Fifteen years before Chopin wrote his first "nocturne", Irish pianist/composer John Field composed his Nocturne No. 1 in E-flat major, followed by at least 15 more pieces in the same style. In these short works for solo piano, Field--who was one of the most celebrated pianists in the world during the first quarter of the 19th century--put form to the idea of a contemplative, lyrical composition, specifically tailored to the piano's expressive capabilities. These "night" pieces are primarily characterized by a dominant, gracefully flowing melody, with most of the harmonic activity in the pianist's left hand. Although other pianists have recorded at least some of Field's Nocturnes--most notably John O'Conor (Telarc) and Miceál O'Rourke (Chandos)--Benjamin Frith's own uniquely inflected, poetic readings have a satisfying aura of intimacy cast in the warm colors of his well-tempered, expertly recorded piano. Although O'Conor's playing is more lyrical, with more fluid legatos, Frith generally takes more time--and these invariably lovely pieces blossom just as fully and brilliantly. The two sonatas are not notable for their originality--they owe much to their dedicatee, Field's teacher Clementi--but they reveal the young composer's gift for understanding the piano's unique voice. This is music for everyone--for any time of day, for any prevailing mood--and we're lucky to have such a fine pianist as Frith joining the Field field. [10/22/1999] --David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Recorded in: Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk 1-3 March 1992 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Richard Lee

KRUFFT Bassoon Sonatas: in F; in Bb, “Grande” • Wouter Verschuren (bn); Kathryn Cok (fp) (period instruments) • CHALLENGE 72313 (61:32)

The name of Nikolaus von Krufft (1779–1818) might have been better known had he lived past the age of 39. As it happened, it simply wasn’t to be. He apparently succumbed to exhaustion while burning the candle at both ends. By day Krufft was a civil servant, and by night a composer. His musical legacy is small, and includes sonatas for violin, bassoon, and horn, plus a set of 24 preludes and fugues for piano after Sebastian Bach. Krufft’s Lieder are his most significant accomplishments, comprising his most influential body of work, which exerted a large influence on Franz Schubert.


The sonatas recorded here date from 1807 and 1818, respectively, and are certainly among the most difficult works from the era, surpassing the technical demands made on the soloist by Mozart in his Bassoon Concerto. Krufft places the instruments on equal footing, challenging not only the bassoonist but also the fortepianist with leaps of more than two-and-one-half octaves and dazzlingly brilliant runs. Both sonatas, though written in the early years of Romanticism, and clearly Classical in tone, owe more to the ghosts of Haydn and Mozart than to the youthful and muscular works of Beethoven.


The performances turned in here are about as good as one could want with virtuosic, elegant, and seamless playing from both participants. The light tone of Wouter Verschuren’s 1810 Cuvillier bassoon is nicely matched by the sparkling character of Gerard Tuinman’s 2007 copy of an 1805 Walther and Sohn fortepiano played by Kathryn Cok; and the recorded sound faithfully reproduces the unique tonal qualities of each of the instruments.


For the most part, the appeal of this compact disc will probably be limited, but those who are bitten by the bug certainly won’t be disappointed.

FANFARE: Michael Carter

Classical Music

Any new release of Goyescas faces unavoidable comparison to Alicia de Larrocha's standard-setting interpretation (her 1976 Decca version is the finest of her four recordings). Happily, Douglas Riva's persuasive playing stands up well to such formidable competition. Having prepared a critical edition of Granados' piano works, Riva knows this music cold, and dispatches its colorful, multi-leveled textures and idiosyncratic figurations with fluent elegance. True, he doesn't command De Larrocha's wide vocabulary of articulations, nor her fearless dynamism. Yet his stylish, clear-cut playing benefits from engineering that's superior to Decca's tubby sonics. As a bonus, Riva includes the previously unrecorded "Serenata goyesca", a slight, rather inconclusive piece that may have formed part of Goyescas' first draft. Riva provides his own excellent, informative annotations. A highly recommended release. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

FÜR ELISE - ROMANTIC PIANO MUSIC

HUMMEL: Sonata for Mandolin and Fortepiano / Flute Sonata /

Includes work(s) by Franz Liszt. Ensemble: Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Michael Gielen. Soloist: Alfred Brendel.

