As you hear these young men and women sing songs of hope, faith, and patriotism, you'll want to enlist and do some flying of your own. Off they go into the wild blue yonder with "America the Beautiful," "On Eagles' Wings," "I Believe I Can Fly," and our National Anthem. (43 minutes)

BACH TRANSCRIPTIONS FOR PIANO

D. SCARLATTI Harpsichord Sonatas • Janne Rättyä (acc) • ONDINE 1232-2 (57:10)


After a couple of generic paragraphs about the music, mixing the usual, uninformative clichés with some eyebrow-raising opinions (“Scarlatti introduces a veritable history of Spanish music into his style and enables sonic invention to blossom from the dry soil of the harpsichord....”), the liner notes finally deal briefly with the question that might interest anyone curious about this album: why an accordion? The answer does not satisfy: “The nuanced attention to sonic shape at every moment of the melody, figure or gesture ... the stunning range of color....”


The accordion is a keyboard-based wind instrument. Its range of color is based on stops. If you’re looking for nuance and color, the piano is far better at it, because dynamics can be applied individually to each note. Dynamics on an accordion apply to all notes across the board at any given time by varying the degree of air pumped through the bellows. It’s safer to say what the liner notes in all their vague effusiveness never point out, that Janne Rättyä is an excellent classical accordionist who has collaborated with a host of modern composers, and understandably wants to claim some Baroque territory for his instrument as well.


How does this work out in practice? Rättyä is careful to select music that plays to the strengths of his instrument. The F-Minor Sonata, K 386, features lively two-part counterpoint, and the accordionist is an agile technician. He also plays several slower works, such as the well-known Sonata in C Minor, K 11, where a guitar-like, single-note melody is played in the right hand. This allows him a degree of freedom with dynamics, and also reveals his sensitivity in phrasing. He shows himself of much of the same mind as harpsichordist Richard Lester, with his flexible, folk-inflected tempos, rather than more Italianate performances in Scarlatti’s keyboard music that emphasize consistent rhythms. Some of the moderate tempo pieces benefit from a similar treatment. The E-Major Sonata, K 135, sounds very playful here, without losing its forward pulse, and the pastoral-like G-Major Sonata, K 13, is picked out with grace.


I find matters less successful when Rättyä tries to push beyond these boundaries. The popular F Minor Sonata, K 519, and D-Minor Sonata, K 52, are muddy in their bass voicings, because the instrument’s rounder tone blends the notes of the chords rather than allowing them to stand out distinctly. But in general, the album hews to the plan laid out above: faster, two-part counterpoint pieces, and slower ones with a simple single-note melody in the right hand. This makes for a certain monotony, since there’s far more to Scarlatti than that, but a few selections at a time make for attractive listening. Up to you.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal


The truth is that Rättyä does some amazing things from a purely mechanical point of view: some of the quicker sonatas, such as K.386 in F Minor, have seldom been played more accurately on any instrument, and the accordion’s near total absence of resonance makes it impossible for the player to hide. You just have to keep going. It’s like getting stuck on a roller coster. In slower, more emotionally affecting music the instrument frankly sounds silly. Strike that–it sounds silly everywhere, but give Rättyä credit for taking this project completely seriously and doing everything that he can with the limited resources that he’s stuck with. He even arranges the sonatas into quasi-scholarly groups by key, although he’s limited to C, F, E, G and D (major and minor). The sonics are terrific."

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

With this new release the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Daniel Reuss pay tribute to Max Reger (1873-1916) and Rudolf Tobias (1873-1918), a composer of the classical-romantic tradition and associated with the beginning of professional composition in Estonia.

REVIEWS:

Vogt bring qualities of freshness and joie de vivre to the Goldbergs that have often been much less marked. He is not reverential and he has noted – correctly, surely – how entertaining the Variations are. This is a distinguished addition to the discography of the Goldberg Variations in all their glorious elegance.

- Gramophone

Vogt's feeling for the over-arching whole is impressive. He's not above a little 'guiding' either - sometimes drawing attention to detail in a way denied to Bach's harpsichord. But he's sparing in the use of the pedal and, like Schiff and Perahia, inclined to let his fingers sing wherever possible - to laugh, too.

