This album is the story of a dialogue between two voices: the singing voice and the voice of the cello, which has always been considered the instrument closest to the human voice. It is also the story of two worlds and the meeting of two cultures, East and West. The East we encounter here is Armenia, its thousand-year-old culture, its music and its songs, which resonate with the compositions of Bach, Kodály and Ligeti.

For the cellist Astrig Siranossian, vocal melody and the sound of the cello are two voices that she has always combined in her concerts, coupling a dance from a solo cello suite by Bach with an Armenian song that she performs with great sensitivity. East and West, Armenia and Europe: it is her roots and her emotions that the young cellist shares with us here. This recording was made on two different cellos, according to the repertory: an instrument by Francesco Ruggieri dating from 1676 and the famous Giovanni Gagliano of 1756 known as the ‘Sir John Barbirolli’.

This record contains the complete works for piano duo (piano 4-hands and 2 pianos) by Paul Hindemith (1895–1963). While Hindemith was foremost a violist, not a pianist, he knew his way around the piano, and this familiarity is reflected in his compositions for the instrument, all of a decent technical level and featuring great originality of expression. Even if he doesn’t immediately spring to pianists’ minds, he deserves to be included in the small group of innovators who significantly enhanced the piano repertoire in the early 20th century, in particular with his Suite 1922, three solo piano sonatas and Ludus Tonalis. Hindemith’s compositions for piano duo, while few in number, are significant and spread across the span of his career, providing snapshots of his various compositional phases. While the Walzer of 1916 are an output of Hindemith’s early training in composition, by 1921 his Ragtime already reflects an early-mature period during which he sought to define a personal style of his own that could be openly abrasive and irreverent. The final three works, on the other hand, present a fully mature composer with a gift for balanced construction.

While Crystal Jarrell Johnson and Angela Malek have long enjoyed thriving careers as soloists, they have always genuinely preferred collaboration. Both singers are professionally based out of San Antonio, and in the fall of 2017 they made their official debut as Deux. They have appeared together in over 40 recitals and concerts throughout South Texas and beyond. They have appeared on the Artist Series at Texoma NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing), have been featured artists on Texas Public Radio, and have been named to the Touring Artist Roster by the Texas Commission on the Arts. Their repertoire includes a wide range of styles from early 17th century to art song, sacred music, opera, and also contemporary commissioned works.

Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728 – 1788) was the last pupil of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. He was present at the master’s deathbed, and he performed the funeral services, taking over the duties of the deceased Cantor. Mühtel’s music (“full of novelty, taste and grace” according to the great art historian and traveller Charles Burney) is of a wide variety, and written mainly for the keyboard (organ and harpsichord). Müthel’s music can be traced stylistically to the empfindsamer Stil or ‘sentimental style’, which blended passages rich in emotional nuance and strong harmonic contrasts with use of rhetoric and counterpoint and sparkling improvisational techniques.

This new recording presents solo sonatas and duets for two keyboards by Müthel, highly original works which show that Müthel was an excellent keyboard player and improviser. Played by Anna Clemente and Giacomo Benedetti, two keyboard players who won their spurs in the performance of hidden gems of the Baroque and (Early) Classical Period, on the basis of the Historically Informed Performance Practice.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) is a composer difficult to classify. A child of his time he kept aloof from the innovations of the modernists and dodecaphony. As son of a German father and a noble-born Venetian mother he was born in Venice and went to study in Munich. He became famous as an opera composer. His style is romantic, tinged with impressionism and the odd neoclassical hint. His aim was to create a “universal beauty” in his works, where no rules apply, but only a feeling of well-being and sensuousness. This new recording is a new instalment of the recording project of the complete Chamber Music by Wolf Ferrari. Presented here are the Piano Quintet, a masterpiece of Brahmsian proportions and impact, the Cello Sonata, full of nostalgic Italianate lyricism, and the Duo for Violin and Cello, a forceful dialogue full of wit and lightness.

