Classical Music

Classical Music

This programme of previously unrecorded works illustrates a highly distinctive aspect of Nikos Skalkottas as a composer: The ‘neoclassical’ Skalkottas goes hand in hand with the ‘national’ and the ‘modernist’ composer, the common denominators being perfect architecture of form, harmonic refinement and skillful orchestration. The opening Sinfonietta in B flat major is a typical example of the composer’s ‘neoclassical’ side. In four movements and with a duration of 25 minutes, it was written in 1948, during Skalkottas’s final years. It is followed by the Suite for Violin and Chamber Orchestra and the Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, examples of the composer’s atonal idiom. Both works were among the many that disappeared after the composer left Berlin in 1933. The remaining pieces demonstrate Skalkottas’s involvement with the project of exploring the traditional music of Greece. The Cretan folk song Digenés in his Last Agony was transcribed and harmonized by Skalkottas – for this release a recording from 1930 of the voice of Eleftherios Venizelos, the Greek Prime Minister at the time, has been superimposed over the newly recorded orchestral accompaniment. The two marches are original compositions, but follow Greek models, while the Nine Greek Dances are Skalkottas’s orchestrations of published folk songs. Simple and functional, they are in no way reminiscent of his great work, the 36 Greek Dances for large orchestra, but still reveal the composer’s refined aesthetic approach. In a labor of love, the music is performed by conductor Byron Fidetzis and violinist Georgios Demertzis, who have both made important contributions to the Skalkottas discography, as well as pianist Vassilis Varvaresos and the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra, making their first appearance on BIS.

The fact that Nikos Skalkottas was one of Schoenberg’s elite composition students obscures the fact that he began his career as a violinist of concert-artist level. The two concertos gathered here highlight this violinist/composer duality. The programme features the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra performed from the new critical edition, as well as the world première recording of the Concerto for violin, viola and wind orchestra. This performance is based on the first, critical edition of the work, prepared by violinist George Zacharias, who also appears here as the soloist in both works.

Both concertos were composed in the late 1930s, a critical period in the life of the composer who, owing to the political situation, was unable to stay in Germany and had to return to his Athenian home. There, Skalkottas continued to work on his compositional language, resulting in an idiosyncratic system described as ‘fractal serialism’. Despite its complexity, the music also presents tonal references, a classical structure and even echoes of military bands and jazz, an allusion no doubt to the occupation forces and music banned by the authorities. George Zacharias, with violist Alexandros Koustas, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Martyn Brabbins bring us two mature works by the Greek modernist.

REVIEWS:

Conductor Martyn Brabbins and the London Philharmonic fully enter into the spirit of this concerto as well as the soloists do. I say that because, as a rule, British musicians tend not to be able to relax and have fun with really serious music as well as some Germans and Scandinavians do, but somehow or other Brabbins and his forces really play in a very peppy manner, mirroring their soloists. Only in the second movement does the feeling become more serious, and it is here that Skalkottas’ orchestration leans more heavily on a strange combination of the winds and brasses to create an almost mechanical sound.

To recap, I found the Violin Concerto cerebral but extraordinarily constructed, the Violin-Viola Concerto well constructed but somewhat more appealing to an average listener. Both are very well played and recorded; the SACD sound allows you to hear every little detail and nuance in Skalkottas’ extremely interesting scores. In fact, the sound is so clear that you almost don’t even need to see the score. Kudos to everyone concerned with this project. These are outstanding performances and recordings of two outstanding works.

-- MusicWeb International

An interesting encounter: Nikos Skalkottas’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in the new critical edition is a complex work with fluttering rhythms, set between the twelve-tone method and tonal elements, performed with captivating clarity by the performers.

The following Concerto for Violin, Viola and Wind Orchestra, A/K 25 sounds like a blend of Hindemith and Prokofiev with Stravinsky as the icing on the cake. This is the world premiere recording of the concerto based on the first critical edition of the work prepared by violinist George Zacharias, who is also the soloist along with violist Alexandros Koustas. Both are convincing in their gripping interpretations, whose exquisite sonorities attest to a motivated musicality.

Martyn Brabbins sharpens Skalkottas’ music without making it nervous, as one might initially fear.

