Salonen

“I think of myself basically as a composer,” Esa-Pekka Salonen has often been heard to say, “with a little conducting on the side to help pay the bills.” Despite the charming modesty of these words, the more remarkable fact is the actual phenomenon of Salonen today – not merely another of those composers who can manage a little conducting if called upon, not merely a conductor with a couple of symphonies in a secret portfolio, but a master at the top of both professions. Here, on this disc, is further proof.

It is important to note that Salonen is not a pianist (his instrument is the French horn); that brings his PIANO CONCERTO more clearly into focus. Completed in 2007 and first played in February of that year by the New York Philharmonic, which commissioned it jointly with the BBC, Radio France and NDR Hamburg, the work is, in fact, a celebration of a musical friendship with the great Russian-born American pianist Yefim Bronfman: a discussion of musical possibilities and ambitions, with a delightful admixture of fantasy. “Gleefully motoric,” said London’s Evening Standard. (Alan Rich)

Composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, a “sonic inventor of great imagination and coloristic skill” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) presents the premiere recording of his Piano Concerto, “a great work … firm, forthright, original music” (Gramophone), written for Yefim Bronfman – “Bronfman was a sensation” (Los Angeles Times , reviewing the Disney Hall concert). Bronfman also performs Salonen’s Dichotomie for solo piano, which, along with Helix , are available for the first time on CD.

ESA-PEKKA SALONEN (*1958)
1) Helix (2005) for orchestra [9’34]

Piano Concerto
2) Movement I [14’53]
3) Movement II [9’37]
4) Movement III [8’46]
Dichotomie for piano solo
5) I Mécanisme [9’46]
6) II Organisme [7’50]

Yefim Bronfman, piano

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Esa-Pekka Salonen

2008 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

1 CD DDD

477 8103 GH

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Mussorgsky PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Mussorgsky composed this music in June 1874. One of Mussorgsky's few unalienated friends was the St. Petersburg artist, architect and stage designer Viktor Hartmann (1834-1873), who lived even fewer years than the composer's 42. Vladimir Stasov, librarian and critic, arranged a memorial retrospective of some 400 Hartmann drawings and watercolors. Deeply moved, Mussorgsky wrote a piano suite, one of the few works he actually completed, apart from a trove of songs. Rimsky-Korsakov edited it for publication in 1886, albeit less radically than his gutted versions of Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, and A Night on Bare Mountain. By 1891, one Mikhail Tushmalov had already orchestrated seven of the ten Pictures. In the century since, there have been more than a dozen other versions, but none that challenge the finesse, subtlety, and cumulative impact of Maurice Ravel's (1875-1937), made for Sergey Koussevitzky, who led not only the world and American premieres (the latter with his Boston Symphony in 1926), but the first recording in 1930. Ravel's 1922 orchestration was premiered by Koussevitzky in Paris on October 19, 1923. Ravel was a logical choice, beyond his cachet as France's foremost living composer (a celebrity that cost Koussevitzky 10,000 francs). For the 1913 Paris production of Khovanshchina, Sergey Diaghilev commissioned him and Stravinsky to score what Rimsky-Korsakov had omitted from his "official version" of 1883. (Roger Dettmer)

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881)
Pictures at an Exhibition
Orchestrated by Maurice Ravel
1) Promenade [1:50]
2) Gnomus [2:40]
3) Promenade [1:07]
4) The Old Castle [4:31]
5) Promenade [0:37]
6) The Tuileries Gardens [1:17]
7) Bydlo [2:39]
8) Promenade [0:48]
9) Ballet of the Chickens in Their Shells [1:21]
10) Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle [2:24]
11) The Market-place at Limoges [1:30]
12) The Catacombs (Sepulchrum romanum) [2:06]
13) Cum mortuis in lingua mortua [2:09]
14) The Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba-Yaga) [3:54]
15) The Great Gate of Kiev [5:45]
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Carlo Maria Giulini

16) A Night on the Bare Mountain [9:46]
Berliner Philharmoniker
Lorin Maazel

Alexander Borodin (1833 - 1887)
17) Polovtsian Dances, from: Prince Igor [11:30]
Torgny Sporsen
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Neeme Järvi
Gothenburg Symphony Chorus
Ove Gotting

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881)
Boris Godounov
18) Coronation of Boris [4:47]
The Cleveland Orchestra
Oliver Knussen

Aram Il'yich Khachaturian (1903 - 1978)
Gayaneh
19) Sabre Dance [2:13]
20) Dance of the Highlanders [1:44]
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

2007 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
1 CD DDD
4776678 GCH

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THANKS TO OUR FRIEND FLAMEWOLF WHO KINDLY PROVIDED THIS ALBUM FROM HIS PERSONAL COLLECTION

