Viktor Ullmann's one-act chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis [The Emperor of Atlantis] was written in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and did not see its premiere until December 16, 1975 in Amsterdam, since the performance was banned after its dress rehearsal in 1944. The concert performance of the version by Henning Brauel and Andreas Krause (Schott), which took place on October 10, 2021 at the Prince Regent's Theatre in Munich, was recorded for this CD. Alongside the internationally renowned Austrian Kammersänger Adrian Eröd in the title role, mainly young performers sang, accompanied by the Munich Radio Choir conducted by Patrick Hahn, who made his debut here as the orchestra's principal guest conductor.

Viktor Ullmann, born in 1898 in Teschen, Silesia, studied with Arnold Schönberg and Alois Hába in Vienna. He worked first as a bandmaster and then as a bookseller, and settled in Prague as a freelance artist in 1933. Because he came from a Jewish family, he was deported to the Theresienstadt camp by the Nazis in 1942. In October 1944 he was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, together with composers Pavel Haas and Hans Krása, who were almost the same age. Since the Nazis allowed a lively cultural life in their "showcase camp" of Theresienstadt, Ullmann was also able to be musically active. The intellectual and cultural heritage of that time is reflected in his music – also, and especially, in the "one-act play" that he wrote there entitled “Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder Die Tod-Verweigerung" (The Emperor of Atlantis or the Disobedience of Death), based on a libretto by his fellow prisoner Peter Kien.

REVIEWS:

The confident conducting of the young Austrian Patrick Hahn stands out for a fascinating transparency, as well as an accentuated lightness, which makes the voices all the more haunting. In addition to the striking baritone of Adrian Eröd as the Emperor, the bass Tareq Nazmi is very convincing in the role of the striking Death. Highly expressive and with an impeccably managed mezzo voice, Christel Loetzsch is a most impressive drummer.

Singing very sensitively are tenor Johannes Chum as soldier Harlequin and bass Lars Woldt in the role of the speaker. The soprano Juliana Zara can also please as Bubikopf.

And so this is then a gripping interpretation of Ullmann’s opera, which pleases on the one hand by the refinement of the orchestral performance and on the other hand by excellent voices.

--Pizzicato

It is remarkable how calmly Patrick Hahn, permanent guest conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, with his highly concentrated soloists in the Prinzregententheater, keeps a balance between existential commitment and a certain lightness, which the piece also requires.

The lively soprano Juliana Zara brings a ray of hope...Christel Loetzsch, as the drummer, gives the best impression of the theatrical potency of the piece: she announces total war in a mezzo whose timbral beauty extends to all registers of the role's enormous scope.

--Munich Evening Times

This is the version of Viktor Ullmann’s opera, recorded live in October, 2021 in Munich, that features an expanded instrumental score...this [version], edited by Henning Brauel, while retaining much of the instrumental ensemble’s theatre/cabaret aspects, has an overall more polished, softening of the edges quality, thanks to a richer, fuller string sound (helped also by the warm recording ambience).

[The] singers here are all excellent, and the orchestra, members of the Munich Radio Orchestra, is equally, expectedly fine...the notes also include a fascinating discussion...of the many musical and cultural references in the libretto and in the music.

--ClassicsToday.com

The Emperor of Atlantis has achieved a well-deserved reputation as one of the strongest works to have been composed by any of the several important composers who died in the Holocaust. Ullmann’s music is a heady mix of grim and playful, making allusions to hymn tunes and popular-music styles, with instrumental flourishes, propulsive rhythms, and sweet-sour harmonies that evoke, at times, such composers of his era as Hindemith, Weill, and Prokofiev but that, taken together, create a distinctive sound-world like no other.

This latest recording was made during an unstaged (or minimally staged) performance in front of an audience, and it is wonderful[.] The cast members all have steady and healthy-sounding (young?) voices. Often, indeed, they sing with astounding beauty of tone, which helped keep my ear glued to the proceedings, whereas I have sometimes felt that I was being shouted-at in my contacts with the work (on recordings and in live performance). The all-crucial words are rendered clearly and idiomatically by all concerned. I cannot resist praising Tareq Nazmi.

