BERNSTEIN Romance

Bernstein to relax and dream: the double album "Romance" portrays the conductor, composer and pianist from his most romantic side in celebration of his centenary on August 25^th.

Leonard Bernstein is still unforgotten today, still on his centenary in 2018, for his outstanding interpretations of great symphonic works by Mahler, Brahms or Beethoven, and his unique sense for emotional melodies in his own arrangements and compositions. Nobody can resist the charm of the love ballad “Maria” or the optimistically inspired song “Somewhere” from the “West Side Story”. On this album some excerpts of Bernstein’s great recordings are carefully selected, which include legendary musical companions: from Edvard Grieg's "Morgenstimmung" (Peer Gynt Suite) with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber to the nostalgic second movement "Largo ma non tanto" from the Violin Double Concerto BWV 1043 by Johann Sebastian Bach with star violinists Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin. And of course with Bernstein’s own music, “Maria” from the “West Side Story” or Offenbach’s famous “Barcarolle”. "Romance" is the ideal album to get to know one of the most famous classical artists of all time with romantic, relaxing classical music in high-quality recordings. 

The recordings are taken from the great Columbia Records catalogue. Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, working with outstanding soloists such as pianist Rudolf Serkin and violinists Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin. In the piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven, he plays the dual role of the pianist and the conductor.

Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo / Brad Cohen / Emma Matthews IN MONTE CARLO

Bel Canto Emma Matthews is the brightest star out of Australia, the most anticipated since Dame Joan Sutherland. A co-production between ABC Classics and Universal Music in Australia, this CD combines jewels from French and Italian operatic repertoire, as well as music by Bernstein and 2 Australian composers Richard Mills and Calvin Bowman.

Emma made her Covent Garden debut in March/April 2010 in the title role of Cunning Little Vixen at the Royal Opera House, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras and her European concert debut with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and also her debut with conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy as soloist in Mahler’s 4.

This release highlights Romantic opera heroines the Doll Song from Tales of Hoffmann, the Bell Song from Lakme, as well as fearless and thrilling coloratura moments in Proch’s Theme and Variations and Bernstein’s Glitter and Be Gay. There are two world premiere recordings on the disc both from Australian composers - The Nightingale’s Song at the close of Richard Mills opera The Love of the Nightingale and Calvin Bowman’s song Now touch the air softly. (Presto Classical)

Olga Peretyatko / NDR Sinfonieorchester / Enrique Mazzola ARABESQUE

Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko is the latest in a group of young performers championed by the revived Sony Classical label. She's got personality to spare, and, from the looks of the pictures, charisma, too. Arabesque seems to be an album designed to showcase her suitability for a wide variety of roles; the program runs from Mozart forward through the 19th century and includes the Italian, French, and German languages. She's certainly versatile and seems to have fun with most of the music, and she bears watching as a rising star. This said, there's just one type of aria in which Peretyatko really stands out, and that's the vigorous diva number that lets her voice bloom effortlessly into its upper range in rapid, churning material. The Mozart concert aria Ah se in ciel, K. 538, that opens the program is a fine example, as is Verdi's Mercè, dilette amiche from I Vespri siciliani. In this kind of material the voice simply doesn't reveal any weak points, and it's tremendously exciting. It seems almost to become unmoored from the key in climactic passages without ever getting out of control, and the effect of that is uncanny. Slow things down in something like the Villanelle of Belgian soprano-composer Eva Dell'Acqua, and Peretyatko is competent, but not as riveting and not as powerful. There is nevertheless a sufficient number of really brilliant flashes here to make the voice-seekers sit up and take notice. (James Manheim)

Tristan Pfaff PIANO ENCORES

The encore, an end-of-concert ritual, is always highly appreciated by the audience. In a way, through them the listener gets to know the artist a little better, as encore choices reveal taste and personality. Thus, pianist Tristan Pfaff interprets above all pieces he loves: from the Baroque era of Bach to music of the 20th century by Prokofiev and Kabalevsky, a very broad musical horizon is proposed. Popular song is also present with Gershwin's 'The man I love', in its piano version.

Here, after two discs – one devoted to Liszt, the other to Schubert, Pfaff follows one of Schumann's numerous bits of advice inscribed on the score of his 'Album für die Jugend': 'Nothing great can be achieved in art without enthusiasm'. With this disc, recorded in very few takes, Tristan Pfaff, whose greatest pleasure is to play onstage, gives us a succession of encores… beloved works offered as gifts to the audience. (Presto Classical)

Marianne Crebassa / Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg / Marc Minkowski OH, BOY!

Marianne Crebassa has signed an exclusive recording contract with Erato. Hailed “splendidly charismatic” by The New York Times, the young French mezzo-soprano is “an absolute revelation” (Forum Opéra), praised for her “luscious voice” (Financial Times).

