Chandos Archive
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concertos – Louis Lortie/ BBC Philharmonic/ Edward Gardner – Chandos
Louis Lortie and conductor Gardner present us dazzling intensely athletic accounts of the three Saint-Saëns concertos, brilliant and scintillating.
SCARLATTI: Sonatas, Volume 1: 16 Sonatas – Federico Colli, piano – Chandos
Pianist Federico Colli inaugurates his Scarlatti cycle with 16 sonatas that combine harmony, invention, and elegance.
French Moments = Piano Trios by ROUSSEL, DEBUSSY, FAURE – Neave Trio – Chandos
The Neave Trio bestows upon us three French piano trios that well define late Gallic Romanticism and its capacity for rare colors. French Moments = ROUSSEL: Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 2; DEBUSSY: Piano Trio in G Major; FAURE: Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 120 – Neave Trio – Chandos CHAN 10996, 70:08 (6/1/18) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: Recorded 19-21 October 2017, the three piano trios offered by the Neave Trio—Anna Williams, violin; Mikhail Vesetov, cello; Eri Nakamura, piano—provide perfect vehicles to justify the etymology of the ensemble’s chosen title, since “Neave” derives from the Gaelic designation for “bright” and “radiant.” Of particular note, the 1902 Piano Trio in E-flat by Albert Roussel (1869-1937) will prove enchanting, given its striking colors and post-Franck harmonic syntax. The opening movement—Modere, sans lenteur—though establishing a three-note pattern on the home key in a manner that suggests a sunrise, quickly gravitates into the active, chromatic harmony we associate with late French Romanticism. Roussel does demonstrate a melodic gift, occasionally in a martial spirit, and his cello likes to meander in dark hues. The recapitulation of this movement presents the themes in reverse. The influence of Cesar Franck makes itself felt in the […]
DAG WIREN: Symphony No. 3 – Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Rumon Gamba – Chandos
Tuneful and entertaining 20th century orchestral music from a notable Swedish composer. DAG WIREN: Symphony No. 3—Sinfonietta—Serenade for Strings—Divertimento—Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Rumon Gamba – Chandos, 70:18 [Dist. by Naxos] ****: At the young age of 22, the Swedish composer Dag Wiren (1905-1986) went to a performance of Honegger’s oratorio Le Roi David at the Stockholm opera. It changed his life. “My eyes were opened and my ears heard what they had previously been deaf to,” Wiren exclaimed. He was studying organ, piano, conducting and composition at the Stockholm Conservatory. He visited Paris in 1931, a common practice for budding young composers in the world (Copland, Glass, etc.). He learned more from attending concerts Paris in the 1930’s (Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Les Six) than he did from studying orchestration with Leonid Sabaneyev. When Wiren came home he composed the most popular work, the Serenade for Strings (1937). Rather than embrace modernism, Wiren belonged to a group of Swedish composers (Larsson, Koch and others) often referred to “Composers of the Thirties” who embraced neo-classism. The Serenade for Strings deserves its popularity—there’s a clarity of structure, superb balance, abundant melodic content and droll humor that’s reminiscent of his Danish colleague Nielsen. But these are also […]
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Job; Symphony No. 9 – Andrew Davis/ Bergen Philharmonic – Chandos
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Job; Symphony No. 9 – Andrew Davis/ Bergen Philharmonic – Chandos multichannel SACD CHSA 5180, 77:29 (2/17/17) ****: Davis returns to Vaughan Williams in a fine performance and recording. This new recording from Chandos couples a stunning performance and recording of two of Vaughan Williams’ great works. This is not the first time these compositions, conducted by Andrew Davis, have been on CD. He recorded the pair for Teldec in the ‘90s with the BBC Symphony. The first work, Job: A Masque for Dancing, has a scenario by Geoffrey Keynes based on William Blake’s illustrations of the Old Testament Book of Job. The score was first performed in concert in 1930. Some consider it Williams’ greatest orchestral creation and I wouldn’t argue with that sentiment. The piece is richly orchestrated, and the Bergen Philharmonic is precise and dynamic. The recording captures the glorious sound of the Bergen Cathedral, with its fine organ making an appearance on track 7. The Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 9 is also a pleasure to hear. It was the last symphony Williams composed, but it is strong and defiant in nature. It was premiered in London in 1958. Williams was clearly thinking of his […]
