Sigismond Thalberg was a Wunderkind and one of the most accomplished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century. Mendelssohn, Chopin and Clara Schumann were impressed by his technical skills. As legend goes there was a big rivalry between Thalberg and Liszt, though mostly fomented by the press. Thalberg was also a composer whose focus laid mainly on fantasies on operatic themes. In the 19th century this was a genre aiming to delight audiences with the familiarity of known melodies, the ingenuity of the transcriptions and their spectacular virtuosity. Thalberg wrote fantasies on quite a number of opera by Italian composers. These fantasies and other works are presented now in a comprehensive set by the Italian pianist Francesco Nicolosi. Nicolosi specializes in the interpretation of Thalberg's composition and the result is truly remarkable. With an exquisite technique, a wonderful sound and an impeccable legato these recordings have no rival. They came to be in the 1990s as individual releases and brought Nicolosi the Bellini Golden Prize. They are now being made available for the first time as collector's item.

The iciness and drama of his great film scores contrasts powerfully with the reserved and lyrical beauty of Bernard Herrmann’s chamber music. Souvenir de Voyage was his final concert work, each of the three movements having roots in a different work of art – A.E. Houseman’s On Wenlock Edge, Synge’s novel Riders to the Sea and the Venetian watercolours of J.M.W. Turner. This rhythmically sinuous clarinet quintet is both vivid and graceful. David Del Tredici’s Magyar Madness fuses ardency with playful wit, its long finale a vast and wild ‘Hungarian frenzy’.

REVIEW:

Written in 1967, Herrmann's Souvenirs de Voyage for clarinet quintet was his final concert composition, and it's a beauty. Clarinetist Michel Lethiec prefers tonal variety to uniformity, and he is not afraid to bring an occasional astringent edge to a curvaceous melody or extra heft to low sustained notes in support of string solos.

By way of stylistic contrast, David Del Tredici's brand of hyper-romanticism holds nothing back. Magyar Madness's first movement serves up heaps of counterpoint, accelerated repeat phrases, wild runs, and Richard Straussian harmonic tricks. Overall however, he deftly balances the work by providing enough moments of calm before each successive storm.

-- Gramophone

TAVENER Ex Maria virgine. Birthday Sleep. O Do Not Move. A Nativity. Marienhymne. O Thou Gentle Light. Angels • Timothy Brown, dir; Clare College Cambridge Ch • NAXOS 8.572168 (63:46 Text and Translation)


Two of the selections are first recordings: Ex Maria virgine , the major work at 38 minutes, and Marienhymne . The other works are not widely available, for Birthday Sleep was recorded by Stephen Layton (28:4), A Nativity by Matthew Greenall (not issued over here), and Angels by David Hill (23: 2). I cannot find the first recordings of the other two pieces.


Marienhymne is sung in German, while O Thou Gentle Light is sung in Greek (the ancient hymn Phos hiláron , which Dom Lucien David also set as a neo-Gregorian chant). The earliest work on the program, Angels , dates from 1985.


The major work is a setting of nine age-old texts in Latin or English separated by a refrain, “Ex Maria virgine,” the first movement being repeated at the end. One movement has a Greek refrain, the original of “hail, Mary,” but the first word is pronounced “kay-ray” rather than “ky-ruh.” The composer has a devoted following, so these accomplished performances will delight them.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Le Roi et le fermier made Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny famous in France and beyond. Set in an evocative and at times stormy Sherwood Forest it tells of a King's encounter with a humble farmer, blending comedy with serious issues. It's numerous innovations foreshadow Romanticism, making it a milestone in operatic history, with librettist Michel-Jean Sedaine admiring Monsigny's daring in taking "the risk of setting a new genre to music". "This production should be noted and remembered in the annals of Versailles, for the intelligence of it's staging, the beauty of it's sets, and it's high musical quality."

The acclaimed English Song Series celebrates the richness and diversity of British composers, performed by leading interpreters of the repertoire. Growing out of an ancient tradition that still echoes in the folk song arrangements of Benjamin Britten, the British art song draws its inspiration from the English poetic language, the nation’s unique land and seascapes, and the suffering and joy of human emotions. From the delightfully light-hearted songs of Liza Lehmann to the abundance of invention and imagery from today’s composers, this collection is a repository of the essence of British musical craftsmanship at its finest.

