Sibelius' early Quartet in B-flat Op. 4 (1890) is quite lovely and well worth hearing. It contains some striking anticipations of the composer we know and love, particularly in the harmonies of its slow movement and in its imaginative use of string texture (pizzicato especially). It also shows something of that instinctive feeling for movement that the mature composer developed to such a phenomenal degree. The Tempera Quartet performs both this work and the later Voces Intimae with notable liveliness and evident enthusiasm. In the latter piece, the clean ensemble and vigorous rhythmic profiling prevent the music from sounding dour, particularly in the central slow movement (from which the quartet's nickname derives). However, on occasion--in fortes--the tone of the violins turns a bit crude as the players dig into the notes with excessive vehemence.

The opening piece on the disc, a 12-minute Adagio, features a few attractive but not really memorable ideas. It ends somewhat ambiguously (nothing new when it comes to Sibelius), here suggestive of more to follow--but what that might have been we will probably never know. A tiny fragment of the original ending of Voces Intimae only a few seconds long fulfills BIS's intention to record every scrap of music that Sibelius wrote; but the disc concludes sonorously with the Andante festivo, taken at a good clip and sounding less solemn than usual in this reduced format. As suggested with respect to the major works, the Tempera Quartet handles all of this music expertly, and BIS's sonics are the most consistently excellent in the business. Do try the B-flat quartet: its quality will surprise you.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble is – as the name implies – based in Stockholm, and consists of five of the city's leading musicians. Project-based and often inviting guest performers, the SSE is known for its imaginative programmes built around a particular event or concept and bringing together music from various genres and eras. For its first release on BIS the ensemble has taken Brett Dean’s Voices of Angels as their point of departure, a work scored for the same forces as Schubert’s ‘Trout quintet’ and inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s first two Duino Elegies: ‘Angels (it’s said) are often unable to tell whether they move amongst the living or the dead.’ Dean’s work from 1996 opens a programme which ranges from Bach to Sofia Gubaidulina, and includes various scorings for between two and six performers. The angels reappear in songs by Wagner and Gubaidulina performed by Christianne Stotijn, one of the ensemble’s guests on this disc – but it is also safe to assume that they are standing around the heavenly throne which Bach approaches in the chorale prelude ‘Vor Deinen Thron tret ich hiermit’ – here transcribed for strings. The same prelude is the subject of Gubaidulina’s Meditation, while the disc closes with a work by Gubaidulina’s friend Alfred Schnittke, namely his Hymn for cello and double bass.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

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

Henk de Vlieger's orchestral arrangement of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle boils down this monumental music drama in four parts to a symphonic poem with a duration of a fifteenth of the original score. Unlike certain other arrangements, de Vlieger's follows the chronology of the operas so that the irrevocable process towards the twilight of the gods is clearly delineated. His method has been to select and link together the most important orchestral passages in the score, already closely interconnected as a result of Wagner’s leitmotif technique The excerpts have in most cases been taken over without alterations; only occasionally has an essential vocal line been replaced by wind instruments. Quite possibly, Wagner himself would have objected to the undertaking, but in fact one of his own strongly held convictions was that the text – or rather its content – should be continuously present, by means of the hidden-away orchestra exploring the dramatic background to the action presented on stage. With this orchestral arangement the turn has thus come for the Royal Swedish Orchestra to take its place on centre stage, in music which has been part of its repertoire for close to 120 years at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. (Some of that impressive history is reflected in the CD booklet through images from Ring productions past and present.) The conductor Lawrence Renes, recently named music director at the Royal Swedish Opera, has admired de Vlieger's arrangement since it was premièred, in 1991, by his own mentor, the conductor Edo de Waart. The arrangement has been recorded previously, but never before by a bona fide opera orchestra. The result is indeed an adventure, as well as a sonic spectacular, and an excellent calling card for a fine orchestra all too often relegated to the shadows.

