Evoke is the Ferio Saxophone Quartet’s third album, following their previous critically acclaimed releases Flux and Revive. For this recording they are joined by pianist Timothy End for a program of original works and arrangements for piano and saxophone quartet. Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite opens the proceedings, followed by Iain Farrington’s extremely descriptive Animal Parade. This is followed by a virtuosic arrangement of Bizet’s Carmen Suite, before the program closes with the quintet Memorias by Spanish composer Pedro Iturralde Ochoa. All of the arrangements are by Iain Farrington, and are all premier recordings.

Schubert moved to Vienna in early 1817, which was the center of musical activities in Europe at that time. Schubert focused strongly upon composing piano sonatas, and the result was these four superb works. Korean-born pianist Sookkyung Cho brings these sonatas truly to life. Noted for her sensitive and imaginative (New York Concert Review) playing, Sookkyung Cho has been captivating worldwide audiences with her personal, thoughtful expressionist style. She has appeared in venues such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Cultural Center, Sarasota Opera House, Baltimore Museum of Art, Montreal Conservatory, Beaux concerts de la releve in Quebec, Château de Fontainebleau in France, and Zijingang Theater at Zhejiang University in China, among others, and was recently heard on Chicagos WFMT.

This interpretation of Die Winterreise is certainly unusual. Here, there is no singer; instead, the text is recited. The music still allows Schubert’s themes and motifs to ring out, but it treats them with complete freedom. The instrumental timbres are also different: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone and bass clarinet exchange with lute and theorbo. Axel Wolf and Hugo Siegmeth join narrator Stefan Hunstein on an introspective journey that is finely connected, both musically and interpretively. Die Winterreise is about human existence, about a redefinition of one’s position after a setback, when someone who has been rejected reflects on his life, surrounded by cold and darkness. This recording reflects an interplay between faithfulness to the original and freedom of expression, creating a personal world of winter travel that resembles a musical-text radio play.

BERLIOZ: Requiem, Op. 5

The Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn concludes its complete recording of the symphonies of the composer whose name it bears with an absolutely rousing performance. The spirited Seventh Symphony brings together everything that General Music Director Stefan Blunier has demanded of his musicians from the very beginning of this cycle: emotional depth, gripping rhythms, frenetic energy, and powerful tension holding the audience in suspense even after the last chord has faded away. Prior to this work, however, the Bonn musicians show the Fourth Symphony in an entirely new light: no longer a bashful “wallflower,” it shines in its own special way between its two more famous neighbors.

In a word I feel myself the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world. Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who in sheer despair over this ever makes things worse and worse instead of better... but I have tried my hand at several instrumental things... in fact, I intend to pave the way towards a grand symphony in this manner. These extracts from a letter of 1824 epitomize the paradox of Schubert, the manic-depressive composer. On the one hand his music has that world-weary element of profound grief - 'the most wretched creature in the world' - and on the other a life-affirming exuberance bordering on the manic that characterizes the Wanderer-Fantasie and parts of the D major sonata D.850. In this final volume Llyr Williams plays a selection of Franz Liszt's evocative Schubert song transcriptions, including works from Die sch�ne M�llerin, Wintereise and Schwanengesang.

The Lithuanian pianist Ieva�Dudaite�combines in her recording two composers who have each cultivated an unmistakable personal style that has made them protagonists of their respective times and musical spheres. By confronting Chopin's works with the suggestive minimalist pieces of Yann�Tiersen, she makes the connections between the two composers tangible. Ieva�Dudaite�is one of the most promising Lithuanian pianists of her generation, with a lengthy record of concerts across the globe, including some of the world's most prestigious venues, such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam,�Muziekgebouw�Eindhoven,�TivoliVredenburg�Utrecht,�DeSingel�Antwerp, and performances in Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Mexico,�the UK, and Spain. She played at some of the most renowned music festivals, including Grenoble Music Festival 2008, Trieste Music Festival 2010, Aurora Chamber Music Festival Sweden 2015, and Oxford Piano Festival 2016.�Dudaite's�concerts have been broadcast by Lithuanian, Russian, and Dutch Radio and Television.

