Also available on Blu-ray

The French program offers a stimulating blend of celebrated repertoire works as well as “special tips” from the Romantic era to the early 20th century. These concerts of Leonard Bernstein were unanimously hailed in the press, both for the dynamism and brio of a conductor at the peak of his artistic powers, and for the unmistakable signs of rejuvenation of the Orchestre National de France. Featuring works of Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, subtitled Episode in the Life of an Artist, Albert Roussel‘s Symphony No. 3 – Leonard Bernstein is, in a sense, paying homage to his friend and benefactor Serge Koussevitzky, who commissioned the work for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930 - Ambroise Thomas´ sparkling, Rossini-like overture to Raymond and Camille Saint-Saens’ Le Rouet d’Omphale it was “… one of the most wonderful Berlioz concerts that you can dream of …” (Le Monde)

J.S. Bach’s Italian Concerto and monumental Chaconne (heard here in the famous Busoni transcription) form the cornerstones of this disc of Baroque favorites performed on two guitars by the Amadeus Guitar Duo. One of Vivaldi’s most famous concertos, the D major RV 93 originally written for lute is transcribed to excellent effect for guitar duo. Franck’s Prélude, Fugue et Variation, a work inspired by the organ transcriptions of J.S. Bach, illustrates further how adept the Amadeus Guitar Duo is at reinventing these popular pieces for its own medium.

Bach compiled his set of six trio sonatas for organ during the late 1720s. They are thought to have been put together as training material for Bach’s son Wilhelm Friedemann and can be grouped among other pedagogical keyboard collections such as the Inventions and the Well-Tempered Clavier. They are unique, however, in transferring the typical trio sonata texture, a popular style normally played by ensemble, to a single instrument. In Bach’s originals the right and left hands take the top two parts while the pedals perform the bass line. The first movement of Sonata No. 4 was originally composed for ensemble and the unique formal and stylistic characteristics of the collection suggest that other movements, too, started life away from the organ.

Taking this on board, Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players have re-imagined these works in arrangements for ensemble, using scorings typically adopted in the performance of trio sonatas in Bach’s time. Bach was himself a serial adapter and re-arranger of his own works and this recording takes on his understanding of the musical work as a fluid entity, able to assume as many forms as there are purposes for them.

The Philadelphia-based early music ensemble Tempesta di Mare is renowned for its unique programming and championing of rarely performed works, not least through its fruitful relationship with Chandos Records. - Chandos Records

Arranged for chamber ensemble by Richard Stone.

Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players:
Gwyn Roberts recorder - flauto traverso
Emlyn Ngai violin
Karina Schmitz violin - viola
Lisa Terry cello - viola da gamba
Richard Stone lute
Adam Pearl harpsichord
Recorded in: Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

I was unaware of the existence of Chandos’s series of Introduction to ... recordings until they very generously offered every recipient of their e-newsletter the opportunity freely to download their Introduction to Vaughan Williams.

The opening performance of The Hebrides Overture (better known as Fingal’s Cave) emphasises the mystery of the music rather than the excitement of the crashing waves – Mendelssohn was struck by both aspects of his visit to the cave on the island of Staffa. For all that it fails to live up to some of our usual expectations of this music, it’s an accomplished performance. It’s been recycled quite frequently – it was even once available on the short-lived Boots own label together with other maritime music and it’s also on Spirit of Scotland, CHAN10412X, and Seascapes, CHAN6538 – but it’s none the worse for that and the recording has worn well.

The inclusion of the first Piano Concerto, rather than the expected Violin Concerto, is for me the highlight of the CD. Most collectors, even those for whom an Introduction to ... would be likely to appeal, will already have a version of the Violin Concerto, or be likely to obtain one at an early stage, usually coupled with the Bruch or Tchaikovsky – there are plenty of versions to choose from, even in the lower price categories.

It’s quite unusual to find a bargain-price version of the First Piano Concerto: Peter Katin’s versions of both Piano Concertos once featured on a Decca Weekend recording, coupled with the Capriccio brilliant and Rondo brillant (425 504-2, long deleted) – good performances but in rather dated sound. Otherwise, as far as I am aware, the only competitor in this price range is Benjamin Frith’s Naxos version of the four works (8.550681), which I haven’t heard but which has been favourably reviewed.

