Classical Music

Joan Tower creates music which is bold, colorful and communicative, her list of commissions and awards providing ample evidence of her ability to engage performers and audiences alike. Emotional intensity characterizes Stroke, which vividly conveys a stroke victim’s dramatic turmoil while also offering a vision of hope. The Violin Concerto, selected for the final round of the Pulitzer Prize in Music, is both a virtuoso showcase and a lyrical vehicle for the soloist, its conversational cadenzas representing a poignant exchange between the living and the departed. The deceptively titled Chamber Dance alternates huge blocks of sound with intimate solos and duets in an ever-evolving riot of colors.

Review:

In the Violin Concerto the ear is caught by the constantly changing colours of the soloists interaction with different orchestral players. Violinist Cho-Liang Lin is lyrical and muscular as required, and his slender tone is well balanced with the excellent Nashville Symphony. The orchestra impresses also in two more recent pieces by Tower, and bears further witness to Tower's imaginative handling of instrumental coloring.

– BBC Music Magazine

This most important first release marks the start of a major extended project to record, close to entirety, the world's most famous, historic and valuable violins. Some of these prized instruments have not been played for centuries, being specially released for this Peter Sheppard Skaerved-created series by Divine Art Recordings and it's Athene label. This initial, double-disc album finds Mr. Skaerved playing the complete Telemann Violin and Flute Fantasies on the oldest violin of them all, the sublime Andrea Amati instrument of 1570. As well as being internationally recognized as a leading interpreter of music new and old, Peter Sheppard Sk�rved is the only violinist to have performed on the personal violins of Viotti, Paganini, Joachim, Kreisler and Ole Bull. This new series will feature the acclaimed violinist playing music on these and other rare instruments, many of which only he has been granted access to.

Although orchestral music and operettas such as Tom Jones (Naxos 8.660270-71) were Edward German's main focus as composer, he wrote a dozen or so works specifically for violin and piano, mostly during his time at the RAM, London, UK, where he was recognized as a gifted violinist, and the years immediately following. Many of these salon pieces were written for his own use, including his earliest known compositions. From the beguiling charm of the Chanson d'Amour to the haunting Souvenir, these works are exquisitely crafted miniatures, several of which have remained unheard for over a century.

Joseph Szulc (1875-1956) was primarily a composer of operetta, although his body of works includes music for chamber ensembles, piano pieces, and songs; however, almost all are totally forgotten today. Jaroslaw Pietrzak and Julita Przybylska-Nowak have worked together for several years to rediscover and perform the music of forgotten Jewish composers, giving concertos at the Mazel Tov Festival, the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (in tribute to the Jewish Symphony Orchestra in the Jewish Ghetto), the Singer's Warsaw Festival, and the Under the White Stork Synagogue in Wroclaw (to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day).

The second volume in violinist Tomas Cotik and pianist Tao Lin's Complete Works for Violin and Piano of Franz Schubert, recorded in 2013 at Gusman Concert Hall in Coral Gables, FL, features the duo exploring his set of three Sonatas, D. 384 in D, D. 385 in a, and D. 408 in g, composed in 1816 and published posthumously as his op. 137/1-3. The first volume in this series, released in 2012, earned rave reviews, including a nomination for 2012 recording of the year by Music Web International, and was broadcast across the country by American Public Media.

The opening of the second part of the complete recordings of Beethovens Violin Sonatas by Thomas Albertus Irnberger and Michael Korstick could hardly be any more energetic than with the Sonata No. 8 in G major op. 30/3. Following the initial exuberance, the performers flatter with more gentle tones, not least in the lyrically-dreamy second movement, which can even be inferred by the tempo /mood indication, which states Tempo di Menuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso. Beethovens first Sonatas for violin and piano op. 12/1-3, composed during the years 1797/1798, contain despite their early date of creation and formal stylistic accordance to Mozarts ideal unmistakable elements of his later composition style, which challenged his contemporaries' critical taste accordingly.

Du Mingxin: Violin Concerto, The Goddess of River Luo & Autu

Hans Werner Henze’s Violin Concerto No. 2 occupies a space between the theatre and concert stages. A dramatic work with a role for a speaker, it comes from the period of his interest in ‘action music’ and is scored for a large experimental chamber orchestra. Equally Janus-faced, but very different, is the Italianate Il Vitalino raddoppiato, vividly colored and overtly romantic ‘chamber music’ that looks back to the example of Tomaso Vitali. The Concerto is heard in an archive performance conducted by the composer. This volume concludes Peter Sheppard Skærved’s survey of Henze’s works for violin and orchestra (the First and Third Concertos are here.)

