GRAN PARTITA

PIANO SONATES KV 311-330-331

Though never a rival to his contemporaries Haydn and Mozart in terms of fame, partly on account of a lack of great ambition, Boccherini was held in huge esteem by connoisseurs in his own lifetime. 'If God wanted to speak to man through music, he would do so through the works of Haydn; if he wished to listen to music himself, he would choose the works of Boccherini.' There cannot be any greater accolade than this, expressed in 1798 by the French violinist and composer Jean-Baptiste Cartier - and that was certainly not a unique view: Boccherini's prodigious talents as a lyrical melodist and sumptuous sound smith were highly prized by those who were had encountered them. Boccherini is the greatest Italian composer of the Classical era - although he lived in Spain for most of his career. Distanced from the Austro-German mainstream, his music retained an individual and distinctive voice, imbued with a refined galant grace which, on the surface at least, can sometimes appear old-fashioned even for his time. Unlike the Viennese school, he was not preoccupied with structural and tonal complexities, but pushed boundaries in his own quieter, more subtle ways. Undervalued in modern times (he has been mean-spiritedly dismissed as 'Haydn's wife'), there is much to appreciate in Boccherini's uniquely expressive voice. His greatest legacy is an enormous body of chamber works, but his output also includes around 30 symphonies, a dozen concertos for his own instrument, the cello, and a smattering of vocal works. This monumental set gathers all of the above, in lavish performances by artists who are among the greatest champions of the composer's art in recent decades.

Other information: - Recordings date from 1991-2021 - Booklet in English contains liner notes by Graham Rogers. - Played in Historically Informed Performance Practice by leading Early Music instrumentalists. - The most comprehensive collection of music by Luigi Boccherini ever issued, 52 CDs brimming with charm, elegance, wit and catching melodies!

This new Edition contains a wealth of Boccherini's music: symphonies, cello concertos, sextets, string quintets, quartets and trios, violin sonatas and duos, and the moving Stabat Mater.

By transcribing its haunting Sinfonia for two pianos, György Kurtág gave the early ‘Actus Tragicus’ funeral cantata by Bach a second life. He was only following good Bachian practice, which was to make the best of what was available to him. In his sinfonias, Bach often reused movements from previously composed longer instrumental works – some of them now lost in their original, others still very much with us, such as the Brandenburg Concertos. When adapting the first movement of the Third as the opening gambit of BWV174, Bach added wind and a pair of virtuoso horn parts with a flair and audacity that would make most modern transcribers quail. The album ends with a much straighter transcription of the exuberant hunt music for the horn-led first movement to Brandenburg No.1 repurposed as the Sinfonia to BWV52. Several of his sinfonias call upon the services of an organist who takes center stage – perhaps Bach himself, though he may have been writing for a visiting soloist. Here is the expansive opening movement, in a startling new guise as the Sinfonia to BWV146, of the magnificent D minor Harpsichord Concerto which, along with the Fifth Brandenburg, became effectively the Old Testament for the Romantic-era piano concerto. The original source for the sinfonia to BWV169 is now lost, but its material is shared with the better-known Harpsichord Concerto BWV1053. This is the Bach concertos album you never knew you could have; the sinfonias are too rarely heard outside their original sacred context. Here they are performed on ‘period’ instruments by the experienced hands of Ensemble Cordia, who have assembled an impressive catalogue of Baroque favorites and rarities on Brilliant Classics, with the starring role given to their regular continuo player, Takashi Watanabe.

This CD presents a fascinating collection of Spanish keyboard works played on the harp, as well as "Intabulations" (settings of songs, madrigals and other vocal works) of the well-known composers working at the Spanish court. Surveying a lesser-known facet of one of the most famous periods in music history, this collection is a must-buy for the Renaissance connoisseur.

