Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat has wowed critics since his first recording for Naxos, which featured music by John Adams. Gramophone named him “one to watch” in 2006, and Jed Distler recently reviewed his performance of Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! for the same magazine, saying “van Raat’s seasoned new music credentials, virtuoso technique, and natural affinity for Rzewski’s multi-faceted writing are evident in nearly every section… van Raat’s steady, incisive and powerfully projected reading stands with the best.”
In this new recording, van Raat tackles music by another iconic figure: John Taverner. Perhaps best known for his large orchestral, vocal, and choral works, Tavener’s piano works highlight his stylistic and spiritual development on a more personal level. His writing for the piano transforms the instrument into a sonorous world of chiming bells, highly lyrical melodic phrases, and recurrently, thundering sound clouds.
Taverner’s first piano work, Palin (1977), although clearly influenced by modernism in its use of dissonant twelve-tone series and harmonies, readily foreshadows his search for spirituality beyond the sophisticated, technical manipulation of musical material. The use of a repeated C symbolizes the “ison,” a single note that acts as the axis between silence and sound. Another axis is found in the middle of the piece, formed by the lowest C on the piano, repeatedly played for about ten seconds. From that point, all the music is sounded backwards, making the second half of the composition a mirrored version of the first half, with an additional coda. This retrograde explains the titular reference to the palindrome.
After joining the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977, Tavener’s compositional style gradually transformed as he experienced the communicative power and sublimity of the church’s traditional sacred music. In addition to writing reflective music for ensembles and choirs, he composed piano music for private purposes. The loss of his cats inspired him to write Mandoodles (1982), which depicted short scenes from the life of his cat Mandu, as well as the bell-like In Memory of Two Cats (1986).
By the time Tavener composed for the piano again more than a decade later, he had also studied the symbolism and tone systems of Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and Byzantine music extensively. The birth of his second daughter inspired him to write the short piano solo piece Zodiacs (1997), a mystical piece that uses tones from the ancient Greek concept of the Harmony of the Spheres. Ypakoë (1997) is a much larger work whose Greek title means “to be obedient,” “to hear,” or “to respond.” Pratirúpa (2003), Sanskrit for “reflection,” is the composer’s largest solo piano work to date, in which, he says “a series of self-reflecting harmonies, melodies and rhythms attempt to reflect the most beautiful, the Divine Presence which resides in every human being”.
Pianist and musicologist Ralph van Raat studied piano with Ton Hartsuiker and Willem Brons at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and musicology at the University of Amsterdam. He concluded both studies with distinction in 2002 and 2003. As a part of the Advanced Programme of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, and with the support of a Prince Bernhard Fellowship, van Raat also studied with Claude Helffer (Paris), Liisa Pohjola (Helsinki), Ursula Oppens at Chicago’s Northwestern University, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. van Raat has won a number of prizes, including the Second Prize and Donemus-Prize (for Contemporary Music) of the Princess Christina Competition (1995), the Stipend-Prize Darmstadt during the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (1998), First Prize of the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition (1999), the Philip Morris Arts Award (2003), the Elisabeth Everts Prize (2004), a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship (2005), the VSCD Classical Music Prize (2005), and the Fortis MeesPierson Award from the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (2006). He appears as a recitalist and soloist with orchestras in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States, with many of his concerts broadcast on radio and TV. He has several recordings to his credit and regularly collaborates with composers, many of whom have dedicated their piano compositions to him. Ralph van Raat has been a Steinway Artist since 2003.
Alan Hovhaness was one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His extensive catalog includes 434 opuses, including 67 symphonies. Hovhaness, whose music is known for its neo-romantic style and rich melodies, believed that contemporary music was best served by “bringing back the music of the past, going all the way back to the original sources.”Fanfare for the New Atlantis is a symphonic celebration of the rebirth of the legendary island of Atlantis. The Guitar Concerto No. 2, Op. 394 was written in 1985 for the famous Spanish guitarist Narciso Yepes. The music is lively and dance-like, with rapidly changing rhythmic patterns.
