Classical Music Discoveries

THE LIFE BEFORE US Allan Crossman & John G. Bilotta Bearing musical witness to the versatile talents of two acclaimed northern California-based composers, THE LIFE BEFORE US combines works from John G. Bilotta and Allan Crossman. Bilotta’s cycle of Yeats Songs, performed by baritone Andrew R. White, highlights five of the poet’s shorter lyrics in predominantly bi-tonal or atonal settings. His collection of Renaissance Songs is based on the work of several Elizabethan poets, including John Donne and Thomas Lodge (whose poem “Rosalynde” was the source of Shakespeare’s As You Like It). They’re brilliantly delivered by tenor Justin Marsh. Bilotta draws on two American poets, Carl Sandburg and Edna St. Vincent Millay, for “Lost” and “Prayer to Persephone,” two songs united by a single poetic theme and elegantly performed by soprano Cass Panuska accompanied by pianist Hadley McCarroll, who are also featured on The Hippocampus’ Monologue, the closing aria from the first act of Bilotta’s opera Rosetta’s Stone. Allan Crossman’s ten songs on THE LIFE BEFORE US include four inspired by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca and an international array of others: from Ireland (James Joyce), Germany (Hermann Claudius and Ricarda Huch), Russia (Alexander Scriabin), and America (Louis Phillips), performed by mezzo-soprano Megan Stetson and bass Richard Mix, with the composer himself at the piano. Crossman’s three-movement Sonata fLux, with pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi, flows from the energetic “Moto Atlantico” through the vibrating “fLight of the Firefly” to the swirling fluidity of “Rondo a Pollock” - inspired, as its title suggests, by Jackson Pollock’s ‘action painting’ technique - and brings the eclectic program to an impressive conclusion. Download now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p601/The_Life_Before_Us_%28digital_download%29.html

AXIOMS MOMENTS OF TRUTH Axiom Quartet An axiom is a self-evident truth. Everything on this album represents different aspects and shades of truth. On their debut recording, Axiom Quartet probes the soul and delivers a deeply satisfying statement on truth and inner fulfillment. Each track is a whirlwind journey of soul searching expression. From the bravado of “Insight” into the confounding swirl of “Hindsight,” and on to the profoundly elegant “Pur Ti Miro,” this recording turns tempo and style on a dime leaving the listener exhilarated. While “Insight” is the exhilarating realization of truth, “Little Lies” bends truth. Axiom Quartet’s arrangement of the Fleetwood Mac classic is a refined, yet provocative update that feels surprisingly at home in a chamber setting. An understated dignity adds depth to country-folk standard “Wagon Wheel,” with a delicate banjo dancing under the Quartet’s strings. In “Everything Means Nothing to Me” an artist painfully expresses the truth in his heart while Billie Holiday begs a lover to not tell her the truth in “Don’t Explain.” “Axiom” is a work about seeking truth and reason, only to have had the answers present from the beginning. Karl Blench wrote all of the arrangements and original compositions for this album. There are small moments of music, also original compositions of Karl Blench, between each of the longer sections of this album. They blend and blur the ideas of the music that comes before and after them to portray the grayer tones of truth. The Axiom Quartet includes violinists Dominika Dancewicz and Ingrid Gerling, violist Nina Bledsoe, and cellist Patrick Moore. Known for creating and performing programs that mix traditional string quartet repertoire and transcriptions of works from a variety of genres (including jazz, electronic, rock, indie, etc.), Axiom Quartet introduces audiences to extraordinary music from different genres and creates new fans of the classical repertoire. The Axiom Quartet serves as outreach ambassador for Chamber Music Houston, one of the Houston’s top chamber music presenters. The CMH sponsorship allows the group to perform their innovative programs in communities where access to live music is limited.

