Search: 20 results found for "6. Make We Joy"

Also available: Life with Czech Music - Janácek, Martinu / Sir Charles Mackerras

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Reviews:

Symphonic Variations, Legends, Scherzo capriccioso

Charles Mackerras recorded all of this music in London for EMI's "Eminence" series, but those discs may be very difficult to find, and in any case they fail to stand up to these marvelous remakes. What makes so many Mackerras performances special is the conductor's buoyant sense of rhythm, and when he's working the Czech Philharmonic in top form that result can be (and in this case is) exquisite. There's no need to go on at length about the virtues of these performances. A few examples suffice to illustrate the point: there's the wonderful lightness of touch Mackerras brings to the waltz episode in the Symphonic Variations and its dazzling final fugue; the care with which he balances the percussion in the Scherzo capriccioso so that its rhythmic contributions tell without ever becoming overbearing; and in the Legends, the snap he brings to the quicker pieces (such as No. 3) and the wonderfully subtle way he sets up the appearance (in No. 6) of that gorgeous tune from the Third Symphony's slow movement. Sonically this disc is equally fine. Note the perfect balances between winds and strings throughout and the gorgeous contribution of the harp in the Legends that call for it. Totally great!

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Symphony no 6, Golden Spinning Wheel

In his equally laudatory review of this fantastic new release, my colleague Christophe Huss salutes Supraphon for managing to remain true to its dedication to Czech music while at the same time upholding the highest standards of performance quality. To this observation I can only add "Amen!" The label already has a couple of noteworthy versions of Dvorák's luminous Sixth Symphony with the incomparable (in this music anyway) Czech Philharmonic--a very good one by Neumann and a classic account by Ancerl. In fact, this symphony has been very well-served on disc, with excellent recordings by Kubelik, Rowicki, and Suitner, to name three of the best that come immediately to mind. Nevertheless, this newcomer bids fair to move right to the top of the available discography.

Recorded live, the rapport in evidence between Charles Mackerras and the orchestra really is the stuff of legends. There are so many outstanding moments that it's hard to settle on just a few, but consider the fortissimo counterstatement of the opening tune, just a touch "pesante" for added emphasis, or the gorgeously natural rubato between phrases of the same movement's second subject, and the way the coda really takes off and builds in energy straight through to the final climax. Then there's the usual gorgeous wind playing from the orchestra, so evident in the Adagio. Mackerras drives the scherzo with exhilarating abandon, and although he never bears down on the rhythm too heavily (always maintaining the lilt of the dance), the clarity of texture allows such characterful touches as the offbeat timpani in the reprise to register with full impact. I also love the extra punch he brings to the principal section's return after the trio.

Best of all, Mackerras treats us to what must be the most thrilling account of the finale yet captured on disc. It takes off like the wind and never looks back, simply accumulating energy as it goes. The great string fugato that initiates the coda flies by as if on mighty wings, and the grandiosity of the closing pages never loses that vital rhythmic impulse that gives the music its inner life. I wish that Supraphon had not included the applause at the end, but when you consider that all of this, and so much else besides, is happening in real time you will understand that anyone who believes that the era of "great" conductors is past simply hasn't been listening. If this sort of artistic communion between conductor and orchestra in the service of a brilliant interpretation isn't greatness, then we need to ask whether the term has any meaning at all.

The Golden Spinning Wheel (a studio recording this time) also receives what is arguably its finest performance on disc, even considering Harnoncourt's outstanding recent version. The opening, usually a blur of muddy rhythms in the lower strings and indifferently played percussion, here sounds as crisp and clean as a spring morning. I have never understood why some performances cut the central episode wherein the holy hermit gets back the heroine's various body parts (so he can patch her together again) in exchange for the components of the golden spinning wheel. The threefold musical repetition is not literal, and the orchestration is enchanting. The section is, in effect, the slow movement following the scherzo in which poor Dornicka gets hacked to bits in the first place, and it's a necessary four minutes of contrast. Finally, this is the moment where we encounter most of the "spinning wheel" music of the title. Mackerras rightly doesn't delete it, and hearing those deliciously chubby brass chorales and lovely wind solos alongside such characterful phrasing, you can't imagine why anyone would. The last few minutes offer as pure an expression of joy as you'll ever hear.

Supraphon's engineering is outstanding in both works, a touch warmer in the symphony (perhaps as a result of the presence of an audience), but in all respects as fine as any from this source. That audience, by the way, is absolutely silent, and with music-making of such spellbinding quality going on it's no wonder. Coming hard on the heels of his sensational Janácek double CD a few months ago, it's clear that Mackerras' Supraphon recordings will comprise a small but outstanding legacy worthy to stand beside the great recordings of such legends as Talich or Ancerl, and that the great Czech tradition is very much alive both in Prague and at Supraphon. Buy a few of these: they make terrific gifts for special occasions, and you can be sure to get a hearty "Thank you!" from the lucky objects of your affection. But first, treat yourself.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Symphonies 8 & 9

At 80 years young, Charles Mackerras remains one of the great conductors of our era, not to mention one of the most unheralded. His unfailing musicality, intelligence, and sheer joy in performing communicates vividly in these two glorious performances, beautifully recorded live in September, 2005. They are the kind of interpretations that make you listen as if for the first time to music you probably know well. This isn't just because Mackerras opts for the Urtext editions of both scores, most noticeable in the finale of the Eighth Symphony, where after the central climax he has the cellos play the variant of the main theme contained in Dvorák's autograph (Harnoncourt and a few others do similarly). What really distinguishes these performances is their sheer excitement and vital sense of flow, a function of rhythmically characterful phrasing allied to ideally transparent textures.

This is as true of the bucolic first two movements of the Eighth Symphony, where the woodwinds are especially delightful, as it is in the tremendously physical and passionate initial allegro of the Ninth. Has this movement's coda ever sounded more stormily agitated? And notice how marvellously Mackerras judges the tempo of the ensuing Largo, perfectly poised between rapt contemplation and easeful forward motion. Rhythmic acuity is the hallmark of both scherzos: a deliciously pointed waltz in the Eighth, and a swiftly vivacious Slavonic dance in the Ninth.

In the two finales, so often turned into stop-and-start affairs by less adept conductors, Mackerras creates an irresistible feeling of culmination, choosing rousing initial tempos and then for the most part sticking to them. The Eighth's concluding variations seldom have come across more cogently, particularly the lazy last three, which never bog down in excessive Romantic reverie. The Prague Symphony Orchestra responds to Mackerras' direction with amazing gusto, as if it doesn't already know the music backwards and forwards, and the audience is admirably silent. There are other wonderful performances of this music out there, but this truly is as good as it gets.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Slavonic Dances

It's been along time since Supraphon made a great new recording of Dvorák's delicious Slavonic Dances, but it's been worth the wait. Charles Mackerras is one of the two or three finest conductors alive at present, and he knows this music, loves it, and makes the orchestra play it as if it were as fresh as the day it was written. This is no mean feat, since the Czech Philharmonic knows these pieces blindfolded; or at least they think that they do. It's amazing how many seemingly new details Mackerras reveals (particularly in his characterful treatment of the percussion parts, and the careful dynamic balances involving the brass section) that on closer examination turn out to have been exactly what the composer wrote all along. He's particularly crisp and attentive to rhythm in the waltz-like dances (Op. 46 No. 6 and Op. 72 No. 8), where he catches the music's lilt to perfection. But then, he doesn't really put a foot wrong anywhere. The great recordings of these pieces are by Kubelik (DG), Dorati (Mercury), Szell (Sony), Talich (Supraphon), and Sejna (Supraphon). This newcomer, warmly recorded with fine inner detail, belongs in their august company.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Symphonic Poems

"You won't find better conducting in this music anywhere. Charles Mackerras finds so many wonderful details in these pieces that it's impossible to list them all, and he does it at all tempos and dynamic levels. Listen to his subtle underlining of rhythm in The Wood Dove's opening funeral march, and compare it to the unrivaled glitter of its central party music. Bask in the woodwind timbres at the opening of The Noonday Witch, and marvel at just how much music Mackerras finds even in the stormy climax of The Water Goblin. It's an unalloyed delight from the first note to the last.

Of course, the Czech Philharmonic plays these pieces magnificently. The sonics, however, are not as brilliant as the performances, and that's not unusual from this venue, with its somewhat cavernous acoustic. Slightly recessed brass and percussion lessen the impact of the climaxes somewhat, but it's awfully hard to quibble when the interpretations are this strong. Self-recommending."

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Ma Vlast
Taken down live at the 1999 Prague Spring Festival, Charles Mackerras' performance offers a typically fresh, vital look at Smetana's masterpiece. With the Czech Philharmonic in fine form, the result is completely recommendable, even if it doesn't have quite the personality of Kubelik's emotional return performance of 1990, or that special orchestral sonority that Talich or Ancerl enjoyed. Mackerras' interpretive insights are subtle, but fans of this music will find plenty to enjoy, such as the correctly played (for once!) trumpet rhythms at the climax of "Vltava", the carefully balanced brass and string sonorities at the opening of "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields", and the propulsive thrust that cleverly disguises the monothematic repetitiousness of "Tábor" and "Blaník". The up-close, live recording manages to minimize most audience noises but necessarily spotlights certain instruments (harps right at the beginning) in a way that precludes a truly expansive soundstage. On the other hand, the notorious reverberation of the Rudolfinum has been successfully tamed, thanks in part to the presence of the public. We're not exactly dying for another recording of this work, but it's impossible not to welcome music making of this enthusiasm and idiomatic security with anything less than open arms.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

BACH Mass in b • Georg Christoph Biller, cond; Reglint Bühler (sop); Susanne Krumbiegel (mez); Susanne Langner (alt); Martin Lattke (ten); Markus Flaig (bs); Thomanerchor Leipzig; Freiburg Baroque O • ACCENTUS 20281 (DVD: 114:07) Live: Leipzig 6/23/2013

Quite apart from the fact that it was probably never performed in Bach’s lifetime, it is hard for us in our day to see just how strange Bach’s Mass was in its own time. In is structured in four parts instead of the traditional five, it is highly demanding of both voices and instruments—itself not automatically a negative characteristic—and it is so massive as to be liturgically impractical. Strictly speaking, the “Mass” applies only to the Kyrie and the Gloria, required elements in any Lutheran main service, but also similarly used in some Roman Catholic services of the time. Though there are other, earlier large liturgical pieces—Monteverdi’s Vespers, for example—I cannot think of another concert Mass before it (but there likely is one somewhere). In hopes of getting a title, Bach sent the Missa, the first two sections, to the Roman Catholic Elector of Saxony on July 27, 1733, but its final, expanded, form comes from 1748–49. It was probably performed in Berlin in 1811 or 1812, but the first recorded performance was not before 1835, also in Berlin.

Little can be said of this piece that has not already been said hundreds of times. It is a monument that, like all great monuments, does not yield all its secrets at once. It is also one for which no recording, however sophisticated, can ever replace the experience of being there when it is sung, and I can further attest that nothing at all can surpass the experience of actually singing it. This said, it must also be noted that there is no lack of fine recordings: ArkivMusic currently lists 114, of which there seem to be about 8 DVD performances, with the present one also available in Blu-ray.

