Recording information: St. John's Church, Elora, Ontario, Canada (01/25/2006-01/28/2006).

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine, “an exciting, boundary-defying performer” (Washington Post) known for her “bravura technique and soulful musicianship” (New York Times), headlines a groundbreaking album of blues-influenced classical works for violin and violin and piano by 20th and 21st century composers of African descent.

World-premiere recordings include Noel Da Costa’s ‘A Set of Dance Tunes for Solo Violin,’ based on American fiddle tunes; Daniel Bernhard Roumain’s ‘Filter,’ which conjures the sounds of electronic dance music and psychedelic guitar; Errollyn Wallen’s ‘Woogie Boogie,’ a humorous and inventive reimaging of the boogie woogie blues dance; and Billy Childs’s ‘Incident,’ a single-movement violin sonata / tone poem written as a response to a fatal shooting by police. Another premiere is Wendall Logan’s violin and piano arrangement of Duke Ellington’s 1935 composition, ‘In a Sentimental Mood.’ The album’s title track, Dolores White’s improvisational ‘Blues Dialogues,’ draws on classical, jazz, and country music, as well as African-American vocalizations and a blues harmonic language. David N. Baker’s gospel-tinged ‘Blues (Deliver My Soul)’ evokes the ecstatic energy of a Black church service. Charles S. Brown’s ‘A Song Without Words’ was inspired by bottleneck guitar player and gospel blues master Blind Willie Johnson. Each movement of William Grant Still’s ‘Suite for Violin and Piano’ evokes the work of a different African-American visual artist. Clarence Cameron White’s ‘Levee Dance, Op. 26, No. 2,’ a favorite of violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, surrounds a traditional African-American spiritual with a playful, syncopated dance. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s ‘Blue/s Forms’ and ‘Louisiana Blues Strut’ befit a composer with a legacy of achievements in the classical, jazz, modern dance, and pop music worlds.

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REVIEWS:

What a fascinating, beautiful disc… The disc’s title is valid: these really are ‘dialogues’ in the most creative and stimulating sense…Need it be said that Pine plays everything here gloriously… Listen to how unaffectedly she outlines the melody of Still’s central slow movement. In passages of virtuoso display, she’s as sure-footed and as agile as an acrobat.

– Gramophone

This is a superb CD, clearly one of Barton Pine’s real masterpieces. Highly recommended to any other classical violinist who wants to tackle these works, and listeners who enjoy jazz and blues-influenced classical music.

– The Art Music Lounge

This is an amazing disc. Barton Pine and partner Matthew Hagle are to be commended for such a thoughtful, gracious, and inspiring program, recorded in Cedille’s typical robust and clear sound.

– Audiophile Audition

SZYMANOWSKI: Nocturne / CHOPIN: Nocturnes / WIENIAWSKI: Capr

New-music icon Ursula Oppens, who commissioned, premiered, and made the first recording of maverick American composer Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, a remarkable, monumental set of solo piano variations, has rerecorded that landmark 1975 work to mark its 40th anniversary. This riveting, audience-pleasing tour-de-force is a nearly hour-long set of 36 variations on a popular Chilean protest song from the era of Augusto Pinochet’s repressive rightwing military dictatorship. A bonus is the world-premiere recording of a new Rzewski work, Four Hands, a duet commissioned by and written for Oppens and pianist Jerome Lowenthal, her duet partner on the recording. Fiercely challenging to perform, it leaves the listener “… absorbed and exhilarated…” (New York Times) Oppens’s Cedille Records discography includes two Grammy nominees, Oppens plays Carter and Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano, as well as a recording of duo-piano music by Messiaen and Debussy, again with Jerome Lowenthal.

REVIEW:

Frederic Rzewski wrote his monumental variation set based on Sergio Ortega’s Chilean resistance anthem song “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido” for pianist Ursula Oppens, who premiered it in 1976 and made its first recording a few years later. It’s a fine performance in and of itself, yet Oppens’ stupendous new 2014 recording for Cedille surpasses the earlier version in every respect. 

