After “Songs of Yearning" (HC16080), the current “Invitation au Voyage” is the second album with Thomas Wise and Baritone Giorgos Kanaris to be published by Hänssler Classic. Giorgos Kanaris is a recitalist as well as an opera singer. Together with the conductor and pianist Thomas Wise he has given numerous recitals with works including Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Liederkreis, Schubert’s Schwanengesang, Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin, Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and songs by Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner.

“Many of the works on this recording are declarations of love; for example the infinitely heartfelt “Serenade” by Edward Elgar which was a gift from the composer to his wife on their third wedding anniversary, and had its premiere in Antwerp in 1896. Likewise, the song “Jeg elsker dig” (I love you) was composed by Edvard Grieg for his beloved wife, the singer Nina Hagerup. I was, however, much more inspired by the all-embracing concept of love and with the contemplation and feelings that arise when listening to this music. The most sublime expression of this is probably “Du bist die Ruh” (You are repose) by Franz Schubert – one of those works which, regardless of its length, and with its mood of almost religious contemplation, its elevated gratitude and ensouled intimacy, is able to transfigure earthly existence into eternal bliss. It is among the most poignant works that a composer’s pen has ever produced. Naturally the selected repertoire is, in a veiled form, also an exploration of – and immersion in – my own roots; a manifestation of my identity.” (Sofja Gülbadamova)

Morten Lauridsen has been very fortunate in his treatment by choirs and record labels. Part of the reason is because his music is just so sonorous, singable, and sellable. But, sticking with the alliteration, it's also "serious" in the sense that his style seems to come from a genuine and personal conviction rather than from some external, commercial or image-driven influence. His music is functional, if you want it to be, but it also serves very well as pure concert material, and the three choral cycles Lux Aeterna, Les Chansons des Roses, and Madrigali have achieved a degree of success in that role. I've commented in detail regarding Lauridsen's style in previous reviews, and you can find such a description by typing Q8554 in Search Reviews, which refers to a Hyperion recording by Stephen Layton and Polyphony that duplicates two-thirds of the program presented here.


It takes only a few minutes of listening to discern some of the primary features--some would say "formulaic traits"--characteristic of Lauridsen's more popular works, exemplified in O magnum mysterium and the Lux aeterna cycle. But it's hard not to luxuriate along with the choir in the rich-textured sound and affectingly simple melodic phrases. The work here that's not on the Polyphony recording is the choral cycle Les Chansons des Roses. Premiered in 1993, the five songs are set to poems about roses by Rainer Maria Rilke. The final one, Dirait-on (here with the composer at the piano), has become a concert favorite, but the others are equally worthy of attention by accomplished choirs. The Lux Aeterna cycle is a masterpiece of Lauridsen's kind of choral sonority and word-setting, the organ accompaniment a perfect complement to the singers' "organ-like" textures and timbres.


My only real criticism of Polyphony's performances (that disc also includes Ave Maria and Ubi caritas et amor) was its dreadfully slow reading of Lauridsen's now-ubiquitous O magnum mysterium, which retained the resonance of the harmonies but sapped the energy from the long, flowing phrases. Well, if I thought that version was slow, Nicol Matt and his Chamber Choir of Europe--unquestionably one of the world's top-tier ensembles--had a surprise in store: this one is nearly a quarter of a minute longer! Aside from some sort of odd competition (the score clearly, wisely, indicates a much faster tempo), I can't understand the purpose for the snail's pace, notwithstanding the fact that it's effortlessly sung. At any rate, this is another excellent Lauridsen program that will please choral enthusiasts and hopefully will expand this composer's reach to listeners who still haven't made his acquaintance. The sound, from two different church venues in Germany, is very good if a touch bright and weighted toward treble at louder volume on some tracks. [11/9/2006]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Jean Muller writes: "Mozart’s piano sonatas are, according to Charles Rosen, actually quite fully fledged Classical compositions which are in no respect inferior to his works in other genres. Even in the few sonatas composed for pedagogical purposes, the dramatic genius of Mozart that had been sharpened by opera reveals itself. In all his sonatas the astounding, simply inexhaustible melodic richness is perfectly balanced by clear proportions and an osmosis between form and content, and with a dreamy, almost playful lightness. In the two minor-key sonatas, on the other hand, Mozart is shockingly tragic, unexpectedly uncompromising, and on a par with Beethoven in terms of dark, surging power. One particular aspect, however, seems to me to be frequently neglected: the typical Mozart humour. Capricious, mischievous, childish, playful, parodying, affectionate etc – there are not enough adjectives to describe the wit of Mozart. Astonishingly, this humour never has a hurtful or injured tone but is, on the contrary, always deeply gracious and humanistic. The emotional spectrum of Mozart’s humour, with all its diversity, is always focused on the light.“

