The Six Suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach, composed around 1720, are generally regarded as the first and greatest masterpieces ever written for the instrument. Their scope is vast and ingenious. Although most of the time, only one note is played, occasional chords and masterful melodies imply harmony and counterpoint. The Suites have been performed and recorded countless times over the last 100 years, with a variety of interpretative approaches. These approaches, until recently, could often be rather academic and formal, as it used to be thought that baroque music was mostly about form. The present cellist takes a radically opposing approach, one which is inspirational and which infuses the works with vitality and spirit.

Marina Tarasova is a world-renowned cellist with many recordings to her name for Musical Concepts and Northern Flowers among other labels, and this is her first recording for Divine Art. She has won international competitions in Prague, Florence and Paris and has a wide repertoire covering works of composers from the 17th century to the 20th century.

The program put together by the Viennese cellist Peter Hudler for his album “Cello on Fire” aims to create a space for passion, freedom, but also for poetry that the cello can express more than almost any other instrument. This spark of passion can be ignited in all sorts of styles and genres, as this bridge between folk, classical, jazz and crossover perfectly illustrates. So it happens that a movement of a Bach suite for solo cello stands next to Syrinx by Claude Debussy, a Baroque Capriccio by Giuseppe dall'Abaco next to a piece by the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. In between there are Celtic and Scottish folk songs, a Spanish Fandango, but also pieces like Kiev 3 by John Zorn and Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix. An important part is dedicated to the so-called Contemporary Cello, whose best-known representatives – the Italian Giovanni Sollima, the Swede Svante Henryson and the Dutchman Ernst Reijseger – come into their own with some of their original compositions and express the proverbial burning for their instrument – just like Hudler himself – sometimes with virtuosity, sometimes with experimental techniques and improvisations.

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Inon Barnatan present a complete recording of Beethoven’s cello sonatas. Composed over a span of nearly twenty years, these works not only contain some of the most appealing and lyrical music Beethoven wrote, but also allow the listener to trace his exceptional artistic development. The third sonata, moreover, is a watershed in sonata writing, arguably presenting the cello and piano as fully equal partners for the first time in music history. The richness of these works fully comes to life in the interpretation of Weilerstein and Barnatan, who have – besides glorious solo careers – also proven to be one of the most congenial chamber music tandems of our times. Their wonderful musical partnership and profound friendship shines through in each of these sonatas.

Since signing an exclusive contract with PENTATONE, Alisa Weilerstein has released Transfigured Night (2018) as well as Bach’s Cello Suites (2020), while also featuring on Old Souls (2019) and Inon Barnatan’s Beethoven Piano Concertos Part 1 (2019), on which she performed the composer’s Triple Concerto. This album was part of Inon Barnatan’s complete Beethoven piano concertos recordings on PENTATONE, of which Part 2 appeared in 2020. 2021 saw the release of his solo album Time Traveler’s Suite.

REVIEWS:

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein has recorded major repertory works and seems to be ascending into the top rank of the world's cellists. This set of Beethoven's five cello sonatas should hasten that process. Weilerstein is accompanied here by her usual partner Inon Barnatan, and their long experience as collaborators shows up in the extremely careful balances they achieve in these sonatas and their shifting relationships between the cello and the piano. Yet even more compelling is the sense of musical narrative they create here. A standout reading of these much-recorded works.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

The test piece for anyone sampling these excellent sets is the best known sonata, No 3 in A major Op 69, in which piano and cello find full equality. A peerless technician, Weilerstein embraces both the expansive lyricism and fragile intensity of this work, the singing melodies contrasted with explosive “middle period” drama. She is compelling, too, in the Op 102 sonatas.

