The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra lives up to its reputation for its brilliant Mahler performances and surpasses all expectations under the baton of conductor Marc Albrecht. And Elizabeth Watts’ performance in the final movement is surely one not to be missed. The chemistry between Watts and the orchestra is utterly pervasive. With a voice described by International Record Review as “one of the most beautiful Britain has produced in a generation”, Watts sweeps the listener off their feet with this sunny, accessible symphony from Mahler.

Review:

This is a lovely performance–sensitive, very well played, shapely and effortless. Conductor Marc Albrecht makes his points without exaggeration, revealing personal touches in his care for proper observance of Mahler’s dynamics and his concern for textural clarity. Yet the big climaxes in the first movement and Adagio have plenty of impact, and in soprano Elizabeth Watts we have one of the best singers set loose on the tricky finale in many a moon.

This being Mahler, of course, there will always be a criticism here and there. The trio sections of the scherzo might just be a touch too relaxed, and Albrecht’s fondness for portamento could well strike some listeners as excessive, particularly in the Adagio, but these are quibbles. I am less happy with the sonics, which are quite impressive when the music is loud, but lack body at lower dynamic levels, even with the substantial boost in the volume. Still, this small reservation could very easily be a non-issue on your own sound system.

Holland being “Mahler central” some of the idiomatic response to the music was to be expected, but that doesn’t do anything to diminish Albrecht’s sympathetic handling of the score overall. A winner.

- ClassicsToday

The 1980 Deutsche Grammophon debut of violinist Shlomo Mintz re-issued on Pentatone’s Remastered Classics series, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado. Mintz then still in the fresh bloom of both critical and popular acclaim chose his program well in this debut featuring the penultimate pieces in Romantic era violin repertory: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, and Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Inescapably an essential musical snapshot which contains impassioned playing giving freshness to these much performed pieces. Originally recorded in quadraphonic sound.

Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6 in D major was composed for the Vienna Philharmonic, and dedicated to its principal conductor at the time, Hans Richter. Following the Symphony No. 6, this programme includes Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance Op. 72, No. 3, and Slavonic Dance Op. 46, No. 8. Performing these outstanding works is the Houston Symphony, conducted by Andres Orozco-Estrada. Colombian violinist and conductor Andres Orozco-Estrada began taking conducting classes in 1992, and in 1997 he began studying conducting at the Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien, under such teachers as Uros Lajovic. He has been Music Director of the Houston Symphony since 2014.

REVIEW:

Orozco-Estrada and his musicians play with great warmth and energy, and this live multichannel recording brings out all the rich colors and textures of Dvorák’s symphonic score. The two Slavonic Dances are welcome choices for their close thematic resemblance to the symphony and jubilant feeling, bringing the program of this hybrid SACD to a lively close.

-- AllMusic.com (Blair Sanderson)

On this remarkable recording, Out of the Shadows: Rediscovered American Art Songs, a century’s worth of treasures emerge from the shadows of both memory and history. The discovery of these songs began years ago, when soprano Lisa Delan was a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her teachers, some of whom were contemporaries of the composers, recognized the artistic value of several of these works. Knowing that Ms. Delan would imbue them with special interpretive qualities, they presented her with copies of some of the music now on this disc. She decided to go further, to discover additional Americana—a kind of musical excavation that would bring to light and to life a body of art songs that deserved to be better known. Mined from extensive research, the gems on this CD are priceless additions to the art song genre. They form a compelling body of literature that, until now, has been underrepresented or completely unrepresented on recordings. These songs honor the universality of the human experience—love, loss, faith, joy, sadness, nostalgia—in uniquely American settings. The spirit, pragmatism and romanticism of a country born in revolution and maturing in reason and hopefulness is evident in these works. It’s all here, in 31 songs by ten composers. The tonal palette of each of these composers reveals a singular style, in hues rich, varied and distinctively American.

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

Thrilling flights of fancy abound from violinist Arabella Steinbacher in Fantasies, Rhapsodies and Daydreams Spectacular virtuoso playing, bravura passagework and show-stopping melodies are balanced with wistful lyricism and sublime tone painting in this irresistible programme of perennial favourites, played with elan by the violinist Arabella Steinbacher with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, conducted by Lawrence Foster in this new release from Pentatone.