The opening theme, for starters, is more impassioned at its loud peaks, while the first six variations gain energy and character through Oppens’ heightened sense of voice leading. The dissonant grace note effect of Variation 7’s two-against-three rhythmic patterns is clearer than what many pianists make of it, while Variation 9’s counterpoint benefits from Oppens’ drier, more cogently contoured rethinking.

Variation 10’s splattered, Boulez-like gestures and zigzagging glissandos may not transpire so “recklessly” as the composer indicates, yet the inner logic of his meticulous dynamic markings comes out in Oppens’ faithful rendition. Variation 15’s improvisatory, folk-song-like quality spills over into more elaborate territory in Variation 16. Most pianists (Rzewski included) sustain a similar mood and tone between these two variations. Not Oppens, whose feathery pianissimos and una corda pedal deployment at No. 16’s outset create a magical tonal shift that accurately reflects what’s marked in the score.

Variation 19’s jagged motives, so often pounded out on the same dynamic and emotional level, convey a playful, conversational repartée. Young speed demons who insanely blur their way through Variation 21’s relentless finger twisters have no clue of the wonderful harmonic content that Oppens’ “sanely” fast fingers bring out. However, one can argue that Oppens’ faster and lighter treatment of Variations 26 and 28 plays down the music’s grim, march-like gravitas in contrast to Rzewski’s slower, sharper-edged interpretation. Just before the theme returns, Rzewski gives pianists the option to improvise a cadenza; Oppens’ first recording didn’t include one. Here, the pianist’s short, lyrical, and absolutely lovely improvisation incorporates ideas from Variation 25.

Overall, Oppens’ virtuosity, musicality, and insightful inspiration add up to the most gratifying People United on disc, alongside Rzewski’s own 1986 HatArt label recording (out-of-print on CD, but available as a download). The recorded premiere of Rzewski’s more recent and delightfully inventive Four Hands features Oppens and Jerome Lowenthal relishing the music’s tricky rhythmic hockets, airy contrapuntal traps, fleeting allusions to Romantic fare, and jazzy final fugue with masterful glee. No lover of 20th- and 21st-century piano music should miss this important release.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Lera Auerbach’s music has been compared to that of Shostakovich, and with good reason. She remains committed to a fresh use of tonality, without denying herself the full resources of modern technique. The 24 Preludes for cello and piano follow the traditional journey through all the major and minor keys. There are passionate adagios, a sardonic reference to the Magic Flute Overture (Prelude No. 14), waltzes, scherzos, laments, and giddy allegros. The scoring for cello and piano is clever and handled with a keen ear for color and timbre.

Best of all, the performances are sensational. Auerbach is a superb pianist, and she handles her own frequently virtuosic writing with aplomb. Ani Aznavoorian plays a mean cello, both here and in the Cello Sonata. As Auerbach points out in her notes, the two instruments are equal partners in this latter work, a gripping emotional outpouring that concludes with a lament marked “with extreme intensity”. The preceding third movement is a wild toccata that recalls similar moments in Shostakovich’s Eighth quartet and Eighth symphony. Auerbach also makes evocative use of microtones both here and occasionally in the preludes as well. It’s an interesting addition to her expressive arsenal, particularly when they appear in a tonal context.

The program concludes with a brief Postlude for cello and piano, actually a “deconstruction” of the twelfth Prelude. Grim and eerie, it closes the program on a note of mysterious unease. The sonics are gorgeous, with perfect balances and a very realistic perspective. Fans of good contemporary chamber music will want to own this; it repays repeated listening and reveals Auerbach as a true force in today’s music.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

An unexpected treasure! The first track of this hugely enjoyable survey of the piano music of Mexican composer Manuel M. Ponce (as he is described in Cedille?s presentation: the M is for Maria) is one of those deliciously ?lazy? numbers that haunts the imagination long after it has been listened to; the rendition here of the first of the Canciones mexicanas , Estrellita , also reveals the total dedication of Jorge Federico Osorio.


