Chamber Avenue, another album in Marcin Wadolowski’s discography released under the umbrella of the DUX record label, is a combination of chamber sound with the freedom of jazz improvisation. For Marcin Wadolowski, the album is a tribute to great artists whose lives were strongly associated with music and who gave him so many emotions and the most beautiful sounds. It is also a bow to the classical guitar, whose sound he loves and hears on a daily basis. This album is an original combination of purely classical and strictly jazz inspirations. The album contains both arrangements of known and highly regarded pieces (including by Fryderyk Chopin) and ingenious works dedicated to distinguished guitarists and composers.

Navona Records presents European/American composer Svjetlana Bukvich’s latest masterpiece: EXTENSION, a multifaceted collection of pieces that use technology, music, and the motions of dance to both deconstruct and reimagine ideas of genre and cultural division. In EXTENSION, listeners traverse ten innovative pieces that are both deeply personal and universal. Bukvich describes herself as aiming for a “no-genre-borderless-flow” with her music and, on a larger scale, in the structures of human society. Indeed, she captures that spirit immensely: hybridizing musical languages from American minimalism, art and progressive rock, and German classicism, to Italian polyphony, Russian romanticism, jazz, and ethnic idioms, she creates a cinematic, ‘fictocritical’ sound that is entirely unique but at once familiar. From the opening whispers of the electric violin in The Beginning to the evocative title track Extension which mingles both voice and synth, the album is a sweeping conversation between the natural and technological, the language of sound and the language of numbers. The piece Once You Are Not a Stranger appears in three iterations: instrumentally, vocally, and as an orchestral reprise. The meditative return of the piece emphasizes the expression of its title — in the acceptance of profound loss and the redemptive possibilities that extend out of it, there is no division, and no one is a stranger. The composer herself knows the world’s need for connection all too well — her past includes an escape from her home in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in the midst of the Civil War before finding her way to America where she continued her pursuits in media arts. In her youth Bukvich has lived in Ethiopia and Scotland, experiences which also influenced her sonic ideas. EXTENSION offers an opportunity for reconnection through dismantling, rebuilding, and exploring concepts of time, style, and musical history.

Benedetto Marcello was born in Venice in 1686 and died in Brescia in 1739. His vast musical output remains largely unexplored, but his most famous work is the Estro poetico-armonico – a collection of fifty psalms, including eleven ancient Jewish songs – called Intonazioni – and two sacred hymns from Greek classicism. Marcello acknowledged the importance of Jewish and classical music heritage, and by blending these different styles, he sought to underline their universal value. This album features Psalms Nos. 21 and 42, as well as the Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in E minor Op. 1, No. 1, and the first movements of Sonatas No. 5 in F major and No. 4 in G minor for solo harpsichord.

Trio Mediæval’s collection of hymns and lullabies — intimate songs as old as time and as new as tomorrow: this is music with no boundaries, celebrating our common humanity. We’ll never know the first song or the first singer, and we’ll never know what they sang about. But if time could unwind and we could hear it, perhaps we would witness a mother or a father singing the first lullaby. When we sing a hymn or a lullaby we become a link in a chain that began in the unknowable past and will stretch into the infinite future: a timeless continuum of solace and comfort. The new lullabies by Anders Jormin and Sinikka Langeland began in their heads as little musical gifts for real children, and are here sung for all of us by three singers who have sung many a lullaby to their own children, aided and abetted on this album by Trygve Seim, and Mats Eilertsen, fathers both. Hailed as a "fascinating journey with music of timeless beauty", Trio Mediæval’s highly acclaimed first album Words of the Angel in 2001 launched the group into the elite circles of early music ensembles and introduced them to a broad international audience. Formed in 1997, the Grammy nominated vocal ensemble consists of founder members Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Anna Maria Friman, and Jorunn Lovise Husan who joined the group in 2018. Trio Mediæval has recorded eight albums for ECM Records. Solacium is their first release with the Norwegian label 2L.

Johann Matthias Sperger, the standout double bassist among the leading forces of the Viennese School in Germany, honored his instrument with greater virtuosity and more compositional versatility than any other composer. This fact is documented by his eighteen double bass concertos, all of which have come down to us in the autographic scores and in some cases in the parts and are available for consultation in the Schwerin Library. On Vol. 2, which features Concertos Nos. 1 and 8, Sperger once again gives the double bass the solo space it needs to display its song qualities, often with extremely striking and exceptional themes. And as already on Vol. 1, our soloist Roman Patkoló “does complete justice to what are sometimes the breakneck demands of the concertos” (klassik-heute. com of Vol. 1). The album also includes Sperger’s Symphony No. 15, a work that has a tonal language very close to that of Haydn – and that here is being performed and recorded on album for the first time, 239 years after its composition.

