BOLLING: Suites for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio

Taro’s Wonderful World was conceived by conductor/composer Fabrice Bollon and author Julia Liebermann as an introduction to or initiation into classical music both for children and adults unfamiliar with the genre. A digital-only version with German narration is also available (9.70356); the CD version does not include any narration. World premiere recording.

The Folly - Tragedy of Erasmus of Rotterdam is the latest release on Naxos from the renowned conductor and composer Fabrice Bollon. The opera focuses on Erasmus of Rotterdam, the influential Renaissance reformer, cosmopolitan humanist and intellectual who, in old age, reflects on the events of his life. World premiere recording.

Victoria Bond is a distinguished force in contemporary music. She is known for her melodic and dramatic flair, and her orchestral works, chamber pieces and operas have been lauded by The New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding.” This collection of world premiere recordings by Grammy Award-winning ensemble Chicago Pro Musica provides an essential overview of Bond’s multi-faceted inventiveness- from a musical interpretation of tarot cards in Instruments of Revelation, to descriptive and dramatic images of the tragic city of Pompeii in Frescoes and Ash. Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming expresses in music what is left to our imagination in James Joyce’s Ulysses, and the mathematics of Binary turn the digits 0 and 1 into variations on a Brazilian samba.

For anyone new to opera, the first question is often: where to start? The 'Best Loved' series offers an easy answer to that question with a perfect introduction to the wonderful, varied world of operatic music. Highlighting some of the best-loved arias ever written, the series provides a convenient introduction to opera's extensive variety of sounds and styles. Opera can be defined as drama told through music and, at the height of it's popularity, conventions arose in which certain voice types came to share features of the characters they represented. This series presents the main vocal categories (soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone and bass) by dividing them across four albums. The 'Best Loved' Arias series aims to demonstrate why opera as an art form remains as relevant and entertaining today as it was at it's inception 400 years ago.

Boris Tchaikovsky is revered in Russian musical circles as one of the most original and innovative composers of the post-Shostakovich generation. A work of great depth and beauty, the Piano Quintet is considered his finest chamber work and a stylistic milestone which would influence aspects of the later Piano Concerto (8.557727). Based on a the score for the 1964 film While the Front is in Defence, The War Suite is an evocative portrayal of the horrors of battle, but also of heroism, friendship and lost love, at the Volkhov Front, south east of Leningrad, during the winter of 1942.

Includes work(s) by Boris Tchaikovsky. Ensembles: Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra, Saratov Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. Conductors: Eduard Serov, Kirill Ershov.

This disc offers about an hour's worth of choice bits from Borodin's Prince Igor. On one hand, we find the usual selections, including the ever-popular Polovtsian Dances, along with the Overture and Polovtsian March, familiar from various recordings (of which Tjeknavorian on RCA is among the best). But there also are a few numbers that will be unknown to listeners not experienced with the complete work, such as the blustery "I don't like boredom", sung with cocky swagger by bass Taras Shtonda.


The real catch here is the mezzo-soprano aria "Daylight is Fading", which contains one of Borodin's more bewitchingly beautiful melodies sung with heartfelt passion (and what sounds like authentic Arabian vocal styling) by Angelina Shvachka. Tenor Dmytro Popov sounds wonderfully ardent in the love song "Slowly the day was fading", while the poignant "There is neither sleep nor rest" makes fine use of Mykola Koval's rich, burnished baritone.


The Kiev Chamber Choir women make sweetly seductive captive maidens in the favorite Polovtsian Dance No. 2, just as the Polovtsian men sound suitably threatening proclaiming the glory of Khan. Theodore Kuchar leads an alternately gritty and graceful rendition with excellent playing from the Ukraine National Radio Symphony. The somewhat dry recording imparts a slightly hard-edged quality to the voices but otherwise projects substantial depth and dynamic range.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Borodin: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

If you're looking for a stellar disc containing all three Borodin symphonies in top-notch sound (the Third left incomplete, its two movements orchestrated by Glazunov), then look no further. Gerard Schwarz and his players seem to have developed a real affinity for Russian music, as their previous Rimsky-Korsakov disc suggests. The First Symphony sounds unusually cogent and masterly in their hands. Listen to the bite of the lower brass in the outer movements, and hear the plaintive songfulness of the woodwinds in the Andante. It's a true Russian sound.

