With Serenade, Thomas Hampson's first album exclusively dedicated to French song, Mr. Hampson brings his passion for works by French opera composers to the PENTATONE label. Curated with the French Literature scholar Sylvain Fort and in a first collaboration with the Polish pianist Maciej Pikulski, the track listing includes romantic and introspective as well as humorous selections by Bizet, Chabrier, Chausson, Gounod, Magnard, Massenet, and Saint-Saëns, featuring texts written by some of France's most revered writers including Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, Rosemonde Gerard, and others.

REVIEW:

There are many byways through the well-stocked garden of French song for those who want to explore further afield. Thomas Hampson has put together an imaginative programme that places just a handful of well-known songs along its path, including Chabrier’s jolly parade of ducklings in “Villanelle des petits canards” and Chausson’s hothouse “Le temps des lilas."

-- Financial Times (U.K.)

The internationally renowned pianist Yulianna Avdeeva presents Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, one of the most important works in the piano repertoire. This monumental cycle harks back to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and is considered one of the most demanding works for piano ever written. Avdeeva joins an elite group of pianists who have undertaken the challenge of performing the complete opus, which is rarely heard in it's entirety. To complement this iconic work, Avdeeva also presents the completion of an alternative Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, discovered by leading Shostakovich expert Olga Digonskaya and completed by composer and Shostakovich biographer Krzysztof Meyer. Shostakovich sketched an initial prelude in C-Sharp Minor in 1950, but then decided to compose a new prelude-fugue pair in this key, which eventually found it's way into Opus 87. The sketch of the original prelude was found in the Shostakovich archive in Moscow in 2005; Krzysztof Meyer completed the fragment in 2019 and added his own fugue "in the style of Shostakovich". This discovery adds a new and exciting dimension to the cycle and will be an important part of the story behind the album.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

The spirit of Gustav Mahler looms over the pages of Shostakovich’s turbulent, sprawling and enigmatic Symphony No. 4, a work so uncompromising that for many years he suppressed its performance, fearing public censure. Mixing bombast with banality, savagery with sarcasm, this baffling yet profound work is also one of his most startlingly original. It’s paired with his ever popular Symphony No. 10, a brooding and lyrical masterpiece which is said to contain a musical portrait of Joseph Stalin in the impetuous second movement and in whose third and fourth movements Shostakovich artfully weaves a musical motif based on his own name which emerges resplendent in the spirited finale. This triumphant release is the latest in a series of recordings for Pentatone by the Russian National Orchestra. Their Shostakovich cycle was widely acclaimed as “the most exciting cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies to be put down…and easily the best recorded.” (SACD.net). The Symphony No. 7, conducted by Paavo Järvi, won the Diapason d’Or de l’annee 2015 and was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award for Best Suurpund Sound recording.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Mikhail Pletnev remains a cypher. Remember how rapturously his first major recording as a conductor, Tchaikovsky's Sixth on Virgin, was greeted? Then he went on to do all the symphonies for DG, and the result was the dullest cycle in history. His Beethoven, on the other hand, was simply perverse: not interestingly perverse, but stupidly perverse. Of course this didn't stop equally stupidly perverse critics from praising it, but that's another story altogether.

Now he turns in a very fine Shostakovich 15th. It has something of the balletic grace that made his initial Pathétique so attractive. The lyrical passages in the second movement and the main theme of the finale have a poised beauty that really is quite striking. Similarly, his light textures in the first movement's "toy" music, as well as the scherzo, tickle the ear and keep the music buoyant.

There is a price, of course, in terms of sharpness of focus and power at the climaxes, not to mention emotional intensity. The xylophone and whip don't cut as they might, and the Wagner quotations in the finale lack a certain atmosphere, but the otherworldly textural clarity that Pletnev achieves in the movement's central passacaglia remains very special. In fact, his relative coolness suits this "spacey" music particularly well.

