Kent Nagano and Jan Vogler, the American in Germany and the German in the United States, perpetually crossing the Atlantic and calling both continents home, embody and live this once so powerful transatlantic ideal in every respect. For they are bound by much more than a deep artistic friendship and their collaborative work. They share-even more comprehensively-a worldview and understanding of life based on the Western, humanistic canon of values that Europeans once carried across the Atlantic to their new world... "It was precisely this transatlantic idea that drove me when Jan and I developed this project a few years ago," says Kent Nagano. "Hamburg was the link to the New World not just for the people of Hamburg, but for millions of Europeans." This was to be reflected in a musical work capable of carrying this idea into the future. For good reason: for years, the continents have seemingly been drifting apart. The world-renowned conductor does not hide his concern about this development. "It was also important to me to anchor the transatlantic idea in the next generation through children's and youth choirs on both sides of the ocean, who could work together and spend time with each other." The result is the oratorio "An einem klaren Tag - On a Clear Day" for cello, choir, and orchestra. The participants in the project underscore the thematic concern: the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, texts by the well-known German poet Ulla Hahn set to music by the young American composer Sean Shepherd, who made a name for himself in the United States at a very early age, various youth choirs from Germany and New York, along with the German star cellist Jan Vogler and Nagano as the American conductor of the Hamburg State Opera, who grew up where America is farthest from Europe-in a fishing village on the American West Coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles ... (Excerpts from booklet notes by Inge Kloepfer)

When Deutschlandfunk and Musikfest Bremen first approached me to produce a CD with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, I faced the unique challenge of choosing a programme that resonated strongly with me and had a significant historical connection. Although I am half German and half Italian, I was quickly drawn to the personal ties I have with French music. I wanted to present works by young composers that had a strong impact on the history of music and pieces that offer the audience a rich, diverse soundscape. Therefore, I chose two French composers who are personally significant to me for various reasons.

Dvorak: Violin Concerto & String Serenade

Statistics reveal a bleak picture of the limited impact of female composers in all areas of classical music. Yet there are so many treasures to be unearthed! We aim to rediscover this wonderful music, which was thought to have been forgotten, and to perform as much of it as possible. The fact that these works also enrich the constantly growing yet comparatively small body of repertoire written for cello and piano is, of course, a bonus.

The selection on this CD is a cross-section of the composer's successive creative phases. Haydn composed keyboard music over about four decades (ca. 1755-1796). In his day, the word "Clavier" was used as a generic term for various keyboard instruments that coexisted, namely the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the fortepiano (Hammerflugel).�Although on this recording I have decided to record all works on a modern grand piano, I found it important to take into account which instruments these pieces were intended for when deciding on matters of interpretation and performance. (Schaghajegh Nosrati)

The selection on this CD is a cross-section of the composer's successive creative phases. Haydn composed keyboard music over about four decades (ca. 1755-1796). In his day, the word "Clavier" was used as a generic term for various keyboard instruments that coexisted, namely the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the fortepiano (Hammerflugel).�Although on this recording I have decided to record all works on a modern grand piano, I found it important to take into account which instruments these pieces were intended for when deciding on matters of interpretation and performance. (Schaghajegh Nosrati)

Written in 1799, at the same time as the First Symphony, the Septet reflects Beethoven's ambition to gain a foothold in his new Viennese environment. It is an experimental work with six contrasting movements - weighty as a symphony but also influenced by the lighter, more entertaining character of the serenade.�Unlike Beethoven, who clearly indicates his intentions, Kreutzer allows the musicians plenty of room to emerge as soloists.�Combined with Beethoven's masterpiece, the result is a sound document that uncovers a buried path of music history, once more proving that unknown works are definitely worth studying, rehearsing, and performing.

Ugorski seems to be getting closer and closer to the spirit of the music. An attractive proposition indeed.



