Early, Classical and Beyond

Transitions is the outstanding debut solo album from violist Jesse Morrison, a performance graduate from the Glenn Gould School and the University of Toronto now with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (Wolfe Records jessemorrisonviola.bandcamp.com/album/transitions).

The Partita for Solo Viola by the Boston-based composer Derek David, written “in adoration” of Bach’s solo instrumental works, was commissioned for this recording. Its six sections – Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Minuet, and Gigue and Fugue – are wide-ranging, both stylistically and emotionally; imagine someone playing the solo Bach Partitas who, unable to resist, constantly explodes into bursts of extreme modern technique. 

Skizzen für Siegbert (Sketches for Siegbert) by the Australian violist and composer Brett Dean was written as the compulsory piece for the 2012 Max Rostal Viola Competition. Dean played viola with the Berlin Philharmonic from 1985 to 1999, this piece being a tribute to his initial desk partner, Siegbert Ueberschaer, who died in 2011. Two reflective outer movements frame a virtuosic middle movement.

Five brief selections from György Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages and Telemann’s violin Fantasia No.1 in B-flat Major, played here in E-flat to allow for identical relationships between the strings, complete a terrific CD, with Morrison in complete technical and musical control throughout.

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Known as The King of the Violin, Eugène Ysaÿe was a dominant figure at the end of the 19th century, having studied with Wieniawski and Vieuxtemps and numbering Enescu and Thibaud – and later Milstein and Gingold – among his students. His solo sonatas have tended to overshadow his smaller works for violin and piano, which have been somewhat – and unjustly – neglected, but on the CD Ysaÿe violinist Natalia Lomeiko and pianist Iván Martín aim to put that right (Orchid Classics ORC100429 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100429-ysaye).

The result is an outstanding recital of some of Ysaÿe’s most evocative and rarely heard works that merge Romantic lyricism with bold harmonic imagination. Included are: Grande valse de concert Op.3; Mazurka No.3 “Lontain passé Op.11; Poème élégiaque Op.12; Au rouet Op.13; Rêve d’enfant Op.14; and Extase Op.21. Lomeiko’s husband, violinist Yuri Zhislin joins her in Amitié Op.26.

Lomeiko has a fast vibrato and a rich, slightly nasal tone reminiscent of the great players of the 1940s and 1950s. It’s beautifully suited to the works in the programme, every one of which deserves a permanent place in the concert repertoire.

On the excellent CD Viola Revival violist Jonathan Bagg presents mid-century works for viola and piano by three significant African American composers who were not given the recognition they deserved during their lifetimes – Marion Bauer (1882-1955), Ulysses Kay (1917-95) and Margaret Bonds (1913-72). Emely Phelps is the pianist for most of the CD (New Focus Recordings FCR477 newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/viola-revival-mid-century-works-by-marion-bauer-ulysses-kay-margaret-bonds).

Bauer founded the American Music Guild in 1921 and co-founded the Society for American Women Composers in 1925 and the American Composers Alliance in 1937. Her Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op.22 from 1932 combines contemporary period stylings with French and late Romantic influences that reflect her early training with Nadia Boulanger.

Kay’s Sonata for Viola and Piano from 1942 was written at Yale University while Kay was studying with Paul Hindemith, whose neoclassical approach is reflected in the sonata.

Bonds was a student of Florence Price and active as a composer and pianist in Chicago. Her Troubled Water, based on the Negro spiritual Wade in the Water was a staple of her concerts, and was later arranged by her for cello and piano. Pianist Mimi Solomon joins Bagg in his arrangement for viola and piano.

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From Ordinary Things, the new CD from cellist Seth Parker Woods is described as a profoundly reflective album that explores identity, intimacy and human connection. Conor Hanick is the pianist for most of the disc (Platoon PLAT29870 platoon.lnk.to/fromordinarythings).

Soprano Julia Bullock joins the duo in the opening track, the simply lovely Shelter, the third song from André Previn’s Four Songs on Poems of Toni Morrison, whose poetry also provides the album’s title.

The composer and pianist George Walker (1922-2018) was a ground-breaking figure in American music, among his other firsts being the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. His three-movement Sonata for Cello and Piano shows his use of jazz-inflected rhythms and lyrical warmth, with a modernist edge.

