111 musicians celebrating a large-scale symphony sounds like a performance of a work by Mahler, Strauss or early Schönberg. In fact, the composer of this symphony, Alfred Schnittke, had precisely these (and other) composers in mind back in 1981. Whereas he initially mirrored styles from these and otrher composers, he soon was borrowing concepts from “trivial music” folklore, jazz, tango, etc… was He himself described his compositional technique as “polystylistic; which was more than just a technique but an aesthetic program: a serious effort to break through the vicious circle of self-satisfied and self-sufficient avant-garde music. His Third Symphony testifies to all this searching, this “inbetweenness”. The four-movement work, written on commission to inaugurate the new Leipzig Gewandhaus, confronted not only a multi-layered historical past but a weakened current state of affairs while remaining highly respectful of the achievements of the past and present. Vladimir Jurowski leads the Berlin Radio-Symphony Orchestra in this recording of a great and intricate work.

"Music allows us to really find our inner self, to be free to search for those things that we normally don't have the opportunity or the time to search for. It opens up many, many doors within us. It opens the doors to our soul, to our feelings, to humanity as a whole." – Yakov Kreizburg One of the most interesting and exciting conductors of his generation, Yakov Kreizberg conducted most of the major orchestras throughout Europe, North America and Asia. At the time of his death he held the posts of Artistic and Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, and Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Netherlands Philharmonic and Netherlands Chamber orchestras. PentaTone presents In Memoriam Yakov Kreizberg , a collection of the Kreizberg’s excellent PentaTone recordings, in honor of the esteemed conductor.

Howard Blake, a living composer best known for his film scores (a.o. Snowman), presents his new classical compositions, all world premiere recordings. Sir Neville Marriner conducts.

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 4 (Version 1878/1880) • Marek Janowski, cond; O de la Suisse Romande • PENTATONE 5186 450 (SACD: 63:27)


I’m irresistibly tempted to say the porridge here is just right, except for the fact that when you deal with Bruckner, there are far more than three bears at stake and a lot more stirring to be done over the stove. Performances of the Bruckner Fourth range from the mystical (think Celibidache) to the craggy, or at least extremely direct (think Blomstedt). Less often do we suppose the music to be graceful, rich, and beautiful as a Brahms symphony. But that is what we have here. This is an unexpectedly wonderful CD. I find it the most beautiful Bruckner Fourth I have ever heard, marginalizing even Kertész’s glowing one in memory.


Marek Janowski has become visible in recent years as a ubiquitous guest conductor, touring with mostly German repertory, which he performs with a remarkable sense of balance and formal integration. He is not generally a passionate conductor, willing to break the musical line to make a point. But he shapes everything in a fluid manner, which sets him apart from Blomstedt, Wand, and from the historical line of clipped phrase endings brought to us by Toscanini and Szell. I first took notice of him a few decades ago on a trip to Europe, encountering on Radio France the most rounded and velvety broadcast of the Brahms Haydn Variations that I had ever heard. In the years since, my assessment of Janowski has risen and fallen with the CDs he has released, some of which come across as emotionally neutral. His recent Brahms recordings with the Pittsburgh Symphony have tended to be fast and rather dry-eyed, his Strauss Alpine Symphony a bit short on mystery, but his Macbeth white hot and the one to seek out.


Similarly, Janowski’s Bruckner cycle with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande does not always probe for brooding depths in the more apocalyptic works. But this Fourth is just about ideal, unfolding naturally and simply, every phrase more ravishing than the last. Given the history of the Suisse Romande in French music (and little else for decades), one is astonished to experience such idiomatic Brucknerian sonority from a Francophone orchestra. Janowski’s earlier recording of this symphony for Virgin with Radio France was marred by just the sort of nasal and blaring brass sound one would fear from traditional French players. But the sound of the Suisse Romande today is golden, beautifully matched, and virtuosic. And the strings are luminous and accurate in a way Ernest Ansermet would never have achieved. This is now an orchestra fully of the first rank. Victoria Hall, which verges to the eye on being a too-muchness of Victorian kitsch, sounds here like one of the great shoebox recording sites, if PentaTone’s miking is any judge. The listener is in an ideal seat for Bruckner, a bit towards the back of the hall. And the surround channels supply a glowing sense of space. There is no edge; nothing grates on the ear.


