The twice-Grammy-nominated Lincoln Trio ― violinist Desirée Ruhstrat, cellist David Cunliffe, and pianist Marta Aznavoorian ― offers engaging, rarely heard piano trios by 20th-century Chicago composers Leo Sowerby, winner of the Rome Prize and Pulitzer Prize for music, and Ernst Bacon, recipient of three Guggenheim Fellowships and a Pulitzer Fellowship. Bacon’s Trio No. 2 for Violin, Cello and Piano (1987) receives its world-premiere recording. Hailed by The New York Times as “a Composer Known for Echoing America,” Bacon infuses his six-movement trio with American influences including marches, folksong-like melodies, and jazz rhythms, validating Virgil Thomson’s assessment of Bacon’s music as “full of melody and variety; honest and skillful and beautiful.” Sowerby’s Trio for violin, violincello and pianoforte (1953) is “a work of tremendous integrity” that exhibits an “imposing structure, contrapuntal gymnastics, and a concern for instruments sounding as good as they can” (Classical Net). Sometimes virtuosic, sometimes reflective, the work is distinguished by an ever-evolving rhythmic and harmonic interplay between instruments.

REVIEW:

The works heard here by the "Early Modern" native Chicago composers Ernst Bacon (1898-1990) and Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) have several stylistic commonalities between them: both rich in melodic zest, expressionist on the edge of Romanticism but further afield to the Modern in their arcs of harmonic-melodic movement, winding, and labyrinthian. Working together most impressively, the members of the Lincoln Trio approach both pieces with elan, zeal, and sympathy. If you are up for something well composed and well played, something from the recent past yet unmistakably belonging to that time, grab this and I think you’ll find it worthwhile.

– Gapplegate Classical

Following the success of their previous album, English Music for Strings, John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London turn their attention to the music of Henri Dutilleux. His ballet Le Loup was composed as a commission for Roland Petit’s dance company and premièred in Paris in March 1953. Rarely recorded – this is the first recording by a non-French orchestra – the work unfolds in three tableaux and tells a convoluted tale of a bridegroom who jilts his bride (to run away with a gypsy) by persuading her that he has been changed into a wolf. Over time she discovers that the wolf is real, but her feelings turn from terror to love and when the alarmed villagers hunt the wolf, she defends him and dies at his side. The album is completed by three world première recordings of new orchestrations (by Kenneth Hesketh) of wind solos written for the Paris Conservatoire in the 1940s. Both the Sarabande et Cortège and Sonate pour hautbois are virtuosic tours de force for their soloists, as is the Sonatine pour flûte, which displays the lyricism, agility, and sparkling incisive qualities of the flute in what became Dutilleux’s most-performed work.

Award-winning Lithuanian, London-based pianist Indre Petrauskaite makes her AVIE label debut with a selection of Mozart’s piano works with a twist: she uniquely brings together the composer’s solo keyboard works written in minor keys. The nine works offered here represent a fraction of the composer’s overall oeuvre, yet they span a gamut of genres – including improvisatory and emotional fantasies, enigmatic miniatures and complex sonatas. Indre showcases these pieces – much loved staples of stage and studio alike – in a novel and stunning album. “Strong and well-played performances.” (MusicWeb International)

REVIEW:

Petrauskaite has an original voice in Mozart, not something that's so easy to accomplish. She is what's called a strong pianist, generally avoiding the delicately lyrical style in Mozart except in small details. Although this certainly isn't a historically oriented performance, Petrauskaite avoids Romantic gestures and extensive use of the pedal except in the fantasies; her playing is clean, tough, and insightful. The album, as a whole, offers an emotional journey that's rare in Mozart recordings, yet in Petrauskaite's hands, it seems to make sense. A superior Mozart recording.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

