The Poulenc Trio is an impressive chamber ensemble made up of respected oboe, bassoon, and piano virtuosi. This release is the ensemble’s debut album for Delos. For the programme, the ensemble presents a fascinating mixture of old and new from Beethoven, Octavio Vasquez, and the centerpiece of the album, Alfred Schnittke. “From the first notes, we knew that this was a group of first-rate chamber musicians, who took as much delight in the joys of intimate playing as they gave.” (Ken Keaton, Palm Beach Daily News)

These two patrician French musicians were leading lights at American Columbia from the 1940s until well into the 1960s. During World War II, violinist Zino Francescatti and pianist Robert Casadesus began performing as a duo (they were both also collaborators with Ravel early in the careers), and in the decades since then the Columbia/Sony catalogue has documented this partnership distinguished by interpretive grace and technical polish. Although Francescatti is probably best remembered for his wide-ranging concerto recordings with Bernstein, Ormandy and Bruno Walter and Casadesus for his sparkling Mozart concertos with Szell, their duo recordings were also greatly admired by music lovers, especially their landmark interpretations of the Beethoven Violin Sonatas. The first of these recordings – made in mono between 1949 and 1957 in New York, when both musicians were living in the US – comprised Nos. 3–9. A remake, this time the complete cycle, was recorded in stereo in Paris in 1958 and 1961. Now Sony Classical is reissuing all of these performances in a single 7-CD box set.

All of their recordings of Beethoven violin sonatas were held in the highest critical esteem. The mono recordings earned special praise from Gramophone in the UK for expressiveness without undue romanticism and from High Fidelity in the US for an equality between the two musicians not often found in recordings of these works. Similar plaudits for the stereo versions, Gramophone commending Francescatti’s “cool, relaxed ease and sweet tone [in the “Spring” Sonata] … Casadesus is wonderfully good, too … The playing is effortless and relaxed in the true chamber music way … Both in this [Op. 96] and the C minor Sonata they give the kind of limpid, poetic classical performances in which every detail falls miraculously into place. This is playing with a lifetime of musical experience behind it … The perspective is faultlessly calculated; but of course not even the best engineer in the world could have produced such a result without a ‘marriage of true minds’ between the performers.” High Fidelity’s reviewer referred to the players’ “general tendency towards objective clarity, rhythmic brio, and superb instrumental refinement … The entire set – flawlessly well articulated, cleanly reproduced, and with every element of Beethoven’s writing meticulously set into proper perspective – can be highly recommended.”

The new box contains two performances never before issued: the duo’s 1957 New York recordings of the “Spring” Sonata and of Op. 30 No. 1, which were apparently withheld because of the imminent commencement of the cycle’s complete remake in stereo.

Lively and touching Beethoven voiced for the piano and viola.

This CD is the first in one of Toccata’s many series – almost as many as Naxos. This one is Beethoven by Arrangement.
 
As far as we know Beethoven, himself a violist, completed no works for the viola as principal instrument. The absence of a local viola virtuoso or at least a viola commissioner might well have been the reason. Others stepped into the breach.
 
This disc documents their arrangements. Before doing so it documents the 27 second torso of a Viola Sonata he began but never completed. It’s typically assertive and lively. Paul Silverthorne who is the guiding mind and hand behind this project arranged the compact three-movement Horn Sonata. It was written originally for the celebrated horn-player Giovanni Punto. It works rather fluently with its pulsingly dynamic and tenderly noble outer movements framing a mournfully captivating little Poco Adagio. Karl Kleinheinz was a contemporary of Beethoven and turned his musical skills to bear on two works for string trio: the opp. 8 and 25 – the latter arranged for flute. The seven movement Serenade for String Trio op. 8 became the Notturno for viola and piano. It’s in the mood and manner of Mozart’s cassations and serenades with witty movements alternating with more pensive and serious ones. The Allegretto alla Polacca is especially attractive. Friedrich Hermann, a pupil of Mendelssohn at Leipzig, did the same service for the much arranged Septet op. 20 – here appositely dubbed the Grand Duo. It’s an even more extended work at forty minutes than the Notturno this time across six movements. The music is from the high watermark of Beethoven’s early period and rewards close attention as well as casual overhearing. After much profundity the finale’s Marcia and Presto end proceedings with gleaming-eyed cheer and urbane confidence. Intakes of breath can be distracting but I only really noticed them from Silverthorne in the Andante segment of the Grand Duo’s finale. Silverthorne’s playing on the Amati viola is impassioned and completely in-style. David Owen Norris is always not merely reliable but ready with apt and lucid playing; so it proves here.
 