The performance, itself, is on the swift, flowing side, like Kertész, who is even two minutes faster. I do miss in it one touch we get only from Barenboim: the timpani at the conclusion of the first movement’s development chorale—a nice touch. But Janowski otherwise shapes this section beautifully, surrounding the chorale more than usual with filigree from the cellos. The slow movement usually is what kills conductors—and the audiences forced to plod through it with them. The movement essentially is about walking, stopping, breathing, and then walking on. The sense of pulse must carry it more than any melody. Most conductors miss this, attempt too much, and give the listener an out-of-shape Bruckner, lumbering forward and pausing to deal with what sounds like near-death emphysema. Here, all is as natural as a performance of Beethoven’s Pastorale . The scherzo is nimble and the brass fruity. There are many ways to make this movement whoop appropriately at the end of the hunting call, and these players are as good as any you will find. And Janowski phrases the three great declamations at the beginning of the Finale with a remarkable set of slithers that give them real profile and contour.


It is an unusual experience to emerge from a Bruckner performance—moved and satisfied—without feeling that one has also been assaulted. Shostakovich and Bruckner performances tend to suffer from a public address system syndrome. But here all comes together: thorough, extremely interesting notes, perfect hall, perfect brass and string sound. A Kapellmeister transcends himself—and the effect is emotional nourishment.


As I suggested at the beginning: The porridge is just right for this bear!


FANFARE: Steven Kruger

The latest release in the Remastered Classics series from PENTATONE is Rafael Kubelik’s sprited and acclaimed reading from the 1970s of Beethoven’s first and fourth symphonies, performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Delightful, infectious and witty, Beethoven’s first symphony is a paean to the classical symphonies of Haydn and Mozart shot through with very Beethovenian touches, such as the opening Adagio which starts in the wrong key and the final movement which struggles to get started at all. These peculiarities taken with the felicity and inventiveness of his writing make this a happy and evergreen work. Overshadowed by the monumental third and the dramatic fifth symphonies, Beethoven’s cheerful and optimistic fourth has been described as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” for its mix of engaging melodies, lurching rhythms, pungent dissonances and its vigorous orchestral writing. While structurally and harmonically more complex than the first symphony, it too is cast in the classical mould with a palpable nod to Haydn in the rousing final movement. Rafael Kubelik recorded his acclaimed cycle of Beethoven symphonies in the 1970s for Deutsche Grammophon, each with a different orchestra to dazzling effect. Although recorded in multi-channel sound, these unmissable performances have previously been available only in the conventional two-channel stereo format. Using state of the art technology which avoids the need for re-mixing, PENTATONE’s engineers have remastered the original studio tapes to bring the performances to life as originally intended: in compelling and pristine multi-channel sound. Further releases from this memorable cycle are planned this year in the Remastered Classics series: Symphonies 2 & 5 (October) and Symphonies 6, 7 & 8 (November).

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.

On her first Pentatone album, pianist Tamara Stefanovich presents a highly personal selection of solo works by Bach, Bartók, Ives and Messiaen. Influences shows how these extraordinarily original and idiosyncratic composers let themselves be inspired by the exterior world, thereby demonstrating how authenticity comes from looking outside as well as inside. The repertoire spans from Bach’s embrace of Italian musical elements in his Aria variata alla maniera italiana, Bartók’s incorporation of folk elements in his Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, and Messiaen’s use of Hindu rhythms in Cantéyodjayâ to the collage of marching bands, sounds of trains and machinery, church hymns, ragtime and blues in Ives’ first piano sonata. In all cases, the exterior influences lead to deeply original and personal sonic galaxies. In that respect, the pieces presented here underline how identity results from a constant dialogue with our surroundings, ever changing and enriching our perceptions of ourselves and the world.

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REVIEW:

The overall excellence of Tamara Stefanovich’s interpretations is enhanced by a superb multichannel recording characterised by full-bodied ambience an concert-hall realism. Stefanovich voices Ives’s thick and ringing choral dissonances from the bottom up, taking full measure of the music’s spaciousness and resonant potential. After more than an hour of substantial 20th-century fare, the appearance of Bach proves a veritable tonic in Stefanovich’s hands.

