Charlie Siem / Itamar Golan BETWEEN THE CLOUDS

 

BETWEEN THE CLOUDS

 

LES MUSIQUES DE PICASSO

LES MUSIQUES DE PICASSO

 

Gabrysia Balcerek / Sinfonia Viva / Tomasz Radziwonowicz WIENIAWSKI - KREISLER - HUBAY - SARASATE

This release is the debut album of an extremely talented young violinist, presenting a handful of miniatures of classical music arranged by Tomasz Radziwonowicz for violin, with the accompaniment of string orchestra. Gabrysia Balcerek began learning to play the violin at the age of 7 at Krzysztof Komeda-Trzcinski Music School in Ostrów Wielkopolski under the supervision of Agata Falkiewicz, MA. Currently, she is a student of the Poznan Mieczyslaw Karlowicz General Education Secondary Music School, where she develops her talent under the direction of Karina Gidaszewska. From an early age, she has been participating in many violin competitions. In total, she is a laureate of more than forty Polish and international violin competitions.

Pacho Flores / Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra / Christian Lindberg FRACTALES

Alongside a successful career as a trombone soloist and composer, Lindberg is internationally sought-after as a conductor. He regularly conducts orchestras around the world, including in places such as Prague, Malmo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Aarhus, Helsinki, Rotterdam, Milan, Nuremberg, Iceland, Athens and Taipei. Lindberg has previously been the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Wind Ensemble and the Nordic Chamber Orchestra.

Throughout these years, Christian and the Arctic Philharmonic have received stunning reviews for their recordings and their performances all over the world, and for their recording projects on the BIS label - these include a box of Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Nordic music from the Arctic Region.

Lindberg and the orchestra, have in recent years performed at venues like the Mariinsky Theatre St. Petersburg, Beethovenfest Bonn (2014), Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg (2015) and Musikverein Vienna (2015), in addition to making a tour of China in 2011 (Wu Promotion). Future invitations include a European tour organized by Mark Stephan Buhl Management and a Japan tour organized by Genroh Hara, Pro Arte Musicae.

Lindberg was voted “The Greatest Brass Player inHistory” by the world's largest radio station, Classic FM, in 2015, and he was awarded the accolade "Artist of the Year" by 16 international chief editors of classical music magazines, in International Classical Music Awards 2016.

As our wonderful collaboration comes to an end in 2018, we are excited to finalize this epoque with a concert in Concertgebouw in Amsterdam featuring Pacho Flores.

Yulia Berinskaya / I Musici di Parma / Stefano Ligoratti THE VOICE OF VIOLIN

The center of this album is not only the “song” of the violin but also its “voice”. The violin becomes the vehicle for a talking expression so strongly rooted in the Yiddish culture that when the Jews want to congratulate a violinist they say “You speak the violin well”. Violinitistically growth on the shape of his father Sergei Berinsky, important Muscovite composer of a Yiddish family, Yulia Berinskaya in this anthology is looking for the archaic origins of the music itself (song and dance), declining them according to her personal violinistic Voice, a sort of alter ego of the soprano. Furthermore, the peculiarity of this project is the fact that new transcriptions have been properly made for violin and chamber orchestra by Giovanni Dettori (Falla, Bloch, Piazzolla) and Stefano Ligoratti (Stravinsky).

Arabella Steinbacher FANTASIES, RHAPSODIES & DAYDREAMS

Until the 2016 release of this album on Pentatone, violinist Arabella Steinbacher had mostly explored heavy repertory of the 19th and 20th centuries on recordings of Strauss, Franck, Shostakovich. She shifts gears with this collection of virtuoso favorites that might easily have appeared on a concert program of a century ago, or nearly that long. It's not a program of encores, which is more common today. The works on this program are substantial and, with the exception of Massenet's famous Méditation, between nine and 15 minutes in length. The novelty here is the opening Carmen Fantasie by Franz Waxman, written for Jascha Heifetz and edited by that great violinist. Despite her disclaimer, Steinbacher takes after Heifetz stylistically with her soaring, Apollonian tone, and this work fits her well. Another highlight is an unusually light, agile performance of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, rather quick, but always seeming under control and not rushed. Steinbacher has plenty of competition here and elsewhere, but in the main, her performances have the refined quality that her classic models achieved, even in broadly popular repertory. She picks her material well, avoiding her polar opposite, Fritz Kreisler. Pentatone's spacious sound, recorded in an unspecified location, delivers on its audiophile claims, and Steinbacher's Booth Stradivarius sounds great. A recommended look back at the age of the star violin virtuoso. (James Manheim)

Anna Wandtke VIOLIN SOUL

In todays world there are few stereotypes concerning string instruments. Contrabasses, due to their size, are associated with small range of motion and peculiarly understood coarseness. In the music community there are thousands of jokes concerning violas and viola players. Traditionally, the most noble roles are attributed to cello and violin. The first of the abovementioned instruments is perceived as a romantic and passionate instrument; the violin is seen as mesmerizing and calls to mind brilliant virtuosos with technical skills. This release disproves some of those stereotypes. Anna Wandtke, an outstanding violinist, proves that violin can beautifully sing and talk about passions, feelings, and emotions without resigning from showing a perfect technique with a pinch of spectacularity. All of these elements produce a perfectly composed whole.

