Grammy-winning ensemble Third Coast Percussion releases their newest recording of two landmark works by acclaimed French composer Philippe Manoury. Manoury's work is aligned with the modernist French tradition as articulated by Pierre boulez; his music is imbued with values shared with the world of research and marked by ambitious instrumental challenges. His works has been particularly informed by his expertise in electro-acoustic composition and real-time interaction between acoustic instruments and computer generated sounds. In these two remarkable acoustic works, Le Livre des Claviers and Metal, Manoury explores the rich world of tuned keyboard percussion instruments, a category he broadens to include low pitched Thai gongs and a fascinating set of six homemade instruments called sixxen, originally imagined by pioneer Iannis Xenakis. Xenakis specified some sonic parameters for sixxen, but gave no specific instrument designs. Notably, pitch is not a fixed parameter in the design specifications for sixxen, so it is up to the performers to build instruments that create an engaging pitch landscape. The sixxen works, therefore, are shaped by Manoury's compelling rhythmic writing and elegant sense of contour, and a listener might be tempted to muse on ways the piece would sound different, or the same, with another set of sixxen. While Xenakis' use of these instruments was somewhat brutal, in Manoury's hands, they also display a ritualistic, etheral side, sounding occasionally like clanging church bells from the worship house of an exotic theology. Two movements for thai gongs and marimbas, a marimba duo, and a vibraphone solo represent the rest of Le Livre des Claviers, containing precise, demanding music that nevertheless avoids the kind of dramatic resistance often associated with writing of this complexity. The dynamic between the rigors of the mallet percussion movements of Le Levre des Claviers and the sixxen movements amounts to a kind of refraction of Manoury's vision through a distorting lens, particularly as it pertains to pitch. Present throughout all of these movements and in Metal is a natural, unencumbered flow underlying Manoury's phrases, even in the most virtuosic passages. This is, of course, a testament to Third Coast's well documented expertise, but also suggests that an affect of detached effortlessness may be shared with or influenced by his work in the realm of computer music. Perhap sit is consistent with Manoury's role as a researcher - a detached observer nevertheless infused with a sense of wonder.

Hans Pfitzner’s 1901 opera Die Rose vom Liebesgarten sets a libretto by James Grum, which was inspired by an 1890 painting by Hans Thoma, Der Wachter vor dem Liebesgarten. While the premiere of the first act was quite poorly received, the entire opera finally received a successful staging by Gustav Mahler in Vienna in 1905. This production, featuring world-renowned vocalists Andre Riemer, Tiina Penttinen, Jona Buchner, Astrid Weber, and Andreas Kindschuh, is conducted by Frank Beerman. Beerman has gained international renown as a conductor both on the stage and with his many recordings. His always alert interest in new and undiscovered music and in new interpretations of the core repertoire has brought him numerous prizes and distinctions. His recordings feature the core repertoire as well as rediscoveries and contemporary works. They have won several awards, including Echo Klassik prizes in 2009 and 2015.

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In his Choros, Guarnieri wrote music that conjures up the landscape and essence of Brazil. These very personal concertos reveal the composer’s refined instrumental combinations and elegant contrapuntal writing, while their dance rhythms are vivacious, drawing on the baião, maracatu and embolada. The Chorosin this second volume represent all stages of Guarnieri’s compositional development. Also included is the delightful and inventive Florde Tremembé, an early work with choro-like features. The first volume is also available on Naxos.

REVIEW:

This release, the second of two, contains Guarnieri’s Choros for clarinet (1956), piano (1956), cello (1961) and viola (1975). All four abound in high-spirited dancelike passages with syncopated Latin rhythms, alternating with music of pastoral lyricism, and usually end in a celebratory, carnival atmosphere. 

The later pair, for strings, are slightly more modernist: the composer even employs a 12-tone row in the viola concerto, but his lightness of touch and Brazilian exuberance are not affected (Guarnieri hated 12-tone music and penned articles about how unnatural he found it – then wrote some to prove he could!) The program also contains an early work for chamber orchestra, Flor de Tremembé (1937), which is jazzy with echoes of Gershwin.

This disc is even more fun than Volume 1. The musicians are absolutely at home with Guarnieri’s idiom: Roberto Tibiriçá’s tempos are spot on, the soloists are terrific, the sound first rate. This Choros for Clarinet should be as popular as the Clarinet Concerto by Copland (who, incidentally, was the composer’s friend and benefactor in the US).

