Alessandro Scarlatti’s cantata Bella madre de’ fiori, opens with a slow-tempo Sinfonia followed by a series of arias and recitatives, the last of which is perhaps the most intensely poetic and stylistically original section of the whole cantata. Giovanni Bononcini’s Il lamento di Olimpia opens with a two-movement delicately pastoral prelude; the most important dramatic moments of the text are in the two recitatives rather than in the cantata’s da capo arias. For the cantata Care luci del mio bene, Bononcini has given us a composition of exquisite elegance in superb cantabile style.

Two well-known and two less-familiar orchestral works by Debussy • A new recording from the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and Heinz Holliger, following up on their globally acclaimed Koechlin series • A continuation of the orchestra’s exploration of the French orchestral repertoire that began with their CDs of the music of Koechlin • May 21st 2014: Heinz Holliger’s 75th birthday The "Afternoon of a Faun“ together with the orchestral "Images" are among Claude Debussy’s best known and most popular compositions. Both works show different side of the composer: "Afternoon of a Faun" is a textbook example of musical impressionism, while about the "Images", the composer himself said that his goal was to “try to achieve something different – an effect of reality”. The scores contrast well with the two Rhapsodies: the one for clarinet, called the "first" Rhapsody, was sketched out within a few weeks at the end of 1909, while the "second" Rhapsody for saxophone was only completed and orchestrated after the death of its author. The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and conductor Heinz Holliger manage to bring out the evocative, dynamic colors and peculiarities to be found in all of these works with precision.

Complete Recording of Mozart’s Violin Concertos - Lena Neudauer belongs to the most famous violinists of her generation - In combination with the Deutschen Radio Philharmonie - Lena Neudauer already inspired with the complete recording of Schumann’s Works for Violin and Orchestra: „The sonorous voice of the Guadagnini-Violin of Lena Neudauer fills the whole sound stage.“ HifiRecords 2011 zu CD 93.285 At age 15, the young violinist Lena Neudauer had already won the famous Leopold Mozart International Competition in Augsburg, where she not only was awarded 1st prize, but also took home the Mozart Prize, Richard Strauss Prize for the best interpretation of Richard Strauss' Violin Concerto and the Audience Prize. Yet despite this spectacular accomplishment, she refused to be pushed into becoming another “child prodigy.” This well-balanced, clear-thinking side of her being plays a special role with her interpretations of Mozart's music. We are reminded of what father Leopold wrote to his son Wolfgang Amadeus in 1777: „You yourself do not know how well you play the violin; if only you will do yourself credit and play with energy, with your whole heart and mind...“. Lena Neudauer‘s beautiful, pure violin tone perfectly fits the spirit of these less-than-virtuoso, but supernaturally lovely concertos, her sensitivity illuminating these works from the inside. She is joined by conductor Bruno Weil, an expert in the music of the Viennese classicists and period instrument specialist, who transforms the German Radio Philharmonic into an aural carpet, upon which the soloist can move with quiet expression and grace.

Classical Music

If you happened to see Daniel Barenboim’s 2003 Beethoven master classes on DVD, you might remember an unusually poised young pianist, Alessio Bax, who chose the “Hammerklavier” sonata’s daunting final movement. Fast-forward 11 years to Bax’s recording of the complete work, coupled with the composer’s ubiquitous “Moonlight” sonata. Bax might not take the “Hammerklavier” Allegro at Beethoven’s admittedly optimistic metronome marking, but the hurling momentum, lean yet nuanced textures, and astute ear for voice leading (the amazingly well contoured fughetta, for instance) convey both structure and kinetic energy. Also note Bax’s explosive build-up of the upward alternating broken fifths and sixths leading into the recapitulation, complete with the controversial “misprint masterstroke” Urtext A-sharp (played by Schnabel and Arrau) rather than the more logical yet less quirky A-natural (Brendel and Kempff).

The brisk, appropriately sardonic Scherzo features stinging offbeat accents and a ferocious upward F major scale buttoning the Trio. When I played the Adagio sostenuto for my college piano teacher, he constantly admonished me to “put some beef on that left hand.” I pass that advice down to Alessio! While he certainly sustains his slow basic tempo with the utmost in expressive economy, he does tend to uniformly voice his slow-moving chords, with the top melody line to the fore. Bax brilliantly characterizes the Largo’s madcap mood swings and broken chord transition into the Fugue, while the Fugue itself is a knockout: brisk, clear, clean, and jazzy as hell.

