The more of Pancho Vladigerov’s work becomes widely accessible, the clearer it becomes that he is the most important Bulgarian composer – well beyond the 20th century. Revered in his lifetime, he was in a position to continue his work largely unaffected by the ideological demands of the Communist regime, although his musical diction, tonal and grounded in late Romantic tradition, wouldn’t likely have provoked any reprisals. In these works for the stage, meanwhile, Vladigerov shows a cosmopolitan side, easily slipping into the world of Strindberg for his Scandinavian Suite, chinoiserie for Klabund’s Chalk Circle, and exoticism for Shaw’s Cesar and Cleopatra.

While Dandrieu’s early harpsichord pieces were written in the shadow of 17th-century composers, the three books published between 1724 and 1735 demonstrate a radically new direction for the composer. Such a shift can be attributed to changing tastes: harpsichord music as early as the last decade of the previous century shows a gradual distancing from many techniques that were primarily associated with the lute. Dandrieu, like most musicians, probably spent much of his earlier life as a teacher and would have been well aware of the abilities and tastes of those for whom the suites were written. They retain a naïve simplicity that is often lacking elsewhere. Nothing is too complicated: ornamentation is straightforward, textures tend towards two-part writing, and figuration always falls comfortably under the hand.

The Premier livre finishes with what Dandrieu refers to as ‘a suite in its own right’ of ten tableaux: Les Charactères de la Guerre. It demonstrates Dandrieu’s propensity to revise earlier and possibly popular works to suit new media. The tableaux follow a tradition among composers for depicting battle scenes. The tradition continued in France until late into the 18th century with Claude-Bénigne Balbastre’s 1792 appeal to the revolutionaries in Marche des Marseillois.

During the years leading up to the beginning of the 20th century, Edvard Grieg was the most significant Scandinavian composer. His 4 Norwegian dances Op. 35 are arrangements for piano four-hands of old folk tunes. The Symphony in C minor was composed in 1863–64. The melodies of its second and third movements later came to be known in the present arrangement for piano duet known as 2 Symphonic Pieces Op. 14. Grieg composed a score for Peer Gynt of some 90 minutes of incidental music, from which he selected the most beautiful numbers for two orchestral suites which he arranged in versions for piano solo and piano four-hands.

Grieg wrote the 2 Walzer-Capricen Op.37 for piano four hands in 1883. The 2 Nordic Melodies, Op. 63 were originally written for string orchestra in 1895. The work is dedicated to the Norwegian and Swedish ambassador to Paris Frederik Due. Due sent Grieg some compositions for violin and piano, and one of his melodies appears in the first piece: ‘In Folk Style’. The second piece, comprising the ‘Cow-Call’ and ‘Peasant Dance’, is a reworking of two pieces (Nos. 18 and 22) from Grieg’s Op. 17 (25 Norwegian Folk Ballads and Dances).

REVIEW:

Grieg had a mastery of the two-piano idiom that is well represented here by Plano and Del Negro. I am very pleased to have this excellent release in my library. It has great piano sound and some of my favorites along with a few rare pieces.

-- American Record Guide

The folk music of the Croatian peninsula of Istria is as characteristic as it is extraordinary. Its melodies, harmonies and rhythms are unique, and sonorously expressed by the sopila - a traditional shawm instrument - as well as through choral singing and folk dances. The music with its asymmetrical rhythms is based on the so-called "pentatonic Istrian scale", which consists of major and minor seconds and is thus clearly different from the other musical styles of Croatia. Numerous non-Istrian musicians and composers have been fascinated by it - among them the Croatian composer Natko Devčić, with his "Istrian Suite" for orchestra (1946), or the young Croatian pianist and composer Dejan Lazić with his "Concerto in Istrian Style for Piano and Orchestra” op. 18 (2014/2021), or his "Alterations on the Istrian Folk Hymn" op. 29 (2022).

Natko Devčić was one of Croatia's most important composers and music educators, leaving a lasting impression on subsequent generations of musicians. His most lasting success as a composer came with his "Istrian Suite" for orchestra from 1946, which uses Istrian folk music as a source of inspiration and as a link between Slavic late Romanticism and the avant-garde.

Dejan Lazić’s five-movement "Concerto in Istrian Style for Piano and Orchestra” op. 18 is closely connected to Istrian music, with its melodies, harmonies and rhythms, and features the "Istrian scale" as well as the typical melodies played in thirds. The central movement of the concerto is an extended cadenza in which Lazić – who has already composed cadenzas for piano concertos by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and also arranged Brahms' Violin Concerto op. 77 for piano and orchestra – demonstrates his diverse experience in this field. Lazić's "Alterations on the Istrian Folk Hymn" op. 29 were written for the present CD and are dedicated to the Munich Radio Orchestra and its principal conductor Ivan Repušic.

