Oboe Concertos (Baroque) - Vivaldi, A. / Marcello, A. / Tele

Mozart, W.A.: Piano Concertos Nos. 17, 18, 19, 25

The young American composer Carson P. Cooman is one of the most active of his generation, having written over six hundred works in many forms. This disc presents a broad overview of his music, from orchestral to chamber and solo works.

Mendelssohn: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 - Concerto for 2 P

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos No. 4, 5 & 6

With five discs released so far in the cycle, Ronald Brautigam now takes on Beethoven's complete works for piano and orchestra, choosing to do so on a modern piano and with a modern instrument orchestra: the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, internationally acclaimed for its many fine recordings on BIS. Conducting the series is Andrew Parrott, and together with the soloist, he brings all his expertise in period performance practise to bear in interpretations that in many ways are as fresh and revolutionary as those of the sonata cycle. The present disc, with Concertos No.1 and No.3, is the first of a cycle of four, and was recorded with solo piano, without a lid, placed in the middle of the orchestra As Ronald Brautigam explains in the liner notes: 'I truly believe that what Beethoven wanted was chamber music rather than a battle between orchestra and soloist, and this makes for a wonderfully interactive set-up-, where individual players have far m ore contact with the pianist than in a regular concert set-up'.

For the final instalment of his survey of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra, Ronald Brautigam has saved 'the final crowning glory of his concerto output', as Beethoven specialist Barry Cooper describes the Fifth Piano Concerto in his liner notes. The work has become known as the Emperor Concerto, as it shares its key (E flat major) as well as a certain sense of power and grandeur with the Third Symphony, the 'Eroica'. It is coupled on this disc with the Choral Fantasia - an intriguing work scored for piano, orchestra and chorus with vocal soloists. The explanation for this unusual combination is that Beethoven wanted to provide a fitting finale for one of his mammoth concerts in Vienna. The concert, which took place on 22 December 1808, included performances of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies as well as the Fourth Piano Concerto and two movements from the Mass in C major; the Choral Fantasia thus brought all of the evening's performers on stage once more before the end of the concert. The individual discs in Ronald Brautigam's series have received numerous distinctions, including a MIDEM Classical Award in 2010, and his performances have been weighed against classic recordings by legendary pianists. 'Brautigam's account [of Concerto No. 1] compares with Richter's for sparkle, with Pollini's for cleverness, and with Michelangeli's for liveliness... The performance of Beethoven's Third Concerto that follows is even better', wrote the reviewer on website All Music.com, while the one in Gramophone deemed that the recording of the Second Concerto was 'almost as good as Serkin's account with Ormandy, which is saying something!' In the review in International Record Review of the penultimate volume, finally, the series so far was summed up as follows: 'For my money, Brautigam and Parrott are setting a new bench-mark, and I eagerly await the final instalment.' It is of course a great pleasure to be able to announce the release of that longed-for disc, with Ronald Brautigam, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Parrott in their usual top form, and with the brief but crucial appearance of the eminent Eric Ericson Chamber Choir in the Choral Fantasia.

These are superb performances of two underestimated concertos… [T]his is unquestionably an engaging account, Sudbin's glistening and expressive virtuosity matched by Andrew Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic's idiomatic playing… Even more revelatory is their performance of Medtner's Third… [Sudbin] seems alert to its every note and creates a compelling journey.

– BBC Music Magazine

Yevgeny Sudbin has already demonstrated his great affinity with the music of the composers united here: in 2007, his Scriabin solo recital (BIS-1568) garnered universal acclaim – ‘the most well-chosen, brilliantly played single-disc selection of Scriabin's piano music currently available’ wrote ClassicsToday.com – and his recordings of Nikolai Medtner’s first and second piano concertos (BIS-1588 and BIS-1728) were likewise widely admired, with the first disc receiving a Gramophone Award nomination and the second being dubbed an ‘Essential Recording’ in BBC Music Magazine. For the present disc, Sudbin has written his own liner notes, stating with conviction his opinion that both concertos are ‘absolute masterworks – unjustly underperformed and constantly underappreciated’. He goes on to make a fascinating comparison of the two ‘radically different’ works, composed by near contemporaries, but 45 years apart: Scriabin wrote his one piano concerto in 1896 at the age of 24, while Medtner began his Third Concerto in 1940, at a ripe 60. As Sudbin points out, it would be natural to expect the later concerto to be more ‘modern’, especially given the radical advances that took place during this period. Nothing could be further from the truth, however: ever the visionary, the young Scriabin wrote a concerto which may appear relatively conventional compared to his later works, but still sounds more experimental than Medtner’s Third. With great empathy for, and insights into each composer, Yevgeny Sudbin takes on the great challenges – musical as well as technical – posed by their two works, with the eminent support of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, which under chief conductor Andrew Litton has repeatedly proven itself in Russian repertoire by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

