Like all the instrumental genres which were destined to last until today, the solo concerto – just like the sonata and the symphony – made its first appearance at the beginning of the XVIII th century in Italy and spread all around Europe to gain universal fame. This 10 album release features a precious and unmissable anthology of Italian violin concertos composed by Vivaldi, Bonporti, Locatelli, Tartini, Lolli, Nardini, Rolla, Viotti and Paganini. Album 1 is dedicated to Antonio Vivaldi, whose solo concertos best expressed his vibrant creativity and brought the genre of violin, strings and basso continuo concertos to fame throughout Europe. The following albums contain music composed by Vivaldi’s followers who aimed at finding their own personal voice.

Some composers such as Locatelli, Tartini and Paganini were destined to become famous all over the world, while some others were perhaps lesser known, but were able to leave their footprint in the musical field thanks to their unique style made of expressive freedom, instrumental vivacity and formal clarity which later defined the iconic Italian style. The last two albums contain music composed by Niccolò Paganini, whose daring and unattainable virtuosity brought this genre to its absolute peak.

REVIEWS:

Despite its Anglicized name, the Genoese Dynamic label specializes above all in disseminating Italian music, mainly opera, but also instrumental music. In recent years the label has released numerous recordings, in some cases complete sets dedicated to concerts by violinists-composers from the Baroque to Romanticism and which as a whole constitute a highly appreciable testimony of the evolution of the genre.

A selection and summary of this gramophonic plethora can be found in this articulated case that contains ten CDs, ten!, with violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1678-1749), Pietro Antonio Locatelli (1695- 1764), Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), Antonio Lolli (1725-1802), Pietro Nardini (1722-1793), Alessandro Rolla (1757-1841), Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824) and Nicolò Paganini (1782-1840) in the interpretation of notable virtuosos including Luca Fanfoni, Federico and Giovanni Guglielmo, Carlo Lazari and Franco Mezzena. Particularly interesting are the last two albums, dedicated to Paganini, with four of his concertos, in which Massimo Quarta, a student and follower of Salvatore Accardo, has the opportunity to shine.

-- Ritmo

REVIEW:

This may be a premium-priced product but the set undoubtedly offers premium quality, which justifies the price tag, with terrific audio and video as well as excellent documentation. Even more importantly, you get all nine symphonies played by a peerless orchestra. Furthermore, as I hope my comments on the individual performances have shown, there are some considerable interpretations in this set – and not one that is less than very good. I think it’s a decided asset that we see and hear at work not just one conductor but several, all of them excellent Bruckner interpreters.

So, though it’s an expensive proposition, this is a set that will grace any Bruckner collection. With it the Berlin Philharmonic has set out to celebrate their proud Bruckner tradition and they’ve certainly achieved that.

— MusicWeb International

The young John Barbirolli was hardly known in America when the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra chose him to be Arturo Toscanini’s successor starting in 1937. The 36-year-old Londoner’s first season was a triumph with both players and audiences, and although his years in New York would be increasingly marred by unfair rivalry with Toscanini – lured back to lead a specially created NBC Symphony – and by partisan hostility from two influential critics, Barbirolli’s tenure can now be looked back on as a real success.

From 1938 until 1943, when he returned to the UK to take over Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra, Sir John made a series of recordings in New York for American Columbia and RCA Victor which are still essential for a full appreciation of this revered conductor’s career, “performances that are as competitive today as they were when initially released” (Fanfare). Sony Classical is pleased to reissue them in a newly remastered six-CD set.

Among the treasures here are Debussy’s Iberia and Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini (both recorded in 1938) and the first-ever recording of Schubert’s Fourth (“Tragic”) Symphony (from 1939), together cited by Gramophone as “a demonstration that the Philharmonic-Symphony had few rivals in the world at the time as a recording orchestra … A forceful, high-powered reading [of the symphony] which yet has a Schubertian smile … The crisp attack in the Tchaikovsky, even tauter than in Barbirolli’s superb 1969 HMV New Philharmonia version, is thrillingly caught. The Debussy brings the most vivid sound of all, weighty and full of presence, with castanets and brass leaping out from the speakers. This is a white-hot performance, every bit as exciting as those of Toscanini, and with a moving vein of tenderness in the slow second movement.”