Janine Jansen TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto

More than any other, music from the Romantic era conjures up emotions and memories. It has an immediacy and the ability to carry you away. To me, Tchaikovsky is an outstanding example of this. When I was still a child, I dreamed of the moment I could play his Violin Concerto.” Janine Jansen used to listen to the piece frequently and would watch intently as others took on the challenge. “When I was thirteen I attended my first summer school in the US. A few older teenagers were already working on the Violin Concerto. I borrowed the music and tried to play a few sections, with a view to raising my game by listening to the others. But I wasn’t ready yet.” That, in itself, is nothing to be ashamed of. Tchaikovsky’s Op.35 is considered to be one of the most challenging and lyrical works in the violin repertory. The composer wrote it in 1878 and even gave it priority over another composition — something he had never done before. “It was stronger than myself”, he wrote to friends. At the time, Tchaikovsky was staying in the Swiss town of Clarens with his former student, the young violinist Yosif Kotek, who was closely consulted on the technical aspects of the work.

Despite this help, the planned premiere by the celebrated Leopold Auer fell through because he found the piece unplayable and “unviolinistic.” It would be a long time before both Auer and the music establishment changed their minds. The vitriol poured on the Concerto by the music critic Eduard Hanslick has become notorious: “The violin is no longer played, it is rent asunder, beaten black and blue.” The work was “hideous, music that stinks to the ear.” The highly sensitive Tchaikovsky could quote the review word for word and, despite the audience’s enthusiastic reception, remained deeply wounded by it for the rest of his life.

Jansen has now performed the work many times. “These are special, symbolic moments for me. The first time was in 2000 with the Kirov Orchestra, at the invitation of Valery Gergiev. At first I thought:

I’ll never manage it. The work is long, emotional and technically virtuosic. Not to mention, extremely tricky to memorise. You really need to stay on the ball. Gergiev allowed me to forget the audience and my nerves, as he immersed me in the music. It’s exhilarating to surpass yourself like that.” Jansen also performed the Concerto when she made her London debut with Vladimir Ashkenazy, garnering worldwide praise. “That concert also marked the start of my recording career. Since then I’ve played the piece with various orchestras and conductors, but it never loses its intensity. That’s why it’s great to have a live recording. Of course you are extremely focused during a studio recording, but the concert hall allows more spontaneity. You are inspired by the audience’s anticipation.”

Pyotr Iliych Tchaikovsky (1840 -1893)

Violin concerto in D major op.35

1) Allegro moderato [18:34]

2) Canzonetta (Andante) [6:25]

3) Finale (Allegro vivacissimo) [10:20]
Souvenir d'un lieu cher op. 42

4) Méditation [9:50]

5) Scherzo [3:32]

6) Mélodie [3:53]

Janine Jansen (Violin)

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Daniel Harding

2008 DECCA Music Group
1 CD DDD

478 0651

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Elīna Garanča BEL CANTO

Elīna Garanča has an enviable reputation for the purity of her tone, her ease with the most taxing vocal demands, and the breadth of her repertoire. On this collection, she focuses on a particular style and period: Italian opera from the first half of the 18th century. Not for nothing is this repertoire known as bel canto: “beautiful singing”. Elīna Garanča has selected pieces by the three greatest Italian composers of the day, whose music offers rich rewards for the modern mezzo-soprano with a flair for high drama.

In this personal selection of great scenes by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, Elīna Garanča focuses her “velvety mezzo” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) on lesser-known operas as well as famous bel canto masterpieces. “A voice in a million” (The Independent ).

Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848)
Lucrezia Borgia
1) Il segreto per esser felici [2:45]
L'assedio di Calais
2) Al mio core [3:31]
Roberto Devereux
3) All'afflitto è dolce il pianto (Sara) [3:35]
Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal
4) Que faire - Sol adoré de la patrie [5:55]

Vincenzo Bellini (1801 - 1835)
Adelson e Salvini
5) Dopo l'oscuro nembo [6:34]

Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848)
Maria Stuarda
6) Si, vuol di Francia il Rege (Elisabetta) [1:09]
7) Ah! quando all'ara scorgemi [3:00]
8) In tal giorno di contento [1:44]
9) Ah! dal ciel discenda un raggio [3:50]

Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868)
Tancredi
10) Andante [2:04]
11) O patria! dolce, e ingrata patria [3:47]
12) Di tanti palpiti [3:04]
Maometto II
13) Terzetto: "In questi estremi istanti" (Calbo, Anna, Erisso) [6:25]

Vincenzo Bellini (1801 - 1835)
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
14) Lieto del dolce incarco [1:44]
15) Ascolta, se Romeo t'uccise [2:51]
16) Riedi al campo [0:48]
17) La tremenda ultrice spada [3:34]

Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848)
L'assedio di Calais
18) Io l'udia chiarmarmi a nome [4:27]
19) Suon tremendo! [1:13]
20) La speme un dolce palpito [2:34]

Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna

Roberto Abbado

2009 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

1 CD DDD

477 7460 GH

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Gustavo Dudamel BEETHOVEN 5 & 7

“Beethoven is a symbol for us in Venezuela. This music is very important for young people. For all of humanity, of course, but for young people especially. A professional orchestra has played these symphonies hundreds of times. For us it's new music. And it's a new vision of the music, because the players don't have an existing version in their heads.
“The Fifth Symphony is not just about the notes. Everybody knows the opening motif. It is fate, it's destiny, and that's something important for everybody. You don't need to explain it. It's inside the notes, and you can feel it. The symphony opens with anger. But if you play it all the way through, following the line of development, you come to the last movement, which ends with hope.
“You listen, and you can feel this in the music. A lot of the children come from the street. They have experienced all these horrible things, crime and drugs and family problems. But when they play this music, they have something special. They all share this hope. And it becomes something amazing."
Dudamel is aware of the magnitude of the risk involved in choosing Beethoven for his debut recording with Deutsche Grammophon. It is not, he explains, that he feels he and his orchestra have more to say about this repertoire than anybody else, but simply that they have their own voice.

“If you go into a CD shop, you will find thousands of recordings of Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. We are a youth orchestra. Why start with such a difficult composer? But then I thought, why not? It is necessary to know Beethoven when you are young. Technically, it is important for the development of your sound. And then there is the simple fact that Beethoven is a genius. The Fifth Symphony is about destiny, about the future. And the Seventh is sheer joy. The energy in this music is fantastic for young musicians.

“Of course Beethoven himself could never have heard his music played by such a large symphony orchestra. But I am sure he would have loved it if he'd had the chance. One of the things that is special about this orchestra is that they can play a piano similar to a small orchestra. And a forte similar to either a small orchestra or a large orchestra. It is easy to work with these musicians, because they understand things, and they are very committed.

“Of course, these are not my last versions of these symphonies. Already, since recording them, we play them differently. Because music is a river, you know? It's not the same water from one day to the next. It's not a glass with water inside. And it's good to play this music now." (Shirley Apthorp)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)
Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op.67
1) 1. Allegro con brio [7:24]
2) 2. Andante con moto [11:32]
3) 3. Allegro [5:22]
4) 4. Allegro [8:32]
Symphony No.7 in A, Op.92
5) 1. Poco sostenuto - Vivace [11:29]
6) 2. Allegretto [8:42]
7) 3. Presto - Assai meno presto [9:42]

8) 4. Allegro con brio [6:18]

Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

Gustavo Dudamel

2006 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

1 CD DDD

477 6228 GH

You can download here: Part 1 / Part 2

Brahms VIOLINKONZERT - DOPPELKONZERT

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 was composed by Johannes Brahms in 1878 for and dedicated to his friend, violinist Joseph Joachim. It was Brahm's only violin concerto, and, according to Joachim, one of the four great German violin concerti.
The work was premiered in Leipzig on January 1, 1879 by Joachim, who insisted on opening the concert with the Beethoven Violin Concerto, written in the same key, and closing with the Brahms. Joachim's decision could be understandable, though Brahms complained that "it was a lot of D major—and not much else on the program.". Joachim was not presenting two established works, but one established one and a new, difficult one by a composer who had a reputation for being difficult. Brahms conducted. Various modifications were made between then and the work's publication by Fritz Simrock later in the year.
Critical reaction to the work was mixed: the canard that the work was not so much for violin as "against the violin" is attributed equally to conductor Hans von Bülow and to Josef Helmesberger, to whom Brahms entrusted the Vienna premiere, which was however rapturously received by the public. Henryk Wieniawski called the work "unplayable", and the violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate refused to play it because he didn't want to "stand on the rostrum, violin in hand and listen to the oboe playing the only tune in the adagio."
Against these critics, modern listeners often feel that Brahms was not really trying to produce a conventional vehicle for virtuoso display, as his peers perhaps had expected him to; Brahms had higher musical aims. Similar criticisms have been voiced over the string concerti of other great composers, such as Ludwig van Beethoven's violin concerto or Hector Berlioz's Harold in Italy.
The Double Concerto in A minor (Op. 102) was composed in the summer of 1887, and first performed in October 1887, it was Brahms' final work for orchestra. Brahms, approaching the project with anxiety over writing for instruments that were not his own, wrote it for the cellist Robert Hausmann and his old estranged friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. The concerto was, in part, a gesture of reconciliation towards Joachim, after their long friendship had ruptured following Joachim's divorce from his wife Amalie. Brahms had sided with Amalie in the dispute, and this led to the estrangement between Brahms and Joachim. The Double Concerto acted as a form of musical reconciliation.

Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)
Violin Concerto in D, Op.77
1) 1. Allegro non troppo [22:02]
2) 2. Adagio [9:42]
3) 3. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace - Poco più presto [8:34]
Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, Op.102
4) 1. Allegro [17:57]
5) 2. Andante [7:27]
6) 3. Vivace non troppo - Poco meno allegro - Tempo I [9:04]

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violine
António Meneses, violoncello
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert von Karajan

1982 (op.77) / 1983 (op. 102) Polydor International GmbH, Hamburg
1 CD DDD
439 007 2 GHS

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BE MY VALENTINE music for two

I think of you, when I see the sun's shimmer

Gleams from the sea;

I think of you, when the moon's glimmer

Is mirrored in streams.

I see you when the dust rises

On the distant road;

At dead of night, when the traveller

Trembles on the narrow footbridge.

I hear you when the waves

Surge with a dull roar;

Often I go and listenin the quiet wood

When all is still.

I am with you; however far away you are,

You are near me!

The sun sets, soon stars will shine on me.

O that you were here

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

CD 1:
Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924)
La Bohème
Act 1
1) "O soave fanciulla" [4:27]
Jerry Hadley, Thomas Hampson, Angelina Reaux, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Leonard Bernstein
Jacques Offenbach (1819 - 1880)
Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Act 4
2) "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" [3:46]
Edita Gruberova, Claudia Eder, Orchestre National De France, Seiji Ozawa, Choeurs de Radio France, Jacques Jouineau
Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990)
West Side Story
3) Maria [2:58]
José Carreras, Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein
4) Tonight - Balcony Scene [5:25]
Kiri Te Kanawa, José Carreras, Nina Bernstein, Alexander Bernstein, Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein
Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901)
La traviata
Act 3
5) "Parigi, o cara, noi lasceremo" [3:20]
Ileana Cotrubas, Plácido Domingo, Bavarian State Orchestra, Carlos Kleiber
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Don Giovanni, ossia Il dissoluto punito, K.527
Act 1
6) "Là ci darem la mano" [3:29]
Samuel Ramey, Kathleen Battle, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924)
Madama Butterfly
Act 1
7) Viene la sera [4:29]
José Carreras, Mirella Freni, Teresa Berganza, Philharmonia Orchestra, Giuseppe Sinopoli
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893)
Eugene Onegin, Op.24
Act 1
8) Duet and Quartet. "Slikhali l vi za roschei glas nochnoi" [5:04]
Mirella Freni, Anne Sofie von Otter, Rosemarie Lang, Ruthild Engert-Ely, Staatskapelle Dresden, James Levine
Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893)
Faust
Act 3
9) No.18 "Il se fait tard" [8:45]
Pierrette Alarie, Léopold Simoneau, Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Lee Schaenen
Franz Lehár (1870 - 1948)
The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe)
Act 3
10) Duett: "Lippen schweigen" [2:24]
Boje Skovhus, Cheryl Studer, Wiener Philharmoniker, John Eliot Gardiner
Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848)
Lucia di Lammermoor
Part 1
11) "Sulla tomba che rinserra" - "Verranno a te sull'aure" [10:51]
Carlo Bergonzi, Beverly Sills, London Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Schippers
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643)
L'incoronazione di Poppea
Act 3
12) Pur ti miro (Poppea, Nerone) [4:11]
Sylvia McNair, Dana Hanchard, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Die Zauberflöte, K.620
Act 1
13) "Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen" [3:31]
Edith Mathis, Gottfried Hornik, Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949)
Der Rosenkavalier, Op.59
Act 2
14) "Mir ist die Ehre widerfahren" [6:52]
Agnes Baltsa, Janet Perry, Wiener Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924)
Tosca
Act 1
15) "Ah, quegli occhi..." - "Qual occhio al mondo può star di paro" [5:21]
Galina Vishnevskaya, Franco Bonisolli, Orchestre National De France, Mstislav Rostropovich
Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901)
Aida
Act 4
16) O terra, addio [4:41]
Katia Ricciarelli, Elena Obraztsova, Plácido Domingo, Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Romano Gandolfi, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Claudio Abbado

CD 2:

Antonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904)
1) Humoresque, Op.101, No.7 [3:30]
Jules Massenet (1842 - 1912)
Thaïs
2) Méditation [5:05]
Christian Ferras, Jean-Claude Ambrosini
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)
3) Auf Flügeln des Gesanges, Op.34, No.2 [3:09]
Mischa Maisky, Sergio Tiempo
Gabriel Fauré (1845 - 1924)
4) Après un rêve [3:21]
Mischa Maisky, Daria Hovora
Fritz Kreisler (1875 - 1962)
5) Liebesfreud [3:25]
6) Liebesleid [3:36]
Christian Ferras, Jean-Claude Ambrosini
Sergey Vasil'yevich Rachmaninov (1873 - 1943)
7) Vocalise, Op.34, No.14 [6:09]
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893)
8) None but the Lonely Heart, Op.6, No.6 (Nyet, tolko tot, kto znal) [2:46]
Mischa Maisky, Pavel Gililov
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 - 1908)
Sadko
9) Hindoo Song (Song of India) [3:29]
Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)
Kinderszenen, Op.15
10) Träumerei (arr. G. Catherine for violin and piano) [2:33]
Christian Ferras, Jean-Claude Ambrosini
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849)
11) Nocturne No.2 in E flat, Op.9 No.2 [4:07]
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921)
Le Carnaval des Animaux
12) Le Cygne [2:48]
Pierre Fournier, Lamar Crowson
Pablo de Sarasate (1844 - 1908)
13) Romanza andaluza Op.22, No.1 [4:18]
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
14) Ave Maria, "Ellens Gesang III", D839 [5:15]
Christian Ferras, Jean-Claude Ambrosini
Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)
Fantasiestücke, Op.73
15) Zart und mit Ausdruck [2:47]
Pierre Fournier, Jean Fonda
Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)
Suite Italienne (from "Pulcinella")
16) Introduzione [2:03]
17) Chanson russe [3:23]
Pierre Fournier, Ernest Lush
Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992)
Tango Suite (pour flûte et guitare)
18) Tango No.2 [5:18]
Göran Söllscher, Patrick Gallois
Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901)
Rigoletto
Act 3
19) La donna è mobile [1:53]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Don Giovanni, ossia Il dissoluto punito, K.527
Act 1
20) Deh, vieni alla finestra [1:44]
Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875)
Carmen
Act 2
21) Chanson bohème [2:18]
The Cambridge Buskers

2006 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

2 CD ADD / DDD

477 6525 GM2

You can buy it on Amazon.com
You can download here: CD One: Part 1 /Part 2 - CD Two: Part 1 / Part 2

Maria João Pires BEETHOVEN - Sonatas "Quasi una fantasia"

In spite of the high regard in which Maria João Pires holds Beethoven and his music, it has been decades since the Portuguese pianist last set foot in a studio to record his works. Although she regularly performs them in the concert hall, and even established her international reputation by winning the first prize at the Beethoven International Competition held in Brussels in 1970 to mark the bicentenary of the composer's birth, it is only now, in the special recording conditions that exist in her own cultural centre of Belgais in Portugal, that she feels the time has come to record an album of Beethoven Sonatas. The recording centres on the Moonlight Sonata, which was written almost exactly two centuries ago.

Beethoven himself referred to the "Moonlight" Sonata of 1801 simply as a Sonata "Quasi una fantasia". It appears in the present recording alongside the other Sonata so described by the composer - the contemporaneous op. 27 no. 1 - as well as the Sonata op. 109 of 1820. This programme documents Maria João Pires's interest in Beethoven's virtually unparalleled artistic development. By juxtaposing the two fantasy-sonatas of op. 27, relatively early works, with the late Sonata op. 109, she clearly demonstrates the differences between these two periods of his career.
In the already extensive catalogue of Maria João Pires on Deutsche Grammophon, this CD is the first containing works by Beethoven. (DG)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)
Piano Sonata No.13 in E flat, Op.27 No.1
1) 1. Andante - Allegro - Tempo I [4:49]
2) 2. Allegro molto e vivace [1:47]
3) 3. Adagio con espressione [3:02]
4) 4. Allegro vivace - Tempo I - Presto [5:53]
Piano Sonata No.14 in C sharp minor, Op.27 No.2 -"Moonlight"
5) 1. Adagio sostenuto [6:52]
6) 2. Allegretto [2:08]
7) 3. Presto agitato [7:39]
Piano Sonata No.30 in E major, Op.109
8) 1. Vivace, ma non troppo - Adagio espressivo - Tempo I [4:06]
9) 2. Prestissimo [2:28]
10) 3. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung (Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo) [12:14]

Maria João Pires

2001 Deutsche Grammophon, GmbH, Hamburg
1 CD DDD
453 457-2 GH

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THANKS TO OUR FRIEND FLAMEWOLF WHO KINDLY PROVIDED THIS ALBUM FROM HIS PERSONAL COLLECTION

Argerich - Kremer - Bashmet - Maisky BRAHMS /SCHUMANN

On the evening of 16 November 1861, a lady and three gentlemen met in Hamburg, the birthplace of Johannes Brahms. The purpose of their coming together was the public première of the composer's Piano Quartet in G minor. The lady in question, who played the piano part, was Clara Schumann. She was accompanied by Messrs. Böie, Breyther and Lee.

