The Sonata for Two Violins is one of Henryk Gorecki’s earliest acknowledged works- its contrasts, instrumental rivalries and sophisticated technique a worthy rounding-off of his formative period. The Third String Quartet with its evocative subtitle ‘… songs are sung’ represents a culmination of Gorecki’s preoccupations with elaborate and emotive melodic shapes and closely intertwined harmonies, its final minutes recalling the beauty and poignancy of the composer’s Third Symphony. The First and Second String Quartets can be heard on Naxos as well: “a recording deserving of the very highest recommendation.” (Gramophone).

RUTTER: Feel the Spirit / Birthday Madrigals / SHEARING: Son

REVIEW:

The album works well for what it actually is: a collection of music by Argentine composers who attempted to reconcile the indigenous rhythms of their homeland with new European currents. These range from the semi-popular styles of some of the earlier composers to the avant-garde rhythmic treatments of Alberto Ginastera, who actually benefits from being placed in these surroundings. In a way, the album is a survey of paths not taken by Piazzolla, something that may indeed be of great interest to his devotees, but buyers should know what they're getting into.

– AllMusic Guide (James Manheim)

Bridge's Poul Ruders Edition, Vol. 16, features the world premiere recording of a major new Ruders concerto, the seven movement "Sound and Simplicity" (2018), performed by Danish accordion virtuoso Bjarke Mogensen and the Odense Symfoniorkester, led by Sebastian Lang-Lessing. The album also includes Mogensen's transcription of Ruders's hypnotic "Dream Catcher" for solo accordion, and the re-issue of one of the Danish composer's masterpieces- his Symphony No. 3, subtitled "Dream Catcher". Ruders stands today among a handful of the world's leading composers, with operas staged in Munich, London, Copenhagen, New York, Santa Fe, and Boston, and symphonic scores commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Steve Reich is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost exponents of minimalism, arguably the most significant stylistic trend in late 20th-century music. This chronological survey shows how Reich’s innate curiosity has taken his work far beyond such musical boundaries. One of the first fruits of Reich’s creative quest is ‘Music for Two of More Pianos,’ in which the influence of Morton Feldman and jazz pianist Bill Evans can be heard. The rhythmic and flamboyant ‘Eight Lines’ comes from the true heyday of minimalism, while ‘Vermont’ and ‘New York Counterpoint’ both explore webs of phased patterns created by multi-tracked instruments. ‘City Life’ is a dramatic set of impressions of New York, vividly weaving sampled speech and street sounds into a work with symphonic depth of range and expression.

REVIEW:

This generously filled new release includes compositions from a wide swath of Reich’s career, from Music for Two or More Pianos from 1964 to City Life from 1995. All of the selections are clearly minimalist in that they employ simple chord structures, rhythmic patterns that revolve around a discernible driving pulse, and an abundance of energy. The earliest piece, for pianos, is the most abstract-sounding, but after something of a slow start, it picks up energy as it as it moves along. Reich’s compositions and these spirited performers project an undeniable feeling of life-affirming joy, a sense of sheer exuberance, and an expression of gratitude for the ability to create, perform, and enjoy the sounds of music and integrate them with the with the rhythms of life. This is a disc well worth an audition even if you have listened to a Philip Glass recording or two in the past and concluded that minimalism was not for you…

-- Classical Candor (Karl W. Nehring)

Toshio Hosokawa, Japan's pre-eminent living composer, creates his distinctive musical language from the fascinating relationship between western avant-garde art and traditional Japanese culture. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's 1945 poem, Hosokawa frames his monodrama The Raven as a Japanese Noh play, with its interaction between the human protagonist and an otherworldly animal. Vividly exploring ideas of madness, The Raven conjures up a shadowy and unfamiliar world.

Includes work(s) by Alfred Schnittke. Ensemble: Tapiola Sinfonietta. Conductor: Ralf Gothóni. Soloists: Ralf Gothóni, Tero Latvala, Ulf Wallin.