Symphony No. 63 ‘Loon Lake’ is full of nostalgia for the New Hampshire countryside of Hovhaness’s youth. It was commissioned by the New Hampshire Music Festival in conjunction with the Loon Preservation Society, who specifically requested the inclusion of the loon cry. All three works are world premières.
This is the first of six volumes encompassing the complete songs (183 in total) of Charles Ives. With students and alumni from Yale’s various music programs, the recording includes: 1, 2, 3′ (1921); Abide with Me (1897); Aeschylus and Sophocles (1922); Afterglow (1919); Allegro (1899); The All-Enduring (1896); Amphion (1896); Ann Street (1921); At Parting (1899); At Sea (1921); At the River (1916); August (1920); Autumn (1907); Because of You (1898); Because Thou Art (1901); Berceuse (1903); The Cage (1906); The Camp Meeting (1912); Canon I (1893); Canon II (1894); Chanson de Florian (1898); Charlie Rutlage (1920); The Children’s Hour (1912); Christmas Carol, Edie’s (1925); A Christmas Carol (1894); The Circus Band (1894); The Collection (1920); Country Celestial (1897); and Cradle Song (1919).
Featured performers and ensembles on this recording are Lielle Berman, Jennifer Casey Cabot, Patrick Carfizzi, Michael Cavalieri, Robert Gardner, Ian Howell, Sara Jakubiak, Tamara Mumford, Mary Phillips, David Pittsinger, Matthew Plenk, Kenneth Tarver, Leah Wool, the Biava String Quartet, Frederick Teardo, Eric Trudel, Laura Garritson, J.J. Penna, and Douglas Dickson.
Recorded in the same great hall where it received its premiere in 1903, Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony lives on in this performance by Franz Wesler-Möst and the Cleveland Symphony in the Vienna Musikverein. For this powerfully contoured and sharply profiled interpretation, Wesler-Möst guides the ensemble without spectacular effects, instead preferring to showcase the concentrated, lean textured sound of the Cleveland Orchestra. The concert was unanimously acclaimed by the press, who hailed the “tremendous impact” of Franz Wesler-Möst’s calm and intense conducting and the Cleveland Orchestra’s inimitable intonation and ensemble playing.
The tragic story of Doria Manfredi and her relationship with Giacomo Puccini was suppressed for almost 80 years by either Puccini’s publisher, Ricordi, or his family (or both). Tony Palmer’s Puccini juxtaposes a dramatization of this tragic story with footage from his controversial 1984 production of Turandot for the Scottish National Opera. (The production was lambasted by the critics, but the entire run was sold-out, with tickets going on the black market for £100).Written by Charles Wood (Wagner), the film features a superb cast, including actress Virginia McKenna as Elvira Puccini, and the late Sir Robert Stephens in the title role. The Scottish National Opera cast includes the extraordinary Scottish soprano Linda Evans Gray in the role of Turandot, American baritone Williard White as Timur, and British baritone Alan Opie as Ping. Sadly, this was Ms. Gray’s last performance, as her career was cut short in 1984 by physical and emotional problems. She withdrew from the production and suspended her promising opera career. Ms. Gray was a student of the famed British soprano Dame Eva Turner, and her short career included a legendary performance as Isolde with the English National Opera, as well as appearances at Glyndebourne, with the Welsh National Opera and at Covent Garden.
Doria Manfredi was a maid who worked for the Puccini family when they lived in the small northern Italian village of Torre del Lago. She was wrongfully accused by composer’s insanely jealous wife Elvira of carrying on an illicit relationship with the womanizing Puccini. Manfredi, who, after death, was proved completely innocent, was so distraught by the charges that she committed suicide by poisoning herself. She died a horrible and painful death. Puccini’s wife was later found guilty of “public defamation” and sentenced to five months and five days in prison.