There are several works by Mozart, among them the Clarinet Concerto with Benny Goodman (from 1940) and the Symphony No. 25 and Piano Concerto No. 27 with Robert Casadesus (both from 1941). The Piano Concerto’s opening Allegro “is beautifully shaped with an almost palpable sense of wonder in the music and the pianist is definitely having a ball of time,” said Classical Net. “The final Allegro is also very commendable for its grand sense of pomp and majesty … The exquisite symphony also receives wonderful attention and care from Barbirolli and the NYPSO. Here one can sense the conductor's love for Mozart’s inspired melodies … Benny Goodman is a characterful interpreter of the Clarinet Concerto.”

“The generous flavor of Barbirolli’s Brahms comes through in the Academic Festival Overture and the Second Symphony [both from 1940],” wrote Audiophile Audition’s reviewer. “The Overture is rife with ceremonial grandeur and jolly spirits. The D major Symphony has a debonair airiness and bucolic relaxation about it.” And Sibelius’s First Symphony (from 1942) “should delight fans of Barbirolli’s 1960s complete traversal of the symphonies … The conductor’s warmth, vision, and emotional urgency has lost none of its appeal in the more than half century that has passed” (Fanfare).

Also from 1942 is Nathan Milstein playing the Bruch Concerto with “the Philharmonic-Symphony in tremendous form,” exclaimed MusicWeb International’s critic. “Barbirolli opens powerfully and Milstein responds in kind; not over emoted and with vibrato perfectly scaled to the demands of the music. He is really quite withdrawn and introspective in the Adagio, powerfully so indeed, and Barbirolli brings out the horn harmonies in a way that seems to reveal them for the first time. There is romantic fervour but also passagework clarity and digital cleanliness in the finale … a model of concerto accompaniment and creative collaboration.”

CONTENTS

DISC 1:
Purcell (arr. Barbirolli): Suite for Strings, Woodwind and Horns (Remastered)
Debussy: Images pour orchestre, L. 122: No. 2, Iberia (Remastered)
Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32 (Remastered)
Respighi: Antiche danze et arie per liuto, Suite No.3 (Remastered)
Respighi: Fontane di Roma (Remastered)

DISC 2:
Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, D. 417, "Tragic" (Remastered)
Schubert: 5 German Dances, D. 89 (Remastered)
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 (Remastered)

DISC 3:
Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39 (Remastered)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 (Remastered)

DISC 4:
Smetana: The Bartered Bride, JB 1:100: Overture (Remastered)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34 (Remastered) with Mishel Piastro, violin & Joseph Schuster, cello
Ravel: La valse, M. 72 (Remastered)
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9 (Remastered)
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 (Remastered)
Debussy: Petite Suite, L. 65, No. 4 "Ballet" (Remastered)
Debussy: Première rhapsodie, L. 116 (Remastered) with Benny Goodman, clarinet
Bach, J.S. (arr. Barbirolli): Sheep May Safely Graze, BWV 208, No. 9 (Remastered)

DISC 5:
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622 with Benny Goodman, clarinet
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-Flat Major, K. 595 (Remastered) with Robert Casadesus, piano
Mozart: Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, K. 183 (Remastered)

DISC 6:
Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26 (Remastered) with Nathan Milstein, violin
Tchaikovsky: Suite No. 3 in G Major, Op. 55: IV. Tema con variazioni. Andante con moto (Remastered)
Various (arr. Barbirolli): An Elizabethan Suite (Remastered)

-----

REVIEW:

It is surely no coincidence that this retrospective set is released in the 50th anniversary year of Sir John Barbirolli’s death. It focuses on almost all – but not quite all – of Barbirolli’s recordings with his Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York, here updated to ‘New York Philharmonic’. The missing item is the Schumann Violin Concerto with Menuhin, the rights of which now lie with Warner. The inclusion of Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze is very welcome here, and as Leonard Slatkin showed in his Bach ‘Conductors’ Transcriptions’ album, it’s a most effective and affecting piece of work.

