In 2009, at the age of 19, Haochen Zhang became one of the youngest musicians ever to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Since then he has had a busy concert schedule, primarily in his native China and in the U.S.A. but also in Europe where he made his début at the BBC Proms in 2014. Recording has been less of a priority for Zhang, and it is only now that he releases his first studio album, recorded at the Reitstadel, the well-known audiophile venue in Neumarkt in Germany. For this recital, Haochen Zhang has devised a programme made up of works that he feels particularly close to. As he writes in his own liner notes, they ’not only speak to me in a very intimate way, but also connect with one another at a corresponding level of intimacy: as a whole they form a unique musical narrative.’ The pieces all share a reflective and introspective quality, albeit reflective in different ways.

Opening the disc, Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen were described by the composer as ‘reflections of an adult for adults’ and in the closing Op. 117 Intermezzi, Brahms also seems to be looking backwards – but with resignation rather than intimate tenderness. Framed by these two, the works by Liszt and Janáček contain overtly dramatic episodes, but contemplative interludes form a recurrent feature of the Ballade, and in Presentiment, the first movement of Janáček’s Sonata, the dark forebodings seem to rise up from the composer’s own soul.

Violin music isn’t what one normally associates with Franz Schubert, but he did in fact receive his first violin lessons as a young boy from his father. At the age of 11 he was accepted as a member of the choir of the imperial court chapel, and as such became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt school. There he joined the excellent student orchestra, eventually assuming the role of leader. Among his examiners was the court Kapellmeister Anton Salieri, who took a keen interest in Schubert’s compositions. Schubert left the school in 1813, but continued working with Salieri for a few years longer, possibly on some of the pieces recorded here – the Rondo, Konzertstuck and G minor Sonata all hail from 1816 while the Polonaise is from the following year. These early, unpretentious violin compositions were probably intended for Schubert’s older brother Ferdinand, who led the family string quartet in which Franz played the viola. Composed in 1827, when Schubert had already written his symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas and hundreds of songs, the closing Fantasy in C major is another matter. A substantial piece in four sections, it contains challenging writing for both instruments, demonstrating what a master Schubert himself was on both. On this and its soon-to-be-released companion disc, Ariadne Daskalakis has gathered all of Schubert’s works for violin. Equally at home on baroque and modern instruments, she has chosen to perform them in a historical context, joined by Paolo Giacometti on a fortepiano by Salvatore Lagrassa from c. 1815 and the period band Die Kolner Akademie conducted by Michael Alexander Willens.

In 2015, when Ruby Hughes discovered Clytemnestra by the Welsh composer Rhian Samuel, the work had not been performed since its première some 20 years earlier. Hughes describes the 24-minute score as ‘sun-scorched and luscious’ as well as ‘intensely visceral’, but in it she also heard echoes of Gustav Mahler and Alban Berg, two of Samuel’s influences. For her first album as soloist with orchestra, she has therefore devised a programme which brings together the three composers but which also spans a wide range of emotions and moods. For his Rückert-Lieder, Mahler selected five highly intimate and subtle poems by the great Romantic poet Friedrich Rückert, using his large orchestral forces sparingly in a chamber music style. Ten years later, in 1911, Berg found his texts closer at hand as he set contemporary poems by Peter Altenberg, one of the main proponents of Viennese impressionism. Berg's advanced harmonic language caused a scandal at the first performance in 1913, and the songs were only performed in their entirety in 1952, sixteen years after Berg’s death. For Clytemnestra, finally, Rhian Samuel assembled her own text, based on Aeschylus' tragedy Agamemnon and focusing Clytemnestra’s deep anguish at the death of her daughter and her need for revenge. Bringing this wide spectrum of human emotions to life, Ruby Hughes is supported by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Jac van Steen.

Running through this album is a path from despair and sin through revelation, repentance and belief, to life, triumph and finally love. The stations on the way are eight five-part fantasias for viols by Michael East (1580–1648), unusual in that each of them has a Latin title – from Desperavi to Amavi. In his time, East was one of England’s most published composers with seven books of his compositions in print, all of them containing music for viols and voices. The fantasias are here performed by the five members of Chelys Consort of Viols, who together with the singers in Fieri Consort have selected vocal items by East to complement each of the instrumental pieces. Regretting the lack of modern repertoire for this combination the performers have also commissioned a new piece by the composer Jill Jarman. Setting a verse by Sir Henry Wotton, a contemporary of East, Now are my thoughts at peace sums up the journey of the fantasias from Desperavi to Amavi, 400 years after they were written.

The success of Ottorino Respighi’s ‘Roman Trilogy’ brought the composer international fame as an outstanding orchestrator. One side effect of this are the orchestral transcriptions gathered on this album: all made in 1929-30 and commissioned by eminent conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Serge Koussevitzky for their American orchestras.

