Naïve Classics UK

Fantastic international reviews of Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos recording!

2010-07-20T09:58:00.000+01:00

Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos recording received several enthusiastic reviews in the last months. You can read three of those fantastic international reviews below.

La Scena Musicale ★★★

Not to be heard at a single sitting, these are fabulous miniatures for large orchestra – if such a thing is possible – a set of short stories spread across two discs. I’m not advocating plagiarism, but any film composer with a John Williams complex would get a new lease of life from listening to this tone master at work. Pascal Rophé conducts a surprisingly agile Belgian band.

By Norman Lebrecht

The New York Times

What the album makes immediately apparent is that Mr. Dusapin – like his teacher, Iannis Xenakis, as well as modern composers like Harrison Birtwistle and Magnus Lindberg – has an exceptional knack for yoking and shaping the raw power of massed orchestral forces. (…) Mr. Rophé and his Belgian players do superb work, and the recording is thrillingly dynamic.

By Steve Smith

The International Record Review

Although these pieces were premièred by several notable orchestras and conductors, their entrusting to the Liège orchestra should surprise no one given the sheer responsiveness of its players to the composer’s exacting demands, while the authority of Pascal Rophé is evident at every stage. Those who know the second and third pieces in Emmanuel Krivine’s expert recording will find the present accounts an audible advance. The sound makes the most of the Salle Philharmonique’s fabled sense of perspective, and there are detailed notes from Dusapin himself. The opportunity to hear the whole sequence being unlikely, a recording as fine as this ensures that a major undertaking by one of today’s most significant composers can be more fully appreciated.

By Richard Whitehouse

Bertrand Chamayou and the Quatuor Diotima reviewed by the New Yorker!

2010-07-12T16:00:00.000+01:00

Bertrand Chamayou plays Franck

“In another naïve disk, the up-and-coming French pianist Bertrand Chamayou takes up an even greater challenge – the music of César Franck (1822-90), the composer whom people love to hate. Belgian-born, and with a German mother, Franck was the principal entry point for the influence of Liszt and Wagner during the early years of the Third Republic. Chamayou’s straightforward but stylish and invigorating accounts of such bedrock works as the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, and the Symphonic Variations (the latter offered with the dynamic accompaniment of Stéphane Denève and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra) suggest that perhaps a legacy of heavy-handed performances, rather than the music itself, has limited Franck’s appeal.”

The Quatuor Diotima plays Onslow

“The notion that any substantial German influence could affect France’s triumphant achievements in art, fashion, and cuisine would be, well, incroyable. But music, the relatively weaker sibling, has always been more susceptible to developments across the Rhine. It was George Onslow (1784-1853), the son of a transplanted English nobleman, who first gave France a serious chamber-music repertory – with the help of Beethoven, whose late quartets, performed in Paris in 1828, had a galvanizing effect on Onslow’s String Quartets Op. 54-56, newly recorded by the Quatuor Diotima (Naïve). These surprisingly powerful works, heard in suave and energetic performances, reveal a composer who combined a mastery of thematic development and chromatic harmony with a lightness of touch – and a bold, operatic lyricism – that remains utterly French.”

By Russell Platt

You can also read the reviews on the New Yorker’s website.

All you always wanted to know about Christophe Rousset!

2010-07-09T14:52:00.001+01:00

Ahead of his performance of Handel’s Semele at the Barbican last night, Christophe Rousset was interviewed by Dominic McHugh for the MusicalCriticism website.

Below are a few extracts from the interview:

One of the most versatile musicians of today, Christophe Rousset divides his time between such varied activities as conducting, researching new scores to perform and playing the harpsichord. (…)
This season, Rousset has conducted productions of Handel's Semele in Brussels and Paris, and he will bring the Paris cast to London's Barbican on Thursday for a concert performance. The soloists include Danielle de Niese and Vivica Genaux, and it promises to be a superb occasion. I took the opportunity to catch up with Rousset on the eve of that appearance to ask him about the piece, as well as his plans for the twentieth anniversary of Les Talens Lyriques next season.

Handel’s Semele

We begin with Semele. Rousset has commented on the 'sumptuous beauty' of the score. Does he read this sensuality as a subversion of the oratorio genre (which Handel was forced to associate with the piece), or as a successful attempt to blend aspects of both opera and oratorio? 'Surely if Handel calls Semele an oratorio, it is not in the sense of sacred music,' Rousset explains. 'To my mind, it is less of a subversion but more an attempt to blend opera to the new pattern which he felt compelled to adopt - an oratorio in the sense of a concert version of an opera. In reality, Congreve's libretto was meant to have been an opera. Only the choruses were added. And with the choruses and their large, almost Germanic architectural style, Handel was inspired by his own sacred music. The sensuality of Semele's music is a fact but this sacred music is not more controversial than sacred images in Rome such as Bernini's Ecstasy of Santa Teresa!'

Les Talens Lyriques

Next season sees the twentieth anniversary of Les Talens Lyriques. What was his goal when he established the group, and has he achieved what he hoped to? 'My goal in setting up Les Talens Lyriques was to rediscover the forgotten masterpieces of composers who wrote at the same time as Haendel and Mozart or to revisit the classics of composers such as Monteverdi and Cavalli. Les Talens Lyriques have achieved more than I ever hoped for in exploring so much undiscovered music. And having Decca publish CD's like Mondonville, Traetta or Leo, and most recently Louis Couperin and Froberger's keyboard music on the Aparte Label, was a real personal victory.'

His dreams and plans for the future

As a great musical archaeologist, what other unknown pieces would he like to perform? 'That's a secret!' he laughs. 'I won't tell you, but suffice to say that I would love to do more Traetta and Jomelli. Of all the lost operas, I would love to find one of Monteverdi's lost opera scores – actually not just one, but all of them! For example, it would be amazing to find Monteverdi's Ariana. We are aware of this opera because of the one famous surviving aria. Or alternatively Andromeda.
'I found the original manuscript for Lully's Bellérophon in an antiquarian bookshop. The hand-written manuscript dates back to the premiere in 1679. I later discovered a second edition from 1701. It's fascinating being able to consult the original manuscripts and later editions for how they vary. Maybe one day I will be lucky and find a completely lost work…'
What other ambitions does he have for the future? 'An absolute dream would be to be free to programme any work or opera. At the moment, I am mostly asked to conduct specific projects but it would be amazing to have carte blanche to produce anything. There are so many surprise rabbits I have stored up in my magician's hat. A major ambition is to explore more the music from the nineteenth century. The single aria of Les Troyens by Berlioz, which we recorded with Veronique Gens as part of the second Tragediennes disc on Virgin Classics, has given me a flavour for this repertoire. It's also convinced me that it isn't beyond the reach of a mere harpsichord player. We already have more plans to record more Berlioz and his contemporaries.'

By Dominic McHugh

The full interview is available on the MusicalCriticism website: there Christophe Rousset also talks about his musical education or other Naïve artists for instance.

Interview with Christophe Rousset

2010-07-08T17:49:00.000+01:00

Christophe Rousset - master harpsichordist, conductor and musical archeologist - was once described by the Guardian as "music's greatest mischief-maker". He took it as a compliment. In 1991 he founded the stunningly virtuosic period instrument group Les Talens Lyriques and together they have trawled the archives in search of the forgotten composers and forgotten repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries - contemporaries of giants like Mozart and Handel who in their day were often more famous and more successful than the greats they inspired. Composers like Martin y Soler, Cimarosa, Jommelli, Traetta, and, of course, his compatriot Lully. In this exclusive audio podcast Rousset talks in his Paris apartment between performances of Handel's Semele.

The apartment is shared with a Burmese cat named Hermione and two no less exquisite and venerable harpsichords. In the "library", lavishly bound scores attest to Rousset's archival spirit with his latest pride and joy laid out on the table - the original full score and continuo parts for Louis XIV's favourite opera: Lully's Bellérophon which Rousset and his group will present in the first performances in modern times later this year - including one in the newly restored L'Opéra Royal at Versailles. Rousset's latest CD release is of rarely heard harpsichord suites by Louis Couperin, uncle of the better known Francis.

You can access the interview's audio file from the Arts Desk website.

Christophe Rousset conducting Les Talens Lyriques through Handel’s Semele in Paris… and tonight in London!

2010-07-08T14:43:00.002+01:00

Last week, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques performed Handel’s Semele in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. Tonight, they will be singing (and conducting!) Handel’s drama at the Barbican in London.

Below are some extracts from the Arts Desk review of the concert in Paris… and we hope other great reviews will come up after tonight’s performance!

“one of the most impressive Handel casts I've heard for years”

“With the emergence of this snaky, sexy, sequenced, Enlightenment glam rocker whose glistening red tails and bizarre cavorting mirrored perfectly the slinky bejewelled duplets on oboe and strings that Rousset was conjuring up, the whole production took off.”

“Peter Rose's incredibly solid, fabulously old-school interventions as a stentorian Cadmus and comically sleepy Somnus, reminded one how important a good bass is to the working of a Handel opera - and how rarely we hear one of this calibre.”

“Danielle de Niese's Semele should have been the star turn. And in many ways she was. In terms of coloratura, control and word-setting, she shone. And her voice is bigger, stronger than I have ever heard it.”

By Igor Toronyi-Lalic

You can read the full article here.

Vivaldi - Ottone in Villa: Fantastic interviews with the cast members

2010-07-07T10:19:00.000+01:00

Our forthcoming release of Vivaldi's first opera Ottone in Villa on the Vivaldi Edition will soon be available to purchase (estimated release date: 25 October). To wet your appetites, here are some great videos taken from a performance of the work in Kraków featuring interviews with key cast members:

Recording details:

Sona Prina Ottone
Veronica Cangemi Cleonilla
Julia Lezhneza Caio Silio
Roberta Invernizzi Tullia / Ostilio
Topi Lehtipuu Decio

Il Giardino Armonico
Giovanni Antonini conductor

“With a terrific band and technically accomplished singers, Ottone in villa will be an exciting CD.” – The Arts Desk (http://bit.ly/9QsDpJ)

Let us know your thoughts!

Bertrand Chamayou by Norman Lebrecht

2010-06-29T16:11:00.000+01:00

Long a staple of orchestral concerts with his Symphonic Variations and D minor symphony, the Belgian-French composer has fallen way off the agenda. Bertrand Chamayou attempts to reverse that trend with a disc of two piano works with orchestra (Scottish National, conductor Stéphane Denève) and two piano solos, none of them life-changing but performed with enough grit and passion to remind us that Franck is worth an occasional hearing. The stunner comes in the finale – a prelude, fugue and variation for piano and harmonium (Olivier Latry) that so aptly and exquisitely conveys the Paris of Napoleon III it must surely be used before long as a television or movie soundtrack. It is so far removed from the austerity of most of Franck’s work that it will make you look again at this neglected inventor.

By Norman Lebrecht, La Scena Musicale

2010-06-18T15:28:00.002+01:00

This month, Classic FM Magazine compared two recordings of Onslow’s works and the Quatuor Diotima received the best ranking. ★★★★

This is where rare repertoire resembles a bus line: George Onslow is a composer so rarely played that there’d be no need to apologise for never having heard of him, but now two CDs of his chamber music have arrived at once. (…)

The music [written by Onslow] is well-wrought, technically challenging and very enjoyable to listen to even if it can’t exactly live up to the implications of Onslow’s nickname, ‘the French Beethoven’. Still, Berlioz was among Onslow’s greatest admirers, declaring his music to be among ‘France’s most beautiful musical glories’. (…)

The Quatuor Diotima’s offering is more upbeat, its playing every bit as slick and polished as the presentation and sound recording.

If you want to read the full article, please refer to the June edition of Classic FM Magazine.

Back to the Quatuor Mosaïque: here goes another fantastic review!

2010-06-17T17:55:00.003+01:00

The Independent on Sunday, 13 June 2010

The dry, almost dusty acoustics of Studio la Borie mimic the close atmosphere of Der Tod und das Mädchen’s private premiere in 1826. Often paired with the Quartettsatz of 1820, this knowing tale of early death is instead paired with the early G-minor Quartet (D173). The Amish severity of Quatuor Mosaïque’s gut strings acquires a narcotic quality in the Andante con moto variations of the later work. Boldly articulated and intelligently shaped, this is a claustrophobic, dramatic performance. AP

David Greilsammer interviewed by Jessica Duchen in the Jewish Chronicle

2010-06-15T16:22:00.000+01:00

The man who dares to rethink Mozart

David Greilsammer, the virtuoso Israeli pianist and conductor, has a radical new approach to classical music. He talks to Jessica Duchen.

Every so often, along comes a recording that stays alive in your mind long after you have heard it. One that arrived recently was a CD of Mozart’s piano concertos, played and conducted by the young Israeli pianist David Greilsammer, with an orchestra mysteriously named Ensemble Suedama. The strength of purpose of Greilsammer’s interpretations made the disc stand out as something out of the ordinary.

And Greilsammer himself is an artist out of the ordinary. At only 32, he has several highly acclaimed recordings to his name — he has just been appointed music director and conductor of the Geneva Chamber orchestra, and next season will see his debuts with the san Francisco symphony orchestra and the Salzburg Mozarteum orchestra, among others. First, though, London audiences can hear him in recital at Wigmore Hall next week. His first appearance there last year was hailed by one critic as “among the most authoritative British debuts in years”.

A soft-spoken Israeli with a hybrid accent — he livedin New york for nine years and is now based in Paris — Greilsammer admits, if slightly sheepishly, that he felt destined to become a musician because his mother had decided this for him before he was born. (…)

Greilsammer’s acclaimed CDs of Mozart concertos came about through a determination to follow a path of his own, rather than one dictated by the occasionally creaky workings of the music industry. The name of ensemble Suedama, of course, is “Amadeus” backwards — he formed the orchestra himself.

“I have some problems with the ways things are sometimes done in the classical world,” Greilsammer says. “I wanted to do a first project my own way - something new and fresh. so I decided to surround myself with a completely new orchestra, made up of enthusiastic young soloists who had the same affinities and trains of thought that I had. We made two discs of Mozart concertos — they are all well-known works that have been recorded by all the great masters, but we wanted to approach them as if it were the first time. I’m a little obsessed with not being influenced by the past.

“The problem with classical music is that essentially it’s an art form that’s completely focused on the past,” he continues. “We play mostly pieces by dead composers, and we worship their scores. We spend our days looking at music that was written up to 400 years ago and that’s where we take our inspiration and life-force as classical musicians. This is where the problem begins — in an art that’s so preoccupied with the past, it’s very difficult to make it live today.” (…)

More explorations will follow — in the autumn Greilsammer will be back in London for a concert at King’s Place of sonatas by scarlatti and, on “prepared piano”, John Cage. That will mark the launch of his next CD; a world premiere recordings of works for piano and orchestra by Alexander Tansman and Nadia Boulanger, plus the more familiar Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin.

His exclusive contract with the French record label Naïve has made Paris his ideal home (“though I don’t expect living in Paris will last forever,” he adds, rather ruefully), and he spends much time in Geneva with his orchestra there. He is enjoying his activities as
conductor, but the piano, he says, will always remain his first love. Destiny? Perhaps it really is.

If you want to know more about his childhood or his latest Wigmore Hall concert, please refer to the Jewish Chronicle of 28th May 2010 for the full article.

Amazing five-star review of Brad Mehldau and Anne Sofie von Otter at the Wigmore Hall... first Naïve release in September 2010!

2010-06-14T12:53:00.001+01:00

The Financial Times ★★★★★

Brad Mehldau closed the opening season of his two-year curatorship of the Wigmore Hall’s first jazz series with a two-concert flourish. The jazz content of his duet with the formidably voiced Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter was more flavouring than main dish, as a romantic classical first set was balanced by a contemporary second half. But two days later, Mehldau’s solo piano recital delivered trenchant jazz, albeit with a composer’s logic.

Von Otter was the focus of the first concert, wringing emotion from each syllable of lyrics that sounded life-changing when she sang them. Mehldau impressed for adjusting touch and timbre for first-half readings of Brahms, Fauré and Richard Strauss, and bringing out the influence on jazz pianists today of Sibelius’s sparse rhythmic pedals.

The second set opened with a selection from Mehldau’s song cycle Love Songs. His composed settings of Sara Teasdale’s poems had all the Mehldau hallmarks – closely argued chords, subtly altered motifs and a light pulse – and when combined with von Otter’s voice were the highlight of the evening. The pianist then revealed his jazz chops while von Otter applied full operatic measure to Lennon and McCartney, the American Songbook, “Windmills of my Mind” – sounding surprisingly profound when sung in French – and a sprightly double encore.

Mehldau’s second recital was a breathtaking solo performance that took full advantage of the Wigmore’s pin-drop acoustics. The set was bookended by themes from his orchestral album Highway Rider – the arpeggiated central motif to start, the sombre “Old West” to finish – but mostly stuck to the songbook repertoire. Each theme launched improvisations that tugged at meter and key. A fast and chirpy “Get Happy” developed a wayward bass line and did strange things to the tempo while sticking strictly to the underlying form, and “My Favorite Things” climaxed with a thunderous rumble.

Mehldau’s pathways verged on the abstract and even bluesy interjections resolved in odd places, though a lone bass note signposted the original theme. His fifth encore was “Waterloo Sunset”, and then he had to do “one more for playing Ray Davies and the Kinks”. The evening ended in a shimmering chordal wash.

By Mike Hobart

You can also read the review here.

Outstanding five-star review of Anna Vinnitskaya’s debut album of piano sonatas

2010-06-04T15:46:00.001+01:00

Anna Vinnitskaya’s debut album of piano sonatas was acclaimed by the BBC Music Magazine last month.

Performance ★★★★★
Recording ★★★★★

As winner of the 2007 Queen Elizabeth International Music Competition and the 2008 Leonard Bernstein Award, Russian-born pianist Anna Vinnitskaya is clearly a name to reckon with. Her imaginatively devised and vividly recorded programme juxtaposes late-Romantic bravura (Rachmaninov and Medtner) with the more acerbic language of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata and Gubaidulina’s abrasive Chaconne. There’s little doubt that she has the measure of each work, demonstrating not only formidable technical control but also a truly remarkable range of tonal colouring. One might quibble that in adopting a more reflective pose in the opening movement of the Rachmaninov (here in the later 1931 version) she doesn’t always convey the composer’s prescribed Allegro agitato. Yet there’s no denying the sheer beauty and richness of her sound, the central movement presented in a particularly haunting manner. The Medtner, too, is spellbinding with a veiled quality that captures the music’s sense of nostalgia as well as its fragility.

Gubaidulina’s rugged Chaconne of 1962, mixing strongly percussive writing with more enigmatic and withdrawn passages, is a highly accessible work played here with tremendous brilliance. Finally Vinnitskaya offers an extremely compelling account of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata with a terrifyingly relentless Finale. By opting for an unusually fast and furious tempo for much of the first movement she certainly coveys the music’s sense of unease, though some might argue that in the slow movement her approach is too chilly, somewhat in contradiction to Prokofiev’s marking of Andante caloroso.

By Erik Levi

Christophe Rousset talks about culture in an interview with Classic FM magazine

2010-06-04T12:24:00.000+01:00

Ahead of his London concert at The Barbican on 8 July where he will lead Les Talents Lyriques through Handel’s ‘Semele’, Christophe Rousset talks about culture in a ‘cultural exchange’ with Classic FM Magazine.

Been to any good exhibitions lately?
I went to the ‘Monumenta 2010’ at the Grand-Palais in Paris. There was an incredibly moving piece of art called Personnes by Christian Boltanski. It’s an evocation of concentration camps of the Second World War using mostly clothes on the floor or in a huge heap. A crane is lifting some pieces up and releasing them back to the heap. The noise and movement of the crane in contrast with the dead multicolour forms on the floor makes it very effective.

What’s your favourite cultural city and why?
It has to be between New York and Paris. I would dream of a blend of both cities – the crazy avant-garde of New York and the freedom in opera and music you get in Europe. For dance and art, New York is the best.

