Born in the vicinity of Cologne, only two years after and some sixty km distant from Beethoven, Johann Wilhelm Wilms was once a musical force to be reckoned with. In Amsterdam, where he lived from the age of 19, his music was actually performed more frequently than Beethoven’s at one period, and his orchestral works were played in such musical centers as Leipzig. Besides chamber music and solo sonatas, Wilms composed several symphonies and concertos, among them piano concertos for his own use. But already during his lifetime Wilms began to retreat from the public eye and by the time of his death in 1847, he was remembered almost exclusively as the composer of the then national anthem. In time for the 250th anniversary of Wilms’ birth, Ronald Brautigam has edited the five extant piano concertos by ‘the Dutch Beethoven’. A first volume (BIS-2504) with the three earlier concertos has been released, earning a five star review in BBC Music Magazine for ‘performances of lightness and transparency, matched by the recording’s clarity.’ On this second and final instalment, with Concertos Nos 4 and 5, Ronald Brautigam again receives spirited support from the Kölner Akademie and Michael Alexander Willens.

Huw Watkins’ song cycle Echo, composed for soprano Ruby Hughes and premiered in 2017 at Carnegie Hall, is at the center of this artfully crafted recital. Setting texts by five different poets, the cycle is a work centered on melancholy – on transience, remembrance, and in the final song a numbed cry of inconceivable loss. As such it permeates the entire program, adding a new and unexpected depth to that which precedes as well as follows. Another strand of the recital is the idea of how composers across the ages have addressed and echoed one another lovingly in their music – often in the most nuanced and unconscious way. Bach’s solo keyboard works capture something of a sense of timelessness, or more accurately, inspire an emotional connection that transcends time. A similar affinity seems to inform Britten’s folksong arrangements and his realizations of Bach’s Geistliche Lieder as well as the Purcell realizations by Thomas Adès and Tippett. A different kind of echo is created by the inclusion of Britten’s version of Dafydd y Garreg Wen(David of the White Rock) – a nod to the performers’ shared Welsh heritage. Closing the disc, three songs by contemporary British composers admired by both Watkins and Hughes also resonate with the previous works, bringing the program full circle.

REVIEW:

Here, in a recital that includes two world premieres, Hughes and longtime collaborator Huw Watkins combine contemporary works with works from centuries past. Somber themes connect them: the transience of life. Loss. Grief.

Watkins’s five Echo songs are exceptionally beautiful. Listen to the falling cascades in his setting of Emily Dickinson’s “For Each Ecstatic Instant.” Admire how vocally responsive Hughes is in the Purcell, how fragile and precious she sounds in Errollyn Wallen’s “Peace on Earth,” and how much she can communicate with barely a whisper of sound. Marvelous.

-- Stereophile

The concerto, with its soloist thrilling and moving an audience with the support of an orchestra, has been one of the most popular musical forms for over 300 years. Now imagine a concerto for two instruments: twice the virtuosity and twice the expression! While Antonio Vivaldi was one of the first composers to investigate the possibilities of this format in his more than 500 concertos, he didn’t compose a single one for double bass. This recording rectifies Vivaldi’s omission and offers arrangements of two of his double concertos as well as one of his best-loved arias: Vedrò con mio diletto from the opera Il Giustino. A little more than century later, Giovanni Bottesini, the Paganini of the double bass, captivated first Europe and then the rest of the world, displaying a dazzling virtuosity in his numerous compositions that highlight the unique qualities of the instrument. For his second disc on the BIS label, Rick Stotijn, a tireless advocate of his instrument and its endless possibilities, has joined forces with his friends Johannes Rostamo, Olivier Thiery and Bram van Sambeek. Supported by Camerata RCO, a string ensemble from the Amsterdam Concertgebouworkest, they perform concertante works from these two Italian composers: Doppio espressivo!

