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

The first complete recording of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book on 15 CDs! This remarkable collection of works for the virginal, or small harpsichord, is found in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

It is the largest collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean keyboard music, all handwritten and totalling nearly 300 compositions, all of which predate the first keyboard music published in England by about 50 years.

The identity of the copyist of these works is uncertain, although a fascinating riddle. The manuscript is a role call of the leading composers of the era – John Bull, Giles Farnaby, William Byrd, Peter Philips, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tomkins and a number of unknown composers all feature. Research seems to point to one Francis Tregian from Cornwall, who may have copied the music whilst in Fleet prison from 1608 until his death in 1619. Tregian’s remarkable work – which extends to four volumes and 2000 pieces – ensured the survival of music by many of the most important composers of this era.

Pieter-Jan Belder, one of the world’s most respected and prolific harpsichordists, received rave reviews for his previous issues in this series: “..a captivating portrait..full of rhythmic drive..he displays a keen sense of rhythm...broad and brilliant gestures...one of the most important recording projects of this decade..”(Musicweb-International).

Belder’s discography includes works by Scarlatti (complete sonatas!), Soler, Rameau, Corelli, Bach, Purcell and many others. Currently he is completing the complete harpsichord works by J.S. Bach.

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.

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)

An ideal mixture of clarity and stylish effervescence’ (International Record Review) and ‘a completely new, crisp “Mozart-feel” for the 21st century’ (Stereoplay) were just a couple of the reactions from reviewers to the fresh, sometimes bracing readings that Ronald Brautigam and the Kölner Akademie offered up during their series of Mozart’s piano concertos. Released between 2010 and 2016, individual installments also received special recommendations from websites and magazines such as Klassik-Heute, Luister, Scherzo and Gramophone, which listed the team’s performances of concertos Nos 18 and 22 among its ‘50 greatest Mozart recordings’.

The albums have now been collected in a boxed set, with the addition of the double and triple concertos that Brautigam recorded in 2006 with Alexei Lubimov and Manfred Huss as his fellow soloists, accompanied by the Haydn Sinfonietta Wien. The set spans Mozart’s entire career, from the 11-year old budding composer’s so-called ‘pasticcio concertos’ (Nos 1-4) to Piano Concerto No.27 in B flat major, K595, which he gave the first performance of less than a year before his death in December 1791. The discs are accompanied by the original booklets, with informative liner notes by the musicologist John Irving, author of several books on Mozart.

REVIEWS:

One of the key revelations that elevates Ronald Brautigam’s fortepiano set of Mozart concertos above many of its rivals is the addition of a version with clarinets, trumpets and timpani of the wonderful Concerto in E flat for two pianos (the first pianist in this case is Alexei Lubimov), which alters the scale of the piece almost to the level of Beethoven. Of course, the version without bells and whistles (metaphorically speaking, you understand) is also included, as is the Rondo in D, K382, and the concert aria Ch’io mi scordi di te?, superbly sung by Carolyn Sampson. Michael Alexander Willens directs the Kölner Akademie for all but the concertos for two and three pianos, where Manfred Huss directs the Haydn Sinfonietta Wien. The balance of fortepiano(s) against a medium-size orchestra reveals much in the orchestral writing that would otherwise go for little, especially in the bigger, later works: in fact, there are times when you could as well be hearing symphonies with keyboard obbligato, except that Brautigam’s playing is so deft and nimble that you could hardly take it for granted. The recordings are superb.

-- Gramophone

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.

The journey towards simplicity so comprehensively charted by Jeroen van Veen’s discography over the past decade begins chronologically with the unique world of Erik Satie. In the quietly unique music of this ever-underrated pioneer lies the seeds of so much that was to come to fruition in the latter half of the last turbulent century. Satie belonged neither to the Impressionists nor the Modernists nor any other school, and it took John Cage and the New York modernists of the 1950s to rediscover him as more than a provocateur or a purveyor of salon trifles. Yet, at much the same time on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Soviet-era composers were starting to chafe against both the tenets of serialism and also the requirements of the State for neo-Romantic hymns to labour and triumph. Arvo Pärt was reaching for the same destination as the American triumvirate of Adams, Glass and Reich, only from the other end of the stylistic spectrum. The English critic and composer Michael Nyman first used the term ‘Minimalism’ in print, and it stuck. The last 40 years have witnessed an explosion of popularity and wider interest in a world of music that transcends the four-bar sequences and relentless rhythms of pop, while forsaking the ivory tower of modernism, to offer music that speaks to listeners in search of quiet and stillness, music to meditate by as well as music to stir the blood. And for the last 15 years Jeroen van Veen has recorded much of it in his home studio in the Netherlands, as well as achieving great popular success with performances much farther afield. His recordings have been acclaimed for their nuances of touch as well as their technical command of music demanding formidable reserves of precision and patience.

