The fourth album on Ondine by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir is dedicated to the composer’s complete works for mixed choir. The award-winning choir, one of the finest of its kind internationally, is conducted here by leading Finnish choir director Heikki Seppänen. Choral music was a genre in which Sibelius showed interest from his student days to the near close of his life. This double-disc set includes patriotic works, works closely connected to the Finnish national epic Kalevala, student works, Christmas songs, works based on Finnish poetry, works written for school (including Three Songs for American Schools) as well as works written for academic promotions, inauguration ceremonies and different official occasions. It also includes two versions of the famous Finlandia Hymn. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir’s first Ondine release was given an ‘Editor’s Choice’ by the Gramophone Magazine and ‘Disc of the Year’ by German weekly Die Zeit.

REVIEW:

The Finnish choral tradition was rich and active when Sibelius came of age as a composer in the late 1880s, and he wrote choral works all his life. The pieces on this rewarding recording range from folk songs suffused with Finnish character to enigmatic works with sometimes dark lyrics. There are festival and school songs, patriotic anthems, a cantata for an academic degree ceremony and, inevitably, two versions of “Finlandia.” Most of the pieces are a cappella. Many unfold in clear, block-chord settings of the texts. If you want to stump friends with a guessing game, play the beguiling, slightly strange “Glade of Tuoni” from this recording and ask them to identify the composer. You’ll win, as you will by picking up this album.

– New York Times

This new release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu is an all-Sibelius program featuring internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. The album includes two major tone poems by Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Tapiola and En Saga, combined with a set of songs orchestrated by Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) in 2015.

Sibelius’ magnificent tone poem Tapiola, written shortly after the 7th Symphony, may be regarded as the culmination of a period that began with the Fifth Symphony, a period where Sibelius created music that grew organically out of tiny germs into huge processes. It was completed in 1926 and remained Sibelius’s last great orchestral work.

In Tapiola, Sibelius appears to equate the primacy of nature with the value of art for its own sake, the unattainable truths of which remain uneroded by time or by the shifting ideals of mankind.

The genesis of En Saga, originally premiered in 1892, is also shrouded in mystery, and even later in life Sibelius was reluctant to go into any detail regarding its content. It is among Sibelius’ earliest orchestral works, and its original title in Swedish, En saga, refers to ancient Nordic tales of heroes and gods. Although En saga is among the most popular works by Sibelius today, the premiere of the work was not a success and Sibelius revised the score in 1902.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’s birth in 2015 composer Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) orchestrated a cycle of songs for mezzosoprano Anne Sophie von Otter. This cycle of eight songs contains several less known songs in a cavalcade juxtaposing human emotions and innermost thoughts with the natural environment and experiences in nature.

The recent recordings by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu on Ondine have gathered excellent reviews in the international press.

Ondine is pleased to announce the debut release of charismatic mezzo -soprano Virpi Räisänen. Following her recent career change from a successful violinist to a concert and opera singer, Virpi Räisänen has already appeared at the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Netherlands Opera, and the Salzburg Festival. Virpi Räisänen is admirably multifaceted being equally at home with contemporary as well as with baroque music, her beautiful timbre seems to fit well in all genres.

Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is an important voice in European contemporary classical music. This album includes some of Lindberg’s most recent works for orchestra. The pieces were written during or right after his tenure as composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Anssi Karttunen is the featured cellist for the Cello Concerto No. 2, and the Finnish Radio Orchestra with conductor Hannu Lintu is the performing ensemble. Lindberg currently serves as composer-in-residence with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Peteris Vasks makes an important point that every listener to his music should know: every one of his compositions is about Latvia, in some way tells the story of his homeland. Another thing you should know is that he believes that music—especially choral music—and poetry have been a major unifying factor in his country’s long fight for cultural survival and national identity against severe oppression, particularly under the Soviet regime. These points are especially important here, because this new recording features works—with one exception—set to texts by Latvian poets.

There’s not really any agenda here; rather, these 11 pieces touch on various aspects of Latvian experience: tradition (Our Mother’s Names), landscape (Plainscapes), events and symbols (Birth), seasons (Summer), folklore (The Tomtit’s Message), and sadness and hope (Silent Songs). As they were written over a period of more than 30 years—the earliest is from 1977, the most recent from 2008—the works exhibit some obvious stylistic differences; yet there’s an underlying consistency to the treatment of and respect for the texts. Whether the music ventures more into flights of dissonance, extremes of dynamics and texture, and unconventional vocal “effects” (The Tomtit’s Message; Our Mother’s Names; Birth) or stays pretty close to more traditional harmonic and textural structures, owing not a little to jazz and perhaps to Poulenc and Messiaen (Silent Songs; Summer), there’s a strong sense of linguistic resonance—no matter that we don’t speak the language at hand. And in many of these pieces Vasks has managed to capture a combined sense of melancholy—a knowing of what has been suffered and lost—with an ever-present optimism that infuses the Latvian spirit, that has kept the people and the culture alive through very hard times.

