The accomplished Duo Ingolfsson-Stoupel is dedicated to the performance of rarities by the exiled composers Karol Rathaus, Heinz Tiessen and Paul Arma. Their works, written between 1925 and 1949, reflect the Zeitgeist of Expressionism and the incidents of World War II. The sonatas by Tiessen and Arma are recorded here for the first time. Engaging and imaginative programming is a hallmark of the Duo Ingolfsson-Stoupel. Individually, Judith Ingolfsson and Vladimir Stoupel are seasoned soloists who have won acclaim for their performances across the globe. Together they create connections, tell untold stories, and take audiences on a journey to the heart of chamber music. Their performance of the Sonata for violin and piano by Paul Arma at the Konzerthaus Berlin was hailed as the “sensation of the evening” by Deutschlandfunk “there was an intensity in the performance that no one in the audience could escape.”

Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945) was one of those composers famous for a single work, the remainder of their oeuvre being practically unknown. His opera Iris is based on the libretto by Luigi Illica, who also wrote the libretti for Puccini operas such as La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. It was Illica who gave birth to the idea of an opera about Japan. Exotic subjects, i.e. those set in distant lands, were in vogue throughout Europe, and the Far East in particular was very present at the time. It was Mascagni’s express wish to write ‘original’ music to this specific material, something hitherto unheard-of. This recording with the choir and orchestra of the Berliner Operngruppe under Felix Krieger is a live recording of the Berlin premiere of the original version from the Konzerthaus Berlin. The Berliner Operngruppe celebrated its 10th anniversary.

This new release features the seventh symphony of composer Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012). Evident in this composition is Henze's flirtation with the classical-romantic tradition. He once said of this piece, "Number 7 of my orchestral pieces is the one that comes closest to the model of the classical symphony." The Seventh Symphony is joined on this release by two of Henze's smaller works, L'heure bleue, and 7 Boleros.

A work caught the attention of musicians during the late 1990s - a Christmas Oratorio by Graun. The only known copy of it was being housed in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. But it has so far been impossible to determine either the name of the manuscript copyist or an exact dating of the work and copy. There are many indications that this is a work from the composer's phase prior to his years in Berlin. After The Death of Jesus, Thomas Gropper and his Arcis Vocalists now proudly present the second oratorio of Graun as a recorded production for OehmsClassics. Since their foundation by their chorus director Thomas Gropper in 2005, the Arcis-Vocalists have taken a firm place among the well-known semi-professional choirs of the city in the high-class and diverse Munich music scene due to their sound quality and the special program design. The project choir consists of about 80 committed singers, who mostly have a sound vocal education. Depending on the work it is flexibly occupied and can count between 30 and 80 members.

The world premiere of this operetta conducted by Robert Stolz at the Theater an der Wien in 1909 was an unbelievable success and was then performed 300 times in a row at that same theatre. These are numbers such as we only hear of today in connection with such musicals as Mamma Mia. Melodies such as Lieber Freund, man greift nicht nach den Sternen and Bist Du's, lachendes Gluck can certainly explain their success. This recording also offers a pair of operatic stars with Camilla Nylund and Daniel Behle.

OehmsClassics presents a rarely performed work by the Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Gomes in co-production with NDR Kultur and the Braunschweig State Theatre. Gomes’ music is influenced by Brazil, but its atmosphere is reminiscent of Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” in many respects, captivating listeners at the start with extraordinarily effective pieces. This production is the recording of the German premiere at the Braunschweig State Theatre in January 2010.

On this CD, the Swiss guitarist Roland Müller has brought together works for the guitar that are particularly popular and frequently requested in concert. The origins of the composers represented here illustrates the global relevance of the guitar, which is equally significant in the works of composers in Europe as it is in Latin America and Asia.

Any list of the most famous composers for the guitar would certainly include the Cuban Leo Brouwer, whose melancholy “Un dia di noviembre” can be heard here. Other sounds from the South American continent come from Jorge Gomez Crespo and Adrian Patiño.

Carlo Domenico, Enrique Granados, Fernando Sor and Roland Dyens represent the musical tradition of old Europe. The piece “Sakura” by Yuquijiro Yocoh introduces the colors of Japan to this varied program. Roland Mueller studied with Jury Clormann in Winterthur, Karl Scheit in Vienna and Sonja Prunnbauer in Freiburg. He performs concerts in many countries in Europe and in North America and gives master classes in the USA and Europe.