Bullock is also the soprano in Oh Yemanja from the opera Scourge of Hyacinths by the Cuban-born American composer Tania León (b.1943), the first Latin-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Woods’ long-time collaborator Andrew Rosenblum is the outstanding pianist for Rachmaninoff’s achingly beautiful Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op.19, a beautifully-judged performance ending an immensely enjoyable disc.

The Bach Dialogues is a digital-only release with Matt Haimovitz on cello piccolo and Christopher O’Reilly on clavichord presenting beautifully resonant performances of the three Bach Sonatas for Viola da gamba and Cembalo in G Major, D Major and G Minor, BWV1027-29 and the Trio Sonata No.5 in C Major, BWV529 (Pentatone PTC 5187410 pentatonemusic.com/product/the-bach-dialogues-digital-only-album).

Haimovitz plays the 5-string cello piccolo that he uses for the Bach Solo Cello Suite No.6; it’s the ¾ cello from c.1710 that his parents bought for him when he was 10, converted to a baroque set-up by the addition of an E-string. He uses gut strings and a baroque replica bow.

The clavichord may apparently have been Bach’s favourite keyboard instrument, its action – different to that of the harpsichord – capable of a degree of dynamic shading and even basic vibrato. O’Reilly plays a 2010 copy of an 1806 Swedish instrument, somewhat larger and more powerful than a baroque original. Even so, the difference in volume levels required the performers to be isolated in the recording studio, listening to each other through headphones. 

The Viola Sonatas from the Royal Chapel of Madrid is a recording project devoted to the 11 sonatas composed between 1778 and 1818 for the auditions held to obtain a viola position at the Royal Chapel in Madrid. Violist Pablo de Pedro is the excellent soloist, with cellist Lorenzo Meseguer and harpsichordist Samuel Maíllo providing the continuo (Eudora Records EUD-SACD-2601 eudorarecords.com/shop/catalogue/the-viola-sonatas-from-the-rotal-chapel-of-madrid). 

The second part of the three-part auditions was the sight-reading of a sonata composed for the purpose by one of the examination board members. The earlier works here – the three sonatas by Felipe de los Rios from 1778 and 1781 and the 1789 sonata by Gaetano Brunetti – are in three movements; from 1794, however, candidates were required to audition on viola and violin, and the viola sonatas were consequently shorter, in a slow-fast two-movement form. Sonatas by Juan Oliver y Astorga (1803, 1804, 1805 and 1807), José Lidón (1806), and Juan Balado (c.1818) complete a generous CD of almost 85 minutes.

One minor quibble: the recording balance strongly favours the cello, making the harpsichord – which it mostly doubles – barely audible throughout the CD.

Connections abound throughout Lux Intus, the new CD from the London-based Barbican Quartet that is described as a search for the inner voice – the light within (Berlin Classics 0303340BC berlin-classics-music.com/en/album/885470044736-lux-intus).

In a string quartet that inner voice is the viola, which provides a link here. Mozart played viola in his own quartets, and a beautiful performance of his 1789 String Quartet in D Major, K575 “Prussian” opens the disc. Rebecca Clarke was a superb violist as well as a composer; her rapturous Poem for String Quartet from 1926 was premiered in the United States at the home of the music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.

More connections: it was Coolidge who in 1941 commissioned the String Quartet No.1 in D Major from Britten, himself an accomplished violist and at the time in self-imposed exile in the United States. It brings another superb performance from the Barbican.

Barbican violist Christoph Slenczka’s arrangement of Elgar’s Nimrod and the newly-commissioned Postlude by Sophia Jani complete another terrific CD by this young ensemble.

The Isidore String Quartet has strong ties to The Juilliard School; it was formed there in 2019, was coached and mentored by the Juilliard Quartet members and takes its name from former Juilliard Quartet violinist Isidore Cohen. The quartet makes its recording debut with the new CD Adorations, dedicated to Juilliard Quartet cellist Joel Krosnick, who died last year (Delos DE3622 outhere-music.com/en/albums/adorations).

