Praised by BBC Music magazine for his 'lucid, velvety tenor and pop-star charisma', the Lebanese-American Karim Sulayman has garnered international attention as a sophisticated and versatile artist. He joins the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for this album of works by Reynaldo Hahn. The founder members Tom Poster and Elena Urioste write: 'Kaleidoscope has championed many unjustly neglected composers, but in the case of Reynaldo Hahn the neglect seems particularly puzzling to us. His music is immediately approachable, soaringly beautiful, and speaks directly to the heart; audiences, on the rare occasions that they get to hear it, seem to adore it. His life story is fascinating, too: born in Caracas, to a Jewish-German father and a Catholic-Venezuelan mother of Spanish / Basque origin, the handsome and urbane Hahn charmed high-society Paris, enjoying great success as composer, conductor, singer, writer-lecturer, and music critic. The Piano Quintet had been on our programming wish list for some time: it was lauded as Hahn's greatest work at it's 1922 premiere, and the powerful intensity of it's first two movements in particular acts as a firm rejoinder to those who criticised Hahn as a lightweight salon composer. By the time he finished his Piano Quartet, in 1946, Hahn was a man out of place in the world; this is music which bears no trace of modernism, instead looking back nostalgically to Hahn's heyday in la belle epoque. A number of years ago, our dear friend Karim Sulayman joined Tom in several performances of a set of Hahn songs, and a shared love for the music led to a discussion about how beautifully some of the piano parts could work in chamber arrangements. Karim had first discovered Hahn through the touching recordings on which the composer simultaneously sings and plays his own songs; and we, in turn, have always been deeply touched by the direct channel which Karim seems to have to Hahn's heartfelt expressive world. For all of us, it has been a profound joy to put these new song arrangements down on disc for the first time.'

Elena Urioste and Tom Poster return for their second recital on Chandos, focussing on French repertoire. The performers write: ‘The three sonatas on this album were all published during the decade 1916–26, a musical period to which we often find ourselves drawn, when the world – and the artistic landscape – was changing beyond recognition.'

'Fauré lamented that his Second Sonata never achieved anything like the popularity of his First; having fallen under the Second Sonata’s spell, we wanted to help to right this continuing imbalance.'

'Mel Bonis wrote more than 300 pieces, and all those we have explored so far have been wonderful. Her only violin sonata is a rhapsodic work with a Greek folk melody at its heart, which we were enraptured by the moment we encountered it.'

'Reynaldo Hahn is generally better known to singers than to instrumentalists, though his chamber music is as exquisite as his songs. His Violin Sonata was the last work on this album to be composed, but where Fauré in his Sonata looks forward to modernist developments, Hahn mostly looks back nostalgically to a gentler time.'

'The earliest of the works here, and possibly the most often heard these days, is the Nocturne by Lili Boulanger, an exquisite miniature from a composer whose life ended far too soon.’

The three operas-comiques in this set epitomise the glamour, vivacity and zest of the quintessentially French genre and are among their composers' most admired works. Adolphe Adam's "Le Postillon de Lonjumeau" exudes rococo Parisian charm, Reynaldo Hahn's elegant and refined "Ciboulette" is one of the last masterpieces of French operetta, and Jacques Offenbach's "La Perichole" is an opera-bouffe of scintillating colour and vivacious dances. These acclaimed productions from the famous stage of the Opera Comique in Paris feature world-class performers, superb directors, and, in the Adam, costumes by the iconic French fashion designer, Christian Lacroix. “[A] delightful collection…Florie Valiquette shows a lively stage presence as Madelaine...All in all this is an enjoyable outing.” --MusicWeb International

Gary Lemco writes: “My own beguilement with Szeryng came with his performance in 1987 Atlanta with Louis Lane, of the North American premiere of the 1927 Concerto by Reynaldo Hahn, the French master of the Belle Epoch. “Ah, yes”, asserts Szeryng, “Reynaldo Hahn, the most Parisian of all Parisians, even though he was born in Caracas of German parents. There is even a street in Caracas named for him. I remember meeting him; and even though he was trained as a pianist, he had a natural sense of the violin. Some favor his Violin Sonata. The Concerto is published, but for some reason nobody plays it. The first movement for me is the best and most compact and makes a natural display piece. The second movement is based on a song from Tunis — absolutely genuine— and the finale sings in a typical operetta style. It starts like an extension of the second movement and has tremendous wit and charm. And, to be sure, it is a challenge.”

