Concerto Copenhagen, the renowned baroque ensemble, is set to release their third album on Berlin Classics, featuring a fresh exploration of Haydn symphonies. The album highlights Haydn's Symphonies No. 47 "Palindrome," No. 44 "Trauer," and No. 43 "Merkur." Known for their innovative interpretations, Concerto Copenhagen brings a new spirit to these classical masterpieces. Haydn, who composed 140 symphonies throughout his life, played a pivotal role in shaping the classical music form and style, influencing giants like Mozart and Beethoven. This album promises to offer a captivating journey through Haydn's enduring legacy.

The name of Friedrich Berr (1794-1838) is well known to young clarinettists across the world, as the author of solos, duets and methods for students to learn the instrument. His more elaborate pieces have largely been forgotten, except for a Rossinian fantasia which has often been mistaken for the work of his more illustrious friend. Now Luigi Magistrelli sets the record straight with a collection of fantasias and arrangements, most of them taking operatic pieces by Auber and Rossini for their subjects, a set of 'Instructive Variations' and an arrangement of the Overture to Rossini's L'assedio di Corinto, for two clarinets, where he is joined by his sister Laura Magistrelli. The album opens with a fantasia on Auber's La muette de Portici, and continues in similarly spectacular vein with a fantasia on Rossini's William Tell. Luigi Magistrelli explores the significance of Berr's arrangements in a booklet essay: 'Examining the many clarinet compositions of Berr, nowadays completely forgotten, I selected the most interesting ones. Most of them are structured with a typical form involving introduction, theme and variations of both well-known and less known operas of his epoch. The Solos and Fantasies have appealing melodies and quite demanding technical passages well-conceived for the clarinet's expressive resources.' As an experienced soloist, teacher and chamber musician, Luca Magistrelli has led several albums of clarinet-centred chamber music for Brilliant Classics. 'This offbeat disc

First recordings of unpublished instrumental works by a master of verismo. Several recent albums on Brilliant Classics have expanded our understanding of Francesco Cilea beyond his status as the composer of L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. His piano music, chamber music and songs all bear witness to a quintessentially Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy. Cilea abandoned writing for the stage after the failure of his opera Gloria in 1907, despite the presence of Toscanini in the pit, and his lyric gifts cut against the grain of the prevailing trends of modernism. He turned to teaching, but he did not entirely abandon composition. Instead, he turned back to instrumental music, and the works on this album are among the fruits of this revived inspiration. Apart from Cilea's celebrated melodic vein, the Suite for Violin and the Piccola Suite for Orchestra reveal his (perhaps un-Italian) talent for counterpoint, as well as an approach to tonal harmony that reflects his awareness of innovation, especially among French composers of the period. Cilea orchestrated the Suite in 1946 from his Suite for violin and piano of nine years earlier. The four brief movements are cast in a neoclassical vein, enclosing an elegant minuet followed by an Andante sostenuto in the very un-classical key of C sharp minor. The Piccola Suite (1931) more thoroughly absorbs the idioms of French music of the period such as the early works of Messiaen, with it's modal harmony, whole-tone scales and sequences of seventh and ninth chords: again, far from what we would expect from the composer of Adriana Lecouvreur. The arrangement, revision and scoring of the Concerto in D major for cello by Leonardo Leo (written in 1737) bears witness to Cilea's deep connection with the Conservatoire in Naples where he had studied and where he became director until his retirement in 1935. It's generous orchestration, and yet respect for the 18th-century idiom of the writing, makes an intriguing and almost unknown parallel to the Cello Concerto in D recomposed by Schoenberg in 1931 after a 1746 work by Georg Matthias Monn. Completing this unique survey of Cilea's output is a modern work, the first recording of the Canto dell'amore by Raffaele Cacciola, born in 1965. The style of this sinfonia concertante in all but name is a homage to the example of Cilea: tonally unpredictable, yet always melodic. These Milanese musicians draw out it's intrinsically Italian character in the tradition of Cilea's verismo. - Italian composer Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) is best known for his operas, particularly "Adriana Lecouvreur." However, his contributions to instrumental music should not be overlooked. Though less renowned than his operatic output, Cilea's instrumental works exhibit a melodic richness and emotional depth characteristic of the Romantic era. - Cilea's orchestral works show his mastery of lyrical themes and dramatic expression. His works are imbued with a sense of Italianate warmth and passion, reflecting the composer's deep connection to his native land. - This new recording presents the Suite for Violin & Orchestra, Il Canto dell'Amore, Cilea's arrangement of a Cello Concerto by Leonardo Leo and the Piccola Suite for Cello & Orchestra. - Played by one of the foremost cellists of Italy, Enrico Bronzi, violinist Massimo Quarta, and the Virtuosi Della Scala, conducted by Filippo Arlia.

