The American pianist Lorin Hollander was only 14 years old in 1958 when he recorded his first album for RCA, a personal selection of “22 Favorites” entitled Discovering the Piano. Its success led to a sequel the following year. Over the next eight years he produced an acclaimed series of releases for the Red Label, establishing an international career which would eventually encompass more than 2,500 appearances as a pianist, conductor and passionate advocate for arts education. Hollander has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras and collaborated with conductors such as Bernstein, Szell, Ormandy, Leinsdorf, Previn, Haitink, Ozawa and Mehta. Sony Classical is now pleased to present a new 8-disc box set offering Lorin Hollander’s complete RCA discography for the first time on CD.

A child prodigy, he was born in New York City into a musical family – his father was associate concertmaster of the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini. Lorin began playing the piano at the age of three and within two years had memorized the complete first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. At eleven, he made his Carnegie Hall début playing Mozart’s C major Concerto K 467. His list of distinguished teachers and mentors includes Eduard Steuermann, Olga Stroumillo, Leon Fleisher, Max Rudolf and Rudolf Serkin.

Sony’s Lorin Hollander box begins with those two early albums of “favorites” by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Rimsky-Korsakov, Falla, Granados, Rachmaninoff and Paderewski. In 1963, with Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony, he premièred and recorded the Fantasy and Variations for Piano and Orchestra by Norman Dello Joio. RCA Victor’s release, a coupling with the Ravel G major Concerto, became Hollander’s international record début and found critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. High Fidelity in the US wrote that “the eighteen-year-old pianist’s amazing digital skill and bravura are just what are demanded for the Fantasy and Variations”, while Gramophone in the UK, was grateful for “our first taste on records of the music of Norman Dello Joio, the 50-year-old New York composer who was at one time a pupil of Hindemith. The piano part is immensely athletic: Hollander scuttles up and down the keyboard with great efficiency, and the orchestra is equally on its toes.”

Hollander recorded further virtuoso concertos in 1964 and 1965. The Prokofiev Fifth, also with Leinsdorf and the BSO, was hailed as “a super-brilliant performance” by High Fidelity. Of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto coupled with Bloch’s Scherzo fantasque – made in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under André Previn – High Fidelity wrote enthusiastically: “The Scherzo fantasque has many of the jagged dissonances and virile qualities of Bloch’s writing in the early Twenties. It is fiercely virtuosic and thus ideally suited to the percussive, tigerish Mr. Hollander. In the Khachaturian … Hollander’s work is also first-rate technically … I find the performance excellent.”

Two solo albums from 1965 and 1966 rounded out Hollander’s RCA discography, Mussorsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, coupled with works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff, and a coupling of Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata, the Schumann Arabeske, a Brahms Intermezzo and Myra Hess’s beloved Bach transcription “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”. The set concludes with a curiosity, recorded for Columbia’s “Modern American Music Series” in 1973: the concert work for soprano and chamber ensemble fashioned by American composer Leon Kirchner from his opera Lily. Kirchner plays the piano part and conducts an ensemble featuring Lorin Hollander on celesta, clarinettist Richard Stoltzman, violinist James Buswell and violist Nobuko Imai. The soprano soloist is Diana Hoagland.  

SET CONTENTS 

DISC 1:
• Rimsky-Korsakoff (arr. Rachmaninoff): Flight of the Bumblebee
• Granados: Spanish Dance in E Minor, Op. 5, No. 5 "Playera - Andaluzia"   
• Schubert: Momento Musical In F Minor, Op. 94, No. 3
• Mendelssohn: Venetian Boat Song, No. 6
• Chopin: Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12 "Revolutionary"
• Paderewski: Menuet célèbre in G Major  
• Falla: Ritual Fire Dance
• Liszt: Liebestraum No. 3
• Chopin: Für Elise (Albumblatt)  
• Chopin: Prelude in C Minor, Op. 28/20  
• Brahms: Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 39/15 
• Debussy: Claire de lune   
• Chopin: Waltz in C Sharp Minor, Op. 64/2
• Beethoven: Minuet No. 2 in G Major
• Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545: I. Allegro "Sonata Facile"
• Mozart (arr. Hollander): Minuet (From "Don Giovanni") 
• Bach: Two-Part Invention No. 13 in A Minor, BWV 784   
• Schumann: Album für die Jugend, Op. 68: X. Fröhlicher Landmann, von der Arbeit zurückkehrend.  
• Schumann: Album für die Jugend, Op. 68: II. Soldatenmarsch. Munter und straff
• Schumann: Träumerei 
• Grieg: Anitra's Dance
• Chopin: Etude in G-Flat, Op. 25, No. 9 "Butterfly" 

