This series of recordings of Martinu’s early orchestral works has already brought more than its fair share of surprises. The two shorter works here are colourful and atmospheric tone-poems, pieces of real substance and major discoveries in their own right. But it is the 1922 symphonic triptych Vanishing Midnight (Míjející pulnoc in the original Czech) – here receiving its first recording – which will prove the real revelation. A big-hearted work of breathtaking opulence and striking confidence, Vanishing Midnight is as exquisitely lovely as it is powerful and dramatic – Martinu’s first true masterpiece. Ian Hobson, pianist and conductor, began his international career in 1981 when he won the Leeds International Piano Competition. He is in increasing demand as a conductor, particularly for performances in which he doubles as a pianist. he made his debut in this capacity in 1996 with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and also performs extensively as pianist-conductor with Sinfonia da Camera, a group he formed in 1984 and which quickly gained international recognition through its recordings.

To the extent that he is remembered at all, the Dresden-born August Alexander Klengel (1783–1852) retains a toe-hold in music history thanks to a monumental set of 48 canon and fugues. But Klengel was an important early-Romantic composer and celebrated piano virtuoso, with a reputation that stretched from St Petersburg to London. This first recording of his piano and chamber music reveals a personality with a strong lyrical impulse, somewhere between Field, Mendelssohn and Chopin, all three of whom he knew personally. Founded in 2016, Trio Klengel is named after August Klengel with the purpose of promoting his works. The ensemble decided to continue the work of the original Klengel Trio, founded in 1912. This trio consisted of the three daughters of the composer Julius Klengel, a relative of August Klengel. Just like the first Klengel Trio, this ensemble is also dedicated to promoting chamber music of long-forgotten composers and their works through concerts and recording projects.

The musical language of the New York-based Arnold Rosner (1945-2013) clothes the modal harmony and rhythm of pre-Baroque polyphony in rich Romantic colors. This combination produces a style that is instantly recognizable and immediatley appealing. These four chamber works embrace a wide range of emotions, from tragic nobility to buoyant good humor, with Rosner's use of modality adding a hint of the Orient. All these pieces are receiving their first recordings, and many of the performers were personally acquaitned with the composer. A former member of the New World String Quartet, Curtis Macomber has performed across the United States, playing in hundreds of premieres, commissions and first recordings of solo violin and chamber works by major composers. The cellist Maxine Neuman, on the faculty at the New York School for Strings and Hoff-Barthelson Music School, was a friend of Arnold rosner for almost 50 years and gave the first performance of his Cello Sonata No. 1. The bassoonist David Richmond, a member of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra in Florida, has performed with orchestras throughout New England and now spends increasing time in Nairobi, introducing young Kenyans to the bassoon. Margaret Kampmeier, who teaches at Princeton Univeristy and the Manhattan School of Music, performs regularly with the ORchestra of St. Luke's, the New York Philharmonic, American Composers' Orchestra and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Carson Cooman is a pianist and organist, and is also a composer whose catalogue numbers more than a thousand works. Arnodl Rosner chose him to be the curator of his musical archive.

REVIEW:

The four works on this disc represent over 40 years of Rosner’s half-century career. The Violin Sonata, originally written when Rosner was 18 and subtly revised 10 years before his death, is cast in the traditional fast-slow-fast mold. The first movement is delightfully high-spirited, with a catchy first theme made up of a rising sequence of descending scales. There are moments of lyricism and contemplation throughout the development, after which the swirling interplay of thematic elements rushes to a stirring conclusion. The second movement is heartrending in its fine-spun melody and solemn accompaniment. The central section features a repeated pattern of high bell-like tones. The final movement is a hectic, fierce tarantella, guaranteed to get the blood pumping. Walter Simmons’s superb program notes indicate that Rosner’s revision of this sonata was purely a matter of “developing [thematic materials] more subtly and sophisticatedly” rather than of altering the character of the work. The sonata’s musical materials are impressively mature and clearly retained Rosner’s interest over the course of his long career. It’s an ideal introduction to both the young and the seasoned Rosner for those who have not yet heard his work. Both the violin and the piano playing are extremely strong: free and expressive in lyrical passages, punchy and precise in more rhythmic passages. The balance is shifted just a bit more toward the violin than I find ideal, and we miss some of the imitative interplay between the instruments (this holds true for the remaining duo works as well), but the sound quality is otherwise a warm and faithful representation of a concert experience.

