Anthony McGill, New York Philharmonic principal clarinet and 2020 Avery Fisher Prize winner, and the multiple Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet join forces on an album illuminating the diversity of the American experience through works by Richard Danielpour, James Lee III, Ben Shirley (all three world-premiere recordings), and Valerie Coleman. McGill describes it as a project driven by the desire to “expand the capacity for art and music to change the world.” Clarinetist McGill and the Pacific Quartet’s previous collaboration on Cedille Records, Mozart & Brahms Clarinet Quintets, garnered widespread critical acclaim and continues to be a staple of classical radio programming. “The pure, gorgeous tone and expressive musicianship of the clarinetist Anthony McGill meshes with the talents of the excellent Pacifica Quartet for thoroughly enjoyable readings” (The New York Times).

REVIEWS:

The stories in question here are wide-ranging, often concerned with issues of social justice and racial intolerance which, however noble in concept, can’t really be expressed in absolute musical terms–never mind as works for clarinet and string quartet. Fortunately the music works perfectly well on its own, and it’s stunningly played and recorded, so you can either ignore the externals entirely or take them for what they’re worth.

Richard Danielpour is a composer whose ambition often exceeds his grasp, never mind his titles, but Four Angels is a sensitive, single-movement piece that would have been better had it simply been called “Elegy for Clarinet and String Quartet,” or words to that effect. James Lee III’s Quintet makes reference to Native American music and history in its four concise movements, which you may or may not notice and which makes little difference one way or the other. The music is fresh, appealing, and extremely well-crafted. Ben Shirley’s High Sierra Sonata does exactly what its title suggests: this is music about nature, wide-open spaces, and interior reflection. Heard in the context of the program as a whole, it constitutes a moment of relative repose, even though it has a central movement marked “Angry Secrets.”

Last, but certainly not least, Valerie Coleman’s “Shotgun Houses” is the first in a triptych of works inspired by the life and legacy of Muhammad Ali. Its third movement, “Rome 1960” features a musical boxing match, no less, and does it rather well. Again, it’s not really necessary to know any of this to enjoy the music, and Coleman deserves credit for avoiding any suggestion of parody or silliness. Of course, much of the credit for the success of this program belongs to the performers. McGill, with his colorful range of timbres and effortless virtuosity, brings his instrument to life in the most expressively direct way, while the Pacifica Quartet plays as well as any chamber group active today. Cedille’s sonics are positively luminous, and every work (Coleman’s aside) is a world premiere recording. In short, a remarkable achievement by all concerned.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Here is an interesting album of contemporary American music played by veteran clarinetist Anthony McGill, who has worked as a soloist with various American orchestras as well as being an active chamber musician. He is paired on this album by the well-known Pacifica Quartet.

First up is the best-known composer of the four, Richard Danielpour, who tends to write in a tonal, accessible style yet who always seems to include in that music elements of subtle yet advanced harmonies to make it interesting. Four Angels, composed specifically for McGill and the Catalyst Quartet, is no exception: a lyrical, melodic theme that suddenly morphs a couple of minutes into the piece as edgier harmonies and rhythms suddenly erupt. Yet the music always seems to return to its lyrical roots as it continues to develop.

I was not previously familiar with James Lee III (b. 1973), who studied both composition and conducting. Lee’s music is rather interesting, using unusual rhythmic and harmonic figures including a fair amount of syncopation (but not really jazz syncopation). It is a joyous work in the end, but in a quirky, irregular meter as if danced by someone with wobbly legs!

Shotgun Houses by Valerie Coleman, another composer I was not previously familiar with, is described as the first of “three installments that celebrate the life of Muhammad Ali. The three movements, titled “ShotGun Houses,” “Grand Ave.” and “Rome 1960” refer to places and incidents in his early life. Coleman’s music...struck me as some of the most creative in the entire album—creative in the sense that it sounded much more the product of inspiration and not merely working out themes in one’s mind. Coleman captures her moods as well as Danielpour and Lee, but the musical progression is more varied and unusual. It’s quite an inventive as well as a thrilling piece!