The story of Doria Manfredi was brought to the attention of filmmaker Tony Palmer by Edward Greenfield, distinguished music critic of The Guardian, after a new section about Manfredi was added in the mid-1970s to Moscoe Carner’s 1958 Puccini: A Critical Biography. Palmer sought out Carner, who was intrigued by his fascination with the Manfredi story. Palmer and Carner both saw the parallels to Puccini’s last opera Turandot in “the loveless woman who kills for love, Turandot (Elvira); the slave girl who kills herself, Liu (Manfredi); the village gossips, Ping, Pang and Pong; [and] the village elder who accepts his guilt in the tragedy, Timur.” Carner believed that the psychological trauma resulting from Manfredi’s death may have made it impossible for the composer to complete the opera, despite the long-held belief that he simply died before he had a chance to finish it. According to Palmer, Carner indicated that Puccini may have ceased his attempts to finish Turandot in 1922, a full two years before his death. This, if true, gives the famous Toscanini story an especially eerie quality. (Toscanini stopped the performance at Liu’s death during its 1926 premiere at La Scala and said, “At this point, Puccini laid down his pen.”) Was the composer simply too distraught to finish an opera whose libretto had originally called for a “happy ending”?
Featuring famed British actor Trevor Howard (Brief Encounter, The Third Man, Ryan’s Daughter, Gandhi) and written by award-winning playwright John Osborne (Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer, Luther), Tony Palmer’s God Rot Tunbridge Wells was originally broadcast on British television in 1985 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Georg Frederic Handel.
The film derives its title from a letter Osborne claims Handel wrote after a visit to the Tunbridge Wells Ladies’ Music Circle, who had invited him to hear a performance of “their Messiah.” Handel allegedly retorted “I always thought it was my Messiah.” He accepted the invitation, only to make a quick escape after the first hour. When he returned home, he allegedly shot off an angry letter describing the horrid experience, signing off with the line “so God rot Tunbridge Wells.”
Early reviews of the film were dismal, with critics asking what John Osborne could possibly know about music-and even savaging poor Trevor Howard (this was his last major film), who was very hurt by the film’s early notices. At first, only the music escaped criticism: the film features performances by Sir Charles Mackerras, the English Chamber Orchestra, Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Elizabeth Harwood, John Shirley-Quirk, Simon Preston, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Valerie Masterson, and Andrei Gavrilov.
However, the tide eventually turned, and critics began to understand that Osborne had “attempted to strip away what felt like centuries of bad Handel performances …and reveal a composer who had burst upon London like a tornado and not only shaken the smugness of Georgian England to its roots, but laid the foundations of an entirely different tradition of British music making-bold, brassy and brilliant. ”
Among the most successful and prolific artists on the naïve label, Rinaldo Alessandrini and his dynamic period-instrument ensemble Concerto Italiano take an exciting turn from their exploration of the Italian Baroque with a new release dedicated to a virtually forgotten but compelling Czech composer, Frantisek Ignác Antonín Tuma. Tuma was born in Bohemia in 1704 and died in Vienna in 1774. According to Wikipedia, which calls him “an important late-Baroque composer, organist, gambist, and theorist,” the composer “lived the greater part of his life in Vienna, first as director of music for Count Franz Ferdinand Kinsky [and] later filling a similar office for the widow of Emperor Karl VI.”Wikipedia also explains, “His sacred works, which were known to Haydn and Mozart, were noted by his contemporaries for their solidity of texture and their sensitive treatment of the text as well as for their chromaticism.” The new recording, however, focuses on a selection of vivid orchestral works - partitas, sinfonias, and sonatas - that convey the intimate spirit of chamber music.
Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano will make their debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City in August, with two enticing Baroque programs at the Rose Theater. The first (August 4) focuses on sacred music by Melani (Litanie per la Beata Vergine Maria for nine voices and basso continuo), Scarlatti (Messa per il Santissimo Natale), and Pergolesi (Missa Romana, “di S. Emidio”). Pergolesi’s Missa Romana and Scarlatti’s Messa per il Santissimo Natale (Christmas masses) have been recorded for future release on the label, and an album of Melani motets is scheduled for recording as well. The second program (August 5) features a selection of eight Vivaldi concertos for various instruments, some of which have been recorded by Alessandrini for naïve (the ensemble’s rendering of Vivaldi’s ever-popular Four Seasons, named Gramophone CD of the Month soon after its release, is the single recommended version of the work listed in the new book 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die). Alessandrini and the ensemble were heard most recently on naïve in a 400th-anniversary recording of Monteverdi’s Orfeo. ClassicsToday.com called the album a “must-have for Monteverdi fans,” giving it the website’s highest possible rating: ten out of ten for both artistic quality and sound quality.