Classical Music

Kalevi Aho is one of today’s most prolific composers of large-scale orchestral scores, including 17 symphonies and 32 concertos to date. Less well-known is the fact that he has also written chamber music, as well as an ever-expanding series of solo pieces – starting with Solo I for violin from 1975, the most recent in the series, for clavichord, is the 17th. Some of these pieces has originated as part of Aho’s preparations when composing a concerto for the instrument in question, while others have been written for competitions, including Solo III for flute and Solo IV for cello on the present release. This first volume of Solos gathers seven pieces in all, four of which have previously appeared as part of separate discs. Aho’s Solos share the characteristic that they pose great technical, interpretative and often also physical challenges to the performer. Most of those heard here are performed by the musicians for whom they were written, including Hiyoli Togawa (Solo XII), Piet Van Bockstal (Solo IX), Simon Reitmaier (Solo XIV) and Marie-Luise Neunecker (Solo X).

This disc offers the world première recording of Viatore ('The Wanderer', 2001), which may be described as a representation in sound of 'becoming' or 'passing' - a spiritual journey in familiar Vasks territory. All the works were recorded in the presence of the composer by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra - an ensemble whose previous BIS recordings have all been highly acclaimed. The orchestra's performances on one of their latest offerings - H.K. Gruber's Manhattan Broadcasts BIS-CD-1341) - were termed "masterful" (Gramophone), "a triumph" (BBC Music Magazine), and "superb" (The Times). Under the direction of the orchestra's leader Katarina Andreasson, who also performs the solo part of the violin concerto, the playing on the present disc is no less committed.

An iconic release that launched a celebrated series of 'London Sound' recordings, this album assembles an unparalleled ensemble of 40 cellos from The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. David Vernier writes: "Who knows where the idea for this incredible recording came from, but be assured, you've never heard anything quite like it before. The sound of 40 topnotch cellists from four London orchestras performing Saint-Sa�ns's The Swan or Rachmaninoff's Vocalise is indescribable-but when you hear the rich, warm, reedy resonance, you won't forget it."

Some of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' most imposing and important music for solo instruments can be heard in his cycle of ten Strathclyde Concertos, composed for, and premiered by the soloists of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The ingeniously structured Seventh Concerto, for double bass, is both tense and haunting. The more conventionally laid out Eighth Concerto, for bassoon, is by turns playful and lyrical, and features an important role for timpani. A Spell for Green Corn was written to celebrate the 21st anniversary of the SCO and Maxwell Davies' 60th birthday.

Featuring limited edition packaging in a real wooden box with heat stamped cover design, Timber is composed by Michael Gordon, co-founder of Bang on a Can and Cantaloupe Music. Timber is an evening-length tour de force. Scored for six graduated wooden Simantras percussion instruments devised by French composer Iannis Xenakis the work brings the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level. In this new work, Gordon shapes the music in both polyrhythmic and dynamic waves of textures often each players' hands are in separate rhythmic 'worlds', each traversing a different dynamic contour from loud to soft to loud, similar in some respects to his solo for percussion, XY.

A companion to Jan Lehtola’s recording of Kalevi Aho’s (b. 1949) monumental organ symphony ‘Alles Vergängliche’, this present disc includes five smaller Aho pieces for organ solo, as well as three compositions for organ and other instruments. + Mr. Lehtola has appeared with the leading Finnish orchestras, performed at international festivals and given recitals in leading European churches and concert halls. + He has had works written for him by several composers, including Kalevi Aho.

The pioneering work and unconventional ideas of John Cage deeply affected Western music during the second half of the 20th century. This second of two volumes completes Katrin Zenz's review of his complete works for flute. The earlier chromatic pieces include an incredible variety of extended techniques and a perplexing rhythmic complexity. The elements of chance and experimentation in the later compositions result in music that is constantly undergoing seismic shifts in form and expression. The elegance and purpose of Cage's music rests in a tenderness and devoutness that he stated should "sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences."