This, then, is a very nice album, the kind one can use to take a mental break from the more convoluted modern music out there. McGill has a rich, luscious tone and outstanding musicianship. The sound is also outstanding, giving a bit of natural room reverb to the instruments without having them wallowing in an echo.

-- The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

American violinist Rachel Barton Pine marks the 25th anniversary of her 1997 recording of violin concertos by Black composers of the 18th and 19th centuries with Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries. This special-edition reissue updates and expands the original program into the 20th century with Pine’s recent recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2, composed in 1952. The 1997 release established the violinist’s reputation as a passionate advocate for composers of African descent. Pine recorded Price’s Second Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by rising young American conductor Jonathon Heyward, who has held conducting and guest conducting positions with prominent European and American orchestras. The violinist reprises her previous recordings of masterworks by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1775), José White Lafitte (1864), and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1899), all with Chicago’s Encore Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Hege. The New York Times declared: “Rachel Barton [Pine] handles the concertos’ varied demands with unaffected aplomb, performing this music lovingly.”

REVIEW:

This is more than an anniversary reissue. Cedille updates the release by including a new recording. When Rachel Barton Pine recorded these works in 1997, she was an explorer. The works—and even the names—of Black composers were virtually unknown. Barton’s committed and electrifying performances brought these works to light.

This reissue includes Price’s Second Violin Concerto. Price wrote it shortly before her death in 1952. It had never been performed and was considered lost. The concerto was part of the cache of Price manuscripts rediscovered in 2009. It’s a compact concerto—less than 15 minutes long—but it packs a punch. Barton’s performance crackles with good-natured energy. And the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, directed by Jonathon Heyward, is right there with her.

With the addition of this work, Barton’s survey of Black composers runs from the 1790s through the 1950s. To me, the reissue is a more comprehensive survey, and a more satisfying listen.

--WTJU

Saxophonist Julian Velasco headlines an inventive, virtuosic, and diverse album of contemporary classical works for soprano, alto, and tenor sax as winner of Cedille Records’ first Emerging Artist Competition, a juried event celebrating the independent classical label’s 30th anniversary of championing Windy City artists of world-class talent.

For his first-ever album as a featured soloist, Velasco has assembled a program he says reflects “the different musical aspects of my life at this moment” while paying tribute to “the unique and wonderful people with whom I have been lucky enough to surround myself.” The album opens with works for saxophone and piano, performed with collaborative pianist extraordinaire Winston Choi. These include the world-premiere recording of classical saxophonist and composer Steven Banks’ Come As You Are, with Velasco on tenor sax, a composition influenced by African American sacred music and structured like a four-movement sonata. Velasco picks up his alto sax for David Maslanka’s Tone Studies No. 5: Wie bist du, Seele, which adopts its melody from a J. S. Bach four-part chorale. John Anthony Lennon’s Distances Within Me explores the vocal qualities of the alto sax in a score drawing inspiration from early 20th-century avant-gardist Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and jazz fusion bands like pianist Chick Corea’s Return to Forever. Amanda Harberg’s Court Dances, heard here in the world-premiere recording of the soprano sax version, is a three-movement suite referencing French Renaissance and Baroque court dances. Works for saxophone and electronics include world premieres of the soprano sax versions of Elija Daniel Smith’s Animus and Christopher Cerrone’s Liminal Highway. Animus places the live-in-studio saxophonist “in conversation” with his own recordings. Liminal Highway calls for extended techniques such as flutter-tongue, slap-tongue, and key clicks, while enlisting a harmonica and empty beer bottles, also played by the saxophonist.

Black Oak Ensemble, the Chicago-based string trio with an international following, treats listeners to a double-album of stylish and often witty French treasures written between the World Wars. The ensemble offers seven rarely heard delicacies from the 1920s and 30s, including world premiere recordings of trios by Henri Tomasi, Robert Casadesus, and Gustave Samazeuilh, along with works by Jean Cras, Emile Goué, Jean Françaix, and Gabriel Pierné. Most were written for and dedicated to the virtuosic Trio Pasquier, which ranked among the era’s chamber music superstars.

