With mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena and pianist Mitsuko Uchida, two world stars join hands on L'extase, a collection of songs by Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen. Debussy was Messiaen's life-long idol, and their songs are equally colourful, sumptuous, sensual, and occasionally exotic. The album derives it's name from the sultry song 'C'est l'extase langoureuse' from Debussy's Ariettes oubliees, and this song cycle is combined with his Chansons de Bilitis and Cinq poemes des Baudelaires, while Messiaen is represented by the second book of his Poemes pour Mi, a declaration of love for his first wife Claire Delbos. This recording demonstrates the profound affinity of both performers with French music, as well as their congeniality as musical partners. With L'extase, star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena presents the seventh album of her exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, after having presented Il giardino dei sospiri, Soiree (both 2019), Nostalgia (2021), Folk Songs (2023), the title role in Handel's Alcina and Czech Songs (both 2024). One of the most revered artists of our time, Mitsuko Uchida is known as a peerless interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Beethoven, as well for being a devotee of the piano music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Gyorgy Kurtag. She makes her PENTATONE debut.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The renowned Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo celebrates it's 30th anniversary in 2025. The duo has been honoured with numerous international awards and recordings. With the recording of all of Debussy's works in three volumes for piano duo, the Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo is now appearing on the Oehms label. The programme includes both well-known and lesser-known works, some of which are versions of orchestral works such as the famous Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune. The recording was made in co-operation with WDR Broadcast.

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These songs respond to the sheer beauty of Stutzmann's singing like grass to rainfall.

The performances here are distinguished throughout by the evident intelligence as well as the assured technical ability of singer and pianist; but probably the feature that will single out this recital in memory, say a couple of years hence, is the depth, the contralto quality, of the voice. It is not simply that it makes a change (though it surely does that), but that the deep colouring of the tone gives a rather different aspect to several of the songs, particularly the Ariettes oubliees, and often serves them well. The third of the ariettes, ''L'ombre des arbres'', for instance, responds to it like grass to rainfall: there's a glow that wasn't there before. The ending of ''Green'' (''puis que vous reposez'') and, in the Baudelaire settings, the evening-scene of ''Recueillement'', are also lovely examples.

Not that there is any sense of luxuriating. It is not sensuous singing; not, as it were, inviting to stroke the velvet. Attention is very much focused on the words. Yet there is a sheer beauty of sound to enjoy as well, sometimes lovely in itself (as in the last line of Baudelaire's ''Harmonie du soir'') but often as a subtle reflection of mood, as in the diminuendo so finely achieved in ''Il pleure dans mon coeur'' (''Le dueil est sans raison'') from the Ariettes oubliees where the note trails away in quiet thoughtfulness. Sometimes one would welcome more of a smile in the voice, and perhaps in the Histoires naturelles there is opportunity for a little more showmanship, especially in the first, ''Le paon''. But this too has its compensations: the jokes, such as they are, are not killed by coyness, and in the first of the Bilitis songs there is none of that cute wide-eyed-innocence act over the ''ceinture perdue''.

Though recordings of the songs have not been in notably short supply, many of the best are currently unavailable. This new disc is as attractive in its programme as in its performances; presentation and recorded sound likewise. In case a lingering doubt remains, perhaps I should add that Stutzmann is not another of those American girls in Paris, but was born there (in 1965).

-- Gramophone [7/1992]

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*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

The orchestral scores of Claude Debussy are like laboratories for experimentation with sound. Sonorities are microscopically investigated, the properties of new combinations are discovered and allowed to follow their own laws, and volatile materials are set loose to wreak havoc within a controlled environment. Live performances of these works bring a special dynamism, and it is this excitement that marks the recordings of 'Jeux' and 'La mer' by the Vienna Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel on this disc. The surging waves and radiant sunrise of 'La mer' are overpowering here, and the capriciously shifting colors, rhythms and harmonies of the ballet score 'Jeux' are captured wonderfully. Percussion and harp are unusually vivid, and orchestral precision is mostly admirable throughout despite the tumultuous intensity of the live performances.
Moving from the concert hall to the studio, Debussy's earlier 'Nocturnes' are heard in an almost equally vibrant performance. "Fêtes" in particular is thrilling, taken at maximum tempo, and in the closing "Sirènes" the women of the Schoenberg Choir blend beautifully with the orchestra in their wordless song.
REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (1-2/00, pp.85-86) - "...Maazel and the [Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra] are a panacea, a timely reassurance that all's right in the world of music. Conductor and orchestra consider every detail and make it their own, and the playing itself is beyond compare..."
Fanfare (1-2/00, pp.235-236) - "...from the standpoint of ravishing tone and orchestral balance, these performances are on the highest level....In 'La Mer' one is once again delighted by the profusion of detail, but the performance seems just a shade too methodical and deliberate..."

