German composer Hans Werner Henze’s (1926–2012) admiration for the great masters of the Baroque and musical Classicism manifested in compositions born from a desire to transcribe, rework and transform 17th- and 18th-century masterpieces into new orchestral textures. The project Travestimenti (Disguises), managed by conductor Marco Angius and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, from which this CD was created, makes reference to Henze’s ‘reinventions’ of masterpieces by Mozart, C.P.E. Bach and Vitali, clothed in new, modern fashion.

For the Drei Mozart’sche Orgelsonaten, Henze takes up three of Mozart’s one-movement Kirchensonaten (church sonatas or trio sonatas). Sonatas 17 and 15 are in an Allegro tempo, whereas the Sonata K.67 is marked Andantino, so Henze, in his transcription, places the latter between the two livelier tempos, thus reconstructing the tripartite structure of a classical three-movement sonata. Scored for an ensemble of 14 players that includes the less common, softer variants oboe d’amore and viola d’amore, it aims to underline the darker instrumental timbres, favouring the sombre sonorities of the alto flute in G, the bass flute in C, the bass clarinet and the bassoon. During the last year of his life, in 1787, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed a Fantasia libera per tastiera sola (Free Fantasia for keyboard alone) which he expanded into the Clavier-Fantasie mit Begleitung einer Violine (Fantasy for harpsichord with violin accompaniment), one of his most personal and expressive works.

Henze transcribed it for solo flute, harp and strings, aiming to project the extremely interesting and expressive harmonic material of the composition into a larger instrumental apparatus, thus making its future-oriented harmonic structures more manifest and moulded. He proposed two options for division of the: string quartet + string quintet or string quartet + tutti (the latter version is recorded here).

Although it was probably composed in the early 18th century, Vitali’s Ciaccona ‘Il Vitalino’ – whose musical form is inspired by dance and consists of variations on a ground bass – was only rediscovered in 1867, published by the German virtuoso violinist Ferdinand David. Henze’s Il Vitalino raddoppiato – called “raddoppiato” (“doubled”) because of his extension of the composition by means of interpolated variations of each original section in the style of 18th-century doubles – retains Vitali’s bass almost throughout the entire composition. It alternates Vitali’s variations on his chaconne theme with Henze’s variations of Vitali’s variations, in an ever-changing dialogue between the 18th-century past and Henze’s present.

Volume 4 in a critically acclaimed survey of Bonporti’s music reaches Op.6, perhaps the most overlooked treasure in the output of the ‘gentleman from Trento’. This was the nickname bestowed on himself by Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672 - 1749), who was born in the northern Italian city, and made his career as a musician in the surrounding region before dying in Padova.

The Opus 6 collection of trio sonatas was published in 1705, and dedicated to the Roman prince Carlo Colonna, who had played a pivotal role in the career of the young Handel as his patron. Perhaps it has been comparatively neglected because of its relatively archaic form: by 1705, a collection of trio sonatas amounted to a tribute to the past, a kind of rite of passage through which every young composer of distinction should pass, before moving on to the more overtly impressive and demanding genres of concerto and solo sonata. Inevitably, the model for any composer of Bonporti’s era was the Op.1 collection of trio sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli. Bonporti’s Op.6 proves itself a worthy successor.

All ten sonatas are arranged in a three-movement form, mostly opening with a Prelude and then a pair of Baroque dances: courantes, gigues, gavottes and sarabandes, though now so stylised as to be distant from their original purpose. This somewhat minimalist form of trio sonata does not employ the theatrical devices heard in some Italian chamber music of the time; there is even a sense of melancholy restraint about Bonporti’s language in Op.6, as though he was straining towards an expressive freedom which emerges in later opus numbers. This tension is held in balance, however, and poured into a harmonic language of delicately placed suspensions which reach a highpoint in the chromatic opening prelude to the Seventh Sonata.

Reviewing Bonporti’s Op.2 Sonatas on Brilliant Classics with Labirinti Armonici (95718), Raymond Tuttle in Fanfare concluded, ‘These performances are excellent, ideally balancing energy and gracefulness… I can think of nothing bad to say about these sonatas and these performances. This disc has raised my curiosity about Bonporti, and I think that is recommendation enough.’

For his third album for Chandos, the saxophonist Marco Albonetti turns to the rich tradition of film music from his native Italy. Marco writes: ‘Film music has been described as the defining new genre of classical music in the twentieth century. It engages both the ear and the heart of an audience. The masterpieces composed by two Italian film composers in particular, Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone, embody the cultural identity of most Italians and they have become recognised and loved by audiences around the world. The film themes on this album capture the magical combination of romance, melancholy, friendship, and violence. The notes vibrate with such passion that the compositions continue to engage the listener, bringing the work of these great Italian composers to life wherever and whenever it is performed.

Film music is meant to be an accompaniment to the action on screen. However, the music of the great Italian composers is so powerful and enduring that these melodies can stand on their own merit, transporting us to another time and place, evoking memories of past experiences or introducing us to new worlds, places which we can only see in our imagination. This album is a tribute to the Italian spirit, to my spirit, expressed through a musical journey: it offers Postcards from Italy.’

From genre-smashing composer and keyboardist Miguel Kertsman and drummer Ernie Adams comes IN THE MOMENT, a true-to-its-name album that leaps over musical boundaries and defies any label. The single-take, minimally microphoned recordings capture the raw emotional potential of music and the spontaneity of an intimate recording session. Kertsman’s vintage analog keyboards, bass pedals, and Adams’ drums work in tandem to duck and weave between musical forms, mingling with progressive rock, jazz fusion, Brazilian, Eastern, and more, all seamlessly fused together into one cohesive musical journey.

