Classical Music

If you're holding this CD in your hands, you prize the unexpected. Not because it's written on the cover, but most likely just because you like to listen to new music. In other words: The unexpected is exactly what you're expecting. Admittedly, this expectation makes it considerably harder to present you with something genuinely unexpected in the seventh CD of the Edition MusikFabrik released by the label WERGO. The question posed by David Lang in the title of his melodrama - "Are you experienced?" - is rhetorical in nature, given that the piece takes a speculative look at the unexpected end of a concert evening. Philippe Boesmans, best known as a composer of operas, surprises us with a "Biedermeier" sextet. For Richard Barrett, interference becomes a structural principle, and Luca Francesconi knows the formula for driving the formulaic out of music. The tracks on this CD also trace an arc, from the beginning of the Ensemble MusikFabrik i'm WDR concert series to a world premiere during concert twenty-four at the network's Cologne studios: twenty-four concerts that formed the basis of the first seven CDs in the Edition MusikFabrik series. After many more concerts, the public can answer the ironic question "Are you experienced?" with confidence: "Yes, we are." How about you?

Outstanding soloists: Donna Brown (Soprano), Gilles Cachemaille (Bass-Baritone) - A further reference recording of Helmuth Rilling and his Stuttgarter Ensembles Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium belonging to the series “Great Choral Works“ - „Brahms-singing with predictive dimension and forcefullness but in the same way deeply human in each phrase“ Fono Forum This "Requiem" is not based on the familiar text of the Catholic funeral mass, but is instead sensitively and knowledgably assembled from text from the Old and New Testaments by Brahms himself. Indeed, it was not his intention to pattern his Requiem after the Latin mass for the dead, nor to proclaim what he felt were false hopes for resurrection. Instead, “Ein deutsches Requiem” is a work of consolation for those left behind. This aspect is particularly emphasized in Helmuth Rilling’s moving interpretation. Donna Brown (soprano) and Gilles Cachemaille (baritone) are the outstanding vocal soloists, delivering well-profiled performances that are perfectly integrated into the overall balance of sound. Together with his regular collaborators, the Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Rilling delivers a performance full of gravitas that effectively reconciles the themes of death and mourning with a transcendent sense of spiritual consolation with a sense of immediacy seldom encountered in other performances.

The latest release in Hallé’s award winning Elgar Edition features the much anticipated studio recording of Sea Pictures, coupled with the lesser known tone poem Polonia and the five original Pomp and Circumstance Marches.

Premiered in 1899, shortly after the triumph of the Enigma Variations in London the previous month, Sea Pictures became an immediate hit (with two of the songs being performed with piano accompaniment for Queen Victoria at Balmoral two weeks after the premiere). The cycle of five songs for which Elgar selected a variety of poems from his wide knowledge of literature, features a range of masterly orchestral textures and stunning vocal settings.

The featured soloist is world renowned mezzo soprano Alice Coote, regarded as one of the leading artists of our day, equally famed on the great operatic stages as in concert and recital.

Polonia has long been overlooked but this recording will re-establish this highly engaging tone poem which quotes Polish tunes and Chopin, written as a tribute to Poland’s contribution to the Allied cause in the First World War, in a brilliantly orchestrated score.

Not all of the five original Pomp and Circumstance Marches are as universally well known as No.1 and No.4 and, although constructed on the same structural pattern, they display an extraordinary variety of character. These orchestral showcases are a perfect vehicle with which to display the technical and artistic skill of the Hallé under Elder.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

The Swiss composer �mile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) is best remembered for his development of Eurhythmics, which teaches the appreciation of music through movement. But Jaques-Dalcroze, who studied with Delibes and Faur� in Paris and with Bruckner and Fuchs in Vienna, was a considerable composer in his own right, with operas, cantatas and orchestral works among his substantial output. These piano works, all written in the 1890s, are generally lighter in style, showing the influence of Schumann and the salons of Paris. Winner of several national and international prizes, the Milanese pianist Adalberto Maria Riva received a special mention at the International Competition of Music IBLA Grand Prize in 2008. This distinction allowed him to undertake a tour in the USA in April 2009 with a concert in Carnegie Hall. His repertoire ranges from Bach to contemporary composers, a sequence that he presents in a cycle of concert-conferences based on history and pianistic literature in a number of cultural and musical institutions across Europe.