Described as a celebration of chamber music at its essence, the disc opens with a delightful performance of Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op.20 No.2, which the Isidore ensemble played when winning the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022, also winning the Haydn Prize. An intensely focused reading of the Molto adagio from Barber’s String Quartet, Op.11 – the original Adagio for Strings – precedes Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.44 No.3 in another dazzling performance full of nuance and dynamic contrast.

Samuel Arraya’s arrangement of Florence Price’s brief but lovely Adoration closes a fine recital, recorded in the Rolston Recital Hall in Banff in August 2024.

The Ariel Quartet continues its Beethoven quartet project with the 3CD set BEETHOVEN: The complete String Quartets Vol.II (Orchid Classics ORC100403 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100403-beethoven-string-quartets-vol-2/).

The five works in this volume are the three Razumovsky Quartets Op.59 Nos.1-3, the String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.74 and the String Quartet in F Minor, Op.95, “Quartetto serioso.” The immediacy and commitment I noted in their playing in the first volume is even more evident here, with superb sound, dazzling fast passages and outstanding nuance, dynamics and phrasing. The Op.59 No.3 C major quartet in particular is simply stunning.

Volume III is scheduled for release in June, with a box set of all three volumes planned for March 2027 to mark the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. You might want to wait for the box release, because the standard this ensemble is setting is going to make it extremely difficult for any other set to be held in higher regard.

New Nordic Pocket Concertos presents world premiere recordings of seven new violin concertos, all written for violinist Niklas Walentin and the eight-piece Danish Chamber Players, the condensed chamber format having been suggested by the restrictions imposed by the COVID lockdown. Anne Marie Granau is conductor for two of the works (Naxos 9.70401 naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=9.70401).

The seven composers represent each of the Nordic countries: Andrea Tarrodi (Sweden), Arnannguaq Gerstrøm (Greenland), Aksel Kolstad (Norway), Poul Ruders (Denmark), Veronique Vaka (Iceland), Sunleif Rasmussen (Faroe Islands) and Joel Jãrventausta (Finland). Themes vary – glaciers and cracking ice, a lovely new Four Seasons (Tarrodi), the war in Ukraine (Kolstad) – as do styles and structures, from single-movement pieces through three- and four-movement works to Jãrventausta’s six brief Songs, Games & Dances, but there’s a great deal to hold your interest here in over 90 minutes of music.

Ruders brief Pocket Concerto (three two-minute movements) gives this fascinating addition to the violin concerto discography its title.

The main work on A Hero’s Life, the new CD from the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and JoAnn Falletta is Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, Op.40 – a purely orchestral work, but one that features a violin solo that Falletta describes as one of the most astonishing in the orchestral repertoire. It’s beautifully played by the BPO concertmaster Nikki Chooi, who is the brilliant soloist in the other work on the disc, the outstanding 1994 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by the Persian composer Behzad Ranjbaran (Beau Fleuve Records 783970-072641 bpo.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0FUW000005gMSf2AM).

From his youth Ranjbaran was mesmerised by the sound of the kamancheh, the ancient Persian bowed instrument; it not only inspired a concerto described as a mixture of Eastern exoticism and extreme virtuosity but also informed his use of Persian modes and rhythms.

It’s baffling why a work of such immediate and immense appeal should have waited over 30 years for a commercial recording release. Falletta calls it “one of the great violin concertos of our time,” and it’s hard to disagree.

After a long and successful career in rock music Kip Winger has established himself as a leading voice in contemporary classical composition. The success of his 2017 ballet score Conversations with Nijinsky with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra led to music director Giancarlo Guerrero commissioning two works, the CD of Symphony of the Returning Light and the Violin Concerto “In the Language of Flowers” the result. Nashville concertmaster Peter Otto is the violin soloist (Naxos 8.559921 naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.559921).

Both works have four movements and continually hold your attention and interest with confident and attractive writing. Otto is superb in the concerto, which features a strong, lyrical solo part and an absolutely lovely slow third movement. Morse code motifs abound throughout the impressive symphony, which Winger describes as something of an autobiographical piece centred on atonement.

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Swedish violinist Malin Broman is the soloist in the Helen Grime Violin Concerto – Live from Berwaldhallen, a new digital EP with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding (OUR Recordings 9.708671 ourrecordings.com/albums/live-from-berwald-hallen).

