Bach's devotion to the organ, and his desire to excel on it, is without question but whereas much of his output was written with a specific purpose or occasion in mind, the toccatas and fugues are less easily categorized. Almost all of them date from Bach's Weimar years (1708-1717), when he had the most opportunities to play the organ, although he may have revised them in Leipzig (after 1723). Their elaborate nature belies the fact that Bach had to be careful about showing off: in 1705, while temporarily in Leipzig, he had been censured for an over-long organ prelude before Communion and in 1706 he had attracted the ire of the Arnstadt authorities by confusing the congregation with complicated chorale accompaniments. Organist Elena Privalova presents a program of these works, beautifully recorded at the Riga Cathedral.

Review

Elena Privalova concentrates on the Toccata and Fugue works that date from Bach’s Weimar years of 1708-1717. It is a matter of record that such elaborate music was by no means always welcome during church services, so one can imagine these pieces being delivered perhaps at the end of formalities, sending the congregation out into the world in a wash of inspired but complex organ sound. These are all glorious works, and perhaps the only criticism one could have of such a programme is that it is rather relentlessly glorious. There are of course some contrasts of registration, but “the richest possible texture” forms the majority from beginning to end, which is of course in the nature of this particular programme. You may find yourself wanting to pick out a track or two rather than blasting through the whole CD in one go, but the temptation to whack up the volume and stir up the dust in your listening room is powerful indeed.

Elena Privalova’s technical prowess and stylish musicality is very much in evidence throughout. She is rhythmically accurate and doesn’t rush, but nor does she avoid brisk and exciting tempi, for instance in BWV 564, the rasping bottom end of the pedal solo in the opening Toccata of which is also a highlight. The D minor “Dorian” Toccata and Fugue BWV 538 is one of the more famous pieces here, and Privalova delivers that ‘demonstration’ quality that the virtuoso Bach might have employed while testing and giving organs their thorough workout.

The programme ends with that most famous of all organ works, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 but, while that dramatic opening has become something of a classical music cliché this is a work that never fails to fascinate when you listen properly. It is nice to find it at the end of the recital rather than the beginning, forming a suitable climax rather than an impressive opening. Privalova is less reverential than many, swiftly joining each section in a fantasia-like fashion that doesn’t wait around for us to get bored, and reminding us of this composer’s amazing inventiveness (there are of course arguments that this may not be a Bach original) with the sheer quantity of ideas that pass by on this most special of musical conveyor-belts.

This is a very fine Bach organ CD that has been superbly recorded and with playing that is both musically insightful and technically magnificent, and you can also add this to your collection in the knowledge that it is free of gimmicks or annoying mannerisms. I had a look around for a single disc release that covers the same music and came up with Kåre Nordstoga’s recording on Simax Classics PSC1152. This is another fine release, though made on a slightly smaller-scale instrument. Your own taste will dictate which you prefer, though for me that gorgeous adagio of BWV 564 has more expressive weight with Privalova. This kind of detail, along with the sheer impact of the recording as a whole, makes this something of a winner.

--MusicWeb International (Dominy Clements)

On THE TOWER AND THE GARDEN, the multi-GRAMMY winning choir The Crossing and conductor Donald Nally ponder the fragility of the earth, the awe of nature, and the power of language to unite, or divide, society. Chicago's best-known early music ensemble The Newberry Consort exhilarates with VESPERS, a collection of dazzlingly original music for women’s voices. The composer? A mysterious early-17th-century Mexican named Juan de Lienas, whose style energetically oscillates between Renaissance and Baroque elements. Little is known about de Lienas beyond the manuscripts, which, much to the undeserved discredit of the poor composer, occasionally include unflattering personal remarks scrawled in the margins. Perhaps that these insults on his appearance and personality stemmed from mere envy, for the music captured by his hand presents such skill, wit and zest that it can still be enjoyed a full four centuries after its inception. Not an easy feat by any means, and certainly facilitated by a spectacular performance of The Newberry Consort under the direction of director and soprano Ellen Hargis. Since the music on VESPERS was originally composed for use in women's convents, the bass voice is either sung up the octave, or replaced by bassoon or viola da gamba. The result is graceful, airy, ethereal, otherworldly. Easy on the ears not only for lovers of early music, and for these: a veritable treat.