'From the New World' is the subtitle of Dvorak's famous Symphony No. 9, implying a departure into a new musical world and representing a bridge between the European and American music traditions and their influences. Dvorak's music shares the programme with works by Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland. These new organ transcriptions are performed by Hansjörg Albrecht on the Organ system (large organ, concert organ, echo organ) of the main church St. Michaelis in Hamburg. Hansjörg Albrecht is – besides Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Martin Haselböck and Wayne Marshall – one of the few artists who are regularly present internationally both as conductor and concert organist. He is considered a musical innovator and lateral thinker without fear of contact. As a conductor, he consistently follows his own paths – between archive and new creation and with an extensive repertoire from Bach to Messiaen – and with his organ transcriptions he has established himself as a specialist among the virtuosos of his instrument.

REVIEW:

Pride of place here are the two arguably greatest works written by a European on American soil and an American on European soil. However, these are preceded by two remarkable transcriptions. First comes a boisterous version of Dvorák’s Carnival overture, made by another European emigrant to America, Edwin Lemare, which shows off Albrecht’s virtuosity. Then comes John Fesperman’s transcription of Copland’s Passacaglia, which gives us a fabulous Cook’s tour of many of the organ’s weirder and more wonderful sounds.

Barber’s Adagio for Strings works very well in this transcription by William Strickland; and while the bulk of the sound is, naturally enough, created by the string tone, Albrecht’s judicious employment of flutes gives it a comfortable, idiomatic feel. My only reservation is the bulky pedal stop which anchors it rather too solidly.

The transcription of Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony is by Zsigmond Szathmáry, and makes considerable demands on both the organ and the player. The generous acoustic of St Michael’s Church, Hamburg, possibly covers a multitude of sins, and perhaps some intricate detail gets lost in this highly atmospheric recording, but Albrecht has a powerful vision for the work and is superb in recreating what are distinctly orchestral textures. He is particularly impressive in conveying the dancelike vigour of the final movement. Above all, he moves across the mindboggling specification of this organ (by my reckoning, there are some 150 stops to play with) with the fluidity of the River Elbe.

-- Gramophone

William Byrd’s oeuvre stands out above all by virtue of the diversity of its genres and structural principles. This is clear particularly in his exceptional keyboard music. The influence Byrd exerted on the continental development of clavier music is also remarkable. With Hornpipe, this program of keyboard works from Friederike Chylek finally ends, the key element of which is William Byrd’s oeuvre. From Byrd to Byrd! Friederike Chylek was born in Starnberg near Munich. She studied harpsichord at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. Her concert work has taken her to several countries in Europe and she has performed at festivals and recital series such as The Musical Summer in Loisachtal and ‘Les Gouts Reunis’ in Lausanne. Her main interest lies in English keyboard music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The wanderer motif is a central theme in German 19th-century romanticism. In this selection of songs, compiled by Rafael Fingerlos, the wanderer goes through various stages: From the desire to move into the wide world, full of curiosity and enthusiasm, to achieve freedom by leaving home. Foreign countries and foreign languages appear to the hiker on his journey. At some point the feeling of nostalgia for home and the desire to return mingle. Which home is the hiker looking for? An unfinished journey ends in peace, between strangers and home. Rafael Fingerlos is accompanied by pianist Sascha El Mouissi.

The award-winning French pianist Pascal Rogé presents a program of music by Gershwin and Ravel in a recording with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bertrand de Billy. Rogé’s affinity for the French style and empathy with jazz make him particularly suited to this repertoire. His recordings of French piano music have received Gramophone, Grand Prix du Disque and Edison awards. In addition to the classical-romantic repertoire of the Viennese and German schools, 20th-century French music is also one of his specialties. “An intelligent, richly enjoyable performance of the ravel Concerto.” (BBC Music Magazine) “Roge’s playing of Ravel’s Left-Hand concerto is masterly. He has complete technical regard for the work; more importantly, he appreciates the range of the music, its darkness, menace, anger, other-worldly escape, introspection and defiance.” (International Piano Magazine)

REVIEW:

The team of Pascal Rogé and Bertrand de Billy, with some outstanding playing from the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, bring much to this music. The pianist makes easy work of Ravel’s tremendously difficult writing and clarifies a number of problematic textures in the Gershwin.