Tomasi’s Mediterranean roots are heard in the Provençal folk melody referenced in his Trio à cordes en forme de divertissement, noted for its colorful, kaleidoscopic finale. Casadesus’s Trio à cordes combines fine craftsmanship and poetic sincerity. Samazeuilh, a disciple of Claude Debussy, wrote his Suite en trio in the form of a Baroque dance suite. Celtic-infused folk music of his native Brittany emerges in Cras’s Trio pour violon, alto et violoncelle, as does an homage to Beethoven’s Op. 132 string quartet. Goué wrote his Trio pour violon, alto et violoncelle, energized with folk-dance elements, on the eve of his World War II army deployment. Françaix’s Trio displays his trademark textural clarity, agility, and sense of humor. Pierné’s Trois pièces en trio has even more fun with the listener with its satirical finale conjuring intoxicated, stumbling house cats out on the town.

REVIEWS:

Occasionally you hear a commentator use the term “accessible” to describe a musical work or style. Yet, as with other terms such as “affordable” in reference to housing, without context it is virtually meaningless: we need to know who is applying the term and to what it’s being compared. So, when I assert that most listeners will find the seven works on these two smartly programmed discs “accessible”, it is as much about what they are not than what they exhibit in style and musical substance.

For anyone at all concerned about setting forth on a journey through two hours of unfamiliar 20th century chamber works–string trios, no less!–be assured that throughout this program you will encounter nothing of the atonal, anti-melodic, thematically ambiguous, or deliberately arcane efforts that characterize many works from this same period (“Avant l’orage”, “before the storm”). Regarding the term “accessible”, you will find in each of these works not only a “way in” that’s familiar and (to most listeners) comprehensible, but music that is unfailingly captivating, thought-provoking, and challenging, all in ways that both entertain and enlighten. Now how can you do better than that?

Henri Tomasi’s Trio (1938), one of three recording world premieres on the disc, makes an excellent opener, its pleasingly assertive Prélude, an uneasy, restless Nocturne, mischievous Scherzo, and relentlessly energetic, folk-like Final drawing us in with an irresistible, festive air that also shows off the Black Oak Ensemble’s range of virtuosity, color, and style.

Jean Cras’ 1926 Trio has many highlights throughout its four substantial movements (24 minutes), but the fourth may be the most notable–a dance, whose rhythmic progression and character is anything but predictable!

Jean Françaix, successful performer and prolific composer who early on caught the attention of Ravel, dedicated his 1933 Trio to the three brothers who made up the Pasquier Trio (also the dedicatees of Tomasi’s Trio). You may never have seen a tempo designation of “Allegretto vivo” (this work’s first movement), but in their delightful, dexterous, precisely controlled moto perpetuo frenzy the Black Oak musicians leave no question as to their interpretation of the term! And has there ever been a Scherzo more deserving, or illustrative, of its name? Or played with a truer sense of joy and humor? The final Rondo is a fabulously virtuosic complex of rhythm and meter changes, and again these players nail the shifts and turns with requisite technical precision and musical flair.

If you know Robert Casadesus primarily–or exclusively–as a pianist, here’s your chance to get to know some of his scarce yet very fine work as a composer. His Trio à cordes from 1938, also dedicated to the Pasquier Trio–and also a world-premiere recording–may not be the most sophisticated or inventive work on the program, but it shows an intriguing interplay among instruments and well-developed sense of momentum by force of melodic/thematic development and strong rhythmic presence.

The third premiere recording is Gustave Samazeuilh’s 1937 Suite. Although its six movements are modeled on “the form of a Baroque dance suite”, you won’t hear anything stylistically related in the music itself. Yes, it’s very tonal, but has more in common with 19th-century Romanticism. And it’s all very lovely, originally written for piano and re-scored for, you guessed it, the Trio Pasquier. Here the Black Oak players seem to revel in the inherent opportunities for highlighting the music’s richness of timbre and singing melodies.