The coupled Hamlet excerpts do not come from the more familiar film score, but comprise a suite taken from the much earlier incidental music. It's typical youthful Shostakovich: pithy, bright, angular, and lots of fun. It requires little beyond sprightly tempos and a literal reading of the notes to make a fine impression, and that's just what the music receives here. PentaTone's sonics are, like the performance, clear, well-balanced, and a touch lacking in body, whether in stereo or multichannel surround formats. A very recommendable disc.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Gustavo Gimeno conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg in a fascinating survey of confident, assured and striking orchestral works by the young Shostakovich. This new recording from Pentatone includes his breathtaking Symphony No. 1 Op. 10 - the student work which brought Shostakovich international fame. While indebted to the Russian masters, Shostakovich's early works nevertheless demonstrate his precocious brilliance, originality and falir and they offer an intriguing glimpse at the evolution of his distinctive, mature style. From the easy going and good humored Scherzo Op. 1, the Tchaikovskian Theme and Variations in B-flat major Op. 3, or the Stravinskyan Scherzo Op. 7, his youthful vitality is never in doubt. But with his Symphony No 1 Op. 10 he produced his first masterpiece and found his own distinctive voice. It's a thrilling work full of sardonic edginess, pained introspection and dramatic outbursts, and closes with a barnstorming finale. Composed 10 years later, the aptly titled Five Fragments for orchestra Op. 42 are short, pungent and austere pieces; the arresting style is modernist but the sound is unmistakeably Shostakovich. Following his acclaimed conducting debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2014, Gustavo Gimeno took up the post of Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg with the 2015-2016 season. An auspicious collaboration with Pentatone followed in 2016 and three releases with the orchestra are planned in 2017. "His musical rhetorics are refined, his grip on the structure of the compositions is accurate and convincint" observed Joep Stapel in the NRC Handelsblad, "Gimeno knew how to keep the tension and made the musicians...excel." Elsewhere in a busy international schedule, Gimeno has debuted with major orchestras in Europe and America, and toured with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to Taiwan and Japan.

The Russian National Orchestra continues its Shostakovich cycle with Symphony No. 13, “Babi Yar”, together with bass Oleg Tsibulko, the Popov Academy of Choral Arts Choir, the Kozhevnikov choir and maestro Kirill Karabits. Inspired by Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem “Babi Yar” about a Nazi massacre of Jews just outside Kiev in 1941, Shostakovich based the Symphony on five of the author’s poems. The texts reflect on the peculiarities of daily existence in Stalinist Russia, providing a deep insight into life under Soviet reign. After the sombre, impressive opening movement, Shostakovich alternates between a satirical stance, humour, and portraying the hardships of the Stalinist reality, leading up to the innocent beauty of the symphony’s finale. One special aspect of this recording is the Russian National Orchestra’s collaboration with an Ukrainian bass soloist and conductor, underlining the shared cultural and political heritage of both countries. The Russian National Orchestra is among the most important orchestras in the world and has a vast, multi-award-winning PENTATONE discography. Kirill Karabits features on Tchaikovsky Treasures (2019) with Guy Braunstein and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Oleg Tsibulko, the Popov Academy of Choral Arts Choir and the Kozhevnikov choir all make their PENTATONE debut.

It is hard to escape the incredible pull of Symphony No. 7, knowing the background to its composition and its general significance. Shostakovich began to work on the actual composition in July 1941 in Leningrad, where he wrote the first three movements under constant attack from the enemy; and after his evacuation from the city besieged by German troops, he completed the Finale and the instrumentation in Kuibyschev in December 1941.

Reviews:

Paavo Järvi's Leningrad is the opposite of his father's 1988 epic with the Scottish National Orchestra - light, laconic and sonically lean where Neeme's recording was spectacularly big in every way.

– BBC Music Magazine

Järvi and his engineers offer ruthless clarity and precision, exposing a rogue E flat clarinet with a flash of the theme at one point (never heard that before) and lacerating flutter-tongued trumpets as the shock and awe peaks…there is no denying the excellence of the playing.

– Gramophone

Three years after its initial release, Holland Baroque’s Pentatone debut Silk Baroque is presented in an attractively priced Stereo re-issue.

