Anna Clyne: Mythologies became an instant media and popular success when it was released in October 2020 - "hands-down one of the half-dozen best classical albums of 2020", according to New York Music Daily. The album is now presented in a magnificent 2-LP set, the splendor of the glossy gatefold and solid 180gsm vinyl an appropriate match for Anna's enormous palette of colors and special effects. Anna's compositions balance striking originality with a comforting familiarity as she draws inspiration from historic styles and transforms them into a new musical dialect. Her background in electro-acoustic music and her fascination for a variety of multi-media - including poetry, visual art and videography - combine to create rich and exhilarating textures of popular appeal. The five works on Anna Clyne: Mythologies were written over a 10-year period between 2005 and 2015. A kaleidoscopic orchestral showcase, the set opens with Masquerade. Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 to open the Last Night of the Proms in 2013 and conducted by Marin Alsop, this curtain-raiser captures the spirit of that quintessentially English tradition, evoking an 18th-century outdoor festivity featuring fireworks, acrobats and street entertainers. This Midnight Hour, conducted by the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo, encapsulates the modernity and decadence of two European poets, Nobel Prize-winning Spaniard Juan Ramon Jimenez and Frenchman Charles Baudelaire. Oramo also conducts The Seamstress, a single-movement violin concerto in all but name, featuring soloist Jennifer Koh as well as the whispered voice of Irene Buckley reciting the work's inspiration, a poem by William Butler Yeats. More poetry by a Nobel laureate, the Irishman Seamus Heaney, inspired Night Ferry; conducted by Andrew Litton, the work conjures crashing waves and weathered seafaring. The set concludes with rewind , conducted by Andre de Ridder, a wild romp making reference to another vintage format, the VHS tape.

For its eighth volume, Haydn2032 invites us on a musical journey that takes the Balkan route. Of all the ‘Viennese Classical School’, Joseph Haydn is certainly the composer closest to folk music, first because he spent his early years in the countryside and also because, unlike his colleagues who worked in the urban centers of the Habsburg monarchy, Haydn was in contact with Croats, Roma and Hungarians throughout his life. These influences were omnipresent in his music, to the delight of Prince Nikolaus I Esterházy and his guests, but by some accounts were not to the taste of many music theorists in Germany. Haydn gave his Symphony no.63 in C major the title of ‘La Roxolana’, from the famous sixteenth-century sultana who was the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent after having been his slave. As usual, Giovanni Antonini, who is reunited here with Il Giardino Armonico, juxtaposes Haydn’s music with that of another composer. The natural choice here was Béla Bartók, who is represented by his Romanian Folk Dances, composed in 1917.

LENKA DUSILOV�, a six-time winner of the Czech Music Academy Awards, is one of the most original presences on the Czech music scene. Nine years after the release of her previous solo album and six years after she recorded her last album with Baromantika, LENKA DUSILOV� comes with a new long-awaited album, REKA ("River"), which introduces a new sound, a new team of musical partners and a number of personal themes. The album originated in collaboration with the producer PETR OSTROUCHOV who had also initiated, for example, the successful award-winning album of Vladim�r Mi��k, "Jednou te potk�m" from last year. The sound has been significantly determined by the presence of the beat maker and electronic wizard AID KID (a member, among others, of Zv�re jm�nem podzim and the Kittchen project, the latter in collaboration with Jakub K�nig). Multiple layers of sound have been created by mixing experienced performers from various genres, including jazz, pop and electronic music. In one of the tracks, LENKA DUSILOV� has been joined by MONIKA NACEVA and IVA BITTOV� with whom she has appeared recently. The overall sound of the album is characterized by the variety and density of sounds, moods and effects, including sound-on-sound looping and vocal layering. "The title of the album - simply RIVER (REKA) - metaphorically reflects the dynamism and fluid characteristics of a system which is influenced by it's surroundings - the terrain, weather and natural and human-induced events in the landscape. This is what all "rivers" have in common and what makes them unique as well," explains LENKA DUSILOV�.

This book is more than a collection of songs. It is a completely satisfying recital programme presented by two consummate artists. As given by them on the concert platform these songs are things to dream of. Engel Lund takes each one and in a few pithy sentences cracks it like a nut and gives you the kernel. Then she sings it, breathing into its words and notes an unforgettable vitality. Her accompanist, Ferdinand Rauter, is in such accord with Engel Lund that during the actual singing his part is almost unnoticed. His musical settings provide a completely natural environment.

On the occasion of his 50th anniversary, Avishaï Cohen offers a sumptuous present: 50 titles selected by his fans in a luxurious box set including 6 golden 180g vinyls. Deluxe edition limited and numbered to 2.000 copies worldwide! Each title has been commented by Avisaï Cohen in a beautiful 32-page hardcover book. Avishai Cohen, born in Kabri, Israel on April 20th, 1970, grew up in a multicultural family whose roots were found in Spain, Greece and Poland. At home, music was always in the air, with his mother Ora, an artistic influence, listening to both classical and traditional music. Avishais musical journey began when he was nine years old, when he began playing the piano. After moving to St. Louis, Missouri with his family at age fourteen, he continued to study the piano and began to play the bass guitar. The electric bass put a spell on him when his teacher introduced him to the music of luminary bassist Jaco Pastorius. Back in Israel, Avishai joined the Music and Arts Academy in Jerusalem to further explore the bass universe.

