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Many would say that the big three of the top English composers of the 20^th Century would be the three whose music makes this album one of the hidden gems available at NativeDSD 

Elgar is celebrated for his Symphonies, his Cello Concerto, and (of course) The Enigma Variations and the Pomp and Circumstance Marches.  Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture may not be his most celebrated work, but it is a delightful trip to London at the turn of the last century.  It’s short, light, and full of happy nostalgia. 

Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia is a favorite of mine.  The music consists of non-vocal passages from his opera, Peter Grimes, which work very well as a standalone suite.  Haunting, exciting, superbly orchestrated, this music has become part of the standard repertoire.

But the shining jewel on this album is Ralph Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5.  The Fifth contains some of the most beautiful music ever written, yet when performed properly has the drama and tension that keeps it interesting.  Maestro Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony might not be the first group you’d think of in this music, but they are excellent!  And that excellence is on full display thanks to a fine Pentatone recording.  

No “stiff upper lips” here– just great music to fall into.

Also consider…

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The Art of the Oud

For more than two decades, Vancouver-based guitarist and bandleader Gordon Grdina has been composing music that features the oud. The oud is a double-coursed string instrument with a bowl-shaped back that is prominent in Arabic and Persian musical cultures, and is the historical precursor to the European lute. The short-necked instrument is typically strung with a single bass string and five double-string courses. Its ancient history is shrouded in myth, but the oud is believed to have been introduced to Europe in the 8th century. 

The Arabic music system maqam, which translates as ‘place’ or ‘location’, has a centuries-long history of development and a level of complexity that demands high technical and intuitive skills of its virtuoso players. Maqam modes incorporate quarter tones that can sound to the Western ear like “bent” notes in jazz and blues playing. 

Gordon Grdina has been playing oud since his teens. The art of the oud is transmitted from master to student, along a path of innovation, adaptation and variation based on regional and ethnic musical traditions. Oud players have deep respect for tradition and a desire to carry older practices into newer forms of expression. It is not surprising that Grdina has pursued a similar course. 

Think Like the Waves

The oud is featured on Grdina’s 2006 Songlines debut, “Think Like the Waves”, a trio with bassist Gary Peacock and percussionist Paul Motian. Grdina was mentored by Peacock, the calm center of the Keith Jarrett “Standards” trio, over a period of five years. Working with a musician who had played alongside Jarrett, Bill Evans, and Paul Bley, connected Grdina to the lineage of an earlier generation of modernist innovators. 

“Think Like the Waves”, released in 2006, was the culmination of Grdina’s studies with Peacock. Joined in the studio by the great Paul Motian, the group performed an entire set of Grdina’s original compositions, ten with electric guitar, four with oud. There’s a gradual movement from the chamber jazz of the first three guitar tunes towards the Middle-Eastern scales of the oud piece  “Renunciation”. 

The subtle interplay of West and East runs through subsequent years of Gordon Grdina’s musical output. His distinctive writing, and the effortless mastery of Peacock and Motian, marks this session as an early milestone in his career. 

“Think Like The Waves” was recorded by Aya Takemura in 24/88, mixed in 2.0 and 5.0, and originally released on SACD. NativeDSD’s higher rate DSD remastering increases the sonic detail of this well-engineered album.

Ejdeha

Fretless string players—violinists, cellists and bassists—practice tirelessly to produce correct Western intonation on their instruments in order to play in tune with pianists and orchestral string sections,  or with woodwind and brass players. It is no small accomplishment that Gordon Grdina established a working ensemble of string players who have the skills to perform and improvise on Arabic- and Persian-centered music so effectively.

The project of integrating the oud into Western contemporary music has preoccupied Grdina for many years. Grdina described his goals to Songlines label owner Tony Reif: “I  practice western-based ideas on the oud… because there have been techniques that needed to be developed in order to translate harmonic and melodic material to the instrument.”

Bassist Mark Helias and cellist Hank Roberts have sterling credits and broad experience in modern jazz and new creative music. Roberts, a longtime collaborator of guitarist Bill Frisell, effortlessly blends into the intricate,  sometimes delicate, other times high-risk arrangements. There are dark, brooding excursions propelled by middle eastern vamps as well as through-composed works (“Wayward”) that relate to the music on Grdina’s preceding Songlines album, “Inroads”. 

