Gustavo Dudamel - LA Philharmonic JOHN ADAMS City Noir

Gustavo Dudamel’s first appointment of his own as Music Director Designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic was to name John Adams to the new position of Creative Chair. Adams has a long and productive history with the orchestra, going back to 1981. Dedicated to Philharmonic President Deborah Borda “in celebration of a long friendship,” City Noir is the final panel in a triptych of orchestral works that “have as their theme the California experience, its landscape, and its culture,” Adams says. The other two are El Dorado (commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony) and The Dharma at Big Sur (a violin concerto commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for one of the Walt Disney Concert Hall inaugural galas in 2003).
The composer has written the following note about City Noir:

City Noir was first suggested by my reading the so-called “Dream” books by Kevin Starr, a brilliantly imagined, multi-volume cultural and social history of California. In the “Black Dahlia” chapter of his Embattled Dreams volume, Starr chronicles the tenor and milieu of the late ’40s and early ’50s as it was expressed in the sensational journalism of the era and in the dark, eerie chiaroscuro of the Hollywood films that have come to define the period sensibility for us: “...the underside of home-front and postwar Los Angeles stood revealed. Still, for all its shoddiness, the City of Angels possessed a certain sassy, savvy energy. It was, among other things, a Front Page kind of town where life was lived by many on the edge, and that made for good copy and good film noir.”
Those images and their surrounding aura whetted my appetite for an orchestral work that, while not necessarily referring to the soundtracks of those films, might nevertheless evoke a similar mood and feeling tone of the era. I was also stimulated by the notion that there indeed exists a bona fide genre of jazzinflected symphonic music, a fundamentally American orchestral style and tradition that goes as back as far as the early 1920s (although, truth to tell, it was a Frenchman, Darius Milhaud, who was the first to realize its potential with his 1923 ballet La création du monde, a year before Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue premiered in New York).

John Adams (1947 -)
City Noir
1) The City and its Double
2) The Song is for You
3) Boulevard Night


Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel


2010 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
DG Concerts


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Ragna Schirmer FELIX MENDELSSOHN Piano Concertos

In recent years, Ragna Schirmer has continued to make a name for herself as the most extraordinary pianist in Germany. This time, she turns to Schumann’s contemporary Felix Mendelssohn whose complete Works for Piano and Orchestra she now presents together with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Saarbrücken conducted by Günther Herbig.
This recording is once more a very personal testimony to her intense individual analysis of the composer and his music: Ragna Schirmer’s Mendelssohn is lively and buoyant, delighting in the act of making music. However, there are also sensitive interpretations of melancholic moments. In Günter Herbig, Schirmer has found an perienced partner with a finely developed feeling for the lightness of this music. A successful recording in all respects that will be warmly welcomed by all friends of Romanticist piano music.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
1)I. Molto allegro con fuoco
2) II. Andante
3) III. Presto
4) Capriccio brillant in B minor, Op. 22
Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40
5) I. Allegro appassionato
6) II. Adagio - Molto sostenuto
7) III. Finale: Presto scherzando
8) Serenade and Allegro giocoso, Op. 43
9) Rondo brillant in E flat major, Op. 29

2007 Berlin Classics
1 CD DDD
0017752BC

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PURCELL The food of love

When England was famously snubbed as the ‘land without music’ in the early 20th century, there was one name mentioned as our saving grace – Henry Purcell. He was, said one critic scornfully, the last great composer this country had produced in 250 years.

As tenor Paul Agnew and violist Anne-Marie Lasla write in the sleeve notes, Purcell’s music comes with a “distinctly continental twist” – today, apparently, Purcell is very popular with the French, perhaps because in him they can hear something of their own style. On this disc, we hear the continental influence not only within the music, but in the programme: Purcell’s secular songs are punctuated with instrumental works by the composer’s contemporaries, one Italian, one French and one English.
Purcell’s songs are fantastically difficult to bring off – conveying that finely balanced partnership between music and words, but also taking them on an emotional journey. Do it properly and it’s unbearably moving; do it wrong and it’s agonisingly boring. Luckily Agnew gets it just right, and the ensemble behind him is flawless. There is the right blend of restraint and subtlety, with emotional guts – try I loved Fair Celia or the heartfelt Solitude with a wonderfully well-judged solo viol.
Very rarely – even in the long text settings – do attentions wander, such is the power of Agnew’s clear diction. But one small criticism has to be the tendency to over-floridity – such as Ah! How sweet it is to love, which would benefit from more purity and less vibrato. The famous Music for a While setting is a touch slow and static, although beautifully sung.
These are minor quibbles. Generally the performances are outstanding – and the idea of breaking up the Purcell songs with instrumental solos inspired. The guitar works meanwhile – by Corbetta and de Visée and performed by Elizabeth Kenny – are among the most atmospheric on the disc. (Katie Greening, BBC Music)