The first of the six well-filled discs disinters Barbirolli’s arrangements of Purcell. The six-movement Suite proves memorably sonorous and full bloodied with highlights being Fairest Isle and When I am Laid in Earth. This is followed by a splendidly recorded and vividly played Iberia with the Victor engineers on top form, and Francesca da Rimini. Respighi’s The Fountains of Rome and the Arie di corte from the Ancient Airs and Dances are similarly charged.

The Schubert Fourth on Disc 2 - the first recording of the work ever made - is tremendously impressive: powerful, lyrical, excellently controlled. Brahms’ Second Symphony however is exceptionally fast – not a criticism that could ever be levelled at the older JB – and if one thinks that Monteux in San Francisco in 1945 was fleetness itself that would be to reckon without Barbirolli. The Allegretto is uncomfortable to listen to and in fact the whole performance is unconvincing on a number of levels.

Sibelius comes to the rescue in disc three where there are memorable recordings of the First Symphony (1942) and the Second (1940). Sibelius was a known Barbirolli strength but his tempi in the 1950s with the Hallé are predictably more driven than those he took in the following decade. If sound quality is king then the Hallé recordings from the 60s are preferable but interpretively the 1957 First and the 1952 Second – along with the famous RPO Second – are indispensable, along with these two New York recordings.

The fourth CD is a bits-and-pieces affair. There’s lusty Smetana, a brightly recorded but idiomatically played Rimsky Capriccio espagnole, and La Valse which faced predictably strong competition on disc from Munch and Monteux. If the string tone in Le Carnaval romain is a touch acidic, the Academic Festival Overture is more rounded, and the performance a strong B plus. Benny Goodman joins for a timbrally distinctive Debussy First Rhapsody. There’s more Goodman in the penultimate disc where he plays Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Casadesus and Barbirolli make a fine team in Mozart’s Concerto No. 27. Symphony No.25 completes this all-Mozart disc; athletic, youthful and vibrant.

Nathan Milstein’s excellent Bruch G minor heads the final disc and whilst the recording is not top-drawer, Milstein’s playing is. Tchaikovsky’s Tema con variazioni from the Orchestral Suite No.3 is slightly cut. Finally, we end with Barbirolli’s An Elizabethan Suite, his arrangements of Byrd, Farnaby, and Bull, a synchronous way to end given that the first piece of the first disc was his Purcell arrangement.

Each disc is housed in a retro, 78rpm album sleeve and the booklet is filled with 78 and subsequent LP sleeves – very colourful and tactile – as well as job and recording sheets from the sessions and black and white photographs of Barbirolli.

This box is a finely produced and concentrated focus on Barbirolli’s New York shellac years and comes with a fair-minded, level-headed booklet note from James H North.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

Some of Boulez's finest Berlioz performances are gathered together in this very welcome compendium. Symphonie fantastique is given a terrifyingly formidable performance.

