A century to the day after the orchestra's first concert on 24th October 1919, the centennial season culminates in a "splashy gala night" (San Francisco Classical Voice) at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the current and former chief conductors Dudamel, Mehta and Salonen sharing the podium. The repertoire is a true reflection of the DNA that makes the LA Phil the LA Phil and "the defining factor of this orchestra is it's ability to blend genres and styles to create totally new takes on classical works." (The Guardian) The New York Times recently called the LA Phil "America's most important orchestra. Period". Look no further than this concert�s program: Ravel's La Valse - Zubin Mehta; Lutoslawski's Symphony No. 4 - Esa-Pekka Salonen; Strawinsky's Firebird Suite - Gustavo Dudamel and the World Premiere of Daniel Bjarnason's New Work for Three Conductors! This release also includes the bonus film LA Phil - The Tradition of the New. The documentary portrays the LA Phil and it's continual creative reinvention on the occasion of this jubilee. Including a historical part to trace the steps that played a part in where the orchestra stands today and interviews with the current and former chief conductors Dudamel, Mehta, Salonen, Frank Gehry, John Adams and music critics, and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic staff. 1. Die Meistersinger von N�rnberg: Prelude (NTSC) 2. La Valse (NTSC) 3. Symphony No. 4 (NTSC) 4. The Firebird Suite (1919 version) (NTSC) 5. From Space I Saw Earth (NTSC) Disc: 2 1. The Los Angeles Philharmonic - The Tradition of the New (NTSC)

After her acclaimed complete recording of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, Mari Kodama returns with a programme consisting of Beethoven string quartets transcribed for piano by Saint-Saens, Mussorgsky and Balakirev, as well as Beethoven’s variations on the finale of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. Most pieces are recorded for the first time. Kaleidoscope is designed as a homage, considering and experiencing Beethoven through the lens of other great composers. Mari Kodama is one of the most extraordinary pianists of our age, and has an impressive PENTATONE discography, featuring Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas (2003-2014), piano concertos of Loewe and Chopin (2003), Tchaikovsky Ballet Suites for Piano Duo (2016), De Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain (2017) and Martinu’s Concert for Two Pianos (2018).

Carlos Pavan writes music that is immediately accessible; these are not at all pedantic modern works. The program includes works for flute/guitar; clarinet/guitar duo; guitar & chamber ensemble; flute/guitar, and guitar duo. Argentine born/Brooklyn (Park Slope) based concert guitarist & composer Carlos Pavan arrived to New York in 2000 to pursue musical studies with maestros Jorge Morel (classical guitar/composition) , Dave Smey (Brooklyn Conservatory) and Pablo Ziegler (Astor Piazzolla's pianist). Since then, he's performed at well-renowned venues such as Lincoln Center, New York City Center, New England Conservatory Jordan Hall (Boston), Brooklyn Borough Hall, Merkin Hall at Kaufman Center, Philadelphia Museum, Connecticut Festival Guitars of the world, Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, Hudson River Museum, New England Guitar Society, Public Libraries all around USA and internationally in France, Ireland, Portugal and Japan. His second release "Suite del Interior" (original compositions for guitar and string quartet) is a blend of argentine tango/folk dances, jazz harmonies and classical forms recorded with special guest PUBLIQuartet. When not performing he offers private guitar/composition lessons and is also an instructor at Noel Pointer Foundation. At the present he is the composer/guitarist/artistic director of the Park Slope Chamber Players. This is his third album of original works.

“Schmückstücke” represents a colorful combination of multi-vocal polyphony, Spanish neoclassicism and Brazilian folklore. The name of the album – “Schmückstücke“, which means “Gems,“ represents the idea of reflecting the personal intentions of the owner, just like the compositions reflect the personal intentions to their creators. The first composer on this album is Heitor Villa-Lobos, a violoncellist of Brazilian origin. His Five Preludes written in 1940 draw chiefly on the folk music of Brazil. The second composer, Joaquín Rodrigo, a Spanish piano virtuoso, drew his inspiration from Falla‘s ballet “El amor brujo“. The work contains two expressive sections entitled Invocation and Dance. Last is Johann Sebastian Bach with Sonata in G minor (BWV 1001). This piece was written for solo violin, so The Fugue is a technical challenge, especially since the G minor key is not suited to the guitar. The guitarist Eileen Baum was born in Berlin. She studied in the class of Prof. Raineer Feldman for five years at the Berlin University of the Arts. In the guitar duo category she won the first prize at the “Jugend musiziert“.

