Paul McCartney

Working Classical

London Symphony Orchestra, Loma Mar Quartet

Junk, for string quartet
A Leaf
Haymakers, for string quartet
Midwife, for string quartet
Spiral
Warm and Beautiful
My Love
Maybe I'm Amazed
Calico Skies
Golden Earth Girl
Somedays
Tuesday
She's My Baby
The Lovely Linda
 

Working Classical might just be the perfect outlet for the composing skills of Sir Paul McCartney. Here, the former Beatles (and, let's not forget, Wings) member scales things down from his previous classical-music endeavors--the overweight works Liverpool Oratorio and Standing Stone. In the hands of the Loma Mar Quartet chamber group and the London Symphony Orchestra, McCartney's shorter compositions sound all the more intimate (and effective). Album opener "Junk" is a simple waltz dating from the composer's days with the Fab Four, performed here by the Quartet with short-but-sweet results. "A Leaf" is another waltz motif, this one performed with a full orchestra. McCartney pop favorites "Warm and Beautiful," "Somedays," "She's My Baby," and "The Lovely Linda" all get chamber-music treatments that bring out their compositional beauty. And, while influences seem to range from Janácek to Morricone, there's no doubting that McCartney knows how to write a convincing ditty - pop or otherwise.

Karl Jenkins

Quirk
 


Sarikiz - Concerto for Violin and Orchestra


Quirk - Concerto for flute, keyboard and percussion


La Folia - Concerto for Marimba and Strings 


Over the Stone - Concerto for Harp


Allegretto from Palladio for String Orchestra

Karl Jenkins continues to amaze his listeners with his variety and versatility. Quirk is a collection of concertos written during the last decade for a variety of instruments.

The title concerto Quirk is for flutes, keyboards, percussion and orchestra. Like many of Jenkins' works, it is loaded with melody, tonal harmonies, and ostinatos. The last movement is particularly interesting.

The opening concerto Sarikiz is for violin and orchestra, influenced by Kazakh rhythms, melodies, and instruments.

La Folia is a series of variations based upon a violin sonata by Corelli for marimba and orchestra, written for Dame Evelyn Glennie, but performed here by Neil Percy.

The last concerto for two harps and orchestra is entitled Over the Stone. It utilizes Welsh songs, notably the national anthem. The percussion instruments appear at times to be an added track; otherwise the recording has good presence.

As a little lagniappe, the Allegretto from Palladio is included.

Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847)

Symphonies 6 & 7

Concerto Köln, Werner Ehrhardt

Symphony N° 6 en ré mineur, op. 58

Symphony N° 7 en ut mineur

Nearly a contemporary of Beethoven, Johann Wilhelm Wilms was born in 1772, and lived until 1847 – two years before Chopin's death. This makes Wilms (much like Beethoven, to a certain extent) a composer who had one foot in the Classical era and another in the Romantic era. With Beethoven, one can hear the progression between those two eras throughout the course of his nine symphonies. Apparently the same is true with Wilms, who wrote seven symphonies, but one has to take that assertion on faith, as Wilms' music remains almost completely unknown. This is the premiere recording of his last two symphonies. One hopes that this will not be the last we hear of Wilms.

This Dutch composer seems to have spent most of his career in Amsterdam, where he quickly attained local popularity as a pianist, flutist, and music teacher. This left Wilms with little time for composing, but four symphonies date from the last decade of the 18th century. The Fifth Symphony followed in 1806. The Sixth was composed in 1819, and the Seventh came more than a decade later. By then, Wilms was somewhat embittered by the public's failure to appreciate his work as a composer, and was affected not just by his musical milieu but also by the political turmoil that Europe was experiencing during this period. Indeed, the Seventh Symphony has more than a hint of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony to it. Too conservative to be mistaken for the work of Beethoven, however, the Sixth and Seventh symphonies also are neither as clever as Haydn nor as luminous as Mozart. That's OK, though, because it would be a boring night sky if all the stars were of the same magnitude, and every constellation needs fainter stars to set off the bright ones; even a faint star can give off distinctive light and heat. Wilms is well worth getting to know.