--Limelight (Phillip Scott)

2018 Gramophone Magazine Chamber Recording of the Year

Seven years after they triumphed with Dvorák’s quartets, Pavel Haas Quartet are back to Dvorák. For the occasion of recording his quintets, they have invited two guests: the pianist Boris Giltburg (winner of 2013 Queen Elizabeth Competition), as well as one of the PHQ founding members, violist Pavel Nikl. Antonín Dvorák composed his Piano Quintet No. 2 while staying at his beloved summer house in Vysoká in the late summer of 1887. The renowned critic Eduard Hanslick responded to its performance in Vienna enthusiastically: "It is one of his most beautiful works. A genuine Dvorák.“ The String Quintet op. 97, albeit only six years younger, presents a completely "different Dvorák“. After the Symphony from the New World and the “American” quartet, the string quintet is the composer’s third work written in America. Besides drawing inspiration from the music of the Native American tribe of the Iroquois which he heard in Spillville in the summer of 1893, he built the third movement around a theme that he had previously considered using in a proposal for a new American anthem. And Hanslick’s testimonial? "This is probably the simplest, most natural and happiest music composed since Haydn’s times. The ear enjoys it with an easy-going attitude and the spirit is not bored for a single moment.“ Pavel Haas Quartet is at home in Dvorák’s music – to quote the Sunday Times, "In this repertoire, they are simply matchless today.“

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REVIEW:

It is the happiest of reunions and their sense of shared purpose is evident from the very start. Giltburg is completely at one with the quartet, who set off full of sighing pathos. From the off, they make the music their own; their sense of story-telling is very persuasive. Another triumphant addition to the Pavel Haas’s already Award-laden discography.

– Gramophone

The Eton Choirbook is famous – and important – because it uniquely preserves some of the most spectacular music composed in Britain before the age of Purcell and Handel. Had this book not survived, literally dozens of superb pieces would have been irretrievably lost; among them would have been the ones by Walter Lambe, William Cornysh and Robert Wylkynson on this album. Whilst the book itself is of huge historic significance, its legacy is immeasurable, informing and influencing scores of composers and performers for more than 500 years. This unique recording emphasizes that legacy with the premiere of four new works by contemporary composers all commissioned by the Genesis Foundation and all inspired by the works from the Eton Choirbook alongside which they sit. This album also features Stephen Hough’s stunning exploration of faith worldwide- Hallowed- which was commissioned for The British Museum’s ‘Living with Gods’ exhibition. “… the singing of The Sixteen under Harry Christophers was wonderful beyond words.” (Church Times) “Wonderful music, wonderfully performed… sit back and let these glorious sounds fill your ears and lift your spirits.” (Gramophone)

Lauro Rossi was a prominent composer and teacher in the period from 1830 to 1880. A brilliant, lively personality from both a humanistic and artistic point of view emerges from the documents. Modern critics have included him in the indistinct group of ‘lesser’ names from the period of Bellini and Donizetti, acknowledging his ability and primary role in the buffo genre, considering with equally close attention his later writing in the serious genre. Rossi’s Il domino nero was staged for the first time at Milan’s Teatro alla Canobbiana on September 1, 1849. The subject was used for the first time in the libretto Eugene Scribe wrote for Le domino noir, an opera comique in three acts by Daniel Auber, successfully staged at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris on December 2, 1837 and performed by Laure Cinti Damoreau and Joseph-Antoine-Charles Couderc. Rubino kept the period and the setting in Spain and used some of the ideas, but in substance moved away from Scribe’s plot. As well as the adaptability and technical ability in belcanto style, the singers must have first-rate acting talent. Rossi had the gift of simplicity and a ‘modern’ sensitivity, which goes beyond Rossini and Donizetti’s great teaching. By choice, his writing is easily followed, whereas his solid training in composition can be noted above all in the skill with which he treats the chorus, which has a key role, from the point of view of both music and stage presence.

River of 1,000 Streams is a wild new piece for piano and up to 11 ''cascading echoes'' that stack up to create dense sonic torrents, as well as more delicate textures. Performed by renowned pianist Vicki Ray, this virtuosic music rumbles from the piano's lowest notes up through its highest in a succession of lovely ever-drifting harmonies. Daniel Lentz has been a fixture on Southern California's new-music scene for more than 45 years, prolifically creating a very personal music that reflects and refracts various experimental and post-experimental trends. Hi smusic is both relentlessly propulsive and lushly beautiful, and it may hint at pop/jazz harmonies or toy with late Romantic gestures, while always offering Lentz's distinct musical vision and reveling in a joy of music-making. Grammy nominated new music champion Vickie Ray, a founding member of the California EAR Unit and Piano Spheres, has perfomred with the Los Angeles philharmonic and many other groups.

