This new release features four masterpieces from twentieth century composers: Bartok’s Divertimento, Rota’s Concerto for Strings, Ghedini’s Violin Concerto Il Belprato, and Hindemith’s Trauermusik for viola and strings. While these four works are vastly different in character and emotional nuances, all of the works share the Neo-classical style, in which baroque and classical form attaches itself to modern elements such as atonality and polyrhythms. I Solisti Aquilani are known for their instrumental freedom and imaginative performances. This elite ensemble performs these works with a strong and homogeneous ensemble discipline.

The complete sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and the first-ever complete recording of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book are monuments old and new of the Brilliant Classics catalogue. Their author, harpsichordist Pieter-Jan Belder, has recently been adding to his considerable Bach catalogue with new recordings of canonical masterpieces such as the Goldberg Variations (95471), the Toccatas BWV 910-916 (96059) and the Art of Fugue (96035). These have attracted the enthusiasm of international critics: ‘Excellently recorded and faultlessly played’ (Goldbergs; Early Music Review). Belder now turns his attention to the collection of six suites probably assembled by Bach in around 1725 from material he may have composed as early as a decade previously, while he had been in service to the Duke of Weimar. Despite their title, there is nothing especially English about these suites; they differ from the later French suites in their grander scale and more serious vein of expression, which reaches its height in the Sarabande of the Third Suite, which has become a profound meditation in the hands of artists as diverse as Maria Joõo Pires and Sviatoslav Richter. However, in the English Suites we find not the Bach of the Goldbergs’ solitary and introspective poet but the extrovert performer, especially in the ebullient concerto-style preludes of Nos. 2-6. The intricate counterpoint of the Allemandes is effectively contrasted with the spring in the step of the later dances such as the Minuets of No.4 and the Passepieds of No.5, while each suite ends with a flourish: a gigue of searching harmonies and whirling momentum to test the technique of the most accomplished performers. ‘Without bringing anything provocative into his interpretations, [Belder] dependably makes the listener comfortable and attentive. He draws attention not to himself but to the music. His imagination serves the composer.’ (American Record Guide).

The first half of the 18th century was a period of intense evolution for instruments belonging to the flute family, as materials (wood to metal), sizes and ranges all developed prior to the key-system devised in the 19th century. The recorder (or pair thereof) which plays the starring role in the poignant sinfonia to Bach’s Actus Tragicus of 1708 is quite different to the lambent, creamy-toned flute played by Frederick the Great and for which he wrote the trio sonata belonging to the Musical Offering of 40 years later. Whether composed by JS or his son CPE, the sonata BWV1020 has a sunny disposition belying its minor key even in the lovely central Adagio. This version of BWV1039 – originally designed as a sonata for viola da gamba, BWV1027, then transcribed for two flutes and continuo – features the dark and velvety tone of the tenor recorder in D. Unlike most other recordings of the Flute Sonata BWV1032, Stefano Bagliano and Andrea Coen have completed the first movement from the point where 46 bars are missing from Bach’s manuscript, resulting in a more satisfying, musical experience. The chorale ‘O Mensch, bewein dein Sunde gross’, as the meditative climax of the Orgelbuchlein collection, proves delightfully amenable to an arrangement where the chorale line is taken by the melody instrument, and the two instruments pick out the liveliest inner workings of the Canonic Fugue from the Musical Offering as well as a pair of Contrapuncti from The Art of Fugue (Nos. 6 & 9). Two trio works originally composed with organ in mind round out the collection, which finds Andrea Coen adroitly shuttling between harpsichord and a chamber organ. With wonderfully varied textures and a poetic sensibility to be expected from these two experienced Baroque-era specialists, it’s a Bach album to treasure.

A highly regarded representative of the new generation of cellists, Benedict Kloeckner has been championed by such maestros as Daniel Barenboim and Sir Simon Rattle. With a discography including an acclaimed recording of the Schumann Cello Concerto nominated for the German Record Critics prize, Kloeckner also demonstrates a great interest in new music. He plays an Italian Cello by Francesco Rugeri (Cremona 1690), formerly played by Maurice Gendron. In this three-album set he tackles the sacred summit of the solo cello repertoire, rightly pointing out that the lack of original manuscripts for the Six Suites leaves them especially open to individual interpretation. Yet he takes a further step in making this recording his own, interpolating between each of the suites miniature compositions for solo cello that he commissioned from composers on six different continents under the motto “Sounds of Light”, thereby placing Bach’s Western European masterworks in dialogue with music from across the globe in our own time.