Following on from the unmitigated success of the choral album 'Kyrie,' 'Scenarios' is a new collection of Miniatures for Piano composed by Richard Harvey and performed by his friend, the renowned concert pianist, John Lenehan. Exquisitely recorded in the unique Yehudi Menuhin Hall in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey, these pieces have been drawn from Richard's notebooks dating back to his student days and also from impressionistic memories with a distinctive wash of Mediterranean sunlight and color pervading the collection. Childlike in places and pensive in others, the music is a travel pass to warmer climes and shared memories. Having come through the ranks of a quintessentially British musical upbringing via Tiffin School, The Royal College of Music, and as a member of the British Youth Symphony Orchestra, Richard started composing in his early teens. He toured the USA and performed his own music at Madison Square Gardens, all before he was twenty. Like many other classical composers in the modern age, he also accepted commissions for TV and film music, and became best known for his work in this field until the turn of the millennium. Alongside rave reviews for his Concertos for Recorder Virtuoso, Michala Petri and for the legendary Violist, Roger Chase, Richard also won a British Academy Award for his score for Alan Bleasdale's epic political drama "GBH" and has four Ivor Novello nominations under his belt. Beyond that, it's fair to say that his film and TV scores are too numerous to mention, although in 2017 he was honored with an "Annie Award" for his score for the animated picture "The Little Prince" which he co-wrote with his long standing friend and collaborator, Hans Zimmer, following on from the success of his much praised contribution to The Da Vinci Code movie featuring Tom Hanks.

Witold Lutosławski’s String Quartet no. 2 comes from a time when his style had entered a 'Sturm und Drang' period. + Dissonant harmonies, vivid juxtapositions in musical color, and complex textures fill the majority of his works from the 1960s, including this 1964 work. + Its compositional craft places it directly among the most important works in the genre’s history. + Paweł Mykietyn’s String Quartet no. 2 belongs to his creative evolution that began in 2004 and continues to this day. + Works created in this time are more or less widely considered to be the greatest Polish works of recent years.

Roberto Sierra’s refined compositional voice is subtly combined with contemporary musical techniques and his Puerto Rican heritage in the three works recorded here.

Cantares, commissioned by the Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club to celebrate the university’s sesquicentennial anniversary, evokes ancient Peruvian, Aztec and Afro Caribbean voices lost in time. The virtuoso Triple Concierto transforms the popular Caribbean rhythms of salsa, bolero and merengue into complex contemporary expressions, while the polyrhythmic layers of Loíza conjure a Puerto Rican town known for its strong African traditions.

Puerto Rico-born composer Roberto Sierra is internationally recognized and renowned for his integration of Caribbean music with the Western idioms he acquired during studies in Europe, and this release of recent works follows a whole series of much-admired and highly popular recordings of his music on the Naxos label. The most recent of these, Kandinsky (8.559849), was described as ‘a real find’ by Gramophone, and as presenting ‘mouth-dropping renditions of this music of supreme virtuosity’ by Fanfare. Sinfonía No. 3 ‘La Salsa’ (8.559817) was admired by ClassicsToday.com for ‘three highly entertaining orchestral works saturated with Latin rhythms and melodic motives’, and the Missa Latina (8.559624) was a GRAMMY nominee and summed up as ‘a powerful and individual major work performed with exemplary skill and commitment in superb sound’ by MusicWeb International. In other words, new recordings of works by Roberto Sierra are always a welcome and much in demand addition to the catalogue.

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REVIEW:

Cantares is performed atmospherically and with a thoroughly mystical character. In Loiza, the Afro-Caribbean dance Bomba is the starting point for polyrhythmic variations that are enchantingly dancing. It is an original and rousing work. Sierra has dedicated his Triple Concerto to the Arbós Trio. It is based on Caribbean music and popular rhythms. This work too is presented in an enthralling interpretation, so that this distinctive CD and the exemplary performances can only be strongly recommended.

