The unique instrumentation of the three works in this album was pioneered by the innovative Lou Harrison, whose 1959 concerto encapsulates his culturally wide-ranging aesthetic. More conventional instruments work alongside calibrated extras such as wash tubs and flowerpots in a work of color, languorous elegance and kinetic energy. The companion works were composed in its honor: Robert Xavier Rodríguez’s Xochiquetzal evokes the ancient Mayan world in imaginary folk music to form a synthesis of time periods and cultures, while the economical serenity of Kati Agócs’s concerto also includes bitonal effects and zesty syncopation.

Country Current is the premier country-bluegrass group of the US Navy Band that showcases traditional, contemporary, and original bluegrass compositions. This is … Navy Country features new arrangements of great country classics along with several original compositions from members of the ensemble. From Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" to Josh Turner's "Long Black Train," this album will appeal to any country music fan.

The concerto, with its soloist thrilling and moving an audience with the support of an orchestra, has been one of the most popular musical forms for over 300 years. Now imagine a concerto for two instruments: twice the virtuosity and twice the expression! While Antonio Vivaldi was one of the first composers to investigate the possibilities of this format in his more than 500 concertos, he didn’t compose a single one for double bass. This recording rectifies Vivaldi’s omission and offers arrangements of two of his double concertos as well as one of his best-loved arias: Vedrò con mio diletto from the opera Il Giustino. A little more than century later, Giovanni Bottesini, the Paganini of the double bass, captivated first Europe and then the rest of the world, displaying a dazzling virtuosity in his numerous compositions that highlight the unique qualities of the instrument. For his second disc on the BIS label, Rick Stotijn, a tireless advocate of his instrument and its endless possibilities, has joined forces with his friends Johannes Rostamo, Olivier Thiery and Bram van Sambeek. Supported by Camerata RCO, a string ensemble from the Amsterdam Concertgebouworkest, they perform concertante works from these two Italian composers: Doppio espressivo!

Triumphantly premiered in 1724 at the King’s Theatre in London, George Frideric Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto masterfully combines human emotions: Triumph with sorrow, despair with happiness and love with profound melancholy in the face of the transience of all earthly life. Star director Keith Warner creates a production that imaginatively blends silent film and baroque opera, delightfully echoing Mankiewicz’s legendary Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton. An excellent cast of singers is led by two of the world’s leading countertenors: Bejun Mehta and Christophe Dumaux. Louise Alder shines as the seductive Cleopatra. Patricia Bardon, Simon Bailey and Jake Arditti are further highlights in this extraordinary group of singers, while Ivor Bolton provides the appropriate soundtrack on the podium of the Concentus Musicus Wien. “Many of the excellent singing actors present themselves in top form.” (Kurier) “A triumph! A must for baroque opera fans.” (Kronenzeitung) “A finely balanced mixture of poetry and comedy, of cinematic action and touching contemplation.” (Der Standard)

This is a Blu-ray Audio disc, playable on Blu-ray players only.

“In the Summer of 2019, we recorded our album Once Upon a Time, our first recorded version of a “story concert.” Although we had explored this concept for several years prior with storyteller Sarah Walker, Once Upon a Time was our first collaboration with Benedict Sheehan, who composed incidental music (almost like a choral movie score) to accompany Sarah’s dialogue and to connect the musical dots between existing works by an array of composers. That summer, it became clear that we had stumbled onto something unusual and special. First, the idea of a continuous choral story score – combining elements of classical performance, storytelling, film scoring, and theatricality – seemed to be a rich new idiom for choral performance art. Second, the collaborative team of the project seemed like a dream come true – there was a strong sense of mutual respect for everyone’s unique talents, and a rare ability for creative push and pull…” (Matthew Guard, Artistic Director)

The Scriabin Mystery is brought to vivid life by acclaimed French pianist Vincent Larderet and celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Russian composer. Making his AVIE debut, Larderet presents a comprehensive survey of the scope of Scriabin’s output and the evolution of his style, from his early, post-Romantic works influenced by Chopin and Liszt, through to the modernism of the 20th century in his final works. His harmonies famously colored by his synesthesia, Scriabin’s craft was a revolutionary fusion of freedom of expression underpinned by a sense of unity and geometric proportion, his psychologically complex constructions infused with incandescence and mysticism. Scriabin’s music has long held pride of place in Larderet’s repertoire. He offers a brilliant and broad overview of the composer’s evolution in chronological sequence, revealing the mystery of one of the most visionary composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scriabin’s life was tragically cut short at the age of 43, leaving his final work, Acte préalable, unfinished. Long thought lost, the sketches were re-discovered by composer and musicologist Manfred Kelkel, who used the material for his composition Tombeau de Scriabine. Vincent includes the Prelude of this work as a touching encore to The Scriabin Mystery.

