Robert Schumann wrote close to 140 songs, of which 26 are comprised in Myrthen, a grouping of lyric miniatures partially chronicling his marriage to Clara Wieck.

Myrthen, the German word for a wreath of evergreens and white flowers is also the title of the recently released SONY CLASSICAL CD that features the perfect trio for this music: the soprano Camilla Tilling, the baritone Christian Gerhaher, and the pianist Gerold Huber.

Camilla Tilling’s lyric soprano is ravishingly beautiful and ideally suited to several of the best known and most beloved amongst the 26 songs in the recording, among them Widmung, Die Nussbaum, Lied der Suleika and Die Lotusbluhme. Ever spinning a seamless legato line, her singing embodies emotional vulnerability and intellectual acuity.

Christian Gerhaher contributes his bright high baritone to the project, excelling in the declamatory, narrative and dramatic songs contained in the four books that make up Myrthen. His voice is tenor-like in  timbre in the upper range, darker as it descxends the scale, his diction impeccable, his approach to this music always sober and elegant

Gerold Huber is the unfailingly sensitive accompanist throughout.

The engineering, the copious annotations and translations by Gerhaher himself raise the bar for any similar future endeavors.

Bravo to all those involved in this labor of love!

Rafael de Acha      http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

By age 35 the recently-widowed J.S. Bach had mastered the art of orchestration and the playing of and writing for the keyboard instruments that helped put food on the table for his ever growing family. He played and wrote for the Church, he played gigs in local cafes, and all along he mastered the ins and outs of the violin, an instrument that he had played quite well since young.

For the violin he composed six solo pieces, three sonatas and three partitas, the first three formally-structured compositions within which the Baroque master continued to explore the art of counterpoint, no small feat for an instrument thus far used to play single-note melodies.

When it came to the partitas Bach cut loose and sort of re-imagined the Partita form, as simply a collection of tunes elevated to the status of concert music by virtue of craft and genius. Within the livelier framework of a suite of Baroque dances, Bach put to use the allemandes, courantes, gigues and sarabandes that both court and country had danced to, dressing them up in Baroque finery, and without fettering them or their player, adding technical intricacies that came to define the rules of violin playing for centuries to come.

And yet, throughout that music there is the composer’s emotional turmoil, something that we have been repeatedly told is not what the disciplined, church-going, sober, family man from Leipzig was all about, reflected now and then in the sudden harmonic forays the music takes.  Musical lore has it that Bach’s grammatically incorrect “Sei solo”, meaning Sei (“you are”) solo (“alone”) which he attached to the score of the three violin sonatas and the three partitas, which in Italian should be Sei Soli (with the letter i at the end of the word) meaning six solos was meant to express Bach’s emotional state in a sort of code.

In the Inmaculata concert of Sunday November 24, three formidable violinists took turns playing the three partitas.

Jack Bogard opened the afternoon with an elegant rendition of the Partita No. 1 in B Minor, BWV 1002, playing its four movements with dexterous agility and impeccable musicality .

The Japanese-American Mariko Shimasaki took on the iconic Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006 brilliantly delivering with a singing tone a technically flawless performance.

The stunningly talented Christina Nam brought the afternoon to a serene ending with  her fierce commitment and emotionally charged interpretation of the Partita number 2, the longest in duration of the three and one chockfull of every imaginable technical complexity, ending with the monumental Chaconne, a test of endurance for even the most mature of violinists, and one that Yehudi Menuhin called  “the greatest structure for solo violin that exists.”

The end of the concert was first followed by awed silence and then by grateful applause for Nam and her colleagues. As I stood up to applaud I did so for all three of these wonderful young musicians, thinking as well about the long ago departed but still spiritually alive Johann Sebastian Bach, the humble genius who gave us all this complex, joyful, sorrowful, tuneful, mind-boggling, astonishing music.

Immaculata Chamber Music Series continues in 2020. Follow them on Facebook.

Rafael de Acha      http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

This was one of those evenings when I had to divide myself in two in order to catch The Bartered Bride at the Patricia Corbett Theatre and the second half of the CCM Philharmonia Concert in Corbett Auditorium.

Inevitably I had to miss the second half of the opera and the first half of the orchestral concert.

To the best of my knowledge Bedřich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride has not had a major American production since the MET revived the 1978 John Dexter production in 1996 for Teresa Stratas as Mařenka and Nicolai Gedda as Jeník.