In their exploration of the symphonic repertoire of the Romantic era, Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra have previously recorded Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and most recently Brahms, in performances described as ‘exhilarating’ (The Observer) and ‘stirring’ (ClassicsToday.com). As they take on the music by another archetypal nineteenth-century composer, Richard Wagner, they are joined by one of today’s foremost Wagner singers. Named ‘Singer of the Year’ by the magazine Opernwelt in 2012, Nina Stemme has been the Isolde of choice at Glyndebourne, Bayreuth and Covent Garden. She here performs the five Wesendonck Songs – of which two in particular, Im Treibhaus and Träume, were referred to by their composer as ‘studies’ for Tristan and Isolde. Wagner himself prepared a version for violin and orchestra of Träume, which the conductor Felix Mottl incorporated when, supervised by the composer, he made an orchestration of the set. These songs to texts by Mathilde Wesendonck, Wagner’s muse during the 1850s, are framed by two versions of the overture to The Flying Dutchman, the rarely heard 1841 original version and the composer’s final creation from 1860, with its new ending inspired by Tristan, composed three years earlier. Concerning his revisions, Wagner wrote to Mathilde: ‘Now that I have composed Isolde’s last transfiguration, I could at last find the right close for this Fliegender-Holländer overture’. Included is also the Siegfried Idyll, composed in 1870 as one of Wagner’s few purely orchestral works. It is known by this title because it was presented as a gift to Cosima Wagner, who had recently given birth to the couple’s son Siegfried, but also because it uses themes from the opera Siegfried, which was then nearing completion. Closing the disc is the stately prelude to another opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, in which Wagner with a spectacular use of counterpoint – ‘applied Bach’ was his own description – aspires to express the idea of a reconciliation between artistic freedom and respect for tradition.

This recording constitutes nothing less than a landmark in both the Hindemith and Walton discographies. The Walton Concerto is the better known of the two, but it’s an elusive work that often fails to make a strong impression. It has never received a more shapely, focused, and intelligent performance than it does here. Poltéra’s swift tempos and exceptional virtuosity give the music such freshness, while the long finale holds together better than in any other performance. If you’ve ever had doubts about this work, here’s an interpretation that will set them to rest.

As for the Hindemith, this is an absolutely wonderful piece, with a slow movement that contains perhaps Hindemith’s most memorable single tune. He used it a lot. Its second phrase opens the song cycle Das Marienleben, and it also appears in the Symphony in E flat. For some reason the work has never quite caught on, despite being very approachable and extravagantly scored. Janos Starker’s RCA recording was the best option before this, but that comes coupled (oddly) with the Schumann concerto, whereas the Walton makes a far more apt disc mate.

Poltéra’s performance simply puts everyone else in the shade. His tone has just the right combination of purity and sweetness, but it never turns sentimental. The virtuosic outer movements play as if self-propelled–and in this respect let us pause for a moment to give Frank Shipway and the São Paulo Symphony credit for their exciting but always sensitive accompaniments. The solo cello works, too, make apt and unusual couplings, and they are played with the same point and panache as the concertos. Stunning SACD engineering represents the icing on the cake. This is just glorious.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Rarely appearing together on disc, William Walton's two symphonies are separated by some 25 years. The First Symphony was composed after his dazzling early success, beginning with Façade and culminating in two scores written before Walton reached the age of thirty: the Viola Concerto and the oratorio Belshazzar's Feast. After this, composition became more difficult, and progress on the symphony was tortuous and protracted. Nevertheless, the work has a strikingly positive tone - perhaps in celebration of the victory over the many demons and difficulties that had attended its creation. Twenty-two years later, in 1957, the musical world was a very different place, but Walton's response was not to seek solace in reflective nostalgia. It is rather as if he conceived the Second Symphony as a follow-up to his terse and bubbly Partita for orchestra, building on the confidence that the success of that score had given the always self-doubting composer. Owain Arwel Hughes, who conducts the present recording, first made his name with an electrifying televised performance of Walton's Belshazzar's Feast which received a notable accolade from the composer. During his distinguished career Hughes has recorded a number of discs for BIS, including a complete cycles of the 13 symphonies of Vagn Holmboe. In the French magazine Répertoire his 3-disc series of Rachmaninov's symphonies was described as 'the great modern Rachmaninov cycle', while the reviewer in International Record Review stated that 'Hughes is the first conductor to convince me that the First Symphony is on a par with its two successors.' On this recording he brings Walton across the English Channel and conducts one of the leading French orchestras, Orchestre national de Lille, for their first appearance on the BIS label.

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


This is an absolutely wonderful disc in every way. Weber's clarinet music is delightful, and it's hard to imagine it being better played or recorded. Martin Fröst has such a supple, liquid timbre that at times you could almost swear there were words behind the notes, especially in the slow movements of all four works. And few soloists manage to bring such an irrepressible feeling of joy to the virtuoso passages that you can hear, say, in the finale of the Second concerto.

Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta also offer perfect accompaniments: swift, sensitive, texturally transparent, and rhythmically snappy. The F minor concerto in particular has plenty of passion and drama. The conductor's own transcription of the Clarinet Quintet for string orchestra works beautifully and fills out the disc generously, while the engineering in all formats couldn't be better balanced or fall more easily on the ear. There's no need to go on at length: this is now the reference recording for this music. It defines "state of the art."

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Carl Maria von Weber wrote music that has been admired by composers as diverse as Schumann, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky. But in his lifetime he was also recognized as one of the finest pianists of the period, with an exceptional technique and a brilliant gift for improvisation. Especially during the 1810s he toured extensively, and like other composer-pianists he wrote works to use as his personal calling cards, among them the two piano concertos recorded here. They were both composed in 1811-12, but while the First Concerto takes Mozart’s concertos as its model, Piano Concerto No. 2 looks towards Beethoven. This change of direction was probably influenced by the fact that Weber had acquired a score of Beethoven’s recently published Emperor Concerto. In any case there are some striking similarities between his concerto and Beethoven’s: the use of identical keys, and the inclusion of a slow, subtly orchestrated Adagio and a closing playful rondo in 6/8. Weber is unmistakably Weber, however: a highly original orchestrator whose music is at turns brilliant, melancholy and charming. These qualities are to the fore also in the Konzertstück from 1821, in which the composer liberates himself from Classical models and finds a new path. Much admired by Liszt, the work is a kind of symphonic poem in four sections, played without a break. Following highly acclaimed recordings of the complete concertos by Mozart and Beethoven as well as Mendelssohn, this disc brings the team of Ronald Brautigam and Kölner Akademie to the very crossroads of Classicism and Romanticism.

REVIEW:

It is a mystery to me why these marvellously crafted, pianistically challenging and ear-catchingly memorable works aren’t much better known – whilst there have been a few recordings over the years they tend only infrequently to turn up on concert programmes. The same point could be made about the composer’s four piano sonatas; not least because Weber wrote as idiomatically and adventurously for the keyboard as one would expect from an individual who happened to be one of the foremost virtuosi of his day.

The Kölner Akademie’s rapt accompaniment (solo strings in No 1, solo group alternating with small orchestra in No 2) in each case is perfectly poised and appropriately weighted against the agreeably plump yet discreet sounds emanating from the Dutchman’s fortepiano. What is inarguable is that Brautigam invests the indubitably jolly elements of the outer movements with bags of character. Brautigam’s instrument (a wonderfully characterful Paul McNulty copy of a Conrad Graf fortepiano which originated at exactly the time of these compositions) has at its disposal a palette which suits Weber’s hyperactivity and sudden mood changes with equal aptness. The florid Beethoveniana of the opening movement of the second concerto benefits especially from its lustre.

In the final analysis listeners like myself are more frequently reaching the conclusion that we need to hear this repertoire on both modern and historical instruments. I’m pretty sure this exceptional recording is pioneering in the latter regard – those fortunate enough to have the right equipment will certainly enjoy the SACD option, but the stereo sound proves considerably fatter and more three dimensional than its Hyperion counterpart, although I will certainly not be parting with that disc. It goes without saying that Brautigam is always worth hearing in any case.

– MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)

Although celebrated as the father of German Romantic opera, Carl Maria von Weber is today generally known for one opera alone: Der Freischütz. Most of his other works for the stage - including the incidental music for several plays - are nowadays rarely performed. But their overtures have survived the test of time and are popular fillers at orchestral concerts, imbued as they are with Weber's particular mix of Romantic drama and lyricism and Classical lightness of touch. Striking is also the inimitable, colourful instrumentation, which is given free reins in these scores for librettos and plays that are set in China and Arabia, and among Spanish gypsies and knights in 12th-century France. The present disc includes ten of these gems, from the overture to Weber's first surviving opera Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn - composed at the age of fifteen - to that of Oberon, written in London for Covent Garden less than two months before his death from tuberculosis, aged 39. The team of Jean-Jacques Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta have recorded numerous discs for BIS, by composers as diverse as Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Shostakovich and Rautavaara. Acclaimed releases have also been dedicated to the music of Weber, most recently his symphonies on a disc which was described as 'without doubt among the finest additions to the Weber discography in recent years' by the reviewer of the German magazine Fono Forum. His French colleague in Diapason was equally enthusiastic, remarking upon the dramatic qualities of the recording: 'Kantorow stages a theatre of sounds in which each instrument is an actor...'

