At the top of each month, WRTI broadcasts a special Sunday Classical focused on recommended new releases. Join host Mark Pinto on WRTI on Sept. 7 from 3-6 p.m. to hear highlights from these albums, which he delves into below.
Swans
Mats Lidström (cello), Leif Kaner-Lidström (piano)
A bevy of musical delights awaits on this album of two dozen works inspired by swans. Two versions of Saint-Saëns’s famous Swan plus a selection from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake swim alongside pieces by the likes of Ravel, Gottschalk, Schubert, Villa-Lobos, and a flock of lesser-known composers. Most are heard in arrangements by Swedish cellist Mats Lidström, who is accompanied here by his son, pianist Leif Kaner-Lidström.
King of Kings - J.S. Bach Orchestral Transcriptions
BBC Philharmonic, Sir Andrew Davis, Martyn Brabbins (conductors)
The organ works of J.S. Bach were a lifelong passion for the late English maestro Sir Andrew Davis, an organ scholar early in his life. Included here are transcriptions of several of Bach’s great fugues and chorale preludes Davis made specifically for the BBC Philharmonic. He was able to record four of them with the orchestra before his death in September 2024. Martyn Brabbins graciously stepped in to complete the project. Highlights are the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, “Great” Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, the “St. Anne” Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, and the immortal Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
Hovhaness: Concerto No. 2 for Violin & Strings, Op. 89a & Other Works
Zina Schiff (violin), Valerie Stark (piano); Salzburg Chamber Soloists, Avlana Eisenberg (conductor)
Violin works by one of America’s most prolific composers occupy this new release. Hovhaness’s compositions express the influence of his Armenian heritage and a mystical fascination with nature and spirituality. Celebrated American violinist Zina Schiff stars here, performing with daughter Avlana Eisenberg on the podium in the 1951 Concerto, which calls for some distinctive musical effects. The remainder of the album sees Schiff paired with pianist Valerie Stark in several small-scale pieces and an early Violin Sonata which contrasts Armenian liturgical references and dizzying Scottish jigs.
Mozart: Piano Works, Vol. 2
Federico Colli (piano)
Winner of the Salzburg Mozart Competition in 2011, Italian piano sensation Frederico Colli releases his second volume of Mozart’s music, which concentrates on works exploiting the theme and variations form. Sets of variations on the tune we know as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and Gluck’s song “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” join the Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 311, with its unconventional theme-and-variations opening movement and its famous “Turkish March” finale.
Woodland Songs
Dover Quartet
Formed and still in residence at the Curtis Institute, the internationally acclaimed Dover Quartet turns in a captivating survey of works influenced by music native to North America. The title selection is a world premiere by Chickasaw-American Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, whose string quartet arrangement of Tuscarora/Taino-American Pura Fé Crescioni’s Rattle Songs also appears here. Rounding out the recording is Antonín Dvořák’s well-known American Quartet, which draws from the melodies of Native and African Americans.
Georg Joseph Vogler: Scala-Symphony & Overtures
Munich Radio Orchestra, Howard Griffiths (conductor)
Vogler was famous throughout Europe as a brilliant and accomplished organist and musicologist and an excellent, if somewhat eccentric, teacher (Carl Maria von Weber was a pupil). As a composer, however, he was a bit more polarizing. Mozart labeled him a “charlatan” for his tinkerings with accepted styles and conventions. Vogler seems to have thought highly of Mozart’s music, however, and this recording offers up a Symphony seemingly composed as a response to Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. For the musically curious, the album also contains several of Vogler’s opera overtures.
Price: Choral Works
Sara Swietlicki (soprano), Lindsay Grace Johnson (mezzo-soprano), Jonas Samuelsson (baritone), Robert Bennesh (organ), Jan Karlsson Korp (piano), Malmö Opera Orchestra, Malmö Opera Chorus, John Jeter (conductor)
As discoveries of her music continue to be made, Price champion John Jeter explores a corner of her output which hasn’t garnered a lot of attention to date -- her works for chorus. The principal offering here is the world premiere of her largest choral piece, the cantata Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, a setting of a Vachel Lindsay poem infused with spirituals and chorale-like passages, along with a fugal finale. Smaller, but still lovely, settings of sacred texts and those devoted to the natural world complete this welcome set.
Fields of Wonder
Cantus
The highly regarded men’s vocal group Cantus celebrates their 30th anniversary with a collection of song cycles by 20th century and living composers, including three works written especially for the Minneapolis/St. Paul-based ensemble. The title piece is a newly rediscovered 1963 work by African-American Margaret Bonds which sets poetry by her close friend and frequent collaborator, Langston Hughes.
Breaking Waves
Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Malin Broman (conductor)
The Finnish Chamber Orchestra and their artistic director Malin Broman present 20th century music for string orchestra by three women composers from three different countries. The constantly moving and evolving Sea Sketches of Welsh composer Grace Williams join string orchestra arrangements of two string quartets – Grażyna Bacewicz’s Fourth String Quartet, one of the Polish composer’s best-known compositions, and the beautiful and powerful String Quartet in E-flat major of Austria’s Johanna Müller-Hermann.
