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Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Vol. 1 / Metcalfe, Blue Heron
One year after winning the 2018 Gramophone Classical Music Award for Early Music for the fifth album in its series Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks, and just one month after releasing the world premiere recording of Cipriano de Rore’s I madrigali a cinque voci, Blue Heron announces the release of the first in a new series of recordings dedicated to the music of Johannes Ockeghem and his contemporaries. Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, vol. 1 is the first of two releases which will present all of Ockeghem’s songs in a complete set; the second is planned for release in 2022. The songs have not been recorded complete since the early 1980s. Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497) was one of the most celebrated musicians of the fifteenth century and is one of the greatest composers of all time, every bit the equal of J.S. Bach in contrapuntal technique and profound expressivity, and like Bach able to combine the most rigorous intellectual structure with a beguiling sensuality. His two dozen songs set French lyric poetry in the courtly forms of the fifteenth century—rondeau, virelai, and ballade—to exquisitely crafted polyphony in which all voices are granted equally beautiful and compelling melodies. Besides eleven of Ockeghem’s songs, the disc includes two related works: the anonymous En atendant vostre venue from the recently-discovered Leuven Chansonnier (probably copied c. 1475 in the Loire Valley, where Ockeghem lived and worked), whose text borrows the first line of Ockeghem’s Quant de vous seul, and Au travail suis by the composer Barbingant, which quotes both text and music from the opening of Ockeghem’s Ma maistresse. The booklet contains complete texts and translations and notes on the music and performance practice by Sean Gallagher and Blue Heron’s music director Scott Metcalfe.
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REVIEW:
Though these works for multiple singers are thick with contrapuntal lines, and have a tinge of austere Renaissance sacred music, they are also gorgeous, sensual and nuanced, as Blue Heron’s splendid account of “Permanent vierge” demonstrates.
– New York Times (Anthony Tommasini)
Sebastian Fagerlund: Drifts, Stonework & Guitar Concerto "Tr
Sebastian Fagerlund has been described as ‘a composer who commandingly bridges tradition and modernity’ (Klassik-Heute.de) while his music is ‘modern and unorthodox, opulent and strange, masterfully composed and orchestrated’ (MusicWeb-International). Previous acclaimed recordings on BIS include the chamber opera Döbeln, as well as orchestral works and concertos for clarinet, violin and bassoon respectively. Another concertante work froms part of the present programme: Transit for guitar and orchestra, written for Ismo Eskelinen who also performs it here. He is partnered by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu who have previously championed Fagerlund’s music: the orchestra has commissioned several works, including the guitar concerto as well as Drifts, the opening work here. The release takes its title from the third composition, Stonework, named after those man-made stone structures that are found all over the world, serving a range of purposes, from landmarks and navigational aids to burial monuments.
Cantata - Yet Can I Hear / Mehta, Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin
This album contains a selection of solo cantatas, both secular and sacred, from the Italian, German, and English traditions. Including works by Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach in settings large and small, with obbligato instruments ranging from oboe to chimes, the magnificent cantatas on this album create a portrait of this intimately transcendent repertoire. With ‘Cantata; yet can I hear…,’ the American countertenor Bejun Mehta releases his first album on Pentatone. Hailed as “arguably the best countertenor in the world today” by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Mehta here joins forces with the players of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, one of the most renowned early music ensembles of today. Mehta writes: “This is by far the most personal recording I have ever made. Unlike Lieder, which as miniatures often work their magic in impressionistic ways, or opera, which unleashes human passions to their largest and most raw expression, solo cantatas lie in the middle and take the singer on a highly specific conversation with himself as he grapples with the subject at hand.”
Sciarrino: La navigazione notturna / Vidolin, Ex Novo Ensemble
La navigazione notturna is the “first fragment of a broader cosmology,” composed in Città di Castello in 1985, for the Sagra and the Tempio Malatestiani of Rimini. At the last moment that performance did not take place. The score was stopped at bar 85, but from that point onwards the work was planned in detail on graphic plots which indicated two parallel dimensions: one for the transformations of the sound elements (fast and complex agglomerates) with the other controlling the articulation of the physical acoustic space through the switching of sound agglomerates among instruments. Thus a four-part dialogue began to take shape. The part of the fragment that was not yet in the score has now been transcribed from those plots. The project envisaged the four instruments placed in a cross and the listening area in the center of the acoustic space. Due to the nature of this composition, it has not yet been recorded, making this the world premiere. Three other works by Sciarrino are featured as well: Due Arie marine, Il giardino di Sara, and Altre notti.
Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2 & Violin Sonata No. 4 / Ahonen, Kuusisto
Charles Ives’s ‘Concord Sonata’ is often described as one of the greatest of American piano works. Published in 1920, at the composer’s own expense, it contains radical experiments in harmony and rhythm and would have to wait until 1939 for its first public performance. In the course of its four movements, Ives depicts some of the famous inhabitants of the small town of Concord in Massachusetts, a centre of the mid-19th century transcendentalism movement. Luminaries of the movement such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are alluded to in various ways in music that includes references to Beethoven, religious and patriotic hymns and circus marches, as well as brief ‘guest appearances’ by a viola and a flute. Lasting 47 minutes on the present recording, it is a massive work of a staggering complexity, and a true challenge for any performer – a challenge more than readily accepted by the young Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen, who has previously recorded Ligeti’s piano concerto for BIS.
For the opening work on the disc, the much shorter Violin Sonata No.4, Ahonen is joined by his compatriot, the celebrated violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Composed during the same period as the Concord Sonata, this piece also has an extra-musical background, namely the composer’s memories as a child of the so-called camp meetings held during the Christian revivalism of the late 19th century.
METRONOMES DETRAQUES
J'HABITE LE POSSIBLE
QUATUOR A CORDES NO. 1
UNE SYMPHONIE ALPESTRE
Chopin: Hubert Rutkowski on Pleyel 1847
In a letter to a friend Chopin described Pleyel pianos as ‘the last word in perfection’. What he identified as their ‘slightly veiled sonority’ suited his style. One observer remembered the composer saying that if he was not feeling on top form, he preferred to play on an Erard, for its bright and ready-made tone. ‘But if I feel alert, ready to make my fingers work without fatigue, then I prefer a Pleyel… My fingers feel in more immediate contact with the hammers, which then translate precisely and faithfully the feeling I want to produce, the effect I want to obtain.’ The Chopin-era Pleyel was notable for its graded timbre, topped by the silvery, ethereal quality of its treble register. Chopin’s appreciation for the Pleyel sonority of pianos is written into the very fabric of his music. When he travelled to Majorca with George Sand in the winter of 1838, a Pleyel piano had to travel with them, and the composer continued to have a Pleyel grand delivered every summer, which remained until November. This was at some expense to the company, but then the relationship was mutually beneficial: while the composer was inspired by the Pleyel sound, the company did well from his patronage and his personal recommendations, and indeed Chopin and Camille Pleyel were firm friends for many years. For this mixed recital, Hubert Rutkowski plays a Pleyel instrument from 1847, during Camille’s stewardship of the firm. The most substantial works are the G minor Ballade and the B minor Scherzo, which makes so much of that glistening upper register. There is also the C sharp minor Fantaisie-Impromptu, the B flat minor Polonaise and a selection of mazurkas, nocturnes, etude and waltz. The pianist is a President of the Chopin Society in Hamburg, and has also played and recorded under the theme of Chopin’s pupils: he is among the most distinguished Chopin pianists of our day.
SYMPHONIE NO. 2
Dance / Vieaux, Escher Quartet
Grammy Award winner Jason Vieaux joins forces with the esteemed Escher Quartet to produce a recording with some new and old works with dance themes in common. These three works may share elements of dance-inspired music, and contain actual allusions to specific dances in the titles (or expressive markings) of certain movements, but that is where the similarities end. These guitar quintets, all from very different periods, couldn’t be any more different from each other in style, timbre, texture and dynamics. They show the musical range and flexibility of the guitar within a more traditional chamber music group setting.
Carulli: Musica per due chitarre / Bonelli, Volta
A lot has been written but little has been told about the Neapolitan Ferdinando Carulli, considered the founder of nineteenth-century technique and didactical teaching of the guitar; his figure as composer (he left us an endless number of compositions), represents an essential reference for the study of the guitar. This album, performed by Sandro Volta and Mauro Bonelli, is focused on one of the least considered aspects, yet very important for the formation of a musician: the music for two guitars in its fundamental meaning: on one hand exquisitely concertistic pieces, on the other hand dedicated to pure didactics - real “Lessons” - for which the compositions for two performers are particularly important. The interpretation of these works by Ferdinando Carulli was developed on the basis of the use of two period guitars with catgut strings from the collection of Lorenzo Frignani, in Modena, and on a “historically informed” performance practice. The result is aesthetically quite different from that obtained with modern instruments: its distinctive qualities are a more audible “noise” when the fingers pluck the strings or run over them, a more marked difference in the timbres of the various ranges, and also a particular lightness of sound.
Sauli: Six Partitas for Solo Mandolin / Rebuffa
The absolute rarity represented by this world premiere concerning the historic mandolin is offered to us by the rediscovery and performance of the specialist Davide Rebuffa, that, on two original eighteenth century instruments brings to light the Six Partitas for solo mandolin by Filippo Sauli. Unfortunately we do not have much information about the life of the composer of Florentine origins, but we know that he was hired in Vienna at the Hapsburg court in the early eighteenth century when he probably composed this music that, as compared to the seventeenth-century manuscripts (whose content consists of simple dances, not yet in extended musical forms such as Suites or Sonatas), mark an important change in the nature of the mandolin repertoire of the Baroque period.