Bax sets an ideal and flexible pace for the “Moonlight” sonata’s iconic Adagio sostenuto, which he plays gorgeously. A few of the Allegretto’s clipped phrase endings and teensy tenutos strike me as what one of my British colleagues describes as “a mite twee.” However, Bax’s rhythmic discipline, focused articulation, and sharp attention to dynamics in the Presto agitato finale make the performance sound faster than it actually is.

Under Bax’s virtuosic fingers, the Chorus of the Dervishes whirls with Lisztian abandon. On the other hand, his overly fast and lightweight treatment of the Turkish March lacks the thrust and force of Beethoven’s original orchestral version, not to mention the once-popular Anton Rubinstein transcription. Reservations aside, this release adds up to an impressive achievement for which Bax should be proud.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Non-professional lovers of music ranged, in their mastery of the instruments, from amateurs to concert performers. So the instrumental fantasias were “molded” to the patrons’ specific requirements, and nourished a constantly growing market. The history of Pietro Morlacchi (1828-68) and Antonio Torriani (1829-1911) coincides with the history of the success of instrumental music genre in Italy. That these of the many published fantasias of the time survived, testify to their musical worth.

The second half of the 18th c. and beyond witnessed the widespread popularity in Germanic and Hapsburg regions of a particular type of wind ensemble of varying forces known as Harmonie. The repertoire consisted of divertissements, cassations, serenades and nocturnes, performed for the most part outdoors, as well as “dining music” played at important banquets, and Harmoniemusik heard at parties and ceremonies. Original pieces were performed together with transcriptions of celebrated works, such as this adaptation by Wenzel Sedlak of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

REVIEW:

These are strong, exciting performances of symphonies that demand the sort of bold muscularity in their execution that these artists offer. In Alan Gilbert’s hands the First Symphony sounds extremely confident and wholly mature. It starts with a bang and the tension in the first movement never lets up. The playing of the New York Philharmonic throughout is fresh and unaffected, full of spirit and drive. Even the Andante flows purposefully forward, and contrasts nicely with the Allegro comodo that does duty for a scherzo–with its harmonic kinks so personal to Nielsen. The finale has the same “pedal to the metal” drive as the opening, bringing the performance to a rousing conclusion.

The performance of the “Inextinguishable” Fourth Symphony also features some really impressive energy and power. In the first movement the brass play with a precision and clarity that few other versions can match, and in the finale the dueling timpani compete with real bravura. The slow movement here reminds me of Shostakovich in its bleak intensity, and my only quibble with Gilbert’s interpretation concerns the symphony’s coda where, like most of his colleagues, Gilbert broadens the pace in the closing bars when Nielsen clearly wants to drive the music home in tempo. Gilbert does pull it off: with an orchestra that has the weight and strength of the New York Philharmonic the effect is convincing, but Gibson (on Chandos) remains unmatched here.

Dacapo’s engineering, as with the previous release in this series, is natural and very present. The woodwinds feel just slightly recessed in more fully scored sections, but I can attest that the music really does sound like this in actual performance with a large orchestra, and certainly nothing gets lost. More importantly, the engineers have captured the impression of a live performance, caught on the wing, and the audience is mercifully quiet. This is a very impressive release.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Angelo Berardi (1636–94) maintained in his day that modern music had reached “greater perfection compared to the past” and that the practice of music was more important than theory; he asserted, moreover, that a good composition should also elevate the soul to virtuous thoughts. In terms of his stylistic profile, Berardi shows great richness of inspiration, so much so that this, his only work assigned to the violin, seems to cover the entirety of the instrument’s abilities and expressive variety.

Florian Uhlig‘s recent recording of French Piano Concertos created a sensation. Though originally conceived as a respite from his ongoing project to record the first, truly complete edition of the piano works of Robert Schumann, Mr. Uhlig’s excursion into late 19th and 20th century French repertoire demonstrated his knack for the brilliant, urbane sound-world of the great French composers. He continues his explorations in this new recording of the piano works of Maurice Ravel.

The recordings of the gifted Shostakovich interpreter Andrey Boreyko have met with great acclaim; his Shostakovich’s Symphonies No. 9 & 15 (CD 93.284) were awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2012. Shostakovich completed his Fifth Symphony in July, 1937 as a "response of a Soviet artist to justified criticism" – a critique which befell Shostakovich in 1936 over Stalin’s particular displeasure with “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”.

