Solitude was the state I found myself in along with the rest of the world in 2020. Concerts were suddenly postponed and I was left eerily by myself at home. The following year, when the time had come to record the album, Lockdown was reinstated. Joo Yeon Sir used this period of self-reflection, to discover new works for solo violin, and to revisit firm favorites. Walking through strangely empty streets to the first recording session, she felt a raw loneliness alongside the familiar comfort of going to work with her instrument. The experience of playing was intensified. Solitude is a musical time capsule of an artist alone, overcoming the shock of being deprived of audiences, the company of fellow musicians and finding solace in the music for solo violin.

The Brigham Young University Choirs have four auditioned groups: the BYU Singers, the Concert Choir, the Men's Chorus, and the Women's Chorus, and each December they come together along with the BYU Philharmonic for the Celebration of Christmas concert, which has combined the spiritual, traditional, and international aspects of Christmas into one joyous concert, with music as timeless as Christmas itself. These concert celebrations, which have been nationally broadcast on television since 1993, are a seasonal favorite at Brigham Young University and across the United States. Carol of Joy is the 6th in a series of fantastic BYU Choirs Celebration of Christmas albums, which showcase not only the talent and artistry of these students and their directors but also their strong personal and spiritual connection to the repertoire which they are performing.

Classical Music

BORIS TCHAIKOVSKY - EARLY WORKS FOR ORCHESTRA

This fourth release for The Cleveland Orchestra's own label again showcases the unparalleled artistry, refined Polish, and emotional power of this ensemble under the direction of Franz Welser-M�st. The album features three of Richard Strauss's early tone poems, providing a tantalizing window into Welser-M�st's reputation as a renowned conductor of Strauss's music. Strauss wrote a total of nine tone poems-orchestral works that depict a storyline. Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks are among his earliest successes and became instant hits with audiences worldwide. These Cleveland Orchestra recordings were captured in September and October 2021. The album includes a 40-page booklet featuring an essay by Franz Welser-M�st about Strauss's tone poems and artistry, along with program notes about each piece and an overview of Strauss' career and legacy.

In Spring 2019, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, led by John Eliot Gardiner, presented a critically-acclaimed European tour of Handel's opera 'Semele', including Alexandra Palace Theatre in London, where this live recording took place. Semele had not been performed by John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi ensembles since they originally recorded it in the 1980s and this recording gives listeners the chance to hear a fuller version of the work. A glamorous team of young soloists joins the Monteverdi ensembles to bring the story of Semele to life, including celebrated English soprano Louise Alder, who takes on the title role, with the young tenor Hugo Hymas portraying the amorous Jupiter.

Marais's Alcione is the last great 'tragedy' in music from the reign of Louis XIV. It is a total spectacle at the crossroads of the 17th and 18th centuries, from which it takes the mythological source, it's praise of the sovereign's glory and the literary requirement to combine choreography and stage movements. Jordi Savall rediscovered this work and brought it back to life for the first stage production in Paris since 1771.

Pianist Klara Wurtz has an impressive oeuvre of recordings, with over 35 CDs to her name. For this new release, her fourth with Piano Classics, she has chosen music from Janacek and Kodaly. Wurtz has chosen this program largely in part to the intimacy these works present, and their close relation to their native country’s folklore. Klara Wurtz’ previous releases have attained critical acclaim. Of her prior Schubert recording with Piano Classics, Classicstoday.com writes, “Klara Wurtz’ intelligence, technical finesse and innate musicality serve the Schubert Impromptus well.”

