Beyond question, Karol Szymanowski wrote the greatest piano Mazurkas since Chopin's. They capture all the elemental passion of the traditional Mazurka rhythms in a pungent and pianistically idiomatic language that sounds fresher with each passing year. It's good to see these works turn up more frequently on CD, especially when they're played with Anna Kijonowska's stylistic perception and technical mastery. Like Martin Jones, she's not afraid to rough up rolled left-hand chords in order to give them more rhythmic kick. Some of her tempo choices are unusual, such as a more measured and inward take on Op. 50 No. 12, as opposed to Marc-André Hamelin's more volatile, skittish account. Yet if her touch doesn't quite match Hamelin's supple shadings, her rubatos often speak more organically (Op. 50 No. 18, for example). Unlike Hamelin and Jones, Kijonowska does not include Szymanowski's four Polish Dances and Valse Romantique. This highly distinctive release is a worthy addition to the Szymanowski discography.--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Kosenko Shkoda Vikotr Sepanovytch Kosenko: Piano Music Volume 2: The CompletePiano Sonatas

This new release features favorite flute masterpieces which are staples in the flutist’s repertoire. New and old works are featured, including pieces from Hamilty Harty, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Franz Doppler, Carl Reinecke, and Cecile Chaminade. Margaret Cornils Luke began studying piano at five, then flute two years later. She was awarded multiple educational awards to study flute, and received her master’s degree in Flute Performance from Northern Illinois University. She is an active composer, and her recorded works are widely published. She continues to teach privately, perform master classes all over the country, and perform alongside the greatest ensembles and soloists in the nation.

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Bruce Atwell is the horn professor at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and is currently Principal Horn with the Fox Valley Symphony, the Green Bay Symphony, and the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra. He earned a B.M. at California State University, M.M. at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and D.M.A at the University of Cincinnati.

PAUL HINDEMITH FRANK P. ZIMMERMANN, VIOLIN;*FRANKFURT RADIO SYM. ORCH./P.JARVIENRICO PACE, PIANO ** CTO. FOR VIOLIN & ORCH.(1939*)SONATA FOR SOLO VLN, OP.31 NO.2,"ES IST SO SCHONES WETTER DRAUBEN';SONATA IN E FLAT FOR VIOLIN& PIANO, OP.11 NO.1; SONATA IN E FOR VIOLIN & PNO. (1935)SONATA IN C FOR VIOLIN & PN. (1939)**

Krzysztof Lason is a violinist, teacher, and improviser who studied in Katowice, Warsaw, and Graz. He is a prize-winner of the competiitons in Cracow and Val Tidone, a scholar of the Ministry of Culture and the Dutch foundation Iris. He has performed in over 25 European countries, the USA, Canada, Japan, China, India, and Nepal, and he has recorded for Decca, BBC3, WDR3, the Polish Radio, DUX, and CD Accord. He has been nominated for the International Classical Music Awards and the Polish music award “Fryderyki.” He is fascinated with sound possibilities of the violin and he willingly performs contemporary music, which is often written specially for him. He has performed Dharma at Big Sur by John Adams on a six-string violin as the first Pole in the history together with the Orchestra of New Music. He has premiered a number of new compositions. He is passionate about balancing on the verge of music styles; he feels at ease in chamber ensembles. However, above all, he appreciates the freedom of expression, which he achieves by improvised music.

After their album entitled Singing Cello, this recording released by Istvan Vardai and Julien Quentin offers a compilation of popular cello pieces of the 19th and 20th century, performed on the famous Stradivari cello referred as '1673 Strad', earlier used by Jaqueline du Pre� and Lynn Harrell. The cellos manufactured by the renowned Italian instrument-maker have, somewhat surprisingly, an even better reputation than his violins. Out of the 65 items remaining, the '1673 Strad' was made relatively early, being the only Stradivari cello dating back to this year. Istvan Vardai was born in 1985. He studied with Laszlo Mezo at the Liszt Academy of Music and with Reinhard Latzko at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Veinna. Since his debut concert in 1997, he has performed all over the world and has won numerous accolaides. French pianist Julien Quintin has established himself as a versatile and sensitive musician, exhibiting great maturity and poise. His remarkable depth of musicianship and distinct clarity of sound coupled with flawless technique, make him an artist in demand as both soloist and chamber musician.

