Ninety years ago, with the score of his first symphony, Aram Khachaturian achieved not only a brilliant graduation piece but also a major concert hall success. Although it was not his first orchestral work - the Dance Suite was composed during his studies with Nikolai Myaskovsky - it demonstrated to the Soviet world that he was not just a fantastic miniaturist. The dimensions of the symphony and his handling of Caucasian folklore, unique colors, and irresistible rhythms of the music fulfilled a promise that was quickly realized. Under Frank Beermann's direction, the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz concludes their symphonic cycle, complementing the three concert CDs by the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz to form an impressive portrait of an extraordinary figure.

When Georg Friedrich Handel's Messiah first premiered on the European continent, 24 years had passed since it's debut. On August 6, 1768, Il Messia brought "il caro Sassone" (the dear Saxon) back posthumously to the land of his early triumphs. Before the memorable performance in Florence's Palazzo Pitti could take place, the content had to be adapted to Catholic doctrines and the expansive form to national customs. Abate Antonio Pillori achieved this in collaboration with tenor and composer Salvatore Pazzaglia. The result was incredible: their Messia is so well-abridged and singable in Italian that the compact form, recorded two years ago at the Innsbruck Festival, could be considered an authentic version that Handel himself might have produced if needed.

In 2017, Croatian conductor Ivan Repusic succeeded Ulf Schirmer as chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra. In this role, he made his cpo debut in 2023 with works by the Swedish composer Gunnar de Frumerie. Now, at the helm of "his" orchestra, he is devoting himself to one of those classics that take second place to the undisputed masters of the era: Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847), who gained renown in Amsterdam as a composer, organist, and flutist. Two years younger than Beethoven, he was a devoted admirer of Joseph Haydn, whose spirit imparted a peculiar flair even to Wilms' later symphonies. The dramatic tone, which also characterizes long stretches of his overtures, never turns into something fatal and inevitable - and precisely, this balancing act gives the music of the man from Leichlingen in the Bergisch-Gladbach district it's unique charm.

When the Polish city of Poznan was still called Posen, a certain Franz Xaver Scharwenka attended the local high school before embarking on a musical career that garnered him significant attention and admiration. Although he primarily made a name for himself as a pianist and composer of countless piano pieces, he was compelled to venture beyond his instrument and did so with remarkable success. In 1877, he presented the first of his four piano concertos to the public in Hanover, a work that continues to delight audiences and has now been added to the cpo catalog. This imaginative piece, performed by the British pianist Jonathan Powell and the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Lukasz Borowicz, serves as a prelude to the only symphony Scharwenka composed - a compelling testament to a man who mastered much more than just the 88 keys.

After listening to a substantial number of operas, cantatas, concertos, and chamber music left by the immensely prolific Georg Philipp Telemann, one might assume there would soon be nothing new to discover. This is far from the truth, as demonstrated by the latest production from Camerata Koln and it's director, Michael Schneider. The "Six Quatuors ou Trios 1733" are not merely a continuation of Telemann's Concerti da camera. They differ significantly: polyphonic, chromatic quirks, delicate cantilenas, highly virtuosic (and expertly executed) miniatures, and finally, a series of ancient women's portraits in the contemporary colors of the "Getreue Music-Meister" - if anything is repeated here, it is the amazement at an almost limitless, inexhaustible imagination.

When someone goes on a journey, they have stories to tell. When the travelers are talented musicians with an open ear for foreign sounds, they will not just tell whimsical stories but will want to transform the impressions they receive into their own creations. This was the case with Cornelis Schuyt (pronounced S-chr-o-it), son of an organist. Born seven years before William Shakespeare in Leiden, the Netherlands, he had the opportunity to visit the land of blooming lemons, and the musical inspirations he brought back apparently stayed with him. Throughout his life, he composed four volumes of enchanting madrigals and published a collection of Padouanas and Gagliardes of breathtaking beauty. Manfred Cordes and the Weser-Renaissance ensemble present a successful mix of vocal and instrumental pieces you will want to hold onto.

Telemann World-Premiere Recordings. Between 1717 and 1765 Georg Philipp Telemann composed more than 1, 700 cantatas for performance on all the Sundays of the church year. Some dozen annual cycles from his period as music director in Frankfurt am Main and above all those from his Hamburg years have come down to us. In quantitative terms, the four Sundays of Advent and the three days of Christmas are the most strongly represented – with almost about two hundred cantatas. Apart from the cantatas for solo voice and solo instrument with basso continuo from his anthology Harmonischer Gottesdienst of 1725, only a few compositions for larger ensembles from this treasure trove have been edited and recorded. This album features four cantatas by Telemann that may be regarded as world-premiere recordings. They are musical gems that impress us with their melodic originality and musical character and even after more than 250 years are very much worth being performed again!

