This setting of Austrian Expressionist writer Georg Trakl’s poems by composer and conductor Fabrice Bollon is the first ever composition for classical singers and solo electric cello. As a result the work’s striking sonorities open unexpected and fascinating new directions for contemporary music. Evocative imagery and colorful writing for electric cello can also be heard in The Secret Garden of the Cordania – a work dedicated to Bollon’s cellist wife.

Symphonic in scale and ambition, the incidental music to Shakespeare’s play The Tempest was among the last orchestral works Sibelius composed before entering the mysterious ‘silence of Järvenpää’ that lasted until his death. Commissioned by leading Danish theatre producer Johannes Poulsen in 1925, the wide expressive demands of the play saw Sibelius calling on large musical forces. From the terrifying tone picture of the opening shipwreck via ethereal songs, boisterous character portraits and remarkable evocations of nature, Sibelius took full advantage of being set free to convert the themes of Shakespeare’s magical world into his own unique sound.

This second album of Mozart’s complete Masses (Volume 1 is on 8.574370) pairs one work of exceptional dimensions and ambition with a miniature example. The ‘Great’ Mass in C minor is one of Mozart’s most spectacular and cast on such a scale that it embraces every human and spiritual emotion, reconciling the Salzburg tradition with that of Italian opera. The Mass was left incomplete by Mozart– it is heard here in a performing version made by the German musicologist and Mozart specialist Franz Beyer. By comparison the Missa brevis in C major exudes a spirit of festive concision.

Repertoire for solo guitar has gained in depth and quality in recent decades, with acoustic and electronic techniques enjoying an ever more imaginative coexistence. Arturo Tallini's recital explores contrasting approaches for his instrument, beginning with the ostinato textures of Reich's Electric Counterpoint, an acknowledged classic in this field. Tallini's transcriptions of early piano works by Cage create a mood of reverie, while Carter's Changes forms a mercurial dialogue. James Dashow's iPiece fuses acoustic and electronic elements to stunning effect, while Arthur Kampela's Percussion Studies have proved pivotal in exploring new sounds for the guitar.

These two Tenth Symphonies represent powerful statements by composers undergoing the greatest of crises in their eventful lives. Gustav Mahler’s last and incomplete symphony was kept a secret by his widow Alma for many years after his death, the desperate scrawl of ‘Almschi!’ on its final page an outburst at her betrayal of their marriage. Shostakovich’s intense and deeply symbolic SymphonyNo.10, considered by many to be his finest, was kept hidden by the composer for fear of Soviet reprisals, and was only performed after Stalin’s death in 1953.

Antonín Dvořák’s gift for melody was apparent as soon as he began writing music, and this naturally tuneful inspiration has long captured the imagination of arrangers. An expert in arranging for both orchestra and piano, Peter Breiner has selected 33 melodies in simple yet revealing piano reductions that give the listener an opportunity to journey with Dvořák through his career in Prague and ultimately overseas to America. This carefully curated program also brings moods ranging from rustic celebration to nostalgic melancholy, and from traditional Czech dumka dances to the famous Song to the Moon, Dvořák’s most prized operatic aria.

Unless one lived in a major European center with an orchestra, the opportunity to hear large-scale works by the great composers of the age was well-nigh impossible. The insatiable demand for new chamber versions of famed orchestral works saw Hummel ar-ranging Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 ‘Pastoral’ not long after the great composer’s death. Hummel approached his task with great care, bringing a fresh perspective to the works in his sensitive and compelling chamber music configurations. Hummel’s arrangements of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 ‘Eroica’ can be heard on Naxos 8.574039.

An accomplished horn and viola player, York Bowen is said to have preferred the tone of the viola to the violin. Inspired by the virtuosity and vibrato style of the distinguished violist, Lionel Tertis, Bowen wrote several works for him and became his accompanist. Bowen’s subtle shifts of key and heartfelt melodies are well in evidence here, including the powerful and poised Rhapsody, Op.149, considered to be one of his most important works. Gustav Holst’s daughter Imogen is represented here by the open-air freshness of her Four Easy Pieces and the terse, laconic narrative of her Duo for Viola and Piano. Britten’s spiky Waltz is full of 1930s wit.