Why is culture important?
Because it makes humanity stop and think. Because some people are able to use their brains and sensibility in a more extended, deeper, clearer way. They make us understand ourselves and our world better. Our politicians are making a big mistake cutting budgets devoted to culture.

What are you looking forward to seeing next?
The Van Gogh exhibition at the Royal Academy. He makes you see the world in another way.

Excellent reviews of the Quatuor Mosaïques's recording of Schubert's 'Der Tod und das Mädchen'

2010-06-04T09:52:00.000+01:00

The Times, 15 May 2010 ★★★

The Mosaïques’ gut strings bring a dark and husky colouring to the quartet in which Schubert stares death in the face, D 810 (Death and the Maiden). The Takacs Quartet’s exemplary rendering for Hyperion in general packs the mightier punch, but the Mosaïques still shine in the slow movement’s lyricism. Also featured is an earlier, tauter Schubert quartet (D 173), with two disquieted outer movements framing a nimble scherzo and an andantino of much courtly charm, dispatched here with unforced beauty. GB

The Sunday Times, 23 May 2010 ★★★★

Schubert’s teenage quartets don’t rank high, but the period-instrument Quatuor Mosaïques show that the G minor is worth hearing, not least the incisive opening movement’s brief but striking development section, whose ghostly sonorities the group bring out vividly. Their performance of Death and the Maiden is music-making of a high-order, felt and carried out by players animated as though by a single mind and impulse, yet each of them seeming to respond afresh at every moment. If they don’t generate quite the headlong impetus of the Takacs’s recent recording, their colours and phrasing, and the subtlety of their playing, are a marvel. At a slightly slower tempo, the presto finale’s strange harmonies and eerie silences are all the more frightening. DC

The Daily Telegraph, 1st June 2010 ★★★★

Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet is so often played it’s in danger of becoming hackneyed, but the Quatuor Mosaïques have restored its freshness. The CD box reproduces Marianne Stokes’ painting in which Death comes to the Maiden as a gentle figure, rather than a grimacing skeleton. The performance is similarly unexpected – chastely serious rather than despairing, but dramatic when it needs to be. Ivan Hewett

Always more stars for Bertrand Chamayou’s recording of César Franck’s works

2010-06-03T17:43:00.000+01:00

The Guardian, 6 May 2010 ★★★

This is an intriguing collection of César Franck’s five works involving a solo piano, all featuring the up-and-coming French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. Two of them are rarely heard, and another is a genuine oddity. The familiar pieces are the Prélude, Choral et Fugue for piano alone, and the Variations Symphoniques, for piano and orchestra, both of which are heard in concert and recorded regularly enough for Chamayou’s perfectly adequate but under-characterised performances to face stiff competition. But he demonstrates that both the solo piano Prélude, Aria et Final and Les Djinns, a compact symphonic poem for piano and orchestra based upon a Victor Hugo poem, deserve to be heard far more frequently. Meanwhile, the texturally rather awkward Prélude, Fugue et Variation, for piano and harmonium, in which Chamayou is joined by Olivier Latry, provides a reminder that Franck was an organist first and foremost, and then a pianist. Andrew Clements

The Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2010 ★★★★★

César Franck was no slouch when it came to writing for the piano. The Prélude, Choral et Fugue has long been among the keyboard repertoire’s toughest challenges, and here its sturdy counterpoint, elaborate flourishes, ripe textures and serpentine harmonies are conveyed with impressive panache and interpretative seriousness by the young French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. Franck’s model was clearly Bach, his inspiration the organ loft. But Franck clothed any baroque exemplars in a cloak of richly romantic hues and the diapason of the keyboard writing, if at times sounding as though Franck might have conceived it while seated at his Cavaillé-Coll instrument in Paris’s church of St Clotilde, is vigorously pianistic. Even more so is the piano obbligato part in the exciting, nervy symphonic poem “Les Djinns” and in the once-popular Variations Symphoniques. Strangest of all the works on this disc is the Prélude, Fugue et Variation combining piano with the nasal wheeze of the harmonium, but it sounds charming and completes a fascinating compendium of Franck’s music. Geoffrey Norris

Fantastic reviews of Rousset's recording of Froberger's Suites by 3 influential newspapers

2010-06-03T15:55:00.000+01:00

The Sunday Times, 9 May 2010 ★★★★

Five of the half-dozen suites on this disc are from the autograph collection of 1656; the other comes from that of 1649. All are in French style, in four stylised dance movements. Christophe Rousset plays a rare and distinguished harpsichord, made by the Flemish builder Joannes Couchet in 1652, but restored and expanded in 1701. More important, it makes a beautiful, richly resonant sound, rendering it ideal for Froberger’s expressive and often melancholic music. Equally well suited is Rousset’s meditative, infinitely flexible approach. His playing is always lovingly articulated and carefully decorated. SP

The Observer, 9 May 2010

Johann Jakob Froberger wanted all his music burned after his death because he didn’t think anyone else would be able to play it well enough. He would surely have been reassured by the deep understanding of Christophe Rousset, who uses an exquisite 17th-century Couchet harpsichord, unequally tuned. The grave eloquence of Froberger’s sarabandes is perfectly captured and only the long pauses before repeated sections seem overdone. The programmatic “Lament on the Death of Ferdinand IV” evaporates at the top of the keyboard, the rising scale disappearing into a cloud of angels in the manuscript. Nicholas Kenyon

The Independent on Sunday, 16 May 2010

Christophe Rousset makes a welcome return to the keyboard in this poignant selection of Forberger’s suites, played on a 1652 Couchet harpsichord that was extended in 1701 to include a four-foot stop. Rousset’s fluid grace-notes never obscure the seriousness of these introspective dances, the finest of which is the Lamento sopra la dolorosa perdita della real Maestà di Ferdinando IV, and allows silence to register between the phrases. A thoughtful and distinctive alternative to Richard Egarr’s ebullient performance. Anna Picard

Fantastic four-star review of 'Ottone in Villa' - next Vivaldi Edition opera to be recorded - at the Barbican on Friday!

2010-05-26T12:01:00.002+01:00

elow is undoubtedly the first of a long series of fantastic reviews of 'Ottone in Villa' which was performed last Friday at the Barbican in London. In line with the great reaction of the audience after the performance, here are some highlights from the four-star review of 'Ottone in Villa' by The Guardian.

The Guardian ★★★★

Premiered in 1713, Vivaldi’s bitter little comedy Ottone in Villa was his first opera and stands, in some respects, at a tangent to its successors. At just over two and a half hours, it is short by his standards, while its taut dramaturgy precludes the sprawling quality that hampers his later stage works.

The subject – standard 18th-century fare, but handled with great sensual frankness and moral astuteness – is the relationship between desire and politics.

(...)

Caio’s emotional and moral anguish gradually exposes the self-seeking superficiality that surrounds him. An exacting, complex role, it was sung unforgettably in this concert performance by Julia Lezhneva, who combines flawless technique with emotional veracity. Sonia Prina’s Ottone was all rapid-fire coloratura and smug self-deception.

Tim Ashley

You can read the full article here and consult more reviews of the performance on the Vivaldi Edition facebook page.

Vivaldi's 'Ottone in Villa', RV729 (1713) - The next recording project for the Vivaldi Edition

2010-05-24T15:23:00.003+01:00

From the moment we learnt that the next Vivaldi opera to be recorded for the Vivaldi Edition would be Ottone in Villa - Vivaldi's first opera produced in Vicenza in 1713 - we here at Naïve Classics in London were filled with great excitement and anticipation as to what it would be like.

Although it is not the first time this opera has been recorded, a new recording of the work is long overdue and with Il Giardino Armonico / Giovanni Antonini attached along with internationally acclaimed soloists, there is no doubt this is going to be a truly stunning recording. Artists confirmed for recording include:

Sona Prina Ottone

Veronica Cangemi Cleonilla

Julia Lezhneza Caio Silio

Roberta Invernizzi Tullia / Ostilio

Topi Lehtipuu Decio

Il Giardino Armonico

Giovanni Antonini conductor

The full cast are currently touring this work throughout Europe and will be appearing on the following dates:

24 May 2010 Valladolid (Spain)

29 May 2010 Valladolid / Concert
02 June 2010 Valladolid

We attended the performance of the work last Friday (http://bit.ly/btIJGJ) at the Barbican in London and were overwhelmed by the reaction of the audience as the third and final act came to a close. One journalist wrote: “With a terrific band and technically accomplished singers, Ottone in villa will be an exciting CD.” – The Arts Desk (http://bit.ly/9QsDpJ)

Please find below fantastic video footage taken from the first concert of the European tour in Kraków:

Please head to the venue’s website to view fantastic images from the performance - http://www.operarara.pl/en/7/142/158/photo-gallery.

We would be interested to hear what you think. A good choice for the next Vivaldi Edition opera?

BBC Music Magazine award-winner Patricia Kopatchinskaja featured in Gig Magazine

2010-05-19T17:01:00.000+01:00

Independent labels such as Naïve were this year’s “big winners” at the BBC Music Magazine Awards according to Gig Magazine.

“Of the 10 discs receiving awards at the ceremony on 13 April, only two were released on major labels.”

Below is an extract from the article, mentioning Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Naïve.

“In the Orchestral category, voters chose violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Philippe Herreweghe conducting the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées (Naïve).”

Gig Magazine, 27 April 2010

Edna Stern’s recording of Chopin’s works reviewed by The Times!

2010-05-18T17:18:00.002+01:00

The Times ★★★

Mercurial and meditative, Stern’s interpretations are distinctive enough. But it’s her piano that makes the big difference: an 1842 Pleyel, which clouds most of the notes in a velvety darkness, transforming textures and cutting out scintillating display. Odd? Perhaps. Yet this muffled sonority was what Chopin favoured. Stern, a pupil of Krystian Zimerman, works hard extracting magic from her difficult instrument, triumphing in the sombre Funeral March. The rest of the bill includes waltzes, ballades and preludes.

By Geoff Brown

An excellent review of Mark Minkowski conducting in Bruxelles… to help you wait until August!

2010-05-12T17:28:00.001+01:00

Mark Minkowski’s ‘Haydn Symphonies’ will be released in a few-month time and we know, it is hard to wait. So here is a review of Don Quichotte which was performed in Bruxelles last week… conducted by Mark Minkowski. Below is an extract of the review but you can read the full article here.

“The production's greatest asset has to be its conductor, Marc Minkowski, who is on formidable form here. From the off, he drew wild, excited thrusts from his band, with basses sounding as if lit from below, and the rest duly adjusting to their steaming pulse. Sounding like Tchaikovsky on speed, those martial passages in the score that depict the peregrination of the Don and also his somewhat unhinged self-image completely suffused the house. Equally evident, though, was a keen lyric tinge, which came out most persuasively in the final act, where Minkowski held his left hand at constant attention, always dimming the ardour of the tragic music, waiting instead for the explosions of the final chords, which shattered the ears when they finally came. A thoroughly enjoyable, pleasingly confusing, evening in the theatre.”

By Stephen Graham

Fantastic features of the Quatuor Diotima in the international press!

2010-05-11T11:03:00.002+01:00

The Quatuor Diotima has received excellent reviews from the British and American press in the last months. Below are two features from the UK's newspaper The Guardian and the American's newspaper The Dallas Morning News.

The Guardian ★★★★

Admired by Beethoven and Schubert, George Onslow (1784-1853) has become that rare phenomenon, a composer who was internationally popular in his own lifetime and for a considerable time afterwards, yet who virtually vanished in the next century. Despite his English name, Onslow was essentially French; born in the Auvergne to an English father and a French mother, he studied with Cramer and then Reicha in Paris, and later succeeded Cherubini as director of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Onslow composed symphonies and operas, but it was his chamber music – put on a par with Mozart’s by Mendelssohn and Schumann – with which he made his reputation. Onslow composed more than 30 string quartets, and an equal number of quintets, so the Quatuor Diotima are only scratching the surface with this selection of three from 1834. They reveal a composer caught on the brink of Romanticism; some moments recall late Beethoven or Schubert, others anticipate Mendelssohn and Schumann, or look back to Haydn and Mozart. It’s a fascinating historical snapshot, beautifully rendered by the Diotima, who lavish immense care on every bar.

By Andrew Clements

You can also read the article on The Guardian website.

The Dallas Morning News

Born to a British father and a mother from the Auvergne region of France, George Onslow (1784-1853) was trained by some of the most esteemed teachers of the day: Jan Ladislav Dussek, Johann Baptist Cramer and Antoine Reicha. A skilled pianist who also knew his way around the cello, Onslow was especially prolific as a composer of chamber music – 34 string quintets and 35 string quartets.
Brought up in a solid classical tradition, Onslow reportedly was shocked by the bold new language of Beethoven's late string quartets. Then, in the early 1830s, he turned around and penned these three quartets very much in the vein of late Beethoven, albeit with a bit more sheer flamboyance. They need no apologies even next to Beethoven, and they get brilliant performances from this young French quartet.

By Scott Cantrell

You can also read the article on the Dallas News website.

Minkowski’s recording for St Cecilia reviewed by The American Record Guide: still fantastic!

2010-05-10T17:48:00.000+01:00

Here are three major works in honor of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music, by three major composers in new recordings made in January of 2009. Each of the composers had a special relationship to England. Purcell was a native son. Handel became an Englishman by adoption. Haydn was an esteemed visitor whom the English took to their hearts.

Hail! Bright Cecilia (1692) was the last and greatest of Purcell’s odes for celebrations of the saint’s day (November 22) that were organized by the Gentlemen of the Musical Society of London in the late 17th Century. He wrote three earlier odes—two in English and one in Latin—but they are not as ambitious or colorful as the 1692 ode. He would write a large scale Te Deum and Jubilate with accompaniment of strings and trumpets for the St Cecilia celebrations of 1694. They were the canticles sung at the church service preceding the celebratory banquet. The text for the 1692 ode was a new poem by Nicholas Brady, who evidently used John Dryden’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (1687) as his model.

Handel turned to Dryden’s ode for the text of his Song for St Cecilia’s Day in 1739. Both Dryden and Brady consider the musical instruments and declare them all inferior in dignity and resources to the organ, the instrument especially associated with St Cecilia. Irresistible opportunities for exploitation of instrumental colors are imaginatively taken by both composers.

Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass was originally composed in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the shrine at Mariazell (Missa Cellensis in Honorem Beatissimae Virginis Mariae). It is thought that a later performance on St Cecilia’s Day in Vienna may account for its other title. It exists in two versions. The earlier one— performed on this recording—dates from 1766 and includes only the Kyrie and Gloria. The later version of 1773 includes the entire Mass Ordinary and is the lengthiest of Haydn’s masses, comparable in scale to Bach’s B minor Mass or Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. As an encore here, Minkowski includes the two concluding movements of the 1773 Credo.

These are highly polished performances of great energy and subtlety. Marc Minkowski takes quick tempos very quickly, but rarely do they seem rushed. The rapid-fire repetitions of the words “must be forced” in ‘Wondrous Machine’ from Purcell’s ode come close to sounding frantic. Bass Luca Tittoto is more than able to keep up, but it does not sound easy or natural. On the other hand, Minkowski is not afraid to let a movement in slow tempo unfold at a leisurely pace while preserving structural coherence, as for example, Handel’s ‘What Passion Cannot Music Raise’.

The vocal soloists are excellent. Soprano Lucy Crowe exhibits an exquisite refinement of tone and impressive vocal control in Handel’s ‘The Soft Complaining Flute’ and ‘But Oh! What Art Can Teach’ as well as the aforementioned ‘What Passion Cannot Music Raise’. At the same time she performs impressive vocal acrobatics in Haydn’s ‘Quoniam tu Solus Sanctus’. I have admired contralto Nathalie Stutzmann from other recordings. Her tone is almost unbelievably majestic: a genuine contralto, not just a mezzo with some good low notes. Her trios with tenor Richard Croft and bass Luca Tittoto are amazingly cohesive in tone and blend. Even so, I think it was the right decision to give Purcell’s alto solo ‘Hark, Each Tree’ to countertenor David Bates; it is more suited to the musical idiom.

The 30-voice chorus (8-7-7-8) is highly disciplined and responsive. I find their tone a trifle thick for Purcell, whose style benefits from the lightness and transparency of the best British early-music choirs. This chorus sounds much more at home in the more broadly-conceived choral lines of Handel and Haydn. The playing of the period-instrument ensemble is outstanding.

The physical presentation is exceptionally elegant. The two discs are bound in a substantial hard-cover book of over 130 pages printed on glossy paper with stitched binding. It is lavishly illustrated with fine art reproductions, mostly from the 16th and 17th Centuries. It contains a program notes by Hilary Finch, a rather whimsical philosophical essay by Ivan Alexandre, and a more technical commentary on performance questions by Minkowski himself. These are given in French, English, and German. Full texts and translations are also given.

By William J Gatens

Anna Vinnitskaya described as a “rising star” in the BBC Music Magazine!

2010-05-06T17:53:00.002+01:00

Last month, the BBC Music Magazine dedicated a fantastic article to Anna Vinnitskaya who was described as a “rising star”, one of the “great artists of tomorrow”. Below are some extracts from the article.

RISING STAR Great artists of tomorrow

“In recent months the release of her debut CD on Naïve has caused flurries of excitement among critics and brought her to the attention of a larger audience.”

In the article, Anna talks about the influence of the Russian repertoire on her work but nevertheless states: “My next CD will be with orchestra, and of music by a non-Russian composer!”

“Although she dismisses any suggestion of being a prodigy – ‘People said I was, but I said I was really quick at learning music – she never contemplated another career.”

Anna also mentions her busy schedule which prevents her from playing the piano as often as she’d like to: “There are days when I don’t practise at all. But most days I’ll practise and feel wonderful after it.”

If you want to read the full article, please refer to the April edition of the BBC Music Magazine.

A Spanish article dedicated to ‘Impressions on Chopin’ for our Spanish fans!

2010-05-04T17:18:00.000+01:00

Impressions on Chopin was re-issued this year to celebrate the bicentennial of the Polish composer’s birth. The recording sees the internationally acclaimed jazz pianist Leszek Mozdzer perform his own arrangements of well known works by Chopin. Lately the album was reviewed by one of our Spanish partners, Diverdi.

Chopin sin dejar de ser Chopin

Regresa Impressions on Chopin de Leszek Mozdzer en Naïve.

La celebración del 200 aniversario del nacimiento de Frédéric Chopin no está lejana. De ahí quizás la recuperación de esta grabación de 1999 de un pianista al que acompaña la fama de ser uno de los mejores improvisadores sobre Chopin, él mismo gran improvisador. También el hecho de que Leszek Mozdzer es un pianista en auge, en especial al lado del contrabajista sueco Lars Danielsson, entre el público jazzístico y crossover. Si Chopin ha sido inevitable objeto de tratamiento por maestros del jazz del país, como Adam Makowicz, o el del trío Andrzej Jagodzinski, Leszek Mozdzer, de una generación posterior, muestra armas distintas a las de sus mayores. Donde Makowicz era digitalismo exacerbado y la influencia de Art Tatum, Mozdzer exhibe su mano en inteligentes arreglos y en un exuberante estilo hypercomunicativo que parte de su más evidente influencia, Chick Corea, que le permite interpolar en sus interpretaciones citas y standards completos sin violencia alguna. Es la improvisación lo que domina sobre cualquier otro criterio, ya sea con pura dicción jazzística en un grácil Preludio op 28 n°7, come el perfecto engaste en puro lenguaje chopiniano de My Secret Love o el Segment de Parker en un preludio o un estudio del autor polaco. Es la naturalidad del lenguaje lo que hace que no haya más transiciones entre uno y otro sino simple reconocimiento. No es simple revestimiento del que domina los giros de un determinado artista sino gozoso acto de improvisación de un material que Mozdzer parece conocer al dedillo desde sus estudios iniciales. El pianista puede hacerse acompañar por un tombak, o añadir ritmos ajenos, incluso darle una estructura que se sostiene más en el Standard, pero lo que transmite es Chopin, no un Chopin en traducción o siendo objeto de ventriloquia. Brillante Mozdzer.

Ángel Gómes Aparicio

A fantastic review of Rousset’s recording of Bachs’s works to help you wait for the Froberger's Suites to be released on Monday!

