Born in 1971, Marco lo Muscio is an organist, pianist and composer who has performed on the great organs of Europe and the US. His own music been performed by the likes of Christopher Herrick, Thomas Trotter and David Briggs. This album focuses on another, more intimate side of his output. There are pieces dedicated to his mother and to the memory of his late father; tributes to both Debussy and Satie; meditations on literary themes from the work of J.R.R. Tolkien in a neo-medieval style; a pair of ricercari originally composed for organ, paying homage to Renaissance-era counterpoint; and to begin with Three American Preludes. Composed in 2001, the first two of the preludes were also Lo Muscio’s first works intended for the piano. Their bluesy harmonies and ostinato bass lines are inspired by the playing of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. The third of them (from 2009) is a homage to Jarrett, but composed in the style of prog rock – an idiom that the organist adopted with such success that he began to work with the guitarist Steve Hackett, founder member of Genesis. Since first meeting Hackett in 2008, Lo Muscio has made many transcriptions of prog rock classics (by Genesis and others) in a parallel career to his own compositions. The two careers intersect here with Horizons, written by Hackett in 1972 for the Genesis album Foxtrot, and itself derived from the Prelude to Bach’s G major Cello Suite. In 2009 Lo Muscio composed his own Meditations on Horizons, which transforms elements of Hackett’s piece with a habanera rhythm Having established a career as a pianist with a speciality in the music of Bach (as winner of the 1995 J.S.Bach International Piano Competition), Andrea Padova has attracted international praise for his performances and recordings. His performance of the Goldberg Variation has won glowing encomia: The Washington Post wrote that he ‘conveys the sense of successfully exceeding the limits of human possibility.’ This is his debut recording on Brilliant Classics.

It is striking that two of the true classics in English orchestral music were composed within the short space of some fifteen years around the turn of the previous century. Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations have charmed as well as fascinated listeners since the first performance in 1899. In 14 remarkably diverse variations Elgar demonstrates his compositional mastery while creating miniature portraits of his closest friends, as well as of his wife and himself. By turns gentle, idyllic, tempestuous and boisterous, the pieces – which often run seamlessly into each other – nevertheless make up a coherent whole, like a group portrait taken during a country weekend. As for the enigma of the title, Elgar – who loved puzzles – maintained that another melody ‘went with’ the theme, and musicologists have searched for the answer ever since, without success.

In 1916 Gustav Holst completed another set of musical character sketches – his suite The Planets, in seven movements. These have little to do with astronomy and even less with the Roman deities whose names they carry. Holst was rather inspired by astrology and the suite actually concerns human character as influenced by the planets. The concept – like that of Elgar's variations – provides for a variety of moods and expressions, and in his score Holst took full advantage of these possibilities. To achieve this he made use of a large orchestra including much percussion, two harps, celesta, organ, two sets of timpani. He also included parts for certain unusual instruments such as bass flute, bass oboe and tenor tuba, and – in the final movement – a female chorus. Performing the programme in the warm acoustics of Bergen's Grieg Hall, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton give it their all in this sonic spectacular.

REVIEW:

Established collectors will probably have multiple performances of these works in their collection. They may not have them coupled together, however, and that is a bonus, especially for those lucky youngsters coming new to these works and for whom this disc is the perfect choice. Superbly recorded and with an excellent insert note by Philip Borg-Wheeler, it carries a most convincing performance of The Planets and a revelatory one of the ‘Enigma’ Variations.

– MusicWeb International

Moss doesn’t grow under his feet, nor between his ears. Indeed, at a spry 91 years of age, Lawrence Moss is at the top of his game and enjoying an active life of family and prolific composing following 56 years of teaching at Mills, Yale, and the University of Maryland, College Park. His previous innova album, New Paths, pointed out some directions of artistic exploration; now, with New Dawn, he takes us on yet more journeys of promise and possibility. New Dawn is also the title of a tone poem for orchestra based on five Tang Dynasty poems, and if you notice a poetic theme that connects many of the tracks on this album you wouldn’t be far wrong. Dreams by Day and Night is a setting of Li Bai’s poetry, in translations by Moss himself from the original Chinese, and sung by the rising operatic star, Danielle Talamantes. She also sings 4 Haiku for our Time- short poems by Moss on subjects ranging from a kitten’s pawprints on a car windshield to larger questions about the fate of our planet in turmoil. Walt Whitman is represented in two works; Voyagers for chorus and piano, and Grand is the Seen for soprano flute and piano. The remaining works on the album may not have text but are nonetheless rich in allusion. Gamelan for flute and percussion is a colorful take on the traditional Balinese orchestra; De Profundis for piano duet references a canyon in Colorado and a Mass by Josquin; and Ligeti Light alludes to Gyorgy Ligeti’s piano etudes before flying off in its own direction. Moments for cello and piano and Five Bagetelles for solo percussion are more abstract suites where the star performers take us on virtuoso tours and the contrasting moods found along the way.

Virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie collaborates with RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran to create a satirical futuristic vision of a world resounding with the rhythm of battle, a form of incidental music suited to this Shakespearean rarity.

“Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion.” Love, rivalry and war are a-plenty in this new production. Troilus and Cressida swear they will always be true to one another. But in the seventh year of the siege of Troy their innocence is tested, and exposed to the savage corrupting influence of war, with tragic consequences. “Sweeping and confident production of Shakespeare’s rarely performed tragedy.” (The Standard)

REVIEWS:

Adjoa Andoh memorably brings out the manipulative monstrosity behind Ulysses’s beguiling rhetoric, literally loading the dice when it comes to the choice of a Greek champion to fight Hector. Oliver Ford Davies is a classic Pandarus, brimming over with senile prurience so that even a line such as “I’ll go get a fire” gains a lurking suggestiveness. The central lovers are also well played, with Amber James’s spryly intelligent Cressida provoked beyond endurance by the naive insistence of Gavin Fowler’s Troilus on her fidelity.

-- The Guardian

The Thirteenth Child is an opera in two acts, with music by Poul Ruders to a libretto by Becky & David Starobin. Commissioned by The Santa Fe Opera and the Odense Symfoniorkester, the libretto is an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm story, "The Twelve Brothers." The recording, made in Denmark and the USA, brings Ruders's gripping 80-minute score vividly to life.

The Thirteenth Child is Poul Ruders's fifth opera. The Danish composer is well known for his gripping dystopian opera, The Handmaid's Tale. The Thirteenth Child shares some of the dark world of The Handmaid's Tale, but also gives the listener a fairy tale, full of romance, magic, and transformation.

REVIEWS:

There is plenty of space for lyrical solo numbers in Ruders’ score, which veers between mid-Atlantic neoromanticism and something edgier and more expressionist in the orchestral interludes...it’s particularly Sarah Shafer in the role of Lyra who makes the most of his smoothly contoured vocal writing.

– Guardian (UK)

Fairy tales advance by surprising, generally magical events, and Ruders has invented captivating music for each. Ruders and his librettists have created an enchanting work in the genre of the fairy-tale opera, replete with spells, magic gardens, a quest to find 12 long-lost brothers, and a princess (the 13th child of the title) fated to undergo ill and happy adventures before she rescues her brothers and weds her prince.

There are two outstanding singers here in mezzo Tamara Mumford, as Gertrude, and lyric soprano Sarah Shafer as Lyra. Ruders furnishes the mother-daughter relationship with his most beautiful music, and the two singers are luminous in tone and moving emotionally. I must single out bass Matt Bochler as Hjarne, who encompasses an extraordinary vocal range extending from Fafner-like low notes to an eerie high falsetto. As the love interest, Prince Frederic, lyric tenor Alasdair Kent has a gleaming romantic tone perfectly suited to some of Ruders’s most romantic melodies."

– Fanfare Magazine - June, 2019

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD
Are we ever honest enough to be unaffected by lies? This is the question asked by Henrik Ibsen’s drama Ghosts (Gengangere). Oswald Alving returns from a bohemian existence in Paris to small-town Norway. Encountering people who do not communicate, Oswald responds by becoming ironic and distant. He gradually learns more of the secrets that weigh on his family, as well as those inside himself. His mother, Mrs Alving, welcomes her much-missed son home – and slowly understands what, or whom, he has brought home with him. «Ghosts is a psychological thriller in which the characters learn more and more about their own stories,» says director Marit Moum Aune. «It’s about how the unsaid can grow to become insuperable. Immense courage is required to make peace with one’s illusions.» Together with the young, critically acclaimed choreographer Cina Espejord, she retells Ibsen’s play as a ballet. The pair feel the story is suited to dance because both its inner and outer brutality can be pitted against the power of dance. Ibsen’s Ghosts is an evocative production in a modern dance style. Nils Petter Molvær has composed new music, which he performs on-stage together with Jan Bang.

Also available on Blu-ray

Are we ever honest enough to be unaffected by lies? This is the question asked by Henrik Ibsen’s drama Ghosts (Gengangere). Oswald Alving returns from a bohemian existence in Paris to small-town Norway. Encountering people who do not communicate, Oswald responds by becoming ironic and distant. He gradually learns more of the secrets that weigh on his family, as well as those inside himself. His mother, Mrs Alving, welcomes her much-missed son home – and slowly understands what, or whom, he has brought home with him. «Ghosts is a psychological thriller in which the characters learn more and more about their own stories,» says director Marit Moum Aune. «It’s about how the unsaid can grow to become insuperable. Immense courage is required to make peace with one’s illusions.» Together with the young, critically acclaimed choreographer Cina Espejord, she retells Ibsen’s play as a ballet. The pair feel the story is suited to dance because both its inner and outer brutality can be pitted against the power of dance. Ibsen’s Ghosts is an evocative production in a modern dance style. Nils Petter Molvær has composed new music, which he performs on-stage together with Jan Bang.

