This special ‘241’ set celebrates ten years of Gianandrea Noseda’s Musica Italiana series. Recording with both the BBC Philharmonic and the Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino, Noseda has shown a remarkable commitment to championing long-forgotten scores by well-known Italian composers as well as the finest works by altogether neglected ones. Both discs feature excerpts of more substantial orchestral and operatic works by several Italian late-Romantics and early-mid-20th c. modernists.

Award-winning composer Elena Ruehr’s Avie Records debut, Averno, introduced three of her big and bold works for choir and orchestra. For her follow up, Ruehr scales down to intimate solo and chamber works for strings and piano, all with references to older music in some way. Baroque elements infuse Klein Suite for solo violin, Prelude Variations for viola and piano, and The Scarlatti Effect for piano trio. The three movements of the jazz-tinged Second Violin Sonata, are dedicated to people who have influenced Ruehr’s work: her composition teacher William Bolcom, jazz teacher Eddie Russ, and Oscar Peterson whom Ruehr met on New Year’s Eve 1980. Adrienne and Amy was written in honour of the pioneering American composer Amy Beach and her biographer Adrienne Fried Block. The virtuosic and lyrical title track for solo cello was inspired by Nobel Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani school pupil and education activist. Boston-based Ruehr, whose wide-ranging works are performed from coast to coast, teaches at MIT. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

REVIEWS:

A gorgeous-sounding collection of Elena Ruehr’s lyrical and modern chamber music.

This collection of recent (1997 to 2012) chamber music by Elena Ruehr is a glorious-sounding and exquisitely performed disc. The reproduction is a perfect combination of detail and reverberation that is mesmerizing. As I mentioned in a previous review of an orchestral disc of music by this Guggenheim fellow, the music here is full of resplendent melodies that she describes as “the most complex and human of musical experiences.” Her background as a dancer provides her music with a rhythmic pulse, yet there’s depth here. “The idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex,” she explains.

A common element in these works is the composer’s reference to older music and musicians who have taught and inspired these chamber works. The album title, Lift (2013)was inspired by Nobel Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai, the student activist who was shot by a Taliban gunman for promoting education and equal rights for women. She survived and has become an international spokeswoman for her cause. Its dedicatee, cellist Jennifer Kloetzel (of the Cypress String Quartet), is the soulful performer of this work that combines lyricism with sincerity that reflects Malala’s cause. The Second Violin Sonata’s (2012) three movements are tributes to the composer’s musical mentors: her teacher William Balcom; jazz pianist and composer Eddie Russ who taught her as a teenager and Oscar Peterson, who Ruehr met in 1980. It’s a jazz-inflected work that expresses a variety of emotions: contemplation; plaintive musings and funky utterances.

This is a collection of chamber music that reflects the current age of tonality with enough modern techniques to make it interesting.

-- Audiophile Edition

Before coming to Sweden, the Italian-born harpsichordist Anna Paradiso knew little about Johan Helmich Roman, often called 'the father of Swedish music'. Here she soon realized that if Roman's music was Swedish, it was also Italian – and specifically Neapolitan: the restlessness of the harmonic idiom, the continuous melodic shifts and the theatrical character. Considering the distance between Stockholm and Naples, this might seem farfetched, but we know that Roman encountered a number of Italian musicians while studying in London 1716-1721, and when in the 1730s he was able take a two-year sabbatical from his post as Kapellmeister at the Royal Court, his goal was Ischia near Naples. Roman's collection of Twelve Keyboard Sonatas was preserved in a manuscript assembled around 1748, but had most likely been composed in the course of the two decades before that. (One movement in Sonata III is labelled 'a Napoli', placing it in the autumn of 1736.) Consisting of between three and seven movements, the pieces have been referred to both as ‘suites’ and ‘sonatas’. Whatever the label, the collection is a fascinating testimony of a period of great stylistic diversity and change, as observed by a composer who, although geographically relegated to the outskirts of Europe, remained wide-open to new developments. In these recordings, Anna Paradiso emphasizes this aspect, performing the sonatas on three different instruments – a French and an Italian harpsichord and a copy of a Swedish clavichord from 1742 – with well-judged ornamentations and use of rubato. A previous release, with the first seven sonatas of the set, was described as ‘exceptional’, by the reviewer on allmusic.com, who went on to hope that ‘the remaining sonatas will be released in short order by Paradiso and BIS.’ That hope is here fulfilled, with the addition of an earlier keyboard sonata by Roman, as well as one by his Swedish contemporary Johan Agrell.

