The pianist Anna Zassimova offers us a musical journey through most of Chopin’s creative periods, bringing together miniatures and some larger scaled, highly structured works. We can thus follow the composer’s stylistic evolution: slightly whimsical at first, then works that are often tragic and violent, evolving in his final years towards great luminosity and relative calm.

Highlights of this recital include the Ballades Nos 2 and 4, the Mazurkas, Op. 41 and Op. 50 and the Scherzo No. 4 in E major. The mazurkas can be seen as a kind of diary that Chopin kept throughout his life as an artist, reflecting his deep-rooted attachment to Poland. In them, folklore was entirely recreated and stylized. Considered the finest of Chopin’s creation and among the most representative of romantic music, the Ballads are pure music in its finest form. Without any specific programme, they are said to have been inspired by the poetic ideas of one of his friends, the poet Adam Mickiewicz. Finally, the Scherzo has an almost fairy-tale, luminous atmosphere, although there are more passionate and intense moments, and it thus appears close to the character of the scherzo as it was once conceived.

While the concept of the programmatic and autobiographical quartet seems to have been introduced by Beethoven, nowhere has it been taken up more forcefully than in the Czech lands, as the works presented here attest. Leoš Janáček’s first quartet, subtitled ‘Kreutzer Sonata’, is based on a novella by Leo Tolstoy, which deals with such subjects as marriage, adultery and murder, all of which are evoked here by highly expressive music. The second quartet, the last major work he completed, is subtitled ‘Intimate Letters’. The special feature of this unique and miraculous quartet, full of love songs and eruptions, is the intense and euphoric expression of the composer’s inspirational and unrequited passion for a young woman.

Pavel Haas, who studied with Janáček in Brno in the 1920s, composed his second string quartet subtitled ‘From the Monkey Mountains’ in 1925. Although the composer claims that he intended to evoke ‘pleasant summer holidays in the country’, it seems that the work also evokes a love story. A surprise is in store for us in the final movement, entitled ‘A Wild Night’: percussion is added to the string quartet and contributes to the jazzy atmosphere. It is played here by the Scottish virtuoso Colin Currie.

REVIEW:

The Escher’s Janáček is highly recommended, especially to those of you who have not yet become dedicated Janáček freaks; those who have will need a variety of approaches to these highly charged quartets. The Haas should be a keeper for everybody.

-- Fanfare

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

The first Japanese composer to achieve international status, Toru Takemitsu proposed a fusion between Western music and the culture of his country. His music radiates a lyrical intensity that comes as much from his roots in the early modernists Debussy and Alban Berg as from his affinity with the more overtly experimental mid-twentieth-century styles of John Cage and Morton Feldman. Played throughout the world, he is considered one of the most important composers of the second half of the 20th century. Of the four works gathered here, three feature the guitar. Inspired by a poem by Emily Dickinson, Spectral Canticle takes the listener through elusive sonic transformations corresponding to the changing seasons evoked by the poem. To the Edge of Dream has an eerie mood and celebrates the haunting, often sinister paintings of Belgian surrealist painter Paul Delvaux. Also inspired by a work of art, Vers, l’arc-en-ciel, Palma, with its refined writing, is close to the spectral composers. Finally, Twill by Twilight for orchestra expresses the moment, just after sunset, when twilight turns into darkness in a delicate and uncluttered pointillism.

REVIEWS:

Clearly all the soloists were prepared for this challenging music-making, as was the BBC Philharmonic. With informative liner notes, one comes away from this recording with an excellent sense of Takemitsu’s writing for guitar and orchestra.

-- American Record Guide

Exceptional accounts here of four of the Japanese composer’s works, with soloists and orchestra alive to the extraordinary coexistence of stillness and threat in Takemitsu’s writing. Startlingly vivid, his sound pictures capture the changing of light, seasons, emotions and memories with unblinking clarity.

