Joshua Bell AT HOME WITH MUSIC

AT HOME WITH MUSIC

Anna Prohaska / Julius Drake PARADISE LOST

                                                                PARADISE LOST

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

                             ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD - LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Wiener Philharmoniker / Gustavo Dudamel / Yuja Wang 2019 SUMMER NIGHT CONCERT

Central to the programme of the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2019 Summer Night Concert is a musical history of the United States of America: the works that are heard this year were composed in or for the USA, while also constituting links with the Viennese musical tradition. At the same time the concert venue – the historic park at Schönbrunn Palace – is celebrating a double jubilee this year. It was 450 years ago that the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II bought the land and the buildings on it and a century ago that Schönbrunn became the property of the newly founded Austrian Republic. This is the second time in the orchestra’s history that the Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel has been in charge of a Summer Night Concert – he first did the honours in 2012. The soloist is the Beijing-born pianist Yuja Wang, who is making her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in Vienna – she has already appeared with the orchestra on tour.

Shani Diluka ROAD 66

Diluka brings appreciable nuance and delicacy to Adams’s China Gates and Beach’s Young Birches, and infuses the churning minimalist patterns of Glass’s Etude No 9 with more dynamic and colouristic range than one often hears from so-called contemporary music specialists. In most lyrical pieces, however, softer dynamics often recede and wilt to the point of fading away, especially when Diluka makes diminuendos. You hear this in the two Bernstein Anniversaries, Ginastera’s ‘Danza de la moza donosa’ and Grainger’s gorgeous transcription of Gershwin’s ‘Love walked in’. Her spineless performance of Copland’s Piano Blues No 1 lacks the sinew and projection heard from Leo Smit, the work’s dedicatee, although such a style befits Hyung-ki Joo’s noodly, shapeless Chandeliers. 

However, Diluka’s faster-than-usual tempo for Cage’s In a Landscape rescues this music from its usual frozen dream state. Her enervated, flaccid approach to Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans is alien to these jazz icons in both spirit and letter; in fact she misreads Waltz for Debby’s fourth-to-last chord. But Diluka plays the piano part to Raphaël Merlin’s brilliant, harmonically imaginative arrangement of Cole Porter’s ‘What is this thing called love’ gorgeously, abetted by special guest Natalie Dessay’s sultry singing. Had the two paired up for an entire CD’s worth of Merlin-arranged standards, I would have stayed up all night behind the wheel to listen, rather than squirming in the back seat to the tune of ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’ (Jed Distler / Gramophone)

Daichi Fujiki / Martin Katz PLAISIR D'AMOUR

Placed first in the vocal division of the Music Competition of Japan in 2012. Made his debut as Mannio in Il trionfo di Clelia (The Triumph of Clelia), at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale in May of 2013. Went on to appear as Carmelo in Divorzio all’italiana (Divorce Italian Style) at the same theater, then as Edgar in Reimann’s Lear (conducted by Tatsuya Shimono of Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra) at Nissay Theatre, to great acclaim. Slated to make his debut at the Vienna State Opera in April of 2017 – a first for a Japanese countertenor, as Herold in Reimann’s Medea. With his international activities spanning a wide range of repertoire from baroque to contemporary, Fujiki is currently one of Japanese highest-profile artists.
After making his debut as a tenor in The Marriage of Figaro at the New National Theatre, Tokyo in 2003, studied in Bologna and Vienna.
Converted to a countertenor in 2011. In 2012, was selected to be the Austrian representative for the 31st International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition for the second consecutive year, became a finalist in the world competition, and won the Hans Gabor award.

Antonio Pappano / Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia BERNSTEIN The 3 Symphonies

Leonard Bernstein was the Honorary President of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia from 1983 until his death in 1990. Temperamentally they were exceedingly well suited. Their ethos, their extrovert nature, to say nothing of their innately operatic manner, made them a good fit. And there’s something of Bernstein’s dynamism and eclectic, all-embracing nature in the person of Antonio Pappano whose penchant for, and love of, jazz for starters ticks one of the many boxes that this music demands. So here we have it: the three ages of Lenny the symphonist, fittingly signed off with that short, sharp, wacky jam session Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.