Our most recent Telemann album is a special highlight for the Christmas season! It brings together three Christmas oratorios from Telemann’s Oratorischer Jahrgang for the church year 1730/31 and a cantata from the annual cycle Musicalisches Lob Gottes printed in score form in Nuremberg in 1744. The oratorios are new discoveries and premiere recordings. Even if the works concerned are of cantata length, the term “Oratorio” is in this case perfectly justified. Not only the soprano, alto, and other vocal parts sing but also personified allegories such as Faith, Hope, and Love. Telemann’s musical realization of the poetic sources of the writer and musician Albrecht Jacob Zell is distinguished by great imagination and subtle artistry. The affections and emotions contained in the texts penned by Zell and the Biblical texts inserted by him in the arias and choruses are developed logically and with great feeling: here Telemann employs and combines the whole spectrum of compositional techniques at his command. Telemann’s opulent settings were made to order for the rich resources of Hamburg’s church music, for which he had available eight vocalists as well as some twenty instrumentalists.

Felix Mendelssohn was a passionate organist. Whether in small churches or in majestic cathedrals - wherever he encountered one of these instruments, he had everything he needed. The complex pipe works enabled him to revel in the music of the past on the one hand, which was connected in a special way to the name and output of Johann Sebastian Bach, and on the other hand to let his own ideas have free reign just as his heart desired and to see what would come out of it. Christian Schmitt has recorded the results in impressive completeness on two instrumental works of art from Mendelssohn's time. Each of the three CDs contains two of the six sonatas, and also feature numerous miniatures with which the eternally young Felix mapped out his broad musical horizons.

Venzago typically employs brisk tempos, transparent textures, distinctive brass and woodwind sonorities, and strings played with minimal vibrato. This is a fresh take on Bruckner's music, and Venzago avoids the excessive heaviness and reverence that many 20th century conductors imposed on his works. These streamlined readings may not persuade traditionalists, but the startling performances in this CPO box set may well change the way we think of these symphonies in the future. This ten-CD collection also includes a bonus DVD of Laurent Jaquet's film Venzago's Bruckner.

– All Music Guide

Brazilian writers on Villa-Lobos tend to minimize the value of his symphonies for little reason beyond the fact that for the most part they are not nationalistic in outward intent. But in truth they sound just like everything else he wrote for orchestra: lush, exotic, busy in texture, melodically lavish, and perhaps a bit formally amorphous. Still, if you like Villa-Lobos' sound, then you will like his symphonies. It's really that simple. And if you've enjoyed the other issues in this excellent series, then you'll certainly enjoy this one just as much.

The Second Symphony, for some reason subtitled "Ascension", is 50 minutes of gorgeous texture, with an unusually definable shape (at least in its inner movements). The opening, with its splashing fountains of harp and chirping woodwinds, tells us exactly who the composer must be. Even for Villa-Lobos this work is unusually generous in melody, and not just the obviously Brazilian kind. The second movement, a sort of scherzo, features a memorable slow waltz--decorated by rapid figurations in the winds and strings--that may well stay with you long after the symphony ends. The work does have a bit of a "finale problem", to the extent that the ending seems a bit unmotivated--but really, so does Brahms' First.

New York Skyline Melody is just what the title implies: a shy three minutes of a tune created by taking an outline of the skyline in question and transcribing its shape as notes on music paper. Villa-Lobos designed his entire Sixth Symphony in such a fashion, and the result is about what you might expect: a curiosity. The performances, as with other issues in this series, are excellent, the strings really doing themselves proud in what are some very difficult parts. German radio engineers remain among the best in the business, and the only remaining question is why we had to wait so long for this 1998 recording (of the symphony) to see the light of day.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

-------

Symphonies Nos. 3-5 constitute a "war trilogy" and respectively symbolize war, victory, and peace. As might be expected, the "war" symphony (1919) has its share of noise and hysteria, all of it very exciting and refreshingly brief. The heart of the work, though, is its extraordinary funeral march (subtitled "suffering"), which is as long as that in Beethoven's "Eroica" and certainly one of the most moving pieces that the composer ever wrote. This is a remarkable piece, and one that Carl St. Clair and his SWR forces play with tremendous enthusiasm and conviction.


The brief (19-minute), four-movement Symphony No. 9 comes from the opposite end of the composer's career, offering a playful neo-classicism of form even while exploiting those lavish textures and arresting uses of color that make Villa-Lobos' work so appealing. It's a charmer from start to finish, with an especially delightful scherzo--but the real treat lies in the disc's final item, the very bizarre Overture de l'Homme Tel dating from the same year.