The title work doesn’t even have a text—the choral part is a vocalise—but it’s perhaps the most “Latvian” of all the pieces on the program. Accompanied by violin and cello, this 16-minute masterpiece is like a film without need for a video component, a survey of a landscape without requiring the observer’s physical presence. Vasks’ aim here was a meditation on “the landscapes of Zemgale, where the lowlands are endless.” We close our eyes and we are lulled into a kind of floating journey across fields and hills, “resounding in silence and eternity”; birds singing, the sun rising. It’s neither gimmicky special effects nor gratuitous sound-painting; but we know where we are.

And ultimately, in a purely musical sense, the Latvian connection falls away (as with all great music, its original premise or context at some point becomes less significant) and we appreciate the music for its sheer invention and unique stylistic character. Vasks is nothing if not honest and unwavering in his view of music and his place in its grander scheme. And he’s fortunate to have the world-class Latvian Radio Choir as an advocate for his work. Wow. This choir could sing anything, and in this case they’ve chosen some pretty exceptional yet difficult music and made it come alive interpretively, but also in terms of its clear, articulate, vibrant sound. Of course there are many types of choral music fans, and among them are those that prefer to remain in the distant past; but if you really care to know what’s happening here, today, you owe it to yourself to hear this.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

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.

REVIEWS:

Vogt bring qualities of freshness and joie de vivre to the Goldbergs that have often been much less marked. He is not reverential and he has noted – correctly, surely – how entertaining the Variations are. This is a distinguished addition to the discography of the Goldberg Variations in all their glorious elegance.

- Gramophone

Vogt's feeling for the over-arching whole is impressive. He's not above a little 'guiding' either - sometimes drawing attention to detail in a way denied to Bach's harpsichord. But he's sparing in the use of the pedal and, like Schiff and Perahia, inclined to let his fingers sing wherever possible - to laugh, too.

- BBC Music Magazine

Fascinating and the singing and playing throughout is riveting.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky has with roughly ten-year-intervals recorded Mussorgsky’s unfinished song-cycle Songs and Dances of Death. In January 1993 he set it down with the Kirov Orchestra under Gergiev in the Shostakovich orchestration, in August 2004 he sang the same version with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic under Temirkanov in Albert Hall at a Proms concert. This was coupled with Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances while the earlier version had a number of Russian opera arias. On the present disc he has returned to Mussorgsky’s original with piano accompaniment.

Hvorostovsky has retained his magnificent dark-tinted baritone in wonderful shape and it is a pleasure to listen to him more than twenty years after his sensational victory at the Cardiff “Singer of the World”-competition in 1989. It is possible that the tone has darkened slightly but there are no signs of wear so far. It could also be argued that his interpretations are even deeper than before but again this is marginal - he was a deep-probing singer also in his relative youth. The Lullaby is masterly, the Serenade has all those important nuances that make you listen with extra closeness, the Trepak is invested with violent frenzy and The Field Marshal crowns the cycle impressively, not least thanks to his superb articulation. His regular accompanist is a worthy partner - the ‘accompaniment’ is just as important as the singing and Ivari Ilja finds so many colours that one doesn’t miss the orchestra.

This song-cycle is very often the centre-piece of any recital where it is performed, but on this disc the surroundings are almost equals. Tchaikovsky’s Six Songs Op. 73 belong among his last compositions, only followed by his Pathétique symphony and his third piano concerto. They are mature works, not too frequently heard, I’m afraid, but they are masterpieces and though they are not strictly speaking a song-cycle there is a unity about them that is very telling. The texts by Daniel Rathaus (or Ratgauz) had all been written the year before Tchaikovsky set them. They are nature poems in, mostly, dark colours and melancholy moods. Whether there is a premonition of death here is another matter. Rathaus lived until 1937 and was only 24 when he wrote them, but the overriding atmosphere in the music has similarities to the Pathétique which, according to some opinions, Tchaikovsky wrote anticipating his own imminent death. The songs are not all gloomy on the surface - the fourth song, The sun has set, breathes optimism in the final lines: I am madly happy, oh, my beautiful friend / Unendingly happy in this night with you! but the music says something else. The same goes for the passionate In the midst of gloomy days, where the poet exclaims: And again my desire to live glows with passion / To breathe as one with you, to love you! The final song Again, as before is an anguished farewell: My friend, please, pray to God for me, / Since I am already praying for you. It is soft and inward and Hvorostovsky sings it with immense beauty.

