Classical Music

Aynur is the best-known Kurdish singer of our time and stands for modern Kurdish folk music. Like very few artists, she reaches people of all ages with her music and connects the younger generation with the roots of Kurdish music by sensitively and imaginatively combining the heritage and treasures of her homeland's musical past with a musical language of today that has been praised internationally. The successful album Rabe, released in 2023, is now also available as a high-quality vinyl version.

The symphonist Felix Woyrsch (1860-1944) shouldered the burden of the mighty symphonic legacy that preceded him; a tradition he did not aspire to break with but rather seek a negotiable path for its continuance in his own personal manner. His Three Bocklin Fantasies belong to the group of works preparing for his symphonic style, drawing on coloristic instrumental and harmonic resources as in hardly any other work by him. The Third Symphony’s thoroughly chromaticized, frequently dissonant tonal idiom justifies its claim to the status of an ‘Apocalyptic Symphony’ in the context of his oeuvre.

• Anton Bruckner died before completing work on the fourth and final movenment of his 9th symphony. • Conductor Mario Venzago's ongoing complete Bruckner symphony cycle has provoked vehement pro and contra critical reaction. • The Bern Symphony's history dates back more than 125 years.

Marienvesper

Written almost two centuries ago by Saverio Mercadante, coveted by many theatres of the day, Francesca da Rimini was, in fact, never staged. Every time it was scheduled for performance, something happened and it got canceled. A long series of incidents prevented it from reaching the stage for as many as 185 years. Its forgotten manuscript, which was only known for its ill-starred fate, suddenly re-emerged five years ago in Madrid, teh city where it was to have been premiered in 1831. The soprano Leonor Bonilla is quite impressive in the part of the protagonist: she portrays the character's psychological frailty as well as her determination wtih a steely vocal technique, spinning out incredible modulations, displaying strong and dazzling vocalizations, easily soaring into the high register and flaunting such an attractive, casual and poignant stage presence that she even dares moving some dance steps with the corps de ballet. Aya Wakizono is an admirable Paolo: endowed with a superb mezzo voice, she seeks and achieves consistency throughout the range, is virtuosic in the coloratura, and fluent. No less demanding is the part of the tenor Lanciotto, with its fearful leaps and ornamentation worth of the Neapolitan Rossini: Mert Sungu might in time get rid of a touch of harshness here and there, but already now he can tackle all the difficulties of the part with a timbric quality and an expressively worth of note...

Bridge has the admirable philosophy of concentrating on a few composers in which the label believes, and then issuing a series of discs that begin to give us listeners a sense of the scope of their work. It’s an invaluable service, which one could only wish were more widely imitated. Not only does the label support such obvious masters as Carter and Crumb, but the Dane Poul Ruders (b. 1949) is an instance of its taking a chance on a younger composer just hitting his prime. The works on this program come from three different points in the composer’s career. The Piano Sonata No. 2 is the earliest (1982); De Profundis dates from 1990; and the two orchestral works are the most recent, with Concerto in Pieces composed in 1994–95 (and one of Ruders’s biggest “hits”), and Fairytale in 1999.

The sonata is a brilliant work in four movements, lasting 25 minutes. It comes from the period when Ruders had just found his voice, which combined the astringent spikiness of modernist gesture with a more cyclic flow and a “pitch-centricity” suggestive of minimalism. Like his compatriot Per Nørgaard, Ruders found ways to spin out his music so that it seemed to be constantly regenerating itself (though the models he chose to follow had more to do with change-ringing than Nørgaard’s “infinity series”). As a result, the music moves from a dark, more dissonant and taut world towards ever-greater radiance. If I think of a point of comparison, it might be the Copland Piano Variations, though far more expansive in its scale. The pianist, in a live performance from the Aldeburgh festival, is none other than Thomas Adès, the great young hope of English music, who plays this very difficult music with bravura. One hears a tiny bit of strain in the rendition, especially in the climax of the first movement, but overall I find myself even more open to Adès’s own compositions on the basis of his obviously overwhelming musicianship. This recording is a rare instance of that wonderful thing, when one major artist takes the time and effort to devote himself to the work of another.

De Profundis is scored for two pianos and percussion. It’s conceit is simple: a slow and inevitable rise from low to high in every manner—from bass to treble register, from spare to prolix texture, from slow to fast tempo, from dark to blinding color. Ruders handles the task with a great sense of dramatic pacing. Of course, the progression sounds similar to what I described above in the sonata, but here it is far more continuous in its transformations (though from a different Scandinavian country, Ruders seems to have learned a lot from Sibelius).

