Piano four hands ensemble DUO Stephanie and Saar (Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia) continue their series of recordings that challenge listeners to hear iconic works in new guises. Catalyzed by Beethoven's own arrangement of the famous Grosse Fuge op. 133, the duo presents Hugo Ulrich and Robert Wittman's stately transcription of the op. 130 string quartet to which the iconic fugue originally belonged, alongside Schubert's brooding F minor Fantasie, D. 940. Pianists Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia collaborate as DUO Stephanie & Saar in dazzling performances filled with visceral excitement, elegance and artistic vision. The duo are founders and artistic directors of Makrokosmos Project, a critically acclaimed Oregon-based new music festival featuring dynamic American composers of our time. In its sixth year, the festival is entirely driven by community support. Some of the featured composers include Kenji Bunch, Gabriela Lena Frank, Caroline Shaw, Julia Wolfe, John Luther Adams, Karen Tanaka, Michael Johanson and Alexander Schwarzkopf, among many others.

Following his critically acclaimed debut Liszt Transfigured: Operatic Fantasies for Piano, which won the 40th Liszt Ferenc International Grand Prix du Disque in 2018, Chiyan Wong returns to record his second album for Linn. Alongside the piano music of Liszt, the music of Ferruccio Busoni has been a guiding light for the young, eclectic pianist. Here Chiyan combines Busoni’s kaleidoscopic arrangement of Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations, which celebrates the powerful sonority and range of the modern concert grand, with Bach’s timeless original. Chiyan’s ‘dazzling technical finish’ (Gramophone) and luxuriant sound are on full display in Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s famous Chaconne, a classic in the genre. Inversion, mirroring and variations are also idiomatic devices in Busoni’s Sonatina ‘in diem Nativitatis Christi MCMXVII and Chiyan’s own ‘composition etude’, Inversion of Variation 15 (Canone alla quinta), which complete this one-of-a-kind programme.

Kenneth Woods writes: “Given that this programme was to be an exploration of childhood, the obvious place to start is with birth. Richard Wagner wrote his Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present for his wife, Cosima, just after the birth of their son, Siegfried. Nowhere else in music is there so tender an evocation of those fragile, precious and fraught first days and weeks of life. Engelbert Humperdinck’s great children’s opera, Hänsel und Gretel, a quasi-Wagnerian setting of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, tells the story of two children in peril… “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”) is one of Schubert’s simplest and most popular songs, composed in 1817,when Schubert was just 20, to words by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart… Gustav Mahler’s 100-minute Third symphony and his Fourth grew out of the musical material in the short, beautiful song which forms the final movement of the Fourth Symphony, “Das himmlische Leben” (“The Heavenly Life,”), and which concludes these Visions of Childhood. First, however, we hear his song “The Earthly Life” (“Das irdische Leben”) which forms a sort of bleak mirror image to that song. As with the Humperdinck, I have essentially stuck as closely as possible to Mahler’s own orchestration, which is a model of clarity and economy, but also full of extreme, even grotesque, colors. Finally, we come to another combination of song and variations by Schubert, both known as “Der Todund das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”). The song is based on a poem by Matthias Claudius and was written in 1817, the same year as “The Trout.” It has only two verses – one in which the Maiden pleads with Death to pass her by, and one in which Death assures her that he is a friend.

Mozart’s Violin Concertos need little introduction from No. 3 in G major featuring the 19-year-old Mozart at his elegant, witty and beguilingly changeable best, to the Sinfonia Concertante – the string concerto masterpiece – with its masterly mixture of noble strength and tender lyricism, these are some of Mozart’s most well-known and best-loved works. Handel and Haydn Society with their inspirational Concertmaster, Aisslinn Nosky, bring Mozart’s musical magic to life in these live recordings from Boston’s glorious Symphony Hall. “The music crackled with a feeling of playful rivalry and delight. With the two vigorous virtuosi leading the performance...the soloists kinetically engaged with their fellow players, sometimes looking behind as if to rally their allies... musical magic in the making.” (THE BOSTON GLOBE)

"How did Ludwig van Beethoven become a great symphonist? A milestone on his way there is marked by the Septet, which he composed in 1799, on the threshold of a new century, for this large-scale chamber work, with its mixed instrumentation of winds and strings, already assembles an orchestra ""en miniature"". At the same time, however, Beethoven thus founded a new genre of ensemble music, which was to be followed by numerous composers from Franz Schubert to Johannes Brahms and Jean Françaix with nonets, octets, sextets or quintets. Beethoven's radiant and entertaining septet combines logic with catchiness and offers a spiritual musical conversation. And it is in this discipline that the soloists of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, who are dedicated to making music in friendship, are masters. They also prove this in the Nannerl Septet, which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart probably created in 1776 for the name day of his sister Maria Anna: artfully playful music of the best festive and champagne mood."

