Max Reger's special position within organ repertoire places him for many as the greatest composer for the instrument since J. S. Bach. Drawing on Lutheran tradition, his Fantasia and Fugue, Op. 29 is in the spirit of Bach, though with a characteristic harmonic language which also infuses the varying complexity in the Monologues, Op. 63. The Sonata No. 1, Op. 33 reflects a connection with Liszt, concluding in an impressive Passacaglia. Award winning German organist Christian Barthen performs on an instrument from Reger's period, the 1911 Steinmeyer Organ in Mannheim which is one of the biggest in Germany.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.



It's rare to experience the level of artistic rapport heard on this recording from [Petri and Esfahani]… In Petri's capable hands, the recorder becomes a medium through which she conveys a more vocal interpretation of thematic material than ever a violin could… Esfahani crafts the most imaginative and engaging accompaniments and repartee I have ever heard.

– Gramophone Magazine

Petri and Esfahani's is an invigorating ensemble effort, with each sparking off the other.

– BBC Music Magazine

Arcangelo Corelli was "world famous" even in the world of his day. Copies of Corelli's works appeared in St. Petersburg as well as in Constantinople, Stockholm and even in America, where Thomas Jefferson spoke of being charmed completely by Corelli's music.

Despite its popularity only a handful of his original manuscripts exist today and the Violin Sonatas Op. 5 have a place of honor. The pieces on this album were drawn from the second half of Op. 5 and in the original edition of 1700, published as "Parte seconda: Preludii, Allemande, Correnti, Sarabande, Gavotte, e Follia." Baroque sonatas having been inspired by dances, and playable on violin and harpsichord or ona variety of instruments, in this case, recorder and harpsichord.

The easy-held nature of the sonatas allows great freedom for ornamentation and improvisation, which Michala Petri and Mahan Esfahani savor with pleasure.

Architetture (‘Architectures’), a concerto for orchestra in seven linked sections, was the piece that catapulted the Italian composer Giorgio Federico Ghedini to fame in his home country at the late age of 48. On this disc it is coupled with two more of his finest orchestral works. The powerful atmosphere and stunning orchestral effects of Marinaresca e baccanale (‘Sea Piece and Bacchanale’), written several years earlier, prove that Ghedini’s belated recognition was fully deserved. Contrappunti (‘Counterpoints’), which Ghedini composed much later in life, finds him responding to the inspiration of one of his lifelong musical heroes, Beethoven.

Johanna Doderer studied composition in Graz with Beat Furrer (composition), later in Vienna with Klaus Peter Sattler (film and media composition) and with Erich Urbanner (composition). Her current work ranges broadly from chamber music to orchestral work and six operas. “Doderer cares about content, not cheap effect. She is able to prove convincingly in her very densely written score that even today you can still create intense music by using sound models deriving from the late romantic period…combined in an ideal way with forms of ‘minimal music’...“ (Die Presse)

Organist Halgeir Schiager's first release on the LAWO Classics label is a tribute to German composer and organist Johann Gottlob Schneider (1789-1864). Today Schneider is virtually forgotten, but in his time he was compared to Paganini and given the sobriquet "king of organists." He represents organ literature between Bach and Mendelssohn, traditionally regarded as a period of decline.

SWITZERLAND



 


The Places


The musical tour starts in Zürich and moves to the hill-top village of Regensberg. The farmland of Emmental is seen, with Lake Thun and the waterfalls of Lauterbrunnen. Still more impressive is the great Matterhorn and a tribute to mountaineers who have lost their lives there. Zermatt, a popular ski resort as well as a base for climbers, is also seen in the milder days of summer.


 


The Music


Music for the tour is taken from the first two of Mozart's Violin Concertos, written in Salzburg in 1773 and in 1775 respectively. Mozart composed his five Violin Concertos either for his own use or for the Italian violinist Antonio Brunetti, who was employed, with Mozart, in the musical establishment of the Prince-Archbishop in Salzburg.


