This new Arvo Pärt choral music collection includes a significant number of works sung in English. The three-part Triodion is one of the composer's most inward, contemplative pieces, drawing heavily on early Renaissance choral style for its stark, spare harmonies. Tribute to Caesar, I am the True Vine, and The Woman with the Alabaster Box follow in this tradition, though these feature a richer harmonic palette as well as more fluid movement and brighter colors.

The remaining works include the brooding and intense Ode VII (Memento) from Kanon Pokajanen, the brief, celebratory Bogoróditse Djévo (which closes the program), Nunc dimittis, and Dopo la Vittoria. This last is one of the most beautiful compositions on the CD. Here we have the more familiar, "modern" Pärt as we hear passages that sound faintly minimalistic while always draped in luminous colors and arresting timbres. Of course, those two attributes apply to most of Pärt's moving and exquisitely rendered choral music. Exquisite also describes the performances of the Elora Festival Singers, who provide pure-toned and texturally beautiful singing under Noel Edison's direction. Naxos' recording is spacious and well-detailed, with wide dynamics. A truly enjoyable hour of music, essential for Pärt aficionados and choral enthusiasts.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Contemporary music is alive and well in innumerable forms and genres, and the flexibility and colorful sonorities of the flute have attracted composers of every style. This collection of beautiful chamber music with flute is performed by award-winning soloist Alice K. Dade and includes four premiere recordings. These take us from Aaron Jay Kernis’s Air, the composer’s ‘love letter in music,’ via the youthful memories of Michael Fine’s Skipping Stones, the Baroque and jazz elements in Noam Elkies’ E Sonata and the breathtaking mountain scenery of Jennifer Margaret Barker’s Na Tri Peathraichan, to the novel and mysterious musical mirroring of Dan Coleman’s Pavanes and Symmetries, This is a program to tease the imagination and stimulate the senses.

Zoltán Kodály’s later years were dominated by a series of choral works but his early reputation centered upon chamber music, notably two string quartets, a Cello Sonata (8.553160) and the two masterpieces heard on this recording. The Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 combines Classical form with folk influence, while the Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8, with its expanded harmonies and tone colours, is one of the greatest solo cello works since Bach’s Cello Suites. György Ligeti continued the Hungarian lineage with his Sonata for Solo Cello, a succinct but pivotal work in his compositional development. Gabriel Schwabe has established himself among the leading cellists of his generation. He is a laureate of numerous national and international competitions, including the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann and the Concours Rostropovich in Paris. In 2009, he won the prestigious Pierre Fournier Award in London. He is a regular guest at festivals such as the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, the Kronberg Academy Festival and the Amsterdam Biennale, and has performed with artists including Isabelle Faust, Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, Kirill Gerstein and Jonathan Gilad.

REVIEWS:

Schwabe’s magnificent interpretation of Kodaly’s Solo Sonata op. 8, another of the masterpieces of the cello repertoire, is declamatorily expressive and no less excellent for its polished sound. A perfect intonation and a lot of refinement as well as wonderful dynamic and colour nuances make up the richness of Schwabe’s playing.

With this CD, Schwabe has definitely given further proof of his mastery. Highly recommended!

-- Pizzicato

The tonal palette here is expanded by the inclusion of Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello, in which Schwabe’s musicianship is matched by that of Hellen Weiss…This is also important music and—in the hands of such players—essential listening.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Learn more about the music from this Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast episode!

These two concertos - one a staple of the repertoire, the other almost unknown - share melodic richness and a Spanish influence. Lalo's Symphonie espagnole reflects the quicksilver technique of its dedicatee, Pablo de Sarasate, in its ingenious and virtuosic passagework, with its moods and rhythms indelibly Iberian in feel. Juan Manén, in his day almost as famous as his fellow Catalan Pau Casals, was an admired virtuoso violinist and a prominent composer. His Concierto español, the first of three violin concertos, is suffused with technical demands, lyric warmth, and rhapsodic nostalgia. Soloist Tianwa Yang's Sarasate recordings have received international acclaim.

