Greetings from Italy where music is everywhere! Celebrating 20 years of an illustrious international career with their 14th recording and first on AVIE, the multiple award-winning Quartetto di Cremona sends Italian Postcards, assembling evocations of the Mediterranean country by four non-natives. Mozart penned his first string quartet during his first Italian journey to the town of Lodi. Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade takes its inspiration from poetry and ancient Italian melodies. Extending the quartet repertoire, the Cremona commissioned British-French-Israeli composer Nimrod Borenstein, whose Cieli d’Italia was inspired by the colors of the Italian skies. The album’s idyllic conclusion is Tchaikovsky’s string sextet, “Souvenir de Florence,” in which the Cremona is joined by violist Ori Kam (Jerusalem Quartet) and cellist Eckart Runge (Artemis Quartet).



REVIEW:

The Quartetto di Cremona have an uncanny knack for sounding like more than just four players, their sound rich, vibrant, and resplendent. These are as sunny, Italianate performances as one could want.

– Classicsl Candor (John J Puccio)

Sarah Maria Sun's "Killer Instincts" is an incredibly creative and colorful collection of songs about bad people doing bad things. Perhaps no longer "hip" thing to do, it is a concept album - pleasurable journey in bad people's shoes. To assemble the collection, Sarah brought together songs from a wide range of genres - classical art song and melodrama, opera, Broadway, movie soundtracks, and classic rock and pop. How can this work? In these songs, Sarah inhabits a wide range of characters, at the same displaying her amazing abilities in disparate styles. The arrangements, by Max Renne and Sarah, are as clever as the repertoire. Bernstein's virtuoso "Glitter and Be Gay" arranged for an ensemble of banjos and guitar, and his "There's a Law About Men" sung to an electronic background of the orchestral accompaniment chopped and minced with filters. Joe Walsh's rock classic "Life's Been Good" sung accompanied by just bass guitar. Tom Waits' "Just the Right Bullets" in a wild west meets surf music arrangement. Others are sung basically straight: the Schubert melodrama "Abschied von der Erde" and the first recording of Stefan Wolpe's harrowing "Hitler." And on and on. Keep an open mind and enjoy the ride!

The third album of the Ravel Piano Duo from the Polish Kaleidoscope series is entirely devoted to piano dance music written during the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, Fryderyk Chopin is widely recognized as the most brilliant Polish composer creating this type of works. However, adoring and admiring the craft of Chopin’s art, we often forget about many outstanding artists who have undeniable merits in the promotion of both national and foreign dances. That having been said, the present album includes a number of stylistically diverse dance miniatures of respected Polish artists: Moniuszko, Noskowski, Zelenski, Moszkowski, and Friedman.

“Imitar col canto chi parla” (“imitating in song one who speaks”): that ideal, expressed by Jacopo Peri in the preface to his setting of Euridice, heralded a veritable revolution in vocal music, beginning with the experiments, towards the end of the sixteenth century, of the Florentine Camerata – a group of intellectuals and musicians led by Count Giovanni de’ Bardi, who aimed to revive the glorious art of ancient Greek tragedy. According to written accounts, the latter was sung, or spoken, in such a way that the words, while remaining intelligible at all times, were emotionally heightened. The members of the Camerata wished thus to break with the polyphonic madrigal tradition of the Renaissance and turn to accompanied monody, recitar cantando, thereby returning to the pre-eminence of the word as the means of conveying human emotions, with the music, henceforth subordinate to speech, serving to magnify and amplify it.

‘Why arrange Boccherini concertos? To bring out the colors, rhythms, dances, melodies and countermelodies. To reinvent our roles or to exchange them like a game, from one page to another. To make us feel as if we’re on a tightrope. To take advantage of the space of freedom provided by the cadenza to imagine little musical scenarios, stories within the story. Like dreams that have their own logic, their own timescale. So those dreams suddenly yet imperceptibly plunge us into repetitive music, a procession in Spain, a jazz cadenza, an opera... and then we emerge to be reunited with Boccherini, who seems to be the first to enjoy these escapades.’ – Sonia Wieder-Atherton

The Norwegian opera literature is a well concealed and all too little known gem in our national cultural heritage. There is general agreement that it begins with the Waldemar Thrane/Henrik Bjerregaard Singspiel The Mountain Story from 1824. And throughout the nineteenth century there were a number of Norwegian composers who wrote operas, most of them now long forgotten. With this release we wish to make the music accessible to listeners in the hope of generating new interest in and discussion about why this part of our cultural heritage has been left to lie untouched.

