Jose Serebrier / DVORAK: COMPLETE SYMPHONIES LEGENDS SLAVONIC - The much-lauded recordings of Dvorak's symphonies by one of the most recorded conductors of his generation, Jose Serebrier with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. These performances have been praised for their considerable expressivity, remarkable handling of detail and supreme orchestral balance. The works are accompanied by a variety of other concert pieces, among which are a selection of Dvorak's lively, nationalist-driven Slavonic Dances as well as the wonderfully lyrical Legends, endearing miniature tone poems which reveal the Czech composer's mastery of the shortest forms. WARNER CLASSICS Seven CD box set.

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'Claude Debussy is still the greatest musical enigma that has ever existed,' said Aldo Ciccolini. 'You never get to the bottom of his music. That is perhaps why he will never be forgotten: people will never give up trying to make sense of him. Debussy never fails to surprise you and his music has a charm that is quite indefinable.' Ciccolini, though born in Naples, confessed to having a French soul and he distinguished himself as a supremely subtle and illuminating interpreter of the composer who described himself as 'musicien francais'.

Two discs of treasures by one of Spain's greatest sopranos! She sings arias from Verdi's Aida; Boito's Mefistofele ; Rossini's Guillaume Tell ; Puccini's Madama Butterfly ; songs by Turina and Montsalvatge, and more!

2014 limited edition Maria Callas remastered series 180 G vinyl LP pressing reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. One of the 20th century's most legendary and enduring icons, Maria Callas was both a glamorous diva and a global superstar who captivated audiences worldwide with her vivid and passionate performances. This special album features Callas in a glittering selection of opera favorites that showcase her unique voice and her heartbreaking portrayal of tragic heroines.

Beethoven's 16 string quartets occupy a place of honor in the chamber repertoire. 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, and Quatuor Ebene is recognizing this with an extensive tour, entitled Beethoven Around the World. Over that period the French ensemble will give over 120 concerts in a total of 21 countries on six continents, focusing on complete cycles of the quartets from February 2020. Beethoven Around the World encompasses live recordings for Erato, building a complete cycle, made in seven of the world's great cities: Vienna (at the Konzerthaus); Philadelphia (Kimmel Center); Tokyo (Suntory Hall); Sao Paulo (Sala Sao Paulo); Melbourne (Melbourne Recital Centre); Nairobi, and, with the support of UNESCO, Paris (Philharmonie de Paris).

In this album, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles have chosen to present Mahler’s First Symphony in its second version, that of Hamburg/Weimar (1893-94) - a unique opportunity to hear the symphonic poem Titan. By allowing us to follow the genesis of this first large scale work, Titan opens the doors of Mahler’s artistic workshop at a crucial moment in the creative process: the transition from the youthful effort of 1889 to the Symphony in D major of 1896, which established Mahler as one of the foremost symphonists of the modern era.

 

REVIEW:

 

The recording sticks a feather in the cap of Les Siècles, among the most adaptable and engaging of today’s historically informed ensembles formed in the image of their director… I applaud, too, Roth’s unabashed commitment to those passages where Mahler himself later had second thoughts – deft and ingenious ones, to be sure, but thinning out its red blood cells in the process.. a required supplement to any decent-size Mahler library.

 

– Gramophone

A transformative force in music, dance and the visual arts, the Ballets russes was founded in Paris in 1909 by the visionary impresario Serge Diaghilev. Innovative and flamboyant, he had a genius for bringing together the most brilliant composers, dancers, choreographers and designers, for nurturing creativity, and for galvanising audiences. Emblematic of the influence of the Ballets russes was the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps: it caused a notorious scandal, but it also changed musical history. This 22CD set traces the company's path through the 20 years of it's existence - a tumultuous, but artistically fertile period - and comprises the vast majority of Ballets russes scores that have been recorded. Encompassing epoch-making works and rarities awaiting rediscovery, it offers a number of CD premieres and landmark interpretations by major musicians of the 78, LP and digital eras.

