Vocal and chamber music are far less popular than orchestral music these days, which is kind of ironic,
since art song recitals ("Liederabende") used to be the most(!) popular form of concert a century ago.
Since I wrote longer introductions to my other "collection threads", on film-music-like classical music
and concertante works, respectively, I will keep this one brief. As far as chamber music goes, I am going
to adhere to the definition given in Wikipedia:

"Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—
traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that
is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part. However, by definition
it usually does not include solo instrument performances.

Because of its intimate nature, chamber music has been described as "the music of friends." For more
than 200 years, chamber music was played primarily by amateur musicians in their homes, and even
today, when most chamber music performance has migrated from the home to the concert hall,
many musicians, amateur and professional, still play chamber music for their own pleasure. Playing
chamber music requires special skills, both musical and social, that differ from the skills required
for playing solo or symphonic works.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described chamber music (specifically, string quartet music) as "four
rational people conversing." This conversational paradigm has been a thread woven through
the history of chamber music composition from the end of the 18th century to the present. The
analogy to conversation recurs in descriptions and analyses of chamber music compositions."

"Vocal music", of course, allows for a far wider range, from songs and song cycles (usually with
solo piano accompaniment, less frequently with flute or harp, sometimes with orchestra) and
cantatas to fully-fledged operas. Operas will not be featured here, only songs/song cycles
and the occasional cantata. Musicals, too, maybe. Though I must say that I'm not a huge fan
nor collector of religious choral works. There are a lot of song cycles, in particular, that I'll openly
admit I love.

I fully expect this thread to be far less popular than the other two, since, as stated above,
these genres have gone out of fashion. Women's voices, especially, tend to be found "taxing", or
even shrill, by the occasional classical music listener. Still, I hope you'll find many beauties here, too.
There will be fewer updates, accordingly, and if I get the impression that you're not interested
in this kind of classical music, I'll probably just stop posting.

To reduce the number of requests that I have to reply to, this thread will be strictly mp3(320 CBR) only.


No.1

Although never attaining the pinnacle reached by other contributors to the Great American
Popular Songbook, Jerome Moross was a prolific donor to many musical genres.
He wrote for films, the musical stage, the ballet, and classical music. With regard to the latter,
Sir Thomas Beecham premiered his "Symphony No. 1" with the Seattle Symphony in 1943.
His The Golden Apple won the 1954 Drama Critics Award. Moross' favorite lyricist/ collaborator
was John Latouche, with whom he wrote probably his most popular song, at least in terms of the
number of times it's been recorded and the variety of performers who have recorded it, "Lazy
Afternoon," from Mabel Mercer to Art Pepper. Working with Moross' daughter, producer Tommy
Krasker gathered together some of New York's better musical stage and revue performers first
for a tribute to Moross, which was performed in 2000 in New York, and then for this CD of songs
from some of his more important works. While perhaps not many of these tunes come quickly
to the minds and lips of the American public, he certainly had a versatile way with his composing
pen. There's a lilting saloon song, "Beer and Flowers," the dramatic, lovely "Stay With Me," and
a jazzy "That Extra Bit," the latter sassily performed by Jessica Molaskey. The entire agenda
of 19 songs is sung with enthusiasm and dedication. This is an entertaining set.



Music Composed by Jerome Moross
Performed by Alice Ripley, Richard Muenz, Jessica Molaskey
Amd Philip Chaffin & Jenny Giering
Eric Stern (piano & music director)

"The Golden Apple is a musical adaptation of both the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer,
with music by Jerome Moross and lyrics by John Treville Latouche. The show was one of
the first musicals produced at the Off-Broadway Phoenix Theatre (in March 1954) and
moved up to Broadway on April 20, 1954 at the Alvin Theater where the cerebral and
through-sung musical played for only 125 performances despite rave reviews. The
original production starred Kaye Ballard as Helen, and Stephen Douglass as Ulysses.
The production won the Best Musical award from the New York Drama Critics Circle,
and the lyrics are much praised.

The musical is entirely through-composed and exhibits features similar to more
operatic musicals like Porgy and Bess, Candide, and The Most Happy Fella. Jerome
Moross was a classical composer of concert music, ballets, as well as a highly
appreciated film score. The musical has developed a cult following, even though
the full score has never been commercially recorded and the show has never been
revived on Broadway. The play is remembered in part for introducing the standard
"Lazy Afternoon" sung by Ballard, portraying a character based on Helen of Troy,
and the fantastical, suggestive settings by William and Jean Eckart.

The piece continues to receive occasional productions. For example, a 1990
production in New York featured Muriel Costa-Greenspon. The work was produced
in 1995 by Light Opera Works in Chicago, Illinois and in 2006 by the 42nd
Street Moon Company in San Francisco, California. The Shaw Festival has also
produced it. The complete piano-vocal score was published for the first time in
2009, by Alfred Music Publishing."



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---------- Post added at 03:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:53 PM ----------




No.2

A beautiful collection of songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, including the
well-known Four Last Songs, Linden Lea & The Sky Above the Roof,
but also the less often recorded, though lovely, cycle Along the Field.



Music Composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Performed by Ruth Golden (soprano) & Levering Rothfuss (piano)
And Thomas Woodman (baritone) & Nancy Bean (violin)

"Heartfelt gratitude is due, in the first place, for Along the Field. A recording was made
by Nancy Evans and Leonard Hirsch, who first performed the revised version in 1954, but
as far as I know it has remained unissued. This is the set of eight songs for voice and violin
to poems by Housman, written originally in 1927. It has never been popular, partly because
of the unusual combination, one which Vaughan Williams was probably drawn to by the
example of Hoist, and partly, I imagine, because the effect of that combination, together
with the ironic melancholy of the poems, produces a strange, hollow sensation in the
inward-parts where reside those feelings of a deeper-than-personal Angst. They are
nevertheless fine songs, not obviously melodic yet strong enough to come back in
memory after long years unheard.

The programme deserves its welcome in other respects too. It offers some uncommon
not-quitejuvenilia (VW was 24 when he wrote Claribel, the earliest of them if the dating
of 1896, given here, is correct), the settings of poems by Fredegond Shove and the
deeply moving Four Last Songs to poems by his wife Ursula. Unfamiliar to me are the
two old airs, German folk-song arrangements for piano and two voices, the second part
being well sung by the baritone Thomas Woodman."



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---------- Post added at 03:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:10 PM ----------




No.3

Alberto Ginastera waited until he was in his thirties and well established as a composer before
writing his String Quartet No.1. He was near the end of his initial stylistic period, which was
strongly based on the music of his native Argentina, and would soon move to a more "international"
style. The opening movement begins with an introduction, violent and declamatory in effect; the
allegro begins with a vehement, almost savage melody played over hammered chords. The second
subject is dance-like, but it is a rough, stamping dance; its development remains agitated, and the
recapitulation is in reverse order, leading to a coda restating the opening declamatory statement.
Movement two is a spectral scherzo, with rapid repeated-note figures, unusual bowing effects, and
nervous rhythms. The third movement, a nocturne, finally breaks the aggressive mood with a
lyrical melody for violin; this entire movement is based on the composer's characteristic "guitar"
chord -- the tones of the six open strings of the instrument played simultaniously. The finale is
a rondo in the flavor of Argentine rural dances, featuring contrasting episodes in 5/8 time.

String Quartet No.2 was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation and
was premiered by the Juilliard Quartet at the 1958 Inter-American Music Festival in Washington,
D.C. It was written at a time when Ginastera was consolidating his second stylistic period, known
as his "international" style, when he used the twelve-tone system. Here, he used it in a free
manner, mainly to generate themes. Ginastera admired Bart�k's string quartets, particularly the
fourth and fifth, which were written in five-movement "arch form." He followed a similar structural
procedure for this quartet. As the movements are all designated by tempo markings indicating
their moods, listing them, as above, helps describe the emotional life of the quartet.

The first movement begins with angry and strident music, full of repeated notes, sforzato chords,
and harsh harmonies. The second movement (which itself is written in a small arch form)
expresses its anguish in a solo viola phrase and rises to a fever pitch marked to be played
"as loudly as possible." The "magic" third movement is mostly very quiet, almost on the edge
of audibility. Like the corresponding movements by Bart�k, it is full of unusual playing techniques,
including fingernail pizzicatos, pizzicato glissandos, the eerie hollow sound of playing with the
bow practically on the bridge, and tapping the strings with the wooden back of the bow.
The complementary curve of the arch continues the musical line of the second movement,
now in a melancholy mood in a set of free variations. The finale is again angry, with loud,
frantic music.



Music Composed by Alberto Ginastera
Played by the Henschel String Quartet

"The Henschel Quartet is a German String Quartet comprising the Henschel siblings;
Christoph and Markus (Violinists) and Monika (Violist) and, the cellist, Mathias Beyer,
who joined them in 1994. Christoph, Markus and Monika Henschel studied under
Felix Andrievsky, a graduate of the Moscow Violin School of playing (Yampolsky and
Yankelevich) and gained distinction in their diplomas from the Royal College of Music,
in London.

Mathias Beyer studied under the Swedish cellist Thorleif Thedeen and gained a
distinction in 1996, at the end of his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of
Music in Copenhagen.

An intensive musical experience was gained through their contact with Sergiu
Celibidache and with Prof. Franz Beyer from the Musikhochschule in Munich.
The London Master Classes and classes at the Musikhochschule in Cologne,
Germany with the Amadeus quartet had a determining influence on the musical
development and direction of the ensemble. Similarly, regular courses with
members of the La Salle quartet and Alban Berg Quartet had a profound influence
on the Henschel Quartet.

The Henschel Quartet were quartet in residence at both the Aldeburgh Festival
(1994) and at the Tanglewood Music Festival (1995/1996). At the latter, they were
coached by the legendary musicians Louis Krasner and Eugene Lehner, who
had themselves worked with composers such as B�la Bart�k and Arnold Schoenberg,
and , who gave the quartet unique insights into the works of the Second Viennese chool.
The Henschel Quartet’s repertoire encompasses more than 200 works from the
classical and romantic to 20th century and contemporary music."



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---------- Post added at 04:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:34 PM ----------




No.4

Hanns Eisler's publisher has been receiving more and more requests for Eisler's arrangement of
Bruckner's Seventh Symphony for chamber orchestra or ensemble – even though Eisler himself
arranged only movements 1 and 3. He collaborated with Erwin Stein and Karl Rankl on this
pasticcio. It was to have been given its first performance in late 1921 in Schoenberg's famous "Verein
f�r musikalische Privatauff�hrungen," (Society for Private Musical Performances) but was ultimately
premiered only in 1994, posthumously. At the latest since the first CD production 2000, the strikingly
original arrangement of the great symphonic work has become a much-appreciated tip for music lovers.
Bruckner's compositional artistry emerges with compelling clarity in the reduced version, and with the
new source-critical edition by Alan Leighton, ensembles will now be able to base themselves on a
reliable and competently edited music text.



Music Composed by Anton Bruckner
Arranged by Hanns Eisler, Erwin Stein & Karl Rankl
Performed by the Linos Ensemble

"The idea of arranging Bruckner's mighty and majestic Symphony No. 7 for a chamber
ensemble of nine players seems quixotic at best and perverse at worst. But when it is taken
into consideration that the arrangement was made for Schoenberg's Society for the Private
Performance of Music by three Schoenberg prot�g�s in close association with their master,
the idea begins to seem more reasonable. And this splendid performance by the Linos-
Ensemble proves that the idea seems not only reasonable, but inevitable and even quite
natural. That's because this performance by the Linos-Ensemble is beautifully played,
wonderfully recorded, and wholly compelling. The performance actually makes a case
for Bruckner's Seventh as a piece for chamber ensemble because it makes a case for
the piece. The lyrical rapture, the harmonic ecstasy, and the spiritual bliss of the
greatest performances of the Seventh by an orchestra are present here in a great
performance of the Seventh by a nonet. While it may seem unlikely how a harmonium
and piano could take the place of a full brass section, in this devoted and devotional
performance it at least sounds wholly appropriate and quite transcendent."
All Music



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---------- Post added at 04:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 PM ----------




No.5

Gordon Getty's (*1934) surname might lead you into the trap of regarding him as a mere 'Sunday composer'
who has used his family's wealth to publicize the fruits of his hobby.But Getty has a musical voice of his own,
a restricted but very striking one that deserves to be heard. The White Election is a recurring image in the
work of Emily Dickinson, and it exemplifies the difficulty of setting her verses. On the face of it it 'means' her
voluntary renunciation of the world and her dedication to the quietude of poetry, but white is the colour of marriage
(Dickinson wore white throughout her life), thus of the wedding that was denied to her (the "dim companion"
who married another or did not marry at all has been variously identified). But white is also the colour of funerals
and of angels' robes, therefore of a looked-for "mystic marriage" in Heaven, perhaps; and the. colour of
christenings, of rebirth and redemption. Her poetry abounds in such combinations of extreme simplicity and
multi-layered complexity, and Getty's solution to the problem of conveying the former without denying
the latter is an attractive one.

You might call him a 'melodic minimalist'. There are no chugging repetitions of the kind familiar from Glass
and Reich, rather the use of the barest resources possible (a simple melody, a single-line accompaniment,
a punctuating gesture or two) formed from the plainest intervals. Getty is very fond of the common chord,
of the wholetone scale, of octaves and, especially, of fifths. The point, I think, is that Dickinson's simplicity
of utterance is paralleled by this restriction of means; her rich and often troubling ambiguities and
resonances by the associations that such bare material can summon up. Hints of folk-song, of hymns, of a
musical-box waltz or of an old march tune are by no means inappropriate to the sort of imagery that
Dickinson uses; nor are echoes of Schubert's domestic music or of Czerny's studies. There are shocking
depths beneath the surface of her words, as well, and perhaps Getty's use of tritones to evoke these will
be wholly successful only to ears as habituated to bare fifths as his are; but you might also argue that
this imaginative adjustment is no greater than that necessary when reading Emily Dickinson.



Music Composed by Gordon Getty
Performed by Kaaren Erickson (soprano) & Armen Guzelminian (piano)

"It is a very risky thing to do, mark you, to compose a cycle of this length (32 songs, lasting
an hour and a quarter) from such self-denying resources. The cynical ear might even be reminded
by those recurrently circling fifths of the pianotuner's quarterly visit. I doubt myself whether I
shall often want to listen to the cycle in its entirety, and there is no doubt that Getty's language
is sometimes dwarfed by his poet's daring and extraordinary imagery. But often enough the
result is touching, often enough he catches Dickinson's bright stillness and her vulnerability
with beautiful precision. His is a real talent, undoubtedly, and I should be curious to hear what
he might make of a poet whose demands on the composer are quite different.

He could not have been better served by his performers. Kaaren Erickson is a pure-voiced
and expressive soprano with admirable diction and a sympathetic sensitivity to text and line.
Not so much is demanded of the pianist, but he too sounds convinced by the music and
plays responsively."
Gramophone



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No.6

Percy Aldridge Grainger (8 July 1882 � 20 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer,
arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in
the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made
many adaptations of other composers' works. Although much of his work was experimental and
unusual, the piece with which he is most generally associated is his piano arrangement of the
folk-dance tune Country Gardens.

Grainger left Australia at the age of 13 to attend the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. Between
1901 and 1914 he was based in London, where he established himself first as a society pianist
and later as a concert performer, composer and collector of original folk melodies. As his
reputation grew he met many of the significant figures in European music, forming important
friendships with Frederick Delius and Edvard Grieg. He became a champion of Nordic music
and culture, his enthusiasm for which he often expressed in private letters.



Music Composed by Percy Grainger
Performed by The Monteverdi Choir
And the English Country Gardiner Orchestra
Conducted by John Eliot Gardiner

"Wogglings� and �grumble-shouts� abound, songs and shanties rudely collide, the jovial,
the dark, the angry, the a cappella, the elaborately adorned; fabulously sophisticated harmonies
have a way of sounding homespun, syncopated rhythms hop, skip and jump over the traces,
the wind bands serenade and roar, guitars and harmonium and �tuneful percussion� come out
to play, the more the merrier, the rowdier. And the whole world dances. Or mourns. The
range of colour and expression contained here is bewildering. But that�s Grainger for you.
You never quite know whether to laugh or cry, or both. You don�t second guess him, you
don�t try to understand him. The genius is in the lunacy. And it goes deep.

The really startling thing about all these settings is the way in which Grainger unlocks the
inner life of each text, each melody. He�ll digest it, understand it, respect it, and then in his
response � which is nothing if not personal � he�ll elaborate, creating as little or as much
subtext as is appropriate. Like Britten, in his folk-song settings, Grainger knew how and
when to get out of the way. The plaintive Brigg Fair is no more, no less than the tenor solo
and chiefly wordless chorus will allow us � a tune so precious to Grainger that even the
harmony is almost an intrusion. Then there is the classic Londonderry Air � no words, just
voices � a harmony that is so rich, so expressive, so integrated, that it always shrouds
the melody in the imagination.

Then what, you may ask, could be more extraordinary (or unlikely) than the Love verses
from �The Song of Solomon� (inquisitive, oddly erotic, a real Old Testament amplitude
to harmony and texture � replete with harmonium)? Well, Shallow Brown for a start.
Astounding. A sea shanty with the reach of a spiritual, it is set as the sailors will have
yelled it, the vocal line stretching and distorting, straining to be heard over furious
oceanic tremolandos (the aforementioned �wogglings�) in guitars and strings. An
unexpected upturn (a tiny question mark) in the choral refrain at the close is typical
of Grainger. He did so like to keep us guessing.

And there is plenty more where that came from. You should know what to expect
when Grainger pitches What shall we do with a drunken sailor? into �a room-full of
Scotch and Irish fiddlers and pipers and any nationality of English-speaking, shanty
singing, deep-sea sailors ��. A �merry Babel�, he called it, and that it is. Quite how
anything so intricately woven got to sound so spontaneously inebriated is beyond
me. But then Grainger was always able to write down precisely what he heard. And
in that he was closer to Charles Ives than any other composer I know. Indeed, the
rousing finale, Tribute to Foster (that�s Stephen Foster, of course) is as much a
tribute to Ives. Some tribute. Imagine America�s Beautiful dreamer in tandem with
the Danbury marching bands all the way to the Camptown Races. Foster�s song,
Grainger�s fantasy, and � at one point � Grainger�s words. That�s the amazing
middle section, a lullaby-like reverie evoking childhood memories of his mother�s
singing. �Tuneful percussion� (that�s the gamelan variety) wafts us into a weird
and wonderful dreamscape, the tune now half-remembered in five solo voices
while musical glasses and bowed marimbas lend a halo effect. In a riotous knees-
up at the climactic refrain �Gwine to sing all night!� (and even before you get to
play it, you can hear Grainger piling on the brassy counterpoints), two offstage
groups enter the fray in disarray in readiness for a magical �dissolve�. Trumpet,
clarinets and side-drum rattle off into the distance. The party�s over. Did it ever
happen?

No more words. Call me biased � a fully paid-up member of the Grainger
appreciation society � but this is a fabulous disc. John Eliot Gardiner may well
have inherited some of his joy in this music (though heaven knows, you don�t
need to inherit it) from his great-uncle, Balfour Gardiner (one of the �Frankfurt
Gang�, which included Grainger). He is characteristically hot in his response to
its rhythmic zest so too his wonderfully articulate, impeccably tuned, Monteverdi
singers and players. The singing is, by turns, fleet, spry, fireside-cosy cathedral-
rich � or plain raucous. Good grumble-shouts, too. All right, I�m never too
convinced by choristers� mummerset or laddish cockney, and, at the other
extreme, you could argue that the singing is almost too good, too respectful
at times. But there�s nothing more boring than reading an all-out rave review,
so I�m niggling. Brilliant, revealing sound. A strong contender, come Award-time."
Edward Seckerson, Gramophone





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---------- Post added at 01:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 PM ----------




No.7

Ottorino Respighi set several of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poems, but only three were set for
mezzo-soprano and orchestra: Arethusa in 1910, Il Tramonto in 1914, and La Sensitiva between
1914 and 1915. Of the three, Il tramonto (The Sunset) was also written for voice and string quartet,
and is heard in this version as often as in the chamber orchestral version. The smaller accompanimental
forces give the piece a much more intimate feeling, beautifully suiting the nature of the poem. The strings
open the work dramatically, then settle down to a calm lyricism. The singer describes the "One within
whose subtle being...genius and death contended." The music swells as the poem tells of his love for a
Lady. It then serenely describes the field they walk through, the nature around them, and the colors
of the sunset with a repeated, rounded-contour figure similar to what is found in a Field or Chopin
nocturne. Very quietly, with the strings almost still, the Youth wonders "Is it not strange...I never saw
the sun?/We will walk here To-morrow; thou shall look on it with me." A brief interlude follows, and the
nature figure returns before the music turns to hard chords as the Lady finds the Youth dead the next
morning. The chords soften as the poem describes how she "died not, nor grew wild, but year by year
lived on...." A lighter texture with moving musical lines underscores the poem's description of her
life, with the lower strings sometimes moving in parallel lines to the voice. The Lady's final appeal
for the same peace that the Youth found in death is uttered with a calm weariness before a violin
solo concludes the piece in the major. The impression of the whole work is that of a romantic
ballad or a tone poem in miniature.

The Quartet in D Major which was composed in 1907 was first published in 1920. It is
constructed in along a clear classical structure, with appealing sentiment and is in no way difficult
to play. The opening Allegro begins with an up-lifting and highly romantic main theme which is
followed by a playful syncopated second theme. The second movement, Tema con varizioni,
begins with a melancholy theme and are followed by a series of very interesting variations.
Although Respighi subtitled the next movement Intermezzo, it is really a nervous scherzo.
The finale, Allegro, begins in a dramatic fashion with a highly effective rollicking Neapolitan
melody. There is much here to admire of the fine rhythmic and harmonic writing.

The "Dorian" String Quartet dates from a very prolific period when Respighi was becoming
internationally famous with Pini di Roma. He based the work on one of the ancient modes,
Dorian (or Doric). It is played through as a single movement but this can be divided into 4
sections I. Energico, 2. Allegro moderato, 3. Elegiaco (adagio), 4. Moderato energico
(Passacaglia).



Music Composed by Ottorino Respighi
Played by the Brodsky Quartet
With Anne-Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano)

"Really, everything about this disc is admirable. I take great satisfaction in having
spotted what the Brodsky Quartet amounted to when I first heard their Tchaikovsky
set. The music itself is highly appealing of course, but any music at all would benefit
from presentation of this quality. The recorded sound is from 1999 and 2000, and it
seems excellent to me as well. The liner note is informative and helpful, but the
humour of the cover is just plain naff, although it tickles me and it must have been
done with the full connivance of the diva herself. What it depicts is the members
of the quartet contemplating a photo of - an otter! Otters are most beautiful beasts,
and the eponymous diva sings so as to achieve what my caption (a snippet from
the Shelley poem which in its real context expresses something very different
indeed) tries to say."
Amazon Reviewer





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---------- Post added at 01:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:08 PM ----------




No.8

Osvaldas Balakauskas (*1937) has created a unique voice by forging new variations on recent
compositional techniques, while for some time serving his country in a diplomatic capacity and
presenting some of Lithuania's finest writers through his vocal and choral settings. Balakauskas
received his basic training at the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute from 1957 to 1961, and from 1964
to 1969, he studied composition with Boris Lyatoshins'ky at the Kiev Conservatoire. During this time,
he created the Impresonata for flute and piano (1964), the very unusual and extreme timbres
of Extrema for piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet, double bassoon, trumpet, xylophone, and
harp (1966), Aerophonia for wind quintet (1968), String Quartets No. 1 and No. 2 (1971),
and other pieces. These works were influenced by serialism and especially the music of Webern and
Messiaen.

In 1972, he moved to Vilnius. In the intervening years, he created music for the film/ballet Zodiac
(1984) for chamber orchestra and tape, the ballet Macbeth (1988) for synthesizer, Ludus
modorum (1972) for cello and orchestra, Symphony No. 1 (1973), and the Dada Concerto
for chorus and small orchestra (1982). In all of these pieces, Balakauskas was constantly refining his
unique version of serial technique (in his procedure, the series determines the subsequent
transpositions of new material as well as quotations from former music) and alternate diatonic
structures. These ideas, which contribute to the creation of his identifiable and personal harmonic
"sound," are explored in his Dodecatonics.



Music Composed by Osvaldas Balakauskas
Played by Rusne Mataityte (violin) & Margrit Julia Zimmermann (piano)
And Albina Siksniute (piano) & Edmundas Kulikauskas (cello)

"No doubt that Osvaldas Balakauskas has a distinctive, quirky musical personality, but is it
strong enough to sustain a whole disc? Certainly the pithy Three Caprices, and evocative
triptych Like the Touch of a Sea Wave would be welcome in any recital. Yet in the larger
pieces, Maggiore-Minore and Rain for Cracow, the tendency to work in small motifs and
gestures precludes any real formal expansion. Excellent performances and recording."
Gramophone





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---------- Post added at 01:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:24 PM ----------




No.9

London born composer Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973) began studying and composing both
jazz and classical music at an early age, and is perhaps best known for his symphonic cycle;
however, Frankel also composed a considerable amount of chamber music, and this disc contains
perhaps some of Frankel's best and most intimate work in this genre. Composed between 1940
and 1964, the pieces on this recording reveal the essence of Frankel's style: an unwavering concern
for gentle, lyrical melodies, and a rhythmic vivacity. In fact, though Frankel owes much to Schoenberg-
from whose atonal and serial techniques he borrowed--there is also clearly the influence of Berg in
romantic, legato lines.

The Quintet for clarinet & strings, composed just before Frankel's serial period, is full of energy
and spirit. The Trio for Clarinet, Violoncello and Piano, Op. 10, is an early work, dating from 1940
and also features tranquil melodies and light, quick rhythmic figures. It is obvious in the Bagatelles
for Eleven Instruments, Op. 35, Frankel's first fully serial work, that Frankel is commanded by the
dictates of melody: the Bagatelles are pervasively beautiful and musical, as the demands of serial
technique never overshadow the lyrical line. The final piece on the disc, Early Morning Music, though
it sounds somewhat hastily composed in spots, is nonetheless performed on this recording with
lighthearted humor.




Music Composed by Benjamin Frankel
Played by Paul Dean (clarinet)
With the Australian String Quartet & Queensland Symphony Chamber Players

"An important and rewarding issue. Although four of the symphonies are available and two more,
Nos. 4 and 6, have just been released, hardly a note of Frankel�s chamber music has been put on
record. The Fifth String Quartet was briefly available on LP (Columbia, 10/67 � nla) but the Clarinet
Quintet, in a performance from Thea King and the Britten Quartet, is his only current representation
on the Gramophone Database. Listening to these pieces brought to mind MEO�s words concerning
the Second Symphony (CPO, 8/96) � �There are no notes wasted here on rhetoric; the rigour of
Frankel�s thematic working intensifies the music�s eloquence.� The Clarinet Quintet, written in
1956 for Thea King in memory of her late husband, the celebrated Frederick Thurston, is, as
always with this composer, beautifully wrought and eloquent; its intelligent, civilized discourse
gives unfailing pleasure. I returned to this and the Bagatelles immediately after playing them
and expect to do so again as soon as these lines are sent off.

The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano is a much earlier piece, dating from 1940, yet it finds his
distinctive musical language already in place, and anyone who knows Frankel�s music would
recognize his fingerprints. The music always moves with an apparently effortless ease. Frankel�s
upbringing in the world of popular music and film music ensured a fluency that has often
inhibited listeners from discerning the deeper currents that flow under the surface. There is
no mistaking them in the Bagatelles for 11 instruments, which date from 1959, the year in
which Frankel suffered a heart attack. Here there are some melodic cross-references to the
First Symphony from the previous year and depth and seriousness are most strongly in
evidence in the final Largamente, whose opening inhabits a world not dissimilar to the
last movement of the symphony. Like the latter it is serial but not atonal, much in the
same way as Frank Martin: indeed the last movement strikes much the same resonance
as the Swiss master. The thoughtful Pezzi pianissimi (1965) also strike a darker and
more serious note. The CD ends with a set of three pieces from 1948. Early Morning
Music, whose titles (�Too Early�, �Breakfast Cackle� and �Unwillingly to Work�) admirably
convey their slight but pleasing character.

All these performances are highly musicianly and extremely accomplished throughout
and Paul Dean proves an eloquent and expert player. Thea King obviously has special
claims in the Quintet and, incidentally, took part (with Eleanor Warren and the composer)
in the first performance of the Pezzi pianissimi. It goes without saying that this
excellently balanced disc not only fills an important gap in the current catalogue but,
more to the point, offers valuable musical rewards. Strongly recommended.'"
Gramophone





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No.10

With the premiere recording of Darius Milhaud's �tudes, based on the original synagogue
melodies of Proven�al Jewry, the world-renowned Juilliard String Quartet leads off this unique
collection of five Judaically inspired string quartets. A rich bouquet of Ashkenazi sacred melodies
pervades the string quartet by Sholom Secunda, the composer of Yiddish theatrical music
better known for the song hit "Bay mir bistu sheyn". German refugee composer Ruth Schonthal
expands the quartet medium with a striking work dedicated to the memory of the murdered victims
of the Holocaust. The Kol Nidre by John Zorn is a highly original exploration of motifs
of the best-known Yom Kippur chant. A new recording of this work, as well as Two Hassidic Moods
by the liturgical composer Abraham Wolf Binder, complete the program.



Music by Darius Milhaud, Abraham Binder, Ruth Schonthal, John Zorn & Sholom Secunda
Played by Juilliard, Bochmann & Bingham String Quartets

"This [album] is an excellent example of how many different ways there are to write
for two violins, viola and cello....this is a gem of a recording, with wonderfully empathic
playing by the Juilliard, Bachmann and Bingham String Quartets. Just a wonderful
record."
George Robinson, The Jewish Week

"Schonthal is an extraordinary composer. Her quartet is serious, personal, frightening,
devastating, and deeply moving. The Bingham Quartet does an excellent job with it.
I have never heard anything quite like it."
Elaine Fine, American Record Guide



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---------- Post added at 03:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:59 PM ----------




No.11

Probably the most impressive composer who thrived in the wake of Villa-Lobos's single-handed
inception of Brazilian musical nationalism would have to be Camargo Guarnieri (1907-93).
In fact, compared to the well-deserved attention that the recording industry has recently lavished
on his predecessor and mentor, it seems that the force and vitality of Guarnieri's accomplishments
have been somewhat slighted.

Although Guarnieri's mature idiom is unmistakably indebted to the indigenous melos pioneered
by Villa-Lobos (who was about 20 years his senior), Guarnieri, rather than turning toward the Gallic
traditions�both post-Franckian and Impressionist�that fortified Villa-Lobos, imbibed from the very
beginning the stirrings of Neoclassicism during the 1920s and emerged almost fully formed as an
exponent of a vigorously well-mortared, cosmopolitan language with strong Latin American inflections.

While the core of Guarnieri's output remains his extensive orchestral catalog (there are at least
four symphonies and as many piano concertos as well as numerous other concerted works plus
assorted overtures, suites, and programmatic pieces), his series of violin sonatas�written over
more than four decades�are highly regarded. The earliest work, the Violin Sonata No.2,
dates from 1933 and clearly indicates that Guarnieri's dramatic style, whose traditional formal
inclinations were already well established even before his belated studies in Paris with Koechlin
and his important contacts there with Milhaud and Boulanger during the years just before the
outbreak of World War II. All the sonatas are conceived in three fast-slow-fast movements
(the triptych was Guarnieri's favorite format) of some 15 to 20 minutes in duration. The ideas
are clearly and forcefully articulated and their development, though sometimes partaking of the
rhapsodic mode, is always tightly constructed, while the overall form is quite compellingly logical
and symmetrical. But this music is hardly dry and formulaic�it is full of rhythmic �lan and an
expressive lyricism, as some representative tempo designations (Sem pressa ben ritmado;
Profundamente terno; and Impetuoso) would indicate. This is most listenable music, and it is
given a firm send-off and advocacy by the well-attuned team of Larsen and M�llenbach.

During the 1970s Guarnieri, like some other elder Brazilians such as Mignon�, lost faith in
the validity of his nationalist manner and dabbled in more "experimental" efforts. The Seventh
Sonata of 1977, although still imbued with the same temperament as the earlier works, is
completely lacking in their charm and appeal because the harshly impersonal, almost atonal
language has absolutely no Brazilian resonance and seems highly inimical to Guarnieri's
peculiar strengths.



Music Composed by Camargo Guarnieri
Played by Lavard Skou Larsen (violin) & Alexander M�llenbach (piano)

"Alexander Mullenbach (born 1949) is a Luxembourg pianist, composer and conductor.
Since 2002, he has been director of the International Summer Academy at the Mozarteum
in Salzburg. Born in Luxembourg City on 23 January 1949, Mullenbach studied piano,
chamber music and composition at the Conservatoire de Paris and at the Salzburg
Mozarteum where his teachers included Gerhard Wimberger and Cesar Bresgen. From
1970, he taught piano at the Conservatoire de Luxembourg and, from 1981, composition.
Since then, he has also taught at the Mozarteum. Since 1978, he has composed over
100 works, of which thirteen for symphony orchestra, as well as an Opera."





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---------- Post added at 03:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:21 PM ----------




No.12

Dominick Argento (*1927) is a leading conservative in American composition. In fact he has
occupied this position for so long that he has had the satisfaction of seeing the new romanticism
catch up with him. His background was Italian and so was some of his training. His influences included
Hugo Weisgall and Dallapiccola and later, at the Eastman School, American romantics such as Howard
Hanson, whose Second Symphony makes such an impact. Argento's ideas are not as full-blooded
as that, but his operas have been much admired. The song-cycle based on Virginia Woolf's diaries was
first performed by Dame Janet Baker and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975.

It was an ingenious idea to comb Woolf's diaries to create a portrait of her life as she moved towards
suicide in the grim years of the Second World War. The writer's stream-of-consciousness technique is
represented by a kind of continuous recitative. I find it difficult to get used to this type of musical
language as a personification of Virginia Woolf, if that is what Argento is doing. It has to be recognized
that Argento's eclecticism is carefully considered: the contrasted styles for the images in the third song;
the Roman tea-shop suggestions of the fifth.

Warren Benson (1924-2005), from the same generation as Argento, obtained a text from the
novelist John Gardner for his cycle, which has a mixed instrumental accompaniment of horn, cor anglais,
marimba and cello. Songs for the End of the World is intended as a "one-woman short opera",
concerned with a woman's love for her husband and children becoming transformed in old age. There is
plenty of idiomatic writing for the horn, which Benson used to play�the work was commissioned by
the International Horn Society - the vocal writing is closely tied to the delivery of its text. Tthere is
atmosphere: perhaps it needs the stage.



Music by Dominick Argento & Warren Benson
Performed by Virginia Dupuy (mezzo-soprano)
Conducted by Dan Welcher

"Virginia Dupuy has earned a reputation as one of the finest concert and recital singers in the
United States. She continues to champion American music in her recent recordings including
the 1999 Grammy nominated Voces Americanas with Voices of Change. Fanfare magazine
hails her recording of Dominic Argento�s Pulitzer prize winner From the Diary of Virginia Woolf
as one of the top classical recordings of 1990, calling it "one of the most impressive discs of
vocal music heard in a long time." Her voice has been described as having "a velvety dark
richness" (Santa Fe Reporter), and her interpretation, "a purity and pungency of style"
(Houston Chronicle). Ms. Dupuy made her Lincoln Center debut with the American Symphony
Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall. Other engagements include appearances with the symphonies
of Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Honolulu, Phoenix, Calgary, and the Fort Worth Symphony�s
inaugural season in the Bass Performance Hall. She performs works ranging from Bach to
Beethoven and Verdi to Mahler, displaying warmth of tone and flexibility.

In 2004 Virginia Dupuy with Shields-Collins Bray and Tara Emerson released the CD Dwell
in Possibility: Emily Dickinson in Song on the Gasparo label, a recital of songs by American
composers following research on hundreds of composers� settings of Dickinson texts.
Represented in this project are her highly esteemed composer friends Jake Heggie,
Lee Hoiby, Richard Hundley, Dan Welcher, Simon Sargon, Lori Laitman, William Jordan and
others. At the Emily Dickinson International Society annual meeting in Amherst,
Massachusetts, July 2002, Dupuy gave the premiere performance of two songs written
for this event.

In November, 2001, Ms. Dupuy appeared at Alice Tully Hall with Teatro Grattacielo,
singing two roles in Risurrezione by Franco Alfano. The New York Times praised her "firm
and glowing Mezzo" and "authoritative poise." Known for her versatility, Virginia Dupuy
has sung roles in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Die Zauberfl�te, Gianni Schicchi and
Cavalleria Rusticana. And in 2004/5, Jenufa,, ans Little Women. Her public television
and radio appearances include performance of the Bernstein Jeremiah Symphony, Verdi
Requiem, Ravel L�Enfant et les Sortileges, and the Bach St. Matthew Passion. Ms. Dupuy
can also be heard as the Opera Diva on Disney�s audio release of Dick Tracy."


Dominick Argento, Warren Benson.



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---------- Post added at 04:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:58 PM ----------




No.13

Nineteen years separate the earliest (Rhapsody) and the latest (Trio)
work in this collection of chamber music by the English composer York Bowen.
Yet, the composer hardly further developed his musical language past a certain point
in his career, so in 1945 the (very well-made) Trio must have appeared rather quaint.

