This album offers two of the best known and most loved works by Leos Janacek. The Glagolitic Mass was thus described by a musicologist: "It has absolutely everything, it’s engrossing and enthralling and captivating and startling and soothing and primitive and pristine and incredibly spiritual".

Reviews:

A lean, cleanly contoured Glagolitic. Taras Bulba is generally well played.

– BBC Music Magazine

Janacek's signature dotted rhythms are somewhat rounded, smoothing out the usual angularity in this music. The strings play with a beautiful warm tone as opposed to the silvery glint of the Czech orchestras. The recording follows suit, with its warm tone.

– American Record Guide

Janowski takes an altogether gentler view of the work compared to the ebullient energy of Kubelik and in particular Mackerras. Not suprisingly, Janowski is at his most effective in the 'Agnece Bozij' (Agnus Dei); this is gracefully done. The extraordinary organ solo is well played.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music

Perhaps no opera is better known by more people than Carmen. It's musical themes are universally recognizable even in isolation. An exceptional cast distinguishes this particular performance: Jennifer Larmore, Angela Gheorgiu, and Sam Ramey give standout performances that bring this alternately soaring and salacious work to it's pinnacle.

"Rachmaninov and Prokofiev are genius musical storytellers. Both have their own very personal and individual languages, and at the same time they are deeply rooted in the epic Russian tradition. When I immerse myself into their music, images of vast open spaces, Russian tales, folklore and even deft humor spring to mind. While the Prokofiev Sonata has been on my concert prgrams for many years, I came relatively recent to the music of Rachmaninov. I always felt this music needed the right partnership in order to work, the piano part being both tremendously demanding and poetic at the same time. Andrej for me, embodies all of those qualities, being a true champion of Rachmaninov's music. Embarking with him on this journey of core Russian repertoire has been so rewarding for me, and I am incredibly proud of our collaboration and the result you have on this new recording." - Johannes Moser "I met Johannes around two and a half years ago for a very special programme dedicated to the cello and piano repertory of the 20th century. We discovered that our ensemble is very equal so we discuss everything very openly. I really like that becasue for me it's not really interesting, for example, just to follow or when the soloist is following my ideas only. I've had such experiences before but here it's because you're working together, you create a new image together. And because we found the passion in each other's playing, we decided to do anothe rprogramme. I think this programme really fits us both perfectly. Rachmaninov and prokofiev, such Russian music! Amazing that both partst are so 'solo-tastic' but so much together. I thought, 'Yes, we should do it!'" - Andrei Korobeinikov

This wonderful two-disc set charts the progress of Dvo?ák’s relationship with the concerto form over the course of his career, from the tentative but beautifully peaceful Piano Concerto of his early days to the masterwork that is the Cello Concerto, widely considered the greatest of all concertos for the instrument. This evolution was accompanied by a range of musical and personal influences: the concertos interact with Dvo?ák’s other key pieces, such as his famous Slavonic Dances, showing snippets of his main musical preoccupations as well as his changing geographic location; and are testament to his important relationships with some of the star soloists of his day – such as the violinist Joseph Joachim or the cellist Hanuš Wihan – for whom he wrote most of the concertos.

Alongside Dvo?ák’s most famous examples of the concerto form, we are also treated to less-known soloist-and-orchestra works, including the charming Romance in F minor and the dazzling Mazurek in E minor. The soloists in this collection are all veterans of their instruments who deliver exemplary performances, directed under the esteemed baton of Walter Susskind: "In these Dvorak performances his great gifts as accompanist to elite soloistic talents is abundantly evident – he was one of the great concerto conductors of his generation – and the soloists respond in diverse ways, emotional, technical, expressive to the differing demands of the concertos" (MusicWeb International).

Other information:

- The three solo concertos and smaller concertante works by Dvorak, on two CDs!

- In Dvo?ák’s substantial symphonic oeuvre there are only three concertos, but each is a masterwork of its kind, frequently played and audience favourites.