Sergei Taneyev is probably the least known of the three composers represented on this disc but his music is not infrequently heard today. He studied composition with Tchaikovsky and left a quite substantial oeuvre including four symphonies, lots of chamber music - there are eleven string quartets for a start. He regarded his opera Oresteia as his masterpiece - it is being performed at Bard Summerscape this year thanks to the enlightened Leon Botstein amd the Bard grandees (Ed.). There are more than sixty songs. The six songs recorded here are charming with a Minuet that is rather Haydnesque, a Not the wind from on high with a lovely melody in ¾ time, a thrilling Winter path with a virtuoso accompaniment, the strange Stalactites with a very special accompaniment where one hears the water drops falling. A remarkable composition! As an encore we hear the powerful and dramatic Anxiously beats the heart.

After Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky these songs may seem lightweight but they are certainly fascinating and the singing and playing throughout is riveting. A disc not only for lovers of Russian music.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

Ligeti's works on this disc provide an excellent cross-section of the metamorphosis in his compositional technique over a period of 30 years. The Violin Concerto incorporates influences from Medieval and Renaissance music, from late Romantic music and various contemporary styles.

REVIEWS:

Lintu’s Lontano shimmers with ever-shifting colours, he highlights the awe-inspiring grandeur of Atmosphères, and his gorgeously shaped San Francisco Polyphony is vibrant and lyrical—all matched by Ondine’s rich, warm, detailed recording. And Lintu’s vision has the ideal Violin Concerto soloist in Benjamin Schmid, who manages to make Ligeti’s strange, mischievous writing sound sweetly expressive, even touching. His clear sense of line leads the ear effortlessly through the second movement’s eerie microtonal textures, complete with natural horns and ocarinas, and he has superb articulation and rhythmic bite in the tricksy opening movement.

-- The Strad

The selections on this disc are as good a place as any for the newcomer to this composer to get an appreciation for what is so exciting about Ligeti’s way of expressing himself in music. Schmid[’s]…is a committed performance…Lintu and a reduced Finnish Radio Symphony accompany very well and the sound allows much wonderful detail to come through. The performances…are all worthy in their own right. The programme on this CD would seem to be an ideal place to obtain a good sampling of Ligeti’s music.

-- MusicWeb International

Andrejs Selickis (b. 1960) is a singular, idiosyncratic phenomenon among Latvian composers. As with Arvo Pärt, Selickis’ work is inseparably linked to his faith, which has found a deep and unique expression in his distinct style. Iconic symbolism, sacred archetypes and the ecstatic experience of God’s presence are the keys to his music. This new recording by the Latvian Radio Choir includes choral works by Selickis.

Andrejs Selickis grew up and studied music in Latvia, when a crucial meeting with Arvo Pärt took place in the 1970s. Arvo Pärt became a mentor and an example for the composer, both in life and in music. After Pärt emigrated from the Soviet Union, Selickis’ found new home in his church. Selickis has worked as an independent artist since graduating from the conservatory. He lives in Riga and serves as a regent, liturgist and psalmist in various congregations of the Church. In 2015 he was awarded the Latvian Great Music Award, the highest state honor in music. The creative collaboration and friendship between Sigvards Klava and Selickis began in 2012 with the Litany to Mother Teresa, the first composition with which Andrejs Selickis entered active concert life. Together, Klava and Selickis have studied and sung Old Believer chants and have also set out pilgrimages to various monasteries. The present album serves as a resume of the creative collaboration between the Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Klava and Andrejs Selickis.

Uniko features Grammy winning Kronos Quartet, Finnish accordion adventurer Kimmo Pohjonen and sampling guru Samuli Kosminen.

Commissioned by Kronos in 2003, Uniko is highlighted by Pohjonen's electrified and MIDI-fied accordion with Kosminen's electronic percussion devices which reproduce his own accordion samples and his samples of Kronos' instruments. These samples, together with live strings and electric accordion plus effects and manipulations create a new, multi-dimensional sound world.

