Classical Music

Vivaldi & Corelli: Concerti

Classical Music

ORCHESTRAL WORKS

This comprehensive collection showcases one of the most fascinating and renowned conductors of the Soviet Era. A founding member of the Borodin Quartet, Rudolf Barshai was born in Russia in 1924 and was regarded as the leading violist of is generation by his early 20s. He founded the legendary Moscow Chamber Orchestra before emigrating to Israel in 1977 and denouncing Soviet authorities. Today his recordings, especially of Shostakovich, stand out as some of the greatest of all time. Those recordings and many others, all performed live from 1956-1974, are included in this 10-CD set.

This the seventh instalment of our series of Sæverud's orchestal music features Nos. 2 and 4 of his nine symphonies as well as three shorter works, all dating from the period between 1923-1942. During the 1920s the Norwegian composer was hard at work developing his style - from the late Romanticism of the first three symphonies towards a more neo-classical approach. This development may have been one reason for the revised version of the 'Second Symphony', made in 1934, 11 years after the first performance of the work. The search for a greater simplicity is obivious in the '50 variazioni', an elegant piece in which a three-bar theme is varied fifty times. It continues in the 'Fourth Symphony', completed in 1937, almost chamber-like in long passages and less strident than its predecessors. 'Barcarola' was conceived as both an orchestral work and a piano piece, just like Sæverud's most popular piano albums. The latest of the works on this disc, 'Romanza' for violin and orchestra, was composed during the German occupation of Norway, but unlike other, more impassioned works of this period it is decidedly lyrical. Stavanger SO and Ole Kristian Ruud have received great acclaim for previous discs in the series, their performances being described as 'splendid', 'comitted', 'alert' and 'excellent' by critics in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Fanfare and MusicWeb International. Previous releases in this series are BIS CD762, 872, 962, 972 and 1162.

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Channel Classics gives us under-appreciated stellar talents in violinist Rachel Podger and cellist Peter Wispelwey, and Naxos offers parallels in violinist Michiko Kamiya and cellist Vytautas Sondeckis in it's Laureate series. Sondeckis serves up a 60-minute box of assortment from eastern Europe here, with expressive vibrato and the solid technical skills one might expect from the son of a distinguished cellist and student of David Geringas, himself a renowned cellist who ably conducts the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra in this recording. Much of the music is familiar: Tchaikovsky's Melody, Nocturne, and Andante Cantabile, Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee and Serenade, and Rachmaninoff's Vocalise. Other pieces are less well-known, works by Davidov, Dvarionas and Taneyev, and a lush Shostakovich adagio arranged for cello and string orchestra by Atovmyan.

SIBELIUS: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5

Recorded in 2014 at the beginning of a series marking his 85th birthday season, Christoph von Dohnányi leads the distinguished Philharmonia Orchestra in a live performance of Anton Bruckner’s monumental Ninth Symphony, which stands alongside the other epoch-defining Ninth symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler. Mr. von Dohnányi was the sixth music director of the Cleveland Orchestra for close to two decades; since 2002 he has been an honored, regular guest conductor with many of America’s leading symphony orchestras, including those of New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Boston.

British-violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen – described by the late Ruggiero Ricci following a masterclass as the “most exceptionally gifted young violinist I have ever encountered” – adds to her prodigious reputation with a new disc of timeless works for strings by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar. Joined again by the Orchestra of the Swan under David Curtis, the centerpiece of the program is a performance of Vaughan Williams’ enchanting The Lark Ascending. Of her previous disc: “Waley-Cohen makes the utmost of [the D minor Concerto’s] innocent, songful lyricism...” The Observer

Flight is a new album of works from British composer Oliver Davis (b.1972), composed for and in collaboration with violinist Kerenza Peacock. Flight captures the spirit of movement and energy present in many of Davis’s compositions. On disc, Kerenza performs alongside the London Symphony under conductor Paul Bateman. Since graduating Royal Academy of Music, London in 1994, Mr. Davis has composed and produced numerous albums, soundtracks, concertos and television scores while working with all the major London orchestras and the Royal Ballet, among other arts groups and organizations.