With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Fazil Say has been touching audiences and critics alike for more than twenty-five years, in a way that has become rare in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organized classical music world. Concerts with this artist are something different. They are more direct, more open, more exciting; in short, they go straight to the heart. On the album now being released by Solo Musica together with the casalQuartett “Ballads & Quintets” there are two works by Fazil Say in addition to the Piano Quintet in E flat major op. 44 by Schumann. The casalQuartett, which has won numerous awards, has developed itself a unique sound and style that sheds new light on the heyday of the string quartet. The 3 Ballads op. 12 for Piano Quintet were originally solo piano ballads, which were rearranged especially for this publication for piano quintet. The piano quintet "The Moving Mansion" breathes new life into stories of the past. The background is a spectacular tale about the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Oleg Kagan and Natalia Gutman's performances of the Brahms Double Concerto were widely acclaimed. They were featured on a 1986 international tour of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by the famous conductor Yevgeni Svetlanov. On October 12, 1986 they performed it in Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto, Canada. This exciting concert is now presented on this live album. Natalia Gutmam is noted for her superb, authoritative performances of the Shostakovich cello concerto No. 1. She recorded it three times during her career. Presented here is a sparkling live version given in 1980 in Holland.

FORELLEN QUINTET

HORN TRIOS by Brahms, Kahn, Koechlin and Dubois is an exciting album that brings together three renowned musicians in a splendid trio collaboration. Hornist Howard Wall has been for many years at the forefront of highly-respected horn players, not only as a long-time member of two of the world's preeminent symphony orchestras, but also as an avid chamber music instrumentalist and recording artist, praised for his "legendary low register" and "impeccable intonation and stellar virtuosity" by The Horn Call Magazine, which also noted that "every note is a gem" in recently released recordings of Howard Wall. Violinist Elmira Darvarova has been hailed as "marvelous, in the Heifetz tradition" (American Record Guide) and acclaimed for her "intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing" and "silky-smooth voluptuous tone" (The Strad, London). Pianist Shoko Inoue was lauded by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as "a pianist who immerses heart, soul and everything into her generous artistry, with supremely sensitive and evocative playing." This album brings thrilling and exhilarating interpretations of four gorgeous works for horn, violin and piano, one of which has been, for over 150 years, among the greatest ever masterpieces in the history of Western music, while two of the other works on this album - the glorious 1912 Trio Cantabile by Th�odore Dubois, and the boisterous 1922 Serenade Op. 73 by Robert Kahn are presented on this album as only the second-ever commercially-released recordings of these works. Charles Koechlin's eclectic suite Quatre Petite Pi�ces is a haunting and poignant quasi-impressionistic collection of four miniatures, that alternate, as in a kaleidoscope, contrasting atmospheric moods and degrees of sorrow and peaceful introspection. This marvelous album is an irresistible addition to the recorded repertoire, both for it's contents as well as for the verve and exultation of the interpretations of these outstanding artists.

The pianist SoRyang, born in Korea and educated in Seoul, in Essen/Germany (as a pupil of the renowned pianist Detlef Kraus) and in Vienna/Austria, emerged far beyond Austria with her idea to popularize Classical piano music on historical places of big European cities. SoRyang performed worldwide with renowned orchestras, among them the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra Essen, the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She has recorded numerous CDs. In 2019 she performed together with the Tonk�nstler Orchester Nieder�sterreich under the baton of it's chief conductor Yutaka Sado (who earlier has been the assistant of Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, and later has produced popular television programs for the understanding of Classical Music in Japan) in the impressing grand hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg/Germany. SoRyang played Tchaikovsky's famous piano concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor and as an encore Chopin's barnstorming last etude, Op. 25 No. 12. After the intermission Mahler's fifth symphony was played. The concert has been recorded for the present release.

