2018 Gramophone Magazine Choral Album of the Year

Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt lived through times of remarkable change in the last decades of the Soviet Union. From the 1970s, state restrictions on religion were gradually relaxed and this was reflected in the arts and especially in music. Schnittke’s adoption of Christianity was triggered by the death of his mother in 1972, and culminated in his later conversion to Catholicism. Pärt was from a nominally Lutheran background in Estonia, but embraced the Orthodox faith in the 1970s, following intensive study of liturgical music. Both composers began to incorporate religious themes into their work, moving away from the modernist abstraction that had characterized their early careers. Schnittke’s large-scale Psalms of Repentance were composed in 1988 for the celebrations for the millennium of Christianity in Russia. The texts come from an anonymous collection of poems for Lent, written in the 16th century, and in his settings Schnittke engages with the traditions of chant-based Orthodox liturgical music. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Kaspars Putninš have chosen to combine Schnittke’s Psalms with two shorter works by Arvo Pärt, whose music they are well-known exponents of. Like the Psalms, Pärt’s pieces are composed in a quasi-liturgical style, and with its serene atmosphere, his Nunc dimittis forms a natural counterpart to the Magnificat even though the two were written more than a decade apart.

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REVIEW:

The Estonians have always rejoiced in a warm, rich sound and perfect blend, and guided by the utterly precise and dynamic Kaspars Putninš they give here a truly outstanding rendition that picks up every emotional and spiritual nuance with no sacrifice of technical perfection. This work has been waiting for choirs able to do this, because the technical challenges are not the most important thing about this music.

– Gramophone

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A 2021 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Choral Performance!

As Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt both adopted the Orthodox faith in the 1970s, Orthodox choral traditions became increasingly prominent in their work, but both composers also looked to the music of the Western church. Schnittke’s Three Sacred Hymns set three prayers, familiar in the West as Ave Maria, the Jesus Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, and evoke Orthodox chant. His Choir Concerto, on the other hand, draws on Russian choral music of the 19th century and the tradition of large-scale concert works based on Orthodox choral music. The texts by the medieval Armenian poet Gregory of Narek are informed by a humanistic individualism, with the poet directly expressing his emotions and often writing in the first person. In the case of Pärt, his detailed study of Orthodox chant caused him to develop his so-called ‘tintinnabuli’ system of composition as an extension of the harmonic practices of Orthodox choral music. He wrote his Seven Magnificat-Antiphons in 1988, applying the tintinnabuli technique to texts from the Catholic liturgy in the German language – a striking East-West hybrid. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Kaspars Putninš have combined sacred works by Schnittke and Pärt before, their previous release on BIS earning them a prestigious Gramophone Award in the Choral Music category.

REVIEWS:

The BIS catalog already boasts a fine version of Schnittke's Choir Concerto, but this newcomer surpasses it; and the music of Pärt is stitched into the choir’s DNA.

– BBC Music Magazine

This is an outstanding disc. The music is both eloquent and compelling and the EPCC gives memorable performances. The quality of their singing is matched by the excellence of the BIS recording.

– MusicWeb International

Torleif Thedéen and Roland Pöntinen, who with this disc give us the larger part of Schnittke's chamber music for the cello, are long-time partners whose first joint recording for BIS was made in 1986 - entitled 'The Russian Cello', it incidentally included a performance of the first of Schnittke's cello sonatas. Since then the two have appeared on a number of discs together, performing works by Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Hindemith and Anton Webern among others. Their recording of the Chopin Sonata, coupled with works by Robert Schumann, was highly acclaimed in The Gramophone, whose critic found that the team gave 'this wonderful music a sweep and gradeur that's immensely satisfying'.

This selection is also included in Bis Twins 3.

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Includes work(s) by Alfred Schnittke. Ensemble: Tapiola Sinfonietta. Conductor: Ralf Gothóni. Soloists: Ralf Gothóni, Tero Latvala, Ulf Wallin.