Let me say straight away that these performances come at us with a theatricality that puts them firmly ‘on stage’ where they belong. All three pieces are essentially about the process we all go through to ‘find ourselves’, except that in Bernstein’s case the question of belief and faith was to haunt him, trouble him, from first to last. How to reconcile being Jewish with his essentially agnostic nature. That The Age of Anxiety is flanked by the soul-searching of the Jeremiah and Kaddish Symphonies is nothing if not ironical.

One should give credit for the fact that Symphony No 1, Jeremiah – his very first orchestral work – sprang so fully formed from his imagination. For sure it is mightily filmic, a piece whose movement titles ‘Prophecy’, ‘Profanation’ and ‘Lamentation’ portend and indeed deliver biblical gestures; but the piece is big-hearted, too, and paradoxically there is an almost guilty jubilance in the central ‘Profanation’ movement – a destructive hedonism in which Bernstein’s composerly prowess advances in leaps and bounds, powering forwards on the back of driving rhythms and self-evidently American syncopation. We are pre dating and predicting here the prairie-pounding Scherzo of Copland’s Third Symphony and the Santa Cecilia players fully relish the heat of it (flaring trumpet fanfares and all) only to slink back into the singing melody of the Trio section which hardly needs saying could only have been penned by Bernstein. Then there is resonance in the closing lamentation for the fallen city of Jerusalem (the political overtones will never have eluded Lenny) with Pappano’s solo casting (inspired throughout this set) hitting precisely the right declamatory tone with Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s ripely theatrical delivery.

The Second Symphony, The Age of Anxiety after WH Auden’s tremendous prose poem, is I think Bernstein’s finest concert work – still hugely underrated in some quarters. This searching dark night of the soul, evolving as it does from that lonely two-part clarinet counterpoint at the outset (the musical equivalent of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and one of Bernstein’s most inspired ideas), uses an interlocking variation technique to great effect, each new idea emerging from the last notes of the previous one to create not just a sense of evolution but of new beginnings, too.

Again, Pappano’s choice of the audacious young Italian pianist Beatrice Rana – a rising star if ever there was one – is right on the money. She has the razzle-dazzle in spades, of course, but it is the mercurial throwaway manner (cool, and then some, the jazzy ‘Masque’ at the heart of the piece brilliantly on point) that really excites. That and her ability suddenly to look inwards and to thoughtfully reflect on what is past and what is to come. She and Pappano communicate great kinship in the piece and that inexorable build to the cathartic peroration has impressive inevitability. One of those eternally hopeful Bernstein sunsets or sunrises, depending on your viewpoint.

Symphony No 3, Kaddish, is still the most problematic of the three symphonies for me, one in which the music seems almost incidental to Bernstein’s spoken text. That text – highly emotive as it is – has always struck me as more therapeutic for him than it has ever been for the listener. What we have here is essentially a melodrama, a public venting of his troubled relationship with God, the Father. But Pappano has played an absolute blinder in casting Josephine Barstow in the Speaker’s role. She is tremendous and far and away the most exciting, the most affecting, the most probing narrator of any on disc. One can all too easily forget that she was an English scholar and an actress before she was a singer. She is blistering in her voicing of Bernstein’s angry confrontations with his ‘Tin God’ while the music for its part wrestles with its thorniness, finding respite in the central lullaby and the glorious ‘rainbow’ theme which Bernstein, one feels, knows all too well is the manifestation of his true self. But it is Barstow that makes the piece work as never before in my view and it is Pappano who should take credit for knowing all too well that she would.