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 remarkable set gathers together not only the monumental corpus of J.S. Bach's incredibly sophisticated organ music, but also that of the most noted (and best-known to today's musicologists) of four generations of his relatives, from great uncles and uncles to cousins and sons. The collection offers a rewarding opportunity to follow the stylistic evolution of organ music from the decades before J.S. Bach's birth through to the creative years of his sons and their younger distant cousin, Johann Ernst, each of whom witnessed the decline of Baroque complexity in favor of Classical balance and grace and conformed to this new trend to varying degrees. The other strand that can be traced in this set is the musical 'DNA' of a clan, whose members were taught by family elders, inherited compositions from them, and who studied and copied the works of their cousin contemporaries, creating a family school of impressive quality. Internal musical borrowing between the Bachs was such that musicologists are still unraveling the mystery of some works' true authorship, as well as identifying pieces by other composers, who borrowed the Bach name in hopes of attaining a share of their glory.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s stature as a composer of extraordinary talent and widespread influence is so firmly established in Western culture that it is difficult to believe that only 150 years ago his works lay in veritable obscurity, unknown to all but a small group of scholars. It is largely thanks to Mendelssohn, who essentially effected a revival of the composer’s music through his rediscovery and promulgation of the St Matthew Passion, besides other pieces, that his works are today regarded as pinnacles of music expression. That they are among the most performed and widely attended is in no doubt; in Holland alone, thousands of singers and musicians are involved in dozens of performances of the St Matthew Passion in Holy Week, with hundreds of thousands listening in churches and concert halls, or gathered around the radio, to what has been described as ‘the Gospel according to Bach’.

Bringing together all of his works, this dynamic 142-CD set offers a resounding impression of this great spirit of our Western culture, presenting dynamic performances – many period-based, many acclaimed by the international press – that are divided according to genre, thus making for a highly user-friendly compendium. The set draws on all periods of his career, tracing the development of a style that was much influenced by contemporary and past fashions but which was always adapted to Bach’s own purpose, often far surpassing the models on which he drew. The German composer travelled a great deal from city to city, and the different circumstances of his various positions are reflected in the great range of works comprising his output: while his early years are dominated by much keyboard music, on account of the numerous organist posts he held during this period, later positions at various courts accorded him more personal and artistic freedom – in Cöthen, for example, Prince Leopold’s passion for music-making and his renowned resident orchestra resulted in a string of unforgettable works including the great Brandenburg Concertos, the Solo Cello Suites and the Well-Tempered Clavier Part 1, beside many others.

Bach was a master of all genres, whether sacred, secular, instrumental or vocal, and his oeuvre is a rich mixture of severe Baroque craftsmanship and expressive Romanticism. Thomas Zehetmair, Kristof Barati, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, René Jacobs, Peter Schreier and Lucia Popp are just a handful of the first-class performers and ensembles gracing this set. It is a collection not to be passed up.

R E V I E W S:

"Brilliant Classics embarked on a daring project in the year 2000, the year of the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death: this budget label decided to release a complete set of Bach's works...some 65% of the 155 CDs in this set were newly recorded (the remainder was licensed from other labels), including Bach's almost 200 sacred cantatas...I highly recommend this set. I have recordings of all of Bach's works and yet I was delighted and surprised as I listened to the many pearls that I discovered here...if you like Bach's music, you owe it to yourself to get this - at its super-bargain price, even those recordings you don't like will not cause too much disappointment, but the quality of the excellent ones is such that you will certainly be delighted...If only to have the 60 CDs of sacred cantatas, and to discover what is an incredible collection of moving and memorable music, this set is worth having. Treat yourself to 160 CDs of Bach, then, take a few weeks off to enjoy this music." -- Kirk McElhearn, MusicWeb International, reviewing the original version of this set

"Brilliant's 2006 recordings of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, performed by Pieter-Jan Belder and the Netherlandish original instruments ensemble Musica Amphion, have been reissued several times as two separate discs, though the original release containing all six concertos maintains a separate existence as a budget release. This volume contains the Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049, the Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050, and the Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, BWV 1051, all played in clean and colorful period style and recorded in a resonant church acoustic that gives the music a fresh, lustrous ambience. Because this, like other titles in Brilliant's catalog, has the drab appearance of a poorly produced cost-cutter release, some collectors may pass it by, but that would be a mistake since these are exceptional performances that can give many of the better-known authentic renditions a run for the money. As leader of the group and performer on recorder and harpsichord, Belder offers intelligent and expressive interpretations that closely follow accepted Baroque practices, and though he and his fellow musicians aren't widely known outside the circle of listeners interested in early music, they can be respected for their musicianship and scholarly credentials. While these Brandenburgs may not be everyone's favorite performances in the end, they deserve attention from experienced listeners and newcomers alike." -- Blair Sanderson, AllMusic.com, reviewing the Brandenburg Concertos

