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Brahms & Schumann A Capella Choruses
Laurence Equilbey/Choeur de Chambre Accentus
Classical - Released January 1, 1995 | Warner Classics
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Fauré: Nocturnes & Barcarolles
Marc-André Hamelin
Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | Hyperion
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The virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin isn't the first pianist one would think of when it comes to Fauré's music, but he has recorded all kinds of things, even ragtime, and as it happens, he does quite well with the dense miniatures heard on this album. Fauré's Nocturnes are at some level connected to Chopin's but are quite different, with murky chromaticism, especially in the later ones, setting the night atmosphere. Fauré is thought of as a musical conservative, but one would hardly know it from the pieces here that stubbornly refuse to settle on a tonal center. The counterpoint is complex, and a successful performance is one that untangles it. There isn't big, pianistic virtuosity here, but Hamelin's ability to balance Fauré's registers is virtuosic in its own way. The Barcarolles, a genre not much pursued by other composers but for Fauré seeming to allow rays of Venetian sunshine into his rather closed-in French world, are lighter but basically cut from the same cloth. Things lighten up with the final Dolly Suite, Op. 56, where Hamelin performs with his wife, Cathy Fuller. (For those wondering, neither Mi-a-ou nor the Kitty-valse has anything to do with cats.) Although Hyperion's church sound is not idiomatic, it does not damage the remarkable clarity in what is a significant entry in the Fauré discography, one that landed on classical best-seller lists in the late summer of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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The Great Cello Concertos: Elgar, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Haydn...
Jacqueline du Pré
Classical - Released July 28, 2023 | Warner Classics
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Horowitz return to Chicago (Live at Orchestra Hall, 1986)
Vladimir Horowitz
Classical - Released November 6, 2015 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Kapustin: Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 72, Concerto for 2 Pianos & Percussion, Op. 104 & Sinfonietta for Piano 4-Hands, Op. 49
Frank Dupree
Classical - Released February 3, 2023 | CapriccioNR
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Nikolai Kapustin, who lived until 2020, remained in obscurity for much of his life (not that he minded), but his music is seeing signs of a revival. Marc-André Hamelin has played his highly virtuosic music, and 2021 brought all-Kapustin recordings from pianist Yeol Eum Son and from the present pianist, Frank Dupree, who seems to be emerging as Kapustin's champion. Kapustin offers a unique classical-jazz fusion. The usual way of accomplishing this, beginning with the Modern Jazz Quartet, is to add improvisation to basically classical structures. Kapustin is different. He has said that he does not improvise and is thus not a true jazz musician, but he fills classical forms like the sonata and concerto with jazz rhythms. Kapustin has sometimes been called the Russian Gershwin, and there is certainly a surface resemblance to Gershwin in the likes of the single-movement Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 72. However, Kapustin builds more on the works of 20th century classical composers who incorporated jazz into their music. One of these was Shostakovich, and Dupree captures his influence. Dupree has played jazz himself, and he provides lively forward momentum in the Sinfonietta for piano four-hands, Op. 49, probably the strongest of the three works here. Sample the fluent and high-spirited finale. The Concerto for two pianos and percussion, Op. 104, has the strongest jazz rhythmic element; despite the common ensemble, it shows little influence from Bartók's Sonata for two pianos and percussion. Kapustin seems a composer whose place in the repertory is likely to grow, and concert and radio programmers, as well as fans of fusion music, should pay attention to this Capriccio release, which hit classical best-seller charts in early 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schumann: Fantasie, Arabeske, Kinderszenen
Fabrizio Chiovetta
Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Aparté
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There isn't a daring new approach to Schumann proposed by this set of familiar works, but that may be the appeal that put the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2023. The Fantasie in C major, Op. 17, was worked by Schumann as it developed into a tribute to Beethoven, and the references to Beethoven's late style, which Schumann, among just a few others, understood at the time, are multiple. However, it was also a chronicle of the composer's at-the-time forbidden love affair with his girlfriend, Clara Wieck, itself illustrated with a little quote from Beethoven's song cycle An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98. Schumann marked the first movement "durchaus fantastisch und leidenschaftlich vorzutragen" ("to be played fantastically and passionately throughout"), but it is also a densely polyphonic and intricately structured work, of which Liszt said, "I mean... to work at it and penetrate it through and through." Pianist Fabrizio Chiovetta, without obvious effort, holds these elements in balance. He is equally effective in the more Olympian Arabeske, Op. 18, and in the Kinderszenen, Op. 15, where each little scene of childhood is beautifully realized without extreme tempo variations that distort the nature of the work. The program, as a whole, places the listener amidst the ferment of Schumann's creativity in the mid-1830s, and Aparte's sound from the Salle Gustav Mahler in Dobbiaco, Italy, is another strong draw. A fine outing from Chiovetta.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Mendelssohn: Songs without Words Vol.1 (Lieder ohne Worte)
Peter Donohoe
Classical - Released January 7, 2022 | Chandos
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Peter Donohoe CBE is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility, and commanding technique. On this first volume of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, he writes: "When I first became conscious of my desire to be a musician, Mendelssohn meant more to me, personally, than almost any other composer – he certainly ranked alongside Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. My choice of programme for the present recording is based around a large selection from the Lieder ohne Worte, which I preface with the Rondo capriccioso, Op. 14 and the three wonderful Fantaisies ou Caprices. The Rondo capriccioso and Trois Fantaisies ou Caprices are exquisite examples of the extraordinary facility of Mendelssohn (implicitly as a pianist, but also as a composer), of his originality and inspiration, at an age that allows us, in my view, to place him in the same group of wonderfully natural and prodigious composers as Haydn and Mozart. It is always a pleasure to play these works, and they go to the heart of why I became a musician in the first place". © Chandos