This new release is the debut album of soprano Maureen Batt, and features a rare recording of Schubert’s “Op. 52 Lady of the Lake” song cycle and a newly commissioned work on the same epic Walter Scott poem by Nova Scotian composer Fiona Ryan. Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake is set during an uprising of the Highland clans against the Lowland Scots who are loyal to King James V. The story focuses on Ellen Douglas, a young woman who lives in exile with her father, an outlaw who has fallen out of favor with the royal court and fled to an island in Loch Katrine with his daughter. Today, the work is not that widely known but in the nineteenth century it was a bestselling book throughout Europe. It was translated into several languages, including German which Schubert used for his song texts. Fiona Ryan writes about her contributions to this album: “I draw upon Scottish (and Nova Scotian) folk music traditions in my songs. Some movements are very obviously influenced by Scottish folksongs…and others draw inspiration from rhythmic patterns, ornamentation, and droning sounds found in Scottish bagpipe music. In a way, this project is about bringing people and ideas together… Although this is a story of a different and dangerous time, it gives an affirmative answer to the eternal question of whether people who are enemies can eventually reconcile.”

The two-compositions featured here, the Trio, op. 8 and the Sonata, op. 65, rank among the very few chamber music pieces Chopin left behind. Whilst predominantly piano-focused, those few occasions when Chopin did explore other idioms always prominently featured the cello, so naturally this disc is a feast of musical riches for young cellist Johannes Moser. The needed ability to draw out every emotion and nuance from these works, from the noble to the pathetic, from soaring lyricism to sober solemnity, are known and admired characteristics of Mr. Moser and his esteemed ensemble partners.

Martin Jones and Adrian Farmer are widely acclaimed musicians, both performing on several Nimbus Records albums. Martin's is a prolific recording artist and has recorded most of the standard works for piano. This new release is the first of two volumes of original compositions and arrangements for piano duo and duet by Camille Saint-Saëns. His music was often described as "having wit and charm".

Recording information: Mosfilm Studio, Moscow, Russia.

The great soprano Martina Arroyo enjoyed on an unparalleled career on the international stages of opera houses that lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s. Coming from a mixed African-American and Puerto Rican background, she was one of the early singers in the opera world to cross the racial line. Her youthful, dramatic soprano made her an ideal Verdi and Puccini heroine but she could also draw upon the lyrical mezzo qualities of her voice to beautifully interpret intimate songs. In this Schwetzingen Festival recital she was at the height of her vocal abilities.

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REVIEW:

American soprano Martina Arroyo is much acclaimed as an opera singer, especially in the Verdi repertory. Here is a rare opportunity to hear her in recital at the 1968 Schwetzingen Festival.

– American Record Guide

Classical Music

Classical Music

In its recording cycle, the Feininger Trio is pairing each of the three piano trios written by Brahms with a work by another Viennese composer: Alexander Zemlinsky, Ernst Krenek, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, respectively. Brahms’s three piano trios are among the genre’s crowning achievements, and the members of the Feininger Trio were interested in exploring how the piano trio genre developed in the master’s wake. Younger composers drew on Brahms’s legacy while opening a new window to Modernism and the 20th century, and that was the main criterion in choosing the three pairings. Biographical similarities among Korngold, Krenek, and Zemlinsky in their early years also played a major role in the Feininger Trio’s selection. Despite major stylistic differences, a red thread in their the three composers’ lives connects them all with Brahms. The connection was strong. As Alexander Zemlinsky put it, young composers attempted to outdo one another by writing in a vein as Brahmsian as possible. Young Zemlinsky knew Brahms and enjoyed the older composer’s support. He was not Brahms’s pupil, but Zemlinsky’s early Piano Trio op.3 has much in common with Brahms. It is more widely known as a clarinet trio: in 1896, Zemlinsky submitted it to a competition organized by the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein which required a chamber music work “using at least one wind instrument”.