Magna Sequentia I is a unique sequencing of dance movements drawn from Bach’s keyboard works featuring pieces from the French Suites and the Partitas. Whereas Bach’s suites typically comprise six to eight movements, Sonia Rubinsky has selected 19, compiled with a tonal logic that still keeps the structure of a suite. She has chosen several examples of each of the dance forms used by Bach so one can appreciate the dazzling variety of both style and mood. Enhanced by her historically informed performance, Magna Sequentia I offers fresh insights into Bach performance on a modern grand piano. Sonia Rubinsky was awarded Best Recording of the Year in the Classical Category of the 2009 Latin Grammy Awards for the eighth volume of the complete piano works of Heitor Villa-Lobos, recorded for Naxos. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from The Juilliard School, New York.

REVIEW:

Nimble figures keep the mercurial passages both rhythmically tight and crisp, and she shapes each dance with affection, keeping two bouncy Gigues and a final Capriccio to bring a mood of exhilaration to the close of the work. The acoustic is relatively dry and in keeping with mood of the music.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin are – together with the earlier opera Bluebeard’s Castle – the only stage works by Béla Bartók. They stand apart from the more abstract and often more explicitly folk-related character of the music that we primarily associate with the composer. They are nevertheless major achievements that in different ways highlight Bartók’s imaginative use of the modern orchestra. Set in an enchanted forest, The Wooden Prince is based on a fairytale-like libretto featuring a prince and princess. The two are subjected to various trials, but at the end of the ballet they are allowed to come together and live – we assume – happily ever after. In stark contrast, The Miraculous Mandarin takes place in an urban brothel where three robbers force a girl to seduce men so that they can overpower and kill them. The subject-matter and the erotic qualities of much of the music caused a scandal at the première in 1926, and for a long time the score was primarily performed in the shorter concert version heard on the present release, the first from the team of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Susanna Mälkki, the orchestra’s chief conductor since 2016.

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REVIEWS:

Mälkki elicits brilliant, rhythmically disciplined playing from the Helsinki Philharmonic; and although her depiction of urban din in the opening minutes lacks the raucous ferocity of Dorati’s justly famous mid-1950s account (and whose doesn’t?), her careful attention to dynamic gradations lays bare a wealth of textural and colouristic detail.

– Gramophone

Naturally, a complex score such as The Wooden Prince requires an orchestra capable of extreme virtuosity, and the Helsinki Philharmonic provide this to the full under their newly appointed principal conductor. She guides them in a performance of expressive sweep and, where required, tenderness. The SACD recording, as is so often the case with BIS, is state of the art.

Stylistically, The Miraculous Mandarin occupies a much harsher, at times grating sound world, there being no hint of the former's misty impressionism. In 1927, shortly after the sole Cologne performance, Bartók published an orchestral suite comprising the first six stages of the work, and that is what we have here. The orchestra respond here with considerable virtuosity under Susanna Mälkki’s direction, and the recording copes admirably with Bartok’s glaring, lurid orchestration of the dissonant music.

– MusicWeb International

For his solo debut recording, acclaimed American cellist Matthew Zalkind has chosen three works which, he explains, “have an especially strong sense of kinship, each of which explores the vast expressive and technical possibilities of the solo cello.” Johann Sebastian Bach’s cello suites represented such a high level of achievement that until Kodaly composed his Sonata nearly 200 years later, barely a single significant work was written for solo cello. The Suite of 2012 by Michael Brown, a close friend and colleague of Zalkind’s, was influenced by both the earlier pieces and provides a perfect bridge between them. “impressive refinement… eloquent phrasing… singing tone… fine technique…” (The New York Times) “darts around the instrument fearlessly… The sharply etched passagework in the Bach was startling, surpassing that of many world-class cellists.” (Washington Post)

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REVIEW:

There’s an epic quality to Zalkind’s reading of Kodály’s sprawling Sonata, and his plaintive tone in highlying lyrical passages has an almost keening quality that carries an unexpected whiff of tragedy. The Adagio, too, is conceived on a grand scale, starting with a fearsome, slow crescendo. He seems to think of phrasing in terms of gestures that make both rhetorical and dramatic sense, and in the finale this thoughtfulness is evident in the way he picks up and carries melodic threads through the music’s intricate fabric. Michael Brown’s Bach-inspired Suite sounds a little flimsy placed between these two masterworks but works well enough as an interlude. All in all, this is a most auspicious debut.