"In their fusion of grand rhetoric, sharp technique, and obvious musical intelligence, Baráti’s readings of this bedrock literature recall both the most majestic and the most thoughtful ones from an earlier era. Urgently recommended, especially to those who honor that tradition and who lament its coming to a premature and unfortunate end." -- Robert Maxham, FANFARE, reviewing the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin

"Jaap ter Linden's traversal of the Bach cello suites is exceptionally fine; right across these discs, his playing never falters. His painstakingly researching interpretations are vividly spontaneous, yet unusually acerbic and philosophically probing." -- Classic CD, reviewing the Cello Suites

As a teacher of piano, theory and composition at the conservatoire in Valencia, Vicente Asencio (1908-1979) played an instrumental part in the success of Narciso Yepes and countless other influential Spanish musicians in the middle of the 20th century. His role as a teacher has unfairly overshadowed his own creative output, which now justly takes the spotlight in the talented hands of the Italian guitarist Alberto Mesirca. Asencio’s output for guitar has previously been investigated on record, including by the young Elise Neumann on Brilliant Classics (BC9287) but this is the first-ever album dedicated to his guitar music. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his established reputation as a teacher, it reveals a composer of considerable craft and fluency, entirely at home in his adopted medium. Valencian born and bred, Asencio composed a Suite of Homages that became a calling-card for Yepes and other Spanish guitarists looking to play music of their own era that had something distinctive to say about modern Spain to an international audience. In turn, the homages pay tribute to Scarlatti, de Falla and Lorca, and between them they sum up the ingredients of Asencio’s style: the ruminative grace of the Sonatina, the evocative melancholy of the Elegia, and the fiery sensuality of the Tango. Dating from 1965, Collectici íntim was a second commission from Yepes, a character suite of portraits in the manner of the personalities so wittily drawn by Couperin in his keyboard pieces. Suite mistica derives from a piece commissioned by Spanish radio to mark Holy Week in 1971. Andres Segovia was taken with the work, Dipso (‘I thirst’ – one of the Seven Last Words) that he asked Asencio for two companion pieces, which were written on the subject of the Agony in the Garden and then the rushing wind of Pentecost. Finally, from 1971, there is Asencio’s masterpiece for the guitar, the Suite Valenciana in which he celebrates his own cultural heritage.

REVIEW:

From a composer who never played the guitar, this music is astounding! It is rich in melody and harmony, with moments of technical brilliance and romantic expression; and it has found a sympathetic voice in the hands of an excellent artist, Alberto Mesirca, who continues a trend among classical guitarists of producing recordings of the complete works of composers, giving us the opportunity to hear more than just their “hits."

– American Record Guide

Great instruments have always been associated with great musicians, and this is true in the guitar world too, at least from the early 19th century onwards. Early in his career, Antonio de Torres (1817-1892), like other luthiers before him, found a performer ideally suited to his instruments – the young Andalusian guitarist Julián Arcas. The technical innovations in construction and timbre pioneered by Torres enabled Arcas to give full expression to his artistry in works such as the florid Fantasía sobre El paño o sea Punto de La Habana with which Luigi Attademo opens this new studio album. Of the generation after Arca, Francisco Tárrega quickly proved himself even more gifted in both performance and composition. So much so that Torres offered him a guitar he had made five years earlier and kept for his own use. This was the FE 17, which Tárrega continued to play for the next 20 years, and which came to define the sound of ‘the Spanish guitar’ to generations of listeners. A groundbreaking instrument in terms of its tonal range and sound potential, the FE 17 became critical to both Tárrega’s success and to the expansion of guitar repertoire during the 19th century: although he continued to compose using the traditional forms of the fantasia and theme and variations, Tárrega also focused on shorter forms borrowed directly from Romantic piano repertoire. With eight original works by Tárrega, Attademo demonstrates the full tonal-dynamic palette of Torres’s instruments. Further selections of popular repertoire by Llobet, alongside his transcriptions of Granados and Albeniz, take the guitar’s evolution through a more advanced stage, exploring different registers, radical harmonies and tone-colors. This bold new concept album should attract the attention of all lovers of Spanish guitar. Luigi Attademo has recorded it using an original Torres SE 122 guitar which has been strung with gut rather than steel to further enhance the potential for experiencing this music in the thrill of its original creation.