If Honegger had written Rossini's William Tell overture, this might have been the result. It has exactly the same form: slow introduction, agitated allegro, pastoral interlude, and a final gallop, except that the harmony is uniformly astringent and, given the gloomy general character, it's a little hard to tell if the composer is kidding or not. It's major fun all the same, and as the performances of these two later works match that of the Third Symphony in expertise, and the engineering maintains the high standards of the house, anyone collecting this series should snap this disc up without delay.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

-------


It's big. It's loud. It's lush. It's exotic. It's our old friend, Heitor Villa-Lobos back to regale us with his own special brand of extravagantly expressive, orchestrally brilliant, melodically captivating Brazilian musical magic. This second installment in CPO's ongoing traversal of the complete symphonies (pray that they finish the series!) includes the only one (No. 4) actually recorded by the composer himself--pretty dismally, as it turns out. What certainly isn't dismal, though, is Dorian's competing version with the Orquesta Sinfonica Simón Bolívar of Venezuela, a performance featuring almost identical tempos, richer string playing, but slightly less rhythmic acuity than this one. The couplings are different: Dorian offers a fine Second Cello Concerto and the tone poem Amazonas, while CPO gives us the CD premiere of Symphony No. 12. Only 23 minutes long and containing three bubbly movements plus a soulful adagio, this late work has an almost neo-classical pithiness, inasmuch as anything this composer wrote can be termed "pithy". Villa-Lobos has received nothing like the recognition he deserves as a symphonist, largely because much of his music in this medium appears to avoid conventional forms--or any form at all, for that matter. But let's face it, when you can write with this kind of fluency and spontaneity, who cares about form? Lie back, and let conductor Carl St. Clair and his marvelously recorded Stuttgart orchestra inundate your senses with this festive orgy of symphonic exuberance.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

---------

The Sixth Symphony was one of the composer's favorites. Its first movement contains thematic material derived from a topographical map of Brazil, the rise and fall of its mountains dictating the range of its principal melodies. The result, not surprisingly, sounds just like Villa-Lobos; it also recalls the composer's days in Paris, and particularly the elegantly sculpted symphonies of Roussel. It's common to point to the lush colors and extravagant orchestral sonorities that make Villa-Lobos' music so distinctive, but it's also worth noting these works' neat proportions and formal concision, something for which he rarely receives the credit he deserves.


At 25 minutes each, neither symphony makes outrageous demands on the listener's attention, and both feature enticingly evocative slow movements (that of Symphony No. 6 is particularly appealing) surrounded by three short, rhythmically dense, eventful quick ones. The Eighth Symphony, dating from 1950, shows the composer paring down his polyrhythmic orchestral thickets with no loss of imagination or excitement. If anything, it's even more obviously tuneful than the Sixth. Both works are beautiful, engaging, and very well performed and conducted, as with previous discs in this series.


The Suite for Strings is an early work, typically luxuriant and attractive, not especially "Brazilian" melodically, and a bit long for its material, a problem perhaps emphasized by its "slow, less slow, moderate" three-movement structure. Still, it's well worth having, especially in such a lovely performance. Symphony No. 6 also is available in a fine performance on Marco Polo, not quite as well recorded or incisively played as this one, but with highly desirable couplings in its own right. Fans of the composer will want both versions, for sure. CPO's Villa-Lobos symphony cycle is one of the great "happenings" in classical music today. Don't miss it. [6/23/2002]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

-----

This excellent disc continues CPO's marvelous and important ongoing survey of Villa-Lobos' complete symphonies. It's a mystery to me why anyone would claim that Villa-Lobos was not a natural-born symphony composer, not just because he wrote 12 of them, but also because they sound just like everything else he wrote--busy, exotic, and wholly characteristic of his inimitable style. Symphony No. 7 begins like one of his Amazonian tone poems, with "bird call" glissandos, glittering percussion, celesta, harp, and piano, and loony string writing that has to be heard to be believed. The ensuing lento must be accounted one of the most beautiful slow movements in all of the symphonies, attractive of melody and gorgeously scored.


The busy scherzo and finale (with its abrupt and surprising ending) make short and entertaining work of the piece's 36-minute total time. It's actually one of the longer symphonies, and it's so packed with incident that it could have been much lengthier without the slightest suspicion of tedium. As with previous issues in this series, Carl St. Clair and the Stuttgart orchestra do a sensational job with what sounds like horrendously difficult music to play well. The violins in particular should be proud of their death-defying willingness to boldly go where few string sections have gone before.


