This double album includes two recordings never published before: Robert Hacomplaynt's Marian Antiphon: Salve Regina, and Robert Fayrfax's Magnificat 'Regale', both from the Eton Choirbook. The other recordings in the album include works from the Early English Polyphony era, by composers John Taverner, Christopher Tye, Thomas Morley and last but not least Thomas Tallis

2019 release. Eric Alexander's prowess on the tenor saxophone, his unimpeachable virtuosity and technical skill, is obvious to anyone who has paid attention to his fluent and stirring work over the past three decades. His reputation as a hard-blowing jazz gladiator has stood him well with fellow musicians and loyal listeners. Admired and enjoyed for his exceptional powers, Alexander is a model of mainstream jazz expertise. However, on this HighNote recording Eric, backed by three of his favorite colleagues and the lush sounds of a string orchestra, brings his lyrical side to the fore. "I wanted to get straight into the beauty of a song, always putting the melody first, " Alexander states about his expressed intentions for the album. "Improvisations are the icing on the cake." With the fruition of this dream project Alexander has again succeeded in proving that his long obvious gifts as a player are equaled by his respect for the gift of song.

EDEN is an invitation to return to our roots. It is an overture to engage with the sheer perfection of the world around us, to consider if we are connecting as profoundly as we can to the pure essence of our being. It is a clarion call to contemplate if our collective suffering isn't perhaps linked to the aching separation from something primal within and around us. This is a vivid musical exploration through the centuries to remember and to create a new EDEN from within. - Joyce DiDonato

Tafelmusik presents Beethoven's landmark Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" - an heroic and monumental symphony originally dedicated to Napoleon - and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 "Italian." with historical performances Maestro Weil and his players may yet convince you that "Beethoven can sound as radical in 21st century as he must have in the 19th" (Gramophone).

Tenor Ian Bostridge joins Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony in an album exploring the music of iconic French composers renowned for their inventive spirit: Berlioz, Ravel and Debussy. Hailed by The Seattle Times for his "warm tone quality and beautiful expression" during the performance of Berlioz's Les nuits d'ete, the live-in-concert track is paired with studio recordings of Ravel's imaginative Sheherazade and Debussy's colorfully rich Le livre de Baudelaire, orchestrated by John Adams. With naturalistic imaging, depth of field and dynamic range, all Seattle Symphony Media recordings have been engineered to audiophile standards and aim to capture as realistically as possible the sound of the orchestra performing on the Benaroya Hall stage. The present release was mastered by 2017 Grammy Award Winner Dmitriy Lipay.

This new release is the third volume in the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s Grammy Award-winning Dutilleux cycle. Especially notable on this installment, is the inclusion of a live performance of Dutilleux’s masterpiece “Timbres, espace, mouvement.” German-born violinist Augustin Hadelich is featured on this recording of “Sur le meme accord.” He performs on the 1723 Kiesewetter Stradivarius violin, provided by the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

Originally released in 2009. Directed by David Bickerstaff, Phil Grabsky.

Classical Music

A momentous release, as Morlot and the Seattle Symphony follow their acclaimed recording of Ives’ Symphony No. 2 with the next installment that includes four of the composer’s greatest works. The rarely recorded Symphony No. 4 is a haunting summation of American musical styles, and one of the masterpieces of American music. It receives here a live performance of staggering authority and eloquence that brings Ives’ multi-layered sonic canvas to new life. Recorded alongside Symphony No. 3 and Ives’ two most beloved short orchestral works, this release is engineered to audiophile standards and set to be an authoritative voice among recordings of Ives’ discography.

REVIEW:

These live performances are outstanding, and the coupling gives you what is basically “the essential Ives” orchestral music. The Fourth Symphony is a tricky piece, particularly in its second and fourth movements, whose chaotic climaxes need to ride that border between riotous, tuneful abundance and mere noise. Morlot gets it, and the orchestra provides a lean, clear sonority that convinces you that something meaningful is happening down there underneath the welter of sound. Only the “simple” third movement might raise an eyebrow, with it’s extremely quick tempo, but the phrasing helps to make the approach more convincing than you might at first believe.

The two short pieces, The Unanswered Question and Central Park in the Dark, belong together, but seldom get presented that way. It’s great to have the opportunity to hear them in their proper sequence. Finally, Morlot offers a very attractive, flowing account of the Third Symphony, with textures keenly observed in order to provide this gentle music with the maximum amount of color. It’s all very well recorded before a quiet and attentive audience. The sonics do lack the richness of, say, Litton on Hyperion, my versions of reference, but this is by any standard awfully good.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Orchestral Performance!

