Of all the great composers of classical modernism, Bartok undoubtedly made the most significant contributions to violin chamber music. The Latvian-Armenian violinist Georg Sargsyan and the Australian pianist James Maddox present two major works from this repertoire. The piano sonata, the only contribution to the genre in the composer's otherwise extensive piano oeuvre, rounds off the program.

BARTOK: PIANO CONCERTO NO 1, M

For it's first recording for BIS Records, the Marmen Quartet tackles three major works from the twentieth-century string quartet literature. The two quartets by Gyorgy Ligeti belong to two different periods in the composer's output. Written before Ligeti left Hungary and emigrated to the West, the First, subtitled 'Metamorphoses nocturnes', represents the peak of his 'Hungarian' period. Regarded as a virtuoso exercise, the work reveals the influences of Bela Bartok, particularly from his Third and Fourth Quartets. Ligeti's Second Quartet belongs to his second period, particularly rich in significant works. Considered by the composer as a response to the works of his illustrious predecessors such as Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok and Berg, the Second Quartet, with it's calculated anarchy, dynamic extremes and sublime climaxes, is not only one of Ligeti's masterpieces but also a true classic of modernism. Bela Bartok's Fourth Quartet, which had a particularly strong influence on Ligeti, is widely seen as one of his most radical; it requires high levels of technical accomplishment from the performers, yet reveals a deep understanding of the instruments, and draws an unprecedented range of colour and character from them.

It was more than just breathing together in the music that made this relationship so extraordinary: Seiji Ozawa earned the respect and affection of the orchestra from the very first time he met the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1966. The young Japanese conductor knew exactly what he wanted on the podium and knew the scores down to the smallest detail. Nevertheless, the always polite and approachable conductor never imposed his views on the orchestra. The result was a partnership on an equal footing, which was not only rewarding on a personal level, but above all enabled music-making in which there was always room for freedom and spontaneity. Our edition is a tribute to this special friendship with Seiji Ozawa, who the Berliner Philharmoniker made an honorary member in 2016.

Idil Biret wanted to record the many waltz transcriptions of Godowsky and others. Chief among these was the transcription of the Johann Strauss' waltz Kiinstlerleben by Godowsky which she had performed at many concerts in the l 970s and the Blue Danube Waltz. However, there was another project scheduled before that; four Haydn Sonatas, some of the most beautiful among the many he composed. When Idil suddenly fell ill in 2021 both projects were abandoned. Then, miraculously a stupendous recording of her performance of Kiinstlerleben in New York in December 1975 surfaced on the internet which led to reembarking on the project in a somewhat different way. The result is this CD, a compilation of Biret's past performances of Waltzes and Dances from many composers including Bartok, Berlioz, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Ravel, Stravinsky and, of course, Leopold Godowsky - his piano transcription of the Strauss waltz Kiinstlerleben "Metamorphosis on Themes from Artist's Life"

Works For Cello And Piano

DANCES Music by Ye, Bartok, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, de Falla Arranged by Shen Ye and Dai Weiyi Zhi-Jong Wang, violin Ensemble Epoch Experience the captivating artistry of Zhi-Jong Wang and her innovative chamber orchestra, Ensemble Epoch, with their latest album release, "Dances". Founded in 2021 by graduates of the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Ensemble Epoch is redefining the boundaries of classical music performance. "Dances" brings together an eclectic mix of compositions and arrangements, showcasing the ensemble's remarkable versatility and unity. From the ethereal beauty of Shen Ye's "Prelude" to the vibrant rhythms of Bartok's "Romanian Folk Dances," this album is a testament to the ensemble's dynamic range. The imaginative arrangements by contemporary composers Shen Ye and Dai Weiyi breathe new life into beloved classics such as Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" and Brahms' "Hungarian Dances". The album culminates in a breathtaking rendition of Manuel de Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance," demonstrating the ensemble's exceptional skill and passion. Zhi-Jong Wang's visionary leadership and violin artistry paired with the ensemble's cohesive performance style create a unique listening experience that transcends traditional classical music forms. Each track on "Dances" is a journey into a world of musical exploration, where the intimate connection between musicians and audience comes alive.