There are many other discoveries and delights to be found in the remaining trios by Émile Goué and Gabriel Pierné–which by now you will hopefully be looking forward to hearing for yourself. And I have to say that if I were one of the composers represented here I would feel blessed to have such advocates as the three musicians of Black Oak Ensemble: Desirée Ruhstrat (violin); Aurélien Fort Pederzoli (viola); David Cunliffe (violoncello).

This is difficult, challenging music that requires not only a comprehensive, deeply felt sense of style and prodigious technical facility, but an understanding of how to differentiate the expressive demands of a collection of pieces that are in some ways similar, but in more ways quite different, and how as an ensemble to make each stand out and stand in its own deserving space. Not only does the Black Oak Ensemble achieve this, but their effort makes you more than eager to hear the whole thing again. I’m happy to say that you’ll also learn a lot from the excellent notes by Elinor Olin. Accessible, enduring, enlightening, and highly recommended.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10, David Vernier)

Henri Tomasi’s vital and communicative string trio is a very satisfying work written in the minor, alternating some Debussy-isms with a Stravinskian touches. The third movement includes some truly fascinating polyrhythmic figures that drive the music forward through its bitonal theme and variants, and the Finale is even more interesting, including quite a bit of non-jazz syncopation.

The trio by Jean Cras is a little more old-style but not ultra-Romantic, at least not the way it’s played here. The music uses bitonality but is not as much on the edge as the Tomasi piece, yet it is still an interesting, well-written work.

The Goué Trio is bouncy and sprightly. It contains some novel ideas as well as shifting meters and tempi in its first movement, and the last movement is an ingenious recasting of tarantella rhythms.

The Françaix trio is in his usual modern-but-entertaining style, including funny “drunk”-sounding passages in the first and last movements, although it is not one of his works most frequently recorded, and the Black Oak Ensemble again plays this, as all the other works, in a peppy manner.

Unlike most of the other composers presented here, Robert Casedesus’ compositions are relatively few. This one has some fun with overlapping and interlocking rhythmic patterns, which the notes suggest might resemble some of his train travel. The music is interesting and a little eerie-sounding—at least, until a full stop introduces a surprisingly sprightly new theme in a fast 6/8. Once again, we have here a formerly unheard gem.

Gustave Samazeuilh’s trio is the most old-fashioned-sounding, by far, in this entire collection, a real late-Romantic piece played in a post-modern manner by the ensemble. The fourth-movement “Divertissement” uses some extended chords in its harmonic base, lively use of 3/4 rhythm, as well as interesting harmonic touches in the last-movement “Forlane.”

[This] is clearly an important release for its inclusion of so much good but rarely-heard and some formerly unrecorded music. It is definitely one of the best classical releases of the year.

--The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

The twice-Grammy-nominated, Billboard-charting Lincoln Trio — violinist Desirée Ruhstrat, cellist David Cunliffe, and pianist Marta Aznavoorian — surveys works by five of Chicago’s most highly lauded contemporary composers on an album that features three world-premiere recordings. Composers are Shawn E. Okpebholo, Augusta Read Thomas, Shulamit Ran, Mischa Zupko, and Stacy Garrop. Okpebholo’s music has been described as "devastatingly beautiful" and "fresh and new and fearless" (Washington Post). His three-movement city beautiful evokes distinctive Chicago architecture. Recipient of many awards and honors, Augusta Read Thomas is "a true virtuoso composer" (The New Yorker). Her vibrant, multicolored …a circle around the sun… gives each instrument, by turns, a “starring” role in the center of a compact musical solar system. In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1991, Ran has received almost every major honor a U.S. composer can earn. Her Soliloquy, depicting unrequited love, is based on a musical fragment from her first opera. Zupko’s music has earned kudos from The New York Times and other major publications and has been championed by leading U.S. orchestras and chamber groups. His celebratory Fanfare 80 opens with the hallmarks of a classic fanfare, with “antiphonal volleys” among the instruments and occasional “savage dance-like” passages from the piano. “One of Chicago’s most keenly sensitive composers” (Chicago Tribune), Garrop is also among the busiest. Recent commissions include works for The Crossing, Grant Park Orchestra, and St. Louis Symphony. Her Sanctuary is a deeply personal tribute to her late father. The music evokes a child’s lonely search for memories of a lost parent, followed by the joy and solemnity of a father-daughter reunion.

