Asked the question ‘How many sonatas for violin and piano did Johannes Brahms compose?’, many lovers of chamber music would probably answer three, and maybe also add their respective keys and opus numbers. When pressed, a number of them would also remember the so-called F.A.E. Sonata, a collaborative effort by the young Brahms, Albert Dietrich and their mentor Robert Schumann. But very few would probably think of the two Opus 120 sonatas, composed in 1894 for clarinet (or viola) and piano, but a year later published in the composer’s own version for the violin. As the range of the B flat clarinet goes a fourth lower than that of the violin, Brahms had been forced to make considerable revisions to the clarinet part – which in turned entailed changes in the piano part, and consequently the printing of a new piano score. The seasoned team of violinist Ulf Wallin and pianist Roland Pöntinen have now decided to record all the Brahms sonatas, and the results are being released on two albums, the first one including the first of the ‘official’ sonatas, No. 1 in G major, Op. 78, the F minor Sonata from Op. 120 and Brahms’s Scherzo from the F.A.E. Sonata. Wallin and Pöntinen round off the programme with transcriptions of two of Brahms’s more lyrical songs.

These are the first-ever recordings of music composed by Jos� (Pepito) Arriola, whose works are virtually unknown. Born in Betanzos in the northern Spanish region of Galicia in 1895, Arriola was a celebrated child prodigy known at the time as a 'Galician Mozart', who dazzled audiences across Europe and American with his piano-playing. Most of Arriola's work was lost when his home in Berlin was destroyed during the Second World War. The manuscripts for the three concertos and two song-cycles presented here were discovered just a few years ago, and mysteriously vanished almost as soon as they had been photocopied for dissemination. They were composed in the final decade of Arriola's life: in 1946 he settled in Barcelona, where he lived quietly until his death in 1954. Arriola's music belongs to the second golden age of Spanish music, that of Alb�niz, Granados, Turina and Falla (and, a little later, Joaqu�n Rodrigo), flavoured by nationalism and the rich Spanish folk tradition, along with a verismo that concerned itself with the ordinary people of Spain and their suffering (as mirrored in Carmen, or Candela in El amor brujo). Yet in common with other post-Romantic composers, Arriola sought out a world of vanished beauty, experimenting with color, texture, unusual tonal combinations and harmony full of color, sensuality and emotion. As a student in Leipzig, Arriola had been taught by Richard Strauss, and his teacher's influence may be heard to positive effect in both the soaring vocal lines of the Tres textos cervantinos and the transplanted Classical idiom of the Horn Concerto. The piano-writing in the Concertino and Divertimento concertante is more compact and Stravinskian, while two songs from the cycle of Seis poes�as de Antonio Machado disclose yet another, more impassioned facet of Arriola's style.

Classical Music

The specialist early-music ensemble Da Camera marks the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death with this unique recording of original trio sonatas involving recorder and viol. These are among the greatest pieces Telemann ever composed. As he wrote in 1740: ‘how could I possibly remember everything I composed for strings and winds? I particularly devoted myself to the composing of trios… People even flattered me as having done my best work here.’ The musicians of Da Camera heartily agree. The ingenuity and variety of music, structures, and instrumental ensemble, combined with fascinating notes by the recorder player Emma Murphy, make this album a must-have for everyone, from Telemann’s many enthusiasts to those curious about early music.

Ivan Ilic came across these transcriptions, scarcely known at all, through the most unlikely and serendipitous sequence of events. Carl David Stegmann (1751 – 1826) was a tenor, keyboard player, conductor, and composer, who worked mostly in the field of opera. Employed by the Court Theatre in Mainz (where he sang in the first German-language production of Don Giovanni), he also gave a number of acclaimed performances in Frankfurt. Trained as an organist, he made transcriptions of string quintets by Mozart and Beethoven’s Trios, Op. 9 as well as keyboard transcriptions of twenty-five of Haydn’s symphonies. Ivan Ilic writes: ‘It is unclear to me whether these transcriptions were ever meant to be played as concert repertoire, in public. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm I have encountered wherever I have played them has persuaded me to make this recording, to allow more people to hear Stegmann’s idiomatic arrangements.’

