Love and faith, mortality and eternity are the abiding themes of these three important and beautifully shimmering works by one of the 20th century' most innovative composers. Les offrandes oubliees, Messiaen' first published orchestral work, is a symphony.

Barbara Strozzi had the good luck to be born in 1619 in Venice, in a world rich in creativity, intellectual ebullience and artistic freedom. She became well-known as a composer and singer, and published eight collections of vocal music (125 chamber cantatas) without the support of the Church or the patronage of an aristocratic family. Her works were included in important anthologies published in Europe and England. She died in Padua, in 1677. She was the adoptive daughter of Giulio Strozzi, and very probably his natural daughter; in order to promote her shows, in 1637 the poet founded the Accademia degli Unisoni. The very limited biographical information we have about Barbara’s private life reveals the personality of a woman endowed with extraordinary talent, beauty, intellect and entrepreneurship. Her Op. 6, published in Venice in 1657, includes cantatas and stanza arias. These compositions show the influence of Claudio Monteverdi, and are characterised by a great expressiveness based on the force of music, which always highlights and magnifies the emotions transmitted by the text. This programme presents some Ariette and is enriched by short pieces for solo harpsichord. The harpsichord introductions to the Ariette come from the seventeenth-century manuscript Chigi Q.IV.27, preserved in the Biblioteca Vaticana in Rome. This manuscript contains a series of anonymous preludes, whose style of composition is reminiscent of that of Barbara Strozzi.

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It is interesting to see what uses musical amateurs of Handel’s day made of his scores, and the singing by Nicki Kennedy is excellent.

HANDEL Cantatas: So Pleasing the Pain Is. 1,2 With Roving and with Ranging. 1,2 To Lonely Shades 1,2 & • Nicki Kennedy (sop); 1 Sally Bruce-Payne (alt); 2 The Brook Street Band (period instruments) • AVIE 2153 (2 CDs: 118:57 Text and Translation)

& HANDEL Songs: 1 An answer to Collin’s complaint. Dear Adonis, beauty’s treasure. The forsaken nymph. I like the am’rous youth. Love’s but the frailty of the mind. ’Twas when the seas were roaring. Transporting joy

This recording is titled “Handel’s English Cantatas.” The three works consist of 13 arias and three duets from three Handel operas, Giulio Cesare, Ottone , and Flavio , with new English texts and arranged for two violins and basso continuo . The arrangements have been attributed to Handel, but this claim is very doubtful. The form of each work, a series of arias ending with a duet, without linking recitative, is otherwise unknown in Handel, and there is no evidence that Handel had any part in putting these works together. The notes to this recording make as good a case as can be made for Handel’s involvement, but I remain unconvinced. The works themselves make enjoyable listening, since the music is taken from three of Handel’s best operas, and it is interesting to see what uses musical amateurs of Handel’s day made of his scores.

The performances are generally enjoyable. Nicki Kennedy is the more pleasing of the two soloists. Sally Bruce-Payne has a large voice that does not sound like it is always completely under her control, and she has an annoying habit of giving a very strong accent to some words; for example, in So Pleasing the Pain Is her overstress produces too strong an emphasis on some syllables. Fortunately, she manages to control this tendency most of the time. The Brook Street Band, consisting of two violins, cello, and harpsichord, plays expertly, and one hardly misses the full orchestra for which these works were originally written.

According to the catalog of Handel’s works in the New Grove , these three cantatas were arranged for different voices than those assigned to them here: So Pleasing the Pain Is for tenor and baritone, With Roving and with Ranging for soprano and baritone, and To Lonely Shades for soprano and tenor. The notes are silent on the arrangements made for this recording.

There are two English cantatas that are accepted as legitimate. Look Down, Harmonious Saint , a single recitative and aria, is not included here but can be found as a supplement to Robert King’s recording of Acis and Galatea . The second, Venus and Adonis , survives in fragmentary form as two arias with harpsichord accompaniment. Those two arias, Dear Adonis, beauty’s treasure and Transporting joy , are included here in a group of seven songs. Many songs have been attributed to Handel. A few years ago, Somm released a recording of all of the songs of unquestioned attribution. Four of them are included here, though one ( An answer to Collin’s complaint ) is performed in a harpsichord arrangement. The forsaken nymph and the two arias from Venus and Adonis are recording premieres. All are excellently sung by Nicki Kennedy.

The three newly recorded items make this recording a must for dedicated Handelians, and the three English cantatas make interesting listening.