The Quintet for Horn and String Quartet was written only a year after the Rhapsody Trio
and, it, too, is a romantically-styled work, with the horn dominating the proceedings.
All three are splendidly performed by The Endymion Ensemble.



Music Composed by York Bowen
Played by the Endymion Ensemble

"As the music of British late romantics such as Bantock, Bridge and Bax started
to become rather comprehensively represented in the catalogue, it was rather inevitable
that the attention of record companies would be directed toward the music of York
Bowen (1884-1961). Bowen was hardly an original - indeed, his conservative, Brahmsian
idiom had ample time to become perceived as utterly anachronistic during his lifetime -
and it would be hard to justify any claim to the effect that the quality of his output is
quite in the league of the composers mentioned. Yet his best music exhibits
craftsmanship, imagination, a fine ear for colorization, and a certain melodic gift.

Indeed, what we get in this Dutton program is some of his best music (at least as
far as I know it). All of it is deeply and unapologetically romantic, lyrical and emotional
and often genuinely beautiful, and if it was stylistically out of date at the time of
composition we should surely care less about that today. The earliest work here is
the Rhapsody trio from 1926, a piano trio in a single movement but with contrasting
sections. Though not deeply memorable, perhaps, this is a very compelling, lyrical
work of genuine inspiration and certainly deserving of some exposure.

The masterpiece on the disc is however the quintet for horn and strings from the
following year. This is a truly evocative work, full of passion, brilliance and
memorable themes, especially in the slow movement. Bowen was himself
apparently a horn player and thus knew how to write effectively for the
instrument, and the result is one of the most immediately compelling and
rewarding chamber works for the instrument in the catalogue.

A slightly (but not much) more modern harmonic language can be discerned in
the piano trio in three movements from 1945. Its opening movement is full of
energy and spirit, and whereas the piano definitely assumes a background role
in said movement it comes a bit more to the fore in the beautiful slow movement
and compelling finale, though this is definitely not primarily a vehicle of display
for the pianist. The Endymion Ensemble provides absolutely convincing
performances of all three works, and the sound quality is ambient but clear.
Overall, this is a very rewarding release and, as far as I know, perhaps the
ideal place to sample the composer if you don't already know him."
Amazon Reviewer





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---------- Post added at 05:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:38 PM ----------




No.14

Henryk G�recki (1933-2010) was that rarity among contemporary composers: the originator of a
full-fledged hit. A recording of his Symphony No.3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) by the London Sinfonietta
with soprano Dawn Upshaw climbed to the top of the British pop charts in the early '90s. G�recki was among
the Eastern European composers for whom contemporary stylistic trends (first serialism and then the various
reactions against it) took on anti-authoritarian overtones, and who thus emerged in the forefront of late
20th century music; in his works, stylistic originality seemed a personal and political necessity.

G�recki's music was always deeply rooted in Polish ideals, however, and it carried a sense of the emotional
impact of the atrocities of the Second World War. He ran afoul of the authorities in the late '70s, resigning
his post as provost to protest the government's refusal to permit Pope John Paul II to visit Katowice. He
later composed music to honor an injured Solidarity labor union activist. What gave his protests additional
weight was that he had rejected Western hyper-modernism and created a new musical language that more
directly served his ideals. G�recki had first gained recognition with Scontri (1959), a work very much
of the avant-garde in its treatment of sonority and texture as primary structural elements. In the 1960s,
however, G�recki's music offered harbingers of the eclecticism that would dominate contemporary
music by the century's end. Despite his growing success, G�recki continued to compose largely in
response to inner creative dictates rather than according to any plan to increase his reputation. Much
of his work in the 1980s and 1990s was in the choral and chamber genres.



Music Composed by Henryk G�recki
Performed by the Chicago Symphony & Lyric Opera Choruses
Conducted by John Nelson

"MISERERE is a stunning work, a response to the political upheaval in Poland that
surrounded the United Peasant Party in 1981 when members of the Rural Solidarity
were slaughtered by the militia. In response to this Gorecki immediately composed
this work for large unaccompanied chorus which for the first thirty minutes intones
the words 'Domine Deus Noster' (Lord our God), first by massive male voices intoning,
plea-like, then joined by women's voices in agitation and ultimate reverence, adding
only are the very end the words 'Miserere nobis' (have mercy on us). If any listener
fails to be moved by this quiet, urgent, sonorous plea for peace, then we as a
universal people have much work to do!

Appropriately, MISERERE is followed by a performance of Gorecki's AMEN. Again,
this work does not change key, uses only the single word 'Amen' as text, but packs
so much power and finally closes with the choral forces closing the 'n' in sustained
echo. Following the simplicity of this six-minute work is Gorecki's first work
composed for unaccompanied voices - the Psalms setting titled EUTES IBANT ET
FLEBANT and is reminiscent of the mood of his now famous "Symphony of
Sorrowful Songs". And dating back to the year of MISERERE is his setting of
'My Vistula, Grey Vistula', a brief but compelling setting of the folk music of Poland.

The final work on this very fine recording is a secular setting of Polish folksongs
SZEROKA WODA, charming in its simplicity and unfettered by complicated
messages or writing."
Amazon Reviewer





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Thanks a lot!

A new, original and very promising wimpel-thread.
Many thanks for this!

No.15

Three of William Schuman's string quartets in a generous collection.
The 2nd and 3rd Quartets are in his "Americana" mode (his teacher
was Roy Harris), while the 5th (his final contribution to the genre),
composed more than four decades after the 3rd, is considerably more
advanced.



Music Composed by William Schuman
Played by the Lydian String Quartet

"The shamefully neglected string quartets of William Schuman are revived here
in all their forward thinking, astringent glory by the Lydian Quartet. Schumann's
music, like that of fellow American composer Aaron Copland, has a larger-than-
life quality that benefits from the warm romanticism of the Lydian. These
performances are full of verve and impact, especially the tense, powerful Quartet
No. 2, the best of this collection. The Lydian Quartet plays beautifully here,
with a precision and involvement marking them as among the world's best
quartets. The fire and intricacy of Schumann's writing is elegantly juxtaposed
by the elegant lyricism of his slow movements, showcased by the Lydian. Also
enhancing the majesty of this disc is the nigh-perfect recording quality from
Harmonia Mundi. Combined with warm reverberations of the recording location,
the natural quality of the sound places you there with the Lydian. An impeccable
performance of the acclaimed Quartet No. 3, combined with the strong
performances of the previously unavailable Quartets No. 2 and 5, make this
wild-eyed recommendation automatic."
Chicago Sun-Times





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---------- Post added at 01:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:59 PM ----------




No.16

Geoffrey Bush's A Summer Serenade is a refreshingly enjoyable work, written on
the wing of inspiration, essentially sunny and life-enhancing, but for all its traditional inheritance,
never in danger of falling into a 'Hey nonny nonny' facility. The eclectic style is readily diatonic,
the harmonies never make one shudder and the rich melodic flow is appealingly direct. Bush
features a piano obbligato, infectiously introduced in the opening orchestral foray, before the
glowing entry of the chorus (''Worship ye that lovers be this May'')�effectively adding both rhythmic
point and colour to the quicker numbers. The settings of an ingenious selection of verse are in the
best traditions of British choral writing. Whether love ''is a sickness full of woes'' (a lovely,
unaccompanied madrigal, with a reminder of Britten in the setting of the word ''sighing'') or
''a pretty frenzy'' full of rhythmic energy, the music catches the mood of the words admirably and
the other unaccompanied item, the Shelley Nocturne, ''Music when soft voices die'' is achingly
beautiful. The ''Dirge'', to words by William Blake, is emotionally powerful without being desolate,
and the work ends, as it begins, with an eruption of joy, in the pleasure ''to hear the birdes sing''.

Then there is the set of six songs for baritone and strings, Farewell, Earth's Bliss. The vocal
line flows with a particularly appealing kind of English lyricism and the string writing (Bush writes
very engagingly for the strings) is full of infectious bursts of energy, especially in ''Fear no more
the heat of the sun'' and ''When May is in his prime''. The closing ''Fair pledges of a fruitful tree''
has a melting nostalgia. The Four Songs from Herrick's The Hesperides, written two years
earlier in 1948, are also agreeably diverse, the last two, ''To Electra'' and ''Upon Julia's clothes''
infectiously succinct in characterization. A Menagerie (three unaccompanied songs) are not
without moments of glee, but has darker undertones. The rhythmically insistent Tiger is quite
formidable, and the Cuckoo ''mocks married men�O word of fear, unpleasing to a married ear''.



Music Composed by Geoffrey Bush
Played by the City of London Sinfonia
With Stephen Varcoe (baritone) & Adrian Thompson (tenor)
And Eric Parkin (piano) & The Westminster Singers
Conducted by Richard Hickox

"All these performances sound as if the artists are greatly enjoying and identifying with
the music, and the recording is real and vivid. The balance between soloist, chorus and
strings in A Summer Serenade is admirable, and the acoustics of All Saints Church,
Tooting seem just right. Those who seek contemporary writing that communicates
readily, yet doesn't reveal all its pleasures at a first hearing, should find this very
much worth exploring.'"
Gramophone





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---------- Post added at 01:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:16 PM ----------




No.17

The Chants d'Auvergne (Songs from the Auvergne) is a collection of folk songs from the
Auvergne region of France arranged for soprano voice and orchestra or piano by Joseph Canteloube
between 1923 and 1930. The songs are in the local language, Occitan. The best known of the songs is
the "Ba�l�ro", which has been frequently recorded and performed in slight variations of Canteloube's
arrangement, such as for choir or instrumental instead of the original soprano solo. The first recording,
of eleven of the songs, was by Madeleine Grey in 1930, with an ensemble conducted by �lie Cohen.
The songs are part of the standard repertoire and have been recorded by many singers.

Canteloube, whose father was from the Auvergne, treated all the songs not only
with an obvious affection but also with a deep respect for the people and music of
the mountainous and fiercely independent region. As he wrote, �the splendour
and originality of these songs may be attributed to the old age of the land and
to the people who have lived on it.� A matchless �re-creator or interpreter� as he
regarded himself, Cante l ou be�s orchestration and harmo ni sa tions of the originals
reflected not only the verve, colour, lyricism and freedom of the folk style and
the shape of the original models but also the refinement and aesthetic sense of a
master craftsman.

This album features a selection of the Chants d'Auvergne in a special arrangement
with smaller orchestra provided by conductor Raffi Armenian.



Music Composed by Joseph Canteloube
Played by the Canadian Chamber Orchestra, Ontario
With Karina Gauvin (soprano)
Arranged and Conducted by Raffi Armenian

"A native of Malaret of the Auvergne region in south-central France, Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957)
wrote 30 songs based on folk melodies he collected, which he published in five volumes between
1923 and 1955. These songs, with their ingratiating melodies and sumptuous yet delicate
orchestration so evocative of nature and local flavor, became favourites of many divas, with no
shortage of wonderful recordings. Particularly notable are versions by de Los Angeles, Moffo, Te
Kanawa, von Stade, Auger, and more recently, Fleming, and Upshaw. Recordings by the lesser
known Netania Davrath and Jill Gomez have achieved 'cult status' among the cognoscenti.
Since the tessitura of these songs are comfortably in the middle, high mezzos like Frederica
von Stade and Teresa Berganza have had great success with them. To these ears, the purity and
youthful timbre of the lyric soprano is preferable. The best known of the songs is probably
'Bail�ro', which is featured on the soundtrack of the film 'Henry V.' Even in a competitive field,
this new release by Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin on CBC Records ranks right up there
with the best. Gauvin possesses a lovely lyric voice of womanly warmth and serene beauty �
an ideal instrument for these songs. She sings stylishly, acting with the voice in the dramatic
"Lou Boussu." But it is the slow songs with the long, long cantilena phrases ("Obal, din lo
coumb�lo", "Bail�ro") that really show off her creamy timbre and seamless legato. Canadian
conductor Raffi Armenian re-orchestrated the pieces for chamber orchestra, with the permission
of the publisher Heugel. The Canadian Chamber Ensemble under his direction gives an estimable
performance. The recorded sound is spacious and crystal clear. The booklet contains an
informative essay by Richard Turp and texts in French, English, and Auvergnese. As an added
bonus, the visually pleasing artwork � by Jean-Fran�ois Gauthier, Gauvin's harpsichordist-
graphic designer husband � is a big improvement over the bland and very dated style
of the typical CBC releases. Highly recommended."
Scena Org



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No.18

Largely forgotten in the decades after his death, the wide-ranging output of the Czech composer
Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) has come to much greater prominence over the last quarter-
century. The music featured here dates from the mid-1920s, a productive period in which he forged
a distinctive and highly personal musical style. Both the First String Quartet and the Five
Pieces achieved a notable success at their premi�res, and all three works are among the most
successful and enduring of Schulhoff�s compositions.

His music up to the First World War had shown the expected influences from Brahms and Dvoř�k,
and by way of Strauss, to Debussy and Scriabin, but four years in the Austrian army saw
him adopt a more radical stance artistically and politically. In the next few years he absorbed
the values of the Expressionism represented by Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School
as well as the Dadaism espoused by Georg Grosz, whose advocacy of jazz was to find its way
into much of Schulhoff�s music from that period.



Music Composed by Erwin Schulhoff
Played by The Aviv Quartet

"The language of the music is like a more companionable Bartok. The movements
are brief, yet their material never sounds underdeveloped. Like Bartok, Schulhoff
draws an amazing wealth of tone colors from a string quartet. In Quartet 1, the
music uses folk tunes with small intervallic ranges. Its second movement, �con
malincolia grotesca�, is ghostly and fragmented. The last movement is more
sustained, with its feeling of anticipation adding further interest. Quartet 2 is
more turbulent. In its II some pages use enough multiple stops to suggest re-
scoring the music for a string orchestra. The probing introduction to I returns
at the end as a phantom reminiscence.

The Five Pieces are brief evocations of dance forms, carried through with no
end of subtle humor. The players evince complete conviction in the worth of
the music. The articulation and phrasing are excellent, with superb dynamic
control, from the most whispery ppp to the strongest tutti accents. Their
warmth of tone also contributes greatly to the likability of this music. For
these performances, the Aviv Quartet deserves to have its name reversed."
American Record Guide





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No.19

Arthur Bliss met Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in America in 1925. He greatly admired
her attitude to musicians, patronage and understanding of music generally, dedicating the
first of his Two interludes for piano to her that year. He was therefore delighted to accept
her commission for the Oboe Quintet for her Venice Festival of 1927, and the work, inspired
by the playing of Leon Goossens, was played in Venice by Goossens and the Venetian Quartet,
to be repeated in Vienna, where it won the praise of Alban Berg. The violins, in thirds, open the
first movement, its general serenity broken by a passage marked Allegro assai agitato but
finally restored with the return of a secondary theme and a whispered conclusion. Melodic
interest centres on the oboe in the opening of the second movement. An Allegro moderato
brings a change of metre and mood, the opening first violin phrase echoed by the viola.
Peace returns and the movement ends as it had begun. The strings unite in the forceful
opening of the final Vivace, the melodic line taken up by the oboe. The music leads to
Connelly�s Jig, so indicated in the score, motifs from which become fragmented, mingling
with the opening material of the movement, before the final oboe display with which
the quintet ends.

Conversations, scored for flute/bass flute, oboe/cor anglais, violin, viola, and cello,
represents a new phase in Bliss�s career. In Paris after the war he had met the group of
young composers loosely banded together as Les Six, and Conversations was later
played at the Aeolian Hall in London in a programme that included works by Germaine
Tailleferre, Poulenc and Milhaud, to be greeted by the severe strictures of the critic of
the Daily Mail. The work was originally intended as a jeu d�esprit, given in a private
performance by five musicians of some distinction, including the flautist Gordon Walker
and the oboist Leon Goossens. The first movement, The Committee Meeting, finds
the chairman, the violin, in a monotonous mezzo-forte, struggling to make his point,
against the often irrelevant interruptions of others, in obvious dissent. In the Wood
is gently nostalgic in character, with its intermittent bird-song, a contrast to the
following In the Ballroom, with its jaunty violin melody first heard over the plucked
notes of viola and cello, before the entry of the bass flute. At the heart of the
movement, in which the oboe is silent, is a more sinister passage, introduced by
the bass flute. The fourth movement is Soliloquy for cor anglais alone, the first
section, which is repeated, frames a livelier central section. Conversations ends
with In the Tube at Oxford Circus, a playful evocation of the turmoil and varying
scene, the whole work a contemporary reaction to the preceding decade, but
no longer as shocking as it seemed to some contemporaries.

Rout, for soprano and chamber orchestra was first performed in 1921 and,
although somewhat experimental was a success. Norman Demuth writes, "the
success of Rout will long be remembered, and the reasons are both hard to find.
It was like nothing else. Its novel conception and design, its amazing vitality,
placed it and its composer immediately in the forefront and stamped him as
a highly original mind."



Music Composed by Arthur Bliss
Played by The Nash Ensemble
With Elizabeth Gale (soprano)
Conducted by Lionel Friend

"Bliss at his very best � A lovely disc�and eminently well engineered
too. It can be warmly recommended even to those who do not normally
admire this composer."
Penguin Guide

"Brilliantly inventive pieces� unalloyed pleasures. Indispensable."
The Daily Telegraph



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No.20

Though Mikl�s R�zsa (1907-1995) became one of the most admired of film composers,
he had always written music in other forms and his two published string quartets reveal important
facets of his musical background. String Quartet No.1 was written in 1950 when he was
under contract with M-G-M and, with its nocturnal and folk-dance imagery, is redolent of his Hungarian
youth. String Quartet No.2 is prophetic of his later sparer style, though it too is infused with
great energy and high drama. The String Trio, op.1, recorded for the first time in its
original 1929 published version, abounds with youthful vitality.



Music Composed by Mikl�s R�zsa
Played by The Tippett String Quartet

"Now more popularly remembered as a composer of film scores, Miklos Rozsa�s musical
life started at the early age of seven as a prodigy composer and violinist. Built into his contract
with the MGM film company was a three month break in each year to further his �serious�
composing, and it was in those periods that both of his quartets were written. The first
dated from 1950, its content placing it in mainstream tonal works of the time that flirted
with atonality. With his native Hungarian influences ever present, it is a score redolent in
easily assimilated thematic material, and shows his mastery of the quartet idiom and the
juxtaposition of instrumental sonorities. It was to be thirty-one years later that he returned
to the idiom�the whole work is so instantly enjoyable. The disc is completed by the
String Trio composed when he was twenty and still at the Leipzig Conservatory. The young
British group, the Tippett Quartet, play with passion and tremendous commitment, and
the sound quality is the best chamber music disc I have heard from Naxos."
David�s Review Corner





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No.21

Howard Blake is a popular and prolific composer whose output includes film scores
(not least the extraordinarily successful The Snowman), choral, orchestral and instrumental
works, ballets and opera. This disc presents the world premi�re recordings of Four Songs
of the Nativity, commissioned by The Book Club for The Bach Choir and London Brass,
and Blake�s second dramatic oratorio, The Passion of Mary, commissioned by The Summer
Music Society of Dorset in association with South West Arts. "The Passion of Mary draws together
the Stabat Mater, the Magnificat, the Salve Regina and other Marian and Nativity texts with the
wisdom of a Berlioz. The outcome is a splendid, highly accessible choral work."
Roderick Dunnett (reviewing the London premi�re for Church Times)



Music Composed and Conducted by Howard Blake
Played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
With Patricia Rozario (soprano) & Robert William Blake (treble)
Richard Edgar-Wilson (tenor) & David Wilson-Johnson (baritone)
Plus the London Voices

" �in the shape of The Passion of Mary, we have a fine addition to the English
choral repertoire. The music is accessible�and, as such ought to have
audience appeal. Blake�s idea is an original one, which is something else that
appeals to me�we have here�a work that tells the story of the life and death
of Christ from the standpoint of his mother, Mary. I don�t know of any other
piece of music that does this and I think it�s a highly imaginative concept�
Blake carries out his concept extremely successfully: the design of the work
is strong, as is the music to which he carries out the design.

Throughout the piece Blake�s music is highly effective and well suited to his
chosen texts. Also highly effective is his charming setting of William Blake�s
�A Cradle Song� to anchor the Nativity element in Part I. Richard Edgar-Wilson
acquits himself very well here and in everything else that he does and
David Wilson-Johnson is authoritative and characterful�Patricia Rozario�s
characterisation of Mary sounds well-nigh ideal throughout. With excellent
contributions from London Voices and the RPO this performance under
the composer must be counted as definitive in every respect.

These are accessible and consistently interesting settings which
would make an excellent addition to the Christmas programmes
of enterprising choirs."
Musicweb





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No.22

You know what to expect: Alan Hovhaness's serenely contemplative muse, couched as it is in a readily
approachable modal language, undeniably casts its own potent spell. Moreover, a penchant for healthy
counterpoint helps to allay any potential longueurs: the likeable First Quartet of 1936, for example,
can boast, like Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, a four-part fugue of impressive rigour (hence the work's subtitle).
In fact, this movement, along with the opening "Prelude", was later reworked for full orchestra into the
Prelude and Quadruple Fugue, whilst the vigorous fugue with which the quartet closes also crops up
again in the latter half of the middle movement of the Second Symphony, Mysterious Mountain.

Next come three out of the seven pithy movements that comprise the Second Quartet from 1952:
the concluding "Hymn" is a particularly affecting creation. Both the Third and Fourth Quartets share
the same opus number (208) and were inspired by childhood memories. The former basks in a soothing,
supplicatory glow, with occasional touches of Eastern promise (aural reminders of the composer's
Armenian roots), whereas its more nostalgic companion is a sweetly lyrical essay of beguiling euphony
and striking resonance.

The album ends with Song of the Chin by the Chinese composer, Zhou Long: the ch'in'
is a traditional Chinese zither and this imaginative, fastidiously conceived piece from 1985 attempts
to convey the piquant sounds of that ancient instrument through the 'modern' medium
of the string quartet.



Music by Alan Hovhaness & Zhou Long
Played by the Shanghai String Quartet

"The Bagatelles are discreet unambitious, rhapsodic and self-confident.
The vulnerability of the music prompts thoughts of Vaughan Williams'
Lark Ascending and Flos Campi. The quartets were all written to be
played at Hovhaness's home with friends.

The Jupiter weaves a stern vein into a regretful pavane related more
to the Faure than the Ravel. Reminiscences of Haydn and Beethoven
and a 'buzzsaw' flightiness. The Spirit Murmur from the second quartet
abandons the classical for the accustomed exoticism of the gamelan,
the swaying rhapsody (in which the cello raptly serves as orator) and
the almost inaudible pizzicato. The hymn 'All glory laud and honour'
is all but quoted. A pity we could not have been given the complete
quartet.

The final two quartets (of four) are here in their entirety. Reflections
on my childhood is, in nostalgic intent, similar to Barber's Knoxville
although not a work of such mastery as the Barber. Its vagrant
tonality and sirening violins (Fra Angelico again although there is
also a Romanian and even a Moroccan accent) is familiar. The work
has a Wordsworthian reverence for childhood and an awed spirituality.

The Fourth Quartet again returns to the world of childhood from an
adult perspective. Under The Ancient Maple Tree recalls distant
summers in slow unemphatic rhapsodies, fugal round dances fit
for 'The Graces' and in the same angelic celebration we find in
Mozart's K364 Sinfonia Concertante.

The piece by Zhou Long is pleasant and ventures, amid much
pizzicato work, further out on the branchline towards atonality
than Hovhaness would have countenanced. I was not overly
struck with it and remain regretful that the whole of the second
quartet was not included."
Musicweb





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No.23

This is the first recording of the complete works for violin and piano. Robert Atchison is somewhat of
an authourity on the music of Gibbs and is artistic director of the Gibbs Music Festival. C. Armstrong Gibbs is
still �Little Known� but he was a prolific English Composer and Conductor, who studied under Sir Adrian Boult
and Ralph Vaughan Williams. He was a contemporary of Herbert Howells and Sir Arnold Bax. Gibbs was
a versatile musician whose output included part songs, larger choral works, chamber music and three
symphonies. Much of his chamber music remains unpublished and the few recordings that are available
give scant exposure to his compositions.



Music Composed by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs
Played by Robert Atchison (violin) & Olga Dudnik (piano)

"... It�s very pleasant, very assured music, beautifully written for the two instruments,
which should appeal to all lovers of English musicin the general vein of John Ireland,
Roger Quilter or the early Frank Bridge ...Atchison and Dudnik are first-rate advocates
for these unfailingly pleasant works. Atchison has a constantly beautiful tone which
is ideally matched to Gibb�s melodic inspiration. Guild�s recording is warm and ideally
balanced."
International Record Review





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No.24

George Gershwin's Blue Monday, labeled "A Jazz Opera", was an early stage work in the
composer's career, and the first instance he attempted to fuse jazz and classical elements. It was orchestrated,
like the Rhapsody in Blue, by Ferde Grof�, staff arranger/composer for the Paul Whiteman Band.

The "musical" was not a success, its Harlem-based story considered either too gloomy or too poor in taste.
Of course, today's evaluation is much different, and one can glimpse many moments in this work
that hint at Gershwin's later, phenomenally successful musicals like Lady Be Good, or Girl Crazy.
This was the first complete recording ever made of the 1-act work.

Also included is Gershwin's Concerto in F - but not in the composer`s own, somewhat inflated
"Rachmaninov-esque" version with full orchestra, but Ferde Grof�'s arrangement with a jazz
band accompanying the piano soloist. Personally, I think the piece is much zippier and more
entertaining in this smaller-scaled adaptation.

Oscar Levant was a celebratzed pianist, a friend of the Gershwin brothers and an occasional
composer. His Caprice is a somewhat peculiar mix of jazzy and more "serious" elements
that doesn't quite work but is nonetheless intriguing.



Music by George Gershwin & Oscar Levant
Played by Concordia
With Leslie Stifelman (piano) & Amy Burton (soprano)
And Gregory Hopkins (tenor) & William Sharp (baritone)
And Arthur Woodley (baritone) & Jamie J. Offenbach (bass)
Conducted by Marin Alsop

"For those who do not already know it (which will be nearly everyone, although there is
a previous recording�9/77) this will be an astonishing discovery. Gershwin's first opera was
written as part of George White's 1922 Scandals and although one or two critics recognized
its importance, it was generally derided and the impresario had it removed from the bill.
The libretto by B. G. DeSylva is little more than a bar-room parody of the worst operatic
cliches�which include an aria ''Vi, I'm expecting a telegram''. The 23-year-old Gershwin's
music, however, exhibits all the qualities that later grew into his mastery of total American
music and which, to a large extent, laid down the rules and the technique for future
generations of American opera composers.

The Overture leaps forward with all the vigour of later Gershwin essays in similar jazz-
oriented style and the main song, ''Blue Monday Blues'', is as strong a parody of the blues
style as anyone had created up to that time. One needs to try and imagine the impact of
this piece on an audience in 1922�when even ragtime had yet to be heard as anything
but an aberration. Five years before Showboat and 13 before Porgy, Blue Monday seems
to be really the first true ''jazz opera''. Its brevity does not lend itself to much
interpretation but all the soloists throw themselves into their roles with feeling�happily
there is no sense of condescending parody. It makes one realize how little we still know
of Gershwin's total theatrical oeuvre�when will we ever hear Treasure Girl, Show Girl,
Song of the Flame or Pardon My English?

Marin Alsop conducts her own Concordia orchestra, which she founded in 1984, in
Oscar Levant's Caprice for orchestra, an agreeable interlude originally conceived for
a radio show in 1940, and which Joseph Smith's informative notes tell us was once
featured by Beecham. Leslie Stifelman plays the Gershwin Concerto with clarity and
strength�I have heard more subtle performances of it, but it is the perfect companion
piece to the opera, showing the progress the composer was making in his quest for
the American sound."
Gramophone





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No.25

This album contains a number of remarkable works. A link between Debussy and Messiaen,
Andr� Caplet's (1878-1925) unique writing can be appreciated in the Conte
Fantastique d'apr�s Le Masque de la Mort Rouge d' Edgar Allen Poe, for solo harp and
string orchestra (1908), with its bold gestures, greatly advanced harmonies, novel harp techniques
(harmonics, sweeping glissandi, sharp attacks, knocking on the wood of the frame) and unique
string writing (harmonic glissandi, fleeting fragments, sound-gestures). This "impressionism"
has fervor and energy. We begin amidst a foreboding atmosphere, are taken into the celestial
dance music of the ball in the Prince's tower, then the tolling of the chimes opens onto concluding
terror.

Les pri�res (The Prayers, 1914) are lyrical settings, with harp and string quartet, of the
Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Apostle's Creed, completed while Caplet was serving at the
war front. They are filled with clear and direct writing, and heartfelt emotional expression.
The Divertissements pour harpe (1924) are wonderful character pieces, the first "a la
fran�aise" with interrupted cascading arpeggios, and the second "a l'espagnole" with the harp
handled like a flamenco guitar, sometimes played with the fingernails. Deux sonnets (1924),
for soprano and harp, sets lines by du Bellay and du Ronsard, the first expressing a yearning for
one's homeland, and the second a yearning for a loved one. The unusual and spectacular
Septuor � cordes vocales et instrumentales (Septet for vocal cords and strings, 1909) is for
three wordless female voices and string quartet. The highly rhapsodic music evolves in an
impressionistic flow that is at times on-the-edge-of-your-seat dramatic and at times lanquid
and sensuous. The vocalises become more complex and overwhelming in a distant land
of equally earthly and heavenly energies.



Music Composed by Andr� Caplet
Played by the Ensemble Musique Oblique

"The Conte Fantastique (based on Poe's The Masque of the Red Death) is for harp
and string quartet. It is also known from a Path�-Marconi-EMI recording for full
string orchestra with Pr�tre conducting ORTF forces. This is a macabre tale told
through eerily suggestive and minimalistic music. It carries elements of Ravel's
Introduction and Allegro and Debussy's Danses sacr�es et Danses Profanes.
Strange harmonics careen across the score and whisps and veils of lush sound
sweep slowly by. The dancing of the nobleman's court is a vaporous and effete
thing rather than vigorous. Much of the writing is very quiet, sighed out, confidingly
cackled and whispered. The d�nouement when death in the form of the harp is
unveiled is magically done. It is like an extension of the creepiest music in The
Firebird married with middle-period Schoenberg.

Then come the sombre and Spartan Les Pri�res for singer, harp and string quartet.
These are almost ascetic except in the devoutly climaxed Symboles des Ap�tres
which is most originally and inventively structured. The two Divertissements for
solo harp are dedicated to the harpist Micheline Kahn. The first A la fran�aise, in
its chiming parabolic flight, recalls the first movement of Cyril Scott's First Piano
Concerto of 1914-15. The second A l'espagnole accommodates the complete
gamut of flamenco from the guitar to the stamping of polished steely heels.
Once again this is very original and inventive writing. After the reserve of Les
Pri�res the two secular sonnets come as a relief. The first, Quand reverai-je,
h�las superbly captures the miniature mood: the small vision of home for which
the singer pines. And there is more ecstatic pining in the Ronsard setting Doux
fut le trait (Sweet was the dart).

The Septet for string quartet and three vocalising women's voices is from 1907.
At 14:24 it is the second longest piece here. Here is another work using vocalise
to add to Foulds, Medtner, RVW, Gliere and Rachmaninov. The trio of voices add
a more directly lissom, sometimes melismatic, sometimes crooningly lyrical strand,
often high in the stave. These voices are more forwardly immediate than those
in Debussy's Sir�nes. The effect is not sensuous but mysterious and appetisingly
distant."
Musicweb



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No.26

Aaron Copland's interests in American vernacular traditions were most fully realized in his song
arrangements for voice and piano. Varied in inspiration, these take on themes -- political and religious,
folk and theatrical -- presenting a diversified portrait of America itself, linked by the unity of Copland's
style. The five songs in the first set feature predominantly major modes, diatonic harmonies, and a
certain directness in character. Copland's personal stamp is apparent in the comic minstrel song
"The Boatmen's Dance," (wherein he rewrote portions of the black dialect to avoid offensive racial
implications); the sentimental love song "Long Time Ago"; the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts"; the topical
song "The Dodger"; and the children's song "I Bought Me a Cat" (complete with barnyard sounds
in the accompaniment). As always, he refashioned these tunes as he saw fit, whether by altering
a few notes to smooth out the melody in "Simple Gifts," or condensing the number of stanzas in
"The Dodger" from seven to three. The latter satirizes a political candidate, preacher, and lover,
while stanzas about the lawyer, doctor, merchant, and farmer were omitted. Nevertheless, Copland's
evocation of banjo playing marvelously captures the folk sensibility of the original.

The warm reception of the Old American Songs in 1951 prompted Copland to write an
immediate sequel, Old American Songs II, made up of settings of "The Little Horses," "Zion's
Walls," "The Gold Willow Tree," "At the River," and "Ching-a-Ring Chaaw." Although they elicited
little critical comment at the time, these became extremely popular and remain so to this day.
As with the first set, Copland preserves the tunes' rhetorical directness and simple diatonic
harmonies in his arrangements, while adding numerous personal touches. In the camp-meeting
spiritual "Zion's Walls," for example, he adds a novel contrasting section based on his own
countermelody to the original tune, while he entirely rearranges the ballad "The Gold Willow
Tree." In "Ching-a-Ring Chaw" he purged the text of its racial implications and revised the
story about African-American immigration to Haiti as a more general utopian fantasy. The
Old American Songs II were premiered by baritone William Warfield with Copland
at the piano on July 24, 1953.

Charles Ives, another American original, composed a large quantity of songs, mostly
for male voice and piano. The selection presented here alternates comical, even satirical
songs with more sombre, serious ones.



Music by Aaron Copland & Charles Ives
Performed by Samuel Ramey (bass) & Warren Jones (piano)

"Otherwise they are quite distinct from each other, when Samuel Ramey and his
excellent accompanist treat them far more as art songs, with subtler shading of
phrase and tempo, and a more extreme range of speeds within each song. Ramey's
focus is much sharper than Willard White's, and it is only in part a question of vocal
quality.

In the ten Ives songs which he provides as fill-up he deftly avoids the obvious
pitfalls in writing which is only parodistic in part, whether in the overtly sentimental
fragments or the rousing songs like The Circus Band and the patriotic First World
War song, He is there!. They have to be treated seriously, but yet not inflated,
and Ramey achieves that very convincingly. It makes an illuminating contrast
having Ives's much more idiosyncratic setting of At the River as well as Copland's."
Gramophone





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Canteloube arranged for chamber orchestra: that's a real find!

---------- Post added at 09:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 AM ----------

I just finished listening to the Canteloube arrangements and was very pleasantly surprised to find out that they do not detract from the magnificent and opulently orchestrated originals. A real find indeed and my renewed thanks to wimpel!

No.27

Ernest Bloch composed chamber music throughout his life. In addition to duos for
voice, violin, viola, cello, flute and trumpet, all with piano accompaniment, he wrote one
piano trio, five substantial string quartets, several smaller pieces for string quartet, and
two piano quintets.

The Piano Quintet No.1 was completed in March 1923 after two years of arduous effort.
It had originally been conceived as a three-movement sonata for cello and piano, incorporating
some themes that Bloch had created during his childhood; but it was shelved while he was
working on the second movement. Having almost destroyed the mass of accumulated sketches
in a moment of depression, he came to the realization that a larger framework could successfully
accommodate his expanding ideas; and the medium of string quartet plus piano�with the
piano as ensemble instrument rather than solo�was selected. The result was a work of epic
dimensions lasting over half an hour, and comprising three movements.

Bloch wrote several Impressionistic miniatures for string quartet during the 1920s. Night
and Paysages (Landscapes) were written in Cleveland between 8 and 13 December 1923;
and the premiere of these works was given by the Flonzaley Quartet in Florida in February 1924.
Night is similar in mood and style to his other �nocturnal� works, for example the slow
movement of the Viola Suite (1919), In the Night (a �Love Poem� for piano, 1922,
also in an orchestral version), Nuit exotique for violin and piano (1924) and Three Nocturnes
for piano trio (1924). It is a tenebral evocation of Bloch�s love of nature, with limpid melodies,
oscillating accompanimental figurations, and gently pulsating rhythms. This work, too, ends
with a magical chord of C major. The dedicatee is the American composer Roger Sessions
(1896�1985), one of Bloch�s most illustrious pupils. Depiction of the natural world is again the
focus in Paysages (Landscapes), but here the geographical locations of each of the three
contrasting movements are clearly delineated: the frozen wastes of the Arctic, the lush
vegetation of the Alpine landscape, and the pulsating energy of life as lived in the islands
of the South Pacific.

The Piano Quintet No.2, composed between February and July 1957, was the last piece
of chamber music that Bloch wrote. He was already suffering from the colonic cancer to
which he finally succumbed two years later, and had been unsure as to whether he would
live long enough to complete the commission received from the Music Department of the
University of California at Berkeley to contribute a work for the inauguration of the Alfred
Hertz Memorial Hall of Music during the May T Morrison Festival in 1958. Bloch was
characteristically determined to honour this invitation, especially as he had had a close
relationship with Berkeley; and indeed, of the six composers invited to join in this project
(the others being Arthur Bliss, Darius Milhaud, Roger Sessions, William O Smith, and
Randall Thompson), his was the first work to be submitted. The premiere was given by
Marjorie Petray and the Griller Quartet in the Hertz Hall on 15 April 1958.



