Piano powerhouses Bertrand Chamayou & Leif Ove Andsnes join forces to make an album dedicated to Franz Schubert – specifically, his work for piano four hands. Also on the list are two collections that highlight brass instruments, from legendary bass trombonist Randall Hawes to brand new brass concertos by American composers. Kammerorchester Basel and Giovanni Antonini return with Volume 18 in their Haydn album series. Finally, Louise Alder is the guest of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Nicholas Collon in an album of stirring works by Richard Strauss.
New Releases Dec 16: Sonic Patchwork
Giancarlo Guerrero leading the Nashville Symphony (Photo: Chris Lee)
Composed in 1828, the final year of the composer’s short life, Schubert’s Fantasia in F minor is often described as the greatest of all works for piano, four hands. The Fantasia forms the centerpiece of the collaborative all-Schubert album from pianists Leif Ove Andsnes and Bertrand Chamayou, who first performed it together in 2016. The recording includes Andsnes performing the Rondo in A, D. 951, and Chamayou in Schubert’s Lebensstürme and the Fugue in E minor, D. 952. Describing Schubert’s as “some of the most sensitive music there is,” Andsnes says “one really needs to feel total sympathy, physically and musically, with the other pianist.” Chamayou agrees, “It’s as if we have to become one, because we are both controlling the same instrument.” He adds, “Leif Ove and I both have this profile of being soloists, but also sharing music with others. … It’s very inspiring for us.”
Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero is on a mission with the Nashville Symphony to expand the contemporary American concerto repertoire. Each of the three works on their new release spotlights a different facet of the relatively underexplored brass instrument family. Brad Warnaar’s Cornet Concerto is a witty and heartfelt homage to the rich heritage of 19th-century band music. Chick Corea’s Trombone Concerto, his final completed composition, fuses lyricism, jazz spontaneity, and orchestral drama. Jennifer Higdon’s Low Brass Concerto — commissioned by Chciago Symphony Orchestra — honors the spirit of this orchestral section in a majestic single movement. The elite soloists for this recording are trumpeter José Sibaja, an acclaimed performer across the spectrum of classical, Latin, jazz, and pop musical genres; and Joseph Alessi, a longtime trombonist with the New York Philharmonic.
Legendary bass trombonist Randall Hawes (35 years with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; four years as guest with The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra; and eight years as a member of the Saito Kinen Orhcestra) and his longtime collaborator, pianist Kathryn Goodson present a new album featuring 15 works that span the history of their musical relationship. The title work, David Biedenbender’s Liquid Architecture, was inspired by the late Frank Gehry. “I have heard his structures described as ‘liquid architecture,’ and…I find this description to be both apt and stunningly beautiful … and I wanted to capture this same idea in music,” says Biedenbender. Hawes and Goodson gave the work’s premiere at the Bienen School of Music in 2011. Other selections on the album include works by Tom Dossett, Marjorie Van Hoy, Anthony Plog, Greg Waits, Daniel Schnyder, Duke Ellington, Wayne King, Donald Grantham, Larry McVey, Ellen Rowe, and Gregory Turner with several pieces dedicated to the performers.
Joseph Haydn gave lessons in singing, keyboard instruments, theory, and composition throughout his life. His pupils included Ignaz Pleyel, Sigismund Neukomm and the Pole Franciszek (Franz) Lessel. In October 1805, Lessel received from his teacher the autograph score of his Symphony No. 56, dating from 1774. This symphony forms a pair with Symphony No. 55, known as “The Schoolmaster” and dating from the same year. Both are included in this eighteenth volume of the Haydn2032 series, along with Symphony No. 29 (1765). Giovanni Antonini and the Kammerorchester Basel also recorded the finale of Lessel’s Fifth Symphony in G minor, the only movement from any of his six symphonies to have survived.
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon present a new album of orchestral works by Richard Strauss. The program includes Strauss’s longest and final major orchestral work, the Alpine Symphony together with Four Songs, Op. 27 sung by Louise Alder, the star British soprano who made her Met debut this fall in Strauss’s Arabella. Strauss composed more than 200 songs, many with his wife’s soprano voice in mind. His four songs Opus 27 are particularly intimate: Strauss presented them to his wife Pauline de Ahna as a wedding gift upon their marriage in September 1894. From these songs, Strauss composed “Cäcilie” in the evening of 9th September, the day before his marriage to Pauline. These four songs on love are lavishly orchestrated and Strauss returned to orchestrate these songs still half a century later, in the 1940s.
![MOB_12.18.22_by_ElliotMandel-21[66]-169](https://www.wfmt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/MOB_12.18.22_by_ElliotMandel-2166-169-600x338.jpg "Holiday Programming on WFMT 2024")
