Composer
CD · 1 disc
Five of the best brass players in the world united in a chamber music ensemble: The Reinhold Friedrich Brass Quintett was founded in 2022 and presents here its first CD, UNITY.
For this brass quintet's lifelong dream, world-renowned trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich has brought together the best players in their respective fields, musicians who not only get along extremely well with one another in a musical sense but also on a personal level. In their playing, one can feel their mutual appreciation and their joy in making music together, and, coupled with their unique technical and musical skills, as well as their chamber music experience, this enables the musicians to merge into a single unit.
The players that form this top-class quintet come together from a variety of European countries: Jeroen Berwaerts hails from Belgium and as a former principal trumpeter of the NDR Symphony Orchestra is a much-sought-after soloist who now teaches at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. The Dane, Lasse Mauritzen, who was knighted to the Order of Dannebrog by Queen Margarethe II, is first principal horn of the Copenhagen-based Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra (DRSO). Although Ian Bousfield is British, he now lives in Switzerland and is accustomed to performing around the world as a former principal trombonist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as being a soloist and a conductor. Fundamental to the quintet is the Norwegian Thomas Røisland, who now lives in Sweden and is principal tuba in the DRSO, as well as playing in other renowned European orchestras.These five musicians are united by their desire to set new standards in brass chamber music for their audiences and to present premiere recordings and commission arrangements of classics that have not yet been recorded at a world-class level.
CD · 36 discs
CD · 6 discs
This new album continues Ondine’s award-winning series of orchestral works by Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994) together with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The series has gathered several accolades, including a Grammy nomination, a BBC Music Magazine Awards nomination, and several recording of the month awards and best recordings of the year nominations. This album includes the composer’s early hit, his folklorish masterpiece Concerto for Orchestra, which is among his most performed compositions.
The album also includes Partita for Violin and Orchestra (with Christian Tetzlaff as soloist), a virtuosic 5-movement work which in its orchestral version is not short of a Violin Concerto. The rarity in the album is Lutosławski’s Novelette from 1979, which, although fragmentary, is already pointing toward the ideas of his 3rd Symphony.
REVIEW:
This illuminating program constitutes an ideal introduction as well as a must for the composer’s admirers. In the early Concerto for Orchestra, the orchestra plays with surging vitality, but also great delicacy. In the later works on the program, the playing is again incisive rather than heavy. This is a recording to cherish.
— American Record Guide
The starting point for the recording of the album ROOTS was a concert in which Shirley Brill performed Mieczyslaw Weinberg's Sonata for the first time and was deeply moved by its overwhelming emotional power. Being Jewish herself, she resonated deeply with the rich Klezmer folkloric elements expressed so intensely in this Sonata. This experience ignited her passion to explore the integration of national sentiments into classical music, with a particular focus on the neighbouring countries of Germany and Poland.
In ROOTS, Shirley Brill has curated a collection of pieces that demonstrate a masterful integration of folkloric elements, exuding pride in original folk music and a healthy sense of national identity. Yet, this aspect also belongs to the folklore within the music that is heard here: over the course of the 100 years in which the recorded works were composed, an excessive embrace of radical ideologies has slipped into dangerous nationalism.
Weinberg's life and his Clarinet Sonata composed in 1945 serve as a poignant reminder of the catastrophic consequences of such extremism. The range of works presented on the album ROOTS sheds light on the delicate balance between the celebration of cultural heritage (as in the music of Schumann and Lutoslawski) and the intrusion of the destructive forces of nationalism (Weinberg). ROOTS testifies to the power of music to promote unity while simultaneously cautioning us to remain vigilant against the pitfalls of extremist doctrines.
SACD · 1 disc
CD · 15 discs
Previously unreleased recordings by one of the great conductors of the 20th century.
Karel Ančerl. One of the most important conductors of post-war Europe. A man who survived the Nazi concentration camps and the avowed anti-Semitism of communist Czechoslovakia. An artist who, through enormous patience and dedication, built the Czech Philharmonic into a world-class orchestra and introduced it successfully at the most important concert halls.
From 2002 to 2008, Supraphon issued the highly acclaimed Ančerl Gold Edition with the bulk of his artistic legacy, containing nearly his complete studio recordings with the Czech Philharmonic on 48 albums. But that was far from everything. Hidden in the archive of Czech Radio, there is a wealth of concert recordings that gives us a more complete picture of this conductor. From that treasury, on 15 albums, Supraphon has selected repertoire of which studio recordings were not made; that repertoire covers a broad range from Mozart to works by Ančerl’s contemporaries.