Béla Bartók is one of the unquestionably “great” composers and one of the few modern composers who established themselves in the repertoire. His three piano concertos are central to his biography and musical output, but only the Third, with some generosity, could be considered “popular.” Although well represented on disc, the first two are rare concert program guests. Tzimon Barto sees a problem in an all-too-mechanical approach to these two percussive works: “Even Bartók needs a supple touch. If you bang away at it, without rhythmical buoyancy, of course it will become tedious.” These recordings are his attempt at doing justice to his Bartók-ideal.

REVIEW:

Christoph Eschenbach and Tzimon Barto have a long history of collaboration. Bartók, too, has long been a frequent composer on Eschenbach’s programs.

In these recordings, the two musicians offer very special, unconventional interpretations. They are not interested in motoric coolness, in hard-edged virtuosity, but in a very interesting way they search for moods and a narrative that cannot be found in the many other good interpretations of the Bartók concertos. Not with Zimermann/Boulez, not with Bavouzet/Noseda, not with Kocsis/Fischer, and, going back even further, not with Anda/Fricsay.

Eschenbach and Barto take their time with the music and, with remarkable transparency and many warm colors, create sometimes very mysterious and exciting passages, such as in the slow movement of the first concerto, or a wonderfully atmospheric Allegretto, which, at nine and a half minutes, lasts up to two minutes longer than with other interpreters. Even more astonishing is the greatly extended Adagio religioso, which at nearly 14 minutes is up to four and a half minutes longer than other recordings used for comparison.

All in all, however, this new recording is definitely interesting and worth listening to, because it brings out new aspects and gives Bartók a variety of expression that cannot be found anywhere else.

— Pizzicato

Classical Music

Bartok’s For Children series, although a pedagogical work, contains little pieces which were partly also designed for concert performance. The later Mikrokosmos is in this respect different since it was conceived as a special piano method and also because the first two volumes of the altogether six volumes contain simple exercises and studies never intended for the concert hall. The composer himself pointed out this difference in a lecture recital held at American Universities and Colleges in the early 1940s. It was during this period of his voluntary exile in the United States that he discussed with his publisher, Boosey and Hawkes, the possibility of a new edition of this series composed three decades earlier and unavailable on the market in the US because of the war. The version which Bartok prepared for publication in 1943 was in fact a partly revised, almost a lightly “translated,” one directed towards an international, first of all English and American public, unfamiliar with the history and folklore of Eastern Europe. It was finally published in this revised form in 1946, shortly after the composer’s death.

Il était une fois... Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà (DVD)

First time collaboration between the Zemlinsky Quartet and Paolo Giacometti. A must for anyone interested in the great tradition of Mitteleuropa chamber music. A unique coupling of two beautiful works rarely recorded and underrated by discography. The two Quintets were composed within a ten year span (1904-1914), a period of fantastic musical flourishing. Zemlinsky Quartet belongs to the glorious�tradition of Centre-European string quartets, characterized by nobility and spontaneity�of expression, flawless technique, lack of mannersisms, profound�and humble insight of the score.

For almost his entire life, Bela Bartok's music was unnoticed by the general public, this extraordinary composer created a unique cosmos of Hungarian/Southeast European folk and art music. Like Schonberg and Stravinsky, he is one of the protagonists of 20th century music. A few years after his death, his music became a bestseller and this success is once again reaching unimagined heights in our time. Accordionist Teodoro Anzellotti presents an individual selection of Bartok's masterpieces.

Bartok, B.: Violin Concerto No. 2 / Contrasts / Violin Sonat

A coproduction with Sudewestrundfunk

Leo� Jan�cek and the generation younger B�la Bart�k and Igor Stravinsky were major 20th-century composers markedly influenced by folk music, bringing it to bear in their own creations. Jan�cek and Bart�k also keenly devoted to folklore as theoreticians and collected folk songs around the villages. Stravinsky, for his part, was mesmerised by folk rituals. A case in point is Les noces, which in four choreographed scenes depicts Russian wedding customs. Following significant revisions of the instrumentation, the fourth, definitive, version of the piece received it's world premiere in 1923 in Paris, as performed by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, to Bronislava Nijinska's choreography. Jan�cek conceived his Nursery Rhymes at the age of 71, shortly after completing the opera The Makropulous Case. He too made changes to the instrumentation before arriving at a satisfactory form. The second version of the set bears witness to Jan�cek's being enthralled by Stravinsky's music. The Three Village Scenes for female voices and chamber orchestra feature arrangements of folk tunes Bart�k collected in the Zvolen district in today�s Slovakia. The set is evidently influenced by Stravinsky's style as well. The three challenging works have been undertaken by Luk� Vasilek conducting the outstanding Prague Philharmonic Choir, which on numerous occasions have displayed it's exceptional qualities and a great sense for performing music inspired by folk art. The album links up to the highly acclaimed recording of Bohuslav Martinu's cantatas (Gramophone Editor's Choice, nomination for the BBC Music Magazine Award). The rediscovered magic of folk songs and traditional rituals in the music of three 20th-century masters.

