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Zieritz: Japanese Songs; Le Violon de la Mort etc. / Brenner, Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie
Haenssler Classic · Jan 2024CD$20.99 -
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Shostakovich: Symphonies No 2 & 15 / Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Naxos · May 2012CD$19.99 -
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Mozart: Complete Works for Flute & Orchestra / Bezaly, Kangas, Ostrobothnian CO
BIS · Feb 2008SACD$21.99 -
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The Hills of Dreamland: Orchestral Songs by Elgar / Wordsworth, BBC Concerto Orchestra
SOMM Recordings · Sep 2018CD$20.99 -
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★ GrammyFoss: Symphony No. 1 & other Orchestral Works / Falletta, Buffalo Philharmonic
Naxos · May 2024CD$19.99 -
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Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3, A Midsummer Night's Dream / Comissiona, Baltimore Symphony
Vox · Sep 2024CD$19.99 -
Sawyers: Symphony No. 3, Songs of Loss and Regret & Fanfare / Woods, English Symphony Orchestra
Nimbus · Oct 2017CD$20.99 -
DVORAK: Symphony No. 8 / MENDELSSOHN: The Hebrides / HINDEMI
Music and Arts Programs of America · Jan 1992CD$18.99 -
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Clarinet Concerto, “Landscapes with Blues” / Pacific Rim / Gradus / The Rose of the Winds
Naxos · Sep 2003CD$19.99 -
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Weinberg: Symphony No. 19, Banners Of Peace / Lande, St. Petersburg Symphony
Naxos · Nov 2012CD$19.99 -
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Sibelius: Symphony No. 4; The Wood-Nymph; Valse Triste / Rouvali, Gothenburg SO
Alpha · Jan 2024CD$20.99 -
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Wordsworth: Orchestral Music, Vol. 1 / Gibbons, Liepaja Symphony
Toccata
CD
$20.99
Jun 01, 2018
The music of London-born William Wordsworth (1908–88) – a great-great-grandson of the poet’s brother Christopher – lies downstream from that of Vaughan Williams and Sibelius; like that of his contemporary Edmund Rubbra, Wordsworth’s music unfolds spontaneously, as a natural process, with a sense of grandeur perhaps enhanced by his move to the Scottish Highlands in 1961. Three of the four works recorded here display the sober dignity of the instinctive symphonist; the Variations on a Scottish Theme reveal a sly sense of humor behind the serious countenance. John Gibbons has conducted most of the major British orchestras. He has been Principal Conductor of Worthing Symphony Orchestra- the professional orchestra of West Sussex- with which he has given many world premieres of neglected works. He studied music at Queens’ College, Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, winning numerous awards as conductor, pianist and accompanist. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, vice chairman of the British Music Society, and choral director at Clifton Cathedral. His own music has been performed in various abbeys and cathedrals as well as on the South Bank, London.
STRAUSS: THREE TONE POEMS
CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
SACD
$22.92
Jun 03, 2022
This fourth release for The Cleveland Orchestra's own label again showcases the unparalleled artistry, refined Polish, and emotional power of this ensemble under the direction of Franz Welser-Most. The album features three of Richard Strauss's early tone poems, providing a tantalizing window into Welser-Most's reputation as a renowned conductor of Strauss's music. Strauss wrote a total of nine tone poems-orchestral works that depict a storyline. Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks are among his earliest successes and became instant hits with audiences worldwide. These Cleveland Orchestra recordings were captured in September and October 2021. The album includes a 40-page booklet featuring an essay by Franz Welser-Most about Strauss's tone poems and artistry, along with program notes about each piece and an overview of Strauss' career and legacy.
Zieritz: Japanese Songs; Le Violon de la Mort etc. / Brenner, Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie
Haenssler Classic
CD
$20.99
Jan 05, 2024
This CD - significantly only the second CD dedicated exclusively to von Zieritz - presents a longitudinal section of her oeuvre. It begins with the Japanese Songs, written in 1919, here in the version for soprano and chamber orchestra from the 1980s. The centrepiece is Le Violon de la Mort, composed in 1953 for violin and piano and arranged for violin, piano and orchestra in 1957, as well as the trumpet double concerto of 1975, the final piece and, as it were, a satyr play. Like Hans Bethge's collection Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute) from 1907, the poetic model of the Japanese Songs belongs to the context of interest in exotic art of the fin de siècle. Gustav Mahler made Bethge's poems the basis for a large symphonic work; Grete von Zieritz took the opposite approach with the Japanese Songs. These are a kaleidoscopic sequence of the briefest miniatures. It would hardly be possible to do otherwise, since the Japanese models are not song texts in the European sense, but poetically condensed sayings that defy conventional song settings. Aphoristic brevity was the order of the day.
Shostakovich: Symphonies No 2 & 15 / Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Naxos
CD
$19.99
May 29, 2012
Vasily Petrenko’s Shostakovich cycle marches on. This is volume seven. I presume there are four more to follow as and when Petrenko sets down the Fourth Symphony – to which I’m particularly looking forward – and numbers 7, 13 and 14.
This latest instalment pairs symphonies from the opposite chronological ends of the composer’s symphonic output. Number 2 was written to mark the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. Perhaps ominously – in terms of potential for artistic merit – it was commissioned by the Propaganda Division of the State Music Publishers’ Section. Interestingly, Richard Whitehouse relates in his notes that, initially, the work was not designated as a symphony; Shostakovich only took that step, it seems, a couple of years later. The work is in one continuous movement and in the last six minutes or so an SATB chorus is introduced. Their task is to deliver the four-stanza poem by one Alexander Bezimensky (1898-1973). Richard Whitehouse describes him as an “’official’ proletarian poet” but if this is a fair example of his work the term “party hack” might be more appropriate. Clearly, Shostakovich had no say in the choice of text and, apparently, he didn’t think much of it.
Richard Whitehouse observes that the symphony was composed during the most overtly modernist phase of his career. One might suggest that the term “brutalist” might also fairly apply to this score. Naxos helpfully split the piece into three separate tracks and these are reflected in the liner-notes. Shostakovich can be a forbidding composer at times but in this score we find him at his most experimental and intractable. For a start there are virtually no melodic themes in it – the trumpet tune that appears a couple of minutes into the score is more or less the only melody, as Whitehouse points out. Given the absence of themes it’s perhaps unsurprising that I struggle to discern any sort of development in the conventional sense. For example, I find it hard to see what relation the first five or six minutes of the score (track 1) bear to the music that follows, except as an unrelated introduction, perhaps. The music that opens the second section (track 2) is reminiscent of parts of the First Symphony. As this section unfolds the music becomes ever more strident. After a solo violin passage the texture becomes increasingly complex but it’s hard to see what all the activity signifies. Hereabouts the playing of the RLPO is tremendously vigorous and earlier, when the music was stirring to life from very subdued beginnings, there was no little finesse to the playing. So far as I can tell the performance is also very precise.
