Hans Sitt (1850–1928) was an extremely important personality in the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, and also a remarkably prolific composer. Among all this activity, he found the time to transcribe all (!) of Beethoven's nine Symphonies, among others. 

His decision to transcribe them for violin and piano instead of for two piano so common in hus era, allows him to make the violin a part among parts, to immerse it in the (very rich) piano fabric, sometimes giving it a thematic role and sometimes not. 

His transcription of the Ninth ends up revealing many aspects of the original score of which one had never been aware. In addition to being splendid to listen to, if only in that obvious sense of the formidable challenge it poses to the performers, it becomes an important and unexpected tool for delving deeper into the structure of the Beethovenian masterpiece. And for this we shall forever have to thank him.

REVIEW:

Sitt has succeeded magnificently in distilling the original material, but it also presents a great technical challenge for the two performers, which Loguercio and Piemonti meet with bravura. But it is not only the virtuoso that they rise to, for their playing is musically satisfying as well, especially in the slow movement, where they make the music effective with subtle moods.

-- Pizzicato

Significant new additions to the recorded catalogue of this most broad-minded of Danish conductors, working in the last two years of his life and featuring several composers of his own time who were writing in their own post-Nielsen styles. Hardly less novel is the wartime recording of Coates’s Knightsbridge March, never reissued since first appearing on 78s. Several other light-orchestral classics are complemented by spontaneous-sounding live Tchaikovsky in the hands of a little-known French violinist.

Showpiece variations, folksongs, little-known trios and an early masterpiece: an unrivalled survey of Beethoven’s flute writing in new recordings by experienced Italian chamber musicians.

In writing his sets of folksong variations, the result always falls easily upon the ear while putting amateur musicians through their paces, technically speaking, and demanding far more of their expressive imagination. The other pieces here date from Beethoven’s earliest years as a composer in Bonn. The Trio for flute, bassoon and piano shows a strong Mozartian influence; the B flat Sonata for flute and piano is a striking example of the apprentice musician learning his craft and refining his voice, which emerges in the unexpected context of a modest Duo for two flutes. However, it is the seven-movement Serenade Op. 25, scored for flute, violin and viola, where we find Beethoven most elegantly adapted to the role of ‘occasional’ composer.

These new recordings are led by the flautist Ginevra Petrucci, who is now based in New York as a performer, editor and author of several volumes on the flute, and a specialist in new music. ‘A a very talented and well-educated musician,’ according to the Fanfare magazine review of her Brilliant Classics album of flute concertos by Briccialdi (95767).

This tenth volume of violin concertos marks the return of Julien Chauvin and his Concert de la Loge to the Vivaldi Edition, with works linked to Pisendel, a major musical figure in the court of Dresden in the 18th century. Julien Chauvin and his Concert de la Loge released a hugely successful volume of Vivaldi concertos with a theatrical theme in 2020. In this new album they perform works focusing on Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755), konzertmeister at the Dresden Court chapel, and pupil and friend of Vivaldi, who played a key role in the popularity of the Red Priest’s music in Dresden. It is thanks to the admiration and foresight of this eminent German violinist not only that the city possesses a considerable Vivaldi catalogue, but also that certain signed manuscripts were preserved that are to be found only in Dresden.

This album comprises three concertos composed for him (RV 237, RV 314 and RV 340) and three others copied by his hand (RV 225, RV 226 and RV 369). All the many contrasts which mark Vivaldi’s concerto repertoire – whatever the instrument –are magnified here under the supple bow of Julien Chauvin: his close bond with Le Concert de la Loge flourishes in a free, rich and diverse discourse, fiery and passionate in the external movements, and lyric or gently melancholic in the central parts. Worth mentioning among the many examples are the splendid elegiac song of the Adagio in concerto RV 237 or the delicate slow movements accompanied by the pizzicato of the strings in concertos RV 314 and RV 226.

