This recording of Handel’s recorder sonatas is characterized by a newfangled, Mediterranean and daring reading; an exuberant continuo and improvised ornamentation are common elements in all sonatas. Mediterrània Consort bases its performance on the constant search for the implicit affetti in this great work by the German composer. David Antich’s discography includes 50 albums of Early, Renaissance and Baroque Music. Some of these albums have been recognized and awarded by international critics in specialized press. He is founding member of Bach Fussion Ensemble and Mediterrània Consort and he is also a frequent collaborator of Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla, Al Ayre Español, Capella de Ministrers, Orquesta Barroca La Dispersione, Harmonia del Parnàs, Speculum, Musica Ficta, etc. He also takes part in avant-garde projects such as Amores, grup de percussió. He plays regularly with the Orquestra de la Generalitat Valenciana (Palau de les Arts).

This CD is not only a confession and result of my great admiration for the music of Sergei Prokofiev, it also reflects an intense examination of one of the most multifaceted and versatile artists of the 20th century. My chosen program spans around three decades of his compositional works, in which hope and fate, innocence and abyss, directly intertwine and contrast each other.

Trascendo is a thrilling journey through that unknown dimension that blurs the contours of pain and then, guided by a wonderful repertoire for violin solo, heaven and earth come closer. The violinist composers who wrote the four intense, vibrant masterpieces of Trascendo give us their immense talent to show that beyond life there is music. Jonathan Mesonero gives us much more than a virtuous and masterful performance. Few musicians have the gift not to read, but to breathe the score, physically and mentally. He breathes the notes as if they were oxygen that sometimes enters lightly while some other times it is so pure it even hurts. He processes the bars in his bloodstream by sending them to each nerve ending until he becomes one with his violin to transform those notes into sounds full of magic. Listening to him means feeling. Is it not feeling, feeling intensely, what we all look for in music? In a time driven by flat images of perfect unreality, Trascendo is a tribute to our imperfect humanity, to our condition as mere mortals who sometimes are able to sublimate feelings until they become a pulse of the soul that is able to break through the barriers of this world.

The 20th century, the century of totalitarianism, has undoubtedly been marked by the horror of mass, industrialized crime. The world of music, like any other, could not have been oblivious to the ominous events brought by, as Karl Popper would say, the enemies of open society. Accordingly, we find a wide range of attitudes, from musicians of unwavering affinity towards totalitarian regimes, to those who were ousted, or in the worst of cases, even murdered by their compatriots in power. None of the three composers present on this album are at any of the extremes mentioned, but their respective biographies were indelibly marked by Soviet repression or National Socialism, or at worst by both. Beyond these historical circumstances, the great success of Mario Prisuelos in making this programme has been to detect how the three works he has chosen for his recording, written in a time interval of approximately a quarter of a century, are exemplary in terms of reflecting certain aesthetic changes of his time.

This album emerged from the idea of focusing attention on a new saxophone and piano repertoire, which, although fully contemporary and modern, has an inspiration and aesthetic side based on chamber music tradition. Aspects such as the pure sonority, the liking for color and details, the interaction of these instruments and communication through a linear language sustained by melody and rhythm, make of these works “new classics” of the repertoire. This project includes mostly first world recordings, and therefore leads to the opening of a performing path that will surely be long and varied, and may offer many and diverse approaches in the future. After all, a recording is just a photograph of an instant. The attempt to capture the volatile essence of a physically ephemeral but spiritually everlasting art. Music, like the one included in this album, like life, diverse and variable. Thus this work which is flexible, eclectic... alive.

The selection of works included in this recording provides a small sample of the extraordinary cultural diversity that existed at the Chinese Court over almost two centuries as a result of the stimulus of Diego de Pantoja and his introduction of European music into the Forbidden City. Divided into four large sections that portray and recreate different moments of this unique historical episode, the pieces are linked without interruption, respecting the programmatic form conceived for the concerts: the journey begins with the music of Pantoja’s time, uncovering his musical legacy through the accounts that have come down to us thanks to the missionaries who lived at the Court until the end of the eighteenth century. This program is a tribute to the Spanish Jesuit Diego de Pantoja (1571-1618) on the 450th anniversary of his birth. Pantoja was the first European who, together with the Italian Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), entered the service of the Chinese Court at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This marked the beginning of a unique episode in history in terms of the length and breadth of cultural, scientific and artistic relations between two very different worlds.

