REVIEWS:
Fanfare (5-6/98, p.173) - "The Swede Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) is one of those undemonstrative composers whose quiet sobriety might lead the inattentive to pass him by unwittingly. But in his understated way Nystroem is a master, and BIS's ongoing series of recordings with Paavo Järvi in Malmö is something that deserves enthusiastic support..."
BBC Music (3/98, p.59) - Performance: 4 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5) - "...the Malmö Symphony Orchestra reveals its greatest strength in a richness of string tone....Paavo Järvi keep[s] tight control on the music's sometimes diffuse dramatic flow..."

Conductor Robert Trevino’s fourth album release on Ondine is focused on the late works of composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016), one of Finland’s most celebrated composers after Sibelius and known worldwide for his Neo-Romantic, even mystic compositions. Together with violinist Simone Lamsma and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra the artists are presenting four final orchestral works by the celebrated composer.

Two of the works are world première recordings. In his late period, Rautavaara received several communications from the world’s leading violinists requesting him to write works for them. He was able to oblige them, creating several extensive works featuring solo violin. Fantasia (2015) for violin and orchestra is a work of soft Neo-Romantic harmonies and soaring melodic lines. In 2014, Rautavaara was asked to write a new Violin Concerto. This commission resulted in Deux Sérénades for violin and orchestra which remained unfinished at Rautavaara’s death: the second movement was sketched out, but only its beginning was orchestrated. Kalevi Aho, an accomplished composer of symphonies and concertos who studied composition with Rautavaara at the turn of the 1970s, fleshed out the orchestration in 2018. Lost Landscapes (2005/15) was originally written as a violin sonata, but Rautavaara began orchestrating the work in 2013. The first movement was premiered at the contemporary music festival at Tanglewood in July 2015, but the full premiere of the work took place in Malmö in March 2021, with Simone Lamsma as soloist. In the Beginning (2015) is a concise overture-type work commissioned for a concert opener. The titles of his works were important for the composer, forming part of the ‘aura’ of the work and often even constituting the initial impulse for writing the piece in the first place.

REVIEWS:

There is a transcendent intensity to Rautavaara’s music which is heightened by this writing for strings. All of the music here is relatively recent, the earliest from 2005, but here rearranged for these forces. Lost Landscapes, Fantasia, In the Beginning and Deux Serenades (completed by Kalevi Aho, after the composer’s death) are the four works here. Music to be immersed in and a fitting presentation of some of Rautavaara’s last work.

-- Lark Reviews

All these violin concertante works are attractive, but they are also all rather similar, and there is a preponderance of slow music. So they are best not listened to all at the same time. In the Beginning is different: it shows another side of the composer and perhaps has the best music on the disc.

We have a cosmopolitan team here. The soloist, Simone Lamsma is Dutch, has performed widely and already made a number of recordings. Robert Trevino is American and is a rising star. The Malmö Symphony Orchestra is one of Sweden’s leading orchestras. They all provide assured performances. The recording is sympathetic and the booklet informative. The Fantasia and Deux Sérénades have each been recorded by their commissioners but coupled with different composers, so the Rautavaara fan will find this the most convenient way to collect these works.

-- MusicWeb International

Classical Music

All of Saint-Saëns’ symphonies have been thrown into the shadows by the popularity of the last of them, the famous “Organ” Symphony (No. 3). This is a pity, because the others are very enjoyable and rewarding pieces. The First, dating from 1852 when the composer was only seventeen, features a finale whose scoring includes saxhorns, cymbals, and four harps, and it reveals a composer who, despite his classical leanings, wasn’t afraid to challenge convention. The more modestly scored Second Symphony of seven years later continues that trend, sporting a contrapuntal opening movement that’s remarkably assured and formally successful.

The standard reference versions for these works have been Martinon’s EMI (now Warner) recordings, but Soustrot’s are different enough to justify duplication. In the First Symphony, particularly, Soustrot adopts a very slow, dreamy tempo for the Adagio, but it works very well, particularly in contrast to the bold and brassy finale which follows without a break. Soustrot correctly highlights the adventurous writing for the harps, but never tastelessly, and some listeners may feel that the interpretation finds additional expressive depth in music often denigrated as merely sentimental. It’s good to hear it played with no apologies.