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Naples’ fame as a musical center attracted travelers, composers, instrumentalists and virtuoso singers alike. Among the aspiring musicians, the most highly-trained and sought-after were the castrati, promising boys aged between 8 and 12 who were subjected to an operation intended to preserve the exceptionally pure timbre of their treble voice. Forever virginal beings whose superhuman voices mesmerized their listeners, they were nicknamed angiolilli, ‘little angels’, and sang in the most important churches and theatres of ‘Castrapolis’, a term coined to describe the southern capital and its high concentration of castrato sopranos.

Nicolò Balducci is one of the rapidly rising countertenors and sopranists of his generation. Together with the ensemble Dolci Affetti, directed by the renowned recorder player Dan Laurin, he here performs arias and cantatas by Hasse, Porsile, Sarro and Alessandro Scarlatti. All four composers were associated with Naples and knew how to highlight these extraordinary voices, at a time when opera and the chamber cantata represented the most fashionable musical genres both in Italy and abroad. The program is completed with a concerto for harpsichord by Domenico Auletta, with Anna Paradiso performing the solo part.

As one of the finest pianists of his era and an improviser of genius, Ludwig van Beethoven’s preferred vehicle for musical exploration was the piano. With his five piano concertos composed between 1788 and 1809, he not only achieved a brilliant conclusion to the Classical piano concerto, but also established a new model for the Romantic era: a sort of symphony with obbligato piano which was to remain a reference point well into the twentieth century. After the first two concertos, which still closely follow the models of Haydn and Mozart, Concerto No. 3 marks a profound stylistic change. In the piano part, Beethoven pushes the instrument to its limits, leading commentators to remark that he was writing for the piano of the future. This trend continued and reached its fullness in the Fourth and Fifth Concertos, which today rank among the great composer’s most admired works.

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. He now performs the five Beethoven concertos supported by the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra under its principal guest conductor, the charismatic Nathalie Stutzmann.

REVIEWS:

In a crowded pool of complete Beethoven piano concerto recordings, young Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang makes an impressive splash with his traversal of one of the most imposing cycles in the entire repertoire. With French conductor Nathalie Stutzmann leading the Philadelphia Orchestra, Zhang deftly handles Beethoven’s fiendish runs and cadenzas throughout these five imposing works. Most memorable are the 3rd and 4th concertos, which have the most balance between urgency and delicacy.

-- The Flip Side

December is a time of anticipation. We wait and we hope – veni, come! The songs on this album encompass many nuances and moods – from joy and jubilant celebration to deep melancholy and longing. They move between folk tunes, English carols and traditional Christmas songs from different times and parts of the world, between Bach and Ives, Bulgaria and Norway. Several of the songs refer to the passing of the year, the cycle of nature and rhythms of daily life: lullabies for peace of mind and comfort, and songs about surrendering ourselves to the unfathomable and unknowable in the midst of our everyday concerns: the stars will always shine in the sky – and dawn will come. In others, we meet the little child born in a stable – vulnerable and yet immensely powerful.

In the nine years following the release of ‘Rós – Songs of Christmas’ [BIS-2029], the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir’s annual Christmas concerts under the leadership of Grete Pedersen have become a cherished tradition in their native country. They are joined on this recording by folk musicians Sondre Meisfjord and Marco Ambrosini and by their long-standing collaborator, the fiddler and composer Gjermund Larsen, who also appeared on the choir’s previous Christmas album.

Hélène de Montgeroult’s life reads like a novel: showing a precocious musical ability as a child in pre-revolutionary France, she became fêted as one of the finest pianists and improvisers of her time. Imprisoned during an attempt to reach Naples at the time of the Revolution, she was able to return to France. Here she worked for the Institut National de Musique, only to be imprisoned again during the Reign of Terror. Finally freed for good, she was made professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris, the first woman to occupy such a position. Meanwhile, she managed to compose an important body of work for the piano as well as a complete method, including 114 études.

In her liner notes to the disc, the British pianist Clare Hammond hails Montgeroult as ‘one of the most exploratory pianistic personalities of our time’. From her output, Hammond has selected 29 études that highlight the unique talent of this composer whose music is on a par with that by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann, displaying a harmonic audacity, textural complexity and, despite its pedagogical purpose, a singing quality and an expressive depth. Forgotten so comprehensively for such a long time, Montgeroult’s Études deserve a similar renown and popularity as those by her contemporaries.

