A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month for July 2022!

Aladdin’s story, taken from the Arabian One Thousand and One Nights, has been told many times and in many different ways. This operatic version by the Danish composer, C.F.E. Horneman, dates from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century and has the lush harmonies and flowing melodies you might expect from a piece of its time. Horneman adds new lustre to the old fairy tale about Aladdin and Princess Gulnare as they escape the forces of nocturnal magic and pursue happiness.

Soloists include Bror Magnus Tødenes, Dénise Beck, Johan Reuter, Stephen Milling, Henning von Schulman, Hanne Fischer, Steffen Bruun, Elisabeth Jansson, Frederikke Kampmann, Sidsel Aja Eriksen, Klaudia Kidon, Rikke Lender, and Jakob Soelberg.

Review

The history of [Horneman’s Aladdin] as summarised here is fully laid out in a fascinating booklet essay by Inger Sørensen, and we are further informed by Niels Bo Foltmann that for this recording the score has been newly edited to include amendments made by Horneman during the course of the 1902-03 performances; so that effectively we can now hear the opera for the first time in the form that the composer finally intended.

It is clear from this recording that Aladdin is a work of real weight, which well deserves revival and performance. The orchestra...plays powerfully and superbly throughout under the direction of Michael Schønwandt, who displays all the energetic involvement and sense of panache required...some of the delicate singing of Bror Magnus Tødenes (notably in the lullaby mentioned earlier) is absolutely beautiful in both placement and tone. Johan Reuter is also notable for the strength of his contribution as the villainous Noureddin, and the two principal female roles are admirably filled by the vibrant Dénise Beck and the warmly maternal Hanne Fischer.

[The] presentation of the set in its...imposingly handsome box, three discs in cardboard sleeves and 152-page booklet in Danish and English with complete libretto and translation, is absolutely excellent – just what is required if an altogether unknown opera such as this is to receive proper appreciation. One looks forward eagerly to further such revelations.

--MusicWeb International (Paul Corfield Godfrey)

 

Throughout his lifetime, Gustav Mahler's musical imagination got sparked by the Wunderhorn anthology of folk poetry compiled by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano. Whether autonomous lieder or conscripted into symphonic service, Mahler’s Wunderhorn settings represent some of his most exotic, exhilarating, but also visionary music. The Wunderhorn songs evoke and celebrate a lost era but they also prefigure its demise. Mahler captures this ambiguity in uncompromisingly melodious and idyllic, but also satiric, relentless and cruel music. In this soundtrack from the movie WUNDERHORN by Clara Pons, baritone Dietrich Henschel, “a towering figure, physically, intellectually, musically and theatrically” (Herald Scotland) gives a vibrant rendition of 24 Lieder from Gustav Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”, masterly accompanied by the Bochumer Symphoniker under the baton of Steven Sloane.

A soloist’s career path can often be a lonely one, especially for an exceptional instrumental soloist like Felix Klieser. It is then all the more inspiring when over the course of many years playing together, there is the opportunity to build and nurture close artistic and personal contacts with other musicians. Felix Klieser’s concerts with the Prague-based Zemlinsky Quartet therefore are understandably among his annual favorites, as they present an opportunity for the five musicians to come together and to show that many years of music-making together has forged them into much more than just another artistic ensemble. “I have played so much and so often with the Zemlinsky Quartet, and so we wanted to record a program of music together,” he explains. What could be more suitable for such a project than Mozart and Haydn? “The Horn Quintet is a real favorite of mine, in fact it may be the piece I like to play most,” is the hornist’s reaction to Mozart’s chamber works for the instrument. He has amply proved that he is very fond indeed of Mozart, having already recorded the Horn Concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus. Now comes the Quintet. “It is such great fun to play this music. It’s like being a child in a sweet shop who is told: ‘you’re allowed to pick up anything and you can eat as much as you like.’ You go tumbling from one mood into another, interchanging between unbounded jubilation and deepest despair in the space of two bars; you really have to be on your toes – it’s intensive stuff.”

David Johansen, Professor of Trombone Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University, holds the Bachelor of Music Degree from Fort Hays State University, the Master of Science in Music Education from the University of Illinois and the Doctor of Musical Arts in Trombone Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa. Dr. Johansen has held the positions of Principal Trombone in the Hays Symphony Orchestra, Second Trombone in the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra and currently holds the position of Second Trombone in the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra, the Dubuque Symphony, the Southeastern Iowa Symphony, the Ottumwa Symphony Orchestra, the Mississippi Wind Symphony, the Natchez Opera, the Rapides Symphony of Alexandria, Louisiana and the Acadiana Symphony of Lafayette, Louisiana. On the present release, alongside pianist Daniel Lau, Dr. Johansen presents Six Sonatas for Trombone and Piano from composers including William Hartley, Jacques Casterede, Paul Hindemith, and more.

