Sharon Bezaly – Synergy (2022)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:08:01 minutes | 2,7 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: SACD | Artwork: Front cover | © BIS
“On Synergy, flautist Sharon Bezaly and her musician friends demonstrate that one plus one can be much greater than two. Featuring works that celebrate the coming together of like-minded musicians, this project is a reminder, after more than two years of a pandemic that has affected all of us, that true musical synergy can only be achieved ‘face-to-face’, rather than ‘remotely’. With his Concerto for flute and recorder, Telemann not only creates a fusion of different musical styles of his time – namely Italian, German and French – but also shows a gift for borrowing elements from popular music. Saint-Saëns brings swirling colours and energy with a Tarentelle for flute, clarinet and orchestra that at times displays obsessive, even threatening undertones. From the same period, Doppler’s Concerto for two flutes is not far from the world of opera, providing the two soloists with ample opportunity to shine like two singers in front of an orchestra. In addition to celebrating the synergy created between musicians, the last two works featured on this disc, Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6 and Suite from the Orchestral Works, are telling examples of synergy between composers: it is as if Villa-Lobos and Mahler were shaking hands with Johann Sebastian Bach across distances of thousands of miles and hundreds of years.”
Read more
Sharon Bezaly and Vladimir Ashkenazy – Franck, Faure, Prokofiev: Flute Sonatas (2017)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 75:06 minutes | F/B Covers+PDF Booklet | 3,41 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | F/B Covers + PDF Booklet | 2,96 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96kHz | F/B Covers + PDF Booklet | 1,40 GB
Features Stereo and Multichannel Surround Sound | Label: BIS Records AB # BIS-2259
The flautist Sharon Bezaly has released many discs on BIS, recordings which have contributed to the international recognition that she enjoys. On this disc, however, she turns to core repertoire, although not necessarily that of her own instrument. The two sonatas by César Franck and Gabriel Fauré were composed with the violin in mind, and even though Prokofiev’s sonata was originally intended for the flute it is often heard in the composer’s own version for violin and piano. But joined by the legendary pianist and conductor Vladimir Askenazy, Sharon Bezaly now claims the three works for her own instrument, in eloquent performances that make the best possible case for the flute.
Read more
Sharon Bezaly, Ronald Brautigam – Bezaly and Brautigam – Masterworks for Flute and Piano (2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:03:03 minutes | 940 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Recently released recordings of Mozart’s concertos, of three contemporary works for flute and orchestra and of a programme for solo flute have earned Sharon Bezaly epithets such as ‘God’s gift to the flute’, ‘an amazingly talented performer’ and ‘a First Lady among equals’. Here she has turned to some of the central works for flute and piano, and with Ronald Brautigam, familiar from many BIS releases, gives her interpretations of three master-pieces of the 1940s flanking Schubert’s great Trockne Blumen variations, composed some 120 years earlier. Though written in the span of two years, Prokofiev’s Sonata, Dutilleux’s Sonatine and Jolivet’s Chant de Linos each show the flute in a different light.
Prokofiev was preoccupied with clarity of style and found the instrument a perfect vehicle: ‘The sonata should be played with a bright, transparent, classical tone’, he wrote. (David Oistrakh later convinced the composer to create a violin version, which quickly became very popular.)
A distinctly different approach was taken by Jolivet, who wrote his Chant inspired by the ancient Greek concept of ‘linos’, a ritual lament punctuated by cries and dancing. It is thus based on musical material associated with Greek modes and explores the extremes of expression.
Dutilleux, finally, composed his Sonatine as a set piece for the flute competitions of the Paris Conservatoire. But these academic-sounding origins are belied by the by turns atmospheric and spirited writing, so typical of the multi-faceted Dutilleux.
Read more
Sharon Bezaly, Julie Palloc, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Juha Kangas – Mozart: Complete Works for Flute and Orchestra (2008)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:21:52 minutes | 733 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS Records
When the greater part of the programme on this disc was released as the BIS 2005 Catalogue Disc, the response was electrifying. Sharon Bezaly was described as ‘God’s gift to the flute’ in The Times (UK), and a quote from the review in BBC Music Magazine is representative: ‘Bezaly’s exquisite, technically immaculate, compelling playing sets new standards in this repertoire, as do Kalevi Aho’s stunning cadenzas, composed especially for this recording.’ Other reviewers agreed, and the disc received top marks in Le Monde de la Musique, Crescendo, Musica and other magazines as well as on radio stations and web sites such as Classics Today. This staggeringly successful title – 145 000 copies sold worldwide! – is now made available again with the important inclusion of a newly made recording of the Concerto for Flute and Harp. At a session in October 2007, we reunited the performers and recording crew of the 2005 disc in the original venue, with the addition of the eminent harpist Julie Palloc as co-soloist. Furthermore, Finnish composer Kalevi Aho again provided the cadenzas for the work, as he had for the other concertos on the disc. The result is not to be missed – a 24 carat, complete collection of all Mozart’s works for flute and orchestra, on a hybrid SACD with the extremely generous playing time of 81 minutes and 52 seconds!
