Great Performances, Great Sound and World-Renowned Artists! Reference Recordings is proud to present The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos played by Grammy-winning Garrick Ohlsson, performing with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Mr. Ohlsson is especially noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. He is the only American to win first prize in the International Chopin Piano Competition.

This new recording represents a pinnacle in his career. The Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra consists of top talent from across the country, including more than 220 musicians from 90 orchestras and 65 institutions of higher learning, many performing together each summer for over 25 years. The Festival, founded in 1962, also welcomes yearly some of the most sought-after soloists and visiting artists in classical music today. Under the baton of world-renowned conductor Sir Donald Runnicles, these musicians come together to gather inspiration from the mountain setting and to provide spectacular music for Festival audiences. This album was recorded during live performances in July 2022, produced by Victor Muenzer, and engineered by Kevin Harbison.

REVIEWS:

Garrick Ohlsson and Donald Runnicles accomplished the ambitious feat of recording all five Beethoven piano concertos over five consecutive days in July 2022. You wouldn’t know that from these unpressured and poised performances, at least for the most part. The Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra may be a pick-up aggregation, yet Runnicles obtains world-class results by way of clear-cut balances between orchestral strands, and virtually immaculate unanimity of ensemble attacks and releases.

Ohlsson’s 74-year-old fingers operate at unambiguous full capacity. Runs and trills are as accurate, assured, and directional as ever; themes are thoughtfully characterized and articulated with variety. Unlike many pianists who rattle off the “Emperor” concerto’s introductory cadenza like a day at the races, Ohlsson’s shapely phrasing draws attention to the composer rather than to himself. I’m especially taken with Ohlsson’s vocally informed legato and rapt sustaining power in all five slow movements, where he strikes a happy medium between his one-time mentor Claudio Arrau’s rhetorical inflections and Wilhelm Kempff’s luminous intimacy (the pianist’s hauntingly calibrated left-hand tremolos in No. 3’s Largo seem to emerge from afar). The assiduously dovetailed rapid exchanges between soloist and orchestra in No. 4’s Rondo either result from painstaking rehearsal or profound mental telepathy.

To be sure, all is not perfect: Tempos bog down in No. 1’s Allegro con brio from the development section on, while No. 2’s underplayed Rondo Finale lacks the bracing angularity that Schnabel, Kapell, Gould, and Fleisher brought to this music. The Creatures of Prometheus Overture that follows the “Emperor” on Disc 3 begins with a crisp, hard-hitting introduction, then settles into auto-pilot for the main section. If the Ohlsson/Runnicles Beethoven cycle falls short of the freshness and individuality distinguishing recent contenders like Zhang/Stutzmann, Barnatan/Gilbert, and Hough/Lintu, these superbly engineered recordings still offer much to savor.

 

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Of all pianists before the public today, Ohlsson’s technique is among the most honest. Every note is present and accounted for, nothing ever fudged, all within an exquisitely calculated proportionality. His approach is, above all, lyrical. This is a bouquet of Beethoven concertos like no other.

-- Gramophone

I have several Reference Recordings in my collection and I’m always bowled over by their impeccability, where everything is recorded and mastered to perfection. For me, they’re the crème de la crème when it comes to recorded sound. This new release is no exception. The engineers have done a sterling job in placing the solo piano ideally in the sound picture. The three discs (Hybrid SACDS with Stereo SACD, 5.0 Surround SACD and Stereo CD layers) come nicely presented in the traditional fatbox format, and are well-annotated. There’s no doubting that this will be one of my Recordings of the Year.

-- MusicWeb International

Reference Recordings is proud to present a very special new release! Entitled Le Dolce Sirene to represent the all-women force of Bach Aria Soloists, this exciting new album includes works by Monteverdi, Handel, Mendelssohn and Bach, alongside a new transcription by BAS of Cecilia McDowall’s song cycle Four Shakespeare Songs. Hailed for producing “the most surprising and brilliantly innovative collaborations in Kansas City,” Bach Aria Soloists delivers each year their acclaimed concert series presenting the genius and relevance of Johann Sebastian Bach, his contemporaries, and those he inspired.

REVIEWS:

The Kansas City-based Bach Aria Soloists make their recording debut on Reference Recordings with a lovely album of Monteverdi, Bach, Handel and Mendelssohn, complemented by Cecilia McDowall and concluding with their own improvisation on La folia. Recorded with the label’s trademark sweet and clear perfection, ‘Le dolce sirene’ achieves that audiophile miracle, sounding even better on speakers than on headphones.

Most of the music is rich in conventional beauty, from Sarah Tannehill Anderson, luscious in Monteverdi and resplendent in Handel’s ‘Rejoice greatly’, to Elizabeth Suh Lane and her continuo mates illuminating Bach’s G major Violin Sonata from 1734. By contrast McDowall’s Four Shakespeare Songs use intriguingly skewed, modern notions of romantic beauty and sudden sweeps of song perfectly timed, voiced and sung to explore different aspects of love. ‘First Rehearse’ on its own, Titania’s blessing of the lovers, is a magical tour de force.

