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

Following his First Prize at the Bruges Competition and his first album, devoted to the Forqueray family (‘Choc’ of the Year in Classica, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros), the Franco American harpsichordist Justin Taylor has recently been awarded the ‘Révélation Musicale’ Prize of the French Critics’ Circle. His career has developed rapidly, both as soloist (harpsichordist and also fortepianist) and as director of his ensemble, the Taylor Consort, with which Alpha will soon be recording... For his second recital, Justin Taylor juxtaposes Scarlatti and Ligeti, two composers whose periods and universes seem so remote from each other, yet who show numerous affinities: in their inventiveness, the virtuosity of their respective languages and their common urge to push the keyboard to its very limits. Continuum builds a bridgehead between these two hypersensitive composers by intertwining Ligeti’s three emblematic (and spectacular!) pieces for solo harpsichord with sonatas by Scarlatti.

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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)

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.

In the course of his recordings for Alpha, Francois Lazarevitch has explored the music of the Baroque and of oral and popular traditions. After Scottish and Irish music, airs de cour and Baroqu esuites and sonatas, he stops off in Vivaldi's Italy. With him, of course, he has his cargo of rare instruments, including the musette de cour which he uses here to perform Spring from The Four Seasons, in an astonishing and very convincing version transcribed by the great virtuoso wind player of the reign of Louis XV, Nicolas Chedeville. Lazarevitch himself has arranged the other Seasons for the transverse flute, following a frequent eighteenth-century practice. A new angle on these evergreen masterpieces. As Francois Lazarevitch says: ''I want to explore all the early sources in depth in order to challenge my performance practice of today and enrich it with an understanding of the style and the naturalness of period theory and phrasing. When I tackle old Scottish and Irish music, it is with the aim of retracing this path.'' The rest of the programme is devoted to other favorite pieces by Vivaldi, this time originally written for flute.

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.

The Greek word 'kosmos' is our ethos in a nutshell. It means the world, the universe, people, order from chaos, honour and is also the name of a flower. Kosmos transcends boundaries, and connects people from all around the world. With our shared passion for music from across the globe -from Argentina to Japan-we create bridges between classical and non-classical music, and our music dances across them. All the music on this album is arranged and composed together by us for our signature combination of violin, viola and classical accordion. This recording is a one-off performance, just as each and every one of our concert performances is always novel and singular. Kosmos is a trio of award-winning, international musicians who have performed worldwide, with live broadcasts on national radio including BBC Radio and Classic FM. They regularly tour international festivals (including Poland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Scotland, Channel Islands). In 2018 acclaimed composer Errollyn Wallen wrote a Triple Concerto for Kosmos, which was premiered at the Jersey Royal Opera House and Chichester Cathedral. Their previous album released by Nimbus, Pomegranate, was highly acclaimed as 'a delight from start to finish' by Guy Rickards of Gramophone Magazine.

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.

Under its founder-director Krijn Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche has won international acclaim for its complete recording of Monteverdi’s madrigals, a project over a decade in the making and which has recently been released complete for the first time by Brilliant Classics. Now the ensemble turns its attention to a modern master of concerted vocal writing, Arvo Pärt. The idioms of the two composers could hardly be more different: Monteverdi’s madrigals so rich and elaborate, speaking of earthly love and pain, while Pärt evokes a world of stillness and calm. As Koetsveld remarks in his booklet introduction, his music seems so simple. Only a few notes, repeated harmonies, often extremely quiet tempo, declamation on a note or chord. No complex patterns, with many surprisingly dissonant harmonies or highly complex vocalizations. Where does that intriguing, intoxicating atmosphere come from which many cherish and enrapture? In the Magnificat of 1989 Pärt draped the text in a free declamatory style, on a note, or a dissonance or a simple harmonic world He expresses the Marian hymn softly, almost timidly, as if the defining vision of the text is of Mary, quietly rejoicing at the news that she carries within her the son of God. The Nunc dimittis was composed separately, 12 years later, but its unhurried unfolding of the Song of Simeon complements the Magnificat perfectly. The Seven Magnificat Antiphons (1988, 1991) and the Stabat mater (1985) both employ fewer notes in the service of a more austere soundworld, one which may cast the listener back to the vast spaces of a medieval cathedral and the daily offices held therein. For 25 minutes the Stabat mater dwells hauntingly within the Aeolian mode as if in musical imitation of Mary, quietly lamenting her son at the foot of the Cross. Both of them exercise an immense power upon any receptive listener, and this new recording is sure to capture the imagination of Pärt’s many followers worldwide.