DISC 2:

• Chopin: Polonaise in A-Flat Major, Op. 53
• Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 31 
• Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 in D-Flat Major, S.244/6 
• Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No. 3, S.216 
• Brahms: 3 Intermezzi, Op. 117/2
• Brahms: Rhapsody in G Minor, Op. 79/2 
• Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 3/2  

DISC 3:

• Dello Joio: Fantasy and Variations for Piano and Orchestra
• Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major  
Lorin Hollander, piano / Boston Symphony Orchestra / Erich Leinsdorf, conductor

DISC 4:

• Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19 [Erick Friedman, violin]    
• Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 5 in G Major, Op. 55    
Lorin Hollander, piano / Boston Symphony Orchestra / Erich Leinsdorf, conductor

DISC 5:

• Khachaturian: Piano Concerto in D-Flat Major, Op. 38  
• Bloch: Scherzo fantasque, B. 78
Lorin Hollander, piano / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Andre Previn, conductor

DISC 6:

• Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
• Rachmaninoff: Prelude In C-Sharp Minor, Op. 3/2 
• Prokofiev: Toccata, Op. 11

DISC 7:

• Beethoven: Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, Op. 31/2 "The Tempest  
• Bach, J. S. (arr. Hess): Choral: "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"  
• Brahms: Intermezzo in B-Flat Minor, Op. 117/2
• Schumann: Arabeske, Op. 18 

DISC 8:

• Kirchner: Lily (1973) 
Diana Hoagland, soprano / Columbia Chamber Soloists / Leon Kirchner, pianist/conductor
• Kirchner: String Quartet No. 2 (1958)
Lenox String Quartet

Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen made their first duo-recording for BIS in 1991 and have released acclaimed recital albums ranging from Schumann and Liszt to Alfred Schnittke, by way of Schoenberg and Hindemith. With the present disc they bring their most recent project to a close: a recording of all the works by Johannes Brahms for violin and piano. These include not only the three well-known and -loved numbered violin sonatas, but also the Scherzo from the so-called F.A.E. Sonata and the composer’s own violin versions of the two sonatas for clarinet and piano. Wallin and Pöntinen open the present release with Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 120, composed in 1894 for clarinet and transcribed for the violin a year later. As the clarinet part extends further down than the lowest note on the violin, Brahms made considerable revisions to the clarinet part, which entailed changes in the piano part, and consequently the printing of a new piano score. This is followed by the second and third violin sonatas, in A major and D minor respectively. Both works were composed during the summer of 1886 in Thun in Switzerland and are clearly related, even though they inhabit completely different expressive worlds.

Friends of long standing as well as regular partners in chamber music, Michael Collins and Stephen Hough bring their combined musical insights and expertise to bear on Johannes Brahms’s sonatas for clarinet and piano. Together with the composer’s trio for clarinet, cello and piano and clarinet quintet, the sonatas are among the most treasured works in the repertoire of the instrument – but it is partly down to good luck that we have them at all. When Brahms in 1891 heard the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinet of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, he had already announced his retirement. He was enraptured by Mühlfeld’s playing and its vocal qualities, however, and made a ‘comeback’: during the following couple of years he composed all four of his clarinet works. These were written especially for Mühlfeld, whose spirit does seem to pervade the two sonatas – we hear an unusually sunny and lyrical Brahms, with plenty of opportunity to sing for both instruments. When the sonatas were published, they appeared with alternative viola parts to replace the clarinet, and soon violin versions prepared by the composer were also brought out. For the opening work on the disc, Michael Collins has therefore taken a leaf out of Brahms’s book, by adapting the composer’s Violin Sonata No. 2, another late work. The amount of adaptation needed is small: a lot of the violin writing fits the clarinet well, and the sonata share much of the songlike quality of the two ‘real’ clarinet sonatas.

