1773 was a key year for orchestral music. Mozart composed his “little G minor Symphony”, no. 25, and began work on the music for the play Thamos, König in Ägypten. In Paris, Grétry perfected the opéra-comique, a genre combining the light and the serious, and completely renewed the musical drama. Is it a mere coincidence that their compositions of that year show the same intensity and dramatic efficacy? Martin Wåhlberg, at the head of his Orkester Nord, thinks not. Here he paints a bold picture: that of a Mozart taking inspiration from the new French theatre music, while retaining his own exceptional inventiveness and sense of form. The works recorded here enable us to trace the evolution of the emerging symphony, from the French theatre, with instrumental music from Grétry’s Céphale et Procris, to the German theatre, with Mozart’s music for the play Thamos, then the Mozart symphony, with his K.183, combining all of those elements in a purely orchestral work. © Aparté

Tension -- it's a wonderful thing. The tension between great pitching and great hitting is what keeps baseball interesting. The tension between will she or won't she is what keeps dating fascinating. And, of course, the tension between centrifugal force and gravitational force is what keeps the whole universe spinning. But as an interpretive point of view for Mozart's symphonies No. 40 and No. 41, tension is of doubtful value. Yet tension is pretty much all conductor Marc Minkowski has on his mind in these 2006 recordings with his Les Musiciens du Louvre. He pushes already too quick tempos forward to underline a point -- and his players seem not altogether willing to go with him. He pulls already too slow tempos back to round off a phrase -- and once again his players are not altogether willing to go with him. He drives the strings too hard -- and the players go out of tune. He forces the winds too often -- and the players go out of sync. Compared to either the overly refined Herbert von Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic performances or the acutely etiolated Christopher Hogwood/Academy of Ancient Music performances, Minkowski and Les Musiciens' performances may seem revelatory. Compared with the controlled passion of the Bruno Walter/New York Philharmonic performances or the commanding power of the Karl Böhm/Vienna Philharmonic performances, Minkowski and Les Musiciens sound merely too tense. Archiv's standard clean and close sound is oddly gray and strangely distant.© TiVo

The latest volume in a revelatory Alkan series from an English pianist with a string of critically acclaimed albums of rare repertoire from the Golden Age of the piano virtuoso to his credit. Perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole, let alone the 19th century, Charles-Valentin Alkan remains one of the most intriguing and alluring names among the pantheon of pianist-composers. According to Franz Liszt, Alkan possessed the finest technique he had ever seen yet preferred the life of a recluse. The outstanding masterpiece of the album is the Symphonie for solo piano which Alkan drew from his set of 12 Studies, Op. 39. It opens with an Allegro which is one of the composer’s most darkly impassioned conceptions, in which declamatory rhetoric, passionate outbursts and towering climaxes are all bound by a tightly organised structure. The piano writing is distinctly orchestral in nature, hence the ‘symphonic’ designation, demanding that the intrepid soloist make his or her way through towering conglomerations of sometimes ten note chords, thick, chordal tremoli and volleys of double octaves: only fully accredited virtuosi need apply! The Symphonie is placed on this album as the climax to a sequence of grand marches conceived on a similarly grand scale. They include the Three Cavalry Marches, Op. 39, which find Alkan at his most concise, in the Berliozian No. 1, his most eccentric (the trio of No. 2) and whimsical (No. 3). Like them, the Marche funèbre, Op. 26 bears witness to Alkan’s ability to channel a latent and, at times, menacing power through material of the slightest substance. The following Marche triomphale, Op. 27 is a massive, swaggering affair, in contrast to the ruminative melancholy of the opening paraphrase Op. 45 on a poem by Legouvé set in a cemetery and cast in Alkan’s most elegiac vein. A profound sadness also inflects the opening section of the composer’s ingenious instrumental setting of Psalm 137, ‘By the waters of Babylon’. The booklet contains an excellent essay on Alkan and his works by the artist himself. © Piano Classics