That the performance offered is by Howard Shelley - as soloist and director of the London Mozart Players - is an added bonus, since this performance combines technical virtuosity and a delicacy of touch that ensures that this early work is never overwhelmed. Shelley’s tempo in the outer movements is brisk – he moves the music along without sounding rushed, especially in the Finale where he takes 6:11 against 6:54 on the Katin/Collins recording. In the slow movement, he gives the music time to breathe – 6:39 against Katin’s 6:13 – without sentimentalising it.

In the Capriccio brilliant he also give the music time to breathe – 11:28 against Katin’s 10:35; ensuring that the brilliance inferred by the title is not at the expense of expressiveness. When the brilliant music arrives, it is all the more effective for the contrast with the rather measured opening Andante. My only real criticism of this introductory CD is that it will probably lead buyers to duplication when, as they will be tempted to do, they purchase the parent Chandos CD, where Shelley performs both concertos plus the Capriccio (CHAN9215).

The Wedding March was an inevitable choice and it’s performed well by the RLPO under Sir Charles Groves, stately but not pompous.

If the two piano works make an unexpected but very welcome appearance on the CD, the more predictable choice of the Italian Symphony as the final work is equally welcome in the Philharmonia/Walter Weller version. Again, as with the Shelley performance, my only complaint is that those seeking recommendable versions of all Mendelssohn’s symphonies – and, surely, most collectors will want at least Nos.3-5, the Scottish, Italian and Reformation symphonies at some fairly early stage – are unlikely to find a better combination of affordable price, quality of performance and recording than the 3-CD Chandos set with Walter Weller (CHAN10224X).

Weller’s tempi for the symphony are generally on the fast side, though by no means excessively so. This is one of those works, like Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, where the outer movements lend themselves well to fast speeds. I felt that Weller might have given the slow movement a little more time to breathe, but it is marked Andante con moto. The con moto element is more in evidence here than in Wolfgang Sawallisch’s otherwise very fine performance with the predecessor of the same orchestra (then called the New Philharmonia) in 1966. The Sawallisch was formerly on Philips 422 470-2 with the Reformation Symphony (no longer available). How about a reissue from Australian Eloquence?

Only in the Finale is Weller marginally slower than Sawallisch; this movement combines elements of the saltarello and tarantella, both lively Italian dances. The latter is said to be imitative of the action of stamping on a poisonous tarantula spider or leaping about in agony after its bite – as the Latin American cucaracha imitates stamping on cockroaches. I would have preferred a slightly more hectic pace in this movement. At least, that was my feeling on my initial hearing – subsequently this account of the Finale has grown on me.

Though made at different times, all the recordings are more than acceptable. I tried the lossless download version (wma) from Chandos’s theclassicalshop.net and found it fully equal to CD quality; experience suggests that even the mp3 version would be more than acceptable. I couldn’t find this recording at classicsonline or on eMusic, both of whom do offer many Chandos downloads.

For a low-price series, all the notes which I have seen from this Introduction to ... series have been excellent and this recording is no exception. If the programme appeals, buy with confidence; the only reason why I have withheld any accolade is the likelihood that purchasers are likely to duplicate these performances in building their collection.

Don’t forget the Introduction to Vaughan Williams (CHAN2028) if you weren’t fortunate enough to receive the free offer. It contains The Wasps Overture, the Greensleeves Fantasia, The Lark Ascending, that favourite of Classic FM listeners, and the Second Symphony, all in more than decent performances. I was particularly pleased to see Bryden Thomson’s version of the symphony reappear in this form; it may not be quite the equal of the Barbirolli version from which I first got to know the work on a Pye Golden Guinea LP or Chandos’s own Richard Hickox performance of the original version, but it is well worth hearing as an alternative to the Hickox. Not everyone will want to hear the fuller version every time. I might have preferred the Tallis Fantasia to one of the shorter pieces – as a lover of Tallis, I’m fascinated by the perfect blending of the 16th and 20th centuries in this work. However I’m sure the Second was the right VW symphony to introduce to the beginner and the Thomson recording is one of the best from a variable series.

-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

Gity Razaz was born in Tehran, where she spent her formative years before moving to the United States in 2002. Razaz’s identity as an immigrant is integral to her artistic work, in terms both of the subject matter that attracts her and the musical structures she employs. The relationship between the grounded and the ephemeral inhabits much of her music: her choice of titles reveals a poetic sensibility, but her music is never purely cerebral. Instead it is often anchored by the visceral, as with the punchy rhythms and earthy colours of The Strange Highway for cello octet. That piece, which has given name to the album, takes its inspiration from a poem by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. Two other works on the disc also have extra-musical roots: Legend of Sigh is a retelling in music of an Azerbaijani folktale while Metamorphosis of Narcissus was inspired by the famous painting by Salvador Dalí. In both these works Razaz embraces electro-acoustic techniques as a means of enhancing her palette.