Trained in Kyiv, his hometown, then in Austria where he lives today, Dmytro Choni - Bronze Medalist at the 2022 Van Cliburn, Gold Medalist at the Santander Paloma O'Shea in 2018 - imagines for his recording debut with naive an ingenious and mischievous dialogue between Paradise and Hell, in direct echo to the Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri, the essential poet of the late Italian Middle Ages, who was a strong influence on a Romanticism that was looking for it's roots. The luminous pieces, with soothing melodies, will embody Paradise. The first opus of his compatriot Valentyn Silvestrov, whose aesthetic recalls the quiet beauty of Kyiv, the calm Bagatelles open the present journey in elegiac tones, even if here and there, as in the moving Moderato median, some beginnings of a coming anxiety emerge. The terrifying darkness will burst forth from the incipit of Apres une lecture de Dante (Liszt), where Choni becomes the devil himself. In this fantasia quasi sonata, hell is a tragic whirlwind, and the passionate impulses transcribe the unhappy passion of Paolo and Francesca. Then a new, devastating contrast. The centrepiece of the second part of Debussy's Images for piano, Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut, introduce another Paradise, where Orient meet ancient Greece, both dreamed and fantasised; the French composer captures in the very sounds of the Balinese gamelan our sense of wonder when looking at ancient temples. The culmination point of the program, L'Isle Joyeuse, speaks more of the joy linked to budding love. In this highly virtuosic piece inspired by Watteau (Embarquement pour Cythere, 1718), just as much a fictional reduction of a ballet with orchestra, Debussy achieves a unique sensual energy, truly erotic. Gargoyles (like the grimacing stone figures of the cathedrals) then revive the evil spirits, in a slightly percussive style that evokes Prokofiev and even more the Sonatas of Roger Sessions (1896-1985). The American composer Lowell Liebermann here links together four short, highly expressive pieces, where the sarcasm of the introduction (Presto) or the final Presto feroce coexists with the ether in the Allegro moderato. The gentle limpidity of Silvestrov's Postludium finally ends this program where Dmytro Choni, with his ever-lively and incisive fingers, becomes above all, like Charon on the Styx, a ferryman "between the worlds".

The music recorded on Arc I [FHR127] expresses foreboding from the brink of disaster. The music on Arc II [FHR128] was written by composers dealing with tragedy. At last, Arc III is a set of pieces born from the bright points of life. Peace, hope, love, ambition, optimism and the divine - the inspirations are myriad. These compositions spring from the million shades of happiness. Orion Weiss has performed internationally as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. This is his sixth album of solo piano music, his third for First Hand Records. Full biography available at orionweiss. Com

For elodie Vignon, the decision to record Debussy's complete piano works in chronological order was born of what the Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune was in Debussy's day: a revelation! For her, playing this music is like entering a cocoon that belongs to you alone. This first volume (generous with 2CDs) of the three that will make up the complete works, naturally begins with Debussy's early works, pieces directly inspired by poems by Mallarme and Verlaine and which embrace the mysterious dimension of the sensory imagination. In the years that followed, he increasingly freed music from the polarisation exerted by the tonal note, keeping the sound space open and ultimately initiating spectral music. Debussy liked to draw inspiration from memories when composing, in order to maintain a distance between his own emotions and those he wished to arouse in the listener. Alfred Cortot spoke of evoking sensations rather than feelings, thus rejecting the late-Romantic aesthetic of emotional identification between composer and listener: an obligation that seemed too constraining to Debussy to be able to give rise to an open dialogue with the listeners of his work. Giving the impression of being invented as it is played, Debussy's music invites us to dream, to better understand the complexity of the world.

Written between 1887 and 1890, Gabriel Faur�'s Requiem is among the best-loved pieces in the choral repertory. Traditionally, Requiems are serious, prayerful laments for the dead. Faur�'s was altogether different. In place of the usual somber mood, his is noted for it's calm, serene and peaceful outlook. The composer revised and expanded the work several times, but it is the original version that is performed here using period instruments and performance practices. This sublimne recording, featuring Ensemble Aedes and Les Si�cles led by Mathieu Romano, also includes Poulenc's Figure Humaine and Debussy's Trois Chansons

The Vogler, mellower and more sensuous, allows pace and passion to ebb and flow freely [in the Debussy] without hyping up the tension. Janácek’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ Quartet becomes big and intense, with fierce interjections, while for Shostakovich – this is the one in seven miniature movements – bear-like energy outflanks otherworldly withdrawal.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5)

-- Robert Maycock, BBC Music Magazine

RAVEL: TRIO DEBUSSY, RESPIGH