GARIBOLDI,KLOSE,CAVALLINI,ETC ADAMI CLARINET QUARTET RARE ITALIAN CLARINET CHAMBER MUSIC OF THE 19TH CENTURY

The reign of the Catholic Monarchs - corresponding to the last decades of the 15th and the first decades of the 16th century - laid the foundation for Spain's power and prosperity in Early Modern Europe. Those were the days of Christopher Columbus's expeditions, but also the days of the War of Granada and the expulsion of Jews from Spain... This stormy period in Spanish history has left a rich musical legacy. An essential part of it is the vast repertoire of Spanish secular art song written to amatory, political propaganda, philosophical and devotional texts. Most of this repertoire was written down the manuscript widely known as Cancionero Musical de Palacio. With more than 450 pieces composed over several decades by several generations of both identified and anonymous composers, Cancionero Musical de Palacio 'towers above every other secular monument of Spanish Renaissance musical history' (Robert Stevenson). Arianna Savall, Petter Johansen, Corina Marti, Michal Gondko and Tore Eketorp join forces to bring their public the gems of this madly beautiful music, which - according to the contemporary witness - was once 'all the rage' among members of the aristocratic society of the Early Renaissance Spain. An extremely 'easy-o-the ear-going' programme, with Arianna Savall's touching singing coming straight from the heart.

From experience, I have learned to have high expectations whenever I am dealing with a CD released by Alpha. In every single disc I have gotten from them so far, I note extreme care in all the aspects of production: exquisite art design, a beautiful detail of an excellent painting on the cover, informative liner notes (always including a lengthy explanation of the aforementioned painting itself, which never ceases to delight me!), exciting repertoire, marvelously performed and equally well recorded.

The present CD is no exception to the rule, and it has an extra bonus: it presents a very curious and almost unknown version of three Beethoven sonatas, skillfully transcribed by Pierre-Auguste-Louis Blondeau, who published them in 1808–09, for the benefit of the refined amateur. I would tell you more about this forgotten master, but you know what? You should really get this CD, and read the text: it will not only give you a very good idea about the composer and his artistic milieu, as well as a step-by-step commentary on the movements of each sonata (Michelle Garnier-Panafieu wrote the liner notes), but will also provide you with a knowledgeable article (by Denis Grenier) on the painting by Marie Éléonore Godefroid which graces the cover. To hear Beethoven in this new guise is fascinating and fun. At the same time, a surprise and an experience in déjà vu. No matter how much Beethoven himself used to condemn such transcriptions, somehow the music fits very well for the string quartet, and engages our interest right away. Evidently, a large part of the merit belongs to the musicians of Quatuor ad Fontes, who play with real zest and just the right touch of grittiness. After hearing the CD, I wondered whether I would not find the original version of these works a little bit subdued, from now on.

This is a very good recording, which should be valuable to anyone who loves Beethoven, as well as for those who hate him (maybe they will enjoy Blondeau more than they do the Viennese master). It is a must for all who are interested in the early Romantic period, or in transposition, or in string quartet repertoire, or who simply want to acquire a beautifully presented CD as a gift to someone special. In short: for practically everybody!

Laura Rónai, FANFARE

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This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

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Third Coast Percussion’s Paddle to the Sea transports listeners into a realm of imaginative sounds and world-premiere recordings evoking the aquatic world. Anchoring the album is the Grammy Award-winning ensemble’s original new collaborative composition Paddle to the Sea. The fearsomely talented foursome conceived it as a live soundtrack to the charming, Oscar-nominated 1966 film of the same name, based on a classic children’s story about a Native Canadian boy who carves a wooden figure called Paddle-to-the-Sea and launches him on a solo canoe voyage to the ocean. The Dallas Morning News called Third Coast’s concert performance “arresting and enjoyable.” TheaterJones called it “unforgettable” and said, “There was something magical about the performance, but it is almost impossible to describe the experience in mere words.” In composing Paddle to the Sea, Third Coast found a wellspring of ideas in the other works they’ve included on the album. Jacob Druckman’s Reflections on the Nature of Water revels in textures and timbres unique to the marimba as it explores the different characters water can embody. Third Coast plays its own arrangement of selections from Philip Glass’s 12 Pieces for Ballet (originally composed for piano) — also drawing inspiration from Brazilian group Uakti’s multi-instrumental version, titled Aguas da Amazonia. The final leg of Third Coast’s waterborne adventure is Zimbabwean Musekiwa Chingdoza’s arrangement of Chingwaya, a song from the Shona tradition used to call water spirits.

REVIEW:

Today’s percussionists are amazing virtuosos, and the members of Third Coast Percussion play with astonishing precision and sensitivity throughout this intelligently planned recital built around the theme of “water” in many of its forms. There are two major works, the most important of which is Jacob Druckman’s amazing marimba solo “Reflections on the Nature of Water.” Its six movement are broken into pairs, and spread throughout the disc. As the idiom is strongly atonal, it makes a refreshing contrast to the mellow harmonic syntax of the remaining pieces.

