This selection is a Hybrid Multichannel Super Audio CD. The Stereo Hybrid SACD program can be played on any standard compact disc player. The DSD Surround programs require an SACD player for playback.

These excellent performances date from 1970, before Neville Marriner embarked on possibly the dullest complete Beethoven symphony cycle in history, and they have all of the qualities of elegance and verve that made the conductor and his Academy of St. Martin in the Fields the greatest chamber orchestra of the 1960s and '70s. There's simply nothing to quibble with from a musical standpoint: the allegros move along smartly, wind parts are clearly audible (particularly in the Second Symphony), and trumpets and drums cut through the texture without blasting. The two slow movements sing and the strings play beautifully. Of course, period groups have made Marriner's approach sound a bit tame in comparison, but whatever the performances lack in rawness and edge they more than make up for in polish. It's a perfectly legitimate view of the music, and one that has aged not a bit.


Sonically, these multichannel remasterings convey an excellent sense of the orchestra in a warm acoustic space, without emphasizing the rear channels to distracting effect. Unfortunately, there is a huge amount of ambient noise (in other words, hiss) that comes as quite a surprise given the silent backgrounds that we have become used to in this digital (or even Dolby) age. Whether or not this will bother you is very much a matter of personal preference, but be warned: audiophile sound this certainly is not. However, the musical values remain first rate and certainly justify making this pair of performances available again.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

REVIEW:

In the first place, the choral works featured on this disc put paid to the often-voiced contention that Gordon Getty is no more than simply a millionaire indulging himself as a dilettante composer. His insistence on producing music that is approachable on first hearing, which thirty years ago when he began his career might have appeared quixotic, is now thankfully restored to the musical mainstream; and the seriousness with which he approaches the setting of the words he chooses (or writes himself) makes a refreshing change from the purely decorative style of some modern composers who similarly seek to appeal to the general listener.

In the second place, the performances themselves – two distinct sessions with different sets of artists (the Moscow patch to one of the Victorian Scenes notwithstanding) – are generally of superior quality to those found on the later discs of Getty’s music. It makes a distinct difference having choral singers of the calibre of the American and Swedish bodies here, with their natural employment of the English language enabling them to engage more closely with the text, as well as established international symphony orchestras to accompany them – although that is not to gainsay the sterling efforts of the German broadcasting bodies responsible for the later issues.

In the third place, the reissue of the original material still brings with it the full texts and introductory notes both by the composer and by James Keller, the latter furnishing us with more information regarding the origins of the music than we find in more recent Getty issues from Pentatone. These notes also come with translations into both German and French, although the lyrics are provided in English only (the three Welsh songs are furnished with English translations by the composer).

The disc begins with the cycle Young America, which is altogether the most impressive of Getty’s choral works I have heard – all the more so since the poems, mostly by the composer himself, seem to strike just the right note with their subtly shifting but striking modulations and occasional outbursts of emotion. The opening Hark the Homeland is a Whitmanesque sort of apotheosis to America, and forms a marvellous contrast to the imitation folk ballad Heather Mary with its haunting cor anglais solo warmly played by Julie Anne Giacobassi. My uncle’s house has a mood reminiscent of Barber’s Knoxville, at once boisterous and dream-like, and after an ominous orchestral War Interlude the dance-like Daughter of Asheville has a haunted quality which continues into the final setting of Stephen Vincent Benét’s positively spooky When Daniel Boone goes by night. The settings of the poems are continuous, and despite their contrasts they cohere into a most convincing unity. The excellent San Francisco chorus also distinguish themselves in the sympathetic setting of Poe’s Annabel Lee, scored for male voices only.

The Victorian Scenes, originally composed as independent a cappella pieces and only subsequently provided with accompaniments, are less satisfactory as a whole. The three settings of Housman (rather oddly described as a Victorian poet, when his first verse was not published until 1896, and his sensibility is so quintessentially Edwardian) tend to lack the sense of desolation that underpins the words. The Tennyson treatments work better, and Getty does make a real attempt in The splendour falls to convey the mysticism of the “horns of Elfland faintly blowing”. Mind you, in that poem he is up against formidable treatments of the same text from Delius and Britten; but his distinct and different approach is equally convincing. On the other hand in the added orchestral accompaniments, the over-closely observed church bells in Tennyson’s The time draws near sound positively alarming.

