Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra continue their critically acclaimed Elgar project with Sea Pictures and The Music Makers, featuring Kathryn Rudge as soloist. Sea Pictures is one of the composer's most popular works, and as an orchestral song cycle, stands alongside those by Mahler and Strauss. The Music Makers has had a more troubled history. Elgar worked on it on and off from 1903 until it's premiere in 1912. Both the words and music received criticism. But for Elgar it was a personal work. He wrote on the manuscript, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another. My life was as the vapor, and is not; but this I saw, and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory."

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REVIEW:

This glowingly idiomatic account of Sea Pictures can only enhance Rudge's growing reputation. With her sensitivity to the text, freshness of timbre and secure vocal technique, she once again proves herself a strongly intuitive interpreter of this repertoire. Under Petrenko’s malleable lead the joint RLPO forces give of their fervent, articulate best. No question about it, Petrenko’s abundantly communicative conception demands to be heard.

– Gramophone

Vasily Petrenko’s previous Stravinsky recordings have been universally praised by the critics for the fine interpretations of these great scores, the superb playing of the RLPO and for the outstanding recorded sound. The same technical team was on hand for the final album in the series – the 1911 version of Petrushka which is coupled with the delightful Rossini/Respighi La Boutique fantasque.

Leonard Elschenboich is joined by pianist Alexi Grynyuk for a program of Beethoven's five cello sonatas, which span his three creative periods. The audacious Op.5 sonatas date from his early years in Vienna as a piano virtuoso and aspiring composer (1792-99). The great Op.69 sonata is from the same period that saw the composition of Symphonies Nos.4-8, the Violin Concerto, Mass in C and the String Quartets Op.59. The two Op.102 sonatas are from the cusp of the 'late' period. This is the time of the Symphony No.9, the Missa Solemnis, the great string quartets Op.127-135 and the last five piano sonatas. The cello and piano are truly equal partners in all these works, and Beethoven exploited the full range of the cello - placing great demands on the player. The Op.17 sonata from the 1790s was composed for horn and piano. The transcription is believed to be by the composer, or at least approved by him.

Soprano Chen Reiss writes "Discovering the dramatic scene 'Hero & Leander' by Fanny Hensel left me amazed by the richness of colors and invention, as well as her skillful orchestration and dramatic expression". Felix Mendelssohn's sister Fanny is only now emerging as a significant composer in her own right. Many of her compositions were published under her brother's name, such was the difficulty faced by female composers in the 19th century to get published and gain recognition. This album contains a selection of her Lieder in new arrangements for orchestra, her dramatic scene for soprano and orchestra, "Hero und Leander", set to a text by her father, and the Introduction and an aria from her cantata "Lobgesang". Alongside Felix's concert aria Infelice and the 1st Rome version of "Fingals Cave".

This is the final of four installments in the Ehnes Quartet's survey of the late Beethoven Quartets. It was recorded in the US with their producer overseeing the sessions from London as the pandemic halted travel plans and sessions were canceled. "The albums we recorded during this intense two-week period will always be treasured reminders for us of a brief, bucolic window of artistic fulfillment during a terribly challenging period for the world," said James Ehnes. They bring to these masterworks many years of experience.

Domingo Hindoyan's exciting program of French repertoire includes early and late orchestral masterpieces by Debussy, Roussel's sumptuous and brilliantly scored 2nd ballet suite from Bacchus et Ariadne, and the rarely heard and spectacular La Peri, subtitled Poem Danse by the highly self-critical but brilliant Dukas.

Rachmaninov's ten chamber works, two left incomplete, all date from his twenties. The most widely performed and best known is the Cello Sonata. The two trios feature daunting piano parts - the composer was still finding his unique style and the influence of Tchaikovsky can be heard in No.1. The 2nd Trio is a massive work (as is Tchaikovsky's own Trio), composed just days after Rachmaninov learned of the death of his mentor. It is dedicated "To the memory of a great artist". The Cello Sonata is mature Rachmaninov, with hints of the 2nd Piano Concerto and 2nd Symphony.

