Fischer - Helmchen SCHUBERT Works for violin and Piano Vol. 2

The first disc of this extremely gifted pair playing Schubert’s works for violin and piano was an utter delight, despite this music being a comparatively unimportant part of the composer’s output.
This second disc is even more appealing, in fact irresistible, but in considerable part because the third item on it is one of Schubert’s supreme masterpieces, the Fantasy in F minor for piano duet. Here Julia Fisher joins Martin Helmchen at the piano (presumably the lower part).
They give a magnificent account of this inspired work, which begins with one of Schubert’s most poignant melodies, which, characteristically for him, becomes still more heartbreaking when it moves into the major. It’s a challenging piece, as one can hear even for Richter and Britten, yet Fischer and Helmchen present as fine as any account on disc.
The first item is Schubert’s last sonata for violin and piano, written when he was 21, delightful but lightweight. But the central item, the Fantasy in C major, from 1826, is a lovely work, opening portentously, but with its central feature a series of variations on the lovely song ‘Sei mir gegrüsst’, which returns at the very end.
This is still not great music, but the dedication and affection that the players bring to it, without overwhelming it, almost makes it that. They are a marvellous team, evidently giving one another ideas as they go along. I hope they now set about recording Mozart and Beethoven, in their incomparably rich contributions to this repertoire. (Michael Tanner)

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)

Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major "Duo", D. 574 (Op. posth. 162)

1) Allegro moderato [8:52)

2) Scherzo (Presto) [4:08]

3) Andantino[4:28)

4) Allegro vivace [4:57]

Fantasia for Violin and Piano in C major, D. 94 (Op. posth. 159)

5) Andante molto [3:22]

6) Allegretto [5:36]

7) Andantino [10:21]

8) Tempo primo-Allegro-Allegretto_Presto [5:52]

Fantasia in F minor for Piano Duet, D. 940 (Op. 103)

9) Allegro molto moderato [4:55]

10) Largo [2:48]

11) Allegro vivace [5:41]
12) Tempo I [5:39]

Julia Fischer, violin / piano (D. 940)

Martin Helmchen, piano

2010 PentaTone Music

PTC 5186348

1 CD DDD

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Hilary Hahn plays HIGDON & TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concertos

Pulitzer-prize winner Jennifer Higdon (b. Brooklyn, NY, December 31, 1962) started late in music, teaching herself to play flute at the age of 15 and then beginning formal musical studies at 18, with an even later start in composition at the age of 21. Despite this late start, Higdon has become a major figure in contemporary classical music and makes her living from commissions, completing between 5-10 pieces a year. These works represent a range of genres, from orchestral to chamber and from choral and vocal to wind ensemble. Hailed by the Washington Post as "a savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit," the League of American Orchestras reports that she is one of America's most frequently performed composers.
Higdon received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, with the committee citing Higdon's work as a "deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity."

"...the concerto is full of the lyricism and heroism that's an essential part of the genre... The concerto's themes run the gauntlet through tight, seesawing orchestral harmonies that continue to emerge, from piece to piece, as an increasingly characteristic aspect of Higdon's compositional voice. Few big-scale concertos have so much interplay between violin soloist and the orchestra's concertmaster..." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

"The violin concerto made a case for itself eloquently, from the moment the first movement opened with high unaccompanied notes from Hahn that evoked an old music box, soon augmented by the silvery shards of a glockenspiel... Higdon is a terrific composer; and this piece... shows her ability to tailor music to a particular soloist. Hahn played with a clean radiance that lit up the music, but Higdon wrote pretty great music for her to illuminate." (The Washington Post)

. . . Hilary Hahn isn't anything like most violinists. She may still look like a teenager, but she has matured from a phenomenon into a thoughtful musician -- always curious, always willing to take a risk. (Tom Huizenga, NPR)

Jennifer Higdon (*1962)
Violin Concerto - Dedicated to Hilary Hahn
1) 1. 726 [14:23]
2) 2. Chaconni [12:18]
3) 3. Fly Forward [5:18]
(World premiere recording)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
Violin Concerto in D major op. 35
4) 1. Allegro moderato [19:23]
5) 2. Canzonetta. Andante [6:23]
6) 3. Finale. Allegro vivacissimo [10:31]

Hilary Hahn, violin
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko

2010 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
1 CD DDD
477 8777 8 GH