The Danses à la mode are four brief pieces for solo cello, evoking (respectively) Greek dances, the raga of India, the sarabande, and Scandinavian dance music. The first two dances feature double-stop drones. Frequent mordents in the first suggest vocal ornamentation. Portamentos and the interplay of melody above and below the drone in the second suggest sitar gestures. Rosner’s Sarabande, which I find to be extremely beautiful, features a lyrical minor-mode melody and a central section of pizzicato triple-stops. The final dance is a rapid whirl of register exchanges and gruff low notes. The suite as a whole is a virtuoso tour de force, and Maxine Neuman handles its demands with utter aplomb and consummate musicianship.

The Bassoon Sonata, composed in 2006, is the latest work on the program. It is largely contemplative and somber. A searchingly expressive bassoon solo of ambiguous tonality begins the piece, eventually merging with the piano to form a minor triad. The movement’s stateliness, its inexorable intensification of despair as piano and bassoon exchange ideas, and its conclusion of quiet resignation bear a family resemblance to some of Peter Mennin’s slow movements, though Rosner’s harmonic palette diverges considerably from Mennin’s far harsher language. The piano and bassoon trade a rising and falling triple-meter motif throughout the brisk second movement. Of particular interest is the contrast between the pedaled open-sonority accompaniment and the unpedaled thematic material. The final movement seems to begin like the first, with a searching bassoon solo; this soon reveals itself to be the subject of a canon, however, answered precisely by the piano’s entrance. It builds quickly to a darkly emphatic statement. The grim outlook of the first movement pervades this movement as well, though its ebbs and flows are periodic rather than overarching. The canon is revisited toward the end of the movement, its first entrances now both in the piano. The effect is not as attractive as the initial duo, but the entrance of the bassoon leads to an extremely poignant ending, emphasizing a conflict between major and minor triads. Again, both instrumentalists do the piece exceptional justice from both a technical and emotional standpoint.

At over 21 minutes and with a particularly intricate formal structure to its first movement, the Cello Sonata is the most ambitious work on the recording. An outraged, plaintive character prevails throughout the first movement. The cello tumbles from screaming high notes in cascades of rhapsodic scales. The piano accompanies with declamatory material (again, a bit too far in the background). There is some kinship with the string writing of Ernest Bloch, though Rosner’s voice is very much his own. The second movement alternates between a brooding melody (first in the cello, then in the piano) accompanied by open fifths (first in the piano, then in the cello) and sudden, brief, sprightly dances. The effect is of a repeated jolt between emotional poles of solemnity and celebration. The final movement is propulsive and joyous. The brief melodic motifs are very prominent, almost to the point of obsessiveness. Quiet episodes provide brief moments of repose in the general atmosphere of celebration.

This recording is a must-have for anyone who appreciates traditionalist contemporary music and for anyone who appreciates the musical values of the pre-Baroque. Also, and most important, it’s deeply gratifying on an emotional level.

-- Fanfare (Myron Silberstein)

The exploration by John Wilson of Copland’s major orchestral output with the BBC Philharmonic has now reached Volume 3, with this invigorating programme recorded in surround-sound. It opens with An Outdoor Overture, a cheerful and breezy piece which Copland composed in 1938, intending to spearhead an initiative encouraging ‘American Music for American Youth’. Originally written for organ and orchestra, the First Symphony is presented here in its revised version (1926-28) for large orchestra. The six concise movements of Statements (1932-35) introduce a new style, their gritty soundscapes being stunning examples of what Copland later would refer to as ‘hard-bitten’ pieces. The concluding work is the expressive, fantastical Dance Symphony (1929) which explores different styles of symphonic movements, its dark aura a residue of its origin as a ballet on a grotesque vampire theme, composed 1922-25 and named Grohg. The symphony has remained a highly controversial piece ever since.

