Future Releases

After a series of critically acclaimed recordings on ONYX, most recently of the Mendelssohn (ONYX4060) and the Tchaikovsky concertos (ONYX4076), James Ehnes teams up with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and its charismatic music director, Kirill Karabits, in Violin Concertos by Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich.

The Britten an early work, was completed in the September of 1939, just as World War II broke out. Britten had already composed 'Our Hunting Fathers' in 1935 (words by W.H Auden), and this work’s ferocious condemnation of political extremism and man’s inhumanity can to some extent be detected in the concerto. The barbarity of the Spanish Civil War (the concerto was written for the young Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa), the rise of Hitler’s Nazis and the persecution of the Jews appalled Britten. Peace and reconciliation was his credo, as exemplified in the later 'War Requiem'. In the scherzo tuba and piccolos present the listener with an image of the horrifying abyss mankind was lurching towards.

The first of Shostakovich’s two violin concertos was composed in 1948 for David Oistrakh. It had to wait until 1955 for its premiere due to the ban on ‘serious’ music by the notorious Zhdanov Conference and Party Decree of 1948. Only ‘patriotic’ music was allowed. With Stalin’s death in 1953 Shostakovich was finally able to exert his artistic freedom. It is a truly symphonic work in scale, grand, dramatic and cast in four movements with a huge cadenza placed before the finale.

Only in the finale does the sun burst out in a brilliant helter-skelter coda.

For his new ONYX CD Pascal is joined by his wife Ami for a programme of French masterworks for orchestra by Debussy and Ravel in arrangements for two pianos. The arrangement of 'La Mer' is the Rogés' own, the others are by the composers. The transcription by Maurice Ravel (1908) of Debussy’s 'Fetes', in the words of the distinguished musicologist Maurice Hinson, "has been translated into the two-piano idiom with independent artistry [and] ranks with the best original writing in the two-piano medium." Unlike Liszt’s single-movement 'Spanish Rhapsody' for solo piano, Ravel’s is a four-movement suite for two pianos: ‘Prélude à la Nuit’, ‘Malagueña’, ‘Habanera’ and ‘Feria’. It was written within the space of a few weeks in October but built around the ‘Habanera’ which had formed the first movement of his 'Sites articulaire' of 1895. Its recycling may have had something to do with Ravel’s resentment at being accused of plagiarising a passage from Debussy’s ‘La soirée dans Grenade’ of 1903 written in the same key with a habanera rhythm and a similar use of an insistent C sharp clashing against the harmonies.

Ravel pointedly attached the date ‘1895’ underneath his ‘Habanera’ in the two-piano score of Rapsodie espagnole and the orchestral version which he prepared in the early months of 1908.

Pascal Rogé has for many years been considered the prime interpreter of French piano repertoire. His recordings of Satie and the Debussy Preludes (ONYX4004) are benchmark recordings. BBC Radio 3 when reviewing the Debussy Preludes said they "came close to a definitive interpretation" and Telerama in France commented "Très beau, tres éduisant. Souverain".

This is Ukraine-born Alexei Grynyuk’s first solo recording of the music of Franz Liszt, a composer that has been in Grynyuk’s repertoire since he first started winning piano competitions at the age of 6.

In Liszt’s bicentennial year Grynyuk performed the Sonata at a special concert in Kiev – alongside both of Liszt’s piano concertos.

Grynyuk is a first prize-winner at the Vladimir Horowitz International Piano Competition and the Shanghai International Piano Competition.

“…breathtaking musical accomplishment with musicianship of the highest order…” Musical Opinion

In this year of his 200th birthday, Richard Wagner’s three early operas are enjoying unusual prominence: several staged productions of 'Das Liebesverbot' are planned, while his breakthrough work 'Rienzi' and even his first opera, 'Die Feen', are to be spotted (although the latter is usually given in concert performance). However, to this day it is a rare thing to find all three played at the same opera house, in the same season, under the same conductor as was the case at the Bavarian State Opera in 1983 under Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Sawallisch, who passed away just a few weeks ago, was the Director of the State Opera for many years. In all three of these operas he confirmed his Wagnerian reputation as a supreme proponent of a marvellous, fluid style of music-making that was devoid of pathos. This was to the benefit of his ensemble of singers, who were largely spared the dangers of a heavy, cumbersome Wagner performance style, even though several of their roles undoubtedly demanded great dramatic ability. This requirement was fully met by Linda Esther Gray as Ada in 'Die Feen' and by Sabine Hass as Isabella in 'Das Liebesverbot', for example. With René Kollo as the title hero in 'Rienzi' and Hermann Prey as the governor Friedrich in 'Das Liebesverbot', these operas featured German singing stars of the day who both had a lyrical approach to Wagner and to whom great clarity of text was paramount. Arindal in 'Die Feen', the other murderous tenor role that is to be found in Wagner’s 'sins of youth', was sung by John Alexander, who established his international career primarily in Italian repertoire. This was also the case with June Anderson, who sings the role of Arindal’s sister, Lora.

Both in 'Die Feen' and in 'Rienzi', the 'younger' generation of Cheryl Studer and Jan-Hendrik Rootering made a lasting mark, and, in the State Opera ensemble under Sawallisch’s direction they were inexorably led towards future stardom.

This new CD box from ORFEO, in which these operas, hitherto released individually, are now available in a limited special edition. This is more than just a contribution to the Wagner year; it is a homage to an era of opera in Munich.

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.