Concerto Köln had a big success recently with Dream of the Orient, a collection of music from and inspired by the Near East. Once again, they score points by staying off of the beaten path. This is an original instruments ensemble; the strings are 8:7:5:4:3, and there is a small complement of winds and brass. The timbres are piquant without being brash, and stylistically, these performances are lively and aware. Give this a whirl.

Un compositeur néerlandais d'origine allemande, célèbre inconnu puisqu'il est l'auteur de l'hymne national hollandais. Il revient au Concerto Köln d'avoir fait redécouvrir ses deux dernières symphonies et leur orchestration riche et raffinée. Un acteur très important dans la formation des grands orchestres européens et que certains considéraient comme le "Beethoven hollandais".
Une superbe réalisation qui dépasse le cadre de la stricte curiosité et révèle un compositeur passionnant.

Schuman, Reed, Husa, Nelhybel

Fanfares and Overtures

Rutgers Wind Ensemble, William Berz

Herbert Owen Reed (1910-)

Ouverture-1940 (arr. William Berz)

Fanfare for Remembrance *

Renascence

Karel Husa (1921-)

Smetana Fanfare

Musique pour Prague 1968

Václav Nelhýbel (1919-1996)

Fanfares de l'opéra Libuše

William Schuman (1910-1992)

George Washington Bridge

* Nicholas Farco, narrator
Rutgers Wind Ensemble
Direction William Berz

'Fanfares and Overtures' aptly conveys the spirit of this wideranging album, which marks the début on Naxos's popular Wind Band Classics range of the Rutgers Wind Ensemble. Hailed by one critic as 'the Rolls Royce of wind ensembles', it here presents music whose haunting moods, contrasting compositional styles and sophisticated characters call forth both the 'sweet, sighing sonorities' and 'impressive unanimity and sheer technique' for which the Ensemble is renowned. Previous recordings have gained the Ensemble an impressive 33 Grammy® entry listings.

The Rutgers Wind Ensemble has released a number of distinguished recordings on the educational Mark label. To my knowledge, this Naxos disc is their first commercial release and a fine one it is.
Wind music enthusiasts will likely know H. Owen Reed for his magnificent programmatic symphony for band, La fiesta mexicana. He is represented here by three smaller scaled works. Overture-1940, arranged by conductor William Berz, is a driving, energetic work featuring angular melodies, mildly dissonant harmonies, and busy counterpoint in its development. Though a bit reminiscent of Howard Hanson, Samuel Barber, and other prominent composers of the pre-World War II era, it is nonetheless an engaging work in its own right. Similarly, Reed's Renascence is a pleasant concert overture that calls to mind the band works of Vincent Persichetti. Fanfare for Remembrance is scored for narrator, trumpet ensemble, and percussion. Inspired by the poem "For Remembrance" by Edythe Hope Genée, the work consists of two rather mundane settings of The Battle Hymn of the Republic followed by an unimaginative recitation of the poetry over a repetitious collage of melodic fragments. A concluding gimmick--that of having the last line of the poem repeatedly intoned over whispered "echoes" from the trumpeters--does little to redeem the work's negligible effect.

Czech-born composers Václav Nelhýbel and Karel Husa are "household names" in the band world, each having penned a number of colorful, dynamic scores that have become standard repertoire for the medium. Both of their fanfares are based on music of their countryman Bedrich Smetana. Though Nelhýbel receives credit as the composer of Fanfares from Libuse, the piece is actually an arrangement of excerpts from the Overture to Smetana's opera. Unfortunately, the work as presented here does not make much of an impression. Not so of Husa's splendid Smetana Fanfare, a thrilling concert opener--oddly placed second on this disc--based on material from the elder composer's Wallenstein's Camp.

When Husa's Music for Prague 1968 burst onto the band scene in 1969, it created a sensation and was lauded as the work that would finally break through the barriers of the band subculture and stand the test of time as a true masterpiece of modern music. Forty years later, such an assessment might raise a few eyebrows, but the work is still a very powerful and moving memorial to the crushing of the Prague Spring reform movement by the Soviet Union in the summer of 1968. The work has received thousands of performances, both in the original version for wind ensemble and in the composer's own orchestral transcription. Conductor Donald Hunsberger and his Eastman Wind Ensemble set the standard with their breathtaking performance on Sony 44916. This new recording, though very good, is blemished by occasional slack rhythms and intermittent intonation problems in the upper woodwinds.