2010-04-30T16:27:00.000+01:00

While Christophe Rousset’s Froberger’s Suites are to be released on Monday 3 May, the other recordings of the French harpsichordist are still being acclaimed all over the world. The following review comes from the Canadian Toronto Star newspaper.

★★★1/2 (out of 4)

French harpsichordist, period-instrument orchestra leader and Baroque opera conductor Christophe Rousset has a master showman's instinct about when to show off and when to pull back. It's been 27 years since the Aix-en-Provence native won the international harspsichord competition in Bruges, Belgium, and left a wave of expressive, engaging and meticulously researched music along the way.

His most exciting work has been in the French Baroque -- either as a soloist or as collaborator in larger works.

His recordings of the keyboard works of J.S. Bach are not new (they date from 2003 and 2004), but French label Naïve has assembled 5-1/4 hours of Rousset's recordings into a six-CD set of the French and English Suites, as well as the Little Keyboard Book for Wilhelm Friedemann. All were recorded at the Museum of Art and History in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, which has a J.S. Bach-period harpsichord made by Johannes Ruckers in its collection.

This set is a fantastic study in effortless sound. Rousset plays the Suites with as much poise and assurance as the easiest pieces Bach wrote for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. The clarity of the playing also allows us to appreciate the composer's boundless invention.

I have to admit that, for sustained listening, I prefer hearing the Suites on the piano rather than the instrument for which they were originally written. But for anyone keen on a true period sound and feel, you can't do much better than this.

By John Terauds

You can also read the article on the Toronto Star website.

Award-winner Patricia Kopatchinskaja now featured in the Financial Times!

2010-04-27T12:00:00.000+01:00

Following the article dedicated to Patricia Kopatchinskaja in the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine, the acclaimed violinst is now featured in the Financial Times after winning the Orchestral Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010 on Tuesday 13 April. Below is an extract from Harry Eyres’s article.

In the front line of creation

“Fortunately, some musicians were able to be there in person – one not just to collect her award but to play for us. This was the young Moldovan Patricia Kopatchinskaya, whose disc of the Beethoven violin concerto was the surprise winner of the orchestral award. Genre-bending and full of gypsy devilry, Kopatchinskaya played a solo piece by George Enescu and Jorge Sanchez Chiong’s Crin, in which her voice and violin struck sparks off each other. If anyone thought classical music was stuffy or corseted, here was the riposte.”

By Harry Eyres

You can read the full article on the FT website.

Award-winner Patricia Kopatchinskaja featured in the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine

2010-04-26T16:56:00.000+01:00

The latest issue of BBC Music Magazine features a special article about Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The acclaimed violinist won the Orchestral Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010 on Tuesday 13 April. Below are some highlights from the article.

A daring double take on Beethoven proves a winner for the adventurous Moldovan violinist.

When, for her groundbreaking recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Patricia Kopatchinskaja wanted to include the cadenza from the composer’s piano version of the work, the only way to accommodate all the notes on her instrument was to indulge in a little overdubbing in the studio.
(…)
Controversial, possibly. But any offended purists were outnumbered by those who were taken with her approach, including BBC Music Magazine reviewer Erik Levi.
‘Kopatchinskaja manages to bring it off quite brilliantly,’ he wrote in December, adding that the recording ‘must be one of the most stimulating that has ever been committed to disc.’
(…)
This wasn’t tinkering for tinkering’s sake. Kopatchinskaja’s radical take on Beethoven stems from the composer’s own thoughts.
(…)
‘It led to something new – it was almost like a premiere. No longer this monumental piece that you normally hear in the concert hall, but something almost experimental. The violin is no longer the soloist, but becomes like a ghost hovering above the orchestra.’ [says Kopatchinskaja]

You can read the full article in the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine (May 2010).

2010-04-23T11:50:00.000+01:00

The Guardian ★★★★

Assembled movement-by-movement to different commissions between 1992 and 2009, Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos is, he says, his attempt to produce a “complex form comprising seven autonomous episodes regenerating themselves from within”. The separately titled pieces have complex harmonic and melodic links, sometimes exploring the same material from different perspectives, sometimes continuing or even reversing musical processes begun in an earlier piece. The first, Go, is an exercise in melodic flexibility, the preoccupations of the third, Apex, are mostly harmonic, while the fifth, Exeo, seems to assemble itself from a whole collection of sharply contrasted ideas. Over the last decade or so, the wildness and fractured textures of Dusapin’s early pieces have been replaced by music of far greater continuity and traditional expressiveness. Though some of these seven pieces uncoil climaxes of savagery, there is a delicacy and refinement to much of the orchestral writing that sometimes recalls Dutilleux or other French composers of an earlier 20th-century generation.

By Andrew Clements

You can also read the article on The Guardian website.

The awaited 5-star review of Accentus’s recording of Strauss’s works by The Sunday Telegraph

2010-04-22T12:05:00.001+01:00

The Sunday Telegraph ★★★★★

Strauss’s virtuosity in scoring for the orchestra was equalled in his works for unaccompanied choirs, of which the Deutsche Motette, his 1913 setting of a poem by Rückert in 20 real parts (16 for the choir, four for the soloists), is the greatest example. The colours, contrasts and contrapuntal wizardry are magnificently presented by the Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Laurence Equilbey. Less complex but just as spellbinding are the better-known Der Abend (Schiler) and Hymne (Rückert).

By Michael Kennedy

Accentus, Laurence Equilbey and Sandrine Piau reviewed by Allmusic.com

2010-04-16T16:50:00.000+01:00

The two large-scale choral works reissued on this two-disc Naïve release -- Haydn's Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross and Dvorák's Stabat Mater -- might appear on first glance to be an odd pairing, but their subject matter is closely related, the first dealing with Jesus' passion and the second with its effect on his mother. They are also works for which their composers created multiple versions, and they are presented here in their less familiar form. Haydn's first version of Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross was for orchestra, but he later created an arrangement for string quartet, which remains the most frequently performed, authorized an arrangement for keyboard, and finally, made this choral setting with vocal soloists. Dvorák originally wrote his Stabat Mater for soloists, chorus, and piano, and it's that recently discovered version that's heard here, rather than the popular version the composer later made with orchestral accompaniment, which includes three additional movements and other musical alterations.

Laurence Equilbey leads the French chamber choir Accentus and Akademie für alte Musik, Berlin in a lean, clean account of the Haydn, which gives the orchestra a central, rather than a merely accompanying role, as is appropriate for a work that was orchestrally conceived. The soloists are exceptionally fine, particularly a luminous Sandrine Piau. This version of the Stabat Mater lacks the grandeur of the orchestral version, but there is much to be said for the intimacy and delicacy that are gained. The piece makes a very different kind of impact when heard as a chamber piece, and any fans of the standard version should be interested in hearing the composer's first thoughts on the texts. Accentus is smaller than the full choirs that often perform the Dvorák, and the clarity and purity of their sound highlights the very personal nature of the texts. The soloists are not international stars, but they sing beautifully, with intense but unmannered expressivity. Naïve's sound on both discs is excellent: clear, present, and spacious.

By Stephen Eddins

You can also read the review on the Allmusic website.

Fantastic review of Alessandrini’s work on his recording of Marenzio’s Madrigali

2010-04-14T16:55:00.001+01:00

Stephen Eddins wrote an excellent review of Alessandrini’s recording of Marenzio’s Madrigali on the Allmusic website. Rinaldo Alessandrini also recorded works from Vivaldi (Gloria, Armida) and Handel’s Arie per basso with Lorenzo Regazzo. Below is an extract from the review.

“Marenzio wrote over 400 madrigals, and this collection, a reissue of two Opus 111 releases, includes a healthy sampling of almost 50, written during the composer's most fruitful period, between 1580 and his death in 1599. Four-, five-, and six-part madrigals are represented, some a cappella and some accompanied, and there are several instrumental arrangements of the works made by composers of Marenzio's generation. Using texts by a variety of poets, they are remarkable for the emotional depth and inventiveness of the text setting, the sure handling of harmonies that are sometimes vertiginously chromatic, and their broad expressive range. The majority are melancholy meditations on lost love, but Marenzio finds infinite ways to express anguished intensity. Rinaldo Alessandrini leads the singers and a small instrumental ensemble of Concerto Italiano in impassioned performances. The singers have distinctive, lovely voices, and each sings with warmth and transparent expressiveness, but at the same time, their blend is gorgeously rich and smooth, an ideal combination for these madrigals. Naïve's sound is immaculate and wonderfully present. The collection makes a terrific introduction to Marenzio's work and should be of strong interest to fans of Renaissance vocal music and superlative ensemble singing.”

By Stephen Eddins

If you wish to read the article fully, please visit the Allmusic website.

Another great review of Regazzo’s recording of Handel’s Arie per basso in Opera News, ten months after its release!

2010-04-12T15:32:00.000+01:00

Handel's bass singers never achieved the superstar status of some of the castratos and prima donnas who shared the stage with them, and we have no stories of tantrums and demands for rewrites. Yet Handel created roles of great definition and scope for basses, and Lorenzo Regazzo brings glamorous vocalism to a thoughtful selection of opera arias, along with the early cantata Dalla Guerra Amorosa.

The leaps and thrusting energy of the magician Zoroastro's "Sorge infausta una procella" (from Orlando) shows off Regazzo's thrilling sound, though he sometimes loses color negotiating the runs. Leone's "Amor da guerra e pace" from Tamerlano, is a conventional aria for a secondary character, but its vigor and urgent rhythms suit Regazzo's musical temperament well.

For a scene from Handel's early opera Agrippina, Regazzo darkens his voice to a voluptuous smokiness for the seductive, sinewy lines of the emperor Claudio for the aria, "Pur ritorno a rimirarvi". The ensuing recitative confrontation between Claudio and his two-timing mistress Poppea (the attractive soprano Gemma Bertagnolli) crackles with excitement.

Regazzo's voice is a bit too classy, his approach too serious, for Elvino's comic "Del mio caro bacco amabile" from Serse, but he is right at home in the chromatic, expressive "Pensa a chi geme", from Alcina, and he brings lilting vocalism and a touch of rubato to the siciliano.

For Cosroe's creepy aria "Gelido in ogni vena", from Siroe, Regazzo waits until the return of the opening section to bring theatrical expression and definition to the text ("the shade of my dead son fills me with terror"); had he started at that level of commitment and explored more deeply, the performance would be even more gripping.

The solo cantata, Dalla Guerra Amorosa, a gentle attempt to define and flee love's pains, is nicely paced, with an appropriately ironic touch. "Non v'alletti" shows what Regazzo can do with a lighter, more internalized approach (enhanced by cellist Matteo Scarpelli's sprightly playing). Apollo's recitative and aria "Come rosa in su la spina", from Apollo e Dafne, adds an extra commentary and provides a fitting finish to the recital.

Rinaldo Alessandrini and the excellent period orchestra Concerto Italiano provide attentive and theatrical support and offer the overtures to Siroe and Alcina.

You can also read the article in Opera News magazine.

The Vivaldi Edition: Excellent review of Bernardini’s Concerti per oboe by the American Record Guide

2010-04-08T10:08:00.000+01:00

The Vivaldi Edition - Concerti per oboe

As part of the Vivaldi Edition, David Schwartz reviewed Bernardini’s Concerti per oboe and was very impressed by it. Below is the full article extracted from the American Record Guide.

“This program is the 42nd in an ambitious series to record all of the works of Vivaldi. The series began in 2000 and will continue until 2015, and a significant portion of the works that will be recorded have not been heard since the 1700s. But the concertos here have not gone unplayed or unheard.

These are very good performances of six concertos. Bernardini is a very good oboist with a pleasing tone, and the accompanying ensemble, Zefiro, plays with elan. The recording quality also is excellent. Performances on period instruments have gotten tremendously better in the last few years. Where the tone of the instruments could be scratchy and unrefined, they seem here to be quite refined and enjoyable. Though there are many recordings of Vivaldi oboe concertos, this is certainly among the better ones.”

David Greilsammer praised by The New York Times once again

2010-04-07T15:21:00.002+01:00

David Greilsammer's latest recording received another fantastic review by The New York Times on Sunday, April 4th.

"In recent years the 32-year-old Israeli pianist David Greilsammer has emerged as an exceptionally sensitive and adventurous artist. This new recording presents him as pianist and conductor in arresting performances of Mozart’s Piano Concertos No. 22 in E flat and No. 24 in C minor, with the Suedama Ensemble (Amadeus spelled backward), a lively chamber orchestra that Mr. Greilsammer founded in New York in 2005. Mr. Greilsammer’s playing is a model of refinement. Yet just below the elegant surface lurks a bold and inquisitive musician alert to every ingenious nuance and quirk of these elusive scores. He plays his own inventive cadenzas."

You can also read the article on The New York Times website.

The Quatuor Mosaïques and their recording of Schubert’s ‘The Death and the Maiden’ receive ffff by the French magazine Telerama

2010-04-06T11:42:00.001+01:00

Next month this stunning version of Schubert’s famous ‘The Death and the Maiden’ string quartet performed on period instruments will be released in the UK. This will be a great opportunity to discover one of the leading string quartets of our time, the Quatuor Mosaïques.

Already in France this pillar of the chamber music repertoire received a fantastic review by the influential French cultural magazine Telerama. The recording was rewarded with a ‘ffff’, equivalent to a four-star ranking.

This recording features the String Quartet No.14 in D Minor otherwise known as ‘The Death and the Maiden’ but also the D173 in G minor quartet which is an earlier quartet of the master of the genre, Franz Schubert.

Ten months after its release, Regazzo’s recording of Handel’s Arie per basso still receives fantastic reviews… what a pleasure!

2010-04-01T16:50:00.000+01:00

It is absolutely enjoyable to produce recordings which still receive fantastic reviews almost one year after their release. This is the case of Lorenzo Regazzo’s recording of Handel’s Arie per basso whose review from Opera has been published in their edition of April. You can find the highlights from the review below.

“Lorenzo Regazzo’s simultaneously achieves an informative historical survey (over nearly three decades, from Agrippina, 1709, to Serse, 1738) and adds up to a rewarding musical experience.”

“Himself a Venetian, Regazzo is a singer I’ve admired in Vivaldi, Mozart and Rossini both in the theatre and on disc, for his polished, precise musicianship, elegantly varied verbal delivery, expert differentiation of dramatic styles, and more than decent command of fast flourish, roulade and run.”

“A sample of Agrippina dialogue for Claudio and Poppea displays to advantage his ability to make recitative unfailingly interesting”

“Regazzo’s cultivated artistry is an unfailing cause of admiration, especially since an exactly matching quality characterizes the accompaniments – and also the handful of purely instrumental items – of Alessandrini’s splendid Concerto Italiano.”

Max Loppert

If you wish to read the full article, please refer to the April issue of Opera.

Marc Minkowski and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican reviewed by the Arts Desk

2010-03-29T11:41:00.000+01:00

In line with the fantastic five star review of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s concert at the Barbican in The Guardian this month, Marc Minkowski and his orchestra’s performance received another great review in the Arts Desk. Below are some highlights from the article.

“It always repays to push a world-class orchestra beyond their comfort zone. The BBC Symphony’s sound emerged from the refashioning hands of period specialist Marc Minkowski like a naked body from a cold shower: convulsively invigorated and invigorating all those that knocked into it. It was a joy to hear: the best, most intriguing period-playing I’ve heard for quite a while.”

“Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater isn’t quite so doctrinally clean of counterpoint; there is at least one very fine fugal unravelling at “Fac, ut ardeat”, though most of the countrapuntal or harmonic searching is developed for colouristic effect above all, something Minkowski relished bringing out. And when you have an orchestra as good as the BBCSO this isn’t as hard as it seems.”

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

If you wish to read the article fully, please visit the Arts Desk website.

Accentus’s recording of Strauss’s works for choir reviewed in the International Record Review last month

2010-03-26T12:06:00.000Z

The latest recording of Accentus conducted by Laurence Equilbey in collaboration with the Latvian Radio Choir has received another great review in the International Record Review recently. Below are some highlights from the review.

“Choral music is a relatively little-recorded part of the output of Richard Strauss, so this disc of a cappella works from Naïve, with a Franco-Latvian alliance of choirs conducted by Laurence Equilbey, is especially welcome.”

“The soprano soloist Jane Archibald has some particularly exposed high notes which are well taken, supported by some superbly secure choral singing.”

“It’s a quite magical opening, with Phoebus descends from his chariot, and Equilbey ensures her forces are particularly responsive to Strauss’s dynamic markings.”

Mark Pullinger

If you wish to read the full article please refer to the February issue of the International Record Review.

Nice review of Emanuel Krivine’s recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 in The Independent on Sunday

2010-03-24T16:32:00.000Z

Recorded in Grenoble, Vichy and Paris, Emanuel Krivine’s Beethoven dazzles with closely mic-ed details. La Chambre Philharmonique’s bassoons are the unlikely stars, jostled out of the way by heaven-sent strings in the Adagio, and an almost comically hyperactive contrabassoon in the finale. Les Eléments deliver a lithe, moving account of Goethe’s Ode, with a suave introduction from bass soloist Konstantin Wolff. Too much technical trickery to be properly ”live”, perhaps. But what a refreshing, bold reading.
Anna Picard

Sandrine Piau’s voice praised in the International Record Review last month!

2010-03-19T10:48:00.000Z

Marc Rochester wrote a fantastic review about Sandrine Piau’s recording of Handel Between Heaven and Earth in the February 2010 issue of the International Record Review.

Below are some highlights of the review:

”Sandrine Piau’s breathtaking vocal virtuosity”

”sumptuous music-making crowned by a voice which can be angelic but here seems to possess much more in the way of earthly substance and sheer lasciviousness. If this voice is about to be ‘embosomed in the grave’, there will be plenty who will be only too happy to follow.”

”Piau certainly possesses both a voice of the sublimest beauty and a powerful musical intelligence.”

”One thing is certain with this disc: it will keep you on your toes. While so much high-octane energy can rapidly prove tiring to the ear, an excess of virtuosity is successfully held in check by the intense musicality and sheer beauty of Piau’s matchless voice.”

By Marc Rochester

If you wish to read the full article please refer to the February 2010 issue of the International Record Review.

Eduardo López Banzo and Al Ayre Español’s second Handel opera reviewed in Opera magazine last month.

2010-03-17T14:25:00.000Z

For their second Handel opera for Naïve, Eduardo López Banzo and Al Ayre Español have chosen Rodrigo and have received a great review from Opera magazine in their issue of February 2010.

Below are the highlights of the review:

“It has been a decade since Alan Curtis’s pioneering recording of Handel’s first opera for Italy, so time is ripe for another, especially one that competes as effectively as this.”

”Maria Riccarda Wesseling’s lyric mezzo-soprano sounds quite at home in the music of Rodrigo”

”From the start, Sharon Rostorf-Zamir responds to Florinda more heated personality with vivid delivery of both recitative and arias.”

”Kobie van Rensburg sings with vitality and bravura skill”

”The countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic brings an attractively mellow sound to Rodrigo’s general Fernando, who is an unusual development for opera seria is killed on stage.”

”Anne-Catherine Gillet sings Evanco’s dramatically charged music with conviction and panache.”

”López Banzo varies the make-up of the continuo group without overstepping stylistic boundaries, and his accompaniments of the lyrical numbers are colourful and incisive.”

By GEORGE LOOMIS

If you wish to read the full article please refer to the February 2010 issue of Opera magazine.

Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre reviewed in Classic FM Magazine and the International Record Review last month.

2010-03-17T10:28:00.001Z

Minkowski’s recording of songs from Purcell, Handel and Haydn dedicated to St Cecilia, the patron saint of music, has received favourable reviews from Classic FM Magazine and the International Record Review in their issues of February 2010.

Here are some highlights of the reviews:

Classic FM Magazine: ★★★★
“Of the three St Cecilia pieces here, Purcell’s 1692 Ode takes pride of place.”
“Soprano Lucy Crowe is thrilling”
“Anders Dahlin sings with ease but gives way to Nathalia Stutzmann’s fruity depths in the Haydn.”

