Classical
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WEIHNACHTSORATORIUM
Liszt: Via Crucis
Jones: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 11 / Thomson, BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Jones (1912-1993) composed in a wide range of genres, yet the cornerstone of his prolific output is the Symphony, memorably described by him as ‘a dramatic structure with an emotive intention’. He tackled the form afresh with each of his 13 examples, of which the first 12 are based on a different note of the chromatic scale. Jones’s Second Symphony was written between March and July 1950 and first broadcast in the Welsh region by an augmented BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra under the composer on 13 September 1951. The Second Symphony places great emphasis on intricate rhythms and combines both lyrical and dance elements. There is a focus on orchestral colour, epitomised by the prominent role given to the celesta in the first, third and fourth movements. Expansive, big-boned and at times uncharacteristically discursive, it is Jones’ last symphony conceived on a large canvas: from now on his symphonic works would be increasingly concise and cogent, rejecting any orchestral colour extraneous to the musical argument. Daniel Jones’s Eleventh Symphony in E flat was completed on 7 December 1983 and premiered by the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra under Sir Charles Groves on 20 October 1984 in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea. Commissioned by the Swansea Festival, it is dedicated to the memory of George Froom Tyler, chairman of the festival committee, who had died in 1983 and was a friend of the composer. Though each of his thirteen symphonies is a unique and highly personal statement, the cycle as a whole maintains an unwavering consistency of quality and vision. Daniel Jones domonstrates a steadfast integrity throughout, never bowing to the latest trends. His priority is always to communicate directly with the listener.
Bach: Suites Francaises / Rannou
Following on from the success of the Red and Yellow series (a total of twenty-eight reissues), which have restored to the limelight the treasures of the label’s Baroque music catalogues, here are fourteen new titles offering a chance to renew acquaintance with further gems of the Baroque as well as a number of rarities. This third series also expands to embrace the Classical repertory (Mozart, Haydn etc.) and other cultures, notably those of the East, in recordings that form an integral part of Alpha’s identity and history. The fourteen reissues are performed by the leading musicians in the relevant repertory; most of these discs received one or more press distinctions on their first release. They are accompanied by full booklets, with articles in three languages (English, French, German) and richly illustrated chronologies. A wide range of photographers have provided the cover illustrations for the series, this time with the colour blue as the unifying thread.
W.F. Bach: Complete Organ Music / Turri
If the engagingly unpredictable idiom of CPE Bach has overshadowed the work of Johann Sebastian’s other musical sons, Brilliant Classics has been gradually righting this wrong with a series of recordings dedicated to the other out-and-out genius among them, Wilhelm Friedemann. Without the taste for fashionably abrupt turns of phrase and thought which distinguish CPE’s Sturm und Drang language, nonetheless WF’s music occupies that fast-evolving chronological and aesthetic space between what we now think of as the Baroque and Classical periods. Unlike his brother, Wilhelm Friedemann was a church musician in the lineage of their father. At the age of just 23 he was appointed principal organist at the church of St. Sophia in Dresden, and in 1747 became Musikdirektor and organist at the Church of Our Lady in Halle. After almost 20 years there, moved to Leipzig, then Brauschweig, followed by Gottingen and lastly Berlin, where he was offered an honorary (unpaid) post of Kapellmeister. He died in poverty in 1784, entirely forgotten by the musical community. The organ music that has survived is dwarfed by his father’s output for the instrument. There are four sets of fugues, and a collection of just seven choral preludes. In fact the chromatic richness of the fugues brings to mind the grand, tormented examples composed by Beethoven in the last years of his life. As such, they are like problems to be solved, like containers that are no longer sufficient to encompass the composer’s intrepid discourse and abundance of feelings. Even so, WF was still writing this music in the shadow of his late father: one F major fugue inevitably uses the B-A-C-H motif which crowned The Art of Fugue. Turri plays two recent Italian instruments: the organ by Francesco Zanin in the Church of Sant’Antonio Abate, Padua; and for the more intimately scaled works, an orgel-positiv (without pedals) by Luigi Patella.