Classical Music

This Chandos re-issue of Max Bruch’s Violin Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, recorded in 1998 by Lydia Mordkovitch (1944-2014) with Richard Hickox and the LSO is released in tribute to the late Russian-British violinist. • In the Violin Concerto No. 2, “Hickox draws radiant sounds from the LSO, and Ms. Mordkovitch ... plays with rapt dedication [and] breathtaking beauty…” (Guardian) • The third Violin Concerto’s robust, heroic opening concertante movement precedes a slow movement reminiscent of the same in the famous First Concerto and a rondo Finale dominated by a strongly rhythmic perpetuum mobile.

Bottesini has enjoyed a new lease of life recently, thanks to recordings by distinguished double bassists such as Rick Stotjin and Leon Bosch. This CD, featuring Davide Botto and an impressive cast of players drawn largely from the Philharmonic Orchestra of Turin’s Teatro Regio, provides yet another compelling argument for the composer’s sprawling repertoire.

Much of this music was written for the very specific purpose of demonstrating the extraordinary possibilities of what was then—as for much of the 20th century—tragically ignored as a solo instrument. Consequently, there is always the danger with these pieces that they become mere excuses for empty technical display. Thankfully, Botto’s mature, restrained style sweeps away these doubts, even when he is joined by the equally capable Davide Ghio on the recorded premiere of the Capriccio, a remarkable duet that is essentially structured to exhibit the various qualities of the bass.

The consummate fluency with which the pair tackle virtuoso passages is lightly worn, with deft use of thumb position to manage the dizzying array of harmonics and double-stopped notes, and a gorgeous bel canto bowing style. Also worthy of praise, Alessandro Dorella’s sensitive contribution on the Duetto for bass and clarinet suggests an unlikely kinship between these mellow instruments.

-- The Strad

Classical Music

The BRSO under Mariss Jansons extended the Beethoven symphony cycle concept on record in 2012 by presenting the symphonies, recorded live, with accompanying first recordings of specially commissioned works from composers contributing their own musical reflections on these masterworks. Available until now exclusively in its award-winning Beethoven-Jansons 6CD box set, BR-Klassik here releases individually Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 accompanied by Raminta Šerkšnytės’ Fires, the work’s title referencing the "con brio" tempo marking of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth.

On their first album featuring madrigals and canzonettas by Andrea Gabrieli, the WESER RENAISSANCE ensemble led by Manfred Cordes was already in its element. On SWR2 Radio Michael Stegemann commented: “A most highly entertaining and successful album. Perfect balance in the mixture of singers and winds, audio transparency of the polyphonic structures, great textual intelligibility.” And on the ensemble’s second Gabrieli release, now with madrigals, psalms, and organ works by this master delighting so much in experimentation, his intention and wish to offer intelligent entertainment to his fellow human beings are clearly shown. By 1566 at the latest, Andrea Gabrieli was appointed to the coveted post of organist at St. Mark’s Cathedral, and already during his lifetime he was esteemed in particular because of his enormous versatility.

Heinrich von Herzogenberg dedicated these three quartets to Brahms, his friend and musical idol.

The first quartet in G minor is by far the most satisfying. There’s a delightful air of lilting melancholy wafting through the first movement, and although the formal structure is daringly expansive, Herzogenberg manages to mold his wealth of ideas into a reasonably coherent whole. The slow movement is a series of variations on a theme that seems dully predictable at first but is relieved by an accretion of increasingly inventive detail. A tuneful and metrically playful scherzo is followed by a high-spirited, folk-inflected finale that’s only slightly blemished by an overlong coda.

There are charming moments in the two other quartets of the set, though these come fewer and farther between. But just when your patience could begin to wear thin, there’s a delicious dab of instrumental color, or a demonstration of contrapuntal legerdemain that reminds you of Herzogenberg’s worth.

– Gramophone

Die Koenigin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba) was Karl Goldmark's first opera. It conquered stages across Europe after its premiere in 1875. This production of the opera was recorded at Theater Freiburg, The four act opera stars vocalists Katerina Hebelkova and Nuttaporn Thammathi.

Antal Doráti is well known as a conductor within interested audience sectors, not least through the unparalleled range of his recording catalogue. But moreover, the Hungarian-born American has also left behind a compositional oeuvre of not insignificant proportions. The Chosen – as the work was named in English by Doráti – is his only stage work and is based on the mystery play Elija by distinguished philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965). It was his mentor Doráti himself who drew the attention of Martin Fischer-Dieskau, initiator of this world premiere recording in Cracow and internationally acclaimed conductor and scholar, to this Opus Magnum.

