Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

2010 sees the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth, and among the many celebratory recordings, this disc will stand out as an historic record of the composer’s extraordinary influence and legacy.

Chopin’s unique style of piano writing was to utterly transform the way in which composers wrote for and thought about the instrument. Few escaped some aspect of that legacy until the early years of the twentieth century; and few pianists have not had Chopin’s music in their concert repertoire. Small wonder that so many composers and pianistcomposers— major and minor—have felt moved to pay their respects to a musician for whom there is almost universal approbation. A fascinating selection of hommages are represented here.

Jonathan Plowright has recently been described as ‘one of the finest living pianists; the possessor of qualities that should no longer remain a secret’ (Gramophone). His formidable technique and musical integrity combine in a disc which is a must for any pianophile.

LSO Live is thrilled to welcome Bernard Haitink back for his first recording with the LSO since his internationally acclaimed Beethoven cycle in 2006. Eine Alpensinfonie was recorded in June 2008 during Haitink’s Strauss/Mozart series with the LSO. In his Alpine Symphony Strauss recounts an attempt to conquer the summit of an Alpine mountain. He infuses the score with numerous instrumental colours and rich combinations of sounds, evoking the images and events that take place on the trek. It was to be one of his final large-scale orchestral works and shows the last great German Romantic composer at the pinnacle of his art. Haitink has also recorded Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the LSO and soloists Christianne Stotijn and Anthony Dean Griffey for release on LSO Live later in 2010. He will conduct the Royal Concergebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam during early-2010 followed in June 2010 by a complete Beethoven symphony cycle in concert with Chicago Symphony Orchestra. LSO Live’s other recent releases include Prokofiev’s complete score for the ballet Romeo & Juliette conducted by Valery Gergiev. In March the label releases Gergiev’s recording of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.

“an outstanding performance of Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony. Rarely has the long haul to the summit seemed more purposeful. Haitink’s perfect control of the orchestral palette at sunrise and at dusk, as strands of colour rose out of and sank back into the dark monochrome contours, made this performance an incarnation of the music’s own metaphysical struggle and triumph” The Times

“He avoided the fashionable temptation to treat the vast score as an exercise in postmodern irony and presented it straightforwardly as a piece of tremendous late Romanticism” The Guardian

The Cardinall’s Musick’s award-winning Byrd series reaches its final volume, which includes some of the composer’s most sublime and adventurous music, drawn in the main from the 1591 Cantiones Sacrae collection. Throughout this series it has become evident that a comprehensive survey such as this shows the genius of the composer in a uniquely effective way: by demonstrating the extraordinary variety and unsurpassable quality of his musical and liturgical achievements.

Andrew Carwood defines Byrd as the greatest composer of the age in his booklet note—as he writes: ‘If there is an English musician who comes close to Shakespeare in his consummate artistry, his control over so many genres and his ability to speak with emotional directness it must be William Byrd.’

The ‘title track’ of this volume, Infelix ego, is the crowning glory of Byrd’s achievement as a composer of spiritual words and one of the greatest artistic statements of the sixteenth century. This remarkable text, taking the form of a number of rhetorical statements and questions, shows the whole gamut of emotion from a soul in torment—guilt, fear, embarrassment, anger, but crucially the gift of release when Christ’s mercy is accepted. It can be seen as a microcosm of Byrd’s sacred music and a fitting crown to this series.

3CDs for price of 2

This set includes archival and new recordings featuring the voices of the Hartmann family. Hartmann wrote mostly chamber music before 1933 for or with piano. An authentic survey of Hartmann’s chamber compositions.

One of the great names of 20th century Russian musical life.

Four cello concertos, sonatas, trios, and other chamber works feature in this set.

Knushevitsky is accompanied by artists such as Lev Oborin, David Oistrakh, Alexander Goldenweiser (a pupil of Arensky and a friend of Tolstoy).

The recording of the Khachaturian concerto is that of the first performance.

Extensive booklet essay by Ates Orga.

