Peerless musicianship.

This superb CD proves that time travel is possible. To listen to these outstanding performances by Ensemble Leones of Neidhart's beautiful music and witty, sophisticated, sometimes outrageous poetry is to be transported back eight hundred years to an incredible period in the history of music and civilisation in general. Everyone who cares about that heritage should hear this recording.
 
All the Neidhart songs in Leones' recital, both music and texts, are taken from the so-called Frankfurt Neidhart Fragment, dated to around 1300 and housed at Frankfurt-am-Main University. The eight surviving pages of a larger manuscript reveal - at least to the patient and trained eye of a scholar like Lewon - six songs by Neidhart, five with more or less complete melodies. This is the first complete recording and performance, made possible by Lewon's painstaking reconstruction of the surviving material, necessitating in one case the borrowing of appropriate melodies from elsewhere. The results may or may not be entirely authentic, but the songs are compellingly evocative and utterly convincing. The instruments employed by Leones are recent reproductions but they sound terrific, especially when played with the delicacy and intuition of Lewon and Romain.
 
Thanks to Lewon and his ensemble - whose ranks swell or shrink according to the current project, incidentally - 21st century audiences can enjoy Neidhart's peerless musicianship, specifically his maverick take on the generally more deferent Minnesang tradition. His Dörperlieder ('bumpkin songs') take the themes of the usual hohe Minne ('high love') - the courtly ideals of love from afar and chivalry - and transfer them to rough rustic settings. The real joke is on the gentry who laugh at the buffoonery and coarseness of the peasants in his songs - they are the implied object of Neidhart's insinuations and sarcasm.
 
It was a bold decision by Leones to perform the nearly ten-minute long song 'Ich claghe de blomen' without instrumental support - over 100 lines in nine stanzas - but such is the power of Neidhart's music and poetry that time flies past. In any case, the alternation of male and female voice, as well as the interpolation of purely instrumental items, makes listening to this recital as varied an experience as it is aesthetic.
 
The CD ends with a rather out-of-place song by Adam de la Halle, billed as a 'bonus track' and certainly sounding like an afterthought. The preceding song by the great Walther von der Vogelweide is at least no anachronism, but its inclusion is not really explained in the booklet.
 
As the notes explain, the German of Neidhart is not strictly Middle High German (MHG) but a Low version of the same, reflecting where the texts were written, and explaining why some of the sounds are reminiscent of modern Dutch. At any rate, Neidhart's language should prove at least as intelligible to modern Low German speakers as Geoffrey Chaucer's is to those familiar with today's English.
 
On the subject of pronunciation, both Marc Lowen and Els Janssens-Vanmunster sound entirely authentic, and their excellent diction only heightens the listener's joy. Their singing style is folk-like but not 'rustic', emotional without affectation, plaintive or humorous as appropriate without recourse to melodrama. Practically impeccable, in other words.
 
In his interesting notes Neidhart expert Marc Lewon points out that the 'von Reuental' still frequently attached to his name is erroneous, founded on "a nineteenth-century misapprehension". Curiously he, and Naxos in their title, set about perpetuating another of those with a mistranslation of 'Reuental' - 'riuwental' in MHG - as "vale of tears". In MHG tears is 'trene', 'Tränen' in modern German, whereas 'riuwe' equates with modern German 'Jammer' or 'Schmerz' - the minnesinger's 'lament' or 'pain'. The Nithart of these poems is a knight, not a cry-baby!
 
In his acknowledgements Lewon also thanks the proof-reader for checking his translations from German into English, but some of the phraseology is decidedly shaky for all that. For example, "in his Bavarian sphere" for "in seiner bairischen Heimat" ('in his Bavarian homeland'); "but from which the German Minnesang of Neidhart’s time was yet but far"; or "Neidhart only played the fool" for "Neidhart [...] spielte nur vordergründig den Narren" ('Neidhart only played the fool ostensibly'). Sometimes the language is so inapt as to misrepresent the original: "They show the distinctive trademarks of Neidhart’s oeuvre and touch on many aspects of his lyrical portfolio, featuring content, form, and musical modes typical to his work" is only tangentially equivalent to the German, quite apart from the linguistic horror that is "lyrical portfolio". Punctuation is also inconsistent and sometimes appears almost randomly applied.
 