From the high jinks and outrageous showmanship of Franz Waxman's Carmen Fantasie and Pablo de Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, to the fearsome technical demands of Ravel's Tzigane and the exquisite refinement of Saint-Saens' Havanaise and Introduction et Rondo capriccioso, this album harks back to an earlier era of violin playing.

REVIEW:

Were someone to ask me to suggest a disc to introduce them to the violin, I might well steer them in the direction of this one. I rather like the way she pushes on in the central section of The Lark Ascending, and it cleverly elides into the beginning of Saint-Saens's Havanaise. This, the Introduction and Rondo capriccio, and Ravel's Tzigane are given excellent performances. The standout performance comes with the Meditation from Massanet's Thais, done with breathtaking beauty, a turn-on for any newcomer to the violin.

– Gramophone

Matt Haimovitz’s continuously-evolving and intense engagement with the Bach Cello Suites reaches a new zenith with Overtures to Bach, six new commissions that anticipate and reflect each of the cello suites. The new overtures expand upon the multitude of spiritual, cross-cultural, and vernacular references found in the Bach, building a bridge from the master’s time to our own. The solo cello recital has been a Haimovitz trademark since the year 2000, when he made waves with his Bach “Listening-Room” Tour, in unconventional venues throughout the US. In the fall of 2015, he released his profound new interpretation of the Bach Suites, The Cello Suites According to Anna Magdalena, inspired and informed by an authoritative manuscript by Bach’s second wife, and performed on period instruments.

The new album, Overtures to Bach, pairs each new work with the Prélude from the suite it introduces, with Haimovitz performing on cello and cello piccolo. Philip Glass simply and eloquently prepares the audience for the first Suite with his Overture, encouraging an open and calm frame of mind. For the second suite, Du Yun creates a heartbreaking quilt of cries in The Veronica, mingling a Russian Orthodox prayer for the dead, Serbian chant, and central European gypsy fiddle music. Vijay Iyer’s Run responds to Bach’s third suite with infectious energy and kinesthetic rhythms that celebrate the natural resonance of the instrument as well as the composer’s jazz roots. Then, Roberto Sierra’s La memoria plays on our memory of Bach's Suite IV, seamlessly referencing motivic fragments and creating a kaleidoscopic mirage with the exotic flavors of Caribbean bass lines and salsa rhythms. David Sanford’s Es War, a response to the fifth suite, opens with a tour de force of pizzicato, then wrestles with Bach’s epic fugue with a saxophone’s wails. For the sixth and final suite, Luna Pearl Woolf is inspired by pre-Western Hawaiian chant, taking full advantage of the virtuosic properties of the cello piccolo and treating it operatically, from the low bass to the soprano stratosphere.

Overtures to Bach spans more than time, linking us to far-flung corners of our musical world and offering an entrée into six distinct compositional voices. Then, as Philip Glass writes, “Just let Bach’s music begin. It’s there for the listening.”

The celebrated young Colombian maestro Andres Orozco-Estrada continues his critically acclaimed series of recordings for Pentatone with this release of the evocative tone poems Macbeth and Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss, performed here with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. These gripping works, with their intricate scoring and compelling narratives, are orchestral tours de force, demonstrating Strauss's gift for filling a huge orchestral canvas with vivd and exquisite details while maintaining a sense of drama. And they are stunningly brought to life in this recording with Pentatone's state of the art multi-channel surround sound. Strauss's brooding tone poem Macbeth is a psychological portait of the main protagonists in the play, the insecure and vacillating Macbeth and his wife, the ambitious but deranged Lady Macbeth. Strauss's often highly charged score suggests the mounting horror and dread of the ill-fated couple and their domestic unease, the work ending on a sombre ntoe following their deaths and the triumphal march of Macduff. In Strauss's striking and florid masterpiece Ein Heldenleben, there's little doubt who the real hero is but Strauss himself. While he was roundly mocked at the time for his audacity, there's also little doubt that this bold and dramatic tone poem is no mere cornucopia of orchestral effects - it's a life-affirming work which ends not in a triumphal blaze, but in a mood of quiet resignation.