- The Cello Concerto is the best and most popular in its genre, a dramatic and sweeping display of romantic passion, the Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto are strong and virtuoso works, with hints of the rich folklore of Dvo?ák’s home country Bohemia.

- Reissue from the rich Vox catalogue, featuring excellent soloists of international fame: cellist Sara Nelsova, pianist Rudolf Firkusny and violinist Ruggiero Ricci. - Brilliant Classics

With the Symphony No. 3, popularly referred to as the “Polish,” Mikhail Pletnev here completes his second cycle of the composer’s symphonies with the Russian National Orchestra. An earlier cycle dating from the 1990s with the same orchestra is still readily available on Deutsche Grammophon. Pletnev’s new cycle has much to recommend it. For starters, it’s all of a piece, by which I mean all six symphonies are performed by the same forces, for the same label (PentaTone), and they’re all in multichannel SACD format. As is true of most cycles, Pletnev’s is uneven. I raved about the conductor’s “Pathétique” in 35:3 and, having depleted my repertoire of adjectival superlatives on it, I was hard-pressed to express my even stronger endorsement of his “Little Russian” (No. 2) in 36:2. But my recommendations came with a caution that Pletnev’s approach to Tchaikovsky was super-charged and hyper-romantic.

Subjected to the scrutiny of others, not all of Pletnev’s releases in this new cycle have received unstinting praise. Colleague Boyd Pomeroy wondered if the conductor’s Fourth wasn’t too refined in a Karajanesque manner, while Peter J. Rabinowitz generally approved of Pletnev’s Fifth but noted some balance problems and a trace of the old Soviet vibrato. And even yours truly, after waxing ecstatic over Pletnev’s “Pathétique,” was not entirely convinced by the conductor’s follow-up “Winter Daydreams” (No. 1) in 35:6.

With this No. 3, we have the final curtain call for Pletnev’s PentaTone cycle and, as cycles go, I’d have to give this one an overall outstanding rating. Personally, I can’t get too excited about Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony. As I said in my review of Pletnev’s Second, between the Second and Third, it’s a tossup as to which is the weakest of Tchaikovsky’s six numbered symphonies. The Third Symphony was composed in fairly short order between June and August 1875, and there’s little evidence that Tchaikovsky fretted over it or kept tweaking it as he did with his First Symphony. For the neurotic and generally insecure composer, it seems that he was satisfied with the completed score and called it done. His only complaint was that the first performance could have gone better had there been more rehearsals. The work is unique among Tchaikovsky’s symphonies in that it’s the only one in five movements, and, unless one counts the composer’s abandoned Seventh Symphony in E?-Major, it’s the only one among the standard six that’s in a major key. It seems I’m not alone in my opinion of the work. Critical commentary has been mixed at best. Musicologist David Brown rated the Third, “the most inconsistent and least satisfactory of the symphonies and badly flawed” ( Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874–1878 , and Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1855–1893 ). And to that I would add the least consequential.

If the score is one you find appealing, I can think of no better proponent of it than Pletnev. As with all previous releases in this cycle, Pletnev has the Russian National Orchestra playing in top form, and he finds many felicities in the piece, like the coquettish wind asides in the Alla tedesca movement that delight the ear and give Tchaikovsky’s note-spinning a serenade-like gracefulness.

