Works for Flute, Cello and PianoDuruflè/Gaubert/Bloch/SuzukiAtsuko Koga – fletGeorgiy Lomakov – wiolonczelaRadosław Kurek – fortepian
Jean Sibelius' emergence as a composer coincided with the rapid development of choral singing in Finland, at a time when new choirs were being established all over the country. The importance of the genre may be measured by the fact that one of Sibelius's most deeply felt pieces for mixed choir, Män från slätten och havet (Men from Land and Sea), received its first performance by a choir of gargantuan proportions – around 1,300 singers – gathered at a festival in the city of Vaasa in 1912. Choral music also forms an important part of Sibelius' production: besides the present collection of more than 7 hours of music for choir a cappella and with piano or organ accompaniment, there are a large number of orchestral works involving choir. (These are included in volume 3, 'Voice and Orchestra', of this edition.) As a consequence of the division in Finland between Finnish- and Swedish-speakers, Sibelius set texts in both languages, and while a large majority of his solo songs use Swedish texts, in the choral music we find a much larger proportion of settings in Finnish - often, if far from always, of texts from Kalevala, the national epic poem, or its lyric counterpart Kanteletar. Like previous volumes in the SIBELIUS EDITION, the present collection includes not only the published works, but also unpublished pieces, revisions and early versions. Many of these are here recorded for the first time, such as the version with piano of the two choral movements of Kullervo and the reconstruction of the Cantata for the University Graduation Ceremonies of 1897. Other rarities, quite unexpected for those whose knowledge of Sibelius is mainly restricted to his symphonic output, are the two brief arrangements of 'Italian Folk Songs', and the collection of Chorales for mixed choir written during the student years in Helsinki and in Berlin. Performing this wealth of music are some of Finland's finest choirs, with the YL Male Voice Choir and Akademiska Sångföreningen sharing the pieces for male choir, with contributions from their Swedish colleagues in Orphei Drängar. The music for mixed choir is championed by the Dominante and the Jubilate choirs, while most of the piano accompaniments are signed Folke Gräsbeck, whose recordings of Sibelius' complete music for solo piano have just been released.
Astonishingly, the Six Partitas for Clavier were the first works Bach published – after more than twenty years of composing. 'Opus 1' (as he called it) was 'offered to music lovers in order to refresh their spirits' and the works scored an immediate hit, becoming core repertoire for keyboard players both professional and amateur. 'Partita' is simply another name for a suite of dance movements, and each of these collections combines grace, agility and sprightliness with a nobleness of spirit which makes them not only accessible and attractive, but also worthy in every way of their position in the Clavierübung – Bach's own summation of his compositional skills.
All the music in this eclectic programme reflects the phenomenal influence of gypsy music on both classical and jazz music in the 20th century – even when wearing smart ‘classical’ clothes, the music of the gypsies cannot disguise its honesty, directness and the heart beating inside the clothes. So here we have Bartók and Kodály, the two great Hungarian composers who made comprehensive studies of folk music, alongside the world of jazz, represented by John Lewis’s Django, and the Weather Report tracks. The music also has strong connections with Viktoria Mullova’s background. Viktoria Mullova hails from the Ukraine, where only two generations ago, her family lived simple lives, living off the land in a small village. The simple peasant qualities – calmness, honesty and simplicity – are very much part of her. Although she has conquered the most sophisticated works of Western classical music, the music on these CDs shares something of her other side.