With Serenade, Thomas Hampson's first album exclusively dedicated to French song, Mr. Hampson brings his passion for works by French opera composers to the PENTATONE label. Curated with the French Literature scholar Sylvain Fort and in a first collaboration with the Polish pianist Maciej Pikulski, the track listing includes romantic and introspective as well as humorous selections by Bizet, Chabrier, Chausson, Gounod, Magnard, Massenet, and Saint-Saëns, featuring texts written by some of France's most revered writers including Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, Rosemonde Gerard, and others.

REVIEW:

There are many byways through the well-stocked garden of French song for those who want to explore further afield. Thomas Hampson has put together an imaginative programme that places just a handful of well-known songs along its path, including Chabrier’s jolly parade of ducklings in “Villanelle des petits canards” and Chausson’s hothouse “Le temps des lilas."

-- Financial Times (U.K.)

Having demonstrated their musical excellence with three well-received recordings on PENTATONE of orchestral works of Antonin Dvorák, Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada now present an album that comes closer to their cultural roots than ever before. Dance rhythms, jazzy harmonies, bright colors, city sounds; everything one associates with The Americas can be heard on this recording. With George Gershwin’s 1928 piece An American in Paris, Silvestre Revueltas’s Sensemayá (1938), Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961) and Ástor Piazzolla’s Tangazo (1970), it brings together composers from across the twentieth century, all connected by their belonging to the Americas. Moreover, all of these composers reconfigured the barriers between classical and popular music, combining them to produce a sound that illustrates their home region. In choosing these particular works, Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada have aimed not to cover the entire continent but rather to provide ‘impressions’ of America and to ‘illuminate’ as many colors in the music as possible.

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REVIEW:

What a nice disc from Pentatone. All the works here are well played by the Houstonians, under the baton of the orchetra's music director. The recording is a fine one. Microphones are well placed giving an in-the-hall listener perspective. Surrounds are used for ambiance, and they successfully recreate the sound of a live orchestra.

– Audiophile Audition

This album contains a selection of solo cantatas, both secular and sacred, from the Italian, German, and English traditions. Including works by Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach in settings large and small, with obbligato instruments ranging from oboe to chimes, the magnificent cantatas on this album create a portrait of this intimately transcendent repertoire. With ‘Cantata; yet can I hear…,’ the American countertenor Bejun Mehta releases his first album on Pentatone. Hailed as “arguably the best countertenor in the world today” by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Mehta here joins forces with the players of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, one of the most renowned early music ensembles of today. Mehta writes: “This is by far the most personal recording I have ever made. Unlike Lieder, which as miniatures often work their magic in impressionistic ways, or opera, which unleashes human passions to their largest and most raw expression, solo cantatas lie in the middle and take the singer on a highly specific conversation with himself as he grapples with the subject at hand.”

Exuberant high spirits, pulsating rhythms and breathless virtuosity jostle with urbane sophistication and deeply felt sentiment in these scintillating jazz-inspired concertos by Maurice Ravel and George Gershwin, played with élan by Denis Kozhukhin and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Kazuki Yamada in this new release from Pentatone. A sparkling divertissement with witty orchestration and sizzling virtuosity, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major is and one of his best-loved works thanks to its impeccable style, dashing humor, and its hauntingly beautiful slow movement. In a change of mood, Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major is a darkly hued, powerful work with a heroic grandeur realised in a fearsomely difficult piano part that traverses the keyboard to dazzling effect. And Tin Pan Alley beckons with Gershwin’s breezily confident and polished Piano Concerto in F major. With an inventive score that artfully combines jazz elements, heart on sleeve melodies and brilliant pianistics, the result is irresistible.