Bartok: Complete Works for Piano Solo "Since my childhood I have felt a strong affinity with the music of Bartok, which I sensed from an early age to be particularly honest and truthful. The time I spent with it gave me the opportunity to discover aspects of myself to which I should otherwise have had little access. The complete recording of Bartok's works for piano gave me the chance to experience this music even more intensively than before and to gain a better understanding of Bartok's artistic journey, to recognize the young Bartok in the late composer and the late Bartok in the young man. At the same time, I wanted to make a recording that shows Bartok from other angles than those often highlighted." Andreas Bach

This fascinating recital features three works composed during a short period of tremendous upheaval in the world of music. Szymanowski's Mythes: Trois Poèmes, op. 30 was composed in 1915, Dohnányi's Sonata, op. 21 in 1912, and Bartók's Sonata No. 1 in 1920-21. Violinist Elizabeth Chang writes that "the crosscurrents of multiculturalism and the pursuit of a national identity separate from the prevailing Germanic legacy, are topics with searing relevance to the early 21st century. Probing the connections among the densely intertwined web of musicians of this time yields insight into an inflection point in musical history that unleashed the wildly divergent paths that music composition took as the twentieth century unfolded." This recording presents beautifully detailed performances of three important pieces, performed by two leading virtuosi.

Enoch Arden is an important work by Richard Strauss that is unfortunately seldom performed. Set to words by Alfred Lord Tennyson, it was originally composed with a German translation of the text. Here, the original Tennyson text is untilized, and wonderfully narrated by Marina Sirtis, who was a star of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as counselor Deanna Troi.

In the 20th Century, as new song forms emerged worldwide, including genres like jazz, rock, and pop, the classical art song of the 19th Century gradually lost popularity. A singer, a piano, poems of love and death, and a romantic tonal language: the leading art form of the bourgeois salon increasingly became a musical niche for lovers and aficionados. The heyday of the European art song, which began in the middle of the 18th century, came to an end at the beginning of the 20th century.

However, composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály took a different path: they renewed the art song by returning it to its folk origins. The most fascinating aspect of their work was not just their painstaking ethnomusicological field research. While they preserved Hungarian folk music, recording (as best they could at the time) and notating this music, they also allowed it to inspire their own compositions.

At a time when many musicians appropriated folk music for political reasons, Bartók and Kodály created genuine folk art that did not pander or simplify, but spoke of feelings that directly touched its listeners.

October 29, 1923 - a date steeped in history. In the midst of a year of political and economic crisis, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde", from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. The composers assembled on this album not only profited from these developments, but also, in part, actively shaped them.

The composer Ernst Toch experienced the crisis year of 1923 in Mannheim, where his "Dance Suite" op. 30 was premiered on with great success. In this work, Toch was able to realize his interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and new forms of expression. His imaginative use of instruments is one of the most fascinating aspects of the suite.

The "Frauentanz" for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon op. 10 by Kurt Weill, written in the summer of 1923, reflects the interest in chamber music line-ups typical of the time. The decisive factor was not only a new ideal of sound and expression, but also the experience that in times of crisis, pieces with small ensembles had better chances of being performed.

Ernst Krenek had found essential impulses for his work in Berlin; when the crisis came to a head in the summer of 1923 he composed the "Three Mixed Choirs" a cappella op. 22 on poems by Matthias Claudius. Krenek designed these folksong-like works written by a lyricist from the epoch of Empfindsamkeit as parables.

For the festive concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of the cities of Buda and Pest to form the capital and residence city of Budapest in the autumn of 1923, Béla Bartók created his "Dance Suite" for orchestra - a "rather touchy issue", as the internationalist-minded composer explained in a private note.

