The sparkling overture to Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 musical Candide immediately found a prominent place in concert programs all over the world and is now one of his most frequently performed pieces. Many of Bernstein’s best loved works drew inspiration from the city of New York, and this is true both of the three sailors pursuing female conquest in the ballet ‘Fancy Free,’ and of the rip-roaring swing rhythm and big tunes from the musical ‘Wonderful Town.’ Bernstein celebrated his friends and family with his ‘Anniversaries’- piano vignettes heard here for the first time in colorfully expanded orchestrations. Marin Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene who passionately believes that “music has the power to change lives.” She became music director of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in 2012 and made history in 2013 as the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms, which she returned to conduct in 2015. As a student of Leonard Bernstein, Alsop is central to his 100th anniversary celebrations, conducting Bernstein’s ‘Mass’ at the Ravina Festival, where she serves as musical curator for 2018 and 2019.

Jacques Hotteterre’s suites form the focus of the last volume in our complete edition of his chamber music. The Italian idiom, Hotteterre’s affinity for Italy and its music, distinguish the structure of his works, and this proximity to the goût italien can also be heard in the four Suites op. 5. Hotteterre modified the French suite type consisting of many pieces in the same key and replaced it with a model practically verging on the sonata form. L’art de préluder, a course offering instruction in the so very important capabilities necessary for improvisation, is another highly interesting work by Hotteterre. Here the composer writes short preludes that could be used to introduce suite cycles in the corresponding keys and were supposed to school and inspire the musician’s own gifts of invention. In his pieces from the valuable volume entitled Airs Ornez d’Agremens Hotteterre arranges familiar melodies of French provenance for two or three flutes and writes Doubles for flute solo. These greatly embellished variations are unrivaled in their marvelous display of the ornamental improvisational style of French flute artistry.

This recording realizes Barthold Kuijken’s long-held desire to restore to Jean-Baptiste Lully, and to French Baroque orchestral works in general, the power and intensity that once held the musical world in thrall. To the grandeur, finesse and diversity of the genre he has brought original source material to inform specific bowing techniques and the use of ornamentation. The result, as with Telemann’s Suite in E minor, which stands firmly in the Lully tradition, and Rameau’s magnificent Suite from Dardanus, evokes the spectacle and splendor of Versailles. Barthold Kuijken is an eminent leader in the field of early music. A virtuoso traverse soloist, teacher and conductor, he has shaped the fields of historical flutes and historically informed performance over the last forty years. Kuijken has widely performed and recorded the repertoire for the Baroque flute and has collaborated with other early music specialists including his brothers Sigiswald and Wieland Kuijken, Frans Bruggen, Gustav Leonhardt, and Paul Dombrecht.

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REVIEW:

This album of Lully-inspired music is worth the full price of admission. The performances deliver both grandeur and finesse, and the recording does them full justice. Two fine sets of notes, from harpsichordist Thomas Gerber and Barthold Kuijken, crown the achievement.

– MusicWeb International

“ ...with each instrument, they vary the timbres and ornaments, the tempi and the rhythmical interplay, as well as the harmonies that they push to the sonorities of rock, all while staying classical." (Yves Bernard, Le Devoir) Montreal-based ethno-classical Duo Beija-Flor explores the Spanish and Portuguese influence on classical music with COSTAS, their vibrant debut for Big Round Records. Charles Hobson and Marie-Noëlle Choquette form a highly expressive, versatile duo that is a force to be reckoned with. The twenty-two tracks on COSTAS appear to be bite-sized, but not only do they span a vast repertoire, they also pack a powerful punch individually. When Astor Piazzolla's only non-tango piece (Escualo) is contrasted with traditional Spanish folk songs (Siete Canciones Españolas) and motion picture soundtracks (Summer Garden Suite), it's not far-fetched to call this selection eclectic. All the more astounding, then, is Duo Beija-Flor's ability to tie this diverse program together, making it sound as if these pieces had always gone hand in hand. Occasionally, experimental elements are allowed in and incorporated into the flow of the album, such as the temporary, modernist dissonance in Boulevard San Jorge or the jazz harmonies in Havana Street Parade. And naturally, mirroring the dualist nature of the set-up, contrasts abound, not only in instrumental timbre and dynamics, but also in the music's character: Thus, the cheerful sweetness of Pé de Moleque and Quebra Quiexo (both aptly performed according to their title referencing Brazilian candy) is abruptly cut short by two dramatic fados pondering nothing less than the value of life. COSTAS attractively meanders between the light-footed and the profound, and the album's finale, Four Sephardic Songs, forms a majestic and evocative conclusion to an hour of music that is as vivacious, colorful and multi-faceted as the performing duo itself.