WELLESZ Piano Concerto , op. 49 1; Violin Concerto , op. 84 2 • 1 Margarete Babinsky (piano); 2 David Frühwirt (vn); Roger Epple, cond; RSO Berlin • CAPRICCIO 5027 (53:15)


Egon Wellesz, born in Vienna in 1885, is among the group of composers of “degenerate art” who survived the Nazi era physically, but not artistically. Like Braunfels, Zeisl, Mittler, or to a lesser degree Hartmann, his music died twice: once when the Nazis declared it “degenerate” and forced him into emigration, then again when the heavily subsidized postwar arts scene thought him not “degenerate” enough—too tonal, too beholden to music rather than organized sound. Even the many, many honors he received in the 50s, 60s, and 70s—in that sense he was luckier than many a colleague with a similar fate—smacked of guilt and placation, not genuine interest in his œuvre.


Wellesz was taught by Guido Adler (also Webern’s professor), became one of the first private students of Schoenberg, and later Schoenberg’s first biographer. In 1974 he died a CBO scholar in Oxford but was buried in his unappreciative home town, Vienna.


On this disc, further exploring “lost” 20th-century repertoire, Capriccio presents a piano concerto that decidedly, finally, doesn’t remind me of Ravel’s! Not that I don’t adore Ravel’s piano concertos to pieces; I do. It’s just that it started to seem like a strange running joke how anything from Zeisl to von Einem ( Fanfare 33:6) to Krenz ( Fanfare 33:2) seemed to remind of Ravel’s G-Major work. Wellesz doesn’t, partly because of his bold writing for piano and a more reticent orchestral part. From the first movement’s unhurried orchestral introduction over an impatient, then calming piano part, to the sudden spunk that picks up at around the two-minute mark, there is little that would immediately, much less invariably, remind one of any other composer. The virtuosic spikes that the pianist traverses, meanwhile, don’t just strike me as jazzy because I am listening to it (and writing this) as I am at a jazz festival in Bolzano, between gigs in this medieval town in South Tyrol. Pianistic ruminations and short orchestra exclamation marks take turns, with much of the material given to the solo piano. The five-minute, unintrusive slow second movement has the ability to just flit by if you don’t pay attention. The orchestra attempts to wax lyrically; the piano interrupts with coy runs. The third movement takes over stealthily with another slow introduction before virtuosity breaks through once again, pulling through to the end with some rambunctiousness and grand gestures. All together the work is not, to my ears, as wholly marvelous a discovery as Eric Zeisl’s (cpo 777226), to mention just an even more obscure work from a composer with a similar-enough biography. But it’s well worth listening to if concertos in general, and that lost period of music in particular, are of interest to you.


The same verdict stands for the Violin Concerto from 1961—even though it is considerably different in style. If you know Wellesz’s symphonies (also on cpo), you will have noticed a distinct break between the essentially late-Romantic symphonies Nos. 1 through 4 and the more explicitly modern Nos. 5 through 8. Wellesz called his Violin Concerto the brother of his Fifth Symphony and that is reflected by a greater—belated, if you will—incorporation of some elements of the serialist school. All movements are based on the same material, albeit a situation that Wellesz claimed to have discovered only after the fact.


The work manages to suggest density while retaining clear lines, and it is—at four movements—considerably more expansive than the Piano Concerto. After its premiere it was favorably compared to Berg (which it obliquely refers to) and Schoenberg. I don’t hear the beauty in it that I hear in the Berg (which, it should be pointed out, benefits from the advantage of far greater exposure, familiarity, and tons of wonderful recordings). It also seems less austere than Schoenberg’s concerto. Listeners who can just be brought to enjoy or accept the harmonic language of the Piano Concerto will find the Violin Concerto less attractive; tougher listening. But with some good will they should be able to access that work, too … especially via the Andante sostenuto, the fourth and last movement which, a terse and frenzied cadenza apart, has repose and considerable lyricism to offer. The violin part in the first movement has a good deal of electric, buzzing moments that are highly enjoyable. For getting to know the composer Wellesz, I’d start with the symphonies, but if they have turned you on already, then his two full-size concertos will be a mandatory expansion pack.


