Belgium-born composer and violinist Eugene Ysaÿe was known throughout his career as one of the last great artists of the romantic era. Though he was befriended and admired by other romantic giants like Franck, Debussy, and Chausson, he also had an affinity for the Baroque style. This album, which features world-renowned violinist Charles Castleman playing Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, celebrates Ysaÿe's dream of meshing the baroque and romantic cultures.
Definite J.S. Bach-inspired motives are sprinkled throughout the Sonata No. 2, where Ysaÿe actually inserts a few well-known melodies from Bach's Violin Partita No. 3. The Sonata No. 4 pays tribute to the style of Fritz Kreisler and uses the composer's Viennese rubato and parlando bowing style.
Castleman does an excellent job of imitating these historic figures as he plays the interesting phrases in the style they were meant to be played. Even though every note is played in its intended place, Castleman manages to make every phrase sound improvised, giving it the romantic flair Ysaÿe intended.

The French poet and writer, Francis Ponge wrote a book called "La fabrique du Pre' (the meadow factory). Stefano Gervasoni gives a double interpretation to this title - constructing from zero, creating a story starting from the beginning of life or working on the preliminaries of existence, trying to give consistency to this magic zone where childhood starts it's long process of becoming adult, magic starts to separate from reality, infancy from adult life and the reverse. Adult life feels deprived and nsotalgic of a purely emotional relationship with the world, later replaced by an aesthetic, by faith, by love, or by drugs, meditation, extreme sports or any artificial method to go beyond this present, heavy, concrete world. Gervasoni considers these things the leading thread in his works throughout this entire album.

Classical Music

The engineers can certainly take a bow for presenting a clean, warm sound from the copy of the Dulcken harpsichord used; there are some gritty roughnesses in Kk193 which may be only on my copy, but from the less pleasant, clangier timbre of the instrument in Kk52 (long and rambling, like an organ voluntary), this may have been recorded at a different session. A rousing hand, anyway, for Gustav Leonhardt. It's true that he's a bit jerky and impetuous in Kk3 (One with falling chromatic lines) and that his rubato in Kk185 may be thought rather much, but once settled into his stride he produces some splendid performances. TI would instance his vitality in the wittily unexpected Kkl84, the brilliant Kk239 (with its suggestion of castanets), his deliciously springheeled Kk209 and the exciting Kk191.

But your chief plaudits, please, for the composer, whose irrepressibly mercurial imagination is still insufficiently appreciated by dull commentators who woffle that this genius "never ventures from his binary-form scheme for any of his single-movement sonatas", though, it is reluctantly admitted, "he does evolve various modifications of the form". Like, I suppose, Kk227, which in fact has two entirely unrelated halves, one in 2/4 and the other in 3/8! (Presentation gets this wrong too, saying that there are "frequent changes of beat" in it.)

-- Gramophone [4/1980]

CHAVEZ, C.: Chamber Music (Complete), Vol. 4 (Southwest Cham

For which instrument Bach actually wrote his six suites for unaccompanied violoncello? Pictures, writings, and surviving instruments show that early violoncellos were made in different sizes, ranging from the size of a large viola to the modern full-sized violoncello. The modern cello is ordinarily held between the legs like a bass viol. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this was not the only possible hold, especially not for small instruments. Bach possessed several violoncello piccolos with both four and five strings. These were made by Johann Christian Hoffmann, a contemporary of Bach in Leipzig. Historical evidence suggests that the appropriate type of violoncello for Bach's suites is that made by Hoffmann, and that, when played on the arm ('da spalla') like a violin, the number of unavoidable shifts is no more than average for baroque music. A violin or viola player can rapidly become accustomed to the fingering, which is almost identical to that of the violin. While not a single source mentions that Bach played the violone or viola da gamba, he is known to have been a capable violinist and viola-player. We can suppose that Bach himself had been the first player of these two great cycles of solo compositions. The present recording suggests a fascinating and convincing interpretation of the Six Cello Suites on violoncello da spalla by Dmitry Badiarov, one of the leading figures in the reconstruction of this instrument, and one of its most promising players.