It would be kind to describe the words of the concluding choral section as banal; the poem is unmitigated Revolutionary tosh! Shostakovich “rewards” the poet with choral writing of no great distinction; these final minutes are brash and boldly coloured but, to be honest, one feels it’s a case of sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s richly ironic that when Shostakovich produced the sort of music that the authorities expected he wrote such stuff as this but when he composed music that was not in keeping with official expectations – in the Sixth or Eighth Symphonies, for instance – he produced his finest work. Vasily Petrenko and his orchestra – and choir – do their best for the score and give a colourful and committed account of it but, really, this is base metal. I find it perplexing, to say the least, to trace Shostakovich’s development as a symphonist from the precocious First Symphony through to the magnificent, complex Fourth. Indeed, the Second and Third Symphonies don’t really seem to offer much in the way of a bridge between those two tremendous scores.
I find the Fifteenth Symphony just as perplexing but in a very different way. Just what was Shostakovich saying this late score? What was going on behind that impassive face and those slightly owlish thick spectacles? A troubled spirit, it would seem, but what was troubling him?
One of the great enigmas of this score lies in the use made of quotations. Shostakovich made use of self-quotation in his music but to the best of my knowledge it was rare for him to quote other composers. Yet here, in what turned out to be his last symphony, we find him quoting from two composers – and from two radically different composers at that – as well as from himself.
The first movement opens deceptively with perky material on flute and then bassoon. The opening pages are reminiscent of the Ninth Symphony it seems to me. Then, at 1:57 the trumpet plays a familiar motif from Rossini’s William Tell overture. The Rossini motif has been foreshadowed in the moments leading up to its first appearance – the first of several in the movement – but what is the meaning? I confess I’m far from sure except to note that the motif is of a piece with Shostakovich’s characteristic sardonic streak and that, though the fragment of tune stands out every time we hear it, it is well integrated into the composer’s own material. The music becomes increasingly urgent, alarmed and, indeed, strident in tone and the reappearances of the Rossini quote seem to act as a brake on proceedings and to bring the music back to a less stressful, more insouciant level. Throughout this movement, whatever the mood of the music, the playing of the RLPO is crisp and characterful.
The second movement takes us to an altogether deeper level – though in saying that I don’t wish to imply that the first movement is superficial; it’s not. The Adagio opens with a brass chorale, which recurs at intervals as the movement unfurls. I think it’s hugely significant that this chorale is taken from the opening movement, The Palace Square, of the Eleventh Symphony, a work that I still think has yet to receive its full recognition within the composer’s output. It will be remembered that the Eleventh commemorates the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. The chorale is followed by extended glacial passages in which cello and viola solos are prominent. Here we are in the world of the string quartets. This is spare, searching music that has the character of a threnody. Petrenko and his players are excellent in maintaining the tension in these sparsely scored paragraphs, a virtue I < admired in their traversal of the first movement of the Sixth Symphony. Eventually (at 6:50) we hear an idea on the flutes but it’s not until this is taken up at some length by a solo trombone that it becomes clear that this is a funeral march. Eventually (at 11:01) the march erupts almost out of nothing into a huge climax. When this is spent the chorale returns, firstly on hushed strings and then on the brass. Now, I think, having experienced the funeral march we perhaps understand the significance of the quotation form the Eleventh. Is it that Shostakovich had unfinished business with the failed revolutionaries of 1905? Is he saying in this movement that those revolutionaries were betrayed by the Stalinist excesses in the years that followed the successful revolution of 1917?
The third movement, which follows attacca, is extremely brief. Richard Whitehouse rightly draws attention to the “barbed humour”. This is real nose-thumbing, sneering music and it’s adroitly done by Petrenko’s orchestra which offers some suitably pungent playing. Unless my ears deceive me the horns make a reference to the old DSCH motif one last time in a Shostakovich symphony.
The finale brings us the quotations from a second composer: Wagner. Right at the start the low brass intone the ‘fate’ motif from Die Walküre, followed by the soft timpani tattoo from Siegfried’s Funeral Music in Götterdämmerung. A few moments later (at 1:07) there’s surely another Wagner reference. The violins have an extended melody and as a kind of upbeat to it they play the same three notes with which Tristan begins. It’s possible that this is a coincidence but I don’t think so. The melody itself is described by Richard Whitehouse as “graceful”. I know what he means but I’m not sure that description is the full story: it sounds to me to be a spectral kind of grace; as so often with Shostakovich ambiguity is everywhere. This long, winding violin theme serves as the impetus for much of the content of the succeeding paragraphs. After another appearance of the ‘fate’ motif (5:28) what is at first a ghostly passacaglia begins. The music grows in temperature and intensity until a substantial climax is reached (10:08). This is another – and the last – of Shostakovich’s trademark towering symphonic climaxes and in it I hear definite echoes – grim ones – of the Leningrad Symphony. After the climax has subsided the music becomes wan and lean again; here the playing of the RLPO is once again most effective. The ending is enigmatic; the soft, tintinnabulating percussion over soft string chords recalls the conclusion of the Fourth Symphony, albeit the passage is longer this time. With a soft bell chime Shostakovich writes finis to his canon of symphonies.
The Fifteenth is a difficult symphony, not because its language is difficult in the way that the language of the Second is gratuitously difficult. It’s difficult because it’s so hard to grasp what are the composer’s intentions. I bought Maxim Shostakovich’s 1972 première recording when it came out – I still have the LP – and yet, even after all these years I’m not confident that I fully comprehend this elusive piece. I am sure, however, that it’s a fine and expressive composition and it’s the work of a mature and highly experienced symphonist whereas the Second is the work of a young, iconoclastic innovator. I don’t believe that earlier piece is genuinely symphonic in the sense of including any conventional development of ideas.
I doubt I shall listen often to the Second, though I’m sure that Vasily Petrenko and his choir and orchestra serve it well. I’m certain, however, that I shall return to this performance of the Fifteenth which strikes me as being excellent both in terms of the interpretation and the execution. The Naxos sound is very good: it reports the massive climaxes very well but conveys equally successfully the many quiet passages, both at the start of the Second and during the Fifteenth. As usual, Richard Whitehouse’s notes are very good at outlining the background to the works and at describing each score. However, it’s slightly disappointing that he doesn’t attempt any real discussion of the quotations in the Fifteenth beyond saying that they’re present.
This is another fine instalment in this important Shostakovich symphony cycle and I hope we won’t have to wait too long for the next release.
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International
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One of the nice things about Vasily Petrenko’s ongoing Shostakovich cycle, now well past its halfway point, is that it is making me reevaluate symphonies I did not think so highly of previously. The conductor’s recent recording of the Third Symphony (with the First, on Naxos 8.572396) inspired me to comment, “Petrenko’s reading is so full of good humor—and perhaps a little sarcasm—that I found myself enjoying this symphony more than usual.” Well, the Second is, for the most part, just as good, aided and abetted by some really fun playing from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and exciting sound from Naxos’s engineering team. The opening pages, an extended bass drum roll, quietly played, and soon overlaid by what Shostakovich called “ultrapolyphony” (27 simultaneously played voices) create a strikingly Ivesian effect. Now, Ives was ahead of his time, and so was the young Shostakovich, who anticipated several of the 20th century’s later musical developments in this symphony. Petrenko pulls it off with impudence, and the factory whistle that introduces the chorus has never been more visceral in its impact. (Shostakovich advised that, in the absence of a factory whistle, a chord for horns and trombones could be used instead. I am not sure what is being used here—it sounds like a jet engine, actually—but it is most impressive.) The chorus is almost as idiomatic as it was in the Third Symphony, and if the singers sound a little hoarse, I can forgive them. (Shostakovich shows neither the orchestra nor the chorus much mercy in this symphony.) Perhaps that’s what singing about Lenin and communes does to one.
