The Kreisler Preghiera turns up again in Rachmaninoff Complete Works & Transcriptions for Violin & Piano, a simply stunning CD from the American violinist Annelle K. Gregory and the Russian pianist Alexander Sinchuk (Bridge 9481).

From the opening bars of the Romance in A Minor, a very early student work when the composer was scarcely into his teens, it’s clear that this is going to be a very special album. Gregory has a quite gorgeous tone, is absolutely secure technically and plays with power, richness and assurance. Sinchuk matches her every step of the way.

And what music this is to display such deeply glowing and emotional playing! Given that 17 of the 20 tracks are arrangements or transcriptions it feels like Rachmaninoff’s Greatest Bits at times, but with performances like these, who cares? Rachmaninoff wrote only three pieces for violin and piano – the opening unpublished track, which remained unknown until 1951, and the Deux Morceaux de Salon Op.6; of the transcriptions here from other sources six are by Jascha Heifetz and five are by Fritz Kreisler.

The Preghiera is perhaps a bit more rhapsodic than Kremer’s version, the latter’s feeling more like the prayer suggested by the title, but both are simply beautiful interpretations. There’s a lovely Vocalise in an arrangement by the early-20th-century Russian-American violinist Mikhail Press, whose students included the legendary Dorothy DeLay, and Kreisler’s transcription of the 18th Variation from the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini brings a dazzling CD to an end.

There is more superb string playing on Divertimenti, the new CD from the Miller-Porfiris Duo (millerporfirisduo.org) of violinist Anton Miller and violist Rita Porfiris featuring duos by Robert Fuchs, Ernst Toch and Bohuslav Martinů. The players, who met at Juilliard over 20 years ago, have been playing together since 2005, and you would have to go a long way to hear better duet playing than this.

Fuchs died in 1927, and consequently did not experience the growing Nazi influence in Austria in the 1930s. His students included Erich Korngold and Alexander Zemlinsky (both of whom fled Nazi Europe for the United States) and Gustav Mahler. His 12 Duette Op.60 date from 1898, when Fuchs was on the faculty of the Vienna Conservatory, and are beautifully crafted short pieces redolent of Vienna in the years before the Great War.

Toch was born in Vienna and entered Fuchs’ composition classes at the Conservatory in 1900 at the age of 12. He emigrated to the United States in 1934, settling in Los Angeles and writing numerous film scores. His Divertimento Op.37 No.2 for Violin and Viola is a short (under ten minutes) three-movement work with a brilliant Vivace molto that packs a real punch. Porfiris quite rightly notes the work’s “expressive dissonance and frenetic energy.”

Martinů also emigrated to the United States, in his case in 1941 after being blacklisted by the Nazis in France. He was successful in America, but never really felt happy or settled, finally returning to Europe in 1956. His Duo No.2 for Violin and Viola H.331 was written in 1950, and is a bright, melodic three-movement work with decided Czech rhythms.

Miller and Porfiris are in great form throughout the CD, both playing with a warm, rich tone and with a clarity, spirit and brightness that serves these delightful works perfectly.

The husband and wife team of violist Yuri Gandelsman and pianist Janna Gandelsman are the performers on Russian Giants, a CD of works by Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mieczysław Weinberg and Igor Stravinsky (Blue Griffin BGR 413).

Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet is a selection of six short pieces from the composer’s Ten Pieces from “Romeo and Juliet” Op.75 for solo piano, which was extracted from the ballet score between its composition in 1935 and its premiere in 1938; the transcriptions for viola and piano were made by Prokofiev’s contemporary Vadim Borisovsky, the founding violist of the famed Beethoven Quartet.

Shostakovich’s Sonata for Viola and Piano Op.147 was the last work the composer completed, mostly written in his hospital bed as he lay dying of lung cancer in the summer of 1975. Replete with references to the composer’s own works as well as to those of other composers, the music belies Shostakovich’s weakened physical condition, its harmonic ambiguity finally resolving with a quiet C-Major ending that the composer called “radiance.”

Weinberg was a close friend of Shostakovich and much influenced by him; indeed, his 1945 Sonata for Clarinet and Piano Op.28, heard here in its official viola version, makes specific references to the latter’s music in the opening movement. Weinberg’s Jewish heritage is clearly felt in the middle movement.

Stravinsky’s brief Elegy for Solo Viola was written in 1944 on a commission from the Pro Arte Quartet violist Germain Prévost in memory of the group’s founding first violinist Alphonse Onnou, who had died earlier that year.

There is fine playing throughout the CD from both players, although the tone of Gandelsman’s1748 Paolo Testore viola doesn’t seem to have quite the dynamic range that it did on his 2012 Hindemith CD. Balance and recorded sound are excellent.

Lagniappe! (the Louisiana Cajun French word for a bonus gift or something extra) is the seventh volume in the series of Offenbach Cello Duets from Human Metronome (humanmetronome.com), this one featuring the Duets Op.19 Nos.1-3 and Op.20 Nos.1-3 in performances by Paul Christopher and his student Milovan Paz (HMP 107-2016).

Offenbach was a virtuoso cellist who earned his living as a performer before establishing himself as a composer. He produced three sets of cello duets, usually of increasing technical difficulty: Op.19-21 and 34 (École de Violoncelle); Op.49-54 (Cours méthodique); and Op.78. The complete Op.49-54 was covered in five of the first six CDs – the final volume was reviewed in this column last September – with Op.21 being included on a separate volume. Christopher notes that they haven’t yet found all of the music for Op.34, so there may well be an eighth CD in the future. I can’t find any mention of a recording of Op.78 anywhere.

Don’t be misled or discouraged by the use of titles like School and Method: these works may have had pedagogical intent behind their composition, but they are full of the melodic invention and beauty that made Offenbach’s operettas such a success, and can – and should – stand alone as concert recital pieces.

Christopher and Paz play as superbly and have as much fun as they did on the previous volume, where Christopher said that he felt the duets “transcend their original purpose and are the high water mark for the cello duets genre.” Everything here continues to support that view.

This whole series adds up to a pure delight for cellists of all ages and abilities.