The songs of Alice Tegner and Gustaf Nordqvist have been sung and loved by generations of Swedish people, particularly children. Tegner’s songs for children were published into a series which made its way into many schools and homes across Sweden. A lesser-known genre of the two composers is focused on in this new release: music for mixed choir. Both composers held important choral positions, Tegner composing for and leading a chapel choir, and Nordqvist enjoying a respected position in the capitol. Danderyds Vokalensemble was founded in 2008 with the purpose of attracting some of the best singers, and performing music from all eras. The ensemble has recorded several major works, ranging from early Renaissance music to contemporary composers.

Elena Urioste and Michael Brown formed a recital duo in 2009 and have performed together extensively ever since. For their first recording together they have selected four works which have formed part of their repertoire from the very beginning, resonating throughout their entire musical partnership. All four are early works, written by composers in their twenties or younger- Michael Brown was only eighteen when he composed his own contribution. As the performers put it in their liner notes, the pieces they have chosen are “imbued with an ardour that is unapologetically, deliciously youthful.” The disc opens with the only multi-movement work of the program- Richard Strauss’s expansively melodic Sonata in E flat major, written around the time when the composer met and fell in love with his future wife. A few years later, in Paris, Ravel made a first attempt at composing a violin sonata while still a student at the Conservatoire. The resulting piece, in one movement, had a single performance during Ravel’s lifetime and was only published in 1975, as Sonate posthume. Between these two works we hear Michael Brown’s Echoes of Byzantium, inspired by William Butler Yeats’s Sailing to Byzantium, and an attempt to portray the meaning of the poem through music alone. The disc closes with a piece by another American composer and pianist, Amy Beach (1867-1944) The first American woman to compose and publish a symphony (first performed in 1896), she was best known for her songs, and her gift for melody is evident in the 1893 Romance for violin and piano.

Allmanna Sangen began its existence as a male-voice choir affiliated to the University of Uppsala in 1830, but was reformed as a mixed choir in 1963. Ever since, the choir has expanded its repertoire and stylistic range, often surprising audiences with its unconventional approach to familiar works and with collaborations across genres. On Femina moderna, the choir and its conductor Maria Goundorina present a programme with recent works by Swedish and international women composers: no less than ten of the thirteen works included were written in 2000 or later. Most recently composed is Anna Karin Klockar’s Speeches which in 2016 won first prize in a competition for women composers arranged by the choir. The competition, the Allmanna Sangen & Anders Wall Composition Award, was first held in 2014 in celebration of the choir’s 50th anniversary as a mixed choir. The winning work on that occasion, Sandskrift by Maria Lofberg, is also included on this disc, along with pieces by composers such as Lera Auerbach and Libby Larsen, Cecilia McDowall, Galina Grigorjeva, and Nana Forte.

In his later years often described as the grand old man of Finnish modernism, Erik Bergman (1911-2006) was among the first in Finland to use compositional methods such as twelve-tone technique, serial music, choral Sprechgesang and aleatory counterpoint. His specialty was choral music, and a large part of his huge production involves a choir in some form. This recording focuses primarily on his works for mixed choir that have not appeared on disc before, and gives a broad picture of his production for the medium over a period of more than 60 years. Born to a Swedish-speaking family, many of Bergman's settings were of poems in Swedish, but he was a true internationalist and this two-disc set also includes works with texts in Italian, Norwegian, English, German, and naturally, Finnish. These are here performed by the Helsinki Chamber Choir, Finland's only professional chamber choir, under its artistic director Nils Schweckendiek.