“This cycle of Jewish Songs is born of my research on traditional Hebrew music, a deeply rooted ancient music which has accompanied the Jewish people throughout centuries of wandering. I listened to the liturgical melodies from different sources and was mostly inspired by the art of singing of the Jewish cantors or Hazzans, in particular by their very expressive, but contained, interior way of singing. It is music in which the sacred and popular intermingle. Whether lighthearted or sad, slow or fast, prayer, popular song or dance, it is always shared, always intimate. It felt also as though I had always known this music, even before I was born. It was a very strange sensation." Sonia Wieder-Atherton

Opera-comique emerged in the 19th century as an intermediary between grand opera and burlesque operetta. This album charts it's progression as a distinct genre, tracing the origins from Boieldieu and Mehul early in the century via the classic vitality of masters such as Herold and Maillart into the operetta style of Offenbach and Lecocq. With innovative features, colorful orchestration, drama, wit and atmospheric writing, the operas proved very popular and these overtures encapsulate their immense vivacity and charm.

THE TWO PIANISTS featured here were contemporaries, both English. Both made a small number of recordings for Columbia between 1926 and 1930 and today are largely forgotten. Howard-Jones was of an academic nature whose interpretations were described as having ‘scholarly and fastidious profundity’. He excelled in Bach and Brahms and his ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’ recordings in particular offer playing of rare spirituality and beauty. As a friend of the composer and dedicatee of five of the piano pieces, his Delius recordings, which comprise the complete meagre published output for solo piano by the composer, have a unique authority. Edward Isaacs, who revelled in the repertoire of Chopin and Liszt, was described as ‘a kindly genial companion and a witty charming raconteur’. His recordings radiate brilliance and joie de vivre. This is the first time most of these discs have been reissued since the days of the original 78s. An added bonus is the discovery of a wonderful previously unpublished Howard-Jones recording of Beethoven’s Rondo in G major.

TENET Vocal Artists, NYC’s prëeminent early music ensemble, releases a Christmas disc of music spanning medieval to modern day repertoire. TENET’s pristine, one-on-a-part singing lends itself well to both well-known and rarely heard songs and carols featured in this recording. New compositions and fresh arrangements make "Love Enfolds Thee Round" a stand-out among holiday recordings, Each member of the ensemble is well featured, creating an intimate sound-world to celebrate the holiday season. Preëminent New York City-based early music ensemble TENET Vocal Artists has won acclaim for its innovative programming, virtuosic singing and command of repertoire that spans the Middle Ages to the present day. Highlights of recent seasons include performances of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, Christ-mas Oratorio and motets, Handel’s Messiah, a three-year cycle of Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories, music by, for, and about 17th century Italian women, and programs exploring medieval repertoire. TENET's highly praised Green Mountain Project gave performances of Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 and other Vespers for a decade, culminating in a finale performance in Venice, Italy in January 2020. TENET Vocal Artists performs at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caramoor, Columbia University, Yale University, and numerous venues in and around New York. Further afield, TENET Vocal Artists has appeared at the Festival Casals de Puerto Rico, Berkshire Bach Festival, Connecticut Early Music Festival, Costa Rica International Music Festival, Montreal Baroque Festival, and at venues throughout the United States, Latin America and Europe.

Classical Music

Fadhilee Itulya is from Kenya. He began his professional music career in 2008 when he was featured on the Nairobi Alliance Française compilation album “Spotlight on Kenyan Music”. He draws inspiration from a style of Kenyan guitar music called omutibo from the Luhya people of Western Kenya that is driving, syncopated, and gets people to dance like nothing else. His music has elements of acoustic folk, pop / dance and World music – making for a melange of good time music that is grounded in culture, community and care for the environment. Fadhilee counts Habib Koite (Mali), Ayub Ogada (Kenya) and Richard Bona (Cameroon) among his musical influences. His debut album Kwetu (meaning home in Swahili) features 14 vibrant tracks and includes Isukuti percussion and chants, showcasing the roots percussion style of Western Kenya. Besides his performing career, Fadhilee hosts a monthly concert series called 'Fadhilee's garage,’ and is the founder of Utam Festival (Kenya).