Georg Christoph Biller is in the no-longer curious position of competing with himself in the same place and in the same context, the Bach Festival in Leipzig, then in 2000 (DVD, Euroarts, rev. 30: 5), now in 2013. Though his sense of the timing of each section has not much changed over those years, there is a considerable difference in his overall approach.

First, while he is certainly up-to-date on all the current issues of historically-informed performance practice, he has properly felt free to adapt them to the forces at his command. Though the Thomanerchor as a whole counts just under 100 boys, aged 10 to 19, the choir on both recordings consists of something over 50. However fine the soloists are, this piece lives or dies by the quality of the choral singing. The Thomanerchor is not an amateur choir of cute children but, rather, a serious musical organization which makes a spectacular noise. Their sheer joy and complete technical proficiency leave no doubt that they know everything they need to know in order to project the ultimately exuberant spirit of this piece.

The first and most obvious difference between the two performances is the sound of the choir itself. Partly due to the bright recording and partly due to their articulation, the sound in 2000 was rather aggressive and deliberately heavily aspirated (E-le-he-he-he-he-he-he-he-i-son), which certainly makes each note in the run easier to sing but is choppy and not particularly graceful. The great pleasure of the new recording is that the choir has discovered that it can make a legato line that still articulates each note, and the result is a clarity of line that allows Biller to make each line go somewhere itself and not just be a sequence of notes. Then, too, here Biller uses a smaller group for certain quiet sections, such as Et incarnatus est/Crucifixus (And he was born/Crucified), in the Creed, for instance, to gain greater contrast with the following section, Et resurrexit (And he arose). In the Sanctus, he physically rearranges the choir, to set it up for the double-choir conclusion from the Osanna to the end.

The second difference is the orchestra. In 2000, Biller had the services of players from the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, whose modern instruments added brightness to the whole sound. In 2013, he used the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Now, in addition to playing at the lower, so-called “Baroque,” pitch of around A=415 instead of at modern pitch of around A=440, the fewer overtones and resultant milder quality of these older instruments actually support rather than overwhelm the choir and soloists. For their solos, the instrumentalists stand.

Third, the five vocal soloists in the later recording sing from amidst the choir rather than, as earlier, at the front of the church balcony on which everything is performed. While we certainly hear them clearly, they are, as a group, inherently less powerful and less characterful than the quartet used in 2000. This may partly be a recording strategy, but they are well balanced with respect to the orchestra.

The production work in this DVD is exemplary. The concentration is all on the performers: There are no side trips to interesting corners of the church and only occasionally to the audience. The only timing glitch is in that given for the Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace) at the very end: The music actually takes 3:02 and the rest of the 6:11 claimed is given over to applause and bows. It is a real mistake that none of the members of the orchestra nor the fine instrumental soloists is named anywhere in the material or on the DVD, and the web site of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra is no help in trying to identify who they are. And who are the two boys also given a separate bow at the end?

The smiles on the faces of the boys afterwards tells us that they had a good time. I had a good time too, and wanted nothing so much as to get up there and sing with them. This is a fine performance: Bach is well-served by everyone, and it goes on my next Want List. Much recommended.

FANFARE: Alan Swanson

Encounter brings together two towering works of contemporary chamber music that speak across cultures, histories, and inner worlds. Osvaldo Golijov's The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind and Peteris Vasks' String Quartet No. 6 arise from profoundly different traditions-Jewish mysticism and Baltic spirituality-yet meet in a shared search for truth, memory, and transcendence. Both works are intensely personal, rooted in lived experience and belief, and animated by music's power to give voice to what lies beyond words: longing, suffering, hope, and illumination. In this recording, these worlds do not merely coexist; they listen to, reflect, and transform one another. Performed by the Arethusa Quartet with clarinetist Chen Halevi, Encounter is also a meeting of artistic journeys. Golijov's ecstatic, ritual-like score unfolds as a spiritual ascent through dreams, prayers, and blindness-understood as deeper inner vision-while Vasks' Sixth Quartet traces a life's arc from farewell and remembrance to a final, hushed encounter with transcendence, illuminated by echoes of Beethoven. Across both works, vulnerability and intensity are balanced by stillness and song, darkness by light. What emerges is an album that feels at once intimate and universal: an affirmation of shared humanity, and a reminder of music's enduring ability to connect past and present, earth and spirit, performer and listener. = Curiosa is conceived as a personal "cabinet of curiosities" by violinist Jorge Jiménez, bringing together music that entered his life through years of travel, collaboration, and discovery. The album spans laments, dances, preludes, fugues, and songs from both renowned and anonymous sources, ranging from the Middle Ages to the Baroque and beyond. Each piece is selected for it's emotional depth, strangeness, and expressive power, forming a living repertoire shaped in rehearsals, late-night conversations, concerts, and recording sessions. Central to the project is Jiménez's fascination with unaccompanied music and historical instruments, particularly the baroque violin and vielle, whose raw and earthy sound transports the listener into earlier sound worlds. Throughout Curiosa, Jiménez weaves together personal heritage, musical memory, and imaginative storytelling. His own arrangements connect Bach, Dowland, Strozzi, Gaspar Sanz, and traditional tunes with vivid images. Joined by Joy Smith on early harps and Daniel Garay on historical percussion, and performing with his ensemble Tercia Realidad, Jiménez blends historical insight with spontaneity and improvisation. The result is an album that feels both intimate and expansive-music passed "between hands, ears, and hearts," constantly transforming while remaining deeply rooted in shared curiosity and human connection. Jorge Jiménez: "These pieces entered my life through the extraordinary musicians and ensembles I've been fortunate to work with across Europe. They form a living repertoire shaped in rehearsal rooms, late-night conversations, recording sessions, and concerts." = During the darkest of the lockdowns, I took my daughter to an open field near our home. In a time when the world felt shuttered and small, walking was our only escape from the suffocating stillness. As we reached the field, a sudden sensation washed over me-a quiet awakening. It wasn't just the spring breeze or the scent of the grass; it was a sudden reminder of what being alive meant. I felt I had been touched by Zephyr, the Greek god of the west wind, sparking a renewed wish to create and perform for the world once more. Liberte´: A piece exploring and searching for emotional freedom. Zephyr: Named after the gentle west wind, this track served as the primary source of inspiration for the entire album. Fushigi no Kuni: Translating to "Wonderland" in Japanese, this piece was inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll. A Troubadour in the Moonlight: A composition and improvisation depicting a minstrel serenading a loved one beneath the moon. For Misato: A heartfelt dedication to Misato-san, my dear friend who departed too young. The five songs above are composed by Yukari. Eurus, Suibokuga, Pandora's Box, Don't Follow the Piper, and Au crépuscule are collective improvisations. = "We can imagine some eyebrows being raised at the description of Dora Pejacevic as a contemporary of Brahms; the two composers were born more than fifty years apart, and their lives only overlapped by twelve years. Yet both works by Pejacevic are unmistakably from the same compositional lineage as that by Brahms; and both are works written early on in Pejacevic's remarkable (and, sadly, all-too-short) life. Both pieces belong clearly to the romantic tradition, displaying no hint of the more modernist directions which her later works would take. We were immediately intoxicated by the passionate sweep of Pejacevic's Piano Quartet, but also the tenderness of it's slow movement, and felt it would make the perfect bedfellow for the First Piano Quartet of Brahms, a piece to which Tom has felt particularly close since student days. Brahms's Piano Quartet is justly one of the best-loved of all chamber works, and few works are more exhilarating to perform: the first movement offers an abundance of glorious themes; the second takes us to a mysterious dreamworld; the third luxuriates in expansive lyricism; then the fiery virtuosity of the gypsy finale sends us headlong to the finish line. This album brings us to the end of our recorded journey through Brahms's three piano quartets, and it has been the greatest privilege and joy to record these works, alongside three major piano quartets by composers who deserve to be far better known. However, we are pleased to say that the series does not end here: looking beyond the piano quartets, we have further albums in preparation, pairing Brahms with his brilliant and lesser-played contemporaries." -Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