The same idiomatic characteristics enhance the Second Symphony's gutsy opening string theme, while the finale simply explodes with color and energy. Borodin's Second is one of those works that everyone takes for granted, but its compact 25 minutes or so comprises one of the very best Russian symphonies of any period. It has enjoyed many fine performances, but this one is every bit as good as the best of them, and as already noted, the sonics are splendid. Don't hesitate for a minute.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

BORODIN: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 and 3

BORTNIANSKY Cherubic Hymn No. 7. Choral Concertos: Nos. 1, 6, 9, 15, 18, 21, 27, 32. How Glorious is our Lord in Zion • Marika Kuzma, cond; Ens Cherubim • NAXOS 8.573109 (63:04 Text and Translation)


We all know that Russian music began with Glinka, right? Well no, actually it didn’t, especially if one considers the rich tradition of a cappella liturgical music in the Russian Orthodox Church. From the late 17th century onward, these compositions are often credited to individual composers, such as Nikolai Diletsky (1630–1690), Vasily Titov (1650–1715), Maksim Berezovsky (1745–1777), Stepan Degtiarev (1766–1813), and Artemy Vedel (1767–1806). Dmitry Bortniansky (1751–1825) was one of the consummate practitioners of this art, but in addition to church music he wrote operas and instrumental works. All of the composers mentioned were strongly influenced by European musical styles, and none more so than Bortniansky. Of Ukrainian birth, he was recruited into the Imperial Court Chapel Choir in St. Petersburg at the age of seven. Because of his outstanding abilities, he was eventually sent to Italy to study, spent 10 years there, and had several of his operas produced in Italian theaters. Upon his return to Russia in 1779 he achieved great success as a composer and choral director and in 1796 was appointed director of the Imperial Court Chapel.


There have been a good many recordings of Bortniansky’s music, but this one is claimed to be “the first to restore authentic early 19th-century Church Slavonic pronunciation and reintroduce fine details found in archival sources.” Not having been present in Russia during the early 19th century, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the pronunciation, and I would be curious to know on what basis it was established. The notes by conductor and Bortniansky scholar Marika Kuzma shed little light on this issue, except to remark that the orthography in the printed Cyrillic texts “intentionally includes archaic letters to signal an earlier, St. Petersburg pronunciation of Church Slavonic that differs from current Russian or Ukrainian practice.” The “archaic” letters mentioned were eliminated from Russian in the post-revolutionary orthographic reform, which as far as I know did not affect pronunciation. The eliminated letters were simply considered redundant. The claim to historical authenticity is somewhat undermined by the presence in the choir of women’s voices, which traditionally were not used in Orthodox Church music. I must acknowledge, however, that many other recordings of such material also employ a mixed chorus. In any case, Kuzma’s credentials as a choral director, musicologist, and Bortniansky expert are strong, and one can have some confidence in the quality of her research on issues relating to this composer. Above all, it is the quality of the music and the performances that is important, and here Kuzma’s recording is on very firm ground.


A notable feature of these performances is their transparency, contrasting with the massive, blended choral sound favored by other recordings of similar material. This transparency is very beneficial to Bortniansky’s contrapuntal textures and antiphonal effects, and achieving it is clearly one of Kuzma’s major objectives. In the notes, she announces her intention to avoid the “rich, legato choral style of traditional Russian choirs,” which creates “a wash of sound that blurs the fine detail indicated in Bortniansky’s scores.” In Cherubic Hymn No. 7, which opens the program and is probably the composer’s best-known work, the excellent intonation of the Ensemble Cherubim is also immediately apparent. Kuzma’s delivery is a bit quicker but also more relaxed and serene than the performance by the Lege Artis Chamber Choir of St. Petersburg (Sony). Another hymn, Kol’ slaven nash Gospod v Sione (How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion), brings the disc to a tranquil conclusion. Its text, drawn from a poem by Mikhail Kheraskov (1733–1807), is in Russian rather than Church Slavonic, unlike the rest of the works on the disc.


Between the two hymns, the bulk of the disc is devoted to eight of Bortniansky’s 35 sacred concertos for single chorus (he also wrote some for double chorus). The concertos are in three or four short movements and set a variety of religious texts, drawn mostly from the Psalms. Slow movements tend to alternate with faster ones, the latter being highly contrapuntal in character. The emotions expressed in these works run the gamut from deepest despair and mourning to joyous celebration. In addition to the qualities of transparency, textural detail, and precise intonation previously mentioned, Kuzma’s performances are characterized by intensity, elasticity, and variety in tempo and dynamics. If you think an hour of unaccompanied choral music can become monotonous, think again. That is not the case here.


