Some composers identify early on with a particular genre. A quick glance at a list of works by the Dane Hans Abrahamsen seems to indicate a very different attitude. The profusion of titles suggests a mind that picks up a form, engages with it for the duration of the work itself, and then moves on to something fresh. There has been one significant exception however- the string quartet. Abrahamsen's four quartets span almost the whole of his composing career: Quartet No. 1 was composed in 1973, when Abrahamsen was in his early twenties; Quartet No. 4 appeared in 2012, as he entered his sixties. Not only so, but the quartets also draw a vital thread across the chasm at the heart of his life's work. This new release presents the aforementioned works as well as the two quartets that appeared between them, brilliantly performed by the Arditti String Quartet.

Christophe Desjardins writes of this Italian journey: "On a journey from Palermo to Taormina I am accompanied by the sounds of Domenico Gabrielli's "Ricercari," the oldest composition for cello solo, and I experience the Sicilian landscape, fascinated by the genius of this music. Soon afterwards I begin to transcribe and to interpret them for viola and the wish arises to ask my Italian artist friend Ivan Fedele to compose reflections to these Baroque works. He explores Gabrieli's gestures and figures and imagines a further journey between "Ricercari" (from ricercare 'to seek') and "Ritrovari" (from ritrovare 'to find again') by creating the sensations of an inner journey through his creative power."

Holiday Musical Treasures- Newly Imagined! Eric Holtan, founder and conductor of True Concord Voices and Orchestra states: "Every December, True Concord presents it's popular Lessons and Carols by Candlelight concerts in the Tucson area. Unique in the local milieu of seasonal offerings, the focus is on sacred Christmas carols. Even in their simplest form, carols evoke emotionally powerful memories of personal and family experiences that enrich and enliven annual holiday celebrations. With this album, I wanted to capture the essence of our much-loved concerts with the mostly familiar carols presented here, but in musical settings by American composers that are new or not widely known. With the kind assistance of advisor Dale Warland - who set the standard of excellence with several cherished Christmas recordings over the years by The Dale Warland Singers - True Concord offers these holiday treasures, most of which are receiving their world premiere recordings. This is Christmas With True Concord - Carols in the American Voice."This is the group's second album on Reference Recordings. True Concord's first album, "Far in the Heavens,"received a GRAMMY� nomination for Best Choral Performance, and composer Stephen Paulus won posthumously the GRAMMY� for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

It is well-known that musicians very often sit in a circle in Tacet’s recordings. With this layout, they don't just hear each other, they can also see each other. This means that the musical exchanges between the musicians are simpler and better. And it is easier to achieve a natural-sounding recording, not only in Tacet Real SS but also in stereo. But is it even possible for an orchestral recording? And without a conductor? We were intrigued by the question and so decided to pursue it. The answer? It does indeed work - in fact very well! At the very least, a layout like this expresses the equality of all the participants. The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra puts down a spicy performance of two of Mozart's bubbliest symphonies: the "Prague" and the "Linz". The musicians of the NPhO and to Gordan Nikolic took on this successful venture with great enthusiasm, and the result pays dividends!

Andreas Spreer writes of this new release: "Our Scarlatti boat has been sailing the high seas for some time now. Storms, shallows, sea monsters all lie behind us. But today the weather is set fair. The sun is blazing down and there's no wind. We let our feet dangle in the water and have a little snooze. Before us, sonatas stretch as far as the eye can see. When did we set sail from Berlin? 2012? What is the prime factorization of 555 anyway? 3 x 5 x 37... Suddenly! A shark made up of two parts appears! His teeth are asymmetrical. And over there! An octopus with 37 tentacles. He tries to cross all his legs at once and gets hopelessly tangled up. Swarms of small, colorful trill fish wriggle with their fins, shimmering and glistening in the sun. What is that? A huge, misshapen, sluggish monster! Probably the Spanish king! No, just seaweed. What was the captain's first name again, Christoph or Ullrich, or Christopher?... Grab it now! 3 barrels, brim-full of sonatas, for the bargain price of 40 cents each!"

