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Strauss: Salome / Orozco-Estrada, Frankfurt Radio Symphony

Desire. Brutality. Lust. Slyness. Anxiety. What a fascinatingly menacing thematic melange is seething in this Salome. Richard Strauss, the “nervous contrapuntalist,” had immediately recognized the potential of Oscar Wilde’s play, and had proceeded to add to it a musical meta-plane, which resulted in Salome becoming the scandalous new point of departure for opera in the 20th century. In its vivid psychological depiction of a corrupt world, Salome is, at the same time, both child of and witness to the dawning of the 20th century – a reflection of a moribund late-bourgeois era, captivated by its own putrefaction. The opera hit the nerve of the times. Strauss poured the Salome catastrophe into a one-act opera lasting a mere 100 minutes. However, these are 100 highly condensed minutes, which demand the listener’s full and uninterrupted attention without any break; first torturing him emotionally and then trickling the venom of sweet, seductive music into his ears and mind; laying his nerves bare, then making him tremble in aroused expectation. The new Pentatone album featuring the young, up-and-coming conductor Andres Orozco-Estrada leading the hr Symphony Orchestra (formerly Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) is a live recording of a concert given on September 10, 2016 in Frankfurt.
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REVIEW:
Orozco-Estrada’s approach is unrushed and often expansive. Magee’s Salome spits out her words as part of a characterization of the Judean princess that’s compellingly real and convincing. An unusually persuasive aural drama and a deeply musical account of the score – a compelling listen featuring a fine cast and expertly conducted. It’s a set that can be warmly recommended.
– Gramophone
Scarlatti & Ligeti: Continuum / Taylor
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REVIEWS:
This disc from rising French harpsichordist Justin Taylor finds a perfect partner for the quirky Italian. The Scarlatti sonatas are almost all relatively familiar ones, but Taylor ensures that they sound fresh. With a technique both neat and quick. He spins the music in smoothly contoured paragraphs, adding tightly curling ornamentation here and there but without hindering the music’s natural flow and rolling energy. This disc is an exhilarating vindication of the harpsichord as a solo instrument for music old and new.
– Gramophone
What matters most is the brilliance of these composers and Taylor’s energetic execution, which will make listeners sit up and take notice. Alpha’s recorded sound is quite close to the harpsichord, so every detail is crisp, clean, and fully audible.
– AllMusic Guide (B. Sanderson)
The Complete National Anthems of the World 2019 / Breiner
While globalization advances, all countries staunchly retain two unique features: their distinctive national flag and a bonding national anthem. The anthems reflect an enormous indigenous diversity, but relatively few are generally known by citizens of other nations, making any comprehensive compendium a source of endless interest and discovery. We invite you to take a musical tour of Naxos’ definitive set of national and regional anthems, from Algeria to Kuwait. Lapland to Zanzibar, and all stops in between. You’ll be delighted by the gems that are waiting to be discovered and compiled into either personal or family favorites. And you can check out the flags in the process with our informative supporting booklets! Welcome to the Naxos set of The Complete National Anthems of the World.
Vivaldi: Concerto Works / Lazarevitch, Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Paganini Rhapsody / Vinnitskaya, Urbanski, NDR Elbphilharmonie
Sergei Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto might never have seen the light of day had it not been for hypnosis: before the twenty-seve-year-old composer began work on it, he was on his last legs - financially, artistically and psychologically. Dr. Nikolay Dahl hypnotized his patient every day, whispering to him: ''You will write your concerto. You will work with great fluency. The concerto will be of excellent quality.' The creative block disappeared, and the concerto's premiere in Moscow in 1901 was a triumph for Rachmaninov, who played the solo part himself. Anna Vinnitskaya says she feels 'a spring-like atmosphere' in this work: throughout there is a sense of movement, of awakening. The music passes through the most contrasting psychological landscapes, but moves towards clarity and light. Rachmaninov composed the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in 1934, ten years before his death. Brahms, Liszt, Lutoslawski and Andrew Lloyd Webber are among the most remarkable roll call of composers inspired by Paganini's theme. The Russian pianist and the Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbanski have often played Rachmaninoff together, on every continent. The two artists, both of whom present here their third disc for Alpha, were reunited in the NDR studios in Hamburg to record this repertory that fits them like a glove.
