2008 has been a terrific year so far for new releases of classical CDs and DVDs, and All Music Guide’s classical editors and writers have chosen from a diverse crop of composers, eras, genres, and performers for their top picks.

Blair Sanderson

Feldman: For Philip Guston
Julia Breuer, Matthias Engler, Elmar Schrammel

Morton Feldman composed his marathon chamber work, For Philip Guston (1984), as a tribute to the abstract expressionist painter and personal friend of the composer, who died in 1980. This profoundly meditative work, which runs over four hours and fills four discs in this 2008 Wergo release, is among the longest of Feldman’s late compositions, and is one of the purest in content and expression. The musicians on this recording — flutist Julia Breuer, percussionist Matthias Engler, and pianist Elmar Schrammel — play a varied assortment of instruments that nonetheless provides a fairly homogenous and shimmering palette: the piccolo, flute, and alto flute are complemented by glockenspiel, vibraphone, tubular bells, and marimba, with the pianist doubling on celesta.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 in A minor, “Tragic”
Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony

If a conductor and a piece of music can ever be said to be perfectly matched, then Valery Gergiev is ideally suited to direct Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 in A minor, “Tragic.” A work that calls for the brutally frank expressions, explosive sonorities, and vibrant colors that this Russian conductor specializes in, the Symphony No. 6 really achieves its full potential in this gut-wrenching performance with the London Symphony Orchestra. Rarely has a conductor reached such heights of ethereal beauty and depths of abject despair as Gergiev does here, and he inspires the orchestra to play as if everything in this concert performance depends on it; one can hardly believe that this is the same polished orchestra that regularly turns out soundtracks and popular albums, so credible are the grim resolution, raw energy, and searing emotions displayed here.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Schmidt: Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln
Kristjan Järvi, the Wiener Singverein, and the Tonkünstler-Orchester

Franz Schmidt’s Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (The Book with Seven Seals) is a powerful setting of texts adapted from the Apocalypse of St. John for six vocalists, choir, organ, and orchestra, and was composed between 1935 and 1937, near the end of the composer’s career. In its most potent passages, this oratorio vividly depicts the cataclysmic events described in the Bible’s last book, but much of Schmidt’s music evokes the Romantic past and draws inspiration from the great works of his time, such as Richard Wagner’s operas and Richard Strauss’ tone poems, as well as Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem and possibly even Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Schubert: String Quartet D 887; String Trios D 471, D 581
Prazák Quartet

Programming Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887 with the String Trio in B flat major, D. 581 and the single-movement String Trio in B flat major, D. 471 is a little like an absurd three-way brawl between a heavyweight boxer, a welterweight, and a featherweight; after the pummeling that the first delivers, the others really stand little chance of leaving much of an impact. Schubert’s final quartet is on the level of the profound String Quintet in C major and the Symphony No. 9 in C major, “The Great” in magnificent ambition and soulful expression, and this penetrating performance by the Prazák Quartet fully conveys that kind of greatness in its sustained intensity, heartfelt lyricism, and compelling, long-range vision.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Xenakis: Orchestral Works, Vol. 5
Arturo Tamayo and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg

On the four previous installments in Timpani’s series of the orchestral works of Iannis Xenakis, Arturo Tamayo and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg have presented highly varied and volatile works from different periods of the composer’s career, and have provided an excellent overview of his output. This fifth volume focuses on the early orchestral works, which brought the architect and mathematician Xenakis world renown as a cutting-edge composer and put him in direct opposition to the serial establishment. The stochastic masterpieces, Metastaseis (1954) and Pithoprakta (1956), offered a viable alternative to the “total serialism” practiced at the time and were regarded as almost heretical in some quarters for pointing up the limitations of the post-Webern school.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
 