Music Composed by Ernest Bloch
Played by the Goldner String Quartet
With Piers Lane (piano)

"A fabulous CD this, easily the best recording of Bloch's chamber music I've heard
in years � the first Quintet, a product of the early 1920s, seems to combine the acerbic
drive of middle-period Bart�k with the kind of veiled sensuality one associates more
with Chausson or Faur�. Bloch's use of quarter-tones, aimed at intensifying the work's
already heightened emotional atmosphere, requires careful handling, and the Goldner
Quartet make them sound both musically striking and entirely natural. If you need a
sampling-point, try the finale's opening, where the sense of urgency will hold you
riveted � the Quintet's quiet coda is rapturously beautiful and the blending of voices
between Piers Lane and the Goldners simply could not be bettered � the music is
truly wonderful, the playing entirely sympathetic and the sound perfectly balanced."
Gramophone



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No.28

Aubert Lemeland's (*1932) song-cycle Airmen sets to music poems written by
dead English air-force pilots; it's scored for soprano, narrator, harp, and strings. Almost
the same orchestration is used for Soldats morts (Songs for the Dead Soldiers).
On the other hand, other tracks have similarities in terms of the inclusion of horn and
wind intruments. The inclusion makes the compositions sound rhythmical and quasi
neo-classical in form. Even though differently arranged, the sensitive melancholy in
melodic and harmonic content still plays the dominant role in his musical diction,
whereas his brass treatment reminds us of another prolific composer - Darius Milhaud.



Music Composed by Aubert Lemeland
Played by the Ensemble Instrumentale de Grenoble
And the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz
With Carole Farley (soprano)
Conducted by Marc Tardue & Jos� Serebrier

"American soprano Carole Farley has sung operatic roles such as Mim�, Cio-Cio San,
Tosca, Kundry, Violetta, and Constanze, but because she has specialized in operas
outside the standard repertoire, particularly twentieth century works, and is deeply
committed to living composers, as well as to relatively obscure composers of the
recent past, she is not widely known to traditional opera audiences.

Farley received her training from Indiana University and as a Fulbright Scholar at
the Hochschule f�r Musik, Munich. She made her recital debut at New York's Town
Hall in 1969. At the Metropolitan Opera, Farley made her debut as Mim� in 1975,
and went on to sing Lulu in 1977, and the Met's premiere of Lady Macbeth of
Mtsensk in 1994. Lulu was a signature role of hers and she sang it over 100 times,
in four languages, including the British premiere at the Welsh National Opera in
1971. She also gave over 100 performances of Salome. During the last quarter
of the twentieth century she sang at the New York City Opera, the Chicago Lyric
Opera, the Canadian Opera, and Th��tre de la Monnaie, as well as the houses
of Brussels, Lyon, Z�rich, Cologne, Florence, and Turin, among others.

She has devoted much of her career to newer music and has sung works of
Jan�cek, Schoenberg, Weill, Britten, Rorem, Bernstein, and Bolcom. She is also
committed to lesser known composers, such as Ernesto Lecuona, Aubert
Lemeland, and conductor Jos� Serebrier, to whom she is married. Her recordings
include works by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Delius, Milhaud, Prokofiev, and Richard
Strauss. One of her most popular releases is a video of two one-act operas,
Poulenc's La voix humaine and Menotti's The Telephone."



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No.29

Alphons Diepenbrock (1862-1921) was the leading Dutch composer of his era, an extraordinary
achievement for a man whose formal training was in classical languages and Greek and Roman literature.
His official musical education ended with the lessons he received as a boy, from which he demonstrated
prodigious skills at the keyboard and on the violin. While studying classics, he learned music theory on
his own and led a choir. He was drawn to the work of Palestrina and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, and
also to the music of Wagner. He began composing music in his teens, which included songs and choral
works as well as the Academische feestmarsch for winds. He spent the 1880s working on his doctorate
and later became an instructor in classics, keeping his hand in composition with such choral works as
Les Elfes (1887).

From 1905 until the outbreak of World War I, Diepenbrock was a prolific composer, principally of
symphonic songs and ambitious choral works, among them Die Nacht (1911) (from H�lderlin)
for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, Im grossen Schweigen (1906) (from Nietzsche) for baritone
and orchestra, and Marsayas or The Enchanted Well (1910), the latter a "mythical comedy"
derived from classical literature. Diepenbrock took his patriotic role as a composer during the war
very seriously, authoring topical songs expressing opposition to Germany.



Music Composed by Alphons Diepenbrock
Played by the Residentie Orchestra The Hague
With Linda Finnie (mezzo-soprano) & Robert Holl (bass)
And Christoph Homberger (tenor)
Conducted by Hans Vonk

"I allowed myself a cautious 'if' and 'but' or two when welcoming the first volume
of Chandos's bravely risk-taking Diepenbrock series, but about this second issue
there can be no reservations: this is quite stunningly fine music, and superbly performed.

How to describe it? Difficult, but think firstly of a Strauss song on the scale of his
tone-poems (the average length of these pieces is over 17 minutes, the longest
plays for nearly 23). Imagine, next, a palette often darker than Strauss's, with
highlights more glinting than brilliant and textures of an at times fantastic richness.
They must be hellishly difficult to conduct; one can readily imagine them sounding
murky and clogged in unsympathetic hands, hence their neglect until now, perhaps.
Vonk clarifies them very beautifully, but without in any way diminishing their
luxuriance or giving the slightest suggestion that flawed orchestration is being
helped. His faith in the originality and the sheer rightness of Diepenbrock's
vision is powerfully communicated.

The texts that Diepenbrock chose for these symphonic Lieder (by Novalis,
Holderlin and Nietzsche) deal with deep philosophical issues that were clearly
of great moment to him, and he responded with impressively big musical images.
Where a tolling bell reminds Nietzsche of the folly of human existence it is no
mere onomatopoeic tintinnabulation that we hear, but real and expressive
music suggested both by bells and by the sentiment of the poem. Diepenbrock's
imagination is rich enough even to engage critically with Nietzsche's nihilism;
the most memorable moment in Im grossen Schweigen is the epilogue, in which
an eloquent and beautiful melody (in fact the plainchant Ave maris stella)
triumphantly denies the bitterness of Nietzsche's conclusion.

It is a noble song, this, with its urgently powerful sea music and the solemn
gravity of its declamation, but the second of the Hymnen an die Nacht is
scarcely less fine. The images here are of bright but transitory day (a vivid
trumpet call) contrasted with the consolatory dark warmth of night (a richly
Wagnerian texture of scalic motifs), but the voice meditating upon this
contrast has its own gravely lyrical subject, which rises to a splendidly
sonorous, almost Mahlerian climax with solo strings supporting the vocal line.
The Hymne is slighter, the metre of Novalis's text trapping Diepenbrock
into a rather repetitive 12/8 rhythm, but Die Nacht is a gorgeous nocturne,
more serene than the second of the Hymnen an die Nacht, with a sunset
glow to it. The main melody here is of an entranced lyricism, its kinship
to Mahler pointed by the presence of a mandoline in the orchestra, but
what seems to be pure Diepenbrock is the frequent use of a passionate
obbligato violin, an image of the humanity to which the beauty of night
is indifferent; another nobly beautiful song, and sung with full-voiced
solemnity by Linda Finnie, while Robert Holl has all the grandeur of tone and
utterance that Im grossen Schweigen needs. And, praise be, the recording is
of excellent quality, with exemplary balance between voices and orchestra.
An exciting and important coupling; I do urge you to hear it."
Gramophone



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Some of the most gorgeous orchestral songs this side of Mahler and Strauss!
hanks!

No.30

In 1904, when the original versions of both these works (allegedly) first saw the light of day, the
world was not exactly awash with piano quintets. When Frank Bridge and Cyril Scott were born, the
miraculous year 1879 that also gave us John Ireland, Thomas Beecham and Hamilton Harty,
there were, apart from Schumann�s pioneering masterpiece, only two of consequence, by
Brahms (1864) and Franck (1878), both vast, passionate and causing their composers enormous
problems of one sort or another; then Stanford in 1886 and Dvorak in 1887. 1904 was a landmark
for the genre; on the continent Faur� - whom Bridge met and knew - coming to the end of an 18
year struggle with his 1st quintet and Bart�k completing his massive score. What motivated
Bridge and Scott though was very likely Josef Holbrooke, only a year their senior but a prodigy;
rebel, pioneer, standard-bearer and rallying point for new British composers, whose own
quintet had made a powerful impression at that time.

Today Bridge is a more familiar name than Scott (and certainly Holbrooke). History has been
kinder to him, reassessment earlier. With great fluency and an increasingly individual voice he
produced not just high-class chamber music, miniatures, songs, solo pieces and unpatronising
works within the grasp of decent amateurs that kept his name (just) alive in the dark days
of his reputation�s nadir, but orchestral scores and three extended ensemble. His Piano Quintet
in D minor is a poetic, narrative work following an agenda where expression dominates form;
passionate, lyrical or florid, forceful by dint of intent rather than structural mastery or prioritising
form. Perhaps for two movements, Adagio con gran espressione is about intensity, growing as, after an opening
passage for quartet, �cello, then violin, then tutti strings take up expressive material which turns
out to be the joyous theme transformed at the end of the scherzo. Then a fresh motif develops
a sustained stream of consciousness section of motivic renewal and extension, temporarily
side-tracked by an intermezzo whose initial playfulness interrupts the emotion but is steadily
ousted by the original theme which grows chromatically to a climax, gradually subsides and
leads, with earlier music, to the Finale. This is formally complex and another tour-de-force of
carefully organised metrical flux. The first section, based on two subjects, is marked Allegro non
troppo and drives forward in exultant mood. The middle section, more reflective, presages the
idyllic landscape of Howells�s 1917 Phantasy Quartet. The mood is then flamboyantly restored
in a grand roundup of earlier material.

The gestation of Scott�s Piano Quintet No.1 is more complex than the Bridge because Scott
always destroyed originals after revising or withdrawing a piece. It needs probing. Received
wisdom is far from consistent. Most - though not all - agree that the piece from which it
eventually evolved was a sextet written in 1904-5. Whether string or piano sextet depends on
whom you believe. Lewis Foreman says �sextet (or quintet)�. Scott�s friend Eaglefield Hull�s
biography (1921) which describes with music examples what is clearly the piece recorded here,
says piano sextet, that it was hugely recast as a quintet in 1911 (as was Bridge�s), significantly
the year Scott became a vedantist.



Music by Frabk Bridge & Cyril Scott
Played by the Bingham String Quartet
With Raphael Terroni (piano)

"The British Music Society originally issued these pioneer recordings of neglected
works on cassette but it is welcome that they now come on CD, if sadly too late
for the fine pianist, Raphael Terroni, to endorse them (the force behind the project,
he died last August). The results may have originally been recorded as long ago
as 1989 but the balance of sound remains excellent.

Frank Bridge�s Piano Quintet was originally written as a four-movement work in
1904 but radically revised in 1912: he rewrote the development sections of the
outer movements and brought together the two middle movements, using his
experience of the Phantasy form prescribed in the WW Cobbett Competiton.
One can tell that Bridge was a string player rather than a pianist by the writing,
which consistently favours the string quartet. That rather contradicts the idea
that the piano represents his beloved Ethel (later his wife), set against himself
represented by the strings. Nevertheless, the results are both moving and
powerful, most of all in the long first movement. The incorporation of the
scherzo section as the central B section of the middle movement also
works well.

Cyril Scott�s First Piano Quintet emerges as very much the work of a pianist-
composer and is dedicated to Debussy. Scott�s devotion is plain from his
use of the pentatonic scale and the regular use of parallel chords, notably
in the piano-writing. The results are warmly expressive and spontaneous-
sounding over all four movements. It is good to have these fine works
available on disc at last."
Gramophone





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No.31

David Diamond composed his First String Quartet in 1940, at the age of 26 in Saratoga Springs,
N.Y. His work, which was dedicated to Hermann Broch, resulted in a New York Music Critics Circle Nomination
in 1940 and, together with his Symphony No. 1, the Prix de Rome in 1942. The work has been cited as being
"laid out in three continuous sections. By turns melodiously serene and harmonically spiky, always rhythmically
robust. It is the work of a young composer fully secure in his mastery over the formal elements of music."
(Bret Webb 1997). Diamond completed his Fifth Quartet in 1960, which was premiered by the Juilliard
String Quartet in the Juilliard Concert Hall, New York, on February 10, 1961. "My Fifth String Quartet was
begun on February 2, 1960, and completed on June 5, 1960, in Florence, Italy. The work is cyclical in formal
conception. All three movements are thematically related. The principle of constant variation governs the thematic,
harmonic and rhythmic invention; and strong dynamic contrasts emphasize it." In 1962, Diamond completed
String Quartet No.6, composed in honor of Darius Milhaud's 70th birthday. The first performance took
place at Butler Auditorium in Capen Hall, Buffalo, N.Y. on December 5, 1963 by the Beaux-Arts Quartet, with
the composer in attendance.



Music Composed by David Diamond
Played by The Potomac String Quartet

"Beautifully prepared and played, this is music-making of the highest calibre.

I discussed his String , Quartet No.1, which was composed at Yaddo in 1940, in
an interview in 1995. Other visitors to that well-known artists' colony that year
included Hermann Broch, who was overseeing the translation of The Death of Virgil.
it's] such a moving novel,' Diamond said, 'and I just knew when I finished the quartet
that it would be dedicated to him, because somehow the book itself inspired me so
very much.' 'Somehow' is the key word there, as the youthful freshness and textural
and structural clarity of Diamond's very American-sounding score seem at odds with
Broch's dense, ornate and Germanic prose style. Perhaps the inspiration was simply
the novel's lyrical intensity, and certainly Diamond's music is notable for its tautly
argued yet expansive eloquence; even the most driving passages of the main
Allegro section sing. In any case, it's an impressive first quartet -lovable, even -
and one that deserves to be far better known.

Skip forward two decades, and one finds Diamond's craftsmanship more finely
honed, though his musical language is less immediately inviting. The motivic
concision, density and ingenuity of the String Quartet No 5 (1960) is worthy of
careful study, for example, but I cannot honestly see it, nor the more songful but
equally pungent Quartet No 6 (1962), being readily embraced by even the most
intrepid ensembles. All the more reason, then, to give thanks for this superb
recording. The Potomac Quartet make a case for the importance of Diamond's
music with unflagging affection, concentration and ebullience. And a very
convincing case it is, particularly in the Fifth and Sixth Quartets; music-making
of this calibre is a joy to return to."
Gramophone





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---------- Post added at 12:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:26 PM ----------




No.32

An album for completists on the popular British composer Malcolm Arnold.

Featured are some rare® chamber pieces, like the short Piano Trio, op.54,
the superb Fantasy for Cello, op.130 written for Julian Lloyd-Webber (about
the last Arnold work of real substance), an arrangement of the suite from
the ballet Homage to the Queen for solo piano, the Five Pieces for Violin and Piano,
and a substantial suite from the film score Hobson's Choice in a delightful
arrangement for piano trio by Leslie A. Hogan.



Music Composed by Malcolm Arnold
Played by the St. Clair Piano Trio

[i]"In this delightful compact disc, the St. Clair Trio presents a chamber music overview
of the music of Malcolm Arnold, that treasure among English twentieth-century
composers who kept composing comprehensible tonal music with solid workmanship,
genuine feeling, and good tunes right on through decades when the cognoscenti
dismissed such "reactionary" elements as irrelevant to history.

The Trio is based in Detroit and comprises violinist Emmanuelle Boisvert, cellist Marcy
Chanteaux, and pianist Pauline Martin. They present a program on this disc in various
combinations. All three play in Leslie A Hogan's cheerful arrangement of music from
Arnold's score to the Charles Laughton film Hobson's Choice, deftly capturing the
British music hall elements in the score. (Another thing for which Arnold was routinely
put down was his tendency to drop in pop music elements unpredictably.)

Martin takes a solo turn in Homage to the Queen, a piano version of the deftly Neo-
Classical ballet score Arnold wrote for the 1953 Coronation presentation of Sadler's
Wells Theatre Ballet. The pianist is alert to the brief and clever parodies of such
patriotic thumpers as the Pomp and Circumstance March in the final "Homage March"
movement.

All three players unite again for Arnold's Op. 54 Piano Trio. The Trio here copes with
full understanding with Arnold's tense and serious side, not easy to do since he
was also unfailingly concise, here requiring his players to make his point in three
movements totaling less than eleven minutes.

Boisvert and Martin co-operate beautifully in the Five Pieces for Violin and Piano,
written to be crowd-pleasing encores for Yehudi Menuhin, and Chanteaux deals
very well with the relatively introspective Fantasy for Cello solo, Op. 130.

The record is produced and engineered by Michael Fine, a guarantee of quality
in all respects that is fully observed here. Highly recommended."
All Music





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No.33

As the environmental movement took hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and �save
the whales� became more than just a bumper sticker, George Crumb�s groundbreaking Vox
Balaenae provided a distinct musical voice to this cause while creating a richly vivid landscape
(or seascape) of sound and texture. Crumb puts the contemporary relationship between man and
whale on a much broader scale, painting a picture that encapsulates the vast spans of history that
predate man�s interaction with the sea and its inhabitants before introducing the inevitable conflict.
This chronological musical journey touches upon elements of science, history, religion and existential
philosophy, as well various moral and ethical questions. The players each wear black half-masks
throughout the performance of the work. In Crumb�s own words, �by effacing a sense of human
projection, [the masks] will symbolize the powerful, impersonal faces of nature,� while the oft-used
blue lighting enhances the figurative immersion into the sea. Although inspired by recordings of
humpback whale song, Crumb bypasses the use of tape and instead calls upon the three musicians
to produce sounds naturally aided by amplification and extended technique, allowing for a
remarkable scope of range in dynamics, color and emotion.

The Madrigals were composed between 1965 and 1969. Like many of Crumb's most
significant works, including Songs, Drones and Refrains of Death (1968) and Ancient Voices of
Children (1970), they are constructed from fragments of poetry by Federico Garcia Lorca. In a
sense, his many Lorca pieces constitute, as the composer has pointed out, "an extended cycle." Still,
each work stands firmly on its own merits. The four books, which last about thirty-two minutes in
performance, are scored for soprano and a variety of instruments: vibraphone and double bass in
Book One, alto flute (doubling flute and piccolo) and percussion in Book Two, harp and percussion
in Book Three, and flute, harp, bass and percussion in Book Four.

A somewhat more human-centered view of nature is evident in the nine-minute An Idyll for
the Misbegotten for amplified flute and percussion, composed in 1985. Once again, the
theatrical element is paramount. Crumb suggests, "impractically," that the music be "heard
from afar, over a lake, on a moonlit evening in August."



Music Composed by George Crumb
Played by the University of Pennsylvania Chamber Players
With Zizi Mueller (flute) & Jan DeGaetani (mezzo-soprano)
Conducted by Richard Wernick

"Since George Crumb's soundscapes are imagined with such precision and
sensitivity they are usually grateful for the performer and so too for the listener.
Since they are predominantly soft and slow, however, and since all the musical
meaning is on or close to the surface, they can easily be boring unless the
performance has an element of charisma.

Jan DeGaetani has that charisma, certainly far more so than Anne-Marie M�hle,
on the rival recording of the Madrigals (BIS). Listening to her vibrant and dramatic
singing, it is possible to believe that these settings of Lorca's deathhaunted
poetry add up to one of the most impressive song-cycles of our time and that
Crumb's distinctive brand of musical onomatopoeia is more than just attractive
musical wallpaper.

Vox Balaenae ("The Voice of the Whale") is better known in Britain, thanks
largely to performances by Douglas Young's ensemble Dreamtiger (who also
recorded the piece on Cameo Classics—LP only). Here Crumb's sound-effects
are at their most haunting, and the ingenious evocations of exotic percussion,
using only flute, cello, piano and a couple of kitchen accessories, can only be
admired. The new recording is admirable in many ways, but I nevertheless
found myself assembling a catalogue of niggling criticisms �the flautist's
singing-and-playing imperfectly balanced, a piano string-glissando not done
with the fingernail as requested, quartertones too wide, and so on�which
probably would not have registered at all had the inner intensity been stronger.

An Idyll for the Misbegotten purports to represent the condition of "the species
homo sapiens at the present moment in time". The ten-minute piece for flute
and percussion is accordingly doom-and-gloomy and the atmospheric
performance it receives here is barely enough to sustain one's interest.

Madrigals was recorded in 1969 and sounds rather studio-bound (a drawback
Jan DeGaetani triumphantly overcomes). The other works are beautifully
recorded, although with insufficient silence allowed between them. D.J.F."





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No.34

There is still a strong affection for English "musical comedies" from the early years of the last century.
A good example is Harold Fraser-Simson's The Maid of the Mountains. The smash hit of 1917,
it boasts many 'hit' numbers of yesteryear, the most famous of which are "A bachelor gay" ('At seventeen
he falls in love quite madly �'), "Love will find a way" ('Whate'er befall, I still recall that sunlit
mountainside, where hearts are true, and skies are blue, and love's the only guide'), "Husbands and
wives" and "A paradise for two." There are also humorous interludes; Altogether well over an hour's
worth of tuneful and good-natured entertainment with a strong cast conducted by the master of English
light music, Ronald Corp. During the dark days of the First World War, two shows provided
London theatre-goers with romantic musical escapism. The Oscar Asche/Frederic Norton �musical tale
of the east� Chu Chin Chow notched up a London long-running record of 2,238 consecutive
performances that would last for almost forty years. Though the 1,352 consecutive performances of
The Maid of the Mountains seem modest by comparison, that itself was almost twice the previous
record, and the run was terminated only when its leading lady Jos� Collins cried �Enough!�.

Harold Fraser-Simson (15 August 1872 � 19 January 1944), was an English composer of light music,
including songs and the scores to musical comedies. His most famous musical was the World War I hit,
The Maid of the Mountains, and he later set numerous children's poems to music, especially those
of A. A. Milne. After the success of the piece presented here, he wrote several more musical comedies.



Music Composed by Harold Fraser-Simson
Played by the New London Orchestra
Conducted by Ronald Corp

"What particularly distinguishes this recording is its use of full chorus and orchestra,
playing the original orchestrations. In the way Ronald Corp lets the music breathe, one
really senses the opulence of the original production and the full flavour of what can
only struggle through the acoustic sound of 83 years ago. Altogether this seems to
me a quite outstandingly successful re-creation of the work. Sceptics will carp, but it
is a hugely important contribution to preserving our British musical theatre heritage.
I can envisage the romantic hit numbers providing rich material on the air-waves
for some time to come."
Gramophone





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So much stuff here already! I only had time to sample the Caplet and Bridge/Scott discs.

I really enjoyed the Caplet - Conte Fantastique sounds like what Debussy could have written after his Sonata for harp, viola, and flute. Couldn't really get into the Bridge quintet as much as I wanted to. Maybe someday I'll be able to listen past what sounded like a typical Romantic quintet to me...

Anyway, thanks!!!

No.35

Because Peter Schickele has been so successful as his amusing alter ego �P.D.Q. Bach,� he is
insufficiently recognized as a serious composer. In 1983 the Audubon Quartet commissioned Schickele
to write his String Quartet No.1, titled American Dreams. The Audubon is the definitive
interpreter of the work. Its five movements include a second movement that explores the timbres and
rhythms of American jazz, a lyrical middle movement . . . based on the songs of birds and other sounds
of the natural world, and a fourth movement that is pure dance . . . . The work is a unified and satisfying
work that is profoundly American in concept.

Schickele's half-hour piece is an inspired hodgepodge of styles and influences, with echoes of Virgil
Thomson-ish pseudo-folkery, bird song, country fiddling, Bartok, Charlie Parker, Native American chant,
Sibelius, Jean-Luc Ponty and heaven knows what else.



Music Composed by Peter Schickele
Played by the Audubon Quartet
With Peter Schickele (piano)

"A new CD of Peter Schickele's music is always cause for rejoicing, since
Mr. Schickele is one of the most under-recorded American composers of our time,
and this CD is one of the most American of them all. It contains two String
Quartets of evocative music with American connections: #1 "American Dreams"
and #5 "A Year in the Country". Between these is the Quintet #1 with the Audubon
Quartet joined on piano by perhaps the foremost interpreter of Mr. Schickele's
music, himself. This is, of course, the non-parody, non-P.D.Q. Bach side of
Schickele, but that doesn't stop him from unusal practices like making violinists
play their violins as if they were fiddles. The music ranges from pulsing jazz riffs
("Four Studies") to lively program music ("Birds" and "Bugs") to gut-wrenching
melancholy ("At John Burroughs' Grave"). It makes a nice companion to the
similar CD by the Lark Quartet of Schickele's Quartet #2 and Quintet #2. The liner
notes have the usual great descriptions of the history and structure of all the
works, but an inexplicable complete absense of any biographical information
about the Audubon Quartet members. My one complaint about the CD is the
inclusion of the String Quartet #1, which has previously been recorded beautifully
by the Audubons, instead of something like the String Quartet #4 ("Inter-Era
Dance Suite"), which nobody has ever recorded, and which has also been
played beautifully by the Audubons. This recording of #1 is in general a better
performance than the original on RCA (with the amazing exception of the bird
calls in the third movement which sounded more like the actual birds in the
original recording), but I'm greedy enough to rather have something new
from a composer who has written so much great music that's never been
recorded."
Amazon Reviewer





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No.36

The Austrian composer Joseph Marx was for much of his long career a musical authority of world
renown. Within his large output, his songs were amongst his greatest musical achievements, unifying
romanticism, impressionism and expressionism with revolutionary results. Many thought him the rightful
successor to Hugo Wolf and yet today the name and music of Joseph Marx have fallen into obscurity.
The �Marx style� is unmistakable. It is characterised by a highly personal compositional technique
displaying a polyphonic harmony of full sonority, allied to masterly contrapuntal skills, and frequent
key changes which occur apparently at random but are in fact distributed with utter logic. The music
strikes the listener as timeless, refreshingly modern and, above all, surprising, able to exploit tonal
means of expression to the full and raise the spirits of every true lover of melody.

Three works are of particular note. Herbstchor an Pan, a single-movement cantata written
in 1911, lasts very nearly twenty minutes and was Marx�s first, and for many years only, orchestral
composition. It has inexplicably fallen into oblivion in the past five decades. However, it has turned out
to be one of the masterpieces of its entire era. Ein Neujahrshymnus (A Hymn for the New Year) is
richly orchestrated and demonstrates the profound romantic vein of Joseph Marx; it is here performed
for the first time in its orchestral version. This disc represents not only the first recording of
Berghymne but also its world premiere performance.



Music Composed by Joseph Marx
Played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
With Christine Brewer (soprano)
And the Trinity Boys Choir & Apollo Voices
Condcuted by Jir� Belohl�vek

"Although these works are rarely done, the performers sound completely
at ease with them and, where appropriate, suitably transcendent. Belohlavek
guides them with a sure hand, allowing the climaxes room to expand.
Chandos�s sound is at its customary high level; even in a heavily scored
work like the Autumn Chorus to Pan, vocal and orchestral balances
remain natural. In sum, an aural feast."
American Record Guide





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Thanks a million for yet another thread that is a treasure trove of rarities!

No.37

At one point in her Fifth Symphony, Galina Ustvolskaya asks the violin to play its phrase
like "a voice from under the ground." Wondering what her imagination hears from beneath the soil, one
would do well to remember that Ustvolskaya has spent her entire lifetime in that city of three names --
Petrograd, Leningrad, St. Petersburg -- and has lived through Russia's "terrible years," in which millions
of citizens were murdered in purges. As Shostakovich allegedly called his 15 symphonies "tombstones
for the victims of Stalin," one might think similarly of Ustvolskaya's own five essays in the genre.
They are vastly different than Shostakovich's: all single movements, all relatively short, only the first
for a typical orchestral ensemble. But nonetheless they seem to perform the torturous work of
remembering the unbearable, speaking the unspeakable. When the reciter of the Fifth Symphony
(whose only other forces are violin, oboe, trumpet, tuba, and wooden cube, 43x43 cm) declaims the
Lord's Prayer, Ustvolskaya asks him to dress for mourning -- "in all black" and without jewelry.
Likewise, she instructs him to recite "with inner emotion," as if reading a eulogy. What makes the
Fifth Symphony so fascinating and disquieting is how something which bears so great a weight
could sound as vacant and gray, so seemingly devoid of content. The resolution of these polar
perspectives seems to lie in Ustvolskaya's attitude on "chamber music" -- specifically, that "none
of my music, not even a solo sonata, is chamber music." Rather than hear something as austere
and unyielding as her Fifth Symphony as an object of contemplation, unfolding before us on a stage,
one might better perceive it as a space which surrounds the listener, less a "work of art" than a
sounded temple or mausoleum through which we pass.

One listens to Ustvolskaya's early Octet from 1950 and can easily make out echoes from
myriad other sound-sources. In fact, any moment of this music could come from so many times
and places: its daunting linear fortitude suggests a transformation of Medieval chant; the acute,
accruing melodic motives seem to quote Russian folk songs. And the general tone of its five
movements seem to nod to Stravinsky's Les Noces, adopting a stance of neo-primitivism,
gathering into its grand sweep a stunning rhythmic energy, and carefully estranging its folkloric
content with dissonant or polytonal harmonies. Many European and Russian composers in the
1920s through the '40s experimented with such postures.

The Quintet for piano and strings in G minor, Op. 57, by Dmitri Shostakovich, was
composed in 1940. The work was written in response to an enthusiastic request from the
members of the Beethoven String Quartet, one of the former Soviet bloc's most respected
chamber ensembles of the period. The group had recently programmed Shostakovich's first
string quartet, and had been so impressed by the piece that the players decided unanimously
to seek a new piece from the composer, which would also involve a pianist. The new work took
shape quickly, and Shostakovich completed it on September 14, 1940. Again at the request
of the four quartet members, he took the difficult piano part himself at the first performance,
given in November 1940 at the Moscow Conservatory. It proved an immediate popular and
critical success, and many commentators agreed that the quintet was among Shostakovich's
finest creations up until that point.



Music by Galina Ustvolskaya & Dmitri Shostakovich
Played by the London Musici
With Kathryn Stott (piano)
And Sergei Leiferkus (narrator)
Conducted by Mark Stephenson

"While Shostakovich's serene Piano Quintet in G minor is presented as the main attraction
on this RCA disc, the lion's share of the program is devoted to the less celebrated and
more challenging works of his student and friend, Galina Ustvolskaya. Yet as important
as her music was to Shostakovich, and as critical as his teaching was to her development,
the pieces recorded here do not clearly or convincingly illustrate the connections between
them. Indeed, Ustvolskaya's Octet is strikingly unlike Shostakovich, for the language is
more stringently atonal, and the layering techniques, brutal ostinati, and disjointed
rhythms are more like Stravinsky or Var�se. Composition No. 3 (Benedictus qui venit)
and the Symphony No. 5, "Amen," are equally avant-garde in approach, and also show
a strong preoccupation with religious matters, utterly foreign to anything in Shostakovich's
secular output. So when the sweet, Classically oriented Piano Quintet follows Ustvolskaya's
darkly dissonant works, one may be skeptical about the composers' relationship and the
depth of their influences on each other. The performances by pianist Kathryn Stott,
reciter Sergei Leiferkus, and the London Musici, conducted by Mark Stephenson, are
all polished and professional, and RCA's sound is fine."
All Music





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Wimpel, I think that's a picture of Gubaidulina. Not sure if that's what you intended... :D

Wimpel, I think that's a picture of Gubaidulina. Not sure if that's what you intended... :D

Oops! Fixed.

No.38

While Louis Vierne is best known for his organ works, his "m�lodies" form a unique part of
his oeuvre, reflecting not only his own tragic life but his reaction to the world around him
in all its beauty and pain. His vocal compositions can be both lyrical and anguished,
deliberately contrasting moments of startling simplicity and elemental fury. Based on the
four seasons of the Napoleonic calendar � Flor�al, Thermidor, Brumaire and Niv�se, Le
po�me de l�amour depicts human futility against the relentless force of nature, yet does so
with music of great beauty. In Psych� and Ballade du d�sesp�r� the artist searches for the
meaning of life; in the former l'amour (love), in the latter la mort (death).



Music Composed by Louis Vierne
Performed by Michael Bundy (baritone) & Jeremy Filsell (piano)

"Life could hardly have been more cruel than that endured by the French composer and
organist, Louis Vierne, who was born with poor sight and ended his years in blindness.
Today almost unknown outside of the organ loft, it is there that he holds an important
place among the final flowering of the Romantic era. Yet it was in his songs that he gave
vent to his feelings of frustration and the love that continually eluded him. Le po�me de
l�amour was typical of his growing view of the pointlessness of existence, its length�
over forty minutes�going through the four seasons, ending with mothers of sailors
pitifully hurling stones at the waves in a futile act of revenge at the loss of their sons.
Vierne through life was to see those, young and old, taken from him in death, yet he
never fully despaired as we hear in moments of brightness. Psyche is painted in bold
colours and big climatic moments, La ballade du d�sesp�r�, having the stranger
arriving at the house where he eventually reveals himself as Death, but is greeted
with love. We can imagine it pictures Vierne wanting to embrace death. They do
not travel well as they belong to that very specific timbre of the French school of
singing, but in British terms the baritone, Michael Bundy, is reliable and stokes up
plenty of vocal angst in Le bateau noir, the final section of Le po�me de l�amour.
His accompanist is the pianist and organist, Jeremy Filsell, who has already made
a highly acclaimed recorded of Vierne�s complete organ symphonies. Well balanced
sound."
David's Review Corner





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No.39

A collection of "forgotten" violin sonatas by British composers, dated between the first years of the 20th century
and the outbreak of World War II - plus a Cello Sonatina by Australian Arthur Benjamin. All of them in expert
performances, distinguished in particular by Jacqueline Roche's full, singing violin tone.

Joseph Holbrooke was a musical outsider for much of his career. His often luxuriant, sometimes excessive
and usually muddled orchestral works can be sampled on Marco Polo and CPO. His Violin Sonata No.3, entitled
"Orientale", is the exact opposite: clear, concise, musically stringent - though not particularly "oriental".

Sir Henry Walford Davies (see his large-scale cantata Everyman on this board) was a composer whose
German sentiments are palpable in every single one of his works. The Violin Sonata No.2 is a case in point:
the opening movement is obviously infused with the spirit of Brahms, while the Scherzo has an openly
Dvorák-ian character. But the score is well-carpentered and enjoyable in its own right.

Cyril Rootham's Violin Sonata in G minor of 1925 is also rather conservative, but more obviously British than
Walford Davies' work. Rootham had a penchant for things Celtic.

Arthur Benjamin had the "misfortune" of writing one very big light music hit, Jamaican Rumba. It overshadows
his not inconsiderable output in "serious" music - like the angry, powerful wartime Symphony. His Cello Sonatina is,
as the title implies, a lighter and more sunny work - he wrote it as a showcase for a teenage cello prodigy,
Lorne Munro. This is the only work on the album that had been recorded ever before.



Music by [see above]
Played by Jaqueline Roche (violin) & Robert Stevenson (piano)
And Justin Pearson (cello) & Sophia Rahman (piano)

"This is an age of revivals promoted through the CD catalogue � Cyril Scott and John
Foulds have benefited recently. Now we have some of Dutton�s particular favourites
adding to chamber music by Holbrooke and Benjamin as well as two Walford Davies
CDs, including his choral and orchestral Everyman (2/05).

This CD is full of surprises. The singlemovement Holbrooke Sonata is strikingly coherent
and shows a British composer taking more notice of European models than usual
in the mid-1920s. The Walford Davies dates from 1896, the year the composer went
to some trouble to visit Brahms and show him some scores. The great man approved
but his shadow has fallen on this work like so much British music of the period.
However, the Allegretto is pretty and the �Burden� anticipates the serious side of
Davies�s Solemn Melody.

Cyril Rootham is even more of a curiosity. The first movement of his 1925 Sonata
starts with some harmonic ingenuity but goes on in a notespinning continuity �
Faur� in the background rather than Brahms � with a folksy finale.

Arthur Benjamin�s Sonatina arose from the composer�s connection with the cellist
Lorne Munroe who must have premiered this Sonatina at the age of about 14. It
brings an attractive, light touch from the composer of the Jamaican Rumba.

These are fascinating byways of British music � pieces one never expected to hear �
but with performances like these anything could happen. Some of them could
even enter the mainstream."
Gramophone





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No.40

Samuel Barber's first and only String Quartet didn't end up the way he intended it to,
for the second movement eventually overshadowed the entire opus when he transcribed it for string
orchestra as the Adagio for Strings. In addition, a projected last movement never really came
together, and the piece as a whole became marked as a vehicle for bringing the Adagio to life. The first
movement has merit, however, in that it shows Barber experimenting with a style somewhat removed
from his usual hyper-melodic idiom. The finished work has two movements. The first, Molto allegro
e appassionato, is structured in a loose sonata form. Reminiscent of Beethoven and unlike, in terms
of rhetoric, most of Barber's works, it is structured around rhythmic motifs rather than on the basis
of a central, emotionally charged melody. The second movement, Molto adagio; molto allegro,
begins with one of the most famous melodies in history, the slow, sensitive cantilena which became
the Adagio for Strings. The second half of the movement, Molto allegro (originally intended to be
the last movement) is a rather unexciting and perfunctory recapitulation of first-movement material.

