This album by violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, together with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Paavo Järvi, is dedicated in the memory of their longtime artistic partner, pianist Lars Vogt (1970–2022). At the heart of this album is Brahms, one of Lars Vogt’s favorite composers, and his late orchestral masterpiece, the Double Concerto. Brahms himself had admired one of Viotti’s violin concertos so much that he included material from the violin concerto into his work. With Christian Tetzlaff’s recording of the violin concerto, this album finally brings these two works together. Also included is Dvorák’s beautiful Silent Woods for cello and orchestra, a work by another composer that was very close to Lars Vogt’s heart.

The human factor determines the path. The Clarinet Trio op. 114 by Johannes Brahms more or less represents the DNA of the Quantum Clarinet Trio, and the piece was one of the driving forces behind the founding of this young chamber ensemble, whose members first met at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg in 2014. At that time, Italian clarinettist Elena Veronesi had been searching for fellow musicians to collaborate in a late work trio, and she found them in the German cellist Johannes Przygodda and Korean pianist Bokyung Kim. What started as a project has now evolved into a permanent ensemble. This great Brahms trio has continued to be a enterprise in which life converges with art.

Cellists, pianists and clarinettists usually come together when a work requires such a constellation, the line-up going their own separate ways once the project is completed. Compared to piano trios or string quartets, these particular instruments unfortunately rarely come together as a fixed ensemble. The Quantum Clarinet Trio is a welcome exception to the rule, making this encounter with one of Brahms' most important works much more than just a "fleeting liaison".

Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words simply defy ordinary description. Refined and nuanced, they constitute some of the composer’s finest and best-known works. For nearly two hundred years, they were regarded as charming relics, select romantic gems performed in small concert halls and salons. While their subtle, ornamental qualities certainly shine brightest in more intimate settings, closer inspection reveals an unexpected depth and complexity to these miniature masterpieces. Their interpretive and technical demands are considerable, requiring sensitivity to voicing, pedaling and dynamic control. Meant to enchant rather than dazzle, they evoke myriad dreams revealing some of the composer’s innermost reflections. Like private entries in a musical diary, they offer a rare glimpse into this reserved but passionate artist’s thoughts.

REVIEW:

The Mendelssohn gems of course I was familiar with and very fond of, while Price Walden’s music was a most rewarding discovery of compositions that reflect keen sensitivity, a delicate overall feel, and expansive melodies underpinned by equally clear and open harmonies that never muscle into the crystalline quality of the melodies. These are intensely American works and a joy to listen to.

Bruce Levingston’s insights into Mendelssohn provide many moments of delight – his ever-sensitive approach bringing out everything that is joyful about that chapter of Mendelssohn’s oeuvre.

As is always the case the engineering of the album is peerless and the album itself well annotated.

A winner through and through.

-- All About The Arts (Rafael de Acha)

The early death of award-winning pianist and conductor Lars Vogt on September 5, 2022 shocked profoundly the international music world. Some 16 months earlier, already aware of his diagnosis and in the middle of his treatment sessions, the artist had an urgent desire to record a Mozart piano concerto album together with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. He believed that performing these fantastic works that he so much admired would also be the best medicine for his condition. For this Mozart album Lars Vogt coupled two concertos: the early, exuberant Piano Concerto No. 9, nicknamed ‘Jeunehomme’ and written by Mozart in his early 20s; together with the melancholic and nostalgic Piano Concerto No. 24, which is considered by many to be Mozart’s greatest piano concerto – a perfect closure to Vogt’s final concerto album.

REVIEWS:

The slow movements, deeply felt, inevitably emerge with extra poignancy, but elsewhere Vogt revels in Mozart’s playful wit. The album is a fitting memorial to Vogt’s musicianship, courage and humanity.

-- The Times of London

Vogt was particularly distinguished by his remarkable interpretations of Brahms which earned him numerous laudatory reviews. Former musical director of the Paris Chamber Orchestra, with whom he collaborated for the last time on this disc, he also assumed the role of professor at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. Despite being diagnosed with cancer in 2021, he decided to immerse himself in recording Mozart's Piano Concertos Nos. 9 and 24 with unwavering determination. This is reminiscent of the context in which the Requiem in D minor was written, which, according to some accounts, was composed in anticipation of the Austrian composer's own funeral.