Helias’ deep, rich bass, and the diverse sounds percussionist Hamin Honari elicits from the tombak, daf, and frame drum, are presented in vivid and warm recorded sound by engineer John Raham. Mastering of the original 24/96 release is by Vancouver’s most valuable player, pianist/composer/mastering engineer Chris Gestrin. As with all of the Songlines releases, NativeDSD’s higher rate versions shouldn’t be missed! 

Inroads

Inroads, a quartet album on which Grdina performs almost entirely on guitar, opens with a calm meditation by pianist Russ Lossing that focuses the listener’s attention for the challenging music to follow. 

The appropriately titled “Not Sure” is a continuously unfolding suite that skillfully mixes quiet interludes and forceful, ‘out’ passages. A technically dazzling section in odd-meter rhythm unexpectedly drops into an introspective, contrapuntal duo between the saxophone and guitar, then shifts into a new section positioned over a repetitive single-note phrase played on the guitar’s low strings. As reeds player Oscar Noriega switches from saxophone to bass clarinet and Grdina changes from a clean electric guitar tone to distortion, the mood is assuredly unsure, and blurs the distinction between jazz and new classical music. 

In the solo piano intro to “P.B.S.”, pianist Russ Lossing plays grand piano and Rhodes electric keyboard. Phrases transition from the acoustic to the electric instrument as smoothly as water flowing. A slow melody line played by saxophone and guitar establishes a harmonic foundation, but rather than solo over those changes, the musicians shift gears into a new section of contrapuntal lines that builds in density, volume and complexity. The rapidly-changing structure produces a sense of dislocation, and the track climaxes in a passage laden with aggressive guitar phrases and furious drum fills reminiscent of mid-1970s King Crimson. 

“Apocalympics” builds on Moorish/Spanish themes and open space for drummer Satoshi Takeishi. It has the feel of a drum solo section of a live performance, enhanced by the excellent sound engineering. Electric keyboards and distorted guitar lines invoke early electric jazz-rock. 

Grdina describes “Fragments”, the only track on which he plays the oud, as a clash of ideologies between the Eastern oud and the grand piano, epitome of Western music. Under the fingers of pianist Lossing, the East/West cultural divide disappears. Strummed piano strings and rapid arpeggio phrases perfectly complement the oud’s pizzicato attack. Oscar Noriega contributes low-register counter-melodies on the bass clarinet that build into a haunting unaccompanied solo, as the other instruments drop away. 

Grdina’s collaborators on Inroads are among the most respected players in the contemporary New York jazz scene. Pianist Russ Lossing has recorded several albums as a leader for the Swiss label HatOLOGY. Reeds player Oscar Noriega is a regular member of Tim Berne’s Snake Oil. He’s a masterful bass clarinetist who can project a beautiful sound over the wide range of the instrument. Satoshi Takeishi, an in-demand session drummer and composer of solo percussion albums, adeptly follows the shifting course of the musical stream, always playing the right accompaniment at the right time. It’s not every drummer who can shift modes between the free-time poetry of Paul Motian and the prog rock polyrhythms of Bill Bruford. 

Engineer John Raham’s excellent 24/96 recording is elevated to spectacularly vivid sonic quality in NativeDSD’s higher rate versions.  

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More Lessons for the Classical Niche Crowd?

Several composers have written music for study purposes. Two typical examples are Bach’s Trio Sonatas to teach one of his sons how to master the three simultaneous voices of the organ (two keyboards with obligato pedal), and Chopin’s two sets of Etudes to practise his fingers to be able to compete in a strong field of excellent pianists. With this second release by the Polish quality label Prelude Classics, another series of study materials comes our way. The possibly for many not-so-well-known Belgian-born composer, Jean-Baptiste Loeillet, wrote several ‘Lessons’ for practising, six of which, composed for the Harpsichord, are now put on record by Michał Bryła. Bach’s and Chopin’s works meant for study purposes, have since become part of the core keyboard repertoire. Will the Six Lessons by Loeillet follow the same path? 

For a good understanding: In Loeillet’s days ‘Lessons for the Harpsichord’ were nothing special. Several composers, including Handel, produced them for obvious reasons. Not all reached the level of core repertoire. As for Loeillet; at the end of the day, it is the listener who decides. The performer and the sound quality are nonetheless compelling factors for the final verdict.

Whose lessons are they anyway?