In the Second Symphony Soustrot comes closer to Martinon in terms of timing, but there’s no denying the extra clarity and nimbleness of the Malmö ensemble as compared to the old French National Radio and Television Orchestra for EMI. Soustrot’s exciting and rhythmically sharp reading of Phaéton makes a welcome bonus. This is unquestionably one of the best recordings of the piece, with an especially effective thunderbolt as Zeus hurls the hapless chariot (of the sun) driver from his seat. Attractively natural sonics round out a very promising start to this new series.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The Third Piano Concerto has been considered the "Cinderella" among Camille Saint-Saëns' five works in this genre, but it owes its comparative neglect to an adventurous approach to harmony which caused unrest in the audience at its premiere. Daring enough in the first movement, the search for tonality in the second was such an extreme experience that is caused unrest in the audience at its premiere. Saint-Saëns also composed for piano and orchestra in more rhapsodic forms, exploring folk tunes and rhythms from Africa, and revealing his playful side in the charming Wedding Cake Waltz. Volume 1 can be heard on 8573476.

Classical Music

Four of the six symphonies by the Swedish composer Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) have already been released by BIS in performances by Malmö Symphony Orchestra. The two discs were variously described in American Record Guide as music 'of very high quality, beautifully judged, scored with an expert hand, with a spontaneous, yet controlled flow' and on the website MusicWeb International as 'important and highly individual works superbly performed and recorded'. The cycle is completed with the present CD, on which the German conductor Christoph König makes his first appearance on BIS. The opening work on the disc is Nystroem's first symphony, Sinfonia breve, which he composed just before his return to Sweden after having spent the 1920's in Paris. With a duration of close to 20 minutes, the work is in one movement with a symmetrical arc-shape, features which also characterize the third, and perhaps best-known of Nystroem's symphonies, Sinfonia del mare. Dedicated to 'all the sailors upon the seven seas' the latter work expresses Nystroem's lifelong fascination with the sea and the coast. This fascination he shared with the Swedish poet Ebba Lindqvist, whose poem Det Enda ('The One Thing') he incorporated in the central section of the symphony. The soloist on the present recording is the internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman.

RACHMANINOV OGAWA, NORIKA; MALMO SYM. ORCH/ O.HUGHES PIANO CTOS NO.S 1&4; PAGANINI RHAPSODY

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Franz Schmidt was an inconsistent composer, and his Variations on a Hussar's Song is an odd work. The best thing about it is the song; the variations are nothing special. It's a jolly, diatonic tune that Schmidt decorates with increasingly ugly chromatic doodads as the music proceeds. A note in the score makes a special point of the fact that the composer uses no divisi strings at any point, as if this matters. Still, this is a good performance; it may be that the first trumpet fails to assert himself ideally, and the percussion is a touch recessed, but the work's 28 minutes pass pleasantly enough.

The symphony, on the other hand, is a masterpiece, and it has been well treated on disc. Mehta's Vienna Philharmonic recording remains the benchmark, and if you want modern sound, Kreizberg's (PentaTone) also is quite good. So is this one. To be sure, the Malmö strings haven't the weight and richness of the Vienna Philharmonic, but the performance is very well paced and the Naxos engineers see to it that textures remain clean and clear (the harp is particularly well caught). Given the fact that the Variations constitute a genuine rarity, and you may well enjoy that work more than I did, this release is certainly recommendable as a supplement to the Mehta recording of the symphony.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Tianwa Yang is ‘an artist of exceptional technique and musicianship’ (BBC Music Magazine) and has established herself as a leading international performer and recording artist, winning the Annual Prize of the German Record Critics 2014 for her acclaimed recordings of Sarasate’s complete violin works. Her ‘stunning effortless virtuosity’ and ‘uncanny affinity for Spanish music’ (All Things Strings) make her the ideal advocate for the music presented on this recording. The Introduction et Rondo capriccioso is a glittering showcase imbued with the passion of Iberian dance, while the Havanaise in E major is a languorous habanera. Less frequently heard are the evocative Caprice andalou, the songful Romance in C major, the rhapsodic Morceau de concert, and the improvisatory La Muse et le Poete.

REVIEW:

Tianwa Yang’s Saint-Saëns performances are totally spellbinding, not just in technical matters, but in their stylish sensibility as well. Her partners, Gabriel Schwabe and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marc Soustrot, are in peak form on this highly exciting disc.