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V 10: COMPLETE SONATAS, K 428-

Over two evenings in 1983 (February 4th and November 7th) in the concert hall of Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, the world-famous pianist Ivan Moravec spellbound the audience with his majestic performance. This master of the piano’s precision marries cultivated tone and widely differentiated articulation, augmented by deep musical élan. Each tone has absolute logic within the order of the composition he interprets, be it Beethoven’s expansive Sonata in D major, “Pastoral”, or the seemingly smaller pieces by Brahms and Chopin. And it is precisely in the latter that Ivan Moravec excels as a master of tiny area, which he wondrously chases in stylistic terms and renders ebulliently. The live recording breathes in the airy atmosphere of the concert hall, one that can hardly be evoked in studio albums. The recording clearly shows that the world of Beethoven’s, Chopin’s and Brahms’s piano works is close to the essence of Moravec’s being.

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REVIEW:

Within the first few seconds of the first track--the Sonata No. 1 in G major--most listeners will find themselves in surprisingly familiar territory--surprising because this little-known 18th-century composer seems to have written a popular tune long attributed to Pergolesi, a misattribution given additional false credibility by its use in Stravinsky's Pulcinella. In fact Stravinsky used selections from several of Domenico Gallo's trio sonatas in his famous ballet music, thinking them to be works of Pergolesi because they were published under his name in late-19th century English editions.

Ultimately--other than the fact that it's always nice to set the record straight--the author of these expertly written and very appealing works for violins, cello, and harpsichord is not so important as what they offer to listeners and to performers. (For the record, even Gallo's authorship isn't absolutely certain for all 12 sonatas.)

As realized by these four excellent players and their well-matched period instruments, we can count on a steadfastly upbeat, uplifting hour and 10 minutes of first rate chamber music notable for its lovely, lively melodies and skillfully varied textures and harmonic settings. Gallo shows much of his best stuff in his slow movements--and so do the performers, who demonstrate their facility in bringing out the music's emotional core. Good examples are the slow movements of No. 2 in B-flat, No. 3 in C minor, and the very Bach-like No. 6 in D major for which, unfortunately, you'll have to do a little searching because each work is served by only one track number. Throughout, the playing is stylish and full of personality, buoyed by unfaltering technical confidence and assured ensemble interaction. The sound is intimate, warm, and resonant. It's not Bach; it's not even Pergolesi. But it's well worth a place in your CD collection, especially as this set contains pieces you won't find anywhere else. Perhaps Parnassi musici and/or other musicians will be motivated to explore and record the many other works by Gallo that remain unpublished and unperformed.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

PIANO CONCERTOS 1 & 2

FOERSTER Violin Concertos: No. 1 in c; 1 No. 2 in d • Ivan Ženatý (vn); Ji?í B?lohlávek, cond; BBC SO • SUPRAPHON 3961 (65:23) Live: London 12/8/2007 1


Jan Kubelík urged Josef Bohuslav Foerster to write his First Violin Concerto, which Kubelík played for the first time in Chicago in October 1910. It’s a grand Romantic work, as ingratiating melodically as Bruch’s or Goldmark’s concertos but colored—or, at least, tinted—with references to the composer’s Czech ethnicity but even more strongly influenced by the virtuoso tradition, which it perhaps owes to Kubelík, who wrote a cadenza for the premiere that bejewels its soaring melodiousness. (The notes also explain that the Concerto served as a sort of test run for Foerster’s fourth opera, The Unvanquished , with its violinist-composer hero.) Ivan Ženatý plays the work’s first movement authoritatively, adding his own cadenza, which differs in style—as so many violinists’ cadenzas do—from the composer’s passages that surround it. Ženatý draws a rich tone from the lower registers of the 1743 Prince of Orange Guarneri del Gesù and a pure and clean sound from its upper ones; such tonal opulence enables him to mine the slow movement’s rich melodic vein. The third movement opens with a triple-time dance-like theme; many virtuoso concertos concluded with dance-like finales, but this one, marked Allegro grazioso , seems more elegantly balletic. Ženatý is at home in the work’s declamatory passages (as at the first movement’s opening) as well as in the ruminative slow movement or in the comparatively genial finale. The engineers have balanced the sonorous orchestral part and the brilliant solo in this live performance (with applause at the end). I believe the performance of the First Concerto on Orfeo 403971 may no longer be available.


