Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No.3, Suite No.2

“Rarely in her extraordinary career has Argerich sounded more exhaustingly restless and quixotic, her mind and fingers flashing with reflexes merely dreamt of by other less phenomenally endowed pianists. Yet her Rachmaninov is full of surprises, her opening Allegro almost convivial until she meets directions such as più vivo or veloce, where the tigress in her shows her claws and the music is made to seethe and boil. The cadenza (the finer and more transparent of the two) rises to the sort of climax that will make all pianists' hearts beat faster and her first entry in the 'Intermezzo' interrupts the orchestra's musing with the impatience of a hurricane.

 

But throughout these pages it's almost as if she's searching for music that will allow her virtuosity its fullest scope.

In the finale she finds it, accelerating out of the second movement with a sky-rocketing propulsion.
Here the music races like wildfire, with a death-defying turn of speed at 7'21" and an explosive energy throughout that must have left audience, conductor and orchestra feeling as if hit by some seismic shock-wave.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Campagnoli: Violin and Flute Concertos

Bartolomeo Campagnoli (1751‐1827) learned his trade with famous Italian musicians Tartini and Nardini. As a virtuoso on the violin he travelled Europe, where he held several important posts in Freising (Bavaria), Dresden and Stockholm, before settling as Kapellmeister of the famous Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig. In 1776 he moved to Germany, working in various cities (Freising, Dresden, Leipzig). In Leipzig he published his famous Violin Method, which soon became popular throughout Europe.

Campagnoli claimed for himself “the german learnedness with Italian soul”

Musica Barocca

Founded in 1985 in Milan, Il Giardino Armonico was one of Italy's earliest period instrument groups. Directed by Giovanni Antonini, who also acts as solo flutist, it consists of about 30 players, all highly accomplished and, to judge from their photograph, appropriately taken in what looks like the garden of a country house, all young. Many of them take solo turns, most prominently the concertmaster, the wind players, and the lutist. Their style is very "baroque," with lower pitch, speedy tempos, especially in fast movements, clipped articulation, lots of swells as well as sudden contrasts, and lavish, imaginative ornamentation.

The program, except for improvised variations on "Greensleeves" for solo lute, is all-Baroque and a bit strange. It opens with Bach's Suite No. 3 in a brilliant, exuberant performance, enhanced by a Trumpet Consort from Innsbruck, and then alternates complete concertos for various single and multiple solo instruments with short works, including separate movements. This produces variety but also frustration: the playing is so good that one wants to hear the rest of the piece. Apart from the Bach, Purcell's G-minor Chaconne and the Pachelbel Canon are most familiar. A Vivaldi Concerto for flautino (a sort of piccolo recorder) is a bravura showpiece, but the instrument sounds like a mechanical bird. Also notable are a somber, dramatic Oboe Concerto by Marcello, and several lovely slow movements, including one by Telemann and three by Albinoni. Surprisingly, the saddest and most dissonant of these brings the program to a very mournful close. --Edith Eisler

Berg & Mozart: Chamber music

“The Berg is superbly played… Christian Tetzlaff plays the solo violin part with breathtaking technical mastery…” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2008 *****

“[In the Mozart] the EIC's phrasing is a model of clarity and good taste. It's the performance of the Berg, though, that makes this such an important issue; both soloists...are perfectly attuned to Boulez's approach...The authority and logic of the performance are compelling, and this is easily the best version of this intractable work to appear on CD.” --The Guardian, 24th October 2008 *****

 

“…there's a sense of fun, of genial affection for the music. Whether in the fluid lines of the tender Adagio or the yearning Andante, or in the bustling, concise finale, where everything - in the true spirit of opera buffa - seems to come right, Boulez makes plain his relish for the work [Mozart Gran Partita]. Berg's Chamber Concerto was also written for an auspicious event - the 50th birthday of his friend and mentor Arnold Schoenberg. ...what makes Mitsuko Uchida and Christian Tetzlaff outstanding is their feeling for the piece's inherent theatricality. ...Urchida brings to the opening variation set a breathtaking rhapsody... the Rondo ritmico, begins with a swirling cadenza. The freedom of the two players here is extraordinary, undoubtedly helped by the fact that they toured the work before taking it into the studio.” --Gramophone Magazine, December 2008