I know it must be frustrating for soloists or ensemble musicians when their work is done away with in one sentence, only because they are not famous enough to have pre-impressed the critic. This kindly dismissal usually takes place with adjectives like “adequate” or “perfectly acceptable.” Unfortunately for lack of comparison, knowledge of the score, and any immediately sensed enthusiasm about the playing (as in the Wetzler recording— Fanfare 33:4—for example), that’s exactly what I’ll have to do. Certainly the soloists Margarete Babinsky, David Frühwirt, or the Berlin RSO under Roger Epple don’t stand in the way of enjoyment.


FANFARE: Jens F. Laurson

Classical Music

English Baroque Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner. (Originally released on Erato 4509-91800-2 [2 CDs] recorded January, 1983)

The English Baroque Soloists are a virtuoso period band, wonderfully well recorded here, and Gardiner elicits readings from them that are masterfully shaped and inflected, full of resilience, energy, and life. These are foot-tapping performances, as earthy as they are courtly, and unmatched in their richness and piquancy of sound. What is notable, in addition to the wonderful pointing of rhythm, is the real expressiveness of the playing. - Ted Libbey

Clarinet Music - MOZART, W.A. / WEBER, C.M. von / SPOHR, L.

Considered one of the most influential 20th century composers of the Americas, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) composed a great oeuvre including ballets, operas, piano works, orchestral pieces and more. His works can be grouped into three periods, “Objective Nationalism” (1934-1948), “Subjective Nationalism” (1948-1958), and “Neo-Expressionism” (1958-1983). The four works featured on this release come from his late period of neo-expressionism. In these pieces traditional classical style can be heard, as well as Ginastera’s experimentations with the avant-garde. Arturo Tamayo conducts the brilliant Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for this recording. Tamayo conducts in both the concert hall as well as the opera house, and conducts with orchestras across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

John Corigliano's violin concerto 'The Red Violin' originated as the score to a film about a violin by one of the Old Italian master-builders, and its journeys around the world throughout three centuries. While working on the film score, Corigliano also produced a one-movement concert version of it, which he later expanded into a full-scale concerto in four movements. The son of a violinist, Corigliano's aim was to write a concerto in a style his father would have wanted to play, and he has managed to do so without sacrificing any of the music's communicative qualities, or its wealth of colours, emotions and atmospheres. The work is coupled here with a concerto of a similar broad appeal, composed by Jaakko Kuusisto, who is a highly respected violinist in his own right, as well as conductor. In his liner notes, Kuusisto recounts how he had toyed with the idea of writing a violin concerto for several years, but that the project only came into fruition after a commission from his colleague Elina Vähälä, and the liberating prospect of composing a work for another performer than himself. Appearing for the first time on BIS, the acclaimed violinist Elina Vähäla has a wide-ranging career, both geographically and in terms of repertoire. She made her début at the age of twelve, performing as a soloist with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, which lends her spirited support on the present disc, and also performs the orchestral piece Leika. Using the Icelandic word for 'play' as its title, Kuusisto's composition displays a playfulness and wealth of colours that makes it a perfect curtain raiser for this appealing disc.

Dohnanyi: Konzertstuck for Cello / Cello Sonata / Ruralia Hu

This will look good on your shelves next to the Boult-Lyrita disc of Finzi miniatures … one of those “ah, yes” moments one sometimes gets with Finzi when everything seems so utterly right.

Though the LP has long held pride of place on one's shelves how good it is to welcome the CD remastering of Yo-Yo Ma’s Cello Concerto coupled with John Denman’s lissom performance of the Clarinet Concerto. Back in the old days the Cello Concerto stood proudly alone, all forty-one minutes of it.