Confusion exists about the Loeillet family and who wrote what. There is an earlier recording of ‘Six Suits of Lessons for Harpsichord or Spinet’, released in 2019 on the Urania Label (Leonardo Digital Collection) with the Italian Harpsichord player Luigi Chiarizia, advertised as Jean-Baptiste (John) Loeillet. A mistake. They were composed by Loeillet’s Flemish cousin, Jean Baptiste Loeillet de Ghent. And then there is a Jacques Loeillet … Furthermore, according to La Sala del Cembalo del Caro Sassone (The Handel Harpsichord Room), there is a 2018 recording of John Loeillet’s ‘Six SuIts of Lessons’ with the Italian Harpsichordist Fernando de Luca, but is nowhere listed as CD. The Loeillet we are talking about, is the one that settled in England referring to himself as ‘John L. of London’ and the Suites recorded here are his.

A World’s First?

Looking at it from different angles, it is not clear whether or not John’s set has been recorded previously. However, World Premiere or not, Michał Bryła has, in my view, hit for more than one reason the jackpot. Firstly, the soloist, Maria Banaszkiewicz-Bryła, professor at the Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań, Poland, turns out to be a phenomenal harpsichordist; secondly, these Suites are now for the first time available in Super Audio; and last but not least, reading the technical specifications in the booklet, Bryła has not spared any technical means to produce all Six at the highest possible engineered level. 

Mother and Son at work.

My listening sessions confirmed Maria’s pleasing style; a style that matches, in all its shades and colours, the intimacy of this sophisticated and noble instrument. Yet, she shows her technical aptitude i.a. in a magnificently projected Corrente (Courante) in the Fifth Suite. Harpsichords can sometimes sound like someone scraping his throat. A warm sonority is on display thanks to Bryła’s careful engineering with a realistic sonority and discrete surround sound pattern. A family in harmony is what I sensed; Mother and Son at work. 

I shan’t pretend that Loeillet’s Suites are of a similarly high level as Bach’s Trio Sonatas. It would need more time to wait and see if confirmed harpsichord players will put and keep it in their repertoire. For the time being, however, and surely in Madame Maria Banaszkiewicz‒Bryła’s interpretation, they have given me immense listening pleasure. We must be thankful for her having taken them out of oblivion. 

The liner notes by Lilianna Stawarz are equally outstanding! It makes the ‘Six SuIts of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinnet in most of the Key’s with Variety of Passages and Variations Throughout the Work’ all the more monumental. A true contribution to the classical catalogue and to all those who demand nothing less than the best.  Simply said: A Must Have.

Epilogue.

More from Michal Bryla and Prelude Classics:

Blangy-le-Château, Normandy, France

Copyright © 2024 Adrian Quanjer and HRAudio.net

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The extremely talented Ning Feng is joined by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto in the Violin concertos of Edward Elgar (1857-1934), and Gerald Finzi (1901-1956).

Elgar’s Violin Concerto isn’t quite as well known as his Cello Concerto, but has a similar passion and beauty. It’s been said that Elgar’s pieces are like time capsules of their time and place, and I must agree. In my imagination, I am transported to the turn of the last century England in a way unlike any other composer’s music.

Finzi’s music often contains the most simple melodies; but they are melodies that convey a warmth of emotion that wraps your heart in a pretty bow, and makes the world seem like a wonderful place. Although finished in 1927, the Violin Concerto was not premiered until 1999– nearly a half-century after Finzi’s death. It turns out he was dissatisfied by the two fast movements, although no one really knows why that might be. I’ve become a big fan of Finzi’s music, and I urge you to seek it out.

These works are very British, and they are very beautiful. Luckily for us, Ning Feng, plays them with love and commitment, and the Channel Classics recording is superb.

I urge you check these out as well:

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Here are two excellent recordings of a work that might be new to you: 

Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium). Quoting Bernstein, “The music, like Plato’s dialogue, is a series of related statements in praise of love.” The work is scored for Solo violin, harp, string orchestra, and percussion. It was premiered in 1954 in Venice with Isaac Stern, violin, with Bernstein conducting. Bernstein considered it his best “serious” work.

The recording with the amazing Salvatore Accardo was my introduction to the Serenade. It won me over from the first few bars. The Album also features conductor Krzysztof Penderecki’s own Violin Concerto.

Released just this year, the album featuring soloist James Ehnes, with Stephane Deneve conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra also features John Williams’ Violin Concerto no. 1.

So, which one is the winner? They’re both excellent! You might decide on the basis of the additional works. There’s an old world magic to Accardo’s playing. James Ehnes is fine in the John Williams Concerto, as well as the Bernstein. I might lean toward the Accardo just a bit, but I wouldn’t want to be without either one.