Uncle Dave Lewis

Gershwin: Complete Music for Piano and Orchestra
Anne-Marie McDermott

There are countless recordings available of Gershwin’s piano and orchestral music, particularly of Rhapsody in Blue; so for something to stand out it has to be really, very good. Bridge’s George Gershwin: Complete Music for Piano and Orchestra featuring pianist Anne-Marie McDermott with the Dallas Symphony under Justin Brown, is exactly that, and one would hazard to say it is the best digital recording yet made of this repertoire. The all too familiar Rhapsody gets off to a carefully managed start, but once the jazz section is underway, the performance kicks in and packs a wallop. McDermott’s piano is recorded in a very agreeable relation to the orchestral complement and is a little louder than usual, which is a plus. Second Rhapsody likewise packs a punch, and — for once — it is not treated as a second-string item to its more famous sister. The Dallas Symphony is crisp, bright, and on its toes through the whole recording, and tempi is a tad faster than usual in keeping with the sonically ancient but revelatory recordings Gershwin himself made of these works.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Sinfonias from the Enlightenment
moderntimes_1800

The imaginatively named Austrian chamber group moderntimes_1800 was founded in 2003; this Challenge Classics release Sinfonias from the Enlightenment is its third release. Its two discs survey some especially important, and unfamiliar, eighteenth century symphonies, including the jewels in this particular crown: two sinfonias of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach completely unknown to either Wotquenne or Helm that surfaced as part of the missing Berliner Singakademie collection discovered in Kiev in 1999. The goal of moderntimes_1800 is to create a group that is proficient in both historic and modern literature and they play both original instruments and standard ones. The effect is a very pleasing, warm, and well-rounded sound that delivers the concision of a period instrument ensemble without sounding scrawny or errant in pitch.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Brahms: Piano Quartets Opp. 25 & 60
Xiayin Wang and the Amity Players

Coming off a highly satisfying and successful debut in her first Marquis Classics release, Introducing Xiayin Wang, pianist Xiayin Wang needn’t have worried about the “sophomore jinx,” which primarily affects popular music artists and not the classical ones. The flavor of the month factor is not such a big deal in the classics; fans tend to be devoted for good for the run of an artist’s recordings, or simply are not fans of a given artist. Nevertheless, one might get the impression that perhaps Wang was looking to sidestep the sophomore jinx — much as Mahler avoided the fatal ninth symphony through composing Das Lied von der Erde instead — through making her second Marquis release a chamber album, rather than another solo outing as her first album had been. Marquis’ Xiayin Wang and the Amity Players features Wang in the first and third Brahms Piano Quartets in collaboration with the Amity Players, a Canadian trio of émigrés who, like Wang, are young and precociously gifted.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Jennifer Koh: String Poetic
Jennifer Koh and Reiko Uchida

String Poetic — American Works: A 21st Century Perspective is the fifth album violinist Jennifer Koh has made for Çedille Records; here pianist Reiko Uchida, who is a member of Columbia University’s Moebius Ensemble, joins Koh in a recital of four works. A highly interesting program puts a challenge to received notions as to what shakes out in terms of twentieth century literature now that the border to the twenty first has been crossed. It combines the music of historic American “ultra-modernists” — composers marginalized during a period of serial dominance over the academies — with two darlings of postmodernism: John Adams and Jennifer Higdon. It is perhaps not surprising, but certainly musically satisfying, that some points of similarity appear along the way.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Chen Yi/Karen Tanaka: Invisible Curve
The Azure Ensemble

The Azure Ensemble, led by flautist Susan Glaser and violist Karen Ritscher, is a chamber ensemble that has operated out of New York City since 1999 and their basic instrumentation consists of flute, viola, harp, piano and cello. While they do have a tiny repertoire of works drawn from established literature, they exist primarily to perform new music, and the post-1990 repertoire that they regularly play dwarfs the older stuff at a ratio of about three to one. On the New World disc, Invisible Curve, The Azure Ensemble essay chamber music of two contemporary Asian women composers, Chen Yi and Karen Tanaka. Chen Yi will be a known quantity to many followers of twenty-first century music; Karen Tanaka’s orchestral compositions have been performed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and are played with some measure of frequency by the NHK Symphony in her native Tokyo.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
 
James Leonard

Foulds: A World Requiem
Leo Botstein and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