Thomas Hell has tackled a work with a stormy critical past, in his new recording Ives Concord Sonata (Piano Classics PCL 0112). Subtitled Concord, Mass. 1840-1860, Ives wanted to reflect the changing tide of American literary and philosophical thought in the mid-19th century. Each of the four movements carries the name of a significant figure of the period: Emerson, Hawthorne, The Alcotts, Thoreau. The work is quite large requiring nearly 50 minutes to perform.

Hell provides some useful thoughts on his approach to this piece. Given Elliott Carter’s early criticism of its lack of form, Hell describes the sonata’s components and how its disparate elements actually hold it together. This intellectual commitment to the work is what sustains Hell’s performance through the daunting challenge of the first two movements. The technical demands are considerable. Hell even claims a few of the pages could be the most difficult in all the piano literature.

Ives enjoyed making musical references in this sonata, alluding to material from Beethoven to Stephen Foster along with a little ragtime. It’s a rich work and a challenge to deliver. Hell has a very solid understanding of what Ives is doing, and the benefit of having spent a good deal of time considering it. His real task, however, is to make much of it accessible to the listener at first hearing. On that count he exceeds expectations. Hell plays with dexterity, intention and focus. His grasp of the material is obvious and his ability to convey it is compelling.

Andrew Tyson takes on an enormous task in his latest disc, Ravel, Scriabin – Miroirs, (Alpha Classics Alpha 277). His objective is to give voice to composers wandering through the universe of free-flowing impressionism in search of transcendence over their instrument and its musical forms.

Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No.3 is the first challenge with its daunting stream of keyboard consciousness. The writing is replete with countless inner voices and Tyson masterfully brings them each to the surface for their brief appearance. It’s an amazing technique and quite magical in its effect. Tyson is never completely bound by any rhythmic strictures. He’s clearly at ease with the ebb and flow of Scriabin’s language, even in the second and fourth movements, where stronger tempos dominate.

Ravel’s Miroirs calls for more containment and Tyson senses this innately. His restraint is subtle yet his playing as seductive as ever. His command of colour is remarkable. The Bechstein used in the recording surrenders harp-like glissandos throughout his playing of Noctuelles. La vallée des cloches, similarly, is exquisite for its distant, mellow echoes and brighter tolls.

Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No.10 Op.70 concludes the disc’s program. It’s Scriabin’s final published work in the form. Tyson recaptures the mysticism of the earlier work on the recording and takes it even further. His execution is fluid and unbroken. His playing is passionate and ethereal. He’s a truly gifted artist with an extraordinary bond to this repertoire.

Beth Levin has a distinctive and unmistakable presence at the keyboard. Her newest recording, Bright Circle – Schubert, Brahms, Del Tredici (Navona Records NV 6074) demonstrates how her nearly pedal-less playing can open new perspectives on standard repertoire. Her performance of Schubert’s Piano Sonata No.20 D959 is a good example of how a drier sound benefits the musical material by reducing sustained background harmonies. The resulting clarity emphasizes the core elements of Schubert’s ideas as well as allowing other nuances to emerge unimpeded. The third movement Scherzo is a terrific example of how Levin is able to reset our expectations of familiar material using a relaxed tempo and crisp articulation. This may well have been how early pianos sounded, with their lower string tension and shorter resonance times.

Levin is, nevertheless, a deeply expressive player who never misses an opportunity for dynamic contrast and tonal shading. In the Brahms Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel Op.24, Levin uses her light pedalling to great effect in keeping the inner voices of the closing fugue wonderfully accessible. Other variations, No.2 and No.4 in particular, are perfectly supported by an economical and tasteful application of sustained legato playing.

The CD concludes with David Del Tredici’s Ode to Music. Schubert’s often sung An die Musik is the thematic kernel of this work. Del Tredici apparently offered to transcribe a favourite piece for the Dorian Wind Quintet, who responded with the choice of the Schubert Lied. Once completed, the transcription was further transcribed for keyboard by one of Del Tredici’s friends who was so impressed that he wanted his own version for piano performance. While it begins conventionally, the work evolves quickly into its contemporary iteration but does so without ever letting go of its strong Romantic impulse.

Organist Carson Cooman brings another hi-tech pipe organ recording to the market with his new release Andreas Willscher, Organ Symphony No.5 (Divine Art dda 25150). This CD is another performance using the Hauptwerk system whereby digital samples of entire pipe organs and their acoustics are played back from stored memory in live performance at a location other than the original site. In other words, not in the church where the organ resides.

The authenticity of the sound produced through this method is indistinguishable from a recording made in the church, in this case, the Laurenskerk, Rotterdam, Netherlands. The instrument recorded is a Danish build of 1973 by Marcussen & Son.

Cooman has chosen to record the 12-movement Organ Symphony No.5 by German organist and composer Andreas Willscher. It’s a substantial work of 73 minutes and rich with colourful registrations and dynamic effect. Its mildly programmatic subject is “Of Francis’ Preaching about Holy Poverty.” The four movements marked Allegro are each brilliant and thrilling, with bold pedal lines that need durable speakers to deliver them without distortion. The quietest movements are equally impressive for the reverberant space around their sounds. The symphony’s longest movement is half silence, set between long held chords. A meditative injunction comes with this movement and listeners should be prepared.

These Hauptwerk projects are important for the access they offer to instruments whose onsite recording costs would otherwise leave them unheard. Cooman has made an excellent choice of combining instrument and repertoire.

Chamber Works of Henri Marteau & Alexander Zemlinsky
Mark Lieb; Phoenix Ensemble
Navona Records NV6076

Admiration for excellence of execution blends poorly with even mild disappointment in the material presented. Still, one must applaud the playing on this new release on the Navona label. In it, the Phoenix Ensemble presents chamber works of Henri Marteau, a little-known French composer, and Alexander Zemlinsky, a well-known Viennese one. The playing is clean and true, articulations are matched scrupulously, intonation is carefully maintained, all in service of pleasant if somewhat banal material.