Few people doubt the importance of the 15th Symphony. In fact, in bolstering its stature, and its place as the terminal symphony in Shostakovich’s canon, conductors have a tendency to make it seem more funereal than perhaps is necessary. Petrenko’s reading takes 48: 35, which really is quite slow, but this is one of those times when the subjective tempos seem faster. I think this is because Petrenko plays up the chamber music-like textures that dominate this work; slow is not the same as heavy, after all. Also, he is almost maliciously funny in the first movement, and in the third. Yes, the humor is of the black variety, but Petrenko applies it delicately, and as a consequence, there is more subtlety and nuance here than one expects even in this symphony. There are many examples of particularly fine solo playing from several members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, too. Surely, this is one of the best versions of the 15th Symphony currently available—right up there with one of Kondrashin’s recordings, or (for something much richer) Ormandy’s. Petrenko’s Second easily eclipses Morton Gould’s and Bernard Haitink’s (to name two of the most famous alternatives). For the Shostakovich fan, there’s every reason to get this newest release from Petrenko, and no good reason not to. Have at it.
FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle
This latest instalment pairs symphonies from the opposite chronological ends of the composer’s symphonic output. Number 2 was written to mark the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. Perhaps ominously – in terms of potential for artistic merit – it was commissioned by the Propaganda Division of the State Music Publishers’ Section. Interestingly, Richard Whitehouse relates in his notes that, initially, the work was not designated as a symphony; Shostakovich only took that step, it seems, a couple of years later. The work is in one continuous movement and in the last six minutes or so an SATB chorus is introduced. Their task is to deliver the four-stanza poem by one Alexander Bezimensky (1898-1973). Richard Whitehouse describes him as an “’official’ proletarian poet” but if this is a fair example of his work the term “party hack” might be more appropriate. Clearly, Shostakovich had no say in the choice of text and, apparently, he didn’t think much of it.
Richard Whitehouse observes that the symphony was composed during the most overtly modernist phase of his career. One might suggest that the term “brutalist” might also fairly apply to this score. Naxos helpfully split the piece into three separate tracks and these are reflected in the liner-notes. Shostakovich can be a forbidding composer at times but in this score we find him at his most experimental and intractable. For a start there are virtually no melodic themes in it – the trumpet tune that appears a couple of minutes into the score is more or less the only melody, as Whitehouse points out. Given the absence of themes it’s perhaps unsurprising that I struggle to discern any sort of development in the conventional sense. For example, I find it hard to see what relation the first five or six minutes of the score (track 1) bear to the music that follows, except as an unrelated introduction, perhaps. The music that opens the second section (track 2) is reminiscent of parts of the First Symphony. As this section unfolds the music becomes ever more strident. After a solo violin passage the texture becomes increasingly complex but it’s hard to see what all the activity signifies. Hereabouts the playing of the RLPO is tremendously vigorous and earlier, when the music was stirring to life from very subdued beginnings, there was no little finesse to the playing. So far as I can tell the performance is also very precise.
It would be kind to describe the words of the concluding choral section as banal; the poem is unmitigated Revolutionary tosh! Shostakovich “rewards” the poet with choral writing of no great distinction; these final minutes are brash and boldly coloured but, to be honest, one feels it’s a case of sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s richly ironic that when Shostakovich produced the sort of music that the authorities expected he wrote such stuff as this but when he composed music that was not in keeping with official expectations – in the Sixth or Eighth Symphonies, for instance – he produced his finest work. Vasily Petrenko and his orchestra – and choir – do their best for the score and give a colourful and committed account of it but, really, this is base metal. I find it perplexing, to say the least, to trace Shostakovich’s development as a symphonist from the precocious First Symphony through to the magnificent, complex Fourth. Indeed, the Second and Third Symphonies don’t really seem to offer much in the way of a bridge between those two tremendous scores.
I find the Fifteenth Symphony just as perplexing but in a very different way. Just what was Shostakovich saying this late score? What was going on behind that impassive face and those slightly owlish thick spectacles? A troubled spirit, it would seem, but what was troubling him?
One of the great enigmas of this score lies in the use made of quotations. Shostakovich made use of self-quotation in his music but to the best of my knowledge it was rare for him to quote other composers. Yet here, in what turned out to be his last symphony, we find him quoting from two composers – and from two radically different composers at that – as well as from himself.
The first movement opens deceptively with perky material on flute and then bassoon. The opening pages are reminiscent of the Ninth Symphony it seems to me. Then, at 1:57 the trumpet plays a familiar motif from Rossini’s William Tell overture. The Rossini motif has been foreshadowed in the moments leading up to its first appearance – the first of several in the movement – but what is the meaning? I confess I’m far from sure except to note that the motif is of a piece with Shostakovich’s characteristic sardonic streak and that, though the fragment of tune stands out every time we hear it, it is well integrated into the composer’s own material. The music becomes increasingly urgent, alarmed and, indeed, strident in tone and the reappearances of the Rossini quote seem to act as a brake on proceedings and to bring the music back to a less stressful, more insouciant level. Throughout this movement, whatever the mood of the music, the playing of the RLPO is crisp and characterful.
The second movement takes us to an altogether deeper level – though in saying that I don’t wish to imply that the first movement is superficial; it’s not. The Adagio opens with a brass chorale, which recurs at intervals as the movement unfurls. I think it’s hugely significant that this chorale is taken from the opening movement, The Palace Square, of the Eleventh Symphony, a work that I still think has yet to receive its full recognition within the composer’s output. It will be remembered that the Eleventh commemorates the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. The chorale is followed by extended glacial passages in which cello and viola solos are prominent. Here we are in the world of the string quartets. This is spare, searching music that has the character of a threnody. Petrenko and his players are excellent in maintaining the tension in these sparsely scored paragraphs, a virtue I < admired in their traversal of the first movement of the Sixth Symphony. Eventually (at 6:50) we hear an idea on the flutes but it’s not until this is taken up at some length by a solo trombone that it becomes clear that this is a funeral march. Eventually (at 11:01) the march erupts almost out of nothing into a huge climax. When this is spent the chorale returns, firstly on hushed strings and then on the brass. Now, I think, having experienced the funeral march we perhaps understand the significance of the quotation form the Eleventh. Is it that Shostakovich had unfinished business with the failed revolutionaries of 1905? Is he saying in this movement that those revolutionaries were betrayed by the Stalinist excesses in the years that followed the successful revolution of 1917?
