Classical Music

Includes partita(s) by Johann Sebastian Bach. Soloists: Susan Rotholz, Kenneth Cooper.
Includes son(s) for fl and bc by Johann Sebastian Bach. Soloists: Susan Rotholz, Kenneth Cooper.

This fascinating release is performed by low horn virtuoso, Denise Tryon, the fourth hornist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. As a player of fourth horn, Ms. Tryon is an expert in the lowest regions of the French Horn's range, and her disc features newly commissioned compositions that feature this area of the horn's register. Played alongside older works for both solo horn and horn with piano, this recording makes for a most enjoyable sonic journey in colors rarely encountered on the horn. Ms. Tryon's musicality and virtuosity is a pleasure to hear throughout. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra writes that “Denise Tryon’s command of the lower register provides the strongest foundation of sound for a horn section, and yet, her sound is supple and flexible.”

On October 22, 2011, the musical world will celebrate the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt. Garrick Ohlsson, one of the great piano virtuosi of the current era, contributes to the celebration with recordings of two of Liszt's towering achievements: the infrequently recorded Busoni transcription of Liszt's organ piece, 'Fantasie und Fuge über den choral Ad nos, ad Salutarem Undam", (To us, to the healing waters, come again) S. 259 and, the most beloved of all of Liszt's piano compositions, the Sonata in B Minor, S. 178. Those who revel in great pianism need look no further than this spectacular program.

Classical Music

Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was and remains one of the giants of the "John Cage generation" of contemporary composers (if fact, he and Cage were friends). Feldman broke free of the serial school (Babbit, Boulez, etc.) and its adherents, and found more of an influence in the detail modern painters (such as Philip Guston, for whom he wrote and named a four-hour piece). It's this sense of detail that marks Feldman's later music: how long a flutist could breathe, how long before a note from a piano decays into nothingness.
In some respects, CRIPPLED SYMMETRY is "minimalist" in that the melodic fragments are brief and repeeated, yet it sounds nothing like Philip Glass or Steve Reich. Feldman's approach recalls the spare, spacious sound of Anton Webern and the piano music of Erik Satie, with the subtle repetition forming symmetry an almost imperceptible asymmetry. This 87-minute piece, for a trio of flute, piano and percussion, is gentle though not lulling or ambient (though it may certainly achieve that effect)--there is an elemental sense of tension to it. It's as if Feldman were trying to capture the sight AND sound of a snowflake melting in slow motion. CRIPPLED SYMMETRY is powerful and demanding music, but is so quiet and unassuming you may not notice.
REVIEWS:
International Record Review (4/00, p.52) - "...Feldman deals with sound, slowing the listener's attention-span until the merest gnat's crotchet of variation registers as a...seismic shift. His figures oscillate like the visual fields created by the giant canvases of Rothko or Newman..."
Billboard (11/27/99) - Recommended

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Bridge Records, Inc. Of New Rochelle, NY, is pleased to announce the release on DVD of the film, GEORGE CRUMB, BAD DOG!. The 66 minute documentary/performance film features performances by the George Crumb Ensemble, including the composer himself performing on percussion. Crumb is seen in interview, and the film presents historic photographs, and complete performances of Apparition (1979) on texts by Walt Whitman; Three Early Songs (1947); and Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (2001) on Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight. The film's soundtrack also presents excerpts from many of Crumb's masterpieces including Star-Child, Music for a Summer Evening, Mundus Canis, Pastoral Drone, Quest, and Sit Down Sister. With Tony Arnold, soprano; George Crumb, percussion, Robert Shannon, piano; David Starobin, guitar. The DVD soundtrack includes versions in stereo and in 5.1 surround sound in both Dolby and DTS formats. (2009, Directed by David Starobin, 66 minutes).

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This disc presents the world premiere recording of Poul Ruders's latest symphony, completed in 2013. The symphony, composed in three movements is, in some ways, the great Danish composer's most traditional symphony- an explosive, quick-paced first movement followed by an hypnotically inward-looking slow movement, followed by a bristling dance finale. Aside from its outer-trappings, Ruders 5 inhabits a sound world all its own. The first movement's opening brass fanfare is followed immediately by startling police whistles and pounding drums- music of volcanic power and intensity. The slow movement employs a huge registral span, and the third movement's funky dance rhythms collide with dense harmonic underpinnings. The work is given a brilliant reading by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, led by the Estonian maestro, Olari Elts. The recording was made in the Danish Radio's new concert hall, named by Gramophone, as one of the "10 best concert halls in the world".

This imaginative recording project offers virtuoso treatment of folk music from Hungary and Taiwan, illuminating many aspects of the respective cultures. Winners of both the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the London International String Competition, the Formosa Quartet was hailed as "spellbinding" by BBC Music Magazine. They have given critically acclaimed performances at the Ravinia Festival, the Caramoor Festival, and many other esteemed venues. Formed in 2002 when the four founding members came together for a concert tour of Taiwan, Formosa Quartet is deeply committed to championing Taiwanese music and promoting the arts in the land of its heritage, as well as exploring diverse and adventurous mediums for string quartet. In 2013 the members of Formosa Quartet founded the annual Formosa Chamber Music Festival, where they continue to serve as artist faculty.

George Perle described his journey as "a path toward a new kind of tonality. Music that was going to do what music used to do, with its basis being the twelve-tone scale instead of the diatonic scale". Annotator Christopher Hailey writes that "It is not necessary to go into analytical details because what Perle created was a language of such cogency and immediate appeal that no technical knowledge is necessary for its appreciation. It is music that is bracing without being strident, vigorous without being disjointed, sharply etched without being dryly acerbic; it is witty, lucid, stimulating, and, above all, deeply humane. With this new recording, the Seattle Symphony, cello soloist Jay Campbell, and conductor Ludovic Morlot present five previously unrecorded works by the American master George Perle.