‘Cristiano Porqueddu is a master guitarist,’ says the Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, ‘and one of the foremost representatives of the new generation of soloists. He brings sound to life, and then turns it into art.’ Like many of the other composers in this remarkable collection, he has composed more than one piece for Porqueddu and now pays tribute with a piece which draws inspiration from the guitarist’s homeland of Sardinia. Diálogo del Olivo y el Nuraga (‘Dialogue of the Olive Trees and the Nuraghe’) imagines a wordless exchange between two ancient features of the Sardinian landscape, the trees which have provided food and fuel and money for its people for centuries, and the Stone-Age towers which dot the island. Each of the works here tells a vivid story: Porqueddu’s own Sonata III is subtitled ‘The Rite of Fire’ after an ancient Sardinian legend which imagines Saint Anthony and his piglet descending to Hell in order to procure some firelight. Angelo Gilardino draws on his personal memories of sights and sounds experienced when visiting the island in his Sardegna Suite (including another piece evoking the nuraghe). Francesco Morittu is a native-born Sardinian guitarist-composer, whereas Mark Delpriora is an American guitarist who heads the guitar faculty at the Manhattan School of Music; both have contributed intensely atmospheric pieces, which capture the island’s wildness as well as its sense of isolation. Born in 1988 in the Italian province of Velletria, Kevin Swierkosz-Lenart is the youngest composer featured in the collection with a suite inspired by three works of the Sardinian painter Giuseppe Biasi, who also contributes the artwork for the collection’s cover.

This album features folk songs from the Tajik and Russian ethnic minority groups living in the western and northwestern areas of Xinjiang, China. These folk songs have an earthy beauty that is theirs alone. Many of the Tajik songs featured here are accompanied by the Rewap – an ancient stringed instrument made from mulberry trunks. The sound is similar to that of an acoustic guitar, but the tone is brighter and more elastic. Many of the Russian songs feature the Bayan (a type of accordion) and the Balalaika.

Stories about Wunderlich's meteoric rise to success, his incredibly heavy workload or his seemingly effortless acquisition of new repertoire have been told again and again – sometimes painting an idealized and sometimes a distorted picture of the artist. The nine installments of the SWR retrospective that have been released by SWR CLASSIC to this day feature Fritz Wunderlich as a singer of songs, (an unequalled) Mozart tenor, a brilliant interpreter of the greatest tenor hits, a fascinating singer of operettas and as a tasteful interpreter of light music, to name but a few of the genres that made up his repertoire. Though Fritz Wunderlich remains until today a widely appreciated and admired singer, there are some facets to his artistic side that are still relatively unknown. The tenth and last installment presents Fritz Wunderlich as an interpreter of the big works of sacred music, an aspect that has to be considered as an essential part of his artistic profile.

A collection of well-known hits ("Schlager") made famous by singers like Joseph Schmidt, Richard Heuberger or Mischa Spoliansky, many of them composed for popular movies of that time. They maintained their popularity until nowadays and are performed on this album by the young rising star from Austria, the tenor Martin Miterrutzner, accompanied by the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under the baton of Christoph Poppen, who has already established his reputation with original and innovative repertoire. Mitterrutzner is an extraordinary gifted tenor with a wide repertoire from Bach to Britten, whose voice is also perfectly equiped for an exquisite rendering of the emotive hits of the 1930’s.

The name Hitchcock not only stands for the most famous of all British film directors, but for an important family of English instrument makers from England as well. Only a few of these sonorous and extravagant keyboard instruments have survived. The multi-stringed spinet No. 1379 from the Telemann Museum in Hamburg, with its black keys elaborately set in white ivory, can now be heard for the first time in a recording. The Hitchcock Trio invites you to a typical middle-class salon concert as was customary throughout Europe at the end of the 18th century. Selected London compositions by Burney, Geminiani, Abel, and Loeillet (a celebrated harpsichordist of his time), as well as works by the famous Hamburg composers Telemann and Mattheson, are featured. The trio, whose members include Anke Dennert (London spinet from 1730), Gabriele Steinfeld (South German baroque violin), and Simone Eckert (Hamburg Tielke gamba from 1685), allow the expressive sounding Hitchcock spinet to shine, both as a solo instrument and in a chamber music setting.

This carefully selected program by the multi award-winning Mare Duo presents some of the best original music written for mandolin and guitar, showing both instruments as equal chamber music partners in works both challenging and beautiful. The Duo’s surprising range and variety of timbre can be heard from Funk Pearson’s highly atmospheric Mountain Moor, and the intercultural sketches by Thomas Allen LeVines, to Guido Santórsola’s lyrical SonataNo.6.Ernst Krenek’s Suite is a late masterpiece that embraces virtuosity, intimacy and quirky wit, with a dramatic mini-opera as its finale, while Monk Feldman depicts an elusive ocean landscape in ThePaleBlueNorthernSky.