This first recording of a selection of Gervais-Francois Couperin's keyboard works aims to give an overview of the youngest member of the Couperin family with works that have survived to the present day. The son of Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789), to whom Brilliant Records has also dedicated a release featuring his complete harpsichord works (see BC 95459), G.-F. Couperin (1759-1826) is the last known musician in the line of the greatest French musical dynasty of it's time. The selection of pieces presented here is meant to demonstrate his compositional exploration of the fortepiano. The four most employed forms in Couperin's keyboard oeuvre are the variations, the sonata, the rondo, and the piece in free form. This programme features the most important examples of these four types. The Two Sonatas Op.1, issued in 1788, were most probably intended to officially present the young composer to the French connoisseurs. They were conceived pour le clavecin ou forte-piano, with accompaniment of violin and cello ad libitum. Both sonatas consist of three movements, the first one in a large sonata form. A slower movement follows, the one in the second sonata consisting of a theme with 7 variations. A final movement in rondo form closes both sonatas. Stylistically, they are relatively close to other sonatas of the time, although they feature quasi-symphonic writing in the first movements. The highly virtuosic style exemplified in the two Sonatas Op.1 becomes even more evident in two single pieces, strictly related to one another: Les Incroyables Op.6 and Les Merveilleuses Op.7. The two pieces refer to adherents of a fashion trend highly favoured by the aristocracy in Paris during the French Directory (1795-99). The men were called Incroyables ("incredible") and the women Merveilleuses ("marvelous"), and they greeted the new regime with an outbreak of luxury, decadence, even silliness, perhaps as a reaction to the Terror period. The two pieces are in free form, with a ritornello in the first, shorter part. However, this form actually owes much to the rondo, which Couperin had already proved to master, both in his sonatas and in a short individual Rondo presented here, published in the Journal de Clavecin in 1782. This short and elegant piece, which may possibly be the first piece ever published by Couperin, is the closest one to the classical period, with it's almost-Viennese flavour. Two sets of variations both published in 1790, together with the slow movement of the Sonata Op.1 No.2, show Couperin's adeptness with this genre. It is worth noting that while the first set is based on one of the most emblematic of Revolutionary songs, 'Ah! Ca ira', the second is based on a royalist song, the Complainte bearnoise, a troubadour's protestations at King Louis XVI being housed in the Palais de Tuileries at the beginning of the revolution. Other information: - Recorded September 2023, Monte Compatri, Italy - Booklet in English contains liner notes by the artist, as well as his biography - Simone PIerini plays an original fortepiano by J. Haselmann (c.1800-10), tuned to A=430 Hz in the Young 1 temperament (1800) - This premiere recording of a selection of Gervais-Francois Couperin's works aims to give an overview of the latest member of the Couperin family whose works has survived to the present day. Son of Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789), Gervais-Francois Couperin (1759-1826) was the latest known musician of the greatest French musical dynasty of the time. He was a highly esteemed composer and musician, who played for Napoleon, and was organist of several important Churches in Paris (Saint-Gervais, St. Sulpice and others). - The four most employed forms in Couperin's keyboard oeuvre are the variations, the sonata, the rondo, and the piece in free form, each of which is represented in this new recording. The highly virtuosic style of the two sonatas Op.1 becomes even evident in Les Incroyables Op.6, and Les Merveilleuses Op.7. The two pieces refer to the followers of a fashion highly favoured by the aristocracy in Paris during the French Directory (1795-1799). The followers of this new fashion, the Incroyables (i. e., the "incredibles") as concerns men, the Merveilleuses (the "marvelous women") for the women, greeted the new regime with an outbreak of luxury, decadence, and even silliness. - Played on the fortepiano by Simone Pierini Born in Rome in 1996, Pierini began studying music at the age of eight. Aged eighteen, he graduated in piano at S. Cecilia Conservatory of Music, Rome, with highest honors. He afterwards grew interest in historically informed piano practice, attending masterclasses led by Alexei Lubimov, Andreas Staier, Tobias Koch, Stefano Fiuzzi. Subsequently, his interest about historical keyboards in general grew further, and he began studying harpsichord and basso continuo with such teachers as Andrea Coen and Giovanni Togni. His recordings with music by Cherubini and the complete piano sonatas by Helene de Montgeroult were very positively received by the press. Classic FM nominated him as one of the 30 best musicians under 30 in 2024.

A unique combination on record of chamber music by the Swiss composer, surveying the development of his voice and career through the medium of the flute. One of music's late starters, Martin grew up as the tenth child of a Swiss pastor and his wife, surrounded by the music of Bach and Mozart. Only once Ernest Ansermet had founded the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande in 1918 did the 28-year-old Martin begin to discover and become captivated by the sensuality of Debussy and Ravel, and this stylistic dichotomy continued to play out in his own music. Among the most polished and individual of his early works is the set of four love-sonnets composed in 1921 to poems by the 16th-century balladeer Pierre de Ronsard. Already the influence of modernism is apparent on the angular and even ascetic shape of Martin's melodic invention, and yet a gentle, atmospheric mood pervades the cycle; this, too, would become a hallmark of his sound-world. In 1939, Martin began what would become a series of instrumental ballades with the competition piece which is still his best-known work for flute. In the same year, he followed it up with a Ballade for alto saxophone which he then arranged for flute; both works are fine examples of Martin's ability to reconcile serialism with tonality. A neoclassical (or rather, neo-Baroque) spirit infuses the Sonata da Chiesa of 1940 with solemn, Protestant gravity, yet the flute part still sings with the lyricism of the early Sonnets. From after the war, the Trois Chants de Noel (1947) distil the mystery of Christmas into three brief settings of texts by the Swiss poet Albert Rudhardt (1894-1944). A trio of Minnelieder (1961) masterfully strips Martin's language to the bone in a distinctive 'late style', where flute and guitar support and punctuate the sung line with an archaically flavoured modernity. Almost all these works have attracted no more than one or two recordings, but gathered together by these expert Italian musicians, they paint a new and compelling portrait of Martin as a spiritually engaged modernist. - Frank Martin (1890-1974) was a Swiss composer, who lived for most of his life in The Netherlands. Hs oeuvre spans orchestral works, oratorios, and chamber music. Martin's style defies easy categorization, blending elements of neoclassicism, serialism, and Gregorian chant. His vocal works reflect his spiritual depth and musical mastery. - Frank Martin wrote a not a large but a significant number of works for flute, including the Ballade for flute and piano (1939), the Deuxieme Ballade for flute and piano (1939) and the Church Sonata for flute and organ (1941). Of these three, only the Ballade is an original work for flute, as the Deuxieme Ballade and the Church Sonata are the author's transcriptions of earlier scores. Also included in this new recording are works for soprano and instrumental ensemble, featuring flute, oboe, harp, viola and cello. - A fascinating collection of a highly original voice in 20th century music! - Played by Daniele Ruggieri, Monica Bacelli and several excellent Italian instrumentalists.

