One of the most admired pianists of his generation, Inon Barnatan kicks off his complete Beethoven piano concertos cycle with this double album, together with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and maestro Alan Gilbert. Ranging from the classical First and Third to the experimental Fourth Piano Concerto, and closing with the festive Triple Concerto, Barnatan and his colleagues display the exceptional expressive range and stylistic diversity of Beethoven’s musical language. For the Triple Concerto, Barnatan joins forces with violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. This recording project bears the fruit of longstanding and profound musical friendships, and – surprisingly – offers the first integral recording of Beethoven piano concertos by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, one of the most-recorded ensembles in the world of classical music. Inon Barnatan is one of the most admired pianists of his generation (New York Times), now making his PENTATONE debut, to be followed by another Beethoven piano concertos album in 2020. The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields has built a consistent repertoire with the label throughout the years, whereas Alisa Weilerstein presented the first result of her exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE in 2018 with Transfigured Night.

REVIEW:

Pianist Inon Barnatan and colleagues display both exceptional expressive range and stylistic diversity. Joining forces with violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Alisa Weilerstein for the Triple Concerto, it's evident this project bears the fruits of deep musical friendships and shared understanding.

– Classique HD (FRA)

In May 2019, pianist Mathieu Gaudet completed his ambitious series of twelve recitals presenting Franz Schubert’s complete piano sonatas. This important project now sees the light of day on album and the first chapter is the album Schubert: The First Romantic - The Complete Sonatas and Major Piano Works, Volume 1. Recorded in June 2019, this album proves beyond any doubt that Mathieu Gaudet one of the great interpreters of Schubert's repertoire. A versatile, passionate musician, Mathieu Gaudet has pursued a remarkable career as a soloist, chamber musician, and conductor for the past 20 years. He commands a vast repertoire of works and has performed across Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia. His concerts and recordings are regularly broadcast on the French and English services of the CBC.

The string quartets of Beethoven are among the greatest works of their kind, but he composed other works for quartet which have been neglected. This album is dedicated to these intriguing rarities. Alongside the wild and monumental Grosse Fuge, in many ways the culmination of Beethoven’s achievements in the string quartet genre, this recording further displays his mastery of counterpoint by bringing to light brilliant yet forgotten original versions of his quartets Op. 18, No. 1 and Op. 131, plus six virtually unknown miniatures, including his Preludes and Fugues.

On her PENTATONE debut album, young German star soprano Anna Lucia Richter explores the heart-wrenching, timeless and universal feeling of Heimweh (homesickness) through a collection of extraordinary Schubert songs. Richter approaches the notion of Heimweh from several perspectives: from that of queens, young girls and shepherds to that of soldiers, dwarfs and gravediggers.

The repertoire consists of the original, German-language version of Ave Maria, three Mignon songs (Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, Heiss micht nicht reden and So lasst mich scheinen), the sinister Der Zwerg, the expansive flower ballad Viola and many others. Richter is accompanied by pianist Gerold Huber, with whom she has formed a congenial Lieder tandem in the last years. They are joined by clarinetist Matthias Schorn on the final song of the program, the quasi concert aria Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.

REVIEWS:

The soprano Anna Lucia Richter has recorded a CD with a running time of almost eighty-one minutes. The program consists exclusively of songs by Franz Schubert. It begins with "To the Moon" and ends with "The Shepherd on the Rock". The CD was released by Pentatone (PTC 5186 839). On the beautifully rendered cover, the young singer falls from heaven like an angel from Tintoretto. It has become customary to place song productions under a specific theme; this time, it's about homesickness. A wide field, and Schubert and his lyricists promise a rich harvest. For the foreword in the booklet, the artist even consulted Grimm's dictionary and found out that the word homesickness entered general usage at the beginning of the 18th century. And she wonders if homesickness is "not actually the desire" to find something on the outside that can actually only be created on the inside.

The lyrical titles suit her better than the ballad-like “Zwerg”, in which the voice reaches its limits in the effort to colorfully embellish the dramatic events...the so-called flower ballad "Viola," based on a text by Schubert's friend Franz von Schober, consists of nineteen verses, which Richter joins together with a discreet design, so that the thirteen minutes fly by. This work is rarely heard and sounds like a major discovery in the context of the album. The singer, who impressively takes on a speaking part with the melodrama "Farewell from the Earth", elevates the entire recital.