The settings of the Three Welsh folksongs are effective, if not conspicuously Celtic in tone. His rich treatment of Ar hyd y nos (rendered into English as All through the night) is probably the best of the three, with the approach of night casting a long heavily romantic shadow across the music. The Swedish choir, both here and in the Victorian Scenes, give not the slightest hint of a non-English accent.

The final item on the disc gives us a complete performance of the ‘Jerusalem’ scene of the death of Henry IV from Getty’s opera Plump Jack. This is particularly interesting, as the later recording of the ‘concert version’ of the opera on Pentatone omitted the first four minutes or so from the score, with the extensive narration of the defeat of the rebellion which precipitates the king’s collapse removed. Unfortunately hearing the relevant passage in this older recording does not leave any sense of regret at its later loss; the delivery of the text is very trenchant and recitative-like in tone, with some of Shakespeare’s text at its baldest and most bombastic. The latter part of the scene, on the other hand, is here given with considerably more dramatic involvement; and Vladimir Chernov as the King makes his death into a positive parallel of a Russian czar – “How I came by the crown, O God forgive” has all the overtones of a Boris Godunov as delivered here. Indeed the singing, despite some variable English accents, is generally more effective than on the later recording of the abridged version.

This is probably the most enjoyable of all the recordings I have encountered of Getty’s music and its reissue is therefore conspicuously welcome. The sound of the various forces and venues involved is well matched, and the presentation is excellent. Those who are tempted to belittle the composer’s abilities are recommended to hear Young America.

-- MusicWeb International

Pentatone presents a diverse range of world-class artists, and is dedicated to premium quality productions captured in exceptional sound. The label works together with today and tomorrow’s leading artists to provide timeless recordings of core, fringe, and lesser-known repertoire, with Pentatone’s uncompromising attention to the best possible quality in artistry, design and recording technology. In this series of recordings from the 2000s, conductor Kurt Masur and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig surveyed Beethoven's symphonies and overtures.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music

This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.



BEETHOVEN Symphonies: No. 5; No. 8 • Philippe Herreweghe, cond; Royal Flemish P • PENTATONE 5186 316 (Multichannel hybrid SACD: 54:16)


This disc represents Volume 2 of a set of the complete Beethoven symphonies currently in progress (the first volume, on the Talent label, included Symphonies 4 and 7 and was reviewed by Colin Anderson in 29:2). In a clumsily translated note Herreweghe refers to “nature” trumpets and “Baroque kettle drums with modern tuning”; these would appear to be the only concessions to period practice—by all accounts, the Royal Flemish orchestra employs modern instruments. This series would appear, then, to be comparable to the latest set conducted by Roger Norrington, with the orchestra of the Stuttgart Radio, on Hänssler.


Unlike Norrington, Herreweghe is unhampered by a tendency toward extreme tempos or self-conscious gestures. Though the tempos of the Fifth Symphony are analogous in swiftness to those of Benjamin Zander on his splendid Telarc recording, there is no sense of the kind of schizoid recklessness that marred Norrington’s Fifth, in which a furious first-movement exposition followed a more sensibly paced opening motto. What we hear instead is a superbly performed and exciting rendering of Beethoven’s war-horse. Orchestral execution is everything one could wish for, with crisp phrasing and spirited ensemble. The conducting illuminates the genius of the conception without in any way calling attention to itself.


In the slow movement, Herreweghe expertly conveys the sense of forward momentum without scrimping on the lyrical richness of Beethoven’s melodic invention. There is no sense of bombast in the triumphant finale, just a very satisfying feeling of rightness—for Beethoven’s creation and for this recreation of it. Herreweghe includes the first movement exposition repeat but follows Beethoven’s revision and eliminates the one in the Scherzo. The sound is resonant yet precise, antiphonal violins aiding in the natural balance. The listener’s perspective is intimate but not airless, allowing for atmosphere and impact. One interesting anomaly: the oboe extends the cadenza in the first movement recapitulation, replacing the one Beethoven wrote, but I found this to be an interesting and idiomatic gesture.