– Gramophone

This album presents extraordinary works of three twentieth-century composers with diverse cultural backgrounds, underlining the versatility and legacy of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in its centenary year. Richard Strauss’ Schlagobers (Whipped Cream, 1924) is a playful ballet set in a Viennese Konditorei, of which the orchestral suite is featured on this album. With its lively mix of Viennese waltzes and modern harmonies, light-versed tunes interspersed by sudden outbreaks of ravishing beauty, all brilliantly orchestrated, it can be considered a further exploration of the composer’s “Rosenkavalier style”. Claude Debussy is featured with Jeux, Poeme danse (1912), another piece created for a ballet performance, built around an erotic nocturnal search for a lost tennis ball that Pierre Boulez characterized as a “Prelude à-l’Apres-midi d’une Faune in sports clothes”. Debussy’s Jeux has been a major source of inspiration for post-war avantgarde composers such as Boulez and Stockhausen, and, therefore, the transition from Jeux to Gyorgi Ligeti’s Melodien, fur Orchester (1971) is not jarring. Melodien has the unmistakable mix of sensuous yet eerie soundscapes that makes most of Ligeti’s works so filmic and appealing. This album adds a significant chapter to the Pentatone discography of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, which already contains the complete Bruckner Symphonies with Marek Janowski, three dance-oriented albums with Kazuki Yamada, and concerto recordings with renowned soloists such as Arabella Steinbacher, Johannes Moser and Denis Kozhukhin. On this album, the OSR’s new chief conductor Jonathan Nott makes his Pentatone debut.

Antonin Dvorak’s Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 are presented here, masterfully performed by the Houston Symphony. Music Director Andres Orozco-Estrada wonderfully interprets these works, exploring a myriad of emotions from tragedy, to quiet reflection, to grandeur and triumph. This recording was made in Houston, TX at the Jess H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts in April of 2014 (Symphony No. 7) and March of 2015 (Symphony No. 8).

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.”

Vibrant, striking colors, sensuous harmonies and coruscating wit abound in this irresistible collection played by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of the young rising star Kazuki Yamada. Hailed by Gramophone magazine as a "gifted, budding maestro" with "interpretative nous, strength of personality and scrupulous attention to detail", this is Yamada's four outing for Pentatone following his three critically acclaimed releases of dance music.

Denis Kozhukhin presents a new album of Haydn: Sonatas, offering a fresh and illuminating journey through the composer's keyboard repertoire. Haydn's keyboard sonatas brim with invention, drama, and wit, matching the brilliance of his symphonies and quartets. Revisiting this repertoire, Kozhukhin reveals their expressive depth and sparkling originality in a recital of striking contrast and character. From the genial Allegro of the early D Major Sonata, Hob XVI:4, to the restless intensity of the C minor Sonata, Hob XVI:20, each work reflects Haydn's inexhaustible inventiveness and subtle mastery of keyboard textures. A prize-winner of prestigious competitions, including the Leeds International Piano Competition (2006) and the Queen Elizabeth Competition (2010), Denis Kozhukhin has established himself as one of the most acclaimed pianists of his generation. He presents another chapter in his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, following albums such as Grieg and Tchaikovsky: Piano Concertos (2016, Gramophone Editor's Choice), Brahms: Ballades and Fantasies (2017, 5 stars in Diapason), Ravel & Gershwin and Richard Strauss' Burleske (2018), Grieg: Lyric Pieces & Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte (2019, Gramophone Recording of the Month), Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations (2020), and Somnia (2025, Gramophone Critic's Choice for 2025 Top Recordings).

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The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Choir, under Chief Conductor Karina Canellakis, present Rachmaninoff: The Bells & Symphonic Dances, a powerful and deeply expressive interpretation of these late masterpieces by Sergei Rachmaninoff. In The Bells, radiant choral textures and richly coloured orchestration trace a journey from youthful shimmer and lyrical warmth to ominous tolling, overwhelming drama and a final vision of serene transcendence. The outstanding soloists - Dmytro Popov, Kristina Mkhitaryan and Alexander Vinogradov - bring vocal brilliance and emotional depth, while the choir illuminates the text with clarity and a glowing, golden sound. In Symphonic Dances, rhythmic vitality and earthy drive give way to moments of nostalgia and introspection, culminating in a bold and exhilarating finale that captures the composer's unmistakable voice in his final orchestral work. Internationally acclaimed for her emotionally charged performances, technical command and interpretative depth, Canellakis has become one of the most in-demand conductors of her generation. She returns to PENTATONE as Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, further expanding a recording partnership that began with GRAMMY-nominated Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra (2023) and continued with Bartok: Duke Bluebeard's Castle (2025).