When Walter Piston's String Quartet No.1 was premiered on March 7, 1933, it was the
composer's second major premiere in as many days, for just the night before his Concerto for
Orchestra had been introduced under the composer's own baton. The quartet is in Piston's favored
three-movement form. It is an extremely well executed work and creates the impression that it
does precisely what the composer intended from the beginning. The three movements cover a lot
of emotional ground. The first subject of the opening Allegro movement is full of grief and
stress, and carries a powerful, irresistible 3/4 rhythm. The music relaxes into a waltz rhythm;
the music here is in the key of F minor, which is spookily prepared by a pasage in C sharp minor.
The nightmare of the first movement is dispelled by the Adagio movement. While it is sorrowful,
it is also pastoral, except for the middle section, a fugue in which some of the tension of the
first movement returns. The finale is carefree, with a lot of showy string writing, mostly
down-to-earth in mood except for some unusual modulations that almost create an
impression of bitonality.

Quincy Porter's Third String Quartet was written in 1930 and, together with the Second
Violin Sonata from the previous year, won the composer an award from the Society for the
Publication of American Music. The opening Allegro begins with a strong, thrusting theme shared
between all four instruments, with a lyrically more inward theme (again with a folk-like tinge)
as contrast. At length, the initial momentum is re-established, its surging rhythmic activity
eventually winding down to a recollection of the second theme that rounds off the movement
in an unexpected repose. The Andante picks up on this quality accordingly, unfolding as an
unbroken span of noble part-writing, and with some particularly eloquent writing for cello,
before a regretful close. The finale immediately dispenses with this mood in music of
great rhythmic incisiveness and harmonic piquancy, though making way for a theme of
notably wistful elegance. These two are then ingeniously brought together as the
movement builds to a forceful and decisive conclusion.



Music by Quincy Porter, Samuel Barber & Walter Piston
Played by The Chester String Quartet

"Quincy Porter (1897-1966) studied with Horatio Parker at Yale, then with d'Indy
and with Bloch. Porter never quite made it into the Pantheon of American composers;
the reason may be simply that he was always attuned to chamber music in an era
when others were trying to write the great American symphony. The New Grove
Dictionary of American Music calls his nine string quartets �together, one of the
most substantial contributions to that literature made by any American composer.�
Porter's quartets, like Haydn's, have a natural feel of good music to play and to
hear; they are modern without following any particular school or system. Ross
Lee Finney referred to Porter's �exceedingly sensitive ear.� While there have been
recent complete recordings of the quartets of Chadwick, Piston, and Bloch
(five each), plus the four of Carter, we must search far and wide to hear any
of Porter's. This one, written in Paris in 1930, is the best known, having been
recorded in both the 78 and LP eras. A joyous yet thoughtful Allegro contrasts
a vigorous rhythmic motto with an expansive lyrical second theme, coming to
a quiet close. A somber, songful Andante rises to several climaxes of melancholy.
The Allegro moderato finale combines snapping rhythmic figures with broad
melody; a central section drops the rhythms for a minute, but they return as
a dance of ever-increasing intensity through which the singing line is always
heard.

Samuel Barber's 1936 string quartet is better known, primarily for its second
movement, the original of his ubiquitous Adagio for Strings. But the opening
Molto Allegro e appassionato is one of Barber's strongest utterances, contrasting
impassioned outbursts with his typically warm lyric expression. It is reprised
for two-and-a-half minutes at the end of the Adagio, closing a fine string
quartet. Over the years there have been notable recordings by the Beaux
Arts, Borodin, Cleveland, Stradivari, and Concord Quartet's, the last now
available on a Nonesuch CD.

Walter Piston's 1933 First Quartet, Allegro, Adagio, Allegro vivace, brims over
with the aggressive neo-classicism we associate with him. The Chester
Quartet makes the strongest possible impression in all three works; they
display tight ensemble, their playing has both strength and warmth, and
they project a deep involvement with all this music. I prefer these renditions
to others I have heard of the Barber and Piston quartets, and I can't
imagine that the two early recordings of the Porter could be any finer.
Koch's recording is deep and clean, with fine balances. In what has by
now become an inexplicable habit akin to a psychological tic, Koch lists
incorrect timings for several tracks and for the whole�a tiny blemish to
avoid the monotony of absolute perfection? I hope to hear more from
the Chester, especially more Quincy Porter."
Fanfare



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No.41

Ned Rorem is widely recognized as the preeminent composer of American art song, and as such
his instrumental is often overlooked. But, while it is true that his compositions for the voice far outweigh
those for other instruments, and that his writing tends always to be infused with a vocal quality, he has
nevertheless produced a considerable amount of fine music for instrumental ensembles. Water Music
was commissioned by the Oakland Youth Orchestra (the educational branch of the Oakland Symphony)
in 1966, while the composer was on the faculty of the University of Utah. The work, scored for Clarinet,
violin and small orchestra, connects Rorem to an impressive lineage of composers who have written
similarly-titled works.

Rorem composed his cycle More Than a Day expressly for Brian Asawa and the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra. The texts are taken from the writings of Jack Larson, a film producer, poet,
and librettist (Virgil Thomson's opera, Lord Byron), who is perhaps most notable for having played the
role of "Jimmy Olson" on the Superman television series.

Composed in 1951, the cycle From an Unknown Past is an assemblage of seven anonymous fifteenth-
and sixteenth-century poems, originally conceived for mixed voices acappella (SATB), and subsequently
arranged for solo voice and piano. Rorem would return to the work nearly fifty years later to arrange
them for solo voice and chamber orchestra--specifically for countertenor
Brian Asawa and the Los Angeles CO.



Music Composed by Ned Rorem
Played by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
With Brian Asawa (counter-tenor)
Conducted by Jeffrey Kahane

"The conventional view of the countertenor voice is that it is cool, disembodied, sexless.
This stereotype is challenged by the Japanese-American singer Brian Asawa, whose
voice is notably even, coloured by well-controlled vibrato, and not lacking in warmth.
And the assumptions, conscious or unconscious, on which the stereotype may rest
are called into question by the main work on this disc, a setting of homoerotic verses
(if not overtly so) by Jack Larson. Certainly More Than a Day is nothing if not expressive,
confirming the pre-eminence of the veteran American Ned Rorem among current
practitioners of the art of setting English words to memorable melodic lines. However,
From an Unknown Past conforms to another stereotype, the association of the
countertenor voice with the English Renaissance, being a sequence of neat miniature
settings of texts from that period. Both cycles also reveal Rorem�s talent for
orchestration � as does Water Music, a concerto grosso in variation form with stand-
out parts for violin and clarinet but effective solo writing all round. Fine playing by
the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, under the pianist-conductor Jeffrey Kahane."
BBC Music Magazine





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No.42

Ok, opera, too. But only single disc operas ...

In 1936, The Saturday Evening Post published Stephen Vincent Ben�t's short story
The Devil and Daniel Webster; it would become Ben�t's most popular story. Throughout
1936 and 1937 Ben�t and Douglas S. Moore collaborated on an opera, based on Ben�t's story,
that was to carry the same name. Moore's opera was first performed on May 18, 1939, in New
York by the American Lyric Theater Company at the Martin Beck Theater. Moore scored the
work for either a large orchestra, with paired woodwinds or for a smaller group with single
winds. This option has contributed to its frequent performance.

In a 1953 interview, Moore said, "Mr. Ben�t and I have classified The Devil and Daniel
Webster as a folk opera because it is legendary in its subject matter and simple in its
musical expression." Whether one classifies the work as an opera, a folk opera, or a
musical, it is an unusual piece. In one act, it has no overture, and much of the spoken
dialogue is accompanied in the manner of a melodrama. There are no traditional set
pieces, but contrasting sections result when, in highly emotional moments, the creators
employ verse and appropriate music to set it. Throughout, the voice parts dominate
the texture, making for very clear text declamation. The Devil's strident fiddle playing
in "Young William was a thriving boy" is clearly influenced by Stravinsky's
L'histoire du soldat.

Moore emphasized local color and thus the folk flavor of the opera by including such
traditional American music as a country square dance and ballads. The local sense
is reinforced by placing the scenario in a specific city and time: Cross Corners,
New Hampshire, in the 1840s.

Ben�t's libretto revolves around the ancient story of a person who sold his soul
to the Devil. In this case, that person is Jabez Stone, who at the opening of the
piece is at his wedding reception. Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State, arrives,
as does a stranger named Mr. Scratch. From a box Mr. Scratch brings with him
escapes a moth that pleads for help because he, like Jabez, has sold his soul to
the Devil. Jabez admits that he sold his soul when he was impoverished and saw
no other way to survive. When Webster calls for a trial, Scratch assembles a jury
from hell, hoping he will win. A passionate, clever speech from Webster, however,
persuades the jury and Jabez reclaims his soul.

A critic for The Saturday Review noted that The Devil and Daniel Webster "does
not, either in whole or in part, remind us of any European composer." This
stems, at least in part, from Moore and Ben�t's choice to use what Ben�t
described as "casual, everyday speech." More importantly, Moore set out to
provide an accurate setting of the prosody of colloquial speech, thereby making
both the language and the music idiomatic and purely American.



Music Composed by Douglas Moore
Libretto by Stephen Vincent Ben�t
Lawrence Winters (baritone, Daniel Webster)
Joe Blankenship (bass, Jabez Stone)
Doris Young (soprano, Mary Stone)
Frederick Weidner (tenor, Mr. Scratch)
Played by the Festival Choir and Orchestra
Conducted by Armando Aliberti

"Douglas Moore is best known for his most successful opera, The Ballad of Baby
Doe. Inspired by actual events that occurred in 19th-century Colorado, that opera
launched the operatic career of American soprano Beverly Sills. Moore was already
in his sixties when he wrote Baby Doe, but for three decades he had played a
significant role in American musical life. And he served on the music faculty at
Columbia University beginning in 1926, and as chairman of the music department
from 1940 until 1962.

Moore, born in a Long Island suburb of New York, studied composition at Yale
University with Horatio Parker, the founder of Yale�s music department and an
American operatic composer in his own right. After graduation, Moore served as
a lieutenant in the United States Navy, an experience that provided him new
material sources for, and insights into, popular songwriting�an area that had
already sparked his interest during his years at Yale. This new parameter
manifested itself in a collection of wryly humorous pieces, The Songs My
Mother Never Taught Me (1921), written in collaboration with folksinger
John Jacob Niles.

In 1919, Moore went to Paris to study with two disciples of the celebrated
Belgian composer C�sar Franck: Vincent d�Indy for composition, and the
mystic Charles Tournemire for organ. On his return to the United States he
studied for a while with Ernest Bloch, and then returned to Paris to study
with Nadia Boulanger. But he remained more interested in Americana,
popular operetta styles, and dance tunes than in cultivated contemporary
musical developments. That tendency found its echo in works such as his
orchestral suite The Pageant of P.T. Barnum (1924) and the symphonic poem
Moby Dick (1928).

Moore was drawn to theater�first with incidental music and then moving to
stage works. Together with Stephen Vincent Binet, he wrote a school
operetta, The Headless Horseman (1936), based on Washington Irving�s
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; and a folk opera, The Devil and Daniel
Webster (1938), which Stravinsky is said to have studied while composing
The Rake�s Progress. After the Second World War, Moore moved toward
more ambitious full-scale operatic projects with the tragic Giants in the
Earth (1951), on a story by Ole Edvart Rolvaag, set among Norwegian
immigrants in the Dakota Territory�a work that won a Pulitzer Prize.
Both with Giants and Baby Doe, Moore gained a reputation as a musical
chronicler of the recent American past."





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No.43

Many of Gustav Holst's pieces have a quality of inhuman remoteness, including parts of his ever-
popular "The Planets." The intimate, half-hour opera Savitri of 1908/09 shows a different side of Holst,
who had an interest in Hindu literature. Savitri vies with Death for the life of her husband and prevails by
impressing that dread spirit with the depth of her love and compassion. The scoring is colorful and exotic,
on a small scale. The opera begins in a most original manner, at once strikingly dramatic and yet the utmost
in simplicity and intimacy as Death, in the distance, announces himself and Savitri answers, joining in a
duet which goes on for some minutes entirely without accompaniment. This wonderful work brims over
with the most noble of human feelings. Because it plays out mainly in ideas, with little overt action (and
because of that long unaccompanied stretch which demands the utmost in security of intonation on the
part of the two singers) it is rarely encountered in live performance, and indeed has received only a few
recordings. Yet it is a striking and touching masterpiece, uniquely life-asserting.

The poetry of Humbert Wolfe (1885�1940) has today virtually disappeared, even from the anthologies.
In the 1920s his work, meticulous in its craftsmanship and in its sensibility, was well known and Holst
became a great admirer and friend after reading the collection published in 1927 as Requiem. In 1929,
on his return from a much-needed winter holiday in Italy, Holst set twelve of Wolfe�s poems for high
voice and piano. Apart from the Four Songs for voice and violin (composed in 1917) they were the
first solo songs he had written for more than twenty years, and they reveal a lyricism and warmth
often absent from his music. At their first performance in Paris they were grouped together under
the title of The Dream-City. But they were not intended to form a cycle, and were published
by Augener (after three other publishers had rejected them) as individual songs.



Music Composed by Gustav Holst
Played by the City of London Sinfonia
With Felicity Palmer (mezzo/Savitri) & Philip Langridge (tenor/Satyavan),
And Stephen Varcoe (bass/Death)
With The Richard Hickox Singers
Conducted by Richard Hickox

"There was at least one 20th-century British operatic masterpiece before
Peter Grimes: Holst�s Savitri, composed in 1908 but not performed until 1921.
Perhaps it was ahead of its time; even now this half-hour-long three-hander
with chamber orchestra accompaniment does not seem to �fit� operatic
preconceptions. The story comes from the Mahabharata, and concerns a
tug-of-love between Savitri, her husband Satyavan and Death. Philip
Langridge is eloquent as Satyavan, but sometimes Felicity Palmer�s Savitri
could do with less hardness of tone and Stephen Varcoe�s Death a little more.
With a coupling of ten of the composer�s Humbert Wolfe songs (arranged by
Colin Matthews and sung by Patrizia Kwella) and playing under Richard
Hickox that captures the many shades of Holst, this is an attractive disc."
BBC Music Magazine



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No.44

George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931), for long known as the Dean of American Composers,
received his first music lessons from his brother. Soon he advanced so quickly he was serving as organist
for the local church. Eventually, Chadwick found his way to the famous Leipzig Conservatory where in
1877 he studied with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn. Never regarded as an extraordinary talent,
soon after entering the Conservatory, his progress in composition astounded his teachers and everyone
else. Several of his early works, written while there, won prizes and his name spread as far away as
England. After graduating, he chose to further his studies by taking lessons privately with Joseph
Rheinberger in Munich. He returned to Boston in 1880 and began a long career as a composer,
conductor and teacher.

The opening movement, "Allegro sostenuto", to Chadwick's Piano Quintet which dates from 1887,
is rich and well written for all with a faint Brahmsian flavor. The slower "Andante" cantabile is gentle and
its roots can clearly be found in the music of the late 19th Century Central European era. A charming
"Intermezzo," which serves instead of a scherzo, has many memorable touches. In the closing "Allegro
energico," the piano plays a moto perpetuo part over which the strings trumpet the various themes
including a clever fugue.

Chadwick's five string quartets and piano quintet, which span two important decades of US musical
history (late 1870s to 1890s), chronicle not only his development as a composer but represent music
becoming "Americanized." The Third Quartet was composed in the mid 1880s. Chadwick was
then becoming established as a church musician in Boston. (This was virtually the only secure job
for a musician available.) It is the work of a newly-developed maturity and self-assurance. Chadwick
takes a basically classicist stance. The music has distinguished melodies, is well developed and
imaginatively planned, and has a striking sense of dramatic urgency. It is a fine quartet by any
standard and worthy of hearing alongside those of the European composers of the period,
such as Brahms or Dvorak.



Music Composed by George W. Chadwick
Played by The Portland String Quartet
With Virginia Eskin (piano)





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No.45

A rare Belgian CD that features two world premiere recordings of American works for
two pianos, by Morton Gould (Two Pianos) and William Bolcom (Recuerdos),
along with two more established classics by Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninov



Music by [see above]
Played by Monique & Anne-Marie Mot (pianos)



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No.46

A piano pupil of C�sar Franck as a schoolboy, Henri Duparc (1848-1933) studied law, while continuing
his musical interests with composition lessons from the same teacher. Much of the music he wrote at this time,
he discarded, but in 1868 he published a set of piano pieces, Feuilles volantes, and wrote five songs, of which
he kept only two, Soupir and Chanson triste, although the other three were not destroyed and were
rediscovered some years after his death. Duparc’s career as a composer was a short one. In Paris he was
associated with the foundation of the Soci�t� Nationale de Musique, which gave its first concert in 1871
and involved, on its committee, Saint-Sa�ns, Alexis de Castillon, Romaine Bussine, the violinist and
composer Jules Auguste Garcin and the composer and teacher Charles Lenepveu. As secretary of the
organization, Duparc had a reputation for administrative efficiency, reflected in his subsequent career
in local provincial government but sorting ill with the hyperaesthesia that ended his creative career
as a composer at the age of 36.

The creative career of Duparc lasted sixteen years and his most significant contribution to music
lies in his sixteen solo songs. After the last of these, written in 1884, he wrote nothing, but was
able to work on orchestrations of some of the song accompaniments and on editing earlier compositions,
while he was still able to see. His choice of texts for his songs suggests a mood of melancholy that
ultimately seems to have triumphed in final silence.



Music Composed by Henri Duparc
Performed by Paul Groves (tenor) & Roger Vignoles (piano)
And Emily Pulley (soprano)

"Groves projects the right level of compassion and intimacy, and brings impressive
vocal skills to Duparc's tres doux dynamic with the sweetest of soft high A flats.
His legato and evenness in the sensuous Phidyl‚ is impressive. .the superb Roger
Vignoles an ever-sensitive accompanist."
Sunday Herald Sun





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No.47

Joseph-Guy Ropartz - student of C�sar Franck and Vincent d'Indy and contemporary Arthur
Honegger - was a significant figure on the musical scene during his lifetime. He was not only a
prolific composer throughout the span of his career, but also an active pedagogue as the head of
the conservatoires in both Nancy and Strasbourg. Although often labeled as a "post-Romantic,"
his later works (such as the last three string quartets heard here) move away from the stylistic
influences of his teachers and move along their own lean, concise path. His works are
unfortunately performed infrequently and recorded even less often.

It is astonishing that the delightful Fourth Quartet (1933-34) was played so little
that even Ropartz himself forgot about it! The slightest in duration of the three here, No.4 has
a warmth and vitality that are of immediate appeal. The second "Allegro"’s folklike tune seems
to evoke The Keel Row, surely intentionally, while the "Quasi lento" third movement is quietly
beautiful. The Fifth Quartet, Quasi una fantasia (1939‑40), has similar melodic and
rhythmic charm but eschews No 4’s traditional four-movement format for an arch-like five-
movement pattern (with a vibrant central "Vivacissimo") played without a break. The
outwardly conventional Sixth Quartet is the largest in design and not without profundity.



Music Composed by Joseph-Guy Ropartz
Played by the Quatuor Stanislas

"The Stanislas Quartet is part of the Stanislas Ensemble. Founded in 1984, they’re
drawn from musicians working in the region of Nancy, once Ropartz’s stomping grounds.
I cannot fault them in any way on technical grounds: quite an accomplishment, in music
whose difficulty lies in the way the four parts are usually engaged in some form of
intricate byplay. My sole criticism remains as it was in my review of the Second and
Third Quartets ( Fanfare 30:3), a slight lack of crisp assertiveness in the scherzos and
finales. No problems with the adagios, though, where they properly find the emotional
core of each work. The engineering is dry but close, with a nice, burnished warmth,
and good separation. The liner notes are excellent. Highly recommended."
Fanfare





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No.48

Ildebrando Pizzetti's Piano Trio starts with a very relaxed introductory passage, where the
three instruments introduce themselves, after which the music erupts in a stormy first subject, which
is broad and richly lyrical. This gives way to a more restrained second subject and by now we're half
way through the movement. It's obvious that Pizzetti is going to take his time saying what he has to
say. The development section is turbulent and it continues in this high-powered mode to the end.
This is big music with big things to say. It is tempered by a simple slow movement which is song-like
and gently lyrical. There is a Mediterranean warmth about much of this. The finale is more New
World than Old for there a freer spirit is abroad. This is the kind of open-air easiness you find in
Copland, but doesn't sound a bit like the American master; rather it's the mode of expression.
Although this is obviously a very serious piece, Pizzetti manages to balance the light and shade.

The Violin Sonata is obviously the work of a younger man, for it tends to throw caution to
the wind and grasp the musical challenge with both hands. It never stops to wonder if what is
being written is going to be too much. Whereas the first movement of the Trio was turbulent,
here there is violence, and it's almost relentless in its headlong rush. But Pizzetti is a lyrical
composer so he is always mindful of the need to ensure sufficient melodic material to carry his
musical argument. The slow movement is a very fervent outpouring. It could almost be by
Korngold, so opulent is the expression. This is balanced by a more bucolic finale, which still has
an over-abundance of warm lyricism. Again, the spirit of Korngold can be discerned in some
of the writing.

The Tre Canti are lighter. Certainly they are without the intensity of, and are more
classical in feel than, the other works but they are still quite powered pieces. They make a
nicely relaxed end to a very interesting disk of rare chamber music. If you're into music of
the late-romantic period then this, obviously, is for you.



Music Composed by Ildebrando Pizzetti
Played by Leila R�sonyi (violin) & L�szlo Feny� (cello)
And Alpaslan Ert�ngealp (piano)

"Doubtless the greatest musician in Italy today�, wrote one of the eminent
Italian critics of the day when speaking of Idebrando Pizzetti. Well, it takes all
sorts to make a world, as at the time Puccini, Respighi and Malipiero were still
alive, but it shows the support enjoyed by Pizzetti in certain quarters. It was
certainly not to last, and today he has been largely sidelined even in his native
country. Yet, as this disc of his chamber music shows, he was a highly gifted
composer who could achieve readily attractive melodic ideas in the late-Romantic
style. Now with a growing interest in those composers, Pizzetti may yet have
his day. The highly active opening movement of the Piano Trio is indicative of
music that in the second movement of the Violin Sonata achieves the erotic
intensity that we find in Szymanowski�s violin writing. There is also moments
of quirkiness that show Pizzetti looking forward to the time when Romanticism
would be replaced by something less soft centered. Both scores are substantial
at over half an hour, the piano of equal importance in the sonata and the Tre
Canti for violin and piano. The present performances were recorded in 1994
and have already appeared on the Marco Polo label. Technical they are
generally very good, the engineers just bringing an edge to Leila Rasonyi�s
violin tone. Otherwise the balance between instruments is good, Alpaslan
Ertungealp�s piano playing both subtle and supple."





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No.49

In 1958, preparing for the commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of its incorporation,
the town of Amherst, MA, commissioned composer Randall Thompson to set a group of texts by
Robert Frost, a poet distinguished even in a town famous for its writers. Thompson was, at the time,
professor of music at Harvard, one of the schools at which Frost had taught before finally returning
to Amherst College. The product of the "collaboration" of these two naturalized New Englanders
was a seven-song sequence for accompanied mixed chorus, Frostiana. The first piece is a bold
attempt to set perhaps the most famous poem in American literary history, The Road Not Taken. The
result, however, somehow lands squarely in the English choral tradition, moving nobly along, but
with a feel reminiscent of Vaughan Williams. Frostiana, composed over the course of a summer
month in Switzerland, was premiered on October 18, 1959, in Amherst, with the composer conducting
and the poet in the audience.

Certainly it is tempting to dismiss The Testament of Freedom, a series of choral settings from
the writings of Thomas Jefferson, as a piece of World War II propaganda. Many critics have derided
it as simple and jingoistic. Yet parts of the work are undoubtedly stirring, and it has received
performances worldwide. Thompson selected four passages from Jefferson's collected works for
the four parts of The Testament of Freedom. These include excerpts from "A Summary View of
the Rights of British America" (1774), the "Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms"
(July 6, 1775), and a letter to John Adams (September 12, 1821). The resulting text is something
like a religious cantata, although it is intended to praise the ideal of nationhood.



Music Composed by Randall Thompson
Played by the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra
With the New York Choral Society
Conducted by Richard Auldon Clark

"The American composer Randall Thompson made a point of suiting his music
to the circumstances of a commission and, if lucky, to transcend them. Although
one finds pieces in his catalogue written for purely private reasons (eg, "Bitter-
Sweet," the first three Odes of Horace, and Mass of the Holy Spirit), these count
more as exceptions. A broad streak of savvy practicality ran through Thompson,
and his craftsmanship (he studied with Bloch and Malipiero) was so great that
I suspect he relished the limitations he imposed upon himself, just for the
pleasure of overcoming them.

This is the only commercially available recording of Frostiana, and Clark
certainly keeps things moving, a real plus in The Testament of Freedom. In
Frostiana, we have one of the jewels of American choral music. David Francis
Urrows's informative liner notes are pure lagniappe. I didn't know, for
example, that Thompson was born Ira Randall Thompson. Kudos to Koch
for allowing us to explore this repertoire."
Classical CD Net





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Another outstanding thread -- thank you wimpel!

So much great, new music I'd not otherwise have been exposed to. :)

No.50

The Retablo de Navidad dates from 1952 and is made up of two groups of songs: the "Tres villancicos,"
for soprano and orchestra, and the "Cinco canciones de Navidad," for soprano, bass, mixed chorus and
orchestra. Joqu�n Rodrigo also adapted the work into versions for voice and piano and for voice and
guitar. Most of the texts are by Victoria Kamhi, with two by Lope de Vega and two by anonymous writers.
These very simple songs clearly have their roots in folklore, as illustrated by the changing rhythm of
Pastorcito santo, in which the repetition of the refrain adds to the desired atmosphere. This song
has frequently been performed with great depth of feeling by Victoria de los �ngeles. Kamhi�s best
lyric is probably Coplillas de Bel�n and Rodrigo�s setting is very traditional in style. La espera,
dedicated to Montserrat Caball�, is the penultimate song of the "Canciones de Navidad," and despite
its delicacy has a genuine sense of drama.

The Himno de los ne�fitos de Qumr�n was first performed in Cuenca in 1965 as part of
the Religious Music celebrations during Holy Week, under the baton of Od�n Alonso. Its text is an
adaptation by Victoria Kamhi of an extract from the Dead Sea scrolls, discovered in 1947. Here Rodrigo
interprets the cosmic yearning of the words through music rich in allegorical content, as can be seen
in the nine-note scale, with occasional glimpses of tonality, and in the writing for three sopranos to
symbolize the three archangels. The orchestral forces are reduced to a minimum, with no violins.
In 1953 Rodrigo was commissioned by the University of Salamanca to compose a work to
commemorate its seventh centenary. This was to be the M�sica para un c�dice salmantino, a
cantata for bass, mixed chorus and eleven instruments setting the Oda a Salamanca by Miguel de
Unamuno, who had been rector of the University. In its pared-down expressiveness, the cantata
harks back to the Castilian Renaissance.

The C�ntico de San Francisco de As�s, for chorus and orchestra, was written in 1982 to
mark the 800th anniversary of the birth of the saint. A relatively long work, and one of
Rodrigo�s last, its text is based on one of the last poems written by Saint Francis, and despite
an undeniable simplicity of style, the music has considerable depth.



Music Composed by Joaqu�n Rodrigo
Played by the Orchestra and Chorus of the Comunidad de Madrid
With Raquel Lojendio (soprano) & David Rubiera (baritone)
And Ada Allende (soprano) & Victoria Marchante (soprano)
Conducted by Jos� Ram�n Encinar

"A glorious disc of otherwise unavailable Rodrigo works for various voices and
orchestra which yet again gives the lie to the idea of the great Spaniard as a
classical "one hit wonder". Marvellous as Aranjuez is, it is barely representative,
let alone definitive as regards the composer's complete oeuvre. The only piece
here I was in any way familiar with was the Retablo, a set of Christmas carols
and songs, excerpts from which appeared on a BBC Music Magazine cover-mount
disc a couple of years ago. The settings are for soprano and bass with chorus
and orchestra. The overall feeling is of a slightly archaic, mildly melancholic,
pastoral theme - very typical for Rodrigo - of great beauty and instant appeal
all within a relatively spare, economical musical environment. Here I cannot
really disagree with Naxos's view that, in his choral works, Rodrigo combines
"simple earthy folksong with a deep and devout sense of spirituality". I would
also say that A la Chiribirivuela and A la Clavelina are songs of total celebration
that simply beg to be heard."
Musicweb



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No.51

Composed by the 27-year-old Igor Markevitch when he was at the height of his creative powers,
La Taille de l�Homme (The Measure of Man) is a virtuoso ensemble work which fully deserves to
be in the repertoire despite its incomplete state (Part 2 was never written). The libretto was written by
C.-F. Ramuz, author of the text of Stravinsky�s The Soldier�s Tale. The score of this powerful
evocation of life�s stages linked to the passage of the seasons was long believed lost until it was discovered
among the papers of Markevitch�s teacher, Nadia Boulanger.



Music Composed by Igor Markevitch
Libretto by C.F. Ramuz
Played by the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra
With Lucy Shelton (soprano)
Conducted by Christopher Lyndon-Gee

"This is my first exposure to Markevitch�s music, and I am simply flabbergasted by it.
Although one hears elements of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and even Schoenberg in it, his
musical voice is entirely his own. As Lyndon-Gee points out in his liner notes, �Not
Neoclassical, it has classical restraint and a poise that is almost frigidly disciplined.
In an aesthetic distant from the transmuted romanticism that propels the music of
Berg and Schoenberg, he initiated an exploration of dissonance (through polytonality)
that the perspective of the 1990s can readily identify as a fertile harmonic path.�
Markevitch rejected what he felt was an �indulgent prettiness� of impressionism
and sought, instead, a purity and detachment of style.

La Taille de l�Homme was only given its title in 1982, when Markevitch was preparing
his recently relocated manuscript for a performance; it replaced his working
title from the period of composition (1938�39), Musical Oration. The surviving
score, however, is only part I of a planned two-part work. The second half never
went beyond the sketch stage. What emerges quite clearly here is a tightly
constructed text whose images portray the stark, dispassionate insignificance of
man�s situation within the universe. It contrasts our basic helplessness with the
overwhelming vastness of our earthly and cosmic environments. Written primarily
for strings, it is set to a text by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz. Lyndon-Gee speculates
in his notes that Markevitch�s decision to end his compositional career possibly
stems in part from the fact that Ramuz, who was unwell and depressed by the
war, wished to let the project drop. Since this correspondence took place in
1941, the last year in which Markevitch wrote music, I believe that the
supposition is valid.

Complex polyrhythms underlie music of general sadness and resignation. A
relentless moto perpetuo in the strings neutralizes and almost buries the solo
soprano by constantly doubling at the unison with solo trumpet. The long,
introductory Prelude is pretty much a complete work in and of itself, and could
easily be performed in an orchestral concert without a singer. I was particularly
struck by the sinfonia concertante style of the writing here, in which instruments
play short solos backed by the full orchestra.

The Arnhem Philharmonic is superb in every respect, and I am glad that the
various instrumental soloists are identified."
Fanfare



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No.52

The repertoire of the viola has received increased exposure on disc of late, revealing much first-rate music
and many neglected treasures. In particular, recordings of British viola music (both concertos and chamber
music) are proliferating.

The first disc opens with the Viola Sonata by John Blackwood McEwen (1868-1948). This
delightful late work in four movements has musical affiliations with the English pastoral tradition, notably
in the perky dance of the opening, but later McEwen calls upon Koechlin to provide oriental textures in the
sultry second movement. The economy and assuredness of McEwen�s writing bespeaks a lifetime of
composing for these instruments. We then switch to the violin for the Improvisations proven�ales.
These pieces sound even more French�unsurprisingly, as they are sophisticated transcriptions and
variations on folk songs (presumably�the source material remains unknown). Several strongly recall
the sound world of Debussy�s Violin Sonata. Despite the fin de si�cle atmosphere, this music is also
from late in McEwen�s career (1937), which possibly explains its misty, nostalgic flavor. The primary
work on the first disc is the Viola Sonata by Arnold Bax, which has had several recordings.
Bax�s First Piano Sonata was reworked as his First Symphony and the textures in this contemporary
Viola Sonata are similarly king-sized, often suggesting a full orchestra, especially in the dynamic
central movement.

The second disc consists of more modernist works. The Viola Sonata by Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-
1994) introduces a dramatic and occasionally austere world, even though her sonata was written
three years before McEwen�s. Maconchy�s string writing is immaculate (as it would be from a noted writer
of string quartets). Her three-movement work is notable for its sense of purpose: From the very first
phrase this music is going somewhere. The second movement centers on a repeated thematic fragment
of a sinuous Middle-Eastern character, while the finale is driven by the contrapuntal energy of Hindemith.
Gordon Jacob�s well-written Viola Sonata of 1949 employs a lighter touch, its pleasant lyrical
aspect combined with deft high spirits. A serious tone returns with Alan Rawsthorne�s 1937 Viola
Sonata, its fleet scherzo beautifully paced by Williams and Norris. The slow movement, a troubled Adagio,
shows more heart than we might expect from this composer. The Four Pieces by the little-known
Robin Milford (1903-1959) are gentler in tone, easy on the ear in a rippling, well mannered English
way. The real find is the final work, the Fantasia on the name BACH by Kenneth Leighton
(1929-1988). Leighton, besides being an astonishing pianist, was a composer of tough, sinewy music that
grows in stature with each hearing.



Music Composed by [see above]
Played by Louise Williams (viola/violin)
And David Owen Norris (piano)

"British viola music appears to be enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment,
what with several recent recordings of repertoire now being available from Chandos
and Naxos. This double-CD recording features viola player Louise Williams (and her
delicious 1616 Amati) and pianist David Owen Norris in a highly varied programme
mainly, but not exclusively, of sonatas.

The earliest work is in fact the Sonata by Bax, composed in 1921-22. Bax clearly
loved the viola and its melancholy hue, and Williams makes much of the instrument�s
low register in those moments of deep pensiveness. In many ways this is a concerto
manqu�, for I can often hear the orchestra in the lyrical effusions for the piano
(assiduously explored by Owen Norris); indeed, like so much of Bax�s scandalously
neglected chamber music, the dialogue between viola and piano is positively
symphonic and Bax�s piano-writing has an orchestral demeanour with an array of
colours. McEwen, who, like Bax, studied at the Royal Academy Music, had as a
common teacher Frederick Corder, whose outlook was less wedded to the Brahmsian
intellectualism of the Royal College of Music. Though in some ways more sombre
than the Bax, the late Sonata of 1941 possesses a picturesqueness and colour
which invades its Scottish character, while the Improvisations proven�ales (played
on the violin), with their affecting modality, and the plangent Breath o� June
capture appealing vignettes of Gallic life that are located stylistically between
de S�verac and Frank Bridge.

On the second CD, the works are more violently contrasted. Milford�s euphonious
Four Pieces, mostly still in manuscript, were written in 1935 and have a lyrical
introspection in their extended melodic lines and diatonic harmony. Rawsthorne�s
virtuoso work, breathless in its faster tempi (the moto perpetuo of the Scherzo
is a tour de force), owes something to Hindemith and the acerbic neo-classicism
of the 1930s. Machonchy�s ruminative and at times disturbing Sonata of 1938
is a compelling work, full of dynamic rhythm and restlessness, evocative of
the uncertainties of the time. Written after the Second World War in 1949,
Jacob�s Sonatina is an attractive work � a reminder perhaps that he was
capable of great craftsmanship and affecting melody expressed with an
admixture of post-Romantic and neo-classical sensibilities. Kenneth Leighton�s
Fantasia on the Name BACH of 1956 encapsulates the composer�s preoccupation
with counterpoint which is here manipulated with great dexterity and power.
Yet, for all its mordant severity, there are moments of great expressive beauty,
troubled by an inner melancholy. A more detailed programme note, by Owen
Norris, can be found at the English Music Festival�s website."
Gramophone



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No.53

This is the latest album in the ongoing series of Spanish orchestral music with
the BBC Philharmonic under Juanjo Mena, and Mena�s second featuring
the works by Joaqu�n Turina, one of the leading Spanish composers of his generation.

The works recorded here are filled with the inspiration which Turina found in his
native Andalusia and particularly the city of Seville. La procesi�n del Roc�o, his first
orchestral work, was inspired by memories of a procession held in the gypsy quarter of
Seville and is filled with lively dance rhythms. Canto a Sevilla, a song cycle with orchestra,
is a heartfelt tribute to Seville and its culture, taking on themes such as the vibrant
Easter Procession, Seville�s beautiful ornamental fountains, and even a ghost that haunts
the streets at night. Danzas gitanas, a collection of Andalusian gypsy dances, introduces
a nocturnal atmosphere into a style normally characterised by bright orchestral colours and
extravagant rhythmic intricacies. The Rapsodia sinf�nica, one of his last works,
represents a more mature, reflective composer. The use of piano and string orchestra limits
the available palette of colours, Turina instead deciding to focus on the intimate relationship
between the ensemble and soloist, a role here filled by Martin Roscoe.



Music Composed by Joaqu�n Turina
Played by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
With Mar�a Espada (soprano) & Martin Roscoe (piano)
Conducted by Juan-Jos� Mena

"Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic continue their exploration of the
Spanish repertoire with this programme pinpointing Turina�s Andalusian roots.
However, listening to his Rapsodia sinf�nica for piano and strings, a fairly late
work of 1931, you are reminded that in his early years Turina studied in Paris,
where Debussy held sway. While the music has a distinctive, ripe Spanish aroma,
on occasion there are reminiscences of a Gallic finesse in texture, harmony
and turns of phrase and, indeed, of the ways in which French composers of
the early 20th century evoked a Spanish atmosphere. It makes for an
attractive amalgam, particularly here with Martin Roscoe as a pianist
who recognises the sophistication as well as the rhythmic robustness
of the piano-writing.