The 2004 edition of the ARD International Competition in Munich saw the paths of violist Antoine Tamestit and members of the Ebène Quartet cross. A meeting of champions on a day to remember, with these artists taking first place in their respective categories. Their collaborations have multiplied over the years, finally converging on a first joint recording entitled Round Midnight, which ended with a sumptuous rendition of Schoeberg’s Transfigured Night.But in this case the new ensemble is committed to the genius of Mozart, through his Quintet No. 3 K.515 and No. 4 K.516. In the first, the group explores the highly contrasting moods in Mozart's writing, alternating between the abundant energy of the first and fourth movements, and the melancholic lethargy of the second and third. A roller coaster of emotions, guided by clever playing and a lovely, enveloping tonality. On the other hand, Quartet K.516 has darker colours, the key of G minor in Mozart's work often being associated with distress and sorrow. It took on a particular meaning in 1787, at a time when the composer was worried about his father's health. The Ebène quartet and Tamestit draw a striking chiaroscuro from the score, magnified by intelligent choices with regards to the tempi, leaving room for perfect spaces that allow the piece to breathe. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

Violinist Daniel Hope's publicity for this 2024 release promotes it as "[t]racing the history of Western dance from medieval times to the 20th century." It is true that the double album includes music of many eras, from traditional pieces to the 20th century, but this formulation fails to capture the mood achieved here by the always crowd-pleasing Hope. All his selections are short, and for the most part, they jump across the centuries rather than being chronological. Hope both plays and conducts the Zürcher Kammerorchester, and the overall effect is kaleidoscopic, like one of those concerts where pieces follow one another as if in a medley, with lighting effects to match. A double album of short pieces may seem a lot, but this is Hope's point; he seeks to expose the variety of dance rhythms that course through Western classical music, in which dance is not usually thought to play a very significant role. The album is a great deal of fun, with Hope alternately picking up his violin and laying it aside and veering from Baroque dances to Florence Beatrice Price's jazzy "Ticklin' Toes" (it is good to hear her music showing up on non-U.S. releases). In the end, the energy in this big group of 42 pieces never flags.© James Manheim /TiVo

This release by the historical-instrument group Il Pomo d'Oro and its mop-topped conductor Maxim Emelyanychev is part of a series devoted to Mozart's symphonies, with two symphonies on each and a concerto as entr'acte. Such a new series doesn't come along every day, and this album hit classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023. It offers a good idea of what to expect from the series with its quick tempos, slightly raw string sound, and period winds and brass. The best may come right at the beginning in the 18-year-old Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201, where Emelyanychev adds real liveliness and Il Pomo d'Oro's natural horns contribute a piercing but not unpleasant sound. The Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, is also very strong; hear the urgency in Emelyanychev's pacing at the beginning of the finale. Emelyanychev takes all the repeats, but there is a tension in his readings that carries the music through the extended framework. The middle Oboe Concerto in C major, K. 314, better known as a flute concerto, is less successful; the period oboe of Ivan Podyomov is a bit labored, and the music doesn't have the same zip as the outer symphonies. Emelyanychev misses the sweetness this French-period Mozart should have. As for the symphonies, however, these are distinctive readings that make one want to hear new volumes in the series.© James Manheim /TiVo

Ravel's piano works include some of the most popular keyboard pieces of the 20th century, so pianist Philippe Bianconi has plenty of competition for this double-album complete cycle. Of course, one advantage of the complete set is that it can include the less common pieces like Ravel's musical impressions of Borodin and Chabrier and the Menuet en Ut dièse mineur ("Minuet in C sharp minor"). These lesser-known works, mostly miniatures, fit Bianconi's style beautifully; he is a precise, concise player who brings out Ravel's considerable rhythmic subtlety. His Ravel performances tap into a long French tradition stretching back to Robert Casadesus and his wife, Gaby, who was one of Bianconi's teachers. Imbued with the French conservatory values of clarity and restraint, Bianconi sacrifices mood for clean execution. In Le Tombeau de Couperin, he is wonderful, one of the very best available, catching the ways Ravel stretches the Baroque rhythms in a really uncanny way. Many pianists can handle the technical challenges of Gaspard de la nuit these days, but few can seem as effortless while doing so. In music that depends more on extramusical references, such as the four-hand Ma mère l'Oye (recorded with Clément Lefebvre), some listeners may want a bit more color, while others will find Bianconi's approach bracing and fresh, with an evocative Miroirs. Sample several different works. Most listeners will agree that the La Dolce Volta label's sound, from the Grande Salle at the Metz Arsenal, is ideal for the music and the music-making here. © James Manheim /TiVo