Hunting cannot be thought about in isolation from the sounds accompanying it – the barking of dogs, the shrieks of frightened quarry, the shots, and the sound of horns and trumpets. Signal instruments and the atmosphere of chase gave rise to the special genre of “hunting music”. The quintessential hunting-related instrument is the French horn, which became widely used in Bohemia after 1760, owing to Count Franz Anton von Sporck. Yet hunting music, for a variety of ensembles (including the wind Harmonie), was also played at feasts and other social events. Hunting-themed pieces - cassations, serenades, partitas (many of them termed caccia or la chasse) - indicated their connection with hunting by the selection of instruments, the typical harmonies and melodies, as well as by featuring onomatopoeic effects, such as the sounds of animals and birds, and sonic renditions of buoyant merry-making in the wake of the hunting expedition. The music featured on the present album was written by three Czech representatives of high Classicism. Jirí Družecký and Jan Nepomuk Vent composed numerous popular pieces for wind instruments. Pavel Vranický, a friend of Haydn and Beethoven, who both chose him to conduct their works, was a distinguished theatre figure in Vienna.

For this album, Cellist Friedemann Doling selected four very interesting 20th century compositions from his solo program, which he performs regularly and which meet with an especially positive response from audiences. The works by Toch, Fortner, Adler and Klebe - rarely performed and in part recorded here for the first time - find with this album the even greater audience they deserve.

There are few countries that can match Russia in terms of having produced as many outstanding musicians, especially pianists; Tatiana Nikolayeva was one member of what has become known as the Russian Piano School which along with her includes Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels and many others and that tradition continues right down to today’s representatives with no apparent sign of any let up, thank goodness! Raw talent coupled with a dedicated singl- minded sense of purpose drove these artists to dominate the very pinnacle of peerless pianism. In 1951, aged 27, Tatiana Nikolayeva visited Prague and made the earliest of these recordings, several of which appear on CD for the first time. She had already caused a considerable stir in Czechoslovakia’s capital on previous visits, which included her first in 1947 when she came second at a competition organised as part of the First World Festival of Youth and Students. That was the same year she completed her conservatory studies when she astounded her examiners by including all 48 of Bach’s preludes and fugues from his Well Tempered-Clavier for her final performance test. In Leipzig in July 1950 during that town’s Bachfest, organised to mark the 200th anniversary of Bach’s death that work became a turning point in her career as she offered the judges the opportunity to call for her to play whichever they asked for on the spot; on the jury that awarded her first prize was none other than Dmitry Shostakovich! At the festival’s closing concert when Bach’s concerto for three pianos was to be performed Maria Yudina (1899-1970), who was to have been at the second piano, had injured a finger and couldn’t play so her place was taken by Shostakovich, himself an outstanding pianist, and from that moment on Nikolayeva’s acquaintance with the composer developed into a friendship that would last right up until Shostakovich’s death in 1975. It is a measure of Shostakovich’s respect and admiration for Tatiana Nikolayeva that he not only dedicated his cycle of 24 preludes and fugues to her but consulted with her over them, including many of her suggestions and observations in the work and, of course, it was she that gave its première in Leningrad in December 1952.

It was fascinating to read in the booklet that she had such a phenomenal memory that she never took any sheet music with her on tours, relying instead on that memory for her performances. The digital mastering from the original tapes by Jan Lži?a? has done wonders with the inevitable clicks and pops one might expect from these recordings, some of which were made over 65 years ago, though obviously the solo works come off best as the orchestral sound betrays its age more readily. That said her playing in the Rachmaninov piano concerto is as convincing as any I have ever heard despite the (to my ears) rather sluggish orchestral accompaniment. Her playing comes over as completely natural, without the least suggestion of artifice. The first of the solo works is Prokofiev’s 3rd piano sonata ‘From old notebooks’ and despite the rather brittle sound caused, I think, by a little too much treble, it is a solid performance that demonstrates her capacity for bringing out the contrast between the stormy and the subtle. Next come three pieces by Nikolayeva herself revealing a less well-known or appreciated side of her, that of composer. Her Three concert etudes, op13 show a real talent; how much music she wrote I must confess I don’t know but on the evidence here what she did compose is clearly worth exploring. It shows the influence of Prokofiev with complex rhythms and dense textures as opposed to the lighter and more romantic touch of Rachmaninov.

