A coproduction with Sudewestrundfunk

Despite its long history, the trombone has a very limited chamber music repertoire. Jörgen van Rijen, principal trombonist of the Concertgebouworkest, has wished to rectify this deficiency by initiating a fruitful collaboration between his own instrument and the string quartet, the pinnacle of chamber music. Mirrored in Time thus presents a collection of powerful arrangements and attractive new works covering a wide range of styles. Together with the Alma Quartet, van Rijen has created a wonderful springboard for the further development of the trombone repertoire in chamber music. Framed by adaptations of contemporary pieces by Bryce Dessner and Chiel Meijering respectively, this recording presents five pairs of works. Each of these consists of an arrangement of an existing composition from bygone times mirrored by a recent or completely new work. John Dowland is echoed by Nico Muhly, Béla Bartók by Dimitar Bodurov, Gabriel Fauré by Jacob TV, Erik Satie by Florian Magnus Maier and Robert Schumann by Martijn Padding. With this programme, Mirrored in Time tells the story of what might have been – and how it is now.

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.

Erling Bloch He was born into a home where artistic matters held pride of place. His father was a painter and at the same time extremely interested in music; therefore, a musical education was a wholly natural thing for the young Erling. Already at the age of seven he received violin tuition and was made familiar with chamber music through the cellist Emil Robert Hansen, the brother of the pianist Agnes Adler, whose piano trio was to be of great significance for him. He entered the conservatoire at the age of fifteen, where already in 1922 he gave his d�but concert, and only one year later became a member of The Royal Danish Orchestra. Here he was active until 1954, when teaching steadily began to take up more of his time. He had taught at the conservatoire since 1946 and became a professor there in 1949. Here he was held in affection and admired by his pupils, and was musically a central force at the conservatoire until he had to retire at the age of seventy. After his retirement, he continued as an examiner. I met him repeatedly for many years at The Royal Academy of Music, where I was a member of the staff. He was always friendly, attentive, and witty-in short, a person whom we always looked forward to meeting.

One of the oldest musical instruments we know of, the pan flute was played in many antique civilizations. The sophisticated type used in Romanian folk music is the most familiar to a contemporary audience. The virtuosos who brought fame to the pan flute in the second half of the 20th century include the Romanian musicians Damian Luca, Radu Simion, Nicolae Pîrvu, Gheorghe Zamfir and Simion Stanciu. Liselotte Rokyta studied with four of the “Big Five” and also gained authentic pan flute skills from folk players during a number of visits to Romania. The present album documents that the pan flute also occupies an indispensable position in classical music. The pieces by Bartók and Porumbescu are arrangements of Romanian folk dances, in which the pan flute is commonly employed. Debussy composed his Syrinx for the transverse flute, to which the pan flute (or syrinx) would seem to be an equal variant. The other arrangements are based on 19th- and 20th-century French composers’ works for the flute, as well as the piano and organ. You may have been hard pressed to imagine pieces by Varèse, Honegger or Messiaen played on the pan flute, yet you will certainly be engrossed by Liselotte Rokyta’s performance. The respective composers would undoubtedly have written music for the pan flute too had they had available a musician of her quality. The enchanting voice of the nymph Syrinx in the realm of classical music.

In masterful arrangements, these four saxophone virtuosos explore the golden '20s and early '30s of the last century and give an exceptional and entertaining performance.

‘The Miraculous Mandarin’ (Op. 19, Sz. 73) is Bartók's last work for the stage. The plot revolves around prostitution, brutality, robbery, murder, being an outsider, (unrequited) love, and finally, as a catharsis, a kind of love-death. The music is relentlessly sharp for long stretches, garishly dissonant, radical—probably the most modern score Bartók created. The premiere (1926) in Cologne was a scandal, and Konrad Adenauer, then Lord Mayor of Cologne, immediately cancelled the performances.The Violin Concerto No. 2, Sz. 112, was composed between August 1937 and December 31, 1938, shortly before Bartók's emigration to the United States in view of the increasingly oppressive political and social climate in Hungary. Unlike the ‘Mandarin,’ the work quickly established itself after its premiere in Amsterdam in 1939 as one of the central violin concertos of the first half of the 20th century, and at the same time, as one of Bartók's greatest creations.