As pianist, conductor and composer, Ole Schmidt was one of the great polymaths of the Nordic musical world. His music was influenced by Bartók, Stravinsky and the French school and is underpinned by a certain Nordic clarity. It combines rhythmic energy, high concentration, elemental expressivity and deadpan humor. Schmidt's experience on the podium gave him an inside track on the working of the orchestra, and his pragmatism and refinement are evident in his larger scores, including the three momentous concertos on this album. In his Pièce Concertante, Schmidt places a trumpet and a trombone in the foreground. The piece has a bustling concerto grosso atmosphere and a consistent good humor. The album also presents his Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra, which explore the full expressive capabilities of the tuba, and the Concerto for Horn and Chamber Orchestra consisting of two contrasting movements: the first serious and dreaming, the second fast and playfully light.

Fr�derick Franssen writes: "From among the enormous choice of horn repertoire available in the early stages of my study of the instrument, my interest was piqued by the very earliest horn music. The music from that era did and still does exert it's magic on me due to the pure beauty of it's clear and transparent sound world. One of my first finds on this quest of discovery through the Baroque period was a concerto by an unknown hand, which appears on this album and comes from a very special collection - the 'Wenster'. The library at the University of Lund in Sweden contains one of the largest collections of horn music from the first half of the 18th century, under the name of 'Wenster'. The manuscript contains 18 works, with virtually all of the composers having some sort of connection to the city of Dresden, and it may have been transcribed by a travelling horn player during a visit to that city. The six works on this recording are all taken from this collection."

After the great success of her debut album (OPUS KLASSIK award 2021) and her duo album with pianist En-Chia Lin, Selina Ott for her third recording teams up with renowned pianist Maria Radutu, conductor Dirk Kaftan and the ORF RSO to present selected works by Dmitri Shostakovich, André Jolivet and Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Shostakovich’s Concerto for piano, trumpet and string orchestra (1933) is notable for a prevailing parodistic tone, which scarcely occurs in this form in any of his other works. Many of the themes that lend the music the distorted face of the grotesque are heard in the trumpet. The choice of instruments of André Jolivet’s Concertino for trumpet, piano and strings is exactly the same as that of Shostakovich’s work, but the latter is more of a piano concerto, while Jolivet’s is more of a trumpet concerto. Like Shostakovich, Mieczyslaw Weinberg also incorporates several quotations into the final movement of his Trumpet Concerto (1967), for example the fanfare from Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Referred to by Shostakovich as “symphony for trumpet and orchestra”, the Concerto presents music of a taut inner structure and logical consistency.

"Increasingly, Shostakovich's music is captivating people all over the world and appealing to their deepest emotions. Almost like no other, it bears witness to a traumatic political epoch while remaining a timeless expression of existential human feeling and experience. For me personally," said conductor Mariss Jansons, who died two years ago, "Shostakovich is one of the most serious and sincere composers of them all." Now BR-KLASSIK is releasing two more outstanding performances by this important Soviet-Russian composer: his impressive Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, and his Ninth Symphony - performed live by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under its long-time principal conductor Mariss Jansons.

Shostakovich's (first) piano concerto features impressive pianistic virtuosity, bold experimentation, satire, and caricatures of different musical styles. The composer wrote it in the summer of 1933, only a few weeks after the completion of his opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk". This concerto in particular demonstrates the immense versatility and magnificent talent of the still carefree 26-year-old Shostakovich. He blends a wealth of musical thoughts and ideas into a colorful and fascinating kaleidoscope. Despite the wealth of different stimuli, the concerto does not seem chaotic or overloaded: the young composer effortlessly maintains the balance. Shostakovich performed a similar balancing act between creative work and conformity to the state in his Ninth Symphony, which premiered on November 3, 1945. Instead of the expected heroic, regime-conformist orchestral thunder along the lines of his Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad”, the music heard here was playful, without pathos, somewhat witty, full of allusions – yet something did not seem quite right. This musical conundrum, full of ironic refractions and caricatures of melodramatic and triumphant music, was recognized by the censors as a masquerade, yet one that was not easily decipherable.