REVIEWS:

There is so much is here that is central to the genre, and it is all almost uniformly well done. In addition, there is enough here that is less well-known, assuming many collectors will have the main works of, say, Butterworth, Finzi, Vaughan Williams, and others, that even that collector will grow their knowledge and pleasure through acquiring this collection. It is to be hoped that this issue does not signal an end to Naxos’s recordings of this repertoire. There are many other composers and songs that could be added to its catalog. Meanwhile we have this superb anthology of many of the finest English songs from the late Victorians to the present day.

-- MusicWeb International

This superlative set's roster is impressive, with turns from Felicity Lott, Thomas Allen, Susan Bickley, Gerald Finley and even Judi Dench.

– BBC Music Magazine

This set will surely provide many hours of listening pleasure.

-- Gramophone

This is a hugely ambitious and successful project that deserves many hours of attention and appreciation. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

– Opera Now

Set in a time of ancient Rome' persecution of the Christians, Handel' late masterpiece Theodora tells of the tragic martyrdom of the heroine and her lover Didymus.

Domenico Cimarosa was the most famous and popular Italian opera composer of the second half of the 18th Century. In the course of a brilliantly successful career he composed more than 65 operas as well as a significant number of other works. Nothing is known about the origins of the keyboard sonatas although from their style and structure they appear to date from relatively early in his career. These attractive, small-scale works were probably intended for study purposes or for domestic performance. The crystalline brilliance of many of the fast outer movements is very appealing and the slow movements, although somewhat conservative in style, often possess a surprising expressive depth. Of the first volume (8.570718) ClassicsToday wrote: ‘Sangiorgio’s clean, even-handed, excellently engineered performances are ideal.’

Nikos Skalkottas was the foremost Greek composer of the 20th century, and his 36GreekDancesisundoubtedly the most popular work of Greek art music today and a monument to the nation’s rich cultural heritage. The Sea describes the experiences of a trawler on waters both calm and stormy, while the Suite No. 1 is a cornerstone of Skalkottas’ symphonic output that balances the worlds of atonality and neoclassicism. The piece was amongst manuscripts Skalkottas left behind in Berlin in1933, and he later reconstructed it from memory. The first volume in this series from the Athens State Orchestra (8.574154) was considered ‘a revelation’ by ClassicsToday.com.

Winner of a 2020 GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition

Champions of new American music, the Nashville Symphony and its music director Giancarlo Guerrero had premiered numerous works and received 13 GRAMMY Awards including two for Best Orchestral Performance. Among their award-winning recordings include works by Michael Daugherty (Metropolis Symphony on 8.559635; Tales of Hemingway on 8.559798), Stephen Paulus (Three Places of Enlightenment on 8.559740), and Jennifer Higdon (All Things Majestic and Viola Concerto on 8.559823).

Rouse's Concerto for Orchestra is a ‘hyper-concerto’ that gives each player a chance to shine, while the mournful intimacy and passion of Supplica unfolds somewhat like the slow movement of a Bruckner or Mahler symphony. Rouse’s Fifth Symphony fondly recalls Beethoven’s mighty Fifth but blurs the lines between tradition and modernity, transporting the listener from turbulence to serenity. It was described as “brilliant, exciting and at times hauntingly beautiful” in The Dallas Morning News.

REVIEW:

This latest issue of music by the late Christopher Rouse contains some really splendid music. Both the Fifth Symphony and the Concerto for Orchestra exploit Rouse’s ability to juxtapose music of supercharged turbulence and rhythmic bite with passages of deeply expressive lyricism. Both take the form of a single, continuous movement some thirty minutes long, but the internal structures are quite different. The symphony features two quick outer movements enfolding a mix of adagio and scherzo, while the concerto starts like a rondo with alternating fast and slow sections, before a genuine slow movement gradually gives way to a brilliant conclusion. Rouse’s music is always so effectively scored that you might call all of it “concerto for orchestra,” and both pieces are full of arresting ideas, both melodic and gestural.

Supplica is relatively brief (twelve minutes) slow movement that sounds exactly like its title suggests: supplication, prayer, or entreaty. Its scoring is quite restrained: strings harp and brass, but Rouse’s imaginative handling of sonority is everywhere in evidence, proving conclusively that he was much more than a master of splashy instrumental effects (though he was that too). It’s a lovely, passionate piece whose lyricism never sounds trite or facile. All three works here receive excellent performances by the Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero, and they are very well engineered. Rouse was an extraordinary composer whose career ended too suddenly (he died of renal cancer in 2019, and was only 70), but his work surely deserves to endure. This release does him proud.

-- ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Ian Krouse has been acclaimed by Gramophone as “one of the most communicative and intriguing” of today’s composers, his style drawing on historical and traditional influences as well as being innovative and modern. With references to Beethoven and Schubert, metaphors of darkness and light are conveyed with powerful emotion in Nocturnes, which sets four texts by well-known Armenian poets to form an odyssey through the mind of a man at mid-life. With profound sadness at its heart, Invocation explores the intangibility of love, contrasting atonality and tonality to express emotional outpourings that ultimately remain ephemeral and elusive. Both of these song-cycles are performed by the singers for which they were composed. Soprano Jessica Rivera has collaborated with many of today’s most noted composers. She appeared in the world premiere recording of John Harbison’s Requiem (8.559841), in which Gramophone wrote: ‘Among the soloists, Jessica Rivera...stand out.’ Vladimir Chernov has sung over 40 leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala, Teatro Colón, Paris Opéra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera and Vienna State Opera, under conductors including Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. He previously appeared on the Naxos recording of Ian Krouse’s Armenian Requiem.

Classical Music

William Bolcom, named '2007 Composer of the Year' by Musical America, has written in many genres. His Gospel Preludes, based on hymns, are amongst his most fascinating and compulsive works. Bold, brilliant, sometimes bizarre, but always hugely enjoyable, the Preludes vary widely, sometimes adorned by jazzy chords and rich swing, sometimes exuding tour-de-force brilliance or - when the music is quiet and reflective - possessed of a mesmeric reassurance. The GRAMMY Award winning Naxos recording of Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience is available on 8.559216-18.

Award-winning composer and pianist Carter Pann is a genuine “musician’s musician”, writing for and working with internationally acclaimed orchestras and ensembles. Composed especially for Joel Hastings, The Piano’s 12 Sides is a remarkable cycle that takes us through song-like introspection, fearless virtuosity, timeless impressions of cosmic realms and dances both ebullient and macabre. The Bills owes its ragtime influence to Scott Joplin while acknowledging two great exponents of the genre. The composer describes The Cheese Grater as “an adrenaline driven, mean two-step”. Evocative of a smoky jazz club, Your Touch is the laid-back solo movement from Carter Pann’s GRAMMY®-nominated Piano Concerto (Naxos 8.559043).

Between 1841 and 1843 Schumann wrote some of his greatest chamber works, among them the Piano Quartet and the Piano Quintet, both in E flat major. Written in an astonishing five-day period, the Quintet displays both the heroic and the lyric impulses in his music, boldness contrasting with songful tenderness, and march themes with lyricism. The Piano Quartet also exudes such qualities, not least in the ravishing slow movement, and the masterful breadth of Schumann's expression. The four Meñrchenerzahlungen are happy, energetic pieces. Winning high praise from the American press, pianist Xiayin Wang has toured with the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in St Petersburg itself, as well as in the United States. Founded in Chicago in 1946, and based at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1963, the Fine Arts Quartet is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for over half a century.

This album received the 2008 Grammy Award for "Best Chamber Music Performance."

The three cello concertos on this disc illustrate that fertile period in the second half of the 18th century when features of the Baroque were gradually replaced by the so-called galant style. Foremost amongst the composers inaugurating this change was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach chose Concerto in A major is a perfect example of the passionate and dramatic range that marked him out as a pivotal figure of his time. Haydn’s Concerto in C major modulates between older and newer styles, whereas his Concerto in D major is a Classical masterpiece, and a worthy companion to his greatest symphonies. For this recording Brantelid plays on an Emil Hjort, Copenhagen 1887 with gut strings.

When Luc Beauséjour recorded Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier [8.557625–26] he was hailed by International Piano for ‘his instinct for discovering exactly the right tempo; his playing is so natural’. He turns now to Book II of the Preludes and Fugues in all twenty-four keys, assembled for publication in 1742. A number of the pieces survive in earlier versions from previous decades, which Bach revised or transposed. Together with Book I, this constitutes one of the pinnacles of Western music.

Ives Lincoln the great commoner, gould Lincoln legend, harris abraham Lincoln walks at midnight, bacon ford's theatre, copland Lincoln portrait, McKay to a liberator, turok variations on an American song: aspects of Lincoln and liberty, persichetti a Lincoln address.

