Two albums highlight music by Mel Bonis, a French Romantic woman composer. Plus, comprehensive looks at music by Haydn and Mozart. And Jordi Savall explores Forgotten Symphonies.
New Releases Jun. 24: Bonis, Haydn, Mozart
Mel Bonis
The Neave Trio explores the power and majesty of the ocean as the inspiration behind their newest album of French works for piano trio. La Mer includes: Trio No. 2, Op. 92 in E minor by Camille Saint-Saëns; Soir-Matin, Op. 76 by Mel Bonis; and La Mer by Claude Debussy, arranged by Sally Beamish.
“La Mer is a meditation on the sea – its power, fragility, and timeless mystery,” says the Neave Trio. “At a time when the ocean is more than ever at the center of our global consciousness, we were drawn to music that explores, whether overtly or in more subtle ways, the sea’s emotional and atmospheric depths. Together, these works form a richly textured soundscape, capturing the sea’s many forms: majestic, mysterious, and vulnerable. In creating La Mer, we sought not only to explore the emotional range of this repertoire, but to reflect on our shared connection to the natural world — and the urgent need to preserve its beauty.”
This release from CPO marks two important anniversaries – the 150th anniversary of the death of French composer Louise Farrenc and the 75th birthday of Russian composer Elena Firsova.
The USSR-born, UK-based composer’s piano quartet, now ten years old, is the centerpiece of this recording. For her piano quintet, Farrenc adopted the unusual scoring of her piano quintet from her teacher Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The first piano quartet of Mél(anie) Bonis (1858-1937) features Art Nouveau-like melodies and a lilting second movement, played with charm by Ensemble Louise Farrenc.
The 17th volume of the complete Haydn 2032 collection and presents a number of Haydn’s earliest symphonies, composed to display the talent of the musicians who had joined the Esterházy court orchestra during the same period as Haydn himself. The center of the program is the Symphony No. 13 in D major from 1763, whose orchestration includes four horns and whose final movement features a prefiguration of the famous theme of Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony, which was still twenty-five years in the future. The violin concerto in C major is marked “fatto per il Luigi” in Haydn’s catalogue of works and was dedicated to his friend Luigi Tomasini, a violin virtuoso born in Pesaro.
Following the success of his Beethoven and Schubert recordings, Jordi Savall now presents his first album devoted to music of Robert Schumann and Anton Bruckner. Adopting historically informed performance practices, Le Concert des Nations casts light on a repertoire that has been unfairly forgotten. Starting with Robert Schumann’s Zwickauer Symphony, the period instrument orchestra reveals new colors and ardor. The Symphony No.2, “Annuliert” (“Canceled”) by Bruckner on the manuscript, also fascinated Savall with its spiritual dimension, which he restores with his customary attention to detail.
Angela Hewitt’s 50th album for Hyperion Records concludes her Complete Mozart Piano Sonatas project. The 2-CD album ranges from two of the most beloved works – the K545 “Sonata facile” and the charming Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, maman” – to the composer’s last and most profound piano sonatas.
“When you play the complete works of Mozart, you get the most wonderful feeling for what his own playing must have been like. You feel how the music was created under his fingers; the joy he took in not only composing but showing off what he could do; but also his temperament – the comedy, the tragedy, the melancholy. A life full of characters, situations, games, dance, and especially song,” says Hewitt. “To play Mozart well, you must imitate a great singer, you must dance, and you must be a great conductor alongside playing your instrument.”