FANFARE: Ron Salemi

Winter Words is the solo debut release by American tenor Nicholas Phan. The recording was made in the wake of a recital tour in 2010-11 which culminated in his Carnegie debut at Weill Hall. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera studio Nick has performed with the opera companies of Los Angeles and Seattle, symphony orchestras of Atlanta, St. Louis and San Francisco, and the Marlboro, Ravinia and Edinburgh Festivals, among others. He sang in Stravinsky's Pulcinella with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez which was nominated for a Grammy Award. Nick presents a deeply personal perspective of Britten's music, encompassing his own performing experiences to audience reaction. He says: "I've been a fan of Britten since playing his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra with my youth orchestra in Detroit as a teenage violinist. But my great devotion to his music increased to an obsession when an excellent pianist and good friend asked if I'd perform with her at a small university in Missouri. She suggested Winter Words, saying, "I think these would sound really great in your voice, and I've wanted to play them for ages, so indulge me." I researched and played through Britten's settings of Hardy's poems and before long, I was hooked." Approaching the performance in a small Midwestern town with some trepidation ("how would they react?"), Nick describes the audience's overwhelmingly positive response: "my favourite piece on the program ... the most lasting impression." Such is the enduring quality of Britten's sophisticated yet direct song writing, of which Nick is a leading torch-bearer. critical acclaim for Nicholas Phan "took hold of the music with unerring musicality, precise diction, and conversational command." - The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross "an excellent young singer ... more importantly he penetrates deeply into the inner drama" - Boston Globe "Vocally and dramatically at the level of the finest international artists." - Chicago Sun Times

You know him from cpo’s recordings of his chamber music (the piano trios) and his Prize Symphony. With this release cpo chose a selection from Schumann’s more than 60 arias and lieder with selected piano compositions. Many of his piano works are considered "songs without words" and serve as excellent compliments to this song edition.

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A nostalgia-inspiring survey drawn from the extensive body of popular Russian WWII era songs, this album is the sequel to two all-time favorite Delos titles: Where Are You, My Brothers and Moscow Nights. Opera baritone superstar, Dmitri Hvorostovsky delivers these musical mainstays of Russian culture with relaxed classical technique and the kind of refined, yet soulful and deeply affecting emotional impact that make his concerts of these pieces wildly popular across Russia and around the world.

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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.

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First Hand Records presents violinist Sasha Rozhdestvensky in the world premiere commercial recording of Shostakovich's unfinished Violin Sonata. This recording includes an extra 28 bars of a development section found in Shostakovich's original manuscript that does not appear in the published score, and is completed by an eleven-bar coda written by conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky. The work is coupled with the Violin Sonata Op. 43. The program also contains world premiere commercial recordings of Shostakovich's Andantino from the String Quartet No.4, his piano duet arrangement of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and his chamber transcription of Gaetano Braga's La Serenata.

Lars Wivallius (1605-69) was one of Sweden's most talented poets in the 17th century, but he was also quite a rascal. Many a year behind bars sparked poetry glowing with the desire for freedom. These words were sung to well-known tunes of the day. Renowned musicologist Jan Olof Ruden has reconstructed melodies from the period, and Ack, Libertas! Features some of these melodies fused with the poetry of Wivallius. Martin Bagge is a singer, musician, composer and arranger who made a name for himself as a faithful interpreter of 18th century music. Mikael Paulsson is an accomplished lute player, arranger, and conductor. Ensemble Mare Balticum, founded in 1989, is based in southern Sweden and specializes in Early Music.

Since their first concert together in 2011, Polish oboist Monika Dawidek and English guitarist Russell Poyner have captivated audiences with their energy, vitality and charming interaction on stage. In this, their debut album, the German-based Dawidek-Poyner Duo presents a delightful program of Latin American classics, including the popular Libertango by Astor Piazzolla. Interspersed between the duo tracks, Poyner performs a selection of favorite South American works for solo guitar.

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Before the early 20th century, any list of significant Western composers would have included Benedetto Marcello. Through his advocacy of a return to the proportional values and simplicity of ancient Roman civilization, he helped set the stage for the Classical era in Western music, soon to unseat the aesthetic norms of the Baroque in which he lived.

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The interpretation of the complete melodic works of Duparc, this absolute summit in the art of the Lied in the 19th century, calls for a rare mix of youth, experience, interiority and expressivity, in addition to a rare tessitura: a middle range voice in which the extremes are as pleasing as the middle register. Coming from Quebec, Michèle Losier, hitherto applauded on numerous North-American opera stages, impressed the 2008 edition of the Reine Elisabeth Singing Competition by her bewitching art of the recital. This enabled her to meet Daniel Blumenthal, a dream accompanist, and to risk this thrilling adventure in the beautiful hall of the Concertgebouw in Bruges. The result has disconcerting beauty and the added merit of enabling us to admire the lesser known melodies of this great genius, next to his universally celebrated masterpieces. Duparc, who stopped writing at thirty-nine (1884) and painfully survived himself for half a century, offers us the heart and soul of French Romanticism in this interpretation.

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