Virtuosi Ilya Gringolts, violin, and Dmitry Kouzov, cello, perform three great duos- two from the 20th century and one from the 21st. The graceful, expressive and witty Duo for Violin and Cello by Hanns Eisler, written when the composer was 26 years old, is a multifaceted work showcasing the composer’s brilliant intellect. Best-known for his long artistic association with playwright Bertolt Brecht, Eisler always took care to make a deep connection with his audience. In Jorg Widmannn’s 24 Duos for Violin and Cello, from 2008, the two instruments approach the sound of a string quartet at times. “They attract each other, reject each other, love and hate each other,” the composer writes. These performances are the world premiere recording of the entire set of both volumes of Widmann’s 24 Duos. The album concludes with Maurice Ravel’s great Sonata for Violin and Cello. Dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, the sonata is always a favorite with audiences. Gringolts and Kouzov form a superb duo. Both are highly sought-after soloists and consummate chamber musicians. They perform with precision and excitement, undaunted by challenging music.

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REVIEWS:

These gripping and beautifully played duos demand committed listening.

– The Strad

Gringolts and Kouzov are impressive, leaving their mark on all three works; warm, resonant, perfectly balanced, natural set-it-and-forget-it sound leaves one free to concentrate on the music.

– American Record Guide

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Classical Music

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) had a special fondness for the cello. He studied the cello as a child, and picked the instrument up again as a young adult after an accident injured his hand and he was unable to perform as a concert pianist.; Although Schumann held the cello dear, he only composed two works that still remain: Op. 129 Cello Concerto, and the Five Pieces in Folk Style which is performed on this album.; Although many of the compositions on this recording were not originally scored for cello, cellists, in their eagerness to perform Schumann’s music, have made lovely arrangements and transcriptions.

Referring to her specialty in piano music of forgotten pioneering American composers, ClassicsToday wrote, “Johnson's loving mastery of this music and skillful, nuanced pianism are a delight.” On this release she fills the long-standing gap in Foote’s discography of complete piano music—much of it receiving its first recording.

REVIEWS:

Where has this delightful, well-crafted, thoroughly idiomatic, tuneful...and unpretentious piano music been for the past century? Listen to any piece at random, blindfolded, and you’ll agree, although you’ll be hard-pressed to identify the composer.

Because most of these works have been out of print for decades, pianist and longtime keyboard rarity advocate Kirsten Johnson had to do considerable detective work in order to obtain the scores. More importantly, she appears to have put in comparable practice hours, borne out by her consistently sonorous virtuosity and tasteful musicianship, abetted by a first-rate Steinway grand and an appropriately resonant yet never muddy recording venue. A major addition to the catalog.

-- ClassicsToday.com

Kirsten Johnson…shows special sensitivity to the composer’s brand of restrained emotion—moderately expressing the underlying feeling as the composer himself would have wanted. Ms. Johnson has a bright tone which is ideal for Foote’s out-of-doors works and enough sense of fantasy for Omar Khayyam…Ms. Johnson’s discs are highly to be commended both for bringing us some wonderful music and as another milestone in the rediscovery of America’s early musical heritage.

-- MusicWeb International

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Stunning performances of the complete choral works (to date) of award-winning Composer Frank Ticheli, “one of the most interesting and attractive composers on the scene today” (Lawrence A. Johnson). This program offers many world premiere recordings and a broad variety of lovely and accessible choral compositions. The superb renditions by the Pacific Chorale with the Pacific Symphony or the John Alexander Singers are all under the assured baton of John Alexander.

Though unknown to many today, Margaret Ruthven Lang was one of America's pioneering woman composers. Distinguished pianist Lucy Mauro brings Lang's remarkable and underperformed keyboard creations to vibrant life with deep sensitivity, touching emotion, and admirable technical facility. These pieces will be exciting discoveries for any pianist or piano fan on the prowl for fresh repertoire.

This unabashedly eclectic album features stirring and varied songs by Ben Moore, who has chosen poems spanning 2,600 years for his texts. The music extends from art song to cabaret, yet all share Moore’s lyrical and eloquent style. The songs are united by the unwavering honesty and passion of the composer and performers, including Isabel Leonard, Liz Callaway, Matthew Polenzani, Michael Kelly, Janai Brugger and other stars of opera and Broadway. Brian Zeger’s collaboration on piano provides the singers with support and inspiration. The album concludes with songs of hope, touching on the acceptance of love in its many forms.

REVIEWS:

A Textura Top 20 Vocal Album of 2022!