The International Record Review:
“There are numerous fine recordings available of both the Purcell and the Handel, including those of the King’s Consort under Robert King and the Taverner Consort under Andrew Parrott. However, is has to be said that this newcomer knocks them all for six. By turns exhilarating and heart-achingly beautiful, these performances beguile both the heart and the head with their expressive intensity and razor-sharp precision.”
“The opening Symphony immediately shows Les Musiciens du Louvre to good advantage, the playing crisp and bright, the timbres attractively variegated the ensemble tight.”
“The real gem here is the Handel, which is worth the price of the set alone.”
“The Haydn could easily seem out of place here, were it not for Minkowski’s ability to generate drama within the context of near-perfect execution, so apparent in the previous two works.”
“This is a must-buy.”
By Robert Levett

If you wish to read the full articles please refer to the February 2010 issues of Classic FM Magazine and the International Record Review.

Fantastic five star review of Marc Minkowski and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in The Guardian!

2010-03-12T18:00:00.000Z

The latest concert of Marc Minkowski and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican received a five star review by Tim Ashley in the 12 March issue of The Guardian.

Below you can find the highlights of the article and for a full reading please refer to the relevant issue of The Guardian or visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/

“This was a great occasion. Minkowski is as much at home with 18th-century authenticity as with the abrasions and edges of early modernism. The BBCSO were keenly responsive, and the results attained an undemonstrative perfection.”

“In contrast to the thickish string tone favoured by many interpreters, Minkowski brought elements of period fastidiousness to bear on the proceedings without losing sight of the ironies of Stravinsky’s orchestrations.”

“Beautiful, at times intolerably moving, and rarely bettered.”

Tim Ashley

La Chambre Philharmonique and Emmanuel Krivine successfully reviewed in the French magazine Telerama: they receive 4 ffff.

2010-03-10T16:43:00.000Z

Conducteur de l’Impériale

«La 9e rabâchée, la 9e détournée, mais la 9e libérée»: Emmanuel Krivine rééclaire le monument de Beethoven.

Certains chefs-d’oeuvre sont si rebattus qu’ils semblent ne plus réserver la moindre surprise. Avec son final exultant sur l’«Ode à la Joie» de Schiller, la 9e symphonie de Beethoven fait partie de ces monuments culturels régulièrement convoqués pour rehausser la pompe de moments solennels de l’histoire – célébration de l’Europe ou chute du mur de Berlin. Quel frisson d’inattendu éprouver encore à l’écoute d’une musique tellement rabâchée, et si souvent détournée, à des fins parasitaires, de sa stricte obédience symphonique?

Il ne faut pourtant jamais désespérer des ressources insoupçonnées d’une partition, ni de la sagacité imprévisible de certains interprètes, capables d’une approche spontanément singulière et inventive.

Le chef Emmanuel Krivine et ses musiciens de la Chambre philharmonique, sur leurs instruments d’époque, appartiennent à cette élite de slalomeurs en hors-piste, rompus à déjouer les écueils du convenu ou du conventionnel. Dès l’emballement de l’allegro maestoso initial, ils ouvrent un sillage de lumière – un motif de croches martelées avec une vigueur si inhabituelle, un relief si incisif, qu’il nous rappelle brusquement le thème péremptoire du destin dans la 5e, nous suggérant du même coup une réflexion insolite. Et si, dans cette 9e qu’il avait si longuement mûrie, au point de soupçonner qu’elle serait peut-être son testament, Beethoven avait récapitulé en filigrane ses symphonies précédentes – dans le scherzo, la frénésie dansante de la 7e, dans l’andante, le recueillement élégiaque de la «Pastorale» ? Une manière de faire le plein de puissance, en puisant dans des réserves d’énergie antérieures. Beethoven peut ensuite lancer les troupes instrumentales et vocales du finale comme une armée de libération. Clamées avec une jubilation vertigineuse, les dernières mesures semblent saluer le soleil se levant un 2 décembre sur la plaine d’Austerlitz, faisant de cette interprétation impériale et impérieuse un pur trophée.

GILLES MACASSAR

Bertrand Chamayou’s recording awarded by the French magazine Classica!

2010-03-09T12:20:00.000Z

Bertrand Chamayou's recording of César Franck's works will get a CHOC award by the French magazine CLASSICA in their April issue, out in a couple of weeks. Fantastic news!

David Greilsammer receives fantastic reviews in the New York Times and the NY Daily News.

2010-03-08T16:33:00.000Z

David Greilsammer received fantastic reviews in the New York Times and the NY Daily News last week after his recital at the Walter Reade Theater, NY, on 21 February 2010. Below you will find relevant extracts from the reviews as well as links to the press articles if you wish to read them fully.

Two young pianists, forging connections, by Anthony Tommasini
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/arts/music/26greil.html?ref=music

(…)

The inquisitive, elegant Israeli pianist David Greilsammer, 32, presented a recital at the Walter Reade Theater, part of Lincoln Center’s Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts series, in which programs of roughly 60 minutes are followed by a coffee-and-muffin reception with the artists in the lobby. Mr. Greilsammer, also the music director of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, is fascinated by musical connections. His program, “Gates,” offered works by composers from Rameau and Monteverdi to Ligeti and John Adams, with stops through Scarlatti, Janacek and more.

(…)

For Mr. Greilsammer, the potential risk from programs that leap around is that the experiment can seem gimmicky. In his recital here, the choices of pieces and the musical connections among them were striking and provocative. Most important, the playing was exquisite.

(…)

Afterward, the audience gathered in the lobby to have coffee and meet the artist, who signed copies of his Naïve label recordings. His latest offers him as pianist and conductor in sensitive, articulate accounts of Mozart’s Piano Concertos 22 and 24, with the Suedama Ensemble.

(…)

Mr. Greilsammer is a standout musician who has it in him to challenge, inform and delight audiences. During the reception I overheard one person saying that he thought Mr. Greilsammer’s experiment did not go far enough, that there was too much “sameness” in the pieces, especially the first few. When a listener asserts that Rameau, Ligeti, Mozart and Satie sound similar, I think Mr. Greilsammer can claim success at showing the connections among seemingly disparate music.

David Greilsammer, by Howard Kissel

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/culture/2010/02/daniel-greilsammer.html

(…)

In the program notes Greilsammer said he began thinking about programming a recital this way when he attended a show in an art museum where the entry into each room evoked its own mood, its own sense of beauty. The works he programmed, with the exception of the Janacek, were brief. Greilsammer asked that applause be held until the very end of the recital, which lasted slightly over an hour. One had the sense the audience was absolutely rapt throughout. They applauded with intense warmth at the end. One felt we had truly made a great journey together.

Although the Walter Reade is among the most comfortable theaters in New York, its acoustics are apparently problematic -- to the point where Steinway recently withdrew its piano. Greilsammer, like myself a Steinway artist, performed on a Yamaha. Had the name not appeared on the side of the piano you would have assumed it was a Steinway. There was a time when Yamahas produced a sound that was solid, powerful but somewhat flat. That was not the case this morning, when the sound was ringing and brilliant.

That of course had to do with the wiry, darkly handsome young man at the keyboard. Most astonishing was the breathtaking delicacy of the pianissimo passages he played, far harder to bring off than thundering fortissimi. Beyond his formidable command of the dynamics of the keyboard there is a fierce intelligence at work. He sets himself great challenges, but the musical effects he achieves are ingratiating and emotionally involving rather than intimidating.

It is rare to hear a recital with so much unfamiliar music that the performer makes so immediate and so moving. Few recitals I have ever attended have offered such a sense of intense beauty and discovery.

Great work!

2010-03-08T16:26:00.000Z

We would like to thank our UK distributor for its great work on Los Impossibles and a special thank you to Heffer's in Cambridge for supporting the record.

Fantastic FIVE STAR review for Accentus’s recording of Strauss’s works for choir in BBC Music Magazine.

2010-03-05T11:14:00.000Z

Miraculous Strauss

Stephen Johnson enjoys a new disc of Richard Strauss’s works for choir.

I had almost given up on the prospect of having Strauss’s Deutsche Motette performed really convincingly. Asking a large, multi-divided unaccompanied chorus plus four soloists to stay in tune for nearly 20 minute, at the same time coping with harmonic progressions as luxuriously complex as in Strauss’s late masterpiece for strings, Metamorphosen - for once it seemed the brilliantly practical Strauss had reached beyond the stars. This performance by the combined forces of the Latvian Radio Choir and Accentus isn’t absolutely perfect, but it comes so close that I’m sure most ears will barely notice the odd slight waver in pitch when the harmonic going gets really tough. Hearing exquisite Straussian tonal twists sung with such precison and evident love is a treat for both ear and heart.

But the real miracle is what stands revealed overall – something unique in the history of choral music. At times – and especially towards its radiant climax – the Deutsche Motette fells like a near-impossible fusion of the spirit of Tallis’s 40-part Spem in alium with the loveliest pages of Strauss’s own Daphne or Ariadne auf Naxos. And conductor Laurence Equilbey and her singers seem equally responsive to both extremes. Incredibly the piece’s huge span seems just right-not a moment overlong.

Then come more gems: the quietly gorgeous Traumlicht (‘Dreamlight’) for male voices, and the effectively contrasted diptych Zwei Gesänge (‘Two Hymns’), all in sumptuously atmospheric recordings. The opening couple of minutes of the first of the Zwei Gesänge, ‘Der Abend’ (Evening) constitute perhaps the most beautiful thing on the whole disc: try playing this to musical friends and asking them to guess the composer, and then enjoy watching them flounder. Yes, at 47:30 the total playing time is on the short side. There would have been room quite comfortably for the two other Op. 123 male-voice choruses that frame Traumlicht, but as Christian Goubault points out in his notes, Traumlicht is closest in spirit to the Deutsche Motette and Zwei Gesänge. In any case I’d be happy to pay full price just for what we have here.

PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★

David Greilsammer and the Suedama Ensemble reviewed in Gramophone Magazine

2010-03-03T17:53:00.000Z

Intimate and Intelligent performances that benefit from a close recording

Last year's disc of early piano concertos from Israeli pianist David Greilsammer and his New York-based Suedama Ensemble received praise in these pages for performance and criticism for its close recorded sound (11/08). This release, featuring two of the mature concertos, shows that the sound is very much part of the concept for these musicians. Greilsammer is an excellent pianist who attains high levels of tonal delicacy and precision, and not only has he nothing to fear from the proximity of microphones, his artistry is highlighted by it. As a conductor, too, he shapes his orchestra with meticulous care, sculpting phrases firmly but kindly and allowing the wind-writing - a major glory of these works - to come through and hold the stage as it should. When the slow minuet starts up in the finale of K482 it is as if old and cherished friends are offering succour, an effect that would seem unlikely from within the dreamy wash of sound this music is sometimes subjected to.

Perhaps of all Mozart's concertos, it is K491 which is most often presented to us as if through a veil of tears, but Greilsammer here banishes sentimentality from the work while losing nothing in expressive intensity. Dynamic contrasts such as in the first movement's development, or the abruptly dispatched ending to the finale, are dramatic without being hysterical, while the Larghetto is swift-moving yet graceful and dance-like; only the surprising perkiness of its closing bars seems inappropriately unfeeling.

Any doubts that Greilsammer can touch the soul, however, disappear at his strongly moving account of the Andante of K482, with its ominous string phrases, pained piano yelps and warm consolations from the winds. With imaginative cadenzas by Greilsammer himself these intelligent and intimately detailed performances may not be to all tastes but they are refreshing and revealing reminders of these concertos' greatness none the less.

Lindsay Kemp

Minkowski disc reviewed in Classical Music Magazine

2010-02-17T16:37:00.000Z

PURCELL Hail! Bright Cecilia
HANDEL A Song for St Cecilia's Day
HAYDN Cäcilienmesse

Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble
Marc Minkowski

★★★

This lavishly packaged 2-CD set cleverly uses the St Cecilia theme to further link three composers who had major anniversaries in 2009. However, rather than Haydn's complete - and very long - Cäcilienmesse, Marc Minkowski includes only the Kyrie and Gloria, citing H C Robbins London's suggestion that Haydn may have initially composed these opening sections as a separate Missa brevis (although Minkowski also adds two movements from the later Credo as encores). Recorded in Grenoble's M2 auditorium - presumably live, given the edgy energy and somewhat murky acoustic - these very public celebrations of music's patron saint share an extrovert grandeur, which Minkowski's liking for bold gestures, big set pieces and exaggerated tempi underlines, too much so at times since quicker movements can sound hurried and some of the slower ones are almost becalmed. There are thrilling moments from soloists Lucy Crowe, Richard Croft, Anders J Dahlin (in the Purcell) and Nathalie Stutzmann (in the Haydn), but the performances overall are too declamatory, like art executed with too broad a brush.

GL

Anne Sofie von Otter joins naïve - Welcome video

2010-02-11T10:08:00.001Z

At midem this year, we announced our exciting new signing, Anne Sofie von Otter. At the announcment, the Swedish mezzo-soprano sent in a video discussing this new collaboration and her future recording projects with us.

We are very happy to be able to show you this video here:

To learn more about Brad Mehldau, the Jazz pianist with whom Anne Sofie will be collaborating on her forthcomin release on Naive, please see the video here:

Welcome Anne Sofie and Brad Mehldau and we look forward to a successful 2010!

Greilsammer's Mozart disc reviewed on La Scena by Norman Lebrecht

2010-02-05T15:42:00.000Z

Mozart: piano concertos 22, 24
(Naïve)

★★★★

David Greilsammer, Jerusalem born, plays conducts and writes his own cadenzas for these even-numbered concertos, less profound than the oddities on either side of them. In the booklet, he then analyses the performance with two players in his New York-based Suedama Ensemble. The openness is refreshing, as is the pinpoint clarity of intonation. Tempi are brisk and the freshness appealing. Greilsammer and friends sound, even to a Mozart sceptic like me, like they are having fun. And so did I.

Alessandrini's 'Vivaldi' disc reviewed in Gramophone magazine

2010-02-01T16:10:00.000Z

Vivaldi - Gloria

Sara Mingardo Contralto
Concerto Italiano/ Rinaldo Alessandrini

Rinaldo Alessandrini's 1997 recording of Vivaldi's most famous Gloria, RV589 was widely acclaimed in some quarters but the wisdom of hindsight makes it transparent that the Italian maverick succumbed to barmy hedonism in the celebrated D major opening. A dozen years later, Alessandrini's re-recording of the Gloria as part of Naïve's Vivaldi Edition bears the traces of the realisation that anarchic speed is not, after all, the best way. This new performance, coupled with the other of Vivaldi's extant settings, still sets off at a brisker pace than most but it is no longer wilfully madcap: the articulate playing of Concerto Italiano permits enough room for the details to emerge, and Alessandrini nowadays seems to have enough confidence in his musicians (and in Vivaldi) to let the muscular expression of rhythms function without impatient snapping at the musical fabric. Another notable improvement from 1997 is his plangent choir. "Et in terra" is perhaps a bit short on mystery and atmosphere but it ebbs and flows in an appealing way, and the fugal "Propter magnam gloriam" is sung with plenty of muscle. "Laudamus te" crackles with energy, and Anna Simboli's graceful "Domine Deus Rex coelestis" features an elegant violin solo by Nicholas Robinson. Sara Mingardo treats "Domine Deus Agnus Dei" like an operatic lament and her copious vibrato feels over-exaggerated (although Francesco Moi's organ realisation is spot on).

Concerto Italiano also delivers a zesty performance of Vivaldi's less famous Gloria setting (RV588). The choir's tuning and intonation can be a little frayed at the edges but the counterpoint in "Qui tollis" is meticulously balanced, Mingardo is at her best in the heartfelt "Qui sedes", and Alessandrini's spirited direction is irresistible. Both Gloria settings are preceded by short solo "introduzioni"; Ostro picta, armata spina (RV642) is played with a charismatic spring in its step and the high florid soprano part is expertly dispatched by Monica Piccinini; it is peculiar that Naïve does not credit her on the cover but prominently names Mingardo, who provides only a little more than the equivalent service for the introduzione to RV588.

David Vickers

Kopatchinskaja's latest release is nominated in the Orchestral category in the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Awards 2010. Vote now!

2010-01-28T13:21:00.002Z

Exciting times here at naïve classics! Not only were we recently honoured as "Label of the Year" at midem this week (Please click here to view our blog entry about this: http://bit.ly/dsu7bq), but Patricia Kopatchinskaja's latest release, Beethoven's complete works for Violin and Orchestra with Orchestre des Champs-Élysées under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe, has been nominated within the Orchestral category at the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Awards.

Votes for these Awards are cast by the public, so please click on the following link to cast your vote and help Patricia to win an Award: http://www.bbcmusicmagazine.com/awards2010

To make your vote count, you must vote in all six categories and then register your vote at the end simply by adding your name and e-mail address.

Please watch the exclusive video below giving an outline of the three releases nominated in this category:

To read more about this release and to hear excerpts please head to naïve's website: http://www.naive.fr/#/artist/patricia-kopatchinskaja

See BBC Online's fantastic review for this release in which Andrew McGregor stated that "Kopatchinskaja has something genuinely individual to say about this much-loved and recorded masterpiece", please click here: http://bit.ly/7Q5IHp

We wish Patricia all the best of luck and congratulate her for her nomination!

Great Vinnitskaya review in International Piano Magazine!

2010-01-25T13:22:00.000Z

Anna Vinnitskaya

Rachmaninoff Piano Sonata no.2. in B flat minor op.36
Gubaidulina Chaconne
Medtner Sonata 'Reminiscenza' in A minor op.38 no.1
Prokofiev Piano Sonata no.7 in B flat major op.38

Naïve Ambroisie

Winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2007 (only the second woman to win first prize in the history of the competition, after Ekaterina Novitskaya in 1968), Anna Vinnitskaya has drawn together a satisfying programme for her debut CD, spanning 50 years of Russian music, from Rachmaninoff to Gubaidulina. Aged 26, her youth ought to preclude both her bold confidence in Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Sonata (revised version) and her ability to open up its first movement in myriad shades of darkness. A peacefully seductive slow movement leads to a finale that seems a touch too controlled, lacking the abandon of Freddy Kempf (BIS). Steely and thunderous in Gubaidulina's striking Chaconne, Vinnitskaya contrasts the work's architectural rigour with finely conceived sonorous effects. The wistful charm of Medtner's Sonata offers a calm oasis before Prokofiev's Sonata no.7. There is nothing here to tax Vinnitskaya's solid technique, nor does she err from the mature, unaffected musical instinct of her Rachmaninoff. Add rich and immediate yet spacious sound quality, and this becomes a disc that is self-recommending.

Edward Bhesania

Sandrine Piau disc awarded 4 stars in Opera Now!

2010-01-20T16:32:00.000Z

Sandrine Piau: Between Heaven and Earth

★★★★

Well, I don't know if a soprano should be bothering her head with metaphysics, but if it gives Sandrine Piau the excuse to sing Handel's 'Sweet bird', 'Tu del ciel', 'As steals the morn' and 'Convey Me to Some Peaceful Shore', inter alia, go for it, sister. This is, of course, a beautiful disc - because of what's on it, and the words of Milton, Dryden, Morrell and others - but also how it is presented. She doesn't have the biggest voice - 'Let the Bright Seraphim' is a little weak - but it is focused, ethereal and wonderfully expressive, and she puts more meaning into her English than many natives. The small Academia Bizantina accompanies her, directed with understated sophistication - except for a wilful Queen of Sheba - by Stefano Montanari, with a nice line in twangling harp and lute and a slightly over-engineered brilliance to the violins. A lovely, rapt contemplation.

RT

Accentus - Strauss project award!

2010-01-20T14:50:00.000Z

We are delighted to announce that CLASSICA, one of the main French and European music magazines, will highlight Accentus' Strauss project with a "Choc de Classica" award in the February issue of the magazine!

Quatuor Diotima's Onslow disc chosen as 'Disc of the Month' in Diapason!