The five works on the disc were composed between 2007 and 2020, with the earliest piece being Duo for violin and piano. The latest work is Spellbound, a solo for viola inspired by the mournful sound quality of Persian instruments such as the ney and kamanche.

Internationally acclaimed composer William McClelland has written a wide variety of music in many styles and forms, but the works in this program have all been inspired by poetry. The choral works evoke the atmosphere of time and place in settings of very early texts, including Catullus’ movingly elegiac lament for his lost brother, These Last Gifts, an experience shared by the composer. The short pieces in Five for Piano all evoke specific poems and, composed over several decades, McClelland’s songs are primarily settings of poetry by American writers that express a mystical, symbolic or visionary view on nature.

Watch this Naxos Live Q+A with William McClelland for insights on the music!

REVIEW:

McClelland’s choral writing is so thoroughly gorgeous, his Five for Piano so engaging, and his more lyrical art songs so evocative that I recommend this disc wholeheartedly.

-- Fanfare

The choral piece Hail Lovely and Pure...sets a Medieval shepherd's poem and is both glowing and limpid. The piano pieces explore more of the sense of willfulness, of saying something strong in a solo voice. Harold Rosenbaum leads the New York Virtuoso Singers in all the choral music, drawing singing that is lovely and fine in all the details. The excellent pianist Blair McMillen has full measure of the piano pieces, which he previously premiered. Another excellent pianist, Donald Berman, accompanies mezzo-soprano Krista River and baritone Thomas Meglioranza as they alternate in the songs. There is a welcome breadth of moods in McClelland's songs. Singers and music really come together here, with the notes and the rhythms lying right where the singers sound best...all of these McClelland songs are a pleasure.

-- The Classical Review (George Grella)

The New York Virtuoso Singers under Harold Rosenbaum  deliver a marvelously unwavering set of performances of the highest caliber. Bravo.

-- Classical-Modern Music Review

Even within this program, the tonal language of individual pieces ranges substantially, but the program never feels like a stylistic pastiche; rather, one has the impression that McClelland has responded in deep, individual ways to the texts he sets… All of these recordings are world premieres, and many listeners will wonder where McClelland has been all their lives.

-- AllMusic.com

The performances are all well informed and nicely executed. Donald Berman’s accompaniments for Krista River and Thomas Meglioranza are models of support. Blair McMillen’s rendition of the piano suite Five is nicely done… Best of all are the three choral items, not least the final setting of Catullus, ‘These Last Gifts’.

-- Gramophone

Composed in feverish bouts interrupted by long periods of inaction, Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch was brought to completion in 1896. The 46 songs are settings of poems in German by Paul Heyse, after Italian folk songs – miniatures with a duration of less than 2 minutes in most cases. Heyse’s collection numbered more than 350 poems, but Wolf ignored the ballads and laments, and concentrated almost exclusively on the rispetti. These are short love poems which chart, against a Tuscan landscape, the everyday jealousies, flirtations, joys and despairs of men and women in love. Heyse’s translations often intensify the simple Italian of the original poems, and in their turn, Wolf’s settings represent a further heightening of emotion. Miniatures they may be, but many of the songs strike unforgettably at the heart. When Wolf’s songbook is performed in its entirety, it is usually done by a male and a female singer, although this is not specified in the score. It is not uncommon for them to be transposed, but the songs are written for high voices, and are here performed by a soprano and a tenor – Carolyn Sampson and Alan Clayton – with Joseph Middleton at the piano. The performers have chosen to present the songs in the order they appear in the printed collection, dividing them between themselves.

REVIEWS:

The Italian Songbook consists of two groups of songs. The first group, consisting of 22 songs, was set in 1890 – 1891 and the second group with 24 songs in 1896. Strictly speaking it isn’t a cycle, and in some recordings the interpreters have opted for their personal order of the songs, but many stick to the order in which Wolf published them, and this is also the case with the present issue. The two singers are well-matched. Carolyn Sampson has been an avid advocate for baroque music for many years, but she has also ventured into art songs...Tenor Allan Clayton‘s career has focused on opera – his Peter Grimes at Covent Garden recently was a resounding triumph – but he has also frequently given song recitals...So, I had high expectations when I set to work with this disc.

The first thing I observed was the sensitive playing of Joseph Middleton, pliable and perceptive. Secondly I noted Carolyn Sampson’s girlish tone in Auch kleine Dinge, and her soft and inward reading. This was a recurrent feature throughout the programme.