The other major work is Third World Percussion’s original film score Paddle to the Sea. The movements have evocative titles, some presumably taken from the images to which they correspond: The Lighthouse and the Cabin, Open Water, Nagara, The Locks, etc. Other bits are simply evocative and more impressionistic: Flow, Thaw, Sanctuary, Release. The entire work plays for about thirty-five minutes, and despite the considerable skill that obviously went into its crafting, it doesn’t seem to have much musical substance. It sounds like background, and presumably suits its purpose admirably, but you may well feel differently.

Also interspersed with the other items are four superbly made transcriptions from Philip Glass’s score to Aguas da Amazonia, easy on the ear and magnificently played. The last of them, Amazon River, brings the program to a satisfying conclusion. Finally, the players toss in a Zimbabwean song of the Shona people, Chigwaya, supposedly used to call water spirits. It’s charming, but also musically ephemeral. It would have been interesting to hear the song used as the basis for something more extended in form.

The bottom line here is that the performances are amazing, the music of variable quality but never gratuitously difficult or off-putting, and the engineering is perfect. You make the call.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

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This is the second release in an important new APR series devoted to the French Piano School. For around 150 years France has nurtured a distinctive style of pianism centered on the teaching of the Paris Conservatoire. The heyday of the school was probably the first fifty years of the 20th century and this series of recordings aims to explore in depth the often-forgotten recordings made at this time. Victor Staub (1872-1953) and Lazare-Lévy (1882-1964) were both students of Louis Diémer at the Paris Conservatoire in the latter part of the 19th century and both were to follow in his footsteps as great teachers in that institution and elsewhere. Indeed, their list of pupils reads as a roll call of 20th century French pianists. However, they were also extremely fine pianists and this set presents, for the first time, their complete studio recordings. The Staub titles are almost forgotten and none have ever been reissued before. As one would expect, clarity, brilliance and refinement are much to the fore in these exemplars of the French School.

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This lighthearted music is given wings by the flutist Mikael Helasvuo and guitarist Jukka Savijoki, both from Finland, in performances that were praised at the time of the original release – as three single discs – in for instance Classical Guitar, whose reviewer wrote, “Helasvuo and Savijoki achieve an ensemble that at times reaches near perfection … this is what good chamber music playing is all about.”

A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month

This set of discs is quite interesting: it brings together two French composers from the first half of the 18th century who are little known. That is to say: Jean-Baptiste Barrière is fairly well known, but almost exclusively as a pioneer of the cello in France. It is remarkable that the two collections which Luca Quintavalle has recorded were published at about the same time, but are stylistically very different.

Barrière was from Bordeaux and worked in Paris in 1730 as Musicien ordinaire de notre Académie Royale de Musique. In 1733 he was granted a privilege to publish sonatas and other instrumental works. He studied for some time in Italy, but there are different opinions on exactly when he was there. It is not that relevant from a musical point of view, because right from the start the Italian influence in his compositions is clearly discernible. His first two books with six sonatas each were printed in Paris in 1733 and 1735 respectively; these were followed in 1739 and 1740 by the third and fourth book. These collections show an increase in technical complexity and the last two books attest to Barrière's full embracing of the Italian style.

In 1739 he also published a book - as Livre V - for the pardessus de viole, the descant viol. It comprises six sonatas, the first five of which were also included in the book of harpsichord music which was published in the same year. These are not merely transcriptions but reworkings for a completely different instrument, including additional ornamentation, elaboration and idiomatic runs. These sonatas follow the Corellian trio sonata model: they comprise four movements in the order slow - fast - slow - fast. Barrière added a sixth sonata in three movements: andante - largetto (sic) - aria amoroso.

Their Italian character not only comes to the fore in the use of the form of the sonata. In fact, Barrière was the first French composer to write sonatas for keyboard. A further Italian trait is that the movements have exclusively Italian titles: adagio, allegro, andante, grave, largo, aria. The only dance included here is a sarabanda in the Sonata No. 2 in D. However, the most important token of Italian influence is the music itself. There are Neapolitan influences, but also references to the music of Vivaldi and Domenico Scarlatti. Some movements are quite dramatic; one of the most notable examples is the adagio which opens the Sonata No. 4 in G.