REVIEW:

Clare Hammond accordingly places great emphasis on expression and cantabile, which are the main features of her enchantingly light and sensitive interpretations. And in so doing she would certainly have satisfied the composer who once said, « If singing well is the greatest difficulty on all instruments, one might almost despair of overcoming it on the Forte-Piano, which, deprived of the faculty of sustaining sounds, has given everything when touched; but feeling makes one ingenious, and the need to express what one feels can create resources that escape the mechanic.

-- Pizzicato

One of Gramophone's Best Classical Recordings of 2022!

This recording brings together two of the greatest works of the Classical era in transcriptions for solo piano by two of the greatest pianist-composers of the Romantic era, resulting in two of the most thrilling experiences that nineteenth-century pianism has to offer. Successfully marrying the unique charac­teristics of the piano to the defining features of Beethoven’s orchestral writing, Franz Liszt is showed here at his most coloristic. He vividly captures the rapid scene shifts and mood changes of Beethoven’s Eroica and exploits not only the piano’s ability both to whisper and to roar, but also the power and intensity of silence. In Mozart’s 20th piano concerto, Charles-Valentin Alkan takes on a different challenge as he masterfully weaves the orchestral and solo piano parts into a single tapestry that brims from start to finish with piano writing of startling inventiveness and originality.

These two pianistic tours de force are presented here by Paul Wee – also a barrister specializing in commercial law at Essex Court Chambers in London – whose astonishing technique and passion for nineteenth-century pianism have been highlighted on acclaimed recordings dedicated to music by Alkan and transcriptions by Thalberg.

REVIEWS:

[Paul Wee's] fleet basic tempos for the opening movement and the Scherzo raise the bar for lightness, crisp articulation, and forward moving intensity, making his colleagues sound thick by comparison. Wee’s remarkable technique particularly impresses in the Finale’s incisively delineated counterpoint. What staggeringly even runs!–not to mention Wee’s ability to play rapid left-hand octaves more proficiently than most pianists can play single lines.

The main challenge of Alkan’s solo piano transcription of Mozart’s D minor concerto is to differentiate solo passages and orchestral tuttis by way of phrasing, touch, voice leading, smart pedaling, and dynamic control. Wee does this brilliantly throughout.

[A] transcendent achievement.

-- ClassicsToday.com

One of the boldest and most radical composers of all time, Alexander Scriabin had a lifelong obsession with occult and mystical ideas. Initially under the influence of Chopin, Wagner, and Liszt, his music later became more complex, taking on an expressive power which provoked extreme reactions from audiences – of adulation as well as repulsion. Not shying away from hyperbole, Scriabin once declared: ‘I am the apotheosis of creation – I am the aim of all aims – I am the end of all ends.’

The three works featured on this release belong to Scriabin’s final compositional period where the music seems to veer between voluptuous languor and striving energy. Composed back-to-back, the Poem of Ecstasy and the Fifth Piano Sonata are drenched in bitter-sweet harmonies and carefully constructed dissonances. The scores of both works make reference to the same poem – by Scriabin himself – which ends with the lines ‘thus the universe resounds with the joyful cry: I AM!’. In his last symphonic poem, Prometheus — The Poem of Fire, Scriabin aims even higher. Here he expresses the evolution of the world from formless chaos, through the appearance of mankind, fertilized by the divine spark, towards spiritual liberation and ultimate transcendence. The unusually large orchestra and a wordless choir produces a kaleidoscope of contrasts, colors and sounds caught up in an ecstatic whirl.

REVIEWS:

In Scriabin’s work, the Prometheus myth is focused less on the creative element of Prometheus and more on the theft of fire, which allows the composer to create ‘light-filled’ images. Lan Shui creates a very great tension from the very first bars, giving expression to the fantasy nature of the composition. We thus hear music with those detaching particles of sound that, like the flock of birds in flight, create effects from ever-changing forms. Shui thus proves to be an imaginative conductor who spurs his orchestra and choir on to an outstanding performance. Evgeny Sudbin blends perfectly into this feverish sound...A great performance!