When Allan Clayton made his entrance, he at once convinced me: here he displayed his armoury of nuances that had enthralled me on the Liszt disc, his beautiful pianissimo – listen to the end of Gesegnet sei (tr. 4) or the mastery half-voice in Der Mond hat eine schwere Klag’ erhoben – but on the reverse side of the coin his dramatic capacity was just as telling: Wenn du mich mit den Augen streifst und lachst (tr. 38) is just one instance. And Carolyn Sampson has the same sense for drama: so agitated and energetic in Wer rief dich denn? (tr. 6). Looking back on my notes, I see that the pad is littered with positive remarks and exclamation marks, but printing them here would surely be rather tiresome reading – and I rather leave it to those who buy the disc to find all the felicities these two well-endowed Liedersänger indulge in. The prestige word for all singing of Lieder is nuances, and from the above I believe that readers have understood that Carolyn Sampson and Allan Clayton are masterly in that respect.

How do they stand up against the competition from other recordings? Very well, I would say...Sampson and Clayton are certainly among the top contenders.

-- MusicWeb International

Winner of the 2021 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition!

“A vivid Orlando makes history in Vienna” (New York Times International): Olga Neuwirth’s opera Orlando, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name, is the first full-length opera by a woman celebrating its premiere at the Vienna State Opera. Olga Neuwirth, for a long time one of the great composers of the present, succeeds with this opera in creating a captivating arc across many musical genres. It’s an exciting, socially critical production by Polly Graham who puts a fantastically singing and playing Kate Lindsey in the center of the action. For Orlando, Neuwirth won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award; it became “world premiere of the year” by Opernwelt magazine, and for Die Zeit, the Hamburg-based national German newspaper, it was “the premiere of the season.”

Acclaim:

"Neuwirth’s score, fusing orchestral, electronic and sampled sounds, is often bewitching...while the use of musical quotations, from Elizabethan polyphony to Lady Gaga, is certainly entertaining.

"The Vienna production...clearly didn’t stint on anything. Some of the sense of grandeur may be lost on a small screen, but the use of video, with texts projected on to the set, as well as the sumptuous costumes by Comme des Garçons, is certainly lavish...

"As Orlando, the mezzo Kate Lindsey is outstanding in what is a hugely demanding role...Constance Hauman provides a telling cameo as the Queen. Matthias Pintscher is the conductor, efficiently coordinating everything[.]"

--The Guardian (Andrew Clements)

The music of the Moravian composer Jan Novák (1921–84) – a natural successor to Bohuslav Martinu, with whom he briefly studied – is nothing less than life-enhancing: it has Martinu’s rhythmic charge and his unflagging energy. And although Novák had such difficulties with the authorities in Communist Czechoslovakia that he chose to emigrate, there is an infectious optimism, a joie de vivre, in these three works that is instantly communicative. A second volume of works for chamber orchestra (TOCC0565) is also currently in preparation.

Timba MM (pronounced 'Timba emmay emmay') take traditional Cuban sounds and adapt them further with other musical genres from around the world. Michel Medrano Brindis (who has performed with the likes of David Sanborn, Gipsy Kings and Dominique Fils-Aim�) formed Timba MM with good friends Mathieu S�n�chal and Adam Goulet. They compose their own songs inspired by contemporary Cuban artists such as the Pedrito Martinez Group, NG La Banda, Sintesis, Afro Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club.

Christian Rummel (1787-1849) was born in Gollachostheim, Bavaria. He received his musical instruction in Mannheim under the kapellmeister Karl Jakob Wagner when the latter was living at Wuerzburg and the violinist Heinrich Ritter. Then he travelled for some years, first as a band military director to the Peninsular War (on the side of Spain), and later as a fighting soldier at Waterloo. After leaving the army he settled, with his Spanish wife, in Wiesbaden, where he came to be employed by the Duke of Nassau in 1806, and from whence he also made a number of tours after forming an orchestra under the commission of the Duke of Nassau for his court, which became one of the best in Germany. Rummel was a famous clarinetist in his time, concertizing in several European countries. About his compositions for the clarinet Robert Schumann wrote: “What he lacks in French finesse he replaces with a German good nature and ‘Gemütlichkeit’ that is natural to him, which is why I always like him." This recording presents Rummel’s works for clarinet and piano, mainly Fantasies and Variations on famous opera melodies of the time, attractive and melodious works full of instrumental brilliance. Played by Luigi Magistrelli, one of the foremost clarinet players of Italy. He made many recordings for Brilliant Classics with works by C.P.E. Bach (95307), Giuliani (95541), Kummer (94472), Archduke Rudolph (94952), Rebay (94171) and Fuchs (96305). ‘Luigi Magistrelli is a skilled artist, with the fingers and the enthusiasm for Weber.’ (Gramophone)