2010-01-13T17:02:00.000Z

Quatuors fantastiques

George Onslow fut, comme son cadet Berlioz, frappé par la révélation du Beethoven tardif.
C'est ce romantisme français naissant que les Diotima, chevaliers de la modernité nous révèlent, exaltant.

LE DISQUE DU MOIS

GEORGE ONSLOW
Quatuors op. 54, 55 et 56
Quatuor Diotima
Naïve

Technique: 8.5/10

C'est une belle surprise que nous réservent les Diotima, hier grands prêtres célébrant les mysteres de Nono et Lachenmann (Assai, leur premier disque, salué d'un Diapason découverte), partisans d'un Janacek virtuose aux lignes affûtées (Alpha, Diapason d'or), tout récemment serviteurs zélés des fantasmagories mathématiques de Posadas (Kairos, Diapason d'or le mois dernier): les voici romantiques. Mais toujours à l'écart des chemins rebattus, avec cette figure essentielle d'Onslow, qui sort peu à peu du purgatoire oú il était tenu depuis sa mort.

Sa production de trios, quatuors et quintettes offre l'ensemble á la fois le plus abondant et le plus novateur de musique de chambre française dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Les Diotima se sont emparés des Opus 54 à 56, où se reflète la découverte par Onslow du dernier Beethoven, en 1828: le Français revient au quatuor avec une ambition et un appétit renouveles, piqué dans son orgueil par l'example (selon son mot) des Opus 131 et 135 de son aîné. Il densifie son style, trouve une expressivité nouvelle, entre de plain-pied dans le romantisme sans chercher toutefois à rompre ses attaches avec les formes classiques. Ces trois partitions méconnues brillent au sommet de la musique de chambre français, en un temps où Berlioz travaille à ses Scènes de Faust.

On sait gré aux Diotima de nous révéler la portée d'une musique parfois tenue pour un ersatz du postclassicisme viennois (ce qu'elle n'est vraiment pas). Leur approche rigoureuse, leur éloquence fluide sont doublées d'un sens de la dramaturgie ici précieux: l'Adagio cantabile de l'Opus 55 est à cet égard exemplaire, tout de tendresse, cordes à fleur d'archet, qui s'intensifient jusqu'au chant fervent soutenu d'intenses trémolos. Irrésistible, aussi, le finale de l'Opus 56, inlassable cavalcade où les quatre musiciens concentrent leur énergie avec une parfaite précision. La réussite instrumentale est totale: contrastes vifs, riche palette, dialogue transparent.

Les Opus 54 et 55 sont inédits au disque; l'ancienne gravure de l'Opus 56 par le Quatuor Coull avaue, au jeu des comparaisons, sa grandeur un peu feinte, en quête d'un sublime convenu. Sous les archets des Diotima, le lyrisme d'Onslow rappelle Schubert, son élan rythmique, Schumann. Et le discours sonne bien français par sa mesure et son harmonie claire. Trois visages d'une musique décidément singulière et puissante, réconciliés par le talent d'un jeune ensemble qu'il faudra désormais suivre dans tous les répertoires.

Nicolas Southon

Five star review for David Greilsammer in The Daily Telegraph!

2010-01-12T10:43:00.000Z

Classical CD of the Week

Mozart: Piano Concertos in C minor K491 and E flat major K482

David Greilsammer (piano), Suedama Ensemble

***** (5 stars)

Alongside the imaginative links and contrasts that he forges in some of his exploratory recital programmes, the young Israeli pianist David Greilsammer has also proved to be a classical musician of exceptional probity and freshness. A 2006 disc of 3 early Mozart concertos (Naïve V5149) is here complemented by a new recording of two late ones, the E flat major K482 and the C minor K491. It is a complete delight.

Greilsammer's blend of taste and invention is brought to bear on the cadenzas, which are his own and which he fashions in an 18th-century manner while allowing his own fancy to explore, embellish and mull over the musical material.

Greilsammer is joined here, as on his earlier disc, by the Suedama Ensemble, the chamber orchestra he formed in New York in 2005 and which spells Amadeus backwards.

But there is no need for any foreboding about gimmickry, because this is a polished group that brings individuality of personality to the voicing of instrumental lines and yet coalesces with unanimity of expressive purpose.

Vitality and the wise observance of classical perspective interact. Colours are distinct but intermingle and throw fascinating glints of light on the texture. There is no sense of the piano being "accompanied", but instead there is close collaboration in which all forces have their say in underlining the dramatic weight, the lyrical eloquence and the spiritedness of these two great concertos.

In league with his fellow musicians, whom he directs from the keyboard, Greilsammer brings dynamism, grace, rhythmic zest, thoughtful warmth and a feeling of spontaneity to the music, qualities that are irresistable and stylistically apt in equal measure.

Geoffrey Norris

Ibérica disc reviewed in Classic FM magazine

2010-01-11T13:15:00.000Z

Music by de Falla, Cassadó & Granados

*** (3 stars)
Anne Gastinel (cello), Pablo Márquez (guitar)

French cellist Anne Gastinel, who made her mark performing Schubert and Schumann, wants to penetrate the 'soul of Spanish music' in this recital disc with guitarist Pablo Márquez. She makes a decent job of it, too: performing music by de Falla, Granados and the lesser-known Gaspar Cassadó, her cello breathes with the exuberant melodic inflections and clattering rhythms that characterise Spanish folk music. Nothing wrong with the playing then, but the music itself is cut disappointingly thin. Show-stopping extracts from de Falla's El Amor Brujo aside, Granados and Cassadó feel like variations on the same old idiomatic hooks. PC

See below for a fascinating Podcast that Naïve artist David Greilsammer recorded when he was in London last month!

2010-01-08T15:43:00.000Z

Not content with bringing out a new CD - Mozart of course - Pianist David Greilsammer is now also music director of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra. So - what is he planning to do with it?

David Greilsammer Podcast

Outstanding review in BBC Music Magazine for Marc Minkowski's latest Naïve recording!

2010-01-08T11:02:00.000Z

Purcell: hail! bright cecilia
Handel: a song for st cecilia's day
Haydn: cäcilienmesse

Lucy Crow (soprano)
Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto)
Anders J. Dahlin (tenor)
Richard Croft (tenor)
Luca Tittoto (bass)
David Bates (countertenor)
Neil Baker (baritone)
Members of Choeur des Musiciens du louvre / Marc Minkowski

Performance (Handel) ***** (5 stars)
(The Rest) **** (4 stars)
Recording **** (4 stars)

Marc Minkowski's latest album stumbles on the happy idea to sing Cecilia's praises through the mouthpiece of three of 2009's most august anniversarians. Logistics precluded inclusion of the mammoth last version of Haydn's Cäcilienmesse, so with Jesuitical aplomb Minkowski opts for the earliest state of the work - a Kyrie and Gloria - then undermines the cunning scholarly rectitude by adding two movements of the later Credo by way of 'encore'. Perhaps the justification lies in the listening since it facilitates a wonderfully intense 'Crucifixus' and an 'Et resurrexit' which ends disc 2 on a blistering high.

Captivating as it is to have a continental perspective on that most continental of English composers, the Purcell Ode - for all Minkowski's idiomatic theatricality and consummate synthesis of its French and Italian elements - registers less powerfully than the Handel. In part it's because Anders Dahlin's tenor never quite integrates the music's rhetorical diversity, and the choir, recessed in the sound picture, sounds a tad woolly. Lucy Crowe, however, is a natural Purcellian, and gilds the discs' triumph: Handel's A Song for St Cecilia's Day, a thrilling encounter with Dryden unmediated. Galvanised by Minkowski's exquisite detailing, the Musiciens du Louvre is on white-hot form throughout, but in the Handel, Nils Wieboldt's plangent cello sets the scene for 'What Passion' with such ear-tugging sensitivity a lesser singer than Crowe might have been utterly sidelined. Hail to Purcell and Haydn, but here Handel is the brightest Cecilia of all.

Paul Riley

Fantastic review for "Vivaldi" recording featuring Sara Mingardo and Rinaldo Alessandrini!

2010-01-07T10:55:00.001Z

VIVALDI
Ostro picta RV 642
Gloria RV 589
Gloria RV 588

Sara Mingardo (contralto)
Concerto Italiano/ Rinaldo Alessandrini (direttore)

Performance **** (4 stars)
Recording **** (4 stars)

Director Rinaldo Alessandrini has brought together Vivaldi's two settings of the Gloria (RV 588 and 589). Both are in D major and each is scored similarly. This is Alessandrini's second recording of the celebrated Gloria (RV 589); indeed so familiar has it become that it is difficult to stand back and view it objectively. What strikes my ears are the consistently high level of musical invention and its effective formal concision, bringing to mind Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243). Both versions of this evergreen vocal masterpiece are stylish and deeply felt. Common to both is the affecting singing of contralto Sara Mingardo; her 'Domine Deus Agnus Dei' is poignantly declaimed. In the soprano 'Domine Deus Rex coelestis' Alessandrini prefers a solo violin to a solo oboe in both versions: Vivaldi offers either/or, but while I feel that an oboe is the stronger contender, the partnership of Deborah York and violinist Francesca Vicari in the earlier issue (1997) is one of rare beauty.

The 'other' Gloria by-and-large comes over well, though the choral singing compares unfavourably with the Choir of the King's Consort (Hyperion). Attractive features of the new disc lie in the coupling of the two works and the inclusion of an introductory motet to each. That belonging to the less familiar Gloria is integral to the setting and is scored for alto solo, while Ostro picta, for soprano, may have been intended to preface the well-known Gloria as it does here.

Nicholas Anderson
BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009

Amazing review of "The Food of Love" in January's Gramophone magazine!

2009-12-18T11:33:00.000Z

Paul Agnew (tenor)
Anne-Marie Lasla (bass viol)
Elizabeth Kenny (theo/gtr)
Blandine Rannou (hpd)

Naïve - Ambroisie AM185

Purcell performances from a fine ensemble that approach perfection

Paul Agnew is perhaps most readily associated with the French Baroque, but he is equally at home in English music. Here he presents a marvellous anthology of songs by purcell. They are divided into groups which are separated by short instrumental pieces by other composers, giving well deserved solo spots to Anne-Marie Lasla and Elizabeth Kenny.

The programme - and it is a programme, which can be enjoyed at a sitting - begins with one version of "If music be the food of love" and ends with another: not Shakespeare, but Colonel Henry Heveningham. As you might expect, several songs employ a favourite device of Purcell's, the ground bass. "O Solitude", exquisitely shaded though it is, comes across as rather too austere with nothing between the bass viol and the voice; but in the introduction to "Music for a while", the viol; starts and is joined in turn by theorbo and harpsichord, to excellent effect.

If the tone is predominantly sombre, there's relief in "Man is for the woman made", Agnew's cheerful delivery perfectly complemented by a strumming guitar. The Evening Hymn - another ground - ends with a string of "Hallelujahs" that Agnew sings with an appropriate inwardness; it's aptly preceeded by the lesser-known and very different Morning Hymn. A pity that the original French of "O solitude" isn't printed; and one eyebrow twitched at the booklet's suggestion taht Purcell was practically an honourary Frenchman - "The fatal hour", for instance, is indebted to those "fam'd Italian Masters" - but it's the performances that count: magnificent.

Richard Lawrence

Accentus review in The Independent on Sunday - 13th Dec 09

2009-12-16T15:07:00.000Z

Accentus: Strauss, A Capella Motets (Naïve)

***(3 stars)

Reviewed by Anna Picard

The vocal demands of Strauss’s a capella motets are such that what is needed is a choir of Arabellas, Composers, Bacchuses and Mandrykas, hence they are rarely performed.

Joined by soloists Jane Archibald, Dagmar Peckova, Eric Soklossa and Robert Gleadow, the Latvian Radio Choir and Accentus deliver an impeccably tuned Op 62 under Laurence Equilbey, but sound understandably strained in Op 34. Most successful is “Traumlicht”, scored for male voices and a rare example of Strauss in less-is-more mode.

Click here to read this review online

Excellent review for Kopatchinskaja by Andrew McGregor on BBC Music online!

2009-12-15T15:42:00.002Z

Ludwig Van Beethoven: Complete Works for Violin & Orchestra

Kopatchinskaja has something genuinely individual to say about this masterpiece

There has been a surprising number of new recordings of Beethoven recently from some fine fiddle players in the spring of their careers. Yet even amongst this crop of estimable newcomers, this one is unusually interesting, and not a little provocative.

From the first dry timpani strokes, the colours of period winds, the bite of the strings and propulsive tempo, you might guess that it's Philippe Herreweghe and his Orchestre des Champs-Elysees. We're made to wait a little for the soloist's first entry, and the rising octaves are given an exploratory feel... which is a clue to Moldavian violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja's approach. If you think you know her sound from previous recordings, you'd be forgiven for not recognising it; she's deliberately channelling the spirit of the concerto's first performer, Franz Clement, and contemporary descriptions of his playing: "light, silvery touch, a natural poise, and totally unforced spontaneity".

Kopatchinskaja has extended that sense of freedom by experimenting with some of the variants in Beethoven's autograph, all perfectly reasonable and unlikely to ruffle the plumage, unlike the cadenzas. She's not the first violinist to reach forthe ones Beethoven himself wrote for this concerto when he prepared a version of it for piano, but she's the only violinist to attempt to play all the notes from the piano candenzas, multi-tracking herself to startling effect. Which leaves the ‘historically informed’ credentials of the performance in a state of authentic confusion, yet at the same time amplifies the sense of adventure and genuine re-discovery.

The period orchestral sounds are vital; the flowing tempos are close to Beethoven’s metronome marks; Kopatchinskaja’s character, her soaring sound and improvisatory flair are compelling, and ultimately highly musical. How much you care for the performance in the end might depend on those ‘impossible’ cadenzas, yet there’s a spirit and freshness I haven’t heard since Thomas Zehetmair’s account of the Beethoven with Frans Bruggen.

Kopatchinskaja has something genuinely individual to say about this much-loved and recorded masterpiece, and it comes with attractively straight accounts of the two Romances, and the unadorned Fragment of what might have become a C major violin concerto.

Click here to read this review online

Great review for Sandrine Piau in the December issue of Classic FM magazine!

2009-12-14T11:05:00.001Z

"Between Heaven and Earth"

Handel

Sacred and operatic arias

**** (4 stars)

Sandrine Piau (sop), Accademia Bizantina/ Stefano Montanari

Piau's disc Opera Seria introduced her as a Handelian of the first order, able to combine astonishing vocal agility with a gorgeously melting, clear-edged sound. Now she develops her affinity with the composer's work and looks at his use of the high soprano voice to signify celestial beauty in all its forms. There are arias of blazing angelic coloratura from La resurrezione, of quiet radiance from A Song for St Cecilia's Day, and of anguished yearning after heavenly peace from Theodora. Her English diction wobbles occasionally, but her voice is as supple and clear as ever, and the accompaniments are lusciously rich.

Kopatchinskaja interview in December issue of BBC Music Magazine

2009-12-09T17:14:00.001Z

Rising star: Great Artists of Tomorrow

Patricia Kopatchinskaja - Violinist

The brilliant young Moldovan is on a mission to champion the new and unpredictable. And that includes Beethoven...

Patricia Kopatchinskaja is probably tired of showing people where her homeland is on a map. So, for the record, Moldova lies between Romania and the Ukraine. Best known for its wine, it is also, says the 32-year-old violinist, an intensely musical country. 'The folk music of Moldova is beautiful,' she tells us. 'You can compare it with Hungarian, Romanian or even Scottish folk. My mother used to say that the country is so poor that God looked down at the globe and decided he had to send us something as consolation - and that was music.'

The daughter of folk musicians herself, Kopatchinskaja originally wanted to be a composer but, she reflects, 'composing is like selling umbrellas in the Sahara. I had to earn money, and playing the violin was the way to do that.'

Composing's loss was the violin's gain. And how. With her deep, rich sound - one reviewer observed that she produces an almost viola-like warmth of tone - Kopatchinskaja has won many fans, not least when, with regular recital partners pianists Fazil Say and Mihaela Ursuleasa, she blazes away in folk-infused works by, say, Enescu, Ravel and Bartók.

But there is more to her than East European fireworks, as her new disc of Beethoven's Violin Concerto reveals. For this, she went back to basics, examining the composer's original score, in which Beethoven used four different staves for the soloist's part so that he could toy with alternative approaches. 'I was amazed by how many variants that Beethoven wrote down - often two or three,' she explains, 'I asked myself "Why not try one or two of these other possibilities that he thought about?". I wanted to try this with conductor Philippe Herreweghe, who agreed it was very interesting. Step by step, it became very new, almost like a world premiere. It had a new face, a new story'.

A player who likes to champion 'unpredictable' contemporary composers, there is little danger of Kopatchinskaja ever drifting into predictability herself. Her next disc after Beethoven? Enescu sonatas and Ravel's Tzigane... plus Moldovan folk music, played with her own parents! If that doesn't put her country's music on the map, nothing will.

Interview by Jeremy Pound

Fantastic CD review from Norman Lebrecht on La Scena!

2009-12-08T12:55:00.008Z

Accentus

Richard Strauss: German Motet

(Naïve)

***** (5 stars)

Totally out of a blue sleeve, sung by the Latvian radio choir with the French conductor Laurence Equilbey, comes a luminous collection of Strauss vocal works, unfamiliar to my ears and unrelated to anything he was writing at the time. The German motet, premiered December 1913 in Berlin and scored in 20 parts - 16 choirs and four soloists - is second in complexity only to Tallis's Spem in Aulium.

There are passing soprano affinities to the recent Rosenkavalier but nothing by way of baroque affectation or patriotic bombast, just an unleashing of choral virtuosity for the sheer delight of it. Strauss makes much play on the word Licht (light) in a text taken from Friedrich Rückert, whose poems yielded Gustav Mahler's two great cycles. He is less concerned than Mahler with consonantal clarity, preferring a wash of sound through which the solo voices rise and fall like dolphins in an evening sea. Gorgeous.

Strauss returns to Rückert in 1935 when, sidelined by the Nazis, he writes Dream Light for male choruses in a manner morosely reminiscent of Schubert and Brahms, reaching back for roots he once shared with the now-banned Mahler. Two other songs on this revelatory disc date from 1897 when both composers were poised at the edge of their prime. As for the record sleeve, Naïve make the most beautiful covers to be found anywhere in these straitened times.

Click here to watch a YouTube video about this recording:

Naïve to be named as "Label of the Year" at the 2010 Midem Classical Awards!

2009-12-03T10:29:00.001Z

We are delighted to announce that Naïve will be honoured as "Label of the Year" at the 2010 edition of the Midem Classical Awards! The awards are to take place in January in the Palais des Festivals, Cannes and other winners include Italian soprano Mirella Freni and Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt.

As the press release published by the MCA say: "by electing Naïve as "Label of the year", the Jury has acknowledged the energy deployed by the label in the music industry and its capacity to explore a large and rare catalogue including a range of first choice artists".

Click here to read the full press release on the midem website:

http://www.midem.com/RM/RM_Midem/PDF/midem2010_press_release_MCA_Special_Awards.pdf

Quatuor Diotima's Onslow recording to be awarded 'Diapason d'or'!

2009-12-02T11:17:00.002Z

The Quatuor Diotima will be awarded "Diapason d'or" + "CD of the month" in the January issue of the magazine!

This is Quatuor Diotima's first recording for Naïve and is dedicated to a forgotten romantic French composer: George Onslow. Quatuor Diotima has recently been developing a significant concert activity worldwide and has toured

China

Taiwan

South Korea

Germany

Italy

Switzerland

and the

UK!

Founded by graduates of the Paris and Lyon conservatoires, the quartet takes its name from Luigi Nono’s Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima, thus affirming its commitment to the music of our time. Ever since its formation, the quartet has made international appearances which have taken it to most of the major European festivals and concert series, notably the Philharmonie and Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Wigmore Hall in London.

Click here to listen to excerpts from this release on the Naïve Classics website:

http://www.naive.fr/#/artist/quatuor-diotima

Diapason magazine awards Naïve recordings

2009-11-27T10:56:00.001Z

Diapason magazine has given ‘La fida ninfa’ and ‘Francesco da Milano’ Diapason de l’Année d’Or 2009 awards at a ceremony in Paris. ‘La fida ninfa’, part of the Vivaldi Edition, has been recognized as Opera Recording of the Year and Hopkinson Smith’s ‘Francesco Da Milano’ recording has been declared Early Music Recording of the Year. You can find more information on these releases by going to the Naïve website.