Czech saxophonist and composer Luboš Soukup has been living and working in Copenhagen for ten years. The “Freetown” of Christiania is not only one of the local tourist attractions, but also the site of an excellent jazz club, the Børneteateret. Last year, Soukup invited his Prague colleague Vojtech Procházka (of Vertigo) to the club to perform two concerts together with himself and his Danish partners, double bassist Emil Brun Madsen (who is also the artistic director of the Børneteateret) and drummer Morten Hæsum with whom Soukup has been collaborating for many years. The recordings from those two nights form the basis of the present album. The vigorous playing, free musical expression and boundless imagination are the prime characteristics of these recordings whose authentic “rawness”, inseparable from the player’s common drive, presents an added value that would be hard to achieve in a studio recording.

In the 1960s and in the decades following, the Budapest String Quartet’s mantle at Columbia was passed on to the Juilliard String Quartet. Over the years, with some changes in personnel, the ensemble repeatedly set down its famously lean, energetic and expressive interpretations of the Beethoven quartets in New York recording studios. These have remained catalogue staples. Less well known is the Beethoven cycle they recorded live in Washington at the Library of Congress in 1982. Gramophone singled out this complete traversal for its special depth and flexibility. Presented here on 9 albums, this is its first Sony release.

REVIEW:

The slow introduction to the C Major Quartet No. 9 is handled wonderfully, which sets up well for the rest of the movement and the work as a whole. These are followed by nice recordings of the “Harp” and “Serioso” quartets, thus bringing the middle period to an end.

The late quartets open with a really nice recording of the Nos. 12 and 13, with the first of these being particularly fine. The final disc of the nine houses the 15th and 16th quartets, which again receive fairly good recordings. Overall, the tempos selected here tend to be slower than in their earlier recording, which is usual for live recordings.

Overall sound quality is, at times, a bit of an issue here, even taking into account the live nature of these recordings, and overall isn't up to the sound quality of the quartet's highly regarded 1960s studio cycle of these works for RCA.

– MusicWeb International

David Goode performs the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach on the renowned Metzler Söhne organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, in a new a set spanning 16 albums and over 17 hours and 40 minutes of music. Covering the multiplicity of genres and stylistic influences that typified Bach’s organ music, the set includes complete recordings of the Chorale preludes, the six Sonatas, and the many preludes, toccatas, fugues, fantasias, chorales and partitas. The accompanying 136-page booklet includes background information on each work by organist George Parsons, along with an introduction to the set by David Goode. As well as a tracklisting, the booklet includes indexes to the works by BWV number and alphabetical order. “This series is notable for the flair, clarity and spontaneity that Goode brings to this timeless music” (Gramophone)

REVIEW

This cycle of Bach's Complete Organ Works occupied David Goode between January 2015 and August 2016 and was originally issued as separate volumes, but now Signum Classics have released them as a 16 CD set. Centre stage is the magnificent Metzler organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, which ranks as one of the finest in the UK. The Signum engineers have done a sterling job with the sound quality. The cycle certainly stands shoulder to shoulder with some of my favorite traversals, including those by Christopher Herrick, Peter Hurford, Lionel Rogg and André Isoir.

--MusicWeb International

GROVER LIVE OPAQUE GOLD LP

Both on the concert platform and in the recording studio, pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar is a completist. Following complete cycles of piano sonatas by Beethoven and Mozart, he presents 12 Great Piano Sonatas by Franz Schubert – the composer’s 11 finished sonatas and the seminal fragment D840. Pienaar relishes in these revelatory works, their extraordinarily detailed possibilities of characterisation, their call for immense energy and abandon, and navigating the vast dreamscapes that unfold in the course of this six-hour musical journey. “dazzling precision and clarity ... he communicates an individual and convincing vision for each piece, enough for every one of them to give delight. Brilliant.” (Gramophone, Editor’s Choice on The Long 17th Century) “dizzying virtuosity ... fresh, spontaneous, original readings that shed new light on the keyboard player’s Bible” (BBC Music Magazine on J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier)

 

REVIEW:

 

These readings for me capture the spirit of Schubert’s piano style. It is only when you set Pienaar next to the established greats that he lacks something in presence and imagination, but only by a small degree. His playing is at once natural and sympathetic, and blessedly free of artifice. It is also necessary to qualify my generalization that Pienaar’s approach is lively and alert. He recognizes the greater ambition and amplitude of the opus posthumous sonatas and changes his approach accordingly.