Arthur Schoonderwoerd and his Ensemble Cristofori are taking on Beethoven’s Symphonies but in a very different style. Tempo, accentuation, phrasing, or structural architecture are not the first thing that strikes us when we listen to Arthur Schoonderwoerd’s performances of Classical orchestra music for the first time. Instead, the first thing we notice is that the music sounds different. The orchestra is unusually small. Ensemble Cristofori plays as an orchestra- string quartet, double bass, and winds- and the effect is stunning. The orchestral sound is present, but each voice can be heard specifically as well. Arthur Schoonderwoerd is a well established pianist and powerful conductor, and is widely known as a consistent advocate for Early Music performance. He is also a powerful conductor of 21st century music.

The acclaimed Italian guitarist Gianluigi Giglio makes his debut on SOMM Recordings with The 19th Century Guitar, a scintillating recital of music by Fernando Sor, a pioneering champion of the guitar in the vanguard of raising it's profile out of the tavern and into the concert hall. Giglio's wide-ranging recital explores Sor's innate feeling for the guitar and charts the increasing demands he placed on the instrument in a body of work that transformed it's standing with public and pundits alike. From the early Op. 9 masterpiece that charted a new and expressive landscape for the guitar - Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart - to the late Elegiac Fantasy (Op. 59) with it's leanings towards newly-emerging Romanticism, this is a textbook display of the instrument's many abilities given eloquent voice by a master guitarist. Other notable pieces include the Introduction and Variations on 'Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre' (Op. 28), a deliciously knowing exercise in re-creating 18th-century style, the possibly unique programmatic caprice Le calme (Op. 50) and the no less singular �tude The movement of a religious prayer from the Op. 31 24 Progressive Lessons for Beginners which is distinguished by it's beautiful sense of polyphony. Gianluigi Giglio plays a guitar made by the noted Parisian luthier Ren� Lac�te in Paris in 1834. SOMM's previous recordings of Fernando Sor include Eros Roselli's recital Studies for Guitar (SOMMCD 021) and 12 Seguidillas performed by Craig Ogden on a disc of Spanish Songs featuring soprano Patricia Rozario (SOMMCD 078).

CHOPIN Piano Concertos: Nos. 1; 1 2 2 • Shura Cherkassky (pn); 1 Christopher Adey, cond; 2 Richard Hickox, cond; 1 BBC Scottish SO. 2 BBC SO • ICA CLASSICS 5085 (75:22) Live: Glasgow 1 12/3/1981; 2 London 8/30/1983


Shura Cherkassky, according to the liner notes, was sometimes a difficult man to accompany, as he would often change his mind on phrasing or tempos between the final rehearsal and the concert; thus, annotator Robert Orledge says, “some conductors were reluctant to appear with him,” citing as an example the sudden rush with which he plays the final section of the Second Concerto. I can see where this would be a problem. I recall a live performance I attended by a famous American pianist where, suddenly, the keyboardist rushed forward and left the orchestra behind, and I learned later that he did not rehearse the work that way. The difference, if I may say so, is that Cherkassky usually had good taste while the American pianist I heard usually played with poor style regardless of his tempo choices.


Well, as Cherkassky once said to me, “Some people like my playing and some don’t, but at least no one can say that I’m boring.” True enough. Yet I was beginning to doubt that this would be that fine a disc as the First Concerto started up. Conductor Adey plays it very slowly, with lots of romantic gush and goo, and moreover the first minute or so suffers from what is probably a crumply original tape. I was not expecting much. But then Cherkassky entered, and his bracing interpretation of the opening phrases acted like a wake-up call for the orchestra. (Having heard Cherkassky three times in person, twice with an orchestra and once in recital, and also being familiar with many of his recordings, I just don’t see that he would have wanted this concerto played so slowly to begin with. It just wasn’t in his nature, thus I believe that he bristled at Adey’s tempos in both the rehearsal and performance.) From this point on—thankfully—it is the pianist who leads the orchestra, forcing Adey to pick up his tempo or be left behind. One is immediately caught up in the excitement, which despite a sensitively shaped second movement continues on through to the end.