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



WEBER Symphonies: No. 1; No. 2. Andante e Rondo ungarese. 1 Bassoon Concerto in F 1 • Jean-Jacques Kantorow, cond; Jaakko Luoma (bn); 1 Tapiola Sinfonietta • BIS 1620 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 67:42)


There is little that can be done for Weber’s gauche, mindless early symphonies, written when he was 21. They are all sparks and bombast, with colorful surfaces but virtually no content. Single woodwinds (there are no clarinets) generally carry the tunes, passing them around the section, while strings offer some relief; brass join in for consistently loud, fanfare-like tutti. The general consensus has been to play the symphonies as fast as possible (to get them over with?). Kantorow does that too, and his 40-piece orchestra, playing modern instruments with all the snap, sparkle, and tonal panache of period practice—more so than Roy Goodman’s period-instrument Hanover Band—makes the most of the symphonies, aided by BIS ’s usual sensational recorded sound. Luoma’s bassoon stands out among the winds; Roger Norrington’s London Classical Players have better-balanced wind soloists, but the overall performances are not as precise. The Second Symphony opens this disc, beginning with a stunning two-bar fanfare; unfortunately, it never does anything with it, making the 10-minute Allegro seem endless. As if the composer immediately recognized the problem, the following three movements whiz by in a mere eight minutes. After the “final” coda and a pause, two brief pp notes from bassoon and low strings bring the proceedings to a close. Haydn did everything better, including jokes and false endings.


Concerted pieces always inspired the best from Weber: three for clarinet, three more for piano, one each for oboe and French horn. These two for bassoon are the cream of that instrument’s repertoire (there also was a kid named Mozart). Playing a bassoon built in 2000 by Wilhelm Heckel—I don’t know if he is related to the creator of the heckelphone—Luoma sails through both works with the greatest of ease, producing consistently lovely tones. Whatever happened to that grumpy old instrument that was so difficult to play?


The First Symphony comes last, probably so that its Presto finale, the most successful movement of the eight, can wind up the disc with a bang. As fine as the CD is, SACD opens up the sound, giving it more life. Trumpets and strings gain clarity and presence, which makes the winds recede slightly from the spotlight. Surround sound adds an airy feeling, but doesn’t alter the basic sound. If you must have Weber’s symphonies, this is certainly the disc to get, especially so given the bonus bassoon works. But the others mentioned also include marvelous bonuses: Melvyn Tan plays the fortepiano Konzertstück with Norrington, and Anthony Halstead plays a natural horn in the Horn Concertino with Goodman.


FANFARE: James H. North


Finely honed performances of charming music played with relish.

These works were all written between 1807 and 1811, so pre-date Weber’s fame as an opera composer. He had just left Breslau, having survived a dreadful accident when his father, a printer, left a nitric acid solution in a wine glass which his son absent-mindedly then drank. His next post was a temporary one, when he went to Bad Carlsruhe and the court of Count Eugen Friedrich of Württemberg-?ls, who, being himself a fair oboist, encouraged Weber to compose. Both symphonies were written there during these idyllic few months, the first in C major in December 1807 and January 1808, the second (also in C major) later the same month. Reflecting the resources he found there, the scoring lacks one flute and most surprisingly there are no clarinets. Solos for the rest abound however, some of them very demanding, so standards must have been high. Obviously the oboe has his plate full, but the remaining winds, particularly the bassoon, are active, so too the French horn and some solo strings; in fact pretty well everyone has their fifteen seconds of fame. Written when Beethoven’s first three symphonies were already known, it is important to regard Weber’s more in Haydn’s style, with the crossing of the cusp between Classic and Romantic reflected more by orchestral colour than any disturbance of formal structure. Even so, these are not predictable works, in particular the finale of the Second, which stops and starts for individual solos before scampering on to the next pause like an American football game. This is Haydn’s wit at work. Much the same can be said of the First Symphony, which highlights individual wind players once again. It is full of confident orchestral outbursts on the one hand - the opera conductor here - and charming melodies of an almost rustic hue. At a minute and a half, the Minuet and Trio of the Second Symphony must be the shortest ever. Note that this recording inexplicably starts with the Second Symphony and ends with the First, easy to miss that as both are in the same key.

