• This album features works that all are musical descriptions of Brazil. Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Grand Triumphal Fantasy on the Brazilian National Anthem is heard here in an arrangement by Mr. Henrique, who excels in this literature.

This program presents exciting new works by three composers whose backgrounds range from military bands to rock and jazz music. Nigel Clarke’s Earthrise represents the drama of the entire NASA Apollo 8 flight. This contrasts with the Heritage Suite, a representation of the day-to-day life of the historic market town of West Malling in Kent, England. Celebrating the Battle of Britain in 1940, Their Finest Hour uses the actual alarm bell which called the RAF fighter pilots to their planes. In Kit Turnbull’s striking evocation the trombone assumes the rôle of the griot, a poet, storyteller and musician who chronicles West African tribal stories through words, mime and movement. Jesús Santandreu’s Sortes Diabolorum evokes the violence of the Inquisition and the ultimate triumph of common sense over superstition.

"A central figure in Danish musical life, Otto Malling's (1848–1915) substantial output of organ music was cast in the form of eleven suites of ‘mood pictures’ inspired by the Bible. Two of the three suites on this CD have never been recorded before.
Organist Sverker Jullander is Professor of Musical Performance at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.
The 1909 organ of the Vasa Church, Gothenburg (rebuilt, 1943, 2002) is ideally suited to north European late-Romantic music."

British Cellist Jamie Walton explores the unique atmosphere of Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh to perform Britten's Three Solo Suites for Cello. The Suites are the summation of the long-standing friendship between Britten and Rostropovich, with the passionate third in particular inspired by the Russian cellist's rich and romantic performances of Bach's unaccompanied suites.

• J.S. Bach's Six Cello Suites occupy a very special place in the history of western music. Dozens of recordings exist, many more have certainly be made and many more will surely come. • Claus Kanngiesser, who studued with Pablo Casals, has now undertaken a recording of these pieces for Edition EigenArt at TACET. • With a distinctive and personal way of playing, he questions interpretative rituals and taboos of playing technique, supplying information on these matters in the accompanying booklet.

Maurice Ravel is famed as a master of orchestral colour, in the context not only of his own work but that of others, most notably Mussorgsky's awkward but brilliant piano original of Pictures at an Exhibition, and yet he wrote almost no music for the orchestra in origin, but instead arranged pieces conceived at and for the piano; so why not follow his lead and transcribe his music for another palette of instrumental colours? This was the rationale of the young and already-acclaimed members of the Orlando Quintet, who commissioned Mark Popkin and Wayne Peterson to fit three works of diverse origin within Ravel's output to the compact ensemble of the wind quintet, and the results are, as we can hear on this new recording, consistently engaging, imparting a pungency that never breaks the line or occludes Ravel's melodic genius for a sad song, such as one finds in the second movement of the string quartet, in part at least because the wind ensemble preserves that vocal quality which can be heard even in Ravel's 'abstract' instrumental music, which yet reflects the culture and vibrant colours of his native Provence, and the melancholy temperament of a deeply reserved individual, with no less precision than the operas and ballets from his pen.

Other information:
- Recorded December 2012.
- A sheer delight: arrangements for wind ensemble of three of Ravel's masterpieces!
- Ravel himself was an avid arranger/transcriber of his own music, a master orchestrator, with an incredible ear for timbre and colour. A real treat therefore to listen to these excellent arrangements of the Sonatine (original piano solo), the string quartet and the popular suite from Ma mère l'oye (original piano 4 hands). The combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn offers a completely new spectrum of sounds and colours, without doing any injustice to the original: good music stands firm in any good arrangement!
- Superb performances by Dutch elite players, soloists and first desk players of the Amsterdam and Rotterdam orchestras.
- Booklet note introductions to the transcriptions and the music.
- Extensive and personal liner notes written by all members of the quintet.

HANDEL Water Music . Concerto grosso in A, op. 6/11, HVW 329 • Anne Röhrig, cond; Hannoversche Hofkapelle (period instruments) • MDG 90518286 (65:07)


The Water Music is one of those works that has become so iconic that it truly needs no introduction or reiteration. Composed in 1717, it is true outdoors music that was meant to accompany an outing on the Thames by George I, the erstwhile Elector of Hannover who had just become the English monarch. The mythology surrounding the tension between the King and Handel, owing to the latter’s overstaying his leave to compose opera for London, has largely been overturned. He may well have been “posted” to London to report on the lay of the land for a potential heir, meaning that the sojourn may have had a diplomatic function. Whatever the true reason, the music has been seen as iconic ever since, forming a sort of suite bookend to the Royal Fireworks Music of two decades or so later.