Andres Segovia was born in Linares on the 21st February 1893 and died in Madrid on the 2nd June 1987. His transcriptions of works by several notable composers, especially Bach, as featured here, brought him lasting world wide fame. Amongst his many disciples was a guitarist now generally acknowledged as one of the greatest ' John Williams.Collected here and recorded separately are both guitarists interpreting Bach's work based on Segovia's original transcriptions. The perfect companion to FAB CD 198 which features John Williams's earliest recordings.

The master pianist performs material by Chopin and Rachmaninoff.

Classical Crossover trio The Texas Tenors are back with a brand new studio album RISE! These PBS stars have assembled an award winning team to create a collection of timeless Americana classics and highly anticipated new original songs. RISE features over 100 of the world's finest musicians including a 65-piece orchestra and full choir with Grammy, Emmy and Academy Award winning producers, songwriters and engineers. The Texas Tenors pour their heart and soul into favorites like Desperado, Bruno Mars' Just the Way You Are and rousingly patriotic God Bless America. RISE also features a once in a lifetime duet with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers on TTT's You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'. Along with phenomenal covers, the tenors are excited to debut several original songs like the haunting ballad I Don't Want to Let You Go and the title song RISE that will inspire and stir the soul. This brand new album features everything from John Denver to Puccini and is the quintessential collection of music for the modern Classical Crossover genre.

Classical Music

Classical Music

2019 release from Joshua Redman and Brooklyn Rider. The album comprises eight compositions from a suite by composer Patrick Zimmerli. Each piece in the suite, which premiered at London's Wigmore Hall in 2014, represents a different expression of light. Bassist Scott Colley and drummer Satoshi Takeishi perform as well. Redman previously worked with Zimmerli when the latter created orchestral arrangements of Redman's compositions for the 2013 Nonesuch album Walking Shadows.

Classical Music

Classical Music

From chorales to folkloristic songs; classical lieder to large-scale oratorios, and embracing the secular and the sacred, the Christmas season vocal music has long been omnipresent within the musical traditions of the holiday season. Ensemble Vokalzeit presents a collection that highlights the multiplicity of traditions that are woven within this season of transformation and celebration.

DVO?ÁK String Quartets Nos. 10-14. Cypresses • Panocha Qrt • SUPRAPHON SU4048-2 (3 CDs: 202:46)


Supraphon is finding new and exciting ways to encourage you to sample the Panocha’s much-admired 1983–95 recordings of Dvo?ák’s string quartets. Should you have collected some individual volumes and run out of steam, you now have the chance to acquire this slimline three-CD set containing the last five quartets, and Cypresses in the bargain. But if you bought the box set of all the quartets and have seldom played the early ones—I shouldn’t think it likely, but it is, I suppose, possible —then it’s also the case that you might cast a jaundiced eye over this selection of the best-known works and wonder why you didn’t hold out.


Whatever you may or may not have done, one can hardly argue with a label that seeks to maximize profits this way, or, to put it another way, to reinvestigate means by which to propagate its recorded legacy and that of its artists. The Panocha is a highly distinguished group, certainly, but it has its rivals, current and past. It also rivals itself, given that it’s made other recordings of this repertoire for other labels. For example, almost a decade after recording Nos. 10 and 14, it rerecorded them for Camerata (28093). The “new” Panocha proved here to be a touch fleeter than the old. James H. North certainly admired both accounts in Fanfare 32:1, as do I, though I like the Prague Quartet’s DG accounts equally, in their very different ways. There is more pathos in the Prague recordings, made between 1973 and 1977, but their heavier bowing and boomier acoustic accords them a somewhat inflated sound. This may or may not please, but it is certainly to be distinguished from the Panocha’s lighter collective qualities.