Who knew? Certainly, we did not. When the eight of us met at WBEZ in Chicago on September 13, 2022, we thought we were taking the first step toward recording a new CD. It was a fine day in the studio, we got a bunch done and it sounded pretty great, but then we spent much of 2023 working on a chamber theater piece that split it's time between LA and Chicago, leaving not much empty space to go back into the studio. January 5 of 2024 was the next time we gathered to record, this time at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, Maryland - and there were a lot of us. There were the five core members of the group, with Tim Langen on fiddle, and James Oxley, tenor, for a total of seven musicians. Dan was producing, Charlie at the console, and Lindsey overseeing it all. Honestly, it was a tough session. We had been overly optimistic about what could be achieved, perhaps we were under-rehearsed, and I had cancer. This is not a poor-pitiful-me-moment. It's just a fact that sometimes when you have cancer and you don't know it, you haven't been diagnosed, nothing feels right, and indeed, nothing felt right. Even in the haze of exhaustion and infirmity, there were shining, glittering moments of extraordinary music making. Isaac brought his saxophone. Ensemble Galilei, known for early music/traditional music crossover had never, ever, recorded with something that modern. Cape Clear, a traditional Irish air would be played on sax accompanied by the viola da gamba. Who knew? Both instruments rumbled and sang, Isaac's saxophone riding the red-hot coals of grief, with the gamba, in the basement of it's range, providing a partner in darkness. James Oxley poured himself into, Come Away, Death, with Jesse Langen's extraordinary guitar giving space, air, and light to the tune. Bernard McWilliams, the session photographer, was there when the jig set was being recorded, a straight-ahead Irish set that Tim, Jesse and Isaac had assembled a few days before, and he looked me straight in the eye and said, "That is like hearing pure joy." The Boys of Barr na Sraide with it's perfect imperfection still makes me cry when I hear Isaac singing, And when the hills were bleeding and the rifles they were aflame To the rebel homes of Kerry the the Saxon strangers came And the men who fought the Auxies and beat the Black and Tans Were the boys of Barr na Sraide who hunted for the wren. There was a biopsy on April 15, I told my surgeon that my first free day to go under the knife was June 17. I had things to do. We had recording sessions already scheduled. As our producer, Dan Merceruio, and I listened to the tracks from December, there was music that soared and there were pieces that didn't quite rise. We needed a fiddler. I called Hanneke Cassel who lives in Boston, asked her if she might have one day to come to DC to record, and when she said, "Yes, if it's May 6, " we were good to go. I flew up for a rehearsal, we went over the tracks she would be working on, she created beautiful and compelling parts, and May 6 was one of those days of focused creativity that one never forgets. At that time, there were two projects in the works, on parallel paths. For the first time, we were going to record an early music CD in a conventional classical music style. Ensemble Galilei had always been known as a crossover group, meaning that while it was true that we performed early music, traditional music was always right around the corner. We never sought to achieve a level of historical performance practice that might engage early music audiences, until now. There were just four of us when we met to rehearse in the spring, and when the rehearsals were over and we were convinced that we had something to say that had never been said before, we scheduled a session for June 6-9. Kathryn Montoya and I were the early music representatives from Ensemble Galilei and we would be joined by the extraordinary lutenist, Ronn McFarlane and the peerless English tenor, James Oxley. Unfortunately, right before James was set to fly to the US from England, he tested positive for Covid. The studio at Sono Luminus had been reserved, Erica Brenner our producer, had her tickets, and Robert Friedrich, our engineer, had packed all the equipment. We were going to record. That studio is designed for a group to record together - sharing space, hearing the music as it is being played, feeling the resonance of the room. There is no isolation, no overdubbing, no fixing that pesky buzzy string in bar four that will be problematic later. The sound of the recording will be broader, there will be more room sound, and the process is inherently different. You can see each other, hear each other breathe. And if you make a mistake, it lives on in everyone's microphone. There is, after all, a plus and a minus to everything. Those days of recording with Kathryn and Ronn were astonishing. Because we had three days booked (and since we weren't recording any of the vocal music), we could focus, really take our time, stretch out and listen, and with Erica gently guiding us, rearrange, and go again. It is rare that time is your friend in the studio, and for us in those days, it was. We were able to book the studio with James for August 4-6, and there we met again. True confessions, two of the songs that James sang are profoundly important in my life, and the way that he sang John Dowland's Flow My teares and Go Cristall teares made playing the bass line, with Ronn taking the lute part, an exquisite experience. And I do hear it, in the recording. All of that intention, all of that seemingly effortless technique (which we know is not effortless) and the heart that they put into the performances, these are the things that one lives for in music. I called Collin Rae, the head of Sono Luminus, on the way home from the session, hoping that he might have a great name for this Ensemble Galilei early music spinoff and he suggested that instead of releasing two different projects under two different names, that we release a single recording as a two CD set. Lindsey Nelson, our executive producer, who seems to always have the wisdom and experience to guide us when we are in uncharted territory, was in the car during that phone call. It was a mind-blowing moment. There were so many things that made sense about it, and at the same time there were major obstacles. We had always been an ensemble that embraced a wide range of music, so putting early music and traditional music on the same CD was business as usual. But we had recorded in radically different sonic environments, intentionally, and how we would marry these diverse soundscapes was challenging. But Collin was right. It was crazy to spin off a different group, give it another name, and release a CD. And while it had never occurred to Lindsey or to me, a two-CD set was the perfect solution. The summer of 2024 was tough, and yet astonishing things kept showing up. A few years before, I looked at our Spotify page for the first time and saw that we had millions of streams. Our big cities were Paris, Seattle, and London, and our demographic was predominantly people in their late teens, twenties, and early thirties, not our usual concert audience - and they were not hearing the music on a Spotify radio station, they were listening and sharing with friends. This was happening all over the world. And then in August, Come, Gentle Night, the title track of a CD that was released in 2000 on Telarc, caught fire. All of a sudden, our top five cities were all in Turkey. The tune was streamed hundreds of thousands of times, again, shared from one person to another. People were listening. Radiation started for me in September. For my first session, which would be the longest, the tech asked what I would like to hear and I said, "Me. Us. Ensemble Galilei." He found Ensemble Galilei on Spotify and as I lay on the cold metal table, in the chilly, dimly lit room, I heard Following the Moon, the title track of a CD released in 1995. It was the second tune I had ever written, and it had been decades since the penny-whistle, harp, viola da gamba and fiddle soaring through space had crossed my consciousness. As I am listening, the machine delivering the radiation starts to rotate across the table, doing it's own, graceful, beautiful dance to the music. Then the next tune, and the next tune and what I realized, in that extreme and novel moment, was that there was a kind of hope and humanity in our music. You could hear it. You could feel it. I understood that people around the world were listening because these tunes offered them a place to be. Of course it did. We had been making music for thirty-five years because it's what we do, not because we ever had a big breakthrough, or there were sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall. Did it make a difference that now there were over twenty-one millions streams? Yes, actually it did. We weren't quite finished recording. We needed Jackie to sing As I Roved Out in a way that only he could do, and we needed a great first track for the first CD. Isaac was writing a new tune that would go with an old tune, and he and Jesse finished working on it on Friday, December 13th and aptly named it, The Last Minute. It changed a little after the concert on Saturday, we did it again in concert on Sunday so, sure, it was ready Monday morning. December 16th was the one day when Dan could fly north, and Jackie, Jesse, Isaac and I would all be in the area, so after our Sunday afternoon concert on December 15th the four of us drove to the studio, met Charlie, set up the microphones, chairs, headphones and whatever else we needed so that we could start recording right at 10:00am, but the next morning there was fog in DC so Dan's flight was delayed. Of course it was. In spite of the challenges we had an extraordinary day, clocked out at 6:00 and everyone made it to their airports on time. After Dan edited the tracks from Chicago and Takoma Park, after Erica edited the tracks from Sono Luminus, I got to work sequencing. Now that all of this music would be one project, we needed a single person to make the choices, to guide the process, to envision and manifest this opus. It was Dan. It had to be. He had been our north star for fifteen years and the hard decisions would have to be his. Some tracks would not make it into this recording and his expertise, compassion, and patience were essential. We also needed to get a proof of concept CD to Collin. None of us really knew for sure whether we could make these two very different sonic fields into one compelling project. When I downloaded all the tracks and started putting them into an order that made emotional sense, I started to hear the stories. But there were problems. There were moments in sequencing the two discs when there seemed to be no way to get from the early music to the Irish music, or back again, and then Kathryn and her recorder solos provided exactly what we needed. In an unexpected turn, the recorder which is so clearly identifiable as an early music instrument became timeless. In her hands, this instrument which is essentially a wooden tube with holes in it, became an expressive and infinitely transmutable pathway for traversing the cultures and centuries. It was miraculous. It would have been technically possible to have the early music recording and the traditional music recordings come close to matching in sound and space, but honestly, I came to love the differences. Robert, a master location engineer, had achieved a sound that included the room, with it's high ceiling and hardwood floor, and also brought the resonance of each of us close to the listener. Charlie, who had produced the very first Ensemble Galilei recordings, knew exactly how to place the microphones so that on that amazing guitar solo, Bruach Na Carraige Baine, the pure sound and the overtones would sparkle, and fill the ear. As I listened down through all thirty-four tracks and forty-seven tunes over two CDs, sometimes I felt like I was turning a corner, from one song to another, moving from an Irish hillside to a medieval castle, from one world to another - each of them compelling, expressive, and sonically exquisite. In the end, if the musicians have brought their hearts, souls, and years of mastery, if the recording team has entered into the space with wisdom, tools, patience and good will, if the executive producer is saying, "Sure, let's book one more session to make this the very best it can possibly be" then the opportunity exists for the listener to hear it all - the breath, the intention, the ensemble, the soloist, the fingers on the strings, the air as it comes out of the recorder, the hands on the regulators of the uilleann pipes, the tipper as it touches the head of the bodhran, the rosin on the fiddle's bow, and feathered end of the note on a viola da gamba. It is all there. What you do not hear on this recording is the harp being played by EG Emeritus member, Sue Richards. Never in the thirty-five years of Ensemble Galilei has there been a recording without Sue. Who are we without that grace, without her sense of beauty and joy? The answer must be that we are still making music, still telling stories, still finding our way into new territory, trusting our hearts and our sensibilities. Playing music together is a place where we meet, a place that we love, indeed, it is there I long to be. - Carolyn Surrick, March 10, 2025 Ensemble Galilei Isaac Alderson - uilleann pipes, Irish flute, whistles, tenor saxophone Jesse Langen - guitar Kathryn Montoya - recorders, whistle, shawm Jackie Moran - banjo, bodhran, egg shaker Carolyn Surrick - viola da gamba With Hanneke Cassel* - fiddle Gjendine's Bådlåt and Gjendine's Waltz, Boys of Barr na Sraide Tim Langen - fiddle Jig Set, When that I was a Tiny Boy Ronn McFarlane - lute James Oxley - tenor *Ensemble Galilei emeritus Barn Dance no.1 and Leaving St. Kilda were recorded at WBEZ in Chicago on September 13, 2022. Recording Engineer - Brian Doser Producer and Editing Engineer - Dan Merceruio Mixing Engineer - Charlie Pilzer Producer and Music Director - Carolyn Surrick Come Away Death, Io son un Pellegrino, Serbian Wedding Dance, Bruach Na Carraige Baine, Cape Clear, When that I was a Little Tiny Boy, Waltz no.1, Sliabh Geal gCua, Aggie Whyte's, The Old Blackthorn Stick, Old Simon the King, The Boys of Barr na Sraide and The Fair Maid of Barra, The Sporting Pitchfork and Scattery Island were recorded at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, Maryland from January 5-7, 2024. Recording and Mixing Engineer - Charlie Pilzer Producer and Editing Engineer - Dan Merceruio Producer and Music Director - Carolyn Surrick Hanneke Cassel recorded Gjendine's Bådlåt and Gjendine's Waltz, and added her incredible musical sense to The Boys of Barr na Sraide on May 6, 2024 at Tonal Park. Recording and Mixing Engineer - Charlie Pilzer Producer and Editing Engineer - Dan Merceruio Producer and Music Director - Carolyn Surrick Lament for Owen Roe O'Neill/Allen Water/ Licke-potjen, Fantasias no. 2 and 3, Life, Tweede Stuck, Galliard, Loftus Jones, Suzanna Galliard, Vierde Carileen, Oncques amour, Jesus in Thy Dying Woes, Zesde Petit Brande/Frere Frapar/La Perichone, and Love is the Cause of My Mourning/Miss Noble were recorded at Sono Luminus in Boyce, Virginia from June 6-9, 2024. Recording and Mixing Engineer - Robert Friedrich Producer and Editing Engineer - Erica Brenner Au joli bois, Beware Fair Maids, Flow My Teares, Go Crystall Teares, His Golden Lockes, and Venus Birds were recorded at Sono Luminus in Boyce, Virginia from August 4-6, 2024. Recording and Mixing Engineer - Robert Friedrich Producer and Editing Engineer - Erica Brenner Hewlett and As I Roved Out were recorded on December 16, 2024 at Tonal Park. Recording and Mixing Engineer - Charlie Pilzer Producer and Editing Engineer - Dan Merceruio Producer and Music Director - Carolyn Surrick Lindsey R. Nelson, Executive Producer. Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Robert Friedrich, Five/Four Productions, LLC.® Produced by Dan Merceruio. Collin J. Rae, Executive Producer Joshua Frey, Layout Carolyn Surrick, Liner Notes Photography: Bernard McWilliams Cover Art: Amy Fenton-Shine

Track Listing
1. Christmas Song, The - (with Tony Bennett)
2. O Holy Night - (with Charlotte Church/Plácido Domingo)
3. Do You Hear What I Hear - (with Vanessa Williams)
4. Jesus De Nazareth - (with Plácido Domingo)
5. Winter Wonderland - (with Tony Bennett/Vanessa Williams)
6. Silent Night - (with Charlotte Church)
7. My Favorite Things - (with Vanessa Williams/Tony Bennett/Plácido Domingo)
8. White Christmas - (with Tony Bennett/Vanessa Williams)
9. Hacia Belen Va Un Burro - (with Plácido Domingo)
10. Through The Eyes Of A Child - (with Vanessa Williams)
11. First Noel, The - (with Tony Bennett/Plácido Domingo)
12. Somewhere In My Memory - (with Gumpoldskirchner Spatzen Chorus)
13. I Saw Three Ships - (with Plácido Domingo/Vanessa Williams)
14. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - (with Tony Bennett)
15. Hijo De Dios - (with Plácido Domingo)
16. I'll Be Home For Christmas - (with Tony Bennett/Plácido Domingo)
17. Joy To The World - (with Plácido Domingo/Vanessa Williams)
18. Angels We Have Heard On High - (with Tony Bennett/Vanessa Williams/Plácido Domingo)
19. Silent Night
20. One More Year - (with Plácido Domingo/Vanessa Williams)

Musicians include: Tony Bennett, Charlotte Church, Placido Domingo, Vanessa Williams (vocals); Steven Mecurio (conductor); Ralph Sharon Quartet; Gumpoldskirchner Spatzen Children's Choir; Vienna Symphony.