-- Artsfuse (Ralph P. Locke)

When Ignaz Pleyel concluded his work on the last of his twelve “Prussian Quartets,” he had already garnered a great deal of experience as a composer of string quartets. His unmistakable musical voice had brought him countless admirers – including, not least, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who enthusiastically wrote of the Quartets op. 1 in a letter to his father. The dedicatory preface suggests that Pleyel had composed all of its pieces in Italy. He described them as “musically profound,” thereby indicating that Haydn’s Quartets op. 20 may have been their immediate model. The fugue movements in the Quartets Benton 328 and 330 are fascinating. Although Pleyel claimed that he had written them in the Italian style, Mozart was not fooled here: in their refined elegance he recognized the unique signature of Pleyel’s teacher Joseph Haydn. Nevertheless, the pupil had succeeded in writing a brilliant series of quartets in keeping with his own ideas and combining the clarity of the Italian style with the wealth of technical imagination characterizing the Viennese style.

"Daniel Müller-Schott['s] Schumann rates right up there with the best (in my book Du Pré and Starker) while the inclusion of Robert Volkmann’s concerto was a stroke of genius, a wonderful work of great appeal that has only two other recordings available, for reasons unknown. Volkmann (1815–83) writes a piece that is different from Schumann in several important ways, especially the more prominent role given to the solo instrument, and his harmony is somewhat more advanced as well, probably from the influence of Liszt, who supported him, though Schumann and Mendelssohn were primary mentors. The work deserves a much wider audience.

Bruch’s Kol Nidrei has remained one of his most popular works, its pathetic and melancholy nature due to the source material, an ancient Hebrew song of repentance and the middle section of “Oh Weep for Those That Wept in Babel’s Stream.” It has never left the repertoire since it was created, and Müller-Schott performs it with a wistful sadness that will not fail to leave anyone unmoved. The Strauss tidbit here is his Romance, written when he was all of 19, and only published in 1987; yet it enjoyed many performances in the immediate years after it saw the light of day. It makes a fine and enjoyable filler that has been recorded a number of times, none better than here.

The NDR players are in top form and Eschenbach’s accompaniment is first-rate, rounding off an exceptional release of high desirability."

FANFARE: Steven E. Ritter

One of the foremost musicians of his generation, James Ehnes continues to dazzle audiences around the world. Here he joins the BBC Philharmonic and Sir Andrew Davis in a recording of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Written for the Polish virtuoso Samuel Dushkin, the four-movement work takes the music of Bach as its inspiration, and is built around a chord of the notes D, E, and A, which Stravinsky described as his ‘passport to the concerto’ and with which the solo violin part opens each movement. Dushkin gave the premiere, conducted by Stravinsky, in Berlin in 1932.

Apollon musagète, a ballet in two parts for string orchestra, was written in 1927-28, and demonstrates the composer’s complete rejection of the Russian folk music and idioms that had been so instrumental in his previous ballets (The Firebird, Petrushka). They are replaced by a concentration on ‘pure form’, which became known as his neo-classical style. The album is completed by his two orchestral suites – light-hearted music arranged from piano duets he had written in the 1910s – and Scherzo à la russe, a showpiece for the Paul Whiteman band that he composed in the early 1940s when newly arrived in California.

This collection of best-loved Christmas repertoire was recorded live at the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir Festival of Carols concerts in 2015 and 2016. GRAMMY award-winning vocalist Sylvia McNair adds her own unique beauty and warmth, and as ever, the programme celebrates the joys of the season with sparkling versions of family favorites. The tranquillity and magic of Christmas eve, heartfelt messages of hope, reconciliation and peace, and thrilling new compositions all combine to capture the celebratory excitement of the holiday season.

REVIEWS:

The title refers to the practice in many churches of having a ceremony of carols and traditionals during the Christmas season, a holiday for the choir when they can really open up and let 'er rip, and, quite often, a sing-along for the congregation as well. It is, after all, the most joyous time of the Christian year.

We get all of that in a well-packed program by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra under conductor Eric Stark. The substantial choir are supported by an orchestra that plays with a lot of gusto, especially the folks in the percussion section (this genre of music encourages a lot of gongs and bells). Listen for some distinguished playing by pianist David Duncan in Rob Swenson’s Christmas Hosanna with its jaunty rhythms recalling that old chestnut, Good Christian men, rejoice.

Most welcome of all is soprano Sylvia McNair, whose warm vocal presence...adds a special quality to such songs by contemporary composers as Mary, Did You Know? (Buddy Greene) in which the choir asks Jesus’ mother a series of poignant questions (“Did you know when you kissed your baby boy, then you touched the face of God?) and Grown-Up Christmas List (David Foster/Linda Thompson Jenner) with its plea for greater understanding and peace among people).