A capacious library of Baroque-era works bears the name of the Italian cellist Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) as an assiduous and pioneering editor, arranger and promoter of music for his instrument. Much less familiar are Piatti’s own original pieces. This is the first modern recording and the only available collection on record of all six sonatas by a man hailed by Liszt as ‘the Paganini of the cello’. Ever true to his word and generous, Liszt presented Piatti with a replacement instrument after the Italian had been forced to sell his cello, having fallen into reduced circumstances. Piatti played with him in concert, as he did with Joseph Joachim and many other luminaries of mid-19th-century Europe. Of all his own music, Piatti was apparently proudest of the sonatas. They were written over an eleven-year period begun in 1885, during the last part of Piatti’s creative life, long established as a celebrity of musical life in Victorian London. He gave the first performances of each one at the series of Popular Concerts, and to huge acclaim. While many virtuosos have written for their own instruments, the cello sonatas of Piatti stand out for their artistic confidence, their balance of extroversion and well-wrought sensitivity to form.

All the Sonatas embody qualities associated with Piatti, especially in the handling of melody, which is distinctly operatic in its lyricism. The slow movements share the passion that Verdi put into the lead characters of his operas. In terms of construction they are also highly varied, while remaining true to the traditions of cantabile and display which underpin his Italian heritage. Born in 1987 in Piacenza, the cellist Lamberto Curtoni introduces this new recording of Piatti’s sonatas with an invaluable survey of the works within the context of their times and their place in the composer’s career.

With Ruggero Leoncavallo’s rarity Zazá, the Theater an der Wien scored a coup with the grandiose house debutante Svetlana Aksenova in the title role. Christof Loy delivers a striking staging of the Verismo drama and conductor Stefan Soltez spiritedly leads the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien through the highly acclaimed evening. “It would take a whole newspaper page to praise all the performers appropriately”, praises Der Standard. Of particular note is Svetlana Aksenova as Zazá who “suffers the whole spectrum from intimate affection to raging jealousy and mute despair”, Nikolai Schukoff (Milio) “shows himself as a daredevil and a depressed mourner”, Christopher Maltman as Cascart “leads energetically and touchingly his already lost fight for his beloved.” An evening worth seeing and hearing!

The star of tenor John Matthew Myers is rapidly in the ascendent. His debut album, Desiderium, coincides with his Metropolitan Opera debut in Brett Dean’s Hamlet. Desiderium – “an ardent desire or longing, a feeling of loss or grief for something lost” – beautifully showcases Myers’ mellifluous voice.

His thoughtful program of works by American and American émigré composers opens with Samuel Barber’s yearning Knoxville: Summer of 1915 – rarely heard sung by a tenor – and transitions to Charles Griffes’ similarly searching settings of 3 Poems of Fiona Macleod, and Andre Previn’s 4 Songs for Tenor and Piano. What follows is A Letter from Sullivan Ballou, set to the words of a poignant letter by an American Civil War officer, by John Kander (of Kander and Ebb musical theatre fame). Rounding out the recital are 4 Walt Whitman Songs by German-born composer Kurt Weill, including the classic O Captain! My Captain! John Matthew Myers says, “Call me a big-hearted Romantic. Each song on this album conveys yearning, separation, loneliness or distance but also a sense of intimacy and longing for connection.” It certainly does. Desiderium is an auspicious debut album, and one especially attuned to our times.

REVIEW:

For his debut recital disc John Matthew Myers has chosen songs and groups of songs by five American composers, active during the 20th century. The common denominator is a feeling of loneliness, and it all stemmed from Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915, which is the only really well-known work in this album.

It goes without saying that the overriding mood is that of melancholy and gloom, but the texts and the musical expressions differ greatly, which vouches for a varied program. Barber’s Knoxville was composed in 1947 for a high voice and orchestra, and has almost exclusively been soprano territory. Since James Agee’s dream-like prose poem from 1938 is written in the persona of a 5-year-old male child, it’s logical to have it performed by a tenor. John Matthew Myers sings the many lyrical sections with soft beautiful tone, but he is also apt at expressing the desperation and sorrow in the work's crucial lines. It is a deeply felt reading.

