Works by Julia Perry, Doreen Carwithen, Hildegard von Bingen, and Miley Cyrus (yes, you read that right) are the marquee works on a pair of releases dedicated to women composers and artists. We are also treated to a survey of Ukrainian classical music, a pair of early music releases, and albums highlighting works by Franz Liszt and Ludwig van Beethoven.
New Releases Apr. 29: Women Composers, Ukraine, Early Music
Samantha Ege
Following albums that explore the solo piano works of Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Nora Douglas Holt, and Betty Jackson, and an album of chamber music from the African continent & diaspora with Castle of our Skins, the performer-scholar Dr. Samantha Ege’s new recording features concertos by two trailblazing female composers of the mid-twentieth century. Julia Perry’s Concerto in Two Uninterrupted Speeds, new to the WFMT library, begins with experimental, Modern-era harmonies and irregular form in its “Slow” movement before taking off in its “Fast” movement with energetic rhythmic propulsion seasoned with syncopation, perhaps suggesting rhythms of the African diaspora. By comparison, the three-movement concerto of Doreen Carwithen, best known as a film music composer, is sweeping and romantic, with flourishes that suggest Chopin. The charismatic and entrepreneurial conductor Odaline de la Martinez, founder of the Lontano Orchestra and the Lorelt record label, is Ege’s partner for this album. Martinez has long been a champion for historically disenfranchised and marginalized voices in classical music.
Described by Gramophone as a pianist of “consummate skill and thrilling conviction,” Margaret Fingerhut presents a deeply personal recital featuring music written between 1877 and 2005 by composers from the country of her grandfather’s birth. The survey includes Mykola Lysenko, the earliest Ukrainian composer represented. We owe our knowledge of Lysenko’s music to his pupil and editor, Lev Revutsky, who fell foul of new Stalinist cultural demands in the 1930s. Viktor Kosenko, a contemporary of Revutsky, also pursued his composing career in Ukraine. The collection includes pieces by Sergei Bortkiewicz, who suffered under both Soviet and Nazi tyrannies, and Vasyl Barvinsky, who shared Bortkiewicz’s adoption of late-Romantic Impressionism. Boris Lystoshynsky survived the Zhdanov Decree in the 1940s, which aimed to control Soviet culture and art; while the most contemporary Ukrainian composer on this recital, Valentin Silvestrov, fled to Berlin to re-establish his career following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Fingerhut was awarded an MBE in 2024 in recognition of her services to music and charitable fundraising. Royalty sales from this recording go towards British-Ukrainian Aid, which raises money for emergency vehicles and medical supplies for Ukraine.
French gambist Mathilde Vialle leads an ensemble featuring early plucked instrument specialist Thibaut Roussel. It was love at first sight when Vialle and Roussel first encountered the English bass viol and Venetian archlute preserved at the Museum of Music at the Philharmonie de Paris which inspried this program of English music from the second half of the seventeenth century, much of it never recorded before. The exceptional sonorities of their two period instruments are complemented by the virginal of Ronan Khalil and the captivating voice of tenor Zachary Wilder. The repertoire includes stunning arrangements of folksongs like “Greensleeves” and “Tis the Last Rose of Summer” interspersed with an engaging array of chaconnes, Scotch tunes, toccatas, and other works that show off the timbres of the unique instruments on hand.
Nicola Benedetti’s new EP of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was recorded with Aurora Orchestra and its Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon, with everyone playing from memory. This is a recording of a piece that emerges out of the urgency of the performances that inspired it, and as Nicola Benedetti says, to “try to approach this music with freshness of heart and mind.”
Benedetti further comments, “The solo line of this concerto was born out of an improvisatory spirit, with a lightness of touch soon to be out of fashion, with a virtuosity of integrity and poise. Many of us violinists grew up with such unhealthy reverence towards Beethoven, which soon turns into fear and an unnatural approach to his music. It can damage our ability to notice and embrace his humour, his wildness, and perhaps more importantly, the depth and power of his relationship to improvisation.”
The first movement cadenza was rearranged and adapted from Beethoven’s original piano version by Benedetti with her longtime collaborator, pianist and conductor Petr Limonov.
Inspired by the polyptchs (altarpieces composed of multiple panels, often depicting scenes from the Bible or religious figures) of the 14th century Italian painter Duccio, Swiss composer Frank Martin composed a work in six tableaux based on the Passion of Christ. Polyptyque, a concerto for violin and two small orchestras rooted in the music of Bach, Martin sets out to transpose musically the scenes of the Crucifixion. Polyptyque is the centerpiece for the new recording by violinist Marianne Piketty and her Concert Idéal, a string ensemble that tackles repertoire ranging from the 18th century to contemporary with an emhasis on world music and women composers. Martin’s concerto is interspersed with works by Vivaldi, Bach, Lotti and Victoria, like so many tableaux responding to Poylptyque. By opening up a dialogue between ancient and modern, sacred and secular, Marianne Piketty explores the continuum of human emotions, reminding us that they are at once universal and ephemeral, and yet a source of beauty and plenitude.
A tribute to women composers across history and a range of genres, Esther Abrami’s new album Women showcases 14 composers, spanning newly composed works and rediscovered masterpieces. Abrami carefully chose each piece on Women, not only for its musical brilliance but also for the emotional connection it holds for her, highlighting the often-overlooked voices of women in classical music.
“I spent months researching, drawn into a whole new world of music and stories from women left in the shadows of history. This album is my tribute to them,” says the French violinist. “Women is a journey through centuries of music, told through the voices of women who composed, fought, lived, and created despite the odds. The stories of these women inspired me to create; they showed me the importance of leaving your mark for future generations to discover. I hope Women can inspire a new generation of young girls to compose.”
Featured collaborators include the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Irene Delgado-Jiménez, pianist Kim Barbier, harpist Lavinia Meijer, and the Esther Abrami Quintet.
Leif Ove Andsnes explores the introspective side of Franz Liszt in program that pairs his Via Crucis for choir and piano with a selection of solo works that do not call for the composer’s trademark showmanship or virtuosity.
Via Crucis is unlike any other work in the repertoire: a concentrated ritual drama, ranging from liturgical chant to Lisztian chromaticism at its most searching and expressive. It sets a pianist and choir in dialogue with one another, each performing alone as well as together. “This is something very different,” says Andsnes. “It is incredible, the journey Liszt made as a composer, from this very flamboyant virtuosic style to [Via Crucis], which is very bare, with so few notes, but still an incredible tension and beauty. It points forward to the twentieth century while also building on the tradition of scared music.” Andsnes is joined by the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir conducted by Grete Pedersen.
The all-Liszt program is rounded out with the reflective and intimate Consolations, written on the eve of Liszt’s retirement from public performance, and two movements from Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, a 10-movement cycle inspired by poetry by Alphonse de Lamartine.