Volume 18 of Bridge's Complete Crumb Edition features premiere recordings of two recent works ("The Yellow Moon of Andalusia" and "Yesteryear") as well the premiere recording of the recently revised version of a Crumb classic, "Celestial Mechanics". Crumb returns to his favorite poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, for "The Yellow Moon of Andalusia", six settings of English translations of Lorca's work. The performance features the work's dedicatees, the brilliant American soprano Tony Arnold, and the superb pianist, Marcantonio Barone. Mr. Barone follows with Crumb's 'Thelonious Monk variations' for solo piano, "Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik". Crumb was never satisfied with the ending of "Celestial Mechanics" and re-wrote it in 2012, recorded here for the first time. "Yesteryear" is a vocalise for soprano and three players, dedicated to Ms. Arnold. Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer George Crumb, now in his 88th year, continues to compose highly expressive, colorful and dramatic music. This new recording is a must-hear for all fans of a unique voice in contemporary music.

Having recorded the complete motets composed by the ancestors of Johann Sebastian Bach, Vox Luminis now tackles their complete spiritual concerts and sacred cantatas, in which the instruments – particularly the strings – play a highly important role. In the cantata for the Feast of St Michael the Archangel by Johann Christoph Bach, trumpets and drums are enlisted to evoke the battle of the archangels in heaven. To round off this programme, Vox Luminis presents the cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden by Johann Sebastian Bach, in its original version dating from his Arnstadt period, containing copious elements linking it to the music of his forebears. Vox Luminis is a Belgian early music ensemble created in 2004 by its artistic director Lionel Meunier. Today, the ensemble performs over 60 concerts a year, appearing on stages in Belgium, across Europe and around the world. The size and composition of the group depends on the repertoire being performed but the core of soloists, mostly from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, is joined by a continuo and additional (orchestral) instrument performers. Its repertoire is essentially Italian, English and German and spans from the 16th to the 18th century.

Respighi's orchestral works are some of the most popular in the mainstream repertoire. His output of piano music, by contrast, is as good as unknown, and this new Toccata Classics series will be the first ever to present it all: original works and transcriptions alike, for solo piano, piano four hands and two pianos. This first instalment crowns his earliest keyboard compositions with the magisterial Three Preludes on Gregorian Melodies, miniature Lisztian tone-poems presented with Busonian grandeur.

The present recording attempts to provide musical illustrations of elements from Ganassi's treatise on ornamentation Fontegara, published in Venice in 1535. This work was intended for his wealthy aristocratic pupils, and a priori it does not reflect only his personal practice. This versatile musician's professional career consisted essentially in directing and playing the bombarde with his ensemble in the service of a number of doges and scuole. He also performed in the ridotti, the circles in which humanists and cultured nobles met. It is this refined art that William Dongois and his musicians propose to revive here, drawing on a very rich repertory of dances, songs and madrigals. An ensemble that can vary from two to ten players according to the works being performed, the Concert Brise is made up of musicians who share a common approach to music and to it's connection to historical sources. These links form one of the two reference points of the ensemble's interpretations, the other being the use of techniques of improvisation that have been taken from treatises of the period and also from jazz and from folk music. The musicians of the Concert Brise hope to communicate the pleasure that they experience in playing this music to their audiences, whilst at the same time they take the risk of introducing improvisation when it is required. At such a moment they must let themselves be guided by inspiration and, if necessary, allow a strict observation of the score to fade somewhat into the background.