Dreams Laid Down brings to life the works of several acclaimed composers, evoking a tender, reflective atmosphere. Inspired by sources from the Beatles to the poetry of Rinehart’s wife, the album creates an intimate aural experience that is as personal to the listener as it is to the artist himself. The title track, composed by Michael Karmon, is named after a book of poems by Rinehart’s wife Janice Notland. Karmon animated six of her poems with thoughtful, evocative compositions. Contrast this with composer John Oliver’s Ancient Heroes Suite. Oliver, inspired by ancient music conventions, worked with dance-oriented rhythms in experimental time signatures that recall melodies resonating through ancient halls, while filtering them through a modern context.Variaciones Sobre un Tema de Juan Lennon, written by New Brunswick composer Richard Gibson as a wedding gift for his daughter Julia, reimagines parts of a song originally written by John Lennon. Exploring shifts in key signatures, major and minor modes, and alternate harmonization, Gibson takes the pop song and breathes his unique perspective into it. The album is rounded out with works by two more well-established Canadian composers. Guitarist-composer William Beauvais contributes his improvisatory and rhythmic Beginning of the Day and Vancouver's David Gordon Duke explores the full range of guitaristic colors in his Soliloquies and Dreams. Dreams Laid Down tenderly beckons for the listener’s attention with the lilting strains of classical guitar. Showcasing Rinehart’s inspired musical gifts, the gentle performance warmly invites audiences into a serene listening experience.

Dieupart is best known today for his Six suittes de clavessin, partly because J.S. Bach copied them out, and was supposedly influenced by them in his English Suites. The suites were probably composed in 1701, whereas these less familiar sonatas are considerably later works, dating from 1717: we don’t know when Dieupart was born, but a contemporary biographer records that he died ‘far advanced in years, and in very necessitated circumstances, about the year 1740.’ Dieupart spent his entire career working in and around London as a harpsichordist and composer: He was a prominent member of the musical establishment in Drury Lane though he later became a founding and popular member of the orchestra in a rival establishment, the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket. It was probably once he had become a private music teacher in his later years that he wrote this highly attractive set of six sonatas, which are dedicated to Lady Essex Finch (d. 1721), the member of a noble English family who was likely a student of Dieupart and would have paid for the sonatas. Even if Dieupart had not advertised himself as a ‘scholar’ of Arcangelo Corelli’s, his recorder sonatas betray the influence of the great Roman violinist and composer in the types of movements, the varied support of the bass, and an elegant simplicity. The dance movements often have an English flavour that is reminiscent of Purcell, but otherwise Dieupart’s French heritage predominates in the lively formality of his melodies. This new studio album is led by the Spanish recorder player Isabel Favilla, who has played with many distinguished early-music ensembles in Europe and South America.

When Kent Nagano assumed the direction of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in autumn 2006, he had intended a new production of Richard Strauss’ Salome as one of the first premieres. He wanted to precede the challenging one-act opera after Oscar Wilde’s drama with a new music theatre work. He turned to Wolfgang Rihm. ‘I replied’, Rihm said in an interview with Die Zeit: ‘There’s only one thing: the final scene from Schlusschor by Botho Strauß. Nagano’s commission became the catalyst in transforming this desire into reality. This is the genesis of Das Gehege. A nocturnal scene for soprano and orchestra. Kent Nagano and Jean-Pascal Beintus (* 1966) met in the orchestra pit of the Opéra de Lyon in 1988. After considering the first orchestral manuscripts, the maestro, known for his openness and great erudition, encouraged the young man to expand his musical career. Several pictorial projects came to Nagano’s mind, which he entrusted to Beintus’ musical imagination: first, Wolf Tracks for recitator and orchestra (recorded with the speakers Bill Clinton and Michail Gorbachov), for which Beintus was awarded a Grammy in 2004, before in 2008 writing for the family concerts of the German Symphony Orchestra in Berlin a suite on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s omnipresent The Little Prince.

