Passing Fancy: Beauty in A Moment of Chaos
Sonnambula, Elizabeth Weinfield (conductor)
The New York City-based early music ensemble Sonnambula awakens us to music by Renaissance and early Baroque-era composers who flourished despite having to conceal or downplay their religious, ethnic, racial, or social identities. This selection of mainly instrumental music includes pieces by William Byrd and Richard Dering, Catholics composing in Protestant England; Leonora Duarte, a Portuguese-Jewish woman forced to live as a Christian; and Salomone Rossi, an Italian-Jewish violinist and composer who set Hebrew texts to Western-style polyphony.
Butterworth: A Shropshire Lad; Holst: Egdon Heath, St. Paul's Suite
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Manze (conductor)
Orchestral works by two celebrated English composers of the early 20th century are showcased here in idiomatic performances by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and conductor Andrew Manze. Butterworth, a decorated soldier killed in action during WWI, is represented by his folksong-based Two English Idylls and A.E. Housman-inspired rhapsody, A Shropshire Lad. Holst himself drew upon literary inspiration (Thomas Hardy) for his tone poem, Egdon Heath, and his lively and popular St. Paul’s Suite also makes use of English folk tunes.
Howells: King David & Sine Nomine
Ikon, David Hill (conductor)
Composer, organist, and teacher Herbert Howells is most famous for his vast and significant output of music for the Anglican church. English choir Ikon and their founder/director David Hill offer choral music lovers a welcome introduction to Howells’ settings of secular texts in the 14 selections here, including two works newly arranged in chamber settings by pianist Iain Farrington.
Ferdinand Ries: Symphonies Nos. 6 and 7
Tapiola Sinfonietta, Janne Nisonen (conductor)
Ferdinand Ries is probably best known as the pupil, friend, and secretary of Beethoven, who left behind an insightful book of reminiscences of the elder composer. Ries himself composed numerous works, in a masterful style falling between the Classical and Romantic traditions, described as a “kinder, gentler” Beethoven. His output includes seven numbered symphonies, most of which were premiered in London by his friend, the impresario Johann Peter Salomon. This is the final volume in a new and much-praised complete symphony cycle by Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta and conductor Nisonen.
American Dream
Ludmila Berlinskaya (piano), Arthur Ancelle (piano), Orchestre Victor Hugo, Jean-François Verdier (conductor), Laurent Comte (conductor)
Composers pursuing the ‘American dream” is the thread connecting three works from the first half of the 20th century. The Berlinskaya-Ancelle piano duo present a large-scale suite based on Irish melodies by Amy Beach, the first successful female American composer, who eschewed European training. With France’s Victor Hugo Orchestra and Artistic Director Jean-François Verdier, the duo shine in the romantic and jazzy Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Dana Suesse, nicknamed the “Girl Gershwin”, who played her own piano compositions on radio and also wrote hit songs for the likes of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. Rounding out this fascinating release is the Second Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Victor Babin, who was born in Russia but emigrated with his wife to the U.S., forming a very successful piano duo.
Berlioz: Le Carnaval Romain & Symphonie Fantastique
Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Payare (conductor)
The Montreal Symphony and Music Director Rafael Payare follow up acclaimed recordings of Mahler, Strauss, and Schoenberg with this album of two famous works by Berlioz that reveal the composer’s flair for drama, color, and psychological intensity. In his Roman Carnival Overture, Berlioz makes imaginative use of themes, particularly the carnival scene, from his opera Benvenuto Cellini. The brilliantly orchestrated and revolutionary Symphonie fantastique is a masterpiece of musical storytelling, charting the delirious inner world of an artist undone by passion, hallucination, and obsession.
Erin Morley (soprano), Lawrence Brownlee (tenor), Munich Radio Orchestra, Ivan Repušić (conductor)
Two of the most exciting luminaries of today’s opera stage celebrate the glittering world of 19th century French and Italian opera. In this captivating album of arias and duets, Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee display their considerable vocal agility, lyrical finesse, and emotional power in gems from operas by Donizetti, Rossini, Bizet, Delibes, and Verdi. You’re sure to fall in love with opera all over again!
Dobrinka Tabakova: Sun Triptych
Maxim Rysanov (viola), Dasol Kim, Roman Mints, Kristina Blaumane, BBC Concert Orchestra, Dobrinka Tabakova (conductor)
Bulgarian-born British composer/conductor Dobrinka Tobakova has enjoyed widespread critical and audience acclaim. If you’re not yet familiar with her music, this album offers the chance to discover her broad, expressive stylistic range in several works written for a variety of instrumental forces – viola and piano, violin and hurdy-gurdy, string orchestra, and the album’s title work for solo violin, cello, and string orchestra.
Ricordi
Bruno Rigutto (piano)
French pianist Bruno Rigutto shares musical memories from a globe-spanning career in his new recording of 26 pieces that traverse 13 countries. Two of his own compositions join miniatures by Schubert, Saint-Saëns, Scriabin, Ravel, CPE Bach, Chopin, Scarlatti, Villa-Lobos, Grieg, Liszt, and others in intense and heartfelt interpretations.
Mozart: Piano Concertos, Vol. 11
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano), Manchester Camerata, Gábor Takács-Nagy (conductor)
Salzburg’s Wunderkind was in his mid-teens when he composed most of the music on this recording of rarely performed works. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet with the Manchester Camerata and Principal Conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy present Mozart’s three piano concertos based on solo keyboard sonatas by Johann Christian Bach, who had been something of a mentor to Mozart when the youngster lived in London in the mid-1760s. Opera overtures plus Mozart’s only set of incidental music – for the play Thamos, King of Egypt – complete this intriguing new release.
Mozart Quartets: Milanese Quartets K.155-160 & K.80
Engegård Quartet
Though increasing conflict and feelings of being stifled by the Price-Archbishop of Salzburg would lead eventually to Mozart’s break from the Salzburg court, the Archbishop did grant the young Mozart some freedom to travel and expand his musical horizons. Norway’s Engegard Quartet here plays a cycle of six string quartets Mozart wrote in 1772-73 in Italy while on leave from the court, plus a quartet completed two years prior when Mozart was 14 years old.
Franz Schreker: Die Gezeichneten, Overture; Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Sinfonietta; Ernst Krenek: Potpourri
Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Sascha Goetzel (conductor)
Vienna-born Music Director Sascha Goetzel resurrects expressive and virtuosic works by three Viennese composers whose music was banned by the dictatorships of the 1930s only to suffer further neglect by the young European avant-garde in the aftermath of World War II. The French orchestra performs the sensual, dreamlike overture to Franz Schreker’s opera Die Gezeichneten (The Stigmatized), the romantic Sinfonietta by a 16-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and a jazzy and fragmented Potpourri by Ernst Krenek.