In a nearly unmatchable seven decades-plus of public exposure as a conductor of more than 150 orchestras that included nearly every major American orchestra, more than 5,000 concert appearances and 300 official recordings, Lorin Maazel can be said to have been one of the most important figures in 20th and early 21st c. music. His recordings of symphonic cycles of composer’s complete orchestral works include those of Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Richard Strauss, for which he won an astonishing ten Grands Prix du Disques. Another composer who figures prominently and importantly in his discography and concert performances is Gustav Mahler, to which this last of three issued sets of symphonies, recorded live with the Philharmonia Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall, concluding a much-lauded symphony cycle, sees release on Signum Classics. “... it’s wonderfully stylish: that hesitant Viennese-style playing-around and a lovely warm string sound ...” (BBC Radio 3) “This second volume, along with the first, is a treasured set on my shelves. I cannot wait for the final volume, Symphonies 7-9.” (ClassicalSource)

After the dramatic success of his previous Passion, comes a new oratorio by one of most accomplished composers of our time! James MacMillan's musical language is flooded with influences from his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, social conscience, and close connection with Celtic folk music, blended with influences from the Far East, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. His prolific output has been performed around the world, to great acclaim.

TALBOT Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Suite. Fool’s Paradise • Christopher Austin, cond; Royal PO • SIGNUM 327 (67:12)


James Reel in his Fanfare 34:5 review of choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ballet on DVD hailed, as have most critics, Joby Talbot’s score as a significant triumph. I could not agree more with Reel’s assessment, and was particularly struck by his wish that Talbot had been asked to write the scores to those Harry Potter movies which John Williams had been unable to undertake. I had a similar thought as I listened to this release for the first time. Talbot’s work only peripherally sounds like Williams’s scoring for that franchise, but magic, and yearning, and menace, and whimsy (to use Reel’s descriptors) are qualities of both Harry’s and Alice’s story, and Talbot captures these qualities with skill equal to that of the illustrious American composer.


Alice was the first full-length ballet commissioned by the Royal Ballet in almost 20 years, and this almost 40-minute suite encompasses but a third of the two-hour score. It uses the same large orchestra with its huge tuned percussion section and four amplified women’s voices, and, while it follows its own music-driven dramatic arc, it is well devised to demonstrate the range of the whole. One might regret the exclusion of the caterpillar’s sensuous Indian music, which, while less distinctive than say the opening bitonal ticking-clock motif which reappears throughout the work, is still delightfully flavorful. And the contrapuntal tapping of the Mad Hatter at the tea party is certainly an integral part and should have been included here. Still that is quibbling. Talbot wisely avoids the riotous Rose Adagio parody, which depends on the visual antics, but does include the Red Queen’s manic Tango and The Croquet Match with her scordatura solo violin theme. Alice’s solo, Alice Alone , provides an expressive center to the suite, and the Cheshire Cat grins most mysteriously. Talbot ends the suite with the act I finale: the exuberance of the waltz for the Living Flowers and the innocent longing of the pas de deux for Alice and her Knave of Hearts.


The theme of longing is continued in Fool’s Paradise , another dance collaboration with Wheeldon. The score is based on Talbot’s 2002 The Dying Swan , written for piano trio to accompany the 1917 Evgenii Bauer film of the same name. The film tells the story of a ballerina admired, painted, and then strangled by a crazed artist. Wheeldon takes this in a completely different direction, assisted by Talbot’s rich orchestration for strings and piano, to suggest the shadowy atmosphere of the fairy-inhabited Athenian forest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The score, with its popular and classical inspirations, develops slowly over ostinatos in the manner of the minimalists. It is perhaps less compelling on its own than when accompanying the dancers, but is still lovely in the abstract, and so hauntingly evocative that it should not be hard to conjure one’s own visuals if the need is felt.


