Over thirty years ago, Fretwork made it's first recording - well, technically speaking it was the second album to be recorded, but the first to be released - and it was called 'In nomine', which consisted mainly of 16th-century examples of this remarkable instrumental form. While this isn't an anniversary of that release, we want to look both back to that first release and forward, to bring the genre up to date. There were several examples of the In nomine and related forms that we didn't or couldn't record in 1987, and this album seeks to complete the project. The form was created unwittingly by John Taverner (1490-1545). His 6-part mass, Gloria tibi Trinitas, is based on the plainchant of that name. In the Sanctus, at the words Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini (Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord), the six-part texture is pared down to two and three parts; and then, with the words in nomine Domini, Taverner makes, for the only time in the mass, a complete statement of the cantus firmus, accompanied by three voices. This four-parts section - very beautiful as it is - must have struck contemporaries as some kind of perfection, to be used as a template, to be emulated and copied. And then those copies were copied and changed again.

In French music, Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) forms a link between Romanticism and modernism: in Paris in the year of his birth, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of his death, jazz was all the rage, while Stravinsky was championing neoclassicism. This present recording contains all of Faure's music for cello and piano, including the much-loved Elegie and Sicilienne - pieces that are sometimes described as ''salon music'', with qualities that caused Debussy to dub the composer ''the master of charms''. But interspersed with this lighter fare are also the two sonatas from Faure's later period when, suffering from increasing deafness, he developed a more pared-down style. Even though the sonatas came into being only a few years a part they are nevertheless quite different - appearing in 1917, Sonata No. 1 in D minor is very much a wartime work, at times almost violent. The G minor Sonata is altogether more accessible, with a vivacious finale that caused the composer Vincent d'Indy to remark to the 78-year old Faure: ''How lucky you are to stay young like that!''

The latest release in the Remastered Classics series from PENTATONE is Rafael Kubelik’s sprited and acclaimed reading from the 1970s of Beethoven’s first and fourth symphonies, performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Delightful, infectious and witty, Beethoven’s first symphony is a paean to the classical symphonies of Haydn and Mozart shot through with very Beethovenian touches, such as the opening Adagio which starts in the wrong key and the final movement which struggles to get started at all. These peculiarities taken with the felicity and inventiveness of his writing make this a happy and evergreen work. Overshadowed by the monumental third and the dramatic fifth symphonies, Beethoven’s cheerful and optimistic fourth has been described as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” for its mix of engaging melodies, lurching rhythms, pungent dissonances and its vigorous orchestral writing. While structurally and harmonically more complex than the first symphony, it too is cast in the classical mould with a palpable nod to Haydn in the rousing final movement. Rafael Kubelik recorded his acclaimed cycle of Beethoven symphonies in the 1970s for Deutsche Grammophon, each with a different orchestra to dazzling effect. Although recorded in multi-channel sound, these unmissable performances have previously been available only in the conventional two-channel stereo format. Using state of the art technology which avoids the need for re-mixing, PENTATONE’s engineers have remastered the original studio tapes to bring the performances to life as originally intended: in compelling and pristine multi-channel sound. Further releases from this memorable cycle are planned this year in the Remastered Classics series: Symphonies 2 & 5 (October) and Symphonies 6, 7 & 8 (November).

John Dowland was the most famous English lutenist composer and his considerable reputation during his lifetime extended across Europe as a result of his extensive travels and appointments at several continental courts. In the address "To the reader" in his song book A Pilgrimes Solace published in 1612 he recorded that "being I am now entered into the fiftieth year of mine age" which means he was born in or around 1563. By 1588, when he was twenty-five, he was already listed amongst English musicians worthy of honor in Dr. John Case's Apologia musices and was again listed as one of England's greatest musicians in Francis Meres Palladis Tamia of 1598, but had to wait until 1612 to gain the appointment in the English court that he so much desired. Paul Beier lives in Milan, Italy, and teaches lute at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado. Alongside his concert and teaching activity, he also studies and researches historical sources of the lute repertoire. His recordings have received prizes and awards in the specialized international press.

