David Starobin's recordings of 19th century music on Viennese guitars have been hailed as path-breaking, including his recent Matiegka sonatas disc, (BRIDGE 9567). Donald Rosenberg, in Gramophone wrote: "These works unfold with a spectrum of creative possibility, especially in Starobin's eloquent hands. The guitarist brings refinement to every turn of phrase, whether the music is marching, dancing or crying. This recording is a swansong to savor." In honor of the 200th birth year of Giulio Regondi, Victorian composer, guitarist, and concertinist, Starobin's new Regondi release combines previously unissued recordings, alongside re-mastered performances from Starobin's back catalog. In addition to Regondi's most well known works (Nocturne Reverie, op. 19 and Introduction et Caprice, op. 23), Starobin includes four transcriptions from Regondi's concertina etudes, guitar etudes nos. 2 and 10, and Regondi's Fetes Villageoise, op. 20 and Air Varie, No. 1, op. 21.

Peter Kolkay's new recording of music for bassoon and strings, Red Maple, takes its title from a work that Joan Tower wrote for Kolkay in 2013. Tower's piece is joined by fellow American composer Russell Platt's Quintet, completed in 1997. Two UK composers round out the program, with English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage's Massarosa (2018) (another Kolkay dedication) and the Scottish composer Judith Weir's Wake Your Wild Voice (2008), a duo for bassoon and cello. Peter Kolkay holds a distinguished place in the American music scene as the only bassoonist to have won the coveted Avery Fisher Career Award, and as an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is joined on the recording by the distinguished Calidore String Quartet, currently quartet in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

The featured work on this album of compositions by Justin Dello Joio is the American composer's new piano concerto; "Oceans Apart"; composed for keyboard titan; Garrick Ohlsson. Ohlsson is joined by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; conducted by Alan Gilbert; the artists who premiered the concerto in 2023. The program also includes chamber works performed by the New York Philharmonic's principal cellist; Carter Brey; with pianist Christopher O'Riley; and the American Brass Quintet; and organist Colin Fowler. For more information see www.justindellojoio.net

À la manière presents virtuoso trombonist Mark Davidson in a program ranging from Ferdinand David's popular Trombone Concertino and Hindemith's dynamic trombone sonata to recent works by French composer Jean-Michel Defaye and American Luke Dahn. Davidson, the principal trombonist of the Utah Symphony orchestra, is joined by pianist Viktor Valkov, winner of the New Orleans International Piano Competition.

Bridge Records is pleased to issue the second volume of American pianist Kevin Gorman's survey of William Bland's 24 Piano Sonatas. Volume One of this series received high praise for both the originality of Bland's music, and Gorman's stunning performances. Volume 2 presents the premiere recordings of Sonata No. 9 in F Major "Spring", and Sonata No. 10 in e minor. Also included is William Bland's most frequently recorded composition, "Nouveau Rag". "The range of expressive tools is vast. It's grand music, with grand playing too from Gorman. It is fervently to be hoped that this series continues." -Colin Clarke, Fanfare

This recording has been released in honor of Ursula Mamlok's 100th birthday, February 1, 2023. Mamlok Vol. 6, featuring new recordings made in Berlin and New York City, contains works from the German-American composer's last creative period- Mosaics (2011) for piano 4 hands, and Terzianum (2006) for violin and flute. Vol. 6 contains works from more than a half century of the distinguished German-American composer's career, dating back to her Suite for Four Cellos composed in 1957. Bridge's Ursula Mamlok series began under the composer's supervision, and continues with this fascinating retrospective.

Praised for her poetic and dramatic interpretation, New York-based Korean pianist Yoojung Kim is a versatile pianist, improviser, arranger, musical curator, educator, chamber musician and collaborator. Ms. Kim has appeared in recital and as soloist with orchestras throughout Europe, the United States, and Asia. Yoojung Kim is currently a member of the Artist Faculty in Piano Studies at NYU Steinhardt.

REVIEWS:

A lovely release of fine performances of this often intense but deeply satisfying music which deserves to be so much better known. Much of the music is on the grand scale but there are also more intimate movements including the first of the Deux poems, Op 32. Alongside further Poemes and Morceaus are Sonatas 2, 3 & 4. The CD is bookended by the adventurous Fantaisie in B minor and Vers la flamme.

-- Lark Reviews

Pianist Yoojung Kim gets highest marks for poetry and interpretive insights, qualities that are particularly critical when the subject is Russian pianist, composer, and musical symbolist Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915). She understands Scriabin to a degree that I am pleased to find remarkable among current pianists, and her feeling for color and expressiveness brings out the very best in an often-illusive composer.

