A complete collection of Julius Katchen's Brahms recordings, featuring him as heroic concerto soloist, dynamic chamber-music partner and rugged, scintillating protagonist in the solo-piano music. Includes previously unreleased versions of the clarinet sonatas with Michel Portal, and the First Cello Sonata with Janos Starker, as well as several fascinating repertoire duplications between recordings made in the mono and stereo eras. After Julius Katchen's untimely death from cancer in April 1969, aged just 42, the tribute paid by his record label Decca could claim without hyperbole that Katchen was 'one of the finest Brahms interpreters of his generation'. Less than 20 years earlier, he had burst like a firework onto the international scene with a record of Brahms's F minor Sonata, which became the first solo-piano LP to be issued by Decca. Critics and listeners were quick to admire the muscular, aquiline profile of playing that felt true to Brahms as the 'keyboard lion' of his own generation. In fact Katchen had made his debut on record a few months earlier, with the Handel Variations captured at Decca's West Hampstead studios in April 1949. He would go on to re-record the Variations in both 1958 and 1962, and this new Eloquence box presents all three versions side by side for the first time, demonstrating how Katchen's pianism matured during his brief career while losing none of it's barnstorming virtuosity. Katchen also recorded and then revisited the Paganini Variations, in 1959 and 1966, as well as the Third Sonata, as part of a stereo cycle of the complete solo piano works, made between 1961 and 1965. By then he had recorded both concertos, with the LSO conducted by Pierre Monteux and Janos Ferencsik. Towards the end of the 60s, Decca then captured him in timely manner as a sensitive partner to Josef Suk in the violin sonatas (which he had already recorded twice with Ruggiero Ricci in the 50s, both versions also being reissued here), the clarinet sonatas with Thea King, the cello sonatas with Janos Starker and piano trios with Suk and Starker. As Mark Ainley outlines in his booklet essay, surveying Katchen's meteoric career and special affinity with Brahms, the First Cello Sonata (a 1968 recording from Aldeburgh, made at the same time as the piano trios) was never issued; so too a 1967 set of the clarinet sonatas, in company with Michel Portal. With their first-ever release, this Decca Eloquence set presents the fullest possible portrait of Katchen as a sovereign interpreter of Brahms, capturing the music's muscular energy, refined nuancing, and emotional breadth.

Hailed for their "beautifully nuanced performances" (Gramophone Magazine), Camerata Tchaikovsky was founded in 2004 by Yuri Zhislin to bring together soloists and leading chamber musicians, touring worldwide and recording to great critical acclaim. Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and Strauss's Metamorphosen are both works of remarkable emotional depth, heard here in chamber form revealing an entirely different perspective. The Camerata Tchaikovsky continue their long-term recording partnership with Orchid by exploring these masterpieces through the intimate sound of the string septet. At the center of the album is Yuri Zhislin's new transcription of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, created from a desire to preserve the grandeur and expressive richness of the original while allowing for the immediacy of chamber music. Alongside it sits Rudolf Leopold's striking septet realisation of Strauss's Metamorphosen, based on the composer's earliest conception of the work and illuminating it's haunting counterpoint and emotional intensity.

This first volume of Joseph Marx's chamber music charts a period of 30 years from the cello works of 1913-14 to the Violin Sonata No. 2, written in 1944, shortly before he ceased all composition. The Pastorale is characteristically subtle with impressionistic devices harnessed to ever-changing variations. The Suite in F major, for which the Pastorale was originally intended, balances a rural idyll with more sombre elements, informed by a noble Classical design. Violin Sonata No. 2, subtitled Fruhlingssonate ('Spring Sonata'), consciously re-uses material from earlier works to form a lyrical dance-like work irradiated by ingenious harmonic twists.

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812-65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim 'the greatest violinist I ever heard'. But the popular encore pieces by which Ernst is remembered today represent only a fraction of his output. This fifth CD - in series of seven presenting all his compositions for the first time - shows his mastery on large and small scale: the Polonaise and Variations on a Dutch Air are grand and brilliant compositions for the concert hall, and the sparkling operatic miniatures and tender arrangements are altogether more intimate.

EXPLORE AMERICA

Every piece is nearly flawless, exciting, and played with tremendous passion.