John Ireland was an exceptional composer for the piano, as was his contemporary York Bowen. He may not have been a "major" composer in a conventional sense, but his work deserves to be better known, especially outside of England. His Piano Concerto is a masterpiece. Sure, the influence of Prokofiev is obvious, but Ireland embraces it and makes it his own. Written in 1930, it offers a combination of romantic glamor, saucy wit, and lyrical expressiveness that's quite personal and memorable. John Lenehan plays it as well as anybody has to date, with a very winning combination of fluidity in passagework and an easy rhythmic precision in the finale that sounds just right.

Legend, a tone poem for piano and orchestra, lives up to its name. It's a brooding, dramatic work that, like so many short pieces for piano and orchestra, never will be heard in concert because of its brevity. Why doesn't some pianist put together a program of tone poems for piano and orchestra and turn them into a "mini" concerto? Anyway, what makes this program so attractive is the inclusion of the solo piano works. Lenehan already has produced several fine discs of Ireland's piano music, and there's no question that he understands the idiom. The pieces on offer here really show Ireland's range, from the passionate First Rhapsody to the poetic Sea Idyll and colorful Three Dances. Excellent sonics too.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The repertoire of Finnish music for violin and orchestra is full of hidden gems, with a substantial amount of works remaining unperformed and unpublished. The music on this recording represents a style of light classical music that was popular from the 1930s to the 1960s but remains largely forgotten today. All of the composers represented here created highly lyrical and charming works, including Uuno Klami who, after Sibelius, is considered one of the most important composers in the history of Finnish music. Linda Hedlund graduated from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, in 2002 and went on to complete her doctorate in violin performance at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, in 2010. Since 2019 she has specialized in Baroque violin performance at Novia University of Applied Sciences in Finland. Performing internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, Hedlund has appeared as a soloist with La Tempesta Orchestra and in ensemble alongside the principal players of the Vienna Philharmonic and pianist Oliver Kern, as well as with numerous other orchestras and chamber groups worldwide.

Crawford Seeger's life reflects both the positive and the negative charges of a woman's life in music. There were burdens of raising a large family; the hovering presence of her husband, the composer Charles Seeger; the Depression; social activism (one of the song settings concerns the Sacco-Vanzetti case); and with it all, a tough-minded modernism and a muscular personality. All the pieces on this CD derive from the years 1924 to 1932, before marriage and its concerns more or less silenced Ms. Seeger's work until the 1950's. (She died in 1953.)
The early piano preludes (here Nos. 1 and 9) bear the fluidity and sensuousness of Scriabin, as Cheryl Seltzer's booklet note suggests. Pieces like the Suite for Five Wind Instruments have an assertive tang and an increasing distance from tonality that put them closer to the industrial-strength harmonic revolutions of the times. To this way of thinking also belongs the Violin Sonata, an original and confident work.
Exercises in spartan combinations include two Diaphonic Suites," for solo flute and for bassoon and cello. The three Carl Sandburg songs ride on a complex and dense instrumental accompaniment."
- Bernard Holland, NEW YORK TIMES

This album was awarded the 2008 Grammy Awards for "Best Classical Album" and "Best Orchestral Performance."
All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

This collection of early music for the Advent season provides a glimpse into the days of anticipation and hope leading up to Christmas during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Pierre de La Rue spent his professional life serving some of the most influential rulers of that time, and the glorious polyphony of his Missa Conceptio tua celebrates the Immaculate Conception in a manner appropriate to the extravagant liturgy of the Habsburg-Burgundian court. The seven O Antiphons focus on the theme of Jesus’s imminent arrival, while the concluding English carols centre on the Virgin Mary’s birth of the Christ child. Schola Antiqua of Chicago is a professional vocal ensemble dedicated exclusively to the performance of music from before the year 1600. An ensemble that executes the pre-modern repertory with “sensitivity and style” (Early Music America), Schola Antiqua was founded in 2000 under the artistic leadership of Calvin M. Bower (University of Notre Dame). The ensemble has recorded three albums on the Discantus label (including first recordings of music by Léonin, Du Fay, Guerrero, and Lassus).