The "Scherzi Musicali a tre voci di Claudio Monteverde, raccolti da Giulio Cesare Monteverde suo fratello, et nuovamente posti in luce" ("collected by his brother Giulio Cesare Monteverde and revealed again"), were published in 1607 by Ricciardo Amadino in Venice, and dedicated to "Serenissimo S. Don Francesco Gonzaga Prencipe di Mantova, et si Monferrato." These are 18 compositions selected and edited by Giulio Cesare Monteverdi: 17 "Scherzi," strophic songs written by Claudio, except for the last two by Giulio Cesare himself, and a wider concluding ballet, "De la bellezza le dovute lodi." Even with light and schematic compositions such as "Scherzi," the rules of the "Seconda Prattica" do not fail: new polyphonic technique, innovative use of dissonance, original concertation and, above all, great importance to the lyrics, with a strong dramatic power, before harmony and rhythm. The set is a masterpiece of the history of music of that time, in the mark of eternal quarrel between ancient and modern. The EsaEnsemble, a female vocal group directed by Sergio Chierici and accompanied by the instrumental ensemble Baschenis, effectively deals with this important work by the great genius of the Renaissance, in a colorful variety of vocal and instrumental organics supported by a wide use of period instruments.

Morton Feldman was one of the most enigmatic composers of the 20th century. That is to say, he was extremely intelligent and enormously opinionated, pulled no punches when it came to passing judgement on historical figures or his peers, and loved to talk about his work, so that there is a remarkable collection of his writings and many scattered interviews to give us insight into his music. And yet the information he offered, frequently anecdotal, was often philosophic or metaphoric in nature, so that it ultimately revealed few specifics about his compositional methods and aesthetic choices. For example, as forthcoming as he was about his obsessive relationship with painting, primarily although not exclusively the work of the Abstract Expressionist painters of the late 1940's, 50's and 60's who were his close friends, we find that for all his talk, of the congruities between artistic and musical qualities of scale, surface, or space, among others, much of his music - especially the later, longer scores of which Patterns In A Chromatic Field is a prime example - remains mysteriously idiosyncratic and marvelously cryptic.

This is the fifth installment of the SWR Classic series dedicated to Hans Rosbaud. It contains Tchaikovsky's symphonies no. 4 and 5 - the only ones Rosbaud has recorded for the SWR. Especially no. 5 can be regarded as a reference recording along other famous interpretations. "He is not only a virtuoso pianist, but has more or less mastered nearly all orchestral instruments. That puts him in a position to provide the individual members of the orchestra with helpful advice, which-nowadays- hardly any conductor is able to do. As these qualities go along with striving for the ideal, a rare capacity for enthusiasm as well as with an iron will he does not hesitate to impose, Hans Rosbaud is an inestimable and somehow indispensable institution." (Bernhard Sekles, Rosbaud's former professor of composition)

Anton�n Dvor�k had a passion for chamber music; he liked playing it with friends, and perhaps soon came to realize how good a commercial commodity such pieces represented. He wrote the first of his two piano quartets at the age of 34, by which time many a publisher was interested in his works. The Czech media voiced their satisfaction that Dvor�k had moved beyond foreign influence, with the Slavic spirit having prevailed in his music. Cases in point include his Moravian Duets, Op. 20, and Serenades, Op. 22, created at the same time. The publisher Fritz Simrock bitterly regretted having rejected the first quartet, persistently reminding the composer: "I would gladly take a piano quartet, preferably even two". When in the summer of 1889 Dvor�k got down to writing his second quartet, he complained of having a "slow hand", yet stressed that he had plenty of ideas: "My head is full of it... I have finished three movements of a new quartet with piano, and the finale will be ready in a few days. It has gone smoothly beyond expectation, with the melodies rolling in to me." The sheer beauty of the piece was cogently described by the prominent Vienna-based critic Eduard Hanslick: "The quartet requires that the listener be considerably attentive and well informed, which, however, really pays off." The ensemble bearing the composer's name have linked up to the feted tradition of their great teachers - Ivan Moravec, Josef Vlach and Milan �kampa. They present Dvor�k at his finest, both conventional and sophisticated.