– Pizzicato

‘I find myself increasingly occupied with matters of the human soul, its sublimation and spiritual abyss. Certainly my opera The Ocean Betrayed betrays this preoccupation. This music has been to Hades and back, with Monteverdi and myself.’ Hans-Werner Henze. Henze originated this storyline by following his fascination that he had of the work of the enfant terrible of post-war Japanese literature, Yukio Mishima (1925 - 1970), whose novel “Gogo no Eiko” forms the basis of the opera. This novel, like almost all of the author's creations, sketches a suffocating scenario of hopelessness in which the struggle for normality is doomed to failure. Henzes free-tonal score ties in with musically-dramatic principles of composition following the tradition of Richard Strauss. In symphonic interludes, the luxurious orchestra gives the eponymous hero a voice: the angry “betrayed sea.”

REVIEW:

Despite his stylistic adventurousness and position as a political outsider, Henze was the last composer in the German operatic tradition (think of it as Late, Late German Romanticism), and his score beautifully exploits the lush forces of the Vienna Philharmonic. Since, as he noted, “Mishima’s novel is teeming with references to all things French”, he adopts a French musical style, mixed with Japanese elements of rhythm and exotic percussion. The vocal lines are compelling, and conductor Simone Young reveals both the work’s dense beauty and the sustained, gut-wrenching brutality of the final scenes.

Josh Lovell’s sweetly smooth lyric tenor establishes a chilling contrast between Noboru’s youth and his malevolent nature and explains Ryuji’s easy affinity with the boy. Erik Van Heyningen’s powerful bass voice is a bit mature for the gang leader (“Number One”), but Henze’s writing demands it, and his vocal authority reflects his power over the others. Vera-Lotte Boecker is a magnificent singing actress; her lean and supple sound is perfect for the sensuous Fusako, and she glides effortlessly through the coloratura of the 13th scene, as Fusako imagines a happy future for the newly formed family. Bo Skovhus shouts a bit on fortes, but his singing in the gentler sections is appropriately ingratiating.

-- American Record Guide

The seductive, addictive potential of this music can be heard and felt straight away. His film music, an important pillar of his livelihood, embodies almost everything that characterizes Schnittke's music as a whole. It heralds a musical personality which, precisely because of its conscious use of tradition in the twentieth century, represents a solitary exception. Curious – not greedy for the old – he collected discarded or worn-out remains of music history, cleaned and polished them, and placed them in strikingly new contexts. The principle of drawing from and making use of the past was not well received in the strongholds of the avant-garde, but was all the more enthusiastically embraced by film viewers and concertgoers. 25 years ago Schnittke had encouraged the young conductor, arranger, and film music expert Frank Strobel to condense the music of his film scores into suites and to republish them for concert use. Since then, Strobel has arranged around a third of Schnittke’s over 60 pieces of film music and successively recorded them with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.

This Blu-ray Audio Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard CD or DVD players.



CORIGLIANO Symphony No. 3, “Circus Maximus.” Gazebo Dances • Jerry Junkin, cond; U Texas Wind Ens • NAXOS NBD0008 (Music-only Blu-ray disc: 52:54)


This program is the first music-only Blu-ray release from Naxos; when the busiest classical record label on the planet decides to take a particular technical direction, it behooves us to take note. Naxos has previously issued both SACDs and DVD-Audio discs but has fallen silent for some time, as far as a high-resolution product is concerned. DVD-Audio is gone and SACD, despite the fierce loyalty of a relatively small base of enthusiasts (like me), hasn’t moved beyond the category of a niche product. Blu-ray movies, of course, have been selling like hotcakes to a wide audience and it follows that there are a hell of a lot of Blu-ray players out there. The technology also provides a medium for state-of-the-art music reproduction, and Naxos now joins a number of more obscure labels including 2L, AIX, and Surround Records to provide us with a specimen of what could become the dominant physical carrier of high-resolution digital music.