Silk Baroque presents a musical encounter between Wu Wei and Holland Baroque, performing a program that ranges from Baroque greats such as Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Rameau, to Chinese traditional tunes, all tied together by the musicians’ openness to improvisation, experimentation and cultural exchange.

Wu Wei plays the sheng, an extraordinary ancient Chinese mouth organ, which looks like a bundle of bamboo reeds cased in a metal bowl. It is a miracle of harmony, melody and rhythmic possibilities, and Wu Wei’s abilities fully bring out the sheng’s beauty: whispering, charming, and compelling. Age-old traditions come together in performances that sound fresh and contemporary. Silk Baroque carries listeners into a lively, enticing and fascinating sound world. Holland Baroque is an original and innovative baroque orchestra that approaches baroque repertoire through a fresh and contemporary approach, with a focus on improvisation and collaborations with outstanding artists from different traditions.

On their first PENTATONE release, they work together with Wu Wei, who dazzles audiences worldwide with his virtuosic sheng playing.

Silk Baroque presents a musical encounter between Wu Wei and Holland Baroque, performing a programme that ranges from Baroque greats such as Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Rameau to Chinese traditional tunes, all tied together by the musicians’ openness to improvisation, experimentation and cultural exchange. Wu Wei plays the sheng, an extraordinary ancient Chinese mouth organ, which looks like a bundle of bamboo reeds cased in a metal bowl. It is a miracle of harmony, melody and rhythmic possibilities, and Wu Wei’s abilities fully bring out the sheng’s beauty: whispering, charming, and compelling.

Age-old traditions come together in performances that sound fresh and contemporary. Silk Baroque carries listeners into a lively, enticing and fascinating sound world. Holland Baroque is an original and innovative baroque orchestra that approaches baroque repertoire through a fresh and contemporary approach, with a focus on improvisation and collaborations with outstanding artists from different traditions. On their first PENTATONE release, they work together with Wu Wei, who dazzles audiences worldwide with his virtuosic sheng playing.

Finnish cellist Max Lilja, one of the founders of Apocalyptica, takes us on an immersive journey across Johann Sebastian Bach’s life. Through merging the iconic Cello Suites with an ambient composition, Lilja enlightens the space around the solitary voice.

To emphasize the continuous transcendence of a life, Lilja builds a solid sense of identity for each suite. The cello is embraced by the sonic world like an individual by the universe. Lilja’s playing has influences from the span of 300 years of existence of the suites, evolving from the simplicity of the 1st suite to almost Romantic in the 6th. His interpretation is inspired by Bach’s rhythmical ideas that expand suite by suite and, as life throughout the years, become more complex and multilayered.

After years of pioneering cello artistry in rock and electronic music, as well as composing for various projects, Lilja returns to his classical roots. With "Six Shades of Bach," he presents a first-of-a-kind crossover work, contributing to dialogues about the cello suites and the survival of classical music.

Max Lilja makes his Pentatone debut.

Slavonic Reflections, recorded by Nelly Akopian-Tamarina in recital at Wigmore Hall, is a highly personal collection of piano music containing Mazurka’s by Chopin, Janácek’s cycle In the Mist, as well as encores by Medtner and Liadov. The programme breathes a melancholic air of sadness, while simultaneously showing an equally Slavonic inclination to dance, as well as a fascination for nature. Nelly Akopian-Tamarina belongs to a distinguished tradition of playing stretching back to the great Russian school of Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Medtner. Slavonic Reflections is her second PENTATONE release, after a 2017 Brahms album that The Guardian praised as “enchanting, intimate and irresistible”, while BBC Music Magazine described it as “revelatory Brahms from another age”.

On his second Pentatone album Sogno, tenor Javier Camarena pays tribute to Francesco Paolo Tosti, together with pianist Ángel Rodríguez. Camarena and Rodríguez have curated a collection of Tosti’s songs that not only include some of his greatest hits but also highlight lesser-known works, including songs in French and English.