Recorded live at the Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria in December 2000.

This stellar line-up, recorded live in Vienna, performs a program of quintessential Christmas songs in a rich variety of styles, from the light pop of "My Favorite Things" to traditional Spanish tunes such as "Hacia Belen Va Un Burro" and English equivalents like "Angels We Have Heard on High." Tony Bennett kicks the whole thing off with a typically warm rendition of "The Christmas Song." He's followed by a pretty straight reading of "O Holy Night" by the Welsh teen classical prodigy Charlotte Church and the inimitable Placido Domingo, and Vannessa Williams' gospel-tinged version of "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

It's an evening of familiar favorites, impeccably performed, with the added bonus of the Gumpoldskirchner Spatzen Children's Choir providing an appropriately child's-eye view of the holiday. OUR FAVORITE THINGS is a worthy addition to the bulging repertoire of Christmas collections, in a gimmick-free traditional setting.

The orchestrations are colorful, subtle and brilliant. A joy to hear. Equally delightful is the playing. The Lyon National Orchestra under Jun Märkl captures the subtlety and beauty of tone throughout every piece and the recorded sound is really first rate.

The Debussy Orchestral Works, Vol. 6 from Naxos offers a nice mix of familiar and rare works, all in exquisite orchestrations by musicians who either knew Debussy or admire his works. Debussy himself wrote all of this music for the piano 4 hands. The orchestrations are colorful, subtle and brilliant. A joy to hear. Equally delightful is the playing. The Lyon National Orchestra under Jun Märkl captures the subtlety and beauty of tone throughout every piece and the recorded sound is really first rate. Orchestrating piano music requires an understanding of both keyboard and orchestral techniques in order to rethink the piano music for an ensemble. It requires interpolations that are natural to the spirit of the music without imparting on the orchestra a pianistic left and right hand. These arrangements make the music sound as if it has always been for orchestra.

The selections range from pops concert favorite, Clair de lune, in a luminous classic arrangement by Andre Caplet to Debussy's early Symphony, of which he completed only the first movement, orchestrated by Tony Finno. With Clair de lune we also get the entire Suite bergamasque from which it comes, the other movements colorfully arranged by Gustave Cloez. The total effect of the suite in this orchestral form is much like a ballet score, performed with lyric grace by Lyon musicians. This is a particularly fine and sensitive performance of Clair de lune. This heartstrings pulling performance of moves at a slightly faster pace than some of the others but remains quite lovely within its own world in the suite.

The Symphony is actually rather good. Its swaggering main theme is a bit repetitious but the overall style is much more romantic than impressionist and reminiscent of perhaps d'Indy, Faure or the rarely heard symphony by Dukas. I've heard one other chamber ensemble arrangement of Debussy's sketches and this version for full orchestra by Tony Finno is far and away the best.

Henri Busser's arrangement of the Petite suite, which certainly has much orchestral competition with performances recorded by Martinon, Tortelier, Ansermet, Dutoit and many more is aided here by superb sound quality and excellent, sensitive artistry. Busser's other orchestration is Printemps, a two movement piece with one foot in the late-romantic era and the other feeling around in the new musical impressionism. The music is played with shimmering beauty. Probably the clearest and most sparkling recorded performance of Printemps I've heard.

En blanc et noir, orchestrated by Robin Holloway is not just black and white as the piano key title implies, but quite colorful. The arrangement was commissioned in 2002 by the San Francisco Symphony. The music is more boisterous and exuberant,sounding at times as if it is about to turn toward Debussy's Iberia but with the Spanish atmosphere replaced instead by a somewhat mischievous quality which grows on you with repeated hearings. The last movement Debussy dedicated to "mon ami Strawinsky"‘. With performances that treat the older works as if they were newly discovered and the unknown works with a sense of magic and wonder, this album is definitely a winner.

- Greg La Traille, ArkivMusic.com

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The most compelling item in this collection is En blanc et noir, not only one of Debussy's most advanced instrumental works (composed for two pianos), but the orchestral arrangement sounds closest to the composer himself. Robin Holloway drew upon Debussy's contemporaneous Jeux as a model, with numerous passages in the first and third movements replicating that work's uniquely colorful sound world. In the reflective middle movement Holloway's orchestral dress evokes the dreamy atmosphere of Les parfums de la nuit from Iberia. Jun Märkl and the Orchestre National de Lyon offer a sparking performance, playing the music with real verve, as if they had discovered a heretofore unknown Debussy masterpiece.

Debussy only completed one movement of his proposed Symphony in B minor (1880), and then only as a piano duet. Tony Finno's orchestral arrangement emphasizes the music's Russian influences (it was composed around the time he was employed by Tchaikovsky's patron Nadezhda von Meck), though there are occasional pre-echoes of the mature Debussy. Märkl and his band perform this and the remainder of the program (the familiar Suite bergamasque, Petite Suite, and Printemps arrangements) with the same vitality and commitment afforded En blanc et noir. The spacious recording is a bit over-reverberant, but nevertheless provides solid presence and impact. Debussy fans will find this release a real delight.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

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Other review quotes:

"Subtle and sensitive readings" - Gramophone.

"This is bewitching music-making that should on no account be missed. One of the finest discs Naxos has ever released." - Classic FM (about Volume 1 (8.570759).

"Volume 6 in Naxos’s popular series presents five highly diverse works in gorgeous orchestrations by Debussy’s colleagues or later admirers. Indeed, pieces such as Clair de lune and Printemps may even be better known in these seductive guises than in their original forms. Of particular interest is Debussy’s sole attempt at composing a symphony, a youthful work imbued with the spirit of French Romanticism, only the first movement of which he completed." - Naxos

Four years after CPO issued an initial volume of David’s invigorating symphonies (Nos 1 and 6 on CPO 777 741-2 – Gary Higginson’s enthusiastic recommendation can be read here), we now get a second helping in performances that were seemingly laid down some three years before those on that disc. In contrast to death and taxes, CPO’s recording and release schedule are a mystery to us all (and a source of frustration to some). Having said that, those of us who feared for the recording of rare repertoire when CDs first emerged should simply be grateful for the stalwart work CPO actually do; who, thirty-odd years ago, could possibly have foreseen complete recorded cycles of Searle, Frankel and Wellesz symphonies, to name but three ‘Brits’ off the top of my head?

I can only reiterate my colleague’s enthusiasm for David’s symphonies. On paper, an expectation of ersatz Hindemith or Hartmann would be quite understandable. Descriptions of David’s music have often suggested dry, competent academicism – the reality seems very different. There is a clutch of stylistic allusions and comparisons one could make, but there is a great deal that is fresh, inspired and enjoyable about these works. Above all, they don’t meander; they appear to be really coherent and well-formed. This was my abiding impression of the first disc, and it applies here too. Indeed, the splendid Second Symphony on this disc lasts almost three-quarters of an hour – and I would argue that is not a moment too long.

Scored for a big orchestra, this work was completed by David in the summer of 1938 while he was holidaying in the upper Austrian highlands. It begins with a mysterious, chromatic theme played on a solo flute, before other solo woodwind instruments take on the melody and the sound and structure begin to fill out. These understated chamber-like wind textures belie what is to come. There are a lot of exposed solo lines in this work, which hint at a hibernal solitude. However, frenetic strings eventually join the fray, projecting a virility which certainly evokes Hindemith. The material evolves naturally from the original theme (indeed David embraces monothematicism throughout his symphonic corpus) and is developed most skilfully. Vibrant colours are achieved via judicious washes of tuned and untuned percussion which sporadically perforate the fuller orchestral textures. The mood of this music seems untouched by the date and place of its provenance – although it’s neither ecstatic nor joyful, it instead projects a sense of cautious optimism. One passage at 9’13 strongly evokes Hindemith’s great Harmonie der Welt symphony - David’s work pre-dates it by 13 years! As the movement heads toward its conclusion, with more adroitly played solo clarinet and bassoon, the mood briefly becomes more melancholy and terse. But this is a momentary reflection; the busy string gestures soon return and see us to the movement’s energetic, meaty conclusion which, in turn, suggests this composer’s true hero, Bruckner. Notwithstanding David’s fiercely twentieth century idiom the spirit of the Linz master is rarely far away in this music.

The two central movements, largo e cantabile and scherzo, are both relatively brief. The note quotes a contemporary critic as detecting a hint of Pfitzner’s operatic masterpiece Palestrina in the slow movement. Adopting an arch-like structure, it is an enigmatic, ambiguous essay which generates an uneasy calm. The string writing at its centre is glowingly beautiful. Rhythmically speaking the Scherzo is even more Brucknerian; here I detect something approaching bucolic joy, albeit one that’s oddly claustrophobic. The central trio section delights in strummed string effects. Some of the wind writing is almost jazzy and certainly gloriously sophisticated. The main theme soon gets under one’s skin. It ends abruptly - seemingly a David trademark.

The finale is a massive and ambitious passacaglia. I found it deeply impressive, but it requires effort on the part of the listener. It portentously reconstitutes the main theme from the first movement, initially stated in lower strings, and presents 31 superbly contrasting and interesting variations, seamlessly woven together with richly imaginative orchestration and plenty of opportunity for the principals of the ORF band to show off. There is a suppressed and not necessarily benign power at work in this compelling and measured movement. The ORF orchestra may lack the weight and sheen of their better- known Viennese counterparts but they invest this strange music with real passion and exceptional commitment. I suspect it would require a cold heart for a keen listener not to be moved by it. While I certainly found David’s Symphonies 1 and 6 to be technically accomplished and compelling, I believe this Second Symphony trumps them both. Needless to say, one cannot help but repeat the oft-asked question: where has this music been all my life?

The Symphony No 4 is harder work; it is effectively David’s ‘War’ Symphony. He made three attempts at writing it: the second draft was destroyed with his home in Leipzig during an air-raid in 1944. In fact, according to the booklet note, David rushed back into his burning house and rescued his son’s parakeets and what he thought was the almost-completed symphony. As it turned out it wasn’t – he thus reconstructed it from memory in a third and final draft which he completed in 1948. The opening dirge-like theme emerges gradually in winds and strings in the opening, brief slow movement. The brass provide more ominous colours which add to the prevailing solemnity - given the circumstances of the work’s gestation, this material seems more than apt. Gary Higginson mentioned Rubbra in his review of the earlier disc and there is again a hint of that composer’s controlled power in this movement. The pent-up energy is released in the following Allegro moderato, a terrific and compelling fugue. It builds inexorably with ripe timpani rolls and imaginative counterpoint towards a brass-dominated conclusion which again ends abruptly. Another Brucknerian Scherzo follows. The first half of this is oddly wistful and as light as air, suspended by what the note describes as “…impressionistically shimmering sonic ornaments…”. The orchestration in the middle section thickens momentarily before serene harp figurations puncture the flowing strings and winds. The movement concludes with a mercurial sense of urgency. At the outset of the fugal finale, the material heard at the opening of the work returns, somewhat shorn of any residual sentiment. It generates a somewhat muted, but not unappealing momentum. The orchestration throughout the finale is both transparent and vivid although its ending is somewhat troubled and ambiguous.