Luis de Pablo’s compositional output is tremendously attractive – for accordionists as well – in view of its outstanding originality and quality. It is also entirely different from the remaining contemporary repertoire for accordion: de Pablo’s particularly expressive musical vocabulary is perfectly tuned to the dynamic capacities of the accordion bellows, as well as to the instrument’s wide range of sonorities and extended performance options. We all agreed that an original work by a great master such as Luis de Pablo would make a valuable contribution to accordion repertoire. Iñaki Alberdi has collaborated closely with different current composers, and premiered work by Sofia Gubaidulina, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luis de Pablo, Joan Guinjoan, Gabriel Erkoreka, Ramon Lazkano, Jesús Torres, Agustín Charles and José María Sánchez-Verdú.

In the first of his two great concertos for clarinet, Weber’s operatic style is evident from the dramatic start in the form of a tragic aria. The delightful final rondo, in the style of an opera buffa cavatina, is preceded by a slow movement that is a clear reminder that Weber was a relative by marriage of Mozart. Not only was Constanze Weber’s famous husband (already enjoying legendary status) the role model for Weber’s father when he set out to make his son a prodigy, but Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto K.622 formed the foundation for much of 19th-century composition for the instrument. The second of his clarinet concertos, in E flat major, is a marked contrast to the first; the more symphonic wind of the first movement is structured in a much more classical style, while still demonstrating the coloraturas and virtuosic leaps and runs of the soloist. Weber composed his only two symphonies at the age of twenty, between 1806 and 1807, while he was at the Court of Karlsruhe in the service of the Duke Eugen of Württemberg-Öls. This short interlude in his life was one that he would later remember as one of the happiest of his career and the only one in which he was not at the front of a stage. In terms of functional purpose, it is natural that Weber did not follow the path of Romanticism in seeking to make symphonies into vehicles of metaphysical messages, or statements of cosmic truths.

This new release features three fundamental works in the repertoire for viola and piano: the Arpeggione Sonata by Franz Schubert, the Viola Sonata Op.11 Nº4 by the violist and composer Paul Hindemith, and the Viola Sonata by Mikhail Glinka. Randolph Kelly has enjoyed a distinguished and multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, and principal orchestral player. Mr. Kelly has appeared on some of the most prestigious concert stages in the world, including performing the New York premiere of Sir Michael Tippet’s Triple Concerto in Carnegie Hall, conducted by André Previn. Mr. Kelly is widely known for his tenure as Principal Violist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for 42 years. He was first engaged by André Previn in 1976, and has since played under the direction of Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, and Manfred Honeck. In a personal letter to him, Previn once expressed that Mr. Kelly “transformed [his] section into what I believe is the best viola section of any orchestra in America.” John Novacek is a much sought-after collaborative artist and has performed with Joshua Bell, Matt Haimovitz, Leila Josefowicz, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Truls Mork, Elmar Oliveira and Emmanuel Pahud, and, as well as the Colorado, Harrington, Jupiter, New Hollywood, St. Lawrence, SuperNova and Ying string quartets. John Novacek took top prizes at both the Leschetizky and Joanna Hodges international piano competitions, among many others.

Viktor Ullmann arrived in Theresienstadt on 8 September 1942. He was 44 years old, a Jew and a former officer of the Austrian army. Being an accomplished composer, well known for his organizational skills, he was immediately solicited by the Freizeitgestaltung to organize concerts and conferences, to write musical reviews (he authored 26 such texts), and to compose. In fact, during the two years before his transport to Auschwitz, he wrote several instrumental and vocal works, including song cycles for baritone and piano, one sonata for violin and piano, his third string quartet, three piano sonatas (numbers 5, 6 and 7) as well as an opera in one act on a libretto by the young poet Peter Kien Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder die Tod-Verweigerung (The Emperor of Atlantis, or the Disobedience of Death). Ever since his arrival in the ghetto, Ullmann seems aware of the precariousness of his future, as is shown in the quite openly ironic remark on the manuscript of his piano sonata nº 7, dated 22 August 1944: “The performance rights are reserved by the composer until his death”, so, not for long.