Ponce (1882?1948) is not a composer to come my way too often, and, if I am honest, not a composer that I would actively seek out. Yet the music recorded here is captivating: a mix of local color and rhythm (not least from Cuba) with something of the salon and an awareness of European models. I suppose Chopin is in there somewhere (well, he is!), an influence that sits very easily with the ?popular? cut of most of the music here, which is disarmingly inventive, wholly unpretentious, and which offers listening that is undemanding and pleasurable, yet varied enough to sustain 75 minutes of playing time. Estudios de concierto revel in technical display, and Osorio plays brilliantly the three pieces that constitute this set, as he does the whole recital, and he clearly loves the music, too, its song and dance, and its heartfelt (and unpredictable) harmonies. This is lovely music, exuberant and intimate, playful and touching.


This isn?t all of Ponce?s piano music, not by any means, for he wrote about 100 works for the instrument (I take this information from Grove ); here, in addition to those works played complete, we are offered four movements from Trozos romanticos and eight mazurkas (of which there are at least 23 examples). All very insouciant, then, and Osorio is the ideal musician to bring this music alive, which he does with a lilt and demonstration that is natural, convincing, and dedicated. Ponce lived in Paris for eight years; the last movement of Suite cubana reminds of Ravel and Debussy without aping either and the two studies dedicated to Artur Rubinstein contrast the slow and intense first one with the nervous and agitated second. The recording quality is first-class: the piano is forward and vivid but without being dry or boxy, and without compromising dynamic variety or color. I am delighted to add this alluring music to my collection, and to share an enthusiastic recommendation with you!


FANFARE: Colin Anderson

NOTABLE WOMEN • Lincoln Trio • CEDILLE 126 (67:20)


AUERBACH Piano Trio. GARROP Seven. HIGDON Piano Trio. SCHWENDINGER C’e La Luna Questa Sera? THOMAS Moon Jig. TOWER Trio Cavany


The Lincoln Trio is touring the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia with the selections played on this compact disc. Of the six women composers whose works they chose to record, two are very well known and their music is often played by symphony orchestras and chamber groups. Jennifer Higdon has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy, while Joan Tower, who has been composing for more than 50 years, is widely accepted as one of this country’s most important living composers. Still, a recording that holds only compositions by women is highly unusual. Higdon and Tower have made fine contributions in any case and their music deserves to be in everyone’s collection. Higdon’s Piano Trio has two movements, titled “Pale Yellow” and “Fiery Red.” Anyone who has ever painted will enjoy the evocation of these very different colors. The yellow has a great deal of white in it and its music as played by the Lincoln Trio is lyrical and tuneful with pastel values. The red, on the other hand, is all but too hot to handle. Its dissonance is controlled savagery. There is another recording of this piece on Naxos, but it was made live and the sound is not nearly as clear and present as on the Cedille disc.


Tower is represented by her trio cleverly called Cavany. It was co-commissioned by the La Jolla Music Festival in California, the Virginia Arts Festival, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York. Since it was a three-way co-commission, it has a three-note motif. It sounds simple but it actually requires considerable virtuosity from each of the able players. The resulting music is accessible and has already started to enter the repertoire.


Lesser-known composers on this CD include the wildly inventive, Russian-born Lera Auerbach, who now composes in New York City. Stacy Garrop’s Seven was written in memory of her father. Laura Elise Schwendinger’s C’e La Luna Questa Sera? makes the listener wonder if it will be safe to walk in the moonlight, while Augusta Read Thomas’s Moon Jig is an invitation to dance into the night.