The third movement, which follows attacca, is extremely brief. Richard Whitehouse rightly draws attention to the “barbed humour”. This is real nose-thumbing, sneering music and it’s adroitly done by Petrenko’s orchestra which offers some suitably pungent playing. Unless my ears deceive me the horns make a reference to the old DSCH motif one last time in a Shostakovich symphony.
The finale brings us the quotations from a second composer: Wagner. Right at the start the low brass intone the ‘fate’ motif from Die Walküre, followed by the soft timpani tattoo from Siegfried’s Funeral Music in Götterdämmerung. A few moments later (at 1:07) there’s surely another Wagner reference. The violins have an extended melody and as a kind of upbeat to it they play the same three notes with which Tristan begins. It’s possible that this is a coincidence but I don’t think so. The melody itself is described by Richard Whitehouse as “graceful”. I know what he means but I’m not sure that description is the full story: it sounds to me to be a spectral kind of grace; as so often with Shostakovich ambiguity is everywhere. This long, winding violin theme serves as the impetus for much of the content of the succeeding paragraphs. After another appearance of the ‘fate’ motif (5:28) what is at first a ghostly passacaglia begins. The music grows in temperature and intensity until a substantial climax is reached (10:08). This is another – and the last – of Shostakovich’s trademark towering symphonic climaxes and in it I hear definite echoes – grim ones – of the Leningrad Symphony. After the climax has subsided the music becomes wan and lean again; here the playing of the RLPO is once again most effective. The ending is enigmatic; the soft, tintinnabulating percussion over soft string chords recalls the conclusion of the Fourth Symphony, albeit the passage is longer this time. With a soft bell chime Shostakovich writes finis to his canon of symphonies.
The Fifteenth is a difficult symphony, not because its language is difficult in the way that the language of the Second is gratuitously difficult. It’s difficult because it’s so hard to grasp what are the composer’s intentions. I bought Maxim Shostakovich’s 1972 première recording when it came out – I still have the LP – and yet, even after all these years I’m not confident that I fully comprehend this elusive piece. I am sure, however, that it’s a fine and expressive composition and it’s the work of a mature and highly experienced symphonist whereas the Second is the work of a young, iconoclastic innovator. I don’t believe that earlier piece is genuinely symphonic in the sense of including any conventional development of ideas.
I doubt I shall listen often to the Second, though I’m sure that Vasily Petrenko and his choir and orchestra serve it well. I’m certain, however, that I shall return to this performance of the Fifteenth which strikes me as being excellent both in terms of the interpretation and the execution. The Naxos sound is very good: it reports the massive climaxes very well but conveys equally successfully the many quiet passages, both at the start of the Second and during the Fifteenth. As usual, Richard Whitehouse’s notes are very good at outlining the background to the works and at describing each score. However, it’s slightly disappointing that he doesn’t attempt any real discussion of the quotations in the Fifteenth beyond saying that they’re present.
This is another fine instalment in this important Shostakovich symphony cycle and I hope we won’t have to wait too long for the next release.
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International
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One of the nice things about Vasily Petrenko’s ongoing Shostakovich cycle, now well past its halfway point, is that it is making me reevaluate symphonies I did not think so highly of previously. The conductor’s recent recording of the Third Symphony (with the First, on Naxos 8.572396) inspired me to comment, “Petrenko’s reading is so full of good humor—and perhaps a little sarcasm—that I found myself enjoying this symphony more than usual.” Well, the Second is, for the most part, just as good, aided and abetted by some really fun playing from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and exciting sound from Naxos’s engineering team. The opening pages, an extended bass drum roll, quietly played, and soon overlaid by what Shostakovich called “ultrapolyphony” (27 simultaneously played voices) create a strikingly Ivesian effect. Now, Ives was ahead of his time, and so was the young Shostakovich, who anticipated several of the 20th century’s later musical developments in this symphony. Petrenko pulls it off with impudence, and the factory whistle that introduces the chorus has never been more visceral in its impact. (Shostakovich advised that, in the absence of a factory whistle, a chord for horns and trombones could be used instead. I am not sure what is being used here—it sounds like a jet engine, actually—but it is most impressive.) The chorus is almost as idiomatic as it was in the Third Symphony, and if the singers sound a little hoarse, I can forgive them. (Shostakovich shows neither the orchestra nor the chorus much mercy in this symphony.) Perhaps that’s what singing about Lenin and communes does to one.
Few people doubt the importance of the 15th Symphony. In fact, in bolstering its stature, and its place as the terminal symphony in Shostakovich’s canon, conductors have a tendency to make it seem more funereal than perhaps is necessary. Petrenko’s reading takes 48: 35, which really is quite slow, but this is one of those times when the subjective tempos seem faster. I think this is because Petrenko plays up the chamber music-like textures that dominate this work; slow is not the same as heavy, after all. Also, he is almost maliciously funny in the first movement, and in the third. Yes, the humor is of the black variety, but Petrenko applies it delicately, and as a consequence, there is more subtlety and nuance here than one expects even in this symphony. There are many examples of particularly fine solo playing from several members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, too. Surely, this is one of the best versions of the 15th Symphony currently available—right up there with one of Kondrashin’s recordings, or (for something much richer) Ormandy’s. Petrenko’s Second easily eclipses Morton Gould’s and Bernard Haitink’s (to name two of the most famous alternatives). For the Shostakovich fan, there’s every reason to get this newest release from Petrenko, and no good reason not to. Have at it.
FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle
Cmiral: Two Suites for Pan Flute & Orchestra
Willowhayne Records - Label
CD
$21.99
Oct 25, 2024
The pan flute holds a significant place in Romanian folk music, with Gheorghe Zamfir pioneering flute techniques in the '80s, elevating it to a concert level worldwide. In the hands of Zamfir, the pan flute becomes an instrument equal to traditional orchestral instruments, offering endless expressive colours and technical capabilities for playing modern music. Surprisingly, there is a lack of large original compositions for the pan flute. Therefore, writing two original compositions for this instrument and a modern orchestra is a revolutionary and groundbreaking project, providing justice to the pan flute and offering future players a challenging musical and technical work. Elia Cmiral is best known for his film scores, most natably Ronin which influenced Hans Zimmer's use of the deduk in his score for Gladiator. Gheorghe Zamfir met composer Elia Cmiral whilst collaborating on a short film for which he composed the score. Gheorghe played solo on a few tracks. During this period, their connection deepened, with a shared appreciation for musical aesthetics and a mutual love for emotionally resonant melodies. Their joint understanding continued after the completion of the film, evolving into a cross-continental friendship - Cmiral in Los Angeles, US, and Gheorghe in Bucharest, Romania.
Myaskovsky: Alastor, Symphony No. 7 & The Kremlin by Night
Fuga Libera
CD
$20.99
Apr 10, 2026
The works of Nikolai Myaskovsky, one of the major composers of the 20th century, remain largely unexplored. The Ural Youth Symphony Orchestra and Alexander Rudin continue their project of reviving the composer's unheralded masterpieces. His early symphonic poem Alastor embodies the aspirations of a lonely romantic hero towards an unrealisable ideal. The Seventh Symphony is a mature artist's contemplation of a man and of the world. The cantata The Kremlin by Night, composed late in his career, expresses Myaskovsky's love for his motherland and it's rich history. This is the first studio recording of the cantata. "Myaskovsky's works are very close to me," says Alexander Rudin, "his music is noble, darkened, philosophical and somewhat mysterious. Much in it remains unknown. Deriving from Tchaikovsky, Myaskovsky also inherits Mussorgsky's tragic disposition and premonition of catastrophe. His inherent awareness that life was restless, somewhat dangerous and unpredictable, was connected not only with his time but also with his perception of the world."