Sinfonietta No. 1 dates from 1916 (the symphony from 1945), making it one of the composer's earliest orchestral works. It lacks the ethnic elements that give the later pieces their special character, but it's very well written for a small orchestra, tuneful and appealing. It's also much easier to play, and we might expect St. Clair and his band to relax into this sunny music with casual expertise. CPO's sonics uphold the high standards of the house (the SWR engineers always do excellent work). Anyone collecting this series will find this release self-recommending, but the curious also will be well rewarded by starting here.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

-----

Villa Lobos’s massive 10th takes the form of a symphonic oratorio. It was composed in 1952 for the celebrations of the fourth centenary of the city of São Paulo (in 1954) and lasts over an hour. In five movements, the work depicts the history of Brazil—as indeed do several other works by the composer—from the untamed jungle (in the instrumental movement 1), through the civilization of the Tupi Indians (movements 2 and 3) to the arrival of Christianity in the 16th century (movements 4 and 5). Poems set include a translation from a Tupi epic and sections of a long poem in Latin by the Jesuit José de Anchieta, one of the founders of the city.

Interestingly, the thrust of the Tupi poem is, “We must build ourselves a home and become Lords of Brazil, but we’ll do it tomorrow; first let’s get something to eat.” The inference is that the Brazilian natives didn’t get their act together until the Portuguese invaded and pulled them into line. Certainly, that’s how our Jesuit poet sees it. (Personally, I think a life of lotus eating beats one of guilt and atonement hands down.) Anyway, if you share the opinion that religion brings in its wake pomp and long-windedness, you’ll discover that Villa Lobos gets it right. His lengthy fourth movement, which sets Anchieta (over 30 minutes in this performance), hangs fire after what has gone before, in spite of its snatches of tenderness and calm. (In this respect, the choral writing reminded me at times of Duruflé and Honegger.)

The Villa Lobos we know and love—he of the rampant figuration, lush orchestration, and memorable sequential themes—hits his stride in the early movements, particularly the second, which introduces a wordless melisma from the soprano choir. Here we are in the hothouse world of his great film score "Forest of the Amazon" and the "Choros No. 11" for Piano and Orchestra. (Monumental works poured from the composer’s pen in the 1950s; he must have done nothing but write music.)

In spite of the enormous forces and rehearsal time required, this symphony has been recorded twice previously that I know of. I would advise anyone interested in the work to read the reviews of these recordings, conducted respectively by Gisèle Ben Dor for Koch and Victor Pablo Pérez for Harmonia Mundi. I don’t have the earlier discs at hand, but a close comparison would be fascinating if only because of timing discrepancies: Ben Dor gets through the symphony in 57: 20, Pablo Pérez in 66:48 and, as you can see, St Clair takes 73:30: a difference of over 16 minutes! It could be that St Clair takes his time in the earlier movements in order to give the whole work a broad sweep, but surely Ben Dor’s performance involves cuts? I have no answer to this; perhaps one of our readers can shed some light on the matter.
Although his performance may be the slowest, St. Clair doesn’t seem lethargic. His tempos never force the busy violin lines to become a scramble; everything sits, as it were. All sections of the orchestra and the mellifluous soloists come through in this recording as clear as a bell. The choirs are equally present, and the balance of the sound picture is wide-ranging and impressive. St. Clair and the Stuttgart Orchestra are old hands at separating the tendrils of Villa Lobos’s orchestral texture, as they leisurely set down their complete edition of his symphonies. For those collecting the set, this will be a primary acquisition.

-- Phillip Scott, Fanfare Magazine

Alongside the quartets, Haydn’s piano trios form the most important and characteristic branch of his chamber music. This month we will present, at an unbeatable price, all of Haydn's trios in a boxed set of 9 CDs, played on period instruments by the highly acclaimed Trio 1790.

As a superb violinist Andrew Manze has released a great variety of award-winning CDs, often of Baroque music. Manze’s repertoire as a conductor is even larger and here he directs the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra in the complete symphonies of Brahms.

"He who releases the symphonies of Brahms in a new recording does not have to justify himself. The musical quality of the works and the fact that they have occupied a central place in the work of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1912, speak for themselves. The present recording of the Brahms symphonies is unusual in that it avails itself of a ‘post-historically-informed practice,’ since many decisions pertaining to technical performance rely on corresponding historical attestations yet do not put these to use on authentic historical instruments but on conventional modern ones." – Andrew Manze (translated from German)

Classical Music

If you’re up for the challenge, this admirable collection, well played and directed by two intrepid conductors and a game ensemble of Hannoverians, delivers the goods.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Krenek is not exactly an ingratiating composer, and these are works for hard-core collectors only. His style is for the most part harsh and acerbic, moving from the angular chromaticism with light popular music influences of his First Symphony, through serialism, to a kind of free atonality in the Fifth. Significantly, he composed no further symphonies after 1949, although he lived until 1991. This makes him a kind of avatar of the 20th century musical crisis, and an important figure historically, but is the music enjoyable? That of course is a purely subjective question, but without doubt one that will require a measure of concentration and endurance that I suspect may be too much for many listeners. That said, if you’re up for the challenge, this admirable collection, well played and directed by two intrepid conductors and a game ensemble of Hannoverians, delivers the goods.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com