Full sung texts, with translations into modern German and English, are downloadable for free from the Naxos website. The German translations are good, the English somewhat clumsier, with numerous misjudgements of term and register, as well as a few, sometimes meaning-changing typos - but perfectly serviceable nevertheless.
 
This CD was briefly reviewed here last year, when Naxos released it as a download only. Pace that review, no harp is used in this recording.
 
-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time, and is currently Master of the Queen' Music.

Dukas’ three major orchestral works make a logical and satisfying single program, and they are very well performed and recorded on this fine new disc from Naxos. There’s no guarantee, of course, that a French conductor will do especially well in French music, and no doubt Jean-Luc Tingaud does not wish to be pigeon-holed or limited only to the music of his countrymen, but he does play all three pieces with a certain idiomatic flair that’s both quite memorable and often excitingly fresh.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which opens the program, receives a swift and brilliant reading, but also one notable for its naturalness and unforced musicality. Right from the start, in the slow introduction, you will register the way that Tingaud and the RTÉ wind players skillfully build long phrases from Dukas’ melodic fragments, and ensure that the tension never sags. The climaxes also are perfectly judged. La péri, with its opening fanfare brilliantly played, never lapses into the sort of droopy languor that tempts other artists into overindulgence: the music has both rhythm and impetus as well as lusciousness.

This reading of the Symphony in C major may be the most impressive performance of all. The opening movement is really gripping, and the long coda, which can sound like an artificial appendage, builds in energy right through to the final bars. Kudos to the orchestra for keeping up with some pretty hard-driving conducting here. The central Andante also is beautifully shaped and truly “espressivo”, but with no dead spots, while the lively finale offers a very satisfying conclusion. Although there is no shortage of available recordings of these works, or even discs that present them together, this one is as good as any, and better than most. Give it a shot.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Everyone is familiar with, at the very least, a handful of John Philip Sousa's magnificent marches. Melodies from The Washington Post, The Stars and Stripes Forever, and The Liberty Bell can be found in countless films, television programs, commercials, and anywhere patriotic music is to be heard. However, these works barely scratch the surface of Sousa's deep catalogue of amazing compositions. The Sousa: Deep Cuts series from Altissimo! Recordings, seeks to highlight his more obscure works, from less-familiar marches, to waltzes and suites. This collection, all recorded by ''The President's Own'' United States Marine Band, is the only way to hear some of these pieces, and is perfect for hardcore fans of ''The March King.''

Holding the Flag

Classical Music

As a boy during the years 1822–23 Liszt studied in Vienna with Czerny and Salieri, at the same time as Schubert was winning his reputation as a leading composer in the city. Many years later Liszt did much to introduce Schubert’s music to a wider audience, not least through his prodigious transcriptions. In the case of the Three Marches and Mélodies hongroises, Liszt selected music originally written for piano duet, but in Soirées de Vienne, a set of nine pieces of which some were to remain prominent in Liszt’s concert repertoire, he fashioned a sequence of truly memorable valse-caprices.

Milestones is a cross-genre project by violinist Hugo Ticciati and the O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra, bringing together music by Josquin des Prez, Igor Stravinsky, and Miles Davis. Conceived around shared anniversary years, the album reflects O/Modernt's practice of placing music from different periods and traditions into direct conversation. Instrumental arrangements and collaborative performances draw attention to common ground between Renaissance polyphony, early modernism, and jazz, particularly in approaches to rhythm, texture, and improvisation. Recorded in Germany and the UK in 2021, the project documents an ensemble-led approach that emphasises attentive listening, flexible roles for soloists, and collective music-making across stylistic boundaries.