REVIEWS:

Given [the events of 1923 in central Europe], you might imagine a CD of mostly German music entitled 1923: Wild Sound of the 1920s might sound a bit, well, wild. Far from it. If anything, it shows the opposite: surrounded by violence and the threat of chaos, the four composers represented here by works they composed in 1923 responded by raising their art to the nth degree of refinement and subtlety. Take Ernst Krenek, a composer who nowadays is remembered for a smash hit opera about a Black jazz musician, and for writing later in life some of the most fearsomely intellectualized, complex works in the entire history of music. He’s represented on this disc by three settings for choir of the 18th-century poet Matthias Claudius, of a ravishing otherworldly beauty caught to perfection in these performances.

Kurt Weill, known to the world for his bitingly satirical music dramas, appears as the composer of seven exquisitely allusive, bittersweet songs based on medieval German poems. Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is a brilliantly imagined set of six “character” pieces for just a handful of instruments, with titles like The Red Whirling Dance and Idyll. Standing somewhat to one side of all this German romantic/modernist intensity and compression is the Dance Suite by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, with its rumbustious evocations of Balkan and North African Music.

The occasional whiff of expressionist harshness or a gently satirical distortion of a waltz shows these composers were not completely cocooned in their composing studios. They were alert to the jarring, shifting currents outside. But what the CD reveals most strongly is how much these composers were focused on their own internal, imaginative world – and how much they cared about craftsmanship. Every bar in all four pieces is exquisitely made, and that quality is caught in the performances, which are all of enormous refinement.

-- The Telegraph

The year 1923 was a year of crisis in Germany; inflation was heating up and far right-wing parties were jockeying for power. In October, the first broadcast of public radio in Germany took place from the “Berliner Funkstunde” station on Potsdamer Platz. This provocative new disc from the Choir and Symphony of Bavarian Radio includes four works written a hundred years ago by a group of innovative composers who all made use of the new, disruptive technology of radio.

Kurt Weill’s Frauentanz is a suite of seven medieval songs, scored for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Weill helped to create the familiar soundtrack for Weimar Berlin, and this performance by Anna-Maria Palii and the fine instrumentalists of the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra provides the authentic feel of a society that was becoming increasingly decadent and hysterical in 1923 and beyond.

Ernst Toch’s Dance Suite is another clever and imaginative piece with interesting orchestration: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass and percussion. The Berlin sound is also evident here, something a bit harsh and raw, in contrast with the softer-focused, more lyrical and pastoral modernism of Paris.

The Ernst Krenek work is a bit of a surprise: his 3 Choruses for a cappella choir . The ‘antique’ sound of these pieces remind me of two of my favorite works: Vaughan Williams’ G minor Mass, from 1921, and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Missa São Sebastião, from 1937. All three provide old wine in new bottles: ancient cadences with a modernist twist.

The final work on the disc is probably the best known: Bela Bartok’s Dance Suite for Orchestra. This is an orchestral showpiece, a kind of try-out for his Concerto for Orchestra written more than two decades later. Both pieces treat orchestral instruments in a solistic, virtuosic way. The source material might be folkloric, but this is definitely written in a modernist idiom.

Inflation, far right-wing agitation, disruptive technology: yes, we’re talking about 1923, not 2023. And the music on this disc is as fresh and forward-looking as some of the best music written today.

-- Music for Several Instruments (Dean Frey)

A spectacular tribute to Hungarian-born composers, from the brilliant, award-winning performers — Grammy-nominated violinist ELMIRA DARVAROVA (first and only woman-concertmaster of The Metropolitan Opera) and pianist THOMAS WEAVER (professor at Curtis Institute of Music), the album “FROM LISZT TO LIGETI” brings an exceptionally vivid narrative linking historic milestones in the legacies of a number of superb Hungarian-born musicians — composers and performers, who have so enormously contributed to enriching the world’s cultural treasure-trove.

Liszt, Joachim, Bartók, Kodály, Hubay, Goldmark, Ligeti — they have all bequeathed us masterpieces to behold and cherish, throughout several centuries of showcasing, shaping, preserving, and amalgamating national traditions and global influences through the prism of their own personal creative gifts.