The Hills of Dreamland: Orchestral Songs by Elgar / Wordsworth, BBC Concerto Orchestra
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99
Sep 21, 2018
Somm Recordings is delighted to present a revelatory collection of orchestral songs by Sir Edward Elgar performed by two of today’s most exciting young singers – mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and baritone Henk Neven – accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. The Hills of Dreamland takes its title from a line in Elgar’s well-known setting, beautifully still and beseeching, of Arthur L Salmon’s Pleading. Historically the least regarded part of Elgar’s output, his songs contain a treasure-trove of vocal gems and here receive performances of insight, imagination and emotional directness. The Op.59 Song Cycle is an exemplary case in point, by turns quietly radiant, touchingly nostalgic and achingly melancholic. Two settings of poems by Elgar’s wife – the richly orchestrated The Wind at Dawn and celebratory The King’s Way– show Elgar at his most evocative and ebullient. Sombre and powerful, The Pipes of Pan boasts colorful imagery and driving rhythmic energy, The River and The Torch wholly Elgarian in their wonderful sonorities. A first recording of the orchestral version of the marching song Follow the Colours shows Elgar at his most patriotic. The complete incidental music for a 1901 staging of WB Yeats’ Grania and Diarmid offers a rare opportunity to experience the full gamut of Elgar’s moving and dramatic evocation of a timeless tale of love in the ancient Irish myth. A bonus album of recordings made under the auspices of the Elgar Society showcases soprano Nathalie de Montmollin and pianist Barry Collett in a collection of piano-accompanied songs. It includes first recordings of the piano version of ‘Winter’ from The Mill Wheel and the world-weary tread of Muleteer’s Serenade, setting words from Cervantes’ Don Quixote.
Grammy Nominated
Foss: Symphony No. 1 & other Orchestral Works / Falletta, Buffalo Philharmonic
Naxos
CD
$19.99
May 24, 2024
German-American composer Lukas Foss transformed the Buffalo Philharmonic into an adventurous and world-renowned orchestra during his tenure as music director, and he was a mentor to the orchestra’s current music director, JoAnn Falletta, at the start of her career. This album celebrates the 100th anniversary of Foss’s birth with four works, including the lyrical Symphony No. 1 and the Renaissance Concerto.
REVIEW:
Foss's music is much like the man, full of charm, brilliance, playfulness, deep seriousness, and bewildering variety. This resonant, well-filled recording gives us three early works from the 1940s, with colorful solo playing by flautist Amy Porter and violinist Nikki Chooi. The Ode, an expression of grief and admiration for men who died in World War II, begins with a funereal tread but builds in excitement, with a soaring climax showing off the excellent Buffalo brass and ending on a serene major chord.
A delightful contrast is The Renaissance Concerto, a neo-baroque piece based partly on Rameau and Monteverdi. The Three American Pieces, influenced by what Foss calls the “open-air” sound of Copland, display Foss’s lyricism and fondness for jazzy syncopation. The latter also erupts in the scherzo of his Symphony 1, which is based on classical form and has a satisfying symmetry. The finale, which exudes youthful confidence and optimism, revisits motifs from the opening movement, launches an exciting fugue for strings, and builds to a majestic culmination on an ecstatic major chord, ending a winning album with a bang.
— American Record Guide
Dvorak: Symphonic Works / Neumann, Czech
Supraphon
CD
$75.99
Jan 29, 2013
This is a set that no one who cares about Dvorák’s symphonies can afford to ignore. These performances really do belong in every serious collection.
Supraphon has finally released Václav Neumann’s 1970s Dvorák symphony cycle, and what a wonderful event it is. These performances are, on the whole, fresher and freer than his digital remakes, fine though those are, and more warmly recorded. The only exception is the somewhat shrill engineering in the First Symphony, but in general the sonics are comparable to other cycles of the period—Kertész, Kubelik, and Rowicki—and this is unquestionably the best played of them all. It’s difficult to overestimate the value of having the Czech Philharmonic in top form in this music, but the sound of the ensemble really does speak for itself. Kubelik’s Berlin Philharmonic might have the best strings, and the London Symphony for Kertész and Rowicki the boldest horns, but the Czech Philharmonic has the best ensemble, top to bottom, at least in Dvorák.
Consider one example: the climax of the first movement of the Seventh Symphony, a work that shows both the orchestra and Neumann at their very best. If you imprinted on this performance, nothing else can match it in power and intensity. The passionate lyricism of the strings, the thrilling low timpani roll that propels the trombones’ upward arpeggio, and those bright, sforzando trumpets combine to make an unforgettable impression (sound clip below), and it’s all exactly as Dvorák wrote it. Interestingly, where Neumann deviates from the printed page, as in the main theme’s fortissimo counterstatement in the first movement, or in the work’s concluding chorale, he gives the doubling parts to the trumpets rather than the horns, as in most other performances, and this too proves the better decision.
This brings us to Neumann’s own contribution. Traditionally he has gotten short shrift compared to the competition. Some of this was politics. In the 1960s and ’70s the British naturally preferred anything featuring the LSO, and Kubelik was a symbol of democratic resistance to Communist rule. He also had the superb Berlin Philharmonic at his disposal, rather than his usual Bavarian Radio forces, and Deutsche Grammophon behind him. Neumann, on LP at least, was spottily available on generally horrible pressings, and he had the disadvantage to be taking over from Ancerl, an indisputably great conductor who wound up on the right side of Cold War politics. Then Neumann remade all the symphonies in digital sound, a set that Supraphon promoted intensely, and this earlier effort simply disappeared from sight.
In general, Neumann’s approach might sound a touch “old fashioned”—quick movements move at moderate speeds, slow movements flow without ever dragging. Although not quite so slow in the allegros, conductors like Otto Klemperer come to mind. And yet, Neumann is by no means lacking in energy. His Eighth Symphony is as fresh (and swift) as any in the catalog. He whips up quite a frenzy in the finale of the Fifth, and this Third Symphony might just be the best on disc. Its first movement is as energetic as can be, the central funeral march is gorgeous and never stiff, while the finale actually sounds less mechanical at this moderate speed than it does when taken more quickly. The Sixth seldom has been paced more naturally, and as Dvorák fans all know, Ancerl’s benchmark performance is a tough act to follow. Neumann has nothing to fear from the comparison, especially in the coda of the finale, which is stunning.