The name of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) is now emerging from the shadow cast by his wartime collaboration with Italy's Fascist regime. Operas such as I quattro rusteghi and I gioielli della Madonna occupy a place on the fringes of the repertoire, and Brilliant Classics have made a persuasive case for him as a composer of chamber music in a post-Brahmsian mould with the release of his piano trios. This album was recommended by Classics Today for the 'eloquently sustained' performance of Trio Arch�, displaying 'a whimsical discursiveness... that might be described as the lovechild of Schubert and Faur�.' Much the same might be said of Wolf-Ferrari's piano music on the evidence of this new recording by the Italian pianist Costantino Catena, who has made many well-received albums with the Camerata Tokyo. To open the album, Catena has made his own completion of an early, substantial (19-minute) Bagatelle that Wolf-Ferrari left unfinished. Theatricality and high contrast mark the Bagatelle throughout, as one would expect from an experienced composer for the stage, and they lend beguiling variety to the other first recordings here, of Variations on the minuet from Verdi's Falstaff, a Chopin-Phantasie in B minor and a Scherzino, all dating from Wolf-Ferrari's prodigious twenties when he was the toast of new Italian music. Wolf-Ferrari turned to the Romantic genre of character-piece in three Impromptus Op.13 (1904) and three Klavierst�cke Op.14 (1905), but he addressed the form in a personal and authentic manner. Some of the rhythmic sophistication may remind us of Brahms, and the delicately embroidered harmony of Hugo Wolf, but Wolf-Ferrari's characteristic sweetness of tone does not descend into decorative mannerism or affected sentimentalism: he was, to the core, a German-Italian composer with a foot on both sides of the Alps.

The Dussek bandwagon rolls on, and collectors of this revelatory series will not hesitate to pick up the penultimate volume, which continues to shed light on this Czech contemporary of Beethoven by playing his most dazzlingly varied music on the kind of instruments he wrote it for. With volume 7 we have reached a pair of opus numbers which offer typical contrasts within Dussek’s idiom. The pair of Op.47 sonatas belong to the genre of the ‘Sonate facile’ – easy sonatas, uncomplicated technically and musically, much like Beethoven’s Op.49, published three years later. The finale of Op.47 No.1 is a ‘Rondo à la Militaire’ which became a famous hit of the period. Indeed, this was a time when Dussek reached the zenith of his fame as performer and composer, with his works and playing conquering the entire continent from England to Russia, and the Op.47 Sonatas were first published in London, despite the composer having fled the capital in disgrace, leaving behind serious debts and a failing marriage. The great Sonata Op.64, ‘Le Retour à Paris’, is, by contrast, one of Dussek’s most expansive and ambitious works. Composed following his return to the French capital in 1807 after the death of his patron, Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, it is not so much a programmatic sonata as an evocation of Dussek’s feelings on his return to the city which he had left just before the French Revolution in 1789. After the bittersweet impressions of the city irrevocably changed by the Revolution and Napoleon’s ascent in the first two movements, a feeling of despair and attempts of reconciliation with fate can be heard in the Scherzo, giving way to the new happy and carefree way of life in the witty final rondo. Zvi Meniker is a Russian-born Israeli harpsichordist, organist, fortepianist and conductor, now a professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover. He has made a speciality of studying, teaching and performing the piano music of early Romantics such as Mendelssohn, Chopin and indeed Dussek.

‘A splendid recording by a fine artist’: Choir and Organ magazine on Daniele Boccaccio’s organ version of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (95157) – the first ever such project. Now Boccaccio travels back several generations, to Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621). This Italian-trained. Amsterdam-based organist/composer/teacher is the real father of the North German school, including not only the Bach family but also Scheidt and Buxtehude. All these composers were aware of and decisively influenced by Sweelinck.

Sweelinck's extant keyboard output comprises some seventy pieces. The precise instrument for which each of the pieces was written cannot always be determined with certainty. While the chorale settings most likely were intended for the organ and the secular song variations for harpsichord or virginal, Sweelinck's fantasias and toccatas (over thirty in number) may well have been played on whatever keyboard instrument was at hand. Boccaccio has paid careful attention to the details of old fingering techniques; the resultant variety in phrasing and articulation gives new life to figurations that with a more modern legato approach can seem plain. As his own booklet note explains, he has also taken considered decisions about when discreet ornamentation can enhance the music's impact and when to let Sweelinck's notes speak for themselves. Particularly in the fantasias, he captures some of the freshness with which Sweelinck's music must have struck its first listeners.

He has chosen three different instruments for the organ performances: the Arp Schnitger organ (1678) in the Johanneskirche, Oederquart; a Fritz Scherer organ (1612/13) in the Marienkirche, Lemgo; and an instrument of unknown manufacture from around 1550 in the Andreaskirche, Ostönnen. The harpsichord is a modern copy of a 1679 model by the Flemish maker Jan Couchet. A project long in the making, this set will command the attention of all early- and Baroque-music lovers.