Transfigured Night brings together two outstanding composers associated with Vienna: Joseph Haydn and Arnold Schoenberg. The former is often seen as the oldest representative of the “First Viennese School”, whereas the latter founded the “Second Viennese School”, using the classicism of his predecessors to explore new, atonal musical paths into the twentieth century. By combining Haydn’s two cello concertos (in C-major and D-major) and Schoenberg’s symphonic poem Verklärte Nacht – in the 1943 edition for string orchestra – this album sheds a new, fascinating light on both Viennese masters. The connection between the stylistically contrasting pieces on this album is further enhanced by the inspired playing of American cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the Trondheim Soloists. For Weilerstein, this album is not only a fascinating exploration of the rich Viennese musical heritage, but just as much a confrontation with the dark history of a city her grandparents had to flee in 1938. Transfigured Night is Weilerstein’s first album as an exclusive PENTATONE artist, as well as the first album recorded with the Trondheim Soloists since her appointment as Artistic Partner of the ensemble in 2017.

REVIEW:

You’d go far to find performances of the Haydn concertos that match Alisa Weilerstein’s mix of stylistic sensitivity, verve, and spontaneous delight in discovery, and for a performance of the Schoenberg that combines chamber-musical intimacy, transparency of detail, and urgent human expressiveness, you won’t do better than this.

– Gramophone

Stravinsky’s Perséphone (1934) is a dynamic music-theatrical narration of the myth of Persephone’s abduction to the underworld and return to earth. The transparent, sober but evocative music epitomizes Stravinsky’s sensuous take on Neoclassicism, and the piece showcases Stravinsky’s eclectic, original and highly personal approach to music and musical drama through a playful mixture of several genres – melodrama, song, chorus, dance and pantomime. Ultimately, Perséphone offers Stravinsky’s second ode to spring, albeit without the brutal excesses of Le Sacre. This album was recorded live during the Helsinki Festival 2017 with a star cast featuring English tenor Andrew Staples and French actress Pauline Cheviller. They join forces with the Finnish National Opera’s chorus, children’s chorus and orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, in a breath-taking performance that lifts out the piece’s transformative power.

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REVIEW:

Radiant beauty is not a quality that is automatically associated with Stravinsky’s music. But in Perséphone he composed one of the most radiant and lyrically beautiful scores to be found anywhere in 20th-century music. It’s one of his greatest achievements. It's a beautifully modulated performance; nothing is forced, and all the elements, sung, played, and spoken, are well and carefully integrated.

– Guardian (UK)

This album features cello concertos by Witold Lutoslawski and Henri Dutilleux performed by the multiple prize-winning German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, conducted by Thomas Søndergård. These works, premiered in 1970, are two of the biggest gems of the twentieth century, the golden age of the cello. While equally virtuosic and engaging, both pieces showcase different aspects of the musical landscape of the late twentieth century. Lutoslawski’s concerto explores the possibilities of chance composition in the form of a duel between the solo cello and a ferocious orchestral accompaniment, in which the individual ultimately prevails. In comparison, soloist and ensemble work together more smoothly in Henri Dutilleux’ “Tout un monde lontain”. In this “cello concerto”, the composer invokes a mystical “world from afar”, inspired by Baudelaire quotes and full of allusions to French musical greats such as Debussy and Messiaen, while simultaneously sounding unmistakably Dutilleuxian. This is Moser’s fourth album as an exclusive PENTATONE artist, after releases with the cello concertos of Dvorak and Lalo (2015), Elgar and Tchaikovsky (2017) and works for cello and piano by Rachmaninov and Prokofiev (2016, awarded with a diapason d’or and ECHO Klassik 2017). The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin has an even longer track record with PENTATONE, including albums with Vladimir Jurowski (Mahler/Strauss 2017, Schnittke 2015) Jakub Hruša (Bartók/Kodály 2018) and Marek Janowski (complete Wagner operas, 2011-2013).

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REVIEWS:

Playing with depth and naturalness but above all a sense of theatre, Moser shapes an animated performance of the Lutoslawski, together with Thomas Søndergård and the Berlin orchestra. With its allusion to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lontain is perhaps more mystical, and Moser allows it to unfold with hypnotic beauty.

– BBC Music Magazine

Moser maintains a keen focus over the eventful trajectory of the Lutoslawski. Many performances rather lose momentum in the Cantilena but Moser neither falters nor sells short this music’s rapt eloquence. In the Dutilleux, Moser eschews any emotional uniformity. Throughout both works, Thomas Søndergård propels the music forwards with a real sense for their vastly different yet equally inevitable destinations.