You might also be interested in:

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I admit it. I was never a fan of director Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti westerns”. I got tired of closeups that allowed me to count the pores and follicles on the bad guy’s face, and the music that seemed a bit draggy. A lot of people disagreed. Many American westerns began to resemble spaghetti westerns. Don’t get me wrong, there are many fine Italian films I love and have in my collection, and there are elements from each of Leone’s films that show remarkable creativity. But boiling it down, I was in no hurry to listen to this album.

But when I did… Finally I get it! I’m still not a big fan of spaghetti westerns but I have tremendous respect now for the music of Morriconi, because of this album.

These suites are made up of themes from his most famous scores from different genres, and from different directors. Marco Serino’s solo violin is in the spotlight. Ennio Morricone’s son, Andrea conducts the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento.

If you already know the films and the music, you will love the album. If you don’t, forget about the movies and just listen to the lovely and unashamedly romantic music. After the second listen, I was hooked!

Also interesting:

The post Finally, I Get It! appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

The amazing classical cellist Maya Fridman joins with jazz musicians, pianist Atzko Kohashi an acoustic bass player Frans van der Hoeven, to create something unique!

It’s wonderful, it’s superbly played; but what is it? Yes, it’s jazz, but Maya Fridman’s cello makes for something like classical chamber music. Or, chamber jazz. (I didn’t coin that phrase, by
the way, but it works.) The three musicians play together as one, even as they occasionally improvise.

The recording is amazing. For me, this is music for being alone – perhaps with a dash of melancholy.
It’s music that suggests a dream – one you don’t want to lose when you wake up.

Quiet, thoughtful, calming- but this music is never “background.”
But what do you call it? I call it uniquely involving, beautifully played, soul- touching music!
I hope you will take the time to “discover” this one for yourself.

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Anna Fedorova is among the greatest pianists performing and recording today. Sure, my opinion. But well judged. Anna plays organically, self-effacingly. She consistently lets the music flow forth for its own sake, never as a way of saying “look at me, look how technically perfect I am.” No, she gives voice to the composer, to the music, never to herself. And in doing so, she creates landscapes seldom viewed in performances by other, often more extensively promoted, pianists. 

And, while her technical perfection is second to none, it is the emotional content of her playing that is captivating. She plays powerfully where called for, but with great delicacy where otherwise suitable. Her dynamic swings are immense, but always controlled, always with precision, always with intention. And it is perhaps the intention with which she plays that I find most consistently engaging. She creates meaning in every phrase, with every touch.

Over the years I’ve been listening to her recordings, and eagerly awaiting the next, I am never less than delighted with her performances and the programming of her recitals.

Anna Fedorova, Intrigues of the Darkness, works by Scriabin, Ravel, De Falla and Mussorgsky. Channel Classics 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and multichannel). HERE

This new release is a marvel of artistic interpretation, pianistic excellence, and communicative value as Anna takes us on a journey from darkness to light. She opens the 77+ minute recital with a fully engaging performance of Scriabin’s terrifying “Black Mass” Sonata, the Piano Sonata No. 9. It is as complex and challenging a composition as I know, and moments in the music are purely terrifying. She then flows smoothly into a compelling delivery of Ravel’s romantic Gaspaard de la Nuit, which Ravel so rightly described as requiring “transcendent virtuosity”—which Anna assuredly displays. She follows this with the mysterious world evoked in De Falla’s El Amor Brujo and its powerful concluding “Ritual Dance of Fire.” What a thrilling ride across these three well known works.

And this is all in just the first 43 minutes. The remaining 33 minutes is filled with as insightful and powerful performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (his original version for solo piano) as any I’ve heard. Her characterizations are delicate, creative, fun, terrifying, overwhelming powerful. All rolling, roiling, reeling from one brilliant interpretation to the next. 

In her performances she is blessed with playing a truly powerful, sonorous and tonally beautiful Steinway that has been meticulously set up for this recording. It is just gorgeous. The lovely, natural acoustic environment of MCO Studio 1, Hilversum, Netherlands, is a full partner. And is taken to full advantage as Anna allows the massive walls of sound from the Steinway to swell, fill and reverberate in that excellent performance venue.

Jared Sacks captures this as only Jared does—balancing the direct and reverberant sound fields beautifully for some of the most impactful, and beautiful, sound of piano that one can hope to experience. Jared responded to a congratulatory email from me with: “Great playing by Anna. We used a great hall with natural acoustics. Piano and technician were tops. I just used a A/B with a m/s in the middle. trying to capture the right balance between the piano and the ambience of the space. No post productions except for some simple edits from Anna.”

