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)

Witold Lutoslawski is one of 20th Century’s greatest composers. He is also a remarkable symphonist. The three works on the present release performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Hannu Lintu, represent three important stages in Lutoslawski’s career: his 1st Symphony, one of his earliest significant works; Jeux vénitiens was the first work in his best-known stylistic phase; and his 4th Symphony remained his last extensive work. Lutoslawski began his First Symphony in difficult times, during the Nazi occupation of Poland. At the time, he was making a living playing piano duos with composer colleague Andrzej Panufnik in the cafés of Warsaw. It is firmly rooted in Neo-Classicism but has none of the irony or stylization commonly associated with that style. Also, it makes no use of folk music elements, which frequently appear in many of Lutoslawski’s post-war works. The title of Jeux vénitiens alludes to the fact that the work was meant to be premiered at the Venice Biennale. In the end, only three movements were performed there in April 1961, and the final four-movement version of the work was premiered in Warsaw in September in the same year. Secondarily, the title alludes to the game-like nature of its aleatoric writing. The Fourth Symphony is a product of Lutoslawski’s late period at its most refined, characterized by a more nuanced and translucent harmonic approach than before, greater rhythmic clarity, a more straightforward approach and an expanded role for expressive melodic writing. These features stemmed in part from the fact that the importance of aleatoric sections was decreasing. In the Fourth Symphony, aleatoric counterpoint only accounts for about one fifth of the duration of the work. Conductor Hannu Lintu is an excellent advocate of Lutoslawski’s music. Hannu Lintu recently won the Gramophone Award for his recording of the Bartók Violin Concertos together with Christian Tetzlaff and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

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

"Rautavaara's First Symphony has often been revised, from a four-movement original, down to two movements, and back up to the present three, which, as the composer notes, provides a more balanced sequence than previously. It was written when Prokofiev and Shostakovich were major influences, but with the passing of time the lyricism of the first movement now seems fully characteristic of Rautavaara. Adagio Celeste is yet another example (there are many in Rautavaara) of how music based on a 12-note theme can still be very beautiful and approachable. In this regard he recalls Swiss composer Frank Martin. It's a lovely work scored for small orchestra (the "string orchestra" designation on the tray card is incorrect). Once again the performances of this work and the symphony are all that anyone could ask, and the sonics, whether in stereo or multichannel formats, are fully up to the quality of the interpretations. A knockout, not to be missed!"

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Review of original release, Ondine 1064

"The Seventh Symphony’s opening Tranquillo evokes a calm though powerful atmosphere, with many Sibelian points of reference – most especially in terms of the flute writing at 5'45'' and, a little later, in recognizable echoes of the Largo fourth movement from Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony. The disruptive second movement leads to a Come un sogno third that suggests, at least initially, Cantus arcticus without the birds, whereas the closing Pesante-cantabile is more in line with the symphonic world of Alan Hovhaness, especially in its opening moments. The Angel idea originates in a series that already includes a number of other works (Angels and Visitations and Angel of Dusk, for instance), the reference being (as the composer himself explains) to “an archetype, one of mankind’s oldest traditions and perennial companions”. This Jungian axis is reflected in monolithic chords, ethereal harmonic computations (invariably broad and high-reaching) and an unselfconscious mode of musical development. Readers schooled in the more contemplative works of Gorecki, Part and Tavener will likely respond to this spatially generous essay, though Rautavaara’s language is more a celebration of nature and her works than of any specific religious ritual."

-- Gramophone, 6/1996
Review of original release, Ondine 869


"I had the pleasure of witnessing the New York premiere of the Eighth Symphony, a work that despite much that is lovely, struck me as a bit short-winded in the slow movement and texturally undifferentiated in the finale. Hearing this new recording convinces me that this impression stemmed largely from Wolfgang Sawallisch's monochromatic interpretation. In Leif Segerstam's hands the piece now has the necessary range of contrast: he shapes the soaring lyrical lines of the first movement into large, coherent paragraphs (listen to how effortlessly the climax about eight minutes into the first movement blossoms forth), then blasts through the scherzo with virtuosic abandon, lets the gorgeous yet brief slow movement really breathe, and finds more coloristic variety in the grandly imposing finale than the live performance ever suggested. Subtitled "The Journey", the work does indeed move purposefully from the mysterious murmuring of its opening to its triumphant conclusion, and makes a worthy successor to the already famous "Angel of Light" Seventh Symphony.