Neumann always did well by the “New World” Symphony, and in only a few spots in the first two symphonies does Neumann sound less than fully engaged (though in the former, he’s still more effective than in his digital remake). The third movement of the Second, particularly, needs to be crisper. Suitner on Berlin Classics is unmatched here. For the most part, though, Neumann’s performances have held up extremely well. In particular, he offers an object lesson in phrasing and, especially, the correct use of legato in lyrical passages. So many performances today, perhaps encouraged by the perpetual staccato of the early music movement, break up Dvorák’s melodies into fragments, whereas Neumann conducts in whole paragraphs.
The couplings add greatly to this set’s attractions. They are uniformly excellent. The Symphonic Variations overflows with character; the three concert overtures belong together (they share a theme, heard at the outset of In Nature’s Realm), and these versions of the four late symphonic poems rank with the best available. They are also very well recorded. So to summarize, this is a set that no one who cares about Dvorák’s symphonies can afford to ignore. Even if you have the versions just mentioned, these performances really do belong in every serious collection.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Supraphon has finally released Václav Neumann’s 1970s Dvorák symphony cycle, and what a wonderful event it is. These performances are, on the whole, fresher and freer than his digital remakes, fine though those are, and more warmly recorded. The only exception is the somewhat shrill engineering in the First Symphony, but in general the sonics are comparable to other cycles of the period—Kertész, Kubelik, and Rowicki—and this is unquestionably the best played of them all. It’s difficult to overestimate the value of having the Czech Philharmonic in top form in this music, but the sound of the ensemble really does speak for itself. Kubelik’s Berlin Philharmonic might have the best strings, and the London Symphony for Kertész and Rowicki the boldest horns, but the Czech Philharmonic has the best ensemble, top to bottom, at least in Dvorák.
Consider one example: the climax of the first movement of the Seventh Symphony, a work that shows both the orchestra and Neumann at their very best. If you imprinted on this performance, nothing else can match it in power and intensity. The passionate lyricism of the strings, the thrilling low timpani roll that propels the trombones’ upward arpeggio, and those bright, sforzando trumpets combine to make an unforgettable impression (sound clip below), and it’s all exactly as Dvorák wrote it. Interestingly, where Neumann deviates from the printed page, as in the main theme’s fortissimo counterstatement in the first movement, or in the work’s concluding chorale, he gives the doubling parts to the trumpets rather than the horns, as in most other performances, and this too proves the better decision.
This brings us to Neumann’s own contribution. Traditionally he has gotten short shrift compared to the competition. Some of this was politics. In the 1960s and ’70s the British naturally preferred anything featuring the LSO, and Kubelik was a symbol of democratic resistance to Communist rule. He also had the superb Berlin Philharmonic at his disposal, rather than his usual Bavarian Radio forces, and Deutsche Grammophon behind him. Neumann, on LP at least, was spottily available on generally horrible pressings, and he had the disadvantage to be taking over from Ancerl, an indisputably great conductor who wound up on the right side of Cold War politics. Then Neumann remade all the symphonies in digital sound, a set that Supraphon promoted intensely, and this earlier effort simply disappeared from sight.
In general, Neumann’s approach might sound a touch “old fashioned”—quick movements move at moderate speeds, slow movements flow without ever dragging. Although not quite so slow in the allegros, conductors like Otto Klemperer come to mind. And yet, Neumann is by no means lacking in energy. His Eighth Symphony is as fresh (and swift) as any in the catalog. He whips up quite a frenzy in the finale of the Fifth, and this Third Symphony might just be the best on disc. Its first movement is as energetic as can be, the central funeral march is gorgeous and never stiff, while the finale actually sounds less mechanical at this moderate speed than it does when taken more quickly. The Sixth seldom has been paced more naturally, and as Dvorák fans all know, Ancerl’s benchmark performance is a tough act to follow. Neumann has nothing to fear from the comparison, especially in the coda of the finale, which is stunning.
Neumann always did well by the “New World” Symphony, and in only a few spots in the first two symphonies does Neumann sound less than fully engaged (though in the former, he’s still more effective than in his digital remake). The third movement of the Second, particularly, needs to be crisper. Suitner on Berlin Classics is unmatched here. For the most part, though, Neumann’s performances have held up extremely well. In particular, he offers an object lesson in phrasing and, especially, the correct use of legato in lyrical passages. So many performances today, perhaps encouraged by the perpetual staccato of the early music movement, break up Dvorák’s melodies into fragments, whereas Neumann conducts in whole paragraphs.
The couplings add greatly to this set’s attractions. They are uniformly excellent. The Symphonic Variations overflows with character; the three concert overtures belong together (they share a theme, heard at the outset of In Nature’s Realm), and these versions of the four late symphonic poems rank with the best available. They are also very well recorded. So to summarize, this is a set that no one who cares about Dvorák’s symphonies can afford to ignore. Even if you have the versions just mentioned, these performances really do belong in every serious collection.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Martin: Complete Music with Flute
Brilliant Classics
CD
$11.99
$14.99
Save 20%
Sep 06, 2024
A unique combination on record of chamber music by the Swiss composer, surveying the development of his voice and career through the medium of the flute. One of music's late starters, Martin grew up as the tenth child of a Swiss pastor and his wife, surrounded by the music of Bach and Mozart. Only once Ernest Ansermet had founded the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande in 1918 did the 28-year-old Martin begin to discover and become captivated by the sensuality of Debussy and Ravel, and this stylistic dichotomy continued to play out in his own music. Among the most polished and individual of his early works is the set of four love-sonnets composed in 1921 to poems by the 16th-century balladeer Pierre de Ronsard. Already the influence of modernism is apparent on the angular and even ascetic shape of Martin's melodic invention, and yet a gentle, atmospheric mood pervades the cycle; this, too, would become a hallmark of his sound-world. In 1939, Martin began what would become a series of instrumental ballades with the competition piece which is still his best-known work for flute. In the same year, he followed it up with a Ballade for alto saxophone which he then arranged for flute; both works are fine examples of Martin's ability to reconcile serialism with tonality. A neoclassical (or rather, neo-Baroque) spirit infuses the Sonata da Chiesa of 1940 with solemn, Protestant gravity, yet the flute part still sings with the lyricism of the early Sonnets. From after the war, the Trois Chants de Noel (1947) distil the mystery of Christmas into three brief settings of texts by the Swiss poet Albert Rudhardt (1894-1944). A trio of Minnelieder (1961) masterfully strips Martin's language to the bone in a distinctive 'late style', where flute and guitar support and punctuate the sung line with an archaically flavoured modernity. Almost all these works have attracted no more than one or two recordings, but gathered together by these expert Italian musicians, they paint a new and compelling portrait of Martin as a spiritually engaged modernist. - Frank Martin (1890-1974) was a Swiss composer, who lived for most of his life in The Netherlands. Hs oeuvre spans orchestral works, oratorios, and chamber music. Martin's style defies easy categorization, blending elements of neoclassicism, serialism, and Gregorian chant. His vocal works reflect his spiritual depth and musical mastery. - Frank Martin wrote a not a large but a significant number of works for flute, including the Ballade for flute and piano (1939), the Deuxieme Ballade for flute and piano (1939) and the Church Sonata for flute and organ (1941). Of these three, only the Ballade is an original work for flute, as the Deuxieme Ballade and the Church Sonata are the author's transcriptions of earlier scores. Also included in this new recording are works for soprano and instrumental ensemble, featuring flute, oboe, harp, viola and cello. - A fascinating collection of a highly original voice in 20th century music! - Played by Daniele Ruggieri, Monica Bacelli and several excellent Italian instrumentalists.
