During their long collaboration (1997 - 2019) Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra developed a project they named ‘Opening Doors’, performing orchestral works from the Romantic era with the smaller-than-usual forces of a chamber orchestra. Due to the often revelatory results of this approach, the team went on to present at concerts around the world and on several recordings. This box set brings together an important chapter of the project: Robert Schumann’s orchestral music, symphonies as well as overtures. In addition to his four symphonies - including both versions of No. 4 - this collection presents the Zwickau Symphony, an early, unfinished work from 1832-33, as well as a divertimento-like sequence of movements, Overture, Scherzo and Finale.

Of the six overtures included in the set some are well-known, like the overture to Genoveva, Schumann’s only opera, and the Manfred Overture which Clara Schumann regarded as ‘one of the most poetic and most gripping of Robert’s pieces’. Other, less often heard works will constitute pleasant discoveries. The three albums included in the set were greeted with critical acclaim on their individual releases, earning distinctions in magazines such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine and Fono Forum. Summing up the cycle, the reviewer in Fanfare described it as ‘close to being the most thrilling Schumann symphony series on the market, with sawing violins smoking down to the bridge and timpani-like rifle shots.’

Past praise for the albums included in this edition:

Symphony No. 1 & Overtures

Right from the opening fanfares, there's a sense of joy and exhilaration, and the openness of the orchestral textures brings freshness and clarity. The ensemble’s lithe flexibility is used to the full by Dausgaard, whose instincts on tempo are persuasive, and the dramatic tension underpinning the work isn't allowed to evaporate.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4

The Second Symphony is revealing with keen accents and prominent inner voices, the latter half of the slow introduction biting and muscular, the main Allegro superbly built. In the Scherzo Dausgaard slows and softens the bridge passage appealingly, accentuating the dizzy flight back to the main subject. In the achingly beautiful Adagio, top line and accompaniment seem to lean on each other to ease the pain, and in speeding for the finale's second set Dausgaard intensifies the argument, making fresh sense of it.

-- Gramophone

Dausgaard is not the first conductor to use the 1841 version of the D minor Symphony… but… this performance, given by an orchestra of the size of Schumann himself would have known brings it vividly to life.

-- BBC Music Magazine

This disc offers the world première recording of Viatore ('The Wanderer', 2001), which may be described as a representation in sound of 'becoming' or 'passing' - a spiritual journey in familiar Vasks territory. All the works were recorded in the presence of the composer by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra - an ensemble whose previous BIS recordings have all been highly acclaimed. The orchestra's performances on one of their latest offerings - H.K. Gruber's Manhattan Broadcasts BIS-CD-1341) - were termed "masterful" (Gramophone), "a triumph" (BBC Music Magazine), and "superb" (The Times). Under the direction of the orchestra's leader Katarina Andreasson, who also performs the solo part of the violin concerto, the playing on the present disc is no less committed.

Classical Music

Although Kurt Weill’s principal legacy lies in music theatre works of both popular appeal and intellectual weight, he was equally at home in purely orchestral works as evidenced by his two symphonies. Written just over a decade apart, they reveal his chameleon-like ability to work with any range of style and form. The Symphonie in einem Satz (Symphony in one movement), completed when he was barely 21, adopts an expressionist idiom that shows intricate writing, dense counterpoint and quick shifts reminiscent of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony. Completed in France in 1934 after Weill had to flee Nazi Germany, the Fantaisie symphonique is filled with allusions to the 'sung ballet' The Seven Deadly Sins, composed at the same time. Opening the programme is a selection from the ‘play with music’ Der Silbersee (The Silver Lake), a commentary on commercial greed. As in The Threepenny Opera, the vocal parts were composed for singing actors rather than opera singers. Steeped in the world of Weill, conductor, composer and chansonnier HK Gruber performs the songs himself in his own inimitable way, giving an unusual authenticity to the interpretations.

REVIEWS:

The collection is conducted by HK Gruber, a standard-setting interpreter of Weill’s music, who has been inspired by the composer in his own works. His account of the first symphony (1921) tightly controls what could easily seem scattered; and he sings in the “Silbersee” excerpts, with the gravely, unrefined affect of Lotte Lenya that will be instantly familiar to those who know his 1977 song cycle “Frankenstein!!” The second symphony unfurls with an ease that becomes more disturbing as, from behind the wit and tunefulness, emerge flashes of heartbroken nostalgia and martial terror. The scores comes out sounding more personal, if documentary, for it — a postcard from a precarious Europe on the brink.

-- New York Times (Joshua Barone)

Der Silbersee was Kurt Weill’s European swan-song; premiered in Berlin in February 1933, it was banned by the Nazis in March, and Weill was forced to flee Germany.