Opening disc 2, we are treated to three of the Shostakovich 24 Preludes and fugues which, as mentioned above, were dedicated to her and for which she was closely consulted. You would expect Shostakovich to know what he was doing with his dedication and consultations and her performance shows how well-founded his opinion was as she plays the pieces as naturally as if they were her own. In an interview she characterised the 15th prelude and fugue in D flat major as “...so fierce and lively, like a whirlpool. And in that quiet forest, (in Ruza outside Moscow at an artists’ retreat) when I heard that stormy whirlpool I went into wild rapture”. That certainly comes over in her playing. Conductor Kurt Sanderling told Tatiana that in his opinion the preludes and fugues were Shostakovich’s intimate diary and when she objected “Why not his string quartets and symphonies”, he replied no, this work for it is “an intimate diary of Shostakovich, kept for himself, that brings happiness to all of us”. How true Sanderling’s observation was and how wonderful to listen to these works with that thought in mind.

She then turns to Bach, her great love and for which playing she is rightly renowned. First up is the Fantasia in C minor, BWV 816 and her luminous playing is revealed to its highest degree, and shines through despite the sound appearing to be a little distant. Even better is her earlier recording of Bach’s French Suite no.5 in G major, BWV 816. This is a remarkable recording in terms of playing and sound which belies its age of 66 years. She plays these again as if she owned them; just listen to the Courante and its following Sarabande and marvel at the contrast she creates, injecting excitement and refinement in equal degrees and after the gentleness of the Sarabande the Gavotte and Bourrée revert to the thrill of a headlong race as notes tumble out in a great rush; utterly thrilling. Altogether a fabulous 15 ½ minutes of pianistic brilliance finishing with a breathtakingly fast Gigue.

Closing the two-disc set is another marvellous example of Nikolayeva’s technical skills, which were coupled with an innate sensitivity: her 1952 recording of Bach’s Chromatic fantasia & fugue in D minor, BWV 903 which, along with the Prokofiev, her own concert etudes, the Shostakovich and the Bach fantasia, is the first time the recording has appeared on CD. It is further proof that she was one of the greatest ever interpreters of Bach’s keyboard works. It is not enough simply to love them since all pianists who include them in their repertoire surely do, rather it is a total understanding of how they work and an ability to reveal their intrinsic humanity which she had and which is rare in my listening experience. This set is a must-have for all lovers of solo piano music and admirers of the consummate art of Tatiana Nikolayeva, a true original.

– MusicWeb International (Steve Arloff)

Already two years ago the ensemble Der musikalische Garten brought the mastery of Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello (1690-1758), the former Kapellmeister at the W�rttemberg court, back to the ears. In his Concerti a tre he artistically and imaginatively demonstrates the possibilities of the friendly competition between the two fundamentally equal violin parts. The works represent a remarkable enrichment of the repertoire in the field of the late baroque trio sonata. In the eagerly awaited second series, the performers delight with beautiful slow movements and irrepressible virtuoso joy of playing. All four musicians of the ensemble Der musikalische Garten studied historical performance at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and they keep looking for new musical paths and unknown musical gems, for the hidden trails and extraordinary flowers of the musical garden.

Born in Havana in 1954, the Miami-based Orlando Jacinto Garcia studied with Morton Feldman and has inherited some of Feldman's concerns. His music likewise evolves gradually over slow-moving spans of time- here and there with an echo of West Coast minimalism. Like the still surface of the sea, the works on this album (three of them concertante pieces for virtuoso soloists) mirror the unhurried movement of natural phenomena. They often feature textures of considerable delicacy- and occasionally hint at larger forces behind the apparent stasis. This album presents some of his most recent choral compositions, in recordings conducted by the composer. Violinist Jennifer Choi is a frequent collaborator with composers, and has premiered solo and chamber works written for her by several well-known contemporary composers. Pianist Cristina Valdes is known for presenting innovative concerts with repertoire ranging from Bach to Xenakis. Fernando Dominguez, clarinet, is the leading exponent of the contemporary repertoire for clarinet in Mexico.