Played by the Guadagnini Quartet, Amedeo Cicchese (cello) and pianist Costantino Catena, who is the binding force in this recording project of considerable importance.

There is good reason that Romantic music (because it would be a gross over-simplification to say that this style refers solely to the 19th century) best embodies the spirit of romanticism across the arts, which blossoms with varying intensity throughout the history of European culture. Nevertheless it is true, that this style, that combines both national and folk elements and sublimely expresses a wide range of feelings, was at its peak between 1800 and 1900. The rapid and simultaneous development of the other arts such as poetry, painting and theatre nevertheless had a major influence on music. When considering Romantic works, the first to come to mind are the great musical forms (operas, symphonic poems, sonatas, concerts, etc.), but the lighter, more intimate forms of expression (both instrumental and instrumental-vocal) also reflect the genius of composers. The present release is a showcase of Romantic Duets, presented by soprano Justyna Reczeniedi, mezzo-soprano Anna Radziejewska, and pianist Krzysztof Trzaskowski.

Giovanni Battista Gervasio was a significant personality in the musical scene of ‘stile galante’ of the second half of 18th century; composer, virtuoso and teacher, he studied and improved the four-courses mandolin, which was first built in Naples in that period. Thanks to him this instrument became popular and technically refined as it is nowadays. The mandolinist Marco Giacintucci, after the production of the sonatas for solo mandolin (Tactus TC720702), faces the repertoire dedicated to the six duets for two mandolins published in Amsterdam in 1786, in this world premiere recording. The instruments used for this work are of careful philological conception: an original Neapolitan mandolin by Vincentius Vinaccia 1764 and a copy of the time.

Throughout his life Johannes Brahms composed songs, including several cycles for two or more vocalists. Accompanied by Doriana Tchakarova, Felicitas and Judith Erb now present the duets in a finely tuned Super Audio album. With Magnus Dietrich, the ladies are joined by a truly youthful and radiant tenor for the clearly "male" pieces - a real asset, not only for the great ballads! The folksong-like tone runs through numerous duets. How Brahms, despite - or precisely because of? - the simplicity of the melody, is grandiose: for example, in the popular "Schwesterlein", or also in the dramatic ballad "Edward" with its piano part like an arch-king. Only for about half of the duets is the performance with two singers compulsory; Brahms even expressly intended the "Romances and Songs" op. 84 for one or two singers. The Erb sisters turn the tables and reinterpret many a Brahms song: "Der tote Gast", for example, or "Da unten im Tale", as well as the aforementioned "Schwesterlein", appear in a completely new light in the performance for two. On the Steinway concert grand "Manfred Bürki" from 1901, Doriana Tchakarova performs the piano part with somnambulistic certainty and a great sense for the intense mood of the individual works. From intimate to dramatic, from lyrical to sweeping, everything is there - a true listening pleasure, and not only in the three-dimensional reproduction!

This world premiere recording presents four sonatas and four duos by Giovanni Battista Cirri (1724-1808), a cello virtuoso and teacher whose reputation took him across Europe – including to London, where for a time during the 1760s he was employed by members of the Royal Family, and took part in the first concert given in the English capital by the eight-year-old Mozart. By now, however, Cirri’s name has been almost forgotten, save through an edition of dubious scholarship from the 1950s of a viola concerto which is in fact an arrangement of one of his London cello sonatas. His set of six cello concertos Op 14 has been recorded before now, revealing his creative gifts to be not dazzlingly original but always pleasing, and superbly conceived for his own instrument. All cellists of an adventurous disposition will accordingly be drawn to this new collection, which contains work dating from after his return to Italy in 1780, and to his native Emilia-Romagna region. The Breaking Bass ensemble has selected four of the 12 Sonate di camera, and alternated them with four of the Eight Duets for two cellos to make a satisfying contrast of genre and texture within the album. The solo parts of the sonatas bristle with technical challenges as well as attractive melodic writing, and the duos are full of lively exchange between the two instruments, revealing a far more theatrical side to the composer, with the two instruments taking on solo roles and sharing the limelight on equal terms. They were clearly designed for pedagogical use to be performed by teacher and pupil.