Classical Music

Winner of the First Prize at the Maria Canals Piano Competition in Barcelona, Viv McLean has performed in all the major venues in the UK as well as throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA. Viv's concerto work includes appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, Orchestra of the Swan, Orchestra of St John's, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of such conductors as Daniel Harding, Wayne Marshall, John Lubbock, Christopher Warren-Green, Owain Arwell Hughes, Philip Hesketh, David Charles Abell, Stephen Bell, Carl Davis, Christopher George and Marvin Hamlisch. Recent concerto highlights include Mozart K467 with the ECO at the Royal Festival Hall, Grieg with the LPO at the Barbican, Rachmaninov's 3rd Concerto with the RPO in Cambridge, Gershwin, Bernstein, de Falla and Ravel with the Hall� at the Bridgewater Hall, The Sage Gateshead and other venues in the North of England, and Beethoven's 5th Concerto with the Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall. Viv has recently been on tour with the London Concert Orchestra where he played Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Symphony Hall, Bridgewater Hall, St David's Hall Cardiff, Philharmonic Hall Liverpool and Leicester's de Montfort Hall. On this new release, he presents a programme of well-known George Gershwin compositions and transcriptions.

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812-65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim 'the greatest violinist I ever heard'. But the popular encore pieces by which Ernst is remembered today represent only a fraction of his output. This fifth CD - in series of seven presenting all his compositions for the first time - shows his mastery on large and small scale: the Polonaise and Variations on a Dutch Air are grand and brilliant compositions for the concert hall, and the sparkling operatic miniatures and tender arrangements are altogether more intimate.

Tchaikovsky & Dvorák: Serenades for Strings

Classical Music

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HENZE El Cimarrón • Angelo de Leonardis (bar); Gundl Aggermann (fl); Christina Schorn (gtr); Ivan Mancinelli (perc) • WERGO 6710 (2 CDs: 84:22 Text and Translation)


"I made my case for El Cimarrón in Fanfare 31:2; I think it is a potent work, perhaps Henze’s masterpiece, but I didn’t like that Stradivarius recording by Nicholas Isherwood. That issue is too recent to merit quoting at length; if you don’t know the work, please refer to that review. The piece falls into a musical no-man’s-land between song and speech. Henze’s singing actors are given far more freedom than Schoenberg’s—there is little of Sprechstimme here, unless a performer so chooses—which is both the glory and the curse of El Cimarrón . Early recordings (there have been four that I know of) concentrated on the music; baritone William Pearson sang in the 1971 DG recording led by Henze himself, which remains my favorite. One might say that those performers (at the composer’s direction, of course) followed the score, trusting in the words and music to make the full dramatic impact. More recent productions, the Stradivarius and now this one, take advantage of the aleatoric elements of the score and lean toward a chewing-the-scenery style of acting—screaming, ranting, and raging—which puts me off. For one thing, it makes the protagonist less sympathetic; we are less likely to take his life experiences seriously, which is the main point of the work. Henze’s complete title (translated) is El Cimarrón, The Autobiography of the Runaway Slave Esteban Montejo; Recital for Four Musicians . Henze met Esteban Montejo; at age 108 “he radiated dignity.” There is little dignity here, whereas Pearson’s deep bass speaking voice and overall formality delivered dignity in spades. This wild acting style also tends to obscure some wonderful music, turning it into background accompaniment instead of full participant. This issue credits an artistic director/dramaturge (Michael Kerstan) rather than a conductor. Does the composer approve of this recent trend? He attended a rehearsal for the staged production that led to this studio recording, and was “very impressed by the energy, the artistic élan, and the human commitment they manifested.” I interpret that as damning with faint praise, as he has always raved about any performers who tackle his œuvre.


