Compiled from pieces that were clearly composed much earlier as well as from more recent works, the Deuxième Livre pays homage to its two masters and calls for tonalities that it had not yet employed; it evokes the past and the great lutenists of that time with the Pavane and yet also contains important innovations. It is truly a transitional work: published at the very dawn of the century, it opened the doors to the important stylistic changes that French music would undergo during the Age of Enlightenment. After studying the recorder, piano and double bass, François Joubert-Caillet studied the viola da gamba with Paolo Pandolfo at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he equally studied baroque improvisation with Rudolf Lutz. He was awarded First Prize as well as the Public's Award at the Bruges International Chamber Music competition. François Joubert-Caillet has played with numerous formations with whom he has recorded for the labels Ricercar, Harmonia Mundi, Ambronay, K617, ZigZag Territoires, Arcana, Winter&Winter, Aparté, Glossa, Sony, Naïve, etc. François Joubert-Caillet leads L'Acheron with which he performs in several formations, in particular the viol consort.

The Lost Recordings has rediscovered the master tapes of this double recital in the archives of Berlin Radio. The label thus offers, as a world premiere, this Beethoven recital by the great Claudio Arrau, recorded on March 12, 1959 at the Hochschule f�r Muzik in Berlin, totally unpublished, delivering a breathtaking reading of the Farewells, the Appassionata and the Sonata Op. 110. An exceptional document. When Claudio Arrau took the stage of the prestigious Hochschule f�r Musik in Berlin on 12 March 1959, he was, at 56, an artist at the very peak of his fame and the pinnacle of hispianistic and intellectual powers. Rarely in pieces other than these solo works for piano, where sentimental confession, mystical revery and the constant concern for form are inextricably entwined, did Beethoven so clearly create a dramatic sound setting to depict common mortals grappling with their confused feelings, doubts and existential contemplation.

This new release features a fresh interpretation of Bach's masterly cycle The Well-Tempered Clavichord by Heidrun Holtmann. Heidrun Holtmann was born in Germany where she began her musical education at the age of four. Five years later she was accepted by the Music Academy of Detmold, where she worked with Renate Kretschmar-Fischer and completed her studies with highest honors. She was awarded several prizes at national and international competitions. Appearances with conductors such as Antal Dorati, Ivan Fischer, and David Zinman followed, and she performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and many other symphony and chamber orchestras in Germany and abroad. Her discography includes the complete works for piano and orchestra by Robert Schumann, Ludwig van Beethoven's Third and Fourth Piano Concertos in chamber music versions dating from the nineteenth century and several solo albums spanning a wide repertoire ranging from Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Debussy, and Szymanowski as well as works from the contemporary repertoire.

Until well into the second half of the eighteenth century it was the harpsichord which served at the very forefront as a sounding body for experimental and avant-garde. At the latest with the generation around Beethoven, the “modern” fortepiano had become the key instrument for this task. With the renaissance of the harpsichord toward the end of the 19th century, the interest of living composers in this instrument gradually awoke. A first peak was reached in the 1920s, when Manuel de Falla and Francis Poulenc created the first significant works with their respective concert pieces. Fortunately, music continues to be diligently composed for this “old” instrument. The performance of a recital on this release in 2004 is intended to document the liveliness and timeliness of new harpsichord music, even if the most recent piece from 1999 was written at that time.

Following the international success of their first album on Resonus, Venice 1629, Jamie Savan with his acclaimed period group The Gonzaga Band continue their exploration of lesser-known music in the Venetian orbit. Here they uncover a forgotten masterpiece by Amadio Freddi, maestro di cappella of Treviso Cathedral during Monteverdi's tenure at St Mark's in Venice. Luminous vocal textures and sparkling instrumental writing, together with harmonic originality and melodic invention combine to reveal a fascinating composer with a unique voice, heard again for the first time in this world premiere recording. The Gonzaga Band was formed by cornettist Jamie Savan in 1997, with a mission to explore the intimate relationship between vocal and instrumental performance practice in the Early Modern period. The ensemble takes it's name from the ducal family of Mantua: the Gonzagas were powerful and influential patrons of the arts in the late Renaissance, who employed Claudio Monteverdi as their maestro della musica at the turn of the seventeenth century. Monteverdi wrote some of his most innovative music for the Gonzagas: his third, fourth and fifth books of madrigals, the operas Orfeo and Arianna, and of course the Vespers of 1610.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Frieder Bernius - these names are often mentioned in one and the same breath. Bernius's complete recording of Mendlssohn's sacred choral music with the Kammerchor Stuttgart, which has won many prizes, is a major feat of both interpretation and editing, and has extensively contributed to Mendelssohn's complete oeuvre becoming part of the concert repertoire, a fact which today is taken for granted. On the occasion of his 70th birthday in June, 2017, Frieder Bernius has now produced a recording of the high quality associated with him of Mendelssohn's most well-known secular choral songs under the title of ''Liedern im Freien zu singen''.