Abundant though it is, César Franck’s vocal music (operas, sacred music, oratorios, mélodies) does not occupy a prominent place in the current repertory. His instrumental compositions – headed by the Violin Sonata in A major and followed by the organ works – represent virtually all that today’s audiences and musicians know of his output. Yet the mélodies and vocal duets, neglected by performers and publishers alike, deserve to be plucked from oblivion, both for their own sake and for their place in the history of French music. The alluring voices of Tassis Christoyannis and Véronique Gens immerse the listener in the atmosphere of the nineteenth-century Parisian salons and the mélodies performed there. The composer and organist César Franck, famed for his instrumental music, proves himself equally skilled in setting poems by Musset, Hugo, Chateaubriand, Daudet and Dumas. This first complete recording of his works for voice and piano ranges over his entire creative life.

REVIEWS:

Of Franck’s overlooked works, probably none are more so than his mélodies (songs). Now, with this new release, Bru Zane provide what is described as the first complete recording of Franck’s works for voice and piano. This collection of 22 mélodies and 6 duos range throughout most of Franck’s compositional life, commencing in 1843 when he was just out of his teens with Robin Gray and Le Sylphe through to 1889 with Les Cloches du soir and La Procession written close to the end of his life. For his melodies, Franck elected to set French texts headed by Victor Hugo with six and also François-René de Chateaubriand, Alphonse Daudet, Alexandre Dumas, Joseph Méry and others.

Bru Zane has entrusted this Franck collection to Greek baritone Tassis Christoyannis and American pianist Jeff Cohen...Christoyannis shines throughout for his reliably warm and appealing tone coupled with the responsive accompaniment from Cohen.

In the set of 6 Duos Christoyannis is partnered by renowned French soprano Véronique Gens who also sings a single mélodie...Her voice remains in outstanding condition and dependably attractive, displaying a special gift for expression. Written in 1888 the 6 Duos, settings of text by five different writers, best evokes the atmosphere of the Parisian salon in the Belle Époque. Christoyannis [has] ease of delivery and Gens[,] engaging charm... 

Sound engineer Matteo Costa has achieved splendid clarity and balance between singers and piano. It’s hard to fault the presentation of Bru Zane releases and this album is no exception. In the accompanying booklet there are a pair of essays Another side to César Franck by Alexandre Dratwicki and The Songs and Duets of César Franck by Jean-Philippe Navarre. There is also detailed and helpful information given for each of the twenty-eight songs/duets together with several reproductions of artworks and documents of the period. The French texts provided with English translations alongside are invaluable.

Beautifully performed, recorded and presented, this album of the complete Songs and Duets of César Franck is an appealing addition to the catalogue.

--MusicWeb International (Michael Cookson)

Art historians unanimously regard Carlo Rainaldi as the most important architect of seventeenth-century Baroque Rome after Bernini, Borromini and Pietro da Cortona. He was born in Rome, on 4 May 1611, to Girolama Verovio and Girolamo Rainaldi, a Roman architect, and received his education at the Collegio Romano, for music, and at the Sapienza, for architecture. He was active in all the major Roman constructions of that period, ranging from S. Agnese in Agone, in Piazza Navona, to the two twin churches of Piazza del Popolo, from S. Maria in Campitelli to the façade of S. Andrea della Valle, from S. Maria in Via to the apse of S. Maria Maggiore, not to mention Palazzo Salviati in the Corso, the loggia of Palazzo Borghese and the sepulchral monument to Clement ix in S. Maria Maggiore. We should also add to this list a number of chapels, sepulchral monuments, altars, triumphal arches and decorations for papal transits and processions. While as an architect Rainaldi has aroused the interest of art historians, he is not well-known yet as a musician. This third cd dedicated to the composer's chamber vocal production (see TC611801 and TC611802), edited by Lorenzo Tozzi at the helm of the RomaBarocca Ensemble, contributes to the necessary rediscovery of this aspect; the refined Roman cantata of the seventeenth century that sees its standard bearers in Giacomo Carissimi and Luigi Rossi, finds another and unexpected protagonist in the architect Rainaldi.

