Tokyo String Quartet
Harmonia Mundi HMU-807429

Dvořák: String Quartet No 12 in F major, Op 96, American (26:43)

Tokyo String Quartet

After 43 years, one of the supreme chamber ensembles of our time leaves the concert stage at the end of the 2012-2013 concert season. In its final recording, the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet presents a pair of popular chamber works offering a glimpse into the private world of two Czech composers: Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana.

A Single Noon
Single Noon Records SNR-3

Kallor: Here Now (7:19)

Gregg Kallor, piano

‘A Single Noon’ is a musical tableau of life in New York City, told through a combination of composed music and improvisation. The nine movements are meant to be evocative snapshots – moments of caffeinated bliss, embarrassing subway mishaps, the buzzing energy of a city driven by dynamic, thoughtful, talented and slightly crazy people – that coalesce into a more complete story like an album of postcards or memories.

A Grand Romance
Steinway & Sons 30017

Moszkowski: Caprice espagnol (6:50)

Jeffrey Biegel, piano

‘A Grand Romance’ celebrates the intimacy of the relationship between pianist and public, with a sampling of finely honed pieces of the Romantic era. Penned by composers who were highly accomplished keyboardists themselves, it represents a genre of pianism unashamed of sentiment, frill and facility, and luxuriating in the expressive sophistication of the instrument and the wooing of the crowd.

Basically Bull
Steinway & Sons 30019

Bull: In Nomine IX (6:24)

Alan Feinberg, piano

While others provided popular tunes and simple dances for the new instrument called the ‘virginal,’ John Bull offered up experimental, challenging works, pieces that exuberantly overstepped conventional musical expectations. Fashioning a group of these works to function in concert and translating them to the wildly different timbre of the modern piano has been an exciting venture into the 16th and 17th century avant-garde. Bull’s music is brimming with invention and inspiration, power and passion. – Alan Feinberg

Come again: Dowland & Contemporaries
CPO 777 799-2

Scheidt: Galliard Battaglia (1:57)
Dowland: The King of Denmark’s Galliard (1:23); Flow my teares (4:04)
De Moy: Pavana d’Aurick (2:54)
Brade: Paduana (3:38); Galliard (1:22)

Jan Kobow, tenor; Hamburg Ratsmusik / Simone Eckert

Around 1600, John Dowland was one of Europe’s best-known and most influential composers. He spent years in France, Germany, Italy and Denmark, and everywhere he went he became acquainted with local composers. His music continued to be valued, arranged and disseminated throughout Europe even a quarter of a century after his death.

Mahler: Symphony No 1
LPO 0070

Mahler: Symphony No 1 in D major: I, Langsam. Schleppend (15:56); Blumine (6:48); II, Kräftig bewegt (8:16)

London Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski

Vladimir Jurowski has been Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra since 2007. In this live 2010 concert performance of Mahler’s First Symphony at London’s Royal Festival Hall, Jurowski includes the original second movement, Blumine. He believes the inclusion of the movement “makes the links between the three early symphonies much more apparent.”

Julia Lezhneva: Alleluia
Decca B0018099-02

Mozart: Exsultate, jubilate, K 165 (14:13)

Julia Lezhneva, soprano; Il Giardino Armonico / Giovanni Antonini

Still in her early twenties, Julia Lezhneva astounds audiences wherever she sings. Praised for her ‘pure tone’ (Opernwelt), her brief appearance at the 2010 Classical Brits in London, at the invitation of Kiri Te Kanawa, was the talk of the evening, and since then her career has rocketed. This is her debut album for Decca Classics: four sacred motets by Handel, Vivaldi, Porpora and Mozart accompanied by Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini.

Music of Magnus Lindberg
Dacapo 8.226076

Lindberg: EXPO (10:08)

New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert

This new album features world-premiere recordings of works by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg. The works were written for and performed by Music Director Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic during Lindberg’s tenure as composer-in-residence from 2009 to 2012. The CD includes concert recordings of three Philharmonic commissions: EXPO, Al largo and Piano Concerto No. 2 with pianist Yefim Bronfman.