Fauré's Requiem disc is Christmas Critics' Choice in Gramophone

2009-11-23T15:46:00.000Z

Christmas Critics' Choice

Accentus, Laurence Equilby- Fauré, Requiem

Christmas may not be the ideal time to think about death, and anybody receiving a Requiem Mass from me might think it more in the nature of an aspiration, but as soon as they hear Accentus’s unspeakably lovely recording of Fauré’s Requiem, I am sure the gift will be appreciated as something to be treasured at any season of the year.

Marc Rochester

Extract from the booklet notes for "Strauss - A Capella"

2009-11-18T16:43:00.005Z

breadth, ‘flourishes à la rückert’, and spirituality
by christian goubault

A favourite source of inspiration of both Strauss and Gustav Mahler (the Rückert-Lieder and three of the Kindertotenlieder), the Bavarian poet Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) was also an orientalist,
translator of the Persian Hafez, and prolific author of ‘oriental’ poems, intimate elegies, and introverted lyrics. Strauss admitted to his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal in 1911: ‘You probably know my predilection for hymns in Schiller’s manner and flourishes à la Rückert. Things like that inspire me to formal orgies ...’
These ‘flourishes’ made the writer smile. But they may indeed be found in the ‘Hymne’ from op. 34 and the following choruses, among them the ambitious masterpiece that is the Deutsche Motette, the peak of Straussian choral art.
Deutsche Motette (German Motet), op.62
Scored in twenty real parts (sixteen for the choir, plus SATB soloists), the Deutsche Motette was composed in the first half of 1913 (it was finished at Garmisch on 22 June) and premiered on 2 December at the Berlin Philharmonie by the Hofoper Chorus under its conductor Hugo Rüdel. Only the motets Ecce beatam lucem (1561; ten parts in each of the four voices and continuo ad libitum) by Alessandro Striggio and Spem in alium (after 1567) by Thomas Tallis (forty independent parts laid out for eight five-voice choirs) surpass this number.
The Deutsche Motette is rarely performed or recorded because of the technical feats it requires of its interpreters. It calls for seasoned professional singers with keen ears, an extended vocal range, and absolute security of pitch. The overall compass spans four complete octaves, from the bottom C of the basses to the sopranos’ top D flat. In spite of clear tonal reference points, the web of harmonic turbulences, modulations, enharmonics and chromaticism remains entirely unsupported throughout this long composition (around twenty minutes). One must marvel at its instrumental character, with its progressive superimpositions of voices, its dovetailings, its contrasts, and above all its sonorous dynamics.
The breadth of the work amply justifies Strauss’s remark on the ‘flourishes’ of Rückert’s poem, which is inspired by the ghazals of Hafez, imitated in the West by Goethe, Rückert himself, Karl August von Platen, and Gottfried Keller.
After a calm introduction, the score’s keyword (‘Licht’, light) is underlined by a radiant chord. In the lower registers, the basses and tenors, then the altos, and finally a quartet of basses, invoke this light to protect them from the powers of darkness. A flexible triple-time rhythm, with melodic intertwinings, creates a sort of hubbub and an increasingly paradisiacal atmosphere. The second section consists of an imposing fugue whose subject is set to insistent demands that the creator be shown his work finished (‘O zeig mir, mich zu erquicken’ – Oh show me, to revive me). The concluding lullaby breathes confidence and bliss in the light of heaven. Is this a religious work? The composer expressed his spiritual sensibility on several occasions: he was instinctively and profoundly pantheistic, open to the mystical character of Rückert’s Motette, which embraces the whole of Creation.

See our YouTube widget for a video on this recording.

Fascinating new video for Minkowski's 'To Saint Cecilia: Purcell, Handel, Haydn' release

2009-11-13T10:45:00.003Z

More info can be found here: http://en.naive.fr/#/work/to-saint-cecilia.

In the press about the performance of ‘To Saint Cecilia’

“A gloriously lengthy evening. [...] Minkowski’s Purcell, though never less than exquisitely beautiful […] It would be hard to imagine the Handel better done.”
Tim Ashley ,The Guardian, 22 January 09

“Indeed, the whole evening cast a spell […] Each work highlighted different instrumental stars – oboist/recorder players in Purcell, a cellist and a flautist in Handel – while the ensemble as a whole generated a wonderfully warm and vibrant sound. And what a discovery the Haydn was. Why is it so seldom performed?”
Michael Church, The Independent, 19 January 09

“How wonderful sounded the period intruments under the controlled and burning Minkowski’s conducting!”
Karl Harb, Salzburger Nachrichten

Five-star review of 'The Food of Love' in the Daily Telegraph

2009-11-12T10:01:00.000Z

Purcell: The Food of Love
Paul Agnew, Anne-Marie Lasla, Elizabeth Kenny, Blandine Rannou
★★★★★

Two of Purcell’s settings of If Music be the Food of Love – words by Henry Heveningham rather than Shakespeare – top and tail this delightful disc focusing on Purcell’s love songs but also embracing instrumental pieces by Francisco Corbetta, Christopher Simpson and Robert de Visée. Paul Agnew’s pure, golden tenor voice and verbal expressiveness are sensitively backed by period instruments to convey love’s agonies and joys. GN

Kopatchinskaja's new Beethoven CD reviewed in The Times

2009-11-09T15:47:00.001Z

Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Beethoven
naïve
★★★★

... With Beethoven’s concerto, there’s a far higher pile of CDs to climb. Jansen’s extreme beauty of tone and phrasing is definitely alluring, though it wasn’t until the cadenza in the first movement (she uses Kreisler’s) that I felt her heart had fully opened up. Järvi conducts the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, who play with a period instrument band’s lean thrust and lack of string vibrato; striking in itself, though not always the best setting for [Janine] Jansen’s essentially romantic art.
No such dislocation exists in a rival Beethoven recording from the gifted Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja (the two violin Romances and a separate concerto fragment fill out the disc). Her orchestra and conductor are official “authentic” specialists (Orchèstre des Champs-Elysées, and Phillippe Herreweghe). And she’s slimmed her tone to a fragile finesse, following the reported playing style of the concerto’s first interpreter, Franz Clement.
Beethoven’s autograph score has been studied, too, prompting some changes from the norm.
Not everything is uniformly successful. The concerto’s cadenzas, adapted with overdubbing from Beethoven’s piano adaptation, certainly seem a trick too far. But the freshness of this interpretation is exhilarating, and as bar succeeds bar the soloist certainly beats [Janine] Jansen for edge-of-the-seat excitement.
Four stars for Jansen’s Britten; but in the Beethoven, Kopatchinskaja wins.

Geoff Brown

'Arie per Basso' reviewed in Opera Now Nov 09

2009-11-04T15:23:00.000Z

Handel: Arie per Basso
Naïve OP 30472

Not the most imaginative title, but Handel’s bass arias perhaps have a reputation for a certain matter-of-factness – mostly thanks to the old dudes, dads and kings who get to sing them. But there are plenty of gems among them, and Lorenzo Regazzo avoids those that slavishly follow the bassline in favour of the likes of Elviro’s jaunty arietta from Serse, Claudio’s sweet love-song from Agrippina and others. Of course the non-English speaker limits himself by excluding the oratorios, but there is a nice surprise in the inclusion of a couple of cantatas – Dalla Guerra amorosa and Apollo e Dafne – where the singer is freed from operatic character and can indulge his velvety voice with a little more fantasy and lightness. Rinaldo Alessandrini and the Concerto Italiano provide great sparky, spiky accompaniments – in fact much of the charm lies there, as well as in these rather overlooked pieces. RT

Naïve reissues reviewed in BBC Music Magazine Nov 09

2009-11-03T11:18:00.001Z

Andrew McGregor’s Reissues

Baroque Voices

Though Carlo Gesualdo is the headlined composer on O dolorosa gioia (OP 30486) the first madrigals aren’t by him; he’s been placed among his fellow travellers, as Rinaldo Alessandrini and Conerto Italiano offer us a new context for Gesualdo’s music. Yet his tortured chromaticism still leaps out at us with stark immediacy in such fluent performances. The notes point out that despite our modern reactions to Gesualdo’s sound, he wasn’t nearly as experimental as Monteverdi, already stretching his musical muscles in his Second Book of Madrigals (OP 30487). Alessandrini and his singers focus on the extraordinary expressive potential of the text, in readings of unusual subtlety and power. In one of his early contributions to what we now know as the Naïve Vivaldi Edition, Alessandrini chose pieces intended for the liturgical use (OP 30488); the Concerto funebre RV 579 is beautifully coloured with chalumeau and viola d’amore, matched by Sara Mingardo’s rich contralto in Vivaldi’s Stabat mater.
In a disc of three of Charpentier’s Historia sacra (E 8927), countertenor Gérard Lesne shows tremendous versatility in these vivid miniature oratorios. As the Witch of Endor in The Death of Saul and Jonathan, Lesne combines head and chest voice with nasal organ reeds to eerie effect, while Abraham’s aborted sacrifice of Isaac is dramatically coloured by the continuo of Il Seminario Musicale. Amour et Mascarade (AM 187) opens with a wild blast of recorder; the Furies from an English masque introducing Purcell among his Italian contemporaries – Frescobaldi and Mancini – and the Amaryllis Ensemble’s star is a young Patricia Petibon, duetting with tenor Jean-François Novelli in an imaginative account of Sound of the Trumpet.
Vespers at the Court of Charles VI in Vienna (AM 188) offers hitherto unrecorded works from the Austrian imperial chapel in the early 18th century, and psalm settings by the likes of Fux, Gletle and Reinhardt. A ‘Beatus vir’ by Giovanni Sances is a highlight, thanks to the continuo skills of Christina Pluhar and her French ensemble L’Arpeggiata. We’re perhaps on more familiar ground with three Bach Cantatas (E 8926) showcasing Christophe Coin’s piccolo cello, with the Limoges Baroque Ensemble, and alto Andreas Scholl in fine form in BWV 115, interesting for Bach’s use of cellos and gamba, and an historic Silbermann organ that impacts the performance. And then there’s Handel’s Opera seria (E 8928): an award-winning recital of operatic arias from Sandrine Piau, Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset – one of the most satisfying Handel recitals of recent years.

Guy's Beethoven Piano Concertos reviewed in Gramophone Oct 09

2009-10-27T12:31:00.001Z

Beethoven
Piano Concertos – No 2, Op 19; No 3, Op 37
François-Frédéric Guy pf Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra / Philippe Jordan
Naïve V5179

Exuberance and poetry as another Beethoven concerto cycle concludes

With this coupling François-Frédéric Guy completes his set of the Beethoven concertos, once more admirably partnered by the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra under Philippe Jordan. And what a joy his performances are. Brilliant and direct in the finest French tradition, they are also alive with passing felicities, whether illuminating an early pioneering spirit or a change into what EM Foster once called “Beethoven’s C minor of life”. In the Second Concerto Guy’s exuberance and poetry go hand in hand. The first movement’s startlingly original cadenza is played with unfaltering assurance and the hushed magic with which Guy handles the main theme of the central Adagio sounds a special note. A dazzling finale, too, finds ample time for individual nuance and pointed characterisation, making his sense of contrast in the Third Concerto all the more remarkable. Here both he and Jordan take a qualified view of Beethoven’s con brio, conveying an atmosphere of foreboding, of minor-key unease resolved in an inward-looking Largo where everything is experienced afresh. The finale is unusually restrained but, again, there is nothing of the studio and everything of a life experience. So while I would never want to be without Gilels’s early, magisterial recording with Cluytens (did this ever find its way onto CD?) or Argerich’s recent and unforgettable performance with Abbado (DG, 1/05), Guy’s reading ranks high in a crowded catalogue.

Bryce Morrison

F.F. Guy's Beethoven disc awarded the Outstanding accolade in IRR

2009-10-20T11:20:00.004+01:00

Beethoven
Piano Concertos – No. 2 in B flat, Op. 19; No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37.
François-Frédéric Guy (piano); Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Philippe Jordan
Naïve V5179

Writing about François-Frédéric Guy’s recording of the Fourth Concerto should be his completion of a cycle of the composer’s piano concertos.’ This release marks that completion and is every bit as distinguished as its two predecessors, the first in the series reviewed in May 2008.
This account of the Third Concerto makes a particularly interesting case for the piece. It has often been suggested that Beethoven was influenced here by Mozart’s K491 Concerto in the came key, a work about which Beethoven is alleged to have said, ‘The world will never hear the likes of it again.’ He was right: it has never been matched in its opening 12-tone chromaticism, not by Beethoven or anyone else prior to the advent of atonality. Yet where Mozart’s concerto is wondrous in its hauntingly eerie ethos, Beethoven’s is grimly assertive, at least in its opening movement, which Guy and Philippe Jordan project with a comparatively broad tempo, closer to that favoured by Schiff than to that employed by Schnabel and Fleisher, who, for many, remain paradigms in this repertory.
That said, Guy’s approach is equally commanding: stark, intense and complemented by orchestral detail often blurred in other readings, the winds, in particular, are especially well focused; so, too, are the timpani, where what sounds like the use of ‘hard’ sticks lends impact to several passages. The finale is also a bit more expansive than usual but never to a point that neutralizes the playful with hiding behind its C minor mask. The Largo, arguably the high point of the work, if not quite as broadly sustained as with Schnabel and Fleisher, is gorgeous. Indeed, the whole work emerges here with a power, intensity and clarity that make hearing it a pointed and refreshingly new experience.
If the same cannot be said for Guy’s fine account of the B flat Concerto it is simply because the score makes fewer demands, its perky humour hard to spoil. It has, though, other traits that are often elided or missed in competing performances, notably a gentle tenderness that is as much a part of Beethoven’s artistic character as the explosive brashness we take for granted. In passages of the first movement Guy brings this out with the slightest modulation of pulse. Similarly, in the coda of the Adagio, his slight ritardando lends the music a magical caress. With a playful finale that is never pushed too hard, this performance can hold its own with the best.
In both works Guy favours Beethoven’s most familiar cadenzas. Throughout, the sound is exemplary, the piano close but never masking the orchestra, the dynamic range lending the latter particularly welcome impact in loud passages. In short, this is a most welcome release, complementing an especially noteworthy cycle of these war-horses.

Mortimer H. Frank

Great review of Vivaldi: Farnace on TheArtsDesk.com

2009-10-19T10:31:00.004+01:00

For anyone who still thinks of Antonio Vivaldi simply as the composer of The Four Seasons, it may come as a shock to learn not only that the manuscripts of over 450 of his other works are currently preserved in the archives of the National University Library in Turin but that since the year 2000 the independent French label Naïve has been embarked upon the Herculean task of issuing every single one of them on CD. Among the Turin library's collection are 15 operas (although Vivaldi is actually known to have composed at least 49), of which nine have so far been released by Naïve in brand-new studio recordings.

Recorded live during 2001 stage performances at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, this strikingly theatrical period-instrument version of what seems to have been the Red Priest's own favourite amongst his later operas was in fact first released in 2002 on the conductor Jordi Savall's own label, Alia Vox, but now makes a more than welcome return in the Vivaldi Edition's characteristically eye-catching livery (and still comfortably filling three CDs, though now shorn of the insert arias by the Spanish-based Italian composer Francesco Corselli that had been added for the opera's 1739 Madrid run and were perhaps over-enthusiastically included in the original Alia Vox release).

A typical 18th-century confection of conflicting personal and political loyalties played out among the dysfunctional ruling dynasties of a far-flung corner of the early Roman Empire, Farnace shares a couple of main characters with better-known operas from the Age of the Castratos: Farnace himself (sung with his familiar vocal bite by the ever vital Furio Zanasi) is the same Pontian Prince who pops up in Mozart's early opera Mitridate, rè di Ponto, though he has since both won and lost his father's throne; while Pompeo (sung with her usual commanding authority by the contralto Sonia Prina) is none other than poor old Pompey the Great, whose severed head is served up on a plate to Julius Caesar at the start of Handel's great opera. The other key players are Tamiri, Farnace's wife (the lustrous Sara Mingardo, equally impressive in combative and plaintive mode); Berenice, the Amazonian Queen of Cappadocia (ably sung if slightly under-characterised by Adriana Fernández), who is hellbent on destroying Farnace even at the cost of her kingdom's survival and her own daughter's life; and Selinda, Farnace's scheming sister (Gloria Banditelli), who attempts to help her brother out by seducing both Pompey's and Berenice's first lieutenants.

One of Vivaldi's richest and most varied, as well as genuinely dramatic, scores – with several fine choruses, a duet and even a quartet enhancing the customary stream of solo arias – Farnace is full of startlingly original effects: one aria, for example, features a sustained pedal note for two horns, another has only muted strings for accompaniment, while a third, "Gelido in ogni vena" (All my blood runs cold), underscores Farnace's fear that his wife might actually have followed his orders, and murdered their only son, with icy dissonances blown straight in from the "Winter" landscapes of The Four Seasons. With the singers indulging in authentic real-time improvisation of embellishments in the repeat sections of their da capo arias, and the recitatives moving with all the added urgency and pace of a live performance, this has to be one of the most impressively realised recordings of a Vivaldi opera yet released.

Hear tracks at www.vivaldiedition.com.

Les Grands Millésimes de Naïve Classique

2009-10-14T11:43:00.004+01:00

Naïve reissues the great vintages in it's catalogue. 15 recordings that have reaped countless international awards- discover or rediscover these highlights in beautiful limited-edition double albums accompanied by a book! This fantastic collection is available on 2/11/09.