During the first decades of the last century, Paris took over from Vienna as the center of the art-music’s universe. Ideas and styles exploded like fireworks from the French capital, and among the first figures sending them into the wider world was Claude Debussy. His Première Rhapsodie began life as a competition piece for clarinet, first performed in 1911, and while the later orchestral version is now more commonly heard, it is instructive to revisit the composer’s original, more subtly allusive first thoughts. Seven years later, by now dying of cancer, Debussy completed the last of three works in which he returned to the traditional form of sonata which he had avoided through much of his career in favor of tone-pictures such as the Préludes and suites for piano. The Violin Sonata counts among his most concise and refined works in an output touched throughout by those qualities, demanding the greatest subtlety and passion from its interpreters. In the same year as the Première Rhapsodie, Stravinsky had scored his career-defining succès de scandale with the premiere of Le sacre du printemps, and by 1918 he was established as a darling of the Parisian avant-garde when he composed L’histoire du soldat for a septet of instruments and narrator. The following year he arranged five self-contained numbers from the score into a suite, further reduced for a spiky instrumental trio and featuring the marvelously sly tango as well as the Rite-like final Danse du soldat. Milhaud’s Suite and Bartók’s Contrasts date from two decades later, but they are still infused with the absinthe and lemon of 20s Parisian culture. Heard together, the five works paint a portrait of a world of dazzling colours and restless momentum, sometimes bewildered by its own precosity, taking what it wanted from old cultures and always breaking new paths.

The opulent soundworld of a Dutch late-Romantic master, still too little known outside his native country. Rarefied spirituality and refined sensuousness are the hallmarks of Hendrik Andriessen's (1892-1981) idiom, which offers an ethereal synthesis of Franckian chromaticism with an individual interpretation of classical forms and church modes. Though he trained as an organist, his writing for other solo instruments is fluent and idiomatic. The concertos for violin, cello and oboe share the silken textures of his better-known orchestral music, and this album won glowing reviews when first released in 2000. The album’s headline work is Miroir de peine, a languorous song-cycle to Henri Vangeon’s poems of religious ecstasy describing the suffering of Christ from the perspective of the Virgin Mary. It has attracted the advocacy of great sopranos from Elly Ameling to Christiane Stotijn. This 1991 recording by Roberta Alexander won an enthusiastic welcome from the critics for the poise and beauty of her performance and the richness of the engineering. Andriessen esteemed Franck as ‘a musical philosopher in the truest sense of the word,’ who drew ‘intense sentiments from the intuitive side of his genius into an orderly gestalt.’ Much the same could be said of Andriessen’s own idiom throughout his career, as this half-century retrospective over his career confirms, from the solemn lushness of Magna res est amor of 1919 to the Chromatic Variations and Cello Concertino of 1970. The Violin Concerto (1968-9) is still essentially couched in a Romantic vein, but shaded with more 20th-century accents of tonal anxiety, akin to Vaughan Williams and Casella in the 1930s. Any listener for whom conservatism is not a dirty word will relish becoming acquainted with Andriessen’s powerful expressive voice in these beautifully prepared and engineered performances.

Born in Naples in 1893, Teresa de Rogatis was a child prodigy who gave her first recital at the age of seven. She studied piano, composition, counterpoint, harmony, conducting and voice at the Conservatorio San Pietro in Naples. While in Egypt on a concert tour, she met and soon married a Swiss man of means living in Cairo, Paolo Feninger. Settling there in the 1920s, Rogatis helped to found the National Conservatory of Egypt, where she also taught piano and guitar for over 40 years. Her husband’s death prompted her retirement in 1963 back to Naples, where she lived quietly until her death in 1979. Her career as a teacher allowed little time for composition, but de Rogatis took a selfless attitude to her own work. ‘If teaching hundreds of young people about the poetry and beauty of music, instead of composing works and symphonies, means giving one’s life up, then that’s what I’ve done. But if some of these young people, who are now adults, can understand a Beethoven symphony or sonata and find in it solace and a guide for their own lives, then I will live in their memories just as I would have done in my works, and my life will have been equally useful.’ Her relatively slender output – 60 acknowledged works – is dominated by piano music, but de Rogatis also wrote instrumental songs and dances for the guitar, and a four-movement Sonatina of no less ready melodic appeal, all presented here by her modern-day counterpart, the Italian guitarist Cinzia Milani. In a personal introduction to the scholarly booklet note, Milani observes how de Rogatis ‘reconciled brilliant virtuoso flair with an elegantly feminine touch, even when the overall tone is jocular or ironic.’ Milani’s decision to record this music on a distinctly modern instrument is part of ‘an imaginary dialogue between different periods and the changes they heralded: like glancing backwards while walking towards the future.’

