The music of Grazyna Bacewicz (1909–1969) has been enjoying a revival during the past two decades. Bacewicz was an outstanding figure in 20th-century music, a major Polish composer and a versatile musician. This album by the award-winning pianist Peter Jablonski, pianist Elisabeth Brauß, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon includes some rarely recorded gems: the composer’s Piano Concerto together with the late Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in its first digital recording. Also included is the composer’s homage to Bartók, Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion, as well as the composer’s early exuberant Overture, written during the German occupation of Poland.

Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937) is an important contemporary voice in vocal music, a fact highlighted by this new release of recent, spiritual, hauntingly beautiful vocal works, sung by the Latvian Radio Choir under their director Sigvards Kļava. During his artistic career Silvestrov has explored a number of musical styles and techniques; the demise of the Soviet Union, however, enabled Silvestrov to openly compose works of religious import, inspired and influenced by his love of the Russian Orthodox Church and imbued with his own unique sound.

Ondine's successful Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) recordings with the NDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Christoph Eschenbach continue with another release featuring two major symphonic works by the composer: Symphonie ‘Mathis der Maler' and Symphonie in E-flat.

The orchestra's and Christoph Eschenbach's previous Hindemith release together with Midori won a Grammy Award in 2014.

The ‘Mathis der Maler' Symphony is based on an opera that treats the life of the Renaissance painter Mathias Grünewald. Hindemith started to work on the symphony already prior to the completion of the opera. The symphony was premiered with great success by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler on 12 March 1934. This performance was the last premiere of an orchestral work by Hindemith in Germany before the National Socialist regime issued a general performance prohibition applying to his works in 1936.

Hindemith wrote his Symphonie in E-flat during his exile in the United States in 1940. The Symphony is absolute music in the tradition of the four-movement symphony of Beethoven and the romantic period.

REVIEW:

Eschenbach’s trademark fondness for textural warmth and clarity is much to the fore in Mathis, where strings and woodwind are admirably numinous, the complex counterpoint in both the ‘Engelkonzert’ and the ‘Temptation’ beautifully detailed. The central ‘Grablegung’ is slow, rich-sounding and very introverted. The state-of-the-art recording, pristine and wide-ranging but with no sense of dynamic exaggeration, helps him at the big climaxes, which are imposing, at times even monumental, and there’s a beguiling elegance to the instrumental solos that thread their way through the textures. Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic on DG have more dramatic bite but this is superbly done nevertheless.

Eschenbach’s approach to the underrated Symphony in E flat, meanwhile, is epic, thoughtful and at times startlingly measured. He is wonderfully attuned to the complex trajectory of a work that looks back from a newly acquired place of safety on an old world irrevocably damaged. The opening Sehr lebhaft has terrific élan, the scherzo a supple, gracious wit. The orchestral clarity is again breathtaking. But placed beside the almost reckless energy of Bernstein (Sony—nla) or Hindemith himself (DG), you notice a grander manner and slower speeds. Eschenbach’s longbreathed way with the crucial Sehr langsam steers it closer to ritual mourning than private grief, though his treatment of the work’s closing pages, in which sadness briefly threatens to intrude upon gathering joy, is moving in the extreme.

-- Gramophone

One of the most internationally well-known of Finnish composers, Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) will celebrate his 80th birthday in 2015. In tribute, Ondine is releasing on DVD the 2002 production of his latest opera, King Lear, with the same cast that premiered the work at the Finnish National Opera in 2000. Under the direction of Okko Kamu and featuring a strong cast of singers, the work’s premiere was a great success. Legendary Finnish bass Matti Salminen sings the title role of King Lear; other singers include Lilli Paasikivi, Taina Piira, Satu Vihavainen, Petri Lindroos, Kai Pitkänen, Jorma Hynninen, Sauli Tiilikainen and Jorma Silvasti. The libretto, based on the world-famous Shakespearian tragedy, tells the tragic story of the English king Lear and his struggles with members of his own family, his enemies, and his developing madness.

REVIEW:

This release...offers an excellent musical programming concept, with all three works captured live in performances that are absolutely stunning and fully competitive with the best available. Both the Bartók and Martinů pieces were composed during their respective composers’ exile in America, while Gideon Klein’s Partita (an arrangement for string orchestra of his String Trio), is the result of “internal exile” in the Terezín concentration camp. All three men found ways to continue making music despite displacement, personal misfortune, and against the background of the rise of Nazism and the onset of war. More to the point, the program works because it offers plenty of purely musical contrast and variety.

Martinů’s Memorial to Lidice, a town wiped out by the Nazis as an act of retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, is a harrowing but ultimately hopeful orchestral elegy that receives the most gut-wrenching performance yet recorded. Eschenbach is about 50 percent slower than Ancerl (or anyone else), but he uses the extra time to excellent effect, revealing every luminous detail of Martinů’s orchestration and building the music to a shattering climax, with Beethoven’s Fifth balefully intoned by the horns. Klein’s Partita has much in common with Bartók’s Divertimento, with its folk-inflected thematic material. Its central movement is a very attractive set of variations on a Moravian theme, and it’s clear from this performance that the Philadelphia tradition of great string playing is very much alive and well. Eschenbach leads a performance both warm and incisive, revealing a major work in the process.

The Philadelphia Orchestra already has at least two recordings of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra to its credit, both with Eugene Ormandy--a fine early stereo version on Sony, and a mediocre early digital remake on RCA. This newcomer clearly is finer than either of those, as exciting a rendition as any available. Eschenbach thankfully eschews the excessive slowness that has marred his recent Mahler performances and lets the various sections of the orchestra display their considerable prowess in what remains one of the repertoire’s great showpieces. Listen to the rush of excitement in the transition to the first-movement allegro, or to the beautiful balance between woodwinds and harps in the second subject; notice the brilliant brass fugato that initiates the recapitulation, and the driving coda. It’s the real deal, from the very first note.

