The second installment of Stefano Molardi’s survey of the complete organ works of J.S. Bach offers a program built around the mood and emotional impact of the featured works (either by similarity or contrast), centering around one of the greatest of the master’s cycles, the Dritter Clavierübung, a set of chorale preludes structured as an “organ mass”. Mr. Molardi selected two historical organs that Bach may have known, or at least of a kind he may have been familiar with, for these recordings.

This four-CD release, the fourth and last volume of Stefano Molardi’s authoritative survey of J.S. Bach’s organ works, brings together some of the German Baroque master’s most famous music. + Chief among these is the Toccata and Fugue in d, BWV565; with its unforgettable opening bars – doubled in the octave – flourished chromaticism, pauses and arpeggios on the diminished seventh, the piece has consistently drawn much critical attention. + Also included on this release are the ‘Neumeister’ chorales; assembled by Johann Gottfried Neumeister in the 18th c., the collection wasn’t actually published until the 1980s, with the result that these little-recorded preludes still have plenty of room for a new interpretation. + Stefano Molardi has chosen the Thielemann organ in Gräfenhain, Thuringia, especially for this release; dating from the 1720s and therefore from the time of the composer himself, its captures the spirit of the great composer’s age, lending a certain authenticity to the performances and allowing for a vast range of styles both grand and intimate.

Classical Music

The Naples of Antonio Valente was the principal city of the Spanish Empire of the day, second only to Istanbul of Mediterranean cities in population, a cultural and intellectual hub where ideas were traded as readily as goods at the port. This is the context for ready wit and vivid characters dancing before us in the harpsichord manuscript left to us as the principal work of an instrumental virtuoso who was blind from birth. Little else is known of Valente, though he became an organist in one of the city's private chapel between 1565 and 1580, and we know that this Intavolatura was published in 1576, by which time the composer's reputation had spread far beyond the kingdom of Naples. It seems certain that the collection was the first of it's kind to be written in southern Italy. These are popular dances rather than original melodies, and Valente transcribes and elaborates them in various genres of song and dance: there are hymns (a Salve Regina), galliards, ricercars, ballads, even a flamboyant 'Bascia Flammignia', placed in exuberant juxtaposition, hardly designed to be heard in strict order but a collection to delight and entertain. The Intavolatura does so here, thanks to the imaginative re-instrumentation and sparkling performances of an Italian early-music ensemble, L'Amorosa Caccia. The songs are reattributed to a pair of singers (Giulia Valentini and Marcos Garcia Gutierrez), accompanied by two violas da gamba and a recorder, with the overall artistic direction undertaken from the keyboard by Fabio Antonio Falcone.

IL SECONDO LIBRO DE MADRIGALI

Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt is widely acclaimed for his 'Canto Ostinato', one of the most iconic works of Minimal Music. His 'Incantatie IV' is written for 3 pianos, and consists of a complex of 15 layers, whose shifting in both duration, colour and tempo is left to the decision of the performers, thus creating a hybrid between composition and improvisation. According to pianist Jeroen van Veen performing this work is like "looking at the sea: all the time there are changes in color, radiance, and momentum, never an exact repetition". Performed by Jeroen and Sandra van Veen and Tamara Rumiantsev, champions of Ten Holt's music, having performed his music in various environments, such as a train station, a shopping mall (and of course the concert hall...).

Hindemith: Chamber Music, Composer Paul Hindemith, Artist Valerius Ensemble, Format 1 CD, Paul Hindemith, considered the foremost German composer of his generation, believed in a strong link between music and social needs, and regarded the composer as a craftsman; someone who could provide for those needs. His chamber music is renowned for being unconventional and eclectic; the composer often experimented with a variety of styles and combinations of instruments. The Trio Op.47 uses the heckelphone, a baritone oboe used in several of the works of Richard Strauss. Op.47 is particularly notable for the atmospheric Arioso for this rare instrument. Unusual instrumentation is also found in the Clarinet Quintet, thanks to the appearance of the E flat clarinet in the central movement, leading the ensemble through a series of waltzes and a fugue of considerable length. The Kleinerkammermusik Op.24 No.2 is one of the composer's best-loved works, showcasing his humorous side through the use of playful dissonance. Our collection ends with the lyrical beauty of his famous Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. The Valerius Ensemble enjoys a successful calendar of performances in concert halls and for radio and television, having toured throughout the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil. With a special interest in contemporary music, the ensemble has had several works written especially for it, by composers such as Carlos M�chans and Leo Samama. In celebration of the Hindemith-year 2013 (50 years after his death in 1963) this recording presents a generous selection of his chamber music output. Written for a wide variety of instruments (heckelphone, flute, horn, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, violin, viola, piano) it represents Hindemith's eclectic, witty and vibrant style, in which neo-classical, expressionistic and jazzy elements fuse together in a very personal way. High caliber performances by Netherland's best instrumentalists, evidently enjoying this fascinating and intriguing music.