Herreweghe injects a muscular element, propelled by the timpani, into the Eighth Symphony, invigorating what has sometimes in the past been simply a lighthearted romp; there is lightness here, too, but the overall feeling is of vitality. Norrington, by contrast, tends to lurch through the first movement, so that whatever humor there is seems heavy-handed. The sound production he received possesses less resonant fullness than that on the PentaTone disc; strings, for one example, often sound thin and scrappy on the Hänssler CD.


The elegant little Allegretto, under Herreweghe’s hands, verges on the slightly pompous, while the third movement minuet becomes, for all intents and purposes, a scherzo, full of badly placed accents and miscues—all of which, in the words of annotator Tom Janssesns, “indicated that the Classical symphony now truly belonged to the past.” We are then propelled into the finale and its sprightly touches that clearly point to the future, and especially to Mendelssohn. Herreweghe and his Belgian colleagues dispatch the piece with panache.


This is a delightful and highly entertaining disc containing two fine performances of music that never sounds tired or routine. I look forward to the next installment with keen anticipation.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas , op. 10/1–3 • Mari Kodama (pn) • PENTATONE 5186 377 (SACD: 59:20)


This is the latest installment of a cycle-in-progress (though new to me) by Mari Kodama, a Japanese student of Nikolayeva and Brendel. Her playing is impressive in its refinement and control, if occasionally a little predictable. The three op. 10s make for a satisfying program, though they’re curiously presented in reverse order here (Beethoven’s own is more logical, with the biggest, most ambitious work placed last).


No. 1 in C Minor goes well, with few surprises. Kodama generally lets the outer movements speak for themselves—straight, incisive, dramatic, forceful, with effective lyrical contrasts. Tension is well maintained, with a convincing sense of real performance (vs. a recording-studio run-through). The Adagio is straightforward, perhaps to a fault—here I miss the imaginative flexibility and expressive depths others bring to the music (e.g., Schiff/ECM, Lewis/Harmonia Mundi, or the recently reviewed Ohlsson/Bridge and Ehlen/Azica). The recorded sound of her Steinway is rich, resonant, and close, but a little “plummy” for my taste, with a pronounced resonant overhang. Her playing is certainly not over-pedaled, but a real staccato articulation is in short supply.


This is a bigger drawback in the first movement of No. 2 in F where, for all the poise and polish, Beethoven’s numerous injunctions to very short articulations (e.g., at the beginning, bars 38 ff., and 47 ff.) are rarely effectively realized. The development has a slightly stolid feel (the second repeat is observed). The F-Minor Allegretto is taken slowly, to rather dour effect, with (for my taste) an insufficient variety of texture and attack; the Presto finale is kept well under control at a moderate tempo. In the last resort, I find this all a little too uneventful.


The big D Major receives the most consistently satisfying performance of the three. The opening Presto is richly varied, supple and sinuous, with an exciting surging momentum. The Largo e mesto is all dark, glinting marble, and in this instance the finale finds her relishing the music’s wide-ranging phrase and textural discontinuities.


So, a slightly mixed bag. But there’s much playing of real distinction here, and anyone wanting a high-quality version of the three op. 10s in state-of-the-art sound won’t go wrong. For the general collector, perhaps not a first choice (see alternatives mentioned above), but I’ll be keeping this in my collection, and can see returning to the first and third sonatas.


FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy


This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

"The orchestra is fine, its brass smooth, clean, deeply sonorous...the Pentatone SACD recording is clear and solid with exceptional dynamic range, and clean as a whistle...Janowski knows his Bruckner as well as anyone around." - American Record Guide

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Mikhail Pletnev is an artist whose genius as pianist, conductor and composer enchants and amazes audiences around the globe. His musicianship encompasses a dazzling technical power and provocative emotional range, and a searching interpretation that fuses instinct with intellect. Under his leadership, in a few short years the Russian National Orchestra achieved towering stature among the world's orchestras. They now present Tchaikovsky's stunning Symphony No. 1 and his Slavonic March, Op. 31.

