Classical Music

Leif Ove Andsnes releases a second Mozart Momentum album with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, presenting a portrait of the master composer during the years in which his writing for the piano was at its most revolutionary, creative and game-changing.

“As masterly and finished and perfect as the music itself” – The Telegraph
(on Mozart Momentum 1785)

Leif Ove Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra follow their “triumphant” (Gramophone), “sparkling” (New York Times) and award-winning Mozart Momentum 1785 release with its partner album, focusing on the composer’s extraordinary creativity in the year 1786. “When you realize how quickly Mozart developed during the early years of the 1780s, it makes you ask: why did this happen? What was going on? It’s about the momentum of his creativity at this time,” says Leif Ove Andsnes.

In 1786 the white-hot inspiration of Mozart’s work on his opera The Marriage of Figaro spilled over into the composer’s piano concertos and chamber music. Suddenly, Mozart’s music was filled with a new spirit of conversation, deeper layers of meaning, and fuller explorations of instrumental and human character. In these works, Mozart was looking far beyond the confines of public taste and writing, apparently, to satisfy himself.

The double-album Mozart Momentum 1786 includes Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 23 & 24, Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Piano Trio in B-flat major and Recitative and Aria Ch’io mi scordi di te? featuring guest soprano Christiane Karg.

The two Mozart piano concertos are game-changers in the history of the form. They fed off the new creative energies the composer was experiencing in Vienna in 1786, as he rode an unprecedented wave of popular success and musical evolution. These scores are often held up as the most exquisite that Mozart ever wrote. “There was new creative energy in the air,” says Andsnes: “Mozart seems to have gone deeper and deeper into the idiom and its possibilities and tried new techniques. I don’t know any music that offers such emotional diversity.”

For this recording, Andsnes has been reunited with his colleagues in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra – a team “you’d be hard-put to find … better matched,” raved The Guardian. “There is an attitude in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra,” says Andsnes, “that you are not just there to play well, you’re there to find a truth in the music. It’s something that is very special and that I have never experienced in quite the same way with another orchestra.”

The Mozart Momentum project draws no distinction between forms of music – whether orchestral, chamber or even vocal – but all the pieces are united by the presence of the piano. “The idea,” says Andsnes, “was to explore the diversity of what was going on in Mozart’s creative life at the time – to show that a separation between solo playing, chamber music playing and concerto playing isn’t really relevant.”

Mozart Momentum 1785 was named one of “The Best Classical Albums of 2021” by Gramophone and Andsnes’s performance of Piano Concerto No. 22 was chosen as one of “The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2021” by The New York Times. The release was also named “Album of the Week” by The Sunday Times and BBC Radio 3, and awarded a Diapason d’Or de l’année by France’s leading classical music magazine and Radio France.

Includes:                 
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488
Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major, K. 493       
Rondo in D Major, K.485

"Ch'io mi scordi di te? ... Non temer, amato bene," K. 505 (ft. Christiane Karg)  Piano Trio in B flat major, K502            
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491     

Praise for Mozart Momentum - 1785 / Andsnes, Mahler Chamber Orchestra:

Socially distanced they may have been but the camaraderie that was so evident in their groundbreaking Beethoven cycle with Leif Ove Andsnes is, if anything, even more apparent here.

-- Gramophone (Recording of the Month, June 2021; Critic's Choice)

With so many alternatives out there (among classics, Mitsuko Uchida, Murray Perahia, András Schiff), why this? The balance between pianists and ensemble is ideal, clear, vital. And the choice of cadenzas, especially the one by Dinu Lipatti, will make your ears stand up.

-- The Guardian

Cellist Ani Aznavoorian and pianist Marta Aznavoorian, each a renowned soloist and chamber musician in her own right, together celebrate the sounds of their ancestral homeland on Gems from Armenia. The album marks the Chicago-raised sisters’ recording debut as the Aznavoorian Duo. Their panoramic survey of Armenian classical music opens with ancient folk songs arranged with haunting harmonies by early 20th-century Orthodox priest, composer, and musicologist Komitas Vardapet. The Armenian musical renaissance of the Soviet era finds expression in Aram Khachaturian’s glorious ode to his hometown of Yerevan; Arno Babajanian’s impassioned tribute to his mentor Kachaturian; the early Sonata for Cello and Piano by Avet Terterian, whose admirers included Dmitri Shostakovich; and the Impromptu of Alexander Arutiunian, winner of many Soviet and Armenian musical honors and awards. Contemporary voices include Serouj Kradjian, whose “Sari Siroun Yar” is an arrangement of an Armenian troubadour love song. Vache Sharafyan’s Petrified Dance is haunted by the memory of Armenian soldiers lost in recent battles. American Peter Boyer’s Mount Ararat, commissioned for this project and receiving its world-premiere recording, evokes the snow-capped twin peaks of Biblical fame central to Armenian national and religious identity.