The Coronation March that fills out the disc—or, to give its full title, Festival Coronation March —is one of those potboiler pieces composers are often called upon to provide for political events or ceremonies of state. In this case, the ceremony was the coronation of Tsar Alexander III in 1883. Tchaikovsky received the commission to write the piece from Moscow’s mayor—it was more of an order than it was an offer—while he was in Paris working on his opera Mazeppa , and he was royally roiled, writing to Nadezhda von Meck, “My plans have been upset by two unexpected and very burdensome tasks foisted upon me. The city of Moscow has commissioned from me a ceremonial march to be played at the festivities which are to be organized for the Sovereign at the Sokol’nikii. Hardly had I managed to reconcile myself to the thought that I must tear myself away from the opera for the march, when suddenly I received a letter from the festival committee about a cantata. Both works, especially the cantata, have to be ready very soon, a prospect which fills me with dread.” If he’d put as much time and effort into working on the assignments as he did kvetching to von Meck about them, he might have produced something more worthy of his reputation. Still, in the end, Tchaikovsky seems to have thought highly enough of his march to make a piano transcription of it. Shades of the 1812 Overture come to mind, but without the cannon, carillon, or La Marseillaise , and all condensed down to less than seven minutes. It’s not very good, but at least it’s loud.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

MUSIQUE DE CHAMBRE

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Any composer dubbed by Haydn as "one of the greatest geniuses I have met" deserves serious attention. One such was German-born Joseph Martin Kraus. Born the same year as Mozart (1756), Kraus survived him by a year, dying of tuberculosis at age 36. Remarkably, despite having lived in Sweden for less than eight years, he was befriended by King Gustavus III and became the country's greatest 18th century composer. That reputation is gaining wider endorsement today through a pioneering Kraus series on Naxos, of which this is the latest installment. The performers, as before, are the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Petter Sundkvist, who continue to give exemplary readings of these remarkable if obscure late Classical symphonies.


Though the C-sharp minor and E minor works that open and close this program fully reflect the tastes and semantics of their era, the Symphony in C minor, subtitled "Symphonie funèbre", is an astonishing discovery. Written in April, 1792, following the assassination of Gustav III (the event inspired operas by Verdi and Auber and its political repercussions were felt throughout Europe), this is one of the most extraordinary musical valedictions to pre-date Beethoven's Eroica. All four movements are somber and slow-moving, and the use of timpani, solemn brass, and muted strings seem uncomfortably alien to a work of the period. This is an exceptionally fine account; Sundkvist's orchestra plays magnificently under his watchful direction, and the solo cello and horn in the chorale section of the finale sound suitably eloquent.


This disc also includes Kraus’ Overture in D minor (according to Haydn's friend Fredrik Silverstolpe, Swedish ambassador to Vienna, it was performed by mixed wind band at Good Friday services in Stockholm for many years) in its original instrumentation, the outcome of detailed reconstruction of Kraus' original manuscripts. Another surprise is the C # minor 'Sinfonia da camera'; the second section of its minuet is simply the first part played backwards (a trick Haydn himself tried on occasion)! As with previous releases, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Sundkvist, offer spirited and polished orchestral playing and a bright-well-balanced recording. Highly recommended.
--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com

This SACD contains Joseph Haydn’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in C major and his Sinfonia Concertante in B flat major. The pieces are performed by one of the 20th century’s leading violinists, Pinchas Zukerman, former Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Ronald Leonhard, oboist Barbara Winters and bassoonist David Breidenthal, together with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. These are outstanding performances of often neglected repertoire by the great Classical master, finally realised in the finest sound quality.

Chamber orchestra Schubert, but with plenty of bite.

Having greatly enjoyed Thomas Dausgaard’s Schumann symphonic recordings, I was more than delighted to find this Schubert disc amongst my allocation. This is still part of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s ‘Opening Doors’ collection, though the logo isn’t being paraded with quite as high a profile as previously and my copy had no extra cardboard slip for the standard jewel case. Schubert’s 8th and 9th Symphonies are already available in this series on BIS-1656. BIS already released some Schubert Symphonies with Neeme Järvi in the 1980s with nice performances from the Stockholm Sinfonietta, but Dausgaard’s recordings, while drier in acoustic, are more distinctive in terms of style.

My last encounter with Schubert’s symphonies via these pages was with Herbert Blomstedt’s fine Berlin Classics set with the Staatskapelle Dresden. The orchestral sound is inevitably grander than with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, but timings with each movement are not so very different, and I still like Blomstedt’s lightness of touch with these works, even if the wobbly vibrato to the flute sound is bothersome. There are no such quibbles with the orchestral sections with this BIS recording. The music is played expressively but without any kind of over-emphasis, the actual recording not terribly spectacular but nicely detailed and realistic.