 

– Fanfare

Welsh pianist Llyr Williams is widely admired for his profound musical intelligence and the expressive and communicative nature of his interpretations. The complete 8 album collection of Llyr Williams’ Schubert series – previously released as individual digital volumes over 2019 to 2020. These recordings were made following a critically-lauded recital series at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama by Williams. Together they showcase the detailed examination given by Williams to these pieces, which is “warm, yet detailed” (Piano International). The accompanying booklet includes background notes on each piece, as well as an essay by US composer William Bolcom on his completion of Schubert’s unfinished Sonata in C major, D. 840. “These precious five minutes alone are worth a whole string of concerts” (Le Devoir) “ease into melting loveliness” (Classical Source) “Remarkable artistry and authority” (The Guardian)

REVIEW

In live performances such as these, one would expect a certain amount of casualness and distraction, a tendency to slur over passages, rush an accelerando to impress the audience and miss the occasional staccato dot or complete grace note. That is not the case. Williams brings to each work, no matter how slight or monumental, the same integrity and an honoring of the composer’s voice. Technically, I can’t help but be impressed, even amazed, by the strength of his playing and the consistency of pressure on each finger. Yet, there is an overarching individual expressiveness that conveys, as few others can, the unique wistfulness of the Schubert “sound”, the composer’s yearning for recognition and, later, for health, and knowing full well what little time he had in which to accomplish so much. I have never before heard the essential Schubert discerned and revealed at this level of perfection.

–ConcertoNet.com (Linda Holt)

Internationally renowned composer and guitarist Kaki King co-produced her tenth album, Modern Yesterdays, with sound designer Chloe Alexandra Thompson and recording engineer Arjan Miranda. It's her first full-length studio project since the 2015 release of The Neck Is A Bridge to the Body ("bursting with masterclass talent," as reviewed in PopMatters), and her first to be recorded almost entirely on acoustic guitar. Rich in post-classical, jazz and blues-flavored motifs, as well as electronic and electro-acoustic influences, Modern Yesterdays mines a poignant, meditative arc that not only fits the mood of these turbulent times, but also once again establishes King as a tirelessly inventive composer whose imagination extends well beyond the sonic limits of her chosen instrument.

Richard Blackford is one of the foremost concert and media composers in Europe. His concert works are performed regularly around the world and his music for film and television is broadcast frequently in almost every European country. Blackford studied composition with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music, then with Hans Werner Henze in Rome. Early awards include the Tagore Gold Medal, the Ricordi Prize and the Mendelssohn Scholarship. He was first Composer-in-Residence at Balliol College Oxford, and later Composer-in-Residence to the Brno Philharmonic in the Czech Republic. His works were performed in the major music festivals of the world, including Adelaide, Berlin, Brighton, Montepulciano, Cheltenham, Long Island. He has composed in virtually every medium, including opera, choral, orchestral, theatre, film and ballet. Prelude and Passacaglia was written for David Hill. It was recorded by him on the organ of Peterborough Cathedral for Regent Records on July 29th 2019.

Suspended is Urbexs third album, but also the first live recording of this adventurous group formed five years ago. The repertory is written by Antoine Pierre (TaxiWars, Philip Catherine, Joshua Redman, Jacky Terrasson etc.), the sextets leader, who has drawn his inspiration from the electronic period of Miles Davis, with the album Bitches Brew as its inspiration. The recording was made in the outstanding acoustics of the famous Studio 4 at Flagey (Brussels) during the first public presentation of this new creation. The result is imbued with a powerful groove that leads, by way of an eruption of sound and energy, to a kind of trance. Since its formation in 2015, Urbex has played in the most prestigious jazz venues and released two critically acclaimed albums that were awarded CHOC in Jazz Magazine, Indispensable in Jazz New, MUST TSF Jazz and an Octave de la Musique in 2018.

Wind ensembles saw an interesting development throughout the eighteenth century, both in their scoring and in their function, from musique de table to Harmonie. Mozart, who appreciated all the wind instruments of his time and gave them important roles in his orchestral and chamber music, including writing solo concertos for most of them, also composed important works for wind ensembles. His early divertimenti for six wind instruments were written in Salzburg between 1775 and 1777, mostly to entertain at outdoor banquets. The two serenades for wind octet K375 and K388/384a, composed in Vienna in 1781 and 1782 respectively, coincide with the foundation of the Kaiserliche Königliche Harmonie by Joseph II of Austria, which originated a widespread trend in the Empire and elsewhere. The function of such ensembles was mainly that of playing arrangements of famous opera tunes in the palace. The most sublime example of Harmoniemusik, however, is to be found in the Serenade K361/370a, the so called ‘Gran Partita’, written between 1781 and 1784: this is the most expansive of Mozart's works for wind in duration and scoring. Award-winning ensemble ZEFIRO brings together the world’s leading specialists in performance on historical wind instruments and has gained a reputation in its thirty years of activity for lively, eloquent and expressive renderings of Mozart’s music. This six-album set assembles for the first time its complete Mozart recordings, some of which are now considered as milestones in the discography.