HOLST: The Planets; R. STRAUSS: Also sprach Zarathustra – National Youth Orch. of Great Britain; CBSO Youth Chor./ Edward Gardner – Chandos
HOLST: The Planets; R. STRAUSS: Also sprach Zarathustra – National Youth Orch. of Great Britain; CBSO Youth Chor./ Edward Gardner – Chandos multichannel SACD Chan 5179, 79:53 (2/17/17) ****: A fresh look at two popular works, in a superb, life-like recording. One is never quite sure what to expect when one hears a ‘youth orchestra’. Often it’s effort over musical proficiency. Not so in this new thrilling recording from Chandos, which features The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the CBSO Youth Chorus, under the baton of Edward Gardner. The disc contains fine renditions of Also sprach Zarathustra and The Planets by Gustav Holst. You might say it is a ‘space age pairing’ because the Strauss has been permanently branded as sci-fi music due to its inclusion in 2001- A Space Odyssey. The Strauss opens with a very deep bass of the C Major chord from a pipe organ, and as the opening unfolds the sound is excellent, as good a Zarathustra as I’ve heard in terms of audio quality. With all that praise, I have to say the Holst is even better. It’s an exciting and detailed performance of The Planets, and the young players negotiate this difficult […]
GINASTERA: Panambi (complete ballet) – Piano Concerto No. 2 – Manchester Chamber Choir – BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena – Chandos
Exciting, atmospheric and complex orchestral music from South America. GINASTERA: Panambi (complete ballet) – Piano Concerto No. 2 – Manchester Chamber Choir – BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena – Chandos 10923, 69:07 ****: The music on this disc represents the early and late music of one of the most influential South American composers of the 20th century, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983). The ballet Panambi (1934-36), represents his early blend of Argentinian folk music with his own nationalistic style – using polytonality, and pounding rhythms. It’s both thrilling and atmospheric. But in the 1950s Ginastera came under the influence of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) and his music became “neo-expressionistic.” He integrated 12-tone and serial techniques with dramatic, ritualistic and expressive effects, while maintaining the earlier characteristics of ostinato (repetition of phrases). The Piano Concerto No. 2 is a good example of his later style. Audiophiles are familiar with the suite from Panambi, but this is the first recording of the complete ballet. It was an astonishing debut for the young composer and the popular music to the ballet Estancia followed in 1941. When Ginastera heard a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 1918, he commented, “The primitivism of the […]
TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 2; KHACHATURIAN: Piano Concerto – Xiayin Wang, p. – Royal Scottish Nat. Orch./Peter Oundjian – Chandos
Two little known Romantic Russian piano concertos thrill in expansive SACD sound. TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 2; KHACHATURIAN: Piano Concerto – Xiayin Wang, p. – Royal Scottish Nat. Orch./Peter Oundjian – Chandos multichannel SACD CHSA 5167, 75:54 ****: The pairing of these two Russian Romantic warhorses brings together two works that deserve to be performed more often. Both have explosive melodic invention supported by rich orchestration and virtuosic opportunities for piano and orchestra. Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) was Eastern Armenian by birth, but lived in Russia (Moscow) most of his life. Initially interested in biology, at age 19 entered the Moscow Conservatory as a cellist, studying with Nicolai Miaskovsky. His music was tonal and fell easily on the ears. That helped him elude the Communist conservative forces that nearly destroyed Shostakovich. He grew up surrounded by folk music. “Popular festivities, rites, joyous and sad events in the life of people always accompanied by music,” he once wrote. His music is colorful, ripe with folk melodies and rhythmically dramatic. In the 1951 Record Guide a critic wrote, “A clever musician who knows every trick of the trade…Khachaturian’s talent seems fundamentally commonplace; but the athletic rhythms and luxurious texture of his orchestral […]
OLA GJEILO: Ubi caritas & other works = Str. quartet & guitar – Decca
My second exposure to this composer, and it is a very satisfying experience.
