Thierry Escaich, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège & Jean Jacques Kantorow – Saint-Saëns: Symphonies, Vol. 2 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:24 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
The present album is the second of two recorded by the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Li`ege and Jean-Jacques Kantorow to commemorate the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Sa”ens. On the first instalment the team offered us deeply impressive performances in stunning sound of the composer’s First and Second Symphonies and the unnumbered Symphony in A major, but now the time has come for Saint-Sa”ens’ crowning glory in the symphonic genre: his Symphony No. 3 in C minor, generally known as the “Organ Symphony”. The work was composed in 1886, and Saint-Sa”ens had planned to dedicate it to Liszt but the latter’s death the same year caused the dedication in the published score to be modified to “in memory of Franz Liszt”. It is written for a larger orchestra than his previous symphonies, with the unusual addition of a piano and an organ – the two instruments that Liszt (and Saint-Sa”ens himself) favoured. Without being a virtuoso vehicle, the organ part is central to the work – especially in the grandiose ending – and it is here performed by the renowned organist Thierry Escaich, playing the great organ of Li`ege’s Salle Philharmonique.
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Liya Petrova, Sinfonia Varsovia & Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Mozart – Beethoven (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:36 minutes | 1,56 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mirare
Liya Petrova burst onto the international scene in 2016 when she took First Prize at the Carl Nielsen Competition in Denmark, chaired by Nikolaj Szeps- Znaider.
Two years later, she recorded the Nielsen Concerto and Prokofiev’s Concerto No.1 with the Odense Philharmonic and Kristiina Poska, which earned her international acclaim from the press: “gorgeous sound – ripe and silvery, phrasing with majestic breadth” – The Sunday Times and “exceptional tonal variety… a marvellous disc” – Gramophone.
Here she joins Sinfonia Varsovia and conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow to present Beethoven and Mozart’s violin concertos in D.
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Alexandre Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Liszt: Piano Concertos (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:02 minutes | 954 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
As a teenager, Franz Liszt created at least two virtuosic concertos for piano and orchestra, scores which now are lost. The three works gathered here first saw the light of day only a few years later, however, during the 1830’s when Liszt’s career as a young, travelling virtuoso was at its height. The two numbered concertos, which Liszt revised extensively before letting them be published some 25 years after their conception, frame the single-movement Malédiction for piano and strings which Liszt composed in 1833 and revised in 1840, but which was never published in his lifetime. Stepping into Liszt’s shoes for the present recording is Alexandre Kantorow, another very young man. Born in 1997, Alexandre is here supported by his father Jean-Jacques Kantorow conducting the Tapiola Sinfonietta, a team with a number of highly acclaimed recordings to their credit. The recording is Alexandre’s first for BIS, as well as being his début concerto disc, and represents a remarkable achievement by a hugely promising talent, as well as being a vibrant and exciting account of three impassioned scores.
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Liège Royal Philharmonic and Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Lalo: Concertante Works for Violin, Cello & Piano (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:08:27 minutes | 3,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Édouard Lalo made his mark on French music with his opera Le Roi dYs, but his instrumental output also has considerable historical importance, with its resolutely innovative aims for its time. More specifically, his concertante music rewards the attentive ear with a brilliant, skilfully constructed style, studded with fresh rhythmic and harmonic inventions that renew the melodic and orchestral language of the genre. Under the direction of Jean-Jacques Kantorow, himself a violinist and extremely familiar with this repertory, the Liège Royal Philharmonic places itself at the service of the virtuoso fingers of six young soloists from the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel: this anthology provides an opportunity, notably, to renew acquaintance with the violinist Lorenzo Gatto who recently released a recording of the Beethoven Concerto in the famous Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra. Works such as the powerful Cello Concerto, the elegant Piano Concerto, the folk-influenced Concerto russe and Fantaisie norvégienne, and the sparkling Introduction et Scherzo on themes from Namouna complete this set, which highlights both the work of the prestigious and internationally renowned Belgian nursery for young talent, recently renovated, and a repertory championed by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, which contributed to the realisation of the project.