Although a substantial number of discs that include some music by Bortniansky are available, recordings devoted exclusively to his choral music are few, and the selection of concertos assembled by Kuzma cannot currently be replicated on CD. The main competition for this release comes from the efforts of Valery Polyansky, who recorded all 35 concertos with the Russian State Symphonic Capella for Chandos on five discs. The first volume of his series, which contains the first nine concertos and three of those included by Kuzma, is currently available only as an MP3 download. Each of the remaining Chandos discs includes no more than one or two of the works recorded by Kuzma. Polyansky also recorded some of the concertos earlier for Melodiya, first with the Moscow Conservatory Chamber Choir and later with the USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir. These earlier recordings appear to be unavailable at present. The contrast between Polyansky’s approach and that of Kuzma is consistent with her own description of the differences between the “traditional Russian choral sound” and what she seeks to achieve. It would be difficult to question Polyansky’s commitment and authority in this repertoire, or the sonorous majesty of his Chandos recordings, but where I’ve been able to make direct comparisons (in Nos. 1, 6, 9, 18, and 21), I find myself often preferring Kuzma, because of clearer textures, livelier tempos (especially in the slow movements), and more pointed rhythm. It is also noteworthy that where Polyansky relies constantly on a massed chorus, Kuzma frequently assigns lines to individual singers or a small contingent, which makes for a greater variety of texture. The differences in interpretation are perhaps most obvious in the opening movement of Concerto No. 21 (“He that dwelleth in the help of the Most High”), where Polyansky’s marmoreal pace nearly doubles Kuzma’s timing (4:31 vs. 2:22), and Kuzma’s chamber-like texture contrasts strikingly with the dark mass of Polyansky’s chorus. Here one must acknowledge the greater sense of other-worldly mystery achieved by Polyansky, as well as the more powerful presence of bass voices in his rendition. Both these varieties of interpretation have their place.


The sound of this recording is very clean, clear, and well focused, free of the wooliness that sometimes afflicts choral recordings. Polyansky’s Chandos discs, by contrast, are recorded in a much more reverberant environment. The Church Slavonic and Russian texts are offered in Cyrillic, along with English translations, but no transliteration is provided, which is great for those with knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet, but those without it are at a disadvantage.


The fine performances on this disc offer a good introduction to and sampling of Bortniansky’s choral music. I strongly recommend this excellent disc to anyone interested specifically in this composer or in Russian music before Glinka.


FANFARE: Daniel Morrison

Born in Minsk, Belarus, Alla Borzova has received numerous prestigious awards for her highly imaginative music since moving to the United States in 1993. Songs For Lada is a theatrical cantata which explores the world of childhood through rhymes, dances and stories, illustrated by effects including folk instruments and birdsong. To The New World portrays an imaginary ship bearing immigrant groups whose traditional music suggests their thoughts and feelings at the prospect of joining the great cultural “melting pot” of America.

Marco Enrico Bossi was a renowned Italian composer and organ virtuoso admired by Verdi and Puccini. The two violin sonatas heard on this programme reveal a composer whose chamber music stands equal to the most renowned works produced in the late 19th century.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has a long tradition of commissioning and performing important new music, and the four works on this album were commissioned and premiered by the orchestra and it's conductor Andris Nelsons during the first years of his tenure. Eric Nathan takes us on a journey through a series of interconnected worlds whereas George Tsontakis marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in a series of Sonnets for English horn and orchestra. Timo Andres carries on 'conversations' with composers of the past while Sean Shepherd has been inspired by five giants of artistic modernism.

This selection includes a downloadable bonus track, Vincenzo Bellini's "L'allegro marinaro," from classiconline.com.

Saint-Saëns uses a solo double-bass to comical effect in the Carnival of the Animals where it represents the elephant moving with ponderous grace to the Dance of the Sylphs by Berlioz. For Bottesini there was nothing comical about the instrument. He was after all a virtuoso of the double-bass, giving many successful concert tours all over Europe and the Americas. As if to prove just how serious the instrument can be, he wrote not only solos but many works for two double-basses. All those on this disc apart from the Gran Duetto also include the piano, but its role is essentially subordinate, even where its part may be technically demanding, as in the Concerto.