-- Pizzicato

Classical Music

One of the foremost vocal chamber ensembles active today, New York Polyphony is renowned for it's innovative programming ranging from Gregorian chant to contemporary commissions. On Sky of my Heart, the selection spans over four hundred years of musical history and bears witness to this vocal ensemble's commitment to discovering and developing new works that augment it's core early music repertoire. Some of the works performed here deal with the essential themes of life, death and the afterlife and have been inspired by personal bereavement (Smith) or by the impact of Covid confinement (Moravec). Others are steeped in a spiritual atmosphere, whether religious (Byrd, Moody, Tavener and McGlade) or meditative (Naito). The contemporary works, some of which were written at the behest of New York Polyphony, are firmly rooted in the rich history of plainsong, while at the same time featuring some very contemporary harmonies. The vocal ensemble is joined by LeStrange Viols in three pieces: My Days by Nico Muhly, a ritualized tribute to the early 17th-century English composer Orlando Gibbons, The Silver Swan by Gibbons himself, which brings the programme to an appropriately quiet and poignant close, and Byrd's Agnus Dei. The viol ensemble adds a colour that is both appropriate for Gibbons and original in it's treatment of sound.

SMETANA Má Vlast • Claus Peter Flor, cond; Malaysian PO • BIS 1805 (SACD: 76: 00)


There is something about Bed?ich Smetana’s Má Vlast that defies interpretation by anyone other than a Czech conductor. You have undoubtedly heard the names: Václav Talich, Karel An?erl, Václav Neumann, and most prominently in this case, Rafael Kubelík. His 1952 mono Mercury Olympian LP recorded with a single Telefunken microphone was an interpretive and sonic landmark, and its sound still holds up well today except for an inevitable lack of stereo spatial information. In fact, over the last 50 years, there has never been a better recorded performance of Má Vlast , even by Kubelik himself in several newer versions on different labels. His hugely anticipated and much-hyped remake with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon) was especially disappointing sonically and interpretively.There have been numerous other significant recordings of Má Vlast , primarily by Czech conductors released by Supraphon, that have had consistently mediocre sound. Má Vlast doesn’t work well with Supraphon’s typical dry and harmonically threadbare sound. It is great to see performances by non-Czech conductors, but recent high-profile releases by Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live SACD) and Nikolaus Harnoncourt with the Vienna Philharmonic (RCA) have good sound but the interpretations are somewhat problematic. With this background, you have to wonder about the competitiveness of Claus Peter Flor conducting the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. The orchestra has already made some good-sounding and critically acclaimed Bis recordings of Rimsky-Korsakov’s music, but it is the stunning SACD of Josef Suk’s “Asrael” Symphony, also conducted by Flor, that made me eager to hear this Má Vlast.


Comparing the timings of Kubelík and Flor is encouraging and instructive. There is only a 20-second difference in a work that is more than 76 minutes long. I can’t imagine a case that better illustrates the uselessness of timings to predict a conductor’s interpretive approach. Flor takes a hard-driving, propusive, dry-eyed, and at least ostensibly fast approach to Má Vlast . He also has no clue about the emotional content of this music that is so striking in interpretations by Kubelík and other Czech conductors. You can usually tell how Má Vlast is going to evolve from the opening of “Vy?ehrad.” Flor’s short, clipped, opening harp phrases and lean orchestral textures emphasize forward motion and play down any sense of grandeur. The end of “?árka” is almost hysterical, and is immediately followed by the initial chords of “From Bohemia’s Meadows and Forests,” which hit like a bulldozer. Flor does not shy away from pounding out those repetitive triplets in “Tábor,” and the timpanist is predictably aggressive in “Tábor” and “Blaník.” It is all very exciting where underplaying the bombast would induce boredom, as it does with Harnoncourt. On the other hand, Flor’s central nocturne in “Vltava” is gorgeous and atmospheric, and he also handles the tricky rhythms in the second half of “From Bohemia’s Meadows and Forests” better than other virtuosic internationalized interpretors like Davis and Harnoncourt. Flor’s finale comes closest to but does not match Kubelík in cumulative impact as they both broaden their tempo for the final statement of the ubiquitous Hussite hymn and the principal theme.


Kubelík’s (Mercury) remains unchallenged as a performance, but it is a mono recording and the CD will be difficult to find. In modern stereo sound, this recording ranks with the best except in terms of orchestral execution where I prefer Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra. The Vienna Philharmonic is on autopilot in Harnoncourt’s soporific version, but is much better with James Levine (Deutsche Grammophon). For a more modern stereo version by Kubelík, go with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (Orfeo).


