4 RHAPSODIES from critically-acclaimed pianist Kristina Marinova and Navona Records is a collection of vibrant, dynamic, and technically demanding works for solo piano. The album’s titular piece, Four Rhapsodies op. 11 by early 20th-Century composer Ernst von Dohnanyi is rarely performed in concert given the level of musicianship it requires of pianists. Now, its combination of stark drama and dazzling virtuosic passages may be enjoyed by listeners everywhere. This impressive piece, along with works by the likes of Astor Piazzolla, Franz Liszt, and George Gershwin, makes for a varied collection of masterworks performed by the gifted hands of Kristina Marinova.

John Corigliano's Third Symphony, for large wind orchestra, represents a major contribution to the band repertoire, and its fascinating exploitation of timbre and texture should win it listeners beyond that particular niche. The concept, "Circus Maximus", promises to be fun: Corigliano compares the decadent ancient Roman entertainment district to our modern glut of cable television channels and reality TV. Movements such as "channel surfing" offer a deft Ivesian collage of sounds, while the two central nocturnes are lovely, in very different ways. My only wish is that Corigliano didn't take himself quite so seriously: to equate the slaughter and mayhem of Roman entertainment to, say, the Real Housewives of New Jersey surely is pushing the comparison too far. Moreover, it runs the risk of sounding snobbish (not the music, the notes). Remember, when Ives did this sort of thing it was the popular tunes and other found objects that he was celebrating, and the classical tradition that he was thumbing his nose at (with good reason).

Anyway, that's not really important: what matters is that this is good music whatever its inspiration, and the coupling, the Gazebo Dances, is breezy and fresh as the title suggests. Outstandingly exciting performances and terrific recorded sound round out this very attractive release of good contemporary American music. And if Corigliano is being a bit provocative, it's never at the expense of your basic enjoyment. First rate.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Mieczys?aw Weinberg – whose music was virtually unknown in the West until quite recently – composed, despite the incredible difficulty of the circumstances of his life, an enormous amount of music, including seventeen string quartets and no less than twenty-six symphonies, which puts him, in sheer prolificity among twentieth century symphonists close to Myaskovsky (27), but lagging somewhat behind Havergal Brian (32). Outstanding among Weinberg’s symphonies is the trilogy made up of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth symphonies, collectively entitled On the Threshold of War. This refers to what is known in Russia as The Great Patriotic War, or, in other words, World War Two.

So here we have no.17, ‘Memory’; it is a four-movement work with what might be thought a relatively conventional profile. But the way Weinberg handles the symphonic form and his material is, in all aspects, highly personal, and it is an unquestionably powerful statement. The movements are: an opening slow movement - Adagio sostenuto - of great intensity; then a fast, furious and lengthy Allegro molto; a much shorter Allegro molto, pesante; and another long movement, marked Andante, to complete the work.

There is, as far as I can ascertain, only one other recording of this symphony, that of a 2013 concert performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedoseyev. Though that is a committed performance, the sound is rather ‘raw’, and orchestral ensemble is often rough round the edges. The Siberian State Symphony Orchestra, on the Naxos recording, plays well, even if the strings do lack the bloom of a really top-class outfit. The recording is extremely well-balanced, so that wonderful moments, such as the entry of the harpsichord in the second movement, make the maximum impact. In fact, I found this the finest movement of the four; Weinberg constructs the movement so consistently from the various melodic motifs, and the scoring, particularly its use of the two keyboard instruments – piano and harpsichord – is outstandingly atmospheric. The way it eventually resolves into a searing elegy for the high strings is compelling, as is the sense of disintegration at its close.

This is certainly an impressive work, which deserves a distinguished place among the great World War Two symphonies – Vaughan Williams 6, Prokofiev 6, Shostakovich 7 and 8, Copland 3 and Honegger’s Symphonie Liturgique, to name a few of the best known. Inevitably not the most cheerful piece, and some will find it grim. I would prefer the word ‘bracing’, for Weinberg maintains the concentration and the symphonic argument strongly throughout the work’s forty-five minute duration.

But it is demanding, which is why it was such a good idea to begin the CD with something as hugely entertaining as the little Suite for Orchestra of 1950. This is pure delight, and I’d be very surprised if this piece was not now taken up by other orchestras (this is the first recording). The opening Romance has a gorgeously lachrymose theme, first heard in the trumpet, while the Humoresque has deliciously light scoring. The spirit of Shostakovich hovers very close; Weinberg’s third movement recreates perfectly the mood of those haunted and very Russian waltzes found in both of the older composer’s Jazz Suites.