Also a band standard, William Schuman's George Washington Bridge was inspired by the composer's view of the bridge on his daily treks to and from the Juilliard School, where he served as president. To Schuman, the bridge took on an almost human personality--a personality that seemed to change depending on the time of day, the weather, and his own mood and state of mind. It is a masterful work in five sections, creating an arc structure and characterized by massive polychords, bold gestures, and vivid colors. The Rutgers players deliver a powerhouse performance.

Despite a few minor lapses in ensemble precision and the aforementioned intonation problems, the Rutgers Wind Ensemble and conductor William Berz make a very positive impression. The recorded sound is rich and spacious, sacrificing some degree of detail for a concert hall-like ambience. Recommended, despite the caveats mentioned above.

Le premier enregistrement Naxos du Rutgers Wind Ensemble, "la Rolls Royce des ensembles à vents" selon la critique américaine. Un programme particulièrement contrasté et qui sort du répertoire habituel de ce genre de formation.
Une excellente occasion de découvrir des œuvres rares dans une brillante interprétation

Nino Rota

Piano Music

Michelangelo Carbonara, (piano)

Nino Rota (1911–1979)

Ippolito gioca (1930)
Fantaisie en sol majeur (1944–45) *
Ballo della villanotta in erba (1931) *
Suite de Le Casanova de Fellini (1976)
O Venezia, Venaga, Venusia - L’uccello magico - L’intermezzo della mantide religiosa - The Great Mouna - Il duca di Württenberg - La Poupée automate
Bagatelle (1941) *
15 Préludes (1964)
Valse (1945) *

* Premier enregistrement (world premiere recording)

A fascinating story of rediscovery and detective work – Bagatella (1941) was reconstructed from papers and other material found after the composer’s death in 1979.

Several first recordings.

‘An unforgettable Scarlatti’ Sunday Times UK reviewing a Carbonara recital

‘An incredible, deep sound, rich and refined…..a blend of gentleness and greatness’ Le Soir reviewing a Carbonara recital

Nino Rota (1911–79) is best remembered for his film scores, of which he composed some 157 examples. These included many memorable scores for movies directed by Visconti, Zeffirelli and Coppola. Less is known about Rota the composer and pianist, and this CD reveals a composer with a mastery of the keyboard, and who, like his older contemporary Korngold, had a life and career away from the world of movies. Rota’s family was a musical one, and contained at least two pianists of concert standard. He studied with Pizzetti and Casella in Rome in the 1920s, and then, on the advice of Toscanini, went to Philadelphia for further studies with Rosario Scalero for composition, and Fritz Reiner for conducting. He returned to Italy for a career as a composer of orchestral and chamber music, but despite his symphonies, piano concertos and operas, it was the film business that called him in the much-changed world of post-war Italy. A friend said of Rota: ‘For him, playing the piano was as natural as eating’. Surprisingly, aside from three concertos, his piano output runs to only 14 opus numbers. These works, however, provide a wonderful insight to the musical personality of Rota.

The Preludes have all the anguished melodies we associate with his film scores, together with dazzling virtuosity and sonorities. The Fantasia in G was written for his friend Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. It was lost after the war, and only rediscovered among his papers after his death. It receives its premiere recording on this CD, as does the Waltz, the Bagatella, and the short album leaf or musical birthday card to his aunt – ‘Ballodella villanotta in erba’. A fascinating recording of a composer we are only just reassessing, and who had at least two musical personalities – as a master of the movie soundtrack, and as a composer of concertos, symphonies, piano and chamber music, and an amazing 22 operas.

De nombreuses premières mondiales discographiques pour ce programme permettant une meilleure connaissance de l'œuvre de l'un des plus célèbres compositeurs pour le cinéma. Ami d’Igor Stravinski, Manuel de Falla et Maurice Ravel, Nino Rota baigna dès sa jeunesse à Milan dans un climat musical particulièrement stimulant, mais sa rencontre avec Luchino Visconti puis Federico Fellini allait en faire un passionné de cinéma et orienter son inspiration.
Michelangelo Carbonara est né en 1979 à Salerno et son répertoire est particulièrement étendu, même s'il accorde une place privilégiée à la découverte d'un nouveau répertoire.