-- The Guardian (Fiona Maddocks)

This release couples Gian Francesco Malipiero’s two contrasting violin concertos with the world premiere recording of his kaleidoscopic orchestral work Per una favola cavalleresca, evoking legendary scenes of love, tournaments, battles, moonbeams and heroes. Malipiero’s First Violin Concerto is one of his most beautiful and joyful works, a remarkable achievement for a composer who is said to have played the violin badly in his youth. His Second Violin Concerto, written 30 years later, sounds astonishingly different on a first hearing, but reveals itself to be inspired by the same lyrical impulse as the earlier concerto.

Review

Naxos/Marco Polo have been staunch allies of Malipiero of yore. Their example has been all the more admirable since their advocacy dates from a decade or more after the composer’s death. First, they recorded all the symphonies - and there are lots of them - in Russia on Marco Polo. These were done largely with the far too easily overlooked Antonio de Almeida (1928-1997). That multiple-CD series has been reissued on Naxos.

His First Violin Concerto (1932) is in the accustomed furiously confident three movements. There’s no hint of neo-classicism or museum-rigid “Alte Stil”. This is fast-flowing music where the orchestra keep pace with the ardent solo, here played with unblinking skill by Paolo Chiavacci. The writing is juicy and its probing ardour continues into the central Lento and the nicely rounded finale. This is a work and performance that, for me, never descends into tedium.

Per una favola cavalleresca (For a chivalric tale) is in four movements and is the earliest piece here. It is claimed to be inspired by legendary scenes of love, tournaments, battles, moon-beams and burials of heroes, possibly with links to a Malipero opera Lancelotto del Lago. It’s the longest work here, in four unnamed movements, across half an hour. It’s masterfully orchestrated with no strata of the orchestra wasted. Romantic to the hilt and occasionally voluptuous in the familiar manner of Respighi, as in his Ballad of the Gnomes. Even within these bounds it is a full-lipped piece yet with plenty of nocturnal facets as in parts of the third movement. Written at about the same time as Sibelius’s Suite mignonne which, at least in its titles, has its chivalric overtones, it is a very different. The Malipiero is more head-on and drips with juice as you can hear with the no-holds-barred brass fanfaring of the highly coloured finale. One can easily read into this the betrayal of Arthur and his anger, even if the work and the movement does end in a romantic glow.

Malipero wastes nothing - no time beating of useless filler material - both this and the second concerto are over and done with in about twenty minutes. The second - quite a short piece at 19:35 - is cooler. It was written a decade before the composer’s death and confronts a very different world order from the First. It is by no means devoid of passion. Even so, darker emotions are in play. The soloist has to make speedy headway. Disillusion inflects the central non troppo lento which is lichen-hung. The finale is another work of testing virtuosity, but brusque.

Another point to make is that these works, especially the First concerto and the Cavalleresca at times seem wrung from the same harmonic material as Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending but always stand in their own right.

A Malipiero genre admirably tackled by the familiar La Vecchia and his orchestra. They have been most agreeably performed and recorded.

--MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)

The four cellist-composers in this recital share a common background: from musical families they played as soloists in outstanding orchestras, taught many students, and wrote music for the instrument that continues to challenge players of our own time with its virtuosity and intensity. In his 12 Caprices Alfredo Piatti fused dazzling technical demands with operatic drama, whilst David Popper’s Suite remains an admired piece for two cellists. Wilhelm Fitzenhagen’s Concert Waltzes for four cellos makes prolonged use of the upper register, and in contrast Julius Klengel’s Hymnus is a sonorously beautiful elegy for twelve cellists.

Reference Recordings proudly presents the beloved Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral" of Ludwig van Beethoven, with Steven Stucky’s "Silent Spring," in exceptional performances from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. "Silent Spring" was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book "Silent Spring", the seminal work by Pittsburgh native Rachel Carson. The music, like the book, can be heard as a call to action to love and to save nature and the earth. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, known for its artistic excellence for more than 125 years, is credited with a rich history of the world’s finest conductors and musicians, and is deeply committed to Pittsburgh and its region. This release is the thirteenth in the highly acclaimed Pittsburgh Live! series of multi­channel hybrid SACD releases on the FRESH! imprint from Reference Recordings. This series has received GRAMMY® Nominations in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022.