REVIEWS:

Doráti's work is truly operatic, especially the highly dramatic and turbulent second act, centred on the crimes of King Ahab and Jezebel, and Elijah's vanquishing of the servants of the pagan god Baal in the name of the true God Jehovah. However, the lack of a chorus and an emphasis on propelling the narrative through a series of solo declamations rather than ensemble pieces links it to the Biblical oratorio tradition, while some tremendously powerful purely orchestral "symphonic intermezzi" depict several of the most dramatic episodes of action, which are not enacted on stage. As befits an interpretation of Buber's philosophical drama, this is a serious, substantial, and compelling work which takes its time to make its central points while retaining a sense of inexorable narrative flow and theatrical approachability.

--Records International

Effectively ‘staged’ for the microphones in the studios of Polish radio, this recording makes a determined case for Der Künder as a contingent drama and not an oratorio of ideas by placing the voices front and centre, focusing a sense of the central figure coming into his own, his isolation as a prophet, the human conflict between him and the unbelievers around him, led by Ahab and Jezebel, and the no less bitter internal struggle suffered by Elijah with the dictates of Jehovah.

The gentle but patiently sustained pace of the first act is released in the plight of Tanit, the widow of Zarephath, touchingly done by Mi-Young Kim. In Act 2, Rachel Frenkel and Michael Schade throw everything at the Ortrud/ Telramund-like conference between Jezebel and Ahab; when rarely granted the opportunity to forsake gruff recitative for cantabile, Tomasz Konieczny makes a noble Elijah. The smaller roles and the tricky choral and orchestral writing are all confidently traversed.

--Gramophone

Recorded here is something which normally is evanescent over the airwaves or in the Philharmonie am Gasteig: the pre-Christmas evening in the series of Munich Sunday concerts, featuring Helen Donath as one of the most distinguished lyric sopranos of her times, the boys’ choir Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows and the Munich Radio Orchestra under the musical direction of Kurt Eichhorn. On this special evening, excerpts from Händels Messias could be heard, followed by Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto grosso Op. 6,8 Concerto per la notte di natale, Mozart’s Motette Ave verum corpus KV 618 and the Laudate Dominum from the Vesperae solennes de confessore KV 339, Christmas carols performed a cappella by the Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows (dating mostly from the 17th and 18th century) and Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate KV 165.

REVIEWS:

Here is a reissue of a Christmas Concert (Weihnachtskonzert) from Munich’s Philharmonie am on December 11, 1988 which begins with a sequence of six Messiah excerpts, starring as soloist the great soprano Helen Donath. It has been issued before – as you can see, the YouTube excerpts have a different cover – and it sees daylight once more to grace Yuletide 2022.

These concerts were a regular event in Munich, with the Regensburger (literally, “Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows”) and the Munich Philharmonic under Kurt Eichhorn. When it comes to Corelli and Handel. This is pretty much good old-fashioned modern instrument interpretation of Baroque music, but injected with energy. Here are a couple of movements from the Corelli Christmas Concerto (Concerto grosso, Op. 6/8) to give you an idea. The Messiah (Messias) excerpts are all sung in German – so “Glory to God” becomes “Ehre sei Gott”; but what a choir this is.

Three Mozart pieces bookend the carol part of the programme: initially the choral Ave verum corpus (K 618), restrained and beautiful, and this, a supremely beautiful “Dominum” from Vesperæ solennes de confessore, K 339. The carols are heartwarming, and performed a cappella. Johann Stobäus’ Nun laßt uns mit den Engelein is a lovely chorale carol, each phrase beautifully sculpted, as are the phrases of Bach’s Ich steh’ an deiner Krippen hier. I admit a weakness for Johannes Eccard’s O Freide über Freund’. But I think it is Adeste fideles, beloved of all, surely, that sums up the glory of this choir.

…and what a perfect way to close, with that lovely Mozart Exultate, jubilate, K 165, festive and joyous (and listen tot he trills in her solo vocal cadenza in the first part. After a tender “Tu Alleluja ,” with Donath’s voice bright and agile, each note like a pinprick of light. There is a rather nice, extended interview with Helen Donath by Bruce Duffie available here, laced with many photos, plus scans of Donath’s famous record sleeves. A real treasure of a disc, and a step back in time! At a generous 77 minutes in duration, this is a lovely, heart-warming Christmas disc.

-- Classical Explorer