…we have music that unfolds comfortably, but there’s enough to arouse curiosity without scaring anyone off. It will not alienate stodgy blue-hair types, but it will still satisfy those who crave creative new music.

- American Record Guide

Sean Hickey – A composer who maximizes the miniature in his savvy travelogues.

…these compositions are substantive and savvy. The aesthetic that emerges here is that of excitable conversation between the instruments – a discourse that never collapses into idle palaver. Fool’s Errand packs a wealth of material into a three-minute masterpiece.

- Gramophone

Winner of the coveted 2002 Grawemeyer Award and one of the youngest composers ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Aaron Jay Kernis is among the most distinguished musical figures of his generation. Conceived as a concerto for toy piano and orchestra, and with touches of Indonesian gamelan, French lyricism and jazz, Three Flavors appears here in it's final version, adapted by soloist and long- term collaborator Andrew Russo. Commissioned for renowned violinist James Ehnes, the introspective Two Movements (with Bells) is a memorial to the composer's father with echoes of blues singing and improvisatory impetuousness, while the virtuoso Superstar Etude No. 3 is his homage to Gershwin and the blues. The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960) studied composition with American heavyweights John Adams, Jacob Druckman, Morton Subotnik and Charles Wuorinen. He has developed a truly eclectic musical language over time, initially rigorous but evolving toward a new transparency and emotional eloquence. He incorporates influences of Latin rhythms, jazz and rap into his work as willingly as the harmonic worlds of the Romantic masters, the Renaissance and Hildegard von Bingen.

Includes work(s) by Naoko Akutagawa. Ensemble: Group for Contemporary Music. Conductor: Harvey Sollberger.

Fuchs’s distinctive voice, flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through.

Kenneth Fuchs is fortunate indeed to have not one but two discs of his music recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. The first, in 2003, was nominated for two Grammys in 2005 and the second, recorded in 2006, should do well too, such is the quality of both the music and music-making. Holding it all together in the orchestral pieces and the mixed quintet is conductor JoAnn Falletta, who made such a strong impression in her recent disc of Respighi (review).

United Artists, the first item on the disc, was written specifically for the LSO as a gesture of thanks for their earlier recording of Fuchs’s works (Naxos 8.559224). At its core is a four-note motif, presented first in the Coplandesque opening fanfare. But this isn’t derivative music; indeed, the composer’s distinctive ‘voice’ is evident from the outset, and his flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through in this atmospheric opener.

Quiet in the land is another of those vast musical landscapes that might provoke comparisons with Copland, yet Fuchs’s evocation of the Midwestern Plains just as the Iraq war was beginning is rather more complex and ambiguous in its sentiments. As the composer writes in the liner notes, ‘I wondered how quiet the spirit of our land might be’.

Even without this programme the opening bars hint at harmony, subtly undermined by vague discord - just listen to that quiet, agitated figure that begins at 1:30, beneath the more lyrical and expansive melody above. It is such lucid, ‘hear-through’ writing, yet it’s full of warmth. The members of the LSO manage to bring out both these aspects of the score, blending precision with feeling. And what a haunting close, too.

The recording venue – St Luke’s in London’s Old Street – is very well captured by the engineers, with no hint of brittleness or edge. The musicians seem ideally placed, too, which is particularly welcome in Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze for brass quintet. Subtitled an ’Idyll ... after two works on paper by Helen Frankenthaler’ the first movement yokes together two eternal opposites – fire (the restless first section) and ice (the more muted second section).

There seems to be an underlying creative tension in some of these pieces, perhaps an attempt to reconcile musical and emotional extremes. For instance, in Summer Bronze the music is strangely mercurial – now lyrical, now dissonant, now both. But it’s that other dichotomy, between outward virtuosity and inner feeling, that these seasoned players – always secure, always poised – convey so well.

Based on a painting by Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm does contain some jazzy snippets, but the emphasis seems to be on sonorities, with long, lyrical melodic lines and, at times, a quirky bass. It is a strangely ‘in-between’ piece; to use the autumn analogy, summer is not quite done, yet winter is on its way. In his notes Fuchs describes how the two states are drawn together and, indeed, how one becomes the other: ‘An unusual aspect of this composition is that in its final section the flute, oboe, and clarinet metamorphose into their lower – perhaps autumnal – counterparts, the alto flute, English horn, and bass clarinet.’ It’s a remarkable sleight of hand, deftly constructed and seamlessly executed.