Grime, born in 1981, is a former Hallé Orchestra Associate Composer and is currently Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music. She first worked with the artists on this recording in 2010, when she was “immediately struck by the ferocity, power, and passion” in Broman’s playing. Her concerto, resulting from several consequent collaborations with Broman is in one continuous movement, the three main sections connected by extensive, dreamlike passages.

Grime describes the concerto as “violent, virtuosic music covering the whole range of the violin… contrasted with more delicate and reflective filigree material that features oscillating natural harmonic passages and searching melodies.” Recorded live in the Berwald Hall in Stockholm in December 2016, it’s a striking work that will clearly repay repeated listening.

When the French guitarist Gaëlle Solal heard the Concerto O Saci-Pererê by the Brazilian composer Clarice Assad in 2017 she promised herself that she would learn it and also record it. The resulting world premiere recording was the starting point for the CD Rio, with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre du Wallonie conducted by Roberto Batrán Zavala (Fuga Libera FUG863 outhere-music.com/en/albums/rio).

Assad was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1978. The “Saci-Pererê” of her concerto is a mischievous elf from the legends of the Tupi-Guarani Indians of southern Brazil, and the musical depiction is full of strikingly original orchestration.

Villa-Lobos was also born in Rio. His Concerto for guitar and small orchestra W501 was written for Segovia, and draws beautifully clean playing from Solal, especially in the lengthy second-movement cadenza. Francisca “Chiquinha” Gonzaga (1847-1935), described as the forgotten pioneer of Rio de Janeiro’s music tradition wrote nothing for guitar, but Rio native Paulo Aragão arranged four of her melodies for guitar and orchestra. 

It’s another world premiere recording, as is the arrangement for guitar and string orchestra of Ernesto Nazareth’s lovely piano piece Brejeiro by Rio native Élodie Bouny.

Art Choral Vol.10: Hallelujah
Ensemble Artchoral; Matthias Maute
ATMA ACD22429 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/art-choral-vol-10-hallelujah)

Ensemble ArtChoral, one of the pre-eminent choirs in Canada, have been active for 40 years and are now the resident choir of Montreal’s Maison de Musique. This is the tenth volume of the ATMA series of recordings under the direction of Matthias Maute who has been at the helm since 2019. The other volumes are each devoted to a single focus, such as Renaissance, Classical, or Modern repertoire, and here the programme consists of Jewish a cappella music. The pieces all have texts that specifically relate to Jewish themes and all the composers were Jewish.

The best known item will probably be a setting by André von der Merwe of Leonard Cohen’s almost ubiquitous Hallelujah. This is now the choral version of the iconic anthem to own.

Seven other composers are represented with all the polish, panache, and dynamic range one could want. The Halevy piece is a setting of part of a Jewish service, with a very florid tenor Cantor part, for which they are joined by Gideon Zelermyer, an actual Cantor with the necessarily large vibrato one hears in Jewish worship. There is a piece by Meyerbeer, but the most characterful are the five pieces by Montreal composer Rona Nadler, who also wrote the album notes. Her pieces are in Hebrew and Yiddish and present well contrasted fragments of Jewish life.

Ernst Bloch, Leonard Bernstein and Kurt Weill also have pieces, and there are five items by the 16th century Salamone Rossi of settings in Hebrew of the Songs of Solomon in four to six parts. These performances with the lithe youthful sound of only 12 voices are compelling. 

Sound and technical production are ideal, recorded in a church in Mirabel Quebec in January 2023. I only wish the program could have been longer.

Invitation à la Valse
Janina Fialkowska
ATMA ACD2 2913 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/invitation-a-la-valse)

Beginning with Weber’s Invitation to the Dance of 1819 and ending with Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales of 1911, Janina Fialkowska’s new recital album is a journey through almost a century’s worth of waltzes. Continuing with a dozen of Schubert’s Valses sentimentales D.779, two of Chopin’s most charming waltzes, and more rarely heard works by Liszt, Grieg, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, the works tend toward the graceful and the refined. These works do not generally plumb great depths of expression, and Fialkowska’s approach is marked by an effortless elegance and a stylish use of rubato, never weighing the music down with unnecessary seriousness. There is a fluid, conversational flow that highlights the gentle, salon-like nature of this repertoire. 