Over the course of a long but ultimately frustrated career as a late-Romantic lyric composer, Francesco Cilea ascribed to one credo above all: 'Be Italian'. In L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur, above all, he created masterpieces of the new style of verismo which kept sung drama in Italian at the centre of wider notions of what opera means. Everything he wrote, from large-scale stage works, to chamber pieces to the salon songs and miniatures gathered here, expressed his quintessentially Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy. 'The real instrument of expression of the passions is the divine human voice,' he once remarked, 'with which no instrument can ever compete.' Thus, in complement to his career as an operatic composer, he wrote a small but exquisite collection of songs gathered here by artists with considerable experience in the field of neglected Italian art-song. This collection opens with the charming Romanza which Cilea composed at the age of 17, evidently under the spell of Bellini's Norma. The more complex harmony of 'Bionda larva' from three years later mirrors Cilea's development as a stage composer, about to launch his first opera, Gina. Every sung line here is calculated, as it was in Monteverdi's day, to heighten an appreciation of the text, and the emotions underlying it, with a madrigalian illustration which always colours and never obscures the words. There are expressions of heightened erotic passion alongside simple religious devotion - a typically Italian paradox. As interludes, David Boldrini plays four evocative miniatures, functioning essentially as songs without words. He and Lenny Lorenzani have made a previous collection of Cilea's songs, but this new Brilliant Classics album was recorded in 2023 and features a different selection of repertoire. - Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) went into history as the composer of one opera, Adrienne Lecouvreur. However, this late romantic Italian left a fine oeuvre of chamber and solo works, wonderfully evocative music, full of subtlety and finesse, in the style of early Debussy, studies in sonority and instrumental colours. - This new recording presents a selection of art songs and piano works. The songs are typically Italian in their simple, fluid, and elegant vocal melodies, "The real instrument of expression of the passions is the divine human voice, with which no instrument can ever compete" As Cilea himself said in an interview. - Beautifully performed by Lenny Lorenzani and David Boldrini.

Research, experimentation, discovery and rediscovery of new forms and ways of expression are the basis of a musician's work and, in the realisation of this project, they represent the cornerstones of an artistic partnership intended to give value to an important part of the saxophone repertoire, namely that related to transcriptions with piano accompaniment. Though the saxophone is a relatively recent instrument, it became a leading protagonist on the musical scene of the 20th century. While it was not immediately given consideration by the great composers who were contemporary to the instrument's birth and initial diffusion, it does possess the versatility and timbral and expressive characteristics to allow it to draw on repertoire intended for other instruments. In doing so, it gives these works a new look and an innovative as well as valid interpretation. This album brings together three works that - considering the varied stylistic characteristics and expressive intentions of the three composers - represent a clear example of how the saxophone can faithfully return the founding idea of each piece to the listener, radically modifying it without altering it's nature. The Fantasie Op.79 by Gabriel Faur� (1898), originally for flute and piano, was written in response to a commission for an examination piece: 'it must be short, 5 or 6 minutes at the most [.] and include the means needed to test the examinees on matters of phrasing, expression, control of tone and virtuosity'. A short time after Adolphe Sax patented the saxophone, Edvard Grieg wrote his First Violin Sonata (1865). The author himself described it as 'still a little naive but rich in melodic ideas'. In three movements and characterised by an almost spring-like atmosphere, it is adorned with references to Norwegian folk music which lend a rather grave and turbulent tone to some sections of the work. More 'recent' (by then the saxophone was heading towards the popularity it deserved) is Sergei Prokofiev's Sonata in D Op.94, originally written for flute and piano in 1943. It immediately drew the attention of the great violinist David Oistrakh, who proposed a violin version of the work to the composer which later became known as Op.94bis. A fundamental work of both the flute and violin literatures, here it is presented in it's adaptation for soprano saxophone and piano, and the work continues to embody inventive freshness and lively elegance of writing.

By the time of the ‘Ottocento’ (19th century), opera was the dominant force in Italian musical culture, with bel canto composers such as Rossini and Donizetti creating a public appetite for opera that eclipsed achievements by Italy’s musical sons in other genres. Some of these composers who focused their energies instead on instrumental music, swimming against the operatic tide, remained in their native land, while others found a home (or were forced to find one) abroad.

Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) is one who stayed. A gifted pianist, he bypassed the operatic path and wrote music with a kind of fluent synthesis of Italian lyricism and German, dialectic approach to form that reached an early peak in his Cello Sonata of 1880. Yet Martucci, as a teacher of composition in Bologna and then Naples, urged the teenaged Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) to study abroad.

Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968) is among the few composers in this set whose entire career centered in Italy, and he wrote a substantial body of instrumental music.

Before the war and eventual exile, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) succeeded in reinventing an essentially Romantic model (of both form and harmony) for his own time with his Cello Sonata Op. 50 of 1928.

From seven years earlier, Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Sonata of 1921 is a more gloomy, even tortured affair. The Cello Sonata of Francesco Cilea (1866-1950), while unmistakably cast as an ‘operatic’ work from its opening solo, features a protagonist scarcely burdened by the existential angst to be found in comparable works from northern Europe.

Like Cilea, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876–1948) is known for his operas but unlike Cilea’s cello sonata, Wolf-Ferrari’s Op. 30 dates from the final three years of his life and belongs to a mature output of instrumental music.

Virtuoso cellists Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) produced many trifles and showpieces to display his artistry to his adoring public in London. He was most proud of the set of six sonatas included in this set. In 1844 he made his first appearance in the English capital and soon settled there, playing both as a soloist and in one of the first celebrity string quartets.

The Cello Sonata by Mario Pilati (1903-1938) is another product of the fast-moving 1920s, formed in a Romantic tradition but inflected – like the music of Casella, Pizzetti, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco – by contemporary trends in impressionism and futurism.

From the next generation of composers, the Cello Sonata composed in 1948 by Eliodoro Sollim (1926-2000) fluently incorporates the kind of modal harmonies and cross-rhythms adopted by the likes of Bartók and Janáček from the folk traditions of their own cultures.