- BBC Music Magazine

Following Lars Vogt's massively popular recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, this new recording features much-loved piano works by Franz Schubert. Vogt was appointed the first ever "Pianist in Residence" by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2003-2004 and enjoys a high profile as a soloist and chamber musician. Schubert's Impromptus, D. 899 and the famous Moments musicaux are some of his most well-known pieces that are featured on this release.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The final part of Anthony Goldstone's brilliant triptych of recitals including transcriptions, variations, fantasias, and arrangements of music from public 'spectacles' - the first two CDs attracted enormous critical praise and this volume is no less fine, containing perhaps a few more well-known themes, such as those from Swan Lake and the Nutcracker, but in fresh and new arrangements by the performer - indeed most of the music here is receiving it's first recording.

Apart from the regular use of some his works in examination syllabuses, the music of Rebikov (1866-1920) is shockingly neglected - most items on this CD are receiving their first recording - and this is the composer who was once called 'the father of Russian modernism'. One of the first proponents of the whole-tone scale, his music is in a bewildering array of styles, foreshadowing composers as diverse as Debussy, Stravinsky, Copland and Villa-Lobos. The music here, apart from the 20-minute Esclavage et liberte, consists of a number of suites of impressionist music. Modern, but bright, direct and often humorous music makes Rebikov the perfect composer for pianists and piano enthusiasts whatever their preferences in genre.

Among Armenian composers who worked principally in Armenia without seeking to establish any worldwide reputation, the composer E.A. Abramian (1923-86) was one of the most significant and respected. Probably his most important work for the piano is the 24 Preludes (1952/72). The cycle remains within the realm of tonality, although much expanded and enlarged through the use of chromatic elements that often generate harmonies of considerable complexity. Pianist Mikael Ayrapetyan’s repertoire ranges from the baroque to the contemporary and includes rarely performed Armenian works.

Tcherepnin: Piano Music, Vol. 6

Raff: Piano Works, Vol. 4

Fauré pupil Louis Aubert (1877-1968) moved in the same circles as Ravel, Debussy, Koechlin and others, and was considered in his day to be one of the most original French composers. With its evocatively impressionistic images of seascapes, the night and Spain, Sillages is amongst the most significant French piano works of the early 20th c. The impassioned Violin Sonata is Aubert’s only large-scale work in abstract Classical form, whereas Feuille d’images is a varied collection of educational pieces. The fiery Habanera is heard in the composer’s own transcription for piano four hands.

Richards, Jonathan: Forever (30 Romantic Guitar Miniatures)

There seems no end to the brilliance not only of the musicianship and pianistic skill of our top piano duo but also their dedication to re-discovering and recording lost or neglected masterpieces. Here we have the very well known Second Piano Concerto of Chopin, in a two-piano version by Chopin himself and his pupil Mikuli - and never before recorded. A host of other rarities and transcriptions complete yet another reference recording.

Above all other periods, the 'roaring' 1920s were possibly the years of greatest carefree feeling in British society; America too, to an extent despite the Prohibition and limitations on personal freedom. The new dance crazes, from the foxtrot to the Charleston, Black Bottom and tango, together with the ever increasing popularity of jazz and blues idioms which created the 'hot dance' number, created a golden era in light music, which was eagerly taken up by 'serious' composers; here we have a parade of gems - major works from Gershwin and Milhaud, to miniatures full of fun. Exquisitely performed as ever by Britain's top duo.

“Eleven Short Stories” is a set of nearly a dozen atmospheric vignettes for prepared piano, paying homage to some of Erdem Helvacioglu’s favorite film directors: Kim Ki-Duk, David Lynch, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Theodoros Angelopoulos, Jane Campion, Anthony Minghella, Ang Lee, Atom Egoyan, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Steven Soderberg. Erdem Helvacioglu (b.1975) is one of the most renowned contemporary composers of his generation in Turkey. His music has been called “revolutionary,” “groundbreaking,” “emotionally evocative soundscapes with remarkable beauty,” “uncommonly deep, intelligent, and beautiful cinematic compositions”, “luscious and unique,” and “completely arresting and disarmingly beautiful.” Erdem has received awards from the Luigi Russolo, MUSICA NOVA, Insulae Electronicae Electroacoustic Music Competitions. He has been commissioned by numerous entities, from the 2006 World Soccer Championship to the Bang on a Can-All Stars. He won the “Best Original Soundtrack” award in the 2006 Mostramundo Film Festival, and his film scores have been heard at Cannes, Sarajevo, Locarno, Seoul, Sao Paulo, and Sydney film festivals.