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This final disc in our trilogy of the chamber music of Schoenberg and his disciples is dedicated to the works for piano solo. Covering almost all of Schoenberg's output in his genre - including two fragments never previously recorded - the programme also includes Alban Berg's Sonata No.1, composed at the age of 23 under the influence of his teacher's Chamber Symphony. There is also a first recording of a fragment by Berg, originally intended for a sonata but later used almost unchanged in his opera Wozzeck. The previous two instalments in this series have received great acclaim. 'An impeccable balance between precision and expressivity' the critic in Le Monde de la musique wrote in reviewing 'Schoenberg: Works for Violin and Piano' (CD1407) and Klassik Heute gave 'Schoenberg/Webern Chamber Music (CD1467) top marks: 10/10/10. Eminent pianist Roland Pöntinen participated on both of these discs, and now he closes the trilogy with this solo programme.

Arnold Schoenberg’s second string quartet – included on a previous release by the Gringolts Quartet – is often used as a reference point when the emergence of atonality is discussed. That work, where Schoenberg in the fourth movement suddenly does away with a time signature, was composed in 1907, three years after his first work in the genre: the String Quartet in D minor, Op. 7, a work which still has much in common with the Late Romantic idiom of Richard Strauss. The D minor quartet is in one movement, but with four distinct sections which, according to a note left by the composer, chart a progression from ‘rebellion’ and ‘depression’ to ‘quiet joy and the contemplation of rest and harmony’ – a program reminiscent of the one Strauss had used in his recent tone poem Ein Heldenleben. Albeit tonal, the harmonic language is richly chromatic, pointing forward to the inevitable break in the second quartet. Some twenty years later, Schoenberg had developed his twelve-tone method, and his Third Quartet is an example of how he was using this to refresh traditional form schemes and contrapuntal textures, while at the same time counterbalancing the modern idiom with familiar features such as a slow variation movement and a rondo finale.

Conceived thirty years apart, both works on the present disc came into being at difficult times in the life of Arnold Schoenberg. Emotional stress caused by a marital crisis around 1907-1908 is often claimed to have contributed to the break with tonality that the Second String Quartet represents – in the course of the work Schoenberg moves from the post-Wagnerian chromaticism of Late Romanticism to atonality, with the final movement lacking a key signature altogether. Another unusual feature is the inclusion of a soprano in the two last movements. Schoenberg himself later wrote: 'I was inspired by poems of Stefan George, the German poet ... and, surprisingly, without any expectation on my part, these songs showed a style quite different from everything I had written before.'

Almost thirty years later, in 1936, the String Quartet No. 4 was one of the first works that Schoenberg composed in the U.S.A. after having been forced into exile by the threat of the Nazi regime in Germany. He had left Europe in 1933, but the first years in his new home country had been taxing, with health problems and a difficult work schedule involving teaching in both Boston and New York. If the second quartet is a key work of musical modernism, pointing towards an as yet unknown future, String Quartet No. 4 rests securely on the principles of twelve-tone composition that Schoenberg had developed during the intervening years – but makes use of these principles in a somewhat freer, more relaxed manner than his previous twelve-tone works. The two works are given full-blooded performances by the Gringolts Quartet, joined by the Swedish soprano Malin Hartelius in the Second String Quartet.

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While the three composers featured on this recording are not, in the public perception and sometimes even in that of the performers, among the most significant exponents of Viennese music in the first half of the twentieth century, their remarkably expressive and virtuoso writing is deeply rooted in fin-de-si�cle Vienna. They were banned by the dictatorships of the 1930s and then blacklisted in the aftermath of the Second World War by the young European avant-garde, and it is only in recent years that the beauty and opulence of their works have been rediscovered. Vienna-born conductor Sascha Goetzel writes about the works performed here with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire: 'With Korngold, Schreker and Krenek, we're not just hearing music - we're entering a dialogue between past and present, tradition and rebellion, myth and modernity [...] Korngold embodies the emotional sincerity and creative ambition of the late Romantic tradition. Schreker immerses us in the subconscious - mythical, unstable, and rich in feeling. Krenek breaks through the facade, injecting irony, jazz and fragmentation into the orchestral form [...] In their own ways, each composer pushes back against inherited conventions to discover new languages of sound.'