The rest of the fare is devoted to two concerted works for bassoon and orchestra. The brief Andante and Hungarian Rondo was originally composed in 1809 for Weber’s violist brother Fritz, while the bassoon transcription was made for the virtuoso player Georg Friedrich Brandt with some inevitably consequent changes. The Rondo’s rhythms emphasise the Hungarian flavour of the music. Weber’s writing exploits fully the facility of the instrument, its agility over a wide range of notes, tonal quality, and its lyrical as well as comical element. It was in March 1810 that he found himself conducting a concert with the Munich Court Orchestra, its programme including a clarinet concertino he had written for Heinrich Bärmann. Its success encouraged the orchestra’s principal players to ask for solo works, so two concertos for clarinet followed in 1811 and, on 28 December, a bassoon concerto for Brandt. He made some revisions in 1822, expression and dynamic indications expanded and some string accompaniments rewritten, and this is the version heard on this CD.

The performances by Jaako Luoma are finely honed in both works. His instrument paints a wide palette of colour, his phrasing is stylish. The Tapiola Sinfonietta under its former (1993-2000) director Jean-Jacques Kantorow match him in detail in a cleanly balanced recording. Both symphonies are played with relish, all solo opportunities exploited to the full. The music is charming, but Weber is surely still going to be remembered best for his operas and their overtures, but at least it gives clarinettists and, in this instance, bassoonists a chance to shine. 

-- Christopher Fifield, MusicWeb International 

In 2002 we released the first recording of Karl Weigl's (1881-1949) Fifth Symphony, subtitled 'The Apocalyptic' and dedicated it to the memory of Franklin Roosevelt. Completed in the last year of the Second World War, it is a programmatic work describing the world hovering on the brink of total destruction - a very natural way of seeing things for an Austrian refugee of Jewish decent living in the US during that troubled time. But there was more than the destiny of his beloved Vienna that occupied Weigl. He was very much part of an old central-European tradition, the tradition of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler, which - as he must have realized - was threatened by whatever the outcome of the war. Described by his fellow student Schoenberg as 'one of the best composers of the old school, one of those who continued the glittering Viennese tradition', Weigl in one of the first works written after his flight to the US in 1938, celebrates one aspect of his native city: the waltzes of the Strauss family. In 'Old Vienna' we get a rhapsody of Vienna-style waltzes, executed with the affection - and nostalgia - of someone who had been present at the time. (Weigl was a regular guest at the soirées of Adèle Strauss, widow of Johann Strauss II, in whose home he met his first wife.) Compared to this work and to the Apocalyptic Symphony, the 'Sixth Symphony', composed eight years later and Weigl's last major work, is a piece of absolute music. But here too, in the music itself, is a testament to the tradition that for political and aesthetic reasons had already become a memory in the old world that had fostered it. Neither of the works was performed in the composer's lifetime, and in fact the Symphony had to wait until the present recording. The previous Weigl release on BIS (CD1077) was greeted with a 2003 Cannes Classical Award and great acclaim by reviewers who called Weigl 'a fascinating voice' and 'a major discovery' while naming the performances, by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Tomas Sanderling, 'exceptional' and 'committed'. The ones on the present disc - on which conductor Alun Francis also appears - certainly are no less!

Although Kurt Weill’s principal legacy lies in music theatre works of both popular appeal and intellectual weight, he was equally at home in purely orchestral works as evidenced by his two symphonies. Written just over a decade apart, they reveal his chameleon-like ability to work with any range of style and form. The Symphonie in einem Satz (Symphony in one movement), completed when he was barely 21, adopts an expressionist idiom that shows intricate writing, dense counterpoint and quick shifts reminiscent of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony. Completed in France in 1934 after Weill had to flee Nazi Germany, the Fantaisie symphonique is filled with allusions to the 'sung ballet' The Seven Deadly Sins, composed at the same time. Opening the programme is a selection from the ‘play with music’ Der Silbersee (The Silver Lake), a commentary on commercial greed. As in The Threepenny Opera, the vocal parts were composed for singing actors rather than opera singers. Steeped in the world of Weill, conductor, composer and chansonnier HK Gruber performs the songs himself in his own inimitable way, giving an unusual authenticity to the interpretations.

