Naxos Classical Music Spotlight Podcast… bring great music with explanations on the side which touch upon music and the biographies of the musicians and composers. As a consequence, this can turn into a veritable history podcast…

… the marvels of her life are narrated and must stand on their own…

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All these pieces show the lush sounds and soaring melodies that have drawn many people to his music - and baffled other composers in an age when lush melodic writing was not the norm.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.559336

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Rossini’s decision abruptly to end his operatic career at the age of only thirty-seven has been the subject of many debates and copious articles over the years….

… Naxos and the distinguished, award-winner pianist Alessandro Marangoni, deserve to be congratulated for the decision to record the complete Péchés…

… This CD set is undoubtedly an excellent recording of Rossini’s often neglected but wonderful piano music, finally being given the attention it deserves…

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I’ve told the following story many times about Argerich’s recital. I remember expecting a formal affair, where the pianist would strut onstage in a suitably beautiful gown, bow gracefully, and then treat us to her great artistry. I got the last bit, which of course is all that mattered in the end. If memory serves, Argerich almost waddled onto the stage in a black leotard, long black stretchy skirt, and those hideous Mao shoes that were once “fashionable” (God knows why). She didn’t quite bow, but I do remember her head seemed to slope downward. But for anyone who has ever heard the great Ms. Argerich play, it made absolutely no difference. Of course she brought the house down … and seemed almost surprised by her feat. It was as if she thought that what she was doing was very simple: she was merely speaking for the composers, pure and simple. They, in fact, were the Gods and she was just the messenger.

Below is my love letter to the film and to Ms. Argerich:

“First of all, there was this interview-which is not an interview at all, as I do not believe I asked her a single question. Let us, rather, call it a conversation that took place at dead of night, without a spotlight or makeup- a single ‘night-time conversation’ recorded as if by miracle on the magnetic tape of a comer that would then become the very heart of this film.” -Georges Gachot

It took the French film director Georges Gachot 20 years to convince the very private and elusive Martha Argerich to agree to appear on camera for this intimate portrait. The resulting film, Martha Argerich: Evening Talks (Medici Arts 3073428), pays tribute to this great pianist’s 40-year career with a blend of informal conversations and superb performance footage. It also contains rare archival material from across the globe, including footage from her 1957 First Prize win at the Geneva Competition when she was just 16.

The film allows Argerich to express her feelings about music, composers, and musicians and to discuss her background and early career and how they shaped her as an artist. Argerich reminisces about her early studies with Austrian pianist Frederich Gulda, whom she credits with “[teaching] her how to listen.” She also recounts her yearlong stint with Michelangeli, during which time she received only four lessons. Moreover, she recalls the crisis she experienced in her early 20s, which spurred fellow Argentinean pianist (and conductor) Daniel Barenboim to once say, “Martha, you are like a very beautiful painting without the frame.” It becomes clear that her abandonment of solo performance so early in her career grew partly out of the intense loneliness she felt during this period.

However, through her commitment to concerto and chamber music repertoire, Martha Argerich developed into a deeply generous artist, never satisfied with herself and always looking for new meanings and approaches to her repertoire. “I find something new all the time,” she explains. “I hope I always will; I always doubt and I’m always groping.” She finds her deepest satisfaction in communicating with other musicians and communing with composers, whose music is inarguably part of her DNA. Gulda once told her “It’s not your fault that Schumann was not Argentinean.” As she plays Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor (effortlessly, it would seem), the listener notes that the music appears to be a natural extension of her being. “I hope I’m not bad for him,” Argerich remarks. “Schumann is very intimate for me, but I hope he likes me.” It is not surprising to hear this unique artist make such a humble comment about her work. Argerich appears utterly possessed by the composer’s essence each time she performs his music.

In a 2001 article about Martha Argerich for The New Yorker, critic Alex Ross wrote “Argerich brings to bear qualities that are seldom contained in one person: she is a pianist of brainteasing technical agility; she is a charismatic woman with an enigmatic reputation; she is an unaffected interpreter whose native language is music. This last may be the quality that sets her apart. A lot of pianists play huge double octaves; a lot of pianists photograph well. But few have the unerring naturalness of phrasing that allows them to embody the music rather than interpret it.” One listen to the Scarlatti encore from her performance in Zurich and the viewer will know exactly what Ross means.