REVIEW:

Clarinetist Michael Collins must have lived with the two Op. 120 sonatas for all his professional career. That seems abundantly clear from his superb playing in both of those sonatas. His Brahmsian experience is also evidenced by his highly persuasive and idiomatic adaptation of Op 110. As for Stephen Hough, his Brahms credentials are well known, not least for his splendid recordings of the piano concertos (review) and, more recently, of the late piano pieces (review). It was a great idea to bring these two fine musicians together for this project and the idea has paid off handsomely.

The production values are high. The recorded balance is ideal and the instruments are reproduced truthfully. I listened to the stereo layer of this SACD and was very satisfied with the results. As I’ve already indicated, Stephen Johnson’s essay is excellent.

This is a disc which will grace any Brahms collection.

-- MusicWeb International

The horn was one of the instruments that Johannes Brahms learned in his youth, from his father who played it professionally. His fondness and familiarity with the instrument is clear from the glorious solos that he provided it with in his symphonies, and he gave it pride of place in the Horn Trio that he wrote in memory of his mother Christiane. Even so, he never composed any other chamber work involving the horn – an oversight that horn players have regretted ever since. Following up on two highly acclaimed BIS albums, Alec Frank-Gemmill decided to rectify this, and enlisted the help of pianist Daniel Grimwood and violinist Benjamin Marquise Gilmore. It goes without saying that the resulting disc includes the Horn Trio – which Frank-Gemmill has chosen to perform on the instrument played by Aubrey Brain on his legendary 1933 recording of the work. But leading up to this are two works originally written for violin and cello respectively. The sometimes controversial subject of transcriptions is discussed by Frank-Gemmill in his liner notes where he also explains his selection of works. In the Scherzo that Brahms wrote as his contribution to the F-A-E Sonata (which also included movements by Schumann and Albert Dietrich), he finds that the very fabric of the piece is made up of horn calls, while the galloping 6/8 theme reminds him of the final movement of the horn trio. Wanting to also include a sonata, Frank-Gemmill settled on the E minor Cello Sonata, Op. 38 as the one best suited for the horn, and together with arranger Daniel Grimwood the decision was made to transpose the work a third up, into G minor. Through their efforts, we are able to present a Brahms recital that hornists – and the rest of us – could only dream of.

This refreshed Chopin Edition from Brilliant Classics retains many of the definitive recordings from its predecessor of 2015, but boasting some exciting updates. The Concertos and piano concertante music are consolidated in a bright new cycle from Czechia, recorded last autumn by Siberian superstar Ekaterina Litvintseva and the KFPar under Mardirossian. Schmitt-Leonardy’s sonatas are joined by No. 1 – recorded late in 2015, and therefore just missing inclusion in the previous edition – bringing the complete cycle under his fingers. Alwin Bär’s own Scherzi performances are reunited with his iconic 1998 recording of the Barcarolle, Fantasy and Berceuse. The Études are featured in a stunning complete cycle recorded in 2014 by the phenomenal Chopinist and 2023 OPUS KLASSIK double-nominee Zlata Chochieva. Finally the complete Nocturnes are given over to another noted young Chopin interpreter: the 2018 Geza Anda winner Claire Huangci, who recorded the set two years earlier, in 2016.

REVIEW:

In 2015 Brilliant Classics issued a complete Chopin edition culled from both original productions and licensed recordings from other labels, and featuring a variety of musicians. The label’s revised 2023 Chopin edition retains roughly two-thirds of the contents, while substituting about six CDs worth of alternative performances. Is it “new and improved”? Mostly yes. Here is a rundown of the contents:

Discs 1 & 2: The 2015 Chopin box featured Eva Kupiec in the two concertos (amazingly conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski), with Abbey Simon in the other concerted works. Here we have less individual yet elegantly transparent performances of the entire Chopin piano/orchestra oeuvre with Ekaterina Litvintseva, supported by Vahan Mardirossian leading the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice.