REVIEWS:

The collection is conducted by HK Gruber, a standard-setting interpreter of Weill’s music, who has been inspired by the composer in his own works. His account of the first symphony (1921) tightly controls what could easily seem scattered; and he sings in the “Silbersee” excerpts, with the gravely, unrefined affect of Lotte Lenya that will be instantly familiar to those who know his 1977 song cycle “Frankenstein!!” The second symphony unfurls with an ease that becomes more disturbing as, from behind the wit and tunefulness, emerge flashes of heartbroken nostalgia and martial terror. The scores comes out sounding more personal, if documentary, for it — a postcard from a precarious Europe on the brink.

-- New York Times (Joshua Barone)

Der Silbersee was Kurt Weill’s European swan-song; premiered in Berlin in February 1933, it was banned by the Nazis in March, and Weill was forced to flee Germany.

There’s a jarring contrast between the pungent text (beautifully projected here by HK Gruber) and the lovely orchestral accompaniment that perfectly sums up Weill’s best music. There are only a few excerpts from the score, but they’re choice.

The marvelous Symphony No. 2 is close to the top of my list of obscure orchestral works that deserve to be programmed and recorded much more frequently. He’s taken the accessible theatre music which had become his hallmark, and neatly slotted it within the classical symphony form of Haydn and Mozart.

Back in 1921, Kurt Weill had written his Symphony in One Movement (his First). His characterization of it: “By Mahler, out of Strauss, trained by Schoenberg.” Weill cleverly melds the neo-romantic tradition with leading edge serialism. This is more than juvenilia; it’s an accomplished work in its own right. Weill has the compositional skill this early in his composing career to produce music that has value a century later.

This project is a perfect example of honest performance of great music; with stellar support from the musicians of the Swedish Chamber Choir, we have here an outstanding contribution to the Weill discography.

-- Music for Several Instruments

15 years ago lutenist Jakob Lindberg bought a very special instrument - one of the four extant lutes by Sixtus Rauwolf, built c.1560. The restoration of the lute took several years and was rather painstaking: for some repairs they een used ancient wood from the library in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence! Considering the great age of the instrument it was nevertheless in good shape and is now probably the only one in the world that, retaining its orignal soundboard, is in playable condition. This unique feature Lindberg has wanted to celebrate by recording music suitable for the instrument. Once upon a time, probably in 1715, this lute was equipped with a new neck allowing for a greater number of courses. This makes it perfect for the lute works of Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750), famous among his contemporaries as the finest lutenist of his generation. (There is some reason to believe that Bach composed a couple of his works for solo lute after having met Weiss in 1739.) Weiss was also the most prolific of all lute composers: some 600 pieces have survived, whcih may amount to half of his entire production for the instrument. Most of the pieces on this disc are early works, grouped in suites - or Sonatas as Weiss himself termed them - by the composer himself or, in some cases, by Jakob Lindberg. Included are some of Weiss's best-known works, e.g. the 'Fantasie in C minor' as well as one of his rare fuguges for lute.

SILVIUS LEOPOLD WEISS Jakob Lindberg, 13-course baroque lute. SILVIUS LEOPOLD WEISS - LUTE MUSIC II: Sonata No. 39 in C major;Tombeau sur la Mort de M. Comte de Logy; Sonata No. 50 in B flatmajor.

Pianist Peter Friis Johansson has brought together renowned musicians, including violinist Johan Dalene and soprano Sofie Asplund, for a programme that juxtaposes three generations of Swedish composers. The vocal and chamber works performed here testify to the special place these genres occupy in Swedish art music and to the vitality of musical societies in the early twentieth century, which sparked an interest that went far beyond easily digestible music. Andreas Hallen is the oldest of the composers featured here. His Piano Quartet shows great confidence despite being an early work. Like many composers of his generation, Hallen readily incorporates folk elements. Wilhelm Stenhammar produced an important and varied body of work. His Violin Sonata is a work that reflects the ideals of his German education: it is absolute music without any explicit extra-musical narrative content, a 'synthesis of classicism and sensitive poetry', as his first biographer put it. Sara Wennerberg-Reuter is the least-known of the three, and many of her scores remain unpublished. Stockholm's only female organist with a permanent position, she left behind a varied body of work spanning a wide range of styles. She distanced herself from her contemporaries with a musical style that focused on melody, a commodity she felt had by then become scarce.