Born in 1908, Knushevitsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Semyon Kozolupov. He was senior to Rostropovitch and Shafran, and he graduated with a gold medal the same year as Emil Gilels took the piano honours. Joining the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra in 1929, he remained their principal cello until 1943. In 1940 he co founded one of the most famous piano trios of all time with David Oistrakh and Lev Oborin. Knushevitsky’s jet-setting life style eventually (along with his alcohol dependency) to its toll, and he suffered a heart attack, which killed him, aged 55 in 1963. Gliere, Khachaturian and Miaskovsky all wrote concertos for him, and his repertoire embraced not only the mainstream , but contemporary and rarer works such as the Strauss sonata and the Reger Suites, plus an extensive array of crowd pleasing encores such as Chopin’s op.25 C sharp minor etude ‘left hand’, transcribed by Glazunov.

His style of playing was lyrical, and had great emotional depth. Had he not succumbed to drink he would have challenged Rostropovich as the pre-eminent Russian cellist of the 20th century. As it is his reputation is considerable, and this 5CD collection allows the listener to experience his remarkable music-making.

Irmgard Seefried’s interpretation of the Composer in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos is said to have inspired Strauss himself to exclaim that until then he had not known how good his Composer was. She was also one of the most sought-after concert singers and lieder recitalists of her age. Not released until now, the many recordings included in the present CD attest to the richness and variety of that palette even during the early years of her career. The earliest of these recordings are Peter Cornelius's Brautlieder from the heyday of the Romantic art song, settings in which the soprano's exemplary treatment of the words and the vocal line are fully in evidence.The affinities between this cycle of six songs and the traditional German folksong offer the singer - a native of Swabia - a welcome opportunity to colour her tone even further, an approach that is also found in her recordings of songs by Mozart, Brahms,Wolf and two lesser-known composers, Wilhelm Kienzl and Joseph Marx.This compilation of Irmgard Seefried's recordings from the first ten years of her career in Vienna additionally includes some of Strauss's most popular songs, songs such as Morgen and Allerseelen that make it clear why, as we noted above, their composer held the soprano in such high regard.

Dutton Epoch’s presents the world premiere recording of Stanley Bate’s coruscating wartime Third Symphony. This work is quite a find, and if you like Vaughan Williams or Walton you will revel in Bate’s lyrical and dramatic Symphony, commandingly played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Martin Yates. With it comes Erik Chisholm’s grandly impressive and colourful tone poem Pictures from Dante (1948), possibly Chisholm’s greatest work – a brilliant orchestral study in two movements with resonances of Ravel, Holst and Celtic tradition. The disc is completed with the ninth contribution to Dutton Epoch’s celebrated series of Richard Arnell’s music. This comes in the form of Arnell’s two vivid tributes to the filmmaker Robert Flaherty, the prelude The Black Mountain and the extended tone poem or ‘Impression’ Robert Flaherty, in which Arnell, in some of his most romantic writing, reflects the Hollywood music of his time.

World premiere recordings

György Ligeti’s choral and orchestral music hit the mainstream when it was featured in the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but his equally remarkable chamber works remain less well known.

While indebted to his compatriot Bartók for its folk-inflected passages, Ligeti’s First Quartet, subtitled Métamorphoses nocturnes, is nonetheless a work of striking originality.

The Second Quartet, composed around fifteen years later, abounds in contrasts between glacial stillness and manic activity, mechanistic pizzicatos and gentle oscillations.

His early Andante and Allegro is richly expressive and easily accessible.

“The Parker Quartet is equally persuasive at both extremes… in Ligeti’s two full-fledged quartets, these musicians brought considerable warmth and richness of tone to sweetly accented themes and gentle chordal writing, and unbridled textural brashness to the more volatile passages.” The New York Times

One of the leading baritones and dramatic interpreters of his generation, Gerald Finley is an artist who sets alight the stage and delights the ear in whatever the role he portrays.

On this (his first arias disc, and first for Opera in English) he explores a broad range of repertory: old favourites, hidden treasures, and roles which he himself has created, among them J.Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’s Doctor Atomic and Harry Heegan in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie.

Gerald has won accolades across the globe including Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award at the 2006 Gramophone Awards for Stanford: Songs of the Sea (CHSA5043).

English National Opera director Edward Gardner offers a great understanding of Opera in English, and here conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in his debut on Chandos.

Vivaldi was attracted to the cello for its expressive capabilities, which are showcased perfectly on Ensemble Explorations's debut disc on the Etcetera label.