Please note: this Hybrid SACD will play on any CD player.

REVIEW:

This is yet more fine Beethoven from Honeck and his orchestra. The coupling with the Stucky is fitting. Taken with the album’s bracingly clean engineering and insightful liner notes (including the conductor’s in-depth discussion of his approach to Beethoven interpretation), and we’ve got ourselves another winner in this ongoing Pittsburgh/Beethoven series. Warmly recommended.

-- The Arts Fuse

Silent Spring is not a novel, but more a treatise on how mankind’s pursuit of profit, particularly with the use of certain pesticides in intensive farming methods, is slowly destroying the planet. Unsurprisingly condemned and dismissed by the agricultural industry, as well as, more surprisingly, the media at the time, Ms. Carson’s work has proven to be chillingly prophetic with as much relevance to the planet today as it was some sixty years ago when it was first published.

-- Lee Denham (MusicWeb International)

If you’ve followed Manfred Honeck’s Beethoven symphonies with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Reference Recordings, presumably a complete cycle in the making, the first from an audiophile label (the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth have already appeared), you’ll know what to expect from this “Pastoral”—swift tempi, lean, even sec sonorities (vibrato held in considerable check), great clarity of line and texture, the live recording impressively wide in dynamic range if a tad short on atmosphere and bloom. The arrival in the countryside is brisk and bracing, the brook never dawdles along its merry way, the peasants’ dance is bumptious and high-spirited, the thunderstorm rages with hair-raising ferocity, and the plangent, beautifully phrased “Shepherd’s Song” rises to a strong climax. The late Stephen Stucky’s Silent Spring fills out the program, a powerfully expressive suite of four meditations on Rachel Carson’s environmental classic of the same title. The Pittsburgh Symphony play like gods and angels in both works. If a richer, more relaxed and expansive “Pastoral” is desired, try Bernstein/Vienna (DG) or Walter/Columbia (Sony), while Szell/Cleveland (Sony) ideally mediate classical rigor and early romantic ardor. Still, those who’ve liked Honeck’s previous Beethoven needn’t hesitate.

-- The Absolute Sound

Born in Shanghai in 1955, Xiaogang Ye is regarded as one of China’s leading contemporary composers. He has written music in a variety of genres, including symphonic and chamber works as well as scores for the stage. Ye has also composed music for films and the two works recorded here are both examples of this. Sichuan Image consists of 29 brief and atmospheric pieces composed to accompany a filmed travelogue of the scenic province in Western China. In preparation for the work, the composer visited mountains, river, villages and ancient historical sites in Sichuan. Lending further color to the large symphony orchestra, four Chinese musicians perform on traditional instruments. The album closes with Concerto of Life, a suite in five movements for piano and orchestra with Noriko Ogawa taking on the solo part. The work is based on the score for a feature film of the same name telling the story of a piano teacher and his students. Ogawa has also appeared on a previous album of Ye’s music alongside the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor José Serebrier – a release named Editor's Choice in the Gramophone, whose reviewer described the performances as 'superb' and Ye's scores as possessing ‘lyrical elegance, searching drama and depth of color…’

During the second half of the 19th century, a French school of trumpet playing was established, with French musicians and composers at the forefront of the instrument’s musical and technical development. As a result, it was entrusted with a more prominent role within the orchestra and soon also as a solo instrument. On the present disc, Håkan Hardenberger – who like so many other leading trumpet players studied in Paris – presents some of the fruits of this development: five important French works composed between 1944 and 1977. With the support of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Fabien Gabel – who incidentally began his career as a trumpet player – he opens the disc with Henri Tomasi’s Trumpet Concerto. Often performed and recorded, it here appears on album for the first time with its original, longer ending, reconstructed from a newly discovered manuscript. Another rarity is the version for trumpet and orchestra of Florent Schmitt’s Suite, a work which is more commonly heard with piano accompaniment. Rather more frequent in concert are André Jolivet’s Concerto and the Concertino in which Hardenberger is joined by his regular chamber music partner Roland Pöntinen as co-soloist. The most recent work on the disc is Onze Lieder by Betsy Jolas, a work which has a special resonance for both soloist and conductor as it was written for their trumpet teacher Pierre Thibaud.

