Centaur Records
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Standards and Improvisations
$15.99CDCentaur Records
May 01, 2026CRC4187 -
Jerzy Kosmala Live Recordings, Vol. 1
$15.99CDCentaur Records
May 01, 2026CRC4182
Jacquet de la Guerre: Violin Sonatas of 1707 / Maiben, Cunningham, Crawford
French musician, harpsichordist, and composer Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre was born on March 17, 1665 into a family of musicians and master instrument makers. Rather than just teach her brothers, Elisabeth’s father, a master harpsichord maker, taught her as well. She was one of the few well-known female composers of her time. She mastered many forms in her compositions. The present release showcases the three violin sonatas that she composed in 1707. The artists featured here – violinist Dana Maiben, gambist Sarah Cunningham, and harpsichordist Lisa Goode Crawford- are experts in historical performance practice and give these works the life they deserve.
REVIEW:
These are among the first violin sonatas in which the harpsichord makes the move from being part of the continuo, towards an obbligato role, becoming a true partner of the violin, which would eventually reach its zenith in the publication 34 years later of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts.
These are wonderful performances, with Dana Maiben playing a beautifully-sounding Nicola Amati violin of 1658, Sarah Cunningham on viola da gamba, and Lisa Goode Crawford on harpsichord. This performance was recorded more than five years ago, in July 2017, but I don’t believe it’s been published in any other form. This is an important disc of important music, and the sense of occasion that comes when one listens to it makes it clear that it was definitely worth the wait.
-- Music for Several Instruments
The Passionate Amy Beach / Solungga Liu
Solungga Liu has been acclaimed as a pianist of great breadth. She is a champion of early twentieth-century American music and underrepresented works of the standard repertoire. She is also known as an uncanny interpreter of new music. The American Record Guide described her recording “The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan: Piano Works of Charles Tomlinson Griffes” for Centaur Records, as having, “excellent sound, sensitivity and beguiling color,” to which the Seattle Post-Intelligencer added, “This is an excellent recording. Liu has done justice to this sometime overlooked body of work with her playing, as she pays tribute to a unique and evocative composer.”
Saint-Saëns, Piston & Zemlinsky: Piano Trios / Caladium Trio
This new release from The Caladium Trio features Trios by Camille Saint-Saëns, Walter Piston, and Alexander Zemlinsky.
Violinist Lin He is now serving as the Associate Professor of Violin at the Louisiana State University School of Music and the Associate Concertmaster of the Baton Rouge Symphony. During the summer, he teaches at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, InterHarmony International Summer Music Festival, Montecito International Music Festival and BayView Music Festival.
Daniel Cassin has enjoyed a rewarding and varied career as teacher, performer and producer. As cellist of the Valcour String Quartet, Mr. Cassin has performed in numerous concerts, competitions, master classes and educational programs. He is currently serving as Associate Principal Cellist of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, where he has been a member since 1982.
Constance Carroll has received acclaim throughout the nation for her performances as a recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral soloist. The featured artist at conventions of the state Music Teachers Associations of many states across America, she has also given lecture recitals at the national MTNA conventions in Houston, and most recently, in Kansas City. Equally adept as a teacher and lecturer, she numbers among her students winners of local and regional competitions, and has presented recitals, master classes and lectures at numerous universities and colleges throughout the country
Winter Evening: Russian Art Songs / Briggs, Toren-Immerman, Quiring
Maria Briggs is joined on this album by pianist Drew Quiring, and violin/violist Limor Toren-immerman, where together they present a selection of songs by composers including Anton Rubinstein, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Mikhail Glinka, and more. Dr. Briggs-Okunev is a Russian-born, Australian soprano. She earned her Bachelor degree in piano performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Dr. Briggs then attained Masters in vocal performance, Newcastle Conservatorium and DMA from Sydney University and Royal Northern College of Music, UK. Her research is focused on training and development of young opera singers. Her published thesis on tertiary opera training is available online.
Gal: Works for Viola, Piano, Violin & Oboe
Composer Hans Gál was born near Vienna in 1890. He rose to fame in the 1920s as a composer and scholar. His compositional style was considered more traditional than other composers, but his music is nonetheless fresh and infused with chromaticism and counterpoint. He was an extremely successful composer of all genres, especially opera.