REVIEW:

Yue Yu and Anthony Hewitt give splendid performances that hold their own even alongside those terrific displays by Lawrence Power and Simon Crawford-Phillips (Hyperion, 9/08). An excellent album, this, definitely worth investigating.

-- Gramophone

Here’s an interesting and variegated disc of 20th-century British viola repertoire. Yue Yu’s York Bowen runs up against Lawrence Power’s formidable Hyperion survey, but not everywhere: the Three Duos for Violin and Viola were discovered after that set was recorded, and so receive their first public outing here. (They are immediately attractive music, all three). And Yue is well equipped in her own right; her account of the opening Melody for the C-String is Power’s equal in sound and suavity.

Benjamin Britten gets only a tiny look-in: the fifth-movement Waltz from his early violin Suite, op. 6, in his own viola transcription. (Why not give us the whole thing?) It’s sassy and impertinent and a mite absurd, but—like much of his early music—overflowing with sheer exuberant invention. Later, that streak would be confined and systematized (too much, some think), but here it just breaks out anyhow.

Imogen Holst's Four Easy Pieces are minuscule character studies—the whole set takes a bare six minutes—that combine simple motivic material with a quirky strain of humor. The scarcely longer Duo for Viola and Piano is teasingly playful, even in the slow middle movement.

The record sound is excellent; useful and comprehensive notes are provided.

-- Fanfare

The rediscovery of Florence Price’s music has revealed one of the most significant bodies of work by an African American composer in the 20th century. The variety of genres represented on this release place Price’s immense artistic imagination on full display. The two Concert Overtures explore her engagement with spirituals, both episodically and coloristically, in music that embraces the somber, the poignant and the ebullient. Songs of the Oak is a tour de force of Hollywood-influenced storytelling while The Oak offers amore anxious, ultimately tragic portrait. Price’s best-known work is the Suite of Dances–originally for piano it is heard here in the composer’s full, sumptuous orchestration.

REVIEW:

The rediscovery of Florence Price’s music has revealed one of the most significant bodies of work by an African American composer in the 20th century. The variety of genres represented on this release place Price’s immense artistic imagination on full display. The two Concert Overtures explore her engagement with spirituals, both episodically and coloristically, in music that embraces the somber, the poignant, and the ebullient. Songs of the Oak is a tour de force of Hollywood-influenced storytelling while The Oak offers a more anxious, ultimately tragic portrait. Price’s best-known work is the Suite of Dances — originally for piano, it is heard here in the composer’s full, sumptuous orchestration.

-- WFMT 98.7FM Chicago, IL (Lisa Flynn)

Jettisoning the support of teaching and conducting appointments early in his career and working solely as a professional composer, Sir Edward German rose to prominence as a composer of orchestral music in the last decade of the 19th century. The popularity of his music resulted in prestigious commissions from festivals and theatrical producers, such as The Seasons written for the 1899 Norwich Festival, with its masterly evocations of nature, nostalgic yearnings and rustic festivities. The Theme and Six Diversions, one of the composer’s finest concert works, owed its inspiration to a suggestion by German’s friend and admirer Sir Edward Elgar.

Hugo Alfvén’s music has always been close to the hearts of the Swedish people, and ranks among some of the most significant and representative of the spirit of the country. Alfvén is known as a cheerful entertainer in compositions such as Den forlorade sonen (‘The Prodigal Son’), but his symphonies reveal a different, more elegiac and often more dramatic side. The success of Alfvén’s symphonies fundamentally changed Sweden’s musical climate and, with a substantial collection of further orchestral music representing his gloriously rich and varied style, these recordings sweep us into the remarkable world of Scandinavian landscape and culture.

Past praise for previously released volumes included in this set:

Symphony No. 5; Andante Religioso / Willén, Norrköping Symphony

The Norrköping Symphony plays with confidence and fervor. Alfvén was nothing if not expansive, and if his formal touch was never all that deft, he did know how to fill up time with arresting ideas, glowingly scored. A serenely lovely Andante religioso makes a perfect encore, one that puts the finale of the symphony’s straining for heroic effect in its proper perspective in the gentlest and most affecting way. Naxos’ sonics for this production are also excellent. Very enjoyable indeed.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

The Prodigal Son, Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 11 / Willén, Ireland NSO

Listen as Niklas Willén teases the skittish polka from “The Prodigal Son” ballet suite, or steers his players through the vehement fugue that rounds out his Symphony No. 2, and you’ll appreciate why this release commands unreserved praise. These works come to life in Willén’s hands.