Why may we ask should this comic gem by the composer of the familiar Die Moldau be treated as an operatic stepchild? Many concertgoers are familiar with its Overture, a lively opener for any orchestral concert. But that’s how it goes with so many neglected operatic works that fall outside the canon of the Twenty Most Popular Operas.

If someone alleges it is the mouth-filling Czech language with its consonant-filled syllables that which keeps singers and producers at bay with The Bartered Bride, why not do it in English then. CCM does it here with an intelligent and intelligible English translation by Kathleen Kelly sprinkled now and then with a bit of Czech for the sake of color.

Smetana’s Bride is married to a lighthearted libretto by the Czech writer Karel Sabina. It tells the story of a secret but innocent love between two locals, Mařenka and Jeník. She is the only daughter of two well-to-do and well-meaning but overreaching ranchers, Krušina and Ludmilla.

Janik’ father, the widower Micha, now married to second wife Háta wants the best for Vašek, who happens to be his younger and homelier offspring from his previous marriage. “The best” happens to be Mařenka, the most eligible girl in the county, whose parents want to marry her to Vašek at all costs. That will include the costly marriage brokerage fees payable to Kecal, who stands to get a nice fat fee from the parents of homely Vašek, who happens to be challenged in more ways than one.

Well, complicated as these country relationships can be, true love triumphs at the end as it does in all comic operas.

The CCM production is faithful to the original intentions and style of Smetana’s folk tale told in lively music and well-spoken dialogue (English here), and the young singing actors in the bright cast do well by Smetana’s gentle writing for younger voices.

Lyric soprano Brittany Olivia Logan as Mařenka is vocally impressive. Jordan Lloyd as Jeník has an engaging tenor voice, and both he and Logan make a charming couple. Mishael Eusebio, delivers a hilarious performance as the shy and bespectacled Vašek. Ryan Wolfe sings the important bass role of Kecal with dry humor and a lyrical approach that served both him and Smetana’s music well.

Most gratifying of all this was to see CCM at its best: idiomatic and rock solid playing by the young players in the orchestra authoritatively and flexibly led by Levi Hammer, and a gifted and large cast of budding singing actors with acting, dancing, and musical talents.

The light-touch stage direction by Audrey Chait set the action in a closer-to-us 1948 Texas ranch community peopled by Czech émigrés, mercifully avoiding conceptual impositions and cowboy clichés. The imaginative production design by Joshua E. Gallagher (sets) and Blaine Shepherd, (costumes) completed the perfect picture.

With an overall integrity that served both the audience and the participating artist-students CCM again delivered with the quality we have all come to expect of its opera productions.

At the other end of the CCM village, the Philharmonia Orchestra played in the second half of its concert a lovely Symphony in C, of Bizet, a youthful work by the French composer that showcased both the rank and file of the players, the exceptional oboist Leonardo de la Cruz, and the excellent student conductor John Murton.

Rafael de Acha      http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Seeing the Dayton Opera La boheme today reminded me of how Puccini at age 37 succeeded in crafting a nearly perfect work of lyric drama after his first three flawed efforts: Le Villi, Edgar, and Manon Lescaut.

By age 37 Verdi had penned 16 of his three dozen operas. Mozart died at age 35 and by the time of his death he had given the world no less than five operatic masterpieces. But Puccini was painfully slow at composing, and inspiration came to him sporadically, but when it did… Well judge for yourself as you sit through yet one more La boheme. I, for one, could see that unabashedly sentimental musical yarn many times over.

That brings me to director Gary Briggle’s La boheme, which I saw and admired today. The veteran director had good help from Thomas Bankston, the Artistic Director of the Dayton Opera, who provided Briggle, first of all, with a handsome co-production designed by Robert Little, which delivered 100% on authenticity and practicality.

The cast was good, with the four bohemians young and sonorous, a pretty Mimi, a pert Musetta, and the marvelous Thomas Hammons in the double buffo assignment of Benoit/Alcindoro.

All seven principals responded to Briggle’s minute attention to details, which reminded me of Puccini’s fastidious love of le piccole cose (the little things). Mimi, for example, arrived in the bohemian’s attic and, after the initial ritual of flirtation involving the lost key and the candles – which both Rodolfo and Mimi slyly put out – she sat down to tell Rodolfo about herself.

