted to some of the most important works in the repertoire of modern pianists.

REVIEW:

Haochen Zhang’s Liszt Transcendental Etudes are bound to attract intense scrutiny, in light of these works’ recent proliferation in the catalog and Zhang’s growing prominence on the international piano scene. The brief opening Prelude’s individual touches are totally borne out by the score: such as the accented ascending left-hand lines, or how the marcatissimo chords take on a slashing ferocity when played strictly in tempo, as opposed to the broadening one hears from most pianists.

Some may find the second etude too compulsively detailed where inner voices sometimes stick out to a fault, while the upward leggermente triplets are on the careful, studio-bound side. It takes a while for Paysage’s long lines to truly resonate and soar. Mazeppa’s thickets of notes hold no difficulties for Zhang’s technique, yet his clattery, undifferentiated textural layering pales next to the extraordinary three-dimensional perspectives revealed in Yunchan Lim’s 2022 Van Cliburn Competition semi-finals performance.

Happily, Zhang’s fusion of breathtaking speed and felicitous poetry make for a Feux Follets worthy to mention alongside those of Sviatoslav Richter and Minoru Nojima. The pianist builds Vision in steadily moving blocks, and wisely starts out less loudly than Liszt indicates in order for the fortes and fortissimos to make a stronger impact. He takes more than usual dramatic advantage of Eroica’s fermatas, while his muted deliberation in the main section transforms the music into more of a funeral than military march.

To my ears, Zhang’s swiftness and clipped articulation in Wilde Jagd’s broken octaves and rapid-fire chords evokes not so much a royal hunt as a Road Runner cartoon. However, the lyrical Ricordanza features some of Zhang’s most direct, and stingingly proportioned pianism in the cycle. His forthright pacing and wide dynamic scope in Harmonies du Soir convey a similar impression. While it’s impressive how Zhang shapes and controls No. 10 to the extent that he does with little help from the sustain pedal, the effects draw more attention to themselves rather than to the music’s underlying agitato subtext. By contrast, the pianist’s variety of touch and timbre minimizes the tremolo texture’s potential for fatigue and monotony.

In sum, you may not agree with all of Zhang’s interpretive decisions, yet he clearly is a thinking and often stimulating virtuoso who leaves a strong imprint on these oft-recorded works. With that in mind, I prefer the conceptual consistency and more settled musicality of an earlier BIS Liszt Etudes from pianist Laszlo Simon (a/k/a Joyce Hatto, for those who remember the scandal we helped to uncover back in 2007). I also should mention that Yunchan Lim’s stunning Liszt cycle from the Cliburn is imminent from Steinway & Sons, hence its inclusion among the reference versions.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

The 37 songs in this recital, written by 27 composers – male, female, English, French, Swiss, German, Romantic, modern and contemporary – bear witness to the richness of Shakespeare’s works to which this recital is dedicated. Organised in the form of a play in five acts, including prologue and epilogue, the songs, which include several duets, are in turn cheerful and sad, light and profound, classical and jazzy – thus allowing, in Carolyn Sampson’s words, ‘a breadth of responses to these great texts’. Alongside well-known melodies, such as those by Schubert, there are musical adaptations by different composers of the same texts, as well as a contemporary reflection for the two voices by Hannah Kendall exploring the question of gender fluidity and identity through the elusive character of Rosalind from As You Like It.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, including Album für die Frau, a collection of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann, A Soprano’s Schubertiade and Elysium, two Schubert recitals, as well as a number of themed recitals, some of which were named ‘Recording of the Month’ by MusicWeb International and ‘CD-Tipp’ by BR Klassik, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton are joined here by renowned British baritone Roderick Williams.

REVIEW:

Soprano Carolyn Sampson and baritone Roderick Williams are prolific singers who can handle almost any kind of repertory but have a strong connection to the English tradition from the Baroque to the 20th century. It would be hard to imagine better singers for this collection of Shakespeare songs, for on one hand, Shakespeare settings are about as traditional as one can get, while on the other, this is an exceptionally diverse collection. Listeners unaware that Haydn set Shakespeare should make it their business to hear Sampson in She never told her love, as soon as possible. There are settings of German Shakespeare translations by Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf, a French one by Arthur Honegger, and an entrancing English-language Fancy by Poulenc. This album represents, in short, an embarrassment of riches, and it is one of the finest Shakespeare song releases to come along in quite some time.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

CONTENTS:

• Ireland: Full fathom five
• Vaughan Williams: Dirge for Fidele
• Moeran: The Lover and his Lass
• Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Arise, "Sea Murmurs"
• Smith, J C: You spotted snakes
• Tippett: Songs for Ariel
• Arne: Under the Greenwood Tree
• Gurney: Under the greenwood tree
• Parry: Sonnet LXXXVII
• Ireland: When daffodils begin to peer
• Haydn: She Never Told Her Love, Hob. XXVIa:34
• Schubert: An Silvia, D 106
• Schubert: Ständchen 'Horch! Horch! die Lerch!', D889
• Schubert: Trinklied D888
• Schumann: Schlusslied des Narren, Op.127 No. 5
• Wolf, H: Lied des transferierten Zettel
• Cornelius: Komm herbei, Tod, Op.16 No. 3
• Frances-Hoad: Rosalind
• Poulenc: Fancy
• Britten: Fancie
• Honegger: Deux Chants d'Ariel
• Bridge: Blow, blow, thou winter wind
• Dring: Take, O Take Those Lips Away
• Dankworth: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
• Horder: Under the greenwood tree
• Coleridge-Taylor: The Willow Song
• Beach, A: Fairy Lullaby
• Williams, Roderick: Sigh no More, Ladies
• Sullivan, A: Orpheus with his Lute

Between 1934 and 1949, Allan Pettersson, one of Sweden’s foremost composers of symphonies, wrote chamber works that differ greatly from his later production. With his Two Elegies, composed at the tender age of 17, Pettersson drew the enthusiasm of his teacher, who saw in him the makings of a composer. The Four Improvisations for string trio recall Bartók’s music with their rhythmic vitality. The Andante espressivo is more personal with its experimental melodic and harmonic leanings. After his forced return from Paris in 1939, where he had gone to study, Pettersson composed a tender and lyrical Romanza and, three years later, his only piece for solo piano, the elegiac and meditative Lamento.

The most important work on this recording is the Concerto for Violin and String Quartet, a harsh, dense work that places great demands on the musicians. Initially rejected by the critics, the work now appears almost unique in terms of its radical tonal language and experimental use of extended techniques. For this recording, Ulf Wallin has brought together colleagues and friends to perform these lesser-known works, which nevertheless constitute an essential milestone in the career of the great Swedish composer.

REVIEW:

The Concerto for Violin and String Quartet of 1949, which opens the program and makes up over half of the album’s run time, is a lush work with numerous challenges for performers, both technically and harmonically, that from the outside would seem likely to limit the scope of listeners who would enjoy it. However, credit to the present performers, for these demands are met, and the results are thoroughly interesting and thought-provoking. The Concerto is the latest included work, chronologically, and it is a clear step toward the composer’s symphonic writing. The earliest works here are the Two Elegies for Violin and Piano, from 1934. These lovely, short tunes reflect the schooling the composer had undertaken; one could perhaps mistake these as having been written in the previous century.

Pianist Thomas Hoppe, Wallin is another draw. Aside from ideal backing on the violin and piano works, Hoppe delivers a beautiful reading of Pettersson’s Lamento for Solo Piano. There is a lot to take in here, and listeners will be rewarded with subsequent hearings.

-- AllMusic.com (Keith Finke)

Leading Swedish composer Jesper Nordin’s soundscape lies at the crossroads of Swedish traditional music, rock and improvised music. On this recording, Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra perform Röster (‘voices’), a trilogy whose works are each based on different kinds of Swedish music which the composer sees as being part of his background. In Åkallan (‘Invocation’), Nordin has used the traditional vocal technique called kulning as his starting point. Extreme metal rock (through the band Meshuggah) provided the material for Ärr (‘Scar’) and the result is an explosive rhythmic scream that has seldom been heard in Classical music. Finally, Öde (‘Fate’ or ‘Deserted’) incorporates recordings by the legendary Swedish opera singers Birgit Nilsson and Jussi Björling in an electronic part which interacts with the orchestra. Performed by violinist Malin Broman and the ensemble Musica Vitae, 3rd Retrospective belongs to a series of works in which Nordin looks back on his own music in various ways. Here, he goes back to the music of his childhood, written and played on the violin by his father. More specifically, he uses a tune from a play written by Nordin’s father, namely a polska, a traditional dance whose origins are to be found in Poland.

The album Reconnaissance was, of course, never intended as an epitaph. Nonetheless, It is difficult to imagine a more fitting summary of, or introduction to, the character, spirit and life’s work of Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) on a single disc, especially where her choral repertoire is concerned.

This recording presents Kaija Saariaho’s works for choir, a cappella and with electronics, and displays her virtuosity in the treatment of texts, which she endows with the full range of verbal expression. Nuits, adieux, presented here both in its a cappella version and with electronics, could be described as a lullaby, not so much for a sleeping child as for an elderly person sleeping out of our world. Funny and very serious at the same time, Horloge, tais-toi was conceived for a children choir.

Écho! deals with the myth of Echo and Narcissus, with the idea of echo being naturally extended with electronics that process and reverb the voices of the singers. Based on poems by German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, Tags des Jahrs display an archaic choral treatment expanded by sounds of the human voices, birds, wind and other natural phenomena. Überzeugung engages with medieval music and treats the contrast between light and dark as a trance-like interplay between past and present. Finally, Reconnaissance can be seen as a ‘science-fiction madrigal’.

Nils Schweckendiek and the Helsinki Chamber Choir initially performed this program in concert in August 2022 as part of the celebrations surrounding Saariaho’s 70th birthday.