-- Fanfare

DEBUSSY Images. CHOPIN Preludes • Paris Tsenikoglou (pn) • OEHMS 864 (71:07)


The beautifully poetic playing of this young Greek pianist presents a dilemma. Will an artist with the requisite temperament to produce cool, carefully shaded Debussy necessarily be successful with Chopin? Of course, there are plenty examples of famous pianists who played both composers with strength and individual character, including Arrau, Michelangeli, Aimard, Richter, Uchida, and many others. In each case, these artists were able to find specific ways to interpret the vision of the different composers. In the case of Tsenikoglou, we get instead Chopin played in the manner of Debussy. If this does not sound like a jarring proposition to you, you will probably enjoy this wonderfully performed and well recorded debut. These Images are impeccable, without at all sounding precious. Tsenikoglou finds a measured pace, builds his phrases with great precision, and pulls out a lovely range of pastel coloring from his instrument.


If you apply these same characteristics to Chopin, you get, to my ears, a pretty sound that misses the dramatic intent of the composer. That measured pace that I admire in Debussy should pulse with rubato in Chopin. That precise phrasing should be complemented by flashes of fire. Chopin’s score is filled with Fortissimo markings, but I wouldn’t say that Tsenikoglou actually observes them. He certainly seems to love the music, but I am not sure that he completely understands it. Chopin recordings are so ubiquitous that they are easy to take for granted, but truly great performances are rare. The music is difficult well beyond the notes (which can often be exceedingly difficult indeed), but there is a spirit, even a quirkiness that is much harder to arrive at. This version of the Preludes does not venture beneath the surface. Go to Argerich in this music for that kind of depth.


Tsenikoglou is an extremely talented musician, and I would certainly not write him off because of my rather fussy view of his Chopin. I can even imagine those for whom the composer is too melodramatic enjoying this understatement. Oehms, as usual, provides a lovely package and excellent sound.


FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

‘Arguably one of the strongest recordings in the whole Mörbisch operetta series, this is strongly recommended, and not just to die-hard operetta fans.’ (Fanfare on Der Graf von Luxemburg). This Operetta Edition presents popular works by Franz Lehár that were recorded at the Mörbisch Festival and feature the Mörbisch Festival Choir and Orchestra under the direction of Rudolf Bibl and Wolfdieter Maurer (Der Zarewitsch). The edition comprises Das Land des Lächelns, Giuditta, Die lustige Witwe, Der Graf von Luxemburg and Der Zarewitsch.

REVIEW:

At the helm of the Mörbisch Festival Orchestra is Austrian conductor and pianist Rudolf Bibl (1929-2017), except for Der Zarewitsch under Wolfdieter Maurer. The cast of artists in each of these delightful operettas is far too extensive to identify individually but be assured, each production is echt Lehár and, of course, unmistakably Viennese. The librettos are sung in German.

-- The Whole Note (CA)

DVORÁK Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” SUK Pohádka, op. 16 • Bertrand de Billy, cond; Vienna RSO • OEHMS 745 (72:09)

There seems to be a never-ending river of recordings of Antonin Dvorák’s Symphony “From the New World.” This particular stream flows down the Danube from Vienna to upset my notion that I’d heard all that might be done with a work deservedly known as this composer’s masterpiece. I have accumulated more than a few recordings of it: LPs by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC SO and Rafael Kubelík and the VP; CDs by Alexander Titov and St. Petersburg’s O “New Philharmony,” Pavel Urbanek and the PFO, and Marin Alsop and the BSO. These recordings span over a half-century, exposing the diligent listener to shifts in orchestral styles and gradual improvement in recording technique. The most recent, by the Vienna RSO under Bertrand de Billy, is either the culmination of these trends and developments, or merely the most recent (an Oblomovian paradox, depending on how you look at it). De Billy’s reading has its own fascinations.

For some time I had come to view Urbanek and the PFO’s traditional reading my fave, until Alsop’s version, also in the grand tradition, with the BSO took the top spot on my list. This reranking was mostly owing to improvements in recording sophistication. Now, along comes Billy—pronounced Bee-Yee, as in Puilly (or Pwee-Yee) Fuissé—who is willing to take some unorthodox risks in his interpretation, and I find myself weakening. Fickle is the heart of the record reviewer (Ovid).