Lenny’s Benny Goodman inspired-jam session Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is the most pertinent of postscripts to this terrific set. Alessandro Carbonare emerges from the orchestra to lead his feisty combo through the seven action-packed minutes where classical sleight of hand meets jazz improv. Hard to believe it’s written down. But then that was the general idea. (Edward Seckerson / Gramophone)

Baiba Skride AMERICAN CONCERTOS

“America, you are better off” – wrote Goethe in 1827, weary of German Romanticism and the 'fruitless wrangling' of sterile debates.

A century later, the New World experienced an unprecedented wave of migration consisting of leading figures, largely Jewish, from the cultural and intellectual spheres of Germany and Austriia, composers were able to immerse themselves in the new world of sound film in Hollywood. However, few were able to reap those rewards to the fullest. Among those few, who were able to make their way through pragmatism and perseverance, were Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Miklós Rózsa – both regularly nominated for Oscars. While making a living from this genre of 'music drama', each of them – whether or not they were recognized by the classical music business – sought to push the limits of the traditional formats and were remarkably successful in doing so.

'If you’re Heifetz, I’m Mozart!' Taking a phone call, Rózsa could scarcely believe that the legendary virtuoso was seriously interested in his Violin Concerto and was ready to give the work its premiere – but so he did in 1956. It was the same with the Violin Concerto by Korngold, Rózsa’s senior by ten years: the 1947 premiere of this twentiethcentury classic again showcased Heifetz as soloist. In the new generation of genuinely American musicians, one outstanding figure was Leonard Bernstein, an all-rounder whose early success led on to even greater heights: here too, one can hardly ignore his contribution to film music, even if it amounts to one single film. Bernstein rated his Violin Concerto of 1954, 'Serenade', inspired by Plato’s Symposium, as his best work ever, and this work too in its imaginatively slimmed-down scoring for string orchestra, harp and percussion is now acknowledged to be an important 20th-century concerto for violin. Isaac Stern performed the premiere of the work with the composer conducting. As an encore', this compilation includes the masterly Symphonic Dances from the immortal 'West Side Story', which has long risen above the 'fruitless wrangling' over 'light' and 'serious' music. The very different challenges posed by all three concertos are brilliantly overcome by Baiba Skride, whose unquestionable virtuosity nevertheless takes second place to the immediacy of her musical language and expression.

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.

Nadine Sierra THERE'S A PLACE FOR US

Nadine Sierra, 2018 winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s prestigious Beverly Sills Artist Award, has made her first album for Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Gold, having signed an exclusive contract with the labels last year. Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Robert Spano, There’s a Place for Us is scheduled for international release on 24 August 2018, in time to mark the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth the following day. The album presents the soprano’s stunning vocal abilities in an eclectic choice of American classical music – as well as works by Bernstein, the repertoire ranges from Stephen Foster and Douglas Moore to Stravinsky and Villa-Lobos, and on again to Ricky Ian Gordon, Osvaldo Golijov and Christopher Theofanidis, with texts in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. After singing the role of Norina (Don Pasquale) at the Paris Opéra in June and July, Nadine Sierra will perform music from the album at this summer’s major US festivals, including an appearance at Tanglewood’s star-studded Bernstein Centennial Celebration.

America’s founding colonists were sustained by the belief that they were building “a city on the hill”, a place that would serve as a model to all mankind. Countless migrants have journeyed there since to share the American dream. Nadine Sierra’s story stands for the stories of millions whose families have made a fresh start in the United States. The critically acclaimed lyric soprano and Fort Lauderdale native, who celebrated her 30th birthday in May, understands the essential contribution made by migrants to the nation’s growth. Her mother is Portuguese, while her father’s family hails from Puerto Rico and Italy. There’s a Place for Us, Sierra’s Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Gold debut album, pays tribute to the diverse backgrounds and creative energy of America’s classical composers. It also presents a timely reminder of unity and equality, of integration and optimism, at a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is increasing, and fault-lines are widening between divided communities in the US and beyond.