-- Pizzicato

Lan Shui and his Singapore Symphony Orchestra...inflame the subject; they delight in lascivious sensualities, the better to suddenly cause volcanoes to burst. All this is of a dizzying control and a sonic refinement...

The pianist is none other than Yevgeny Sudbin...He touches on genius in Prometheus, but you also have to hear him burn his keyboard, all hammers and iron, for a 5th Sonata that sounds as if it had just come out of the forge. A great album - totally unexpected, and recorded with striking fidelity.

-- Artamag'

On Synergy, flautist Sharon Bezaly and her musician friends demonstrate that one plus one can be much greater than two. Featuring works that celebrate the coming together of like-minded musicians, this project is a reminder, after more than two years of a pandemic that has affected all of us, that true musical synergy can only be achieved 'face-to-face’, rather than ‘remotely’. With his Concerto for flute and recorder, Telemann not only creates a fusion of different musical styles of his time – namely Italian, German and French – but also shows a gift for borrowing elements from popular music. Saint-Saëns brings swirling colors and energy with a Tarentelle for flute, clarinet and orchestra, that at times displays obsessive, even threatening undertones. From the same period, Doppler’s Concerto for two flutes is not far from the world of opera, providing the two soloists with ample opportunity to shine like two singers in front of an orchestra. In addition to celebrating the synergy created between musicians, the last two works featured on this disc, Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6 and Suite from the Orchestral Works, are telling examples of synergy between composers: it is as if Villa-Lobos and Mahler were shaking hands with Johann Sebastian Bach across distances of thousands of miles and hundreds of years.

REVIEW:

The principal attraction of this SACD, as good as the performances are, is the uniqueness of the program. Sharon Bezaly, one of the outstanding flutists of our time, has brought together composers not particularly associated with each other, and from different eras. While each performance is enjoyable, the real success of the disc is how the imaginative program flows in such a lovely way.

On Telemann’s Concerto in E Minor for Recorder, Flute, and Strings with harpsichord continuo. Bezaly is joined by one of the world’s premier recordists, Michala Petri, and their interplay is delightful. The final Presto is particularly inventive and sparkling in the way the two soloists play off each other.

Michael Collins and Bezaly play Saint-Saëns’s Tarantelle with total communication, lingering lightly over lyrical passages while clearly enjoying their virtuoso moments as well.

The big surprise for me was the Concerto in D Minor for Two Flutes by the flute virtuoso and composer Franz Doppler (1821–1883). The music is almost vocal in its melodic shape, but the remarkable aspect of the score, surprisingly, are the passages where the two flutes must play in unison. Bezaly and Walter Auer come close to making us believe that they are a single flute.

Next comes the one work without orchestra, Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras No. 6, scored for flute and bassoon. Bram van Sambeek is a brilliant technician, but more importantly he produces a rich sound from his bassoon and provides harmonic support for Bezaly’s flute.

Her combination of rich tone and rhythmic precision is just right for The Mahler-orchestrated selections from the Second and Third Orchestral Suites. While no one would mistake this for an historically informed performance, it is an extremely stylish one. Michael Collins and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra bring elegance to the Air and energy to the Gavotte from the Third Suite. As an encore Bezaly give us a repeat of the Badinerie from the Second Suite.

BIS’s usual high standards of engineering and informative program notes round out a truly lovely disc.

-- Fanfare (Henry Fogel)

The term sinfonietta is generally used to describe a work that is smaller in scale or lighter in approach than a standard symphony. It only came into common usage during the first half of the 20th century, which is when the three works included on this disc were in fact composed. Worth noting is also that Sergei Prokofiev and Benjamin Britten wrote their respective sinfoniettas while they were still in their teens – early attempts at multi-movement works for ensemble. Prokofiev revised his Sinfonietta twice, with the 1929 version recorded here, and went on to become one of the great symphonists of his time. Britten chose a different path, with operas forming the most important part of his legacy. Perhaps symptomatically, his Sinfonietta – his Op. 1 – was initially composed for wind quintet and string quintet, a scoring which he later expanded into the version heard on the present recording. Like Britten, Francis Poulenc was not naturally inclined towards large-scale orchestral works, and his Sinfonietta is indeed his only symphonic piece. The most recent of the works on the disc, it is in a neo-classical vein with sparkling dance rhythms as well as lyrical moments. The three works are here performed by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk, a team which has released several highly acclaimed albums on BIS.