Surfing quotables in my volume of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music , I came upon a doozie. “Dvorák’s music is a particularly happy result of the major influences on his art: Wagner, Brahms, and folk music.” It encapsulates in one sentence a perhaps century-long conflict between the followers of Brahms and Wagner—an argument between Brahms’s pure music for its own sake and Wagner’s nationalistic music in service of the state. Or, in other terms, it highlights Brahms’s adherence to the classical forms vs. Wagner’s insistence upon totally new forms. Pardon this reduction to an oversimplified view, but to give both sides their due would take volumes. De Billy has a knack for bringing out the best in both points of view, to mine the series of big emotional moments and to honor adherence to form.

In the slow second movement’s second theme (4:40 in), there are passages that remind me of Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs,” and others of his original orchestral inventions. And then (8:00 in) the horns blare forth, not with the sustained force of Siegfried’s funeral music, but with enough force to prepossess one and call Wagner to mind. Shortly (at 9:30), there is a passage that reminds me of Brahms in its precise delicacy of the woodwinds. So, listening closely, one can hear Brahms and Wagner in this Dvorák Symphony. All through the work, de Billy uses subtle reversals of emphasis, bringing from background to foreground, or playing loudly what is usually played softly. Here, I must emphasize that de Billy does not choose to make such reversals each and every time the possibility arises. He is not slavishly doctrinaire about it; rather, he seems to decide on an ad hoc basis. All of the score’s notes are represented in performance, but their presentation is subtly changed, perhaps to be ironic and introduce a postmodern flair to the performance. He’s not telling.

Which brings to mind the following notion: certain music would retain its coherence even if parts were played in reverse. In Terry Riley’s In C , any musician may enter a bar and stay as long as he/she wishes by inventing variations on the notes in the score before moving on to the next bar as long as he/she remains in the key of C; and in certain of Bach’s pieces that were written for one instrument and then adapted ( by Bach ) to suit another, and owing to the qualities of one or the other (say, the slow organ instead of a quick harpsichord, with its faster action) can require more playing time to stretch out the score, and actually wind up much slower in performance though composed of the same notes. These are just two examples of music that is so formally strong the idiosyncrasies of performance can only add to its ambiance, hence interpretation, and give the music wider emotional scope to the listener and more opportunity for playfulness to the conductor.

By playing Dvorák’s very familiar “New World” Symphony with his personal vision of how some loud passages might be better if played softly, of how with the woodwinds “backing up” the strings, some passages might be bettered by emphasizing the winds and letting the strings serve as “back up.” Employing such stratagems, de Billy brings a new spotlight to the bas-relief of the score. By shining his spotlight at slightly different angles, he creates new relationships among the shadows. It is still the same Symphony, but with slightly different emphases in the presentation, de Billy has made it new. He has traded in a tired, if venerable, old warhorse for a high-spirited young one. To add to this, the recording engineering is very, very clear and crisp. On a high-resolution system, say a good headphones rig, you can hear every damned thing; and such a recording will bring out the best in nearly all stereo rigs.

I’m only familiar with one other recording of Josef Suk’s (Dvorák’s son-in-law) symphonic suite, Fairy Tale , and that one is played by Jirí Bêlohlávek and the Czech PO (1992) for Chandos. De Billy’s elapsed time for this piece is about 29:30, and Belohlávek’s is about 30:00. This makes the difference in elapsed times about 1.5 percent and pretty indistinguishable. De Billy’s version was recorded in 2008, and, owing to whatever technological advances, profits by each individual instrument’s better definition and the complete ensemble’s better balance. Suk was a very solid composer; though it was hard for him to step outside the shadow of his father-in-law, he does. Fairy Tale has considerable charm, and de Billy, aided by the ORF (Austrian National Radio) engineers, brings it to the fore more than his predecessor managed to do.

If you are the kind of record collector who is always on alert for the analogy to a very unique wine, like an Australian Rosé made from rich Shiraz grapes, you might like this album. It contains a richly flavored Dvorák Symphony “From the New World” at its best, and a zesty and charming Pohádka , both benefitting from very fine recording engineering. Highly recommended.

FANFARE: Ilya Oblomov

In addition to Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin is most frequently associated with individual songs. It is less well known that Gershwin himself arranged the most popular of these for piano. At first, they were published under the title “George Gershwin at the Keyboard” and later known as the "Songbook".

This new recording, presents 18 piano pieces from his songbook in fantastic interpretations by Michael Endres. The Rhapsody in Blue is also included and is almost more impressive in the arrangement for piano solo as it is with piano and orchestra. - Oehms