REVIEWS:
BBC Music (5/98, pp.62-63) - Performance: 4 (out of 5), Sound: 3 (out of 5) - Louis Lorite is...satisfying in both the Preludes and the 'Grande Polonaise', which is judicious and stylish, and he gives the 'Polonaise-Fantaisie' a sense of gravitas..."

Classical Music

Pianist Matthias Veit believes that in our fast-paced music world, including the classical world, our lives consist of increasingly fragmented and frenetic listening across eras. This release attempts to come to terms with these changes, exploiting the wealth of brief piano pieces in the repertoire to build a kaleidoscope of musical epochs.

• A truly fascinating program from British lutenist Anthony Bailes, featuring the work of Vincenzo and Michelagnolo Galilei, father and younger brother of the famous Galileo. The elder Galilei taught both brothers to play the lute. Michelagnolo was a professional lutenist at the court of Maximillian of Bavaria. Michelagnolo’s Il primo libro d’intavolatura di liuto is a unique amalgam of forms encountered in no other publication of lute music.

Liszt: Piano Works

The Great Organ of the Lichen Basilica

The music on this album demonstrates Sikorski’s unerring feeling for harmony and register; the “minimalism” of these pieces was natural, the repetitions never arbitrary. This is piano music, par excellence. The improvisation for prepared piano which follows is a humble tribute, elegiac, full of echoes and personal reminiscences of the man and his music. On my return to England in 1965 we lost touch...our paths never crossed again. But the memory remains. Strong and clear. They were good times. - JT

A "seventeenth-century Art of Fugue" -- The seventh volume of the Froberger Edition on Aeolus is perhaps the craziest: a roller-coaster ride through the world of the fugue, performed with virtuosity and the spirit of adventure. Bob van Asperen plays himself here into an absolute frenzy! Froberger's Capriccios show a composer who not only perfectly mastered his métier, but drove his art forward to new heights. Not without reason, the accompanying text (written by the performer) points out many connections to the works of J. S. Bach. With Bob van Asperen, the Edition features an exceptional interpreter who performs these works just as passionately as knowledgeably. Eighteen multi-part Capriccios are to be heard, also including a recently discovered work. As in all the other volumes of the Edition, an important historical instrument is employed: here it is the large Arp Schnitger organ of the Ludgerikirche in Norden (Eastern Friesland, Germany), which with its numerous stops allows the wealth of polyphony to resound.

Chicaquicha – this is the name of the indigenous peoples who used to live in the area where today’s city of Zipaquirá, Colombia is, and where Andres Villamil was born in 1976. He studied classical guitar with Gentil Montaña, Sonia Diaz and Roberto Aussel at the ALAC music academy and the Universidad Nacional conservatory, both in Bogotá, as well as at the Academy of Music and Dance in Cologne. In 1998 he won First Prize as soloist in the IDCT competition “Intérpretes del Próximo Milenio” in Bogotá. In 2004, a First Prize at the international “Voice and Guitar” competition with the Duo Ymaya in Germany followed. In addition to his classical training, Andres Villamil concentrates on the music of his home continent, South America. This program, his debut CD, pays homage to the music of his country. He selected original compositions for guitar as well as his own arrangements of Colombian songs and instrumental pieces. The program ends with four of his own works.

In addition to works attributed to the lutenists active at the Royal Polish court of the late 16th c., there is a substantial repertoire of compositions identified as 'Polish dances' or 'Polish songs' preserved in numerous sources of late Renaissance lute music. Characterized by melodic charm and straightforward harmonic and rhythmical textures, such musical polonica spread across Europe, achieving what may have been the widest distribution of musical 'Polishness' pre-Chopin.Polish lutenist Michal Gondko presents a selection of 40 of these polonica, many never previously recorded.