Following on from their universally acclaimed debut album, Music for a Prussian Salon, the period wind ensemble Boxwood & Brass returns to Resonus with the first of two volumes of Beethoven Transformed. In this major new project, the group explores the status of wind music in early-nineteenth century Vienna through original and arranged music by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and his contemporaries. In this first album, Beethoven’s Op. 71 Sextet is paired with the Op. 20 Septet in E-flat major, arranged for six-part Harmonie by his prolific pupil, Carl Czerny (1791–1857). Founded in 2013, Boxwood & Brass brings together the emerging generation of British period wind-instrument players to advocate for neglected wind chamber music and harmoniemusik of the Classical and early-Romantic periods. Members of the group work regularly with top orchestras from across Europe, including the Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli, L’Orchestra de Champs-Elysees and Spira Mirabilis. In-depth scholarly research into style and repertoire is important to the ensemble, as is promoting the highest standards in period wind playing.

The Swiss composer Guy Bovet has created a chamber version of Camille Saint-Saëns' popular 'Organ Symphony', which increases the significance of the organ part to a true 'Symphony concertante' for organ and orchestra. The result is convincing and the Capriccio Baroque Orchestra presents the work for the first time on historical instruments from the time it was composed. Of writing this piece, Saint-Saëns wrote: “I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.” It seems he wrote the work as a sort of history of his own career- it features virtuosic piano passages, Romantic orchestral writing, and, of course, the sound of the cathedral-sized pipe organ.

After having already released the solo harpsichord concertos, which received several awards, Aapo Häkkinen and the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra go on with the concertos for two harpsichords, together with renowned French harpsichord player Pierre Hantaï. The sonata for two harpsichords by the oldest Bach son Wilhelm Friedemann is a welcome addition. The French harpsichordist, Pierre Hantaï, became passionately attached to the music of Bach around the age of ten. Thanks to the influence of Gustav Leonhardt, he began to study the harpsichord, alone at first, then guided by the American teacher Arthur Haas. He gave his first concerts at an early age, alone or with his brothers Marc and Jérôme. He then spent two years studying in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt, who subsequently invited him to perform under his direction. In 1983 Hantaï scored his first major triumph through taking first prize at the International Bach-Handel Competition of Bruges in Belgium; since then, Hantaï has collected an impressive number of honors and awards.

“In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.” John Cage noted in 1957. Like the white of a canvas, deafening silence continually surrounds notated and sounded music. And even where music can be heard, it can eloquently conceal things; it can loudly shout out the longing for silence, or it can masterly play with resounding silence. In this edition, four distinctly different pieces reflect four completely different attempts to deal with emotional or audible silence, giving us a glimpse behind the “continuum” that surrounds us. As John Cage stated, “times have changed; music has changed”. It will never stop doing so. The demanding artwork of the album series is created with pictures by the painter Gerhard Richter, commenting on the thematic concentration of the programs in an artistic manner. Richter, one of the most important living German artists, has been a member of the board of trustees of the Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2009.

Armenian composer Avet Rubeni Terterian’s third and fourth symphonies were written in the mid-1970’s, during one of his most prolific periods as a composer. Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra make a compelling case for these rarely performed works. Terterian is regarded in his homeland as a giant of twentieth century Armenian music, and as the founder of his nation’s progressive school of composers. The backbone of his achievement is enshrined in eight symphonies, which Terterian composed over two decades from 1969 onwards; a ninth was in progress at the time of his death. In summing them up, he wrote: “We are all living on the threshold of a terrible apocalyptic judgement. It has always seemed to me that my symphonies are a cry of the soul for salvation and for the forgiveness of sins.”