The sonics are markedly superior to what Sony, RCA, and EMI used to get in any of the various venues that they used, at least in stereo. The microphones are close to the players, the better to reduce the occasional noise from the audience (the occasional light cough isn’t at all bothersome), but the orchestra can take the exposure, and the sonic impact is pretty thrilling. I’m pleased (and honestly relieved) to be able to recommend it to you in the strongest possible terms.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

This exciting new release in the field of contemporary music includes three new concertos by Finnish composer Olli Virtaperko (b. 1973). The concertos are combining multiple styles from Baroque to prog jazz as well as different performance practices. Romer’s Gap is a concerto for electrically amplified cello featuring as soloist Perttu Kivilaakso, best known as lead cellist in the multi-million selling rock band Apocalyptica.

Ambrosian Delights is a concerto for the knifonium, a vacuum-tube-based analogue synthesiser created by Jonte Knif. Multikolor, written for Joonatan Rautiola, is a single-movement work for baritone sax and small chamber orchestra.

Composer Olli Virtaperko has enjoyed a multi-faceted career. He studied composition, the Baroque cello and early music performance practice at the University of Edinburgh and at the Sibelius Academy, and on the other hand he was also a vocalist in one of Finland’s most popular rock groups, Ultra Bra. Virtaperko’s musical background feeds directly into his work as a composer, which includes heavy-duty solo concertos and orchestral works but also a number of works for Baroque and Renaissance period instruments and for his own early music group, Ensemble Ambrosius.

Classical Music

Joonas Kokkonen is considered "Finland's most significant composer after Sibelius" (American Record Guide). However, he still awaits discovery among many lovers of accessible contemporary music. Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, unrivaled champions of Finnish late 20th-century music, have taken up this task with a complete Kokkonen symphonies cycle: The benchmark first volume (ODE 1098-2) was unanimously hailed by the press as a "must-have disc". On this new release, they perform the first two symphonies, coupled with Opus sonorum for orchestra. Written in the years following Sibelius's death in 1957, these masterpieces reveal Kokkonen's affinity with the music of J.S. Bach and his full exploration of expressive tonal colors.

"...Both are tautly argued works, compressing four movements into 20-minute spans that Sakari Oramo plots with precision. After completing the anguished Second Symphony in 1961, Kokkonen developed a more expressive, almost neoromantic style. The seeds of that can be heard in Opus Sonorum from 1964, which is symphonic in outline if not in its nine-minute scale, and uses the musical letters of Jean Sibelius's name as one of its motifs." - Andrew Clements, The Guardian, London, 2009

"For Finnish conductor, Sakari Oramo, a man with a yen for reviving neglected composers, Joonas Kokkonen is an important figure. He's the 'missing link' between the great Jean Sibelius and a new generation of Finnish composers such as Magnus Lindberg." -- Ivan Hewett, The Daily Telegraph, February 11, 2009

A likely masterpiece from Finland joins new music from scintillating Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho is the Finnish composer, alongside Magnus Lindberg, who most excites me at present. Like her fellow countryman, she finds textures that feel absolutely fresh, vibrant and full of colour. Her journeys of imagination here are gripping. And it’s good to see such high-profile performers in new music – perhaps especially the sublime Karita Mattila.

-- Gramophone [11/2008]

SAARIAHO Notes on Light.1 Orion. Mirage1,2 • Christopher Eschenbach, cond; Anssi Karttunen (vc);1 Karita Mattila (sop);2 O de Paris • ONDINE 1130 (63:22)

Kaija Saariaho writes exciting music. At one time associated with the spectral school of composition, in which spectra, the harmonic fingerprints of sound, were used to generate new works, she’s been able to assimilate and then transcend such a purely analytical approach to arrive at her present individual, communicative language. In the past, she’s also broadened her palette with electronics. Her vivid music is characterized by an acute sense of color and texture, allied to a sure feeling for form and pacing. Melody, too, plays an important part. Although there are no big tunes to whistle, the musical flow can be lyrical, even rhapsodic. At times, an almost oriental melisma wafts through the music: at others, what I would call “proto-melodies” (four or five note phrases) accrete to form larger modules, most notably in Orion.

Notes on Light, Saariaho’s cello concerto, often projects a mysterious mood. Glissandos of varying lengths in cello and orchestra, and a line that sways and sighs as it evolves and devolves suggest a yearning, or questing aspiration. The evocative title comes from T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, and inspired Saariaho’s vision of the cello as a source of light. The energetic second movement stands apart from the rest, with swift, downward cascades in tuned percussion and flute mirrored by exuberant, upward-winging piccolo flurries. These effects, plus the churning cello, create a drive and momentum distinct from the slower, exploratory nature of the other four movements. That’s not to say that the rest of the concerto is placid, or without internal drama. Throughout, Saariaho skillfully deploys her “transparent” orchestra in often-delicate counterpoint to the soloist.