It was Yo-Yo Ma’s first recording and alerted many to the sheer bigness of Finzi’s inspiration, especially those for whom bigness in Finzi had been confined to the vocal and choral works. The power of the opening movement resides in the declamatory, decidedly non-vocalised orchestral writing and its relationship with the lingering songfulness of the cello; how the orchestra, initially cool, relents to join in the narrator-hero’s limpid beauty of utterance; how Orpheus tames the implacable beasts. And almost as surprising for those who had him pegged as a miniaturist, was the frenzy of the Brahms-leaning cadenza. But the heartbeat of the work is the rapt slow movement, one of those “ah, yes” moments one sometimes gets with Finzi when everything seems so utterly right. The pastoral-pensive writing is beautifully conveyed here – I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it done better – and so too are the animating orchestral pizzicati and the verdant winds which join the cello in its journey. There’s a real narrative here, an encompassing one, faithfully and richly projected by soloist, orchestra and conductor alike. The finale is a drama of drumming pizzicati and wind solos coiling around the cello line like vines.

It’s precisely the vigorous vocality of the companion concerto that gives it such a sense of elation and verve. The clarinet’s mellifluous femininity immediately tames and quells the orchestra in much the same way that the Cello did in the later work. It’s a feature of both concertos that the solo line is vested with such power of oratory that it acts as an instrument of control. Note as well the propulsive, kinetic way that Denman and Handley manoeuvre to the end of the first movement. Apposite string weight is a feature of this performance as well and the delicate solo arabesques are met by the diaphanous orchestration. There have been a number of recommendable performances of this Concerto but in its swiftness and ease this performance still earns the highest accolades.

This will look good on your shelves next to the Boult-Lyrita disc of Finzi miniatures on SRCD239.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Handel, G.F.: Orchestral Music - Hwv 35, 313, 317, 322, 334,

There have been more than a few excellent recent releases of Grieg’s music for string orchestra, notably on Naxos, including orchestrations of his String Quartet in G minor. The Quartet took a lot of heat when it first came out on account of its acres of double-stops and consequent “orchestral” sound, and truth is that it makes an absolutely terrific piece for larger ensemble, losing very little in translation. Tognetti’s arrangement really is as good as any, and as you can well imagine he has his crack ensemble playing the piece to a fare-thee-well, with all of the passion and drive that one could possibly ask for.

The Naxos releases divided discs between the quartet arrangements (including Grieg’s incomplete Quartet in F major) and all of the remaining works for string orchestra. Tognetti presents a mixture. His arrangement of Erotikk, from the Lyric Pieces, is charming and effective, and rather more sensual than the keyboard original. The Two Elegiac Melodies are touching, fluid, and less heavy in these performances than when played by larger forces; but the highlight of the disc must be the performance of the Holberg Suite.

Even though it has been done to death, this version stands out for the vivacious charm and witty phrasing of its Praeludium (sound sample attached), and for the rustic brilliance of the concluding Rigaudon. In between, the Gavotte also has a welcome spring to its step, and as with the Elegiac Melodies the two slower movements never bog down in excessive sentiment. Mind you, sentiment in this music, and plenty of it, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you are going to use smaller forces, this is surely the way to do it. Sonically, this is absolutely state of the art: clear, pure, and tactile in the best way. If the coupling appeals, go for it.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEW:

This is not only one of the best sounding violin and orchestra recordings ever made, but the entire concept is so smart, so well executed, and so thoughtfully planned that even if it were not so musically stupendous it still would be worthy of your attention. As it is, this is one of those rare productions in which absolutely everything goes right. Consider, for example, the problems attendant upon releasing yet another recording of the Brahms Concerto. You have a small independent label with excellent musical credentials but limited resources, a soloist of great musical gifts (Rachel Barton's previous discs have all been top-notch) but who isn't a "big name", and a work that virtually every other violinist with access to a microphone has recorded, sometimes more than once. Given the fact that on musical evidence Barton's Brahms certainly deserves to be heard, what's a label to do?

First, secure the services of a world-class orchestra under a fine conductor (Carlos Kalmar, music director of the Oregon Symphony and Chicago's Grant Park Festival, fills that bill nicely). Amazing, isn't it, that when major labels are screaming about how they can't afford to record major American orchestras Cedille has found the resources to do just that? Second, instead of simply offering the Brahms, you find an interesting coupling. And let's not kid ourselves: Joseph Joachim's Hungarian Concerto isn't just an "interesting coupling"; it is the Holy Grail of Romantic violin concertos, a work so lengthy (47-plus minutes, about the same as the Elgar concerto), so difficult, yet so deliberately symphonic and, in a sense, anti-virtuoso in conception that it has never once received even a merely adequate recording. Take that coupling, play it to a fare-thee-well (demonstrating once and for all that the work is indeed a brilliant and neglected masterpiece), and then toss in an equally fine Brahms Concerto, all offered at a two-for-one price. If that isn't a recipe for success, then nothing is.