"Pletnev is a most caring and thoughtful shaper of moods as the First Symphony shows. The playing is finely nuanced to match the strong balletic character. Indeed it made me think of Nutcracker more than once." - MusicWeb International, (Referring to original DG release now reissued on Pentatone.)

PentaTone presents the World Premiere recording of Gordon Getty's 'Plump Jack'. Following the pattern of literary inspiration in his song cycle 'White Election' which features the poetry of Emily Dickenson, Getty now uses as his muse Shakespeare's beloved character, Falstaff.

PentaTone continues the collaboration between Marek Janowski and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with the release of the 3rd Symphony of Anton Bruckner.

"Arghamanyan's playing is compulsive, emotional yet remarkably 'complete' for such a young musician – sensitive, unaffected, genuine." - Jessica Duchen, The Independent, U.K.

Performed by 2012 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient Conrad Tao, who was also included on Forbes' 30 Under 30: The Youngest Stars In The Music Business list (the only classical musician on the list!), this album comprises of works for piano solo composed by internationally acclaimed American composer Gordon Getty.

GETTY Usher House • Lawrence Foster, cond; Christian Elsner ( Poe ); Etienne Dupuis ( Roderick Usher ); Philip Ens ( Dr. Primus ); Lisa Delan ( Madeline Usher ); Gulbenkian O • PENTATONE 5186451(SACD: 67:05 Text and Translation)


I wanted to review this CD because I am enough of a Gordon Getty fan that I like to hear everything he has written, and I knew that this Poe story was famous for its atmosphere and that even Debussy was setting it to music when he died.


Imagine my surprise, then, to open the booklet and discover that Getty rewrote Poe’s story. The unnamed narrator/protagonist who visits Roderick Usher is now Poe himself. Roderick’s painful reaction to light and noise is downplayed. Madeline, who only appears in the hallway as a semi-ghostly apparition in the story, is now an “agent of redemption,” though she only moans and groans and doesn’t have any lines. The evil agent is now Dr. Primus, a character only spoken of (not by name) but never seen or heard in the Poe story.


Just so I could get a handle on this new adaptation, I went online and read Poe’s original story, which I had not seen before. As Getty points out, it is mostly mood: the first five of its 12 pages describe the bleakness and desolation of Usher house, its servants and inhabitants, before anything much ever happens. The original story’s plot is as follows:


The unnamed narrator rides on horseback to visit his old childhood friend Roderick Usher (no trains come near the place). Roderick is emaciated and nervous. Light of any kind annoys him, as well as sounds, with the sole exception of his own guitar playing, to which he accompanies himself with rotten old poems sung to his own made-up melodies. Apparently the House of Usher is somewhat but not entirely inbred, and both Roddy and his sister Madeline (fraternal twins) are the sole surviving heirs. Maddy, too, suffers from the nervous disorder, but not being as strong as Roddy her end seems a bit closer. The narrator only sees Maddy once, walking through the hallway. A few days later, and Roddy announces her demise. He has her placed in a coffin in the basement but doesn’t want to embalm or bury her right away, as he feels the family quack might be able to perform an autopsy and discover the cause of the nervous condition. A few days later, a dark and terrible storm engulfs the house. The narrator/Poe tries to calm Roddy down by reading him a story about a knight named Ethelred who barges into the domain of an old hermit, who appears to be protected by a dragon on his doorstep. Every noise mentioned in the story—the clang of sword on breastplate and the death throes of the dragon—seems to be heard by him from somewhere inside the house. Eventually Roddy tells the narrator that they had accidentally buried Maddy alive, that he has heard her trying to get out of the basement for a few days but that he didn’t have the nerve to go down and let her out. She finally appears at the doorway, bloody and emaciated, and falls on her brother before expiring. The shock makes Roddy expire too. Bye-bye to the House of Usher.


Aside from the plot changes, Usher House is now more than just a place where dusty old people read dusty old books. It has now become a repository of learning, a place where the family has “brought together tracts, monographs, manuscripts of the greatest interest and rarity,” with pride of place belonging “to our mediaeval archives….The whole house is designed for learning.” This is, indeed, a major change from the original story.