Orion finds Saariaho reveling in larger forces, with more brass (there are no trumpets and trombones in the concerto) and even organ: some of the climactic moments must be quite overwhelming in person. Unifying thematic elements link the three movements. A subtle pulse as Orion begins arrests the attention, drawing the listener into this “constellation” of sound. Gradually, ideas and images coalesce, until the orchestra achieves a monumental presence worthy of the young god. The volume waxes and wanes, but the overall impression is massive. The second movement’s texture is primarily diaphanous, although heavier “clouds” of sound arise before the ethereal conclusion. A piccolo plays a pastoral tune over a dreamily shimmering background, ushering in a violin solo that could be a distant cousin to Shéhérazade. This gives way to an exotic, sinuous clarinet and oboe, and so it goes, one colorful episode succeeding another. The third movement starts out like Notes on Light’s second, but becomes even more wild and tempestuous. Trumpets, swirling winds, and scintillating strings fluoresce, illuminating the orchestral landscape. The storm eventually subsides, its mass floating away, the last note struck by a single triangle.

Mirage is a passionate setting of the “song” of a Mexican woman, shaman, and healer who, in this ecstatic musical incarnation, affirms her being while summoning the forces that pass through her to effect her cures. Karita Mattila brings Saariaho’s hypnotic score to vibrant life, swooping and gliding effortlessly, imparting a palpable exaltation. From the first half-whispered “I am” one is swept up and riveted by this spellbinding performance. The cello is an equal partner in Mirage, probing at the opening, acquiring confidence, and increasing in strength until it joins with the voice in its voyage of discovery. The two dip and soar in tandem, although the melodic outline is not identical.

Mattila and Karttunen are superb musicians who are perfectly attuned to Saariaho’s style. Their long friendship with the composer guarantees informed, sympathetic performances, and it would be difficult to imagine better ones. Eschenbach and the orchestra support the soloists beautifully in Notes on Light and Mirage, and contribute stunning playing in Orion. Saariaho’s many admirers will enjoy these latest additions to her discography, while anyone who’s been afraid to dip a toe into contemporary waters should consider taking the plunge, for while undeniably “modern,” the music’s range of expression, melodic flexibility, invention, and pervasive color make it immediately accessible. While not neo-Romantic by any means, it’s nonetheless music that manifests beauty and feeling in every note.

FANFARE: ROBERT SCHULSLAPER

Classical Music

This album includes a large portion of the orchestral works written by Ludvig Norman (1831–1885), ‘The Swedish Brahms’, including his masterpiece work, Symphony No. 3, performed by the Oulu Symphony Orchestra under Johannes Gustavsson. Ludvig Norman was a highly fascinating artist who inspired a generation of Swedish composers and was widely respected, although his 3rdSymphony was premièred only after the composer’s death.

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Ludvig Norman (1831–1885) went at the age of to study at the famous Leipzig Conservatory, where his teachers included Ignaz Moscheles (piano) and Julius Rietz (composition). Having returned to Stockholm as a professional musician and composer deeply inspired by his impressions of musical life in Leipzig. Norman is often considered to be among Sweden’s premier symphonists after A. F. Lindblad and Franz Berwald (1796–1868). His contribution to the Swedish orchestral repertoire comprises three symphonies, three overtures and a Funeral March. Stenhammar described the composer’s 3rd Symphony as “full of beauty” and even claimed that he valued it more than “any of Brahms’s symphonies”.

REVIEW:

The orchestra plays beyond its regional reputation and does this vigorous music justice. Norman was Brahms’ near contemporary, and fascinated by German musical culture. The comparison with Brahms is apt enough. The Symphony No. 3 is indeed a work of Brahmsian rigor, even if Norman’s canvases are not as large as Brahms’. Consider the slow movement, where an opening hymn-like melody is carefully and quite variously developed. The three shorter works on the program are all compact and attractive and could be added to any orchestral program featuring Scandinavian music. An attractive release that should expand the orchestral repertory a bit.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

Final volume in the first-ever complete recorded cycle of symphonies by Talivaldis Keninš (1919–2008), one of the most prominent post-WW2 composers in Latvia and Canada. This album includes three of the composer’s eight numbered symphonies performed by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra under Andris Poga.

Although born in Latvia, Keninš lived most of his life as an exile. He was educated in Paris, where he studied under Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen, and won several awards. Keninš emigrated to Canada in 1951 and became a respected pedagogue and a very influential figure in Canada’s music life. Alongside his eight symphonies, the composer also wrote 12 concertos. However, he also included many concertante elements in his symphonies and the Symphony No. 2, “Sinfonia concertante” (1967), scored for three wind instruments and symphony orchestra, is very close to a triple concerto. The symphony’s extensive second movement is based on a lullaby of the Mi’kmaq First Nations people. Symphony No. 3 (1970) was completed few years after its predecessor and is a step forward in the composer’s journey as a symphonist. Here we encounter the idea of a lyrical hero, which, in the ears of the listener, could be personified. Although many consider Kenins’ 8th Symphony to be his symphonic climax, the 7th Symphony (1980) is by no means a lesser work: it could be even considered as one of the composer’s most personal and intimate creations. The symphony ends with an aria based on a text by the composer’s father and the atmosphere of the work seems to stem from the composer’s emotional trauma on the occupation of his native Latvia by the Soviet troops.

REVIEW:

Ķeniņš composed his first symphony when he was forty and almost a decade elapsed before he turned to the genre again. However, his Symphony No 2 “Sinfonia concertante” does not strictly adhere to any symphonic mould. That the composer had a trio of wind instruments as some sort of a concertino tends to show that he was not completely sure of how to tackle that form again. This also shows is the lay-out of the piece, i.e three movements of strongly contrasting character as well as weight. In fact, the whole weight of the symphony lies in the long central movement whereas the brief opening Lento and the equally brief final Molto animato e marcato merely function as a prelude and epilogue of some sort. Moreover, the central Molto moderato: Tema e variazioni is twice as long as the two other movements put together. The weighty central movement is cast as a theme and variations on a lullaby of the Mi’kmaq First Nations people which the composer also used in his Suite in D major for organ. Anyone interested in what the Mi’kmaq First Nations people may be referred to Wikipedia for it all seems a rather long story. The variation movement of the Second Symphony is an impressive piece of music in which Kenins’ contrapuntal mastery is already fully displayed.

