The Art of the Baroque Trumpet � Vol. 5

"[Eklund's] virtuoso skills, consistently sweet tone, purity of intonation, and sense of ease rank him as the world's best." --American Record Guide, August 2002

Reviewing the first volume in Naxos's "The Art of the Baroque Trumpet", Gramophone magazine said of Eklund, "let me rejoice at playing of rare technical ability and musical panache."

Aho: Symphonic Dances 'Hommage � Uuno Klami', Symphony No. 11

�a superb coupling of two strongly communicative contemporary works�which demonstrate Aho�s comprehensive mastery of rhythm, timbre and drama. Again, the performance is a definitive one and BIS's engineering breathtaking in its realism.� --Gramophone, July 2004

Gramophone Magazine
Editor's Choice - July 2004

�Aho's Symphonic Dances (2001) bear the subtitle 'Hommage � Uuno Klami' � and therein lies the clue to the work's genesis. Klami (1900- 1961), one of the leading Finnish composers of the last century, had high hopes for his largescale, Kalevala-inspired ballet Pyr�rteit�, but by the time of his death had managed to orchestrate only the second of its three acts. Aho orchestrated Act 1 in 1988. During 2000, no material having come to light for the final act, he embarked on completing Klami's magnumopus, bolstered by the prospect of a production at the Finnish National Ballet. In the event, that belated premiere never materialised, and it was left to Osmo V�nsk� and the Lahti SO to champion Aho's 'Third Act' in the concert hall. A thoroughly approachable, 27-minute creation of exhilarating drive and colour, its four movements take their names from Klami's original synopsis. It's stunningly well served here by artists and production crew alike.

Symphony No 11 is almost as rewarding. It grew out of a commission for an orchestral work involving the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble, and is cast in three movements, the last of which distils a wondrous stillness and inner calm. It also serves as a perfect foil to the first two movements, both of which demonstrate Aho's comprehensive mastery of rhythm, timbre and drama. Again, the performance is a definitive one and BIS's engineering breathtaking in its realism.� --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Var�se: Ameriques, Arcana, Deserts, Ionisation

The whole of Var�se�s surviving output can be comfortably accommodated on a pair of CDs, as it is in Riccardo Chailly�s superlative survey on Decca, but Pierre Boulez�s single disc concentrates on the two orchestral works that Var�se wrote in the years after he emigrated to the United States in 1915, Am�riques and Arcana. Boulez is totally in his element in music like this, observing every teeming detail, controlling the massive up-wellings of sound with maximum assurance, and in the Chicago Symphony he has an orchestra that has all the virtuosity and panache to deliver it at maximum voltage.

Christopher Lyndon-Gee�s account of Arcana pales by comparison; there is neither enough security or weight of tone in the playing to compete on any level. The Naxos disc also includes equally cautious performances of the three pungent ensemble pieces of the Twenties, and Var�se�s final orchestral work, D�serts, in which he made one of the first attempts at combining electronic music with live performers. The tape sounds rather faded now, and it is not surprising that Boulez opts for the version of the score omitting the pre-recorded interludes, and makes a thing of wonder out of its intricate play of colours and textures.The only puzzle is why it has taken DG more than five years to release this outstanding collection.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Andrew Clements, BBC Music Magazine

Taneyev: Suite de concert & Ioann Damaskin

Inspired by a poem by Aleksey Tolstoy, Taneyev�s cantata John of Damascus was the first work that the self-critical Russian composer deemed worthy of an opus number, its sublime music drawing on an ancient sacred chant woven into rich passages of expressive counterpoint. A quarter of a century later, the virtuosic and scintillating Suite de concert, Taneyev�s first work for solo violin and orchestra, was also successfully premi�red. 