De Leonardis starts off very much as Isherwood did, using many voices from bass to falsetto, crooning and moaning, shouting and whispering; he calms down a bit as Esteban’s life progresses and is a fine singer when required, which Isherwood was not. More of the music comes to life this time; I like the slow tempos very much. The big surprise is that de Leonardis sings an English version by Christopher Keene; the booklet gives no hint as to why. Wergo is the recording division of Schott Music & Media, Henze’s publishers; one would expect it to use Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s original German libretto for this “official” documentation. Texts appear in both languages, on facing pages. De Leonardis makes every word clear, though he sings with an unidentifiable accent; at least it is not that of an upper class, educated white man. The English grows on me at repeated hearings; it’s nice not to have one’s nose buried in the libretto. The other three musicians are excellent, and an impactful digital recording is especially effective in reproducing Henze’s wide variety of exotic percussion."


FANFARE: James H. North

Volume 4 of Bridge’s Fred Lerdahl series offers music composed over a span of four decades. Three recent pieces, Spirals, Three Diatonic Studies, and Imbrications, are recorded here for the first time and two earlier works, Wake and Fantasy Etudes, are re-issues. Spirals is scored for an orchestra of double woodwinds, two horns, two trumpets, percussion, piano, and strings. The two movements are of equal length, the first fast and brilliant, the second slow and lyrical. Three Diatonic Studies originated in a commission from the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival to write a variation based on the “Aria” of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Lerdahl later added two other diatonic studies to form the present suite. The brief Imbrications was written in 2001 in honor of the composer Andrew Imbrie’s 80th birthday. The inspiration for Wake came from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. The work was composed at the request of the legendary soprano Bethany Beardslee and was composed while Lerdahl was in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival. Lerdahl composed Fantasy Etudes in 1985. The piece is in one movement and is scored, like Imbrications, for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano. The stunning performance here is by three-time Grammy-winning ensemble, eighth blackbird. Fred Lerdahl’s music is highly esteemed for having developed original harmonic syntaxes and formal processes, presented with expressive depth.

The recording of Eliott Carter's "Boston Concerto" on this album was nominated for the 2007 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition."

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Mark Andre's music is introverted and fragile, but it speaks to the listener with a shy intensity: hij! This is the title given by the German-French composer to a pair of pieces recorded for this album by the cr�me de la cr�me of avant-garde music ensembles: the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne conducted by Mariano Chiacchiarini as well as the SWR Vocal Ensemble and Experimental Studio with conductor Marcus Creed and sound director Joachim Haas. The music on this album is characterized by the unique nature of it's sounds. It sensitizes our ears to the tiniest nuances and creates mesmerizing fields of tension on the borders between sound and silence. Intricate and subtly transformed contrapuntal structures weave their way through hij 1 (for orchestra) like bewitching sound shadows searching for resonance, a resonance which becomes the point of departure for hij 2 (for vocal ensemble and electronics). This music is absolutely contemporary, yet it embraces the inherited musical tradition in a completely authentic and unpretentious manner. It slips stealthily into our consciousness and vanishes just as mysteriously.

One of the most difficult aspects in considering the works of a composer with a complex, characteristic (some might say hermetically sealed) style like Carter's is that there's always a temptation to take the lazy way out and just assert that, "Well, it all sounds like Carter, and if you like Carter then you'll like these pieces." And when the performances are as good as these clearly are the attractions of taking the easy option become all but overwhelming. Alas, for good or ill, critics are supposed to offer opinions not just about the quality of performance, but also regarding the works themselves when they are new. The problem with doing this successfully (or even plausibly) in Carter's case is that his music asks to be judged by its own standards, and probably the only person adequately qualified to say anything intelligent in this regard is Elliott Carter himself. Still, that's never stopped me before, and it's not going to now. Having lived with this disc for some time, here's the bottom line: not all of this music is equally good, but some if it is really enjoyable.


Shard, for solo guitar, is a zippy and appealing little two and a half minute trifle that, as the title implies, sounds like a piece of something bigger, but one with an edge to it. That something bigger (and edgier) turns out to be Luimen (the title is Dutch and means "whimsical moods"), of which Shard comprises the third of four continuous sections, albeit with additional instrumental commentary. The word "whimsical" aptly describes Luimen, and any composer worth his salt better have his tongue in his cheek when writing for an ensemble consisting of trumpet, trombone, harp, mandolin, guitar, and vibraphone. Why does Carter's style work so well here? Well, first of all, traditional tonality would almost inevitably force a composer into well-worn melodic and harmonic pathways hardly suited to such an unequal and strange assortment of instruments. The result would probably sound merely foolish, whereas Carter's music, with its layered approach to complex rhythms and other simultaneous musical happenings celebrates and exploits the timbral potential of just such an unbalanced instrumental grouping. Take for example the work's second section, in which lovely soft chords from muted brass, harp and vibraphone serve as a background to sudden plucks from the mandolin and guitar, or the very end of the whole work, which is exquisitely timed to produce a really humorous effect. In short, this piece delivers the goods, and does so with a smile.


