Future Releases

Siblings Gil and Orli Shahams’ new release 'Nigunim' is a wonderful and thought provoking offering of Hebrew melodies. Jewish folk music has always played an integral part in the Shaham’s life - as a small child, Gil fondly remembers hearing Achron’s Hebrew Melody being sung by his grandparents in Jerusalem. This music, more often than not, vividly evokes troubled origins, the music providing an escape of sorts and the violin the perfect voice which transcends the world from which they sprang. “One very powerful aspect of this music is its soulfulness”, Orli Shaham says; “Regardless of your background, I don’t think you can listen to it without feeling that connection”.

This release includes masterpieces by Ernest Bloch, Joseph Achron and Leo Zeitlin. They all started their musical lives as child prodigy violinists, as their idiomatic writing for the violin might suggest.

The centrepiece of the disc comes from the work sharing the album’s title Nigunim. Commissioned by Gil and Orli from Israeli composer Avner Dorman, it shares the universal appeal of the wordless melodies on which it was named. Unlike Bloch, Achron and Zeitlin, Dorman is a composer/pianist and this can be clearly heard in the equality he gives the piano in this engaging 4 movement violin sonata. “He has created a masterpiece and in my experience everybody who hears the piece falls in love with it – they’re electrified by it”, Gil explains. Indeed, when he performed the work, San Diego Today affirmed that “it was hard to miss [its] visceral excitement and structural elegance”, the Boston Globe admiring the “uncommonly intriguing sounds”.

John Williams is the only composer here who does not share the Shahams’ Jewish heritage, but his mastery in the score Schindler’s List is such that, according to Orli, in this piece “he has absolutely captured the feeling of ghetto life and what that looked like and how people interacted … the pieces included here are so authentic that they are a part of this tradition”.

Orli and Gil’s musical partnership is a lifelong one. The violinist recounts: “Orli and I used to play together at home when we were kids, but we didn’t give concerts together until we were in our 20s”. In addition to countless concert appearances, in the recording studio their collaborations include two previous Canary Classics recordings, The Prokofiev Album (CC02) and Mozart in Paris (CC01) and Dvorák for Two (Deutsche Grammophon).

Rarely heard in concert or on disc, 20th-century Mexican composer Carlos Chávez’s spectacular Piano Concerto, completed in 1940, receives an insightful and compelling performance from Mexican-born pianist Jorge Federico Osorio, with his native country’s flagship orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico and its music director, the dynamic young conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto.

For performers and audiences alike, Chávez’s powerful Piano Concerto is a thrill ride of surprising tempo changes amid a whirlwind of styles. Legendary pianist Eugene List, who gave its world premiere in New York in 1942, marveled at its “immense rhythmic complexity, great technical difficulty and unrelenting thrust and pressure.” Reviewing the premiere, The New York Times called the work “imaginatively scored” and praised its “elemental strength and the originality of its orchestral coloring.”

Chávez (1899–1978) wrote “extraordinarily varied works of Mexican character,” notes Grove Music Online. In addition to Chávez’s epic concerto, Osorio plays three works for solo piano on the new CD: Chávez’s early Meditación; Mexican nationalist composer José Pablo Moncayo’s Muros Verdes (Green Walls), from 1951; and contemporary Mexican-born American composer Samuel Zyman’s Variations on an Original Theme (2010)

At the end of 16th century London rose to become the most important North Sea port and, with the founding of the British East India Company in 1600, the metropolis on the Thames attained overseas importance. This London is also the marvellous world of Fancies, unique musical genres such as the Brownings and In nomines and the home of consort music – in such great demand that composers produced it incessantly for almost 120 years.

The musicians of Les Escapades roam through the genres in their variegated programme, presenting the famous masters of the English virginals – William Byrd, John Bull and Orlando Gibbons – as consort composers of rich imagination. Alfonso Ferrabosco, Richard Mico and John Jenkins are presented as fantasy specialists, completed by Tobias Hume and Christopher Simpson, who bring the soloistic possibilities of the viola da gamba into focus in a humorous and virtuosic manner.

The New York Philharmonic under their Music Director Alan Gilbert start a new series on Dacapo that looks at making premiere recordings of the orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence.

This release includes a stunning collection of works by Magnus Lindberg. EXPO was the overture to Gilbert’s very first concert as the Philharmonic’s new Music Director and Lindberg’s first season as their Composer-in-Residence in 2009.

Lindberg is one of today’s strongest Nordic composers. His musical language is quite complex but full of vim and verve.

John Philip Sousa’s swift rise to fame and greatness came at a time when band concerts were the most important aspect of musical life in the U.S. The works on this recording range from the early Revival March of 1876 and the stirring Right Forward March from Sousa’s time as conductor of the U.S. Marine band, to the “up-to-date” 1920s fox-trot Peaches and Cream and the 1923 Leaves from My Notebook, dedicated to the Campfire Girls of America. Music from Sousa’s operetta Chris and the Wonderful Lamp can be found alongside his medley of tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, which includes many of the hit tunes from this operetta, while The Honored Dead was performed at President Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral.