This collection opens with the symphonic interlude from Schreker’s opera Der Schatzgräber (The Treasure Hunter). A convoluted fairy tale it has at its poles the eternal themes of love and death, with supernatural elements in between. As this symphonisches Zwischenspiel from Act 3 celebrates a night of passion the music blossoms with extraordinary heat and vigour. It also swells and palpitates with a thrilling intensity that, in lesser hands, might spill over into excess. I hear the lofty languor of Wagner and the soft outlines of Debussy; there’s a Korngoldian sweep, too. Remarkably, all these echoes and influences are fused into a distinctive whole, broad and beautifully crafted.

As for the recording, the huge climaxes are fearless: no detail goes unremarked and perspectives are very convincing indeed. Schreker’s more delicate touches are also well caught, and timbres are always true. The playing combines body with boldness, passion with polish, and Renes shapes it all like a seasoned pro. Yes, this large-scale performance – with sonics to match – belongs firmly in the concert hall rather than the theatre, but it’s none the worse for that.

Next up is the prelude to Die Gezeichneten (The Stigmatized), set in 16th-century Genoa. It centres on a lurid love triangle that wouldn’t look out of place in a Jacobean tragedy. This opulent opener also has the feel of a Hollywood blockbuster of the 1930s or 1940s. That’s not a criticism, for many of those great film scores were penned by Austro-German composers who fled to the US before the War. There’s surprising delicacy in this score – I revelled in the gorgeous harp writing – not to mention a Romantic blush that reminds me of Gurre-Lieder at times. If this piques your interest see Rob Barnett’s review of Gerd Albrecht’s complete recording.

Composed in 1933 Schreker’s Vorspiel zu einer großen Oper (Prelude to a Drama) is an expanded concert version of the prelude to Die Gezeichneten, which the conductor Felix Weingartner had commissioned 20 years earlier. At 22 minutes it’s the longest piece here. It’s also one of the most satisfying, as it combines a powerful sense of drama with a strong, tight musical structure. There are some startling things here, not least the extended passage in which the timpanist plays a quietly insistent two-note figure as part of a magical dialogue with the orchestra. The recording is especially effective at this point, the timps ideally placed in a deep, wide soundstage.

Although Schreker’s two-act opera Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (The Music Box and the Princess) failed miserably in both Frankfurt and Vienna the prelude to this fairy tale is delightful. Textures are wonderfully transparent and those warbling woodwind figures are a telling touch. Rhythms are subtly articulated, tuttis are always proportionate and it all hangs together very well. That said, there’s a rather dated feel to the score, which might explain its poor reception. Still, the playing is alert and refined, the recording warm and clear.

Nachtstu?ck (Nocturne) – the Act 3 interlude from Schreker’s opera Der ferne Klang (The Distant Sound) – was actually premiered three years before the work from which it’s taken. The opera tells the story of Fritz, a composer who loves one Grete Graumann but who can’t marry until he’s written a great piece and found the mysterious sound that haunts him so. The nocturne – which begins with a rocking theme underpinned by gentle tam-ram strokes – manages to be both refulgent and restrained, blending Straussian amplitude with an iridescent fan of ravishing colours.

I suspect most people who listen to operatic ‘chunks’ know little and care less about the narrative that surrounds them. One certainly doesn’t need to know the details of Wagner’s Ring to enjoy the splendid excerpts. That’s also true of these Schreker pieces, which work rather well on their own. Would this collection tempt me to try the full operas? Perhaps, but for all its craft and colour Schreker’s sound world seems at odds with the times – rather like the later novels of Thomas Hardy – his medieval/fairy-tale plots equally so. Music to relish, if not to love. The detailed liner-notes are by Horst A. Scholz.