As for Vogt, he unfortunately never had the opportunity to hear the finished disc. From his entrance [in Concerto no. 9], Lars Vogt uses a slightly shy sound, dictated by a delicate restraint, thus creating an intimate atmosphere conducive to the sonic development of the piece. A form of mutual respect between musicians and conductor emerges, at the same time creating a virtuous circle which, through the minutes that pass, gradually contributes to strengthening the emotional depth of the interpretation.

What follows is one of the most painful pages that Mozart has written, the opening of the second movement of this concerto. Tragically reflecting the condition in which Vogt found himself, the first chords in C minor resonate like a death knell, the darkest and most poignant moment of this record. Finally, after a clarification brought by the modulation in E flat major, this concerto closes with a rondo overflowing with hope.

The Piano Concerto No. 24, completed in 1786 in Vienna, is introduced by an orchestral overture lasting more than two minutes which, it should be noted, is performed masterfully by the Paris Chamber Orchestra. Directed by Vogt himself, together they succeed in perfectly capturing the overall dramatic color of this work, thereby creating the most favorable terrain for the musical development of the solo that follows. By breaking through the silence left by the orchestra, Vogt transports us, while reassuring us with his simple and charming playing. The second movement, for its part, does not seem to deviate from the very essence of this disc, namely unequaled finesse.

The soft moments are played like a caress on the keyboard, evoking emotions which unfold with a more than captivating sweetness. Each note seems to be enveloped in a veil of tenderness, creating a significant intimate atmosphere. Finally, this concerto closes with a lively allegretto in apotheosis which brings a final touch of vitality to the whole work. Despite his state of health, Lars Vogt leaves us with this record a testimony of perseverance and unwavering optimism. He succeeds with flying colors in captivating us in the space of an hour while ultimately retracing a life journey. A touching album to discover this September.

-- Crescendo

After recordings of Beethoven’s complete symphonies; two Ravel albums; one Rautavaara album; and the award-winning album ‘Americascapes’; Robert Treviño now turns his focus on the symphonic poems by Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936).Together with the Orchestra Nazionale Sinfonica della RAI; Robert Treviño presents the composer’s famous Roman Trilogy; an exciting orchestral masterpiece culminating in the triumphant Pines of Rome.

Respighi's fascination with the Eternal City is nowhere better expressed than in the three symphonic poems that make up the so-called Roman Trilogy. He had rarely taken on works of such proportions and his most recent large-scale orchestral work, the Sinfonia Drammatica, dating from 1914, still reveals the lasting influence of Brahms and Franck. But just one year later, he finally shook off the shackles of late 19th-century Romanticism, and offered a first glimpse of the remarkable use of color that would soon become a hallmark of his orchestral writing.

REVIEW:

Respighi’s three tone poems, collectively known as the “Roman Trilogy,” have been popular since their premieres, and there is no shortage of recordings. However, here is one that is worth consideration from a rising conductor and a major orchestra that is not recorded as often as it ought to be. This is absolutely infectious fun, and the performances are fully in the spirit of these evergreen favorites. Here is a release that will make one remember what it was they loved about this music in the first place.

-- AllMusic,com (James Manheim)

What would singing be without words? When you combine wonderful poetry with exquisite music, the result is magical. In a rare break from the sacred collections they are famed for, this album from The Sixteen features a whole program of secular music devoted to English partsongs. From Stanford’s cycle of Eight Partsongs based on the sparing yet infectious poetry of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge to Bridges’ lyrically descriptive writing in Finzi’s Seven Poems of Robert Bridges and Imogen Holst’s six idyllic partsongs Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow using verses by John Keats, each setting captures the mood of the poem brilliantly.

