Violinist Augustin Hadelich embarks on an American Road Trip, travelling the musical highways and by ways of his adoptive homeland in the company of pianist Orion Weiss. The duo perform works by a melting pot of American composers, writing in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and drawing on a diversity of idioms, influences and inspirations... from European Romanticism to revivalist hymns; from blues and jazz to bluegrass; from the banjo and ukulele to Jimi Hendrix's guitar, and from a little Mexican star to exquisite Japanese carvings. Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ives and John Adams take their place beside Amy Beach, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Eddie South, Howdy Forrester, Manuel M. Ponce and - flying the flag for today's composers along with Adams - Daniel Bernard Roumain and Stephen Hartke. Augustin Hadelich, born in Italy to German parents, moved to the USA at the age of 19 to study at New York's Juilliard School and became an American citizen in 2014. In the words of The Strad magazine, "Hadelich's playing brings together the best qualities of both American and European playing: passion, Polish and coherence, but also thoughtfulness, expressivity and nuance."

The new program by French baroque violinist H�l�ne Schmitt moves along a French-American axis and features six violin sonatas by female composers from both sides of the Atlantic. These are small-scale works, full of warmth and sensitivity, ranging from pure Romanticism to the cautious breaking away from tonality. The instruments are played with gut strings, and the Steinway grand piano is a historic model made in New York; pianist Antoine de Grol�e accompanies eloquently and sensitively.

Why our title Bliss? It is a word that evokes a joy so perfect, so blessed, that it transcends daily life and is distilled into the work of art. The songs contained in this album explore the sentiment of love in it's several aspects, shading from feelings of desire to regret for absence, from passion to surrender, from tenderness to melancholy. Amy Beach, C�cile Chaminade and Gilda Ruta transformed the evocative power of love poetry into music, capturing in their canti d'amore moments of pure ecstasy and heartrending beauty. But Bliss refers not only to the ecstasy of love: it is also an ecstasy of artistic creation, the act of expression by which these composers gave voice to their sentiments, unrefined and in absolute sincerity.

After a 'spellbinding' album for Alpha devoted to her American roots (Alpha1071), pianist Claire Huangci now celebrates female composers, acknowledging: 'The realities these women faced are difficult to imagine for any modern woman in the field.' Clara Wieck (who became Schumann after her marriage to Robert in 1840) was a mother of eight and the main breadwinner, constantly on tour. Fanny Hensel composed largely in private. Often publishing under her brother's name. Amy Beach's career was practically silenced during her marriage; only upon her husband's death did she return to the stage. Florence Price faced both racial and gender discrimination and later raised two children alone. Across the centuries, the voices of these women reach us thanks to musicians like Claire: 'In their music, we don't just hear history. We hear transformation. Heroines is my way of listening back-and adding my voice to theirs.'

For her first project at Cypres, young Belgian pianist Cassandre Marfin thinks big and has come up with Jusqu'a la nuit, a triptych devoted to chromesthesia, one of the many forms of synesthesia known to date. Synesthesia refers to the general alliance of two senses within the brain of an individual. Chromesthesia, on the other hand, refers specifically to the association between colours and sounds. Each volume of this trilogy is dedicated to a primary colour: blue, yellow and red. This first volume focuses on blue, which is undoubtedly the colour most present in music and the one most appreciated in the Western world. According to Cassandre Marfin, it evokes the world of night and dreams, something intangible and indefinite. It is a source of multiple representations in our imaginations. Through a skilfully conceived programme, the pianist associates this colour with ideas, metaphors and compositional systems that allow us to form our own personal impression of blue.

The album "Present Reflections" offers an anthology of Amy Beach's piano works, showcasing her remarkable compositional talent and stylistic range-from expressive virtuosity to deep interpretative intimacy. This distinctive quality is due not only to her extraordinary gift but also to several factors: the profound cultural shifts she experienced between the late 19th and early 20th centuries-bridging late Romanticism, the emergence of the avant-garde, and the advent of jazz-and her unmistakable emotional expressiveness. Despite the strict, self-imposed discipline of her compositional process (she was entirely self-taught), her style remains deeply personal and authentic in every work. Looking back in time, beginning with her later compositions, one can observe a radical evolution in her writing. These works are not only a significant contribution to American piano literature but also a testament to the transformation of an era-one that slips away from the present to become almost immediately part of the past. In this way, Present Reflections becomes a mirror of today's world, reflecting the epochal changes of which we are all a part. Mrs. Beach's incredible talent, which enabled her to emerge as one of the greatest composers of her time, tells the story of both women and men-transcending the limitations imposed by society and leaving behind a musical legacy that deserves not only rediscovery but celebration. Katia Spluga

