REQUIEM

This newly recorded album has been compiled by Otto Sauter, one of the leading trumpet virtuosos of our time, who specializes in the piccolo trumpet. He describes it as a 'fascinating challenge' to a take concertos originally written by the outstanding composers of the Baroque era for the most prominent treble instruments of their day, the recorder and the violin. The album accordingly begins with a violin concerto by Vivaldi, with further transcriptions of violinistic showpieces by Corelli and Roberto Valentino. Works originally written for wind instruments include the famous Adagio composed by Marcello as part of his D minor Oboe Concerto, a sinfonia by Alessandro Scarlatti and a sonata by Telemann. The popular appeal of the compilation is enhanced by the inclusion of Albinoni's Adagio, now in trumpet and organ guise, and a chaconne by Pachelbel. The E flat Sonata for transverse flute by Bach is a particular high-point, complemented by two of his grandest works for solo organ, the D major Prelude and Fugue BWV532 with it's spectacular closing pedal cadenza, and the Gothic splendor of the G minor Fantasy and Fugue. The E flat Concertino by Albrechtsberger is a thrilling example of late-Baroque trumpet writing, and the collection moves forward chronologically with the F minor Organ Sonata of Mendelssohn. The sonata is complemented here by several world premiere recordings of pieces written for the distinctive combination of trumpet and organ. Appassionata is a Beethoven-inspired sonata by the Lithuanian composer Juraj Filas, and the Adagio by the same composer is a follow-up work commissioned by Otto Sauter. The Dutch composer and conductor Jan Koetsier likewise wrote his Echo Concerto for Sauter, who gave the first performance in 1991. The collection comes full circle with Koetsier's homage to the brilliance of Baroque trumpet writing, the Partita Op.4 'Lobe den Herren, den m�chtigen K�nig'.

Dutch recorder player Erik Bosgraaf is one of a group of Young Turks taking a fresh look at the Baroque recorder repertory, with often spectacular results. Here Bosgraaf turns to Handel’s sonatas for recorder and harpsichord. The keyboard realizations here are unusually vigorous and ornate, and the instrument is almost an equal partner with the recorder. This album represents an excellent imaginative reconstruction of what these sonatas might actually have sounded like in Handel’s time, based on the contexts in which they might have been used.

RECORDER SONATAS & TRIOS

Rachmaninov, Prokofiev: Cello Sonatas / Russakovsky, Nicholson / Composer: Sergei Rachmaninov, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Prokofiev / Performer: Alexander Russakovsky, Amber Shay Nicholson / Number of Discs: 1. Cellist Alexander Russakovsky enjoys an international reputation as a performer and teacher. He has given master classes as far afield as Latin America and Taiwan, and in recent years has won first prize at the Angela and Maurice M. Clairmont Competition in Tel Aviv and the Performing Arts Foundation Competition in Santa Barbara. Pianist Amber Shay Nicholson won the 2001 Rachmaninoff Concerto No.3 competition at the Eastman School of Music; she is also a former member of the piano faculty of the University of Southern Mississippi. Recorded in 2012. This new recording brings together two great, but altogether different 20th century Cello Sonatas from Russia: the gorgeous and deeply romantic cello sonata by Rachmaninoff, of near-symphonic proportions, and the cello sonata by Prokofiev, a hybrid piece of his later period, a fascinating mixture of the romantic, the grotesque and the introspective side of the multi faceted composer. As interludes we hear arrangements of Tchaikovsky's ballet music from Sleeping Beauty, and the S�r�nade Espagnole by Glazunov, a brilliant show piece. Beautiful, expressive and "Slavic" performances by Russian cellist Alexander Russakovsky.

QUADRIVIUM

Classical Music

Born in the north-Italian city of Bologna, Domenico Gabrielli (1659-1690) and his pupil Giuseppe Maria Jacchini (1667-1727) became inventor-pioneers of cello music that liberated the instrument from it's role as an accompaniment to higher voices (belonging to singers and instrumentalists). It was with the sonatas on this album that the cello first sang with it's own true voice. Gabrielli and Jacchini celebrated the nimble and athletic character of the instrument, in music that leaps and dances as much as it sings. Several previous albums on Brilliant Classics have demonstrated the stylish feeling and polished technique of Ensemble Cordia in Baroque and early-Classical-era chamber music. Their album of chamber music by Platti received rave reviews: 'Platti here receives authoritative interpretations by some of the greatest players in the business. If you want to get acquainted with Platti's music - and there is every reason to - this album is the best possible way to start.' The ensemble's recording of string trios by Anton Wranitzky was similarly welcomed by MusicWeb International: 'A well-judged recording, allied to stylistically apt performances.' The discography of this north-Italian chamber group also includes Telemann, a collection of 'Passionate Baroque Arias' and more Platti, an album of cello concertos with the ensemble's director Stefano Veggetti as soloist: 'These are all really interesting and worthwhile works... enhanced by the excellent playing of soloist Veggetti, who handles both the lyrical parts with a singing tone and the sometimes fiendish virtuosity of the bookended movements with ease and grace..' (Fanfare).