The c/o chamber orchestra is a collective of thirty young musicians from a dozen different countries. Playing without a conductor, the orchestra is dedicated to that particular collaborative process which is the essence of chamber music. For their first album, the members have chosen to highlight a genre more difficult to pin-point than one might think. Its very name, divertimento, implies that it is simply a diversion, light music for entertainment – but many of the best-known examples of the form transcend that definition. And as many composers have learned, even light-hearted music should be taken seriously: humor requires a master’s touch. The four works recorded here offer different perspectives on the genre, starting with Ibert’s seven-movement suite in which the composer constantly plays with the listener’s expectations. Some forty years before Ibert, his compatriot Émile Bernard composed a very different Divertissement. It is scored for double wind quintet, reminiscent of Mozart’s divertimenti and serenades for winds. But even though the music is melodious and carefree, the debt owed by Bernard to the German romantic composers is never far from the surface. A very special case is Bartók’s Divertimento for strings, composed just before the outbreak of World War II. The closing work on the album reunites the winds and strings of the c/o orchestra in a work written especially for this project by the American composer Michael Ippolito, who in his Divertimento pays full tribute to the contrast-rich nature of the genre.

This world première recording of the second volume of José Antonio Bottiroli’s complete piano music, is performed once again by his award-winning protégé Fabio Banegas. The nocturnal themes heard in this album were inspired by the clear skies over the composer’s holiday home in Los Cocos, Cordoba Province, Argentina – these spellbinding works transcend earthly romantic concerns and venture into the stillness of the universe. Dedicated to Banegas, the Album Pages represent Bottiroli’s distinctive impressionist style, while the unique Five Piano Replies connects music with poetry written by the composer, and read on this recording by the renowned actor George Takei.

REVIEW:

Of Italian parents, José Antonio Bottiroli was equally to enjoy a busy life of a solo pianist, his portfolio of competitions numbering some seventy-three pieces by the time of his death in 1990. Their presence has only been revealed by his pupil, Fabio Banegas, whose initiative has lead to this Grand Piano series. They were never to engage with the use of atonality, but were tuneful and usually quite short, mostly gathered together to form scores of some length, the present release containing five works numbering 20 tracks. They covered the period between 1974 to 1984, the quiet nature of the Six Album Pages (Seis Hojas de Album) being particularly attractive, while much of the disc is taken up with Five Piano Replies (Cinco Replicas para piano). That work takes its name from the words of Bottiroli’s poems which then drew his own piano reply. Here the words are spoken by George Takei in English translations by Banegas, his diction is impeccable, though the words also come in the enclosed booklet. Much of the music on the disc only requires a modest technical ability and offer uncomplicated charm, Bottiroli being particularly drawn to the nature of the ‘Nocturne’, of which four are included here.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The ‘time of breakthroughs’ contained in the title of the album, which is the key for the selection of the repertoire recorded on it, can be interpreted on multiple levels. On the one hand, it refers to the period of rebirth of Poland – to one of the most important turning points in the history of this country, which was ‘witnessed’ by music of the composers presented on the album. On the other hand, it points to the turn of the 20th century – an extremely colorful time in the history of the multicultural and vibrant city of Katowice, whose dynamic development, mainly related to its industrial aspect, also included the cultural sphere. One of the important points on the then cultural map of the city was undoubtedly the Evangelical church built in 1856, within the walls of which the material of this album was recorded.

Although most widely remembered for his operettas in partnership with W.S. Gilbert, Sir Arthur Sullivan was the most famous of all British composers of the nineteenth century. He was revered as a composer of oratorios, and was urged by Queen Victoria to compose a grand opera. The result, Ivanhoe, achieved 155 consecutive performances (in an opera house especially built for it). Achieving equal success in his lifetime, his substantial legacy of songs fell into neglect in the twentieth century, but as this album demonstrates Sullivan's endlessly fertile melodic gifts withstand comparison with those of any other song composer. David Owen Norris and his quartet of outstanding young British singers deliver this fascinating programme with terrific style and panache.