Once a pianist accompanying the likes of Bronislaw Huberman, Pablo de Sarasate and the Rose Quartet, Carl Fruhling is now little known. He wrote several orchestral and chamber works, songs and salon pieces, but his best and most-recorded work is this Clarinet Trio, published in 1925 but cast in an idiom at least a generation before its composition. Born in 1868, and dying in reduced circumstances in 1937 after the Crash had left him in need, he was and remained a musical Romantic, whose language is perfectly fitted to this most Brahmsian of genres. From that earlier generation, Zemlinsky’s 1896 Trio surges with D minor expression and passion. He wrote it as a 25-year-old for a Viennese chamber-music competition. While the syntax and mood certainly echo Brahms, the chromatic harmony is the composer’s own: so too the intense songfulness which surges through the long opening movement and then a central, richly textured Andante. Even the brief finale is restless and filled with agitated, virtuoso writing for the piano in particular, while the clarinet sings a troubled descant line. Clarinet music by Zemlinsky’s contemporaries, Busoni and Hindemith, has been the subject of previous Brilliant Classics albums by the clarinettist Davide Bandieri. According to MusicWeb International, reviewing the Hindemith collection, he has ‘an attractive woody tone and fine phrasing and articulation.’ He is joined here by Joel and Marja-Liisa Marosi, husband and wife, who teach and perform in Switzerland.

Broad gestures, rich textures and narrative sweep are vivid signatures of Alex Weiser's music. Born and raised in New York City, Weiser composes cosmopolitan music that merges a deeply felt historical perspective with a vibrant, forward-looking creative pulse. An energetic advocate for contemporary classical music and for the work of his peers, Weiser co-founded and directs Kettle Corn New Music, and is Public Programs Manager at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Meditative and devotional in scope, 'and all the days were purple' sets Yiddish and English poems to music in a song cycle that seeks out the divine while reflecting on the longing, beauty, and tumult of life. The album includes texts by Anna Margolin, Edward Hirsch, Rachel Korn, and Abraham Sutzkever, and performances by Eliza Bagg (voice), Lee Dionne (piano), Maya Bennardo (violin), Hannah Levinson (viola), Hannah Collins (cello) and Mike Compitello (percussion). The recording also includes 'Three Epitaphs,' composed in 2016 and featuring excerpts from texts on love and life's transience by Williams Carlos Williams, Seikilos and Emily Dickinson.

Julius Burger was a gifted Viennese musician, conductor, repetiteur, and composer poised to make his mark on early 20th Century music, that is, until the rise of antisemitism and the Nazi party forever altered his life and took him on a journey in exile, across continents and cultures, and would come to reflect the very themes of Romanticism which he cherished. Burger’s varied career took him from Berlin Radio and the Kroll Opera house to the burgeoning BBC and later working with Columbia Records as well as a long tenure at the Metropolitan Opera where he coached some of the greatest voices of the 20th Century. But it wouldn’t be until he was in his 90s that he would finally fulfill a lifelong dream of hearing his own compositions performed. This album represents the first ever recordings of Julius Burger’s lieder, spanning from 1915 to his final piece in 1988. These lieder show a master of his craft and a legacy from a world which was thought to have been lost. A life in exile is a heavy burden to bear and, where many lose their artistic purpose, Burger persevered. According to those who knew him, Julius Burger considered his works to be his children, having no offspring of his own. It is our hope that with this album, his children will finally step off the faded manuscript pages and into the world.

The Day was commissioned for Maya Beiser by the University of Iowa/Hancher Auditorium, and is dedicated to Maya. It premiered at SFJAZZ in San Francisco, California, in August 2016. World To Come was commissioned for Maya Beiser by Commissioning Music/USA, The Carnegie Hall Corporation, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing arts, and several other arts organizations. It premiered in 2003 in New York City. Cellist Maya Beiser performs both of these works by David Lang with a sparkling interpretation that assures the listener they were tailor-made just for her bow.Cellist Maya Beiser defies categories. Passionately forging a career path through uncharted territories, she has captivated audiences worldwide with her virtuosity, eclectic repertoire, and relentless quest to redefine her instrument’s boundaries. The Boston Globe declares, “With virtuoso chops, rock-star charisma, and an appetite for pushing her instrument to the edge of avant-garde adventurousness, Maya Beiser is the post-modern diva of the cello,” while Rolling Stone calls her a “cello rock star.”

The Italian operatic repertoire offers some of the most passionate and much-loved music in the classical canon. In this outstanding collection, Azer Zada has selected music of moving intensity, dramatic power and spiritual resolve in works by Donizetti, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini and Verdi. Favorite tenor arias such as Nessun dorma!, Una furtiva lagrima, Recondita armonia and E lucevan le stelle are included, as well as three essential intermezzi by Mascagni. In the 2019–20 season, tenor Azer Zada made his debut in Cavalleria Rusticana /Pagliacci at Ravenna Festival, under the baton of maestro Riccardo Muti. He has alsosung leading roles under conductors Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly, Nello Santi and Myung-Whun Chung. The Baku-born tenor has been awarded numerous prizes in competitions such as Concorso Lirico Internazionale di Portofino and First Prize in Concorso Voci Verdiane. This is also his first solo recording.