Performing Schubert symphonies with a chamber orchestra should hold few if any real surprises, unless you are only used to the likes of Herbert von Karajan, whose Berlin Philharmonic recordings on EMI Gemini are a rich and refined sonic feast but of a distinctively mid to late Beethovenian flavour. Schubert’s symphonies were never performed publicly in his lifetime, and the Symphony No. 6 was the only one he heard played in rehearsal with an amateur orchestra. This is a youthful work which makes tribute to the likes of Rossini, and the orchestra of the time would have been more comparable with those used by Mozart and Haydn than anything particularly Romantic. Chamber orchestra forces do not however result in Schubert-lite, and you only have to listen to the tremendous accents of the Scherzo to be made aware of the hard-hitting possibilities of such an ensemble. Fewer strings make for a more equal partnership between these and the wind sections, and the sense of inner dialogue is a strong aspect in this recording. As far as I am concerned there is nothing anaemic about this performance, and it ticks all the boxes for radiant joy and underlying drama.

Six years on from the Symphony No. 6 saw Schubert involved in Rosamunde, a play which promised much but ended in humiliating public failure, Schubert’s excellent incidental music unable to lift the audience’s indifference to the theatre experience, but strong enough to become popular in its own right. The sections presented here are Entr’actes 1, 3, and 2, and the Ballet Music No. 2 and No. 1 in that order. This is a more complete set than most ‘filler’ movements added to orchestral recordings, and with the famous tune of Entr’acte No. 3 played with warmth and affection, the two ballets given perfect energy and tempi and plenty of atmospheric dramas elsewhere I can find nothing to complain about. You won’t find the orchestral opulence of recordings such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Claudio Abbado on Deutsche Grammophon, and this is still one of your best bets if looking for the complete Rosamunde, choir and all. Listening to this BIS recording does however make one realise how idealised such performances can become, and it is Thomas Dausgaard who brings us closer to the earthy reality of an orchestra in something approaching a theatre setting.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

'The majority of my symphonies are tombstones' - these words by Shostakovich are quoted by conductor Mark Wigglesworth in the liner notes to his fifth disc of Shostakovich's Symphonies on BIS. Symphony No. 13, subtitled 'Babi Yar', is a case in point. Shostakovich explicitly stated that he wanted the Symphony - and in particular it's first movement - to be a monument over the 100.000 Jews slaughtered at a ravine called Babi Yar outside of Kiev in 1941. Not just a monument, however: the Symphony was also intended as an indictment against the anti-Semitism that had been brought to its height during the Nazi era, but which also flourished in post-war Soviet Union, with the result that Babi Yar and other atrocities were kept secret by the authorities. This silence was deeply upsetting to Shostakovich, and when he read Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem Babi Yar, he decided to set it to music. 'I cannot not write it!', he said to a friend. Shostakovich had originally only intended to set this one poem by Yevtushenko, but deciding to create a larger-scaled work he chose four more texts for what was to become a symphony in five movements. As Mark Wigglesworth writes, these poems 'reveal a huge kaleidoscope of Russian events, emotions and ideas.' In the realization of this kaleidoscope, Wigglesworth has the support of bass soloist Jan-Hendrik Rootering, the men of the Netherlands Radio Choir, and - of course - the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, with which the previous instalment in this series, Symphony No. 8 (BIS-SACD-1483), was recorded, to critical acclaim. The reviewer of BBC Music Magazine put it in the following way: 'Mark Wigglesworth ... stretches the playing of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic to its very impressive limits and remains the finest Shostakovich interpreter of his generation', describing the result as 'a performance which always gives us the full measure of this traumatic masterpiece.'