Gervasio: Sonate a mandolino e basso
Scarlatti: Opera omnia per tastira, Vol. 6
HORN CONCERTOS NO. 1-4
Inner Chambers: Royal Court Music of Louis XIV / Les Ordinaires
Musical life at the court of Louis XIV was elaborate and spectacular, but what kind of music did the Sun King enjoy on withdrawing from public gaze? This album reveals the intimate sound world inside the private chambers of the grand royal palaces, exploring the depths of human emotion that Baroque art sought to express. The softly expressive combination of traverse, viola da gamba and theorbo was known as the Royal Trio, called upon for such duties as the official retirement-to-bed ceremony. Lully’s Chaconne ‘pour le Coucher du Roi’ provides a fitting close to this rich and fascinating programme.
History Of The Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 2 / The Brahms Trio
The Russian piano trio reached its apogee with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, dedicated to the memory of Nikolay Rubinstein. A monumental piece in the repertoire, it is cast in only two movements, and was played at Tchaikovsky’s own memorial concert two years after its composition. Paul Pabst’s Piano Trio in A major is less well known. Composed in memory of Nikolay Rubinstein’s brother, Anton, it is a work of exceptional virtuosity and flowing lyricism, with unpredictable harmonies, a delightful Intermezzo and a tour de force of a Finale.
Boston Symphony Commissions / Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra
Krouse: Symphony No. 5 - Fanfare for the Heroes of the Korean War - Symphonies of Strings Nos. 1 & 2
Onslow: String Quintets, Vol. 2 / Elan Quintet
It was Robert Schumann who praised the Anglo-French Georges Onslow, alongside Mendelssohn, as one of the successors to the chamber music legacy of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. His string quintets were intended for a market of cultivated amateurs, with parts for a second cello or bass. No. 10 in F minor, Op. 32 reflects Beethoven’s influence, its Sturm und Drang elements revealing a masterly balance between the stable and unpredictable. No. 22 in E flat major, lively and playful, offers an almost Schubertian songfulness. Of the first volume, Gramphone wrote: ‘these five players make a beguiling case for this music.’ The combination of string quartet with double bass has opened up a richness of tone and distinct soundscape that the Elan Quintet has dedicated to exploring, celebrating works by renowned composers such as Schubert, Dvorak and Cambini, working with contemporary artists in creating new works for quintet, and rediscovering neglected masterpieces by composers including Onslow and Bridge. The members of the Elan Quintet, Benjamin Scherer Quesada, Lelia Iancovici, Julia Chu-Ying Hu, Dmitri Tsirin, and Matthew Baker, formed the ensemble in Valencia in 2014 having worked with each other extensively in the opera orchestra of the Palau de les Arts as well as in masterclasses and in chamber music.
Shostakovich: The Bedbug & Love and Hate / Fitz-Gerald, Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic
Shostakovich was still a young composer when he was hired to provide incidental music for The Bedbug, a surreal and farcical satire on Communist utopian dreams and bourgeois corruption and vulgarity. He produced a terrifically knockabout score that draws on local fireman’s bands and American dance music. Illustrated by Shostakovich’s powerful middle-period music, Love and Hate is a film about female fortitude set in a mining village during the 1919 Civil War. The innovative score, newly reconstructed by Mark Fitz-Gerald from rough piano sketches and the 1935 soundtrack, combines symphonic sections with popular songs.
Wiren: String Quartets Nos. 2-5 / Wiren Quartet
The tapestry of drama, refinement and expressive lyricism in Dag Wiren’s four string quartets (the First Quartet was withdrawn) provides a substantial overview of his musical evolution over 35 years. His earlier works are more accessible than challenging, as demonstrated by the relaxed and affirmative Second and Third Quartets. The Fourth Quartet is more somber, with nods towards Sibelius and Shostakovich, and in the Fifth, completed not long before Wiren’s retirement as a composer, the easy confidence of the earlier quartets has been replaced by a mood of pessimism and uncertainty. The Wiren Quartet was formed in 1994 with Hans Elvkull and Linn Elvkull, who are still part of the ensemble. Roger Olsson and Hanna Thorell have been members since 2003. All four musicians play in the internationally renowned Swedish Chamber Orchestra.
Harbison: Requiem / Guerrero, Nashville Symphony
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REVIEW:
The Requiem is original and striking, but in a relatively traditional mold, with gorgeous solo lines—the thread of melody that runs through the piece unifies and humanises it—choral and vocal counterpoint that dates to the Baroque but in modern tonal harmonies, and a richness of emotional depth and harmonic and textural intricacy that make it a more than worthy addition to the distinguished tradition of concert requiems.
– Records International
