For his first release on Alpha, the clarinetist and conductor Jörg Widmann celebrates the music of a composer who wrote some of the finest pieces ever devoted to his instrument: Carl Maria von Weber. With the ensemble of which he is principal conductor, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, he has recorded the Clarinet Quintet (in its version with string ensemble) and the Concertino, composed in 1811 and 1815 respectively, along with the ever-popular Overture to Der Freischütz. The pianist Denis Kozhukhin joins Widmann to perform the Grand Duo concertant. This album is the first in a series of recordings that will also give us a chance to meet Jörg Widmann in his role as one of the most active composers of his generation.

The Italian composer Tommaso Giordani (1738 - 1806) wrote a substantial body of works, including a number of operas. This album features a set of first-rate duos for two cellos, beautifully performed by Charlie Rasmussen and Anton TenWolde. Charlie Rasmussen strives to help his students develop a lifelong passion for music and cello playing. Mr. Rasmussen is currently a cello faculty member and string department co-chair at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee where he teaches private and group cello lessons, musicianship classes, and coaches chamber ensembles. He was previously on faculty at the Talent Education Suzuki School in Norwalk, CT. an Amerongen, cellist with the The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra (Residentie Orkest). While earning his degree in Applied Physics at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Anton performed with Ton Koopman, and toured with the Netherlands Student Chamber Orchestra and the Netherlands Student Baroque Orchestra. In 1973 he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he worked for 27 years as a Research Physicist and Project Leader at the Forest Products Laboratory. For many years he played principal cello with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and regularly performs with the Madison Bach Musicians and the Bach Collegium-Fort Wayne.

American Gifts features composer Michael Tilson Thomas's "Island Music" (2003), a charming and effervescent work performed by duo marimbists, Jack Van Geem and Nancy Zeltsman with members of the San Francisco Symphony percussion section. Van Geem and Zeltsman also give virtuosic readings of music by Irving Fine, Roger Sessions, and Joseph Brackett- American gifts spanning 155 years.

Jack Van Geem has been the principal percussion and assistant timpanist of the San Francisco Symphony for 23 years. He has performed and recorded with the symphony as a mallet soloist, solo timpanist, snare drum soloist and featured solo percussionist. Before joining the Symphony in 1981, he performed for five years with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. He studied in Germany with Cristoph Caskel on a Hertz Fellowship and holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from California State University–Hayward, where he also taught. In addition to his work with the San Francisco Symphony, Van Geem has recorded and performed chamber music, music soundtracks and marimba and xylophone music. For over 30 years, Nancy Zeltsman’s work as a marimba performer and teacher has been a force in introducing more people to the marimba, and elevating it as a vehicle for musical expression. Many of her former students are noted rising stars. She's performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, recorded many albums and for 14 years has run a two-week summer event, Zeltsman Marimba Festival.

On the occasion of its 25th Birthday Anniversary, the Piano Duo Genova & Dimitrov realizes this year a fervent wish with a genuine mammoth project taking the pianists to their emotional limits in a form that has never been witnessed in the music world before: the two exceptional artists have recorded on cpo Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Complete Works for Piano Duo as a double album. The manifold colors in these pieces full of musical ideas are just spectacular… truly a captivating affair of the heart and an hommage to their idol Rachmaninoff. But nobody can describe this music better than the pianists themselves: "Rachmaninoff's Second Suite, Schubert's Fantasy, Mozart's Sonata!, this was the authoritative answer that we, being Postgraduate students at the Hanover University of Music, received at the end of 1995 from our teacher, the piano legend Vladimir Krainev, to our question which works we could prepare for our first piano duo competition. At that time, we would have never imagined that almost 25 years later from these few words the idea for this grand project would develop – a project we are now so particularly proud of." And justifiably so. Their impressive interpretations of the whole wide range of diverse compositions display Rachmaninoff’s multifacetedness in all its emotionally incredible, supercharged glory.

REVIEW:

This is a useful release from a discographical standpoint in that it accounts for every Rachmaninov two-piano and one-piano-four-hands composition or arrangement. The Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo plays the Suite No. 1’s opening Barcarolle with less rubato leeway compared to Trifonov/Babayan and Ashkenazy/Previn. Although comparable strictness prevents the second movement from spilling all over the place, the players still allow the busy decorative background writing plenty of breathing space. The final two movements are excellently balanced, and it’s nice to hear the finale’s persistent “bell” ostinato roll out in long lined fashion, rather than hammered away.

