Mozart’s brilliance at the keyboard is well known, but it was his joy in playing the viola – and the musical dialogue and kinship of playing with friends – that led the composer to write his music for string trio. This album features Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat major, as well as his string trio arrangements of three fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. In the three additional preludes to his Bach arrangements, Mozart reached an impressive symbiosis between Bach’s musical language and his own style. Jonathan Crow, Douglas McNabney and Matt Haimovitz catch the singular spirit of Mozart’s take on Bach and offer one of the most animated interpretations of Mozart’s Divertimento. Previously released in the US alone as Mozart the Mason on Oxingale, this 2006 recording will now be released worldwide and digitally for the first time as part of the Pentatone Oxingale Series.

"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.

Classical Music

This new release features some of the best-loved selections from the catalogue of compositions by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). The works included here are Coronation March, Capriccio Italien, Francesca da Rimini, Romeo and Juliet, and Marche Slave. The Russian National Orchestra performs the works recorded here. The first work performed by the orchestra at its inception more than two decades ago was Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony. It seems fitting that the orchestra has chosen works by this composer to honor its 25th anniversary.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD, playable on both Super Audio and standard Stereo CD players.

The Scriabin centenary got off to a good start with Garrick Ohlsson’s top-notch traversal of the Poèmes. No doubt there will be many more tributes to this complex and enigmatic composer, including well-priced compendia such as the 18-CD Scriabin Edition from Decca Universal. Buried in that box, which boasts 64 newly recorded items, are Vladimir Ashkenazy’s recordings of Symphonies 1 and 3, Eliahu Inbal’s No. 2 and Valery Gergiev’s Poème de l’extase. Rob Barnett welcomed the Ashkenazy set, recorded in the 1990s, adding that it would suit those who find Scriabin ‘consistently hysterical’. Not that I ever do, but I can understand why others might think differently.

Mikhail Pletnev’s new Pentatone recording of Symphony No. 1 and the Poème de l’extase also has to compete with Riccardo Muti’s celebrated Philadelphia set for Warner (review) and Leif Segerstam’s, with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, for BIS (review). In his favour Pletnev has at his fingertips the Russian National Orchestra, which he founded in 1990. These splendid players are in peak form, having just recorded a revelatory account of Shostakovich’s Leningrad with Paavo Järvi. That recording and this one also benefit from Polyhymnia’s impressive engineering skills.

Scriabin: Symphony No. 1; The Poem of Ecstasy / Pletnev on Pentatone:

Scriabin’s First Symphony, in six movements with a vocal finale in praise of the supremacy of Art, is a remarkably sensual piece that really does demand dedicated interpreters. There’s no doubt that Muti – not always the most subtle of conductors – is one of them; he’s blessed with the legendary Philadelphia sound – Ormandy stepped down in 1980, just a few years before these recordings were made – not to mention a full-bodied recording. Listening to Segerstam after that is instructive, for while there is much detail to be found in his Scriabin performances there’s not much of the hypnotic, sense-stroking beauty that I associate with these pieces. As a result, I must exclude his set from my list of comparisons.

In Pletnev’s hands the opening bars of the first Lento waft into one’s consciousness as if borne on a gentle, perfumed zephyr. It’s clear this is going to be a finely calibrated and highly poetic performance; also, the music has a certain, seamless flow, and the micrometer-like precision of the orchestral playing is just right for this score. Goodness, what stupendous playing and exemplary sonics. Indeed, Muti’s performance seems almost garish by comparison, his recording almost crude.

Make no mistake, Pletnev’s reading is not a self-indulgent wallow, as his sharply characterised Allegro dramatico so amply demonstrates. Once again the level of detail that emerges from this recording is extraordinary, as is the range and sophistication of Scriabin’s colour palette. Such is Pletnev’s authoritative/intuitive way with this music that I don’t hear any of the longueurs that often plague the piece. And lest one think this symphony is all about flutters and fibrillations, there’s thrilling weight and amplitude as well. Moreover, Pletnev integrates these elements rather more effectively than Muti, who's rather impulsive at times...

No one, and I mean no one, delivers the second Lento more beautifully than Pletnev and the RNO. Together they create an air of delicious intoxication that seduced me from the start; indeed, it’s as if they’ve unlatched and unleashed all one’s dormant senses. From the music’s languid caresses to its precipitous teasings, this is the most erotically charged performance of the piece I can recall. No wonder the literary satyr Henry Miller extolled Scriabin’s oeuvre. The Vivace, played here with unparalleled delicacy and point, is a reminder of Scriabin’s - and Pletnev's - attention to even the smallest of details. Not even Muti comes close to such levels of excavation and insight.

Pletnev’s grasp of the work’s architecture is beyond doubt – there are no weak spots, even in the sometimes rhetoric-prone Allegro – and his soloists in the finale are much better than Muti’s. Soprano Svetlana Shilova is creamy and secure, and tenor Mikhail Gubsky adds ringing ardour to the mix. The Pentatone balance is preferable too, so we get warm, very communicative soloists rather than bright, somewhat excitable ones. The chorus sing with unalloyed passion and purpose while, unerring as always, Pletnev guides the work to its all-consuming close. The moment of release, when it comes, is almost indescribable in its intensity and impact.