– Gramophone

Chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 2013, Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo has a special affinity with the music of his compatriot Sibelius which this recording admirably demonstrates. Sibelius’ ever-popular ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ is coupled here with ‘Spring Song’, and the lesser-known Suite from ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’. Sibelius composed the ‘Lemminkäinen Suite’ (also called the Four Legends, or Four Legends from the Kalevala), Op. 22, in the 1890s. Originally conceived as a mythological opera, Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat), the suite is based on the character Lemminkäinen from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala. Sibelius’ music for ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ was originally composed as incidental music for a play (by Hjalmar Procopé), in 1906. First performed in the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki in November of that year, conducted by the composer. The following year, Sibelius extracted four of the eight movements to form the more widely known orchestral suite we hear in this recording.

REVIEWS:

The BBC Symphony's chief conductor brings deep insights to bear here. It is thrilling to hear the rarity Spring Song played with full acknowledgement that this is rather more than a seasonal ditty. We once again come close to the heart of Sibelius in an unlikely place.

– Gramophone

The Lemminkäinen Suite has tended to be viewed as an important staging post on Sibelius’s path to the symphony. What Sakari Oramo shows is that it’s a marvellous achievement in its own right, and as such not quite like anything else. Superbly recorded, this is a Lemminkäinen Suite to treasure.

– BBC Music Magazine

The choice of works on this amply filled album, as well as the performances are the result of Lorenda Ramou’s research into the artistic environment of Nikos Skalkottas, in Berlin (1921–33) and in Athens (1933–49). The programme is organized as a triptych, focusing on three distinctive compositional styles. First, all surviving Berlin works for piano solo are presented in chronological order, showing how the young composer was reacting to the new and exciting jazz/dance music, but also to the people around him and to events in the musical world of Berlin in the 1920s. This is followed by Suites Nos 2, 3 and 4, a group of mature works composed at the beginning of World War II (1940–41). Closing the release, finally, is the dance suite The Gnomes, probably composed in 1939 and one of a group of piano scores for ballets with Greek subjects. Lorenda Ramou has previously released ‘The Land and the Sea of Greece’ – an album of precisely such scores by Skalkottas – which earned her praise from the reviewer in Gramophone: ‘Her playing is full of verve and alive to the delicacy of Skalkottas’s writing.’

Described by Gabriel Faure as the 'Samson of Music,' Vincent d'Indy enriched French musical culture considerably as it made it's transition into the 20th century. His orchestral works in particular demonstrate great skill and creativity, with his eclectic style often drawing inspiration from other composers, especially Wagner. At other times his music integrates Gregorian chant or French folk tunes, as in two of the works that feature on this recording, Medee and Karadec, both drawn from his incidental music for plays. Based on a poem about a lonely fairy, d'Indy's superbly crafted symphonic poem Saugefleurie is permeated by Wagner's influence while remaining quintessentially French.

The 18th century experienced a mass migration of musicians from Italy – hitherto regarded as “the home of music” – seeking better fortunes in nations to the north. Giacobbe Basevi Cervetto, Giambatista Cirri and Francesco Geminiani went to London, Luigi Boccherini to Madrid. Antonio Vivaldi aimed for Dresden though never arrived, having died en route in Vienna. These Italian instrumentalists / composers and others are the focus of Out of Italy, a survey of sonatas and duos for two cellos and continuo by eminent baroque cellist Phoebe Carrai and her protégé Beiliang Zhu, many of them quite rare. “full-bodied… distinguished performances that offer a genuine point of view” (Classics Today on Phoebe Carrai’s Bach Cello Suites) “elegant and sensual, stylishly wild” (The New Yorker on Beiliang Zhu)

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REVIEW:

Most composers in the programme are anything but familiar to most music lovers. This disc should contribute to making them better known. Phoebe Carrai and Beiliang Zhu are ideal advocates of their instrument and of its music from the 18th century. They deliver technically brilliant and musically compelling performances, and receive excellent support from Charles Weaver and Avi Stein.

– MusicWeb International

The Norwegian vocal ensemble Edvard Grieg Kor is the resident a cappella ensemble at Troldhaugen, the home of Edvard Grieg. Displaying versatility across all musical genres, they perform regularly with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and also form the core of the Chorus for Bergen National Opera. They have had numerous works and arrangements written specially for them by leading composers including Jonathan Rathbone, and David Lang, both of whom are represented here on this the choir’s debut recording. Greig’s Fire Salmer, (Four Psalms) after Norwegian folk tunes (his final opus) and his shorter Ave Maris Stella (performed here in an a cappella arrangement made by the composer) are two rare examples of religion in Greig’s output. Works by fellow Norwegian composers Ole Bull and Agathe Backer Grøndahl, and a sensational and virtuosic arrangement of Greig’s Holberg Suite complete the programme.