The St. Louis Symphony and their music director Stéphane Denève present a program featuring two of the most accomplished American composers in history: Leonard Bernstein with his Serenade and John Williams with his Violin Concerto, both performed by star James Ehnes, one of the most exceptional North American violinists. John Williams himself was present at the recording of his violin concerto, working together with the St. Louis Symphony, Denève, and Ehnes.

Both works evolve around love: Bernstein’s Serenade was inspired by musings on love from Plato’s Symposium while Williams’s work was arguably inspired and eventually dedicated to his suddenly deceased wife. By combining these two concert pieces, this album puts the symphonic work of Bernstein and Williams at the center, two composers who weren’t afraid of crossing the boundaries between film music and “serious” classical genres at a time when these worlds were generally kept far apart. Especially in Williams' concerto, there are still hints of his work as a film composer; the slow movement brings to mind a scene of emotional gravity.

Widely considered one of the world's finest orchestras, the SLSO maintains its commitment to artistic excellence, educational impact, and community connections. The St. Louis Symphony, Stéphane Denève, and James Ehnes all make their Pentatone debut.

REVIEWS:

Dutch label Pentatone continues to champion American orchestras with the Saint Louis Symphony’s recording of violin concertos by John Williams and Leonard Bernstein. Williams dedicated the 1974 Violin Concerto No. 1 to his late wife, the actress Barbara Ruick. It’s a serious-minded, sometimes bleak affair, and Williams has called it atonal, though it seems harmonically straightforward enough.

With a 30-minute, three-movement sweep, Williams's concerto is expansive too. Canadian violinist James Ehnes is the thoughtful soloist, investing the music with deserved gravitas and fully on top of its technical challenges. Stéphane Denève leads a weighty reading, darkly dramatic in the opening “Moderato,” consoling in the glowing slow movement (which Ehnes plays like an angel), and incisive in the intermittently clangorous finale.

Bernstein’s Serenade has been recorded many times, but this astute interpretation is a welcome reminder of both its wistful profundity and its headstrong vigor. Ehnes and Denève open the debate spaciously with an expressive account of the “Phaedrus” movement. “Aristophanes” seems to channel graceful elements out of Candide, while a weighty “Socrates” gives way to the jazzy joie de vivre of “Alcibiades.” The violin sound is clean and clear, offset against a slightly resonant orchestra.

-- Musical America (Clive Paget)

Violinist James Ehnes’ discography is so extensive that it was only a question of when he’d get around to recording Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade, not if. What’s more striking about his new recording with Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) is that it pairs Bernstein’s 1954 effort with John Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 1.

The Williams dates from the mid-‘70s and was written right after the untimely death of his first wife, the actress Barbara Ruick. Its brooding, volatile aspect perhaps owes something to that context – the central “Slowly in peaceful concentration” unfolds like an elegiac barcarolle – though this is hardly funereal music.

In fact, the Concerto marked a turning point in Williams’ concert music, allowing him to cultivate what he called the “Romantic [Atonal], but in an American way”-style he’d long been striving for...there’s a motivic rigor here that’s straight out of the Brahms-Schoenberg line and the writing for violin and orchestra is thoroughly idiomatic...[here, it is] exceptionally well played and draws out the tight thematic relationships between each movement. The Canadian violinist makes the most of the introspective spots – the middle movement, the reflective episode in the center of the finale, especially – while also suffusing its bravura passagework with purpose and direction.

Denève and the SLSO are right with him, teasing out the music’s gentle echoes of Hollywood and sometimes mercurial shifts of character with surety and ease.

They make for an impressive combination, too, in the Bernstein. Take or leave the score’s programmatic allusions to Plato’s Symposium: the Serenade is one of the American composer’s freshest and most satisfying concert works.

Here, Ehnes plays with gorgeous tone – the clarity of his bow arm is just marvelous, as is his left hand’s ability to cleanly and purposefully get the music’s knotty double and triple stops to sing. Over the Serenade’s first three movements, too, there’s a strong sense of shape and propulsion: this is well-focused, graceful, spry Bernstein.