The songs selected for this album give us an overview of the different facets of Tosti’s style. Some are deeply sentimental, exemplified by 'Vorrei morire!' — one of the composer’s most famous pieces — while others, such as ‘Marechiare’, draw inspiration from folk traditions. Although Tosti is not often remembered in the history of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century music, Javier Camarena is inviting us to rediscover the enchanting world of his songs. Javier Camarena stands as one of the preeminent tenors of our time, and Sogno marks his second album following the successful Signor Gaetano (2022). Pianist Ángel Rodríguez makes his Pentatone debut.

Soirée captures the atmosphere of informal, domestic music-making. Czech star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená offers an intimate and highly personal collection of international songs together with an outstanding group of musical friends, including Sir Simon Rattle, who makes his recording debut as a pianist. The German lied is represented by Brahms (Two Songs, Op. 91 and Five Ophelia Songs, WoO 22) and Strauss ("Morgen!"), the French chanson by Chausson (Chanson perpétuelle) and Ravel (Chansons madécasses), and 20th-century avant-gardism with Stravinsky’s Three Songs from William Shakespeare. In between these explorations, Kožená revisits her musical roots with a selection of Dvořák songs, arranged by Duncan Ward, as well as Janáček’s Nursery Rhymes.

Soirée is the second release of Magdalena Kožená’s exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after having presented the baroque cantatas recital album Il giardino dei sospiri in 2019.

REVIEW:

Kožená is very much at home in this repertoire. Her beautifully produced, glowing tone absorbingly catches the predominantly fleeting moods of these parlour songs. She is accompanied by a mix of seven instrumentalists, whose playing is first-rate; that includes Rattle in his recording debut as a pianist. Soirée was not recorded in the Rattle household but under studio conditions, using the renowned acoustics of Meistersaal, Berlin. The sound engineers for Pentatone provide remarkable clarity and satisfying balance on this hybrid SACD (I reviewed it on my standard player). In the booklet, Kožená gives a short foreword. The essay by James Parsons is helpful and easy to read. I am grateful for the full sung texts with English translations in the booklet.

Magdalena Kožená is at her most engaging in this exquisitely performed chamber collection of songs.

-- MusicWeb International

Pentatone presents a new album full of world-premiere recordings of orchestral songs by Hans Sommer, sung by an excellent quartet of soloists – Mojca Erdmann, Anke Vondung, Mauro Peter and Benjamin Appl – together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the baton of Guillermo García Calvo. Sommer was a Liszt student whose operas were performed and praised by Richard Strauss, but sunk into relative oblivion due to his unusual career path and independence from major publishers. The songs were discovered recently and can finally be presented to the world.

Focusing mostly on Goethe poetry, combining high Romanticism with folk styles, Sommer’s songs are colorfully orchestrated, harmonically audacious, and often highly dramatic and evocative. This album release, commemorating Sommer’s 100-year death anniversary, sheds light on a fascinating chapter in music history, and will hopefully contribute to a renaissance of this unsung hero. The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin has a vast Pentatone discography, including Wagner’s complete operas, symphonic works by Mahler and Strauss, as well as multiple concerto recordings with renowned soloists. Mojca Erdmann, Anke Vondung, Mauro Peter, Benjamin Appl and Guillermo García Calvo all make their Pentatone debut.

This album, which Denis Kozhukhin dedicates in memory of his parents, is very special and deeply personal to him. It brings together the innocence of Tchaikovsky's Children's Album, the playful yet technically demanding Music for Children by Prokofiev, and Alexey Shor's emotionally rich Piano Sonata No. 2. Tchaikovsky's pieces evoke childhood wonder and the fragility of life, while Prokofiev's "easy" works cleverly disguise technical challenges with mischievous charm. Shor's Sonata, filled with bold contrasts and introspective melodies, takes the listener on a journey of emotional discovery and resilience. Together, these works transcend their individual stories to offer a profound exploration of human experience - from the simplicity of childhood to the complexities of adulthood - all brought to life with Kozhukhin's masterful artistry. A prize-winner in prestigious competitions, including the Leeds International Piano Competition (2006) and the Queen Elizabeth Competition (2010), Denis Kozhukhin, has established himself as one of the greatest and most acclaimed pianists, with worldwide success. He now presents another chapter to his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, enriching the already extensive discography, after albums Grieg and Tchaikovsky's piano concertos (2016) which received a Gramophone Editor's Choice, Brahms' Ballades and Fantasies (2017) which was awarded 5 stars in Diapason, piano concertos by Ravel and Gershwin, Richard Strauss' Burleske (both 2018), Grieg: Lyric Pieces & Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte (2019) which was selected as Gramophone's Recording of the Month, as well as the Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra (2020).