Piano music forms a large part of the output of the Romanian composer Livia Teodorescu-Ciocanea (b. 1959), as you would expect of someone who has been playing the instrument since she was four. This first album of her music reveals a latter-day Impressionist, sensitive to half-light and petal-delicate tonal color – but she can also generate powerful surges of energy, and her musical portrait of Charlie Chaplin testifies to an impish sense of humor. Teodorescu’s music explores spectralism, neoimpressionism and postmodernism with a powerful lyric and dramatic effect (Oxford music online). She is Professor of composition at the National University of Music Bucharest and Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She introduced a new musical poetics called hypertimbralism pursuing intertextuality based on timbre. Teodorescu has lectured at Illinois Urbana Champaign, Oslo, Monash and Huddersfield Universities. She has written over 60 works.

The present recording especially concentrates on works by Johann Sebastian Bach in minor keys; these are contrasted by four works in major keys. The general perception is that minor key works frequently emanate a certain sadness as their fundamental emotion. Bach, on the other hand, repeatedly develops in his minor key compositions-particularly in the organ works- an unsurpassed elegance out of the melancholy depths, as Joseph Kelemen impressively proves at the Treutmann Organ of the Grauhof Monastery Church. Joseph Klemen completed his studies in organ, harpsichord, and choral conducting at the Academy of Music in his native city of Budapest, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Academy of the Arts in Bremen. He has been active as a church musician in Southern Germany since 1986. With a strong commitment to historical performance practice, he is considered by specialists to be an authority on German organ music of the 17th century and the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Grafin Mariza (Countess Maritza) is an operetta in three acts composed by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman. The libretto is by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grunwald. It premiered at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on February 28, 1924. This recording is of the famous performance of Grafin Mariza from summer 2018 in Morbisch. The adaptation stars Melanie Holliday as Furstin Bozena Cuddenstein and Vida Mikneviciute in the title role. The Seefestspiele Mörbisch has been attracting visitors to its operettas and musicals since 1957 on the unique stage directly on Lake Neusiedl. The imposing natural backdrop of the Neusiedler See National Park harmoniously blends into the largest open-air opera stage in the world. The Seefestspiele Mörbisch festival provides limitless cultural enjoyment and whisks visitors away into a magical world full of melodies from operettas and musicals, far from the worries of everyday life. From an artistic point of view, the festival is of the highest quality with carefully conceived staged productions with renowned performers and has ensured that it attracts a full crowd each year.

In honor of the open-air festival season, Oehms Classics has compiled this extensive album with wonderful arias and scenes from the best known and most beloved operettas. Top opera stars Martina Serafin and Nikolai Schukoff are featured on the release. Several Strauss selections are included in this release, as well as works by Offenbach, Zeller, Lehar, Benatsky, and Kalman. Austrian soprano Martina Serafin was born in Vienna to parents who were singers. She studied at the Vienna Conservatory and from 1995 to 2000 was a member of the ensemble of Graz Opera. She is particularly renowned for her interpretation of the role of Tosca, which she has sung for companies including the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Milan, and more. Austrian tenor Nikolai Schukoff is one of today’s important voices on the international and concert circuit. After a few years as a member of opera ensembles, his international breakthrough came in 2006 with roles such as Siegmund and Sergej. On the concert stage, he has appeared alongside the Munich Philharmonic and other renowned orchestras, and under the batons of renowned conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Christoph Eschenbach, and Marek Janowski.