The sound of the solo double-bass, even when playing in its highest register and therefore able to match the actual notes played by a cello, is wholly different from that instrument. Indeed it is in some ways more akin to that of a viol, partly due to the lack of the fierce continuous vibrato that most professional cellists employ today. It is nonetheless a compelling sound, and after the initial surprise has worn off, it is far more than a mere comical curiosity. However on the evidence of the works included here, Bottesini was by no means an innovative composer. Not merely is the first work based on themes by Rossini but the language of the others is closely related to that of the older master. All make enormous technical demands on the two bass players. I have never attempted to play the instrument and have long admired those able to gauge accurately the long distance between notes on the strings. I can only guess as to how certain passages which seem to demand superhuman dexterity can be played on something so apparently unwieldy. The two players here display great bravura, playing fine instruments by Landolfi and Testore loaned specially for the recording.

All four of the works on the disc have three movements each, but the Gran Duetto is by some way the longest, being nearly twice as long as any of the others. Unfortunately it is also by some way the least interesting and most conventional in its themes and structure. However, it is certainly worth hearing once, even if one is unlikely to want to repeat the experience often. The other pieces are worth repeating. Overall an out of the way but rewarding disc whose strange but characterful sounds resonate in the memory.

-- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International

Renowned worldwide in his lifetime and remembered today as a double bass virtuoso, Giovanni Bottesini excelled in every branch of musicianship, but his operas and sacred works were overshadowed by those of Verdi and have fallen into neglect. Composed in response to the death of his brother Luigi, Bottesini’s large scale Requiem combines ecclesiastical counterpoint with formal innovation and the expressive lyricism and dramatic orchestration of operatic models.

REVIEWS:
Fanfare (7-8/98, pp.110-11) - "...The highlights of this set are the Allegro, which is a charming takeoff on Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, and the several very beautiful elegies....the other works are little more than encore pieces, but even they must have astounded listeners in their day...and they have a certain quaint charm now..."

Giovanni Bottesini was not only among the most famous double bass players of his time, but was also a conductor of some distinction and a composer. He conducted the first performance of Verdi's opera Aida in Cairo in 1871 and won success with some, at least, of his own ten operas. Known to some as the Paganini of the double bass, he significantly extended the technical possibilities of the instrument.

"The Duetto for two basses is probably the earliest and most etude-like work on this disc, from a set of three dedicated to Bottesini’s teacher, Luigi Rossi. The Concerto No. 2, sometimes referred to as in A minor, or in B minor, for complicated reasons arising from old-fashioned tuning conventions, is a fully mature work, from the well proportioned, somewhat laconic first movement, through the simply singing second, to the third, driven by a rhythmic figure typical of the polonaise (and the Cuban bolero).

Other selections emphasize the essential vocality of Bottesini’s inspiration, most explicitly in the Bellini Fantasia, but stylistically so in the pairings of bass, always singing, now with clarinet, now with soprano. The anonymous texts are routine bourgeois expressions of popular Romantic sentiment; but in the case of Tutto che il mondo the music is very well known - Chopin’s Etude Op. 25, No. 7. The Bach transcription is perfectly straightforward. Can there be any instrument without a transcription of this piece? The Adagio melancolico projects that characteristic elegiac mood, demanding a virtuosity of feeling at least as much as of just technique, that Bottesini perfected for many of his stand-alone solo pieces."

Jeffrey L. Stokes

Pierre Boulez's early ambitions to become a concert pianist provided the impetus to write piano music as a composition student at the Paris Conservatoire. The Theme et variations pour la main gauche and Trois Psalmodies reveal his extraordinary talent in their compelling mix of energy, drama and playfulness. Presenting these works alongside two later compositions provides a unique glimpse into the full arc of Boulez's musical journey. These pieces are powerful, their emotions raw and unfiltered, offering listeners a chance to experience the early foundations and mature reflections of a master composer.

Described by Saint-Saëns as "the most remarkable of the young British composers," York Bowen was widely known as a pianist and as a composer, his fame reaching its zenith in the years immediately preceding the First World War. The writer and composer Thomas Dunhill described Bowen’s chamber music as "an essentially healthy and breezy phase in modern art." This is especially true of the 1922 Carnegie Trust Award-winning Second Quartet, and while both quartets are based on clear-cut classical models the Third is more elusive and intimate in feeling, revealing the composer’s rarely displayed private side. The atmospheric Phantasy-Quintet provides a rare opportunity to hear the beauty of the bass clarinet in a truly eloquent and expressive soloist capacity.