-- Audio Video Club of Atlanta (Phil Muse)

A winner of both the Charles Ives Scholarship and Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Russell Platt is currently a Professor at Vanderbilt University. In earlier years, Platt was an editor at The New Yorker, where he won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Music Criticism in 2010. This recording presents premiere performances of Platt's music, including songs composed for Metropolitan Opera tenor, Paul Appleby.

Tuba virtuoso Justin Benavidez is heard in three new tuba concertos, two recent solos, and stunning transcriptions of works by Gustav Mahler and Claude Debussy. Benavidez is currently Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Florida State University and performs as principal tuba of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. In the summer he is on the faculty at the Round Top Music Festival in Texas. With his playing noted for its "tremendous virtuosity and stylistic versatility," Benavidez has performed in venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. He has been featured numerous times on APM's Performance Today radio program. His debut solo album, Emblems, won Silver Medals in the Classical Album and Instrumental Solo Album categories of the Global Music Awards. The International Tuba Euphonium Association Journal described it as "an impressive and highly entertaining record" on which Benavidez "shreds with enthusiasm, exuberance, and precision."

George Frederick Bristow and William Henry Fry constituted the first generation of major, native-born composers of instrumental music in the United States. Both were fierce proponents for American music as composers, writers, and performers. Of particular note: Bristow's Symphony No. 4 the "Arcadian" is recorded here in its entirety for the first time. The 1967 recording made by Karl Krueger with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra made large cuts in the first and last movements, reducing the length of the piece by at least ten minutes.

REVIEW:

Muscular recordings of rare symphonic products of 19th century American orchestral romanticism. These are no dutifully played museum exhibits. The whole orchestra plays with golden age verve and astonishing elation.

— MusicWeb International

Bridge Records is pleased to issue guitarist David Starobin's final studio recording, W.T. Matiegka's Six Sonatas, op. 31, performed on a Viennese style guitar. Starobin regards Matiegka's sonatas as "in their time, the pinnacle of expression on the guitar, offering the most detailed notation of both articulation and character--a clear window onto performance style in the era of Beethoven and Schubert."

REVIEWS:

[Starobin's] gift for interpretation is evident throughout the present recording and illustrates his artistic ability to “serve” the score. This recording encourages close listening as the guitarist’s technique never intrudes, while the interpretive quality offers myriad opportunities for one’s attention to settle more and more deeply into Matiegka’s compositions.

— EarRelevant

No less a figure than the young Schubert acknowledged Matiegka's skill by making an arrangement of one of his trios. Also a contemporary of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, Matiegka absorbed the musical practices of the day and applied them expertly in his guitar sonatas, of which 11 survive. The sonatas of Op. 31 all contain three short movements, but there's never a hint of repetition or familiarity as these works unfold with a spectrum of creative possibility, especially in Starobin's eloquent hands. The guitarist brings refinement to every turn of phrase, whether the music is marching, dancing or crying. Generations of guitarists will thank Starobin for bringing Matiegka's pieces to light. This recording is a swansong to savor.

— Gramophone

For the fourth volume of music by Stephen Jaffe, the composer writes that he is "searching for sounds and musical relationships to create something new, like a poetry--where listeners may discover lyrical expression and an arc of narrative." These premiere recordings of three works written between 2006 and 2009, offer a program featuring Jaffe's collaborations with the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Borromeo String Quartet, and National Symphony Orchestra members David Hardy, cello and Lambert Orkis, piano. Composer Stephen Jaffe’s music has been featured at major concerts and festivals including the Nottingham, Tanglewood, and Oregon Bach Festivals, and performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and China by ensembles including the R.A.I. of Rome, Slovenska Filharmonija, the National Symphony, the San Francisco, North Carolina and New Jersey Symphonies, Berlin’s Spectrum Concerts, London’s Lontano, and many others. Jaffe’s recent works include new chamber concertos including Migrations (Chamber Concerto No. 4) for walking violinist and mobile chamber ensemble, and Three Arcs (Chamber Concerto 5) for chamber ensemble with cameo chorus, written for the 200th anniversary of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. The collaborative cantata A Forest Unfolding, composed with Eric Moe, Melinda Wagner and David Kirkland Garner, and premiered at the Portland Chamber Music Festival and New Hampshire’s Electric Earth Concerts in 2018, was inspired by recent scientific work into the rich communication and subterranean connectivity between trees -- evoked also in Richard Power’s related novel The Overstory.