The string quartets of Donizetti and Verdi, and the oboe concerto of Bellini, represent rare overlaps between the fields of operatic and instrumental music in 19th-century Italy. Moving into the 20th century, the operas of Respighi have gained a toe-hold on the record catalogues but he is still remembered principally (and justly) for his orchestral showpieces such as the Pines of Rome, while composers in the contemporary verismo tradition carried on doing what they did best and producing knock-em-dead tragedies of high drama and low life for the lyric stage, from Tosca to La Gioconda. Or did they? A fact known to very few even in Italy is that Amilcare Ponchielli, composer of La Gioconda and teacher of Puccini, wrote not only for the opera house but also the church. As the son of a shopkeeper who was organist in the village church, he studied music first with his father and then with the organist of a neighboring village. In his early years he produced a substantial repertoire of sacred music and a body of organ pieces for occasional and liturgical use, few of which were played until Marco Ruggeri, the organist on this new recording, gathered them together for an authoritative critical edition in 1999. They include a novel symphony 'half for organ, half for piano'. In 2011 Ruggeri recorded roughly half of Ponchielli's organ output for the Bottega Discantia label, an album now superseded by this new recording made in 2017 and 2019. Never previously recorded are a collection of delightful Pastorales, as well as a funeral march in memory of his father, and a prelude to a cantata by Donizetti. However, there is one piece without which no self-regarding Ponchielli collection would be complete, and Marco Ruggeri includes it here as an encore: the 'Dance of the Hours' from La Gioconda, made eternally famous by Disney's troupe of dancing elephants.

Who was Mario Pilati? A significant if shortlived (1903-38) figure in Italian instrumental music during the 1920s and 1930s: a gifted conductor, fluent pianist, practical teacher, essayist and perspicacious observer of the musical life of his times. His own music is celebrated here, and anyone who takes pleasure in Romantic chamber music, the neoclassical idiom of Stravinsky, or the vigorous yet always lyric idiom of Respighi and Casella, will find much to enjoy here. In fact Pilati’s music for piano and for orchestra has received some attention on record; much less so his chamber works, making this new 2CD set an important addition to Brilliant Classics’ unrivalled catalogue of Italian music from 1850-1950. The troubled expression of the three- movement, half-hour sonatas for violin and cello (1928) reflects the temper of their times, whereas the Preludio, Aria & Tarantella on Old Neapolitan Folk Tunes for violin and piano apparently turn away from intense battles between tension and reconciliation with the kind of light touch and folk-inspired humour that may be found in the best early works by Casella. There are several miniatures from the 1920s which attest to Pilati’s elegance and sophistication early in his career, as well as to the excellence of his training in his native Naples (though he moved to Milan at 22 and made his career there). Despite its name, Inquietude is a flowing study for piano, reminiscent of Debussy. The set is completed by his two volumes of Bagatelles for solo piano, which frequently draw on Neapolitan themes: 11 relaxed and convivial pieces in all, of an easy charm that would not disgrace Pilati’s friend Nino Rota, and written in an accessible style which may reflect their dedication to the composer’s three daughters. The album is comprehensively documented with valuable notes on both the composer and his work by the pianist Dario Candela: a student of Aldo Ciccolini, who described his pupil as ‘an excellent pianist of great class’. He is joined here by Francesco Manara – a former leader of the orchestra at La Scala, Milan – and the cellist Luca Signorini who, like Pilati, pursues a diverse career as a performing musician, conductor and writer.

Born in Bergamo in 1822, Carlo Alfredo Piatti was to the cello what Nicolò Paganini was to the violin: a musician who extended the possibilities of his instrument in performance and who inspired countless composers to do the same in writing for it. His remarkable talent was immediately evident, to the extent that by 1843 he was already travelling throughout Europe on concert tours, accompanied by his father. It was Franz Liszt who described him as ‘a Paganini of the Cello’, presenting him with an Amati instrument as a token of his admiration. Piatti’s concert-tours culminated in a visit to London, where he settled in 1846.

In the mid-1800s, musical life in the British capital was full of energy and opportunity. When Verdi learnt that it would be Piatti leading the cellos in the first performances of his new opera, I Masnadieri, he wrote a Prelude consisting of a cello solo with an orchestral accompaniment, which he dedicated to the great cellist. In his own compositions Piatti reconciled virtuoso figurations with a highly lyrical approach to melody which is on show here in two of the songs he wrote for English audiences: O Swallow, Swallow (to a text by Alfred, Lord Tennyson) and La Sera (‘I love the hour of the dying day’), an evening-time, sentimental ballad incorporating a cello solo clearly modelled on the opening of Rossini’s William Tell Overture and astutely calculated to tug at the heartstrings of his well-to-do patrons, who would also want to perform such songs themselves. However, the bulk of Piatti’s music was designed to show his own skill as a cellist to best advantage. This he triumphantly did with the stupendously virtuosic Capriccio Op.22 on a theme from Pacini’s Niobe. The better-known Capricci Op.25 are not included here; instead, the opportunity has been taken by Andrea Noferini to record some of Piatti’s lesser-known, standalone pieces such as the attractive Op.1 L’abbandono, and Notturno Op.20.

Famed worldwide as a film composer, Ryiuchi Sakamoto began his career as a pianist, creating patterns, phrases and innovative arrangements before joining his first commercial electronic pop band in 1978, the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Around the same time, he worked on his first solo album, the Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto (1978), which blends up-to-date electronic techniques with an old-fashioned gift for good tunes. Riot in Lagos brought him fame beyond Japan, and he went on to work with many top producers of pop, dance and electro. In 1983, Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence launched Sakamoto's career as a film composer, which has gone from strength to strength with scores for The Last Emperor (1987) and The Revenant (2015). All these pieces feature in Jeroen van Veen's survey, which is based on the best modern edition of these scores and often differs from Sakamoto's own, partly improvised recordings. Classical listeners will appreciate Sakamoto's breadth of reference: to Chopin (Ubi), Bach (Andata, Solari), Glass (Bibo no Aozora), Satie (Opus), Brahms (Intermezzo) and Ravel (Bachata), for example. But his language of minimalist jazz is one enjoyed around the world as music that gives listeners the space to think and work and create for themselves.

PIANO CONCERTOS

Classical Music

PIANO CONCERTOS 1 & 2