Long recognized as one of this century´s great pianists, Ivan Moravec's performances and recordings alike have prompted critics in search of parallels to call up such names as Gieseking and Richter. Yet his musicianship, while it challenges comparison with these masters, is rivetingly and penetratingly individual in style. Ivan Moravec was born in Prague in 1930 and until the age of 15 his main musical interest was in opera. He later studied piano at the Prague Conservatory and the Prague Academy, performing during his student years in Poland and Hungary. In 1957, pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli heard Mr. Moravec perform in Prague and invited him to Italy for further study. In 1959 he made his London debut.

Ivan Moravec made his American debut in January 1964 with the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell at Severance Hall; the following month, he made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall. In Europe, Mr. Moravec was welcomed regularly as recitalist and concerto soloist in the major music capitals, including London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, Rome, Milan, Moscow and St. Petersburg.

REVIEW:

We reviewed the two discs of Mozart piano concertos a few years back, and called them eloquent and praised their idiomatic style. "No one conveys the spirit and beauty of this music better." The orchestra under Neville Marriner sound great as well as substantial. In fact, in No. 20, for example, I have never heard a better sounding orchestra—not Cleveland and not any of the other English ones. Moravec approaches every phrase as if it's fresh and fascinating. He makes many another recording sound too sophisticated, too routine. There's a lot of decent competition in 23 and 24, but this one belongs in the same top class. I knew Moravec would play all the Chopin pieces beautifully; the 7 here were recorded in a Prague Spring Festival concert, along with the Haydn (which I find oddly boring) and the Janacek (which is gorgeous). The 4th disc was recorded in New York in 2002: all Chopin. Besides the sonata we hear a few mazurkas and the 4th Ballade, the Fantasy, and the Polonaise Fantasy. Nothing sounds contrived; everything just unwinds naturally and seemingly effortlessly. Such relaxed playing is rare, and his tone is beautiful, too.

-- American Record Guide

“These are special performances and as a group make a highly effective addition to Jean Muller’s intended Mozart cycle. I hope that the next volume will not be delayed too long. I found the disc a sheer joy from start to finish and I hope others do too.“ (MusicWeb International) The present release is the third volume in pianist Jean Muller’s Mozart Piano Concerto project, and features the Sonatas Nos. 10, 2, 8, and 16. Muller has performed Mozart’s complete piano sonatas in concerts across the globe, on stages like the Shanghai Oriental Art Center in 2016 and the Salle Cortot in Paris in 2018/2019. He receives outstanding reviews from the industry’s leading media (BBC Music Magazine, Classica, Concertclassic, Diapason, Fanfare, Fono Forum, Gramophone, International Piano, Pizzicato, ResMusica, Stereoplay etc.) and has been a featured cover artist for International Piano Magazine. His recordings are regularly broadcasted around the globe, and he has on several occasions had the opportunity to perform live on the famous program InTune on BBC Radio 3.

Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921) was a student at the Conservatory in Cologne from the spring of 1872; it was at this time that he got to know the Siegburg district judge and arbitrator Johannes Degen (1826–1902), an excellent singer and violinist, who gave regular chamber concerts in Siegburg at which he played in his own string quartet. Humperdinck, whose talent he had astutely spotted, was the pianist and composer he had been looking for. For his part, the young music student saw his admission to Degen’s chamber-music circle as an opportunity for regular performance; in return, he wrote whatever Degen requested. Humperdinck’s tally of 13 chamber compositions represents a relatively small part of his oeuvre (beside his six operas and about 80 Lieder, along with stage music and choral works). Brief album-leaves for violin or cello and piano contrast with works for the major Classical genres of string quartet, piano quintet, piano trio, sonata and sonatina – most of which were never finished and sometimes survive only in the form of short sketches. His finished pieces include two major works, an early piano quintet (1875) and a late string quartet (1920); the other completed movements include some tailored to Degen’s domestic music-making.

Joseph Haydn is regarded as the "father of the symphony" and the "father of the string quartet" for his more than 100 symphonies and almost 70 string quartets. Haydn also produced numerous operas, masses, concertos, piano sonatas and other compositions. His oratorios The Creation and The Seasons, both composed in the last decade of Haydn’s active compositional life, are his most widely known and admired choral compositions today, just as they were in his lifetime. Recordings from some of Haydn’s most formidable interpreters are showcased on this extensive release, including the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, Kammerchor Stuttgart, Helmuth Rilling, and more.