The first three volumes of Anne-Marie McDermott's Mozart piano concerto cycle with Denmark's Odense Symfoniorkester have received ecstatic notices from the international musical press. Volume 4, again conducted by German maestro Sebastian Lang-Lessing, presents two of Mozart's very greatest concertos -  the grand C major, K. 503, and the brooding D minor, K. 466.

George Walker is one of the few leading American composers of the 20th century to produce as many as five piano sonatas. Taken together, they securely chart a lifetime of stylistic change. Walker managed many other feats, a number of them connected to being the first Black person to break through various glass ceilings: the first to be accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music, the first to study with Nadia Boulanger, and the first to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Walker is also one of the only major composer-pianists to have recorded worthy performances of virtuoso standard repertoire including Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto” and the Brahms second piano concerto.

REVIEW:

"This beautifully played (and beautifully recorded) set of George Walker's piano sonatas by pianist Steven Beck is especially valuable. The sonatas trace Walker's development as a composer, from a sort of post-Copland style through an approach to serialism (he only rarely adopted it wholesale, but the mark of Webernian economy is all over the second and third sonatas here), back to a broader free atonality deepened by rigor."

Walker generally resisted the use of African American vernacular material in his essentially modernist style, but he might then introduce it when it is least expected, in entirely original ways. Anyone interested in this giant of African American classical music but not knowing where to start could easily choose this release."

--AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

There is a strong tradition of American piano sonatas. Off the top of my head I can think of examples by Ives, Copland, Barber, Sessions and Carter and there are, no doubt, others. To these we can add the five sonatas of George Walker, an impressive contribution to the medium, which fit neatly onto one disc.

I had not heard of George Walker until a few months ago, when he was composer of the week in the BBC Radio 3 series. I was impressed by what I heard and so was glad of this opporunity to hear these sonatas. He had a long and successful career in the USA, despite the difficulties caused by his being African-American. He always intended a life in classical music, which I note as some African-American musicians, despite being classically trained, gravitate towards jazz. There are occasional jazz references and references to spirituals and folk songs in his works, but no more than one might expect in any other American composer, Copland for example.

Despite these sonatas being composed over a period of fifty years, they have more in common than what sets any of them apart. Walker has a fondness for sinewy counterpoint and somewhat angular harmonies, rather in the Hindemith way. He also likes strong single lines and chord sequences. His idiom is clearly twentieth century but is not particularly dissonant, and he likes a good deal of rhythmic vitality.

The first two sonatas, the closest together in time, have much in common. The fondness for counterpoint and for variation form is common to them. However, the first is consistently more playful, even jaunty, while the second conveys a sense of disaster being just round the corner. The second is also the more compact, despite being in four movements rather than three, and its Scherzo is only one minute and twelve seconds long.

The third sonata has two brief movements before a longer one and here we find a new riuchness of harmonic vocabulary, even suggesting Scriabin at one point. The second movement, titled Bell, is simply a succession of slow chords. The finale features constant changes of mood and texture.

The fourth sonata, in two movements only, is more angular than the earlier works. there are many ideas, among which leaping single lines, bell-like chorales and a fugal toccata are noteworthy.

The fifth sonata is in one movement only and is a formidable work, tightly wrought and intense. Perhaps it is the finest of the five.

Steven Beck is a contemporary music specialist and offers committed performances. The recording is excellent. Walker’s music is well worth getting to know.

--MusicWeb International (Stephen Barber)

 

Among the most remarkable milestones of Perle’s compositional journey are a dozen works for solo instruments, “tone-centered” compositions – to adopt Richard Swift’s terminology – that occupy a middle ground between essays in orthodox twelve-tone practice and his own 12-tone modal system. It was easier, Perle recalled, “to approach this problem of harmony if you’re writing for an instrument which naturally plays only one note at a time.” Moreover, working with such radically reduced means honed his ability to use motive, contour, rhythm, and register to articulate form through a single line. The first of these was composed in 1942, with another eleven written across a distinguished career. This two-album set includes many of the solo works in their first recordings, as well as duo works from throughout the great American composer's career. Noted soloists on this release include pianists Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, and Horacio Gutiérrez, clarinetist Charles Neidich, and cellist Jay Campbell.

Stellar piano duo Quattro Mani's latest recording features John Adams's ebullient "Hallelujah Junction", and premiere recordings by Paul Moravec and Danish composer Bent Sørensen. Bonus tracks include rarities by Paul Creston and Paul Bowles. Fanfare’s Robert Carl writes that “Quattro Mani is one of the most enduring and leading keyboard duos anywhere.”