As Steven Ledbetter’s notes explain, the performers adopted the same practice for their La folia as those from about 1700, ornamenting and elaborating a basic framework that ‘appears constantly renewed’. According to founding artistic director Lane, the group’s name is a nod to the famed Bach Aria Group and in fact, she assured me, the Group’s last violinist Daniel Phillips gave ‘his full blessing, really excited that we were starting such an organisation!’

The album was recorded at Village Presbyterian Church in a suburb of Kansas City, where Elisa Williams Bickers proved with the Allegro con brio from Mendelssohn’s Fourth Organ Sonata how powerfully and inspirationally the Richards, Fowkes & Co three-manual mechanical action instrument installed in 2016 could speak.

-- Gramophone

REFERENCE RECORDINGS is proud to announce "Reencuentros," Cecilia Duarte’s first solo album, produced by multiple-time Producer of the Year GRAMMY® winner, Blanton Alspaugh. Cecilia is best known as a classical and opera singer. This album is a departure, containing 12 romantic boleros from multiple countries. Sung in Spanish, these Latin popular standards are truly art songs from the mid-20th century. Cecilia is accompanied by Trio Chapultepec: Vincent A. Pequeño, Israel Alcala, and William Carlton Galvez, joined by Jesús Pacheco on percussion.

REVIEW:

Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte, born in Chihuahua, Mexico, now makes her home in the United States. Reencuentros is her debut solo album for Reference Recordings. The album, dedicated to Duarte’s mother, and conceived during the pandemic, offers a collection of boleros.

The featured repertoire is by composers from Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Chile. It’s clear that her chosen repertoire is close to the singer’s heart. She sings the various boleros with a lovely and rich tone, aligned with phrasing that is both elegant and seductive. Duarte allows these songs to make their impression without vocal or interpretive overreaching. And because of her keen, subtle artistry, the result is mesmerizing. The musicians collaborating with Duarte, offering both instrumental and vocal support, complement the mezzo’s refined approach.

The recording, typical of RR, is superb, featuring an ideal natural balance of presence, color, and detail. The booklet includes Duarte’s comments on the songs, as well as full Spanish texts and English translations. This recital is a winner in every respect.

-- Fanfare

A new album of World Premieres from GRAMMY® Award-winning Ukrainian-American pianist Nadia Shpachenko! As she watched in horror her home city of Kharkiv (and the rest of Ukraine) being destroyed and civilians being murdered every day, Shpachenko tried to come up with ways to express her feelings of utter despair and anger, as well as hope and resilience, through her music making. She decided to put together a new album to support Ukraine humanitarian aid. Reference Recordings is proud to release this album, with proceeds benefitting Ukrainian people affected by the war.

Shpachenko has collaborated with Ukrainian artists to create Invasion music videos and album art, describing their war experience. The key piece on the album, titled Invasion (for piano, alto saxophone, horn, trombone, timpani, snare drum, and mandolin) is Shpachenko’s longtime collaborator Lewis Spratlan’s response to this tragic war. The rest of the album features World Premiere recordings of solo piano music also by Spratlan. These pieces reflect on the human experience, often finding solace and inspiration in nature and music of the past. Wonderer, a major piece that closes the album, connects in its character to the current experience of many Ukrainian people, especially those displaced by the war. The hero, searching through the unknown, overcoming pain, and reminiscing about things past, triumphs at the end.

REVIEWS:

Just as 9/11 prompted a wave of commemorative works, so is the Russian invasion of Ukraine now doing. Lewis Spratlan’s Invasion is a raucous, volatile tone poem for a sextet of piano, saxophone, horn, trombone, percussion and – I assume to provide some local Ukrainian colour – mandolin, written at speed in March this year. Spratlan and pianist Nadia Shpachenko were already planning a new album to follow up her Grammy Award-winning ‘The Poetry of Places’, which featured Spratlan’s Bangladesh, when events overtook it. The performance is powerful...the booklet illustrated sumptuously with full-colour paintings by Ukrainian artists Shpachenko commissioned and by children in her battered home city of Kharkiv.

Shpachenko audibly has a deep understanding of Spratlan’s compositional processes, and – in writing all bar Wonderer for her – he clearly has an appreciation of her pianistic abilities.

-- Gramophone

Joel Fan’s second album for Reference Recordings, further solidifies his reputation for innovative programming and dazzling keyboard technique. Drawing on composers from North and South America, Fan makes brilliant work of major sonatas by Ginastera and Barber, along with “entertainments” by Gottschalk, Piazzolla and Villa-Lobos. Of particular interest are two little-known works by Amy Beach and the African-American composer Margaret Bonds. Another highlight is the world premiere recording of a recent suite by William Bolcom.