Little-known repertoire, superbly played and recorded; go on, treat yourself.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan)

For the fifth instalment of the critically acclaimed Schubert+ series, Can Cakmur juxtaposes the Viennese composer with his illustrious elder Ludwig van Beethoven, for the first time in this series. After establishing his mastery of the lied genre, Schubert still had to show his full potential in the realm of piano sonatas, a quintessentially Beethovenian form. In his Sonata in A major, D 664, he abandons the traditionally oppositional nature of the sonata in favour of a melody- based narrative in which landscapes appear to change gradually, as if seen from a traveller's perspective, thus offering a conception that is as new as it is personal. Beethoven is represented here by a series of variations, a genre in which he also excelled. The 32 Variations in C minor range from tender yearning to an emotional turmoil reminiscent of the 'Appassionata' Sonata. In the Sonata in C minor, D 958, composed in 1828, the first of his towering final trilogy, Schubert staked his claim to be seen as Beethoven's successor as a writer of piano sonatas. In a work that Can Cakmur sees as a tribute to Beethoven, Schubert achieves a synthesis of the master's influence and the lyricism of his own early sonatas. Just weeks before his death, the younger composer finally sits beside the older master and converses with him on equal terms.

For his series called Schubert+, pianist Can Çakmur juxtaposes the complete major piano solo compositions by the Viennese composer with works by other composers who were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert’s completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a selfcontained recital.

In this second instalment, Çakmur performs pieces published after Schubert’s death, the three Klavierstucke, D 946, which are not known to have been intended as a new series of impromptus. Since their first editor was Brahms, it seemed logical to include one of his late cycle of miniatures, here the Vier Klavierstucke, Op. 119. The pieces by Schubert and Brahms share a spontaneity, even an apparent lightness, that often conceals an unsuspected depth beneath the surface. The programme concludes with the Four Impromptus, D 935, an ambitious cycle also published after Schubert’s death. Schubert’s name would become closely associated with this genre, often characterised by a lyrical melody and a free-flowing structure, with a sense of spontaneity. With it, Schubert seems to have found an ideal setting for the expression of his genius.

For his series called Schubert+, pianist Can Çakmur juxtaposes the complete major piano solo compositions by the Viennese composer with works by others who were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert’s completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-contained recital.

In this third instalment, Çakmur presents not only a work by the 20th-century composer Ernst Krenek but also Krenek’s completion of an unfinished sonata by Schubert. In the process, Krenek assimilated the Schubertian language so well that the result is astonishing. As Çakmur says, ‘I would find it difficult to spot where Schubert ends and Krenek begins if it wasn’t specified in the score.’ Krenek, whose career spanned more than seven decades, was a prolific composer who embraced a host of styles. For his Second Piano Sonata, composed in the 1920s, he pays homage to Schubert by adopting some of his techniques, though the music owes much more to early 20th-century Paris than to 19th-century Vienna. A fascinating and neglected work to be discovered through the prism of Schubert.

Three years after recording Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang (arranged by Liszt), pianist Can Çakmur launches a new series called Schubert. Describing the Viennese composer as “a con­stant companion” in his life, Çakmur’s aim here is to juxtapose his complete major piano solo compositions with works by other composers that were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert’s completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-sufficient recital. In this first instalment, two sonatas by Schubert, respectively D 537 and D 959, are juxtaposed with Arnold Schoenberg’s Three Pieces op. 11. The reason for this combination is that, firstly, the same theme is shared but treated differently in Schubert’s sonatas, and secondly, Schubert and Schoenberg seemingly sharing the same conception where the natural flow and direction of the music appear consciously deconstructed. With different means and a hundred years apart, both Schubert and Schoenberg, the former with his aversion to formal boundaries, the latter with his efforts against the natural tendencies of Western harmony, managed to strengthen the subjective expression of their music.

The ongoing Schubert + series, produced by pianist Can �akmur, has revealed an exceptional Schubertian. Now in it's sixth instalment, the series juxtaposes Schubert's works with those of composers he inspired. This latest program shines a spotlight on Robert Schumann. Schumann held Schubert in the highest esteem and was one of the first to recognise him as one of the most visionary composers to have ever lived, and this alone would have justified this coupling. However, �akmur delves deeper, using the program as a springboard for a philosophical discussion about naturalism within German Romanticism. The program features Schubert's brilliant Sonata in D major, D. 850, composed in 1825 in the spa town of Bad Gastein. It's composition amidst the Alpine scenery likely sparked his imagination, echoing the themes of millers, hunters, forests, and mountains prevalent in his songs. Robert Schumann's Waldszenen (Forest Scenes) continues this thread of inspiration. In these nine miniatures, Schumann returns to the happy and simple lyricism reminiscent of early works like Kinderszenen. The program concludes with Schumann's Three Phantasiest�cke, Op. 111, included, according to �akmur, for the uncanny similarity between it's second piece and the slow movement of Schubert's Sonata. This program promises a compelling journey into the heart of German Romanticism, guided by Can �akmur through the works of two of it's most pivotal figures.