Indeed, Joachim's youthful Hungarian Concerto is so beautiful and full of life, its Gypsy-tinged melodies so entrancing, that only its inordinate difficulty accounts for its rarity. In concert it would be a show-stopper, and Rachel Barton has its full measure. The heavily symphonic first movement requires the soloist to engage in genuine chamber-music dialog with the orchestra, especially the principal winds. Joachim's orchestration must stand with the finest ever achieved in a concerto; there are no dead spots and no balance problems as long as the soloist has the taste and musicianship to know when to cede the spotlight and when to take command.

Take the remarkable cadenza as a typical example: there's no barnstorming sawing and scraping, but instead a densely flowing river of lyricism joined now and then by solo flute and oboe. It's one of the most purely gorgeous passages ever written for the violin, and Barton plays it for all it's worth (and finishes up with some devastating descending chromatic octaves that actually sound like musical notes and not a rusty hinge).

The slow movement features another very attractive principal theme, and when it returns at the movement's conclusion in the cellos, decorated by garlands of ornamentation from the soloist, the result sounds like some lost work of Dvorák at his most melodically characterful. Barton's electrifying attack on the finale, a dazzling "Rondo from hell" with a whiplash perpetual motion principal subject, sets the seal on this remarkable performance. Her double-stops (and there are tons of them: check out from 2:30 into the movement) are as sweetly tuned and richly voiced as her legato is smooth and her sense of rhythm acute. Even after this long work I wouldn't be surprised if you went right back and played the finale over again. It's that much fun.

The word that most succinctly sums up Barton's Brahms is "aristocratic". Among recent recordings, she plays Milstein to Hilary Hahn's Heifetz. The timings are identical to Perlman and Giulini's celebrated performance with this same orchestra, but for my money Barton achieves an even finer balance between poise and virtuosity (and shows far greater dynamic sensitivity, especially in the finale). With opening-movement tempos relaxed but never slack, Barton's warm, round sound allows her to really dig into the music where necessary (witness that famous fanfare-like motive, or Joachim's first-movement cadenza)--but she never emits a raw or unlovely note. The second movement, with a gorgeous oboe solo at the start, is just heavenly, and the finale reveals plenty of high-spirited energy but also numerous delightfully phrased touches in its various episodes. At the very end Barton and conductor Kalmar produce a wind-down coda simply perfect in its timing and wit. She even includes her own eminently musical and enjoyable cadenza on a separate track. Simply jump ahead when the orchestra stops (the balance of the coda is also included, so you don't have to skip backward to get the ending).

As noted above, the sonics are sensational. The opening of the Brahms, with dark-hued strings answered by the winds like a gleam of sun breaking through the clouds, will take your breath away. Although Barton deserves much of the credit for emitting such attractive sounds, it certainly helps that Cedille's engineers capture her shining tone with nary a trace of shrillness, even in the highest positions. Barton herself writes an excellent set of notes (surely indebted to Tovey in discussing the Joachim, but none the worse for that), and to put the icing on the cake she plays a 1742 Guarneri "del Gesu" violin, the "ex-Soldat", selected by Brahms himself for his friend and colleague, violin virtuoso Marie Soldat. Recordings don't get any better than this. Rachel Barton, conductor Carlos Kalmar, and Cedille deserve your enthusiastic support for putting this project together and executing it with such perfectionist zeal and consummate musicianship. There's also a lesson here that the whole industry should take to heart: Where there's a will, there's a way, and it's OK to make fewer recordings, especially if you make great ones. Astounding!