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Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Granada City Orchestra, Kees Bakels – Lalo: Works for Violin and Orchestra (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:09:39 minutes | 630 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
In 1878 Édouard Lalo wrote to the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate: ‘Your arrival in my life has been my greatest artistic opportunity… without you, I would have continued to write insignificant odds and ends’. The three works gathered here all spring from this arrival, beginning with the Violin Concerto, composed in 1873. The melodious and charming concerto held a great significance for the composer, who regarded it as his first work truly worthy of the name. In the eye of the public it was soon to be overshadowed, however. The première of Symphonie espagnole, in 1875, was followed by performances all over Europe, always in the expert hands of Sarasate. Neither a symphony nor a concerto, it is rather a five-movement suite in which the soloist and orchestra converse as equal partners. First in a long line of Spanish-themed works by French composers (including Bizet’s Carmen, Chabrier’s España, Debussy’s Iberia and Ravel’s Rhapsodie espagnole), it may be regarded as a composer’s tribute to his violinist’s country of origin. Three years later the Scandinavian accents of Fantaisie norvégienne were possibly the result of an encounter with the Norwegian composer and violinist Johan Svendsen. There is no doubt that Lalo was once more composing with Sarasate in mind, however. He wrote to the violinist: ‘I believe that I have succeeded in being amusing without being common… Feel free to add violinistic devilishness if you like.’ Whatever liberties Sarasate may have taken with the solo part, the première, conducted by Max Bruch, was again a great success. So great, in fact, that Lalo soon transformed it into a purely orchestral work, without soloist, giving it the title Rapsodie norvégienne. Standing in for Sarasate on the present disc is Jean-Jaques Kantorow, whose recording (on BIS-CD-1470) of Saint-Saëns’ Third Violin Concerto – incidentally another work dedicated to Sarasate! – was nominated for both a Gramophone Award and a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2008. Here he receives fine support from the conductor Kees Bakels, his collaborator on the Saint-Saëns disc, and the Granada City Orchestra, of which he himself was the artistic director during the years 2004-2008.
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Soloists of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Liège Royal Philharmonic, Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Lalo: Concertante Works for Violin, Cello & Piano (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:08:27 minutes | 3,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Édouard Lalo made his mark on French music with his opera Le Roi dYs, but his instrumental output also has considerable historical importance, with its resolutely innovative aims for its time. More specifically, his concertante music rewards the attentive ear with a brilliant, skilfully constructed style, studded with fresh rhythmic and harmonic inventions that renew the melodic and orchestral language of the genre. Under the direction of Jean-Jacques Kantorow, himself a violinist and extremely familiar with this repertory, the Liège Royal Philharmonic places itself at the service of the virtuoso fingers of six young soloists from the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel: this anthology provides an opportunity, notably, to renew acquaintance with the violinist Lorenzo Gatto who recently released a recording of the Beethoven Concerto in the famous Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra. Works such as the powerful Cello Concerto, the elegant Piano Concerto, the folk-influenced Concerto russe and Fantaisie norvégienne, and the sparkling Introduction et Scherzo on themes from Namouna complete this set, which highlights both the work of the prestigious and internationally renowned Belgian nursery for young talent, recently renovated, and a repertory championed by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, which contributed to the realisation of the project.
Read more![Alexandre Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Jean-Jacques Kantorow - Saint-Saëns: Works for Piano & Orchestra (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/04/27/lnmkeplrr1maa_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Alexandre Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Saint-Saëns: Works for Piano & Orchestra (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:45 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
In 2019, Alexandre and Jean-Jacques Kantorow’s recording of the last three piano concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns earned the highest praise around the world, including a “Diapason d’or de l’année”, “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone and top marks and recommendations from the leading German websites. The Kantorows’ orchestra of choice was the Finnish ensemble Tapiola Sinfonietta, and they have now returned to Helsinki to record not only Saint-Saëns’ first two concertos, but all of the remaining works for piano and orchestra.