Quatuor pour la fin du temps

One of the major 19th century Danish composers, Lange-Müller wrote mainly vocal music and relatively fewer instrumental works. There is, however quite a big collection of piano works which Lange-Müller wrote for his daughter who was an ardent player. Pianist of The Copenhagen Trio, Morten Mogensen has begun recording the complete collection. On this first volume (three in total), Soft Melodies Op. 68 and In Memoriam are the premier recordings.

Romantic Choir Music

The Dinitzen-Westenholz duo started their collaboration three years ago. Their first CD Kontrapunkt 32172 “R. Strauss/Brahms/Schumann” enjoyed public and critical acclaim. For their second recording they concentrated on the works by Fauré which enhanced Dinitzen’s elegant and simple style with rich sonority attentively accompanied by Westenholz.

Richard Strauss, Sergei Rachmaninov: Cello Works

Franz Syberg (1904-1955)’s hitherto unknown material are still being discovered and even the known material are dispersed in the public music library or private collections. But it may not be so surprising for a composer who died at the age of only 51 and whose house was completely destroyed in a devastating fire prior to his death that the archive of his compositions is yet to be organised. This second volume of chamber works includes newly found String Trio, Syberg’s most popular work whose score has been lost since his death.

Young Danish composer Lars Klit (b. 1965) was commissioned to write an opera suited for an alternative opera company called Den Anden Opera (The Other Opera) which has a small “opera house” in the central part of Copenhagen. It is “the other” opera than the traditional establishment of the Royal Opera House. The work is played by five singers and a small chamber ensemble including electric guitar. It turned out to be a huge success right from the premier appealing to a wide range of audiences from the traditional opera lovers to the young rock’n rollers.

Requiem, 5 Motets

Summer Music

Chamber music was a crucial element in Enescu’s output and these two works, separated by seven years, represent very different phases of his compositional development. The large-scale Piano Quartet No.1 marks the climax of his early maturity. The Piano Trio in A minor, however, was unknown until 1965 and represents a more transitional stage – a compact but intricately expressive work with an animated and compelling sequence of variations at its heart.

"This evocative and powerful music has certainly been given its deserved attention through the beautiful and dedicated playing on this excellent album." -Gramophone

Piano Trios, Sicilienne, Berce

Piano Concertos No. 11, 12 & 1

Songs

Entr'acte

Complete Trios

Clarinet Quintet, Horn Quintet

Quintet Op. 8, Sextet Op. 44

The calendar year 2023 marks the 90th birthday of Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020), one of the most prominent 21st Century Polish composers. Sacred themes and texts surround the creative work of Penderecki, including many of his large-scale works. This album consists of the majority of his impressive sacred a cappella choral works which are mainly written in Latin. These deeply religious choral works are modern classics which will, no doubt, remain in the choral repertoire for years to come.

REVIEW:

Penderecki’s sacred choral oeuvre is usually worthy of the best efforts singers are willing to bring to it. And here we have the self-recommending proposition of one of the world’s finest choirs bringing that music to life in the warm, reverberant space of St John’s Church in Riga, Latvia. The Ondine engineering makes it an even more emphatic win.

— American Record Guide

Eroica Variations, 32 Variatio

Jean Francaux In Concert

Louise Farrenc was one of the most respected pianists and composers in the 19th-century Parisian music scene, and her four sets of Études are her most important compositions for piano. Beautiful melodies and distinctiveness of character have made the Études, Op. 26 the most popular set, but all of these pieces are full of grace and charm alongside their didactic usefulness in their references to the styles both of Farrenc’s musical ancestors and her contemporaries. The Greek pianist Maria Stratigou is one of Louise Farrenc’s greatest exponents and makes her Grand Piano debut with these exquisite rarities.

REVIEWS:

I am very impressed with Maria Stratigou’s playing here. Technically she is absolutely on top of these études but she has the lyrical expertise to bring out the necessary lightness of touch and shading even in the most exacting moments; her delicacy in the figuration of op.26 no.10 is delicious. I hope she is the pianist who will continue this valuable and enjoyable series.

-- MusicWeb International

Stratigou has a full mastery of Farrenc’s romantic style and a technique to match. I can only hope that she continues on this journey. This is a quite auspicious beginning to what I expect to be a very enjoyable exploration of piano music that deserves to be better known.

-- American Record Guide

Bach: Cello Suites