In the course of his long career, Michael Gielen has been Music Director of the Royal Opera in Stockholm, the Belgian National Orchestra in Brussels, the Dutch Opera, and the Frankfurt Opera. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Berlin, as well as Chief Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Südwestfunk Symphony Orchestra.

Under the title "Kaleidoskop Europa", this CD presents a musical journey that encompasses the entirety of Europe. Central to the album is the concept of dance as a medium that both connects people via music and body language, and also motivates them to express themselves with one another, regardless of national origin, language, religion or culture. The album features dances from eleven different European countries, commencing and concluding the musical journey in Vienna-the home of both the ensemble and the painter Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller. By combining pieces of music from different countries, dance emerges as a symbol of the unity found within Europe's diverse cultures. All compositions are arranged for piano trio, with the exception of the opening march by Fritz Kreisler, which was originally composed for this instrumentation. Some arrangements were made by Martin Forst, the cellist of the trio, specifically for this production, thus leading to their premiere presentation on this CD. Through these adaptations, works originally composed for piano or orchestra take on a new form: the auditory experience is enhanced by numerous dimensions-particularly regarding color richness and transparency - revealing intriguing and novel facets of the compositions to listeners.

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.

There is no piece of music that the Patricia Kopatchinskaja cannot play in a way that unwinds your expectations and forces you to hear it anew.

This new recording marks the reformation of the legendary duo of Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Fazil Say. The Moldovan violinist says the Turkish pianist ‘is a volcano, with an indomitable strength and energy’, while he emphasizes the ‘freedom’ that her ‘spontaneous playing’ exudes: ‘At each concert, she creates a different character and tells a new story.’ The explosive duo presents a program devoted to Bartók’s Violin Sonata no.1 (‘a marvel from start to finish, one of his finest works’, says Patkop), Brahms’s D minor Sonata (‘I imagine a feather in flight at the opening of the sonata’) and Janáček’s Sonata, ‘an extreme work, wounded and heart-rending’.

REVIEW:

There is no piece of music — works by Tchaikovsky or Schoenberg, or an old folk tune — that the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja cannot play in a way that unwinds your expectations and forces you to hear it anew. So it is with the latest chapter in her partnership with the intrepid Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say. The Janacek sonata that opens this recording and the Bartok Sonata No. 1 that closes it clearly play to the duo’s strengths: curiosity, an impatience with convention and exceptional technique. They pounce, almost too eagerly, on each of the Janacek’s lightning-quick mood changes; and in the Bartok, a piece in which the two instruments work virtually at cross purposes, they achieve an ESP-like mutual responsiveness.

Their rendition of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, however, is the paramount achievement here. Resisting the urge to swath this wistful music in a big luxuriant tone, Kopatchinskaja adopts a timbre that’s sometimes bristly, sometimes gossamer-light. She and Say push the music to extremes: The quiet moments seethe and the outbursts approach violence, but it’s all done with impeccable control. The piece sounds bereft and heartbroken even as it avoids the clichés of Romanticism. It’s not the way I’d want to hear it played every time, but it’s invaluable for offering a glimpse deep into a work you might have thought predictable, which is exactly what these imaginative musicians are after.

-- New York Times (David Weininger)

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.

Sueye Park is no stranger to solo violin recitals. After her recording of the Paganini Caprices (BIS-2282) and a recital entitled Journey through a Century (BIS-2492), both critically acclaimed, she brings us another solo project, Echoes of Exile, an undertaking that finds it's raison d'�tre in today's very turbulent times. Park offers us different perspectives on the topic of exile with works composed between the 1920s and 1950s, by great composers who left their country as a result of political circumstances as well as by others who went into their own inner exile. Two pieces by composers who left their native lands for artistic reasons, Enescu and Ysaye, frame three substantial and very contrasting works by composers forced into exile, either because their existence was threatened or because of a feeling of alienation within their respective countries. The works of Bartok and Ben-Haim show composers who, in their longing for their homelands, succeeded not only in emphasising the value of their culture even more strongly, but also in anchoring it within the environment into which they had entered. Zimmermann's sonata, with it's unique expressive language, evokes the concerns of a young composer in the devastated Germany of the post-war period.