With this new release IDIS goes on in publishing the early years of Frans Br�ggen, conductor and flautist. As a flautist he was one of the most famous scholars of the performance practice of the Baroque age. With Gustave Leonard (organist) he founded in 1981 The Orchestra du XVIII si�cle that used only instruments of the baroque age; leading this orchestra he presented various recordings that are very important interpretations of the Baroque repertoire, even to this day. On this release, IDIS presents to the public the 1961 - 1962 studio recordings.

Before his emergence as one of the greatest musical figures of the 19th century, Richard Wagner wrote a series of overtures that chart his early compositional development. The two high-octane Concert Overtures reflect his Beethovenian and Classical lineage, whereas the overture to the historical tragedy Konig Enzio reveals a greater sense of melancholy and nobility. Heroism is the key to his first opera, Die Feen, while his second, Das Liebesverbot, is saturated in beguiling Mediterranean color. Siegfried Idyll, a surprise birthday gift for his second wife, Cosima, is a tender and intimate celebration of scenes of family life. The MDR Leipzip Radio Symphony Orchestra is Germany’s oldest radio orchestra. In addition to its regular presence on the radio, television, and internet, it delights a wide public with its concerts in the area served by MDR and beyond. On a worldwide scale, the orchestra can be heard via the European Broadcasting Union, on tour, and at guest performances.

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) is a distinctive voice in twentieth-century classical music, and together with the master of the tango, Astor Piazzolla, he is the towering musical figure of Argentina. Born in Buenos Aires of an Italian mother and a Catalonian father, Ginastera is a complex composer and personality, shaped by the traditional folk culture and history of his native country and by impulses from the world at large, during a time of radical upheavals in the realm of Western classical music. The Harp Concerto was commissioned in 1956 by Edna Phillips. The work was not premiered until 1965, and then it was the Spanish harpist Nicanor Zabaleta. When the concerto first appeared, it became a brilliant addition to the harp literature and twentieth-century instrumental concertos. Variaciones concertantes was completed more than ten years earlier and was premiered in Buenos Aires in 1953. The music is an irresistible combination of orchestral timbres and virtuosity communicating directly with the listener, especially as regards the entertainment aspect inherent in virtuosic orchestral sound and a demanding soloist performance.

The rich Glenn Gould discography is enlarging of a series of recordings performed by the artist between 1960 and 1963 for the television and now are presented for the frist time on disc, after a digital remastering. Glenn Gould had a personal propension for some Beethoven, specifically Variations, Op. 34 and Op. 35, of which he often performed live when he was younger. His interpretation of the two movements Adagio ma non torppo and the fuga of Sonata No. 110 are really something unique in his career as a performer and artist. These masterpieces are now available for the public and Gould fans.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion is, along with the St. Matthew Passion, without doubt one of the most important works he ever composed. It established a new tradition for Good Friday vespers in Leipzig, and with sublime skill Bach managed to retain a spirit of church worship while creating an almost operatic narrative that movingly depicts Christ’s trial, death, and ultimate apotheosis. Bach’s numerous revisions always demand a certain amount of scholarly decision-making, and this recording of the St. John Passion uses the final 1749 version that not only draws on and reinforces the best of Bach’s original concept, but incorporates the additional movements of the 1725 version.

World premiere recording in the DXD resolution! With this recording, 2L presents a fresh version of the most elegant violin concertos in the history of music. While respecting the origin and tradition of this music, we have sought a new and dynamic musical experience rooted in our present time.

The German-Canadian Amadeus Guitar Duo and South German Duo Gruber & Maklar have known each other for many years from encounters at guitar and music festivals. Their love of varied programming prompted them to devise a concert featuring works for one, two and four guitars. Guitar Gala Night brings together the most beautiful works for guitar solo, duo and quartet in the European and Latin guitar repertoire in a spirited evening of virtuosic, lyrical and expressive music. This attractive program joins an eminently collectable series of themed albums from the Amadeus Guitar Duo, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Performing over 80 concerts annually both as a duo and now including repertoire with orchestra, as well as broadcasting both for radio and television, this is a duo with an extensive fan base that eagerly acquires each new release, ensuring a high volume of sales and an enduring popularity. Gruber & Maklar has performed throughout Europe and across the globe. Guitar Review wrote in 2000 that “their technique is spectacular, their musical understanding cannot be overstated, their ensemble with each other is outstanding and… they deserve to be recognized as one of the finest guitar duos in the world.”