Heavens, what an experience. In fact I’m certain you won’t hear a more powerful or persuasive account of this piece any time soon. As so often with ‘difficult’ composers – mavericks such as Havergal Brian and Rued Langgaard spring to mind – it takes a proselytizing zeal to unlock these seemingly abstruse scores. It’s a measure of Pletnev’s skill that Scriabin’s First Symphony is finally revealed for the masterpiece it is. One mustn’t forget the contributing talents of the Polyhymnia team, especially those of producer, balance engineer and editor Erdo Groot. His name may be incorrect at one point in the credits, but otherwise there's not a single blemish in this splendid recording.

After all that unbridled passion one might be tempted to recover in a darkened room before tackling Scriabin’s so-called ‘Symphony No. 4’, the Poème de l’extase. With the composer’s talk of mystic chords and the Cosmos/Spirit, newcomers to the work might expect a grand musical séance; nothing could be further from the truth, for this is a robust and clear-eyed score laced with moments of colossal grandeur. Muti certainly plays it that way, and Warner’s ultra-vivid recording really stokes up the fires. As before the Philadelphians respond to the music with great enthusiasm and energy.

That’s not the only way to play the Poème, as Pletnev proceeds to demonstrate. The discreet harp figures and gold-threaded trumpet at the start point to a refined, highly nuanced reading. So it proves, for whereas Muti succumbs to the big gestures, Pletnev exercises a degree of control that builds tension rather than releases it too soon. Also, there’s a greater sense of the mystic and mysterious in the Pentatone performance; even the trumpet rises from the mix in a most atmospheric way. Muti’s percussionists are suitably thunderous – Pletnev’s are much better defined though, the bass drum especially – and there are times when Muti's Poème sounds more like Respighi’s Roman carnivals than a contemplation of loftier things.

Interestingly, Pletnev’s Scriabin was recorded in a studio, so the organ of St Ludwig-Kirche has been spliced in. It too makes a mighty noise, along with all those pealing bells. Once again the recording pushes the envelope, with overwhelming results. I imagine this would be even more immersive in its multi-channel form.

I hope this is just the start of a Scriabin series from Pletnev and the RNO, for we desperately need strong, redefining accounts of these underrated works. It goes without saying that Pentatone/Polyhymnia are the right team for such a project. Will I be ditching Muti any time soon? Not just yet, but if Pletnev does give us a new cycle it will surely sweep the board.

Incandescent Scriabin, superbly recorded; Muti has met his match at last.

- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

In opera, specific voice types are often associated with certain types of characters. Numerous and diverse associations exist also for the bass voice, who can be a father, a villain, an elderly man, a religious figure, a comic character- or, indeed, a combination of the above. One recurring association for this voice type, however, deserves particular attention: that with evil, wicked, even diabolical characters. It is on that immensely fascinating association that this collection of arias is focused. The nineteen selections- composed by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Gounod, Offenbach, Verdi, Boito, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky and Getty- take us on a journey through a period spanning some two hundred years, exploring how composers working in diverse national and institutional contexts and writing in an array of styles and genres exploited the bass voice to engage with the depiction of such characters.This colorful repertoire is sung by the esteemed American bass-baritone Kevin Short, whose powerful voice is as sensuous as it is sinister. Short is accompanied by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, led by its Music Director Lawrence Foster.

Classical Music

The spirit of Gustav Mahler looms over the pages of Shostakovich’s turbulent, sprawling and enigmatic Symphony No. 4, a work so uncompromising that for many years he suppressed its performance, fearing public censure. Mixing bombast with banality, savagery with sarcasm, this baffling yet profound work is also one of his most startlingly original. It’s paired with his ever popular Symphony No. 10, a brooding and lyrical masterpiece which is said to contain a musical portrait of Joseph Stalin in the impetuous second movement and in whose third and fourth movements Shostakovich artfully weaves a musical motif based on his own name which emerges resplendent in the spirited finale. This triumphant release is the latest in a series of recordings for Pentatone by the Russian National Orchestra. Their Shostakovich cycle was widely acclaimed as “the most exciting cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies to be put down…and easily the best recorded.” (SACD.net). The Symphony No. 7, conducted by Paavo Järvi, won the Diapason d’Or de l’annee 2015 and was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award for Best Suurpund Sound recording.

This new release features the operetta by Johann Strauss Jr., Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron). Featured vocalists include Nikolai Schukoff, Claudia Barainsky, and Jochen Schmeckenbecher. The NDR Radiophilharmonie, conducted by Kathrin Robus, and the NDR Choir conducted by Lawrence Foster, perform the score brilliantly.

Classical Music

Classical Music

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.

As is often the case in the vocal compositions of distinguished American composer Gordon Getty (b. 1933), many of the pieces collected in The Little Match Girl are based on, or inspired by, poetry from the 19th and early 20th c. This SACD starts with “A prayer for my daughter” for chorus and orchestra, based on the poem by William Butler Yeats. “Poor Peter” for tenor, chorus and orchestra follows, Getty’s self-penned lyrics inspired by Poe and again Yeats. The titular, heart-breaking Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The little match girl” is put to music more or less word-for-word in a challenging setting for the orchestra and particularly the chorus. The disc concludes with “Joan and the bells”, Getty’s own narrative of the trial of Joan of Arc. Asher Fisch and Ulf Schirmer lead the Munich Radio Symphony and the Bavarian Radio Choir respectively. The recording’s vocal soloists include tenor Nikolai Schukoff (“Poor Peter”), soprano Melody Moore (“Joan and the Bells”) and baritone Lester Lynch (“Joan and the Bells”).

Classical Music

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.