What we know as ‘Handel’s Opus 3’ is most likely little more than a brazen attempt by the London publisher John Walsh to make some quick money. In 1715, Walsh had issued a pirated edition of Corelli’s 12 Concerti Grossi Opus 6 which proved an instant success and left him constantly looking for similar opportunities. Almost 20 years later, perhaps in the knowledge that the royal protection granted to Handel’s musical output was about to expire, Walsh assembled a set of six orchestral pieces for a wide range of instruments. He prefaced them with a wholly misleading title-page – based on Corelli’s style-defining collection – and advertised them as Handel’s ‘Opera Terza’. It is likely that Handel never took part in the selection and organization of the individual movements, although he may have been involved in the revisions made when a reprint was necessary a few years later. Selected from various sources, the six concertos certainly don’t form an organic cycle – in complete contrast to the future Op.?6 concerti grossi, which Handel carefully conceived as a set. The fact remains that Opus 3 contains some of Handel’s best-loved music, in instrumental combinations that are colorful and often unexpected – aspects that Martin Gester and his musicians in the Tasmanian period band Van Diemen’s Band make the most of.

REVIEW:

Handel's op. 3 collection is a test for any group: staying true to the letter & spirit of the score, while keeping the music sounding fresh and alive. Martin Gester and his Tasmanian group Van Diemen's Band have done exactly that, in this wonderful new album from BIS. There's plenty of fire burning here, but it's within the context of impressive musical discipline and lightly-worn Historically Informed Performance scholarship. BIS provides the kind of direct and transparent sound that allows Early Instruments to flourish. This is a highly recommended release!

-- Music for Several Instruments

Friedrich Kuhlau is known as Beethoven’s strongest advocate in Denmark and the man who wrote Elverhøj. But Kuhlau was first and foremost a pianist, one whose works for the instrument have a depth and character of their own. In the first of a new series, Marie-Luise Bodendorff reassesses Kuhlau’s contribution to the piano literature with fresh, muscular performances of music including the previously unrecorded Divertissement, Op. 37. Marie-Luise Bodendorff took her first piano lessons at the age of five and was admitted to the Hochschule fur Musik in Karlsruhe at the age of 10. From 2002 to 2007 she studied with Russian piano authority Vladimir Krainev at the Hannover University of Music, Drama, and Media. She currently resides in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has been a part time professor of piano at the Royal Danish Academy of Music since 2016.

The award-winning Dutch composer and bass clarinet player Joris Roelofs is also currently working on a PhD dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche, improvisation and the notion of freedom. On the album Rope Dance he is able to combine all of this, in a suite of twelve pieces inspired by Nietzsche – ‘by far the most musical of philosophers’ according to Roelofs. It is especially the parable of the tightrope walker in the opening section of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None’ that has provided him with inspiration for his own ‘Light-Footed Music for All and None’. It is not surprising that Nietzsche’s thoughts about free spirits, liberated from conventional constraints and belief systems, resonate particularly well with musicians working with improvisation and across genres. Roelofs has therefore been able to gather a group of highly versatile colleagues from the Benelux jazz scene to perform his music: pianist Bram de Looze, bass player Clemens van der Feen and Martijn Vink on drums. The album also confirms the multi-faceted talents of bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, following previous recordings on BIS of classical, pre-Romantic and contemporary concertos, as well as hard rock covers with the group ORBI (the Oscillating Revenge of the Background Instruments).

After all is said and done, after 30 years, after a pandemic which shattered the world, after thousands of kilometers travelled and many more thousands of notes played and sung, what remains ? A deep love and respect for great music and the greatness in music, a deep love for the humanity that is brought to life by it, a deep appreciation for the gift of friendship and for the power and resonance that brought and kept us together all these years, and for that curiosity and passion, that meticulous quest to unveil the deepest mysteries of music, that drives us always onwards. Finally, we’ve given it a name: Afterallogy

After all is said and done, after 30 years, after a pandemic which shattered the world, after thousands of kilometers travelled and many more thousands of notes played and sung, what remains ? A deep love and respect for great music and the greatness in music, a deep love for the humanity that is brought to life by it, a deep appreciation for the gift of friendship and for the power and resonance that brought and kept us together all these years, and for that curiosity and passion, that meticulous quest to unveil the deepest mysteries of music, that drives us always onwards. Finally, we’ve given it a name: Afterallogy