This compact disc was produced and engineered by Grammy Award-winner Judith Sherman. The sound is clear, the balances seem natural, and the sound of the trio is close to what you would hear if you were listening to them play in a small hall with good acoustics. This is the premiere recording of the works by Tower and Schwendinger. The Lincoln Trio plays all these pieces with exquisite taste, so this disc would be an important addition to any library.


FANFARE: Maria Nockin

Bach: 3 Keyboard Concertos

Robert Starer's K'li zemer concerto will be a surprise to anyone who associates the term with weddings and bar mitzvahs. Actually the Yiddish klezmer (instrumental musician) is a contraction of k'li zemer, which, translated literally from the Hebrew, means "instrument of song". That is precisely what Starer makes of the clarinet in this beautifully melodic work (quite a surprise given the composer's usual acerbic style). The tunes, all of Starer's invention, are based on Eastern European Jewish music, and each provides a rich harmonic framework for the clarinet's wonderfully virtuosic explorations.


Paul Schoenfield's long-standing desire "to create entertaining music that could be played at Hassidic gatherings as well as the concert hall" finds fulfillment in his Klezmer Rondos--a concerto for flute, tenor, and orchestra. The opening's raucous band music comes to an abrupt stop as the flute's sustained high note introduces the plaintive main theme. After a series of contentious exchanges between flute (skillfully rendered by Scott Goff) and orchestra, the band music returns, this time halted by the tenor's sustained high note, which in turn becomes Schoenfield's setting of the Yiddish poem Mirele (sung with wit and tenderness by Alberto Mizrahi). It's a marvelously effective piece that, although steeped in elements of Jewish ritual, can be enjoyed by all listeners.


Next come two brief pieces by Jacob Weinberg, The Maypole and Canzonetta, which are colorful explorations of Yiddish and Hassidic folk melodies, while Abraham Ellstein's tuneful Hassidic Dance for clarinet and orchestra presents a rhapsodic evocation of traditional Jewish ceremonies.


The final piece, Osvaldo Golijov's Rocketekya, scored for clarinet, violin, electric viola, and contrabass, is closest to what most listeners will know as Klezmer--a high-spirited, rhythmically and melodically exotic celebration. David Krakauer's highly imaginative and technically assured playing greatly enlivens the clarinet works, while Gerard Schwarz leads energetic and sensitive accompaniments with both the Seattle and Barcelona orchestras. The recordings all have fine presence, clarity, and impact.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

Christmas Around the World

Bach: The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080

C. Davis: The Great Gatsby

This selection is also available in Super Audio CD format.
Bluegrass violin virtuoso and composer Mark O'Connor has devoted a great deal of time to exploring classical forms in an effort to effectively meld them with American vernacular styles. THE AMERICAN SEASONS features three of his compositions that put a down-home spin on traditional classical structures. In the album's titular work, O'Connor gives a nod and a wink to Vivaldi and thematically fashions a violin concerto around the four seasons. The result is an ambitious orchestral extravaganza that blends folk, blues, and jazz with classical and gives O'Connor abundant opportunities to showcase his dazzling technique.
Unlike the Baroque master's famous ode to the natural divisions of the year, though, O'Connor's is not an evocation of climatic activity. Rather, it's a musical journey through the cycles of an American life, loaded with plenty of Texas-style fiddling. The 'Strings & Threads Suite' is O'Connor's take on the evolution of folk music on the violin in America, from jigs, reels, and waltzes, through blues, spirituals, swing, and bebop. The plaintive melody of 'Appalachia Waltz' is expanded to Coplandesque proportions in a moody arrangement for string orchestra. Scott Yoo and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra ably assist O'Connor in his adventurous quest to merge traditions.

Emanuel Ax has made the Haydn sonatas his own in recent years; certainly few "major label" pianists have bothered to explore these delightful works systematically, and Sony deserves credit for supporting him in his efforts. The results certainly make a powerful case for following where the artist leads (when, as here, the artist knows where he is going), for both this and Ax's previous Haydn discs have been excellent in all respects, and he has been very enterprising in his mixture of familiar and unfamiliar works.