Meredith Monk’s MEMORY GAME, as its title implies, is both a look back at a pivotal point in her storied career, and a richly layered portrait of how vocal music, under the guidance of an indefatigable master, can play with our expectations in poignant and compelling ways. Teaming up here with her renowned Vocal Ensemble (featuring Theo Bleckmann, Katie Geissinger and Allison Sniffin) and backed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Monk explores all-new arrangements of never-before-recorded selections from her award-winning sci-fi opera The Games, as well as new versions of several pieces originally released on Do You Be (1987) and Impermanence (2008). What emerges from MEMORY GAME is a suite of songs that flows with a remarkable narrative cohesion, stemming in large part from the composer’s willingness to revisit the past with an insatiably curious eye.

Bach could hardly have imagined how popular his cycle of Six Suites for Cello Solo would become nearly 300 years after he finished writing them in C�then. There are more than 200 existing historical and contemporary recordings of "informed" and "modern" interpretations - that tells it all. The music makes extraordinary demands on players' technical and interpretive ability and their overall comprehension. In the suites, Bach managed to create music that is highly innovative (it is worth noting that the cello was still developing at the time), and yet he retained his stylistic purity and comprehensibility. While these are formally dance suites, the architecture of some of them is more like that of a cathedral, in part thanks to the wealth of contrapuntal writing. They are a great challenge for everyone who has mastered the cello, Sa�a Vectomov included. His first teacher was his father (he studied in Paris with Piatigorsky and Fournier and with Casals's assistant Alexanian). The playing of the young Vectomov was then strongly influenced by Rostropovich's teacher Semyon Kozolupov at the Moscow Conservatoire and by Andr� Navarra in Italy. Besides his solo career, he also excelled at playing chamber music (Czech Trio, City of Prague Quartet) and was an equally wonderful teacher. For the recording of the Bach suites that he made in Prague at the Rudolfinum in the summer of 1984, he prepared himself for several years. In 1980, for example, he played the whole cycle from memory at a single concert. His recording can be characterized as having unmistakable beauty of tone, perfect intonation, and brilliant technique, but above all it is the deep comprehension of the "text" and the immediacy of the musicianship that make this recording something timeless and exceptional. Bach - Cello Suites: timeless music on a timeless recording.

Pierwsze dowództwo (The First Command) would not have been possible without Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow Line. The text of the literary work was the starting point for the composer and a direct inspiration to write music. However, the composition is not maintained in the style of film or illustrative music. It is an almost fifty-minute suite divided into ten sections with a consistently built narrative, constituting an independent musical composition. The ensemble for which the suite was written was proposed by the Polish Society for Contemporary Music, which commissioned the piece in 2017 as part of the celebration of the year of Joseph Conrad. The present album contains a complete recording of the aforementioned Adam Porebski’s Suite, which is an original combination of purely classical, film, and electroacoustic music.

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.

This is an album of celebration, of encounter, which aims to give universal meaning to the island identity, which has been worked with care, delicacy, heart and rigor. A work and a trajectory of Las Palmas Symphony Orchestra, which we can all be proud of. With this album, our beloved orchestra celebrates its twentieth birthday and has chosen the path of rereading old melodies of folklore and folk song. They contain a review of genres and songs that keep all their freshness, but seasoned with curious arrangements, melodic and rhythmic turns that give a new aesthetic value to our popular musical heritage. In the Canary Islands it is not new that classical musicians are interested in folklore. We all remember the work of Power and his Canarian Songs, which are a symbol of the Canarian identity. However, he was not the only one of his time to approach the Canarian tradition in order to adapt it to the symphonic language. Less well known, but just as important is the figure of Bernardino Valle, who bequeathed us an exquisite review of Canarian airs in his work Suite Sinfónica Canaria, from 1898.

The 4-album Richard Strauss set gathers together all of their early 1960s recordings of the famous tone poems along with Salome’s Dance, the Rosenkavalier and Bürger als Edelmann suites, the Burleske with soloist Rudolf Serkin and the First Horn Concerto, featuring Philadelphia principal Mason Jones. An early review in High Fidelity best summed up their powerful appeal in Strauss’s music: “There is no doubt that, for sheer gorgeousness, the Philadelphians have no peers.” More recent assessments in the Penguin Guide reaffirm that verdict: “Virtuoso orchestral playing … and many felicities of characterization” [Also sprach Zarathustra]; “Marvelous orchestral playing and the two soloists play splendidly with plenty of character” [Don Quixote]; “An extraordinarily voluptuous Philadelphia performance … Ormandy directs with licentious abandon, and the orchestra responds with tremendous virtuosity and ardor” [Salome’s Dance]; “Ormandy’s Ein Heldenleben is an engulfing performance, and the composite richness of tone and the fervor of the playing … bring the highest possible level of orchestral tension.”