Godowsky in Asia / Baldoria
Philippine-born pianist, composer, and educator Dr. Charisse Baldoria draws upon Western pianism, her Southeast Asian and Hispanic heritage, and various art forms in her work. Prizewinner of international piano competitions, she has performed as a soloist on five continents and established a career as a musician with multidisciplinary interests. She has collaborated with dancers, visual artists, performance artists, and Hindustani classical performers, performs her own compositions, and explores the art of improvisation. Her album Gamelan on Piano features music inspired by Southeast Asia while Evocación showcases flamenco and tango inspirations. Her recently recorded all-Godowsky album features the complete Java Suite inspired by pianist-composer Leopold Godowsky’s travels to the island of Java in 1923, as well as other pieces inspired by non-Western cultures. Recordings of her song cycles Alchemy and The Kiss based on the poems of Denise Levertov and Sara Teasdale are also being prepared for release.
Bitter the Laughter, Sweet the Tears / Richter Uzur Duo
The Richter Uzur Duo approaches the concert stage with effortless virtuosity, soulful musicality and self-effacing humor. Trained in two of the world's most lauded musical institutions — The Royal College of Music and The Moscow Conservatory, respectively — guitarist Brad Richter and cellist Viktor Uzur are consummate performers and accomplished composers, each having played around the globe to critical acclaim and international awards. Together, the Richter Uzur Duo combines elements of classical music, rock, indigenous American music and Eastern European folk, all played with a native sense of vernacular, integrity and charm, producing a sound that is all their own.
Krenek: Early Piano Works / Korzhev
Ernst Krenek’s early musical development was informed by the middle-class cultural ambient of the city of Vienna. Already at an early age he heard his mother playing “salon pieces” on the piano; they attended musical theater performances and the Sunday matinees conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky in the nearby Volksoper. The popular repertoire of operettas, military bands, and cabaret also had a fixed place in the life of the Kreneks.
Ernst Krenek learned a wide spectrum of musical literature from his piano teacher. Together they played four-hand arrangements of operas and symphonies. The works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss had a great influence on him, especially the latter, since at that time he was – as the ‘leader of the most radical modernism’ (Krenek, Memoirs) – on the path to world fame. In spite of their merely playful, childish aspirations, his own early attempts at composition can be associated to his biographical world. In terms of style, they are clearly obliged to the musical language of Viennese classicism and romanticism. The titles of these sometimes only partially realized compositions prove to be an interesting mirror of the social reality of the not yet ten-year-old: biblical and sacred motifs dominate alongside references to historical events, above all from the military history of the Habsburg Monarchy. These ambitious works were complemented by smaller marches and waltzes for piano. In his early and mid-teens, a clear development toward vocal settings of German poetry is evident, be it as art songs or choral works. Occasional instrumental works, such as variation works for piano trio, a sonata for cello and piano, or a stage work, are early testimony of the diversity in Krenek’s future oeuvre.
REVIEW:
Collectors who’ve resisted the thorny atonality of Ernst Krenek’s mature piano music will find his earlier works for the instrument, well, tonal and not all that thorny! Think of Max Reger’s short piano pieces or Korngold’s keyboard output, and you’ve basically got the young Krenek.
Listen to the First sonata’s zestful and harmonically restless Rondo finale, for example. I would have mistaken it for an idiomatic piano transcription of one of Richard Strauss’ late-period wind ensemble pieces. The Sonatina No. 2 Gavotte’s modulatory wanderlust makes the Gavotte from Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony sound minimalist by comparison. In the single-movement Sonatina No. 5 and the Six Piano Pieces, Krenek begins to branch out into the terse expressive qualities, angular phrasings, and tonal ambiguity characterizing his later sonatas.
Mikhail Korzhev makes a cogent and convincing case for this repertoire, which comes as no surprise, given his dazzling and authoritative recordings of Krenek’s first three piano concertos. The pianist’s incisive fingerwork vivifies sequences in obsessive dotted rhythms, such as in the Sonatina No. 1’s Vivace finale and the Sonatina No. 3’s Scherzettino, while giving ample attention to bass lines. Korzhev plays up the Sonatina No. 2’s central Theme and Variations sudden mood shifts in a way that never makes them sound episodic or fragmented. He clearly understands and believes in the music, which makes this release an ever more valuable addition to the Krenek discography.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Dislter)
French Music for Piano Four Hands / Jones, Park
This recording celebrates a magnificent era in four hand music. After the historic contributions of Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms, the duet mantle was passed to French composers. Breaking free from more classical duet settings, these artists produced four hand masterpieces that reflected the remarkable musical innovations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nuanced colors and a sophisticated handling of timbre, form, and harmony are the hallmarks of this imaginative and evocative time.