Dramatic secular cantatas from the early Italian Baroque, revived for the first time in the modern age by an acclaimed and enterprising early-music ensemble. 'This is a disc well worth obtaining,' reported Fanfare of the previous Colista album by Ensemble Giardino Di Delizie on Brilliant Classics (96033). Recorded for the first time complete, the trio sinfonias gathered there are 'a collection of fine works that seem to foreshadow Corelli almost half a century later. Of course, much of the ability to make these works come alive is due to the Giardino de Delizie under that capable direction of violinist Ewa Augustynowicz... The sound is extremely good and live.' The ambitions of the ensemble now extend further still, into the entirely unknown vocal output of this important figure from 17th-century Rome. Born in 1629 to a scribe for the papal Curia, Lelio Costa demonstrated musical and theatrical talent in childhood and soon won the admiration of his contemporaries as both a performer and composer; one of them called him 'Lelio Amato'. He rose effortlessly through the ranks of the Papal court, becoming in time the equivalent of the Keeper of Pictures. And theatrical talent in childhood and soon won the admiration of his contemporaries as both a performer and composer; one of them called him 'Lelio Amato'. He rose effortlessly through the ranks of the Papal court, becoming in time the equivalent of the Keeper of Pictures. Colista's sacred music has entirely disappeared, but ten secular cantatas survive, and six are presented here. They revolve around the conventional theme (for such works) of lost and frustrated love in pastoral and marine contexts: doleful shepherds and fishermen, inconstant shepherdesses and poor Europa, faced with appearance of Jupiter as a bull, in Europarapita. Colista proves himself a master of dramatic and picturesque imagery to illustrate his texts, as well as underscoring them with inventive counterpoint, much varied in texture between light and dense according to the context. The result is a significant addition to any library of Baroque vocal works, performed with a full understanding of the required style.

A mesmerising piano cycle by the master of Dutch minimalism. 'I write music like this not because I'm isolated,' Simeon Ten Holt once said. 'I'm isolated because I write music like this.' And yet, since his death in 2012, performances and recordings of his music have multiplied like one of his motivic cells, gathering energy and momentum to spread the reputation of a composer who took the rhythmic precepts of American minimalists such as Reich and Glass, and coloured them with a European-Romantic glow of harmony. Composed in 1995-97 for four pianos, Meandres is another monumental yet approachable piano cycle in the mould of his celebrated Canto Ostinato, more complex and more chromatic than the earlier cycle but sharing with it a hypnotic clarity and an improvisatory freedom which leaves a good deal of liberty to the performers. At first, there is no melody, in the usual sense of the word. However, over time, a pattern emerges like a puzzle taking shape before the listener. The title refers to the meandering course of rivers, which takes them to mountain slopes as well as lowlands. 'Because it is like a work in progress which never reaches closure,' remarks the composer, 'the meandering structure of the piece is quite demanding on the performers. It is the condensation of an inquiry into the very limits of time and space.' This recording of Meandres was made in 1999 by a team of Dutch pianists who had all worked with Ten Holt on his music, and accordingly it vibrates with disciplined authenticity. Sharp accents continually break and articulate the line and the restatement of the germinal motif, but it always loops back to a cadence which Robert Schumann would have recognised. Combining Baroque rigour with early-Romantic harmony and late-20th-century form, Meandres is both post-modern and timeless as an extension of piano literature.

The first disc in this two-CD set contains Sardinian composer Cristiano Porqueddu’s first three sonatas for solo guitar, written between 2013 and 2019 and performed here by his compatriot Riccardo D’Alò. ‘Des couleurs sur la toile’, in three movements, pays homage to the painter Gesuino Curreli, the composer’s maternal uncle, who paints landscapes of contemporary Oliena, a town in northern Sardinia. ‘Sonata di Picerno’ – completed in 2015 and dedicated to Italian guitarist Christian Saggese – is a musical portrait of the distinctive town of Picerno in the beautiful Basilicata region of Italy. All three of its movements narrate an entirely fictional leyenda (legend). Sonata No.3, ‘Il rito del fuoco’, is based on an ancient Sardinian legend that tells of Saint Anthony and his pig stealing fire from hell to give to humanity. It is a cyclical composition, which remains anchored in the harmonic and thematic elements introduced in the first section throughout.

The recordings on disc two – performed by Lorenzo Micheli Pucci, a guitarist from Piedmont in northern Italy – were written by Porqueddu between 2011 and 2020. Díptico de la oscuridad is a homage to Pablo Neruda’s poetic atmospheres and is dedicated to Italo-Australian guitarist Ermanno Brignolo. Metamórfosis de la soledad, dedicated to Italian guitarist Alberto Mesirca, stems directly from observing the artistic solitude glimpsed by the composer in artwork by Gastone Cecconello on a personal visit to his studio. It takes the form of a series of short movements based on Angelo Gilardino’s study ‘Soledad’ from his collection Studi di Virtuosità e di Trascendenza. These movements offer a prismatic vision of the material from the introduction to the study, heavily abridged to allow it to be used as a theme for a cycle of variations. In 2019 and 2020, Porqueddu’s figurative art studies led him to discover the wonderful ancient Chinese artwork Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, a set of eight parchments dating from the Song Dynasty, approximately 1150 AD. Porqueddu wrote the solo Studies from Eight Views from Xiaoxiang while studying Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 21 Greeting Cards for guitar. They are built on clearly identifiable melodic sketches, and alternate between demanding technical skill and a capacity for introspection from the performer.

The apogee of the French harpsichord came in the 18th century with the publication of the musical works of François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, the two leading representatives of the French harpsichord school. These were followed by numerous livres de clavecin written by a new generation of composers such as Claude Balbastre, Pancrace Royer, Jacques Duphly, and Michel Corrette.

It is within this rococo-galant context, which marked the final glory days of the harpsichord, that we encounter the music of Jean-Baptiste Parant, a composer for whom only scant biographical details are known. Parant’s Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, published in 1762, contains 16 pieces written in the light and carefree rococo style, which makes them a true reflection of the music that would have been heard at this time in the salons of aristocrats and patrons such as the Prince de Conti and Monsieur de La Pouplinière or at the literary salons of Madame du Deffand, Julie Lespinasse, and Madame Geoffrin.