Pierre Boulez first mounted the concert podium in the late 1950s in order to do justice do his own challenging works, but before long he had garnered the reputation of a peerless interpreter of 20th-century music tout court. Then in 1967 the modernist Boulez took the musical by surprise by turning to that arch-Romantic Hector Berlioz, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in the Symphonie fantastique and Lélio, the little-known work he intended as its sequel. The result was every bit as stimulating as one might have expected from this great musical provocateur. “For Boulez,” opined Gramophone’s original reviewer, “the [Fantastique] is a sinister mental experience, not merely the drug-crazed torment of the program but something colder and still more frightening.” More recently, a New York Times critic wrote: “This is a performance true to the composer’s Gothic imagination in its sumptuousness and menace but also icily precise in negotiating tricky rhythmic maneuvers, and oddly modern … Besides having a ferocity all its own, [it] comes in a whole treasure box of other incisive Berlioz recordings by Mr. Boulez in his early maturity. Yvonne Minton is splendid in La Mort de Cléopâtre, flinging out regal defiance, and Jean-Louis Barrault is the perfect restless narrator for the work Berlioz wrote to continue the dream of the Fantastique, the concert autobiography Lélio.” The new 4-album reissue also includes Yvonne Minton’s “dramatically incisive … passionate response [to Les Nuits d’été] showing her at her most movingly eloquent and [Stuart] Burrows also at his finest … Strongly recommended … highly stimulating” (Penguin Guide).

REVIEW:

Some of Boulez's finest Berlioz performances are gathered together in this very welcome compendium. Not the least of the pleasures is the association of the Symphonic Fantastique with its pendant Lelio: they are not a required coupling, of course, but there is a special pleasure in hearing the unforgettable tones of Jean-Louis Barrault (he who once memorably played Berlioz on film) as he revives after the drug-induced nightmare. Barrault speaks so beautifully that the ramshackle concoction of some very mixed inspirations becomes a rich Berliozian experience. The symphony is given a formidable performance, terrifyingly formidable in the measured tread of the "March to the Scaffold", somewhat too much so where the waltz should charm, even if ironically, and making a morose landscape of the "Scene aux champs". But it is a sustained and valid performance which does not seek to make the work into a vehicle for personal virtuosity (as in different ways so many conductors have done), and conjures up Berlioz's dark romantic vision.

As can be seen, the Nuits d'ete songs are shared. Berlioz first wrote them for mezzo-soprano or tenor and piano, then rewriting them to some extent and transposing the first three for the orchestral vision, probably because he then had particular singers in mind or each song. Boulez keeps to the orchestral version of the key sequence (which not all do) and divides them equally between male and female voices. So Stuart Burrows sings a fresh. lively "Villanelle", and this is followed by Yvonne Minton's richly phrased "Spectre de la rose" and "Sur les lagunes" (in which she takes, successfully, the option of a low F). Burrows returns for "Absence", which he sings admirably, though without stifling regrets that this of all songs might have suited Minton and the mezzo-soprano timbre (many will remember Janet Baker here). He also sings "Au cimetiere", leaving Minton to finish the cycle off with her warm performance of "L'ile inconnue". There can be no question or an authentic version when Berlioz left so many options open; this is a compromise, and even if one may have other preferences, it works well. Yvonne Minton goes on to show not only a fine voice but fine musicianship as she sustains Boulez in holding La mort de Cleopatre together so well. Berliozians will recognize one or two familiar ideas in this remarkable piece. notably one that was to serve again in Benvenuto Cellini, whose overture is given a sharp, vigorous performance here.

-- Gramophone [3/1995]

On this new release, Ton Koopman has gathered together every one of Bach’s cantatas. Finally reprinted after some years, this is a must-have reference collection. Antonius Gerhardus Michael (Ton) Koopman is a Dutch conductor, organist and harpsichordist. He is also professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In April 2003 he was knighted in the Netherlands, receiving the Order of the Netherlands Lion. Koopman’s Bach Cantatas project is the most ambitious project of his career. He finished the project in 2005.

Till well into the 1960s it was common practice to perform operas in the language of the country where they were being performed. What now seems strange to us, with our reverence for the original, was taken for granted then – except perhaps by those who knew not only the music but the language originally set to it and were annoyed by more or less inappropriate translations. Today we have long since grown used to being distracted from the action on stage by subtitles, or surtitles, and thus being at least able to follow the crude, implausible or totally incomprehensible plot of this or that opera by reading the libretto. Whatever the language, the artistic value of the performance depends very much upon its exponents. And that was where the German-speaking nations of the 1950s and 1960s, when the recorded-music market had not yet succumbed to globalization, had a lot to offer. The proof is in the five complete recordings – complete, that is, but fo the cuts so often made in those days – that make up this box set. The cast lists read like a Who’s Who of contemporary vocalists. We can count ourselves lucky to have these audio documents – edited to the highest possible technical standards – at our disposal. They offer us a reunion with a great series of irreplaceable and unforgettable soloists.