12.99

The ouevre of Gustav Mahler has been a focal point of the ten year cooperation between the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra and Gabriel Feltz (2003 - 2013). The last recording made during this period is Mahler's "Resurrection Symphony". The Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra and Feltz are joined by the outstanding soloists Chen Reiss and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner and the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno. Feltz writes: "Gustav Mahler's symphonies have accompanied me since I was a youth of about 13. It is certainly not unusual for a youth who is interested in orchestral music to be fascinated by these works once he has discovered them. The abundance and complexity of the scores, which I was fortunately able to study in my early years, was however, somewhat overpowering. The composer's aspiration to create "whole worlds" is overwhelming, and which young person is averse to being overwhelmed?"

Handel's cantatas represent an important musical repertoire that until recently has been little known. Consisting of about 100 separate works, most were written over a period of a few years for private performance in Italy. They range from musical miniatures containing only two arias connected by recitative and accompanied by continuo (a bass line typically realized by cello and harpsichord) to larger works with named characters, a dramatic story, and rich instrumental forces. Telling more often than not about the pangs of love, these are intimate works, with texts frequently written by (and sometimes about) members of the privileged audience for which they were composed. A number of Handel's cantatas have texts by one of his important Italian patrons, Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj. The project of Marco Vitale to record all of Handel's cantatas is thrilling. The continuo cantatas have never been recorded in full and many have never been recorded at all. Thus, this project will bring to life largely unknown music by one of the world's greatest composers.

This new release is another publication presenting the artistic output of Krzysztof Meyer, one of the most outstanding Polish contemporary composers. The three original songs on this album are instrumental music, in which various narratives are composed of different narratives and dramaturgies; from full musical erudition Hommage à Johannes Brahms , through virtuoso Concerto No. 2 for flute and orchestra to reflective Farewell Music , devoted to Witold Lutosławski. The orchestra's culminating piece is Mass for mixed choir, organ and orchestra - as much musical expression, full of intelligent references to the history of perhaps the most demanding genre in the history of European composition art.

Karolina Piatkowska-Nowicka and Bogna Czerwinska-Szymula, highly valued instrumentalists and chamber musicians, present three pieces sharing not only the instruments (violin and piano) for which they are written. The pieces presented on the release grow from a common root: their authors - Grazyna Bacewicz, Aleksander Tansman and Krzysztof Penderecki - belong to the most outstanding Polish composers of the 20th century. They also share the cyclical manner of shaping the piece, yet the approach towards this issue differs among the composers. The extremely varied in terms of emotion Sonata No. 4 for Violin and Piano by Bacewicz reveals neo-romantic features; neoclassical Faintaisie for Violin and Piano by Tansman astonishes with its care for sound colour, whereas monumental Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano by Penderecki intrigues with the musical language which, based on the twelve-note scale, treats it in a melodic and harmonic manner.

Martín Palmeri began to work on the Magnificat dedicated to mixed choir, soprano and mezzo-soprano solo, string orchestra, bandoneon, and piano in 2010. He was guided by an idea to create a piece, which would be stylistically and emotionally close to the Misa a Buenos Aires – Misatango, yet much more difficult for the performers, and more sophisticated as far as the rhythm and polyphony are concerned. The composition was ended in 2012 and its world premiere took place in Milan. The source of the text of the Magnificat is the Gospel of Luke (1:46-55). The evangelist consciously combines three pictures into a triptych: Annunciation, Visitation, and the Marian Magnificat. The Humble Servant is chosen for the Mother of the Son of God. She starts a journey to visit her relative, Elizabeth, who will soon become mother of John the Baptist. Elizabeth greets Mary and She answers her with words of a canticle praising God. While Palmeri was composing the Magnificat, he was drawing inspiration from the Argentinian tango nuevo popularized in the greatest extent by Astor Piazzolla, who modernized the traditional Argentinian tango and enriched it with elements of jazz and Argentinian folklore; however, the references to the tango in the Magnificat do not concern only the orchestral layer of the piece. Despite the fact that the basic carrier of the tango’s idiom are the bandoneon and the orchestra, its element also crosses the vocal layer of the piece, as it is also the solo voices and choir that abound in the tango rhythms. The bandoneon in Palmeri’s music changes its facets as a chameleon: once it rhythmically energizes the sound layer, the other time it limits itself to highlight the accents occurring on particularly important words, and sometimes it accompanies the solo voices duo, subtly surrounding their narration.