A cloudy sky and raindrops beating on the window: this itself is practically music, and for centuries, the sound of rain from the clouds has inspired not only painters but also poets and composers. On her debut GENUIN album, violist Karolina Errera and her piano partner Lilit Grigoryan present a selection of highly emotional music from John Dowland to Benjamin Britten. The prizewinner of numerous international competitions has placed a wide range of original works and arrangements on the program of this release – moving works that are best suited by both the warm sound of viola and piano, as well as the playing culture of the two interpreters!

Little is known about the life of Dietrich Steffkins. He worked during the apogee of solo music practice and was considered an extraordinary viola da gamba virtuoso. His compositions are collected in some funds together with the works of other musicians, and are still to be fully rediscovered. The purpose of this album is to testify to the compositional practice of an author who still offers great expressive possibilities through the research and use of the viol used in its various forms.

A leading German cellist and viola da gamba player with training from the top conservatories, Dietmar Berger is primarily known for his performances of early chamber music for strings. Berger has been a member of the Delos Trio Köln, and he has been featured as a soloist in several recordings, such as his Manchester Gamba Book (2012) and Berlin Gamba Book (2015), both released by Naxos, and Music for the Medieval and Renaissance Fiddle, released by Urania (2018).

Music by the marvelous, criminally underrated composer and “Aural Alchemist” Charles Koechlin is always a discovery and invariably. “Koechlin can daub with notes as Seurat daubed with bright pigments on canvas [he] could, whenever he wished, bathe his music in the impressionist glories of Debussy and Ravel or give it the delicacy of Fauré and then toughen it up with some Roussel-like grinding rhythms.” (Robert Reilly)

Koechlin is an impressionist dreamboat. With a title like The Seven Stars Symphony (the seven are Douglas Fairbanks, Lilian Harvey, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Charlie Chaplin) and following so closely on the heels of the equally enchanting Vers la voûte étoilée (Toward the Vault of the Stars), you’d think the work was some spectacular colorist bonanza of celestial ambitions. Actually, it’s Koechlin’s ode to his favorite film characters as portrayed by these actors – but no less bewitching for it.

REVIEW:

The Basel Symphony Orchestra’s performance under Ariane Matiakh has a wonderful lithe elegance, which matches the beauty and refinement of Koechlin’s writing in every respect.

-- The Guardian (UK)

Charles Koechlin was a prolific composer with a list of works encompassing more than 200 opus numbers. His interest in film stars resulted in several compositions, the most spectacular being The Seven Stars’ Symphony written in 1933. He was a skilled orchestrator as evidenced in this work. He employs a gigantic orchestra, comprising substantially expanded woodwind and brass sections, including an alto saxophone, a large assortment of percussion, and in the third movement, an Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument, invented just a few years before the work was written. Stylistically there are influences from most French composers, from Berlioz and Fauré (who was his teacher) to a modernist like Messiaen. Formally it isn’t a symphony, rather an orchestral suite in seven movements, each movement a portrait of a famous actor in Hollywood at the time the suite was composed, but all of them are still well-known today. His interest in movies emanated from the then quite recent arrival of the sound film, when he saw The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings.

That [Lilian Harvey] was the ageing composer’s dream-girl, is clear from the second movement of the symphony: jolly and charming, light-toned music with glittering flutes creating an aura around her. It is the shortest movement, lasting just over two minutes. The contrast between Harvey and the cool and mysterious Greta Garbo is striking. This is slow, almost melancholy music, and the use of the Ondes Martenot with its eerie glissandi paints a picture of an icy Nordic princess...Clara Bow['s] movement is racy and full of life – the scherzo of the symphony, and the finale is rather boisterous, presumably illustrating the hectic stream of fan letters – in January 1929 she received 45,000 letters!