When the ORFEO label was established in Munich forty years ago, surely no one with the music scene back then would have predicted that the record company would develop into a firmly established player on the classical music market. One of the label’s main 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 by discovering and nurturing young artist. This “Legendary Conductors” 10 album set for the anniversary of 40 years of ORFEO label history presents a selection of outstanding recordings with legendary conductors in the true sense of the word.

The madrigal, written for courts and patrons, was the ultimate secular song. The genre reached its zenith with the works of Claudio Monteverdi in successive books that trace his technical and expressive innovations. In them, Monteverdi explored themes such as the vicissitudes and pleasures of love, as well as the art of war, and the pain of loss. The editions used in these recordings are the most authentic and uncut, and, in keeping with 17th-century practice, employ male voices only. Praised as ‘compelling, simultaneously controlled and imaginative’ (American Record Guide) the collection also includes pieces never before recorded. The instrumental and vocal ensemble Delitiæ Musicæ is considered one of the most enterprising Italian early music ensembles, with important recordings in the last 20 years that include the Missa Philomena Praevia of Verdelot, four widely acclaimed albums dedicated to Masses of Palestrina based on the compositions of the Flemish composer Cipriano de Rore, Lupus and Jacquet de Mantua. The unconventional yet impassioned interpretations by Delitiæ Musicæ and Marco Longhiniare seen as an important regeneration of Italian Renaissance and Baroque music.

Review excerpts of previously released volumes included in this set:

These unusual all-male Monteverdi madrigal performances are turning out to be the versions of choice--definitely worth serious attention.

– ClassicsToday

Monteverdi: Madrigals Book 3 / Longhini, Delitiae Musicae:

The less overtly theatrical pieces (O dolce anima mia; Ch'io non t'ami, cor mio?) are rendered with the same care for detail and artful phrasing that characterize the entire program, and conductor Marco Longhini's reasonably defensible decision to perform these madrigals with only male singers proves to be a very satisfying one, especially with such attractive, ideally matched, and expressive voices. This is great stuff, recorded in first-rate sound.

– ClassicsToday

Monteverdi: Madrigals, Book 8 / Longhini, Delitiae Musicae:

The quality of the performances is extremely high. Technical prowess is always in the service of the music, and Marco Longhini is not averse to pushing his all-male ensemble to extremes of slow or fast tempos or to special vocal effects. Another strength of this excellent interpretation is the size and scope of the instrumental forces.

– American Record Guide

After the critically acclaimed recording of Beethoven's nine symphonies, the Wiener Symphoniker present now under the direction of their outgoing Music Director Philippe Jordan another cyclical recording: The Symphonies by Johannes Brahms. It had taken 14 years of preparatory work before Brahms ventured to complete his First Symphony in 1876. The four symphonies that emerged in the following decade are not only touching measurements of the human soul's landscape but also the central creative legacy of the great romantic composer. All four symphonies were recorded live in the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein in autumn 2019 – a hall that arguably meets the tonal requirements of the works like no other. After all two of the four symphonies had been premiered here while the other two had been performed here for the first time in Austria. This latest production by the Wiener Symphoniker marks the end of Philippe Jordan's tenure as Music Director of the traditional Viennese orchestra but also represents the culmination of their internationally celebrated artistic collaboration. With the new publication, the Wiener Symphoniker are presenting the twenty-first release on their eponymous label founded in 2012.