The sonatas included here offer a typically broad representation of Haydn's range as a keyboard composer. The most famous of them is No. 49 in C-sharp minor, with its tragic minuet finale (here played with a powerful sense of barely muted grief). No other composer lavished so much attention on this simple dance form and discovered in it so much variety of expression. Note how appropriately Ax varies the pace of this dark piece as compared to the jaunty minuet finale of Sonata No. 34 in D.

Two sonatas in A-flat major, Nos. 31 and 35, open and close the program. No. 31 is a big work (nearly 20 minutes) and Ax plays it as such, with the bold contrasts of the broadly paced first movement and brilliant finale enfolding a poetic central Adagio. The concluding A-flat sonata brings the program to a very satisfying conclusion, its Moderato-Minuet-Presto sequence of movements providing a steady acceleration of excitement that Ax takes particular care to project effectively.

As a centerpiece, there's the big E-flat major Sonata No. 29, and here Ax avoids possible monotony between the opening Moderato and the ensuing Andante of nearly equal length. It's a beautifully paced performance, with a particularly jubilant account of the concluding Allegro di molto, one of Haydn's biggest sonata finales. The high-level recording sounds a touch bright in the loudest passages, but otherwise richly supports a program that will give listeners unalloyed pleasure.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Sunrise Mass is a magical recording that includes compelling music by Ola Gjeilo along with several complementary selections by Durufle, Mendelssohn, and Mocnik. The title was chosen to hopefully represent the journey of each listener to hear new worlds ot colors in each of the selections. At the heart of this recording is Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass, a spiritual, extended work in four movements that will bring you on a metaphysical journey from the heavens to earth. This recording is expertly sung by the Westminster Williamson Voices and conducted by James Jordan. It is simply exquisite. Jordan writes: “This has been our experience living with this music and, for me, allowing this choir to resonate these sounds in the most honest way we could. Gjeilo’s music allows us to connect to a vast wordless world that speaks directly to each of us in deeply personal and meaningful ways. His music was a gift to us, and hopefully will be a gift to you. All of the music on this recording connected itself to us and tethered each piece, one to the other, inside us. And for that reason, and all the reasons above, we are excited to share the magic we felt through sounding all of these incredible scores.”

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REVIEW:

Norwegian New Yorker Aja Gjeilo's music is thoroughly tonal. He seems to specialize in church music, with quotations in this mass from Duruflé and Mendelssohn. Texts by Hildegard von Bingen are rewritten and freely orchestrated. The others are by the composer. Harmony is clean and conservative, with occasional surprises in the voiceleading. For the most part, this is lovely and very beautiful. There is nothing here that could not be sung by well-schooled amateur choir singers. In fact, choral aficionados will surely enjoy this.

– American Record Guide (Allen Gimbel)

This is the kind of release that is fully worthy of a major label like RCA: two of today's top artists working at peak form, delivering the goods in a serious program of worthy repertoire. Schubert is one of the few composers whose range is wide enough to allow the creation of a rewarding evening devoted just to him, and his piano duos (here played on two pianos rather than by two pianists at one keyboard) live in a world all their own. Evgeny Kissin has done some of his best work in Schubert (the "Wanderer" Fantasy, for example), and James Levine, no slouch as a pianist himself, clearly loves this music as much as anyone. The program includes three of Schubert's very greatest works in the medium, all of them dating from the end of his brief life.