This album is a charismatically kaleidoscopic retrospective that traces the historic perspective of how uniquely innovative artists such as Bartók and Kodály built the cornerstones of their oeuvre by exploring, embracing, critically analyzing, and then reshaping Liszt’s ideals. It also explores how Ligeti followed on the heels of Bartók and Kodály with his own ethnomusicological research, creating, still in his student days, a little-known Duo that he kept editing and crystallizing throughout his life and various periods of transforming and modernizing, but then later returning to conventionally established expressive means. Additionally, it delves into how Joachim — as a muse to numerous music giants, such as Brahms, Liszt, Dvorák, Bruch, Robert and Clara Schumann — influenced and caused cataclysmic events without which the history of music would not have been the same.

In addition to the best-known Hungarian-born composers Liszt, Bartók, Kodály, and Ligeti, the inclusion of Joachim in this album as a co-author (not just dedicatee) of Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12” (in its version for violin and piano) makes sense historically not only because Joachim in his transcription radically transformed Liszt’s composition but also because Joachim famously contributed to the creation of numerous gems by some of the greatest-ever composers, such as the violin concertos by Dvorák and Bruch (who published these works after Joachim helped in creating them) and Brahms’ First Piano Concerto (bearing Joachim’s handwritten corrections which elicited “thank-you” letters from Brahms, during the 4 years Brahms took to write that concerto).

The inclusion in this album of the Hungarian-born composers Hubay and Goldmark is also well-justified, bringing up yet other interesting dimensions to the album’s narrative. The album’s deeply-considered collection explores the affecting lyrical gift of Goldmark, who, as the largely self-taught son of a synagogue cantor, followed his ingrained melodic instincts from growing up without riches among 20 siblings, to becoming Vienna’s leading composer (after the deaths of Brahms and Bruckner), teaching Sibelius, and writing a mind-blowing violin concerto, a symphony championed by Sir Thomas Beecham and by Leonard Bernstein, and several operas, one of which was produced at The Metropolitan Opera in 1885, and three of which were presented in Vienna during Mahler’s leadership of the Court Theatre.

Hubay’s unparalleled contribution as a historical “cross-roads” figure is also well-defined in this album, not only because of who he was — the son of an elite musician (who conducted the Budapest premiere of Wagner’s “Lohengrin”), a student of Joachim, a department head at Brussels’ Royal Conservatory (succeeding Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski), a chamber music partner of Liszt and of Brahms (performing with Brahms the world-premiere of Brahms’ D Minor Violin Sonata, and the world-premiere of Brahms’ Third Piano Trio), composer of numerous concertos, symphonies, and operas (one of which was embroiled in a scandal reported 100 years ago by The New York Times), and the teacher of many illustrious star-violinists who became muses to Bartók, Kodály, Ravel, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Rebecca Clarke (among these violin prodigies were Bartók’s girlfriend Stefi Geyer, Eugene Ormandy of The Philadelphia Orchestra fame, and Joachim’s great-nieces Jelly d’Arányi and Adila Fachiri, who not only inspired Bartók and many others but also spear-headed the search for Schumann’s long-suppressed violin concerto, “cancelled” and hidden by its dedicatee — their great-uncle Joachim).

The choice of Hubay’s well-known czardas “Hejre Kati” for inclusion in this album reflects the evolution and role of that genre in the history of Hungarian musical traditions — from the early roots of czardas stemming from verbunkos (used even by Haydn), to its controversial misappropriation by dilettante performers whose inflectional performing style was confused and misinterpreted by Liszt as original Hungarian folk melodies, to more tasteful artistically expressed concert-stage compositions (like Hubay’s “Hejre Kati”), to the eventual dethroning and demythologizing of the czardas by Bartók and Kodály, who discovered, revealed, and incorporated the true authenticity of their home country’s original folk music.

The album selections follow Bartók’s evolving from the student-composer of a traditionally-profiled, Romantically-influenced Andante and the mature creator of “15 Hungarian Peasant Songs” and “Rhapsody for Violin and Piano No.1” (embodying his scientific and artistic mission to reveal the exquisitely-uncontroverted authentic beauty of ancient folk melodies) to the transfigured innovator who elevated and transformed old rustic traditions, fusing them into new and progressive forms and rhythms, reaching out to impressionism and jazz (as depicted in Bartók’s “Dance in Bulgarian Rhythm No. 6”), and paving the way for Ligeti’s experimentalism, which, through multiple “back and forth” constructing and de-constructing, reflected Ligeti’s never-ending search for artistic inspiration (this album presents the, recorded here only for the second time, recently-discovered Duo for Violin and Piano, which Ligeti never submitted for publication but continued returning to, and working on).