Unlike Plump Jack, Getty’s music here can stand on its own as a listening experience without the need to see the action. It is tonal but not “obviously” melodic; as the late Moondog (Louis Hardin) might have said, “I am considered avant-garde in rhythm but old-fashioned in harmony,” but Getty uses neighboring tonalities in a very creative manner, whereas Moondog did not. Moreover, the music morphs and develops in interesting ways.


Elsner, the tenor singing Poe, has a nice timbre but a persistent wobble, and his diction is only intermittently clear. Dupuis, our Usher, has a more solid voice but only slightly clearer diction. Both, however, present their characters well and they are fine musicians. There is a certain strophic character about the sung lines in the first scene, and the orchestration is exceedingly clever, supporting the voices or commenting on the drama in turn. When Roderick suggests having a ball, for instance, the rhythm changes to 3/4 time and a quirky waltz melody arises; when he talks of the landscape around the house as being desolate, the orchestra reflects this in both its melodic and timbral treatment. This sort of thing continues throughout the opera, the sign of an assured composer who understands his art and knows exactly how to morph and change the music, not only in such a way that it supports or echoes the drama but also to keep the listener on the edge of the seat. This is first-class music.


Then comes the first of several major deviations from Poe: Roderick refers to a book called Exon Domesday which is not in the original story. In this book, King Edward the Confessor ordered that Usher House be destroyed “stone from stone, and the stones cast in Usher Tarn.” Roderick’s father bought back the land, drained it, exhumed the stones, and brought them over to America to rebuild the house. (This does, however, seem like a lot of work when you could buy limestone cheaper over here. I doubt if there was any intuitive “learning” in the original stones.) Nevertheless, Getty’s ability to set text to music is indeed remarkable. Absolutely none of the libretto is written in what one would call musical meters, no rhyming or other poetic devices are consciously used, yet the music has a wonderful lilt to it that carries the words with perfect equanimity.


The mood changes of the orchestra continue as Madeline is introduced: a lighter, headier sound, created by a few high percussion instruments such as a glockenspiel. Dr. Primus insists that Madeleine take her medicine, as “She is getting so much better.” Shades of Dr. Miracle from Les Contes d’Hoffmann ! Poe then sings a song that he recalls Roddy having written and Maddy having sung when they were children at school. The song has exactly the kind of odd, quirky sound that one might expect a modern composer to use to re-imagine Renaissance music. (This song is recorded with the tenor at a bit of a distance and in an echo chamber; not too surprisingly, the wobble dissipates somewhat at a distance, and Elsner sings a lovely pianissimo high G that floats beautifully.)


And here is where Getty ties in his fictional doctor with Usher’s fictional “medical archives:” Roderick firmly believes that these ancient books will help the doctor cure her of her illness. (Apparently, no one ever told him how pathetic and ignorant the medical profession was back in the bad old alchemy days.) Yet almost immediately after saying this, he begs Poe to leave the next morning and take Maddy with him to put into a clinic, surrounded by “the best doctors,” which Roddy will pay for. Suddenly, the attendant (a speaking role) introduces the “guests” for the ball, Roderick’s relatives and ancestors. When Maddy enters, the guests shrink from her presence as “vampires from a crucifix.” The music then rises to a loud and rather grotesque dance rhythm for a short bit before settling back into a minuet. This minuet then becomes grotesque as Madeline dances, dazed, and then falls. Dr. Primus indicates that she is dead; Roddy collapses in grief, and Poe comforts him.


The next scene, then, represents a clean break in time and mood from the previous portion of the opera. Maddy is being buried in the family crypt; the coffin is sealed as the mourners leave. Dr. Primus suggests that since the line of Ushers seems to be coming to an end, Poe might wish to join them in the observatory (non-existent in the original story) the following night to discuss who might take the valuable collection of knowledge in the house. Oddly enough, by this point in the recording, Elsner’s voice has become firmer and less wobbly—probably a different day of recording.