Pinnacle Ridge
The Cello in Wartime / Isserlis, Shih
As the centenaries of various events of the First World War are being commemorated, we are reminded of the great battles and the large-scale suffering. To imagine what day-to-day life may have been like in the trenches in Flanders is more difficult, however, 100 years later and with no living survivors of the war to bear witness. Poems and paintings can give us some idea – but, as this disc from Steven Isserlis proves, so can music! The main, more conventional section of the programme is a selection of cello works composed around the time of the war, by composers from three of the countries involved in it: France, Britain and Austria. This is followed by something rather more unusual, however, as Isserlis exchanges his ‘Marquis de Corberon’ Stradivarius for an instrument that was once played and heard in the trenches of Ypres. Harold Triggs, the owner of this so-called ‘trench cello’, brought it with him to Flanders from England – other soldiers, on both sides of the conflict, constructed their own violins, cellos or flutes on site, from ammunition boxes, pipes and whatever else they could get hold of. These instruments thus become a highly moving testimony to every man’s need for beauty and solace and joy, even in the middle of a battlefield. With the delicate support of Connie Shih on the piano (and in fact even pianos could be found in the trenches, even if not concert grands!), Isserlis and his trench cello transport us, for a brief moment, to a trench near Ypres during a quiet spell between skirmishes, with soldiers resting, writing home, playing cards – and with the help of the music dreaming of a life elsewhere.
Part: Magnificat & Stabat Mater / Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche
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REVIEW:
There are plenty of first-rate recordings of these works available, particularly the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, but who’s going to complain about a new one that delivers a slightly different perspective–that is, one created by a minimal vocal ensemble (eight voices), well-tailored to Pärt’s famously minimal scoring? The voices are (happily) very well-matched, and their favorable blend and balance often leads you to forget how many (or few) of them there are. You just enjoy the sound—both for its fullness and textural clarity, as well as for the special quality that comes from a handful rather than a roomful of compatible voices resonating.
While the Magnificat, Nunc dimittis, and Maria antiphons are all finely sung, the Stabat Mater—heard less frequently, probably due to its uncommon scoring for three voices and three strings—is the highlight, showing in luminous detail the beauty of particular voices—soprano Wendy Roobol, alto Hugo Naessens, and tenor Falco van Loon (great names, all!)—as well as the three singers’ exceptional technical and interpretive mastery. I was not familiar with this ensemble, Le Nuove Musiche, before, and its earlier claim to fame is a 12-disc set of Monteverdi madrigals. All available clues suggest that this is a Netherlands-based group, but good luck trying to find out much at the ensemble’s website: strewn with an odd and unhelpful mix of (mostly) Dutch and (occasional) English, its contents are certain to leave most sincerely inquisitive browsers frustrated and still uninformed. There is virtually no information about the group—other than a composite of individual head-shot photos—in the disc’s liner notes.
Oh well. The music and the singing are very good, and give no reason to disappoint either the newcomer or the experienced Pärt listener, even if there’s nothing here in the performances of the Magnificat, Nunc dimittis, and antiphons that elevates them beyond the existing reference versions. If you happen to be new to Pärt’s music you will find a substantial commentary on various works in our reviews archive, from which an excerpt, describing some of the music’s unique characteristics, concludes this review:
“The bias toward minor thirds in both melodic and harmonic contexts, the pervasive use of antiphonal choral effects, the chord inversions that give a sense of suspended time, the slow-moving harmonic changes unbound by traditional metrical or temporal constraints–all of these in some way define Pärt’s post-1976 music. But ultimately, the proof is in receptive, un-analytical listening, and no matter how many times you hear Pärt’s works, each time you’re somehow carried beyond an expected esthetic experience to a more spiritual place–whether you want to be or not.”