Violinist Cristina Prats Costa makes her solo recording debut with Spiritillo Mediterraneo, a vibrant portrait of the sound world of 17th- and early 18th-century music shaped by the cultures of the Mediterranean. Inspired by Andrea Falconieri's Il Spiritillo Brando, the album takes the spiritillo-a mischievous, animating sprite-as a metaphor for the Baroque imagination: a realm of invention, improvisation, and richly ornamented dialogue. The Mediterranean emerges here not as a boundary but as a crossroads, where Italian virtuosity, Spanish rhythmic fire, and French elegance converge. Music by Falconieri, Matteis, Sanz, Murcia, Nebra, Biber, Rebel, and Vivaldi reflects these exchanges, vividly coloured by the use of castanets, which add an unmistakable Iberian rhythmic vitality. The Spanish pieces appear in Cristina Prats Costa's own arrangements, further personalising the album's musical journey. Deeply personal in conception, Spiritillo Mediterraneo also reflects Cristina Prats Costa's own artistic journey. Rooted in her Spanish heritage and shaped by years of performing across Europe, North and South America, and Asia, the album places ornamentation at it's expressive core-not as decoration, but as storytelling. Drawing on Italian brilliance, French refinement, and the earthy pulse of Spanish dance and guitar traditions, these interpretations balance historical insight with an individual voice. The result is a recording of rhythmic energy, intimacy, and colour, guided by a spirit that is curious, agile, and alive.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

The sacred space of Winchester Cathedral has echoed to music every day for almost a thousand years, inspiring worshippers and visitors alike. Winchester Cathedral is home to a Cathedral Choir which, under the leadership of Martin Neary, was internationally regarded as one of the greatest choirs of England.

in 1973, Philips Classics brought out an album of Christmas carols in its series of quadraphonic recordings with the Winchester Cathedral Choir directed by Neary. PentaTone has digitally remastered this essential recording using DSD technology and is now releasing it in superb surround sound, as part of its RQR series.

cantoLX, B’Rock Orchestra and conductor Frank Agsteribbe present Antwerp Requiem c. 1650, an album showcasing the exceptional wealth of musical life in Antwerp in the age of Rubens. Philippus van Steelant’s recently-rediscovered Requiem settings are unique in their exuberant splendor, tied to a funerary culture that embraced the glory of life.

B’Rock Orchestra is one of today’s most forward-thinking period orchestras with a desire for encounter and exchange. The ensemble returns to Pentatone after having released Schubert’s complete symphonies with conductor René Jacobs between 2018 and 2022. cantoLX approaches vocal music with stylistic excellence and vocal purity. Their artistic leader Frank Agsteribbe was one of B’Rock’s founders, and brings the two ensembles together for this recording. cantoLX and Agsteribbe both make their Pentatone debut.

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and its Music Director Rafael Payare extend their Pentatone discography with a recording of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Gustav Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, sung by star soprano Sonya Yoncheva. The pairing of works may seem odd at first, with Strauss at his most exuberant and Mahler at his most introspective. They share, however, a deeply personal and autobiographical approach by two giants of fin-de-siècle music coming to terms with the world they lived in and their place in it. After their acclaimed recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Payare and the orchestra further explore this late-Romantic repertoire that fits them like a glove. Unique about this project is the participation of Sonya Yoncheva, an opera star presenting herself in German orchestral song for the first time on record.