Albinoni: Double Oboe & String Concertos Volume 2

"...the solo playing is of the highest quality. Intonation is never for one moment in doubt, and both players are not only confidently assertive in allegros, but shape slow movements with considerable sensitivity..." --Fanfare (7-8/98, pp.64-66)

“[Robson's] tone is most appealing and his phrasing and musicianship are second to none. Simon Standage provides alert accompaniments, also using original instruments, and creates bright, athletic string timbres...The artistic results are very lively and refreshing.” --The Penguin Guide, 2011 edition [Vol.1]

Scarlatti: Concerti & Sinfonie

This recording presents music by two Scarlattis: Alessandro (1660-1725), composer of innumerable vocal and chamber works, and his son Domenico (1685-1757), famous mostly for his several hundred keyboard sonatas. Alessandro is represented by six Concerti Grossi, a Sonata, and a Sinfonia; Domenico by three Sinfonias. All feature solo instruments: harp, recorder, and most prominently, violins and continuo cello. Alessandro fostered his son's talent, but the two eventually, perhaps inevitably, became rivals, and Domenico left his native Rome for Portugal and then Spain.

Most of Alessandro's music recorded here is somber, solemn, and mournful, full of dissonances and sighing suspensions; four of the six concerti are in minor, but the two in major are bright and sprightly. One of the highlights is the slow, pastoral Finale of No. 6. They vary greatly in form, character, and texture; there is much masterful counterpoint, pungent rhythmic inventiveness, and a chromaticism that seems ahead of its time.

Europa Galante, an excellent Italian period-instrument group, is distinguished by its successful blending of meticulous technical and ensemble execution with musical spontaneity. Notable among the soloists are cellist Maurizio Naddeo and recorder player Petr Zeifart. Violinist Fabio Biondi, the group's director, is outstanding for his virtuosity, beautiful tone, and daring, inventive ornamentation. He deserves our gratitude for rescuing these unfamiliar works from undeserved neglect. --Edith Eisler

Liszt: Funeral Odes

“Volkov shapes all these pieces with what seems perfect understanding of their different shades of gloom or grief, and the playing of the BBC Scottish, helped by Hyperion's first-rate recording, is also perfectly attuned to the light and shade of Liszt's sound-palette. Altogether a revelatory album: this combination of works actually says something new about Liszt's quality as an orchestral composer.” --BBC Music Magazine, April 2011 *****

BBC Music Magazine - Orchestral Choice, April 2011

“Volkov, aided by superior engineering, offers a... detailed account: witness the precision of the suave Scottish string section in the opening of "Der Kampf um's Dasein" with the important figure in the brass that succeeds it generating added tension.” --Gramophone Magazine, May 2011

 

“Volkov does not disappoint in bringing out the sombre fatalism but also the inward serenity of the music...[in Trois Odes funèbres] Volkov (aided by a rapt response from the men of the Glasgow Singers) delves that much deeper into music whose long-term influence is out of all proportion to its present-day unfamiliarity.” --International Record Review, March 2011

Liszt’s Trois Odes funèbres were composed between 1860 and 1866, and exist in a variety of versions: for orchestra, for piano solo and for piano duet. There is also a chorus in the first Ode and the possibility of a narrator in the first and second. The first is also an organ piece, with the title Trauerode, and La notte also exists for violin and piano. The third of the Odes is also entitled ‘Epilogue to the Symphonic Poem: Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo’, and in its orchestral version it enjoyed a certain vogue towards the end of the nineteenth century. Although it is quite clear from the original manuscripts that Liszt intended these works to be performed as a cycle, they have never been published together and have rarely been performed as he wished. This is the first recording of the complete set.

‘From the cradle to the grave’ was written after a drawing by the Hungarian artist Mihály Zichy (1827–1906) depicting three stages of existence: birth; the struggle for being; and death, the cradle of the life to come.