-- Opera Lounge

Yes, there was another Cleopatra! She was married to Tigranes the Great, King of Armenia, and together they created an Armenia that reached from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. The resplendent and regal voice of soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian is perfectly suited to the role of Cleopatra. Bayrakdarian shines in arias from three rarely heard operas about King Tigranes and his queen. Bayrakdarian’s multi-hued voice relates the passion, drama, and fervor of the love story of Tigranes and Cleopatra. Bayrakdarian sparkles in five arias from Il Tigrane by Baroque master Johann Adolph Hasse, famous in his day as one of the foremost composers of opera. Arias by Vivaldi and Gluck add further excitement to the album. Vivaldi, known primarily for his instrumental music, stands out as an opera composer, while Gluck, in an early opera, already shows his mastery of the form. Bayrakdarian is supported by the Grammy-nominated team of Constantine Orbelian— “the singer’s dream collaborator” (Opera News) —and his marvelous Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed his most renowned organ works — the Toccatas, the Fantasia in G minor and the Passacaglia in C minor — in Weimar, in the stylus fantasticus so beloved of his Northern German masters Buxtehude and Reinken. Bach here follows in his predecessors’ footsteps in all of these large-scale works: the freely inventive writing in the preludes is linked to the rigor of the fugal construction and so brings them to a majestic conclusion.

Around 1800 Vienna was, alongside Paris, one of the European centers for guitar performance. The instrument was well suited for the idiom of Viennese classicism and ideal for domestic music-making and it was promoted by figures such as the virtuoso Mauro Giuliani and the composer/publisher Anton Diabelli. But Beethoven, the towering giant of musical Vienna, seems to have been unmoved by the charms of the guitar – while instead composing for its sibling, the mandolin. Duo Halász, the husband and wife team of Franz and Débora Halász have now rectified this, by appropriating Beethoven’s four extant pieces for mandolin and piano (WoO?43 and 44) as well as adapting some other early compositions, including the Serenade in D major for flute and piano and the Variations on Mozart’s ‘Se vuol ballare’ for violin and piano. In doing so they follow the example of an eminent guitarist and contemporary of Beethoven, namely Ferdinando Carulli, whose 1825 arrangement of the Variations on Mozart’s ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’ closes the programme. Franz and Débora Halász have made a number of recordings for BIS, together and separately, to critical acclaim, including a Latin Grammy Award for their disc Alma Brasileira with chamber works by Radamés Gnattali.

The Dover Quartet, “the young American string quartet of the moment” (The New Yorker), launches its emerging, three-volume complete Beethoven quartet cycle with the six Opus 18 quartets, often cited as the epitome of the classical string quartet as developed by Haydn and Mozart while foreshadowing Beethoven’s future innovations. 

As the innovative, world-renowned guitarist Smaro Gregoriadou says in her notes for this stunning new recording, her fourth for Delos, its music offers “encouragement and hope,” and illuminates with “a different kind of light, a different sort of fire.” The program begins with her beautiful transcription of Bach’s beloved Solo Violin Sonata #2 and offers Britten’s fascinating Nocturnal, along with works by Gubaidulina and Hétu. As Raymond Tuttle put it, in a Fanfare review of one of Smaro’s earlier Delos releases, “Gregoriadou evokes musicians such as Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, and Wanda Landowska in her willingness to find a new way to express herself and to reanimate the music.”

REVIEW:

What is special about this recording is Gregoriadou’s focus on timbre. Her technique is exceptional, but it is always at the service of creating a sound world with a wide spectrum. Her dynamic shading in the last movement of the Hétu is astonishing, and it is so effortlessly achieved that you don’t think about technique as you listen. I don’t think of Gregoriadou as a guitarist. I think of her as a musician who happens to play the guitar. This is a very beautiful guitar recital, with recorded sound that makes it seem as if you are in the room with Gregoriadou, and at just the right distance for the best perspective.

-- Fanfare

Anna Prohaska asked Wolfgang Katschner and the Lautten Compagney at the outset of the coronavirus crisis whether they shouldn’t spontaneously organize a musical get-together in this period. This has now resulted in Redemption. This is a sequence of music selected solely from Bach cantatas, compiled in keeping with the aforenamed conceptual association. Redemption has multiple meanings, for instance: can music give us consolation in times of sickness and crisis; can it open up emotional and contemplative spaces for us; is it redemptive for us as musicians to be the “instruments” in engendering music and therefore spirituality? Besides Anna as soloist and three other singers, Redemption features a larger group of musicians – around twenty instrumentalists. These musicians serve a dual role: they expertly accompany the arias that Anna sings and they also represent the concept of human interaction and a shared collective experience which has been missing during these times.

Sophia Agranovich adores the piano works of Chopin, and it shows in these deeply-felt performances. Internationally acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and educator, Sophia Agranovich is “a bold, daring pianist in the tradition of the Golden Age Romantics…A tigress of the keyboard” – Fanfare. Her performances are captivating audiences by the “orison of uncommon beauty” – Audiophile, “the extraordinary dramatic urgency”, “the ideal balance she achieves between the intellectual and the emotional” – Fanfare, “interpretation that dares to be different”, “magnificent shading and superior musicianship” – American Record Guide. Sophia Agranovich is an esteemed pedagogue, lecturer, master class clinician, adjudicator, and is a recipient of numerous teaching awards. Her students are consistently winning top prizes in regional, national and international competitions and are performing at prestigious venues. Ms. Agranovich is active member of various professional music organizations, listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, a voting member of NARAS, Artistic Director of ‘Classicals at the Circle’ music series at the Watchung Arts Center, Program Chair and Board member of Music Educators Association of New Jersey.