Also available: Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2 / Zimmermann

Since the mid-1980s, Frank Peter Zimmermann has earned recognition as one of the leading violinists, admired not only for his technical skill and interpretive intelligence, but also for his versatility in a wide-ranging repertoire. His extensive discography spans from Bach concertos and Beethoven sonatas to works by composers such as Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg and Brett Dean. But during the four decades that Zimmermann has been making recordings, he has never previously recorded Bach’s Sei solo, the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin which form an absolute pinnacle in the repertoire for the instrument. As he now takes on these works, it is with great respect for the task at hand – Zimmermann compares them to ‘a mighty tree, which protects me and crushes me at the same time’, the music giving him hope and strength at the same time as it confronts him with his limits as a violinist. On this first disc of two he offers us Sonata No. 2 in A minor, as well as the D minor Partita No. 2 with the iconic Chaconne and Partita No. 3 in E major.

REVIEW:

Zimmerman’s interpretations are the most impressive I have heard in recent years. The tone is magnificently focused, occasionally throaty but without excessive vibrato.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Paganini was the first great ‘star’ of instrumental music, the precursor of the rock stars of today, able to induce collective hysteria as well as to dictate fashion and to influence the behaviour of entire generations. He did this by transforming the violin into an orchestra of multiple voices and timbral experimentation, in other words, stretching the very limits of what a single instrument could do.

This programme is particularly interesting, both for the quality of the performances as well as the new chamber-string versions created by Francesco Fiore and Salvatore Lombardo. It also juxtaposes extremely popular Paganini works alongside compositions not very often heard in the concert hall but which help flesh out our understanding of the artistry of a composer too often misjudged as merely an acrobat of the violin. In four of Paganini’s best-known compositions – the ‘Campanella’ (Bell) movement from the Violin Concerto No.2, the Moses Fantasy, the Witches’ Dance and the Cantabile – the solo violin is here accompanied by a string quintet. In the first three, the string quintet stands in for the orchestra with a consequent lightening of accompaniment. In the Cantabile, the original of which was for violin and piano (Paganini’s only piece to be accompanied by keyboard rather than guitar), the ‘heavier’ quintet accompaniment still manages to retain a discreet sense of enjoyable sophistication.

The next two works, Nos. 6 and 3 of the 6 Sonatas Op.3 for violin and guitar, are presented here in transcriptions for two or three violins. These two sonatas, written in the salon style typical of the age, delight the listener with the conversational nature of the violin writing. Finally come three compositions in their original versions, providing an excursion into a lesser-known, but still very interesting, area of Paganini’s chamber output. The three Duetti concertanti for violin and cello were written for the enjoyment of amateur players, each comprising two movements

Ernest Moeran’s love for Ireland and absorption of its music and musicians led to the composer living on the island of Valentia for two years. He later made Kenmare his second home from around 1934 until his death there in 1950. Moeran’s experiences in Ireland appear to have influenced him melodically in the traditional folk dance-like textures he embraces, particularly throughout his early Piano Trio and Violin Sonata featured on this album alongside his Prelude for Cello and Piano and Sonata for Two Violins. With their own strong links to Ireland, the album is performed by the Fidelio Trio with violinist Nicky Sweeney. In the four chamber works on this album Moeran’s use of melodic and harmonic turns, his approach to instrumentation and command of the strings and piano writing, has gifted us a treasure trove of focus in repertoire, utterly connected, through him, with music of places and peoples.

REVIEW:

Especially valuable here is the superbly articulate and memorably affectionate advocacy lent to the disarming Piano Trio...this enterprising anthology yields copious rewards and can be welcomed without reservation.