There's so much to like about this collection of songs by Ben Moore, it's hard to know where to start. Let's begin with the material itself, twenty-two songs that span the spectrum of emotional experience with dignity and poise. His music has been called “gorgeously lyrical” (The New York Times) and commended for its “romantic sweep” (Opera News), and many a song on the release exemplifies those qualities, plus a great deal more. Gathering is a magnificent collection, and as the songs were written over a span of thirty years, it also offers a superb overview.

-- Textura

The songs are put over in fine style by a terrific group of singers…All of them have their moments at centre stage here, and their voices are flexible and mellifluous enough to cross the stylistic lines drawn with sophistication and taste by the composer. For my money, the loveliest song is ‘I Must Travel as a Phantom Now’ (Thomas Hardy) sung lusciously by Isabel Leonard…[The songs are] accompanied by pianist Brian Zeger, who captures every mood and gesture of the writing. Engaging notes add even more flair to a recital that turns out to have been quite a gathering.

-- American Record Guide

…There is, truly, something for everyone on this eclectic disc. Isabel Leonard offers her dark-hooded mezzo to the most aria-like songs on the album; of them, “Lullaby” feels more traditional at its onset, and perhaps it is in the vocal line, but the uniqueness of the piano line gives the trite concept of a lullaby much more depth and nuance. Matthew Polenzani lends his unparalleled tenor to the gently complex “Where Are the Songs of Spring?,” in which listeners see the rolling hills and a babbling brook in Moore’s rolling piano line, full of movement; Polenzani also shows the more robust side of his tenor that American opera audiences have fallen in love with in “When I Was One-and-Twenty.”

The album is divided into five sections, so it ebbs and flows, like acts in a show.

-- Opera News

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Late-Romantic German composer Friedrich Gernsheim was acknowledged by Brahms as a master composer, despite his music falling into obscurity. Gernsheim’s Piano Quintet No. 2, featured on this release, is a fantastic example of the composer’s multi-genre output. The Gernsheim quintet is paired with Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor. Pianist Reiko Uchida performs these works with grace and drama.

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What a shame that these works aren't better known by the chamber-music-loving public!

Listeners who are familiar only with Glazunov's symphonic oeuvre or incidental music could well be surprised at his string quartets. They are personal works, generally serious in tone and tersely argued, brilliantly conceived for the medium. The color and evocative imagery of his orchestral music is replaced by an ease—even a playfulness—with counterpoint that never descends into the merely academic. What a shame that these works (and similar compositions by Sergei Taneyev) aren't better known by the chamber-music-loving public!

The String Quartet No. 5 dates from 1908, toward the end of Glazunov's abruptly foreshortened compositional career. (Contrary to legend, he didn't cease composing because of "the political world changing around him" or any other such romantic nonsense. Glazunov stopped because of the extremely heavy responsibilities associated with the directorship of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which he assumed in 1905 and held effectively until 1928.) It is one of his finest works, and a composition of great charm and subtlety, if perhaps a shade less immediately accessible than his String Quartet No 3, the so-called "Slavonic" (after its use of predominantly folk idioms).

The performing group on this release, the St. Petersburg String Quartet, was created in 1985 by Leningrad Conservatory graduates (yes, Glazunov's old stomping grounds). Despite their origins, this ensemble is in the modern "American" quartet mold of four equal voices whose balance inclines toward intense musical dialog rather than homogeneity of sound. This approach works very well in the Quartet No. 5, given its concentration on contrapuntal texture. Unfortunately, there are no currently competing versions I'm aware of on CD. An old Melodiya LP featuring the celebrated Shostakovich Quartet offers one of the finest "old style" quartets in this work, with a rich, plumy sound and extraordinary attention to dynamics; still I prefer the SPSQ's more linear reading.

Glazunov's Five Novelettes, composed in 1886, represent his other, more "public" side, offering delight to players and audiences alike without great intellectual effort. Each movement is ostensibly in a distinct nationalistic style: the first "In Spanish Style," the last "In Hungarian Style," and so on. But these are national styles seen through deliberately Russian folk-tinged glasses. While the third movement ("Interlude in the Old Style") does create a series of fine variations on what sounds like a Slavonic chant, the "Orientale" of the second movement is simply a pleasing scherzo in Glazunov's best Borodinesque manner.