REVIEW:

Yang seems to have a natural affinity for Spanish works, having already recorded the complete violin works of Pablo de Sarasate, and her dazzling brilliance seems perfectly suited to the nature of the music. As in the Sarasate set, Yang is paired with a Spanish orchestra for even more authenticity.

– The WholeNote (CA)

Note: World Premiere Recordings.

Pulitzer Prize recipient and GRAMMY award-winner Aaron Jay Kernis is one of America’s most performed composers. Both works on this album exemplify his creative approach to orchestral composition, sharing elements in common, such as virtuoso percussion writing and the use of variation form. Color Wheel is an exuberant miniature concerto for orchestra with a wide array of contrasts, while Symphony No. 4 ‘Chromelodeon’ explores the coexistence of opposing musical forces to powerful, pensive, and touching effect. Champions of new American music, the Nashville Symphony and its music director Giancarlo Guerrero had premiered numerous works, and received 13 GRAMMY Awards including two for Best Orchestral Performance. Among their award-winning recordings include works by Michael Daugherty, Stephen Paulus, and Jennifer Higdon.

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REVIEW:

Passing through many moods, Color Wheel often employs orchestral virtuosity that explores every department in depth, the strings providing the bed-rock around which the wheel revolves. It is a sizeable score of some twenty-two minutes, that gives a showpiece for the fine Nashville Symphony and their conductor, Giancarlo Guerrero, the final passage a climax of monumental proportions. The recordings come from 2016 and 2019 but match one another perfectly, the extent of detail in the densely scored passages of Color Wheel is an achievement for the sound team. Those collecting the ‘American Classics’ series will be delighted.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Two-time Grammy Award-nominated harpsichordist Jory Vinikour plays historically groundbreaking works by François Couperin (1668–1733) on an album comprising three inventive Couperin suites — the composer called them “Ordres” — combining traditional French Baroque dance movements with witty and atmospheric character pieces — miniature tone poems for solo harpsichord. Couperin’s suites “are elegantly composed, concealing a complex, allusive and varied emotional world behind their highly wrought surface” (Norton Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music). Chicago-born, French-trained harpsichordist Vinikour is especially enamored of Couperin’s Ordres Nos. 6, 7, and 8, calling them “remarkable” for their harmonically driven melodic invention and atmospheric unity within each suite. Highlights include the celebrated Les Baricades Mistérieuses from Ordre No. 6, which England’s The Guardian calls “shimmering, kaleidoscopic and seductive, a sonic trompe l’oeil.” The compelling Les Amusemens from Ordre No. 7 is irresistibly sweet and melancholic. Order No. 8 offers masterful examples of established forms, culminating with a dramatic Passacaille.

REVIEWS:

L’Unique presents all the wit and melancholy of Vinikour’s distinctive interpretations of the sixth, seventh, and eighth suites.

– BBC Radio 3 Record Review Extra

Playfully and decorously brought music to life by American harpsichordist Jory Vinikour. The recording places the instrument in a really lifelike perspective.

– BBC Record Review

As a boy during the years 1822–23 Liszt studied in Vienna with Czerny and Salieri, at the same time as Schubert was winning his reputation as a leading composer in the city. Many years later Liszt did much to introduce Schubert’s music to a wider audience, not least through his prodigious transcriptions. In the case of the Three Marches and Mélodies hongroises, Liszt selected music originally written for piano duet, but in Soirées de Vienne, a set of nine pieces of which some were to remain prominent in Liszt’s concert repertoire, he fashioned a sequence of truly memorable valse-caprices.

Billboard chart-topping violinist Rachel Barton Pine releases her 36th album and fourth for AVIE with her first recordings of two repertory staples, violin concertos by Edward Elgar and Max Bruch. The two works – Elgar’s only concerto for violin and Bruch’s first – straddle the turn of the 20th century but have in common a Romantic hue which Rachel probes with her rich, soulful tone.