Berliner Philharmoniker / Simon Rattle / Krystian Zimerman LEONARD BERNSTEIN Symphony No, 2 "The Age of Anxiety"

W. H. Auden was a charming moralist, wistful yet pitiless, affectionate yet weighed down by emotional pain. With The Age of Anxiety, he created a historical and psychological diagnosis of the soul and of the time in the guise of a Baroque pastoral poem: “Lies and lethargy police the world / in its periods of peace. What pain taught / is soon forgotten; we celebrate / what ought to happen as if it were done, / Are blinded by our boasts. Then back they come, / The fears that we fear.” The outer frame of the action is provided by the four protagonists who fall into conversation in a New York bar and – as the alcohol breaks down the barriers of internal censorship – discuss the war, their own world view and their faith: a fictional conversation between average people, the chorus of a drama (that fails to materialise) and a hymn and elegy.

The poem, which won Auden the Pulitzer Prize, inspired Leonard Bernstein to compose his eponymous symphony: “The essential line of Auden’s poem,” said the composer, “is the record of our difficult and problematic search for faith. In the end, two of the characters enunciate the recognition of this faith – at the same time revealing an inability to relate to it personally in their daily lives.” In the score, which mixes a kaleidoscopic variety of different musical styles, the concertante solo piano takes on a symbolic function: “The pianist,” as Bernstein wrote, “provides an almost autobiographical protagonist, set against an orchestral mirror in which he sees himself, analytically, in the modern ambience.” In the Berlin Philharmonie, no less than Krystian Zimerman will take on the solo part, interspersed with jazz-style syncopation, to which Bernstein subsequently added an extensive cadenza before the final coda.

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal / Kent Nagano LEONARD BERNSTEIN A Quiet Place

Decca Classics and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal are proud to present the world premiere recording of the chamber version of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘A Quiet Place’, adapted by Garth Edwin Sunderland. It is conducted by Kent Nagano and will be released on 22^nd June, ahead of the Bernstein centenary on 25^th August 2018.
Premiered in 1983, Bernstein’s opera ‘A Quiet Place’ was the composer’s last work written for the stage and remains one of his lesser known large-scale compositions. The concert-version presented on the new album features a chamber orchestra and was recorded live at the Maison symphonique de Montréal in May 2017. Garth Edwin Sunderland’s adaptation offers a compact presentation of the three-act opera which places equal focus on librettist Stephen Wadsworth’s dramatic narrative and Bernstein’s complex and highly developed late musical style.
Kent Nagano was introduced to Bernstein by Seiji Ozawa in 1984 and studied with him until his death in 1990. Nagano says, “For Bernstein music was life – the two were synonymous, inseparable. He never stopped exploring and pushing his own compositional language. The goal in this particular adaptation is to allow the spirited brilliance and poetic depth of the work to shine through – including dance rhythms and elements of American folklore. Our hope is that the timeless and universal quality of the piece and the genius of the composition are laid bare in this new recording.”
Joining Kent Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal on this new album is an outstanding group of young singers featuring soprano Claudia Boyle as Dede and tenor Joseph Kaiser as François. The cast also includes: baritones Gordon Bintner, Lucas Meachem and Daniel Belcher; tenors Rupert Charlesworth and John Tessier; mezzo-sopranos Annie Rosen and Maija Skille; and bass Steven Humes; as well as the OSM Chorus led by chorus master Andrew Megill.
‘A Quiet Place’ is an audacious musical-dramatic exploration of the changing face of American society. As Garth Edwin Sunderland, Senior Music Editor at the Leonard Bernstein Office, said of the composer’s late opera, “It’s such a brilliant work, the culmination of what he accomplished and the culmination of his gifts as a composer. Creating this adaptation was a deeply powerful experience for me, and it is my hope that it will provide audiences with a similar experience of this great American opera.”

Michael Brown MENDELSSOHN - BEETHOVEN - BERNSTEIN - BROWN

Equally acclaimed as a pianist and composer, Michael Brown has been described as ‘one of the most refined of all pianist-composers’ (International Piano) and ‘one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers’ (The New York Times). His unique artistry is reflected in his creative approach to programming that often interweaves the classics with contemporary works and his own compositions.