REVIEW:

I don’t think of any first-rate recording as needless, and this release, despite its short timing, features two excellent performances, even though Yefim Bronfman already has a recording of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on Sony. That version, from 1999 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Phil, is nimble and quick, and it finds Bronfman more scintillating than he is in Munich in 2012.

The new Symphony No. 9, BRSO version is a live account from Vienna’s Musikverein in 2011, and in every way it is splendid. Superb recorded sound captures every detail and instrumental color in the score, and the orchestra shows off its world-class status. Jansons’s touch is light and lively, giving the symphony an irresistible buoyancy.

Thanks to some highly individual solo playing from the BRSO’s first desks, which expressively ranges from soulful melancholy to dizzying brilliance, this concert performance displays great emotional variety, including wit and suspense. I can warmly recommend it as one of Jansons’s best efforts in Shostakovich, and you can bypass the stingy timing of the CD by resorting to digital downloads and streams.

This CD is extracted from BR Klassik’s 68-disc Jansons Edition. Final applause is briefly included.

-- Fanfare

Cool Sweetness could be a nice cold and tasty cocktail…or maybe an irresistible ice cream… But actually, it is the name of Danish trombonist Anders Jacobsen’s jazz sextet. “Cool” because the main inspiration comes from the cool jazz as they played it on the American West Coast in the fifties. “Sweetness” because that is how the sextet members really are. Six nice, good-natured and humorous men who love to play good jazz. The music on their new album “Shoehorn Shuffle” is primarily composed and arranged by Jacobsen and the album features a strong line-up of the coolest players on the Danish jazz scene, including Thomas Fryland (trumpet), Jens Søndergaard (sax), Pelle von Bülow (guitar), Ole Skipper (bass) and Aage Tanggaard (drums).

‘The music on this fine recording is quite simply - just wonderful! The beauty and spirit of quality is always evident. The writing, execution, soli, and recorded sound are a joy to experience! The sense of swing and great groove puts a big smile on my face. many thanks to Anders for his terrific writing and assembling all these superb musicians!’ (Jiggs Whigham)

REVIEW:

The group have all the right attributes, good sound, calm execution, and the correct solo power to place them alongside the iconic cool jazz players of yesteryear.

-- Jazzwise (UK)

Having reached worldwide success and an absolute peak in horn performance, Radek Baborák (b. 1976) has been dedicating himself with great vigor to ever new artistic projects which he often initiates as a soloist, conductor, or artistic director of several chamber ensembles. Following two albums which he, together with his ensemble Orquestrina, dedicated to the music of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, he now releases an entirely different project: a complete recording of Mahler’s famous Lieder collection The Youth’s Magic Horn. The original orchestration has been adjusted to the possibilities of Baborák Ensemble and its variable line-up of seven to sixteen players. The diverse and lively new arrangements which have been made with respect to the brilliant qualities of the individual instrumentalists (members of the ensemble include oboe player Jana Brožková and harpist Katerina Englichová), inject new energy and youthful spirit into Mahler’s beautiful music. Baborák invited three internationally renowned Czech vocalists to collaborate on the album: Katerina Knežíková, Markéta Cukrová and Adam Plachetka.

Nine Trumpets and One Piano is an album of works dedicated to leading trumpeter Fábio Brum and written for the classically conceived combination of trumpet or other high brass instruments and piano. The composers are drawn from across the globe, though the majority live in South America, and represent a wide variety of stylistic backgrounds. The music is exciting and vibrant – not least in its dancing, driving rhythms – and exploits neo-Classical traditions as well as minimalism, jazz and folklore, all heard here in world premiere recordings.

Brazilian trumpet soloist Fábio Brum has performed in more than 30 countries. He has won prizes at the Cittá di Porcia International Competition, Prague Spring International Music Competition, Juan García Marín International Trumpet Competition, Ellsworth Smith International Trumpet Competition and International Trumpet Guild Solo Competition, and others, and received scholarships and awards from organizations including DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), Baden-Württemberg Stipendium, Lake Placid Institute and Leon Rapier Scholarship Fund. Brum is the dedicatee of compositions by more than 20 composers, and his debut recording, Egregore+, features the musician performing new works and arrangements on eight different trumpet family instruments with orchestra. He is a Stomvi artist.

