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CD Review | Sommernachtskonzert 2023 (Summer Night Concert 2023)

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By on CD and Book Reviews
September 2023

Sommernachtskonzert 2023 (Summer Night Concert 2023) music by Bizet, Gounod, Ravel, Berlioz and Strauss Elīna Garanča, mezzo-soprano; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor Sony Classical CD, June 2023 Every summer the Vienna Philharmonic presents an open-air concert in the gardens of the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. The setting is spectacular, and the event draws thousands of listeners—in fact, it has become nearly as popular as the orchestra’s New Year’s concerts. For conductors, it is a singular honour to be invited. This year, Yannick Nézet-Séguin led a program of French music with Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča. Garanča offered familiar arias by…

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CD Review | Jaap Nico Hamburger: Piano Quartet (Leaf Music, 2023)

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By on CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music
September 2023

Jaap Nico Hamburger: Piano Quartet Axel Strauss, Victor Fournelle-Blain, Yegor Dyachkov, Ilya Poletaev Leaf Music, 2023 In July, Halifax-based independent label Leaf Music released a new opus by composer Jaap Nico Hamburger. This three-movement work for quartet (violin, viola, cello and fortepiano) comes in at almost 12 minutes, and is interpreted by Axel Strauss, Victor Fournelle-Blain, Yegor Dyachkov and Ilya Poletaev. In fact, it’s a preview of Hamburger’s next album. The Dutch-born Canadian composer is currently an artist-in-residence in Montreal as part of the Mécénat Musica program. The label has announced that the recording will be part of Hamburger’s next…

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CD Review | Canciones de mi abuelito (Atma Classique, 2023)

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By on CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music
September 2023

Canciones de mi abuelito Antonio Figueroa, tenor; La Familia Figueroa Atma Classique, April 2023 On his new album, Montreal tenor Antonio Figueroa, accompanied by the Familia Figueroa, invites us to share the musical moments that shaped his childhood and inspired his career. This collection is a “family story,” as the author describes it. Above all, it is a tribute to his grandfather and his career as a mariachi musician of recognized lyrical talent, with which he charmed the Quebec public shortly after he and his family moved to Montreal in the mid-1970s. The grandson thus regales us with some jewels…

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CD Review | Fauré: Nocturnes & Barcarolles (Hyperion, 2023)

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By on CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music
September 2023

Fauré: Nocturnes & Barcarolles Marc-André Hamelin, piano Hyperion, September 2023 Pianist Marc-André Hamelin explores some of Gabriel Fauré’s lesser-known genres, the nocturne and barcarolle, in his newest album. While melancholy solo piano pieces presented in succession risk bordering on the mundane, Hamelin manages to expertly manipulate its most exciting quality: its intimacy. Hamelin’s unique and close relationship with this repertoire becomes immediately apparent in the opening E-flat minor nocturne. The listener almost feels like a “fly on the wall” during a closed-door event. The shape and contour of his phrases alongside the lightness in his playing meld to create a…

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

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By on CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music
September 2023

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…

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

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By on Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews
September 2023

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…

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Lebrecht Weekly | Bernard Herrmann: Wuthering Heights (Chandos)

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By on 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…

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Photo: Jürgen-Frank

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

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By on 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…

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

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By on 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…

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

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By on 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…

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