Andrew Nethsingha and The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge release the second volume in the highly-praised Magnificat series and present nine settings of the Evening Canticles by celebrated Organist-Composers, written between 1932 and 1952, and non-church musicians from 1974-1989. The recording culminates with a contemporay setting by Julian Anderson, composed for the Chapel’s 150th anniversary. “These first volumes are designed to complement one another. Magnificat 1 started earlier, with Stanford in the 1880s; Volume Two brings us briefly up to the present day. The first release contained celebrated works by Tippett and Leighton from 1961 and 1972 respectively, in between the two main periods represented on this disc. Both albums contain iconic works by Howells, written a year apart. We hear composers creating different orders of priority for the parameters of composition.” - Andrew Nethsingha

Along with Vivaldi’s ‘Seasons’ or Beethoven’s ‘Fifth’, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos belong to those works that are so well-known that we risk taking them for granted. In order to (re-)discover the special qualities that can inspire us today, in 2001 Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra decided to contact six contemporary composer, asking each of them to compose a companion piece to one of the concertos. Seventeen years later, in 2018, it was time to present the result, with a performance at the BBC Proms of all the works – new and old. Recorded over a period of 18 months leading up to this event, the present boxed set provides a unique opportunity to experience six very different musical minds and idioms entering into conversation with Bach: Mark-Anthony Turnage, Steven Mackey, Anders Hillborg, Olga Neuwirth, Uri Caine and Brett Dean. Bach’s concertos are remarkable in that they are all scored for different instrumental combinations, and part of the brief to the group of composers was to reflect this. In her Aello, Olga Neuwirth has for instance used several ‘instruments’ to stand in for Bach’s harpsichord, including a synthesizer, a milk frother and a typewriter. Brett Dean, on the other hand, has stayed very close to Bach’s instrumentation, but has chosen to write his work as a preparation for Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 – an Approach to Bach’s extremely tight canonic writing. In performing the twelve works the orchestra and Dausgaard are joined by leading soloists including Clare Chase, Mahan Esfahani, Håkan Hardenberger, Pekka Kuusisto and Tabea Zimmermann.

Society currently finds itself at an intersection of technology and humanity: as physical forms embedded with Artificial Intelligence systems may one day reach a level of sophistication that approaches human level artificial general intelligence, human engineering of the ‘inanimate’ may produce previously unimaginable companions. It is precisely this concept of an inanimate-human companionship that pioneer surgeon Dr Susan Lim, together with her project Co-Creative Director, Dr Christina Teenz Tan explore in the Fantasy of Companionship for Piano & Orchestra, composed by Manu Martin. Recorded at Abbey Rd Studios, the Fantasy draws inspiration from ‘ALAN the Musical, and follows the story of Alan the inanimate – his journey to inanimate form, through companionship with a human and his ultimate transition to a higher form through quantum entanglement – brought to life through performances from acclaimed pianist, Tedd Joselson alongside the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arthur Fagen, together with solo voices and choral ensemble, London Voices. The iconic Belgian-American pianist Tedd Joselson describes the work as “a truly magnificent addition to the realm of piano concerto repertoire … a masterstroke of creative ingenuity, which I am truly delighted and honoured to lead as solo pianist.”

Esma Redzepova was a Macedonian Romani vocalist, songwriter, and humanitarian. Because of her prolific repertoire- which included hundreds of songs- and her contribution to Roma culture and it's promotion she was heralded as the "Queen of the Gypsies." These are the last songs she ever recorded- an album that will be truly cherished by her doting followers. Recorded in the studio with The Nune Brothers, the album is a blend of jazz, reggae, swing, salsa, and samba, all influenced by a range of Balkan sounds. "Beauty, charm, striking voice and performance skills." (The Guardian)

Coming under the form of a beautiful antique pink and dark green 3-shutters digipack and two-LPs Gatefold, 'Two Roses' is by Avishai's words "a once in a lifetime project". Associating his core trio (Mark Guiliana, Elchin Shirinov) with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Avishai Cohen offers a very cinematic project between Jazz, Mediterranean Folklore and Classical music, reexploring a part of his musical journey. Not only proposing new orchestrations of his most successful works, 'Two Roses' is also strongly supported by 'When I'm Falling', an original composition showing how far the sound of Avishai Cohen has developed. The vinyl edition features 2 exclusive tracks in addition to the 12 songs already listed on the digital and CD editions; including a Symphonic version of Seven Seas which is one of Avishai's most beloved compositions.