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
1. If music be the food of Love [3:57]
2. Corinna is divinely fair [2:24]
3. Ah! How sweet it is to love [2:33]
4. What a sad fate is mine, a song on a Ground [3:33]
5. I see she flies me [2:13]
Francisco Corbetta (c.1615-1681)
6. Caprice de chacone (La guitarre Royalle, Dediée Au Roy De La Grande Bretagne, 1670) [3:55]
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
7. O Solitude [6:36]
8. Music for a while [4:32]
9. Ground in C pour clavecin [3:24]
10. O! Fair Cedaria [3:58]
11. Man is for the woman made [1:15]
12. Not all my torments can your pity move [2:37]
13. On the brow of Richmond Hill [1:28]
14. Pious Celinda goes to pray’rs [1:34]
15. When first I saw Aurelia’s eyes [2:21]
Christopher Simpson (1610-1669)
16. Prelude en ré (The Division-Viol, 1665) [2:17]
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
17. The Cares of Lovers [2:06]
18. The fatal hour comes on apace [3:29]
19. I loved fair Celia [1:56]
20. When her languishing eyes said ‘Love’ [1:12]
Robert de Visée (c. 1658-1725)
21. Prélude en ré mineur (Livre de guitarre, 1682) [1:17]
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
22. A Morning Hymn (Thou wakeful shepherd) [2:54]
Christopher Simpson (1610-1669)
23. Prélude en mi (The Division-Viol, 1665) [2:30]
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
24. The earth trembled [1:55]
25. Now that the sun has veil’d his light (An Evening Hymn on a Ground) [5:06]
26. If music be the food of love [2:59]

Paul Agnew, Tenor
Anne-Marie Lasla, Bass viol
Elizabeth Kenny, Theorbo - Guitar
Blandine Rannou, Harpsichord - Organ

2009 Ambroisie

1 CD DDD

AM185

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PERGOLESI Dixit Dominus - Confitebor tibi Domine - Chi non ode e chi non vede - Salve Regina in A minor

Pergolesi Year 2010 marks the birth 300 years ago of a first rank composer and singular voice. Claudio Abbado’s affinity for Pergolesi is a joy to the ear and balm to the soul. The introductory album of maestro’s Pergolesi Project, the famous Stabat Mater, was rapturously received by the press.
Characteristic are these comments in The Times: “Abbado’s commitment to period style is never in doubt . . . He has exceptional soloists: Rachel Harnisch and Sara Mingardo in the Stabat, ravishing in the harmonic suspensions of their duets; a lovely toned Julia Kleiter in the Salve; and the exemplary Giuliano Carmignola in the rarely recorded Violin Concerto, a little masterpiece, all but forgotten by the mainstream.”
For this third album of three, Abbado works once more with an excellent cast of singers including Rosa Bove, Rachel Harnisch, Julia Kleiter and Lucio Gallo.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710 - 1736)
Confitebor tibi Domine
1. Confitebor tibi Domine [2:09]
2. Confessio et magnificentia opus ejus [4:39]
3. Fidelia omnia mandata ejus [2:09]
4. Redemptionem misit populo suo [0:54]
5. Sanctum et terribila nomen ejus [3:56]
6. Gloria Patri [0:58]
7. Sicut erat in principio [2:55]
Chi non ode e chi non vede
8. Chi non ode e chi non vede [7:21]
9. Di costei parlo a cui nature e amore 0:001:00
10. Tu dovresti amor tiranno [1:23]
11. Ma dove io mi rivolgo? [0:26]
12. Miseri affetti miei [0:58]
13. Cadrò contento dal duolo oppresso [4:14]
Salve Regina in A minor
14. 1. Salve Regina [3:19]
15. 2. Ad te clamamus [2:17]
16. 3. Eia ergo [2:14]
17. 4. O clemens, o pia [3:20]
Dixit Dominus
18. 1. Dixit Dominus [3:15]
19. 2. Virgam virtutis [2:14]
20. 3. Dominare [1:02]
21. 4. Tecum principium [2:35]
22. 5. Juravit Dominus [1:46]
23. 6. Dominus a dextris tuis [4:39]
24. 7. Gloria Patri [5:05]
Orchestra Mozart
Claudio Abbado
Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera di Lugano
Rachel Harnisch