The esteemed American pianist Anne-Marie McDermott has played concertos, recitals and chamber music in hundreds of cities in the United States, Europe and Asia. Recent collaborations include recitals with her violin partner, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg, chamber music with the piano quartet, Opus One, and concertos with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Vail, Colorado. Ms. McDermott's upcoming recordings for Bridge include a series of Mozart concertos, and the new Poul Ruders Piano Concerto No. 3, "Paganini Variations", recorded with the Odense Symphony Orchestra. On the present release, McDermott has once again chosen the sonatas of Haydn, making this her second volume of the composer’s work for Bridge Records. “We have waited a long time for an American pianist of this stature.” (Gramophone) “She’s one of the great American pianists of her generation.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Born around 1380 in the Duchy of Limburg, possibly in the little town of the same name, Johannes de Limburgia was active for a long time in Li�ge, then in Italy. We have evidence of his presence in Vicenza between 1431 and 1436, and several of his works refer explicitly to Vicenza, as well as to Venice and Padua, demonstrating a strong connection with northern Italy, where his music was compiled. His output - more than 45 works - is contained in three large manuscripts from the first half of the fifteenth century, alongside music by other composers from north of the Alps, such as Johannes Ciconia and Guillaume Dufay. Though only sacred music by Limburgia has survived, it is richly varied, reflecting both the consistency of the Franco-Flemish style and the composer's own inventive taste for harmonic and melodic experimentation. The works here are explored by Le miroir de musique, led by Baptiste Romain.

Cambria Master Recordings is pleased to announce Canadian Panorama, a new release of world premiere recordings by prominent, contemporary Canadian composers in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday. The recording features The Winds of the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Ronald Royer, with Sarah Jeffrey (oboe), Gabirel Radford (horn) and Kaye Royer (clarinet). The variety of musical styles and influences represented in the works featured on this recording reflect the rich diversity of contemporary Canadian composition and will appeal to a broad audience interested in classical music. A unifying feature of the eight compositions is the inspiration each takes from the musical influences of the past. Four works are commissions by the SPO for this project. The compositions Fundy, Saturday Night at Fort Chambly, and McIntyre Ranch Country are each inspired by different regions of Canada and their local folksong traditions: the East Coast, Quebec, and Alberta respectively. The new works Allemande and Whirligig illustrate the ways in which European classical music has inspired Canadian composers to create new, colorful works. Rhapsody and Travels with Mozart are inspired by the rich cultural diversity of Canada. And finally, Serenade pays tribute to Canada’s vibrant film industry and culture.

Wolfgang Rihm is a real phenomenon: his overwhelming creative energy was already present during his childhood. He began composing when he was only 11 years old, long before his studies at the Hochschule fur Musik in Karlsruhe where he successfully passed the state examination in composition and music theory. The current album featuring string quartets and quintets presents works from the early and late stages of his compositional oeuvre. Rihm composed the String Quartet in G minor as a 14-year-old schoolboy. The youthful work displays a close proximity to early Beethoven who at that time stood very m uch under the influence of Haydn. Stylistically, this quartet also shows many similarities to the String Quartet 1968 written a few years later. The ''Epilog'' for string quintet which forges a link with the late works of Schubert was composed 45 years later. Despite its affinity with Schubert's Romanticism, the composition is clearly contemporary in style, not least due to its advanced playing techniques. ''Geste zu Vedova'' is a homage to the Venezuelan artist Emilio Vedova (1919-2006). This music is a percussive and block-like reaction to the kinesis and energy of the artist's creative approach to his works which made such a profound impression on Rihm.

Firmly established on the Early Music scene, soprano soloist Ulrike Hofbauer regularly performs together with renowned ensembles and conductors. A versatile artist, she not only appears on the concert platform but also on the opera stage and is featured on many studio and radio recordings as well as in films. She is particularly interested in the study of musical rhetoric, ornamentation and the "recitar cantando" style, making her an ideal interpreter of the works recorded here. Co'l dolce suono presents virtuosic Renaissance music for soprano, recorder and strings by Venetian artists around the composer Adrian Willaert and the singer Polissena Pecorina. Recorded with an ensemble of early Italian viols, painstakingly reconstructed following the latest scholarly findings, a new soundworld emerges: current research documents that string instruments of the early sixteenth century were built without sound posts and bass bars. Performing these sparkling Renaissance works, the sound of these instruments can now be experienced for the first time. The ensemble arcimboldo (Basel) was founded in 1991 by Thilo Hirsch. Outstanding reviews, numerous concert engagements, and frequent invitations to European festivals document the ensemble's success. Alongside radio recordings the ensemble has recorded several albums since 2005.