Even a quarter of a century after the end of his active career as a singer, nothing has changed concerning Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s preeminent status in the history of performing song. It is above all the Lied performer Fischer-Dieskau who set standards that have remained valid far beyond his time. The anthologies compiled in Vol. 3 of the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Lied-Editon testify to the singer’s never-waning curiosity and to his responsibility towards the history of the present genre. In conjunction with Hartmut Höll, his favorite accompanist in later years, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau presents a highly attractive program to the songs by Maurice Ravel, which only sporadically appear in concert halls outside France. In the overall œuvre by German composer Paul Hindemith, too, the song does not play a dominant role. In this recording, a major role in the both natural and haunting interpretation of the songs is played by accompanist Aribert Reimann, who had composed the four-movement cantata Unrevealed for Fischer-Dieskau only a few years earlier. It was also in co-operation with Aribert Reimann, who headed a song class in Berlin, that the song anthologies devoted to Hermann Reutter and Wolfgang Fortner were compiled and that complete our edition.

Especially in his late sonatas, Leopold Kozeluch’s keyboard music belongs no less to the quickly evolving cultural landscape of late 18th- and early 19th-century Vienna than the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. It can even at times be hard to tell which composer influenced whom; Kozeluch is his own man, not gifted in the final analysis with Beethoven’s feeling for dramatic expression, Mozart’s subtlety of formal innovation or Schubert’s melodic inspiration, but sharing a portion of these qualities while bringing to the table something of his own, not least a mood of deceptive simplicity which belongs to the world of his native Bohemia. Kozeluch (1747-1818) seems to have worked with uncommon ease and fluidity, in command of all the technical possibilities of his instrument, writing in the popular galant style and testing both performer and instrument with moto perpetuo passagework, double trills, sudden contrasts and, in the minor-key sonatas, a brooding chromaticism that belongs to the most powerful expressions of Sturm und Drang. In the hands of Kozeluch, as in those of all fine composers, they produce a musical whole that seems far greater than the sum of its parts; and, as in the creations of all geniuses, there is a profundity that cannot be explained merely by description of the processes at work. Jenny Soonjin Kim is a specialist in performances of Classical-era repertoire on instruments of the period. For this recording she performs on a modern copy of an Anton Walter fortepiano from Vienna in 1795.

Christian Thielemann writes: “I see Die Meistersinger as the pivot and central point of Wagner’s entire oeuvre. On the one hand it is a reaction to Tristan; on the other, he had found himself in a blind alley with Siegfried, and together those two works showed him the way out of it. The fascinating thing about Die Meistersinger is that you can find everything in it. Hero and anti-hero, comedy and tragedy, upperclass and lower-class lovers, burlesque and reflection, the old and the new, in short a whole world. The magic words summing it up for me are ‘atmosphere’ and ‘poetry’. How can I, as a conductor, make the music glitter in its exaggerations and parodies, and at the same time lend it authority? Conversely, how can I make its emotionalism sound not false but genuine, emphasizing the deeply felt popular note in the music? Wagner is fundamentally asking his interpreters to square the circle, which is what makes Die Meistersinger such a difficult work to perform. Perhaps it can succeed only by osmosis, if we open ourselves up entirely to all its moods, colours and aromas, inhaling them so deeply that they naturally emerge from us again at the right moment.”

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.

