The idea for this recording was born during the Covid pandemic in 2020, when many of us were isolated and unable to communicate with each other in person. It was difficult for musicians during this time, especially because they couldn't make music with others or give live concerts. This situation made us think about how composers, musicians and artists dealt with situations where there was no freedom and how they dealt with chaos, obstacles or persecution. In selecting the works for this album, we looked at different historical periods (which sometimes included pandemics) to understand the impact that oppression and lack of freedom had on the creative process. In the course of our extensive research, we finally became aware of the "positive" aspect of this topic: we were not so much interested in what people could not do due to restrictive situations and adverse circumstances, but above all in what they were able to achieve despite these circumstances. During our research, we came across impressive artistic personalities who have left behind music of great value.

Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of Tiffany Poon, “classical pianist of the new generation”, who makes her Pentatone debut with her album Diaries: Schumann. Through her vivid interpretation of Robert Schumann’s masterpieces, Tiffany invites us on a journey through her musical diary.

With a selection ranging from the introspective Kinderszenen to the passionate Davidsbündlertänze, she creates a tapestry that reflects the different aspects of her life and her personal growth. With this album Tiffany aims to invite the listeners to connect with the different aspects of ourselves, be vulnerable and imaginative like Schumann’s Eusebius and Florestan. This album encourages daydreaming in open spaces, “feeling all the feels”, without any judgement. Experience the brilliance of this rising star as she shares her innermost thoughts and musical prowess through the captivating melodies of Schumann.

Born in Hong Kong, Tiffany Poon has appeared with orchestras and in recital throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and China since she was first accepted to the Juilliard pre-college program at the age of eight. She makes her Pentatone debut with Diaries.

Long available only in a larger box, the only available digital-era set of Martinu’s string quartets, recorded in 1990 by a native Czech ensemble.

Martinu composed seven quartets over the course of his career, from the First in 1918 to the Seventh in 1947. This chronological range therefore mirrors the development of his music, from Debussy and Franck-accented Bohemianism in the First to a more up-to-date French influence on the Second from 1925, which arrives in the finale at the kind of chugging accumulations of motoric energy that became his trademark.

The direct emotional appeal of all seven quartets is vividly brought to life by the Stamitz Quartet in a recording first issued in 1990, and which still has very few rivals on disc. Established in 1985, the Stamitz Quartet quickly became known as leading interpreters of Czech repertory. ‘I can heartily recommend this comprehensive traversal of the unpredictable, occasionally highly impressive works that make up the corpus of Martinu’s Quartets.’ (MusicWeb International)

Isabella Lundgren - vocals
Carl Bagge - piano, music arrangements
Musica Vitae - string ensemble

On the 20th of January 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of America. In his speech, he said: “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America”. With those words, he echoed the lyrics from the song "Pick Yourself Up," written by Dorothy Fields in 1936.

Dorothy Fields (July 15, 1904– March 28, 1974) was an American librettist and lyricist. She wrote over 400 songs, 15 Broadway musicals, and 26 films. Her strong characterizations, precise language, and heartfelt and humorous approach have granted her a special place in the history of American music and popular culture.

This album is a love letter to this remarkable woman who was way ahead of her time.

Inon Barnatan presents Rachmaninoff Reflections, offering some of the composer’s most cherished piano works, including his Moments musicaux, Prelude in G-Sharp Minor and Barnatan’s own arrangement of the Vocalise. Centrepiece of this project is Barnatan’s breathtaking new piano arrangement of the Symphonic Dances. Inon Barnatan is one of the most admired pianists of his generation (New York Times). His Pentatone discography consists of Time Traveler’s Suite (2021), Beethoven’s complete cello sonatas with Alisa Weilerstein (2022), as well as complete recordings of Beethoven’s piano concertos together with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and Alan Gilbert (2019 and 2020).

On this critically-acclaimed recording, Arabella Steinbacher brings together Bruch’s world famous First Violin Concerto with Chausson’s lush Poème and Korngold’s Violin Concerto, which is gradually gaining ground as a twentieth-century masterpiece. Steinbacher is joined by the Orquestra Gulbenkian under the baton of Lawrence Foster, with whom she has developed a congenial musical partnership over the years. BBC Music Magazine commented that “there is no doubting Steinbacher’s refulgent sound or the flair of her delivery” while MusicWeb International praised “the tingling climax of this Chausson.”

