Paul Juon's musical education provided him with a direct link to the German Romantic style of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and he has even been called the 'Russian Brahms.' These three violin sonatas represent an important artistic statement by this neglected master, also showing his artistic evolution. The First Sonata is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky in it's melodic beauty, the Second Sonata enriched with Scandinavian flavor in it's mercurial character and chromatic intensity. The masterful and dramatic Third Sonata evokes an epic imagined landscape full of natural and supernatural beings.

Fernando Lopes-Graça was one of Portugal’s greatest composers of the 20th century, whose artistic credo was the binding together of the folk music of his native country with modern techniques to create an alternative and original national identity. With its constantly shifting tonal context the Divertimento perfectly captures Lopes-Graça’s inimitable style, which is further enriched in the concisely constructed Sinfonieta by his admiration for Haydn. The moving, even tragic Cinco Velhos Romances Portugueses are based on traditional ballads while the challenging Quatro Invenções, in the composer’s words, explore ‘essentially atonal dramatic expressionism’.

REVIEW:

Composer Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-94) has been described as sort of a Portuguese Bartók, and with good reason. His music in strongly folk-influenced, but never merely “folksy.” He managed to reflect these nationalist origins in an uncompromisingly modernist style, including atonal expressionist elements (think Ginastera), while still giving listeners more than enough to make the effort worthwhile. This is very evident in considering the program at hand–ostensibly “light” music that still has plenty of meat on its bones.

The Divertimento (1957), scored mostly for winds, is a spiky, harmonically acerbic work in seven brief movements whose humor and verve go hand in hand with a harmonic density that makes the work sound more expensive than it really is. The Sinfonietta “Homage to Haydn” evokes its nominal inspiration without ever resorting to mere imitation–except for one movement of literal quotation that’s all the more shocking (and funny) in its context. I won’t give away the joke, but it’s delicious. Cinco Velhos Romances Portugueses offers sensitive instrumental settings of traditional songs passed down through the centuries among Portuguese women. The Four Inventions for Solo Cello (1961) allegedly belong to the composers atonal expressionist style, but they are quite easy to follow, intensely lyrical, and consistently ear-catching–and I’m not usually a fan of music for solo strings.

In the first three works conductor/cellist Bruno Borralhinho gets fresh and lively playing from the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, making an excellent case for the composer and these particular works. He also plays a mean cello in the Four Inventions, and Naxos provides the necessary clean and clear engineering. This is good stuff.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Cello music flourished in Russia in the 19th century. Tchaikovsky was central to this profusion of composition, writing the celebrated Variations on a Rococo Theme, music of Mozartian charm, heard here in the composer’s version for cello and piano. Karl Davidov, who Tchaikovsky called ‘the tsar of all cellists,’ contributed a melodious, lyrically inventive and virtuosic Fantasy on Russian Songs. Arensky’s graceful character sketches and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Serenade are suffused with Romanticism, while the lusty Fantasy on Gipsy Songs by Konstantin Liadov (father of the more famous Anatoly) is the earliest of these pieces and the least known. Dmitrii Khrychev is a prominent chamber and orchestral musician and soloist. Born in Leningrad in 1973 into a family of engineers, he began studying cello at age 7. In 1995 he formed the Nevsky String Quartet, with whom he was a prizewinner in seven international musical competitions, including the Dmitri Shostakovich International String Quartet Competition.

The organ was a formative part of Edward Elgar’s musical upbringing, and for a time he was organist at St George’s Catholic Church in Worcester. The symphonic scale and distinctive themes of the First Sonata contrast with the more liturgical atmosphere of the Vesper Voluntaries, while the rousing Second Sonata is an arrangement of Elgar’s Severn Suite for brass. This album comprises Elgar’s original works for organ as well as the complete arrangements made by the composer himself and those made by four distinguished contemporary organists.

The East-West Chamber Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the Yuri Bashmet International Music Festival and is made up of concertmasters from leading orchestras and competition laureates. On this, their debut recording, they celebrate the centenary of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's birth. Weinberg's Chamber Symphonies reflect his creativity and the dramatic times in which he lived- the formal lucidity and directness of the First and the elegiac Third- both derived from string quartets composed in the shadow of the Second World War. The East-West Chamber Orchestra is comprised of outstanding soloists, including laureates of prestigious international competitions, and concertmasters and leaders of renowned orchestras, performing on exceptional instruments including Stradivarius, Guarneris and Guadagninis.