The name of Mary Howe (1882–1964) seems to have vanished from the history books. But she was an important voice in American music in the first half of the twentieth century, as an activist and organizer and, especially, as a composer. This pioneering album of her songs shows her late-Romantic style open to influences from Debussy, Mahler, Richard Strauss and other contemporaries: she was, she said, ‘alert for new sensations, like a Puritan on a holiday’. Mary Howe was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1882. Her early musical training included studies in Germany with Richard Burmeister, a pupil of Liszt. She studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she met Anne Hull with whom she formed a duo piano team that toured in recital from 1920-1935. In 1922, Howe became one of the few women at Peabody to have earned a diploma in composition at that time. With her three children, she appeared with the 4 Howes singing madrigals and early music. In 1930 she raised the money to found the Washington-based National Symphony Orchestra. Together with Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, she also founded the Chamber Music Society of Washington. In 1925 or 1926 she worked with Amy Beach to organize the Association of American Women Composers. A short period of coaching with Nadia Boulanger in Paris is 1933 marked the end of her formal training. Her diverse catalogue of compositions comprises more than two hundred titles, including works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, piano, and art songs for solo voice.

Classics and discoveries. The present album, released on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Cracow Duo: Kalinowski & Szlezer, is composed of the most famous pieces for cello and piano. This unique album includes, among others, Swan from "Carnival of Animals" by Camille Saint-Saëns and Le Grand Tango by Astor Piazzolla, as well as romantic and melodic compositions less known to listeners, including: Romance sans paroles by Zygmunt Stojowski and Milontan by José Bragato. Jan Kalinowski and Marek Szlezer have been friends since childhood, they studied in Krakow and Paris. The musicians featured here have performed on the most prestigious stages in the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, Salle Cortot in Paris, Seoul Arts Center in Seoul, Alfred Newman Hall in Los Angeles, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico. The album that Jan Kalinowski and Marek Szlezer are handing over to you is a story of twenty years of working and traveling together told with music.

Among the most remarkable milestones of Perle’s compositional journey are a dozen works for solo instruments, “tone-centered” compositions – to adopt Richard Swift’s terminology – that occupy a middle ground between essays in orthodox twelve-tone practice and his own 12-tone modal system. It was easier, Perle recalled, “to approach this problem of harmony if you’re writing for an instrument which naturally plays only one note at a time.” Moreover, working with such radically reduced means honed his ability to use motive, contour, rhythm, and register to articulate form through a single line. The first of these was composed in 1942, with another eleven written across a distinguished career. This two-album set includes many of the solo works in their first recordings, as well as duo works from throughout the great American composer's career. Noted soloists on this release include pianists Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, and Horacio Gutiérrez, clarinetist Charles Neidich, and cellist Jay Campbell.

This album contains three works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, two of which can be considered among the most popular in the history of music. The version of the Sinfonia concertante in E-flat Major KV 364/320d with the participation of the cello, presented on the album as the first item, sheds new light on this outstanding showcase of the Classical era, which makes it possible to look at the numerous melodic and contrapuntal relationships of the soloists from a new, refreshed perspective. The Duo in G Major for violin and viola KV 423, in which the parts of both instrumentalists can be considered almost equal, is entirely characterized by considerable rhythmic freedom, influencing expression and rhythm in the outer parts and the fluency of narration in the middle one. The album is completed by the Symphony in A Major KV 201/186a, considered one of the most mature works of young Mozart. The piece impresses with its unique formal clarity and textural and polyphonic richness; it is also one of the most outstanding manifestations of genius in relation to the entire oeuvre of the composer. The unique cast and unconventional interpretations of Karolina Nowotczynska, Marcin Zdunik and the Elblag Chamber Orchestra conducted by Marek Mos allow us to rediscover the most important works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.