After a temporary absence, this album now returns to the physical market in an affordable Stereo re-issue. Arabella Steinbacher is a multiple award-winner with an extensive Pentatone discography spanning more than a decade. Lawrence Foster and the Orquestra Gulbenkian are also longstanding partners of the label.

Excerpt from review of the original SACD version of this release:

There is no doubting Steinbacher's refulgent sound or the flair of her delivery.

-- BBC Music Magazine

French organ music under Napoleon and the Restoration is an overlooked period in musical history, inheriting the glories of classical organ and heralding the great romantic organ music. This pivotal time, teeming with great performers – most of them improvisers – counted Isaac-François Lefèbure-Wély among its masters, who presided over the prestigious Eglise Saint-Roch from 1805. In 1823 he published a collection of 34 Noëls, inspired by those of his predecessors yet deeply rooted in their time, imbued with the memory of the Incroyables and the Merveilleuses. These extremely popular works for nativity ring out in true splendour from the organ of the Chapelle Royale, shimmering with the mysteries of Christmas through Quentin Guérillot’s generous, familiar style.

Anna Vinnitskaya celebrates dance, or rather the dances of composers from very different periods and styles: Ravel, Shostakovich and Widmann. ‘In all these works, you can feel in some way transported to the world of childhood. Because I believe the childhoods of each of these three composers are reflected there’, says the pianist. In his Valses nobles et sentimentales, Ravel paid tribute to Schubert. A few years later, he transcribed for solo piano his ballet score La Valse, in which ‘billowing clouds part from time to time, allowing us to glimpse waltzing couples’. Shostakovich’s Dances of the Dolls make me think of the Soviet cartoons of my childhood’, says Anna Vinnitskaya. ‘They also remind me of Mozart: they are as bright as diamonds, sincere and beautiful.’ The Zirkustänze (Circus Dances) composed by Jörg Widmann in 2012, a brilliant kaleidoscope of emotions and parodies, round off the programme.

After five triumphs at the Paris Opéra, Chevalier Gluck, reformer of French opera and protégé of Marie-Antoinette, created his last work in 1779: Echo et Narcisse, based on Ovid's Metamorphoses. Adopting the style of a pastoral, it was spurned by the public at its premiere, but is a tribute to the splendour of the French tradition. With the support of the Fondation Etrillard, Hervé Niquet has resurrected Gluck's last opus, in which the fates of the nymph Echo, who repeats the last word she hears ad infinitum, and the proud Narcissus, condemned to love only his own reflection, intertwine: two perfectly Baroque myths!

Ingrid Haebler (born in 1929) belongs to the same generation of Viennese pianists as Badura-Skoda, Brendel, Gulda and Demüs. In 1954 (approx. the period when the recordings on this album took place) she won the ARD competition, then as today a quality seal and a guarantee for a successful career (which she enjoyed). However, considerable disagreement has long surrounded her interpretations: for some she is a model because of her flawless technique and the absolute poise of her music-making; for others, she is virtually a symbol of academic discipline. However, her recordings were considered good enough to be used in the faked recordings of the pianist Joyce Hatto – which, when uncovered, led to one of the big and quite unique scandals in the history of music performance.

This is pianist Nelson Goerner’s twelfth recording for the Alpha Classics label. He devotes his new album to the solo piano works of Franz Liszt, with the famous Sonata in B minor as the centrepiece, nearly twenty years after his first CD of the sonata, he felt the urge to re-record it, following a series of critically acclaimed concerts. His talents as a storyteller and as a virtuoso with an eye for nuance are heard to marvellous effect in this monumental work, a veritable ‘musical action’ that undoubtedly belongs in the pantheon of the finest literature for piano. The programme is completed by excerpts from Liszt’s major cycles, including the Petrarch Sonnets from the Années de pèlerinage and the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, along with the spectacular concert étude La leggierezza.

REVIEWS:

Nelson Goerner made an excellent studio recording of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor that the Cascavelle label first released in 2007. This live all-Liszt recital from 2023 also features the Sonata. Although it benefits from fuller-bodied engineering, the interpretation offers surprisingly little change in regard to overall design, substance, and execution. Goerner’s tempo relationships remain judicious and unified, while themes are characterized with subtle yet telling contrast.

Forced to choose, I’d favor Goerner’s diversified voicings and greater dynamic projection in the remake’s Andante sostenuto. On the other hand, the earlier Allegro Energico fughetta gathers greater spontaneous momentum, followed by a more incisive yet less grand recapitulation. One could argue that there are fewer distinctly individual touches here in comparison with recent reference-worthy interpretations by Marc-André Hamelin, Benjamin Grosvenor, Joseph Moog, or Giovanni Bertolazzi. Yet that hardly matters, given Goerner’s intelligent mastery and total identification with the score.