Joly Braga Santos (1924-88) was one of the most important composers in twentieth-century Portugal. In his early works his fondness for modal harmony, absorbed from the Portuguese masters of the Renaissance, and his busy counterpoint combine to make him sound surprisingly close to such particularly English composers as Vaughan Williams and Moeran. Although his harmonic language became more astringent with time, it retained a burly sense of humour and a powerful charge of energy, often infused with the spirit of Portuguese folk-dance. [Volumes 1-3: TOCC 0207, 0428, 0588]

Leipzig, 1726. Johann Sebastian Bach had been Cantor at the Thomaskirche for three years, and in February of that year he interrupted his regular production of cantatas to perform eighteen cantatas by his cousin Johann Ludwig Bach in the city's main churches. Johann Ludwig was Kapellmeister at the court of Meiningen at that time. These works have survived solely thanks to the copies that Johann Sebastian made of them, and thus testify to the high esteem in which he held his cousin's compositions. Capella Sollertia now presents the first-ever recording of these works.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, and priest, best known for his dynamic instrumental concertos and innovative orchestral writing. Born in Venice, Vivaldi was trained in both music and theology, eventually becoming a violin teacher and composer at the Ospedale della Piet�, an orphanage for girls with an exceptional music program. His tenure there produced many of his finest instrumental works and helped shape the distinctive Venetian Baroque style. Vivaldi's concertos revolutionized instrumental music by exploring the expressive and technical possibilities of each instrument. His violin concertos expanded the concerto form, using clear contrasts between soloist and orchestra and developing the ritornello structure that would influence composers such as J.S. Bach. His flute concertos, composed later in his career, demonstrate his sensitivity to the instrument's lyrical qualities and agility. These concertos were among the earliest significant contributions to the flute repertoire and reflect the growing popularity of the transverse flute in the early 18th century. Vivaldi also wrote around 40 bassoon concertos, an unprecedented number for the time. These works reveal his deep understanding of the instrument's expressive range, from playful and energetic to dark and solemn. They remain central to the bassoon's solo literature today. This new recording presents the first recording of concertos which missed certain movements, and which are completed by reconstructing from existing musical materials, by Alessandro Ciccolini, achieving cohesive and stylistically faithful reconstructions. Ciccolini has already works extensively reconstructing Vivaldi operas, for publication by Barenreiter and Boosey & Hawkes, and performed by Alan Curtis for DG. Played by Tommaso Rossi (flute solo), Alessandro Ciccolini (violin solo & conductor), Giovanni Battista Graziadio (bassoon solo) and the Compagnia de Violini.

Peter Heise (1830-1879) is Denmark's peerless master of song, yet his string quartets lived for decades in the shadows. This complete 3-CD set brings together the Nordic String Quartet's entire survey, including world-premiere recordings of Nos. 1-6. Alongside the previously released first volume, these works reveal Heise's musical imagination in all it's brilliance, performed with a spacious, lyrical sensibility attuned to the composer's distinctive poetic touch.

The psaltery is one of the oldest string instruments in human history. In the German-speaking world, it is described rather coarsely as a Hackbrett. In Farsi, it is known as a santur and in Hungarian a cimbalom (not far from the Italian word for harpsichord - cembalo). But in Italian, it lost it's first letter and was used for a multitude of elegant compositions as an obligato salterio. The fine, delicate sound of the struck strings is the focus of our newest production, with which the ensemble nuovo aspetto lives up to it's name. The musicians, led by virtuoso "top striker" Elisabeth Seitz, perform a series of Romanesque rarities from a new perspective. Thanks to the subtle yet prominent solo instrument, they seem to have achieved weightlessness for a time.

David Hackbridge Johnson, born near London in 1963, is an all-round musician - not only a prolific composer but also a conductor, violinist, singer, pianist, jazz drummer and poet. Both works in this album, recorded under the baton of the composer, have extra-musical stimuli. The Piano Concerto evokes the Kafkaesque fantasy world and tragic fate of the Polish-Jewish writer and artist Bruno Schulz, a victim of Nazi oppression - and it also marks the early death of another uniquely gifted individual, since it was written for Jonathan Powell, whose last recording it became. The Symphony, taking it's lead from earlier composers like Bax, Britten and Vaughan Williams, is a response to the English landscape, as seen through the paintings of a number of artists whose work Hackbridge Johnson esteems - it's colours and moods changing as kaleidoscopically as nature itself.