– Pizzicato

Saint-Saëns’ operatic works contain instrumental music of vivacity and charm but have been undeservedly overlooked. Ascanio contains a substantial and elaborate divertissement that fellow composer Reynaldo Hahn termed ‘the entire Renaissance in a few pages’. Les Barbares, a tale of conquest and revenge, includes a vivid Prologue and joyful ballet, while La Princesse jaune with its pentatonic writing, and La Jota aragonese laced with Spanish vitality, show the composer at his most generously carefree. Jun Markl is a highly-respected interpreter of core Germanic repertoire and has become known for his refined and idiomatic explorations of the French Impressionists. His long-standing relationships with the state operas of Vienna, Berlin and Munich, the Semperoper Dresden and the Metropolitan Opera have been complemented by his music directorships of the Orchestre National de Lyon and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra. In recognition of his achievements in Lyon, he was honoured in 2012 with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Märkl has an extensive discography – among the over 50 albums he has recorded are the complete Schumann symphonies, works by Mendelssohn and Wagner, Ravel, Messiaen, and a highly-acclaimed Debussy set with the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is currently working on a cycle of works by Saint-Saëns and Hosokawa.

REVIEW:

Of Camille Saint-Saens's eleven operas only one, Samson et Dalila, still enjoys a place in the international repertoire. That was premiered in 1877, three years before Ascanio. That opera's thirty-minute ballet suite contains much that is pleasingly tuneful and suitably pictorial. The Les Barbares Prologue included here has the length and content of a movement from a very serious symphony. There is still more more music here, and all of it is played with the high quality of performance we have come to expect from the Malmo orchestra.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Admirably bracing and sympathetic, excellently recorded.

The second instalment of the Naxos Schmidt symphonic cycle is with us. It preserves another impressive performance, this time of the E flat major Symphony. As before, the major competition comes from the Detroit Symphony and Järvi on Chandos CHAN9568 -- a four-disc collection.

The Symphony lasts around forty-eight or so minutes -- in this performance -- and is cast in three movements. Written between 1911 and 1913 it opens in genial fashion before some hefty Straussian brass calls puncture the amiable laissez faire. Schmidt is a minor master at alternation of brass fanfare and diaphanous gauzy textures; there’s even an Elgarian contour to his melodic way of thinking, a product of late-Romantic brio, surely, rather than anything else. Those Brucknerian caesuri are another strong influence. Pliant and neat, the second movement moves off into variational waters. These range from the lissom and fast to evocative, if ghostly, ballroom scenes. The baroque-leaning finale with its Bachian Fugue, solenelle style, has a grandly developing sense of space and drives onwards to a stirring and invincible chorale conclusion. The playing is splendid, and the interpretative decision-making vis-à-vis Järvi is a matter of individual taste. The latter has the more virtuosic orchestra but Sinaisky handles the thematic development of the symphony with equal authority.

The bonus, if one can call it that, is the 1937 Fuga Solemnis for organ, sixteen wind instruments and percussion. The organ begins its nobly reserved soliloquy whilst the orchestral forces are only allowed to enter with their stirring blocks of sound at around the mid-point of its 14 minute length. Again a stirring climax is ensured by Schmidt and whilst this one sounds a touch forced, its impact can’t be doubted.

Once again these forces prove to be fully conversant with Schmidt’s own personalised brand of late-romanticism, and its allied harmonic richness. The results are admirably bracing and sympathetic, and have been excellently recorded by the Naxos team.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

That Franz Schmidt's 1899 Symphony No. 1 met with greater success than Mahler's contemporaneous Symphonies Nos. 1-3 seems surprising to us today, until we consider the conservative tastes of the Viennese in that era. Schmidt, though not necessarily a straitlaced "conservative" composer, did early on dutifully (perhaps too dutifully) follow the path laid by Wagner, as his magisterial first movement amply demonstrates. It's similar in style and harmony to Wagner's Meistersinger, but with less interesting tunes. The following Langsam movement also evokes Wagner through its not immediately apparent tonality and its rather languid atmosphere (as well as the beautiful writing for strings). But again the melodic material is not all that memorable.

The scherzo is best: it features a catchy tune with beguiling turns of melody and harmony that foreshadow the Schmidt of the Fourth symphony (particularly in the colorful and distinguished woodwind writing), his finest work in the genre. The finale returns to the prosaic, though it does boast an affirmative if seemingly obligatory chorale toward the conclusion.

Vassily Sinaisky shows real belief in and affection for the piece, and he leads a convincing performance with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra. He's certainly more involving than Neeme Järvi, who with his Detroit Symphony gives the impression he's always in a hurry to get to the good parts.