Canticle of the Sun – a hymn tune based on 13th-century texts by St Francis of Assisi – is built on a four-note motif. Written for the LSO’s principal horn player, Timothy Jones, this 20-minute gem has a radiant, all-embracing optimism that is just irresistible. Indeed, it is not unlike a stained glass window, all those fragments of high colour glowing in the light behind. But at the centre of it all is Jones’s supple and passionate playing, surely as seductive a performance of this piece as we are ever likely to hear.

As with Respighi’s Church Windows, Falletta displays a sense of line and phrase that is most welcome in this music. And while I’ve grumbled about the sound on some Naxos releases I’m prepared to eat humble pie on this one. The engineers have done an exceptional job capturing the sound of the LSO at St Luke’s; what a pleasant change from the dry-as-dust Barbican.

Early days, I know, but this could be one of my discs of 2008.

Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

Over two centuries of the world’s greatest love themes, tenderly played by world-class orchestras and performers. The 11 gorgeous, sensual tracks include Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini -Andante cantabile; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 – Andante; Borodin: String Quartet No. 2 – Notturno; Atovmyan: The Gadfly Suite – Romance; Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 – Adagio; Khachaturian: Spartacus - Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia; and more romantic classics!

REVIEW:

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s first two releases for Ondine under Christoph Eschenbach (Bartók and Tchaikovsky) were extremely good, no doubt about it, but this Mahler Sixth is really extraordinary. Part of its success must stem from the fact that the best German conductors usually do misery especially well, finding the dark side of just about everything. If you don’t believe me, check out Kurt Sanderling’s startlingly deep and edgy rendition of Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre on Supraphon. So you can just imagine what can happen with a piece like Mahler’s Sixth. Anyone fortunate enough to have heard Eschenbach’s performances of this work with the NDR Orchestra in Hamburg will know that he has a special feeling for its harrowing intensity and expressionistic instrumental palette. Toss in the collective virtuosity of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the result is, to put it mildly, pretty special.

As a coupling, the early piano quartet movement is more appropriate than you might at first think. First of all, it shares the same key as the symphony, and second, it’s useful to have it along as part of an all-Mahler program, allowing collectors to round out their collections without having to search for an acceptable all-chamber-music program. The engineering also represents the best in this series so far, with virtually no audience noise, tremendous presence in both stereo and multichannel formats, and extremely natural balances between orchestral sections. I know that Mahler Sixes seem to be a dime a dozen these days, but this one, a first for Philadelphia, belongs among the elite few (Bernstein I and II, Chailly, Levi, T. Sanderling, and Gielen). It’s just bloody thrilling.

— ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

The seventh Divine Art CD from the critically acclaimed flute and piano duo of Kenneth Smith and Paul Rhodes, now celebrating almost 30 years of partnership, includes some of the finest flute and piano works to come from Britain and Ireland in the 20th c. - Featured as a part of the dozen composer program are two works by composer Peter Lamb, including the world premiere recording of Lamb's Sonatina. - Mr. Lamb died in 2013 almost unnoticed, so this is dedicated to his memory. - Most of the remaining works are still not easily available elsewhere, further highlighting the value of this release.

Although he is best known for his film scores and The Godfather in particular, Nino Rota’s concert music combines traditional tonality and forms with characteristically heartfelt melodies and appealing clarity. Contrasts abound in this selection of chamber works, from bassoon buffoonery in the Toccata to the Brahmsian eloquence of the Clarinet Sonata, and from the dramatic Improvviso and melancholy moods of the recently discovered Fantasia, to the jocular instrumental exchanges in the exquisite Trio.

First Prize Winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation' Violin Competition and the 2000 Hannover International Violin Competition, Frank Huang has now embarked on a major career as a violin virtuoso.