Thomas Dausgaard and the Seattle Symphony release thought-provoking live performances of two extraordinary orchestral works composed near the turn of the 20th century: Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra and Alexander Scriabin’s The Poem of Ecstasy. Recorded in the stunning acoustics of Benaroya Hall, these bold, colorful scores celebrate the search for creative meaning and the triumph of the human spirit. With naturalistic imaging, depth of field and dynamic range, all Seattle Symphony Media recordings have been engineered to audiophile standards and aim to capture as realistically as possible the sound of the orchestra performing on the Benaroya Hall stage.

"Despite their common French nationality, Camille Saint-Saëns and Maurice Ravel represent very different aspects of French music. Saint-Saëns Third Symphony, one of his finest creations, is lush, ecstatic and compositionally innovative with an eye towards Lisztian methods. Ravel's orchestral works sparkle with endlessly fascinating coloristic outpourings. The Seattle Symphony under their Music Director Ludovic Morlot has enjoyed national and international acclaim for its programming and performances. "

Disc five in the Seattle Symphony’s new in-house label, reflecting the highly acclaimed partnership between French conductor Ludovic Morlot and his American orchestra. + Composer Alexander Raskatov is gathering an increasingly impressive international reputation, with performances of his opera A Dog’s Heart at English National Opera, Netherlands Opera and Milan's La Scala. + His new Piano Concerto, written for pianist and performance artist Tomoko Mukaiyama and commissioned by the Seattle Symphony, is a major addition to the repertoire. + By turns dramatic, poetic, startling and tender, it’s a journey into new sound worlds, inspired by a childhood walk in the forest surrounded by butterflies. + The work is appropriately coupled with innovative sounds from a previous Russian generation – Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring – captured live in an electrifying performance in June 2014 in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall.

Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony present passionate performances of two rarely recorded masterpieces by Morlot's countryman, French composer Olivier Messiaen. One work celebrates Messiaen’s love for his wife, the other his commitment to his faith. Together they make up an album of sacred and transcendent beauty, showing the two sides of one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. A quarter-century since his passing, Olivier Messiaen stands securely among the major French composers of the 20th century. From a broader perspective, he was one of the most original musicians of any period, the creator of a singular and often astonishing body of work. Adhering to none of the modernist styles or movements in vogue during his lifetime, Messiaen followed his own sensibilities throughout his career, forging a unique musical language out of bird calls, scales and chords of his own invention, rhythms derived from an ancient Hindu treatise, numerical symbols, and a strongly felt affinity between sound and color. The Seattle Symphony is one of America’s leading symphony orchestras and is internationally acclaimed for its innovative programming and extensive recording history. Under the leadership of Music Director Ludovic Morlot since September 2011, the Symphony is heard from September through July by more than 500,000 people through live performances and radio broadcasts. It performs in one of the finest modern concert halls in the world- the acoustically superb Benaroya Hall- in downtown Seattle. Its extensive education and community engagement programs reach over 65,000 children and adults each year. The Seattle Symphony has a deep commitment to new music, commissioning many works by living composers each season. The orchestra has made nearly 150 recordings and has received three Grammy Awards, 23 Grammy nominations, two Emmy Awards and numerous other accolades. In 2014 the Symphony launched its in-house recording label, Seattle Symphony Media.

In 2014, the Seattle Symphony and Music Director Ludovic Morlot announced the launch of Seattle Symphony Media, the Symphony’s in-house record label, with its first three recordings.

This disc is dominated by two masterpieces of early 20th century American music, which reflect eclectic influences of jazz club, church hall and military band. Elliott Carter’s last orchestral work and his penultimate composition of any kind, Instances, received its world premiere in February 2013 in Seattle Symphony’s Benaroya Hall. The work was a co-commission by the Seattle Symphony and Tanglewood Music Center and the first live performance of this single-movement piece is featured on this recording. Carter dedicated Instances to Ludovic Morlot, who, in his words, “has performed many of my works so beautifully.” All works on this disc were recorded live. - Seattle Symphony Media

Fauré’s most beloved orchestral works are presented here in sumptuous, refined and beautifully recorded performances. With charismatic interpretations of the three short works for solo instruments and a rare recording of the choral version of the famous Pavane, this is a definitive collection of Fauré’s orchestral music.

With naturalistic imaging, depth of field and dynamic range, these recordings are engineered to audiophile standards and aim to capture as realistically as possible the sound of the orchestra performing on the Benaroya Hall stage. Digital content will be available in stereo, 96k 24-bit high resolution, and 5.1 surround sound.

This is the fourth disc on the Seattle Symphony’s new in-house label, reflecting the highly acclaimed partnership between talented young French conductor Ludovic Morlot and his American orchestra.

REVIEW:

Conjuring a wonderful palette of color from the Seattle Symphony, Ludovic Morlot manages to give his Fauré performances an unmistakably and idiomatically character from start to finish, and his subtle conducting is able to let his musicians communicate all the music’s emotions.

-- Pizzicato