CD and Book Reviews - my/maSCENA

CD Review | For the King of Prussia/Beethoven: Sonatas for fortepiano and cello, Op. 5 (Arcana, 2023)

By Pietro Freiburger on 1 September 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music

For the King of Prussia/Beethoven: Sonatas for fortepiano and cello, Op. 5 Anna Fontana, fortepiano; Marco Ceccato, cello Arcana, 2023 This new album, by celebrated early-music experts Marco Ceccato and Anna Fontana, features the two sonatas, Opus 5, and the 12 Variations on “See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes” WoO 45. Both pieces present listeners with a beautiful charge of energy, appropriately categorized as Mozartian rather than Beethovenian, on account of their compositional style and the articulation of their interpretation. Fontana’s sound is always vital and present, and Ceccato’s melodic lines consistently cantabile and warm. The album opens with the Sonata…

CD Review | Il ponte di Leonardo (Glossa, 2023)

By Hassan Laghcha on 1 September 2023 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews

Il ponte di Leonardo Constantinople; Marco Beasley, tenor; Kiya Tabassian, sitar, voice, artistic director Glossa, 2023 This album presents a musical encounter between Kiya Tabassian (artistic direction, sitar and voice), and the virtuoso soloists of his Constantinople ensemble, joined by tenor Marco Beasley, a leading specialist in Renaissance music. Released in May 2023 by Glossa, it is a concert recording that has seen much success thus far. The various parts of this concert are inspired by manuscript musical works from the 16th and 17th centuries held in the libraries of Florence and Istanbul. On the program are selections from the…

Lebrecht Weekly | Bernard Herrmann: Wuthering Heights (Chandos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 28 August 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

The history of Hollywood film music runs in a fairly straight line from Erich Wolfgang Korngold to John Williams, offering a colourful blend of Wagner, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Puccini and Prokofiev. The historical line is as unwavering as it is untrue. While mainstream movie composers relied on much the same materials, some spun off into a different sound world, creating a satellite narrative of screen sound. The most original rethinker of film sound was the New York composer Bernard Herrmann. He was just 30 when he won his first Oscar for The Devil and Daniel Webster in 1941, and then he went to…

Photo: Jürgen-Frank

Lebrecht Weekly | Infinite Voyage: Emerson Quartet (Alpha Classics)

By Norman Lebrecht on 18 August 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

Prepare to shed a tear. After 47 years at the string quartet frontlines, the Emersons are breaking up this summer to spend the rest of their lives on their other passion – nurturing new quartets. Their two violinists – Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer – have been there since the quartet’s formation in America’s bicentennial year; the violist Lawrence Dutton joined in 1977. Only the cello seat has seen changes. Few groups, from the Buena Vista Social Club to the Rolling Stones, have ever maintained such consistency at such high performance over so many years. The foundation year is, to…

CD Review | Tribute to François Dompierre (ATMA Classique, 2023)

By Justin Bernard on 16 August 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Movie soundtrack music, Piano, Quebec Music

Hommage à François Dompierre Louise Bessette, piano; François Dompierre, composer and piano ATMA Classique, 2023 We rarely hear Louise Bessette in this light. To celebrate François Dompierre’s 80th birthday, the pianist offers us arrangements of film music, and other selections, all of which played a role in establishing the reputation of the Quebec composer, himself a pianist. “Most are piano reductions (…); others are adaptations of radio improvisations. Finally, a few were written especially for her, and are dedicated to her,” explains the composer, in the album’s booklet. These include Entre mer et chanterelles, written in honour of his former…

Lebrecht Weekly | Grazyna Bacewicz: Piano concertos &c (Ondine)

By Norman Lebrecht on 11 August 2023 CD and Book Reviews

Is there a more elusive composer in the whole of the 20th century than Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969)? Bacewicz is usually designated a Polish composer but her Lithuanian father left the family after his state won independence in 1918. Her brother, Vytautus Bacevičius, was a composer in New York. Grazyna, landing a well-paid job as concertmaster of the national radio orchestra, shuttled between Warsaw and Lodz. She is Polish, then, by circumstance; also, by marriage and child. But her sound does not fit somehow in the Polish tapestry of Szymanowski, Lutoslawski, Panufnik and Penderecki. She is an outsider, and not by reasons…

Lebrecht Weekly | Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn: Choral and vocal works (Pentatone/First Hand Records)

By Norman Lebrecht on 4 August 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

It’s not often one gets a chance to compare two composers who are brother and sister. In fact, apart from the Mendelssohns, there is hardly another instance except Mozart and his inauspicious sister, Nannerl. In the Mendelssohn family, Fanny was the first to show talent, only to be silenced by her father once young Felix displayed a boyish genius that many likened to Mozart’s. Fanny went off, got married, acted as family conscience and shocked Felix by taking up composing again in her thirties. The works on these two albums are disparate in tone and intent. Felix’s psalms, sung by…

François Bourassa

Post Festival Record Roundup

By Marc Chénard on 1 August 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Scena Jazz

The Nimmons Tribute — Vol. 1 To the Nth / Vol. 2 Generational — Artist Produced Composer and educator Phil Nimmons, featured as the cover story of the previous issue, was celebrated for his centenary at the Toronto Jazz Festival on July 2, his music heard outdoors in spite of a steady drizzle. For those who did not make it, there are a pair of hour-long studio recordings of the pieces played on that occasion and much more to listen to, the first disc issued three years ago, its follow-up launched at the show. Given the dedicatee’s prolific output over his long…

CD Review | Clara, Robert, Johannes: Atmosphere and Mastery (Analekta, 2023)

By Kristen Whittle on 31 July 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Classical, Orchestral, Romantic

Clara, Robert, Johannes: Atmosphere and Mastery National Arts Centre Orchestra (directed by Alexander Shelley) Analekta, 2023 Conductor Alexander Shelley and the National Arts Centre Orchestra present the third recording of a four-volume collection featuring three of the most iconic composers in the romantic-era: Clara Schuman, Robert Schuman and Johannes Brahms. Bru Zane is devoted to the rediscovery and international promotion of French repertoire dating from 1780-1920. Les Nuits de Paris is the French equivalent of the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert, devoted to music by Johann Strauss and his Viennese contemporaries. The opening, Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat…

CD Review | Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, original 1874 version, ed. L. Nowak (Myrios Classics, 2023)

By Paul E. Robinson on 31 July 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major (original 1874 version, ed. L. Nowak) Gürzenich Orchestra, Cologne (conducted by François-Xavier Roth) Myrios Classics, 2023, MYR032D Total Time: 69:34 In 2024, the musical world will honour the birthday of Anton Bruckner, one of Germany’s greatest symphonists. We will undoubtedly see a veritable deluge of new Bruckner recordings in the next few months. François-Xavier Roth and his Gürzenich Orchestra, for example, have announced a complete cycle of his symphonies. This first CD suggests we are in for something special. Roth interprets the original 1874 version of the Fourth Symphony. It is very different…

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