I Fagiolini’s re-discovery and recording of Striggio’s long-lost Mass in 40/60 Parts was ground-breaking when it was released in 2011. The premiere recording won awards around the world including the Gramophone Early Music Award and a Diapason d’Or de l’Année in France and remains a trailblazing account of this Renaissance epic. It is complemented by Tallis’ Spem in alium which it is said to have inspired. The Gramophone citation particularly mentioned the new lustre brought to the piece by instrumental involvement and the clarity brought to the detail by the use of viols, cornetts, sackbuts, dulcians and more. Eight further works by Striggio are also included, each of them premiere recordings in 2011.

Less well known among his works, the Missa sacra, Op. 147, bears witness to Robert Schumann’s late interest in sacred music – and in particular in Catholic church music. The work would have a rather difficult fate: during Schumann’s lifetime, it was neither published nor performed in its entirety. Even after its posthumous première, opinions were lukewarm. Wrongly so: the Missa sacra is a fascinating attempt to update sacred music through a refined post-classical musical language. It was originally conceived for orchestra, but Schumann also made a version for organ, presented here. This version allows great vocal transparency and immediacy, thus contributing to a clearer vision of the work. The Vier doppelchörige Gesänge for mixed choir a cappella, Op. 141, are also undeservedly neglected works: they constitute the high point in Schumann’s music for choir. These four songs unite both secular and religious-themed, the latter component being musically emphasised by the effect of multiple choirs. These two fascinating works are performed by the Swedish Radio Choir under the direction of Kaspar Putninš. Among his recordings for BIS is the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom by Rachmaninov (BIS-2571), which has received widespread critical acclaim, for example being awarded a prestigious Diapason d’Or by the French magazine Diapason.

REVIEW:

Schumann’s Missa Sacra, Op. 147, was one of the last things he wrote, and it wasn’t published until after his death. As it happens, it is marvelous, and it was probably just waiting for a top-notch reading of the sort that it receives here. Schumann attempts to merge the rather conservative structure of the Classical mass with Romantic stylistic ideas, and the work is really not like anything else he ever wrote. The Four Songs for Double Choir, Op. 141, close out the program; written slightly earlier, they are rare and quite persuasive. Yet it is the mass that may rewrite the choral repertory lists a bit; in this lovely performance, it is a gem.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

This recital brings together two established classics from the 20th century with lesser-known works from the repertoire for violin and piano. Alongside Ravel’s Sonata, a work that reveals the influence of jazz on the French composer, and Prokofiev’s wartime Sonata, Op. 94a, an idiomatic arrangement of its original version for flute, we find compositions by Arvo Pärt, Lili Boulanger and Grazyna Bacewicz, which, at times meditative, at times lyrical, at times folk-inspired, testify to the richness of this repertoire. These works are here performed by Johan Dalene, the Swedish-Norwegian winner of the 2019 Nielsen Competition. The present disc is violinist’s fourth release on BIS, following a recording of the Nielsen and Sibelius Concertos named Editor’s Choice by Gramophone and awarded the 2023 Swedish Grammis Award for Best Classical, the Tchaikovsky Concerto described as ‘one of the finest violin débuts of the last decade’ in BBC Music Magazine, and ‘Nordic Rhapsody’, a violin and-piano recital that was awarded distinctions such as Diapason d’or and Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice. As with that release, Dalene is given here the expert support of Christian Ihle Hadland who has also appeared on other much-lauded recordings, most recently one dedicated to Saint-Saëns’ violin sonatas.

REVIEW:

The young violinist Johan Dalene was named Gramo­phone’s Young Artist of the Year in 2022 and has performed with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Czech Philhar­monic, and San Francisco Symphony. He’s also made his mark in Halls Wigmore and Carnegie, and on this brilliantly assembled collection of works by Arvo Part (Fratres), Maurice Ravel (Sonata in G major for violin and piano), Lili Boulanger (Nocturne), Sergei Prokofiev (Sonata No.2 in D major for violin and piano), and four short works by Grazyna Bacewicz.