Johann Sebastian Bach's six Partitas for Harpsichord are among the greatest and most inspired works of all keyboard literature. They represent the composer's genius at the height of his maturity, matched only by his Goldberg Variations. They are performed here by Colin Tilney on a copy of an instrument by Christian Zell, Hamburg, 1728, built by Colin Booth, Wells, England, 1984. Colin Tilney is internationally known for his harpsichord, clavichord and fortepiano playing, with many solo recordings on DG (Archive), EMI Electrola, Decca, Hyperion, Dorian, Doremi and CBC SM 5000. Originally working in London as an accompanist and repetiteur, in 1979 he moved to Canada, first to Toronto, where he taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music and founded the chamber group Les Coucous Benevoles; more recently (2002) to Victoria where he is on the staff of the Music School at the University of Victoria. J.S. Bach: Partitas for Harpsichord is his eighth recording for Music & Arts.

REVIEW:

Colin Tilney’s tempos in Bach’s music have considerably slowed down with age (the harpsichordist is 87 at this writing), and he never was a sprinter to begin with. As a consequence, his Six Partitas rarely reflect the music’s dance roots. Indeed, movements dependent on rhythmic momentum, like the Fifth Partita’s Praeambulum, No. 6’s Air, No. 3’s Courante, and all of the Gigues often leave a ponderous impression. Rhythmic amorphousness prevails in No. 1’s Praeludium, where Tilney’s loosely held duple meter soon settles into a tuple meter groove. However, Tilney retains his masterful legato finger technique, and the ability to make the quills on his resplendently engineered harpsichord sing, as No. 1’s Sarabande, No. 2’s Sinfonia, and No. 4’s sensitively ornamented Allemande bear out.

Given the performances’ leisurely trajectory, it’s not surprising that they spill over to three CDs rather than the usual two. While my reference Bach Partitas on harpsichord remain those of Trevor Pinnock (Hänssler), Igor Kipnis (Warner Classics), and Jory Vinikour (Sono Luminus), the sheer beauty that Tilney creates in Bach’s more reflective movements may well be worth the price of admission.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

For pianist Victor Rosenbaum's fourth album on Bridge Records; the artist turns to the last three piano compositions of Johannes Brahms. Rosenbaum's Schubert release was described as a “powerful and poignant record of human experience”, and much the same can be said of these profound readings of Brahms's late masterpieces. Pianist Victor Rosenbaum, former chair of the New England Conservatory piano department for more than ten years, has performed widely as soloist and chamber music performer in the United States, Europe, Asia, Israel, and Russia, in such prestigious halls as Alice Tully Hall in New York and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has collaborated with such artists as Leonard Rose, Arnold Steinhardt, Robert Mann, and the Cleveland and Brentano String Quartets, among others. Festival appearances have included Tanglewood, Rockport, Yellow Barn, Kneisel Hall, Kfar Blum (Israel) and Musicorda, where he is on the faculty. He has been soloist with the Indianapolis and Atlanta symphonies and the Boston Pops.

Johannes Brahms began his musical life studying the piano, and his earliest, truly great compositions were solo piano works, both presented here. The Scherzo in E-flat minor, Op. 4, is the earliest surviving composition by Brahms. He wrote it in November 1851 when he was 18. He published it as Op. 4, rather than Op. 1, because, he explained to a friend, “when one shows one's self for the first time, people must first see the head and not the feet.” Musical scholars feel that, despite the composer’s denial, it obviously shows a “dependence” on Chopin’s scherzi, and quotes from Heinrich Marschner’s Hans Heiling at bar 46 as well. is certain that Brahms had composed the Scherzo of the F minor Piano Sonata in November 1852,before meeting Schumann and Liszt, but the same scholars feel bars 105 through 111 of this Scherzo unmistakably show the influence of Liszt’s music with “striking parallels.” The Sonata was completed just after Brahms’ visit with Schumann, and it would be easy for us to see Schumann’s influence in retrospect. Internationally recognized as one of today's most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of artists regularly sought by festivals, orchestras, conductors and recital series. His commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike.