"Uniko is like an ocean tide coming in. Big waves of sound build in complexity, animation and sometimes sheer frenzy..." – The New York Times

"The Kronos Quartet’s latest CD achieves a fantastical fusion of musical styles... ”UNIKO” highlights the exceptional talent and the courageous, exploratory spirit that makes the Kronos Quartet such an indispensable part of the musical landscape. The album is one of their most compelling recent efforts." – Ronni Reich, New Jersey Star-Ledger

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s (1873-1943) rarely heard, unfinished opera Monna Vanna was the only major score he took with him into exile in the USA after the 1917 revolution. + This new recording is based on Gennadi Belov’s new edition and conducted by an iconic artist and Russian music expert Vladimir Ashkenazy. The second part of this disc features Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski singing seven Rachmaninov songs (including the hauntingly beautiful Vocalise), accompanied on the piano by Mr. Ashkenazy.

REVIEW:

Is Gerald Finley today’s Fischer-Dieskau? I don’t mean to suggest that their voices sound alike—or that they share an interpretive perspective. But like his predecessor, Finley is comfortable in opera, oratorio, and song; his repertoire stretches from the Baroque period through Schubert and Wagner to the present; his sense of musical phrase is unfailing; he’s got a sensitivity to literary nuance, coupled with a clarity of enunciation, that few singers can match; and most important of all, his interpretations, for all their emotional immediacy, are marked by an astonishing level of intellect and care. He’s heard in peak form on this new release.

Pride of place goes to the most familiar work, the Suite on Poems by Michelangelo . Written at the very end of Shostakovich’s life, it shares the death-drenched aura of his other late compositions. Still, it has more variety than either of the major works that flank it, the 15th Quartet and the Viola Sonata; and Finley has the tact necessary to bring out its range of expression without in any way diluting its over-riding bleakness. The subtle despair of “Verità,” the sense of wonder in “Mattina,” the anger of “Ira,” the chisel-against-stone defiance of “Creatività”: Finley captures it all with an unfailing strength of character that never loses its sense of refinement. He’s especially skillful when it comes to sustaining long lines (say, in “Notte”) and in maintaining the shape of the recitative-like passages (say, in “Distacco”). He gives the 1943 Romances on English Poetry the same finely kaleidoscopic quality—note, for instance, how he catches the varying shades of desolation in “Sir Walter Raleigh to His Sonne” or of the bitterness in “Macpherson’s Farewell.” And he’s just as comfortable and convincing in Shostakovich’s 1944 orchestration of Annie Laurie , performed with utter simplicity. Thomas Sanderling’s lifetime of experience with Shostakovich pays off in the sureness of the accompaniments.

Although Fischer-Dieskau’s first recording of the Suite , with pianist Aribert Reimann, used Italian texts, Finley’s is apparently the first recording of the orchestral version to do so (hence my choice of the Italian, rather than the Russian, titles of the songs). It also offers what’s advertised as the first recording of Annie Laurie —and the first recording of the Romances to use the large-scale 1943 orchestration (long thought lost) rather than the original 1942 piano accompaniment or the chamber-orchestra version that Shostakovich made late in his life. (To add to the discographic rarity here, the performances of the Romances use the English originals rather than the Russian translations that Shostakovich set). Details of the various editions and their histories are provided in Marianna Kankare-Loikkanen’s informative contribution to the program booklet, which also includes an essay by Finley called “Setting Michelangelo to Shostakovich,” which describes the issues involved both in finding the best texts (as a student, Finley himself studied medieval Italian) and in making the minor musical adjustments necessary so they fit. Good sound, too.

Given the particular choices of language and orchestration, of course, there’s really no competition for this release. Even with a bulging catalog, though, this would be a top priority.

-- Fanfare: Peter J. Rabinowitz

Classical Music

Soprano Soile Isokoski sings orchestral songs by three different French composers in her new recording. The recording includes two major works in the French song repertoire - Ernest Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer and Hector Berlioz's Nuits d'été. The disc ends with three finely-crafted miniature songs by Henri Duparc, which are no less of artistic value.

Soile Isokoski is recognized as one of the world's finest lyric sopranos and regularly appears on the most renowned stages. Isokoski made her début at the Finnish National Opera as Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème and has since delighted audiences and critics alike at opera houses in Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, London, Milan, Paris, and New York, and at the festivals of Salzburg, Savonlinna, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Edinburgh, and Orange. Soile Isokoski has worked with numerous distinguished conductors. Isokoski has an extensive concert repertoire, and she regularly gives recitals in the most renowned stages.

In this recording Soile Isokoski is accompanied by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra together with its celebrated Chief Conductor John Storgårds.