BLOCH Schelomo 1. BRIDGE Oration, Concerto elegiaco 1. HOUGH The Loneliest Wilderness 2 • Steven Isserlis (vc); 1 Hugo Wolff, cond; 1 German SO Berlin; 2 Gábor Takács, cond; 2 Tapiola Sinfonietta • BIS 1992 (SACD: 67:40)


Steven Isserlis joined Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988 for a very fine and critically well-received recording of Bloch’s Schelomo for Virgin Classics. Also on that disc was a more than respectable account of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Except for the benefit of surround-sound audio and improved sonics on this new BIS release, I’m not prepared to say that Isserlis betters his previous account. At 58, he’s still in his prime and at the height of his game technically, but the years seem not to have aged Isserlis’s ancient King of Israel. If anything, Isserlis and Hugo Wolff now put a bit more spring into Solomon’s step, though the difference of only 23 seconds—21:45 in 1988 vs. 21:22 in 2012 is simply too small to notice over the given timespan.


The album comes with a title, In the Shadow of War , and a theme. Bloch, as is well known, was deeply depressed over the grim events unfolding during World War I, and for solace and understanding, he turned to the words of despair and wisdom in the Book of Ecclesiastes, believed to have been authored by Solomon 2,000 years earlier. It was from this that in 1916 Bloch drew inspiration for his magnificent rhapsody-cum-tone poem, Schelomo , for cello and orchestra.


Frank Bridge’s Oration, Concerto elegiaco for Cello and Orchestra is far less well known than Bloch’s opus, but it, too, has received a previous recording by Isserlis and Hickox with the City of London Sinfonia on EMI. Unfortunately, I don’t have that disc, so I can’t compare the performance to this new one, but it doesn’t go back as far as Isserlis’s Virgin Classics Schelomo . The Isserlis/Hickox/EMI CD, coupled with Britten’s Cello Symphony , was released in 2007. We don’t have a description of Bridge’s Oration in the composer’s own words, as we do a description of Schelomo from Bloch himself, so we can only speculate on Bridge’s motives for writing the piece and its precise meaning. In 1930, the date of Oration ’s composition, World War I had long ago ended and World War II was yet to come. Yet everything about this work paints the most grisly, gruesome portrait imaginable of war’s death and destruction. Isserlis, who has written his own album note, describes the music minute by minute, evoking images of “men hurling themselves into enemy fire” and “the leaden march of doomed soldiers.” The solo cello is the fallen soldier who, in the end, is left to expire alone, “his final desolate thoughts fading into empty nothingness.”


Nearly 30 minutes in duration, Bridge’s Oration is not an easy work to listen to, or to play, I’m sure, so it’s not surprising that it hasn’t achieved anything close to the popularity of Bloch’s Schelomo . Besides Isserlis’s own previous recording of the piece, it hasn’t received much attention on disc, but the attention it has received has come from major-league cellists, namely, Rafael Wallfisch, Alban Gerhardt, and Julian Lloyd Webber.


I have to admit that before listening to it, Stephen Hough’s The Loneliest Wilderness shouted, “Raise shields! Raise shields!,” as would any piece for me dated 2005. Well, it only took a matter of seconds before the music cried out to me, “Lower shields! Lower shields!” I would buy this disc for The Loneliest Wilderness alone. The piece was originally composed for bassoon and orchestra, but Isserlis persuaded Hough, composer, pianist, and good friend, that the lyrical nature of the solo part was ideal for cello. Since the ranges of the two instruments are reasonably close to each other, I don’t know if it was necessary for Hough to make any adjustments in the solo line or not, but this is one gorgeous outpouring of poignant, moving, heartfelt music. Bless Stephen Hough for composing it, and bless Steven Isserlis for including it on this disc. The work, according to the note, was inspired by Herbert Read’s poem My Company , and I can’t think of any other way to describe it than to say it’s a rapturous rhapsody in full neoromantic bloom.