-- Gramophone (Editor's Choice, March 2022)

Albéric Magnard, born in Paris in 1865, was a pupil of Dubois, Guiraud, Massenet and D’Indy at the Paris Conservatoire, and he frequented the circle of César Franck. In 1896, he became a teacher at Paris’s Schola Cantorum. Then, from 1904, he settled in the countryside on his estate at Manoir des Fontaines in Baron (Oise), where he died in 1914, shot by German troops while attempting to defend the property, which was set on fire along with many of his as yet unpublished compositions. In addition to four symphonies, he is also the author of operas, but chamber music is the genre in which he best expressed himself and into which he poured the influence of Beethoven and the counterpoint of the Schola Cantorum. His last chamber work, the Sonata for Cello and Piano Op. 20 is among his most significant compositions. Composed between 1908 and 1910, it is structured in four movements like all his chamber works, betraying his devotion to German contemporaries and in opposition to the French tendency for three movements in symphonies and instrumental compositions.

Completed in 1905, the Piano Trio Op. 18 was first performed at the Salle Aéolian in Paris in January 1906. Also in four movements, it presents more measured writing than the Cello Sonata or Violin Sonata. The dialogue between the three instruments is refined and balanced without any break in interaction.

These are works by a brilliant composer faithful to tradition. On the whole the music can be described as an innovative and surprising, certainly deserving of wider recognition.

The world-premiere recording of the complete Violin Concerto in E Minor by Belgian virtuoso violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe has arrived! Following the recent discovery of a first movement, further manuscripts which complete the work have come to light – one a full orchestration, others for violin and piano – which were found on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Philippe Graffin’s close collaboration with Ysaÿe aficionado Xavier Falques led to a page-by-page analysis and painstaking reconstruction of the musical puzzle pieces, resulting in this recording of the full, three-movement concerto which displays Ysaÿe’s trademark ardour, intensity and originality.

For reasons unknown, Ysaÿe abandoned his Violin Concerto in E minor in 1885, but some years later embarked on another, Poème concertant, which was also recently discovered in manuscript form and is imbued with passion and the love Ysaÿe felt for his pupil Irma Sethe. Their love was mutual but their relationship could not endure, possibly sealing the fate of Poème concertant which lay undiscovered for over a century but is now brought back to life with this world-premiere recording.

Philippe rounds out the recording with three Ysaÿe gems for violin and piano: 2 Mazurkas de Salon, Op.10, works the violinist / composer frequently performed and gained popularity throughout Europe and Russia in his lifetime; and Rêve d’enfant (“A child’s dream”), which he dedicated to his youngest son Antoine.

In this album, Sergey Khachatryan presents the first recording of Ysaÿe's 6 Solo Sonatas Op.27 on the composer’s Guarneri del Gesù violin - a magnificent, hypnotic instrument!

Ysaÿe’s Op. 27 is not new to Sergey Khachatryan, who has been performing the cycle in concert for a long time. Today aged thirty-eight and the precocious First Prize Winner of the International Sibelius Competition in 2000 and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2005, the Armenian violinist once more demonstrates his radiant maturity, akin to his sumptuous recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas (naïve, 2008-2009, V 5181).

Here Sergey Khachatryan delivers an interpretation of heightened feelings, where what might otherwise come across as impish is deliberately turned into something fierce (the Prelude of Sonata No. 2, which uses the opening motif of Bach’s Partita No. 3), or that which is merely imitative becomes wild and relentless (the Finale of Sonata No. 4). He willfully emphasizes the popular inspiration underlying the complete collection, imbuing it with shadings and a sumptuousness previously unheard.

The third volume in this popular series, Revival III features arrangements of 14 familiar Christmas carols for contemporary ensembles. The words and melodies that have reflected, shaped, and sustained a rich tradition of hymn singing across a range of Christian denominations are some of the richest treasures of the church. For generations, they have been a source of strength, comfort, and challenge through all the seasons of life. Many of them transcend their native denominational identity and some even find a home outside the church. This third volume of Revival offers contemporary interpretations of beloved hymns of the Advent and Christmas seasons, unlocking the beauty of these timeless carols in fresh ways for all who sing them.