In an interview about great conductors with the newspaper Die Welt in 2015, Sir Simon Rattle said of Mariss Jansons, “He’s the best of all of us!” This new release from BR-Klassik focuses on the career of Mariss Jansons, and contains a total of five albums offering a representative cross-section of the classical symphonic repertoire- as well as a cross-section of the repertoire for which the chief conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks has been highly praised again and again for his outstanding interpretative qualities. Landmarks of great choral music can be found here, as well as milestones in symphonic development and select orchestral songs. The works range from music of the First Viennese School to early 20th-century late romanticism; from Haydn’s “Harmoniemesse” to the Minuet from Haydn’s Symphony Hob. I:88; from Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, Brahms’ Fouth Symphony and Mahler’s Ninth Symphony to Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie.

REVIEW

Jansons’ thoughtful interpretations are consistently clear and often profoundly insightful, and the playing of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is impressive, whether in purely orchestral performances or with the Bavarian Radio Chorus in the Haydn and the Stravinsky. Considering Jansons’ high productivity, this set can only give a small sample of his many recordings, but fans who have yet to delve into his full repertoire will appreciate this package.

– AllMusic Guide.com

From a 21st-century perspective, Sibelius may appear to stand more or less alone in the history of Finnish music. It is easy to forget that he could not have fulfilled his artistic potential if his environment had not been conducive to musical creativity. But much of the music that was part of that environment has been almost completely forgotten, often because its aesthetic didn’t accord with the prevailing nationalist trends of the late 19th century. In this programme of choral works, Nils Schweckendiek and his Helsinki Chamber Choir guide us through some 80 years of Finnish music for choir, from the period when the country formed part of the Russian Empire, as the Grand Duchy of Finland. It was during this time that a Finnish nationalist movement began to take form, in opposition towards the political and cultural dominance of Russia and Sweden respectively. This development can be traced in the way the idea of Spring – a staple in the songs of the Nordic countries – changes from a sense of joy at the end to the hardships of winter to a metaphor for liberation from political oppression. Another result was the Fennicization towards the end of the 19th century, during which many popular Swedish and German-language songs were translated into Finnish and the originals in effect suppressed – a case in point being the earliest piece on the disc, F. A. Ehrström’s Svanen (The Swan, 1833), which has had it’s original Swedish text restored for this recording.

Philippe Graffin’s virtuosity combined with his skills as a sleuth have led to the world-premiere recording of a “Posthumous” solo violin sonata by Eugene Ysaye, an astonishing discovery that extends the Belgian composer’s canon of his essential six sonatas for the medium. Philippe unearthed the nearly-completed manuscript in the library of the Brussels Conservatoire, and polished off the final movement in the most Ysaye-esque manner possible. Philippe’s penchant for intuitive programming I brought to bear on Fiddler’s Blues, combining two Ysaye works - including another premiere, with a pair of folksy, Bohemian-flavored works by George Enescu, another virtuoso violinist/composer who emigrated from his native Romania and like Ysaye settled in Paris.

Enescu was a classmate of Maurice Ravel, whose Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure is an affectionate nod to their teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, whilst his azure-tinged Violin Sonata influences the album’s title. Ravel’s slightly older contemporary Claude Debussy befriended Ysaye. Whereas Ysaye soared writing works for solo violin, Debussy wrote none. Suggesting how such a work may have sounded, Philippe contributes his own arrangement for solo violin of Debussy’s enduring piece Claire de lune.

REVIEWS:

This duo’s rapport comes across in sparky performances. Premieres of pieces by Ysaÿe are a draw, but the Enescu sonata and Hora Unirii are a real treat and leave you feeling anything but blue. ★★★★

-- BBC Music Magazine

The big story here is the first recording of a previously undiscovered seventh unaccompanied violin sonata by Eugène Ysaÿe…Played with flourishing panache and easy command, it makes an electrifying opening to this deceptively titled recital: essentially a survey of the early 20th-century Parisian scene…There’s a real feeling of dialogue.

-- Gramophone