The Symphony No 3 is Ķeniņš’ first large-scale work for large symphony orchestra and again the composer demonstrates his assurance in his handling of form and counterpoint. The central movement Lento inquieto, though shorter than that of the Second Symphony, is again the emotional heart of the piece but it is nevertheless counterbalanced by two outer movements of fairly equal length but of quite different character. Georgs Pelēcis is quoted in Orets Silabriedis’ excellent notes as saying that “Kenins rejects seemingly essential symphony ingredients, such as the sonata form. That does not appear in any of the three movements … only one main theme is developed in each movement, and they are all interrelated. The unifying element is the rich chromatic intonations …”. The Third Symphony is clearly a work by a composer in full command of his aims and means, which shows in the way that the composer handles polyphony – an essential component of his music making. The first and second movements end with uncertainty, preparing for what is to follow, but the final movement Molto animato e brioso ends with an assertive gesture. As Silabriedis puts it: “I am responsible for everything that I have said and done”. (Incidentally, one might be reminded of RVW, whose Fourth Symphony also ends abruptly with a fist banging on a table and a door brutally slammed.

The Symphony No 7 “Symphony in the form of a Passacaglia” is scored for large orchestra and a mezzo-soprano in the final aria. Half the duration of the piece is purely orchestral and cast as a fully developed Passacaglia capped, so to say, by a short Allegro molto before the final aria for mezzo-soprano on a poem by the composer’s father, Atis Ķeniņš (1874–1961), who was also a statesman and one of the founders of the Republic of Latvia in 1919. The poem must have had a particularly personal resonance for the composer. “The mezzo-soprano solo links the composer more tightly with his family roots, expresses itself in more trusting and optimistic feelings; however, the unease in the harmonies and rhythm likely cannot hide the composer’s fears about out era. The concluding epilogue is like an Agnus Dei. The finale should express hope and faith, which stands over life’s troubles, soothing our darkest predictions, and suppressing our fears” (the composer’s words quoted in Silabriedis’ notes). The text, as translated in the booklet, may seem somewhat dated but has now acquired some new relevance in our troubled times and the symphony now carries a most welcome and needed appeal for peace. Nonetheless, Ķeniņš’ Seventh Symphony is quite an impressive piece of music in its own right and its “message” (if such there is) may be heard by any man of goodwill.

This final installment in Ondine’s Ķeniņš cycle has been carefully prepared and is as immaculately performed as the preceding ones. These are committed performances throughout, in excellent sound, up to Ondine’s best standards and Orests Silabriedis’ notes are excellent.

Ķeniņš’ symphonic cycle is on a par with other largely forgotten similar cycles that would probably have remained ignored or little known, were it not for brave and enterprising recording companies who have invested in similar projects. Examples that immediately come to mind are BIS’ recordings of Tubin’s symphonies and the hopefully ongoing Wordsworth cycle by Toccata. One cannot but hope that ventures such as these will encourage others to follow suit.

Ķeniņš’ music is too good to be ignored and these performances do it full justice; I am sure that they will play a part in securing his music its deserved status.

-- MusicWeb International

Austrian composer Thomas Larcher (b. 1963) is one of the great symphonists of our era. This album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Hannu Lintu includes the first recording of his 2nd Symphony, ‘Kenotaph’, and the song cycle ‘Die Nacht der Verlorenen’ performed by the world-known baritone Andrè Schuen. Larcher’s symphony was written in 2015–2016 to a commission from the National Bank of Austria for its bicentenary. The premiere was given by the Vienna Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov at the Musikverein in Vienna in June 2016. Larcher’s work, originally intended as a concerto for orchestra, engages with tradition as a fertile background, while still embodying the sound and consciousness of our time. The subtitle to Larcher’s work was motivated by the painful awareness of the thousands of refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean. The work can also be understood as a more general meditation on human tragedy and an exploration of profound existential issues. Larcher ties the material of the work together with a strong sense of dramaturgy, intense emotional expression and a feeling for musical narrative. The song cycle ‘Die Nacht der Verlorenen’ for baritone and large ensemble sets fragments by Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973) that were posthumously published. Bachmann’s dark texts inspired Larcher to write intense and compelling music that is entirely in tune with the mood of the poems. Overall, the work is dominated by slow, meditative and often dreamlike and unreal moods, effectively underpinned by delicate and carefully designed scoring that conjures up a multitude of colors and shades.

Shortlisted for the 2022 Gramophone Awards!

Composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is one of the leading names in today’s contemporary music. This album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra together with its chief conductor Hannu Lintu includes three works by the composer, including Aura, one of the most prominent monumental orchestral works of our era, together with two other works completed in the 1990s, including Marea and the first recording of Related Rocks. Aura – in memoriam Witold Lutoslawski represents a grand synthesis of Magnus Lindberg’s output in the 1990s. The work was written in 1993–1994 to a commission from Suntory Limited in Japan and was premiered by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra under Kazufumi Yamashita at Suntory Hall in Tokyo in June 1994. Clocking in at 40 minutes, Aura is Lindberg’s most extensive orchestral work. Although not a symphony, this 4-movement work is closely linked to the symphonic concept represented by Lutoslawski. The composer heard of Lutoslawski’s death while writing the work and decided to dedicate it to his memory.