David’s Fourth Symphony then is a terse and rather compressed affair. It doesn’t disclose its qualities immediately and is the archetypal tough nut to crack. I’ve given it a few listens now and although I am beginning to like it, I feel it lacks some of the easier-going charm of its coupling here. Wildner leads the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in searching and committed accounts of both works, although I didn’t find their efforts here quite as polished as those on their previous David disc. As mentioned, that was recorded three years later and I suspect the orchestra by then had better found their way with this composer’s distinctive idiom. The recording is faithful without being spectacular and I am happy to report that CPO’s documentation is first-class – there is a wonderfully detailed introduction to these works by Dr Bernhard A. Kohn (the keeper of the David archive) which has been translated into perfectly comprehensible English (not always the case with CPO). As with the previous volume it includes several musical examples of David’s thematic material. I hope we aren’t kept waiting too long for the next instalment in this fascinating series.

– MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)

Encounter brings together two towering works of contemporary chamber music that speak across cultures, histories, and inner worlds. Osvaldo Golijov's The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind and Peteris Vasks' String Quartet No. 6 arise from profoundly different traditions-Jewish mysticism and Baltic spirituality-yet meet in a shared search for truth, memory, and transcendence. Both works are intensely personal, rooted in lived experience and belief, and animated by music's power to give voice to what lies beyond words: longing, suffering, hope, and illumination. In this recording, these worlds do not merely coexist; they listen to, reflect, and transform one another. Performed by the Arethusa Quartet with clarinetist Chen Halevi, Encounter is also a meeting of artistic journeys. Golijov's ecstatic, ritual-like score unfolds as a spiritual ascent through dreams, prayers, and blindness-understood as deeper inner vision-while Vasks' Sixth Quartet traces a life's arc from farewell and remembrance to a final, hushed encounter with transcendence, illuminated by echoes of Beethoven. Across both works, vulnerability and intensity are balanced by stillness and song, darkness by light. What emerges is an album that feels at once intimate and universal: an affirmation of shared humanity, and a reminder of music's enduring ability to connect past and present, earth and spirit, performer and listener. = Curiosa is conceived as a personal "cabinet of curiosities" by violinist Jorge Jiménez, bringing together music that entered his life through years of travel, collaboration, and discovery. The album spans laments, dances, preludes, fugues, and songs from both renowned and anonymous sources, ranging from the Middle Ages to the Baroque and beyond. Each piece is selected for it's emotional depth, strangeness, and expressive power, forming a living repertoire shaped in rehearsals, late-night conversations, concerts, and recording sessions. Central to the project is Jiménez's fascination with unaccompanied music and historical instruments, particularly the baroque violin and vielle, whose raw and earthy sound transports the listener into earlier sound worlds. Throughout Curiosa, Jiménez weaves together personal heritage, musical memory, and imaginative storytelling. His own arrangements connect Bach, Dowland, Strozzi, Gaspar Sanz, and traditional tunes with vivid images. Joined by Joy Smith on early harps and Daniel Garay on historical percussion, and performing with his ensemble Tercia Realidad, Jiménez blends historical insight with spontaneity and improvisation. The result is an album that feels both intimate and expansive-music passed "between hands, ears, and hearts," constantly transforming while remaining deeply rooted in shared curiosity and human connection. Jorge Jiménez: "These pieces entered my life through the extraordinary musicians and ensembles I've been fortunate to work with across Europe. They form a living repertoire shaped in rehearsal rooms, late-night conversations, recording sessions, and concerts." = During the darkest of the lockdowns, I took my daughter to an open field near our home. In a time when the world felt shuttered and small, walking was our only escape from the suffocating stillness. As we reached the field, a sudden sensation washed over me-a quiet awakening. It wasn't just the spring breeze or the scent of the grass; it was a sudden reminder of what being alive meant. I felt I had been touched by Zephyr, the Greek god of the west wind, sparking a renewed wish to create and perform for the world once more. Liberte´: A piece exploring and searching for emotional freedom. Zephyr: Named after the gentle west wind, this track served as the primary source of inspiration for the entire album. Fushigi no Kuni: Translating to "Wonderland" in Japanese, this piece was inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll. A Troubadour in the Moonlight: A composition and improvisation depicting a minstrel serenading a loved one beneath the moon. For Misato: A heartfelt dedication to Misato-san, my dear friend who departed too young. The five songs above are composed by Yukari. Eurus, Suibokuga, Pandora's Box, Don't Follow the Piper, and Au crépuscule are collective improvisations. = "We can imagine some eyebrows being raised at the description of Dora Pejacevic as a contemporary of Brahms; the two composers were born more than fifty years apart, and their lives only overlapped by twelve years. Yet both works by Pejacevic are unmistakably from the same compositional lineage as that by Brahms; and both are works written early on in Pejacevic's remarkable (and, sadly, all-too-short) life. Both pieces belong clearly to the romantic tradition, displaying no hint of the more modernist directions which her later works would take. We were immediately intoxicated by the passionate sweep of Pejacevic's Piano Quartet, but also the tenderness of it's slow movement, and felt it would make the perfect bedfellow for the First Piano Quartet of Brahms, a piece to which Tom has felt particularly close since student days. Brahms's Piano Quartet is justly one of the best-loved of all chamber works, and few works are more exhilarating to perform: the first movement offers an abundance of glorious themes; the second takes us to a mysterious dreamworld; the third luxuriates in expansive lyricism; then the fiery virtuosity of the gypsy finale sends us headlong to the finish line. This album brings us to the end of our recorded journey through Brahms's three piano quartets, and it has been the greatest privilege and joy to record these works, alongside three major piano quartets by composers who deserve to be far better known. However, we are pleased to say that the series does not end here: looking beyond the piano quartets, we have further albums in preparation, pairing Brahms with his brilliant and lesser-played contemporaries." -Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

Black Oak Ensemble, the Chicago-based string trio with an international following, treats listeners to a double-album of stylish and often witty French treasures written between the World Wars. The ensemble offers seven rarely heard delicacies from the 1920s and 30s, including world premiere recordings of trios by Henri Tomasi, Robert Casadesus, and Gustave Samazeuilh, along with works by Jean Cras, Emile Goué, Jean Françaix, and Gabriel Pierné. Most were written for and dedicated to the virtuosic Trio Pasquier, which ranked among the era’s chamber music superstars.

Tomasi’s Mediterranean roots are heard in the Provençal folk melody referenced in his Trio à cordes en forme de divertissement, noted for its colorful, kaleidoscopic finale. Casadesus’s Trio à cordes combines fine craftsmanship and poetic sincerity. Samazeuilh, a disciple of Claude Debussy, wrote his Suite en trio in the form of a Baroque dance suite. Celtic-infused folk music of his native Brittany emerges in Cras’s Trio pour violon, alto et violoncelle, as does an homage to Beethoven’s Op. 132 string quartet. Goué wrote his Trio pour violon, alto et violoncelle, energized with folk-dance elements, on the eve of his World War II army deployment. Françaix’s Trio displays his trademark textural clarity, agility, and sense of humor. Pierné’s Trois pièces en trio has even more fun with the listener with its satirical finale conjuring intoxicated, stumbling house cats out on the town.

REVIEWS:

Occasionally you hear a commentator use the term “accessible” to describe a musical work or style. Yet, as with other terms such as “affordable” in reference to housing, without context it is virtually meaningless: we need to know who is applying the term and to what it’s being compared. So, when I assert that most listeners will find the seven works on these two smartly programmed discs “accessible”, it is as much about what they are not than what they exhibit in style and musical substance.

For anyone at all concerned about setting forth on a journey through two hours of unfamiliar 20th century chamber works–string trios, no less!–be assured that throughout this program you will encounter nothing of the atonal, anti-melodic, thematically ambiguous, or deliberately arcane efforts that characterize many works from this same period (“Avant l’orage”, “before the storm”). Regarding the term “accessible”, you will find in each of these works not only a “way in” that’s familiar and (to most listeners) comprehensible, but music that is unfailingly captivating, thought-provoking, and challenging, all in ways that both entertain and enlighten. Now how can you do better than that?

Henri Tomasi’s Trio (1938), one of three recording world premieres on the disc, makes an excellent opener, its pleasingly assertive Prélude, an uneasy, restless Nocturne, mischievous Scherzo, and relentlessly energetic, folk-like Final drawing us in with an irresistible, festive air that also shows off the Black Oak Ensemble’s range of virtuosity, color, and style.

Jean Cras’ 1926 Trio has many highlights throughout its four substantial movements (24 minutes), but the fourth may be the most notable–a dance, whose rhythmic progression and character is anything but predictable!

Jean Françaix, successful performer and prolific composer who early on caught the attention of Ravel, dedicated his 1933 Trio to the three brothers who made up the Pasquier Trio (also the dedicatees of Tomasi’s Trio). You may never have seen a tempo designation of “Allegretto vivo” (this work’s first movement), but in their delightful, dexterous, precisely controlled moto perpetuo frenzy the Black Oak musicians leave no question as to their interpretation of the term! And has there ever been a Scherzo more deserving, or illustrative, of its name? Or played with a truer sense of joy and humor? The final Rondo is a fabulously virtuosic complex of rhythm and meter changes, and again these players nail the shifts and turns with requisite technical precision and musical flair.

If you know Robert Casadesus primarily–or exclusively–as a pianist, here’s your chance to get to know some of his scarce yet very fine work as a composer. His Trio à cordes from 1938, also dedicated to the Pasquier Trio–and also a world-premiere recording–may not be the most sophisticated or inventive work on the program, but it shows an intriguing interplay among instruments and well-developed sense of momentum by force of melodic/thematic development and strong rhythmic presence.

The third premiere recording is Gustave Samazeuilh’s 1937 Suite. Although its six movements are modeled on “the form of a Baroque dance suite”, you won’t hear anything stylistically related in the music itself. Yes, it’s very tonal, but has more in common with 19th-century Romanticism. And it’s all very lovely, originally written for piano and re-scored for, you guessed it, the Trio Pasquier. Here the Black Oak players seem to revel in the inherent opportunities for highlighting the music’s richness of timbre and singing melodies.

There are many other discoveries and delights to be found in the remaining trios by Émile Goué and Gabriel Pierné–which by now you will hopefully be looking forward to hearing for yourself. And I have to say that if I were one of the composers represented here I would feel blessed to have such advocates as the three musicians of Black Oak Ensemble: Desirée Ruhstrat (violin); Aurélien Fort Pederzoli (viola); David Cunliffe (violoncello).