The fact that Turina was a skilled orchestrator is manifest throughout this
disc in performances of La procesi�n del roc�o and the Danzas gitanas that
have a shifting, subtle spectrum of colour delineating the music�s light and
shade, its sunshine and louring clouds, its sensuality and sinew. What might
come across as irksome motivic tics are woven into a rich, multifaceted fabric,
no more so than in the Canto a Sevilla, a work that Victoria de los Angeles
made her own. Mar�a Espada adds a luminous glow to this homage to Seville
in all its mystery and magic, exuberance and eerie phantasms."
Gramophone



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Turina is wonderful. Thanks!

No.54

While Eug�ne Ysa�e�s Six Solo Violin Sonatas remain his best known works, the Belgian
virtuoso also composed other pieces which translate his thorough knowledge of the violin�s
capabilities into thrilling music. The performance here of his Sonata for Two Violins is based
on the composer�s autograph and that of the String Trio "Le Chimay" draws on the original
hand-written parts. For the recording of the Cello Sonata the artist referred to Ysa�e�s own
fingering and bowing instructions. All three works display the composer�s dazzling mastery of
technique and instrumental colour.



Music Composed by Eug�ne Ysaye
Played by Hennig Kraggerud (violin) & Bard Monsen (violin)
And Ole-Erik Ree (cello) and Lars Anders Tomter (viola)

"This exceptionally clever amalgam of diverse influences is nevertheless melded
into a convincing structure, and is played with real force and sensitivity by the
trio. The final work is the Sonata for Solo Cello. Given its compositional proximity
to the Violin sonatas we shouldn�t be surprised that it prefigures the �Bach�
sonata that he dedicated to Thibaud. There is conversational wit as well as
concision of expression, and again the performance is really first class."
Musicweb





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No.55

One of Darius Milhaud�s finest and most expressive later scores, L�Amour chante
sets poems on the subject of love by various poets, making of each a �novel within a sigh�. In the
Po�mes juifs, whose anonymous texts Milhaud read in a magazine, the vocal line threads
its way through myriad keys, creating subtle effects reminiscent of Faur� or Debussy. Alissa,
based on a novel by Andr� Gide, completes this survey of the cream of Milhaud�s output for
voice and piano.



Music Composed by Darius Milhaud
Performed by Carole Farley (soprano)
And John Constable (piano)

"It has oft been commented that Darius Milhaud composed far too much for his own
good, but if you pick your way through his output you will find many jewels. That is
most certainly the case with his songs, numbering more than three hundred titles for
voice and piano, Alissa certainly worth of a place in the song repertoire. It is a cycle
that relates the story of two young lovers who hear a sermon in church, and the young
man decides to follow a path of virtue. Alissa, believing that her bodily desires would
only compromise that virtue, slowly moves away from their relationship, leaving the
young man bereft of understanding of her rejection. It is a moving story Milhaud
relates in seven songs and a movement for solo piano. It extends well past thirty
minutes and shares the disc with the world premiere recording of L�Amour chant�
a score combining nine short cameos of love�and Po�mes juifs from his younger
years. In this genre Milhaud seems to have neither changed nor developed his
style with the passing of years, the music always falling easily on the ears. It is
sung by the distinguished American soprano, Carole Farley, who reduces the natural
weight of her voice to create the blend of emotions expressed. Her diction is
immaculate, and in her much experienced accompanist, John Constable, she has
an admirable partner. The disc does not make clear whether it has been available
before, but dates back to 1992, the sound well balanced and of admirable quality.
Much recommended."
David's Review Corner





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No.56

An American Requiem is a monumental work of choral music by the composer James DeMars.
Following the 1992 Los Angeles riots subsequent to the Rodney King trial, Dr. James DeMars, a professor of
Music Composition at Arizona State University, was commissioned by the Art Renaissance Foundation to
write a large memorial work that would contribute to bringing the American community together.
The 70+ minute choral work, entitled An American Requiem, took a full year to be written and
orchestrated. It involves large musical forces: a 42-member symphony orchestra, a professional choir
of at least 100 voices, and the four traditional vocal soloists (SMTB): Soprano, Mezzo-soprano,
Tenor and Bass. The Foundation dedicated the Requiem to "all Americans who dedicated their
lives to building this great nation." A live digital recording was made at the time of the premiere
performance. It was sent to hundreds of choir directors and festival organizers to inform them of the
existence of the music - in the perspective of the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of D-Day
in 1994, and that of the end of World War II in 1995.



Music Composed and Conducted by James DeMars
Played by The Phoenix Symphony
With Joni Killian (soprano) & Linda Childs (mezzo-soprano)
And George Killian (tenor) & Robert La France (baritone)
And the Arizona State University Chorus

"At the close of last night's premiere performance there could have been little
doubt that James DeMars had met the standards of the death masses of
Brahms and Britten; grand and spacious, stately, ethereal, glorious, inspired
and quintessentially American, (it) speaks of untarnished dreams and naive
yearnings; an intensely hopeful conjuration of all that is best about the
nation's peoples."
Washington Post





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---------- Post added at 02:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:38 PM ----------




No.57

Since the early nineteenth century French composers have shown a particular skill
and deftness of touch in handling wind instruments, following the pattern set at the
Paris Conservatoire by Anton Reicha (1770-1836), with his preference for the textures
of the quintet of different wind instruments, as opposed to the traditional doubling in
sextets or octets.

This album includes:
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Sextet for piano and wind quintet
Jacques Ibert (1890-1962): Trois pi�ces br�ves
Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): La Chemin�e du roi Ren�
Jean Fran�aix (1912-1997): Wind Quintet No.1



Music by [see above]
Played by the Danish National Radio Orchestra Wind Quintet
And Ralf Gothoni (piano)

"In the mid-twentieth century, French music for winds bore the stamp of Stravinskyian
neo-Classicism, perhaps more indelibly than any other influence. Notwithstanding the
clear differences of their own personalities -- the elegantly refined Francis Poulenc is
easily distinguished from the sometimes vulgar and slapdash Darius Milhaud, and the
jovial Jacques Ibert is distinct from the more quizzical Jean Fran�aix -- they all derived
an "objective" sensibility from Stravinsky; this is especially telling in their common
uses of simple, folk-like tunes, asymmetrical rhythms, dry timbres, and pan-diatonic
harmonies; but also, in a more general way, by their preference for bright keys and
their striking aversion to sentimentality. The major works on this 2005 Naxos disc
are clearly Poulenc's Sextet for winds and piano (1932) and Fran�aix's Wind Quintet
No. 1 (1948); these are the most imaginatively worked-out, and offer the most
satisfying variety of textures and instrumental combinations. The shorter pieces --
Ibert's Pi�ces (3) br�ves (1930) and Milhaud's La Chemin�e du roi Ren� (1939) --
may pass by as lightweights, yet these are pleasant diversions that allow the
listener to relax between the more complex works that bookend the program.
The Wind Quintet of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and pianist
Ralf Goth�ni are cheerfully virtuosic, meticulous in execution, and brightly
sonorous in the fine reproduction."
Blair Sanderson, All Music



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No.58

Jean �mile Paul Cras (1879-1932) was a 20th-century French composer and career naval officer(!).
His musical compositions were inspired by his native Brittany, his travels to Africa, and most of all, by
his sea voyages. As a naval commander he served with distinction in the Adriatic Campaign during
World War I. Cras was born and died in Brest. His father was naval medical officer. He was accepted
into the navy at the age of seventeen. As a midshipman cadet on the Iphigenie, he fought in the
Americas, the West Indies and Senegal. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1908. His mathematical
skills led to his proposing a number of innovations in technical practices which were adopted by
the navy, including his invention of an electrical selector and a navigational plotter protractor
(which was named after him).

Cras met Henri Duparc, the famous French composer, early in his career, and the two became lifelong
friends. Duparc called Cras "the son of my soul". Though Cras's duties in the French navy left him little
time to devote to his musical work he continued to compose throughout his life, mainly writing
chamber music and songs. 2010 saw the 20th Anniversary of the founding of Timpani and what
better way to celebrate than a release of a Jean Cras CD. This release continues the Cras cycle
and covers his songs with orchestral accompaniment.



Music Composed by Jean Cras
Played by the Orchestre de Bretagne
With Ingrid Perruche (soprano) & Philippe Do (tenor)
And Lionel Peintre (baritone)
Conducted by Claude Schnitzler

"Twelve of the songs from the piano disc reappear here in the composer's orchestrations.
Cras has thoroughly rethought the accompaniments in terms of the orchestra, transforming
them into something other than what they were originally. ("L'Offrande lyrique"--six settings
from Tagore's "Gitanjali", and "Fontaines"--five settings of Lucien Jacques). The "Trois m�lodies"
are arrangements for string quartet from Cras's early "Sept m�lodies," and "Image" also
reappears in a quartet arrangement.

Lovers of Chausson's "Po�me de l'amour et de la mer" will enjoy the "E�l�gies", four
settings of Albert Semain's extravagantly romantic poems in an original orchestral setting
to match. Some of the poetry is rather "fleshly": "From your half-open dress with its wide,
flowing folds, Where flashes of flesh briefly gleam, A carnal aroma where desire is kindled
Rises in long waves to me like a smoking perfume"--Whew!

"Trois No�ls" are really choral works, but they work very well as solo trios. Cras sets them
with an endearing quasi-naive charm."
Amazon Reviewer





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No.59

The discography of the Kronos Quartet includes 43 studio albums, two compilations,
five soundtracks, and 29 contributions to other artists' records. The Kronos Quartet (often
referred to as "Kronos" or "The Kronos") plays contemporary classical music and was founded
in 1973 by violinist David Harrington. Since 1978, they are based in San Francisco, California.
Since 1985, the quartet's music has been released on Nonesuch Records. Early recordings by
the quartet contain contemporary classical music and adaptations of more popular music,
such as jazz and rock and roll. Since the 1980s, and especially with the release of Cadenza
on the Night Plain, written as a collaboration between composer Terry Riley and the
quartet, much of the quartet's repertoire and album releases contain music written
especially for them, by composers such as Terry Riley, Kevin Volans, Henryk G�recki,
and �stor Piazzolla. Their music "covers a who's who of 20th century-composers",
as one critic noted in 1998.

The 1992 album Pieces of Africa reached #1 in the Top World Albums chart.
This �potent new brew of folk influences, Minimalism, and European forms by eight black,
brown, and white African composers,� as Time described it, became a cross-cultural
and commercial landmark. And where on any other string-quartet performance would
you find the basic ensemble of two violins, viola, and cello complemented by an exotic
array of African instruments, including delicate percussion and extravagantly designed
strings with names like sintir, ngoma, donno, hosho, and oud? Or complemented
by a gospel choir? Or with solo singers, including members of the quartet itself,
unpolished in tone but eager and, presumably, proud? It�s all here, and the results
are, mostly, sheer enchantment.

This album includes:
Mai Nozipo (Dumisani Maraire)
Saade (I'm Happy) (Hassan Hakmoun)
Tilliboyo (Sunset) (Foday Musa Suso)
Ekitundu Ekisooda (First Movement) (Justinian Tamusuza)
Escalay (Water Wheel) (Hamza El Din)
Wawshishijay (Our Beginning) (Obo Addy)
White Man Sleeps: I. (Kevin Volans)
Kutambarara (Spreading) (Dumisani Maraire)



Music by [see above]
Played by The Kronos Quartet
And guests

"While the Kronos quartet are very good, it is the music and the other musicians
which makes this CD special. Kronos take almost a back seat on some of these pieces,
like tourists visiting a strange land, letting the landscape wash over them.

And the land that this CD covers is huge; Zimbabwe, Morocco, Gambia, Uganda,
Sudan, Ghana, and South Africa. Imagine a CD based on European music ranging
from German to Spanish to Russian to Scandinavian, and you get an idea of the
variety on this CD. Each with its own rhythms, own instruments and own stories.

Certainly the most meaty piece here is Kevin Volans' White Man Sleeps. And being
for string quartet alone, the most conventional to Western ears. Originally scored
for 2 re-tuned harpsicords, viola da gamba, and percussion, Volans rescored
and redesigned it for the Kronos Quartet. It is a set of 5 movements, with the
overall effect of a set of baroque dances, borrowing heavily from African
rhythms, motifs and styles.

Volans says he did not set out to Westernize African music, but to Africanise
Western music, a subtle but intriguing distinction.

White Man Sleeps has restored my faith in modern music. I don't know about
you, but when I hear modern contemporary compositions, especially those
that try to "push the envelope" of music, I often find it a jarring, uncomfortable
and even pointless experience. When I first heard White Man Sleeps I was
immediately struck by the fact that this is really good music. Its listenable,
but has substance and brings the joy back to music making.

And likewise for the remainder of the pieces. Written by contemporary African
musicians in their own country's style, the music is sometimes happy,
sometimes sad, but always moving.

From the mesmerising rhythms of Hamza el Din's Escalay (Waterwheel)
to the celebration of life in Dumisani Maraire's Mother Nozipo, this is music
as varied as the land from where they came. So "Tickets, please!", sit
back and enjoy the ride on a musical journey through a continent of rhythms,
stories and emotions that is Pieces of Africa."
The Good Music Guide





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No.60

Without a doubt, out of the thousands of albums I purchased over the years
this is one of the most spectacularly beautiful:

Of the handful of women composers whose work has been rediscovered only in the
last decade or so, none has seemed a more tragic case than Lili Boulanger, sister of
the composer and pianist Nadia, who died aged twenty-four in 1918. This recording
includes two psalm settings as well as the thirty-minute cantata Faust et H�l�ne, a
thrilling, musically seductive setting of Goethe fully deserving of a wider audience.

Referring to Lili Boulanger's Psalm 24 (composed in 1916), Psalm 129 (1916),
and Psalm 130 ("Du fond de l'ab�me"; 1914-17), Christopher Palmer noted, "The
composer's best work is to be found in the three psalm-settings; together they form a
triptych of epic proportions." With those works, Vieille Pri�re Bouddhique (1917), and
Pie Jesu, dictated on her deathbed to her sister, in 1918, deserve to be included.
While their power and originality are startling -- especially emanating from a frail and
chronically ill young woman who died at 24 -- and there is no denying Boulanger's
precocious genius, those final masterpieces emerged from a background of unpublished
choral Psalm settings made between 1907 and 1909, that is, beginning in her 14th year,
if not earlier.



Music Composed by Lili Boulanger
Played by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
With Jason Howard (bass) & Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano)
And Lynne Dawson (soprano) & Neil MacKenzie (tenor)
And Bonaventura Bottone (tenor)
Also with the the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus
Conducted by Yan-Pascal Tortelier

"What mysterious subterranean current is it that sparks different record companies,
suddenly and simultaneously, into espousing the cause of some neglected composer?
Few have been more overlooked than Lili Boulanger, overshadowed by the fame of her
influential elder sister, but recognition � however belated, more than 80 years after
her death � has never been more deserved. To a great extent the present disc
duplicates Mark Stringer�s programme noted above (inevitably, since in her mere 24
years of life Lili�s output was limited) with first-class performances, splendidly recorded �
the eloquent sombreness of D�un soir triste tugging at the heart, D�un matin de
printemps deliciously airy and optimistic, Psalm 24 given tremendous attack by
both orchestra and chorus (full marks for articulation of words!) and the powerful
Psalm 130 worthily presented as the masterly, heartfelt work it is.

But the major work here, from every point of view, is the 30-minute cantata Faust
et Helene in its first recording. No wonder that in 1913 it won the Premier Prix de
Rome: the jury must have been thunderstruck by the maturity of this entry from
a 19-year-old. It combines lyricism of striking beauty, rapturous fervour, emotional
anguish and tense drama with, for a young composer, an astonishing sureness of
touch in overall structure, freshness of invention, technical brilliance and
imaginative scoring. Genius � a word not to be lightly employed � is not too
strong a term. It seems to have inspired the present performers, among whom
it is almost invidious to praise Bonaventura Bottone."
Gramophone





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Everyone, grab the Boulanger and listen now!

Just to think what this composer could have achieved had she lived a little longer...

No.61

Robert Nelson was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1941, but grew up in the Midwest. He began
piano lessons and made his first attempts at composition while still in grade school. In Junior
High, he took up the trumpet and eventually achieved first chair in his high school band. During
his senior year he began playing both trumpet and piano in local dance bands, an interest that he
pursued throughout college and his professional career. He began serious composition study with
Robert Beadell at the University of Nebraska, where he received his Bachelors degree with a major
in music education and his Master of Music degree. He continued his composition studies with
Ingolf Dahl and Halsey Stevens at the University of Southern California, where he earned his
Doctor of Musical Arts degree with a major in composition. In 1968, he joined the music faculty
at the University of Houston, which would eventually become the Moores School of Music.
He is currently Professor Emeritus of Music Theory and Composition and co-author of five
widely adopted music theory books.

Nelson has long been interested in theatrical music, as both a composer and coach/conductor.
This meshes with a life-long interest in the widest range of musical idioms - from the most
avant-garde contemporary effects to current jazz and popular styles. Writing for the theater
has allowed him to explore all these various idioms and employ whichever were most appropriate
to the project at hand. His theatrical experience has included a long involvement as composer
for the extraordinary mime troupe of the University of Houston School of Theater.



Music Composed by Robert Nelson
Played by the Moores School of Music Symphony Orchestra
With D�bria Brown (mezzo-soprano)
And the Soloists of the Edythe Bates Old Moores Opera Center
And the Moores School Chorus
Conducted by Franz Anton Krager & Charles Hausmann

“…A Room with a View seethes and soars….a strong sense of theatricality,
especially when filmlike lusciousness underscored big dramatic peaks.”
Houston Chronicle

“Nostalgia runs through the music of A Room with a View as deeply as it saturates
E. M. Forster’s romantic novel…one hears fleeting recollections of Respighi, Sibelius
and more often, lush Hollywood music of the 1940’s…”
The Houston Post

“…I have rarely experienced so high a level of vision, quality and commitment
as I did a the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music.”
Dominick Argento



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No.62

Carl Nielsen's Aladdin, Opus 34/FS 89, is incidental music written to accompany a new production of
Adam Oehlenschl�ger�s "dramatic fairy tale" presented at The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen in February 1919.
Nielsen composed much of the music in Skagen during the summer of 1918, completing it after returning to
Copenhagen in January 1919. He experienced major difficulties with the work as the director, Johannes Poulsen,
had used the orchestra pit for an extended stage, leaving the orchestra cramped below a majestic staircase
on the set. When Poulsen cut out large parts of the music during final rehearsals and changed the sequence
of dances, Nielsen demanded that his name be removed from the posters and the programme. In fact,
the theatre production in February 1919 was not very successful and was withdrawn after only 15 performances.
The complete score, lasting over 80 minutes, is Nielsen's longest work apart from his operas. Demonstrating
great inventiveness, Nielsen's enriched style can be observed in the musical language he used for the exotic
dances, paving the way for his Fifth Symphony. In May 1992 a recording of virtually the entire score
was made by the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir with Gennady Rozhdestvensky.



Music Composed by Carl Nielsen
Played by the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra
With Guido Paevatalu (baritone) & Bo Anker Hansen (bass)
And Mette Ejsing (contralto) & Franz Lemsser (flute)
And the Danish National Chamber Choir
Conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky

"Carl Nielsen composed extensive incidental music for a 1919 Copenhagen
production of a play, Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp. The lavish original production
stretched to such a length that it had to be presented on two evenings, and the
composer contributed 80 minutes of music scored for full orchestra, chorus, and
vocal soloists. The director cut and rearranged the music to the extent that Nielsen
disavowed responsibility for the production, but later went on to arrange the music
for concert presentation, and in this form it has remained popular particularly with
Danish audiences. Nielsen was a master of writing for the theater, and the music
for Aladdin is colorful and varied in its moods and styles. It's tinged with a mild
Middle Eastern exoticism, and Nielsen consciously evokes the simplicity of folk
traditions in some sections. Many of the set pieces were intended for moments
of stage spectacle -- processions, dances, and celebrations -- and give the
composer the opportunity to let his imagination run free, and there are many
occasions of sweeping Romantic passion. While the score doesn't represent
Nielsen's most profound or original musical thought, it's an entirely attractive
piece. Aladdin's length and requirements for large musical forces make
performances of the complete score relatively rare, so this lively, evocative,
and musically nuanced performance with the Danish National Symphony and
Chamber Choir D/R, led by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, make an ideal introduction
to the work. Chandos' sound is clean, and captures a good balance between
warmth and clarity."
All Music


Costume design for the original
production of Aladdin.



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No.63

Primarily known as Debussy's musical assistant who orchestrated Children's Corner and other
works, Andr� Caplet was a highly imaginative and skilled composer in his own right. This
Wind Quintet is a student work showing remarkable craftsmanship and imagination, and an
individual voice within a style that, at the time, amalgamated aspects of the music of Massenet,
Franck, and Debussy. Its first movement was performed separately in 1899, and the whole thing
in March 1900. It won the Prize of the French Society of Authors, Composers, and Publishers in
1900, and appears to have been played several times before the score was lost. It was
rediscovered again in 1920, entrusted to an oboist who participated in a performance, lost
again, and rediscovered in 1937 or 1938 (a dozen years after the composer's death). It is
in a clear, classical four-movement structure, with rich, assured polyphonic writing, an
exceptional (and as yet little-known) contribution to the repertoire of piano/wind quintets.

One of the earliest pieces in Alb�ric Magnard's small chamber music output, the
Quintet for Piano and Winds shows the density of texture of Magnard's preceding
symphony and two operas. However, it also shows considerable refinement as he struggles
to find an elusive aesthetic purity of form in a much starker musical environment than he
was used to. The structure of the four movement piece is definitely symphonic, with the
first movement falling perfectly into sonata form, but the composer manages nonetheless
to create a lighter, more effervescent atmosphere than in any other ensemble piece of
his to this point. This is a relatively youthful work, dedicated to Octave Maus, the
Director of the short-lived 'Concerts de la Libre Esth�tique' in Brussels, where the work
was premi�red in April 1895. Its entertaining harmonies and deft but firmly controlled
counterpoint presage some of the French chamber music to come from the pens of
Poulenc, Roussel and Honneger.



Music by Andr� Caplet & Alb�ric Magnard
Played by the Trio d'Anches OZI
With Benoit Fromanger (flute) & Laurent Martin (piano)


Lucien Aubert of the Trio OZI.

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Wow, there are so many pieces to explore here and I have to admit that I don't know most of them. Thank you so much, wimpel69!

Thanks; many of these are of great interest to me.

Would be nice then if you clicked on "Like" for releases you download. ;)

I click 'like' even if I do not download because I never had enough time to listen to that all, but what I've heard so far is fantastic. So all the 'likes' from me is for the missionary work of the 'master of classics' wimpel69. ;O)

No.64

British composer Edmund Rubbra was a fine pianist, and for more than a decade he
played in a piano trio with the cellist William Pleeth. With Erich Gruenberg, longtime
concertmaster of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, they gave the premieres of both of
Rubbra's piano trios, recorded on this album. Also included are the Oboe Sonata,
written - like many British oboe works of the period - for Sir John Barbirolli's wife,
Evelyn Rothwell, and the suite The Buddha, based on a radio play by
Clifford Bax (brother of Arnold) that Rubbra wrote the incidental score for.



Music Composed by Edmund Rubbra
Played by The Endymion Ensemble

"After recording the violin sonatas Dutton move on with agreeable remorselessness to
the other chamber works. I rather hope that Dutton will duplicate the four string quartets
or seek a licence from whoever now holds the IPR for the Sterling Quartets Conifer DATs.

Melinda Maxwell's delicate tone painting and dancing delicacy tickles and caresses the
ears in the fantasy on Josquin's air Cœurs Désolés. The work was originally written
for recorder and harpsichord (I have known the work in this form for many years from
a BBC broadcast) but the composer indicated that flute or oboe may be used and that
the piano can be substituted for the harpsichord. This is a lovely piece with a fey oriental
twist at times. It is well worth hearing. Its opening bars follow the same melodic line
as the Fourth Symphony. Maxwell exchanges the oboe for the cor anglais for the equally
brief but dour and dissonant (in the piano part) Duo - the only tough essay on the disc.
It was written for and recorded by Peter Bree in 1980.

The Phantasy is dedicated to fellow 2001 centenarian, Gerald Finzi. This work is
not typical Rubbra. It has more fellow feeling with Dunhill's violin sonatas and the
early sonatas of Howell and John Ireland than with Rubbra's fully developed style.
The composer was only 26 when it was written.

The Oboe Sonata is lean (and succulent at the same time) with a warm ambience
and, as in the case of the Meditazioni, the key action is either inaudible or so quiet
as to hardly be there at all. This is an exceptionally beautiful work written in a molten
aureate flow of melody. The whirlpool of melody in the Presto (with its echoes of the
Piano Concerto and the Fifth Symphony) makes you regret that Rubbra never wrote
an Oboe Concerto. A Concerto of the eminence of the sonata would have made a
glowing coupling if there had been room on the recent ASV/Alan Cuckston CD.

The five movements of The Buddha suite were written for a radio play by Clifford Bax.
The scoring was originally for flute, oboe and string quartet but Adrian Cruft (always
a solicitous and sensitive soul and a fine composer in his own right) was selected to
make the present arrangement. The music is faintly oriental, certainly elusive,
melodic and clear, eerie in The Ascetics movement, Beethovenian in the shaping
of the obbligato in The Chariot Ride.

The Piano Trio No. 2 is again warm and welcoming. It breathes a friendly air with
little dancing melodic figures unwinding and flying here and there. Rubbra's sense
of dialogue is strong. While the first trio (in a single movement) came from 1950
and is structurally reminiscent of the viol fantasies of John Jenkins, the second is
freer, nostalgic and open to melodically liberated lines at every step. It is difficult
to understand how ideas of the moment and character of that at 2.10 in the allegro
scherzando second (and final) movement, can have been so neglected.

When you see the name Martin Anderson as the author of the notes you know
that you are in safe and inspired hands."
Musicweb





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No.65

Born in Teruel in 1933, Ant�n Garc�a Abril was initiated into the world of
music by his father. He studied in Valencia, Madrid, Siena and Rome. He was
a member of the group �Nueva M�sica� (New Music), of which Crist�bal Halffter,
Luis de Pablo and Luis Moreno Buend�a, among others, are also members. He
investigates new trends in musical expression. From 1974 to 2003 he taught
composition and musical forms as a professor of the Advanced Royal Music
Conservatory of Madrid. At the request of the Ministry of Culture, he
collaborated on a work for the grand opening of the National Auditorium
in 1988 along with poet Rafael Alberti. He was selected as a member of
the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid.
He composed the official hymn of the Community of Arag�n.

Best-known to film music lovers for the concert suite he drew from
his Granada TV score Monsignor Quixote, Abril actually scored
dozens of Spanish and international films from the 1960s on.



Music Composed by Ant�n Garc�a Abril
Played by the Real Filharmon�a de Galicia
With Maria Bayo (soprano)
Conducted by Antoni Ros Marb�

"Ant�n Garc�a Abril (b. 1933) is of the same generation as such Spanish Modernists
as Crist�bal Halffter, yet he seems to have sailed through the avant-garde 1960s without
a scratch. On this showing, he comes across as a thoughtful but tonally and texturally
conservative composer. (That is also the impression I gleaned from Paul A. Snook�s
review in Fanfare 19:4 of the only other Abril CD I know of, a Marco Polo release of
orchestral works, including a piano concerto.) The three works on this new disc were
composed in 2009, 1998, and 2006 respectively, but all three might have originated
50 years earlier in terms of style. Abril scores judiciously for orchestra, and deals in
themes that lend themselves to chromatic harmonization. He could be regarded as a
Spanish-tinged Samuel Barber. (The �Barber� of Seville? Unfortunately not: Abril
was born in Teruel, Aragon.)

The earliest work here is the cantata Salmo de Al�gria para el Siglo XXI (Psalm of
Joy for the 21st Century), a setting of poetry by Rafael Alberti for soprano and string
orchestra. It is more or less an extended meditative arioso on the subject of love,
written for and premiered by Montserrat Caball�. The work does not encompass a
great variety of mood over the course of its 25 minutes, but is unquestionably
beautiful. The tone poem Alba del soledades (Dawn of Solitude) was originally
a piece for violin and guitar, until the composer heard orchestral possibilities in it.
It begins in a pastoral vein, not far removed from the work of some 20th-century
English composers, but Spanish dance rhythms soon invade the scene and the
piece ends with a good deal of rhythmic excitement.

The Variaciones concertantes of 2009 is the longest and most diverse work on
the program. It begins with a languorous theme played by the solo violin,
which is soon taken up by the other string section leaders. Only gradually do
the full strings creep in. The solo bass variation brings some rhythmic movement.
The orchestral strings elaborate the theme before woodwinds make a belated
appearance. This gradual accumulation of orchestral color is deftly realized.
Indeed, it takes some time to appreciate the fact that you are listening to a set
of variations, since the theme itself is not instantly memorable and not at all
motivic (and the variations are not tracked separately)��yet the work has
cohesion and flow, subtly but surely drawing you into its own distinctive world."
Fanfare





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No.66

Just as with Weill in Weimar and Milhaud in France, the interwar years in England saw the emergence of
an aesthetic characterized by a surreal detachment and alienation - not only between audience and
work, but between elements of works themselves. In the early 1920s, poet Edith Sitwell noticed trends
towards abstraction in sculpture and painting, and sought to pursue similar ideas in English verse. As
her brother Osbert described, Edith "had lately - in 1920 and 21 - written various dance measures
and abstract poems of transcendent technical skill.... A young musician, William Walton, was then
sharing a house with us, and we decided together that he should set the poems to music, and that
they should be presented in as abstract a manner as possible."

So abstract was the product of their collaboration, in fact, that the premiere given on June 12, 1923,
under the title Fa�ade, places it within that elite canon of musical works that provoked their
opening-night audiences to riot. Osbert again recalls the scene: "...seldom has there been such an
outburst of critical rage and hysteria in an audience.... At the end my sister was warned not to leave
the shelter of her dressing room until the crowd had dispersed, or she might meet with injury."

Perhaps most challenging were Sitwell's nonsensical texts, which wander with semantic abandon
through fields of disconnected imagery and syntactical dead ends. Anything serves as linguistic
glue here: meaning, rhyme, assonance, association. This kind of poetry seems to sit just this
side of the fence, on the other side of which Hugo Ball's indecipherable Dadaist syllable collections
reside. By retaining words and stringing them together in such a sonorous way, Sitwell lends
the work a rather distinct level of meaning - or perhaps more accurately, a unique level of
meaninglessness. All the components of speech are there, and in the right positions
(subjects, objects, modifiers, etc.) but they combine into a delightfully dysfunctional
train of thought.

That description is apt when applied to the music as well. Just as the ambiguity of the
text subverts its own construction, Walton's music occupies a strange place of parody
and allusion: most of the numerous pieces (ranging in number from ten to thirty, depending
on which version of the work is performed) are caricatures of geographically-specific styles,
as reflected in titles like "Swiss Yodelling Song," "Scotch Rhapsody," "Noche Espagnole,"
and "Tango-Pasodoble." The various chamber combinations within the ensemble are
purposely inelegant, with extroverted fanfare and oompah. Within the context of Walton's
score, one can almost think of the reciter's part as yet another instrument, one separated
from the others only by the articulatory breadth of speech. The words are delivered in
a kind of self-conscious public-address monotone, but in strict and often lively rhythm.
The speaker is hidden from the audience, and speaks through a megaphone placed
in the mouth of a large and rather grotesque face painted on a scrim.

Walton extracted an orchestral suite from Fa�ade in 1926, and then another in 1938.
In 1977, he produced a sequel, Fa�ade II, which returned to the original chamber
ensemble and narration format. Also a setting of Edith Sitwell's poetry, this second
suite has seen performances by such esteemed performers of new music as Peter
Pears and Cathy Berberian, to whom it is dedicated.



Music Composed by William Walton
Played by the London Mozart Players
With Prunella Scales (reciter) & Timothy West (reciter)
Conducted by Jane Glover

"If I were allowed just one work of Walton's to save from the proverbial flood, it would
undoubtedly be Facade, for whatever the perhaps more obvious merits of some of the
large-scale works, it is here that his naughty, witty, ironic, and even his romantic
characteristics are most unselfconsciously caught. In more general terms the work
catches the spirit of the 1920s perhaps more authentically than any other. It has
already stood the test of 60 and more years, delighting ever new generations with
its ideal adumbration of Dame Edith Sitwell's alternately sharp-edged, gay and
melancholy verse. It will surely go on doing so when there are such eager advocates
as Prunella Scales and Timothy West to renew one's enjoyment of its delights. I was
brought up on the classic Decca performance (nla) by Sitwell herself and Sir Peter
Pears under Anthony Collins's direction. It will never be surpassed, which is not to
say that other interpreters cannot tackle it in their own way. No one will quite match
Dame Edith's magnificently nonchalant, languid and singular pronunciation of such
words and phrases as ''Long steel grass'', with the 'a' drawled aristocratically, or
the dark, almost menacing tone at ''Black Mrs Behemoth'', or the yelp of emphasis
on the single word ''Damn'' in ''En famille''.

Sensibly the present speakers don't attempt to copy her, but try their own,
perfectly valid way with the text. As other recent interpreters do they often split
the pieces between two voices as the text predicates a male, then a female
protagonist. This is at first disconcerting, but I learnt to appreciate it, especially
when the husband-and-wife team intertwine their voices so effortlessly. Then
they employ accents; Scales chooses, perfectly validly, Mummerset for ''Country
Dance'', Cockney for ''Valse'', and the pair go for a Swiss accent in the ''Jodelling
Song'', Scottish in the ''Scotch Rhapsody''. That might again jar were the accents
not so unerringly correct and unexaggerated. Indeed, for all their dramatic skills,
or perhaps because of them, the whole performance has a natural flow to it that
has not always been the case in other modern versions. This is enhanced by
the superlative playing by members of the London Mozart Players under Jane
Glover; quite as acute as that on the old aforementioned Decca LP. For once
this work has been well balanced with both voices allowed their due thanks to
producer Brian Culverhouse."
Gramophone





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Thanks for the absolutely wonderful and complete Fa�ade!

No.67

Morning Heroes is a choral symphony by the English composer Arthur Bliss (1891-1975).
The work received its first performance at the Norwich Festival on 22 October 1930, with Basil Maine
as the speaker/orator. Written in the aftermath of World War I, in which Bliss had performed military
service, Bliss inscribed the dedication as follows: "To the Memory of my brother Francis Kennard
Bliss and all other Comrades killed in battle." Arthur himself had been in the battle of the Somme,
and had been on the receiving end of one of those charming inventions that wars tend to bring about:
Mustard gas.

The work sets various poems: Homer, The Iliad, passages from Book VI (translation of
W Leaf) and Book XIX (translation of Chapman), Walt Whitman, "Drum Taps", Wilfred Owen,
"Spring Offensive", Li Tai Po (unidentified) and Robert Nichols, "Dawn on the Somme."

The extracts are spoken by a narrator and sung by a large choir. Juxtaposing the harsh images
of trench warfare with the epic heroes of Ancient Greece, the parallels Bliss draws are essentially
romantic, and the work as a whole has been criticised as being rather complacent. Bliss himself
said that he suffered from a repeating nightmare about his war experiences and that
the composition of Morning Heroes helped to exorcise this. The work falls into five sections,
in the structure of a palindrome, with the first movement acting as a prologue, then fast,
slow, and fast movements, and the final movement acting as an epilogue.



Music Composed by Sir Arthur Bliss
Played by The London Philharmonic Orchestra
With Brian Blessed (narrator)
And the East London, Harlow & East Hertfordshire choruses
Conducted by Michael Kibblewhite

"This project originated in the Bliss centenary celebrations back in 1991,
although the recording was only completed and the disc issued the following
year. This remains an important performance of a major work - Morning
Heroes - which perhaps ranks as the most central achievement in the
composer's catalogue.

Above all the recording benefits from the excellent playing of the London
Philharmonic, which has been admirably captured by the Cala engineers.
Kibblewhite directs a deeply felt and dramatic performance of Morning
Heroes, which Bliss described as 'a tribute to my brother and all my
comrades-in-arms who fell in the Great War'. This symphony for orator,
chorus and orchestra is an hour in duration and sustains its ambitious
time-scale by virtue of its vivid commitment and imaginative inspiration,
drawing upon various poets, including Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen,
Robert Nicholls and The Iliad.

While most of the texts are delivered in sung form by the chorus, some
are narrated in the context of atmospheric instrumentation. Brian Blessed
captures the spirit of the work, but his delivery might have been more
measured, in the manner used so successfully by John Westbrook in the
EMI recording conducted by Sir Charles Groves.