Franz Liszt is universally celebrated as one of the greatest-ever virtuoso performers on the modern piano. Contemporary accounts describe his seemingly superhuman technical abilities and equally striking charisma and stage presence. Yet Liszt was a formidable composer, and his expansion of pianistic possibilities was achieved as much through innovation in his own great piano works as through his astonishing performance on the instrument, if not more. Like many child virtuosos thrust early into busy concert careers (Liszt’s began at the age of nine) he retired early, weary of the spotlight, turning his back on the stage at the remarkably early age of 35. Since he lived to the likewise remarkable old age of 75, much more than the latter half of his life was devoted solely to composition, and having been a pianist of his calibre, the works he created for his own instrument were indeed groundbreaking.

Showcasing the demanding pieces in this set – from the thundering of Liszt’s virtuoso side to the mysticism of his deeply spiritual side – are 15 renowned pianists on recordings dating from 1994–2016. Liszt’s piano works may be divided into several diverse categories. These include the virtuoso showpieces based on themes from operas (Isoldens Liebestod Alexander Gavrylyuk, Wagner Transcriptions Francois Dumont, Bellini and Donizetti Transcriptions Mark Viner, Verdi and Beethoven Transcriptions Michele Campanella); religious-inspired or devotional works (Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude and 2 Legendes Irene Russo) the spare, enigmatic pieces from his last years (Trube Wolken, En reve, Bagatelle sans tonalite Philipp Kopachevsky and La lugubre gondola Misha Dacic); a ground-breaking sonata regarded as an iconic work of the repertoire (Sonata in B minor Philipp Kopachevsky); and numerous piano transcriptions of other composers’ non-operatic works (Grandes etudes de Paganini Goran Filipec, Beethoven Symphony No.6 in F Op.68 ‘Pastorale’ Michele Campanella).

The set concludes with a grand gesture, as Nelson Freire is joined by the Dresdner Philharmonie under Michel Plasson for Liszt’s two well-loved piano concertos.

The extensive Bach family was a dynasty unusually rich in musical talent, counting among its ranks numerous composer–organists active in the Northern European Baroque tradition. This set gathers up the surviving music by Johann Lorenz Bach (1695–1773), Johann Bernhard Bach (1676–1749), his son Johann Ernst Bach (1722–1777), Heinrich Bach (1615–1692) and his grandson Johann Friedrich Bach (1682–1730). These are no mere shavings from the Bachian workbench – chips off the old JS block – but beautifully crafted works by composers working in the central German-Baroque tradition, each with their own voice. Three versions of ‘Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott’ by Johann Bernard Bach treat the chorale melody to grand and elaborately woven counterpoint. A pair of multi-movement Partitas is attributed to the Bach family without firm evidence of authorship, but they both work through the verses of a chorale melody with the skill and elegance typical of the Bach family’s work as a whole. Stefano Molardi is a native of Cremona and a recognized organist, harpsichordist, conductor, and musicologist with a number of prestigious awards to his name and a career that has taken him from the Musikverein in Vienna, to Carnegie Hall in New York, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. On this recording he plays the Dell’Orto e Lanzini organ (2003) in the Parish Church of St Thomas, Gesso di Zola Predosa. Reviewing Molardi’s album of the complete organ music by two more scions of the Bach family, Johann Christoph and Johann Michael, Fanfare praised ‘assured, stylish performances, warmly recommended.’ ‘Molardi’s ear for the organ’s almost infinite palette of colors and textural combinations is matched by his fleet fingers and feet on the pedals. He tosses off the most technically challenging works with virtuosic dash and panache.’ (Fanfare)