There’s a jarring contrast between the pungent text (beautifully projected here by HK Gruber) and the lovely orchestral accompaniment that perfectly sums up Weill’s best music. There are only a few excerpts from the score, but they’re choice.

The marvelous Symphony No. 2 is close to the top of my list of obscure orchestral works that deserve to be programmed and recorded much more frequently. He’s taken the accessible theatre music which had become his hallmark, and neatly slotted it within the classical symphony form of Haydn and Mozart.

Back in 1921, Kurt Weill had written his Symphony in One Movement (his First). His characterization of it: “By Mahler, out of Strauss, trained by Schoenberg.” Weill cleverly melds the neo-romantic tradition with leading edge serialism. This is more than juvenilia; it’s an accomplished work in its own right. Weill has the compositional skill this early in his composing career to produce music that has value a century later.

This project is a perfect example of honest performance of great music; with stellar support from the musicians of the Swedish Chamber Choir, we have here an outstanding contribution to the Weill discography.

-- Music for Several Instruments

Following his acclaimed recording of sonatas by contemporaries of Beethoven, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet further celebrates the great composers’ anniversary year with this set of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos. Electing to direct the Swedish Chamber orchestra from the keyboard, Jean-Efflam writes: ‘To play a concerto under a conductor who shares and enriches one’s vision of the work concerned is one of the greatest joys in the life of a soloist. Nevertheless, one can also admit that some aspects of performing without a conductor may prove advantageous. Rehearsal time is generally speaking made longer by the process of working out the different protocol of gestures from the soloist and the leader in coordinating the ensemble playing. As this work proceeds a creative bond is forged, resulting in an artistic osmosis, a common vision of the work, in which compromise has no place. For the pianist there is also the delight of appearing face to face with the entire orchestra, in direct visual communication, the musicians perhaps more likely to take personal initiatives, thus multiplying the pleasure of a genuine participation, dialogue, and musical exchange.’ The Cadenzas used in this recording are all Beethoven’s, from the set that he wrote-out in 1809, and so are contemporaneous with the Fifth Concerto.

REVIEW:

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's interpretations are distinctive in several respects and succeeds in standing out from the crowd. The Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, has a straightforward slow movement quite unlike the stomp fests that have become routine, but the subtlety and rhythmic complexity of Bavouzet's solos in the outer movements is absorbing. In the Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 ("Emperor"), Bavouzet unleashes the full ringing tone of his unusual piano, and he manages the trick of getting a really exciting, forward-moving reading of this work with a small group. With fine engineering support from a small university auditorium in Sweden, Bavouzet delivers a Beethoven concerto cycle that's worth listeners' investment of time and money.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Michael Collins combines the roles of clarinet soloist and conductor as he leads the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in three works that chart the journey of the clarinet from Mozart’s late eighteenth-century Europe, via Aaron Copland’s 1940s America, to today’s classical scene with a piece written, for Michael Collins, in 2007 by the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin.

Mozart composed his Clarinet Concerto, just weeks before his death in 1791, for Anton Stadler, the first great clarinet virtuoso. Stadler performed the work on what today is known as the basset clarinet, which features additional low notes without compromising the higher register. Unfortunately, Mozart’s manuscript score has been lost. In recent years, however, editors and performers have made several attempts to determine Mozart’s original intentions, and the version recorded here represents one such reconstruction. The concerto has a quality of serene and resigned beauty, recognisable from Die Zauberflöte, and from Mozart’s Requiem.

Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto was commissioned in 1947 by Benny Goodman, the most famous band leader of the swing era, who has been credited with having made jazz ‘respectable’. Goodman also had a second career as a classical clarinettist. He was eager to enrich the repertoire by inviting major composers to write for him, and Copland was happy to take on the challenge.

Elena Kats-Chernin is one of Australia’s leading composers. Her Ornamental Air was written in 2007 in response to a commission from a group of orchestras including the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, with Michael Collins as the intended soloist. The score is modelled closely on the Clarinet Concerto by Mozart. Not only are the orchestral forces identical – two flutes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings – but the solo instrument is the basset clarinet, for which Mozart also wrote his concerto. Kats-Chernin’s writing here takes full advantage of the exceptionally wide range of the instrument, as well as its potential for both virtuosity and lyricism.