All World Premiere Recordings

Grammy Award-winning Third Coast Percussion, whose artistry blends “creative fearlessness with reverent precision” (BBC Music Magazine), offers an album of enterprising collaborations and world-premiere recordings of works written or arranged expressly for the Chicago-based percussion quartet, representing four different approaches to composing concert music.

Danny Elfman’s Percussion Quartet, structured like a four-movement symphony, shares distinctive traits heard in his Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated films scores, as well as hints of African balofon, Indonesian gamelan, and Shostakovich. Great admirers of composer Philip Glass, Third Coast arranged Glass’s solo piano Metamorphosis No. 1 for marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and melodica. Rubix emerged from Third Coast Percussion’s improvisational collaboration with virtuosic, cutting-edge flute duo Flutronix, who also perform on the recording. Critically acclaimed electronic musician and composer Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton) composed her seven-movement Perspective as electronic tracks, without music notation. Third Coast transformed this work of “beautiful complexity” into a version they could perform live as a quartet.

REVIEW:

Unlike a lot of academic music for percussion ensembles, Danny Elfman makes his quartet sing sweetly, leaning heavily on the warm sounds of the marimba interlocking with tinkling tubular chimes and pitched metal pipes.

The flute duo Flutronix's piece, Rubix, features punchy flutes dancing over a chilled out vibraphone, and foggy episodes where marimba, whirly tube and bowed flexatone provide an evocative backdrop of light and shadow.

Footwork is the hyper-beat music born in Chicago's underground dance competitions and house parties in the late 1990s. On Third Coast Percussion's album, the style undergoes a mesmerizing transformation in a seven-movement suite called Perspective, by Jerrilynn Patton, who goes by Jlin.

Third Coast Percussion, with albums like Perspectives, continues to push percussion in new directions, blurring musical boundaries and beguiling new listeners.

-- NPR. org (Tom Huizenga)

Grammy Award-winner Alex Klein, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal oboe emeritus, and pianist Phillip Bush perform works by composers from both sides of the Atlantic who were caught up in or deeply moved by 20th-century political turmoil. The Brazilian-born oboe virtuoso’s passionate project, with its underlying appeal for tolerance, encompasses works by Czech, German, British, American, and Brazilian composers. Much of the music evinces a calm lyricism and melodious beauty that belie the composers’ difficult circumstances. Some were exiled from their native countries, others despaired of impending war. One, Pavel Haas, died in Auschwitz. Paul Hindemith’s 1938 Sonata for Oboe and Piano, written in Swiss exile, is said to represent happier days in his native Germany. Pavel Haas’s Suite for Oboe and Piano, composed at the outset of Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, shares the complex musical language of his teacher, Leoš Janácek. William Bolcom’s ultimately hopeful Aubade – for the Continuation of Life, written amid early 1980s fears of nuclear war, forges a fragile coexistence between cello and piano. Benjamin Britten’s Temporal Variations, written on the eve of World War II, expresses the composer’s anti-militarism. José Siqueira wrote his tuneful Three Etudes for Oboe with Piano Accompaniment shortly before fleeing Brazil’s military dictatorship. Klement Slavický’s professional musical career had been derailed by the Czech Communist regime by the time he wrote his virtuosic Suite for Oboe and Piano.

Named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine, the Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet’s critically acclaimed traversal of Beethoven’s Complete String Quartets is now available as a specially priced 8-disc boxed set (price of 3 CDs), releasing December 8.