This is difficult, challenging music that requires not only a comprehensive, deeply felt sense of style and prodigious technical facility, but an understanding of how to differentiate the expressive demands of a collection of pieces that are in some ways similar, but in more ways quite different, and how as an ensemble to make each stand out and stand in its own deserving space. Not only does the Black Oak Ensemble achieve this, but their effort makes you more than eager to hear the whole thing again. I’m happy to say that you’ll also learn a lot from the excellent notes by Elinor Olin. Accessible, enduring, enlightening, and highly recommended.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10, David Vernier)

Henri Tomasi’s vital and communicative string trio is a very satisfying work written in the minor, alternating some Debussy-isms with a Stravinskian touches. The third movement includes some truly fascinating polyrhythmic figures that drive the music forward through its bitonal theme and variants, and the Finale is even more interesting, including quite a bit of non-jazz syncopation.

The trio by Jean Cras is a little more old-style but not ultra-Romantic, at least not the way it’s played here. The music uses bitonality but is not as much on the edge as the Tomasi piece, yet it is still an interesting, well-written work.

The Goué Trio is bouncy and sprightly. It contains some novel ideas as well as shifting meters and tempi in its first movement, and the last movement is an ingenious recasting of tarantella rhythms.

The Françaix trio is in his usual modern-but-entertaining style, including funny “drunk”-sounding passages in the first and last movements, although it is not one of his works most frequently recorded, and the Black Oak Ensemble again plays this, as all the other works, in a peppy manner.

Unlike most of the other composers presented here, Robert Casedesus’ compositions are relatively few. This one has some fun with overlapping and interlocking rhythmic patterns, which the notes suggest might resemble some of his train travel. The music is interesting and a little eerie-sounding—at least, until a full stop introduces a surprisingly sprightly new theme in a fast 6/8. Once again, we have here a formerly unheard gem.

Gustave Samazeuilh’s trio is the most old-fashioned-sounding, by far, in this entire collection, a real late-Romantic piece played in a post-modern manner by the ensemble. The fourth-movement “Divertissement” uses some extended chords in its harmonic base, lively use of 3/4 rhythm, as well as interesting harmonic touches in the last-movement “Forlane.”

[This] is clearly an important release for its inclusion of so much good but rarely-heard and some formerly unrecorded music. It is definitely one of the best classical releases of the year.

--The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

I didn't at all take to Fleisher's account of Beethoven No. 3, but I must say that this is a most impressive and exciting account of the Emperor, aided and abetted by a wonderful accompaniment from Szell and his orchestra—and, I mustn't forget, by a most intelligently balanced recording.

Fleisher plays the first movement with splendid brio and the dash with which he gives out the opening flourishes is equalled by the orchestra's attack and energy when it starts the tutti. In one passage of brilliant semiquavers he tends to hurry very slightly, both times it comes, but in general his rhythm is excellent. There are, too, passages of most lovely liquid playing, a kind of brush of quiet sound, beautiful not only as sound but admirable in that they let woodwind solos come through without any forcing by the players. Fleisher is obviously always aware of what's going on in the orchestra and knows when he should be taking part in chamber music, rather than always holding the front of the stage. He does indulge in a wide range of speeds but not, I suppose, more than is usually done. The slow movement is played simply by both soloist and orchestra, as it should be— yet it's a difficult thing to play something so apparently simply but make it as moving as it is here.

At the very end of the movement (bar 80) you may be surprised to hear the strings play a long crotchet, arco, instead of the pizzicato to which we are all so used (which starts only at the last quaver of the bar). I asked Denis Matthews (always a mine of Beethoven information) about this and he told me he had played the concerto with Szell and was quite astonished at rehearsal when the expected 'plonk' from the strings didn't happen. Szell told him that Beethoven's autograph has the `pizz' written over the rests in the middle of the bar: and I now see that the preface in the Eulenburg miniature score states the same thing (despite which, the word is printed at the start of the bar!). This is not a trivial point, for it occurs, of course, at just about the most magical moment of the whole concerto and I do think that the long, grave, B flat from the strings is far more apt than the rather disturbing 'plonk' which emphasizes Beethoven's change from B to B flat in the wrong way.

The finale goes splendidly all through and I only don't like Fleisher's mannered playing of part of the main theme each time. I refer to the bars marked espressivo, which would appear to suggest something other than his jerky delivery of the right hand phrases. But this is a small point and there is no doubt that this is the sort of performance that will make you enjoy the music afresh, for the playing all through the concerto is both zestful and perceptive; Szell's contribution is an added source of pleasure—and the admirable engineering complements the players' artistry.

-- Gramophone [1/1966, reviewing the original LP release of the Emperor Concerto]

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The apologies invariably made for Beethoven's Triple Concerto seem to have an effect on performances. I have rarely, if ever, known one which did not in some respect carry an apology with it, and I have rarely, if ever, known one which treated the work in the strong bravura way which makes for success in the Emperor or violin concertos. But here is just such a performance, and it makes one glory in what Beethoven did achieve in the work.

The scale of the work as conceived by Stern, Rose and Istomin is quite different from that of the rival performances on record, however enjoyable. The precision and stylishness of Schneiderhan, Fournier and Anda on DGG make for an eighteenthcentury manner in the outer movements, particularly the first. Some may well continue to prefer it, and technically the balance with the orchestra is better than on the new CBS disc, but the newly roused echoes of other Beethoven concertos place the Stern/ Rose/Istomin performance in the right period. It is after all a produce of the Fidelio years, the years which also produced the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto and the Symphonies Nos. 4 to 6. It is possible to regard the formalism of the outer movements, their conscientious balance of thematic statements by each of the three soloists in turn, as a return to eighteenth-century practice, but the sheer size speaks rather of a really grand manner. And if the thematic material is more bald and less striking than that in other Beethoven concertos (at least in the first movement) there was a practical need with three soloists to keep ideas short.

In achieving a sense of size Stern, Rose and Istomin reveal their own stature in the relaxation of the playing. Lesser players would either screw up the tension or become ponderous, but these three over and over again convey the joy of their playing: the relaxed lilt of the second subject, Rose's natural warmth in the slow movement enunciation, the whole of the final Rondo Polacca. Not only has the main Polacca theme tremendous verve, the middle episode, when the `yatta-tah-ta-tah-ta' rhythm emerges on horn and lower woodwind, has a unique tang of East European music. Stern obviously takes the idea of a Polacca literally and exaggerates the first beat in each dactyllic phrase, giving a real bounce to the music, and he is matched by his colleagues.

Then the semiquaver allegro reprise of the main theme towards the end is taken very fast and very clear, the result extraordinarily exciting. You have only to compare the DGG performance, very fast too and excellent in its way, to realize why Stern's, Rose's and Istomin's playing is not merely vital but great. Equally exciting are the furious florid dialogues between violin and 'cello in the passage-work of first and last movements. All three soloists are masterly in varying the tension, in shaping towards climaxes, and Ormandy draws from the Philadelphia Orchestra yet another of his really full-blooded accompaniments. In relation to the soloists the orchestra may seem a little backward, but the salient tuttis burst out with great effect, to match the scale of the soloists' playing. The nearness of the soloists does of course make it hard for them to sound as though they are playing really softly, and initial sotto voce entries in the finale are too loud.

In my detailed comparisons I have occasionally found points in which rivals score over Stern, Rose and Istomin, and the other CBS version has Serkin in marvellous form actually dominating the performance from the least prominent solo part, the non-virtuoso piano role originally devised for the Archduke Rudolf. But no minor shortcomings can alter the positive merits of what could well come to be regarded as a classic record.

-- Gramophone [10/1965, reviewing the original LP release of the Triple Concerto]

This is the kind of record that you want to be sent for review as often as possible, to go back to play from the beginning once you've reached the end, to send to any aspiring singer who wants to learn about the first principles of singing. Ileana Cotrubas teaches you anew the importance of legato, of words, of evenly produced tone, of attention to detail, and of how to wed the four together into intelligent interpretations. Indeed each of these performances is at once an example of superb singing qua singing, but at the same time an account of the aria in hand that reveals the character's situation, while encompassing the particular style needed for a particular composer.

Over and above that is Cotrubas's peculiarly individual utterance... It makes her Gilda in Rigoletto touching and vulnerable. Note, too, how the coloratura is here part of the expression of Gilda's joy... The Leonora of Forza del destino finds Cotrubas striking out into new territory, and securely occupying it. Again she has the measure of a character's situation, the cry of "Fatalita" more desperate at each repeat.

-- Gramophone [6/1977, reviewing the Cotrubas selections]

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This is the second of two recitals which mark the welcome return of Renata Scotto to the recording studios. Her strong and touching performance as Ciô-Ciô-Sàn in Barbirolli's Madarna Butterfly (HMV Angel SLS927, 9/67) is now nine years old, and since then she has been rather lost to view by the record-buying public. She was unlucky to come upon the scene at a time when EMI were casting Callas, and Decca Tebaldi, in roles which Scotto might have taken, some of which she did in fact sing for DG in recordings that never quite achieved comparable popularity in this country. Then in the last ten years it has been the fresh, bright tones of Mirella Freni and the velvety ones of Montserrat Caballé that have taken the attention. But all the time Scotto has been giving great pleasure in the opera houses, developing from a singer whose charm and accomplishments were evident when we first heard her, over twenty years ago, into a mature, highly expressive artist of real distinction.

The previous record (CBS 76407, 11/75) presented her in arias of the verismo school, and in these she gave performances sufficiently heartfelt yet nobly restrained to call to mind a great predecessor, Claudia Muzio. This is so again in the present Verdi recital, which contains an intensely moving account of "Addio del passato" from La Traviata, the aria associated most of all with Muzio. The first of the arias from I Vespri Siciliani recalls her also, with its expressive breathing and its slow chromatic scale falling like a sigh. We know from the start of this recital, too, that it is a mature and genuine artist whom we are about to hear, one able to convey the underlying strength of feeling in the lively cabaletta of the extract from La Battaglia di Legnano. With the Nabucco aria it is a new, formidable character that we hear, startlingly vivid as she exclaims with cunning pride how little they know of Abigail's heart. And then, how much we know of Desdemona's when such anxiety overshadows her phrases as in Scotto's performance of the great scene from Otello.

Faults of course there are in this recital, particularly in the rather hard tone of several of the high notes. I still wouldn't be without it!