Almost all of the performances on disc, and they are legion, feature the music divided into three separate suites: one in F Major that features the horns; one in D with trumpets, horns, and timpani; and one in G wherein the flute plays an important solo role. How these are distributed along the disc varies of course with the ensemble, but these apparently follow a sequence in several sources. Here, however, the entire music is played (ahem!) en suite , meaning that it goes through all three in an order that apparently mirrors the original performance, lasting about an hour. This is thanks to a score apparently written about 1718 and rediscovered in 2004 by Terence Best. Since the entire work is a bit short for a disc, director Anne Röhrig has chosen to supplement the Water Music with one of the op. 6 Concerti Grossi. This work, a six-movement suite, was written towards the end of Handel’s career in 1740, itself being an arrangement of an Organ Concerto premiered the year before. This, of course, has nothing to do with the Water Music , but rather is a nice, if non sequitur, complement.


One need not ruminate over the plethora of discs with both of these pieces that are available, given that many period instrument groups seem to have a fondness for recording it (often paired with the Fireworks Music in some fashion). For example, both Trevor Pinnock and Neville Marriner recorded it back in 1990, the former on Archiv and the latter on Decca, allowing for a comparison between period instruments with The English Concert and modern instruments with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. I happen to like both of these, and find the sound and performances equally entertaining. In 2009 Andrew Manze and the first-named ensemble even produced a DVD wherein there was an attempt to recreate the boating party of 1717, which was a great deal of fun. Thus, at last count there were well over two dozen recordings over the past two decades, and therefore this is not exactly an unknown quantity. But none of these have exactly the same arrangement as found in this disc, which should be somewhat of an enticement.


As for the performance itself, I find that the Hannoversche Hofkapelle’s is the equal in every way to any of the other performances. The string playing is tight and disciplined, the tempos all flow in a nice unity, and the intonation is spot on. The horns are suitably raucous when needed, and in the Lentement (formerly of the D-Major Suite), both horns and trumpets are smooth and lyrical, a nice contrast to the fanfare-like character elsewhere. In short, this is a worthy addition to the Water Music canon, and I for one would recommend it over the others, not just because of the quality of the performance, but rather especially for the organization of the music so that one might be able to appreciate what seems to be Handel’s original concept.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

From the Church of St Mary, Marienberg

Sächsische Bläserphilharmonie
(The Saxony Philharmonic Wind Orchestra)
Thomas Clamor, Conductor
Ruth Ziesak, Soprano
Rundfunk – Jugendchor Wernigerode
Peter Habermann, Chorus Master
Ensemble Sonora

TRACK LIST
1. Wolfgang Schumann: Christmas Toccata
2. Gloria in Excelsis Deo
3. George Frideric Handel: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
4. George Frideric Handel: Let the bright Seraphim
5. George Frideric Handel: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion
6. From Heaven above to Earth I come (trad.)
7. Richard Wagner: Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral
8. Blest Mary wanders through the thorn (trad.)
9. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Excerpts from the “Nutcracker” Suite
10. Felix Mendelssohn: Christmas / In Advent
11. Lo, how a rose e’er blooming (trad.)
12. Felix Mendelssohn: For He shall give His angels charge
13. Let us listen, blessed angels (trad.)
14. Eduard Ebel: Snow falls softly at night
15. Sweeter the bells never sound (trad.)
16. Richard Eilenberg: St Petersburg Sleigh Ride
17. Roger Harvey: Festive Cheer
18. John Francis Wade: Adeste fideles
19. Engelbert Humperdinck: Evening Prayer
20. Siegfried Köhler: A thousand stars are a cathedral
21. Franz Gruber: Silent night, holy night
22. Oh, how joyfully (trad.)

Picture Format DVD: NTSC 16:9
Sound Formats DVD: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)
Running Time: 84:15 min
Number of Discs: 1
Disc Format: DVD-9

This material represents some of the earliest televised concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and three of their eminent music directors, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf and William Steinberg. This historical footage has been restored using the greatest care and state-of-the-art techniques. It is of exceptional musical interest and historical value, and has been described by critics as a "rare treat" (Gramophone) and "welcome documentations" (BBC Music Magazine).

Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: LPCM Mono (DVD 1) / LPCM Stereo (DVD 2) / Enhanced Mono (DVD 3, 4, 5) Region code: 0 (worldwide) Menu language: English Running time: 6 hours 14 mins No. of DVDs: 5

This set contains the following 5 DVDs:

CHARLES MUNCH
RAVEL Ma Mère l’Oye – Suite; DEBUSSY Ibéria, La Mer (1958 & 1961)

ERICH LEINSDORF
SCHUBERT Symphony No. 9 "Great"; SCHUMANN Symphony No. 4; WAGNER Parsifal – Good Friday Music (1962, 1963 & 1964)

BEETHOVEN Egmont Overture; TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5; MOZART Serenade No.9 "Posthorn" – Minuet I (1963 & 1969)

WILLIAM STEINBERG
HAYDN Symphony No. 55; BEETHOVEN Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 (1962, 1969 & 1970)

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 8 (2nd revised edition) (1962)

Multi-award winning guitarist Denis Azabagic invites listeners into a realm where world, folk, and classical music intersect on Out of Africa...and Around the Word, the Bosnia-born, Chicago-based virtuoso’s first solo album on Cedille Records. Thomas weaves together strands of African singing styles, scales and rhythms, while paying homage to African string instruments, such as the kora and the oud.

REVIEW:

Acclaimed guitarist Denis Azabagic’s newest CD,  Out of Africa , features attractive works by some of today’s leading guitarist/composers. Bulgarian Atanas Ourkouzounov’s contribution is a captivating series of Variations on Pozaspa li iagodo? (Are you sleeping, Strawberry?). The rhythmically driven, harmonically inventive first variation comes as a startling surprise after the gentle simplicity of the opening statement. A slow, minor-tinged variation follows, with interspersed harmonics dotting the sustained soundscape. Variation three combines flowing figures with a recap of the first variation’s hectic pace, helped along by sharp accents and forceful dynamics. Next, a partly muted, subtly dissonant episode gives way to an invigorating half-Bulgarian, half-Greek Finale.

As revealed in the booklet notes, Vojislav Ivanovic’s Café Pieces were undertaken as a lark but, be that as it may, the results far surpass their frivolous beginnings: heard as a group they comprise a beautiful suite of music in the South American style, filled with lovely melodies, exciting rhythms, and humor. At one point, Tango Café (the third of the set) seems to quote the Russian/Gypsy song Ochi chyornye (Dark Eyes), but that may be coincidental: in all other respects, it’s a pitch perfect homage to Astor Piazzolla. The mildly melancholy Nostalgia , a tremolo study, offers guitarists an appealing alternative to Tarrega’s ubiquitous Recuerdos de la Alhambra.

Azabagic plays Carlos Rafael Rivera’s Canción more than a minute faster than various YouTube performances, but with no diminution in sentiment or liquidity of phrasing. For such a short piece—1:35 as played here—that’s a significant difference, almost twice as fast as the others.
REVIEW:

In his synopsis of his  Blues and 7 Variations , Dusan Bogdanovi? explains that “The seeming incongruity of idioms and compositional styles” reflects his interest “in developing a widely based musical world.” That global perspective is immediately apparent in the 13-bar (instead of the traditional 12) Blues at the heart of the piece, cast in 9/8, a meter more common to the Balkans than the American South. Bogdanovi?’s self-described “virtuoso set of variations” calls for great speed, fluency, and panache, attributes Azabagic has in spades; I’m guessing that this stunning performance will prove a benchmark for years to come.

Alan Thomas conceived his suite Out of Africa as a series of impressions inspired by African “styles of singing … additive rhythms, irregular metric groupings, and pentatonic or pandiatonic scales.” Besides being subliminally linked in this way, the various movements together paint a musical portrait of idealized daily life. Call at Sunrise welcomes the dawn with a catchy tune “presented in canon that gradually develops into a vibrant ostinato and vocalic melody” (Thomas). A joyous Morning Dance follows, and as the sun attains its Zenith, the sound of the oud is heard in the land: Azabagic convincingly imitates the characteristic microtonal sound by playing on a detuned string. I don’t know if Thomas consulted the Arabic maqam system of modes as he composed the music, but either way it’s a compelling bit of orientalism. After a last festive Evening Dance , the tender (and tenderly played) Cradle Song brings the suite to a quiet close. All told, Azabagic’s idiomatic, technically flawless performances of this colorful repertoire should be required listening for guitar lovers everywhere.

FANFARE: Robert Schulslaper

VISÉE La Musique de la Chambre du Roy, Vol. 1 • Manuel Staropoli (rcr, Baroque fl); Massimo Marchese (thb); Christiano Contadin (vdg) • BRILLIANT 94154 (55:22)


VISÉE La Musique de la Chambre du Roy, Vol. 2 • Manuel Staropoli (rcr, Baroque fl); Massimo Marchese (thb); Rosita Ippolito (vdg); Manuel Tomadin (hpd) • BRILLIANT 94437 (54:29)


After the pointed polemical exchange I recently had with two letter writers over a previous review of a disc of music by Robert de Visée (see issue 37:3 for the exchange and 37:1 for the review that prompted it), one might think I would shy away from reviewing another Visée CD anytime soon. However, these two discs arrived, and I am happy to review them. Here I will not revisit points of that controversy, except to state that on the hotly contested issues of de Visée’s conjectured birth and death dates, these two releases opt for c. 1655–1733.