As part of the big musical concert, musical stars Carin Filipcic, Maya Hakvoort, Vanessa Heinz, and others perform the most beautiful melodies from the famous musicals Tanz der Vampire (Dance of the Vampires), Mozart!, Rebecca, Elisabeth, Schikaneder,and more in the impressive ambience of the Vienna Ronacher. (C Major)

The American critic Robert Reilly described the music on Volume One of this cycle of the complete string quartets of David Matthews (b. 1943) as ‘some of the most concentrated, penetrating writing for this medium in the past 30 years or more. It is musical thinking of the highest order and quartet writing in the great tradition of Beethoven, Bartok, Britten, and Tippett’. Matthews’ three most recent quartets call in a wide range of references. Birdsong – heard in Nos. 13 and 14 – is a standard Matthews topos; and the fugal No. 15 seems to find a middle ground between late Beethoven and folk-music. No. 13 presents the biggest surprise: it introduces four solo voices, siting the work somewhere between Berg’s Lyric Suite and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music. Some touching arrangements and two canons for two Michaels – Tippett and Berkeley – complete the program.

REVIEWS:

Perhaps the most important series of quartets written in the last two decades.

The disc is topped off with various miniatures, mainly beautifully idiomatic arrangements for string quartet of pieces which Matthews finds particularly interesting, as he explains in his booklet essay, or written for friends or for special occasions...if you have been collecting David Matthews quartets on this wonderfully enterprising label, then you will wish to snap up this one...One cannot find fault with the four singers or with the Kreutzer Quartet who clearly understand the composer’s requirements and communicate them lucidly and intelligently.

There is little or no difference in the acoustic and atmosphere of the recordings made at varying venues. The sound is consistent and always transparent.

Gary Higginson

Set in the artistic but impoverished milieu of early 19th-century Paris, the tragic love of the poet Rodolfo and seamstress Mimì is one of the most affecting in all opera. La Bohème’s arias are also some of the most intensely passionate Puccini ever wrote, making it is one of the best-loved of all his works. In what Opera News called a ‘thorough rethinking and brilliant re-creation’ this exceptional Oslo production, strongly cast and conducted, and staged by internationally acclaimed director Stefan Herheim, explores the work as never before to create what The New York Times called an ‘ultimately haunting’ experience.

Review

The impressive cast includes Diego Torre as Rodolfo and the luscious-voiced Marita Sølberg, acting and singing beautifully as Mimi…This is a bold, innovative and thought-provoking production that challenges more conventional interpretations of Puccini’s best-loved opera.

--New Classics

While he left an extensive and significant output of stage-works, the contribution of Kurt Weill to orchestral and instrumental genres was largely restricted to his formative years.

Also available on Blu-ray

“The cast is a dream team,” wrote the Financial Times after the premiere of this production of Verdi’s La forza del destino at the Wiener Staatsoper. Verdi’s 1862 opera is regularly performed and the overture is part of the standard repertoire for orchestras, but this production stands apart from the rest. Powerful performances by Nina Stemme, who gives a fullblooded portrayal of Leonora, Alastair Miles as her father, Salvatore Licitra as Alvaro, Carlos Álvarez as Don Carlo and Nadia Krasteva as Preziosilla resulted in one of the Viennese ensemble’s most celebrated achievements of recent years. Zubin Mehta leads the Staatsoper Orchestra with agility, subtleness and relaxed mastery, and right from the start David Pountney establishes an atmosphere of entrapment by fate. “A perfect utopia.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

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REVIEW:

Tenor Salvatore Licitra as Don Alvaro in La forza del destino, captured in Vienna 10 years ago - his singing is admirably clean, his tone noble. Alongside him, Nina Stemme is a gutsy Leonora, assiduously following the score’s markings, Carlos Álvarez an outstanding Don Carlo, Alistair Miles a firm and cleanly- sung Padre Guardiano.

– Opera Now

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DETAILS:

Subtitles: Italian, Eng., Ger., Ff., Sp., Kr,Cn
Booklet: English, German, French
Run time: 161 minutes
Disc Format: DVD9
Picture: NTSC 16:9
Audio: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

British conductor Sir John Barbirolli is remembered most for his relationship with the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, having saved the ensemble from dissolution in 1943. He spent the rest of his life with this ensemble. This two disc set features Barbirolli conducting the Halle Orchestra, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Sinfonia of London. The works on this release are all by English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, and were recorded between 1957 and 1962.

Works for solo piano and orchestra, including the ever popular pieces La Mer and Three Nocturnes, highlight this budget collection of music by this giant of French impressionism.

The Elora Festival Singers, conducted by internationally acclaimed director Noel Edison, is one of the most exciting of contemporary choirs. Their disc of Eric Whitacre’s choral music was nominated for a GRAMMY® in 2010. Now they turn to the art of the Christmas carol, a genre covering a variety of styles, both popular and refined, each piece expressing religious sentiments and beliefs. The music ranges from much-loved settings to new works, from polyphony to more straightforward melodies, in a recital stretching from the Middle Ages to the music of today.

Classical Music