The titles of the pieces allude to persons from Parant’s circle, such as La Angôt and De la Bauve, or to places such as Passy (most probably a reference to the Château de Passy, the residence of the aforementioned important and very wealthy musical patron Alexandre de La Pouplinière) and Lyons (‘La Lionoise’). His sources of inspiration are also to be seen in such evocative titles as ‘Les Cascades’, ‘La Majestueuse’ or ‘La Pétulante’. Running throughout his music are the dances most commonly found in French suites, such as the menuet, rondeau, allemande, gavotte, and lourée.

Attractive Classical-era duets for violin
and cello in world-premiere recordings
by a young Italian pair of brothers.
Despite his French name, Louis
Massonneau was a German composer,
born in Kassel in 1766 and dying at the
venerable age of 82 in MecklenburgVorpommern in 1848. His father was
chef to the Landgrave Friedrich II of
Hessen-Kassel, and Louis received his
musical training at the hands of the
court musicians in Kassel, soon
becoming a violinist in the court
orchestra. The Landgrave died when
Massonneau was 19, and the orchestra
disbanded, requiring him to seek his
fortune elsewhere. This he did in a
series of posts, as a concertmaster of
court and theatre orchestras in
Göttingen, Frankfurt, Altona, Dessau,
Hamburg and finally Mecklenburg, where he
settled for good and retired in 1837.
Composing all the while, Massonneau left
behind a fairly substantial catalogue. Almost
completely unknown apart from a trio of
oboe quartets, it includes three symphonies,
twelve symphonies and six violin concertos,
doubtless written with his own talents in
mind. These three Duos Concertante probably
date from Massonneau’s time in Altona, when
he came to know the cellist Martin Calmus.
Required to perform duets for the
entertainment of those attending ‘Musical
Academies’, Massonneau doubtless found a
dearth of such repertoire, and wrote it afresh.
Calmus himself must have been an
accomplished cellist, because both parts
demonstrate a virtuosity and experimental
spirit shared with the better-known music of
their contemporary Boccherini. Each duo is cast
in three movements, skilfully varied in form
from the others, in which lyrical expression is
tempered by a touch of irony. Haydnesque
touches of major-minor ambiguity lend
dramatic tension to the first duo, while a more
balletic spirit and Mozartian melodic charm
brings a quasi-operatic character to the second.
No.3 is the most innovative in its rapid
conversational interplay between violin and
cello and unconventional range of timbre.
Demian and Dylan Baraldi have made this
recording with the cooperation of the Edition
Massonneau, and authoritative booklet notes
from the Edition illuminate the composer’s life
and work.

Duarte’s Partita was completed in 1974. It’s a substantial work in four movements, using all original material. As in the Variations on a Theme of Štepan Rak he adopts a four-note motif, which may be heard forwards, backwards, inverted and stretched. Variations on an Italian Folk Song Op. 139 was written in 2000. It draws on the second movement, “Canzona”, of Duarte’s prior Suite piemontese, which was based on a combination of two tunes: Il testamento dell’avvelenato and Re Gilardin. This gentle theme is characterised by simple movements of a step or a fourth. The six variations all begin with this stepwise movement but they quickly gain individual characters. Valse lyrique (2000) is one of the three short dances Duarte wrote late in his career. The second theme, clearly derived from the first, includes some hemiolas as well as combined harmonics and natural notes. The central section features the melody in the bass. Valse en rondeau was written in 1997 for the American guitarist David Starobin. Duarte stated: “I decided to make reference to my origin as a jazz musician and to my interest in early music (the Rondeau form) and to exercise my unshakeable belief in melody.” The origin of the Variations on a Theme of Štepan Rak Op. 100 is unique. In 1984, Rak was staying with Duarte when Vladimir Mikulka performed a lunchtime concert in London. At the end of the concert, Mikulka announced that he was going to perform an unusual encore – a theme, but without variations that had yet to be written. Afterwards he announced that Rak, Koshkin and Duarte should exchange themes with each other to create six new variation works, and he presented Duarte with Rak’s theme on a piece of manuscript paper. Andres Segovia, a supreme Anglophile, married his third wife in Gibraltar (“under the British flag, on Spanish soil”), and their son was born in London. Duarte’s 3 Songs without Words for Carlos Andres were a present to the happy couple. Danza eccentrica (2000) was dedicated to the Italian guitarist Domenico Lafasciano with the note, “Here is your dance. It may not be what you expected, but it’s what I’ve written – not another ‘cloned’ rumba, tango, waltz or whatever, but something with more individual character.” The unexpected aspects include dissonant harmonies, bass notes which move in ¾ against the treble in 6/8 and sections more reminiscent of a hurdy-gurdy. The Italian guitarist Angelo Gilardino wrote to Duarte about his Fantasia and Fugue on Torre Bermeja Op. 30: “…the melodic and rhythmic feeling is of the sort to easily produce the fascination of the public”. The Torre Bermeja in question is the piano piece by Isaac Albeniz, Op. 92 No. 12. Although it carries Op. 62 (1974) on its cover, the little Prelude en arpèges was written in 1954/5 and intended as the first movement of a Harp Suite Op. 18 that was never completed.

Gottlieb Muffat’s oeuvre, dedicated almost in its entirety to keyboard instruments and skilfully straddling the stile antico and stile moderno, deserves more detailed attention than it has ever been afforded. The majority of sources containing music by Muffat are unpublished, with only two collections published at the composer’s own behest during his years in the Emperor’s service in Vienna. One of these is the Componimenti Musicali per il Cembalo (Augsburg, 1739).

This collection contains 6 Suites and a Ciacona with 38 variations for solo harpsichord. The composer describes these seven works as capricci or galanterie to be performed in the stile moderno and to suit modern tastes. Although arranged in the conventional order of Allemande–Courante–Sarabande–Gigue, Muffat also added various optional dances, displaying no shortage of innovation. The first movements are introductory in nature, often fugal in form and varying in style and pace: Ouverture (Suites 1 and 5), Prelude (Suite 2) and Fantaisie (Suites 3, 4 and 6). The seventh piece in the collection, the Ciacona con 38 Variazioni, is a special case. As Christopher Hogwood suggests in his introduction to the modern edition (Orpheus, 2009), the Ciacona could be another tribute to the imperial family, as the number of variations matches the age Charles VI’s niece, Maria Amalia, would have been on 22 October 1739.