REVIEW:

The album Reconnaissance was, of course, never intended as an epitaph. Nonetheless, it is difficult to imagine a more fitting summary of, or introduction to, the character, spirit and life’s work of Kaija Saariaho on a single disc, especially where her choral repertoire is concerned. To quote her artistic statement on choral music from the booklet, ‘the entire range of verbal expression is available to be woven into a multi-layered and heterogeneous whole’. The remarkable array of works showcased here – and mostly in recording premieres, no less – demonstrates just how dedicated she was to this principle over the course of so many decades.

In addition, by presenting two contrasting versions of the same piece (Nuits, adieux) together, the album provides a rare example of a composer’s process of revisiting the same material for different times and places, allowing us a glimpse into a whole other dimension of Saariaho’s musical thinking. Lastly, the album is a testament to her ongoing collaboration with other members of the musical community, including high-profile colleagues and young family members alike. How fortunate we are to have this one last gift from Saariaho, a document that not only expands the discography of her critically important oeuvre but also serves as a testament for future generations to the example of a composer’s life exceptionally well lived.

-- Classical Music Daily

The opening work, Nuits, adieux, is as good an illustration as any of the manifoldness of Saariaho’s sound-world. It exists in two versions: the original (with electronics) from 1991, and the a cappella version from 1996. Together, they bookend this delectable programme...A particular attraction is the recurring solos by the marvellously beautiful soprano voice of Linnéa Sundfær Casserly. In the a cappella version, the electronics are replaced by eight-part chorus, while the solo parts are practically identical with the original. It is a special treat to return to the work in that modified version at the end of the programme.

Écho! from 2007 for eight voices and electronics, was inspired by a double-choir motet by Claude Le Jeune (c. 1528/30–1600), which deals with the Echo myth...It is immensely beautiful.

To me, [the title work, Reconaissance] is the most important choral work composed on this side of the turn of the millennium, and in harness with the rest of the programme, which is just as valuable, this is an indispensable disc for all lovers of choral music. The performances are tremendous. It is also a worthy memorial to Kaija Saariaho.

-- MusicWeb International

Serbian-Swedish Djuro Živkovic has quickly established himself as one of Europe’s leading young composers. His musical style is strongly marked by Byzantine Orthodox music – spiritual, mystical and characterized by fantastic narration, virtuosic instrumentation and a stylistic, highly profiled sound. Živkovic’s music presents a profound and abstract space to reflect on the subject matter of mystery, ecstasy and transcendence. Citadel of Love is a highly personal ensemble work which manages to create a mystical aural experience. The narrative voice of the piano together with the other six instruments, subtly adding voices as well as percussion instruments, carries the listener from beginning to end through an inner drama of intensity and fullness of soundscapes.

I Shall Contemplate… II is an intimate chamber piece for viola and small ensemble, stylistically similar to a sacred cantata, in which improvisatory techniques contribute to the free and unencumbered compositional process. Here, Živkovic’s use of ancient scales creates an archaic, echoing space. The text, spoken by the soloist, comes from old Byzantine mystical books. Finally, Night Music is a fascinating crossover work in which piano works by Alexander Scriabin are mixed with newly composed musical layers, thus adding to the Russian composer an absurd fantasy, estranged passion and exotic illusions.

The Czech Bohuslav Martinů and the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara may not seem to have much in common, but both have adopted an attitude free of musical puritanism, constantly finding new sources of inspiration which they explored without taboos. Explaining the heterogeneity of his musical language over the years, Rautavaara stated that, as a Finn, he stands ‘between East and West, between the tundra and Europe, between Lutheran and Orthodox faith’. Premiered in 1999, his Piano Concerto No. 3 has managed to join the small group of late twentieth-century concertos that are now part of the repertoire. Its subtitle, ‘Gift of Dreams’, seems to describe perfectly the character of the music in the first two movements, before a finale that exhibits a more driven, anxious manner.

Eclectic, prolific and capable of composing in all genres, Bohuslav Martinů is nevertheless a composer who is difficult to categorise and the word that seems to best suit his music is ‘cosmopolitan’. The Piano Concerto No. 3 shares many features with the Romantic concerto and recalls both Brahms and Stravinsky. Reflecting the tragic events in Prague at the time of its composition, the concerto ends in a macabre dance and appears as a defiant, almost belligerent gesture.

REVIEWS:

BIS is to be commended for producing an imaginatively programmed disc and giving the music brilliant performances and superb recorded sound. To round out the picture, Jean-Pascal Vachon’s program notes are helpful introductions to both pieces.

-- Fanfare

This enticing disc pairs the third piano concertos by two masters – works separated by a half-century in composition but that are highly expressive, vibrant, even complementary. At least that’s how they sound when played so eloquently by soloist Olli Mustonen, accompanied by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under the sensitive baton of conductor Dalia Stasevska. Rautavaara’s 1999 concerto, subtitled Gift of Dreams, shimmers in an array of musical colors, and Martinů’s 1948 third, which has a foot in both Romantic and modern styles, is eclectic in the best sense.

-- The Flip Side