Composed in 1918 The three Griffes songs, to poems by Fiona Macleod (William Field), were orchestrated in 1919. Like Barber’s Knoxville the orchestration has an attractive colouring that the piano cannot measure up to, but still it has its own attraction, and since it is the original it’s valid and gives the music a more intimate image, more chamber music like. I am happy to have both versions in so convincing readings.

I must say that André Previn’s 4 Songs for Tenor and Piano is a harder nut to crack. Composed in 2004 they are dressed in a rather knotty harmonic language. The mood is gloomy, also in the up-tempo last song, The Revelation. I believe that repeated listening might open them up, but at present I must content myself with admitting that the singing and playing are of the highest order. As far as I have been able to find out, this is a first recording, even though the liner notes don’t specifically say so.

The setting for John Kander’s A Letter from Sullivan Ballou, a major in the Civil War, is wonderful and gripping. John Kander is known, at least to Broadway musical enthusiasts, for his collaboration with Fred Ebb in Cabaret, Chicago, and other Broadway successes. Here, in a quite different vein, he catches all the shifts and nuances of the letter so sensitively. There are certainly echoes from his musical background, which in no way is a drawback. John Matthew Myers reading is appropriately sensitive.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 triggered Kurt Weill to set three of the Walt Whitman poems recorded here. He “structured the original three as a gradual decrescendo of militarism from the bullish opening to the wistful intensity of the final dirge”, as Julian Haylock says in his notes. Five years later he added Come Up from the Fields, Father, which here is placed third in the suite. Weill was a great admirer of Whitman, and said as early as 1926 that he was “the first truly original poetic talent to grow out of American soil.” The music is warlike and sturdy in the first song, reminding me of his style in the 1920s, the second song is a funeral march, and the whole suite – I wouldn’t call it a cycle – is deeply engaging.

John Matthew Myers can feel satisfied with his debut album, and he is excellently supported by Myra Huang’s accompaniment.

-- MusicWeb International (Göran Forsling)

“After many years of performing these works in recitals, we wanted to record them—not as two separate sets but as a confluence of dance-inspired music influenced by two distinct regions and cultures. We chose to travel back and forth between duo and solo, interweaving Balkan dances and tango nuevo in the way we have done in live performances.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, which continues at the time we write these words, we’ve repeatedly found ourselves performing for audiences virtually, separated from one another by the computer screen and yet connected to one another by that same screen. In recording this album we sought to bring some of the live concert experience to the listener.

The track order, tempos, pacing between selections, the improvisatory nature of some of the phrasing, dynamics, articulations, and embellishments, were elements in our process that we felt could contribute to providing some of the live concert feeling that we’ve all been missing during periods of lockdown. This music is especially close to each of us: The tangos were composed for me (Zachary) to play, and like the sonatas of the Italian violinist-composers of the Baroque Era, these compositions provide an environment for exploration, an invitation to embrace improvisation as part of the process… The Balkan Dances are a musical reflection of the cultural influences in my (Mina’s) childhood, in what was then Yugoslavia. Certain rhythms, melodic fragments, and harmonic progressions conjure visceral memories from traveling throughout the rich cultural landscapes across the region, and of singing and dancing traditional songs in several dialects as a child and music student...” (Mina Gajić & Zachary Carrettin)

REVIEW:

Who would have expected two directors of the Boulder Bach Festival to come up with such a novel composer pairing and (more importantly) to bring it off supremely well? Their program mixes and matches violin/piano tangos by Ray Granlund and the Seven Balkan Dances for piano solo by Marko Tajcevic.

One might describe Granlund’s approach to the tango genre as that of a kinder, gentler, and less edgy Astor Piazzolla. To be sure, Granlund can whip up energy when it suits him. Tango Peregrino, for example, starts off in lyrical territory that wouldn’t be foreign to a Chick Corea ballad, yet a strong rhythmic impetus soon kicks in, complete with emphatic accents and slashing slides from Zachary Carrettin’s violin. Granlund’s compact Tangometria defies conventional dancing in its deft use of mixed uneven meters, while Tango du joli printemps lovingly transports an original Poulenc melody from Paris to Buenos Aires, with a second overdubbed violin line joining in the dance.

Tajcevic’s brief Balkan Dances succinctly make their vivid musical points, helped by the gusto and verve characterizing Mina Gajic’s wonderful rhythmic élan. Despite the disc’s relative brief playing time (38 and a half minutes), adventurous listeners will not feel shortchanged.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)