Stavanger Symphony Orchestra / Jan Willem de Vriend / Mari Eriksmoen G.F. HÄNDEL - W.A. MOZART Arias and Overtures

 

ARIAS AND OVERTURES

 

Michael Foyle / Maksim Štšura LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Sonatas for Piano and Violin Vol. 1

 

SONATAS FOR PIANO AND VIOLIN VOL. 1

 

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra / Markus Stenz ROBIN DE RAAFF Atlantis

 

ATLANTIS

 

Nino Gvetadze EINSAM

EINSAM

 

Olivia Vermeulen / Jan Philip Schulze DIRTY MINDS

DIRTY MINDS

Alberto Rasi / Accademia Strumentale Italiana JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Die Kunst der Fuga-BWV 1080

DIE KUNST DER FUGA-BWV 1080

Peter Orth JOHANNES BRAHMS Klavierstücke, Op. 76 | Rhapsodies, Op. 79 | Piano Sonata No. 3. Op. 5

                              KLAVIERSTÜCKE - RHAPSODIES - PIANO SONATA No. 3

L'Estro d'Orfeo / Leonor de Lera L'ARTE DI DIMINUIRE

                                                        L'ARTE DI DIMINUIRE

Daniel Rowland / Maja Bogdanović PAS DE DEUX

                                                                   PAS DE DEUX

Nino Gvetadze CYRIL SCOTT Visions

                                                                            VISIONS

Liza Ferschtman ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD Violin Concerto, Op. 35 LEONARD BERNSTEIN Serenade after Plato’s “Symposium”

                             ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD - LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Fabio Bonizzoni / La Risonanza JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Harpsichord Concertos vol. 1

This is the first volume in a complete survey of Bach’s harpsichord concertos, recorded by La Risonanza in one-to-a-part practice performance.

With his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto of 1719, Bach had created the first ever harpsichord concerto. From 1729, in Leipzig, the opportunity arose to continue this experiment: each week at Café Zimmermann he conducted his Collegium musicum in orchestral concerts that lasted around two hours. In the summer of 1733, he took delivery of “a new harpsichord, the like of which has not been heard before around here”. This magnificent instrument, which featured at the Zimmermann concerts, urgently called for concertos to be played by himself as soloist, and even more so his sons and students. Not only in Saxony but also well beyond, Bach was considered to be the absolute authority in all things harpsichord and organ; he thus had to make his own contribution to the emerging genre of the “clavier concerto”. The manuscript of his six harpsichord concertos BWV1052 to 1057 should therefore be understood as a repertoire collection for his Collegium musicum, and as a compositional manifesto.

Within the six concertos, each work takes on a specific function: The D minor concerto is the longest, most virtuosic and most Italianate of the collection. The stormy and sombre concerto is followed by the serene and cantabile E major concerto which, as Joshua Rifkin has convincingly argued, may well be based on a lost oboe concerto in E flat major
Whilst the concertos in D minor and E major are substantial works, the concertos in A major and F minor are far more compact. Both display noticeable influences of the galant style and were therefore probably not written before 1730.

Lisa Jacobs / Bremer Philharmoniker / Mikhail Agrest CARL NIELSEN Violin Concerto Op.33 JOHAN HALVORSEN Andante Religioso JOHAN SVENDSEN Romance Op.26

Lisa Jacobs: Since the first time I performed the Nielsen violin concerto in 2007, I have been overwhelmed from the very first note. Such an incredible connection with the whimsical Nordic nature that is displayed in this music, such a natural use of the violin as both a lyrical and virtuoso instrument and such an originality.’
Fanned by the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, the longing for pure wilderness and the cultivation of rural life, the Nordic National Romanticism arises. All three composers on this disc are descendants of this Nordic Romanticism. Although they did not all have the same nationality, their lives are intertwined.
In their compositions, Svendsen and Halvorsen remain in form and harmony close to the music of their good friend Edvard Grieg and the distinctive Nordic use of melody; Carl Nielsen, however, goes on a voyage of discovery towards a new idiom with a strong desire for renewal on the one hand and a great need for the revival of the pure archaic on the other.
His violin concerto clearly shows this conflict. In a neo-classical 4-part form, reminiscent of the set-up of the Baroque concerto grosso, with seemingly simple classical-like themes and references to both Bach and Mozart, he takes the listeners on an incredible adventure throughout Nordic landscapes of pure wilderness and takes all sorts of harmonic and rhythmic twists and turns.

