Boston based composer Marti Epstein releases this collection of her chamber music including clarinet, featuring Rane Moore and the Winsor Music ensemble. Epstein's music is shaped in equal measure by modern icons Webern, Feldman, and Takemitsu, as it is by the expansive landscape of the American plains and her upbringing in Nebraska. Marti Epstein is a composer whose music has been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, The Radio Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt, Ensemble Modern, and members of the Boston Symphony. She has completed commissions for the Fromm Foundation, The Munich Biennale, the Ludovico Ensemble, Guerilla Opera, the Radius Ensemble, Tanglewood Music Center, Winsor Music, Boston Opera Collaborative, and the Callithumpian Consort. During the 2017-2018 concert season, Marti’s work was featured extensively alongside the work of Anton Webern on the Trinity Wall Street’s Time’s Arrow Festival in New York City. Her music was also performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players in Leipzig, Germany in June 2018. Her opera, Rumpelstiltskin, was presented with shadow puppetry in May 2019 in New York City. In November 2019, the Boston-based Ludovico Ensemble presented three portrait concerts of Marti’s music in celebration of her 60th birthday. In 2021 her music was featured as part of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s streaming concert content.

The English composer-pianist Freda Swain (1902–85) left behind a huge legacy of music that was largely unknown even during her own lifetime. Her compositions – hundreds of them, in a series of large boxes – found their way to the Swiss pianist Timon Altwegg, who begins his survey of her piano music with these three mighty sonatas. They are astonishing discoveries: big-boned, virtuosic pieces, full of wild energy, crossing from late Romanticism to a more modern idiom – from Rachmaninov to Bartók, so to speak – and with Bax’s fondness for Celtic seascapes and a hint of Debussyan Impressionism.

REVIEW:

Freda Swain studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford, married New Zealand pianist and mentor Arthur Alexander, with whom she formed a successful piano duo, and devoted her life to composing, teaching, and performing. Some of her 450 compositions were performed with success, but her refusal to bend to post-war musical trends meant she fell into obscurity.

Altwegg’s recording of three sonatas and three short pieces should go a long way to reinstating this remarkable composer with a highly individual voice. The most fascinating work is the three-movement Sonata Saga that Swain left unnumbered and which Altwegg found in a box of unsorted loose pages. He has painstakingly worked it into a performance version, and it is an impressive and powerful debut work from a 22-year-old.

The gem of the collection is the Sonata No 1 in A Minor, nicknamed “The Skerries”, written in 1936 and inspired by the Scottish landscape. Altwegg gives a memorable performance. The Sonata No 2 in F Sharp Minor dates from 1950 and shows how Swain advanced in her approach to form and harmony. The short pieces are delightful.

-- Limelight

Famous from an early age as a child prodigy, Philippa Duke Schuyler (1931-1967) had written numerous compositions and toured on five continents by the time she was twenty-three. She travelled extensively in Africa, often studying the local music traditions. Aspects of this potentially appear in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The work was influenced by T.E. Lawrence’s similarly-titled memoir. Dr. Masterson received a B.A. in physics and a Performer’s Certificate from DePauw University, and a M.M. and D.M.A. in piano performance from the University of Connecticut. Her recent research involves the work of twentieth-century American women composers, and her doctoral research focused on the use of sonata form in mid-twentieth-century American piano sonatas.

Winner of the “Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Mosel-Eifel” Prize in Germany, pianist Régulo Martínez-Antón has appeared in renowned venues throughout Europe and North and South America. A versatile and passionate performing artist, Mr. Martínez-Antón has proven himself to be one of the most intriguing Spanish pianists of his generation. He has presented solo recitals at the prestigious El Escorial Music Festival and a performance of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with Maestro Michael Francis and the Andres Segovia Chamber Orchestra. He received a special invitation from El Sistema and its founder Maestro José Abreu to perform a recital in Caracas, Venezuela, commemorating the life of famed Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha. Mr. Martínez-Antón also gave the Canadian premiere of the music drama Chopin and the Nightingale, performing the leading role of Chopin at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. On the present release he presents a program of works by Beethoven, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Monpou, and Schumann.