The liner-notes are by Paul Silverthorne who is Principal Viola of the London Symphony Orchestra. I recall him as the violist who premiered the Thea Musgrave concerto in 1991. He was also the violist for the very late Rozsa Viola Concerto recorded by Koch International circa 1998. Toccata Press have Silverthorne’s Beethoven Edition comprising the Grand Duo and the op. 17 Sonata in preparation. Violists will be pleased and so should their audiences.
 
The recording was made on a Viennese Blümel piano (1865) and a Brothers Amati viola (1620).
 
Lively and touching Beethoven voiced for the piano and viola. Viola players and the world’s curious Beethovenians will need to have this.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

DVORAK : Slavonic Dances and Rhapsodies

A highly regarded composer in his day and considered the equal of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante pioneered the transformation of bel canto opera into real music drama. He wrote the operatic tragedy I Briganti (The Brigands) not only to prove himself to the Parisian public but as a direct challenge to Bellini’s I puritani, premièred the previous year. Mercadante’s individual style of canto fiorito and distinctive theatricality demonstrate that opera need not be a mere succession of virtuoso vocal arias, and it paved the way for Verdi’s later dramas. Prepared from a new critical edition, this production was described as ‘outstanding’ by The New York Times.

This is a seminal score, and the Act 2 finale is quite simply one of the best sustained ensemble passages in Italian opera.

The new Poliuto is older in its origins than the Latham-König one on Nuova Era taken from performances given at Rome in 1988 and reviewed last year. That had certain textual advantages, most notably the inclusion of Poliuto's solo "Fu macchiato" following the recitative "Veleno e l'aura" in Act 2, where for the first time the hero's character has some musical life. In other respects this version, recorded in the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1986, is distinctly preferable. Even in textual matters, such as the inclusion of the fine trio for Poliuto, Paolina and Nearco, it can offer reasonable competition.

The recording is also said to be live, though apart from cheers and applause at the end of acts, one would not know it. The Rome recording was altogether too live, with clatter and chatter, comings and goings and various other customary and tiresome signs of life. Recorded sound was an updated version of the kind of thing older collectors probably remember from the so-called "Golden Age of Opera" series on the 'private' EJS label. That is to say, it was sometimes startlingly vivid and sometimes frustratingly remote. The singers of the Rome performances gained some respect but, as recorded, rarely gave pleasure. In short, the Nuova Era issue was welcome for want of a better, and now a better has come.

The sound is clear and well-balanced, orchestral and choral work have some refinement and the soloists vary from adequate to distinguished; the best is Ricciarelli. Memories of Elizabeth Connell in the Nuova Era recording caused quite unnecessary alarm and despondency; Ricciarelli softens the role, turns it inward, imparts an anxious tenderness. Notes that are loud and high are fewer than remembered. Passages such as the Act 1 aria ("Di quai soayi lagrime") and "Ah! fuggi da morte" in the Prison scene become exceptionally beautiful. The baritone and bass, too, are remarkably good, Juan Pons and the noteworthy Laszlo Polgar both singing with finely concentrated tone and plenty of authority. As for Carreras (this was before his illness), the performance is interesting principally as it shows, still more clearly than other recordings did, the direction his career was taking. His recent Eleazar in La juive shows him still pursuing this, with broad passage-notes, the heroic forte varied with a separate head-voice for piano, a tendency to lose quality when the higher notes are under pressure. Characterization seems not to go much beyond a generalized sincerity, but that may also be a limitation of the role itself: I have never quite understood why tenors have found it so attractive.