Friend, frequent collaborator, and conductor Christopher Austin did much of the orchestration of the Alice score, suggesting that he should know the music as well as anyone. So it proves here, supported by a Royal Philharmonic Orchestra exceedingly sensitive to the many demands of both scores. There are moments in fact, as in Alice’s solo, where Austin finds even more poignancy and ecstasy than Barry Wordsworth does in the fine video version. The engineering is first-rate and the program notes and pictures most supportive. This is a marvelous supplement to the video of the ballet, or the perfect introduction to Joby Talbot’s music for those uninterested in ballet…though given a chance Wheeldon and Talbot might just cure that.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

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Jos Van Immerseel celebrates his 70th birthday with three important releases punctuating the year's end at Alpha: a symphonic program (Janacek, Dvorak), a chamber music program (Schubert) and a set grouping re releases of his French music recordings. With his musicians and companions from Anima Eterna, he has created a veritable musical troupe, in turn students, orchestral players, soloists... Together, they seek the sound and style corresponding to their ideal, waiting months if necessary for the appropriate instrument to be ready before programming it. Happy Birthday, Mister Jos!

MOZART Serenades: in D, K 239, “Serenata notturna”; in G, K 525, “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” Divertimento in B, K 287 • Patrick Cohën-Akenine (vn), cond; Les Folies Francaises • ALPHA 092 (71:10)


Les Folies Francaises is a group of 18 musicians here led by violinist Patrick Cohën-Akenine in three occasional works, two very famous, and one relatively neglected. Perhaps neglected is not the ideal word for the Divertimento in B, yet it has received infinitely fewer recordings than the “Serenata notturna” and the ever-popular “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” I have all three in lovely recordings by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, several in distinguished recordings by Colin Davis, Eugen Jochum, and there are more modern recordings, equally charming, by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In fact, the choices are vast.


Les Folies Francaises offers early-music balances and transparency. The timpani are prominent in the opening march of the “Serenata notturna,” which was recorded in a resonant space that lets the drum sound unfold. The engineers were also alert to the conversational quality of this Serenade and of the other two pieces. We hear the solos strings separated, though not excessively, from the larger group in a way I find effective and even illuminating. The echo effects, or something like them, in “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” are especially well done. The performances are perky, clear, dance-like, and meant to charm rather than overwhelm. I never yearn for a larger group, or a more imposing sound. Without knowing for sure, one begins to believe that this was the way Mozart intended these pieces to be played.


FANFARE: Michael Ullman

The English translation excellently acted gives this fiery Peer new appeal.

Based on concerts the Suisse Romande Orchestra gave in Geneva and Lausanne, Guillaume Tourniaire's performance of the Benestad/Andersen critical edition of the score (essentially the 26 numbers given at the play's 1876 premiere) first appeared in 2005 (A/05). In my Gramophone Collection piece on Peer Gynt in November of that year I would have hailed it unreservedly as the best complete version of Grieg's theatre music had the dialogue and melodramas not been spoken in French. Now those spoken passages have been rendered into English, in a translation by Stephen Taylor which resonates without either period whimsy or banal updating.

The linking narrations and filleting of the play by Main Perroux have been made with sharp knowledge of the Ibsen drama and of what works in concert and on disc. The national characteristics of the actors intriguingly alter the feel of the piece. While Lambert Wilson and his French colleagues are more distanced, Brechtian and mysterious, the British trio immediately embrace a warmer, more comic naturalism. Alex Jennings's voice grows from rough Ulster into an assumed English RP as Peer travels the world; Derek Jacobi is a cunning mix of spooky and funny as the Boyg, here called the Great Obstacle, and no less effective in 10 other parts; Haydn Gwynne hops with enjoyable confidence across the age and sanity barriers from Peer's mother to his various girl friends.