The collection’s common thread is a pen­chant for piquant harmonies, atmosphere, and mysticism. Bacewicz’s early “Witraz” (Stained-Glass Window), which she com­posed in 1932 at the age of 23, is unforget­table. If you can begin to imagine magical flashes of light and color diffused through a stained-glass window, dancing across the room as they metamorphosize into sound, you’ll get a sense of how special this miniature sounds. Dalene’s Strad whispers, flashes, darts, and whirls as Hadland shines beside him through light and shadow.

Thanks to the iconic ECM New Series recording by Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett, Part’s early mystical masterpiece achieved fame just a few years after it was completed. Where Kremer begins with a whisper, Dalene is far more forthright, his tone irresistibly fresh and gleaming, and the recording benefits from superior engineer­ing. The touching poetry of Boulanger’s subtle miniature stands in sharp contrast to Prokofiev’s fabulous scherzo and circuslike finale. Ravel, too, revels in character, humor, amiability, and spice. The finale brings to mind someone chasing a mosquito around the room with a rolled-up copy of Stereophile in hand.

-- Stereophile

Autumn 2020 offered Daniel-Ben Pienaar an opportunity, not because the world was in lockdown but rather for the benefit it provided. A professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Daniel-Ben was allowed overnight access to the RAM’s Angela Burgess Hall. Solitary, with a Steinway and a single pair of suspended omni-directional microphones, surrounded by silence and the darkness of the night, Daniel-Ben recorded this inspired eight-CD set of Haydn’s Piano Sonatas over a four-month period.

Daniel-Ben’s choice of Haydn’s 48 Piano Sonatas is based on his own meticulous research. The cycle comprises authenticated works plus earlier compositions presumed by scholars to be penned by Haydn. This deluxe box set follows in the footsteps of Daniel-Ben Pienaar’s acclaimed surveys of sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

This new album by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and Aapo Häkkinen together with the Audi Jugendchorakademie and bassoonist Jani Sunnarborg featuring late works by composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775–1838) makes an important addition to the recordings of Nordic Classical period works and of early Finnish music. Highlight of the album is the world première recording of Crusell’s Viking-themed ‘The Last Warrior’ (Den sista kämpen) from 1834, the composer’s last large-scale composition.

Peijun Xu, born in Shanghai, is one of the leading violists of her generation. As a soloist, Peijun Xu has performed in renowned venues such as the Shanghai Concert Hall, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg or the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Her chamber music partners include Paul Rivinius, Evgenia Rubinova, Alexander Sitkovetsky and Veit Hertenstein. German violist Veit Hertenstein plays with “brigthly ringing, luminous and finly finessed sound (The Strad Magazine 2022).

Veit Hertenstein is Professor for Viola at the Musikhochschule Detmold, Germany since 2015.

The award-winning Silesian quartet present a new album featuring two composers from Warsaw – Joachim Mendelson and Graznya Bacewicz. After completing his music studies in Warsaw and Berlin, Joachim Mendelson moved to Paris in 1929, where he joined the Association des Jeunes Musiciens Polonais, a society founded in 1926 to facilitate the study, publication, and promotion of the works of young Polish composers. Bacewicz also received support from the Association, and from Paderewski, and studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. The associations’ aims included re-establishing a national musical life at the highest level back in Poland (after more than a century of joint occupation by Russia, Prussia, and Austria), and both composers returned to Warsaw and worked there until 1939. Mendelson taught at the Institute of Music, and Bacewicz became leader of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and continued her career and a composer and soloist. Mendelson was imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto until 1943 when he was murdered by the Gestapo. Five of his works survive, thanks to the French publisher Max Eschig, including the quartet and quintet recorded here. Both Bacewicz works on this recording were rejected by the composer, and never included in her catalogue of works. It is extremely lucky that the manuscripts have survived, preserved at the National Library in Warsaw. Half a century after her death the Royal String Quartet prepared performing scores and gave the first performances.