This may prove to be the best cello and orchestra recording of the year, and it’s urgently recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

Bach: Overtures (Suites) Nos. 1-4

J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos, Vol. 1

Continuing a commitment which began in 1989, BIS has released a number of discs dedicated to the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho. These includes programmes with chamber music, but the majority involve large orchestra, performing large orchestral works. One genre favoured by Aho is that of the concerto, and the recently released recording of his Clarinet Concerto made a great impact on reviewers around the world, who described it as 'intensely lyrical, thematically memorable, and beautifully scored' (ClassicsToday.com), 'a deeply moving master-piece' (Fono Forum), and 'a chef-d'oeuvre of our time!' (Classica-Répertoire). This prolific composer is also one of today's great symphonic writers: his current work list includes no less than fourteen symphonies, and nine of these have been released on BIS, to great acclaim - upon its release in 1999, No.7 was for instance greeted as 'one of our century's great orchestral scores' by the reviewer in American Record Guide. But even within such an extraordinary body of works, Kalevi Aho's 'Symphony No.12, Luosto',holds a very special place. Written for a performance on the slopes of Mount Luosto in Finnish Lapland, it makes use of two orchestras, two vocal soloists and a number of brass players and percussionists placed at various distances from each other and the conductor, surrounding the audience. The primary inspiration for this four-movement work came from the natural surroundings and traditions of Lapland, and parts of it were actually composed during a bitterly cold spell in the solitude of a cottage at the foot of Orresokka, the mountain next to Luosto. The three-dimensional qualities written into the score makes it the perfect subject for a Surround Sound recording, and during the recording sessions in the acclaimed acoustics of the Lahti Sibelius Hall, great pains were taken to recreate the set-up of the first performance. This took place in 2003, in front of - or rather around - an audience of over 2000 people, and became the starting point of 'LuostoClassic', an annual summer music festival which in 2008 features another performance of Aho's symphony. Among the performers on the present recording, the vocal soloists, the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland and the conductor John Storgårds all took part in the première of the work. The uniqueness of the work, in terms of both sonic qualities and conception, would render any additional work meaningless in the context of a single disc, which is why it is published on its own despite the playing time of just under 50 minutes.

Classical Music

J.C. BACH: SINFONIAE CONCERTAN

FRANZ SCHUBERT Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Orebro/Thomas Dausgaard FRANZ SCHUBERT: Symphonny No. 8 in B minor, 'Unfinished', D759; symphony No. 9 in C major, 'Great', D944.

Sir Edward Elgar once described the sensation of flying in an aeroplane to Frederick Delius: 'There is a delightful feeling of elation in sailing through gold and silver clouds. It is, Delius, rather like your music - a little intangible sometimes, but always very beautiful.' On this disc, Camerata Wales - consisting of some of today's finest Welsh musicians - and conductor Owain Arwel Hughes bring together not only Elgar and Delius, but also Holst, Peter Warlock and Welsh composer Arwel Hughes (father of the conductor) in a programme which is certainly both elating and beautiful. St. Paul's Suite and Capriol are both works that have proved almost impossible to sit still to while listening, while in Arwel Hughes' Fantasia, based on 'an old ecclesiastical theme', it is an elegiac melody bathed in nostalgia that sets the tone. Delius's Cuckoo and Summer Night are the most English of all English music - even though the river portrayed in the latter piece is actually French: the Loing, flowing past Delius's home near Fontainebleau. These gems are framed by Elgar's Serenade for Strings, one of his best-loved works and glowing with an identifiably Edwardian warmth throughout, and his Elegy, whose brevity (it lasts around five minutes) belies its depth of emotion.

Lorin Maazel leads the Philharmonia Orchestra and a star-studded ensemble of performers in Mahler's first three symphonies. This is the first set in a series that will encompass Mahler's nine symphonies, featuring live orchestral recordings from London's Royal Festival Hall of Maazel and the Philharmonia's much-lauded Mahler cycle.