“It’s hard to imagine a group better suited to recording these works than the Dover Quartet,” wrote New York’s WQXR of the Vol. 1 Op. 18 quartets, often cited as the epitome of the classical string quartet as developed by Haydn and Mozart, while foreshadowing Beethoven’s future innovation. “Beethoven would find it hard to believe that his quartets could be played with such perfection of execution, such beauty of tone, such nuance of expression, and such keen understanding of his music’s meaning and intent” (Fanfare).

Vol. 2, the Dover Quartet delivered “the most profoundly penetrating performances of Beethoven’s middle string quartets” (Fanfare), including the three Op. 59 “Razumovsky” Quartets, infused with Russian folk tunes; the graceful “Harp,” Op. 74, named for its plucked string figures; and the intense Op. 95 “Serioso,” a forward-looking experiment that Beethoven originally intended “for a small circle of connoisseurs.” Only Strings said, “The Dover performances sparkle and thrill. Their virtuosity is immediately apparent.”

Comprising Beethoven’s very last compositions — the five monumental, revolutionary Late Quartets and imposing Grosse Fuge — Vol. 3 “culminates their excellent recordings of all of Beethoven’s string quartets” (Third Coast Review). Remarkable and often daunting works that upended the concept of the string quartet, they are often considered the ultimate expression of Beethoven’s artistry. “This is a monumental achievement by one of the best string quartets playing today” (Classical CD Reviews).

The Dover Quartet has followed a “practically meteoric” (Strings) trajectory to become one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world since sweeping all prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In addition to serving as the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Dover Quartet holds residencies with the Kennedy Center, Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University (it’s longest residency, dating back to 2015), Artosphere, and Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival.

SOWERBY: Symphony No. 2 / Concert Overture / All on a Summer

Includes gigue(s) by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Soloist: David Schrader.

"František Vincenc Kramá?, as he is correctly named, is better known as Franz Vinzenz Krommer. Born in Bohemia in 1759, he was educated, in part, by an uncle, but taught himself theory. He left Bohemia in 1785 and worked extensively in Hungary for the better part of 10 years. From 1795 until his death in 1831 he worked in Vienna. His reputation was very high, and his works were quite widely known throughout Europe. His quartets were considered on a par with Haydn's, and overall he was often compared to Beethoven. From our point of view those statements may be excessive, but he certainly was a polished musician deserving considerable renown. His wind concertos are especially fine, and are gradually becoming well regarded in our own time.

His two oboe concertos were written in Vienna in 1803 and 1805. Both are dramatic works with virtuoso turns and leaps abounding. The first is more Mozartean in nature while the second has distinct overtones of early Beethoven. Both are first-class pieces that deserve to be known.

Johann Nepomuk Hummel is more of a known quantity. He was highly regarded in Vienna as a contemporary of Beethoven, though of somewhat lesser stature. His Introduction, Theme, and Variations is a polished, virtuoso piece of considerable brilliance.

Alex Klein was born in Brazil, trained at Oberlin College, and for the last five years has been principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony. His technique is flawless. He is well supported by Paul Freeman and the Czech National Symphony. Cedille's recorded sound is first-class, as expected from this source."-- John Bauman, Fanfare [11/1999]

"A first-rate recording of a durable classic." (Opera News)

"Chicago Opera Theater brings the story fully and frighteningly to life for the first time on compact disc. Joyce Castle sings the title role . . . with chilling malevolence. Bedi brings to the role [of Monica] a pervasive and affecting sweetness." (Newark Star-Ledger)

"Exudes a riveting theatrical atmosphere." (Dallas Morning News)

Oft-performed but mysteriously absent on recordings, Menotti's eerie opera The Medium has materialized in its first recording in more than a quarter century. This two-act "musical drama" is about a fake psychic whose surprise encounter with the unknown leads to murder and mayhem. It is stage a dozen times annually in the US alone. Yet, recordings haven't been available for years, and (until now) it has never appeared on CD.