Brusa: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2

BERWALD: Piano Trio in C Major / Piano Trio No. 4

Liszt Complete Piano Music, Vol. 18: Beethoven Symphonies No

The 1st Chopin Festival Hamburg offers a unique opportunity to experience the keyboards of the city’s Museum of Arts and Crafts, the first festival of its kind in Europe. The individual tonal qualities of these instruments can be appreciated during recitals of Classical, Romantic and Impressionist music, with a focus on Chopin, given by six leading specialists in the museum’s own rooms. Pleyel, Brodmann and Broadwood instruments of Chopin’s time are used, as is a modern Steinway, allowing the listener to contrast the fascinatingly divergent sounds of these important historical instruments.

Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein are internationally renowned for their GRAMMY® award-winning opera Elmer Gantry (2007). + Their follow-up collaboration, Parables (2010) is a cantata for soloists, a 200-voice choir and 80-piece orchestra. + The attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001 haunts its writing but the use of passages from the Torah, New Testament and Koran seeks to bind the major faiths’ commonality, hopeful of healing and reconciliation. + In this staged performance young dancers, costumes, and projection emphasize the music’s powerfully theatrical impact.

William Perry is best known as a composer of film scores, and especially for silent films from which Swordplay! Raises the curtain on the swashbuckling films of Douglas Fairbanks. This sparkling selection of world premiere recordings comes from Perry's substantial catalogue of music for the theater and the concert hall. Toujours Provence takes us on a cinematic journey through France's most picturesque region, while the ballet suite derived from his Tony-nominated Broadway score for Wind in the Willows vividly brings to life favorite characters from the story such as Mole, Rat, Toad, and the Chief Weasel.

The music of Max Reger has a special position in organ repertoire, and he is regarded by many as the greatest German composer of organ music since Bach. A Catholic himself, he nevertheless drew on Lutheran tradition and the rich store of chorales, the inspiration for chorale preludes, chorale fantasias and other works. The esteem in which his organ compositions were held even in his own time owed much to the advocacy of Karl Straube, also a pupil of Riemann and from 1902 organist at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Reger wrote his Chorale Fantasia on 'Alle Menschen m�ssen sterben', Op. 52, No. 1, (All men must die) in 1900, dedicating it to Julius Smend, then Professor of Theology at the University of Strasbourg, a pioneer in the study of earlier Lutheran music and a leading figure in research into the use of music in the Protestant liturgy. With an Introduction marked at first Assai agitato e molto espressivo (vivace), there is almost at once a reminder of Bach's Durch Adams Fall (Through Adam's fall), with the characteristic interval of a descending seventh, an aural representation of the Fall of Adam that is to recur. The characteristically dense chromatic figuration leads to the chorale melody, the score including the words of the first verse. The melody itself is shared by manuals and pedals, appearing first in the tenor register, then the bass, continuing in the soprano, followed by the pedals again and completed in the tenor. A dramatic interlude leads to more elaborate figuration with the third verse of the chorale, Jesus ist f�r mich gestorben (Jesus died for me), marked pppp and again shared by varying registers, manuals and pedals. A shorter episode is followed by a version of the melody with the words of the sixth verse superscribed, O Jerusalem, du sch�ne, ach wie helle glanzest du! (O Jerusalem, thou beautiful, how bright thou shinest!). The intervening episode again leads to a dramatic dynamic climax before the chorale, with the words of the seventh verse, Ach, ich habe schon erblicket (Ah, I have often seen this great glory), is heard in left-hand octaves, amid elaborate surrounding figuration. The fantasia mounts to a climax for the final words 'mit der goldnen Ehrenkrone steh ich' (with the golden crown of glory I stand), with a concluding apotheosis.

EVENING IN PARIS (AN)

William Schuman: The Symphonies

Eric Satie, known as a brilliant pianist and composer, was an integral part of the 20th century Parisian avant-garde. Included in this box of Satie piano works are the Ogives, inspired by the Notre Dame cathedral; the hauntingly beautiful works of Trois Nocturnes, and the calming Reverie du Pauvre. Satie's compositional brilliance, along with Kormendi's virtuosity will surely make this a treasured item for collectors and classical music loves alike.