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The three choral masterpieces featured on this recording, conducted by Leonard Slarkin, were originally issued on the Vox label in 1982. The Bells is sung in an English translation by Fanny S. Copeland of the Russian poet Konstantin Belmont's poem. The recordings were produced by Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz whose recordings are considered by audiophiles to be amongst the finest available. The Russian sung texts, transliterations and English translations are included in the booklet.

REVIEW:

Leonard Slatkin is adept atmost conveying the melancholy, sunset world of Rachmaninoff; when passion is called for, the Slatkin of 44 years ago in these performances musters plenty of it. He certainly guided the St Louis Symphony to become one of the nation’s finest orchestras, and they sound resplendent here.

— American Record Guide

The Hanseatic wealth of North Germany in the 17th century is reflected in its magnificent cathedrals, and the enormous grandeur of its church music was composed to fill the rich acoustics of these spaces. This programme presents a wide range of Easter music that displays the wealth of inventiveness in this period, enhancing the texts and finding different colors and surprising effects through improvisation and adaptation of the manuscripts. This early music is brought vividly to life by the acclaimed Margaretha Consort.

REVIEW:

This recording offers an excellent overview of the kind of Lutheran Church music one would have heard in the major cities and noble courts of northern Germany in the 17th Century. Jacob Handl’s ‘Ecce, Quomodo Moritur Iustus’ stands out as the only Latin motet on the program. Otherwise, it consists of German sacred concertos of varying dimensions. For instance, ‘Jesu Meines Lebens Leben’ by Dietrich Buxtehude sounds like a polychoral concerto, and Schütz’s ‘O Süsser, O Freundlicher’ sounds more like a sacred cantata, scored for solo tenor and continuo. Some pieces sound as though they replicate the timbre of a church congregation performing a strophic chorale melody to Sietze De Fries’s improvised organ part. Between the choral works, De Fries offers further improvisations, for example on the chorale melody ‘Jesu, Meine Freude’.

I am very taken with this recording, both for the selections and for the quality of the performances. Most of these works exhibit hallmarks of the stile moderno and indulge in the expressive properties of chromaticism and unusual harmonic juxtapositions. The notes are in English, but one will have to look elsewhere for the texts.

-- American Record Guide

Cantata Collective, an ensemble “of San Francisco early music luminaries” (San Francisco Chronicle) inaugurates a major series of J. S. Bach’s choral works with a live recording of the composer’s St. John Passion. With celebrated conductor Nicholas McGegan, the toast of today’s new generation of vocal soloists and a three-to-a-part chamber choir, the Cantata Collective conveys the emotional intimacy and dramatic power of this monumental passion in a highly polished performance that led Early Music America to implore: “To the excellent musicians of Cantata Collective: More Bach Please!”

This new recording from the Staatskapelle Weimar under Hansjörg Albrecht presents a rarely heard compilation of Richard Wagner’s themes from Tristan und Isolde, arranged for orchestra by Henk de Vlieger (b. 1953). This is Hansjörg Albrecht's follow-up Wagner recording to his album Der Ring ohne Worte (OC1872). The Staatkapelle Weimar dates back to 1491, making it one of the oldest orchestras in the world, and one that is more than familiar with the works of Richard Wagner.

The Spanish pieces on this CD became famous mainly as solo guitar compositions by the three Catalan master pianists Isaac Albéniz, Joaquín Malats and Enrique Granados. I have often played them that way in concerts as well. In 2019, Nicolas and I had the idea to transcribe these works combined with works by Astor Piazzolla for viola and guitar. Since then, we have enjoyed playing this music in numerous concerts. The viola-guitar combination gives these compositions a whole new dimension. Compared to the solo guitar versions, the works appear in a completely new light, allowing the compositions to emit transparency and a variety of tonal colors.

The Spanish music of the CD program alternates with music by one of the most frequently performed works of Manuel de Falla (1876–1946), and the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992). Piazzolla is considered the great innovator of the Tango, the “Tango Nuevo”. He originally composed the “Histoire du Tango” for flute and guitar. The other compositions are short character pieces, all of which we have arranged for viola and guitar. The two movements “Bordel-1900” and “Café-1930” evoke the history of Tango in their respective eras. “Bordel-1900” goes back to the beginnings of the Tango. The new dance form was played in the brothels of Buenos Aires around this time. As “1930” marked a new era, the Tango was no longer danced as it was around 1900, and people limited themselves to listening to it. The Tango becomes more musical and romantic, the movements become slower, new harmonies are added. The music takes on a strong melancholic streak.