naïve adds another dynamic young artist to its roster with a new recording by 27-year-old French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. For his debut release, Chamayou focuses exclusively on keyboard works by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), one of his favorite composers, including some transcriptions of Mendelssohn works by Liszt and Rachmaninov (track list follows).
Chamayou explains his choice of composer and his approach to programming the album:
I’ve always been extremely fond of Mendelssohn, whose compositions aren’t played all that often. He’s the least well-known of the great composers, he’s relatively popular, but you also realize that a lot of musicians don’t know the majority of his works, especially his piano pieces. The idea of putting together a program like a poetry anthology began to take shape little by little, inspired by the Songs without Words, which are like German lieder. I wanted the program to be like a lieder recital, and chose a number of short pieces that, although brief, tell very dense little stories.
Bertrand Chamayou has been praised for his stage charisma, his highly-refined sonority, his stunning technical skills, and his unquenchable thirst for discovery. As Diapason has observed, his playing reveals a rare “emotional density and poetic imagination.”
In 2006, Chamayou was named “Revelation of the Year” at “Victoire de la Musique,” France’s annual classical music awards. At 20, Bertrand was a prizewinner at the prestigious Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition, since when he has been invited to play recitals at renowned festivals and concert venues around the world. Born in 1981, Chamayou was very soon discovered by international pianist Jean-François Heisser, who was later to become his professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Chamayou completed his training with Maria Curcio in London and has received invaluable advice from such great masters as Leon Fleisher, Dimitri Bashkirov, and Murray Perahia.
Besides giving recitals, Chamayou has played as a soloist with some of the best French national orchestras (Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse) and other prestigious European orchestras (Collegium Instrumentale Brugense, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Sinfonia Varsovia) and with such renowned maestros as Michel Plasson, Lawrence Foster, and Yutaka Sado. He regularly performs chamber music with musicians including Augustin Dumay, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, the Ebène Quartet, the Belcea Quartet, Sol Gabetta, Antoine Tamestit, Daishin Kashimoto, Jing Zhao, Xavier Phillips, Henri Demarquette, François Salque, and Eric Le Sage.
Chamayou’s live recording of the complete cycle of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, a 2006 release from Sony Classical, was enthusiastically received.
With “Con Passione”, his new album for naïve’s sister label, ambroisie, the exciting young Belgian violinist Yossif Ivanov lets the sparks fly in a virtuoso program of waltzes, variations, and fantasies with pianist Itamar Golan. Ivanov’s program pays tribute, ultimately, to the legacy of Paganini, whose technical brilliance and musical showmanship with the violin revolutionized the instrument (a full track list follows below). As the album’s liner notes point out:If Paganini eclipsed all the other violinists of his day, he also created a tremendous phenomenon of emulation whose legacy would be confirmed after his death by such figures as Ernst, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Sarasate, and Ysaÿe. The violin owes him its prestige as an instrument, for without him its repertoire would probably never have known the same abundance or the same development. The boldest compositions showcasing such flamboyant violinistic virtuosity appeared in the second half of the 19th century. Their composers, mostly violinists themselves, displayed boundless imagination, not hesitating to use themes from the most celebrated operas to attract an ever-increasing audience and to show off their paces, with their double talents as composers and instrumentalists allowing them to reconcile high technical demands with expressive style. Quite apart from the volume of works specifically written for the instrument, illustrious arrangers like Kreisler or Heifetz (to name the two most famous and prolific), Hartmann, Kochanski, Tzïganov, Francescatti, Szigeti, and many others substantially expanded their repertory by adapting for the violin hundreds of pieces initially intended for the voice, the piano, or even the orchestra. All the pieces selected for this recital by the young Yossif Ivanov belong to this Paganinian legacy.