The choral singing brings a special intensity to this performance, and it
is no surprise to learn that Michael Kibblewhite was the founder and
director of all three (a bust schedule no doubt). The ensemble, while
complex, is always strongly disciplined, and the recorded perspective
generally succeeds in allowing details to be heard, sonorities to be
experienced. The fast music, such as the setting of Owen's The Heroes,
particularly gains from this approach, and has real intensity."
Musicweb



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No.68

A colorful mix of chamber works by various 20th century composers on the defunct Discover
label. Included are Francis Poulenc's Trio for Piano, Oboe and Bassoon, Ernest
Bloch's Three Nocturnes (for piano trio), Charles Koechlin's Trio for Flute,
Clarinet and Bassoon, Paul Ben-Haim's Serenade for Flute and String Trio &
Manuel de Falla's Concerto for Piano, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin & Cello.



Music by (see above)
Played by the South African Chamber Music Society



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No.69

Bernard Herrmann's Echoes (1965) is cast in a single-movement for string quartet and
evokes the modal style of Bart�k, sustaining a quiet, meditative mood for two-thirds of the piece, until
a startling eruption of frightening music breaks the stability and introduces more astringent counterpoint.
Some of the material was borrowed/develop from his famous score for Psycho. Herrmann wrote
this quartet shortly after his second wife, Lucy Anderson, had left him - accounting for the unrelentingly
depressive style and the overall grey-ish scoring.

Souvenir de Voyage (1967) is a clarinet quintet composed in a style similar to Echoes,
although the work's more nostalgic expression in long-breathed melodies in the dark chalumeau register
is a testament to the composer's spirits having been lifted after the separation from his wife. It is
less monochromatic, therefore somewhat closer to Fahrenheit 451 than to Psycho.

The Unicorn recordings are the ones that the composer himself supervised. The second, later album
also includes three other American string quartets, by Ralph Evans, Philip Glass and George Antheil.

Also included in this post is a set of parts (xerox of the original Novello edition, in the composer's own hand)
and the pdf score (computer set) of Herrmann's Echoes.







Music by Bernard Herrmann, George Antheil, Philip Glass and Ralph Evans
Played by the Ariel & Amici String Quartets
With Robert Hill (clarinet)
And the Fine Arts String Quartet

"A couple of things strike me at once. First, the idiom of Herrmann's concert music
doesn't differ an awful lot from the film music. Second, the gentility, the unabashed
Romanticism, unleavened by ironic distance, of the concert music seems at odds
with the breathtaking imagination of the film music. This is truer of the Clarinet
Quintet than the String Quartet. Parts of the quintet could have come right out of
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Vertigo. The resemblance will amaze. Nevertheless,
the Romanticism of the film scores is either appropriate to the images and story
(as in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) or the film story puts a perverse spin on the
Romanticism of the music (as in Vertigo). Third, is it really a coincidence that
both Vertigo and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir concern impossible loves? If not, what
does the quintet music have to do with Herrmann's avowed program – "On
Wenlock Edge" in the first movement, the Aran Islands in the second, and Venice
in the third? None of the music strikes me as particularly relevant to any of
these locations, and this is oddest of all, since Herrmann made his living as a
master of apt. I strongly feel something else going on. Nevertheless, the music,
although passionate, doesn't quite hold together, nor does it keep interest and
forward impulse throughout its slightly more than 25 minutes. Robert Hill and
the Ariel exacerbate the problems of coherence by dragging tempi (almost
30 minutes for the entire work) and with a flat clarinet in the first movement.
I prefer my current favorite clarinettist, David Shifrin, and Chamber Music
Northwest, who clock in at slightly under 27 minutes and convey more fervor
(Delos DE 3088).

The String Quartet "Echoes" comes across as one of Herrmann's most successful
works. As we've come to expect from Herrmann, the quartet presents no
tight argument or motific development – ten musically- unrelated ideas held
together by material from the quartet's prologue. Nevertheless, Herrmann
shapes the music to his strengths – an edgy moodiness, a variety of interesting
ideas, and great diversity of texture within the "black-and-white" string quartet.
One of the sections, a habanera, strongly recalls the theme associated with
Kim Novak as the unattainable love object of Vertigo. Quintet and quartet
appeared about a year apart. I don't know enough of Herrmann's personal
life at this time, but the work really does seem the record of an abortive affair.
The Amici Quartet catch the self-gnawing nerve and sudden, macabre
explosions of the work. This is music from the psychoanalyst's couch –
probing, worrying, obsessive, self-reproachful. Under the Amici, the music
becomes less scattered than you'd expect from analyzing the score. The
"flaws" become simply another way to compose. The performance strongly
champions the composer and invites the listener to communicate with a
rare artistic sensibility."
Classical Net

"Evans’s quartet joins a pleasing programme…I find Herrmann’s Echoes
the most intriguing…Hitchcock aficionados may well find themselves creating
mental images to match the moods of these evocative pieces…It is to be
hoped that other quartets may find their way to this concert piece by
Herrman at last…Expertly played, like everything else here."
Gramophone







Source: Unicorn Kanchana & Naxos CDs (my rips!), Novello score (my xerox!)
Format: mp3, 320k/s (CBR) - Encoder: Lame 3.99
File Sizes: 126 MB + 143 MB (incl. covers & booklets) + 130 MB (parts/score)

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Download Link (Fine Arts Quartet) - https://mega.co.nz/#!6wI2EZ5B!Yy4zDQw2-AbvU2Yla6ypWDhLII98xLui6eMqOqsGOjQ
Download Link (Parts & Score) - https://mega.co.nz/#!GtpUUIiL!cCtPap4aPRJ-tGrdy4qALy2V0kUYtlTy1jj3uJZqTLc

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Herrmann's chamber music is a real found for me, many thanks wimpel69.

---------- Post added at 09:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:35 AM ----------

Searching my collection and found three Vox Boxes with unknown String Quartets, most american composers... shame on me, i don't remember any listening and i own this stuff over 20 years. I need more lifetime to listen music, definetly.

No.70

Richard Arnell (1917-2009) is best remembered for his six symphonies, which were given a new lease of life
in recordings by Martin Yates and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Dutton also recorded this album
of miscellaneous chamber pieces. Arnell was a successful composer of string quartets, but he only wrote this
on String Quintet, op.60, Piano Trio and music for solo harp/solo cello. The quintet in particular was
highly acclaimed when premiered in 1950. Arnell fell on hard times during the Glock regime at the BBC,
one of his string quartets was even rejected for broadcast performance. In recent years, however,
tables have been turned in favor of the middle generation of 20th century tonal British composers like
Arnell, Alwyn, Arnold or Leighton.



Music Composed by Richard Arnell
Played by the Locrian Ensemble

"Born in Hampstead, London in 1917, Richard Arnell, after studying under John Ireland
at the Royal College of Music, visited New York in 1939, where he stayed working as a
consultant to the BBC until the end of the war. At Virgil Thompson�s recommendation,
Arnell caught the ear of Beecham (another wartime expatriate) and through the conductor
we came to know his ballet suite Punch and the Child.

The last work Arnell wrote in America (in 1946, before his return to Britain) is the
splendid Piano Trio, which he considered �the most compelling of my piano works�.
Compelling it certainly is, and immediately communicative in its rich lyricism. The elliptical
central Andante, which opens darkly and is poignantly elegiac, perhaps remembers his
mother who died in a bombing raid in 1942; yet it has a vigorous counterpart, leading to
an intense climax, before the final gentle diminuendo. A ruminative passage then takes
us to the lighter opening mood of the finale, which is to produce a characteristic fugato
treatment, and finally a searchingly passionate close.

Back in Britain, Arnell enjoyed the continuing patronage of Beecham and the RPO, and
also Barbirolli in Manchester. The London Baroque Orchestra recorded his Wind
Serenade, and he himself, with the Pro Arte Orchestra, his Great Detective ballet
suite (both for Pye). Then the recording companies deserted him; so this collection
is especially valuable.

The String Quintet and Cello Suite were both written in 1950 and in later years Arnell
travelled back and forth across the Atlantic and also taught at London�s Trinity College
of Music. The Quintet is quite pungent, and it is the deeply expressive Andante and
dancing Scherzo that initially catch the ear, while the lively finale, with its catchy main
theme, again employs contrapuntal writing. Like the Piano Trio, the work�s close is
passionately assertive. Justin Pearson is most persuasive in the unaccompanied Cello
Suite, which is essentially ruminative, but also has a strong neo-Baroque underlay.
It is immediately attractive and must be very rewarding to play.

Both the Music for Harp (with flute, violin and viola; 1967) and Arnell�s most recent
work, the Flute Trio (1991) are mellower; the latter shows that his lyrical, often
haunting melodic facility had in no way diminished.

The Locrian performances throughout are most sympathetic, with the players
obviously right inside the music, and the recording is excellent. Here, then, is a
CD to restore to us yet one more of an all-but-forgotten generation of
British composers."
Gramophone





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No.71 http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a29/wombat65/choice_zps271ece10.gif

The 1926 premi�re of El Caser�o (The Homestead) at Madrid's Teatro de la Zarzuela was one
of the highlights of Jes�s Guridi's career. He had wanted to find a new direction after his earlier
stage works (Mirentxu and Amaya), while keeping the Basque setting, and did so with this
three-act zarzuela, confident that his skill and theatrical flair would win him a place amongst the great
figures of the genre.

This, the first of Guridi's seven operatic works in Castilian (rather than Basque) signalled the start of
a fruitful relationship with librettists Federico Romero and Guillermo Fern�ndez-Shaw, then at the
height of their powers following the huge success of Do�a Francisquita (one of the best works of its
genre). El Caser�o tells the story of the people of an imaginary Basque village, Arrigorri. Santi,
owner of the homestead Sasibill, hopes its future will be assured by marriage between his nephew
and niece: Jos� Miguel, who loves the good things in life, and his sweet-natured cousin Ana Mari,
with whose mother Santi was secretly in love. Santi has to use all his ingenuity in order to show
the womanising Jos� Miguel that he is really in love with his cousin.

The plot progresses steadily towards its predictably happy ending with a good mix of simplicity
and humour along the way, not forgetting of course picturesque touches in the shape of local
songs, festivities, processions, dances and a contest between bertsolaris (poetry improvisers).
Different social classes are represented in the story, and the dialogue includes examples of
certain syntactic elements peculiar to the Castilian spoken in Basque villages.



Music Composed by Jes�s Guridi
Played by the Orquesta Sinf�nica de Bilbao
With Vicente Sardinero (Santi) & Ana Rodrigo (Ana Mari)
And Emilio S�nchez (Jos� Miguel) & Felipe Nieto (Chom�n)
And Fernando Latorre (Don Leoncio) & Maria Jos� Su�rez (Eustasia)
And the Sociedad Coral de Bilbao
Conducted by Juan Jos� Mena

"All concerned obviously enjoy the music, and everyone sings and plays with
conviction. Soloists are extremely good and some minor parts are very nicely
done indeed. The part played by the Bilbao Choral Society is worthy of a
special accolade. In short, this is an attractive piece of music that clearly
deserves to be heard. Those who already know Guridi�s music will need no
further recommendation. I am sure that others who love, say, Rodrigo�s
or Turina�s music will find much to enjoy here. I certainly did."
Hubert Culot, Musicweb International

"Guridi's lyricism is more north-of-the-border French than Spanish; he was a student
of Vincent d'Indy, and one hears the Impression*ist composers in his superb orchestration
of Basque-nationalist melodies. Some numbers have a Puccini-esque cast, like the
famous duet beginning 'Buenos dias' in Act I, where the young couple-tenor Emilio
Sanchez and soprano Ana Rodrigo-have a rapturous time. And Sanchez makes his
aria in the second act, 'Yo no se que veo en Ana Mari' truly haunting.

Baritone Vicente Sardinero (who sang at the Metropolitan in the 1970s and who died
after making this recording) does the "title" song, 'Sasibil, rni Caserio' beautifully and
very movingly. The chorus has some of its strongest contributions in the extended
finales, and I recommend turning down the lights to help give the illusion of the
misty Basque country.

However wistful and sad some of the music may sound, the end of the zarzuela is
a celebratory one, with the lovers paired off in happy operetta fashion and the
estate saved. A toast-however one says it in Basque-to this recording, with the
hope that Naxos will follow it with many more zarzuela treasures, neglected or not."
American Record Guide





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This 3rd String Quartet by Antheil makes me crazy, first track is an heavy earwig...can't get enough from this piece. Same thing at Souvenirs de Voyage by Herrmann what fantastic melodys. Sometimes it sounds like bavarian alpine music, great stuff!

No.72

Roman Fever had its world premiere in Durham, NC in the Spring of 1993.
Robert Ward (1917-2013), Pulitzer-prize composer and retired Mary Duke Biddle
Professor at Duke University, composed the music for the opera based on the well-known
short story by Edith Wharton. The librettist, Roger Brunyate, is a stage director for the
opera department at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. "Earlier," said Ward in an
interview, "Roger told me he was speaking to all his composer friends about writing operas
with predominantly female casts. His idea seemed a good one, since most university and
conservatory opera groups are three-quarters women and one-quarter men, and opera
casts are usually the opposite - mostly men, fewer women." Shortly after this, Ward
happened to read Wharton's short stories, including "Roman Fever." "I thought, My God,
what a story, so I contacted Roger to see if he'd like to write the libretto while I worked
on the music." The title refers both to malaria, the disease which once flourished in
the marshes near Rome, and, metaphorically, to the giddiness that strikes many who
visit the romantic Italian capital. Despite dark elements, the composer describes his
work as a "tragicomedy: no one dies. "The tragic element," says Ward, "lies in the
thing that in our life we have failed to achieve: relationships, career, the thing that
leaves a kind of ache inside throughout our lives." The score of the opera displays a
number of interesting musical styles: the old-style Italian ballad, a jazz duet, an
operatic aria and a soaring quartet where each woman expresses her individual
thoughts. Said Ward, "I've never written anything so overtly jazzy as this duet in
this show 'They Kissed our Hands'."



Music Composed by Robert Ward
Played by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater Orchestra
With Dorothy Grimley (soloist) & Maxime Alvarez de Toledo (soloist)
And Erin Elizabeth Smith (soloist) & Eudora Brown (soloist),
Conducted by David Gilbert

"I have always loved the Robert Ward opera The Crucible, and over the years have
tried to see it when possible on stage. Ward gets to the heart of the drama in his
music and has been too little acknowledged as one of America's finest living
composers for the voice.

Now we have his latest effort, a one-act piece based on the evocative Edith Wharton
short story of four women (two manipulative mothers and two much nicer daughters)
visiting the city where the two older women travelled as girls and competed to
the death--or nearly--for a man (himself long dead) connected to all four by the
curse of the plague that swept that city in the 20s.

If it all sounds soap-operaish, it is, but the proceedings are elevated by Ward's
superb score and the particular care given to this effort by the always
surprising Manhattan Opera Theatre company."
Amazon Reviewer



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No.73

The art song cycles and collections crafted by the American composers on this recording
musically document African-American culture through poetry, historical subjects, the
diaspora and vernacular elements. This is a contemporary view of the art song tradition
in world premiere recordings. Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim for her
operatic, orchestral, and oratorio performances around the world. In addition to opera
performances, including Lee Hoiby�s one-woman opera The Italian Lesson, Ms. Toppin
tours in Gershwin on Broadway.

The rhythmic content of the music ranges from heavily syncopated (in the Lyric Suite
of Robert L. Morris, which borrows both texts and music from the spirituals and other
forms of traditional African American song (and from jazz as well), ornamenting and deepening
it with attractive low wind and brass writing. The titular Heart on the Wall, by American-German
composer Robert Owens, sets poems by Langston Hughes embodying the Italian comic
figure of Pierrot in a language little touched by Hughes' jazz age. Myths of History, by Julius
P. Williams, is in the dramatic narrative mode. Perhaps the most successful work is the last,
the Songs of Harriet Tubman by Nkeiru Okoye, drawn from a larger operatic work.
Okoye forges a convincing idiom that reflects the rhythms of Tubman's speech in a natural way.



Music by (see above)
Played by the Dvor�k Symphony Orchestra
With Louise Toppin (soprano)
Conducted by Julius P. Williams

"This unusual CD presents four first-time recordings of song cycles by black American
composers, sung by soprano Louise Toppin and conducted by one of the composers,
Julius P. Williams. One of the more arresting features of these cycles is that they are
all for soprano and orchestra rather than piano accompaniment.

The earliest of these, Heart on the Wall, is not based on an African-American theme
but rather on the commedia dell�arte figure of Pierrot, though the poems were written
by Langston Hughes. It was composed in 1968 for the famed coloratura soprano
Mattiwilda Dobbs by Robert Owens (b.1925), who has lived in Germany since 1959.
Since I did not really hear a coloratura high range in Toppin�s CD of spirituals, I
wondered how she was going to cope with this music. Oddly enough, most of the
high notes are in the compass of a regular lyric soprano range, though the leaps
upward are a bit stressful and many of those notes are sung softly. Toppin manages
them with aplomb. The music is tonal, but with unusual harmonic substitutions
at times.

Much the same may be said of Williams�s Myths of History (2005), based on the
writings of Edgar Toppin. Indeed, from a strictly musical standpoint, the melodic
structures and harmonic frameworks are remarkably similar. The first piece
emphasizes the point that Africa was the cradle of mankind, the second that
history �can have a balanced perspective� if you correct �long-held misconceptions,�
the third that no matter how bad slavery was for black African Americans, you
have to face the fact that slavery existed �among all people at all times.� �History,�
the second of the three pieces, is the most lyric and contemplative, �Slavery�
(the third) the most dissonant and dramatic. Here Toppin has a little trouble
with one of the forte high Cs, but the high D that crowns the work is nailed
perfectly.

Robert L. Morris, the writer of the Lyric Suite, has an unusual background. He was
already composing and arranging while still in grammar school; while in college,
he was a ghost composer-arranger for Duke Ellington�s benefit show My People.
His music has been performed by Philip Brunelle�s Vocal Essence, the Dale Warland
Singers, the Moses Hogan Singers, and Toronto�s R. Nathaniel Dett Chorale. This
suite is based on black vernacular texts. Appropriately, Morris�s music is in the style
of American spirituals, though his melodies are original and his orchestration textured
with dark winds and brass. Toppin sings with added fervor in the opening dramatic
declamation, �Rockin� Jerusalem.� The gospel blues �What Shall I Do?� starts out a
cappella , then when the orchestra enters, it has a very Ellingtonian feel to it.
�Scandalizin� My Name� sounds based on the standard spiritual of the same title,
but has a few interesting melodic twists (and high notes!) toward the end. �Lament:
This May Be My Las� Time� is, again, strongly Ellington-like, in this case similar to
his Come Sunday . The final song, �Juba: Ev�ry Time I Feel the Spirit,� is a wonderful
piece in what I would call, for lack of a better simile, an uptempo cakewalk.
The final phrases are simply wonderful.

The liner notes claim that Nkeiru Okoye is �the most-performed African-American
female symphonic composer in the U.S.� Unfortunately, I must claim no prior
knowledge of her music. This song cycle is actually a suite of the four �name�
arias sung by the title character in her opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed
That Line to Freedom. As a child, Tubman introduces herself as Araminta or just
plain �Minty,� her childish patter contrasting with the realities of life as a slave.
Later, �My name is Harriet now, don�t call me Minty anymore,� then the adult
Harriet introduces herself as a free woman. In the end, the seasoned leader in
the Underground Railroad proclaims, �I Am Moses, the Liberator.� Okoye�s music i
s also tonal, but much moodier than the preceding three composers and painted
with dark colors: low strings, soft trombone choirs, and trumpets playing in their
low midrange. I�m sure that, in the context of the opera, there is music of contrast
that comes before and after these arias, but taken out of context and put into a
suite, there is an element of sameness to them, though the second aria has a
marvelous uptempo section in the middle for contrast. I should point out, in
fairness, that Okoye�s music is very well crafted and especially interesting in her
choice of orchestration (note the sub-contra piano playing along with the low
trombones at the opening of �I Am Moses��this puts me in mind of some of the
orchestration that Eric Dolphy did for John Coltrane on the latter�s Africa/Brass
sessions), and Toppin�s very dramatic reading of �I Am Harriet Tubman, Free
Woman� is really wonderful, relaxed, with plasticity of rhythm and great
commitment. Toppin caps the suite off with a great high D while still managing
to keep her diction clear.

I should be remiss if I did not mention that Julius Williams�s conducting is
superbly detailed in texture, bringing out the unusual timbres used by these
composers (including himself) yet being sensitive enough to realize that he is
accompanying a singer, and therefore should not overpower her. The Dvor�k
Symphony Orchestra plays extremely well considering that this music is probably
not rhythmically indigenous to it. An excellent disc."
Fanfare



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No.74

John Caldwell (*1938) is a British musicologist and composer. Caldwell was born in Bebington, Cheshire and
studied the organ at the Matthay School of Music in Liverpool, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists
in 1957. He studied at Keble College, Oxford, obtaining his B.A. in 1960, B.Mus. in 1961 and D.Phil. in 1965. For
his doctorate, he transcribed and edited a manuscript of English liturgical organ music from between 1548 and
1650. He was an assistant lecturer at Bristol University from 1963 to 1966, before returning to Oxford University
as a lecturer in 1966, holding this position until 1996 when he was appointed a Reader. He was a Fellow of
Keble College from 1967 to 1992. He became a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford in 1999
and given the title of Professor by the University Distinctions Committee. He became an Emeritus Fellow
on his retirement in 2005.

The opera-oratorio Good Friday is a considerable tour de force. Yes of course it is the Passion
narrative from the Gospel of St. John – sung in Latin by three singers in quast-liturgical fashion. But in
places one feels that the Latin has never been such fun since the time of the goliards (apart from those
Private Eye Honcrary Degree Citations in Full). Non-classicists are helped along further by the novel
device of having a more-or-less simultaneous spoken translation of the Latin words being sung by Jesus,
Peter, Pilate and some of the other characters. This works to great dramatic effect – far more brilliantly
in performance than the mere description would suggest. The action is sung mostly in English.

Good Friday – how come nobody thought of this telling title before? – was originally composed
for the chapels of three Oxford colleges: Lincoln, Jesus and Exeter. At the first performances in 1998
the first two scenes took place in Lincoln College with relatively small forces; the other two scenes in
Jesus and Exeter; calling for larger resources, including organ and piano. The scenes were connected by
outdoor processional music – repeated as necessary – for voices and transportable instruments. Dramatic
in conception, the work incorporates narrative and meditative elements to a degree that would be
unusual in opera: hence it is an opera-oratorio. With the soldiers’ striking of Jesus, and other similar
dramatic moments, a video version is almost called for.

The musical style, writes the composer, is ‘influenced by precedents in the history of religious
music’. And other sources – for instance in the ‘trivial, light music’ which in scene two ‘symbolises the
low life of the hangers on at the place of Annas’ . But conscious adoption of earlier material occurs
only in the tone of the opening prayer; in the hymn Vexilla regis prodeunt (The royal banners forward
go) from the original plainsong; and in the climatic refrain in the final section. Crux fidelis
(Faithful Cross) the unaltered plainsong hymn melody of which happens uncannily, or possibly
cannily, to contain more than just and echo of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony.



Music Composed by John Caldwell
Played by the Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia
Members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
And the Choir of Lincoln College, Oxford
Conducted by Benjamin Nicholas

"For something off the beaten track that is utterly compelling in its thrilling combination
of the liturgical and dramatic, readers should urgently seek out John Caldwell’s Good Friday
(Record of the Month). The natural generic successor to Britten’s canticles, Caldwell’s
musical language achieves a Berg-like intensity on occasion, but it is the haunting
reminiscences of everything from Brahms, Stravinsky and Walton to Gregorian Chant
flowing effortlessly in and out of the music that leave the greatest impression. This
reaches levels of almost Satie-like, vaudeville parody in the passage featuring Peter’s
first denial, yet the overriding impression of this extraordinary work is a majestic
nobility that – stylistic disparity aside – I found hauntingly reminiscent of Honegger’s
Le roi David."
Julian Hayloc, Classic FM "Record of the Month"



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Something only for the desperate collector who has got too many harddrives. I don't believe that anybody will ever listen to the whole thing...

Something only for the desperate collector who has got too many harddrives. I don't believe that anybody will ever listen to the whole thing...

What, the Caldwell? Personally I think it has something. Some new ideas.

It is not all gold that glitters, but to condemn it you need to know it ;O)

yeah...exactly like you say: "some new ideas", but these don't really make a summer. It starts nicely, but then it looks like Caldwell loses orientation (and concentration) in what direction to go..Halfhearted attempts to build a bridge between old fashion choral motifs (stolen I think but not sure) and "modern",which again is too harmless for something to impress. Surely it's music for "Good" Friday, but as we all know that Friday was not really "good". Had Caldwell called it Bad Friday Music, a long borrowing promenade through choral history, he surely would deserve more respect. Let's have a beer, makes much more sense ;-)

---------- Post added at 07:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:25 PM ----------


What, the Caldwell? Personally I think it has something. Some new ideas.

---------- Post added at 07:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 PM ----------


It is not all gold that glitters, but to condemn it you need to know it ;O)
I heard samples from it, before I condemned it. You don't have to drink the full liter of milk to find out that it's sour. (one of the few benefits of ageing...)
I think it's also important to keep a forum alive to say when you don't like something, instead of "like" everything. Wimpel69 never gives a real chance to condemn anything, as his posts are just too well chosen, so I just had to take that chance...lol
Anyway I BET you will NEVER listen to it twice!! ;-)

I am not that young and i know what you mean...but i like the posts of wimpel69, not ever the music or the interpretation.
And yes I filter out good music I listen to more than once. ;O)

No.75

This is a superb and generous collection of songs by Sir Granville Bantock.
Bantock and fellow English composer Arnold Bax had a lot in common: They both wrote vast
quantities of music, they both had certain thematic preoccupations throughout their careers
(see the photo of Bantock's below, and you'll know what I mean), and they both had a characteristic
musical language that they never really further developed.

Bantock was a sucker for all things oriental and Celtic - thus, several of his major works
deal with one (Omar Khayyam) or the other (A Celtic Symphony). This fixation is
found, too, in the songs featured in the present collection: There are settings of Chinese and
Arabic poems (both in English translations, of course - Songs from the Chinese,
Ghazals of Hafiz), and there are Celtic themes - as well as some rumbustious English-
themed songs (Captain Harry Morgan!) that were written for concerts but might
just as well be sung at a local pub.

All in all this is a very entertaining and varied album, with beautiful singing and
perfect accompaniment.



Music Composed by Sir Granville Bantock
Performed by Jean Rigby (mezzo-soprano) & Peter Savidge (baritone)
With David Owen Norris (piano)

"There couldn�t be more contrast between the first two volumes of the Naxos English
Song Series, originally issued on Collins. Walton was only an occasional songwriter,
but his quirky originality comes through in the two cycles Anon in Love and A Song
for the Lord Mayor�s Table, though Edith Sitwell�s poems work better spoken in Fa�ade
than as song. Somervell�s style dates from an earlier era, and is a mixture of Victorian
sentimentality with echoes of Hymns Ancient and Modern, and the odd whiff of Brahms �
especially prominent in the short cycle James Lee�s Wife, with its accompanying piano
quintet. On both discs the indefatigable Graham Johnson leads involved performances.
Like Somervell, Bantock was born in the 1860s, but he was much more affected by
contemporary harmonic trends, and less four-square in his word-setting: words seemed
to inspire him to real leaps of imagination, and the tendency to sprawl � so frequent
in his orchestral works � is kept in check by the framework of the poems. There�s his
usual preoccupation with the exotic, and Celtic, Chinese, Persian and Egyptian poems
(real or fake), all appear here. Most impressive are the settings of Hafiz, where he breaks
completely free from the stanzaic structure of the poetry to create operatic scenes in
miniature; and the beautifully simple �Song to the Seals�."
BBC Music Magazine





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YES YES YES!!!! Just superb!

There is a problem with downloading No. 74. I would love to hear this even though some dislike it.

Bantock�s music has such a rich orchestral palette that it has a balsamic effect!
Thanks,wimpel!

There is a problem with downloading No. 74. I would love to hear this even though some dislike it.

Link replaced. Should work now.

---------- Post added at 12:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 AM ----------




No.76

Born in Leamington Spa, Robin Holloway (*1943) was a St Paul's Cathedral chorister from
1952-57. He read English and Music at King's College Cambridge, while studying privately with
Alexander Goehr. After researching Wagner and Debussy for his doctorate (1972), he was
appointed a lecturer in the Cambridge Music Faculty, where his many pupils have included
Peter Paul Nash, Robert Saxton and Judith Weir.

His abundant output in every genre - not to mention his extensive critical writings - have
sprung from a productive conflict between the techniques and ideology of modernism and his
love for German and French romanticism of the 19th and early 20th century. Among his larger
works, his opera Clarissa was staged by English National Opera in 1990, while his millennial
Symphony was commissioned by the BBC for the 2000 Proms; but some of his grandest
conceptions, notably his settings of Ibsen's Brand and Peer Gynt, have yet to reach
performance.

The cantata Sea-Surface full of Clouds, set for four soloists, chamber choir and chamber
orchestra, is based on a poem by American writer Wallace Stevens. It was published in 1982.



Music Composed by Robin Holloway
Played by the City of London Sinfonia
With Charles Brett (counter-tenor) & Margaret Cable (mezzo-soprano)
And Penelope Walmsley-Clark (soprano) & Martyn Hill (tenor)
With the Richard Hickox Singers
And Erich Gruenberg (violin)
Conducted by Richard Hickox

"The Arts Council policy, sadly now defunct, of subsidising the recording of new work
was undermined at times by the frequency of deletions. This reissue is particularly
valuable not only because the performances are exemplary, but because both works
(from the 1970s) are remarkable, easily approachable and scarcely performed in the
concert hall. Hickox draws ravishing sounds from singers and orchestra in Sea-Surface
(even if the words are inaudible), while Gruenberg finely projects the Romanza, an
exquisite, small-scale violin concerto."
BBC Music Magazine (***** / *****)

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No.77

A collection of "modern" (as in: contemporary), but in fact conservative works
for recorder, inspired by Danish Michala Petri's virtuosity *and* popularity.

Christiansen: Recorder Sonatina No.1, op.15
Thommessen: The Blockbird
Buck: Gymel
Jacob: Sonatina for Recorder and Harpsichord
Staeps: Intermezzo
Arnold: Fantasy
Holmboe: Trio for Recorder, Cello and Harpsichord



Music Composed by (see above)
Played by Michala Petri (recorders)
With Hanne Petri (harpsichord) & David Petri (cello)

"The Danish recorder player Michala Petri won considerable esteem in the 1970s,
when she was still in her teens, and this RCA disc features just a few of the many
pieces written for her. I came to this disc as a fan of Vagn Holmboe, and I'll limit
my review to his work here.

Holmboe worked in a mainly neoclassical and Nordic vein, but the three-movement
Trio for Recorder, Cello and Harpsichord op. 133 (1978) is unusual in his output
because of its allusions to the Baroque era. Setting new music to early music
ensembles was something of a fad in this decade -- hear, for example Per Norgard's
use of such scoring on the Dacapo disc Seadrift. Furthermore, the music is
dominated by trills and turns, with the recorder taking on these antique features
in the outer movements and the harpsichord in the inner movement. The slow
second movement is similar to Holmboe's flute concertos (which you can hear
on a BIS disc. Holmboe was not an especial fan of extended techniques, but he
does let loose in the third movement with some amusing glissandi.

Holmboe's piece is fun, and used copies of this disc abound, so if you're a fan
of the composer, it's worth seeking out."
Amazon Reviewer





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No.78

The major find here is Ambroise Thomas's (1811-1896) engagingly tuneful String Quartet
in E minor, a real period curiosity that employs a genuine melodic gift in the service of a confident
fairly conventional structure. The pensive first movement is elegantly turned, with palpable echoes
of Mendelssohn and Beethoven and a delightfully operatic second subject, the second movement
anticipates Smetana-style modulations (at say, 0'44'') while the third includes some delightfully
balletic pizzicato writing (at, for example, 2'31'') and the finale could easily transform into a
coloratura aria. Thomas composed the work at around the time that he won the Prix de Rome
(1832), and its portfolio contemporaries also include a quintet, a piano trio, piano pieces and a
Requiem�all of them works that could also benefit from an occasional airing.

Charles Gounod's talent for instrumental composition is far better known than Thomas's, and
his String Quartet in A minor displays a more obvious indebtedness to Beethoven, not
only in mood but in the gritty manner of its musical arguments. The score's most memorable
movement is placed second, a Brahmsian-sounding Allegretto quasi moderato that could easily
serve as an encore in its own right. However, the programme's strongest component is
the E flat Quartet by Edouard Lalo, with its typically dextrous rhythmic writing
and an immediate melodic appeal that should win the work many friends: try either the work's
very opening or its cleverly ambiguous, vaguely Spanish-sounding Vivace, both of which
provide excellent sampling points.



Music by Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod & Edouard Lalo
Played by The Daniel String Quartet

"Never mind the Symphonie espagnole and Le roi d�Ys, Edouard Lalo is the last
of the great unknowns in 19th-century French music. His mature instrumental
works combine the wisdom drawn from his professional playing experience with
the familiar flair for rhythm and colour. They are likely to transform any opinion
you may hold: it isn�t often that the inspiration of Beethoven was so well digested
in France. The first two trios don�t really count as mature, and although they
contain fine things, especially in the scherzos, their characteristic soul, sweep
and dash are often clumsily handled. With No. 3, form and feeling are as one,
the first movement�s surges integral to its progress to a hushed end, while the
slow movement builds a powerful span from a sustained melody. Between them
comes the irresistible piece better known in Lalo�s later arrangement as a
Scherzo for orchestra. These performances have the necessary robustness
without stinting on delicacy. His Quartet is full of incident and drama where
many composers are content with �development�. Again the Scherzo is a tour
de force of syncopations and cross-rhythms. This music stands in relation to
Franck much as Schumann does to Brahms, and the playing sounds understandably
committed and vigorous. It is fascinatingly coupled. Even for Gounod and Ambroise
Thomas, opera wasn�t everything. Thomas�s Quartet is lucid and melodically fertile,
never putting a foot wrong, lacking only intensity and adventurousness. Gounod�s
is another matter, elliptical and energetic, with Beethoven again in the background
(particularly his Op. 95 Quartet) and episodes of Mireille-like charm woven in
with a quietly purposeful air."
BBC Music Magazine


Thomas, Lalo, Gounod.

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No.79

In the context of a world focused on the chaos and strife in the Middle East, Arab-American
composer Mohammed Fairouz presents two new masterworks that combine the musical
and textual backgrounds of the region, exalting the commonalities, and sharing a vision of unity
and hope for peace. Combining massive musical forces with star powered soloists, this release �
the second by Sono Luminus of works by this young composer called �an important new
artistic voice� by the New York Times � delivers a musically, sonically, and spiritually engaging
album that transcends culture or creed.

The opening work inspired by the Egyptian uprising, Tahrir strips away vast cultural divides
through the intertwining of Arabic modes and complex rhythmic patterns traditionally found in
Arabic music with that of Jewish Klezmer Bands, delivered by world renowned clarinetist David
Krakauer. The piece, which the Los Angeles Times praised as �an arresting tour de force� takes
its name from the site where so many young voices were lifted up together in unity for change
and provides musical proof of a deep commonality in the traditions that is overlooked due to
deep-rooted stress between the two cultures.

Symphony No.3: Poems and Prayers is a poetic Middle Eastern journey scored for solo
vocalists, large mixed chorus and orchestra. Leading the performance are GRAMMY� award
winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and critically acclaimed baritone David Kravitz.
Commissioned by The Middle East Center for Peace, Culture and Development at Northeastern
University, the symphony expresses ancient and modern texts ranging from the Aramaic Kaddish
to modern Israeli and Arabic poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, Yehuda Amichai and Fadwa Tuqan.
Opening with the powerful chorus in Kaddish delivered in Aramaic, moving to the hauntingly beautiful
and poignant movement Lullaby (where Cooke is joined clarinetist David Krakauer), to the
expression of frustration at the futility of war Memorial day for the War Dead, and the repeated
call for peace throughout the work with the use of the text in Oseh Shalom, Poems and Prayers
weaves together a narrative of shared loss and dispossession as well as hope and reconciliation.



Music Composed by Mohammed Fairouz
Played by the University of California at L.A. Philharmonia
With David Krakauer (clarinet) & Sasha Cooke (mezzo-soprano)
And David Kravitz (baritone) & University of California at L.A. Chorus & Chorale
Conducted by Neal Stulberg

"This is not just an "East Meets West" project by any means. Nor do you really need
to get political. Yes, the Concerto is reflective of the conflicts recently in Egypt, and
yes� the Symphony and Concerto alike interweave Arabic and Israeli music, but really,
we are here for the noise, and it is glorious. In the concerto, powerfully framed by the
UCLA forces, we have a really unique statement for the B Flat clarinet; one that I suspect
could enter the repertoire at any time. Soloist David Krakauer is utterly unfazed by the
distinctly Eastern sounds he is required to produce � he also features prominently in
the Symphony � and the result is completely idiomatic and engrossing. Whether it
succeeds in meshing the two cultures is up to you, it certainly does seem to showcase
these traditions well, and the clarinet seems an ideal vehicle. Rhythmically challenging
and packing a lot into 10 minutes, this one-movement work sounds terrific here, and
I expect to hear it again soon.

