This album received the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance with Orchestra.
Violinist Hilary Hahn made her mark on the musical map not simply as a 12-year-old prodigy possessed of dazzling technical ability, but as an intelligent, insightful, and confident artist with a determination not to play it safe. As such, she's eschewed the tried and true programming choices from the standard repertoire in favor of more challenging and provocative fare. On this recital disc, her fourth for Sony Classical, she offers the juxtaposition of the seemingly disparate concertos of Brahms and Stravinsky.
Despite the obvious stylistic differences between the two works, there is an undeniable and prevailing commonality--both compositions are grounded in the traditions of the form, yet each in its own way stretches the boundaries of the genre and strives to move beyond accepted conventions. Hahn's expert reading of these demanding scores, lucid and intense with a sophistication and maturity that belies her youth, goes a long way toward proving this to be an inspired pairing, the lush lyricism of the Brahms balanced by Stravinsky's sprightly, neo-classical approach. Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields provide fine support for Hahn throughout this satisfying program, one that fuels the anticipation of her future musical explorations.

ADAM: GISELLE ERMLER, ROYAL O

This selection is also available in Super Audio CD format.
Bluegrass violin virtuoso and composer Mark O'Connor has devoted a great deal of time to exploring classical forms in an effort to effectively meld them with American vernacular styles. THE AMERICAN SEASONS features three of his compositions that put a down-home spin on traditional classical structures. In the album's titular work, O'Connor gives a nod and a wink to Vivaldi and thematically fashions a violin concerto around the four seasons. The result is an ambitious orchestral extravaganza that blends folk, blues, and jazz with classical and gives O'Connor abundant opportunities to showcase his dazzling technique.
Unlike the Baroque master's famous ode to the natural divisions of the year, though, O'Connor's is not an evocation of climatic activity. Rather, it's a musical journey through the cycles of an American life, loaded with plenty of Texas-style fiddling. The 'Strings & Threads Suite' is O'Connor's take on the evolution of folk music on the violin in America, from jigs, reels, and waltzes, through blues, spirituals, swing, and bebop. The plaintive melody of 'Appalachia Waltz' is expanded to Coplandesque proportions in a moody arrangement for string orchestra. Scott Yoo and the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra ably assist O'Connor in his adventurous quest to merge traditions.

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 4 & Rhapsody on a Them

Dimension Vol. 18: Holst - The Planets

Stéphane Denève's Roussel cycle is shaping up to be the finest available--not that there's a lot of compelling competition. All of the symphonies are shockingly neglected, but the First might be the least-familiar of them all, God only knows why. It's a gorgeous, impressionistic piece with evocative titles (Forest in Winter, Renewal, Summer evening, Fauns and Dryads) and shimmering, atmospheric music that lives up to its expectations. Denève leads a thoroughly committed, even inspired performance, sensitive to Roussel's detailed scoring but also fluent, lively, and attentive to each movement's symphonic architecture. It's a wonderful performance, excellently played and recorded.

There's very little "minor" Roussel. Even his short works have a certain seriousness and substance. This is certainly true of Résurrection, a symphonic prelude after Tolstoy, while the four-movement suite from Le marchand de sable qui passe reveals Roussel's expert scoring for small ensemble (flute, horn, clarinet, harp, and strings). Really this is an essential acquisition for anyone who loves French music and the late Romantic school in general. Don't pass it up.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Williams: An American Journey

Czech composer Jan Vorišek (1791-1825) was a talented musician just beginning to make a name for himself, particularly as a composer of piano music, when he died prematurely of tuberculosis. The excessively enthusiastic notes to this release take full advantage of speculative historical hindsight and describe his orchestral style as an amalgam of Beethoven's (which he may have known) and Schubert's (which he certainly didn't), asserting in passing that "Beethoven was never a great melodist...(!)" This hardly corresponds to the reality of what you actually hear on the disc, but it represents the only questionable aspect of this otherwise splendid production.


Vorišek's style arises directly from the classical language of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Of incipient Romanticism or the Schubertian long melodic line there's nary a trace, and the music is none the worse for that. His single symphony might pass for early Beethoven: indeed, the end of the first movement exposition apparently lifts a famous passage directly from the finale of the older composer's Fourth Symphony, but this doesn't diminish Vorišek's modest originality. You can hear this at work, among other places, in the characterful use of timpani at the very beginning and in the wonderfully passionate minor-key opening of the slow movement. For some time now, the reference recording of this piece has been Charles Mackerras' reading on Hyperion with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Paul Freeman does him one better, having a superior orchestra, more tactile recorded sound, and slightly broader tempos that, combined with punchier accents (especially in the first movement), give the piece an appropriately grander stature. Let's just say that Freeman evidently views the work as closer to Beethoven while Mackerras places it closer to Haydn and Mozart.


Mackerras couples the Vorišek symphony with another singleton effort, by Arriaga. Cedille gives us more Vorišek, his marvelous Mass in B-flat, which (I believe) receives its CD debut recording here. This piece really is a find. Close in style to the language of Haydn's late masses, it contains numerous original touches, such as the thrilling augmentation of the fugue subject toward the end of the Gloria, an almost violent Crucifixus characterized by syncopated rhythms and jagged interjections from trumpets and drums, a sweetly lyrical second Hosanna following the Benedictus, and a startling ending scored for pianissimo timpani and brass. Its stylistic provenance may be clear, but there's no other mass setting quite like it, and fans of choral music really owe it to themselves to give it a listen.