An impressive and enjoyable disc then. And one other thing; we don’t often credit the writers of booklet notes, so I wanted to mention the exemplary notes provided for this issue by Richard Whitehouse. Genuinely helpful and informative, unlike some writers who sometimes appear simply to want to blind us with their musicological ‘insights’. After all, how many of us want - or need – to know what key the music modulates to in bar 63 etcetera, etcetera?

– MusicWeb International (Gwyn Parry-Jones)

Also available on Blu-ray

At Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, maestro Fabio Luisi gives “a superb performance” (Operawire) of Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman), the forerunner of grand Wagnerian dramas. His Italian Richard Wagner debut is infused with energy and drive, under his direction the orchestra and chorus of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, together with Coro Ars Lyrica, sparkle “in what was a five star performance” (Operawire). Thomas Gazheli stars as the Dutchman, who has been condemned to endlessly wander the seas until the day of Judgement. Marjorie Owens shines as his savior Senta.

The richest single source of Tudor polyphony, preserving almost 170 works many of which survive nowhere else, is a set of manuscript partbooks copied between about 1575 and 1581 by John Baldwin, a lay clerk at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. This album is the third and final installment in a series of recordings by Contrapunctus exploring contrasting aspects of this remarkable treasure house of sacred music covering much of the sixteenth century. Owen Rees is both performer and scholar, his scholarship consistently informing his performances. Through his extensive work as a choral director, he has brought to the concert hall and recording studio substantial repertories of magnificent Renaissance and Baroque music, including many previously unknown or little-known works from Portugal and Spain. His interpretations of these repertories have been acclaimed as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’, and he has been described as ‘one of the most energetic and persuasive voices’ in this field.

This album features the complete works for flute (to date) by Franco-Ukranian composer Dimitri Tchesnokov (b.1982), with the exception of his flute trio Tableaux feìeìriques. This programme is supplemented by some of Tchesnokov’s piano solos in a comparable style. The pieces presented here offer a contrast to the composer’s religious/mystical music (3 Chants sacreìs, Requiem, Ave Verum) and his historic/realistic works (Symphonie archai¨que, Cha^teau de Grandval, Symphonie Ukrainienne). The 11 Haïkus are interspersed throughout the recital, maintaining a feeling of spontaneity and lightness, while the pieces alternating with the haikus create contrasting images and moods. The influence of the Far East is present in several of the compositions, among them Rhapsodie Japonaise, based on traditional modes like Hirajo¯shi and Insen; Quelque part aÌ Tsushima (Somewhere in Tsushima), evoking the sound of the koto; and La Fete du Dragon, conjuring the fireworks and cheerful colors of China with the pentatonic mode. From the composer’s Slavic roots comes Une Histoire vraiment bizarre (A truly bizarre story), a trip to a magical forest from old Russian fairy tales, where Little Red Riding Hood meets strange characters like the forest ghost, Leshy.

On her debut album for Berlin Classics, Sarah Christian performs no less a work than Tchaikovskys warhorse, his Violin Concerto, ably supported by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Jéremie Rhorer. For full measure, she plays Tchaikovskys Sextet Souvenir de Florence. Music that revives you is an urgent necessity at times such as these. Many people have been hit hard by the Corona pandemic, music-makers perhaps hardest of all. Tchaikovsky composed both his Violin Concerto and his Recollection of Florence when he was at a spa, recovering from depression and nervous breakdown. Vigorous and virtuosic, but also tuneful and romantic, each work reflects this sense of recovery, the surge of new energy in convalescence. Sarah Christian set great store by recording these two works in the difficult year of 2020. She was concerned that despite all the checks and challenges that we musicians and others too have faced and are still facing, it should still be possible to give back something tangible, audible, something positive. This album means a lot to the soloist, as can again be seen in her bond with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, of which she has been leader since 2013. She speaks of it as her musical family, an assurance that comes across musically in the challenges of the Violin Concerto. Sarah Christian has an equally personal relationship with her fellow-musicians in the Sextet. Johannes Strake, Wen Xiao Zhen, Jano Lisboa, Jan-Erik Gustaffson and Maximilian Hornung are friends and companions with whom she can share a joke, relish thrilling experiences and discuss how to bring the music to life.