Willén’s reading of the Symphony's Andante conjures a huge range of textures and sonorities, with the dark-hued horns and sombre lower winds particularly impressive. The players give all they have in music that’s probably new to them, and that extra effort is just one of the factors that makes these performances so compelling.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Symphony No. 3; Skerries; Dalecarlien Rhapsody / Willén, RNSO

If you haven’t heard these charming, folk-music-inspired gems of late Romantic music, then here’s an excellent place to start. The Symphony also sounds consistently fresh and lively, though it’s hard to shake the impression that the composer was happier writing programmatic works in free form than in indulging the more intellectual rigors of symphonic development. In Willén’s sympathetic hands, however, none of its four movements outstays its welcome. In any event, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra plays with confidence and evident enjoyment, and the recorded sound is very good.

-- ClassicsToday.com

Maria Kliegel celebrates her 70th birthday in 2022 and this collection brings together some of her most outstanding recordings, personally selected by Kliegel from her vast Naxos discography. Known as ‘La Cellissima,’ Maria Kliegel’s playing is characterized by a warmth, sensitivity and refinement that complements everything she performs. Combining the best from her teachers Janos Starker and Mstislav Rostropovich, and working alongside excellent orchestras and pianists, Kliegel’s inspirational joie de vivre radiates from all of these performances. From her GRAMMY-nominated Bach Cello Suites to a Saint-Saens Cello Concerto ranked among the top 50 recordings of the 20th century by Scala, this collection is a major celebration of Maria Kliegel’s fluent virtuosity and irreplaceable musicianship.

The Christmas carol has its origins in the Middle Ages but it has since embraced a wide variety of musical backgrounds. In this album, religious sentiment is set in many different contexts – from the mystery plays to an African American spiritual, from its origins in Gregorian Chant and 16th-century secular dance to traditional examples rooted in poetry. Some of the most famous and beautiful examples are heard alongside energizing contemporary carols to present a tapestry of the genre across the centuries.

CONTENTS:

• trad.: Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day
• Holst: In the Bleak Mid-winter (Cranham)
• Niles: I wonder as I wander
• Sweelinck: Hodie Christus natus est
• trad.: Sans Day Carol
• Ord: Adam lay ybounden
• trad.: Go tell it on the mountain
• Whitacre: Lux aurumque
• Vaughan Williams: Five English Folksongs
• Beamish: In the stillness
• trad.: Ding dong! merrily on high
• trad.: A Virgin most pure
• Willan: Hodie Christus natus est
• trad.: Coventry Carol
• Biebl: Ave Maria
• trad.: My Dancing Day (Arr. B. Chilcott for Choir)
• Gruber: Silent Night
• trad.: The First Nowell

REVIEW:

The Edison Singers is a Canadian mixed adult choir (7-5-6-6 are listed for this album) founded in Ontario by Noel Edison in 2018. Their singing is well balanced, with commendable precision and clear delivery of the texts. This was recorded in the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate in Guelph, Ontario. The sound has the spacious ambiance you would expect from such a building. Here is a satisfying Christmas album with a different touch.

-- American Record Guide

This album presents a selection of Saint-Saëns’ incidental music and music from his operas. From Samson et Dalila– the only one of Saint-Saëns’ operas to remain in the repertory – we hear two memorable and adrenalin-fueled dances including the famous Bacchanale. Henry VIII drew from the composer music of regal solemnity with plenty of colorful scoring, praised by Gounod. The lukewarm reception to Étienne Marcel came as a bitter disappointment to Saint-Saëns but the customary ballet includes a strong element of delightful 14th-century pastiche. The incidental music to the play Parysatis received tumultuous acclaim at its premiere in 1902 and includes the delightful Airs de ballet flecked by the use of crotales (antique finger-cymbals).