-- The Sunday Times (UK)

“Gut strings and classical bows are also the tools of a captivating quest for sonority”, French magazine Diapason recently wrote to describe the Chiaroscuro Quartet. After Op. 20, Joseph Haydn’s first major string quartet cycle, and Op. 76, his last, the internationally renowned ensemble is now embarking on the Quartets Op. 33, dubbed the “Russian Quartets” and dedicated to the Russian Grand Duke Paul, the future Tsar Paul I. Having earned a reputation as eccentric and non-conformist, sometimes downright offensive, Haydn felt the need to write music more in keeping with the public’s lighter, more ‘popular’, less ‘scholarly’ tone, with a livelier sense of rhythm. And while there is comedy in some of the scherzos, it would be wrong to reduce these works to what some dour critics have called ‘comic fooling’.

In Quartet No 1 in B minor, the comedy is cerebral, often disturbing. This is certainly not the case in Quartet No 2 in E flat major, nicknamed “The Joke” because of the sparkling tarantella that concludes it. In Quartet No 3 in C major, “The Bird”, Haydn invites us to a veritable bird concert before concluding brilliantly with its persistent refrain inspired by a wild Slavic folk dance.

Sebastian Fagerlund’s orchestral music, which has held a central position in his work, is known for its pounding rhythmic energy and the quiet, gripping intensity of the more static passages. The flute concerto ‘Terral’ was written in close collaboration with Sharon Bezaly. Referring to a land breeze in Spain, ‘Terral’ is like a constant variation in a transparent and airy soundscape reminiscent of the soil taking on a new appearance when blown by the wind.

Strings to the Bone for string orchestra features Fagerlund’s typically intense and virtuosic writing as well as elements of the musical heritage of Ostrobothnia. Finally, the Chamber Symphony came to existence thanks to his collaboration with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Ottawa-based National Arts Centre Orchestra, where John Storgårds has been principal guest conductor since 2015. According to the Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet, this work shows “a thematically consistent symphonic construction with an authentic symphonic tension integrated into the dramaturgical gesture”.

After acclaimed recordings of the Third (‘Dausgaard… makes the music sound vital and even revolutionary’, Fanfare) and Sixth (‘This persuasively played work could be no better served’, MusicWeb International), Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra now present Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, ‘Romantic’ in its second version (1878-1880), the one with which this work has become widely known. “Nothing like this has been written since Beethoven” conductor Hans Richter is said to have declared after the successful premiere of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony in Vienna in 1881. This success finally gave the 56-year-old composer the attention and recognition he sorely needed and one can affirm that it was from this day onwards that Bruckner was actually cultivated in Vienna after years of public humiliation. Despite its nickname given by the composer himself, this symphony in no way expresses existential pain. Rather, the romanticism refers to the experience of nature – from sublime forest magic to hunting scenes – emphasized by the horn, the quintessential romantic instrument, which is given a prominent role.

REVIEW:

Dausgaard emerged early on as one of the most convincing HIP conductors of standard repertoire, and he has earned the right to express his individuality in Bruckner under normal conditions, one might say. His involvement with the score is undoubted, which makes the issue of fast tempos mostly irrelevant. Being different is worthwhile only when the difference is musically meaningful. I think that Dausgaard easily passes that test, in a Bruckner Fourth that is among the most striking in years.

-- Fanfare

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.

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)

Lush, impressionistic, exotic, erotically charged even, Karol Szymanowski’s music appears as a world in its own right, a refuge from the harshest aspects of reality, but also a place in which, paradoxically, the dreamer can find the strength and solace needed to cope with the real world and is drawn into an alternative, heightened state of consciousness. Sueye Park and Roland Pöntinen take us on a journey through the Polish composer’s works for violin and piano.

While the early Violin Sonata in D minor already shows Szymanowski’s precocious talent in writing for violin, the Romance in D major and the Nocturne et Tarantelle indicate the emergence of a feverish and exotic atmosphere as well as the musical expression of physical intoxication, a characteristic of the composer’s mature works. Mythes (1915) represents Szymanowski at the zenith of his artistry, creating ‘a new mode of expression for the violin’ and through this an other-worldly musical language. La Berceuse d’Aïtacho Enia concludes this disc in a dreamy yet troubled mood, as if the pains of the real world had ultimately found a way to reach us.