Idil Biret’s chamber music performances are relatively rare. Most importantly, she played Beethoven’s violin Sonatas Nos. 5, 7 and 9 with Yehudi Menuhin at the Istanbul Festival in July 1973. In 1975, she played all the five Beethoven cello sonatas with Maurice Gendron. With the London String Quartet, in 1980, Biret played the Schumann and Brahms Piano Quintets at the Queen Elisabeth Hall in London, later at the Istanbul Festival and then recorded the Brahms Quintet as well as the Mahler Piano Quartet with the LSQ. In 2011, she played in concerts and recorded Berlioz’s Harold in Italy in Liszt’s piano transcription and Brahms’ 2nd Viola Sonata with Rusen Gu¨nes. In 2014, she played in concerts and recorded the Schumann Piano Quintet with the Borusan Quartet of Turkey. The same year, she recorded the two cello sonatas of Brahms with Roderic von Bennigsen. Finally, in 2019, Biret played and recorded Mendelssohn’s 1st Piano Trio and the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio with Irina Nikotina and Julya Krepak. These are some of the memorable chamber music performances of her career.

The sublime Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge return with the second volume in their Advent series - celebrating the advent season from within the Christian tradition; a season celebrated since at least the sixth century. This splendid live recording, from within the Chapel of St. John’s College itself, features Christmas favorites, including Britten’s Deo Gracias from A Ceremony of Carols as well as gorgeous performances of lesser known works by modern composers including Jonathan Dove, Arvo Pärt and Paul Manz. The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge (link is external) is one of the finest collegiate choirs in the world – known and loved by millions from its broadcasts, concert tours and over 90 recordings. Founded in the 1670s, the Choir is known for its rich, warm and distinctive sound, its expressive interpretations and its ability to sing in a variety of styles. Alongside this discipline, the Choir is particularly proud of its happy, relaxed and mutually supportive atmosphere. The Choir is directed by Andrew Nethsingha following in a long line of eminent Directors of Music, recently Dr George Guest, Dr Christopher Robinson and Dr David Hill.

 

REVIEW:

 

‘Advent Live, Vol 2’ is a real album, the mystery and expectation of Advent coursing through a repertoire that never stoops below this ensemble’s judicious idea of what constitutes high-quality music, whatever the century. There is unhackneyed Telemann, Wolf, Goldschmidt, Britten and some poised works, new to me, by McCabe, Milner and Manz. Cecilia McDowall’s A Prayer to St John the Baptist brilliantly unifies otherwise autonomous organ and choir. Judith Bingham’s introduction to Hark, the glad sound! is like a modernist narthex to an ancient cathedral. The qualities of the choir hardly need repeating. It sounds like a string quartet flexing as much as an organ breathing, with no room for show or antiquated ‘look at us’ habits.

 

– Gramophone

Even a quarter of a century after the end of his active career as a singer, nothing has changed concerning Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s preeminent status in the history of performing song. It is above all the Lied performer Fischer-Dieskau who set standards that have remained valid far beyond his time. The anthologies compiled in Vol. 3 of the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Lied-Editon testify to the singer’s never-waning curiosity and to his responsibility towards the history of the present genre. In conjunction with Hartmut Höll, his favorite accompanist in later years, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau presents a highly attractive program to the songs by Maurice Ravel, which only sporadically appear in concert halls outside France. In the overall œuvre by German composer Paul Hindemith, too, the song does not play a dominant role. In this recording, a major role in the both natural and haunting interpretation of the songs is played by accompanist Aribert Reimann, who had composed the four-movement cantata Unrevealed for Fischer-Dieskau only a few years earlier. It was also in co-operation with Aribert Reimann, who headed a song class in Berlin, that the song anthologies devoted to Hermann Reutter and Wolfgang Fortner were compiled and that complete our edition.

In April 1999 the first concert by Calmus Ensemble took place near Leipzig. Four young singers made their debut as an ensemble after their time in the famous St Thomas's Choir. The beginning of an impressive career: scholarship holders of the Deutscher Musikrat, first prize in competitions in Germany, Spain, Finland, and the USA, workshops and master classes, 22 albums, over 1,200 concerts in twenty countries. Since their concert debut in 1999, the line-up and number of members of the ensemble has changed several times, but one thing has remained constant: blend, precision, lightness, and humor. These four characteristics are the hallmarks of Calmus, making the ensemble one of the most successful vocal groups in Germany. Their wide range of sound colors, joy in performing and kind of sound, but also their varied and imaginative programs delight audiences time and time again - both at home and abroad. And the range of repertoire on this journey has been almost unlimited: shaped by the tradition of St. Thomas's Choir, the singers are naturally at home in the vocal music of the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Romantic, but the music of our own time is also a major focus. Over the years Calmus has commissioned and premiered many compositions, including works by Paul Moravec, Steffen Schleiermacher, and Wolfram Buchenberg. For their 20th anniversary, a compilation with highlights from Calmus' extensive discography is being released. Not only simply a 'best of', but a virtuoso look back at two outstandingly successful decades of Calmus Ensemble!