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

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

Admittedly, Franz Schubert's biography offers little in the way of great adventures, love affairs, glamour and long journeys. Jörg Handstein – in what is now his tenth audio biography in the successful BR-KLASSIK series - devotes himself here to a composer with an altogether quieter life. Schubert's story still remains an exciting one: no famous composer before him had ever chosen to lead a life in which his musical activities were supported solely by a private circle of friends. This did not succeed without resistance, setbacks, great disappointments and personal tragedies. Schubert's unhappiness in love, his terrible illness, and probably also his early death were, ultimately, the price he paid for this unconventional life. He bravely stood his ground, however, countering an age of cultural and political paralysis with his great and bold art. In this audio biography, Schubert’s creative path can be followed in around 130 musical examples – something impossible in any biography in book form. Alongside Udo Wachtveitl (narrator) and Robert Stadlober (Schubert), many other voices bring the composer’s world and his circle of friends to life. Schubert’s conventional image is encumbered by two clichés. On the one hand, we have the warm-hearted, sentimental man, known to his friends familiarly as Schwammerl (“mushroom”), churning out endless songs and beautiful melodies, and on the other, the incessantly tortured outsider, with music primarily conveying a sense of “brokenness” and “alienation”. This audio biography allows Schubert to speak for himself as often as possible. Despite the sparse documentation, a far more nuanced picture emerges – and the well-known Austrian actor and rock musician Robert Stadlober finds richly contrasting colors for it. We discover a different Schubert here: single-minded, argumentative, philosophical, reflective, and with a wide range of interests. That is also what makes his life story so exciting.

Joining the extensive library of guitar music in the Brilliant Classics catalogue, Franco Cavallone is a worthy successor to Italian guitar composers from Giuliani to Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He is an accomplished performer himself, having studied with the likes of Leo Brouwer and Angelo Gilardino, and the pieces recorded here have been composed with an intimate knowledge of the guitar’s technical and timbral possibilities, which Cristiano Porqueddu exploits to the full, with the composer’s enthusiastic approval: ‘He has managed to create a kaleidoscope of sound and sense that is truly rewarding for the listener. I am convinced that this album set is a benchmark recording for my music for the guitar.’ Cavallone’s mastery of diverse idioms is engagingly broad, making these four albums full of discovery and surprise. The four sonatas on album one are each conceived in homage to a different style: ‘to Ponce and Ravel’, American composers, neoclassicism and to 20th century modernism. While Cavallone embraces rich dissonance and an impressionistic handling of chromaticism in the 12 Studies, he also writes with a moving simplicity in the homage to Tarrega, Di tante lagrime. A collection of six Hebrew melodies – dedicated to Porqueddu – demonstrates how effectively he can embroider and enrich folk and popular melodies, enhancing rather than detracting from their original character. Another ‘homage’ piece dedicated to Porqueddu is a three-movement sonata written with Benjamin Britten in mind, and recapturing some of the English composer’s deft, economical sketching of situation and place in his late music, especially Venice. There are three vivid ‘Suggestions’ inspired by the paintings of Lia Laterza and a haunting set of variations on Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna’. A collection of 12 Short Preludes encapsulates Cavallone’s eclectic language in microcosm, continually delighting and intriguing to the curious listener.

This collection contains the most important recordings by Alfredo Perl with piano works by Franz Liszt. A special highlight is the recording of the piano concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Alfredo Perl studied with Carlos Botto at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Günter Ludwig at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and Maria Curcio in London. He gave his first concert at the age of nine and then performed throughout South America and Europe as recitalist and with the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra and the Zagreb Symphony Orchestra. Perl has since been a prizewinner in major competitions, including the Ferruccio Busoni Competition in Bolzano and the Beethoven Competition in Vienna, and he won first prize at the International Piano Competition in Montevideo. Alfredo Perl is professor for piano at the Detmold University of Music and has been artistic director of the Detmold Chamber Orchestra since 2009.

Also available on Blu-ray

This box set contains four exceptional and star-studded opera and operetta recordings from the Opernhaus Zürich: Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi, Berg’s Wozzeck, Massenet’s Werther, and Lehar’s Das Land des Lachelns. Philharmonia Zurich is the orchestra of Zurich Opera. As an independent body of 116 contract players, it has existed since 1985 under the name of Zurich Opera Orchestra. It was renamed in 2012 with the appointment of director Andreas Homoki and general music director Fabio Luisi. The Choir of the Zurich Opera House, with its 60 permanent members and the participation of up to 160 performances per season, forms an essential cornerstone of the artistic ensemble at the Zurich Opera House. Under the umbrella of the most traditional Swiss opera house, it unites singers on the highest professional level, whose musical and stylistic versatility is combined with the power of acting and spontaneity. On a regular basis, the members also prove their artistic format as soloists. The choir reflects the claim and the radiance of the Zurich Opera in its international composition, which have been proven by numerous DVD recordings and were awarded the “Opera Company of the Year” in 2014.