The next scene is in the observatory. Philip Ens, the singer performing Dr. Primus, is a well-known bass specializing in modern music who has performed at the Metropolitan Opera (Tiresias in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, among other roles), but his voice has picked up a loose vibrato by the time of this recording. Dr. Primus tells Poe that much of the knowledge housed by the Ushers was real knowledge of the kind opposed by Roman law and then by the Catholic Church, that Madeline refused to learn it, but that he (Primus) wishes to pass it on lest it be lost forever. The suggestion is, then, very strong, that Poe is the one to continue the knowledge of Usher House. Primus suggests that they meet again in three nights, when the “haze of miasma that rises from the tarn and enfolds this house” will be lifted at that time by an “illumination” that will come with a storm.


Poe and Roderick are in the latter’s apartments three nights later. Poe confesses to Roddy that Primus wants to make him heir to the Usher knowledge. Roderick says that he expected as much, but warns him to beware of Primus. Poe tells Roderick what Primus told him, of the storm and the illumination. Roderick mentions that this is All-Hallows’ Eve (again, a detail different from the original story). Roderick suggests that “Dr. Primus” is an ancient ancestor of his, who must find a vessel to continue “the covenant with the Elders” made 14 centuries earlier. And Roderick also suggests that there is another dread, something frightful, that he fears, and has obsessed him for hours, but he cannot put it all into words. Poe offers to withdraw, but Roddy begs him to stay, to see it through and help him if he can. And, yes, Poe reads the “Mad Tryst” of Sir Launcelot Channing and his knight Ethelred, as in the original story. The sounds described elsewhere are heard, and intrude on their mood, but Roderick has a different explanation for them. In this version, Primus has confronted Madeline in the armory below, but the sister—who, as in the original story, was not yet dead—has thrown him aside “like an empty sack,” thus destroying the evil of Primus and the elders. (At long last, the voice of Madeline is heard, singing a wordless line or two from far away.) Eventually, Madeline appears at the doorway of the parlor, runs to Roderick, embraces him, and they both fall dead. According to the libretto’s instructions, “The house is heard more than seen to collapse … in the darkness except for quick flashes of light.” Poe then returns to the role of narrator, saying that he “fled aghast” from that chamber and the mansion. Usher House is done with.


While Getty’s rewriting of this fictional story for dramatic purposes is imaginative and creative, my personal feeling is that an already somewhat incredulous tale has been taken to the level of Gothic fiction, of undead ancestors and “forces of evil” that border on vampire and ghoul stories. Yet the opera is highly entertaining, and I was entranced by Getty’s spectacular ability to create such a wonderful atmosphere and sustain it for 67 minutes. This is a real tour de force, certainly the best and most sustained musical creation of his I have heard, and as such I recommend your listening to it.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Mari Kodama concludes her Beethoven sonata cycle with two of the composer’s most challenging works from both technical and interpretive standpoints. Happily, Op. 101 finds her in top pianistic and musical fettle. Following an eloquent and easily flowing first movement, Kodama navigates the Scherzo’s obsessive march rhythms, tricky balances, and difficult-to-articulate trills with impressive clarity, poise, and drama, and brings similar qualities to the knotty fugal finale.

For all of her proficient finger work in the “Hammerklavier” sonata’s first movement, Kodama tends to round off phrases, play down accents, and soften dynamic extremes. Her smooth and careful dispatch of the Scherzo Trio’s upward F major scales robs this gesture of its climactic impact. At the end of the movement the main theme briefly appears in the remote key of B minor, and by underlining it with an unsubtle ritard Kodama misjudges this effect’s sense of deadpan surprise. In Kodama’s hands the slow movement seems more of an Andante con moto than Beethoven’s Adagio sostenuto, although her nuanced handling of the right hand’s elaborate singing lines saves the day.