Lord Berners’ compositions, often satirical in intention, include ballets for Diaghilev and for Sadler’s Wells. While his first ballet, The Triumph of Neptune, is an ambitious and inventive example of his art (Naxos 8.555222), the choral ballet A Wedding Bouquet is Berners’ most original and successful work, if somewhat influenced by Stravinsky’s Les Noces. Written to a text by Gertrude Stein and choreographed by Frederick Ashton, this is music full of vivacity, festive brilliance and pathos. Set in a freak show pavilion, Luna Park is a ‘fantastic ballet in one act’, succinctly scored and wittily characterized.

Francis Poulenc is not an easy composer to relate to. Not the man himself perhaps- though possibly that too- but his music. It is somehow dated. Here is a composer who produced his best works, all more or less completely tonal, at a time when Arnold Schoenberg was writing twelve-tone music and Poulenc's countrymen Oliver Messiaen and Pierre Boulez were into innovative rhythms, scales and techniques to lift the music out of the realm of subjective emotionalism. This release features three concertos by Francis Poulenc. The Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani (1938) is considered to be the most popular and, perhaps, the most serious. The Piano Concerto (1949), a light concerto a wellspring of musical ideas, more or less brutally juxtaposed. The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1932) lies perhaps somewhere between these two.

The Italian-born violinist and dancer Jean-Baptiste Lully revolutionized music at the French court in the 17th century. Not only did he transform ballet entertainments into a spectacular new genre, the tragedie lyrique, but he set new standards in orchestral playing- with him the ‘modern’ orchestra was born. The Suite from Roland exemplifies the majesty of his ouvertures, the beauty of his dance movements, and the expressive depth of his chaconnes. Both Georg Muffat and Marin Marais were profoundly influenced by Lully, as their inventive suites show, and Muffat’s own preserved performance instructions have been closely followed on this recording. Named one of the top 25 ensembles in celebration of Early Musi cAmerica’s 25th anniversary in 2011, the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra is dedicated to excellent and exuberant performance of 17th and 18th century music on period instruments. It is led by its artistic director, Barthold Kuijken.

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REVIEW:

Despite the rarity of these works, all the music breathes the spirit of the French court, with the influence of Lully clearly at work throughout. Is there more of this music in the pipeline? If not, please, Naxos, get back to Indianapolis and record it post-haste.

– MusicWeb International

It’s easy to hear the opening of Frank Martin’s Mass and think–Vaughan Williams, as in his own setting for a cappella double choir, composed in the early 1920s, just a year or two before Martin’s work. Not to say there’s any direct connection, but that beginning Kyrie chant-like theme and the gradual addition of voices strikes a more than casual note (or notes) of similarity. It’s interesting, that’s all, but as in the Vaughan Williams, it definitively marks the stylistic sensibility of the whole work. And it’s a beautiful and eminently moving work, not heard often enough (nor is the Vaughan Williams, for that matter). The disc’s title refers to the fact that Martin kept his Mass from performance–or even from view–for more than 40 years after its composition in 1922.

But of course, Martin is not Vaughan Williams, and very quickly we realize that the similar musical setup is taking us into an entirely different world–harmonically for sure, but also in its more immediate, dramatic expression of the text, all the while remaining firmly in a tonal context–albeit a more adventurous one. The comparison is useful, as it so strikingly shows how two contemporaries differently–completely differently–treated the same material, with the same performing forces (also observable in the two composer’s settings of the Shakespeare/Ariel song, “Full fathom five”).

You might think it was just a clever gimmick to juxtapose Martin and Martinu–close contemporaries (Martin was 10 years older) with closely similar last names, who just happen to have composed sets of a cappella choral songs–but actually their music is quite compatible and the programming proves to be not a gimmick at all, but a happy association. It’s interesting to compare how these two composers, subject to the influences of their similar time yet quite different circumstances, approached the setting of secular choral works–texts from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in the case of Martin, and Czech folksong in the case of Martinu. The former texts are fairly familiar, but the Czech songs are, at least in English translation, almost strange in their depiction of Mary, her (instantly, fully functional) child, her dreams (an apple tree sprouting from her heart), her encounters with angels, and her fierce protection from highwaymen of a painting by St. Luke. But the music in both cases is superb–often challenging, but always easy on the ears and compelling, invigorating, inspiriting.

You’ll be sure to go back just to listen again to Martin’s depictions of the bonging bells (Full fathom five) and burling bees (Where the bee sucks…), not to mention return visits to Martinu’s Our Lady’s Breakfast (you have to hear it). You also have to hear Martinu’s Romance from the Dandelions–another one of those very particular old-world, romantic, folktale-like stories of hopeless love and sacrifice, of a young woman and her long-lost soldier/lover–a hard-to-classify setting of a Czech poem for a cappella choir and solo soprano–unusual and oddly affecting.