This album is the Polish phonographic premiere of works by three outstanding contemporary composers: Gubaidulina, Liebermann and Proto. The album presented by the performers is the outcome of ten years of cooperation, quest for a common sound, discovering new areas in music, artistic trips and creative interpretations. In their activities, double bass player Marek Romanowski and pianist Hanna Holeksa are guided by their common will to popularize new repertoire for this seemingly unobvious instrumental combination, proving its enormous potential.

Even 20 years ago, even in his place of work, Ludwigslust, where he held a prominent position in the famous court chapel of Duke Friedrich Franz I for a quarter of a century, nobody knew of Roman Patkolo’s extraordinary fellow citizen and most important double bass player of the Vienna School: Johannes Matthias Sperger! The “Sperger competition” for double bass, which has been taking place every two years since 2000, has not only drawn attention to Sperger, but above all to his compositional legacies. No double bass player has treated the instrument as virtuoso and compositionally as versatile as Sperger. This is evidenced by his 18 double bass concerts, of which the famous Slovak double bass player Roman Patkoló devotes himself to the 2nd and 15th concertos. The release is complemented by Symphony No. 30, in which the absolute closeness to Haydn's tonal language is striking. The concerts offer spirited, striking and profoundly moving melodies and extremely virtuoso sequences. In addition to Johann Baptist Vanhal's double bass concerto, the 15th concert is now one of the most valuable and now much played classical double bass concertos.

October 29, 1923 - a date steeped in history. In the midst of a year of political and economic crisis, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde", from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. The composers assembled on this album not only profited from these developments, but also, in part, actively shaped them.

The composer Ernst Toch experienced the crisis year of 1923 in Mannheim, where his "Dance Suite" op. 30 was premiered on with great success. In this work, Toch was able to realize his interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and new forms of expression. His imaginative use of instruments is one of the most fascinating aspects of the suite.

The "Frauentanz" for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon op. 10 by Kurt Weill, written in the summer of 1923, reflects the interest in chamber music line-ups typical of the time. The decisive factor was not only a new ideal of sound and expression, but also the experience that in times of crisis, pieces with small ensembles had better chances of being performed.

Ernst Krenek had found essential impulses for his work in Berlin; when the crisis came to a head in the summer of 1923 he composed the "Three Mixed Choirs" a cappella op. 22 on poems by Matthias Claudius. Krenek designed these folksong-like works written by a lyricist from the epoch of Empfindsamkeit as parables.

For the festive concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of the cities of Buda and Pest to form the capital and residence city of Budapest in the autumn of 1923, Béla Bartók created his "Dance Suite" for orchestra - a "rather touchy issue", as the internationalist-minded composer explained in a private note.

REVIEWS:

Given [the events of 1923 in central Europe], you might imagine a CD of mostly German music entitled 1923: Wild Sound of the 1920s might sound a bit, well, wild. Far from it. If anything, it shows the opposite: surrounded by violence and the threat of chaos, the four composers represented here by works they composed in 1923 responded by raising their art to the nth degree of refinement and subtlety. Take Ernst Krenek, a composer who nowadays is remembered for a smash hit opera about a Black jazz musician, and for writing later in life some of the most fearsomely intellectualized, complex works in the entire history of music. He’s represented on this disc by three settings for choir of the 18th-century poet Matthias Claudius, of a ravishing otherworldly beauty caught to perfection in these performances.

Kurt Weill, known to the world for his bitingly satirical music dramas, appears as the composer of seven exquisitely allusive, bittersweet songs based on medieval German poems. Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is a brilliantly imagined set of six “character” pieces for just a handful of instruments, with titles like The Red Whirling Dance and Idyll. Standing somewhat to one side of all this German romantic/modernist intensity and compression is the Dance Suite by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, with its rumbustious evocations of Balkan and North African Music.