For her debut album on PARMA recordings SHE, Emily Sternfeld-Dunn serves as the voice of two of history’s strongest female characters. The poetic musings in the lyrics soar with Sternfeld-Dunn’s unmistakable soprano under the current of the tender, delicate melodies performed by pianist Amanda Pfenninger. Split into two mini-albums, SHE serves as a definitive recording that both showcases Sternfeld abilities as a vocalist and preserves the compositions for educational use. The first collection, titled “Too Few the Mornings Be (Eleven Songs for Soprano and Piano),” is composed by Ricky Ian Gordon. Gordon complimented his compositions with the poems of Emily Dickinson. Despite the relatively short run-times of these tracks, Sternfeld-Dunn takes the poet’s philosophical themes and wraps them in raw emotion as though pleading for answers to life’s biggest questions. The second half of this album “Eve-Song” features music by Jake Heggie and text by Philip Littell. Here, Heggie creates a moving soundtrack to Littell’s poems about the biblical Eve. The composition is a monodrama. The longer compositions allow time for Pfenninger to It also lets Sternfeld-Dunn truly harness the character of Eve. She employs her vocal melodies like ancient chants exploring moods and feelings of wonderment, yearning, and even humor. The power of SHE comes from the strength of its female performers. Sternfeld-Dunn and Pfenninger play off each other well to give life to these historically-renowned women, and translate their quests for life and purpose into a grand, new meaning. Digital Copy: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p598/She_%28Digital_Download%29.html Physical Copy (CD): http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p597/She_%28Physical_CD%29.html

GRECIAN URN Mark G. Simon Composer and Clarinetist Mark G. Simon makes his PARMA debut with his first-ever recorded album, GRECIAN URN. All selections were composed by Simon, and he is the clarinetist on every track. “Anniversary Sonata” (1998) commemorates the 50th wedding anniversary of the composer’s parents. Movement 1, “With Restrained Energy,” is perhaps mis-named, given its sassy, Latin piano riffs (Aleeza Meir) syncopated against the melodic clarinet. “Angel Music,” is a bright, yet sympathetic Broadway-style ballad with running eighth-note phrases marked by sentimental modulations, inspired by the congeniality of the composer’s parents, his father’s vocation as a minister, and the G.K. Chesterton quote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” Concluding the sonata is the progressive “Pleasant Hill,” a sweet treasure that could easily be set to words to conclude what is the lounge-style, popular work with innate chamber music tendencies. The composer writes: “‘Pleasant Hill,’ is based on a pop tune that came to me while visiting the quiet retirement community where my parents spent the last years of their lives.” This work is a true love song. “Un Buen Piola Porteño” (2001) is a tango/fantasia for clarinet and piano and fabulous in every way – from the transformative qualities of the clarinet’s voicing through different octaves to the smooth, indelible, charismatic melody of the tune itself, fleshed out with the glittering harmonies of the piano. Listen for the second of three tango melodies, through which the composer promises an “out of body experience.” In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Simon and Meir add soprano Linda Larson to their combo. In this setting of four of the five stanzas of the John Keats poem, in which the poet describes his visits to the British Museum, Simon reincarnates Keats’ experience noting that “The poem’s very existence to the power of art to affect people’s lives.” “Thou Still Unravished Bride,” is reminiscent of an Argento song--delicate and complex, yet unforgiving. “Heard Melodies” is a torrent of surface emotions transpired into a popular folk tune. “Coming to the Sacrifice,” is a haunting but spirited dance concluded with an extended instrumental fugue--in homage to J.S. Bach’s own Musical Sacrifice (BWV 1097). “O Attic Shape,” is an elegy directed to the Grecian Urn itself through which a harrowing soprano outcry lauds the Urn for its beauty. Purchase physical CD: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p595/Grecian_Urn_%28Physical_CD%29.html Download Digital copy: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p596/Grecian_Urn_%28digital_download%29.html

The Little Nothings Ballet, K. 299b Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 297 CMD Philharmonic of Paris in Orleans Dominique Beaulieu, conductor Download now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p594/Mozart_at_22.html

Intermezzo, Op. 72, is an opera in two acts by Richard Strauss to his own German libretto, described as a Bürgerliche Komödie mit sinfonischen Zwischenspielen (bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes). It premiered at the Dresden Semperoper on 4 November 1924, with sets that reproduced Strauss' home in Garmisch. The first Vienna performance was in January 1927. The story depicts fictionally the personalities of Strauss himself (as "Robert Storch") and his wife Pauline (as "Christine") and was based on real incidents in their lives. Pauline Strauss was not aware of the opera's subject before the first performance. After Lotte Lehmann had congratulated Pauline on this "marvelous present to you from your husband", Pauline's reply was reported as "I don't give a damn". The most celebrated music from the opera is the orchestral interludes between scenes. His usual librettist up to that time, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, refused to work on the opera and suggested that Strauss himself write the libretto, which he eventually did after having been refused by other writers. This is why the libretto is not in verse but in prose and even mimics the dialect used by the servants in the play, against the more polished German of the principals. The opera's title is intended to refer to the intermezzi that used to be staged during the intermissions of serious operas during the 18th century, sort of mini-comic-operas, easy to follow with themes usually about marital confusions and other light comedies. Joana Filipe Martinez - conductor/producer CMD Grand Opera Company of Barcelona Spain Download now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p593/R_Strauss%3A_Intermezzo%2C_Op._72.html