On the other hand, it becomes ever more easy to see why the opera survives. Despite some banalities, it's a seminal score: Verdi, for instance, must have known it and had it working inside him from (at least) Il trovatore to Aida. There are many fine things in it, and the Act 2 finale is quite simply one of the best sustained ensemble passages in Italian opera.

-- Gramophone [3/1990]

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was born in the city of Bonn, but moved in 1792 to Vienna, where he spent the rest of his relatively short (he died aged 56) yet highly productive life. While best known, perhaps, for popular large-scale orchestral works such as his concertos and symphonies, he also composed string quartets and other chamber music, songs and, of course, a large amount of music for his 'own' instrument, the piano. In each genre, Beethoven was to some extent a path breaker, transforming the models he inherited from his predecessors or the approach taken by his contemporaries into something radically unique and bequeathing to posterity music that pushed the bounds of politely regulated Classicism towards the highly personal drama of Romanticism. When the young Beethoven arrived in Vienna, he quickly established himself as a virtuoso pianist-contemporaries had quite simply never heard anything like him before-and though deafness ended his career as a pianist, he continued to compose, ultimately publishing 32 piano sonatas (some early sonatas remained unpublished), several sets of piano variations, bagatelles and dances between 1793 and 1822, a representative selection of which are featured on Easy-Listening Piano Classics. Many of Beethoven's piano sonatas have names that describe their character, though not all of these originated with the composer. For instance, 'Pathétique' is an abbreviation of Beethoven's full title 'Grande sonate pathétique' (that is, 'passionate' rather than 'pitiful'); the 'Moonlight' was so named by a music critic who thought of moonlight shimmering upon Lake Lucerne when he heard the first movement (Beethoven simply gave it the sub-title Quasi una fantasia, 'Like a fantasy'); the 'Kurfürstensonaten' are pre-Viennese sonatas dedicated to the Elector (Kurfürst) of Cologne; 'The Tempest' comes from Anton Schindler's claim that the sonata was inspired by Shakespeare's play; 'Pastoral' was provided by one of Beethoven's publishers. In addition, Beethoven composed many shorter piano pieces, which he referred to as 'Kleinigkeiten (Small Things) or Bagatelles', though these should not be underestimated: while some are popular in style and suitable for amateur performers (such as the famous, and probably misnamed 'Für Elise') others are highly characterful miniatures that one writer has described as 'lapidary, fragmentary, yes, even ironic'-true harbingers of Romanticism. Many of his dances (Minuets, Ländler, Ecossaises and so forth) also combine charm and sophistication. Whether composing large-scale serious works for the enjoyment of connoisseurs or smaller popular pieces primarily designed to entertain, Beethoven was very interested in the piano, maintaining close contact with leading piano manufacturers in Vienna and London. The demands he made on both performers and the instrument itself contributed to the development of the modern concert grand. One observer wrote that when Beethoven played the piano 'the music of the man's soul passed over his countenance. He seems to feel the bold, the commanding, and the impetuous, more than what is soothing or gentle. The muscles of the face swell, and it's veins start out; the wild eye rolls doubly wild, the mouth quivers, and Beethoven looks like a wizard, overpowered by the demons whom he himself has called up.' Yet, whether seeking the sublime or appealing to the lighter sentiments, Beethoven's music always communicates 'From the heart... to the heart'.

An important contribution to the Beethoven Year: Christoph Scheffelt plays all the bagatelles and the famous Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor (WoO 59), commonly known as "Für Elise." Christoph Scheffelt was born in 1981 in Santiago de Chile. In 2002 he completed his studies as a concert pianist with honors at the Universidad Católica de Chile with Prof. María Iris Radrigán. After four years of study with Prof. Rolf Plagge at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, he is awarded the title Magister Artium in 2006, also with honors. He completes his education, also with highest honors, as a master student of Prof. Homero Francesch at the Zurich University of the Arts. His concert activities, both as a soloist and as a member of the Eldering Ensemble, have taken him regularly through large parts of Western Europe, South America and Australia. Scheffelt is among others Winner of the renowned Rahn Music Prize, the "Claudio Arrau" Prize, as well as the Werner and Berti Alter Prize for Pedagogy.