Renaud Capuçon / Paavo Järvi / Orchestre de Paris LALO Symphonie Espagnole SARASATE Zigeunerweisen BRUCH Violin Concerto No. 1

Renaud Capuçon exudes a youthful air, but, now firmly established as one of the world’s leading violinists, he celebrates his 40th birthday on January 27th 2016. This release of the best-known works of three composers – Edouard Lalo, Pablo de Sarasate and Max Bruch – marks this important personal occasion in a suitably festive fashion. Capuçon made the recordings with Paavo Järvi and the Orchestre de Paris at the orchestra’s new home, the French capital’s Philharmonie, which opened in early 2015 and was immediately hailed for its superb acoustics. The Bruch concerto became the first piece to be recorded there, in May 2015.

As it happens, Capuçon shares a birthday with Edouard Lalo, born in 1823 – and with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart too! Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, first performed in Paris in 1874, inhabits the same Franco-Spanish musical world as Bizet’s Carmen, which received its premiere the following year. The piece also has a special connection with both Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen [Gypsy Airs] and Bruch’s Concerto No1, as Renaud Capuçon explains:

“These three works, first heard between 1868 and 1878, are among the most famous in the history of the violin, and there are links of friendship and respect between their three composers – Lalo, Sarasate and Bruch: Lalo dedicated his Symphonie espagnole to Sarasate [born in northern Spain and one of the most celebrated violinists of his time]. Bruch dedicated his Scottish Fantasy to Sarasate some years later, but it was the great Joseph Joachim who gave the first performance of Bruch’s Concerto No 1.”

All three pieces also have a special significance for Capuçon: “I first approached these works when I was 12 years old and studying at the Paris Conservatoire with Veda Reynolds [a celebrated American violin teacher]. I played the Bruch in my first competitions; the Lalo was the first piece I played to Gerard Poulet [Capuçon’s other teacher at the Paris Conservatoire] and the Sarasate featured in my first proper recital."

The personal nature of this album is further emphasised by Renaud Capuçon’s wish to dedicate it to the memories of two people who meant a great deal to him: the broadcaster Jacques Chancel, who died in December 2014, and his father-in-law Gratien Ferrari, who died in October 2015.

Capuçon’s credentials in this kind of Romantic music are made clear in reviews of past performances and recordings. When he played the Lalo in London in 2012, the Guardian praised him for capturing “the full measure of the seriousness behind its grace and wit. Capuçon played with virile agility and tremendous nobility of tone,” while The Times extolled a “gorgeous performance from violin soloist Renaud Capuçon, laidback in manner, but so nimble, so fiery.” The Bruch concerto – with its rhapsodic first movement and energetic, dancing finale is close in spirit to the Brahms Violin Concerto, composed in 1878 and also dedicated to Joseph Joachim. Capuçon’s recording of the Brahms was released in 2012. Reviewing the CD, the Telegraph wrote that: “Capuçon has an impressive grasp of the concerto’s expressive contours, using his technical arsenal with finesse and tracing the music’s breadth of line and its arching shapes while maintaining its inner momentum. The rhythmic punch and energy of the finale are echoed by the orchestra’s powerful attack and buoyancy ... This is altogether a remarkable disc.” (Presto Classical)

Sarah Nemtanu GYPSIC

"Purist friends, please don't read the following" is the defiant opening salvo in Romanian-French violinist Sarah Nemtanu's notes for this release, and she might have added that purists should avoid listening to the album as well. The remainder of the listening public, however, should be very intrigued. Buyers coming to the album online might guess that the program is a conventional set of Eastern European and gypsy-oriented pieces that might have been played half a century ago. But sample well, focusing especially on tracks 3 and 8, so that you know what you're getting into. Nemtanu's album also attempts to add modern crossover elements to the traditional, not to say hoary, form, of the gypsy-classical concert, and she makes several unusual moves and one radical one. Some of the album, however, is played straight, and there's an unusual continuum from traditional to experimental at work. In the former category is the Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25, "On Popular Romanian Themes," of Georges Enescu, played by Nemtanu and pianist Romain Descharmes in a straightforward way that doesn't exaggerate the gypsy elements; Ravel's Tzigane is also done as written. Then the fun starts; Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20, has an added part for cimbalom. Moving into left field, you come to four performances that employ the talents of Canadian-born French keyboardist Chilly Gonzales, who adds elements of electronica to Vittorio Monti's well-worn Czárdás, Ravel's Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré, Georges Boulanger's Avant de mourir, track 9, is given its more familiar U.S. title of My Prayer, and, most unusually, the "Blues" movement from Ravel's Sonata for violin and piano of 1927. This piece gets from Gonzales what Nemtanu rather unfortunately terms "ethno-percussion"; the melody is recast as a piece of Ethiopian pop. This is a risky move, for it seems not to go with the rest of the music on the album, but Nemtanu swings for the fences and succeeds; the piece in this form is a natural expansion on the basic energies radiating from the meeting point between France and Romania that has animated all the music up to that point. Nemtanu here hatches and works out in some detail an absolutely original concept of how classical music and internationally flavored electronics might cross-fertilize, and her efforts are well worth hearing.  (James Manheim)