SCRIABIN Piano Sonatas Nos. 1–10 • Anatol Ugorski (pn) • AVI 8553195 (2 CDs: 159:25)


First, let it be said that there is “complete,” and then there is “COMPLETE.” This set contains not quite Scriabin’s entire works designated “sonata.” Others—namely Roberto Szidon’s and Michael Ponti’s long-available Deutsche Grammophon and Vox Box sets—include the unnumbered E?-Minor Sonata and the G?-Minor Sonata-Fantaisie (not to be confused with the Sonata No. 2 in G?-Minor, subtitled “Sonata-Fantasy”) that are not included on Ugorski’s new set. But then, versions by Yakov Kasman on Calliope and Vladimir Stoupel on Audite, both summarily trashed by Peter Rabinowitz in Fanfare 29:3 and 32:4, don’t include them either. Oddly, the Hyperion set with Marc-André Hamelin, which Rabinowitz holds in high regard, and which I happen to have in my collection, does include the early, unpublished G?-Minor Sonata-Fantaisie but not the unfinished student Sonata in E?-Minor. One wonders why Hamelin chose to include the Fantaisie , op. 28, instead.


Anatol Ugorski never quite seemed to catch on with American audiences or critics. Born in 1942 in Siberia, he studied at the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory, and quite promptly upset the Soviet apparatchiks by insisting on playing works by Schoenberg, Berg, Messiaen, and Boulez. In 1968, the powers that be declared him a danger to society, and exiled him to 10 years’ penance as a piano accompanist for choir concerts by the Young Pioneers, a fate probably worse than confinement to a mental institution. By 1982, the authorities considered him sufficiently rehabilitated to appoint him professor at the Leningrad Conservatory. But in 1990, he fled with his family to Berlin, in the face of threats by the increasingly anti-Semitic nationalist Pamyat Party. He has remained in Germany, concertizing and recording, and teaching at the Hochschule für Music in Detmold up until 2007.


Ugorski’s recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon yielded a number of noteworthy releases, among them Scriabin’s Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (the only one of his CDs I find reviewed in the Fanfare Archive), Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux , Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition , Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations , discs of Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and a no-longer-listed fantastic two-disc set I have of the Brahms sonatas.


I suspect that Rabinowitz would not care for Ugorski’s Scriabin any more than he did Stoupel’s, of which his main complaint was their slowness. I haven’t heard Stoupel, but Ugorski is definitely on the slow side of Hamelin. Here’s a comparison of their timings:


Sonata Ugorski Hamelin


1 27:16 21:41


2 12:47 12:19


3 22:42 19:37


4 8:40 7:58


5 13:55 12:46


6 15:23 11:08


7 13:36 11:24


8 17:00 12:09


9 10:33 8:40


10 16:09 11:42


In every case, Ugorski is slower by a significant margin, but the differences in two of the sonatas in particular, the Eighth and 10th, struck me as so extreme that I wondered if there was a misprint or if the two pianists were playing the same piece. Having listened to them one after the other, I can confirm that indeed they are the same, but Ugorski’s understanding of Scriabin’s Moderato marking and Hamelin’s are poles apart.


The 10th Sonata itself is almost Webernesque; groups of seemingly isolated intervals flutter furtively by, separated by secretive silences. One would have to stretch the definition of Moderato all the way out to Larghissimo to accept Ugorski’s reading as anything close to normative, but I couldn’t help liking it. Hamelin plays it very beautifully, achieving some exceptionally colorful bird-like effects—Hamelin’s note author, Simon Nicholls, alludes to Messiaen’s “luminous, vibrant trills” and the “trembling of insect wings”—but Ugorski goes for a different effect. It’s like being in a state of suspended animation; everything happens in a surreal, slow-motion condition of altered consciousness.


In the case of the Eighth Sonata, Ugorski’s protracted opening Lento is not dramatically slower than Hamelin’s; it’s in the Allegro agitato where the two pianists part company. Ugorski picks up the tempo, but ambles amiably along as if tempo were the only thing that has changed. Hamelin takes off like a jackrabbit, bringing out the proto and protean jazz elements and, again, the music’s Messiaen-like klangfarbe.


Scriabin’s early music is said to be heavily influenced by Chopin and somewhat less so by Liszt, but in these 10 sonatas he quickly moved from a relatively conventional late-Romantic idiom to something that becomes quite difficult to describe. The last five sonatas are written without key signatures, and many passages flirt with non-serialized atonality. Scriabin was an iconoclast, a mystic, a theosophist, a synesthesist, and, toward the end, possibly delusional. Both the man and his music are very complex, and it’s precisely the complexities and contradictions in these sonatas that allow for interpretations as divergent as Ugorski’s and Hamelin’s.