Muffat’s interest in contemporary harpsichord composition is most clearly evident in his transcription and reinterpretation of works by George Frideric Handel, based on a manuscript copy of the Suites des pièces pour le clavecin he held in his library. Muffat reworked the suites in Handel’s collection, suggesting new ornamentation, distributing the notes differently between the hands, changing the clefs and sometimes note values, and adding slurs and cadenzas. He then applied everything he had observed while rewriting Handel’s suites to his own Componimenti musicali: including a table of ornaments, which the composer asks be played with ‘art and discretion’; he considers the positioning of the player’s hands on the keyboard in his writing and avoids using multiple clefs on one line to prevent confusion; he describes the optimum way to use the thumb for accidentals; and he provides the correct technical interpretation of trills and slurs.

Study of the Componimenti reveals what could be defined as a pedagogical intent, as well as a clear desire to make the score unambiguous and accessible by means of his introductory instructions. The collection contributed greatly to setting a new benchmark for keyboard writing in the lands of the Viennese Empire.

From the outset of his career, Jean Sibelius was recognized as an outstanding representative of a musical language perceived as typically Finnish. In Finland, the dawn of the 20th century saw a veritable outbreak of nationally inspired artistic activities., It was a time of cultural and national self-discovery for Sibelius, too. He allowed himself be stimulated by the whole of Finland’s folklore tradition, without resorting to specific examples of folksong.

For many years, Carl Nielsen was viewed outside his native Denmark as the poor cousin of his more famous Scandinavian counterparts, Grieg and Sibelius. Yet his achievements as Denmark’s greatest symphonist of the 20th century were, if anything, even more remarkable than the successes of his geographical neighbors. Nielsen’s symphonic output is some of the most remarkable of its time.

The Norwegian conductor and composer Johann Svendsen was born in 1840 in Christiania (now Oslo). in 1867, he finished his Symphony No. 1, a work that Grieg later described as showing scintillating genius, superb national feeling and really brilliant handling of an orchestra. In 1872 Svendsen returned to Christiania beginning a fruitful period that saw the creation of his Symphony No. 2 in B flat major Op. 15.

Hugo Alfven's First Symphony (1897) has a melancholy Sturm und Drang mood that recurs at intervals in his later compositions, but there is also a life affirming side that flourished in his Second Symphony, two years later. Of his Third Symphony, he stated "it depicts neither concrete nor abstract. It is an expression of the joy of living, an expression of the sun-lit happiness that filled my whole being.”

Wilhelm Stenhammar's Symphony Op. 34  saw the light of day in 1907, dedicating it to “my dear friends, the members of the Goteborg Symphony Orchestra.” He was to remain its chief conductor until 1922. That symphony, which had its first performance under the composer’s direction in 1915, was in fact Stenhammar’s second and is today called Symphony No. 2, even if the composer himself never gave it that number.

Edvard Grieg’s Symphony in C minor, which the composer withdrew, saw scholar after scholar writing about it disparagingly, with much discussion of the its style, all too often based on the question: what are its unoriginal or unsuccessful features? But it was Grieg himself who began the tradition with his admonition that it “must never be performed”. Now, however, very few feel, on moral grounds, that the work should not be performed.

This new album presents a delightful selection of Poulenc’s piano music, starting with the intriguing little Valse (1919) from L’Album des Six, which first presented in published form the collective of Franco-Swiss composers who came to be known under that title. As the fruit of a trip to Italy in the company of Darius Milhaud, a fellow Les Six-er, Napoli is a suite written in 1925 and presenting Italian forms through the light of Poulenc’s irrepressible personality.
More affecting are the eight Nocturnes, composed between 1929 and 1938, and the three Novelettes (1927-1959), while the ’Six petites pièces enfantines’ that make up the Villageoises of 1933 share the a spirit of gentle playfulness with Poulenc’s popular musical tale, Babar the Elephant. One day when Poulenc was improvising on the piano, his cousin’s little girl exclaimed: “Grandfather, it’s so boring when you play like that, why don’t you play us this?”. And in 1945, once the dreadful war years were over, Poulenc was happy to oblige.
The Trois Mouvements perpetuels are early pieces, a product of the kaleidoscopic ‘harlequin years’ of Paris in the 1920s. The three movements reveal a musical freshness and fluidity somewhat reminiscent of Satie, whose individualistic approach to life and art inspired the members of Les Six, to whom he served as a kind of honorary president. Finally, Poulenc evokes the spirit of Bach returns in a surprising guise in the Valse-Improvisation sur le nom de Bach, a piece bursting with vitality, in perfect keeping with the famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz, to whom it was dedicated.
Two previous albums by Chiara Cipelli on Brilliant Classics and Piano Classics have won enthusiastic praise from reviewers in Fanfare magazine. The piano music of Bruno Bettinelli is ‘presented with wonderful vigour and colour by the fine young Lombardy native Chiara Cipelli’ (95801), while ‘Cipelli’s technical capabilities are impressive throughout’ her selection of early Messiaen pieces (PCL10200).

Admiration for the French composer, harpsichordist and organist, Louis Couperin continues to grow steadily today, but it was not so during his lifetime. The first important edition of his work in modern times, in its latest revision by Thurston Dart (used for this set), catalogues 129 pieces as authentic. Collectively, they help to place Couperin among the greatest composers of the 17th century alongside Frescobaldi, Chambonnieres, Froberger, and D’Anglebert.

Though he wrote religious works as well as chamber music, harpsichord music forms the lion’s share of Louis’s nephew François Couperin’s output: 235 pieces in all, most of them published in the four volumes (or Livres) of Pièces de Clavecin, divided into 27 ordres.

Like the better-known Jacques Duphly and Claude Balbastre, Armand-Louis Couperin belongs to the last generation of French harpsichord composers. The modesty and success which profited Armand-Louis handsomely during his lifetime rather dimmed the light of his creative legacy. He published little during his own lifetime. One of only a few opuses, the magnificent volume of Pièces de clavecin deserves consideration alongside the viol fantazias of Purcell and the Lachrymae of Dowland, examples of lateness in music, where the fruit has ripened beyond high summer, yet there is much of interest in these pieces, beyond their historical value at the end of a distinguished family line.