REVIEWS:

Poulenc's Sinfonietta would be the composer's only work in the symphony genre, borrowing, sometimes more obviously than not, from the neo-classical stylings of Stravinsky and nearly quoting Mozart. Poulenc mostly stayed away from larger forms, finding success with his songs, chamber music, and religious works, but this Sinfonietta displays the composer's charm and gift with melodic phrasing.

The Sinfonietta, Op. 5, by Prokofiev (heard here in its final revision from 1929, which the composer assigned as his Op. 48) is a youthful work, even in its revised form. A light and airy neo-classical work that, along with his Classical Symphony, can trace to the mature Prokofiev symphonic writing.

While the sinfoniettas of Poulenc and Prokofiev are light and airy works, the Sinfonietta, Op. 1, by Britten has a more mature sound, even though he was only 18 when it was written. The harmonic structure of the work is influenced by the Second Viennese School through his teacher and dedicatee of the work, Frank Bridge. Originally written for wind quintet and string quintet, Britten later revised it for chamber orchestra, which is what is presented here.

A thoroughly enjoyable hour of lighter music that will be nearly unknown to many listeners but should be accessible to a wide audience. BIS' engineers make good use of the Lahti Symphony's magnificent Sibelius Hall home.

-- AllMusic.com (Keith Finke)

All in all this is a splendid release, very enjoyable from beginning to end, offering 3 wonderful pieces not often encountered. It is expertly played, conducted and recorded. Very highly recommended.

-- Classical CD Review

Following a rock/metal album recorded with his band ORBI [BIS-2297], Bram van Sambeek returns with his own idea of a dance album. For it he has selected four works by Johann Sebastian Bach that consist mainly of typical baroque dances – but just as van Sambeek’s metal album wasn’t made for headbanging, Bach’s dances weren’t meant for dancing, but rather to be listened to. The album opens with van Sambeek’s own arrangement of the celebrated Partita in C minor for keyboard which he describes in his liner notes as one of his favorite works to listen to. The arrangement includes every note of the original keyboard part and is for no less than eight bassoons – all played by van Sambeek using multitrack recording technique. The idea for this came from having spent months in lockdown due to the pandemic: even though musicians were unable to play together, the urge to play actual harmonies persisted. Four movements from another keyboard work – the French Suite No. 5 – are also included on the disc, but as these are melodic rather than contrapuntal they have lent themselves to be arranged for a single voice. The remaining two works are the Flute Partita in A minor and Cello Suite No. 1, adding to an overall result which allows a new look on well-known works, with new nuances and colors.

The expressive immediacy of Aram Khachaturian's music, with its sensuous melodic writing, vibrant orchestration and rhythmic drive, resulted in a popularity equaled by few composers of his generation. Composed in 1936, the Piano Concerto was the work that established Khachaturian’s name. Cast in the customary three movements, it is scored for a sizable orchestra, with notable contributions from both side-drum and military drum in the percussion section. In the second movement there is also an extensive solo for a so-called ‘flexatone’; it is often put forward that Khachaturian in fact intended the part to be played on the musical saw, as it is on the present recording. Thirty years after the Concerto, the composer returned to the genre with his Concerto-Rhapsody for piano and orchestra. This time the score offers prominent roles for the xylophone, marimba and vibraphone, which contribute towards making this one of the composer’s most colorful works. The demanding solo parts are here performed by the young Jordanian-Palestinian pianist Iyad Sughayer, with spirited support from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Andrew Litton. Sughayer made his acclaimed début as a recording artist with an album of Khachaturian's piano works and sandwiched between the two works with orchestra he here presents the piano version of one of the composer's best loved pieces, the Masquerade Suite with its yearning opening Waltz and closing Galop.