Significantly, Naxos has not chosen a “sonic spectacular” warhorse to introduce the new format—another Planets, Carmina Burana, or 1812 —but instead offers the first recording of a major work by an important contemporary composer. John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 3 for large wind ensemble, “Circus Maximus,” composed in 2004, is certainly the right stuff to show off the possibilities of an audiophile medium. The piece considers the similarities between the appetite in ancient Rome for spectacle of ever-increasing extremity and the media-driven, lowest-common-denominator reality-show entertainment culture of our own day. The composer observes in his liner note: “Many of us have become as bemused by the violence and humiliation that flood the 500-plus channels of our television screens as the mobs of imperial Rome, who considered the devouring of human beings by starving lions just another Sunday show.”


Corigliano’s technique involves settling on an “architecture” for a piece before actually developing specific musical materials. The Circus Maximus was, of course, Rome’s enormous outdoor public entertainment venue and the composer wanted his work to “justify the encirclement of the audience by musicians, so that they were in the center of an arena.” His “Circus Maximus” is scored for a typical concert wind ensemble positioned onstage, in front of the listener, plus a substantial “surround band” deployed quite specifically around the hall. (The notes reproduce a diagram for positioning the instruments as published in the G. Schirmer score.)


The 35-minute composition consists of eight sections that run continuously. “Introitus” opens with fanfares from 11 trumpets located around the perimeter of the auditorium’s first tier, soon joined by the onstage players. This attention-grabbing movement leads to “Screen/Siren”—a quartet of saxophones plus string bass placed distantly and emitting plaintive, beckoning cries, a song sung in a tritone-laden harmonic milieu. This is rudely interrupted by “Channel Surfing,” as hyperactive music seems to come from every direction. In the manner of Mahler’s Seventh, there are two contrasted “Night Music” sections, one evoking a dangerous backwoods—wild animals howl—and the second an energetic nocturnal urban environment. Then comes the “Circus Maximus” itself: “Exuberant voices merge into chaos and a frenzy of overstatement,” in the words of the composer. Relief follows in the form of a “Prayer” that possesses a degree of harmonic uncertainty but always seems to have a IV to I resolution as the favored destination. “Coda: Veritas” reprises the first section’s fanfares, building to an almost unbearably intense unison note for all the trumpets, terminated by the firing of a 12-gauge shotgun. (Thoughtfully, Corigliano suggests in the printed score that a performing organization may want to hire “a licensed pyrotechnician,” rather than entrust the operation of the firearm to an everyday percussionist.)


The multichannel audio program, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, is virtually mandatory for a full appreciation of a work in which the spatial deployment of the performers is critical. (In the “Circus Maximus” section, a marching band actually moves through the cacophony produced by the other considerable forces.) Producer Stephen Epstein and engineer Richard King—both have worked for Sony Classical—have created an incredible sonic experience that may change your outlook in terms of the level of visceral excitement achievable with large-scale repertoire in a home listening environment.


Corigliano’s Gazebo Dances, composed originally for piano four-hands, is a much earlier work. There have actually been six previous recordings of the version for band. The four brief movements are inspired by a turn-of-the-last-century concert-band-in-the-park ethos. The composer describes the opening Overture as “Rossini-like”—I hear the Bernstein of Candide. There’s an off-kilter Waltz and a wistful Adagio that reaches a troubled climax. An exuberant Tarantella ends this affable piece, which is surely within the capabilities of most college bands and maybe even a few ambitious high school groups. Delightful stuff.


FANFARE: Andrew Quint


There are two distinct issues with this disc: the music and the recording. Readers of MusicWeb International want to know what to expect from two unknown works by a rarely heard composer. Your reviewer would however be failing in his duty if he did not herald the arrival of a 'new' format for music.
 