- Chandos

Mozart composed his violin concertos in 1773 (K 207) and 1775 (K 211, 216, 218 and 219). These five works and the three single movements recorded here have been passed down complete and verified as authentic. The genesis of these works is closely linked to Mozart’s work as Kapellmeister at the Salzburg court, ending with the probably most important kick-out in music history. Mozart scored no solo cadenzas for his violin concertos; in the practice of the time, they were improvised. All the cadenzas on these recordings derive from Baiba Skride. Eivind Aadland writes: “Baiba is such an intuitive player. She has this rare quality of discovering the music as we play. So she never plays exactly the same. There is a wonderful sense of creating, discovering, of going finding new ways.“ Baiba Skride about her new album: “I know that there are so many different and super recordings of Mozart, but I think it is important to enjoy the music you have heard a thousand times and will hear a thousand times more with new eyes and simply allow the music to play.”

French composer Francois Devienne enjoyed great esteem with his successful operas in the Revolutionary years of 1792-97, but it was as a composer for wind instruments that he has won his place in musical history. The four Flute Concertos in volume 2 of the complete set show a combination of melodic elegance and graceful virtuosity that characterizes much of his work. Especially notable in this respect is No. 6 in D major, a compositional tour de force, rich in thematic material and panache, and one of the finest wind concertos of its epoch.

Francois Devienne performed as an orchestral bassoonist and flautist but rose to fame as an operatic composer. His greatest achievement, however, lies in his sequence of Flute Concertos, of which this is the final volume. Despite his failing health, the four works on this recording demonstrate the hallmark combination of melodic elegance and graceful virtuosity that characterizes Devienne’s flute concertos and are among the most attractive of their time. Concerto No. 10 is one of his masterpieces, distinguished equally by the beauty of its thematic material and its confident, cohesive musical structure. Patrick Gallois belongs to the generation of French musicians leading highly successful international careers as both soloist and conductor. From the age of seventeen he studied the flute with Jean-Pierre Rampal at the Paris Conservatoire and at the age of 21 was appointed principal flute in the Orchestre National de France, under Lorin Maazel, playing under many famous conductors, including Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Karl Bohm, Eugen Jochum, and Sergiu Celibidache. He held this post until 1984, when he decided to focus on his solo career, which has subsequently taken him throughout the world.

Agustin Barrios Mangore was one of the greatest guitar virtuosi of his time and something of a pioneer in making recordings, which he began as early as 1910. His compositions offer a lexicon of technical and expressive devices for the guitar, from both the South American and European traditions. This penultimate volume in the series offers the scintillating Estudio No. 6 which demonstrates some of the composer's finest artistic characteristics such as poignant treble melodies and a mastery of harmonic progression. Other works include examples of the Paraguayan polka, the Zamba, Creole airs, the Serenata and many other pieces attesting to Barrios's inexhaustible individuality and variety. Celil Refik Kaya was awarded First Prize at the JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition in 2012 and has since received multiple awards from several prestigious American guitar competitions, as well as the Rising Young musician of the Year by the Donizetti Classical Music Awards in Istanbul in 2017. Kaya has performed in the most prestigious concert halls and festivals around the US and Turkey, including Carnegie Hall, the Frick Collection Museum, NYCGS, Round Top, Brevard and Ankara International Music Festival, as well as numerous radio and TV broadcasts throughout the US and Turkey. Kaya is also an avid composer, with his chamber and instrumental works being performed throughout the US, Turkey, South Korea, and Australia.

After three solo recordings, virtuoso pianist Paul Wee brings us two forgotten concertos from the Romantic period with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Michael Collins.

Premièred by Clara Schumann under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn, Adolph von Henselt’s Concerto in F minor was eventually performed by the greatest virtuosos of the 19th and 20th centuries. It has, however, inexplicably disappeared from the repertoire despite its obvious qualities: soaring melodies and tender lyricism, colorful orchestration, dramatic intensity across its three movements and piano writing of astounding inventiveness and brilliance.

The familiarity between Henselt’s concerto and some of Sergei Rachmaninoff's works can be explained by the profound influence that the German composer exerted on the Russian. Hans von Bronsart’s Concerto in F sharp minor did not enjoy the same public acclaim, although it is rousing, intimate and electrifying in turns. The richness of its orchestration is matched by an uncommonly brilliant piano part that is a model of practical virtuosity. Breathing late-Romanticism, it requires a soloist to embrace its superheated Romantic language unashamedly if its passions are to take flight.

REVIEWS:

Paul Wee’s fingers dance with clarity and delight around the keyboard. He and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Michael Collins, have an excellent rapport.

— BBC Music Magazine

There is no question that Wee and his cohorts do a tremendous job in bringing these works to life. Wee has warmth and a Romantic stain that encompasses steel along with the requisite limpid lyricism and sparkling decoration. In short, Wee is a pianist you need to hear, whatever the context.

— Limelight