-- The Arts Fuse

Following on from the critically acclaimed Anthems, Hymns and Gloria (8.574130) released in 2020, Nicholas Childs and the Black Dyke Band return to the music of John Rutter with this album of Christmas carols arranged for brass. The Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus is also featured on O Clap Your Hands, Nativity Carol and Te Deum. Includes twelve world premiere recordings.

An exact contemporary of Bach, George Frideric Handel was one of the most important composers of the Baroque era, carving out a career for himself which was equally as impressive as his fellow countryman's. Born in Halle, Germany, to parents who were initially opposed to his devotion to music, Handel soon moved from his hometown to the great operatic centre of Hamburg. The opportunity to meet people from around Europe led to a rapid development of his skills, and, influenced by the Italian style that was gathering pace around him, the composer took the opportunity to travel to Italy, staging La Resurrezione in Rome in 1708. Handel's reputation soon picked up, and in 1710 he became Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hannover, Prince George, who would soon become King George I of England. The connection with England had been established, and Handel moved there permanently in 1714, helping to found the Royal Academy of Music five years later. When the new Covent Garden Theatre was established in 1736, Handel celebrated the opening night with a performance of Alexander's Feast (included in full on this release). Following his operatic success, the composer turned to oratorios, starting with the biblical Saul and Israel in Egypt, and premiering Messiah in Dublin in 1742. The next year, despite suffering paralysis in his hand, he completed Samson and the Dettingen Te Deum, with Semele appearing in February 1744. Five years later came one of his most popular works, Music for the Royal Fireworks; up to 12,000 people attended the first performance, an indication of just how popular the composer was in his own lifetime. After staging a performance of Messiah to benefit the Foundling Hospital in 1749, Handel was made a governor, beginning a relationship with the institution that would last the rest of his life. Although he was most famous for his opera and oratorios, Handel composed a large amount of keyboard music; among the works featured on this compilation are the Suites de pieces pour le clavecin, the first volume of which appeared in 1720. His chamber music (mostly solo and trio sonatas) also makes up an important part of his oeuvre, with his best contributions to this genre contained in the Opus 2 collection (included in full on this release), which comprises sonatas for oboe, flute, recorder or violin and represents the perfect summation of the composer's wealth of invention and expressivity. Handel was also an expert orchestral writer, composing purely orchestral music alongside music for his dramatic works. The Water Music, justly some of his most celebrated music today, was the first in England to be scored for horns; and the Music for the Royal Fireworks was a massive project, with three horns and three trumpets combining forces to create the sound necessary to carry outdoors. Both these works and an array of other orchestral pieces are included on this substantial box set. A wealth of artists - both established and emerging - make up this Brilliant Classics release, once again representing astonishing value for money. Handel's orchestral music is performed by a variety of German chamber groups, including the Handel-Festspielorchester Halle, and the ensuing oboe and organ concertos are played by Baroque experts City of London Sinfonia. The trio sonatas feature L'ecole d'Orphee, which boasts players drawn from some of the leading British Baroque orchestras, including the Academy of Ancient Music. The consistently high quality of playing continues with Roberto Loreggian performing Handel's harpsichord music, and legendary soprano Arleen Auger singing his German arias. Sir David Willcocks conducts the Holland Boys' Choir in the Coronation Anthems, including the ever popular Zadok the Priest, and arguably Handel's most famous oratorio, Messiah, is performed by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted by Stephen Cleobury. An excellent gift idea, this release represents superb value for money and hours of listening pleasure. The most comprehensive Handel Edition on the market! Brilliant Classics continues it's famous Composer Edition series with one of the giants of the Baroque, George Frideric Handel, the celebrated German who settled in London. Having absorbed the German and Italian styles of his time he formed his own distinctive musical language, which, while following the current fashions and audience preferences, retained his own deep humanity and inner power. Handel embraced all musical genres of his time, and this Edition, while not "Complete", presents a substantial and representative oeuvre: 12 complete oratorios, cantatas, Odes, Anthems, Arias, Duets, the complete chamber music, the complete keyboard works, the complete organ concertos, oboe concertos, the complete Concerti Grossi, the Water Music and Fireworks Music: a musical feast of grandeur and intimacy, of joy and sorrow, of pomp and grace, of instrumental and vocal brilliance and of every emotion a human being is capable of. excellent performances by leading ensembles, soloists and choirs: Concerto Koln, Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum, English Chamber Orchestra, King's College Choir and many others.