Elena Urioste and Michael Brown formed a recital duo in 2009 and have performed together extensively ever since. For their first recording together they have selected four works which have formed part of their repertoire from the very beginning, resonating throughout their entire musical partnership. All four are early works, written by composers in their twenties or younger- Michael Brown was only eighteen when he composed his own contribution. As the performers put it in their liner notes, the pieces they have chosen are “imbued with an ardour that is unapologetically, deliciously youthful.” The disc opens with the only multi-movement work of the program- Richard Strauss’s expansively melodic Sonata in E flat major, written around the time when the composer met and fell in love with his future wife. A few years later, in Paris, Ravel made a first attempt at composing a violin sonata while still a student at the Conservatoire. The resulting piece, in one movement, had a single performance during Ravel’s lifetime and was only published in 1975, as Sonate posthume. Between these two works we hear Michael Brown’s Echoes of Byzantium, inspired by William Butler Yeats’s Sailing to Byzantium, and an attempt to portray the meaning of the poem through music alone. The disc closes with a piece by another American composer and pianist, Amy Beach (1867-1944) The first American woman to compose and publish a symphony (first performed in 1896), she was best known for her songs, and her gift for melody is evident in the 1893 Romance for violin and piano.

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen has made a name for himself as one of the most prolific northern European composers in the past half century. He was known for his unique personality and was established as a major figure in Danish musical life. Gundmundsen-Holmgreen wrote of his compositional style: “I often write music that cannot make up its mind, and that is deliberate.” This is an accurate description, as much of his music is ambiguous and provocative. He repeats motifs and sound elements without mercy, and the violent clashes of expression within the pieces are memorable. This release presents the world premiere recording of Green Ground, a unique set of pieces which were written for and dedicated to the Kronos Quartet and Theatre of Voices with conductor Paul Hillier. The works use text from Henry VIII’s Songbook and take inspiration from Baroque canons.

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REVIEWS:

Some of the most unique and hilariously raucous new music we heard all year.

– Time Out Chicago

Trying to describe the opening quartet in words—or any of his music in words—is inevitably going to fail because the music takes so many unexpected turns and practically none of them fit a verbal narrative. This is a wonderfully imaginative recording, albeit one that’s pretty far off from center.

– The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

Under any circumstances, a new record by the Kronos Quartet or Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices is worth attending to. Put the two together and that’s even more true. And now, for a couple of pieces by Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, base a half hour of it on “a famous old ground that (was) used by Johan Pachelbel in his well-known canon.”

In the words of notater Andrew Mellor, on top of that ground, the resultant “discourse becomes ever more complicated and outlandish and, in this case, fractious, flailing, scared and animalistic.” And, as outrageous as it is to put old Pachelbel on the run this way, it’s also exhilarating and crazily compelling. This is why it is ALWAYS necessary to keep up with what the Kronos Quartet and Hillier’s Theater of Voices do.

– Buffalo News

Classical Music

The Fifth House Ensemble of Chicago chamber-music group aims for the stratosphere with Excelsior, its adventurous debut album on Cedille Records. The title refers to an experimental, extreme-altitude U.S. Air Force project of the Cold War era. Excelsior presents world-premiere recordings of works by Caleb Burhans, recipient of commissions from Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Library of Congress; prolific, award-winning composer Alex Shapiro; and Jesse Limbacher, winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. The disc also includes a work by Mason Bates, Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer-in-residence. Commissioned by Fifth House Ensemble, Burhans’ 30-minute title track depicts Captain Joseph W. Kittinger’s 1960 record-setting free fall and parachute landing from a height of more than 19 miles above the earth. Excelsior transports listeners through a seamless, ethereal blend of acoustic and electric instruments and voice, propelled by suspenseful, repeating motifs.

• Gaudete Brass makes its Cedille Records debut with Chicago Moves, an album of new and diverse American works for brass quintet. All were composed in the last six years, and all but one were written expressly for the Chicago-based ensemble of young brass virtuosos and receive their world-premiere recordings on the new CD.

Russian composer Korndorf was a larger-than-life character and wrote music that was expansive and urgent. His 3 works for solo cello illustrate his unwillingness to be governed by convention. (Toccata)

Lively and touching Beethoven voiced for the piano and viola.

This CD is the first in one of Toccata’s many series – almost as many as Naxos. This one is Beethoven by Arrangement.
 