When the red light in Studio 2 at the famous Abbey Road Studios came on at the start of the recording sessions for Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk's latest ONYX recording, the control room had a very different atmosphere. The recording was made using analogue technology - tape recorders, vintage microphones, and longer takes. At no point was the recorded material subjected to a digital process. Elschenbroich wanted to capture a specific sound for these sonatas; the recorded sound of the late 1950s and the 1960s was his goal. The result is a wonderfully intimate, warm yet clear sound, as if the musicians are actually in the room with the listener - not clinical, not a bright superficially impressive digital sound, but a sound that captures perfectly the best recorded sound of the golden years of the LP. Importantly, it is the sound by which the artist 'recognises' himself. As Elschenbroich writes in the notes 'the listener only needs one pair of ears and the music must come to life in their unique space".

In Schubert's Company presents violist Maxim Rysanov as a soloist, conductor, arranger and commissioner of new music. Alongside works including Schubert's Symphony No.5, Violin Sonata No.3 and Polonaise for violin & orchestra are pieces from three contemporary composers who have drawn on Schubert as the source for their works. Winterreise, Erlkonig and his late Fantasy for violin & piano are among the inspirations behind this powerful recital that explores how the haunting beauty of Schubert's music continues to influence on today's performers, composers and music lovers alike.

Classical Music

American pianist Jonathan Biss is widely regarded for his artistry and deeply felt interpretations, and has won international recognition for his concerto, recital, and chamber music performances and for his award-winning recordings.

CONCERTOS & CAPRICCIOS

Three pianist-composers from the first half of the last century form the program for Joseph Moog's new album. For this recording he is partnered by pianist Kai Adomeit in three works for two pianos - Rachmaninov's late Symphonic Dances from 1940, York Bowen's Theme & Variations from 1951, and Rachmaninov's friend and compatriot Medtner's Two Pieces. York Bowen had many Rachmaninov works in his extensive concert repertoire, and he became known without much justification as 'The English Rachmaninov'. However strange that may sound, he like the two Russians on this recording represent (with Prokofiev) the last of the great pianist-composers of the 20th century.

BBC Scottish Symphony & Thomas Dausgaard

Stravinsky: Firebird; Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d'Or - After their critically acclaimed recording of The Rite of Spring, the award-winning team of Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra continue their survey of the Stravinsky ballets with The Firebird. Stravinsky was Rimsky-Korsakov's star pupil, and his influence on can be detected clearly in this opulent and exciting score. It is coupled with Rimsky-Korsakov's Golden Cockerel suite, which was arranged from the music of his 1909 opera based on a story by Pushkin.

In 1819 the publisher and composer Anton Diabelli invited 50 Austrian composers to write one variation a short waltz he had composed. He specified that it take up just one sheet (which he supplied) and this already contained his waltz. Composers such as Czerny, Moscheles, Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Liszt (just 10 years old), Schubert and Beethoven were among those invited. All except one provided their contribution. That one was Beethoven, who, electrified by Diabelli's Waltz produced a massive work comprising 33 variations which was completed after the composer had completed the Missa Solemnis, and the last three piano sonatas. He delivered it to Diabelli in 1823, making it his final masterpiece. This huge work is one of the peaks of the repertoire for solo piano, it still baffles the listener, it still has the capacity to reveal more than we thought we knew about it. It makes extreme demands upon the performer and the listener, and in a great performance never ceases to surprise and shock the listener.

Onyx presents a new series from Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra that celebrates the scope and stylistic variety in Bartok's compositional output. Whether inspired by impressionistic or late romantic music or Gypsy music from the streets of Budapest, Bartok's music speaks to us with an irresistible vitality, passion, humor and compelling seriousness. This is apparent no more so than in his youthfully exuberant Suite No.1, recorded here for the first time in it's original uncut version. The suite is paired with his last completed orchestral work, the Concerto for Orchestra.