This approach is perhaps less successful in Ravel’s homage to Schubert. Here, one might miss the underlying shadows and the sardonic bite of the harmonic language. The same flexibility of pulse that brings the recital’s 19th century waltzes to life can seem to hinder the forward momentum of Ravel’s crystalline writing. The Ravel, in particular, is also not helped by a rather closely recorded sound, also noticeable in the suddenly climactic final minute of Sibelius’ otherwise nostalgic Valse triste.

Nevertheless, this remains an hour’s worth of lovely music, lovingly performed. If the repertoire appeals, Fialkowska’s invitation is one you should certainly accept without hesitation.

In Her Hands
Neave Trio
Chandos CHAN 20368 (chandos.net/products/reviews/Chan%2020368)

Piano trios by three women whose places in music history range from significant to tangential to obscure receive loving performances from the Neave Trio, ensemble-in-residence at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Trio in G Minor, Op.17 by Clara Schumann (1819-1896), her most substantial composition, naturally embraces the musical language of her husband Robert and friends Mendelssohn and Brahms, but avoids mere imitation. The angst-ridden Allegro moderato, filled with intense longing, is followed by the gentle, graceful Scherzo – Tempo di Menuetto. Clara, who inspired Robert’s innumerable love songs, evokes his romantic sensibility in Andante, a heartfelt love song “without words.” The invigorating Allegretto provides the trio’s “happy ending.”

Now all-but-forgotten, Croatian Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) composed over 100 orchestral, chamber and vocal works before dying of post-childbirth sepsis. Her sunlit Trio No.2 in C Major, Op.29 features, in turn, a sweet, rocking waltz (Allegro con moto), folk-like melodies and rhythms (Scherzo), dreamy sentimentality (Lento) and festive cheerfulness (Allegro resoluto).

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944) generally considered “a composer of French salon music” – charming, lightweight songs and piano pieces – is slowly regaining the recognition and respect she once enjoyed for her larger-scale compositions, such as her Trio No.2 in A Minor, Op.34. Brilliantly exploiting the varied colours of the three instruments, Allegro moderato kaleidoscopically mixes celebratory grandiloquence, wistful lyricism and sprightly playfulness. Lento is a solemn hymn of hope within despair. Celebration returns in the skittish, rambunctious Allegro energico, ending this very enjoyable work and very enjoyable CD.

There’s another complete set of the Bach Cello Suites, this time from the New Zealand-based cellist Inbal Megiddo (Atoll Records ACD233 atoll.co.nz/album.php?acd=233).

From the opening notes of the Suite No.1 in G Major, BWV1007 there’s a lovely use of rubato – no strict tempo here, but a rhythmic freedom which her mentor Aldo Parisot rightly says “gives an improvisatory feel to the music.” Beautifully shaped, expressive and sensitive, it sets the tone for all that follows.

Megiddo likens the Suites to an emotional and spiritual journey that mirrors life’s experience, convincingly equating each suite with a progressively later stage of life. Gorgeous tone, faultless intonation, all beautifully recorded – it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed listening to these wonderful works this much.

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Reflection, the new CD from violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and her long-standing duo partner pianist/composer Huw Watkins was inspired by Reflection Op.31a, written for the duo in 2016 by British composer Oliver Knussen, who died in July 2018 (Signum Records SIGCD968 signumrecords.com/product/reflection/SIGCD968).

The duo immediately wanted to record it, but it wasn’t until they performed Watkins’ own Violin Sonata in 2020 that Waley-Cohen felt they had found the right accompanying piece; both works are world-premiere recordings. The Watkins sonata is a striking work, written for Waley-Cohen and influenced by the qualities he sees and admires in her playing; despite some climactic passages, it has what the composer calls a prevailing mood of calm introspection.

Also on the CD are Stravinsky’s Duo Concertant, K054 and Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No.1 in F Minor, Op.80, works by two favourite composers of Waley-Cohen, Watkins and Knussen.