The Second Concerto (the program claims to offer the first complete performance of both works), the notes accede, has not claimed the attention of violinists. Sketched in 1917 and 1918 and completed in 1926, the Concerto received its premiere on January 19, 1927. Of a piece with the First Concerto melodically, the Second nevertheless lacks its bravura, relying more heavily on pervasive lyricism. But such ingratiating melodiousness, projected against occasionally gauzy orchestration, should compensate for the Concerto’s lack of brilliance. The first two movements, marked Andante sostenuto and Andante moderato (the second movement flowing almost seamlessly out of the first), finally give way to a concluding Allegro. But while those first two movements hardly lack drama—the orchestra occasionally surges as sonorously as it does in Chausson’s Poème or Delius’s Concerto—the general atmosphere remains ecstatically if intimately tranquil. Even the finale, which begins with a hint of the folk dance, settles back into its characteristic melodic warmth. The recorded sound remains balanced throughout the Second Concerto in a way similar to that of the First, though the studio recording sessions took place on December 4–5, 2007, at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios.


Foerster’s violin concertos offer a continuation of the luxurious melodic flow of those by Bruch, Goldmark, and, especially, Dvo?ák; and Ženatý’s sympathetic performances should provide a warm-hearted introduction to them even for listeners not favorably disposed to the violin music of this period. Very strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Violinist/composer Karol Lipinski (1790-1861) has been dubbed the "Polish Paganini". Is that nickname a compliment or something of a slight? The two men were contemporaries who at first meeting were mutual admirers and even colleagues in presenting double concerts; later, their partnership soured, and now Lipinski's soubriquet might sound more like second-best than a mark of distinction. And although Lipinski's contemporaries left records of their admiration for his performing skills (among his fans were Berlioz, Schumann, and Wagner), we can only directly judge his merit by his compositions.


Like the Italian violinist, Lipinski focused his energies on writing caprices and concertos for the violin--horrendously difficult works that meander quite a bit, as evidenced on this disc, while providing a compelling platform for a talented technician to let sparks fly. Here, French/German violinist Albrecht Breuninger and conductor Wojciech Rajski reexamine Lipinski in a program that features a complete reading of his second violin concerto as well as the allegro movements from Lipinski's third and fourth concertos. (Lipinski was not a composer of any great brevity; each allegro runs about 15 minutes.) These concertos may have all the heft of a cream puff, but all the tricks of a virtuoso violinist's trade are here: flashy runs, extended trills, dazzling pizzicato passages, the whole spectrum of bowing techniques, outrageous string crossings, and a tonal range that takes the soloist to every left-hand position possible.


And Breuninger soars; his light and unerring touch, such as in the concluding two minutes of the third concerto's Allegro movement, makes these thrilling passages sound like child's play. These showcases are where Lipinski really excels, but don't overlook the sensual lyricism of the one Adagio (from the second concerto), where Breuninger's masterful sense of phrasing brings out all of the piece's shapeliness. The orchestral accompaniment is no less showy: the haughty, pompous opening to the "Concerto Militaire" signals Lipinski's love of grand gestures, and Rajski and his forces dispatch their duty with plenty of zest. The orchestral sound is more two-dimensional than would be ideal; the colors of the brass and winds in particular are quite muted in favor of putting Breuninger upfront. By contrast, the violinist's sound is vibrant and fully realized.
--Anastasia Tsioulcas, ClassicsToday.com

Without doubt, this French domestic release is the finest single disc of Poulenc concertos available, better even than the composer's recordings, and that's saying a lot. They have everything: style, spirit, a vivid sense of fun, a touch of sentiment that never turns maudlin, and that ability to change moods every few bars that Poulenc always requires. In the Concerto for Two Pianos Eric Le Sage and Frank Braley have a field day tossing phrases back and forth, or hauntingly recreating those gamelan sounds that infiltrate the work at critical moments (particularly at the end of the first movement). From the delicious, faux-Mozartian central Larghetto to the jazzy finale, the players relish every nuance. It's a blast.