Zemlinsky’s Trio in D Minor Op.3, for clarinet, cello and piano, is almost a retelling of his mentor Brahms’ late chamber work (Op.114) for the same grouping. Zemlinsky became, with Arnold Schoenberg, a major influence on European modern music, but in this piece we hear the emergent student demonstrating his ease with an idiom already becoming dated when it was published (with help from J.B., who recommended it to Simrock, the elder’s publisher). Full of wild passionate gestures and chromatically lush harmonies, the trio is high art conceived by a relative tyro, celebrating the grandness of fin-de-siècle Vienna. Mark Lieb on clarinet, Alice Yoo on cello and pianist Wayne Weng match one another flawlessly in service of this charming work.

Henri Marteau’s Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet Op.13 opens with a kind of call and response between solo clarinet and ensemble, leading through a saccharine Andante into an aimless Moderato. And on and on. Marteau seemed to possess the means to say a great deal, yet have only platitudes to speak. I wondered if I was missing a cryptically concealed form, but my attention kept reverting to the question: what is going on here? The remainder of the disc is a woodwind Serenade by Marteau. Listen for anything beyond diverting and deft bits of fun if you will. I stand in admiration of any chamber group that puts flutes beside clarinets and makes it work.

Starlight
Kayla Wong
Luminous Vine Records (kaylawong.net)

Music from the golden age of Hollywood is the premise behind Kayla Wong’s suitably named second disc Starlight. Was it really more than two years ago that she released her exemplary debut recording Allure? Since completing her studies at UCLA, this Saskatchewan-born artist continues to enjoy a notable career as a soloist and chamber musician, including recitals at Carnegie Hall and Hong Kong’s Cultural Centre.

The disc opens with a set of six pieces by Ernesto Lecuona. Clearly, Wong has an unmistakable affinity for Spanish-inspired repertoire, in this case, by the “Cuban Gershwin.” Her performance of these contrasting musical miniatures is polished and elegant – from the rhythmic Cordoba to the sensuous and lyrical Preludio en la Noche. While these pieces may have been recorded not far from the rumbling of TTC streetcars, they are firmly stamped “España.”

Earl Wild’s three Virtuoso Études (from a set of seven) based on popular songs by George Gershwin are virtuosic show-stoppers. The lyricism and charm of the originals are ever present, yet these pieces also require a formidable technique and Wong approaches the challenges with great panache.

In keeping with the Hollywood theme are six pieces by the New York songwriter Dana Suesse. With their syncopated rhythms, and bluesy harmonies, tracks such as Jazz Nocturne and Serenade to a Skyscraper are indeed worthy tributes to Hollywood’s golden age.

Starlight is a delightful respite from our less-than-perfect world of 2017 – highly recommended.

Mademoiselle: Premiere Audience – Unknown Music of Nadia Boulanger
Various Artists
Delos DE 3496 (delosmusic.com)

In her own time, Nadia Boulanger was truly a legend. A pianist, organist and conductor, as well as composer, she was a renowned educator who taught well over a thousand students during her long career. From Canada alone over 70 young musicians sought her out, including Jean Papineau-Couture, John Beckwith (who managed to get to Paris on a hockey scholarship to study with her) and Peter Paul Koprowski.

Today, almost 40 years after her death, her legendary stature remains undiminished. But her compositions are largely overlooked – unjustifiably, as this fascinating 2-disc set shows. Of the 37 pieces here, almost half are being recorded for the first time.

By all accounts – including memoirs from former students like Beckwith, Elliott Carter, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass and the producer of this set, Carol Rosenberger (who includes a touching booklet note) – Boulanger insisted her students build a solid technical foundation. She had little interest in experimentation. Simple textures and clear voicings were what she encouraged, though she valued a personal style. And these qualities are what you hear in her own music. It’s polished – overly, at times – warm, witty, disarmingly tender and unexpectedly charismatic.

The 26 songs prove worthy of being in every recitalist’s repertoire, especially as performed by these fine singers – the thrillingly expressive soprano Nicole Cabell, the robust yet nuanced baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer and the versatile, characterful tenor Alek Shrader.

The Trois pièces for cello and piano are Boulanger’s most frequently performed works. Amit Peled’s impassioned cello and Lucy Mauro’s elegant, sensitive piano provide the most engaging interpretation I’ve heard.

But it’s organist François-Henri Houbart’s dramatic yet delicate performances of the Trois improvisations which I found most thrilling. Fittingly, he recorded on the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Madeleine Church in Paris, which is the very one Boulanger used to play (a photo of this magnificent instrument is included in the booklet).

 After her beloved younger sister and fellow composer, Lili Boulanger, died in 1922, Boulanger stopped composing. This set contains most of the music she wrote. By offering the fine performances these pieces deserve, it provides a convincing argument for making her music heard more often.

Tango under the Stars
Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel
Cmajor 739608

There is so much toe-tapping enthusiastically performed music in this DVD of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic live at the Hollywood Bowl on August 2, 2016. From the opening dramatic distance shot of the stage, orchestra and audience, to the final closing stage close-ups of rhythmic boisterous playing and swirling tango dancing, every visual complements the composers, conductor, musicians, soloists and dancers.

Three great Argentinian composers are performed. Lalo Schifrin is best known for his film scores (especially Mission: Impossible). His Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra No.2 “Concierto de la Amistad” is a salute to his friend, guitar virtuoso Angel Romera, who performs his lyrical lines, faster strumming sections and closing guitar taps masterfully with the orchestra. Alberto Ginastera’s Four Dances from Estancia tells the story of life on the farm. The lyrical second movement aurally represents wheat swaying in the wind while the closing fourth movement is a fast alternating 3/4 and 6/8 time work.

And what is tango music without Astor Piazzolla? His Tangazo opens with low strings leading to more rhythmic sections and flute, oboe and strings counterpoint. To close the show, a “Best of Astor Piazzolla,” four Tango Nuevo pieces are given rousing orchestral performances with master bandoneonist Seth Asarnow and the energetic spicy dancers from Tango Buenos Aires.

Dudamel conducts with passion and precision. Sound quality is superb. Three bonus interviews are included. Listen, watch, dance and enjoy!

It’s been quite a while since the terrific 2012 debut CD of Toronto’s Windermere String Quartet, but their second CD release turns out to have been well worth the wait. The ensemble’s name is usually followed by “on period instruments,” but their repertoire has never been restricted to works from the Classical period and their regular concert series frequently features world premieres of new works by Canadian composers.