The song "Draga nam je zemlja", recorded by Ivan Matetić Ronjgov, was and continues to be sung as a folk hymn in Istria, and in his work Lazić has taken its melody as the basis for a theme and twelve variations with coda for orchestra.

Bram Stadhouders’ Suite X is a collection of eight baroque music tracks for the present. It is the out of the box thinkers of Baroque Orchestration X (B.O.X), with whom he has entered into this unorthodox alliance. With Suite X, Stadhouders pays tribute to the soothing baroque sound, which he manages to mix with the sound of an electric guitar and synthesizer in a logical and surprising way: once as a soundscape, then in a catchy groove, and last but not least, with intriguing melodies that immediately settle into your head.

The cellist Roger Morelló has intercalated three sarabands from the Suites for Cello Solo by Johann Sebastian Bach. The first is the one included in the Suite No. 1, whose prelude served as primary material for the work by Marc Migó. The second saraband that appears is the one from the Suite No. 2, which is in the key of D minor, and the third is the E flat major saraband. Along with these pieces, we encounter the Suite for Cello Solo by Gaspar Cassadó – a renowned Casals pupil and one of the most legendary violoncellists of the twentieth century as well as a composer. Along with this piece, Morelló has added his cello arrangement of an original work for viola da gamba from Les voix humaines by Marin Marais, which is the piece that lends this album its title. Side by side with these historical references that have become timeless, Roger Morelló includes two contemporary works. One of them is formed by the Variations on the name of Casals by Marc Migó, a work commissioned by Morelló himself, to whom it is also dedicated. The other contemporary composition that Morelló wanted to include on this album is a work that he commissioned from Elisenda Fábregas, who in turn dedicated it to him. It has Catalan dances as its title and consists of four dances.

Note: This set is a collection of previously released recordings.

It was apparently Rimsky-Korsakov, himself a member of the “Mighty Handful” of Russian nationalist composers, who encouraged his students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory to go out and collect Jewish folk music and music sung in the synagogues, getting thus the ball rolling for a specific Jewish classical music. The movement led in 1908 to the founding of the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music and, in 1923, of the Society for Jewish Music in Moscow. The success of the latter and its members was however, short-lived. The antisemitic, anti-cosmopolitan forces that started to brew under the new soviet regime led many potential members of the society to emigrate. The ones that remained were forced to focus on proletarian themes and, even when complying to the requirements, still found themselves often repressed or incarcerated outright.

The last notable concert with the society’s music in the Soviet Union took place in Moscow, in April of 1929. Most of this music had then lain dormant for decades until the pianist Jascha Nemtsov (himself the son of a Gulag survivor) and his musical collaborators unearthed it in the last few years of the 20th century. The present collection contains on five discs the recordings – many of them world premieres – realized between 1999 and 2004.

REVIEWS:

One of the real strengths of this program is the number of pieces that received their world premiere recordings here and it’s probably the case that many of them can still only be heard in these performances. I make it around 42 pieces in total – which includes the individual movements of suites and cycles – made their disc premieres here, a tribute to the industry, application and ardent appreciation shown principally by Nemtsov.

Fortunately, these discs make an appeal on recital-by-recital basis. Yes, there are generic settings and yes, nothing is developed extensively so that the pleasures here are of a localised, focused and specialised nature. Nemtsov may be disheartened by the relative obscurity of much of this music still, feeling it, perhaps, funnelled to the outlying ethnic borderland where folk, cabaret and lighter classical meet and mingle. He, however, in particular, and his disc confreres, have made a real contribution to the vivacious and continuing life of this music on disc and are deserving of high praise.

-- MusicWeb International

This is a fascinating five-disc collection that shines light on a short-lived movement in early 20th-century Russia to bring about a Jewish classical music idiom. Fine performances, too, from the likes of Tabea Zimmermann, Jascha Nemtsov, and Wolfgang Meyer.