Classical Music

A master Beethoven conductor in his prime - a 12-CD set presenting the 'London' Beethoven recordings of Sir Colin Davis, including the Symphonies, a selection of Overtures, the five Piano Concertos (Stephen Kovacevich), Violin Concerto (Arthur Grumiaux) and the two Masses. These broadly-sung and spacious performances, unexaggerated yet alive, are collected together for the first time. When Colin Davis became it's Chief Conductor in 1967, the BBC Symphony Orchestra was known as the house band for the BBC Proms, specializing in new music, and a radio orchestra first and foremost. With this series of Beethoven recordings the orchestra entered the mainstream commercial market and showed itself the equal of many more glamorous ensembles, not least thanks to the rich and rounded sonority cultivated by Davis. A 1961 recording of the Seventh Symphony with Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra had gathered much critical praise, but Davis's 1976 remake with the LSO proved that the elemental fire of the early recording was no fluke. These are broadly sung and spacious performances, unexaggerated and yet alive with the strong accents and inner detail that marked out Davis's readings of music from Mozart to Tippett. The five piano concertos with Stephen Kovacevich quickly became a staple of the Philips catalogue, but the symphony recordings fell out of print: they have been compiled here for the first time, receiving new remasterings and first publications on CD, as are several of the overtures. There is an opportunity to compare the young firebrand Davis and his calmer self in middle age with two accounts of the Pastoral Symphony: with the LSO in 1962 (from the same sessions as a previously unpublished Second Leonore Overture - unpublished until now!) and with the BBCSO in July 1974. The First Symphony also receives it's first appearance on a Universal Music label. The BBCSO cycle was left incomplete, and Davis recorded both the Mass in C and Missa Solemnis with the LSO - again, full-bodied readings that have maintained their place in the catalogue and drawn praise for their unaffected, straightforward eloquence - but his first recorded Ninth had to wait until 1985, once he had become Music Director of the Bavarian Radio SO in Munich. The playing here is superbly refined and animated by a springy articulation that was a Davis specialty and set him apart from the German Romantic tradition in this repertoire, as did the observance of repeats. The most complete compilation of Davis's 'London' Beethoven ever issued, the set is published with a new essay by Peter Quantrill, and a tribute by Costa Pilavachi, who worked with Davis during his time at Philips.

Gerald Finley and Julius Drake's previous recordings of Schubert have been praised as "faultless" (Winterreise) and "richly satisfying" (Schwanengesang). These exalted standards are easily maintained on their new version of "Die sch ne Mu�llerin".

Countless umbrellas, pils of jumble and two grand pianos stacked one upon another found in Erik Satie's apartment after his death were the inspiration of this new release. Pianist Tamar Halperin and producer Guy Sternberg strip down Satie's compositions into individual voices, play them on various instruments and stack the pieces on top of each other. Their goal is to find out what Satie's music would sound like, were it composed in modern times. Halperin and Sternberg want to reflect Satie's influence on the various generations of artists that followed him. Satie was a composer who blurred the lines between Classical Art music and non-classical, popular styles.

First CD issue of Tishchenko's Ballet 'The Twelve' based on Alexander Block's famous text

The Doppler brothers and Friedrich Kulhau have yet to attract the public recognition that they already enjoy from the worldwide community of flautists. They certainly deserve to be better known and it is not unreasonable to think that the recognition that Paganini, Ysaye and Sarasate enjoy as famous composers for their instrument will one day be enjoyed by these neglected composers of romantic and virtuosic music for the flute. The Doppler brothers were born in the city of Lemberg, now L'viv in Ukraine. Their father conducted a military band. Successful both as composers and publishers, they also held important Kapellmeister positions in Germany and Hungary. Kuhlau, also the son of a military bandsman, was primarily a pianist (he championed Beethoven's piano music in his native Denmark) and his C major piano concerto Op.7 of 1810 is worth getting to know. He was a friend of Beethoven - the two composers famously got on well - especially in pubs in Vienna! The flute featured prominently in Kuhlau's output from his earliest works to his final years, from which the delightful trio of 1831 on this album dates.

The All-Star Orchestra gives you a front row seat to the world's greatest music, performed by top players chosen from over 30 great American orchestras. The programs feature complete performances of popular masterpieces and world premieres of new works by leading American composers. Filmed in High-Definition with 19 cameras during a once-a-year 'summit' in New York's historic Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center, the All-Star Orchestra celebrates the symphonic experience in the 21st century. Program #5 Relationships in Music Robert Schumann's wife Clara was herself a gifted pianist and composer. She became a lifelong friend and source of inspiration for Schumann's prot�g� Johannes Brahms. This program will explore the turbulent musical and emotional relationships between these three, and the masterpieces that they produced. Program #6 the Living Art Form This program explores the creation of new concertos and the artistic process. Outstanding young soloists and leading American composers are featured in performance and in interviews.