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

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Claus Peter Flor directs a tremendously exciting performance of Má Vlast, one that compares favorably to any in the catalog. He takes great pains to characterize each piece, and each section, to the fullest extent possible. In The Moldau you won't find a more vivid contrast between the scenes of the hunt, the peasant dance, the nocturne (exquisite soft brass), and the rapids (ferocious!) anywhere. The violent conclusion of Sárka is absolutely thrilling, the opening of From Bohemia's Woods and Fields terrifying. While not entirely disguising the episodic nature of Tábor (probably an impossible task), Flor keeps the last two tone poems moving forward purposefully to the work's heroic closing bars. It's a great interpretation, one that surely deserves to be documented and enjoyed by collectors.

Technically, the playing of the Malaysian Philharmonic is good, but not perfect. The trumpets at the climax of The Moldau don't quite match timbres as they should (a common problem). Toward the end of Tábor, Flor pushes the triple-forte galloping rhythm in the strings so hard that the result sounds more like Mahler's "struck with the bow" effect. The wild string triplets in Blaník are exciting, but not always ideally together, and there is a cymbal crash missing around measure 214. Some of the climaxes also suffer from an over-enthusiastic timpanist, and as a percussionist I don't make that accusation lightly. Still, Flor's own concept is so powerful, and the orchestral response so committed, that this vivid SACD production deserves very serious consideration.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

On five previous discs the astonishing tuba player Øystein Baadsvik has demonstrated his incredible versatility as a musician, while at the same time establishing that ‘anything a violin can do, a tuba can do too’, to quote a review in the Daily Telegraph of his first disc on BIS, Tuba Carnival. As Baadsvik writes in his own liner notes to the present disc: 'Every tuba player soon learns to live with people’s “oompah-oompah” prejudices, but rarely have these been challenged more boldly than here. Never before has there been a Christmas record with symphony orchestra, women’s choir and tuba!' The programme consists of lavish arrangements of Baadsvik’s own international and Nordic Christmas favourites. As befits the season, the offering contains a few surprises as well – such as Eatnemen Vuelie, inspired by joik, the traditional singing of the Sami people, and a snowy version of Baadsvik’s own piece Fnugg (‘flakes’), with elements of beat-boxing as well as the sound of the Australian didgeridoo. With the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra lending the music all the variety and uplift that only a large orchestra can provide, and the glittering voices of the Cantus choir adding a festive glow, Baadsvik's tuba carries the day - atmospheric and joyous, tuneful and meditative by turns.

From the French piano literature of the first half of the 20th c. Kathryn Stott has selected four 'solitaires' – each work occupying a special place in its composer’s œuvre. Jehan Alain's brief Prelude (1935) is followed by Henri Dutilleux’s only piano sonata (1948), written for and premiered by Geneviève Joy, the composer’s wife.
Dedications to friends of the composer killed in the first years of WWI mark Maurice Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, his last work for piano solo. Closing the disc is Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus from Olivier Messiaen's monumental fresco Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus.

The project ‘Solitary Poems for Soprano Saxophone’ is a creative response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequent obliteration of livelihoods for freelance musicians. The 23 world premières presented on this album were all composed specifically for Anders Paulsson so that he and they could keep growing artistically during the pandemic when all concerts and touring came to a standstill, and simultaneously to support the creation of new music for soprano saxophone. Some pieces turned out to be extremely virtuosic while others were more contemplative and lyrical. While the vast majority of the pieces are for solo soprano saxophone, some feature a second instrument, including one that is a dialogue between Paulsson and himself. Composers from across the world have been given free rein to express musically what the pandemic has meant to them, whether it’s a reflection on solitude or on the imposed standstill, a hope for a better tomorrow, a concern for crucial environmental issues or a sense of wonder at nature. All the pieces also reveal the extraordinary potential of the soprano saxophone as a classical soloist instrument. Available in Dolby Atmos on selected streaming services.

Dan Laurin has released around thirty albums on BIS since the beginning of his collaboration in 1987. Laurin’s recorder music spans the globe and across the years, from England to Japan, and from the Renaissance to today. This latest release journeys to early 18th century France, and features composers such as Nicolas Chedeville, Anne Danican Philidor, Charles Dieupart, Marin Marais, and more.