Three of these marvellous quartets for flute and string trio were composed in 1777/78 during Mozart’s first extended tour without his father. The three quartets K. 285; 285a; 285b are undoubtedly among the most outstanding works in the genre. They share a lightsome; carefree quality with the typical shades of melancholy in the slow movements. The sparkling Quartet in D K.285 is a virtuoso outing for all four instruments. Although the flute has the upper part in the lightning-fast opening concertante movement and the spirited concluding Rondeau; the string trio are also given strikingly brilliant; soloistic parts; creating a dense web of spirited; dazzling sallies and engagements. The central movement is a Romance with a melting flute melody against string pizzicatos – a sort of serenade with guitar accompaniment for his then love (future sister-in-law) Aloysia Weber; Constanze’s sister. The elegant second Quartet in G K.285a is indebted to Johann Sebastian Bach’s youngest son; Johann Christian; who wrote quartets that were very similar in concept and idiom. At the age of eight Mozart had taken lessons with J.C. Bach while in London; and as late as 1778 he wrote: ‘I love him… with all my heart and feel deep respect for him’. Following the ‘London’ Bach’s example; the quartet comprises a substantial opening Andante in sonata form and a lively minuet. The third Quartet in C K.285b is also in two movements. An effervescent movement in sonata form is followed by an elegant set of variations providing a solo variation for each of the four instruments. There follows a dreamy slow variation; before the music snaps back out of its metaphysical mood and into the here-and-now with a clownish minuet-cum-scherzo. The Quartet in G K.370; though originally an oboe quartet in F; was first published in 1801 by the Bureau de Musique; Leipzig; in the G major arrangement for flute and strings. Transposing an oboe piece up a full tone was then common practice in flute adaptations; but in this instance; we are dealing with a genuine arrangement involving substantial modifications. The Quartet in A K.298 is very different. It is of the Quatuor d’airs dialogués type; a popular Parisian form where each movement quotes an aria by a fellow composer or a tune that is widely known. The theme of the first movement is Franz Anton Hoffmeister’s song ‘An die Natur’. The central section of the ensuing minuet quotes the old French song ‘Il a des bottes; des bottes Bastien’. Finally; in the last movement; the theme is taken from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera Gli schiavi per amore. He used the aria ‘Chi mi mostra dolce amore’ (Who will show me sweet love) as the theme for the final movement. This piece completes our cycle of five Mozart chamber works; taking us from Mannheim to Vienna via Munich. Their five different conceptions and characters represent the quartet for flute; violin; viola and cello in its noblest form and set the benchmark for all subsequent quartets composed for these forces.

Luigi Picchi learned the rudiments of music from his father Faustino; a self-taught organist; and later studied with the Pavia-based teachers Giovanni Baroni and Franco Vittadini in preparation for admission to the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan in 1909. The first phase of his musical activity saw him engaged in the concert and operatic life of the province as well as composing: instrumental and vocal works; a Requiem Mass (1922) and musical accompaniments for the Passione di Cristo (1925) to a text by Don Ennio Bernasconi. In Como; Picchi’s true vocation; for sacred music; was able to be realized: as a boy he had had the opportunity to play for liturgical services on the Sairano organ and; as a young student at the Conservatory; he had continued this activity in villages in the surroundings of Milan. He also composed pieces for organ which were featured in L’Organista italiano (1922–26) and I Maestri dell’Organo (1931); journals issued by the Carrara music publishing house of Bergamo; whose founder Vittorio Carrara was astute enough to sense and appreciate Picchi’s talents: his artistic substance as well as the playability of his music and its suitability for the liturgy. In 1932 Carrara entrusted him with the editorship of a new journal; L’Organista liturgico; which he held until 1943. Alongside his music for organ Picchi also composed vocal works for use by the cathedral choir as well as amateur choral groups and public assemblies; including various motets as well as masses (Cristo risusciti; 1932; Italica; 1940; Christus vincit; 1941) and also educational music (theatrical sketches; school songs) and theoretical works (Scuola moderna di Teoria e Solfeggio; 1941–44). His wish to set the text of the mass in an appropriate manner together with his faithfulness to Cecilian ideals led Picchi to the innovations of his Missa Misericors Deus (1949); published by Ricordi together with the masses in honour of San Nicolao della Flüe (1947) and San Pio X (1954) and his collections of Christmas Carols (1947) and Easter Songs (1950–54). In 1954 Picchi established a new journal on organ music; Laus Decora; operating from Como; it was issued over the course of a decade with associated publications from the Schola music publishing house and introduced readers to a wide range of vocal compositions by Picchi; including various songs and motets; the masses Rex pacificus (1945); In onore di Maria Vergine Assunta (1950) and Auxilium Christianorum (1960) as well as various school songs and educational works (Nuovo Corso di Solfeggio; 1954; Metodo teorico-pratico per lo studio dell’Armonio e del Pianoforte; 1956). The resumption of his collaboration with the Carrara publishing house coincided with the implementation of the liturgical reforms as stipulated by the Second Vatican Council; of which Picchi had already been a precursor in his interpretative consistency as well as his involvement of the assembly of the faithful; namely in his songs for Il popolo alla messa; 1953; written in collaboration with Don Luigi Agustoni and Don Silvano Albisetti. His greatest success in this field was the Messa Vaticano II (1965) followed by the Messa dei Defunti (1966) and the Messa Apostolica (1968). Picchi’s organ output included compositions written for later editions of Laus Decora (1966–67) as well as for the journal I Fiori dell’Organo (1968–70).