Ian Bostridge continues his exploration of Schubert song cycles on PENTATONE with a recording of Die schöne Müllerin, together with pianist Saskia Giorgini. Die schöne Müllerin (1823) was Schubert’s first song cycle, and simultaneously Bostridge’s first extended introduction to the Lied and all its wonders. Schubert initially conceived the cycle together with poet Wilhelm Müller as a party game among friends, but gradually got captivated by the profundity of this apparently naïve love story. Bostridge is equally fascinated by the way in which this playful, folksy piece gradually transforms into a cosmic lullaby in the final lines of the last song ‘des Baches Wiegenlied’. For pianist Giorgini, the key to - but also the greatest challenge of - interpreting Schubert’s music, and particularly Die schöne Müllerin, lies in the oceanic experience and hypnotic power of repetition. Ian Bostridge is one of the most celebrated tenors and lied interpreters of his generation. His PENTATONE recording of Schubert’s Winterreise (2019) was crowned with the ICMA Vocal Music Award 2020. Saskia Giorgini makes her PENTATONE debut.

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"Much of the rest of my career as a lieder singer has been an attempt to escape from that naïveté and to reflect the deeper waters of pieces like the “Müllerin.” That’s been annoying for some people who prefer limpid beauty to psychological torment. In my latest recording, with the brilliant Italian pianist Saskia Giorgini, a veteran of the solo repertoire whose perspective on Schubert is inflected by her immersion in Liszt and Enescu, I hope to reach some sort of accommodation between the naïve and the sentimental, the mellifluously straightforward and the anxiety-ridden hall of mirrors. The journey to do justice to the miller’s journey is an endless one."

- Ian Bostridge for the New York Times. Ian is the author of “Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession.”

REVIEW:

The Die schöne Müllerin poems increase in seriousness and depth as the cycle proceeds, and it is here that Bostridge adds intensity instead of striving for detachment. He has an ideal partner in the enterprise with accompanist Saskia Giorgini, whose activist stance adds new layers to the music. It's also true that Bostridge, aged 54 when the performance was given, might have had a hard time with an innocently youthful Die schöne Müllerin, but his voice really shows no signs of strain, and his interpretation is coherent and impactful. The live performance also adds something here. The listener is definitely put in a position of not knowing quite where Bostridge is going to go next, and this is all to the good. A major statement from a durable Schubert interpreter.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

The Signum Quartett continues their Schubert journey for PENTATONE with Ins stille Land, a recording that explores the fascinating connections between his string quartets and songs, the latter arranged for string quartet by Xandi van Dijk, the ensemble’s violist. The concept for this recording project grew out of the salon gatherings called Schubertiaden, where chamber music and vocal works would be heard side by side in an intimate setting. The songs and quartets featured on Ins stille Land share a fascination for alienation and death, characteristic of Schubert’s troubled existence, with his world famous “Death and the Maiden” quartet as the album’s centrepiece.

The Signum Quartett is frequently hailed as one of the most adventurous and outstanding ensembles of today.

REVIEW:

This disc's program is centered on the 'Death and the Maiden' Quartet – a work that tends to overpower everything in its immediate vicinity. That it doesn’t is due in part to the Signum’s ensemble sound: passionate, often brilliant, but also clear and lean, with vibrato thoughtfully used. But it’s also down to the selection of songs (superbly transcribed, once again, by the group’s viola player Xandi van Dijk). How many ensembles would have pre-empted the D minor Quartet with the whole of ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’? The Signum Quartet give us a single brief extract as a sort of recitative introducing a reflective sequence of transcriptions. Following the opening pair of songs, the early D major Quartet, D74, emerges from silence as if already under way; and after a D810 finale so swift that it feels genuinely dangerous, the closing ‘Schwanengesang’ seems more like a question mark than a peaceful resolution. Anyway, hear for yourself. Enjoyable purely as a recital on its own terms, it’s an album that repays careful and repeated listening.

-- Gramophone

When Beethoven assigned the opus number one to his three piano trios, it was evident that the then 22-year-old composer would explore, advance and co-create the composition rules, and that he would very nearly transcend that which was comprehensible to his contemporaries. Upon hearing the first private performance of Op. 1, Joseph Haydn purportedly voiced his doubts as to whether the ordinary listener would be able to understand No. 3. Beethoven experimented with this combination of instruments too – with the form, harmonies and other facets. The Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1 may have had its roots in sketches for an opera based on Shakespeare’s drama Macbeth that Beethoven was contemplating at the time. The spectral music of the slow movement, featuring strange modulations and said to be a reworking of the Witches Chorus intended for the opera, earned the piece the nickname “Ghost Trio”. In the “Archduke Trio”, Op. 97, Beethoven emancipated all the instruments, providing each equal scope to apply their technical qualities and possibilities of expression. Its first performance, in April 1814, was the penultimate public concert Beethoven, at the time almost deaf, gave as a pianist. The 250th anniversary of one of the greatest composers of all time was an irresistible impulse for the Smetana Trio. Their new addition to the Beethoven discography possesses all the parameters of the ensemble’s previous, highly acclaimed recordings and will undoubtedly cause quite a stir- Beethoven’s chamber music through the lens of the Smetana Trio.