Audite

Johann Bernhard Bach's four Orchestral Suites, composed for the court orchestra of the cultured duke of Saxony-Eisenach, are amongst the most varied and sophisticated musical works of the high baroque period in Middle Germany. It was not by chance that Georg Philipp Telemann, a one-time Kapellmeister at Eisenach, commented retrospectively: "I have to praise this orchestra, arranged for the most part according to the French style, for it surpassed the very famous Parisian opera orchestra." From 1703, Bernard Bach was engaged as harpsichordist in this noble orchestra. His Orchestral Suites provide the only surviving "soundtrack" of the illustrious musical life at the Eisenach court during the 1710s and 20s. And what a soundtrack: cosmopolitan, and truly European, with sparkling virtuosic brilliance, as if written by a fiery Italian, whilst displaying the elegant taste of a noble Frenchman. In other words, the "mixed taste", for which the best German composers of the late baroque period were famous, in its finest form. Little wonder then that Bernhard Bach's suites became core repertoire for Johann Sebastian Bach's Leipzig Collegium Musicum, also influencing his compositions. © Audite

In the history of music, György Kurtág is a figure apart. Born in Hungary in 1926, he stood aside from the great ideological movements of his time and created his own personal language in solitude, thinking of music as he put it, "as an ongoing search". But while doggedly independent, he was also a man of culture whose language developed in the shadow of two great teachers: Bartók and Beethoven, the former following on largely from the latter. A champion of the small form, Kurtág also drew inspiration (when he wasn't revisiting them explicitly) from Bach, Schubert and Schumann.This thrilling album offers a journey through the composer's private world, with pieces that take in song (a leitmotif of his oeuvre), violin, cimbalom and double bass – instruments of Hungarian folk tradition.From the poetic highlights of Stsenï iz romana ("Scenes from a novel on poems by Rimma Dalos") sung in Russian, to the Homage to his friend, the painter Berényi Ferenc, this perfectly-performed recording follows the trail of a particularly secret and captivating composer. The Eight Duets for Violin and Cimbalom, Op. 4 are taken in hand by a Hungarian virtuoso playing one of his favourite instruments, the cimbalom, which is at once typical of Magyar culture and a link to the medieval psalter. TheSeven Songs, Op. 22 evoke Japanese haikus through their brevity and content, and conjure up the stunning final image of a snail ascending Mount Fuji. Egy Téli alkony emlékére ("In memory of a Winter evening") is a very expressive and moving rendering of long evenings spent at the fireside.The Russian poet Rimma Dalos summed up Kurtág's personality: "Kurtág always chose the minimalist and the romantic. The poetry of the small form, the aphorism, a weightlessness which is at the same time very weighty. To speak without saying it all, to graze but not break, to penetrate without betraying." We couldn't put it better. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Soviet Russian works falling under the rubric of Socialist Realism lay fallow for many years as audiences naturally found them less interesting than music that seemed to suggest incipient freedoms. They've enjoyed a modest revival, however, partly because of the insight they offer into the personalities of their composers and their responses to the growing Stalinist menace. This Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution was written in 1936 and is nearly contemporaneous with Peter and the Wolf. Despite taking Marx (including "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it," from the Theses on Feuerbach), Lenin, and Stalin for texts and setting them with a good deal of undeniably enjoyable bombast, the music was still too forward-looking for Stalin's apparatchiks, and the work was not performed until 1966. It's not known exactly what they objected to; possibly the three orchestral interludes, much closer to the mainstream of Prokofiev's style, set them off. These are interesting in both content and placement, and you might sample the ninth track, labeled a "Symphony," to get an idea and also to encounter the strong performances by the Staatskapelle Weimar and Ernst Senff Chor Berlin under Kirill Karabits. Is there an X factor coming from having performances by former East Germans under a Ukrainian? Probably, and you get the blood and thunder in the revolutionary passages from members of the Luftwaffenmusikkorps Erfurt as well. © TiVo

Any number of recordings on the market of Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, make good choices: it's a beloved repertory work, and it is the lifetime chance for any cellist to shine. Nevertheless, there's a strong case for choosing this one by the respectably well-known, but not a household-name, French cellist Marc Coppey and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Kirill Karabits. First is the unusual pairing with Ernest Bloch's Schelomo, another prominent repertory work for the cello. As Coppey points out in his notes, both works were connected with the U.S.; Bloch's work was written before he moved to the country permanently, while Dvorak's concerto was written in the U.S. as the composer prepared to return home. Both are reflections on ethnicity, and they fit well together in unexpected ways. Dvorak's short tone poem Klid (Silent Woods) is a pleasant entr'acte. But the prime attraction is the Dvorak concerto itself: Coppey offers a full-blooded, passionate reading that may put the listener in mind of classic Czech performances by Janos Starker, for example. Sample the finale, where the maximum intensity is squeezed out of the rhapsodic ending. It's a virtuoso performance with fine coordination between orchestra and soloist. Highly recommended. © TiVo

Stravinsky’s rarely-performed Violin Concerto, coupled with the main works of his repertoire for violin and piano. The composer was initially convinced that he lacked the experience necessary for writing a violin concerto and taking full advantage of the instrument’s possibilities in concertante style. But in 1931 he went on to compose a Neoclassical masterwork in close collaboration with violinist Samuel Dushkin, a work that bears his unmistakable fingerprint. It is considered one of the 20th century’s greatest violin concertos. He also made numerous arrangements for violin and piano, joining again with Dushkin to enrich the violin repertoire with his imaginative genius. Along with the multi-movement works, the Suite italienne and Divertimento, Liana Gourdjia and Katia Skanavi present a selection of miniatures: the Berceuse from The Firebird, the Danse russe from Petrushka, the Chanson russe from the opera Mavra, and Tango, a piano piece arranged by Dushkin for violin and piano.