A veritable tour de force: the arrangement of Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons and Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata for violin solo! Violinist and arranger Mauro Tortorelli about this unique project: “This recording is not only a challenge in terms of performance (playing both the solo part and the orchestral part at the same time), but also in terms of arrangement. Having to simulate all the orchestral timbres, the various voices in counterpoint, the sound contrasts on only four strings of the violin was not at all easy. Paganini's ingenious technique of double trills and left-handed pizzicati (used for the second movement of L’Inverno and the second movement of L’Estate), Bartok's pizzicato (for the rifle shots in the last movement of L’Autunno) and the formidable bow technique used by Henryk Szeryng, handed down to me by his pupil Georg Monch, have certainly suggested the best instrumental solutions to obtain the clearest possible clarity of execution between the various voices of a complex piece, enabling me to overcome the obstacles that the original scores presented me with. The decision to transcribe for solo violin these two famous works was also inspired by their great melodic power. In fact, every time I studied both pieces to perform them in public in the original formation, I had the feeling that they were already functional without accompaniment. As I am not a "Baroque" violinist, I preferred to perform the pieces with current technique and interpretation, respecting as much as possible the score revised by Gian Francesco Malipiero for Antonio Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" and the manuscript score of Giuseppe Tartini's "Devil's Trill", adding my own Cadenza. “ Mauro Tortorelli already successfully recorded for Brilliant Classics violin sonatas by Saint-Saëns, Scalero, Milhaud, Ševcik/Auer and Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

The most prominent member of a distinguished Dutch line of musicians in the 17th century, Anthoni van Noordt (1619-1675) was organist of the Nieuwezijds chapel in Amsterdam between 1636 and 1664, when he took up the more prestigious post the Nieuwe Kerk until his retirement in 1673, dying two years later. The tablature book of 1659 is the only extant collection dedicated to his work, comprising ten sets of variations on Psalm melodies from the Genevan Psalter, and six fantasias. Psalm 24 stands out for its vibrant originality as a masterpiece of improvisation, but all the pieces in the collection demonstrate what a formidable organist Van Noordt must have been, as well as requiring the same flair and invention from a modern performer. Choice of instrument in this repertoire is crucial, and for the latest volume in his adventurous journey through the organ music of northern and central Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, Manuel Tomadin has selected a superbly preserved original example dating from 1637 in the Jakobikirche of Lübeck. The booklet gives a full specification of the organ as well as the stop list chosen by Tomadin for each individual track, as well as a substantial essay by the organist which discusses the life and music of Van Noordt. Tomadin’s highly colored, rhythmically flexible performances pay respect to the essentially improvisational nature of Van Noordt’s language without undervaluing the influence of Sweelinck, the dominant voice in northern-European organ music of the time, on his style.

Pondering the Baroque violin repertoire, one would be forgiven to think of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works and little else. Acclaimed English violinist Thomas Bowes courageously sets out to change this preconceived notion with TELEMANN FANTASIAS, a rare and remarkable full performance of all of Georg Philipp Telemann’s solo violin fantasias. Telemann is to violinists what Mozart is to keyboard players: deceptively simple on paper, notoriously difficult to master in actuality. Bowes, never a stranger to a challenging repertoire, expertly articulates the cheer, spirit, and zest of these pieces with a strikingly light-hearted panache, as if it could be no different. Indeed, upon listening to this rendition, it is easy to imagine a future in which public performances of Bach’s pious partitas are habitually rounded off by Telemann’s buoyant secular fantasias. For Bowes, this future is now.

Anita Rachvelishvili’s second album Élégie showcases her in the song repertoire to which she has a special connection despite being best known as a star of the world's greatest opera houses. Riccardo Muti has called the Georgian singer “without doubt the best Verdi mezzo-soprano today on the planet”, but here she reveals another side to her art. The repertoire is notable for its variety featuring five languages (Russian, Georgian, Italian, French and Spanish) and, correspondingly, five very different repertoire traditions. "I really love this repertoire. It gives one more colours and more possibilities for expressing emotions with the voice", says Anita Rachvelishvili. Echoing her debut album of operatic arias on Sony, she introduces listeners to a great if internationally neglected Georgian composer, in this case Otar Taktakisvili, heard in The Sun of October, a setting of the distinguished Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze. As well as Rachmaninov's setting of the Pushkin poem Oh never sing to me again and Tchaikovsky's None but the lonely heart.