REVIEWS:

The Finnish Magnus Lindberg is among the world’s leading composers, and this is a mighty sample of his work. The nearly 40-minute Aura is a four-movement continuous structure of extraordinary power, its rich textural agglomerations as architecturally thwacking as they are minutely detailed.

– Sunday Times (UK)

All the performances on this Ondine CD are magnificent with state-of-the-art sound to match. Thus, if you are in the market for a fine programme of Magnus Lindberg, do not hesitate to add this to your collection.

– MusicWeb International

Pianist Peter Jablonski’s second album on Ondine features a large selection of piano works by Alexey Stanchinsky (1888–1914), one of the most talented Russian composers of the early 20th Century. Stanchinsky was not only a talent but a genuine innovator who despite of his early death had a profound influence on the generation of composers to follow.

Peter Jablonski is the perfect interpreter to these magnificent gems. Peter Jablonskiis an internationally acclaimed Swedish pianist. Discovered by Claudio Abbado and Vladimir Ashkenazy and signed by Decca at the age of 17, he went on to perform, collaborate, and record with over 150 of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Mariinsky, La Scala Philharmonic, Tonhalle Zurich, Orchestre Nationale de France, NHK Tokyo, DSO Berlin, Warsaw Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Gergiev, Kurt Sanderling, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, and Myung-Whun Chung, to name a few. He has performed and recorded the complete piano concertos by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Bartók, and all piano sonatas by Prokofiev. Hailed as an ‘unconventional virtuoso’, during his three-decade-long career he developed a diverse and worked with composers Witold Lutosławski and Arvo Pärt. Jablonski’s extensive discography includes several award-winning recordings.

REVIEWS:

The first work on the CD is his Sonata in E-flat minor, which was composed when he was just 18. It is cast in one movement and shows good melodic invention coupled with rhythmic drive. The music begins in declamatory fashion and is rather stormy, but is followed by the undulating main theme in a quieter passage. These main themes are reprised in the minor key at the end.

The most ‘advanced’ music on the CD are the Three Sketches and Twelve Sketches, both sets dating from 1911-1913. The Three Sketches are all very chromatic with intricate rhythms and harmonies, occasionally foreshadowing the sarcastic type of lyricism that Shostakovich would later adopt.

Peter Jablonsky does these works proud, and Ondine serve him with a splendidly sonorous recording. The booklet is in English only, and gives biographical detail of the composer as well as descriptions of each piece.

-- MusicWeb International

A contemporary of Stravinsky, Stachinsky studied with the same teachers, particularly Sergey Tanayev, but died tragically at age 26. The music on this CD reveals a late-Romantic composer already trying to break free of the conventions of that idiom. Stanchinsky clearly had a superior musical mind, but what survives just seems to tantalize us without providing some meat and potatoes to go with the hors d’oeuvres.

Throughout all of these pieces, Jablonsky plays with a superb legato and technique as well as a smoldering undercurrent of passion. He is perfectly suited to this repertoire.

-- The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

Ondine is pleased to announce a long-term recording collaboration with German violinist Christian Tetzlaff, internationally recognized as one of the leading soloists of his generation. The selection of these sonatas for piano and violin by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart demonstrate distinctly the composer's ingeniousness and show a wide range and strong ambiguity of emotions.

Latvian Radio Choir’s new album conducted by Sigvards Kļava marks the international debut of composer Alfred Momotenko (b. 1970). Momotenko was born in Lviv, Ukraine, in 1970. He studied at the Sochi College of Arts and later percussion at the Moscow State University of Culture and Art. In 1990, the political situation having changed, Momotenko moved to the Netherlands where he continued his studies at the Brabant Conservatory and at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. Momotenko’s timeless choral works continue the centuries old great tradition of choral works combining them with contemporary language, a blend most recently exemplified by the likes of Alfred Schnittke.

Surrounded by choral music in his youth, Momotenko has returned to the world of choral music at a relatively late period: all the works on this album have been written between 2017 and 2022. Many of his enigmatic choral works are religious and could be described as poems or chants – larger than a miniature but less extensive than a fantasy, a narrative, a ballad or a story. Often there are two contrasting musical languages that are present: the ancient, pristine Znamennyj Chant and the modern one. Besides liturgic texts, Momotenko’s choral works include settings to poems by Boris Pasternak and Joseph Brodsky. The largest work, Na Strastnoy (On the Passion), is a companion piece Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil.

REVIEW:

The recital is cleverly structured. We start on familiar ground with Creator of Angels – a setting of lines from Bella Akhmadulina (distilled here into a shorter whole) that supplicate for mercy. Threads of Znamenny chant run through thick vertical textures, always rooted in widespaced bass parts. The effect is ancient, but softening into 21st-century lyricism. We hear flickers of Silvestrov, Tavener and E≈envalds, but also of Chesnokov, Grechaninov and their ilk.

Then we start to push off from land – gently at first in the short Three Sacred Hymns, with their modal harmonies and sinuous lines that always seem to tug back to the fixed point of unison, and then more rhapsodically in Lullaby: upper voices an endless flat horizon, harp ripples and sound-bursts silhouetted against them. We’re in another world by the time we reach On the Passion. This setting of Pasternak’s poetry from Dr Zhivago (this time intended as a companion for Rachmaninoff’s Vespers) is a trove of imagery. Birdsong, bells, Holy Week processions and folk dances draw a musical ‘essay’ from Momotenko that extends the composer’s harmonic and textural vocabulary with nonsense syllables and stamping – effects as well as melodies. Voices are fragmented down to endless solo strands (the technical challenge is immense), intersecting and coming together with Ives-like sonic cinema.