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Robert Schumann: Piano Works
Llyr Williams
Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | Signum Records
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Pianist Llŷr Williams has built a following with recordings of Beethoven and Schubert, and with this double album, he plows forward into Schumann; the works on the album are mostly early, so one assumes that this is the first in a cycle. The appearance of the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2024 should encourage the folks at Signum Classics to proceed. Williams is a sober player whose style may remind listeners of a certain age of Rudolf Serkin. He has remarkable control in the larger pieces that frame the program here, the Fantasy, Op. 17, and the Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26. He certainly doesn't lack control in the smaller pieces, either. The issue is that these pieces, especially lately, have been treated, backed by Schumann's own writings and programmatic descriptions, as examples of free fantasy. It is not that Williams' playing is inexpressive, but he tends to let the fantastic in Schumann's music speak for itself. Sample the brief "Ungeduldig" ("Impatient") fourth movement of the Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, which few would call impatient. Williams' playing in the Papillons, Op. 2, is exquisitely delicate, and throughout, there is a fine sense of line. He has an approach that is unorthodox in Schumann, and that is all to the good. However, listeners should do some sampling to see how well they take to it. Producer Judith Sherman records the album well at a pair of locations at St. Paul's School and the Wyastone Estate, capturing the clarity of Williams' performances.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Soirée
Magdalena Kožená
Chamber Music - Released September 1, 2019 | PentaTone
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This is an album fit to satisfy the most refined and demanding gourmets. Magdalena Kožená and friends, including husband Sir Simon Rattle on the piano, have carefully concocted a programme of choice melodies for voice and various instrumental ensembles. Ranging from rarities (Chanson perpétuelle by Ernest Chausson opens the album) to curiosities (Arias by Dvořák, the wonderful Two Songs, Op.91 by Brahms with a bewitching solo viola played by Yulia Deyneka), the record takes in a series of treats (childish rhymes, Říkadla, by Leoš Janáček) and also affords us the precious Chansons madécasses by Ravel, an unusually lascivious and sensual denunciation of slavery and colonialism, and the very rare Three Songs from William Shakespeare, written in 1953 by a Stravinsky who had been converted to hardcore serialism by his friend Robert Craft. The excellent English soloists accompanying Magdalena Kožená show a little humour by ending this Soirée at the first rays of morning, with a transcription of Morgen by Richard Strauss for mezzo-soprano, violin and piano. English humour, for sure. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Brahms & Schumann - Works for Cello and Piano
Christian Poltéra
Classical - Released February 16, 2024 | BIS
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There is no single radical departure in these performances of Brahms' two sonatas for cello and piano and Schumann's Fünf Stücke im Volkston, Op. 102. Instead, what happens is that various factors come together in performances of rare variety and intensity. Cellist Christian Poltéra and pianist Ronald Brautigam have worked together before and have evolved into a chamber music unit of great cohesion. Brautigam plays a copy of an 1868 Streicher piano; it is not exactly a historical instrument, but it has a precise, penetrating quality that suits the interpretation here beautifully. Póltera has a deep understanding of these works, offering readings that bring out the full range of the music's expressive traits. The Brahms Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38, loses its usual dour, growling quality; sample the exuberant finale. It has been suggested that the word "Volkston" in Schumann's Fünf Stücke im Volkston might better be translated as "popular style" than "folk style"; annotator Michael Struck suggests that the pieces are related to Schumann's sympathy for the republican movements of 1848, and Póltera imbues them with rare depth and lyricism. Of course, another side of Brahms is the intellectual complexity that gives one the delightful suspicion that one will never emerge from the thicket. The opening material of the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 99, has very rarely seemed so pregnant with implications and had those implications so deeply worked out. There are many available performances of all these works (perhaps a bit fewer of the Schumann), but these are marvelous and worth hearing for anyone. This release made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Fauré: Nocturnes
Eric Le Sage
Classical - Released March 15, 2019 | Alpha Classics
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With their poetry, their passionate and intimate lyricism, their refined style that gradually reveals hidden depths, the thirteen Nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré are the most significant group of works in his oeuvre for solo piano. Composed over a period of forty-six years (between 1875 and 1821), they bear witness to the composer’s remarkable stylistic evolution. From a form of expression rooted in romanticism, to an aesthetic fully aligned with 20th-century modernity, Fauré can be said to have shaped his musical personality like a sculptor. His Nocturnes are not all of equal importance, but as a whole their diversity and development offer a perfect panorama of his art. Éric Le Sage, one of the French piano school’s main representatives, whose many recordings for Alpha include the complete chamber music of Fauré, here interprets the repertoire closest to his heart. © Alpha Classics
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Encore - The Mercury Masters, Vol. 5
Byron Janis
Classical - Released January 1, 1962 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene
Renée Fleming
Classical - Released October 8, 2021 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Paul Hindemith : Bratsche !