In Giacosa and Illica’s Italian she says that people call her Mimi but her name is Lucia, that her story is brief, and that she embroiders at home and at work. At that point the Dayton Mimi, the lovely Kasia Borowiec, proffered her new acquaintance a little kerchief most likely embroidered by her. Great directorial touch that one! And, that little prop, hardly made a big deal of, returns in the subsequent acts to remind us of the bond of love it represents.

Briggle got his young cast members to react as well as act, to stay alive 100% of the time especially when not singing, and to use the silences between notes to carry meaningfulness.

Matthew Vickers was hands down the best singing actor in the cast, portraying a largely uncomplicated poet and singing with a bright lyric voice and clarion high notes. His Mimi, Kasia Borowiec sang with a full-bodied soprano voice, partnering her Rodolfo to perfection.

Of the other three bohemians, baritone Kenneth Stavert was a rock solid Marcello, bass Vincent Grana, an earnest, well sung Colline, and De’Ron McDaniel a lively Schaunard.  Zulimar Lopez-Hernandez was a pretty Musetta.

Patrick Reynolds conducted an orchestra largely peopled by musicians from the Dayton Philharmonic, keeping things under control and bringing stray singers back into the fold whenever they strayed. The Dayton Opera Chorus sang and acted well, once more helping to maintain the reputation of the Dayton Opera as a worthy professional enterprise in the always-busy Southern Ohio music scene.

Rafael de Acha    http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Photo: Duane Tinkey/Des Moines Metro Opera

The recent Cmajor/Rai Com/Teatro alla Scala release of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail as a double DVD is a welcome addition to any opera collector’s library. The reasons are many, among them that this is a faithful reenactment of the note-perfect 1965 staging by the master director Giorgio Strehler, created then for the Salzburg Festival. Secondly, the conductor: Zubin Mehta brought back on board to lead the superb La Scala orchestra and a cast of rising young Mozart.

The visual aspects of the production are exquisite as well, starting with the impeccably designed and period-perfect costumes of Sybille Ulsamer. The chiaroscuro lighting of Marco Filibeck does wonders for the settings of Carla Ceravolo, and the revival of Strehler’s original production is faithfully brought back to life by stage director Mattia Testi.

Mauro Peter sings elegantly as Belmonte and behaves on stage as if to the manner born. Bass Tobias Kehrer is a competent singer with more weight in the middle voice than in the bottom range so essential to the role of Osmin. The Pedrillo is sung by Maximilian Schmitt with more voice than what is usually brought by singers of this role. And he is a good comic.

Dutch soprano Lenneke Ruiten has both the vocal heft and the agility demanded by all her arias and the essential dignity and noble bearing demanded by the role of Constanze. French soprano Sabine Devielhe is a splendid spitfire Blonde, good to look at and listen to. Cornelius Obonya acts with dignity as Pasha Selim.

Maestro Mehta conducts with Mozartian clarity and accompanies the singers never once overbearing them. Most significantly, Strehler’s production provides a lesson in operatic stage direction which this writer wishes that all stage directors hell-bent on improving and updating the great work of the 18th and 19th century would assimilate.

Rafael de Acha          http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Jacques Offenbach wrote and produced close to one hundred little comic operettas for his tiny three-hundred-seat Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in the two decades during part of which France and Austria on and off waged war on each other.

The French public satiated with the grand operas of Meyerbeer and Gounod and the tragic news that filled the front pages of the Paris newspapers could find a refreshing change of pace in a couple of hours of light-hearted entertainment that unfailingly featured young and good-looking signing actors costumed and clad in the finest silks and velvets, singing the music of Offenbach, Lecocq, Délibes, Bizet, and Chabrier in one-act lyric comedies in which spoken dialogue, dancing, and antics kept everyone happy.

A Dynamic DVD in a bright-new production from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, is helmed by maestro Valerio Galli brilliantly conducting the festival’s equally superb orchestra.

The team of stage directors Luigi Di Gangi and Ugo Giacomazzi keep the action going at warp speed and never running out of inventive ideas.

The whole thing is an insanely comic romp featuring a quartet of gifted comedians endowed with major vocal chops. Soprano Francesca Benitez is a bundle of Latin charm, equipped as well with a terrific upper range, sexy looks, and comic timing.

Mezzo-soprano Marina Ogii is fully committed to the inspired silliness of the production, singing beautifully and looking like a pretty bird in an over-the-top ruffled costume – one of four created by the immensely gifted Agnese Rabatti.