One of the world’s foremost experts on the 10-string guitar, Pascal Boels offers us a cross-section of the finest music for his instrument from around Europe in the Renaissance and the Baroque. He identifies this as the guitar’s ‘golden age’ – rather than the later proliferation of guitar music in pre-Romantic Europe, from Spain and Italy through Paris, London and Vienna, even as far as Moscow – because in the 16th and 17th centuries, the guitar and its plucked-string ancestors reigned supreme, whereas the later guitar music, although often of great quality, could not compete with the genius poured by the great composers of the day into the fortepiano. Renaissance Spain in particular was a bastion of the art, where the 12-string vihuela inspired an immense corpus of great quality, often enhanced with the mystical qualities of plainchant. The musical range on Disc Two of this set is quite comprehensive: court music, fantasies, variations or glosses on secular melodies (Josquin des Prez’s Mille regretz for example) and liturgical music. As the piano did in the 19th century, the vihuela in the Renaissance served as a platform for reductions of works for larger forces, making the great polyphonic music of the time more readily accessible to the masses and to individual players. The artist devotes Disc One to lands further north, where the guitar was often overshadowed by the lute, especially in England and Germany. Yet a portrait of this age in Europe would not be complete without the lute players Dowland (early Baroque) and Weiss (late Baroque) whose music is a perfect match for Boels’ instrument. This very personal selection is a small but evocative sample of a vast yet paradoxically little-known repertoire, that nevertheless goes a long way to helping the classical guitar further stand the test of time.

A friend of Beethoven and Schubert, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) is a staple of the Classical and early romantic repertoire. Hummel went to live with Mozart, who singled him out as a child prodigy, took him on as his pupil and sponsored Hummel's first concert appearance at the age of nine. Though Mozart died four years later, Hummel's music retained a distinctly Mozartian flavour. This album opens with the Concerto for piano and orchestra in A WoO 24a S.5, a work that languished in obscurity and was only rediscovered in the 1960s. It sounds remarkably similar to Mozart's Clarinet Concerto K622, with the first movement even written in the same key of A major. The second half of this release is given over to the Concerto for piano, violin and orchestra Op.17 - an instrumental combination few composers have attempted. The soloists alternate between dialogue and unison, each with their own complex rhythmic patterns. The cadenza at the end is a new addition composed by Alessandro Commellato. Staying true to Hummel's style, he showcases the 'janissary' style of playing facilitated by the pedalboard, typical of early 19th century Viennese pianos such as the 1825 B�hm instrument used on this recording. A virtuoso pianist as well as composer, Hummel's keyboard writing is highly technical with fast step-wise movement, and every melody is decorated with detailed ornamentation, a challenge for even the most advanced pianists today. In this recording however, the listener is in safe hands as Alessandro Commellato, joined by violinist Stefano Barneschi and ensembles Milano Classica and La Galante, approaches the programme with grace and precision. They are conducted by Didier Talpain, a specialist in the performance of Hummel's works who has already recorded a number of his compositions for Brilliant Classics and pioneered an effort to revive his opera Mathilde de Guise.

Classical Music

Brilliance, fluency, clarity and extraordinary communicative powers – Mozart seems to have had them all. Little wonder he was hailed as the finest pianist of his generation – even rivals such as Clementi commented ‘I had never heard anyone play with so much spirit and grace...’

Of course we have no idea how Mozart the keyboard player sounded. We have the reviews and comments of those who heard him perform, and we have the instruments of his time.These do take us some way to understanding performance practice of the day, and the limitations of the instruments, and how composers of the late 18th century worked to test the instruments, and make greater demands upon the constantly evolving fortepiano. On this first complete cycle using instruments of the period, Bart van Oort relishes the timbral possibilities of five carefully restored and copied instruments to convey Mozart’s music as directly as possible without the necessary “translation” when playing a modern grand.This results in a great clarity of sound and structure.

OTHER INFORMATION:
• Includes booklet notes on the repertoire and an introduction by Bart van Oort which addresses the challenges and pleasures of playing Mozart on the keyboards of his time.
• Recordings made in 2000–2005.

Alexander Porfireyevich Borodin was the illegitimate son of a prince and his mistress, educated at home in St Petersburg by his mother. Although music was an early passion, he discovered his avocation once he matriculated at the city's Medical-Surgical Academy. A chemist he became, and a good one, though not without his extra-curricular enthusiasms: the head of department once admonished him thus, mid-lecture: 'Mr Borodin, busy yourself a little less with songs. I'm putting all my hopes in you as my successor, but all you think of is music: you can't hunt two hares at the same time.' This release contains a selection of chamber music, great performances by the Moscow Trio and the Moscow String Quartet.