The album is dedicated to “the memory of a musical hero and generous friend, Sir Neville Marriner,” who was to have reunited with Rachel on this album. She was fortunate to work with him on the scores, with Sir Neville vividly relating accounts of his teacher Billy Reed, former leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, who collaborated with Elgar on the creation of his violin concerto. Grammy Award-winning conductor Andrew Litton brings his own Romantic pedigree to the recording, as does the BBC Symphony Orchestra and celebrated producer Andrew Keener who himself has overseen award winning versions of the Elgar and Bruch concertos.

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REVIEW:

Pine’s interpretation of the Elgar is as emotionally satisfying as it is dazzling. The slow movement is mysteriously veiled and luminous, providing a palpable sense of the music’s darker undercurrents. She is most impressive, perhaps, in the finale, where her easy virtuosity sends sparks flying, though never at the expense of the long line.

Her performance of the Bruch is wholly persuasive in its mittel-European heartiness. The outer movements abound with snap and spice, and the Adagio has a warm solemnity that, one might argue, offers a foretaste of Elgarian nobilmente. The recorded sound is glorious, with a near-ideal balance between soloist and orchestra.

– Gramophone

The Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds has rapidly become one of the world’s most performed choral composers. His ability to bring a dramatic text to life through textures that are lush yet permeated with a more stringent and angular aesthetic has ensured a steady steam of commissions from leading orchestras and choral forces. The four works here reflect an interest in the beauty of nature, religious faith and legend. The First Tears explores an Inuit story and employs subtle instrumental coloration from jaw harps and Native American flutes, whilst Passion and Resurrection is a profound and powerful exploration of Christ’s death and Resurrection.

The multi-award-winning Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds’ 21st-century choral sound is both exquisite and angular, and in this album he explores ideas of ‘translation,’ legend and the divine. With his expanded tonality and employment of shimmering singing hand bells in ‘Translation,’ and the angelic use of the viola and cello in ‘In paradisum’ he creates music of ravishing refinement. In ‘Legend of the Walled-In Woman’ Esenvalds transcribes and employs an authentic Albanian folk song.

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REVIEW:

Ethan Sperry’s immaculate Portland State Chamber Choir clearly relish the luscious choral textures, which often expand into 16 parts. The engineering captures with great clarity both this sense of spaciousness and the extreme dynamic range. All the solo vocal contributions are magnificent...A stunning, timely triumph, therefore, full of ravishing, transformative and deeply touching music.

– Gramophone

The centerpiece of this program is the first ever recording of the Hiawatha Melodrama, a concert work for narrator and orchestra designed to show the kinship between Dvořák's New World Symphony and Longfellow’s poem The Song of Hiawatha, which Dvořák said had inspired him in the symphony. It takes music from the symphony, as well as passages from the American Suite and Violin Sonatina, and fuses them with the poem, which is recited by a bass-baritone. Also included is music by Arthur Farwell, who was influenced by Dvořák, and was a proponent of Native American music. This recording thus celebrates the crosscurrent of influences between the Czech composer and American music and culture.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

A 60th Annual Grammy Award Nominee

Acclaimed as one of America’s leading contemporary composers, Richard Danielpour wrote Songs of Solitude as a response to the events of 9/11. Drawing on the poems of W.B. Yeats, the work enshrines a sense of economy and sparseness, formed of a set of six powerful orchestral songs. The motivating force for War Songs was a series of photographs of the young men and women killed in the Iraq War. The song cycle, with its texts by Walt Whitman, was written for the Nashville Symphony to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. Toward the Splendid City is a portrait of New York City driven by Danielpour’s love-hate relationship with his hometown. This is vivid music, subtle tonal-modern tour de force expressions, the main works heartfelt reactions to two of the most difficult historical periods in the USA.