Kl,ava marshals his singers with unobtrusive precision. The 24-strong group are shape-shifters, slipping imperceptibly from chorus to soloists, from knitted web to filigree strands. Balance, not dynamics, is the principal expressive force here. Kl,ava pulls details and lines forwards or pushes them back flush, creating the depth and play of light that really makes this debut sing.

-- Gramophone

This fruitful collaboration by three eminent chamber musicians, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt, brings together two Piano Trios by the Czech master, Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904). During the last eight years, artists forming this unique trio have recorded eight albums of chamber music for Ondine with great acclaim, including some of the Romantic standard works. These two chamber music masterpieces by Antonín Dvořák express great emotional depth and dark passion.

The two piano trios by Dvořák featured in this album have remarkable similarities as well as differences. Piano Trio No. 3, nearly symphonic in its character, hints to the world of Johannes Brahms, while the Piano Trio No. 4 includes folkloric elements. The third piano trio might not only be considered as an homage to Brahms; it was written by the composer in 1883 shortly after the death of his mother which might well explain the sorrowful musical expression in the slow movement of the work. The ‘Dumky’ trio has a very unusual structure in its six movements. This intense and intimate work was written just prior to the composer’s departure to New York in 1891 and serves as a great climax for Dvořák’s series of piano trios.

REVIEW:

The Dumky really takes the plaudits here. Without question, it is the best I’ve heard, and the third movement is simply astonishing in its melancholic beauty.

These are two giants of the piano trio repertoire that is dear to my heart, and while this new recording enters a very crowded field, the presence of the three performers who are considerable soloists in their own right, means that the release demands attention.

Let’s get one thing out in the open straight away: these are the most dramatic and intense performances of these works I’ve heard. If your preference is for elegance such as those of the Beaux Arts and Florestan Trios, you may not be too keen on these big-boned and raw performances. Pianist Lars Vogt really hammers the keyboard at times, but don’t let that give you the impression that there is a lack of subtlety: the slow movements are meltingly beautiful. The booklet notes, which are in the form of a conversation between the three performers, emphasise the Bohemian folk music that inspired so much of Dvořák’s pre-American music. The raw intensity of the performances can be seen as a way of expressing these folk roots.

This is the only version of the Brahmsian F minor trio that I have in my collection to go beyond 40 minutes. I have no doubts that there are others, but it is to the credit of the performers that at no time is there a sense of dragging. Everything feels just about right. However, it is the Dumky that really takes the plaudits here. Without question, it is the best I’ve heard, and the third movement is simply astonishing in its melancholic beauty. If you love these works, and if you are reading this, you almost certainly do, you owe it to yourself to hear the Tetzlaffs and Vogt.

If I have a reservation about this otherwise marvellous recording, it is that the tone of the violin on occasions, generally at moments of fortissimo and above, becomes quite shrill. This is a something of a personal peeve, and I suspect most listeners will not be bothered by the sound. Perhaps the miking is a little close, though there is no extraneous noise.

Perhaps the intensity of the performances means that this is not a recording for every day, just Sunday best, but it is certainly special.

-- MusicWeb International (David Barker)

Latvian composer Peteris Vasks(b. 1946) has earned much international acclaim through his deeply spiritual works of choral music, symphonies and concertos. Vasks’ list of works also includes several pieces of chamber music. This album by Trio Palladio from Latvia includes Vasks’ works for the piano trio. Trio Palladio is a chamber music ensemble of three established Latvian soloists, avid chamber musicians and acclaimed recording artists Eva Bindere, Kristina Blaumane and Reinis Zarinš. Each of them is the laureate of the Grand Music Award of Latvia, and in 2019 they were nominated for this prestigious award as a trio. Recently the trio had its debut recital at the London Wigmore Hall and the trio’s interpretations have been broadcast live on the BBC Radio 3,as well as the Polish and Latvian radio. Trio Palladio creates conceptual programs with rich variety of classical, romantic and contemporary chamber music, with particular focus on works by Latvian and Baltic composers.

REVIEW:

What I admire most about Peteris Vasks is his deep spirituality. It permeates all of his music, even his early avant-garde compositions. This release features three of his works for piano trio. All three are quintessentially Vasks.

Three of Latvia’s best chamber musicians comprise the Trio Palladio. Their performances of their compatriot’s music plumb the depths of Vasks’ works. The trio plays not just beautifully, but lovingly. And that makes this an album I’ll revisit time and again.

– WTJU-FM (Charlottesville, VA) [Ralph Graves]

Composer Jurgis Karnavicius (1884–1941) made significant contributions to the cultural life in Lithuania after returning back to his home country in the late 1920s. Karnavicius was a pupil Maximilian Steinberg at the St. Peterburg Conservatory later becoming a professor in his alma mater. During his years in St. Petersburg, the composer wrote four impressive String Quartets, filling the chronological and stylistic gap between the String Quartets of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. Karnavicius’ String Quartet No. 1 was published by Belaieff. Its folkloristic elements bring to mind the late quartets of Dvorák. Karnavicius’ second Quartet, written a few years later and distributed by Universal Edition Vienna, already shows first signs of a shift towards Expressionism. In this album the Lithuanian Vilnius String Quartet offer world premiere recordings of these two forgotten gems.

The first album of orchestral works by one of Latvia’s most prominent composers, Talivaldis Keninš (1919–2008), released in October 2020 has received a warm response from music critics around the world. This second volume by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra under conductor Guntis Kuzma includes two symphonies from the 1970s alongside another concertante gem, Canzona Sonata for viola and string orchestra.