-- Gramophone [8/1976, reviewing the Scotto selections]

REVIEWS OF THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION:

“Both the freshest and funniest show on Broadway, and it establishes some sort of standard in skill, taste and comic dexterity ... In style and taste A Thurber Carnival is wonderful – a glorious world of meaningful nonsense.” ATKINSON, The Times

“Completely captivating ... between the meaningful silences and the great guffaws there are dandy chuckles ... A Thurber Carnival is sheer delight ... The whole thing is dandy. And very advanced.” KERR, Herald Tribune

“About as agreeably comic as it can be ... very often we find ourselves laugh- ing at what was said a couple of lines ago ... From the opening dance ... we feel perfectly adjusted to the dry cli- mate of (Mr. Thurber’s) unostentatious humor ... (and) comfortably participating in the chaos of our times.” HEWES, Saturday Review

“A tonic anthology of the great man’s work compiled by himself, and easily the funniest show on Broadway ... music which is unfailingly spruce and witty.” TYNAN, The New Yorker

“If there is one proposition upon which every intelligent English-speaking man, woman and child is in hearty agree- ment, it is that James Thurber is incom- parable as wit, humorist and sage ... (A Thurber Carnival) is a civilized joy ... there is cause for nothing but delight.” WATTS, Post

“A joyous, magnificently lunatic festival ... anybody who shuns this house of laughter is crazy...” CHAPMAN, News

COMPLETE TRACK LIST:

1 . OPENING 2:30 Don Elliott Quartet
2 . WORD DANCE (PART I) 4:56 Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, John McGiver, Alice Ghostley, Peter Turgeon, Wynne Miller, Margo Lungreen, Charles Braswell
3 . THE NIGHT THE BED FELL 10:00 Tom Ewell
4 . THE UNICORN IN THE GARDEN 2:58 Narrator: Peter Turgeon Man: Paul Ford She: Alice Ghostley Psychiatrist: John McGiver Policeman: Charles Braswell
5 . THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE WOLF 1:37 Narrator: Peggy Cass Wolf: Paul Ford Little Girl: Wynne Miller
6 . MEMORIAL TO A DOG 5:02 Tom Ewell
7 . CASUALS OF THE KEYS 8:10 Visitor: John McGiver Darrel Darke: Paul Ford
8 . THE LAST FLOWER 3:16 Tom Ewell
9 . FILE AND FORGET 13:29 James Thurber: Tom Ewell Miss Bagley: Margo Lungreen Miss Alma Wineage: Peggy Cass Miss Wynne: Wynne Miller Jeannette Gaines: Alice Ghostley Clint Jordan: Paul Ford H.F. Cluffman: John McGiver
10 . WORD DANCE (PART II) 3:06 Tom Ewell, Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, John McGiver, Alice Ghostley, Peter Turgeon, Wynne Miller, Margo Lungreen, Charles Braswell, Don Elliott Quartet

A Thurber Carnival opened at the ANTA Theatre in New York City on February 26, 1960 and ran for 223 performances, with a break from June 25 to September 5. It closed on November 26, 1960.

Produced for records by GODDARD LIEBERSON.

A superb collection of very early Kubelik recordings, including numerous world premieres.

This is an excellent collection honoring Rafael Kubelík. The two jam-packed CDs of live 1940s broadcasts include his central repertoire, works he championed very early on, and indeed multiple world-premiere recordings. Not least is the first-ever recording of Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, a live concert dating from December 1946; we also get a live reading of Dvorak’s Piano Concerto with Rudolf Firkusny, from the first-ever Prague Spring festival, and, although the booklet doesn’t identify the premiere recordings, I’d be surprised if any earlier performances of the Martin? Fourth Symphony or Memorial to Lidice, or Dobiás’ Stalingrad Cantata, exist.

The collection begins with Dvorak’s Eighth, in quite constricted sound - turn up the volume more than normal - but glittering with the kind of brilliance Kubelík brought to the piece for his entire career. Aside from a prominent trumpet flub in the finale, it’s a highly accomplished live reading by the Czech Philharmonic, revealing they and the conductor were masters of the symphony even in the besieged year of 1944. The piano concerto, in sound which suggests that the orchestra is playing somewhere very far away, nevertheless powers forward with energy and vigor. Firkusny plays the old “revised” piano part, with the absolute command which explains why he has long been associated with this piece. Luckily for us, the recording of his piano is much better than we’d expect from the murky-sounding orchestra. Firkusny’s cadenza is especially fine, although more recent interpreters - Aimard with Harnoncourt, say - are more to my liking in the poetic slow movement with its beautiful opening horn solo.

Shostakovich’s Ninth - the first recording of the work - is given a performance unlike any since. The outer movements are remarkably speedy affairs, with some live sloppiness but a lot of spirit and neoclassical sharpness; by contrast the second movement sprawls over ten minutes, the slowest I’ve ever heard it. Compare 10:33 to Vasily Petrenko’s 8:46, Leonard Bernstein’s 8:10, or indeed Rudolf Barshai’s 5:43. The scherzo is rather languid, too. All in all a fascinating account of how different it is from the way the symphony is performed today, and it’s worth overlooking the constant audience noise. What may cause distress is the fact that distortion in the tape results in the entire symphony sounding like it is being performed in E rather than E flat!

Bohuslav Martin?’s Fourth, a celebratory masterpiece inflected with joy, energy, and inner peace, receives a great performance here (1948). It’s hard to imagine a more thrilling scherzo than Kubelík’s, whirling forward in a great rush of excitement, but by contrast he really milks the gorgeous romanticism of the slow movement, unafraid to play up the different moods - doubt at the beginning, something very like love after 6:00. Belohlávek’s recent recording on Onyx with the BBC Symphony may be preferable in the finale, where the new account’s freer tempos underscore the triumph of the ending, which Kubelík - maybe intentionally - leaves more ambivalent. The recorded sound is sufficient to give the orchestral piano its place, although you will miss some bass lines and timpani and the incredible colors of the opening pages. Supraphon engineers have, as elsewhere, used technology which removes the hisses and pops but at the expense of a slightly constricted acoustic.

The disc is rounded out with Martin?’s Memorial to Lidice - a moving rendition which goes more slowly and tragically than many, although Eschenbach’s reading on Ondine is the most anguished I’ve heard - and a novelty, the Stalingrad Cantata of Václav Dobiás. Written in 1945, the cantata for baritone, male chorus, and orchestra is an eleven-minute paean to the Soviet forces, or at least I’m assuming so, because the sung texts are not provided. The music sounds a bit like a ramshackle Nevsky Cantata, with the same wildness and raw masculine energy but without the tunes or distinction. It counts as a welcome rarity, though, because recordings of Dobiás are otherwise basically non-existent.

These are valuable historical broadcasts all around, then, from the world premiere recordings of Shostakovich’s Ninth and probably a few other works too, to the Dvorak concerto from the first Prague Spring festival. Rafael Kubelík’s conducting is consistently superb and insightful; his Martin? is energetic but powerful, his Shostakovich like nobody else. This can all be had in more modern recordings - the Dvo?ák symphony from Mackerras or Kubelík himself, the Martin? from Belohlávek or Thomson - but as a two-disc monument to Kubelík’s superb work with the Czech Philharmonic, this can’t be beaten. For a one-CD tribute to that pairing of great artists, though, we must remember the unforgettable Smetana concert they gave after the end of the Cold War.

-- Brian Reinhart , MusicWeb International

In July 1990, Johnny Griffin, the legendary tenor saxophonist known as The Little Giant, electrified Långvinkeln Jazz Club in Helsingborg, Sweden. Accompanied by Danish musicians Thomas Clausen, Mads Vinding, and Svend-Erik Nørregård, Griffin delivered a joyful night of jazz as only he could do it. This previously unreleased 6-track live recording will be released on Storyville Records on June 5, 2026, as Johnny Griffin & Thomas Clausen's Trio - Live in Helsingborg 1990. Griffin, who rose to prominence in the 1950s through his work with Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, and his own explosive small groups, was widely regarded as one of the fastest and most inventive tenor saxophonists in jazz. Playing a lot at Jazzhus Montmartre in the 60's, he settled in France but continued to be in high demand in Scandinavia and all over Europe. This release continues Storyville Records' longstanding tradition of documenting major American jazz artists during their European years. Bassist Mads Vinding, a longtime collaborator, recalls the experience: "Johnny Griffin - no one sounded like him. The sound, the ideas, the power, the timing, the energy, the sensitivity, the stamina... He made the whole band sound like one unit. (...) It was very intense and such a joy playing with him, as you can hear on this live recording from 1990. No safety net, no restrictions - just the pure pleasure of playing together, inventing things on the fly." Jazz historian Jan Olsson adds: "Johnny Griffin, or The Little Giant as he was called, was a great and highly individual soloist. And I still remember from this extraordinary evening that we could hardly stop him from playing when it was time to close and say goodbye. The main reason was that he had been playing with one of the finest trios you could find in Europe at that time." The album features expansive performances that stretch familiar standards and Griffin originals into thrilling, unpredictable territory. On Just Friends, Griffin's tenor soars over the trio's accompaniment, moving seamlessly from lyrical passages to blistering runs. Blue Monk finds him exploring Thelonious Monk's iconic blues theme with playful inventiveness and rhythmic drive, while All The Things You Are showcases his ability to reshape familiar melodies with elegance and swing. On the original Call It What You Wanna, you just hear the pure Johnny Griffin sound. Johnny Griffin & Thomas Clausen's Trio - Live in Helsingborg 1990 is a rare opportunity to experience Johnny Griffin at his peak backed by Thomas Clausen's trio. You can hear why Johnny Griffin loved to play in Scandinavia, how he loved to play with Thomas Clausen and why he was such a popular figure in Denmark and Sweden for 40 years.

No better Joplin cycle exists, and its first complete appearance on CD is long overdue.

Between January and April 1975, the classically trained, multi-award-winning jazz pianist and composer Dick Hyman – whose astounding résumé includes playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman, writing and arranging for Count Basie, and scoring most of the films of Woody Allen – went into RCA’s Studio A in New York City and set down the definitive recording of ragtime legend Scott Joplin’s piano works. In 1988, an hour-long selection from the five LPs was released on CD. Now at last, Sony Classical is issuing Hyman’s entire Joplin album on three well-filled silver discs.

This really is Joplin’s complete piano output. It even includes the six short exercises that form his 1908 School of Ragtime, with their printed prefatory remarks read by the 92-year-old Eubie Blake, a friend of Joplin and a distinguished ragtime player in his own right. Also here are Joplin’s less familiar marches and waltzes. And there’s a bonus: the set contains Hyman’s own twelve delightful improvisations on themes by Joplin, which he designed to demonstrate the composer's influence on the development of jazz harmony and melody. When the LPs were first released, Gramophone’s jazz critic wrote that “the eminently musical quality of Hyman’s playing is in evidence throughout the collection; he has the ability to characterize perfectly each piece and somehow to pinpoint every little harmonic subtlety and melodic felicity without in any way detracting from the conception as a whole.... He pays as much attention to matters of tempo, texture, phrasing and dynamics as though he were doing the twenty-four Chopin Preludes. Two for instance I particularly enjoyed were Cascades with its rippling lightness of touch and Scott Joplin’s New Rag in which Hyman’s cleanness of articulation and rhythmic exuberance are a joy. … Joplin well deserves this very handsome and well-recorded tribute.”

CONTENTS:

Maple Leaf Rag
Original Rags
Swipesy
Peacherine Rag
The Easy Winners
Sunflower Slow Drag
The Entertainer
Elite Syncopations
The Strenuous Life
A Breeze from Alabama
Palm Leaf Rag
Something Doing
Weeping Willow
The Chrysanthemum
The Cascades
The Sycamore
The Favorite
Leola
The Ragtime Dance
Eugenia
Lily Queen
Gladiolus Rag
Nonpareil
Heliotrope Bouquet
Search-light Rag
Rose Leaf Rag
Fig Leaf Rag
Pine Apple Rag
Solace
Sugar Cane
Stoptime Rag
Euphonic Sounds
Country Club
Wall Street Rag
Felicity Rag
Paragon Rag
Silver Swan Rag
Kismet Rag
Magnetic Rag
Reflection Rag
Antoinette
Cleopha
March majestic
Combination March
Rosebud
Great Crush Collision
School of Ragtime (Exercises Nr. 1-6)
Bethena (Concert waltz)
Binks' Waltz
Pleasant Moments
Augustan Club Waltz
Harmony Club Waltz
New Rag
+Dick Hyman-Improvisation on Peacherine Rag
The Entertainer
Elite Syncopations
A Breeze from Alabama
Something Doing
Gladiolus Rag
Heliotrope Bouquet
Fig Leaf Rag
Stoptime Rag
New Rag
Pleasant moments

REVIEW:

The ragtime genre came into full flower from the mid-1890s through the end of World War I, spearheaded by Scott Joplin (1868-1917), whose 1899 composition Maple Leaf Rag became the template and standard bearer for classic through-composed rags. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw newfound interest in Joplin as a serious composer, starting with the New York Public Library’s publication of Joplin’s collected works. Joplin’s 1902 rag The Entertainer figured prominently in the soundtrack for the 1973 Academy Award-winning film The Sting, launching a floodgate of Joplin releases. Even classical artists as unlikely as Itzhak Perlman, James Levine, and E. Power Biggs hitched their stars to the Joplin bandwagon.