REVIEW:

For this set Hänssler have grouped together three major choral works of Haydn from their back catalogue of the many recordings made by the noted German choral conductor Helmuth Rilling. Rilling was the founder of The Oregon Bach Festival, and such musical ensembles as the Gächinger Kantorei and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, both of whom appear on these recordings. As filler, some works recorded by the lesser-known Frieder Bernius have also been included.

The first two discs contain Rilling’s 1993 Die Schöpfung. With Rilling this great work proceeds naturally with no hint of forcing the music to wring more drama out of it. He provides tempi that are very solicitous towards his singers. His approach presents the work with a more smiling aspect than one usually encounters. In this aspect Rilling comes closer than anyone else to Leonard Bernstein’s earlier recording of the work with the New York Philharmonic. Rilling’s soloists are a fine team topped by Christiane Schäfer’s exquisitely shapely tones. She makes a lively Gabriel, molding the lines of her recitatives with grace. She provides a heavenly account of “Nun beut die flur” and manages to avoid sounding tweety in the process. Michael Schade is a sunny-sounding Uriel, as he was in the John Eliot Gardiner recording two years later. He is especially good at enunciating his text and producing his sound to evolve from the words, a rare achievement these days. His coloratura is perfectly executed, which makes me place him among the most successful portrayals of Uriel in the catalogue. Andreas Schmidt is a fine Rapaehel. His voice sounds warm and pleasing, yet he suffuses his music with sufficient gravitas for an ideal balance. He manages the awkward intervals of “Rollend in schäumenden” with ease. The choir and orchestra play splendidly and there is a decent sense of ambience to the recording.

The fifth disc brings the oratorio version of The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. Maestro Rilling is definitely back on best form here and he leads a really good team of soloists. The disc is rounded off by two shorter items as filler, which proved to be among the real highlights of the set. Both the Responsoria de Venerabili and the Ave Regina Coelorum are bright and fresh-sounding, led by the sure hand of the accomplished Frieder Bernius. The Württemberg ensemble is wonderfully responsive to his lead with a standout solo by Inga Nielsen in the Ave Regina. Nielsen was still in the coloratura phase of her career when this was recorded and her voice exhibits a glow that would lessen as she started heading into more dramatic roles a few years later. This is a superb example of her voice at its zenith. Hearing it makes me want to search out a copy of the Nelson Mass which accompanied these two works on its original release.

--MusicWeb International

The Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra presents here its newest installment in the Haydn Symphony Project, a series of recordings which began in 1999 and will eventually will include every one of Joseph Haydn’s 105 symphonies. This volume includes Symphonies Nos. 6, 7, 8, 35, 46, and 51. The Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra concentrates its activities on the Viennese classics and the early German romantics. It performs these works in accordance with the principles of historical authenticity and has committed its interpretations to disk in a large number of recordings that have received unusually unanimous acclaim from music critics all over the world.

Hamburger Ratsmusik: an ensemble with a 500-year-old history. This contrast prompts a creative dialogue between tradition and the present day, about Early Music and vivid interpretation. The origins of Hamburg‘s “municipal music” go back to the 16th century. Under the motto “in praise of God and for the pleasure, delight and edification of Hamburg”, the city created an elite ensemble of eight city musicians, which was to be the equal of the princely court ensembles (Hofkapellen) to be found elsewhere. The Ratsmusik attained early excellence in the 17th and 18th centuries under such eminent musicians as William Brade, Johann Schop, Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Revived in 1991 by gambist Simone Eckert, the ensemble now performs in Germany, many European countries, the USA and China. More than 30 albums (largely with world premiere recordings of Early Music) and recordings for all German public radio stations and Austrian broadcaster ORF document its rediscoveries of music from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. The ensemble received the Echo Klassik award in 2006 and 2010, and was awarded the 2016 RITTER Prize by the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation in Hamburg. The musicians will be responding to renewed invitations to China in 2021. Hamburger Ratsmusik is the Ensemble in Residence in the Komponisten-Quartier museum complex in Hamburg.