The same, alas, can't be said for Tempo e tempi, a song cycle set to various Italian poems and scored for voice, oboe/English horn, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, and cello. Here the means must be at least somewhat more traditional because the point of any song cycle is the expressive enhancement of the text through music (which is the not the same thing as mere musical illustration, mind you). Three of the songs, "A Dove", with its softly warbling clarinet, "Sunken Oboe" (the musical potential is obvious), and "The Poet's Secret", with its luminous accompaniment, accomplish this goal. The remaining five, whatever private meaning they may hold for the composer, sound as if he could have been setting excerpts from the Manhattan yellow pages, for all their expressive specificity. He's also let down by a recording that places everyone, including soprano Susan Narucki, too close to the microphones, resulting in flat aural perspectives and tonal monotony (though everything else on this disc sounds great). And let's face it, you really can't place any work with lots of solo oboe (no matter how fine the player) far enough away from the microphones, can you?


That leaves us with the celebrated Eight Pieces for Four Timpani. This seminal work, beloved of percussionists, belongs as much in the practice room as it does in the concert hall. Carter himself requests that no more than four of these brief studies ever be played at one time, recognizing the potential for aural fatigue. Daniel Druckman accommodates their metrical and polyrhythmic complexities with virtuoso flair, and he's recorded clearly enough so that the music never turns into mud. Curiously, their interest being primarily rhythmic, these pieces make pretty easy listening for anyone who enjoys virtuoso drumming or music with a certain primal quality. Our Western tradition is filled with works in which an amazing sophistication of technique evokes ancient or primitive ritual music (think of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring or Les Noces, Varèse's Amériques, Ginastera's Popol Vuh, or Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano), and Carter's timpani pieces fall squarely into this tradition, however personal the actual idiom.


So there you have it! Now well into his 90s, Carter continues to write challenging, stimulating music, and to enjoy the enthusiastic support and loyalty of a tremendously talented group of musicians, not least the members of Speculum Musicae. The fact that he employs a highly evolved and complex personal style with limited broad appeal should not, in the final analysis, excuse anyone--supporters, detractors, or even music critics (who ideally should belong to neither category)--from taking each work as it comes and giving it due consideration accordingly. I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt he'd want it any other way. It should also come as no surprise that not everything he writes is equally good. After all, he may be the Grand Old Man of the American avant-garde, but in all other respects he's only human, and so is his music when you come right down to it. [3/4/2002]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This recording pairs music for violin and piano by two young British composers who found themselves marooned in American exile by World War II: Richard Arnell (1817-2009) and Stanley Bate (1911-59). Both composers established respectable careers for themselves in the New World before returning to Britain, Arnell in 1947 and Bate in 1949. Arnell’s music can be warmly lyrical and fiercely dramatic by turn, rather like its volatile and energetic composer. Bate’s First Violin Sonata has echoes of two of his teachers- Vaughan Williams and Hindemith. Plymouth-born violinist Patrick Wastnage attended Dartington College of Arts from the age of sixteen. He went on to the Guildhall School of Music, where he studied with Yfrah Neaman, Erich Gruenberg, David Takeno and later with Sandor Vegh. Joining the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1986, he has led a parallel career as soloist and chamber-music player. Elizabeth Dunn studied the piano at the Guildhall School of Music with Geraldine Peppin. Since then she has performed extensively as soloist, accompanist, and in chamber groups.