On this album, we find a wonderful collection of often short sacred works by Monteverdi, all published in compilations made by others. Parts of psalms and hymns of all descriptions make up the texts – and always in the style that we know so well from, among others, the concertos in the Vespro della Beata Vergine; the pieces from the Selva Morale e Spirituale (a collection by Monteverdi himself, containing only his own music); and the posthumous collection from 1650, Messa a quattro voci ed salmi.

The repertoire on this album derives from multiple sources and was probably included in the various collections because the compiler simply liked it. Besides the polyphonic, madrigal-like pieces such as Adoramus te, Christe adoramus te and Domine in furore, the often highly virtuosic duets and solo pieces stand out. Sometimes, for example in Salve o regina, the embellishments are written out, which in turn teaches us a lot about how Monteverdi envisioned them.

Romantic miniatures by a forgotten Italian cellist and composer: the first album ever dedicated to the music of Domenico Laboccetta. Born to a poor family in the Sicilian town of Messina, Domenico Laboccetta (1823-1896) was entrusted to the care of an orphanage where his musical talents rapidly revealed themselves as a child. At the age of seven he made an appearance in concert at the Teatro Nuovo in Messina, and soon won a scholarship to study gratis at the conservatoire in Naples. At just 18, he became principal cellist of the Teatro San Carlo, at a time when the opera house was known across Europe for staging and advancing the works of bel canto composers such as Donizetti and Bellini. Through this experience, Laboccetta developed a superb tenor voice alongside his cello playing, and soon began taking lead roles in those bel canto masterpieces such as Bellini’s La Sonnambula. He went on to tour Europe and America in the 1850s, but eventually settled back in his adopted home of Naples, where he became professor of cello at the conservatoire in 1877, and passed on his mastery of the instrument to students for almost the next 20 years until his death.

In Laboccetta, the cellist and indefatigable researcher Matteo Malagoli has turned up another remarkable figure down the byways of cello history. His booklet essay introduces Laboccetta’s eventful life, providing invaluable context to these miniatures written for salon performances among friends and patrons in Neapolitan musical life in the later decades of the 19th century – music written above all to charm and entertain. ‘deserves the attention of listeners intrigued by history and appreciative of fine playing. It’s an album that will make a genuine contribution to any collector’s album hoard. Album leaves, romanzas and instrumental songs are scored for cello and piano or cello and harp, but there is also a ‘Notturnino’ for two cellos and piano. More substantial is a cycle of four songs for soprano, tenor, cello and piano: all beautifully evocative pieces with an affectingly folk-like simplicity of expression.

Laboccetta was also a pioneer in the genre of cello quartets, and the album closes with several such works, ingeniously scored to exploit the full register and richness of the instrument. Malagoli’s previous albums for Brilliant Classics include a disc of music by Greco and Francone (96345), welcomed in glowing terms by Fanfare magazine: ‘Early Neapolitan Cello Music… deserves the attention of listeners intrigued by history and appreciative of fine playing. It’s an album that will make a genuine contribution to any collector’s album hoard.’ 

This refreshed Chopin Edition from Brilliant Classics retains many of the definitive recordings from its predecessor of 2015, but boasting some exciting updates. The Concertos and piano concertante music are consolidated in a bright new cycle from Czechia, recorded last autumn by Siberian superstar Ekaterina Litvintseva and the KFPar under Mardirossian. Schmitt-Leonardy’s sonatas are joined by No. 1 – recorded late in 2015, and therefore just missing inclusion in the previous edition – bringing the complete cycle under his fingers. Alwin Bär’s own Scherzi performances are reunited with his iconic 1998 recording of the Barcarolle, Fantasy and Berceuse. The Études are featured in a stunning complete cycle recorded in 2014 by the phenomenal Chopinist and 2023 OPUS KLASSIK double-nominee Zlata Chochieva. Finally the complete Nocturnes are given over to another noted young Chopin interpreter: the 2018 Geza Anda winner Claire Huangci, who recorded the set two years earlier, in 2016.

REVIEW:

In 2015 Brilliant Classics issued a complete Chopin edition culled from both original productions and licensed recordings from other labels, and featuring a variety of musicians. The label’s revised 2023 Chopin edition retains roughly two-thirds of the contents, while substituting about six CDs worth of alternative performances. Is it “new and improved”? Mostly yes. Here is a rundown of the contents:

Discs 1 & 2: The 2015 Chopin box featured Eva Kupiec in the two concertos (amazingly conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski), with Abbey Simon in the other concerted works. Here we have less individual yet elegantly transparent performances of the entire Chopin piano/orchestra oeuvre with Ekaterina Litvintseva, supported by Vahan Mardirossian leading the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice.

Discs 3 & 4: The well-played chamber works with violinist Duccio Ceccanti, cellist Vittorio Ceccanti, and pianist Simone Gragnani are held over from 2015. So are Anna Haase’s slightly tremulous yet heartfelt Polish songs, superbly accompanied by Lucius Rühl.

Disc 5: Zlata Chochieva’s Etudes count among my top five recommendations in these works, wisely replacing Alessandro Deljavan’s mannered and overloaded readings.

Disc 6: As before, we have Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy’s intelligently paced and imaginatively detailed Ballades and Impromptus.