In this second volume of Andre Jolivet’s complete works for flute, Kobe International Flute Competition winner Helene Boulegue explores further examples of some of the most individual and important of all 20th-century works for the instrument. The Flute Concerto No. 1 exemplifies Jolivet’s genius for liquid melodic lines and frenetic bravura. The intricately scored Suite en concert for flute and four percussionists is one of the most fascinating in the repertoire, whilst the Sonatine is both trance-like and rhapsodic.

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

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

REVIEW:

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

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

-- Gramophone [3/1995]

Robert Orledge’s research into Debussy’s sketches and incomplete drafts has resulted in the unearthing and reconstruction of numerous lost masterpieces, the piano versions of which are given their première recordings here. Unknown versions of famous pieces such as La Fille aux cheveux de lin and an unused movement from Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien appear alongside the ecstatic Prélude de l’Histoire de Tristan. This uniquely valuable programme also includes the life-affirming suite for No-ja-li (Le Palais du Silence) with narration. NICOLAS HORVATH began his music studies at Monaco’s Académie de Musique et de Théâtre Prince Rainier III and soon began to make an impression on a number of artists who would become his mentors. Aged 16 he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster before coming to the notice of several distinguished international pianists, including Liszt specialist Leslie Howard. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including First Prize at both the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions. He has become noted for hosting concerts of unusual length, sometimes lasting over twelve hours, such as the overnight performance of the complete piano music of Erik Satie at the Paris Philharmonie before a cumulative audience of 14,000 people. In 2019 he performed alongside Philip Glass at the same venue in a programme devoted to the American composer’s piano music. Nicolas is a Steinway Artist.

The major work here is the suite The Seven Heavens, for choir and chamber ensemble; also we have seven pieces for unaccompanied choir. All are brilliantly performed by Cor Cantiamo, the accomplished and acclaimed professional ensemble which is the current Choir in Residence at Northern Illinois University, USA, under its founder and conductor Eric A Johnson. Since its inaugural concert with Morten Lauridsen in 2010, Cor Cantiamo has developed a mission to work with contemporary composers resulting in many commissions and recordings. James Whitbourn is a Grammy-nominated composer and ‘a truly original communicator in modern British choral music’ (The Observer). His works are admired for their direct communication to performers and audiences. This is the seventh album devoted entirely to his choral music. His eclectic inspirations include C.S. Lewis (The Seven Heavens), Anne Frank (the very popular Annelies), notable individuals, NASA space missions and liturgical texts. In all, his music is altogether delightful.

“From one piece to another, the language surprises with its variety, even if it remains suggestive, accessible, consonant, generous. James Whitbourn knows how to communicate. Remarkably interpreted… speaks to the heart and will conquer you.”
– Christophe Steyne (Crescendo)

“Imaginative…attractive… deeply moving. The performances could hardly be improved upon. Diction is clear, the choral sound is very well blended, and the music-making is both musically and dramatically satisfying. In sum, this release is one of the most enjoyable collections of new choral music that I have encountered in quite some time.”
- Henry Fogel (Fanfare)

Played by specialized Early Music Groups, including L’Arte Dell’arco, Musica Amphion, Violini Capricciosi, Musica ad Rhenum, and many others.

The 17th and 18th centuries marked the era of Enlightenment, overseas exploration, unprecedented European economic expansion and a flourishing of art and culture, not to mention the birth of the greatest composers in history. From concertos to fantasias, suites to sonatas, Brilliant Classics presents a comprehensive and concise overview of this innovative and groundbreaking period in musical history, the Baroque era. The set opens with Venetian composer Tomaso Albinoni and his famous Concerti a5, in which he was the first Italian composer to use the oboe as the solo instrument in a concerto. He influenced J.S. Bach, who is fittingly the next composer to feature. Bach pioneered the Concerto Grosso form, with several soloists plus accompaniment, as opposed to just one. There is no better example of this than the famous Brandenburg Concertos, where solos are shared between a group of instruments and the various timbres of the different instruments make for varied and interesting pieces. In the first concerto, Bach employs horns, then mainly used as open-air hunting instruments, a twist on the refined concert piece performed in an elegant chamber setting. Bach also admired the work of Alessandro Marcello. Although Marcello’s work is lesser known, his music is notable for its forward-looking nature. Far from copying the styles and structures of his contemporaries, Marcello’s music is unique in its emotional impact; it’s dark and tempestuous, inflicted with a romantic streak. Passing via selected works by Purcell, Corelli and Telemann, Alessandro Stradella’s string sinfonias are found towards the end of the set. Stradella lived only to the age of 38 and yet he wrote over 300 works. He also found time to conduct a string of love affairs leading to his untimely demise at the hands of an assassin hired by a rival.