B01BIEK8JO OLA GJEILO: Ubi caritas; The Spheres; The Ground; Sanctus: London; The Crossing; Northern Lights; The Lake Isle; Serenity; Tundra; Reflections; Sacred Heart – Ola Gjeilo, p./ Voces 8/ Tenebrae/ Chamber Orch. of London/ Thomas Gould, Ben Hancox, Hannah Dawson & Ciaran McCabe, violins/ Jon Thorne & Simone van der Giessen, violas/ Matthew Sharp, cello/ Kristian Kvalvaag, guitar – Decca B0024646, 47:34 [Distr. by Universal] ****:
Northern Lights is a spectacular SACD on Chandos released a few years ago. It has a couple of the selections here. The forces on this stereo CD (not an SACD) are equally adept at Gjeilo’s idiom, and the sound on this disc is very special indeed, but it cannot compare to the sonic splendor of the Chandos. In that 2012 review I said that “It is in effect a religious album though you would not know it by Chandos’s clever masking of that fact”, and that the composer creates “basically diatonic and melody-driven compositions, making for a quaint and sometimes ingenious combination of Slavic feeling set in the mode of someone like Daniel Pinkham.”
Listening to this disc, I hear little to change my mind.
Gjeilo is no Eric Whitacre—his harmonies refuse the tense, ecstatic, almost overbearing dissonances that fall as easily as consonances on the ear. He is more melody-centered (though not in a traditional sense) and his harmony is calmer and far more pointed. The pieces on this disc use a wide variety of instrumental accompaniment, which differs from the Chandos disc, though I must admit that I don’t hear in the instruments anything that is particularly idiomatic to those instruments. In other words, you could swap out one for another and still come away with the same effect, albeit a slightly different coloring, even though we do have some instrument-only pieces in this collection.
Whichever way you look at it, the music is exceptionally engaging and non-threatening while at the same time alluring and enticing in a very subtle manner. If your blood pressure is high, this might be the ticket. The performers are top-notch, and only the short playing time irritates me, especially as Chandos saw fit to give us an hour, and on as SACD. Nicely done, and well worth considering.
—Steven Ritter
ATTERBERG: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 = Sym. ‘Västkustbilder’; Three Nocturnes; Vittorioso – Gothenburg Sym. Orch. /Neeme Järvi – Chandos
Excellent performances of works as part of a resurgence. KURT ATTERBERG: Orchestral Works, Volume 4 = Symphony No. 3, Op. 10 ‘Västkustbilder’; Three Nocturnes, Op.35bis; Vittorioso, Op. 58 – Gothenburg Sym. Orch./Neeme Järvi – Chandos CHAN10894, 62:23 (3/25/16) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: The music of twentieth century composer Kurt Atterberg has been undergoing quite a resurgence these past twenty or so years with many recordings, especially of his symphonies, and other orchestral pieces getting a lot of attention. This is volume four of a particularly interesting set with conductor Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony, as part of this resurgence. What little I have heard of the Atterberg symphonies, in particular, I have enjoyed and the present Symphony No. 3, ‘West Coast Pictures’, is certainly the focal point of this album. With the movement subtitles “Summer Haze”, “Storm” and “Summer Night”, this is a work clearly designed to be a set of three short ‘tone poems’ of sorts that depict the composer’s impressions of the Swedish west coast. Originally, Atterberg wrote the three movements quite separately and only after a couple of performances of the first two, deciding to write a third a reconsider the work as a symphony. As […]
Lydia Mordkovitch Tribute – British Violin Concertos = Works of BAX, BLISS, DYSON & VEALE – Chandos (2 CDs)
Chandos celebrates the late Lydia Mordkovitch, assembling her stunning performances of rare British concertos. Lydia Mordkovitch Tribute – British Violin Concertos = BAX: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra; BLISS: Concerto for Violin and Orch.; DYSON: Violin Concerto; VEALE: Violin Concerto – Lydia Mordkovitch, v./ London Philharmonic Orch./ Bryden Thomson/ BBC Nat. Orch. of Wales/ BBC Sym. Orch./ City of London Sinfonia/ Richard Hickox – Chandos CHAN 241-53 (2 CDs) 78:39, 77:36 (7/15/15) [Distrib. by Naxos] ****: Chandos celebrates the artistry of the late Lydia Mordkovitcxh (1944-2014), the Russian violinist who had served as David Oistrakh’s assistant before emigrating to Israel (in 1974) and then to Great Britain in 1980. Besides having been voted Outstanding Woman of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, Mordkovitch became a Professor and Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and a founding artist for Chandos Records. The British concertos inscribed here derive from sessions of 1991-2006. The Violin Concerto of Sir Arnold Bax (1938, rev. 1943) had been meant for Jascha Heifetz, but that virtuoso expressed his disappointment with the solo part. Rewriting the work for Eda Kersey, Bax found his long-awaited premiere from her and Sir Henry Wood with the BBC Symphony. The Concerto’s […]
JANACEK: Orch. Music Vol. 1 – Sinfonietta; Capriccio; The Cunning Little Vixen – The Bergen Philharmonic/ Edward Gardener – Jean Efflam Bavouzet, p. – Chandos
Three pieces from Janácek’s late period, in excellent hi-res surround.