This album presents extraordinary works of three twentieth-century composers with diverse cultural backgrounds, underlining the versatility and legacy of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in its centenary year. Richard Strauss’ Schlagobers (Whipped Cream, 1924) is a playful ballet set in a Viennese Konditorei, of which the orchestral suite is featured on this album. With its lively mix of Viennese waltzes and modern harmonies, light-versed tunes interspersed by sudden outbreaks of ravishing beauty, all brilliantly orchestrated, it can be considered a further exploration of the composer’s “Rosenkavalier style”. Claude Debussy is featured with Jeux, Poeme danse (1912), another piece created for a ballet performance, built around an erotic nocturnal search for a lost tennis ball that Pierre Boulez characterized as a “Prelude à-l’Apres-midi d’une Faune in sports clothes”. Debussy’s Jeux has been a major source of inspiration for post-war avantgarde composers such as Boulez and Stockhausen, and, therefore, the transition from Jeux to Gyorgi Ligeti’s Melodien, fur Orchester (1971) is not jarring. Melodien has the unmistakable mix of sensuous yet eerie soundscapes that makes most of Ligeti’s works so filmic and appealing. This album adds a significant chapter to the Pentatone discography of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, which already contains the complete Bruckner Symphonies with Marek Janowski, three dance-oriented albums with Kazuki Yamada, and concerto recordings with renowned soloists such as Arabella Steinbacher, Johannes Moser and Denis Kozhukhin. On this album, the OSR’s new chief conductor Jonathan Nott makes his Pentatone debut.

The second CD in Pentatone’s dance music series lets you savor the vibrant, famous compositions from German-speaking countries, including works by Richard Strauss, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Franz Schreker. +Connected by the power of music, inspired by the fin de siècle, this set glorifies the influential ballet/theatre/opera interwar period. +The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande is led by conductor Kazuki Yamada, the orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor since June 2010.

This album is violinist Arabella Steinbacher’s tribute to the favorite composer of her family household. The music of Richard Strauss has played a crucial role throughout her life. As great Strauss lovers, her parents named her after the main character of Strauss’ opera Arabella, and the family house was filled with Strauss melodies, often sung live by famous singers accompanied by Steinbacher’s father, who was a solo-répétiteur at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The album starts with a piece that Strauss originally conceived for violin and orchestra, the rarely-performed Violin Concerto in D minor, composed when he was still a teenager. Two other early instrumental works – the Romanze (usually performed by cello and orchestra) and Scherzino (an arrangement of an early piano piece) – are also featured on this album. The rest of the repertoire consists of famous Strauss songs (Zueignung, Wiegenlied, Traum durch die Dämmerung, Cäcilie), “sung” on Steinbacher’s violin. The apotheosis of this highly personal programme is Steinbacher’s rendition of “Aber der Richtige…”, the celestial duet from Arabella. Arabella Steinbacher, a multiple award-winner with an extensive PENTATONE discography, is accompanied by the WDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Foster.

The celebrated young Colombian maestro Andres Orozco-Estrada continues his critically acclaimed series of recordings for Pentatone with this release of the evocative tone poems Macbeth and Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss, performed here with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. These gripping works, with their intricate scoring and compelling narratives, are orchestral tours de force, demonstrating Strauss's gift for filling a huge orchestral canvas with vivd and exquisite details while maintaining a sense of drama. And they are stunningly brought to life in this recording with Pentatone's state of the art multi-channel surround sound. Strauss's brooding tone poem Macbeth is a psychological portait of the main protagonists in the play, the insecure and vacillating Macbeth and his wife, the ambitious but deranged Lady Macbeth. Strauss's often highly charged score suggests the mounting horror and dread of the ill-fated couple and their domestic unease, the work ending on a sombre ntoe following their deaths and the triumphal march of Macduff. In Strauss's striking and florid masterpiece Ein Heldenleben, there's little doubt who the real hero is but Strauss himself. While he was roundly mocked at the time for his audacity, there's also little doubt that this bold and dramatic tone poem is no mere cornucopia of orchestral effects - it's a life-affirming work which ends not in a triumphal blaze, but in a mood of quiet resignation.

