The three great Brahms Sonatas for Violin and Piano certainly need no introduction. These are superb performances by violinist John Fadial and pianist Andrew Harley. Violinist John Fadial serves as Professor of Violin at the University of Wyoming. At the age of eleven, he performed for President Gerald Ford and since has appeared around the globe as chamber musician, soloist and pedagogue. His performances have been praised by the critics. “Sparkling Technique,” (L’Est Republicain) “Wow! Great Stuff,” (The Washington Post.) He has toured internationally for the US State Department as a United States Artistic Ambassador, and has served as Concertmaster of the North Carolina Opera, the Colorado Festival, ProMusica Colorado, the Menuhin Festival Orchestra of Saumur (France), the Heidelberg Schloss-Spiele (Germany), and Greensboro (NC) Symphony Orchestra (eighteen seasons). English pianist Andrew Harley enjoys an internationally recognized performing and teaching career. Specializing in instrumental chamber music and song literature, he has been heard in live broadcasts on national radio and television, as well as on numerous recordings.

• Prolific composer Georg Philip Telemann was a contemporary of J. S. Bach and as, if not more, famous in his day than Bach. • The Apollo Ensemble play a selection of Telemann's chamber works, of varying instrumentation. • The Apollo Ensemble is a superb period instrument ensemble based in The Netherlands.

This is a beautiful program of art songs by Francis Poulenc, performed by soprano Alissa Deeter and pianist Arlene Shrut. A nationally recognized performer with firm footing in both classical and musical theatre circles, she is an active recitalist with a penchant for French mélodie as well as the treasured compositions of Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, and Weill. She was a founding member and co-director of The Miscreants Cabaret, a fringe theatre troupe in San Francisco that wrote, produced, and performed original works. Dr. Deeter is the co-author of The Mélodies of Francis Poulenc: A Study Guide (Scarecrow Press, 2014) and has several articles published in the Journal of Singing. She recently presented the lecture recital “The Gender Gap in Francis Poulenc’s Mélodies” at the College Music Society’s International Conference in Stockholm and Helsinki.

• The piano sonatas of Haydn need no introduction. Russian pianist Daria Gloukhova is one of today's most exciting pianists. She infuses these works with an intensity and poetry that make these performances rise far beyond the norm.

This lieder recording ranges from the end of the 18th century to the 1970s. Baritone Elem Eley performs with great sensitivity and insight.

Recording information: Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes, Washington, D. (11/09/2008); Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes, Washington, D. (11/28/2008).

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This album features a program of great works for viola from the 21st Century. Violist Christopher Lowry is also a wonderful composer, and two of his works are featured here, along with works by Peter Dayton and Christopher Hallum. This is miles removed from the often hard-to-listen-to new music that is all-too prevalent. This music is immediately captivating. Hailing from Nashville, TN, Christopher Lowry is emerging as one of the leading violists and most performed composers of his generation. He is a two-time prize winner in the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, winning the "Jury Panel Prize" in 2016 and Yuri Bashmet's "President of the Jury Prize" in 2013. He has also won prizes in the Lewisville Lake Symphony International String Competition (2015), LSU Concerto Competition (2014, 2012), Marquette Symphony Concerto Competition (2014), Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra Concerto Competition (2012), Vanderbilt Concerto Competition (2008), ASTA National Solo Competition (2007), and the Eastern Music Festival Concerto Competition (2006), among many others.

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This album features three superb contemporary trios for horn, violin, and piano. The Advenio Trio, consisting of Bruce Atwell, horn, Yuliya Smead, violin, and Eli Kalman, piano, is one of the finest horn, violin and piano trios performing today. Bruce Atwell is currently Professor of Horn at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. He is Principal Horn with the Fox Valley Symphony and a member of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra. Prior to his work in Wisconsin, Dr. Atwell held positions with the Florida Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Dr. Atwell has also performed with the Milwaukee Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and as acting Fourth Horn with the Philadelphia Orchestra. His recording Baroque Music for Horn and Strings with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic is also available on the Centaur Label.

The eight-member, San Francisco Bay Area-based Archetti Baroque String Ensemble was founded in 2010 by violinist Carla Moore and viola da gambist John Dornenburg to perform the rich chamber concerto repertory of the Baroque era in historically-informed style without a conductor. The ensemble's name, "little bows" in Italian, alludes to the dominance of bowed stringed instruments in the Italian Baroque concerto repertory. Centaur's Handel and Hellendaal: Grand Concertos is their debut CD. "dazzling clarity" (SF Examiner Online) "beautiful ensemble playing" (Early Music America)

julius rontgen the lake cottage duo sheri mattson, oboe; juanita becker, piano dutch music for oboe and piano