Their sophmore CD, Inner Landscapes (Pipistrelle PIP 1216) follows this same pattern, with Beethoven’s Quartet in F Minor Op.95 and Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A Minor Op.13 acting as bookends to Traces of a Silent Landscape, a 2011 work by Canadian composer Robert Rival that was commissioned by the quartet.

The Beethoven and Mendelssohn works both receive exemplary performances, with intimate and sensitive playing that never lacks strength and power when needed. The Mendelssohn in particular has an achingly beautiful slow movement and a simply dazzling Presto. All the hallmarks of this ensemble’s playing are here: a judicial use of vibrato; delicate nuances; excellent dynamics; finely judged tempos; and an overall balance that always allows the identity of the individual instruments to be clearly felt.

The Rival quartet, which was inspired by a snowshoe trek in Algonquin Park in the dead of winter, is a striking and very effective work, quite modern in style but with clear traditional roots. One gets the immediate impression that the quiet, wispy nature of the music is not only perfectly suited to the particular sounds that these period instruments produce but was also inspired by them, a feeling confirmed by the composer, who says that while composing the work he had in mind “…the subdued, airy quality of gut strings and the sparing use of vibrato, in particular.” The delicate ending of the final Forest’s lullaby is quite stunning.

Rival also paid tribute to the two works with which his new work would be premiered – and which accompany it on this CD in a re-creation of that recital – by starting with a slow fugue; both the Beethoven and Mendelssohn quartets incorporate fugues in their slow movements.

What continually impresses me about this ensemble is the way they can convey depth, conviction and an emotional range and intensity without ever overwhelming you with either volume or gesture. It’s very easy to imagine that the Beethoven and Mendelssohn works sounded like this at their premieres, but very difficult to imagine that they sounded better.

Recorded at the wonderful St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto’s west end with the always-reliable Norbert Kraft as engineer, the sound is exemplary, catching every delicate nuance in another outstanding CD from the Windermere players. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another five years for their next one.

Concert note: The Windermere Quartet presents “Mozart by Any Other Name” including works by Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Rossini, Joseph Kraus and Mozart at St. Olave’s Anglican Church on April 2.

Given his wonderful playing on the Mozart concerto DVD reviewed here last month, I was delighted to see that this month’s offerings included a new CD of Henning Kraggerud playing Nordic Violin Concertos with Bjarte Engeset conducting the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (Naxos 8.573738). The Violin Concerto Op.28 by Johan Halvorsen is paired with the Violin Concerto Op.33 of Carl Nielsen, with the well-known Romance of Johan Svendsen completing the disc.

The concerto by the Norwegian Halvorsen (1864-1935) has an interesting story. He was an outstanding violinist and a self-taught composer, and his violin concerto was introduced by the 18-year-old Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow in the Netherlands in 1909. After only a handful of performances by Parlow the work was not played again during Halvorsen’s lifetime. When he retired in 1929 he destroyed several of his manuscripts, his wife stating after his death that she believed the concerto to be among them. But in 2015 the score and parts were discovered in Parlow’s papers in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music Library, where they had resided since 1963. Kraggerud gave the first modern performances in Norway last July, making this world premiere commercial recording in Sweden a short while later. It’s a lovely work, full of lyrical themes and redolent of Norwegian folk music, with more than a hint of Hardanger fiddle music. The solo part is technically demanding, but Kraggerud is clearly in his element with a work which will hopefully find a place in the regular repertoire.

The Nielsen concerto, written just a few years after the Halvorsen in 1911, continues to be a work which should be much better known, but hopefully this is changing, Haggerud’s terrific performance here coming not long after Baiba Skride’s equally excellent 2015 recording.

A lovely performance of the Svendsen Romance rounds out an outstanding CD.

If you love the Elgar Cello Concerto then you should really try to hear the new Super Audio CD Elgar & Tchaikovsky from the outstanding cellist Johannes Moser with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Andrew Manze (PentaTone PTC 5186 570). Moser is simply superb in the emotional work that essentially marked the end of the 62-year-old Elgar’s compositional activity. Written in 1919, it is essentially a lament for the composer’s Edwardian world that was destroyed by the First World War, and Moser beautifully captures the very soul of the music.

Moser notes that both Elgar and Tchaikovsky were looking back to a brighter past – Elgar to the pre-1914 world and Tchaikovsky to the music of Mozart, using an original theme written in Mozartian style as the basis for his Variations on a Rococo Theme Op.33. It’s the original version that is performed here, and not the modified and altered version by the cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen that constituted the original 1877 publication and is still frequently heard in the concert hall. Moser’s performance makes you wonder why anyone would ever want to hear the Fitzenhagen version again.

Three shorter Tchaikovsky works for cello and orchestra complete the CD. The Nocturne from Six Pieces for Piano and the famous Andante cantabile from the String Quartet No.1 were both transcribed by the composer, and the Pezzo capriccioso Op.62 is a lovely original work.

Manze and the orchestra supply great support throughout a simply lovely CD.

There’s more excellent quartet playing on Landscapes, the latest CD from Germany’s Schumann Quartett in a program of works by Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartók and Pärt (Berlin Classics 0300836BC). It’s clear that these are works that the quartet – brothers Erik, Ken and Mark Schumann and Estonian violist Liisa Randalu – has played and cared about for some time.

Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat Major Op.76 No.4, the “Sunrise” makes for a lovely opening to the CD, the emerging radiance of the opening particularly well captured. Landscape I by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu acknowledges the Schumanns’ family roots – their mother is Japanese – and is a somewhat bleak piece with a decidedly meditative stillness about it.

Bartók’s String Quartet No.2 Op.17 is an expressive post-Romantic piece written during the First World War when the composer was forced to take a break from his Hungarian folk-song collecting. The folk-music element is clearly present in a work dominated by an air of melancholy.

The final piece, Fratres, by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, was prepared with the composer and recorded in July 2016 in a church near the Estonian capital of Tallinn. It’s one of several instrumental versions of this very effective work.

The enigmatic Nigel Kennedy is back with another non-classical CD in My World, a program of his own compositions on the German label Neue Meister (0300878NM). Launched just over a year ago, the Berlin label features “…music by artists and composers who recognize no boundaries between the classical orchestra world, experimental art, electronica and pop music,” which should give you some idea of what this new release sounds like.