Discs 3 & 4: The well-played chamber works with violinist Duccio Ceccanti, cellist Vittorio Ceccanti, and pianist Simone Gragnani are held over from 2015. So are Anna Haase’s slightly tremulous yet heartfelt Polish songs, superbly accompanied by Lucius Rühl.

Disc 5: Zlata Chochieva’s Etudes count among my top five recommendations in these works, wisely replacing Alessandro Deljavan’s mannered and overloaded readings.

Disc 6: As before, we have Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy’s intelligently paced and imaginatively detailed Ballades and Impromptus.

Disc 7: Folke Nauta’s broad and sonorous readings of the standard seven Polonaises are back, along with his rather underplayed Andante spianato e Grande polonaise.

Disc 8: The youthful Polonaises plus unimportant minor works like the Bourées, the Largo in E-flat, and the Fugue again turn up in Alessandra Ammaro’s splendid and mindfully virtuosic renditions.

Disc 9: The label replaces Fred Oldenburg’s good, workmanlike recording of the First sonata with a superior version from Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy, while retaining the latter’s wonderful Second and Third sonatas. Recently I compared his recording of the Second sonata’s strange Finale next to those of Horowitz and Rubinstein, and actually found Schmitt-Leonardy’s creative inflections more engaging (sound clip).

Disc 10: In place of Ivan Moravec’s Four Scherzos (originally issued by Dorian), we have Alwin Bär’s scintillating 1998 cycle, coupled with his equally compelling Fantasy in F minor and Barcarolle, along with a rather fussy Berceuse.

Disc 11: A hodgepodge of performances. I raved in detail about Schmitt-Leonardy’s reference-worthy Op. 28 Preludes when they first came out. Paolo Giacometti shines in the C-sharp minor Prelude Op. 45, Oldenburg serves up the Three Ecossaises quite well, while Marian Mika plays two versions each of the Waltz in F minor Op. 70 No. 2 and the Funeral March Op. 72 No. 2 using alternative texts.

Discs 12 & 13: Rem Urasin’s Mazurka cycle evokes the high rhetoric and subjectivity of pianists like Jean-Marc Luisada and Andrew Rangell, minus their eccentricity. Just don’t expect lightness, humor, or snappy embellishments.

Discs 14 & 15: Claire Huangci’s rippling and graceful pianism in the Nocturnes differs from the seasoned drama of the Earl Wild cycle that appeared in the 2015 box. The Duo Pianistico di Firenze’s Rondo Op. 73 and Variations in D fill out CD 15.

Disc 16: Alessandro Deljavan works overtime trying to emulate the great Romantic pianists, yet his lurching phrasings and contrived voicings throughout the Waltzes often belabor the obvious and fail to ring true. The piano itself sounds poorly regulated, and doesn’t always hold its tuning.

Disc 17: Frank van de Laar basically picks up the slack, playing the Rondos, the Variations brilliantes Op. 12, the Bolero Op. 19, the Allegro de concert Op. 46, and the Tarantella Op. 43 with plenty of finesse and good taste, if not quite matching Vladimir Ashkenazy’s ebullience.

For its attractive price tag and overall consistency (have Rubinstein’s Waltzes and Mazurkas handy, though!) Brilliant Classics’ 2023 Chopin Edition holds its own alongside similar multi-artist complete Chopin collections on other labels featuring bigger names. It should appeal to general music lovers just getting started with Chopin’s music who wish to take a deep dive into the composer’s oeuvre.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

During the 2015/2016 season, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra celebrates their 125th birthday. This two disc set includes the very best compiled recordings over a three decade span, including works by Wagner, Nielsen, Webern, Holst, and more. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra was originally founded in 1891 under the name the Scottish Orchestra. They have worked with the very best conductors, composers, and soloists, Aaron Copland, Luciano Pavarotti, and Richard Strauss to name a few.