Notes from "Anna Vinnitskaya" by André Lischke

2009-10-05T11:21:00.000+01:00

Old forms, new masters
After going through a period of pronounced disfavour in the second half of the nineteenth century, the piano sonata enjoyed a veritable renaissance from the start of the twentieth which was due in large measure to Russian composers. Following in the footsteps of Alexander Scriabin, a number of virtuoso pianist-composers, Nikolay Medtner, Sergey Prokofiev, Samuel Feinberg, and to a lesser extent Serge Rachmaninoff, paid homage in their different ways to a genre that was already more than two centuries old, and now permitted the most varied forms, aesthetics, and messages.
Rachmaninoff’s output for solo piano generally shows an attachment to small and medium-sized forms, as exemplified by the Moments musicaux, the Preludes, and the Études-tableaux. But he also wrote two imposing sonatas, the second of which in particular may be categorised among his finest
pianistic inspirations. It was composed between January and August 1913, in parallel with the large-scale cantata The Bells. With his customary laconicism in correspondence concerning his works in progress, Rachmaninoff wrote to the pianist Alexander Goldenweiser on 10 July that after the cantata ‘I still have to find the time to write the piano sonata, which is only roughed out’. This Second Sonata in B flat minor op.36 is dedicated to Matvey Presman, a fellow pupil of Rachmaninoff’s in the class of their piano teacher Nikolay Zverev. The composer himself gave the first performance in Moscow on 3 December 1913. Later, after his emigration, he made a revision of it in 1931, considerably shortening the work, and it is this definitive version that is adopted nowadays.
The sonata follows the traditional fast-slow-fast structure. It begins with an Allegro agitato which immediately displays the composer’s pianistic trademarks, with its lightning runs and its pounding chords that evoke those belllike, pealing sonorities, a true leitmotif, that turn up in the most varied guises in most of his works. But the piece is not striking only for its spectacular virtuosity: the epic sweep, the density of the writing, with its rich internal counterpoint, and the harmonic purity of the second theme reveal Rachmaninoff’s profoundly lyrical nature. And the discourse throughout the movement is organised around this duality. The second movement, Non allegro, is designed as a set of variations which mostly bathe in a meditative chiaroscuro atmosphere, then develop into an episode of improvisatory character. The return of the theme in its initial form leads directly into the finale, Allegro molto. Here the contrasting play is on the ambiguity between fury and cheerfulness, as torrential impulsiveness yields to marked staccatos full of vigour. The end of the movement seems to want to give the work an optimistic conclusion, blossoming in a radiant major mode.
Sofia Gubaidulina, born in 1931, studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Nikolay Peyko and Vissarion Shebalin. Alongside Denisov, Karetnikov, Volkonsky, and Schnittke, she belongs to that generation of the Russian avant-garde which, despite the hostility of the official Soviet aesthetic, began to express itself towards the end of the 1950s, adopting serial techniques and keeping abreast of everything that was happening in new-Western music. The Chaconne for piano, composed in 1962, dates from the period when Gubaidulina was a student on the postgraduate course (aspirantura) at the conservatory. The work is dedicated to the pianist Marina Mdivani, who had suggested the idea, and who subsequently premiered it in Moscow on 13 March 1966. The principle of the chaconne, a dance originating in the Renaissance era, is the erection of a variation structure on a repetitive theme in the bass. Here the theme consists of a sequence of powerful chords marked by a few ornaments, with, initially, the addition of a series of regularly spaced notes. Throughout the work, the rhythmic movement is maintained under very strict control through all the variants of tempo and intensity. The sound dies away, then returns in force; the tempo grows faster, on repeated notes and rapid runs in toccata style ; the piano writing becomes increasingly virtuosic, sometimes agile, sometimes massive. After a climax comes a break in mood, with a mezza voce episode, incantatory and enigmatic. The obsessional repetitions of notes return, and a brief new intensification leads to a reminder of the initial theme, before a rapid, elliptical conclusion.
Another Russian composer-pianist, but one who has remained relatively unpopular and underrated, suffering perhaps from his excessive proximity to Rachmaninoff, was Nikolay Medtner (1879-1951), who composed fourteen sonatas, some in several movements, others more akin to poems and conceived as a single unbroken movement. Among his works in the latter form is the Sonata Reminiscenza, which opens the cycle of Forgotten Melodies op.38, composed in 1918. At the center of a programme predominantly devoted to powerfully built works, Anna Vinnitskaya has introduced a true pianistic aquarelle. Here all is delicacy, fluidity, like the crystalline sonorities of repeated arpeggios in which is set a shapely melody. This forms an introduction whose recurrences will punctuate the various episodes of the sonata before serving as its conclusion. A motif of a succession of sixths centring on a pivot note constitutes the dominant theme, the multiple transformations of which alternate with new melodic ideas, singing like a cello in the medium register, or standing out as the top part in a texture of finely worked lines. A few rare bursts of vehemence and outbreaks of virtuosity only serve to underline the purpose of music whose title ‘reminiscence’ implies an ambiguous attitude somewhere between serene reverie and a certain nostalgia generative of an internalised tension.
Of the nine sonatas of Sergey Prokofiev, the first four date from the pre-Revolutionary period in Russia; only one, the Fifth, was written during his years in the West, in 1923, while the last four belong to the Soviet period, after the composer had gradually renewed his ties with the USSR and finally found himself forbidden to leave the country after 1938. The Seventh Sonata, composed in 1942, is the central work in the trilogy known as the ‘Wartime Sonatas’ (nos.6, 7 and 8). It was premiered by Sviatoslav Richter in Moscow on 18 January 1943. In an article published later, the pianist offered his thoughts on the work’s content : ‘The sonata plunges you into the disturbing atmosphere of a world which has lost its balance, where disorder and uncertainty reign. Man observes the unleashing of deadly forces. Yet all that sustains him in life does not cease to exist for him. He retains his sentiments and his love. He joins in the collective protest and keenly feels the common misfortune. An irresistible racing movement, determined to win through, sweeps aside all that lies on its path. Drawing its strength from the struggle, it becomes a gigantic life-affirming force.’
The Seventh Sonata begins with an Allegro inquieto whose tone is immediately set by the tense, broken lines and the staccato responses to them. The principal section is divided between rapid horizontal lines, colliding chords, and biting dissonances. The cell of four repeated notes (somewhat reminiscent of Beethoven’s ‘fate’ theme) remains a constant in the movement and also appears in the secondary episode, Andantino, which is calmer in atmosphere, though still retaining a strong underlying sense of the ‘uncertainty’ mentioned by Richter. The two episodes alternate, with a considerable degree of differentiation, the first returning in the guise of a development, with a supplementary dose of violence, then serving as a rapid coda after a shortened reprise of the Andantino. The second movement, Andante caloroso, reminds us that Prokofiev, though often labelled ‘barbaric’, can also be a supremely accomplished melodist in his singing themes. The cello-like cantilena, whose tonality is much more clearly asserted than that of the first movement, establishes a mood of peace and equilibrium which lasts until the central section. Here the harmonies and the tempo can be seen to break up once more, culminating in tolling chords like a death-knell, twice interrupted by rapid ascents of the scale. An oscillation between two repeated adjoining notes leads to a short reprise of the opening melody. The finale, Precipitato, with its asymmetrical rhythm in 7/8 time, is a celebrated monument of the piano literature, notably for its technical demands. This fearsome ordeal for the performer’s wrist is an uninterrupted succession of pounding chords, executed in a single sweep without a moment of respite, prodigiously bracing in its effect; music that might be described as ruthlessly optimistic, which throws in a quotation from the first movement, a cyclic procedure typical of many works by Prokofiev.

Vivaldi: Gloria RV589 & RV588 / Rinaldo Alessandrini

2009-09-25T16:51:00.000+01:00

Find out more info about this release here.

Purcell: The Food of Love

2009-09-24T14:46:00.000+01:00

Henry Purcell is often considered the quintessentially English composer representing almost alone a golden age of British music, but Henry was born at a key moment in the turbulent days of the seventeenth century in England and perhaps that fabled English musical language was pronounced with a distinctly continental accent.
Purcell must have heard a great deal of French music during his formative years and equally have known well the monarch’s taste. He would have known and worked with French musicians and he would have had an intimate knowledge of Lully’s compositions (so much so that he quotes Lully’s Isis in the Cold Scene of King Arthur).
There is no denying the originality and genius of Henry Purcell. His voice is as distinctive as any truly great composer, but the building blocks of his musical language must certainly, and by necessity, have included a whiff of garlic.
We made no great effort to make the music sound French because no such effort is needed. It has a similar turn of phrase and line, and the ornaments that Purcell writes out himself could easily have come from the treatises of Bérard or Bacilly. It may be a surprise to the British to find out how popular Henry Purcell’s music is to this day in France, but then, it is perhaps because the French recognise in him something of their own.
In Purcell’s vocal music we find recitative in the French style, in which the movement of the continuo perfectly espouses the text, the better to serve it; but we also encounter – true to the tradition of the polyphonists – a bass line written out as if to be sung: only the text is missing. This line is intended for
a melody instrument (string bass) accompanied by harmony instruments such as the harpsichord, organ, guitar or theorbo. But its text, which will be played and not sung, is the same as that of the singer, often in imitation. It precedes or follows the voice, like an echo, to underline the effects the latter produces. The challenge faced by performers is therefore to illustrate this text to best advantage with all the resources available to them. They must choose the instrumentation according to its character (‘O Solitude’ with viol alone, for example), but also decide on the phrasing, the dynamics, the note lengths, the articulation, the respirations, with the aim of sticking closely to the text, to the music of its language, the rhythm of the consonants and the meaning of the words, so as to highlight the poetry and its affects. All of this of course demands a high degree of complicity between them.

Paul Agnew and Anne-Marie Lasla

Find out more info about this release here.

Cantare by Isabella Moretti

2009-09-22T12:16:00.000+01:00

Why ‘cantare’?
Because this word which already sings even when you speak it is a tribute to my Italian roots. Because, in my family, singing has always been part of any celebration. Because my father sang O sole mio like no one else!
After recording several ‘serious’ CDs, at least as far as the repertoire is concerned, I had long dreamt of a disc which would convey my joy in making the harp sing. The supreme desire of the musician: to join her own voice with that of her instrument!
Whether in the operatic paraphrases or the folksongs, my overriding wish was to find the instinctive, natural side of singing, where one’s pleasure is simple, spontaneous, the opposite of intellectual. Then it occurred to me that it would be wonderful to invite a ‘real’ singer to share some of these moments. I had been lucky enough to meet Felicity some years ago, and I naturally thought of her and her charisma. She immediately agreed, with the kindness and simplicity so typical of her, and together we chose works which would fit in with the spirit of this disc.
The recording was a moment of rare delight, full of gaiety and emotion. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did making it!

Find out more info here.

V5179 Beethoven Piano Concertos nominated for the IRR OUTSTANDING accolade

2009-09-21T10:11:00.001+01:00

In the January 2009 issue of IRR the OUTSTANDING accolade was inaugurated. In the October issue six recordings have been nominated for this award and we are delighted to say that Naïve's V5179 Beethoven Piano Concertos is one of them!

Find out more about the release here: http://en.naive.fr/#/work/beethoven-piano-concertos-nos-2--3

Notes from Vivaldi: Gloria

2009-09-18T16:51:00.000+01:00

Perhaps one of the most stimulating exercises for a musicologist or a musician is to write about Italian sacred music of the eighteenth century. Unlike opera, where the works obey an ever more rigidly structured code (beginning with the division into recitatives and arias), in which the composer increasingly adheres to preconceived models that conform to his audience’s expectations, sacred music takes care to avoid submitting to ideology of any kind. While in theory at least it accepts a set of precepts (which will be discussed further on), sacred music does not (will not, cannot) free itself from operatic influence. The composer is well aware of the public’s mood when it enters the church, looking forward to hearing the fashionable castrato who is in town at the moment, perhaps under contract with the local opera house: he will show off his talents in motets that will have little in common with a vague concept of spirituality or mysticism (which we have in reality derived from what is nowadays a Romantically tinged subculture). He will, quite simply, be singing operatic music set to a Latin text. The presence of the choir and of certain unignorable rules of musical ethics (chiefly the use of counterpoint) will help create unpredictable, surprising structures.
The great aesthetic revolution accomplished in the early seventeenth century had far-reaching consequences for sacred music. Hitherto characterised by an inescapable contrapuntal style and assigned to exclusively vocal forces (at most doubled by the organ), church music was obliged to change course as the new expressive tendencies stemming from the seconda pratica took shape. Now came the introduction of instruments and the concertato style; the slow disintegration of forms (above all in the Office of Vespers), with figural music increasingly replacing plainchant; and the emergence of the messa bassa, where the liturgical text, now murmured in an undertone by the celebrant, left the congregation’s ears free to delight in a continuous and uninterrupted succession of motets and various other types of music for the entire duration of the service. The sole remaining bulwark of tradition was the contrapuntal style, which assumed the rhetorical value of music intended for purposes of worship, and was employed from time to time to remind the faithful that they were nevertheless still in church. But its original function was lost, since the fugues and points of imitation once assigned to the purity of a few voices were now decked out in the brilliant, ringing sonorities of instruments, or in the sensual, sinful strains of singers whose vocal technique grew ever more refined. Various parameters now came into play: the noisiness of the orchestral forces, growing in size according to the importance of the feast-day; the participation of singers and instrumentalists of greater artistic prestige for the most solemn festivals; the rhythm of performance, which would be slower if the majesty of the ceremony required this to attain a supposed state of contemplation of the Divine. But all this offers food for discussion: one of the aims of performance was to involve the congregation, who as they listened would recognise in the Church Militant on earth a reflection of the Church Triumphant in heaven.
Venice seems to have been a magical place for sacred music: the far-sightedness of the ecclesiastical authorities and the city’s democratic customs, far removed from the sometimes repressive cultural strategies to be found elsewhere (in Rome, for example), made it an ideal setting for this kind of spectacle. The tourist guides of the time speak with astonishment of the Vespers performed on the square in front of S. Maria della Salute, while the cappella of S. Marco was graced by the finest instrumentalists and singers of the day.
In the case of more highly structured compositions like the two settings of the Gloria recorded here, the rhetorical values called into question by the composer will certainly be more numerous, but most of them will still refer to easily recognisable rhetorical and theatrical situations. The word ‘Gloria’, for example, unequivocally suggests ringing sonorities that may be assimilated with musical evocations of war. Thus the utilisation of oboes and trumpets becomes inevitable. The text ‘Gratias agimus tibi’ suggests an act of thanksgiving interpreted in the theatrical sense with an almost pagan hieraticism and solemnity.
Vivaldi’s two settings of the Gloria present an enormous variety of musical solutions: some agree on their approach to the same text, while others diverge. The opening movements are cheerful, radiant: here the glory of the Lord is revealed on the earth with joy, far from any feeling of agitation, yet sometimes astounding us with unexpected modulations. The complexities of the writing in the two settings of ‘Et in terra pax’ help to give the movement greater substance, even if the contrapuntal voice-leading is toned down by melodic lines which have nothing classical about them. But whereas RV 588 is full of polyphonic indiscretions recalling older styles (‘Domine Fili Unigenite’, ‘Qui tollis peccata mundi’), RV 589 is distinguished by an intensive recourse to theatrical models, attaining a moment of sheer pathos in the alto aria ‘Domine Deus, Agnus Dei’, in which Vivaldi seeks to create a dramatic space by placing the soloist at a distance from the chorus, which comments on human fragility (‘Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis’). There is even a nod to current fashion with the dotted quaver rhythms à la française in ‘Domine Fili Unigenite’), a concession to the urbane style popular on the other side of the Alps.
In general, it should be borne in mind that the emotional charge that sixteenth-century polyphony sought to achieve, even if it was perhaps at one remove from the congregation, lost its force in the High Baroque period, although the aim was still to control the emotions of the assembly of the faithful, who were expected to recognise in music a sign of the divine. But the people were now given what they wanted, while maintaining the illusion that a reflection of the divine could be found even in the pastoral sensuality of the siciliana ‘Domine Deus Rex coelestis’ (RV 589).
It is worth saying something about the closing fugues of the two settings, which are two different reworkings of a fugue from a Gloria for two choirs and orchestra by Ruggieri. I have no idea why Vivaldi did not want to venture on an original composition at this point. Contrary to popular opinion, he was a competent contrapuntist. The various fugues he essayed in his concertos, especially the concerti ripieni (without soloists), do not find him unprepared or ill at ease. Quite the reverse, in fact. Both elaborations of the material (that of RV 589 is later than RV 588) show a marked feeling for form exemplified in their subtle modifications of phrase length and instrumentation, which lighten the rhetoric and make the piece more effective in its concision.
Finally, a word on the introductions which open the two Glorias. That of RV 588 belongs to the main work without a shadow of a doubt, while the connection of the motet Ostro picta with RV 589 can be deduced only from the fact that they share the same key. One may see in these introductions another contemporary device for padding out the musical event to excess by enriching and decorating it with music that is liturgically superfluous, though certainly effective and impressive.

Rinaldo Alessandrini

Accentus shortlisted for Gramophone Awards

2009-09-10T17:18:00.000+01:00

Accentus' recording of Fauré Requiem, released last year, has been shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards, in the 'Choral' category!

You can find out more about this release here.

New Sandrine Piau / Handel: "Between Heaven and Earth" video

2009-09-10T16:37:00.000+01:00

The world renowned and multi award-winning French soprano, Sandrine Piau, presents an intimate recital exploring the religious and philosophical aspects of Handel’s oeuvre. She is accompanied by one of the finest period instrument ensembles, Accademia Bizantina under the direction of Stefano Montanari. For Handel the soprano voice may assume many different guises: as angelic messenger, as the herald of hope and reason, or glorifying music itself. It can also express the deepest sufferings and transcend them in an ecstasy worthy of the greatest mystics. A highlight is the stunning duet, ‘As steals the morn upon the night’ from L’allegro, Il penseroso, ed Il moderato and features the internationally acclaimed Finnish tenor, Topi Lehtipuu.

Anne Gastinel and Pablo Màrquez's Ibérica has been awarded France's RTL D'OR

2009-09-09T11:07:00.000+01:00

Anne Gastinel and Pablo Màrquez's Ibérica has been awarded one of the major French music awards: RTL D'OR. RTL is one of the most listened to radio stations in France and averages six million listeners. To find out more about the release and listen to audio clips click here.

On October 12th the Ibérica program will be performed by both Anne and Pablo at the beautiful Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. Tickets cost €22 and you can book yours here.

Alessandrini CD one of the "best classical recordings"

2009-09-08T16:40:00.000+01:00

Last weekend classical music critics from the Sunday Telegraph published what they thought were the 100 greatest classical recordings ever and in at #9 was Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano's Battista Pergolesi Stabat Mater!

"This is a recording in which every last drop of musical juice has been squeezed from the score. As a result, the text, one of the most moving in the sacred canon, is more sharp and poignant than ever."

Needless to say it was labelled a "must-buy" release and you can find out more and listen to clips here.

The reissue of Jordi Savall’s Farnace

2009-09-07T16:30:00.000+01:00

Antonio Vivaldi’s opera Farnace was released in 2002 in a superb recording by Jordi Savall on his label Alia Vox. Naïve and Alia Vox work closely together (the latter is reediting the entire discography of Jordi Savall, found in the Naïve catalogue, and Naïve is their distributor in France). As the Vivaldi Edition moves ahead in its goal to release all the existing operas of Vivaldi, we are proud to include this fairly recent recording in the collection.
The 2002 recording included arias by the Spanish composer Francesco Corselli which were found in the performing edition used in Madrid in 1739. Eliminating these arias has been the only modification we have made, thereby allowing a faithful representation of the 1731 manuscript of this opera as conceived in Vivaldi’s hand.
Jordi Savall made the following observations on the original release:
‘This recording is based on a selection of the most successful moments from the last two performances recorded live at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, on 26 and 28 October 2001. It should therefore be pointed out that any differences of sound or ambience which may occasionally seem to affect the singing, or give the impression of the singers being further away, are due to the performers’ position on stage. Any small inconvenience arising from the recording of a live stage performance is amply compen sated for by the great spontaneity of the recitatives and the sincerity of feeling in the arias, in which the singers genuinely improvise some ornamentation in the da capo sections.’

Susan ORLANDO
January 2009

"For Vivaldi, Many More Seasons" The Vivaldi Edition had a whole page on the NY Times feature

2009-08-25T11:40:00.000+01:00

ALTHOUGH Antonio Vivaldi’s name is synonymous with seaswept Venice, an accident of history has deposited the greatest collection of his music here, by the foothills of the Alps. On an upper floor of the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino, in metal cabinets behind a fireproof door, is Vivaldi’s personal archive of clean autograph copies of music never published in his lifetime: some 450 works, including 110 violin concertos, 39 oboe concertos, more than a dozen operas and a raft of sacred music.

Between his death in 1741 and the 1930s, posterity knew little more of Vivaldi than the instrumental works published during his lifetime in collections given opus numbers 1 through 12, including “The Four Seasons” (Op. 8, Nos. 1-4). As for the rest, he once told an English traveler that he made better money by selling copies directly than by working through publishers.

Shortly after Vivaldi’s death a close relation sold the archive to the Venetian aristocrat Jacopo Soranzo, from whom it passed to Giacomo Durazzo, a nobleman of Genoa and a patron of Gluck. While still in the possession of the Durazzo family, the collection was carelessly split in two, and early in the 20th century one half was donated to a monastery outside Turin.

Alberto Gentili, the expert called in for an evaluation, quickly deduced that the cache, though a treasure, was incomplete. (For one thing, whole acts of operas were missing.) Roberto Foà, a banker, bought the available material for the Turin library in memory of a son who had died in infancy. Eventually Gentili tracked down the remainder and persuaded the owner to sell. This time it was Filippo Giordano, a wool merchant, who put up the money. The acquisitions were announced in 1930.

“It was front-page news all over the world,” said Susan Orlando, the American administrator, performer and scholar who oversees the archive. “And then, nothing.”

What good are scores locked in a vault? In the late 1990s the musicologist Alberto Basso, who had cataloged the Vivaldi holdings, sold the French label Opus 111 on the utopian proposition of recording the entire collection on some 100 CDs. (The complete works of Beethoven on Deutsche Grammophon run to 87.)