On the other hand, the Symphony is huge, with a nearly half-hour finale. From the
first notes, the chorus makes a fervent entrance, and the drama never really cools
off from there. The massed choral forces of UCLA make a spectacular impression;
although diction isn't always clear, this is not easy music to sing. Sono Luminus provides
the listener with all the texts � in English as well as the original poetic language � and
extensive notes on both pieces. Again, the intention to marry both cultures is clear, but
on musical grounds alone the effort is so emotionally engaging that the political
subtext seems almost unnecessary. Doubtless there are many who would disagree,
and it must be said that understanding the context is indeed very moving and
completely heartfelt. On a final note, the conducting is terrific here, the orchestral
contributions superb. Sasha Cooke reminds me why I like mezzo-sopranos so much
in this kind of piece, and David Kravitz is similarly inspired. Some might raise their
brows at collegiate forces coupled with such a highly charged subject matter. I did,
and I stand corrected. This is triumph, and arguably important on many levels."
Classical Net





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No.80

Based on the true story of two teenage lovers the Holocaust tore apart forever, the dramatic
song cycle For a Look or a Touch casts long-awaited light on the fate of gay Germans in the
Holocaust. By noted young American opera composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer,
the work juxtaposes the exuberant freedom of pre-World War II Berlin with the brutal Nazi horrors
that followed, while making an eloquent, poignant plea for remembrance. Seattle Symphony�s
Gerard Schwarz penned In Memoriam, a beautifully meditative, elegiac piece for
cello and string quartet, in honor of cellist David Tonkonogui (1958�2003). From acclaimed
American art song composer Lori Laitman comes The Seed of Dream, a powerful song
cycle based on five poems written by Abraham Sutzkever during his imprisonment in the Vilna
Ghetto. The lyrical intensity of these poems bears witness to the transcendent power of art in
resistance to the forces of cruelty. These works were commissioned by Music of Remembrance,
a Seattle-based non-profit organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust musicians through
their art (Music of Remembrance (http://www.musicofremembrance.org)).



Music by Jake Heggie, Gerard Schwarz & Lori Laitman
Played by the Music of Remembrance
With Morgan Smith (baritone) & Julian Patrick (actor)
And Julian Schwarz (cello) & Erich Parce (baritone)

"Music of Remembrance remembers Holocaust musicians and their work through performance,
recording and the commissioning of new works. Jake Heggie�s work is a commission which
highlights the fact that homosexuals were also persecuted under the Nazi regime. A reading
of the journal of Manfred Lewin, who was murdered at Auschwitz, which he wrote for his
lover Gad Beck, who is still alive today, gave Heggie his plot for this miniature operatic scene.
It�s a conversation between the dead man and his surviving lover. Morgan Smith takes the
part of Manfred, who wants Gad to remember their relationship whilst Gad, Actor Julian
Patrick, wishes to forget the past.

Gerard Schwarz�s In Memoriam�this is the Gerard Schwarz the UK knows as the one-
time conductor of the Liverpool Orchestra, now in charge of the Seattle Symphony�is full
of the very emotion missing from Heggie�s piece. It�s a sustained elegy for solo cello and
string quartet and seems to keep quoting Richard Strauss�s Metamorphosen, which
is no bad thing. This is a fine achievement.

Lori Laitman�s song cycle for baritone with cello and piano, The Seed of Dream, is given
a good performance by Erich Parce�setting words written by Abraham Sutzkever in
the Vilna ghetto between 1941 and 1944 these four brief songs are direct and in a
simple and straight forward idiom�the recordings of the Heggie and Schwarz are fine,
very clear with a good perspective on all the performers�especially in the Schwarz�"
Musicweb



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Thanks wimpel! Is "Morning Heroes" actually a vinyl rip? I hear a lot of crackles. No big deal :)

Is "Morning Heroes" actually a vinyl rip? I hear a lot of crackles. No big deal :)

No, it's one of the infamous 1989-1993 PDO-produced CDs in which the dye slowly but steadily destroyed
the data on the discs. It was known as "bronzing". The rip is a few years old, the CD is now unplayable!



No.81

This is a nicely varied program of American flute music, mostly with piano. The best-known work
on the program is the Duo by Aaron Copland. Dating from 1971, it is one of his last
compositions. Over the four decades since then, it has become one of the most often-performed
pieces in the flute/piano repertoire. It is an unpretentious piece in three movements, less than 15
minutes in duration. Easily identifiable as a work of Copland, it recalls many of the stylistic features
familiar from his most popular compositions, shaped in a pleasing, satisfying manner.

Almost as popular as the Copland is the 1987 Sonata for Flute and Piano by Lowell
Liebermann, one of the most successful of today’s composers who adhere to a traditional
tonal language. Like much of his music, the Flute Sonata exudes the vague aroma of
Prokofiev, but not so much as to be distracting. The first of its two movements is slow, rhapsodic,
and quite deeply expressive. The second movement, about one-third the duration of the first,
is a light-hearted romp.

Now in his late-50s, Puerto Rico-born Roberto Sierra is another of today’s more frequently
performed composers. The recently released recording of his three symphonies conveys
the impression that much of his music embraces aspects of Latin-American ethnic styles,
sometimes in a more populist vein, at others in a more abstract, rarefied fashion.
The three-movement Flute Sonata of 2003 falls into the latter category, the Hispanic
elements only coming obviously to the fore in the final movement.

Edie Hill was born in New York City in 1962, but studied with Lloyd Ultan and Libby
Larsen in Minnesota, where she is currently based. This Floating World for unaccompanied
flute consists of musical commentaries on five haiku by Basho. Unaccompanied—or barely
accompanied—flute seems to be a frequent recourse for composers seeking to capture a
spare, Japanese flavor. Listeners whose experience confirms this observation will know what to
expect here. Hill’s effort is imaginative, evocative, and employs the instrument effectively,
including a few unconventional usages.

The two short pieces by Paul Schoenfield are arrangements derived from
improvisations on Chassidic melodies. They are pleasant examples, heard here in
tasteful settings.



Music by (see above)
Played by Linda Chatterton (flute) & John Jensen (piano)

"The flute is an exceptionally tough instrument to play well–it must be, given the
distressingly intonation-challenged performances you commonly hear in the concert
hall and on recordings, even from professional players, not to mention those
presentations that challenge the ear in other ways, such as harsh breathiness and
strident tone. I’m not sure if God really intended such an instrument to serve as
the main attraction in an entire recital or even in extended solo works (such as a
concerto or sonata), but with the right music and a flutist who really can make the
instrument sing with the kind of expression and warmth that invites rather than
disturbs the ear (while preserving something of the flute’s edgy, metallic brilliance),
well, even the most jaded flutophobe has a chance for some truly enjoyable listening.

Need I mention that in Linda Chatterton we have such an artist, and in this
choice of repertoire we are able to really appreciate the flute’s value as a solo
instrument? Unlike many performers of her elite caliber, she mostly spares the
listener the harsher qualities of the flute’s timbre, engaging our ears and musical
sensibilities with a mellifluous tone and articulation that captures the most
agreeable aspects of the instrument’s voice, showing its capacity for assertive
power as well as its “softer” side–caressing, subtle, tender, warm. Her technique
and mastery of the most difficult challenges of speed, breath control, and, yes,
intonation, are pretty impressive–all of which are brilliantly on display in
Roberto Sierra’s fiery, sultry, raucously dancing Sonata.

As mentioned, all of the music here–besides being excellent on its own–is ideally
suited for the flute, from Aaron Copland’s classically masterful Duo, to the
Sonata by Lowell Liebermann, whose affinity for this instrument (notably, he’s
also written a couple of concertos and also a trio for flute, cello, and piano) is
clearly evident in the fluid, naturally expressive melodic writing and un-obstructive,
carefully integrated piano. And speaking of piano, Chatterton has a perfect partner
in John Jensen, who seems to understand the inherent problems that could
threaten the balance and voicing in this particular lineup of instruments, always
exhibiting an appropriate dynamic and textual awareness.

The flute also is very tough to record well–but Chatterton benefits from a fine
production team who made the most of their Minneapolis studio setting to
create a delightfully intimate recital-hall ambience. Normally I’d say that a disc
like this is recommended primarily for flute aficionados–but wait a minute–I’m
not a flute aficionado (quite the contrary!), and I really enjoyed it too! What
that means I guess you’ll have to decide for yourself, but meanwhile, this disc
gets a strong recommendation–to all."
Classics Today http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q574/taliskerstorm/p9r9_zpshlciffgf.gif


Roberto Sierra, Lowell Liebermann.



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No.82

This recording, featuring Madeleine Milhaud, is of historical importance. The composer�s
widow was, of course, younger than he and, as she says in the notes, his lifelong poor health
meant that �I began my career as a nurse the day of our marriage�. Although she is now elderly,
the artistry of this former actress and amateur pianist remains undimmed and her participation
in this recording contributes much. Her contribution is literary rather than strictly musical,
consisting principally of reading passages from Flaubert�s Madame Bovary in conjunction with
Milhaud�s series of miniature piano pieces drawn from a 1933 film written for Jean Renoir.

The 12 Saudades do Brasil are pithy piano sketches that reflect the composer�s love of
a country that he first encountered in his twenties. Mme Milhaud�s participation begins with
La muse menagere, which is not otherwise represented in the catalogue. It consists of
15 short piano pieces written for her in 1945 and affectionately describes such of her household
routines as laundry, piano-duet playing and fortune-telling with cards. Here she merely
announces the titles of these attractive, unpretentious sketches, and in reasonably good
English too.

With Madame Bovary, Mme Milhaud has simply chosen extracts from the novel to
read between the 17 pieces, again in English, doubtless with a view to Naxos�s wider audience.
Her voice evokes great atmosphere, Flaubert�s prose is of the finest and the translation is
idiomatic. This imaginative new issue is a valuable addition to the Milhaud catalogue.



Music Composed by Darius Milhaud
Played by Alexandre Tharaud
With Madeleine Milhaud (narrator)

"Score another triumph for Naxos�the disc has now won a Prix du Disque.
The French, like the Japanese, know a living treasure when they have one."
Fanfare

"A collector's item, then, with the quirkiness as well as the quality
that term implies."
Classic CD





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No.83

Following the success of Dutton Epoch�s series of Cyril Scott piano music CDs featuring Canadian
pianist Leslie De�Ath, we now venture into the composer�s works for violin and piano. In a programme of Scott�s
typically elegant, thoughtful music, violinist Clare Howick and pianist Sophie Rahman guide the
listener beautifully through some of Scott�s finest scores for this particular instrumental pairing. The present disc
explores the two sides of his violin-piano output: on the one hand �popular� miniatures, either written by Scott
himself for violin and piano or arranged by other hands from his piano originals; and on the other a major,
mature work for the same combination, the Sonata Lirica of 1937. Other works on this release include
Scott�s Andante Languido from Three Little Waltzes for piano (arranged for violin by Richard
Lange), which appeared in 1906 but is believed to be among his earliest works, and Lotus Land, perhaps the
most famous of all Scott�s works. Arranged by no less a virtuoso than Fritz Kreisler, the piece becomes less
of a dreamy reverie and more of a passionate utterance. By the time we arrive at the mystically ecstatic
coda Kreisler has convinced one that this is the medium for which this music was always destined.



Music Composed by Cyril Scott
Played by Clare Howick (violin) & Sophia Rahman (piano)

"The Scott revival marches on with seven CDs of piano music from Dutton,
two orchestral discs from Chandos, the Lyrita reissues, and now a full CD of
violin and piano works. All this puts Scott in a commanding position � as I have
said before � to be heard alongside his contemporaries such as Bax, Ireland
and Bridge, and he stands up surprisingly well.

The Sonata lirica (1937) was lost for years and this seems to be its first
performance. Hearing it without knowing the composer, one might have
guessed Delius. There�s the same rhapsodic improvisational approach, if less
subtle, where attractive melody is qualified by sumptuous chords. But Scott
has his own way of doing this and the violin and piano medium exploits
his gift for melody.

The disc contains five transcriptions, of which the most famous is Lotus
Land (1905), arranged by Kreisler in 1922. It was always a mesmeric
piano solo with its oriental inflections but the violin version is ecstatic.
Kramer�s arrangement of another evergreen, Danse n�gre, creates some
odd exchanges but is catchy and vivid. The lovely melodies of the
Intermezzo and the Lullaby, also a haunting song, work beautifully in this
arrangement. The Tallahassee Suite (1911) is presumably evocative of
the Florida landscape and the final �Danse n�gre� boasts ragtime
syncopations.

The whole collection is a most attractive expression of Scott�s highly
characteristic style, all wonderfully played. Clare Howick and Sophia
Rahman are both superb. What next? There are five more violin
and piano sonatas."
Gramophone





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No.84

In 1950 the viola player Bernard Shore, in his capacity as Staff Inspector of Schools
in Music at the Ministry of Education, on behalf of the Schools Music Association,
asked Ralph Vaughan Williams if he would write a work for a large choir of
schoolchildren to be performed with orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall at their second
festival in 1951. Vaughan Williams at first refused, claiming he knew nothing about
writing for childrens� choirs but then agreed, possibly realising he would have many
teenagers whose voices had broken, and produced his cantata The Sons of Light,
scored for four-part chorus, making no concessions to the age of his performers.1.
In no way does Vaughan Williams write down in this invigorating and little-known
score, and surely it is only its association in the composer�s catalogue of works
with a children�s choir that has made it possibly the least heard of his major works.
The words were specially written by Ursula Wood, soon to become Ursula Vaughan
Williams, in an ingenious spin on the creation story which starts with the passage
of the sun as expressed in Greek myths, the celebratory marching character of
much of the movement announced and decorated by fanfares. It ends with a
contrasting night piece, as the moon crosses the sky, followed by a postlude telling
of the nocturnal march of the zodiac in the heavens heralding the magical distant
orchestral fading of the light. The dancing central scherzo, The Song of the Zodiac,
expands on the words of the close of the previous movement, with a celebration
of the signs of the zodiac, typically contrasting bucolic revels painted in riotous
orchestral colour and the onomatopoeia of the waters and the autumn gales
which find ready illustration in Vaughan Williams�s orchestral palette. The final
movement, The Messengers of Speech, returning to the creation story as told
in the heavens, now celebrates the letters of the alphabet, because as the
poet puts it �nothing can exist until it is named�. The characteristic choral march
at �This is the morning of the sons of light� is surrounded by fanfares as the
music ends in rejoicing.

Gustav Holst�s early enthusiasm for the poetry of Whitman led him,
in 1899, to attempt a portrait in the Overture: Walt Whitman, a work which
conveys excitement but lacks any real depth. Wisely he did not try to set
Whitman until his language had reached a stage where he could hope to do it
justice, and if, in The Mystic Trumpeter of 1904, he still had some way
to go to find his own musical style, there can be no doubt of the work�s confidence
and individuality. The several influences on the work, notably that of Wagner,
are welded by Holst�s passionate feeling for the words into an integrated and
convincing whole whose vitality and exuberance have few parallels in British
music of the period. In spite of this, The Mystic Trumpeter is one of the
most neglected of Holst�s major works: it was first performed in 1905, and
revised by Holst in 1912, but remained unplayed and unpublished until Imogen
Holst and I edited the music in 1979.

Charles Hubert Parry's Ode on the Nativity is one of his last major works.
He composed it for the 1912 Three Choirs festival, which was held that year in
Hereford. Coincidentally another Christmas work by an English composer was
premi�red at the same festival: Vaughan Williams�s Fantasia on Christmas Carols.
That piece has secured the enduring place in the repertoire that Parry�s work has
not attained.Parry�s work was out of print for a good number of years and, indeed,
when our choir came to perform it in 1998 the choral scores were only just being
republished.



Music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustv Holst & Charles Hubert Parry
Played by the London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras
With Teresa Chaill (soprano) & Sheila Armstrong (soprano)
And The Bach Choir & The Royal College of Music Chorus
Conducted by Sir David Willcocks & David Atherton

"This set of lovely vocal music by three British masters continues
the very welcome re-release on CD of Lyrita Recorded Editions.
The Holst work is from that composer's earlier period (1904). An
ecstatic setting of a passage from Leaves of Grass, this 20-minute
work for soprano and orchestra shows the composer's creative
imagination and great skill at orchestration but not yet his distinctive
voice. David Atherton conducts with a sure hand, and Sheila
Armstrong is the excellent soloist, with a lovely high pianissimo.

The other two pieces are choral/orchestral works from their
respective composers' late years, previously released on a single
LP conducted by David Willcocks. Hubert Parry's Ode on the
Nativity (1912), for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, is one of
his masterpieces; shockingly, it appears that this is the only
recording in commercial release. Teresa Cahill's voice is less
ethereal than Armstrong's, yet it is highly effective, as is the
singing of the Bach Choir and Royal College of Music Chorus.
The same forces (minus the soloist) star in Vaughan Williams'
The Sons of Light (1950). Ursula Vaughan Williams' poetry
evokes the night sky (the Zodiac in particular), beautifully
realized in her husband's imaginative orchestral writing and
in this performance.

The Holst and Vaughan Williams have received fine recordings
by David Lloyd-Jones on Naxos (CD and multi-channel DVD-A
and SACD versions), yet these Lyritas are just superior enough-
-even sonically--to be preferable, despite the higher price-tag."
Classics Today http://i1164.photobucket.com/albums/q574/taliskerstorm/p10s10_zpsmrclbolg.gif



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---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:49 PM ----------




No.85

This world-premiere recording of scenes from Kurt Weill's rediscovered masterpiece
The Eternal Road brings to life a major 20th-century work that was a sensation
of the 1937 New York season. Originally conceived as a biblical pageant, a profound
music-drama, and a theatrical extravaganza, The Eternal Road combines the legends
of timeless Jewish heroes and heroines with the all-too-familiar story of persecution in
Europe. Set against a richly colored backdrop, Weill's masterful score embodies the
passions and aspirations of many dramatic characters in search of their Jewish Destiny.



Music Composed by Kurt Weill
Played by the Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin
With Constance Hauman (soprano) & Barbara Rearick (mezzo)
And Hanna Wollschlaeger (mezzo) & Ian DeNolfo (tenor)
And Karl Dent (tenor) & Val Rideout (tenor)
And the Ernst Senff Chor
Conducted by Gerard Schwarz

"The performances are strong.... Barbara Rearick is gorgeous as Miriam
and Ruth, Constance Hauman and Ian DeNolfo are wonderful in the big
duet for Jacob and Rachel.... Gerard Schwarz's conducting is refined and
passionate, and there is some electrifying choral singing from the Ernst
Senff Choir, above all in the vast fugue that follows the scene between
Abraham and Isaac..."
The Guardian



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No.86

Quincy Porter was one of a diverse generation of American composers who played
a significant role in shaping and directing American musical culture in the mid-twentieth
century. Although his orchestral works attracted considerable attention in his lifetime, Porter�s
posthumous reputation rests more on his chamber output � specifically the series of nine string
quartets that stretches across the greater part of his composing career. This disc features the
first four of these quartets, all of them written in less than a decade. They demonstrate Porter�s
idiomatic and inventive writing for strings.



Music Composed by Quincy Porter
Played by the Ives Quartet

"Quincy Porter comes from Connecticut and belongs to the generation of Roy Harris, Howard
Hanson and Roger Sessions. After his time at Yale, he studied in Paris with Vincent d�Indy and
then later in Cleveland with Bloch. After various academic appointments he ended up at Yale
as professor of music (1946�65). He is probably best known for the Viola Concerto that William
Primrose championed, but his output also included nine string quartets, the last finished in
1959. The first four accommodated on this disc were composed over the period 1922�31
and are highly civilized and beautifully crafted pieces. There is as one might expect, a
Gallic feel to much of it, but the listener is held throughout and the composer has a fine
sense of line; the contrapuntal writing and the texture are always transparent and full of
interest. A very enjoyable disc which whets one�s appetite for the remaining five quartets."
Penguin Classical Guide





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---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:43 PM ----------




No.87

Peter Maxwell Davies's Symphony No.10 (Alla ricerca di Borromini), op. 327, is a composition for orchestra,
chorus, and baritone soloist. It was premiered on 2 February 2014 at the Barbican Hall in London, by the London
Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with baritone soloist Markus Butter, conducted by Antonio Pappano .
The symphony was written on a joint commission from the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra. Davies wrote much of the piece in University
College Hospital, London whilst undergoing treatment for leukemia. The symphony concerns the life and death of a
leading figure of Roman Baroque architecture in the 17th century, Francesco Borromini (who also inspired Davies's
Naxos Quartet No. 7), and his rivalry with Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The symphony is in four parts: Part One:
Adagio, Part Two: Allegro, Part Three: Presto, Part Four: Adagio. Part Two incorporates settings of an anonymous
17th century sonnet to Borromini and parts of the Opus Architectonicum by Borromini himself; Part Four contains
settings of poetry by Giacomo Leopardi. It is an approachable, substantial work, written for a large orchestra
especially characterised by the use of low woodwind and brass, and by a large percussion section (six players)
featuring metallic instruments: bells, gongs, flexatone, crotales, temple bowl, amongst others.



Music Composed by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Played by the London Symphony Orchestra
With Markus Butter (baritone)
And the London Symphony Chorus
Conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano

"The whole of London�s musical establishment seemed to have turned out for this
extraordinary event: the world premiere of the 10th Symphony, by someone who
only a few months ago was reported as being mortally ill. Yet there he was: the
Master of the Queen�s Music, Peter Maxwell Davies, smiling and puckish as ever,
greeting all the well-wishers in a waistcoat one can only describe as snazzy.

But it wasn�t just new music groupies in the hall. A capacity crowd of real people
was there too, drawn in part by the prospect of seeing violin superstar Maxim
Vengerov play Britten�s Violin Concerto. Vengerov might not seem the ideal soloist
for this strange piece, sometimes radiant, sometimes bitingly sarcastic.

In fact he was a marvel, brilliantly light-fingered, and with a tremulously intense
tone that made the work�s subterranean affinities to Prokofiev and Shostakovich
stand out with amazing clarity. Before that, conductor Antonio Pappano had led
a fabulously full-blooded yet crystal-clear performance of Elgar�s Alassio:
In the South.

Then came the new symphony, which soon revealed the fingerprints of Maxwell
Davies in his symphonic mode: long brooding passages of counterpoint, in his
unmistakable orchestral palette that mingles the dark colours of Sibelius with
brilliant flecks of glockenspiel and bells, and obstreperous brass fanfares. We might
have expected a calm summation, but Maxwell Davies�s previous symphony,
which was full of politically inspired anger, gave warning that he�s not yet ready
for such things. This symphony too was full of wildness, but its meaning was
harder to discern.

The Italian architect Borromini was the ostensible subject, a reminder that
Maxwell Davies has borrowed the cool geometrical patterns of Renaissance
architecture in previous works. Here the focus was not the work but the man.
The London Symphony Chorus, rising magnificently to the challenge of Maxwell
Davies�s very tricky score, flung out first a contemporary�s satirical attack on
Borromini, then one of Leopardi�s bleakest sonnets on the meaningless void at
the heart of existence. Borromini�s tormented final hours, as recorded in his
own suicide note, were sung with anguished intensity by baritone Markus Butter.

It was a black vision, which the list of Borromini�s architectural triumphs, sung
to tentative almost-consoling harmony by the choir, only partly assuaged.
The uncertainty of the music�s idiom went with the ambiguous message. It
felt as if Maxwell Davies was simultaneously bowing his head to mortality,
and shaking his fist at it."
The Telegraph



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No.88

Amy Beach was a member first of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston and later of
St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York. Early in the century, a movement had begun in
Oxford to renew in the Anglican church the Catholic traditions of the ancient past. The Church
restored the ancient practice of singing the liturgy for the services and designed the rituals of
worship to express the awe and mystery of the Christian faith. Choirs proliferated and there was
a great demand for new liturgical music and anthems. During the years of Beach's marriage to
Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, her publisher issued 14 separate pieces, including most of the
music contained on this wonderful CD. The origin of The Canticle of the Sun is interesting.
In 1924, she went to the MacDowell Colony. Here, she came across the text of St. Francis of Assisi's
"Canticle of the Sun." In a 1943 interview published in The Etude, she told this story. "I took it up
and read it over - and the only way I can describe what happened as that it jumped at me and struck
me, most forcibly! As if from dictation, I jotted down the notes of my Canticle. In less than five
days the entire work was done." The first performance of the work with Organ accompaniment took
place on December 8, 1928 at St. Bartholomew's in New York. The Toledo Choral Society, performing
with the Chicago Symphony, gave the premiere of The Canticle with Orchestra on May 13, 1930.
"The Canticle of the Sun by Mrs. H.H. A. Beach proved the sensation of the evening. This biblical
hymn of praise and jubilation, set in a glorious musical expression of majestic melody... literally
brought the audience to its feet in a desire to honor the composer."



Music Composed by Amy Beach
Performed by the Capitol Hill Choral Society
With Paul Hardy (organ & piano)
Conducted by Betty Buchanan

"Amy Beach (1867-1944) was born to write music, began doing so when she was 4 years
old and managed to win a substantial national reputation in her twenties, although women
at that time were not really supposed to be composers. She composed, in a well-developed,
largely self-taught late romantic style, in nearly all the standard classical forms, opera
being the primary exception. Her work fell into neglect after her death but has been
regaining the attention it deserves in the last quarter-century, and listings of her
recordings now fill half a page in the Schwann Opus record catalogue. The latest
recording of her work, "Canticle of the Sun," has just been issued by Albany Records
and features the Capitol Hill Choral Society and a fine group of Washington soloists,
directed by Betty Buchanan. All of the 16 pieces on the disc are previously unrecorded
except for the Te Deum and all are religiously inspired vocal works except her Invocation
for the Violin, beautifully played by Teri Lazar. Most of the music is composed in
traditional styles appropriate for services in the Episcopal Church, of which she was
a member...The performances are skilled and idiomatic throughout."
The Washington Post





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No.89

The Piano Quartet, written in 1933 when Joaqu�n Turina was 51, could not be anything but
Spanish, but its gestures are pared down to the bone and the emotions understated in a way that shows
Turina really now knew what he had to say. Instead of the mawkish sentimentality of, say, the Rapsodia
Sinf�nica, here is quiet but genuine passion, expressed, for example, in the unexpected stamp of a
piano chord that suddenly enlivens the music. The string writing is often oblique, hesitant, atmospheric �
and then it will tumble into a rapturous phrase that, for a moment, sets the pace rattling along again.
Its dimensions are as modest as its tone is reserved.

Quiet how far he had come is underlined by the two works it shares this disc with. The earlier of the two,
the Piano Quintet of 1907, is overtly indebted to French models � hardly surprisingly, since Turina
was studying with d'Indy in Paris at the time. It is an earnest and slightly impersonal work, more attractive
than memorable, obviously by a Spaniard but one who wasn't too sure of his own personality. The two-
movement Piano Sextet "Sc�ne Andalouse", dates from 1912 and is scored for the unusual
combination of solo viola and piano quintet. It's overt, unashamed programme music, intended to divert
and delight. That it manages. Both works reveal that Turina's passage to the mastery of the Piano
Quartet was a development from the rather obvious emotionalism of a Franck to the inspired obliquity
of a Debussy.



Music Composed by Joaqu�n Turina
Played by the Menuhin Festival Piano Quartet

"The Menuhin Festival Piano Quartet may sound like an ad hoc group brought together
for a one-off occasion but in truth it's a stable ensemble that has been playing since 1989.
And they play extremely well, in textures often thin enough to expose insecurity. Instead,
the tone is firm and the performances full-blooded and committed. They are matched in
quality by the two musicians who join them in the early works, Christina Busch and
Anna Barbara D�tschler, whom I suspect to be a scion of the house of Claves."
Classical Net



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No.90

The Coming of Christ, by Gustav Holst, was commissioned in 1927 by the Dean
of Canterbury Cathedral, George Bell, as a setting of a text by John Masefield, words and music
together forming a Mystery Play reminiscent of mediaeval religious dramas. Although the work
received its premi�re the following year to critical acclaim, it was thereafter abandoned � until
its resurrection at The English Music Festival in 2010; and it is here presented in recorded
form for the first time.



Music Composed by Gustav Holst
Played by The Holst Orchestra
With Robert Hardy (reciter)
And City of London & The Chamber Choir of St.Paul's Girls' School
Conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton

"The real rarity here is The Coming of Christ. This is a play by John Masefield, commissioned
by George Bell, the Dean of Canterbury, as a modern equivalent to the mystery plays of the
Middle Ages. Holst composed the incidental music: seven choral pieces lasting some 20 minutes.
The first performance took place at Whitsun 1928 in Canterbury Cathedral. Holst took along
pupils from St Paul�s Girls� School and Morley College as participants; how appropriate that
the former�s Chamber Choir is to be heard on this disc.

The music is straightforward, with much unison writing. It begins and ends with a trumpet
fanfare; the accompaniment includes parts for piano and chimes. The opening number,
the �First Song of the Host of Heaven�, is a choral recitative: first in unison over a pedal point,
then a cappella in harmony. Hilary Davan Wetton shapes it sensitively. Later, in �The Antiphonal�,
the sopranos and the trumpet are out of step; as it happens twice, perhaps it�s deliberate.

Between the choral pieces comes a reduced version of Masefield�s play, with Robert
Hardy taking all the parts. He sounds overwrought and actorish in places, and his
assumption of rustic accents for the three shepherds is not a success, but his diction
is certainly clear."
Gramophone


Hilary [the poor guy!] Davan Wetton.



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No.91

Originally commissioned to be a work in cele*bration of the American Bicentennial Year (1976),
Leonard Bernstein's Songfest could not be completed in time. Although the commission was
vacated, the idea persisted: to draw a comprehensive picture of America's artistic past, as seen in
1976 through the eyes of a contemporary artist. The composer has envisioned this picture through
the words of 13 po*ets embracing 300 years of the country's history. The subject matter of their
poetry is the American artist's experience as it relates to his or her crea*tivity, loves, marriages,
or minority problems (blacks, women, homosexuals, expatriates) within a fundamentally
Puritan society. The strongest binding musical force in the Cycle is that of unabashed
eclecticism, freely reflecting the pluralistic nature of this most eclectic country. The composer
believes that with the ever-increasing evidence of this unfettered approach to writing new
music, typical of many other composers to*day, we are moving closer to defining "American
music".

In 1965, Bernstein took a sabbatical from his post as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic.
Freed from the time-consuming obligations of conducting and studying scores, he could now
turn his attention to composition. His objective during this conducting hiatus was to compose
a Broadway musical based on Thornton Wilder�s "The Skin of Our Teeth." The assassination of
President Kennedy had occurred a year earlier, and Bernstein�s close friend, the composer
Marc Blitzstein, had been murdered in January of 1964. Bernstein composed Chichester
Psalms amid a busy schedule, completing his first work since the Third Symphony,
Kaddish, in 1963, written in memory of President Kennedy. Both pieces combine choruses
singing Hebrew text, with orchestral forces, but where Kaddish is a statement of profound
anguish and despair, Chichester Psalms is hopeful and life-affirming.



Music Composed by Leonard Bernstein
Played by the Israel Philharmonic & National Symphony of Washington DC
With Nancy Williams (vocals) & Neil Rosenshein (vocals)
With Rosalind Harris (vocals) & John Reardon (vocals)
And the Vienna Jeunesse Choir
Conducted by Leonard Bernstein

"Leonard Bernstein created this work in the late '70's - 1980. Songfest followed on
the heels of the ill-fated but brilliant musical 1600 Pensylvania Avenue. Although
devistated by 1600's one-week run on Broadway, Bernstein went on to compose
several other works before his death in 1991. Songfest represents in my opinion,
the finest of his late life works. Here we have the concept of putting 20th Century
American Poetry to music. The result is a theatrical and powerful sounding work.
The DDG recording, which I first acquired on LP, has been replaced with a quieter,
more dynamic CD. If you are a Bernstein fan, this is a must have recording.
My wife also informs me that this is a must have for high school english teachers.

The Chichester Psalms is a far more convential piece that has been recorded
several times by several artists. The DDG version, in my opinion, does not play
as well as the older Columbia release. Nevertheless, it rounds out the program
perfectly. The haunting 23rd Psalm recycles a song from the 1950's Bernstein
musical Peter Pan ("Spring will come again"). This is a common practice among
composers, including Steven Sondheim. Once again, we hear classical (in this
case biblical) text put to music by the maestro. The two compositions
compliment each other and frankly belong together on a single disc."
Amazon Reviewer



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I prefer the old CBS recordings with Lenny. They are more powerful in my opinion.

I prefer the old CBS recordings with Lenny.

Me, too. But there is no other version of Songfest.


No.92

Aaron Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson bear testament to a trend in the composer's
post-war music away from large-scale "public" works to those of a more private, introspective nature.
The cycle's genesis can be traced to March 1949, when Copland started work on a setting of Dickinson's
celebrated poem "The Chariot." By March 1950 he had composed twelve, arriving at an order only after
the completion of the entire set, a time-honored procedure dating back to the cycles of Schubert and
Schumann. Copland began arranging some of the songs for chamber orchestra in 1958; by 1970 he
had orchestrated eight, and published these as a freestanding set under the title Eight Poems of
Emily Dickinson. Copland's settings are enormously varied, alternately melancholic, sardonic,
and wistful in tone. His distinctive and often demanding vocal writing contains numerous bold leaps,
jagged melodic lines, declamatory rhythms, and extremes of range that require a singer with a
particular ease and flexibility in both the soprano and mezzo-soprano ranges.

While never explicitly explained as such by the composer, it is tempting to view Samuel Barber's
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947) as an expression of one facet of his reactions to World War II.
While portions of Barber's wartime Symphony No.2 (1944-1947) are clearly cast in an overtly
patriotic mode, Knoxville finds at its center an urgently intense, almost overwhelming nostalgia, free
of unrest though characterized by a pervasively sensuous immediacy. This latter aspect of both music
and text is a crucial element in the dynamics of the work. It is an ardent and sincere -- rather than
merely sentimental -- nostalgia Barber evokes, informed by a sense and realization of loss. Much of
the appeal that James Agee's text (which Barber had discovered in an anthology drawn from Partisan
Review) must have had for the composer came not only from the inherent qualities of the prose,
but also in the similarity in the ages of author and composer as well as the shared experience of
the idyllic childhood expressed in Agee's warm, vivid tones.



Music by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber & George Gershwin
Played by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
With Measha Brueggergosman (soprano)
Conducted by Roy Goodman

"I am familiar with three recorded versions of the eight Dickinson songs that Copland orchestrated
(out of the twelve songs he'd earlier set for voice and piano): those of Dawn Upshaw (with Hugh
Wolf and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra), Marni Nixon (with Keith Clark and the Pacific Symphony)
and Barbara Hendricks (with Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony). All three are
simply ravishing. Br�ggergosman's performance on this disc deserves to be placed beside them.
She seems to identify completely with Dickinson's words. In 'There came a wind like a bugle,'
for instance, she sings out the opening line with stentorian tones, something that none of the
other three singers can quite manage. Br�ggergosman's voice is largish, but she manages it
so well that she is also able to sing sweetly, softly as in the following song, 'The world feels
dusty' ('when we stop to die'). She conveys the girlish enthusiasm of 'March, come in!'
delightfully. (By the way, it is from a line in that poem, 'I have so much to tell,' that this
CD gets its overall title. An apt one, too, because one of the things that comes across in
this album is the singer's eagerness to tell us all manner of things with relish and exuberance.)

Barber's 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915' is perhaps my favorite piece for soprano and orchestra
by an American composer. I fell in love with it shortly after its first recording came out in the
1950s. On that LP (now on a Sony CD) the work's dedicatee, the beloved American soprano
Eleanor Steber, sang what for me remains the definitive version. There have been many
subsequent recordings, notable among which is that of Leontyne Price. (For what it is worth,
there is a much more recent recording by Dawn Upshaw that I was not so taken with, but
others have been rapturous about it. Further, when oh when is Ren�e Fleming going to record
this masterpiece?) If I say that Br�ggergosman's performance reminds me of Steber's you
can be assured this is high praise. Her diction is near-flawless and it is clear that she feels
the words acutely. This prose poem by James Agee contains nostalgia, irony, love, innocence,
feelings of loss all rolled up together. Barber's music captures it perfectly."
Amazon Reviewer





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Me, too. But there is no other version of Songfest.



Yes, Songfest score dates from 1977, to late for CBS ;O)

No.93

Alan Rawsthorne (1905-1971) was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and only considered music
as a profession after abortive starts at careers in dentistry and architecture. At 19, he enrolled in the
Royal Manchester College of Music, studying under Frank Merrick and Carl Fuchs, and he later studied
piano under Egon Petri in Berlin. He subsequently joined the faculty at Dartington Hall School and
served as a composer for its School of Dance Mime. His first critical recognition came with the
Theme and Variations for two violins, which was premiered at the 1938 London Festival of the
International Society of Contemporary Music. At the next festival, held in Warsaw, Rawsthorne debuted
his first major orchestral work, the Symphonic Studies, and his First Piano Concerto (which he
later rescored) was premiered later that same year. The composer served in the British Army during
World War II, a period in which he completed the Street Corner and Corteges overtures.
With the coming of peace, Rawsthorne, now in his forties, entered the prime of his career and
exclusively devoted his time to composing. Over the next 25 years, he wrote three symphonies;
two concertos for violin; a second piano concerto and a cello concerto; a brace of choral works,
including cantatas and songs; the song cycle Practical Cats (set to T.S. Eliot) for speaker and
orchestra; and numerous chamber works, as well as writing the music for four plays. He also
wrote music for 27 movies, including such distinguished postwar productions as The Captive Heart,
Saraband for Dead Lovers, The Cruel Sea, West of Zanzibar, and Lease of Life. The most obvious
influences on Rawsthorne's early work were Hindemith and Walton, with a similarly lean,
neo-Classical feel that is modernistic without being dissonant; not surprisingly, however -
given his relatively late entry into music -- his music's characteristics are all his own. From the
early 1950s onward, he devoted even more energy to vocal music (even his Symphony No. 2
included a part for soprano in its last movement) and beginning in the early '60s, Rawsthorne's
music embraced atonalism in a more obvious way. His music was always respected, sufficiently
so that he was able to survive (with help from the film work) on a steady stream of commissioned
pieces from 1946 onward, though some works were criticized on an aesthetic level for their
brittle textures and, occasionally, a narrow expressive range.