On the evening of 23 February 2002, an entirely analogous constellation appeared in the Teldex Studio in Berlin: Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Mischa Maisky met to record the above-mentioned Piano Quartet - a musical as well as an organizational challenge. A musical one, because a line-up of four world stars is in itself no guarantee of an exceptional recording - in practice, it is often the case that three members of a string quartet are joined by a pianist to conquer the piano quartet literature. An organizational one, because the pitiless engagement diary of four virtuosi in demand everywhere had to be coordinated. This feat had already been accomplished once before by Martin T:son Engstroem when he managed not only to invite the four musicians to his Verbier Festival in 2001 but also to have all four of them actually appear. That encounter of Martha Argerich with her three musketeers took place on 29 July in the Salle Médran and became a musical sensation. The artists played the First Piano Quartet by Brahms with such intensity that it was clear to everyone: this must be recorded. A date for the reunion in a recording studio was found later: February 2002 in Berlin.

And so it was that in Berlin on Saturday, 23 February the first recording session took place - exclusively devoted to musical and technological fine-tuning. By late evening everyone feels armed for the next day. The first movement is recorded within six hours on Sunday. On Monday it is the second movement's turn, with the actual recording, as usual, beginning at four in the afternoon. The string players spend the morning hours in their hotel rooms practising; Martha Argerich "warmed up" at Steinway House in Hardenberg Strasse. In the Teldex Studio each day, along with the musicians and recording team, is the piano technician Serge Poulain, who has enjoyed Martha Argerich's unreserved confidence for years. Also constantly in service is one of the pianist's daughters, Stephanie, who prowls around the studio with her video camera looking for unusual angles - and finding them.

On Tuesday a winter storm is raging over Berlin, and it prevents us from leaving the hotel on schedule. It also limits the photo session to inside shots. The third movement, Andante con moto, unleashes a variety of emotions in all participants. As the other musicians make their way after a play-through to the control room a short distance away, Gidon Kremer remains seated at his music stand."Gidon, come and listen!", says Argerich.

"I'm staying here," answers Kremer.

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't good."

Whenever there are tensions - and they occur often in a recording studio, especially when artists of this calibre are involved - Mischa Maisky begins telling jokes. Today's object is "Lenin in Poland". The players now have a go at the third movement, then another, and another, until after five hours it too is "in the can". Wednesday is reserved in its entirety for the fourth movement. Agreement is reached relatively quickly as to how much "zingarese" Brahms can take, so there's time left to play the entire quartet through once again from the top. Then the whole gang adjourns, not back to the hotel, but to an Italian restaurant where Claudio Abbado happily unwound after countless Berlin recordings and concerts. Along with the successful completion of the Brahms Quartet recording, there is another cause for celebration: Gidon Kremer's 55th birthday.

The next day Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer and Mischa Maisky come together again to record the four Fantasiestücke op.88 by Robert Schumann. Like the Brahms Quartet and the sensational Verbier appearance, this work is also linked to a pair of highly successful concerts which the three musicians gave the preceding year in Wiesbaden, Germany and Lockenhaus, Austria. The recording goes so smoothly that there is even time left to congratulate Gidon Kremer on the recent Grammy which he and his ensemble, the Kremerata Baltica, have been awarded. As far as the next Grammy in the chamber music category is concerned, one thing is certain: among the possible candidates the present CD will surely be a favourite. (DG)

Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)
Piano Quartet No.1 in G minor, Op.25
1) 1. Allegro [13:18]
2) 2. Intermezzo (Allegro ma non troppo) [7:35]
3) 3. Andante con moto [10:51]
4) 4. Rondo alla Zingarese [8:10]

Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)
Fantasiestücke, Op.88
5) 1. Romanze (Nicht schnell, mit innigem Ausdruck) [2:30]
6) 2. Humoreske (Lebhaft) [6:44]
7) 3. Duett (Langsam und mit Ausdruck) [3:55]
8) 4. Finale (Im Marsch-Tempo) [5:15]

Martha Argerich

Gidon Kremer

Yuri Bashmet

Mischa Maisky

2004 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

1 CD DDD
463 7002 GH

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Julia Fischer BACH Concertos