On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Ives - acclaimed by his champion Leonard Bernstein as the "first great American composer", who, "all alone in his Connecticut barn, created his own private musical revolution" - Sony Classical presents the most authoritative recording collection ever released of works by this eccentric, prophetic genius.

The 5-CD box set Charles Ives - The Anniversary Edition is a unique and provocative introduction only released previously 50 years ago on LP by Columbia Masterworks under the art direction of Henrietta Condak to celebrate Ives's centenary.

The first disc examines "The Many Faces of Charles Ives" through eight diverse works recorded between 1964 and 1970: Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic in The Fourth of July and The Unanswered Question; General William Booth Enters into Heaven, one of Ives's towering achievements, and The Circus Band are performed by the Gregg Smith Singers; baritone Thomas Stewart sings the moving song In Flanders Fields; organist E. Power Biggs plays Ives's Variations on "America"; composer Gunther Schuller conducts The Pond for chamber orchestra; and the Largo cantabile Hymn is performed by the New York String Quartet and double bass player Alvin Brehm. CD 2, "The Celestial Country", offers Ives's early cantata by that name, composed in 1897-99 for his conservative Yale composition teacher Horatio Parker. It is sung by the Gregg Smith Singers (accompanied by the Columbia Chamber Orchestra), who also perform arrangements of four of Ives's most powerful patriotic songs with the American Symphony Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski conducting. "The Things Our Fathers Loved", CD 3, contains 25 of Ives's songs, delivered by the soprano Helen Boatwright, who specialized in American song. She is partnered by John Kirkpatrick, who studied and worked closely with Ives and is still regarded as the most authoritative interpreter of his piano music. Gramophone in 1974 praised this famous recording as "the finest selection ever to appear" on LP of "what may well turn out to be considered his most important, characteristic and consistently inspired body of music."

In this enchanting concert, Jonas Kaufmann, one of today's finest tenors, brings his passion for film music to life. Accompanied by the renowned Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Kaufmann takes his audience on a cinematic journey that transcends the silver screen. From the romantic strains of "Where Do I Begin" from Love Story and the poignant "What a Wonderful World" from Good Morning, Vietnam to the evocative "Strangers in the Night" from A Man Could Get Killed, each performance embodies the essence of cinema's most iconic moments. Spanning decades of cinematic history, this unforgettable program promises to captivate film and music lovers alike. "As an ardent film buff and singer I am naturally very receptive to all the vocal numbers that have been heard in soundtracks all over the world, which is why it was a particular pleasure for me to rummage in the treasury of film music in search of the most beautiful pieces. The result is The Sound of Movies, a collection of wonderful songs from over eighty years of cinematic history. Whether they are accompanied by moving pictures or treated as pure music, they have all found a place in my heart." Jonas Kaufmann

With this CD book, Bruno Cocset completes his Nascita del Violoncello. After a first part published in 2011, devoted to Bologna and his first repertoire for the cello (Vitali, Gabrielli, Jacchini) - reissued in this boxed set - he presents, with the musicians of Basses Reunies, a new recording devoted to Naples, from the Renaissance composer Diego Ortiz to the gallant and virtuoso cello of Lanzetti... offering two crossed views, two approaches that provide a better understanding of the identity of this instrument. The instruments used here - Cocset plays ten in all - bear witness both to this journey and to the bond that has bound him for many years to his luthier, Charles Riche.