Erinnerungsspuren by Alberto Posadas is an homage to the piano in six parts. In his "reminiscences", the Spanish composer brings to mind some of the best in his profession, taking them as sources for his studies of the piano's sound space. From Fran�ois Couperin to Robert Schumann and Claude Debussy to Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Karlheinz Stockhausen. What matters to Posadas in his cycle is not to make explicit connections to the past; he rather discerns concepts from the historical repertoire, namely Erinnerungsspuren [memory traces], that find expression in pianistic experiments. Special playing techniques with the pedals, with preparations and inside the piano allow changes of individual sounds and micro-intervals while they are resounding, thus creating a trans-historical sound space. In his cycle Alberto Posadas gives less answers than he raises questions in which the music of his six predecessors can be heard as sounds of remembrance: How can new and old material put each other in a different light and perhaps even redefine themselves? And what can be the meaning of quotations when it comes to building bridges between old and new, between the known and the unknown?

"Piercing, song-like, aggressive, dance-like – this is how her music sounds. Graciela Paraskevaídis was someone who did not bow down. Companions from all over Latin America call her a great beacon, especially during the years of Uruguay's dictatorship." (Yvonne Petitpierre) For many years, the Argentine-Uruguayan composer maintained close ties of artistic friendship with the Ensemble Aventure which presents seven of her works, including four first recordings, on this release. Graciela Paraskevaídis, an exceptional composer from Latin America, is a real discovery. She developed her own musical language which she taught in Europe and combined with traditional idioms of her home country to respond to concrete, current social issues. The sounds which she has worked with are concentrated to the essential and surrounded by silence, rough, yet cheerful in their own way. Hers is a music full of insight, expression and commitment.

John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London shine in an all-Korngold programme full of wit, romanticism, sensitivity, and virtuosity – an orchestral tour de force! Conductor John Wilson has earned a reputation for his interpretations of British and American repertoire in particular. He is a favourite of many of the UK’s orchestras and festivals including the BBC Proms and Aldeburgh Festival and is currently Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. John is also in demand across the world at the very highest level, conducting the major orchestras of Sydney, Berlin, Budapest, Amsterdam, Oslo amongst many others, and has a large and growing discography, covering a wide range of repertoire.

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REVIEW:

Wilson's performance of the symphony is one of the most athletic on record. Rhythms are springy and purposeful; the great Adagio really strives, as well as sings, and I’ve rarely heard it probe deeper. Every phrase speaks; textures are translucent and detailed (even at the dizzying speed of the Scherzo), and the string sound glows from within, with portamento very much at the service of expression. Wilson clearly sees Korngold’s Symphony (rightly) as part of the Viennese classical tradition. The result is both gripping and sincerely moving.

– Gramophone

The recording is one of the most important of the 300+ that Toccata Classics has released, in terms both of its extraordinary ‘back-story’ and the quality of the music itself. The English composer Steve Elcock (b. 1957) has been writing music since his teens but, with virtually no contacts in the musical world, told no one what he was doing- and thus has evolved a compelling symphonic style entirely his own. It combines virtuoso orchestral writing with a sense of momentum that has its roots in the Nordic-British tradition of Sibelius, Nielsen, Simpson, Brian and similar figures. His Third Symphony is a vast canvas generating fierce energy and titanic violence, leavened at times by a sardonic sense of humor. Choses renversees par le temps ou la destruction is a dark symphonic triptych where fragile beauty is constantly at threat from the forces of ignorance. The breezy, buoyant Festive Overture has a Waltonian swagger that barrels on with relentless jollity.

Following acclaimed performances around the globe, John Relyea’s interpretation of Duke Bluebeard now appears on record, with Michelle DeYoung as Judit and Edward Gardner leading his Bergen forces with aplomb. John Relyea continues to distinguish himself as one of today's finest basses. Mr. Relyea has appeared in many of the world’s most celebrated opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera (where he is an alumnus of the Merola Opera Program and a former Adler Fellow), Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Vienna State Opera, Theater an der Wien, and the Mariinsky Theater.