George Gershwin fired up the New York music scene with his mélange of alluring tunes and refinement of the jazz vibe. His Strike up the Band Overture opened a flashy Broadway hit and, inspired by a train ride, the composer heard his masterpiece Rhapsody in Blue as a “musical kaleidoscope of America”. Promenade was reconstructed from a 1937 film score, and Catfish Row was Gershwin’s concert suite from the opera Porgy and Bess. Acclaimed as a “bold, gutsy performance with plenty of pizzazz” and with “impressive brilliance and depth”, JoAnn Falletta’s previous Gershwin volume can be found on 8559705 or Blu-ray NBD0025.

This release follows JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic’s acclaimed recording of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto, which was a Grammy® nominee and described by Gramophone as having “snappy performances in well-balanced, clear recordings”. Soloist Orion Weiss has also frequently been singled out for praise, with MusicWeb International’s critic admiring his “special gift of making you listen to what he has to say.” With cracking performances, a spectacular recording and widespread promotion, we anticipate this title will be one of the hottest releases of this summer.

JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony in the United States and Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland.

Nicolas Flagello’s traditional late-romantic musical values and powerfully emotional and spiritual expressiveness are explored deeply in this program, from the grimly funereal Odyssey to his intensely somber and turbulent Symphony No. 2 and a new arrangement of the dark and tempestuous Concerto Sinfonico, his last completed work. Transcribed for saxophones, Valse Noire was originally a test piece for accordion. Arnold Rosner’s superbly crafted and highly individual works draw on archaic models, the Symphony No. 8 engaging us from a position of meditative devotion and majestic mysticism. The University of Houston Wind Ensemble has been admired for its ‘striking lightness and delicacy’ (ClassicsToday.com on Vittorio Giannini’s Symphony No. 3 8570130).

Ondine proudly presents world première recordings of two Guitar Concertos: one by Kimmo Hakola and the other by Toshio Hosokawa. These are performed by Timo Korhonen – the guitarist for whom the concertos were written – and the Oulu Symphony Orchestra conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

Kimmo Hakola’s Guitar Concerto is a colourful exploration of themes connected to both medieval and modern Southern Spain and Northern Africa

Toshio Hosokawa takes a more meditative approach as he searches for symbolic universal harmony in his music.

Timo Korhonen is one of the world’s most acclaimed guitarists. He has premiered over 40 new works during his career, and has made several critically acclaimed and award-winning recordings.

Santtu-Matias Rouvali has recently made a number of significant international debuts. He participated in the Dudamel Fellowship Programme in 2011/12, and will start his tenure as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2013. He is also the Principal Guest Conductor of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. This CD is his debut disc.

The Oulu Symphony Orchestra has developed considerably over the last few years under Anna-Maria Helsing. Johannes Gustavsson will continue this development from this autumn when he takes over as Chief Conductor.

Benedetto Pallavicino is one of the foremost madrigal composers of his time. In 1596 he obtained the position of music director at the Gonzaga court in Mantua, towards which he had been striving for a long time – not exactly a cause for joy on the part of his competitor, Monteverdi, 20 years younger and also employed in Mantua. Pallavicino created a total of ten madrigal books for four to six voices, in which an orientation towards the 'modern' madrigal style can be detected from the fourth book onwards.

The ensemble Daltrocanto has selected 19 madrigals from these late madrigal books, based on texts by Giovanni Battista Guarini. His 'Rime' and especially 'Pastor Fido' are amongst the most beloved text sources for madrigals. The texts deal with love in all its facets and Pallavicino sets them with typical stylistic devices such as sharp dissonances and chromatic passages as well as homophonic blocks contrasting with flowing contrapuntal sections. The emotions contained in the poetry are rhetorically and expressively illuminated. Thus Pallavicino proves to be one of the pioneers in the development of the manner of rhetorical-expressive composition that was to culminate in Monteverdi's Seconda Prattica. Some ravishing singing from Alena Dantcheva…

In the 17th century, an astonishing stream of compositions poured out of Naples, and Neapolitan composers and performers enjoyed extraordinarily high reputations all over Europe. One of the most important occasions in Neapolitan musical life were the so-called Spassi di Posillipo, open-air festivals on the Neapolitan shore. The nobility enjoyed vocal serenades and instrumental music played from boats by the most famous performers of the time.

The programme of this CD reflects the musical traditions of these events, whereby lesser-known composers are also introduced to the 21st-century audience: the central focus is on cantatas and serenatas of Antonio Farina. His passionate love songs show the various "affects" of Southern baroque music and can surely be counted among the most beautiful songs of the time. The incredible technical skills and virtuosity of the Neapolitan school is showcased by none other than Alessandro Scarlatti, one of the greatest Neapolitan masters. In addition, the CD also presents music by Pietro Marchitelli, a colleague of Scarlatti in the Real Cappella.