Begun in 2012 with the release of Symphony No. 1, Thomas Dausgaard’s four-album traversal of the symphonies of Johannes Brahms is here brought to a close with the composer’s final work in the genre. The E minor Symphony is sometimes described as Brahms’ ‘elegiac symphony’, and has been called ‘one of the greatest orchestral works since Beethoven’. Typical for the composer is the striking degree of motivic relationships throughout the work. This includes the finale in which Brahms demonstrates his full mastery in a towering Passacaglia consisting of 30 variations and a coda. The smallish forces of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra contribute to a transparency and clarity which bring out the finer details of Brahms’ compositional web. As on previous installments, the symphony is coupled with other works by Brahms. Included on the present release is another late work, Tragic Overture, which concludes the programme. These two ‘serious’ works frame some of the most rousing and ebullient music Brahms ever wrote, namely his Hungarian Dances. Composed for piano four-hands, the 21 dances became immensely popular, and Brahms arranged three of them for orchestra himself. Having made his own orchestrations of the remaining 18 dances, Thomas Dausgaard has recorded the full set for his Brahms cycle, with the final nine dances included here.

With this programme of music for cello and piano, Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih transport us to the world immortalized in Marcel Proust’s a la recherche du temps perdu – the Parisian high society and its glittering salons. For the composers of the time these provided a perfect platform for the introduction of new works, performed by the finest musicians in France for a sympathetic, educated and rich (!) audience. And for the music-loving Proust they offered countless opportunities to meet the composers that he so admired (and others that he may have admired a bit less…) The first of these to make his appearance in the programme is no one less than Proust’s one-time lover and lifelong friend, Reynaldo Hahn, with a brief set of Variations chantantes on a theme from a baroque opera. He is followed by Gabriel Faure, whose music Proust gushed about in a letter to the composer: ‘I could write a book more than 300 pages long about it.’

Proust was less expansive about Saint-Saëns’ music even if he admired him as a pianist, but the composer’s First Cello Sonata is nevertheless the centrepiece of the programme, before Henri Duparc and Augusta Holmes make their appearance. These were both students of Cesar Franck, whose iconic Violin Sonata in A major (here in the version for cello) closes this programme of ‘salon music’ – in the best possible sense of the term.

REVIEW:

The writings of Marcel Proust are suffused with music. Proust depicted the world of the Parisian salons of the late 19th century, where both music and literature flourished. This release by cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Connie Shih does not depict a specific event, but it does plunge the listener into Proust's world. Isserlis brings the necessary heat to the Franck sonata, an arrangement of the composer's cello sonata that the composer himself sanctioned. Another draw is Shih's accompaniment work, distinctive and appropriately intense. For lovers of French music, this is a standout release.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Anthony McGill, principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, and pianist Gloria Chien, a frequent performer with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, make their commercial recording debut as a duo on Here with You, an album of early and late German Romantic masterworks they’ve treasured throughout their 15 years of mutual admiration and musical collaboration. It’s a project that embodies, in the artists’ words, a “shared expression of beauty and friendship.” Johannes Brahms and Carl Maria von Weber were accomplished pianists who wrote for — and performed with — the leading clarinetists of their day. Brahms’ Sonata No. 1, Opus 120, spotlights fast-paced, intense dialogues between the two players, while his Sonata No. 2 explores the clarinet’s entire tonal range. Weber’s Grand Duo Concertant has been described as “a double concerto without orchestra” showcasing sheer virtuosity for both instruments. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s newest Mead Composer-in-Residence, Jessie Montgomery wrote Peace in 2020 as a response to the global pandemic. McGill and Chien offer the world-premiere recording of the clarinet and piano version.

Sony Classical is pleased to announce a new batch of reissues from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor/BMG back catalogs. This latest installment of the popular series showcases Mozart and Chopin along with conductor Robert Craft’s pioneering Webern recordings and the global journeys of that irrepressible musical explorer Yo-Yo Ma.