Armand-Louis’s son, Gervais-François Couperin, studied with his father then replaced him at the Sainte-Chapelle organ. His keyboard compositions reveal a profound understanding of the delicate nuances and expressive capabilities of the harpsichord, characterized by elegance, refinement and meticulous attention to ornamentation. Yet Gervais-François was also a virtuoso on the new instrument of his day, the fortepiano, and this set features his music performed on that keyboard of greatly expanded expressivity.

REVIEW:

Brilliant Classics’ Couperin Dynasty collection usefully gathers together François’s four dazzling books of harpsichord pieces (Michael Borgstede), Massimo Berghella playing harpsichord suites by Louis (historically the first important member of the Couperin family), harpsichord pieces by Armand-Louis (cousin of François) played by Yago Mahugo and catchy, vivacious fortepiano music by Gervais-François (a son of Armand-Louis and a contemporary of Beethoven) adeptly performed by Simone Pierini. The range of music on offer stretches from Gervais-François’s feisty variations to François’s majestic Passacaille, one of the finest masterpieces in the genre. It’s a musical feast to relish, more varied than you might expect. Excellent sound, too, and informative notes by Michael Borgstede, Peter Quantrill, Brigida Cristallo and Massimo Berghella.

— Gramophone

The most comprehensive survey ever made of Reger’s organ music, on a range of superb Austrian, German, and Swiss instruments: a fitting tribute to the composer on the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Roberto Marini's feat of performing Reger's entire output for organ in Italy within a single year (2002) was followed in 2011-13 by this remarkable achievement on record. On the basis of authoritative new critical editions compiled by the Max Reger Institute, Marini recorded the works on historical instruments of Reger's time, which with their orchestral richness of color and dynamic possibilities correspond to the soundworld of an epoch that believed in progress in every dimension and embodied a kind of striving heroism as an attitude to both life and art.

First released in individual albums on the Fugatto label, this box compiles Roberto Marini’s Reger albums complete for the first time, together with an authoritative essay by Suzanne Pepp on Reger’s output for organ.

Beginning in 1838, Franz Liszt began to produce transcriptions of Schubert's Lieder almost as rapidly as they had been written in the first place. Within eight years, Liszt had produced 56 such transcriptions, which are models of their kind: faithful, ingenious and gratifying to play.

As the great pianist of his own age, Liszt rewrote the Wanderer Fantasy in an act of homage, firstly as a concerto, then a solo piece, and this lesser-known version is recorded here by Giovanni Doria Miglietta.

Finally, Doria-Miglietta includes Liszt’s more complex rewritings of two Impromptus. In D899 No.2 he does indeed make the harmony more complex and the effect more brilliant, whereas he leaves the divine simplicity of No.3 almost untouched except for changing the key from G flat to G major, perhaps to make it easier to play for the amateur pianist.

There is still much we do not know about the veritable mandolin-mania of late 18th-century Europe, particularly Vienna, which in that period was home to the three greatest musicians of the Classical period: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The instrument certainly enjoyed dazzling success in Viennese musical circles, embraced by the cultured aristocrats who resided in the Habsburg capital, and its meteoric rise was supported by some extraordinary virtuosos who helped promote its high-quality and fast-growing repertoire.
Giovanni Hoffmann’s refined chamber music featuring the mandolin was warmly received among the Viennese elite, making him one of the foremost figures behind the burgeoning mandolin repertoire of late 18th-century Vienna. Very little is known about his life; the Italianate first name alongside a clearly central-European surname adds to the mystery shrouding his birthplace and sphere of education.
Hoffmann was both a mandolin virtuoso and an esteemed composer. In 1799, the music merchant Johann Traeg advertised a list of the mandolin scores available to purchase from his shop on Vienna’s Singerstraße. It included a Trio for mandolin & bass by Hoffmann, and that same year, the composer released a further number of manuscript works through Traeg including his Quartets for mandolin, violin, viola & cello and
Serenatas for mandolin & viola. Hoffmann’s work is recorded again in Austria in the early decades of the 19th century, but – like his birth – the place and date of his death have not yet come to light. His music, however, lives on, a testament to his talent for composing delightful music in a Classical style evoking the fascinating gatherings of the Viennese literati.

Polyphonic 14th-century Italian secular music seems to emerge out of nowhere in the history of music. Nevertheless, this tradition – which often goes by the name Ars Nova – fits seamlessly into the history of Italian culture. Our knowledge of it has been pieced together from relatively few sources, which nevertheless reveal three distinct phases. In its first phase, Italian Ars Nova spread out from universities, including those of Padua and Bologna, which had strong links with the dominant and contemporaneous French Ars Nova. In the second phase, the centre of 14th-century Italian polyphony seems to shift markedly to Florence. The final phase, which bridged the late 1300s and early 1400s, shows the influence of intense cultural exchange brought about by an international circulation of musicians and poets caused by the political instability of the papacy’s return from Avignon to Rome and the consequent heightened mobility among the various courts and their entourages.
This phase is reflected in such sources as the renowned Squarcialupi Codex. Compiled in Florence around 1415, it contains over 350 compositions (madrigals, ballate and cacce) and is the source of the majority of the tracks on this album. Francesco Landini (c.1325/35–1397) is represented by five of his 141 ballate and the virelai ‘Adiu, adiu dous dame’. Also from the Codex are one ballata by Andrea da Firenze (c.1350–1415) and two ballate and a caccia by Antonio ‘Zacara’ da Teramo (1355–1416). Three instrumental tracks complete the album, two of them from the ‘London’ Manuscript (British Library) compiled in Florence, probably in Medici circles. In addition to mostly polyphonic music by Landini and other Florentine composers, this tome features several anonymous instrumental works including the lively dances ‘Chominciamento di gioia’ and ‘Tre fontane’. The madrigal ‘Aquila altera’ has a different background entirely: the version presented here is the instrumental arrangement found in the Codex Faenza, a unique volume assembled in the early 15th century containing around 50 Italian and French polyphonic compositions for organ.