The music first. The symphony is scored for a large wind-band which is detailed in the insert giving not only instrumentation but a diagram of its distribution around the large auditorium at the University of Texas. As it is the composer’s intention that we are surrounded by the players and impacted from all angles, the DTS Master soundtrack is the one to hear. The opening leaps out from behind the listener and much of the first three movements come from discrete groups of musicians placed behind and to the sides. The work fully deserves the title 'symphony' because the themes announced in the early stages are developed extensively in proper symphonic style culminating in recalls of earlier music near the end. Corigliano writes about his wish to draw parallels between the shows at the Ancient Roman Circus Maximus and the current preoccupation with an increasingly intrusive media pandering to the lowest common denominator through 'reality' shows. Whilst we may not feed the religious to the lions, we do seem to watch public humiliation with greater and greater relish. The idea also gave him the excuse he sought to surround his audience with performers. For me the music works quite well and is certainly not hard to enjoy even if it is a bit nerve-racking awaiting the next unexpectedly angled assault. The two Night Music movements are reminiscent of Mahler's pairing in the Seventh Symphony with their fierce activity but here the two nights are of nature and of the city. Night Music 1 is atmospheric but more than just sound-effects because it is thematically linked to what has gone before, particularly the 'primitive calls' heard in the Introitus. Night Music 2 serves as a scherzo for his Symphony, full of dance rhythms and punctuated by fierce outbursts culminating in a climax of quite devastating impact. This is followed by the reflective Prayer and a short but dramatic coda Veritas. The work closes with a gun-shot for which detailed instructions are given in the score, just in case anyone should try to use the 'wrong' gun! The Gazebo Dances are orchestrated from a set of piano four-hand pieces and scored for a more normal wind-band. They are very agreeable with the easy charm of Malcolm Arnold's light music and as beautifully recorded as the main work.
 
To focus on the recording and the medium. This is not the first music issue on Blu-Ray but it is the first from mass-market leaders Naxos and they have announced several more including four Dvorák symphonies. Clearly they are seriously testing out the market for a medium which will not play on anything except a Blu-Ray-capable player, thus the notice on the packaging about it not working on a CD or standard DVD player. Given that the classical market is a tiny fraction of the CD market, that modern classical music is a fraction of that fraction, and finally that Blu-Ray is a fraction of the DVD market, Naxos have set themselves a huge task to sell more than a handful of any one disc in this series. This 2006 recording was made in 24-bit 88.2 kHz and this fact is emblazoned across the top of the cover as if it mattered. What you hear is not 24-bit / 88.2 kHz, that was the digital format for the failed DVD-Audio market, but DTS High Definition Master Audio and that provides 24-bit 96 kHz in 6 channels: 5 surround and one for the subwoofer if you have one. Naxos made a series of DVD-A discs a few years back, thus the present recording format; then they tried out SACD - yet another format. Both failed because few people had the equipment to play the discs and Naxos withdrew from that market. Blu-Ray is different because it is possible to play these music-only discs on any Blu-Ray video equipped home cinema system. How many people will purchase both the latest Hollywood blockbuster and John Corigliano's latest symphony remains to be seen! This particular issue is very well recorded indeed. I would go so far as to say it is one of the best I've ever heard. Since the music demands actual surround distribution of forces the use of the extra channels is not merely self indulgence by the engineers. The dynamic range on the disc is little short of frightening. If you do not jump when the music starts you have not turned the volume up far enough and you will not hear the quietest passages, of which there are plenty. Why the disc requests contact with the internet I do not know. I tried saying yes and no for two playings and detected no change in facilities. Maybe someone somewhere in Naxos marketing has noted the fact that I played the disc. I will be very interested to hear the Dvorák symphonies which make very different, much subtler, demands on a surround recording.  

-- Dave Billinge, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

The King’s Singers explore the folk songs and melodies of the world in a new program entitled Postcards. In their own words: “In our travels we have amassed a wonderful collection of folksongs and popular songs from numerous countries, many of which we use as encores when we visit. The influences and sources are extraordinarily far-ranging, and each song has its own local characteristics. To celebrate the diversity of music that we perform and the numerous countries we visit each concert season, we have recorded an album of some of our favorite folksongs from around the world.” One of the world's most celebrated vocal ensembles, The King's Singers have a packed schedule of concerts, recordings, media and education work that spans the globe. Instantly recognizable for their spot-on intonation, impeccable vocal blend, flawless articulation of the text and incisive timing, they are also consummate entertainers: a class act with a delightfully British wit.