Julia Kleiter
Rosa Bove
Lucio Gallo

2010 Deutsche Grammophon, GmbH, Hamburg
ARCHIV Produktion
1 CD DDD
477 8465 4 AH

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PERGOLESI Missa S. Emidio - Salve Regina in F minor - Manca la guida al piè - Laudate pueri Dominum

In terms of overall musical interpretation, this CD neatly dovetails into the first in terms of overall sound: a cleanly executed period style, rendered luxuriously beautiful thanks to the warmth and easy fluidity of the playing. However, there’s a marked difference in the musical forces. Whilst the previous recording required only solo singers, this second requires a choir, thanks to the inclusion of two large choral works, the Missa S. Emilio and the Laudate pueri Dominum. The Swiss Radio Choir’s performance is a delight: bright yet substantial tone, clean-as-a-whistle delivery of the tricky passagework, and highly expressive reading of the musical lines and the texts. The soloists are also going for gold; the Salve Regina is sung with heartfelt yearning here by Sara Mingardo in its later version F minor for alto. Then, altogether different is the dramatic and little-heard aria, “Manca la guida al piè” from the religious opera that the 21-year-old Pergolesi wrote as a graduation piece. Veronica Cangemi’s honeyed, pure-toned performance plays on every emotional nuance, with wonderfully controlled ornamentation.
All in all, another Pergolesi disc from Abbado that feels like musical perfection. Just go listen, and enjoy. (Charlotte Gardner 2010-02-23)

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710 - 1736)
Missa S. Emidio
1. 1. Kyrie [0:45]
2. 2. Christe [2:28]
3. 3. Kyrie [0:58]
4. 4. Gloria in excelsis Deo [2:41]
5. 5. Laudamus te [2:08]
6. 6. Gratias agimus tibi [3:48]
7. 7. Domine Deus [4:12]
8. 8. Qui tollis peccata mundi [2:15]
9. 9. Qui tollis peccata mundi [4:04]
10. 10. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris [2:19]
11. 11. Quoniam tu solus sanctus [1:48]
12. 12. Cum Sancto Spiritu [2:33]
Orchestra Mozart

Claudio Abbado

Coro della Radio Svizzera

Diego Fasolis
Salve Regina in F minor
13. 1. Salve Regina [4:39]

14. 2. Ad te clamamus [4:44]
15. 3. Eia ergo [1:33]
16. 4. Et Jesum benedictum [2:18]
17. 5. O clemens, o pia [2:05]
Sara Mingardo

Orchestra Mozart

Claudio Abbado

Manca la guida al piè
18. È dover che le luci [2:09]
19. Manca la guida al piè [6:31]
Verónica Cangemi

Orchestra Mozart

Claudio Abbado

Laudate pueri Dominum
20. 1. Laudate pueri [3:05]
21. 2. A solis ortu [3:38]
22. 3. Excelsus super omnes [2:06]
23. 4. Quis sicut Dominus [2:05]
24. 5. Suscitans a terra [2:29]
25. 6. Gloria patri [2:53]
26. 7. Sicut erat in principio [2:15]
Rachel Harnisch

Orchestra Mozart

Claudio Abbado

Coro della Radio Svizzera

Diego Fasolis

2010 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg
ARCHIV Produktion
1 CD DDD
477 8463 0 AH

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PERGOLESI Stabat Mater - Violin Concerto - Salve Regina in C minor