The proud Hanseatic city of Hamburg enjoys a special status in northern Germany - and that was already the case 400 years ago. Maritime trade made it prosperous even back then, and through skilful diplomacy and a gigantic defensive wall, the city was almost completely spared the devastation of the 30 Years' War, while much of the rest of Europe sank into rubble and misery. The office of Hamburg's city cantor was thus one of the most attractive positions that northern Germany had to offer at that time. Thomas Selle held this position from 1641 and repaid his new home with outstanding compositions such as the St. John Passion from 1643, which is particularly striking for the extraordinary colourfulness of the instrumentation. The Göttingen Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Antonius Adamske, brings it out radiantly, providing the perfect support for the illustrious trio of soloists.

The Ukrainian folk song is unquestionably a unique phenomenon. No nation in history has amassed such a wealth of songs as those created by the Ukrainian people. UNESCO has an impressive audio library of folk songs from all over the world. The Ukrainian contribution amounts to some 15,500 songs and is far and away the biggest collection in the library. Folk music in the Ukrainian language originated in the 9th century at the time when Kyivan Rus was founded; the authors of the texts of most songs have long since been forgotten. Over the years, many composers researched and arranged them, principally for voice and piano, and transformed them into “Romances”, art songs, like German Lieder. The program includes 15 songs: three romances by four composers and three folk songs. Each work has accompanied the artist's life in one way or another, so it has a special meaning for Lena Belkina.

Many of the works on this album are being recorded for the first time – and this is a great opportunity to discover Ukrainian music, its character, its temperament, its melodic language and the influence of time upon it. The program is emotional and multi-faceted and would not have sounded so authentic without the pianist Violina Petrychenko. She is making Ukrainian piano music known around the world, recording composers like Kosenko, Revutskyi, Barvinskyi and other artists little known in the wider world. This duet is a union of opposites that are brought together to complement one another, to reflect personal strength and passion for music. The artists united by a common goal – showing Ukrainian art full of love for their country to the whole world.

These works were commissioned by the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart to write works to mark Bach Year 2000. Osvaldo Golijov´s Pasión Según San Marcos is the work of one who moves back and forth between different worlds and can scarcely be pigeonholed as representing a specific culture. His work unites the music of South America, Cuba, the West and Jewish tradition to produce an unconventional conception of a “Passion“ in which Jesus is not a light skinned European, but instead a person of color. Sofia Gubaidulina's response was a St John Passion, and subsequently she added a sequel, St John Easter, which was premiered in Hamburg in March 2002. Both those works originally had Russian words, drawn mostly from St John's gospel and the Book of Revelation, but in 2006, prompted by conductor Helmuth Rilling, Gubaidulina collaborated on a German translation of the text, while also making revisions to the score itself.

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin returns to Pentatone together with soprano Christina Landshamer, presenting La Passione, a collection of dazzling concert arias on love, longing and loss by Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn, paired with the latter’s “La Passione” Symphony. Ranging from pastoral simplicity to exuberant outrage, the program offers some of the finest vocal writing around 1800, including some of Beethoven’s rare and little-known excursions to Italian bravura opera, as well as one of the most dramatic and expressive symphonies of the eighteenth-century.

The Akademie für Alte Musik is generally seen as one of the best period-instruments ensembles of today, and has a substantial Pentatone discography, including CANTATA with Bejun Mehta (2018), Handel’s Concerti grossi op. 6 (released in 2019 and 2020). Telemann’s Miriways (2020), Handel’s Messiah (2020) and Haydn’s L’isola disabitata (2021). Christina Landshamer featured as Marzelline on Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021).

Recording the St. Matthew Passion with boys’ and young men’s voices is an exceptionally intensive experience. Singing from memory and seeing Jesus’ suffering from the trusting perspective of children leads you to a different conclusion than it would with adult singers. The voices of children and adolescents sound more linear with a lower vibrato amplitude; they are rich in overtones and usually use a shorter phrase length. But children breathe very quickly, and their voices can be applied with virtuosity. Chords sound calm and clean.