There are two distinct sections to the CD: Dedications, five pieces dedicated to the Polish musician Jarek Śmietana, Isaac Stern, Stéphane Grappelli, Yehudi Menuhin and Mark O’Connor; and Three Sisters, a suite of incidental music that Kennedy wrote for a run of the Chekhov play that his wife was producing. The Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra is listed on the CD cover, but it’s a bit misleading both from a participation and expectation viewpoint: the main musicians listed in the booklet are a six-piece guitar, bass and percussion combo, an oboist and an accordionist and anonymous Friends from the named orchestra.

It’s certainly the combo that seems to be front and centre most of the time, and even when there are strings present the sound seems to be more synthesized than live. There’s a clear jazz influence in the Dedications, along with the occasional melismatic Eastern feel, some pleasant melodic writing, and a rhythmic rock-fiddle drive in the number dedicated to O’Connor.

There’s a thicker orchestral sound with much the same feel throughout Three Sisters, but with added electronic effects and more of an improvisatory feel – one wonders just how much of the music was actually notated.

All in all, it’s typical Kennedy – spiky performances of varying effectiveness from a huge talent who simply refuses to follow what could be called standard career paths. When he gets away from the normal classical fare it tends to be hit or miss with him a lot of the time, and which category this particular CD falls under will probably depend on your own musical tastes.

Finally, there’s another recording of the complete Tchaikovsky Works for Violin & Orchestra, this time by the Korean violinist Moonkyung Lee on her debut Navona Records CD (NV6079) with the London Symphony Orchestra under Miran Vaupotić.

Her performance of the Violin Concerto in D Major Op.35 is a competent one which never quite reaches the heights, although the rather lacklustre contribution of the LSO under Vaupotić may well be a contributory factor; certainly the tempos tend to drag in places, and the orchestral balance tends to be a bit muddy and the sound quite dry. It’s a performance that just doesn’t take flight.

The other two works here – the Méditation in D Minor (the original slow movement for the Violin Concerto) and the Sérénade Mélancolique in B-flat Minor Op.26 – fare better, as the soloist’s rather dark tone is more suited to the slower tempos and the minor keys. Certainly the performances seem to get closer to the heart of the music.

The problem, though, is that given the fierce competition in recordings of these works – especially the concerto – a competent performance, while nothing to be sneezed at, will inevitably struggle to compete with the absolutely top-level recordings available.

The soloist’s instrument, incidentally, is the 1845 Vuillaume violin once owned by Jack Benny.

Organ music fans have another CD to add to their collections with Christopher Houlihan Plays Bach (Azica ACD-71314). The instrument is always a critical ingredient in these projects and the Austin organ at Trinity College Chapel in Hartford, Connecticut, provides ample reason to pay attention.

Organist Christopher Houlihan puts plenty of familiar Bach toccatas, preludes and fugues into his program, but what begins to emerge only moments into the performance is how brilliant a colourist Houlihan is. The instrument offers an enormous selection of reeds, strings and beautifully mellow flues. It’s built and voiced to provide the greatest possible dynamic range for the building it occupies.

Houlihan’s clever choice of stops is nowhere more impressive than in his own arrangement of the Italian Concerto BWV971. It’s playful, celebratory and sparkles with colour. Every track on this CD takes advantage of this remarkable instrument and its gifted performer.

Beethoven’s exhaustive treatise on the variation form that we know as the Diabelli Variations Op.120 is the heart of Ronald Brautigam’s latest recording Beethoven – Diabelli Variations Ronald Brautigam (fortepiano) (BIS-1943). The disc is the final production in Brautigam’s complete set of Beethoven’s works for solo piano, performed on fortepiano.

This alone would suffice to set it apart for special attention. An added feature, however, is its recording on a modern fortepiano modelled on an instrument built by Conrad Graf in 1822. We know that Beethoven admired Graf’s fortepianos and eventually came to own one himself. One of Graf’s unique features was his quadruple stringing of notes, giving added volume and power to the sound – though it must have been a tuning nightmare. The copy used in this recording demonstrates a wide dynamic range and an impressive responsiveness to touch, not only for dynamic expression but in clarity of strike, release and repeat in the very fast passages.

Brautigam concludes the disc with the Six National Airs with Variations Op.105. This is just one of several such sets Beethoven wrote for British publisher George Thomson. The relationship with Thomson helped spark some interest in folk-songs which Beethoven pursued in 15 further sets. The tunes in this one are Welsh, Irish, Scottish and Austrian. Best known among them is The Last Rose of Summer.

The disc is another of the outstanding recordings by Brautigam, produced in a career-long devotion to performance on original instruments that includes the complete keyboard works of Mozart and Haydn.

Bruce Levingston is a widely recognized interpreter of Philip Glass’ music. His new 2CD set Dreaming Awake – Philip Glass – Bruce Levingston (Sono Luminus DSL-92205) contains a superbly planned program. Covering a period from 1966 to 2005 the music presents, among others things, an overview of how Glass’ music has evolved.

The earliest work is Wichita Vortex Sutra played by Levingston and narrated by actor Ethan Hawke. Written by poet Allen Ginsberg during the years of the Vietnam War protests, it and the music speak jointly to the injustice of the war and a universal call for peace. It’s a work that reveals more of itself on repeated listening.

Much of the two discs is devoted to ten of Glass’ 20 Études. Written primarily for his personal keyboard practice, they each contain a handful of specific technical challenges. It’s not surprising though that Levingston immediately seizes upon the composer’s creative germ in each of them, and sets them on the creative plane Glass must have intended from the outset.

Levingston gives a rich and colourful performance of the enigmatic, Buddhist-inspired Dreaming Awake. It’s an active work of frequent movement between places of intense feeling and moments of great repose. His playing reveals a deep understanding of the music and its composer.

Compositions for film make up a large part of Glass’ oeuvre. While Metamorphosis No.2 is a frequently recorded work, it is also quoted in the soundtrack of The Thin Blue Line. The Illusionist Suite offers another example of his remarkable writing for the screen.

Levingston is a master in this genre, with complete interpretive access to Glass’ work, whether originating in poetic protest or the cinema, whether written for study or meditation.

