STABAT MATER SERENADE FOR STR

Spanish and French Guitar Music from Paris is a fascinating program concept evoking the unique atmosphere of Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. Izhar Elias draws captivating sounds and colours from his guitar. Elias won the coveted Dutch Music prize in 2010 and has since made a number of critically acclaimed recordings.

Vivaldi was one of the most prolific of all the great composers, and his concertos around 600 in number are justly famous. His sacred music and some of the operas have also become popular. His musical imagination and the breadth of his invention are simply amazing. However, this has all tended to overshadow his earlier works especially the trio sonatas included on this CD. Dating from around the period 1710-20 these works have all the hallmarks that make his musical voice so individual. The freshness and variety of these sonatas never fails to surprise and captivate the listener. These works were originally all composed for the violin, but in keeping with the practice of the period, the performers on this CD have substituted the recorder (flauto dolce), an instrument that the composer was very fond of. Many collections of such trio sonatas were published as for either violin or recorder in the early 18th century.

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Little is known about the life of Spanish composer Juan Vasquez, fl. 16th century. A skilled and successful composer, he was in the service of the King of Spain. His compositions are mainly secular, in the form of polyphonic madrigals and “Villancicos,” popular songs set for a vocal ensemble of 3 or 4 voices. The Villancicos are based on folk music and traditional texts, peasant melodies brimming with joy, happiness and Spanish vitality. The works on this release have been taken from Vasquez’s two collections, published in 1551 and 1560. This release includes several previously unrecorded items. Spanish Early Music group Vandalia performs this music with infectious enthusiasm. The group consists of 4 excellent vocal soloists, accompanied by the Iberian Harp.

SLAVONIC DANCES

There's an aura of mystery that surrounds the music of Leone Sinigaglia, and yet in his time he was esteemed and supported by the finest musicians of the period, from Dvor�k (with whom he studied in Bohemia, and who was responsible for nurturing his interest in folk music) to Nikisch, from Mahler to Furtw�ngler, from Toscanini to Kreisler. As pianist Massimiliano G�not explains in his liner notes, Sinigaglia was very much a victim of historical circumstance, his Viennese base causing him to suffer after Italy's withdrawal from the Triple Alliance, following the outbreak of the First World War, and the subsequent demise of German culture; he also had to contend with rising anti-Semitism, not to mention the fact that Italian taste of the time was oriented towards opera an singing rather than instrumental and chamber music, his two preferred genres. And yet Sinigaglia's inspiration was profoundly lyrical, with a propensity for melodic writing - one of the best examples is his 'swansong', the second movement of the Violin Sonata Op.44, which features on this album. And Sinigaglia was not without his triumphs: his Piedmontese Dances Op.31 for orchestra, performed in 250 cities before 1922, rivalled in popularity the dances by Brahms and Dvor�k; and he scored a great success with the Overture Le Baruffe Chiozzotte, whose brio, strength and comic vitality characterize the brilliant four-hand reduction found on this recording. Convinced of what he describes as 'the manifest injustice of an historical judgment that has condemned Sinigaglia for too long to oblivion', Massimiliano G�not has, together with his sister, violinist Alessandra, aimed to bring the composer's cause to the attention of modern listeners, uniting Sinigaglia's entire piano works and presenting them alongside other musical gems and transcriptions as detailed above. Both natives of Turin, the composer's home town, the G�not duo's affinity for the composer is naturally a special one, and they deliver confident, robust performances which aim to cast light on the composer's 'strong will to match expressive authenticity and formal perfection'. These will hopefully go some way towards furthering public appreciation for a composer who undoubtedly deserves to be better known. Other information: Recorded in Italy in 2009. Contains liner notes written by the artists especially for this release. Contains a biography of the composer & biographies of the artists.