Following an acclaimed debut recording of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with the Philharmonia in 2020, Santtu-Matias Rouvali returns with a recording of Sergei Prokofiev’s iconic Symphony No. 5. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 was first performed in 1944, 14 years after his previous symphony. Prokofiev described his Fifth Symphony as a “hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit,” explaining that, “I cannot say that I deliberately chose this theme. It was born in me and clamoured for expression. The music matured within me. It filled my soul.”

Only now are we fully aware of the true immensity of Vivaldi’s concerto repertoire. The violin is by no means the only instrument he favored: the place of the bassoon in his work catalogue is remarkable for its size and stylistic homogeneity, as well as for his solistic treatment of an instrument previously confined to the continuo. Seven new concertos here join the twenty-six already recorded in the first four volumes of the Vivaldi Edition, an anthology Sergio Azzolini embarked on in 2009 with L’Aura Soave, and now builds on with L’Onda Armonica.

Vast, deep and emotional are apt descriptions of the single-movement, 53-minute-long Symphony No. 2 by Christopher Tyler Nickel. The award-winning Canadian composer elaborates, “One can think of this music as consisting of mirrors between ideas that equally disturb yet entice. Each side of the reflection is in itself conceivably valid, but when facing each other friction and dissonance are created. The exquisitely alluring and the grotesque exist simultaneously. Perhaps another way to understand the symphony is as a meditation on the state of cognitive dissonance.” The entrepreneurial Clyde Mitchell conducts the Seattle-based Northwest Sinfonia on this world-premiere recording.

Read our blog post about Brillon de Jouy and the classical-era piano!

The thirteen sonatas on this première recording represent the complete music for solo piano by the Parisian keyboardist and composer Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy, a musician much celebrated in her day and greatly admired by Boccherini. Introducing technical innovations more usually associated with Czerny and Liszt, these sonatas reflect a gloriously rich musical environment, incorporating and transforming elements from music of the time with great imagination and wit, and showing us that Madame Brillon’s glittering salon, though private, was by no means isolated. Nicolas Horvath is an unusual artist with an unconventional résumé. He began his music studies at the Académie de Musique Prince Rainier III de Monaco, and at the age of 16, caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster who helped him to secure a three-year scholarship from the Princess Grace Foundation in order to further his studies. He is the holder of a number of awards, including First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions.

REVIEW:

Brillon de Jouy's thirteen sonatas, recorded for the first time on this CD, represent all of her music for solo piano and are as technically noteworthy as they are imaginative. Nicolas Horvath’s performance is light, fluid and impresses with unaffected simplicity, which is especially beneficial to the slow movements. The recording crew has provided a direct and relatively dry piano sound, which is appropriate for this repertoire.

– Pizzicato

Born in 1968, the Swiss composer Richard Dubugnon writes music that has been described as ‘driven by a playful modern sensibility’ (New York Times). His work list includes all genres, from solo pieces to large orchestral works, such as the Helvetia Symphony, scored for the same forces as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He has also written for smaller orchestra, however, and this disc is bookended by his two chamber symphonies. Chamber Symphony No.?1 was composed in 2013, and in his liner notes the composer admits to influences from Arnold Schoenberg and Franz Schreker, as well as Olivier Messiaen: ‘if passionate gestures evoke the decadent Vienna of the turn of the 20th century, the overall harmonic color remains quite “French”… Switzerland is, after all, half way between Vienna and Paris.’ In contrast, the initial inspiration for Chamber Symphony No. 2 (2017) was a visual one – a stained-glass panel from 1658 commemorating the first members of Musikkollegium Winterthur, for which the work was written. Dubugnon creates a chaconne based on the colours of the stained glass, but also includes a Bach fragment in allusion to a reference on the panel to Psalm 150. These elements are used in various ways throughout the piece, which ends in a big accelerando. Framed by the symphonies is the concerto Klaveriana for piano, orchestra and obbligato celesta. Featuring a wide range of piano techniques, the concerto is unusual in that it incorporates an important part for the celesta which functions as a mysterious reflection of the piano. The album is a first on BIS from Musikkollegium Winterthur under its conductor Thomas Zehetmair, with Noriko Ogawa as the soloist in Klaveriana.