"This album is a snapshot of the way I live in music. Diversely; organically; intimately; sometimes collaboratively, sometimes solitarily; always sincerely; and anywhere, be it a concert hall or home studio. Stradgrass is the exploration of the violin’s stylistic capabilities, through various American folk styles, from a Classical lens. The word ‘Stradgrass’ first came about in 2015, from the novelty of performing Bluegrass on the Stradivari I was playing at the time: the 1683 ex-Gingold violin, on loan to me until 2018 as a result of my silver medal finish at the 2014 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.

"Hearing Bluegrass played on a Strad is unusual, unfortunately, so I thought it warranted its own term. The word has caught on in the social media world and seems to succinctly encapsulate what one might partly expect from a recital of mine. Stradgrass seems to be a type of musical exploration that is becoming more common within Classical violin training, and I hope this album will further encourage us all to continue that direction." -Tessa Lark

Regarded as one of the finest interpreters of classical and romantic repertoire, Imogen Cooper is internationally renowned for her virtuosity and lyricism. Dame Imogen writes: 'It has taken many years for me to perceive the last three sonatas by Beethoven as the evolving journey I now feel them to be. A combination of wariness of Op. 109 and overawe of Op. 111 kept me solely concentrated on Op. 110, which I can hardly regret. Nor do I regret thereby coming late in life to Opp. 109 and 111. Having come to see the shortcomings of my perception as surmountable, I found that the joys and riches of these wonderful works presented themselves with much more vivid colours than had I tussled with them whilst I was tussling with myself. The case was, incidentally, similar with the "Diabelli" Variations, Op. 120, which I finally approached and embraced in my sixties, with crystal clarity of intention and unadulterated joy. Now it would be hard for me to play any of the last three sonatas alone, so potent is the journey from first to last. And how privileged my hands feel, having wondered and wandered in the heavenly heights of the last pages of Op. 111, to travel down the keyboard and bring this astonishing last sonata, and indeed the whole body of thirty-two sonatas, to a close, with a quiet chord of C major - no long note value, no fermata. Just silence.'

The basic idea of this album was to play in threes… Not to play 'something', but to experiment 'in threes' with sound worlds as different as those of Bartók, Poulenc and Schoenfield. With his Contrastes, composed in 1938 for Benny Goodman, Bartók broadened his penchant for traditional music and turned it into a more universal work, influenced by jazz. Poulenc was a child of the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, influenced as much by Stravinsky, Ravel and Satie as by cabaret songs and operetta. Paul Schoenfield, born in Detroit in 1947, also likes to combine styles. Each of the movements in his trio is based on an Eastern European Hasidic melody… not forgetting the breathtaking klezmer dances of Romanian Șerban Nichifor. Almost ten years after Take 2 (Alpha211), Patricia Kopatchinskaja reunites with two great accomplices, clarinettist Reto Bieri and pianist Polina Leschenko, for a programme based around trios that celebrate the roots of these three musicians.

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.

After 25 years, this Bela Bartok album is seeing the light of day! The Global Music Network originally recorded this album in 2000 but unfortunately went out of business before the recording could be released. I am delighted that First Hand Records now presents these recordings for all Bartok fans... I am convinced that that the revised version of the Bartok Viola Concerto is a more effective and stronger work than the original version of the concerto and no doubt closer to Bartok's intent. The Duos are also delightful to play and hear in these excellent arrangements of Peter Bartok. (Paul Neubauer)

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.

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

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”.