Emmanuel Despax returns to Signum with a disc of JS Bach transcriptions. The title quotes Victor Hugo’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame’ (“Breathe, Hope”), brought to Despax’s mind following the news of the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral, where he had attended many concerts of Bach’s music as a child. Despax describes Bach’s music as being “of such clarity, coherence and expressive power, that it is able to transcend its original medium, and to some extent, style.” This virtuosic programme combines both well-known transcriptions, such as the mighty Bach-Busoni ‘Chaconne’ and Saint-Saën’s ‘Overture’, with the first recordings of several arrangements by the late 19th/early 20th century pianist Theodor Szántó’s – featuring his monumental and uncompromising transcriptions of the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, and the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. Emmanuel Despax has gained worldwide recognition as a singular artist, whose interpretations bring a rare sincerity and imagination to the music. A remarkable performer of romantic and post-romantic music, he has been invited to give recital performances in the UK (Wigmore Hall’s London Pianoforte Series, Cadogan Hall, Chipping Campden and Petworth Festivals, and the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham, where he was appointed artistic director in 2020 of a complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle). Summer 2021 will see the release of a Brahms album including the Sixteen Waltzes Op. 39 and Piano Concerto No.1 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Litton.

Oscar contender Roma goes beyond history: it captures the perception of time, everyday life and the history of Mexico

Directed by Academy Award and Golden Globes winner Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Y tu mamá también, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

Curated by the director Alfonso Cuarón and the soundtrack producers Lynn Fainchtein and Randall Poster, the soundtrack of ROMA brings us back to the sonic Mexico of the 1970s, when the famous XEW, a reference of Mexican radio, transmitted English pop and rock, while gradually introducing the new Mexican pop, through performers like José José, Juan Gabriel, and Rigo Tovar, musical icons that in the present, have remained as references of Mexican and Latin American music.

The music of ROMA portrays the musical diversity of those years, from rock as the nascent symbol of the counterculture, to a few months of the Avándaro Festival, to the tropical rhythms and pop that marked the decade.

This emotional musical compilation narrates in itself many stories of the Mexico of those years, immersed in sociopolitical and cultural transitions that seem to oscillate between the impetus of change and resistance to it. That is why ROMA is the portrait of the great mosaic of sounds that face and complement each other in a clash between the past and the possibility of a future; between the world and Mexico and among the many Mexicos that the film shows us.

ROMA, is the most recent production by Alfonso Cuarón and the first Mexican film to win the "Golden Lion" as best film at the Venice International Film Festival; considered by critics around the world as one of the best movies of 2018 and of recent years.

Romance showcases Lang Lang’s innate yet sophisticated feeling for nuance and reflection. Carefully selected from his Sony Classical discography, the selections achieve a fulfilling programmatic unity through subtle contrasts in mood and style. The slow, yearning repeated note themes of Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3 and Chopin’s “Aeolian Harp” Etude naturally lead into Hans Zimmer’s captivating main soundtrack theme from the film Gladiator. Similarly, the juxtaposition of Chopin’s C-Sharp Minor Nocturne, Liszt’s Consolation No. 3 and the Adagio from Beethoven’s Sonata, Op. 2 No. 3 and Bach’s Air on the G String illuminates the common ground between four proudly individual composers. Romance casts fresh light on Lang Lang’s lyrical gifts, revealing the artist behind the phenomenon.

During the 1813–14 carnival season in Naples, Simon Mayr wrote a much-admired opera semiseria called Elena. The post-revolutionary Napoleonic era saw great enthusiasm for the rescue opera genre and Elena is a perfect example, in which a complex plot, based on French models, sees an innocent falsely accused of a capital offence. Mayr’s subtle accommodation of Neapolitan opera and Viennese Classicism ensures a series of choruses and recitatives that drive the action forward, punctuated with arias, romances, ensembles, lyric richness and moments of witty buffo color.