Pianist Ursula Oppens, stalwart champion of 20th- and 21st-century American music and recipient of multiple Grammy nominations and other honors, celebrates her decades-long friendship and professional association with composer Laura Kaminsky on an album of world-premiere recordings. The program includes two recent works written for the pianist: Kaminsky’s Piano Quintet, performed with the Cassatt String Quartet, “a concise work of considerable substance and atmosphere” (New York Classical Review) and the turbulent Reckoning: Five Miniatures for America for piano four-hands, with pianist Jerome Lowenthal, created expressly for this recording. A large-scale Fantasy for solo piano explores sonorities from French Impressionism to jazz. Oppens gave the New York premiere in 2017.

Kaminsky’s Piano Concerto was inspired by visual images of sunlit rivers in New York City and St. Petersburg, Russia, where Oppens gave the world premiere with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic led by its artistic director Jeffery Meyer. On this world-premiere recording, Meyer, who is also director of orchestras at Arizona State University, conducts the ASU Symphony Orchestra.

REVIEW:

The solo piano Fantasy is just that, an imaginative fantasia piece that moves in unexpected directions at Kaminsky’s whim. A few hints of jazz rhythm come and go in it as well as a remarkable passage in which the two hands play completely different and opposing lines against each other. Interestingly, this Fantasy is longer than the entire Piano Quintet and only eight seconds shorter than the entire Piano Concerto that ends the disc. More and different permutations follow within that time span, all of them unexpected and interesting. These performances, all first recordings of these works, are all excellent, which helps us to appreciate Kaminsky’s sound world. Highly recommended.

– The Art Music Lounge

Titan of the contemporary keyboard, Ursula Oppens is a rarity among artists living today. She is the stalwart bearer of a mid-century musical torch that apparently burns eternal. How fortunate we are to have such musicians as Oppens still making music with fortitude, passion and tireless faith.

Oppens wields her piano at the album’s centre, steering a varied vessel with consistent skill and surety. Even in brief piano passages, as she peeks out from dense ensemble material, Oppens’ artistry sings unmistakably. The 20-minute solo Fantasy (2010) should be considered a tour de force in and of itself. When it comes to a career such as Oppens’, dedication and staying power carry the day. May she always urge us to listen close and listen well, ever compelling our ears toward the future.

-- The WholeNote

Selim Palmgren, a native of Finland and a student of Busoni, was one of the most prominent and prolific Nordic composer-pianists since Edvard Grieg, with works that were widely performed by some of the most notable concert pianists of his day. From early pieces influenced by Chopin via the tour de force of his only surviving Piano Sonata, to the darker Autumn Prologue – this is the first volume of a complete edition that includes première recordings of unpublished works, showcasing every side of Palmgren’s varied character. Jouni Somero (b. 1963) is one of the most active performers among present Finnish musicians. He has given over 3,100 concerts in many countries worldwide. His wide repertoire includes all the solo piano works of Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Bortkiewicz, as well as seldom heard music by, among others, Alkan, Godowsky, Rubinstein, Reinhold, Godard, Cui and Gottschalk.

Indian classical music has certain modes and ragas dedicated to the seasons, which have been explored by many generations of musicians. In accordance with the Indian calendar, spring runs from mid-February to mid-April, and is known as Vasant (or Basant). The festival Holi celebrates spring’s arrival. In this album, Baluji captures the rapture of spring, expressing seasonal feelings of renewal and hope through the subtle nuances of the chosen ragas. He celebrates his mastery of the sitar with wonderful sensitivity and dexterity. There are also some thrilling moments enthused by the distinctive tabla playing of Sukhvinder Singh “Pinky”, with his vivacious renditions of 1relas and 2chakradas. Baluji cannot see the colors of flowers but he has heard their voices, and they sing out through this joyous album – Voice of Flowers.