With the Second Concerto, we enter an entirely different world. Richard Hickox was one of the great, underrated conductors of his generation, a man who viewed music as dramatic expression and molded his performances that way. From the very first note, Hickox is on edge, and I mean that almost literally…he makes Chopin’s orchestration sound almost like Beethoven or Schumann, full of drama and bringing out all sorts of inner voices with tremendous clarity. The switch from Adey to Hickox is almost as dramatic as if one suddenly shifted from John Barbirolli to Igor Markevitch, but Cherkassky is entirely in his element. There’s a particularly delicious passage in the second movement when the piano’s descending chromatics clash on one note with the orchestra’s chord—exactly as written, but a detail that normally escapes one’s attention in most performances of the concerto. And Cherkassky’s last-movement cadenza is incendiary, as advertised. It’s a heck of a performance that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Cherkassky’s changes to the text of the score are certainly evident but, like Glenn Gould, they generally enliven and enhance the music. Of course, that would probably keep this disc from being your first choice for recordings of the two concertos, but as a second recording it is definitely recommended.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Thrilling flights of fancy abound from violinist Arabella Steinbacher in Fantasies, Rhapsodies and Daydreams Spectacular virtuoso playing, bravura passagework and show-stopping melodies are balanced with wistful lyricism and sublime tone painting in this irresistible programme of perennial favourites, played with elan by the violinist Arabella Steinbacher with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, conducted by Lawrence Foster in this new release from Pentatone.

From the high jinks and outrageous showmanship of Franz Waxman's Carmen Fantasie and Pablo de Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, to the fearsome technical demands of Ravel's Tzigane and the exquisite refinement of Saint-Saens' Havanaise and Introduction et Rondo capriccioso, this album harks back to an earlier era of violin playing.

REVIEW:

Were someone to ask me to suggest a disc to introduce them to the violin, I might well steer them in the direction of this one. I rather like the way she pushes on in the central section of The Lark Ascending, and it cleverly elides into the beginning of Saint-Saens's Havanaise. This, the Introduction and Rondo capriccio, and Ravel's Tzigane are given excellent performances. The standout performance comes with the Meditation from Massanet's Thais, done with breathtaking beauty, a turn-on for any newcomer to the violin.

– Gramophone

Fryderyk Chopin transformed the scherzo into an autonomous, independent work, rather than a part of a symphony or sonata as it was previously part of during the Classical era. Expanding this genre gave it a newer, more romantic and dramatic expression. The composer's polonaises give us a glance into his Polish patriotism. The polonaise is the most important national dance of Poland, and Chopin composed 18 over his lifetime. Polish pianist Raphael Alexandre Lustchevsky performs these works brilliantly. He has won multiple international awards, and has performed with some of the world's leading orchestras, such as the Krakow Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Oman Philharmonic.

Beethoven, L. Van: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 4

Combining elegance and virtuosity, pianist Russell Sherman returns to Avie with a traversal of Chopin’s Mazurkas, a popular 19th-century genre among Polish composers, but one that Chopin made his own. He wrote mazurkas throughout his lifetime, from his early days in his native Warsaw until 1849, the year of his death in Paris. He brought numerous innovations to the dance form, evolving its humble folk origins to more contemporary art music. Russell, who has performed the world over on the most illustrious stages and with all of the major orchestras, brings his signature grace, imagination, and poetry to Chopin’s beloved oeuvre. -----

REVIEW:

Awe-inspiring: in some of the most difficult works in the piano repertoire, he exhibits the kind of impeccable perfection that is the hallmark of players like Pollini and Michelangeli.