Winner of a 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Mr. Brown is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing regularly at Alice Tully Hall and on tour.

Mr Brown’s engagements have taken him across four continents, with regular appearances with orchestras such as the Seattle, North Carolina, Maryland and Albany Symphonies and recitals at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and the Louvre. He was selected by pianist Sir András Schiff to perform on an international solo recital tour, making debuts in Zurich’s Tonhalle, and New York’s 92nd Street Y. A consummate chamber musician, Mr Brown also performs regularly with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis.

Mr Brown has been appointed the Composer-in-Residence for the New Haven Symphony from 2017-2019, a position that includes a symphonic commission, as well as the opportunity to mentor promising young composers. He has also received commissions from the Maryland Symphony, Bargemusic, Concert Artists Guild, Shriver Hall, Norton Building Concerts and a consortium of three gardens including Wave Hill, Longwood, and Desert Botanical. He also has written for various performers including Osmo Vänskä and Erin Keefe, and pianists Jerome Lowenthal, Roman Rabinovich, Adam Golka, and Orion Weiss.

Lara Downes & Friends FOR LENNY

Could there be a more perfect pairing than Leonard Bernstein and Lara Downes? Each incarnates the American spirit in resplendent manner, the former in his magnificent writing and the latter in her captivating piano playing. True to her generous nature, Downes has shared the credit for her tribute to Bernstein on the occasion of his hundredth birthday with “friends,” four of who accompany her on four of the twenty-eight tracks. But said credit could be extended beyond those participants to the many composers, among them Stephen Sondheim, Marc Blitzstein, and Ned Rorem, whose own Bernstein tributes appear. One of the more surprising things about the release is that while a generous amount of his own material is included, world premieres written by others appear too. Selection details aside, two things in particular distinguish For Lenny, Downes's always exquisite playing, of course, but also the audacity of Bernstein's lyrical writing and his bountiful melodic sensibility. In her hands, his songs sing.

A mere scan of the set-list reveals one of the project's greatest strengths: rather than exclusively feature well-known Bernstein material, Downes instead chose less familiar pieces, seven of them “Anniversaries” he wrote for family and friends on their birthdays, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Sondheim among the latter. In an imaginative move, that gesture's returned in kind by figures such as John Corigliano, Daron Hagen, Shulamit Ran, Theo Bleckmann, and Eleonor Sandresky, whose personal Bernstein tributes were written in some cases during his lifetime and in others were newly composed for this project. Such an inspired programme is the kind of thing we've come to expect from Downes, a justly admired artist whose discography includes homages to another great American artist, Billie Holiday, as well as America itself.

As mentioned, four pieces feature guests: Kevin “K.O.” Olusola (a member of the a cappella group Pentatonix) beatboxing on “Something's Coming”; clarinet prodigy Javier Morales-Martinez (whom Downes discovered through the national Young Artists program she founded at the Mondavi Center, UC Davis) on “Cool”; and roots singer Rhiannon Giddens and baritone Thomas Hampson on “So Pretty” and “A Simple Song,” respectively. Each collaboration is memorable in its own way, Olusola's for the fresh spin his treatments bring to one of Bernstein's better-known songs and the vocalists' for the contrast their radiant presence adds to an otherwise instrumental collection. While all four pieces would no doubt have impressed had they been performed by Downes alone, the inclusion of the extra colours the guests provide is hardly objectionable.

Most of the twenty-eight pieces are miniatures (only three edge past the four-minute mark), but they never feel slight; Downes's urbane execution and bright articulation make even the most fleeting piece seem substantial. Bernstein's own material ranges from saloon-styled blues (“Big Stuff”) and playful reveries (“Anniversary for Craig Urquhart”) to chromatically adventurous explorations (“Anniversary for Nina”); the tributes likewise differ in tone, many of them, including those by Corigliano, Urquhart, Sandresky, and Sondheim heartfelt, tender, and wistful; the ones by Stephen Schwartz and Michael Abels, on the other hand, are declamatory, emblematic of Bernstein's high-spirited side (Abels's is even titled “Iconoclasm/for Lenny”).