Throughout his 82-year life, Max Bruch remained true to the musical ideals of his youth, formed by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann and German folk songs. As a result, the same composer who in the 1880’s was regarded as Brahms’ equal, by the time of his death in 1920 was considered an anachronistic irrelevance. Nowadays, however, few would deny that his production includes numerous works of exquisite sonority, beautiful melodiousness and admirable formal cohesion: a glorious irrelevance indeed. His Violin Concerto No. 1 was a spectacular success from its first performance in 1868, and soon won over audiences both in Germany and abroad. In fact, it became so popular that Bruch in later years became increasingly worried about being considered a ‘one-hit wonder’. It is thus a staple of all violin soloists that Vadim Gluzman here takes on, after his recordings of the concertos by Tchaikovsky (‘without doubt one of the work's finest recordings in recent years’, BBC Music Magazine), Barber (‘one of the most beautiful and characterful recordings of this work’, klassik-heute.de) and Korngold (‘Gluzman’s playing lends the work a new vitality and cohesion’, Classica). Supported by the eminent Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and its music director Andrew Litton, Gluzman couples the work with a rarity, a violin version of the Romance in F major, Op.85, composed by Bruch for viola and orchestra almost 35 years after the violin concerto. The composer also made an arrangement for violin and piano, and it is this violin part which Gluzman performs to the original orchestral score. Closing the programme is the String Quintet in A minor in which Gluzman is joined by four eminent string players: Sandis Šteinbergs, Maxim Rysanov, Ilze Klava and Reinis Birznieks. Composed in 1918, the Quintet certainly offers no indication of being the exact contemporary of modernist works such as Stravinsky’s Histoire d’un soldat; on the other hand its almost youthful energy, dramatic instinct and playful exuberance equally belies the fact that it was composed by a man in his eightieth year
5 CDs for the price of 2 During the mid-19th century, the Danish composer Niels. W. Gade was one of Europe’s most well-known composers, conducting his own works all over the continent. Starting out as a protégé of Mendelssohn’s, he later became his successor as music director of the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and made the acquaintance of Robert and Clara Schumann, and of Liszt and Wagner. Initially known as a composer of symphonies, Gade mastered the German musical idiom to perfection, while adding a Nordic accent to it, particularly noticeable in his best works. His eight symphonies were composed between 1841 and 1871, and although Gade remained active as a composer until his death in 1890, he wrote no more symphonies. When questioned, he is said to have stated that ‘there is but one Ninth Symphony!’ Among Gade’s works in other genres is the violin concerto (also included here), composed for the famous virtuoso Joseph Joachim. But it was the choral cantata genre which became his specialty. Such works generally utilized Danish texts, but were in many cases published in German translations and received numerous performances abroad. Within a year of its première, The Crusaders, for instance, was performed in Braunschweig, Vienna, Königsberg, Elberfeld, Breslau, Leipzig and Aachen. It would later reach even further afield – including New York and Buenos Aires – and Gade himself conducted performances in Amsterdam, Cologne and Birmingham. The recordings included in this box set were warmly received upon their original releases between 1986 and 1994, the reviewer in American Record Guide calling Neeme Järvi’s symphony cycle ‘a set which is not likely to be surpassed in the foreseeable future’ and Neue Zeitschrift für Musik giving it ‘an unqualified recommendation’.
‘There is nothing like entering a church on a Saturday, standing in the semi-darkness with the scent of incense wafting through the air, lost in deep contemplation searching for an answer to those perennial questions, wherefore, when, whither and why?’These words, from one of Tchaikovsky’s own letters, sum up the spirit behind the glorious Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op 41. The work is steeped in the Orthodox tradition, the choral writing provides that sense of transparency and simplicity demanded by the text, and the resulting ambience is rich in the manner familiar to Western listeners from works such as Rachmaninov’s Vespers.This recording also includes ten choruses to texts many of which are taken from the Liturgy. The first nine were published together in 1885, while the tenth, The angel cried, was lost shortly after its first performance in 1887 and only rediscovered thirteen years after the composer’s death.