Robert Craft leads a thrilling performance of Oedipus Rex--incisive, swift, and as mercilessly inevitable as fate itself. From the opening bars, where those spine-chilling runs in the trumpet penetrate the orchestral tutti like screams of horror, you can tell that Craft has every detail of this work (his second recording) well in hand, and so for that matter does the Philharmonia. Anyone who believes that Craft is a dull conductor should listen to this urgent account--from the great choruses (first announcing Jocasta's entrance, with particularly clear timpani and piano ostinatos, and later her death), to the Verdian energy he brings to the Oedipus/Jocasta duet in Act 2. It would have been even better if Craft had followed Stravinsky's lead in his own early-1960s recording: repeat the "Gloria" chorus with the opening Act 2 narration in the middle. It's not a major point, and strictly speaking it's not what's in the score; but it's such marvelous music, and hearing it twice simply doubles the pleasure.


As for the singers, they do well--for the most part. After some initial unsteadiness Martyn Hill settles down to close Act 1 most affectingly, and his singing in Act 2 is very good. Jennifer Lane's Jocasta sounds younger than, say, Jessye Norman's, and her lighter touch gets around the notes better than many a bigger, heavier voice. As Creon, David Wilson-Johnson offers disappointingly approximate pitch in his big Act 1 aria, but he does much better in the slower-moving proclamations of the Messenger. The smaller roles come off without any problems, and the Simon Joly Male Chorus sings more confidently than it did in Craft's Symphony of Psalms. Speaker Edward Fox sounds like a bored Oxford don, but at least he admirably refrains from the annoying histrionics that some bring to the part (particularly in its French-language version). And Craft naturally makes sure that as Stravinsky wanted, Fox pronounces the protagonist's name "Eedipus" as opposed to the chorus' "Oydipus".


Craft's Les Noces--he would with good reason prefer the Russian title "Svadebka"--is simply spectacular. Not only does it feature both superb playing by the four pianos and percussion and marvelous singing by soprano Alison Wells and Martyn Hill, but it's clear that Craft has invested a great deal of care and attention in getting clear articulation of the Russian text. This is critical because, as Craft explains in his notes, the music flows naturally from the speech-rhythms of the words. So many performances of this marvelous piece sound like garbled chanting in an unrecognizable tongue. Craft ensures that for once we really hear the Russian, and just as significantly he balances his forces perfectly so that singers and instrumentalists play off each other with an astonishing degree of rhythmic tension. The resulting explosion of color and energy (you can hear this at any point, but the transition from the third to the fourth scene offers an excellent example) has few if any equals in other performances--including Craft's earlier one on Music Masters. Ideally clear and focused sound completes this very desirable package, given new life thanks to Naxos (these performances previously appeared, differently coupled, on Koch). [2/5/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Among Schubert’s compositions are rare and overlooked works for solo piano that reflect staging posts of his short compositional life. As a boy he had studied with Salieri who almost certainly encouraged him to explore contrapuntal techniques in 1812 – the fugues and fugal expositions he wrote are testament to his secure grounding in the form. Schubert’s admiration for Mozart is clear in the Fantasy in C minor, while the substantial Two Scherzi, D. 593 show early mastery. Also included is the Allegro in E major, Schubert’s first, unfinished attempt at a piano sonata. Pianist Wojciech Waleczek recorded Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques etreligieuses, Vol. 53 of the Complete Piano Music series on 8.573773.Gramophone wrote: ‘He is sufficiently technically equipped to allow his imagination full flight. He has a strong dramatic instinct and brings a sense of proportion when Liszt grows discursive. Perhaps most importantly, Waleczek conveys an aura of rapture to this music.’

STRAVINSKY Violin Concerto. 1 Zvezdolikiy. 2 Symphonies of Wind Instruments. 3 Le sacre du printemps (1911-1913; 1947/1967) 4 • Robert Craft, cond; Jennifer Frautschi (vn); 1 Gregg Smith Singers; 2 O of St. Luke’s; 2 20th Century Classics Ens; 3 Philharmonia O • NAXOS 8.557508 (67:42)


The first thing that strikes one about this disc is the marvelous sound of the orchestra; Craft achieves a balance of chamber and orchestral character that fits the Violin Concerto perfectly. Of course the musicians and engineering team deserve credit, too, but it is Craft’s vision, understanding, and ability to get exactly what he wants that make the difference. The composer’s 1960 stereo recording with Isaac Stern is rhythmically square (and Stern’s energetic playing is sabotaged by ugly recorded sound), whereas Craft swings nicely. Stravinsky’s 1930s performance with Samuel Dushkin is closer to this one. If I seem to be favoring Craft over Stravinsky as an interpreter and conductor of the latter’s music, so be it. Now in his eighties, Craft is surpassing most of his former efforts, and many of these Naxos recordings stand as the finest of all. I am reminded of the truism that Schoenberg’s works suffered from being so badly played for half a century: well, so did many of Stravinsky’s, beginning with the works immediately following the big three ballets. Craft’s recent Les noces , for example, is superior to any earlier recording.