Here, as in the other two works, conductor Stéphane Denève perfectly captures the wry, "sec" quality of Poulenc's orchestral writing with vivacious rhythmic underpinning and crystal clear textures. La Sage's interpretation of the Piano Concerto simply wipes the floor with the competition. He's one of the few artists who knows how to savor the music's salon ambience without wallowing, and the tempos he and Denève choose are ideal. Aubade, an odd ballet/concerto that has been frequently recorded, seldom satisfactorily, for once enjoys an accompaniment as characterful and involving as the piano part, with terrific contributions from the solo winds. The final couple of minutes are simply magical. Beautifully clean, well-balanced sonics round out this enticing picture. Let's hope RCA makes this release available internationally. It's unbeatable. [5/12/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The artistic breakthrough of the pianist Van Cliburn came in 1958 when he won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in his early 20s. It was also a political sensation, coming as it did in the midst of the Cold War, and his recording of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto later sold millions of copies. Van Cliburn had begun to play the piano at the age of four and later attended the famous Juilliard School in New York. After Moscow he was soon invited to the world’s big concert halls, as for example in 1964 to give a solo recital at the Salzburg Festival (his one and only ever performance there).

There, as ever, he demonstrated a fully developed technique and a unique art of interpretation, offering an impetuous programme that ranged from Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata via Chopin’s b-minor Sonata op. 58 to the less well-known Sonata op. 26 by Samuel Barber. Two years before his Salzburg debut, Van Cliburn had organized the first “Van Cliburn International Piano Competition” in Fort Worth in Texas, which has since become an important first step in the career of many young pianists. Van Cliburn performed less in public from the 1970s onwards, but occasionally returned to the limelight and in 2003 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honour. He died in Fort Worth on 27 February 2013.

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Friedrich Kuhlau Was the Most Cosmopolitan Personality in Danish Music at the Beginning of the 19th Century. A Creative, Forward-Looking and Extremely Productive Composer, He Rarely Let His Pen Lie Idle. The Two Piano Quartets Recorded on This CD By the Young Copenhagen Piano Quartet Are Major Works from the Composer's Most Artistically Fertile Decade, Besides Testifying to Kuhlau's Own Brilliance As a Pianist.

This recording includes a fascinating program: Luciano Berio's iconic adaptation of Johannes Brahms' Clarinet Sonata No. 1 combined with Detlev Glanert's recent arrangement of Brahms' late vocal masterpiece, Four Serious Songs. Also included is Glanert's new orchestral work Weites Land written in the spirit of Brahms. This disc includes as its soloists award-winning clarinetist Kari Kriikku and German baritone Michael Nagy. This is the second release of Estonian conductor Olari Elts together with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Detlev Glanert was, like Brahms, born in Hamburg. A pupil of Diether de la Motte and Hans Werner Henze, Glanert has long felt a deep connection with Brahms' music through "a specific North German tradition, in which I believe myself to be connected with Brahms, to do with a melancholy in his pieces, with a certain severity." Luciano Berio was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1986 to provide an orchestral version of the first of the two late sonatas Brahms composed in 1894, two years prior to the Serious Songs. Berio created a 25-minute concerto, although retaining the designation "Sonata". Berio's treatment of Brahms' was highly respectful and straightforward and the solo part is almost identical with the origina lsonata.