...Marlene Dietrich is still well-remembered...Her movement is slow and beautiful with a deep clarinet solo featured. It is a set of variations on a theme that is built on the letters of her name. [Emil] Jannings’ movement is dramatic and dark, and the end is gloomy. The final movement is devoted to Charlie Chaplin, and it is by far the longest, occupying more than one third of the total playing time of over forty-three minutes. Though it refers to some of his merry pranks in silent movies like Gold Fever and Circus, a surprisingly large part of the movement is contemplative and chamber-music like, transparently orchestrated.

This effort by Sinfonieorchester Basel under Ariane Matiakh fills the need [for new recordings] admirably. The playing is excellent and the recording very good. Whether the work is the masterpiece some pundits maintain is another question. Koechlin’s masterly orchestration cannot be called in question, and that is reason enough to wallow in the music...This issue is well worth getting to know.

--MusicWeb International (Göran Forsling)

A precocious Alexander Kostantinovich Glazunov at 16 took the Russian concert scene by storm. The teenage composer had plentiful musical ideas, a full mastery of form and enviable skill in orchestration, certainly influenced by his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov. However, unlike his predecessors, the “Mighty Handful”, Glazunov lived through the political unrest that ultimately led to the Russian revolution and to communism. His directorship of the St Petersburg Conservatoire straddled Czarism and the first years of communist rule, yet ultimately his Russian musical ideal did not correspond to that of Soviet music (nor did his ideal of Russian life correspond to Soviet life). He consequently he fled the USSR, finding refuge in Western Europe, and Glazunov can now be counted among those unjustly neglected artists whose national pre-eminence was unseated by exile.

This double album for Brilliant Classics is therefore particularly welcome, shedding new light on Glazunov’s compositional output for piano duet. All but one of the works recorded here also exist in orchestral versions, but they are not necessarily derivative arrangements or reductions: it is not always easy to determine which version came first. The Fantasy Op.104 is the lone work on this program explicitly conceived for two pianos. Given Glazunov’s ability as an orchestrator, one might doubt the value of these piano versions as mere black-and-white sketches of original, colorful paintings. This is far from the case, as this recording demonstrates. Glazunov’s mastery of colors and voicings extends to the piano as well; the existence of the composer’s own orchestration can inform the pianists’ interpretive choices; and the sobriety of the piano version can highlight musical details that might go unnoticed in the lush orchestral treatment.

REVIEW:

This collection is a substantial addition to my library of music for two pianists, and came as a pleasant surprise. The big 30-minute, 3- movement Fantasy for 2 pianos is the only piece on this program written specifically and only for two pianists. It is also the high point here. The Middle-Ages Suite has four great movements that spread out over 25 minutes: Prelude, Scherzo, Serenade of the Troubadour, and Finale. The playing is both lyrical and exciting as the music demands. Based on this recording, piano duos will find this a worthy addition to their repertoire and I imagine quite effective in concert.

This husband-wife duo have been playing together professionally since 1998, so the excellent ensemble heard here is the result of their nearly 25 year partnership. The recorded sound is quite good, as is the detailed booklet essay by Chiara Bertoglio. There is a lot on this program worth getting to know, and I appreciate their pianism and musicological research.

-- American Record Guide (James Harrington)

Born in the northern port city of Trieste in 1912, the Italian composer Giulio Viozzi worked and lived in the region throughout his life before his death in Verona in 1984. He composed in a modal, melodic, diatonic language inflected by Bartok but essentially shaped by native traditions of cantabile writing whether for instruments or voices. Viozzi’s music for the theatre won success and performances throughout his lifetime, notably the opera Il sasso pagano (1964), which makes the modern neglect of his output all the more surprising: this is the only modern album available which is dedicated to his music, and it should introduce many listeners to a distinctive voice in the musical landscape of 20th-century Italy.