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REVIEW:

The performances by the Seattle Symphony are excellent. Ludovic Morlot displays a great understanding of this challenging music. His control of the orchestra is remarkable. The sound quality is very clear and lets all of the subtle nuances of the music be heard.

– Fanfare

RUDERS Piano Concerto No. 2 1. Serenade on the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean 2. Bel Canto 3 • 1 Vassily Primakov (pn); 1 Thomas Søndergard, cond; 1 Norwegian RO; 2 Mikko Luoma (acc); 2 iO Str Qrt; 3 Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (vn) • BRIDGE 9336 (64:03)


Bridge Records, a company primarily known for its commitment to contemporary American composers like Elliott Carter, continues to promote the music of the Dane Poul Ruders (b.1949). This disc is the sixth in its Ruders series. It contains compelling performances of two recent works of considerable power.


Ruders’s music has been described as a triumph of stylistic pluralism. What that means in listener’s terms is that you can never be sure the composer is going in the direction you think he is; he retains a genuine ability to surprise. Both the larger works on this disc provide examples of this. His very recent Piano Concerto No. 2 (2009–10) begins in a relatively romantic vein, evident more in its flow than its thematic material or harmony, but as the movement evolves the piano develops an almost aggressive desperation: a determination to break the formal and harmonic boundaries with frequent attacks and note clusters. The roles are reversed in the extraordinary slow movement. This consists for the most part of a tentative, exploratory line of single notes in the piano’s treble, discreetly supported by vibraphone, harp, and a solo violin. The soft, meandering solo is confronted from time to time by orchestral onslaughts of dissonant brass, squealing piccolos, and fearsome fortissimos , which seem to have no effect on the dissociative soloist, although the first of these interruptions would probably have a visceral effect on concertgoers in a live performance! In the third and final movement, the piano takes control and ushers in a brilliant and rapid moto perpetuo that crams as many notes as possible into its four and a half minutes. Ruders uses a traditional framework but fills it with quirky episodes, unexpected colors, and—in a phrase—pushes the concerto envelope. The work is similarly formal in shape but more wide-ranging in effect than his first Piano Concerto of 1994.


Color is at the forefront of Serenade on the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean , a 2004 suite in nine continuous movements for accordion and string quartet. Here Ruders displays great imagination in his exploitation of the extremes of the accordion’s range, and by blending it into the many textural devices available to the quartet. The work is inspired by literature from a variety of sources, including Shakespeare, Darwin, and Conrad; quotations or references preface each section. It begins with a cataclysmic explosion of sound (tone clusters from the accordion predominate), which gradually morphs into a passage of warm, lyrical beauty and eventually into single, long-held high notes, rather the way a composition by Silvestrov proceeds. We move through many moods, some incorporating a degree of grotesquery in galumphing ostinatos or deep growls from the lowest reaches of the solo instrument. Then in contrast the composer will lure us into pure neoromanticism—as in the sixth movement, “Threnos,” prefaced by a quotation from Shakespeare’s The Phoenix and the Turtle : “Beauty, truth and rarity / Grace in all simplicity / Here enclosed in cinders lie.” At all times in this work, as is usual with Ruders, the listener has little idea what is coming next.


The accompanying Bel Canto (also 2004) is for solo violin, commissioned by the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition. As the title suggests it is primarily a cantabile , although there are moments of double-stopping in minor seconds to provide the unexpected. A folk or hymn-like tune brings the lament to a quiet close.


The music on this recording is a challenge but also a pleasure to get to know. It is performed with dedication and brilliance; I can’t praise highly enough the talents of pianist Primakov, violinist Sørensen, the iO Quartet (whose personnel are violinists Christina McGann and Sarah Crocker, violist Elizabeth Weisser, and cellist Chris Gross) and the remarkable accordion virtuoso Mikko Luoma. Want List material.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott

The distinguished baritone Randall Scarlata regularly performs the German song repertoire with pianists including Cameron Stowe, Jeremy Denk, Jonathan Biss, Inon Barnatan, Laura Ward and Gilbert Kalish. Mr. Scarlata is a regular guest with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. Gilbert Kalish's profound influence on the musical community as pianist and educator has established him as a major figure in American music making. His recordings for Bridge Records include his memorable partnership with the mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani and a recent solo album of music by Schubert, Beethoven and Haydn. Here, he tackles a well-known favorite in the Lied repertoire: Franz Schubert’s Winterreise.

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REVIEW:

As a stirring and elevating musical experience, as opposed to one that is harrowing, I find Scarlata’s Winterreise utterly compelling. This is an alternative to performances that leave your nerves jangling, and I love it. I could listen to this man serenade me all day. Gilbert Kalish is equally wonderful.

– Fanfare

Classical Music

The Cuban-American virtuoso Horacio Gutiérrez is a legendary figure in the piano world. After taking the Silver Medal at the 1970 Tchaikovsky International Competition, Gutiérrez embarked on an international touring career that saw performances with nearly all of the world's great orchestras and conductors including Maazel, Rostropovich, Masur, Levine, Rozhdestvensky, Ormandy, Gergiev, Ozawa, Previn, Leinsdorf, Tennstedt, Ashkenazy, Barenboim and numerous others. Gutiérrez has recorded very infrequently, and these new recordings reveal a great poet-virtuoso at the height of his musical powers.