Within a broad repertory encompassing Handel, Gluck, Berlioz, Debussy and Offenbach, Crebassa has nonetheless made a name for herself above all in Mozart.  An alumnus of the Montpellier Conservatoire, she sang opposite Rolando Villazón in the acclaimed 2013 Lucio Silla at the Festwoche Salzburg, conducted by Marc Minkowski and reprised at the Salzburg Festival the same year. She made her La Scala debut in the same production in 2015; later that year, she portrayed Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro at the Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

Crebassa’s first collaboration with maestro Minkowski was in a Salzburg performance of Handel’s Tamerlano in 2012, in which she sang alongside Plácido Domingo. The mezzo-soprano and conductor have continued to explore lesser-known Mozart repertoire together, most recently in a pioneering production based on his oratorio Davide penitente for the 2015 Salzburg Mozart Week, featuring equestrian choreography restoring the stage of the Salzburg Felsenreitschule (Horseriding School) to its original function.

Marc Minkowski and the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, then, were the ideal partners for Crebassa’s debut aria recital recording. For this project, the mezzo-soprano takes as a starting point the Mozart ‘trouser roles’ that have already won her acclaim on stage – Lucio Silla’s Cecilio (originally written for a soprano castrato) and Ramiro from La finta giardiniera and Cherubino. The theme continues with male characters from French grand operas by Chabrier, Gounod, Massenet and Offenbach.

Alain Lanceron, President of Warner Classics and Erato, said: “Since her first appearances in concert and on stage, Marianne Crebassa has captivated the international music scene, thanks to the exceptional quality of her vocal timbre and her innate musicality. We are delighted to welcome this jewel into the Erato family and look forward to a stellar future with her.”

Crebassa added: “I couldn't have hoped for greater luck than to bring my first recording to fruition with Erato. This album is close to my heart – it feels like a natural continuation of the personal and artistic connections I've made since my debut at the Salzburg Festival. This great musical city and the Mozarteum have supported me unfailingly from the beginning, as well as Marc Minkowski, with whom I have shared the stage many times. Let the adventure begin!” (IMG Artists)

Sonya Yoncheva / Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana / Frédéric Chaslin PARIS, MON AMOUR

A star was born when soprano Sonya Yoncheva made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Gilda in Rigoletto on November 21, 2013. The audience gave the Bulgarian singer a standing ovation and the New York Times hailed her "sumptuous, penetrating voice" that communicated all the "teeming emotion and sensual yearning" of Verdi's heroine. In the course of Yoncheva's quick rise to fame, French audiences have especially taken to her, and she to them. Her debut album as a Sony Classical exclusive artist, Paris, Mon Amour, reflects that love affair.

Sonya Yoncheva captured first prize in 2010 at the Operalia competition at Milan's La Scala, then began her love affair with France, starring first as Handel's Cleopatra at Versailles and then as Bizet's Leïla at the Opéra Comique. Then she burst on the scene in a really big way in Lucia di Lammermoor, her debut at the Bastille, after which the city of Paris acclaimed her in the 2014 Concert de Paris at the Eiffel Tower, an engagement she'll repeat in 2015. 

 Her brand-new album Paris, Mon Amour concentrates on French works of the Belle Époque (1871-1914) by famous composers like Jacques Offenbach, Jules Massenet and Charles Gounod along with undeservedly obscure works by Charles Lecocq and André Messager. The CD also includes Italian classics of the period by Verdi (La Traviata) and Puccini (La Bohème).

Maya Beiser / Michael Harrison TIME LOOPS

The mysterious power of music has intrigued thinkers across the centuries. Plato described a universe in which Sirens situated atop the rings of the cosmic whorl each sing a single note from a great scale, together producing concords that can transport mortals to the heavenly regions. In our own time we tend to use other metaphors to explain the phenomenon -- with terms like "brain scan" and "beta-endorphins" -- but when listening to an exquisite piece of music, who could deny the emotional truth of Plato's vision?
Perhaps we respond so forcefully because, as Clement of Alexandria put it, the human body is itself a musical instrument. That was the view not only of the ancient Greeks but also of the Indian masters who strongly influenced Michael Harrison's musical development. Both proposed deep connections between the arrangements of tones and the human condition, and pointed to the most fundamental musical relationships -- those defined by Pythagoras in "whole number" proportions, as when strings vibrate in the ratio of 2:1, or 3:2, or 4:3 -- as being endowed with special qualities.
These comprise the tuning known as "just intonation," and generate the musical alchemy found throughout this intoxicatingly beautiful recording. In Just Ancient Loops, says cellist Maya Beiser, these unique musical relationships allow the sound of the cello to shimmer and bounce. "It's as if you are turning all the artificial lights off and just letting the rays of sunlight into your space," she says. In her recording and concert collaborations, Ms. Beiser has sought to redefine the traditional boundaries of the cello, opening new sonic possibilities for human expression. In this collaboration, Beiser and Harrison's musical and spiritual worlds converge.
"Michael's music is perfect for our times," Beiser observes. "It's architectural and precise, yet exhilarating and beautiful. It draws on music from ancient Greece and the Renaissance, Indian ragas and minimalism." This project is just the latest example of Michael Harrison's remarkable path, which has wound its way through compositional possibilities outside the modern Western canon and the denatured sounds of its modern tuning system. In his landmark piano work Revelation, he used "very small but perfectly tuned microtonal intervals to create a sound world of sustaining, pulsing" and kaleidoscopic effects. "With Time Loops, I'm demonstrating the simpler and more harmonious aspects of just intonation," he says. "As a result the tunings on the CD don't push the boundaries, but rather they sound clearer and more direct than the normal equal tempered scale that is used in most Western music."