Although born in Latvia, Ķeniņš lived most of his life as an exile. He was educated in Paris, where he studied under Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen, and won several awards. Ķeniņš emigrated to Canada in 1951 and became a respected pedagogue and a very influential figure in Canada’s music life. Alongside his pedagogic work he wrote a sizeable catalogue of works, including several symphonies and concertos. At first Ķeniņš focused on writing works of chamber music and completed his first symphony relatively late, in 1959. During the 1970s and 80s, Ķeniņš wrote several symphonies more becoming a major symphonist. The two symphonies included in this volume are compact orchestral scores from the 1970s. Symphony No. 4 is rich with its fine French orchestral textures, while Symphony No. 6 is an impressive symphonic work based on a fugue theme. The expressive Canzona Sonata for viola and string orchestra written in 1986 is a relatively late work and a wonderful example of the composer’s skills in writing concertante music.

The final volume of Paul Hindemith’s(1895–1963) youthful and fresh Kammermusik series from the 1920s includes Kammermusik Nos. 4–7 performed by Kronberg Academy Soloists and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra under a true Hindemith specialist, Christoph Eschenbach, who has won a Grammy for a previous Hindemith album on Ondine.

These four works by Hindemith can be considered as full-bodied concertos for violin, viola, viola d’amore and organ. These work feature four young talented soloists, Stephen Waarts, Rimothy Ridout, Ziyu Shenand Christian Schmitt. Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 4 (‘Violin Concerto’) is scored for a larger orchestra than its three predecessors and includes 24 instrumentalists. Kammermusik No. 5 (‘Viola Concerto’) the composer premiered himself by playing the solo part. In total, Hindemith performed this work for 85 times during the next 11 years! In a letter, Hindemith described the viola d’amore as “the most beautiful thing that you can imagine in sound”. The composer fell in love with the instrument and wrote his Kammermusik No. 6 with this instrument in mind. Hindemith’s final Kammermusik (No. 7) was written to a commission by the Southwest German Radio: the premiere of this Organ Concerto was transmitted live in 1928. The radio broadcast had a decisive role in the composer’s choice of instrumentation.

REVIEWS:

As in Vol 1, Eschenbach relishes the music’s wild iconoclasm. Tempos are again lively and throughout he draws marvellous playing from the Kronberg Academy strings and Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra’s winds (the trumpet not least!) and percussion.

– Gramophone

Have I mentioned that these are some of Hindemith’s most wonderful pieces? They combine the brash gestures of his early, avant-garde period with the serious, neo-Baroque elements of his later music—one can hear him changing from 1922 to 1927 in these seven pieces—several of the slow movements approach the meditative depths of his “Mathis der Maler” Symphony. I still recommend the Chailly set as a first choice, but Hindemith fanciers will want this one too.

– Fanfare

Lars Vogt: 8 September 1970 - 5 September 2022

This new release is pianist-conductor Lars Vogt’s debut album together with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. Lars Vogt started his tenure as the new Music Director of the orchestra on 1 July 2020. This album release continues Lars Vogt’s discography of recordings of cornerstone works within the classic piano concerto literature conducting from the keyboard. Previous album releases include the complete piano concertos of Beethoven and Brahms with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. In 2021, Lars Vogt won the OPUS Klassik award for the best solo piano album release of year from his recent Janácek solo album release (ODE 1382-2).

REVIEWS:

Lars Vogt’s dazzling playing on this new recording does [the concertos] full justice…this newcomer is very impressive and benefits greatly from the fine playing of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris.

--BBC Music Magazine

German pianist Lars Vogt has been music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia since 2015, and the recordings where he conducts from the keyboard have been markedly successful, including a complete Beethoven concerto cycle and (more daringly) the two Brahms piano concertos.

Vogt deserves praise for the crisp, precise, and buoyant accompaniments he evokes here from the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. These are vigorous, animated readings that take best advantage of the brilliant fast music in the outer movements, particularly the rocket that takes off at the start of Concerto No. 1. He made me appreciate the slow movements in both concertos, which doesn’t happen often, and the orchestral part is played with real warmth. Also, Ondine’s recorded sound is lovely, capturing piano and orchestra in perfect balance.

What I’ll return to are the two piano concertos, in which Vogt’s performances are as fine as any I’ve heard in years. Warmly recommended.

--Fanfare

Mendelssohn’s piano concertos are rather rarely played. Lars Vogt has recorded two of them together with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, of which he is the Music Director.

He and his orchestra play the Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with a great deal of impetus, unaffected, fresh, and very colorful. Vogt has the necessary polish and pulsating agility for these movements. The slower passages are interpreted sensitively, nuanced, poetic, but by no means too emotional. The overall result is a joyful and thrilling performance that can only be warmly welcomed and recommended. The well-balanced orchestra, playing with a fresh sound, is an excellent partner for Vogt, sworn to his conducting and soloistic rhetoric.

The Capriccio brilliant, however, leaves the most lasting impression. Lars Vogt plays it not only energetically, but with jubilant enthusiasm, and he transfers this enthusiasm to the musicians of the Paris Chamber Orchestra, who play with great spontaneity.

It is important to note that Vogt does not work according to the principle of ‘fast and loud’, but combines his energy with a fine feeling for the musicality of the works. The result is fascinating.

--Pizzicato

Mendelssohn performed by a chamber orchestra and directed from the keyboard always looks like an enticing proposition. And so it proves with this new set from the Paris Chamber Orchestra with Lars Vogt at the helm.