Barrière's harpsichord sonatas have little to do with tradition. Only one part of the Sonates et pièces can be connected to the French harpsichord school. The six pièces are character pieces as we know them from the oeuvre of, for instance, François Couperin. However, stylistically they are much closer to such pieces by the likes of Forqueray and especially his contemporary Joseph Nicolas Pancrace Royer (1705 - 1755). In the preface to his Premier Livre de pièces pour clavecin of 1746 Royer stated that "[the] pieces are open to great variety, passing from the tender to the lively, from the simple to the tumultuous, often successively within the same piece". That is the case with Barrière's character pieces as well; some indeed can be counted among the 'tumultuous', such as La Casamajor.

It is remarkable that the harpsichord pieces of the younger Bernard de Bury are more conservative than Barrière's. Much more than in the pieces by the latter we notice François Couperin's influence. His Premier livre de pièces de clavecin which dates from around 1736 includes several pieces whose titles are identical or almost identical with titles in the four harpsichord books of Couperin.

Bury came from a musical family; his father was ordinaire de la musique du roi. He spent his entire life and career in Versailles. He took several positions at the court; as maître de chapelle he succeeded his teacher Colin de Blamont, to whom he dedicated his harpsichord book. In 1785 he was ennobled by Louis XVI, five months before his death. In addition to his harpsichord works he composed music for the stage which found a positive reception.

Despite some Italian traits in his harpsichord music - just like in Couperin's ordres - his keyboard music is very French. The book comprises four suites of different lengths which include almost exclusively character pieces. The only exception is the loure in the 3e Suite in G. The chaconne which closes the 4e Suite in E and the entire collection, is one of the most telling tokens of this book's being part of the French tradition: hardly an opera was written without a chaconne and virtually every suite for keyboard or for an instrumental ensemble included a chaconne. There is no watershed between dances and character pieces: several of the latter were written in the form of a dance, or perhaps we should say that dances were given titles to indicate an extra-musical meaning. In the 1e Suite in A, for instance, we find a sarabande with the title Les Regrets. A form which Bury frequently uses is the rondeau, which was becoming increasingly popular in France around the mid-18th century.

Bury's harpsichord works have been recorded before, but are hardly known; they also seldom appear on programmes of recitals. As far as I know only a couple of pieces from Barrière's collection are available on disc; this is probably the first complete recording. I find that rather surprising, considering their quality and their historical importance. That makes this set a significant addition to the discography. This repertoire is served very well by Luca Quintavalle who delivers energetic and stylish performances. The brilliance of Barrières pieces and the different features of Bury's harpsichord works is convincingly conveyed. He plays a splendid instrument: a copy of a harpsichord by Pierre Donzelague of 1711. The miking is just right: it reveals enough details without losing the overall picture.

There is just one issue I need to mention. There is too little space between the pieces: the first movement of a sonata or a suite follows the last movement of the previous work almost attacca. That is an unlucky negligence on the side of the production team.

Considering the importance of the repertoire and the quality of music and interpretation this production deserves the label of Recording of the Month.

– MusicWeb International (Johan van Veen)

Polish Heart (The)

On her Pentatone debut album, young German star soprano Anna Lucia Richter explores the heart-wrenching, timeless and universal feeling of Heimweh (homesickness) through a collection of extraordinary Schubert songs. Richter approaches the notion of Heimweh from several perspectives: from that of queens, young girls and shepherds to that of soldiers, dwarfs and gravediggers. The repertoire consists of the original, German-language version of Ave Maria, three Mignon songs (Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, Heiss micht nicht reden and So lasst mich scheinen), the sinister Der Zwerg, the expansive flower ballad Viola and many others. Richter is accompanied by pianist Gerold Huber, with whom she has formed a congenial Lieder tandem in the last years. They are joined by clarinetist Matthias Schorn on the final song of the program, the quasi concert aria Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.

Anne Boleyn is without doubt the most famous of Henry VIII's six wives. She was brought up for a time under the guardianship of Margaret of Austria, who was patron to some of the most famous composers in all of Europe, and then in the French court before her return to England in 1522. It was in France where the young Anne developed her keen musical tastes, and when a collection of her favorite works began to be assembled into what is now known as the Anne Boleyn Songbook (Royal College of Music, MS 1070). The book probably remained in her possession until her execution in 1536, when she was accused of adultery with no less than five men including her own brother, George, and luteplayer Mark Smeaton. Here Alamire explores the finest works in the Songbook by the greatest composers of the early 16th century, including Comp�re, Brumel, Mouton, and Josquin. Performances by Alamire are interspersed with French chansons and instrumental items for lute, harp and voice. The program concludes with a most haunting setting of 'O Deathe rock me asleep', not from the Songbook but possibly linked to Anne's fate while awaiting her execution in the Tower of London.