The duo’s superb ensemble and careful balances make Rachmaninov’s early tone poem The Rock sound especially plausible and idiomatic in the composer’s “de-orchestrated” four-hand arrangement, although his Capriccio on Gypsy Themes loses some spice in translation, so to speak; it would have helped had Rachmaninov retained some of his original percussion parts! However, the ubiquitous C-sharp minor Prelude frankly gains little via its two-piano expansion.

I prefer the Genova/Dimitrov duo’s broader and lyrically inflected rendition of the not-so-interesting Russian Rhapsody to the heavier, emphatic Previn/Ashkenazy, while their expressive restraint in the Six Morceaux for Piano Duet contrasts to the Owen/Apekisheva duo’s slightly fussier approach. The Symphonic Dances stand out for Genova/Dimitrov’s wonderfully lithe and impetuously phrased finale.

Unfortunately the popular Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos proves this collection’s one real weak link. The Introduction transpires heavy-handedly, while the Waltz falls into predictable square-cut patterns and Tarantella lacks sufficient dynamic contrast. You’ll find far more flexibility and character in any of Martha Argerich’s Second Suite recordings (my favorites are the studio version with Nelson Freire and the live Gabriela Montero collaboration). Eckhardt van den Hoogen provides informative yet eccentric and stylistically convoluted booklet notes. Recommended on the whole, but make sure you’ve got an Argerich Second Suite handy.

– ClassicsToday (Je Distler)

The Patterson/Sutton Duo and composer Stephen Goss have worked together over many years and this album represents the fruits of their musical collaboration. This collection of Goss's complete works for cello and guitar is a kaleidoscopic journey through the evocative sound world of this instrumental pairing. Featuring multiple world premieres and a diverse array of styles, STILL LIFE attempts to push the medium of cello and guitar to it's limits. Praised by The Strad magazine for their "wit and imagination", the trailblazing Patterson/Sutton cello and guitar duo continue to be in demand as they bring the rich cello and guitar repertoire to audiences around the world. The Patterson/Sutton duo were featured artists at the 2016 Guitar Foundation of America Convention and have an ongoing relationship with The Juilliard School as Juilliard Global Visiting Artists. The duo have been featured on Performance Today/American Public Media, Radio New Zealand, Fine Music Radio South Africa, among many others.

Kemel Belevi’s music is steeped in the colors and atmosphere of the eastern Mediterranean, and his aim is ‘to create beautiful music’ based on melodies and rhythms that have been absorbed from the folk music of Greece, Turkey and the Middle East. Belevi’s own arrangements of works such as the evocative Suite Chypre and the richly varied Cyprian Rhapsodies have significantly extended the repertoire for two guitars. The Duo Tandem are drawn towards this composer’s skillful modernity and his celebration of traditional heritage reimagined within the sound world of the classical guitar.

Louis Spohr's reputation as one of Germany's leading violinists was at it's height when he composed his Duets for Two Violins, Op. 39, and while it appears his intention was to finance an Italian concert tour with marketable duets, the publishers complained of their technical difficulty. Spohr defended this aspect by stating his 'desire to give my duets more inner value, more richness of harmony' than is usual in this genre. Indeed, a contemporary critic exclaimed that 'it is no exaggeration to say that the ideas and artistry required for these works would be sufficient... to create three concertos.'

This album of world-premiere recordings features solo and duo piano music spanning nearly the entire career of Prix de Rome and Pulitzer Prize winning composer Leo Sowerby (1895–1968), one of the most distinctive American voices of the early and mid-20th century. Recorded in 1997 in Chicago, where Sowerby spent the bulk of his student and professional life, the album is being released at mid-price with support from the Leo Sowerby Foundation.

Pianists Gail Quillman and Julia Tsien share a direct musical lineage to Sowerby. Quillman, who established the Leo Sowerby Foundation, studied with Sowerby, and has performed more of his solo piano and chamber music than anyone else. Tsien, an active performer and teacher, was a Quillman student. The album’s earliest work, Three Summer Beach Sketches, for solo piano, from 1915, shows the influence of composer-pianist Percy Grainger, with whom Sowerby studied. It’s also one of the earliest serious compositions to use jazz and blue harmonies. Composed in 1959, Suite for Piano (Four-hands) shares a kinship with the music of Samuel Barber, whom Sowerby championed, and the music of Sowerby’s former student Ned Rorem. Passacaglia, Interlude and Fugue for solo piano (1931) is a dreamy, French Impressionist take on classic forms. Prelude for Two Pianos (1932) is more Delius than Debussy, more English austerity than French sensuality. Sowerby’s brief Fisherman’s Tune is an homage to Grainger. The overture-length sonata movement Synconata, arranged for two pianos, was originally composed in 1924 as a curtain-raiser for American bandleader Paul Whiteman’s “symphonic jazz” concerts.