A "sensational success" for Menotti (Kobbé's Opera Book), the present version of The Medium had its premiere February 18, 1947 at New York's Heckscher Theater. New York Times music critic Olin Downes wrote, "we have here the quality of opera. It is dramatic music, emphatic in action as well as feeling, and in essence song, which is what opera must be. No other American composer has shown the inborn talent that Mr. Menotti, an Italian by descent, unquestionable possesses for the lyric theater." Critic (and composer) Virgil Thomson called it a "first-class musico-theatrical work . . . the most gripping operatic narrative [he] has witnessed in many a year . . .[It] wrings every heart string, and the music is thoroughly touching."

SCARLATTI: Fortepiano Sonatas

20TH CENTURY FRENCH WIND TRIOS

DIAMOND: Chamber Music

BLACKWOOD: Microtonal Compositions

"Soler's distinctive personality is stamped all over [these quintets]. Schrader has recorded two volumes of [Soler's] sonatas for Cedille Records, and he brings the same digital skill and musical discrimination to these quintets. He leads a quartet that uses mid--to late--eighteenth century original instruments, in performances that are lively, tasteful, and finely balanced. The ensemble is ideally recorded." (Fanfare)

"The pleasures of discovering this unfamiliar music are greatly enhanced by the performances." (Chicago Tribune)

Captivating and quirky, the quintets for keyboard and strings of Spanish composer Padre Antonio Soler were rare, even in the heyday of LP recordings. Now they are available for the first time on compact disc.

These two fine symphonies belong in the collection of anyone who enjoys contemporary music of a more traditional or conservative bent. Not that they are easy listening: Symphony No. 1, which has a much higher level of dissonance than No. 5, brings to mind Honegger's thornier inspirations; but like that composer, Blackwood does not sacrifice expressiveness as a result. His melodies (and there are quite a few here) are all characterful and cover a wide range of emotion. The humorous opening of the scherzo provides one example. Best of all, the piece gets a scorcher of a performance from Charles Munch and the BSO in a vintage Living Stereo recording licensed from RCA, sounding very good here, if a touch congested in loud passages. The climax at the end of the first movement is positively apocalyptic!


The Fifth Symphony, according to the composer, was written in an idiom that recalls "modernized Sibelius"--and that description is exactly right. You'll find the same evocative string textures, writing for winds in thirds, and so forth, but all are presented in a more advanced (but by no means harsh) harmonic idiom. It's a lovely, poetic work, and this 1993 live performance does it justice. If the First deserves respect, you may well find yourself feeling a good bit of affection for this beautifully-crafted later piece. The audience is well-behaved, and the sonics are very natural, warm, and clear. An excellent introduction to a very talented and worthy composer/pianist (try Blackwood's excellent Ives "Concord" Sonata for another facet of his musical personality), not to mention an important addition to the Munch/BSO discography.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

TCHAIKOVSKY: The Seasons (excerpts) / RACHMANINOV: Preludes

Few pianists have had the courage to tackle Ives' "Concord" Sonata in public. Easley Blackwood made it his signature piece. Blackwood earned high praise for his concert performances of Ives' "Concord" Sonata, a set of transcendentalist meditations named for Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcott family and Thoreau, all of whom lived in Concord, Mass. Critic Max Harrison of The London Times declared Blackwood's performance of the piece "the finest account I have ever heard."

Chicago Symphony Orchestra flutist Richard Graef, a Blackwood colleague in the Grammy Award-winning Chicago Pro Musica chamber music ensemble, performs in the sonata's "Thoreau" movement.

Copland's Piano Sonata, long overshadowed by his populist works, represents his most profound and personal thoughts. A surprisingly lively middle movement explores fast rhythms in irregular, rapidly changing meters. "I never would have thought of those rhythms if I had not been familiar with jazz," Copland remarked.

SOLER: Keyboard Sonatas / Fandango, Vol. 1

VIVALDI: Vocal and Instrumental Works

Ganz: Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major / La Montaine: Piano Co

DOUBLE PLAY - 20TH CENTURY DUOS FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO

COPLAND: Piano Music