The Tunisian-born French pianist Jean-Marc Luisada, a prize-winner at the 1985 Warsaw Chopin Competition, has earned an international reputation as a distinctive Chopin interpreter. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Luisada made a series of recordings for RCA: the complete Mazurkas, Waltzes and Ballades, the B minor Sonata and a chamber arrangement of the First Concerto (joined by the Talich Quartet), among numerous other works. MusicWeb International wrote that “the most stunning aspect of his artistry is his exploratory approach to Chopin. He uses every phrase to probe into Chopin’s sound-world and psyche, also displaying a total command of the keyboard’s resources.” As ClassicsToday wrote about Luisada’s Chopin: “The pianist compels you to listen.” All his RCA Chopin recordings are now reissued in a 6-album Sony Classical box.

REVIEW:

Sony/BMG has gathered together nearly all of Jean-Marc Luisada’s RCA Chopin recordings in a budget box. The set includes Luisada’s RCA cycles of the 14 “standard” Waltzes, the Mazurkas, and the four Ballades, along with some of these works in alternate recorded versions.

Luisada’s Chopin B minor sonata flies all over the place metrically, yet his bottomless pit of local details and ravishing legato hold your attention. My comments about Luisada’s Chopin B minor sonata apply to other larger-scaled works like the aforementioned Ballades, the Scherzos Nos. 2 and 4, the Barcarolle, the F minor Fantasie, and the Polonaise-Fantasie.

Luisada’s creative juices and refined fingers thoughtfully coalesce when collaborating with the Talich Quartet and double bassist Benjamin Berlioz in the most musically satisfying chamber edition of the Concerto No. 1 in E minor I’ve heard on disc.

--ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

A slipcase containing four 1CDs and a 2CD with archive recordings of the SWR which go as far back as 1952. The recordings belong to some of the greatest singers of all times, the repertoire consists of art songs (lied), arias and baroque arias.

In their liner notes for this string of estrellitas (‘small stars’), Elena Urioste and Tom Poster admit to a shared love for ‘an old-world, golden sound and for melodies that tug at the heartstrings’. This has resulted in a deeply personal collection of miniatures full of winks, sighs and tears aimed at transporting the listener to bygone eras of fireside salon concerts. With a few exceptions, including Elgar’s Chanson de Nuit and Salut d’amour, the pieces are arrangements by the great violinists of that bygone, golden age: Auer, Kreisler, Zimbalist, Heifetz … while the originals they are based upon range from Gluck’s Melodie from Orpheus and Euridice and Liszt’s Consolation No. 3 to Beau soir by Debussy and Estrellita by Manuel Ponce. In a closing section Elena Urioste and Tom Poster also pay their respects to the Great American Songbook, with new arrangements, signed Tom Poster, of ‘Moon River,’ ‘When I Fall in Love’ and ‘Over the Rainbow.’

Recognized as one of the world’s leading viola players, Philip Dukes has enjoyed a career spanning over thirty years as an accomplished concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He joins forces with Peter Donohoe, acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for this extraordinary recording of works by Brahms and Schumann. As he writes in his booklet note, Phillip wanted to find a new approach to these works: ‘I wanted it to sound fresh and alive, almost as when I was looking at the scores for the first time all those years ago, but with the secret benefit of all that subsequent experience under my belt. So, I did just that. I purchased a new, excellent, well researched edition, I listened to all manner of different recordings (of the versions both for clarinet and for viola), and I devoted three months to the project, the culmination of which is what you will hear.’

Beethoven wrote in his diary that he wanted “to show the British what a treasure they have in God Save the King”, a reference to his set of variations on the national anthem, composed in 1803. Sarah Beth Briggs recorded the virtuoso set precisely one month before the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, and the recording heralds the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023. The lesser-known Variations on an Original Theme in F major (1802) represent Beethoven the revolutionary. Uniquely, each variation was written in a different key which would have jarred the ears of the composer’s contemporaries. Sarah Beth Briggs’ collection of Variations underlines a lineage of the genre through the classical and Romantic eras. Opening the program is 9 Variations on a Minuet by Duport by Mozart, whom Beethoven greatly admired. The work takes a theme by cellist Jean-Pierre Duport, chamber music director of the court of the Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm II, from whom the composer hoped to gain favor. Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses was written as a tribute to Beethoven, and was included in an album of works that raised funds for the now famous bronze statue of Beethoven in Bonn. Mendelssohn’s near contemporary Brahms paid tribute to his troubled friend Robert Schumann, using a melody from Bunte Blätter (“Colorful Leaves”) in his poignant Variations on a Theme by Schumann.