As a German violinist, Julia Fischer has been close to the music of Bach virtually all her life.“I played the A minor Concerto when I was five,” she recalls, “the Double Concerto too.” However, something extraordinary happened when she was eleven: she took part in the Menuhin Competition, winning not just the first prize but the award for playing solo Bach — “and I received a violin lesson in Bach playing from Yehudi Menuhin himself. He influenced me in a very special way, because of how much he loved Bach and how much the music meant to him.”
Fischer’s teacher in Munich, Ana Chumachenco, had already sowed the seed of her enslavement to Bach. “I came to study with Ana at nine, and in the very first lesson she gave me his First Sonata [for solo violin]. She is a Menuhin pupil, too.” When she was thirteen, Fischer played the Double Concerto in Munich with Lorin Maazel as the other soloist. “He is a wonderful violinist.” She acknowledges another North American influence. “I’m a huge Glenn Gould fan. When I was fifteen, it was my dream to play on the violin the way he plays on the piano. I didn’t agree with all of it but I admired the way he would look at the score as a modern person.”
Fischer has been praised for her performances of Bach’s unaccompanied violin music but she sees the concertos in another light altogether. “They are very different. You can hear very clearly that the concertos are influenced by virtuoso players of that time, Vivaldi, perhaps even Tartini. We think of Bach as very serious — the church music and so on — but for that time they are virtuoso concertos for a violinist to have fun. I emphasise that aspect. I play them faster than usual — the first movements of the A minor and E major, for instance. If you look at the Sonatas and Partitas, they don’t look at all like typical violin scores of that time — they are timeless and not necessarily written only for the violin. The violin concertos are much more typical.” (Tully Potter)

Concerto for two violins in D minor BWV 104

1) Vivace [3:28]

2) Largo ma non tanto [6:41]

3) Allegro [4:35]

Concerto for violin in A minor BWV 1041

4) Allegro moderato [3:28]

5) Andante [6:22]

6) Allegro assai [3:30]

Concerto for violin in E major BWV 1042

7) Allegro [7:15]

8) Adagio [6:39]

9) Allegro assai [2:31]

Concerto for violin and oboe in C minor BWV 1060

10) Allegro [4:57]

11) Adagio [5:33]

12) Allegro [3:34]

Julia Fischer, violin

Alexander Sitkovetsky, violin

Andrey Rubtsov, oboe

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

2009 Decca Music Group Limited

1 CD DDD

478 0650 9

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Cycle CANTO DE LA VIDA songs from the mediterranean

The present programme is both a journey through human life, with its moments of happiness, sadness and even absurdity, and a musical exploration of a vast historical and geographical area. Its aim is to present the musical traditions associated with the regions bordering on the Mediterranean as an unbroken unity and to allow listeners to feel for themselves the southern love of life. The songs performed here come from southern Italy, Sicily, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, the Arab world, Egypt, North Africa, Spain and France. They tell of first love and marriage, daily marital life, quarrels and jealousy, and birth and death, and include drinking songs, dance songs and cradle songs.

The musical traditions of the Sephardi Jews span the whole of the Mediterranean and provide the framework for Canto de la vida’s mosaic of regional cultures. The Sephardi Jews are descendants of Portuguese and Spanish Jews who suffered persecution and, ultimately, exile from their homeland. It was on 2 August 1492 that the exodus of Spanish Jews began; within a matter of months the “Catholic Monarchs” Ferdinand and Isabella had driven more than 160,000 Jews out Spain in the most humiliating conditions. Many of them tried to start a new life on the coast of North Africa, but the majority fled to areas under the rule of the Ottoman Empire: Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Greece and the Balkans. Throughout the diaspora they steadfastly maintained the customs, music and language associated with their Spanish culture, which they passed down to later generations. The characteristic traditional songs of the Sephardim have always been the romansas sung in the Judeo-Spanish language of judezmo. Songs are an essential part of Sephardi communal life, and some of them have survived for more than five centuries. (Judith Haug and Vladimir Ivanoff)