Classical Music

The combination of Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic playing Mozart and Bruckner drew a “packed and raving audience” according to The Guardian. (ICA Classics)

SCHUMANN Symphonies: No. 2; No. 4 • Christian Zacharias, cond; Lausanne CO • MDG MGD 940 1745-6 (SACD: 64:51)


This is the first time I have ever heard these symphonies played gracefully by a chamber orchestra. What makes them so beautiful is that Christian Zacharias does not employ his orchestra’s limitation of size as an excuse for delivering spiky phrasing and rude noises. (Roger Norrington! Beware of Dog!) What I encounter instead in these performances is the delicacy of Schumann’s piano suites and the fine ear of a pianist who knows this music must dance. In fairness, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra is not that small—perhaps 50-strong here—but usually the temptation would be to overcompensate with smaller-dog tensile energy.


Happily we find instead kinder, gentler versions of big-orchestra Schumann. This approach works best in the inner movements of both symphonies, but also especially well in the danceable opening allegro of the Fourth. Taken a bit faster than usual, the Adagio of the Second Symphony could actually propel a couple gracefully around the room. In the outer movements we get similar tea-dance spirit, but at the slight expense of something larger and more exciting. This is such smooth, euphonious cozy Schumann; it is almost Dvo?ák.


Schumann, of course, was obsessed by the sound of disembodied trumpets during the composition of his Second Symphony. And there is more metaphysical fear and Wagnerian mystery to be captured in its introduction than heard here. Christoph Eschenbach evoked this hauntingly in his Bamberg cycle for Virgin in the early ’90s. And Ernest Ansermet, just up the road in Geneva, didn’t do badly with it, either. Small forces have difficulty with the stasis of mood and mystery. In particular, tremoli with a large complement of strings can evoke the infinite nature of things. But in reduced numbers, they demystify and can pester like flies at a picnic.


So I shall not argue that Zacharias has exhausted the possibilities found in these symphonies, just that the beauty of his approach will surprise you, in delicious but unobtrusive surround sound. If there is perhaps more grit, force, and sheer amorous passion to be found in the Second Symphony, well, Clara Schumann would certainly have thought so. As a small symbol in her diaries reveals, she and Schumann had sex virtually every day for 10 years! I always suspected girls loved Schumann!


FANFARE: Steven Kruger

SYMPHONY NO. 4 - ADAGIO

The 'Missa Faulte d'argent emerges as a major work in this, it's first complete recording. With the inclusion of a selection of motets (also in first recordings), the present program marks an important addition to our understanding and appreciation of this prolific figure.

The Faust Symphony undoubtedly constitutes one of the principal works of Liszt’s Weimar period, if not indeed his orchestral masterpiece. Liszt had become acquainted with Goethe’s poem Faust in 1830, in the French translation of Gérard de Nerval. He began composing the work in the 1840s, after a visit to the Goethe House in Weimar. Its first performance was arranged for September 1857, to mark the centenary of Grand Duke Carl August and the erection of a statue to Goethe and Schiller. On this occasion Liszt rounded the work off by adding a tenor solo and chorus at the end. The premiere took place on 5 September. This musical transposition of the poem is performed here by Orchester Wiener Akademie under Martin Haselböck, and follows their recording of Liszt’s transcriptions of works by Schubert, released in 2015 (Alpha 471). In parallel with this, the Viennese period-instrument orchestra is also continuing its Resound Beethoven project, the recording of the complete symphonies at the venues of their first performances.