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This opera was recorded at the 2019 Festival Verdi in a new coproduction from Teatro Regio di Parma and Teatro Comunale di Bologna. I due Foscari, a tragedia lirica in three acts based on a work by Lord Byron, was premiered in 1844. It proved quite popular for the next fifty years, thanks in part to its brevity and ease of staging; in fact it’s Verdi's shortest opera. The composer also revised the libretto by the rather inexperienced Francesco Maria Piave. From the musical point of view, this work is characterized by extreme simplicity of form and by the use of distinctive themes for each character, reminiscent of the Leitmotiv technique. The simple plot describes the mortal hatred between a Venetian gentleman, Jacopo Loredano, and two members of the Foscari family - the Doge Francesco and his son Jacopo - whom Loredano holds responsible for the deaths of his father and uncle. The effectiveness of this recording stems from both the cast of singers (notably Vladimir Stoyanov in the role of Francesco Foscari) and the orchestra under Paolo Arrivabeni's direction Paolo Arrivabeni is a highly experienced, international conductor who specializes in this repertoire.

This opera was recorded at the 2019 Festival Verdi in a new coproduction from Teatro Regio di Parma and Teatro Comunale di Bologna. I due Foscari, a tragedia lirica in three acts based on a work by Lord Byron, was premiered in 1844. It proved quite popular for the next fifty years, thanks in part to its brevity and ease of staging; in fact it’s Verdi's shortest opera. The composer also revised the libretto by the rather inexperienced Francesco Maria Piave. From the musical point of view, this work is characterized by extreme simplicity of form and by the use of distinctive themes for each character, reminiscent of the Leitmotiv technique. The simple plot describes the mortal hatred between a Venetian gentleman, Jacopo Loredano, and two members of the Foscari family - the Doge Francesco and his son Jacopo - whom Loredano holds responsible for the deaths of his father and uncle. The effectiveness of this recording stems from both the cast of singers (notably Vladimir Stoyanov in the role of Francesco Foscari) and the orchestra under Paolo Arrivabeni's direction Paolo Arrivabeni is a highly experienced, international conductor who specializes in this repertoire.

For about 150 years it was believed that Schubert composed his Ninth Symphony in 1828, not long before his death but, musical scholarship being a continuous process, this theory was later disproved. It was discovered late in the 20th century that in fact he composed most of this work three years earlier and revised it in 1826 and 1827. Following a period of poor health, 1825 was a better year for Schubert, while his finances were also improved. Schubert never heard a single performance of many of his works, including this great symphony. When it was rehearsed in 1827 at the Gesellschaftder Musikfreunde in Vienna, the string-players complained that passages in which a rhythmic figure is obsessively repeated, especially in the finale, were unplayable. In May 1824 Schubert attended the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven revolutionized symphonic form, expanding its expressive range enormously, his Ninth Symphony in particular being conceived on a much grander scale than any previous symphony. Schubert was just one of many composers influenced by Beethoven’s achievements. Many scholars have suggested the various ways in which Schubert was influenced by Beethoven, but the most extraordinary aspect of Schubert's mature music is its complete individuality. The compositional techniques, the handling of tonality and structure, and the orchestral sound of these two contemporaries have very little in common. Schubert’s own profound originality is all the more striking for its emergence at a time when Beethoven's impact on the development of the symphony was so revolutionary and far-reaching.

Both works heard on this new recording by the Daniel Quartet are from Robert Schumann’s significant chamber music œuvre. + Remarkably, it was within a single year (1842), at the start of his career, that Schumann composed his three String Quartets, op.41 and the Piano Quintet, op.44; both are now considered pillars of the chamber music repertoire. + The Daniel Quartet is renowned for its performances of chamber music at major venues in the USA and across Europe. + Hungarian pianist Klára Würtz – one of Brilliant Classics’ most prolific and recognized artists – joined them for the Piano Quintet.

