The four cantatas by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi recorded here were published in Naples c. 1736. A short while later, perhaps 1738, a new edition of the cantatas was published. The fact that the two publications following in short succession testifies to the singular interest the chamber works of this very young composer from Jesi, who had died in 1736, aroused in Italian and European musical circles. For all, mention need only be made of the testimony of Charles de Brosses, who, in 1739, judged the fourth cantata of the collection as “the best of the Italian cantatas”.

The 150th anniversary celebrations of Florence, Capital of the Kingdom of Italy (1865-2015) create an opportunity to know and appreciate the voices of the two precious organs preserved in the basilica of San Lorenzo, and the music composed by musicians active in Florence. The organ built by Fratelli Serassi in 1864, with more than 60 registers and three keyboards, is one of the most impressive and unique of its time. The Renaissance-era organ dates to the mid-15th c. The recording features Florentine works from the Renaissance, Classical and Romantic eras, many of which are world premieres.

This double CD live recording is dedicated to the great pianistic romanticism of the 19th c. Here we can clearly feel how much Italian culture influenced the genius of Franz Liszt, who transposed on his favorite instrument all the magic of great opera (Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti), popular tradition (Venice and Naples) and classic literature (Dante, Petrarca). Literally enchanted by his Italian experience, Liszt composed music of rare effectiveness. Pianist Roberto Cappello has led a notable and highly successful career since his triumph at the 1976 Premio Busoni Int’l Piano Competition.

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most important contemporary composers of our time. The musician, professor of composition and author from Karlsruhe, Germany is a larger-than-life personality, and the contemporary music scene is impossible to imagine without him. His knowledge of music is all-encompassing, as is his mastery of the arts, literature and philosophy - all of which serve as sources of inspiration for his composing. With more than 400 compositions, he has created a universe that cannot easily be defined. Rihm has written New Music - the titles of his compositions have come to symbolize the musical history of recent decades. Other works by him refer to music history – they include, for example, oratorios inspired by Bach, orchestral works based on Brahms, or chamber music inspired by Schumann. With this release and a further one of instrumental music, BR-KLASSIK and "musica viva" are celebrating the 70th birthday of this influential composer. Rihm's piece Sphäre nach Studie (1993/2002) for chamber ensemble received its world premiere on March 13, 2002 in Karlsruhe, and was also the opening work at the concert of the Bayerische Rundfunk musica viva series recorded live on December 8, 2020 in Munich's Prinzregententheater. That concert concluded with Male über Male 2 (2000/2008), a commission by WDR that was premiered by Jörg Widmann in Witten in 2008. Between these two instrumental works, the baritone Christian Gerhaher and the violist Tabea Zimmermann perform Rihm's haunting Stabat Mater (2020). In this work, the reduction to the unusual constellation of voice and string instrument creates a sound space in which much, perhaps everything, is possible. The direct confrontation of the baritone with the inner singing of the viola gives rise to a wordless song, a breathing line.

Following the success of its recording of Georg Caspar Schürmann’s opera Die getreue Alceste, the barockwerk hamburg ensemble very much wanted to discover more music by this wrongly neglected Hamburg composer. His opera Jason enjoyed great success at Hamburg’s Gänsemarkt Opera during 1720-22 and was repeated no fewer than thirty-one times during these years. And the fact that Schürmann occupied himself with his Jason for thirteen years also clearly indicates that it was regarded as a highly promising work. This recording presents a considerably abridged version of this bilingual stage work containing elements of the Italian and German Baroque opera and lasts about two hours. Along with the highly effective coloratura arias, the harmonic and melodic language of the recitatives also not least merits special mention because it is highly expressive and bold as well as finely nuanced. Medea’s part is throughout the most multifaceted one, and a broad spectrum of emotions can also be heard in her recitatives – ranging from enamorment through doubt, jealousy, revenge, and seduction to desire for power and delight in victory.

Fresh off a successful Rachmaninoff project, Duo Genova & Dimitrov turns to the American composer Amy Beach. Her compositional oeuvre marks a high point in the phase of consolidation experienced by U.S. art music between the Civil War and World War I. Amy Beach was not the first American woman who composed, nor the first to earn money with her compositions, but she created a stir in the music world by forging ahead into genres in which previously only men had garnered wide acclaim. However, it was above all the piano that was Amy Beach’s lifelong companion.