The earliest is the Grand Duo, really a symphony that Schubert never got around to scoring (the most famous orchestral arrangement is Joachim's, and it deserves to be a repertory piece). Much of the writing is extremely orchestral in conception, which means unpianistic, and the trick here lies not so much in making the piece sound like piano music (who cares, really?), but simply in focusing the listener's attention on the ongoing symphonic musical process. Key to this is timing, and here Kissin and Levine don't set a foot wrong. The first movement perfectly balances "allegro" with "moderato" in an unbroken arc of sustained tension, perhaps inspired by the presence of the very well-behaved Carnegie Hall audience. A beautifully shaped andante leads to a boisterous scherzo, its interesting harmonic underpinning unobtrusively highlighted where necessary (using two pianos probably helps here). You only need listen to the closing bars of the finale, music that often sounds too thin on the keyboard, to understand just how perfectly timed this performance is.


The Grand Duo occupies the second half of this concert. The program begins with a subtle, fluid account of the haunting Fantasie in F minor. It's interesting how performers who can seem affected when playing solo (as Kissin sometimes does) behave themselves when working in an ensemble situation. Here, the lovely opening theme has the right elegiac simplicity, the final fugue great clarity and rhythmic point. I'm not giving up such favorites as Perahia/Lupu in this music, but Kissin/Levine offer an interpretation that's really very affecting. And their ferocious take on the "Lebensstürme" Allegro D. 947 is just plain thrilling--a turbulent, clenched fist of a performance that brings the first half of the program to a grandly passionate conclusion. Indeed, taken as a whole, the first part minor/second part major cast of the whole evening works extremely well as an emotional sequence for continuous listening.


The two encores, Characteristic March No. 1 D. 968b and the inevitable March Militaire No. 1 D. 733, are played much more quickly than the music requires, but then the point here is simply to wow the audience, and I'd be the last person to deny Kissin and Levine a bit of fun after such a long and tiring program. RCA's engineers also deserve credit not just for leaving out the audience (even though there's a good bit of applause around and between works), but also for finding a sonic framework that minimizes clatter while maximizing clarity. The two-piano (or piano duo) medium can come across as overly thick and unpleasantly dense, but the slight dryness of the acoustic seems just the ticket in this case. In short, what must have been a splendid live event has been captured for posterity with total success. You might prefer this or that version of individual works, but taken as whole this is pretty special.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The viola d’amore is a curious beast. It has extra strings (like the baryton) that exist for no purpose other than to provide resonance, producing a fuzzy timbral halo that sweetens the slightly nasal, husky tone of the instrument, rather like a sort of mild continuous vibrato. When played with perfect intonation such as we might expect from Rachel Barton Pine, the result is captivatingly mellow and expressive, even in virtuoso passages. Vivaldi composed eight concertos for viola d’amore, and here they all are, smartly gathered together and performed to the hilt.

Although Vivaldi limited himself tonally in these works (to D, F, and A, with four in D minor), the instrument’s unusual tunings, combined with inventive scoring, ensure variety and contrast. The Concerto in F major pits the viola d’amore against a wind ensemble of oboes, horns, and bassoon, with the oboes and horns muted. I’m not sure what a muted baroque oboe is, but they sound lovely here and the horns also never turn gnarly–they really do complement the timbre of the viola d’amore. There’s also a double concerto, RV 540, for viola d’amore and lute, with the superb Hopkinson Smith on hand to partner Barton Pine.

The players of Ars Antigua accompany with evident relish, although as usual with today’s period instrument groups the strings could use some natural vibrato in the slow movements. Leaving it out or minimizing it the way they do is neither stylish nor “authentic”, but when the playing itself is so pointed and in tune it matters very little. The fact that the sonics are drop-dead gorgeous and the balances absolutely perfect also counts for a lot. If you thought that Vivaldi all sounds the same, consider this release as a welcome corrective.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

Trio Settecento, the “superlative Chicago-based early music ensemble” (Gramophone) presents Italian Baroque composer Francesco Maria Veracini’s monumental Opus 2 Sonate Accademiche for violin and continuo. It’s a cosmopolitan collection of 12 sonatas of breathtaking scope and pan-European influences – a set of sonatas unlike any other of the era. Veracini’s Sonate Accedemiche is both an homage to his fellow-countryman Arcangelo Corelli and an original masterpiece in its own right.