There are good parts aplenty in the Notre Dame excerpts. Composed only five years after the symphony, Schmidt's opera displays the composer's keen dramatic instincts and developing orchestral mastery (the colorful Carnival Music is quite captivating). Again Sinaisky and the Malmö players deliver a first-rate performance, captured in excellent sound by Naxos. If you're interested in early Schmidt, you'll do quite well with this release.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Represented on this release are two Swedish composers from the late 19th century, who despite contemporary recognition usually do not count among the still enduring and current. Joseph Dente, after having taken the position as Master of the The Royal Court Orchestra, reached the highest rank a composer could then get in Sweden, when he in 1882 became teacher in composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. In the case of Bengt Wilhelm Hallberg it was certainly quite simply his daily activities in the "small town" Landskrona (in the southern province Skane) - he was not visible from the out-look of Stockholm, where "everything happened", and a few occasional successes in Copenhagen did not give any greater reputation further north. But above all, the opportunities to get their music noticed, performed and printed were extremely limited, particularly for those composers who wanted to write orchestral and chamber music - still there was only one single professional orchestra in Sweden, The Royal Court Orchestra. It is therefore hardly surprising that composers in symphonic format were comparatively few; both Hallberg and Dente remained "non-recurrent symphonists".

This selection is also included in Bis Twins 3.

There's a little joke behind the innocuous name of Ernest Bloch's Symphony in E-flat. It is, in truth, one of his most harmonically acerbic works, very close to the tortured contrapuntal idiom of another famous Swiss composer: Honegger. The piece only really achieves its home key in the quiet, final bars, but along the way sparks fly in all directions, and no matter how dissonant the idiom the argument is very easy to follow, and melodies and motives have distinctive, easily recognizable shapes. Andrey Boreyko and the Malmö Orchestra play the work with the guts and vigor it needs, and as usual the BIS recording is superb. The same observations about performance and sound characterize the other two works as well.


Evocations, inspired by a book on Chinese art, deserves to be much better known. Tuneful, glitteringly scored, and with a really exciting central movement (God of War) and a mesmerizing, lyrical finale (Renouveau-Spring), it also has a gentle fund of pentatonic-inspired melody, but otherwise sounds like Bloch in his "exotic" mode. The Three Jewish Poems, though never played in concert, have enjoyed a few recordings, and compared to the competition on Koch and ASV, this performance offers a touch more languor without ever seeming too slow, and it's the best sounding of the batch. BIS is quietly working its way though Bloch's orchestral output, and in my opinion no series in progress on any label is more important or interesting. Hopefully the series will include two of the most enthralling and magnificent of 20th century concertos, the Viola Suite, and the Concerto symphonique, without delay.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is BIS's third installment of orchestral music by Gösta Nystroem, and I have to confess that it got lost in the shuffle when it first arrived for review. That was my mistake. Nystroem was a splendid composer, and the previous two releases both were excellent, as is this one. These two symphonies have much in common musically, including Nystroem's habit of beginning a movement in silence, with a slowly building threnody scored principally for high strings, followed by quicker episodes. If this sounds formulaic, it's not. First of all, Nystroem was extremely good at this sort of thing, and second, the two works are quite different in terms of structure. The Fourth Symphony has three movements and is based on incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest, while the Sixth and last symphony follows an original two-movement plan, each of its parts containing highly contrasting material in varying tempos.

Nystroem's orchestration also is very colorful and effective. His evocative use of high strings to open many of his individual movements should not blind us to the fact that he was very much a composer for the whole orchestra. This means full sonorities, plentiful use of winds, brass, and percussion, and beautifully judged, fluid textures. Although there are plenty of good tunes, Nystroem was not a melodist in the conventional sense. But his basic sonorities always fall gratefully on the ear, and his driving rhythms in quicker music produce a great deal of physical excitement. In short, this is really good, solid, characterful symphonic writing, and the performances give the full measure of each work. The only possible missing ingredient might be a bit more assertiveness from the brass at the big climaxes, but I can't imagine anyone being dissatisfied with either the interpretations or the vivid sound.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This premiere release of the two remaining unrecorded symphonies of the half-dozen by the singular Swede Gösta Nyström (1890–1966) represents for this writer the fulfillment of a long-cherished wish list.

Together with Hilding Rosenberg (1892–1985) and Allan Pettersson (1911–1980), Nystroem stands at the pinnacle of Swedish music during the 20th century. His sui generis expressionistic voice (which sounds like no other) seems to embody the brooding but aloof Swedish soul in sound. Spiritually speaking, his only significant parallel, perhaps because of his dozen years of study and experience in Paris, could be that of the Swiss Arthur Honegger. Although Nystroem was an occasional painter—as well as a music critic—and thus quite concerned with questions of orchestral color, there is nothing especially pictorial about his music.