Sandro Fuga became a leading figure in Turin’s musical life in the mid-20th century. His passion for art and music was inherited from his eminent Venetian family which included grandfather Luigi Nono among its members. Few Italian composers of Fuga’s generation broached the sonata genre, but these three works represent the summit of his piano music, together forming a triptych of considerable significance. Fuga considered himself a ‘Romantic survivor’, believing music to represent the expression of emotions. Thanks to his rejection of avant-garde ephemera and a profound faith in humanity, his piano sonatas are expressive, eloquent and emotionally compelling.

When we think of Ludwig van Beethoven images of a stormy and passionate but tortured genius are brought to mind, alongside the transformative effect of his work on musical history. All of these things are true, but no artist lives in a vacuum, and even music that opens a portal onto ‘the infinite realm of the spirit’ has its wider context. Illustrated with music from each period, this enlightening life history by esteemed musicologist Davinia Caddy tells us about Beethoven’s place in society from his earlier career as a fine pianist, his life on the edge of the Napoleonic war, his professional triumphs and many romantic misfortunes, and that famous defiance of deafness and declaration that he would ‘seize Fate by the throat’. The musical excerpts include the ‘Pathétique’ and ‘Moonlight’ Sonatas, ‘Diabelli’ Variations, Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, 6 and 9, ‘Emperor’ Concerto, Missa solemnis and Fidelio, among many others.

Featuring performances by...

City of London Choir | Béla Drahos | Kenneth Schermerhorn | Kodály Quartet | Jay Baylon | Inga Nielsen | Kölner Kammerorchester | Nina Tichman | Capella Istropolitana | Maria Kliegel | Michael Halász | Sergio Gallo | Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra | Westminster Boys' Choir | Helmut Müller-Brühl | Hilary Davan Wetton | James Taylor | Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia | Nashville Symphony Orchestra | Stefan Vladar | Edmund Battersby | Lori Phillips | Stuttgart Piano Trio | Jeno Jandó | Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

In weaving America’s native culture and history, Philip Glass has created his own musical lineage. This album explores these ideas through his single most demanding piano piece, the ferocious, but lyrically meditative Piano Concerto No. 2 (after Lewis and Clark), as well as one of his most neglected, the mysterious A Secret Solo 2. Wichita Vortex Sutra, a joyful and transcendent study, is also heard in the version for narrator, with words by the poet Allen Ginsberg. From his experimental years comes Music in Contrary Motion with its mesmerizing variety of pulse patterns. Nicolas Horvath is an unusual artist with an unconventional résumé. He began his music studies at the Académie de Musique Prince Rainier III de Monaco, and at the age 16, he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster who helped him to secure a three-year scholarship from the Princess Grace Foundation in order to further his studies. His mentors include a number of distinguished international pianists, including Bruno Leonardo Gelber, Gérard Frémy, Eric Heidsieck, Gabriel Tacchino, Nelson Delle-Vigne, Philippe Entremont, Oxana Yablonskaya and Liszt specialist Leslie Howard who helped to lay the foundations for Horvath’s current recognition as a leading interpreter of Liszt’s music. He is the holder of a number of awards, including First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions.

Danish Saxophone Quartet who has been widely known for their superb performance of contemporary music embarked on a new field of classical repertoire a few years ago. Their rendition of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge received acclaim from critics and audience a like and released on Kontrapunkt 32259. Present CD of Goldberg Variations was recorded live in concert in Rome with the superb arrangement by Italy’s foremost arranger/composer Francesco Frederico Venerucci. repertoire a few years ago. Their rendition of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge received acclaim from critics and audience a like and released on Kontrapunkt 32259. Present CD of Goldberg Variations was recorded live in concert in Rome with the superb arrangement by Italy’s foremost arranger/composer Francesco Frederico Venerucci.

Tobias Picker, hailed as “a genuine creator” by The New Yorker, has written extensively for the stage and for symphonic forces, and these two approaches are represented in this album. The Encantadas (an older name for the Galapagos Islands) derives from a novella by Herman Melville. Picker has set it as a melodrama, exploring the enchanted isles in all their quietly menacing and spectacular beauty. In a radical new form, Picker’s Opera Without Words is set to a libretto by Irene Dische that has now been removed, allowing the music alone to bear the expressive richness and intensity of this “secret opera.” Tobias Picker has been commissioned to write numerous works in other genres, including operas, three symphonies, concertos for violin, viola, cello and oboe, four piano concertos and chamber music. His many honors include the 2020 GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Recording (Fantastic Mr. Fox). Picker is a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is artistic director of the Tulsa Opera, a post he has held since 2016.