If anything, Goerner’s readings of Liszt’s three Petrarca Sonetti offer even more fervent and poetic melodic projection, together with mellifluous legato chord voicings and prominent bass lines. If no one alive plays La Leggierzza with the feathery aplomb of Benno Moiseiwitsch’s unrivaled 1941 HMV recording, Goerner’s impassioned mobility comes pretty darn close to that paradigm, although he never plays softly enough when required.

Lightness and insouciance, however abound in the Valse oubliée No. 2. Goerner takes his sweet time over the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6’s introduction, milking the music’s bardic implications without lapsing into vulgarity. Most pianists understandably treat the friska section as a high-wire right hand octave etude: think Horowitz, Cziffra, and Argerich. Goerner nails the notes, of course, yet presents both hands as equal partners, letting you hear a piano composition instead of a piano competition. I have no hesitation recommending such a satisfying and well-rounded Liszt program.

-- MusicWeb International (Jed Distler)

Marek Janowski presents his first purely-orchestral Schubert recording, together with the Dresdner Philharmonie, performing the composer’s two final, groundbreaking and most famous symphonies. While the two movements of the “Unfinished” symphony in B Minor reach a level of perfection despite the work’s apparent incompleteness, Robert Schumann praised the “Great” symphony in C Major for its “heavenly length”. Janowski’s interpretation combines a sense of tradition with vitality and intensity.

Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our time. After having recorded Schubert songs in orchestrations by Reger and Webern with the tenor Christian Elsner in 2015, Janowski now adds this symphonic Schubert album to his impressive Pentatone discography, following complete recordings of Bruckner, Brahms and Beethoven’s symphonies, several works by Richard Strauss, as well as Wagner’s ten mature operas. He works together with the Dresdner Philharmonie, with whom he already released complete recordings of Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021), Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (both 2020).

In this recital, Véronique Gens and Hervé Niquet bring back to life a neglected aspect of France’s Romantic heritage: songs with orchestral accompaniment. Aside from a few pieces by Debussy and Duparc, and Berlioz’s famous Nuits d’été, orchestral mélodies form a virtually forgotten continent. In collaboration with the specialists of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, Alpha now revisits these musical landscapes, taking us from Brittany (Hahn) to Persia, whose beauties Fauré and Saint-Saëns exalt in very different ways. Mélodies by Chausson, Gounod and Dubois and rarely heard instrumental pieces by Massenet, Fauré and Fernand de La Tombelle round out the journey with their musical reveries.

Whereas Prokofiev was captivated by Romeo and Juliet, Ravel had shut himself away a quarter of a century earlier in Levallois Perret to compose Gaspard de la nuit, inspired by Aloysius Bertrand's collection of poems subtitled Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot. In 1973, the Uzbek composer Dilorom Saidaminova paid tribute to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and composed The Walls of Ancient Bukhara, which offers a sonic view of the historic centre of the Central Asian city founded four or five centuries before the common era. Her compatriot Behzod Abduraimov was keen to pay tribute to this little-known composer and record her music, which, like the other two works on this album, is evocative and colourful.

Pianist Francesco Piemontesi presents Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes and Sonata in B Minor, two of the highest mountains to climb within the piano repertoire. The metaphor of climbing a mountain not only applies to the technical demands placed on the player, but also to the sublime nature of these works: colourful, poetic, lyrical, and bold in their construction. Piemontesi has taken his time before embarking on this epic journey, and the recording documents how his interpretation of these legendary works has matured over time.

Unique to this album are the liner notes, written by Nike Wagner, the great-great-granddaughter of Liszt. Francesco Piemontesi is among the most-cherished pianists of our age, and presents the fourth fruit of his exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, having released the acclaimed Schubert – Last Piano Sonatas (2019), Bach Nostalghia (2021) and Schoenberg, Messiaen & Ravel with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Jonathan Nott (2022).