The two orchestral works are colorful and occasional. Fairytale was commissioned by the Nordic youth orchestra that performs it here (stunningly). It is non-stop, ostinato-driven, breathless. The Concerto in Pieces was commissioned as a double tribute, to both the tercentennial of Purcell’s birth and the 50th anniversary of the Britten Young People’s Guide to the Orchestra. The idea was to create a modern analogue to the Britten, and as such, it had to be an incredibly intimidating commission, perhaps even more so for a foreigner. But Ruders seems to have relished the challenge. The work exudes a sense of athletic exuberance, a delight in discovering new ways to tweak its source (a different Purcell piece than Britten’s choice, by the way), and a constant pleasure in sonic and structural invention. While all the orchestral sections get a full workout, the music makes its point more from distinctive color-combinations than exposure of separate choirs. Tuba, muted trumpet, harp, and saxophone get extended solos in different variations. And one hears a very strong Sibelian reference in the horns in the final variation.

In the end, this is an extremely successful release, and one can’t help but be impressed with Ruders’s mastery of whatever medium he puts his mind to. Having said that, I must close with one reservation. The recent works, despite their confidence and technical bravura, somehow feel a little hollow in comparison to the composer’s earlier pieces. To take one example, his orchestral piece from 1982, Manhattan Abstraction, is absolutely thrilling and overwhelming in its energy, but there’s also something profound there, a linkage between the sonically brilliant surface and a rigorously logical architecture. Of course, these newer orchestral pieces are lighter by virtue of their commissioning circumstances, so I don’t want to rush to a judgement based solely on them. I was sensing this same unease in my review of the previous release in this series (Fanfare 26:6). Indeed, it may be that Ruders’s imagination has moved more into the world of music drama and these instrumental works are partaking thereof, relinquishing that more Germanic devotion to the transcendentally abstract. I said in that earlier review I probably needed to hear the recording of his opera The Handmaid’s Tale, and I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t. This review makes it particularly obvious I have to do so.

But this more general critique doesn’t take away from the worth of this release, which is recommended, nor from my admiration and encouragement to Bridge to stay their course and their continued advocacy of composers in whose mastery they trust.

Robert Carl, FANFARE

The recording of music from the Middle Ages entitled "Crossing the Channel" already awarded the "Supersonic" by Pizzicato, is now also available on SACD with a version in 5.1. The midnight, medieval mood in the unique Romanesque church of Beaulieu sur Dordogne touches the heart even more deeply in TACET Real Surround Sound.

Classical Music

Paul Lansky's Contemplating Weather is a new choral cantata commissioned on the occasion of Western Michigan University School of Music's 100th Anniversary. The text of the composition consists of poems by the American poet Jonathan Greene, all of which focus on aspects of our planet's meteorology. This recording was made following the premiere of the composition in February of 2014 and is movingly performed by WMU students, led by conductor Kimberly Dunn Adams. Travel Diary continues Lansky's series of pieces for percussion ensemble, and is performed by the work's dedicatees, the Meehan/Perkins Duo. It All Adds Up was composed for the piano duo team Quattro Mani, and is a six movement suite that ranges from the contemplative, to a finger-busting finale that brings this program to a brilliant conclusion.

Classical Music

Before the First World War, especially for the famous ballet ensemble "Les Ballets Russes", one of the most important dance companies of the 20th century, and its impresario Sergei Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky composed the first three of his great ballet music works for large orchestra, indeed, the most important of his ballets in general: "L'oiseau de feu" (The Firebird) in 1910, "Petrushka" in 1911, and "Le sacre du printemps" (The Rite of Spring) in 1913. The first of these ranks as a pioneering work of the early 20th century – and the third, regarded as a key work of 20th-century music due to its extraordinary rhythmic and tonal structures, can both be experienced on this new release from BR-KLASSIK - in live recordings with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under its chief conductor Mariss Jansons, and in masterly interpretations. Diaghilev, a formative figure in 20th-century ballet, had founded the Ballets Russes ensemble in 1909 in Paris, where it first performed before moving to Monte Carlo in 1911. The first performance of Stravinsky's "Firebird" took place on June 25, 1910 at the Paris Opera House, and "Le sacre du printemps" premiered on May 29, 1913 in the newly-built Théâtre des Champs-Élysées - a day that went down in history as one of the great artistic scandals of the 20th century. The furious protests from the Parisian public combined with the highly negative critical reviews all ended up making Stravinsky famous. His truly futuristic music has now established itself internationally and is an integral part of concert programs, and one can still hear why it so enraged audiences over 100 years ago. (“The Firebird" can be heard in Stravinsky’s ballet version of 1945.)