This CD contains Bowles' most performed score, Night Waltz, the first of the Three Pieces for Two Pianos, which opens the CD. Rhythmically, this is a complex work of polyrhythms. It's the sort of thing he may have heard in the Tangiers streets and was written in the same year as the novel. The middle Nocturne was composed fourteen years earlier but the finale with its jazzy exoticism dates from 1976.

Bowles had been an inveterate traveller even before 1947 as the Four Piano Pieces demonstrate. The first, the rather neo-classical Impasse de Tombouchtou also refers to a dingy street in Thiviers in Southern France. Café sin Nombre and Carretera de Estapona refers to Southern Spain. Estapona, now a glamorous seaside town can almost be seen from Tangiers, and is, I recall, a pleasant boat trip away. Surrounded by a dry and desert landscape it was much more basic and village-like in Bowles’ day. The opening, with its massive chords, reminds us that it is surrounded by those startlingly blue, imposing mountains. In between these pieces is an elegant and tonally ambiguous Theseus and Maldoror inspired by Greek legend.

Bowles’ travel diaries continue with the Three Latin American Pieces. It’s Mexico which is celebrated in movement 1 with its lively rhythms (El Bejuco) and Costa Rica in 3 (Sayula). Despite their brevity these pieces attract immediately. Movement 2 (Orosi) is delicate and is succeeded by a dance-like episode reminding me of Mompou’s Canço i dansa which was also composed during the mid-1940s.

In the detailed and helpful booklet notes Andrey Kasparov describes the Sonatina Fragmentaria as having “crystalline sonorities”. The tiny middle movement is somewhat Spanish in flavor while the outer ones are more thoughtful and enigmatic. All in all, this amounts to a series of attractive mosaics.

South of Morocco, in the Atlas Mountains, is Tamanar. Views from this village inspired this austere, striking and unusually dissonant mini-tone poem. Bowles went there with Aaron Copland who had just completed his equally austere Piano Variations. Bowles discovers some intriguing sonorities. It's a great shame that he did not pursue this style very often.

The Four Miniatures are practically polytonal and pointillistic but are in Bowles’ usual light-hearted manner with Reverie having a touch of Spain about it again. The Sonatina is neo-classical, almost Poulencian. There is no sense of classical development; in other words the Germanic influence Bowles so disliked is disregarded in favour of the interconnection of fragments. The middle movement is a lyrical Andante Cantabile with a long line which reaches a strong climax.

The last seven tracks are devoted to arrangements for piano duet of miscellaneous Bowles pieces. Kasparov selected four songs, apparently quite popular, originally from 1946, all in a light jazz style and called them Blue Mountain Ballades. Gold and Fizdale took three miscellaneous pieces. The first, Colloquy Sentimental is the only surviving material from a lost Bowles ballet score. The next, Caminata again betrays a Spanish influence and is part of a ballet set in Mexico. The last, Turkey Trot is a sort of wild Scott Joplin essay and brings the CD to a zany conclusion.

This disc proved more attractive and interesting than I had expected. Although Bowles may be a better writer than a composer he certainly deserves his place in the Naxos American Classics series.

– MusicWeb International (Gary Higginson)

The performances are beautifully idiomatic, capturing the brittle character, whimsicality and subtle power of the music.

– Gapplegate Classical/Modern Music Review

This album presents eight of the most recent works by Peter Boyer, one of the leading American orchestral composers of his generation. Balance of Power was commissioned for the 95th birthday of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, while Fanfare for Tomorrow was composed for the inauguration of President Joe Biden in 2021. Each of these pieces displays Boyer’s vivid soundscapes and tuneful American sensibilities, from the cinematic sweep of Rolling River to Radiance, composed especially for this album. Boyer’s GRAMMY-nominated Ellis Island: The Dream of America (8.559246) has received over 250 performances and was televised by PBS.

REVIEW:

Boyer's description of [the London Symphony Orchestra] as “one of the world's greatest orchestras” isn't hyperbolic but rather accurate. It shouldn't be overlooked either that as conductor he was directly responsible for coaxing from the ensemble the inspired performances the recording features.