Venez chère ombre
C.P.E. Bach: Complete Piano Trios / Linos Piano Trio
In Hamburg, 1775, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, by then an internationally celebrated and well-connected figure, was surely aware of the genre’s popularity. After all, his half-brother, the London-based Johann Christian, was central in promoting this new culture of domestic piano playing. Responsive to the market demand, C.P.E. came to an agreement with the London publisher Bremner to publish the following year Six Sonatas for the Harpsichord or Pianoforte accompanied by Violin and Violoncello (Wq. 89). Despite the title, Bach referred to these works at times as Trios, at times as Sonatas, and sometimes even as “Trios (which are also Solos)”. Business acumen aside, these works reveal C.P.E. Bach at the height of his career and are full of invention, expression, and shocking surprises that at times surpass what even Beethoven might dare to do. Despite their 10-year career that includes winning many high-powered awards around the world, this is the Linos Piano Trio’s debut recording.
Gnattali: 4 Concertinos for Guitar & Orchestra / Salcito
Radames Gnattali, son of Italian immigrants, is one of the most popular and famous composers of his native Brazil, where he is mentioned in the same breath as Villa-Lobos. His music is the perfect fusion of the high and the low, of formally structured classical music and the vibrant multi-colored folk culture of Brazil. The 4 Concertinos for guitar and orchestra are medium-sized, 3-movement works, highly entertaining and brimming with good tunes, groovy rhythms and brilliant instrumentation: a real discovery! Played with infectious enthusiams by guitarist Marco Salcito and the Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese conducted by Marcello Bufalini.
Weber: Complete Songs for Voice & Guitar / Cigna, Sebastiani
It is this tradition that Patrizia Cigna and Adriano Sebastiani have tapped into with the first complete recording of the Lieder composed by Carl Maria von Weber for which he had a guitar in mind. In fact Weber, more than most of his native contemporaries, nurtured a great affection for the instrument while it was more celebrated abroad – notably in the Classical tradition by Mauro Giuliani, and we should not forget that the guitar was the first instrument of Hector Berlioz. Weber would accompany himself like a early-Romantic troubadour in his own songs, and he scored for the guitar in several of his stage-works such as Abu Hassan.
The Op.25 Lieder bring together these two strands, written as incidental music for August von Kotzebue’s one-act play Der arme Minnesänger (The Poor Minstrel). Some of the songs here such as the Op.13 set and the Op.29 Canzonettas were written with either keyboard or guitar accompaniment in mind, for obvious, commercially attractive reasons, but the standalone Mayenblümelein was only ever intended for the guitar, as was the lovely, polyphonic Sagt, woher stammt Liebeslust which calls for two sopranos, a three-voice female choir, and a guitar accompaniment. These, like several other songs on this recording, have no rivals in the current catalogue, making this a new recording an essential acquisition for all lovers of Romantic Lieder.
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REVIEW:
The songs are utterly charming, lyrical and dramatic, on a par with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and early Schubert songs. The guitar freely and independently interacts with the melodic lines, never being a mere accompaniment.