Her Story rather than "His Story": On her new GENUIN album, the remarkable Austrian pianist Mitra Kotte reexamines music history, placing women composers of the 19th and 20th centuries at the forefront. How many people truly know the works of Dora Pejacevic, Louise Farrenc, Cecile Chaminade, or Emilie Mayer as they deserve? Mitra Kotte, a prizewinner at international competitions, sheds light on a long-overlooked chapter of music. With great passion and the highest technical mastery, she introduces us to exquisite gems and profound works that leave us marveling both visually and aurally!

What would it mean to 'compose like a woman'? The present collection answers the question, in a literal sense, while undoing the premise on which the question was asked in the first place. In social and historical terms, it means enjoying privileges of upbringing, education, and/or wealth that were historically denied to the vast majority of women. It means, on the part of the women represented here, a single-minded determination in pursuit of their vocation, helping them to overcome prejudice and sexism in a cultural, social and political milieu that has consistently denied women the opportunity to find and express their own voice in music. Only with movements of emancipation in the last century, and much more rapidly in the last 50 years, has this situation begun to be addressed and corrected. What composing like a woman does not mean - as the music in this collection makes clear - is a definable set of qualities or characteristics to the music itself which would distinguish the work of female composers from the music composed by men.

This remarkable set gathers many individual recordings of music by women composers, which Brilliant Classics has quietly yet actively championed in their catalogue for decades, uniting it with exciting new outings, so that a comprehensive historical picture of the highly varied struggles and successes of women composers through the ages to our present time are chronicled and celebrated.

Other information:

- Recordings date from 1994-2024

- Booklet in English contains liner notes by Peter Quantrill

- The revival of interest in female classical composers reflects a growing recognition of their overlooked contributions to music history.

For centuries, women composers were marginalized, their works overshadowed by their male counterparts. However, recent efforts by musicians, scholars, and institutions have brought these composers into the spotlight, highlighting the richness and diversity of their compositions.

- This renewed focus stems from a broader movement toward inclusivity in the arts, challenging traditional narratives that have historically excluded women. The rise of feminist musicology has also played a key role, offering fresh perspectives on these composers' lives and works.

- This comprehensive box set offers a wide spectrum of works by female composers, from the Medieval mystic Hildegard Von Bingen (1098-1179), through the Renaissance Isabella Leonarda (baptized 1620-1704), Francesca Caccini (1587-1640) und Barbara Strozzi (baptized 1619-1677), traversing the Baroque and Classical eras, and arriving in the contemporary field, with composers such as Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) and Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969).

- A long due homage to the art and voice of female composers, spanning nearly a thousand years!

Hildegard And Her Sisters, Katelyn Bouska, piano. After our first success with Women and War and Peace, Katelyn Bouska put a big smile on my face when she mentioned a second project she wanted to do with Yarlung Records. Kate can play any genre, and we discussed an album celebrating the great composer, mystic, poet, philosopher, scientist, rabble-rouser and visionary abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard is the first composer for whom we have a definite name in the European canon. She was born in 1098 and died in 1179 at 81 years of age. I was even more enthusiastic when we discussed that Kate and Yarlung would commission new music for the project in Hildegard's honor. To help place Hildegard in wider European history, she was born a mere 32 years after the Battle of Hastings, 47 years before the start of construction of Chartres Cathedral, and Henry IV was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire after inheriting Charlemagne's throne in Aachen. Kate wanted to return to Samueli Theater at Segerstrom Center for the Arts where we made our first recording together. Aaron Egigian was able to secure dates over Easter Weekend, March 29th, 30th and 31st, 2024, when the concert hall, Kate and our team were available. My fellow recording engineer Arian Jansen and I set up for the recording before Kate arrived, and while I do not believe in frequent divine intervention for such things, we asked Hildegard to "bless the more than 50 vacuum tubes" that we would need to be working perfectly for the recording. With or without Hildegard's intercession, all vacuum tubes worked beautifully for the duration without hiss, pop or crackle. Because Hildegard is best known for her vocal music, we decided to record this album as if Kate's piano were a full choir, stretching from far left to far right in the soundstage. Thanks to the superb acoustics in Samueli Theater, you may hear ambience and extreme high and low notes on Kate's keyboard expanding outside your speakers in your listening room. Unconventional as this may be for a solo piano recording, this was intentional such that the listener can experience more of the sound Kate enjoyed sitting at the piano, as if our ears are Kate's ears while she plays.