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Written with typical haste in just five days - 12-16 September 1851 - and burning with the fire of inspiration, Schumann's First Violin Sonata Op.105 expresses the composer's interior tension with particular clarity, moving between the drive and doubt which he encapsulated with two mock-literary archetypes, Florestan and Eusebius. All three violin sonatas date from the years shortly before his breakdown, attempted suicide and subsequent committal to the asylum at Endenich where he spent his last days, forbidden to compose and deprived of his beloved Clara's company. That is not to say that the first two sonatas are in any way weak works, even if Schumann himself commented with the deadpan irony usually more associated with his young friend Brahms, 'I don't care for the first violin sonata, so I wrote a second, which I hope has turned out better'. Whatever the motivation, it is certain that Schumann, in spite of his fragile psychological condition, found creative energy to complete another impassioned chamber work in a very short time. As in the first sonata, in this work the febrile expressive and introverted language seems to escape from the typical style of the salons to a restless expression even in the slow movement, where violin and piano converse in an incessant and obsessive way. This is even more true of the densely polyphonic Third Sonata, which perhaps more than the previous two reveals the demons at Schumann's shoulder, but the composer's particular gift for the swift movement of chamber music lifts all the sonatas from the intricately circular movement which afflicts the heavier textures of other late music for larger forces such as the Mass. The pianist Marco Venturi contributes fine booklet notes to this new recording, in which he is partnered by Andrea Cortesi; this is their second recording for Brilliant Classics, following a disc which could hardly be more different in tone or aesthetic, of music by Philip Glass, Giya Kancheli and Erkki-Sven T��r (BC94814). These wonderful violin sonatas, written a few years before his death in an asylum, belie the dictum that "Schumann started as a genius, and ended as a talent". These are works by a passionate genius, highly original, full of feverish energy, childlike wonder and contemplation. Included are the sonatas Op.105 and 121, as well as the posthumous sonata in A minor WoO27. Played with total commitment, in imaginative and improvisatory style, true to Schumann's flights of fancy and romantic spirit, by two Italian musicians, Andrea Cortesi and Marco Venturi, who recorded to international critical acclaim works by Kancheli, T�ur and Glass for Brilliant Classics (BC94814).

Glinka wrote his piano trio of substituting violin for clarinet and/or cello for bassoon. He was a 28-year-old teacher at the conservatoire in Milan when he composed it, having left Russia and travelled south for his health. A note on the autograph score reads: 'I have known love only through the pain it brings,' yet the prevailing mood of the work is genial rather than tragic, full of Mediterranean sunshine rather than icy Russian chill. Glinka's lovely trio makes a unique yet natural coupling on record with three collections of fantasy pieces by Robert Schumann. These are all late works, written between 1849 and 1853 - a generation after Glinka's trio - and yet they share a predominant mood of playful high spirits alternating with wistful reflection that never spills over into outright tragedy. The M�rchenerz�hlungen are fairy tales without words - perhaps a giant appears in the second, a princess in the third - while the trio of Romances plumbs a deeper vein of expression, especially in the popular version for clarinet rather than the original for oboe. Principal clarinet of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, Giovanni Punzi made this new album with colleagues from the orchestra alongside the Bulgarian-born, multi-award-winning pianist Galya Kolarova, who is also based in the Danish capital. Punzi's previous album for Brilliant Classics also focused on a German Romantic composer, Max Bruch (BC95673): according to the Fanfare magazine review of May 2019, 'There is a pronounced Italian snap to these performances that provides an intriguing alternative coloration to these works.'

Erwin Schulhoff was a Czech composer of German-Jewish descent. He received his musical education in Cologne, Leipzig and Vienna. Under the Nazis he was captured for his Jewish identity and his music, which the Germans considered “Entartet.” Tragically, he died in a concentration camp in 1942. Schulhoff’s music started in the late romantic style of Brahms and Reger. Later he was influenced by the newly developed Jazz music, Dadaism and Czech folk music, all three fused into his own personal musical language. This new recording presents his complete output for violin and piano: one violin solo sonata, two sonatas for violin and piano and a suite for violin and piano. This is highly original and dramatic music in which the tension of the “Zeitgeist” is everywhere apparent. Here, this music is performed by Bruno Monteiro and Joao Paolo Santos, who have already successfully recorded the music for violin and piano by Szymanowski for Brilliant Classics.

This is the fourth volume of the Diogenes Quartet's acclaimed complete set of Schubert String Quartets. The ongoing project for Brilliant Classics has already been highly acclaimed, with Jerry Dubins of Fanfare writing of Volume 2 (BC94462): "Immaculate execution is complemented by genuine emotional engagement and real feeling for Schubert's unique modes and moods of musical expression." With two more volumes to come, this series is sure to attract Schubert aficionados and string quartet lovers alike. This 4th installment of the complete String Quartets by Schubert presents one of the most famous string quartets ever written: the Quartet in D minor "Der Tod und das M�dchen" (Death and the Maiden), one of Schubert's grimmest and most powerful works, Beethovenian in structure and scope, Schubertian in passion and poetry. The Schubert cycle by the German Quartet Diogenes Quartet is highly regarded, critics praise their superb unity of ensemble and style, their impeccable intonation and their fiery and passionate music making.

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Classical Music