Another leading Czech group, the Stamitz, has also recorded the full set and most impressively. It’s now to be had complete on Brilliant 99949. They tend to relax just that bit more than their rivals, but evince a genuinely memorable approach. They are very convincing in the op. 106 quartet but in its rather cavernous, distant way, so too is the Prague. Many contemporary ensembles take this quartet in a quasi-symphonic way, piling it with almost neurotic intensity. Fortunately none of these three Czech groups do that. Indeed the Panocha plays with discretion and appropriate tonal weight, arguably a touch more vibrant than either the Stamitz or the Prague in the slow movement.


One can argue the swings and roundabouts of this all day. I find the Prague a touch more patrician in phrasing than either the Stamitz or Panocha, but oddly, rather more openly expressive in a number of the slow movements. Perhaps Cypresses offers a clue: The Panocha plays the fourth, a poco adagio , as a recollected-in-tranquility elegy. The Prague, meanwhile, prefers a more measured melancholy. The difference is between the heightened mobility of the Panocha and the stately reflection of the Prague, a pretty accurate reflection of the expressive differences generally. This also applies to the Panocha’s recent remake, again on Camerata (CMCD-28206), where it’s coupled with Quartet No. 13


Where does this leave us? This three-CD set offers the bulk of Dvo?ák’s greatest quartets, or “The Essential String Quartets” as the cover puts it, in idiomatic, beautifully nuanced readings. The complete set is on Supraphon 3815-2, but this selection of the last quartets contains recordings that are, even in a crowded field, among the best around.


FANFARE: Jonathan Woolf

The pedal harp was presented in 1749 in a concert spiritual in Paris with unexpected, sensational success. Contrary to the earlier rattling, clattering harps equipped with a "manual switch", the semitones on the newly invented harp could be changed by foot, almost inaudibly. Experiments continued to be carried out for decades after, but this harp of single-action pedals completely changed the fate of the instrument. From the first great classical era of the harp, that being the second half of the 18th c., comes this presents selection of works for harp. Csilla Gulyás is a regular and oft-heard performer on the Hungarian musical scene; Classical Sonatas for Harp is her fourth Hungaroton recording.

This Bach program was recorded at Saint John the Baptist Church, Zsámbék on its 1770 period constructed organ, an instrument whose sound was deemed perfect for these works. + Miklós Teleki, one of the most prominent musicians on Hungaroton’s 2014 roster, performs several dozens concerts annually in Hungary and has given recitals across Europe and the USA. + He is teacher of organ at the László Hermann elementary and secondary music school in Székesfehérvár, Hungary.

Making exclusive use of their own adaptations of masterworks, the Deutsche Saxophone Ensemble have embarked on a project to rework nearly the entire German musical tradition with the youngest of all musical instruments - the saxophone! DSE brings new clarity to polyphonic masterpieces with these fresh arrangements that must to be heard to be believed.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Marina Rebeka is one of the most successful sopranos of her generation. To mark the occasion of the upcoming Rossini year of 2018, she and the Munchner Rundfunkorchester, conducted by Marco Armiliato, have recorded an album of highly dramatic opera arias that is now being released by BR-KLASSIK. The album "Amor fatale" offers the opportunity to reacquaint oneself with the great soprano arias from Rossini's less well-known but musically convincing tragic operas, in a fine interpretation.The concept album entitled "Amor fatal" focuses on powerful female roles from the operas Otello, Armida, La donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake), Maometto II, Semiramide (Semiramis), Moïse et Pharaon (Moses and Pharaoh) and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). The women are obliged to choose between love and duty, and frequently have to subordinate their personal fate to that of their family, nation or homeland.The Latvian soprano has quite some experience with roles in Rossini, above all from his great tragic operas: the role of Anna Erisso from Maometto II, which she performed in 2008 at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the composer’s birthplace, marked the very start of her career. She went on to attract international attention in 2009 when she debuted at the Salzburg Festival, as Anaï in Moïse et Pharaon. For her album she has worked through Rossini's original handwritten manuscripts and included this in her performance; she also developed her own coloratura, which not only suits her voice both musically and technically, but also best corresponds to the specific stage events and emotions encountered in her respective operatic roles.