A wide-ranging introduction to the distinctive compositional voice of Amy Beach through her solo piano music, featuring both well-known and unfamiliar pieces. While Amy Beach is now among the best-known female composers of classical music history, her story becomes more remarkable as details of it are disseminated. The pianist Mark Viner introduces her life and music in a detailed but approachable essay to accompany this new recording of her piano music on Piano Classics. She was essentially self-taught, and a prodigy to match any previous celebrated male examples, at least in technica l terms. She translated Berlioz's treatise on orchestration in order to use it herself. She became a formidably accomplished pianist in her own right, but was then prevented from giving more than two recitals a year by her husband. Beach continued to compose, however, and steadly so through the last decade of the 19th century and well into the 20th. The earliest piece on Martina Frezzotti's recital is also one of her most familiar, the nocturne Dreaming from 1892, in which she emulates a Chopin model with piano writing that's deceptively simple on the page but uniquely haunting on the ear. The album's most substantial work is the 25-minute Variations on Balkan Themes, from 1904. The four themes in question were passed on to her by a missionary to the region, and the piece amounts to a proud cry for Serbian nationalism in the post-Lisztian style. Through it's course, Beach writes in the style of a barcarolle, a parlour waltz, a funeral march, a Hungarian dance and much more, weaving together her material with a sure hand. Beach's own skill as a pianist surely contributes to the soft tonal shades she conjures in her transcription of Richard Strauss's song St�ndchen. She also explored the possibilities of making accurate musical transcriptions of birdsong decades before Olivier Messiaen did so, and her most celebrated work in this vein is the achingly beautiful Hermit-Thrush at Eve from 1922. Martina Frezzotti's album of Fanny Mendelssohn for Piano Classics (PCL10238) won enthusiastic praise from David Hurwitz on a video review for Classics Today. According to pianodao. Com (Andrew Eales), 'Frezzotti proves a brilliant advocate for these pieces in this recording, combining a poetic sensibility with the necessary weight and flair to showcase the more dazzling elements of Mendelssohn's piano writing. The recording is bright, reverberant and luminous.

Classical Music

The Ambache is a flexible group fo from three to thirty players. Since its formation in 1984, it has become known for its performances and for the cohesiveness of its collaborative, unconducted teamwork. The Ambache is famous for its championship of music by women composers. Their previous recording of Amy Beach (CHAN9752) was given a Rosette in the Penguin Guide to CDs. Recorded in: St Michael's Church, Highgate, London 28-30 October 2002 Producer(s) Rachel Smith Sound Engineer(s) Jonathan Cooper Matthew Walker (Assistant)

Includes work(s) for cello and piano by various composers. Soloists: Steven Isserlis, Stephen Hough, Simon Callow.

CORO Welcomes The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, to the label.

In their first recording for CORO, The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, under the direction of Mark Williams, explore the repertoire that has provided the bedrock of the college’s musical life for the last 500 years, all of which was written for the end of the day.

Much music associated with evening time is naturally calm and soothing, satisfying those seeking transcendental beauty in the form of unchallenging ‘sound baths’. However, this collection also seeks to challenge, contrasting contemporary settings with music from the 16th century. We hope, through this range of works, to capture something of that liminal space between day and night characterized by Evensong and to lead the listener into that ‘peace that passes all understanding’.

The album showcases works by composers from John Sheppard to Joanna Marsh and features much-loved pieces such as Hubert Parry’s Lord, let me know mine end and John Tavener’s The Lord’s Prayer, as well as new additions to the Evensong repertoire such as Grayston Ives’ In pace and Piers Connor Kennedy’s O nata lux.

The idea for this recording was born during the Covid pandemic in 2020, when many of us were isolated and unable to communicate with each other in person. It was difficult for musicians during this time, especially because they couldn't make music with others or give live concerts. This situation made us think about how composers, musicians and artists dealt with situations where there was no freedom and how they dealt with chaos, obstacles or persecution. In selecting the works for this album, we looked at different historical periods (which sometimes included pandemics) to understand the impact that oppression and lack of freedom had on the creative process. In the course of our extensive research, we finally became aware of the "positive" aspect of this topic: we were not so much interested in what people could not do due to restrictive situations and adverse circumstances, but above all in what they were able to achieve despite these circumstances. During our research, we came across impressive artistic personalities who have left behind music of great value.