Getting back to the Violin Concerto, Frautschi is a superb young violinist who has specialized in 20th- and 21st-century music. She plays the bright yet silky “ex-Cadiz” Stradivarius, which stands out from the ensemble or fits right in, as required. Whether Frautschi or Craft is driving this performance doesn’t matter; the results are wonderful: savory, clean, punchy, and yet light. I am thoroughly beguiled by Itzhak Perlman’s beautiful playing of this Concerto on DG, and by the Boston Symphony’s eloquent accompaniment, but this performance does the piece more justice.


Zvezdolikiy is better known by its French title, Le roi des étoiles (“King of the Stars”), but Craft translates it as “The Star-Faced One.” I think I’ve encountered this recording before, but I can’t place it—this series petered out on two other labels (MusicMasters, Koch International) before Naxos came to its rescue. No matter: this is a fine reading by excellent forces, very well recorded. The booklet offers an English text. Craft plays the original score of Symphonies of Wind Instruments (the composer led the simplified 1947 version in Sony’s “The Recorded Legacy”) and makes it sound surprisingly mellow, at one point almost jolly.


Stravinsky was always touching up his music, every time he performed anything. My Boosey & Hawkes score of Le sacre says “Revised 1947, Re-engraved edition 1967,” which I think means only that this 1990s publication duplicates a 1967 one. Of course a Stravinsky- or Craft-led performance needn’t be limited by a published score. Oh well, thought I, Craft’s always brilliant, always fascinating program notes will explain all. But Craft writes only a “chronicle” of the composition and early performances, never getting past April 6, 1914. Whatever “1911–1913; 1947/1967” means, this performance sounds as if most of the awkward moments have been cleaned up, but the baby has been thrown out with the bath water. The orchestral playing is less vibrant than that of the London Symphony in Craft’s 1995 Koch recording, which later appeared on Naxos ( Fanfare 29:3). A too-warm recording doesn’t help; timpani and bass drums are a bit distant and muffled, which will never do in this music. In the final Sacrificial Dance, the playing becomes a bit sloppy. I note that this performance lasts 33:41, the earlier one 31:58; the difference is certainly noticeable. Both performances were recorded at Abbey Road Studio 1, this one in 2006. Perhaps the revised score explains why modern performances seldom thrill the way early ones did (and still do), in particular Salonen’s recent Los Angeles Philharmonic SACD spectacular being less satisfying than Stravinsky’s cramped, monaural 1940 recording with the New York Philharmonic.


At Naxos prices, you can afford to buy this CD just for the Concerto.


FANFARE: James H. North

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations is a contrapuntal tour de force, and one of the pinnacles in the history of the variation genre. Composed ‘to refresh the spirits of music-lovers’, it is a constantly fascinating and deeply enriching evocation of an entire musical universe. This arrangement with two ten-string guitars is a transcription of the original text including later corrections and additional musical indications made by the composer. The additional bass strings of these instruments provide an entire lower octave, giving access to the full range of musical timbres in this eternal masterpiece. Angela Kleger and Dimitar Ivanov founded Duo Synaphé in 2020 to present and record new repertoire for two ten-string guitars. These works were originally written for symphony orchestra, solo piano and other instruments. Having an extra four bass strings, the ten-string guitar offers the striking resonances of an extra octave below the normal guitar. This brings wider flexibility to voicing in arrangements, and retains the extended bass range of piano, harpsichord or other lower range instruments. The nature of these guitars takes classical masterpieces into unknown dimensions of musical expression and sound colors.

Recognised as rising stars of their generation, pianist Ashley Wass and the Tippett Quartet join forces to present two contrasting yet equally engaging British piano quintets. Conceived on a grand, expansive scale and influenced by Celtic music, with all manner of harmonic and instrumental colours exploited to super effect, Arnold Bax’s Quintet is arguably a precursor of his later symphonies. Frank Bridge’s early work (1904–5, revised 1912) combines his admiration for the music of Fauré with the highly integrated ‘fantasy’ techniques he honed when composing music for the famous Cobbett Prize.