When the ORFEO label was established in Munich 40 years ago, few would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player in the classical music market. One of the label’s priorities in the early years was vocal music, with opera rarities top of the list and, since the mid 1980s, the re-use of historic tape recordings. Big names featured on the label’s own productions, while ORFEO also developed into a talent factory for discovering and nurturing young artists. This Legendary Pianists 10-disc boxed set continues the series marking ORFEO’s 40th anniversary and features nine pianists in historical and modern recordings dating from the 1950s to the 2000s.

REVIEW:

This edition should be quite intriguing to collectors who surely will find a set of names quite different from what they might have chosen. It does not claim to be definitive; a collection, not the collection. There are ten CDs in the box featuring nine artists recorded live or recorded for broadcast, giving a sense of hearing an actual performance that contributes a heightened sense of you-are-there. Repertoire consists of mainly concertos from Bach to Brahms, via Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. Also, a handful of variations, etc. This is a most attractive collection of pure pleasure.

-- The Whole Note

But for Kempff at his most unbridled you need to hear 1956 WDR Cologne radio recordings of Beethoven’s Op 111 and Schumann’s Fantasie, where bass chords are augmented and the sense of uplift is so acute that you could as well be listening to Schnabel, Cortot, or Fischer live. The disc is one of 10 in Orfeo’s Legendary Pianists, which opens with the player Furtwängler described as ‘the troubadour of the piano’, Géza Anda, who fits that description like a glove in Beethoven’s First Concerto recorded in Munich under Rafael Kubelík, whereas Brahms’s Second Concerto with the same artists fans the flames with consistent intensity, the second movement especially. In the same collection, Gulda plays concertos by Beethoven and Schumann, a rather brittle-sounding Oleg Maisenberg is compelling in Schubert (including the Wanderer Fantasy), Konstantin Lifschitz brings a Gouldian tautness to the seven Bach keyboard concertos (greatly extending the cadenza in BWV1052’s finale), Carl Seemann is characteristically considered in Mozart’s Concertos K449 and 503, Gerhard Oppitz plays Brahms’s Third Sonata (the second movement being significantly broader than on his RCA recording) and we’re given the Third and Fifth Beethoven Concertos from the cycle that Rudolf Serkin and Kubelík recorded in 1977, a much-underrated set.

-- Gramophone

In the course of the eight recordings released by Alpha, the Orchester Wiener Akademie, conducted by Martin Haselb�ck, has accomplished it's objective of recording the complete Beethoven symphonies on period instruments, in the very venues where they were premiered, scrupulously respecting the orchestral forces of 200 years ago. The symphonies take us back to nineteenth-century Vienna for a tour of the Lobkowitz, Hofburg and Niederosterreich palaces, as well as the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Theater in der Josefstadt.

Scherbakov and Steinway celebrate Beethoven with a cycle of the most enduring works of piano literature. These inspired performances were recorded for and during the 250th Anniversary year. “It’s like coming back home into territory that is as natural and native to you as beautiful. It’s an eternal repertory that stands above all.” (Konstantin Scherbakov) Swiss-Russian pianist Konstantin Scherbakov is among the most ubiquitous and oft-recorded pianists today. The range of his repertory is vast and demanding, both technically and interpretively: his discography comprises some 50 recordings, including the complete solo piano outputs of Godowsky, Shostakovich and Respighi, and the complete piano/orchestral works of Medtner, Tchaikovsky, Respighi and Scriabin. His contribution to the Naxos Franz Liszt piano music series includes critically acclaimed performances of Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s Symphonies, of which the Ninth Symphony was awarded the 2005 Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

REVIEW:

In early 2020 Steinway & Sons began issuing individual volumes of a Beethoven sonata cycle with pianist Konstantin Scherbakov as digital downloads. Upon the project’s completion, the label promised to bundle all nine volumes in physical CD format. The discs are packaged in space-saving sleeves, with booklet notes featuring a substantial interview between the pianist and Ben Finane.

Scherbakov, of course, is equally articulate at the keyboard. His Beethoven playing conveys exuberance, involvement, and a keen ear for detail. My enthusiastic response to Scherbakov’s Op. 2 sonata triumvirate contained on Volume 1 readily spills over into the other so-called “early” sonatas. Highlights include a memorable Op. 10 No. 3, where the slow movement’s granitic concentration contrasts to Scherbakov’s deceptively offhand timing of the finale’s sudden stops and starts.