She honored her instrument with solo compositions in a total of twenty-six opus numbers distributed equally over her entire compositional career, from the 1880s to the 1930s. Even though her music for piano four hands and for two pianos is limited to a few compositions, they all attest to their author’s talent. The original version of Amy Beach’s Variations on Balkan Themes op. 60 is her most extensive composition for piano two hands and the one that is the most challenging in playing technique. At the same time, the variations represent one of her most significant endorsements of folk music.

REVIEWS:

Genova and Dimitrov perform this technically demanding and richly imagined music with enormous affection and flair, conjuring its atmospheres and textures seamlessly, as if with one mind. A must-hear album for all who want to explore Beach’s highly rewarding output.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Aglika Genova and Liuben Dimitrov are a polished duo, unfailingly musical, with an ensemble precision that sits well with their two superbly matched instruments. The disc, very well recorded, comes with an exhaustively detailed booklet and is a valuable addition to the Beach discography.

-- Gramophone

Our second album with music for strings by British composers features most highly creative compositions by Sir Granville Bantock and Christopher Wilson. When Bantock reached the pinnacle of his fame, the Three Choirs Festival held in Hereford in 1912 ordered a work for string orchestra from him. The result was the four-movement Serenade for Strings, to which he assigned the subtitle “In the Far West.” Bantock’s string movements are distinguished by an impressive tonal richness. After the performance Douglas Bostock remarked: “I am truly amazed – this is anything but a ‘Serenade,’ as the innocuous title suggests. The succinct, symphonically developed music is nothing other than a string symphony with a demanding writing style representing a genuine tour de force.” Moreover, extensive recorded material documents the Scottish melodies used by Bantock in his Scenes from the Scottish Highlands. For them he chose the finely managed format of three fast dances separated by two euphonious slow movements. The six short movements in traditional or dance style forming Christopher Wilson’s Suite for String Orchestra made it something new and fresh when it was premiered in 1901, and it came over very well. It is thought that one of the composer’s goals was to connect with the tradition of Johann Sebastian Bach.

After the suites by Johann Sebastian Bach in the early 18th century, nothing happened for a long time in the genre of works for solo cello. But the work that put an end to this period of no production was a weighty one: the almost monumental sonata by Zoltan Kodaly of 1915 set high standards for other composers. Indeed, subsequently not only many works were written, but also highly differing ones, among which the half-hour work by the Hungarian composer stands there like the “Mount Everest” (Daniel Muller-Schott). Together with works by Prokofiev, Hindemith, Henze, Crumb and Casals, Daniel Muller-Schott here introduces a work composed by himself for the first time: the “Cadenza” is to be understood in the tradition of those compositions that other cellists have always added to their recital programmes.

“Here, you can recognize influences of the solo works that have influenced me over the years. In the Cadenza, the contrasting elements of the world of my instrument appear in the closest space – the cello in pure lyricism, just as sequences catapulting themselves into the highest registers in rhythmical savagery and immediately concluding the movement after a final culmination.” (Daniel Muller-Schott)

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REVIEW:

Müller-Schott ends this formidable unaccompanied recital with Pablo Casals’s Song of the Birds, played with the intense focus, the sense of line and the gleaming purity of tone that characterises the whole disc. Müller-Schott’s ability to inflect a single line of music makes even works such as Prokofiev’s slightly dubious reconstructed Sonata and his own entertainingly eclectic Cadenza repay re-listening. He certainly has something to say.

– Gramophone

The two cello sonatas by Johannes Brahms are in very stark contrast to each other. This is not solely due to the more than twenty years separating the works. Brahms had a preference for pairs of works with the same instrumentation, which he frequently composed according to the principle of contrast. In the case of the cello concertos, it is above all the character and mood of the respective pieces that describe the contrasts. In the version for cello, the Violin Sonata op. 78, one of Brahms’ finest chamber works, supplements the two original cello sonatas in a charming way. Daniel Müller-Schott and Francesco Piemontesi team up once more for this all Brahms program after the great success of their release of cello sonatas of the 20th century (C872151).

REVIEW:

Poetry, power, and passion are all here, to an unquestionable degree. There were more times when I was struck by the piano’s beautiful tone than the cello’s, but at 44 Müller-Schott has grown into the kind of maturity that still expresses the joy of music in the face of temptations to become a much-in-demand professional repeating the same handful of popular pieces. I haven’t previously associated him with passionate playing, but he’s struck a bond with Piemontesi, whose Liszt can be quite ardent. Every desirable quality is present here.