McNair does some of her best work in the two spirituals, This Little Light of Mine and Go Tell It on the Mountain, the last-named with an accompaniment by David Duncan that partakes deliciously of the spirit of the blues and R&B. Sylvia’s intimate vocal warmth and sensitive interpretation capture the special quality of both these grand old songs.

There’s something for everyone here, including J.S. Bach’s Sinfonia from the Christmas Oratorio, its lilting melodies and swaying pastoral rhythm recalling those time-honored instruments of simple shepherds, the wooden flute and the hurdy-gurdy. We also have John Rutter’s All Bells in Paradise and his Magnificat, the lastnamed animated by use of Latin-American rhythms, Mendelssohn’s Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, a recounting by composer William Goldstein of ‘Twas the Night before Chistmas with delightful spoken narration by Sherry Stark, and a rousing Jingle Bells.

-- Audio Video Club of Atlanta

These arrangements for string orchestra of works by Alban Berg take their cue from Berg himself: he arranged three of the six movements of the Lyric Suite for string orchestra; the Dutch composer Theo Verby arranged the other three. The CD includes an arrangement of Berg’s Piano Sonata for strings by Wijnand van Klaveren. Ernst Kovacic arranged Berg’s early works especially for this recording. The arrangements chart Berg’s development as a composer, from prentice pieces composed under the tutelage of Schoenberg to the rich, mature style of one of his masterpieces, the Lyric Suite, written to express an impassioned and illicit love. Ernst Kovacic is one of Austria’s best-known violinists as well as a conductor. Among the composers who have written works for him are Krenek, Holloway, Gruber and Schwertsik. Ernst Kovacic and the NRM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra’s previous Toccata release of music by Ernst Krenek (TOCC 0199), was received with universal enthusiasm, the reviewer for Fanfare writing: ‘This Toccata Classics CD is a model of fine production values…(and) magisterial performances…an absolute must for Krenek fanciers’.

REVIEW:

The Lyric Suite is played complete. It gains from the extra players, not only in obvious richness of sound, but in nuances of phrasing. The arrangements accomplish a broad range of expressive tonecolor, with nearly every conceivable string effect on display. In the trickier parts where there are several extremely chromatic legato lines playing against one another, they play accurately and in tune. The album is a curiosity for a limited audience, but they’ll be happy.

-- American Record Guide

This recording of Mozart’s Mass in C minor features Harry Christophers in his role as Artistic Director and conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society - America’s oldest continuously performing orchestra and chorus. Mozart’s Mass in C minor needs little introduction - one of the best-known and most widely performed of the composer’s mass settings, it is generally considered to be one of his greatest works and, as such, is often referred to as the ‘Great Mass’. It is a remarkable union of musical vision and religious text and draws on Mozart’s skill for drama that made his operatic works such a phenomenal success.

In a performance that charms as well as moves in abundance (BBC Music), Andrew Parrott directs a hand-picked team of singers and instrumentalists in this classic recording. (Avie)

Volume 5 of Profil's Günter Wand Edition is devoted to Carl Orff's massive and enormously popular cantata, Carmina Burana, in a stirring radio performance presented with the NDR Sinfonieorchester in 1984. (Profil)

Russian composer Korndorf was a larger-than-life character and wrote music that was expansive and urgent. His 3 works for solo cello illustrate his unwillingness to be governed by convention. (Toccata)

The award-winning Silesian quartet present a new album featuring two composers from Warsaw – Joachim Mendelson and Graznya Bacewicz. After completing his music studies in Warsaw and Berlin, Joachim Mendelson moved to Paris in 1929, where he joined the Association des Jeunes Musiciens Polonais, a society founded in 1926 to facilitate the study, publication, and promotion of the works of young Polish composers. Bacewicz also received support from the Association, and from Paderewski, and studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. The associations’ aims included re-establishing a national musical life at the highest level back in Poland (after more than a century of joint occupation by Russia, Prussia, and Austria), and both composers returned to Warsaw and worked there until 1939. Mendelson taught at the Institute of Music, and Bacewicz became leader of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and continued her career and a composer and soloist. Mendelson was imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto until 1943 when he was murdered by the Gestapo. Five of his works survive, thanks to the French publisher Max Eschig, including the quartet and quintet recorded here. Both Bacewicz works on this recording were rejected by the composer, and never included in her catalogue of works. It is extremely lucky that the manuscripts have survived, preserved at the National Library in Warsaw. Half a century after her death the Royal String Quartet prepared performing scores and gave the first performances.