The present recording is taken from a live transmission of the Academy concert of May 8, 1972, from the Nationaltheater in Munich. The early death of Karl Richter in February 1981 frustrated the intention of releasing one of the great oratorios from his performing repertoire, Joseph Haydn’s “Creation”, in a studio recording. Happily it has proved possible to obtain the present sound recording from the archives of the Bayerische Staatsoper and, with the kind consent of the participants, to prepare a technically enhanced release. Despite a number of remaining technical inadequacies, such as may be considered characteristic for historic recordings of this nature, this audio document gives a particularly fine impression of the ambience and the authenticity of a live performance with conductor Karl Richter – complementing, as it were, the many available studio recordings of his wide-ranging musical repertoire. Special thanks are due to the musicians and all involved at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. For his help in advance preparation of this project, we wish to thank by name the opera house’s former Chief Executive of Administration Dr. Roland Felber!

Garrick Ohlsson scales the heights in this 1996 recording of the Grieg concerto, his prodigious technique more than a match for the demands of the solo part. Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields provide a suitably grand accompaniment, and it’s all brought home on a warm, spacious recording with impressive weight and presence. The main coupling, an exuberant account of the Symphonic Dances, makes an attractive companion piece to the concerto. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

The present release is an outstanding recording of Handel’s Concerti Grossi. Founded in 1959 by Neville Marriner and a group of London musicians, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields has long been one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras. Marriner, initially a violinist and professor of violin at the Royal College of Music in London, became a crucially important figure for the orchestra. In the 1960s, thanks to his vitality and insistence on crisp rhythms, the ASMF set the definitive style for the revival of “ancient music”. Since then its repertoire has expanded from the baroque to the 20th century, and with a discography of over 500 recordings the ensemble stands preeminent amongst the chamber orchestras of the world. After studying in Rome, Brussels and Vienna, and with Henryk Szeryng in Paris, Iona Brown pursued a successful career as a solo violinist before becoming artistic director of the ASMF in 1974. Her long-lasting collaboration with Neville Marriner had a decisive influence on the artistic profile of the chamber orchestra. She died of cancer in 2004.

REVIEW:

This is a reissue of the third recorded set of the complete Handel Concerti Grossi made by the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. The first Decca set was made in the 1960s under the Academy’s founding conductor Sir Neville Marriner; it was for many years the prime (rosetted) recommendation of the Penguin Guide for a recording of these concertos. The second ASMF set, for Philips, shared the conducting duties between Marriner and Iona Brown. This Hänssler set from the 1990s was directed entirely by Brown, and like the Decca set it included the additional parts that Handel wrote for wind soloists in some of the concerti to supplement the original scoring for strings.

This later set is in places very slightly quicker than the 1960s recordings, but the differences are minimal and generally the tempi remain much as before – certainly they avoid the Scylla of over-heavy emphasis to be found in many old-style interpretations, and the Charybdis of over-speedy and superficial traversal of the music which afflicts so many modern versions given with period instruments. As such the readings might perhaps be pejoratively dismissed as a ‘safe’ option – were it not for the fact that they bristle with life and enjoyment throughout, with lively rhythms and expressive cantilenas both taking turns in some of Handel’s most infectiously enjoyable music. Added spice is added with some judicious ornamentation at appropriate places.

-- MusicWeb International

“Jonas Khalil is a young German guitar player with a bright future ahead of him. His tone is warm and colorful, and he's sensitive to the spaces and rests.” (The Absolute Sound) In 2016 he released his first album, “Debut” (Haenssler CLASSIC HC16044), which enjoyed euphoric acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Alongside his work as a soloist, Jonas is a popular chamber music partner and plays in various formations with members of the Staatsorchester Stuttgart and with Duo GaJo together with Gabriel Faur, solo cellist with the Wurttembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn and the municipal theatre in Bern. He has also been a member of various orchestras for many years, performing at a number of theatres in a wide range of productions.

Martin Luther reformed the structures of the church. Preaching the gospel was bound to have visible consequences for the form of divine service. Preaching and Luther’s own writings are complemented by the sacred song, through which evangelical faith is spread. The new song of the Reformation springs from the faith of a confessing church. In arranging, translating and expanding a whole series of older church melodies, and in particular through his own figures of speech, Luther was the true founder of German Protestant congregational singing. His own hymns reflect his strong personality founded on faith, exercising a powerful effect on his and following generations. He was the “Wittenberg Nightingale.” The reforming of the old order of service had shown the need for Latin chants to be replaced by verses sung in German. Luther’s first congregational hymn “Nun freut euch, liebe Christen gmein” was written in 1529. The first Lutheran hymn book, Geistliches Gesangsbuchlein, appeared in 1524. This “little book of sacred songs” introduces the great hymns of the Reformation, soon to find a place in popular culture and to be sung wherever the gospel is preached: Music had great significance for Luther. In honor of the 500th anniversary of the reformation, this collection of hymns by Martin Luther and songs from JS Bach is released.