Barrios, Brouwer, Gnattali & Sardinha: Enigma / André Rodrigues
Originally from Brazil, André Rodrigues distinguishes himself as a specialist in Brazilian traditional and classical repertoires. The beginning of his career took place in his homeland as an accompanist of instrumental and vocal music genres. Being a versatile musician, Rodrigues has performed on the stages of jazz, dance and theater, and has been awarded numerous prizes in national and international classical guitar competitions. André Rodrigues holds a bachelor’s degree in Brazilian popular music from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Brazil), a master’s degree in classical guitar performance from the Université de Montréal and a doctorate degree from this same institution, for which he was funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture. He has been awarded several grants by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Elinor Armer: To the Western Sea - Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin
This is an album of music set to poems of Ursula K. Le Guin, the great fantasy writer of books and poems. The composer, Elinor, had a nearly 40-year friendship with the great writer. Widely performed throughout the U.S. and abroad, Elinor Armer’s music reflects her persona in its high-hearted originality. It includes solo, chamber, orchestral, vocal and choral works, and is marked by harmonic beauty, strong narrative line, rhythmic energy, sensitivity to language, emotional expressiveness, and humor.
Auerbach, Bach, Burhans & Magidenko: Unaccompanied - Music for Bass / Braun
JOEL BRAUN is Associate Professor of Double Bass at the University of Texas at Austin. As an orchestral musician he has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and the New York City Ballet Orchestra. He participated in over a dozen national and international tours with the New York Philharmonic, including the Philharmonic’s historic trip to North Korea in 2008 under the direction of Lorin Maazel. He has performed under such eminent conductors as Kurt Masur, Jaap van Zweden, Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Muti, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Zubin Mehta, Paavo Järvi, and Alan Gilbert, among many others. He is a former member of the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic and currently serves as Assistant Principal Bass of the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of Gerard Schwarz.
On this release, he performs a program of works by Lera Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Caleb Burhans, and Olga Magidenko, alongside an original work.
Telemann: 12 Fantasias for Violin Solo / Cotik
Sitt: Works for Viola & Piano / Brink, Aznavoorian
Prague-born, Hans Sitt (1850–1922) enjoyed a decades-long career as a conductor, pedagogue, violinist, composer, editor, and arranger in France and Germany. As with his arrangements, which include the complete Beethoven and Schumann symphonies for violin and piano, many of Sitt’s original compositions were written to benefit students and amateurs. These compositions, firmly rooted in the German Romantic tradition, were praised for their pleasing melodies and solid craftsmanship.
Perhaps Sitt’s most progressive compositional approach was in his treatment of the viola as a solo instrument. After decades of neglect by both performers and composers, the viola began to see stirrings of life toward the end of the nineteenth century, and Sitt made valuable contributions to the instrument’s revival.
Composed with an accompaniment for orchestra or piano, the Romance, Op. 72, differs from his earlier works with orchestral accompaniment—the Concertstück and Viola Concerto—both of which rely more heavily on virtuosic devices. Here, lyricism reigns supreme, with the inherently vocal nature of the viola fully on display.
The set of three Fantasiestücke, op. 58 (1894) is serious in tone and harmonically complex with each movement displaying a high degree of chromaticism.
Given its origin as a piece for solo violin, it is not surprising that the Romanze, Op. 102/1, makes extended use of the viola’s upper register. The work also features fancy passagework of sixteenth notes, a favorite virtuosic device of Sitt’s.
The opening Elegie of the 3 Morceaux, Op. 75, in the somber key of F minor, turns to the major mode in the piece’s concluding moments. After a serene opening, Rêverie is disrupted by a stormier middle section, though the viola soon returns to its dreamlike musings. As a further study in contrasts, the concluding Barcarole starts off in rather turbulent manner (set in the key of G minor) before finally encountering calm waters.