An eclectic combination of piano works appears on Natalia Andreeva plays Piano Sonatas – Beethoven, Scriabin, Prokofiev (Divine Art dda 25140). Andreeva is a gifted performer, researcher and teacher. Her program choices are deliberate, balanced and artful. Her approach is methodical, yet inspired. For example, Beethoven’s directions in Sonata No.27 in E Minor Op.90 call for the pianist to play with “liveliness, sensitivity and expression.” Andreeva lets these instructions guide her through a beautifully considered performance of this two-movement work. She takes an especially Romantic posture in the second movement, arguing in her notes that Beethoven always wrote with pictures in his mind. Whatever image emerges from this movement is, according to Andreeva, bound to be one of love. Andreeva builds her phrases with care and balance. Their shape and motion in this sonata are elegant and very often quite exquisite.

Andreeva takes her research seriously, looking for interpretive clues in diaries, letters and other original sources. In the case of the Scriabin Sonata No.10 Op.70, her sleuthing has convinced her that the key to this work’s content is the composer’s notation “radieux” in the score. For Andreeva this single-movement sonata is about light. Consequently, the delicate upper filigree and frequent trills become important textures in the mood Scriabin wants to establish. Andreeva delivers a masterful performance of this 1913 Russian work.

Prokofiev’s Sonata No.2 in D Minor Op.14 is an early work in his series of nine sonatas and dates from almost the same time as the Scriabin. Andreeva’s approach to this underscores the principal traits of Prokofiev’s creative personality: harmonic adventurism, rhythmic drive, playful grotesqueness and classicism. Each movement becomes a stage for these elements as Andreeva constructs a complex picture of Prokofiev’s musical world.

Andreeva is a deeply thoughtful artist and definitely worth hearing.

Le Mozart Noir
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; Jeanne Lamon
Tafelmusik Media TMK 1031 DVDCD (tafelmusik.org)

New Era – Stamitz; Danzi; Mozart
Andreas Ottensamer; Kammerakademie Potsdam; Emmanuel Pahud; Albrecht Mayer
Decca 481 4711

Haydn – Symphonies 8 & 84; Violin Concerto in A Major
Aisslinn Nosky; Handel and Haydn Society; Harry Christophers
Coro COR16148

This is the latest in a series of recordings of the symphonies and concertos of Haydn by the Boston-based Handel and Haydn Society, under the dynamic direction of Harry Christophers. The Toronto connection is the orchestra’s concertmaster – and violin soloist on this disc - Aisslinn Nosky, a former member of Tafelmusik and one of the driving forces behind I Furiosi.

Haydn’s eighth symphony – nicknamed “Le soir” – is a sinfonia concertante, meaning it features solo passages from several of the orchestra’s principals, including Nosky. It’s a great pleasure to hear the freedom, humour and tenderness each soloist brings to their playing and the whole performance has a tremendous buoyancy and elegance to it.

The A-Major concerto is difficult to bring off the page because of its rather pedestrian themes and somewhat predictable turns, but Nosky and Christophers give it a convincing and lively reading. It’s exciting to hear Nosky let loose in the cadenzas, unencumbered by the regular phrasing and symmetry of the main body of each of the movements.

The disc finishes with a glorious performance of Symphony No.84, one of Haydn’s Paris symphonies. Christophers coaxes clean, balanced performances from his charges without sacrificing drama and expressiveness. The second movement goes to some dark places, which are enhanced and deepened by a wonderful attention to dynamics and accents.

It’s clear that Christophers and Nosky are a powerful team. We will await the next Haydn disc with great anticipation.

Strauss – Ariadne auf Naxos; Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Suites)
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta
Naxos 8.57346

Now here is a real gem I wouldn’t mind listening to over and over again. This brand new release from Naxos comes from Buffalo, NY, by an orchestra, one of the best in North America, whose skills were honed by such names as Josef Krips, Lucas Foss, Semyon Bychkov and now led most ably by JoAnn Falletta. If you’ve never heard of or cared for her, you certainly will after listening to this rock-bottom, bargain-priced disc, a deal not to be missed.

Strauss’ love of the music of Lully inspired this absolute jewel of incidental music for Molière’s comedy Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, first performed at Chateau Chambord for Louis XIV in 1670. Strauss’ Suite (1912/1920) is written for a small but virtuoso orchestra, difficult and intricate but played here with flair, charm, delicacy and humour one rarely encounters even from the very best conductors. The violin solo by concertmaster William Preucil is an unforgettable delight.

The Suite from Ariadne auf Naxos is quite new (and a world premiere) by a young American, D. Wilson Ochoa, who put it together from the highlights of the opera of the same name. He certainly knew what he was doing and the suite now enriches the concert repertoire like a new symphonic poem by Strauss and surely will be so welcomed. Strauss said once that “melody strikes him like a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky” and that’s well proven by the exquisite finale when the god Bacchus appears in his radiance curing Ariadne’s sorrows by falling in love with her and we hear wave upon wave of radiant music pouring forth from Falletta’s magic baton.

Anton Bruckner – The Complete Symphonies
Staatskapelle Berlin; Daniel Barenboim
Deutsche Grammophon 479 6985

Butterflies in the Labyrinth of Silence features the guitar music of the Swiss composer Georges Raillard (b.1957) in performances by the American guitarist David William Ross (Navona Records NV6071). Raillard studied classical guitar and composition in the mid-1970s, and his guitar compositions are available for download through his website at georges-raillard.com.

The works here date from 1999 to 2008 and, with titles like Shells on the Beach, Summer Evening at the Rhine, Butterfly and Measuring Clouds, are clearly essentially light classical pieces. Although somewhat limited in technical range in comparison to many contemporary works – often with the feel of classical guitar études – they are consistently pleasant, well-written and competent pieces by someone who clearly loves and understands the instrument. There is lovely clean playing from Ross throughout a thoroughly enjoyable CD.

The Cypress String Quartet celebrated its 20th anniversary and its final season in 2016, and for its final recording in April chose the two String Sextets by Brahms, asking longtime friends and collaborators violist Barry Shiffman and cellist Zuill Bailey to join them (Avie Records AV2294). The performers also opted to make the recordings in front of a live studio audience, although there is no hint of audience presence on the CD.