– Gramophone

Love is a rollercoaster, and so is this swinging new take on Virgil’s classical tragedy. Dido & Aeneazz is a recomposition of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas by Raaf Hekkema, combined with newly-composed music arranged by Eric Vloeimans. The album showcases the congenial collaboration between the versatile reed players of Calefax and renowned trumpet player Eric Vloeimans. Dido & Aeneazz invites the listener to join a musical journey that virtuously flows from the baroque original to jazz, calypso and klezmer, and back. Acclaimed in the Netherlands and abroad, the members of Calefax arguably invented a completely new genre: the reed quintet. After their successful PENTATONE debut with Hidden Gems, these gentlemen add yet another treasure to their discography.

The Calder Quartet invites you on a journey from early to late Beethoven, passing through an exciting contemporary piece by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg along the way. Beethoven’s Op. 131 string quartet, that concludes this album, is already a great adventure in its own right, with its seven movements full of fugal writing, harmonic explorations, variations and passages filled with operatic drama. Hearing this late masterpiece together with the much more classical, but equally lively, Op. 18 no. 3 quartet opens our ears to the exceptional richness of Beethoven’s musical universe. Hillborg’s Kongsgaard Variations reveals unexpected sonic relationships to Beethoven’s variation technique, underlining the modernity of the older composer. This all leads to a program that is lively, layered and ravishingly beautiful. Hailed as one of the most exciting classical music groups of the United States, the Calder Quartet now presents the first fruit of its exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE.

Tchaikovsky has dedicated some of his finest music to the violin, but this new album expands the instrument’s repertoire even further. Inspired by greats such as Sarasate, Heifetz, Kreisler and Joachim, violinist Guy Braunstein reanimates a tradition of violin and orchestra rhapsodies with new arrangements of famous excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Swan Lake. Together with the extraordinary Violin Concerto, Valse Scherzo and Sérénade mélancolique, they constitute a collection of glittering Tchaikovsky Treasures. On this first PENTATONE album, Braunstein plays with the renowned BBC Symphony Orchestra, led by maestro Kirill Karabits. Violinist Guy Braunstein was born in Tel Aviv and studied under the guidance of Chaim Taub and later in New York with Glenn Dicterow and Pinchas Zuckerman. He started performing as an international soloist and a chamber musician at a young age and has since performed with many of the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. His chamber music collaborations have included projects with Issac Stern, András Schiff, Zubin Mehta, Maurizio Pollini, Yefim Bronfman, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Mitsuko Uchida and Angelika Kirschlager to name a few. He was the youngest person ever to be appointed concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2000, a position he held for twelve years before leaving to pursue his solo career.

On her first Pentatone album, Czech star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená returns to the baroque repertoire that launched her early career. Il giardino dei sospiri is a collection of scenes from secular cantatas on tragic love, ranging from Handel’s Qual ti riveggio to new editions of works by Leo (Angelica e Medoro), Marcello (Arianna abbandonata) and Gasparini (Atalia). These vocal works are connected through instrumental pieces by Handel (sinfonia of Agrippina), Vinci (sinfonia from Maria dolorata) and Sarro (introduzione from Didone abbandonata). Initially conceived as a scenic project, Il giardino dei sospiri offers a richly-faceted and profoundly moving aural drama. Kožená interprets the tragic heroines of these love stories with fervor, accompanied by Václav Luks and Collegium 1704.

American star tenor Michael Fabiano presents a spectacular set of scenes taken from late Donizetti and middle Verdi operas, revealing the strong ties between these two composers. The album documents a paradigmatic shift in Italian opera, from the beautiful lines and crispness of belcanto to a richer, more dramatic musical universe. The historical line stretches from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Poliuto and Maria di Rohan to mature Verdi operas such as Rigoletto and Un ballo in maschera. In many cases, Fabiano has selected original, rarely-heard versions, including the thunderous ‘Qual sangue sparsi’ from the original St. Petersburg edition of La Forza del Destino. Together, these arias and scenes constitute a world full of heartfelt tenderness and fire-laden drama. After numerous successes on the opera stage, this is Michael Fabiano’s debut album on PENTATONE. He is accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and London Voices, conducted by Enrique Mazzola.