– ClassicsToday (David Vernier)
Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer & the Recorder in the Low Countries / Bosgraaf, Corti
Sybrandus van Noordt and Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer are the only native Dutch composers represented on Erik Bosgraaf’s latest album, but his selection nonetheless illustrates both the high quality of musical culture in a nation without aristocratic courts, and also the central place of the recorder within that culture. Andreas Parcham, Johann Christian Schickhardt and Jean-Marie Leclair are known to have lived and worked in the Republic; Jean-Baptiste Loeillet was born in Ghent and worked in Lyon, but his recorder sonatas were all published in Amsterdam. History has been a little unkind to Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer, remembering him latterly above all as the composer of the attractive Concerti Armonici which were previously attributed to Pergolesi. That such a confusion could have arisen in the first place is testament to the originality and craftsmanship of a musician-composer who was evidently in touch with the latest Italian developments in Italian style from his home in The Hague.
The three sonatas on this album expand our understanding of van Wassanaer, and they are complemented by little-known composers with a similarly internationalist outlook such as the Danzig-born Andreas Parcham and the well-travelled Jean-Marie Leclair. The four-movement suite of lively character pieces by Fiocco is extracted from a collection originally written for harpsichord, and opens with an Allegro made famous through a violin-and-piano arrangement recorded by the likes of Menuhin and Perlman; Bosgraaf restores its original character. In the second half of the 17th century, the recorder underwent a revolutionary development which turned it into a sophisticated instrument. Erik Bosgraaf plays seven different instruments here, ranging from sopranino to bass, all of them built with a particular range of pitch but also distinct palette of timbres.
REVIEWS:
Bosgraaf is a virtuosic player, whose performances are always energetic. Sometimes he tends to go overboard, for instance in his choice of tempi and the addition of ornamentation. Here he behaves almost impeccably. Some movements in Schickhardt's sonata are played very fast, but that seems justified. Bosgraaf makes a nice difference between the two ensuing allegros in the middle of this sonata. There is just one issue: in the opening movement of Van Noordt's sonata it was decided to add some chirping. I don't like this kind of gimmick, and the music doesn't need it. In a time when the use of a string bass seems the rule, and the participation of a plucked instrument almost inevitable, it is nice that the performers have confined themselves to the harpsichord for the basso continuo. The two artists often collaborate, and Corti is again an excellent partner, who also delivers a fine performance of the pieces by Fiocco.
In short, this is a delightful disc which will appeal not only to recorder aficionados.
-- Musica Dei Donum
Most of us haven’t heard of Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692-1766), but that’s who wrote more of the music on this program than anyone else. Some of his contemporaries—Fiocco, Leclair, Loeillet, Van Noordt, Parcham, and Schickhardt—will be more or even less familiar. They were all in some way related to the Dutch Republic. 7 members of the recorder family are used with a modern copy of a 1732 harpsichord tuned at A=392, generally considered the French standard. Erik Bosgraaf sings, whatever the size and pitch of the instrument he’s playing. Francesco Corti employs the buff stop now and then but accompanies ably all the way through. He gets the Fiocco to himself: four movements that conclude the First Suite of Harpsichord Pieces, Op. 1. Balance between the two players and through the range of the harpsichord is excellent. Ornamentation keeps things lively, so your attention never flags. Since there are 38 tracks, all of them are relatively short, making for plenty of variety. They may go by even faster than you wish, because everything is worth hearing again! Music like this—often with a strong influence of Italians like Vivaldi—is how 18th Century Dutch passed the time when they had leisure, and when you have leisure you’ll enjoy it too. Also consider hearing from Jeremias Schwarzer and Ralf Waldner on Genuin 19646 (S/O 2019, p 177). A 28-page booklet gives notes by musicologist Thiemo Wind in English and German along with many illustrations. This recording was made in a church apparently next to a field with cows, so the range of pictures extends from the sacred to the profane or mundane, but that’s the only mundane thing about this collection!