Disc 7: Folke Nauta’s broad and sonorous readings of the standard seven Polonaises are back, along with his rather underplayed Andante spianato e Grande polonaise.

Disc 8: The youthful Polonaises plus unimportant minor works like the Bourées, the Largo in E-flat, and the Fugue again turn up in Alessandra Ammaro’s splendid and mindfully virtuosic renditions.

Disc 9: The label replaces Fred Oldenburg’s good, workmanlike recording of the First sonata with a superior version from Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy, while retaining the latter’s wonderful Second and Third sonatas. Recently I compared his recording of the Second sonata’s strange Finale next to those of Horowitz and Rubinstein, and actually found Schmitt-Leonardy’s creative inflections more engaging (sound clip).

Disc 10: In place of Ivan Moravec’s Four Scherzos (originally issued by Dorian), we have Alwin Bär’s scintillating 1998 cycle, coupled with his equally compelling Fantasy in F minor and Barcarolle, along with a rather fussy Berceuse.

Disc 11: A hodgepodge of performances. I raved in detail about Schmitt-Leonardy’s reference-worthy Op. 28 Preludes when they first came out. Paolo Giacometti shines in the C-sharp minor Prelude Op. 45, Oldenburg serves up the Three Ecossaises quite well, while Marian Mika plays two versions each of the Waltz in F minor Op. 70 No. 2 and the Funeral March Op. 72 No. 2 using alternative texts.

Discs 12 & 13: Rem Urasin’s Mazurka cycle evokes the high rhetoric and subjectivity of pianists like Jean-Marc Luisada and Andrew Rangell, minus their eccentricity. Just don’t expect lightness, humor, or snappy embellishments.

Discs 14 & 15: Claire Huangci’s rippling and graceful pianism in the Nocturnes differs from the seasoned drama of the Earl Wild cycle that appeared in the 2015 box. The Duo Pianistico di Firenze’s Rondo Op. 73 and Variations in D fill out CD 15.

Disc 16: Alessandro Deljavan works overtime trying to emulate the great Romantic pianists, yet his lurching phrasings and contrived voicings throughout the Waltzes often belabor the obvious and fail to ring true. The piano itself sounds poorly regulated, and doesn’t always hold its tuning.

Disc 17: Frank van de Laar basically picks up the slack, playing the Rondos, the Variations brilliantes Op. 12, the Bolero Op. 19, the Allegro de concert Op. 46, and the Tarantella Op. 43 with plenty of finesse and good taste, if not quite matching Vladimir Ashkenazy’s ebullience.

For its attractive price tag and overall consistency (have Rubinstein’s Waltzes and Mazurkas handy, though!) Brilliant Classics’ 2023 Chopin Edition holds its own alongside similar multi-artist complete Chopin collections on other labels featuring bigger names. It should appeal to general music lovers just getting started with Chopin’s music who wish to take a deep dive into the composer’s oeuvre.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

John W. Duarte was born in Sheffield, England on 2 October 1919. He started playing the ukulele, but soon moved to the guitar at the age of 15. The advent of guitar phenomenon John Williams, whom Duarte taught for 18 months before the young musician’s entry into the Royal College of Music, London, gave the composer an opportunity to expand his chamber music oeuvre.

The Concertante Quartet Op.22, a substantial work in four movements. In 2021 the composer’s son, Christopher Duarte, discovered some folk songs arranged for guitar and small orchestra among his father’s manuscripts. There is no mention of these arrangements in his list of works and no correspondence relating to their creation, but from the composer’s handwriting these probably date from the mid-late 1950s and may have been written for John Williams to play with fellow RCM students.

Next Market Day, scored for piccolo, snare drum and strings, is an energetic rendering of an Irish love song which Duarte revisited several times. The Coolin of Rùm (or, The Rùm Cuillin), scored for flute, oboe and strings, is a tune from the Isle of Rùm, one of the small islands near the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides. Cuillin is the name for a range of mountains in this area and Duarte may have been alluding to the name of a previous owner of Rùm, Maclean of Duart.

Duarte began work on what became A Tudor Fancy in early 1967. Following A Tudor Fancy, a concerto in all but name. The Concierto alegre Op.101 (1986) is deliberately light in woodwind (2 flutes, one each of the rest), a trumpet, strings, but with a battery of percussion, including two vibraphones. As with A Tudor Fancy, the music proceeds in a variety of ‘conversations’, with the orchestration kept deliberately light when the guitars are playing.

Federigo Fiorillo (1755-1823) is principally remembered now as a composer, and in particular the author of a set of solo Caprices which formed a method of which formed a method of instruction for every advanced violinist. Until now, however, they have never been recorded on Fiorillo’s ‘second’ instrument of the viola; and indeed complete recordings of the set, even on violin, are very few.

With this new recording, Marco Misciagna demonstrates that these 36 pieces have much more than pedagogic interest to them. While they systematically address technical issues in the bow arm and fingering, testing the player’s technique for playing octaves, multiple stopping, passagework, chromatic scales and so on, Fiorillo was a Italianate melodist who naturally wrote and thought in long, cantabile lines which are as grateful to hear as they are to play.

Born in 1984, Marco Misciagna studied in Bari and Rome and then with Salvatore Accardo; he now lives and works in Spain. Among his previous recordings is a Brilliant Classics album of a similar undertaking, the 41 Capricci for viola by Bartolomeo Campagnoli (1751–1827).