The great piano virtuoso Claudio Arrau (1903-91) joined a transcendental technique with the gift of intellectual analysis, making him a superb Liszt performer as well as one of the most admired 20th c. performers of classical and romantic repertoire. "His" Beethoven had no comparison for clarity of musical logic. Arrau's Schumann perfectly joined strong passionate intensity with a sense of rigor regarding musical structure. All these elements are present on this CD that gathers two live Swiss recitals, captured by Italian Swiss Radio, from 1959 and 1963 during the apex of his career.

This collection of rarely recorded Wagner repertoire, the master’s work for voice and piano, includes the famed Wesendonck-Lieder in both its original German and an Arrigo Boito Italian version. Also featured are the famed ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, ‘Melodram’, the complex ‘Dors, mon enfant’ and further works with texts by writers including Hugo, Heine, de Ronsard and Scheurlin. Michela Sburlati - ‘a fine dramatic soprano’ (NYT) and fellow Italian maestro Marco Scolastra perform. Booklet includes liner notes, sung texts and artist biographies.

The present release is a set with which Challenge Classics intends to make its contribution to the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. It is a unique and completely original collection in the panorama of today’s discography, as it contains the complete corpus of the symphonies, as well as all the works for (instrumental) soloist and orchestra, i.e. all the concertos. All the works recorded here are directed by a single conductor, Jan Willem de Vriend, at the head of a single orchestra, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra. It is clear that this aspect provides a unity, an organic force and therefore an authority that other collections featuring different directors cannot boast. Finally, all the recordings presented here were curated by Bert van der Wolf of Northstar Recording, one of the most innovative and capable sound engineers of the classic milieu.

Immensely influential, the remarkable Symphonie fantastique was composed while Hector Berlioz was suffering an intense and unreciprocated passion for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. Its autobiographical tale describes a young musician’s opium-poisoned nightmares of jealous despair and fatal justice following the murder of his beloved. Berlioz wrote a second movement cornet solo into a subsequent revision of the score, here included as an optional extra. He wed his sweetheart actress but, recuperating in Nice, wrote Le corsaire after the final break-up of their marriage.

"Berlioz, to me, in terms of sheer orchestral invention, anticipates Mahler. If anything, he even surpasses him. So these are some of the things that characterise Berlioz: the extremes, the dynamics, the sound, the colours of the orchestra. Ravel was more about homogenisation. And I mean that in an entirely positive sense, because he’s taking the orchestral palette and really thinking very carefully about the essence of instrumental sonorities and how they go together." – Leonard Slatkin

•Conductor Herbert von Karajan leads the Choir and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera in this New Year's Eve performance of Johann Strauss's (1825-1899) ever-popular Die Fledermaus. This unique live recording insplendid sound features a spectacular cast of singers including Hilde Güden, Walter Berry, Rita Streich and a special guest appearance by Giuseppe di Stefano.

Beethoven lived in a time when the popularity of the guitar was vastly growing, especially in Vienna. Guitar teachers like the Bohemian Wenzel Matiegka were highly paid for their services to the Austrian nobility, while the internationally renowned masters of the instrument flooded the Viennese market with ver-new editions of their own works and arrangements. The Neapolitan Ferdinando Carulli, living in Paris, and Mauro Giuliani from Apulia, living in Beethoven's Viennese neighborhood, were the most prominent figures in that scene. For the present recording Volker Hoh Volker Höh combined two Beethoven arrangements by Carulli and Matiegka with Beethoven's own mandolin pieces, played on historical Viennese guitars. Parts of the repertoire are world première recordings.

Although highly productive and respected in his lifetime as a Lied composer, Robert Franz (1815–92) has since become a peripheral figure in music history. As they began to explore the songs of Franz, Georges Starobinski and baritone Christian Immler were moved by their findings to devise a program including twenty-three of the composer’s often quite brief songs. Using the poet Heinrich Heine as their guiding star, they present these – all Heine settings but from different opus groups – in the form of two ‘imagined’ song cycles, framed by further settings of Heine poems by Schumann and Liszt.

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Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia is a dark and scandalous tale of murder and excess. Initially criticized for its audacious nature, the opera has since become appreciated as one of the great masterpieces of Italian bel canto repertoire with glorious arias and stirring choruses. Created using Roger Parker’s new critical edition and with acclaimed soprano Carmela Remigio in the title role, Andrea Bernard’s spectacular Donizetti Festival production is ‘gripping and intense at every moment… this production ranks among the best all year’ (operawire.com).