As far as we know Beethoven, himself a violist, completed no works for the viola as principal instrument. The absence of a local viola virtuoso or at least a viola commissioner might well have been the reason. Others stepped into the breach.
 
This disc documents their arrangements. Before doing so it documents the 27 second torso of a Viola Sonata he began but never completed. It’s typically assertive and lively. Paul Silverthorne who is the guiding mind and hand behind this project arranged the compact three-movement Horn Sonata. It was written originally for the celebrated horn-player Giovanni Punto. It works rather fluently with its pulsingly dynamic and tenderly noble outer movements framing a mournfully captivating little Poco Adagio. Karl Kleinheinz was a contemporary of Beethoven and turned his musical skills to bear on two works for string trio: the opp. 8 and 25 – the latter arranged for flute. The seven movement Serenade for String Trio op. 8 became the Notturno for viola and piano. It’s in the mood and manner of Mozart’s cassations and serenades with witty movements alternating with more pensive and serious ones. The Allegretto alla Polacca is especially attractive. Friedrich Hermann, a pupil of Mendelssohn at Leipzig, did the same service for the much arranged Septet op. 20 – here appositely dubbed the Grand Duo. It’s an even more extended work at forty minutes than the Notturno this time across six movements. The music is from the high watermark of Beethoven’s early period and rewards close attention as well as casual overhearing. After much profundity the finale’s Marcia and Presto end proceedings with gleaming-eyed cheer and urbane confidence. Intakes of breath can be distracting but I only really noticed them from Silverthorne in the Andante segment of the Grand Duo’s finale. Silverthorne’s playing on the Amati viola is impassioned and completely in-style. David Owen Norris is always not merely reliable but ready with apt and lucid playing; so it proves here.
 
The liner-notes are by Paul Silverthorne who is Principal Viola of the London Symphony Orchestra. I recall him as the violist who premiered the Thea Musgrave concerto in 1991. He was also the violist for the very late Rozsa Viola Concerto recorded by Koch International circa 1998. Toccata Press have Silverthorne’s Beethoven Edition comprising the Grand Duo and the op. 17 Sonata in preparation. Violists will be pleased and so should their audiences.
 
The recording was made on a Viennese Blümel piano (1865) and a Brothers Amati viola (1620).
 
Lively and touching Beethoven voiced for the piano and viola. Viola players and the world’s curious Beethovenians will need to have this.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

This recording of recorder sonatas by Handel and an 18th c. transcription of the Royal Fireworks Suite is the work of three Melbournians who have made important contributions to early music performance in Australia for over thirty years. Published By John Walsh c. 1750, this is the only recording of the adaptation of the Fireworks Music (originally for flute, violin or harpsichord) in this arrangement. All instruments are faithful reproductions of authentic originals, historically accurate, carefully researched and tuned to a version of period temperament, giving each key its own character.

Both works heard on this new recording by the Daniel Quartet are from Robert Schumann’s significant chamber music œuvre. + Remarkably, it was within a single year (1842), at the start of his career, that Schumann composed his three String Quartets, op.41 and the Piano Quintet, op.44; both are now considered pillars of the chamber music repertoire. + The Daniel Quartet is renowned for its performances of chamber music at major venues in the USA and across Europe. + Hungarian pianist Klára Würtz – one of Brilliant Classics’ most prolific and recognized artists – joined them for the Piano Quintet.

• First release in hänssler CLASSIC's CPE Bach 300th Anniversary Edition • First CD of the recording of the complete symphonies by CPE Bach • First recording using a fortepiano continuo instrument • The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra has maintained a long tradition of Bach interpretation

Described by Saint-Saëns as "the most remarkable of the young British composers," York Bowen was widely known as a pianist and as a composer, his fame reaching its zenith in the years immediately preceding the First World War. The writer and composer Thomas Dunhill described Bowen’s chamber music as "an essentially healthy and breezy phase in modern art." This is especially true of the 1922 Carnegie Trust Award-winning Second Quartet, and while both quartets are based on clear-cut classical models the Third is more elusive and intimate in feeling, revealing the composer’s rarely displayed private side. The atmospheric Phantasy-Quintet provides a rare opportunity to hear the beauty of the bass clarinet in a truly eloquent and expressive soloist capacity.