FEATURED MUSIC INCLUDES:

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.4, Op.58; Claudio Arrau, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink (audio only).

Piazzolla/Hubert: Libertango; Martha Argerich & Eduardo Hubert, pianos, Ricardo Rossi, percussion.
Pescara, 2000

Liszt: Piano Concerto No.1; Martha Argerich, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf. Paris, 1973

Chopin: Piano Concerto No.1, Op.11; Martha Argerich, Orchestre philharmonique de l’ORTF, Franco Mannino. Paris, 1969

Beethoven: “Moonlight” Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2 - Friedrich Gulda, piano. Vienna, 1968

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.2, Op.19 - Martha Argerich, piano & conductor, London Sinfonietta. Milan, 1980

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Martha Argerich, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, Charles Dutoit. Paris, 1991

Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 26; Martha Argerich, London Symphony Orchestra, André Previn. Croydon, 1977

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No.6 - Martha Argerich, piano (aged 15). 1957 (audio only)

Chopin: Scherzo, Op. 39 No. 3 - Martha Argerich, piano. Warsaw, 1965

Bach: Partita No. 2, BWV 826: Capriccio - Martha Argerich, piano. Zurich, 2001

Schumann: Piano Concerto, Op. 54; Martha Argerich, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, Jörg Faerber. Heilbronn, 2001

Saint-Saens: Introduction & Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28 (arr. for violin and piano); Martha Argerich, piano, Géza Hosszu-Legocky, violin. Geneva, 2000

Dvorak: Slavonic Dance, Op.72 No. 2, Martha Argerich, piano, Géza Hosszu-Legocky, violin. Pescara, 2000 (arr. for violin and piano)

Lutosławski: Variations on a Theme by Paganini - Martha Argerich, Mauricio Vallina, pianos. Pescara,
2000

Ravel: Ma Mère l’oye: Laideronette, Impératrice des Pagodes; Martha Argerich & Nelson Freire, piano 4 hands. Buenos Aires, 1999

Schumann: Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, Op.15 No.1 - Martha Argerich, piano. Warsaw, 1980
Prokofiev: Toccata, Op.11 - Martha Argerich, piano (audio only)

EXTRAS (duration: 38 min.):

Witold Lutosławski, Variations on a Theme by Paganini; Martha Argerich & Mauricio Vallina, pianos. Recorded in Pescara, Italy, 2000

Robert Schumann, Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54; Director’s cut of the rehearsals. Martha Argerich, Württembergisches Kammerorchester, conducted by Jörg Faerber. Recorded at Heilbronn, Germany, 2001

Astor Piazzolla, arr. Eduardo Hubert; Martha Argerich & Eduardo Hubert, pianos, Ricardo Rossi, percussion.
Recorded in Pescara, Italy, 2000.
Libertango
Tres minutos con la realidad

Encores by Martha Argerich
Recorded in Zurich, Switzerland, 2001.
Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D minor, K141
Frederic Chopin, Mazurka in F minor, Op.63 No.2
Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV826: Capriccio

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If you can’t listen in tomorrow afternoon, you can stream the segment on the WNYC site.

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Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570447

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Texas pianist John Salmon (b. 1954) may have accomplished for Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin (b. 1937) what Leonard Pennario did for Louis Moreau Gottschalk a generation ago…

… The curious combination of classical procedures and jazzy, hip sounds takes us to The Half Note in New York City, a real “club” sonority that Salmon’s right hand whips out in runs while the left has the bumping ostinati…

… Salmon ends with a blistering Scherzo–a toccata really–from the Sonata No. 2, wherein any number of pounding of the D in 12/8 time gets our blood pumping…

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Comment from podcast listener: Andrew D on the episode, Beethoven Symphony No. 9, arranged by Franz Liszt
At first I was surprised to hear that Franz Liszt’s transcription was put into two piano parts. I say this because I have sheet music of a version that’s for one piano only. My question is, did Liszt publish two versions, or, did he simply publish a single-piano transcription of movements 1-3 and publish a sepearate, two-pianos version of the symphony? Of course there could be other options, but I am just asking to clarify for when I get the sheet music. If you could clarify that for me, that would be great!

PS I love the 9th as a symphony, but as for transcriptions, my favorite is the
5th, especially the 3rd movement.