-- BBC Music Magazine

SWR’s imaginative five-disc chamber collection From Jewish Life (recorded 1999-2004) should be of interest to listeners whether or not you’re religious or indeed of the Jewish faith. The excellent line-up of performers consists of Jascha Nemtsov (piano), Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet), Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Ingolf Turban (violin), David Geringas (cello) and Helene Schneiderman (mezzo-soprano). The chosen repertoire includes Bloch’s masterly Suite for viola and piano, Joseph Achron’s Stempenyu and other works, music by Julian and Alexander Krein, Alexander Weprik, Joachim Stutschewsky and Solomon Rosowsky and much more. This is, musically speaking, a most nourishing collection, and the digital sound is excellent. 

-- Gramophone

French harpsichordists from the time of Louis XV extolled the exhilaration and nonchalance of their harpsichord, which crackled and grumbled, but also sang of sentiment like an opera orchestra. They broke away from dance suites through pièces de caractère (character pieces), a French specificity that draws on portraits of the salons held by ladies of the upper classes. Sentimens and Tendres plaintes respond with an ornamentalist’s talent to the bellicose progression of Cyclopes and Marche des Scythes! Clément Geoffroy performs a collection of this French harpsichord music that attains an exceptional level of subtlety and impetuosity, in the true “rocaille” style that marked its swansong.

The present release comprises two works by Russian composers of differing generations, in music which has long been central to the repertoire of composer and conductor Álvaro Cassuto who is heard conducting the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra. Even before the Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet had made it to the stage, selections were heard in concert on both sides of the Atlantic, and various sequences continue to feature prominently in the orchestral repertoire. Although these sometimes take the guise of one of the three orchestral suites, it has become more common to select freely from across these or even from the overall ballet. Establishing dramatic and musical continuity within this context is more difficult than might be supposed, to which end Cassuto had devised his own selection on this present recording. Rimsky-Korsakov’s mastery of orchestration is heard at its most impressive in the Russian Easter Festival Overture, (composed at much the same time as his symphonic suite Scheherazade). Cast in a loose sonata-form design, the piece falls into three main sections which the composer prefaced with quotations from Psalms, Gospel of Mark and his own description of the Easter celebration. Almost all its themes are derived from the Obikhod, the collection of liturgical chants with which every Russian would then have been familiar – not least the composer, even though he had long since become a non- believer and viewed this music strictly as a source to be utilized in his own compositions. These two live recordings were originally broadcast by Antena 2, Portuguese Radio and Television in the mid-1990s. This album is the recording’s first commercial release.

A new album of chamber works by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
This outstanding recording was made at two venues in Poland: the
Łódź Academy of Music, and the Czestochowa Philharmony. The
principal performer is pianist Barbara Karaśkiewicz who has made
several highly praised recordings for Divine Art (and before that the
esteemed Polish label Acte Preable). She performs two piano duos
with her musical partner Michał Rot. The chamber works are played
by the Huberman Piano Trio whose Divine Art recording of
20th Century Chamber music was also acclaimed by critics.
Both the performances and the perfectly engineered recording offer
a sumptuous program of Rachmaninoff that will delight listeners.
The Huberman Trio was formed at the initiative of Barbara
Karaśkiewicz, named in honour of the great Polish artist Bronislav
Huberman, famed for his performances and transcriptions of works
by Chopin and others.

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce the first release on disc of three works by Richard Strauss conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra captured live in London’s Royal Festival Hall. In a meeting of kindred spirits and musical minds, Beecham and Strauss enjoyed a long and mutually admiring relationship over nearly four decades. Thomas Beecham Conducts Richard Strauss follows SOMM’s acclaimed Thomas Beecham Conducts Sibelius and again features recordings newly restored and remastered by Lani Spahr. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1946 by Beecham to inject new energy and new ideas into British orchestral life. A decade later, this disc shows them at their finest.

Completely new to the catalogue is the six-part Suite taken from Strauss’s incidental music to Le bourgeois gentilhomme, the erotic ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ from Salome, and the only known recording of Beecham conducting Macbeth. Completing the disc are two signature tone poems, Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, recorded live in early 1955 and newly re-mastered from an earlier SOMM release (SOMM-BEECHAM 31). The disc has been curated by Jon Tolansky, who provides insightful and authoritative booklet notes. MusicWeb International hailed Thomas Beecham Conducts Sibelius (ARIADNE 5013) as “a major addition to [Beecham’s] discography” and “a most important release”. Audiophile Audition’s five-star review declared it “heartily recommended”, while BBC Music Magazine described it as “a blazing performance”. SOMM’s ground-breaking The Beecham Collection spans 24 volumes, many of them with the RPO. It includes the partnership’s coupling of Sibelius’s Fourth and Sixth Symphonies (SOMM-BEECHAM 18) and their earliest known recordings, dating from 1946, featuring Wagner, Mendelssohn, Mozart’s Symphony No.40 and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Moura Lympany the soloist (SOMM-BEECHAM 19).