-- American Record Guide
A Minimal Sax
Sørensen: Rosenbad & Pantomime
Mahler: Symphony No. 10 / Storgards, Lapland Chamber Orchestra
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REVIEW:
Having taken Deryck Cooke’s completion as the basis for her edition, Michelle Castelletti slims down the orchestra, not the argument. Meanwhile John Storgårds always cultivates legato, connects notes and episodes, privileges coherence over discontinuity and reminds us that the composer’s sketches preserved at least a single thread of melody running through almost the entire symphony. However you hear the Tenth, you’ll hear it differently after experiencing this one.
– Gramophone
Belle epoque / Wauwe, Bloch, Lille National Orchestra
Troika / Haimovitz, O'Riley
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REVIEW:
Haimovitz and O’Riley really go to town—specifically, Moscow. The ‘Troika’ of their stylishly presented double-disc set comprises the three cello sonatas by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev, as well as a dizzying transcription of the eponymous lollipop from Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé—one of a series of spectacular virtuoso transcriptions that range from Shostakovich’s now ubiquitous Waltz No 2 to explosive versions of songs by Pussy Riot and The Beatles (‘Back in the USSR’, naturally).
Apparently there’s a political thesis behind these choices, but what really speaks is Haimovitz and O’Riley’s playing in the three sonatas. These are emotionally charged readings on the grandest scale. Haimovitz in particular plays with an articulate, vibrato-rich tone that he can refine down to an almost viola-like mellowness in, say, the Andante of the Rachmaninov, or send soaring and swooping (no shortage of portamento here) round O’Riley’s mountains of piano sound.
– Gramophone
Schubert: Winterreise / Bostridge, Ades
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REVIEW:
In the first song, Gute Nacht, you notice right off how Bostridge’s dynamics are subtly chosen and applied, his sense for drama very sensitive to the emotional flow of the music and text, and how his diction is very clear here and throughout. Adès plays with the appropriate somberness and an emphatic manner, his accenting and dynamics quite effective in conveying a feeling of sadness and emerging desperation.
– MusicWeb International
Bates: The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs / Christie, Santa Fe Opera
In their astounding new opera The (R)evolution of Steve Job, composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell explore the spiritual evolution of one of the most influential men of modern times as he creates a revolutionary new world of technological empowerment, then discovers a larger world within himself. Like Steve Jobs, composer Mason Bates is an innovator whose creativity breaks through boundaries, combining traditional orchestration with electronics in ways that have made him one of the most sought-after and widely programmed composers in the United States. In The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, Bates and Campbell give us an alternative and intimate perspective of a public life, examining the people and experiences that shaped Steve Jobs: his father, his Buddhist practice, his rise and fall as an executive, and finally his marriage to the woman who showed him the power of human connection.
Fuchs: Piano Concerto "Spiritualist", Poems of Life, Etc / Falletta, London Symphony
Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers. He celebrates his unique fifteen-year recording history with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra with this stunning release of three new concertos and an orchestral song cycle. Kenneth Fuchs has composed music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. His music has achieved significant global recognition through performances, media exposure, and digital streaming and downloading throughout North and South America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia. The London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, has recorded five discs of Fuchs’s music for Naxos American Classics. The first, released in August 2005, was nominated for two GRAMMY® Awards (“Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra” and “Producer of the Year, Classical”).
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REVIEW:
Now stretching back over the past fifteen years, JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra have been recording the major works of Kenneth Fuchs.
All of the present disc comes from the past six years, the most recent, Poems of Life, completed in 2017. The opening Piano Concerto, in the conventional three movements, was composed at the request of Jeffrey Biegel, who is the soloist on this disc. Often testing his technical virtuosity, the finale calls for prodigious dexterity in the fast flowing finale.