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You would think that writing a symphony and getting it recorded would be enough work in itself. But for composer Kenneth Fuchs, it’s just half the battle…

… His recordings have twice been nominated for Grammys and received rave reviews; his two symphonies were recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and released by Naxos, a label that has become a force in classical music by finding innovative ways to distribute its music…

… It’s a problem for almost anyone who composes classical music in a pop-dominated world. The solution, of course, would be to expand the audience for contemporary classical…

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Tavener’s music reflects his involvement in the Russian Orthodox Church, and his fascination with Eastern and Middle Eastern philosophy and music.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570442

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New series of Jazz Icons DVD’s features vintage unseen concerts featuring Sonny Rollins, Oscar Peterson, Lionel Hampton, Nina Simone, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Rahsaan Roland Kirk…

… The running time for the DVDs range from 60 to 100 minutes. All seven Jazz Icons titles will be sold separately and as a deluxe boxed set with a bonus eighth disc featuring additional rare, never-before-seen, performances…

… Naxos… redefined how classical music is presented and marketed. The innovative strategy of recording exciting new Grammy nominated and Grammy winning repertoire with exceptional talent has enabled the label to develop one of the largest and fastest growing catalogues of unduplicated repertoire available anywhere…

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Adam talks about the history of the euphonium and commissioning composers to write new music for his instrument.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570538

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In the past 20 years, he has made an astonishing 280 recordings. In this interview he talks about this relationship, plus his latest project, a recording of Britten’s opera Owen Wingrave.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: CHAN 10473(2)

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The Naxos label is marking his centennial by bringing out his complete orchestral music, conducted by no less than Leonard Slatkin…

… It’s time to pay tribute to this popular American composer, who was born 100 years ago on June 29 in Cambridge, Mass…

… Now those little gems, along with several that were never before recorded, are part of his complete collection of orchestral works, just in time for his centennial celebration.

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The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi, unlike the Six Celan Songs, deals directly with a war situation: an 18-month-old Kosovan boy, left for dead during the Balkan Wars, is found and re-named by the Serbs and reunites with his parents six months later. It is the most recent in Nyman’s series of collaborations with visual artists-in this case, the American feminist/conceptualist Mary Kelly. Kelly provided the composer with a complex text in simple ballad form, which he brilliantly subverts in his 18-minute piece. The work was written for Sarah Leonard and the Nyman Quartet and received its first performance in 2001 at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, surrounded by Kelly’s visual representation of the text.

Nyman Brass marks the first time an entire album of the composer’s music has been entrusted to an ensemble other than the musicians who regularly work with him. For this recording, Nyman’s works have been expertly arranged by John Parkinson and Andrew Berryman for the British brass band Wingates Band.

The two main sequences on the album are from the scores to Volker Schlöndorff’s 1996 film The Ogre and Laurence Dunmore’s The Libertine (2005). Rounding out the album are two Michael Nyman Band classics, In Re Don Giovanni and Chasing sheep is best left to shepherds from The Draughtman’s Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982). Here the music sounds significantly different from the original performances. The composer remarks that “the whole sound-world was transformed. Things like repeated rhythms which I originally gave to piano are punchier, edgier, more dangerous on cornets and trombones.”

Wingates Band was formed in 1873 by the members of the Bible Class of Wingates Independent Methodist Church in Westhoughton, Bolton, in response to a challenge from members of Westhoughton Old Band, founded in 1858. By the turn of the century, led by legendary ‘giant’ of the British brass band movement Willaim Rimmer, Wingates had become one of the top bands in the country. In 1906, the Band achieved national fame by winning the “double”: the British Open and the British National Championships. The following year, Wingates astounded the brass band world by completing the “double” again. For more information, visit www.wingatesband.org.

Michael Nyman comments that it was “a privilege” to work with Wingates. Although his music is very different from what the players were used to, Nyman says they “picked up the style, especially the formality of the music, and it soon sounded second nature to them …I loved the spirit of the playing, the instant dedication and the energy in what is a very new sound world for me.”

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Commissioned by BBC Television in 1966, Owen Wingrave is a “Cinderella story” among Britten’s operas, despite its imaginative, closely-knit score, possibly because it was composed for television. Like its 1954 predecessor, The Turn of the Screw, Owen Wingrave is based on a ghost story by Henry James. Britten read the story while working on The Turn of the Screw and was inspired to set it as an opera. The music employs the relatively spare textures Britten adopted in his later years.In his latest recording for the label, Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda leads the BBC Philharmonic in performances of three works by Serge Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1, The Isle of the Dead, and Youth Symphony (CHAN 10475).