Launching his Mozart debut recorded with the Czech Philharmonic and Jir� Belohl�vek, Jan Barto� drew to himself a lot of critical attention on an international scale. Those who reviewed the album especially appreciated his rare ability to combine thorough understanding both of the musical architecture and the deep emotionality of the works (a quality possessed also by the pianist's tutors Ivan Moravec and Alfred Brendel). From the early "Haydn-like" Sonata No. 3 in C major to the highly dramatic "Appassionata" to the transcendent last Sonata No. 32 in C minor, which gives an impression of the composer parting with this world, the pianist facilitates to us the amazing integrity and colorfulness of Beethoven's piano work. During the thirty years separating his first and last piano opus, the composer tried out numberless experiments, and yet some crucial themes come up again and again; the imprint of his unique musical DNA is discernible from his very first opuses. In the hands of Jan Barto�, Beethoven whispers, sings and thunders. We encounter a world full of contrasts, an image whose colors remain impressed in our memory for a long time.

As the court music director in Zerbst, Johann Friedrich Fasch had to deal directly with current religious trends and was obliged to occupy himself with Pietism. After all, from the beginning of his tenure there his duties had included the composition of the church music for every court religious service and for all the church feast days. Fasch had a special mission in mind when he penned his cantatas: he was very much interested in having hislisteners not remain indifferent to the texts that were sung. And so he employed all sorts of compositional tricks to capture their attention and to emphasize words of special importance to him. This procedure is impressively revealed already at the beginning of the cantata »Ich danke dem Herrn vom ganzen Herzen.« After a short instrumental introduction the opening Biblical text is presented not as usual by the choir but initially by the solo soprano. Then in the Missa in G major almost all the facets of Fasch’s musical talent are shown; from arias with obbligato solo instruments to grandly dimensioned chorale fugues placing the greatest demands both on the singers and the instrumentalists, it was composed in its entirety for the entertainment and edification of his noble employer and to the glory of God. One of Fasch’s overture suites of extraordinary quality rounds off this album. In his autobiography he acknowledged : "On this occasion I cannot avoid publicly acknowledging that I then learned mostly everything from the beautiful work of my most revered and beloved friend, Mr. Music Director Telemann, by constantly taking the same as a model for me, especially in the overtures".

A radically systematic logic stunningly manifested itself quite early in the music of Richard Strauss. He avoided the instrumental genres, was attracted to the tone poem right from the very start, and worked toward the goal of making the opera his central focus. And yet his beginnings lay in chamber music, a fact demonstrated on this release with two examples in new recordings. The Piano Trio No. 2 is lengthier than its predecessor and very ambitious both in its tonal register and execution. The formal norms – sonata form, song form, scherzo, and then another sonata movement – are upheld with completeness and elegance. The piano trio had a long line of tradition going back to Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, but the composer who set standards in the middle of the nineteenth century is particularly clearly recognizable here in a model function: Mendelssohn. Only about seven years passed between this trio and Strauss’s only Piano Quartet, but in 1885 too he was still a very young composer. The quartet displays impressive advances in technique; now Strauss apparently could draw on all the compositional resources then available, and the higher virtuosic demands on the instrumentalists are also quite evident. Strauss attracted the greatest attention with his large-format op. 13 lasting almost forty minutes, a work that even brought him a prize from the Berliner Tonkünstlerverein.

Following the runaway success of Cavalleria rusticana in 1890 at the age of 27, Mascagni did not rest on his laurels. In just a few years, he completed no less than five operas, including Iris, premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1898. Mascagni might well have taken for his own Puccini's famous quip, “Against everything and everyone, make a work from melody”. And in Iris it is melodic invention which shows the composer's genius at its greatest. A melody by Mascagni is usually long, smooth and Italian-sounding; and Iris is full-on melody all the way, particularly in such crowd-pleasers as Jor's Serenade, the “Hymn of the Sun” or the duet in Act II “Oh come al tuo sottile corpo s'aggira”, which includes the famous “Piovra”. Furtheremore, with a little effort listeners can identify what would be the various musical “numbers”. In Iris, Mascagni is almost obsessively attentive to recitative and his exemplary flexibility at times recalls the sublime "conversation style" "invented" by Puccini. The present production was recorded live at the Teatro Goldoni, Livorno, in December of 2017.

This album continues the complete edition of the chamber works by Marco Enrico Bossi, featuring a collection of instrumental works for piano and various instruments: viola violin, flute, bassoon, oboe, harp, cello, double bass and harmonium. Unexpected and surprising writing mastery by Bossi (until a few years ago only known for being one of the greatest organ performers in the history of music), this anthology pays tribute to the composer through the different facets he manages to characterize each of these instruments in their own timbre and expressive peculiarity. The SchuberTrio (Giulio Giurato, piano, Andrea Noferini, cello and Roberto Noferini, violin) - already awarded by critics for the previous albums of the Bossi Trios and the music for violin, cello and piano, is joined by Anna Noferini at the viola, Paolo dal Moro at the historical flute, Paolo Pollastri at the oboe, Roberto Giaccaglia at the bassoon, Roberto Rubini at the double bass, Emanuela Degli Esposti at the harp, and Claudio Brizi at the harmonium d 'art.