REVIEWS:

Briggs’ execution is fluidly graceful and well-modulated. She approaches this repertoire with a studied care that betrays a love for the period and composers.

-- Wild Mercury Rhythm

All nine of Mozart’s Variations on a Theme by Jean-Pierre Duport, K 573 are quite delicate, sounding here almost as if they were played on a toy piano. Only the finale includes authoritative sounds. Beethoven’s 7 Variations on `God Save the King’ is sturdier; I especially enjoy the lively, witty, chordal IV. Also included is Beethoven’s 6 Variations on an Original Theme. In Variations Serieuses, Mendelssohn managed to write 17 imaginative ones. That number only slightly outdoes Brahms, who came up with 16 Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann. Lovely music, elegant playing.

-- American Record Guide

With this recording Septura answers the question, “what if the greatest Christmas music had been written for brass?” In arrangements that go far beyond Yultide clichés, Septura has carefully crafted a programme that explores virtuosity and festive celebration in pieces such as the Christmas Suite with music by J.S. Bach, rapturous serenity from the likes of Robert Parson´s beautiful Ave Maria, and nostalgic favourites such as the ravishingly polyphonic The Three Kings by Peter Cornelius. Septura pushes its colours and combinations to the limit in re-imagining this varied selection of sublime Christmas music from the past 450 years.

REVIEW:

The English brass septet Septura's ensemble work is unimpeachable, but where they break new ground is in their arrangements, which both draw on a slightly wider range of sources than usual and have a more varied selection of textures. The program starts off normally enough with Schütz, Bach, and Praetorius, but brings some delightful surprises in the middle parts, such as arrangements of two sections from Rachmaninoff’s Vespers. There’s nothing to make this collection unsuitable for festive holiday listening, and indeed it will fill the bill elegantly in that regard.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

The legacy of the Cypress String Quartet, which celebrated its 20th anniversary and valedictory season in 2016, is sealed by the ensemble’s final recording – the two String Sextets by Johannes Brahms in which they are joined by long-time collaborators, violist Barry Shiffman and cellist Zuill Bailey. True to form, the Cypress String Quartet applied innovation to its last recording: live in front of a studio audience at Skywalker Sound Studio. "A tender, deeply expressive interpretation" - The New York Times

For this release, OehmsClassics was able to convince the House of Hessen to engage in a small cooperation because the works heard on this album were personally dedicated to Princess Anna von Hessen. Rainer von Hessen has written the following in his preface to this production: "To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that both chamber works Op. 34 by Johannes Brahms have been united on the same album: his only Piano Quintet and the Sonata for Two Pianos. Previously, both works could be heard at a concert with the duo pianists Lucia Huang and Sebastian Euler as well as the Haba Quartet of the hr Symphony Orchestra at the baroqu eFasanerie Palace near Fulda. With this rather unusual programme combination, a long harbored wish came true for me, namely to hear both works dedicated by Brahms to Princess Anna von Hessen performed on the same evening: the Sonata for Two Pianos in F minor and the Piano Quintet, that resulted from it. This enabled us to sense how the composer increased the sonic attractiveness of his composition by means of refined instrumentation, hardly changing anything else."

A New York Times 25 Best Tracks Selection for 2018 - Fanfare

Following acclaimed albums devoted to Britten, baroque lute songs and German lieder, Grammy Award-nominated tenor Nicholas Phan continues to spread his wings with Illuminations, an album featuring compositions by Benjamin Britten, Claude Debussy and Gabriel Faure who were each inspired by the poetry of two nineteenth century French literary titans, Paul Verlaine and his protégé and eventual lover Arthur Rimbaud. The intertwined lives of the French poets and composers manifested themselves in Faure’s impassioned Verlaine-inspired ‘La bonne chanson’ and Debussy’s ‘Ariettes oubliees’ drawn from Verlaine’s ‘Romances sans paroles.’ Just decades later Britten was inspired by Rimbaud’s influential prose-poetry ‘Les Illuminations.’ Critical acclaim for Nicholas Phan has been widespread.