The Faust legend preoccupied Liszt for much of his life, and inspired the composer’s most famous orchestral work, the Faust Symphony. However Zwei Episoden aus Lenaus Faust also contains some of the composer’s most thrillingly atmospheric music.

Rota: Cello Concertos Nos 1 & 2

"Rota remains largely unrecorded, so it’s good to be able to offer an enthusiastic welcome to world premiere accounts of his two cello concertos… these concertos create a powerful impression." --BBC Music Magazine

Precocious as a composer, with an oratorio first performed when he was 12, Nino Rota studied at the Milan Conservatory, thereafter taking private lessons first with Pizzetti and then with Alfredo Casella. His career brought a long association with the Bari Conservatory, of which he was appointed director in 1950. A versatile composer, he contributed to a wide range of musical genres.

Vivaldi: Recorder Concertos

Stravinsky famously quipped that Vivaldi didn’t write 400 concertos, rather he wrote one concerto 400 times. Rather unfair, though witty. For many people though, Vivaldi is the composer of The Four Seasons (the first four of the twelve concertos Op.8), and maybe the famous Gloria. He is a composer who repays closer attention. There are some superb concertos in his large output, and some of them were sufficiently striking enough to attract the attention of J.S. Bach and Johann Quantz.

His concertos are remarkable not only for the wealth of invention and the outstanding quality of the music, but also for the amazing range of instruments he wrote for. This CD is devoted to concertos for sopranino and alto recorders. Two of his greatest concertos ‘Tempesta di mare’ (Storm at Sea) and ‘La notte’ (Night) feature on the programme.

Chopin: 4 Ballades, 4 Scherzi

"The results, presented as they are here with such consummate technical accomplishment, are really quite stunning." --Gramophone

Ashkenazy made his first recording for Decca in March 1963 – Rachmaninov’s monumental Third Piano Concerto – a recording which has achieved reference status - This was the time he defected from Russia and came to live in London, shortly after achieving worldwide fame when he was joint winner (with John Ogdon) of the Second International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1962; it marked the start of a recording and concert career which has scarcely been matched by any other pianist for the sheer breadth of repertory.

Cambini: Sinfonie concertanti e a grand'orchestra

World premiere recording.

The Italian composer Cambini was immensely popular with Parisian audiences in the 1770s and 1780s. He had a predilection for the symphonie concertante, a form enabling him to link his gift for captivating melodies with a flair for delightful combinations of sonorities, while his symphonies show a seriousness of intent and a restless sense of drama reminiscent of the Sturm und Drang movement.

Benedetto Marcello: Flute sonatas (12), Op. 2

Benedetto Marcello, the youngest of six children of a noble Venetian family, was born in 1686. His brother, Alessandro, also became a great composer. brothers. In 1733, he was appointed governor of the city of PULA for two years and in 1738 he became chamberlain in BRESCIA, where he died in 1739. He learned violin with his father as well as singing and counterpoint with Francesco Gasparini. Essentially, his musical career was turned towards sacred music: nine masses and eight Psalms books, which were popular throughout Europe. He also composed more than three hundred and fifty cantatas for solo voice and eighty vocal duets.

He also taught composition and singing. Among his many writings, his best known satirical pamphlet is" Téatro alla moda» published in Venice in 1720, the main target of which was Antonio Vivaldi.

The twelve sonatas of Op 2 are works from the beginning of Benedetto Marcello’s musical career. Originally, the collection was published in Venice under the mention "recorder with accompaniment of cello and / or harpsichord". At that time, the recorder was in common use. Later, in 1715, these sonatas were reprinted in Amsterdam and then in London around 1732 and presented as “solos for a German flute or violin”: solos for transverse flute, so editing formally recognised the possibility of varying instrumentation.

Ravel & Enescu: Music for Violin and Piano

“A compelling programme based principally around the figure of Georges Enescu, both as composer and as a performing phenomenon, the latter probably inspiring Ravel's Violin Sonata of 1897, a lavish essay redolent of early Debussy. Both Ravel pieces respond handsomely to Leonidas Kavakos's agile and refined approach, Tzigane in particular being meticulously prepared, the partnership with Péter Nagy ensuring clarity in matters of articulation and the 'pickup' of motives between violin and piano; you're unlikely to hear a more supportive or better gauged account of the piano part.