REVIEW:

Andrea Bernard creates a dark and violent modern world which is highly convincing for this disturbing work. Splendidly played and sung throughout it captures the vigour of Hugo’s play which underpins the narrative as well as he archly romantic musical lines Donizetti spins for our delight.

– Lark Reviews

Water Damage turned into luck The Rhine is where Richard Wagner's cycle of operas "Der Ring des Nibelungen" begins and ends - and it was beside the Rhine in 1851 that the composer first dreamed of this equally visionary and monumental work. Even if Wagner's plans for a festival would ultimately be realized in an entirely different part of Germany, the performance of a "Ring on the Rhine" will always remain something very special. And where better to make this happen than at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein? Two cities, two orchestras, two casts of singers - with the Rhine opera's fantastic ensemble of singers and it's two outstanding orchestras, the Duisburger Philharmoniker and the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, at their two venues in Duisburg und Düsseldorf, the essential conditions were in place. The "Ring on the Rhine" staged by Dietrich W. Hilsdorf and under my own musical direction gradually began to take shape from June 2017 onwards. The successful conclusion of this two year musical and scenic collaboration was planned for the end of the 2018/19 season with the performance of a complete "Ring" cycle at each of the two venues. However, a few weeks before the premiere of "Götterdämmerung", a defective sprinkler system flooded Theater Duisburg. The damage this caused made completing the staged "Ring" cycle in Duisburg (for the time being) impossible..." (From the Editorial of Axel Kober)

Melanie Diener, Roberto Sacca, Kresimir Strazanac, Lucio Gallo, Alfred Mugg, Sandra Trattnigg, and Christoph Strehl star in this Zurich Opera production of the Beethoven opera conducted by Bernard Haitink.

When Beethoven assigned the opus number one to his three piano trios, it was evident that the then 22-year-old composer would explore, advance and co-create the composition rules, and that he would very nearly transcend that which was comprehensible to his contemporaries. Upon hearing the first private performance of Op. 1, Joseph Haydn purportedly voiced his doubts as to whether the ordinary listener would be able to understand No. 3. Beethoven experimented with this combination of instruments too – with the form, harmonies and other facets. The Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1 may have had its roots in sketches for an opera based on Shakespeare’s drama Macbeth that Beethoven was contemplating at the time. The spectral music of the slow movement, featuring strange modulations and said to be a reworking of the Witches Chorus intended for the opera, earned the piece the nickname “Ghost Trio”. In the “Archduke Trio”, Op. 97, Beethoven emancipated all the instruments, providing each equal scope to apply their technical qualities and possibilities of expression. Its first performance, in April 1814, was the penultimate public concert Beethoven, at the time almost deaf, gave as a pianist. The 250th anniversary of one of the greatest composers of all time was an irresistible impulse for the Smetana Trio. Their new addition to the Beethoven discography possesses all the parameters of the ensemble’s previous, highly acclaimed recordings and will undoubtedly cause quite a stir- Beethoven’s chamber music through the lens of the Smetana Trio.

An icon of French Romanticism thanks to the enduring popularity of his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette, Charles Gounod competed three times for the prestigious Prix de Rome between 1837 and 1839. Thus he composed three unpublished cantatas for soloists and orchestra, including Marie Stuart et Rizzio and La Vendetta, which he never had the opportunity to hear in performance. Revealed for the first time, these three cantatas, fine examples of French Romanticism, show a young composer with a remarkable flair for opera. In the end Fernand won him the coveted prize, carrying with it the privilege of a three-year stay (from 1840) at the Villa Medici in Rome. While there he produced several sacred compositions, which have also remained unknown until now. His splendid Messe vocale for unaccompanied choir, written in a neo-Palestrinian style, deserves a place on the programme of every vocal ensemble.