Showpiece variations, folksongs, little-known trios and an early masterpiece: an unrivalled survey of Beethoven’s flute writing in new recordings by experienced Italian chamber musicians.

In writing his sets of folksong variations, the result always falls easily upon the ear while putting amateur musicians through their paces, technically speaking, and demanding far more of their expressive imagination. The other pieces here date from Beethoven’s earliest years as a composer in Bonn. The Trio for flute, bassoon and piano shows a strong Mozartian influence; the B flat Sonata for flute and piano is a striking example of the apprentice musician learning his craft and refining his voice, which emerges in the unexpected context of a modest Duo for two flutes. However, it is the seven-movement Serenade Op. 25, scored for flute, violin and viola, where we find Beethoven most elegantly adapted to the role of ‘occasional’ composer.

These new recordings are led by the flautist Ginevra Petrucci, who is now based in New York as a performer, editor and author of several volumes on the flute, and a specialist in new music. ‘A a very talented and well-educated musician,’ according to the Fanfare magazine review of her Brilliant Classics album of flute concertos by Briccialdi (95767).

Before a phrase from the Gran vals by Francisco Tárrega unexpectedly shot to international fame as the Nokia ringtone, his most celebrated pieces included the Capricho árabe, composed in 1892. The piece is inspired by the mixture of Muslim Castilian and Christian cultures which had always been a feature of the Valencia region where Tárrega grew up.

Tárrega’s friend and near-contemporary Isaac Albéniz was a virtuoso pianist who also played the guitar. Even though he evoked the guitar brilliantly on the piano, he never composed any music for the instrument. ‘Malagueña’ was first published in the collection España. Published in 1892 as ‘Prélude’, the piece widely known as ‘Asturias’ is also imbued with the spirit of southern Spain.

Federico Mompou’s Suite compostelana was commissioned by Andrés Segovia and was published in 1964, the same year as Segovia’s first recording of the piece.

The Italian guitarist and composer Carlo Domeniconi has drawn on several national traditions for his works, but has a particular interest in Turkish music which he has studied in depth. The Variationen über ein anatolisches Volkslied (Variations on an Anatolian Folksong) were composed in 1982 and are based on the song (türkü) ‘Uzun ince bir yoldayim’. Koyunbaba is a four-movement suite for guitar which started as an improvisation, and was then notated soon afterwards. The composer describes the score as ‘no more than a sketch’ and insists that players improvise in their performance – which Krzysztof Meisinger does to great effect with his additional ‘Invocazione’ at the start of the work.

REVIEW:

It’s a pity Mompou didn’t write more for the guitar. His only work for that instrument, the Suite compostelana, is a minor masterpiece, profound in its simplicity. It takes a player of Meisinger’s stature to pull off a successful performance, and here the Preludio, Cuna and Canción are especially well rendered.

-- Gramophone

Regarded as one of Europe’s leading horn players, Martin Owen appears as a soloist and chamber musician around the world. Currently principal horn at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he has previously served as principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and as solo horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Weber’s Concertino was written for the old, valveless ‘natural horn’; its limited range of notes (tied to the harmonic series) was extended mechanically with additional tubing (‘crooks’) and, more artfully, by virtuoso players bending notes, and varied hand stopping. The technical demands of the Concertino are testament to the extraordinary facility of the hornists of the period. The first Horn Concerto by Richard Strauss, written at the age of nineteen, whilst a student, is widely considered his first uncontested masterpiece. Although the influence of Brahms and Schumann are evident, his own compositional voice is unmistakable. Strauss would continue to write significant parts for horn in all of his orchestral scores (possibly an influence of his father, who was a virtuoso hornist), but the second Concerto was not composed until 1942 – some sixty years later. The style is much more neo-classical, even ‘Mozartian’. Schumann’s riotous Concertstück for four horns opens the programme, and features three more outstanding soloists: Christopher Parkes (Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia of London), Alec Frank-Gemmill (Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra), and Sarah Willis (Berliner Philharmoniker).

The only complete available recording of a landmark in Elizabethan keyboard music. With a huge catalogue of Brilliant Classics recordings to his credit, Pieter-Jan Belder has won particular praise for his ambitious project to record the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), a treasury of English keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean era. Now he focuses his attention on the greatest English composer of that age, with a volume dedicated to William Byrd, and to his largest single collection of music for the keyboard.

My Ladye Nevells Booke embraces the most popular genres of its day. Its contents are typical fare for English Renaissance composers: dances, variation sets, marches, contrapuntal fantasies and programmatic pieces, and the repertory comes from a period beginning in the mid 1560s. Byrd makes each of these genres his own with consummate ingenuity; the variety and the beauty of the collection as a whole rewards players and listeners alike. The CD booklet contains an extensive essay on My Ladye Nevells Booke by Jon Baxendale, who is co-editor of the latest edition of the score.

When we think of a concerto for solo instrument and orchestra, the organ is certainly not the first instrument that comes to mind. And yet, the symphonic organ is perfectly adapted to the role of soloist, being capable of duelling as well as duetting with the orchestra. The Concerto for organ, strings, horns and timpani Op. 100 by Marco Enrico Bossi, for example, is one of the most important and successful pieces in the entire repertoire, and yet it does not enjoy the recognition it deserves among the wider public. Structured in three movements of genuine expressive power, this is music that is both majestic and intimate, able to touch the hearts of listeners and performers alike – a work on which this great composer really lavished his extraordinary creativity.