I can’t help but wonder if the slowness Rabinowitz complained of in Stoupel’s performances may be a Russian thing, for here we have Ugorski, another Russian pianist, who believes slow is the way to go. I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Ugorski (or Stoupel) on these grounds, for in addition to all of his other emotional baggage, Scriabin too was Russian. Might one legitimately ask if the French-Canadian Hamelin knows better than Ugorski the bleakness of the Russian spirit and the blackness of its soul?


Much as I like Hamelin’s approach—it’s from his recording I came to know these sonatas, and it can be hard to overcome first impressions—I find Ugorski’s take on these sonatas fascinating. His technical control, as in everything I’ve heard him play, is phenomenal; he knows what he wants to say and he makes the instrument say it. His tone has amazing authority and depth to it, which the recording captures faithfully. I will not be disposing of my Hamelin, but Ugorski will definitely vie for equal play time. The two are so different that if you’re a Scriabin devotee, I’d urge you to acquire both. If you can only afford one, I guess I’d recommend sticking with Hamelin, but only because his readings are probably more mainstream. But this new Ugorski set gets a very strong recommendation.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins


For many listeners, the wealth of Scriabin recordings on the market must be something of a mystery. It's not that the music is unworthy of this exposure, it clearly is, but more that its saleability is questionable to say the least. The answer, I think, lies in the relationships between record labels and their star pianists. Scriabin is first and foremost a pianist's composer, a creator of works that separate the men from the boys and, just as importantly, allow the performer to present unique and subjective interpretations without going against the spirit of the music.
 
All of these features are very much in evidence with Anatol Ugorski's new recording of the sonatas. Ugorski had a short but stellar international career in the 1990s, framed by his moving from Russia to the West in 1992 and his subsequent decision to give up performing to concentrate on teaching. So what would it take to lure him back into the studio after an absence of around ten years? You guessed it. And how are the results? Well, they are certainly distinctive.
 
The first thing that struck me about Ugorski's playing is the sheer dexterity of his technique. Late 50s isn't necessarily all that old for a pianist, but from the suppleness of the playing here, you'd think you were listening to a teenager. The interpretation is a different story, and Ugorski's grasp of this music is clearly the result of decades of close study.
 
It would be difficult to defend this recording against accusations of over-indulgence. Many of the movements are far slower than you will hear elsewhere, and there are all sorts of pauses, gaps and elongations that can't in all fairness be described as Scriabin's own. But I don't hold any of this against Ugorski. I love the way that he lives for the moment and imbues every phrase with almost claustrophobic atmosphere. The recording technology really helps this approach, with the piano placed in a warm acoustical environment. This is especially evident in the resonance of the piano upper register - those quiet held chords washing around inside the lid and refusing to disappear. The dynamic range of the recording, and of the performance itself I suspect, is greater than you'll hear on recordings by, for example, Ashkenazy or Ogdon, which is a real boon for Scriabin's variegated and complex textures.
 
The downside is a lack of linear focus. Scriabin's melodies, especially in the later works, are difficult to follow at the best of times, but here are often reduced to little more than frameworks for the harmonic and contrapuntal textures. Such are Ugorski's priorities and consistency of approach that he invites the interpretation of this inverted musical hierarchy as a legitimate performance decision. Whether or not you agree is another matter.
 
The ordering of the sonatas is clever, with each disc beginning in the earlier, more digestible repertoire, and then gradually moving into the composer's more esoteric later works. That would be a sensible approach in any box set of the sonatas, but is particularly valuable here, given the expansive and, yes, indulgent nature of the readings.
 
I would normally hesitate to recommend eccentric recordings of key works to those unfamiliar with them, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. He is a real individual, Anatol Ugorski, and he has produced a left-field recording of music that, even in more conservative hands, is itself eccentric. Perhaps that's the point: this is a strange interpretation to say the least, but with every wayward decision, Ugorski seems to be getting closer and closer to the spirit of the music. Add to that the precision of his technique, the sheer athleticism of his playing and the superior audio quality, and this becomes an attractive proposition indeed.
 