Kellen Gray has reunited with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for a second instalment of African American Voices. Though representing differing schools of thought regarding African American classical music, the composers here are united by their roots in black history, culture and its rich musical heritage. Drawing upon jazz and spirituals – ‘I Want Jesus to Walk with Me’ serving as the source material – Margaret Bonds’ Montgomery Variations engages with African American history, namely the Montgomery bus boycott and the 1963 Birmingham church bombing. In this work, re-discovered in 2017, Bonds tackles the themes of strength, resistance, determination and faith. Bonds’ contemporary, the prolific composer Ulysses Kay cultivated a neoclassical voice, as his Concerto for Orchestra exemplifies, very much in line with William Grant Still and his teacher Paul Hindemith. A versatile musician, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson comes a generation later. In his Worship: A Concert Overture, we can hear a blend of Baroque counterpoint, elements of the blues, spirituals and black folk music.

REVIEW:

Margaret Bond (1913–1972) wrote her 1964 Montgomery Variations as a seven-movement theme-and-variations on the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” Bond’s impassioned cri de coeur bypasses the constraints of academic cd’s and don’ts as it chronicles in boldly theatrical music the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement, from the Montgomery bus boycott through the tragic 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. Bond dedicated the piece to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., though sadly never heard it performed during her brief lifetime.

Ulysses Kay (1917–1995) reflects in his 1948 Concerto for Orchestra the influence of several of his mentors – including Paul Hindemith – as a thoroughly tonal work conceived in mid-20th century, in a moment in which the music of the followers of the Second Viennese School reigned supreme in the classical music worlds of both Europe and America. Kay’s classically structured, richly orchestrated, harmonically dense, and contrapuntally complex composition remains at its core a consonantly melodic, post-Romantic work.

In his 2001 Worship: A Concert Overture Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932–2004) successfully amalgamates sacred and secular music, incorporating blues in his nobly elegant treatment of Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.

-- All About The Arts (Rafael de Acha)

Since 1822 the Royal Academy of Music has inspired generations of musicians to connect; collaborate and create. This recording of Bach Partitas continues this mission; reuniting renowned harpsichordist and conductor Trevor Pinnock with students from the Royal Academy of Music and The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto. Following the success of Goldberg Variations (arr. for small orchestra by Józef Koffler); the Principal of the Academy; Jonathan Freeman-Attwood commissioned ‘re-imaginings’ of three of Bach’s most celebrated keyboard Partitas for the same scoring; by alumnus composer Thomas Oehler. The creative challenge – to bring a fresh perspective to some of Bach’s most elegant resourceful and refined keyboard writing – pays off in the hands of wonderfully talented musicians; and reveals how Oehler’s faithful response to Bach’s score allows the music to glow as brightly as ever.

Following an album dedicated to the forgotten Renaissance master Vicente Lusitano (Gramophone Editor’s Choice, Der Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik Quarterly Critic’s Choice), The Marian Consort makes an enthralling leap forward to the present day. True to its core mission of expanding the vocal repertoire, A Winged Woman showcases the ensemble’s commissions from a crop of the UK’s finest composers – including seven world premiere recordings – with music by Dani Howard, James MacMillan, Electra Perivolaris, Howard Skempton, Chloe Knibbs and others. The works challenge traditions and tropes in imaginative and refreshing ways, bringing together a rich array of musical styles and textual approaches. As Perivolaris’s titular work makes clear, this album puts centre stage the compelling work of some of today’s most exciting women composers.