CELLOBRATION • Amit Peled (vc); Eliza Ching (pn) • CENTAUR 3047 (59:30)


MENDELSSOHN On Wings of Song , op. 34/2. DAVIDOFF At the Fountain, op. 20/2. ECCLES Cello Sonata in g. GRANADOS Spanish Dance, op. 37/No. 5, “Andaluza” (“Playera”). FAURÉ Elégie. LIGETI Sonata for Solo Cello . BACH Pastorella in F. GLAZUNOV Chant du Ménéstrel. F. COUPERIN Pièces en Concert. CASALS Song of the Birds


Here is a collection of works for cello and piano both familiar and unfamiliar. Among the familiar are Fauré’s popular Élégie —albeit better known in its orchestral setting—transcribed for cello and piano, and Mendelssohn’s On Wings of Song , originally an actual song for voice and piano, that has been arranged and transcribed many times (Liszt and Heifetz both had a crack at it). In the unfamiliar category are a cello sonata by the virtually unknown Henry Eccles (1670–1742)—an English Baroque musician who ended up a member of Louis XIV’s King’s Band—and practically everything else on the disc, which though well known to cellists and often recorded, are not your usual fare on recital programs, except perhaps as encore pieces.


The Israeli-born Amit Peled plays a c.1689 cello by Andrea Guarneri, updated and fitted to modern standards. This, as far as I can tell, is only Peled’s second CD; the first, released in 2009 (Centaur 2988) was titled The Jewish Soul , and consisted of Jewish themed works, though not all necessarily by Jewish composers. For example, it included Bruch’s ubiquitous Kol Nidrei.


The “discovery” on this new disc is the Eccles sonata. Very little is known about this obscure violinist/composer, other than that he was born in England, was the elder brother to a more successful sibling John, whose success over his own he resented. Peeved by his perceived neglect, he moved to Paris, where he got himself hired on at the King’s court. What music he did write was either adapted from works by the Italian composer Giuseppe Valentini (1681–1753) or heavily influenced by them. In 1732, Eccles published 12 sonatas for gamba and figured bass; but according to the booklet note, the G-Minor Sonata given on the present CD is a transcription from an earlier set of violin sonatas. It takes the form of a typical sonata da chiesa (slow, fast, slow, fast), and considering its model, the piece, not surprisingly, is in an Italian style similar to what you would expect to hear from Vivaldi. What is perhaps surprising is that for a composer as virtually unknown as Eccles, there are five listed recordings of this sonata, going all the way back to a 1930 violin version played by Jacques Thibaud.


Latvian-born and Russian-trained, Carl (Karl) Davidoff (1838–89) was one of the great cello virtuosos of the 19th century. Tchaikovsky hailed Davidoff as “the tsar of cellists,” and the two men were friends and associates through their mutual connection to the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Davidoff’s At the Fountain is a popular encore piece that has had several recordings, including ones by Pieter Wispelwey, Miklós Perényi, and Jan Vogler. How would I describe the piece? A Flight of the Honeybee for cello: a nice little A-B-A form in which the bee leaves the hive and busily buzzes about to gather nectar and pollinate the petals (A), tarries momentarily to make love to a flower (B), and assisted by a tailwind returns home to the hive faster than it left (A).


From the 12 Spanish Dances by Enrique Granados, Peled plays a cello arrangement of the most popular number in the set, the No. 5. Titled Andaluza in the composer’s original version for piano, the piece has alternately come to be called Playera . It can be heard on some 140 recordings in arrangements for guitar, violin, voice, and in its original piano version, including by the composer himself. Nor does Peled have the field all to himself on cello. The piece has been recorded by Alban Gerhardt and Jamie Walton. One can easily appreciate the great popularity of the piece. Its guitar-like strumming accompaniment provides the underpinning for an alluring melody in the style of a seguidilla, a folksong or dance of Castillian origin. Bizet drew upon the seguidilla for his aria “Près des ramparts de Séville” in Carmen.


György Ligeti’s Sonata for Cello Solo has also received its fair share of recordings, one of which in particular, with Matt Haimovitz on Deutsche Grammophon, is especially noteworthy. Not unlike Paul Kletzki, the Jewish-Hungarian Ligeti (1923–2006) also suffered at the hands of both the Nazis and the Soviet Communists. The sonata heard here did not receive its first performance until 1983, but it’s an early work dating from the composer’s Hungarian period. In only two movements, its first was written in 1948, when Ligeti was 25; its second movement, five years later in 1953. The piece is clearly influenced by Bartók and Kodály. Glissando chords and pizzicato punctuate a melancholy “Dialogo,” marked adagio , followed by a moto perpetuo Capriccio, marked presto con slancio , a real test of the player’s mettle.