Berit Opheim Versto, folk singer
Gjermund Larsen, fiddle, hardanger fiddle
The Norwegian Soloists' Choir (Det Norske Solistkor)
Grete Pedersen, conductor

More than a century ago, the rhythms and harmonies of Edvard Grieg's music enchanted a whole world. What Grieg himself readily admitted was that these rhythms and harmonies had been absorbed during his journeys along fjords and across mountains, and his encounters with fiddlers and folk singers - such as the dairy-maid Gjendine Slaalien, whose 'bådnlåt' (lullaby) Grieg turned into a piano piece. But although the most famous, Grieg is only one of many Norwegian composers who have found folk music a deep and decisive source of inspiration. Combining traditional folk songs with recent compositions springing from folk music, the Norwegian Soloists' Choir on the present disc makes a compelling case for the powerful hold that this music has over the country's cultural life, in performances that easily makes one understand why! The choir's conductor, Grete Pedersen, has a constant eye open for the immediacy of folk music, but also its melancholy which, as she writes in her own introduction, 'always shines through, whether the tune is a wedding march or a lullaby, and whether it accompanies a religious song or a tale of a maiden abducted by trolls.' The choir's previous recording for BIS was a programme of Grieg's choral works, described as 'a performance of breathtaking beauty' in Le Monde de la Musique, and 'a reference recording, the likes of which one doesn't encounter every day' on website klassik.com. Already on that disc the Norwegian Soloists' Choir explored the music's roots in folk music, and going a step further in this direction, Grete Pedersen has now invited one of Norway's most respected folk singers, Berit Opheim Versto, and the fiddler and composer Gjermund Larsen to join her and the choir on their journey through 'the intricate landscape of folk music'.

Tracks:
1. Gjendines Bådnlåt
2. Jeg lagde mig så sildig
3. Jesus din søte forening å smake
4. Nådigste Jesus / Jesus styr du mine tankar
5. Med Jesus vil eg fara
6. Bruremarsj fra Valsøyfjord
7. Polonese
8. Gropen
9. Solbønn
10. Solistvals
11. Margjit Hjukse, Op.48
12. Allsang

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Born in the vicinity of Cologne, only two years after and some sixty km distant from Beethoven, Johann Wilhelm Wilms was once a musical force to be reckoned with. In Amsterdam, where he lived from the age of 19, his music was actually performed more frequently than Beethoven’s at one period, and his orchestral works were played in such musical centers as Leipzig. Besides chamber music and solo sonatas Wilms composed several symphonies and solo concertos (for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and cello) as well as piano concertos for his own use, five of which were published between 1799 and 1820. (Two more have been lost.) He also appeared regularly as soloist in concertos by other composers. But already during his lifetime Wilms began to retreat from the public eye, whether because of setbacks in his private life or because he was disillusioned with the superficial tastes of the Amsterdam audiences. By the time of his death in 1847, he was remembered almost exclusively as the composer of the then national anthem. In time for the 250th anniversary of Wilms’ birth, Ronald Brautigam has edited the five extant piano concertos by ‘the Dutch Beethoven’ and presents the first three here, with nos 4 and 5 to follow in a second volume. As on a number of previous, highly acclaimed releases, he is supported by the Kölner Akademie and Michael Alexander Willens.