REVIEW:

John Adams’s Hallelujah Junction (1996) has had at least half a dozen recordings since the first, by Nicolas Hodges and Rolf Hind for Nonesuch. Pianists Steven Beck and Susan Grace of Quattro Mani take a very different tack from that recording, yet one that is equally compelling.

The miniatures that make up the remainder of the program by Creston, Bowles, Moravec, and Sørensen, are also effectively varied.

All in all, this is an enjoyable, wide-ranging program – I only wish there was more of it.

— Gramophone

Marcy Rosen and Diane Walsh present fresh readings of three masterpieces from the cello repertoire. Ms. Rosen studied Barber's cello sonata with Orlando Cole, who worked closely with Barber on the editing of the composition, later premiering the work with Barber at the piano at New York City's Town Hall in 1933.

Volume 4 in Louis Karchin's ongoing Bridge series includes both instrumental and vocal music. Karchin is a prominent figure in American music, having composed more than 100 works, and served as conductor of ensembles, including the Harvard Group for New Music, the Chamber Players of the League-ISCM, and the Orchestra of the League of Composers. Karchin's music has been praised for it's "fearless eloquence" (The New Yorker), "bare-nerve intensity" (NY Times) and "coruscating beauty" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Emanuel Gruber and Arnon Erez's classic account of Beethoven's music for cello and piano has been remastered for this 2-CD release. The Jerusalem Post called Gruber "one of our great artists" citing "his extraordinary capacity for projecting the deepest meaning of the music". Gruber was awarded the Pablo Casals prize by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Arnon Erez has been the head of the Chamber Music Department at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University for nearly two decades. With Emanuel Gruber, Erez has recorded the complete cello and piano Sonatas by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.

Bridge Records is pleased to issue the latest recording by Partch Ensemble, the Grammy Award winning new music group specializing in the music and instruments of the iconoclastic American composer Harry Partch. Partch's "The Wayward" in the composer's own words, is "a collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters-the result of my wanderings in the Western part of the United States from 1935 to 1941." This is the world premiere recording of Partch's complete cycle.

Ferruccio Busoni's most significant musical role models include Bach, Mozart, and Liszt. These three muses informed his mature compositional style, which melded Bachian counterpoint, Mozartian clarity, and Lisztian virtuosity alongside Busoni's penchant for experimentation. The music on Jiayan Sun's new album reveals the diverse ways Busoni responded to these muses, ranging from transcription and arrangement to original composition. Pianist Jiayan Sun, was praised by the New York Times for his "revelatory" performances, and by the Toronto Star for his "technically flawless, poetically inspired and immensely assured playing".

Brahms's two masterpieces for cello and piano are heard in new recordings by Emanuel Gruber and Arnon Erez. The Jerusalem Post wrote that Emanuel Gruber is "one of our great artists" citing "his extraordinary capacity for projecting the deepest meaning of the music". Awarded the Pablo Casals prize by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, he also won the Concert Artists' Guild Auditions early in his career. Arnon Erez has performed in major concert halls, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Beethoven Halle in Bonn, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Musikverein in Vienna, Wigmore Hall in London and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Bridge Records is pleased to present this previously unissued performance by the Stuyvesant Quartet. The recording is the only known "in concert" recording by this stellar quartet of players associated with Toscanini's legendary NBC Symphony Orchestra, and was made at the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium in 1946. This release is part of Bridge's ongoing series devoted to the Stuyvesant Quartet's historic recordings.

REVIEW:

It is fitting that Prokofiev’s First Quartet is performed here, as this work was first performed at the LoC itself. The inclusion of Dohnányi’s Second Quartet is certainly cause for celebration. Their Dvořák cuts deep emotionally. This disc of historic performances is a little miracle and recommended without hesitation.

— Fanfare

Baritone Randall Scarlata has been praised by MusicWeb International for his "extraordinary vocal range and colour palette" and for his "masterful authority and secure technique" (Die Presse, Vienna). Gilbert Kalish's 30-year partnership with the mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani was widely recognized as one of the most remarkable artistic collaborations of recent years. Kalish maintains long standing duos with cellists Timothy Eddy, Joel Krosnick, and with soprano Dawn Upshaw.

Leading British critic Stephen Johnson called Poul Ruders "The Richard Strauss of the computer-aged orchestra", and indeed the Ruders six symphonies, collected here for the first time, sparkle with vivid color and brilliant orchestral virtuosity. Ruders is best known for his score to the opera "The Handmaid's Tale", based on Margaret Atwood's dystopian American tale, produced by opera companies throughout Europe and North America.