Strike Up The Band

Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, and brother Demarre McGill, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s principal flutist, return to a beloved training ground, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO), for an album of works for flute, clarinet, and orchestra featuring world-premiere recordings of specially commissioned duo concertos. The album’s title track, celebrated African-American film and concert composer Michael Abels’ Winged Creatures, was commissioned for the project by Cedille Records. Inspired by the flight of butterflies and other creatures, its solo parts are, in turns, delicate, frenetic, soaring, and powerful. The orchestra originally commissioned Joel Puckett’s Concerto Duo for a 2012 concert with the McGill brothers. The work evokes family affection and sibling camaraderie. Franz Danzi’s virtuosic and elegant Sinfonia Concertante for Flute, Clarinet, and Orchestra, Op. 41, is a tour de force of late-Classical charm. Saint-Saëns’ youthful, virtuosic Tarantelle, Op. 6, draws inspiration from a southern Italian folk dance. It is something of a signature piece for the McGills, who performed the piano-accompanied version on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood when the brothers were 18 and 14, respectively.

REVIEW:

The Chicago Youth Orchestra are impressive for their age. The McGill brothers charge forward with a dynamic and indefatigable zest that is captivating and even exciting to hear. It is one of those couplings where everything works together, that matches up well with performers and compositions that fit together in absorbing ways. The new works are mainstream Modern and well crafted, nicely wrought. Definitely recommended.

– Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

Nicole Cabell and Alyson Cambridge, acclaimed sopranos and close friends, record together for the first time on an album of opera duets by Mozart, Offenbach, Humperdinck, and Delibes and specially commissioned duet arrangements of classical songs, folk tunes, and African-American spirituals. Cabell, 2005 winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, is “a faultlessly gleaming soprano” (Financial Times). Cambridge is “radiant, vocally assured . . . and artistically imaginative” (Washington Post), known for her “revelatory, sensual, smoky readings” (Opera News). Joining them in the “Soave sia il vento” trio from Mozart’s Così fan tutte is the “mellow-voiced and charismatic” (New York Times) baritone Will Liverman. They’re accompanied on their Cedille debut by the Lake Forest Symphony under 2015 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award winner Vladimir Kulenovic. Inspired by opera stars Kathleen Battle & Jessye Norman’s spirituals recording from the early 1990s, the sopranos describe their album as a “dream project” that’s “uniquely us,” reflecting their multi-ethnic heritages and showcasing songs that profoundly influenced them both. Composer-arranger Joe Clark, whose music has been performed by Renee Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, and jazz singer Kurt Elling, among other classical, jazz, and pop artists, created arrangements expressly for Cabell and Cambridge’s distinctive voices.

AllMusic praised The Benvenue Fortepiano Trio’s “intensity, commitment, and unfettered navigation of Schumann’s scores.” This release is the third in the ensemble’s series dedicated to the works of Robert Schumann (1810-1856). This volume features Schumann’s most influential chamber work, the Piano Quintet in E flat Op. 44. The piece, which was premiered in 1843, is remembered for it’s “extroverted, exuberant” character. It is considered one of Schumann’s finest works. The ensemble performs here on period instruments, which enhances the recording by creating the intimate atmosphere for which this chamber music was written. Fanfare Magazine writes that the atmosphere creates “an enlightened view of the music.” The Benvenue Fortepiano Trio is pianist Eric Zivian, performing here on a Franz Rousch 1841 fortepiano, violinist Monica Hugget, performing on a 1770 Dutch, and cellist Tanya Tomkins, playing on an 1811 Joseph Panormo.

The lockdown of Spring 2020 allowed Sonya Yoncheva and conductor Leonardo García Alarcón to make the album they had been considering for ten years. Rebirth is a message of hope but also the exploration of an idea: that silence and inactivity are the best prelude to creative renewal. Yoncheva’s fourth solo album for Sony Classical includes music spanning more than five centuries, from folksong to pop, via some of the most powerful moments in seventeenth-century opera. All the music, in Yoncheva’s view, is contemporary. ‘Certain styles of musical composition have remained surprisingly close to us through 500 years of history, combining enormous emotional thrust with great simplicity,’ she says. From the dawn of opera and music by Monteverdi, the album plots a thematic journey from the Italy of Cavalli, his pupil Strozzi and heir Stradella to the England of Dowland, Gibbons and Ferrabosco – whose motet Hear me, O God employs the same four-note theme as ABBA’s Like an Angel Passing Through My Room. After dance-inspired works from Spain and Latin America, and Alarcón’s reconstruction of an aria by Antonio Draghi, Yoncheva offers a traditional folksong from her Bulgarian homeland. Media were full of praise after Sonya Yoncheva performed her album repertoire at the Salzburg Festival after the lockdown in August 2020. ‘Music that moves you to tears’ wrote the APA and the FAZ raved about her Bulgarian folksong ‘Zableinano mi agunce’ being “an unforgettable emotional experience.” Rebirth was recorded in the concert hall of La Chaux-de-Fonds, with Alarcón and his ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, during the first European lockdown. The feeling of the acoustic, Alarcón says, was equivalent to ‘playing inside a vast lute.’