Morton Feldman's Patterns in a Chromatic Field is a major composition, not only in modern American music but in 20th-century music per se. The composer plays with the musical memory of his recipients and thus creates timeless spheres: In minimally varying patterns, the listener experiences a trance-like avant-garde event in which past, present and future cancel each other out. Patterns in a Chromatic Field is based on the principle of differentiation and repetition. The composition functions like a still life, using the color variations of Middle Eastern rugs as a basis: Even a pattern that appears to repeat itself exactly is actually slightly different in its iterations because of slight changes in hue. In his piece for piano and violoncello, Morton Feldman now creates a large-scale auditive pattern whose sound aesthetics from the layers of notes is no less than a transformative and meditative experience of music. With Antonis Anissegos on the piano and Mathis Mayr, this recording unites two performers who not only are excellent instrumental players but also feel at home in electronic music – a fact that is of benefit to their version of Morton Feldman’s minimalist soaring tonal architecture. Anissegos and Mayr create a detailed and intimate sound quality which can be regarded as referential in its antithesis of the ‘dramatic’.

In our time, the composer Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) from Halle is regarded as one of the most significant composers of the 17th century. Nevertheless, many of his works are less well known at present than those of his famous contemporaries Johann Hermann Schein and Heinrich Schütz - quite unjustly so, as is demonstrated by this recording featuring the Athesinus Consort Berlin directed by Klaus-Martin Bresgott. The numerous motets from Scheidt’s collection "Cantiones Sacrae" - many of which are here recorded for the first time - are complemented by the contemporary composition "Die Stimme meines Freundes" [The voice of my friend], a motet on texts from the Song of Songs and the Proverbs of Solomon by Frank Schwemmer (*1961).

“Halleluja – Oratorium balbulum" is a portrait of the times in which we live, says Peter Eotvos. It is a sarcastic work with postmodern medley passages across music history. The plot takes place on several levels: among the performers as well as with the audience in the concert situation. The language is frighteningly clear, as is the rest of the situation we encounter: We experience Eotvos’s polyglot vision not so much in the language as in the music. There are numerous more or less recognizable quotations from Gregorian chant, Monteverdi and Schein; from Bach and Handel, as well as from Mussorgsky and Gospel music. Alle vittime senza nome [To the Nameless Victims], a purely instrumental work, makes no use of language and nevertheless succeeds in conveying the images and experiences of our time. In three movements, the journey of those seeking protection is illustrated by music in a free narrative style, with delicate solo passages as well as broad waves of sound in the orchestra. “Alle vittime senza nome is meant to remind us of the many Arab and African people who have climbed into overcrowded boats with dreams of reaching a better life only to drown in the waters of the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy.” Eotvos wants to create an awareness of the people that goes beyond the conventional images in the media.

On the dark side of fame awaits the slide into obscurity. That’s certainly true for a number of operas that, while popular and highly lucrative during their composers‘ lifetime, soon followed their creators into the shadowy realm of oblivion. Operas, for example, that only ever get mentioned in connection with some much more famous sibling. Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s Don Giovanni – premiered half a year before Mozart’s masterpiece – is such an example, as is Ruggero Leoncavallo’s La Boheme and George Bizet’s Djamileh, widely considered the predecessor of Carmen. Other operas just do not stand out among other works by a composer – Jules Massenet’s operas for example are hardly a footnote of music history, his opera Therese, a thoroughly forgotten work, however, is. Two examples for works that are scarcely performed or even known outside of what is now the Czech Republic are also included in this collection of Opera Rarities on ORFEO: Antonin Dvorak’s last opera Armida and Zdenek Fibich’s Sarka.

REVIEW:

Containing radio performance recordings of six works by Dvorak, Massenet, Leoncavallo, Bizet, Gazzaniga, and Fibich mentioned often in histories of music but almost never on the bill, this is a box certainly precious for those who love opera.

– Classical Music Daily (Giuseppe Pennisi)

Sir Andrew Davis continues to champion the lesser-known works of Sir Arthur Bliss with this coupling of The Enchantress, Mary of Magdala and Meditations on a theme by John Blow. Dame Sarah Connolly and James Platt are the soloists, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The three distinctive works by Sir Arthur Bliss (1891 – 1975) on this recording span his sixties and early seventies, from 1951 onwards, the year of his sixtieth birthday, during which he composed The Enchantress for Kathleen Ferrier.

