Ana de la Vega / Ramón Ortega Quero / Trondheim Soloists HAYDN & STAMITZ

                                                            HAYDN & STAMITZ

Alisa Weilerstein / Trondheim Soloists TRANSFIGURED NIGHT

Transfigured Night brings together two outstanding composers associated with Vienna: Joseph Haydn and Arnold Schoenberg. The former is often seen as the oldest representative of the “First Viennese School”, whereas the latter founded the “Second Viennese School”, using the classicism of his predecessors to explore new, atonal musical paths into the twentieth century. By combining Haydn’s two cello concertos (in C-major and D-major) and Schoenberg’s symphonic poem Verklärte Nacht – in the 1943 edition for string orchestra – this album sheds a new, fascinating light on both Viennese masters.

The connection between the stylistically contrasting pieces on this album is further enhanced by the inspired playing of American cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the Trondheim Soloists. For Weilerstein, this album is not only a fascinating exploration of the rich Viennese musical heritage, but just as much a confrontation with the dark history of a city her grandparents had to flee in 1938. Transfigured Night is Weilerstein’s first album as an exclusive PENTATONE artist, as well as the first album recorded with the Trondheim Soloists since her appointment as Artistic Partner of the ensemble in 2017. (PENTATONE)

Frode Haltli / Arditti Quartet / Trondheim Soloists BENT SORENSEN - HANS ABRAHAMSEN Air

Frode Haltli, the uniquely expressive Norwegian accordionist, is heard here with chamber orchestra, with string quartet and solo, performing music by Danish composers Bent Sørensen (b. 1958) and Hans Abrahamsen (b. 1952). Haltli plays Sørensen’s It is Pain Flowing Down Softly on a White Wall with the Trondheim Soloists, as well as the solo piece Sigrid’s Lullaby. Hans Abrahamsen’s Three Little Nocturnes find the accordionist in the company of the redoubtable Arditti Quartet, “a vital institution in contemporary music” as Haltli says.

For the title composition Air, Hans Abrahamsen returned, at Frode Haltli’s suggestion, to the early solo work Canzona, revising it until it became a new piece. Of Abrahamsen’s music, Frode Haltli writes that “not one note is accidental, nor are any of the other specifications. Sometimes, this results in very complex music, while a moment later it is so simple that it seems a child could perform it. He writes music that can be on the verge of being discomforting, while at the same time it is indescribably lovely.”

Haltli acknowledges that the music of Bent Sørensen has been an influence on his development as a player. Sørensen composed the demanding Looking on Darkness (later the title track of Haltli’s ECM debut) for Frode’s first concert in Copenhagen, forcing him “to discover new ways of thinking and of playing my instrument, which I have continued to work on for many years, also in the field of improvisational music, and in other contexts than classical music.” In the same spirit It is Pain Flowing Down Softly on a White Wall challenges perceptions of what can be achieved on the accordion through tone control and nuances in soft dynamics. On the present recording, Haltli’s accordion blends into and out of the sound of the Trondheim Soloists’ nine violins, three violas, three cellos and double bass. Towards the end of the piece the Trondheim musicians take up melodicas, to create textures which seem like a ghostly echo of the accordion.

All of the music on the present disc was written for Frode Haltli, with the exception of Sigrid’s Lullaby, which derives from Bent Sørensen’s set of nocturnes for piano. “The piece flows easily into the adjacent but so different space of the accordion,” Paul Griffiths observes in his booklet essay. “The lullaby is repeated again and again, slowly dissolving in the waters of time.” (ECM Records)

Anne-Sophie Mutter / Trondheim Soloists / Valery Gergiev BACH / GUBAIDULINA (CD 37 / ASM35)

In February 2007 the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina – she was born in Chistopol in Tatarstan in 1931 and has lived in Germany since 1992 – was awarded Hamburg’s prestigious Bach Prize: as a “pioneer of contemporary classical music” who has forged a link between Eastern and Western music.

Her own music has been inspired by that of Johann Sebastian Bach in more ways than one, with the result that it seemed obvious for Anne-Sophie Mutter to record two of Bach’s concertos alongside her worldpremiere recording of Gubaidulina’s most recent violin concerto, a piece dedicated to Mutter. “There is a profound spiritual affinity between Gubaidulina and Bach,” says the violinist. “Like Bach, she too draws not only a great deal of strength from her faith in God, but ultimately also a musical language all of her own.”

Written in 2006 – 07, the violin concerto is the first piece by the Russian composer that Anne-Sophie Mutter has recorded. “I knew about Paul Sacher’s commission and have been waiting patiently for ‘my’ work since the 1980s. Not that this means that I haven’t taken every opportunity to follow Sofia Gubaidulina’s career very closely, although I got to know her personally only just before the first orchestral rehearsal in Berlin, when I played In tempus praesens for her. It was a very moving moment for me. She is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating of all composers, in that every note reveals such great depths of emotion. She truly lives to compose and doesn’t compose to live.”

Sofia and (Anne-)Sophie – the similarity between the two names inspired Gubaidulina. “During this whole time, I was accompanied by the figure of Sophia – divine wisdom. It was all entirely spontaneous: our names are the same – it was this that provided the basis for this association,” the composer explains. For Gubaidulina, Sophia is the figure revered by orthodox Christianity, the personification of wisdom who has laid the foundations for all creativity and intellectual effort in the history of creation, preparing the way for all that develops organically in the world. She is the fountainhead of art and of the artist’s engagement with the lighter and darker sides of human existence. (Selke Harten-Strehk)