John Foulds’ A World Requiem was the musical event of mid-’20s England. The work was premiered by the composer leading 1,250 singers and players assembled in the Albert Hall on Armistice Night, November 11, 1923, under the eyes of the Prince of Wales and the auspices of the British Legion and proved a tremendous critical and popular success. Its fusion of symphonic song cycle and Requiem Mass and its message of hope and transcendence resonated with the conscious of the Empire after the horrors of the Great War, and the work was repeated on each subsequent Armistice Night through 1926. Due to a change of leadership in the Legion and the composer’s outspoken socialism, however, A World Requiem was not performed on Armistice Night 1927 nor on any other night until this performance — on Armistice Night, November 11, 2007.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Kapsberger: Lute Works
Paul O’Dette

One of those special discs where the combination of repertoire and performances is of such unerring quality that it can justly be called definitive, Paul O’Dette’s 1991 recital of lute works by Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger is as good as it gets.

Born in Venice, the Kapsberger was unsurpassed in his times as a lutenist. His published collections of works for his instrument were considered all but unplayable by anyone but himself at the time they were first published. Yet for all its difficulty, Kapsberger’s music is exceedingly attractive, full of ingratiating melodies, rich harmonies, and engaging forms.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Beethoven: String Quartet; String Quintet
Sigiswald Kuijken, Wieland Kuijken, Marleen Thiers, Veronica Kuijken, and Sara Kuijken

“What we shared was astonishment — and joy,” wrote violinist Sigiswald Kuijken in his introductory note to this disc coupling Beethoven’s C major String Quartet, Op. 59/3, and C major String Quintet, Op. 29. The “we” referred to are this disc’s two generations of string-playing Kuijkens: violinist Sigiswald, cellist Wieland (Sigiswald’s brother), violist Marleen Thiers (Sigiswald’s wife), violinist Veronica, and violist Sara (Marleen and Sigiswald’s daughters). And the “joy” referred to is immediately apparent in their playing. Though best known for performing on period instruments, the Kuijkens perform here on modern instruments with tremendous energy and vivacity, though with only a discrete touch of vibrato. Indeed, it is this quality of joy, of the sheer pleasure in making music together, that most distinguishes the Kuijkens’ performances from all others.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
 
James Manheim

Mozart: Piano Concertos
Christian Zacharias and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra

The partnership of veteran German pianist Christian Zacharias and the German audiophile label MDG has yielded some treasures, but this one, part of a Mozart piano concerto series, is going to be hard to top. Recorded at the Salle Métropole concert hall in Lausanne, Switzerland, the discs in this series have inspired audiophiles to great flights of technical prose. The sound has warmth, depth, and awesome detail, and the music simply reveals no blemishes under its rays. The strings of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, of which Zacharias has been conductor since 2000, have the kind of sheen that comes only from a unit that has worked together over the long term.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Charpentier: Te Deum; Litanies de la Vierge; Missa “Assumpta est Maria”
William Christie and Les Arts Florissants

Originally recorded in 1989, this disc remains a standout choice for listeners interested in beginning to explore the splendors of French Baroque music’s public side. Charpentier worked in Parisian churches attended by members of the French nobility, and much of his music was connected with state celebrations. The Te Deum, H. 146, although its exact origin is unknown, is a massive festival piece with trumpets, drums, and grand gestures all around. American-French conductor William Christie (call him Buffalo Bill) and his ensemble Les Arts Florissants give the music appropriate sweep. Part of Charpentier’s genius lies in the qualities of his contrasting sections for soloists and groups of solo singers: he does not simply alternate choruses and airs but balances pomp and sensuality.
 