REVIEW:

It’s been worth the wait. Each piece reflects absolute clarity of intention, even in the case of the longest and most episodic one, ‘Ricordanza’. Piemontesi has a rare ability to let us hear the individual notes in a rapid fortissimo wash of sound, and his variations of touch give free rein to the poetry. ‘Harmonies du soir’ opens with a silky touch, and builds to a majestic climax before dying back to a faint echo of itself. The lyrical ‘Paysage’, too, opens sotto voce, but as the sound palette becomes richer, one has the feeling of watching a series of receding landscapes, as in a Chinese scroll painting. ‘Wilde Jagd’ hurtles headlong, ‘Feux follets’ is gorgeously shaded and the virtuosity of ‘Allegro agitato molto’ is magnificent.

-- BBC Music Magazine

The Czech Philharmonic and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov, continue their acclaimed Mahler cycle with the composer’s First Symphony, one of the most evocative and colourful symphonic debuts in the history of the genre. Mahler once famously said that “a symphony should be like the world, it should encompass everything.” In his First Symphony, he creates just such a world, filled with animal sounds, hunting horns, rural dances, klezmer bands and allusions to his own songs and folk song melodies such as Frère Jacques. These elements all function within a highly subjective, immersive symphonic drama, providing a blueprint for most of his symphonies to come. Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic approach the composer’s firstling with their esteemed eye for detail and pacing, matched by their unmistakably Bohemian sound. The Czech Philharmonic is one of the world’s orchestral gems, recognised for its rich tradition with the Czech masters as well as European repertoire. Semyon Bychkov who is internationally renowned for his interpretations of the core repertoire, began his tenure with the Orchestra at the start of the 2018/19 season. Their recording of Mahler’s First Symphony follows Mahler’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies (both 2022) and the Second Symphony (2023), part of the complete Mahler cycle to be released by Pentatone.

REVIEW:

The orchestra’s magical combination of richness, precision, and nuance is instantly in evidence, with brass and wind pinpoint and the strings characteristically shimmering and sinuous in the opening movement before making merry in Kraftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell. The control and perfection of Bychkov’s pacing in the third movement, and the way his forces combine in Sturmisch Bewegt with such attack one minute and astonishing fluidity the next, epitomizes a reading of beauty and depth.

-- The Sunday TImes (UK)

In the early 1960s, four young musicians who had been playing chamber music at Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro School and Festival in Vermont were encouraged to form a string quartet. In July 1964, the Guarneri Quartet gave its first concert and less than a year later made its first recordings under contract to RCA Victor. For the next 45 years, with only one change of personnel, the Guarneris performed all over the world and amassed a large, wide-ranging, prize-winning discography. Sony Classical now presents, for the first time in a single collection, all the recordings made by the Guarneri Quartet for RCA between 1965 and 2005.

When the announcement came of its retirement at the end of the 2008–09 season, the eminent British critic Rob Cowan wrote a perceptive, affectionate tribute to the Guarneri Quartet in Gramophone, comparing it to the Juilliard Quartet, the other superb ensemble that had dominated the American quartet catalogue for so many years. Using their respective Bartók recordings as an example, he contrasted the “cut-glass precision” of the Juilliard’s early-60s set to the Guarneri’s “volatile, free-spirited, generously expressive and tonally rich” performing style in its RCA cycle from the mid-70s.

That characterization of the Guarneri Quartet’s playing runs through virtually all the reviews garnered in their long recording career, a story that began with the 1966 release of two of Mozart’s late “Prussian” Quartets and an album coupling Dvořák and Smetana. HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “not since the Juilliard String Quartet set the New York music world on its collective ear some 25 years ago has a new chamber group created such a furor as the Guarneri Quartet on the occasion of its New York début in February, 1965. This pair of discs demonstrates eloquently what all the shouting was about, for these players – Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer – blend precision with flexibility of phrasing and rhythm in a way not often encountered in contemporary American string groups. Here, indeed, is the influence of the seed bed from which the quartet stems – the Marlboro of Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals … To the Smetana [‘From My Life’] the Guarneri Quartet brings blazing intensity and fierce rhythmic verve, while the wonderful slow movement of the Dvořák [Op. 105] comes forth from the stereo speakers with an almost orchestral lushness, yet with inner voices flawlessly balanced.”

Other critics concurred in their reviews of these two LPs: “The foursome produces an unfailingly luscious tone, plays with letter-perfect intonation, and displays all sorts of felicitous pinpoint balances and coloristic effects. And how these gentlemen stay together … even in the most wayward of tempo changes. In short, this is ensemble work of a transcendental variety … The Guarneri Quartet is the most gifted group of its kind I have heard in years” (High Fidelity). “This is distinguished Mozart playing indeed. Its technical excellence needs little comment: as with the Dvořák/Smetana record … last month, with this team you take technical mastery for granted as soon as you hear the first phrase, and straightaway it's the intensely musical quality of the playing which strikes you. Theirs is Mozart played with the classical virtues, above all with firm line, poise and sensibility. The surface of the music is polished, but how much the Guarneri Quartet find beneath” (Gramophone).