- All Music Guide

The first piece composed by Max Bruch during his child prodigy years was a song, and the Five Songs op. 97 number among the last creations with which he closed the files on his long artist’s life shortly after World War I. This fact alone would suffice to make us understand the great value attached to song – whether of vocal or instrumental nature – in the oeuvre of this lifelong Romanticist. From the peppy male chorus to the full-length colossal oratorio, from the Loreley to the immortal cantilenas of his Violin Concerto No. 1, Scottish Fantasy, and Kol Nidrei, he sang out his songs to his heart’s content while revealing lyrical qualities that come to light in special measure in his collections of solo songs distributed over the entire course of his career – a fact underscored by the Austrian baritone and his piano partner Sascha El Mouissi on this new and so far absolutely unique anthology. Along with delightful tidbits from all of Bruch’s compositional periods, we are presenting the five songs from Paul Heyse’s novella Siechentrost for One to Four Voice Parts, Violin, and Piano op. 54. Max Bruch’s musical setting produced not only an original piece of chamber music but also an intimate look at his self-understanding and his goals. Behind their creator’s blustery façade there was also a man of tender, vulnerable character!

After acclaimed recordings of the great Romantic violin concertos by Brahms, Bruch and Tchaikovsky, Vadim Gluzman takes on the work that in the beginning of the 19th century mapped out a new course for the genre: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op.?61. With this work, Beethoven rejected the idea of a virtuoso display piece with a largely irrelevant orchestral accompaniment. Instead he presented a symphonic reinterpretation of the concerto principle, with soloist and orchestra becoming equal partners in a texture that is interwoven on many levels. Largely forgotten for several decades after the first performance in 1806, it is now considered one of the greatest violin concertos. However innovative Beethoven was in his opus 61, he nevertheless remained true to the tradition of allowing the soloist several cadenzas. Over the years, a number of composers and great violin virtuosos have proposed their own cadenzas for the concerto, with Alfred Schnittke being one of the more unexpected names. For this recording, Gluzman has chosen to perform Schnittke’s cadenzas, as a link to the second work on the disc: the composer’s Concerto No.?3 for violin and chamber orchestra. To Schnittke, the relationship between soloist and orchestra is quite different from that demonstrated in Beethoven’s score: ‘It seems to me that this relationship is never harmonically equitable and balanced… The soloist and orchestra are in fact adversaries.’ However they may be labelled, James Gaffigan and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester nevertheless provide unstinting support to Gluzman in both scores.

Praised by the New York Times for her 'clear articulation... unequivocal phrasing... [and] expressivity', Ingrid Jacoby has established herself as one of the most poetic and admired pianists of her generation. She began her piano studies with Larisa Gorodecka, herself a pupil of Heinrich Neuhaus. Graduating at sixteen with highest honours from the St Louis Conservatory of Music, Ingrid Jacoby went on to win the National Baldwin Piano Competition, the Concert Artists Guild International Piano Competition and the Steinway Hall Artists Prize. In America, the National Society of Arts and Letters awarded to her (in 1994) one of it's highest distinctions, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Her discography includes the world premiere recording of Korngold's solo piano pieces, works by Gershwin and Bernstein, and a recording of the Shostakovich and Ustvolskaya piano concertos with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, which earned the highest commendation from the American Record Guide. This is the third release from Ingrid Jacoby's critically acclaimed Beethoven cycle, featuring Concertos Nos. 1 & 3. The booklet contains notes by Richard Wigmore in addition to personal insights by Ingrid Jacoby on Beethoven interpretation. Her first disc in the series, featuring Beethoven's Concertos Nos. 2 & 4, received the following review: 'Utterly compelling... here is a performance of Beethoven that is well-nigh flawless in every regard' (International Record Review). Her recording of Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto was equally praised: 'It's one hell of a performance! Jacoby brings a vitality and drive to the first movement that is compelling and fresh, vividly accompanied' (Colin Anderson in Classical Source).