The Quartetto di Cremona have completed another stage in their adventurous journey through the cosmos of Beethoven's String Quartets, visiting the Quartet in G major from the Op. 18 set and the last of the Op. 59 Quartets. The performance culture and market for the string quartet in the late eighteenth century was markedly different to that of later times: the young Beethoven wrote his Quartets Op. 18 for amateurs. The G major Quartet, the second in the collection, was one such work that could bemastered by talented aristocrats and bourgeois connoisseurs - which is not tosay that its complexities or musical challenges are in any way diminished. With the so-called "Razumovsky" Quartets,the string quartet reached adulthood. And one only needs to compare the technical and intellectual demands of Op. 59 to contemporary works (such as the quartets of the young Franz Schubert) in order to recognise that Beethoven no longer composed for able amateurs, but for highly professional specialists.This becomes particularly obvious in the finale, an extended and extremely virtuosic fugue. The Quartetto di Cremona have combined these two works from Beethoven's early and middle periods for the seventh volume in their Complete Beethoven String Quartets recording series. Both works end with an "earworm" - one in the classical spirit and one in the form of a rapid fugue - finale furioso!

Schubert's eight "spontaneous inventions" from 1827 are character pieces that are among the best known and most popular works for piano. Full of rich lyricism, they are much more than trifles or whims, as the title suggests. Kemal Cem Yilmaz began studying the piano with Daniel Vodovoz in Langenhagen at the age of eight. Audiences were thrilled by his numerous public appearances as a child; already tat that time, his playing was mature and inspiring. He studied the piano with Heidi Kohler, Markus Groh, and Christopher Oakden in Hannover and with Alfredo Perl in Detmold. Concurrently with his musical studies and concertizing activities, Kemal Cem Yilmaz worked for twelve years as a taxi driver in Hannover.

Maestro Yan Pascal Tortelier celebrates his twenty-five-year recording career and seventy-album discography on Chandos with this album of three of Roussel’s most remarkable compositions. It follows a highly praised Birmingham concert with the same forces, namely the exceptional BBCPO and CBSO Chorus, and three revelatory soloists: Kathryn Rudge, 2017 BBC New Generation Artist, the young tenor Alessandro Fisher, joint first prize winner at the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, and François Le Roux, famous for his award-winning performances of French operas. Although very rarely recorded, Évocations stands as a monument in the compositional life of Roussel, depicting scenes, sounds, and colors from his experiences of India. Also featured are the audacious Pour une fête de printemps, originally composed as a Scherzo for his controversial Second Symphony, and the later Suite in F, which was performed in Paris several times after its Boston premiere, to critical acclaim.

Johann Bernhard Bach's four Orchestral Suites, composed for the court orchestra of the cultured duke of Saxony-Eisenach, are amongst the most varied and sophisticated musical works of the high baroque period in Middle Germany. It was not by chance that Georg Philipp Telemann, a one-time Kapellmeister at Eisenach, commented retrospectively: "I have to praise this orchestra, arranged for the most part according to the French style, for it surpassed the very famous Parisian opera orchestra." From 1703, Bernard Bach was engaged as harpsichordist in this noble orchestra. His Orchestral Suites provide the only surviving "soundtrack" of the illustrious musical life at the Eisenach court during the 1710s and 20s. And what a soundtrack: cosmopolitan, and truly European, with sparkling virtuosic brilliance, as if written by a fiery Italian, whilst displaying the elegant taste of a noble Frenchman. In other words, the "mixed taste", for which the best German composers of the late baroque period were famous, in it's finest form. Little wonder then that Bernhard Bach's suites became core repertoire for Johann Sebastian Bach's Leipzig Collegium Musicum, also influencing his compositions. All this provides sufficient motivation for the Thuringian Bach Collegium to continue their exploration through the Middle German courts for their second recording and, with unbridled enthusiasm in their music-making, to bring these jewels of the early Thuringian orchestral music back to life. Bon Appetit!