Schubert’s empathy with women is evident in his body of songs, which include songs to, by, about and for women. Devised by Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton, the present recital brings us each of those possibilities and more. The playwright Helmina von Chézy wrote the text to the tender Romanze, intending it for the play Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus to which Schubert composed incidental music. Another female author, Marianne von Willemer, wrote the two Suleika poems for Goethe, who included them (under his own name) in the collection West-östlicher Divan. And no less than seven of the other songs on the album are also associated with Goethe, and his characters Mignon (from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre) and Gretchen (from Faust). Schubert was for a while almost obsessed with the mysterious and waif-like Mignon, making several settings of the poems associated with her. Less of an enigma but equally moving, Schubert’s Gretchen sings of awakening desire (Gretchen am Spinnrade) and laments her coming disgrace (Gretchens Bitte). Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have collaborated on several acclaimed projects for BIS, most recently with the counter-tenor Iestyn Davies as their companion. Here they close their Soprano’s Schubertiade with three settings of poems by Walter Scott, albeit in German translations. The three ‘Ellen Songs’ are from the verse-romance The Lady of the Lake from 1810, with the last one, ‘Schubert’s Ave Maria’, being one of the composer’s best-known and most loved compositions.

SORABJI 100 Transcendental Studies: Nos. 1?25 ? Fredrik Ullén (pn) ? BIS CD-1373 (71:11)


?Our highest insights must?and should?sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for them? Nietzsche notes in Beyond Good and Evil , 30. Yes?and like drunkenness, mania, delirium, ferocity, black magic, malice?seduction, if one is a composer of startling originality. Fredrik Ullén herewith joins the small band of ?predisposed and predestined? pianistic supermen who have opened the adytum on Sorabji?s hermetic soundscapes?Marc-André Hamelin, John Ogdon, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Michael Habermann, Kevin Bowyer, Jonathan Powell?casting up fragments of his stupendous, visionary ?uvre compellingly before us. For Hamelin, that?s true in a practical sense as well?Ullén thanks him, with Simon Abrahams and Alexander Abercrobie, for editing the Studies because ?Sorabji?s manuscripts, while calligraphically beautiful, are in general not readable enough to be useful for the performer.?


This first installment of the 100 Transcendental Studies , composed over 1940?44, suggests a more or less systematically pithy inventory of oddments comprising the Sorabji manner and its technical means, most playing a minute or two, the longest just under six. If music is, in an essential sense, for musicians, and the pleasure non-musicians derive from it a happy consequence, this relation of music to a putative audience is raised to a power in Sorabji: Busoni remarked to Bernard van Dieren?composers Sorabji admired intensely and lovingly eulogized??We must make the texture of our music such that no amateur can touch it.? The ?texture? of Sorabji?s music is such that even the well-trained professional may suffocate in it. The point is not that Sorabji is difficult to play and we?re obliged to applaud those who can bring his pieces off, but that his fantastication is such that few listeners possess the apperceptive mass?the background of associations and perceptions with which his music is in dialogue?to grasp it. For instance, the way Sorabji simply sidestepped the ?Tonal oder Atonal? obsession of his time with the sovereign caress of 10 fingers on a keyboard demonstrates that there is a richly substantial world elsewhere. Sorabji?s music does, indeed, possess sensuous appeal?cheek-by-jowl with intentionally rebarbative imprecations. Ullén?s indispensable annotations prompt the ear:


4. (Scriabinesco) Soave e con tenerezza nostalgica is an arabesque and a loving meditation on Scriabin?s B major étude, Op. 8, No. 4. There are some interesting polymetric experiments in the later section.


6. (untitled) The 100 Transcendental Studies contain études in parallel lines for each possible interval. This is the first one in seconds with rich use of 3:4 polyrhythms. A scintillating will-o?-the-wisp étude in the romantic tradition.


9. Staccato e leggiero . A remarkably modern piece for its time. Both hands play staccato chords, first in perfect asynchrony, later on with irregular alternations between the hands. Frequently Sorabji has one hand play only on white keys and the other only on black keys, a device used much later by, for example, György Ligeti.


20. Con fantasia . One of Sorabji?s refined, mysterious nocturnes . . .


22. Leggiero volante e presto assai . The piece explores an interesting new device for pianistic fireworks: glissandi on chords. A quick hazardous piece that passes by leaving you wondering what really happened.