We can admire the London Symphony for the multitude of colours they provide, just as if the play the music regularly, and our gratitude to the conductor, JoAnn Falletta, the composer’s unstinting champion.
– David's Review Corner (David Denton)
LOCATELLI/KO.CPE.BACH
Before Mozart - Early Horn Concertos / Frank-Gemmill, McGegan, Swedish Chamber Orchestra
Around 1750, both Christoph Förster and Johann Baptist Georg Neruda wrote extremely demanding and virtuosic concertos – Neruda’s Concerto in E flat major is in such a high register that it has sometimes been assumed to be composed for the trumpet. Through modern innovations in horn design it is once more possible to perform all of these early horn concertos, including parts previously considered ‘impossibly high’. Alec Frank-Gemmill is recognised internationally for the exceptional breadth and depth of his music-making. His interest in historical performance informed his previous, highly acclaimed release for BIS – a traversal of the horn repertoire throughout some 140 years, performed on four different 19th-century instruments. On the present album he plays on modern horns, but draws heavily on his familiarity with 18th-century horn technique and style, with the support of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under period performance expert Nicholas McGegan.
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REVIEW:
Nicholas McGegan is equally at home in this repertory, meanwhile. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra play with wonderful freshness and finesse, and there’s a flawless sense of ensemble between Frank-Gemmill and the solo strings in the Sinfonia da camera. An exceptional disc that confirms and consolidates his reputation as one of today’s finest horn players, it makes for compelling and essential listening.
– Gramophone
Richardson: The Piano Music
Sarah Slean / Symphony Nova Scotia
Schubert: Winterreise / Mattei, Nilsson
Peter Mattei has won great acclaim as a singer with unusual dramatic gifts, appearing on the world’s leading stages in complex operatic roles such as Don Giovanni, Billy Budd and Eugene Onegin. On the present release he takes on a no less complex character in the Lieder canon: the traveller in Schubert’s Winterreise. In this cycle, Schubert returned to the poet Wilhelm Müller, whose poems he had set some years earlier, in his other great song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin. Müller’s texts revolve around a young man who after being rejected leaves his village and heads into the desolate, snowy countryside. In the course of the cycle he experiences loss and an aching loneliness interrupted by fleeting glimpses of hope, but ultimately the landscape through which he is moving is colored by alienation and despair. Müller died at thirty-two years old in 1827, the very year in which Winterreise was composed – and Schubert himself died the following year, still making revisions to the last of the songs while on his deathbed. When Schubert invited his closest friends to a gathering in order to listen to the cycle he called the songs ‘gruesome’, and according to one witness the audience was shocked by their sombre mood. In this recording, Mattei brings all his interpretive skills to bear. He is supported by the piano of Lars David Nilsson, which reinforces the different moods and characters of the twenty-four songs and often assumes the role of a narrator, alongside the singer.
Beethoven: Missa solemnis / Suzuki, Bach Collegium Japan
Originally founded with the aim of performing the choral works of Bach, the Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki are now taking another great leap, after their recent release of Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. Described as ‘refreshingly open-hearted, spontaneous and natural’ their interpretation received a 2017 Gramophone Award. Joined by an eminent quartet of vocal soloists, the team now applies its expertise in period performance to Beethoven’s masterpiece.
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,/br> REVIEWS:
The performance has warmth, energy and an exact feeling for tempo. The Japanese chorus rise fearlessly to Beethoven’s demands. A memorable musical and emotional experience.
– Sunday Times (UK)
This recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Op. 123 offers a revelatory performance that is so clear in its textures, lively in its tempos, meticulous in its execution, and detailed in its parts that this monument of western choral music seems to have shaken off all the mossy accretions of nearly two centuries. Highly recommended.
– All Music Guide
Rafaell Altino: Works for Solo Viola