Rued Langgaard: The Symphonies
Dacapo Classical
CD
$53.99
Jul 18, 2025
With his symphonies, the Danish composer Rued Langgaard offered 16 vastly different versions of what a symphony can be. His captivating, complex genius made room for all conceivable idioms and a wealth of styles ranging from the grandiosely Late Romantic to the purest Absurdism. This box is the first collected recording of Langgaard's 16 symphonies based on the critical edition of the scores; recordings which demonstrate, with spectacular sound quality, Langgaards masterly grasp of the orchestra and his ecstatic view of art: "Mr. Dausgaard's keen advocacy elicits polished, persuasive accounts that live up to Langgaard's motto: Long Live Beauty", wrote The New York Times.
Hartmann: Orchestral Music
Nimbus
CD
$20.99
Jun 03, 2022
Thomas de Hartmann's output as a composer included four symphonies, several operas, concertos, sonatas, and songs with texts by Marcel Proust, Paul Verlaine, James Joyce, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as fifty-three film scores. The turbulent historical events through which he lived may, however, have kept de Hartmann's music from reaching a wider audience. With the de Hartmann papers now widely available for scholarly examination, the opportunity is ripe for a new look at this composer's unique contributions. Elan Sicroff is one of the leading interpreters of the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann music, which was a result of a unique collaboration in the 1920s in which the sacred and folk music of the East was arranged for piano.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3, A Midsummer Night's Dream / Comissiona, Baltimore Symphony
Vox
CD
$19.99
Sep 27, 2024
Romanian-born conductor Sergiu Comissiona galvanised the Baltimore Symphony into an orchestra of national prominence, releasing several albums on Vox. This classic recording of Mendelssohn's 'Scottish' Symphony is coupled with a previously unreleased recording from 1977 of excerpts from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Remastered in high definition from the original tapes.
Sawyers: Symphony No. 3, Songs of Loss and Regret & Fanfare / Woods, English Symphony Orchestra
Nimbus
CD
$20.99
Oct 06, 2017
This programme reveals Philip Sawyers as a composer at the height of his powers whose music ranges across a relatively wide spectrum of harmonic intensity, from the very direct and straightforward tonal language of the Fanfare to the twelve-tone pyrotechnics of the Third Symphony. However, regardless of whether we look to the modal harmonies of Songs of Loss and Regret or the multi-layered serial counterpoint of the finale of the Third Symphony, we still find a unifying sense of a strong and individual artistic personality. In his symphonic works, we hear an uncommonly accomplished resultion of some of the aesthetic tensions which have gripped so much music to grow out of the Central European tradition in the generations after Mahler and Schoenberg. Sawyers works with a spectrum of musical materials ranging from diatonic and modal material through to twelve-tone themes with a striking mixture of rigor and imaginative flexibility.
Clarinet Concerto, “Landscapes with Blues” / Pacific Rim / Gradus / The Rose of the Winds
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Sep 01, 2003
The most recent and longest of the works heard here quite possibly makes the longest musical journey as well. The Clarinet Concerto (2001), subtitled Landscape with Blues, was commissioned by the IRIS Chamber Orchestra for Richard Stoltzman. In offering the commission, the orchestra's Executive Director, Albert Pertalion, asked for a work that might reflect in some way on the heritage of Mississippi Delta Blues. As the composer notes fondly, "he even took me on a whirlwind tour of blues country to get a feel for the birthplace of one of America's greatest musical traditions. From that trip, I took away an indelible sense of the countryside, the heat and humidity, the purple martens chasing mosquitoes at twilight". But in it's realization, the piece goes much farther afield than that. It starts in the West African nations of Senegal and The Gambia, or "Senegambia" as they are sometimes known, with their great musical story-telling tradition known as griot singing, audibly one of the roots of American blues. These audible links are heard in their repetitive accompaniment patterns and rhythmically free, declamatory vocal melodies that tend to begin high then work themselves down to a lower register. Here, Hartke casts the clarinet solo as the griot, with the woodwinds engaging in a sort of call and response chorus, all built over a repeated five-note bass line. The second movement, entitled Delta Nights recalls Hartke's impressions of the Delta, but just as importantly owes much to the novel, Train Whistle Guitar, by Albert Murray, about his boyhood in a small African-American community near the Delta during the heyday of the great itinerant bluesmen. Hartke writes: "In Delta Nights, the soloist evokes a blues harmonica wailing away in the night, and even the structure of the movement is loosely related to a series of blues choruses. Moreover, some of the soloist's turns of phrase are derived from the opening motive of Cool Drink of Water Blues by Tommy Johnson, one of my favorite bluesmen. But the predominant influence here was Murray's recollection of the excitement which fired his boyhood imagination, hearing the distant sound of blues music drifting across the fields from juke joints that he was too young to visit." The final movement, Philamayork, takes it's title from Albert Murray, a compound word he uses to denote the nearly mythical cities of the North, where blues had gone and become a hard-driving urban music. Here Hartke's own New York roots are most apparent, and the movement unfolds almost like a nightclub dance-set, starting with a blues, then a faster dance number, a slow torchy ballad and some travelling music at the finish.
Arnold, Benjamin, Shostakovich & Stravinsky: Music for Flute
Ars Produktion
CD
$22.99
Jun 07, 2024
Discover Johanna Domotor's newly interpreted sound combination, in which flute and string orchestra merge musically. The flutist Johanna Domotor not only shines in dizzying passages, she also juggles virtuously between original works and arrangements, between arranged baroque music and early modern music. The album captures the diversity of 20th century music and presents three world premiere recordings of famous composers such as Shostakovich, Arnold and Stravinsky. The collaboration with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra enhances the auditory experience, as Johanna Domotor and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra also make their long-standing musical friendship audible outside the concert hall with this album.
Weinberg: Symphony No. 19, Banners Of Peace / Lande, St. Petersburg Symphony
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Nov 13, 2012
The subtitle of this symphony Bright May would normally lead one to think that, being written by a Soviet composer, it alluded to 1 May and the workers’ holiday. In this case you would be wrong since it refers to the month the ‘Great Patriotic War’, (the Second World War to most of us) ended. In the first of three linked movements Weinberg describes the devastation left by the war with an overwhelmingly sad introduction. This finally gives way to a calm pastoral episode that continues until disturbed by an insistent and ominous theme heavy with foreboding. This mood finally returns to the pastoral calm. Merging almost seamlessly the second movement opens with a gentle theme that once again is disturbed by a threatening passage leading to a central climax during which percussion and brass dominate before peace returns once more. This leads us into the symphony’s final movement that, like the other two, is a sequence of calm interludes interrupted by ominous passages. The symphony finally ends on a positive note.