Hymne by Joseph Jongen is a real rarity. The organ has less of a ‘solo’ role than in the Bossi and Poulenc works; rather, it blends into the warm textures of the orchestra as an integral part of the sonic conversational flow so typical of Jongen’s impressionist idiom. Here too, the composition of the Gland organ and its eminently full, warm and poetic sound are an ideal showcase for the mysterious atmosphere of this work.

Unlike the Bossi and Jongen works, the Concerto for organ, strings and timpani by Francis Poulenc is very well known indeed. Uncharacteristically written in a single movement divided into seven sections, this concerto is surely one of the best-known organ works of the 20th century. In certain sections the sonorous, weighty and deliberately strident organ writing is juxtaposed alongside orchestral textures that are extremely graceful and poetic, almost like a rough country giant trying to attract the attentions of a refined princess. At other moments, the organ imposes itself upon the orchestra, only to come together with it at other times, before proceeding to turn everything upside down once again.

Recent scholarship on Luis Misón (Mataró, 1727–Madrid, 1766) demonstrates the growing interest among the musicological community in studying the life and work of one who is an essential composer in the history of Spanish music. Musical historiography has extolled Misón's contribution to the genre of the tonadilla escénica, a genre widely appreciated in his time and which must have had a notable influence on his instrumental music, about which less is known. His talent as a flautist was appreciated within the noble circle of the House of Alba, where musical academies were held in which Misón actively participated and for which he composed 12 sonatas for transverse flute and bass dedicated to the Duke of Alba. These pieces were located in the archives of the House of Alba and described in 1927 by José Subirá (1882–1980), but unfortunately they disappeared during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The discovery of the five hitherto unknown Sonatas for Flute and Bass by Misón represents a substantial contribution to the Spanish chamber music repertoire of the second third of the 18th century for this instrument, given the scarcity of pieces written by Hispanic composers contemporary to Misón in which the flute is definitely the real protagonist. Moreover, they are sonatas which, from a technical point of view, pose interesting challenges to the flautist, something that highlights Misón's mastery of the flute, in accordance with surviving documentation of the period.

Ortega explains that José Teixidor (c.1751–c.1811), vice-master of the Royal Chapel from 1778, considered his works to be no lesser than those of the best-known foreign composers and said of him that he was an unequalled performer on the transverse flute. The sonatas are found in five musical manuscripts preserved in the Lebrija Palace in Seville, a stately home dating from the 16th century, which in 1901 became the property of Regla Manjón y Mergelina (1851–1938), Countess of Lebrija. With regard to the sources, it seems unlikely that any of the five are autograph. (Although up to five different copyists have been identified, there is nothing to suggest that any of them could be Misón, himself.) Generally speaking, the sonatas are characterised by the importance of melody, regular phrases and steady rhythms, as can be seen in the elaborate seisillos of the Allegro moderato of the Sonata [No.3] in G major. Overall, the basso continuo line is simple – excepting the B section of the Allegro of the Sonata [No.4] in G major (undated) – allowing the role of the flute to stand out prominently. This recording is the culmination of a long process of recovery of Spanish 18th-century musical heritage that deserves to be disseminated, studied and enhanced. After more than two centuries of silence, Misón's music is heard again.

As a pupil of Mozart and contemporary of Beethoven, Hummel was esteemed for the elegance of both his playing and his music. The opus numbers of these appealing quintets are misleading. The Op. 87 belongs to his early period, much more Classical and Mozartian in manner than the powerful Op. 74 which opens with a powerful D minor statement and continues in turbulent fashion as a work belonging to 1815, by which time the composer had achieved both fame and security.

A quartet of Dutch string players, experienced in the early-music scene, forms the core of the Nepomuk quintet, named after the composer on this album; they are joined by the pianist Riko Fukuda, who contributes an authoritative essay on Hummel and his piano quintets to the booklet.

REVIEW:

This is a very valuable release… The manner in which all five musicians construct musical phrases throughout is quite impressive. And their sound blends superbly … The refinement with which these musicians rediscover this relatively unknown music is simply astonishing … The sound of this recording is quite impressive too; the level of detail is amazing, and the spatial depth is compelling.

-- Fanfare

Operatic, early-Romantic fantasias for solo flute by one of the great names of Italian opera. Laura Trapani’s previous album for Brilliant Classics brought wider renown for the sparkling flute-writing of Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Ries (96132). Now the Ferrara-based flautist turns her attention south to another overlooked figure of the early 19th century, Saverio Mercadante.

Mercadante learnt the flute as a child and became a virtuoso on the instrument during his training in Naples while learning the craft of an opera composer which would bring him fame across Europe. One of his earliest successes for the stage was a ballet based on the legend of a magic flute - unrelated to Mozart’s masonic tale - and from the 1820s onwards, audiences flocked to Mercadante’s lyric dramas for their pacy drama, memorable tunes and arias that displayed the great singers of the age to best advantage. His Capricci also date from this early stage of his career. Comparable to the more celebrated caprices for violin by his elder contemporary Paganini, they are technical studies which stretch the technique of the most accomplished flautists, and they dazzle the ear with their lightning runs, filigree figurations and flourishes. The Capricci have received recordings from celebrated flautists, whereas the later Arie Variate have been relatively overlooked, and this release marks only their second recording, and the first to be made for CD. They are fantasies on popular operatic arias in the style of the piano potpourris and paraphrases which would be raised to an art-form by Franz Liszt a generation later. The chosen themes are mostly drawn from operas of the late 1810s such as Rossini’s Armida and Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra, but they range from Mozart’s Don Giovanni to Mercadante’s own Gabriella di Vergy of 1828. Laura Trapani thus restores to the catalogue a shining example of early Romantic instrumental virtuosity.

