Duo Animé WORKS BY DVORÁK, JANÁCEK, MARTINU, SUK

                               WORKS BY DVORÁK, JANÁCEK, MARTINU, SUK

Raphaela Gromes HOMMAGE À ROSSINI

Gioachino Rossini died 150 years ago. This leading light of Italian opera wrote one of the most frequently performed and most famous operas in the whole history of music: Il barbiere di Siviglia. Now the star violoncellist and exclusive SONY Classical artist Raphaela Gromes pays tribute to Rossini with her latest album. Her Hommage à Rossini naturally features Une Larme, Rossini’s only original work for violoncello and piano, but it also includes a number of arrangements of Rossini arias for violoncello and orchestra or piano and a set of variations on a theme from Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto written by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. But pride of place goes to a world-premiere recording of a piece by Jacques Offenbach, his Hommageà Rossini for violoncello and orchestra. Long thought to be lost, this fantasy, dating from 1845, has now been reawoken from its Sleeping - Beauty - like slumber thanks to the musicological researches of Raphaela Gromes and can be performed again in time to mark Rossini’s sesquicentenary – 173 years after it was composed. For this discographic sensation Raphaela Gromes is accompanied by the WDR Funkhausorchester under Enrico Delamboye. In the pieces for violoncello and piano, conversely, her accompanist is the pianist Julian Riem, who is also responsible for the arrangements.

As a child, Raphaela Gromes wanted to become a singer and decided to take up the violoncello because the sounds that this instrument produces come closest to those of the human voice. In her efforts to achieve a “vocal approach” to her Rossini programme, she sought advice on the technical mysteries of bel canto from the soprano Juliane Banse and the mezzo-soprano Daphne Evangelatos. In this way she has been able to come closer to Rossini’s declared ideal of “sweet Italian singing that comes from the heart”.

Mari & Momo Kodama / Sarah & Deborah Nemtanu MARTINU Double Concertos for Violin & Piano

Bohuslav Martinů’s distinctive musical voice, which infuses the great Czech tradition with modern idioms, is showcased in this captivating survey of his concertante works, performed by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille conducted by Lawrence Foster. 

The Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra is a lively and rhythmic tour de force. Breezily energetic and relentless, it is full of jazzy inflections and high speed fireworks, pausing only in the tranquillity of the slow movement for moments of serene calm. By contrast, the Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra is a warm, lyrical work in the Romantic tradition. With its intricate and interweaving solo lines, expansive melodies and dance-like syncopations it’s an engaging work of considerable charm which deserves a wider audience. The Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra is a dreamily nostalgic work whose simple melodies, radiant lyricism and soaring viola line make it one of the 20th century’s most performed viola concertos.

Matt Haimovitz / Christopher O'Riley SHUFFLE.PLAY.LISTEN

Shuffle.Play.Listen unites ground-breaking, Grammy-nominated cellist Matt Haimovitz with pianist Christopher O'Riley, host of NPR and PBS’s popular weekly radio and television series, From the Top, in a collaboration that blurs the boundaries between classical and pop music.

Two performers, each a superstar in his own right, come together to plumb the virtuosic and lyrical possibilities of their instruments in an expansive 2-CD set from Oxingale Records.

Disc 1 features Igor Stravinsky’s neo-classical Suite Italienne, Leos Janacek’s Fairy Tale, Bohuslav Martinu’s Variations on a Slovak Folksong and Astor Piazzolla’s Grand Tango, all interwoven with an arresting new arrangement of Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo film score, celebrating the composer’s 100th birthday this year.

Disc 2 kicks off with Empty Room from the 2011 Grammy winning Album of the Year by Arcade Fire, and follows up with tracks by Blond Redhead, the Cocteau Twins, Radiohead, and more Arcade Fire, as well as supergroup A Perfect Circle’s hit song 3 Libras and a jaw dropping rendition of John McLaughlin’s Dance of Maya. All the arrangements for cello and piano were made with O’Riley’s signature passion and finesse, and realized with Haimovitz’s uncompromising artistic depth. The pair display their considerable improvisational skills in several tunes, including their 9-minute un-cut interpretation of McLaughlin’s A Lotus on Irish Streams.

Inside the package, New York Times best-selling author Dan Levitin (This is your Brain on Music), interviews Haimovitz and O’Riley on the making of Shuffle.Play.Listen.

One of the most anticipated collaborations of the 2011-2012 season, Haimovitz and O’Riley will tour extensively in major concert series and university residencies throughout throughout the US. In addition, each continues to tour exhaustively as a solo artist in recital and as concerto soloist.