Recorded at Skywalker Sound by RR’s renowned technical guru, “Prof.” Keith O. Johnson.

This selection is a High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) recording.
Includes concerto(s) by Antonio Vivaldi. Ensemble: Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Conductor: Nicholas McGegan. Soloists: Katherine Kyme, Elizabeth Blumenstock, Marc Schachman, Gonzalo Ruiz.

* Definitive performances of Bix Beiderbecke's five original piano pieces, plus new Hyman arrangements and improvisations on classic Beiderbecke recordings.

* A spectacular recording by seven-time Grammy nominee Keith O. Johnson, at the famed Skywalker Sound.

* Hyman was composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist for many Woody Allen films including Bullets Over Broadway and Mighty Aphrodite. Other film scores have included Moonstruck and Billy Bathgate.

"Stunning virtuosity and audio fidelity that sets an unprecedented standard for recording that most recalcitrant of instrument, the grand piano. An extraordinary pianist with great taste, in total command of a magnificent instrument, recorded with awesome presence and fidelity!" -- JazzTimes

"A once-in-a-lifetime record that does everything right. The band is hot, and the sound is front-row center, the players set up in a virtual-reality semicircle inches from your face. It is the most enveloping recording in my collection, and my numero uno desert island LP." -- Stereophile

This selection is a High Definition Compatible Digital (HCDC) recording.

Written and performed by Christopher Hastings, The Human Holiday is a continuous play in five sections. This quirky play is written in the British style, and was an instant hit in the 1980s on public radio. “The sound is so good you simply forget about it after a few minutes and become completely immersed in the content. The Human Holiday is so slickly and convincingly done that one finds it easy to accept the whole thing as being real…It’s a masterpiece.” (J. Gordon Holt, Stereophile)

World Premiere Recording
includes interview with John Tavener 10:45

"Gorgeous, mystical music with the power to entrance. Sir John Taverner, a follower of the Greek Orthodox faith, writes simple, repetitive compositions that embody the spiritual essence of prayer. . . Slowing down – sitting or lying in silence by candlelight would be ideal – is essential to experience Tavener's reverential universe. This is a universe that is always with us, Tavener's music suggests, if we are only willing to align ourselves and tune in. . . Captured in demonstration quality 24–bit HDCD sound by Prof. Keith Johnson, this world premiere recording is an extraordinary achievement." – Jason Serinus, Bay Area Reporter 11/27/03

"The recording, a world premiere of this piece, is beyond reproach. Individual instruments are distinct and float in space. By his own words, Tavener recommends that the piece be played in a resonant acoustic. He could have not asked for a better place. The voices echo slightly off of the walls and ceiling creating an even more metaphysical feeling. I don't think I've heard a better piece to test your soundstage. There is little else I can provide. Tavener says Ikon of Eros is "humbly offered to those who have ears to hear." I suggest you take him up on it." — Bill Brooks, 12/03, Soundstage.com

Chosen by Andrew Quint of The Absolute Sound magazine as one of the ten best classical releases of 2003.

This selection is a High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) recording.

This disc was nominated for the 1997 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Engineered Recording."
This selection is a High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) recording.

This selection is HDCD (High Definition Compatible Digital) recording.
All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.
All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

Arthur Sullivan's music for The Tempest reveals the 19-year-old as a serious talent. Yes, the music owes something to Mendelssohn--the Prelude, particularly, takes a few major hints from the Fingal's Cave Overture. But the melodic inspiration is fresh, the orchestration vivid, the dance music aptly toe-tapping, and the brief postlude curiously moving in a way that actually anticipates the more reflective moments of the Sibelius that follows. Coupling these two works, one a barely known first orchestral essay, the other a late but still curiously neglected masterpiece, was a brilliant idea--a "concept" album that really makes good musical sense.

The playing order of the Sibelius also is very intelligent: Prelude (Storm), Suite No. 2, then Suite No. 1, which ends with a reprise of the Prelude's storm music. Happily, both here and in the Sullivan, the performances are as smart, atmospheric, and vibrant as the music itself. Caliban's Song and the storm episodes have impressive power, and they're stunningly recorded in vintage Reference Recordings fashion. The more lyrical moments, such as the Berceuse and the various song transcriptions, are all beautifully played by the Kansas orchestra. The wind soloists are uniformly fine (listen to the flute in The Oak Tree, from Suite No. 1), and the harp, so important to the music's "magic" elements, is wonderfully present without ever sounding spotlit. Only "Miranda" from Suite No. 2 sounds a touch edgy in the violins, the tempo slightly rushed. This and any other minor quibbles certainly aren't enough to prevent me from recommending this new release in the strongest possible terms. It's a winner in all respects.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by Stephen Paulus, various composers, Giulio Caccini. Ensemble: Turtle Creek Chorale. Conductor: Timothy Seelig.