Among the standouts are poignant renderings of justly beloved Bernstein settings such as “The Story of My Life” and “Some Other Time” and Ricky Ian Gordon's “What Shall We Remember?”; never is Downes's artistry more evident than during her debonair treatments of such elegiac fare. One would have to be hard-hearted indeed not to be inspired and galvanized by her example. At a historical moment when an abundance of ills makes despair a not unreasonable choice, her music-making symbolizes an unwavering belief that the world and its people have the capacity to make things better. Such an infectious and life-affirming stance makes resignation seem like a cowardly choice.(Textura / March 2018)

BERNSTEIN ON BROADWAY

Bernstein's most popular and best-loved melodies from West Side Story, Candide & On the Town. Featuring the composer as conductor in West Side Story, one of the greatest musicals of all time, and in Candide, a visionary work with a dazzling score. Bernstein protégé Michael Tilson Thomas conducts On the Town. Featuring all-star casts, with artists including José Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa, Marilyn Horne, Thomas Hampson, Christa Ludwig, Frederica von Stade, June Anderson, and Jerry Hadley. 

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was a man of many roles – composer, conductor, pianist, musical educator – a man hailed by pianist Arthur Rubinstein as a “universal genius”. A charismatic communicator, he had few equals when it came to enthusing others about music. Whether at festivals such as Tanglewood in the US or Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, in a TV studio or in a university lecture hall, Bernstein’s presence, passion and unquestioned commitment to his art were palpable.

That same intensity also characterised his work as a performer. A number of his recordings still have reference status – his Mahler cycle, for instance, or Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Bernstein himself at the piano. The son of a Ukrainian immigrant, he knew no musical boundaries: he played jazz, engaged with Jewish folk traditions, and was as at home on Broadway as he was in Europe’s venerable opera houses. In his own music seriousness stands cheek by jowl with satire, musical with Mass, the modern with the traditional. His reinterpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth as an “Ode to Freedom” in Berlin, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was simply unforgettable. Less than a year later, he died of cancer. 

Houston Symphony / Andrés Orozco-Estrada MUSIC OF THE AMERICAS

Having demonstrated their musical excellence with three well-received recordings on PENTATONE of orchestral works of Antonin Dvořák, Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada now present an album that comes closer to their cultural roots than ever before. Dance rhythms, jazzy harmonies, bright colours, city sounds; everything one associates with The Americas can be heard on this recording. With George Gershwin’s 1928 piece An American in Paris, Silvestre Revueltas’s Sensemayá (1938), Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961) and Ástor Piazzolla’s Tangazo (1970), it brings together composers from across the twentieth century, all connected by their belonging to the Americas. Moreover, all of these composers reconfigured the barriers between classical and popular music, combining them to produce a sound that illustrates their home region. In choosing these particular works, Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada have aimed not to cover the entire continent but rather to provide ‘impressions’ of America and to ‘illuminate’ as many colours in the music as possible. 

Sensemayá showcases the highly original combination of native elements from the pre-colonial indigenous past with avant-garde techniques that characterizes the music of Mexican composer Revueltas. Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, from which a suite of Symphonic Dances is featured on this album, belongs to the most popular and famous American music ever. Bernstein illuminates the story of two rival gangs in New York by juxtaposing a jazz-blues ‘American’ idiom with a more ‘Latin American’ Puerto Rican sound, in which the Cuban mambo and cha-cha, and the Mexican huapango are also integrated. Ástor Piazzolla’s Tangazo (grand tango) incorporates neo-classical elements such as a fugue into the national Argentinian dance music par excellence, realizing a reconciliation between native influences and trends in contemporary classical music. In Gershwin’s jazzy symphonic poem An American in Paris, city sounds temporarily give way to a sorrowful, homesickness blues, but the piece ends in regained excitement. (PENTATONE)

Tenebrae / BBC Symphony Orchestra SYMPHONIC PSALMS & PRAYERS

While this intriguing Judaeo-Christian programme may not fit too well on the shelves of old-style, repertoire-led collectors, it lives up to Tenebrae’s stated core values of “passion and precision”.