The six cello suites on this recording have their parallel in six sonatas for solo violin, also from Bach's time in Kothen, before he moved to Leipzig. On the title page of the violin sonatas the composer wrote Libro primo. The original manuscript of the cello suites has vanished, but both wife Anna Magdalena and others left copies. Did the composer perhaps call the cello suites Second Book? Traditional dance forms are the bones of the suites as they are in other suites by Bach and other Baroque composers. But this is not music for a palace ball. The dance tradition serves as the basis for an unrelenting elaboration and exploration of contours, sounds, and rhythms. Bjorg Lewis is one of Norway's most sought-after and admired cellists. She plays on a Gennaro Gagliano dated 1748.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed the ‘English’ Suites during his period in the employ of the Prince of Cothen (1717-23). As the prevailing Calvinist atmosphere at the court prevented Bach from writing religious music, he turned exclusively to instrumental music at this time. But the Prince’s chamber did not occupy all of Bach’s time. In Cothen he was officially discharged from any ad horam obligations to the church, and was thus able to devote part of his time to teaching. His two Clavier-Buchlein, written for Wilhelm Friedemann and Anna Magdalena Bach, respectively, bear witness to this activity. The English Suites are, above all, suites. Their movements include the prelude, the allemande, the courante, the sarabande, and the gigue. Bourrees, gavottes, minuets, and passepieds appear between the sarabande and the gigue. A surprising addition to Suites II and III is an ornamented version of the Sarabande, which Bach inserted just after the first, plain version.

Telemann was a musician and composer who lived and worked in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, Frankfurt/Main, and Hamburg. He is considered the most important German composer of the late baroque era, and an extraordinarily productive musician with an oeuvre of over 3,600 works which cover all genres, including opera. He was one of the few artists of his era who was well respected during his lifetime, and he was able to live comfortably from his work as a musician. He was entirely self-taught, playing a variety of instruments, including the recorder, the violin, and the harpsichord. He was also a great proponent of the recorder, which is why he is often described as the greatest recorder composer. His work for the ‘flauto dolce’ includes solo concerts, suites, sonatas, trio sonatas, as well as extended recorder parts in oratorios, passions, and cantatas. Of special significance are the “12 Fantasias for Solo Flute,” published in Hamburg in 1733, which, along with the “36 Fantasias for Harpsichord,” the “12 Fantasias for Solo Violin,” and the “12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba,” complement Telemann’s oeuvre for solo instruments without bass accompaniment. The “12 Fantasias” recorded on this album are based on a transposition for treble recorder which is stored in the library of the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels.

Hugo Reinhold, born in Vienna in 1854, studied piano in the class of Julius Epstein and composition under the direction of Anton Bruckner. While he was still just a student, he obtained the prestigious Beethoven Award for his Suite Op. 7 for piano and string orchestra. For many years, until his death in 1935, he lectured as a professor at the Vienna State Academy of Music and Fine Arts (Staatsakademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst), educating numerous pianists. His compositions, largely forgotten today, constitute over a dozen cycles of piano pieces, single pieces for string orchestra, chamber music with the participation for the violin or the cello and a few collections of solo and choral songs. Aleksandra Milcarz graduated from the Academy of Music in Wroclaw having studied piano under Professor Grzegorz Kurzynski. Since 2008 she has worked as an accompanist at the Faculty of Music Education, Choral Art and Church Music at the Karol Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw. Tomasz Bosewicz graduated from Karol Szymanowski Primary and Secondary School of Music in Wroclaw studying violin under Professor Krzysztof Bruczkowski. He is the founder and concert master of Assai Quartet, and since 2006 has worked as a musician for Witold Lutoslawski Philharmonic in Wroclaw.

Ingmar Bergman (1918- 2007) made fifty films, directed more than 150 theatre productions and wrote several books, but the recurrent thread running through his life was music. He often said that if he hadn't become a director he would have wished to become a conductor, and went so far as to claim that ‘film and music are almost the same thing. They are means of expression and communication that go beyond human wisdom and that touch a person’s emotional centre.’ Bergman’s interest in classical music became evident early on in his career. Music in Darkness (1948) is about a pianist who loses his sight in a shooting accident. To Joy (1950) features a violinist who dreams of a solo career and Summer Interlude (1951) takes place at the Royal Swedish Opera. He admired all who could perform music, reserving his greatest love for pianists, and concert pianists are portrayed in Hour of the Wolf, Face to Face and Autumn Sonata. One of Bergman’s favourite Swedish pianists was Roland Pöntinen, who here performs a number of pieces featured in Bergman’s films, by composers including Mozart, Chopin and Schumann. Pöntinen is joined by the Stenhammar Quartet in the second movement of Schumann’s piano quintet, used by Bergman to great effect in the award-winning Fanny and Alexander. Another of the director’s favourite performers, the cellist Torleif Thedéen, also contributes to the project, with the sarabandes from three of Bach’s suites for solo cello.