A student of Rimsky-Korsakov and the teacher of Rachmaninov and Scriabin, Anton Arensky holds a distinguished place in the history of Russian music as both an academic and a composer. For his 1900 ballet Egyptian Nights, based on Pushkin, he chose an exotic theme – the dangerous love of the handsome Amoun for Queen Cleopatra – and sought authentic melodic material in scholarly texts. With his gift for orchestration and color, Arensky fashioned a sensuous and vivid score, featuring a brilliantly conceived series of dances. This was a world premiere recording on its initial release on Marco Polo 8.225028, recorded in1996. Gramophone wrote: ‘The playing is suitably colorful, the recording responsive to that’, as did Fanfare: ‘The Moscow Symphony Orchestra clearly revels in this repertoire, and it plays with spirit and enjoyment.’

REVIEW:

The present disc is one of many recordings originally on Marco Polo that have been re-released on Naxos. Acoustically, Egyptian Nights could use an up-to-date recording, but one cannot cavil about Dmitri Yablonsky’s powerful performance, which derives the maximum excitement from the score. The Moscow Symphony Orchestra plays equally well and the whole production is a feast for any fan of Russian music of the time.

– MusicWeb International

Gioachino Rossini’s remarkable life and career is well known: the opera composer who, with the world at his feet, appeared to retire at the age of 37. He had around 17 years of huge success with operas such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and after completing his last opera Guillaume Tell, he had another 39 years of ‘silence’. The second period of his life was in fact anything but silent, and Rossini would later turn up with pieces such as the Stabat Mater and the wonderful Petit messe solennelle.

More private were the creations which became collected as the Péchés de vieillesse or ‘Sins of Old Age’, which are contained in fourteen volumes. Some of these are for voice and piano, others, such as volume IX, include pieces with strings, harmonium and horn, the solo piano works from which appear at the end of this programme. Album de Chaumière or ‘The Cottage Album’ is the no doubt ironically twee title given to volume VII, the first of the albums for solo piano. This consists of 12 pieces ranging from titles such as Petite polka chinoise to works of a grander scale such as Une pensée à Florence. Rossini’s attitude with these works is frequently ironic and often deceptive. Confronted with a title such as Prélude inoffensif, one might expect something other than the extended lyrical aria which in fact appears. The generally light character of many of the pieces is interspersed with more searching, funereal atmospheres such as that in Un profound sommeil, and Un cauchemar – literally ‘A Nightmare’. In these pieces we are not so very far removed from the symbolic cries of the owl in Leoš Janá?ek’s ‘On a Overgrown Path.’ On the complete opposite there are parody-like pieces such as the bombastic Marche which closes Vol. VII.

Alessandro Marangoni is a young pianist and a rising star whose reputation will in no way be harmed with these recordings. Whatever one thinks of these ‘Sins of Old Age’ they are certainly a fascinatingly enigmatic and eclectic mixture of Rossini in all moods. Fans of the Petit messe solenelle must certainly investigate these pieces, as the thick piano chords and bouncy bass lines which crop up in that work are certainly not absent here. Fans of Rossini’s operas are also kept well fed with rich melodic invention, if performed instrumentally rather than vocally. This Naxos recording is very good, with a rich, deep piano sound, if captured in a rather dry and tubby acoustic. The impression is one of a front room soirée rather than a concert hall performance, which isn’t such a bad thing for these pieces. I do however feel that a slightly more sympathetic space might have helped Alessandro Marangoni when trying to give a more legato feel, or in varying the colour and mood. The pieces come across a little on the lumpy side sometimes, and the contrast between some of the works is less startling than might otherwise have been the case.

This new series will have to compete with the recordings by Stefan Irmer on MDG, and although there is no information on the instrument used in the Naxos recording – other than that it is a Steinway & Sons from the Angelo Fabbrini collection, it gives the impression of being an older instrument, a quality it would then share with the MDG recordings. The bass has a pleasant rounded quality, and the usual Steinway brightness only really shines through in the upper registers at higher volume. Any reservations I may have can be accounted for as a matter of personal taste, so nothing I say should stop anyone from dropping into their local retailer and bagging this remarkable release forthwith. This is going to turn into another of Naxos’s eminently collectable sets, and on this showing will prove to be worth it at almost any price.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International