This broadcast is now available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/35_YoSS6rt4

The Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43, by Jean Sibelius was started in winter 1901 in Rapallo, Italy, shortly after the successful premiere of the popular Finlandia, and finished in 1902 in Finland. Sibelius said, "My second symphony is a confession of the soul." Dominique Beaulieu, conductor CMD Paris Philharmonic in Orleans Download the digital copy at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p591/Sibelius%3A_Symphony_No._2_in_D_Major%2C_Op._43.html

This broadcast is now available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/Y46lu5CiHEw

So many of us wonder about the big picture questions in life. Why are we here? What is the best I can do in my lifetime? COSMIC WHEEL OF THE ZODIAC, with lyrics by astrologer Benita Rainer, presents a cosmic rumination for meditation upon these great questions. These songs guide you through the labyrinth of the Cosmos, which, as perfectly attested to in “As above, so below,” is also the labyrinth of your mind; as what is without has its genesis in what is within. Order CD at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p588/Margaret_Brandman%3A_Cosmic_Wheel_of_the_Zodiac_%28CD%29.html Digital download at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p589/Margaret_Brandman%3A_Cosmic_Wheel_of_the_Zodiac.html

Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, sometimes known as the “Symphony of Pauses,” was completed in 1872. It was actually the fourth symphony composed by Bruckner, after the Study Symphony in F minor (1863), the Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1866), and the Symphony "No. 0" in D minor (1869). Conducted by Sylvia Wagner CMD German Opera Company of Berlin Orchestra Purchase the digital download now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p587/Bruckner%3A_Symphony_No._2_in_C_minor_%28first_version%29_%22Symphony_of_the_Pauses%22.html

Symphony No. 1 - Jeremiah Symphony No. 2 - The Age of Anxiety Symphony No. 3 - Kaddish Dominique Beaulieu and Joana Filipe Martinez, conductors CMD Paris Philharmonic of Orleans CMD Grand Opera Company of Barcelona Spain Joana Filipe Martinez, solo piano (Symphony No. 2) Purchase now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p586/Leonard_Bernstein_-_The_Three_Symphonies.html

The Symphony in D minor, WAB 100, was composed by Anton Bruckner in 1869 between Symphony No. 1 (1866) and Symphony No. 2 (1872). In 1895 Bruckner declared that this symphony "gilt nicht" (does not count) and he did not assign a number to it. The work was published and premiered in 1924. Sylvia Wagner, conductor CMD German Opera Company of Berlin Orchestra Purchase now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p585/Bruckner%3A_Symphony_No._0_in_D_minor%2C_WAB_100%2C_%22Nullte%22%2C_Nowak_Critical_Edition.html

The Symphony in D minor, WAB 100, was composed by Anton Bruckner in 1869 between Symphony No. 1 (1866) and Symphony No. 2 (1872). In 1895 Bruckner declared that this symphony "gilt nicht" (does not count) and he did not assign a number to it. The work was published and premiered in 1924. Sylvia Wagner, conductor CMD German Opera Company of Berlin Orchestra Purchase now at: http://www.classicalsavings.com/store/p585/Bruckner%3A_Symphony_No._0_in_D_minor%2C_WAB_100%2C_%22Nullte%22%2C_Nowak_Critical_Edition.html

This broadcast has been archived to YouTube and is available at: https://youtu.be/VmVEkpyODb4 Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow), Op. 65, is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917. When it premiered in Vienna on 10 October 1919, critics and audiences were unenthusiastic. Many cited problems with Hofmannsthal's complicated and heavily symbolic libretto. However, it is now a standard part of the operatic repertoire. Joana Filipe Martinez - Conductor/Producer CMD Grand Opera Company of Barcelona Spain