Peter Whelan and the Irish Baroque Orchestra explore the music in Ireland from the 1750s to 1770s. Following a live performance, The Irish Times wrote that ‘Whelan and the IBO are lively guides to this repertoire’ which marks a revolutionary moment where the structures of Baroque music break down and we see the emergence of the Classical style. Many trailblazing early classical composers visited Ireland during this time including van Maldere, Pasquali and Giordani (some even incorporate Irish traditional melodies into their symphonies).

Perhaps the most famous visitor to Ireland at this time was the superstar castrato, Giusto Tenducci, who had works especially written for him by Mozart, Haydn and J. C. Bach. To tell his swashbuckling tale, IBO is joined by present-day superstar Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, performing works which would have been sung by Tenducci in Ireland. This programme also includes modern-day premieres from the collection at the National Library of Ireland including van Maldere’s Sinfonia in G, known as the ‘Dublin’ Sinfonia, Giordani’s much-admired Overture and Irish Medley to the entertainment of The Isle of Saints and The Braes of Ballenden by J. C. Bach.

REVIEWS:

Whilst in Dublin...Tenducci also arranged operas for the Smock Alley Theatre. We hear two arias from the opera. First the virtuoso ‘Amid a thousand racking woes’ which Erraught sings with warm tone and engaging bravura, well supported by the orchestra in what is quite a substantial instrumental accompaniment. The second aria is the simpler lament, ‘Water parted from the sea’ which understandably became the hit number, so much so that Dublin street boys sang a song about him which was quoted and parodied by James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake.

Johann Christian Bach was in fact another of Tenducci's friends...When Tenducci visited Edinburgh in the 1760s for the Scottish premiere of Artaxerxes, he got Bach to arrange some Scottish songs for him which were included in the production(!). Two have been lost, but we are able to hear Bach's version of The Braes of Ballenden.

In 1778, Bach was in Paris auditioning singers for the production of his opera Amadis de Gaule and Tenducci was with him. Also in Paris at the time was Mozart, to whom Tenducci taught singing. Mozart wrote to his father ‘Tenducci is here … He is Bach’s bosom friend. He also was greatly delighted to see me again … I am composing a scena for Tenducci, which is to be performed on Sunday; it is for pianoforte, oboe, horn and bassoon’ (27 August 1778). Frustratingly, the work is now lost, so the performers complete the programme with another work by Mozart written in the 1770s for another star castrato, sacred motet Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165[.]

Here Whelan and his forces have created an engaging and fascinating recital which draws a number of threads together.

-- Planet Hugill

This great-value 116-track collection covers the year of 1956, during which time Billboard published three charts devoted to Country & Western Records - Best Sellers, Most Played in Juke Boxes and Most Played by Disc Jockeys

Tommy Flanagan was always known for his tasteful, flawless and swinging piano playing. The American jazz pianist and composer grew up in Detroit and was initially influenced by artists Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and Nat King Cole. Within months of moving to New York in 1956 he was recording with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. His recordings under various leaders, including the historic Giant Steps of John Coltrane, continued well into 1962 when he became vocalist Ella Fitzgerald’s full time accompanist. He added class to every session that he was involved in and fortunately he was well documented during the latter part of his career.

Solo Piano was not initially released until decades after its 1974 recording. It is significant historically because this outing was the pianist’s first record date as a leader in 13 years and, most importantly, because it is very good music.

REVIEW:

What strikes me most on this solo album is the clarity Flanagan brings to each of the tunes. The more "cerebral" jazz artists often begin an account of a tune with a "variation" resulting from thick embellishment of the melody itself and/or the rhythm of that melody. Flanagan consistently begins by honoring his "source material," after which he unfolds no shortage of embellishments involving the tune, its rhythms, and the underlying chord progressions. This was the "bread-and-butter" approach to jazz improvisation during the second half of the twentieth century; and, as such, the album is not only an account of bravura solo piano work but also a first-rate introduction to cultivating the skills of listening to jazz.

-- The Rehearsal Studio (Steven Smoliar)