For those of a logical or mathematical bent, the philosopher Kenneth Derus glosses Sorabji with an exploration of the metaphysics of memory reminiscent of Alfred North Whitehead at his most punctilious. And that?s to say that if you?ve read this far, you are either a Sorabji insider?to whom this will be sine qua non ?or a candidate for initiation. Sound is closely detailed and immediate?uncramped?with neither ambience nor reverberance.


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

When Fredrik Ullén released the first instalment of Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Etudes the excitement among reviewers was almost palpable. To take on this huge, near-mythic collection of super-virtuoso pieces in its entirety was described as 'entering a snake pit' as well as 'a labour of love'. And the high expectations were met: in the words of the reviewer for American Record Guide, the disc gave 'a taste of the incredible variety of music Sorabji can conjure up from the piano. It is to Ullén's credit that he can present each study on its own terms; whether in muted impressionist tones, sharp pointillistic flurries, or sheer demonic virtuosity.' Sorabji composed the set of 100 Transcendental Studies, his second longest work with a total duration of at least seven hours, between 1940 and 1944. Most of the pieces are typical concert études in the sense that essentially a single technical or structural idea is explored. But as the cycle unfolds Sorabji inserts pieces that are on a much larger scale, culminating with the two last études, a hugely expanded elaboration of Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and a quintuple fugue with a duration of some 45 minutes each. This development begins already at the start of the present disc. As Ullén remarks in his own liner notes, with Study No. 26 (Dolcissimo) 'we enter a different world. The first longer piece in the cycle is more of a fantasia or nocturne than an étude: a delicate piece of night music, with allusions to Debussy'. The programme then takes in such varied pieces as the playful No. 29 (A capriccio), the mysterious and eerie study in major sevenths, No. 30 (Con fantasia) and No. 36 (Mano sinistra sempre sola) - a grand étude for the left hand alone, which includes a fugue that, in Ullén's own words, 'in places borders on the physically impossible.'

Refulgent hyper-Szymanowskian writing, angry dissonance, delightfully stirring jewelled veils.

Ullén and Bis stick to their last with the seriousness of purpose that goes with eminence and invincible confidence in Sorabji’s music. That confidence is securely placed. Sorabji drank deep of that confidence in calling these pieces Transcendental in the first place.

Ullén, with a loftiness and fantasy that recalls Busoni and Godowsky, shoots the kaleidoscopic rapids of Sorabji’s Transcendental Etudes. The shifting veils of lapidary complexity in No. 44 are played with intoxicating fluency – not mere technical proficiency. After such refulgent hyper-Szymanowskian writing we come to the angrily dissonant No. 45 which in its volleys of notes recalls Nancarrow. The galloping articulated ruthlessness of Nos. 46, 48, 51, 53, 62 55, 60 and 62 is blended with humour (55) and in 60 there’s Mussorgskian macabre alongside romantic afflatus. The sprinting Volante continues into the Vivace (49). After breathtaking display comes a more Apollonian mood in No. 50. A Medtnerian spirit is alive in No. 52. The jewelled veils shift delightfully in an Aeolian wind whispering through the pages of No 54. Romance plays high cards in the Moderato. No. 58 in its episodic flurries contrasts with the knowing Cyril Scott meditations of the Quasi fantasia (59).

This disc is the very acceptable sequel to the 100 Transcendental Etudes nos 1-25 by Fredrik Ullén on BIS 1373. Studies 26-43 are on BIS-CD-1533. Volume 1 was reviewed by me in 2006; Volume 2 in January 2010.

Presumably there are two more CDs to come after this. Can we hope that Bis will then have moved on to his six reputedly elaborate piano concertos and the truly epic symphonic and choral pieces by then? They will be an expensive proposition.

Ullen’s commentary on the Studies can be found at the Sorabji Archive.

Other notable Sorabji recordings have been reviewed here: Opus Clavicembalisticum (Geoffrey Douglas Madge), Transcriptions (Michael Habermann) and an extremely desirable three CD collection of Michael Habermann’s performances on the BMS label.