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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)

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’ takes a journey through the last 30 years of minimalist music, one of the most influential artistic movements of the last century. An accomplished young Italian ensemble takes us from the purism of ‘New York Counterpoint’ by Steve Reich through the soulful strains of the Saxophone Quartet by Philip Glass, to the funky rhythms of Michael Torke’s ‘July’ and the catchy offbeats of Michael Nyman’s Second String Quartet, in a version for saxophones which here receives its world premiere recording. Back in 1968 it was Nyman who coined the term Minimalism, in an article for ‘The Spectator’, to describe music by composers such as Cornelius Cardew that could be relied upon for its effect in clearing a listener’s mind. ‘Simple idea, straightforward structure, intellectual control, theatrical presence and intensity in presentation’: these were the other criteria he applied to music or at any rate musical events masterminded by Nam June Paik and the ‘Naked Cellist’, Charlotte Moorman. By that point, Reich and Glass had already been writing influential pieces such as It’s gonna rain which shared the qualities listed by Nyman. Their works for saxophone date from later in their careers, once Minimalism had been established as an unstoppable cultural force that had brought millions of young listeners into concert halls. They were attracted by the hypnotic repetitions that are a trademark of these pieces, particularly suited to the medium of saxophone quartet, but even more to the rhythmic rigor and fresh yet recognisable harmonies shared by all four works here. Founded in 2017, the Freem Saxophone Quartet comprises four recent graduates from distinguished Italian conservatoires who have already played in festivals and concert halls the world over. As an ensemble they perform the established repertoire for saxophone quartet and commission a great deal of new music. This is their debut album.

Bent S�rensen's music can feel like the product of a dream, at once vague and precise, present and intangible. With Rosenblad and Pantomime, the recording of S�rensen's trilogy Papillons is complete. This is music filled with the ebb and flow of fear, hope and nostalgia and unified by common musical material through the same anchoring piano part across it's movements. All works including the Fantasia Appassionata for solo piano are written for Katrine Gislinge, S�rensen's wife and one of the most significant pianists in Scandinavia, here accompanied by Esbjerg Ensemble and the Stenhammar Quartet. All of the pieces on this release are premiere recordings, and are being released at the same time that S�rensen will receive the prestigious Grawemeyer Award.

Left unfinished at the death of the composer, Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony has exerted an enormous fascination on musicologists as well as musicians. Whether fully orchestrated in specific passages, or a sole melody in others, there is one continuous line throughout the surviving manuscript pages and over the years a number of different completions or performing versions have seen the light of day. One of the latest is this 'recreation' of the work for chamber orchestra by composer and conductor Michelle Castelletti. In her liner notes to the recording, Castelletti describes the symphony as 'possibly one of Mahler’s most passionate emotional outbursts and autobiographical creations'. The decision to make an orchestration for chamber forces was inspired by the example of the Viennese Society for Private Musical Performance, established by Arnold Schönberg in 1918 with the goal of performing newly composed music. Among the works performed by the Society were chamber orchestra versions of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Das Lied von der Erde – the latter made by Schoenberg himself – and in her version of Symphony No. 10, Castelletti uses a similar instrumentation. This new completion appears on album for the first time, in a performance by the acclaimed Lapland Chamber Orchestra under John Storgårds, the ensemble’s artistic director since 1996.

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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

Belgian clarinettist Annelien Van Wauwe revives the golden glow of a bygone age on her PENTATONE debut album Belle époque, together with the Orchestre National de Lille and its music director Alexandre Bloch. The programme is built around treasures of French turn-of-the-century music such as Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie, Pierné’s Canzonetta and Widor’s Introduction et Rondo (the latter two in arrangements by Jelle Tassyns). Belle époque also offers works that display a spiritual kinship to the age, such as Brahms’s first clarinet sonata, arranged by Luciano Berio, and a world-premiere recording of Paris-based contemporary composer Manfred Trojahn (Rhapsodie pour clarinette et orchestre). Annelien van Wauwe is a former BBC New Generation Artist and winner of the renowned Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2018. She kickstarts an exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE with this first solo album. The Orchestre National de Lille and Alexandre Bloch release their second PENTATONE album, after their 2018 recording of Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles, crowned with a Diapason d’or.

Acclaimed for their adventurous and wide-ranging recording projects – from Beethoven Sonatas on period instruments to genre-bending arrangements of Radiohead and Arcade Fire – the endlessly inventive duo of cellist Matt Haimovitz and pianist Christopher O’Riley returns to explore music of the Slavic soul. Anchored by the cello sonatas of the iconic triumvirate of Russian composers –Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich – and inspired by the subversive irony of Shostakovich’s Sonata, TROIKA also delves into more recently-written, unexpected, and popular works. Whether subtle or blatantly rebellious, each work potently reveals the strength of the artistic voice in the face of political repression in mother Russia.

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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

Renowned Schubert interpreter Ian Bostridge revisits Winterreise, the greatest of all song cycles, on his first PENTATONE album. Bostridge presents this masterpiece together with pianist, conductor and composer Thomas Adès, who bases his profound accompaniment on a fresh engagement with the original manuscripts. Winterreise is the epitome of Romantic melancholia, written by a composer aware of his fatal illness but at the height of his creative powers. It is the first installment of a trilogy of PENTATONE recordings comprising the major Schubert song cycles. After Winterreise, Die schöne Müllerin and Schwanengesang will follow. Ian Bostridge is one of the most celebrated tenors and lied interpreters of his generation. Thomas Adès is best known as a composer but demonstrates his extraordinary skills as a song accompanist on his first PENTATONE recording.

