This latest batch of albums features contemporary composers exploring textures that can only be achieved with small ensembles. Orli Shaham – curator, host, and pianist of Pacific Symphony’s “Cafe Ludwig” chamber music series – presents a series of diverse chamber music works by leading American composers. In an album of the same name, the Calidore Quartet explores some of their favorite American works from the 21st and 20th centuries. The Piatti Quartet takes us to the British Isles, with sounds mostly taken from the 16th and 17th centuries, while Boris Giltburg defends his title as one of the leading Rachmaninoff interpreters. Finally, Neeme Järvi leads the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in works by two famous Nordic composers.
New Releases Feb 17: Exciting Chamber Works
Orli Shaham (Photo: Karjaka Studio)
The latest album by the Calidore String Quartet weaves together a panoramic portrait of American musical expression across the 20th and 21st centuries spanning Samuel Barber’s lyrical String Quartet No. 1 (famous for its iconic Adagio movement), Wynton Marsalis’s jazz-inflected At the Octoroon Balls, and John Williams’s With Malice Toward None — here in its world premiere string quartet version. The album concludes with Erich Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, written in postwar Los Angeles. Together, these works reveal a vibrant continuum of American artistry — a sound world both richly diverse and deeply unified in spirit.
The Piatti Quartet present a new album on the theme of “phantasies,” featuring music by Ina Boyle, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, and Malcolm Arnold. The program is inspired by the vision of one extraordinary patron of chamber music: Walter Cobbett (1847–1937), who created a competition for British composers in 1905, and singlehandedly created the ‘Phantasy’ (his spelling), taking inspiration from the 16th and 17th century instrumental works for viol or string consorts. Ina Boyle entered hers in 1919 but misread the requirements of “piano & strings.” Howells entered his composition in 1917, and Arnold, whilst coming after the competitions ended, continued the form with his Phantasy composed when he was 19. Cobbett also commissioned Phantasies, including the Vaughan Williams work on this album from 1912. The program concludes with two miniatures, one by the Irish-French composer Augusta Holmès, and a tribute to Igor Stravinsky by Michael Tippett, who was awarded the Cobbett medal for services to chamber music in 1948. The Tippett piece as well as two by Boyle receive their first recording on this album.
Boris Giltburg, widely recognized as a leading interpreter of Rachmaninoff, continues his ongoing series for Naxos dedicated to the composer. Composed at the age of 19, Rachmaninoff’s earliest published cycle of piano pieces, the Morceaux de Fantaisie, contains the Prélude in C sharp minor, destined to become a signature work, and the Mélodie in E major, much loved by Tchaikovsky. The expressive Morceaux de Salon show Tchaikovsky’s influence and some of the grief felt by Rachmaninoff after his mentor’s death. With the inclusion of the melodically rich Nocturnes and the Four Pieces, the earliest to survive in his hand, this collection shows both the young composer finding his voice and the more recognizable compositional personality of his later years.
Pianist Orli Shaham has been the curator, host, and pianist of Pacific Symphony’s “Cafe Ludwig” chamber music series for nearly two decades. This new album of contemporary chamber music is the product of her long relationship with the musicians of the symphony, which is based in Southern California. The program demonstrates the diversity of chamber works by leading American composers Margaret Brouwer, Jessie Montgomery, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Avner Dorman, Viet Cuong, Reena Esmail, Peter Dayton, and Ari Barack Fisher. The pieces by Dorman and Brouwer were commissioned by Pacific Symphony and are world premiere recordings. Along with Shaham, the recording features concertmaster Dennis Kim, principal bass Richard Cassarino, principal viola Meredith Crawford, principal cello Warren Hagerty, principal flute Benjamin Smolen, clarinetist Joshua Ranz, and trumpeter Tony Ellis.
The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under conductor Neeme Järvi present orchestral works by Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén and Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. Born in Stockholm in 1872, Hugo Alfvén was influenced by Wagner and Richard Strauss, and his style is also permeated by the influence of Swedish folk music. The program features two works by Alfvén: Festspel (Festival Play), Op. 25, commissioned to inaugurate the new art nouveau building for the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, in 1908; and the Gustav II Adolf Suite, a suite from his incidental music for a play by Ludvig Nordström commemorating the 300-year anniversary of the death of the protestant Swedish monarch at the end of the Thirty Years War. The album also features the best-known work by Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016): Cantus arcticus for which the composer took inspiration from the natural environment of northern Finland, incorporating two-channel tape recordings of birdsong as part of the orchestral texture.