REVIEW:

The title for The Encantadas (1983) comes from the early name for the Galapagos Islands. In six sections it relates the journey made there by Herman Melville. The work was conceived for narrator and a standard sized orchestra, and, on this recording, the composer is the very articulate voice that relates Melville’s discoveries he made there.

The more recent score, Opera Without Words, was completed five years ago, and had a strange birth. He had hired a librettist, Irene Dische, to conceive the story, and, after many discussions, all was completed, even down to the stage actions and directions for the producer. But in the end Picker deciding to dispense with words. It receives its World Premiere Recording by one of the commissioning orchestras, the Nashville Symphony. They, and their conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, provide a very colourful score, both works instantly enjoyable in pure tonality. The booklet includes the words narrated in The Encantadas and I hope there is more Picker coming from Naxos.

-- David's Review Corner (David Denton)

This new release from Naxos brings together the two poles of Tobias Picker’s output: symphonic music and opera. He brilliantly straddles both worlds, drawing upon each to bring something new to the other.

…The music on this disc is impassioned and adventurous, providing the curious listener a great introduction to Tobias Picker’s output. The recorded sound is excellent, and the Nashville Symphony is in top form. Recommended.

-- Fanfare

This program documents almost four decades of Ernst Toch’s artistic development. His romantic First Violin Sonata marks the end of the composer’s early period. The Divertimento and Cello Sonata were written during his most productive period, the 1920s, while the String Trio is the work of an exile determined not to compromise a style declared ‘asphalt music’ by the Nazis. The Adagio elegiaco commemorates the many relatives and friends Toch lost to the Holocaust.

Expert in Baroque repertoire and making period discoveries, the Philadelphia-based ensemble Tempesta di Mare extends the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death with this unique album played on historically authentic instruments. This recording is the first to bring together Telemann’s three surviving concerti-en-suite, from the intimate Concerto di camera to the more extravagant and impressive Concerto-Suites. Like many seventeenth-century German composers referring to their national idiom as a blend of French, Italian, and German styles, Telemann, who added rustic Polish music to this stylistic soup, quickly became the standard-bearer for this ‘mixed taste’ during the early eighteenth century, writing Italian concertos with a French accent, French overture featuring moonlighting concerto soloists, and Polish folk tunes that exuberantly dance their way into arias, concertos, sonatas, songs, and suites. One of his more interesting mixtures is the concerto-suite, a subgenre in which a soloist is featured in an opening concerto-allegro and in a following series of French dance movements. The three surviving works of this genre are brought together here for the first time.

-----

REVIEW:

It’s all top-drawer stuff. Not least thanks to the beautifully blended sound of the whole: crisp strings, mellow woodwind, subtle-but-there harpsichord and theorbo and a gorgeous soft-focus halo of horns. In short, every instrumental timbre is beautifully looked after.

– Gramophone

MAYR Gioas • Franz Hauk, cond; Andrea Lauren Brown (sop); Robert Sellier (ten); Cornel Frey (ten); Andreas Burkhart (bs); Bavarian St Op Ch; Simon Mayr Ch & Ens • NAXOS 8.572710-11 (2 CDs: 111:22)


Only two issues ago (36:2), I had my first taste of music by Simon Mayr, on a Naxos CD featuring three of the composer’s concertos led, as here, by Franz Hauk, who seems to be somewhat of a Mayr specialist. In that review, I was forced to admit that I was not previously familiar with Mayr, most likely because his main area of endeavor was opera, a field in which I claim no particular expertise. The review concluded by wondering if, as mainly a composer of opera, Mayr was best represented by a disc of his concertos, and with a promise to get back to the reader with an answer once I gained more familiarity with his work.