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic continue their survey of Shostakovich’s late symphonies with this recoding of the 14th, with Elizabeth Atherton and Peter Rose as soloists. Completed in the spring of 1969, and premiered later that year, the symphony is written for soprano, bass and small string orchestra with percussion, setting eleven linked setting of poems by four authors. Most of the poems deal with the theme of death, particularly that of unjust or early death, and indeed all four of the poets had died prematurely and / or in unnatural circumstances – Wilhelm Küchelbecker in Siberian exile for his part in the 1825 Decembrist uprising, Federico García Lorca assassinated during the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, Rainer Maria Rilke of blood poisoning following an accident in 1926 and Guillaume Apollinaire in 1918 during the Spanish influenza pandemic. The Six Verses of Marina Tsvetayeva were composed in 1973, originally for contralto and piano, and subsequently arranged for chamber orchestra (the version we hear here, with Jess Dandy as soloist). The recording was made at Media City in Salford, Manchester, in Surround Sound, and is available as a hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio.

The three main works on the CD are favourite pieces of mine that I often listened to as a student. One is the Suite No. 1 in E minor, BWV 996, by Johann Sebastian Bach. Another piece that I have always liked immensely, and which I thought that I will one day learn is the "Valses Poeticos" by Enrique Granados, and in the same way, I had started the "Sonatine pour harpe" op. 30 by Marcel Tournier, but never finished it. I then developed a plan to make a CD in order to create an additional project for myself using these three pieces as a basis.

I combined the three great works by Bach, Granados and Tournier so that they became ‘pathfinders’, so to speak, with the Renaissance pieces by Mayone connecting these three longer pieces with one another. This has the effect of creating a larger whole that can be experienced as a single concept. -- Markus Folker Thalheimer

After its first album devoted to Schumann’s first two piano trios, the Kungsbacka Piano Trio now presents the conclusion of this series with the Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor, to which they add the Six Studies in Canonic Form, originally for pedal piano and performed here in an arrangement for piano trio, and an early work, the Quartet in C minor for violin, viola, cello and piano, which was only published in 1979. Composed in 1851, the third Piano Trio achieves the tonal balance Schumann was aiming for with an utmost independence of the three instruments while having ‘obsessive impulses’ running through it, to quote pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips. The Six Studies in Canonic Form that follow appear as small contrapuntal jewels that testify to Robert Schumann’s keen interest in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. Finally, the Quartet composed when Schumann was 18 reveals a wildly creative mind at work, inspired in turn by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin. Yet, despite these influences, one perceives a distinctive voice that reveals the obsessive qualities that would characterise Schumann’s later works. “A thrilling ride for performer and listener”, promises Crawford-Phillips.

REVIEW:

In Schumann’s Piano Trio 3 in G minor, the Kungsbacka Trio is precise and spry for the entire 26 minutes, and the sound quality is pristine. These musicians find an elegance in the composer that other artists sometimes miss.

The 6 Studies in Canonical Form appear here in their transcription for trio by Theodor Kirchner. The quality is high, but just a few might have sufficed.

The Piano Quartet in C minor is from 1829, making it one of Schumann’s very first attempts at composition. He never finished the piano parts, and so they are completed here by musicologist Joachim Draheim. The Minuet is especially lighthearted, with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips leading the way. At 33 minutes, this piece is a bit long, with many mercurial shifts of mood and dynamics. Still, this is an impressive album, a happy meeting of performers and material.

-- American Record Guide

The pianist Anna Zassimova offers us a musical journey through most of Chopin’s creative periods, bringing together miniatures and some larger scaled, highly structured works. We can thus follow the composer’s stylistic evolution: slightly whimsical at first, then works that are often tragic and violent, evolving in his final years towards great luminosity and relative calm.

Highlights of this recital include the Ballades Nos 2 and 4, the Mazurkas, Op. 41 and Op. 50 and the Scherzo No. 4 in E major. The mazurkas can be seen as a kind of diary that Chopin kept throughout his life as an artist, reflecting his deep-rooted attachment to Poland. In them, folklore was entirely recreated and stylized. Considered the finest of Chopin’s creation and among the most representative of romantic music, the Ballads are pure music in its finest form. Without any specific programme, they are said to have been inspired by the poetic ideas of one of his friends, the poet Adam Mickiewicz. Finally, the Scherzo has an almost fairy-tale, luminous atmosphere, although there are more passionate and intense moments, and it thus appears close to the character of the scherzo as it was once conceived.