On the penultimate disc in his series of the complete keyboard concertos by C.P.E. Bach, Miklós Spányi completes the set of six concertos (Sei Concerti, Wq 43/1-6) begun on Volume 17. Bach finished working on the set in 1771, but had already advertised its coming publication. In a bid to reach as many potential subscribers as possible, he marketed the works as ‘easy’, and also included optional parts for wind instruments: two horns in all the fast movements, replaced by flutes in the slow movements. Bach’s aim was to make the works appealing to both players and listeners, and the result is a set of highly attractive pieces, with approachable melodies and dance rhythms but also displaying a new freedom with regard to conventional concerto form. With the expert support of the Hungarian period band Concerto Armonico, Miklós Spányi performs the solo parts of Wq 43/5 and 43/6 on a harpsichord, a copy of an instrument from 1745. Inspired by the English harpsichords that were imported in great number to Northern Germany during Bach’s time, this instrument has been fitted with a so-called ‘swell device’, enabling the performer to achieve dynamic shadings and crescendo-diminuendo effects consistent with the instructions in Bach’s scores. Some seven years after the Sei Concerti, Bach composed the concertos in G major (Wq 44) and D major (Wq 45) – two works which, although composed in the same year, are strikingly different in character, evidence of Bach’s continuing desire to give each new work a distinctive identity. This has led Miklós Spányi to choose to perform the Wq 44 concerto on a fortepiano from 1798, by the English maker Broadwood, returning to the harpsichord for the final work on the disc
Tracklista:1. Dixit Dominus 3:462. Beata Mater 2:433. Laudate pueri 6:394. Exurge, cor meum, in cithara, motet for soprano, 2 violins, viole & continuo 5:295. Laetatus sum 6:316. Surge amica mea 2:597. Nisi Dominus 6:088. O dulcissimum Marić nomen, motet for 2 sopranos & continuo ("Delectus sacrarum contionum") 2:479. Lauda Jerusalem 5:4410. Salve, regina, motet for 2 sopranos, bass & continuo (also with text "Salve rex Christe pater misericordiae") 5:5511. Work(s): Canzona a due cori (Canzoni per sonar, Venezia 160 2:3312. Ave maris stella, hymn for 5 voices (from Complete Hymns) 6:1813. Magnificat 11:40
Hyperion is delighted to present a new disc from The Cardinall’s Musick under their inspirational director, Andrew Carwood.The music of Hieronymus Praetorius is as assured, expressive and original as the Dürer image which adorns the CD cover. Yet this fine composer is much less well-known than his namesake (but not relation) Michael Praetorius.Hieronymus Praetorius was organist of the Jacobikirche in Hamburg from 1586 until the end of his life. This somewhat sheltered background belies the sophisticated range of his works which are written in a variety of forms including the jubilant Venetian polychoral style. The composer’s highly individual voice, direct and yearning yet with a madrigalian lightness, pervades throughout.Praetorius’s works were published in a number of editions during his lifetime. A collected edition of the sacred music of Hieronymus Praetorius was issued between the years of 1616 and 1625; this collection included hitherto unpublished music as well as reissues of already available works. The 1622 volume presents the most daring versions of many of the pieces recorded here and contains Praetorius’s second (and previously unpublished) Magnificat quinti toni (‘in the fifth tone’) to which are attached polyphonic arrangements of the popular medieval tunes Joseph, lieber Joseph mein and In dulci iubilo. This later setting of the fifth-tone Magnificat is Praetorius’s masterpiece.The Cardinall’s Musick gives an impeccable yet delightfully extroverted performance of these fascinating works.'Hieronymus Praetorius gains his place in the sun with this outstanding release. The 16th-century organist and composer emerges as a master of vivid choral contrasts and effects' (Classic FM Magazine *****)'This superb disc … These are stunning performances, which is of course to be expected from this remarkable vocal ensemble … all are bathed in a richly texutred and highly variegated choral sound … Hieronymus Praetorius is considered by many to be one of the greatest North German composers of the first half of the se venteenth century. This release will surely go some way to convincing the rest of us of the truth of this assertion' (International Record Review)'A superior festive selection box indeed' (Gramophone)'The often highly expressive, sometimes quirky, and always well-crafted Magnificats and motets of Hieronymus Prateorius are a fine example of the strength-in-depth of German musical creativity. Andrew Carwood and The Cardinall's Musick ardently relish the interplay of voices in the eight-art scorings … the overall impression is compelling, fresh and immediate' (Choir & Organ Magazine)'Their beautiful singing of such fine music deserves wide circulation' (Early Music Review)