Classical Music

The Fantaisie sur la Tempete de Shakespeare was composed shortly after Berlioz had won the coveted Prix de Rome (at the fourth attempt) with his cantata Sardanapale, and was originally conceived as a concert overture, with chorus. After various reworkings of the material, the four-movement Fantaisie, as recorded here, became the finale of Berlioz’s ‘monodrama’ Lelio- a juxtaposition of existing material interlinked with dramatic monologues recited by the ‘artist’ at the center of the work. Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz’s best-known work by some distance, remains an evergreen in the orchestral repertoire, and beloved of audiences the world over. The idiomatic approach to orchestration, grounded in Berlioz’s musical training in French provincial wind-bands, and the revolutionary approach to the prevailing conventions of musical form at the time shine through in the five-movement masterpiece, which remains one of the most vividly programmatic symphonies ever written. This recording was made after a pair of performances in September 2018 in the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, and is made in Surround Sound.

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REVIEW:

You might not think the world needs another reading of the Symphonie fantastique, but Davis' ease with the orchestra enables him to pull off a number of unusual orchestral effects. The real find here is the Fantaisie sur La Tempète de Shakespeare (Fantasy on Shakespeare's The Tempest). It is a charming collection of delicate orchestral displays complete with a choir singing words from The Tempest, or something like them, in Italian. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir achieves special grace here, and this little performance is worth the price of admission.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

Born in Ontario in August 1919, Tommy Reilly studied violin from the age of eight, and began playing harmonica at the age of eleven. Though he had played in England in 1935 – 37 and continental Europe in 1937 – 39, it was not until his arrest (while studying violin at the Leipzig Conservatory) and subsequent internment 1939 – 45 in prisoner-of-war camps that he developed his virtuosity on the harmonica, basing his ideas of phrasing and interpretation on the playing of Jascha Heifetz. Returning to London in 1945, Reilly began parallel careers as a concert soloist and recitalist, a popular BBC radio and television performer, and a studio musician-composer. He performed with most of the major European orchestras and toured all over the world as a concert soloist. Inspiring the composition of more than thirty works by other composers, Reilly also transcribed a great deal of repertoire for the instrument, in addition to composing his own works. In 1967 he designed a concert harmonica, later manufactured by Hohner and marketed as the Silver Concerto Chromonica. In 1992, he became the first harmonica player to be made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. His other awards included the Gold Medal of the Deutscher Harmonika-Verband, and a Golden Badge from the British Association of Composers, Authors and Songwriters. Sir Neville Marriner and Igor Stravinsky were among those who admired his playing.

The exhilarating conductor Kristjan Järvi exploits the style and panache of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in a festive programme of works by the American John Philip Sousa, ‘The March King’. This follows the spectacular recording of works by Julius Fu?ík, made by Neeme Järvi, Kristjan’s father. Including such famous pieces as The Stars and Stripes Forever (National March of the USA), Semper Fidelis (Official March of the US Marine Corps), and The Liberty Bell (theme tune for Monty Python's Flying Circus), this album is a celebration in its own right, enhanced by brightly coloured sound captured in high-quality surround-sound.

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REVIEW:

This fun album mixes the familiar — the thunderous trombone scales and tootling piccolo descants of The Liberty Bell (of Monty Python fame), The Washington Post, and The Stars and Stripes Forever — with elegant extracts from such forgotten operettas as The Irish Dragoon and El Capitan. It’s an infectious selection.

– The TImes (U.K.)

A fellow countryman of John Field's, Míceál O'Rourke performs on this 2-CD recital with intelligence and taste, much of the repertoire not otherwise available. A large amount of this music has the quiet charm one associates with the work of this delightful early-eighteenth century virtuoso Irish pianist and composer, and the collection includes all four surviving sonatas, complemented with a generous miscellany of rarely recorded or performed miniatures. Field was born a dozen years after Beethoven and these delightful pieces clearly show Beethoven's influence, as well as more than a hint of Mozart and Haydn. Nonetheless, they have a character of their own, especially in the innovative use of Irish folk tunes. For those who like piano music of the early nineteen century, this unusual repertoire will constitute a most enjoyable discovery. It makes an ideal introduction to Field's music as O'Rourke's stylish performances do full justice to the lovely melodies and general charm of the works.

Also available from the Silesian Quartet on Chandos: Bacewicz: Complete String Quartets

The 2017 Gramophone Award-winning Silesian Quartet here presents its second recording on Chandos, again devoted to the works of the Polish female composer Grazyna Bacewicz, in a rare programme full of contrast and individuality. The four works brought together here – two unusual quartet formations and two piano quintets – form an integral part of the central, chamber music strand in Bacewicz's output. While the Quartet for Four Violins and the First Piano Quintet have maintained a strong presence in both concerts and recordings, the intriguing Quartet for Four Cellos and Second Piano Quintet are lesser-known pieces. This is yet another must-have, preceding the fiftieth year of Bacewicz's death commemorations, a composer whose music is now considered by broadcasters, promoters, critics, and artists as an essential part of the Polish repertoire.

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REVIEW:

Bacewicz can generate momentum in the space of a four-minute movement and integrates eloquent bleakness with some of the sharpest, most light-footed musical wit since Haydn…This disc deserves to make a lot of converts.