REVIEW:

Britten captures the blend of bizarre, beautiful, decadent, and courtly elements in Rimbaud's symbolist poems. These mingled emotions enliven Mr. Phan’s singing on this recording, starting with the opening “Fanfare,” in which, in trembling voice, he declares that he alone holds the key to this savage parade (of life).

– New York Times

Harpists Eva Tebbe and Ekaterina Levental remark that Debussy makes the invisible visible and turns the unspeakable into a musical world full of mysticism, layers of ambiguity and evocative meanings. A century after his death, he is being celebrated across the world in 2018, and this album promises to make a special contribution on record with arrangements of works, most of them relatively unfamiliar, which particularly lend themselves to the ethereal and exquisite combination of voice and harps. Much of the music here was written while Debussy was composing his only opera Pelléas et Mélisande, a Symbolist drama based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, who recognized that in many ways Debussy had not only set his play to music but even outstripped and further enriched his original. There is the early and peaceful Ballade from 1890, then the Proses lyriques from 1892-3 and the seductive Trois Chansons de Bilitis (1897), from which this musical partnership takes its name. Bilitis is the fictional poet of Classical antiquity invented by Pierre Louÿs, writing in an erotic, symbolist vein after the fashion of Sappho: and when in 1900 Debussy came to use the texts of Louÿs again for the Musique de Scène pour les chansons de Bilitis, the music accompanied a tableau vivant in pre-Raphaelite style of winsome and scantily clothed young women. The recital is completed by the Danse sacrée et danse profane – originally composed for harp and orchestra in 1904, here with the orchestral parts arranged for a second harp – and the six Epigraphes Antiques from 1914, which return to the musical material of the Bilitis works but in the composer’s more allusive late style which would lead to his final masterpiece written for Serge Diaghilev, Jeux.

The cellist Jan Vogler, who lives in New York and Dresden, has recorded three Double concertos for violin, cello and orchestra with his wife, the outstanding violinist Mira Wang, with the renowned Royal Scottish National Orchestra under direction of Peter Oundjian. Brahms' famous Double concerto captivates with wonderfully sweeping melodies, romantic sounds, eloquent solos and great orchestral sound. The English press wrote about one of the previous concerts: "Vogler, in particular, treated his solo sections like an operatic recitative, even in the faster Vivace sections of the finale, and Wang, his wife, matched him both in virtuosity and in beauty of tone. The highlight, however, was the opening of the slow movement, which produced sensational legato tone, soloists and orchestra slotting into one another like concentric circles, and creating a sound like molten chocolate.” The American composer John Harbison (born 1938), whose cello concerto premiered by Yo-Yo Ma has already caused a sensation, composed the Double concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned by the Friends of the Dresden Festival. The highly praised world premiere with Jan Vogler and Mira Wang took place on April 8th 2010 in Boston under the direction of Carlos Kalmar. Now this colorful, dynamic work full of glittering virtuosity can be heard for the first time in a recording. The German composer Wolfgang Rihm (born 1953) is considered one of the most important composers of our time. His "Duo Concerto", performed at Carnegie Hall in New York by Jan Vogler and Mira Wang with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2015, completes this fascinating new recording of three Double concerts with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

For those who are new to an instrument, the first question is often: where to start? The ‘Best Loved’ series offers an easy answer to that question and a perfect introduction to the wonderful, varied world of classical music. Spotlighting individual instruments in some of the best-loved pieces ever written, and with a mix of solo, chamber and orchestral works, the series provides a convenient introduction to classical music’s infinite variety of instrumental sounds and styles. The focus in these releases is a light and relaxed approach, rather than academic and theoretical: a joyful exploration and celebration of individual instrumental sounds. The present release is a showcase of the horn.