These aren't 'showy' performances. Though Kavakos is audibly appreciative of the folk flavouring in Enescu's Third Sonata, he treats the abstract element as paramount, suggesting keen parallels with the violin sonatas of Bartók. Again Nagy takes the greatest care over such issues as rhythm, texture and the shape of individual phrases: his precise musical thinking could serve as an object lesson in such matters. The highspot of the performance is the cantorial closing section of the Andante second movement, so exquisitely turned and sustained. The graphic Impressions d'enfance, with its lullaby, caged bird and cuckoo-clock, chirping cricket and ecstatic dawn, is endlessly fascinating, again rich in folk references, the sort that Enescu worked in to his Romanian Rhapsodies.

These performances justify consideration for their warmth, intelligence and superb sound.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Concertos for Cello & Winds

The Gothe is, I feel, a significant work that will deepen on repeat hearings. The Martinů and Ibert remain entertaining; the Ibert more so. The Rosenberg is rather dry and objective but essential to an understanding of his still neglected music. Production values, annotation and recording quality are well up to Bis's usual enviable standards." --musicweb-internacional.com

Album Review

Feinberg: Piano Sonatas Nos. 7, 8 & 12

“…the complex and concentrated single-movement sonatas of the war years and after… seem to form one of the summits of Russian piano composition… Nikolaos Samaltanos and Christophe Sirodeau maintain the very high standard of performance and commitment they displayed in Sonatas Nos 1-6... If the former seems the crisper, more focused artist, the latter the more dreamy and gorgeously rhapsodic, this may be as much in their choice of sonatas as in their actual character as players.” --BBC Music Magazine, September 2004 *****

Album Review

Piano Music

“Sensational. Unique. In a realm all their own. Now words are really apt here...The most obvious feature of the playing here is the artist's unfettered imagination - a currently unfashionable commodity. In the end though, this is the least of it. Pletnev simply sees in the score essentials which most musicians miss.” --BBC Musi Magazine, January 2014

“The long line is Pletnev's starting point. However undulant he feels it need be, however delicate or powerful he feels it need be, it is always an integral part of the form and rhythm of a piece...the kind of musicianship that makes the odd foible irrelevant, even meaningless.” --Gamophone, January 2014

A treat for fans of Pletnev the pianist and piano enthusiasts. Recorded in single takes in between sessions for other recordings but with the red light left on, these performances capture one the great pianists of our time simply playing for himself. Never before released, the performances and recordings have been approved by Mikhail Pletnev for release.

The Beethoven sonata is a work he has not recorded before, and the Bach/Busoni Chaconne recording pre-dates his famous ‘Live from Carnegie Hall’ album. The Schubert Impromptus were recorded at Rachmaninov’s villa in Switzerland on the composer’s own Steinway. This CD allows us to eavesdrop on a great artist playing for pleasure – for himself whilst the recording technicians busied themselves with the ‘official’ recording. The spontaneous nature of the playing is captivating and, as always with Pletnev, exciting.

Quantz: Flute Concertos

“Make no mistake: the disc makes fascinating, stimulating listening...Mary Oleskiewicz has it all: she’s a skilled writer in the booklet, she’s an avid scholar who besides digging up some of this music has published critical editions of Quantz’s chamber music, and her playing on the transverse flute is pretty fantastic, too.” --MusicWeb International, 10th September 2013

J.c. Bach: Symphonies Opp. 6, 9 & 18

For more than 300 years the Bach family was a dominant force—if not the dominant force—in German musical life; of the 80-plus members of this family, all but a dozen or so went into the family business. Some of them were privileged to hold some of the most prestigious musical posts in their homeland while others were more or less content to labor in less prominent and less fulfilling positions.

Johann Christian Bach (1735–82) was the youngest surviving son of the most famous of the Bachs, Johann Sebastian. He was only 15 when his father died, so he went to Berlin to live with his older brother Carl Philipp Emmanuel.