Recorded in the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, this disc offers an opportunity to sample music by Armenian composers, here represented by three works for cello and orchestra, and is in a way a follow-up to the 2011 release [BIS-1849] which was also devoted to concertante works for cello by Armenian composers.

The program opens with Aram Khachaturian, whose 1946 concerto, which contains many Armenian and Georgian folkloric allusions and rhythmic dances like those of the Ashoug, has been described as being closer to a symphony with cello than to a concerto. The second work, Arno Babajanian’s Cello Concerto, is permeated by specific intonation rooted in Armenian folk music and folklore. The disc concludes with the cello concerto by the French composer of Armenian origin, Michel Petrossian, a work from 2022 entitled 8.4, an allusion to the book of Genesis, chapter 8, verse 4, where Mount Ararat is first mentioned. The work glorifies the symbolic and spiritual aspect of Ararat, the ‘sacred mountain’, and integrates Armenian and Byzantine liturgical chants.

The UK-based Alexander Chaushian, cello soloist in all of these works, is Armenian by birth, and has secured the expert support of the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra under its principal conductor Eduard Topchjan.

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.

James Newby wished to dedicate his second disc on BIS - a recital of English song - to his sister Laura who passed away in 2015, her daughter, and his mother.

After singing Gerald Finzi’s ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’ at her funeral, he felt it fitting that the cycle from which it is taken, Let us Garlands Bring, would form the centerpiece of the program. Alongside this cycle, pianist Joseph Middleton and Newby have designed a program of English songs that reflect on themes of loss, grief and death – but also joy, love and healing with varying styles, sound worlds and atmospheres. George Butterworth, Rebecca Clarke, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Liza Lehmann and Errollyn Wallen are just some of the composers who complete the program, including Arthur Somervell with his cycle ‘A Shropshire Lad’. Like Heinrich Heine’s poems that Schumann used for his famous cycle Dichterliebe, these poems by Alfred Edward Housman deal with unrequited love in first person lyrics. This disc ends on a lighter note with the whimsical song, ‘The Green-eyed Dragon’ by Wolseley Charles, which often concludes live performances as an encore.

For the latest instalment in their Mahler series, the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of Osmo Vänskä presents what many consider to be the pinnacle of the Austrian composer’s entire work, the Ninth Symphony, his last completed symphony. After a vast and emotionally intense first movement that shows an astonishing fluidity of form, theme, texture and tonality, ‘the most glorious thing Mahler has written’ according to Alban Berg, the second movement brings joy and playfulness and seems to evoke both an urban Straussian world and folk music cultures. To the bitter irony and anger of the third movement the last movement, a mystical Adagio, seems to respond with ineffable tenderness. Often regarded as the composer’s monumental – both in terms of scale and emotional scope – leave-taking of the world, the Ninth Symphony can also be understood as a requiem for his daughter who died a few years before, an acknowledgment of the transience of life, a memorial to Vienna, an evocation of fading Austrian and Bohemian landscapes, a homage to a vanishing European cultural world.

For his second recital album for BIS, countertenor and sopranist Nicolò Balducci, ‘a singer of a remarkably sweet sound and distinct vocal agility’ (Gramophone), presents arias that evoke love and pain, two basic ingredients of Italian opera in the 18th century. Often tailor-made for specific singers who were in some cases the foremost castrati from that era such as the legendary Farinelli, these arias expressed resolute valour, unbridled fury and sometimes extreme guilt, to the delight of audiences that enjoyed these operas with their far-fetched narratives inspired by mythology or historical events. For this album, Nicolò Balducci is accompanied by the Baroque Academy Gothenburg Symphony under the direction of renowned recorder player Dan Laurin. Together, they perform well-known arias by Handel, from Vivaldi’s long neglected operas, as well as by lesser-known composers such as Riccardo Broschi (Farinelli’s brother) and Egidio Duni.