For the fourth instalment of his Schubert+ series, Can cakmur focuses on the genre of the impromptu, aiming to identify historical predecessors for Schubert's piano writing as well as gain an insight into the evolution of free-standing poetic keyboard compositions. Placing Franz Schubert's famous set of 4 Impromptus, D 899, at the heart of this recording, cakmur also presents two Impromptus by Jan Vaclav Vorisek, a composer who was praised by Beethoven and seems to herald Schubert. Four works by Chopin and two by Scriabin complete the programme and bear witness to composers' fondness for this free form, capable of expressing romantically a moment, a feeling or a mood. Designed to place Schubert's major piano works alongside works by other composers, Can cakmur's Schubert+ series has so far earned the highest praise: 'With Can cakmur you are returned to your first sense of wonder and revelation at discovering Schubert's genius' (International Piano), 'cakmur [is] remarkable from start to finish, with irresistible colours, refined nuances and a clear tone' (Crescendo), 'cakmur's phrasing and his use of dynamics and colours are overwhelming' (Pizzicato).

After A Soprano's Schubertiade (BIS-2343) and Elysium (BIS-2573), Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton present a new recital devoted to Schubert's songs on the theme of the changing seasons. While there have also been other successful celebrations of the four seasons in music, Franz Schubert, a lover of nature, here evokes them in his lieder. Winter, imbued with nostalgia, is represented here by three songs in which the Schubertian hero sings of lost love. But gloomy thoughts soon give way to spring, synonymous with optimism and hope as nature returns to life: 'Welcome, with your happy swarm of newly awakened creatures around me.' If life is in full swing during the summer, the hero now seems uncertain about the happy outcome of his quest for love. In autumn, evoked here by six songs, the hero can only acknowledge his failure, reflected by nature preparing for a months-long sleep: 'Ah, as the stars disappear in the sky, so does life's hope fade away.' Clarinettist Michael Collins joins the duo for one song, 'Der Hirt auf dem Felsen', Schubert's penultimate composition. Inspired by yodelling, this extended lied ends with the hope of a better life, with spring just around the corner and the prophetic words of 'now I shall prepare/to go a-wandering' heralding the composer's approaching death.

Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Bruch Maxim Rysanov Maxim Rysanov Plays Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Bruch

Franz Liszt’s arrangement of Schubert’s Schwanengesang is very much his own work: while it very clearly retains the musical meaning of the original it also provides a vision of Liszt’s understanding of what lies beyond the black dots on paper. In the young Turkish pianist Can Çakmur’s words, Liszt’s ‘songs without words’ are ‘striking, horrifying, grand, intimate, full of life and yet often as pale as death. The marvel of what a single instrument can attain plays an integral role in all these pieces.’ Published posthumously, Schwanengesang is a collection of songs that Schubert may have intended to be grouped together, but if so he never provided a definitive order. In his arrangement, Liszt adopted an order of his own, and Çakmur takes the same liberty, seeking ‘to arrive at a sequence which presents not a storyline but an emotional journey. Liebesbotschaft and Taubenpost constitute the prelude and the conclusion to the cycle: the one focusing on the poet’s promise to return to his lover while the other embraces longing with glistening tears. Longing (Sehnsucht) is the very feeling that drives the cycle, for it carries both hope and disappointment within itself.’ The Liszt arrangement was first published in 1840, twelve years after Schubert’s death, and Çakmur contrasts it here with the much later ‘forgotten waltzes’, Quatre Valses oubliées. As most of Liszt’s late music they are elusive, and Çakmur describes them as ‘possibly wistful, sardonic or melancholic – or perhaps all at once.’ Winner of the 2018 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, Can Çakmur released his début album in 2019, receiving praise for his technical prowess and sensibility alike – qualities that come well in hand for his new Liszt recital.