The choir and soloists of the Wilten Boys’ Choir and the Academia Jacobus Stainer Orchestra recorded the St. Matthew Passion in the middle of a lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, and were therefore tested daily and stood at a distance from each other in the Saal Tirol of the Congress Center in Innsbruck. The choir and the second orchestra were both further away from the conductor, just as was probably the case with Bach in the former St. Thomas Church with its swallow’s nest organ on a gallery above the triumphal arch. In any case, the St. Matthew Passion was performed in 1736 “mit beyden orgeln” (with both organs) in St. Thomas Church. We studied every recitative, every aria and every chorale as written in Bach’s wonderful handwriting and were amazed, especially in the secco recitatives, by some changes that became apparent for us after reading the meticulously written autograph that was later revised by Bach.

Affecting Passions by Heinichen. The Passion music Johann David Heinichen wrote for the Dresden court is a document of cultural and confessional openness of the Saxon residence, and his two Italian oratorios heard here are surrogates of large-scale Passion music. "Come? S'imbruna il ciel" - composed in 1728 - is the latest of the sepolcri, his other Passion "L'aride tempie ignude" the first of the sepolcri to survive from Heinichen in Dresden. Both texts are by Stefano Pallavicino, who had been active at the Dresden court since 1719. In the first-mentioned Passion, the meditation on the Passion event recurs to the experience of the earthquake that, according to biblical accounts, occurred immediately after the death of Jesus. The description of the violent natural events gives Mary the Mother of God, John (Jesus' favorite disciple), and Mary Magdalene an opportunity to reflect on their relationship to the Crucified. Different aspects of affection and love are thematized. The meditation on the Passion event in the second-named Passion is designed as an allegorical play of death (Morte) and hope (Speranza), divine love (Amor divino) and penance (Poenitenza), and follows an easily comprehensible dramaturgy. The affinity to opera seria is evident in both passions not only in the arrangement of the pieces. The keys, gestures and instrumentation also correspond to the models familiar from baroque musical theater. Full of affect!

For Russian musicians, the romances of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov have always been a test of their artistic maturity. The very name of the genre carries a great many shades of meaning in Russian, denoting what at times are very varied forms of musical utterance. The vocal chamber works by these two composers, who are usually mentioned in the same breath as luminaries of Russian music, really do exhibit the vast range in artistic expression of their creators. You listen to a recording by the young musicians Lena Belkina and Natalia Sidorenko, who have begun the difficult journey along the road that leads to a perfect blend of tone and the discovery of a personal inflexion in these diminutive, yet complex masterpieces. It is significant that the mezzo-soprano Lena Belkina - for whom Russian, with it's awkward intonation, is a mother tongue - lives and works in Austria, Germany, Italy and France. This has given her an awareness that romances by great Russian composers are part of a worldwide musical heritage. There are several themes running through the romances brought together on this disc that pose demanding artistic challenges for their performers. Spring: from tender green leaves that have barely sprouted to luxuriant blooms of flowering lilac, rushing streams and the burble of the nightingale's song. Night: descending on us with it's unexpected warmth, sometimes stifling, sometimes melancholy, giving rise even in the midst of a storm to cradle songs, serenades and dreams of a happy life, which often dissipate on awakening. Love: past and future, lamented and desired, 'familiar to everyone and eternally new', as one of the romances puts it.

Founded by Jeroen Finke in 2015, the Ensemble La Protezione della Musica has quickly developed into a recognized ensemble for the performance of music from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. With this double album, the musicians dedicate themselves to the St. Matthew Passion by Johann Cyriacus Kieling (1670-1727), a composer from baroque Saxony-Anhalt. This Passion is written in a mixed style between Schütz and Bach, which is partly very emotional, and contains many short, song-like, expressive arias, figuratively designed recitatives and virtuoso choirs. The Gospel text is very arios and is strongly reminiscent of the sound aesthetics of the histories of the 17th century. In it's musical structure with choirs, chorales, recitatives and commentary arias, the Passion also points in advance to the monumental, high baroque settings of the St. Matthew Passion, for example by Johann Sebastian Bach, which was composed around 20 years later. The very young musicians from the area, including the Thomanerchor in Leipzig and the music academies in Leipzig, Bremen and Weimar, play extremely lively and gripping music, and after listening to this world premiere you will be looking forward to further projects with this ensemble.