The singing is exceptional–this choir, as we’ve heard on earlier recordings, is one of the world’s finest, and here the singers are constantly challenged with prickly technical details and are offered many chances–perfectly realized–to deliver those ringing, resonant harmonic gestures that all choral singers live for. Their Czech pronunciation/enunciation is, how shall we say it, rather “soft”–the delicious richness of those special consonants tends to be rounded off–and unfortunately the translations, attempting to be poetic rather than literal, are often just corny. The English and Czech are printed on completely separate pages in the booklet (which otherwise contains very informative and well-written notes), which is useless if you’re trying to follow along. But, as you’ve gathered from the rest of this review–it ultimately doesn’t matter. This is a lovely recording of worthy music–great music, in the case of the Mass–in performances that are as good as you will hear anywhere.

– ClassicsToday (David Vernier)

Acclaimed concert artist and laureate of numerous awards, Mabel Millán brings her stunning technique and remarkable musical expressiveness to this programme of some of the most spectacular and best-loved repertoire ever composed for the guitar. From the Andalusian rhythms and atmosphere of Turina and Malats, the Romantic expressiveness and national colors of Ponce and Mertz, to the lyrical beauty and dramatic virtuosity of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Capriccio diabolico, every aspect of the guitar’s refined delicacy and explosive dynamism is explored here to the full.

It was a pivotal meeting in the mid-1920s that marked the beginning of an enduring musical and personal friendship between Alexandre Tansman and the Spanish virtuoso guitarist Andres Segovia. Tansman’s legacy for the instrument ranges over a 57-year period, inaugurated by a dazzling Mazurka and represents Segovia’s ‘most advanced commitment to modern music.’ This first volume presents suites and dances inspired by Italy, Poland and Eastern Europe, and includes Suite in modo polonico, heard here in its original version, not the Segovia-authorized collage. Andrea De Vitis has meticulously researched the original manuscripts to resolve any doubts and omissions in published editions.

The Oslo Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko present the first of a new series of recordings of Richard Strauss' orchestral music. This first release features the great tone poems "Also Sprach Zarathustra" and "Ein Heldenleben," both works the Oslo Philharmonic has a long history of performing at home and abroad. Vasily Petrenko, chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic since 2013, exploits the special intensity of the orchestra's string sound and it's magnificent wind and brass sections to full effect in this thrillingly virtuosic music. Vasily Petrenko is one of the most significant and galvanizing musicians alive, and has won numerous accolades for his recordings of Russian repertoire, including two Gramophone awards. With the Oslo Philharmonic, he has recorded works by Shostakovich, Szymanowski, Strauss and Prokofiev, as well as a major cycle of orchestral works by Alexander Scriabin. The Oslo Philharmonic was born in 1919 and over the next half-century, the orchestra's reputation grew steadily. In 1979, it changed forever with the arrival of a young Latvian arriving in Norway, Mariss Jansons, who transformed it to rival the great Philharmonics of Vienna, Berlin and New York.

All the ''pigeonholing'' and talk about genres in our day and age has led to confusion in one or another of the camps: is it jazz, is it classical, or what actually is it? With this clearly in mind, we - the classical singer and the jazz pianist - have ventured together in Terra Nova's tonal world in an attempt to create our own ''universe''. Jan Gunnar Hoff is a jazz pianist, but he composes in a style that overlaps with what can be defined as classical, with its fine melodies and melodious improvisations, and with its singable compositions. We wish to give you a genre-free musical experience, in which the music elevates the text, and in which the two of us, each in our way, bring the essence, melancholy and beauty of the music into this indefinable universe of text and melody.

Evgeny Samoyloff writes: “Mussorgsky’s From Memories of Childhood cycle was never completed by the composer; in fact, he wrote only the first two pieces: ‘The Nurse and I’ and ‘The First Punishment’. An earlier cycle-to-be, entitled Children’s Games and featuring ‘Corners’ as its opening piece, was similarly never completed. I have taken the liberty of selecting what I believe to be the best of Mussorgsky’s miniature pieces – those that appear most complete – and of joining them to the primary cycle of Childhood Memories. I was guided by the music’s imagery and by its ‘childhood’ essence (as if seen through the eyes of a child), and I have endeavored to compile the set following the principles of contrast and artistic integrity, as well as those of tonal and architectural balance. This is how this cycle of eight pieces came into being, and I hope that it has a right to exist and to achieve widespread appeal.”