Tourniaire has as much of an eye on the drama as the exceptional discs of excerpts under Beecham (EMI) and Masur (Philips). He has intuited and delivered a true Grieg style from his orchestra, alert, light, swift but not afraid to punch home the ironies (of the Trolls' various numbers) and the intentionally noisy stage effect climaxes (like the Act 5 shipwreck music). The two big melodramas ("Peer and the Obstacle" and "Night Scene") — perhaps the most compelling reasons for getting to know the complete score — find Grieg at his most progressive and inventive and Tourniaire paces them beautifully. Even his rits and rails in the tricky little vocal numbers of Peer's African sojourn in Act 4 come off to a tee.

With English-speaking listeners now as well catered for as French ones, Aeon should seriously consider a Norwegian version, even retaining Perroux's taut narrative material. The Ole Kristian Ruud/Bergen BIS Norwegian set (A105) is authentically self-recommending but it lacks the special fire and imagination of Tourniaire's.

-- Mike Ashman, Gramophone [3/2007]

Alexis Kossenko returns to centre stage with a project focusing on works by the spectacularly prolific Georg Philipp Telemann. From them, Alexis Kossenko has chosen two concertos with orchestra: one for flute, the other for flute and violin, preceded by an overture. This program, perfectly composed to demonstrate the Baroque conductor’s maturing, rising talent, is also a showcase for his impressive qualities as flautist. It is also the occasion to again find Zefira Valova as Konzertmeister and soloist in one of the concertos.

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}Gramophone (2/97, p. 80) - "Here is a glittering centenary tribute to Cuba's King of Charmers....the performances are irreproachable and BIS's presentation and recording are vivid and enthralling..."{

" ...an engrossing concept album about water, evoked in its various elemental states across a five-part suite bookended with a brief orchestral torrent supplanted by the resonant ringing of Tibetan temple bowls.” The Independent ****

Tide Harmonic is a new work for small ensemble by the contemporary British composer Joby Talbot. With a compositional aesthetic that threads through his classical and concert works, this disc was born out of a collaboration with choreographer Carolyn Carlson originally entitled Eau. A piece for small ensemble of string quartet, percussion, harp and keyboards (celesta, piano and harmonium), Tide Harmonic is described by its composer as: “… a kind of water symphony that, rather than constructing a poetic or narrative programme inspired by man’s relationship with water, instead focuses on the substance itself, the forces that act upon it, and the energy that flows through and from it”.

This is Signum’s second disc of Talbot’s work, and comes 5 years after Path of Mircales (SIGCD078) with the professional chamber choir Tenebrae:

"From it's opening eerie rising vocal glissando (A Tawainese singing effect called pasiputput) for the gentlemen of Nigel Short's Tenebrae, to the final distribution of the pilgrims having reached Finisterre ... Path of Miracles is little short of a musical miracle in itself. I would go so far as to suggest that this is to the first decade of the 21st century what Arvo Pärt's Passio was twenty years earlier" ClassicalSource.com

Sonically this was not one of Lyrita's best productions, with slightly dull piano sound and dense orchestral textures in works that are already quite thickly scored. The performances, though, are excellent. The single-piano version of Vaughan Williams' Piano Concerto on the whole is preferable to the two-piano alternative on account of its less-heavy keyboard sonority. Howard Shelley's performance is only surpassed by: Howard Shelley, with Bryden Thomson on Chandos, basically on account of the superior sonics. There was no competition in the Foulds, a marvelous piece by a fascinating minor master, until Warner very recently released a fine new version with Peter Donohue and the CBSO under Sakari Oramo. That disc may be well-nigh impossible to find and doubtless won't last long in the catalog, while the Chandos version of the RVW comes only in tandem with more Vaughan Williams (the Ninth Symphony). So if you're looking for this repertoire and a very satisfying coupling of two rare but extremely worthy works, this disc is easily recommendable, very minor reservations aside.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Zhonghu Concerto & Pieces for Erhu and Orchestra