Antoine Tamestit
Concertos - Released December 2, 2013 | naïve classique
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Fauré: 13 Barcarolles & Ballade Op. 19
Jean-Philippe Collard
Classical - Released January 14, 2022 | La Dolce Volta
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Not just anyone can enter the sophisticated, discreet and secretive world of Gabriel Fauré's Barcarolles. French pianist Jean-Philippe Collard has been keeping out of the spotlight for far too long, so his return to both the stage and the recording studio (with his new label La Dolce Volta) is a welcome sight. His comeback sees him return to his first musical love: the composer Fauré, whose Barcarolles cycle he had already recorded, along with his complete piano music, chamber music and a selection of melodies with Frederica von Stade.Over time, Collard’s sound has become simpler, lighter, with a freshness and spontaneity that only comes with musical maturity. The story behind this new recording is a funny one: one day whilst driving his car, Jean-Philippe Collard just so happened to be listening to the radio when a pianist performing the Première Barcarolle started playing. He didn’t care much for the interpretation and hated the performers constant changes in tempo... so you can imagine his dismay when the radio host announced that it was, in fact, Collard’s own recording from 1970... that was the moment he knew he had to work on this cycle again and propose a new and improved version.This second version was recorded in 2020 in the beautiful Arsenal Concert Hall, which is known for its remarkable acoustics. Exactly fifty years after his first recording, Jean-Philippe Collard’s vision for the solo piano version of the Barcarolles and Ballad has now been perfected. It’s been stripped back to basics and exudes the kind of naturalness that, paradoxically, could only ever have been attained through thorough analysis of the written music, its constant modulations and skilful superimposition of melody. Jean-Phillipe Collard has evidently gone through it all with a fine-toothed comb and, consequently, he’s given the world a chance to listen to the very best of what he has to offer. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Dinu Lipatti: The Definitive Programme
Dinu Lipatti
Classical - Released April 1, 2015 | Praga Digitals
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Passions de l'âme et du cœur
Ricercar Consort
Classical - Released January 12, 2015 | Mirare
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Fauré: Complete Nocturnes
François Dumont
Classical - Released January 31, 2020 | Piano Classics
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Ode à la nuit
Cello8
Chamber Music - Released January 20, 2023 | Mirare
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One might think that the market for massed-cello music had been satisfied by the durable 12 Cellos of the Berlin Philharmonic, but it is not so. There is a Cello Octet Amsterdam, oriented toward contemporary music, and now comes Cello8, the offshoot of an organization called Talents & Violin'celles that seeks to provide performing opportunities to young musicians and to showcase new French stringed instrument manufacturing. Ode à la nuit is largely the creation of cellist Raphaël Pidoux, artistic director of Cello8, compiler of the program, and author of all the arrangements heard here. They are a varied group, with a few famous pieces on the given theme of Ode à la nuit ("Ode to Night"), like Schubert's serenade Ständchen from Schwanengesang, D. 957. Others are rather obscure pieces, and one gets the feeling that Pidoux searched widely in order to create the desired effect. He mixes melodic pieces like the Schubert songs with chordal ones such as the choral pieces by Saint-Saëns and Strauss in such a way that the nocturnal mood deepens as things proceed and becomes delightfully murky. The music is lightened only at the end by a pair of Debussy nocturnes. Altogether fresh in conception and beautifully performed by its young players, this is a lovely release for anyone who enjoys the cello's sound.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Fauré & Schumann
Marie-Pierre Langlamet
Classical - Released April 2, 2021 | Indésens
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