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Elīna Garanča HABANERA

Elîna Garanča’s supple, seductive mezzo is aflame with the neon hues and rhythmic dash of Romany in excerpts from beguiling Gypsy roles in opera and operetta. Stand alone numbers add to the panache of Habanera.
With gorgeous pieces eliciting every gift Elîna Garanca boasts as a musician, Habanera's instrumental accompaniments – whether RAI’s full orchestra, small ensemble or guitar – add to the sultry atmosphere.
Conductor Karel Mark Chichon contributes taut yet elastic leadership that enhances the charm and variety of Elîna Garanca’s selections.
On this album, the ‘dialects’ derived from Gypsy musical language include Bizet’s Carmen, Chueca’s Tango de la Ermenegilda, Bernstein’s Candide, Lehar’s Hör ich Zymbalklänge and unknown gems like Obradors’ El vito (see the exceptional music video) making for a musically enlightening and delightful program.
Every generation has its “must see” Carmen. In 2010, the list of definitive gypsy seductresses – glittering with names like Baltsa, Bumbry, Calvé, Farrar, and Stevens – is enriched by the addition of Elīna Garanča.
After her triumphant success as Carmen in Riga, London, and Munich, Elīna Garanča, “the Carmen of our day” (News, Austria), has taken the NY Metropolitan Opera by storm in January 2010.
The Wiener Zeitung said it all when it observed of Garanča’s Carmen that “the role and the singer are perfectly matched”.

Garanča's voice has been described as "creamy", "silken" and "lustrous" (her chest register is superbly produced) but it also has a surprisingly rounded maturity. What sets her apart, however, is the unteachable ability to send shivers down the spine and make grown men salivate.” (Gramophone, October 2010 )

Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (1823 - 1894)
El barberillo de Lavapiés
1) Canción de Paloma [3:02]
Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875)
Carmen
2) Séguedille et Duo: "Près des remparts de Séville" [4:41]
Franz Lehár (1870 - 1948)
Zigeunerliebe (Gipsy Love)
3) Hör' ich Zymbalklänge [4:34]
Michael Balfe (1808 - 1870)
The Bohemian Girl
4) I dreamt I dwelt in Marble Halls [4:55]
Xavier Montsalvatge (1912 - 2002)
Cinco Canciones Negras
5) 4. Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito [2:53]
Manuel de Falla (1876 - 1946)
El amor brujo
6) Canción del amor dolido [1:30]
Siete canciones populares españolas
7) 5. Nana [1:37]
Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)
8) Vocalise en Forme de Habanera [3:24]
Ruperto Chapi y Lorente (1851 - 1909)
El Barquillero
9) Romanza de Socorro "Cunado está tan honda" [6:08]
Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990)
Candide
10) I Am Easily Assimilated (Old Lady's Tango) [4:00]
José Maria Gallardo del Rey (1958 - )
11) Canción del amor [3:46]
Manuel de Falla (1876 - 1946)
Siete canciones populares españolas
12) 4. Jota [3:00]
Pablo Luna (1880 - 1942)
El Niño Judìo
13) "De España vengo" [6:25]
Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875)
Carmen
14) Chanson: "Les tringles des sistres tintaient" [4:46]
Fernando Obradors (1897 - 1945)
Canciones clásicas españolas
15) El vito [3:21]
José Serrano (1873 - 1941)
La alegria del batallon
16) Cancion de la gitana [1:48]
Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875)
Carmen
17) "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Havanaise) [4:43]
18) "L'amour est un enfant Bohème" (Havanaise 1st version) [3:49]

Elina Garanca
Karel Mark Chichon
Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai
Coro Filarmonico del Regio di Torino

2010 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
1 CD DDD
477 8776 1 GH

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Anne-Sophie Mutter GLAZUNOV - PROKOFIEV - SHCHEDRIN

The collaboration of Anne-Sophie Mutter, always a keenly disciplined player from her girlhood onwards, and the inspirational Rostropovich produces some magical results, for the conductor inspires his soloist to play with rare warmth and the widest dynamic and expressive range. As I said in my original review when these 1988 recordings first appeared (3/89), Mutter is more volatile and more freely expressive than she has usually been on disc, sounding totally spontaneous, and in the Glazunov that is particularly impressive. My only complaint is that Erato provide only a single track for the whole 20-minute work, when the linked sections are very clearly demarcated.
The Prokofiev, too, receives a warmly sympathetic reading, with the great melodies of the outer movements tenderly expressive and the central Scherzo delightfully witty. Stihira, the third work on the disc, as on the original issue, is for orchestra alone, with Shchedrin celebrating the millennium of the introduction of Christianity into Russia with a measured passacaglia-like piece based on Russian Orthodox chant, which builds up to a central climax of Mussorgskian splendour. The only danger, as I said in my original review, is that with its repetitions it comes perilously close to an ecclesiastical version of Ravel's Bolero. The recording, made in the Kennedy Center, Washington, is more airy and spacious than many from this venue, with the soloist forwardly balanced. (Gramophone)