The large-scale works of Hieronymus Praetorius (1560–1629) owe much to the great polychoral tradition mastered by Hans Leo Hassler and the great Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli. Heironymus does not disappoint with his vivid expression of texts, intricate counterpoint, and sumptuously sonorous and inventive harmonies: this is Northern Germany’s noble response to the Italians, and to the Roman Counter-Reformation. The programme displays his creativity and ingenuity across a number of compositional forms, from the grand polychoral works (performed here with various combinations of cornets and sackbutts with organ continuo) solo choir and instrumental items, to plainchant alternatim featuring the great historical organ at Denmark’s Roskilde Cathedral.

The Saalfeld Saur organ is one of the four most important romantic organs in Thuringia. Compared to Bad Salungen, Ilmenau and Muhlhausen it is a link between the purely mechanical and the purely pneumatic organs. The instrument was built in 1894 as Opus 624 by Wilhelm Sauer. The magnificent Baroque prospectus by court painter Ziegenspeck originally belonged to a three manual organ by Johann Georg Fincke. Sauer moved the prospectus two meters to the back so that there was enough space for the rich choir music. This acoustically excellent solution let's both choir and organ sound optimal in the room. Andreas Marquardt chose compositions for this album that show the varied timbres of the great Sauer organ and bring them to life. He is a church musician in Saalfeld and also manages the Thuringian Boys Choir.

Over the years Ifor James (1931-2004) has played with numerous orchestras and many famous composers have written and dedicated works to him. He was also one of the world’s most successful teachers, having put over 100 people into the profession. On his latest release he plays horn sonatas together with Jennifer Partridge. Especially Beethoven’s horn sonata stands out of the programme, since it’s the only sonata that Beethoven wrote for a wind instrument. Ifor James was known for his incredible agility and secure high range, but also a broad spectrum of tone color. Philip Jones once said of him: “What fascinated me about Ifor was his ability to play all over the instrument with enormous panache and great momentum.” Ifor left a legacy of recordings, many successful students, and a gift for humor and friendship.

Celebrating their 25th anniversary, illustrious period brass group The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble joins Resonus Classics with an illuminating recording of works that would have been heard at the court of England’s James I. Taken from an extant set of part books from this period of the Royal Music, now housed in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, ECSE’s programme explores the repertoire known to have been performed in the royal household, including many composers from the European continent. The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble is a virtuoso period instrument ensemble with a host of distinguished recordings to its name. Since its formation in 1993, ECSE has performed at many major music festivals in the UK and abroad. The group has appeared on numerous albums, one of which recently won the prestigious 2015 Gramophone Award for Early Music.

The acclaimed Amsterdam-based early music ensemble Fantasticus returns to Resonus with this new recording of the complete Op. 12 flute quartets by the French composer and violinist Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705-1770). The ensemble is joined by the internationally renowned and celebrated period flautist Wilbert Hazelzet for this musical journey through this enticing and elegant set of six sonatas, the first of two sets of 'Sonates en Quatuors' by this engaging composer. Fantasticus plays Baroque music on historical instruments. When Fantasticus performs it is an act of creation that gives old music an immediacy and a relevance to today's listeners. The group believes in connecting with their audiences and sees each concert as a joint journey of discovery, passing peaks of intensity and intimacy along the way. The ensemble has, since 2010, been performing in important halls and festivals around Europe. They have also recorded a number of highly praised albums with Resonus Classics.

The effervescent and communicative energy of Bavouzet and Takacs-Nagy is encapsulated again in this second volume of their Mozart series. These exhilarating interpretations of Mozart’s piano concertos of 1784, faultlessly supported by the Manchester Camerata, follow highly praised concerts as well as a first volume which was “Editor’s Choice” in Pianist. The two concertos presented here are among the six that Mozart composed in Vienna in an extraordinarily productive year. As Bavouzet states in an exclusive personal note, they “share their association with operatic and symphonic styles. The contrasts of mood in their first movements relate them more closely with music for the operatic stage, while their finales are conceived in purely instrumental terms and make reference to the symphonic domain. On the other hand, these two works are complete opposites as far as their use of wind instruments is concerned. In KV 449 their inclusion is ad libitum, whereas they very often play the principal role in KV 459.”