REVIEW:

In the three or four generations since composer Viktor Ullmann wrote his opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis with librettist Peter Kien, in the Nazi ghetto-prison Terezín (Theresienstadt) in 1943/44, humanity hasn’t progressed very far. To anyone in today’s world who even pays the slightest attention, this work’s themes and characters–for instance, its “Kaiser” is a demented, tyrannical dictator who launches a massive, unprovoked war–will be all too familiar, and real.

Death and Harlequin are sitting together reminiscing, Harlequin lamenting how life is no fun anymore; Death decrying the loss of the glorious nature of dying as in the old days. Neither finds satisfaction or meaning in a world that has lost its ability to laugh or to properly die. But then Emperor Overall announces that “we have decided in our infallible, all-penetrating wisdom, to declare…the great, beneficent War of all against all.” Every person, whether child, woman, or man (“whether crooked or straight”) will take up arms, everyone against everyone. And, Overall declares, it will all be led by “our old associate, Death.” However, upon hearing this, Death takes offense at the presumption, breaks his sword, and refuses to cooperate. Death goes “on strike”. (The subtitle of the opera is “oder Die Tod-Verweigerung”, or the Disobedience of Death.)

What follows–including the confrontation between two seeming enemies who choose love rather than fighting–concerns the (ultimately chaotic) consequences of a world without death, and, importantly, of removing the instrument of death from a ruler’s arsenal. If death is no longer at his service, then the Emperor no longer has his power. Ultimately Death returns to his work, restores his necessary function, taking Overall with him.

Ullmann’s music is a fascinating assortment of styles, owing to influences of Schoenberg (with whom he studied) and to several of the more popular forms of the period (Weill’s “cabaret” music is often mentioned), whose juxtapositions–and the fact that it’s all very “singable”–sustain musical interest while ensuring no loss of dramatic momentum. Here are elements of the colorful, somewhat experimental, developing world of music theatre in “between-the-wars” Central Europe, mixing the tonal and atonal, the humorous and the grotesque, irony and the plainly serious, while, in Ullmann’s hands, always mindful of a necessity for structural formality.

Instrumentation–undoubtedly determined by what was available in the camp–is a colorful mix, a 13-piece chamber orchestra that includes strings and winds, but also harmonium, saxophone, banjo, and harpsichord. Throughout there are quotations, both in the libretto and music, from other works that would have carried particular meaning for the audience. Among them: the very first notes of the opera are the Angel of Death motif from Czech composer Josef Suk’s “Asrael” Symphony; there is an effectively distorted rendition of Haydn’s “Kaiser Lied” (which had become the German national anthem); and at the end of the opera comes the famous chorale tune “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”.

Because of the circumstances of the work’s creation and its ultimate fate–it was never performed in Terezín; its premiere wasn’t until 1975–there is no definitive version. Ullmann and most of the other artists involved in the production were deported to Auschwitz in October, 1944, and before he left, the composer gave his manuscripts to Terezín’s librarian for what he hoped would be safekeeping until after the war. Ullmann was killed on arrival at Auschwitz. The scores survived but were only discovered years later in London. [Note: for a detailed account of the musical lives and activities in the Terezín concentration camp, including those of Viktor Ullmann and many other musicians, please see Joza Karas’ seminal work on the subject, Music In Terezín 1941-1945 (Pendragon Press).]

The existing score was much annotated, marked up with changes made during rehearsals. In some instances Ullmann himself provided alternate choices or leaves uncertain notations that are equally likely options. However, careful study has been undertaken and serious efforts made to discern Ullmann’s intent as closely and clearly as possible and to produce a score based on these findings and educated assumptions. This is the version we get here, and it’s excellent, from the singing to the instrumental work. And don’t forget the first rate notes and the inclusion of the complete libretto in four languages.

The music itself is more than worthy of serious attention; this is a sophisticated, consistently engaging dramatic work that impresses, in the words of annotator Bruno Giner, “not because it was composed in Theresienstadt, not as an emblematic parable of totalitarianism…but indeed because it is an accomplished and artistically successful work.” There are no stand-alone arias in the traditional sense, nor grand, show-stopping moments; it doesn’t require singers of extraordinary technical capabilities (not that the ones here aren’t capable of such!). It’s just a hair-raising story, ingeniously characterized, plotted, and scored; one that makes its points very effectively, one you will remember. The singers and instrumental players assembled for this recording are all first-rate–the singers’ voices exactly right for these roles; the chamber orchestra in command of the style and always supportive and assertive where required.