Suite de concert, written in 1909, is a novel, if rather disorganized, approach to a Romantic violin concerto. It�s an unusual conflation of serenade, neo-Baroque suite, and theme and variations that�in the hearing of it�seems to divide into movements or sections: an introductory Prelude, followed by a scherzo-like Gavotte, and then a slowish �Fairy Tale� movement marked Andantino. These three movements, in turn, set the stage, none too convincingly, for a theme and six variations with an extended variation-coda. But that�s not the end of this identity-confused work. The grand finale is a spirited Tarantella. In terms of style, I suppose some of the writing is suggestive of Glazunov�s A-Minor Violin Concerto that preceded the Suite de concert by five years; but there�s a passage beginning at 2:49 in the �Fairy Tale� movement that bears an uncanny resemblance to Chausson�s Po�me for violin and orchestra , written in 1896. It has long been the composer�s most widely known and recorded piece�Russian violinist Ilya Kaler has been one of Naxos�s long time and most dependable house artists, having recorded a respectable cross section of the Romantic violin repertoire. While Taneyev�s piece is no salon morceau, neither is it a virtuosic vehicle like the almost exactly contemporary Glazunov and Sibelius concertos. Kaler�s rounder tone and less excitable approach work well in the Taneyev, and I prefer his performance to that of Gringolts [on Hyperion].

When it comes to the cantata, Ioann Damaskin, Naxos[�s recording, with�] its Russian chorus, orchestra, and conductor� sounds convincingly authentic�At Naxos�s budget price, though, I�d say the new CD is well worth the modest investment. --Fanfare, March 2010

Villa-Lobos: Piano Music

'Magnificent. Easily the most sophisticated Villa-Lobos piano disc currently in the catalogue.' --International Record Review

'Marc-Andr� Hamelin�s transcendental sheen and facility bless everything he plays. He makes As tr�s Marias wink and scintillate with an inimitable verve � leaves all others standing.' --Gramophone

'Hamelin presents another hour of hair-raising (not to say spine-tingling) music in performances few could match � awesome.' --Classic CD

'An impressive disc' --BBC Music Magazine

�Enough technical dazzle to satisfy even the most virtuoso-hungry listeners� --Fanfare, USA

'Revelatory. In short, this is a must-buy release. It�s thrillingly exciting. Recommended with all possible enthusiasm' --Fanfare, USA

'Hamelin grasps [the music�s] sprawl clearly and delivers it with unrivalled perfection of pianistic mechanism. He relishes the delights of the lighter pieces with equal virtuosity' --Irish Times

�Marvellously iridescent in these magnificent interpretations � a fantastically varied succession of miniatures that will hardly fail to please� --The Magic Flute

Barber, Khachaturian: Violin Concertos

�Simonyan is a true virtuoso; his playing has a natural, unforced authority and, among other accomplishments, his clear, brilliant spiccato bowing is heard to great effect in the finales of both concertos...this is a performance [of the Barber] of notable power, Simonyan's confident presence - aided by strong support from Kristjan J�rvi and the LSO - generating considerable intensity as the climactic moments approach...All in all, a most impressive debut.� --Gramophone Magazine, February 2012

�Simonyan's intention was to bring out the qualities that embody the cultural roots of each composer: thus, he commissioned a new cadenza for Khachaturian's concerto by Artur Avanesov, to emphasise the Armenian flavour, and treated the dashing final movement of Barber's concerto in a looser manner than usual, suggestive of rustic American fiddling.� --The Independent, 20th January 2012

Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1, Etc

To celebrate Franz Liszt�s bicentenary, Lang Lang has selected some of the most famous, virtuosic and poetic solo pieces ever written for the piano, concluding with a fabulous new recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1 � accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev.

Alternating the lyrical Liszt with the bravura, Lang Lang�s tribute to his �piano hero� mixes old favourites with some lesser-known pieces, transcriptions with original works � and rounds off with the high octane First Piano Concerto.

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Franz Liszt's birth, virtuoso pianist Lang Lang has selected some of the composer's most characteristic pieces for his 2011 Sony release, Liszt: My Piano Hero. Prominent on this album is the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, which features Lang Lang in a high-energy performance with Valery Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic. Without a doubt, most of Lang Lang's fans will savor this Romantic showpiece, and for technical brilliance and drama, the performance doesn't disappoint. 

He is especially lively and vivid in this work, and his interactions with the orchestra seem spontaneous and playful, as one might well imagine Liszt would have been. But Lang Lang seems more introspective and personally involved with the solo keyboard pieces that make up the greater part of the album. Here also is the flashy side of Liszt, but there is a greater emphasis on the poetic and rhapsodic, so Lang Lang indulges in reflective pieces as much as the flashy encores. Highlights include La Campanella, the Grand Galop chromatique, Liebestraum No. 3, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, and the arrangement of Schubert's Ave Maria.