Archive of blurbs

January 16, 2012

The first two weeks of January. With all the celebrations, religious and secular (two sets of Christmases and New Years, one in the Gregorian calendar, and one in the Julian), we missed several noted birthdays.  Mily Balakirev, a Russian composer and the leader of The Five (or The Might Handful – somehow the Russian term escapes a good translation) was born on January 2, 1837.  Although not the greatest Russian composer of that time, he still wrote several wonderful pieces, the “Oriental Fantasy” Islamey being probably one of the most popular (and devilishly difficult).  Here it is in performance by Sandro Russo.  (By the way, one of the members of The Five, Cesar Cui, a Russian composer of French descent – his father entered Russia with Napoleon’s army – was also born around this time, on January 18, 1835).

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born on January 4, 1710.  His life was tragically short – he died at the age of 26 from tuberculosis, but in the few years that he was actively composing, he wrote a number of opera buffa, some of which are popular to this day, and several sacred works. Probably the best know of them is Stabat Mater, which we’re fortunate to have in the performance by Baroque Band, a period instruments ensemble based in Chicago.  You can listen to it here.

Another Russian composer, Alexander Scriabin, was born on January 6, 1872.  Scriabin was tremendously popular during his lifetime but fell into relative obscurity in the recent decades.  Lately it seems that he has grow in popularity, both on the concert stage and in recordings.  Scriabin’s preoccupation with color (he even created a color keyboard, with each key associated with a specific hue) is well known.  Recently Eteri Andjaparidze performed a full program of Scriabin in the Baryshnikov center, accompanied by Jennifer Tipton’s intricate, colorful lighting design to create an unusual experience of sound and sight.  In the absence of color we will hear Beatrice Berrut play Scriabin’s Piano Sonata no. 3 in f-sharp minor op.23 (click here).

And finally the French composer Francis Poulenc was born on January 7, 1899.  Poulenc, a member of The Six, wrote music for piano (solo and a concerto), wonderful chamber music, especially for wind instruments, liturgical music and operas, but he’s probably best known for his songs.  In this field his lyrical talent was incomparable.  Here’s the song with an unusual title Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant (My dead body is soft as a glove).  It comes from Poulenc’s cycle Fiançailles pour rire, based on the poems of Louise de Vilmorin.  It’s sung by the baritone Michael Kelly (Jonathan Ware is on the piano).

January 9, 2012

Born in Taiwan, the pianist Stephanie Shih-yu Cheng was about 5 when she started lessons, and started competing when she was 7.   She moved to the US when she was 16 to study music at Michigan's Interlochen Academy.  Ms. Cheng’s principal teachers have been Ann Schein at the Peabody Conservatory and Gilbert Kalish. She also earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Ms. Cheng has performed in the U.S., France, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan to great critical acclaim.  She played at the world’s major music centers, including the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, Opera City Hall of Tokyo, National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Kravis Center in Florida, and the National Concert Hall of Taipei. She has distinguished herself in several international competitions, including first prizes in the IBLA Grand Prize Competition in Italy, Kingsville International Competition, and the Association of Pianists and Piano Teachers of America International Piano Competition. She was the recipient of Prix-Ville de Fontainebleau in France, which was presented to her by Philippe Entremont.  Martin Bernheimer wrote that she plays “eloquently and elegantly…(with) passion and introspection…sensitivity and a finely honed sense of style.”  Her recent engagements include concerts with the Stony Brook Symphony under Leon Fleisher and Brampton Symphony Orchestra in Toronto.  She frequently appears in recitals with pianist Sara Davis Buechner.

Ms. Cheng was a teaching assistant for Earl Carlyss at the Peabody Conservatory where she received the Rose Marie Milholland Award in Piano.  Currently she is on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music Precollege and City College of New York

Ms. Cheng’s repertoire is broad, but we’ll hear Stephanie play several French Impressionist pieces.  First, Scarbo from Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit (here).  We’ll follow with Claude Debussy’s Soiree dans Grenade, from Estampes (here). Finally, back to Ravel and his Sonatine (here).  You can find more of Ms. Chang’s performances on her personal page.

December 19, 2011

Two more of Beethoven’s late Quartets. A couple weeks ago, as Beethoven’s birthday was approaching, we featured two of Beethoven’s late quartets, op. 132 and op. 131.  Today we’ll introduce two more, op. 130 and op. 135.

As with all late quartets, there’s confusion regarding their numbers.  String Quartet no. 13 in B-flat major op. 130, though second in order of publication, was actually composed during 1825-6 after the quartet in a minor, op. 132, making it the last of the quartets composed to fulfill the commission from the Russian prince Nikolai Galitzin. Whereas the quartet in a minor was Beethoven’s reflection on his recovery from a life-threatening illness, which gave birth to the profound and solemn "Heiliger Dankgesang" (Song of Thanksgiving) that forms the quartet’s centerpiece, the Quartet in B-flat major is quite possibly then the expression of renewed vigor and the composer’s exuberant return to his art. Hardly anywhere in the piece is there a mournful or sad measure. Premiered in March 1826, the original form of the Quartet in B-flat major included the colossal Grosse Fuge as the finale. Opinions of the performance were mixed mostly because of the fugue, which nearly eclipsed, artistically and temporally, the rest of the quartet. Urged by his publisher to replace the fugue with a less weighty finale, Beethoven composed an alternate ending in the fall of 1826, making this a rare instance in which Beethoven was swayed by either the opinion of the public or the publisher. Furthermore, the alternate finale was also his last completed composition.  We’ll hear the quartet in its original form.  It’s performed by Angelo Xiang Yu, violin, Miriam Fried, violin, Philip Kramp, viola, and Deborah Pae, cello.  You can listen to it here.

Beethoven composed his sixteenth String Quartet, Op.135 in F Major, in 1826, a mere few months before his death. Only one other completed composition, the alternate finale for the op. 130 quartet in B-flat major, postdates this work. In this sense, the string quartet in F major represents the culmination of a lifelong dedication to music. Of the late string quartets, the F major is the shortest (26 and a half minutes in this recording), the simplest in construction, and the only other quartet to follow the standard four movement plan besides the op. 127 quartet in E flat major. While in technique the F major quartet no doubt deserves its place among the other late quartets, it does not seem to burden itself with the same weighted discourse. Instead, as the French musicologist Joseph de Marliave stated, it is a "fluent play of brilliant but irresponsible wit," much like the alternate finale Beethoven composed for the op. 130 quartet.  The final movement, titled Der schwer gefaβte Entschluβ ("The Difficult Decision"), is perhaps the most famous part of the quartet, largely due to the purportedly philosophical question Beethoven penned above the slow introductory chord: "Es muss sein?" (Must it be?).  The answer that Beethoven gives later in the manuscript is simply, "Muss es sein" (It must be). Because of the obvious ambiguity of this question-answer pair, many solutions to this enigma have been proposed, each trying to tease out a meaning that may or may not be there. One of the more well-known explanations, and at least the most comical, comes from Anton Schindler. Schindler states that Beethoven's housekeeper, the only person allowed to disturb him while he was working, would ask him for money with which to buy food and other necessities. Beethoven would reply, "Es muss sein?" (Must it be?).  The housekeeper would then emphatically reply, "Muss es sein" (It must be).  Here is the performance of quartet op. 135 by Avalon String Quartet.

December 12, 2011

Beethoven.  The great German composer was born on the 15^th or 16^th of December, 1770 (all we know for sure is that he was baptized on the 17^th).  There’s no need to recount his life: hundreds of books of books were written about him, and his life, from his birth in Bonn, to his studies with Haydn in Vienna, to his first works, still influenced by Mozart and Haydn, to the onset of his hearing loss, to his mature period and then the burst of immense creativity at the late period, when he was completely deaf – al of this is part of the cultural lore.  Instead, we’ll just present several pieces from the different periods of his life.

Piano Trio, Op. 11 is an early piece.  It was originally written in 1797 as a trio for clarinet, piano and cello, which he then transcribed the  for the violin, cello and piano.  The trio has the nickname "Gassenhauer" or "Street Song" Trio because of the theme in the last movement, which derives from a popular song of the day.  Beethoven used it as a theme for nine variations.  It is performed by Lincoln Trio and can be heard here.

String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major op. 18, no.6 was written two-three years later, around 1800. Beethoven published his first six quartets as a single opus, just as Haydn and Mozart, who also had published their own multi-quartet sets. The first movement is still quite Haydnesq, but it’s the finale, subtitled La Malinconia" (Melancholy), that is surprisingly innovative.  The opening is full of unexpected harmonies and dynamic shifts, and in this sense it portends of the later quartets.  It’s performed by Arianna String Quartet, and you listen to it here.

Sonata for violin and piano No. 8 in G Major, the third in opus 30 sonatas, was written in 1801 or 1802.  It’s dedicated to the Russian czar Alexander I, somewhat surprising, considering Beethoven’s Republican inclinations.It’s played here by Christoph Seybold, violin and Milana Chernyavska, piano.  With its solid sonata form, this wonderful piece is still characteristic of early Beethoven.

From 1804, the beginning of Beethoven's "Heroic" decade (1803-1812), comes one his greatest pianos sonatas of the period, Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major "Waldstein."  The Waldstein surpasses Beethoven's previous sonatas in both depth, scope, and freedom of form, setting the stage for his later piano sonatas.  The sonata got its name from the dedicatee, Count Waldstein.  In Italy and Russia the sonata is known as 'L'Aurora' (the dawn in Italian), probably for the serenity of the opening chords of the third movement.  The Waldstein is performed by the pianist Yukiko Sekino. Listen to it here.

We’ll jump almost 17 years, to one of Beethoven’s last sonatas, Sonata in A Flat Major, Op. 110.  Between 1810 and 1819 Beethoven wrote just two piano sonatas, but in the years 1819 through 1822 he wrote and published one sonata a year, from the magisterial no. 29, op. 109 “Hammerklavier” to op. 111, the two-part sonata no. 32.  Sonata no. 31 is in three movements; the profound third movements consists of several sections, two of which represent a fugue and another one, its inversion.  The sonata is played here by the pianist Inesa Sinkevych.

And finally, Große Fuge (Grande Fugue), from 1826. Große Fuge was composed as the final movement of his Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130.  Later Beethoven replaced the finale of the quarter and published the Fugue separately, as opus 133.   The contemporaries described the fugue as “incomprehensible” and “a confusion of Babel.”  This contrapuntal tour de force is still very demanding on both performers and listeners.  Here is it performed by the violinists Angelo Xiang Yu and Miriam Fried, Philip Kramp, viola, and Deborah Pae, cello.

December 5, 2011

Two Beethoven’s Quartets.  We don’t feature string quartets often enough.  Some of the most sublime and sophisticated music has been written for this intimate ensemble, but till recently our library was rather poor in this regard.  Fortunately, young musicians at the Steans Institute play quite a lot of this wonderful music in informal ensembles.  In anticipation of Beethoven’s birthday on December 16, here are two recordings made at the Steans.

The traditional sequencing of Beethoven’s three string quartets opp. 130,131 and 132 is somewhat misleading.  Beethoven wrote Quartet no 15, op.132 first, in 1825 (it is actually his 13^th quartet, the number 15 is the order that this quartet was published in, not written).  The majestic Op. 130 with the Große Fuge finale followed later the same year.  Op. 131 was completed in 1826.

Beethoven composed String Quartet in a minor, op. 132 following a serious illness, which he thought was fatal (in the score, above the third movement, Beethoven wrote the inscription which reads, in translation: “Song of thanksgiving to the Diety on recovery from an illness, written in the Lydian mode”).  This vast movement (almost 17 minutes long, it starts 18 minutes 30 seconds into the performance) is undoubtedly the epicenter of the work, not just structurally but emotionally.  Beethoven, who in later years became greatly interested in the old ecclesiastical modes, modeled it along the lines of variations on a cantus firmus with intervening episodes.  We’ll hear this quartet (here) performed by Miho Saegusa, violin, Miriam Fried, violin (teachers at the Steans often play alongside their students), Vicki Powell, viola and the recent Tchaikovsky winner Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello.

Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in c-sharp minor, op. 131 was completed in 1826.  The c-sharp minor quartet is wholly unique, even in Beethoven’s oeuvre. Comprised of seven movements played continuously without break, it runs for about 40 minutes.  From the opening movement, Adagio, written as a fugue rather than in the traditional sonata form, its themes develop in a continuous flow, without pause, weaving one into another.  It is performed by Miho Saegusa, violin, Kobi Malkin, violin, Alex Link, viola, and Karen Ouzounian, cello.  To listen, click here.

November 28, 2011

Recent anniversaries, redux.  An astrologist or a musically inclined statistician may consider studying the pattern of composers’ birthdays: there are long stretches with not a single anniversary, and then a treasure trove of great names.  Here are several, recent and upcoming this week.

Benjamin Britten, probably the greatest British composer of the 20^th century, was born on November 22, 1913.  His greatest work was in the opera: just think of Peter Grimes, The Beggar's Opera, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw (it’s said that he has more operas performed worldwide than any other composer born in the 20^th century).  We don’t have recordings of Britten’s operas, but here’s his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 36.  It’s performed by Miho Saegusa (violin), Jung-Eun Jenny Ahn (violin), Jan Grüning (viola), and Matthew Allen (cello).

Two Spanish composers, Joaquin Rodrigo, famous for his guitar Concierto de Aranjuez, and Manuel De Falla, one of the most important Spanish composers of the 20^th century, have their anniversaries one day apart. Rodrigo was born on November 22, 1901, De Falla – on November 23, 1876.  Here’s Rodrigo’s Sonata Giocosa played by the guitarist Ana Vidovic.  And here’s an old recording of De Falla’s Danse Espagnole made by the wonderful Russian-American violinist Albert Markov with the late Milton Kaye on the piano.

One of the most interesting Soviet composers of the second half of the 20^th century, Alfred Schnittke was born on November 24, 1934.  Here’s the second movement of his Piano Quintet.  It’s performed by the great proponent Schnittke’s music, the violinist (and conductor) Mark Lubotsky and his colleagues: Dimity Hall (violin), Irina Morozova (viola), Julian Smiles (cello), with Schnittke’s widow Irina on the piano.

And finally, the great French-Italian composer, the founder of the French Baroque music and the favorite court musician of Luis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Lully was born on November 28,1632 in Florence.  Here’s his Suite from Bourgeois gentillomme, played by Baroque Band.  And we didn’t even get to Gaetano Donizetti!

November 14, 2011

Anniversary odds and ends.  Here are several recent and upcoming birthday anniversaries, which we’d like to note.  Niccolò Paganini was born on October 27, 1782.  His anniversary comes just five days after that of Franz Liszt’s, who was so impressed by Paganini’s virtuoso playing that it changed his own performing career.  Here’s Paganini’s La Campanella, from the third movement of his Second violin concerto; Liszt later used it in one of his “Grandes études de Paganini.”  It’s arranged for viola and performed by the Russian-Italian violist Anna Serova, with Jenny Borgatti on the piano.

Vincenzo Bellini, who was born on November 3, 1801 is of course known for his great bel canto operas, Norma, I puritani, La sonnambula.  Maybe one day we’ll have them online, but for now we’ll have to be content with an arietta. Vaga luna, che inargenti (Beautiful moon, dappling with silver) is sung by the soprano Leah Partridge, Anne Breeden is on the piano.

The great French baroque composer François Couperin was born on November 10 in 1668.  Here’s his Air de Diable, from the so-called New concerts written in 1724. It’s performed by Amit Peled, with Eliza Ching on the piano.

And this week marks anniversaries of two composers of the 20^th century.  Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900; Paul Hindemith was born five years earlier, on November 16 of 1895.  We’ll hear two pieces for the flute.  First is Duo for Flute and Piano by Copland, composed in 1971 (it’s played by Martha Councell, flute and Richard Steinbach, piano – listen to it here).  As so much of late Copland’s work, it’s lyrical, “American” and deceptively simple.  Hindemith’s Sonata for Flute and Piano is very different.  Written in 1936, it’s neo-classical in style and, though lighter than many of Hindemith’s pieces, is still full of tension, especially in the second and third movements.  The sonata is played here by Jennifer Bartel, flute and Melody Lord, piano.

And finally, Carl Maria von Weber, the “first Romantic,” was born on November 18, 1786.  His ever-popular Invitation to the Dance is played by the pianist Lara Downes (to listen, click here).

October 31, 2011

Four Singers from the Steans.  It was a delightful production of The Tales of Hoffmann at the Lyric, which featured young singers such as Anna Christy, Erin Wall and Mathew Polenzani, that reminded us again of the excellent Singers program at the Steans Institute of Music.  In one of our previous posts we wrote about the Steans, Ravinia Festival's summer conservatory.  We’d like to present to you four young singers who studied and performed at the Steans in the past couple of years.

Mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta is a member of The Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. She’s a winner of the Ottawa Choral Society New Discoveries Auditions, the Royal Conservatory Orchestra Concerto Competition and the Lilly Kertes Rolin International Vocal Prize.  She has appeared with the Toronto Classical Singers, the Regina Symphony, the Aspen Music Festival and Mooredale Concerts. Here she sings Canción de cuna para dormer a un negrito, from Cinco Canciones Negras by the Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge.  Daniel Schlosberg is on the piano.

Tenor Steven Ebel, a Wisconsin native who grew up coming to Ravinia, is currently a member of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at London’s Royal Opera House. He has also been heard in Italy and across the United States. A champion of new music, he has presented many world premieres and is the first singer in the history of the Royal Opera House to perform his own composition there, Diary of a Young Poet. His awards include prizes from the Concours de Montreal, New York Oratorio Society, Joy in Singing, Tanglewood Music Center and the Metropolitan Opera Auditions.  He sings Robert Schumann’s  Liebeslied, Op. 51, No. 5 (here).  Mr. Ebel is accompanied by Daniel Schlosberg.

Mezzo-soprano Liza Forrester’s busy career includes performances with New York City Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Glimmerglass Opera and the Cincinnati May Festival.  The New York Festival of Song and the Caramoor Festival have presented her in recital. She holds a doctor of musical arts degree from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council, the Norman Triegle Corbett Opera Competition and the Atlanta Music Club.  Here she sings another song by Robert Schumann, his Er, der Herrlichste von allen, from the cycle Frauenliebe und -leben.   The pianist is Jonathan Ware.

Baritone Michael Kelly won this year’s Joy in Singing Competition and was featured in Acis and Galatea with Boston Early Music Festival, in recital at New York's Trinity Church, in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles in Aspen, in Schubert’s Winterreise in Houston, and with his group SongFusion. He’s also a winner of the Liederkranz Foundation’s Song Competition in 2010.  Michael Kelly has performed with Opernhaus Zurich, Chicago Opera Theater, and Tanglewood, and has presented recitals in the US and Europe.  Here he sings Samuel Barber’s song A green lowland of pianos, from Three Songs, Op.45.  The lyrics are by the Polish poet Jerzy Harasymowicz and were translated into English by Czeslaw Milosz.  Mr. Kelly is accompanied by Jonathan Ware.

October 24, 2011

This week we celebrate the music of Domenico Scarlatti who was born in Naples, Italy on October 26, 1685 (the same years as Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel). His father, Alessandro Scarlatti, was a composer famous for his numerous operas.  He probably was Domenico's first music teacher.  The early part of Scarlatti’s career was spent in Italy.  In 1701, at the age of 16, he got the position of a composer and organist at the royal chapel in Naples.  Later, in 1704, his father sent him to Venice, and by 1709 he was in Rome, employed in the service of the exiled Polish queen Marie Casimire.  By that time, Scarlatti had attained a reputation as an exceptional harpsichordist. It is said that while in Rome, he and Handel competed in harpsichord and organ playing.  Scarlatti was judged the better harpsichordist, yet inferior to Handel on the organ.

In the following years Scarlatti traveled to London and Portugal, where he remained for a number of years.  In 1729, he moved to Seville and four years later to Madrid.  He settled in Madrid for the rest of his life and, after the death of his first wife, an Italian, married a Spanish woman. He became music master to Princess (and future Queen of Spain) Maria Magdalena Barbara.  It was during his time in Spain that he composed most of the 555 piano sonatas for which he is nearly exclusively known for today.  He befriended Farinelli, the famous castrato singer and fellow Neapolitan; it’s mostly from Farinelli’s letters that historians learned about Scarlatti’s years in Spain.  Scarlatti died in Madrid on July 23, 1757.

We’ll hear several of Scarlatti’s sonatas. First we’ll hear Heather Schmidt playing Sonata in E Major, K. 380.  Then Jie Chen, the Chinese pianist now residing in New York, plays Sonata in G Major, K 547. The Italian pianist Davide Polovineo performs Sonata K. 39

L 391 in A Major.  And finally, May Phang, a pianist from Singapore, plays the whimsical Etude Hommage à Scarlatti by the pianist and composer Marc-André Hamelin.  To listen, click here.

September 26, 2011

Recent uploads.  The Italian pianist Davide Polovineo has an unusual and diverse background.  Born in 1970, he graduated with honors in 1992 from Istituto Superiore di Musica "Gaetano Braga” in the city of Teramo both as a pianist specializing in Romantic repertoire and a chamber musician. He also received a degree in theology and psychology, specializing in cultural anthropology, from the Pontifical University “San Anselmo” in Rome and Lincoln University.  He studied piano and chamber music with late Russian piano virtuoso Lazar Berman, the violinist Felix Ayo and other musicians. Since 1997 Davide has been performing as a piano soloist, playing most of the concert halls of Italy and giving recitals in Europe.  He has recorded for the European Institute of Music, where he also teaches and is now the Director.  We’ll hear him play Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in A Major, L. 391.

The young American cellist Nathan Vickery currently studies with Peter Wile at the Curtis Institute.  He has won prizes at several competitions, appeared on NPR’s From the Top and has been a soloist with many orchestras across the US.  As a chamber musician, he has toured with Curtis on Tour and has collaborated with Joshua Bell, Jonathan Biss, and the contemporary music ensemble Eight Blackbird.  Here he performs Ludwig van Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 4 in C Major, Op. 102, No. 1.  Nathan is accompanied by pianist Kwan Yi.

Two young baritones, Michael Kelly and Jonathan Beyer, met this summer at the Steans Institute in Ravinia, where they studied (the singers’ faculty includes such luminaries as Sylvia McNair) and also performed.  Michael Kelly, who holds a master’s degree from the Juilliard School, won this year’s Joy of Singing Competition and was featured in Handel’s Acis and Galatea with Boston Early Music Festival, in recital at New York’s Trinity Church, in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versaille in Aspen, and in Schubert’s Winterreise in Houston.  We’ll hear him perform Le cygne (The swan), from the wonderful song cycle Histoires naturelles by Maurice Ravel (click here). Jonathan Ware is on the piano. 

Jonathan Beyer performed internationally in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, France, and Hong Kong, as well as with numerous companies around the U.S. He was a national finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition and won first place at the Marian Anderson Prize for Emerging Classical Artists, among many other competition successes. He has a degree from the Curtis Institute and the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.  He’s singing At the River, from Old American Songs.  Listen to it here.

September 19, 2011

Shostakovich. The great Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich was born on September 25, 1906.  Many books have been written about his life, his ambivalent and often tragic position in the Soviet society, and of course his music.  One thing that has remained a bit of a puzzle is influence that Mahler had on the music of Shostakovich.  That this influence was very strong, especially starting with his Symphony no. 4, goes without saying.  Later in his career, responding to a journalist’ routine question about what he would take with him to a desert island, Shostakovich responded: “A Mahler score.” But how did it happen, since Mahler was practically unknown in the Soviet Union?

In the pre-Revolutionary Russia Mahler was famous as a conductor and derided as a composer.  The first Soviet conductor to perform Mahler on a more or less regular basis was Kirill Kondrashin, and that didn’t happened till the late 1960s. On the other hand we know that one of the closest friends Shostakovich ever had was the prominent Soviet music and arts critic Ivan Sollertinsky (Shostakovich dedicated his Second Piano trio, op. 67, to him).  Sollertinsky, who died in 1944 at the age of 42, was one of the very few enthusiasts of Mahler’s music in the Soviet Union.  Nowadays his writings are almost impossible to read, dated and full of the communist jargon, (he calls Mahler, whom he obviously loved, a “petit bourgeois composer”), but they provide some very valuable information.  In a footnote to his article on Gustav Mahler, Sollertinsky writes: “Of all the concert halls of the Soviet Union, only at the Leningrad Philharmonic is Mahler performed relatively often, and as a result, Mahler is quite popular in Leningrad.  In the first 10 years of the Philharmonic’s existence, Mahler’s 1^st Symphony was performed 4 times, his 2^nd – 5 times, the3^rd – twice, the 4^th – twice, the 5^th – 4 times, the 6^th – not a single time, the 7^th – once, the 8^th – not a single time, the 9^th – once, “Das Lied von der Erde” – three times.  This success is due to conductors of the “Mahler School” – Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Alexander Zemlinsky, and Fritz Stiedry.” (The St-Petersburg Philharmonic Society was reopened as Petrograd and later Leningrad Philharmonic in 1921.  Sollertinsky was writing in 1932).   So Shostakovich, who lived in St-Petersburg (Leningrad) most of his life, happened to develop as a musician in the only place in the Soviet Union where Mahler’s music could be heard (and authentically performed by great conductors) and be influenced by of one of the very few Soviet Mahlerites!

To celebrate Shostakovich’s birthday we’ve put together a brief playlist.  First you’ll hear his Piano Quintet in g minor, opus 57, performed by the pianist James Dick and Eusia String Quartet. Then the pianist Roberto Russo plays Prelude no. 2, from Five preludes without opus number. And finally the recent winner of the Tchaikovsky competition Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello, plays Sonata for Cello and Piano in d minor, Op. 40.  He’s accompanied by Roman Rabinovich.  To listen, click here.

September 12, 2011

The Steans Institute. The Steans Music Institute is Ravinia Festival's summer conservatory.   Each summer it brings together talented young musicians from around the world.  On the faculty of the Steans Institute are internationally renowned musicians.  This year, for example, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Gilbert Kalish and Alon Glodstein joined the Piano faculty; Pamela Frank, Mihaela Martin, Ralph Kirshbaum and Sylvia Rosenberg are on the Strings faculty, to name just a few.  The Singers faculty, directed by Brian Zeiger and having Sylvia McNair among its members, is equally strong.  Young musicians not only study and attend master classes, they also give public concerts.  Making music together is part of the Steans tradition, so in addition to performing individual recitals students create informal ensembles and play trios and quartets, and even such pieces as Mendelssohn’s Octet.

We’re happy to report that the Steans Institute is now collaborating with Classical Connect and we’re going to feature a significant number of performances recorded during the Steans season.  We’ll start with several recordings from this year’s season.   First, the pianists Beatrice Berrut (Switzerland), and Henry Kramer (US) play Mozart’s Sonata for Piano Four-Hands in C Major (listen to it here).  Then, the Czech violinist Josef Špaček, British cellist Jonathan Dormand, and the South Korean native, Curtis Institute-trained pianist Kwan Yi play Johannes Brahms’s Piano Trio in C Major, Op. 87 (here). The 24-year old American pianist Henry Kramer comes back to perform Beethoven’s two-movement Piano Sonata no. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 (here). We follow with Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, which is performed by the violinists Mari Lee (Japan) and Yuuki Wong (Singapore), Israeli-born American violist Atar Arad and the cellist Jonathan Dormand (here).  In conclusion, here is Sonata in C Major, Op. 102, No. 1 by Beethowen.  It’s played by the American cellist Nathan Vickery, and Kwan Yi, piano.

September 5, 2011

Arvo Pärt, September 11, and Giya Kancheli. The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt was born on September 11, 1935.  Pärt is rightly considered one of the most important contemporary composers.  His essentially minimalist style was deeply influenced by Gregorian chant and early European polyphony.  Not surprisingly, it works most effectively in his sacred pieces, such as Fratres or Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten.  Practically from the beginning of his career Pärt had problems with cultural authorities. Many of his compositions, written while he was living in Soviet Estonia, were banned by the local censors.  In 1980 Pärt emigrated to Austria and later moved to Germany.  Some years after Estonia gained independence Pärt returned to his native land.

Of course we are approaching not just Arvo Pärt’s birthday, but also the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001.  No music can express the horror of these events, but Pärt’s deeply contemplative piece, "Spiegel im Spiegel" (“mirror in the mirror") seems to be at least adequate in its tone.  It can be heard here in the performance by janus trio.

Another piece from our library, which we thought would be appropriate under the circumstances, is Giya Kancheli’s Valse-Boston for Piano and Strings (1996).  Kancheli is a tremendously talented composer, and he deserves to be better known in the US. Like Pärt, Kancheli was born in a former Soviet republic – Georgia,, and in the same year, 1935.  Like Pärt, he emigrated to the West in 1991, first to Berlin, and later to Antwerp, where he now lives.  While not a real “minimalist,” Kancheli’s style is ascetic in nature, to quote Rodion Shchedrin.  And, like Pärt, Kancheli often writes liturgical music.  The lighthearted name of the composition, Valse-Boston, is rather misleading: it’s a profound piece (of course there have been many precedents to that in the history of music, Ravel’s La Valse being probably the most famous example).  Valse-Boston is performed by the pianist Eteri Andjaparidze with Round Top Festival Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Jean-Marie Zeitouni.  To listen, click here.

August 22, 2011

Today is the anniversary of the great French composer Claude Debussy’s birthday: he was born on this date in 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just outside of Paris.  His music, while highly original, was almost instantly accepted by the listening public, and for the last 90 years he has been and remains one of the most widely performed classical composers.   Debussy was eighteen when he started writing music.  The earliest composition in our library is the song cycle Quatre Chansons De Jeunesse, written in 1881-1882.  Here’s the song Claire de lune, performed by the soprano Tina Beverly with William Billingham on the piano.  Debussy used the same title for the third movement of his Suite Bergamasque, another early work (it was written in 1890).  You can listen to the complete Suite here as played by the young Chinese pianist Xiang Zou.  In 1884 Debussy won the Prix de Rome, an award which included a residence at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome.  Debussy spent three years in Rome, from 1885 to 1887.  His return to Paris traditionally marks the beginning of his “middle period.”  Among many pieces written during those years is the piano cycle Estampes (1903).  Here’s Pagodes, from Estampes, played by the pianist Miyuki Otani.  The first book of Préludes is usually also attributed to this period, even though just three years separate it from the second volume, considered to be a late work.  Here’s the fourth prelude from Book I, with the evocative title The sounds and fragrances swirl through the evening air (Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir). It’s performed by the Italian pianist Roberto Russo.  Book II of Préludes was written in 1913.  Here’s prelude number four, Bruyères, played by the pre-eminent Mexican pianist Jorge Federico Osorio.  The last composition completed by Debussy was his Sonata for Violin and Piano, performed here by Nathan Cole, violin, and Kuang-Hao Huang, piano. He finished it in 1917.  Several months later, on March 25, 1918, during the German bombardment of Paris, Debussy died of cancer.  We look forward to the next year when we’ll join the world’s classical community in celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birthday.

August 8, 2011

Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 4. By the time Sergei Rachmaninov emigrated from Russia in December of 1917 he was of 44, and had already written most of his most successful compositions: the Second and Third Piano Concertos, two piano sonatas, two sets of Études-Tableaux, two sets of piano Preludes and other piano pieces, two symphonies, the symphonic poem Isle of the Dead, and the choral symphony The Bells. In fact, in the last 26 years of his life Rachmaninov wrote only five significant pieces: Piano Concerto no. 4 (in 1926, revised in 1941), piano Variations on a Theme of Corelli (in 1931), the ever-popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra (in 1936), Symphony No. 3 (in 1941), and the orchestral Symphonic Dances.

The story of the Piano Concerto no. 4 Op. 40 is very interesting.  Rachmaninov wrote it in 1926.  He showed the score to his friends, the composer Nikolai Medtner (to whom he dedicated the Concerto) and the pianist Joseph Hoffman.  Both liked the score and were very supportive. Rachmaninov, on the other hand, felt very insecure about the piece: he apparently thought that the 3^rd movement was too long and not dynamic enough, and that there was “too much orchestra” (it’s true that the orchestra plays practically throughout the duration of the concerto, but the same could be said about the Second concerto, and why would that be wrong in itself is not at all clear).  The concerto was premiered in Philadelphia in March of 1927; Rachmaninov himself played the piano, with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra (during that time Rachmaninov played the concerto five more times).  The reception was universal – and highly negative. The discouraged Rachmaninov made a number of cuts to the score and published it in 1928.  In 1941 he revised the concerto again, making more cuts and considerably changing the Finale.  Rachmaninov premiered the revised version in 1941, also with the Philadelphia Orchestra, but in this case under the baton of Eugene Ormandi.  The public reception, if somewhat better than in 1927, was rather cool, and Rachmaninov himself was left unsatisfied with the orchestral part.

Some musicians, Vladimir Ashkenazy in particular, believe that the original uncut manuscript version of 1926 was superior to all the revisions, and that the composer “got it right” the first time around.  The original manuscript became available to the public only in 2003 when it was published by Boosey and Hawke; very few recordings of it have been made since then.  You can hear one as performed by the pianist Eteri Andjaparidze, with Pascal Verrot conducting the Round Top Festival Orchestra.  To listen, click here.

July 18, 2011

From recent uploads. The Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute regularly performs for audiences in the US, Europe, and South America.  Over the last several seasons, Ieva made her Chicago Symphony debut at the Ravinia Festival under the baton of James Conlon as well as an orchestral debut in Rio de Janeiro.  She has played at London's Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, Lima, Peru, and many other cities.  Ieva recently recorded a CD of music of Alban Berg.  Among the pieces on the CD is Piano Sonata no. 1.  You can hear this wonderful and under-performed piece as recorded in concert earlier this year.

The twenty year-old violinist Emma Steele is a pupil of Cyrus Forough at Carnegie Mellon University.  Emma is the concertmaster of the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic and received the Young Talent award in the Sibelius International Violin Competition.  Here she plays Ballade, from Romantic Pieces, Op. 115 by Jean Sibelius (with Shirley Trissell on the piano).

The young Chinese-born pianist Di Wu was praised in The Wall Street Journal as "a most mature and sensitive pianist," and it’s certainly true.  Ms. Wu is the winner of many competition prizes; she made her professional debut at the age of 14 with the Beijing Philharmonic, and in recent seasons she has played more than 60 concerts, both as a recitalist and a soloist with orchestras.  Highlights of the 2009-2010 season include her performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra; a concert at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival; at the Cincinnati May Festival; in Germany, with the Hamburg Philharmonic; and in Tokyo, where she appeared as a soloist with an orchestra in front of an audience of 11,000.  We’ll hear the Une barque sur l'océan, from Miroirs by Maurice Ravel.  To listen, click here.

The Russian-born cellist Dmitri Atapine was described as a “splendid, elegant cellist." The First Prize winner at the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition, Dmitry began his musical education with his parents at the age of five and soon thereafter entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory School of Music.  Since 1992 he has been living in Spain.  Dmitry studied at the Michigan State University with Suren Bagratuni, and was recently appointed as a Cello Professor and cellist of the Argenta Trio at the University of Nevada, Reno. Since 2007 Mr. Atapine has been the Artistic Director of the International Music Festival of Ribadesella (Spain) and also appears as both  a soloist and chamber musician in many festivals throughout Europe and the US.  We’ll hear him perform Introduction and Polonaise Brillante by Frédéric Chopin.  He’s accompanied by Adela Hyeyeon Park, piano.  Click here to listen.

Finally, we’ll hear the Claremont Trio play Beethoven’s Archduke Trio (Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97.  Claremont Trio (twin sisters Emily Bruskin, violin and Julia Bruskin, cello, and the pianist Donna Kwong) won the inaugural Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award. They widely perform around the US and recently recorded Beethoven’s Piano Trio Op. 1, no. 3 and Ravel’s Trio for Tria Records.  In our recording the piano part is played by the young Israeli pianist Benjamin Hochman.  To listen to the Archduke, click here.

July 11, 2011

The International Tchaikovsky Competition is one of the most prestigious musical contests in the world. Founded in Moscow in 1958, it began with just two disciplines, piano and violin.  The winner of the piano competition, the 23 year-old Texan by the name of Van Cliburn, became an overnight sensation and the darling of both the Russian and American public.  This summer in Moscow he presided as the honorary Chairman of the piano jury, still adored by the older generation of the competition’s regulars.  In 1962 the cello was added, and four years later, the voice competition rounded out the expanded list of musical fields.  Among the winners were such outstanding musicians as pianists Vladimir Ashkenazi, John Ogdon, Vladimir Krainev, and Mikhail Pletnev; violinists Viktor Tretiakov, Gidon Kremer; cellists Natalia Shakhovskaya and David Geringas, sopranos Elena Obraztsova and Deborah Voight.  And of course during its more than fifty year history, the competition has had its share ups and downs as well as controversies.

The recently completed 14^th edition of the competition had an unusual format.  Due to the ongoing renovations of the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, it was decided that the competition would be split between two cities: the pianists and cellists would play in Moscow, while St.-Petersburg would host the violinists and vocalists.  Valery Gergiev was the chairman; realizing that in recent years the Tchaikovsky’s reputation was somewhat sagging, he attempted to improve the quality and reputation of the jury panels by inviting the best musicians.  It seems that to a large extent he succeeded.  The piano jury included such luminaries as Vladimir Ashkenazy and Yefim Bronfman (both judged only the final round), Peter Donohoe and Dmitri Alexeev.  Among the violinists were Anne-Sophie Mutter, Leonidas Kavakos and Maxim Vengerov.  Renata Scotto, Ileana Cotrubas, and Olga Borodina were on the vocalists’ jury.

Among the pianists the winner was Daniil Trifonov (Russia), Narek Hakhnazaryan (Armenia) won the cello competition, the first prize in the violin competition was not awarded, and two South Koreans, Sun Young Seo, soprano and Jong Min Park, bass, won among the vocalists. The 14^th Competition had its share of controversies.  One of the public’s favorites, the pianist Alexander Lubyantsev was eliminated after the second round. The conductor Mark Gorenstein drew a lot of unwanted attention when he made derogatory remarks about the cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan during the orchestral rehearsals before the final round.  Unbeknownst to Gorenstein the rehearsal was being recorded and broadcast on Internet (these innovative broadcasts were a welcome addition to the competition).  The video went viral; Gorenstein apologized and withdrew “due to illness.”

We’re very proud that two of the winners, Daniil Trifonov and Narek Hakhnazaryan are represented in our library.  You can listen to Daniil playing Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, Op. 60 here. Narek’s interpretation of Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano can be heard here.  He’s accompanied by the pianist Roman Rabinovich.

July 7, 2011.  The great Austrian composer Gustav Mahler was born on this day in 1860.  Our congratulations to all Mahlertites!

July 4, 2011.

The Italian pianist Igor Cognolato was born in Treviso, Italy, in 1965. He started his musical training at the age of five. At nineteen he received a diploma, magna cum laude, in piano performance from the Benedetto Marcello Academy in Venice, where he studied under the late Vincenzo Pertile, himself a student of the great Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. He pursued his musical education at the Academy of Music in Hanover, Germany, with the Brazilian pianist Roberto Szidon. In his debut concert, which was broadcast live, he played Liszt's Second Piano concerto with NDR Symphony Orchestra. Igor continued his studies in composition and piano with Aldo Ciccolini, Paul Badura-Skoda, the composer Ugo Amendola, and others.

Igor Cognolato has successfully performed throughout the Western Europe and the US. As a soloist with a number of orchestras (Radiophilharmonie Hanover, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Bourgas Philharmonic, Orchestra del Gran Teatro La Fenice di Venezia among them), he recorded for RAI, NDR Radio, and for Norwegian National Radio. Since 2009 he has been performing with Athenaeum String Quartet, which consists of the members of the Berlin Philharmonic. Recently they took part in the Aix-en-Provence chamber music festival and their performance was broadcast live on ARTE TV channel.

Presently, Igor Cognolato teaches piano performance at the Academy of music “Giuseppe Tartini" in Trieste, Italy. He also gives master classes at the Musikhochschule in Graz, and in Vienna, in Lübeck, Germany, and in London (the Trinity college of music).

We’re fortunate to have a large selection of Igor Cognolato’s recordings, both as a soloist and a chamber musician. Igor’s repertoire is broad and includes a number of pieces by modern Italian composers. We’ll hear him play the following: Noctuelles and Oiseaux tristes from Miroirs, by Maurice Ravel; Arioso, from the rarely performed Sinfonia, Arioso e Toccata op.59, by the Italian composer Alfredo Casella; Blues, the second movement of Maurice Ravel’s Sonata for violin and piano (with the violinist Ara Malikian). Finally, we’ll hear Liszt’s Scherzo and March, S.177. To listen, click here.

June 20, 2011

Igor Stravinsky.  We just missed the anniversary of the great composer, who was born on June 17, 1882 in Oranienbaum, near St-Petersburg.  Probably one of the most influential musicians of the 20^th century, he changed styles as often as he adopted countries.  Born in Russia, he moved to Switzerland in 1910 and then, in 1920, to France, where he settled for the next 20 years and became a citizen.  With the Second World War approaching, Stravinsky moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life (he was naturalized in 1945).  Stravinsky died on April 6, 1971. But even more remarkable was the ease with which he changed his compositional styles. The early (Russian) period saw the creation of the three ballets, The Firebird in 1910, Petrushka a year later, and The Rite of Spring in 1913.  All three were commissioned by Sergei Diagilev, the celebrated impresario and creator of Ballets Russe.  The Rite of Spring famously provoked a riot during the premier at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.  Almost 100 years later one still looks at this star-studded event in awe: the ballet was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, one of the greatest dancers of all time, the set design and costumes were created by Nicholai Roerich, the famous Russian painter (and philosopher).  The conductor on that night was Pierre Monteux.

In the 1920s Stravinsky radically changed his style.  The exuberance of the Russian period was replaced with the neoclassical detachment of such compositions as the ballet Apollon musagète and three symphonies, Symphony of Psalms, Symphony in C, and Symphony in Three Movements.  Later, in the 1950s he dabbed in serialism, the ballet Agon being probably the most important piece of that period.  One thinks of Pablo Picasso, another cosmopolitan genius of the 20^th century, who in the span of 20 years went from the Blue period to the Rose period to cubism, and then, like Stravinsky, to neoclassicism.  (There are other similarities in their biographies: both lived most of their lives outside of their countries of birth, which they for the most part detested; France was central to both of them; both were married to Russian women; and even their lives practically coincided: Picasso was born less than a year earlier than Stravinsky, and died just one year later).

We’ll hear four compositions.  First, Danse Russe, from the ballet Petrushka, arranged for the piano by the composer himself in 1921.  It’s played by Gideon Rubin.  Then, also from the Russian period, Five Easy Pieces (1917).  They’re performed by Silver-Garburg Piano Duo. Two following pieces are from the neoclassical period: Suite Italienne for violin and piano, based on the ballet Pulcinella, is performed by the violinist Ilana Setapen, with Kuang-Hao Huang on the piano.  Finally, Sonata (1924) is played by the young Israeli pianist Einav Yarden.  To listen, click here.

June 13, 2011

“A very gifted romantic pianist, highly emotional, with a great temperament and bright, creative individuality” – is how the late Vladimir Krainev characterized Victoria Lyubitskaya.  Born in Moscow, Victoria studied at the Conservatory-affiliated music schools, first with Valentina Sedova-Berman and then with the well-known pianist and teacher Victor Bunin. She continued her education in the Moscow Conservatory under Professors Samvel Alumyan and Lev Naumov.  Victoria Lyubitskaya is currently a soloist of the Moscow State Philharmonic Society.  She is a laureate of several international competitions.

Victoria's concert repertoire is wide and diverse, embracing works from the 18th to the 20th century. Rachmaninov occupies a special place for her, and she performs all of his solo piano works as well as all four concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Victoria has collaborated with such well-known conductors as Saulius Sondeckis, Mark Gorenstein, Veronika Dudarova, Vladimir Verbitsky; she has performed with leading orchestras such as the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Russian Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.  Victoria has given concerts at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, and in the Grand Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society; she has also gave concerts in other Russian cities. Internationally, she has performed in Switzerland, Italy, Montenegro, Croatia, Poland, Latvia, Germany, Hungary and Australia and participated in a number of international and national music festivals.

Ms. Lyubitskaya has been recorded for various radio, television and CD companies. In 2008, her recording of Alfred Schnittke's piano works, released on the Belgian label Fuga Libera, was awarded the top rating by the prestigious French classical-music magazine Diapason (“The only possible reproach one could make… is that there isn’t more of it”). We present three pieces from that CD.  First, the recording of Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings, written for Vladimir Krainev in 1979.  Schnittke was not satisfied with the original version and re-wrote the concerto.  Although the initial reception to the concerto was cool, it is now  recognized as one of Schnittke’s most significant compositions.  Reviewing the CD for the classical music magazine La Scena Musicale, René Bricault praised Ms. Lyubitskaya’s recording as setting a new standard for this work. Ms. Lyubitskaya is accompanied by the Russian State Academy Orchestra, Mark Gorenshtein, conductor. We’ll also hear two pieces for piano solo: Schnittke’s Variations on one chord and Improvisation and Fugue, Op. 38.  To listen, click here.

June 6, 2011

The great German Romantic composer, Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810 in Zwickau, Saxony.  Schumann's music was immediately accepted as central to the classical canon and has stayed popular ever since, although these days it may not be played as often as in the mid-20^th century, when pieces like Carnival, Symphonic Studies, and Fantasy in C seemed practically obligatory in piano recitals.  A large portion of Schumann's music was written for piano solo – his first composition for an instrument other than piano didn't come till 1840, ten years since Variations on the name "Abegg" Op. 1 (it was Liederkreis, Op. 24, a song cycle on nine poems by Heinrich Heine). Schumann's first symphony came the following year, and a set of quartets – a year later.

Schumann's music needs no introduction, so we'll just present pieces from the different periods of his career. We'll start at the beginning: Variations on the name "Abegg," Op. 1.  It's played by the brilliant Taiwanese pianist Jung Lin.  Next is the piece that followed, Papillons Op. 2, performed by the pianist Tanya Gabrielian.  Ms. Gabrielian was born in the US but currently lives in London.  Following these two early pieces we'll play a much later work, Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70 (1849).  It was originally written for the horn and piano, but these days it's usually heard in the arrangements for the viola or cello.  You'll hear it performed by the Milan-based Duo Lopez Cafiero, the cellist Martina Lopez and the pianist Clelia Cafiero.  Schumann wrote a large number of vocal works, as a lied composer he's on par with Schubert.  We'll hear one of his most famous songs, Widmung, Op. 25, No. 1, the opening piece from the cycle Myrthen, his wedding present to Clara Wieck.  It is sung by the soprano Hyunah Yu, with Alon Goldstein on the piano.  We'll finish with one of his last compositions, Märchenerzählungen (Fairy tales), Op. 132, a trio for the clarinet, viola, and piano.  It was written in 1853, three years before Schumann's death, when he was already deeply ill (the following year he would voluntarily enter a mental hospital). The performers are Trio di Colore.  To listen, click here.

May 30, 2011

Recent anniversaries.  We missed several of them in the last couple of weeks and would like to catch up.  Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré were both born on May 12, Massenet in 1842 and Fauré three years later.  (Doesn't Fauré sound much more contemporary? Massenet is so firmly planted in the 19^th century French Romanticism, while Fauré influenced so much of the 20^th century music).  Here is Meditation from Massenet's opera Tais; it's performed by the flutist Katherine DeJongh with Yoko Yamada-Selvaggio on the piano.  As for Faure, we selected his famous song, Après un rève, in a viola arrangement.  It's performed (on the 1615 Amati "La Stauffer" viola) by Anna Serova, who is accompanied by Jenny Borgatti, piano.  Click here to listen.

The wonderfully eccentric French composer Erik Satie was born on May 17, 1866.  A friend of Debussy and Ravel, and later of the Dada artists, he's mostly famous for his brief pieces for piano, Gymnopédies and Gnossiene.  Here's his Gnossiene No. 2, played by the pianist Tania Stavreva.

While some of Satie's pieces barely run a minute, some of the operas of Richard Wagner, who was born on May 22, 1813, run longer than 5 hours (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, depending on the conductor, takes about five and a half hours to perform).  Although we love Wagner, our selection might be considered blasphemous by the Wagnerian purists: it's Ride of the Walküre, from the opera Die Walküre played by The Fauxharmonic Orchestra, Paul Henry Smith conducting.  From Wikipedia: "The Fauxharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra made up of digital orchestral instruments, some including the Vienna Symphonic Library conducted by Paul Henry Smith using a Wii remote controller instead of a baton and a Wii balance board instead of a podium, both of which are programmed to modify the sounds in real time in response to the acoustics of the hall and the demands of the music."  We think this performance is a lot of fun; listen to it here.

The French composer Jean Françaix was born on May 23, 1912.  Françaix once said that his goal of is to "give pleasure."  That he certainly does.  Here is his charming Tema con variazioni.   It's performed by the clarinetist István Kohán and  Noémi Kanizsár is on the piano.

And last but not least of the recent anniversaries, Isaac Albéniz was born on May 29, 1860.  His Cordoba, Op. 232, No. 4 is played by the Russian pianist Dmitry Paperno. To listen, click here.

May 23, 2011

The Italian pianist and composer Roberto Russo graduated summa cum laude from the Music Conservatory of Cosenza and then studied in Italy with Daniel Rivera and Franco Scala, and in Switzerland at the Geneva Conservatory with Maria Tipo. There he obtained the Diplome de perfectionnement (1992). He also took classes with Joerg Demus, Gherard Oppitz, Paul Badura-Skoda, and with Peter Schreier in German Lied.

Roberto started performing publicly in 1985, playing recitals and collaborating with chamber ensembles and orchestras. His tours brought him to the major cities of 12 countries, including New York, Washington, Buenos Aires, Vancouver, London, Geneva, Copenhagen, Bilbao, Rome, and Florence. His performances were reviewed by Italian and international press, and recorded and broadcast by RAI, Radio Vaticana, Radio Toscana Classica, Houston Public Radio, and Radio Televisiòn Argentina. In 2002 he recorded his first CD entirely devoted to the prelude form in the 20th century and in 2005, with Italian tenor Alessandro Maffucci, a CD devoted to Franz Liszt music for voice.

Roberto is also an accomplished composer. His music was presented at many prestigious venues and played by important ensembles. For example, his Pater Noster for choir was performed in Lyon, France, in 2006 by the Royal Chapel Choir of Copenhagen; Sonata for Viola and Piano was presented in 1995 at the Council Palace of Buenos Aires, and 12 Preludes for Piano were performed in Norway and in Krakow, Poland. The two-time winner of the Ibla International Music Competition (in 1996 as a pianist and in 1997 as a composer), Roberto Russo teaches courses and seminars at the Music Conservatories in Tromsoe, Norway; Oviedo, Spain; Bucharest and Krakow. Between 2000 and 2005 Roberto was the Artistic Director of the Liszt International Competition for Pianists and Composers in Grottammare, Italy. He currently teaches piano at his alma mater, the Conservatory of Cosenza.

We have a large selection of Roberto's performances in our library; for the playlist we selected several preludes, two of which are Roberto's own compositions. First is La sérénade interrompue, from Preludes, Book 1 by Claude Debussy, then Prelude op. 5 no. 2 by Dmitri Kabalevsky, followed by Prelude no. 4, from Five preludes without opus number, by Dmitry Shostakovich, and Para los acentos (no.1 of 12 Preludios Americanos) by Alberto Ginastera. Two preludes by Russo are: Piano Prelude in C major and Piano Prelude in G sharp minor, Homage to Dmitri Shostakovich. To listen, click here.

May 16, 2011

The American pianist Pnina Becher lives the life of a "regular" virtuoso: she performs in the US and abroad and has issued several successful CDs, but the arc of her professional career was highly unusual. Pinina was born to American parents in a small village, Moshav Beit Herut, in Israel. She was considered a prodigy in early childhood, and won medals and scholarships in piano competitions throughout Israel. After serving for two years in the Israeli army, she entered the Tel Aviv Rubin Academy of Music, studying with Emanuel Krasovsky. Although it was clear that a thriving musical career lay ahead, Pnina got married and moved to New York instead, and decided to stop playing the piano to concentrate on her family.

Eighteen years later, she moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, and started playing publicly again. She performed both as a soloist, and with orchestras in the United States, Europe, and Israel, and Australia, where she played at the prestigious Melbourne International Arts Festival and was enthusiastically received in her sold out concerts. Her first album, a recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations has been critically acclaimed, and Pnina's second album, with works of Scarlatti, Chopin, and Debussy, has been recently released.

We'll hear four pieces performed by Pnina Becher. First, the Cat's fugue, a one-movement sonata by Domenico Scarlatti, Kk 30; then three excerpts from Pour le Piano by Claude Debussy: Prelude, Sarabande, and Tocatta. To listen, click here.

May 9, 2011

Today we're marking (albeit belatedly) anniversaries of two great composers: Johannes Brahms was born on May 7 in Hamburg, Germany in 1833, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky seven years later, in a small provincial town of Votkins, Russia. Both became famous during their lifetime, both wrote magnificent romantic symphonies and their piano and violin concertos are in the repertoire of every concretizing musician. What is surprising is how different the musical traditions were from which the two men came. Brahms, "one of the three Bs," as Bülow put it, followed in the steps of generations of composers. From Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz in the early 17^th century, to Buxtehude and Telemann, and then Bach, Gluck and on, classical music in Germany had been developing for hundreds of years. When Tchaikovsky was born, however, Russian classical music was all of 4 years old: Glinka's opera "Ivan Susanin," the first significant and authentically Russian musical composition, was completed in 1836. By the time of Tchaikovsky's death in 1893, Russian music was securely established as one of the leading national schools.

We have so many recordings of both composers that our listeners would do better by browsing the library. Still, here are two playlists. Brahms: the finale (fourth movement) of Piano Quartet Op.25 performed by Quartetto Anthos; Intermezzo in e minor, Op. 119, No. 2, played by the pianist Alon Goldstein; Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 (with Joachim's cadenza), Rachel Barton Pine, Violin, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlos Kalmar conducting. Tchaikovsky: the 1^st movement (Moderato e semplice) of Quartet No. 1 Op. 11, in D Major, performed by the Avalon String Quartet; Valse-Scherzo in C Major, Dmitri Berlinsky, Violin, Elena Baksht, Piano; Piano Concerto No. 1 in b-flat minor, Op. 23 James Dick, Piano, Texas Festival Orchestra, Robert Spano conducting. To listen to the Brahms playlist, click here, for Tchaikovsky – here.

May 2, 2010

The violinist Andrew Kohji Taylor captivates audiences with probing musical insight, luminous tone, expressive phrasing and technical mastery. Born in Boston, Mr. Taylor began playing the violin at the age of four and at nine began studying with renowned pedagogue Dorothy DeLay, who remained his teacher until the end of high school. The late Henryk Szerying was his mentor for many years. Taylor has also worked with Masuko Ushioda at the New England Conservatory of Music, Syoko Aki at Yale University and Uwe Martin Haiberg at the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin.

Mr. Taylor made his New York concerto debut at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall with Gerard Schwarz and The New York Chamber Symphony, and has recently given a recital at Avery Fisher Hall as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival. He has also given solo recitals in Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, and Washington DC. He performs at music festivals including the Marlboro and the Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Music Festival.

Taylor's recitals are frequently broadcasted on Boston's WGBH radio, NPR's "Performance Today," NHK Japan, and WFMT Chicago. He recorded works by Prokofiev, Janácek and Debussy for Warner Classic. He also recorded for the MMC label, Navona records, and Boston Records.

Our playlist consist of five pieces, three by the French composers, and two by Americans. First, Claude Debussy's Beau Soir arranged for violin and piano by Jascha Heifetz. We'll then hear Composer's Holiday, from Three American Pieces for Violin and Piano by Lukas Foss. Samuel Barber's Canzone for Violin and Piano follows the Foss. Then comes Le Printemps Op.18 by Darius Milhaud. We conclude with Maurice Ravel's Tzigane. Mr. Taylor is accompanied by the pianist Judith Gordon. To listen, click here.

April 25, 2011

Sergei Prokofiev. April 27 marks the 120^th birthday anniversary of the great Russian composer. He was born in Sosnovka, an isolated rural estate in what is now Ukraine but in 1891 was part of the Russian Empire. By the age of five Sergei started taking piano lessons with his mother, a gifted pianist herself (she was from a family of serfs of counts Sheremetev, an old Russian nobility. The Sheremetevs, patrons of arts and music, provided education to the children of their indentured peasants). It was also his mother who asked Sergei Taneyev, the director of Moscow conservatory, to arrange for private lessons for her son. His tutor was Reinhold Glière, himself a budding composer. While studying with Glière, the 11-year old Prokofiev attempted to write a symphony. At the age of 13, on a trip to Petersburg, Prokofiev met with Alexander Glazunov, who was so impressed (Prokofiev by then had composed two operas) that he urged Sergei to apply to the Petersburg Conservatory. Prokofiev was accepted and became one of the youngest students in the Conservatory's history. While there, he wrote two piano concertos and Sarcasms, among other pieces (he played the First concerto to win a competition among the five best students of the Piano department; the score of the Second concerto was lost and Prokofiev rewrote it in 1923). In 1914 Prokofiev traveled to London where he met with Diagilev. He started a ballet Chout (Сказка про шута, or the Tale of the Buffoon). In 1917 he composed The Gambler and his first symphony, Classical. But by then, the Russian revolution was on the horizon and with it, the end of the first Russian period of Prokofiev's life.

In our playlist we have three pieces. The first one, Suggestion Diabolique, Op.4, No.4 was composed in 1910-12. It's played by the pianist Tania Stavreva. The Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94 bis, 1943, based on the flute sonata, was transcribed for the great violinist David Oistrach. It's performed by Brendan Conway, with Anna Balakerskaia on the piano. Finally, Natasha Paremski plays Piano Sonata No. 7 in F-flat Major, Op. 83. To listen, click here.

April 18, 2011

The violinist Christoph Seybold was born in 1978 in Heilbronn, Germany. Described by reviewers as a "dazzling artist with a distinctive masculine violin sound" he has performed both as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, North and South America, Israel and Japan. Starting violin lessons at age 4, he continued at 11 in the Pre-College Program at the Freiburger Musikhochschule. Later he majored in violin performance at the Music Universities in Cologne and Hanover, where his teachers included Zakhar Bron and Jens Ellermann. He received additional musical input from musicians such as Pinchas Zuckerman, Shlomo Mintz and Ida Haendel .

His performances have recently taken him to major concert venues in Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich, and Bremen. He performed with many orchestras, Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, the Philharmonie der Nationen , Württemberg Chamber orchestra, the Bratislava Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Polish Chamber Orchestra among them. Other concerts took him to the stages of the Celibidache Festival, the Gran Canaria Music Festival, and the Chautauqua Music Festival.

Mr. Seybold has recorded for several German broadcasting companies including the ZDF, WDR, NDR Deutschland Radio Kultur. His CD recording released in 2010 for the label Genuin Classics contains works by Beethoven, Bach, Grieg and Waxman. It was enthusiastically received by both audiences and critics.

We'll hear the first movement, Allegro assai, of Beethoven's Violin Sonata no. 8 (our library has the complete Sonata); the second movement, Improvisation: Andante cantabile, from Sonata for Violin in E-flat Major, Op. 18 by Richard Strauss, and Franz Waxman's Carmen Fantasy. Christoph plays a 1725 Antonio Stradivari, that was given to him on loan through Machold Rare Violins. He's accompanies by Milana Chernyavska. To listen, click here.

April 11, 2011

Virtuoso Natasha Korsakova, of Russian-Greek decent, is one of the most popular violinists of her generation. The German Süddeutsche Zeitung describes her ability to play the violin as a "sinfully beautiful listening experience". The young violinist, who speaks five languages, is currently a coveted guest for national as well as international orchestras, music festivals and concert events.

Natasha Korsakova was born into a music family in Moscow and began playing the violin at the age of 5. She is a descendant of the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Her first teacher was her grandfather Boris Korsakov. Natasha then studied with her father, the well-known Russian violin virtuoso Andrej Korsakov. Her mother is the pianist Yolanta Miroshnikova-Caprarica. After the early death of her father, Natasha Korsakova studied with Ulf Klausenitzer in Nuremberg and then later with Saschko Gawriloff in Cologne.

She has appeared in some of the world's most prestigious concert halls such as the Auditorium di Milano, Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Upon invitation from Mrs. Irina Shostakovitch, Natasha Korsakova appeared in Paris as part of a festival concert honoring Dmitri Shostakovitch.

Natasha Korsakova has co-operated with a number of renowned conductors, including Mstislav Rostropovich. As an enthusiastic chamber musician, Natasha Korsakova plays together with musicians such as Uto Ughi, Kira Ratner, José Gallardo Giovanni Angeleri, and Simone Soldati.

In 1996, she was the first musician to receive the "Russian Muse" award in the Great Hall of Moscows Conservatory.  In 1998, she became "Artist of the Year" in Chile.

We'll hear several pieces Natasha recorded on her CD "Natasha Korsakova plays Gershwin and more." The playlist starts with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Legend, followed by Romance by Antonin Dvořák. We'll then hear the first movement of Daniel Shnyder's Concerto Mozart in China. And we'll conclude with Porgy and Bess Fantasia, arranged by Igor Frolov. The North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Charles Olivier-Munro. To listen, click here.

April 3, 2011

The Swiss pianist Felix Buchmann was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1958. At the age of eleven he made his first public performance with an orchestra (he played Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 20 in d minor with Hofer Symphoniker, a German orchestra). He went on to perform Mozart's Concerto no. 21 in C Major and Beethoven's first Piano Concerto. At the age of 14 he started playing public piano recitals. Among other pieces, his repertory included Beethoven's Waldstein sonata and Chopin's Fantasy in F-minor op. 49. At the age of 19 Mr. Buchmann entered the Basel Conservatory, where he studied with Peter Efler and received the Teacher's diploma. He then moved to Bern, where he continued his studies with the remarkable Swiss pianist Michael Studer, and acquired the Performer's diploma. Mr. Buchmann also attended master classes with Bernhard Ebert of Musikhochschule Hannover and was advised by Hubert Harry of the Lucerne Conservatory.

In our playlist we'll hear three performances by Felix Buchmann. First, Piano Sonata No 24 in F-sharp Major by Beethoven; then Robert Schumann's Romance in F-sharp Major, Op. 28, No. 2 and finally, the second movement (Adagio) of the Piano Concerto no. 2 by Beethoven. This live recording was made with the Orchestra of Gelterkinden, which was conducted by Meinrad Koch. To listen, lick here.

March 28, 2011

This week we celebrate three composers: Haydn, Busoni and , and Rachmaninov.The great classical composer and "father of the Symphony," Franz Joseph Haydn, who was born on March 31, 1732, doesn't need our introduction. The first piece in our playlist is a piano Sonata in A Major Hob. XVI:30, performed by Catherine Gordeladze. It was composed in 1767. At that time Haydn was the Kapellmeister (Music Director) in Esterháza, an enormous palace of the Esterházy family, one of the wealthiest families in the Austrian Empire. Haydn worked in Esterházy's employ for thirty years and produced a large number of compositions, including all the pieces that we hear in this playlist. We follow with the String Quartet op. 20, No. 4, performed here by Aeolus Quartet. It dates from 1772. We conclude the Haydn playlist with another piano sonata, in A-flat Major, Hob XVI: 46. As the sonata in A Major, it is performed by Ms. Gordeladze. To listen, click here.

Italian composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni was born on April 1, 1866. These days he is best remembered for his transcriptions of the music of Bach, but he was an original composer in his own right. A brilliant pianist, he was also renowned as a teacher. Among his pupils were Egon Petri, Alexander Brailowsky, and Elena Gnesina, who started a music school in Moscow, which later became the famous Gnesin Music Academy. Here is Busoni's piano piece, Red Indian Diary. It's performed by Mauro Bertoli.

April 1 is also the birthday of Sergei Rachmaninov, who was born in 1873. Here is his probably most famous work, Piano Concerto No. 3 in d minor. It is performed by Eteri Andjaparidze, with the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra led by the orchestra's founder, the conductor Djansug Kakhidze.

March 21, 2011

Johann Sebastian Bach. Today is the 326^th anniversary of Bach's birth. So much has been written about the great composer, from the magisterial work by Philipp Spitta in the 1870s to more personal accounts by Albert Schweitzer and on, that we'll confine ourselves to a bare outline. Bach was born in Eisenach to a family of musicians. After graduating from the famous St. Michael's School in Lüneberg, he took up his first post in 1703 as a court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst in Weimar. He then accepted a position of organist on Arnstadt. It was also during his time at Arnstadt that Bach made his famous journeys to Lübeck, 250 miles away, to hear the great organ master Dietrich Buxtehude. In 1708 Bach accepted the post of court organist and concertmaster at the ducal court in Weimar. Among the many compositions for keyboard and orchestra that came from Bach's Weimar period, quite possibly the most important are the preludes and fugues that ultimately would make up the Well-Tempered Clavier. From 1717 to 1723 Bach served as the Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold of Köthen. Bach's most prestigious post came in 1723 when he accepted the position of Cantor of Thomasschule in Leipzig. He stayed in Leipzig till his death in 1750. It was during that period that Bach composed some of his greatest music, from cantatas to Mass in B minor to St. John and St. Mathew Passions to the incomplete but still magnificent The Art of Fugue.

We have a large number of works by Bach in our library and we hope that listeners will celebrate his birthday by browsing through some of them. For our playlist we selected several pieces written or arranged for different instruments. We start with the famous transcription of a chorale Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme from the eponymous cantata, made by Feruccio Busoni. It's played by the pianist Heidi Louise Williams. Then the cellist Fanny Nemeth-Weiss plays Suite for solo cello no. 3 in C Major. We'll then hear Adagio from Violin Sonata No.1 in G minor, which is performed by the violinist Ilya Dobrovitsky. We'll conclude with Concerto No. 1 in d minor for Keyboard and Strings, BWV 1052 (Allegro) 2602. It's performed here by the pianist Eteri Andjaparidze and the string players of the Round Top festival orchestra. To listen, click here.

March 14, 2011

Anna Serova. The Russian-Italian violist, Anna Serova is a unique figure on the international scene. She widely performs both as a soloist and a chamber musician. Several works were dedicated to her in recent years by some of the most important contemporary composers, such as the Italian opera composer Azio Corghi's dramatic cantata "Fero Dolore" and the operatic tragedy "Giocasta." In the latter she plays and acts on stage in the role of Destiny.

Anna studied with Vladimir Stopicev at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, with Bruno Giuranna at the Academy of Cremona and with Yuri Bashmet at the Academy of Chigiana in Sienna. Since then she has had a very successful career as a concert musician both in Italy and abroad.  Critics note the warm, shining beauty of her sound. She has collaborated with artists like Ivry Gitils, Bruno Giuranna, Salvatore Accardo, Rocco Filippini, Filippo Faes, and Toby Hoffman. As a soloist she has performed with many orchestras, such as Moscow State Symphony, Siberian Symphony, Krasnoyarsk Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico, Belgrade Philharmonic, and others. In 2002 she issued a CD of music from the twentieth century repertoire (on it she plays on the famous " Stauffer 1615" viola by Niccolò Amati); in 2004 she also recorded a CD of 18th century music. Her latest CD, "Schumann's Fairy Tales," was awarded 5 stars by the critics of Musica magazine.

Anna Serova is currently a Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at the Biella "L. Perosi" International Academy.

In our playlist, you can hear her play Robert Schumann's Maerchenbilder for viola and piano, and Capriccio in C minor "Hommage à Paganini" for Viola Solo by Henri Vieuxtemps. To listen, click here.

March 7, 2011

Maurice Ravel. One of the greatest composers of the 20^th century, Maurice Ravel was born on this day in 1875. He was expelled from the Paris Conservatory not once but twice; fortunately that didn't discourage him (his teacher, Gabriel Fauré, was a very supportive help). He composed for the piano – Gaspard de la nuit, Le Tombeau de Couperin, Miroirs, Ma Mère l'Oye, Pavane pour une infante défunte are among the most popular pieces, and also orchestrated many of them. He wrote two Piano concertos (one of the them, for the left hand, was composed for his friend Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right hand during the first World War). His chamber music (violin sonatas, the string quartet) is played the world over. He also wrote wonderful songs. And of course, he's famous for being one of the most interesting orchestral composers of that century.

We'll hear three large compositions: the Second suite from the ballet Daphnis and Chloé, performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Hajime Teri Murai; the rhapsody Tzigane, played by Andrew Kohji Taylor (Judith Gordon on the piano); and Le Tombeau de Couperin played by the pianist Alon Goldstein. To listen, click here.

Karen Hakobyan is a talented Armenian pianist and composer. He studied with Arkady Aronov at Mannes College of Music, and successfully competed in a number of piano competitions (in 2010 he won the Bronze Medal in the International Piano Competition in Cincinatti). He has played with the Armenian Philharmonic and National Chamber Orchestras, the Salt Lake Symphony, the New American Symphony and the World Festival Orchestra. He also participated in a number of festivals, including the Lille International Piano Festival in France and was featured at the "Keys to the Future" Contemporary Music Concert Series in 2009 and 2010 in New York City. Here is Karen's performance of Rachmaninov's Etude Tableaux Op. 33 No. 5.

Karen is the winner of the 2004 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Competition. He has composed numerous orchestral works, and also music for chamber groups and solo pieces for violin and piano. His compositions have been performed in Europe and the United States. You can listen to Karen's Symphony No. 2 Op. 6 here. It is performed by the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra.

On March 1, 2011 an Evening of Music by Karen Hakobyan will take place in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall where Karen and a group of young musician will perform his music. The performers will include: Karen Hakobyan and Gabriel Escudero, piano; Guillaume Molko, Stani Dimitrova, and Clara Lyon, violin; Christine Carter, clarinet; Emi Ferguson, flute; Kim Mai Nguyen, viola, Amber Docters Van Leeuwen, cello; and Katharine Dain, soprano.

February 28, 2011

Chopin and Vivaldi. March 1^st is generally regarded as the birthday of the great Polish composer, although records are not clear and some believe that he was born on February 22, 1810. A son of a poor Frenchman from Lorraine, Chopin himself settled in France in 1831 after learning that the Polish uprising against the Russian empire has been crushed. He lived in France the remaining 18 years of his short life. A professed Polish patriot, he was affected by the music of the country of his birth (he wrote 58 mazurkas and 18 polonaises), but though he traveled all around Europe as a concert pianist, he never set foot in Poland again. The world celebrated Frederic Chopin's 200^th anniversary last year, and we joined with an extensive playlist. This year we'll present just four pieces: Ballade no. 1, performed by Gabriele Baldocci, then two etudes no. 11, the first one from opus 10, played by Daniel del Pino, another from opus 25, performed by Irina Klyuev. We'll conclude with the finale of the Cello sonata op. 65. The cellist is Camille Thomas, she's accompanied by Beatrice Berrut. To listen, click here.

Antonio Vivaldi was born on March 4, 1678 in Venice. One of the most important composers in the history of classical music (consider his influence on Johann Sebastian Bach) he's often regarded as the composer of the Four Seasons. In reality, the list of his compositions is enormous. He wrote almost 50 operas and 500 concertos for such instruments as violin, flute, cello, bassoon, oboe, and many others. Here is his Concerto for strings in C Major, RV 114. It's performed by Baroque Band, with David Shrader on the harpsichord.

February 21, 2011

George Frideric Handel. Handel was born on the 23^rd of February 1685 in the German city of Halle. As so many musicians of his time who traveled around Europe seeking patrons (just think of all the Italians who came to the courts of France and Austria), he left his country at the age of 21. He moved to Italy, first to Rome then to Florence. He eventually settled in England and lived there for the rest of his life, making occasional trips to the Continent. Handel wrote music for the courts of two kings, George I and George II, became rich and famous, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Together with Henry Purcell he's considered the greatest English composer of all time. Handel's oratorio Messiah and orchestral suites Water music and Music for the Royal Fireworks never lost their appeal, but his 42 operas were mostly forgotten by the 19^th century. Fortunately, they staged a comeback in the second half of the 20^th, thanks to a general interest in "historically informed performances" and Baroque operas in particular.

We created a playlist consisting of four works. First, the pianist Margarita Shevchenko performs Chaconne in G Major. Then the soprano Amy Shoremount-Obra sings the aria Tornami a vagheggiar, from the opera Alcina. She's accompanied by Eunjung Lee (Piano). Then we'll hear two very different performance of Concerti Grossi Op. 6: first, Concerto Grosso no. 4 in a minor is performed by Baroque Band, the Chicago-based period instrument orchestra under the direction of Garry Clarke. We conclude with a live historical performance of Concerto Grosso Op.6 no. 10 in d minor made on March 20, 1954: the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler leads the Caracas Symphony Orchestra. This recording was made just eight month before the maestro's death. Even the unfortunate accompaniment of a baby in the last movement (Allegro Moderato) cannot spoil the overall impression. To listen, click here.

February 14, 2011

Quartetto Anthos. The four young Italian musicians who formed Quartetto Anthos – Agnese Tasso, violin, Jessica Orlandi, viola, Silvia Dal Paos, cello, and Francesco Spazian, piano – studied separately at the academies of Bergamo, Parma, Lugano, Salzburg, Pittsburgh and Tel Aviv. They were brought together by their common vision and love of classical Viennese and contemporary repertoire.

February 7, 2010

Schubert and Mendelssohn. To our embarrassment, last week we failed to acknowledge not one, but two anniversaries of great composers, those of Franz Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn. They were born just 11 years apart (Schubert on January 31, 1797, Mendelssohn on February 3, 1809), both had tragically short lives (Schubert died at the age of 31, Mendelssohn when he was 38), and their creative periods almost overlapped – Schubert's last three piano sonatas were written in 1828, while Mendelssohn's Overture A Midsummer Night's Dream was written in 1826, when he was just 17. Musically, however, they were generations apart - Schubert's sonatas belong to the world of Beethoven, while Mendelssohn's music heralds the ear of Romanticism.

It's very difficult to convey even a glimpse of Schubert's genius in a short playlist, his' output was simply too vast (Mendelssohn is more "manageable" in this respect), and so in some sense our selections are almost random. We'll hear just three compositions: Impromptu no 3 in G flat major, D 899/Op. 90 played by the pianist Matei Varga; Das Fischermädchen (The Fisher-Maiden) from the posthumous cycle Schwanengesang ("Swan song"), sung by the baritone Thomas Meglioranza with Reiko Uchida on the piano; and one of the last sonatas, Sonata in c minor, D. 958 performed by the pianist Ran Jia. To listen, click here.

We've also selected three works by Mendelssohn in "his" playlist: first, Overture from A Midsummer Night's Dream, transcribed for two pianos and played by DUO (pianists Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia); then Song without Words No. 2 in f-sharp minor, Opus 67, played by the pianist Minju Choi; and finally, the first movement, Allegro molto vivace, of Violin Concerto, played by Giora Schmidt with Israel Chamber Orchestra, Gil Shohat conduction. To listen, click here.

January 31, 2010

The Duo Lopez-Cafiero was founded in Milan in 2009 by two young but already well known musicians, cellist Martina Lopez and pianist Clelia Cafiero. Martina Lopez was born in 1988. In September 2005 she graduated (with highest honors) from the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence. Since then she has participated in master classes with many leading cellist, among them Pier Narciso Masi, Luca Signorini, and David Geringas. She also completed a two-year postgraduate course at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Clemens Hagen. In May 2007, at just 19 years old, she won the international competition organized by the orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. These days she's the assistant principal cello in the orchestra.

The pianist Clelia Cafiero was born in 1986. She graduated with honors from the S. Pietro a Majella Conservatory of Naples. Like her partner, she also participated and won awards in several international competitions. While pursuing acareer as a pianist, she recently graduated (with honors) from the Milan Conservatory as a conductor and made a debut with the Rossini Orchestra of Pesaro conducting La Boheme.

While new, the Duo has already received wide recognition. They won the 1st prize and Rovere d'Oro prize in the Rovere d'Oro 2010 competition, and the 1st prize in the Luigi Nono 2010 competition in Turin. You can hear them play Beethoven's Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major, Op. 69 (here) and Brahms' Sonata for cello and piano No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99 (here).

January 24, 2011

Mozart. Recently, the chief music critic of the New York Times Anthony Tommasini wrote a series of highly entertaining but ultimately meaningless articles, reasoning his way into a list of 10 greatest classical composers. He ended up placing Mozart in third place. We'll leave it to Tommasini and his readers to argue the merits of a particular pecking order (it's enough to note that neither Haydn nor Mahler made the list). What is absolutely obvious to any music lover is that Mozart is one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music. On January 27 of this year, the world will celebrate the 255^th anniversary of his birth. Our library is not as rich in Mozart's work as we would like: he was more interested in operas and symphonies than instrumental music. Still, we hope that our playlist will delight your ear.

We start with Giorgi Latsabidze playing Piano Sonata No. 9 in D Major, K. 311. The violinist Tessa Lark, and pianist Ron Regev will continue with Sonata No. 19 for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major, K 302. The young mezzo Rebecca Henry sings Countess' aria Non so più cosa son from Le Nozze di Figaro. And then we'll hear a non-commercial recording made in 1958 by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Orchestra sinfonica di Napoli under the direction of Franco Caracciolo. They play the finale, Allegro, from the Piano Concerto no. 13 in C Major, K. 415.

If given the chance, we would have liked to finish this playlist with the trio Soave sia il vento, from Così fan tutte, probably the most sublime music ever written. Well, maybe the next year. In the mean time, click here to listen.

January 17, 2010

Three Cellists. Among our more recent uploads we have performances of three talented young cellists. Twenty-two year old Camille Thomas, a laureate of the Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation, has an active career both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She has performed in a number of Europeans countries and famous venues, among them Konzerthaus and Curt Sachs Saal of the Berlin Philarmonie, Radio France, Sorbonne, and Théâtre Marigny. She was also invited to perform in different festivals, including Festival Pablo Casals in Prades. She has played as a soloist with the Philarmonie Baden-Baden and with the Cappella Academica Orchestra of Berlin. Camille is currently studying with Frans Helmerson at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. In the playlist we've included the first movement of Chopin's Cello sonata op. 65, but you can hear her play the complete sonata here. Camille's collaborator on this recording is Beatrice Berrut.

Russian-born cellist Alexei Romanenko began playing cello at the age of six. Before leaving for the United States, he studied at the Moscow Conservatory. In the US he continued his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music under Bernard Greenhouse and Laurence Lesser. In 1999, Alexei won First Prize at the 8^th International Music Competition in Vienna, and in 2000 was awarded the First Prize at the 2^nd Web Concert Hall International Auditions. In 2009 Alexei appeared in Vivaldi's Double Concerto with cellist Matt Haimvovitz in the "Cellobration" concert presented by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. You'll hear Alexei perform Sonata No.10 for Cello and Piano in E Major, Op. 8 by the Italian Baroque composer Giuseppe Valentini. He's accompanied by Christine Yoshikawa.

Wendy Law has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Russian Philharmonic, and the Juilliard Orchestra. She has performed throughout North America, appearing in such venues as Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Jordan Hall, Boston. An active chamber musician, she has collaborated with the Borromeo String Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, and Pamela Frank, among others. Wendy received her Bachelor of Music with Distinction from the New England Conservatory studying with Laurence Lesser, and her Master of Music and the Artist Diploma Program from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Joel Krosnick and Tim Eddy. In the playlist we have her performance of Robert Schumann's Fantasy Pieces Op. 73. To listen, click here.

January 10, 2011

In the wake of the New Year celebrations we failed to mention several significant birthdays. We'll correct our slip in this week's entry.

Mili Balakirev, born on January 2, 1827, may be better known for organizing The Five than his own compositions, but there's one clear exception: his Oriental Fantasy Islamey. Here it's played by the pianist Sonya Bach

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's birthday falls on January 4. Last year we celebrated the 200^th anniversary of his birth. Mostly the composer of operas, he also wrote sacred music (we recently featured his Stabat Mater). Here is Sinfonia (overture) to his opera Lo frate'nnamuratof. It is performed by the Chicago-based period instruments ensemble Baroque Band.

The German composer Max Bruch was born on January 6, 1838. One of his most popular works is probably Violin Concerto no. 1 in g minor (the other one being the setting of Kol Nidrei; since the Nazis wrongly assumed that Bruch was Jewish, they banned his compositions from being performed in Germany). Here is a recording of the concerto made by the violinist Dmitri Berlinsky, with Jupiter Symphony, the late Jens Nygaard conducting.

The first week of January is rich with other musical birthdays as well: Medtner, Scriabin, and Poulenc were all born in early January. We'll celebrate their birthdays at a later date.

January 3, 2011

Welcome to 2011! This year we hope to add many more recordings to the 2,500 already in our library, and look forward to welcoming more performers to join the ranks of about 500 musicians who have already contributed their music to Classical Connect. Here are some of the recent recordings; we hope they give you some idea of the high caliber and talent of musicians who collaborate with Classical Connect.

The violinist Rachel Lee, who studied with Itzhak Perlman at the age of 10 and also with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory, plays Leoš Janáček's Sonata for Violin and Piano. She's accompanied by Ron Regev.

The Korean pianist Soyeon Lee won the First Prize at the 2010 Naumburg Piano Competition. She studied at the Juilliard School with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald. She plays Prelude and Fugue in D-flat Major Op. 87, No. 15 by Dmitri Shostakovich.

The cellist Wendy Law has appeared as a soloist with renowned orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, and the Russian Philharmonic. Ms. Law has been appointed a Teaching Artist at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Here she plays 12 Variations on a theme from Mozart's "The Magic Flute" by Beethoven. Byron Sean is on the piano. To hear the complete playlist, click here.

December 27, 2010

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our musicians, and classical music lovers! Have a wonderful holiday season, and here to celebrate are two pieces written more than two centuries apart. Bach's Cantata BWV 110, one of the several he wrote for the Christmas day, was first performed in Leipzig on December 25, 1725. Here, in an old recording, is the opening chorus, Unser Mund sei voll Lachens (Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Psalm 126:2). It is performed by the Boys Choir (Knabenchor) of Windsbach, Bavaria, conducted by the choir's founder and director, Hans Thamm, with the Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra.

Olivier Messiaen, a deeply religious man, wrote his piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, or Twenty contemplations on the infant Jesus, in 1944. The whole piece takes about two hours to play, but here you can listen to Movement 13, Noël (Christmas), performed by the pianist Minju Choi. Happy listening!

December 20, 2010

Beethoven's 240th birthday anniversary eclipsed several events that are very much worth noting. One of the greatest composers of the 20^th century, Olivier Messiaen, was born on December 10, 1908. Messiaen was a bird-lover (as was one of his heroes, St. Francis of Assisi), considered himself an ornithologist, and incorporated birdsongs in many of his compositions. During World War II he spent a year in a prison camp where he composed one of his most profound pieces, Quartet for the End of Time (Quatuor pour la fin du temps). Here is Première communion de la vierge, from Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus, played by the French pianist Jean-François Latour. And yes, you can hear the birds.

Another great French composer, Hector Berlioz, was born on December 12, 1803. Even though musically Messiaen and Berlioz are worlds apart, a historical curiosity links the two: for many years Messiaen worked as an organist at the church of Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris - the same church in which Berlioz's funeral was held on March 11, 1869. Berlioz wrote operas, songs, but is probably best remembered as a great symphonist. Here is the first movement, "Rêveries - Passions" (Daydreams - Passions) of his Symphonie Fantastique in the old noncommercial recording by Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the direction of Igor Markevitch.

December 13, 2010

Beethoven! As strange as it sounds, we don't quite know when one of the greatest composers in the history of music was born. We do know that he was baptized on December 17^th, 1770, so the date of the 16^th seems likely. But this uncertainty is not going to stop the world from celebrating the 240^th anniversary of of Ludwig van Beethoven's birthday and of course we'll join in the festivities. Beethoven's output is so large and its level is so tremendous that the task of selecting several pieces for a playlist appears rather futile. With some trepidation we put together a playlist featuring different instruments, although we could've easily increased its size many times. We start with Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op.53, "Waldstein" played by the pianist Yukiko Sekino. Then the violinist Nathan Cole and the pianist Kuang-Hao Huang perform Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 8 in G Major, Op. 30, No. 3. Following that we'll hear Suren Bagratuni, cello, play 7 Variations on "Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen." He's accompanied by the pianist Ralph Votapek. Arianna String Quartet will then perform Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6. We'll finish with the Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73. James Dick is the pianist, with the Texas Festival Orchestra under the baton of Stefan Sanderling. To listen, click here.

Also, please follow us on Facebook, as we feature different pieces each day of the week.

December 6, 2010

Three Flute Sonatas. After we posted a recording of Prokofiev's Flute sonata on Facebook last week, one of our friends mentioned that he thinks it's one of the greatest flute sonatas written in the last 50 years. We hastily agreed; only later it occurred to us that even though it sounds as fresh as ever, it was written more than 50 years ago, in 1943. We decided to look around for other interesting music for the flute written at about the same time. Fortunately, there are great pieces in our own library. Two more flute sonatas that would qualify were written around the middle of the 20^th century: one by Francis Poulenc (1957) and another – by Paul Hindemith (1936). All three sonatas are rather elegiac in style, and even Hindemith, who is often so cerebral, is almost lyrical in his piece, especially in the first two movements. Poulenc wrote his sonata for the great Jean-Pierre Rampal. Prokofiev was approached by David Oistrach, who asked him to transcribe it for the violin – a rare occasion, since usually it's the flutists who borrow from the violin repertory.

The Prokofiev is played by Sonia Formenti and Mauro Bertoli (Piano); Poluenc – by Madelene Campos and Saori Chiba, Hindemith – by Jennifer Bartel and Melody Lord. You can listen to the sonatas here and decide for yourself, which one you like best.

November 29, 2010

Baroque Band, Part III. Yet again we visit with Baroque Band, this time to present their interpretation of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's masterpiece, Stabat Mater. It is thought that Stabat Mater was Pergolesi's last major work (he died in 1736 at the age of just 26, probably from tuberculosis). Stabat Mater Dolorosa, one of the most famous medieval Italian poems, was composed either by the Pope Innocent III, a crusader against the Cathars, or a Franciscan monk by the name of Jacopone da Todi. It is thought that the poem was written in the early to mid-13^th century. The poem has been set to music many times, for example by Palestrina and Haydn, but none of the settings became as famous as Pergolesi's. In this recording the soprano is Jennifer Ellis Kampani, mezzo-soprano – Jennifer Lane. As usual, Garry Clarke is conducting. To listen, click here.

November 22, 2010

What a bountiful week! We celebrate five birthdays, and that doesn't even include two great Antons: Rubinstein and Stamitz. So here we go, from the 17^th century to the 20^th. Jean-Baptiste Lully was born on November 28, 1632. Just two weeks ago we played his Suite from Bourgeois gentilhomme, so if you'd like to listen to it, check it out in the library or click on the entry below.

Sergei Taneyev who was born on November 25, 1856 in Vladimir, may not have been the most talented of his Russian contemporaries, but he was a wonderful pianist (he premièred the first piano concerto of his dear friend Tchaikovsky) and a great teacher of composition. Among his pupils were Rachmaninov, Scriabin, and Medtner. Here is his lyrical Canzona, played by the clarinetist Alexander Bedenko and the pianist Roman Rabinovich.

The wonderful Spanish composer Manuel De Falla was born on November 23, 1876. We have many of his compositions in our library. Here is a sample: Jota, from Suite Populaire Espagnole, brilliantly played by the violinist Giora Schmidt, with Rohan De Silva at the piano.

Virgil Thomson, who was famous as a critic at least as much as a composer, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 25, 1896. Thomson spent many years in Paris where he studying with Nadia Boulanger. He was a good friend of Gertrude Stein, who wrote librettos for two of his operas. Here is his Concerto for Flute, Strings, Harp, and Percussion, played by Mary Stolper (Flute) and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Paul Freeman.

Alfred Schnittke was born on November 24, 1934. His father was a German Jew who moved to the Soviet Union for political reasons. In 1990, his health failing, Schnittke emigrated to Germany. As a young composer, Schnittke was influenced by Dmitri Shostakovich; later he experimented with the serialism. What eventually evolved was his more tonal "polystylism," a creative blend of diverse styles. Here's his playful Moz-Art à la Haydn, played (and whistled) by the violinist Yuri Korchinsky and the pianist Mikhail Bezverkhny.

November 15, 2010

The Georgian-American pianist Giorgi Latsabidze was born in Tbilisi in 1978. He graduated from the Tbilisi State Conservatory and then continued his post-graduate work at the Hannover Hochschule with Gerrit Zitterbart and the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Klaus Kaufmann. He also studied with Lazar Berman in Florence, Italy. In 2005 Latsabidze moved to the US and continued his studies at the University of Southern California with Stewart Gordon. Latsabidze maintains an ambitious performance schedule, appearing in master classes and concert performances throughout Europe, Asia, South America, and more recently, in the United States. In 2005 K-TV Austria produced a DVD about Giorgi Latsabidze (Portrait and Recital in Steinway Hall in Salzburg, Austria). In addition to playing recitals, Latsabidze collaborates with many musicians, including the soprano Su Xiaobo and mezzo-soprano Callie Hoffman, whom we’ll hear in the playlist.

We’ll begin with Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etude No. 10 in f minor, followed by Chopin’s Polonaise in A flat Major, Op. 53. Then we’ll hear Claude Debussy’s Feuilles Mortes from Book II of Préludes. Also by Debussy is the song Le rossignol qui, du haut d'une branche, performed by the soprano Su Xiaobo. We conclude with the Robert Schumann’s Seit ich ihn gesehen habe, from the cycle Frauenliebe und -leben, sung by the mezzo Callie Hoffman. Both songs are sensitively accompanied by Mr. Latsabidze. To listen to the playlist, click here.

November 8, 2010

Baroque Band, Part II. We continue exploring our collection of recordings by Baroque Band, a Chicago-based period-instrument orchestra. This week we present three pieces: one written by an Italian who became the founder of a French Baroque style, another by a German who turned into the most famous English composer, and the third by a Savoyard of a Scotch descent who lived and composed all over Europe.

Jean Baptiste Lully (or Giovanni Battista di Lulli, as he was originally known) was born in Florence in 1632, the son of a poor miller; 20 years later he became the court composer for the Sun king, Louis XIV and a friend to Molière. Lully created the French Baroque style known as "Classique" and became immensely influential in France and beyond. Here is his Suite from Bourgeois gentilhomme.

George Frideric Handel doesn’t need any introductions. Born in Halle in the auspicious year of 1685, he moved to London in 1710 and become one of England’s and the world’s most celebrated composers. Here is his Concerto Grosso Op. 3, No. 4.

Georg Muffat was born in Savoy in 1653 when Savoy was an independent Italian duchy (it’s now a French province). Muffat was of Scottish descent but, as far as we know, never visited Scotland. Instead he lived in Paris, Alsace, Vienna, Salzburg and Passau. Muffat was quite influenced by Lully. Here is his Passacaglia.

November 1, 2010

Several recent birthdays. Domenico Scarlatti was born on October 26, 1685, 225 years ago. He wrote 555 keyboard (for either the harpsichord or early fortepiano) sonatas, which these days are often performed on the piano. Here is Sonata in A major K.322 performed on a Roland Digital piano by Nuccio Trotta, and this is Sonata in c minor, K. 129 performed on pianoforte by David Schrader.

Niccolò Paganini was born on October 27, 1782. We’d like to present two versions of La Campanella, the theme from the final movement of his Violin Concerto No. 2, played here by the violinist Judy Kang, and here, in the famous Liszt’s arrangement, by Alexandre Dossin (piano).

And lastly, one performance that allows us to celebrate two composers at the same time. Johann Strauss Jr. was born on October 25, 1825. Carl Tausig, whose birthday falls on November 4, arranged his famous Nachtfalter Waltz from the cycle Nouvelles soirées De Vienne. Tausig, born in 1841, was probably the most talented pianist of all of Liszt’s pupils (at least according to Hans von Bülow and Eugen d'Albert, also pupils of Liszt). Tausig died at the age of 29 at the height of his brief career. Listen to the transcription, played here by the pianist Sandro Russo.

October 25, 2010

And now for something completely different… Turtle Island Quartet. What are the limits of classical music and where are they? Is there a definable line that can be drawn to label some music as “classical” and other as “not belonging,” however good it might be? Perhaps the modified Supreme Court test could work: “I know it when I hear it.” But sometimes even this test gives ambiguous results. Kronos Quartet inhabits this borderline land, and now the Turtle Island Quartet has just come out with yet another one of their typecast-defying CDs, this one based on the music of Jimi Hendrix and David Balakrishnan. As Andy Summers writes, “Translating the music of Jimi Hendrix visceral electric guitar music into the vernacular of the classical string quartet seems like an improbably idea. Yet in this remarkable recording…[the quartet] has once again hit what at first might seem a difficult target.” Here’s Jimi Hendrix’s “1983… A Merman I Should Turn To Be,” arranged by the violinist, composer, and the founder of Turtle Island Quartet David Balakrishnan. We’re not sure about the labels, but we think it sounds great.

October 18, 2010

The great Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt was born 199 year ago this week, on October 22 of 1811. We’ll celebrate him with several piano pieces, some from his years as a celebrity virtuoso and the subsequent Weimar period, and some from his last years (Liszt’s reputation was enhanced by Alfred Brendel’s incessant promotion of that period’s music).

We start with the sonata Après une Lecture de Dante, which was written in 1849. It is performed by the young Swiss pianist Beatrice Berrut. We follow with two etudes, Transcendental Etude No. 8 "Wilde Jagd" (Wild Hunt), written in 1853 (it’s played by Giorgi Latsabidze), and Gnomenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes) from 1862, which is performed by Nadejda Vlaeva. Then we play two pieces from Liszt’s last period: the 1877 composition Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este, whose harmonies foreshadow the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel (it is played by Jorge Federico Osorio), and a very unusual short composition from 1881, Nuages gris (Grey Clouds), performed by Carlos César Rodríguez. To listen, click here.

October 11, 2010

Wendy Warner and Irina Nuzova. The cellist Wendy Warner and the pianist Irina Nuzova recently issued a highly successful CD and are now following it up with a series of Chicago-area concerts. A collection of Russian music for Cello and Piano, the CD debuted last week at number 8 on the Billboard Classical Charts. It was produced by Cedille Records, a Chicago label devoted to promoting local classical musicians. The CD contains several rarely performed works, including Miaskovsky’s Sonata No. 2 in a minor (the composer dedicated it to the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich), and Alfred Schnitke’s Musica nostalgica. One of its pieces – Gregor Piatigorsky’s arrangement of Alexander Scriabin’s Etude Op.8 No. 11 – can be heard here.

Wendy Warner grew up in Chicago and first gained recognition as a soloist at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where she studied under Rostropovich. At 18, she won first prize at the Fourth International Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 1990 and then toured extensively with Rostropovich throughout Europe and the U.S. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Warner still feels her mentor’s influence as she performs with orchestras and chamber groups across the world. “He believed in pushing oneself, constantly striving to be better,” she says. “He always told me it wasn’t enough to be a great cellist, I had to search deeper into being a great musician.” When she isn’t performing, Warner mentors the next generation of artists by teaching at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, the Music Institute of Chicago, and the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Georgia.

Pianist Irina Nuzova made her New York recital debut at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall in 1997, also appearing at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, the Steinway Society in Princeton, New Jersey, and the Palazzo Minerva in Minerbio, Italy. She has won top prizes in international competitions, including the coveted Bruce Hungerford Award at the Young Concert Artist Auditions in New York, and the Beethoven Piano Sonata International Competition in Memphis, Tennessee. Ms. Nuzova studied in Russia and also the Juilliard, where she was taught by Oxana Yablonskaya and Jerome Lowenthal.

October 4, 2010

The Baroque Band is a period-instrument orchestra based in Chicago. It was founded in 2007 by the British violinist and conductor Garry Clarke. Garry moved to the US in 2004; while in the UK, he performed with The Academy of Ancient Music, The Sixteen, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and other ensembles. He has also worked with Christopher Hogwood, John Elliot Gardener, Sir Charles Mackaras and many other eminent conductors.

Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein hailed the Baroque Band as one of the top ten Chicago ensembles. He wrote: “The goal of Garry Clarke is to make the group a nexus of “authentic” pre-classical performance in the Midwest. An ambitious undertaking, but Clarke and friends are off to an auspicious start.”

We’re in the process of providing access to some of the live recordings made by the Baroque Band in the past three seasons. To whet your appetite, here are two recordings: Henry Purcell’s Suite from Dido and Aeneas (there’s much more to this music than the famous When I’m laid in earth aria), with the wonderful mezzo-soprano Jennifer Lane and David Schrader at the harpsichord; and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Suite from Les Indes Galantes. We’ll have more from the Baroque Band later; in the mean time you can listen here.

September 27, 2010

September Birthdays. We’d like to commemorate several composers who had their birthdays in September. Jean-Philippe Rameau was born on the 25^th of the month in 1683. He followed (and surpassed) Jean-Baptiste Lully in developing the French "Classique" style of music. Rameau composed operas, instrumental music, and music for the harpsichord. You can hear Chicago’s Baroque Band period-instrument orchestra perform his Les Indes Galantes opera suite here.

The great Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich was also born on the 25^th, in 1906. Here is his Violin Concerto No. 1, performed by Albert Markov and the Moscow State Orchestra. The concerto was written in 1947-48 during a period in which Shostakovich fell under heavy criticism from the Soviet press. The first performance of the concerto had to wait till 1955, after Stalin’s death.

One of the giants of modernism, Arnold Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874. You can hear the short Piano Piece No. 3 played by Irina Klyuev.

And finally, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt was born on the 11^th of the month in 1935. His Speigel Im Spiegel is performed by Janus Trio (click here). This music was written in 1978, while Pärt still lived in Estonia (he emigrated in 1980, moved to Vienna, then Berlin, but later returned to Estonia and now lives in Tallinn).

September 20, 2010

The pianist Catherine Gordeladze was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and now lives in Germany. She has earned critical acclaim as a recitalist, orchestral soloist and chamber musician. Her recent debut at the Landestheater Coburg, where she performed Schumann's Piano concerto in a minor under the baton of Nicolás Pasquet, earned her praise from The Coburger Tagesblatt: “Technically she was superior at all times, thoroughly enjoying the beauty of the piano part…” Her performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations was also highly praised by The Frankfurter Rundschau.

Ms. Gordeladze started playing piano at the age of 6 and made her debut with a symphony orchestra at the age of 11 playing Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with the Georgia Philharmonic. She studied at the Tbilisi State Conservatory with Professor Nodar Gabunia. She continued her studies in Germany, where she attended several music institutions. She worked with Vladimer Krainev, Paul Badura-Skoda, Rudolf Kehrer, but was especially influenced by Alexis Weissenberg. Ms. Gordeladze won several top prizes in international competitions, among them the 3rd prize at the VI European Chopin Piano Competition in Darmstadt, and the 1st prize in the IV International Music festival in Dietzenbach (Germany).

Ms. Gordeladze’s latest project is Haydn’s sonatas. We’ll hear three of those: in D Major (Hob. XVI:37), in A-flat Major (Hob XVI: 46), and probably the most popular of Haydn’s sonatas, in E-flat Major, Hob XVI: 52. To listen, click here.

September 13, 2010

The pianist Elena Melnikova was born in 1982 in Novosibirsk, Russia. She received her first piano lessons at the age of five. In 1989, she was accepted at the special music school for gifted students in Novosibirsk, where she studied with Meri Lebenzon. In 1994 Elena was awarded the second prize at the Vladimir Krainev competition in Kharkov and the first prize at the Citta di Marsala international piano competition. She also received the first prize at the 1995 International Tchaikovsky competition for young musicians in Sendai, Japan. In 1999 Elena entered the State University of Music and Drama in Hanover, where she became a student of Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. In 2001 she won the first ZF Musik Award in Friedrichshafen. Elena has a successful solo career; she has been performing in Italy, France, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Austria. She’s also a passionate chamber music player.

We have created a three-piece playlist of Elena’s recordings that allows listeners to appreciate the different aspects of her talent. First, you can hear Bach’s Chaconne from violin Partita No. 2 in d minor in Busoni’s transcription. Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana follows. The selection concludes with her crisp, fresh interpretation of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 ("Pathetique"). To listen, click here.

September 6, 2010

The great Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was born on September 8, 1841 near Prague in what was then the Austrian Empire. A musical nationalist, Dvořák broadly used Czech folk idioms in his compositions (while in the United States, he also actively promoted Native American and African American music). Dvořák wrote nine symphonies (New World Symphony being the most popular), operas, and chamber music. He also wrote three concertos; the Cello Concerto is his masterpiece.

We’ll hear Humoresque, performed by Brett Deubner (Viola); Slavonic Dance in A-Flat Major, played by the piano duo Joseph Tong and Waka Hasegawa; and String Quintet Op. 97, performed by Pacifica Quartet and Michael Tree (Viola). To listen, click here.

A note: a very mediocre composer, whose renown owes more to chance and the genius of other than any accomplishments of his own, was also born this week. Anton Diabelli was trying to promote his publishing business when he submitted a little waltz to several well-known composers to be used as a theme for variations. He expected them to write just one, which is exactly what Schubert, Czerny, Hummel, and Moscheles, among others, did. Beethoven, on the other hand, created 33, and the set became know as the Diabelli Variations. They are now considered one of his greatest piano compositions. You can hear them in Beth Levin’s interpretation here.

August 30, 2010

Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata. Richard Strauss was 23 years old when he wrote this sonata. This was his third (he had already composed a piano sonata and one for the cello) and last one: even though he composed for another 60 years, he would never return to this genre again. The Violin sonata is a romantic piece very much in the tradition of Schumann and Mendelssohn. While not considered a masterpiece, this composition is graceful, balanced, and full of wonderful melodic lines and youthful energy.

We have three performances of this sonata. The most recent one is by the violinist Korbinian Altenberger (he’s accompanied by Jiayi Shi). Mr. Altenberger was born in Munich, Germany, studied at the Musikhochschule Köln and then at the New England Conservatory as a student of Donald Weilerstein. Later he studied with Midori at the University of Southern California. Mr. Altenberger received first prize at the Jacob Stainer Violin Competition in 2005, and second prize at the prestigious Montreal International Musical Competition in 2010. You can listen to his performance here.

The second performance is by the young American violinist Tessa Lark. Ms. Lark also studied at the New England Conservatory (with Miriam Fried). She has won several competitions: first place at the Johansen International Strings Competition in Washington, D.C., in 2006, and another first place at the Irving Klein International String Competition in San Francisco in 2008. You can listen to her performance of the sonata here. Ms. Lark is accompanied by Ron Regev.

Finally, we have two masters who need no introduction: Ilya Kaler and Eteri Andjaparidze. You can enjoy their interpretation here.

August 23, 2010

The young cellist Fanny Nemeth-Weiss likes to travel: she was born in Hungary and studied in Zagreb (Croatia), Graz (Austria), Zurich and Basel (Switzerland), where she was a student of Ivan Monighetti. In 2005 she entered the Manhattan School of Music and is currently studying at the Catholic University of America. Fanny received scholarships from several programs, including the Itzhak and Toby Perlman program. She also participated in master classes lead by Bernard Greenhouse, Eleonore Schoenfeld, Natalia Shahovskaya, Itzhak Perlman, Robert Mann, the Takacs Quartet and several others. In 2008 Fanny made her Weill Recital Hall debut. She played recitals and chamber concerts in France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, and other countries.

We’ll hear two large-scale works played by Ms. Nemeth-Weiss: first, Robert Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces Op. 73, and then Suite for solo cello no. 3 in C Major by Bach. To listen, click here.

August 16, 2010

Claude Debussy, one of the most influential and popular composers of the last 100 years, was born on August 22, 1862. From Maurice Ravel’s works at the beginning of the 20^th century, to the young Stravinsky, "Les Six," Vaughn Williams, Messiaen, and Toru Takemitsu’s compositions at the end of the 20^th century, Debussy’s influence is enormous. And judging by how often his music is played in concert halls and on the radio, he remains tremendously popular with the listening public and the performers. On Classical Connect we have a large selection of Debussy’s works: his numerous piano works, songs, several recordings of cello and violin sonatas, and his quartet in g minor – just go to Browse by Composer and select Debussy. Our short playlist contains three piano works: General Lavine – eccentric, from Préludes Book II played by Jorge Federico Osorio; Mouvement, played by the young Georgian pianist Ana Gligvashvili (Piano); and Jardins sous la pluie, from Estampes, performed by Michael Mizrahi. To listen, click here.

August 9, 2010

Sorabji and Ibert. Two very different composers were born on August 15, 2010: Kaikhosru Sorabji and Jacques Ibert. Sorabji, a British composer of Indian descent, was born in 1892. He wrote extraordinarily long and difficult piano pieces. His work Opus Clavicembalisticum, was once listed in the Guinness book of records as the longest piano piece ever composed: the complete performance runs about four hours. Not very many pianists attempt to play Sorabji; among the well-known recordings are those of the late John Ogdon. Marc-André Hamelin and Fredrik Ullén also play Sorabji. It’s interesting to note that Ullén also recorded George Flynn’s piece Trinity, which runs for about an hour and 10 minutes (in our library we have a recording made by the composer). Sorabji, incidentally, was one of the composers who influenced George Flynn. We included Sorabji’s Pastiche on Habanera from "Carmen" by Bizet, brilliantly played by Nikolai Choubine. Not to worry, this one runs less than 6 minutes.

The Frenchman Jacques Ibert, born in 1890, was a very different composer altogether: optimistic, joyful, witty and often brief – everything that Sorabji was not. We have a short exerpt, Allegro con moto, from Concertino Da Camera played by the virtuoso saxophonist Ashu. To listen to the playlist, click here.

August 2, 2010

Beatrice Berrut is a young talented pianist from Switzerland. She was born in Geneva; studied in Zurich with Ester Yellin at the Heinrich Neuhaus Foundation, and then at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin, with Galina Iwanzowa. Since then Beatrice has developed an active career, playing numerous concerts throughout Europe and the US. In addition to giving solo performances, she enjoys collaborating with other musicians. Gidon Kremer, who calls her “a wonderfully talented and musical pianist,” invited her to play several concerts at his festival in Basel. She also often plays with the violinist Viviane Hagner. We’ll hear two large, technically challenging and very different works: Franz Liszt’s Après une Lecture de Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata) and Robert Schumann’s Piano Sonata, Op.11. We think you’ll enjoy them. We also have the recording of Brahms’ Klavierstücke op.118 and Rachmaninov’s Etude-Tableau op.39 no. 2. To listen to Liszt and Schumann, click here.

July 26, 2010

Arpeggione. Some music can only be performed on the instrument it was written for: think of Beethoven’s piano sonatas or Chopin’s etudes. Bach, on the other hand, loved to take a good piece and use it in very different arrangements. For example, music historians think that his famous Harpsichord Concerto I in d minor, BWV 1052 was based on a lost violin concerto. That concerto, in turn, was arranged by Bach as an organ concerto. And of course nowadays, we usually hear it performed on a modern concert piano – and, when played by someone like Glenn Gould, to an amazing effect.

Franz Schubert wrote a sonata for an arpeggione, a string instrument invented in Vienna around the 1820s. Arpeggiones went out of vogue very soon thereafter, so the sonata got arranged for a number of instruments. It is usually performed on a viola, but we have three different transcriptions: Noah Turner Rogoff plays it on a Cello, Nicholas Santangelo Schwartz – on the Double Bass (!), and Kristin Figard on the Viola. Enjoy!

July 19, 2010

Early Music. We continue our collaboration with Millennium of Music, an early music series created by Robert Aubrey Davis. We recently expanded our collection with three programs about the French-Flemish school. The period, which began in the late 15^th century and stretched through the 16^th, was one of the most productive in the history of early classical music: its notables include Josquin des Prez, Orlando di Lasso and Jacob Obrecht, to name just a few. These composers were born in what is now the Netherlands but traveled all over Europe, settling in Italy, France, and Spain, absorbing the local styles but also strongly influencing the further development of music. The period is also remarkable for its newly discovered sense of self-awareness: there was a general sentiment that these composers were of a very high order and deserved to be celebrated and preserved. Publishers, such as Ottaviano Petrucci (who is believed to have produced the first book of sheet music) and Tielman Susato, were selecting famous pieces and creating anthologies for the benefit of musicians and the listening public alike. Music from these collections is presented in three programs entitled “Music from the Lowlands.” To listen, click here.

July 12, 2010

Recent Piano uploads. The young Israeli pianist Einav Yarden has performed extensively in recitals and as a soloist with many well-known orchestras such as the Israel Philharmonic and the Minnesota Symphony, among others. She has also won a number of prizes in international competitions. Einav studied at the Peabody Conservatory with Leon Fleisher. You can hear her perform Stravinsky’s piano Sonata. The German pianist Michael Krücker studied in Rotterdam and Düsseldorf with such masters as Paul Badura-Skoda and György Sándor. Michael has an active performing career, playing in many European festivals and concert halls. We’ll hear a rarely performed Sonate mélancolique by Ignaz Moscheles. It is played on an 1844 Erard pianoforte. The pianist Sophia Agranovich is a native of Ukraine where she studied with Alexander Edelman. She then moved to the US and continued at the Juilliard with Sascha Gorodnitzki, also a former Ukrainian, being one of her teachers. We’ll hear Sophia play Liszt’s Liebestraum No.3. Our library contains many more recordings of these pianists, so please browse. To listen to the selected pieces click here.

July 5, 2010

Gustav Mahler. The great Austrian composer was born 150 years ago this week, on July 7, 1860, but his music sounds as raw and tragic today as the day it was written. Nobody ever projected naked emotions with such force. His music is vulnerable, flawed, sometimes sentimental and at the same time noble. He managed to combine the low, even vulgar, and the angelic into one enormous but coherent whole. Mahler was ahead of his time even despite never accepting atonal music. He influenced many composers of the 20^th century, from Schoenberg, Webern and Berg to (especially) Shostakovich. A Jew in anti-Semitic Vienna, he converted to Catholicism to get a position with the Vienna Court Opera but was still abused in the press. Superstitious, he was afraid of writing the 9^th symphony, trying to deceive faith by not calling Das Lied von der Erde a symphony. But he still died at the age of 50 with exactly nine completed symphonies.

We’re grateful to the Peabody Conservatory for allowing us to present two of Mahler’s symphonies: No. 3 and No. 5. Symphony No. 3 runs for approximately 103 minutes, and the version you hear on our site is probably the longest streaming performance on the Web. You can also listen to the famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony as played by the Texas Festival Orchestra.

June 28, 2010

Millennium of Music. We’re proud to present several programs from this long-running series of early music. Hosted by Robert Aubry Davis, these programs are dedicated mostly to European music of the medieval period and the Renaissance, but cover almost one thousand years of music preceding that of Bach’s. The recordings are made by some of the most interesting early music ensembles and feature great composers from all over Europe: the English, such as Thomas Tallis and William Bird; the French-Flemish (Josquin des Prez and Orlando di Lasso); the Italians (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Claudio Monteverdi), the Spanish (Tomás Luis de Victoria), the Germans (Michael Praetorius), to name just a few. At the moment we have eight programs, but in the future we will be adding many more, so please check this section often. To select a program, click here.

June 21, 2010

Performance Details pages. As our listeners know, many of the Performance Details pages contain liner notes. Very often these notes are written by those who recorded the piece, or, in case of contemporary compositions, by the composers themselves. We also add new descriptions on a regular basis, especially for the larger, historically important compositions. Here, for example, are some thoughts about Diabelli Variations, which Alfred Brendel called "the greatest of all piano works." This is a double treat: first, the pianist, Beth Levin, wrote a very detailed series of notes on each variation, and then we added the notes from Joseph DuBose.

The Variations’ place in the world of piano music may be compared to that of Bach's Goldberg Variations and Johannes Brahms' Handel Variations (some ideas about Brahms’s masterpiece could be found here). And as far as Beethoven is concerned, you may also enjoy the notes on Beethoven’s late sonatas: Hammerklavier, Op. 106, Sonata no. 30, Op. 109 and the last one, Sonata no. 32, Op. 111.

June 14, 2010

Igor Stravinsky and Edvard Grieg were born this week – the Russian in 1882 and the Norwegian in 1843. Although it’s hard to imagine two composers with more different musical sensibilities, there is a link between the two – Tchaikovsky. Stravinsky, whose father, a bass, sang in many premiers of Tchaikovsky’s operas, admired Tchaikovsky from childhood. Eventually he wrote a ballet, The Fairy's Kiss, based on the music of Tchaikovsky. Grieg, a contemporary of the great Russian, met him in 1888. Tchaikovsky heaped praise on Grieg’s music for its beauty, warmth and originality.

We’ll hear four piece: first, the husband-and-wife piano duo, Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax, will play Danse Russe and The Shrovetide Fair, from Stravinsky’s Petrushka ballet. Then, the Texas Festival String Ensemble will play a piece from Grieg’s Holberg Suite. We’ll switch back to Stravinsky and his Suite Italienne for Violin and Piano. It’s performed by Janet Sung (violin) and Robert Koenig (piano). Finally, the soprano Tina Beverly will sing the lovely Solveigs Sang. To listen, click here.

June 7, 2010

Robert Schumann is 200! One of the most influential composers of the 19th century, Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 2010 in Zwickau, Saxony. He started writing about music when he was 14, before he began composing, and he continued fusing musical and literary ideas for the rest of his creative life. Until the age of 30 he wrote exclusively for the piano (he remains one of the most important composers in the history of piano music), but later composed several wonderful song cycles, symphonies, concertos and chamber works.

We’ll first hear one of Schumann’s earliest works, Papillons, Op. 2, performed by the pianist Tanya Gabrielian. Then Dinara Nadzhafova (piano) plays Toccata in C Major. Soprano Hyunah Yu sings Widmung (she’s accompanied by Alon Goldstein). We follow with a sample of Schumann’s late work for the violin, his Fantasie in C Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 131. It is performed by Jennifer Koh (Violin) and Reiko Uchida (Piano). We finish with the great Abbey Simon playing Arabesque. To listen, click here.

May 31, 2010

Carlos Kalmar was born to Austrian parents in Uruguay in 1958. He began studying violin at the age of six. By 15 his musical development led him to the Vienna Musikhochschule, where he studied conducting with Karl Österreicher. In June 1984 he won first prize at the Hans Swarowsky Conducting Competition in Vienna.

Kalmar has been music director of the Hamburger Symphoniker (1987 to 1991), the Stuttgart Philharmonic (1991 to 1995) and the Anhaltisches Theater in Dessau, Germany (1996-2000). Since 2000, Kalmar has been the principal conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago and, since 2003, the Oregon Symphony. His symphony and opera guest conducting engagements throughout Europe and North America include return appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the National Orchestra of Spain, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Hamburg State Opera, the Detroit Symphony, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and the Zurich Opera House, among others.

Carlos Kalmar’s recordings include the 2003 release of the Joachim (listen here) and the Brahms (here) Violin Concertos featuring Rachel Barton and the Chicago Symphony, both on the Cedille Records label.

We published the interview Bruce Duffie took with Carlos Kalmar some years ago; you can listen to Maestro Kalmar conducting here.

May 24, 2010

Once again we fell behind in our attempts to commemorate great composers: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and his younger contemporary and friend Anatoly Lyadov were born on May 7 and May 10, respectively. Two French composers, Jules Massnet and Gabriel Fauré’s were born on the same day, May 12. Another Frenchman, Éric Satie, like Lyadov a master of miniatures, was born on May 17. And Richard Wagner, who wrote famously long operas, was born on May 22. These composers are so different in every respect that it would be all-but impossible to create a coherent playlist, so we’ll do just a few representative pieces. The cellist Patrick Jee plays Melodie, Op. 42, No. 3 by Tchaikovsky, followed by the pianist Nadejda Vlaeva who performs Lyadov’s Prelude in D-flat Major, Op. 57, No. 1. Then the flutist Martha Councell plays Morceau de Concours by Fauré. The soprano Patrice Michaels sings Éric Satie’s song Les fleurs. And finally, the young violinist Elizabeth Woo plays an arrangement of Wagner’s Albumblatt. To listen, click here.

May 17, 2010

An exciting young Bulgarian pianist named Anna Petrova recently played in Chicago, and we have a live recording of the event. Anna was born in Plovdiv but moved to New York in 2005 to study at the Manhattan School of Music, first with Horacio Gutiérrez and then André-Michel Schub. Anna performed as both a recitalist and orchestra soloist in her native Bulgaria, as well as Serbia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Right now she’s in Brussels, competing in the semi-final round of the prestigious 2010 Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition. We wish her luck. No matter what happens at the competition, Anna has already proven to be a very interesting musician. You can judge by yourself by listening how she plays Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau, from Book 1 and Poissons d’or, from Nook 2 of Images, and Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli. To listen click here.

May 10, 2010

Welcome to the new and improved Classical Connect! Our changes should make it easier for you to navigate the site and, hopefully, improve your overall experience. The main difference is in the way you can now browse the site – either by musical instrument, composer or performer. We trust you’ll find it more intuitive. We also introduced a Help page describing the more complicated functionality of the site. You can find a link to it on the left-hand column or here. We spelled out the benefits of joining the site, and look forward to more of you doing just that. If you have any questions, please send us a note.

These are all mostly cosmetic changes. In terms of the content, we started a partnership with the Millennium of Music, the longest running and, in our opinion, best early-music program. We’ll tell you more about it in the weeks to come; in the mean time, enjoy some of the programs that were already uploaded.

May 3, 2010

We don’t feature voice as often as we’d like, which is why we’re especially pleased to present the mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke. A graduate of the Julliard and the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Cooke has been acclaimed for her performances in opera, as a soloist with orchestra and song recitals. Her 2009-10 season includes engagements with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas’s San Francisco Symphony, and the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe.  She also sings the role of Meg in Falstaff with the Seattle Opera, and the role of Medea in Jason with Chicago Opera Theater.

We’ll hear Ms. Cooke in a contrasting set of songs. First, Hector Berlioz’s Au cimitière, from Les Nuits d'été, which will be followed by Maurice Ravel’s cycle Cinq mélodies populaires Grecques. We’ll finish with two songs from William Bolcom’s set of Cabaret Songs: Blue and Amor. To listen, click here.

April 26, 2010

Sergei Prokofiev, one of the most important composers of the 20^th century, was born this week, on April 25, 1891. By his mid-20s he was already well-known as a composer and pianists: his first piano concerto was written in 1910, the violin concerto – in 1915. Prokofiev left Russia shortly after the revolution. He spent most of his subsequent 17 years in the US and then France before returning to the Soviet Union in 1935. Despite all the difficulties (his wife was arrested as a “spy” and he was often criticized in the official press as a “formalist”), he wrote some of his best music in the late 1930s and the 40s: piano sonatas 6 through 9, which were championed by Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, a cello sonata that was first performed by the young Rostropovich, along with operas, ballets and symphonies. He died the same day as Stalin, March 5, 1953. His death wasn’t announced till three days later.

We’ll open the Prokofiev playlist with his youthful Sarcasms, Op. 17, played by the pianist Milica Jelača Jovanović. We’ll continue with Five Melodies for violin & piano, Op. 35 bis, performed by Ilya Kaler (Violin) and Eteri Andjaparidze (Piano). Following that, the pianist Vakhtang Jordania plays Sonata No. 8 in B-flat Major, Op. 84. We’ll conclude with Jeffrey Biegel soloing in the Third Piano concerto in C Major op. 26. To listen click here.

April 19, 2010.

We were playing catch up celebrating several birthdays when tragic events forced us to focus on Poland and its contribution to the world of classical music. In the mean time, yet another birthday of a great composer has passed: Sergei Rachmaninov was born on April 1, 1873. So today we’ll play some music we planned to present earlier, along with some Rachmaninov. We’ll start with Pablo Sarasate, the Spanish violinist and composer; his Playera is performed by Albert Markov. The Hungarian Béla Bartók was one of the greatest composers of the 20^th century. He was often inspired by regional folk music, both Hungarian and Romanian. We’ll hear a rather unusual performance: Michel Tirabosco is a virtuoso player on Pan Pipes. He’ll perform Six Romanian Popular Songs accompanied by the guitarist Antonio Dominguez. Some day we’ll dedicate a program to Sergei Rachmaninov. But today, as a token, we’ll play his Prelude Op. 32, No. 5, in G Major in Jeffrey Biegel’s interpretation. To listen, click here.

April 12, 2010.

A terrible tragedy befell Poland last Saturday when many leaders of the recently reborn country perished in a plane crash. We will commemorate this event with a selection of Polish music. Poland gave much to the world, and classical music is one of its gifts. From the Renaissance, through the 19^th century and such composers as Karol Szymanowski, Andrzej Panufnik, Henryk Górecki and Krzysztof Penderecki in the 20^th, Polish composers were on the forefront of European music. We’ll hear Chopin’s Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38 played by the pianist Hayk Arsenyan, and then two pieces by Karol Szymanowski: piano Etude Op. 4 no. 1, performed by Hyunjung Chung, and Mazurka no. 1, Op. 50, played by the pianist Martin Labazevitch. We’ll continue with the Allegretto movement from Krzysztof Penderecki’s Symphony No. 2. To conclude, the venerable American pianist Abbey Simon will play (and, in the manner of Glenn Gould, hum) Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in b-flat minor, Op. 35, with the famous third movement, the funeral march. To listen, click here.

April 5, 2010

March is so rich on composers’ birthdays, but we had a chance to celebrate just two – that of Chopin, who turned 200, and Bach’s also quite special 325^th anniversary. So we missed the birthdays of Maurice Ravel, Pablo Sarasate, Hugo Wolf, Telemann, two great Russians, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky, Bela Bartok, and even Franz Joseph Haydn! We’ll try to catch up this week with the following chronological program. First, the flutists Colleen Matheu performs Telemann’s Fantasia No. 2 for Unaccompanied Flute. Then the pianist Sofya Melikyan plays Andante with variations in f minor by Franz Joseph Haydn. Sonya Bach follows with the piano transcription of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. And at the end we’ll hear Amelia Trio play Ravel’s Piano Trio in a minor. We’ll have more next week, but in the mean time, please click here to listen.

March 29, 2010

The pianist Alon Goldstein, violinist Ilya Kaler and cellist Amit Peled, wonderful instrumentalists in their own right, have been playing together for a number of years. Now they call their ensemble the Tempest Trio. The Tempest has embarked on an exploration of all Beethoven trios for piano and strings. Beethoven wrote piano trios throughout most of his creative life, starting with Op. 1 and finishing with the “Archduke” in 1811. If we count trios without opus numbers, then the total comes to 12, so the Tempest, and its listeners, are set for a wonderful journey. We have three trios in our library, numbers 4, 5, and 7. Today we present Trio no 7 op. 97, “Archduke.” To listen, click here.

March 22, 2010. Bach at 325!

Johann Sebastian Bach was born three-and-a-quarter centuries ago, on March 21 1685, but the freshness and impact of his music remains as true today as the day it was written. Considered by many to be the greatest composer of all time, his compositions are performed by instrumentalists, orchestras, and singers around the world. His music is sought by concertgoers and Internet users alike: Bach, together with Mozart, is the most popular composer on the Web. We could play his music all day long, but we’ll limit our selection to just five pieces. We’ll start with David Schrader playing Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in d minor, BWV 903 on harpsichord. The pianist Elena Baksht will then play English Suite No. 2 in a minor. The cellist Inbal Segev will follow with Prelude and Gigue, from Suite Number 6, BWV 1012. Rachel Barton Pine (violin) will play Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001. We’ll conclude with David Schrader, again, in this case as the organist: he’ll play Toccata and Fugue in d minor, BWV 565. To listen, click here.

March 15, 2010

The cellist Suren Bagratuni won the Silver Medal at the 1986 International Tchaikovsky Competition while still a student at the Moscow Conservatory. Since then he has gone to a distinguished international career as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He has toured worldwide earning enthusiastic praise in both traditional and contemporary repertoire. He has performed with the many major orchestras, including the Moscow Philharmonic under the direction of Valery Gergiev, the Weimar Staatskapelle, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester and other. The Boston Globe called his performance of the Shostakovich d minor sonata “one of the best performances of the year.” Mr. Bagratuni studies at the Moscow Conservatory with such legendary cellists as Daniel Shafran and Natalia Shakhovskaya, and later at the New England Conservatory of Music with Laurence Lesser. We’ll hear Nr. Bagratuni perform two compositions, Bach’s Suite for solo cello BWV 1011 and the Shostakovich sonata mentioned above (he’s accompanied by Sergey Babayan). Please browse our library as we have many other great performances by Mr. Bagratuni. To listen, click here.

March 8, 2010.

Elena Kuschnerova is a Russian-born, German-based "pianist who grabs the imagination," according to the late New York Times critic Harold Schonberg, who also praised her Scriabin recordings. Elena studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Sergei Dorensky. She was influenced by the great and controversial Russian composer Alexander Lokshin (1920-1987), who wrote a variation cycle for her. Ms. Kuschnerova established herself in Germany in 1992. Her recitals and CDs encompass a wide range, from Bach to first performances of works composed for her. The following “virtual recital” will include: J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in c minor, from the first volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier, followed by Intermezzo No. 2 in A Major, Op. 118 by Johannes Brahms. We will then hear Scriabin’s Etude No. 12 in d-sharp minor, Op. 8 and Prokofiev’s March from the opera Love to the three oranges." We’ll conclude with Alexander Lokshin’s Prelude and Theme with Variations. It was written in 1982 and dedicated to Elena Kuschnerova. To listen, click here.

March 1, 2010. Chopin 200!

Yes, Frédéric Chopin was born on March 1 200 years ago! So, without further ado, let’s celebrate. We’ll hear pianists from many countries. Mara Dobresco of France plays the Valse in e minor, Op. Posth.; Elena Kuschnerova of Germany – the Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2; Bill-John Newbrough – the Grande Valse Brillante in E-flat Major, Op. 18; Konstantyn Travinsky of Ukraine plays Etude Op. 25, No. 12 in c minor and Valse Op. 70, No. 1 in G-flat Major; Dmitry Paperno, formerly of Russia, plays the Mazurka in A-flat Major, Op. 41, No. 4; John Ferguson – the Nocturne in c minor, Op. 48, No. 1; Spencer Myer plays the Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61; Elena Baksht, another former Russian pianist, plays the Scherzo No. 2 in b-flat minor; and Hayk Arsenyan, the pianist born in Armenia, plays the Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38. To listen, click here.

February 22, 2010

George Frideric Handel was born on February 23, 1685, 225 years ago, in the German city of Halle, Saxony. He went on to study in Italy, settling in London in 1712 and later becoming a British subject. Handel was known for his operas in his lifetime (he wrote 62 of them, most in the Italian style), which fell out of vogue soon after his death but are enjoying a revival today thanks to artists like Cecilia Bartoli. We created this playlist to commemorate Handel’s anniversary. We start with the pianist Margarita Shevchenko playing Chaconne in G Major. Following that, the baritone Raymond Feener sings the aria Arm, arm ye brave from the great oratorio Judas Maccabaeus. In conclusion, the guitarist Charles Mokotoff solos in Concerto in B-flat Major for Guitar and Strings. To listen, click here.

February 15, 2010

The young pianist Irina Klyuev was born in Nikšić, Montenegro. She started her studies in her hometown and then continued on at the University of Montenegro. Later in London, she studied with Leonid Kontorovsky and Irina Ossipova, among others. There she received the John Lill and Colin Davis scholarships, and later took classes with Jeno Jando at the Royal Academy of Music, Dublin. Irina Klyuev was among the winners of a number of international piano competitions. We’ll hear Irina play J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor, from Book 2 of Well-Tempered Clavier. She then performs Ondine, from Ravel’s Gaspar de la Nuit. We’ll conclude with two rarely performed pieces. First comes Arnold Schoenberg’s angular Piano Piece no. 3, and then a little bon-bon from the mid-19^th century French composer and pianist Charles-Valentin Alkan called Allegro Barbaro. To listen, click here.

February 8, 2010

John Ferguson is a pianist whose performances have been praised for their “proselytizing zeal” and "impressive qualities of pianistic brilliance.” He’s also a composer and a conductor. His recitals feature some of the most difficult works in keyboard literature, including Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata, Bach's Art of Fugue, and Rzewski's The People United Will Never be Defeated. Ferguson's performances have also included such rarities as Liszt's arrangements of Beethoven's symphonies, music from the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, and a wide range of contemporary music, including his own compositions. We’ll hear Franz Liszt’s Legend no. 2 "St. Francis Walking on the Waves," then Allegretto from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, arranged for the piano by Liszt. We’ll continue with Mr. Ferguson’s own composition, Duo for Piano and Vibraphone. We’ll then hear Sonata V for prepared piano by John Cage’s and will conclude with Anton Webern’s Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 10, with Mr. Ferguson conducting. To listen, click here.

February 1, 2010

Franz Schubert, the great Austrian composer, was born on January 31, 1797 in Alsergrund, which is now a part of Vienna. He lived most of his life in that city and died a short 31 years later. Still, he left us with a large body of work of supreme quality, including more than 600 Lieder, great piano sonatas and other instrumental music, and nine symphonies. We created a small playlist to celebrate Schubert’s birthday. First, you’ll hear Impromptu Op. 90 No. 3, played by the pianist Xiang Zou; then an arrangement for the violin of the song Ave Maria, played by Albert Markov. We follow with two Lieder: Der Wanderer an den Mond, sung by the baritone Thomas Meglioranza, and Im Frühling, performed by the soprano Hyunah Yu. We’ll finish with the Wanderer Fantasy, played by the pianist Alon Goldstein. To listen, click here.

January 25, 2010

Jeffrey Biegel is one of today's most respected artists, having created a multi-faceted career as a pianist, composer and arranger. His recent recordings include Leroy Anderson's 'Concerto in C,' conducted by Leonard Slatkin with the BBC Concert Orchestra and his own Vivaldi transcriptions for piano, both on the Naxos label. He also recorded the complete Sonatas by Mozart for the e1 label. Mr. Biegel is currently assembling a global commissioning project for Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's next work for piano and orchestra for the 2011-13 seasons. In 2010, Naxos will release Mr. Biegel's world premiere recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Millennium Fantasy (2000) and Peanuts Gallery. Mr. Biegel joined 18 co-commissioning orchestras for Lowell Liebermann's Concerto no. 3 for Piano and Orchestra, composed exclusively for him for the 2006-07-08 seasons.

We have a large selection of Mr. Biegels’s recordings, but today we’re presenting just one piece, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in d minor. To listen, click here.

January 18, 2010

Gary Noland’s music has received very high praise from some of this era’s leading musicians. He was born in Seattle in 1957 and raised in Berkeley, next to the famous People’s Park. As an adolescent, Gary lived for a time in Salzburg and Garmisch-Partenkirchen (home of Richard Strauss), where he absorbed many musical influences. He studied music at U.C. Berkeley, then at the Boston Conservatory, and finally Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D. Gary confesses to having “very restless tonal ears” and feels closest to composers with “all-encompassing” harmonic palettes, such as Strauss, Mahler, Korngold, Hugo Wolf, Ernst von Dohnanyi, David del Tredici, Frederic Rzewski and György Ligeti, to name just a few. He’s not terribly fond of “harmonically limited” music... We create a playlist consisting of the following works: Fantasy in E Minor for cello & piano (Op. 24), Humoresque for piano (Op. 3), Romance for viola & piano (Op. 10), Grande Rag Brillante (Op. 15), and Septet for clarinet, alto sax, French horn, two violins, double bass, and piano (Op. 43). To listen, click here.

January 11, 2010

The pianist Beth Levin is an acclaimed recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician and recording artist. Her repertory is broad, from Bach's Goldberg Variations to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, to the romantics such as Schubert and Chopin. You can listen to the Diabelli in our library, but today we decided to present a selection from the recently uploaded complete set of 24 piano Preludes Op. 28 by Frédéric Chopin. Here are eight of them: no. 4 in e minor; no.7 in A major, no. 8 in f-sharp minor, no. 11 in B major, no. 12 in g-sharp minor, no. 13 in F-sharp major, no. 15 in D-flat major ("Raindrop Prelude"), and no. 19 in E-flat major. To listen, click here.

January 4, 2010

This week is especially rich in birthdays. Five talented composers were born between January 3 and January 9: Giovanni Pergolesi, Nikolai Medtner, Max Bruch, Alexander Scriabin and Francis Poulenc. We could play the music of these composers for many hours, but we have to be reasonable. So here is this week's playlist: we'll start with Medtner's Canzona serenata, from Forgotten Motives Op. 38, played by the Russian pianist Dmitry Paperno. Medtner is not particularly popular these days, but together with Scriabin and Rachmaninov, he was one of the most important Russian composers of the early 20th century. Then we'll hear two etudes by Scriabin: Etude in c-sharp minor, Op. 2, No. 1, played by the pianist Soyeon Lee; and Etude in c-sharp minor, Op. 42 No. 5, in Daniil Trifonov's interpretation. After these three Romantic pieces, we'll hear a very different performance: Poulenc's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano played by Alexander Fiterstein. To listen, click here.

December 28, 2009. From recent uploads.

The New York-based pianist and composer Jeffrey Biegel uploaded a number of performances, including three piano concertos: the Tchaikovsky First, Rachmaninov Third, and Prokofiev Third. Just as a sample, we included Franz Liszt's Sonetto del Petrarca no. 104 in E Major in the playlist. There's much more in the library, so please browse. The pianist Beth Levin uploaded a major piece: Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, his last large-scale piano composition. (Don't miss Ms. Levin's very interesting liner notes to the Diabelli, which are on the Details page). Lasting about 60 minutes, the Diabelli requires a separate hearing, but Ms. Levin also uploaded an encore, Mozart's Fantasy no. 3 in d minor, which we also included in the playlist. And to conclude, from a recent concert by the flutist Jessica Warren-Acosta, Henri Dutilleux's Sonatine. To listen, click here.

December 21, 2009. Season's greetings!

We wish all our listeners and all the talented musicians who contribute their music to our site a joyous holiday season! In this spirit, we present three pieces. First, The National_Collegiate_Chorale_of_Scotland sings O Magnum Mysterium by the American composer Morten Lauridsen. Then the pianist Minju Choi plays Regard de première communion de la Vierge, from Vingt Regard sur l'Enfant Jésus by Olivier Messiaen. And we'll finish with the wonderful kids of Brighton School Chamber Choir singing Benjamin Britten's Wolcum Yule. Happy Holidays – and click here to listen!

December 14, 2009

This week the whole music world commemorates Ludwig van Beethoven's birthday. Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany, on December 17, 1770, so traditionally his birthday is celebrated on December 16. It is our pleasure to join these celebrations. We'll begin with the Piano Sonata No. 21 ("Waldstein"), played by Michael Mizrahi. Then Christina Castelli and Grant Moffett perform Sonata No. 9 ("Kreutzer") for piano and violin. Following that, Atlantic Piano Trio plays Trio Op. 11 for piano, violin and cello. We conclude with the finale (Allegro) of Symphony No. 5, with Pascal Verrot leading The Texas Festival Orchestra. These are just a few of our selections; we have much more Beethoven music in our library. To listen, click here.

December 7, 2009. From recent uploads

This week we feature three performances that were recently added to our library. First we'll hear Maurice Ravel's Tzigane. It is performed by the violinist Dmitri Berlinsky, who is accompanied by the pianist Elena Baksht. Then the flutist Kristin Paxinos plays Sonatine by the French composer Pierre Sancan. Sancan died just a year ago but the style of this piece, written in 1946, harkens back to Ravel's time. And lastly, Irina Kotlyar - Gregory Shifrin Piano Duo plays Schubert's masterpiece, his Fantasia in F Minor, D. 940. To listen, click here.

November 30, 2009. Four Ballades

In the music world, the word Ballade usually brings either Chopin or Brahms to mind. Both of them wrote magnificent pieces for piano under that title (we'll hear two of them), but of course many other composers wrote ballades as well. We'll hear one of Eugène Ysaÿe's Sonatas for solo violin, which he called "Ballade," and also a piece by the Swiss composer Frank Martin by the same name, this one written for flute. So, first we'll hear Hayk Arsenyan playing Choipin's Ballade No. 2 in F Major, then the young French violinist Fanny Clamagirand in the Ysaÿe. The fultist Katherine DeJongh will follow with the Frank (she's accompanied by Yoko Yamada-Selvaggio). We'll finish with Sevgi Giles playing Brahms' Ballade No. 2 in D Major, Op.10. To listen, click here.

November 23, 2009. Thanksgiving

This week, we celebrate this most American of holidays with a selection of American compositions. We'll begin with the Fugue from Samuel Barber's Sonata Op. 26 (1949). It's played by Tania Stavreva. We'll then go back in time about 50 years to listen to Amy Beach's Romance for Violin and Piano. It's performed by Rachel Barton Pine, with Matthew Hagle on the piano. Next comes Aaron Copland and his wistful Duo for Flute and Piano, played by the flutist Martha Councell and Richard Steinbach. William Bolcom's Graceful Ghost Rag (Christina Castelli violin, Grant Moffett piano) will follow. We conclude with Elliott Carter, whose career spanned almost 80 years and coincided with some of the most creative periods of American classical music. His Caténaires is superbly played by Ursula Oppens. To listen, click here.

November 16, 2009. Classical Sonatas

These three sonatas were composed in the span of a quarter century. Haydn’s Sonata in E Major is the oldest; it was composed in 1776 while Haydn was comfortably employed by Nikolaus Esterházy. Mozart’s Sonata in D Major (No.18) comes from 1789; as it turned out, it was the last piano sonata he ever composed. We conclude with Beethoven’s sonata No. 13 (Quasi una fantasia). It was composed in 1800, in the middle of a very active period, when Beethoven started experimenting with other musical forms and composing quartets and symphonies for the first time.

The Haydn is played by Chu-Fang Huang, a young Chinese pianist. She studied at the Curtis and the Juillard, and is the First Prize winner of the 2005 Cleveland International Piano Competition. Michael Tsalka plays the Mozart. He was born in Israel and graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music. A prolific recitalist, he also co-founded the Marzec-Tsalka Piano Duo. The Beethoven is performed by Mauro Bertoli, who graduated from the Giuseppe Verdi Academy of Music in Milan. He maintains an active career, performing recitals and playing with orchestras in Italy and other countries. To listen to the sonatas, please click here.

November 9, 2009

As Eric Henderson writes himself, when he was 13, his teacher took him to attend a concert by the great Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia. His teacher also arranged a private meeting with Eric and the maestro. Upon hearing him play, Segovia invited Eric to come study with him in Spain. Eric became only the third person ever invited to study privately with Segovia. We'll hear Eric Henderson playing several pieces, including one of his own compositions. We'll start with the Bach-influenced Etude No. 1 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Then we'll hear another small etude, by Fernando Sor (No. 9). Then comes Henderson's own Prelude No. 3 ("Homage"). We finish with Moreno Torroba's wonderful Sonatina. To listen, click here.

November 2, 2009. Recent uploads

Peter Schickele is best known as the creative force behind P.D.Q. Bach, "the oddest of the twenty odd children" of J.S. Bach. Schickele is also recognized as a serious composer in his own right. The Orion Ensemble recently uploaded a performance of Schickele’s Serenade for Three. Note that the third movement contains variations on a theme by P.D.Q. Bach's Oedipus Tex, "opera/oratorio in one cathartic act."

We continue with a much darker piece, Augusta Read Thomas' Angel Musings. It was commissioned by the Orion Ensemble in 1998. This composition consists of two movements, "Nightfall" and "Daybreak." To listen, please click here.

October 26, 2009

This week we’re celebrating the birthday of the great Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti, who was born on October 26, 1685. 1685 was a good year: Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handle were also born that year. Scarlatti wrote 555 sonatas, only a small part of which were published during his lifetime. Vladimir Horowitz and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli were wonderful (and very different) interpreters. Most of Scarlatti’s sonatas were written for harpsichord. We’ll hear four of them played on the modern piano (by the Italian pianist Mauro Bertoli, the American pianist and composer Heather Schmidt, the young Chinese pianist Jie Chen, and Mauro Bertoli again), and then on fortepiano by David Schrader. To listen, please click here.

We would be amiss not to mention Niccolò Paganini, who was also born this week in 1782. Listen here as Albert Markov plays Moses, Variations on One String. Exquisite.

October 19, 2009. Choral works

This week we present a rather unusual selection of choral works. We start with an excerpt from Rachmaninov’s The Vespers: Bogoroditse Devo (Ave Maria), sung by the National Collegiate Chorale of Scotland. We continue our Russian theme with Ya Raduyus, the setting of Psalm 114 by our contemporary and Oregon native, Tim Pack. We’ll finish with the three pieces from Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols: Procession, Bulalalow, and Recession. They are sung by the delightful Brighton School Chamber Choir from Adelaide, Australia under the direction of Michael Griffin. The soprano in Balulalow is Heather Muggridge. To listen, click here.

October 12, 2009. Three Trios.

We haven’t featured a trio in a long time, so we decided to present three of them. The Flatiron Trio named themselves after the architectural landmark of their neighborhood in New York City. It’s a truly international ensemble: an Israeli (Nurit Pacht, violin), a Canadian (Jeremy Findlay, cello) and a Russian (Elena Braslavsky, piano), happily making music in New York. We’ll hear them perform Shostakovich’s Trio No. 1, written when the composer was just 17.

The Brooklyn-based Janus Trio is quite unusual: it brings together a flute (Amanda Baker), viola (Beth Meyers) and a harp (Nuiko Wadden). They like to perform modern music, so Debussy (whose Sonata for flute, viola and harp we’ll hear) is almost as far back as they’ll go.

The Lincoln Trio (Desirée Ruhstrat, violin, David Cunliffe, cello and Marta Aznavoorian, piano) is one of Chicago’s most celebrated chamber ensembles.  We’ll hear them play Astor Piazzolla’s Otoño Porteño (Autumn), from The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. To listen, click here.

October 5, 2009

Camille Saint-Saëns, who was born on October 9, 1935, wrote a lot of rather forgettable music. But he will be remembered for his masterpieces, such as The Carnival of the Animals, the Organ Symphony, and, of course, the Introduction and Rondo Cappricioso. That’s how we’ll begin our playlist, which we created to celebrate the birthday of this wonderful French composer and organist: the Introduction and Rondo Cappricioso is played by Lindsay Deutsch and accompanied by Kuang-Hao Huang. The Havanaise, arranged for flute and played by Kristin Paxinos (with Shelley Trissel at the piano), follows. The famous Swan is then heard in a very unusual arrangement for the saxophone; it’s beautifully played by Otis Murphy. We conclude with the Piano Concerto No. 2, performed by the pianist James Dick with the Texas Festival Orchestra (Pascal Verrot, conductor). To listen, click here.

September 28, 2009

It so happened that we haven’t featured the voice in quite some time. We’d like to make up for this by presenting the soprano Tina Beverly. Ms. Beverly has an agile voice and superb musicality. In this selection, she sings arias from Bach’s Cantata No. 205 and Mozart’s opera Il re pastore. She then brings us two songs by Edvard Grieg: Solveig’s song and With a water-lily. Debussy’s Claire de lune, from Quatre chansons de jeunesse, follows. The last piece in this selection is Glitter and be Gay, from Leonard Bernstien’s opera Candid. William Billingham is the pianist; the violin part in the Bach and the Mozart is performed by Alison Zlotow. To listen, click here.

September 21, 2009

This week 103 years ago Dmitry Shostakovich, a great composer and a tragic figure in the world of classical music, was born. We’ll mark this event with the following selection. First, we’ll hear the Piano Quintet in g minor, opus 57 played by the pianist James Dick and the Eusia String Quartet. To change the mood, we’ll follow with The Pursuit, from the film score to the 1941 movie, The Adventures of Korzinkina (Shostakovich wrote many film scores in his life, both to earn money and to prove that he can write “music for the masses”). This little piece is performed by DUO, a collaboration of the pianists Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia. We’ll conclude with the Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 99 in an old (1969) but wonderful performance by Albert Markov and the Moscow State Orchestra under the baton of Yuri Aranovich. To listen, please click here.

September 14, 2009

Monica Lee started playing the piano at the age of four. She went on to study at the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Saint Louis Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. She has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Japan, Russia, Canada, and throughout the United States. Monica currently resides in San Francisco, where she maintains a full studio.

We present what could’ve been a delightful recital: Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.9 in D Major, Sonetto 104 del Petrarca by Liszt, two Preludes by Sergei Rachmaninov (Op.23, No.6 and Op.32, No.10), and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 6. To listen, click here.

September 7, 2009

This week we celebrate the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, who was born in a small town near Prague on September 8, 1841. We start with Humoresque, played here in a transcription for viola and guitar with Brett Deubner, the violist. Next is the Piano Quintet played by Quintessence. Then Jonita Lattimore sings the American-inspired Lord, A New Song I would Fashion. She’s accompanied by Eric Weimer. We conclude with the String Quartet in E-flat Major, performed by the Pacifica Quartet and Michael Tree. To listen to the playlist, click here. And please don’t forget to sign in to listen to the complete performances.

August 31, 2009

New features. We’d like to let you know about improvements we recently made to the site. First of all, the Compare function. In the past, you didn’t immediately know if there was another recording that could be compared to the one being played. Now you can see this right away: if the Compare button is grayed-out, there are no other recordings, if it’s orange-yellow, there is it least one more. Read about it here.

In conjunction with Compare, we have also created a list of Multiple Performances. More details could be found here.

We have further created a list of all Composers. Read about it here.

And lastly, you can now share the music with everybody; just click the Share button on the player! We write more about it here.

August 24, 2009

We have uploaded a number of highlights from the 2006 – 2008 seasons of the International Festival-Institute at Round Top. The Festival joins talented young musicians from across the world with a distinguished faculty for the summer months. They participate in master classes and perform. Here are several orchestral pieces by the Texas Festival Orchestra, with young musicians working under the direction of such conductors as Grant Llewellyn (Wales), Pascal Verrot (France), and Christopher Campestrini (Austria). You can listen to Mozart (from Serenade No. 9), Bruckner (Scherzo from the 6th Symphony), Mussorgsky (finale of the Pictures), and the great Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth here. The easiest way to find more of their performances is by entering “Texas” in the Search window.

August 17, 2009

This week we celebrate the great French composer Claude Debussy, who was born on August 22 of 1862. Scouring the 60-odd Debussy recordings in our library, we created a playlist that aims to demonstrate the many facets of the composer’s genius. We start with the pianist Jorge Federico Osorio playing Bruyères, from Préludes Book II. Then Michael Mizrahi plays Evening in Grenada, from Estampes. We follow with the flutist Nina Assimakopoulos playing Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Then Shana Douglas plays the great violin sonata; soprano Tina Beverly sings Apparition from Quatre chansons de jenuesse, and Cypress Quartet performs String Quartet in g minor. We finish off with the pianist Gabriel Escudero playing Reflets dans l’eau, from Images. To listen, please click here.

August 10, 2009

In the more than 20 entries we’ve made so far, we somehow failed to feature the guitar. We’ll correct this omission by presenting two wonderful guitarists, Ana Vidovic and Manuel Esteban. Ms. Vidovic was born in Croatia in 1980 and has already established herself as one of the youngest guitar virtuosos in the world. She performs internationally and has won a number of competitions. To listen to Ms. Vidovic play Albéniz (Asturias), Tárrega (Recuerdos de la Alhambra) and Sonatina Meridional by Ponce, click here.

The repertory of the Spanish guitarist Manuel Esteban is very broad, from the Renaissance to the music of the 20^th century. He also actively collaborates with other musicians and has formed several ensembles. In this selection Mr. Esteban plays two Pasacalles, one by the 17^th century German composer Esaias Reusner and by the Bach’s contemporary Silvius Leopold Weiss. He also plays Fernando Sor’s Etude. To listen to Mr. Esteban, please click here.

August 3, 2009

Double the pleasure! Our library has many pieces of music that are performed more than once. We think this is wonderful: we can compare performances and gain insights into different interpretations as well as the compositions themselves. This what the Compare button on the Player is for.

Today we present Debussy’s Ondine, from Préludes Book 2, played by the pianists Junghwa Lee and Maya Hartman (to listen, click here).

You could then listen to the violinists Amaury Coeytaux (accompanied by Young Kyung Hyun) and Lindsay Deutsch (then just 19 and accompanied by Kuang-Hao Huang) play Brahms’ Scherzo for Violin and Piano in c minor. The Brahms can be heard here. Shortly, we’ll publish a list of multiple performances that you can browse, comparing compositions of interest to you.

July 27, 2009

Maurice Ravel’s own transcription of the orchestral “choreographic poem” La Valse seems to be very popular with pianists these days. We have six different interpretations (which you can compare using the Compare button in the Player). One of them is played by Soyeon Lee. Ms. Lee was born in Korea but eventually went on to study at the Julliard with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald. She has won several piano competitions and performs widely. The New York Times calls her a pianist with "a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style." Another reviewer finds that “her playing has delicacy and poetry but is capable of power and crisp articulation.” In our playlist, La Valse is preceded by two pieces by Scriabin and a Mozart sonata. To listen to Ms. Lee, please click here

July 20, 2009

Two hands, four hands… Recently we uploaded a concert by Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax, who played several pieces for piano four hands. Ms. Chung and Mr. Bax are wonderful pianists in their own right; they have both performed with leading orchestras in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls. We’re fortunate to have a few of their individual recordings. So now we have them playing separately and together: Ms. Chung plays two Preludes by Scriabin and two Intermezzos by Brahms; Mr. Bax plays three Preludes by Rachmaninov; and then Ms. Chung and Mr. Bax pair up to play Schubert’s Fantasy in f minor. Click here to listen.

July 13, 2009

Contemporary classical music is flourishing, despite all media assertions to the contrary. We’d like to prove it by presenting several piano pieces written by five contemporary composers in the span of the last 25 years. We start with the rigorous American Nocturne I, from Pieces of Night, written by George Flynn in 1989 (it’s performed by the composer). The next, and very different, piece is Gary Noland’s playful Bead-Eyed Bellygods, from the 24 Postludes for piano, also played by the composer himself. Following that is Heinz Chur’s “new tonal” Sonata no. 6 (1984), played by Noriko Kitano. Next comes Leanna Primiani’s Variations for Piano Solo (2004), a pointillist theme followed by 19 variations and a coda (Yevgeniy Milyavskiy is playing the piece). We conclude with Joseph Hallman’s Untitled for piano (2003) (an unusual piece – Joe writes mostly instrumental music). It’s played by Cicilia Yuhda.

We hope you’ll appreciate the talent of the composers (each of whom deserves a separate profile), and the tremendous variety of the presented music as much as we did. To listen, click here.

July 6, 2009

American cellist Ken Olsen, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as Assistant Principal Cello in 2005. Fortunately, Mr. Olsen also maintains a concert schedule that gives us access to the solo performances of this talented musician. Here are three pieces recorded live: a very lyrical rendition of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, Debussy’s Cello Sonata and Chopin’s Polonaise Brillante. To listen to Mr. Olsen play, click here.

June 29, 2009

We present two piano sonatas by Sergei Prokofiev. One, no. 3, was written in 1907, when Prokofiev was just 16 years old and on the verge of worldwide fame. The other, his last one, no. 9, was created 40 years and political eons later, in 1947-48. At that time, Prokofiev was sick and under a barrage of criticism from the official Soviet press. It is one of the most reflective pieces written by the composer.

Both performances were made live. The young American pianist Jeffrey Brown gives a lyrical interpretation of sonata no.3. Sonata no. 9 is played by George Vatchnadze. Mr. Vatchnadze has appeared with orchestras and in recital throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and many other countries. In 1999, Mr. Vatchnadze made his New York recital debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Critic Faubion Bowers wrote in the American Record Guide: “Vatchnadze is a consummate artist, now at the height of his musical and intellectual powers. He can do absolutely anything he wants at the piano. He commands delicate pianissimi, massive diapasons and everything in between.” Mr. Vatchnadze is currently a piano professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.

You can listen to the sonatas here

June 22, 2009

"The souvenir of a concert performance fades away like a transient drawing in the sand. By recording my music, I try to maintain the illusion of duration," says the Viennese-born, French-based composer and violinist Robert Waechter. He learned to play the violin by the age of 8, becoming concertmaster of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra in 1980. Concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Nice/Opera de Nice since 1984, he also plays in the contemporary music ensemble "Apostrophe." His most recent recording is Goedde Concerto, a collaboration between the composer and photographer Steve Goedde. His earlier recordings include Fragments, Stillness, and Broken Guru. Mr. Waechter's influences include Fritz Kreisler, Palestrina, and Steve Reich. We present six of his compositions (you can find more on the site). You can listen to them here.

June 15, 2009

We don't have that much 16^th or early 17^th century music, but here's some, courtesy of Réjean Poirier. Mr. Poirier is an award-wining organist, harpsichordist, teacher, composer and scholar. A man of wide interests, he designed harpsichords, researched the use of graphic symbols in composition as a substitute for traditional notation, and participated in the founding of several performance groups and studios. Dean of the Faculty of Music of the Université de Montréal from 1998 to 2006, Mr. Poirier teaches harpsichord and organ and continues an international career on both instruments.

In this selection, Mr. Poirier plays an organ piece by the 16th century Dutch composer Sweelinck, two compositions by the French Baroque composer Nicolas Lebegue, and several harpsichord pieces: three by the early Baroque Italian, Giovanni Picchi, and the late-16^th – early-17^th century Englishmen John Bull and William Byrd. Don't miss the fascinating notes Poirier wrote to several of the compositions, especially Bull and Byrd.

June 8, 2009

"Dmitri Berlinsky's concert revealed an exceptional musician… polished and thoughtful, he is a violinist fully in control of his instrument and the music," wrote The Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Berlinsky arrived on the international scene as the youngest winner in the history of the Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy. Subsequent triumphs at the Montreal International Violin Competition (Grand Prize), the International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, led to appearances with major orchestras in Europe, Russia, the Far East, North and South America.

Mr. Berlinsky has performed in major venues such as Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls in New York, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, among others.

This season, he performs with Russian National Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony, Orchestra de Chambre Français in New York, Russian Chamber Philharmonic. He gives recitals in the United States, Korea, Italy, Mexico, and Russia.

The playlist of Mr. Berlinky's performance contains violin concertos by Bruch and Glazunov, Prokofiev's sonata No.2, Tchaikovsky's Scherzo and a sonata by Ysaÿe. You may listen to it here.

June 1, 2009

Has there ever been a more a more profound piece of music than the Hammerklavier sonata? This, of course, is a rhetorical question: we cannot describe music or even categorize it – esthetical and philosophic concepts prove inadequate, even when applied by great writers such as Thomas Mann. Here's Eteri Andjaparidze's interpretation of Beethoven's Sonata number 29, op.106.

May 25, 2009

James Dick is a brilliant concert pianist. He's also the founder of the International Festival-Institute at Round Top. Now in its 39^th year, the Festival-Institute is a summer program for talented young musicians from all over the world. They study, perform and participated in master classes, forums and musical events. The faculty, which includes James Dick, consists of star-quality musicians. We have a number of recordings made by James Dick for the Festival's label, Round Top Records. Listen here to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 (the "Emperor"), recorded in July of 2000. Stefan Sanderling (son of Kurt Sanderling) conducts the Texas Festival Orchestra.

May 18, 2009

When we heard the Cypress String Quartet performance of the second movement of Debussy's quartet, our first thought was: but why just the second movement? Fortunately, it turned out that the rest of the quartet was recorded as well, and now you can enjoy the complete performance. The Cypress String Quartet is a young ensemble from California (they are in residence at San Jose State University). In addition to playing the traditional repertory of Haydn, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, they have commissioned and premiered over 25 works of America's leading composers. In the words of Cypress, they've "created a dialogue between the old masters and living composers." As an encore, you can hear the bravura performance of the finale of Haydn's Quartet Op. 76 No.5. To listen to Cypress, click here.

May 11, 2009

Something old, something new: Thomas Bergeron plays trumpet. We start with a very classical piece: the 2^nd Movement of Haydn's Trumpet concerto. Then you'll hear something new indeed: the recording of the premiere performances of Jay Wadley's "Upon Awakening, Still Burning." Wadley is 26, recently out of Yale. The style of "Upon Awakening" borrows both from minimalism and jazz improvisations, but on the whole, delivers an original and interesting composition. The last piece on the playlist is Villa-Lobos's Aria from Bachianas Brasilieras. To listen, click here.

May 4, 2009

The pianist Alon Goldstein is a sensitive and highly intelligent musician. His technique is impeccable, but much more important is his warmth and ability to communicate. He has had an active career as a soloist but also enjoys collaborating with other musicians, such as the violinist Ilya Kaler, cellist Amit Peled and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein (we have samples of their work in our library). Alon Goldstein has a broad repertory, which is reflected in the playlist presented here. This is just a sample of what we have: for example, we included one Schumann song (Der Nussbaum) but you might enjoy more of Schumann and Schubert sung by a wonderful soprano Hyunah Yu and accompanied by Mr. Goldstein.

April 27, 2009

In the hands of a real musician, the viola has the most beautiful sound. The only reason we don’t hear it more often as a solo instrument is a somewhat limited repertory. This week we present two violists, Brett Deubner and Eric Nowlin. Both have performed extensively in the US and abroad, both are technically brilliant and have a wonderful sound. Brett Deubner performs several smaller pieces and, as befits a champion of modern music, the finale of the viola concerto by Frank Lewin. Eric Nowlin plays Franck’s violin sonata transcribed for viola. Listen to these viola selections here and please browse the site: we have much more in our library.

April 20, 2009

Young Israeli cellist Amit Peled is hailed as one of the most exciting young artists on the concert stage today. He has an expressive, beautiful sound that he uses with great skill: his Bach is as interesting to listen to as his Rachmaninov. We have a broad selection of Amit’s work, some of it in collaboration with the violinist Ilya Kaler and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein (we included one such piece in the playlist). Listen to our selection here, but please search the site for his other work: we think you’ll enjoy it.

April 13, 2009

We have a special treat this week in memory of the great Georgian singer, Zurab Andjaparidze, who was the leading tenor of the Bolshoi Opera in the 1960s. He was not as widely known in the West, but opera lovers around the world consider him one of the most important artists in the history of opera. Dubbed the "Soviet Franco Corelli" by the Italian press, his vast repertory encompassed the Russian classics (he was hailed as one of the best Hermanns), Italian operas (from Radames to Otello), and Georgian national operas. You may read more about this wonderful singer here. You can listen to some samples of Zurab Andjaparidze’s rare recordings here. There are many more recordings in our library, so go ahead and enjoy the art and voice of Zurab Andjaparidze.

April 6, 2009

This week, we would like to showcase the exceptional talents of violinist Rachel Barton Pine – and also highlight the unique benefits of listening to classical music on the Internet. Click here and listen to Barton Pine play Brahms' Violin Concerto – not just one, but two versions of it! The first one, with the more traditional Joachim cadenza at the end of the first movement, and the second – Rachel's own. The cadenza starts 19 minutes 11 seconds into the performance. You can set the player at exactly that point to compare, or listen to the whole concerto from start to finish. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Carlos Kalmar partner with Rachel in this wonderful performance, which was provided to us by Cedille Records.

Site Update: E-mail music to your friends!

You may have noticed that we have added the Play button to the performance Details page (that's the one that shows up when you click on the Details button on the Player or the title of the piece when search/browse results are displayed). You may not need to use this button if you’re already browsing the site. However, if you send the URL of this page to your friends by e-mail, it should help them listen to the performance. All they would need to do is either click on the link or paste the URL into their browser and click on Play. This will activate the Player and start the music you sent them. Try it!

March 30, 2009

Tim Pack is a composer and pianist from Oregon. He’s also a scholar in Renaissance music (his motet, Amicus Fidelis, shows some influence of this on his own music). Tim has uploaded a number of his compositions and provided interesting notes. You can listen to Tim Pack’s music here.

March 20, 2009

This week we feature the Atrium Quartet, a young ensemble originally from Saint Petersburg, Russia. The quartet was founded in 2000 but now resides in Berlin. They recently visited Chicago and played Prokofiev's String Quartet No. 2 and Schubert’s Quartettsatz. We think the freshness, precision and vigor of their playing makes them one of the more interesting new quartets around. To listen to Atrium now, please click here.

March 13, 2009

Baritone Thomas Meglioranza has a voice big enough to fill an opera house, but he's equally at ease in a chamber setting. His rendition of Schubert's songs is intelligent, his diction clear. We would like you to sample some of them. We especially like the elegance of An die Laute and the warmth of Das Lied im Grünen. This selection was recorded in Concert in Chicago in October of 2004. Thomas is accompanied by a very sensitive Reiko Uchida. Click here to listen now.

March 8, 2009

This week we feature the wonderful artistry of Albert Markov, a Russian-American violinist, composer and conductor. He was born in the Soviet Union and studied in Moscow with Y. Yankelevich (violin) and A. Khachaturian and H. Litinsky (composition). After making several successful appearances in international violin competitions, including the Queen Elizabeth in Brussels (Gold medal), Markov performed with major symphony orchestras and the world's leading conductors. He is the only concert violinist of the 20th century to have written major compositions, including a Concerto, a Symphony, an Opera and several Sonatas, most of which where published and recorded commercially. Mr. Markov teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and the Long Island Conservatory. His students include his son Alexander Markov and other distinguished violinists. You can read Mr. Markov’s complete biography here. We have created two playlists: one with a selection of performances by Mr. Markov, and another featuring some of his compositions. You can click on the Playlists button on the left-hand side and select the appropriate playlist, or you could listen to Mr. Markov now, either as a soloist or as a composer.

Site Update: New Feature

Did you know that you have a choice of selecting the type of music that plays when you enter the site? If you prefer a specific musical instrument, you could either select the most popular performances, or allow the system to pick the selection for that particular instrument. We call these lists "Top" and "Serendipity." Piano music lovers, for example, could either make the "Top Piano" or "Piano: Serendipity" playlists as their starting point. If you don't have a preferred instrument, you could still select the option of playing the most popular performances among all the musical categories. Or, you could simply have the system make the choice for you. Just go to Personal -> Preferences in the upper-right corner of the page and select the appropriate playlist.