For her new album, cellist Sol Gabetta has turned her attention to works by Robert Schumann. She is accompanied in his renowned cello concerto by period instruments of the Kammerorchester Basel and in the three sets of chamber works for cello and piano she teams up with Bertrand Chamayou playing an original fortepiano. As an admirer of Gabetta’s playing and having enjoyed her previous releases, I set about listening to this album with much enthusiasm.

Gabetta performs with passion throughout and excels with playing of conviction in the passages requiring brilliant virtuosic display. I enjoyed the generous Romanticism of the central movement marked Langsam with Gabetta expressing the characteristic songlike lyricism imbued in the score. At times, the writing feels like a love letter to Clara. In the closing movement, Sehr lebhaft, Gabetta’s striking playing is decisive with a sense of urgency. Playing a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Parma (1749) cello, Gabetta has been provided with recorded sound which is a touch too close for my taste. The Kammerorchester Basel, under Giovanni Antonini’s direction generally does full justice to Schumann’s orchestral writing but I find the louder passes slightly harder to judge as some of the detail is lost.

Gabetta has also included here three captivating sets of Schumann’s pieces for cello and piano, all written in 1849: the Five Pieces in Folk Style (Fünf Stücke im Volkston) for cello and piano, Op. 102, the Adagio and Allegro in the original version for cello and piano, Op. 70, and Three Fantasy Pieces (Fantasiestücke) in the original version for cello and piano, Op. 73. Here, Gabetta plays a Matteo Goffriller, Venice (c. 1725) cello and is accompanied Bertrand Chamayou using a fortepiano by J.B. Streicher, Vienna (1847). Gabetta’s performance is passionate and again her rich sounding cello is closely recorded and is balanced to slightly dominate the fortepiano. Although Chamayou’s fortepiano is of the period, I find it hard to enjoy its woody sound.

The booklet essay, entitled ‘Violoncello Works by Robert Schumann’ and written by Ruth Seiberts, is commendable.

– MusicWeb International (Michael Cookson)

Ge Gan-ru’s Twelve Preludes is heard here in the world premiere recording of its revised version. The release also features Ancient Music, in which he employs the prepared piano to evoke the intimate sounds of Chinese instruments, as well as Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! and the world premiere recording of Hard, Hard, Hard! written for toy piano. Yiming Zhang has a wide spectrum of musical interests ranging from the Baroque period to the present day. In recent years, he has pursued a particular interest in contemporary Chinese piano music, and has comprehensively researched and performed the piano music of the composer Wang Lisan. Besides this recording project of the complete piano works of Wang Lisan for Naxos, he has also written a substantial biography of the composer, for publication by the People’s Music Publishing House. In addition, he is a frequent collaborator with other contemporary Chinese composers such as Ge Gan-ru (b.1954) and Wang Xilin (b.1937).

The “Sei Suonate à Cembalo certato è Violino Solo”, as Bach’s six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord (BWV 1014–1019) are entitled in the oldest surviving fair copy, are undoubtedly among those works which have set new standards in chamber music. They have long established themselves on the world’s concert platforms, and yet they still raise questions. There is no certainty about when or where the sonatas were written. Did Bach compose them when he moved to Leipzig? And did he deliberately plan them as a set of six? We cannot tell. Accordingly, Bach’s Violin Sonatas BWV 1014–1019 are not only unbelievably varied, they amount to a veritable treasure-chamber of musical forms and moods. Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel perceptively remarked in 1774 that the Sonatas sounded “very good even now, even though they are over 50 years old”, and in addition contained “some Adagii, which one could not set more songfully at the present day”. That “present day” was the world in which Emanuel Bach lived and worked, the world of the Enlightenment, the galant style and the “sentiment” of Empfindsamkeit. From such a perspective, as works in which the primacy of melody is constantly evident despite the narrow limits imposed by the writing for trio, the Violin Sonatas may be perceived as a bridge into our own times.