James McVinnie brings Johann Sebastian Bach's monumental Clavier-ubung III to life in a recording that captures both it's technical brilliance and profound spiritual depth. Bach's 1739 collection, his first published volume of organ music, is a masterful synthesis of compositional technique, theological meditation, and musical expression. With twenty-seven works, including chorale preludes, duets, and the majestic opening Prelude and closing Fugue, the collection is a rich musical exploration of Lutheran faith, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and the artistry of counterpoint at it's most sublime. From the intricate contrapuntal pairs of the Catechism chorales to the flowing bass lines of Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam, and the transcendent final Fugue in E flat, McVinnie navigates Bach's towering architecture with clarity, precision, and sensitivity. This recording highlights the cosmopolitan textures, theological symbolism, and emotional resonance that make Clavier-ubung III a pinnacle of the organ repertoire. With insight drawn from decades of study and performance, McVinnie offers a journey into Bach's musical universe, where faith, intellect, and artistry converge in works of extraordinary beauty and enduring power. James McVinnie made his PENTATONE debut in January 2025 with the album Dreamcatcher.

Pianist Charlotte Hu presents Goyescas, an album featuring Granados' monumental Goyescas alongside two Spanish Dances. A cornerstone of Spanish piano literature, Goyescas was inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya and unfolds as a richly poetic suite where passion, tenderness, shadow, and light coexist across six vividly characterised movements. From the playful charm of "Los requiebros" to the lyrical intimacy of "La maja y el ruise�or" and the profound emotional summit of "El amor y la muerte," Granados' masterwork reveals a world of dramatic contrasts and refined storytelling. Hu captures both the virtuosic brilliance and the deeply intimate narrative of the music, illuminating it's modern harmonic language and unmistakable Spanish spirit with freshness and reverence. Complementing the suite are two Spanish Dances: the hauntingly introspective No. 2, "Oriental," and the vibrant, guitar-inflected No. 5, "Andaluza." Together, they offer concentrated glimpses into Granados' expressive range - from quiet longing and poetic reflection to radiant joy and folkloric vitality. This release marks her second album on PENTATONE, following her debut, Liszt: Metamorphosis, released in 2024.

Violinist Pekka Kuusisto and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra present First Light, the first fruit of Kuusistos tenure as the ensembles Artistic Director, on which two eminent New York composers are cast in a Nordic light. The album offers the world premiere recording of Nico Muhlys Shrink (Concerto for Violin and Strings), a unique, remotely-recorded rendition of Philip Glass The Orchard by Kuusisto and Muhly, and Kuusistos new string orchestra arrangement of Glass Mishima String Quartet No. 3. Violinist, conductor and composer Pekka Kuusisto is renowned for his artistic freedom and flair in directing ensembles. Since its formation in 1977 the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra has established itself as one of the foremost chamber orchestras on the international classical music scene today. Nico Muhly is one of the most-performed composers of his generation, and appears as pianist on this album. Kuusisto, the NCO and Muhly all make their PENTATONE debut.

First Light (Pentatone), the first collaboration on disc between the Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, of which he is artistic director, presents works by Nico Muhly and Philip Glass: two New York composers of different generations united in friendship. Muhly’s Shrink (2019), a glittering, jittery, mischievous violin concerto written for Kuusisto, is here given its world premiere recording. The work reflects its title, contracting and intensifying as it progresses, a perfect mirror of the word “shrink” and a platform for Kuusisto in hyperactive, virtuosic mode.

Glass’s The Orchard (from The Screens), in comparison, is a work of slow, long-breathed elegy. Muhly is the pianist, with Kuusisto beautifully lyrical and tender – a track you immediately want to share. The violinist has arranged Glass’s String Quartet No 3 “Mishima” for string orchestra, played here with energy and finesse, bringing alive those mid-1980s surging symmetries that first made Glass a cult figure.