Violinist Jerilyn Jorgensen and pianist Cullan Bryant are the duo on Schubert: The Sonatinas for Piano & Violin (Albany Records TROY2012 albanyrecords.com/catalog/troy2012).

The three Violin Sonatas in D Major D.384, in A Minor D.385 and in G Minor D.408 from 1816 were published posthumously in 1836 as Sonatinas Op.137. In her insightful notes Lidia Chang suggests that the term sonatina was a deliberate marketing choice, indicating a lesser degree of difficulty with the many capable amateur players of the time in mind, a view supported by the fact that the style of the works suggests that they were intended not for the concert hall but for private performance.

Jorgensen and Bryant established a career presenting classical period historical performances, and this CD appears to be in that vein. The violin playing is low-key and understated, with very little consistent vibrato, and the keyboard is presumably a period instrument, the CD having been recorded in Ashburnham MA, home of the Frederick Collection of Historic Pianos, which Bryant has used as an instrumental source since the late 1990s. No confirmation in the notes, however.

If the thought of a Cuban pianist and a French cellist playing and improvising together appeals to you then you really should listen to Nuit Parisienne à la Havane, the new CD from pianist Roberto Fonseca and cellist Vincent Segal (Artwork Records ARTR0016CD store.pias.com/release/559357-vincent-segal-roberto-fonseca-nuit-parisienne-la-havan).

Fonseca – who includes the Buena Vista Social Club among his early activities – and Segal have created an intimate, finely crafted encounter that bridges classical influences, Afro-Cuban traditions and contemporary improvisation. The CD was recorded spontaneously over five days, with no preparation – they “simply sat down and began to play,” balancing carefully composed material with moments of improvisation. 

Fonseca admits to being strongly influenced by classical music, especially Bach and Chopin, and the interplay here between classical and jazz piano is captivating and immensely entertaining. Segal’s cello is a joy throughout.

BEYOND WORDS – A Collection of Art Songs for Cello and Piano features cellist Meredith Blecha-Wells and pianist Sun Min Kim in a recital of vocal works reimagined for their instruments, highlighting music’s power to communicate emotion beyond language (Navona NV6788 navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6788).

Two American works are at the heart of the recital: the lovely Aria for Cello and Piano by H. Leslie Adams (1932-2024) and Jennifer Bellor’s three-part Smile and a Sigh – Song of Flight, Echo and Long These Days – originally for soprano, electric guitar and piano, and arranged here by the performers.

Blecha-Wells and Kim are also responsible for all the remaining transcriptions on the disc. The CD opens with eight Rachmaninoff songs, selected from his various Romances Opp.4, 21, 34 and 38, and closes with de Falla’s six-part Suite populaire espagnole.

Blecha-Wells has a warm, smooth tone and a lovely sense of line, with Kim a fine accompanist. Cello and piano sound are both beautifully recorded on an excellent release.

In Beethoven complete string quartet news, the three volumes of The Complete Beethoven String Quartets released by the Calidore String Quartet between February 2023 and January 2025 have now been reissued as a 9CD box set (Signum Classics SIGCD925 signumrecords.com/product/beethoven-cycle-4-complete-box-set/SIGCD925).

From the outset the releases garnered a very positive response, with reviews in this column noting ensemble playing of the highest quality and expecting the resulting box set to be an exceptionally strong option – which, in a highly competitive field, it clearly is. 

Out of Vienna – Berg, Webern, Schulhoff, the outstanding debut album on the Alpha Classics label by the Leonkoro Quartet is a fascinating exploration of Viennese music for string quartet in the early 20th century ALPHA1196 leonkoroquartet.com/en/media).

Berg’s 1926 Lyric Suite is an intimate and passionate depiction of his deep love for Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the sister of Franz Werfel and the wife of an industrialist friend of the composer. Hanna’s annotated copy of the study score from Berg (“May it be a small monument to a great love”) details the use of their initials (B-F and A-Bb in German notation) and personal numerology, as well as significant quotes from other works.

Schulhoff’s Five Pieces for String Quartet from 1923-24 are described as looking at the Baroque genre through surrealist – and sometimes sarcastic and mocking – lenses.