REVIEWS:

Sowerby's music offers a welcome mix of approachability and compositional sophistication. The discographical value of this disc is huge; that it is a musical triumph seals the deal.

– Fanfare

Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) is a name that takes me back to my Anglican roots. His music that I remember from church choir did nothing to prepare me for the rather brilliant piano music on this release. Here we get what are all labeled world premiere recordings. The solo piano works are played by Quillman (a student of Sowerby’s): Three Summer Beach Sketches (1915) and Passacaglia, Interlude, and Fugue (1931). The rest are performed on two pianos by Quillman and her student, Tsien: Suite for Piano 4 Hands (1959), Prelude for 2 Pianos (1932), Fisherman’s Tune, and Synconata.

Sometimes jazzy and even using blues harmonies, Sowerby’s piano music is always interesting and well crafted. He toured with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra alongside Gershwin, Zez Confrey. and Ferde Grofe. The first performance of Synconata had Sowerby and Confrey on the two pianos. Sowerby also studied with Percy Grainger, whose influence is quite apparent here.

The booklet notes are quite comprehensive, and the only criticism I have of this recording is the piano sound. It is just adequate and sounds like it was made in a good sized empty concert hall (Ganz Hall in Chicago’s Roosevelt University). I would expect a 1997 recording to be on a higher level, but the unique music makes it worth coming back to.

-- American Record Guide

Two previous albums on Brilliant Classics have introduced audiences to the music of Bartolomeo Campagnoli (1751-1827), an early-Classical violinist and composer whose music had until recently been almost entirely lost to history. And yet these recordings of string quartets (BC95037) and flute quartets (BC95399) have shown how charming, unaffected, original and enjoyable is Campagnoli's voice, at least in performances sympathetic to the performing style of his time. The quartets album was awarded five stars and nominated for Album of the Month by CdClassico. Com: 'Required listening'. The duos on this new recording are two- or three-movement sonatas in all but name. Some of them have been recorded before, but Stefano and Francesco Parrino present here the only available complete recording. The works illustrate how Campagnoli could write of his own music as combining 'German erudition and Italian soul', and without false modesty. Spohr heard him play in 1804 and described his style as elegant and fluid but somewhat old-fashioned, which fits Campagnoli's duos too. He wrote them between 1780 and 1796 while in the employ of Charles of Saxony, Duke of Courland, in Dresden, and they are expertly calibrated to appeal to aristocratic tastes for pleasant and lively music in the galant style, always falling easily upon the ear. As well as performing and recording in duet for many years, the Parrino brothers have been members of orchestras across Italy and beyond. As one half of the Quartet DuePi�Due they recorded the Flute Quartets of Cambini for Brilliant Classics (BC95081), 'a close-knit and well balanced ensemble,' according to the Critica Classica website, 'producing excellent interpretations which should delight a wider public without courting banality. '

The two musicians Lenka Matej�kov� (violin) and Dariya Hrynkiv (piano) possess Slavic sound in their blood. You can hear this in the glowing recordings of their debut release, which is dedicated exclusively to Czech composers. The two prizewinners of numerous competitions follow the stylistically diverse paths of works by Anton�n Dvor�k, Leo� Jan�cek, Josef Suk and Bohuslav Martinu down to the smallest detail. With enthusiasm and deep insight, they allow us to experience how each of the four composers uniquely unite national heritage with European culture. A musical treat!

A New York Times 25 Best Classical Track Selection for 2019

Violinist Jennifer Koh’s Limitless, based on her groundbreaking recital project of the same name, bridges the modern divide between composer and instrumentalist, celebrates artistic collaboration, and revives the grand tradition of composers performing their own music. The album features world-premiere recordings of Koh-commissioned duets by a diverse roster of highly accomplished contemporary composers, which she performs with the composers themselves. Premieres include Quasim Naqvi’s The Banquet for violin and modular synthesizer, exploring a convergence between acoustic string and electronic sound worlds; Lisa Bielawa’s Sanctuary Songs for violin and voice, three settings of texts by American women poets of the 1920s; Du Yun’s give me back my fingerprints for violin and voice, representative of what The New York Times calls her “adventurously eclectic” style; and Tyshawn Sorey’s In Memoriam Muhal Richard Abrams, dedicated to Sorey’s beloved mentor, the avant-garde pianist, composer, and founding president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Limitless also offers the first recording of Nina C. Young’s Sun Propeller for violin and electronics, inspired by traditional Tuvan throat-singing; Wang Lu’s Her Latitude for violin and electronics, with a quasi-improvised piano part and electronically processed sounds of Buddhist chants and old Korean pop songs; and jazz luminary Vijay Iyer’s The Diamond for violin and piano, inspired by an early Buddhist text. The album concludes with Missy Mazzoli’s A Thousand Tongues for violin, piano, and electronics, an intense response to a line in a Stephen Crane poem; and Vespers for violin and electronics, “deliciously disorienting” (National Public Radio) with a soaring solo violin.