Winners of the First Prize at the inaugural Birmingham International Piano Chamber Music Competition, violinist Usha Kapoor and pianist Edward Leung present an album of violin sonatas by American composers Amy Beach and John Corigliano. The album features Beach’s large-scale chamber work of 1896, the Sonata for Violin and Piano Op. 34, and her earlier Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23 from 1893, together with Corigliano’s Sonata for Violin and Piano. Completed in 1963, this work was originally called ‘Duo’ and is very much intended for two equal musical partners.

Fresh off a successful Rachmaninoff project, Duo Genova & Dimitrov turns to the American composer Amy Beach. Her compositional oeuvre marks a high point in the phase of consolidation experienced by U.S. art music between the Civil War and World War I. Amy Beach was not the first American woman who composed, nor the first to earn money with her compositions, but she created a stir in the music world by forging ahead into genres in which previously only men had garnered wide acclaim. However, it was above all the piano that was Amy Beach’s lifelong companion.

She honored her instrument with solo compositions in a total of twenty-six opus numbers distributed equally over her entire compositional career, from the 1880s to the 1930s. Even though her music for piano four hands and for two pianos is limited to a few compositions, they all attest to their author’s talent. The original version of Amy Beach’s Variations on Balkan Themes op. 60 is her most extensive composition for piano two hands and the one that is the most challenging in playing technique. At the same time, the variations represent one of her most significant endorsements of folk music.

REVIEWS:

Genova and Dimitrov perform this technically demanding and richly imagined music with enormous affection and flair, conjuring its atmospheres and textures seamlessly, as if with one mind. A must-hear album for all who want to explore Beach’s highly rewarding output.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Aglika Genova and Liuben Dimitrov are a polished duo, unfailingly musical, with an ensemble precision that sits well with their two superbly matched instruments. The disc, very well recorded, comes with an exhaustively detailed booklet and is a valuable addition to the Beach discography.

-- Gramophone

As a second generation Korean-American woman, violinist Dawn Wohn notes that it has not always been easy to relate to the world of classical music, which is still largely Euro- and male-centric. Since delving into the diverse world of female composers, I have felt much joy, connection, and ownership to the music that I perform. To be able to champion this repertoire feels unbounded— joyful and limitless. I am particularly excited to share this album, which celebrates the music of American women, as performed by two American women.

There is no denying that historically, female composers have faced challenges. Amy Beach was unable to take composition lessons or have a performing career for most of her life, as it was deemed improper for a married woman. The two Black composers on this album, Dorothy Rudd Moore and Irene Britton Smith, faced further struggles for widespread recognition during their lifetimes, due to the classical world’s long reluctance to admit works by minority composers into the performing canon.

In an ideal world, there would be no need to call attention to the race or gender of these composers. In doing so, my concern is that the composers or their works will be overshadowed or grouped together by those labels. Just as Moore cautioned against typecasting, stating that “there are many Black artists in all disciplines and each is an individual with his or her unique experiences,” it is important to listen to and recognize each composer as an individual.

However, an all-male composer program would not raise questions on how to present it without diminishing the music or pigeon- holing the music or the composers. So, with this album, I choose to amplify and celebrate music by these four composers and all they have created through adversity. I relate deeply to the optimism, humor and beauty in these works, and hope that it inspires the listener.

REVIEW:

The two artists play with passion and elegantly the music of four composers defined not by gender or ethnicity but by the kind of tenacity that helped them achieve the often seemingly unreachable acceptance of the music establishment. Highly recommended!

-- All About the Arts (Rafael de Acha)

This was my first encounter with the music of Amy Beach, an American pianist and composer of the early 1900s. I was thunderstruck by it. I asked fellow European and American musicians, pianists, conductors, soloists and musicologists who gravitate around my Theater (Teatro alla Scala, Milano) if they had any information on her, but to no avail. No one knew her. Some had heard her name, but no one had actually listened to her compositions. Today I can say that Amy Beach is almost unknown in America. I can also say that she is unknown in Europe, given the caliber of the musicians I talked to about her, and the fact that they hadn’t heard of her. Starting with manuscripts requested from the University of New Hampshire, I began transcribing four pieces and a sonata, originally written for Violin and Cello and Piano, into a version for Viola and Piano. I discovered that, not only the music, but also the incredible life of Mrs. H. H. A. Beach (that is how she signed her compositions) is a beautiful novel that remained locked in a drawer all this time. In fact, I have every intention of reopening that drawer through this CD and through the musical edition that printed my transcriptions for Viola and Piano. I believe that the instrument of the Viola and its alto key have given a new color to this music, enhancing it, but never altering its true essence. Born with this CD is a project of popularization and knowledge of Amy Beach's compositions and life story, a story and music that are at once incredibly modern and of other times. Matteo Amadasi