REVIEW:

Fabiano is at his best in those great Verdian oaths of vengeance such as ‘Sprezzo la vita’ from Ernani. For complicated reasons it is usually cut in performance, but Fabiano shows us just what we are missing as his lashing phrases unite with the fervent crowd (sung by the London Voices) and the brilliant, searing sounds of the London Philharmonic Orchestra…Still, what happens on a recording is of course only half the story: Fabiano’s acclaimed impact on stage needs to be experienced in the theatre.

– BBC Music Magazine

On his new solo album, Russian star pianist Denis Kozhukhin presents a personal and colourful collection of character pieces taken from Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte and Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. Combing these miniature gems by two outstanding poets of music, Kozhukhin provides a shining example of how disarmingly touching and penetrating a simple song or a vision of nature captured in sound can be. The programme features classics such as Mendelssohn’s Venetian Gondola Song and Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, as well as less famous but equally enchanting pieces. Kozhukhin lifts out the noble simplicity of these works with his delicate playing. Denis Kozhukhin has established himself as one of the greatest pianists of his generation. He now presents the fifth chapter to his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after albums with the piano concertos of Grieg and Tchaikovsky (2016), Brahms Ballades and Fantasies (2017), Ravel and Gershwin piano concertos, as well as Richard Strauss’ Burleske (both 2018).

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REVIEW:

Once in a while a piano recording comes along that really plucks at the heart-strings. Denis Kozhukhin's compilation of miniatures by Mendelssohn and Grieg is one such. He brings to the table a perfect balance between spontaneity and control, teamed with infinite variety of touch and timbre. Every phrase is imbued with sensitivity and luminous beauty.

– Gramophone

An American Song Album is a fine collection of songs by American composers, presented by soprano Melody Moore. The repertoire includes Samuel Barber’s introspective Hermit Songs, Jake Heggie’s engaged cycles These Strangers and How Well I Knew the Light, Carlisle Floyd’s exploration of motherhood in The Mystery, Copland’s impressionist and oriental Four Early Songs, as well as a varied selection from Gordon Getty’s vocal works. Set to Irish, Welsh, Chilean, German, Arabic and Afro-American poetry, these pieces constitute a panorama of the US as a melting pot of cultures, while simultaneously being bound together by an unmistakably American sound. Melody Moore manages to lift out the poetry of these works with her warm, lyrical voice and impeccable vocal technique. She is accompanied on the piano by Bradley Moore, one of the most eminent conductors and song accompanists of today’s American musical scene. With her first solo album, Melody Moore continues her PENTATONE discography that already features recordings of leading roles in Gordon Getty’s Plump Jack (2012) and The Little Match Girl (2015), as well as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello (2017).

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REVIEWS:

Melody Moore’s ‘An American Song Album’ feels personal and custom-made for her ample lirico spinto instrument. And that’s always a good place to start. She can thunder darkly, she can float, she can spin – she has the full expressive armoury. But, more importantly, the choices here plainly mean something to her and there’s no mistaking the high level of engagement that sets the best of them apart.

– Gramophone

The highlight of the disc for me is Carlisle Floyd’s The Mystery, subtitled “Five Songs of Motherhood.” Moore’s voice soars through this quite demanding cycle. Her clear high notes are produced without any sense of strain, and there are lovely floated pianissimos as well. She conveys the full breadth of feelings contained in The Mystery—passion, tenderness, elation, and love. Floyd’s 18-minute cycle is, in my view, a significant work that should have found a place of greater prominence in recitals by American singers. It might be seen as a modern American successor to Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben, and it would be interesting to pair the two on a program. Perhaps this exquisite recording will help rectify the situation.

