Classical Music

Classical Music

JEHMLICH ORGAN

ROYAL WINTER MUSIC

CONCERTOES FOR VIOLONCELLO & O

For players and listeners alike, the viola quintets of Mozart stand among the highest examples of chamber music. There are many who would not hesitate to name the most often heard of them (the C major and G minor) as representing some of the finest music in our heritage, in any category. The Fine Arts Quartet, which recorded these masterpieces for Vox, was a distinguished American ensemble, tracing its beginnings to the early 1940s in Chicago.

Artur Rubinstein. RCA RCD1-7156 [Ballades, with Scherzos]; 5613-2-RC [19 Nocturnes; 2 CDs]; 5614-2-RC [51 Mazurkas; 2CDs]; 5615-2 [7 Polonaises]; RCD1-5492 [14 Waltzes]

If there is one sure bet in the music of Chopin, it is Artur Rubinstein. His recordings of the composer’s music can be recommended without hesitation for their warmth, lyricism, and expressive point. Never over-interpreted, the music emerges with spontaneity and freshness in his accounts, always alive, always delightful and surprising. His fiery renditions of the Ballades and Polonaises combine drama and poetry in brilliant fashion, while his readings of the Nocturnes, Mazurkas, and Waltzes are notable for their Mediterranean color and unerring sense of mood. The sound of the 1960s stereo recordings for RCA may occasionally lack depth and seem slightly veiled, but it holds up well enough to convey unmistakably the tone and the touch that made Rubinstein one of the greatest pianists of all time. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

24 CAPRICES

The works on this disc were arranged by Hiro Fujikake.

Misha Dacic's concerts at the Miami Piano Festival in recent years made a sensational impact, as is evidenced on YouTube. They show that appearances do not deceive: he is as much of a wizard as he appears. A true artist, with limitless technique, he has the ability to conjure up unheard-of tonal effects from the piano, evoking the most amazing timbres and sonorities. Dacic's affinity with Liszt shows in the selection of music on this new recording, which is centered around three masterpieces: The epic B-A-C-H Variations, the seldom heard Grosses Konzertsolo and the Dante Sonata, in which Dacic incorporates elements from all three versions Liszt made (prepare for some surprises). As a suitable conclusion to this tribute, Dacic ends with the late masterpiece La Lugubre Gondola.

"...there's no denying that this performance has only infrequently been matched. Here's display with the brains and heart intact..." -- Raymond Tuttle, www.classical.net

"...the dazzling Liszt E flat Concerto he recorded in 1952 with Eugene Ormandy which [Arrau] told me was done virtually in one take..." -- Robert Layton, Gramophone [8/1991]

This is a collection of polyphonic music from late medieval sources around the turn of the 15th century.

Classical Music

The composer and pianist Nikolai Kapustin has criss-crossed the territories of classical and jazz throughout his long career. The Korean pianist Sun Hee You presents a collection of Kapustin's piano works that feature the range of Kapustin's output, from the complex works of great depth that his sonatas represent, to his homage to Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" contained within his Variations and the pieces that bear the unmistakable cadences and influences that Kapustin's 1950s jazz forays left with him. Her performance both a stunning virtuosity with a clear grasp of Kapustin's sensibilities and make for a fine introduction to this composer little known outside of Russia.

SCHWANENGESANG

Classical Music

The festival’s co-founder Strauss was a contemporary composer in his time, still capable of writing new and original works more than two decades later, and so the performance of contemporary works remains at the heart of the Festival’s identity, not least as a commitment and a counterbalance to assiduous cultivation of the classics. At a time in which the umpteenth new recording of classical works often seems less than essential, credit is all the more due to the Festival for programming “new music” that is already over a century old. One of this year’s new releases is Krenek’s Orpheus und Eurydike, a work that is several things rolled into one: “classical” subject-matter in the sense of a further reworking – in this case, of the creation myth of opera itself, not just since Monteverdi (1607), but since the primal “big bang” of the operatic cosmos with Caccini/Peri (1600); one of the timeless tales of human existence linking love, longing for the past and their transcendence in art; a bang-up-to-date work of art that nevertheless remains a work of its time, the era in which the Festival was founded; and above all a festal tribute to honour the 90th birthday of a major 20th-century composer. Krenek himself attended the1990 Festival performance documented here. Kokoschka’s stormily Expressionist narrative was put to paper between 1915 and 1917 in the aftermath of a passionate love affair with Alma Mahler, and set to music in headstrong mixed style by Schoenberg’s highly independent pupil between then and 1923. Given the literary standing of the librettist (and of the composer), ORFEO is additionally printing the libretto (from which the title of our text is taken), also bearing in mind that this recording is the first and only one ever to be released.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Bach & Reger: Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Vol. II

This is Volume 2 in the Chandos series of works by Jewish composers who were forced to flee the Third Reich during the 30s. The Grammy-nominated ARC Ensemble (Artists of the Royal Conservatory, Toronto) here presents premiere recordings of chamber works by Jerzy Fitelberg.

The album offers two String Quartets, the early mysterious Nachtmusik for clarinet, cello, and celeste, the Sonatine for two violins, shaped by Polish folk tunes, and the Serenade for viola and piano, composed in New York in 1943 and published in 1954, three years after Fitelberg’s death.

After graduating from the Conservatory in his hometown, Warsaw, Fitelberg studied at Berlin’s Musikhochschule, the finest music academy in Europe at this time. He fled Germany in 1933 to live in New York. Fitelberg was well known and highly regarded, his music included in all the International Society of Contemporary Music’s festivals until the 50s. However, like other music featured in this series, which Nazi Germany deemed entartete, or ‘degenerate’, his works were almost eradicated by the Third Reich and has largely been forgotten. It deserves a much warmer reception. - Chandos

Pianist Marie Jaëll is mostly known today within music history because of her pedagogic works. That knowledge doesn't begin to unearth all of her talent and works. She left a rich and impressive compositional oeuvre, not only for her proper instrument but many others as well. This release is the third sequel of a series of recordings by Cora Irsen. The details and miniature collections, selected in this third album are evidence of technical mastery in the most diverse atmospheric, conceptual and illustrative manifestations.

Haydn's six Op. 20 string quartets are milestones in the history of the genre. He wrote them in 1772 for performance by his colleagues at the Esterházy court and, unusually, not specifically for publication. Each one is a unique masterpiece and the set introduces compositional techniques that radically transformed the genre and shaped it for centuries to come. Haydn overturns conventional instrumental roles, crafts remarkably original colours and textures, and unlocks new expressive possibilities in these works which were crucial in establishing the reputation of purely instrumental music. The range within the quartets is kaleidoscopic. From the introspective, chorale-like slow movement of No. 1 via the terse and radical quartet No. 3 in G minor to the comic spirit of the fourth in D major, each of the quartets inhabits a distinct musical world. For many, this is some of the greatest music Haydn ever wrote.

Playing these seminal works is one of the world's finest young ensembles, the Doric String Quartet. As well as having already produced a string of acclaimed recordings on Chandos, the group has been widely praised for its live performances of Haydn's works. The Sunday Telegraph wrote that 'Haydn and the Doric are a perfect match... Unequivocally, these were performances of terrific panache and perception, seeming to get right under the skin of Haydn's creative genius'.

Review:

Thoughtfulness is uppermost. Allied to precision in articulation is a flexibility in the scansion and shaping of phrases, of notes timed through a remarkable understanding of rubato, of a range of expressive resilience that gives even the smallest of episodes in a long line their own character without distorting structure or disturbing flow.

– Gramophone