Hindemith was not only a composer but also a hugely talented viola player who wrote a number of remarkable, innovative works for his instrument. The piano-accompanied sonatas are relatively well-known, so too the Trauermusik composed in a single evening to mark the death of King George V. The solo viola works have had less attention: Hindemith referred to them as Gebrauchsmusik, by which he meant compositions with simple, linear structures, often intended for amateur players: music that responded to a particular need or use. Their language owes something to the solo viola music by Max Reger, with which Hindemith was certainly familiar. However, Hindemith could draw on both greater individuality as a melodist as well as his own considerable skills as a violist to inform his idiomatic writing for the instrument. Op.11 No.5 (1919) has a Classical structure in four movements, concluding with a noble passacaglia: the work of a gifted 24-year-old who is still establishing his own path within the wider context of musical tradition. Op.25 No.1 belongs to Hindemith's Neoclassical period: spiky and witty with a whirlwind finale. Composed in 1923, the Sonata Op.31 No.4 evolves in more traditional fashion, from a perpetuum mobile opening movement to a grave but not melancholy song, followed by a theme-and-variation finale. The 1937 Sonata is much more searching and chromatic, doubtless reflecting it's troubled times, and notably exploiting contrasts of sound and silence. Luca Ranieri is among Italy's most distinguished violists, having been conducted as a soloist by the likes of Mehta, Giulini and Sinopoli. His many recordings include the Cello Suites of Bach arranged for viola: "Ranieri plays with elegance and clean articulation, and his tone is clear." (All Music Review)

Philippe Hersant (b. 1948) was once a student of Andre Jolivet, and since then has embraced tonality and modality, and found his own eclectic voice, establishing himself as one of the most noticeable and successful modern French composers. This new recording focuses on Hersant’s bassoon music, brilliantly showcasing an often neglected instrument. Featured are duos for bassoon and viola, 8 Pieces for bassoon and instrumental ensemble, and several works for solo bassoon. Italian bassoonist Andrea Bressan performs these works. Bressan is notable in the chamber music community, and has won several awards in international competitions for chamber music.

During Haydn's successful stays in London he recognized the need for high quality chamber music for a variety of instruments, among which the flute, which rapidly gained popularity in bourgeois circles. For this purpose he cleverly arranged his own Duos for two violins Op. 99 for two flutes. These delightful flute duos, full of Haydnesque wit and invention, are here recorded for the first time by father and daughter Petrucci, Gian-Luca and Ginevra, who obviously enjoy their superb music making. Ginevra Petrucci already recorded for Brilliant Classics the Flute Quintets by Kuhlau to great critical acclaim.

In the last few decades, Haydn's response to Passiontide has become a popular fixture in churches across the globe, most frequently heard in the arrangement he made for string quartet. Commissioned to supply music for chamber orchestra to accompany the Good Friday service at the cathedral in Cadiz on Good Friday 1786, he quickly made the quartet arrangement, doubtless with a lucrative market in mind. The letters written by Haydn to his publisher Artaria between February and June 1787 show that the arrangements for both quartet and for keyboard had their genesis during the preparation of the original orchestral version for publication. The keyboard transcription was not undertaken by Haydn himself, but he approved it for publication, and all three versions were issued by Artaria during the summer of 1787. For years the keyboard version was considered an inferior, second-hand cousin to the quartet, yet there is increasing recognition of both the keyboard version's authenticity and also it's expressive potential, in the hands of a sympathetic artist. In his autobiography, Abb� Stadler (1748-1833) relates that he was with Haydn when the commission arrived from Cadiz. 'He also asked me what I thought of it all. I answered that it seemed to me advisable to fit over the words an appropriate melody and then to have this performed only by instruments, in which art he was in any case a master.' Thus the headings of each movement - 'Pater dimitte illis' (Father, forgive them) and so on - fit the melodies like songs without words.

HARRIS GOLDSMITH PLAYS BEETHOV

HANNA SHYBAYEVA PLAYS PIANO SO

An audiophile LP transfer for a superbly engineered modern recording of Handel's Oboe Concertos. - The Latvian oboist Andrius Puskunigis has built a catalogue of critically acclaimed albums on Brilliant Classics. Fanfare welcomed his 2016 recording of Mozart and contemporaries in glowing terms: 'Puskunigis and company provide a little over an hour of unalloyed pleasure, as they did in their lovely recording of reconstructions of J.S. Bach oboe concertos a year ago... Brilliant Classics... offers this in excellent sound... Classical Oboe Concertos would be a most welcome release at full price. At Brilliant's bargain pricing it should be absolutely irresistible to anyone remotely interested in fine oboe playing or Classical-period concertos.' - From 2020, this album of oboe concertos by Handel includes a number of first recordings and reconstructions. There is ample justification for such imaginative licence, given that Handel himself remarked that the oboe was his favourite instrument, and given the freedom with which he adapted and transcribed his own music as the occasion demanded. - Thus, alongside the canonic three oboe concertos, Puskingis presents two more, one for the oboe and the other for the oboe d'amore, transcribed from arias originally written for castrato roles in his operas. A C major Concerto thus includes the famous aria 'Lascia ch'io pianga' from Rinaldo, while the expressive heart of the D major concerto for oboe d'amore features 'Ombra mai fu' from Serse. - A similarly inventive approach has been taken to ornamentation and decoration, inserting liberal opportunities for Andrius Puskunigis to display his virtuosity with cadenza passages. Accompanied by the neatly contoured modern-instrument Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra, and recorded in the acoustically optimal modern concert hall of Klaipeda, the album has a focused resonance which makes it highly suitable for this transfer to 180gm vinyl.

The marvelously affecting Italian Duets have long remained favorites among Handel's oeuvre distinct markers of the influences of the young Saxon's early trips to Rome and studies of the chamber duet master Agostino Steffani. The grand Hamonices Mundi is joined here by rising stars of Baroque singing Gemma Bertagnolli and Susanne Ryden.