Peijun Xu, born in Shanghai, is one of the leading violists of her generation. As a soloist, Peijun Xu has performed in renowned venues such as the Shanghai Concert Hall, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg or the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Her chamber music partners include Paul Rivinius, Evgenia Rubinova, Alexander Sitkovetsky and Veit Hertenstein. German violist Veit Hertenstein plays with “brigthly ringing, luminous and finly finessed sound (The Strad Magazine 2022).

Veit Hertenstein is Professor for Viola at the Musikhochschule Detmold, Germany since 2015.

Songs of love and loss by a trio of early 18th century Spanish composers, showcasing the vocal art of a distinguished early-music soprano. Cristina Bayón Álvarez has sung with early-music luminaries such as Christophe Coin, Diego Fasolis and Carlos Mena. She has also recorded a pair of warmly received albums for Brilliant Classics, reviving the sacred music of Juan Francés de Iribarren (95859) and Romantic-era songs by female composers (‘Boulevard des femmes’, 96729). For her latest album, Cristina Bayón Álvarez turns to 18th-century Spain, presenting for the first time on record a sequence of newly edited secular cantatas. These are all brief pieces, taking amorous and pastoral themes for their subjects, alternating recitative and aria, conveying the pain of a lover separated from the object of their affections, or rejected by them. One piece stands out for its relative modernity of sentiment: La picarilla más bella by José de Torres y Martínez Bravo (ca. 1670-1738), highlighting the contempt for love on the part of a woman who prefers freedom of spirit to the suffering caused by sentimental passion. The least unfamiliar of the three composers featured on the album is Emanuele Rincón d’Astorga (1680-1775), best known for a Stabat mater of plangent expressive quality. The affecting, Italianate vocal lines of this sacred work also colour the three cantatas recorded here: Filis, que abrigas, Respirad, mas sea quedito and Sean, Filis, de mi llanto. Astorga made his name outside Spain, though eventually settled and died in Madrid; Juan de Serquiera (ca. 1655-ca. 1726) was likely also active in the Spanish capital, though of Portuguese origin. Almost nothing survives of his life and work, which makes the survival of Oh, corazón amante all the more precious, especially since it demonstrates Serquiera’s skill at affective word setting. José de Torres y Martínez Bravo is recorded as master of music at the Royal Chapel in Madrid from 1697 until his death in 1707. Not least thanks to this distinction, much more is known of his activity, including a keyboard-instruction manual and a set of Masses dedicated to Philip V of Spain. As recorded here, La picarilla más bella and Por el Tenaro monte share the expressive flair and rhythmic energy of his vernacular villancicos. Taken together, the works here make an exciting addition to the catalogue of Spanish Baroque vocal repertoire, especially in such accomplished and stylish performances.

A new recording of Erik Bosgraaf, one of the most original, versatile and innovative recorder players of the moment, winner of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. The dynamic range and emotional impact of his playing is phenomenal. The instrument in his hands is like an extension of the human voice, speaking and articulating the musical language.

Although Bach clearly felt at home composing for the recorder, featuring it in major works including the Brandenburg Concertos and several cantatas, he never composed a concerto for solo recorder – in fact, he only wrote original solo concertos for harpsichord and violin. However, an examination of Bach’s compositional practices reveals that it was customary during his era to adapt or reuse musical material in new compositions. Taking this into consideration, the creators of this recording have drawn on a range of sources to answer the question of how a solo recorder concerto by Bach might have sounded. The disc includes four full recorder concertos, based on material taken from existing harpsichord concertos and cantata movements, which Bach himself often reused or transcribed for different instrumentation. It closes with an organ prelude adapted for recorder and strings.

The recordings are accompanied by extensive booklet notes, which outline the sources used in the construction of this repertoire and reveal an interesting dimension of Bach’s compositional practice – his approach to reusing and adapting musical material. These recordings are brought to life by compelling performances from Erik Bosgraaf and Ensemble Cordevento, performed on a range of recorders and period instruments. Displaying an imaginative yet thorough approach to the repertoire, this disc is a fascinating examination of how Bach might have approached writing large-scale works for the recorder and is recommended to any listeners interested in his concertos.

Unique recorder adaptations of Bach’s concertos and cantata movements, performed on period instruments. Includes in-depth booklet notes.

REVIEWS:

Erik Bosgraaf's recorder-playing is fluent and lively in fast music, and his five colleagues (single strings and harpsichord) provide accompaniments that are lean, stylish and precise...Ensemble Cordevento's playing of fast music is joyful and accomplished.