In the fourth movement’s opening Largo, Kodama imposes a gratuitous and dramatically ineffective ritard in the brief G-sharp minor contrapuntal outburst, and she begins the gradually accelerating syncopated chords leading into the fugue too quickly. The fugue itself begins in a crisp, characterfully light manner, yet Kodama’s basic tempo slightly decreases over time and her articulation becomes more generalized as the music grows in textural complexity (a tendency with most pianists in this movement, to be fair). In other words, more daring, leonine “Hammerklavier” performances of recent vintage by Georg Friedrich Schenck and Stewart Goodyear hold stronger appeal. No question, however, that Kodama’s outstanding Op. 101 is one of her cycle’s high points, and the sonics (in both multi-channel and conventional stereo playback modes) match the superb consistency distinguishing this series’ eight previous volumes.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Violinist Arabella Steinbacher and pianist Robert Kulek continue their vital collaboration together with a new Pentatone release: César Franck’s Sonata for Piano and Violin in A coupled with Richard Strauss’ Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat, Op. 18. While Franck’s violin sonata is epic in character, Strauss’ work is full of jovial energy, hope and anticipation, a stimulating fusion of elements for these musicians. Both artists possess superb technique. Ms. Steinbacher often demonstrates a delicate yet fiery touch in her playing, while Mr. Kulek’s resolute intonation, steadfast tempi and broad dynamics are his trademarks. As has often been heard in their recital performances, this synergistic duo is a partnership of equals at the service of the music they play.

Arghamanyan is not the first Armenian to offer a more thoughtful approach to Khachaturian's music than the usual fireworks display. The result, though, is all the more striking in this, the first and fieriest of his concertos. Arghamanyan's characterful yet non-idiosyncratic reading may be enthusiastically endorsed. She captures that protean work's playful classicism and its mournful ruminative side.

– BBC Music Magazine

“Arghamanyan's playing is compulsive, emotional yet remarkably "complete" for such a young musician – sensitive, unaffected, genuine.” -- Jessica Duchen, The Independent [10/2011]

“Nareh Arghamanyan impressed with wonderfully sparkling articulation, imaginative dynamic shaping and a convincing dialogue between bass and melody. -- Thomas Schacher, Neue Zürcher Zeitung [10/2011]

“Arghamanyan’s utter confidence in her technique allowed the work to bloom fully, and it was unquestionably the most thrilling and fluid Islamey I’ve ever heard played live.”-- Ken Iisaka, San Francisco Classical Voice [3/2012]

“It’s encouraging to hear a young pianist who plays with a distinctive personality and technique to burn, handles soft lyrical passages, and has an intuitive feel for flexibility and rubato playing that suggest that Romantic piano playing may not yet be dead.” -- James C.S. Liu, Boston Musical Intelligencer [10/2012]

Recorded in January 2014 in the grand acoustical environment of St. Joseph Cathedral in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, by Grammy Award-winning producer Blanton Alspaugh of Soundmirror, this recording once again testifies the stature of South Dakota Chorale as a first-rate ensemble that delivers no less than sublime choral performances.

Sacred Songs of Life and Love features some of the most beautiful works in contemporary Scandinavian and Baltic choral music, including Arvo Pärt’s Sieben Magnificat Antiphonen, selections from Kunt Nystedt’s Prayers of Kierkegaard, Sven-David Sandström’s Four Songs of Love and Algirdas Martinaitis’ Alleluia.

Review:

The South Dakota Chorale are more than well suited to this full-bodied repertoire. They address the common lyricism of the music through a warmth of sound and sonority that is not only notably varied in tone and color but which is all but perfect in blend, ensemble and intonation.

– Gramophone

Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev Is One of the Most Widely Performed of All Living Russian Composers. Each of His New Compositions Constitutes a Milestone in Contemporary Musical History. His Ability to Imbue Music with Profound Religious Content, to Unite Diverse Cultures and Styles, to Invent New Ways of Musical Expression While Remaining Faithful to the Centuries-Old Classical Tradition, and to Utter Most Profound Themes Using a Simple and Comprehensible Musical Language, Singles Him Out Among Present-Day Composers. His Most Widely Performed Work, the St Matthew Passion (2006) Has Received Worldwide Recognition. Since It's 2007 Moscow Premiere, It Has Received More Than 70 Performances in Different Countries By the Most Distinguished Soloists, Choirs and Orchestras, Garnering Standing Ovations at Every Concert. This SACD Features Five Works By Metropolitan Hilarion Produced Over a Thirty-Year Period, Performed By the Russian National Orchestra, the First Russian Ensemble Ever to Take Home a Grammy.