His intensely direct and dramatic idiom—a very personal blend of post-Impressionism and post-Romantic elements—gave rise to some of the most emotionally raw and vulnerable-sounding music of the modern period. Beginning in 1931 with the Sinfonia breve, which was followed shortly by the Sinfonia espressiva for string orchestra, in the late 1940s Nystroem wrote the sublime Sinfonia del mare (“Sea Symphony”), probably his masterpiece in the form; then in 1952 this Fourth Symphony, subtitled “Sinfonia Shakespeariana” followed by the Sinfonia seria in 1963, and finally by the posthumously premiered sixth and last, “Sinfonia tramontana” in 1966. (There is also an unnumbered Sinfonia concertante for cello and orchestra from the 1940s.) All six vary in length from 20 to 30 minutes.

Even though he utilizes a very distinctive blend of modal-diatonic and intermittently very chromatized dissonance—in fact, some of his themes are close to atonal but still lyrically graspable—Nyström’s language is never convoluted or forbidding. He always addresses the listener very forthrightly on a level of almost painfully naked subjectivity. The guiding principal of his work is one of extreme contrast or energetic conflict: in just a single measure or two, he can veer from a threatening tone of violent relentlessness to a piercingly short-lived moment of tenderness, but his basic background is one of unrelieved lugubriousness. He often writes in large instrumental blocks, pitting strings as a group against winds or brasses, with the timpani always closely on call. Formally, the symphonies vary from the single-movement Sinfonia breve to the five interrelated sections of the Sinfonia del mare, but the thematic materials are often derived from a single generating motivic source.

The Fourth Symphony, though subtitled “Shakespeariana,” does not quote from any of the rather functional though appealing incidental scores he wrote for The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice. The Shakespeare reference is probably meant to evoke a sense of tragic humanity that pervades the three movements. As in most of the symphonies, the outer Allegro movement begins as a barely audible Lento before bursting out into full force; at the center, it suddenly drops into an unexpected, secluded oasis of sad serenity before plunging back into its initial turbulence. By the same token, the midpoints of many of his slow movements erupt into quick passages of savage agitation, even though the same or similar themes are present in both modalities.

The Sixth or “Tramontana” Symphony (the subtitle carries an implication of a visionary statement coming from beyond the range of everyday life) is a kind of transcendental diptych, with two panels of almost equal length following the same characteristic expressive arc of Lento–Allegro–Lento (or Andante). In the symphony’s concluding measures, Nystroem attempts a grand resolution, but to these ears the sorrowful reverberations win out.

B. Tommy Andersson offers splendidly charged and maintained readings of these almost schizoid works; he is always careful not to let Nyström’s multiple lines and towering climaxes get out of hand. Typically, the dynamic spectrum of BIS’s engineering is so unusually wide that only the best reproduction equipment will be able to do justice to its shattering power. In short, a major addition to the 20th century Scandinavian symphonic discography.

Paul A. Snook, FANFARE

This new release is a fully loaded album with a unique combo of violin concertos by Johannes Brahms and his contemporary friends, Amanda Maier and Julius Röntgen. Furthermore, the album includes a brand-new Brahms cadenza, written by award-winning Swedish composer, Mats Larsson Gothe. This is the first Swedish studio recording of Brahms’s concerto with one of Sweden’s foremost violinists, Cecilia Zilliacus, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and renowned Estonian conductor, Kristiina Poska.

”Cecilia is extremely musical and living proof that it’s always possible to pursue unusual ideas” (The Strad, 2018). Over the years, audiences have embraced Zilliacus’ equally tantalizing and warm interpretations of everything from the great classical and Romantic works to contemporary chamber music and collaborations across genres – from the most prominent symphony orchestras, conductors, and composers in Europe to jazz musicians, folk musicians, singer songwriters, and others.

Saint-Saens wrote five symphonies between the years 1850 and 1886. The cycle began with the Mozart-influenced Symphony in A but as a precocious composer of 17 he wrote his first numbered symphony, a work much admired by Berlioz and Gounod. He progressed to his most popular piece in the genre, the ground-breaking Symphony No. 3 with its inclusion of organ and piano. This critically admired cycle includes a sequence of atmospheric and dramatic symphonic poems, including Phaeton and the ever-popular Danse macabre.

REVIEWS:

The standard reference versions for these works have been Martinon’s EMI (now Warner) recordings, but Soustrot’s are different enough to justify duplication. In the First Symphony, particularly, Soustrot adopts a very slow, dreamy tempo for the Adagio, but it works very well, particularly in contrast to the bold and brassy finale which follows without a break. Soustrot correctly highlights the adventurous writing for the harps, but never tastelessly, and some listeners may feel that the interpretation finds additional expressive depth in music often denigrated as merely sentimental. It’s good to hear it played with no apologies.

