The first album by the philharmonie zuidnederland was of works by Wagner and Tchaikovksy, under their chief conductor Dmitri Liss; this second release promises to be even more spectacular. The principal work, Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, caused rapturous enthusiasm in a previous live performance and is very close to Liss' own heart. Liss tells of the symphony's premi�re shortly after the death of Stalin in 1953: "In those days, it was extremely hazardous to reveal too much of yourself in a piece of music. Shostakovich was able to manage it and for that he has my lasting and increasing admiration. I come closer to the music's heart each time I conduct this symphony". The album also includes an energetic live performance of Olga Victorova's Quinlong Azure Dragon. This work too is close to Liss' heart, as is the composer herself - Victorova is his wife. One more reason for philharmonie zuidnederland to pull out all the stops as they perform this work about a renowned Oriental dragon as well as Shostakovich's masterpiece with passion and fire.

To us, the Rolston String Quartet, the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is simply irresistible - and so, a debut album containing only his finest chamber works was an obvious choice. Cherished for his memorable and beautifully simplistic melodies, Tchaikovsky's music is innately joyous, virtuosic, and heart-wrenching, often all at once- yet never violent in nature. As musicians, we adore the charm and childhood nostalgia that Tchaikovsky is able to encompass from start to finish. In this album, we have selected a work from each of his early, middle, and late periods: his String Quartet No. 1 in D major, selections from his Children's Album, and his beloved Souvenir de Florence for string sextet. Not only could we showcase a quartet that we treasure, but we were given the opportunity to collaborate with two of the Chapel's brilliant professors: violist Miguel da Silva and cellist Gary Hoffman. We gravitate towards Tchaikovsky's chamber music more than other composers' because of his stunning ability to write symphonically: right form the opening chords of the D major quartet, Tchaikovsky expands the sonic possibilities of the traditional string quartet towards that of a symphony orchestra. To round out the program are five delicate and endearing pieces: our favorite selections from Tchaikovsky's Children's Album for solo piano, arranged for string quartet by Rostislav Dubinsky, the founding first violinist of the Borodin Quartet.

Bart Van Reyn and Le Concert d'Anvers delve into two of Joseph Haydn's lesser-known symphonies. Dating from the autumn of 1784, when Haydn was nearing the end of his employment at the Esterh�zy court, both seem to anticipate the Paris symphonies that would shortly follow. Having been largely overlooked by historically informed performance specialists, Van Reyn's reading highlights the pair's mutual sense of artistic ambition, drawing out their concise but powerful musical drama. These are accompanied with Haydn's effervescent Piano Concerto in D major, featuring Belgian fortepianist Lucas Blondeel. Blondeel demonstrates his clear affinity with Haydn's solo writing, rendering a performance that captures the concerto's elegance while always sparkling with it's composer's characteristic wit.

Scott Robert Shaw's debut "The English Tenor" takes us on a beautifully performed journey through a who's who of great English composers and their vocal works. The names Ivor Gurney, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter are synonymous with English Song, and a Golden Age of British music. The wide variety of accompanying instruments and artists, the broad range of text settings and the mix of cornerstone works of the repertoire alongside lesser-known cycles make "The English Tenor" a thrilling debut album. A product of the English church music tradition, Australian born Scott Robert Shaw has been performing works in this oeuvre since childhood. Whether on the operatic or oratorio stage, as an ensemble singer or soloist, his deep cultural roots to the British music world are laid bare for all to see. This deeply personal album stands as testament to his background, and as a homecoming to his earliest steps as artist. Beginning his career and training as a boy soprano at the St George's Cathedral Perth Choir, Scott then attended the McDonald College of the Performing Arts in Sydney, studying music and acting in the Stanislawksy/Laban tradition, awarded a full scholarship for Excellence in Performance. He then attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and was given the Most Exceptional Contribution to the Arts award from Wesley College, University of Sydney. In London he continued his studies with the English National Opera's Baylis Programme for young performers and was regularly engaged to perform as a recitalist and operatic tenor in festivals and opera companies in both the United Kingdom and France. He then completed his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague where he studied Early Music and Classical Singing, and now based in D�sseldorf, is regularly engaged as a soloist in The Netherlands and Germany, with a particular focus on Bach oratorios and Evangelist roles in the Passions.