--David Hurwitz

PIANO DREAMS - Most Popular Melodies (The)

BACH Orchestral Suite No. 1. Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. Concerto for Flute, Violin, and Harpsichord, “Triple Concerto.” Concerto for 2 Harpsichords in C • Jaap ter Linden, cond; Claire Guimond (fl); Chantal Rémillard (vn); Hank Knox (hpd); Luc Beauséjour (hpd); Arion (period instruments) • EARLY-MUSIC .COM 7753 (78:12)


Based in Montreal, the Arion baroque orchestra was founded in 1981 by Claire Guimond, Chantal Rémillard, Hank Knox, and gambist Betsy MacMillan, the only founder not featured on this recording. Claire Guimond is their conductor, but habitually they have imported key figures to lead their group, in this case Jaap ter Linden. At first I wondered why this particular grouping of Bach orchestral pieces: they seem to have been chosen to feature the group’s founders. They are a talented bunch. Listening to the Fifth Brandenburg , which I first heard under Alfred Busch, I am impressed by the not-so-inevitable zest of the band, and by Hank Knox’s dramatic harpsichord playing. They don’t linger over the movement marked Affettuoso: here I think other recordings, such as the Pinnock, are preferable. And I have to confess that the First Orchestral Suite is not my favorite. Yet this is stylish Bach playing on early instruments, recorded exquisitely in 2001 and reissued here. I still admire Marriner’s orchestral suites, the Busch Brandenburg Concertos (as well as Pinnock, Marriner, and others). This recording, though, is a wholly pleasing modern recording of a unique collection of Bach’s music.


FANFARE: Michael Ullman

The musical world of Arvo Pärt has fascinated listeners and performers for several decades. The astonishing, breathtaking musical landscape he presents brings us to another dimension in which time seems to cease to exist. And his music reaches an audience which is wider than that of any other contemporary composer of art music today, teaching us that newly composed music can serve to fulfil spiritual needs. As BIS' contribution to the celebration of Pärt's 70th anniversary this year, we have looked back through our mirror and brought together a number of works spanning more than three decades of his career: from 1964 to 1998.

Vivaldi, A.: Concertos - Rv 104, 106, 108, 428, 433, 441, 44

Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon described Haydn’s D major cello concerto as one of the composer’s “weakest compositions”, an “uncomfortable” work, displaying “misjudgments of dramatic timing”, its concluding rondo “staid and melodically short-winded”. Whatever the theoretical, and to some degree subjective basis for that assessment, for most listeners, hearing this concerto will provoke nothing short of pure delight and appreciation for Haydn’s clever and catchy—and often virtuosic—thematic writing, buoyant rhythms, and thoroughly entertaining interplay between soloist and orchestra. There’s a reason why the work is represented on more than 100 recordings in the current CD catalog. And Wendy Warner’s addition to that number is a stellar confirmation of its popularity to audiences and particular appeal to performers.

That same popularity applies to the C major concerto, written in the 1760s, some 20 years earlier than the D major, yet only re-discovered in 1961 and given its modern premiere in Prague a year later. This work features even more brilliant bursts of virtuosic writing for the soloist—and Warner really digs in: you can just picture the flashing bow strokes, the swift, fluid motion of fingers, and a resultant musical enunciation that seems so easily and effortlessly produced, so absolutely natural, and so articulate and artful that you wouldn’t care if the tune were “Twinkle, twinkle little star”, you’d be just as impressed and satisfied. In fact, in view of the grand heap of Haydn cello concerto recordings, Warner’s playing places this one at the very top.

Warner’s impressive command of style and technique also serve to convince us that the “other” concerto on the program—a little-known work by Czech composer, and friend of Mozart, Joseph Myslivecek—is a more than worthy companion to the Haydn pieces; in fact, if you’re not paying very close attention, you won’t notice the transition from the Haydn C major concerto to Myslivecek’s work in the same key—the style and quality of Myslivecek’s composition makes an easy, almost seamless flow from one piece to the next. Combining this work with the two Haydn concertos was a smart bit of programming that, along with the unquestioned virtuoso performances of Wendy Warner, gives this disc an extraordinary value not only for collectors but for those who have yet to acquire a recording of these essential Haydn works. Praise for the orchestra and its conductor Drostan Hall must not go without mention—they are outstanding collaborators whose appropriately styled, energetic playing and remarkably tight ensemble complement every note and expressive utterance from Warner’s Guarneri cello. The sound, from College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, is consistent with Cedille’s highest standard. Don’t miss this.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

J.S. Bach: Keyboard Concertos, BWV 1052, 1055 & 1056