Respighi’s wide-ranging musical tastes included an interest in early music which probably contributed to him taking on the task of transcribing organ works by Bach – or creating ‘orchestral interpretations’, as he himself called the results. Among the Bach works are the celebrated Passacaglia in C minor – which Stokowski had orchestrated just a few years earlier – as well as the Prelude and Fugue in D major. Both are given the full treatment by Respighi, with orchestral forces including strings, triple woodwind, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and piano four hands for the Prelude and Fugue. The score for the Passacaglia asks for even greater forces (including an organ); Respighi compared Bach’s original to ‘a cathedral built exclusively of sound’ – a description equally valid for his own arrangement. The Passacaglia was a success for Toscanini in New York, possibly influencing Koussevitsky in Boston to place a commission of his own. For him and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Respighi transcribed five of Rachmaninov’s etudes-Tableaux for solo piano. Although these are programmatic pieces, their subject matter had not been disclosed in the editions for piano, but the Russian composer revealed his inspiration to Respighi in order to help him ‘find the appropriate colors’.

With the present album, l’Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and John Neschling bring us the fifth installment in a series that has been called ‘the finest-ever survey of the composer’s orchestral output undertaken by a single conductor’ (BBC Music Magazine).

REVIEW:

The alliance of John Neschling and BIS’s engineers has displayed Respighi’s genius for orchestration in all their previous albums together. This latest offering is no exception. I listened to the stereo layer of the SACD and was well impressed with the results. The sound has depth, body and presence and the engineers have conveyed an abundance of detail in a pleasingly natural way. The recorded sound shows the fine, alert playing of the Orchestre Philharmonique Royale de Liège to optimum advantage. The booklet essay by Jean-Pascal Vachon is very useful.

If anyone doubts Respighi’s flair and skill as an orchestrator, this SACD should still those doubts. It’s an entertaining disc in the best sense of the word and it’s a worthy addition to John Neschling’s Respighi series.

– MusicWeb International

On Remembering, the Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg continues his collaborations with two of the foremost Nordic composers: Per Nørgård and Kaija Saariaho. Praised internationally for his performances of the modern cello concerto, Kullberg regards the concerto form as the encounter of an individual soloist with the sound world of a composer. With living composers this approach often results in an unusual degree of collaboration, as the works gathered here bear witness to. Since 1999, Kullberg has enjoyed a close and unique partnership with Nørgård which has resulted in a large number of works. Between, the opening work on the album, hails from a time before this, but Nørgård’s viola concerto Remembering Child in its version for the cello is very much an example of Kullberg’s process. He has not only transferred the concerto to his own instruments, but has also – in consultation with the composer – written his own cadenza as well as added details to the score. Likewise, at a climactic point exactly halfway through Saariaho’s concerto Notes on Light, Kullberg creates an expressive space of his own, with a two-minute cadenza he has composed himself. In this work, as well as in Nørgård’s Between, Kullberg is supported by the BBC Philharmonic, with Sinfonia Varsovia appearing in the closing concerto.

It is primarily for his large-scale orchestral works that Sebastian Fagerlund (b.?1972) has attracted attention, but throughout his career he has also composed chamber music. In his production, orchestral and chamber music have a fruitful relationship in which a chamber work may contain the germ of ideas that then appear in a new form in an orchestral score. One example of this is Fuel – a set of six miniatures from 2010 – which grows out of the same basic material as Ignite, a work for large orchestra completed in the same year, although they differ greatly in scale and in character. Common to the two genres is also Fagerlund’s firm grasp of the capabilities of the instruments he is writing for. Some of Finland’s leading instrumentalists join forces on the present album, with French horn player Hervé Joulain making an appearance in Transient Light, which is dedicated to him. The six works were composed between 2007 and 2013 and are all for different constellations and of varying dimensions – from a brief duo in one movement (Scherzic) to a quartet in six (Verso l’interno). But there are also common features that recur throughout the program; for example machine-like textures against which material with longer lines is reflected, and influences from other genres such as traditional music from the Middle East or rock. These do not appear as direct stylistic loans, however, but rather as elements embedded in Fagerlund’s own music.

Bach was renowned as a keyboard player as well as being an accomplished violinist, but as far as we know he didn't play the lute. He seems to have been fascinated by the instrument’s special sound qualities, however, and was clearly inspired by the possibilities of the Lautenwerk. This was a gut-strung harpsichord designed to imitate the sound of the lute and at least some of the works usually referred to as ‘the Bach Lute Suites’ were probably composed for this instrument. Jakob Lindberg recorded the complete suites in 1992. Returning to the composer almost three decades later, he does so in the company of his Rauwolf lute, an instrument built in Augsburg around 1590 and ‘modernized’ in 1715, during Bach’s lifetime. But this time, only two of the works belong to the standard lute repertoire – the Prelude BWV 999 and the Suite BWV 1006a, which in fact is the composer’s own arrangement of his Partita No. 3 for solo violin. For the remaining works on the disc Lindberg has taken the cue from Bach, making arrangements of Cello Suite No.1 and Sonata No. 1 for solo violin in full. He has also chosen individual movements from other solo works, including the highly complex fugue from Sonata No. 3 for solo violin. The amply filled album (88 minutes!) closes with the iconic Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor.