REVIEW:

Franz Hauk continues his dedicated role championing the music of the German-born, Simon Mayr, now returning to his operas thought to number almost seventy.

First produced in Naples in January 1814, Mayr's Elena was well received and revived in 1816 at the much more influential venue of La Scala, Milan, and that was followed by Florence. At both theatres it is thought is was probably much revised. The story is complex—to say the least—and made even more so as you need to know the history that surrounds events that took place before the opera begins; all that is explained in the enclosed booklet. The opera calls for a dramatic soprano as the wronged Elena, here taken by the German-born Julia Sophie Wagner, who is enjoying a major career on both sides of the Atlantic. Her perky voice is perfect for her dual role where she has to masquerade as a young man when she returns to her homeland. But it is the many other characters who share the bulk of a work lasting around two and a half hours, though it does not seem that long! By this point the fine bass voice of Daniel Ochoa has taken over the score as Elena’s husband, Costantino, the two having parted as they fled from their execution, his long first act aria not far short of ten minutes. We are now introduced to Edmondo, who was part of the plot against Elena, here taken by the tenor, Markus Schafer, whose outstanding performances have graced many Mayr recordings. That leaves me to say how much I have enjoyed the bass, Niklas Mallmann, in the buffo role of Carlo; the bass, Andreas Mattersberger as Urbino, and Fang Zhi in the pivotal part of the Governor. He is joined in the opera’s final rejoicing with the fulsome Simon Mayr Chorus. For Hauk, the conductor, this is another major and unqualified success, his period instrument orchestra, Concerto de Bassus, both neat and with impeccable intonation. A fabulous release in every respect.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Marko Topchii, winner of the 2017 Michele Pittaluga Guitar Competition, has selected a rich and varied repertoire ranging from neo-Romanticism to serialism, each work offering a unique vision of the instrument’s technical and expressive capabilities. Antonio Jose’s Sonata is remarkably inventive, bringing a new language to ancient dance forms, while Frank Martin’s Quatre Pieces breves, written in the same year, offers the flourish and vigor of contemporary harmonic vocabulary. Ronald Dyens’ Libra Sonatine is one of the most virtuosic and brilliant of late 20th-century guitar works. Ukranian-born guitarist Marko Topchii, has been the winner of more than 40 international guitar competitions. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Salle Cortot, Yamaha Ginza Hall, and at the Tchaikovsky Hall. He often performs with orchestras, having performed more than ten concertos for guitar and orchestra. He is sponsored by the D’Addario Strings Company and records with a guitar made by Jim Redgate.

Friedrich Kuhlau (1786 - 1832) lived and worked during a transitional period of classical music. A contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert, his works remain almost unknown to this day, except for some compositions for the flute. The compositional style of the sonatas featured in this recording perfectly identifies with that of his contemporaries, while showing some differences in content; the structure of the sonatas is that of the classical period, but the use of melodic themes and harmony looks to the romantic period. These interpretations of the sonatas for flute and piano highlight the constant dialogue between the two instruments; in fact there is a continuous thematic exchange, which the artists found interesting to discover and highlight. The synergy is perceived above all in choppy tempos, while in every Adagio or Andante the flute assumes the role of the solo instrument, and the piano accompanies and responds. The themes in the slow movements are sweet and moving, and the composer manages to evoke emotions that are always different from each other, thus bringing out his predisposition for this type of tempo, present even in the most brilliant movements: in fact in every allegro, even in the one characterized by the greatest energy, there is a moment of tranquility in which the composer takes the time to make performers and listeners ponder.

Over the course of musical history, the Prelude developed from a short, semi-improvised introduction to a larger scale work into a work of art in its own right. Champion of Minimal Music Jeroen van Veen writes about his preludes: “composed in a major and minor keys in the order of Chopin’s Preludes the basic idea was to see if I would limit myself to just a few chords and techniques if I could create different works.” The booklet contains informative liner notes by the composer, himself.