Born in the vicinity of Cologne, only two years after and some sixty km distant from Beethoven, Johann Wilhelm Wilms was once a musical force to be reckoned with. In Amsterdam, where he lived from the age of 19, his music was actually performed more frequently than Beethoven’s at one period, and his orchestral works were played in such musical centers as Leipzig. Besides chamber music and solo sonatas, Wilms composed several symphonies and concertos, among them piano concertos for his own use. But already during his lifetime Wilms began to retreat from the public eye and by the time of his death in 1847, he was remembered almost exclusively as the composer of the then national anthem. In time for the 250th anniversary of Wilms’ birth, Ronald Brautigam has edited the five extant piano concertos by ‘the Dutch Beethoven’. A first volume (BIS-2504) with the three earlier concertos has been released, earning a five star review in BBC Music Magazine for ‘performances of lightness and transparency, matched by the recording’s clarity.’ On this second and final instalment, with Concertos Nos 4 and 5, Ronald Brautigam again receives spirited support from the Kölner Akademie and Michael Alexander Willens.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Towards the end of the 19th century, ´several composers were taking a new interest in folk music. Folk tunes, or imitations of them, had previously mainly been used in order to provide ‘local colour’ or as a way of catering to nationalist sentiments, but it was now seen as a means to revitalize art music itself, opening up for new possibilities in terms of rhythm and harmony as well as melody. At the forefront of this development was Béla Bartók, who also considered the use of folk elements as a tool to transcend boundaries – to achieve a ‘brotherhood of peoples’. For his new recital disc, Can Çakmur has devised a program which juxtaposes four composers’ different responses to folk music. Bartók’s Piano Sonata is followed by Passacaglia, Intermezzo e Fuga with which Dimitri Mitropoulos made a clean break with earlier works in a more nationalistic vein. Next comes Çakmur’s compatriot, the Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun, who in 1936 accompanied Bartók on a field trip in Turkey collecting music. His Piano Sonata was composed some fifty years later, however, and refers to folk music primarily on a theoretical level. Closing the disc is George Enescu’s Piano Sonata No.?3 in D major, which Çakmur in his own liner notes describes as ‘radiating a natural affinity for the village, without sacrificing the compositional value of the work.’

Composed in feverish bouts interrupted by long periods of inaction, Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch was brought to completion in 1896. The 46 songs are settings of poems in German by Paul Heyse, after Italian folk songs – miniatures with a duration of less than 2 minutes in most cases. Heyse’s collection numbered more than 350 poems, but Wolf ignored the ballads and laments, and concentrated almost exclusively on the rispetti. These are short love poems which chart, against a Tuscan landscape, the everyday jealousies, flirtations, joys and despairs of men and women in love. Heyse’s translations often intensify the simple Italian of the original poems, and in their turn, Wolf’s settings represent a further heightening of emotion. Miniatures they may be, but many of the songs strike unforgettably at the heart. When Wolf’s songbook is performed in its entirety, it is usually done by a male and a female singer, although this is not specified in the score. It is not uncommon for them to be transposed, but the songs are written for high voices, and are here performed by a soprano and a tenor – Carolyn Sampson and Alan Clayton – with Joseph Middleton at the piano. The performers have chosen to present the songs in the order they appear in the printed collection, dividing them between themselves.

REVIEWS:

The Italian Songbook consists of two groups of songs. The first group, consisting of 22 songs, was set in 1890 – 1891 and the second group with 24 songs in 1896. Strictly speaking it isn’t a cycle, and in some recordings the interpreters have opted for their personal order of the songs, but many stick to the order in which Wolf published them, and this is also the case with the present issue. The two singers are well-matched. Carolyn Sampson has been an avid advocate for baroque music for many years, but she has also ventured into art songs...Tenor Allan Clayton‘s career has focused on opera – his Peter Grimes at Covent Garden recently was a resounding triumph – but he has also frequently given song recitals...So, I had high expectations when I set to work with this disc.

The first thing I observed was the sensitive playing of Joseph Middleton, pliable and perceptive. Secondly I noted Carolyn Sampson’s girlish tone in Auch kleine Dinge, and her soft and inward reading. This was a recurrent feature throughout the programme.

When Allan Clayton made his entrance, he at once convinced me: here he displayed his armoury of nuances that had enthralled me on the Liszt disc, his beautiful pianissimo – listen to the end of Gesegnet sei (tr. 4) or the mastery half-voice in Der Mond hat eine schwere Klag’ erhoben – but on the reverse side of the coin his dramatic capacity was just as telling: Wenn du mich mit den Augen streifst und lachst (tr. 38) is just one instance. And Carolyn Sampson has the same sense for drama: so agitated and energetic in Wer rief dich denn? (tr. 6). Looking back on my notes, I see that the pad is littered with positive remarks and exclamation marks, but printing them here would surely be rather tiresome reading – and I rather leave it to those who buy the disc to find all the felicities these two well-endowed Liedersänger indulge in. The prestige word for all singing of Lieder is nuances, and from the above I believe that readers have understood that Carolyn Sampson and Allan Clayton are masterly in that respect.

How do they stand up against the competition from other recordings? Very well, I would say...Sampson and Clayton are certainly among the top contenders.

-- MusicWeb International

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