In the Second Symphony Soustrot comes closer to Martinon in terms of timing, but there’s no denying the extra clarity and nimbleness of the Malmö ensemble as compared to the old French National Radio and Television Orchestra for EMI. Soustrot’s exciting and rhythmically sharp reading of Phaéton makes a welcome bonus. This is unquestionably one of the best recordings of the piece, with an especially effective thunderbolt as Zeus hurls the hapless chariot (of the sun) driver from his seat. Attractively natural sonics round out a very promising start to this new series.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz; in an earlier review of the CD release of Symphonies 1 & 2)

Marc Soustrot has some very good ideas about how the music should go. Soustrot prefers urgency even at the expense of some occasionally blurred articulation. The very slow tempo for the introduction followed by that agitated allegro highlights the broad range of contrasts typical of the performance more generally. The organ, excellently played by Carl Adam Landström, is very well balanced by the Naxos engineers. All told, this is a very fine performance of the Thrid.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz; in an earlier review of the CD release of Symphony No. 3)

Dmitry Kabalevsky found his mature style and achieved international success with his first opera Colas Breugnon, the overture of which was soon picked up as an orchestral showpiece in the West. The Second Symphony was likewise championed by conductors such as Arturo Toscanini, its bittersweet sense of drama and lyricism comparable with Prokofiev. Dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, the First Symphony illustrates progress from oppression to liberation, while the later Pathetique Overture is a rousing and highly effective reminder of Kabalevsky’s skill in orchestration. Founded in 1925, the Malmo Symphony Orchestra is one of the leading major orchestras in Sweden. Performing the full breadth of the symphonic repertoire, the MSO collaborates with prominent international conductors and soloists, including its current chief conductor Marc Soustrot. Since 2015 the MSO has resided in Malmo Live Concert Hall, a state of the art facility known for its world class acoustics.

REVIEWS:

With a dearth of Kabalevsky orchestral recordings in the catalog, this release is particularly welcome. The Malmo Symphony, conducted by Darrell Ang, are in fine form, and the engineers provide a very wide dynamic. Unreservedly recommended.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

More Russian themes and strong motor rhythms make their appearance in the Second Symphony, but this time the development is much more complex if not any more adventurous harmonically. Here, Ang’s conducting is pretty much spot-on, bringing out several salient details in the orchestration and providing a good driving rhythm.

– Arts Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

In 1976, Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist composed a piece, Sisu, for the six musicians in the Stockholm percussion ensemble. A few years later, the ensemble was transformed and took the name Kroumata. Sisu became one of the regular works in the ensemble’s repertoire. They also recorded it. Lundquist then got the idea to compose a larger work for orchestra where he would include the Kroumata ensemble. The result was the eighth symphony, which he began in 1989 and completed in 1992. He called the new symphony, Kroumata Symphony. Lundquist, however, keenly stressed that the eighth symphony, although Kroumata has an important part, is not a percussion concerto but a true symphony. The symphony was premiered in Malmö, with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Kroumata in 2002. It became a posthumous performance. Two years earlier, Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist had passed away. The first performance was led by B. Tommy Andersson and is the one on this release. The fifth symphony was completed in 1980. It is for a smaller orchestra with just double woodwinds, two trumpets, two trombones, percussion and strings. It is dedicated to Halmstad Chamber Orchestra, which premiered it in February 1980. The fifth symphony is much more classical in its structure than Lundquist's previous symphonies. The symphony has three movements. Lundquist aptly called it Die Wienerische, probably not so much referring to the city of Vienna, as to the formally structured Viennese classical music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. There are no Viennese waltzes to find here, but an elaborated structure of a classic sonata. (Curt Carlsson, 2020)

Franz Schmidt’s Third Symphony was composed in 1927–28, dedicated to and premièred by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, winning a first prize from the Columbia Graphophone Company of New York for the best symphony in the spirit of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony as part of the centenary commemorations of Schubert’s birth. Schmidt’s symphony is lyrical, includes a set of variations, a Ländler-like Scherzo and finale rich in thematic invention. In 1931 Schmidt added wind and percussion instruments and a large body of strings to his monumental Chaconne for organ, in which form it too was premièred by the Vienna Philharmonic.

Romain Descharmes concludes his generally impressive cycle of Saint-Saëns piano concertos with this coupling of the formerly popular Fourth, and the increasingly popular Fifth. His performance of the Fourth, the composer’s most original work in the medium, is impressive. It’s a difficult work to pace; there’s a lot of slow music, and the thematic material is expressively pretty neutral. If the work is “about” anything, it’s a study in thematic metamorphosis and chromatic counterpoint versus diatonic harmony.