REVIEWS:

Although all the cantatas on Disc One tug with tension, the most poignant display of Gounod’s might falls inside Fernand. Akin to Karine Deshayes, Judith Van Wanroij’s Zelmire reveals remarkable, flexible dramatic delivery, and a buoyantly light timbre. Her lover, Alamir (sung by tenor Yu Shao), shines inside the lyrically French passages with excellent enunciation while Nicolas Courjal sings with such sensitivity to draw out the selfless tendencies of the Spaniard, Fernand. The music’s orchestral interludes anticipate Faust, yet there is a marked feel of Félicien David and his Herculanum. Brilliant from beginning to end.

The four selections on the second CD give variety through mixed voices and soothing organ accompaniment by François Saint-Yves. Hervé Niquet’s direction is pristine and well-reflected through the Flemish Radio Choir with well-balanced and attentive diction upon every turn of the page. Each composition suffuses platonic rapture: undemanding on the ear, lyrically light, sweet in melody.

Anyone who cherishes the magnificence of Charles Gounod would be well to collect this little treasure.

– ConcertoNet.com (Christie Grimstad)

Music-making, at least here, is first-rate with orchestra, choir, and soloists all of the highest quality. Packaging is plush, with bound booklets in French and English containing much biographical and detailed musical information on the artists, their early musical careers, and the music included on the discs. At least with Gounod, one can hear the young composer’s increasing aptitude and increasing confidence as his skills are honed, first in the parochial French competitions and then in the real world of paid artistic commissions. I would guess we are all generally pleased that Gounod eventually abandoned the relatively modestly remunerative life of ecclesiastical music to turn to operatic blockbusters such as Faust and Roméo et Juliet, but these pleasant and melodious apprentice works also deserve to be heard, to be heard in quality productions, and to take their rightful place in the pantheon of recorded music. Highly recommended.

-- Fanfare

Includes work(s) by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Carl Maria von Weber wrote music that has been admired by composers as diverse as Schumann, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. But in his lifetime he was also recognized as one of the finest pianists of the period, with an exceptional technique and a brilliant gift for improvisation. Especially during the 1810s he toured extensively, and like other composer-pianists he wrote works to use as his personal calling cards, among them the two piano concertos recorded here. They were both composed in 1811-12, but while the First Concerto takes Mozart’s concertos as its model, Piano Concerto No. 2 looks towards Beethoven. This change of direction was probably influenced by the fact that Weber had acquired a score of Beethoven’s recently published Emperor Concerto. In any case there are some striking similarities between his concerto and Beethoven’s: the use of identical keys, and the inclusion of a slow, subtly orchestrated Adagio and a closing playful rondo in 6/8. Weber is unmistakably Weber, however: a highly original orchestrator whose music is at turns brilliant, melancholy and charming. These qualities are to the fore also in the Konzertstück from 1821, in which the composer liberates himself from Classical models and finds a new path. Much admired by Liszt, the work is a kind of symphonic poem in four sections, played without a break. Following highly acclaimed recordings of the complete concertos by Mozart and Beethoven as well as Mendelssohn, this disc brings the team of Ronald Brautigam and Kölner Akademie to the very crossroads of Classicism and Romanticism.

REVIEW:

It is a mystery to me why these marvellously crafted, pianistically challenging and ear-catchingly memorable works aren’t much better known – whilst there have been a few recordings over the years they tend only infrequently to turn up on concert programmes. The same point could be made about the composer’s four piano sonatas; not least because Weber wrote as idiomatically and adventurously for the keyboard as one would expect from an individual who happened to be one of the foremost virtuosi of his day.

The Kölner Akademie’s rapt accompaniment (solo strings in No 1, solo group alternating with small orchestra in No 2) in each case is perfectly poised and appropriately weighted against the agreeably plump yet discreet sounds emanating from the Dutchman’s fortepiano. What is inarguable is that Brautigam invests the indubitably jolly elements of the outer movements with bags of character. Brautigam’s instrument (a wonderfully characterful Paul McNulty copy of a Conrad Graf fortepiano which originated at exactly the time of these compositions) has at its disposal a palette which suits Weber’s hyperactivity and sudden mood changes with equal aptness. The florid Beethoveniana of the opening movement of the second concerto benefits especially from its lustre.