Born in Antwerp in 1986, Yossif Ivanov won the First Grand Prix at the Montreal International Music Competition (2003) and Second (Eugène Ysaÿe) Prize and Audience Prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium (2005). In January 2006, he received the Midem Classical Award for “Outstanding Young Artist.”
He was named “Rising Star” by the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels for the 2005-06 season, appearing at such notable venues as Carnegie Hall in New York, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Vienna Musikverein, and the Cité de la Musique in Paris. In addition to his busy concert schedule in Benelux, he also plays elsewhere in Europe, and in the United States and Canada.
Yossif Ivanov made his London debut in April 2007 at the invitation of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Marin Alsop. He performs as a soloist with the leading orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Katowice Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre national de Lille, the Orquestra Nacional do Porto, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra. This enables him to collaborate with today’s foremost conductors, among them Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Yoav Talmi, Jaap van Zweden, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Damian Iorio, David Stern, Pierre Bartholomée, Louis Langrée, and Paul Goodwin. In recitals, Ivanov is accompanied on the piano by Itamar Golan, Frank Braley, Daniel Blumenthal, and Luc Devos.
Jean-François Zygel’s fame in his native France stems from his gifts as music popularizer and educator; his TV show, La Boite à Musique, is watched regularly by more than one million viewers and his Leçons de Musique DVD has become a bestseller for naïve. Beyond these gifts, Zygel is a remarkable improviser, as can be heard on Improvisations, his new album for the label. He has performed improvisation concerts all over France for many years, as well as improvisation duels with the jazz pianist Gonzales. He also improvises regularly to accompany silent films and for radio stations.Zygel is joined on his new album by Philippe Berrod on clarinet, Thomas Bloch on glass harmonica, and Jean Boucault and Johnny Rasse providing bird songs.
On June 24 Naxos of America, Inc. distributor for Medici Arts, releases three films on Medici’s new Classical Archive series featuring pianists Sviatoslav Richter, Tatiana Nikolayeva, and Alexis Weissenberg. Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) was, unquestionably, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.
A complicated and temperamental man, Richter strictly avoided being filmed. The circumstances of this Barbican recital were far from ideal: Richter, who was known to cancel concerts at a moment’s notice, was apparently unaware until shortly before the concert that it was to be filmed. After a considerable and heated discussion, he agreed to the filming on the condition that no camera would be in his field of vision. This challenge was overcome at the expense of the film crew, who were accustomed to expending thousands of watts of lighting power when televising such an event. Richter insisted on restricting the lighting to a single 40-watt bulb, focused not on him, but on his music. This eccentric lightening was unconventional even without cameras present, but it was his standard practice at concerts, as he wanted to focus maximum attention on the music and de-emphasize the importance of the performer. It also served to mask his use of a score, a practice he implemented in 1979 after a memory lapse at a concert.
This 1989 London recital features Richter in performances of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas, K 282, K 545, K 310; Chopin’s Études, Op.10: No.1 to No.6 and No.10 to No.12, and Études Op.25: Nos. 5, 6, 8, 11. Bonus material includes a BBC broadcast from1969 with Richter performing Chopin’s Étude, Op. 10, Nos. 4 and 12; and Rachmaninoff’s Étude-Tableau, Op. 39, No.3.
Richter enthusiasts will enjoy comparing the Barbican performance of Chopin’s Étude, Op. 10, No. 4 to the performance included in the bonus material, which features Richter at his peak in 1969. Richter closes the Barbican recital with a towering performance of Chopin’s Étude, Op. 25/11 in A minor, which brings the house down, highlighting his legendary artistry.
The distinguished pianist, composer, and teacher Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993) represents the wealth of piano talent to flood from the former Soviet Union during the 20th century.