There’s a wonderfully Beethovenian flair to the First Concerto’s opening movement, but equally striking is the musicians’ way with more lyrical moments. And, as you might expect from such a first-class chamber musician, he gives as much attention to places where the piano accompanies as he does when he’s center stage. Crucially, the orchestra respond in kind, matching the soloist’s articulation and dynamics to an unusual degree. There’s plenty of fantasy too – in the piano passages Mendelssohn writes to link the first and second movements of each concerto, for instance, which unfurl with a naturalness reminiscent of Murray Perahia.

The Presto finales are imbued with terrific energy but never become merely note-fests – the level of detail remains impressive.

The album is filled out by the Capriccio brillant, Op 22, and what can be mere froth in unimaginative hands is wonderfully characterful here, the mock military march given a jokey swagger, with nicely present timpani and brass. In the final a tempo, with its mad running dash of semiquavers, Vogt is impressively unfazed and dazzlingly understated. The recording is excellent too, with a vividness that brings these master musicians right into your sitting room.

--Gramophone

Conductor Robert Trevino’s new album release on Ondine – after a successful debut with a complete Beethoven symphony cycle – features six orchestral pieces by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), one of the most famous Basque composers, played by the Basque National Orchestra. Born in a small town in France very close to the Spanish border, Ravel spent most of his life in Paris. However, he was extremely proud of his Basque background having absorbed himself to the culture already as a child, and many elements of Basque music can be found in his compositions. In this historic release, we can finally hear Ravel’s orchestral music being interpreted by Basque musicians in the form of the Basque National Orchestra. These performances on some of the most fantastic orchestral scores of the 20th Century also shed light to the Basque influences in Ravel’s music.

REVIEW:

This is one terrific album! Put aside your expectations of how Ravel’s music should sound based on prior experience of it as played by world-class orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic (Boulez), Concertgebouw (Haitink), Boston Symphony (Ozawa), London Symphony (Abbado), or Montreal Symphony (Dutoit). Only the French National under Martinon offers a unique and distinctive (i.e. “French”) sound, but even that ensemble boasts a polished refinement that is far and away different from the wonderfully rustic timbres of the Basque National Orchestra.

Under the direction of conductor Robert Trevino, this band from San Sebastián in the Basque Country (which straddles the border between France and Spain) conjures an exotic affect most apparent in Ravel’s Spanish-influenced works, particularly in Rapsodie espagnole: the dream-state of the opening Prélude à la nuit rightly seduces here, while the closing Feria delightfully invokes a castanet-playing flamenco dancer. In Trevino’s hands Alborada del gracioso evokes the orchestra-sized guitar Ravel envisioned.

But it’s not only the overtly Spanish-styled works that succeed in this collection; Trevino and his forces also ideally capture the plangent tones of Pavane pour une infante défunte, as well as the luxurious delirium of La valse. Even Boléro holds the attention here, as the Basque musicians play with a freshness that belies the work’s warhorse status. Trevino’s powerful reading of Ravel’s early and rarely programmed Une barque sur l’océan is a welcome bonus.

Ondine’s vivid, wide-ranging recording draws you directly into the performances, making this release a must-have for seasoned Ravelians and newcomers alike.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Victor Carr Jr.)

Ondine’s releases on Baltic composers continue with a new exciting release featuring recent orchestral compositions by New York-based Lithuanian composer Žibuokle Martinaityte (b. 1973) composed within a span of six years performed by Lithuanian orchestras conducted by the young talented Lithuanian conductor Giedre Slekyte and pianist Gabrielius Alekna as soloist. Martinaityte was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. Among her output are impressive orchestral compositions with evocative titles and beautiful orchestral textures with precision to detail. The most recent of the works, Saudade (2019) symbolizes the stratum of multiple yearnings: sadness for missing and happiness for experiencing the past. Millefleur (2018) is a work that the composer has described as “acoustic hedonism, a search for acoustic pleasures”. Martinaityte’s Chiaroscuro trilogy (2017) is a 3-movement work for piano and strings, reflecting the very essence of our existence; the various grades of darkness and light. Horizons (2013) was written in New York and Lithuania and was inspired by two movies, Cloud Atlas and The Hours as well as Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler. In this work the listener travels through one story to another.

REVIEWS:

When listening to Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, you might be tempted to assign her to a school. The composer clearly likes extended time scales and slowly mutating materials, so does that make her a Minimalist? Further evidence for such a label includes praise she has received from the composer Ingram Marshall.

The Ondine imprint’s new album-length survey of her orchestral music, “Saudade,” doesn’t radically upend such a classification—though it does complicate the story. While the title track invites comparison to works like John Luther Adams’s calmly roiling “Become Ocean,” other pieces on the album show off Martinaityte’s distinctiveness.

She can create hovering nimbus clouds of harmony with the best of them. Yet she’s not afraid to throw a thunderbolt through her subtle, scenic designs. Midway through the otherwise beatific “Millefleur,” a percussive edge emerges, offering an unexpected martial cast to the work. And on “Horizons,” as played by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the handoffs between strutting flutes and stark strings also serve notice regarding this composer’s winning unpredictability.

-- New York Times

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) is a Lithuanian composer whose orchestral music has links to the French Spectral school, Minimalism, and the world of Pärt, Silvestrov, and the Eastern European “Spiritual Minimalists.” She is interested in sonority (like the Spectralists), but her sonorities, while they sometimes employ avant-garde playing techniques, are not necessarily dissonant. Martinaitytė has moved beyond shock value: She uses tonal harmonies and, while her textures are highly imaginative, she tends to avoid ugly noise. Nor is her music simply feel-good New Age doodling: she recognizes the symphony orchestra has immense power, which she summons up expertly at climactic moments. The performances are dazzling, and the sound picture captures everything in a satisfying balance. I heartily recommend this program to listeners who think they may not like it.

-- Fanfare