The Codex of Guardiagrele includes several compositions by artists (from Abruzzo and other regions) that worked in Guardiagrele at the Santa Maria Maggiore church. These compositions expose the then-richness of polyphonic music in this region. The Codex includes several early 15th c. manuscripts of liturgic missals conserved until 1979 in Guardiagrele. Directing the De Bon Parole ensemble in this world premiere recording is Marco Giacintucci, who also realized the reconstructions.

The Fifth House Ensemble of Chicago chamber-music group aims for the stratosphere with Excelsior, its adventurous debut album on Cedille Records. The title refers to an experimental, extreme-altitude U.S. Air Force project of the Cold War era. Excelsior presents world-premiere recordings of works by Caleb Burhans, recipient of commissions from Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Library of Congress; prolific, award-winning composer Alex Shapiro; and Jesse Limbacher, winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. The disc also includes a work by Mason Bates, Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer-in-residence. Commissioned by Fifth House Ensemble, Burhans’ 30-minute title track depicts Captain Joseph W. Kittinger’s 1960 record-setting free fall and parachute landing from a height of more than 19 miles above the earth. Excelsior transports listeners through a seamless, ethereal blend of acoustic and electric instruments and voice, propelled by suspenseful, repeating motifs.

Claudio Merulo (1533–1604) enjoyed great renown in his time. +
His famous Toccate expresses most vividly his considerable skill in the practice of intavolare diminuito. + These world premiere recordings present the entire corpus of Merulo’s Toccate: the 9 Toccate contained in the First Book of Toccate d’intavolatvra d’organo (1598), the 10 Toccate contained in the Second Book of Toccate d’intavolatura d’organo (1604) and the 7 manuscript Toccate drawn from the Nuova intavolatura d’organo tedesca.

Classical Music

Antonio Salieri’s (1750-1825) catalog of instrumental music is not particularly extensive. +The symphonic works known from available recordings include two symphonies, several concerti, serenades and the like. +There is, also, a small body of chamber works, including those present on this disc. +Oboist Paolo Pollastri (b. 1960) has been first oboe of numerous orchestras and performs often as a soloist. +The Canadian Amati Quartet made its international debut in 2005 and indulges in a diverse repertoire.

Venetian musician and composer Antonio Caldara (1670-1736), unlike some of his contemporaries who today are quite famous but experienced little fame during their lifetimes, enjoyed enormous success, then faded inexplicably from music history. +Alongside a vast production of vocal music, his only significant instrumental works are two trio sonata collections published during his youth, as well as these “sonate a violoncello solo col basso”, composed in 1735, a year before his passing.

Orlando di Lasso, 16th century musician and composer, is one of the masters of 16th century polyphony, considered by many the most versatile. +For over thirty years from 1560, he remained at the court of Duke Albert V of Bavaria, becoming court choirmaster. +In this capacity he traveled widely, often to Italy. +This collection consists of 24 bicinia, a polyphonic instructional genre then in vogue. +Half the collection uses sacred Latin text; the rest have no text. +A world premiere recording.

In the year 1580, a young Luca Marenzio published his first collection of compositions: Primo libro de’ madrigali a cinque voci, to all a supreme master. Thanks to these works, Marenzio won a position of primacy among Italian composers, his fame soon reaching other European countries. In England, Marenzio’s works were highly admired. This CD contains an overview of the profane musical genres of the late ‘1500's, of which Marenzio and his contemporaries were the leading figures.

"From 1970 to 2008, the Viennese Alban Berg Quartet was one of the most successful string quartets in the world. Their playing influenced an entire generation of subsequent quartets. The reason for their worldwide success lay both in their outstanding virtuosity and their unerring ability to perform live with the same precision and exactitude of a studio recording. A further highlight from the Schwetzingen SWR Festival concert series Unique interpretations of two extraordinary works"

Jennifer Koh and Jamie Laredo feature in this recital of works written for two violins. Includes two world-premiere recordings in addition to works by J.S. Bach and Philip Glass. Vinay Parameswaran leads the Curtis 20/21 Ensemble, to which composer David Ludwig (b. 1974) serves as Director. Anna Clyne's (b. 1980) dramatic and inventive works have been championed by musicians from around the world.