Symphony of Psalms, which opens the anthology, seems less concerned with the first of those attributes, at least initially. The expert choir (featuring the female voices which Stravinsky viewed as second best) is relatively modest in size, the instrumental cohort placed further back than you might be used to. Nor is there any attempt to disguise the relatively confined acoustic. That said, everything is wonderfully clean and sharp-etched so that you never feel short-changed. And the timeless, implacable quality of the invention is not the only aspect highlighted as the music proceeds. The second movement brings not only flawless intonation from the woodwinds of the BBC Symphony Orchestra but eruptive, even muscular passion from the singers. The Psalm 150 setting works wonderfully too, finally combining glinting clarity with the trance-like rapture which can get lost in squeaky-clean performances.

Next up is the Schoenberg, notoriously difficult to bring off, especially when performed as here without the instrumental doublings for strings and wind the composer added in 1911 on the advice of Franz Schreker. The writing has probably never sounded less strained, nor more perfectly in tune. By 1923 Schoenberg was describing this final work in his original tonal style as “an illusion for mixed choir, an illusion, as I know today, having believed … when I composed it, that this pure harmony among human beings was conceivable.”

Tricky in a different way, Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms is marginally less successful if only because the balance sometimes seems to mute the strings unduly (this is not after all the reduced, economy version Tenebrae use in concert). Sentimentality is banished but so is some of the music’s escapist charm. Well to the fore is the countertenor of David Allsopp, a former Tenebrae singer. Some might have preferred a less forthright boy treble whatever the threat of sugariness. The final movement’s big tune is taken rather swiftly so as to make a bigger contrast with the psalmist’s subdued farewell.

Ascetic rigour is even less of the essence in Zemlinsky’s Psalm 23, a mildly chromatic pastoral dating from 1910 in which Michael Oliver detected “an ambience half-way between Hollywood and the Three Choirs Festival.” Taking its cue from one of the cutesier passages in the second movement of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony the invention is never hugely memorable but certainly makes for grateful listening, the scoring brightening at the very end in a tinkling recreation of the shepherd’s biblical soundworld of pipe, harp and timbrel.

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)

Neave Trio AMERICAN MOMENTS

Hailed by the magazine Fanfare as ‘having exceeded the Gold Standard and moved on to Platinum’, the Neave Trio has emerged as one of the finest young ensembles of its generation. It has been praised for its ‘bright and radiant music making’ by the critic Robert Sherman (WQXR Radio), and described as ‘a consummate ensemble’ by the Palm Beach Daily News and ‘a brilliant trio’ by MusicWeb International. Its debut at the Rockport International Chamber Music Festival was cited among the ‘Best of 2014’ by The Boston Musical Intelligencer, which wrote: ‘it is inconceivable that they will not soon be among the busiest chamber ensembles going.’ Its members originating from the US, Russia, and Japan, the Trio has performed on concert stages from Carnegie Hall in New York to venues in the UK, continental Europe, and Russia, bringing audiences to their feet and receiving the highest critical acclaim. Performances have been broadcast on radio stations across the United States and abroad, notably on American Public Media’s Performance Today, The McGraw-Hill Financial Young Artists Showcase on WQXR Radio (New York), as well as on WGBH Radio (Boston) and WXXI and WCNY Radio (New York). Previous recordings have been met with critical acclaim, included on the 2014 ‘Want List’ in Fanfare, and made Recording of the Month by MusicWeb International. The Trio has held artist residency positions at Brown University, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, San Diego State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and Concord Academy. As part of its mission to create new pathways for classical music and engage a wider audience, the Neave Trio frequently works with artists of all mediums. Notable collaborations include the world premiere performance of Klee Musings, a work dedicated to the Trio by the American composer Augusta Read Thomas, as well as multiple award-winning productions with dance companies and filmmakers.