The Sextets No.1 in B-flat Major Op.18 and No.2 in G Major Op.36 are given simply beautiful performances. Brahms always seems to have that quality of wistfulness and yearning, but the G Major work is particularly appropriate here, Brahms having learned from Robert Schumann the device of using musical notation to denote the names of people in one’s life and consequently turning this work into an emotional farewell to his lost love Agathe von Siebold.

It is hardly surprising then that this work should make such a fitting conclusion to the Cypress Quartet’s career. As the quartet members note, the works were an obvious choice for this final CD: “these monumental String Sextets . . . with their warmth and reflective qualities, are perfectly suited to saying farewell.”

The Cypress Quartet will be greatly missed, but this CD is a wonderful tribute to their talents.

The outstanding French cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand is back with another excellent CD, this time featuring the Cello Concerto No.1 in A Minor Op.33 by Camille Saint-Saëns with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester under James Gaffigan and also the Cello Sonatas Nos.2 & 3 with Bertrand’s partner, pianist Pascal Amoyel (harmonia mundi HMM 902210).

Saint-Saëns clearly had a great love for the cello, and it shows throughout these works. Bertrand gives a passionate and convincing performance of the concerto, with excellent orchestral support. Bertrand and Amoyel are, as usual, as one voice in beautifully judged readings of the two sonatas. All of the usual outstanding Bertrand qualities – tone, phrasing, sensitivity and musical intelligence – are here in abundance.

The Sonata No.3 is a late work that occupied the composer from 1913 to 1919, but unfortunately the final two movements have been lost, and the first two exist only in manuscript. This lovely performance is the first recording of the work and leaves us wondering just what we are missing in the two lost movements.

I could easily use an entire column to review Cello Stories – The Cello in the 17th and 18th Centuries, the quite remarkable hardcover book and 5-CD set featuring the French cellist Bruno Cocset and his group Les Basses Réunies, with text by the Baroque cellist and musicologist Marc Vanscheeuwijck (Alpha Classics ALPHA 890).

Cocset says that the intention is to show how an instrument and its repertoire have taken shape, and he has selected the musical program from his recordings for Alpha – some of them previously unreleased – made between 1998 and 2013. The five discs are: The Origins, with music by Ortiz, Bonizzi, Frescobaldi, Vitali, Galli and Degli Antonii; Italy-France, with music by Marcello, Vivaldi and Barrière; Johann Sebastian Bach, two CDs of cello sonatas, choral preludes, movements from the Cello Suites Nos. 1, 2 and 4 and the complete Suites 3, 5 and 6; and From Geminiani to Boccherini, including a short sonata by Giovanni Cirri.

The book is in English and French, with full track listings and recording details, and there are 15 pages of full-colour contemporary illustrations. The astonishingly detailed and researched text portion on the history and development of the instrument and its playing techniques runs to about 50 pages and has 386 footnotes.

The playing throughout is quite superb. It’s a simply astonishing project, completed in quite brilliant fashion.

Melia Watras: 26 (Sono Luminus SLE-70007) is a fascinating CD inspired by the concept of violists performing and sharing their own compositions. Violists Watras, Atar Arad and Garth Knox (here playing viola d’amore) are joined by violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim in five works by Watras, two by Arad, one by Knox and a duo by American composer Richard Karpen.

All the players have extensive chamber music experience, Arad with the Cleveland Quartet, Knox with the Arditti Quartet and Watras and Lim as co-founders of the Corigliano Quartet. The playing is of the highest standard throughout.

All of the nine works – there are three duos for two violas and two for violin and viola, three solo viola works and a solo violin piece – are world premiere recordings, and each one is a real gem. It’s a terrific CD, and one which should appeal to a much wider audience than just lovers of the viola.

The CD title, incidentally, represents the combined number of strings on the four instruments used.

SPHERES – Music of Robert Paterson is the new CD from the Claremont Trio – violinist Emily Bruskin, cellist Julia Bruskin and pianist Andrea Lam (American Modern Recordings AMR 1046).

The two major works by this American composer are quite different but form a pair, the shorter and sweeter 2015 Moon Trio, commissioned by the Claremont Trio, being a sister piece for the much longer and more strident Sun Trio, a 1995 work revised in 2008; Donna Kwong, who was a founding member and pianist of the Trio for 12 years from its foundation at the Juilliard School in 1999, is the pianist in the latter work.

The Toronto-born cellist Karen Ouzounian joins Andrea Lam and Julia Bruskin in the Elegy for Two Cellos and Piano, a 2006 work originally written for two bassoons in memory of a well-known New York cellist, and transcribed for two cellos in 2007-08. Quoting liberally from the Bach cello works, it’s a simply lovely piece.

And finally, Henning Kraggerud is the brilliant soloist leading the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra on MOZART Violin Concertos Nos.3, 4 and 5 and the Adagio in E, K.261, a Naxos Music in Motion DVD (2.110368).

Filmed before a small audience in the intimate but resonant Akershus Castle Church in Oslo in January 2015, the camera work is understandably a bit limited, with cameras in front on the left, right and centre providing close-ups and occasional tracking. The picture quality could perhaps be a little sharper, but colour and sound are fine.

It’s the playing we’re here for, though, and it’s simply sublime. Kraggerud’s 1744 Guarneri Del Gesù has surely never sounded warmer or brighter, and the joy, exuberance and perfect communication between soloist and orchestral players is a delight to see. The performances throughout are superb, with brilliant outer movements and beautifully judged slow movements.

Kraggerud, who provides his own cadenzas, gives introductions to each work (in Norwegian with English subtitles) with fascinating insight and stories, including what may well be the historical source of all viola jokes; and there is a brief Behind the Scenes bonus track showing preparations for the concert.

Adam Kośmieja plays a remarkable contemporary program in his recording Serocki – Complete works for solo piano (Dux 1284). The music of Kazimierz Serocki (1922-1981) is regrettably unfamiliar to most North American audiences. Its uniqueness lies in his 12-tone style. Serocki demonstrates a strong affinity for rhythm and texture as the key drivers in his music. Whether he’s drawing out a languorous elegy or spinning a feverish virtuosic passage, he writes for clarity using very little pedal and favouring generous application of staccato. On rare occasions he will seem impressionistic and reveal the French influences he absorbed as a student in Paris. More curious and delightful is the unmistakable, if subtle, flavour of something that is teasingly Broadway and flirts with jazz.