REVIEW:

Mozart’s Divertimento in D (K 251) is buoyant and fortunately classical all the way, with no attempt to ramp it up and make it loud or romantic. This is pleasant music, hardly world-shattering, but it is played with obvious respect and affection. The Lucerne soloists make a good case for Beethoven’s Septet, emphasizing its Mozartean qualities. The theme and variations (IV) are the high point, as the musicians patiently and gracefully explore the melodies. In V and VI the horn passages are handled with aplomb by Stefan Dohr, and the concert concludes without any applause. The packaging is simple yet in good taste, and the notes add considerable context to the music with stories of the Mozart family’s informal chamber music sessions.

– American Record Guide

This new studio recording contains three works for piano and orchestra that virtuoso pianist Orion Weiss and conductor Leon Botstein first performed in concert at the Bard Music Festival. Together, the three works span almost a century of musical Romanticism and are as different from one another as the generations they represent. In each piece, the virtuoso genre becomes a means by which the composer responds to a specific source of inspiration—in the first case (Korngold), a performer and family friend who had suffered a horrendous tragedy, in the second (Rimsky Korsakov), a venerated old master, and in the third (Chopin) a melody from a beloved opera.

REVIEWS:

All the performances on this album, featuring the brilliant pianist Orion Weiss, are excellent.

– New York Times

Thoroughly entertaining.

– BBC Music Magazine

On her third PENTATONE album Bach Unbuttoned, Ana de la Vega brings together a group of exciting young soloists and the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn to present a lively and fresh perspective on Bach as man and composer. The programme contains Brandenburg concertos Nos. 2, 4 & 5, a unique rendition on flute and oboe of the double violin concerto, as well as the breath-takingly virtuosic Badinerie for flute. Flautist Ana de la Vega’s presents her third PENTATONE album, after having released Mozart Myslivecek (2018) and Haydn Stamitz (2020). Oboist Ramón Ortega Quero also starred on the latter album, and is featured prominently on Bach Unbuttoned as well. Violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, trumpet player Cyrus Allyar, harpsichordist Johannes Berger and the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn all make their PENTATONE debut.

With her first solo album, Emily Hoile would like to present works rarely heard on the harp until now. She takes great joy in arranging compositions for keyboard instruments and thus expanding the repertoire available to the harp: J.S. Bach's Toccata in C minor and D. Scarlatti's Sonata K.135 in E major make their debut on the harp with this release. The transcription of the Ballade by Claude Debussy is meant to underline the great importance that Paris had for harp music at the turn of the century. These arrangements are framed by two magnificent original compositions for the instrument: the surprisingly rarely played Harp Sonata by Casella and the Fantasy by Zabel inspired by Gounod's Faust.

The new album Schubert: Explorations by pianist Mathieu Gaudet is the fourth volume in his wonderful collection The Complete Sonatas and Major Works for Piano of the great German composer Franz Schubert. Between his early “post-Mozartean” sonatas and late masterpieces of symphonic proportions, Schubert spent the years 1817 and 1818 exploring the possibilities of the piano sonata, through unusual harmonic relationships, intensive use of trills, heightened virtuosity, lengthy chord repetitions and extreme dynamic contrasts. We find on the album two works from this early period as well as two others from 1823-24 which are true jewels that contain all the essence of his genius.

The excellent new album Intimate Impressions for Two Guitars by the duo Adam Cicchillitti and Steve Cowan consists of music originally written for piano, harp, or two guitars by leading 20th century composers who spent the bulk of their careers working in Paris, such as Ravel, Debussy, Mompou, Tailleferre, and Jolivet. The arrangements, the majority of which are by the Cicchillitti/Cowan duo, eloquently illustrate that the tone colors, intimacy, and pure lyricism of the composers’ styles are ideally suited to the guitar, and that the harmonic language translates beautifully to a guitar duo. Simply captivating!

REVIEW:

New additions to the guitar duo repertoire: 20th Century French works arranged for two guitars, artistically performed by Canadian guitarists who clearly have command of transcription skills, and also a unified delivery of the music in all its technical complexity and musical depth. Drew Henderson and Michael Kolk’s arrangement of the `Prelude’ from Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin, the only arrangement in the program not by the duo, is nothing short of stellar in concept and execution. There follows the almost obligatory contemporary work on the program, Serenade by Andre Jolivet. Even though it was written for and premiered by Presti & Lagoya, an inspiring duo from the mid-1900s not known for avante-garde musical excursions, it disrupts the flow in this otherwise delightful program of warm and uplifting music. Liner notes by Richard Turp are well written and interesting, leaving the listener with a fairly complete picture of the music.