PIERNE: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 = BBC Philharmonic – Chandos
Pianist Bavouzet and conductor Mena revisit the music of Pierne with effective results. PIERNE: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 = Paysages franciscains, Op. 43; Les Cathedrales; Scherzo-Caprice, Op. 25; Poeme symphonique, Op. 37; Fantasie-Ballet, Op. 6; Nocturne en forme de valse, Op. 40, No. 2; Etude de concert, Op. 13 – Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, p./ BBC Philharmonic/ Juanjo Mena – Chandos CHAN 10871, 72:58 (9/25/15) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: A celebrated pupil of Cesar Franck and Jules Massenet, Gabriel Pierne (1863-1937) established himself early, winning first prize for piano performance (1879) and later, in 1882, the coveted Prix de Rome. Pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, as a complement to his having recorded the Pierne Piano Concerto in c minor (CHAN 10633), decided to explore the Pierne oeuvre further with conductor Juanjo Mena, inscribing (17-19 July 2014) another series of works meant to expand our general familiarity with his legacy. Though immersed in his duties as conductor of the Colonne Orchestra, Pierne had found time for composition, having written an oratorio on the life of St. Francis of Assisi, even as the clouds of WW I had begun to form over Europe’s skies. The Paysages franciscains (1919) reflect much of the Debussy syntax, set […]
Audio News for September 8, 2015
Chandos Not Into Digital Streaming; Sony’s Early PlayStation Could Save Your SACD Collection; Sony Has World’s First HDR UHD Video Projector
RACHMANINOFF: All-Night Vigil – Phoenix Chorale/ Kansas City Chorale/ Charles Bruffy – Chandos
Choral bombast at its best, though some might consider it a little overdone.
EUGEN SUCHOŇ: Metamorfózy; Balladická Suita; Symfonietta Rustica – Estonian Nat. Sym. Orch./ Neeme Järvi – Chandos
Wonderful performances of these somewhat obscure works.
ELGAR: Sea Pictures; The Dream of Gerontius – Sarah Connolly, mezzo-sop.l/BBC Sym. Orch./BBC Sym. Chorus/soloists /Sir Andrew Davis – Chandos (2)
Two of Elgar’s best choral works written back to back in wonderful performances.
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Sheherazade – Toronto Sym./ Peter Oundjian – Chandos
A thrilling SACD in performance and recording – but a bit short on music.
PROKOFIEV: Piano Concertos 1 – 5 – Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, p./ BBC Philharmonic/Gianandrea Noseda – Chandos (2 CDs)
As electric and athletic a set of Prokofiev piano concertos as you could wish, brilliantly performed and recorded.
“KURT ATTERBERG Orchestral Works, Vol. 2” = ATTERBERG: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 8 – Gothenburg Sym. Orch./ Neeme Jarvi – Chandos
Excellent performances of symphonies by this important Swede.
JOHN ADAMS: Harmonielehre; Doctor Atomic Symphony; Short Ride in a Fast Machine – Royal Scottish Nat. Orch./ Peter Oundjian – Chandos
The first SACD recording of the instrumental work taken from Adam’s controversial Doctor Atomic opera.
“DELIUS in Norway” – Norwegian Bridal Procession; Paa Vidderne; Two Songs from the Norwegian; Sleigh Ride; Folkeraadet; On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring; Eventyr – Ann-Helen Moen, sop. (on 2 Songs)/ Bergen Philharmonic Orch./Sir Andrew Davis – Chandos
Grieg’s influence is obvious in this music inspired by Norway’s landscape and culture.
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