Billboard chart-topping violinist Rachel Barton Pine, “one of the rare mainstream performers with a total grasp of Baroque style and embellishment” (Fanfare) and her colleagues in Trio Settecento, cellist John Mark Rozendaal, and harpsichordist David Schrader, bring their “refreshing, life-enhancing Baroque playing” (Chicago Tribune) to these sonatas infused with melodies imported from Scotland, Dalmatia, Poland, the Canary Islands, and rural France.

The title of this release, Wunderkammer, is named for the “Cabinet of Curiosities” that was frequently found in the home of a seventeenth-century German aristocrat. The cabinet held some sort of private museum collection. For this album, Acronym has found a great deal of previously unrecorded sonatas composed by forgotten composers.Like the Wunderkammer of German aristocracy, many of these works contain eccentricities, irregularities, and curiosities. Composers featured on this recording include Samuel Capricornus, Adam Drese, Johann Philipp Krieger, Andreas Oswald, Antonio Bertali, Daniel Eberlin, Philipp Jakob Rittler, Georg Piscator, Alessandro Poglietti, and Clemens Thieme.

Mendelssohn: Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2 & Violin Concerto No.

There exists a strange, somewhat ambiguous, bond between Wagner and the instrument symbolic of the romantic generation: the piano. Strange because Wagner’s fingers were not very much at ease on a piano keyboard - to the point that in his lifetime this gave rise to a number of hilarious anecdotes about his technical ineptitude.

That notwithstanding, scholars and performers are left to deal with a rather considerable number of piano works by Richard Wagner, among them, several occasional pieces, often quite short, which is interesting, when we consider the general length, instead, of the composer’s lyrical works.

It shouldn’t surprise us that, up to recently, critics and even performers have paid little attention to the works featured here: comparison with Wagner’s operas and the innovation they introduced is, to all appearances, too crushing for them to take an interest in these short pieces conceived for practical purposes and destined for private use. And yet such an approach appears gratuitously defeatist, obscuring an output that can be quite fascinating and which, what is more important, is essential towards understanding the Maestro’s stylistic evolution.

Thanks to Wagner’s piano works, indeed, we are now able to retrace ”from the inside” almost his entire professional path. - Dynamic

Composed of live and studio recordings from the 1960s and '70s, this compilation of Horowitz favorites proves that simple, poetic pieces can be very powerful. Loved by his audiences, Horowitz considered these relatively short works to be rich, crystalline, and full of feeling, each able to be carved in a very personal way. Arranged arbitrarily without regard to contrast of tempo, or stylistic unity, the program resembles that of encore pieces performed at the artist's whim, creating the illusion of spontaneity. The record's variety nonetheless showcases Horowitz's multifaceted artistry, displaying his crisp touch and rock-steady rhythm.
The disc contains works from Schubert, Chopin, Scarlatti, and Debussy, to name a few, all extremely romantic in nature, somewhat improvisatory, and performed with a passion that seethed from the pianist's very soul. The album's coup de grace, Schumann's "Traumerei" is so dreamy it almost drifts away before the artist's fingers can play the last dangling keystrokes. Perhaps closest to his heart, these colorful works come alive through accordance with Horowitz's own consciousness. It is from his passion as a pianist that this music is brought so intensely to life.

The English composer Gustav Holst served for many years as director of music at St Paul' Girls' School in London, and it was for the pupils there that he wrote his St Paul' Suite, his most famous work for amateurs.

Includes cto(s) for vln by Joseph B. Saint-Georges. Ensemble: Toronto Camerata. Conductor: Kevin Mallon. Soloist: Qian Zhou.

REVIEW:

The works on this second volume of the Toronto Camerata’s series stand comparison with early Mozart, and the ensemble play suavely yet lightly. Much of Qian Zhou’s playing is similarly stylish… An excellent recording.

-- The Independent (U.K.)

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