Dick van Gasteren is the founder-conductor of the Ciconia Consort, a chamber orchestra based in The Hague since 2012. To mark 400 years since the Pilgrim Fathers left the Netherlands for America, he devised this programme of music from the first half of the 20th century, reflecting the particular character of ‘New World’ music as well as its roots in European romanticism. The result is a collection unique on album, in beautifully sprung new recordings full of vitality and sympathy. Arthur Foote (1853-1937) numbered among the first generation of classical composers to be educated primarily in the US, and in the arching phrases, transparent textures and rich harmonies of his E major can be heard the Romantic heritage of Brahms and Wagner which exercised a dominant influence over American conservatoires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before pioneers such as Ives and Antheil loosed the cultural bonds between the two continents. The Hymn is the second of ‘A Set of Three Short Pieces for String Orchestra’ written by Ives in 1904: way ahead of its time, we might now think (and composed three years before Foote’s Suite), in its probing harmony which ventures deep into and even beyond the expressionist world of Arnold Schoenberg, while retaining a solemn, devotional quality in the slow-moving textures and the passionate viola melody at its heart. In contrast to the darkness and uncertainty of Ives’s Hymn, the Shaker music quoted by Aaron Copland in Appalachian Spring radiates quiet content and security. The Ciconia Consort are joined here by Dutch colleagues to present the final version of Copland’s ballet, originally written in 1944 to a commission by Martha Graham for a piece with a distinctively American theme.

REVIEW:

Least known of the composers represented on this attractive anthology is probably Arthur Foote, yet he was a significant figure in the development of American classical music. His Suite is an attractive work, in three movements, the last a fugue.

Antheil can be a forbidding composer, but in later years his work softened, as in this delightful, romantic three-movement Serenade. One senses a mellowness and a gift for melody, and, as a whole, it is thoroughly worth exploring: a little charmer.

For me, any Ives is a treat, and the three-minute Hymn is a lovely little piece in his earlier, less experimental style, warm and appealing. Beginning in the double bass, slightly grimly, it opens into broader and generous writing with a sustained nobility.

The best-known work is the Suite from Appalachian Spring, in the original form for 13 instruments. One of the advantages of this reduction, compared with the lusher suite for full orchestra, is that it brings out the angularity of much of the writing. Fine as the new recording is, Copland does give us the complete ballet, which is only 8 minutes longer than the suite, and could have been fitted on this CD.

The Ciconia Consort, resident at the Hague, are a fine ensemble, and this collection will not disappoint.

– MusicWeb International

Reclusive and eccentric, the French pianist– composer Charles-Valentin Alkan was also undoubtedly one of the greatest pianists who ever lived, and a composer who, like his friend and fellow virtuoso Liszt, pushed the boundaries of what his instrument, and human pianism, could achieve. Again like Liszt, he composed music that was not merely flashy and difficult to play – it tapped a deep comprehension of music history and theory, a flair for the lyrical and the dramatic and of course a vast imagination. Tackling these formidable pieces are eight pianists and one organist, along with the Trio Alkan piano trio and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto under Roberto Fores-Veses, on recordings dating from 1989–2017. Alkan’s great cycles for the piano — the Études in all the minor keys, in all the major keys, the Preludes in every key – feature alongside other large-scale works like the Grandes Études for hands separate and together and the Nocturnes, as well as characterful miniatures like the Chants and Les Mois. Organist Kevin Bowyer demonstrates that Alkan was as much an organ prodigy as anything else, with performances of the Prieres and Little Plainchant Preludes, as well as music for Alkan’s beloved pedal-piano transcribed for the organ.

REVIEW:

If you are fan of Alkan or have an interest in outstanding 19th-century piano music, you can’t afford to pass this one up.

-- The Art Music Lounge

Recorded at the only extant Spanish organ dating from the time of Aguilera de Heredia (16th century)

The booklet contains liner notes by the artist about the composer and works, a biography of the artist, and information about the organ including a stop list

Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia has gone down in history of Spanish music as one of the most important figures of the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque, comparable to the Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), who was his contemporary. His style reflects the polyphonic tradition of the Spanish Renaissance combined with elements of the early Baroque, thus forming the bridge between Antonio de Cabezón (1510-1566) and Francisco Correa de Araujo (1584-1654), the most important exponents of the organ school in Spain in the Renaissance and the Baroque respectively.

Aguilera adopts a style in which the serious counterpoint of vocal polyphony, of which he was an accomplished master, is infused with elements from popular music and dance forms and rhythms.

Played by Miguel del Barco Díaz, a specialist in early Spanish organ music, on the only surviving historic organ from the time of De Heredia, the Renaissance organ of Santa María de Garrovillas de Alconétar, Cáceres, Spain, the technical specifications of which are included in the booklet.