Descharmes and conductor Marc Soustrot understand the music well. The opening variations are nicely contrasted, the ensuing Andante attractive in its flow. The long finale effectively integrates the ongoing return of the main themes, with Descharmes weaving into and out of the instrumental textures smartly and sensitively. It’s an interpretation that consistently holds your attention, and rewards your patience.

The “Egyptian” Concerto isn’t quite as good. The outer movements are fine, especially the rollicking finale, but the long central movement could be more effectively shaped, its “orientalisms” indulged just that more characterfully. Still, as in the Fourth, the performance reveals a lot of meaningful detail, especially in the finale, and Descharmes isn’t afraid to take a step back and let other instrumental colors take center stage once in a while. Ultimately this complete set of the five piano concertos stands among the best out there, even if everyone will have favorite individual performances. This is an achievement of which everyone can be proud.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Soustrot’s Saint-Saëns symphony cycle was quite good, and this new project looks to be similarly successful. For my money, the five piano concertos remain one of the most underrated groups of major works in the entire romantic repertoire. Yes, Nos. 2 and 4 get played more often than the rest, but there isn’t a dud in the bunch. It’s really only prejudice against the French aesthetic–the formal freedom, love of color, flash, and the dance–that prevents the music from getting the recognition that it deserves. That, and perhaps the fact that the melodious ease that informs all of Saint-Saëns’ writing makes a mockery of German pretensions to ownership of instrumental music in large forms.

These performances demonstrate a thoroughly “French” sensibility. Romain Descharmes savors the music’s charm and brilliance without indulging in excessive sentimentality. The First Concerto, with its surprising wiring for horns, has a breezy freshness that completely disarming. It’s played with joyful directness and a complete lack of affectation. I enjoy fast and dazzling versions of the Second Symphony, with its whirlwind finale, but Descharmes treats the piece with almost epicurean relish, nowhere more so than in this sassy, witty account of the central scherzo. There’s no lack of virtuosity, but also time to savor the music’s many harmonic delights.

Through it all, Soustrot accompanies with total confidence, and the sonics are terrific. A disc to savor.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

This new Beethoven symphony cycle with Malmö Symphony Orchestra is conductor Robert Trevino’s debut release on Ondine. Trevino is one of the fastest rising young conductors and known for his fresh and vivid interpretations of both standard repertoire as well as contemporary works. Trevino is currently holding the tenures as chief conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and as music director of the Basque National Orchestra. After studies with conductors David Zinman, Seiji Ozawa and Michael Tilson Thomas, Trevino worked closely as Leif Segerstam’s assistant before making his debuts with a number of leading symphony orchestras worldwide. These Beethoven symphonies were recorded in connection with a Beethoven festival which was arranged in Malmö, Sweden in October, 2019.

REVIEW:

It may seem bold and even brash for a relatively young conductor like Robert Trevino to launch a new label relationship with a Beethoven symphony cycle recorded in live performance. Yet he has an obvious affinity for this repertoire, compounded by the Malmö Symphony Orchestra’s polished and responsive music making. Ondine’s engineering captures the orchestra in fine detail without artificial spotlighting, conveying a genuine concert hall ambience.

In a perceptive interview with David Patrick Stearns published as part of this set’s annotations, Trevino cites consultations with David Zinman and Daniel Barenboim concerning interpretive matters. Indeed there’s evidence of Zinman’s chamber-like aesthetic and fast tempos, as well as the power and dynamism distinguishing Barenboim’s great Berlin Staatskapelle Beethoven symphony cycle. But Trevino goes his own way, with variable results.

His brisk outer movements in Symphony No. 1 are akin to Toscanini’s opera buffa approach, particularly in the Allegro con brio development section’s playful woodwind repartée. Certain phrases in the Minuet push ever-so-slightly ahead of the beat, yet remain securely locked in, ensemble-wise. In No. 2, Trevino effects an assiduous transition between the Adagio introduction and an enchantingly rollicking Allegro con brio. For all its suppleness of execution, I prefer the more pointed string articulation in Paavo Järvi’s similarly conceived traversal. The controlled delicacy in the Larghetto’s softer music makes this movement sound faster than its actual duration, although it’s on the square side when compared alongside the more robust and inflected Harnoncourt reading.

Trevino undersells the cross-rhythmic sforzandos in the Eroica symphony’s first movement, while the exposition’s basic tempo gradually spreads and slows down: not a lot, but the energy flags. Trevino’s Funeral March is as eloquent and moving as the catalog’s best versions. The conductor accelerates for the Fughetta, yet the carefully layered counterpoint and tremendous dynamic build reflect the music’s shattering intent. The Scherzo has all of Szell/Cleveland’s surface perfection, minus its nervous energy, while the finale variations brilliantly showcase the Mälmo woodwinds’ proficiency.