In the final analysis listeners like myself are more frequently reaching the conclusion that we need to hear this repertoire on both modern and historical instruments. I’m pretty sure this exceptional recording is pioneering in the latter regard – those fortunate enough to have the right equipment will certainly enjoy the SACD option, but the stereo sound proves considerably fatter and more three dimensional than its Hyperion counterpart, although I will certainly not be parting with that disc. It goes without saying that Brautigam is always worth hearing in any case.

– MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)

Still in his twenties, Pétur Sakari studied in his native Finland and in Paris and made his recording début at the age of 18. On his previous disc for BIS, he performed works by five French composers, receiving international acclaim with top marks in Diapason as well as on the Klassik-Heute website. For the present disc, Pétur has chosen to focus on César Franck, performing the composer’s Three Pieces and Three Chorales ‘pour grand orgue’ on an instrument perfectly suited to the repertoire. Completed in 1880, the great organ in the Sainte-Croix cathedral of Orléans is a major – and well-preserved – example of the art of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, the same maker who had previously built Franck’s beloved organ in Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. (‘My new organ? It’s an orchestra!’ was Franck’s verdict.) Together the two gave the French organ tradition a new impetus with Franck laying the groundwork for a French symphonic organ style while Cavaillé-Coll constructed hundreds of organs capable of producing a sound that was full, homogeneous and modern. The Trois Pièces, which closes with the famous Pièce héroïque, were written for a Cavaillé-Coll instrument built for the 1878 World Fair in Paris. Twelve years later, and only weeks before his untimely death, Franck completed the Trois Chorals. The idea of writing organ chorales was inspired by Bach, but Franck composed them ‘with quite a different plan’: instead of traditional hymns they use an original, freely composed melody which is gradually revealed ‘with great imagination’, as Franck himself put it in a letter to his publisher. Both the Pieces and especially the Chorales have become central works in the repertoire of concert organists.

Throughout his life, Anton Bruckner was initially highly regarded as an organist. Rudolf Innig demonstrates with a spectacular listening experiment how much the great symphonic composer was also influenced by "his" instrument: Innig transferred early orchestral works by Bruckner to the organ with loving attention to detail. The result: astounding. And equally good. Bruckner was 39 years old when he completed his two-year composition course with Otto Kitzler, ten years younger than him, with some orchestral pieces and a full symphony. The works already show Bruckner's preference for irregular periods, as he also used them in his organ improvisations, and his preference for sequencing rather than complex motivic processing, and the great dynamic developments. Thus the "Three Orchestral Pieces", which use motifs from Beethoven's piano sonatas, among other things, are given the typical Bruckner tone; with a grand gesture, Bruckner avoids the so obvious stylistic copy of the classical model. Extended organ points, also and especially in the G minor overture, do the rest, and in Innig's organ adaptation, the journeyman pieces acquire an astonishingly convincing plausibility. Rudolf Innig chose the Goll organ in the Marktkirche in Hanover for his Bruckner project. The sound of the large four-manual instrument is perfectly adapted to the needs of the 19th century.

Krassimira Jordan is Professor Piano and Artist-in-Residence at Baylor University, and has established for herself an international reputation as both a concert pianist and a recording artist. He has an impressive list of international prizes to her name, including the International Piano Competitions “Alfredo Casella” and “Alessandro Casagrande,” as well as the Mozart “Clara Haskil” Prize. She currently records and performs frequently as one half of the Vienna Piano Duo alongside fellow pianist Thomas Kreuzberger. She has chosen some of her favorite and most-performed works for this recording, including works by Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

***** (out of 5)
The first prerequisite of great Chopin playing is arguably beauty of tone, as well as refinement and variety… Lortie is a model Chopinist: eloquent but never sentimental, elegant without ever sounding effete, dramatic but never exaggerated, harmonically luminous, structurally immaculate – and surprising.

– BBC Music Magazine

"Lortie's Chopin playing has a wonderful, penetrating directness about it; there's not a trace of dreamy indulgence in any of the nocturnes, though all their decorative tracery shines out with a sharp-cut brilliance, and the impromptus dance and divert without a trace of self-consciousness” – The Guardian