Elegance and power personified in these Transcendental Studies.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

By far the largest collection of concert études in the known repertoire, Kaikhosru Sorabji’s set of 100 Transcendental Studies, composed between 1940 and 1944, has a total duration of more than eight hours. On five previous discs, the Swedish pianist (and neuroscientist) Fredrik Ullén has introduced the first 83 études to a wider audience, the large majority of them appearing on disc for the first time. Now, 15 years after the release of the first volume comes the final instalment, a 2-disc set with the last 17 studies. In his own liner notes, Ullén describes the experience of learning and recording the collection: ‘From the F sharp minor of Study 1 to the F sharp minor chord concluding Study 100: traversing Sorabji’s Transcendental Studies has been somewhat like joining a comet following a long eccentric orbit through pianistic outer space, and finally returning back to mother earth.’ Most of the studies are typical concert études in the sense that they essentially explore a single technical or structural idea. But especially towards the end of the cycle Sorabji includes pieces that are on a much larger scale, a tendency that culminates with the two final études. Quasi fantasia (No. 99) is a hugely expanded elaboration of J.S. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and is followed by the almost hour-long Coda-Finale, a quintuple fugue of staggering complexity. Besides the programme notes by Fredrik Ullén, the booklet includes texts by Kenneth Derus and Alistair Hinton who both knew the composer.

REVIEW:

Listen to the very first track, where a tango rhythm quickly devolves into a series of very tricky cross-rhythms, for an idea of the challenges facing Ullén. He has surmounted them admirably, and his deliberate approach to these pieces has paid off. He gets the attractiveness of the Studies as a way into the work of Sorabji, who has been admired by many and equally often critically dismissed. Sorabji is not for everyone, but he is for more listeners here than elsewhere.

– AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

Despite the fact that Kaikhosru Sorabji wrote his Transcendental Studies in the early 1940s, most of these individual pieces were not performed for more than fifty years after their composition. This new release is Fredrik Ullen’s fifth installment in his survey of these works, and features twelve of the 100 studies. Sorabji’s Transcendental Studies Nos 72-83 are featured on this release. Especially intriguing is No 75, a Passacaglia, which is one of the longest of these works at almost 29 minutes. The piece receieved its debut performance in 2003 by Fredrik Ullen himself.

Includes work(s) by Kaikhosru Sorabji. Soloist: Michael Habermann.

Our knowledge of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji is based more on his reputation than on his work. A marginal figure in twentieth-century music, he is renowned for the length and complexity of his compositions. After forbidding the performance of his music, he earned a small income through his writings as a critic and essayist of great wit. His best-known works are for solo piano, many of which have been released by BIS. This disc presents first recordings of his music for chamber ensemble and chamber orchestra plus several world premiere recordings of art songs, including a new arrangement and the first completion of a fragment. The American collective Wild Beautiful Orchestra, made up of instrumentalists and singers renowned for their versatility and enthusiasm, and it's founder, conductor Chappell Kingsland, together with flautist Sharon Bezaly in the longest work, present this programme featuring previously unreleased music by the maverick composer. There is no doubt that this extraordinary variety will expand our collective appreciation of Sorabji's genius and that this album will serve as an entry point to his unique musical imagination.

The 37 songs in this recital, written by 27 composers – male, female, English, French, Swiss, German, Romantic, modern and contemporary – bear witness to the richness of Shakespeare’s works to which this recital is dedicated. Organised in the form of a play in five acts, including prologue and epilogue, the songs, which include several duets, are in turn cheerful and sad, light and profound, classical and jazzy – thus allowing, in Carolyn Sampson’s words, ‘a breadth of responses to these great texts’. Alongside well-known melodies, such as those by Schubert, there are musical adaptations by different composers of the same texts, as well as a contemporary reflection for the two voices by Hannah Kendall exploring the question of gender fluidity and identity through the elusive character of Rosalind from As You Like It.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, including Album für die Frau, a collection of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann, A Soprano’s Schubertiade and Elysium, two Schubert recitals, as well as a number of themed recitals, some of which were named ‘Recording of the Month’ by MusicWeb International and ‘CD-Tipp’ by BR Klassik, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton are joined here by renowned British baritone Roderick Williams.