-- Gramophone

Iroko launches Avishai Cohen’s longtime dream “to do a Latin project with his favorite Latin musician in New York”. Israel based bassist - singer and master conguero-vocalist Abraham Rodriguez Jr., brim with tunefulness, grooves, warmth, indelible melodies and the bonds of brotherhood to summon Yoruba gods. In Yoruba lore, Iroko is a complicated symbol—a troll inhabiting the top branches of a tree called “the throne of god,” guarded against lest he come to earth, be seen and drive men mad.

But Iroko, the French naïve label’s unique release by singer-bassist Avishai Cohen and conguero-vocalist Abraham Rodriguez Jr., brims with tunefulness, grooves and warmth. It has deep roots in esoteric religion and popular song, and comes naturally from these 30-year cross-cultural collaborators who ward off trouble, united in musical spirit. The album is the 20th for prodigious Israel-based composer-performer Cohen, but just the third project out-front for Rodriguez, a self-described Nuyorican, Santeria-adept and doowop-batarumba king, though he’s added his secret sauce for decades to the best Latin New York recordings. It’s as soulful as a streetcorner serenade in Spanish Harlem.

Appeals to the Yoruba orishas flow among reappraising versions of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World,” the 1960 Academy Award-winner “Theme to Exodus,” and Sinatra-associated “Fly Me To the Moon.” Everything’s grounded in the propulsive clavé rhythm that underlies virtually all Afro-Caribbean-derived music (jazz included), as Rodriguez’s hand-drumming locks in syncopation with Cohen’s irresistible bass patterns, and their voices blend like those of true friends. Iroko launches Cohen’s longtime dream “to do a Latin project with my favorite Latin musicians in New York. It starts with this concept record, just me and Abi,” he says, “followed by the premiere in March in Paris of our band [with drummer Hernacio “El Negro” Hernandez, trumpeter Diego Urcola, saxophonist Yosvany Terry, and Spanish singer Virginia Garcia Alves], then a week at the Blue Note in New York, and dates at the summer’s festivals.” While Cohen, who earned his initial acclaim in the piano trios of Chick Corea and Danilo Perez, has previously convened world-spanning ensembles such as the International Vamp Band, and Abi (as he’s called, not by Avishai alone) has led the bands Cachimba Inolvidable and Okonkolo, Iroko is unprecedented as a synthesis of influences the duo reveres. They first met in 1993, working with pianist Ray Santiago’s band out of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “It was a collaboration of Cuban and Puerto Rican music, with a little jazz,” Abi says. “A Nuyorican thing.” Avishai recalls, “As I got to where they were rehearsing, I heard the piano and conga doing some montuno [a repeating ostinato figure], slipped the cover off my bass and just joined in. We didn’t know each other yet, but the rest is a history of many gigs together.”

Avishai had studied jazz at the New School and Mannes School of Music, choosing as a teacher Andy Gonzalez, the busiest bass player on the Latin scene. Abi, a Santeria priest validated in his mixture of the sacred and secular by his godfather, the bata great Orlando “Puntilla” Rios, knew bassist Gonzalez and his trumpet/conguero brother Jerry Gonzalez, from the drum circles he sat in with while growing up. They were principals of Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, in which Abi played, and the Fort Apache Band, best known for Latin-izing the compositions of Thelonious Monk.

Iroko is dedicated to the Gonzalez brothers, now both deceased, as a gesture to the salsa-meets-jazz movement that counts Machito and Dizzy Gillespie, Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto and Eddie Palmieri among its stars. “What attracted me at first to Abi and Ray Santiago’s music was its New York edge, Latin music swinging a little differently, which Abi embodies as a melting-pot musician. He’s created a language for himself out of r&b, blues, doowop, jazz, Motown—a world of his own that I wanted to play bass in. From beginning to end, just conga, bass and vocals, and profoundly beautiful songs we could take apart and make our own. Now when I listen to the groove of it, I want to dance. The essence is there.” “As Mongo Santamaria said, ‘Drum and chant,’” Abi adds. “That’s what we have here. It’s universal, and for everyone, young and old. Even those who are bitter, when they hear these songs, will be touched and smile. Those who are angry? We’ll kill them with kindness.”

On Iroko, Avishai Cohen and Abraham Rodriguez Jr. summon Yoruba gods, indelible melodies and the bonds of brotherhood as a stand against the insanity that threatens us if we forget that our ultimate strength comes from creating beauty together.