Before the Vivaldi Edition took off, Opus 111 , sold to Naïve, another boutique label, and there it has flourished. Among the three dozen remarkable volumes already on the market are a collection of string concertos with Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano (“Concerti per Archi”), sacred music with the soprano Sandrine Piau and the Accademia Bizantina conducted by Ottavio Dantone (“In Furore”) and a door-stopping set containing nine full-length operas (three CDs each, each opera also available individually). To be released this week are settings of the Gloria and oboe concertos from Alfredo Bernardini and his ensemble, Zefiro.

Just past the halfway mark, the Vivaldi Edition is tentatively scheduled for completion in 2015. Hard times notwithstanding, Naïve remains committed to the project. “But I spend a lot of time fund-raising now,” Ms. Orlando said. “That’s something I never had to do before.”

Ms. Orlando, 56, grew up in Honolulu, studied composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston and got hooked on the Baroque the day she picked up the exotic viola da gamba. Having presented Baroque festivals in America and Europe for more than 30 years, she happened to settle in Turin in 2001, where her old friend Mr. Basso promptly reeled her in for his Vivaldi project. The fit was just about perfect: Ms. Orlando had the languages, the contacts, the musicological expertise, the administrative skills.

“Alberto calls me the ambassador,” she said recently while conducting a whirlwind tour of the city’s Baroque architecture. “He knew that I’m capable of organizing things, and he gave me carte blanche.” At the Naïve offices in Paris, her nickname is Miss Vivaldi.

Behind a stately facade built in 1873 for the stables of the Prince of Carignano, the National Library is a no-frills barracks from the 1950s. Too poor to provide gloves for readers handling rare books and manuscripts, the institution does not even require their use. “Vivaldi said he could compose faster than a copyist could copy,” Ms. Orlando said, turning autograph pages with unprotected hands to reveal swift, fluent strokes that ripple evenly across the staffs, virtually uninterrupted by strike-outs or corrections.

Born in Venice in 1678, the Red Priest (as Vivaldi was called on account of the red hair he was born with and the religious orders he took as a young man) was long associated with that city’s Pio Ospedale della Pietà, the ensemble of musically gifted orphan girls he trained that became a top tourist attraction. Later he traveled widely, perhaps as far as Prague. Having fallen on hard times, he died a pauper in Vienna.

Broad-brush accounts of Vivaldi’s life dwell on his vanity, boastfulness and ill humor. “Like Beethoven he was a person of huge talent, bent on making as much of that talent as he could and bitter at not getting the credit he knew he deserved,” Ms. Orlando said. “He came from common people, and he was dealing with princes. Was he disagreeable? I can’t think of any stories of Vivaldi throwing soup in a servant’s face, as Beethoven did. You have to take what’s said with a grain of salt, because it’s all supposition."

When Vivaldi’s music re-emerged in the 20th century, the composer Luigi Dallapiccola, a stern modernist, said that Vivaldi had written not hundreds of concertos but the same concerto hundreds of times, a remark echoed by Stravinsky. Someone coined the phrase wallpaper music.

“It can seem that way when the musicians have no idea where the music comes from, of the physical instruments it was written for, of the phrasing that was used in the period,” Ms. Orlando said. “But even then, the music is so strong that it comes across, especially in fast movements, which pull you right in and drag you right through. The biggest difference is in slow movements, where long, beautiful arches keep opening and closing, where there’s time for subtleties of shading, for the poetry and depth. The advantage of informed performances is that they go so much further than the midcentury kind.”

Even professionals who have reason to think they have heard it all may be surprised. Julian Fifer, a former cellist, the founder of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and now a manager and impresario, tells of the epiphany he experienced 10 years ago when a record producer sent him an unmarked tape.

“I had played Vivaldi with Alexander Schneider,” Mr. Fifer said recently in New York. “I had played Vivaldi with Isaac Stern. And I always felt the music was square and boring. Now here was all this great material, with a simply tremendous wealth and variety of color and expression. I thought I was listening to a new composer. I realized that we were clueless.”

The musicians who opened Mr. Fifer’s ears to Vivaldi and his contemporaries were the violin virtuoso Giuliano Carmignola, the conductor Andrea Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra, at the time under exclusive contract to Sony Classical. (Mr. Fifer now manages them worldwide.) Fortunately for Ms. Orlando there were other stars — or stars in waiting, like the conductors Jean-Christophe Spinosi and Giovanni Antonini — to record with.

From the start the Vivaldi Edition caught the music media’s fancy and began receiving prizes. Even the album covers played a part: eye-catching portraits by the French photographer Denis Rouvre showed models, mostly female, in a severe high-fashion style. “Naïve isn’t a company of bureaucrats,” Ms. Orlando said. “The owners are creative people, and they give great liberty. The idea was that the covers would be artworks in themselves.”

The momentum of the Vivaldi Edition has grown to the point that the big names too want in. Though Jordi Savall, renowned master of the viola da gamba and conductor, has a highly successful label of his own in Alia Vox, he asked to reissue his recording of Vivaldi’s opera “Farnace” on Naïve and is on board for a second opera.

Thanks in large part to the Vivaldi Edition, Vivaldi’s stock has risen so sharply that his name is sometimes attached to music that is not his. In 2006 the obscure “Ercole su’l Termodonte,” conducted by Alan Curtis at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, was billed as “reconstructed” Vivaldi. Only those who read the fine print discovered that Vivaldi’s music for all the recitatives and many arias was lost, and that the violinist and scholar Alessandro Ciccolini — very much alive — had composed them out of whole cloth.

Issues of authenticity may have been blown aside in this case by the spectacle of the unblushing tenor Zachary Stains, as Hercules, who prowled the stage dispatching virtuoso roulades in a lion’s skin and billowing cape, as exposed as any Greek hero in marble.

While Ms. Orlando takes a laissez-faire attitude toward such interventionist endeavors, she does object to false advertising of “lost Vivaldi masterpieces,” especially now that so many real ones are out there for audiences to discover.

Having come to know Vivaldi so well, could she sum up his appeal in a single sentence? “I have to put it all in words?” she asked. “I can’t play the music?” But a split second later she had it: “Vivaldi wrote music that people listen to and it makes them glad to be alive.”

By MATTHEW GUREWITSCH, New York Times, 23th August 2009

P. Kopatchinskaja & P. Herreweghe / Beethoven

2009-08-24T14:02:00.001+01:00

Violin Concerto and Romances

“Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Philippe Herreweghe offer us fresh insights into Beethoven’s concerto based on historical evidence, using period instruments. For example, Kopatchinskaja has purposefully adopted the principal characteristics of Clement’s style of playing ,as described by his contemporaries. She plays with a light, silvery touch, a natural pulse, and a totally unforced spontaneity. She has extended that sense of freedom by experimenting with some of the variants included in Beethoven’s autograph, “liberties” which are perfectly justifiable, since noody knows the full detail regarding the evolution of the concerto’s final printed version after its premiere. Kopatchinskaja also contributes her own arrangements of Beethoven’s original cadenzas for the piano version of this concerto; these have inevitably required “overdubbing” in order to realise the piano part in violin and give a soft and tender simplicity and a purity of line reminiscent of Franz Clement who was the recipient of the work.”

ROBIN STOWELL
Robin Stowell is the author of Beethoven: violin concerto
(Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Fragment of a violin concerto
“Many problems that trouble performers are resolved automatically when they have the chance to study the autograph manuscript of the work in question under the guidance of a musicologist.Such was the case with Patricia Kopatchinskaja during the preparation of this recording.Her question was whether the incomplete first movement of a violin concerto in C major by Ludwig van Beethoven,WoO 5, was a fragmentary composition, or one that had merely come down to us in fragmentary form.She came to visit the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna,where Beethoven’s manuscript of this work is held, and got her answer from the manuscript itself.”

OTTO BIBA
Excerpts from the booklet notes

P. Kopatchinskaja & P. Herreweghe / Beethoven video

The contour of the world by David Grimal

2009-08-21T16:54:00.000+01:00

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Fifteen years ago, I was seated on a train to Brussels with my violin at my side and Bach in my head. After arriving at the Gare du Midi, I continued on to the conservatory, where I was to meet Philipp Hirschhorn for a rather unusual lesson. Foolish as I was at the age of twenty, I had decided to play him the complete Sonatas and Partitas. There we were in the famous Brussels conservatory concert hall, the atmosphere permeated with the souls of the great musicians who had performed there. I stood alone on stage, a soloist surrounded by an imaginary orchestra consisting only of the chairs and music stands that had been set up for the concert that would take place that evening. Philipp Hirschhorn sat in one of the velvet seats, part of a phantom audience.

When I finished the Adagio of the first Sonata, he stood up and began to give me his verdict. To his astonishment, I replied that I intended to play all the sonatas and suites, and that I didn’t want to hear his remarks until I had finished. He gave me a quizzical look and sat back down. After the second Sonata, we left the hall for some lunch. At the end of the meal, since he hadn’t said anything about my playing, I tried to start a conversation about the mystery of Bach’s music. I told him that I felt like an ignoramus held aloft by his own unconsciousness. After a long silence, Hirschhorn asked me to look at the plants decorating the restaurant.
‘How many shades of green do you see?’
‘ I don’t know, millions, just one . . .’
‘Are all the leaves the same? Are they parallel?’
‘I don’t know, they’re all different, but they look similar on the same plant;
they look parallel, but they aren’t really. Why do you ask?’
‘Well, Bach is the same, you see . . .’
‘Oh?’
After another long silence, realising how perplexed I was, he added, ‘You see, with proportions – like those of a leaf, a flower, a tree – there is always symmetry, but it is never exact…and the colours are like G minor, like E major, like G minor in E major and E major in G minor . . .’

We crossed the street again and I began our second session with the second Partita and the Chaconne. A few hours later, with a mixture of pride at having got to the end of the task I’d set myself and an uncomfortable feeling of having forced him to listen to me for a whole day, I prepared to say goodbye and return to the station when he said one last thing, which has echoed in my memory every since: ‘Bach is like us, he suffers, he cries out . . . that’s what the violin alone is . . . it’s alone, do you understand?’
A few years later, still sustained by a blend of unconsciousness and a headlong quest to understand the meaning of life, I decided to record these works in concert. Hervé Corre, my agent, gave me free rein, and I have to admit that it was a moment of madness I haven’t lived to regret. I had actually never played the complete cycle in concert before, and the live recording I made bears witness to what could be termed the virtues of unconsciousness . . . I knew when I made that recording that many unanswered questions remained, but that I had my whole life in front of me to delve into the complexity of the music and the secrets of Bach’s language in order, one day, to approach these works differently. That first recording was like a message in a bottle that I myself found. I never listened to it again, apart from an excerpt one recent evening. A music-loving restaurateur friend played me a few versions of the finale of the second Sonata, and I recognised them all, except my own! A long journey of initiation intervened between that recording and this one, a journey that was characterised by a variety of musical experiences. Combined, they allowed the young violinist that I was to mature, and the budding musician to ceaselessly question the mysteries of proportion and colour. The most striking events of my last few years as a musician have been working with living composers on the premieres of new works, playing the complete Beethoven string quartets, and a tour of India during which I played the Sonatas and Partitas across that country.

My exchanges with the composers Viktor Kissine and Brice Pauset allowed me to go beyond the performer’s point of view and to enter into that of musical language, leaving instrumental considerations behind and delving into musical structure, Bach’s rhetoric, and the well-known subjects of proportion and harmonic relationships in the music. Brice Pauset’s explanations made me more sensitive to ornamentation, the temperaments used in old music, and the natural accents of dances.

As far as temperament is concerned, I decided to use a tuning system based on the interval of the third for this recording. The violin was tuned in perfect fifths, and these fifths were divided into perfect thirds, resulting in consonant (or in-tune) thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and octaves, and strongly dissonant augmented fourths, diminished fifths and sevenths. The sound of the instrument is much freer when this system is used, and the relationship among the notes is basically harmonic. This tuning is unlike both the equal temperament used to tune pianos and the Pythagorean system with its raised sharps and lowered flats often used by violinists for concertos, in order to heighten the expressivity of the melodic line. As the range of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas extends over no more than three octaves, it was not necessary to temper the tuning more than usual. This gave rise to the tuning based on perfect fifths, which is unlike that used when a violinist plays string quartets or sonatas with a piano. I tried to play in a wohltemperiert way – literally well-tempered – in keeping with the instrument and the key signatures. Different keys resulted in different musical colours: B minor sounds dark, C major is serene, and E major is sunny, while G minor is slightly tense. A minor gives an impression of calm, cold light, and D minor is full and complete sounding. These may not be exactly the tonal colours Bach wanted, however, because of the slightly tempered tuning system based on perfect fifths.

Viktor Kissine taught me about the art of proportion in phrases, the mystical mathematics of this music, and its basis in rhetoric. Bach’s musical phrases, like the leaves on a tree, are always asymmetrical, with expressive accents also intervening against the established order. What is more, movements that appear to have a single melodic line are in fact always polyphonic, and the
patterns of the notes on the score indicate the expression with which they should be played. These patterns are often also religious symbols, which Kissine taught me to read.

And finally, my research on rhetoric led to a completely unexpected experience last summer. I was scheduled to play the second Partita in Finland, in a little wooden church bathed in the light of the midnight sun. After a long day of rehearsals typical of Scandinavian festivals, the Finnish guitarist Timo Korhonen was scheduled to give the first part of the concert, performing Bach’s third Sonata in C, which includes the great fugue. I was exhausted, and thought I would just turn up to play my portion of the concert. But I arrived at the beginning of the evening, and since there wasn’t a dressing room, I was condemned to listening to half an hour of Bach on the guitar . . . which turned out to be sublime! Korhonen played exactly as I would have liked to have done myself, everything was clear, evident . . . Since he couldn’t sustain the chords on the guitar, he did what harpsichordists do, creating expressivity through the timing of the notes and silences. His performance was a perfect illustration of my intuitions about the expressive force that could result from the blending of rhythmic and harmonic structures. His subtle way of arpeggiating the chords in order to bring out the different voices, especially in the fugue, was staggering. He used an unsteady beat to highlight the phrases’ rhetorical accents, and the music seemed to unfold naturally. At the end of the concert, to his great surprise, I asked him if he would be willing to share the fruits of his research with me. The days that followed were extremely busy what with rehearsals and concerts, plus the hours we spent together poring over the scores and unlocking the emotion in Bach’s music. This encounter was a decisive one for me, as it brought to a conclusion my liberation from certain reflexes that I had accumulated over the years as a player.

The question of which instrument to use is of primary importance today, particularly after all the experimentation that has taken place within the early music movement. Period instruments, gut strings, baroque bows, a different positioning of the bridge . . . what should one use? My fellow quartet members were patient enough to put up with my experiments with gut strings when we performed the complete Beethoven string quartets over a week at the Festival des Arcs. I had strung my violin with gut and overspun gut strings. The sound was very beautiful, very subtle . . . but the instrument constantly went out of tune, when the strings were not breaking due to the difference of humidity in the mountains. And when by some miracle the strings were in tune, I played out of tune! What to do? I had also borrowed a baroque bow to work on chords and get to grips with the articulation, which became self-apparent with this type of bow. The result was interesting, but the sound was not ideal… what I really needed was a different violin, set up in baroque way. But there was no question of exchanging my Stradivarius for another violin! This recording, therefore, is a transcription of Bach’s sonatas and partitas, played on a 1710 Stradivarius with a modern setup, metal strings and a François-Xavier Tourte bow made in the early 19th century and generously loaned for the occasion by my friend Hans Peter Hoffman.

Working on Beethoven’s quartets was a process that offered the perfect preparation for approaching Bach’s works which, because of their complexity, are often reminiscent of a quartet written for solo violin. The organic strength of Beethoven’s quartets and their implacable construction (which cannot be ignored without completely missing the point of these works) provided a valuable mental training ground before proceeding to Bach’s magic mountain.
The final part of my initiatory journey was spiritual, and occurred in India. A few years ago I gave concerts across that country with Bach and my violin. India and its culture provided an unexpected mirror for me in that the audiences, while experiencing a type of music with which they were totally unfamiliar, listened to the concerts with undivided attention. I felt that Bach’s music came completely into its own in these special circumstances. After concerts in certain
cities I had the opportunity to meet carnatic musicians. Carnatic music seemed to me to closely resemble that of Bach, not in terms of its use, which follows other rules, but in terms of its character, which is at once quotidian and mystical. Based on the use of a multiplicity of modes, carnatic music does not undergo harmonic development; instead, melodic inflexion and rhythmic
complexity provide the musical narrative. This extraordinarily refined traditional sacred music is transmitted from one generation to the next, and successive performers each add their own colours and intensity to the blend. Unlike notated western music, which has undergone various revolutions, the language of carnatic music has remained the same and is a veritable callig-
raphy of the spirit whose meaning is bound up with its very existence. Man, it is felt, lives in an un-changing universe he should not seek to dominate, existing rather as a link in a chain of being that goes beyond his comprehension. This music, like Bach’s, is a celebration of life and a difficult exercise for the body and mind that brings together the cardinal points of life and death.
Although ‘Bach cries out’, he made his peace with the world through music. He used it to describe the world, and his ‘string theory’ resolved the ontological gap between the infinitely small and the infinitely large: he speaks to us of the timeless moment of the eternal beginning. God, mankind, nature, simplicity rather than complexity, and life above all. It is the contour of the world under the shining stars.

David Grimal

Vivaldi and the oboe

2009-08-18T11:10:00.000+01:00

One might say that Vivaldi and the oboe grew up with one another in Venice. Perfected in France in the middle of the seventeenth century, the oboe did not quickly win currency in Italy, but in 1692, just as the adolescent Vivaldi was about to embark on his training for the priesthood, we find the first use of the instrument in a Venetian operatic score, and in 1698 the cappella of the ducal church of S.Marco, where the composer’s father Giovanni Battista served as a violinist, appointed its first oboist, Onofrio Penati. By 1700 the Ospedale dei Mendicanti also boasted an oboist, Barbara, who was mentioned in Vincenzo Coronelli’s vade mecum for visitors to Venice, Guida dei forestieri. In 1703, Concurrently with Vivaldi’s appointment there as violin master, the Ospedale della Pietà engaged an oboe teacher, Ignazio Rion, who in 1706 was succeeded by Ludwig Erdmann (known also for marrying one of the foundlings resident at the Pietà, Maddalena). In 1713 Ignaz Sieber filled the vacancy left by Erdmann’s departure to Florence in 1708. Vivaldi was already composing for the oboe within a short time of its introduction to the Pietà: his sonata for oboe, violin, organ and chalumeau RV779 (c.1709) identifies the oboist as Pellegrina. During her long period of activity at the Pietà, pellegrina (1678-1754) taught the instrument to many other figlie di coro. One of Vivaldi’s approximately eighteen surviving oboe concertos (one always has to be cautious with statistics in Vivaldi’s case because of disputed attributions), RV 462, probably belongs to this early period preceding the publication of L’estro armonico, op.3, in 1711.

"Voices from heaven and voices of the heart" by Sandrine Piau

2009-08-13T10:06:00.000+01:00

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The recital is a moment of special intimacy that lays us singers bare
through both our choices and our interpretation. Its often lengthy
gestation reflects our experience, our affin-ities, our encounters.

The strange distinction in French between ‘voie’ (path) and ‘voix’
(voice) is unsettling. Man seeks a path, a meaning for his life, and
gives voice to his questionings.

High voices generally symbolise that distant celestial sphere where
birds and angels mingle. Their purity allows us, fleetingly, to forget
human imperfection and fragility. I try to understand the alternating
feelings of fascination and rejection such voices awaken in me. No
cloud of suffering must tarnish their brightness, and their perfection
denies our fallibility. As a marvellous corollary of this, they snatch one
from earthly gravity and sustain the crazy dream of flying, which at
last seems possible.

My aim today has been to reconcile these voices from heaven with
those of our heart in a ballet emphasising the antagonisms that rack
us. The radiance of the triumphant angel is echoed by Cleopatra’s
sufferings at death’s door. Beauty yields to time, but time seems to
stand still for an instant, thanks to music . . .

Handel left us a considerable body of work in which it is a privilege
to look for answers that do not exist.