 


Picture format: NTSC 4.3
Sound format: Dolby Digital / DTS Surround
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 58 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

"Bach: Sonatas" is the fourth recording in Kåre Nordstoga's series of Bach's complete organ works. The main works on this double-CD are the six "Trio Sonatas".
As a definitive collection of etudes, the trio sonatas are for classical organists what Czerny’s studies are for pianists. Playing the organ requires the ability to manoeuvre independent lines in both hands and the pedals, and this is perfected playing Bach’s sonatas. In the words of Bach connoisseur Albert Schweitzer:
"To this very day they are the Gradus ad Parnassum for every organist. Whoever has studied them thoroughly will thereafter encounter scarcely a single difficulty. The slightest unevenness in touch is heard with appalling clearness in this complicated trio playing.
The sonatas are a book of study not only for performers, but for composers as well. Bach’s private lessons for gifted students required a repertoire for the study of the noble art of polyphony. At the same time, this is concert music and art in its full complexity, where the art of polyphony is cultivated alongside the most moving melodie."

Classical Music

The Places - Northern Italy has been variously ruled, over the centuries. South Tyrol, seen here, retains much of it's Austrian past, with some regions predominantly German-speaking and others Italian. Scenes are shown of Brixen (Bressanone), with it's Cathedral and Bishop's Palace, and various historic castles, including Castel Tirolo. The Music - Music for the tour is by Mozart, with two Piano Concertos, one written in Salzburg in 1777 for a visiting French pianist and the other composed during the last year of Mozart's life, at the end of a decade spent in independence in Vienna.

Classical Music

This disc received the 2001 Gramophone magazine award for "Best Chamber Recording."

Classical Music

Classical Music

Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

The Places:

The tour starts in Uzbekistan, of which there are later glimpses. There is a visit to the historic Russian town of Suzdal and scenes from St Petersburg as well as from Ukraine. It would be impossible to avoid the Russian winter, which appears in various guises, providing entertainment for some and for others a seemingly enchanted snow-bound landscape.

The Music:

The music for the tour is taken from Russian composers who were, by and large, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of their country. This is reflected in Lyadov's arrangement of a series folk-songs and his translation of Russian legend into music. Other composers represented are Ippolitov-Ivanov, Kabalevsky and Anton Rubinstein, with two well known excerpts from unfinished operas by Mussorgsky.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Carlo Ferrari: Sei Sonate per Violoncello e Basso Continuo,

This fifth disc in the Naxos series of the complete Schumann Lieder features one of the key works of the entire 19th century song repertoire, Frauenliebe und -leben. Written during the summer of 1840 at a time when Schumann and his wife-to-be Clara were fighting in court over the right to marry.

HAYDN Piano Trios: No. 24 in D; No. 25 in G; No. 26 in f?; No. 31 in e? • Kungsbacka Pn Trio • NAXOS 8.572040 (52: 35)


This disc offers an intriguing set of paradoxes. But let’s first state that it is quite wonderful. The Adagio cantabile of Trio No. 26 is that of the Adagio of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102—and yet it is not. The notes are very much the same; one easily follows the symphony’s score during the trio, translating the first violin part to the piano and the winds to the violin. But the movement now makes a totally different impression, sweet and calm instead of solid and intense. This is not just the performance, and the Kungsbacka demonstrates elsewhere that it can be appropriately intense. In its complete set, Haydn Trio Eisenstadt (which I admire greatly) hews close to the symphony’s Adagio, and it just doesn’t work.


As I seem to repeat in every issue, there is no single right way to play Haydn, assuming competence and taste. This ensemble produces the impression of period practice, and yet Simon Crawford Phillips’s piano is clearly a modern grand. He achieves delicate, pearl-like tones in Haydn’s rising and falling phrases, but he sometimes pounds cadences in codas. These performances are thoughtful and relaxed (the andantes are especially lovely), with little of the sparkle of the Beaux Arts Trio’s recordings—which are in turn seldom contemplative and can wear one down with their consistent flash. Each complements the other, and many recordings lie in between; yet the Kungsbacka races through the presto “Hungarian Rondo” of No. 25 as fast as any group. If you prefer one complete set, I recommend Haydn Trio Eisenstadt on Phoenix Edition ( Fanfare 32:5). I prefer the variety of multiple ensembles, and these four trios mesh neatly with a disc of Nos. 21–23 by Trio 1790 on cpo (Complete Piano Trios Vol. 4) and Nos. 27–30 by Robert Levin, Vera Beths, and Anner Byslma on Sony. Add to these PentaTone’s two-SACD set of nine early trios by the Beaux Arts: no duplications, and you get both modern and period instruments.


FANFARE: James H. North

Described by USA Today as 'one of Penderecki' most colorful and extroverted ', the Credo is a sweeping, lavishly scored and highly Romantic setting of the Catholic profession of faith.