After the great success of their first Solo Musica CD "Hymne à la Beauté", Sonja and Astrid Leutwyler this time recorded further discoveries for the special instrumentation of voice, violin and piano. A great enrichment of the trio with pianist Benjamin Engeli is cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger. In this second album "Secret Nights", better-known works contrast with rarities inspired by the mysteries of the night and nature. Carl Reinecke, who influenced early Romanticism with his intimate forms of expression, is represented with a small cycle. With Camille Saint-Saëns' song "Le bonheur est chose légère", French Romanticism makes itself heard. The central element of this concept album are works by female composers of the 19th century. Anyone who wanted to make her way as a female composer in past centuries had a hard time. It was not uncommon for women to be forbidden to make music and compose. After all, if it was a question of practising a profession in this field, it was considered unseemly, especially in the upper classes, for a woman of her status to want to earn money. In this new album, three female composers are represented with several works. With one exception, their poems set to music are by women poets. Amy Marcy Beach was the first American woman to compose a symphony. She was also a highly talented autodidact who could sing 40 different melodies at the age of three and is represented here with several songs. Lili Boulanger is the younger sister of the world-famous music teacher Nadia Boulanger. In Lili's short life - she died at the age of 24 - she wrote a total of 50 compositions. Her sensitive Nocturne can also be heard on this CD "Secret Nights".

Solungga Liu has been acclaimed as a pianist of great breadth. She is a champion of early twentieth-century American music and underrepresented works of the standard repertoire. She is also known as an uncanny interpreter of new music. The American Record Guide described her recording “The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan: Piano Works of Charles Tomlinson Griffes” for Centaur Records, as having, “excellent sound, sensitivity and beguiling color,” to which the Seattle Post-Intelligencer added, “This is an excellent recording. Liu has done justice to this sometime overlooked body of work with her playing, as she pays tribute to a unique and evocative composer.”

One of them was, according to contemporaries, a veritable child prodigy of Mozartian dimensions, the other was described by her friend Edvard Grieg as "one of his favorites" after her early death. There must have been two very special women whose works present in their latest publication by Miriam Terragni and Catherine Sarasin - The highly talented Amy Beach grew up in the USA and later made extensive tours also through Europe in addition to her work as a composer, Amanda Maier-Röntgen settled with her husband in Amsterdam after studies in Stockholm and Leipzig, where she managed a very active musical house. In the Romantic period, works for the flute were almost as rare as women composers, and the flute had fallen out of fashion as a solo instrument. Entirely unjustly, the Swiss duo thinks, and so they repeatedly take works for the violin as the basis for arrangements. In the case of these two sonatas, an extremely worthwhile project!

It is difficult to imagine a more touching sound than the gentle voice of a cello accompanied by the sweet tones of a Spanish guitar. In fact, for Nicole Peña Comas and Damien Lancelle, these two instruments sound so amorous together that they require an entire album to express all facets of love: passion, tenderness and lust, the burning desire of new lovers and affection for friends and family. Masterpieces by Tchaikovsky, Liszt or Robert Schumann as well as undiscovered treasures by August Nölck or Amy Beach have been selected and arranged for cello and guitar because they all set love to music.

Classical Music

Amy Beach (1873-1942) was probably the first woman composer to gain attention for writing successfully in the large forms of the nineteenth century: symphony, concerto, oratorio and chamber music. But it is in her songs and solo piano music that we glimpse a more private and intimate Beach. Beach produced more than 120 songs, only a few of which are known to the general public. This superb CD presents 22 of Beach’s finest songs, a selection which ranges from some of her earliest published efforts through her later brooding masterpieces. American baritone Patrick Mason is accompanied on this recording by leading Beach specialist, pianist Joanne Polk. Together, Mason and Polk’s penetrating interpretations make an excellent case for these songs as major English language song literature.