With this album, fittingly entitled Traum der Jugend, the young musicians of Kebyart see a longstanding dream come true. Drawn by its eagerness to reveal new soundworlds, the saxophone quartet has interwoven works from different epochs and given them a new, unconventional guise through its own arrangements. Taking Jörg Widmann’s 7 Capricci as a starting point – a work specially written for the quartet which sparked the idea of this recording – Kebyart draws a myriad of musical connections that journey from Felix Mendelssohn, one of Widmann’s favourite composers, to Johann Sebastian Bach, himself a source of inspiration to Mendelssohn. The programme culminates with a tribute to Fanny Mendelssohn, whose skilful compositions played a key role in developing the musical personality of her brother Felix.

Valentin Silvestrov is Ukraine’s leading composer and one of the most distinctive musical voices of our time. This album brings together the two superlative works of Silvestrov’s early maturity – Postludium for Piano and Orchestra and the Symphony for Violin and Orchestra ‘Widmung’. Recorded in the presence of the composer. The Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Lyndon-Gee can also be heard on 8.574123 in Silvestrov’s Symphony No. 7, Ode to a Nightingale and Piano Concertino.

REVIEW:

If you don't know [this] 86-year-old composer's music, a new album by conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra makes a sonically satisfying place to start. It contains a pair of symphonic works that embody two recurring ideas for Silvestrov: that an end can also be a beginning, and that sweet, nostalgic music can thrive alongside concussive eruptions.

In Postludium for Piano and Orchestra, the composer essentially offers an ending, a "postlude," that becomes something brand new by mixing the avant-garde with old-school romanticism. The piece convulses in orchestral earthquakes of low brass (complete with aftershocks), but eventually gives way to delicate music that yearns for the long-ago beauty of Mozart.

The more expansive work on the album is a 44-minute symphony for violin and orchestra titled Dedication. Who's it dedicated to? Lyndon-Gee, writing in the album's booklet, treats it as an homage to the "life-force" of the human race — which encompasses not only tragedy, but also love and renewal. And yet for Silvestrov, he says, "Everything is a postlude to that which is slipping, inevitably and unceasingly, from between our fingers."

In Dedication, the violin — played with unwavering detail by Janusz Wawrowski — is not battling against the orchestra for domination, as in a typical concerto. Instead, the two protagonists complement each other, breathing as a single organism in Silvestrov's colossal exhalations of sound. Great waves of percussion crest over a spiky violin, a reminder that Silvestrov's early works from the 1960s were considered too avant-garde for Soviet-era officials.

Silvestrov has created his own sound world, charged with turbulence and bittersweet fragments of melody that can seem like quotes from other composers, but aren't. Near the end of Dedication, an elegiac theme, reminiscent of Mahler, emerges in the strings, struggling to rise ever higher through a dark cloud of roiling harmonies.

-- NPR Classical (Tom Huizenga)

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in 2024, the BR-KLASSIK label is releasing previously unreleased recordings of concerts worth listening to, available on CD and as a stream.

Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony remains today one of the greatest and most powerful creations of the Late Romantic period. The immense symphony, longer and more monumental than others, incorporates texts from the collection of poems by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim entitled “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. Composed over a period of four years from 1892 to 1896, with particular focus during the summers of 1895 and 1896 spent at the Attersee in Austria, it was premiered in its entirety on June 9, 1902, at the 38th “Tonkünstler Festival” in Krefeld. Mahler conducted the Städtische Kapelle Krefeld and Cologne’s Gürzenich Orchestra at this momentous event, which garnered great acclaim from his contemporaries. Between 1902 and 1907, the composer conducted his Third Symphony a further 15 times.

Among the symphony's six powerful movements, the slow fourth movement necessitates not only a large orchestra but also a mezzo-soprano solo for a setting of the “Midnight Song” (“O Man! Take heed!”) from Friedrich Nietzsche's poetical-philosophical work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." In the cheerful fifth movement, the mezzo-soprano soloist is joined by a children’s choir and a female chorus for the song "Es sungen drei Engel" from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn." The symphony presents a significant challenge for all its performers, and this concert recording from December 2010 features a prestigious lineup: Mariss Jansons conducting the Chor and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, with the Tölzer Knabenchor, and solo parts sung by Nathalie Stutzmann.