Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy® Award, Christopher Rouse is one of America’s most prominent composers of orchestral music, creating a body of work perhaps unequaled in its emotional intensity. Conceived from the start as differing from a traditional piano concerto, Seeing brings together seemingly disparate elements to explore the notion of ‘sanity’ through the music of Robert Schumann and Skip Spence, swinging between extremes of consonance and dissonance, stability and instability, to create a disorientating and hallucinatory work seen through the lens of mental illness. Kabir Padavali or ‘Kabir Songbook’ presents a range of the great Indian poet’s religious concerns, from extraordinarily beautiful ecstasy to impishly humorous allegories.

-----

Review:

Trevigne is nothing less than sensational. She is assured in her presentation, and possesses a warm and, yes, voluptuous soprano that is perfectly matched to this material. Her performance shows a level of commitment to the composer’s intentions that only the best singers of contemporary music can command.

– Fanfare

Hailed internationally for his “colorful, kinetic performances” (All Music Guide) which “abound in vitality” (Early Music America), Hank Knox performs on harpsichord in concert halls, churches, museums, galleries and homes around the globe. Knox’s recording of the 30-piece sonata collection, Essercizi Per Gravicembalo, by Domenico Scarlatti offers the listener a view into Scarlatti’s famously technically demanding work that was first published in 1739 in London, England. Essercizi Per Gravicembalo, meaning “Exercises for Harpsichord” was composed with the intent of a study in technique, which resulted in the spectacular showcase of progressively more frequent and almost virtuosic hand-crossing and exciting octaval leaps throughout the piece. The work is largely a compilation of manuscripts and unfinished sonatas from the past thirty years of Scarlatti’s life and was dedicated to King John V of Portugal, whom was the father of longtime pupil, Queen Maria Barabra. Essercizi Per Gravicembalo was recorded by Hank Knox in April 2021 at Église St. Augustin, Mirabel, QC.

Featuring the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, this new release includes compositions by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725). La Gloria di Primavera, the work featured on this album, has been called a “feast of vocal invention, supplemented by wondrous instrumental writing…” The performances on this album were recorded live in Berkeley, California, at First Congregational Church in October of 2015.

Remembered today for the Olympic Anthem, Spyridon Samaras was the most distinguished Greek composer of his day and the first to gain international recognition. By the time Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle was produced, Samaras was a well-established and much-admired opera composer in the Italian Romantic style. The narrative of the opera sees the mischievous plans of the Duke of Richelieu descending into a complex tangle of amorous deceptions, tests of faithfulness and the perils of dueling. The score for this world premiere recording has been painstakingly restored by Byron Fidetzis.

Based at Windsor Castle, the members of The Queen’s Six make up half of the Lay Clerks of St George’s Chapel, whose homes lie within the Castle walls. This rare privilege demands the highest musical standards, as they sing regularly for the Royal family at both private and state occasions. In 2018 this included the weddings of Princess Eugenie and Mr Jack Brooksbank, and Prince Harry and Ms Meghan Markle, both held in St George’s Chapel. Most significantly however, it is the familiarity of living and singing together in Chapel every day that lends this group its distinctive closeness and blend, as well as an irresistible informality and charm. Individually, members of The Queen’s Six have appeared in many of the most prestigious vocal ensembles on the circuit, including The Tallis Scholars, Tenebrae, and The Sixteen. Their repertoire extends far beyond the reach of the choir stalls: from austere early chant, florid Renaissance polyphony, lewd madrigals and haunting folk songs to upbeat Jazz and Pop arrangements.

-----

REVIEW:

The Queen's Six do not attempt to outdo the King's Singers' famously intricate arrangements, preferring to steer things back a bit toward the middle of the road. Your reactions to this may depend on your larger ones toward the idea itself, but the execution is solid. The program consists of folk songs of the British Isles, and as the album title suggests, the Queen's Six make sure to put a generous helping of the repertory's greatest hits on the program. Other attractions include the large variety of arrangers, with just a few names repeated; the arrangements are well-chosen such that each one shows distinctive traits, but all fit together generally well.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

I sure hope the folks in Buffalo know what a prize they have in JoAnn Falletta. Her Naxos discography has few peers in terms of imaginative programming and quality of results. The city couldn’t ask for a more positive or alluring cultural calling card, and the present release offers a case in point. There have been many fine recordings of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, but this one stands with the best: for clarity, elegance, distinguished solo work (superb oboe, William Preucil’s solo violin), you name it. Although scored for a chamber orchestra, it’s amazing how congested and fussy so many performances sound. Not here. Just listen to the opening processional of “The Dinner,” with its bold horns and transparent textures. Great stuff.

However, the real item of interest is the “Symphony-Suite” arranged by D. Wilson Ochoa from Ariadne auf Naxos, the original companion work to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Arranging suites from Strauss’ operas is a trend that can only be encouraged. Strauss did it himself, of course, but mostly without much enthusiasm or imagination. So here’s a case where the intervention of more caring hands is clearly called for.