REVIEWS:

Led by Adi Brett, the ensemble is ideally sized for this repertoire, especially in the string department. Because clearly only players of the highest calibre are engaged, the character here is much more akin to the intimacy of a chamber group ensemble than a true symphonic ensemble, the clue, of course, partly being in the name. But that is not to say that there is not power-a-plenty when called for. The very opening of the E flat Concerto, in fact, says it all in a nutshell: absolute precision in the ornaments, great clarity of line where any instrument that has something important to say at any one point stands out, but never dominates the texture, and the impressive attack as the music goes into the relative minor (C minor, and one of the composer’s favourite keys for drama) around twenty-five seconds into the exposition. These all mark out this performance as something special, even before the soloist has made his own telling first contribution. It is clear that both sheer dynamism and enthusiasm in the orchestral playing emanates from the man at the front, Budapest-born Gábor Takács-Nagy, who also works just as hard to nurture the more lyrical side of the music. That is something he is more able to do by forsaking the baton, and itself something perfectly feasible for this size of ensemble.

But when Bavouzet makes his first appearance, he takes over exactly where the Camerata have left off, attesting to a great feeling of empathy between soloist and conductor. All too often, the soloist’s body language can suggest a degree of displeasure at the way the orchestra deals with the opening themes that the soloist will then make use of in the ensuing solo exposition.

In discussing his previous Mozart CD, Bavouzet explains his choice of the Yamaha CFX instrument: “When considering a piano for this project I immediately thought about a Yamaha. The wonderful comfort of the keyboard action, the refined sound, and the natural balance between bass and treble were qualities that made my choice obvious and perfect for the Mozart Concertos.” Although a life-long Steinway aficionado, I have to agree with his comments, in as much as the piano-sound on this new CD is concerned, enhanced, of course, by the outstanding fidelity of the recording as a whole, and the warm acoustic of the venue.

With the added generosity of two well-known and much loved Divertimenti—in D major, KV 136, and F major, KV 138, respectively—where the Manchester Camerata really comes into its own with some stunning playing, there can be little doubt that this new CD is the perfect successor.

-- MusicWeb International

The Serbian-American Paris-based pianist Ivan Ilic has signed a new multi-album recording contract with Chandos Records, following internationally acclaimed recordings of works by Godowsky and Feldman. His first project on the label is a series devoted to the solo piano works of the Czech composer Antoine Reicha, a contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven. Although best known for his contributions to the repertoire for wind quintet, Reicha wrote vast quantities of solo piano music, most of which has never been recorded. The manuscripts, preserved in the Bibliotheque nationale de France, were published only recently. Offering premiere recordings of the Grande Sonate in C major, the Sonata in F major, and three excerpts from Practische Beispiele, this first volume confirms Reicha as an authoritative, singular voice, whose piano works complement and enrich our understnanding of Haydn and Beethoven. Volume 1 is a coproduction of Chandos, RTS (Swiss Radio), and the Palazzetto Bru Zane- Centre de Musique Romantique Francaise in Venice.

A once-celebrated contemporary of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and a precursor of Schubert in the domain of the lied, Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel (1750–1817) is today almost unknown to the general public. Given the great success of his symphonies at the Concert Spirituel, he was probably the composer most frequently performed in Paris between 1777 and 1779. This famous and highly influental pianist and composer spent most of his working life at the court of Mainz, where his reputation attracted rising young talents like Beethoven and Weber, and wrote more than 700 works, including 400 German and Italian songs. On this new release, Els Biesemans and Meret Lüthi present a world premiere recording of some of his sonatas for fortepiano and violin, utterly disarming in their charm, inventiveness and refinement.