The unusually meticulous album notes cover the multi-dimensional, serendipitous, and cross-pollinating nature of essential events and legacies, which endure and continue to fascinate us.

Béla Bartók’s friendship with violinists Joseph Szigeti and Zoltán Székely allowed him to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the violin that informed his writing. Both Rhapsodies for violin and piano are structured in two parts, a Lassú and a Friss – a Moderato followed by an Allegro. The First Rhapsody draws on Bartok’s ethnological studies in its use of Romanian folk dances, while the Second is a more enigmatic work. The Violin Sonata No. 1 is an earlier piece full of atmospheric drama and grandiose gestures, impressionistic in places and concluding with rich Hungarian folk motifs.

Sándor Végh, the “arch musician”, was one of those few conductors who possessed that musical je ne sais quoi. Whatever he touched – especially with his Salzburg Camerata – it was always musical, light, exciting. Showing that in music the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that phrasing and sparkle go a long way, he made even the least of Mozart’s Gebrauchsmusik sound like works of flaming genius. This box proves, if it needed proving, that these skills applied to other music, too, from the rest of the First Viennese School to the Second Viennese School and beyond. His Schubert Symphonies are pure classical joy, his Transfigured Night late-Romantic gorgeousness-become-manifest, his Bartók an idiomatically simpatico dreamboat.

REVIEWS:

It is twenty-five years since Sándor Végh’s death and this commemorative box set forms a fitting tribute to him, ranging across music from the Classical era to the mid-20C. Capriccio here presents eight composers on six discs providing six and a half hours of music as testimony to his versatility and artistry.

-- MusicWeb International

Even with such frequently recorded works as those compiled in this edition—they are reissues, of course—one cannot help but be interested in these interpretations, which show a variety of works that Sándor Végh enjoyed conducting.

The Schubert symphonies are particularly well performed, with Végh conducting them in a spiritedly upbeat manner and with incisive rhythm.

Also noteworthy are the recordings of Haydn’s Seven Last Words, Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, and the works by Bartok and Stravinsky. This begins with a convincing choice of tempo, the ideal breath impulse, the emphasis and is furthered by the care of the tone, the spontaneous way in which the music is played together and an exemplary transparency.

-- Pizzicato

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce the release of Natural Connection, a captivatingly lyrical new recording by pianist Leon McCawley featuring music for solo piano inspired by the natural world. The effect of the ever-changing seasons has been a perpetual inspiration for composers since Ancient Greece’s Delphic hymns and before, down to the present day, arguably finding its richest expression, as Robert Matthew-Walker’s erudite booklet notes argue, in the generations who alternatively espoused Romanticism and Impressionism. Nine composers, each with their own individual but complementary responses, are featured in a 21-track recital of miniature gems traversing the inexorable turn of the year’s cycle from Christian Sinding’s tremulous signature, Rustle of Spring, to Grieg’s sublimely tentative To the Spring. In between, popular pieces by Debussy (Clair de Lune) and Saint-Saëns (The Swan) vie with assorted works by Tchaikovsky (selections from The Seasons), Ravel (the liquescent Jeux d’eau), Bartók (the delightful From the Diary of a Fly and atmospheric The Night’s Music), and Rachmaninov (the gentle Lilacs and poetic Daisies). The most expressive pianist-composer of his age, Liszt, contributes three pieces including the sighing ebb-and-flow of Au lac de Walletstadt and stormy Orage, to eloquently link this multi-faceted and evocative, often moving, collection of responses to the living world. Leon McCawley’s previous SOMM releases include four widely acclaimed volumes of Haydn Sonatas, the first (SOMMCD 0162) receiving a coveted Diapason d’Or from Diapason magazine, Gramophone hailing him for Volume III (SOMMCD 0624) as “a thoughtful, keenly intelligent artist in peak form”. MusicWeb International declared his Chopin recital (SOMMCD 0103) “exemplary” and “outstanding”, while his Schubert survey (SOMMCD 0188) was described by Classical Music Daily as “a meaningful, eloquent performance [that] offers many memorable moments”.