Two very rare operas in one act. Pigmalione was Gaetano Donizetti’s first opera, written to a libretto by Simeone Antonio Sografi in just two weeks at the age of nineteen. The “lyrical scene” Pigmalione, as Donizetti himself defined it, is the composer’s only approach to a mythological subject and tells the story of a sculptor whose statue becomes alive. The main role is sung by Antonino Siragusa, who gives a masterful interpretation, especially in the long and significant recitatives, and displays a polished and colourful voice. Excellent also is the Japanese soprano Aya Wakizono, Galatea, whose enticing voice well suits the requirements of her short part. Che originali! is a little-known farce in a single act on a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, and was, from the very beginning, one of Giovanni Simone Mayr’s most successful operas. The opera tells the story of a music fanatic, Don Febeo: in his house everybody must know and love music. Emanuele Sinisi’s beautiful sets are almost surreal but well suited to Febeo’s bizarre affair. The direction is humorous, often verging on the grotesque, in line with the style of the farce but always elegant and well-structured from a dramaturgical point of view. The protagonist, Febeo, is entrusted to Bruno de Simone, an excellent actor endowed with a clear and precise voice, and a master in the fast spelled-out passages.

Two very rare operas in one act. Pigmalione was Gaetano Donizetti’s first opera, written to a libretto by Simeone Antonio Sografi in just two weeks at the age of nineteen. The “lyrical scene” Pigmalione, as Donizetti himself defined it, is the composer’s only approach to a mythological subject and tells the story of a sculptor whose statue becomes alive. The main role is sung by Antonino Siragusa, who gives a masterful interpretation, especially in the long and significant recitatives, and displays a polished and colourful voice. Excellent also is the Japanese soprano Aya Wakizono, Galatea, whose enticing voice well suits the requirements of her short part. Che originali! is a little-known farce in a single act on a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, and was, from the very beginning, one of Giovanni Simone Mayr’s most successful operas. The opera tells the story of a music fanatic, Don Febeo: in his house everybody must know and love music. Emanuele Sinisi’s beautiful sets are almost surreal but well suited to Febeo’s bizarre affair. The direction is humorous, often verging on the grotesque, in line with the style of the farce but always elegant and well-structured from a dramaturgical point of view. The protagonist, Febeo, is entrusted to Bruno de Simone, an excellent actor endowed with a clear and precise voice, and a master in the fast spelled-out passages.

Deeply committed to a beauteous aesthetic, composer John Robertson's second album Symphony No. 1 once more delivers a neoclassical triumph with tremendous potential for repeated listening. This release flaunts an unapologetically exuberant elegance ever-present in the composer's oeuvre. The heart of the album is, of course, Robertson's Symphony No. 1, a three-movement epos that explores the vast realm of classical tonality. While the first movement starts out touching upon 20th-century harmonies reminiscent of Prokofiev, the second one already harkens back to the late Romantic school. Still, remaining very much a contemporary composition in its essence, this symphony offers plenty of innovation: not only does it push the limits of the traditional symphonic fast-slow-fast movement order, it also spearheads intensely lyrical soloistic parts such as the third movement's elaborate solo violin introduction, from which all other instruments organically spring forth. In the same vein, the Suite for Orchestra Op. 46 is easy on the ear, oscillating between the exaltation of the introductory Fanfare, the natural grace of the subsequent Waltz, the profound tristesse of the Elegy, and the uplifting, resolute splendor of the concluding March. The form of musical variations, the calling card of a composer's skill and craftsmanship throughout the ages, receives an apt treatment in the form of Robertson's Variations for small orchestra, Op. 14. In just over 18 minutes, they explore the possibilities of thematic development from every imaginable angle, ranging from the solidly-classical to the breezingly and self-confidently outlandish. John Robertson's straightforward formal choices render all of these compositions intuitively accessible, yet make no compromises in terms of technical and musical complexity, which remain sophisticated throughout. Symphony No. 1 proves that new music can be rooted in tradition, yet offer a breath of creative fresh air – effortlessly and naturally.

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REVIEW:

The Symphony opens, à la Shostakovich, with a sombre and foreboding 5-note motif that sets the tone for the whole work, as that key motto theme returns many times under different guises. The main motif returns, albeit with a distinctly different outlook, to open the second movement and fully blossoms throughout as an ardent expression of longing and aspiration. The jaunty, out of character demeanor of the final movement eventually gives way to a remarkable transition back to the main impetus of this symphony, and this is where John Robertson truly reveals his “symphonist” credentials.

This is music of our time yet steeped in tradition that should be a guiding light forward.

– Classical Music Sentinel