Bach’s F-Major Pastorella was originally composed as a four-movement suite for organ. Only its opening movement is heard here, but Bach recycled its concluding Gigue as the closing movement to the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. According to the booklet note, this arrangement by Pablo Casals, in a handwritten score, was acquired by the Beaux Arts Trio’s cellist, Bernard Greenhouse, and from him passed to Peled.


Glazunov’s Chant du Ménéstrel (Troubadour’s Song) is almost as popular, if you count numbers of recordings, as the Granados Playera . Frankly, it’s little more than a sentimental salon piece that happens to have been made famous by Beatrice Harrison, the British cellist who had the distinction of being Elgar’s handpicked player to make the official HMV recording of the composer’s Cello Concerto under his direction.


When it comes to the Couperin Pièces en Concert , I wish I could cite its provenance definitively, but unfortunately, neither the CD’s track listing nor the booklet note identifies the specific set of suites whence it comes. Even more curiously, other recordings of the work, as well as other references to it, are equally silent on the subject. Finally, by searching for a combination of Couperin and Bazelaire, the work’s arranger, I hit upon a program note from the 2002 Tyalgum (New South Wales) Festival that asserts that Bazelaire’s arrangement is a mixed-movement compilation drawn from Couperin’s Nouveaux Concerts published in 1724.


If you check ArkivMusic’s listing for the Casals piece under its English title, Song of the Birds , you will find only this one recording by Peled. But there are a couple of others listed under its Spanish title, El Cant dels Ocells . I’d have expected more, including one by the renowned cellist himself. The piece is an arrangement of a traditional Catalan folk song, which embodies, in Peled’s words, “a spiritual communication.”


I’ve said nothing about the Mendelssohn or Fauré pieces because they’re so well known there’s nothing to say.


By all evidence, Amit Peled is a superb cellist. His technical prowess in the Davidoff and Ligeti vouchsafe that; and his tone, of pellucid purity, gleams with a glint of gold in the slow, lyrical numbers. As an introduction to the artistry of this fine up-and-coming young artist, this album showcases his versatility in a wide range of repertoire. But now that Peled has produced two CDs of what are essentially arrangements, encore pieces, and lighter fare—except for the Eccles and Ligeti sonatas—I look forward to hearing him in some of the more substantial repertoire for his instrument. Pianist Eliza Ching has a somewhat lesser role to play in some of these numbers, but she carries out her role as accompanist admirably. Recorded sound is excellent. Recommended for an hour’s worth of canapés to whet the appetite; now bring on the main course.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

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Gabriel Dupont (1878 - 1914) wrote a wonderful works for voice and piano. They are beautifully performed here by soprano Rachel Joselson and pianist Bo Ties. While still a university student in voice performance, Rachel Joselson performed with the Indianapolis Symphony and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Robert Shaw. After completing her masters’ degree at Indiana University, she moved to Europe and pursued private voice study with Mario and Rina del Monaco in Lancenigo, Italy. Her first full-time operatic contract was in Darmstadt, singing roles Rosina, Dorabella, Cherubino, Adalgisa and Idamante, before transitioning to soprano repertoire during her years at Hamburg. She has been on the faculty at the University of Iowa since 1997. Bo Ties (pronounced teece) is originally from Southeastern Minnesota. He took piano lessons from an early age until 8th grade though he never really delved too deeply into classical music. After a four year hiatus from lessons, playing for his own enjoyment, he decided he needed to be a pianist. He began his formal training in classical music as a college freshman and never looked back. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance (2009) at Winona State University studying with Dr. Deanne Mohr. He then moved south to complete an M.A. in Piano Performance (2011) and a D.M.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy (2018) at the University of Iowa under the tutelage of Dr. Uriel Tsachor. In August 2018, Dr. Ties joined the faculty at Black Hawk College in Moline, Illinois. He remains an active performer, teacher, and presenter.

This is an album of great works for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, beautifully performed by The Teton Trio. The Trio writes: “We named ourselves after the stunning geography of the summer music festival that the three of us have in common. The Grand Teton Music Festival has happened every summer in Jackson, Wyoming, since 1962. The mountains of the Teton range, and the trails and scenery of Grand Teton National Park have been such an iconic backdrop to some truly life-changing performances for all three of us, and so by taking the name of this special place we hope to pay homage to and continue that tradition of beauty.”

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Dr. Franklin Cox studied cello with, among others, Janos Starker and Peter Wiley, and composition with, again among others Brian Ferneyhough. He has received numerous fellowships, prizes, and commissions from leading institutions and festivals of new music. He has performed with many leading new music groups, including SONOR, the Group for Contemporary Music and Ensemble K�ln. The New Cello, V2: European Composers, features modern solo cello compositions by seven contemporary composers, with three the work of Klaus K. H�bler.

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