Ondine's Rautavaara series has revealed to music lovers one marvelous work after another, and with each new release Rautavaara's stature as one of the greatest composers working today only increases. It's hard to think of another figure whose every new piece so rewards the attentive listener while at the same time uncompromisingly proclaims the author's unique musical voice. If you haven't had the chance to get to know the music of this exceptional creative spirit, the present release, magnificently performed and recorded, offers an ideal place to start."

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Review of original release, Ondine 978

2018 Gramophone Magazine Concerto Album of the Year

Star violinist Christian Tetzlaff performs Béla Bartók’s two masterpieces in a new recording with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu. This recording continues both artists’ highly successful series of recordings on Ondine.

The two violin concertos of Béla Bartók, completed thirty years apart in 1908 and 1938 respectively, celebrated relationships with two Hungarian violinists: the first romantic, with Stefi Geyer and the second artistic, with Zoltán Székely. Bartók’s 1st Violin Concerto was published posthumously after the composer’s death in 1956, but Bartók reused the opening movement as the first of his Two Portraits for orchestra. He remarked in a letter written in late 1907 or early 1908 that ‘I have never written such direct music before.’ Bartók completed two movements that portray the character of Stefi Geyer to whom the work was dedicated. Completed towards the end of 1938, Bartók’s three-movement 2nd Violin Concerto was a much more substantial concerto than his first essay in the medium and it was dedicated ‘to my dear friend Zoltán Székely’. Székely’s name can also be found in the dedication of his Second Rhapsody. Bartók adopted a rather unusual approach to the overall form of the Second Violin Concerto and the impact of both rural folk music and urban verbunkos on his language can be found in the Second Violin Concerto.

Christian Tetzlaff is considered one of the world’s leading international violinists and maintains a most extensive performing schedule. Musical America named him ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ in 2005 and his recording of the violin concertos by Mendelssohn and Schumann received the ‘Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik’.

-----

REVIEW:

Between them Tetzlaff and Lintu command a compelling and comprehensive view of the multifaceted masterpiece that is the Second Violin Concerto. Their account of the First elevates the work to a whole new level of musical excellence.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

REVIEWS:

Fanfare (5-6/98, pp.236-37) - "Mattila is in radiantly lovely voice for this recital. The tone is shining and steady, produced evenly from top to bottom. The very beauty of the singing seizes the listener's attention immediately..."

BBC Music (3/98, p.65) - Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5) - "...In this satisfying, logical sequence of Lieder...[Karita Mattila's] voice sounds as distinctive as ever, big toned and milky smooth. Mattila's way of getting inside every piece and phrasing each with long-breathed musicality makes this a disc to return to again and again."

Erkki-Sven Tüür’s ongoing cycle of interesting symphonies (in 2017 he arrived at No. 9) makes him–by quality more significantly than quantity–the premiere symphonist of our time. Always good for the inclusion of seemingly eclectic instruments (electric guitar, accordion, big band, percussion, tape, synthesizer) in his orchestral works, he expands the tonal palette much the same way Gustav Mahler did when he threw the mandolin or guitar or castanets or xylophones or a hammer into his symphonies, all before perfectly unsuspecting audiences. (Happily, this is much easier on the ears than when other composers stick with the traditional instrumental apparatus only to then make these instruments generate every sound except those they were meant to produce in the first place.)

In this Fifth symphony, premiered in 2005 at the Stuttgart Eclat New Music Festival, the electric guitar has some particularly lyrical quasi-cadenzas in the second movement. The fact that we might find it curious is only a consequence of our aural associations with and expectations of an electric guitar. But all the rest of the symphony is pretty classical, down to the four movements and their structure, which goes to show that there’s still much left in the old form and “old”–i.e., tonal–modes, if only a composer can muster sufficient imagination.