The fourth album by Boyer (b. 1970) and his third in the Naxos American Classics Series presents eight works, six of them world premiere recordings. The tone is often celebratory, even triumphant, as exemplified by the stately Fanfare for Tomorrow, commissioned for President Biden's January 2021 inauguration; but melancholy is also present in affecting settings such as Rolling River (Sketches on “Shenandoah”) and, naturally, Elegy. As performed by the LSO, the material packs a visceral punch that ensures no listener's attention will drift as the music plays. The orchestral sweep one hears in John Williams' music finds its place in Boyer's too.

All of the material on Balance of Power is of recent vintage, the earliest work dating back to 2014 but most from the last two to three years. It opens rousingly with the aptly titled Curtain Raiser, as ear-catching and exuberant an overture as one could ask for. Boyer's gift for orchestration is immediately apparent, as is the effervescence of the LSO's execution. Strings, percussion, and horns combine for a dynamic, five-minute exercise in uplift, the result a thrilling start to the album.

The evidence at hand suggests Boyer's name might be mentioned in the same breath as those of Barber, Bernstein, Ives, Adams, and especially Copland. Like them, he writes works that have popular appeal and engage with immediacy. They're also, however, impeccably crafted and in no way lacking in integrity. Boyer isn't calculating: while he's one of the most frequently performed American orchestral composers of our time (his Grammy-nominated Ellis Island: The Dream of America is now one of the most-performed American orchestral pieces), his writing is sincere, honest, and authentic[.]

--Textura

Peter Boyer is one of the most frequently performed American orchestral composers of his generation, widely admired not least for his GRAMMY®-nominated Ellis Island: The Dream of America (Naxos 8.559246). The composer writes, “The five works included on this recording represent a cross-section of my orchestral music. Three Olympians reflects my interest in mythology and history. Often I have received invitations to compose music for celebratory concerts, and three of the works included here – Silver Fanfare, Festivities and Celebration Overture – were created for such occasions.” Symphony No. 1 is a lyrical and rhythmically charged work, dedicated to the memory of Leonard Bernstein.

After a period as a court composer at Detmold, Brahms returned to the city of his birth, Hamburg, in January 1860. Here, in relative tranquillity, he explored the then rare piano quartet repertoire. The Piano Quartet No. 2 received a very sympathetic hearing in Vienna, Clara Schumann even preferring it to its immediate predecessor, the Piano Quartet, Op. 25 (Naxos 8572798). Its lyricism is heightened by a romantically beautiful Adagio. Mahler's vibrant Piano Quartet in A minor dates from 1876, the end of his first year at the Vienna Conservatory, where the only completed movement was first performed.

Classical Music

Another wonderful disc from Ilya Kaler.

Ilya Kaler’s new recording of the Brahms concerto on Naxos is eminently recommendable. When reviewing his recent recording of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto (see review) I remarked that Kaler’s performance was one “of elegance as well as brilliance” that “wears it war-horse status lightly, impressing itself upon the listener by virtue of its freshness and natural feeling”. Those comments are equally applicable to this recording.

Kaler’s conception of Brahms’ score is one that rejoices in its beauties. Ably supported by the warm sounds exhaled by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Kaler’s violin sings with a golden tone and sweetly inflected phrasing. He takes his time over the first movement, but maintains his rhythmic control and sense of the music’s overall architecture. In this his performance succeeds where, as Jonathan Woolf points out, Julia Fischer’s similarly conceived account fails. Kaler also lingers lovingly over the gorgeous slow movement – taking over 10 minutes. His pacing is more conventional in the Hungarian finale, which smiles more than it swaggers here.

The coupling of Brahms and Schumann is astute. Firstly it makes programmatic sense. Both concertos share the tonality of D – Brahms in the glowing major, Schumann in the dramatic minor. Both were written for Joachim, and the bond between Schumann and Brahms themselves is as well known as it is complicated.

Secondly, the coupling is an attractive addition to the Naxos catalogue. It complements an earlier disc (Naxos 8.550938), on which Kaler joins cellist Maria Kliegel in Brahms’ double concerto, offered as a coupling for Kliegel’s performance of the Schumann cello concerto. Buy these two discs, and you have the complete Schumann and Brahms string concertos at one fell swoop.

The coupling of the Schumann and Brahms concertos is also fairly unusual in the broader catalogue. While recordings of the Brahms proliferate, there are few recordings of the Schumann concerto and when they do appear they tend to be lumped together with more Schumann. Only Joshua Bell, to my knowledge, has coupled these two concertos on disc before. That disc now forms half of a mid-price twofer in the price bracket above this release (Decca – The Joshua Bell Edition – 4756703). Bell's recording is also available at bargain basement price on Australian Eloquence, but sundered from its Brahms coupling.