Once again Freeman turns in an excellent performance (though he should have had a soloist intone the opening lines of the Gloria and Credo, as Vorišek, designing the work for a genuine liturgical setting, leaves these to the officiating priest). His soloists manage their assignments capably, the Prague Chamber Chorus sings with appropriate fervor, and the recording copes with the vast reverberation of the Rudolfinum in Prague very well. At the loudest moments the textures tend to thicken a bit, but this seems primarily a result of Vorišek's tendency to keep all of the parts close to their middle register, creating a certain density of sound (and I suspect making the work easier to perform by early 19th century church choirs). This is, in any case, a major release and a very pleasant surprise. Good work, Cedille.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This selection includes the spoken track "Portrait of Stravinsky: Stravinsky in Rehearsal; Stravinsky in His Own Words (narrated by John McClure)."

Mahler: Symphony No. 5

Includes polka(s) by Johann Strauss Jr.. Ensemble: Philadelphia Orchestra. Conductor: Eugene Ormandy.
Includes waltz(es) by Johann Strauss Jr.. Ensemble: Philadelphia Orchestra. Conductor: Eugene Ormandy.

Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14, H. 48 - Dukas: L'app

Kurt Masur approaches the symphonies easily and gracefully. He is capable of a gesture of proper grandeur, as at the opening to No. 1, but on the whole he treats them more lightly... The delightful Scherzo to No. 3, marked moderato, is played rather solemnly by Sawallisch, where Masur touches elegantly on its Leindler grace and its easy flow up and down the arpeggios. Opening No. 4, Sawallisch responds to the very Beethoven-like scoring with similar grandeur of utterance; Masur is quieter, seeking out the Romantic tinge in the bassoon and middle string phrases...

-- Gramophone [9/1976]
reviewing the original LP release

This selection is available for a limited time as a special import.

Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1 -4 (Arturo Toscanini, Vol. 4)

[The Naxos Film Music Classics] series continues with two of Bernard Herrmann's finer pre-Hitchcock efforts. Both scores are from 1952 and are among the first projects Herrmann completed after moving from New York to Los Angeles and signing with 20th Century Fox. The films were box-office as well as artistic triumphs for Fox--and for Herrmann. As usual with Herrmann scores, the music is so intricately bound up with the visual images that it sometimes sounds less than distinctive when divorced from the film. Herrmann wisely compiled suites of a number of his scores (he recorded the Snows of Kilimanjaro Suite for Decca), making for a more cohesive and dramatically satisfying presentation of the music for the concert hall.

Of the two featured here, 5 Fingers is the more consistently interesting, highlighted by exotic scene painting (with its suggestions of Turkish folk music) and powerfully dramatic passages in the final episodes. Kilimanjaro has its own colorful moments as well, opening with a swirling, snow-swept overture in the style of Mussorgsky. Other highlights include the lovely and poignant Memory Waltz and the intense sequence for The River. William Stromberg and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra uncannily evoke classic Hollywood with their stylistically true, brilliantly played renditions of Herrmann's inimitable music. The recording quality is far superior to what any original soundtrack could offer, even if it is somewhat shallow in perspective. Film music fans, and especially Herrmann fans, will be thrilled.

--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com Reviewing Marco Polo 8225168

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 8 DE WAAR

The orchestral suite is a genre that was mostly popular during the first half of the 18th century. Johan Friedrich Fasch is noted as being one of the more prolific German composers of orchestral suites. The overtures of the orchestral suites recorded here have all the traditional elements of the French overture. With it's light-hearted and lively developments, Fasch's music is both entertaining and brilliant.

Includes work(s) by Franz Joseph Haydn, Georg Philipp Telemann. Ensembles: American Horn Quartet, Sinfonia Varsovia.
Includes work(s) for hrn and orch by George Frideric Handel. Ensembles: American Horn Quartet, Sinfonia Varsovia.

Giacomo Meyerbeer’s eminence as an operatic composer was such that the works he wrote for the Paris Opéra between 1831 and 1865—Robert le Diable, Les Huguenots, L’Africaine and Le Prophète—were among the most spectacular and popular, well into the twentieth century. These overtures and orchestral pieces illustrate the power of Meyerbeer’s writing, his sense of drama, his orchestral coloring, and his melodic beauty. L’Etoile du Nord and Dinorah, written for the Opéra Comique, are lighter in tone, but notable for their programmatic inventiveness.

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 7 DE WAAR

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 6 DE WAAR

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 2 DE WAAR

Bach: Italian Concerto & Partitas Nos. 1 and 2 (Great Perfor

Ernő von Dohnányi had a long career as an important composer, pianist and teacher. Deeply indebted to the Germanic Romantic tradition, the works on this disc showcase his love of scintillating orchestral tone-colour—notably of brass, wind and percussion—and his fascination with Classical forms such as the variation. His Variations on a Nursery Song traverses several musical styles in a tour de force of good-humoured virtuosity, while the Symphonic Minutes and the Suite in F sharp minor cultivate a lush, romantic mood with characteristic dashes of suavity.