All Mahler scholars have agreed from the very start that Gustav Mahler embarked on an entirely new path with his Fifth Symphony. Even for his immediate contemporaries, such as the conductor Bruno Walter or the music critic Paul Bekker, the Fifth marked the beginning of a new creative phase, and Mahler himself was also keenly aware of this – which is why he was all the more upset by the fact that his work was not understood at its premiere in Cologne in October 1904 and, even later, met with a largely negative reception. In 1905, following an unsuccessful performance in Hamburg, the composer complained: "The Fifth is an accursed work. No-one understands it.” It was only after Mahler’s death in May 1911 that people slowly began to appreciate the piece. The Fifth ranks today as one of Mahler's most popular symphonies. This is due in part to Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice", which used the symphony’s world-famous Adagietto to great effect: the movement enjoyed unanimous approval from the very start, and has now advanced to become Mahler's “greatest hit” and the most famous work in his entire oeuvre. In its structure, the symphony does not follow the classic four-movement form, but presents us with five movements in three sections. Conceptually, Mahler relies on methods he had already tried and tested in the work’s great predecessors, the Second and Third Symphonies. The centerpiece of the work is a lengthy scherzo full of grotesque humour, inspired by Jean Paul, while its resting-point is the Adagietto, which certainly bears many of the hallmarks of Mahler's slow movements. The harsher sound of this symphony ushered in a new creative phase for Mahler – one that he developed further in the Sixth. The maximum use he makes of the tonal means available already clearly anticipates the Ninth, in which he begins to abandon tonality altogether and encompass the transcendental aspect of the music. This Munich concert event of March 2016, now released as a CD by BR KLASSIK, is an outstanding interpretation of one of the most important compositions of the international symphonic repertoire of the early 20th century. „Gustav Mahler himself feared that the „chaos!“ In his Fifth Symphony would deeply unsettle his audiences. The work has long since become popular, and the Adagietto has even become Mahler’s "greatest hit."

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

"...frenetic, unending applause for his dramatically accented performance, his daredevil cadenza in the first movement, the eloquent large and the urgency of the concluding rondo. He had to take one bow after another.“ -Piano News Alexej Gorlatch was the winner in the piano category at the 60th annual ARD Music Competition in 2011. His interpretation of Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto not only convinced the high-ranking jury, but also the audience, bringing him both a first prize and the audience prize. At the age of twelve, Alexej Gorlatch became a junior student at the University of the Arts in Berlin where he studied with Martin Hughes; from 2002 to 2007 he studied with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hanover. After graduating from secondary school, he now continues his music studies there

Classical Music

American composer Judith Lang Zaimont' music is dynamic and palpably emotional. These four orchestral works employ nuanced palettes of instrumental colors and center on her lifelong engagement with memory.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Hector Berlioz was a great admirer of German music, relishing in particular the intellectual depth he found in Beethoven’s symphonies. + Carl Maria von Weber provided Berlioz with an equal level of inspiration, his orchestration of von Weber’s Aufforderung zum Tanz directly expressing his reverence of the German composer. + Combining Beethoven’s wealth of ideas with the innovative and “characteristic” sound effects he encountered in von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz, Berlioz created in the Symphonie Fantastique an eminently personal work clearly departing from his musical role models.

Mahler, G.: Symphony No. 4

Classical Music

"Marc Albrecht's taut performance of this fascinating piece is delivered with great sensitivity and careful attention to dynamics, while the luminous recording is tinglingly atmospheric." – SA-CD.net

Composer Arnold Schönberg considered it vitally important to study the techniques of other composers in order to thus penetrate more deeply into the true content of their music - and he believed the best way to do this was by arranging the original compositions. And thus between May and September 1937, Schönberg penned an orchestral version of the Piano Quartet in G minor by Johannes Brahms. His first reason was personal: “I like the piece.” But the other two were more of a practical nature. “It is seldom played. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted for once to hear everything, and this I have achieved.”

In this regard, conductor Marc Albrecht and Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra prevail, with individual instruments and sections coming forward in carefully drawn sections. It is a fun Quartet, and one that is brilliantly played by Albrecht and the orchestra. Furthermore, Albrecht’s style suits the composition, with its grand, impressive gestures and vivid colour to the music.When asked why he is so enthusiastic about the composition Marc Albrecht replies, “Schönberg’s contributions made it a true orchestral work: American with a Schönberg-like sound. It is a fantastic trip through an insanely good piece.”

Recorded at the orchestra’s impressive residence - the NedPhO-Koepel, formerly the Majella church - this album also features Schönberg’s own work, Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene (which translates as ‘Accompaniment to a cinematic scene’). Although the work reflected the customs of silent movies, Schönberg’s original score could not be used for film as it was not possible to adapt the music to the length of the scenes. The première was held in Frankfurt in 1930, without an accompanying film, and led by conductor Hans Rosbaud. Schönberg’s idea was not fulfilled until 1973, when three films by Jean-Marie Straub, Jan W. Morthenson and Luc Ferrari respectively were made to accompany the score.

ROMEO AND JULIET FANTASY OVERT