This suite, forty minutes in all, contains three chunks from the prologue and four from the opera itself. It is gorgeous. Even those who know the opera well may be surprised at how much lovely material slips by without notice in stage performances, such as the “Intermezzo” music on the second to last track here (sound clip). You do get some of the more famous bits (“Es gibt ein Reich,” for example, and the closing scene), but it really is astonishing how much care Strauss lavished on sections that flit by as mere accompaniment–never mind the thematic interest that they contain. Here, thanks to Falletta and the folks in Buffalo, in this luminously played and recorded performance, we can savor them afresh. So what are you waiting for? Go for it.

- ClassicsToday

Before coming to Sweden, the Italian-born harpsichordist Anna Paradiso knew little about Johan Helmich Roman, often called 'the father of Swedish music'. Here she soon realized that if Roman's music was Swedish, it was also Italian – and specifically Neapolitan: the restlessness of the harmonic idiom, the continuous melodic shifts and the theatrical character. Considering the distance between Stockholm and Naples, this might seem farfetched, but we know that Roman encountered a number of Italian musicians while studying in London 1716-1721, and when in the 1730s he was able take a two-year sabbatical from his post as Kapellmeister at the Royal Court, his goal was Ischia near Naples. Roman's collection of Twelve Keyboard Sonatas was preserved in a manuscript assembled around 1748, but had most likely been composed in the course of the two decades before that. (One movement in Sonata III is labelled 'a Napoli', placing it in the autumn of 1736.) Consisting of between three and seven movements, the pieces have been referred to both as ‘suites’ and ‘sonatas’. Whatever the label, the collection is a fascinating testimony of a period of great stylistic diversity and change, as observed by a composer who, although geographically relegated to the outskirts of Europe, remained wide-open to new developments. In these recordings, Anna Paradiso emphasizes this aspect, performing the sonatas on three different instruments – a French and an Italian harpsichord and a copy of a Swedish clavichord from 1742 – with well-judged ornamentations and use of rubato. A previous release, with the first seven sonatas of the set, was described as ‘exceptional’, by the reviewer on allmusic.com, who went on to hope that ‘the remaining sonatas will be released in short order by Paradiso and BIS.’ That hope is here fulfilled, with the addition of an earlier keyboard sonata by Roman, as well as one by his Swedish contemporary Johan Agrell.

The music in this program covers a spectrum of genres that have flourished in Greece in recent years, from jazz to contemporary avant-garde. These have all had a strong impact on guitarist Dimitris Soukaras’s development as an artist, and in making this recording he took the opportunity to invite some of Greece’s leading composers to write for his instrument for the first time. All works are world premiere recordings.

In 1904 Max Reger wrote what was to be the first in a major sequence of variations on themes by his great predecessors. The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by J.S. Bach was written for piano but its richness and virtuosity exceed the scope of the instrument. Ira Levin’s orchestration clarifies the structure, intensifies climaxes and reduces its length. The Four Tone Poems explore the paintings of the symbolist Arnold Bocklin and form symphonic mood pictures that veer from delicacy to Bacchanalian frenzy.

-----

REVIEW:

That this is a welcome release scarcely needs to be said: too often Reger is considered a significant composer for organ, but significant within that niche: a master of fugal writing, perhaps on the heavy teutonic side. But, of course, there has always been more to him than this. This Naxos release allows wider access to his works in commendable performances by a conductor evidently deeply sympathetic to his cause.

The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by J.S.Bach, Op.81 (1904) are an arrangement by Ira Levin of Reger’s work for piano. In 1904, Reger considered it his finest work to date, and it was enthusiastically greeted on first public performance. The theme comes from the aria ‘Seine Allmacht zu ergründen, wird sich kein Mensche finden’, originally a duet for tenor and contralto, with oboe, viola d’amore and continuo, from Cantata No. 128, Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein. Reger had insisted that the pianist treat the theme ‘sweetly and always very legato—that is to say, like an oboe solo’. Levin’s arrangement catches that very well.

It should be noted that Levin does not merely rearrange for different instruments: he reconstructs the work in a valuable reimagining – tempo is slower, preferring 6/4 time to Reger’s more general 6/8. He omits four variations (6,7,11 and 12), and uses a broad variety of instrumentation, notably in percussion, though no instruments not found elsewhere in his works. The result has revealing clarity and a taut architecture, very enjoyable in its own terms. Orchestration brings out very sharply the relationship to the organ, especially in the opening variations, and perhaps even more to Reger’s reverence for Brahms: sonorities are frequently Brahmsian. Levin is absolutely true to the spirit of Reger and his special emotional world. If the letter is Reger is an issue, some will prefer the piano version: but there is more than enough room for both.

Four Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin, Op.128 (1913) is Reger’s best-known orchestral work, inspired by the paintings of Böcklin, the 19th Century Swiss artist. These were symbolist pictures, with some abrupt changes of mood. Reger marks these shifts with subtlety. The overall mood is serious, but with many charms, notably in Der geigende Eremit (‘The Hermit Fiddler’) with its lovely violin solo, wonderfully captured by Klaudyna Schulze-Broniewska, the leader of the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester.