Shostakovich’s cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues always held a special place in Nikolayeva’s heart: she inspired and premiered the work in Leningrad in 1952, and it was the piece she performed when she died in concert in San Francisco in 1993. She also made three recordings of the work. The lifelong friendship between Shostakovich and Nikolayeva began when the 26-year-old pianist won first prize at the 1950 Bach Piano competition, organized in Leipzig for the bicentennial of the German composer’s death. As a member of the jury, Shostakovich (1906-1975) was so impressed and inspired by her playing that he returned to Moscow to compose his own set of Preludes and Fugues in 1950/51. This DVD features a broadcast recording from December 1992 of the complete cycle and includes more of Shostakovich’s music played by Tatiana Nikolayeva in a documentary bonus film.
Born in 1929 in Sofia, Bulgaria, pianist Alexis Weissenberg studied both in Bulgaria and Jerusalem before attending The Juilliard School, where he studied with famed pedagogue Olga Samaroff (conductor Leopold Stokowki’s first wife).
This extraordinary document features a 1965 film by Swedish filmmaker and former assistant to Ingmar Bergman, Åke Falck, which shows Mr. Weissenberg performing the Petrushka Suite. The shooting took 10 days and required a special “silent” piano be built; Weissenberg performed in sync with a playback of his actual performance, while he listened through loudspeakers set at a distance from him (the viewer learns much more about the making of the film in the bonus material). The result is an amazing feat of both pianism and filmmaking, which brings the complexity of Stravinsky’s fiendishly difficult piano score into sharp focus (he transcribed the Petrushka Suite note-for-note from the orchestral version). .
In addition to Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka, the film includes other archival performances taken from various broadcast sources from the 1960s, which feature repertoire including Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 3; Scriabin’s Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op. 9, No. 2; Rachmaninoff’s Prelude, Op. 23, No.6; Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 - Largo, Nocturne Op. Posth. in C minor, Étude, Op. 25, No. 7; J.S. Bach’a Chromatic Fantasy, BWV 903, Partita No.6 - Courante; and the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 83, with the Orchestre National de l’ORTF, Georges Prêtre, conductor - 8/31/69
There’s a special chemistry when the Kroger Quartet play music by Per Nørgård. In fact the renowned composer is so enthusiastic about the young ensemble that he has dedicated two of his most recent string quartets to them. The tenth quartet, Harvest-Timeless, was in fact composed in a dialogue with the musicians themselves. During the rehearsals of the quartet Nørgård appeared regularly in the rehearsal room with freshly-written sheets of music and was thus inspired by the musicians to compose more or to revise the score throughout the genesis of the work. Harvest-Timeless was given its first performance at the Euroart Prague Festival in April 2005.
Born in 1932, Danish composer Per Nørgård studied privately with Vagn Holmboe and later entered the Royal Danish Conservatory, where he continued his studies with Holmboe and Høffding. Additionally, he studied privately with Nadia Boulanger in 1957. Nørgård has composed over 375 works, including six operas, two ballets, ten string quartets, and seven symphonies, along with numerous concertos and orchestral works, choral and vocal works, chamber music, and solo instrumental music.
As early as 1959, Nørgard began experimenting with “infinity series,” but it wasn’t until 1968 that he began using it more formally in his music. It gave his works the structural logic of serialism with a sound palette closer to free tonality; he used the infinity series to serialize melody, harmony, and rhythm in his compositions. In the 1980s, Nørgard’s music was influenced by the Swiss artist, dreamer, and schizophrenic patient Adolf Wölfli, who lived in a mental institution for the first three decades of the 20th century. But since the 1990s, it has become difficult to generalize about the composer’s musical palette.
These four quartets were composed from 1993 to 2005. The composer wrote String Quartet No. 7 in 1993 in honor of the bicentenary of the Danish Royal Library’s standing as a national public library. He has revised it several times since and has dedicated its final form to the Kroger Quartet.
Set in five movements, String Quartet No. 8 (Natten sænker sig som røg - Night Descending like Smoke) was written in 1995-97 and is based on music from Nørgård’s chamber opera Nuit des Hommes (Night of Mankind - Night of Men). With text by Guillaume Apollinaire, the opera is set before and during World War I. In the first movement, Prologue - Eulogy, the listener encounters a shimmering tissue of microtones, followed by an assemblage of fragments and inversions of the hymn tune Nu bede vi den helligånd (Now pray we to the Holy Ghost). Next is a section of chords repeated by all instruments in freely chosen tempi, creating a polyrhythmic heterophony.