Classical Music

An album of dramatic and passionate Preludes and Intermezzos from some of the most popular Italian operas, from Domingo Hindoyan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Translations of works by early French and Russian realists, Stendahl, Pushkin and Balzac among them, crossed international borders to inspire new homegrown styles of literary realism. The trend took hold in Italy in the 1870s where it was promoted by the authors Luigi Capuana and Giovanni Verga under the banner of verismo, the Italian word for realism, and drew inspiration from the naturalism of Emile Zola and his disciples. Verga's short story Cavalleria rusticana ('Rustic chivalry') and the play that arose from it set the foundations for a new wave of Italian operas, with Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana serving as the genre's enduring model.

Following on from their critically acclaimed albums of Stravinsky, Elgar and Tchaikovsky, the award winning team of Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra turn to Zemlinsky and Schreker. Premiered in 1905, Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau (after Hans Christian Andersen) was almost ignored by the reviewers. Considered too conservative for the progressives, and too progressive for the conservatives, Zemlinsky struggled to overcome the negative reviews of this masterpiece and withdrew it in the immediate aftermath of the premiere. Vasily Petrenko for this recording uses the original version of the score which restores the "bei der Meerhexe" episode to the 2nd movement. One of the most progressive of the Viennese composers of this period, Schreker's dance pantomime Der Guburtstag der Infantine (story by Oscar Wilde) was given it's premiere in 1908 and was his first big success.

Joseph Moog has an enviable reputation as a Liszt interpreter with two earlier albums devoted to the composer being praised by the critics: “these recordings shine with an overall mastery and insight… rival discs by Brendel and Zimmerman in particular may thrill and delight the most discerning Lisztian, but even in this company Joseph Moog holds his head high” - Gramophone

On his new Onyx album, ‘From Heaven To Hell,’ Moog programmes works that traverse a wide range of emotions, from the divine and heavenly to the demonic.

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REVIEW:

Moog has one of those techniques that most pianists only dream about. His passagework fairly shimmers with prodigious effortlessness and his octaves are nothing short of dazzling. His fortissimo is mighty, his pianissimo hushed yet resonant. If the elucidation of the Sonata’s deeper musical value eludes his grasp, on a purely technical level, Moog’s interpretation is bound to amaze.

– Gramophone

This recording of Bruckner's 4th Symphony, lead by Domingo Hindoyan, was taken from live performances in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool. The excitement and drama of the concerts is superbly captured on this album. The symphony was completed in 1874 and underwent substantial revisions (including a new scherzo) in 1878 and 1880. The title 'Romantic' was applied after the composer added an informal programme for the pleasure of his friends.

The final volume of Andrew Manze's Vaughan Williams symphony cycle with the the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra features Symphonies Nos.7 and 9. The seventh drew it's inspiration from music Vaughan Williams had composed for the film Scott of the Antarctic. The composer headed each movement with a literary quotation. They are narrated on this recording by distinguished actor Timothy West. Existing manuscripts of the ninth symphony support the idea that Vaughan Williams originally thought to compose a programmatic work based on Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbevilles. This work, dating from the composer's final years, bares no trace of creative decline.

1801 saw Beethoven's development of the piano sonata take a dramatic turn, testing the sonata's limits with a set of slow variations in lieu of a sonata allegro in Op.26, a multi-movement work played without pause in Op.27 No.1, and the remarkable opening movement of the Moonlight, Op.27 No.2. Operatic recitatives are incorporated into the Tempest Op.31 No.2. These features are without precedent. Volume three of Jonathan Biss's acclaimed cycle of the sonatas contains two works from this year of experiment and innovation, though the innovations are less brazen - the Op.28 Pastorale and the somewhat overlooked Op.31 No.1. The third sonata on this disc is one of the most famous of the 32 - the Wildstein, composed in 1803, is a work of life affirming spirit and energy.

Dejan Lazic has long been interested in the art of the transcription, and here his programme is built around the piano concerto that Beethoven fashioned from his own Violin Concerto. Lazic gives a fine performance: Trim and punchy, it sits well under his fingers. It was created for London-based Muzio Clementi, pianist and publisher, whose imposing B-minor Sonata makes an apt companion. As does the third panel of this triptych, the Sonata written by Johann Baptiste Cramer, a musician admired by Beethoven and who also settled in London. His dramatic sonata "Le Retour a Londres" is thrillingly played here.