Pianist Adam Kośmieja does an extraordinary job of playing this music. He obviously has a deep understanding of what Serocki is saying and how he means it to be said. Kośmieja’s ability to meet the widely different interpretive demands of the music is impressive. He lists, among his teachers, names like Gary Grafman, Paul Badura-Skoda, Ivan Moravec, Lang Lang and numerous others.

The Sonata for Piano has two wonderfully maniacal movements, veloce and barbaro, that contrast sharply with the other two inquietamente and elegiaco. It’s a substantial work, rich in variety and it’s exceptionally well-played.

The Gnomes: Childrens’ Miniatures is fascinating for its simplicity as repertoire for children yet intriguing for the way it introduces them to the 12-tone system through the strategic placement of gentle dissonances. The disc is a wonderful issue from Polish Radio.

Ukrainian-born pianist Irena Portenko has conceived a yin-yang study of contrasting concertos that may have more in common with each other than meets the ear. Her new release Versus: Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.2; Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1; Ukrainian National Symphony Orchestra; Volodymyr Sirenko (Blue Griffin Recording BGR417) opens with an intense performance of the Prokofiev Concerto No.2. Actually, there’s no other way to play it. It’s dramatic, dark and relentless.

Prokofiev’s first few performances met with uneven success. He cites generally better public acceptance with each performance, but it was a rocky start. The work was, for 1913, a challenging audience experience. Dense and replete with rhythmic and melodic complexities, it left first-time listeners dealing mainly with the heavy emotional experience. Stravinsky, however, was impressed. Diaghilev, too, was complimentary and reportedly invited Prokofiev to play it as a stage production while dancers moved around him on the stage. Curiously the third movement has the feel of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet with the strong bass pulse that drives the dance, Montagues and Capulets.

The writing is undeniably brilliant and is matched by the performance. Portenko is satisfyingly at home with this music, meeting its technical and interpretive challenges with confidence and style. She brings the same energy to the Tchaikovsky Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor Op.23. It too, is grand and relentless. Although she is very clear in her notes that she sees this as the counterbalance of light and positive energy to the Prokofiev. Noteworthy in this performance is the way some of the inner wind voices are brought forward in the second movement, creating the impression of familiar music never heard before.

A very impressive recording.

Organ recordings appear infrequently in this column. It’s of special interest therefore, that organist Erik Simmons’ latest release, Hymnus – Music for Organ by Carson Cooman, Divine Art (dda 25147) demonstrates how new technology and contemporary music can be a winning formula for an older genre.

Producers of organ recordings have always wrestled with microphone placement in the quest for the right balance of acoustic space and the instrument’s presence. The problem becomes more complex when organ pipes are located in different places throughout a building. Enter digital technology.

Anyone can now purchase a digitally sampled pipe organ, recorded as individual notes from an optimal acoustic location, and play that library of samples through a midi system from a compatible keyboard. That’s exactly how this 1787 organ in Weissenau, Germany, appears in this recording. Every actual sound from the initial speaking attack of a pipe to its final decay and slight pitch drop is captured faithfully with every note. The authenticity of the performance location sounds so complete, it makes the likelihood of the recording being done in the comfort of his living room, even more astounding.

American composer Carson Cooman, in his mid-30s, has a body of works that numbers well over a thousand. Most are short pieces, three to six minutes, and designed as music for church services where preludes, postludes and interludes on that scale are best suited. His style is fairly traditional, and contemporary in the lightest sense, engaging only occasionally with atonality. The variety of his writing is impressive and he’s capable of evoking greatly contrasting moods. This is especially effective as Erik Simmons uses the Weissenau organ to maximum colouristic effect, whether drawing a single flute rank or the full organ registration.

It’s a terrific recording for three reasons: superb playing, fine composition and technological astonishment.

Pianist Boris Giltburg’s discography expands yet again with Shostakovich – Piano Concertos; String Quartet No.8 (transcribed for piano) Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Vasily Petrenko (Naxos 8.573666). As he often does, Giltburg writes his own notes for the recording, exploring the circumstances around the creation of these works by a composer admittedly close to his own heart. Giltburg relates the historical events with academic precision and links them to the subtlest aspects of Shostakovich’s music with the knowing intimacy of a soulmate. His exceptional performances of the Piano Concertos No.1 in C Minor and No.2 in F Major reflect this deep understanding. In the case of the Concerto No.2, Giltburg brings ebullience to the music that captures the paternal joy of its dedication to his son Maxim on his birthday in 1957. The earlier concerto predates it by more than two decades and is more formal, but Giltburg finds the positive energy that Shostakovich was soon to have repressed under the attack of the Soviet party establishment.

The transcription for piano of the string quartet material is a fascinating and ambitious undertaking. Wanting to have a larger-scale Shostakovich work for solo piano available to him, Giltburg has transcribed the String Quartet in C Minor Op.110. Being as thorough as he is, he sought and received permission of the Shostakovich family for special access to resource materials for this project. The result is a new iteration of a work from a dark and discouraging period in the composer’s life. In a curious way, Shostakovich never surrendered the skill of his craft to the hopelessness of his present condition. Giltburg has inexplicably and beautifully captured this moment of genius slipping into despair.

Another recording of comparisons is on the shelves this month in Natalia Andreeva plays Preludes and Fugues; Bach, Liszt, Franck and Shostakovich (Divine Art dda 25139). This Russian pianist has given considerable thought to her program and liner notes, and lays out a wonderful rationale for the enjoyment of a series of preludes and fugues that includes some form of shared material.

She begins, logically, with Bach, giving the Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Minor BWV 849 a disciplined and sensitive reading. Proceeding through Liszt’s transcription of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A Minor S462 No.1 she arrives at Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue in B Minor Op 21. By now it’s clear that Andreeva is making serious connections. She concludes with Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue in C Minor Op.87 No.20 leaving the impression that 350 years have not diminished the appeal of fugal form, especially when paired with the Prelude. Altogether a very worthwhile artistic and intellectual exercise.