Trevino largely underplays No. 4. The opening Adagio’s blended string and woodwind passages are super clear but lack the foreboding aura of Thomas Fey’s marked dynamic contrasts and stinging accents. The slow movement’s two-note phrases are not as well-defined as in the Bruno Walter/Columbia Symphony recording.

Some may find No. 5’s first movement overly driven, yet Trevino’s attention to linear interplay never derails. If the Andante con moto doesn’t aspire to Beethoven’s “dolce” directive, notice the uncommon clarity of the upper strings’ staccato 32nd notes. The Scherzo’s clipped detaché tuttis and difficult cello/bass fugal entrance in the Trio are appropriately forceful, while the Allegro finale mirrors the first movement’s relentless momentum.

In the Pastorale, Trevino emulates Zinman’s transparency and fast tempos, but with more distinctive first-desk soloists. The bird-call intimations in the second movement are deliciously shaped, but the fourth-movement storm doesn’t break out into a Klempererian or Kleiberian torrent.

No. 7’s fast-paced outer movements border on glibness, missing the force and drama with which Barenboim/Berlin Staatskapelle, Wand/NDR, the first Solti/Chicago, and Carlos Kleiber/Bavarian State Radio Orchestra grab you by the jugular, figuratively speaking.

Trevino’s first-movement tricks in No. 8 don’t quite work, such as a diminuendo in the opening phrase that telegraphs the subito piano that follows, plus odd accelerandos here and there. The conductor gives short shrift to the cross-rhythmic accents, and to the cellos and basses who carry the melodic burden in the transition leading into the recapitulation. The Allegretto’s woodwind gurgles are recessed to polite effect, when they ought to be in your face. The rollicking finale stands out for deft interplay between orchestral strands, yet the similarly lithe Haitink/London Symphony recording proves more incisive in every respect.

Trevino maintains the basic tempo of No. 9’s first movement with little modification, and makes expressive points solely through variety of articulation and specificity of phrasing. The Scherzo’s vibrantly shaped Trio compensates for the main section’s coolness and lack of fervency. In the briskly reserved Adagio, the decorative string passages still manage to sing out and breathe. And the “Ode to Joy” finale benefits from fine singing and “centrist” tempos that are intelligently unified and not too fast nor too slow.

The conductor observes all repeats, eschews the traditional brass reinforcements in the Ninth’s Scherzo, and opts for the trumpets continuing their phrases in the Eroica first-movement coda. If this Beethoven cycle falls short of our reference versions’ consistent satisfaction and seasoned authority, Robert Trevino’s stylish flair, astute musicianship, and good taste are never in doubt.

– ClassicsToday (Jed Distler)

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In his day, Johan Halvorsen was one of Norway's most talented violinists and an internationally renowned conductor and composer. With its beautifully lyrical themes and Norwegian character including Hardanger fiddle effects, his Violin Concerto was described by contemporary critics as "an outstanding work" and performed to great acclaim in 1909. It was considered lost, only to be rediscovered in 2015 in the archive of its original soloist. With its equally confident opening and symphonic proportions, Nielsen's Violin Concerto combines emotive power with a delightfully pastoral character, while Johan Svendsen's spontaneously inventive and melodic Romance has become one of his best-loved works.

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REVIEW:

This release really deserves wide attention, for it contains something rather rare: the world's recorded premiere of a major lost violin concerto, that being Johan Halvorsen's 1909 Violin Concerto, Op. 28. The work sounds less like Grieg than like a Norwegian version of Josef Suk, with strong folklore elements.

It's joined with Carl Nielsen's Violin Concerto, a work matching the Halvorsen well with its mix of dance rhythms and serious virtuosity. Svendsen's Romance is a tuneful interlude that likewise deserves a revival.

A highly enjoyable release, and a must for lovers of Scandinavian music.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

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Composed during a period of social readjustment in post-war France, the First Cello Concerto marked Saint-Saens’ acceptance as a composer among the establishment, and has long been one of his most admired works. Recognition for the fiendishly technical Second Cello Concerto took longer, although its tranquil central movement contains one of the most sublime melodies Saint-Saens ever wrote. The supremely famous Le Cygne appears alongside the less well-known Bach-inspired Suite in D minor, and with the inclusion of the Romance this programme contains Saint-Saens’ complete works for cello and orchestra.