REVIEW:

Jennifer Koh’s collaboration with her erstwhile mentor at the Curtis Institute, Jaime Laredo, has resulted in a program of works for two violins played by both of them: Bach’s Double Violin Concerto and three new pieces, all accompanied by Vinay Parameswaran conducting the Curtis 20/21 Ensemble. In Bach’s and David Ludwig’s works, Laredo plays first violin, while in Anna Clyne’s and Philip Glass’s, Koh does. The recordings of Clyne’s and Ludwig’s works purport to be the first. 

The duo adopts quick but not precipitous tempos in the first movement of Bach’s Concerto. Both soloists produce a modern sound that blends well their soloistic counterpart and with the ensemble. They engage in no mannerisms, presenting the music straightforwardly, as they do in the slow movement, though their beauty of tone there provides a focus of interest, rendering their interweaving tonally ingratiating, quite aside from the musical compatibility it evinces. Should their individualities be expressed more obviously? Would the soloists in Bach’s time be clearly distinguishable in such a chamber setting? Quite aside from these more philosophical quibbles, their playing sounds equally homogeneous, as well as highly energetic, in the finale.

Clyne’s 2012 piece, Prince of Clouds, shimmeringly atmospheric and harmonically accessible in its opening, grows texturally chunkier as it progresses, recalling stylistically Benjamin Britten’s keen ear for string textures and resonances—and not only between the soloists but within the ensemble, too. Glass’s Echorus, perhaps even more atmospheric and just as firmly tonal in its harmonic underpinnings, trades on shifting melodic patterns, as do so many of his other works (recalling clouds subtly shifting shapes as they roll, although the two soloists emerge only tentatively from the textures), and rivets listeners’ attention to its hypnotic musical argument. The four movements of Ludwig’s 2012 Seasons Lost represent the four seasons in order but beginning (rather than ending) with “Winter.” The composer suggests that these recall a time before climate change merged the seasons. As do the other two recent works on the program, this one creates atmospheres; and, as does Clyne’s work, it also shows how sharply the composer’s ear discriminates among string sonorities. The composer likens the interweaving violin parts of “Spring” with that of the season’s luxuriantly sprouting greenery, while Summer suggests to him warm nights and bonfires: dark and mysterious and allusive, like the performances. “Fall” brings blowing winds in perhaps the most graphic of the movements, with shriller, almost Stravinskian sonorities and harmonies.

The program evinces a sort of continuity more integral even than the close interaction of the two soloists and the unifying string sonorities: A sort of downy blanket covers all of it, generating lots of warmth without inducing somnolence. Can this, rather than deterministic or aleatory blips and bangs, be the future of music? Has the tonal system really been played out, and did the experiments now almost a century old really come about as a result of historic inevitability? Many listeners could perhaps accept this program as a sort of gentle answer. In any case, the recital should appeal broadly for its performances and for its program (to say nothing of its clear recorded sound). It doesn’t jettison the past so much as it establishes a sort of healing continuity. Strongly recommended.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Vivaldi, more than any of his Italian contemporaries, left a great number of works composed for diverse and highly imaginative combinations of wind and string instruments. The source of this inspiration can be traced back not only to the composer’s own personal tastes, but especially to his good fortune to have worked for an institution such as the Pietà, which had at its disposal an unrivalled wealth of instrumental forces. This interest is a constant element throughout his entire production.

A complete edition of all Gaspare Spontini’s vocal chamber-music pieces currently known is presented here for the first time. These pieces were composed for all sorts of purposes and performed in the circles of private drawing rooms. This recording, which is the outcome of an extensive, meticulous work on the sources, includes the collections, the independent tunes and, in the appendixes, the modified or translated pieces, the drafts and sketches, and the original contemporary arrangements.

• A 1767 Tartini autograph memoir contains a report about his income over the last forty years. He also mentioned his activity as a music teacher in Padua, started in 1727. What Tartini was referring to was his “School of Nations” private tutoring activity. The name was given to Tartini’s school because he taught music to countless violinists who came to Padua practically from all Europe. Thanks to these students, Tartini’s violin technique and style were disseminated all over Europe."

• Milan-born pianist, composer and conductor Giorgio Gaslini is a jazz musician of international fame, who to his credit has given more than 3,000 concerts, recorded 100 CD's and is a ten-time Critics Award winner. The flute works were composed between 1955 and 2011. Their performer and dedicatee is Roberto Fabbriciani, with whom Gaslini has had a long collaboration."