His breezy, witty Op. 14 sonatas count among the catalog’s best, while the pianist’s nimble and slightly dry articulation in Op. 22’s outer movements underscores the music’s implicit opera buffa qualities. Notice the Op. 26 second movement’s unpredictable yet effective shifts in voicing, and the joyous, forward thrust of Op. 27 No. 1’s contrapuntal finale.

Scherbakov’s slightly contrived “Moonlight” central movement (the arch tenutos at phrase ends) turned me off, but his vibrant and musically glittering Op. 28 more than compensated; and what child’s play Scherbakov makes of the Finale’s finger-tangling coda. Scherbakov relishes the intended humor behind the desynchronized chords in Op. 31 No. 1’s first movement. He captures the flippant irony of Glenn Gould’s central movement, but at a tempo closer to what Beethoven intended. The pianist’s “Tempest” sonata is more studied than stormy in the outer movements, yet Op. 31 No. 3’s Scherzo evokes cacklingly conversing woodwinds, and the Presto finale zips past the speed limit without losing an iota of control.

The Waldstein, Appassionata, Les Adieux, and shorter Op. 54, Op. 78, and Op. 79 sonatas consistently fuse unabashed surface bravura and genuine musical insight. I like Scherbakov’s wide dynamic contrasts and stark projection in Op. 90’s first movement, but an overly fast tempo trivializes the second movement’s underlying lyricism and aching tenderness. Happily, the latter qualities come out in Op. 101’s introductory movement, which barely prepares you for the shock of the March’s relentless drive. Yet Scherbakov justifies his tempo through precise calibration of his contrapuntal balances and deadly-accurate wide interval leaps and chordal ricochets.

Like Artur Schnabel, Scherbakov emphasizes the stepwise movement of inner lines within Op. 109’s opening arpeggiated figurations. And he is one of the few pianists who truly differentiates Beethoven’s slurred and non-slurred phrases in the Prestissimo, as do Charles Rosen, Annie Fischer, and Freddy Kempf. I only wish that the third movement’s chains of trills took on more tonally varied and otherworldly hues, and that also applies to the final variations of Op. 111’s Arietta. Op. 110 is all of a piece, pianistically speaking, yet the unsubtle bass octave sforzandos in the Fugue grow fatiguing over the music’s course; I prefer more inwardness and textural transparency in the manner of recordings as disparate as those by Angela Hewitt and Dina Ugorskaja, not to mention Awadagin Pratt’s overlooked yet immensely moving EMI version.

I save the “Hammerklavier” for last, because I’m baffled by Scherbakov’s heavy and emphatic first movement, which is akin to Emil Gilels’ similarly square-cut playing but with infinitely more energy. He also bears down on the Scherzo’s downbeats, and the music never takes wing. Scherbakov plays the Adagio sostenuto simply and directly, however his rhythmic distortions obliterate the dramatic build of Beethoven’s accelerando leading from the fourth-movement introduction into the fugue. Furthermore, Scherbakov’s efficient and clear dispatch of the Fugue’s gnarly note sequences falls short of the supple fluidity and conversational interplay that distinguish the classically oriented Murray Perahia, the fire-and-brimstone Claudio Arrau, and the playful, almost jazzy Peter Serkin.

Perhaps I anticipated something more torrential on Scherbakov’s part, given his recorded whirlwind of a Beethoven/Liszt Fourth Symphony finale. Then again, one shouldn’t expect any single pianist to deliver a perfect Beethoven cycle. That Scherbakov approaches and often attains perfection throughout the course of these excellently engineered CDs is no small achievement. In short, the integrity and distinction of Scherbakov’s work contributes most positively to the Beethoven anniversary year’s abundant offerings.

– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Anton Bruckner's symphonies were a constant part of the repertoire for Mariss Jansons and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The existing recordings - almost all the great Bruckner symphonies – are important documents of Jansons’ deep understanding of the works, and the high musical quality of the recordings also testifies to the long Bruckner tradition at the BRSO. Jansons followed Bruckner’s notes and markings with painstaking precision, and listening to a recording with the score reveals again and again how closely the conductor studied these works with the musicians of his orchestra. Bruckner's symphonies form the backbone of Late Romantic symphonic music. To a certain extent, Bruckner reinvented the symphony – something that not even Liszt or Wagner had dared to do in the wake of the groundbreaking masterpieces of Beethoven, which until then had been considered the culmination and conclusion of the genre. It was Bruckner and, somewhat later, Brahms who sought and found new methods of reviving the symphonic genre and developing it further. In this regard, Bruckner's approach was entirely new. From the outset, he relied on the sound of the large orchestra and, rather than mixing the individual groups of instruments, he tended to either separate them from each other or couple them together like organ registers (with which, as an organist, he was very familiar). Terraced dynamics, that is, the immediate juxtaposition of piano and forte without transition, was also something Bruckner derived from organ music. As a church musician, he had close contact with these and other elements of Baroque music, and they flowed into his symphonies. As far as dramaturgical development was concerned, he tended to favor Schubert; indeed, it was the organic continuation and alternating interconnection of themes Bruckner had learned from Schubert that also explains the unprecedented performance length of his symphonies.