Dmitri Shostakovich was a versatile composer: popular and serious styles came to him with equal ease and are frequently found together in the same work. In his twenties, before the heavy hand of Soviet officialdom slapped him down in 1936, music of every kind poured out of him: symphonies, operas and full-length ballets but also a great amount of music for film and theatre. Here Andrew Litton leads the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a program which explores this lighter side of a composer who is otherwise often regarded as unrelentingly serious.

The album opens with Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1, which Litton conducts from the piano. Consisting of three brief movements, it is the only truly original work on the disc, written in 1934 for a competition aimed at making ‘Soviet Jazz’ more respectable. The remaining suites are all reworkings of existing music, such as the ballets The Age of Gold – about the adventures of a Soviet football team visiting the decadent West – and The Limpid Stream, portraying a group of entertainers visiting an idyllic collective farm. The Suite for Variety Orchestra is a compilation that the composer made in the late 1950s from three film scores, a ballet movement and four piano pieces. Closing the album is Shostakovich’s 1927 orchestration of a Broadway classic, Vincent Youmans’ "Tea for Two," which had become a hit under the title "Tahiti Trot."

REVIEW:

Entitled Jazz & Variety, this album encompasses four of Shostakovich’s more popular-style suites, mainly drawn from his ballet and theatre scores. These range from the poker-faced, Kurt Weill-like stylization of 1920s dance music, complete with plunking banjo, in the Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 (1934), via the Prokofiev-like burlesques of The Age of Gold – a 1930 ballet about the vicissitudes of a Soviet football team in the wicked West – to the more straightforwardly traditional ballet numbers of The Limpid Stream(1935/45) set on an idyllic collective farm, and the Suite for Variety Orchestra put together from various pieces from the 1950s.

One item, the Waltz from the Jazz Suite, recurs twice: more fully orchestrated in The Limpid Stream, and in yet a third arrangement with a different, more banal middle section, in the Variety Suite. The collection culminates in Shostakovich’s twinkling orchestration of a version of ‘Tea for Two’, entitled Tahiti Trot (1927). Yet, in the middle of all these frolics, the searing intensity of the extended Adagio from The Age of Gold reminds us of the other, tragic side of Shostakovich.

Andrew Litton and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra lavish more care and subtlety on these pieces than the quality of invention in some of the music maybe deserves, additionally flattered by BIS’s spacious recording – though the Jazz Suite might have more bite in a drier acoustic. Still, this is a superior collection for those who relish this lighter, sometimes naughtier side of Shostakovich.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Born in Shanghai in 1955, Xiaogang Ye is regarded as one of China’s leading contemporary composers. He has written music in a variety of genres, including symphonic and chamber works as well as scores for the stage. Ye has also composed music for films and the two works recorded here are both examples of this. Sichuan Image consists of 29 brief and atmospheric pieces composed to accompany a filmed travelogue of the scenic province in Western China. In preparation for the work, the composer visited mountains, river, villages and ancient historical sites in Sichuan. Lending further color to the large symphony orchestra, four Chinese musicians perform on traditional instruments. The album closes with Concerto of Life, a suite in five movements for piano and orchestra with Noriko Ogawa taking on the solo part. The work is based on the score for a feature film of the same name telling the story of a piano teacher and his students. Ogawa has also appeared on a previous album of Ye’s music alongside the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor José Serebrier – a release named Editor's Choice in the Gramophone, whose reviewer described the performances as 'superb' and Ye's scores as possessing ‘lyrical elegance, searching drama and depth of color…’

Allan Pettersson’s Symphony No. 15 is characterized by a high degree of tension right from the striking opening: brief, emphatic chords from horns and trombones above the tremolo of a side drum. Soon an expressive melodic subject is heard from the first violins, followed by contrasting rapid scales – at which point Pettersson has presented the greater part of the symphony’s building blocks. Like so many of the composer’s symphonies, the 15th is in one movement, but with clearly defined sections. It was completed in 1978, two years before Pettersson’s death, and was followed in 1979, by the sixteenth symphony, the last work that the composer submitted for performance. Only later did it become known that Pettersson had also been working on a Viola Concerto – a work that, if not fully completed, was so far advanced that it has been accepted as part of his œuvre. It is presented here by the Swedish violist Ellen Nisbeth, who also performs one of Pettersson’s very earliest compositions – a Fantaisie pour alto seul, dated June 1936, when the composer himself was about to embark on a career as violist. On this the tenth disc in their acclaimed Pettersson cycle, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Christian Lindberg bring their combined expertise to bear on the orchestral scores.