– Fanfare

A member of the Society for Jewish Folk Music in St Petersburg, Russia, Leo Zeitlin (1884–1930) was known almost exclusively for Eli Zion, a classic of Jewish art-music. Zeitlin died only seven years after emigrating to New York, still a young man, and his reputation languished until the recent discovery of a trunk full of scores brought his music back to light. This album attempts to remedy decades of neglect, especially for his charismatic Yiddish song-settings for voice, strings and piano, powerful declamations of spoken Yiddish and Russian poetry underscored by Romantic piano music, all of which points to a once popular but now forgotten genre. The Festival musicians of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival are the highest-caliber local professionals; players for the orchestral and chamber-music concerts include members of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet Orchestras, and university faculty members. In its eleven seasons since its founding by cellist Aron Zelkowicz the PJMS has programmed over 130 pieces of classical chamber and orchestral music inspired by Jewish traditions. The recordings on this CD series represent a six-year project devoted to the St Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music and its affiliated Russian composers.

REVIEW:

The performances of Leo Zeitlin’s music are first-rate from start to finish, as is the recorded sound. The liner notes by Paula Eisenstein Baker (a key figure in the resurrection of the Zeitlin’s music) and Robert S. Nelson provide detailed information on the composer’s life and the featured works. Original language texts (Cyrillic script for Russian, and transliterations for the Yiddish poems) and English translations are provided for each of the songs. While the repertoire on this disc may have a less broad appeal than the Stutschewsky release, I think anyone at all curious to explore the work of Leo Zeitlin will not be disappointed.

-- Fanfare

• Henri Hardouin (1727–1808) was a chorister at Rheims Cathedral, rising to maître de chapelle – until the French Revolution disbanded religious establishments.
• Hardouin’s six four-part masses, published in 1772, are unusual for their time in being a cappella and enjoyed wide circulation in pre-Revolutionary France.
• Since then they have been roundly neglected – an omission this two-CD survey intends to rectify.

Bingham’s (b. Nottingham, 1952) music for chorus and organ has been previously released on CD, but this is the 1st recording of her piano music. She used to live near Westminster Cathedral, the inspiration for the opening work, The Moon over Westminster Cathedral. Bingham spent several years as a member of the BBC Singers, which may help explain the lyricism of her music.

REVIEW:

No fewer than five first recordings feature in this very special disc. Judith Bingham is a highly imaginative composer who, on the evidence of the booklet notes of the current release, writes eloquently on her own music. The recording (made at The Venue, Leeds, October 2009) is wonderfully present.

Byron, Violent Progress is a set of 13 variations on the song She Walks in Beauty in the Night by Bingham herself. The two-minute theme is rather dark and brims with promise for variation. Jones gives it out with a sort of restrained care, as if handling a precious object. Bingham segments the score so that it is in three movements. The ruminative first variation sets out the sense of space evoked here. Bingham refers to the opening of the second movement (variation 5) as a “bright Alpine landscape” and, with its upwardly-bound phrases and glinting, glacial gestures, it is easy to hear why. A change of texture to a skeletal counterpoint marks the onset of the third movement.

Jones plays with the perfect amount of concentration for Christmas Past, Christmas Present (1989), intended as adult reminiscences of Christmases past, delicate nostalgia weighs heavily here, while Chopin is an evocation of the spirit of that composer as opposed to any sort of pastiche. Annunication II, part of a sequence of works for various instruments that address a different aspect of the annunciation, is distinctly Lisztian in its holy aura as well as its use of tremolo. Jones gives a masterly account. The end hangs beautifully in the air.

Finally, Pictured Within (1981) a portrait of six people (one of whom is fictional) within four movements. It is a walk on the dark side of Bingham’s psyche (her booklet notes are quite open about the time of the work’s composition being a difficult one for her). One can hear the concentration of language throughout.

-- Fanfare

This CD documents a ten-year productive friendship between a composer and a performer. Many of Matthews’ quartets were written for the Kreutzer Quartet, and they’ve recorded two previous CDs of his complete cycle of music. This release features all world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Finally, there comes Hopeful Monsters of 2011 for string orchestra (the orchestra includes the members of the Quartet). Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street (a day in 1936 when, in East London, crowds gathered to protest against fascism), it is a fascinating canvas that includes references to Jewish music in its faster section. The title is borrowed from Nicholas Mosley and refers to biological mutations that hover on extinction. Lee Hallman’s exemplary booklet notes suggest this is reflected in Rose’s use of harmony, with its clear tonal references that it just as often seeks to negate—or at least toy with.