It was here that the young Bach came in contact with opera, and as the saying goes, it was all downhill from there. He left his native soil for Italy, becoming organist at the Milan cathedral in 1760. But his interest in opera resulted in his eventual abandonment of the organ loft and, following success in Turin and Naples, he again moved, this time to London following the commissioning of two operas for the King’s Theater in the Haymarket. He never returned to Milan, dying in England at the age of 47, poverty-stricken and forgotten.

In the mid 1760s, however, Christian Bach’s music took yet another direction as a result of joining forces with Carl Friedrich Abel. The result was a series of exclusive concerts that began in the Great Room at Spring Gardens and ended in 1775 at the Hanover Square Rooms (a venue that was London’s premiere indoor hall until the facilities fell to the wrecking ball in 1900). For these concerts, Christian Bach produced symphonies, simphonies concertantes , and concertos for a variety of instruments.

The symphonies on this two-disc release are representative of the music heard in the Bach-Abel concerts as well as in the London pleasure gardens like Vauxhall. Each symphony is in the fast-slow-fast format of the Italian opera sinfonia; some use material from several of Christian Bach’s opera overtures, others are from entirely new material, and still others combine the two sources. The most striking music is found in the odd-numbered symphonies in the op. 18 set. These exhibit the influence of the so-called Mannheim School, incorporating devices and techniques that were developed at the court of Elector Carl Theodore. Also, they were written for two orchestras, positioned at opposite sides of the stage. Both used strings, but the first added oboes and horns while the second supplemented the string section with flutes. The result must have been striking for the audience and still surprises with much effect today.

These performances date from 1976 and 1977 and were notable then for crisp articulation and energy, as well as their brisk tempos. For a while they owned the market, but a number of years later Naxos introduced the material heard here as well as the half-dozen op. 3 symphonies of Christian Bach by the Camerata Budapest under Hans-Peter Gmür, and the German label cpo entered the arena with striking period-instrument readings by Anthony Halstead and the Hanover Band.

I developed a quick liking for the Zinman recordings when they were originally released and am still partial to them. Even though there is a certain amount of suavity found in the Naxos readings, they lack Zinman’s passion and energetic approach, characteristics that I also found in Halstead’s discs. All three sets will still have a home in my library, but if I want to listen to modern instruments combined with edge-of-the-seat excitement and committed presentation, then I will go for Zinman and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.

FANFARE: Michael Carter

Haydn: Three Theatrical Symphonies

“The coupling is unique, the programming considered and the project a delightful success.” --Gramophone Magazine, March 2011

By his employer Prince Esterházy Joseph Haydn was expected to provide music, and conduct the almost daily performances of operas and plays at the Prince's own opera house and marionette theatre. He must have been highly disciplined in order to be able to cope with such an enormous workload, but he also developed great skill at recycling. The three symphonies recorded here are results of this - all of them featuring music which was first heard as part of stage productions and later reused in purely instrumental works.

Symphony No. 60 - the only one of the three known under its theatrical name, 'Il Distratto' ('The Distracted') - contains the incidental music to a play by the French author Jean-François Regnard. At least parts of the other two symphonies, No.12 and No.50, most probably originated in operatic works, namely Acide and Der Götterrat (the prologue to the marionette opera Philemon und Baucis). Neither of these operas has been preserved in a complete state, but reconstructions of them made by Manfred Huss have previously been released in performances by the Haydn Sinfonietta Wien conducted by Huss himself. Both of these, as well as the team's other previous Haydn recordings on BIS, have been highly acclaimed by the reviewers.

Diapason accorded Acide (BIS-SACD-1812) top marks, commending the performance's 'blend of elegance and well-judged vivacity', while Philemon und Baucis (BIS-SACD-1813) was described on the website Classics Today as 'exceptionally moving stuff, full of Sturm und Drang, with Haydn taking pains to give his marionettes music of substantial humanity and warmth'. Manfred Huss and his band now return with an orchestral offering which nevertheless hint at the strong connection that existed between Haydn and the world of theatre and opera

Rode: Violin Concertos Nos. 7, 19 and 13

“Mr. Eichhorn plays with a sweet and airy tone… There is ample technical display to support Rode’s reputation as a virtuoso, and Eichhorn carries off florid passages with ease.” --MsicWeb Internacional

A student of Viotti, Pierre Rode was an eminent violinist active in early 19th century Paris who helped found the influential French violin school.