Music Composed by Alan Rawsthorne
Played by The Fibonacci Sequence

"The music of Alan Rawsthorne (1905-1971) has the reputation of being difficult for listeners.
I don't buy it; show me what is difficult about this tremendously diverting collection of his
chamber music. True, Rawsthorne was not interested in idyllic pastorals, and he did not
advance the self-canonizing English choral tradition, but that shouldn't prevent an honest
composer from finding his place in the pantheon.

All of the music on this disc is exquisitely crafted. Rawsthorne had a sensitive ear for texture,
and he treated his materials with respect and refinement. For him, compositional techniques
such as serialism were only a means to an end; he preferred to write instinctively, and
what wonderful instincts he had! The five works on this CD were written between 1961
and 1970, with the exception of the Sonatina, an early work from 1936. While there is no
question of monotony, there would be no doubt, in a blindfold test, that all five works were
by the same composer. Hindemith influenced Rawsthorne. Nevertheless, I feel that his
neoclassical bent, his precision, and his dry wit gave him a greater affinity with contemporary
French composers such as Poulenc and Fran�aix. These chamber pieces even remind me
a bit of the work of Stravinsky, particularly the Octet for wind instruments.

These are premi�re recordings of the Concerto, the Suite, and the Quintet for clarinet,
horn, violin, cello, and piano. It saddens me that such lapidary music has had to wait so
long for this privilege. I hope that my enthusiasm will be enough of an incentive for
potential listeners. Is this one of the best chamber music CDs of 1999? Without a doubt,
The Fibonacci Sequence, an English ensemble, plays this music with skill and
understanding, and the recording, made in Rosslyn Hill Chapel in Hampstead,
is warm and true."
Classical Net



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No.94

Alexander Zemlinsky wrote to his publisher in September 1922, "This summer I've written something
along the lines of The Song of the Earth. I haven't got a name for it yet. It consists of seven related songs
for baritone, soprano, and orchestra to be played without a break." After receiving the name Lyrische
Symphonie, it was premiered under Zemlinsky in 1924 at the German Theater in Prague, where Zemlinsky
had been the music director since 1911. The work sets seven poems by Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore
that record the course of a love affair from conception to fulfillment and dissolution. The harmonic language
is highly erotic, lushly decadent, and sometimes almost atonal. The melodies are extremely expressive and
often intensely sensual. The orchestration is richly oriental and exquisitely colorful. Although clearly a work
after The Song of the Earth, Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie is still an extremely affecting piece of post-fin
de si�cle passionate, sexual pessimism.

Alban Berg's Lyric Suite for Strings is almost an exact and direct transcription of the second
through fourth movements of Berg's Lyric Suite from the original string quartet to string orchestra.
The only changes are in a few places regarding the disposition of notes between parts to accommodate
the added contrabass line.



Music Composed by Alexander von Zemlinsky
Played by the Houston Symphony Orchestra
With Roman Trekel (baritone) & Twyla Robinson (soprano)
Conducted by Hans Graf

"Recordings of Zemlinsky�s Lyric Symphony don�t always take the obvious step of adding
the movements from Berg�s Lyric Suite, one of which quotes a phrase from Zemlinsky�s third
movement expressing devotion to the beloved. The fact that Berg�s dedication of the Lyric
Suite to Zemlinsky turned out to be a �cover� for the real subject of the piece, his passion
for Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, does nothing to diminish the affinity between the late-Romantic
Zemlinsky and the Expressionistic Berg. And this performance of the Lyric Symphony is
strong on the turbulent intensity that launches it, and is never completely stilled, even in
the outwardly serene finale.

Roman Trekel�s experience in big operatic roles, not least Wagner, makes him an excellent
choice for the four male-voice movements: he has the presence and range to belong in the
company of the starriest-baritones, from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to Bryn Terfel, who have
recorded the work. Twyla Robinson is less of a known quantity, and at first (in the second
movement) I thought that she was lacking in at least some of the strong vocal character
that is called for. Other singers have a more effortless grandeur in the challenging sixth
movement, but Robinson is excellent in the intimate aspects of the fourth."
Gramophone



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No.95

The Worshipful Company of Musicians announced the second Cobbett Music Competition in The Musical Times for June
1907. There were sixty‑seven entrants, the winner being John Ireland�s contemporary at the Royal College of Music,
Frank Bridge. Ireland came second with this Phantasie Trio, winning a prize of �10. It was first performed at
London�s Aeolian Hall in January 1909. It is difficult to imagine being transported to 1909, but the personality of the
music must have been striking to players and audience alike. The lyrical voice and thematic integration were
particularly noted.

To hear the first two trios in quick succession highlights the strikingly tragic character of the second after
the life‑affirming confidence of the first. The single-movement Piano Trio No.2 closely parallels the Second
Violin Sonata in expressing Ireland�s reaction to the Great War. It was only completed a few days before
the first performance on 14 June 1917 at a concert devoted to Ireland�s music, a critic commenting on �a sincere
artist with plenty of imagination�. Yet here the composer has painted a less sunny world. Edwin Evans
remarked that �it bears the impress of the grim contrast between the season and the wastage of war at the very
springtime of life�.

The Third Piano Trio dates from 1938 though its material derives from a withdrawn clarinet trio.
Dedicated to the composer William Walton, the trio was first heard in a BBC broadcast performance in April 1938.
In his third trio (actually the fifth he had written), he opts for a four‑movement design for the first time.
Throughout, the material of the first movement informs the other movements, nowhere more effectively than in
the Pochissimo pi� moto interlude in the slow movement. This is one of the composer�s most extended scores
and in its combination of youthful inspiration and mature craftsmanship it is a worthy epitome of his style.

The Sextet for Clarinet, Horn and String Quartet dates from 1898 at which time he was studying
composition at the Royal Academy with Charles Villiers Stanford. Stanford was a proponent of Brahms and
held him up to his students as a model. Ireland, having heard a performance of the Brahms
Clarinet Quintet, Op.115 with the famous clarinetist Richard M�hlfeld (the clarinetist for whom
Brahms had composed his quintet), was inspired to write something in a similar vein. Hearing the
charming first three movements�Allegro non troppo, Andante con moto and Intermezzo, allegretto con
grazia�, one immediately recognizes the composer whom Ireland had chosen as his model for the music
bears an uncanny resemblance to the Brahms Clarinet Quintet, but it is by no means a mere imitation.
It is only in the finale, Moderato, that Ireland breaks faith, so to speak, with the German master and
entirely speaks with his own voice, bringing forth the music of the English countryside.



Music Composed by John Ireland
Played by the Holywell Ensemble

"Ireland�s early sextet, heavily influenced by Brahms, is sunny and relaxed, with some pleasing
melodies and original touches, but its inspiration is sometimes thin. The Holywell Ensemble shows
it off to good effect, except for an over-prominent horn. The Trios are convincingly played. Trio No. 3
(1938) is the most successful: a genial first movement, a spirited second with its lively Irish-inflected
rhythms, a beautifully shimmering Andante and a nicely observed finale. Trio No. 2 (1917) is sturdy
and gritty but not without underlying sensitivity. The Phantasie Trio is given a slow-paced, thoughtful
reading that allows the music to breathe."
BBC Music Magazine





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No.96

Two of the 20th century's most esteemed Jewish literary figures are represented among these operas:
Bernard Malamud, whose Jewish stories are an acknowledged part of American literature, and Nobel
laureate Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose story about mysteries in eastern European village
life is reinvented for David Schiff's acclaimed opera Gimpel the Fool. Hugo Weisgall's
Esther, based on the biblical story, was premiered in 1993 and hailed by some critics as the most
important American opera of its generation.

Schiff�s opera Gimpel the Fool had a protracted and cumulative gestation. The idea came to
the composer in fulfillment of an undergraduate assignment to develop a libretto for a composition
class with Nicholas Flagello at the Manhattan School of Music. Schiff, who had read none of Singer�s
stories either in Yiddish or in translation, was teaching a literature class at the New York branch of
Hebrew Union College (along with another in music theory), and he had put some of those stories
in their English translation on the reading list for his class��as an excuse to read them� himself,
he later confessed. He was immediately drawn to Gimpel. Like Gimpel in the story, his own
grandfather had been a baker, but Schiff also had a growing urge to explore some of his ancestral
roots in Poland, and this story served as a conduit. At the same time, he intuited the operatic
potential of the story and its characters, especially in terms of �the true believer who appears
foolish in the eyes of the world.�

In the 1980s, Elie Siegmeister turned to his theretofore mostly untapped Jewish heritage
for a pair of one-act operas (his last two) on two short stories by Bernard Malamud (1914�86):
Angel Levine and Lady of the Lake, with librettos by his long-term collaborator for theater
and other vocal works, Edward Mabley. Scenes 5�7 have been excerpted for the Milken Archive
recording. Lady of the Lake, from Malamud�s collection The Magic Barrel, is an exploration of
Jewish identity, and of the inner tensions between acknowledgment and concealment of that
identity for social gain and romantic pursuit. In this case, denial of Jewish heritage, even by an
assimilated Jew on whom religion appears to have no hold, leads to an ironic and unnecessarily
tragic outcome. When he is finally able to come to terms with his evasion and redeem himself
by revealing his identity and accepting his lineage�though only for the purpose of winning
back his love�it is too late. Siegmeister was a close friend of Bernard Herrmann's in their
young days and also composed several film scores (Ten North Frederick)

Esther, Hugo Weisgall�s tenth, last, and grandest opera, with a libretto by Charles Kondek,
is based on the biblical Book of Esther [Now there's a surprise for ya!]. In many respects it was
Weisgall�s crowning achievement both artistically and in terms of public and critical recognition.
It was commissioned originally by Terrence McEwen and the San Francisco Opera in the mid
1980s, and preparations for a premiere began with elaborate piano workshops, a major celebration
of the announcement, and a press event. But Lotfi Mansouri, who took over the reigns of the
company from McEwen before further preparations for Esther were implemented, canceled
the project in 1990, citing severe budgetary problems�especially in view of the high cost of
mounting so large-scale a work, which had eleven major roles, two choruses requiring
substantial rehearsal of their imposing and challenging music, and ballet. The Book of Esther
(m�gillat ester; lit., scroll of Esther) concerns the imminent genocide of the Jewish people
in the ancient Persian Empire, a triumphant, nearly last-minute reprieve through the
intercession of the queen, and victory over its tormentors and would-be murderers.



Music by David Schiff, Elie Siegmeister & Hugo Weisgall
Played by the Seattle & University of Michigan Symphony Orchestras
With Theodore Bikel (speaker) Robert McPherson (tenor)
And Carol Meyer (soprano) & Julinana Gondek (soprano)
Conducted by Gerard Schwarz & Kenneth Kiesler

"This is a fascinating disc, one that is well worth exploring if you are interested
in 20th century opera. My only real complaint was that it was too short and
could have been twice as long."
Musicweb

"The main effect of listening to these opera extracts was to leave me with
a hunger for more. They are each inventive, tuneful, dramatic, and easily
accessible to the modern opera lover."
Classical Voice


David Schiff, Elie Siegmeister.



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No.97

"Anyone can be drunk, anyone can be in love, anyone can waste time and weep, but only I can
pen my songs in the remaining years or minutes," wrote Ned Rorem (*1928). Known both
as a writer and a composer, Rorem is intriguing as both a musical figure and as a personality.
He is self-described as a profoundly diatonic composer and his music language betrays the
influence of his French impressionist idols Debussy and Ravel. Rorem's harmonic palette is
generally characterized by vertical extrapolations -- through modality, polymodality, and
chordal alterations -- of an essentially tonal framework. Many of his works juxtapose
passages of harmonic and rhythmic complexity with moments of elegance and repose.

Day Music and Night Music are two atmospheric chamber works for violin and piano.



Music Composed by Ned Rorem
Played by Jaime Laredo (violin) & Ruth Laredo (piano)
And Earl Carlyss (violin) & Ann Schein (piano)

"Jaime Eduardo Laredo y Unzueta quickly became one of the world's most important
violinists in the 1960s, known for his solo and chamber music performances and his
organizational leadership. He has appeared with over a hundred orchestras in the
Americas and Europe and has made dozens of recordings, winning several awards,
including the Deutsche Schallplatten Prize, the Gramophone Award, and several
nominations for the Grammy, which he won in 1991 for Best Chamber Music recording.

He began playing violin at the age of five. By seven, his talents were so evident that
his family relocated to the United States to advance his musical training. At the age
of eight, he gave his first full recital. His professional debut was with the San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Recalling other talented child violinists who had
debuted in the same place, The San Francisco Examiner said, "In the 1920s it was
Yehudi Menuhin, in the 1930s it was Isaac Stern; and last night it was Jaime Laredo."
In San Francisco, he studied with Antonio de Grassi and Frank Houser. He went to
Cleveland to study with Josef Gingold and attended the Curtis Institute in
Philadelphia, where his teacher was Ivan Galamian.

In May 1959, he won the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition and debuted
in October, 1960, at Carnegie Hall. During the first few years of his active
international career as a soloist, the great conductor George Szell took time
from his other activities to coach Laredo in repertoire. In the 1970s, Laredo
also began a notable conducting career. He frequently conducts both the St. Paul
and the Scottish Chamber Orchestras and in the 1999-2000 season became
music advisor for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.

His commissions for new works forward the repertoire of the L-R-K Trio and
duos for him and his wife. Indiana-based composer David Ott composed
Conversations, a duo work, as well as a Triple Concerto, which the Trio
performed with the Indianapolis Symphony under Raymond Leppard. In
addition, Ned Rorem composed a Double Concerto for violin, cello, and
orchestra for him and Robinson, which was premiered in Saarbr�cken.

In addition to solo concerto performances, he has recorded other notable
multi-soloist works such as Mozart's Sinfonia concertante and Concertone.
Although he has appeared on major labels such as RCA and CBS/Sony,
some of his most notable releases are on the American independent
labels Dorian and Arabesque. For the former, he has released an acclaimed
set of Schubert's complete violin and piano music with pianist Susan
Brown and on Arabesque the Trio recorded the complete trios and
sonatas of Dmitry Shostakovich and Maurice Ravel."





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There's actually another recording of Songfest with Leonard Slatkin and St. Louis; the original record (paired with the Jeremiah Symphony) is I think out of print but it's available on a compilation and can be heard on Spotify! Unless you're only talking about recordings by Bernstein himself, in which case yes unfortunately that's the only one...

No.98

This is a lovely collection Lieder (art songs) by Richard Strauss, Alban Berg and
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, sung with admirable conviction by Anne-Sofie von Otter. Naturally,
the Korngold songs are the least known, and include the short "Alt-Spanisches Lied" (Old Spanish
Song), from the film The Sea Hawk. Howard Koch is credited as lyricist, but this version is in German.



Music by Richard Strauss, Alban Berg & Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Performed by Anne-Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano) & Bengt Forsberg (piano)

"At the centre of the recital are the "Seven Early Songs" of Alban Berg. The first is 'Nacht',
which is also the longest and most readily memorable . . . Von Otter's draining the voice
of all vibrato helps create the sense of watchful stillness, just as in the sixth song, 'Liebesode',
it makes for an almost other-worldly dreaminess, deepening to a full-bodied passion as the
rose scent is borne to the love-bed. Always the mezzo-soprano voice is resourcefully used,
able to colour deeply at such points, to float a pure head-tone in 'Traumgekront' or launch
a radiant high A in 'Die Nachtigall'. For both artists the record is a worthy successor to
their Gramophone Award-winning DG Grieg recital of last year."
Gramophone



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No.99

Strong contrasts, and equally strong parallels, mark the careers of those near contemporaries
Hanns Eisler (1898-1962) and Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963). Eisler, born in Leipzig,
son of philosopher Rudolf Eisler, early embraced Marxism. Hartmann, born in Munich, son
and brother of painters, was much affected in his early political development by the events of
the unsuccessful Workers� Revolution in Bavaria that followed the collapse of the German
monarchy at the end of World War I, and he remained an idealistic socialist. Eisler studied in
Vienna, but was decisively affected by his time as a private pupil of Schoenberg (with whom
he often clashed on a personal and political level). Hartmann studied in Munich, and received
important encouragement from the conductor Hermann Scherchen, a natural ally of the
Schoenberg School. During World War 2, when already an experienced composer, Hartmann
submitted to a course of private tuition in Vienna by Schoenberg�s star pupil and acolyte
Anton Webern (with whom he often disagreed on a personal and political level).

In a way it was appropriate that the First Quartet should be premiered by Hungarian
performers, for Hartmann�s early compositions reveal � among many other influences � a
keen interest in contemporary Hungarian composers such as Bart�k and Kod�ly. The apogee
of this interest is represented by the young Hartmann�s 1930 Kammerkonzert for clarinet, string
quartet and string orchestra, dedicated in homage to Zolt�n Kod�ly and containing a central
variation movement in unmistakable imitation of modern Hungarian idioms. The Quartet,
written three years later, still bears distinct traces of this imaginative involvement, especially
with Bart�k, whose quartets of the 1920s offered an obvious model. But in the handling of
extremely chromatic musical materials Hartmann also shows that he had studied such works
as the Lyric Suite of Alban Berg.

Hartmann�s String Quartet No.2 was composed in 1945-6, following upon the defeat of
Germany by the Allies: in a sense, it could be said that his two quartets �frame� the Third
Reich. He began it immediately after completing his Second Piano Sonata, subtitled �27. April
1945�, with its funeral-march slow movement depicting the trudging lines of inmates released
from Dachau concentration camp. Although the Quartet contains no such pictorial allusion to
events, its mood is clearly influenced by them. (Hartmann dedicated it to his wife Elisabeth,
his partner through all the tribulations and dangers of the war years.) The element of protest
is still palpable � and if it might be thought otiose after the return of democracy to West
German, we should recall that Hartmann wrote to Hermann Scherchen in 1947 that �� the
Nazi spirit continues to flourish among us. � The lot of the antifacist is a hard one, and it is
fortunate that we are under occupation; otherwise they would all be at each others� throats�.

Hanns Eisler wrote his sole String Quartet, op.73 in 1937, in New York City, where he had
finally settled after five years of wandering. Exiled from Germany in the year that Hartmann
wrote his First Quartet, he had travelled in Austria, France, Belgium, Holland, England, the
USA, the USSR, Czechoslovakia and visited the front in the Spanish Civil War, lecturing and
giving concerts, organizing proletarian culture groups, composing a stream of politicallymotivated
vocal works, and beginning two of his most important compositions, the Deutsche
Sinfonie and the Lenin Requiem, both with texts by his long-time collaborator Bertolt Brecht.
The Quartet, by contrast, is the most �abstract� work he had written in several years. He may
in one sense have viewed it as an exercise in technique, not least because he was about to
resume teaching composition after a long hiatus in that activity. But at his root Eisler was as
much a product of the Austro-German �great tradition� from Bach to Schoenberg as any of his
fellow Schoenberg pupils; he never lost his faith in firm technique.



Music by Karl Amadeus Hartmann & Hanns Eisler
Played by the Vogler Quartett

"There are those who believe that the composition of German music came to an abrupt
end when the National Socialists seized power in January 1933, those who believe that
every composer who did not leave the country was silenced by the state, and that the
creation of German music -- aside from Orff -- simply ceased in the face of fascism. Karl
Amadeus Hartmann was a composer who stayed in Germany and did not stop composing.
Living in self-imposed internal exile in Bavaria, Hartmann made German music that was
as much a part of its time as Beethoven's or Bach's was part of theirs. In his two string
quartets from 1934 and 1945, Hartmann writes music that sounds like Webern tortured
by conscience, Berg tormented by doubt, and Hindemith driven mad by the insanity
around him. It's that honest and that good and, in this recording by the Vogler Quartet,
that compelling. After a series of superb recordings for RCA in the '90s, the Vogler
Quartet has returned with this passionate and profound recording on Nimbus. Along
with Hanns Eisler's String Quartet from 1937, the Vogler performs Hartmann's heroically
tragic music with whole-hearted compassion and tremendous technique, and its
performances reveal the works as among the great artistic statements on the horrors
of fascism. Nimbus' sound is clear, clean, and warm."
All Music





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No.100

The motivation to compose a choral work on a grand scale seems to have arisen from a commission
from New York's Society of the Friends of Music to Edward Collins. There is, however, no record
of a performance by the Society. A microfilm copy of the score was found in the late 1980s by composer
and choral conductor William Ferris. He conducted what may have been the first performance on June 2,
1989 in Chicago. The Society's commission likely prompted action by Collins on an idea that may have been
percolating for some time, something that could encompass his feelings about nature and life. Inspiration
was found in the Wisconsin countryside each summer at the cottage of his wife's family on Cedar Lake, or
on the Door County Peninsula. By the time Collins addressed himself to his Hymn, choral works were no
longer quite as fashionable as they had been in the 19th century. The score achieves a distinct grandeur,
while Collins's own text reflects his familiarity with great writing: it is, if somewhat elevated and archaic in
tone, literate and eloquent. Though the source scores are not clearly dated, the composer's journals indicate
that the composition of Variations on an Irish Folksong was probably completed after the 1927 Irish
Rhapsody and the 1929 Hibernia(Irish Rhapsody). These Variations are based primarily on "Oh!
The Taters they are small over here!" the "potato famine" folksong that also is used by the composer,
sparingly, in Hibernia. The earliest version of Cowboy's Breakdown for piano solo, is found in a music
notebook. Collins initialed and dated the score December 10, 1935, near the title; above the final measure
he wrote the date January 10, 1936. It is interesting to note that Aaron Copland's "cowboy" ballets,
came after Collins's concise, though equally energetic, Cowboy Breakdown, published in 1938.



Music Composed by Edward Joseph Collins
Played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
With the Royal Scottish National Chorus
Conducted by Marin Alsop

"American composer Edward Joseph Collins is having his entire work list recorded in 10
volumes by Albany Records, of which this is the sixth volume. It contains an ambitious
and very assured choral orchestral work, Hymn to the Earth (1929), which owes a debt to
Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, his Eighth Symphony, and at least betrays a
familiarity with Frederick Delius' A Mass of Life. Composed for New York's Society of the
Friends of Music but apparently not used, this work remained unheard until William Ferris
revived the score in Chicago in 1989. The Ferris performance was issued in a limited
edition at that time; this is a recording made in City Halls in Glasgow by the Royal Scottish
National Orchestra under Marin Alsop in 2002. Alsop shapes Collins' familiar-sounding,
but unfamiliar music very well and never loses sight of the work's fluid forward trajectory.
Alsop also helms the two shorter works, Variations on an Irish Folksong (1932) and
Collins' rowdy, very short Cowboy's Breakdown (1944) with confidence and a sense of
style. The Variations are based on an earlier piano piece and seems a bit dense and
crowded; Cowboy's Breakdown, sketched out in the mid-'30s, looks forward to the
"vernacular" style of Copland and Roy Harris.

The soloists in Hymn to the Earth do a splendid job, particularly mezzo-soprano
Jane Irwin in the alto solo in "Comes Autumn." Dyed in the wool Mahlerians might
scoff and say there is no way on Earth an American composer could erect even a little
temple worthy of placement alongside the great cathedrals built by Mahler in his
Eighth and Das Lied. If so, they would be missing out on admiring how close Collins
came; other than the soprano solo "Hour of Youth," which smacks a little of the flavor
of operetta, Hymn to the Earth is a very serious and substantive effort. Likewise,
it is heartening to know that at the time Havergal Brian was putting a wrap on his
overabundant and scary "Gothic" Symphony, essentially proclaiming "the end of
the world as we (knew) it," across the pond, Collins was composing this positive
reaffirmation of the world as a living, timeless entity. With any luck, more choral
societies and orchestras will adopt Collins' dynamic and highly enjoyable Hymn to
the Earth for performance, as it has very strong and well-defined characteristics
and deserves to be heard, and this recording is a fine vehicle to test it out, even if
it could have used a little more bottom end."
All Music





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No.101

The image of passing through the forest at night is a staple of pictorially oriented music since
the Romantic period, a trope George Rochberg muses on in his work for wind quintet from 1985,
To the Dark Wood. "The title of this work is metaphoric and is intended to indicate the nature of
the music in the most general sense," the composer wrote in his preface to the piece. "There is no
'program' as such; but there is an expressive tone which pervades and characterizes the atmosphere,
the world within which the music takes place: The world of nature and the old mythology which still
haunts the mind of man." The work, then, seems not to be about woods, but rather about the long
tradition of music about the woods. A wind ensemble, of course, is the obvious choice for a piece of
music about the woods. Rochberg even adjusts the standard setup of the wind quintet to highlight
the horn, whose own ancestry and sound is closely associated with huntsmen and hunting calls.
In addition, according to the composer, the horn "best conveys not only the longing, sadness, and
darkness I wanted to express, but also the nobility possible to these qualities."

Rochberg discovered serialism and its possibilities through the studies he undertook in the early
1950's with the distinguished Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola. A work he wrote in the 1940's,
the Trio for Clarinet, Horn, and Piano, is firmly in the tonal tradition; he revised it in 1980, in
terms not of making major changes but of "looking at (it) with greater clarity." There is a strong
contrapuntal orientation in all three of the trio's movements; the first one contrasts rapidly-
moving thematic lines with slower, sustained patterns.

John Harbison's Quintet For Winds was composed in the summer of 1978 for the
Aulos Quintet, on commission for the Naumburg Foundation. The piece has been performed by
many groups, most notably the Emmanuel Wind Quintet, who have performed it over 40 times
and gave the first New York performance in 1980. The piece especially emphasises mixtures
and doublings and maintains a classically simple surface. Scored for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet,
Bassoon and Horn.



Music by George Rochberg & John Harbison
Played by the Arioso Wind Quintet



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No.102

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) composed the 53 M�rike Lieder between February 16 and
November 26, 1888. The M�rike Lieder were strikingly original, as contemporary critics noted,
despite Wolf's contention that he was continuing the tradition of Schubert and Schumann.
Eduard M�rike (1804-75), a Swabian poet, was a favorite among late nineteenth century German
composers. A Protestant pastor with leaning toward Catholicism, M�rike had, while young,
encountered a woman he called, "Peregrina" (wanderer), who was apparently unstable and had
wandered into his town. The exact nature of their relationship is uncertain, but he wrote
numerous poems about her that are filled with emotional and erotic tension. Several aspects of
Wolf's songs are traditional, such as the repeated phrases in "Er ist's," or the occasional selection
of texts for their musical potential as opposed to their poetic greatness. Most of the songs,
however, are original in conception, featuring Wolf's unfailing instincts for text setting and
his ability to portray the meaning of both single words and an entire poem through rhythm
and harmony. Also, Wolf's predilection for reading through piano reductions of Wagner's
operas comes through in many of his piano parts. Wolf later set several of the M�rike Songs
for voice and orchestra, which are all included here.

Wolf's fondness for the "liederbuch" (book of songs) betrayed his desire to broaden the scope
of his output; he spent most of his career trying to shed his image as a mere "songwriter" --
a miniaturist. His compilation of songs into large volumes, each with a sense of poetic and
dramatic unity, yet enough variety to allow for the performance of the whole in recital without
risk of monotony, was his only real success at large-scale composition. Wolf composed his
Gedichte von J. W. v. Goethe in a volcanic eruption of creativity (many days saw the
completion of two songs) between October 27, 1888 and February 12, 1889 ("Die Spr�de"
would be recomposed on October 21, 1889). The book, containing 51 settings in all, was
published in Vienna in 1890. Wolf extends musical boundaries in his Goethe Gedichte even
further than in his settings of Eichendorff and M�rike poems. The piano parts are exceptionally
expansive in "Prometheus" and "Mignon II"; melodies are intensely lyrical in "Blumengrass"
and "Gleich und Gleich." Again, he later added an orchestral version.

Hugo Wolf began working on the Spanisches Liederbuch on October 28, 1889, with his setting
of the anonymous poem, "Wer sein holdes Lieb verloren." Wolf's completion of Gil Vincente's
"Wehe der, die mich verstrickte," on April 27, 1890, brought his work on the Spanisches
Liederbuch to a close. The entire set was composed in Perchtoldsdorf and published in
Mainz in 1891. The Spanisches Liederbuch is drawn from a collection of Spanish poems
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, translated into German by Emanuel Geibel and
Paul Heyse. Only seventeen of the poems have known authors; these include Lope de Vega,
Luis de Cam�es (Portuguese), Miguel de Cervantes, Juan Ruiz, Nicolas Nu�ez, Lopez de
Ubeda, Don Manuel del Rio, Jos� de Valdivivielso, Alvaro Fernandez de Almeida, Rodrigo
de Cota, Cristobal de Castellejo, Gil Vincente, Don Luis el Chico, and Maria Doceo.
The collection contains ten religious and 34 secular songs.



Music Composed by Hugo Wolf
Played by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
With Juliane Banse (soprano) & Dietrich Henschel (baritone)
And the Berlin Radio Choir
Conducted by Kent Nagano

"Given the participants, in particular Kent �he can do no wrong� Nagano, one will have
high expectations for this offering�and they�re largely met. You�ll want it, and not only
because Wolf�s orchestral versions of his lieder are discographic rarities. All 24 of them,
less a second orchestration of Mignon (�Kennst du das Land�), are included here. But
there are caveats, the most annoying being the conductor�s humming or moaning lending
another voice to the lower instrumental register�not constant, but too often. Detailed,
immediate sound presents the overloaded, brassy splendors of Wolf�s orchestral writing
as the center of attention, nearly engulfing the singers.

Though one feels that she has more to say, Juliane Banse, with her honeyed, mezzo-like
seductiveness edged in aureate brilliance, cuts through the hustle to awaken and
animate unforgettably Wolf�s emotional carousel, from the oracular Gesang Weylas
and the valedictory Anakreons Grab to the flirtatious In dem Schatten meiner Locken
(taken straight, that is, without Schwarzkopfian cuteness) and an ecstatic, spellbinding
Kennst du das Land. Coming so soon after her album of Koechlin�s orchestral m�lodies
with Heinz Holliger and the Southwest German RSO/Stuttgart (H�nssler CD 93.159,
Fanfare 29:4), this lopsidedly rich offering confirms Banse as a star of the first magnitude
entering her ascendant."
Fanfare



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No.103

A collection of Chinese folk and art songs arranged for tenor and orchestra
by Taiwanese composer/conductor Kwan Nai-Chung.

Tracks:
1 The River All Red 2:58
2 Family Song 3:56
3 Sea is My Hometown 4:58
4 The Great River Eastward Flows 5:40
5 At a Place Far Away 3:03
6 Kang-ding Love Song 3:46
7 A Carter's Love Story 2:26
8 Song of Herding Horses 2:53
9 Song of Homesickness 4:07
10 How Can I Stop Missing Him 4:57
11 Pastoral Song 5:06
12 Gaelitai 3:03
13 Desolation Tune 4:21
14 On the River Jia-ling-jiang 3:48
15 On the River Song-hua-jiang 4:49
16 Midnight Song 6:46
17 Parting at Yangguan Gate 5:34



Music by (various/anonymous)
Played by the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China
With Warren Mok (tenor)
Conducted by Kwan Nai-Chung

"A Hong Kong Chinese tenor with a distinguished international career, since his European debut in
1987 at the Deutsche Opera Berlin Mok has been making frequent guest appearances throughout
the world, including Deutsche Oper Berlin, Paris Opera, Teatro dell�Opera di Roma, Teatro di Bologna
Comunale, Teatro Carlo Felice Genova, Teatro Massimo Palermo, Opera de Nice, Opera de Lyon,
Opera Australia in Sydney Opera House, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, The Netherlands Opera, Leipzig
Opera, Royal Danish Opera, Teatro di San Carlos Lisbon, Seattle Opera, Bolshoi Theatre, Warsaw
Opera, Teatro di Caliari in Italy, ABAO Bilbao, Opera Irland, Teatro di Palma di Mallorca, Nancy Opera
France, Bergen Opera Norway, Latvian National Opera, Lithuanian National Opera, Orlando Opera,
Hawaii Opera Theater, concert halls in New York�s Carnegie Hall, London�s Royal Albert Hall, Berlin
Philharmonie, Vienna Musik Verein, Tokyo Suntori Hall, Seoul, Florida, Prague and Zurich.

He has performed in many festivals including Vienna, Wiesbaden, Savonlinna Festival,Athens,
Martina Franca (Italy), Arles (France), Track (Lithuania), Poland, New Zealand, Seoul Arts Center,
Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. His operatic repertoire exceeds 50
roles including Calaf (Turandot), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Rodolfo (La Boheme), Don Jose (Carmen),
Riccardo (Masked Ball), Radames (Aida), Duke (Rigoletto), Alfredo (La Traviata), Don Carlos,
Romeo, Faust and Werther, Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos.

A frequent concert artist, Mr. Mok has performed to critical acclaim in New York�s Carnegie Hall
with the Opera Orchestra of New York , Turandot in London�s Royal Albert Hall, Berlin Philharmonie,
Vienna Musik Verein , Singapore Esplande and the Hong Kong Cultural Center with many orchestras,
including the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Orchestra, RIAS Berlin Orchestra, Leipzig
Radio Orchestra Prague Symphony Orchestra, Russian Philharmonic, Lithuanian State Orchestra,
Hong Kong Philharmponic China Philharmonic, Korean Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Festival
Orchestra, China National Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, Guangzhou Symphony, Singapore
Symphony, and Taiwan Symphony. Collaborated with the famous conductors such as Sinopoli,
Marriner, Lopez-Cobos, Hogwood, Palumbo, Weise, Queler, Olmi,Guidarini,Delacote, Lombard,
Yu Long, Lu Jia.

In recent years, Mok has been very active in Asia, not only as a singer, but also as a producer.
He has been the artistic director for Macau International Music Festival from 2000 and has
brought the festival to a world-class high standard. He has produced many great performances
in Macau and won praise from the public and critics alike. He is an advisor for the Shanghai
Opera House, Shanghai Symphony and China National Opera House. He produced and sang
in Romeo & Juliette, Carmen, La Boheme, Otello, Magic Flute, La Traviata, Madame Butterfly,
and in Shanghai International Arts Festival and Beijing Music Festival. Most recently he has
appeared frequently in the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing. He is also an active
promoter of western operas and music in China."





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No.104

Joseph Holbrooke was a resolute and aggressive partisan for his own music ... and that of others.
His series of chamber music concerts (usually in London) spanned the period from the turn of the century
until 1935. These concerts avoided the standard repertoire concentrating instead on his own compositions
and those of contemporaries in the UK and elsewhere. He included pieces by Florent Schmitt and Max Reger.
If Holbrooke had self-doubts they must have been deeply subsumed because in general he wrote with
ferocious conviction of the genius of his own writing. That splenetic tendency left wheals and slashes among
friends, supporters, orchestra managements, conductors, critics and broadcasters. His BBC files are littered
with head-on assaults and resentment. Diplomacy was not one his fortes and neither was mollifying humility.

Ultimately the First Quartet is a smooth and highly polished essay in which a Brahmsian treatment
and Mozartian abandon meet with material that is seethingly Elgarian and full of life. It was written for the
1905 Cobbett fantasy competition; one of 24 such pieces that year. The three movements are played
without interruption. While Holbrooke was never a pastoralist he was happy to weave fantastic visions from
folk material. The Song of the Bottle, The Last Rose of Summer and Mavourneen Deelish are
full of original and strange harmonic adventures, at one moment dreamily Howellsian, baskingly Delian,
at another suggestive of Griffes, of Zemlinsky and of Richard Strauss.

The Second Quartet is in two movements: the first, Belgium, in the form of a tender serenade and
the second is a sparklingly etched Russian Dance treated as fugue or round. The references to '1915' and
the Allies was probably a perfectly understandable piece of concert opportunism by Holbrooke. Like many
another composer during the last two world wars our hero grasped chances to get performances of his
music in an atmosphere where German music was briefly viewed with patriotic suspicion or loathing.
The music is brilliant and no doubt appealed to wartime audiences.



Music Composed by Joseph Holbrooke
Played by the Rasumovsky String Quartet
With Richard Hosford (clarinet)

"These additions to Dutton�s Epoch series usefully fill gaps in our knowledge of two now
neglected composers, one a late Romantic of grandiose ambition and the other an urbane
senior figure of today, with little more in common than their birth in London and the advocacy
of Thomas Beecham at crucial stages in their respective careers. Joseph Holbrooke (1878-1958)
composed an operatic triptych on Welsh legends, and the finest moments in this selection o
f his (mostly early) chamber music belong to the same Celtic world: for example, the wistful
slow movement of his Clarinet Quintet, discarded alternative to it called �Eileen Shona�, and
some folksong arrangements for quartet. His quicker movements, however, often seem four-
square and banal, only occasionally enlivened by a touch of music-hall swagger. The
Rasumovsky Quartet, playing with conviction and warmly recorded, does its best for the
two uneven quartets, and Richard Hosford successfully overcomes the awkwardness of
Holbrooke�s clarinet-writing."
BBC Music Magazine





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