Music during the Baroque era was not stagnant: rather, musicians took creative liberties, imbuing notes on the page with improvisations, ornamentations, and more. That is the approach that two pianists – Sam Post and Ralitza Patheva – decided to take in their brand new recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, bringing elements of ragtime, folk, and jazz into this classic work. Also putting their own spin on traditional works are the Ensemble Galilei, who celebrate their 35th anniversary with the double album There I Long to Be, and fresh-faced new cello quintet SAKURA. Violinist Isabelle Faust shines alongside the Berlin Academy for Ancient Music in some of Telemann’s most interesting violin compositions, while Chloë Hanslip and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra demonstrate the orchestration chops of both Robert Russell Bennett and Vernon Duke – two composers more famous for their work on Broadway.
New Releases Oct. 14: Fresh Twists
Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “brilliant” and “superb,” SAKURA Cello Quintet (Stella Cho, Michael Kaufman, Yoshika Masuda, Zachary Mowitz, and Peter Myers) explores great music of the past through dazzling arrangements on familiar works, and continually expands the five-cello repertoire through commissioning new works. The group’s name, SAKURA, is a tribute to their mentor, cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, whose name “Kirs(c)hbaum” translates into “cherry tree,” as does the Japanese word sakura. Their debut album brings together the best and most beloved cello arrangements from their wide-ranging collection of repertoire. The program spans centuries, from iconic film scores like John Williams’s Star Wars and Joe Hisaishi’s Howl’s Moving Castle, to the title selection by Debussy, to Renaissance madrigals by Orlando Gibbons and Carlo Gesualdo.
With more than 125 concertos to his credit, Telemann was one of the pioneers of this genre that had flowered in Italy. Combining daring, humor, and emotion, he particularly delighted in exploring the virtuosity of the violin, its gift for imitation and its lyricism. Alongside other works of his where the violin also takes center stage, Isabelle Faust and the Academie für Alte Musik Berlin showcase several jewels from his output of unimagined opulence. Works include “The Frogs” Violin Concerto in A major; the “Gulliver’s Travels” character Suite for 2 Violins in D major featuring concertmaster Bernhard Forck; the Fantasia in B Minor; the Overture-Suite in B minor; and the Concerto for Violin, Trumpet, and Cello, featuring trumpeter Ute Hartwich and cellist Katharina Litschig.
Ensemble Galilei is a small ensemble specializing in a wide range of music for their particular instrumentation, and includes Isaac Alderson (uilleann pipes, Irish flute, whistles, tenor saxophone), Jesse Langen (guitar), Kathryn Montoya (recorders, whistle, shawm), Jackie Moran (banjo, bodhrán, egg shaker), and founder Carolyn Surrick (viola da gamba). They celebrate their 35th anniversary with a double-album recorded over the course of two years and encompassing a wide range of musical styles, cultures, and time periods – a combination of the musicians’ individual interests and the group’s focus. The program features 47 tunes across 34 tracks with an abundance of jigs, reels, traditional tunes, and early music, as well as original works by members of the ensemble.
The two concertos presented here by Chloë Hanslip with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by Andrew Litton have been neglected for the same reason: their composers were much better known for their achievements in musical theater than their works for the concert hall. Robert Russell Bennett studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and his output includes seven symphonies. He also orchestrated some of the highest-profile musicals in Broadway history, including works by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Vladimir Alexandrovich Dukelsky changed his name to Vernon Duke at the suggestion of his friend Jacob Gershovitz – better known as George Gershwin. Duke received rigorous training in classical music at the Kyiv Conservatory, was friends with Prokofiev, and composed ballet scores for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris, as well as three symphonies. He remains better known as the creator of hit shows, such as Cabin in the Sky, and as the composer of numerous songs that became jazz standards, including “April in Paris.”
Washington, D.C.–based pianists—composer-performer Sam Post and his friend and colleague Ralitza Patcheva—have join forces to reimagine Bach’s iconic Well-Tempered Clavier. Their new recording, The Well-“Tampered” Clavier, Book 1, embraces the expressive possibilities of the modern piano and infuses the music with rhythmic vitality drawn from jazz, ragtime, folk, world music, and twentieth-century classical styles. In the Baroque era, improvising, ornamenting, and reshaping a composer’s original work was standard practice—much like jazz musicians do today. Post and Patcheva lean into that legacy, freely applying rhythmic variation without feeling constrained by the printed page. Post reflects, “Surely this is how Bach felt writing his music—every moment, every note a path chosen, leaving behind equally valid options, but together forming one coherent, human story.”