canto de la vida
songs from the mediterranean

CHILDHOOD, YOUTH & FIRST LOVE
1) Nochez, nochez [2’33]
Romansa. Traditional Sephardi (Sarajevo, Bosnia)
2) Asherico [4’44]
Romansa. Traditional Sephardi (Bosnia · Turkey)
3) Youth [1’59]
after André D. Philidor (1647–1730): Marche de timballes à 2 timballes
4) Je suis trop jeunette [1’57]
Traditional (France)
5) Fel shara [2’26]
Traditional Sephardi (Thessaloniki, Greece · Alexandria, Egypt)
THE WEDDING
6) André D. Philidor (1647–1730)
Marche de timballes à 2 timballes [2’51]
7) Sou ’pa mana [4’48]
Tsakonikos (trad. dance song, Peloponnese)
8) Skalerica de oro [2’22]
Traditional Sephardi (Balkans)
MARITAL LIFE
9) Marital Life [1’27]
after Jacques D. Philidor (1657–1708): Marche de timballes
10) A la una [2’06]
Traditional Sephardi (Spain · Bulgaria · Thessaloniki, Greece · Turkey)
11) Mi suegra [2’06]
Traditional Sephardi (Bulgaria)
12) La vida do por el raki [1’06]
Traditional Sephardi (Turkey)
A CHILD IS BORN
13) Birth [2’04]
after André D. Philidor: Marche de timballes à 2 timballes
14) Nenna nenna [2’54]
Traditional (Puglia, Italy)
15) Kanta, gayo [2’04]
Traditional Sephardi (Serbia · Thessaloniki & Rhodes, Greece · Turkey)
16)A Child [2’46]
after André D. Philidor: Marche de timballes à 2 timballes
17) Ninna nanna ri la rosa [3’02]
Traditional (Sicily)
LOST LOVE
18) Cheating and Disappointment [1’57]
after André D. Philidor: Marche de timballes à 2 timballes
19) Hajarni habibi [2’28]
Muwasha (trad. Arabic strophic song)
20) Adio kerida [2’01]
Traditional Sephardi (Balkans · Turkey)
DEATH
21) Claude Babelon: Marche de timballes pour les gardes du Roy [2’07]
(excerpt) · Bibl. mun. de Versailles, Ms. mus. 168 (1705)
22) O diosmos ki o vasilikos [2’48]
Traditional (Thessalia) ·
23) Separation (Improvisation) [1’45]
24) O Charon [7’48]
Chant of the Byzantine border guards. Traditional (Capadocia)
YOUTH AGAIN
25) Nochez, nochez [5’22]
Romansa. Traditional Sephardi (Sarajevo, Bosnia)

CYCLE:
Fadia el-Hage & Pino De Vittorio, vocal
Marie-Ange Petit, Vladimir Ivanoff & Stefan Wißmann, historical & ethnic percussion

All tracks are arrangements by Cycle
except 14 (arrangement: Pino De Vittorio) and 1, 6, 17, 19, 21, 22, 25 (original music)
Concept, programme and project direction: Vladimir Ivanoff

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Bedford TWO POEMS / Cardew THE GREAT LEARNING

Cornelius Cardew and David Bedford were two of the leading members of the avant-garde in England during the 1960s. Both men studied abroad – Cardew with Stockhausen and Cage, Bedford with Luigi Nono – and both experimented in often unusual ways in their search for new means of musical expression. Cardew’s The Great Learning Paragraph 2 (1969) was the result of one such radical experiment. Dismayed by the ivorytower mentality of contemporary composers whose music, with its increasingly complex forms of notation, was accessible to only a select band of performers and listeners, Cardew sought to rediscover the creative and immediate power of music. His Scratch Orchestra was assembled specially for The Great Learning and was made up of professionals and amateurs thrown together more or less at random, singing, playing and drumming in a semi-improvisatory manner and in that way realizing Cardew’s instructions, which were jotted down using graphic notation. No compositional caprice was intended to inhibit the performers: each of them, whether amateur or professional, was to enjoy exactly the same rights as his or her colleagues. It was not intended that there should be any overriding compositorial aim. Only when the work was actually performed was the process of creating it complete. And each performance would, of course, recreate that process and, with it, the work anew. In short, the very nature of the piece was influenced by its actual performance, thereby rendering the present recording a unique document in sound, inasmuch as it is the only recording of paragraphs 2 and 7 of The Great Learning, a work which, in total, lasts some seven hours.

A year younger than Cornelius Cardew, David Bedford was involved in many of the performances of Cardew’s works, a period that he later recalled with great fondness: “Speaking as a performer of many of Cardew’s early works, it must be said that the experience was totally rewarding. Our creativity was constantly being challenged, and the empathy of the performers, channelled into producing a coherent piece of music despite sometimes sketchy and sometimes paradoxical instructions, was often remarkable.” With his setting of two love poems by one of his favourite American poets, Kenneth Patchen (1911–72), Bedford adopted a relatively conventional but none the less innovative approach to his material, his Two Poems being not so much a classical exegesis of their texts but a musical game with key words taken from each of them.

CORNELIUS CARDEW (1936 –1981)
The Great Learning
1) Paragraph 2 (January 1969) [21’45]
2) Paragraph 7 (April 1969) [20’30]

The Scratch Orchestra
CORNELIUS CARDEW

DAVID BEDFORD (*1937)
Two Poems for Chorus on Words
of Kenneth Patchen (1966)
3) O now the drenched land wakes [4’21]
4) The great birds [8’30]

Chor des Norddeutschen Rundfunks Hamburg
North German Radio (NDR) Chorus, Hamburg
Choeurs du NDR de Hambourg
HELMUT FRANZ

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