Carson Cooman is many things musical – organist and Composer in Residence at the Memorial Church, Harvard University; writer, critic and consultant, concert organist, and above all a highly prolific composer of music in a wide variety of genres, from orchestral to song. His organ compositions come in many styles, from liturgical models, to more gritty and substantial pieces such as his organ symphonies and preludes and fugues. This album contains several fine works including the Third Organ Symphony. Erik Simmons started playing the organ at age 10 when he was a chorister at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Glendale, California. His primary organ teacher was Richard Slater. Erik has furthered his studies by working with Lanny Collins, Barbara Baird, and Lee Garrett, and through master classes with various clinicians, including Harald Vogel. Erik holds a BA in applied mathematics and MS in mathematical modeling from Humboldt State University. He has recorded many albums, including an album of the organ music of American composer James Woodman.

This new release is the sixth volume in a series profiling the work of Augusta Read Thomas. Called “a true virtuoso composer” by The New Yorker, Augusta Read Thomas is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she has become one of the most recognized figures of American music. Performers on this album include the Parker Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, Spektral Quartet, violinist Nathan Giem, Aurora Orchestra, Nathan Cole, and Clair Booth.

This album is devoted to the works of Carson COOMAN, organ scholar at Harvard, and one of the most prolific, inspired and increasingly popular American composers. It contains three short piano solo works and pieces for tuba and piano, trumpet and piano and flugelhorn with harp; the first work is an atmospheric song cycle for soprano with trumpet and piano. These are world premiere recordings.

Luciano Berio’s Coro has been described as the work that ‘exemplifies all the qualities that made him one of the leading composers of our time’. The work’s full title is ‘Coro for voices and instruments’, and the 40 voices and 44 instrumentalists do indeed make up a single choir – instrumentalists and singers sit together, with each singer paired with a particular player, and used both as soloists and combined in mass effects. Composed in 1976, Coro is also a strikingly ‘global’ work: Berio’s use of texts (mainly translations of folk poetry) attributed to peoples – ‘Peruvian’, ‘Croatian’, ‘Sioux’ – turns the work into a chorus of cultures. The texts are laid out in 31 separate sections of varying length, but the overall effect is cumulative, not episodic. The only named author is the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who became a powerful posthumous voice following his death in 1973 in the wake of General Pinochet’s military coup. Along with other text fragments, his words ‘Come and see the blood in the streets’ keep returning during the course of the work, and the sense emerges of human individuals needing to be alerted to social and political developments demanding a collective response. Under its artistic director Grete Pedersen the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir has made acclaimed recordings of music ranging from Norwegian folk songs and Hildegard of Bingen to Bach, Brahms and Xenakis. Joined by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra it now takes on one of the major choral works of the past 50 years. The album closes with Berio’s smaller scale Cries of London, performed by members of the choir.

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REVIEW:

Luciano Berio is quite rightly viewed as one of the most interesting and adventurous composers of his time. More so than many of his works from the 1960s, Coro struck me as being closer in style and spirit to some of the work of György Ligeti, particularly Ligeti at his best. It is the massed choral sound — and the astonishingly brash, almost metallic sound of the instrumental ensemble — that strikes one the most and stays in the mind. Needless to say, this is exactly the sort of work for which Bis’s SACD sonics are ideal.

– Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

At the age of 21, Leonard Bernstein wrote what he described as a ‘Hebrew song’ using a text from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Three years later the song became the final movement of his Symphony No. 1 and in January 1944 Bernstein himself conducted the première of the work. What is being lamented is the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, but according to the composer, he primarily wanted to convey the text’s ‘emotional quality’. The first movement thus aims to parallel in feeling the intensity of the prophet’s pleas while the scherzo gives a general sense of the destruction and chaos. Being a setting of the biblical text, the third movement is naturally more literary: the cry of Jeremiah, as he mourns his beloved Jerusalem. During the next few years, Bernstein’s career as a conductor took flight, while the musical On the Town made his name on Broadway. Towards the end of the 1940s he returned to the symphonic genre, however – once more with an extra-musical inspiration. W.H. Auden’s poem The Age of Anxiety is set during the recently concluded war, and falls – like the symphony – into six sections during which four characters express their anxieties, hopes and the quest for meaning and identity. Bernstein chose to portray all four characters via a single instrument, the piano, but he did not want to label the work a piano concerto. The instrument does however come to the fore at various points and in one of the final sections Bernstein supplies what is arguably the most exuberant and rhythmically dazzling display of piano writing in the symphonic literature. For this Christian Lindberg and the Arctic Philharmonic have enlisted the aid of Roland Pöntinen, while Anna Larsson is the soloist in Jeremiah.

A New York Times 25 Best Classical Music Track Selection for 2018 - Apostolo glorioso

Migration of peoples across borders has shaped the human experience for millennia. While securing permanent shelter—a home—has become a goal for the majority of individuals in our world, migration remains one of our main strategies for survival. Today, tens of millions of individuals live a nomadic lifestyle as hunter gatherers or pastoralists. Pilgrims seek moral or spiritual significance through extended physical journeys. Immigrants and refugees seek freedom, stability, and safety in a new community or country. Whether physical or metaphysical, humanity survives by way of continuous movement—our culture, beliefs, and histories are marked by impermanence. Music functions as a container of meaning, a vehicle we have used for centuries to express and grapple with the ineffable. We want to capture music—to write it down with a notation that clearly defines and preserves our musical ideas for generations to come. Yet, we have struggled to create a collection of symbols that can fully express our intentions—intentions that go far beyond pitch and rhythm. With this evolution came an ever-expanding musical vocabulary, new levels of complexity, and an increased desire to prescribe performance practices with the pen. But music resists this containment—the possibilities precede and outlast the technology that seeks to write them down. The repertoire on this album is rife with symbolism and metaphor that further teases out concepts of impermanence, migration, and the transient nature of musical language. From the wordless vocalises of Takemitsu’s Windhorse depicting Tibetan nomads, to the 12th century polyphony of the Codex Calixtinus sung by pilgrims traveling along the Camino de Santiago, to the dramatic shifts of polyphonic style seen in the 15th century motets of Du Fay and the Turin Manuscript, to Peter Gilbert’s contemporary meditation on the phases of the moon—temporality is a common and unmistakable thread.

REVIEW:

While it’s fun to dip in and sample, the album unfolds its full mesmerizing effect when you follow the singers on their squiggly line through music history, weaving together the ancient and the new in wondrous ways.

– New York Times

The word “fusion” as a musical genre identifier, is a loaded term. At worst, it conjures images of endlessly self-indulgent electric guitar solos, overactive drummers buried deep behind epic drum kits, and seven string electric basses strapped up way too high. At best, it has given us timeless albums that were more sui generis than the mere mashup of distinct styles that it implies. With their album Infusion, Jason Vieaux and Julien Labro suggest a subtle alternative path to stylistic integration; the effectively present several diverse performance approaches all under a concert music umbrella. Taking a staple of modern guitar chamber repertoire like Radames Gnattali’s Suite Retratos and infusing it with aspects of different improvising traditions leaves Gnattali’s structural context in place. In their arrangement of the Tears for Fears classic, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” Vieaux diligently reproduces various components of the multi-track original while infusing it with a soloing approach drawn from jazz. In Labro’s arrangement of Piazzolla’s “Escualo,” the two infuse the song with contemporary references that blend with the original material. Also featured is Leo Brouwer’s Tres Danzas Concertantes, which has been adapted by Julien Labro for this recording. Brouwer has drawn from Afro Cuban sources throughout his career, infusing his concert music with the vibrant rhythms and characteristic harmonic flavors of his native culture.