All pieces here receive their first recordings, and the disc was made in the presence of the composer. Unhesitatingly recommended.

-- Fanfare

The music of the Czech-born Viennese composer Kornauth (1891-1959) was once a staple of Austrian concert-halls. It has been largely forgotten in the half-century since his death. In this pioneering recording, British pianist Jonathan owell uncovers the many strands that fed into Kornauth’s rich and full-bodied compositions.

REVIEW:

This is the first full disc of piano music by Egon Kornauth, a composer born in what is now Olomouc in the Czech Republic (and was then Olmütz) who studied with Robert Fuchs in Vienna and then later with Schreker and Franz Schmidt.

Jonathan Powell is one of the most eloquent commentators on the music he plays I have come across, whether that be Sorabji or Kornauth, and his booklet note is a source of great interest. The angular, active Fantasy (1915) contains distinctly Richard Straussian turns of harmony and phrase in the sweet contrasting themes (that influence is less obvious in the more Schwung sections); the overt lush Straussian gestures sound more like a reduction of an orchestral tone poem. The op. 25 Klavierstücke (1920) are more modernist, probably because of his experiences of Schreker. The first is decidedly Bergian (think the op. 1 Piano Sonata), while the central Improvisation sounds exactly like that. Most fascinating is the final “Walzer,” a very sprightly evocation of Viennese dance, a bit like an Austro-Germanic Ravel La Valse in places.

The Kleine Suite (1923) has fewer ambitions than the other works on the disc and receives another fantastic performance from Powell. The Barcarolle (third movement) sums the suite up in essence, reflecting the less demanding demeanor of the piece, while the penultimate “Walzer” elicits a phenomenally light touch from Powell before the cheekily scampering Finale rounds things off with a smile.

The Präludium und Passacaglia offers maximal contrast, the B♭-Minor twilight of Bachian rigor and severity of the Prelude meeting the storm clouds of Chopin’s finest turbulence; the Passacaglia continues the gloominess. Powell paces it superbly: The close is truly crushing before the final surprise major-key end. The op. 44 Klavierstücke of 1940 is also sometimes known as the Second Suite. It is shot through with sweet nostalgia. The five pieces (“Präludium”; “Intermezzo”; “Capriccio”; “Mährische Ballade”; “Walzer”) speak of sweet nostalgia. Powell lavishes them with an attention to detail that almost makes them sparkle (in a retrospective sort of way). The “Mährische Ballade” (Moravian Ballad) is the highlight. Its almost folkish mode of discourse hides a strong compositional rudder steering the work perfectly; the final “Walzer” is the suite’s longest movement, and drips with charm.

This is a fascinating disc (as we are beginning to expect from Toccata Classics). The recording (made at Durham University, U.K.) is excellent.

-- Fanfare

The music of the Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky (1895–1968) is familiar in his home country but sorely neglected abroad. Lyatoshynsky’s songs are neglected even there: this anthology of his best romantsiy for low voice and piano contains many first recordings.
The songs meld intense Scriabinesque expressionism with elements of Ukrainian folksong in a language that embraces both the lyrical and the dramatic. His setting of Shelley’s Ozymandias, with its warning of the impermanence of power, was a brave act in the Soviet Union of 1924. The booklet contains full sung texts, with English translations by Russian-music expert Anthony Phillips, who also provides an extensive introduction to Lyatoshynsky.

REVIEW:

Ukrainian composer Boris Liatoshinsky (1895–1968) studied with Gliere at the Kiev Conservatory and then became a life-long member of that faculty. Death, melancholy, dread, and grief over unrequited love are the subjects of his chosen texts by mostly Ukrainian poets Ivan Bunin, Alexei Pleshcheyev, Leonid Pervomaiski, Maxim Rylsky, and Volodymyr Sosyura as well as Heine and Shelley. The mood of his songs is consistently somber.

The program of works from 1922 to 1951 is ordered mostly chronologically. His earliest compositions show an evident love of Schumann, Chopin, and Borodin; but the works heard here show a Scriabinesque expressionist style that reflects the cultural chaos following WW I and the Russian Revolution. His 1924 setting of Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ with its image of the impermanence of power shows his courage and conviction in the face of Socialist Realism as Stalin was consolidating his stranglehold over the Soviet Union.

The performances here are broodingly powerful. Savenko’s lyric bass is a good fit for these songs, written specifically for bass (or low voice). With smooth legato singing and well applied dynamics, his performance gives full expression to their mournful nature.

-- American Record Guide