Engage, Exchange, Connect. That is what this young American piano trio is all about, on stage as well as on this album, its very first.

Experience the group at its revelatory best in these idiomatic and fresh interpretations of early-twentieth-century American piano trios, by Foote, Korngold, and Bernstein.

As reported by WXQR radio, ‘Neave is actually a Gaelic name meaning “bright” and “radiant”, both of which certainly apply to this trio’s music making’. Praised for its ‘heart-on-sleeve performances’ (Classical New Jersey), the Neave Trio has been described as ‘A consummate ensemble’ (Palm Beach Daily News), ‘A revelation’ (San Diego Story), and ‘A brilliant trio…’ (MusicWeb International), one that has ‘exceeded the gold standard and moved on to platinum’ (Fanfare).

Katia & Marielle Labèque LOVE STORIES

Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet inspired many composers from Benda to Prokofiev through Berlioz, Gounod or Tchaikowsky and it is always a challenge for a musician to approach such a subject so full of history. With Star-Cross’d Lovers French composer David Chalmin gives a new look at Shakespeare's drama : a contemporary ballet choreographed by Yaman Okur, written for two pianos, electric guitar, electronics and drums. The musical dramaturgy is based on tension and resolution, violence and harmony, brutality and poetry, which correspond to the two antagonist themes of hatred and love.
These contrasts enable a vast range of choreographic possibilities boosted by the energy exchanges between the seven breakdancers and the four musicians.
The piece is tinged with Minimalist, rock and electronics but also includes references to art music or ethnic music. It finds its unity in a cleverly combination of tradition and experimentalism.
The clashes between the two rival gangs take place in a dark, oppressive and threatening musical world where tension and danger are constant. It could describe a sordid urban environment, perhaps that of a soulless suburb of a big city. The tragic end of the work is prefigured in the first prologue by an evolving melodic theme played by the pianos in the lower register that could be a modern version of a Wagnerian leitmotiv of curse or fate.
Electronic roars and buzzes, howlings of electric guitar, aggressive hammerings of pianos, cold polyrhythmic combining motoric style, obssesive rave music but also african and latino influences, contribute to this dystopian vision of the drama.
The musical universe of the two famous lovers, which often tintinnabulate in the high register of the pianos, is instead full of delicacy and sweetness. David Chalmin gives his music a special charm drawing his inspiration from Ravelian limpidness, Schubertian lyricism and Chopinian poetry but also from styles close to jazz and pop music.
David Chalmin 30-minute score was composed for Katia and Marielle Labèque. It was premiered at the Philharmonie de Paris on May 2015. Since then, it has been performed in Luzern, Dortmund, Montpellier Festival, Bordeaux, Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet), Napoli Festival, etc...

West Side Story is probably Bernstein's masterpiece and unquestionably the best-known American work all over the world. Ever since the highly favorable critical and audience reception at New York's Winter Garner Theatre on Broadway, September 26, 1957, and the phenomenal success of Robert Wise's film adaptation in 1961, this contemporary urban version of Romeo and Juliet has never ceased to move spectators and fill them with enthusiasm.
Although West Side Story bears Bernstein's inimitable mark, it was born of collective work bringing together, amongst others, the choreographer and director Jerome Robbins, librettist Arthur Laurents, lyricist Stephen Sondheim and arrangers Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal.
It was Bernstein himself who asked Irwin Kostal to produce an arrangement for the duo-pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque. This suite of 17 pieces includes an assortment of dances and songs, which appear in a new light. Thanks to his perfect knowledge of the score, Kostal succeeds in giving his small ensemble an orchestral fullness. The seeming monochromy of the two pianos, far from making the music dull, allows us to appreciate a harmonic language that is simple yet quite subtle, in the service of the composer's enormous talents as a melodist. Deprived of the lyric dimension provided by the voices, the songs unfold their phrases with unsuspected naturalness and authenticity.