Michael Foyle / Maksim Štšura THE GREAT WAR CENTENARY

‘Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and yet cannot remain silent’, wrote Victor Hugo in 1864. Half a century later, his words had never felt more pertinent. Every composer writing during World War I found a unique way, through their music, to describe and protest against the horrors that were tearing civilization apart.

Created in the depth of morbidity, Debussy’s parting musical gift is a subtle, dignified and heroic celebration of youth and joie de vivre. A sense of patriotism in the war years links Debussy with the foremost Moravian composer of the day, Leoš Janáček. Ottorino Respighi was only in his thirties when the war broke out. His 1917 Sonata for violin and piano is a work of Romance written in the time of hate, a reminder that the past and the future remain beacons of hope in desperate times.

Commissioned for this recital programme to reflect on the centenary of The Great War from our own times, Kenneth Hesketh’s Inscrizione, derivata, subtitled ‘A lie to the Dying’, is a quasi-meditation on the dying man, his anxious thoughts and the spasms of his failing heart being weaved conspicuously into a narrative of disquieting melancholy.
Foyle-Štšura Duo Praised for ‘playing of compelling conviction’ (The Daily Telegraph) and ‘astonishing mutual feeling, understanding and responsiveness’ (Seen and Heard International), Foyle-Štšura Duo won the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe Duo Competition and the Salieri-Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition in 2015.

Luís Rabello / Floor Braam RADAMÉS GNATTALI Flor da Noite

Luis Rabello: “The music of Radamés Gnattali (1906-1988) stands very distinguished on the Brazilian classical music landscape given the composer unique background: a hybrid of classical virtuoso pianist, composer of symphonies, concertos and sophisticated chamber music and popular composer who immensely contributed to different musical styles in the Brazilian music scene such as the samba, choro, bossa nova and the Brazilian jazz.

Gnattali started his career as a classical pianist and was considered one of the greatest virtuosos of his generation. He spent a great part of his life as the composer, arranger and conductor of the National Radio orchestra in Rio de Janeiro.

It was in 2005, thanks to Roberto Gnattali, that I had my first immersion in Gnattali's universe. Roberto Gnattali, composer and teacher at the University of Rio de Janeiro, is the nephew of Radamés Gnattali. Nowadays considered the curator of Radamés Gnattali's music, Roberto is an expert of all his uncle's recordings and compositions.

Gnattali’s widow surprised me with an unexpected present when she allowed me to take the digital copies of all music Gnattali has written for piano, that included solo, chamber and concertos. The present album is a fortunate consequence of that!
The album Flor da noite brings to the public the very first recording of Gnattali's entire repertoire for violin and piano.

Mayke Rademakers STAGIONI

Mayke Rademakers: "The e-cello is a relatively new instrument; it has not yet conquered its true place in the world of classical music. It presents an enormous spectrum of sound colors as well as the possibility of polyphony when played in conjunction with a loop and other effect pedals. It has inspired me significantly as a classical musician and I cannot now imagine undertaking my compositions and improvisations without it. Improvisation directly engages intuition and spontaneity which in turn enlarges perspective.
"Following the improvisations which I combined with the Bach suites and works by contemporary composers, I felt the need to work on a larger piece. This has resulted in ‘STAGIONI’. I could not nor have I wished to ignore Vivaldi and have woven several quotes from his masterpiece into my improvisations. Inspiration has also come from the medieval mystic and first recognized feminine composer, Hildegard von Bingen. Other primal sources which have fed me along the way include early polyphony, Sephardic folk music and Afro-American blues. This was not according to any plan, rather repertoire influences which are recognizable only in hindsight."

Isabelle van Keulen / NDR Radiophilharmonie SERGEI PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 WILLIAM WALTON Viola Concerto RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending

Here is a disc whose contents seem odd as it couples the violin concerto of a (still) Russian composer to the viola concerto of an English one. Instead, the coupling is very clever since Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, whose premiere was in 1923 (while the composer was still living in France, a few years before his return to Soviet Union) served as a much-admired model to Walton’s Viola Concerto, whose first performance was played by Paul Hindemith in 1929. The similarities between the two works go beyond the three-movements structure slow-quick-slow and concern themes, accompaniments and the rondo form of the virtuoso central Scherzo.