The set, by the way, is a celebration of bourgeois bad-taste tastefully created by the designer Federica Parolini.

The men are both good singing clowns. As Florestan (!) tenor Matteo Mezzaro turns out a vocally and physically athletic performance. Last to join the action as the stupid cuckolded husband-at-the-door is baritone Patrizio La Placa, yet another first rate singing actor in a cast of equals.

I have two requests, one of which I usually append to my reviews of operas on CD and DVD: please include a libretto!

The other request..? More Offenbach, please, if possible with this cast!

Rafael de Acha     http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

If one settles down to watch Ambroise Thomas’ lite version of the familiar story about the brooding melancholy Dane expecting a faithful adherence to the Shakespeare original the viewer is in for a major disappointment. I was.

Expect instead a light-weright take on the original, dressed in this erratic production in come as you are contemporary garb, a show plagued with many fussy directorial touches that bring no fresh insights into the telling of the story.

Some of the “big moments”, like the first appearance of the ghost of Hamlet’s father come off more chilly than chilling. The entrance of the tuxedo-clad members of the superb choral ensemble Les élements down the aisles of the theatre looks silly and robs the scene of its inherent power. And like that, many more moments… Hanky-panky in Ophélie’s bedroom between the Prince and the presumably virginal young woman interrupted by brother Laertes…

Are you serious?

The characters in the original, as sketchily sketched by Barbier and Carré fare from fair to middling, much of the their dramatic effectiveness squarely depending on the acting chops of the members of this largely French cast, at the top of which stands baritone Stéphane Degout, an intense singing actor and a valuable artist with the sort of voice they name Baryton Martin in his country and which we plainly call lyric baritone, meaning a male singer with a ringing, easy top voice that allows the artist to handle the high tessitura of the role with elegant ease.

On the debit side, this viewer found that the costuming given Degout does neither him, nor Claudius, nor the Ghost, nor Gertrude any favors. Video is implacable in the way it reveals budgetary shortcuts in fabrics and tailoring.

But I digress.

Coloratura soprano Sabine Devielhe is one of the finest interpreters of the role of Ophélie I have ever encountered. Pretty as a picture, formidable top notes, technically flawless, stunning Mad Scene. Is the MET listening?

Others in the cast vary. I found Sylvie Brunet- Grupposo a vocally effective Gertrude, but Laurent Alvaro as Claudius and Jerome Vernier as the Ghost both sonorously undernourished. Tenor Julien Behr cuts a handsome figure and sounds good as Laertes. Through no fault of theirs but Thomas’ doing the Marcellus, Horatio, and Polonius are relegated to second-tier walk-ons.

The Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, led by Louis Langrée plays beautifully and idiomatically. Now, Naxos, if we could just get that libretto included…

Rafael de Acha http://www.RafaelMusicNotesa.com

The year 2019 in Cincinnati was filled with music, and this listener always tried to get to not only the well-publicized “majors” but to the mid-sized musical organizations that cannot easily afford to get the word out about their work. Here is my list of 2019 favorites, a bit early, I know but I might be absent for the best part of the coming weeks.

CHAMBER MUSIC: The Immaculata Church in Mt. Adams opened its 2018-2019 Chamber Music Series with string players Christina Nam, Holly Nelson, Kanako Shimasaki, Yu-Ting Huang, Hojoon Choi, and Jonathan Lee assembled into what we hope will be a permanent group. In a city rich in musical offerings it is difficult for an ensemble of young players to establish an identity and make a mark. All the more remarkable that this musically ad-hoc group should begin its young journey so auspiciously.

FESTIVAL: During the dog days of August, the fully blossomed Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra once more brought to Cincinnati’s music lovers a plentiful supply of world class soloists, up and coming young artists, and the playing of a cohesive, disciplined, and fluent ensemble made up of some of the best musicians in these parts, led by the never predictable, ever reliable Eckart Preu in off-the-beaten-path programming throughout a multi-concert Summemusik mini-festival.

OPERA: A variety of characters are subjected to the sorrowful vagaries of the American legal system and wrongfully convicted. David Cote’s potent libretto and Scott Davenport Richards’ emotionally charged score tell their stories of incarceration, exoneration, and redemption in Blind Injustice, a memorable world premiere brilliantly staged by Robin Guarino and fiercely conducted, sung, and played with the chameleonic  John Morris Russell at the helm, a riveting experience that Cincinnati will remember for a long time.

