Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music

Classical Music

In Ukraine, as in many other parts of Europe, the late nineteenth century saw the emergence of a national spirit which resulted in a movement to ex¬plore and cultivate popular culture. But the country would have to wait until 1991 for independence, and in the meantime this national spirit could only find musical expression in the more intimate forms. Some of the most authentic examples of Ukrainian art music can therefore be found in chamber music and in song. With this release, the Swedish-Ukrainian pianist Natalya Pasichnyk, her sister Olga and their Swedish colleagues offer the listener a way into this shadowy world – the beautiful, melancholy and emotive world of Ukrainian chamber music. Except for Valentyn Sylvestrov, the composers featured will be mostly unknown to an international audience, yet they invite the listener to share a journey into a soundscape that is both exotic and strangely familiar. The title of the disc, Consolation, is derived from a rhapsodic piano piece by Viktor Kosenko which perfectly captures the inward-looking mood of much of Ukrainian music, but the first sound which meets the ear of the listener is a loosely strummed chord, like the sound of a lute: in his Dumka-shumka from 1877, Mykola Lysenko imitated the sound of the Ukrainian lute, the kobza. Lysenko is a central figure in Ukrainian art music, and is also represented here with the song Meni odnakovo, a setting of a poem by Taras Shevchenko, the poet who for many embodies the spirit of Ukrainian independence.

Classical Music

On 6 of March 2020, Bach Collegium Japan began their long-awaited 30th anniversary tour of Europe with a performance of Bach's St John Passion in Katowice, Poland. The same week Europe was becoming aware of the very stark reality of the threat posed by the new Corona virus, Covid-19. Consequently, as Masaaki Suzuki and his ensemble went on to perform in Dublin and then London, concert halls across Europe were closing down and the remaining tour dates were cancelled. Before making their return to Japan, the BCJ agreed with the Kölner Philharmonie to go ahead with the concert that had been planned, in the form of a live streaming without an audience. This meant that the ensemble had time on their hands, and the idea was born to use it for making a recording.

Having received permission to use the hall of the Philharmonie for the recording, Bach Collegium Japan and BIS jointly decided to go ahead with the idea, and during a few hectic hours arrangements were made for a recording team to come to Cologne. Over the next few days, Suzuki, the BCJ and a team of soloists headed by James Gilchrist as the Evangelist, recorded Bach's rendering of the Passion of Christ, finishing just ahead of complete lockdown. Their efforts are now available as a testimony not only to the drama of Bach's score, but also to the urgency of a week when the world changed.

‘The spread of the virus created an urgency and energy that rendered this a very dramatic performance’, he continues. ‘The music itself has such incredible power of course, and in this situation, it was somehow doubled. Looking back, it was all like a miracle, and even now it seems like a dream. The tension of the whole experience, combined with the drama of the St John Passion, will stay in our minds forever.’ - Masaako Suzuki


REVIEWS:

Here we have a reading that feels as if, deep in the psyche of the performers, they know this is all happening close to the wire. Gilchrist is again on masterly form, risking pinpoint precision for graphic description in a way that makes the experience feel ‘live’ in every respect. Suzuki takes us as co-travellers in a search of faith, not necessarily assuming us all as believers.

 

– Gramophone (Awards Issue, 2020)

Despite the hurried nature of the production, engineering is top-notch, and even if the bass is more pronounced this time around, there is an ideal blend of analytical clarity and warmth, both on SACD and regular stereo. No single interpretation can capture every aspect of this monumental music. But Suzuki’s latest is his finest, and belongs in the library of anyone who loves this work – urgently recommended.

– Classical CD Review

Called a 'symphony' by its composer, Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony is nevertheless a symphonic poem, and as such it is the last in a series of works that includes such masterpieces as Don Juan, Also sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben. In 1900, when Strauss first mentioned any plans for the work, he spoke of a symphonic poem in two parts that would begin with a sunrise in Switzerland. When he returned to the idea some ten years later, the work soon grew so vast that he decided to be content with one single movement, depicting the 'worship of eternal glorious nature'. To regard the Alpensinfonie simply as an impression of landscape would be a mistake, however. It does make use of Strauss' entire repertoire of orchestral pictorialism, but behind it are ideas much less simple: nature is being worshipped in the intoxicated spirit of Nietzsche's superman, the liberation of the soul is achieved through hard work - the climber's struggle to gain the mountaintOp.The work is divided into 22 sections that flow in an unbroken sequence, marking the ascent and descent of the mountain, from before sunrise to after sunset. It was scored for the largest orchestra ever used by Strauss for a purely orchestral piece, and he later said that it was in the Alpine Symphony that he had 'finally learned how to orchestrate'. The experience must in any case have been useful when he composed his next work, the opera Die Frau ohne Schatten, with an even more opulent orchestration. The opera was premièred in 1919, but it wasn't until 1946 that Strauss, in his 82nd year, returned to the score in order to make his Symphonic Fantasy, based on high points from the opera. These huge, and enormously colourful works are performed here by the eminent São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, whose highly praised recordings of the Choros by Villa-Lobos have been described as 'an orgy of colours and rhythms' (Diapason) and 'an assured blend of lush colours, pulsating rhythms and supple phrasing' (International Record Review). The orchestra is conducted by Frank Shipway, with fine credentials in late-Romantic Austro-German repertoire.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music