REVIEW:

Soprano Carolyn Sampson and baritone Roderick Williams are prolific singers who can handle almost any kind of repertory but have a strong connection to the English tradition from the Baroque to the 20th century. It would be hard to imagine better singers for this collection of Shakespeare songs, for on one hand, Shakespeare settings are about as traditional as one can get, while on the other, this is an exceptionally diverse collection. Listeners unaware that Haydn set Shakespeare should make it their business to hear Sampson in She never told her love, as soon as possible. There are settings of German Shakespeare translations by Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf, a French one by Arthur Honegger, and an entrancing English-language Fancy by Poulenc. This album represents, in short, an embarrassment of riches, and it is one of the finest Shakespeare song releases to come along in quite some time.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

CONTENTS:

• Ireland: Full fathom five
• Vaughan Williams: Dirge for Fidele
• Moeran: The Lover and his Lass
• Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Arise, "Sea Murmurs"
• Smith, J C: You spotted snakes
• Tippett: Songs for Ariel
• Arne: Under the Greenwood Tree
• Gurney: Under the greenwood tree
• Parry: Sonnet LXXXVII
• Ireland: When daffodils begin to peer
• Haydn: She Never Told Her Love, Hob. XXVIa:34
• Schubert: An Silvia, D 106
• Schubert: Ständchen 'Horch! Horch! die Lerch!', D889
• Schubert: Trinklied D888
• Schumann: Schlusslied des Narren, Op.127 No. 5
• Wolf, H: Lied des transferierten Zettel
• Cornelius: Komm herbei, Tod, Op.16 No. 3
• Frances-Hoad: Rosalind
• Poulenc: Fancy
• Britten: Fancie
• Honegger: Deux Chants d'Ariel
• Bridge: Blow, blow, thou winter wind
• Dring: Take, O Take Those Lips Away
• Dankworth: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
• Horder: Under the greenwood tree
• Coleridge-Taylor: The Willow Song
• Beach, A: Fairy Lullaby
• Williams, Roderick: Sigh no More, Ladies
• Sullivan, A: Orpheus with his Lute

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

'The repertoire we have chosen for this album consists mainly of pieces that have been with me since my childhood.' With this recital, Johan Dalene, accompanied by Peter Friis Johansson, offers us a selection of popular violin pieces that have accompanied him since his early years. After hearing them in the family car on long journeys, he went on to learn them and then play them in competitions and in concerts. He Johan Dalene now gives us (and himself) a treat and continues the tradition of great violinists such as Heifetz, Perlman and Vengerov, who have all made recordings of favourite encores and recital pieces. Finally to record them himself proved to be an 'extremely inspiring and challenging project', says Dalene. The programme is built around three virtuoso works, Tzigane (Ravel), Introduction and Rondo capriccioso (Saint-Saens) and Carmen Fantasy (Waxman), alongside which more reflective pieces by Massenet, Tchaikovsky, Falla and Kreisler have been included. Also featured is a rarely played miniature by Swedish composer Amanda Maier - a work which, according to Dalene, 'is a gem full of spirit!' A programme that celebrates the multiple sides of the violin, at times virtuoso, at times lyrical, always seductive.

In June of 1922, a cultural fiesta took place on the grounds of Granada’s Alhambra palace, organized by Manuel de Falla and Federico García Lorca. The aim of the event was to preserve the ‘purity’ of flamenco art and the opening performance was given by 29-year-old guitarist Andrés Segovia. Ironically, Segovia played de Falla’s Hommage to Claude Debussy (featured on this album) – a work which can hardly be described as pure flamenco. But this can be seen as symptomatic of an important trait in the music of 20th-century Spain: Certain composers defended what they believed to be a noble, gallant and Castilian ideal, while others embarked on an quest to restore the ‘lost purity’ of the peasantry, but embracing Modernism and Impressionism as stylistic tools in order to do so. This is demonstrated on Franz Halász’s new disc, which provides a context – Milán’s Pavanes from the 16th century, Fernando Sor’s ‘Malbroug’ Variations from 1827 – while juxtaposing later works that embody the described, conflicting attitudes. This makes for a colorful and varied program, taking in highlights in the guitar literature such as Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra as well as Joaquín Turina’s Guitar Sonata, here recorded – for the first time – from a copy of Turina’s original manuscript, and not Segovia’s published version with numerous changes. The winner of a Latin Grammy, Franz Halász is a highly acclaimed guitarist who here also makes his own contribution to the repertoire of his instrument, with his own arrangements of de Falla and Isaac Albéniz.

REVIEW:

This varied, highly atmospheric album of Spanish guitar music gives Halasz the opportunity to use a multiplicity of stylistic elements, and his sense of dramatic progression is particularly impressing. Joy of playing, love for the instrument and the music, are further essential components of his interpretations, making this a valuable and attractive recording.

– Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

In 1805, on the basis of his brilliant yet expressive playing, the 21-year-old Louis Spohr was appointed Konzertmeister at the ducal court in Gotha. By this time he had also begun to make his mark as a composer, and during his years at the court he would add several pieces for the harp to his list of works, inspired by the young harpist Dorette Scheidler. Spohr later recalled his reaction to her playing: ‘I was so deeply moved that I could scarce restrain my tears... I took my leave – but my heart remained behind!’ Only months later, the two were in fact married and Spohr began to compose works which would form the repertoire during future concert tours. Dorette Spohr played a so-called single-action pedal harp of a similar type to the instrument used on this album. Soon to be replaced by the double-action pedal system, the single-action pedal harp was best suited for playing in flat keys. As Spohr preferred writing his violin parts in sharp keys, which allowed the resonance of the open strings, he adopted the method of tuning the harp a semitone lower, which had the added benefit of reducing the tension on the strings. The Sonatas Opp 113-115, in D and G major, therefore have harp parts notated in E flat and A flat major respectively. Because of its delicate construction and stringing, the single-action harp has a distinct silvery bell-like sound and these sonatas are among the last important works specifically written for it. They are also the most demanding, but it is clear that Spohr intended them to display not only the technical skill of the two artists but also their musical expressiveness. The performers here are Masumi Nagasawa and Cecilia Bernardini, who have made a particular study of Spohr's writings on performance practice.

This recital brings together two established classics from the 20th century with lesser-known works from the repertoire for violin and piano. Alongside Ravel’s Sonata, a work that reveals the influence of jazz on the French composer, and Prokofiev’s wartime Sonata, Op. 94a, an idiomatic arrangement of its original version for flute, we find compositions by Arvo Pärt, Lili Boulanger and Grazyna Bacewicz, which, at times meditative, at times lyrical, at times folk-inspired, testify to the richness of this repertoire. These works are here performed by Johan Dalene, the Swedish-Norwegian winner of the 2019 Nielsen Competition. The present disc is violinist’s fourth release on BIS, following a recording of the Nielsen and Sibelius Concertos named Editor’s Choice by Gramophone and awarded the 2023 Swedish Grammis Award for Best Classical, the Tchaikovsky Concerto described as ‘one of the finest violin débuts of the last decade’ in BBC Music Magazine, and ‘Nordic Rhapsody’, a violin and-piano recital that was awarded distinctions such as Diapason d’or and Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice. As with that release, Dalene is given here the expert support of Christian Ihle Hadland who has also appeared on other much-lauded recordings, most recently one dedicated to Saint-Saëns’ violin sonatas.

REVIEW:

The young violinist Johan Dalene was named Gramo­phone’s Young Artist of the Year in 2022 and has performed with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Czech Philhar­monic, and San Francisco Symphony. He’s also made his mark in Halls Wigmore and Carnegie, and on this brilliantly assembled collection of works by Arvo Part (Fratres), Maurice Ravel (Sonata in G major for violin and piano), Lili Boulanger (Nocturne), Sergei Prokofiev (Sonata No.2 in D major for violin and piano), and four short works by Grazyna Bacewicz.

The collection’s common thread is a pen­chant for piquant harmonies, atmosphere, and mysticism. Bacewicz’s early “Witraz” (Stained-Glass Window), which she com­posed in 1932 at the age of 23, is unforget­table. If you can begin to imagine magical flashes of light and color diffused through a stained-glass window, dancing across the room as they metamorphosize into sound, you’ll get a sense of how special this miniature sounds. Dalene’s Strad whispers, flashes, darts, and whirls as Hadland shines beside him through light and shadow.

Thanks to the iconic ECM New Series recording by Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett, Part’s early mystical masterpiece achieved fame just a few years after it was completed. Where Kremer begins with a whisper, Dalene is far more forthright, his tone irresistibly fresh and gleaming, and the recording benefits from superior engineer­ing. The touching poetry of Boulanger’s subtle miniature stands in sharp contrast to Prokofiev’s fabulous scherzo and circuslike finale. Ravel, too, revels in character, humor, amiability, and spice. The finale brings to mind someone chasing a mosquito around the room with a rolled-up copy of Stereophile in hand.

-- Stereophile

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music