Webern’s Five Movements for String Quartet, Op.5 from 1909 was the first string quartet work to use the free atonal style that Webern had started in his Lieder Op.3 – “a concentration of means that tended towards aphorism.” He told Berg that the work mourned the 1906 loss of his mother. His beautiful Langsamer Satz, an early work from 1905 is essentially a love poem to his future wife.

Concert note: The Leonkoro Quartet perform Haydn, Bosmans and Schubert at Music Toronto on March 5. 

Works by Shostakovich and Kaija Saariaho are presented on Terra Memoria, the new CD from the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam (Rubicon Classics RCD 1218 dudokquartet.com/albums/terra-memoria-saariaho-shostakovich).

Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.3 in F Major, Op.73 was highly regarded by the composer, who originally gave each of the five movements a title suggesting an anti-war stance – Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm; The eternal question: why? and for what?, for instance – before deciding to withdraw them. It remains a powerful personal statement in his unmistakeable style.

The title track is Saariaho’s atmospheric 2007 Terra Memoria for String Quartet, her second work in the genre. It has the dedication “for those departed,” remembering those no longer with us, “Terra” (earth) referring to the material of their complete lives and “memoria” to its transformation in our memories.

Transcriptions of seven of Shostakovich’s 1933 24 Preludes Op.34 complete the disc, with two (numbers 1 and 22) arranged by the Dudok’s violinist Judith van Driel and five (numbers 2, 4, 6, 7 and 12) by their cellist David Faber.

On Elena Ruehr: The Northern Quartets the Quartet ES performs the programmatic set of three string quartets that Ruehr wrote for them following a casual suggestion that she write some new quartets about places she loves (AVIE AV2798 avie-records.com/releases/elena-ruehr-the-northern-quartets).

String Quartet No.9 “Keweenaw” explores the Keweenaw Peninsula on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where Ruehr grew up. The five movements include A Thimbleberry Ripens in the Sun, A Blizzard and Lake Superior at Night. String Quartet No.10 “Long Pond” evokes the small lake in Cape Cod where Ruehr has spent a lot of time, the quartet opening with Moonrise and ending with a Nor’easter storm.

Iceland was the inspiration for the String Quartet No.11 “Reykjavik” in anticipation of its premiere there, Ruehr admitting to having been inspired by Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Psalms and Barber’s Adagio for Strings when writing it.

The works are all strongly tonal and immediately accessible, creating a distinctive array of soundscapes and fully supporting Ruehr’s remark that you don’t need to know the programmatic elements to enjoy the music. 

The string quintet developed alongside the string quartet, but never matched the latter’s prominence in the chamber music world. The new 3-CD set Mozart String Quintets, featuring violinists Oleg Kaskiv and Alexander Grytsayenk, violists Eli Karanfilova and Valentyna Pryshlyak and cellist Pablo de Naverán presents all six of the works Mozart wrote for the genre, with a viola instead of a cello as the fifth instrument (Claves Records CD 50-3127-29 claves.ch/products/mozart-the-string-quintets?srsltid=AfmBOoqfo6k0fgxKgUYsw9OI9DT5AGRFn3Ltpzw-14bjh4tbwIdE1pxu).

  Michael Haydn has been credited with creating the form in 1773, the same year that Mozart wrote his String Quintet in B-flat Major, K174 on returning from a trip to Italy. The String Quintets in C Major K515, in G Minor K516 and in C Minor K406/516b (the latter a transcription of an earlier Serenade for Wind octet) date from 1787, the String Quintet in D Major K593 from 1790 and the String Quintet in E-flat Major K614, the last chamber work he completed, from 1791.

There’s bright, joyful playing here that still plumbs the emotional depths of these superb works.

Two remarkable works by teenage composers are featured on Enescu & Mendelssohn Octets, with the Paris-based Quatuor Ébène and the London-based Belcea Quartet continuing a relationship they first began ten years ago (Erato 5021732997296 warnerclassics.com/release/octets-mendelssohn-enescu).