The Gavotte and Mazurka, Op. 132, as the final works that Sitt composed for viola, these lighthearted dance movements demonstrate his skill at writing music in diverse styles and for different markets.
His admiration for his predecessors (notably Schumann) can be heard throughout the Albumblätter, op. 39, as he presents charming scenes of great beauty (No. 1), wistfulness (No. 2), and melancholy (No. 5). The contrasting sections of the third piece (No. 3) are suggestive of his Czech heritage, while the rhythmic complexities of the following piece (No. 4) provide variety and disorient the listener. In the final movement (No. 6), the viola’s opening whirlwind of eighth notes gives way to a 'dolce' middle section (with the eighth notes transferred to the piano) before returning to the dramatic opening material. Sitt forgoes a flashy ending by reining things in during the final eight measures, coyly returning to music from the middle section.
One of Sitt’s most enduring compositions is also among his most virtuosic concert works, the Concertstück, op. 46 (1892). Taken together with his Viola Concerto, Op. 68, these works feature beautiful cantilena lines, effective use of the viola’s various registers, and minimal use of double stops, and would have have been well suited to amateurs and students alike.
Ann Marie Brink has served as Associate Principal Viola of the Dallas Symphony for two decades. Pianist Marta Aznavoorian is known for her inspiringly spirited playing and vast emotional reach.
Fauré, Gounod, Viardot at al.: Pauline Inspired - Mélodies / Urroz, Marcellus
A French singer of Spanish origin, Pauline Viardot García (1821-1910) was a proponent of the cosmopolitan impulse that characterized European culture in the mid-19th century. She was a piano student of Liszt, a close friend of Clara Schumann, and was highly celebrated by the likes of Berlioz, Chopin, and Gounod. On this release Laure de Marcellus performs works both by and inspired by Pauline Viardot. She is joined by pianist Alberto Urroz. Her collaboration with Urroz is becoming a regular feature at Navarra’s Mendigorría Music Festival. After their last recital of a very well-received program of songs by Schubert, Liszt, and Fauré, they performed a Schumann program to rave reviews before Covid hit. They recorded this album in Spring of 2021.
Schuyler: Seven Pillars Of Wisdom / Masterson
Castrucci: Sonatas for Violin, Cello, & Harpsichord / Elias, Kishi, Palmer-Jones
Bach: Cantatas, Vol. 1 / Cantata Collective
Christus Natus Est: Sacred Christmas Duets / Deux Classical Vocal Duo
While Crystal Jarrell Johnson and Angela Malek have long enjoyed thriving careers as soloists, they have always genuinely preferred collaboration. Both singers are professionally based out of San Antonio, and in the fall of 2017 they made their official debut as Deux. They have appeared together in over 40 recitals and concerts throughout South Texas and beyond. They have appeared on the Artist Series at Texoma NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing), have been featured artists on Texas Public Radio, and have been named to the Touring Artist Roster by the Texas Commission on the Arts. Their repertoire includes a wide range of styles from early 17th century to art song, sacred music, opera, and also contemporary commissioned works.
Piazzolla, Ginastera et al: Voces Latinas / Dalí Quartet
The Dalí Quartet is acclaimed for bringing Latin American quartet repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon. In addition to works of the masters from Haydn to Brahms and Amaya to Piazzolla, the group's adventurous and entertaining programming includes new works for quartet with percussionist Orlando Cotto, and quintets both Latin and Classical with the renowned clarinetist Ricardo Morales, principal clarinetist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and with acclaimed pianist Vanessa Perez. The Dalí Quartet has an ongoing collaboration with the Van Cliburn Competition’s gold-medal winning pianist Olga Kern, with whom they have toured from coast to coast and recorded the piano quintets of Brahms and Shostakovich released on the Delos label. The Dalí Quartet is the 2021 recipient of Chamber Music America's Guarneri String Quartet Residency, funded by the Sewell Family Foundation, and the 2021 Silver Medal at the inaugural Piazzolla Music Competition.
Constantinides, Iravani & Lowry: Reflections / López Guzmán, Fernández López, Moon, Constantinides String Quartet
Six Sonatas for Trombone & Piano
Poems and Rhapsodies / Ivakhiv, Shao, Sirenko, Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra
Standards and Improvisations