Alexander Glazunov (1865 - 1936)
Violin Concerto in a minor, Op. 82
1) Moderato - Andante - Allegro [20:00]
Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953)
Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19
2) I - Andantino - Andante assai [9:12]
3) II - Scherzo - Vivacissimo [3:46]
4) III - Moderato [8:23]
Rodion Shcherdin (born 1932)
Stihira
5)Hymn for the Millenary of the Christianisation [22:14]

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin
National Symphony Orchestra
Mstislav Rostropovich

1989 Erato
1 CD DDD
17722 2

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Hélène Grimaud BACH (reuploaded)

For Tolstoy, love meant preferring others to oneself. That notion also sheds light on Bach, another of those who, in the deepest sense, entrusted their heart to love. He loved so fully, with all his being, in the most carnal, indeed incarnate way, that his self-effacement has caused us forever to perceive in that something resembling a revelation of life, something that explains his universality: it is as though Bach’s music were the awareness of music itself, its assurance and its promise. Perhaps no one –Shakespeare excepted – was comparably able to transform every atom in the universe, every particle of the world into such profound yet also intimate emotion. Bach is the composer who unites, in their truest sense, the plenary tenderness of prayer with the solitary echo of the divine. He grasps space and makes it an infinite curve; he takes time and makes it a possibility of the future; he seizes a dance and it becomes a betrothal to celebrate. For those of us who see so dimly, he restores a vision: the belief that with Bach there is no limit, that he enjoins us to rediscover that to the full, in this practice of love that has an obligation to the living to expand their lives, to restore love to the epicenter of their hearts.
There is no longer any dispute over the urgency of our situation today. But one would be mistaken in regarding Bach as no more than a man of his time bearing witness to ours – because Bach is always in the process of becoming. Even in his own lifetime, he eluded his contemporaries who saw in him a relic of the past, not a prophet for all times and all people. What could then be more natural than to find him at the source of Liszt, Busoni or Rachmaninov? Bach was such an island in the middle of the river, free and unwavering in the midst of the currents and counter-currents, fed from the shore of the source and carried to the shore of hope. Between these two markers is a symbolic path which is the signature of all existence. Bach was not at all torn: he knew how to build bridges. He is always showing us, in a flash of transparent clarity, how to reconcile the pain in our days with the burst of light. (Hélène Grimaud)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)

Das Wohltemperierte Klavier: Book 1, BWV 846-869

1. Prelude in C minor BWV 847

2. Fugue in C minor BWV 847

3. Prelude in C sharp minor BWV 849

4. Fugue in C sharp minor BWV 849

Concerto for Harpsichord, Strings, and Continuo No.1 in D minor, BWV 1052

5. I. Allegro

6. II. Adagio

7. III. Allegro

Das Wohltemperierte Klavier: Book 2, BWV 870-893

8. Prelude in D minor BWV 875

9. Fugue in D minor BWV 875

Partita for Violin Solo No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004

10. Chaconne in D minor

Das Wohltemperierte Klavier: Book 2, BWV 870-89

11. Prelude in A minor BWV 889

12. Fugue in A minor BWV 889Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

13. Prelude and Fugue (transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt)

Das Wohltemperierte Klavier: Book 2, BWV 870-893

14. Prelude in E major BWV 878

15. Fugue in E major BWV 878

Partita for Violin Solo No.3 in E, BWV 1006 (arr. for piano by Rachmaninov)

16. I. Preludio

2008 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

1 CD DDD

477 7978 GH

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Emerson String Quartet OLD WORLD - NEW WORLD