One of the most remarkable composers of the 20th century, Rachmaninoff wrote three Romantically-inclined symphonies, two of which are now standard orchestral repertoire. However, the premiere of Symphony No. 1 was such a disaster that Rachmaninoff refrained from composing anything more for the next three years. The conductor, Glazunov, is rumored to have been drunk, and Rachmaninoff was unable to attend the entire performance. He reacted by tearing up the score. Luckily, the instrumental parts were preserved and rediscovered in 1945, permitting the restoration of the work. The recording also features the ‘Youth Symphony’, the first movement of an unfinished symphony in D minor, composed when Rachmaninoff was only 17, and the great symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead, inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting of the same name, which Rachmaninoff had seen on display in Paris in 1907. Composed in 1909, it is still a relatively early work, but contains some of the dark Russian spiritual qualities which Rachmaninoff would develop in later compositions.

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At the same time, sound quality is important to classical music collectors and most are not really satisfied with heavily compressed files. Higher-quality files are much bigger and are more difficult to download…

… We made our entire catalog available for streaming online, free, in 1996 so that people could listen to our recordings before purchasing them…

If the industry had gotten together in the late-1990s and come up with a concept like iTunes, it could have avoided most of the piracy problems it has been experiencing in recent years…

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I happened upon a disk put out by Naxos entitled “Rossini - String Sonatas Nos. 4, 5 and 6 performed by the Rossini Ensemble, Budapest.”…

… Out of curiosity I purchased the CD … And what a delightful surprise awaited me…

In later years, Rossini claimed that the sonatas were written when he was very ignorant of harmony, and he considered them “horrendous” music…

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In addition to his work as a composer, Mr. Winstin is the principal guest conductor and composer-in-residence of the Kiev Philharmonic, recording conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony, and music director and founder of the Millennium Symphony.

The Taliban Dances are extra-musical comments on society, war, and death. They are full of life, devastating in their sadness, surprisingly humorous, and starkly serious. They are both Eastern and Western; composed for violin and orchestra, The Taliban Dances are loosely based on several authentic Arabic scales and modal rhythmic structures, gradually replaced by traditional Western-style harmonies and rhythmic structures.

The work begins with a violin cadenza-a “Call for Prayer,” which is intended to be a ‘prayer’ for all nations, East and West. This cadenza, used as the opening for both the first movement and the finale, serves to unite the work.

The first movement, which represents hope and youthful love, sets the tone for the piece. This movement, the most “Arabic”-sounding of the five, leads to the first of the two haunting lullabies. In the lullabies, movements two and four, Winstin uses many of the same themes with different textures, consistently returning to a more grounded, rhythmic texture. (In the second of the two lullabies, movement four, the textures are more aggressive-literally a musical fight between two cultures.)

Sandwiched between the lullabies is the humorous “Baghdad Bossa Nova” (movement three), complete with an atonal dance section which owes its structure to the more famous Bossa Novas of the early ‘60s and ‘70s, and, indeed, parodies them. It is a poignantly humorous look at war, featuring a surprising descending slide whistle (”incoming!”) and the popping of balloons to signify the dropping of bombs. It is an artistic statement on the absurdity of war.

After the repeated “Call for Prayer,” the Taliban Dances end with a fiendishly difficult solo violin line which whirls its way-in ever-increasing tempi-towards the climax by way of a nursery rhyme, a cacophonous “Dies Irae” (‘Song of Death’) quote and “Dixie.”

Masterworks of the New Era is the 12th volume in the landmark, award-winning series devoted to the music of living composers worldwide. This four-CD set includes new music by Abbott, Bagdazian, Barmor Rose, Bilotta, Blumhofer, Brickman, Clark, Constantinides, Dal Porto, Evans, Field, Garber, Gottschalk, Guthrie, He, Jones, Korneitchouk, McMullin, Olac, Powers, Rudenstein, Sartor, Schroeter, Timpson, Stadig, Walczyk, Winsor, Worthington, and Wylegala.

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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.

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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. ”
 

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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.

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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

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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.