REVIEW:

Szeryng was a class act. His tone pure yet full-bodied, his phrasing the product of a rounded and cultivated mind.

-- Gramophone (Reissue/Archive Issue of the Month, December 2021)

This CD recording is the result of a succession of different moments of musical happiness and the encounter between the solo harpist of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, Aurelie Noll, and two exceptional musicians. María Cristina Kiehr and Yolena Orea-Sanchez (violoncello) have put their talent and artistic sensitivity at the service of this wonderful repertoire. The special sound of the harp creates a kind of new relief here and lends this unusual album its special charm. The program includes works by Reynaldo Hahn, Tchaikovsky, Manuel de Falla and Gabriel Faure. One highlight is certainly the new composition for soprano, cello and harp by Swiss composer Silvan Loher, whose delicate and impressionistic musical style fits wonderfully into this project. Soprano María Cristina Kiehr, born in Tandil, Argentina, is a specialist in "early music". The South American cellist Yolena Orea-Sanchez is a permanent member of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, as is the harpist Noll. She can be heard regularly at numerous European music festivals with the Trio Anthilia (violin, cello and piano), which she co-founded.

In this recital, Véronique Gens and Hervé Niquet bring back to life a neglected aspect of France’s Romantic heritage: songs with orchestral accompaniment. Aside from a few pieces by Debussy and Duparc, and Berlioz’s famous Nuits d’été, orchestral mélodies form a virtually forgotten continent. In collaboration with the specialists of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, Alpha now revisits these musical landscapes, taking us from Brittany (Hahn) to Persia, whose beauties Fauré and Saint-Saëns exalt in very different ways. Mélodies by Chausson, Gounod and Dubois and rarely heard instrumental pieces by Massenet, Fauré and Fernand de La Tombelle round out the journey with their musical reveries.

Praised for "her mastery of phrasing and of the dramatic dimension" (Diapason), "astonishing virtuosity" (Revelation Classiques) and "her infinite delicacy" (Le Populaire du centre), French violinist Irene Duval is establishing herself as a uniquely compelling performer with a strong interest in combining works central to the repertoire with little-known gems. Born in France to a French father and Korean mother, Irene Duval grew up in Japan, Indonesia, and Hong Kong before returning to France at the age of eleven. She studied with Suzanne Gessner and Jean-Jacques Kantorow, before entering the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris in 2008 in the class of Roland Daugareil; in 2014 she joined the Kronberg Academy in Germany, where she studied with Mihaela Martin for three years.

In this album, Lorquiana, Ana Maria Valderrama, violin, and David Kadouch, piano, project Lorca's musical personality into the future by compiling different scores linked in one way or another to the Andalusian artist. Poulenc's sonata illustrates the positive welcome of the political and social significance of Lorca's figure in France, where it became a symbol of freedom and resistance. Hahn's work, on the other hand, takes us to those happy and ephemeral Twenties of the last century that Lorca also enjoyed. Alizia Terzian's song shows the powerful influence that the poet has had in the Hispanic American context. The famous La vida breve passage is a nod to the veneration Lorca professed towards Falla. And, of course, we listen to Lorca's own creations in a rich selection of Spanish popular songs, iconic testimonies of his compositional activity that are revisited in an exceptional arrangement by Alberto Martin for violin and piano.

Les Frivolites Parisiennes return to b-records with a revival of Le Dieu Bleu, a ballet by Michel Fokine which premiered in 1912, and whose music by Reynaldo Hahn had not been heard in France since then. This was an exceptional project performed with a full symphonic orchestra of more than seventy musicians. The live recording is a measure of their great attention to detail.