And, speaking of singers–and the “all too familiar”: In the notes you will read that this recording, which was made in March, 2015, is dedicated “to the memory of our comrade Wassyl Slipak, whose voice never left us.” A baritone at the Paris Opera, Slipak, who here sings the role of Death with impressive vocalism and commanding presence, left his position there in 2015 to join the fight against Russian separatists in his native Ukraine. He was killed by a sniper in June, 2016. And so it goes.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Vernier)

From the elated dream to the bitter reality: to provide a proper rendering of Franz Schubert’s music, with its enormous range of expressions including all the intermediate tones, the instrument of choice must be the Fortepiano, if only for its similitude to the pianos used during Schubert’s lifetime. The model used in the present recording is based on the grand piano of the Viennese master Conrad Graf, an instrument that Schubert himself owned. Its six pedals allow Schubert’s music to be played with multifaceted pliancy and depth. The skillful use of all these pedals, which in modern instruments have been reduced to two or three, opens up a multitude of sound facets, similar to doors that open up to a multitude of rooms, each decorated in its own particular way and with its own particular style.

“Imitar col canto chi parla” (“imitating in song one who speaks”): that ideal, expressed by Jacopo Peri in the preface to his setting of Euridice, heralded a veritable revolution in vocal music, beginning with the experiments, towards the end of the sixteenth century, of the Florentine Camerata – a group of intellectuals and musicians led by Count Giovanni de’ Bardi, who aimed to revive the glorious art of ancient Greek tragedy. According to written accounts, the latter was sung, or spoken, in such a way that the words, while remaining intelligible at all times, were emotionally heightened. The members of the Camerata wished thus to break with the polyphonic madrigal tradition of the Renaissance and turn to accompanied monody, recitar cantando, thereby returning to the pre-eminence of the word as the means of conveying human emotions, with the music, henceforth subordinate to speech, serving to magnify and amplify it.

This recording charts a path through the sonatas for violin and basso continuo composed by eight composers born in Italy, the epicentre of the genre’s experimentation at the time. Most of these composers were also violin virtuosos, true explorers and connoisseurs of their instrument, and several enjoyed an international career that led them to publish beyond the Alps. One of the recording’s key unifying elements is the exploration of the D minor key, with the only exception of two sonatas in the neighboring D major and A major keys, three particularly idiomatic tonalities that favor the instrument’s natural resonance.

Bambú Ensemble was expressly created as a string octet and its players are trained in the careful cultivation of the distinguishing features of their literature – from Mendelssohn or Gade to more contemporary offerings. On this album, therefore, they demonstrate an intuitive and eloquent ability to deliver not only the cyclical-thematic density of the massive symphonic structure in nine interconnected themes that is the magnificent Octet composed by a precocious and utterly inspired Enescu, but also the exceptional academic exercise in counterpoint that displays the skill and brilliance of the young Shostakovich, and the nocturnal garden of multiple textures woven around a single motif created by Javier Martínez Campos, transferring the concept of counterpoint from the thematic or motivic to the terrain of experimentation in timbre and sound. Listening to their album, therefore, is an adventure which will undoubtedly open up the map of any music-lover’s imagination – come aboard the good ship Bambú and, like Marco Polo on his travels, embark on a voyage of marvels upon the ocean of music.

“I compose music because I love it. I love melodies, I love singing. And I have found out with pleasure that there is a public out there who is very interested in my music whenever I publish it. That’s fantastic! I refuse to just compose music designed to be discovered and understood by future generations.” With these words Carlos Guastavino (Santa Fe, 1912 - Buenos Aires, 2000) expressed himself, aware that his art belonged to those who wanted to hear and sing it, reneging on the customary exercise of the composer who seeks to be recognized by the umpteenth harmonic discovery never before tried out. Guastavino enriched the young voice of the Argentine people with his music, giving it a unique and identifiable tone, supporting the tip of his feet in a folklore to which he gave wings to surpass himself. “Cinco canciones argentinas” (Five Argentinean songs), Op. 10. This work exemplarily shows the most characteristic features of what has come to be known as Ginastera’s period of objective nationalism. Namely, the use of folkloric elements and tonal techniques together with other techniques which are typical of atonalism, especially in piano accompaniment.