On her new album pioneering Romanian vocalist Teodora Brody joins forces with one of the world’s great orchestras to explore well-known classical repertoire from an entirely fresh perspective. Rising with style and energy to realise virtuosic orchestrations by Lee Reynolds, the London Symphony Orchestra voyage with Teodora through classical, jazz and Romanian folk traditions, resulting in a multi-faceted, truly unique musical experience. Born in Romania, and now based in Germany, Teodora Brody initially trained in classical jazz and rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s singing with legendary jazz pianist Johnny Raducanu. Acclaimed for her extraordinary vocal power and creative vision, Teodora pioneered the fusion of jazz with Doina – Romania’s improvisatory folk singing tradition – and is widely credited with introducing international audiences to this extraordinary, deeply emotive music.

In 2004 the American government named Teodora a Romanian Cultural Ambassador to the USA, and in both 2007 and 2008 Teodora was awarded the prize for ‘Best International Jazz Contribution by a Romanian Artist’ by the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company. In recent years with unique projects including ‘From Classical to Jazz’ and ‘Classical Emotion’, Teodora has explored classical repertoire with a completely fresh approach, reimagining well-known works by composers including Bach, Beethoven, Pachelbel, Vivaldi, Bartók, Pau Casals and the beloved Romanian composer George Enescu. In 2019 ‘From Classical to Jazz’ was awarded ‘Project of the Year’ at the Romanian Jazz Awards Gala, and Teodora herself was named ‘Musician of the Year’ for the second year in a row.

Bart�k, for me, is truly one of the most important composers, on a par with Beethoven and Mozart." In our interview about the piano works on this album, Hungarian pianist D�nes V�rjon constantly expressed deep admiration, a keen understanding of this music, and a strong affinity with the composer's personality. For this musician, bringing Bart�k closer to the audience as a person and an artist is a labour of love. "I grew up with his music. It feels like a mother tongue to me. And I'm interested in everything he wrote, from the earliest works to the late ones. It's so important to see the traditions he came from and to understand how he found his voice as a composer." V�rjon notes that Bart�k was fascinated by the simplicity and sincerity of the people who sang these songs to him. Those two traits probably corresponded with Bart�k's own personality as an artist and a human being. "When I look at photos of him, what I see is a simple, sincere man; there seems to be nothing false or hypocritical in his character. He also seems highly vulnerable. Bart�k spoke slowly, quite naturally, but not much. He never tried to put on a show to win his audience's favour. He was truly an authentic person. At the same time, he had the energy and temperament of a volcano rumbling inside him - an energy he harnessed with an astounding amount of sheer discipline. The result was a high degree of fascinating, unresolved tension. Bart�k, like Schubert, is one of the composers I find the most moving.

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.

Celebrated violinists Maria Milstein and Mathieu van Bellen pair Bela Bartok's 44 Duos for Two Violins with Luciano Berio's 34 Duetti per Due Violini. Bartok's miniature masterpieces have inspired and delighted countless young musicians. Although written for children, these duos are far from childlike: original harmonies, striking dissonances and lively rhythms are employed to create music with emotional depth, some being profoundly tragic, others fierce, lyrical, wild or fiery. Few works capture the vitality of folk music as vividly as these. Like Bartok, Berio composed his 'Duetti' as teaching pieces, dedicating each of the 34 duos to a friend, colleague or composer, beginning with Bela, an homage to Bartok. The pieces offer a kaleidoscope of styles, reflecting Berio's personal connections with the dedicatees.

After falling in love with the quartets of Britten and Bart�k, we developed a long-standing desire to record these masterpieces. For our debut CD Longing we chose their first quartets, as well as Webern's first string quartet work Langsamer Satz. All three remarkable works resonate with a profound and unmistakable sense of longing. We felt a sense of kinship with these composers as they, like us, were still discovering their distinct style and identity when creating these works. In Langsamer Satz, Webern beautifully showcases the height of longing for love in the romantic 19th century. Bart�k continues this romantic idiom and goes on to develop the new sounds of the early 20th century, a period from which we draw so much of our own passions. Finally, Britten continues to explore the sound and identity of the 20th century in his own distinctive colour palette. These works not only keep us on the edge of our seats, but also express a beautiful longing, one which we recognize in ourselves, and one we want to share with our listeners.