Read the rest of the review
 

Patsy Morita

Apparition: Purcell and Crumb
Christine Schäfer

Christine Schäfer is an artist with a unique sense of style, which comes through unmistakably on Apparition. First is the cover of Schäfer in a white gown standing with a dinosaur skeleton winding around her like a miniature roller coaster would. Then there’s the fact that she and pianist Eric Schneider mix songs by Henry Purcell and George Crumb, two composers you might never expect would have anything in common, but incredibly, the idea works amazingly well. A lot of the success is due to her wonderful voice and the consummate musicianship of them both. Schäfer understands the music both technically and emotionally. There is nary a fault to be found in their performance, and because of that, it’s hard not to admire the music and the way it’s presented, regardless of how you feel about either composer.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
 
Stephen Eddins

Boldemann, Gefors, Hillborg: Orchestral Songs
Anne Sofie von Otter

If it were possible for a CD to receive a rating that’s off the top of the scale of five stars, this one would deserve it. These three sets of orchestral songs by contemporary Swedish composers inspire superlatives: they are gloriously expressive, emotionally riveting, and orchestrally brilliant, with challenging but soaringly effective vocal writing. Each has immense musical integrity and is heartstoppingly beautiful. The remarkable performances of these extraordinary pieces, by Anne Sofie von Otter and Kent Nagano, leading the Gothenburg Symphony, make this an outstanding release.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Zimmermann: Die Soldaten
Michael Gielen and Gürzenich-Orchester Köln

The conventional wisdom in German-speaking countries (and even beyond) is that Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten is the most important opera to be written since Wozzeck, and based on its topicality, its seriousness, the musical and intellectual rigor of its construction, its dramaturgical innovations, and its visceral emotional impact, it’s hard to argue with that assessment. Comparisons with Wozzeck are inevitable: the musical language is similarly spiky, although Zimmermann’s opera is entirely serial (except for some interpolated idioms, like jazz and chorale tunes), with serial techniques extending even to the scenic elements and the larger musical structure; like Berg, Zimmermann uses traditional musical forms (chaconne, toccata, nocturne, ricercar, etc.) to give shape to the scenes; the subject matter is the brutalizing effect of military culture and the story is wrenchingly sad.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Boccherini: Madrid
Ophélie Gaillard and Pulcinella

Luigi Boccherini spent the bulk of his life in Spain, and although he at one point held the position of court composer for Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, he exercised those compositional duties in absentia. It was in Madrid that he wrote the majority of the works for which he is remembered. He was one of the great cello virtuosi of all time, and on this album, cellist Ophélie Gaillard leads the chamber ensemble Pulcinella in a spirited romp through a selection of his works. What is most immediately striking about these performances is the sense of delight and gleeful abandon that the performers bring to these pieces. Even the concert aria “Se d’un amor tiranno,” with a text, which, on paper, looks like a lament for lost love, sounds for all the world in Boccherini’s setting and in this exuberant performance, like a playful cajoling, with the singer having every confidence of winning back a straying lover.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Martin: Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke
Christianne Stotijn, Jac van Steen and the Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur

Much to Rainer Maria Rilke’s dismay, his 1899 extended prose poem, “Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke,” was a magnet for composers, and the author is on record as having only contempt for musical settings of his work. Nonetheless, composers have continued to overlook Rilke’s wishes, creating pieces based on the writing as diverse as Henri Sauguet’s song cycle, Viktor Ullmann’s orchestral work with speaker, and Siegfried Matthus’ opera. The setting that has most firmly established itself is Frank Martin’s 1943 hour-long cycle for contralto and orchestra, a work that affirms Martin’s status as an unjustly neglected master of the mid-twentieth century. Martin’s music doesn’t have a flashy surface, and he lacks the uniquely recognizable voice of someone like Hindemith or Poulenc or Copland, but the psychological insights he brings to his music, particularly to his narrative works, have a profound integrity and a stunning dramatic impact.
 
Read the rest of the review
 
Puccini: La Bohème
Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón

It is easy to approach an album that’s been hyped to the extent this one has with a certain amount of skepticism. Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón are superstars and have made a much-praised album of duets, so their pairing in La Bohème (after their 2005 Traviata) has been touted as a major recording event. It’s a pleasure to report that the result fully lives up to the high expectations it promised. The whole enterprise sounds so youthful and impetuous that it makes it possible to hear the opera in a new way. Puccini, of course, wrote the youthful impetuosity into the score, but it has rarely felt so authentically spontaneous and artless.
 
Read the rest of the review