The works for violoncello solo recorded and compiled on this CD by Friedrich Gauwerky are reference works for John Cage's unusual way of composing. Apart from the tones, Cage also helped to put the varied forms of silence on the musical map: In John Cage's "Concert for Piano and Orchestra", the western art work, score, exploded: The work is composed in individual parts whose execution is freed of every constraint. Each part is even conceived as an autonomous work, e.g. like "Solo for Cello". "59 1/2 Seconds", one of his "time-length pieces", ranks among Cage's most radical "graphic" compositions. Stars become notes or noises in "Atlas Eclipticalis" - again without a score. With the "Variations I", written for any number of people using any sort and number of sound-producing means, Cage's composition reached the outmost limit on the way to absolute indetermination. But, if one hears "Etudes Bor�ales" for cello solo, however, one experiences that it is a piece whose status can only be compared with J.S. Bach's cello compositions. A critic wrote about Friedrich Gauwerky: "... a virtuoso with far-sightedness, good taste, amazing technique, and a captivating instrument." (Lutz Lesle: Neue Zeitschrift f�r Musik)

Recording all the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti on the piano is an undertaking of great moment and fascination: a journey through shared cultural experience, as well as one that explores the subtle thought processes of a musical genius, with his Italianate approach to art. This is the fifth volume in this outstanding series. Carlo Grante is one of Italy’s foremost concert pianists. He has performed in such major venues as the Vienna Musikverein, the Berlin Philharmonie’s Chamber Music Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, and more. He has appeared as soloist with all of the world’s major orchestras. In 2014-2015, his series “Masters of High Romanticism,” featuring three recital programmes each devoted to Chopin, Chumann and Brahms, was taken to major halls in New York, Vienna and Berlin. Though best known for his Scarlatti, Mozart, and Chopin interpretations, Grante has had many contemporary works dedicated to him, including Adolphe’s Chopin Dreams. He has released nearly 50 recordings.

Helmut Lachenmann is often associated with the musique concrète instrumentale that he developed during the middle years of his career. The pieces on this recording, however, were written both before and after this particular aesthetic phase. The point of departure for these ideas (as Lachenmann put it in 1970) is sound itself “as the characteristic result and signal of its mechanical origin and the more or less economical use of the energy required to produce it.” Noise-like instrumental sounds are examined for similarities and contrasts. They are also cataloged: categories and families are created as the foundation of a kind of motivic development using noises and sounds. In “Got Lost” Lachenmann used four lines from Nietzsche, the poem “All Love Letters Are Ridiculous” by Fernando Pessoa and a short note in English lamenting the loss of a laundry basket which gave this work its name. Lachenmann wrote: “Three only seemingly unrelated texts, stripped of their lofty, poetic, or mundane diction, are all presented by the same sound source – a soprano voice singing ‘any old way’ – and sent into a constantly changing intervallic field of sound, resonance, and movement."

Rubinstein Collection, Vol. 77

In 1961, Mauricio Kagel wrote a piano piece with two titles. As a solo work, it is called “Metapiece." It can also, however, be played together – either simultaneously or in alternation – with other pieces by Kagel or other living composers, and is then called Mimetics. In this way, Kagel opens at the conceptual level various possibilities for the interpreter to realize his composition. The pianist Sabine Liebner has accepted Kagel’s invitation to collaborate and undertaken her own musical journey through the composer’s piano music. Sabine Liebner‘s response to his invitation to play with the idea of open form is unique in that she combines “Metapiece” exclusively with other piano pieces, all of them composed by Kagel himself. “Metapiece”, in its “Mimetics” form, surrounds these other works or is laid over them. Framed by “Mimetics”, the “Cuatro piezas para piano” and “MM 51” are played in their original forms, and the piano etude “An Tasten” is subverted by a version of “Mimetics”. At the end of Liebner’s response to Kagel’s original invitation, “Metapiece” itself appears in a 20-minute solo version.

Chinese Australian composer Liza Lim was inspired by the lyric poetry of the Sufi poet Hafiz for her work Tongue of the Invisible. Lim explains, "the way in which he mixes and shifts levels of meaning gives rise to complex and indeterminable frames of mind in oneself." This variety of meaning is first and foremost reflected in the juxtaposition and coexistence of precisely and meticulously composed textures and improvised elements. But the compilation of the text set to music also facilitates numerous variants and interpretations. These dialogues are superbly "narrated" here by the pianist Uri Caine, singer Omar Ebrahim and the soloists of the ensemble musikFabrik.

Classical Music