The occasional whiff of expressionist harshness or a gently satirical distortion of a waltz shows these composers were not completely cocooned in their composing studios. They were alert to the jarring, shifting currents outside. But what the CD reveals most strongly is how much these composers were focused on their own internal, imaginative world – and how much they cared about craftsmanship. Every bar in all four pieces is exquisitely made, and that quality is caught in the performances, which are all of enormous refinement.

-- The Telegraph

The year 1923 was a year of crisis in Germany; inflation was heating up and far right-wing parties were jockeying for power. In October, the first broadcast of public radio in Germany took place from the “Berliner Funkstunde” station on Potsdamer Platz. This provocative new disc from the Choir and Symphony of Bavarian Radio includes four works written a hundred years ago by a group of innovative composers who all made use of the new, disruptive technology of radio.

Kurt Weill’s Frauentanz is a suite of seven medieval songs, scored for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Weill helped to create the familiar soundtrack for Weimar Berlin, and this performance by Anna-Maria Palii and the fine instrumentalists of the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra provides the authentic feel of a society that was becoming increasingly decadent and hysterical in 1923 and beyond.

Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is another clever and imaginative piece with interesting orchestration: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass and percussion. The Berlin sound is also evident here, something a bit harsh and raw, in contrast with the softer-focused, more lyrical and pastoral modernism of Paris.

The Ernst Krenek work is a bit of a surprise: his 3 Choruses for a cappella choir . The ‘antique’ sound of these pieces remind me of two of my favorite works: Vaughan Williams’ G minor Mass, from 1921, and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Missa São Sebastião, from 1937. All three provide old wine in new bottles: ancient cadences with a modernist twist.

The final work on the disc is probably the best known: Bela Bartok’s Dance Suite for Orchestra. This is an orchestral showpiece, a kind of try-out for his Concerto for Orchestra written more than two decades later. Both pieces treat orchestral instruments in a solistic, virtuosic way. The source material might be folkloric, but this is definitely written in a modernist idiom.

Inflation, far right-wing agitation, disruptive technology: yes, we’re talking about 1923, not 2023. And the music on this disc is as fresh and forward-looking as some of the best music written today.

-- Music for Several Instruments (Dean Frey)

The music of the Ukrainian-born Thomas de Hartmann (1885–1956) has been obscured by his association with the Russian mystic Georgi Gurdjieff, but by the time they met in 1916, de Hartmann was already a hugely accomplished composer.

The two works receiving their first recordings here reveal a major late-Romantic voice, downstream from Tchaikovsky, a student of Taneyev, contemporary of Rachmaninov, and alert to the discoveries of Stravinsky and Prokofiev. The Symphonie-Poème occupies a vast canvas and requires a correspondingly huge orchestra, generating a monumental sense of scale from essentially balletic material. The lighter Fantaisie-Concertofor double bass and orchestra moves from tangy dissonance via a tuneful slow movement to a perky, folk-inspired finale.

Nils Ferlin is one of the Swedish poets whose poetry collections have been published in the largest editions. He is also one of the poets, whose poems most often have been set to music, despite they are often grave with dark motifs. He is one of the eternally living names of Swedish literature and the song treasure, a “people’s poet”.

This new release is a brilliant collection of chamber music works by Polish composer Józef Elsner and his disciples Józef Władyslaw Krogurski and Ignatzi Felix Dobzinski. Known as Chopin's teacher, Elsner was also active as a violinist and conductor, and was also a renowned educator. He established the Warsaw Conservatory and taught excellent composers. On this release, enjoy a number of very beautiful works by these early Polish Romantic composers. Also notable is the participation of Yakubu Kushrik, a virtuoso who won the 4th place (the highest Polish person in the competition), which is the same as Aimi Kobayashi at the 18th Chopin International Piano Competition in 2021

“Darkness and Scattered Light” presents celebrated Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams’s mesmerizing; elegant; virtuosic music for double bass—two solos and a work for five basses—written for and all performed by bassist extraordinaire Robert Black. “This is one of the most beautiful albums I have heard in years.... It would be hard to imagine a better match of composer and performer than John Luther Adams and Robert Black.”(David Lang; Pulitzer-winning composer); John Luther Adams’s music has been performed by such prominent ensembles as the New York Philharmonic; the Chicago Symphony; the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Seattle Symphony; the and the JACK?Quartet. Cold Blue Music has released ten recordings of his work; including Houses of the Wind; Arctic Dreams; Lines Made by Walking; Everything That Rises; and The Wind in High Places. “John Luther Adams ... one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.” (Alex Ross; The New Yorker) “His music . . . is an elemental experience.” (The Guardian). Robert Black tours the world collaborating with composers; musicians; and other artists. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars; his recent collaborations have been with Philip Glass; Eve Beglarian; and Joan Tower. “No one on the planet can make the double bass sing; dance; sound like a drum; spin like a top; like Robert Black. Robert has single-handedly reinvented the technique and repertoire of the Double Bass; bringing it bursting into the 21st century.” (Michael Gordon)

The Piano Quintets, opp. 70 and 76, are substantial and full bodied dramatic works in classical style.