Born in 1949, Fabio Vacchi stands among the pre-eminent Italian composers of his generation. Working primarily in the operatic field, he has had pieces staged at the Teatro alla Scala and by the Opéra Comique in Paris, the Opera de Lyon, the Maggio Musicale in Florence and the Teato Comunale in his home city of Bologna. Vacchi’s instrumental pieces have attracted similar high-profile performances. His chamber cycle Luoghi Immaginari (1987-1992), has been given across the world, including at the Salzburg Mozarteum conducted by Daniel Harding. Other pieces were commissioned by Claudio Abbado and by the Tokyo Quartet.

The most substantial piece on this new collection of his chamber pieces was commissioned by the Swedish guitarist Magnus Andersson and first performed by him in 1997 as a guitar concerto; this Quintetto Notturno Concertante dates from 2012 and is a masterful condensation of the complexities of the original, rich instrumental texture, while preserving its fleeing moods and subtly shifting changes of harmony. At the other end of this collection, Livia Rado sings Flow my Dowland, a rapturous transformation of five songs by the Elizabethan lutenist, in which the original vocal part is richly embroidered by Vacchi’s own modern reimagination of the accompanying part, scored for a small ensemble of winds, strings, vibraphone and harp, to melting and magical effect. In between come a pair of solo works, though in fact Plynn quotes Britten’s Nocturnal after John Dowland as a study of harmonics on the guitar, evoking its most dreamlike and insubstantial timbres. The earliest piece here is a Suite for flute and guitar, dating from 1971. Here, the 22-year-old Vacchi is at his most experimental in terms of both form and harmony, employing extraneous elements such as pen and paper and sending both instruments to the extremes of their register, though always with an intrinsically idiomatic sympathy. Any listener with an ear for the Italian postwar avant-garde will find this newly recorded album full of delight and discovery.

Only one year and a half after their first meeting in Budapest in early 1905, Bartók and Kodály were eager to jointly publish their first settings of Hungarian folk songs. In their foreword to the volume Magyar népdalok (Hungarian Folk Songs), they declare their goal thus: “ … to get the general public to know and appreciate folk songs.” The Ten Hungarian Folk Songs from 1906 (BB 43), Bartók’s earliest and still quite rudimentary but imaginative and very sensitive folk-song arrangements, were collected by the 25-year-old himself mostly in three regions of the Hungarian countryside: near Budapest, Békéscsaba, and the lake Balaton. This set, from which we can listen to four arrangements on this CD, had never been offered by Bartók to be published. Having collected peasant music from regions of the Hungarian Kingdom where significant Romanian and Slovak minorities lived, Bartók immediately became intrigued by the peculiarities – and from his point of view, musical freshness – of both nations’ songs and instrumental dances.

His reverence for the folklore of the Slovaks can be felt in the five arrangements of the Falún (Village Scenes) series (BB 87a), composed in 1924 and based on folk songs from the Zólyom (in Slovakian: Zvolenská) region of what was then Upper Hungary (now Slovakia) he collected in 1917 from village women. These arrangements of bursting energy, enchantingly deep emotionality and transcendence also bear testimony to Bartók’s discovery of Stravinsky’s music which he was galvanized by in the early 1920s. The texts are sung by Katalin Károlyi in Hungarian here, not in their original Slovak-language version.

Before leaving Hungary for Austria and West Germany after the fall of the 1956 revolution, György Ligeti (1923–2006) not only collected folk music in his native Transylvania but also worked for the Institute for Folklore in Bucharest and Kolozsvár in the late 1940s. Thus, in his twenties and thirties, he followed the footsteps of his idols, Bartók and Kodály. In the last months of 1952, Ligeti set to music five poems by János Arany, a leading figure of 19th-century Hungarian poetry. Both text and music are deeply rooted in Hungarian folk songs; indeed, most of Ligeti’s melodies, or parts thereof, could be actual folk songs, just like Arany’s texts from almost a century earlier could be folk-song texts. The last piece is an exception, being a daring musical setting of Arany’s 1868 Hungarian translation of Robert Burns’ humorous song The Deil’s Awa Wi’ Th’ Exciseman (1792).

The history of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem’s interpretation is inextricably bound up with the name of Herbert von Karajan. He conducted the work on countless occasions and in this legendary concert he performed it with some of the greatest singers of that time: Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Agnès Baltsa, José Carreras, and José van Dam. Verdi wrote his Messa da Requiem in 1873/74, between Aida and Otello, for Alessandro Manzoni, a poet whom he much admired. Verdi’s Mass for the Dead is not intended for liturgical use but for the concert hall. In addition to its profound spirituality, this masterpiece brings together the finest qualities from Verdi’s operas: endless melodic lines and captivating musico-dramatic effects.

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.

Leading Swedish composer Jesper Nordin’s soundscape lies at the crossroads of Swedish traditional music, rock and improvised music. On this recording, Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra perform Röster (‘voices’), a trilogy whose works are each based on different kinds of Swedish music which the composer sees as being part of his background. In Åkallan (‘Invocation’), Nordin has used the traditional vocal technique called kulning as his starting point. Extreme metal rock (through the band Meshuggah) provided the material for Ärr (‘Scar’) and the result is an explosive rhythmic scream that has seldom been heard in Classical music. Finally, Öde (‘Fate’ or ‘Deserted’) incorporates recordings by the legendary Swedish opera singers Birgit Nilsson and Jussi Björling in an electronic part which interacts with the orchestra. Performed by violinist Malin Broman and the ensemble Musica Vitae, 3rd Retrospective belongs to a series of works in which Nordin looks back on his own music in various ways. Here, he goes back to the music of his childhood, written and played on the violin by his father. More specifically, he uses a tune from a play written by Nordin’s father, namely a polska, a traditional dance whose origins are to be found in Poland.