Schumann wrote his violin concerto very quickly in the autumn of 1853. Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann had reservations about the piece. In happier times Schumann would probably have revised the piece, but the rapid decline in his mental health prevented this and the score languished unplayed and unknown until the 1930s. It is an attractive piece, constructed along classical lines, and deserves more attention and respect than it is usually accorded. The first movement has a symphonic seriousness and integrity, contrasting the wild, surging argument of its first subject with a gentle, sensitive second subject. The central movement is quietly beautiful. The finale, in the form of a polonaise and with prominent wind writing, brings the concerto dancing to a close.

Kaler's performance is successful and offers collectors a distinct choice. Bell's recording has a straight forward brilliance and Kremer's EMI recording with Muti, like Menuhin's electric premiere recording of the uncut score, emphasises the drama of the work. Kaler takes a different view. Again favouring spacious tempi – his first movement at 14:28 takes a minute longer than Bell's and two minutes longer than Menuhin's – he presents the concerto very much as the classical conception of a poetic soul. Where the other interpreters listed above play for Florestan, Kaler takes Eusebius' part.

The balance favours the violin in both concertos, but there is air enough around the soloist, and the warm Lighthouse Concert Hall acoustic gives the orchestral sound a lovely glow. Listening through earphones can be disconcerting in the Schumann where either Kaler's or the conductor’s breathing is quite prominent. I did not notice this so much when listening through speakers.

Keith Anderson's liner-notes live up to his usual high standard, but gloss over the circumstances of the Schumann concerto's rediscovery by Joachim's great-niece and avoid entirely discussion of the political wrangling over the concerto's premiere performances.

Another wonderful disc from Ilya Kaler and a bargain of the month.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

The set of ten Hungarian dances opens with the famous G minor dance, followed by a D minor dance, with a central D major episode, and a third in D minor, with a lively D major middle section. The fourth dance, in F sharp minor, is of a more expressive cast, leading to a more passionate companion in the same key. The sixth of the set, in D flat major, frames a slower C sharp minor section in livelier outer sections, leading to the rhythmic seventh dance and an eighth in A minor in the rhythm of the first. A dance in E minor is succeeded by the final rapid E major that rounds of the work. The sixteen Waltzes that form Opus 39 were written in Vienna in 1864 and published two years later with a dedication to the critic Eduard Hanslick, who welcomed such an unexpected gift from a serious, North German composer, who might have been supposed incapable of such Viennese abandon. If the great symphonies of Brahms continue the tradition of Schubert, they may be imagined as a tribute to the city where the compose was now to make his home. The original version seems to be that for piano duet, a form that had an immediate popular commercial attraction and would have provided Hanslick with music to share with young ladies of his acquaintance, with whom he was accustomed to play duets. The Waltzes are in a simpler and shorter form than the slightly more complex Hungarian Dances. Idil Biret born in Ankara, Idil Biret began piano lessons at the age of three. She displayed an outstanding gift for music and graduated from the Paris Conservatoire with three first prizes when she was fifteen. She studied piano with Alfred Cortot and Wilhelm Kempff, and composition with Nadia Boulanger. Since the age of sixteen Idil Biret has performed in concerts around the world, playing with major orchestras under the direction of conductors such as Monteux, Boult, Kempe, Sargent, de Burgos, Pritchard, Groves and Mackerras. She has participated in the festivals of Montreal, Persepolis, Royan, La Rochelle, Athens, Berlin, Gstaad and Istanbul. She was also invited to perform at the 85th birthday celebration of Wilhelm Backhaus and at the 90th birthday celebration of Wilhelm Kempff. Idil Biret received the Lily Boulanger Memorial Fund Award (1954/1964), the Harriet Cohen/Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal (1959) and the Polish Artistic Merit Award (1974) and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre du M�rite in 1976.

Brahms' fascination with music of the 16th to the 18th centuries was nurtured during his appointment in Vienna as conductor of the Singakademie. His own choral compositions had gradually moved from an almost pastiche Renaissance style towards a fully mature, Romantic approach, culminating in his large-scale choral masterpiece Ein deutsches Requiem. This performance is sung in a new English translation prepared by Lara Hoggard that fits the original German declamation and with the piano four-hands accompaniment written by Brahms himself.