For his second album for Chandos, the flute virtuoso Adam Walker explores the music of British composers with pianist Huw Watkins. Vaughan Williams’s Suite de ballet was commissioned by the French flute virtuoso Louis Fleury (who had given the première of Debussy’s Syrinx). The work uses eighteenth-century French dance forms, a common practice in ‘neo-classical’ composition. Bax’s Four Pieces rescue music from an abandoned ballet originally conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sir Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina was originally written for treble recorder; James Galway’s championship of the piece made it a staple of the flute repertoire. Howard Fergusson’s Three Sketches were composed intermittently over a period of twenty years. The theme of the third piece is a Hindu melody, ‘Koyalinya bole ambuvan’ (Cuckoos sing in the mango tree). Sonatas by York Bowen and William Alwyn complete this varied and engaging program.

REVIEW:

Seventy-seven minutes of British music for flute and piano might at first glance seem like 40 minutes too much. But that ’s without taking on board the nimble and dazzling skills of flautist Adam Walker, or the individual strengths of the works presented...a new pleasure is never far away in this most accomplished recital, full of the sounds of spring.

-- BBC Music Magazine

The latest release from renowned period ensemble La Serenissima celebrates the life and work of Nicola Matteis the Younger. Born in London to an Italian father and English mother, Matteis was immersed in the style of Henry Purcell before leaving England in 1700 for the Imperial Court in Vienna. All of the music on the album is – rather fortuitously – Carolean; either written for Charles II of England, or for (or in the realm of ) Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. It is all too easy to think that the English style and English musicians were unknown on the continent in the early C18, but this selection of music shows that this wasn’t (always) the case. There are some jubilant dances and dance suites featured here as well as a ravishingly beautiful Vivaldi concerto and two superb Chaconnes, one by an Englishman, and one by an Italian.

REVIEW:

The strings of La Serenissima – notably young in personnel here – show evident enthusiasm for Chandler’s direction throughout, and respond with precision and clarity...Listening to this Englishman and his ensemble is always refreshing.

-- Gramophone

Bruckner’s Fifth is eminently suited to an arrangement for performance on the organ above all because of its musical texture. In no other Bruckner symphony, for example, does counterpoint play such an important part. I am thinking in particular of the great fugue in the final movement. It really does seem as if many passages of this magnificent work were composed as if with the organ in mind, even though the Fifth is not a piece for organ at all, being in the first place a symphonic work. And yet it lends itself admirably to the extraction of a compositional substrate with no loss of essential content. That cannot be said of all Bruckner’s symphonies. Of all his symphonies, in my opinion, the Fifth, Eighth and Ninth are most amenable to an arrangement for organ. Building on the compositional core, it is the orchestral treatment above all that plays a key role. If this is lacking, an arrangement of the work can deprive the work of its grandeur. That is again at risk if one attempts to copy the orchestra or to transpose certain orchestral effects one-to-one onto the organ. Such an approach is generally unsatisfactory, because organ writing is governed by different rules than those applying to orchestral scoring. It would be fatal to make the organ rival the orchestra. My aim from the start was to avoid imitating the orchestra and to create a work specifically for organ in the manner of an organ symphony.

A superior post bop soloist, tenor saxophonist, composer, and educator David Detweiler is influenced by early John Coltrane and Michael Brecker but has a sound and style of his own within the mainstream of modern jazz.

Currently Assistant Professor of Jazz Saxophone, David joined the faculty at Florida State University in 2016 after serving as Director of Jazz Studies at Nazareth College (Rochester, NY). He has performed at many of New York City’s premier live-music venues such as The Blue Note, Birdland, The Knitting Factory, and The Iridium.

His first record as a leader, New York Stories, featured Leon Anderson, Clarence Seay, Chris Pattishall, and Rick Lollar. His second record as a leader, The Dave Detweiler Trio was released in August 2015. Celebrating Bird with bassist Fumi Tomita was released September 2020 and The Astoria Suite was released in 2021.

Bassist, composer, and educator Fumi Tomita was active in the New York jazz scene for over fifteen years. His 2019 recording, The Elephant Vanishes: Jazz Interpretations of the Short Stories of Haruki Murakami, was released to critical acclaim by Origin Arts records and was listed in the top ten records of 2019 by Jazziz. He is currently Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.