The smart idea of such unusual coupling came to one of the few great living violinists who can really play the viola with equal skill: Isabelle van Keulen. This glorious disc is crowned by the orchestrated version of Vaughan Williams’ masterpiece The Lark Ascending.
One of German radio best orchestras, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, is conducted by Andrew Manze (Prokofiev), Keri-Lynn Wilson (Walton) and Andrew Litton (Vaughan Williams).

Aventure TOTDAT DE WACHTER HEEFT GEZONGEN

The poems and songs of the Gruuthuse Manuscript originated in Bruges around 1400, and the collection is named after the later owner, Lodewijk van Gruuthuse. The songs form the most well-known part of the collection: love songs, bawdy songs and drinking songs. The Gruuthuse Manuscript contains the largest collection of Dutch language songs from the medieval period, and it is the largest collection of songs with music notation. The form of the songs also attests to the fact that these songs were intended for connoisseurs. The poet uses formes fixes, the canonized forms of French songs of the late medieval times: ballades, rondeaus and virelais, and the wide variety of the forms used is remarkable.

Instrumentalists have been around all over Europe during the 15th century, but musical manuscripts unambiguously showing a repertoire for instrumental ensembles from that period are scarce. The instrumental repertoire on this CD contains arrangements and polyphonic ensemble pieces from about 1450-70. The arrangements are either instrumental versions based on pre-existing polyphonic models or arranged monophonic tenors.

Raoul Steffani / Gerald Huber DEEP IN A DREAM

Baritone Raoul Steffani undertakes his CD debut, accompanied by Gerald Huber, with a collection of early songs by some major Lieder composers: Schumann, Grieg, Sibelius and Berg.

Many songs on this album have one thing in common: they are mainly early compositions, in some cases even the first songs these composers wrote. They all have a certain spontaneity and freshness which shows that the young men who composed them were still at the beginning of their careers, full of dreams and hopes for the future. Thus, not surprisingly, many of the songs are also about dreams, totally in the spirit of the true romantic soul. 

Dutch baritone Raoul Steffani, born in 1992, has quickly established himself as one of the leading singers of his generation. He was already awarded several prizes and undertaken masterclasses with Lieder masters such as Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig and Elly Ameling. Steffani won the Dutch Grachtenfestival award 2018 and will be Artist in Residence during the Grachtenfestival in 2019.

Valentina Tóth ERNÖ DOHNÁNYI Ruralia Hungarica - Humoresken in Form Einer Suite

Bartok, Kodaly and Erno Dohnanyi (who often used his German name Ernst von Dohnanyi) are the three great composers of twentieth-century Hungary. Dohnanyi’s piano music is both rooted in late Romanticism and is especially connected to Brahms and with Hungarian folk music. After a critically acclaimed disc devoted to Bartok and Kodaly, Valentina Toth performs works by the last composer of the great Hungarian triad. Valentina Toth remarks: “Although they were not musically trained, my parents taught me to love Bartok and Kodaly. I treasured their music from the time I was young, and only became acquainted with Dohnanyi’s work much later, when I came in contact with it by accident. It was romantic, virtuoso and incredibly well written for the instrument. What more can you ask as a concert pianist? And although he may only seem rather less distinctly Hungarian than Bartok, many aspects of his country are reflected in his work. I remember when I was working on the Ruralia hungarica, my father recognised many of the melodies from the songs he had learned as a boy.” As a composer, Dohnanyi, whose oeuvre mainly consists of piano music, deep in his heart always remained a musician grounded in nineteenth-century Romanticism. Dohnanyi wrote Ruralia hungarica in 1923 and gave it a real Hungarian touch by including a wide range of folk melodies in all movements. The Humoresken Op. 17 from 1907 date from when he taught in Berlin. They are basically romantic in nature and now and then reminiscent of Brahms’s piano music. As the name suggests, these are more or less light-hearted character pieces, in which he draws on musical forms from the eighteenth century. ”It is beautiful how Valentina Toth makes great art from this close to folk music leaning miniatures”. (Klara Radio)