STUDENT ORCHESTRAL: It is quite remarkable that on the same September day, two orchestras would open their seasons in a mid-sized, mid-western city. One is a terrific student group, the Philharmonia Orchestra at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), led by the superb conductor, Mark Gibson. In a marvelously played concert of music by Brahms and Dvořák, the CCM group alternated delicacy with bold assertiveness. This kind of triumph by brilliant young musicians is a frequent occurrence in music-wealthy Cincinnati, and we count our blessings. Then there is in the same school several other orchestral ensembles, among them the CCM Concert Orchestra, which on a cold November evening gave a towering performance worthy of the best of professional groups, of Dimitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 led by yet another first class conductor, the Malaysian-born Aik Khai Pung. Lucky students, lucky Cincinnati!

             

SOLO PERFORMANCE WITH AN ORCHESTRA: Notoriously treacherous for pianists, Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto demands agility, enormous strength, inexhaustible energy, protean musicality, and a sense of the poetic. It requires, in short an artist like the 39-year old Russian-born Kirill Gerstein. Karina Canellakis made an impeccable partner for Gerstein and led the CSO with vibrancy and acute sensitivity.

ORCHESTRAL: Christopher Rouse completed his Sixth Symphony, barely three months before his untimely death from cancer at the age of seventy. The work’s now somber, now agitated, now elegiac tone says with rare profoundness what mere words cannot begin to convey, as moments of reflective stasis contrast with blunt agitation, evoking life’s vicissitudes. The Cincinnati players gave a powerful, soulful performance, with Louis Langrée at the helm heroically holding together Rouse’s momentous creation. Whether the composer intended it or not, the music spoke of a great life well lived nearing its end

Rafael de Acha.    http://www.RafaeldeAcha.com

Throughout 2019 I reviewed dozens of CD’s and DVD’s sent to me by a number of recording companies. This is my TOP TEN list.

EARLY MUSIC

Listening to the Baltimore Consort’s Sono Luminus CD The Food of Love made this acquaintance with a treasure trove of Elizabethan music sheer joy. Performed by Mary Anne Ballard, Mark Cudek, Larry Lipkis, Ronn McFarlane and Mindy Rosenfeld, on treble and bass viols, citterns, recorders, crumhorns, fifes, and bagpipes, with the silvery-voiced soprano Danielle Svonavec brilliantly bringing to life the music of several contemporaries of Shakespeare the album reminded us of what good music accompanied the works of the Bard. SAMPLE: https://youtu.be/EU0rIluuJt4

WORLD MUSIC

Daniel Tarrab’s music is quintessentially Buenos Aires tango music. The Argentine master writes and plays his own music, mesmerizing with his jazzy riffs, his classical cadenzas, and his improvisatory flights of fancy that seamlessly bounce off each other. Tarrab reveals his soul in every bar of every tango of every track of Otra Mirada, available from both Silva Screen Records and Times Square Records. SAMPLE: https://youtu.be/-zXFbZGDkJs

CROSSOVER

Stewart Goodyear’s brilliantly inventive  is a musical fantasy in which snippets of Trinidad’s Calypso vie for attention with a heady mix of Jamaican Mento, afro-Cuban Guaguancó, Son, Conga and Guaracha, and inter-island Soca. The superbly hip Chineke Orchestra is beautifully conducted by Wayne Marshall, with a solo bow going to the terrific percussion section for its temperature-raising Latin drumming-on-steroids. The ORCHID CLASSICS CD includes the original band version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue given an energetic reading by Goodyear and friends. SAMPLE: https://youtu.be/HnKFzJWoMP8

VOCAL

There is open mindedness in the choice of compositions for the Ansonica CD CORO DEL MUNDO. There is also a purposeful commitment to an artistic philosophy that embraces the ideals of peace and brotherhood through music. Two Cuban choral groups: Schola Cantorum Coralina and Vocal Luna, lend their voices to an intriguingly varied collection of works by international composers in this CD, with both ensembles deftly handling the many improvisatory passages, with the all-women Vocal Luna creating dazzling instrumental sounds with its voices and with Schola Cantorum shining in various hip-swaying settings of Cuban poetry. Trailer: https://youtu.be/BPReYlfkNgs