Beethoven’s opus of 32 piano sonatas, known as “the New Testament of piano music,” is a landmark in piano literature. Spanning Beethoven’s entire life, the sonatas reflect his whole development as a human being and a musician, moving from one century into the next, from one epoch in music in to another. With the sonatas “Pathetique,” “Moonlight,” “Waldstein,” “Appassionata,” “Hammerklavier,” and the final sonata op. 111, the cycle contains some of the most known piano pieces of all time. Now, for the first time in its history the complete cycle was performed at the Salzburg Festival. For this challenge the Festival asked no less than the world-renowned and influential Beethoven expert and pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. With more than 45 performances of Beethoven’s complete sonata cycle in concert halls all over the world and his relentless drive to discover new details and facets in the sonatas through meticulous study of the scores, “Buchbinder has set new standards in the interpretation of Beethoven’s works.” (Bayerischer Rundfunk). As a bonus, this release includes a 36 minute interview with Rudolf Buchbinder about the Beethoven Piano Sonatas.

New chamber compositions by Telemann made available to the concert world by intensive research and in modern score editions form the focus of the Magdeburg Sunday Concerts, in German: the "Sonntagsmusiken." klassik. com described our first album with Advent and Christmas cantatas as "A treasure trove of brilliant sacred arias!" The arias on the second portion of this series involve pieces taken from "complete" sacred compositions and performed in Hamburg’s principal places of worship during the church year 1726-27. The two arias contained in a particular sacred composition were removed from their context for the purposes of publication. The Eisenach court secretary Johann Friedrich Helbig was the author of the texts for the church compositions and the arias included in them. Telemann packed a great deal into the concentrated aria space. We might say that he balanced the minimum of the ensemble with compositional intensity and complexity in respect of melodic formation as well as with the thematic design of the basses, forceful declamation and rhythmic scheme, and the large spectrum of keys and harmonic manifoldness.

Donald Francis Tovey famously described Mendelssohn as a “spoiled genius”. If so, then these two works composed between the ages of 14 and 15 reveal his genius before it got spoiled. They are wholly delightful. Mendelssohn’s classical impulses guarantee that he won’t fall into that deadly “allegro moderato” style of concerto-writing that took over the German school in the latter half of the 19th century. This music sizzles. At nearly 45 minutes you would think that the Second concerto would die an early and miserable death, but it doesn’t. The piano writing is consistently scintillating, but never overly dense, and often adventuresome. Just listen to the passage about eight minutes into the Second concerto’s first movement; it’s sensational stuff.

The performances are excellent. Duo Genova & Dimitrov plays with the youthful energy and impulsiveness that the music demands, yet they never bang or overload the very full textures. Ulf Schirmer and his Munich orchestra accompany with equal enthusiasm, and the recording captures the proceedings with amazing fidelity and purity. These works were not published or performed beyond Mendelssohn’s own lifetime until the 1960s. Hearing them rekindles our wonder at the youthful prodigy’s astonishing mastery. Whether his genius was later spoiled will be a source of controversy, but the pleasure to be had from this terrific release shouldn’t be. –- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The highly talented Eduard Kunneke is known above all as a German operetta composer. The operetta Der Vetter aus Dingsda (1921) became his most famous work. Since he had not exactly experienced positive things in the United States, he evidently was not so eager to go into exile. As a result, during the Nazi era he became known as the "Master of the German Operetta," even though he hardly made concessions to the regime and repeatedly ran into trouble because he refused to separate from his "half-Jewish" wife Katarina. Along with his operettas, Kunneke regularly composed »serious works« for the concert hall that were almost completely neglected – wrongly so. For example, his Piano Concerto is a work very much displaying higher aspirations and qualifying as top-quality musical entertainment. His concerto is certainly the most original and spirited example of a genre of works engaging in dialogue with classicism and swing in the 1920s and including contributions by Gershwin and Ravel. The "game of musical catch" played by the orchestra and piano at the beginning of the first movement is simply astonishing. In the Gypsy Melodies and Serenade for Orchestra, pieces with which Kunneke demonstrated his early mastery around 1907, he styled himself as a very creative heir to Brahms and the late romanticist Max Reger, who had taught him the craft of composition.