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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

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.

2019 Grammy Award WInner - Best Classical Compendium


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

Mozart’s horn concertos are so well-known that for many listeners the sound of the horn and Mozart are virtually synonymous. Mozart was not the first composer to write solo concertos for the horn, however, and works from earlier on in the eighteenth century give a quite different perspective on the instrument. With this release soloist Alec Frank-Gemmill provides insights into some of these early horn concertos, by composers ranging from Telemann to Haydn, by way of Mozart’s own father, Leopold.

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

Alan was a complete musician - a composer, performer, teacher, and a person of extraordinary natural musicality. Small wonder then that he was viewed with profound respect by all those within the musical profession who were privileged to come into contact with him... As a pianist one was struck by his innate rhythmic verve, a facet which indeed radiated through all his compositions - but perhaps the quality above all else that will be remembered was that which can best be described as a mezzo voce bel canto, the realisation of a choice and refined ear, and the product of a deep thinker and inner tranquillity'. It is that satisfying synergy of elegant lyricism and rhythmic energy which distinguishes the keyboard works of pianist and composer Alan Richardson. (Paul Conway)

Canadian songstress Sarah Slean first joined forces with Symphony Nova Scotia in April 2012, in an electrifying, groundbreaking collaboration that earned rave reviews and three standing ovations, and was broadcast nationwide by CBC. One of the highlights of the performance was "Lamento", a new work by Canadian star composer Christos Hatzis that was praised as “marvelously colorful and dramatic” (Chronicle Herald, Halifax). In 2018, Symphony Nova Scotia jumped at the chance to work with Sarah again, this time as part of Bernhard Gueller’s "Bucket List”, celebrating his final season as Symphony Nova Scotia’s Music Director (2002-2018). For this new collaboration, Symphony Nova Scotia and the Thunder Bay Symphony co-commissioned another work for Sarah from Christos Hatzis – this time titled "Ecstasy", a counterpoint to "Lamento". Audience reviews called the project “magical” and “a match made in heaven.” Now, Symphony Nova Scotia, Bernhard Gueller, Sarah Slean, Christos Hatzis, and producer Jeff Reilly are proud to release both recordings on one album.

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 began composing the Missa solemnis in 1819, when he learned that his patron (and pupil) Archduke Rudolph was going to be appointed Cardinal Archbishop of Olmütz. The plan was for the mass to be ready for performance at the enthronement celebrations in March 1820, but one year proved to be too little time. It wasn’t until almost three years later, in January 1823, that Beethoven was able to complete the work. As might be expected, it was unparalleled in every respect – although composed for use during church services, even Beethoven’s contemporaries found that it exceeded the bounds of the genre. Beethoven himself was quite aware of both the dimensions and the importance of the work: in a letter he described it as ‘my greatest work’. It is also a work which over its course encompasses great contrasts: from the solemnity of the Kyrie and the intense excitement at the opening of the Gloria to the disturbing intimations of war during the closing Dona nobis pacem.

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

The viola occupies a special place in the psyche of musicians and composers. It is an instrument of mystery, soulfulness and even of protest and revolt. Rafaell Altino, principal viola of the Odense Symphony Orchestra, presents this exploration of his instrument's power and possibilities as realized by six leading Danish composers. Some explore the viola as a tool for sound production while others relish what it's distinctive also singing voice does to melodies. The results are as touching and warm as they are fearsome and defiant. All works on this release are commissioned by and dedicated to Altino by Danish composers, including Grawemeyer Award winner Bent Sorensen. Liner notes have been provided by Andrew Mellor, journalist and critic with a particular interest in the culture and music of Denmark and the Nordic countries.

This album, The Privacy of Domestic Life, explores thresholds between temporal stability and instability, human- and electronically produced sounds, and popular and contemporary musical idioms. There is something here for listeners of all persuasions: Adam Basanta exploits the interaction between human and machine performers, Taylor Brook alchemizes a kaleidoscope of metallic sounds, and Beavan Flanagan finds sonic harmony between drummers playing at different speeds. ARCHITEK PERCUSSION is a Montreal-based quartet specializing in the performance of experimental, minimalist, multi-disciplinary, crossover, and electroacoustic chamber music. Founded in early 2012, the quartet has quickly established itself as a dynamic force in Canada's vibrant new music community; equally comfortable in performing classic repertoire and exploring new terrain through commissions and premieres. Architek's diverse regular repertoire is at once engaging and challenging for audiences, and is presented in a manner inspired by the quartet's belief that given proper context, no audience member should feel alienated by the nature of a performance of contemporary art music.