Les Vendredis is a collection of string quartets by several Russian composers, who played a key role at the famous Friday evening concerts organized by the music publisher Belaieff at the end of the 19th century. Alexander Glazunov, Anatoli Liadov and Rimsky-Korsakov are among the illustrious names that formed that musical society. Belaieff, son and heir of a wealthy wood trader, was a music enthusiast and an excellent violist. Thus, it was only natural that he hosted string quartet concerts in his house and commissioned composers for new string quartet works. Some of these works were published in 1899 by Belaieff’s own publishing house, which he had founded in the 1880s. The works of this collection continue to fascinate to this day, but are, unfortunately, only rarely performed. The Szymanowski Quartet, who are known for their exciting and cleverly compiled concert programmes, perform this repertoire with both pleasure and passion. Their technical perfection suits the musical challenges and their soulful performance highlights the lyrical emotions of these Russian musical treasures.

Since winning the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1986, Mario Brunello has established himself as one of the foremost living cellists. An eclectic musician, for some years Brunello has also taken an interest in the world of historically informed performance practice and the rediscovery of the four-string 'violoncello piccolo'. This instrument, slightly smaller than the cello, is known today for it's presence in some sacred cantatas of Bach, but it was surely used much more widely in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than the currently known repertory would lead us to think. This recording of the Sonate & Partite per violino solo inaugurates the collaboration on the Arcana label with a 'Bach Brunello Series' of three albums, in which important compositions for the violin from his catalogue will be performed on the violoncello piccolo. The booklet includes texts by Bach scholar Peter Wollny and Italian writer Alessandro Baricco. 'I want to approach the Sonatas and Partitas "from the ground up", in every sense. Violinists "fly high", they are always on top of the melody, they see the music from above. I am therefore not proposing an imitation of the violin, but rather a specular reading, a conquest of the summit by another route. A mountain seen from the south or from the north changes the perspective, but not the substance. ' - Mario Brunello

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Dancing with the rain, in order to conjure, just for a moment, what we thought invisible. Driven by curiosity, eagerness, passion, excellency and tradition, the Percussions de Strasbourg ventures to embody the unique energy of a programme in tribute to four Japanese composers with admirable universes. Rain of petals, rain of screams, rain of silences, all these emotions are harmonized and kept in motion by Franck Rossi, Jean Geoffroy and the Percussions de Strasbourg. (Minh-T�m NGUYEN) Founded in 1962, the Percussions de Strasbourg are world-renowned ambassadors of musical creation. With their exceptional repertoire, the group performs twentieth century masterpieces and commissioned new works with the same concerns: to bring life to a contemporary heritage while revisiting it constantly, and to continue to innovate in a context of artistic diversification.

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After his first solo album of music by Marchand and Cl�rambault, released in 2015 and nominated for a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the harpsichordist Luca Oberti, who has performed on the international scene for years alongside such figures as Marc Minkowski and Christophe Rousset, presents a new album on the theme of Bach's imaginary journey to Italy. Sch�tz, Froberger, Muffat, Handel, Hasse, Mozart and Wagner are merely the most famous of the many musicians who crossed the Alps to immerse themselves in the world of Italian music and grasp it's atmospheres and it's secrets. Yet the composer who most fully assimilated the Italian style was Johann Sebastian Bach, who never even set foot in Italy. His journey was a virtual one: the scores of the Italian masters, which he avidly studied and absorbed from childhood onwards, guided him on an ideal itinerary from Vivaldi's Venice to Frescobaldi's Rome. Beginning with the transcriptions of concertos byVivaldi and Marcello, and continuing with pieces ofItalian inspiration like the Aria Variata alla maniera italiana, the Capriccio sulla lontananza del fratello dilettissimo and the Fantasia and Fugue BWV 904, the journey culminates in the celebrated Italian Concerto.

With this release, Ambronay Editions invites listeners to delve into the roots of tango. Bandon+-on virtuoso William Sabatier is joined by baritone Diego Flores and guitarist Ciro Perez for an intimate and poetic journey in the footsteps of the great Carlos Gardel. The arrangements heard here (written by Sabatier) set texts full of melancholy and passion and capture the spirit and emotion of the national music of Argentina perfectly.

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