At the end of a career spent between his native Korea and Germany, during which he produced works that span the musical traditions of both countries, Isang Yun expressed a wish to limit himself ‘to what is substantial, in order to transmit more peace, more goodness, more purity and warmth into this world’.

With Silla (1992) the composer pays tribute to the origins of Korean culture and philosophy, to the court music introduced from China, and to the period when Korea’s political unity was established (676–935 AD). Describing its mood, Yun provided such keywords as ‘nocturnal, festive…mirthful but also melancholy’. From the same year, Violin Concerto III was composed after a stay in hospital, and Yun once described it as a birthday present to himself. At the age of 75 he no longer felt the need to take contemporary currents, aesthetic trends or technical restraints into consideration. The work holds in store a wealth of musical occurrences that could perhaps be deciphered in the context of its composers own life, and is here performed by the young South Korean violinist Sueye Park. Closing the disc is Chamber Symphony No. 1 from 1987, a work in one movement but with three distinct sections. In it, Yun combines instruments that forge changing musical alliances while engaging in rivalry or complementing each other. The mood is evocative of an, at times, animated conversation.

REVIEW:

This is a superb disc of wonderfully expressive, thoroughly accessible music, and is immensely welcome for several reasons. Firstly, for turning a spotlight on the music of the composer’s last decade, which includes some of his most powerfully communicative compositions. Secondly, it is heartwarming to hear the late flowering of a composer of utterly assured compositional expertise, writing the music that flowed spontaneously out of him from a situation of creative and personal freedom – not complacency, but with nothing to prove, no particular school or doctrine to follow – after a lifetime of personal and musical turmoil and searching re-invention...The final race to the finish [of the Chamber Symphony] is as exciting and robust as anything in the Romantic literature.

-- Records International

It was only after his death that Franz Schubert’s symphonic works made an impact in music history. In fact, the first public performance of any of Schubert’s symphonies took place at a memorial concert held a few weeks after the composer had passed away, on 19th November 1828. The work that was heard at that occasion was Symphony No.6, D589, the ‘Little C major’, while the two undisputed master works of the series – the ‘Great C major’ and the ‘Unfinished’ – had to wait until 1838 and 1865, respectively, before being performed. The six symphonies that precede them in the list of completed works were all composed between 1813 and 1818, while Schubert was still only 21 years of age. In a style above all oriented on Haydn and Mozart, they are youthful in the best sense of the word and display a disarming freshness which the present performances convey to perfection.

The four discs gathered here were released singly between 2010 and 2014, receiving critical acclaim in the international music press: the reviewer in The Daily Telegraph (UK) described the experience as ‘having a layer of varnish removed from a much-loved painting’ while his colleague in Fanfare wrote that the approach by Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra ‘changes the landscape’, proposing that the cycle ‘could become a first choice among any available.’ The set also include some shorter orchestral works, among them the much-loved Rosamunde Overture.

Excerpts from reviews of previously released volumes included in this set:

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9 / Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra

Dausgaard somehow manages to approach the surviving two movements of Schubert's B minor Symphony as though we didn't all know that it remained 'unfinished. For once it was hard not to regret the absence of an energetic scherzo or finale.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Schubert: Symphony No. 6 / Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra

Dausgaard dexterously manages the internal balance within the orchestra. His pacing of the opening Adagio instills confidence, the line shaped by phrases stretched and contracted, dynamics thoughtfully graded, the interpretation of the whole work thoughtfully considered.

-- Gramophone

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 3, 4 & 5 / Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra

Even if not in his mature style, and showing the influence of Rossini, as well as of Haydn and Mozart, they are pure Schubert, not least in harmony and scoring, and they stand up well to the high-powered approach of Dausgaard and the splendid Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

-- The Sunday Times (UK)

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 / Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra

The definition and dynamism that these forces have been bringing to their Schubert symphony cycle are qualities that are radiantly replicated in the performances here.

-- Gramophone