The Stabat Mater has a long history of musical settings stretching from Josquin Desprez in the 15th century to such 20th-century moderns as Francis Poulenc and Krzysztof Penderecki. But Pergolesi's setting has always enjoyed a very special status within this tradition. True, the work contains a handful of passages such as the “Fac, ut ardeat cor meum" and the final “Amen" in which Pergolesi falls back on traditional contrapuntal procedures. Far more important, however, is his decision to include novel means of expression derived above all from the world of opera. Equally striking is the composer's rejection of the musical language of the Baroque, with its predilection for the doctrine of the affections. Instead, simplicity and transparency set the tone, a wilful reduction of the musical and rhetorical resources which - arguably for the first time in the history of sacred music - are placed entirely in the service of a wholly personal experience of religion.
This new approach is clear from the very opening bars of Pergolesi's setting, with the anguished dissonance of their intervals of a second. One high point of the work as a whole is undoubtedly the duet, “Sancta mater", in which operatic emotion is placed in the service of religious inwardness. It is no wonder, then, that the work was as reviled as it was revered. Above all, Padre Giambattista Martini, one of the most influential writers on music at this period, condemned the often theatrical, secular character of the piece, whereas its many admirers saw in it the realization of a new ideal in church music, adumbrating the Age of Sensibility and pointing the way forward with its melodic expressive intensity to the precursors of Classicism.
By 1752, when an Italian opera company performed his intermezzo La serva padrona at the Académie Royale in Paris, Pergolesi had become a fashionable composer. In the “Querelle des Bouffons", which revolved around the question of the priority of the new Italian opera buffa over the traditional French tragédie lyrique, representatives of the Enlightenment under Jean-Jacques Rousseau championed Pergolesi, with the result that from then on his name was associated with the party of musical progress. In turn this meant that the number of works falsely attributed to Pergolesi eventually outgrew that of his authentic compositions. In the case of the Violin Concerto in B flat major, however, Pergolesi's authorship is beyond doubt, and the three-movement work unequivocally reveals its composer's individual imprint. In the opening movement, above all, the orchestra is far more than a mere accompanist even in the concertante passages and does more than simply cue in the soloist's eloquent virtuosity. In the slow movement, with its gently rocking siciliana rhythm, the orchestral introduction even provides the melodic material for the soloist's cantabile line, and in the final movement the orchestra's sharply dotted rhythms ensure the characteristic note of asperity, around which the violin weaves its often virtuoso lines.
Of all the settings of the Salve Regina that have been attributed to Pergolesi, only four are undoubtedly his. The present version is scored for a soprano soloist and is in C minor (there is also a version for alto in F minor) and is without question the most famous of the four. It is also one of Pergolesi's last works, dating from 1735. Its closeness to the Stabat Mater is clear above all from the opening “Salve Regina", with its anguished intervals of a falling second. A pounding bass rhythm underscores the work's emotionally charged expressivity, while the impulsive motion of the orchestral accompaniment in the “Ad te clamamus" adds a further degree of emotional excitement. Particularly admirable is the unified mood, which follows the text very closely as it veers between elegiac sadness and agitated seriousness, right up to the final calando close, in which the music dies away, having attained a state of ultimate peace. (Werner Pfister)

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710 - 1736)
Stabat Mater
1. 1. Stabat Mater [4:14]
2. 2. Cujus animam [2:21]
3. 3. O quam tristis [2:15]
4. 4. Quae moerabat [2:10]
5. 5. Quis est homo [2:31]
6. 6. Vidit suum [3:35]
7. 7. Eia Mater [2:15]
8. 8. Fac ut ardeat [2:20]
9. 9. Sancta Mater [5:32]
10. 10. Fac ut portem [3:52]
11. 11. Inflammatus [2:12]
12. 12. Quando corpus - Amen [5:00]
Rachel Harnisch

Sara Mingardo

Orchestra Mozart

Claudio Abbado

Concerto for Violin in B Flat Major
13. Allegro [5:11]
14. Largo [3:37]
15. Allegro [3:41]
Giuliano Carmignola

Orchestra Mozart

Claudio Abbado

Salve Regina in C Minor
16. 1. Salve, Regina [3:58]
17. 2. Ad te clamamus [3:55]
18. 3. Eia ergo [1:31]
19. 4. Et Jesum benedictum [2:17]
20. 5. O clemens, o pia [2:17]
Julia Kleiter

Orchestra Mozart

Claudio Abbado

2009 Deutsche Grammphon GmbH, Hamburg

ARCHIV Produktion

1 CD DDD

477 8077 9AH

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