Desire. Brutality. Lust. Slyness. Anxiety. What a fascinatingly menacing thematic melange is seething in this Salome. Richard Strauss, the “nervous contrapuntalist,” had immediately recognized the potential of Oscar Wilde’s play, and had proceeded to add to it a musical meta-plane, which resulted in Salome becoming the scandalous new point of departure for opera in the 20th century. In its vivid psychological depiction of a corrupt world, Salome is, at the same time, both child of and witness to the dawning of the 20th century – a reflection of a moribund late-bourgeois era, captivated by its own putrefaction. The opera hit the nerve of the times. Strauss poured the Salome catastrophe into a one-act opera lasting a mere 100 minutes. However, these are 100 highly condensed minutes, which demand the listener’s full and uninterrupted attention without any break; first torturing him emotionally and then trickling the venom of sweet, seductive music into his ears and mind; laying his nerves bare, then making him tremble in aroused expectation. The new Pentatone album featuring the young, up-and-coming conductor Andres Orozco-Estrada leading the hr Symphony Orchestra (formerly Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) is a live recording of a concert given on September 10, 2016 in Frankfurt.

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REVIEW:

Orozco-Estrada’s approach is unrushed and often expansive. Magee’s Salome spits out her words as part of a characterization of the Judean princess that’s compellingly real and convincing. An unusually persuasive aural drama and a deeply musical account of the score – a compelling listen featuring a fine cast and expertly conducted. It’s a set that can be warmly recommended.

– Gramophone

Reviews:

The moments of hustle and bustle are wonderfully easy-going, while the Berlin RSO's corporate virtuosity is often breathtaking - I can't remember when I last heard the finale's final couple of minutes, from the outrageous whooping horns to the finish line, rattled through with such apparently nonchalant ease.

– Gramophone

Those who don't know the least often heard of the symphonic poems should be amazed by Marek Janowski's sympathetic, detailed interpretation; but even Straussians don't often get to hear Die Tageszeiten. I fell in love with the work, contrary to all previously held common wisdom on its not being very good, and have played it over and over. This would be worth the cost of the disc alone, but Janowski's Domestica is also up there among the best, as you get to hear more inner detail than on any other recording.

– BBC Music Magazine

This double album offers a testimony to Stravinsky’s overwhelming musical heritage, covering all the phases of his creative life. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is twentieth-century music! More than any other composer, he continued to develop his compositional style throughout his seven-decade-spanning career, innovating and adopting all the most important musical trends of his century. Historically, the musical journey starts with one of the first recordings of the recently rediscovered Funeral Song (1909), composed as a tribute to his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov. The next phase in his development is represented with the raw but tremendously refined Rite of Spring (1913), Stravinsky’s most famous work that created a scandal at its Paris world premiere, and immediately turned him into a star. His Neoclassical style is showcased by Jeu de cartes (1937) and the Concerto in D (1947), whereas Agon (1957) presents Stravinsky’s original take on Schoenberg’s serialism. This multifarious repertoire is performed by the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and their Music Director Gustavo Gimeno, who continue their acclaimed PENTATONE series of composer portraits that already featured monographs of Shostakovich, Bruckner, Ravel and Mahler.

Stravinsky’s Perséphone (1934) is a dynamic music-theatrical narration of the myth of Persephone’s abduction to the underworld and return to earth. The transparent, sober but evocative music epitomizes Stravinsky’s sensuous take on Neoclassicism, and the piece showcases Stravinsky’s eclectic, original and highly personal approach to music and musical drama through a playful mixture of several genres – melodrama, song, chorus, dance and pantomime. Ultimately, Perséphone offers Stravinsky’s second ode to spring, albeit without the brutal excesses of Le Sacre. This album was recorded live during the Helsinki Festival 2017 with a star cast featuring English tenor Andrew Staples and French actress Pauline Cheviller. They join forces with the Finnish National Opera’s chorus, children’s chorus and orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, in a breath-taking performance that lifts out the piece’s transformative power.

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REVIEW:

Radiant beauty is not a quality that is automatically associated with Stravinsky’s music. But in Perséphone he composed one of the most radiant and lyrically beautiful scores to be found anywhere in 20th-century music. It’s one of his greatest achievements. It's a beautifully modulated performance; nothing is forced, and all the elements, sung, played, and spoken, are well and carefully integrated.

– Guardian (UK)

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