Arthur Rubinstein was the quartet’s longtime keyboard partner. In 1966, they recorded the Piano Quintets of Schumann and Brahms: “Rubinstein and the Guarneris search out to equally convincing effect the flowingly lyrical aspects of the music, and this yields special rewards in a ravishing slow movement [the Brahms]” (HiFi Stereo Review). Dvořák’s followed in 1971: “The performance is beautifully balanced between the gentleman at the keyboard and the gentlemen with strings, and the sense of give and take comes from the experience of many collaborations” (High Fidelity).

They also recorded the piano quartet literature, beginning in 1967 with “beautiful performances” (High Fidelity) of Brahms. Their reading of Fauré’s Op. 25 in C minor was judged (also by High Fidelity) to be “beautifully played and exquisitely well reproduced. The instrumental lines are wonderfully clear in this highly directional recording … Rubinstein displays his regal style.” And in a disc containing both of Mozart’s piano quartets, “the playing throughout both sides is extremely beautiful … and superbly integrated – at once expressive and elegant, making all of Mozart’s points with clarity, straightforwardness, and the exalted give-and-take that is the life’s breath of real chamber music. The recorded sound, too, is exceptional for its richness, balance, and clarity” (HiFi Stereo Review).

One of many other composers who feature prominently in Sony’s Guarneri collection is Haydn. About the ensemble’s 1977 recording of the two Op.77 quartets, HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “these spirited, attractive performances of Haydn's two greatest string quartets are marked by a sense of real involvement. Articulation is crisp, ensemble is impeccable, and there is an organic flow from the first phrase to the last in each work”, while Gramophone praised their “deeply thoughtful, powerfully paced” 1986 reading of Haydn’s Seven Last Words.

With reinforcement from the Budapest Quartet in 1965, the Guarneris produced an “absolutely stunning performance (HiFi Stereo Review) of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence sextet. In 1966, they recorded quartets by Mendelssohn and Grieg (the latter receiving its CD première in this set): “The Guarneri ensemble does itself proud throughout this disc – most notably in the Mendelssohn, in which they display a tonal homogeneity and a warmth of phrasing that are truly striking. It is as though one instrument, not four, were producing the lovely sound that emerges from the speakers. Happily, the RCA recording staff has come up here with a string quartet sonority of the utmost intimacy, yet endowed with just enough room tone to enhance the naturally warm tone of the Guarneris” (HiFi Stereo Review).

But the heart of any string quartet’s repertoire is inevitably the Beethoven cycle, and it is with these works that the Guarneris were most closely associated. They made their complete recording for RCA between 1966 and 1969. Gramophone described the Early Quartets as “elegant and buoyant, with well-chosen tempos, subtle bowing, crisp articulation, telling contrasts between staccato and legato, and a consistent sense of style.” HiFi Stereo Review enumerated the virtues of their Middle Quartets: “(1) excellent intonation; (2) glowing tone; (3) ensemble that is balanced and accurate but always flexible and natural; (4) superb phrasing and line-building; (5) good feeling for a high Beethoven style. These are strong and expressive readings that often achieve great poetic insight and a powerful dynamic impulse.” The HiFi Stereo Review’s critic rhapsodized over their Late Quartets: “If I had to make the choice of a very few records to take with me to a desert island, I’d choose recordings of the last five Beethoven string quartets. Now, with the arrival of this new album (complete with the Grosse Fuge) by the Guarneri Quartet, I’ve got my island package. All I need is the island. The Guarneri is, without a doubt, one of the most extraordinary string quartets before the public these days: the group has an absolutely stunning sense of both soloistic and ensemble color. Indeed, I can’t think of another string quartet that can match them for sheer sensuous appeal.”

SUMMARY:

• With the first release of the Guarneri Quartet’ recording of Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 3, transferred and edited from the session reels using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

• 9 quartet recordings for the first time on CD, transferred and mastered from the original analog tapes, 3 quartets remastered, using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

• Includes collaborations with Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Rose, Mischa Schneider, Pinchas Zukerman, Walter Trampler, Ida Kavafian, and more

• Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes