johnjpuccio

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Review of Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 8 "Unfinished" and 9 "The Great," with Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations

The year 2022 must have been the year of Schubert, with at least three major sets of the composer’s Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 appearing, one from Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhaus Orchestra (DG), another from Rene Jacobs and the B’Rock Orchestra (Pentatone), and this newest and best one of all from Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations (AliaVox). Such extraordinary attention couldn’t happen to a nicer composer.

To read the full review, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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JJP's Favorite Classical Recordings of 2022

You may remember that I don’t do “best-of” lists. “Best” suggests that I’ve sampled everything available, and even though I review a lot of music every year, I have not heard but a fraction of what’s out there. So I prefer to do a simple “favorites” list. Here are a few of the discs (listed alphabetically, to be fair) I heard in 2022 that I enjoyed for their performance and sound.

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John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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KWN’s Favorite Releases of 2022

As we reach the end of another year (how did that happen?) it is our custom to offer a list of some of our favorite recordings from among those we have reviewed over the past year. In roughly chronological order, here are some that I especially enjoyed.

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Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor

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Review of "Steven Mackey: Beautiful Passing." Anthony Marwood, violin; David Roberston, Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Canary Classics CC22.

What we have here is something of an international mix, which is certainly not uncommon in the world of classical music. The composer, Steven Mackey (b.1956), was born in Germany to American parents and raised in California. According to Wikipedia, not only is he a composer and a professor of music at Princeton, he is an accomplished electric guitarist who has performed on that instrument along with the Kronos and Arditti Quartets as well as the New World and Dutch Radio Symphonies. The violin soloist, Anthony Marwood MBE (b. 1965) was born in London and has made more than 50 commercial CD recordings. Adding to the international mix is of course the Australian orchestra, led by American conductor David Robertson

To read the full review, click here:

Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor

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Recent Releases, No. 40

Debussy: Early and Late Piano Pieces

Debussy: Danse Bohémienne, L4; Mazurka, L75; Deux Arabesques, L74 I. Andantino, II. Allegretto Scherzando; Rêverie, L76; Valse Romantique, L79; Ballade Slave 'Ballade', L78; Suite Bergamasque, L82 I. Prélude, II. Menuet, Iii. Clair de Lune, IV. Passepied; Tarantelle Styrienne 'Danse', L77; Nocturne, L89; Images 'Images Oubliées', L94 I. Lent: Mélancolique Et Doux, II. Sarabande, III. Quelques Aspects de 'Nous N'irons Plus Au Bois' Parce Qu'il Fait Un Temps Insupportable; Pièce Pour Piano 'Morceau de Concours', L117; Hommage À Haydn, L123; Debussy: The Little Nigar 'Cake-Walk', L122; Pièce Pour L'uvre Du Vêtement Du Blessé 'Page D'album', L141; Élégie, L146; Les Soirs Illuminés Par L'ardeur Du Charbon, L150. Steven Osborne, piano. Hyperion CDA68390

To read the full review, click here:

Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor

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Review of Chamber Works by Alberto Hemsi on a Chandos CD

Alberto Hemsi (1898-1975) is a composer whose name is doubtless unfamiliar to the vast majority of music lovers; indeed, all of the works on this CD are being given their premier recording. According to the liner notes, “for the greater part of his life, Hemsi lived and composed outside the European mainstream, and researchers and musicians were either unaware of his legacy or unable to access it. This changed in 2004, when the composer’s widow, Miryam Capelluto Hemsi, donated Hemsi’s entire archive to the European Institute of Jewish Music in Paris.” Hemsi was born in what is now Turkey to Sephardic Jewish parents who had recently moved there from Italy. He began to learn music at an early age, then as a teen was sent to live with an uncle in Smyrna, where he studied cantorial music and learned to play flute, clarinet, trombone, and piano. He played in a large wind band run by an Israelite Music Society, the organization which paid his expenses so that he could enroll at the prestigious Verdi Conservatory in Milan, Italy. He then became an Italian citizen, was conscripted into the Italian army, rose to the rank of captain, won medals for bravery, suffering a shrapnel wound to his right arm that diminished his ability to play the piano, and then returned to Milan to complete his musical studies.

To read the full review, click here:

Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor

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Review of "Charles Roland Berry: Orchestral Music, Volume One" on a Toccata Classics CD

Charles Roland Berry has one of those names you figure you must know, sort of like Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Randolph Hearst, or Charles Foster Kane. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had never really heard of the man or his music.

So, before I listened, I looked him up. Charles Roland Berry is an American composer born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1957. He studied musical composition and history at the University of California where he learned, among other things, the details of serialism and the discipline necessary to exercise his musical imagination. The study paid off, and since then he has written five symphonies and numerous concertos, overtures, divertimentos, and chamber pieces. The present recording seems a good introduction to the man’s work, including as it does one overture and his two latest symphonies.

To read the full review, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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Classical Music News of the Week, November 26, 2022

New York Festival of Song Presents “A Goyishe Christmas to You!”

New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), led by Artistic Director Steven Blier, presents its annual holiday show, “A Goyishe Christmas to You!,” on Wednesday, December 14, 2022 at 7:00pm at Merkin Hall’s Upper Lobby at the Kaufman Music Center.

The program features favorite Yuletide tunes (performed with a twist) and specialty material by Jewish composers, sung by soprano Lauren Worsham, mezzo-sopranos Donna Breitzer and Rebecca Jo Loeb, tenor Alex Mansoori, bass-baritone William Socolof, and Cantor Joshua Breitzer. Steven Blier joins as pianist and host, alongside clarinetist Alan R. Kay.

To read the complete Classical Music News of the Week, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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Recent Releases, No. 39

Arc II

Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin; Brahms: Variations on a Theme by R Schumann, Op. 9; Shostakovich: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op 61; Brahms: 11 Chorale Preludes for Organ, Op. 122 (arr. for piano by F. Busoni) (excerpts) No. 10 in A minor, “Herzlich tut mich verlangen” (My heart is filled with longing); No. 11 in F major, “O Welt, ich muss dich lassen” (O World, I must leave you). Orion Weiss, piano. First Hand Records FHR128.

Ohio-born pianist Orion Weiss (b. 1981) has undertaken a recording project that will eventually yield three releasesl. In his liner notes for the first album, Weiss explains that “the arc of this recital trilogy is inverted, like a rainbow’s reflection in water. Arc I’s first steps head downhill, beginning from hope and proceeding to despair. The bottom of the journey, Arc II, is Earth’s center, grief, loss, the lowest we can reach. The return trip, Arc III, is one of excitement and renewal, filled with the joy of rebirth and anticipation of a better future.” He goes on to give a quick preview and chronological overview: Arc I (Granados, Janacek, Scriabin) from before World War I; Arc II (Ravel, Shostakovich, Brahms) from during World Wars I and II, during times of grief; Arc III (Schubert, Debussy, Brahms, Dohnanyi, Talma) from young composers, times of joy, after World War I and after World War II.

To read the full review, click here:

Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor

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Review of "Wagner: The Golden Ring." Scenes from Der Ring Des Nibelungen. Various singers; Georg Solti, Vienna Philharmonic. Decca SACD 485 3364 (remastered)

The honors, praise, accolades, awards, and popularity of Sir Georg Solti’s Decca recordings of Richard Wagner’s complete Ring of the Nibelungen from the late 1950’s and early 60’s have never diminished. So much so that the folks at Decca had already reissued them several times previously on vinyl and CD and have now released them again, this time from high-definition masters in hybrid SACD. Good things just keep getting better.

To read the full review, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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Classical Music News of the Week, November 19, 2022

Bernstein Announcement

Leonard Bernstein’s Music for String Quartet is set to receive its premiere studio recording and release, with a newly discovered second movement, as yet unheard publicly, to be included on the program.

The piece, composed by Bernstein in 1936 at age 18 while a student at Harvard University in Cambridge, will be performed by Lucia Lin, Natalie Rose Kress, Danny Kim, and Ronald Feldman, produced by PARMA Recordings, and released on the Grammy-winning Navona Records label.

To read the complete Classical Music News of the Week, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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Review of Igor Levit: Tristan on a Sony Classics CD

Let me say at the outset that Tristan is an album of contrasts and extremes that is at the same time strangely unified. If that opening sentence makes me sound confused or perhaps even a touch insane, blame it on my having listened to this album over and over in a vain attempt to decide what sort of recommendation to give it. It’s a strange, wonderful album, offputting and endearing, but certainly not boring. You can certainly get a sense of what I mean by this from the heading over the liner notes, which shouts out in capital letters:

 “SINGING, LAMENTING AND SCREAMING

IGOR LEVIT PLAYS SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH”

To read the full review, click here:

Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor

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Review of "Hans Rott: Symphony No. 1." Jakub Hrusa, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. DG 486 2932

“Hans Rott wrote his First Symphony--filled with groundbreaking musical ideas and a unique vision for how the symphony could develop--at a time when his younger schoolmate Mahler was barely getting started and his mentor Bruckner was struggling through his middle period. Jakub Hrusa and the Bamberger Symphoniker present this masterpiece alongside words by Bruckner and Mahler, shining a new light on a work which deserves to sit at the centre of the symphonic repertoire.” --DG liner notes

To read the full review, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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Classical Music News of the Week, November 12, 2022

Oratorio Society of New York Presents 148th Performance of Handel's Messiah

The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY), led by Music Director Kent Tritle, continues its 2022–23 season with its 148th performance of Handel’s Messiah on Monday, December 19, 2022 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. This year’s performance includes soloists soprano Maria Brea, contralto Heather Petrie, tenor Joshua Blue, and baritone Jesse Blumberg, together with the Orchestra of the Society.

To read the complete Classical Music News of the Week, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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Piano Potpourri, No. 8

For the majority of music lovers, piano music is probably not the first type of music that springs to mind when we think of Dvorák. In fact, it might not be the second – or even the third. My guess is that most of us would first think of the symphonies (especially the final three), then his cello or perhaps violin concerto, and then his chamber music (the “American” string quartet, the “Dumky” trio). And even if we did think of his piano music, chances are it was the familiar Humoresque, not the music that the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (b. 1970) brings to us here on this new disc from Sony Classics.

To read the full review, click here:

Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor

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Review of "Mahler: Symphony No. 5." David Bernard, Park Avenue Chamber Symphony. Recursive Classics RC5956731

If you have been enjoying the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony for a while, or if you have been reading Classical Candor for any length of time, you probably know how good the Park Avenue ensemble sound. The orchestra includes mainly players who do other things for a living (like hedge-fund managers, philanthropists, CEO's, UN officials, and so on). They're not amateurs by any means, but they're not full-time musicians, either. Nor is the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony a particularly small group. It's about the size of most other full-sized symphony orchestras. Whatever, whether you’ve heard them or not, believe me, their playing will dispel any skepticism about the quality of their work; everyone involved with the orchestra deserves praise, especially their energetic leader, Maestro David Bernard.

To read the full review, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor

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Classical Music News of the Week, November 5, 2022

The Crossing @ Christmas Returns for Two Holiday Performances

Grammy Award-winning choir The Crossing’s holiday tradition The Crossing @ Christmas returns with two concerts featuring the world premiere of Ochre by Caroline Shaw alongside Mass Transmission by Mason Bates on Friday, December 16, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Rittenhouse Square (co-presented by Penn Live Arts) and on Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA.

To read the complete Classical Music News of the Week, click here:

John J. Puccio, Classical Candor