Sweelinck composed his keyboard music (as much as we know of it today) only after 1605, rather late in his career. The works that have been handed down to us have the eff ect of a summing-up, a written resume of his improvisatory and pedagogical activity. These works, about 60 in number, were widely distributed during his time and much appreciated by colleagues. This recording presents a representative cross-section of his oeuvre for keyboard music played on the organ.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

"•Between 1899 and 1930, Vierne wrote six organ symphonies of hitherto unknown richness in timbres, mysticism and cyclical architecture. • With this volume, the three-part audite recording of the six Louis Vierne organ symphonies is complete. • The St. Martin Goll organ creates unobtrusive power and fullness of sound yet remains clear. • The work's polyphonic structures become distinct and the transparency of sound permits freshly considered tempi. Hans-Eberhard Roß is Director of Church Music in Memmingen."

This debut audite album by the virtuoso PianoDuo Takahashi|Lehmann, focusing on three orchestral and ensemble masterpieces, explores the multifaceted cosmos of piano duet transcriptions. Each arranged for piano duet by their own composers, these Beethoven, Schumann and Schönberg transcriptions come alive thanks to the suspense between the piano's own sound and the suggestion of colors which do not form part of the instrument's spectrum. Founded in Berlin in 2009, the duo has performed in many European countries, South Korea and Japan.

This CD presents the first recording of the new Pope Benedict Organ, which was built in 2006 by the Swiss organ building firm Mathis. The recording took place in September/October 2006, during the week of celebrations surrounding the consecration of the new Instrument by Pope Benedict XVI.

A perceptively played and admirably recorded performance of two substantial piano works by William Alwyn.

This is a perceptively played and admirably recorded performance of two substantial piano works by William Alwyn, who died last September at the age of 79. The 11 Fantasy-Waltzes are notable for their variety within an integrated conception, and this is also true of the 12 Preludes, both works encompassing a wide range of modern piano-writing techniques. John Ogdon is naturally a match for the technical demands of the music and, since he tells us in the sleeve-note that he recorded the 58-minute programme in the presence of the composer and his wife, we may take it that a high degree of authenticity to the composer's intentions has been achieved. With excellent sound balance and documentation, this is a disc to treasure.

-- Gramophone [11/1985, reviewing the original LP release]

Franz Hummel was the first composer after Beethoven to use Anton Diabelli’s famous theme as the basis for an extended solo piano work. + These variations are like a humorous, tongue-in-cheek chronicle of music, and some stylistic quotations offer a challenge, as in a musical quiz, to guess who could possibly have written which variation. + Angela Cholakian is regarded as one of the most passionate and original pianists playing the romantic and contemporary literature. + With phenomenal technique she effortlessly puts into practice all that her obsessive imagination demands of her.

This recording, played by Gerhard Weinberger, is the first to have been made with the restored Johann Patroclus Möller Organ which was built in 1736-38. Two of Johann Sebastian Bach's important free works form a framework for this CD: the Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 538, and the well known Passacaglia in C minor BWV 582.

To listen to Moravec is to be reminded of another era, one in which there was no political correctness surrounding Bach and the modern piano. He gives a warm, richly rhetorical reading of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, one that is seemingly without ego and entirely compelling. The Mozart sonata is another highlight: Moravec was of course a supreme interpreter of his music and this reading of K333 is a gem. If I have qualms about the rhythmic freedom of the first movement of the Moonlight, they are offset by a lolloping Allegretto in which Moravec finds such airiness of texture that it never sounds too slow, and a fearlessly impulsive finale. Moravec’s Chopin is always special and even in a piece as familiar as the Op 27 No 2 Nocturne it is rendered fresh by the myriad shadings and colourings combined with an ear for Chopin’s inner lines.

The Op. 15, No 2 Nocturne, so often over-sweetened, here has a meditative quality, and even in the turbulent inner section the piece’s fundamental solemnity is never overshadowed. The Fourth Ballade is another highlight, the pianist repeatedly drawing out lines previously hidden. It’s a spacious view of the piece, Moravec allowing the detail to tell without losing sense of the piece’s architecture. The encores are similiarly captivating, whether in the inner voicings drawn out of the Op 63 No 3 Mazurka or in his enraptured ‘Clair de lune’, rapturously received. A fitting tribute to a great artist.

– Gramophone