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REVIEWS:

Performances are exceptionally well-wrought, detailed and strong. The sound is excellent. The music unforgettable. Very much recommended.

– Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

Thomas Hampson…performs the music with just the right blend of evenness and emotional intensity, and the effect of the final and longest song, Come Up from the Fields Father, which lasts half the length of the whole cycle, is especially affecting here. The accompaniment by the Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero is nuanced and subtle throughout, fitting the music very well indeed. Hampson and Guerrero are also well-teamed for Songs of Solitude.

– Infodad.com (October 2016)

Expanded Edition: This album contains new tracks that were not available on the original, limited release version, released on-demand in 2015

The essence of The King’s Singers has always been live performance. On Christmas Presence, the beloved acapella group gives the listener the experience of being at a live King’s Singers concert in one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, from the comfort of their own home. The program for this special holiday concert takes the listener through various ages and styles of music, from the Renaissance to the present day. A sublime accompaniment to the holiday season, the King's Singers open with sacred music, move through modern carols, and end with festive musical favorites.

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REVIEWS:

This live performance catches The King’s Singers in particularly fresh, spontaneous fettle, as their 50th anniversary approaches.

– BBC Music Magazine

Recorded live at King’s College, Cambridge in 2015, the King’s Singers are as alluring as ever. All is given with that familiar, deliciously fragile refinement.

– The Sunday Times (UK)

The world-class vocal ensemble Chicago a cappella does Christmas choral music fans a real service by daring to create a program entirely of contemporary (primarily within the last 20 or so years) works that defy the usual and predictable holiday concert choices that guarantee instant audience familiarity and gratification (not that there's anything wrong with those beloved, treasured standards!). Most of the works featured here require a bit more-than-usual attention from listeners--the composers and arrangers obviously approached such common texts as "What sweeter music", "Il est Né, le Divin Enfant", "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", "Noël nouvelet", "I wonder as I wander", "Lo Yisa Goy", and "The Huron Carol" with an idea to say something that hadn't already been said. And they do--splendidly. Then we have entirely original pieces by Stephen Paulus (Splendid Jewel--from a 14th-century Italian text), Gwyneth Walker (The Christ-child's Lullaby--inspired by a traditional Hebridean song), Richard Proulx (Prayer of the Venerable Bede--from a text found on the wall of Galilee Chapel in Durham Cathedral), and Danish composer Per Nørgård (En stjerne er sat--a dialogue between the Angel and the shepherds).

It's a tribute to the power of the Christmas story and to its enduring, compelling fascination for composers that the best of them continue--more than 2000 years later--to devote their efforts to writing music to recognize and celebrate the birth of Christ. And we are fortunate to have choirs of this caliber to bring this music to us in a context that presents it most favorably and gives it a permanent presence in our listening repertoire.

Another of the disc's strengths is the sheer variety of music, from the Nigerian setting of the text "For unto us a child is born" by Christian Onyeji, to Rosephanye Powell's "spiritual-like" Who is the baby?, to Yemeni composer Chaim Parchi's alluring Chanukah tune "Aleih Neiri", arranged for choir by Zamir Chorale of Boston founder Joshua Jacobson. The nine singers of Chicago a cappella are absolutely right-on in every respect, and the sound is ideal. This is an unqualified success, a holiday treat, a musical bounty that will both challenge and enliven your Christmastime listening. Highly recommended!

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Soprano Deborah Sternberg brings together three song cycles themed on birds, each with its own unique flavour and expressive vocabulary. Andrew Earle Simpson’s eloquent skills as a composer and pianist are united in Birds of Love and Prey, in which both antique and modern textual sources contrast songbirds and predators in a variety of ways. Eric Kitchen uses transcriptions of actual birdsong in The Olney Avian Verse of William Cowper, while Gabriel Thibaudeau’s Cycle Avicellus portrays birds within landscapes using a language of modern impressionism.