Classical Music

RUBINSTEIN: Piano Works

Frederic Hand has been influencing generations of guitarists throughout his impressive career. A longtime Metropolitan Opera guitarist and lutenist, he also enjoys a flourishing and award winning composing career. This album of Hand’s compositions hearkens to the tradition of the performer/composer- a role in which Hand has been thriving throughout his career. His compositions draw from a variety of inspirations, including Irish music, jazz, early music, and new age. Especially notable is the track For Julian. The work was composed in 2007 in honor of Julian Bream, who was Hand’s teacher while on a Fulbright Scholarship in England. The original composition is for eight course lute, but is performed for this recording on guitar for its greater timbral variety.

On the last volume of our edition of Dora Pejacevic's complete works, Nataša Veljkovic turns to the great Croatian composer’s music for piano. The nuanced richness in her attention to the tonal resources of the instrument, the demanding piano part, often polyphonic and exhibiting all the dimensions of orchestral sound, demonstrate Veljkovic’s self-assured and virtuosic mastery of the art of performance and Pejacevic’s perfection in her compositional craft.

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REVIEWS:

Although probably unknown even to the vast majority of musicians, Dora Pejacevic (in old documents also Pejacsevich) should, in fact, be considered a major Croatian composer, leaving behind a considerable catalogue of fifty-eight opuses (106 compositions), mostly in late-Romantic style, including songs, piano music, chamber music, and several compositions for large orchestra, arguably her best oeuvre, her Symphony in F sharp minor, being considered the first symphony in Croatian music.

The piano is the main focus of Pejacevic’s output, given that it was the medium in which she was best able to express her musical ideas and to convey the essence of her music – only four of her works, in fact, don’t include the piano. Unlike Clara Schumann, Pejacevic wasn’t a pianist as such, so didn’t appear in concerts featuring performances of her solo pieces. Despite this, her gift for keyboard composition, especially as the works from her middle and later periods suggest, does very much correspond to the performance-style of the piano virtuosity of the time. As a rule, any demanding solo part or passage is subservient to the musical idea, and not there for mere dazzle or show.

The recording, presentation and playing are all first-rate – save for a slight apparent confusion over opus numbers – and laying out the tracks in non-chronological order across the two discs works very well, and maintains the interest throughout.

It’s good to know that, even after many years in music, there’s always something fresh to discover, and the fact that this composer is from a country about which the headlines for many years have been so unwelcoming, makes this new issue even more appealing.

– MusicWeb International

Pejacevic’s piano pieces are well served by Natasha Veljkovic’s warmly sensitive playing.

– BBC Music Magazine

Veljkovic plays consistently well with imagination, an impressive variety of touch and tone and a real flair for the idiom.

– Gramophone

Considered one of the leading early-music specialists in Europe, Terence Charlston introduces a unique instrument in his new release Mersenne's Clavichord, a clavichord built to plans and specifications by Marin Mersenne in his 1636 treatise Harmonie Universelle. This collection includes primarily French compositions of the 16th and 17th centuries, and Charleston vividly demonstrates the now rarely heard sound-world of the instrument which was so familiar to the composers of that day.

This is a very important release for lovers of 20th century music, featuring one of the most fascinating and important piano works of the 20th century. Passacaglia is, first, one of the longest continuous solo keyboard pieces ever written. It has collected almost a cult following. It is also a piece of wide variety, collecting in influences from the music of many places, but based strongly and closely throughout on the initials DSCH (for Dmitri Schostakovich). We are pleased to dedicate this disc to the composer in celebration of his recent 75th birthday. Pianist Murray McLachlan is one of Britain's leading exponents of modern music. He has recorded 2 previous CDs for Divine Art and also for Dunelm and Olympia.