Born into a working-class family, Anders Eliasson’s earliest musical experiences originated from within himself: ‘they were my own singing, and tunes I heard on the radio’. At the age of nine he began to play the trumpet, and soon after he became the leader of a jazz band for which he wrote arrangements. Aged 14, he found a local organist to teach him harmony and counterpoint, and at 16 he left his hometown for Stockholm to study privately. In 1966 Eliasson enrolled at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, studying the various techniques and trends of modernism, from dodecaphony to musique concrete. But in the end he found it impossible to ‘break away from more than a thousand years of tradition’, as he put it: ‘Music is like H2O: melody, harmony and rhythm are a single entity. And it has to flow.’ The three works recorded here – all for the first time – are examples of the highly personal idiom he developed as a consequence.

REVIEW:

Eliasson’s Symphony No 3 operates on a continuous weave, the saxophone often riding its surface, whose tightness can put a clamp on the music. To my ears the modality sounds restrictive, rather than a parameter to prompt greater creativity. There are some fine moments, none better than the celestial transition from the ‘Fremiti’ third movement to the ‘Lugubre’ fourth (of five).

Similarly, Eliasson’s Trombone Concerto is a work of deeper structural principle than the label ‘concerto’ might denote and one in which the composer instructed the dedicatee Christian Lindberg to ‘play like a caged bird’. Once more the music can chase its own tail, without the degree of structural fascination or universal vision – the sort Nørgård finds from even more restrictive means – that might have rendered such a chase thrilling.

Thank heavens for Eliasson’s Symphony No 4, in which the composer’s obsessive compositional personality yields embracing fruits. Here the tonal journey is better defined, the development of a single motif clearer and more ripe, the textures more varied and the feeling generally more visceral.

All said and done, a mixed bag. But the soloists give their works everything and the conductors don’t shirk on Eliasson’s firm principles, even if Oramo has more to work with.

-- Gramophone

Recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Pulitzer Prize, and a GRAMMY Award, William Bolcom is one of America’s most senior and internationally acclaimed composers. Commissioned to expand upon the under-represented horn trio repertoire, Bolcom has written a modern counterpart to Brahms’ Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, Op. 40, in which he incorporates multiple styles into a substantial composition. The Suite No. 2 for Solo Violin is by turns frenzied, melancholic and light-hearted. Bolcom states, “Both works are performed beautifully and well recorded. Bravi tutti!”

Louis-François Dauprat was a French horn player, horn teacher and composer. He was born in Paris in 1781 and died there in 1868. As a child he was a chorister at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. From 1794 he was taught to play the horn by Philip Kenn, a cor basse (low horn); first at the Institut National de Musique and later in the first horn class of the Conservatoire. In 1797 he was the first horn player to be awarded the premier prix. After touring Italy and Egypt with various musical groups between 1799 and 1801 he settled in Paris, where he decided to study again at the Conservatoire, this time harmony and composition. He also studied with Anton Reicha, who composed the horn parts for Dauprat in his quintets for woodwinds. Dauprat can be seen as the pioneer of the Parisian horn tradition. His compositions move stylistically between the classical and romantic periods. In addition to operas and symphonies, he composed a whole series of works for solo horns: horn duets, horn trios, horn quartets, horn sextets, horn with string quartet and much more. For horn players and the interpretation of Dauprat's works or those of his contemporaries, the Méthode de cor alto et cor basse (Paris, 1824) is particularly significant. This recording presents works for horn in various groups: solos, duets, a horn sonata, and a quartet for four horns. David Fliri is solo hornist in the Staatskapelle Weimar and Professor at the Mozarteum Salzburg.

If there's one thing that makes Christmas what it is, it's festive music and uplifting melodies: "Festive Trumpets for Christmas" is the new Christmas album from Matthias Höfs, to be released by Berlin Classics on November 5. On this new album, the trumpeter joins his brass ensemble and organist Christian Schmitt in a wide-ranging program. The instruments of the musicians ring out in triumphal tones, brilliantly nuanced, capturing the joy and splendor of the Christmas festival. There are works by Albinoni, Handel, Vivaldi, Morales and Scheidt, along with arrangements by Peter Lawrence, Nikolaus Herman and Matthias Höfs himself. In this programme, Matthias Höfs appears with a variety of ensemble formations, whether with trumpet quartet, with horn, trombone and tuba, or with bassoon, harpsichord and organ - amply portraying the differing characteristics of the instruments and their richness of timbre. The sensitivity with which the musicians listen to one another, for fine shading of the interpretation, creates an atmosphere of touching intimacy, of concentration on the heart of the Christmas message: Unto us a child is born. Höfs aims to convey the German tradition as such, both in sound and style: "In the age of globalization, in which everything is geared to international exchange, I should like to make my contribution to the preservation of this typical sound and culture." The program reflects his wish.