– Records International
Opera Overtures, Choruses And Duets
Bizet & Lecocq: Le docteur Miracle / Robinson, Royal Philharmonic
Russian Guitar Music Of The 20th & 21st / Var
Rhené-Baton: Chamber Music For Piano And Strings
Rolla: Viola Concertos, Symphony in D & Tantum ergo / Schiavo, Vitale, Braconi, Il Demetrio
As both conductor at La Scala from 1802 to 1833, and a professor at the new conservatoire in Milan, Alessandro Rolla (1757-1841) was the heartbeat of Milanese music in the turbulent early decades of the 19th century. He was also an accomplished performer on both violin and viola, and his own compositional output reflects his instrumental mastery, filtered through his experience of leading the Italian premieres of quartets and symphonies by Beethoven as well as operas by Mozart: he was a complete musician of his time. The F major Viola Concerto opening this attractive new album belongs to Rolla’s apprentice years in service to the ducal court at Parma. With its uncompromising technical demands and unwavering focus on the solo instrument, the concerto represents a missing link between the idioms of Tartini and Paganini. The dawn of bel canto may be discerned in the slow movement of the album’s concluding D minor Viola Concerto, which concludes with a charmingly bucolic Rondo. Dating from Rolla’s Milanese years, the 1805 Tantum ergo also features a concertante role for the viola, in sinuous accompaniment to the vocal bass soloist: a highly original device perhaps prompted by Mozart’s famous Sinfonia Concertante. As a performer, Rolla reserved the most haunting melodies and moments for himself: After a vocal cadenza on the closing Amen it is the viola that sets the seal on the work with an intensely lyrical phrase and a brilliantly virtuosic stretta. The D major Sinfonia likewise belongs to the first decade of the 1800s – infused with Rossinian verve and bubbling with operatic drama in the quick outer movements. The Milanese violist Simonide Braconi plays Rolla’s music to the manner born, being the long-standing principal violist at La Scala. He is accompanied here by a chamber orchestra based in nearby Pavia and specialising in Classical-era works by neglected composers.
Three Halls
WILLST DU DEIN HERZ MIR SCHENK
Nordic Journey, Vol. 2
Di Giuseppe: Music
Craig Phillips: Fanfare & Other Organ Works
Mind/Electric: Music Inspired by Mental Illness
Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 3 & Symphonic Dances / Ashkenazy, Philharmonia Orchestra
Marking their latest collaboration with their conductor laureate Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Philharmonia returns with a stellar live-performance recording of two late works by Rachmaninov – the Symphonic Dances and Symphony No. 3 in A Minor. This release is third and final in a new series of Rachmaninov’s symphonic works, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy in live performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The previous volumes, which included Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, were met with critical acclaim. “Perhaps the most satisfying of all…” (BBC Music Magazine) “Ashkenazy knows how to shape detail and soar in the big melodic moments. The PHilharmonia sound is muscular and alert, from the opening woodwind solos to the mighty, stirring symphonic tutti of the finale.” (The Observer)
Lully: Dies irae, De profundis & Te Deum
Reuchsel: Promenades en Provence and Selections from Bouquet
Mozart in London / Page, The Mozartists

The Mozartists present an unprecedented survey of Mozart’s childhood stay in London from 1764-65. The wide-ranging programme includes Mozart’s remarkable first symphony (composed when he was eight years old), along with his two other London symphonies and his first concert aria. The repertoire also explores music that was being performed in London during Mozart’s stay, including works by J. C. Bach, Thomas Arne, Abel, Pescetti, Perez, George Rush and William Bates, many of which have not previously been recorded. The album features an outstanding line-up of soloists comprising sopranos Ana Maria Labin, Anna Devin, Rebecca Bottone, Martene Grimson and Eleanor Dennis, mezzo-soprano Helen Sherman, tenors Ben Johnson and Robert Murray and harpsichordist Steven Devine. The album was recorded live during a weekend of performances at London’s Milton Court in February 2015 as part of the opening season of MOZART 250, and includes over a dozen world premiere recordings.
Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 / Ashkenazy, Philharmonia Orchestra
Marking their latest collaboration with their conductor laureate Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Philharmonia have returned to recording with a stellar live-performance of Rachmaninov’s ebullient Symphony No.2 in E Minor. This is the second release in a new series of Rachmaninov’s symphonies, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy in live performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The first release of Symphony No. 1 (SIGCD484) was met by critical acclaim: “Perhaps the most satisfying of all [Ashkenazy’s recordings of the Symphony]…” (BBC Music Magazine) “Ashkenazy knows how to shape detail and soar in the big melodic moments. The Philharmonia sound is muscular and alert, from the opening woodwind solos to the mighty, stirring symphonic tutti of the finale.” (The Observer)