The recordings include masterpieces by Dvořák (Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8, Biblical Songs) and Suk (Asrael, Ripening), music by composers admired and promoted by Ančerl (Martinu Symphony No. 1 and Kabelác Symphony No. 5), and major works of the worldwide 20th-century repertoire (Debussy, Ravel, Strauss, Prokofiev, etc.). The only exception of a “duplication” of a studio recording is Smetana’s Má vlast. This taping of a Prague Spring Festival concert in May 1968 was one of the last recordings Ančerl made before his definitive departure for Toronto. The concert recordings from the years 1949-1968 document the maturing of this remarkable artist perhaps even more clearly than his studio legacy.
Performances appearing on CD for the first time include, most notably, Josef Suk’s epic Asrael symphony (1967), a recording that captures the full emotional range of what’s surely the greatest Czech symphony after Dvo∑ák. Most impressive is the impact of Suk’s vivid orchestration, the timpani and bass drum especially, and the way An∂erl charts the work’s dramatic sequence of events, its emotional extremes and tragic demeanor. Never before have I felt the ‘angel of death’ transform into the ‘angel of love’ at the end of the work as it does here. Even the memorable Václav Talich (also on Supraphon) doesn’t quite match up. The mono sound is exceptionally clear but Suk’s The Ripening, another fine performance, is offered in stereo, as is Smetana’s Má vlast (both 1968), where the vengeful third piece, about the fearsome amazon Šárka, is driven to paroxysms of rage.
Perhaps the most absorbing inclusion conceptually is Ervín Schulhoff’s musical setting of portions from the Communist Manifesto. Beyond his miraculous survival of Auschwitz (where his family was murdered), An∂erl joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Schulhoff had sent the only copy of his full score to the Leningrad Conservatory for safe keeping, but it was believed lost during the long siege of the city and the version that An∂erl conducts here (in 1962) is an orchestration by Svatopluk Havelka. Schulhoff had become convinced by the ideas coming out of the Soviet Union after working in Berlin in the 1920s and ’30s and was on the run from the Nazis in the later years of the 1930s, but was captured in 1941 and died in Wülzburg concentration camp in 1942 of tuberculosis. Whatever one’s political leanings (even in view of the subsequent Soviet invasion of An∂erl’s homeland, not to mention Ukraine at the present time), one can understand why he connected so deeply with fascism’s nemesis. The work itself resembles, on the one hand, the politically charged choral pieces of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, while on the other recalls the world of Mahler (try disc 15 track 6 from 7'25", where you can hear clear echoes of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony).
This is an extremely important set, very well transferred, superbly annotated (by Petr Kadlec) and sturdily presented. I can’t recommend it more highly than that.
-- Gramophone (Rob Cowan)
DVD with CD · 68 discs
Mariss Jansons was one of the most important conductors of our time, celebrated worldwide and held in the highest regard – all the more so since his unexpected death on December 1, 2019. "Mariss Jansons - The Edition," comprising 70 recordings and a box set in representative LP format, documents the final phase of his life and career: his work as chief conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus between 2003 and 2019. Predominantly live recordings from Munich, Tokyo, Vienna, New York, Waldsassen, and the Vatican enable listeners to experience for themselves musical highlights that are as moving as they are exciting. The set contains a remarkably diverse repertoire, ranging from symphonic music and great choral works to opera, and from the First Viennese School to 20th century classical music. "Mariss Jansons - The Edition" contains works by a broad range of composers, including complete cycles of the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler respectively. It is supplemented by fascinating rehearsal recordings that bear witness to Jansons's trusting artistic collaboration with the musicians in his orchestra, together with a large-format, approximately 72-page-long booklet containing background information, essays, an interview, and a detailed track listing.
SUMMARY OF MAJOR WORKS:
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 (No. 9 appears twice)
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1-4 (No. 4 appears twice)
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3-4; 6-9
Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 (Symphonies Nos. 3-4, 6, & 8 are FIRST RELEASES)
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 ("Organ")
Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder
Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 8 (9); ("The Great")
Schumann: Symphony No. 1
Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5-7, 9-10
Stravinsky: Petrouchka, Firebird, & Rite of Spring
Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4-6; Pique Dame
Verdi: Requiem
This is the fourth volume in Chandos’ series devoted to the music of the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski. Described by Gramophone as a ‘veritable dream team’, Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra perform Symphony No. 2 and the Little Suite, and are joined by Paul Watkins as the soloist in the Cello Concerto and Grave.