Elisabeth Brauss was born in 1995 in Honnover. She was admitted to the piano class of Dr. Elena Levit at the age of five and studied from 2007 to 2010 at the “Institut zur Fruhforderung musikalisch Hochbegabter” (Institute for the Early Furtherance of the Highly Gifted) of the Academy of Music, Theatre and Media in Hannover. She studied from 2008 to 2010 in Hannover in the piano classes of Dr. Elena Levit and Prof. Matti Raekallio; she has been studying at the HMTMH in the piano class of Professor Bernd Goetzke since 2010. Elisabeth makes regular guest appearances at the Laeisz-Halle in Hamburg, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival. In January 2015 Elisabeth Brauss won first prize at the competition “Ton und Erklärung” in Frankfurt and performed with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in the finale. This prize is awarded annually by the Cultural Society of the German Economy in BDI; OehmsClassics also presents the prize winner album each year. The 2015 prize winner obviously has a great career before her.

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REVIEW:

The maturity and sophistication of her thoughtful interpretations would be the pride of any pianist twice her age. It is rare to encounter the degree of instrumental mastery wed to musical depth and sensitivity in one so young. Her exhilarating Beethoven is so thoroughly integrated that each movement is emotionally and spiritually amplified by what has gone before. Her original and unaffected Chopin-playing is fresh and a joy to listen to.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

The young Belgian organist Stephane Mottoul has already received several awards not only as an outstanding performer but also as a remarkable organ improviser. On AEOLUS he presents the complete organ works of Maurice Durufle (1902-1986). He plays on the excellent Thomas organ of St. Laurentius Church in Diekirch (Luxembourg), built in 2016. Stephane Mottoul was born in 1990 in Belgium and began his higher organ studies in Namur, at the Higher Institute of Music and Pedagogy, in the class of Beno�t Mernier. Eager to enrich his musical background, he went to Paris to discover the art of improvisation with Pierre Pincemaille, at the Conservatoire de Saint-Maur les Foss�s and at the Conservatoire de Reims with Pierre M�a. He continued his training in Germany, and was also accepted to the National Conservatory of Music and Dance of Paris both in organ and improvisation as well as advanced composition.

After having paid tribute to the legacy of the Czech Chamber Orchestra, Supraphon has now commemorated another ensemble connected with the violinist and conductor Josef Vlach, a gifted pupil of Josef Talich. Established in 1950, since 1954 the Vlach Quartet performed in the line-up in which it had triumphed in the competition in Liege and in which it conquered stages worldwide and made all the recordings featured on this album. Two exciting quartets, teh Smetana and the Vlach, were active in Prague, ensembles whose difference represented an inspiring polarity of approaches to music interpretation. Ivan Medek thus described the personality of Josef Vlach, who with kindness and authority alike formed the quartet's soul: ''Similarly to Talich, Vlach was not a scholarly artist. Yet he possessed a remarkable ability, an acute sense for that which is really strong and communicative in music. His intellect seemed to be constantly fed from an immense source of profound emotional inspiration.'' The Vlach Quartet recorded Beethoven's quartets within 10 years. Given the year in which it was recorded, 1956, the ''bonus'' Mozart quatet in D minor is one oft he ensemble's oldest recordings made soon after their victory in Liege. The presented Beethoven tracks are merely part of the Vlach Quartet's remarkable legacy, which encompasses quartet works by Czech composers, as well as by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Ravel.

Johann Gottfried Müthel may be counted among the most important and individual keyboard composers of northern Germany. Even though we know relatively little about his life and his oeuvre, Müthel‘s works are considered to be the most important representatives of his epoch. His expressive tonal language and his individual way of composing can be experienced through his organ works, which are interpreted by Léon Berben in a stupendous manner. Leon Berben was the harpsichordist of Musica Antiqua Koln from 2000 until the ensemble dissolved in 2006. He has given concerts all over the world, and has recorded several albums both with his former ensemble and as a solo artist.