This third album released by philharmonie zuidnederland contains works by the Dutch composer Hendrik Andriessen and Hector Berlioz. A highlight of Andriessen’s French-influenced output has been chosen, the song cycle Miroir de peine (Mirror of suffering, 1923), with its texts by Henri Gheon sung in highly expressive fashion by the mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn. The coupling is the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz, written at the end of a period of ‘mental overheating’ in his obsessive love for Harriet Constance Smithson. This resulted in a musical gem, officially called Episode from an artist’s life, Fantastical Symphony in five parts), in which he used every technique to get through to his audience. Here, Berlioz leaves nothing to the imagination.

Masques, the title of this album, is a reference to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet; it mirrors his visionary music, so full of wit, color and drama, that expresses every possible human emotion. The thousand characters created by the music are both actors in and spectators of their own lives by turns. The Sonata No. 1 is a truly epic work; it leads us from an anguish-laden grief permeated with a gust of wind from the grave to a nostalgic lyricism — the memory of a lost paradise? — that is then driven by tremendous rhythmic energy to the apocalyptic climax of the work: we experience an explosion, a dissolution of every hope, before a return to the frozen whiteness of the beginning and an ending in resignation. The Sonata No. 2, unrestrainedly lyrical and punctuated with humour, can be seen as a contrasting counterpart to the previous work. The release also includes the undervalued Sonata for solo violin and two miniatures in Prokofiev’s characteristic style: they are filled with alacrity, humour and biting wit — an extract of life!

Percutronique

Catalogue de plantes

Gaubert: Chamber Music

Six New Works

Guilmant, Vierne & Dupre

From the Second Empire to the Roaring Twenties, Alexandra Soumm, the Orchestre de chambre Pelleas and Benjamin Levy paint a ruffled, nostalgic and swaying portrait of the City of Light, spanning seventy years of music. This recording, a testament to the musical and human affinities forged over many years between these performers, is also a return to the sources of creative fount, with the first recording of Tzigane in the new �Ravel Edition� and the first recording of the orchestration of Emmanuel Chabrier's Bourree fantasque according to the sketches left unfinished by the composer. From the crinolines of Georges Bizet's adolescence to the wisps of cigar smoke in the dreamy Brazil of Le Boeuf sur le toit, let's immerse ourselves in an era when Paris set the tempo for cosmopolitan, carefree celebrations.

The pianist Pierre Solot here rediscovers the works of Ernesto Lecuona: their roots lie in many cultures and blend romantic virtuosity, Cuban dances, passionate avowals, evocations of distant lands, and the last decadent traces of 19th-century Vienna. � The Cuban-born Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963), a composer and virtuoso pianist, was acclaimed by both George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel when he toured Europe and the United States, following in the footsteps of the 19th-century piano virtuosi who, driven by their passion, set concert halls and audiences aflame. These were pianists whose charismatic wizardry transformed the piano into an orchestra that could not only set the world ablaze and make it dance, but also evoke solitude and lovelorn exile.

The polyphonic choral concerto performed a cappella first appeared in Russian music at the beginning of the 18th century. Sacred in origin, it began as a multimovement setting of liturgical texts. Although it later became more secular in character, it nonetheless retained an elevated nature thanks to its use of Christian imagery. Most of the composers who worked in this genre were choirmasters and conductors, and inherited the traditions of the oldest professional choirs in Russia: the Moscow Synodal Choir and the Saint Petersburg Court Chapel.

The Golden Age of the Russian choral concerto came with the works of Dmitry Bortnyansky and Stepan Degtyarev during the reign of Catherine the Great. The genre took a new turn at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, thanks to the efforts of Pavel Chesnokov, Sergei Rachmaninov and Alexander Arkhangelsky. Composers during the later 20th century had greater freedom to choose their poetic texts and to modify the form of the genre: they could make use of secular themes, as did Georgy Sviridov in Pushkin’s Garland, or follow the spiritual and philosophical path of the genre, as we see in Valery Gavrilin’s Chimes.

The Pacific Quintet have gone beyond the standard classical repertoire and have selected pieces that represent their diversity. Its musicians were born and raised all over the globe — Japan, Honduras, South Korea, Germany, and Ukraine/Turkey — and here present music from their home countries, transcending all differences of culture, language, and tradition. Two pieces, one by the Honduran composer Jorge Santos and the other by the South Korean female composer Soeui Lee, were commissioned especially for this album, which also includes Fazil Say’s quintet Alevi dedeler raki masasinda and a medley of Japanese folk songs; Hanns Eisler’s Divertimento represents Germany, the Pacific Quintet’s home base. The album ends with an arrangement of music from West Side Story and pays homage to Leonard Bernstein, the founder of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo where the players first met. As this project shows, they are truly United in music.