-- Gavin Dixon, MusicWeb International

For this release, pianist Dina Ugorskaja has recorded Book I and II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier in Cooperation with Bayerische Rundfunk in Munich. On interpreting these works, Dina writes: “One essential aspect in this project was the experience of returning to my early encounters with Bach’s music: to try to remember what it had been like when I heard it for the first time. I tried to free myself from certain clichés that had ‘gotten stuck’ in a series of interpretations. This was particularly difficult in Volume I, since I had often heard those pieces in the hands of outstanding performers. ”Dina Ugorskaja gave her debut performance when she was only seven years old in the Philharmonic Hall at Saint Petersburg. Not only is she an outstanding pianist, she is also a vocalist specializing in early music, and has written a number of chamber works. In September 2019 Dina Ugorskaja passed away in the age of 46, and left her recordings as a testament.

Soloist and leader of the Camerata Bern, Antje Weithaas - "For any violinist, the Brahms Concerto is a special challenge and a precious gem, a piece one works on for decades. I studied it more intensely for the first time when I was 18-19; now I'm astounded to note how one's perception of such a work can change so radically. Amongst all violin concertos, Brahms, Beethoven and Mendelssohn play an essential role, and I would add Britten and Shostakovich. The Brahms Violin Concerto is part of our essential repertoire, and was composed at a time when the "customary" violin concerto no longer had any significance as virtuoso display for a soloist (incidentally, that's my own credo as a performer). This is a symphonic work, an aspect that relates it to the recording of Berg and Beethoven I made with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra a couple of years ago. Those two pieces from different stylistic periods are actually works for orchestra with obligato solo violin - and the same applies to the Brahms Concerto. The violin often plays passagework around the orchestra melody, as in the Beethoven Concerto, which is why I find the symphonic approach so important here as well...We tackled the challenge of performing and recording without a conductor. Of course, when I otherwise perform this concerto with a conductor, I intensely learn and think through the orchestra part in my head. It is a challenge I am aware of, and I thus probably would never have had dared to perform this concerto without a conductor. But since I've often performed the Beethoven Concerto with the Camerata Bern without a conductor, I started thinking that the Brahms Concerto just might work as well. Over teh past 7-9 years we have become so well-acquainted with one another on a musical and personal level that by now we manage to communicate with blindfolds on. I probably would not have dared to embark on this adventure with any other ensemble. The most important thing is that each musician should remain in a "chamber music" attitude while providing the necessary symphonic energy and assuming his/her share of responsibility.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

It is difficult to ascertain how many horn concertos Joseph Haydn and his younger brother Michael actually wrote. Certain works are lost; others are erroneously ascribed, or their authenticity at least doubtful. One of the concertos has even been ascribed by different musicologists to Joseph and to Michael Haydn, but it may have been written by another person entirely. The two brothers wrote most of their concertos for the widest variety of solo instruments, but usually in the same type of situation: i.e. once they had assumed important posts at the head of renowned court orchestras. Joseph Haydn became Kapellmeister for the Esterhazy princes in 1761, and Michael became concertmaster of the Salzburg archdiocese court orchestra in 1763. The court musicians in both orchestras were virtuosos in their own right, and one of the tasks of a Kapellmeister consisted in composing new works that permitted them to display their outstanding abilities in the presence of their sovereigns.

The works on this recording form the basis for a recital featuring readings of Constanze Mozart's letters. The album does not include the readings. ''Helas, j'ai perdu mon amant'' is the title of the project that gave rise to the recordings on this album. What lies behind the title you have chosen? Stephan Imorde: For quite some time we had already wanted to associate text and music on the concert podium in order to place music in a new context. Our idea was to view Mozart from the perspective of his wife Constanze: in our attempt to picture how she must have perceived Wolfgang's life, we embarked on an imaginary journey. Ulf Schneider: Very few letters written by Constanze have been preserved. Nevertheless, from the great number of letters her husband sent her, we can surmise that the two were emotionally very close. On the basis of those letters, music journalist Jurgen Otten has drawn up a fictitious diary. In our project we hold a musical dialogue with acress Fritzi Haberlandt: between the pieces, she reads from the diary.