Written for the 2001 Santa Fe Chamber Music festival, String Quartet No. 9, Ind I kilden (”into the source” or “into the spring”), is a rhythmically complex three-movement work (Allegro energico, Calmo and Lento-allegro (”brutale”) whose title serves to illuminate its form: “in other words a reversed direction that is different from the spring’s own, a motion back towards the origin and source.”
The title of String Quartet No. 10, Høsttidløs, is the name of a plant, but the literal English translation is ‘Harvest-Timeless.’ Written for the Kroger Quartet, the work refers to a signature tonality Nørgård used in the 1970s, characterized by the entrance of muted tonal chords in the violins and the viola, juxtaposed against a leitmotif in the cello consisting of descending pizzicato notes.
To listen to the episodes from the respective Podcast you will need to have Adobe's FLASH player installed. Please use Adobe's web page to choose the appropriate version to install for your platform.
In this new recording, van Raat tackles music by another iconic figure: John Taverner. Perhaps best known for his large orchestral, vocal, and choral works, Tavener’s piano works highlight his stylistic and spiritual development on a more personal level. His writing for the piano transforms the instrument into a sonorous world of chiming bells, highly lyrical melodic phrases, and recurrently, thundering sound clouds.
Alan Hovhaness was one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His extensive catalog includes 434 opuses, including 67 symphonies. Hovhaness, whose music is known for its neo-romantic style and rich melodies, believed that contemporary music was best served by “bringing back the music of the past, going all the way back to the original sources.”Fanfare for the New Atlantis is a symphonic celebration of the rebirth of the legendary island of Atlantis. The Guitar Concerto No. 2, Op. 394 was written in 1985 for the famous Spanish guitarist Narciso Yepes. The music is lively and dance-like, with rapidly changing rhythmic patterns.
This is the first of six volumes encompassing the complete songs (183 in total) of Charles Ives. With students and alumni from Yale’s various music programs, the recording includes: 1, 2, 3′ (1921); Abide with Me (1897); Aeschylus and Sophocles (1922); Afterglow (1919); Allegro (1899); The All-Enduring (1896); Amphion (1896); Ann Street (1921); At Parting (1899); At Sea (1921); At the River (1916); August (1920); Autumn (1907); Because of You (1898); Because Thou Art (1901); Berceuse (1903); The Cage (1906); The Camp Meeting (1912); Canon I (1893); Canon II (1894); Chanson de Florian (1898); Charlie Rutlage (1920); The Children’s Hour (1912); Christmas Carol, Edie’s (1925); A Christmas Carol (1894); The Circus Band (1894); The Collection (1920); Country Celestial (1897); and Cradle Song (1919).
Recorded in the same great hall where it received its premiere in 1903, 
The tragic story of Doria Manfredi and her relationship with Giacomo Puccini was suppressed for almost 80 years by either Puccini’s publisher, Ricordi, or his family (or both). Tony Palmer’s 
Featuring famed British actor Trevor Howard (Brief Encounter, The Third Man, Ryan’s Daughter, Gandhi) and written by award-winning playwright John Osborne (Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer, Luther), Tony Palmer’s 
Among the most successful and prolific artists on the naïve label, Rinaldo Alessandrini and his dynamic period-instrument ensemble Concerto Italiano take an exciting turn from their exploration of the Italian Baroque with a new release dedicated to a virtually forgotten but compelling Czech composer, 
naïve adds another dynamic young artist to its roster with a new recording by 27-year-old 
With 
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) was, unquestionably, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.
The distinguished pianist, composer, and teacher Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993) represents the wealth of piano talent to flood from the former Soviet Union during the 20th century.
Born in 1929 in Sofia, Bulgaria, pianist Alexis Weissenberg studied both in Bulgaria and Jerusalem before attending The Juilliard School, where he studied with famed pedagogue Olga Samaroff (conductor Leopold Stokowki’s first wife).
Entries (RSS)