ORCHESTRAL/INSTRUMENTAL

Norwegian harpist Sidsel Walstad is technically and musically a force of nature, holding her own against the massive orchestration of Alberto Ginastera’s Harp Concerto and his Variaciones Concertantes. Protean in her ability to spin a long legato line with an instrument notoriously hard to master, Walstad jointly with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, led by Miguel Harth-Bedoya delivers a memorable performance in this LAWO release. SAMPLE: https://youtu.be/oQ9q79JXbC4

CHAMBER MUSIC

The absolutely charming métier release FOUR with the superb London Myriad, a wind ensemble featuring Julie Groves on flute, oboist Fiona Joyce Myall, the clarinetist Nadia Wilson, and Ashley Myall on bassoon, introduced this listener to the chamber music of Eugène Bozza, Frank Bridge, Jean Françaix, Richard Rodney-Bennett, Jacques Ibert, and Claude Arrieu. The four in FOUR are formidable musicians, impeccable technicians, young of age but mature as players of music that is now lyrical, now outrageously humorous, and blessedly unpretentious.                              SAMPLE: https://youtu.be/YT20rcOqwWE

OPERA DVD

During his rather short career Rossini wrote over three dozen-plus operas, many of which have fallen into unjust neglect, among them RICCIARDO E ZORAIDE. Now in a new release of this Rossini rarity by Cmajor, the double DVD features a terrific cast led by Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez and South African soprano Pretty Yende in the title roles. The 2018 live Pesaro Festival recording measures up to the highest of standards, boasting a superb line up of Rossini specialists. Florez and Yende are simply perfect. Tenor Sergey Romanovsky (Agorante) and mezzo-soprano Victoria Yarovaya (Zomira) are both spectacular. Kudos also go to the fast-rising Basque leggiero tenor Xabier Anduaga in the role of Ernesto, and the impressive bass-baritone Nicola Ulivieri as Ircano.                                        SAMPLE: https://youtu.be/CgMm78oPlto

OPERA CD

This BIS recording of the rough-hewn, big-boned 1869 original version of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov stars the young Ukrainian Alexander Tsymbalyuk in the title role. He is sensationally good, commanding yet restrained, and in control of the crowd in the Coronation scene, stunning in the Kremlin scene, vulnerable and ultimately heartbreaking in his Death scene. Finnish bass Mika Kares is Pimen, singing patricianly and lyrically at all times. Alexey Tikhomirov is no mere buffo bass but a sonorously menacing Varlaam. The Shuisky, Maxim Paster and the Grigory, Sergei Skorokhodov are both first-tier tenors luxuriously cast in supporting roles. Kent Nagano commands his forces magisterially, eliciting sheer musical magic from the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Gothenburg Opera Chorus, and the Brunnsbo Music Classes Children’s Chorus. SAMPLE: https://youtu.be/AbeNvmL1Rtc

Rafael de Acha   http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

The SOMM compact disc The deeper the blue… takes both its title and its aesthetic from a Kandinsky essay in which the painter speaks of the mystical properties of color in nature and in music.

In the playing of the superb violinist Janet Sung and her collaborators: the accomplished pianist Simon Callaghan, and the rank and file of the note-perfect Britten Sinfonia with the wonderful Dutch conductor Jac van Steen at the helm, we hear a strong commitment to honor the spirit of the multifaceted selections in this intriguing CD.

There’s the 1925 neoclassical and elegant Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra of Ralph Vaughn Williams, a work for solo piano by Henri Dutilleux: the enchanting set of six pieces given the omnibus title Au gré des ondes, here brilliantly orchestrated by Kenneth Hesketh and originally conceived with no further pretentions than to provide connecting music for a group of episodes for 1946 French radio broadcasts.

A compelling 2015 composition by British composer Kenneth Hesketh provides a welcome dose of atonal brawn in this largely tonal assemblage of 20th and 21st century works.

The album also includes two tour de force works: Ravel’s Tzigane, a ten-minute musical obstacle course for only the bravest of violinists, which Janet Sung dispatches without breaking a sweat.

At the end of the CD, Ms. Sung returns in the company of the multi-talented pianist Simon Callaghan to give a fun-filled, jazzy, classy, bluesy an ultimately technically dazzling performance of a notoriously challenging Ravel work: the Sonata for Violin and Piano.

The SOMMCD275 is flawlessly engineered by Ben Conellan, properly produced by Siva Oke, given insightful line notes by Michael Quinn and available as a new release from SOMM.

Rafael de Acha      http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com