REVIEWS:

Koh, needless to say, is sensational throughout: responsive to each composer’s demands, and fiercely committed to making each piece sing true in collaboration with its creator. The project is a paradigm shift in thinking about composers who perform, and about representation on the concert platform; the result is a beautiful, compelling collection of intimate conversations and collective statements.

– National Sawdust

Part of Ms. Koh’s double-disc project of collaborations with composers who also perform alongside her, Du Yun: ‘Give Me Back My Fingerprints’ rises from quietly uneasy to rabid and raw, then back again. Violin lines emerge, as if from far away, to mingle with Ms. Du’s earthy, murmuring, sometimes choking voice.

– New York Times (Zachary Woolfe)

Virtuosi Ilya Gringolts, violin, and Dmitry Kouzov, cello, perform three great duos- two from the 20th century and one from the 21st. The graceful, expressive and witty Duo for Violin and Cello by Hanns Eisler, written when the composer was 26 years old, is a multifaceted work showcasing the composer’s brilliant intellect. Best-known for his long artistic association with playwright Bertolt Brecht, Eisler always took care to make a deep connection with his audience. In Jorg Widmannn’s 24 Duos for Violin and Cello, from 2008, the two instruments approach the sound of a string quartet at times. “They attract each other, reject each other, love and hate each other,” the composer writes. These performances are the world premiere recording of the entire set of both volumes of Widmann’s 24 Duos. The album concludes with Maurice Ravel’s great Sonata for Violin and Cello. Dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, the sonata is always a favorite with audiences. Gringolts and Kouzov form a superb duo. Both are highly sought-after soloists and consummate chamber musicians. They perform with precision and excitement, undaunted by challenging music.

-----

REVIEWS:

These gripping and beautifully played duos demand committed listening.

– The Strad

Gringolts and Kouzov are impressive, leaving their mark on all three works; warm, resonant, perfectly balanced, natural set-it-and-forget-it sound leaves one free to concentrate on the music.

– American Record Guide

On this generous last installment of their Schubert-Brahms pilgrimage, Pieter Wispelwey and Paolo Giacometti serve us three iconic sonatas, including a world premiere. In it's original hue of G Major, Brahms' first violin sonata op. 78 is more scintillating and transparent than the D-major cell adaptation, and much more enchanting in it's opening Vivace. Brahms' third violin sonata op. 108 fuses surprising ebullience with superior mastery of form, in an epic piece which is an undiluted kick in the groin when played on a cello. And thankfully, Pieter and Paolo revisit Schubert's Arpeggione, that gem of intimacy, fragility, frivolity and humbling, unattainable beauty. A fitting final, in all respects.

My three violin and piano duos were written for musicians I admire. While each duo has a different set of musical materials, all of them share the idea of arranging a series of contrasting episodes to project a coherent musical form. (Robert Morris) Cited by the New York Concert Review as providing a "riveting and dynamic performance" at their 2013 concert in Carnegie Hall, the critically acclaimed Irrera Brothers Duo has captivated audiences throughout the United States and abroad, and have been hailed by world-renowned violinist and pedagogue Zvi Zeitlin as 'two gifted boys". The brothers have also performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Spivey Hall, the Eastman Theatre, and internationally throughout Europe and Central America. In addition to their duo collaboration, Joseph and John are also celebrated soloists.

Gheorghe Zamfir is the great international exponent of the pan flute. A virtuoso of the nai or Romanian pan flute, his sound is so particular, so recognizable, that everyone has heard him play, either on one of the million records he has sold worldwide, or else on the cult soundtracks he has recorded for film-composers like Vladimir Cosma and Ennio Morricone, and directors like Quentin Tarantino. On this recording, far from the great symphony orchestras, Zamfir appears in duo with pianist Christiane Gugger performing his own repertoire. Here you can discover a more intimate vision of his music that reveals all it's powers of meditation and serene strength. Recorded by Jean-Claude Gaberel, a goldsmith in sound with an international reputation, this album translates all the force of Zamfir's music, which lies at the crossroads between genres: classical, folk, international pop, new age and crossover.