Cantata Collective, an ensemble “of San Francisco early music luminaries” (San Francisco Chronicle) inaugurates a major series of J. S. Bach’s choral works with a live recording of the composer’s St. John Passion. With celebrated conductor Nicholas McGegan, the toast of today’s new generation of vocal soloists and a three-to-a-part chamber choir, the Cantata Collective conveys the emotional intimacy and dramatic power of this monumental passion in a highly polished performance that led Early Music America to implore: “To the excellent musicians of Cantata Collective: More Bach Please!”

This album is the culmination of an extraordinarily fruitful artistic collaboration that took place at the 2022 Boulder Bach Festival in Boulder, Colorado. The recordings were made immediately after the public concerts concluded. They document four of the many memorable musical interpretations at the Festival, which occurred not just because of the many talented artists, but also thanks to the kindness and generosity of countless members of the community and region. Although many musicians converged on Boulder from all over the globe, the Festival also featured several remarkable local artists. The entire project took place against the backdrop of some of the most majestic natural scenery in the world.

REVIEW:

Under artistic director Mina Gajić, and music director Zachary Carrettin, the Boulder Bach Festival of Colorado has progressed steadily in its artistic aims as well as providing an attractive setting for music lovers. The present recordings, made immediately after the public performances in the 2022 Festival, bear witness to this, in sparkling accounts of two concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach and two choral settings by Johann Christian Bach, an earlier sprig on a very prolific family tree.

-- Audio Video Club of Atalnta (Phil Muse)

Note: this double-disc release contains both a CD and a Blu-ray Audio disc. The former will play on any CD player, and the latter will play on devices with Blu-ray read capability.

Anna Þorvaldsdóttir writes: "The core inspiration behind ARCHORA centres around the notion of a primordial energy and the idea of an omnipresent parallel realm – a world both familiar and strange, static and transforming, nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The piece revolves around the extremes on the spectrum between the Primordia and its resulting afterglow – and the conflict between these elements that are nevertheless fundamentally one and the same. The halo emerges from the Primordia but they have both lost perspective and the connection to one another, experiencing themselves individually as opposing forces rather than one and the same.

"AIŌN is inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time, of being able to explore time as a space that you inhabit rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension. Disorienting at first, you realize that time extends simultaneously in all directions and whenever you feel like it, you can access any moment. As you learn to control the journey, you find that the experience becomes different by taking different perspectives - you can see every moment at once, focus on just some of them, or go there to experience them. You are constantly zooming in and out, both in dimension and perspective. Some moments you want to visit more than others, noticing as you revisit the same moment, how your perception of it changes.

"As with my music generally, the inspiration behind ARCHORA and AIŌN is not something I am trying to describe through the music or what the music is “about”, as such. Inspiration is a way to intuitively tap into parts of the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the music I am writing each time. It is a fuel for the musical ideas to come into existence, a tool to approach and work with the fundamental materials, the ideas and sensations, that provide and generate the initial spark to the music - the various sources of inspiration are ultimately effective because I perceive qualities in them that I find musically captivating. I do often spend quite a bit of time finding ways to articulate some of the important elements of the musical ideas or thoughts that play certain key roles in the origin of each piece but the music itself does not emerge from a verbal place, it emerges as a stream of consciousness that flows, is felt, sensed, shaped and then crafted. So inspiration is a part of the origin story of a piece, but in the end the music stands on its own."

REVIEWS:

Thorvaldsdottir is ultimately more concerned with inner than outer forms, and – as conductor Eva Ollikainen and the ISO reveal in this thrilling release – finding an organic unity which stems from the perpetual transformation and refinement of material at often microscopic levels.