I have to confess, I seldom listen to these pieces. Not because everyone agrees that they aren't "great" Mozart, but because most performances usually fall into one of two equally loathsome categories, which for convenience we may call Flutezilla vs. The Antiques Road Show. First, there is Flutezilla--the ego-boosting display of some star soloist who simply must record these concertos because Mozart wrote them and, let's face it, no other great composer between the Baroque period and the 20th century cared enough about the flute to even attempt to compose anything similarly worth playing. These productions usually feature the soloist blasting away on an instrument over-miked to the point where, regarding balance with the orchestra, it offers the aural equivalent of Godzilla stomping on teeny tiny Tokyo--"Tokyo" in this case being represented by a bargain-basement ensemble (I Solisti di Fresno, perhaps?) usually bored out of its mind, led by a no-talent, no-name conductor for whom excitement means having everyone start and end more or less at the same time (never mind what happens along the way). More than a few great flutists have thus been defeated by these lovely, unassuming works when played and recorded in such a fashion.


Then there's The Antiques Road Show. This more recent, second batch of vile recordings comes from those terribly earnest period-instrument folks. Here it's the flutist who's usually the one with no name and no talent, as well as no timbre and no intonation, playing some "authentically replicated copy" of an 18th-century wooden atrocity impressively designated as a "flauto traverso" or some such--as if it makes one iota of difference if the player blows the ghastly thing sideways, front-ways, backwards, upside down, or under water. Any way you slice it, the instrument sounds like a whistling tea-kettle in distress, with far more hiss of escaping air than musical tone. But in this case, the soloist has the backing of some "très à la mode" period-instrument pick-up band attacking the music with a sadistically ferocious ideological fervor more appropriate to the Manson family or the Symbionese Liberation Army than to a proper chamber orchestra. Naturally the soloist doesn't stand a chance, and given the appalling quality of the instrument in question, this probably is a good thing when all is said and done.


All of which is a long way of saying that I have no hesitation in declaring this to be the finest recording of Mozart's flute concertos currently available, and believe me, I've suffered through most of them. It has everything: a first rate soloist, a marvelous orchestra obviously mindful of period practice but playing modern instruments, an intelligently added harpsichord continuo (especially wonderful as a foil to the timbre of the harp), and boundless enthusiasm from all concerned. It's captured by Naxos in excellently balanced, warm, pellucidly clear sound. All it takes is about 10 seconds' listening to any single movement in any of these three works to make the outstanding quality of the musicianship self evident. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra launches the opening Allegro aperto of the Second Concerto (wisely placed first on the disc) with infectious rhythmic drive, and from the moment of Patrick Gallois' joyous, chirping entrance the performance flies by like a force of nature.


Listen to how characterfully the horn and oboe parts contribute to the opening tutti of the Concerto for Flute and Harp, and to the lively and luscious interplay between harpist Fabrice Pierre and Gallois throughout their many exchanges over the course of the movement. Taut rhythms and vivid accents keep the ear consistently engaged from first note to last. The long central Adagio of the First concerto is so beautiful that you easily could enjoy it for another nine minutes, and Gallois' cadenzas in all three works never outstay their welcome, being as fresh and pithy as Mozart's own music. No praise could be higher than to note how, in the same concerto's concluding Tempo di Menuetto, so often a dreary chore in other performances, Gallois & Cie manage to find a tempo both stately, as befits a minuet, but also energetically forward-moving, as befits a concerto finale. Really there's no reason to own any other version of this music, particularly given Naxos' budget price. As for the recording(s) already in your collection, they'll make a classy set of coasters. [11/15/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Acclaimed as 'a most nimble and clean fingered soloist', Pedro Casals is an ideal interpreter of Manuel Blasco de Nebra' delightful keyboard music.

Following the release of their highly praised Naxos recording of Faure' Piano Quintets - 'warmly expressive, their phrasing generous and intense' - Cristina Ortiz and the Fine Arts Quartet again join forces for this recording of Franck' Piano Quintet.

Frank Bridge is today recognized as one of the most gifted figures in British musical life before World War I. His Piano Quintet, a work of personal significance prompted by the absence of his fiancee, is notable for its passionate, lyrical, and forceful language, the Rachmaninov-like technical demands of the piano part calling for a virtuoso pianist. Debussy described Cyril Scott's exotic harmonic language as "an intoxication for the ear", and the First Piano Quintet is a multi-faceted work that mirrors Scott's flamboyant public persona while maintaining a genuinely poetic inner beauty.