Tüür does. In fact his works are bursting with originality and fantasy, freed of all academism and perceived “ought-to’s”. Not all of them are as successful as this Fifth (or the Seventh) symphony, perhaps, but are always full throttle and never display originality for its own sake. The groove of the third movement is befitting any classical Scherzo; the Big Band gets its moment in the spotlight, backed by a percussive, happy but firmly embedded, organic beat (sound clip)–not as artificially superimposed and faddish as large percussion sections can sound in too many contemporary works (Higdon, Sierra, Widmann, Golijov, et al.).

It’s possible that connoisseurs of conventional symphonies wrinkle their brows in disapproval of these allegedly foreign ingredients. This brings to mind a beverage-related spoonerism of composer and linguistic genius Franz Mittler: “I would rather have a boot in my rear/Than a root in my beer.” But Tüür’s symphonies are not symphonies in name only; they are decidedly real beer–just a modern variant of the classic original. Maybe something Dogfish Head Brewery would concoct.

Rounding out a fabulous disc is the accordion concerto Prophecy, a substantial work in four continuous movements that often ends up in a swarm of sound with intermittent, hallmark Tüür moments (dry timpani before a canvas of dark quiet, for example). In it, the accordion is less folksy than it is grave; the whole thing more redolent of an organ concerto than a polka.

– ClassicsToday (Jens F. Laurson)

Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016) would have turned 90 on October 9th, 2018. During his long career as a composer spanning seven decades from the late 1940s until his very last days, the composer created a wide list of works in various music genres, including 8 symphonies, several concertos and operas as well as a large amount of vocal and chamber music – the majority of these works have been recorded by Ondine. The recordings released by the label played a key role in bringing the composer to international attention during the 1990s. This anniversary release includes a re-issue of his 8th Symphony, commissioned for the centenary of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and his Harp Concerto, written for the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as a sampler of selected moments from Ondine’s extensive and award-winning Rautavaara discography.

Classical Music

Estonian composer Arvo Part’s timeless music has touched listeners for decades. He is one of the most performed living composers. This new release features eight choral pieces which were written between 1988 and 2012. These works feature some of Part’s finest vocal writing, especially in the three-movement Triodion and the seven-movement Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen. Part is famous for his tintinnabuli style, which he took on after distancing himself from his earlier writing which utilized neo-classicism, serialism, and polystylism. Of his style, Part once wrote, “I could compare my music to white light which contains all colors. Only a prism can divide the colors and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.” The Latvian Radio Choir’s prior releases for Ondone have garnered them critical acclaim. Their recording of Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil received the Record of the Month, Editor’s Choice, and was a nominee for the Gramophone Awards in 2013.

Classical Music

‘Neglected Treasures’ is the second release on Ondine by Anastasia Injushina, an award-winning pianist known for the poetry and sensitivity of her playing. + Featuring some of the lesser-known aspects of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756–91) piano music, this is repertoire particularly suited to her interpretive talents. + Ms. Injushina has made numerous radio and television recordings for such broadcasting companies as ARD, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Finnish YLE, performed at several international music festivals and is AD for her own Helsinki Chamber Music Festival.

This new album release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu presents a new contemporary voice within Finland’s contemporary music scene: Antti Auvinen. This album includes three recent orchestral works by the composer marked by highly pressurised and explosive rhythms and sounds.

The premieres of Antti Auvinen’s (b. 1974) Junker Twist (2015) and Himmel Punk (2016) in the mid-2010s electrified the scene of Finland’s contemporary music: music critics felt that a new major voice in the country’s music scene had been born. Auvinen’s works are often thematically connected to events in the surrounding society. Junker Twist (2015) deals with the topic of rising neo-Nazist ideologies, while Himmel Punk (2016) takes a stand against religious discrimination. The most extensive work of this album, Turbo Aria (2017/2018), is partially based on arias sung by Finnish sopranos a century ago. These ‘arias’ sung by Alma Fohström, Aino Ackté and Järnefelt and the sounds of the accompanying instruments are augmented by the crackles, pops, hisses and other mechanical noises made by the original discs. Yet the work also has a second underlying theme: the refugee crisis. Is this program music? Perhaps – but it does not matter, because the music is equally impressive with the narrative or without it. In 2016, Auvinen was awarded with the Teosto award, one of the biggest music awards in the Nordic countries.

Classical Music