The wait wasn’t a long one. Here we have Mayr’s Gioas (Joash, King of Judea), designated a “parody oratorio,” so-called because it draws upon Mayr’s opera, I misteri eleusini for its material. I gather that the work bears certain similarities to the composer’s David in the Cave of Engedi , reviewed by Patrick Rucker in 32:4, and Samuele , both previously recorded for Naxos by Hauk. A parody oratorio, as I understand it, involves the practice of adapting popular operatic works to religious texts so they could be performed during Holy Week while his Holiness looked the other way.


Gioas dates from 1823 and is set to a libretto by an unknown author (or one who preferred to remain anonymous) that tells a story of internecine blood-letting over rights to the throne, treachery, and retribution, all of which through self-sacrifice and appeasement of various gods, goddesses, and priests—that’s the religious aspect—culminates in a happy ending. The work is appropriately referred to in the program note as “pseudo-sacred,” or, to call it what it is, a barely disguised excuse to present an unstaged opera in the guise of an oratorio. Mayr was not alone in fashioning such Church-sanctioned entertainments. The tradition persisted, mainly in Italy, through much of the 19th century, with Emilio Cianchi’s Giudetta , composed in 1854, being performed as late as 1912. Knowing this, it’s a bit difficult to follow the intrigues of the plot and to listen to the impassioned arias, the pattering recitatives, and the solemn and celebratory choruses without a smile and a smirk. No matter how much holy water you sprinkle on it, the opera that’s inside this oratorio won’t be exorcised. Considering that Gioas was written in the same year as Rossini’s Semiramide , Mayr’s work sounds rather dated for its time. But having been born in 1763, Mayr was almost 30 years Rossini’s senior. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that Mayr’s style should more closely resemble Mozart’s than it does Rossini’s.


The music is delightful, often touching, and artfully crafted for the voice. It’s no wonder that Mayr was so celebrated for his operas. The four soloists are all very convincing in their roles and well matched vocally. Add to that enlivened playing from Hauk’s instrumental forces, and you have a winning performance. Unfortunately, Naxos has not provided a text or translation, but the album note gives a pretty good synopsis of the mishmash that calls itself a plot. If you can pretend while listening to Mayr’s Gioas that it’s not just an opera masquerading as a sacred oratorio, you will find much in the work and in this recording of it to enjoy.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Jack Gallagher continues his association with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta with Symphony No. 2 ‘Ascendant,’ a robust, colorful work of dramatic contrasts and expansive architecture that seeks to express the aspirations and strivings of the human spirit. Quiet Reflections is a calm, serenely lyrical meditation which evokes a sense of longing for past tranquility. Gallagher’s previous Naxos release Orchestral Music (8.559652) with the LSO conducted by JoAnn Falletta was awarded five stars by BBC Music Magazine and hailed as “fresh and exuberant” and for “its explosions of sound and colour” by Gramophone.

Opera-comique emerged in the 19th century as an intermediary between grand opera and burlesque operetta. This album charts it's progression as a distinct genre, tracing the origins from Boieldieu and Mehul early in the century via the classic vitality of masters such as Herold and Maillart into the operetta style of Offenbach and Lecocq. With innovative features, colorful orchestration, drama, wit and atmospheric writing, the operas proved very popular and these overtures encapsulate their immense vivacity and charm.

“For this recording, I use a modern setup: specifically a 1930 Carl Becker cello made in Chicago, and a modern bow. I admit that such a setup is quite far off from the sound world that Bach must have imagined when composing these suites. I have done my best, however, to balance this modern setup with a thorough understanding of Baroque stylistic principles, particularly in regard to sound production, bow strokes, vibrato, slurring, voicing, and ornaments. 

Australian cellist Richard Narroway has proven himself to be equally at home with repertoire both new and old. He has appeared as a soloist with the Grand Rapids Symphony and the HanZhou Philharmonic Orchestra, and in recital on Chicago’s WFMT Dame Myra Hess Series and the Keys to the City Piano Festival at Chicago’s Symphony Center. In addition he has given performances in Australia, China, Germany, Canada and the United States, in prestigious venues such as the Kennedy Center, Chicago Symphony Center, Preston Bradley Hall and the Sydney Opera House.