Tchaikovsky: Kuda, Kuda 'Lensky's Aria' (from Eugene Onegin)

Nicolai Gedda, the most recorded tenor in history, is an exceptionally versatile artist who has excelled in a wide variety of operatic roles as well as in the art song. With a magnificent lyric tenor voice and extraordinary range, Gedda makes the notorious top D at the end of ‘Mes amis, écoutez l’histoire’ sound positively effortless. This collection offers a wealth of repertoire that has helped to cement Gedda’s reputation as one of the greatest tenors of his generation.

Piotr Beczała has enjoyed success at all the great opera houses of the world. He also excels in the Slavic repertoire, which may be less than familiar to the box office but worthy of recognition, especially with such a voice possessed by this Polish tenor. Notable successes have been Beczała’s sell-out performances as the Prince in Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Salzburg Festival and as Lenski in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Met, Covent Garden and elsewhere. Beczała’s recital here includes highlights from the aforementioned works, but he also offers proof of the rich possibilities that this repertoire offers for a tenor to display both vocal grace and melancholy.

It was in Warsaw that many of the operas were premièred, such as The Haunted Manor, The Raftsman and Halka by Stanisław Moniuszko. He was one of the driving forces behind the patriotic opera aesthetic of the newly founded national states in 19th century Europe, an aesthetic not just restricted to Poland. These three operas offer intense scenes of reminiscence and contemplation for their tenor protagonists, and they are joined here by the later, almost verismo operas Janek and The Baltic legend. Prince Igor is more familiar in the west, so it is fitting that Beczała here reminds us once more of the qualities of Vladimir’s romance from it. The musical spectrum is completed by examples of exoticism and local colour with excerpts from Sadko (in two different orchestrations), May Night, Aleko and Arensky’s Raphael. This is a solo programme from one of the great tenors of our time, as varied as it is rich in discoveries.

Following recorded forays into the modern, with newly composed concertos by Dalbavie and Pintscher, and into the Baroque, with Bach’s complete flute sonatas, Emmanuel Pahud performs a programme of virtuoso operatic fantasies with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and its exciting young Canadian music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Emmanuel Pahud’s ‘Night at the Opera’ features fantasies on Rigoletto by Franz (1821–83) and Karl (1825–1900) Doppler, Der Freischütz by Claude-Paul Taffanel (1844–1908), Die Zauberflöte by Robert Fobbes (b.1939), La traviata (for two flutes) by Emanuele Krakamp (1813–83) and Carmen by François Borne (1840–1920) in an orchestral arrangement by Raymond Meylan. We are also treated to Lensky’s aria from Eugene Onegin, arranged by Guy Braunstein, and familiar flute solos from opera, including the entr’acte from Bizet’s Carmen and Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo ed Euridice. Juliette Hurel, solo flute of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, joins Pahud in the works for two flutes. The digital bonus track is the Menuet from Bizet’s L’Arlésienne.

Stephen Johns, Vice President A&R, EMI Classics, says, “This recording showcases Emmanuel Pahud’s extraordinary technique and musicianship, while presenting familiar and beautiful tunes from the greatest operas.”

Pahud recently described the background to his latest album: “In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a tradition of salon music because people did not have CD or MP3 players as we have nowadays. They had no access to the internet or the radio so they would have to have transcriptions in order to hear this music in their homes. While Mozart was writing his Magic Flute, there were already people who, when they were rehearsing it in the theatre, were writing down the music and arranging it for duets and quartets so they could play it, like a jukebox, at home. Then in the 19th century the music became more virtuosic, because the instruments had developed and, while there was Paganini on the violin and Liszt on the piano, there were people like Doppler, Boehm, Krakamp and Taffanel developing the flute and repertoire for the flute in various countries. And they wrote transcriptions and very virtuosic pieces with lots of notes in them for the new, improved flute made of metal and with keys.”

“All the pieces on this album have been transcribed or were written in a version for flute and piano in the 19th century, apart from two. One of these is Lensky’s aria, arranged as a fantasy for violin and piano by our Berlin Philharmonic concert master Guy Braunstein. As a present, he made a flute version of that transcription for me. I had the idea of adding it to this collection of opera favourites in an orchestration that reinstates the original sound of Tchaikovsky in the orchestra. The other piece that is more recent is the variations on Die Zauberflöte. I had to include The Magic Flute in this collection. But I did not know of any satisfying version until I discovered this one on a recording by a Belgian colleague. It turns out it had been composed for him by a friend as a birthday surprise.”

Emmanuel Pahud, one of today’s most exciting and adventurous musicians, demonstrates his mastery of and sympathy for music composed over nearly three centuries. Principal Flute of the Berliner Philharmoniker since the age of 22, with the exception of a year-and-a-half-long sabbatical, Pahud has also appeared as soloist with many of the world’s other leading orchestras under such conductors as Abbado, Rattle, Zinman, Maazel, Gergiev, Gardiner, Harding, Järvi, Pinnock, Jordan and the late Mstislav Rostropovich. As a recitalist, Pahud collaborates with Eric Le Sage, Yefim Bronfman and Hélène Grimaud and he performs jazz with Jacky Terrasson. Pahud appears regularly at the major festivals in Europe, North America and the Far East.

Since signing an exclusive solo recording contract with EMI Classics in 1996, Emmanuel Pahud has recorded a broad range of repertoire to wide critical acclaim. Sales of his CDs number in excess of 400,000 worldwide. His EMI discography is set to be one of the most significant contributions to recorded flute music. His most recent releases include the Bach Complete Sonatas, newly composed concertos by Dalbavie, Jarrell and Pintscher and the Nielsen Flute Concerto (and Wind Quintet) with the Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle. In October 2009, Pahud was named Instrumentalist of the Year (Flute) at the Echo Klassik awards for his Bach Flute Sonatas CD.

“Emmanuel Pahud, flautist supreme.” The Times

Principal oboist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and winner of the Echo Classic Young Upcoming Artist of the Year, oboist Ramon Ortega Quero here performs a selection of his favourite romantic works for oboe.

“Michael Spyres has a lovely, liquid tenor, all honey for love duets and some metal for cries of outraged honor.” John Yohalem, from Opera Today

You may well be hard-pressed to name a classic opera that lacks a love-story – or a tenor as the main romantic hero. Accordingly, emerging American tenor Michael Spyres has come up with a fresh and fascinating pretext for A Fool for Love: his new collection of tenor arias on Delos.

Michael has carefully selected thirteen mostly well-known arias by composers ranging from Mozart to Stravinsky, encompassing a staggering array of love-related circumstances and emotions. He then sequenced them so as to tell the love-story of a single romantic protagonist. The album’s booklet contains a two-act “plot synopsis,” in which each segment of our hero’s story is indexed to the corresponding aria.

As Michael puts it in his booklet introduction, “What I seek to present to you in this album is a fanciful musical story of a typical war-torn couple, and their struggle to cope with the raptures and ravages of this intangible enigma called love.”

Michael, a Missouri native, completed his studies at the Vienna Conservatory, and is already well-known to European audiences for his critically-acclaimed work in recital, oratorio, and opera. He has appeared at such distinguished houses as Milan’s La Scala and Deutsche Oper Berlin, and worked with conductors like Ricardo Muti and John Eliot Gardner.

Blessed with a supremely versatile instrument, Michael has successfully performed the music of composers from Bach to Wagner, encompassing music of many periods and styles: Baroque, Classical, Bel Canto, and Verismo. He has recorded Rossini’s La Gazzetta, Otello, and Le Siège de Corinthe for Naxos.