Highpoints of virtuosity in Bach’s output and the Baroque organ repertoire, in new recordings by an organist with a rich catalogue of success on Brilliant Classics to his credit. As well as a host of obscure composers, Manuel Tomadin has recorded many central figures in the organ repertoire, from Buxtehude to Rheinberger. His Bach discography includes the Leipziger Choräle, BWV 651-667 (94556) and an original ‘Harmonic Seasons’ album (95786) pairing preludes and fugues with chorales that tell a story of rebirth and quiescence through the four seasons. For his latest album, he turns to undisputed highlights of the repertoire: the collection of six sonatas in three parts which Bach compiled in the late 1720s. By then he had settled into his post as Capellmeister in Leipzig, and with this set of works was evidently aiming to leave his contribution to the already rich literature of trio sonatas which had originated some decades earlier in Italy and subsequently spread across Europe, as a means of crossing sacred and secular divides with music conceived for performance by either a single keyboard player or a chamber group of musicians Being Bach, however, he determined to produce not merely another volume in the library. While he drew the material for the trio sonatas from earlier pieces, he refined and adapted them with all the ingenuity and harmonic invention at his disposal, making the finished set among the most demanding pieces ever written for the organ, then or now. The trio sonatas are accordingly often performed by a trio of chamber musicians, but there is a special freshness and virtuosity to be savoured when they are played, as here and as originally intended, by a single organist. As Manuel Tomadin notes in his valuable booklet introduction, the six sonatas run the gamut of expressive feeling, from a gravity of pathos in the central Largo of the C minor Sonata No.2 to the irrepressible joy of the finale to the C major No.5. He has made these new recordings on an instrument with an excellent Bachian pedigree: the Bosch/Schnitger organ (1686/1720) of the Hervormde church in the Dutch town of Vollenhove, and the booklet includes a full specification for the instrument.

Hans Sitt (1850–1928) was an extremely important personality in the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, and also a remarkably prolific composer. Among all this activity, he found the time to transcribe all (!) of Beethoven's nine Symphonies, among others. 

His decision to transcribe them for violin and piano instead of for two piano so common in hus era, allows him to make the violin a part among parts, to immerse it in the (very rich) piano fabric, sometimes giving it a thematic role and sometimes not. 

His transcription of the Ninth ends up revealing many aspects of the original score of which one had never been aware. In addition to being splendid to listen to, if only in that obvious sense of the formidable challenge it poses to the performers, it becomes an important and unexpected tool for delving deeper into the structure of the Beethovenian masterpiece. And for this we shall forever have to thank him.

REVIEW:

Sitt has succeeded magnificently in distilling the original material, but it also presents a great technical challenge for the two performers, which Loguercio and Piemonti meet with bravura. But it is not only the virtuoso that they rise to, for their playing is musically satisfying as well, especially in the slow movement, where they make the music effective with subtle moods.

-- Pizzicato

Berlin Stories is the first in a new series of recordings by the Trio Gaspard, based on different cultural capitals and composers associated with them. The album features three composers who lived and worked in Berlin for a period of their lives – for different reasons and in varying circumstances.

Mendelssohn’s grandfather, Moses, was a philosopher and leader of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, establishing a pre-eminent position for the family in Berlin, and creating the opportunities for both Felix and Fanny to realize their musical potential. The second piano trio is a perfects example of Mendelssohn’s style, combining a total mastery of classical structure and counterpoint with romantic sensibility. Moscow-born, but of Swiss parentage, Paul Juon came to Berlin in 1894 to study composition at the city’s foremost Conservatory, and remained in the city until he retired to Switzerland in 1934. Litaniae, his fourth piano trio, is unlike anything else in the piano trio repertoire. It is cast as a single movement and resembles Richard Strauss’s tone poems in scale and ambition. Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas, arrived in Berlin in 1921, and stayed until 1933. He studied composition with a number of leading tutors, before spending 5 years studying with Arnold Schoenberg. His eight variations exemplify his ability to combine serial composition with his native folk music. All the members of Trio Gaspard have lived or still live in Berlin and Berlin Stories expresses their love and admiration for this endlessly fascinating and invigorating metropolis.

REVIEW:

The playing in Mendelssohn’s Second Piano Trio is of quicksilver clarity but the musicians are equally alive to its stormy turbulence. Trio Gaspard highlights the surging, epic qualities in Juon’s Litaniae, and is fully committed to the piece’s almost unabating intensity.

-- The Strad

In 1986, the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who left his homeland 61 years ago, announced that he would return to the Soviet Union for the first time since 1925 to give recitals in Moscow and Leningrad. This sensational historic recital from Moscow includes works by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, whom Horowitz knew both, Domenico Scarlatti, W.A. Mozart, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann and Moritz Moszkowski. The disc too contains additional documentary footage with Horowitz. “Horowitz, playing with a clarity and dynamic range that friends said he had not matched in many years“ (New York Times) made an outstanding performance of musical, as well as political, significance.