The young Van Baerle Trio, made of stunning soloists – Hannes Minnaar on piano, Maria Milstein on violin and Gideon den Herder on cello – have accomplished the Beethoven’s Piano Trio recordings. Now, Challenge Classics releases a box including the five volumes of their remarkable survey. It includes the three youthful Trios op. 1, the two great Trios op. 70, the absolute masterpiece which is the Trio op. 97, named ‘Archduke’. Together with such ‘official’ and original works, there are also Beethoven’s own transcriptions of his own works: the Clarinet Trio op. 11, the Trio arrangements of the Septet op. 20 and of the Symphony no. 2. You will also find some light, occasional pieces like the Allegrettos in E-flat and in B-flat, the Variations op. 44 and op. 121a. The most unexpected work included in the box is the Triple Concerto, as the musicians consider it as a real piece of ‘augmented’ chamber music. Fanfare: “I believe this is one of the great piano trio performances in the history of recording. This is a recording that should be in everyone's collection.” Gramophone: “The effect is liberating and, in these joyous, playful performances, utterly refreshing. The effect is of real chamber music – up close and very personal.”MusicWeb International: “To my ears the Van Baerle Trio is amongst the top rank in terms of performance and recorded quality.” Luister: “The second volume is also exceptionally good. With great mastery, the Van Baerle Trio balances perfectly on the border between symphonic grandeur and chamber music transparency.”

Throughout history, the cultural legacy of some geniuses has been of such universal magnitude that its aftermath has spread far beyond the narrow confines of the actual field of their activity. In a study of the University of Cambridge, which is dedicated to the ranking of the 100 most important, most influential personalities in history, Ludwig van Beethoven is ranked 27th; Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821, rank 2), that brilliant commander and statesman a year older than Beethoven. While the French Revolution and its later emperor influenced contemporary artists, Napoleon himself, did not care a bit about music. In the same way that his military campaigns of that time have continued to have an effect to the present day, Beethoven changed the face of music forever. In his fundamentally new conception of the art of sound based on the Viennese Classicism, everything that was created in composition by him at the time outshone even those, who did not know Beethoven and his music despite his later popularity. While the pianist Beethoven caused a furor and was admired at a young age, his works caused astonishment and confusion from the very beginning, and often met with frowning criticism. Of course, there were also other, more positive voices. While Beethoven was at the height of his career in the middle phase of his life until about 1815, in recent years, the resentments against his misunderstood late style and the supposedly increasing oddness of its author grew. Nonetheless, the respect shown to him by the international music community increased until the end of his life, culminating in a funeral that the city had never seen before. The casalQuartett‘s five-part Concert & album project explores the phenomenon of Beethoven’s impact on his time, or, conversely, how other musicians influenced him.

Also available on Blu-ray

Russian dance superstar Natalia Osipova joined The Royal Ballet as a Principal in 2013 and has since filled each of her leading roles with an unforgettable passion, fiery energy and technical prowess. This collection brings together some of her most spellbinding performances: her dramatic dual performance of Odette and her rival Odile in Swan Lake; outstanding solos and flair for comedy as the young lover Lise in La Fille mal gardée; and her electric stage presence in the title role of the quintessential Romantic ballet Giselle where she was hailed as ‘technically and artistically supreme… ethereal and desperately moving’ (The Daily Telegraph). The set is completed with an in-depth portrait, Force of Nature Natalia, which provides an unparalleled opportunity to become closely acquainted with one of the leading ballerinas of her generation, and invites you to discover why critics and audiences all over the world call her a ‘force of nature’ of the dance world.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Russian dance superstar Natalia Osipova joined The Royal Ballet as a Principal in 2013 and has since filled each of her leading roles with an unforgettable passion, fiery energy and technical prowess. This collection brings together some of her most spellbinding performances: her dramatic dual performance of Odette and her rival Odile in Swan Lake; outstanding solos and flair for comedy as the young lover Lise in La Fille mal gardée; and her electric stage presence in the title role of the quintessential Romantic ballet Giselle where she was hailed as ‘technically and artistically supreme… ethereal and desperately moving’ (The Daily Telegraph). The set is completed with an in-depth portrait, Force of Nature Natalia, which provides an unparalleled opportunity to become closely acquainted with one of the leading ballerinas of her generation, and invites you to discover why critics and audiences all over the world call her a ‘force of nature’ of the dance world.