-- American Record Guide

As a pianist, Mozart performed at many concerts and music academies, for which he had to build a repertoire; similarly, he was in need of educational repertoire for his students. Between 1782 and 1786, Mozart composed, in addition to piano sonatas and variations, fourteen new concertos for piano with orchestra. He was certainly no novice in this field, already having no less than ten piano concertos under his belt (not to mention his violin concertos and his first collection of concertos for wind instruments). As such, Mozart’s Vienna period begins with a remarkable trio of piano concertos, K. 413, 414 and 415. Mozart undoubtedly wrote them for himself. His concert activity in Vienna was extraordinary, especially in the first years, where he met with success as both a soloist and as a composer. He therefore decided to publish this trio at his own expense (on a subscription basis), obviously with an eye towards having another source of income.

This new album by Charles Richard-Hamelin presents two important works from Frederic Chopin’s repertoire, 24 Preludes, Op. 28 and Andante spianato & Grande polonaise brillante, Op. 22, and confirms that he is one of the world's elite pianists. Writing about Richard-Hamelin, BBC Music Magazine characterized his playing as “fluent, multifaceted and tonally seductive… a technician of exceptional elegance and sophistication.” Qualities that are made evident on this brilliant new album. Charles Richard-Hamelin is well known on the international music scene as a “highly sensitive” pianist (Gramophone), driven by “a great depth of feeling without the slightest pretense” (Le Devoir). He is recognized as “fluent, multifaceted and tonally seductive… a technician of exceptional elegance and sophistication” (BBC Music Magazine).

For this new recording, violinist Peter Hanson, one of the most prominent period instrument players of his generation, turns his attention to Mozart’s extraordinary and innovative output of sonatas for violin and piano. Hanson is joined by acclaimed keyboard player and regular collaborator Andrew Arthur in this programme of four sonatas (K. 301, K. 304–5 & K. 454), each of which was dedicated to an exceptional woman of the time, with the aristocratic dedication of the ‘Kurfürstin’ sonatas for the Electress Maria Elisabeth Auguste of Sulzbach (K. 301–6) and K. 454’s dedication to Regina Strinasacchi – a performer of particular talent who gave the first performance with Mozart at the piano. For this album, a stunning copy of an original Walter fortepiano is used as well as a striking Guadagnini violin bearing pure gut strings.

This programme, performed by Chiara Banchini and Ensemble 415, gives a glimpse of Mozart’s early compositions, written in Salzburg, most of which were intended for performance at social events or in the open air. In pieces such as the Serenata notturna and the Concertone, one perceives a Mozart who was quick to satisfy both the demands of the Salzburg nobility and his own, which led him from adolescence onwards to develop an original language, free of stereotyped formal codes. After the success of the Red, Yellow, Blue, Pink and White collections (a total of sixty reissues) which gave a new lease of life to the pearls of the Baroque catalogues from our house labels, here are fourteen new titles which offer a chance to discover other treasures, whether Baroque or dating from an earlier or later era. Like the most recent series, this sixth instalment opens out onto the Classical repertory (Mozart by Ensemble 415 and Chiara Banchini) and the Renaissance (Févin by Doulce Mémoire and Denis Raisin Dadre); recordings that are an integral part of Alpha’s identity and history. Fourteen reissues performed by the leading musicians in the field, most of which received one or more awards on their original release. Proper booklets accompany the discs, with notes in three languages (French, English, German). Photographers from all over the world have been selected to illustrate the covers, this time with the guiding thread of the color green, a symbol of nature, fertility ... and hope!

All of the works gathered on this album have - as different as they may be - one thing in common: they can be heard in the popular and idealized folk tone popular in the Romantic period. Whether Schumann's Fantasiestücke or Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata, all of these pieces catch the ear quickly, stir deep emotions and yet are complexly composed works that place the highest demands on cello and piano. Born in Freiburg, Germany, into a musical family, Tatjana Uhde took her first cello lessons at the age of 6, with her mother Sanja Uhde Mitrovic. She later went on to study with Martin Ostertag (Hochschule für Musik, Karlsruhe), Philippe Muller (Conservatoire national supérieur de Paris), and Antonio Meneses (Hochschule der Künste Bern). Since 2008 Uhde has been Associate Principal Cellist at the Paris National Opera. She is also a member of the Festspielorchestra in Bayreuth. A sense of sound, virtuosity, stage presence and a special feeling for an interesting selection of programs characterize the pianist Lisa Wellisch. Her particular concern is to facilitate access to classical music for a diverse audience through exciting music education - without compromising on the always demanding selection of works. She especially likes to give lecture recitals and in 2009 founded the concert series “Klassik im Sigma Zentrum” Bad Säckingen, which makes an important cultural contribution to the region with 10 top-class concerts a year, moderated by the artists.