Archora (2022) and Aiōn (2018) are fundamentally abstract, unleashing primordial energies in shifting layers of sound to different yet related ends. The former explicitly aims to explore these energies alongside ‘the idea of an omnipresent parallel realm…both familiar and strange, static and transforming, nowhere and everywhere.’ Quasi-Stravinskian conflicts abound in one, tautly written movement; through subterranean drones and pulses overlaid with chord clusters and brittle, percussive slaps. Aiōn (2018) appears to pre-echo this material in longer and more overtly symphonic guise[.]

In effect, both works demonstrate the inseparability of time and space – and their key lies finally in Thorvaldsdottir’s extraordinarily subtle, constantly shifting details of foreground and background.

-- BBC Music Magazine (★★★★★)

Both pieces confirm the impression that Thorvaldsdottir is incapable of writing music that doesn’t immediately transfix an open-eared listener. The Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Eva Ollikainen, its chief conductor, offer glowing performances that have been beautifully captured by Sono Luminus.

-- New York Times

This music is quite compelling when played as cleanly as it is here by what might be called the home team, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra…This is a good introduction to the work of this increasingly popular orchestral composer.

-- AllMusic.com

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra, led by Eva Ollikainen in Archora/Aion and Daníel Bjarnason in Atmospheriques heroically delivers performances of a group of totally exposed works in which each section of the orchestra is asked to play immensely complex music. The engineering of both albums is impeccable, the liner notes clear and concise. The results are nothing short of impressive.

-- All About the Arts

Eva Ollikainen [conducts on this] Thorvaldsdottir album, which pairs ARCHORA (2022) with the three-part AION (2018). Both composer and conductor have significant ties to the ISO: whereas she holds the title of Composer-in-Residence, he's the orchestra's Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, positions he assumed in 2020. According to the composer, the inspiration behind ARCHORA, which the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Ollikainen premiered in August 2022 at the BBC Proms, comes from the idea of primordial energy as well as “the idea of an omnipresent parallel realm—a world both familiar and strange, static and transforming, nowhere and everywhere at the same time.”

Certainly that primordial character is felt during the ISO's twenty-one-minute rendering, which blossoms from its opening moments into a dense, enigmatic mass whose orchestral tendrils intricately entwine. Again, melody is more hinted at than explicitly stated, with fragments from different instruments coalescing into a whole ever threatening to combust. Glissandos sometimes punctuate the opaque clusters of strings, woodwinds, and horns that make up the ever-morphing mass. Despite the music's heaviness, mobility is very much present as the material moves fluidly through contrasting episodes of volume and mood, its unfolding rather akin to the unregulated flow of impressions coursing through consciousness.

As powerful as ARCHORA is, it's dwarfed, at least in terms of duration, by AION, whose three movements total forty-one minutes. Here, time—so critical a dimension of Thorvaldsdottir's music—expands and contracts as the music splinters, its movements less predicated on the conventional idea of one-directional development and more on the abstract concept of a centre that's collapsed and catapulting its parts into space. Epic rumblings and agitated, even violent activity surface during “Morphosis”; with ascending and descending flute patterns accenting string drones, the opening of “Transcension” suggests it'll be peaceful, but disturbance eventually emerges in the form of aggressive string plucks and thunderous drums. Harrowing at times too is “Entropia,” which works its way through disorienting passages of cyclonic swirl, percussive clatter, and blustery horns before exiting in a controlled blaze. Words like oceanic and engulfing help characterize the work's portentous soundworld, as well as Thorvaldsdottir's work in general.

-- Textura

After acclaimed recordings of the Third (‘Dausgaard… makes the music sound vital and even revolutionary’, Fanfare) and Sixth (‘This persuasively played work could be no better served’, MusicWeb International), Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra now present Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, ‘Romantic’ in its second version (1878-1880), the one with which this work has become widely known. “Nothing like this has been written since Beethoven” conductor Hans Richter is said to have declared after the successful premiere of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony in Vienna in 1881. This success finally gave the 56-year-old composer the attention and recognition he sorely needed and one can affirm that it was from this day onwards that Bruckner was actually cultivated in Vienna after years of public humiliation. Despite its nickname given by the composer himself, this symphony in no way expresses existential pain. Rather, the romanticism refers to the experience of nature – from sublime forest magic to hunting scenes – emphasized by the horn, the quintessential romantic instrument, which is given a prominent role.