REVIEWS:

Kuusisto's approach to these works is unusually lively. The pairing of Muhly and Glass is fresh and intelligent. The opening Shrink, with its three movements titled "Ninths," "Sixths," and "Turns," repeats figures and intervals in a very Glass-like way, even as the nervous mode of expression is different. Kuusisto contributes his own orchestration of the Glass String Quartet No. 3, which works very well in orchestral guise. As an entr'acte, there is a short piece by Glass, "The Orchard," performed remotely in 2020 by Kuusisto (violin) and Glass (piano) during the coronavirus pandemic. An enjoyable release of music by two American composers whose popularity in Europe seems only to be increasing.

– AllMusicGuide.com

Muhly's Shrink is an energetic, driven concerto, played with intensity by Kuusisto on violin. Although not dissonant in character, it is not a piece that lingers over lilting melodies. Then comes Glass's The Orchard, performed here as a duet for piano and violin, and the mood completely changes, becoming soothing and almost therapeutic. Following the frenetic forward motion of Shrink, to arrive in such a pleasant, peaceful, musical grove is a refreshing respite. The arrangement for string orchestra of Glass's String Quartet No. 3, "Mishima" that closes the program adds some weight and texture to Glass's minimalist creation. With excellent engineering and informative liner notes, this is a solid release of contemporary music from Pentatone.

– Classical Candor

PENTATONE presents Telemann’s rarely-performed opera Miriways (1728) with a stellar cast and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by Bernard Labadie. Star vocalists such as Andre Morsch (Miriways), Robin Johannsen (Sophi), Sophie Karthäuser (Bemira), Lydia Teuscher (Nisibis) and Michael Nagy (Murzah) offer a string of beautiful baroque arias and scenes in this German-language opera. Miriways is a piece about love, duty and truthfulness, and was based on recent political events in Afghanistan and Persia that actually made headlines in European newspapers, demonstrating the eighteenth-century fascination for the Orient. The opera was recorded live during the Telemann Festival Hamburg in 2017. The Akademie für Alte Musik is generally seen as one of the best period-instruments ensembles of today, and has a substantial PENTATONE discography, including CANTATA with Bejun Mehta (2018), as well as Handel’s Concerti grossi op. 6 (released in 2019 and 2020). Robin Johannsen featured on Handel’s Parnasso in festa (2017). Andre Morsch, Sophie Karthäuser, Lydia Teuscher, Michael Nagy and Bernard Labadie make their PENTATONE debut.

Slavonic Reflections, recorded by Nelly Akopian-Tamarina in recital at Wigmore Hall, is a highly personal collection of piano music containing Mazurka’s by Chopin, Janácek’s cycle In the Mist, as well as encores by Medtner and Liadov. The programme breathes a melancholic air of sadness, while simultaneously showing an equally Slavonic inclination to dance, as well as a fascination for nature. Nelly Akopian-Tamarina belongs to a distinguished tradition of playing stretching back to the great Russian school of Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Medtner. Slavonic Reflections is her second PENTATONE release, after a 2017 Brahms album that The Guardian praised as “enchanting, intimate and irresistible”, while BBC Music Magazine described it as “revelatory Brahms from another age”.

Anna Lucia Richter returns to PENTATONE after her acclaimed Schubert album Heimweh with Il delirio della passione; a recording full of Monteverdi treasures, from heart-wrenching opera scenes (Lamento d’Arianna, ‘Pur ti miro’ from Poppea and the Prologue of L’orfeo) and religious music (Confitebor) to bucolic songs (Si dolce è il tormento). Richter works together with Ensemble Claudiana and Luca Pianca, one of the most eminent Monteverdi interpreters of our age. They offer a fresh perspective on Monteverdi’s music by penetrating deeply into the original sources. Their interpretation of the famous Lamento d’Arianna, salvaged fragment of the lost score of the opera L’Arianna, is exemplary in that regard. Richter’s passionate delivery is inspired by what precedes in the libretto, while Pianca has composed short, “madrigalistic” instrumental interludes between the solo sections, replacing the choral commentaries, of which only the original texts have survived. Altogether, the pieces on Il delirio della passione demonstrate Monteverdi’s exceptional skill to express the most complex emotions, in music of timeless beauty. Anna Lucia Richter belongs to the most exciting young singers of her generation. Il delirio della passione is the second fruit of her exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after Heimweh (2018), and her last soprano recording, as she will continue her career as a mezzo-soprano. Luca Pianca and Ensemble Claudiana both make their PENTATONE debut.