REVIEWS:

Camille Saint-Saens wrote 12 or 13 operas depending on whether you count Fredegonde, an opera by Ernest Guiraud that Saint-Saens completed in 1785. All of them struggled to draw audiences in the composer’s day, and only Samson and Delilah is performed with any frequency now. This disc of orchestral excerpts from the operas Etienne Marcel and Henry VIII, plus `Airs de Ballet’, which is part of the incidental music for Jane Dieulafoy’s play Parysatis, gives us an idea of what we are missing when it comes to Saint-Saens’s writing for the stage. In many of these pieces he builds by repeating phrases often while changing colors. Not all composers do that well, but he does.

The title character of Etienne Marcel took part in the 1358 rebellion against the regency of the Dauphin Charles. Recorded here is the Act III ballet. It is light in style, venturing close to my dreaded French Light Music, though Saint-Saens’s version is better crafted and more inspired than most works in that style. Notable in this music is how the composer begins a section in a light style then turns up weight and speed as it proceeds. `Entry of the Students’ is a lively march. `Musette Warriors’ is stately and sweet-toned with a lot of woodwind color. `Pavane’ is light and elegant with a sweet tune. `Waltz’ begins like dancing elves but gets obstreperous toward the end. `Entry of the Bohemians’ starts in lively fashion, changes mood often, and by the ending all is well. Much of this music resembles turn-of-the-last-century American park music or the British music hall. `Finale’ is the farthest removed from French Light Music. It is regal, dignified, warm, and sometimes sweet, with interesting harmonies and orchestration.

Henry VIII is represented by two suites. The one listed first in the booklet includes the Prelude, excerpts from Acts II and III, and two Tableaux from Act IV. The music of this suite is often wistful and English in tone. A dignified brass fanfare opens Act II, and the entracte music is impressive. Act III opens with a wistful British march with the tune in the strings. Later we hear the winds backed by a soft cover of brass, the brass alone, and then the full orchestra. This music is somber but more dignified than sad.

The second Henry VIII suite is from Act II and called “Fete populaire, Ballet-Divertissement”. This music also has British overtones as well as fine brass playing. The scene titles suggest what the music is like: `Gypsy Dance’,`Scottish Idyll’ (which includes bagpipe drones), and `Hop Festival’, which celebrates the hop-picking season with a warm melody rather than drunken rites.

Parysatis is a play by Jane Dieulafoy about the eponymous powerful and bloodthirsty Persian queen. The music presented here is titled `Aires de Ballet de Parysatis’ and is in four scenes, with a prelude and three exotic dances. Saint-Saens wrote the music for a festival in southern France near the Spanish border. The tone of the work may seem to be African, but it was intended to reflect Persia and probably does.

The excerpts from Samson and Delilah are the well known `Dances of the Priestesses of Dagon’ and the `Bacchanale’.

This disc is a fine introduction to three not-that-well-known Saint-Saens stage works. The performances are terrific—special praise for the first violins. Jun Markl conducts well enough to make me want to hear him take on some of Saint-Saens’s full operas. The sound is first class.

-- MusicWeb International

As one of the last representatives of the French musical romanticism of the 19th century, Camille Saint-Saëns liked ballet music as well as opera, and how successful he was with it is shown not by the partly bad reviews he received at the time, but by the brilliant recordings heard on this CD. Jun Märkl applies himself to the music, its momentum, its colors, and its dramatic content with unerring sensitivity. The Residentie Orkest plays at a very good level, demonstrating the enormous quality of Saint-Saëns’ compositional technique, which many musicologists have called perfect. At the same time, they accused the composer of having composed just technically and not really musically inspired. This CD gives the lie to such critics. The balance and spatiality of the sound recording are also excellent.

-- Pizzicato

Since the 1960s the Polish accordion concerto has enjoyed increasing popularity and in recent years no one has inspired more composers to write for the instrument than Klaudiusz Baran. The three most important Polish concertos are showcased in this album. Marcin Błażewicz’s concerto possesses a fascinating wealth of colors with spectacular passages and melodic arabesques cast in a richly communicative language. Mikołaj Majkusiak’s youthful Concerto Classico is a virtuosic synthesis of old and contemporary forms, while in 1973 Bronisław Przybylski wrote a swashbuckling concerto full of the folkloric influence of Polish dances.