It has often been the case that composers horrified either by the looming threat of war or its unleashing, felt compelled to express this horror in music. However, it is unusual for a composer to take a war as a theme for, in Weinberg’s case, a set of three symphonies, so many years after its end. I wondered if the passage of time leads to a better historical view of it musically or whether memory is dulled over the decades. I can’t answer that as I’m not yet acquainted with symphonies 17 and 18 but I can say that this one certainly does express the joy that must have been felt when that terrible war, whose cost was so appalling, was finally over. The continuing disturbance of that joy expressed by the gentle pastoral sections, by the dark clouds of martial sounding passages and thunderous brass and percussion can surely mean only one thing; to emphasise that winning the peace would be as challenging as winning the war. After all, Stalin was still ruling Russia with all that implied.
Weinberg could never have been described as a ‘Party’ hack, though like many other Soviet composers, including Shostakovich, he did write some works that could be described as “socialist realist”. These were linked to aspects of Soviet policy. An example is Weinberg’s 1985 Symphonic Poem The Banners of Peace. This followed shortly after the 19 th Symphony and was dedicated to the 27 th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Apart from some references to revolutionary songs such as the Varshavianka the music is not overtly propagandist nor is it bombastic in any way; rather it could be construed as a critique. After all, the words of the Varshavianka, which is quoted throughout, include “We will drown our enemies in their own blood, Death to the ruthless, To all pests of the workers, Death to tsars and plutocrats!”. In 1985, over 80 years after the song’s first appearance, these words seem at odds with the concept of peace. I regard this work more as another example of Weinberg’s ability to make powerful statements and this in music that is expressive and exciting. Viewed as such this work forms another worthy addition to the increasing amount of his music available in recorded form. We should be grateful.
Both works are given committed performances full of colour from an orchestra that will surely have this music in their blood. It is conducted with verve and enthusiasm by Vladimir Lande.
-- Steve Arloff , MusicWeb International
It has often been the case that composers horrified either by the looming threat of war or its unleashing, felt compelled to express this horror in music. However, it is unusual for a composer to take a war as a theme for, in Weinberg’s case, a set of three symphonies, so many years after its end. I wondered if the passage of time leads to a better historical view of it musically or whether memory is dulled over the decades. I can’t answer that as I’m not yet acquainted with symphonies 17 and 18 but I can say that this one certainly does express the joy that must have been felt when that terrible war, whose cost was so appalling, was finally over. The continuing disturbance of that joy expressed by the gentle pastoral sections, by the dark clouds of martial sounding passages and thunderous brass and percussion can surely mean only one thing; to emphasise that winning the peace would be as challenging as winning the war. After all, Stalin was still ruling Russia with all that implied.
Weinberg could never have been described as a ‘Party’ hack, though like many other Soviet composers, including Shostakovich, he did write some works that could be described as “socialist realist”. These were linked to aspects of Soviet policy. An example is Weinberg’s 1985 Symphonic Poem The Banners of Peace. This followed shortly after the 19 th Symphony and was dedicated to the 27 th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Apart from some references to revolutionary songs such as the Varshavianka the music is not overtly propagandist nor is it bombastic in any way; rather it could be construed as a critique. After all, the words of the Varshavianka, which is quoted throughout, include “We will drown our enemies in their own blood, Death to the ruthless, To all pests of the workers, Death to tsars and plutocrats!”. In 1985, over 80 years after the song’s first appearance, these words seem at odds with the concept of peace. I regard this work more as another example of Weinberg’s ability to make powerful statements and this in music that is expressive and exciting. Viewed as such this work forms another worthy addition to the increasing amount of his music available in recorded form. We should be grateful.
Both works are given committed performances full of colour from an orchestra that will surely have this music in their blood. It is conducted with verve and enthusiasm by Vladimir Lande.
-- Steve Arloff , MusicWeb International
Butterworth: Orchestral Works & Works for Voice & Orchestra
BIS
SACD
$21.99
Jul 08, 2016
English composer George Butterworth (1885-1916) did not write a great deal of music. In fact, during the war he destroyed some of his works for fear he wouldn’t return from battle and wouldn’t be able to revise them. He is most known for his orchestral setting “A Shropshire Lad” which is the ‘orchestral epilogue’ to the original vocal settings of A. E. Housman’s poems. Also especially notable on this release is an “Orchestral Fantasia.” Butterworth began this composition before the war broke out, and a three and a half minute section was preserved. The conductor of this release, Kriss Russman, has picked up where Butterworth left off, adding around five minutes of music where he develops Butterworth’s original ideas and adds additional material.
Grieg: Works for Orchestra / Abravanel, Utah Symphony
Vox
CD
$19.99
Apr 26, 2024
Edvard Grieg’s ambitiously scaled Symphonic Dances use a compelling selection of regional melodies and jaunty rhythms to brilliant effect. Elsewhere, his music ranges from the eloquent drama of Sigurd Jorsalfar to the deeply felt intimacy of the Two Elegiac Melodies and the popular Lyric Suite. These classic Vox recordings by Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony Orchestra were originally issued in 1976 and have been newly remastered from the original tapes.
The Elite Recordings for Vox by legendary producers Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz are considered by audiophiles to be amongst the finest sounding examples of orchestral recordings.
Sibelius: Symphony No. 4; The Wood-Nymph; Valse Triste / Rouvali, Gothenburg SO
Alpha
CD
$20.99
Jan 26, 2024
The Fourth is Sibelius's most difficult symphony. For some, it is his masterpiece. When the symphony was premiered on 3 April 1911 in Helsinki, one critic compared it to Barkbröd - tree bark eaten by the Finns in times of famine! It is fittingly a Finn, conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, who explores this symphony that lays bare our emotions. With his Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, he continues his cycle of the complete Sibelius symphonies, with the addition of the famous Valse Triste and the symphonic poem inspired by Swedish folklore called The Wood Nymph.
ORCHESTRAS
BLUE NOTE RECORDS
CD
$15.99
Apr 19, 2024
Bill Frisell's expansive double album Orchestras documents two inspired concert-hall engagements arranged by Michael Gibbs for the guitarist's trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston. Sweeping orchestration evoking landmark film scores and Gil Evans alike move nimbly within and around the trio's telepathic rapport, and Frisell's shimmering trademark tone melds gorgeously with symphonic strings and brass. CD Packaging: Softpak CD
Symphonies 1-3
CPO
CD
$18.99
Jan 30, 2026
The protagonist of these recordings owed his posthumous fame to an error. The Jena Symphony, discovered in the city's university library in 1909, was thoroughly studied, discussed, and even recorded as a supposed early work by Beethoven. However, since 1968 it has been established that the composition is by no means the titan's "zero" symphony, but rather the 14th of 23 symphonies that Friedrich Witt wrote in Niederstetten, Baden-Württemberg, many of which were also published. A full five weeks older than his colleague from Bonn, whom he outlived by nine years, he had been court conductor in Würzburg since 1802, where his symphonic output took an astonishing turn and was apparently renumbered. The three symphonies recorded here, Nos. 1 to 3, were written a few years earlier than their much-praised cousin, but consistently display uncompromising quality.