An obscure corner of the French Baroque illuminated: the only available recording of the sole extant collection by a Parisian organist and composer. About Pierre-Thomas Dufour, almost nothing is now known for certain beyond his death in Paris, on 30 December 1786, and the publication in 1770 of this collection of harpsichord pieces bearing his name. He probably wrote a good deal else, both for harpsichord and organ, given that the title page of the collection informs us that Dufour was organist of the Eglise de Saint-Jean-en-Grève and the Eglise Saint-Laurent, both in Paris.

The collection is divided between dances (gigues, courantes, allemandes and musettes), and stylised evocations indicated by their titles after the fashion of Couperin: ‘The Blacksmiths’, ‘The Doves’ and so on. In his booklet essay, the harpsichordist Fernando De Luca observes that these tone-poems are no less vividly coloured and dramatized than contemporary canvases by Boucher and Watteau.

There are also two self-contained solo concertos for the instrument, in B flat and E flat major. Cast in the conventional three movements, the concertos share a grandeur of spirit with the more stately of the individual pieces such as ‘La Triomphante’ and ‘La Sincere’. Despite his obscurity, there is no reason to regard Dufour as a ‘lesser’ composer on the evidence of this slender collection, especially now that it is recorded in its entirety. A portrait emerges through it of Dufour himself, as a cultivated and cosmopolitan musician, well aware of contemporary trends not only in French music but further abroad, especially in the Italianate dash of the two concertos. The collection closes with a spectacular Carillon in imitation of the church-bells which rang throughout Paris (and every other European city) on the quarter-hour.

Fernando De Luca has accumulated an impressive discography for Brilliant Classics, including substantial and equally pioneering sets of the complete harpsichord music by Christoph Graupner (96131) and Christophe Moyreau (96285). ‘There is much to admire about this recording project… a monumental enterprise… [listeners will admire] both Graupner’s and De Luca’s facility, being rewarded with some attractive music confidently delivered.’ (Early Music Review)

Georges Migot (1891–1976) authored a vast oeuvre founded on two principles that in various ways pervade all of his work: a nationalist aesthetic and a link to the past. This emerges and is reinforced in repeated references to the French lutenists of old, as well as troubadours and trouveÌres, folk song and ancient monodic forms, particularly plainchant. Rather than limit himself to copying their external structure, however, Migot sought to extract the spirit, sensitivity, grace and sense of freedom from these historic forms, which he believed better suited the infinite nature of human sensitivity. Despite strong and professed ties to his contemporaries Faureì and Debussy, Migot cannot be placed in any school or branch of 20th-century music.

Pour un Hommage aÌ Claude Debussy (composed May 1924) coincided with the Paris debut of Andreìs Segovia and is dedicated to him. Migot composes lines with a modal flavour supported by rich and resonant arpeggiated chords, with densely packed notes providing a thorough exploration of all the instrument’s colours.

His four-movement Sonate pour guitare, two PreÌludes pour 2 guitares dedicated to the Argentinian Duo Pomponio-ZaÌrate, and a substantial and tricky Sonate pour 2 guitares date to the early 1960s. These pieces have a more clearly defined and linear style, and feature a profound musical idiom, brimming with emotion.

The three movements of the Sonate pour flu^te et guitare – dedicated to Brazilian guitarist Turíbio Santos – are stylistically similar to the above compositions. Migot gives both instruments various solo opportunities, and the two accompany each other, both during the more evanescent passages, where the writing is extremely sparse, and in more densely notated sections.

The 3 Chansons de joye et de souci originate in a cycle of 6 PoeÌmes setting Pierre Moussarie for voice and piano. They were arranged for voice and guitar in 1969 by the composer himself. In these, his final works for guitar, Migot provides us with a sample of his highly refined aesthetic, obtaining sounds not commonly heard on the instrument.

ANTON BRUCKNER 200 (1824-2024)

Note: This re-release of the cycle of Anton Bruckner's Nine Symphonies and the Mass No. 3 was originally recorded by and released on the PENTATONE label.

Recording the symphonies of the iconic Austro-German Romantic, Bruckner, with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande – an orchestra with roots in the French music-performance tradition – was a courageous decision. Conductor Marek Janowski attests to the fact that exploring and working on this repertoire was a joyful process for all musicians involved, and the result of that endeavour speaks for itself.

The Symphony No. 1 is performed in the Linz version of 1877 (ed. Nowak).

Bruckner’s omnipresent “version problem” manifests itself with great clarity for the first time in the Symphony No. 2. Three versions of the work exist: 1871–72, 1873–77 and 1892. The versions from 1872 and 1877 were presented as part of the “New Complete Edition” in two volumes (ed. William Carragan), and this recording is based on the latter.

The colossal dimensions of the first version of Symphony No. 3, with its sprawling and untamed shape, and the restrained, pruned-down version dating from 1888/89 (ed. Nowak) recorded here are worlds apart.

Marek Janowski recorded the well-known second version of Symphony No. 4, i.e. the 1878/80 Version with Bruckner's 1886 revisions (ed. Nowak).

Only one version remains of both the Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No .6: the 1878 Version (ed. Nowak) and 1881 Version (ed. Nowak), respectively. Likewise, the Symphony No.7 has only one version, from 1885, however the Nowak edition recorded here differs from the earlier Haas edition.

Symphony No. 8 is recorded here in its 1890 Edition (ed. Nowak), heavily revised at the bidding of conductor Hermann Levi, Bruckner’s intended conductor for the premiere. The unfinished Symphony No.9 is presented here as such: a three-movement work (ed. Nowak).

This cycle of the nine canonical symphonies of Bruckner is graced with the addendum of the Mass No. 3, in which Bruckner clearly gears his style towards that of the symphonic–orchestral Mass paradigm of composers ranging from Haydn to Schubert, and most emblematically, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, yet with a “mixture of the archaic and the personal, of an as yet undeveloped style of composition” (M. Hansen).