Between them, these two discs present the 10 suites that comprise the composer’s third and final published compilation of his works, the Pièces de théorbe et de luth mises en partition, dessus et basse from 1716. Each suite consists of five or six movements, most commonly consisting of an allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue, and gavotte, with an initial prelude added in some instances. There are occasional substitutions: e.g., a menuet or rondeau replaces a gigue or gavotte. As the movement titles indicate, these are mostly dances of a slower, more stately character, set to music of elegant gravity and reflectiveness. The emphasis throughout is on atmosphere, not virtuoso display.


To my knowledge, these two releases constitute the first integral recording of these suites, and so they are welcome on that ground alone. That said, the music appears here in an idiosyncratic guise. As the anthology title states, these pieces were conceived by the composer for performance on the theorbo or lute; but here they are arranged for recorder and basso continuo, with (irony of ironies) the theorbo present as part of the supporting accompaniment. Of course, it was common practice for such pieces to be adapted to and played on various solo instruments; but the booklet notes rather stretch the point in ignoring the publication title and asserting instead that “in the frontispiece de Visée does not specify any particular instrument, which leaves plenty of leeway in the choice of the solo instrument.” (With more justification, they also cite an Avertissement attributed to Visée that preceded the original publication, which suggested harpsichord, viola da gamba, and violin as suitable instruments for the dessus part.)


The notes further explain that for the second CD, a harpsichord was added to the basso continuo ensemble in order to “widen the range of timbre, and thereby gratify the listener with greater variety.” For further variety, three different recorders (treble, descant, and bass) are employed, and the harpsichord gets a couple of solo turns as well. The discs also include three additional brief pieces, “Les Sylvains de Couperin,” “Entrée d’Apollon” and a Chaconne, that are performed on solo theorbo.


Whatever one makes of the issue of instrumentation, these are nonetheless stylish and winning performances in their chosen guise. While partisans of theorbo, lute, or guitar may be disappointed or chagrined, fans of the recorder and lovers of Baroque dance music in general can rejoice. The recorded sound balances all the instruments well; the booklet notes are somewhat skimpy on the composers and the works themselves, but provide extensive biographical notes on the performers along with photos. Finally, the price certainly is right; duly recommended.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

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

Also available on standard DVD

The Biblical story of Belshazzar's hubristic arrogance set against the valour of the young warrrior-leader Cyrus provided the 20-year-old Rossini with a dramatic story with West-Eastern resonances which still speak to us today. For the title role of Cyrus, Rossini wrote what would be his longest-ever contralto role, to which the great Rossini singer Ewa Podles is both naturally attracted and ideally suited. She is partnered by two young stars of Rossini singing, Jessica Pratt and Michael Spyres, and a conductor-scholar, Will Crutchfield, of immense experience and sympathy.

What the press said:
''In the title role, the booming contralto Ewa Podles gives the kind of old-style, intensely felt performance that is her trademark. As Amira, the soprano Jessica Pratt established herself in two daunting arias as a brilliant new presence on the bel canto scene.'' New York Times

Gioachino Rossini CIRO IN BABILONIA
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Ciro – Ewa Podles
Amira – Jessica Pratt
Baldassare – Michael Spyres
Zambri – Mirco Palazzi
Argene – Carmen Romeu
Arbace – Robert McPherson
Daniello – Raffaele Costantini
Ned Keene – George von Bergen


Bologna Teatro Comunale Chorus and Orchestra Will Crutchfield, conductor


Davide Livermore, stage director

Recorded live at the Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, August 2012

Bonus:
- Cast gallery

Picture format: 1080i High Definition Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 165 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

• With this release Ondine presents two dramatic works by Dmitri Shostakovich, The Execution of Stepan Razin and the Zoya Suite, coupled with his Suite on Finnish Themes.
• The Execution of Stepan Razin, premiered in Moscow in 1964, got a mixed reception. The execution scene and the final, tragic vision is simply spine-chilling: Stepan Razin’s bloody head rolls to the ground and bursts out laughing at the Tsar. Capturing rich intonations and melodies of the text, the bass soloist and the chorus engage in a multi-layered dialogue of this very theatrical work.

Classical Music

Classical Music