Not surprisingly. The SPSQ has slightly more competition, here, and some of it is excellent. The Calvet Sring Quartet delivers a strongly nuanced 1931 reading of the "Olden Style" movement (Lys 298/9), while the Hollywood Quartet (Testament 1061, originally recorded in the 1950s) offers an energized, dynamic reading of all tlve pieces, wonderfully blended. The Shostakovich Quartet's superb tone is formidable again in several movements on another out-of-print LP (which, hopefully, someone will reissue, someday) -surely beauty of tone was on Glazunov's mind, given the expert performers at his disposal in turn-of-the-century Russia. But the SPSQ scores in the "Orientale" movement, whose trio is delivered over a vibratoless drone. I've not heard that interpretation before, but Glazunov, who was supposedly an expert on regional folk music, would probably have delighted in the effect.

All in all, this is a highly attractive CD of two rarely heard but compelling works, performed and recorded (in a closely miked environment) immaculately. Let's hope that the SPSQ continues with further explorations into the world of Glazunov's chamber music, for there are more gems out there.

Barry Brenesal, Fanfare, Issue 25:2 (Nov/Dec 2001)

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Ms. Thomas – one of the world’s leading operatic sopranos – offers here a selection of our most beloved spirituals that may well even eclipse the legendary recordings of contralto Marian Anderson. Indra brings to them levels of sheer vocal beauty, intense emotional power and sacred sincerity that you may well have never heard in solo spirituals before … not to mention the full force of her African-American stylistic heritage.

On Haik Kazazyan's first album for Delos, Opera Fantasies, the brilliant American violin virtuoso demonstrated the fiery, passioante, and technically astonishing sides of his artistry. And the same musical virtues are certainly on display here, in his glowing rendition of the three violin sonatas by the Norwegian master Edvard Grieg. In this new album - with dazzling and soulful collaboration from the rising young Russian piano wizard Philipp Kopachevsky - he also applies the sensitivity, subtlety, and interpretive insight needed to bring these three chamber masterpieces to vibrant life. Composed across a period ranging from Grieg's early twenties through middle age, these comparatively unfamiliar pieces not only confirm the composer's winning ways with melodic invention and nationalistic impulse, but also serve as a revealing guide to Grieg's evolution as a composer.

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Guitar Recital: Romero, Angel - Iradier, S. / Massenet, J. /

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United Sounds of America melds the power and rhythms of street poetry with the expressive capacity of the symphony orchestra to bring urgent social questions to the symphonic stage. United sounds is not a traditional musical work, nor is it one individual's attempt at a unified statement. Instead, it's an authentic and deep collaboration that embraces the truth about America's continuing problems and pains as a culture, with uncompromising poetry and music. Intermixed with these weighty subjects are touching childhood memories and uplifting moments of humor and hope, all culminating in a rousing call for unity. Among the collaborators are the award-winning Twin Poets, Albert Mills and Nnamdi Chukwoucha, and the impossible-to-categorize composer Mark Hagerty. Performers joining them are soprano Makeda Hampton, pianist Oksana Glouchko, percussionist-composer Jonathan Whitney, and the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra, led by James Allen Anderson.

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Classical Music

Handel, G.: Water Music (Complete)

Harp Recital: McDonald, Susann - SALZEDO, C. / ALBENIZ, M. /

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Delos International is proud to announce the next release in its outstanding partnership with Dennis Keene and the Voices of Ascension: 'Hear My Prayer'. Voices of Ascension has come to be recognized as one of the world's finest choral ensembles. Its concerts and recordings receive unalloyed critical acclaim. Artistic Director Dennis Keene has assembled a group of New York's finest professional singers and blended them into a richly satisfying ensemble, unqiue in its command of choral music from every period and style. Featuring the renowned soprano soloist Hei-Kyung Hong, 'Hear My Prayer' is perfectly placed for these often difficult times. This timely recording offers the listener an inspiring and soothing collection of sacred works that are appropriate for all audiences. 'Hear My Prayer' covers the choral genre from Mozart to Casals, embracing the traditional and the sublime with singing and direction second to none.

Initially regarded as a master composer of art songs, Jake Heggie has since become known as perhaps America’s leading contemporary composer of internationally acclaimed operas. Winning examples of both genres appear on this release: the world premiere recording of a short, one-act opera, The Radio Hour – as well as four shorter vocal pieces. The Radio Hour – the world’s first-ever “choral opera” – is a compact work for silent actress, with running narrative and commentary from a choir. The program is rounded out with four mostly art song-based works in varied arrangements, several with choral elements, sung by the vaunted John Alexander Singers. Susan Graham, one of America’s most beloved mezzo-sopranos, is heard in three of the shorter pieces; Pacific Symphony members provide the instrumentals. “A masterpiece of clarity and intensity, with a score that is at once thematically compact and richly inventive.” San Francisco Chronicle (review of Jake Heggie’s opera “Moby Dick”)