George Onslow’s grandfather was the first Earl of Onslow. Onslow’s father had been forced to leave England after a family scandal, continuing his life as a nobleman in France. George was born there and grew up in the magnificent castle of Chalendrat in Clermont-Ferrand, where he followed his father as lord of the manor. At the age of 22 he discovered the operas of Mehul and decided then that music was his vocation.

Onslow’s musical style was very different from that of his colleagues and contemporaries. With his strict classical style, he was unique in Paris, concentrating on instrumental works, primarily chamber music. Schumann described Onslow’s quartets as worthy successors to those by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. This recording combines two Piano Quintets, the opus 70 and 76, substantial and full bodied dramatic works in classical style.

Founded 1999, the Nepomok Fortepiano Quintet play on original instruments, the piano an exceptionally fine period instrument from the famous Edwin Beunk collection.

Previously unreleased broadcast recordings capture Thomas Jensen in Baroque and Classical-era repertoire new to his discography. Jensen makes a stylish Mozartian in these rhythmically sprung and cultivated concert performances, given by the DRSO in Copenhagen and on tour. They are joined by the Danish violinist Tutter Givskov for one of Mozart’s earliest masterpieces, the Violin Concerto No. 3 K216.

Dominik Wagner celebrates the warm and deep sound of the double bass in his new Album „Double Bass Rhapsody“. An Album featuring only the double bass. A concept that has never been done before.

It features new arrangements of masterworks of the classical music repertoire as well as two celebrated songs from the Pop-World. These pieces and songs can be heard in a completely new way through the warm and comforting sound of the bass.
Dominik Wagner, who has won countless prizes, is joined by three other world-class-bass-players.

Introducing a revolutionary new CD that challenges the stereotypes and prejudices against the double bass. This tribute album showcases the full potential and versatility of the instrument, featuring compositions by renowned composers such as Myroslav Skoryks, John Rutter, Peteris Vasks, and Sergei Rachmaninov. Experience the warm, soft, and welcoming tone of the double bass as it takes center stage in this diverse collection of music. From the spiritual anthem of Ukraine, Melodie by Myroslav Skoryks, to the familiar choral sounds of John Rutter's The Lord Bless You and Keep You, this album is a love letter to the double bass and an invitation to embrace its songful and tuneful credentials.

Bára Gísladóttir (b. 1989) considers sounds, instruments, and ensembles as living organisms. In COR, Hringla, and VAPE, the Icelandic composer and double bassist engages with the largest musical organism of all: the symphony orchestra. Inspired by death metal or techno as much as by Scelsi or Penderecki, the foreboding atmosphere of her music is cut through with irony, puns, and black humor. After all, organisms themselves – especially human bodies – contain the potential for both comic excess and self-annihilation. In these three works, we follow Gísladóttir’s fascination with language and coincidence; we hear an uncompromising interrogation of the body’s excesses and ailments; and, most of all, we see life, vaporous and between states, neither dark nor light.

Since 2010 the Associazione La Cantoria has dedicated its energies to the rediscovery of unpublished musical compositions from Rome, transcribing, studying and performing these both live and recording them under the Tactus record label. This cd is dedicated to the musician, composer and organist Francesco Giovannini who was chapelmeister at the Church of Santa Maria in Portico in Campitelli in the 18th century, and whose works are conserved in the archives of the Order of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God in Rome. The best way to understand and appreciate a liturgical musical composition is to savor it the very same context where it was born and for which it was conceived. This is what this cd intends to do.Composer: to allow us to live the sonorous experience of an ancient mass of the Roman rite. These late-Baroque compositions by Francesco Giovannini shine like precious gems set in an antique piece of jewelry made of Gregorian chant, readings, and orations where the organ is heard almost fleetingly in those moments when the sound of the voice and other instruments is superfluous or even prohibited.