Respected by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Spohr, among others, Rode is mostly known for his 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, yet his 13 Violin Concertos are rarely if ever played.

Friedemann Eichhorn, the soloist on this world première recording, has commented: “Working with these scores was a wonderful adventure... Rode uses sophisticated and often rich orchestration... As a counterpoint to effective virtuoso violin writing, Rode emphasizes the singing quality of his instrument”.

The Violin Concerto No. 7, the best known of the Concertos, was a favourite of Wieniawski, and one of the very few works (besides his own) that Paganini consented to play.

“The Piano Quartet displays their glowing warmth of tone and carefully scaled dynamics… what’s not to like here?” --Fanfare

“The Maggini Quartet and Peter Donohoe give a commanding performance of the Piano Quartet, locating an underlying toughness of argument and urgency of expression in both outer movements to make one regret all the more forcefully the budding composer's decision to withdraw the piece following his demobilisation in 1919.

Otherwise unrepresented in the domestic catalogue, the Viola Sonata was written in 1933 for Lionel Tertis. If Bliss's inspiration lacks the distinctive melodic profile and organic mastery of, say, Walton's Viola Concerto of four years previously, the work as a whole is still worth getting to know. The Maggini's violist, Martin Outram, makes commendably light of the solo part's at times hair-raising demands and Donohoe offers exemplary support.

But the jewel in this anthology is the Oboe Quintet that Bliss composed in 1927 for Leon Goossens. Elegance and resourcefulness are the watchwords in the first two movements, whose bitter-sweet lyricism forms an effective contrast with the exuberant festivities of the finale.

Nicholas Daniel and the Maggini give a spry, ideally proportioned reading. Production-values throughout are of a high order. Very warmly recommended.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Feinberg: Piano Sonatas Nos.1-6

Revelatory. The music of Samuil Evgenievitch Feinberg is hypnotic in the extreme, most obviously close to Scriabin in mystical mode. All credit to BIS (who already are doing sterling work for the composer Nikos Skalkottas) for releasing this magnificent disc, with superbly detailed annotations by Christophe Sirodeau, one of the two pianists featured on the disc, and a composer himself. Both Sirodeau and Samaltanos contributed to the Skalkottas/Feinberg concerts held in Paris in 1999.

Album Review

Bonporti: Concerti a Quattro, Op. XI

Francesco Antonio Bonporti was an excellent instrumental composer, especially noted for his fine, flowing melodies, but was overlooked in his own time. He was from a high-born family in Trent and chose the priesthood as his vocation, obviously expecting to rise through its ranks to higher positions. People in his class did not consider music as a career, so that pursuit was a vocation to him. He excelled in the humanities, philosophy, and theology at the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, also taking music lessons with Pitoni and reportedly, Corelli.

Boyce: The 3 Concerti Grossi, Overtures

William Boyce is among the most important English composers of the late Baroque period, 25 years younger than Handel, whom he outlived by twenty years. He was a rival of Arne and in 1757 became Master of the King's Music. His works include a variety of music for both church and theatre. Boyce produced a generous quantity of music during his career, and is most widely recognized for his symphonies, anthems, overtures and three concerti grossi. His set of Twelve Trio Sonatas followed a fashion that had started with Corelli in the previous century and was now coming to an end.

Monteverdi: Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi

Each of them definitely established Montserrat Figueras as one of the best performers of Claudio Monteverdi’s vocal music. At this time, she developed an innovative style of interpretation, characterised by great fidelity to historical sources, combined with an extraordinary creative and expressive power, that has exerted a decisive influence on the whole historical music movement.

 

Vocal music before 1800 required a new technical and stylistic approach capable of restoring to the beauty and emotion of the voice, that most human of all forms of expression, the necessary balance between singing and declamation, with an emphasis on the poetic and spiritual dimension of the text.