REVIEW:

Dausgaard emerged early on as one of the most convincing HIP conductors of standard repertoire, and he has earned the right to express his individuality in Bruckner under normal conditions, one might say. His involvement with the score is undoubted, which makes the issue of fast tempos mostly irrelevant. Being different is worthwhile only when the difference is musically meaningful. I think that Dausgaard easily passes that test, in a Bruckner Fourth that is among the most striking in years.

-- Fanfare

Three years after recording Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang (arranged by Liszt), pianist Can Çakmur launches a new series called Schubert. Describing the Viennese composer as “a con­stant companion” in his life, Çakmur’s aim here is to juxtapose his complete major piano solo compositions with works by other composers that were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert’s completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-sufficient recital. In this first instalment, two sonatas by Schubert, respectively D 537 and D 959, are juxtaposed with Arnold Schoenberg’s Three Pieces op. 11. The reason for this combination is that, firstly, the same theme is shared but treated differently in Schubert’s sonatas, and secondly, Schubert and Schoenberg seemingly sharing the same conception where the natural flow and direction of the music appear consciously deconstructed. With different means and a hundred years apart, both Schubert and Schoenberg, the former with his aversion to formal boundaries, the latter with his efforts against the natural tendencies of Western harmony, managed to strengthen the subjective expression of their music.

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.

Henryk Mikolaj Górecki (1933–2010) achieved an international success in the mid-1990s, with his Symphony No. 3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”. Since then, Górecki’s name has been associated almost exclusively with this piece. However, his music is much more than this one brilliant work. Górecki never looked at musical fashions, but consistently created his own sound universe. In the 1980s Górecki, feeling misunderstood, stepped back from the official concert life in Poland. He reached out to simple folk and church melodies, making their choral arrangements. He treated them with a great devotion and humility. In 1985, the composer drew on traditional church songs collected in the 19th-century Spiewnik koscielny (Church Songbook) by Jan Siedlecki. He first selected five songs from it, which made up the cycle of five Marian Songs, Op. 54, for mixed choir a cappella. A year later, Górecki decided to compile other church songs of various character and associated with different liturgical seasons. This led to a collection of twenty Church Songs for a cappella choir today known as his Op. 84. Apart from two, the songs were not published during composer’s lifetime. This album by the Polish Chamber Choir led by Jan Lukaszewski offers this choral gem for the first time sang in Latin.

REVIEW:

Mostly dating from 1986 but published in 2013, three years after the composer’s death, these 20 pieces range from between one and almost 13 minutes in duration. Recorded in Latin for the first time, they have a consoling lilt and occasionally (as in ‘Sicut parvi amplectamur’) dance along gently; ‘Beati qui eligunt Joseph’ is a rare example of a more striking harmonic treatment. Under its conductor of 40 years’ standing, Jan Łukaszewski, the Gdańsk-based Polish Chamber Choir produces beautifully smooth and glowing tone. The overall effect is sweet, like eating too much sernik (Polish cheesecake) and washing it down with communion wine.

-- BBC Music Magazine

“Warm humanity that infuses everything technical with life and a sense of duty” - Numerous composers who were victims of Nazi persecution have been rediscovered in recent years. As in the case of many other outstanding musicians, one can only wonder why it has taken so long for Bernhard Sekles’s music to be rescued from oblivion. In Sekles’s case this question is very difficult to answer, since his works are truly of the highest quality and they enrich the repertoire in a number of different music genres. What is more, prior to 1933 Sekles was one of the best known personalities of his generation on the entire music scene; for a long time, he was pivotal to music life in Germany, both as a successful composer and author of many popular and frequently performed works and as an outstanding teacher of composition whose classes nurtured numerous famous musicians. Finally, he was, for almost ten years, the highly innovative Director of the Hoch Conservatoire in Frankfurt am Main, one of the most important, internationally acknowledged teaching institutions of its day in the field of music. He was very attached to the city of his birth; indeed, he lived there for almost all of his life.