And capture the “right balance between the piano and the ambiance of the space” he most certain did—in spades!

On top of all of this goodness, Jared was able to release this recording in Pure DSD256. No PCM post production whatsoever. As a result, all of the sound from the performance is captured and delivered to our ears in utter purity. It is as transparent and natural sounding a recording of a concert grand piano as I have heard.

Here are sonics that are truly a credit to the outstanding musicianship that Anna Fedorova shares with us in this very remarkable recording. Kudos to all involved.

For those who have not yet discovered Anna Fedorova, take 8 minutes and indulge yourself by viewing this video as Anna plays the concluding two tracks from the album, Pictures at an Exhibition: The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yagá) and The Great Gate of Kiev. This will knock your socks off.

Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova (b.1990) showed an innate musical maturity and amazing technical abilities from an early age. She regularly performs at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, New York’s Carnegie Hall & Lincoln Center, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Tonhalle Zürich, Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, and London’s Barbican Centre & Royal Albert Hall.

This is her fifth solo piano album. She additionally has released  four chamber music albums and all of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos with the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen under Modestas Pitrenas. Her Rachmaninoff concerto albums are superlative performances of these works. Available on Channel Classics Records, I treasure them all and highly recommend them to you. 

My prior reviews of Anna’s recordings can be found in these articles:

Anna Fedorova performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos 1, 2, and 4

Anna Fedorova and Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto

Anna Fedorova Shaping Chopin in Pure DSD256 from Jared Sacks

Anna Fedorova: Four Fantasies for Piano

Anna Fedorova: Storyteller – Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin

Anna Fedorova – With Magic in the Air

Dutch Hidden Gems – With the Excellent Dana Zemtsov, Viola

Notes from Recent Finds, No. 17 – Releases from NativeDSD (“Fathers & Daughters”)

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When I was young I was very impressed by music from “big” motion pictures. There was Miklos Rozsa (Ben Hur, El Cid, Quo Vadis), Alex North (Spartacus), Bernard Hermann (Vertigo and other Hitchcockian delights), Dimitri Tiomkin (Giant, Lost Horizon, High Noon), and others. Aaron Copland, Prokofiev, and other “classical” composers also wrote music for films. But the most remarkable composer for films was probably Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), and he only did the music for sixteen of them.

When he was a child Korngold was writing music that impressed everyone. Mahler called him a genius and Strauss marvelled at how such totally adult music could be composed by a boy.

He was a successful opera and concert composer in Vienna, but spent some time in Hollywood writing music for a few Warner Brothers films. He made the final move to Hollywood while escaping with his family just as their home was being confiscated by the Nazis. Luckily he’d been tapped to do the music for “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” making the trip possible.

In 1918, Korngold was commissioned to write incidental music for a production of Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing (Viel Lärm um Nichts) that received its first hearing at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Castle in may 1920.

Korngold was just 15 when he wrote the Sinfonietta, first performed by Felix Weingartner and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 1913. It earned the praise of no less than Richard Strauss. 

Korngold is most impressive to me for his absolutely gorgeous dramatic melodies, and his amazing orchestrations, even in these two early works. John Storgards and the Helsinki Philharmonic are excellent in this music, and the recording is first class!

This was definitely an overlooked treasure for me– A true “discovery!”

You may be interested….

And here’s a YouTube BBC Documentary with Leonard Slatkin talking about his family and Korngold.

The post A Forgotten Treasure from Korngold appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

I was looking through some releases from last year when I was reminded of this award winner.  Sebastian Stanley’s Rachmaninoff album showcases his masterful playing, and HR’s superb recording quality.

Rachmaninoff has a special place in my life.  I began piano lessons just 7 years after his death. I’ve always seen the modern side of his works.  He was a superb conductor, a much admired concert pianist, and he sure could write a tune!

The Morceaux de Fantasie was first published in 1893.  The Prelude is certainly the most well known.  Melody and Serenade were revised with second versions much later in 1940. Although all five were performed frequently by Rachmaninoff, it was these two that he performed in many different versions.  The Chopin variations are delightful as well.

As I often say, when doing these reviews, I have too many different performances I like to say this one is RIGHT and that one is WRONG.  (Although…  Sometimes…) What I can say about this one is that I’m glad I found it again!  Stanley’s touch, his feeling, his total approach makes me eager to hear more from him.

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