However, the most comprehensive, intelligently produced, respectful, and artistically satisfying collection of Joplin’s complete piano works came from RCA Victor in a five-LP boxed set, featuring pianist Dick Hyman. No better Joplin cycle exists, and its first complete appearance on CD is long overdue.

The music is presented by genre, with the rags arranged in loose chronological order by composition, followed by marches and waltzes. Also included is Joplin’s charming “School of Ragtime” Etudes complete with Joplin’s introductory remarks read by composer/pianist and Joplin colleague Eubie Blake, who was 92 when he faced the microphone to speak. Hyman also offers the Grand Crush Collision march both in its original text and in his own ragtime transformation.

Although Hyman’s pianism embraces the entire history of jazz piano, his effortless virtuosity is firmly rooted in classical training. As Rudi Blesh aptly stated in his brilliant and insightful original booklet annotations, the pianist “takes ragtime seriously without becoming solemn and portentous, more as one must do in approaching, say, much of Mozart.”

Two further qualities make Hyman’s Joplin stand out: his intelligent tempo choices, and his ideal fusion of classical projection and jazz time keeping. Take Joplin’s 1899 hit Maple Leaf Rag, for example. Hyman’s vigorous pace, dynamic contrasts, and clear articulation convey pure joy with a soupçon of brashness, so unlike Joshua Rifkin’s effete and rhythmically stiff traversal. The Cascades’ descending runs are as crystalline and transparent as Rubinstein’s Chopin. By contrast, Hyman’s measured tempo and ear-catching inflections of phrase in Elite Syncopations give shape and breathing room to Joplin’s polyphony.

Note, too, Hyman’s lovely legato touch and subtly lilting rubatos in Weeping Willow, Gladiolus Rag, and Solace, while Something Doing is pure lightness and effervescence. The pianist’s characterful animation keeps the episodic Bethena concert waltz afloat and moving. And although Hyman clearly respects Joplin’s texts, the pianist is not above filling out the texture with discreet octave reinforcements in the left hand, as he does in the difficult Euphonic Sounds, a rag that foreshadows elements of stride piano. Because Hyman approaches each piece on its own terms, one gleans more variety and expressive scope from Joplin’s oeuvre than we experience from most other Joplin interpreters.

The original LP edition devoted the tenth side to twelve of Hyman’s improvisations on Joplin themes, which here are spread across the three CDs, most likely for timing considerations. They are sheer delights, from The Entertainer’s bi-tonal coda to a brief and unbuttoned Peacherine Rag that brilliantly burlesques Art Tatum’s 1940 recording of Harold Arlen’s Get Happy.

A Breeze From Alabama is pure, unadulterated barrelhouse and boogie-woogie, while in Joplin’s New Rag Hyman can’t resist interpolating Juventino Rosas’ Over the Waves–better known as the summer camp ditty “George Washington Bridge”. In short, Dick Hyman and Scott Joplin unquestionably belong to the coterie of symbiotic performer/composer pairings that include Schnabel/Beethoven, Gould/Bach, Gieseking/Debussy, Larrocha/Albéniz, and Hamelin/Alkan.

Full disclosure: I met Dick Hyman nearly 60 years ago when I was eight years old, and he has been a friend, a colleague, and a musical father figure to me ever since. We even played two pianos together in several concerts. I vividly remember hearing Dick preparing these Joplin pieces at the time of the 1975 sessions, and marveled at his absolute commitment to the material, his focus and his flexibility in the process of getting all of the music under his awesome fingers. Thanks to Sony/BMG for reissuing and gorgeously remastering an important recording project that belongs in every serious collection.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Jed Distler)

HANDEL Six Trio Sonatas, op. 2. Passacaille, op. 5/4 • The Brook Street Band (period instruments) • AVIE 2282 (69:49)

Handel’s music is always such a joy to listen to, I’m not sure how much we should trouble ourselves over how his works are identified or numbered in the listings. But just to clarify what’s on this disc, the updated or modern version of the Händel-Gesellschaft catalog places these sonatas in Volume XXVII, headed “Kammermusik: Sonate da Camera.” Falling under this heading are four subheadings or Parts, of which op. 2 is consigned to Part III: Nine Sonatas for Two Violins, Continuo, and Bass, as follows: B Minor, op. 2/1 (HWV 386b); G Minor, op. 2/2 (HWV 387); B? Major, op. 2/3 (HWV 388); F Major, op. 2/4 (HWV 389); G Minor, op. 2/5 (HWV 390a); G Minor, op. 2/6 (HWV 391).

But that’s only six. The Händel-Gesellschaft catalog places nine sonatas in this grouping. So what gives? Well, here’s the scoop: op. 2/1 (HWV 386b) turns up in an alternate version as HWV 386a, but in C Minor instead of B Minor, my guess is to accommodate performance on flute in place of violin. There’s an HWV 392 in G Minor, which was not published in the original op. 2 set of six sonatas, and which is considered spurious by some Handel scholars. And finally, there’s a Sonata in E Major listed as op. 2/9 (HWV 394), again not published as part of the original set. But when the set was first published in 1733, they appeared in print as “IX Sonatas or Trios for Two Violins, Flutes, or Hoboys with a Thorough Bass for the Harpischor [sic] or Violoncello.”

The Brook Street Band gives us the standard six listed in the first paragraph above, including as a bonus, the Passacaille, which I headlined as coming from op. 5/4, but which Handel actually made use of in a number of different works. I can’t be sure why the players have ordered the sonatas on the disc as they have—Nos. 3, 2, 4, 5, 1, and 6—but a good guess would be to avoid the adjacency of minor-key sonatas, three of which are in G Minor. One other note: Though the Händel-Gesellschaft catalog places these sonatas under the category of “Kammermusik: Sonate da Camera,” all but one of these sonatas are of the chiesa (church) type, meaning they’re in four movements that follow a slow-fast-slow-fast layout. The exception, No. 4 in F Major, adds a fifth movement, an additional Allegro , at the end.

Since the original printing indicates that these sonatas or trios may be played by two violins, flutes, or oboes, The Brook Street Band, named, by the way, for Handel’s London residence, divides the pieces up accordingly; however, the ensemble, as it’s constituted, is oboe-less. Members are Rachel Harris and Farran Scott, Baroque violins; Lisete da Silva, flute and recorder; Tatty Theo, Baroque cello; and Carolyn Gibley, harpsichord.

Despite the 1733 publication date, it’s believed Handel composed these trio sonatas as early as 1722. Consider, though, that by then he was a well-established opera composer in London. Some of his most important operas date from this period— Ottone, Flavio, Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano , and Rodelinda were all composed between 1722 and 1725. I mention this because the slow movements of these trios are emotively expressive in much the same way as Handel’s arias are in his operas of these years, gorgeous cantilenas spun out with affective lyrical beauty. In contrast, the fast-paced movements anticipate the vivacious, energetic drive to come in the later organ concertos and concerti grossi. They’re full of spirited invention, and performed here by The Brook Street Band with lots of spring and bounce, along with some delightfully spontaneous-sounding embellishments added for good measure.

There is competition in these works, and it’s not insignificant, from groups like Sonnerie with Monica Huggett, and the Academy of Ancient Music, led by Richard Egarr. I have Sonnerie’s recording on Avie, and have been very happy with it. But The Brook Street Band’s playing strikes me as sounding freer, more natural, and less constrained. Perhaps the word I’m looking for is less studied. In any case, these are wonderful performances of uplifting music beautifully recorded. What more could you want? Very strongly recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Yvonne Lefébure (1900-1986) was one of the most important French pianists and piano teachers of the 20th century. From a very young age she demonstrated real musical talent. When she was only 6 years old she studied the piano with Marguerite Long (1874-1966), initially in a private school, known as the Conservatoire Femina-Musica, then in Marguerite Long’s preparatory classes for the Conservatory. Yvonne Lefébure gave her first recital aged 12. Her earliest concert performances contained demanding works such as the B minor Piano Sonata by Franz Liszt or Robert Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques. Ultimately this gifted pianist took lessons with Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), one of the most important and indeed most influential personalities of musical life in the 20th century. Her most important studies with Cortot took place in his conservatory classes for advanced students, a group she joined in 1911 and from which she was awarded a first prize in 1912. Yvonne Lefébure had further private lessons with Cortot particularly in the period 1919-1939, when she was one of the most important teachers at the Ecole Normale de Musique. Later she went on to lead a masterclass at the Ecole Normale de Musique. From 1952 to 1967 she was Professor at the Paris Conservatory. Yvonne Lefébure was an outstanding soloist, chamber musician and concert solo artiste: by listening to this album listeners can get an impression of her talent for themselves.

REVIEW:

Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and Sonatas 30-31 were recorded 1955-56 in decent monaural sound. The Diabelli is a fine, forceful reading in one long band (each variation is not tracked). The sonatas are beautifully rendered and show a pianist of discriminating taste and maturity. They also show Lefebure to possess a technical mastery that places her at the forefront among artists of her generation.

Mozart’s Violin Sonata in G with violinist Jeanne Gautier, and Beethoven’s Sonata 32 and Sonata 8 are decent enough, though no reason is given why we are left with only the first movement of the Pathetique Sonata.

The Mozart Piano Concerto 20 with the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwangler is a pleasant surprise, though the strings are a bit glassy. Bach’s Piano Concerto in D minor along with some organ pieces transcribed by Liszt is the heart of disc 3. The concerto is effectively conducted by Fernand Oubradous, and Lefebure performs with depth and soul. The Liszt transcription of the Fugue in A minor S 543 is especially impressive.

Music by French composers constitutes the bulk of disc 4. Ravel’s Violin Sonata in G with Jeanne Gautier is handled with delicacy and humor, and Debussy’s rarely heard ballet Box of Toys allows Lefebure to handle the subtleties of the narrative with a special joy (it is heard here with French narration). The Dukas Rameau Variations and Roussel Three Pieces, Op. 49, are treasures of French insouciance coupled with elegance.

Very non-French is the single Chopin Mazurka that closes the disc. Pierre Dervaux gets off to a somewhat clumsy start with the French Radio Orchestra in Schumann’s Piano Concerto but rapidly improves to a stunningly warm and rapturous traversal. Mozart’s Concerto 20 contrasts most positively with Furtwängler’s glassy-sounding Berlin account.

-- American Record Guide

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