– Gramophone

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

This is the second of three volumes of Brahms's choral works, performed by the Danish National Choir/DR with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under its distinguished Principal Conductor, Gerd Albrecht. Some of the works on this CD, especially the 'Ave Maria' and 'Triumphlied', are comparatively rarely heard, making this disc an important addition to the catalogue. Recorded in: Danish Radio Concert Hall, Copenhagen 8 & 9 November 2001 (Schicksalslied, Nänie) and 25-27 August 2003 (Triumphlied, Ave Maria) Producer(s) Chris Hazell Ivar Munk Sound Engineer(s) Jørn Jacobsen

The music on this disc has been researched and compiled in order to suggest the musical experience of the celebration of Christmas Mass at St Mark's, Venice in 1766. Filippo Maria Brressan and his forces have combined Galuppi's Gloria and Credo, both premiere recordings, with other vocal and instrumental pieces which may have been performed on such an occasion, creating a unique programme of interest to early music lovers and academics alike. Recorded in: Duomo Vecchio, Monselice, Italy 12-18 September 2002 Producer(s) Massimo Dal Santo Sound Engineer(s) Marco Lincetto

Recorded in: Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester 30 & 31 October 2001 Producer(s) Brian Pidgeon (Executive) Ralph Couzens Mike George

Recorded in: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 13-18 July 1989 Producer(s) James Mallinson Jane Woodfield (Assistant) Sound Engineer(s) Mark Vigars Peter Newble (Remastering)

All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

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Recorded in: Moscow

Recorded in: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 4-5 January 1996 Producer(s) Mike George Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Richard Smoker (Assistant)

Avoiding the tendency toward nationalist spirit that motivated his Polish colleagues, Mieczyslaw Karlowicz's music cleaves to the lush late-Romantic orchestral sound world and heavy-handed philosophical references essayed by Strauss and others. Bruckner, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Scriabin also ostensibly influenced Karlowicz (1876-1909), as his preferences for sweeping extended themes, massive climactic brass pronouncements, and swirling chromaticism are the dominant characteristics of these sprawling works.


The three-movement Eternal Songs substitutes Schopenhauer for Nietzsche as the inspiration for this Zarathustra-like tone poem. Peppered with "meaning of life" motives and headings but with no explicit program, Eternal Songs is anchored by powerful low brass climaxes (perfect intervals that mark the so-called "Eternity" theme) in both the first and final movement (the latter a giant self-contained Bruckner coda) and will remind listeners not only of Strauss' famous work but also of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. The central movement comprises the inevitable twin themes of Love and Death, and, befitting the lofty subjects embodied in this work, they are sumptuous and overwrought, replete with tam-tam and cymbal crashes, soaring horns, and trumpet flourishes.


Described as a "travesty" of Romeo and Juliet, the next work deals with the incestuous and ultimately forbidden love of siblings Stanislaw and Anna Oswiecim. Again, Strauss is the model (an unlikely mix of Don Juan, Der Rosenkavalier, and Symphonia Domestica), featuring a yielding, limpid melody ("Anna") juxtaposed with a more forceful high-spirited theme denoting Stanislaw. The music becomes more turbulent and tumultuous (their unrequited love?) only to culminate in the couple's ineluctable death, the clear highlight of the work. At 13:44, the music changes dramatically with the ominous entry of the bass clarinet, builds slowly into an impressive funeral march, and finally explodes into an awesome orchestral tutti at 18:42 that would do Siegfried justice. Chandos captures the BBC Philharmonic in all its glory (the brass section is really on its game) and thus provides a fitting farewell to Yan Pascal Tortelier as the orchestra's principal conductor.


After all this orchestral bombast, the gentler Lithuanian Rhapsody seems an odd way to end the disc. Remarkable only for the fact that it is the one tone poem by Karlowicz to be based on folksong, this coloristic work simply plods along, suffering from a dull main theme that can barely support its 17-minute length. Nonetheless, the rest of the music, however indebted it may be to other better-known composers, is thrilling, involving, and well-crafted. Complementing a two-disc complete set of tone poems from Dux (issued October, 2000) this disc is a highly worthwhile and sonically spectacular remnant of the late Romantic age from an unlikely source.
--Michael Liebowitz, ClassicsToday.com

Includes such famous works as the Greensleeves and Tallis Fantasias as well as The Lark Ascending.

Recorded in: Grand Hall of Moscow Conservatory 1994 Producer(s) Igor Veprintsev Sound Engineer(s) Elena Buneeva Vladimir Kisselev

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REVIEWS:
BBC Music (5/98, pp.62-63) - Performance: 4 (out of 5), Sound: 3 (out of 5) - Louis Lorite is...satisfying in both the Preludes and the 'Grande Polonaise', which is judicious and stylish, and he gives the 'Polonaise-Fantaisie' a sense of gravitas..."

Clarity and truth were the words I used to describe the original Chandos sound, and here it strikes me as even more vivid. I particularly enjoyed the wide range of dynamics and colour emanating from the keyboard without a trace of clanginess in the treble or boxiness in the bass. The playing of this huband-and-wife duo cannot be overpraised throughout the whole programme, which is all to the good since according to the current catalogues none of the three works is now otherwise generally available in the UK. The journey starts darkly: Shostakovich's late sonata plainly did not come from a happy mind. But Schnittke's piquant Shostakovich-influenced Violin Sonata No. 1 progressively lightens the gloom, before his whooly winning retreat into the musical past. Pastiche this last work may be, but the product of a very knowing craftsman all the same.

-- Joan Chissell, Gramophone [4/1985]

Recorded in: Orchestra Hall, Detroit 1-2 October 1995 Producer(s) Charles Greenwell Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Dan Dene Robert Shafer (Assistant)

Recorded in: St John's Smith Square, London 1-2 June 1976 Producer(s) Chris Hazell Sound Engineer(s) Danny Gosling Stan Goodall