– Fanfare

German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser and Irish pianist Alasdair Beatson present a moving portrait of the Mendelssohn family with this recording of pieces by the siblings Felix and Fanny. Once composed for the popular Sunday Sessions at the Berlin Mendelssohn family house, these works fit into the typically nineteenth-century tradition of domestic music-making, albeit at the highest thinkable level. Beatson plays an 1837 Erard fortepiano, identical to the instrument that belonged to the Mendelssohn household when these pieces were composed. Besides Felix Mendelssohns two sonatas for cello and piano, his Variations concertantes, op. 17, Lied ohne Worte, op. 109 and Albumblatt in B Minor are featured. Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohns Fantasia in G Minor and Capriccio in A-flat Major show what could have become of this talented female composer if societal conventions had not restricted her musical activities to the private salon. This is Mosers fifth album as an exclusive PENTATONE artist, after releases with the cello concertos of Dvorak and Lalo (2015), Elgar and Tchaikovsky (2017), works for cello and piano by Rachmaninov and Prokofiev (2016, awarded with a diapason dor and ECHO Klassik 2017), and cello concertos by Lutoslawski and Dutilleux (2018). He records for the first time with Alasdair Beatson, who makes his PENTATONE debut.

Belgian clarinettist Annelien Van Wauwe revives the golden glow of a bygone age on her PENTATONE debut album Belle époque, together with the Orchestre National de Lille and its music director Alexandre Bloch. The programme is built around treasures of French turn-of-the-century music such as Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie, Pierné’s Canzonetta and Widor’s Introduction et Rondo (the latter two in arrangements by Jelle Tassyns). Belle époque also offers works that display a spiritual kinship to the age, such as Brahms’s first clarinet sonata, arranged by Luciano Berio, and a world-premiere recording of Paris-based contemporary composer Manfred Trojahn (Rhapsodie pour clarinette et orchestre). Annelien van Wauwe is a former BBC New Generation Artist and winner of the renowned Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2018. She kickstarts an exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE with this first solo album. The Orchestre National de Lille and Alexandre Bloch release their second PENTATONE album, after their 2018 recording of Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles, crowned with a Diapason d’or.

Soirée captures the atmosphere of informal, domestic music-making. Czech star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená offers an intimate and highly personal collection of international songs together with an outstanding group of musical friends, including Sir Simon Rattle, who makes his recording debut as a pianist. The German lied is represented by Brahms (Two Songs, Op. 91 and Five Ophelia Songs, WoO 22) and Strauss ("Morgen!"), the French chanson by Chausson (Chanson perpétuelle) and Ravel (Chansons madécasses), and 20th-century avant-gardism with Stravinsky’s Three Songs from William Shakespeare. In between these explorations, Kožená revisits her musical roots with a selection of Dvořák songs, arranged by Duncan Ward, as well as Janáček’s Nursery Rhymes.

Soirée is the second release of Magdalena Kožená’s exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after having presented the baroque cantatas recital album Il giardino dei sospiri in 2019.

REVIEW:

Kožená is very much at home in this repertoire. Her beautifully produced, glowing tone absorbingly catches the predominantly fleeting moods of these parlour songs. She is accompanied by a mix of seven instrumentalists, whose playing is first-rate; that includes Rattle in his recording debut as a pianist. Soirée was not recorded in the Rattle household but under studio conditions, using the renowned acoustics of Meistersaal, Berlin. The sound engineers for Pentatone provide remarkable clarity and satisfying balance on this hybrid SACD (I reviewed it on my standard player). In the booklet, Kožená gives a short foreword. The essay by James Parsons is helpful and easy to read. I am grateful for the full sung texts with English translations in the booklet.

Magdalena Kožená is at her most engaging in this exquisitely performed chamber collection of songs.

-- MusicWeb International

Maestro Marek Janowski and the WDR Symphony Orchestra present Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Premiered during the same concert in 1808, these two symphonies present two sides of Beethoven's musical persona. Whereas the Fifth is legendary for it's drama and forward urge the "Pastoral" Sixth offers idyllic sounds, albeit shortly interrupted by a thunderstorm that resembles the tempestuous development of the Fifth. Programmed together, these two pieces constitute a fascinating portrait of Beethoven at the height of his creative powers. Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our times, and enjoys a vast PENTATONE discography, including complete recordings of Bruckner's symphonies and Wagner's mature operas. This is his second PENTATONE collaboration with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, one of the most established radio orchestras of Germany.