After his acclaimed interpretation of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard returns to PENTATONE with a recording of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations. The Hammerklavier Sonata is one of the pinnacles of Beethoven’s creative output, and arguably one of the highest mountains to climb for any pianist. To Aimard, it poses one of the most frightening tests of a performer’s life, but one that is as irresistible as it is insurmountable. The dazzling Eroica Variations are nicknamed after Beethoven’s iconoclastic Third Symphony, and employ the melody he would later use as the main theme of the symphony’s finale. Beethoven’s fondness for this melody is evident, as he also used it in his ballet music for The Creatures of Prometheus, as well as in the seventh of his 12 Contredanses. Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time and as a uniquely significant interpreter of piano repertoire from every age, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career. He started his exclusive engagement to PENTATONE with a complete recording of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018).

REVIEW:

Having heard Pierre-Laurent Aimard give several intense and impassioned live performances of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata over the past several seasons, his studio recording generally seems reserved and even foursquare by comparison.

To be certain, his exemplary technique allows for no vagaries of voice leading or textural misfires, while Pentatone’s production values do justice to Aimard’s tonal clarity and transparency at quieter dynamic levels. Still, there’s a pre-planned quality about nearly every breath pause, tenuto, caesura, and dynamic hairpin that somewhat dissipates the outer movements’ continuity and momentum. This is not a function of Aimard’s generally conservative tempos, although the fugal finale becomes heavier and less timbrally alluring as the music unfolds (this is true about most performances, to be fair).

Interestingly, in concert Aimard’s outer movements went for broke, while the Adagio sostenuto came off sounding relatively reserved and reticent. Here, however, Aimard’s expressive palette opens up, with a controlled freedom to the rubatos that culminates in a devastating climax. In the rising chain of broken fifths and sixths between hands just before the first-movement recapitulation (measures 224-226), Aimard reads the lower note upbeat as A-natural, rather than the so-called “inspired misprint” A-sharp, vis-à-vis Kempff, Petri, Brendel, and Perahia; I personally prefer A-sharp, as do Schnabel, Solomon, Arrau, and Levit.

Years ago during a public master class I heard Aimard spontaneously launch into a most inspired and unified reading of Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor. Similar inspiration and unity abound throughout his Eroica Variations, with more than a few audacious touches.

I like the force of his right-hand triplets in Variation 2, buttoned by brash left-hand accents at phrase endings, as much as No. 5’s ruminative delicacy. In No. 6, Aimard’s suave, effortlessly dispatched broken octaves enable the offbeat accents their due without pressing the point. All the more surprising that No. 13’s triplet chords and witty melodic appogiaturas don’t match the insouciant thrust one hears from Clifford Curzon. Yet the concluding Fugue has the variety of character and articulation that I expected to encounter more consistently throughout Aimard’s Hammerklavier Fugue.

– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

The 6 sonatas for violin and harpsichord obbligato rank amongst the most beautiful chamber music that Bach wrote. They are overshadowed by the solo sonatas. This despite the fact that they are masterpieces in their own right, only without the aura of a magnum opus. The slow movements display a range of moods, from desolate and lonely to radiantly festive. Meanwhile, the fast movements are a mixture of high-spirited instrumental music and contrapuntal mastery. There are canons, fugues, chorale preludes and much more: practically a compendium of options. Daniel Gaede and Raphael Alpermann guide us through this treasure trove of curiosities with virtuosity and sensitivity. Once again: 2 albums for the price of one.

In its recording cycle, the Feininger Trio is pairing each of the three piano trios written by Brahms with a work by another Viennese composer: Alexander Zemlinsky, Ernst Krenek, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, respectively. Brahms’s three piano trios are among the genre’s crowning achievements, and the members of the Feininger Trio were interested in exploring how the piano trio genre developed in the master’s wake. Younger composers drew on Brahms’s legacy while opening a new window to Modernism and the 20th century, and that was the main criterion in choosing the three pairings. Biographical similarities among Korngold, Krenek, and Zemlinsky in their early years also played a major role in the Feininger Trio’s selection. Despite major stylistic differences, a red thread in their the three composers’ lives connects them all with Brahms. The connection was strong. As Alexander Zemlinsky put it, young composers attempted to outdo one another by writing in a vein as Brahmsian as possible. Young Zemlinsky knew Brahms and enjoyed the older composer’s support. He was not Brahms’s pupil, but Zemlinsky’s early Piano Trio op.3 has much in common with Brahms. It is more widely known as a clarinet trio: in 1896, Zemlinsky submitted it to a competition organized by the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein which required a chamber music work “using at least one wind instrument”.