Antonín Dvořák composed string quartets throughout his career. As a trained violinist who earned his living for some years playing the viola in Prague orchestras, and as an occasional participant in quartet parties, he wrote for the medium with great understanding of its potential range of colors and textures. (Players will tell you, though, that once he got involved in a work, considerations of ease of fingering soon went out of the window.) His early quartets were experimental essays, in which he gradually worked out how to curb his enthusiasm for relentless key changes and exhaustive development and to create effective, if not always conventional, formal structures. The later quartets were written for publishers to sell to the domestic chamber-music market, but also for the specialist professional ensembles which in the later 19th century were beginning to establish the string quartet in public concerts.
More generally, the choice of the quartet medium shows Dvořák's eagerness to align himself, in at least part of his output, with the tradition of abstract composition stemming from Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, rather than with the operatic and programmatic “new music" of Liszt and Wagner. It is significant that he dedicated a quartet, No. 9 in D minor, op. 34 (B.75 = no.75 in Jarmil Burghauser's chronological catalogue of Dvořák's music), to the leading figure of the conservative school, his friend and mentor Brahms. But at the same time his adherence to the Classical tradition was colored to varying degrees by the Slavonic elements which he knew enhanced the appeal of his music outside the Czech lands, and which were in any case ingrained in his musical language. (Anthony Burton)

CD 1:
Antonín Dvorák (1841 - 1904)
String Quartet No.10 in E flat major, Op.51 - B.92
1) 1. Allegro ma non troppo [11:06]
2) 2. Dumka. Andante con moto [7:29]
3) 3. Romanze. Andante con moto [6:20]
4) 4. Finale. Allegro assai [7:08]
String Quartet No.11 in C major, Op.61 - B.121
5) 1. Allegro [14:46]
6) 2. Poco adagio e molto cantabile [7:59]
7) 3. Scherzo: Allegro vivo [8:23]
8) 4. Finale: Vivace [7:58]

CD 2:
String Quintet in e flat, Op.97
1) 1. Allegro non tanto [9:13]
2) 2. Allegro vivo [5:45]
3) 3. Larghetto [9:23]
4) 4. Finale (Allegro giusto) [8:16]
Cypresses B.152
5) 1. Moderato [3:58]
6) 2. Allegro ma non troppo [2:14]
7) 3. Andante con moto [2:18]
8) 4. Poco Adagio [4:27]
9) 5. Andante [2:56]
10) 6. Andante moderato [2:20]
11) 7. Andante con moto [1:54]
12) 8. Lento [2:59]
13) 9. Moderato [2:36]
14) 10. Andante maestoso [1:51]
15) 11. Allegro scherzando [2:24]
16) 12. Allegro animato [2:44]

CD 3:
String Quartet No.13 in G major, Op.106 - B.192
1) 1. Allegro moderato [9:50]
2) 2. Adagio ma non troppo [10:12]
3) 3. Molto Vivace [6:38]
4) 4. Andante sostenuto: Allegro con fuoco [10:26]
String Quartet No.14 in A flat major, Op.105, B.193
5) 1. Adagio ma non troppo [7:47]
6) 2. Molto vivace [6:48]
7) 3. Lento e molto cantabile [7:32]
8) 4. Allegro non tanto [9:40]


Emerson String Quartet


2010 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
3 Compact Discs DDD
477 8765 5 GH3


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Kateryna Titova RACHMANINOV

Kateryna Titova was born in Enakievo in the Ukraine in 1983 and took her first piano lessons at the age of five. From 1994 to 1999 she was a student at the Central Special School for Charkov, after which she enrolled at the special school of Moscow's Tchaikovsky Conservatoire. Among her early awards were first prize in the Ukrainian Prokofiev Competition in 1993 and both the first prize and the special prize of the American Liszt Association at the Czech piano competition Virtuosi per Musica di Pianoforte.
Kateryna Titova gave her concert début in 1997 with Mozart's Piano concerto no. 21 in C major, K.467, in the Charkov Philharmonic Hall. Only a year later, she played the Piano concerto no. 2 in G minor, op. 22, by Saint-Saëns together with the Charkov Philharmonic, the Charkov Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2001 Kateryna Titova came to Germany, where she studied until 2003 at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, and then till 2007 at Dresden's Carl Maria von Weber Hochschule für Musik. In this period she won many first and second prizes in international competitions, e.g. in the 2nd International Piano Competition for Young Musicians in Enschede, the 3rd Concurso Internacional de Piano "Compositores de Espana" (C.I.P.C.E.) in Madrid, the 8th International "Alicia de Larrocha" Piano Competition in Andorra, the 6th Annual International Russian Music Piano Competition in San José (California) and the International Anton G. Rubinstein Competition in Dresden. She was also awarded a variety of scholarships and grants, e.g. by the Dorian Foundation, the culture society Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Westfälischen Kulturarbeit (GWK) and the Oskar & Vera Ritter Foundation. She is currently being sponsored by the Lutz-E. Adolf Foundation for the Especially Gifted.
Kateryna Titova has learned a lot from working together with Igor Blagodatov, a pupil of Jacob Milstein, who himself is one of the doyens of the Russian piano school.
As both a soloist and a member of chamber formations, Kateryna Titova has given concerts in the Ukraine, Russia, Western Europe and the USA, playing with ensembles such as the Nederlands Symphony Orchestra and the Wiener Kammerorchester (Vienna Chamber Orchestra). She has appeared at international festivals such as the International Music Festival in Viana do Castello (Portugal) and at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival.
Kateryna Titova has become a first prize winner of San Nicola di Bari and Citta di Sulmona Piano competitions in Italy and of RNCM James Mottram International Piano Competition Manchester, UK. She has recently finished her studies with Norma Fisher in Manchester. Kateryna Titova is living in Berlin.