Shuffle.Play.Listen embraces a new kind of listening public who mix Wagner with Lady Gaga on their iPods, exploring new sounds and moving comfortably between genres. While Classical lovers will be drawn to CD1, more adventurous listeners will thrill to CD2, and both will want to shuffle, play and listen! (Oxingale Records)

Thomas Zehetmair / Ruth Killius MANTO AND MADRIGALS

Violinist Thomas Zehetmair and violist Ruth Killius have shared many years as musical collaborators in the Zehetmair quartet. The couple’s spectacular duo performance at last autumn’s ECM festival in Mannheim raised the expectactions for their new programme, a carefully composed anthology of contemporary pieces for violin and viola. Next to Bohuslav Martinů’s virtuosic and accessible “Madrigals”, written in 1946 in American exile, the central piece here is “Drei Skizzen” by Heinz Holliger, a triptychon with the instruments tuned in the scordatura of Mozart’s fomous “Sinfonia concertante” for violin, viola and orchestra. It was commissioned by the duo as an encore piece for their frequent renderings of Mozart’s masterworks on the concert platform. Its first movement “Pirouetts harmoniques” is entirely based on shimmering harmonics, whereas the second one is an exuberant perpetuum mobile. The cycle concludes with a six-part chorale that requires both string players to hum an extra voice. This idea, which is realised by the duo to a most stunning effect effect, was itself inspired by Giancinto Scelsi’s solo piece “Manto” for a “singing viola player”. The programme is complemented by compositions by Nikos Skalkottas, Béla Bartók and short pieces by Rainer Killius and Johannes Nied. (ECM Records)

Marina Thibeault / Janelle Fung TOQUADE

Named “Révélations Radio-Canada 2016-2017”, Marina Thibeault travels the world as an ambassador of the viola. Contributing to the repertoire of her instrument by commissioning new works is a vital calling for Marina.  Contemporary works for solo viola by Canadian composers Ana Sokolovic and Jean Lesage are paired with romantic and modern pieces by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Kymlicka, Martinů and Hindemith. She is accompanied by pianist Janelle Fung.

Ms. Thibeault is the recipient of the Sylva Gelber Foundation award (2016). She won first prize in the string category of Prix d’Europe (2015), the McGill Concerto Competition (2015), and the Radio-Canada “Young Artist” prize (2007), as well a special prize at the Beethoven Hradec International Viola Competition (2008).

Canadian pianist Janelle Fung has performed in concert from coast to coast in Canada, including tours with Prairie Debut and Jeunesses Musicales du Canada. Ms. Fung has been a prize winner in numerous national and international competitions, including the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition, the Concours OSM-Standard Life, and the Canadian Music Competition.

Sol Gabetta / Berliner Philharmoniker / Sir Simon Rattle / Krysztof Urbanski LIVE

Sol Gabetta achieved international acclaim upon winning the Crédit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2004 and making her debut with Wiener Philharmoniker and Valery Gergiev. Born in Argentina, Gabetta won her first competition at the a ge of ten, soon followed by the Natalia Gutman Award as well as commendations at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Competition and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. A Grammy Award nominee, she received the Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award in 2 010 and the Würth -­ Preis of the Jeunesses Musicales in 2012. 

Sol Gabetta (who starred in this year’s first night of the Proms) releases this album with Sir Simon Rattle, Krzystof Urbanski and the Berlin Philharmoniker. Featuring two treasures of the cello repertoire, Gabetta places Elgar’s stunning Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 alongside Martinů’s first cello concerto, H. 196.

Maxim Rysanov plays MARTINU

It makes perfect sense that Bohuslav Martinu was a fan of the viola; the instrument’s generous, conversational voice is exactly right for his music, and this recording from Ukrainian violist Maxim Rysanov is easy proof of why. Martinu grew up in a church tower in small-town Moravia, watching the sporadic stream of townspeople down below. Those organic real-life rhythms are everywhere in his music — listen to the second movement of the Rhapsody-Concerto (1952) to hear fleeting modal shifts, folk melodies laced with trepidation and motoric outbursts jostling against lush pastoralism. Rysanov clinches the shifting characters and always makes his lines sing; conductor Jiri Belohlavek draws warmth and brawn from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In the sunny Three Madrigals (1947) and restive Duo No. 2 (1950) Rysanov soars and spars with violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky; the Sonata for Viola and Piano (1955) sounds like it’s been recorded from far away, but I love the stately breadth that Katya Apekisheva brings to the piano lines. (The Guardian)

Bizjak Piano Duo MARTINU - POULENC - SHOSTAKOVICH - STRAVINSKY

Since winning two prizes at the ARD International Music Competition in 2005, Serbian sisters Sanja and Lidija Bizjak have achieved worldwide praise for their solo piano and piano duo performances alike: “brilliant sound, precise fingerwork, and excellent listening skills” – The Independent. For their debut recording on Onyx, they have created a superb programme consisting of two concertos for two pianos and orchestra by Poulenc and Martinu to frame compositions for two pianos alone: Stravinsky’s 'Sonata' and Shostakovich’s rarely heard 'Concertino'. The sisters have appeared at the BBC Proms to great acclaim in Saint-Saens’ 'Carnival of the Animals'.

The Serbian sisters Lidija and Sanja Bizjak have achieved worldwide praise for their performances alike (‘brilliant sound, precise fingerwork and excellent listening skills’ – The Independent). For their debut recording on Onyx, they have created a superb programme consisting of two concertos for two pianos and orchestra by Poulenc & Martinu° to frame two works for two pianos alone – Stravinsky’s Sonata and Shostakovich’s rarely heard Concertino.