The BBC Symphony Chorus was founded in 1928 and its early appearances included the UK premieres of Bartók’s Cantata profana, Stravinsky’s Perséphone, and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Each year it appears regularly with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre, as well as performing at the BBC Proms, frequently at the iconic First and Last Nights. It maintains an undiminished commitment to new music, performing a wide range of challenging repertoire, often with the BBC SO, most of which is broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

REVIEW:

Here are three contrasting works of Bliss’ later years. The two vocal pieces set Greek pastoral poetry and words from St John’s Gospel. The theme in question is Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd. The programming of these three pieces makes for a satisfying experience, highlighting the inventiveness and flexibility of Bliss, still an underappreciated composer.

-- Lark Reviews

In celebration of John Joubert’s ninetieth birthday, Wells Cathedral Choir with their director Matthew Owens present a new recording of recent choral works from this prolific veteran composer. Featuring works commissioned for and first performed by the cathedral choir at Wells, this programme has at its heart the extended St. Mark Passion, a profound and heartfelt retelling of the well-known passion story. Completing the album are the expansive Missa Wellensis and Joubert’s vivid and powerful setting of Lucis iste. The Wells Cathedral Choir was hailed in 2011 by an international jury from Gramophone Magazine as the greatest choir with children in the world, and the sixth greatest overall. The choir celebrated its 1100th birthday in 2009: boys sang first at Wells Cathedral in 909 and the full choral tradition dates back over 800 years. In 1994 the choral foundation at Wells was enriched by the addition of girl choristers. Today the choir consists of 18 boy choristers, 18 girl choristers, and 12 Vicars Choral. The boys and girls usually sing separately with the Vicars Choral but occasionally come together for larger events and tours.

Among all the many Chandos brass recordings, each release having played a major role in the label’s successful history, this one may well be the loudest. In the vast acoustic of St. Jude’s Church, London, rendered in surround-sound, and in the largest ensemble format to which it has ever expanded, Onyx Brass, under the energetic direction of John Wilson, brings together four dozen fanfares by fourteen British composers of the past century and a half. Including works by Arnold, Bax, Bliss, Imogen Holst, Ketelbey, and Tippett- with numerous premiere recordings, this album is an unmissable celebration of stirring, brilliant, joyous, exciting, varied, sometimes military, and always optimistic music.

The global careers of not one but two Slovakian singers were launched on March 23, 1978 in Vienna’s State Opera: that of then-27-year-old tenor Peter Dvorský, and that of 31-year-old Edita Gruberova, hers a career which has endured to this day. Despite her success there in the role of Zerbinetta just eighteen months earlier, she was then still an insider tip for such a large bel canto role. Although studio recordings from subsequent years exist of this role which would later become Gruberova’s hallmark, this early live recording has a quality that is missing from later recordings: the maidenly determination and yet stupendous vocal perfection that Gruberova delivers in her portrayal, her inimitable sonorous timbre – which she retains to this day – alongside the wonderfully intimate and yet tense partnership with Dvorský, whose passionate, burning tenor provides a unique highlight in his first duet with Gruberova’s Lucia and supplies a further high point in the tricky final scene on a recording not short of such brilliant climaxes. Matteo Manuguerra’s reading of Lucia’s brother Enrico is a perilously relentless, masculine tour de force. Last but not least, the quickening touch of Giuseppe Patane’s baton makes this a gem among the treasures of Edita Gruberova’s discography, one never short of outstanding testimony to her consummate vocal skill and is a wonderful addition to that of Peter Dvorský, whose discography is sadly not so bountiful. The Neapolitan conductor, who was highly regarded in Munich for his performances of Italian repertoire, transforms a singing festival into an exciting music drama in the way that he leads the Vienna Philharmonic in a highly flexible and dynamic manner through the musical narrative.

More than any others of the time, the works of Johannes Ockeghem are considered to have marked the summit of the entire development of polyphonic structures during the Middle Ages. His works, although few in number, are supreme examples of creative thought. An undisputed master of his musical materials, certain of his Masses are structured around his own reflections on the art of composition. This is the case with the Missa Mi-mi: its title comes from the initial motive in the bass line, this consisting of the notes E and A which, in the system of solmisation in use at that time, can be read as mi-mi. Together with a Gregorian proprium, it is integrated here into the Office for Maundy Thursday. Cappella Pratensis, founded in 1987, mainly sings music from the period between 1450 and 1600. During that time, the polyphonic Franco-Flemish composers such as Josquin Desprez, Jean Mouton, Pierre de La Rue Jacob Clemens non Papa, Johannes Ockeghem and Guillaume Dufay were world leaders. Cappella presents ongoing special programs and original designs.