Sergej Rachmaninov (1873 - 1943)
Sonata No. 2 B-flat minor op. 36
1) Allegro agitato
2) Non allegro. Lento
3) L’istesso tempo. Allegro molto
Préludes op. 32
4) No. 12 – Allegro, G Sharp Minor
Préludes op. 23
5) No. 4 – Andante cantabile, D-Major
Préludes op. 23
6) No. 5 – Alla marcia, G-Minor
Morceaux de fantaisie op. 3
7) No. 2 – Prélude, C Sharp Minor
Morceaux de fantaisie op. 3
8) No. 1 – Élégie, E Flat Minor
Moments musicaux op. 16
9) No. 4 – Presto, E-Minor
Études-tableaux op.33
10) No. 7 – Allegro con fuoco, E Flat Minor
11) Polka de W. R.
12) Hummelflug (Flight Of The Bumble Bee)
(Rimsky-Korsakov, edited. Sergej Rachmaninov)

2008 Sony BMG Music Entertainment / Sony Classical
1 CD DDD

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Il Giardino Armonico IL PIANTO DI MARIA - THE VIRGIN'S LAMENT

Il Giardino Armonico, under their director Giovanni Antonini, are joined by celebrated mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink, for a project exploring the Passion of Christ as seen through the eyes of the Virgin Mary with a recording featuring rare recordings of two settings of Mary's passionate Easter lament.
The two central works are both vocal settings of the Virgin's lament. The first, Il Pianto di Maria, was long thought to be by Handel - a clear reflection of its outstanding musical quality. It was not until the 1990s that handwriting experts established it as the work of the little-known Venetian composer Giovanni Ferrandini.
The other key vocal work will be the World Premiere recording of an aria by Francesco Conti - composer to the Habsburg court of Vienna - in which the martyr Lorenzo, threatened with being burnt alive, refuses to deny his Christian faith. This deeply touching aria features a rarely heard ancestor of the modern clarinet, frequently used in 'pathetic' arias of the period - the soprano chalumeau.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Sonata "Al Santo Sepolcro" (for strings) RV130
1) Largo Molto [2:34]
2) Allegro Ma Poco Andante [2:15]
Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (1710 ca-1791)
"Il Pianto di Maria"
[wrongly attributed to G.F.Handel (HWV 234)]
3) Recitativo: Giunta L'ora Fatal [1:33]
4) Cavatina: Se D'un Dio Fui Fatta Madre [3:01]
5) Recitativo: Ah Me Infelice! [1:54]
6) Cavatina Da Capo: Se D'un Dio Fui Fatta Madre [3:03]
7) Recitativo: Ahimè Ch'Egli Già Esclama Ad Alta Voce [1:11]
8) Aria: Sventurati Miei Sospiri [5:26]
9) Recitativo: Sì Disse La Gran Madre [1:55]
10) Aria: Pari All'amor Immenso [6:29]
11) Recitativo: Or Se Per Grande Orror Tremo La Terra [0:55]
Biagio Marini (1587-1665)
12) Passacalio (for strings and continuo) [3:48]
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
13) Pianto della Madonna sopra il Lamento d'Arianna [7:16]
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Concerto "Madrigalesco" in D minor (for strings) RV129
14) Adagio [1:07]
15) Allegro [1:38]
16)Adagio [1:09]
17) Allegro [0:55]
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Sinfonia "Al Santo Sepolcro" in B minor (for strings) RV169
18) Adagio Molto [2:42]
19) Allegro Ma Poco [1:49]
Francesco Conti (1681-1732)
20) "Sento già mancar la vita", aria from "Il Martirio di S. Lorenzo"
(for mezzo soprano, chalumeau and strings) [5:59]
Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755)
Sonata in C minor (for strings and continuo)
21) Largo [1:53]
22) Allegro [2:16]

2009 Decca Music Group Limited

1 CD DDD

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