REVIEW:

Some purists won’t like Luca Pianca’s approach to unwritten ornamentation, which allows the virtuoso members of the Ensemble Claudiana unbridled freedom, and some may cavil at his imaginative and at times almost cavalier attitude to instrumentation. But there is no doubting the freshness of Pianca’s interpretative stance.

Richter’s bright, clean, focused tone, precise diction and keen sense of drama will be familiar from her performances in an impressively wide-ranging portfolio, stretching from Schubert lieder to Mahler’s Wunderhorn songs, and Idomeneo to Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers.

The heart of her achievement on this recording is undoubtedly the lament from Arianna. With its sure-footed command of the patterns and cadences of the Italian language, this is a powerful reading. It is surely the only serious competition in the catalogue to Cathy Berberian’s classic performance with Nikolaus Harnoncourt from the 1970s.

– Gramophone

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.

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.

Eilífur (Eternal) is Icelandic contemporary composer Viktor Orri Árnason’s solo debut and first PENTATONE album, on which the prospect of living forever is contemplated. Sparked by the realisation that medical advances will soon eradicate death by natural causes, Eilífur weaves together a lucid, near-future narrative via a combination of abstract Icelandic lyrics and adept musical storytelling. The scope and scale of Eilífur is reflected in the extremes of its sound, which moves seamlessly from intimate strings and sombre voices to grand orchestral gestures and vast drones. Eilífur explores what life will be like in the absence of death’s ticking clock. Staying clear of the morbidity that such themes may imply, Eilífur is above all a celebration of life as we know it, and an ode to the things that make it worth living. Viktor composed, produced and mixed the album at his Berlin studio over the course of two years. The studio was a hub of experimentation with a community of outstanding award-winning composers and musicians, including Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Dustin O'Halloran, Rutger Hoedemaekers, Gunnar Örn Tynes and Yair Elazar Glotman. Eilífur is a statement, a first glimpse of Viktor’s outstanding abilities as a composer, conductor, instrumentalist, producer and mixing engineer; an ambitious album which puts him in the spotlight after many years working behind the scenes.

REVIEW:

Viktor Orri Arnason has collaborated with other composers as a performer, producer, and arranger, notably with Hildur Gudnodottir on her 2019 Oscar-winning score to Joker. "Eilifur" is his first release as a composer. The music recalls his work with Gudnodottir (who is also credited as a producer here): atmospheric but with a cinematic immediacy. Though electronic sounds are rare, the production process is integral to the work itself. Edges are smoothed over and reverberation is amplified. The music itself is soothing and tender yet melancholy. Drones in the low strings give it an earthy expansiveness, from which melodies in the bass and contrabass clarinet bloom and grow. This will have its audience, though the production may be too distracting for many of our readers. I certainly enjoyed it. The notes are rather overbearing: "The album poses questions about the changing significance of time itself and the role that our eventual demise plays in the meaning we assign to our lifetimes." Though thought-provoking, this is superfluous—the music, like much that is composed today, speaks for itself more substantially than the unwieldy thesis statement that precedes it.

-- American Record Guide

Here/After: Songs of Lost Voices gives voice to those no longer with us, including Camille Claudel, Francis Poulenc, Wanda Landowska, Pierre Bernac and Paul Eluard. It also pays tribute to the lives lost on September 11, 2001. Here/After is a double play on the spiritual hereafter that their voices are still here even though their bodies are gone.

Música Temprana, one of today’s most exciting Hispanic early music ensembles, presents its first PENTATONE album Melancolía, on which they present Spanish courtly songs on mourning and unrequited love around 1500 together with the apocalyptic liturgical tradition of El Canto de la Sibila. Many of the villancicos, canciones, romances and estrambotes performed here have been documented in songbooks such as the famous Cancionero Musical de Palacio. They show the transition from troubadour lyricism to the flourishing Siglo de Oro (Golden Age), and the shift from a medieval to a Renaissance aesthetic in Spanish music. El Canto de la Sibila is a religious tradition that can be traced back as far as St Augustine, who put his contemplation on the end of times into the mouth of a pagan prophetess from Graeco-Roman mythology. Música Temprana’s interpretation revives religious practices in 15th-century Cuenca. Altogether, the works performed on this album underline the strong melancholic connections between worldly and religious Spanish musical traditions around 1500, a period full of change and conflict, during which Christian Europe feared the hypothetical end of the world. The extraordinary beauty of these austere works offers solace for our troubled times as well.