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

For their latest project on BIS, the Wigmore Soloists perform two works with unusual instrumentation: Beethoven’s and Berwald’s septets for violin, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn.

If the young Beethoven did not aspire to profundity in his own Septet, he nevertheless managed to create a fine balance between light-heartedness and substance. In the tradition of serenade, this work in six movements represents Beethoven at his most warmhearted and relaxed, yet his compositional craft and subtlety are typically sharp. As the septet achieved such fame during his lifetime, Beethoven eventually became irritated by its popularity, which he said overshadowed more mature works.

Best known for his symphonies, Swedish composer Franz Berwald also composed a septet that is in no way imitative of Beethoven’s. Berwald had his own voice and his own musical expression, and his artful handling of the wind instruments deserves praises. Thanks to its attractive transparency, Berwald’s Septet consistently exudes freshness thanks to its endearing musical humor and ranks as the finest of his chamber compositions.

REVIEW:

I know the Wigmore Soloists from their very fine 2021 recording of an undisputed masterpiece, Schubert’s Octet. Here they navigate the tricky line between popular and erudite music, and come up with the perfect compromise. Their Beethoven Septet is, quite properly, not treated as the Eroica, but neither is it tossed off with little regard for its true merits. The result is, I think, as fine a Beethoven Septet as I’ve heard.

Franz Berwald’s Septet seems like the perfect pairing for Beethoven’s Septet, since it was written in 1828, the year after Beethoven’s death. But this is, I believe, only the second time the two works have appeared together on one disc; the other was in a 2017 CD from the Uppsala Chamber Soloists. That was a well-played recording, especially the Berwald, but it’s completely outmatched by the new Wigmore Soloists disc. Everything about this new BIS recording is perfectly judged, from the splendid, authentic, joyful performance to the always impeccable BIS engineering, and the fine liner notes by Philip Borg-Wheeler. Very highly recommended.

-- Music for Several Instruments (Dean Frey)

With Meditatio I released in 2016, the Schola Cantorum Reykjavicensis and Hörður Áskelsson presented music commemorating the departed. Recorded some six years later, Meditatio II similarly contains compositions that interpret man’s thoughts and feelings about death, and celebrate the immobility and beauty found in age-old church texts such as Ave verum corpus, In paradisum, Lux æterna and Agnus Dei.

With one exception, the fifteen works for mixed a cappella choir – none longer than 6 minutes – were written in the 21st century, and they originate in America and Europe. Seven Icelandic composers are represented, five of them from current or former members of the Schola Cantorum. Peaceful rather than desolate, these refined miniatures unfold over slow rhythms, coated with nuances that rarely go beyond the mezzo forte. This disc also includes an impressive arrangement of ‘Sofðu unga ástin min’, a traditional and bittersweet Icelandic lullaby, here sung without words. Founded in 1996 by Hörður Áskelsson, who has remained its artistic director to this day, the Schola Cantorum Reykjavicensis is comprised of 21 singers and has appeared on a number of BIS recordings.

Three years after recording Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang (arranged by Liszt), pianist Can Çakmur launches a new series called Schubert. Describing the Viennese composer as “a con­stant companion” in his life, Çakmur’s aim here is to juxtapose his complete major piano solo compositions with works by other composers that were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert’s completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-sufficient recital. In this first instalment, two sonatas by Schubert, respectively D 537 and D 959, are juxtaposed with Arnold Schoenberg’s Three Pieces op. 11. The reason for this combination is that, firstly, the same theme is shared but treated differently in Schubert’s sonatas, and secondly, Schubert and Schoenberg seemingly sharing the same conception where the natural flow and direction of the music appear consciously deconstructed. With different means and a hundred years apart, both Schubert and Schoenberg, the former with his aversion to formal boundaries, the latter with his efforts against the natural tendencies of Western harmony, managed to strengthen the subjective expression of their music.

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

The inspiration for this album came about from Ruby Hughes’ first collaboration with the Manchester Collective in the spring of 2020. During the first Covid lockdown, they built the programme of this recital for the purpose of touring the UK and uplifting their audiences at a time when we were all being confronted by challenging notions of mortality and isolation. As artists, they asked themselves what music might attend to the prevailing concerns of this time. Their answers came in the form of this offering.

The title of this album, End of My Days, comes from Errollyn Wallen’s song; a resounding celebration of life that embraces death without regret or sadness but with great verve and acceptance. The other songs, each in its own way, evoke silence and separation, but also love and hope and even the reassurance that we will return whence we came and light shall lift us into eternity. The concluding song, Deborah Pritchard’s Peace, is a message of hope, willingly received as the world emerged out of lockdown in 2021. Luminous tranquillity moves us into the light, towards eternity.