Add the slightly romantic arrangement by Reger of O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde gross, BWV 622 to the mix, and we have a CD whose appeal should move far beyond Reger enthusiasts. This is a splendid introduction for those who have thought of Reger as too heavy for their tastes, and packed with insights for those who have come to love him.

– MusicWeb International (Michael Wilkinson)

Winner of the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Music, Bernard Rands is well established as a major figure in contemporary music. His music has been described as 'plangent lyricism with dramatic intensity', qualities developed since his studies with Dallapiccola and Berio. Inspired in the 1970's by the then new Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, Rands researched and sketched Vincent for the next 40 years. Described by the Huffington Post as Rands' 'crowning achievement', Vincent represents much of the great painter's life and in particular the dramatic setbacks of his later years, contrasting the affection of his brother Theo with intese inner struggles, his vicious conflict with Gauguin, and his tragic and untimely death.

Sylvia McNair has won two Grammy Awards, and is today’s leading interpreter of American Popular Song. After a thriving opera career, she recorded several albums, including her award winning albums with pianist Andre Previn. This programme includes a mix of new and old standards, such as Orange Colored Sky, Love Is In The Air, Summertime, and One Hundred Easy Ways. Jazz musicians Ted Taylor, Jeremy Allen, and Steve Houghton accompany McNair for this recording.

Also available on Blu-ray

Premiered in 1900 with huge success, Puccini’s “melodramma” Tosca is a political thriller with a heart-breaking love story. With his gripping opening scene, stage director Michael Sturminger sets the tone for a cinematic, richly detailed Tosca which is set in the Mafiosi world of modern day Rome and which is “the perfect thriller … reminiscent of Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’” (Kleine Zeitung), a “film noir” (FAZ). In this production soprano Anja Harteros is “a phenomenal Tosca!” (Kurier), “unparalleled in the world” (Der Standard) and Aleksandrs Antonenko is “a Cavaradossi of superlatives” (Kieler Nachrichten). The Staatskapelle Dresden under Christian Thielemann „show again that he is not only a master of German repertoire but also strikes the right note in Italian repertoire.“ (Focus)

Planned by the violinist Alessandro Cazzato, this project is as a fascinating musical path that unfolds between the pieces for solo instrument by Goffredo Petrassi with the aim of understanding, in a single glance, the intimate and virtuosic compositional writing of the six instruments, focused on authentic instrumental monologues. It is very interesting to follow two different listening paths: the first based on listening to the pieces in chronological order, as presented in the text of the booklet; and the second, more evocative and allusive, as presented in the tracklist, based on the amazing web of associations, connections, sound analogies, unraveling between the first piece and the last one. Thanks to all the people who made this project possible, with the hope of reaching new listeners who love his music.

Rebellious heroes, subversive troublemakers and living legends – Eckart Runge and Jacques Ammon celebrate their duo’s 25th anniversary and the release of the debut album with the Berlin Classics label in 2021. On the one hand, “Revolutionary Icons” is a bold, genre-crossing album concept full of energetic music of the classical frontiersman Beethoven paired with the icons of rock, pop and jazz. Besides that, it also represents a testament to the collaboration of two curious and voracious musical explorers.

The track listing reads like flipping the frequency dial on your car radio between classical station and rock radio. The starting point for the duo's exploration is master Beethoven and his Cello Sonata No. 4, op. 102/1. “Impossible (to) understand at first hearing,” wrote a contemporary in 1815 after the premiere, because of its revolutionary formal layout, yet strict counterpoint. After decades of dealing with Beethoven (for example as a member of the world-famous Artemis Quartet), Eckart Runge searches for bridges to more recent music history and finds them in the famous names of Amy Winehouse, with her probably most successful hit “Back to Black”, “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie's “Warszawa”, the “Bebop Tango” by Frank Zappa and finally "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" by Stevie Wonder. All these counterparts are united by their outstanding position within their genre, their courage to cross borders and, last but not least, their legendary status and influence on subsequent generations of musicians. The arrangements of the songs for the combination Cello and Piano were created in collaboration with the well-known composer and arranger Wolf Kerschek. The goal was, not only to realize the works, but to take a look at them through the tonal possibilities of the instruments and the artistic abilities of the two musicians.

REVIEW:

All of these arrangements are by the performers themselves, with, in the five non-classical works, the assistance of a third party, and they are clever and well done. Furthermore, the performers seem comfortable moving between the different genres presented in this program—that is to say, the non-classical works are not at all similar in style.

This CD won’t be for everyone, as I mentioned at the beginning, but if you are sympathetic to the concept, then there is no compelling reason not to give this a try.

— Fanfare

Clearly modeled on Brahms’ Clarinet Sonatas Op. 120, Max Reger’s clarinet sonatas Op. 49 contain beautiful melodic lines, intertwining dialogue between the two performers, and extended chromatic harmony. This album, being released at the centennial of Reger’s death, contains his Sonatas Op. 49, as well as his Clarinet Sonata in B-Flat, Op. 107, Albumblatt in E-Flat, and Tarantella in G Minor. Italian clarinetist Claudio Conti performs these works, along with pianist Roberta Bambace. Liner notes are provided in Italian and English.