“Phenomenally gifted,” says the release blurb of both composers – if anything, an understatement. It’s still difficult to believe that Mendelssohn’s wonderful Octet in E-flat Major, Op.20 from 1825 was written by a 16-year-old, and George Enescu’s Octet in C Major, Op.7 from 1900, when the 18-year-old composer was living in Paris, inspires equal admiration. It’s an expansive and passionate work that reflects the influences of the time – Strauss, Wagner, Debussy – as well as folk music from the Romanian composer’s homeland.

Both works receive full-blooded performances. There are numerous recordings of the Mendelssohn available, but the addition of the Enescu renders this excellent release even more attractive.

The Brazilian Rafaell Altino has been principal viola with the Odense Symphony Orchestra for 28 years, and they join him in three 21st-century Danish Viola Concertos by Karsten Fundal (b.1966), Christian Winther Christensen (b.1977) and Søren Nils Eichberg (b.1973), all written for him. David Danzmayr conducts the Christensen, Pierre Bleuse the Fundal and Eichberg (Dacapo DAC-DA2044 dacapo-records.dk/en/recordings/fundal-viola-concertos).

Fundal’s 2008 Viola Concerto (Lightened Darkness/Darkened Light/Dwindling Recall) is an engrossing work, brilliantly orchestrated with a full range of textures and sonorities. The three sections grow less dense in texture, with the solo viola gradually disappearing over the final six minutes against a barely audible background of what sounds like falling water.

 To call Christensen’s 15-minute composition from 2019 a Viola Concerto seems a misnomer: seven brief sections, mostly mixtures of sounds and effects with barely a hint of orchestration. The release sheet mentions “strings tapped with rods rather than bowed, instruments patted and scraped, and woodwinds blown without reeds. Rarely does anything sound fully or in the foreground.” Make of that what you will.

Eichberg’s 2016 Charybdis (Wirbeirausch ) restores our faith. It’s named for the whirlpool and sea monster in Homer’s Odyssey and was inspired by the force of natural destruction, the viola being “caught in the spiraling vortex of the orchestra.” Brilliant stuff!

Compositions by Edward Elgar, John Ireland and Frank Bridge are featured on English Cello Works, a new Naxos CD with the Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid, the Swedish pianist Bengt Forsberg and the Royal Danish Orchestra under Thomas Søndergård (8.573690
naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.573690).

Brantelid digs deep in an expansive and passionate opening to the Elgar in a live recording of a 2021 Copenhagen concert. It’s a terrific performance all through, with lovely phrasing, plenty of nuance and a fine mix of intensity and expressive sensitivity. The orchestral support is equally fine.

Ireland’s Cello Sonata in G Minor from 1928 is fittingly described here as fusing brooding, terse muscularity with lyricism and bravura. Brantelid and Forsberg provide a compelling reading, as they do with Bridge’s Cello Sonata in D Minor, H125, a two-movement work begun in 1913 but not completed until 1917, the trials and tribulations of the First World War which intervened possibly accounting for the differences between the Romantic opening movement and the more melancholic and defiant second.

Elgar wrote Liebesgruß (Love’s Greeting) in 1888 as an engagement present for his piano student Caroline Alice Roberts; it was published by Schott the following year in various arrangements under the title Salut d’amour. The cello and piano version closes an outstanding CD.

The two Shostakovich Cello Concertos were both written in collaboration with Rostropovich, whose artistry inspired the composer to expand the cello’s expressive capabilities with virtuoso technique and profound emotional depth. They are presented on a new Avanti Classic CD in live performances by Alexander Kniazev and the Yokohama Sinfonietta under Kazuki Yamada (AVA 10672 avanticlassic.com/releases/shostakovich-cello-concerto-cd).

Both concertos offer insights into Shostakovich’s relationship with the Soviet regime. Concerto No.1 in E-flat Major, Op.107 from 1959, with its extraordinary solo cello cadenza third movement is from a relatively relaxed period following the 1953 death of Stalin, but it is still somewhat ambivalent and cautious.

 Concerto No.2 in G Major, Op.126 from 1966 is darker and more introspective; the composer’s health was deteriorating, and he was under increased scrutiny after reluctantly joining the Communist Party in 1960.

The two concertos were recorded in performance in Philia Hall, Yokohama in January 2015 and February 2018 respectively, and are accurately described as capturing the dark intensity and emotional richness of Shostakovich’s music.