Haydn's piano trios aren't terribly often played in comparison with his instrumental works in other genres, and the general line on them has been that they are simple Hausmusik with violin and cello lines that may be omitted if desired. The Gaspard Trio, which has embarked on a complete cycle of Haydn's trios (this is the second installment), strenuously disputes this idea, and the group's playing seems designed to bring out the independence of the stringed instruments where it occurs. Perhaps the best way to look at the question is that Haydn is the true creator of the keyboard trio, and his output in the genre offers a fascinating look into his mind as he realized its possibilities. Rather than plow through the trios chronologically, the Gaspard Trio, playing modern instruments, chooses to make each volume in the series an independent release, containing music from various phases of Haydn's career, and here the group lands on three works from the mid-1790s. In these works, which Beethoven certainly would have known, the trio is indeed made up of three equal instruments, and the Piano Trio in E flat major, Hob. 15/29, is one of those Haydn works that seem to look forward to Romanticism. The Gaspard Trio gives it a warm, relaxed performance that's quite appealing, and in general, the group's Haydn is sympathetic and alert to little turns of humor or unexpected formal detail, although they apply improvised, non-notated ornaments that will be to the taste of some listeners but not others. Despite the Gaspard's belief in the importance of these works, the group does not try to put them on the plane of Haydn's quartets, which is all to the good; there is a lightness in the performances that is just right. The early Piano Trio in G major, Hob. 15/41, only occasionally assigns primary material to the violin; by the middle-period Piano Trio in B flat major, Hob. 15/8, Haydn was experimenting all over the place with the emancipation of the violin and cello. Another intriguing feature of the Gaspard Trio's series is that each volume has (and apparently will have) a newly commissioned work that comments on Haydn in some way; the one here, by the cellist-composer, Leonid Gorokhov, is intriguing. There is plenty here to make listeners look forward to what is going to be a substantial series; Haydn composed 45 piano trios. © James Manheim /TiVo

Mozart meets the accordion and bandoneon? A rarity, perhaps! Richard Galliano finds, however, that the music of Mozart, as well as that of Bach, sounds especially beautiful on his favourite instrument…

In 2002 Florilegium became involved with Bolivian Baroque and since 2003 Ashley hasbeen training vocalists and instrumentalists there. Initially solo singers, he formed Arakaen-dar Bolivia Choir in 2005. In 2008 Ashley was the first European to receive the prestigious Bolivian Hans Roth Prize, given to him in recognition of the enormous assistance he hasgiven to the Bolivian indigenous people, their presence on the international stage and thepromotion and preservation of this music.For the last 28 years of collaboration with Channel Classics my main inspiration for recording hasalways been repertoire, either to convey our individual interpretation of known pieces I am passionate aboutor to present otherwise unknown repertoire for thevery first time. This recording, however, came aboutthrough a chance encounter with a remarkable privatecollection of flutes, held in Frankfurt. This collectionincludes several hundred historical flutes, spanningthe history of the instrument from one of the earliestsurviving3-piece French flutes made by Chattillion inc.1680. Many of these are baroque and other one-keyed flutes and most of them have not been used inrecordings before. The collection includes some of thefinest examples of playable baroque flutes anywhere ininstruments at the time of their manufacture. I amgrateful to the owner for his insight, commentary andimages of each flute that follows under “The Instruments” below, allowing the listener to gain a greaterknowledge and understanding of the particular characteristics of each flute.