- Richard Strauss' Sonata for Violin and Piano in E flat major op. 18 is a work with a Janus face, illustrating the past and the present and pointing ahead to the future. - It mirrors the composer's musical roots, such as in the second movement which contains references to Beethoven's 'Pathetique' and Schubert's Der Erlk�nig, whilst the first and final movements are influenced by Schumann, on the one hand, and express Strauss' current enthusiasm for Wagner's Tristan, on the other. - By contrast, the hidden allusions to his own tone poem Don Juan show the way the composer wanted to go in the near future.

20th-century composer Ernest Bloch forged a unique path, firmly establishing his Jewish identity through his music and thereby creating many works of great spiritual expression. Born in Geneva in 1880, he studied in Belgium and Germany before moving to America. Although he returned to Europe, he eventually became a US citizen, abandoning Switzerland forever due to the encroaching threat of Nazism. It was in the States that his music was truly appreciated for the first time; in New York, he conducted renowned orchestral concerts of his own works and became known as the “Jewish Composer”, winning the Coolidge Prize for his Viola Suite. It was around this time that he began to compose for the violin.

Spanning the 1920s, most of the works on this release came to fruition soon after the composer began to compose for the violin on a solo level. Bloch was a composer who harnessed many of the musical tendencies of the time to create highly original works, never tying himself to a particular style, and the authenticity and invention for which he is remembered permeates the entire compilation – starting with Violin Sonata No.1 (1920), a work deeply rooted in tonality and requiring great technical skill. Suite No.1, written nearly 40 years later, brings the neo-Classical aspect of Bloch’s music to the fore through its use of partita form. The Jewish influence is of course also strong: the famous and exotic Baal Shem which narrates three aspects of Chassidic life is included, together with Abodah – or ‘God’s Worship’ – dedicated to the world-famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who described the composer as “one of the Seven Wonders […] cast by the gods in a superhuman mould.”

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was trained as a violinist, taking lessons from the great Eugene Ysaye in Brussels. Under the threat of the Nazi regime he took refuge to the USA, where he stayed the rest of his life. Here he became famous , one of the first “classical” composers to integrate Jewish elements in his music. His works on religious themes express the sorrows and joys of the Jewish people over the centuries.

This release presents the works for violin and piano, the substantial and romantic 1rst violin sonata, the neo-classical Suite and the famous Baal Shem (scenes from Chassidic Life) and the “Abodah” (God’s Worship), dedicated to Yehudi Menuhin.

Anna Maria Staśkiewicz graduated from Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań with honors in 2007. She has been a laureate of numerous violin competitions, and has performed in numerous Polish cities and across Europe with the leading European orchestras as well as with the Sinfonica Municipal in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Henryk Wieniawski (1835-80) was one of the great violin virtuosos of the 19th c. Today, it’s the works he wrote for the violin that are best remembered and most often heard. Ms. Staśkiewicz offers three such opuses on this Dux release.

Exclusive Chandos artist Tasmin Little and pianist Martin Roscoe immerse themselves in music of three of the best late 19th c. French composers: Gabriel Fauré, Guillaume Lekeu and Maurice Ravel. + Despite its daunting reception, Faure’s ́ Sonata in A major (1875) has often been regarded as his first masterpiece. + As the last arrival in the ‘Bande à Franck’, Lekeu’s Violin Sonata, of 1892–93 is by far the best known of his fifty or so pieces of ‘tremulous emotion’. + The opening movement of Ravel’s early, unfinished violin sonata convincingly unites several different romantic French styles.

Founded 1992, the Apollo Ensemble of Amsterdam, under its artistic leader David Rabinovich, has emerged as one of Europe’s leading authentic period instrument Baroque chamber music groups. + Built around a core of key players, the Ensemble expands as needed, even to orchestral size when necessary, and has developed an outstanding reputation for its recovery and reinterpretation of Baroque Jewish music. + This Centaur release features the Ensemble and harpsichordist Marion Boshuizen in three of Bach’s Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, including the alternate version of Sonata VI.

Classical Music