Excerpts of reviews of previously released volumes in this set:

Berg: Wozzeck

This is a finely honed production that follows its premise to an absurdist conclusion with slick theatricality and dispassionate zeal. All sentimentalism is banished here. So, largely, is the opera’s plea for justice and compassion. It is left to Christian Gerhaher’s Wozzeck to fight that battle, which he does with formidable diction and great lyrical beauty, offering, where he can, a still centre in the tumult.

– Gramophone (DVD/Blu-ray of the Month, November 2016)

Massenet: Werther

Director Tatjana Gürbaca and designer Klaus Grünberg have transformed Massenet’s masterpiece into a compelling drama that glues you to the edge of your seat from start to finish. Flórez gives the performance of his career as a hero who knows that death is where passion is fulfilled. Anna Stéphany’s Charlotte, by turns terrified, tender and tearful, is with him all the way.

–BBC Music Magazine

The acclaimed English Song Series celebrates the richness and diversity of British composers, performed by leading interpreters of the repertoire. Growing out of an ancient tradition that still echoes in the folk song arrangements of Benjamin Britten, the British art song draws its inspiration from the English poetic language, the nation’s unique land and seascapes, and the suffering and joy of human emotions. From the delightfully light-hearted songs of Liza Lehmann to the abundance of invention and imagery from today’s composers, this collection is a repository of the essence of British musical craftsmanship at its finest.

REVIEWS:

There is so much is here that is central to the genre, and it is all almost uniformly well done. In addition, there is enough here that is less well-known, assuming many collectors will have the main works of, say, Butterworth, Finzi, Vaughan Williams, and others, that even that collector will grow their knowledge and pleasure through acquiring this collection. It is to be hoped that this issue does not signal an end to Naxos’s recordings of this repertoire. There are many other composers and songs that could be added to its catalog. Meanwhile we have this superb anthology of many of the finest English songs from the late Victorians to the present day.

-- MusicWeb International

This superlative set's roster is impressive, with turns from Felicity Lott, Thomas Allen, Susan Bickley, Gerald Finley and even Judi Dench.

– BBC Music Magazine

This set will surely provide many hours of listening pleasure.

-- Gramophone

This is a hugely ambitious and successful project that deserves many hours of attention and appreciation. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

– Opera Now

Without any doubt this session of the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition 2021 will stay fixed in our memories. In spite of the constraints imposed by the health crisis (absence of the public, number of semi-finalists and finalists reduced by half), 58 candidates presented themselves to play before the members of the jury. The media maintained exceptional visibility at the competition right from the first round (television, radio, internet and social media) and the audiences confirmed an ever growing passion for the Competition. In this 4 album-box set you will find the 6 laureates of this session, that saw the Frenchman Jonathan Fournel win First Prize; you can enjoy his performance in Brahms’ Second Concerto with the Belgian National Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff, as well as the whole of his recital in the semi-finale. The Russian Sergei Redkin, second laureate, is present in the Third Concerto of Rachmaninov as well as the set piece by Bruno Mantovani. Two concertos by Mozart with the Orchestre de Chambre de Wallonie conducted by Frank Braley are also on the programme: No. 23 (KV 488) by Vitaly Stakirov (5th Prize) and the No. 27 (KV 595) with the Japanese Keigo Mugawa (3rd Prize). Chamber music is also well represented, revealing notably Tomoki Sakata (4th Prize) in the Liszt Sonata and Dmitry Sin in Schumann’s Concerto without orchestra. These artistes, all of them exceptional pianists, who tomorrow perhaps will appear on the world’s leading concert platforms, can be discovered here in their first ever recordings.