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Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Ysaÿe: Harmonies du soir (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:13:58 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Musique en Wallonie
Over time, the memory of Eugène Ysaÿe (Liège, 1858‑ Brussels, 1931) the brilliant virtuoso gradually supplanted that of Ysaÿe the composer in the public consciousness. It should be reminded that Eugène Ysaÿe created in his poems for string instruments a totally new and original genre, distinguishing himself by a competence in writing and a harmonic richness that were far removed from the purely virtuosic merits of his early compositions.
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Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège & Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Saint-Saëns: Symphonies (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:24 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Prodigiously gifted, Camille Saint-Saëns entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1848, at the age of 13. There he discovered the symphonies of the great German and Austrian composers and soon began to try his own hand at the genre. The Symphony in A major stems from this period and although it was most likely never performed in his lifetime it demonstrates his exceptional talent to the full. Only a couple of years later, in 1853, Saint-Saëns submitted his second attempt at writing a symphony to one of the capital’s concert societies. Praised by Berlioz and Gounod, the Symphony No. 1 in E flat major was accepted for performance and published shortly afterwards as the composer’s opus 2. Classical in form, it is an example of Saint-Saëns’ typical clarity, with the lyricism that would later become a hallmark of his music coming to the fore in the two central movements. By the late 1850s, despite his youth, Saint-Saëns was already well-established: in addition to his activity as a virtuoso pianist, he had been named organist of La Madeleine in Paris. He composed his Symphony No. 2 in A minor quickly: from July to September 1859. The orchestration is transparent, and the first movement unusually features a fugue for three voices. Concise and constantly inventive, the work moves away from the Viennese models Saint-Saëns admired so much, with a finale reminiscent of the tarantella in Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony. The present disc is the first of two dedicated to the symphonies of Saint-Saëns and recorded by the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and Jean-Jacques Kantorow to commemorate the centenary of the composer’s death.
Read more![Alexandre Kantorow, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta - Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos Nos. 3-5 (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/08/zd5kg67vd04eb_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Alexandre Kantorow, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta – Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos Nos. 3-5 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:37 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
Jean-Jacques Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta have championed the music of Saint-Saëns on a series of acclaimed discs, and are now joined by the young Alexandre Kantorow –son of the conductor – for a survey of his works for piano and orchestra. In 1858, Saint-Saëns became the first major French composer to write a piano concerto, but on this first disc of two the Kantorows present the three last concertos. Composed over a period of almost 30 years (1868 – 1896), these are highly individual works: Piano Concerto No. 3 is a bold attempt to reconcile Classical form with a Lisztian pianistic brio, No. 4 employs an unusual formal scheme in which themes are reused in a cyclic manner and, finally, the ‘Egyptian’ (No. 5), named after the second movement, which in the composer’s own words describes ‘a sort of Eastern journey that goes all the way to the Far East’.
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John-Edward Kelly, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Stefan Asbury, Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Kalevi Aho: Chamber Symphonies Nos 1–3 (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 56:40 minutes | 506 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
The focus of Kalevi Aho’s output lies on large-scale orchestral works, and his work-list includes fifteen symphonies to date, composed between 1969 and 2010. Although the Finnish composer is famously lavish as an orchestrator, and often invites rare guests such as the heckelphone into his orchestra, the scores of Aho’s three chamber symphonies are much more economic in scale. Although composed for some twenty strings in all, they bear eloquent proof of the composer’s aim of exploiting to the full the expressive capabilities of a string orchestra. Consequently these works are highly demanding for the players, not because virtuosity has been an end in itself, but for reasons of maximum expressivity.
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Alexandre Kantorow, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Jean-Jacques Kantorow – Saint-Saëns: Works for Piano & Orchestra (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:45 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
In 2019, Alexandre and Jean-Jacques Kantorow’s recording of the last three piano concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns earned the highest praise around the world, including a “Diapason d’or de l’année”, “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone and top marks and recommendations from the leading German websites. The Kantorows’ orchestra of choice was the Finnish ensemble Tapiola Sinfonietta, and they have now returned to Helsinki to record not only Saint-Saëns’ first two concertos, but all of the remaining works for piano and orchestra.
(more…)