As he explains in his booklet introduction, Andrea Gallo was astonished when he first encountered Viozzi’s music for guitar, through the Fantasia (1964), which itself reworks two shorter earlier works, a Gavotte and Brasileira both indebted to the folk tradition. He finds a magical, surreal quality to Viozzi’s repetitions and his evocation of mood in a piece such as the Chromatic Study of 1982. While Viozzi wrote several fantasias for three guitars, his solo output for the instrument centers around the more Classical forms of the Suite variata (1978) and the Sonata (1984), also in three movements. Two works of the mid-70s, the Itinerario and Racconto, are more experimental in technique and impressionistic in mood. This album introduces the names of both Viozzi and Andrea Gallo to the ever-growing library of guitar music on Brilliant Classics. Born in 1990, Gallo studied at the conservatoire in Milan and is based there while giving recitals and appearances across Italy and farther afield.

The second half of the 19th century witnessed a proliferation of significant works for strings alone including the Serenades for Strings by Dvorák (1875) and Tchaikovsky (1880) and Grieg’s Holberg Suite (1884), followed by a trio of works for strings in 1892 from Suk, Wolf and Elgar. Tchaikovsky’s music for string instruments is notable for its range and consistency – and this culminates in the magnificent Violin Concerto and one of the greatest works ever conceived for string orchestra, his Serenade of 1880. Earlier, in 1873, Tchaikovsky wrote incidental music to Ostrovsky’s three-act drama The Snow Maiden. Though he abandoned the idea of adapting it into an opera, when Rimsky-Korsakov composed one on the same subject, he retained affection for this little-known work. Judging by the beautiful Melodrama of Act II, its neglect is unjustified. Eight years before that, as a 25-year-old student at the St Petersburg Conservatory he composed a String Quartet in B flat. If, as some authorities believe, it had four movements, only one has survived. Such is the inner power of the music that it takes on a more expressive hue when performed by a full string orchestra as on this recording.

Towards the end of 1884, the Moscow Society of Artists wished to honor veteran actor Ivan Samarin’s 50-year artistic career, and Tchaikovsky enthusiastically contributed a musical entr’acte. Tchaikovsky’s publisher Jurgenson persuaded the composer the music was worthy of publication, under the title Elegy, as Samarin died the year after the celebrations. When Tchaikovsky suddenly died near the end of 1893, the slow movement of his Third String Quartet was arranged for string orchestra by Glazunov for performance at his funeral service. Glazunov’s subtle and sympathetic arrangement of this fine music for full string orchestra honors his friend, the great composer, in truly noble fashion.

REVIEW:

This attractive program includes Tchaikovsky’s familiar Serenade for Strings along with four shorter works, the last of which, the Glazounov-arranged Andante Funebre e Doloroso from the Third Quartet, was played at Tchaikovsky’s funeral in 1893.

The chamber orchestra's playing is full and warm, rich in vibrato and expression. If you like Russian music played by native musicians (I’m thinking here of the old Leningrad Philharmonic, which became the St Petersburg Philharmonic in 1991) you’ll enjoy this. It’s some of Tchaikovsky’s most attractive music, richly played and beautifully recorded.

-- American Record Guide

Linn welcomes back lute virtuoso William Carter in a program of works by another virtuoso, Esaias Reusner (1636–79), who worked and performed across Europe. Born in Silesia, he was considered to be one of the best lute players of his time and his influence was extensive. ‘Some may be drawn to the brilliance and noise of thunder and lightning, but ever since my youth, the soft and sweet sonorities of noble music has been my only pleasure’, so writes Reusner in the preface of his major work, Delitiae testudinis. This collection, introspective in essence, is outstanding not just for its exceptional quality but because it contains the very first dance suites — for any instrument! – published in Europe. This sequence of dances (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue) was a form used by virtually every Baroque composer who followed, including Bach and Handel. Carter has recorded three of these suites and also pieces from later publications, some of which are premiere recordings.