Piano enthusiasts drawn to Shura Cherkassky's charismatic and capricious artistry will find the previously unpublished Cologne radio broadcasts contained on this release both valuable and fascinating. A 1970 Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody reveals Cherkassky's generally lyrical approach to the piano part, and his fondness for spontaneous dynamic inflections and rounding off phrases. For the most part, tempos are slow to the point of sedate (Variations 12 through 14 particularly drag), although there are moments when the performance perks up and Cherkassky's cream-coated filigree becomes energized, such as in Variation 15 and the group of four following the famous Variation 18. I suspect that the overly resonant acoustic contributes to the performance's less than incisive impression.

The solo selections date from between 1951 and 1953 and include a relaxed yet compelling, individually shaped Prokofiev Seventh sonata (a work Cherkassky otherwise did not record) that markedly differs from Horowitz's driving intensity. Cherkassky apparently coached Stravinsky's Three Scenes from Petrushka with the composer, yet I've never been convinced by the pianist's slow and clunky way with the Danse Russe, although his soft pedal effects throughout the Shrove-Tide Fair add appreciable color and character to a movement that others play with more bravura and power.

However, the Rachmaninov Polka de V.R. and Rameau/Godowsky Tambourin show off Cherkassky's tonal palette at its best, along with his scampering élan and effortless passagework in Chabrier's Bourée fantasque, another work new to the pianist's discography. For Cherkassky fans, the Prokofiev and Chabrier alone are worth the price of this disc.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Arvo Pärt's justly popular 'Tabula Rasa' boasts the style by which we have come to know this appealingly distinctive Estonian composer. He arrived at this later style, however, only in the late 1970s, and his path leading to that point is strewn with fascinating compositions, two of which are included here.
Marking his departure from strict serialism, the 1964 'Collage über BACH' takes its inspiration from Baroque forms while nodding to tonality. The entire piece has a somber cast, from the opening "Toccata" movement's angular edginess (reminiscent of Bernard Hermann's music for 'Psycho') to the lovely "Sarabande" that turns darkly discordant (which features a very fine unnamed oboe soloist) to the agitated grimness of the closing "Ricercare."
If 'Collage' reminds one of a Hitchcock film, then Pärt's Symphony No. 3 (1971), in its neo-Romantic spin on both (and often alternately) medieval and Renaissance polyphony, sounds like a soundtrack for a film on an Arthurian legend. The most effective piece is, indeed, 'Tabula Rasa' in which Pärt brilliantly and idiosyncratically pays homage to Vivaldi by locating the seeds of his own minimalist aesthetic in Baroque figurations and suspension-resolutions.

Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6 in D major was composed for the Vienna Philharmonic, and dedicated to its principal conductor at the time, Hans Richter. Following the Symphony No. 6, this programme includes Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance Op. 72, No. 3, and Slavonic Dance Op. 46, No. 8. Performing these outstanding works is the Houston Symphony, conducted by Andres Orozco-Estrada. Colombian violinist and conductor Andres Orozco-Estrada began taking conducting classes in 1992, and in 1997 he began studying conducting at the Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien, under such teachers as Uros Lajovic. He has been Music Director of the Houston Symphony since 2014.

REVIEW:

Orozco-Estrada and his musicians play with great warmth and energy, and this live multichannel recording brings out all the rich colors and textures of Dvorák’s symphonic score. The two Slavonic Dances are welcome choices for their close thematic resemblance to the symphony and jubilant feeling, bringing the program of this hybrid SACD to a lively close.

-- AllMusic.com (Blair Sanderson)

When Sony Classicals new complete Brahms cycle with Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic was first released, the Baltimore Sun reviewer referred to a marriage of passion performances fine enough to recommend to any listener who wants his Brahms in a single collection. The Symphony No. 1 receives a heroic, turbulent performance in which Mehta and the fine orchestra of which he was long ago appointed music-director-for-life keep raising the thermostat until in the final movement they all but blow the roof off. The Symphony No. 2, which receives a similarly passionate performance, may be even better. Nos. 3 and 4, the reviewer goes on to say, are also beautiful. This major new reissue also contains the Haydn Variations and Tragic Overture.