Read more
Sharon Bezaly – Mozart: Flute Concertos (2005)
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & DST64 5.0 >1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Covers | 2.58 GB
FLAC tracks 2.0 24bit/88.2 kHz | Covers | 971 MB
Izrael-born Sharon Bezaly (who now lives in Sweden) has rightly risen to the top of her field with silky performances like this one which seemed universally rated highly by the music press (Gramophone, ClassicsToday, etc). Her repertoire extends to many Scandanavian composers who have written several flute concertos for her marvelously refined technique (she was a student of Aurele Nicolet). On this recording she plays a 24k instrument custom-made for her by Muramatsu Japan.
Read more
Sharon Bezaly – Khachaturian & Rautavaara: Flute Concertos (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:19:10 minutes | 976 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
On close to 40 discs, flutist Sharon Bezaly has impressed and delighted critics and listeners worldwide, earning the description ‘God’s gift to the flute’. Her wide-ranging discography naturally includes the core repertoire, such as the concertos by Mozart, Nielsen, Rodrigo and Reinecke, but also a large number of works written especially for her. The works on the present disc owe their existence to two other flutists, however: Jean-Pierre Rampal, who transcribed Aram Khachaturian’s violin concerto for his own instrument, and Gunilla von Bahr, for whom Einojuhani Rautavaara composed his ‘Dances with the Winds’ in 1974. Khachaturian wrote his concerto in 1940, dedicating it to David Oistrakh, who also gave the first performance. The composer always had a particular liking for the work, and when Rampal in 1968 asked him to compose a concerto for the flute, Khachaturian instead suggested that he should transcribe it. Rampal was given carte blanche when it came to making the necessary changes, and thus reworked the solo part completely. The orchestral score – here performed by the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Enrique Diemecke – was left unaltered, however. In a manner of speaking, Rautavaara’s concerto is not a solo concerto, as it is written for all the four instruments of the flute family. In the first and the last of the four movements the soloist plays the normal ‘flauto grande’ and the bass flute, while the second movement is written for piccolo and the third for alto flute. After completing the work, the composer made a revised version in which the most unusual of these instruments, the bass flute, was replaced by the alto flute. The present disc provides a unique opportunity to compare the two versions, as Sharon Bezaly includes both of them, supported by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Dima Slobodeniouk, the orchestra’s new principal conductor.
Read more
Sharon Bezaly, Love Derwinger, Barbara Hendricks – French Delights (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:02:29 minutes | 524 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
During long periods the flute has been almost synonymous with France, the country from which the music, the great players and the finest instruments all came. The French flute – whether dreamy as in Debussy’s Syrinx or sprightly as in Poulenc’s Sonata – is simply unmistakeably French, in all its delights. On her new release, renowned flutist Sharon Bezaly – who herself studied in Paris – celebrates this tradition, with a programme consisting of works composed between 1889 and 1946. Among the composers, some – Widor and Milhaud – are more famous than others, but not necessarily for their flute works. (Widor, for instance, is mainly known for his organ compositions.) Others are closely associated with the flute and, indeed, with the works here recorded. Roussel’s Joueurs de flûte is a case in point: a panorama of the flute through the ages in which each of the four movements evokes a mythical flutist, such as the Greek god Pan and the Hindu deity Krishna. Roussel has also composed the settings of two poems by Ronsard, in which Sharon Bezaly is joined by Barbara Hendricks. French Delights is something of a companion piece to a previous Bezaly disc: Café au Lait, a predominantly French flute recital accompanied by Roland Pöntinen. Upon its release that disc, and the artistry of Sharon Bezaly, were highly acclaimed, for instance in French magazine Diapason: ‘The flute turns into the voice of enchantment, a lullaby of the senses or an invitation to dreamfulness, into planing light or the glitter of light on water – an instrument almost too beautiful.’ Here again, with the support of eminent pianist Love Derwinger, Sharon Bezaly displays her prodigious talent.
Read more![Sharon Bezaly, Christopher Cowie, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, Owain Arwel Hughes - Schnittke – Concerto grosso No.1 & Symphony No.9 (2009) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/09/7318590017272_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Sharon Bezaly, Christopher Cowie, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, Owain Arwel Hughes – Schnittke – Concerto grosso No.1 & Symphony No.9 (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:01:23 minutes | 537 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
The first disc dedicated to the works of Alfred Schnittke on BIS was released in 1987, and has since been followed by 23 other titles, including a large part of his chamber music as well as the symphonies and other orchestral works. That first disc featured Concerto grosso No.1 in the original version for two violins and strings – the work which to some extent became Schnittke’s breakthrough in the West in the late 1970s. On the present disc that same work is heard again, but now in a world première recording of Schnittke’s own version with solo parts for flute and oboe. Soloists are Sharon Bezaly and, on the oboe, Christopher Cowie , making his first appearance on BIS. They are supported by the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes, a team that collaborated already on the most recent Schnittke title in the BIS catalogue. Released in 2007, that disc contained a previously unrecorded youth symphony (‘Symphony No. 0’), and caused considerable attention. The possibility of tracing the very beginnings of Schnittke’s highly original talent intrigued many, and the orchestra’s performance impressed critics all over the world. ‘The Cape Philharmonic Orchestra performs this opulent score in Technicolor’ wrote the reviewer in the French magazine Diapason while his colleague in American Record Guide remarked that ‘the South African orchestra plays its heart out, with the score favoring its very good brass section’, and went on to describe the disc as ‘one of the more interesting releases of the year to date’. Hughes and his orchestra now close a circle by the recording of Schnittke’s last symphony, Symphony No. 9. Written during the composer’s final years, and after Schnittke had suffered a serious stroke, the autograph score was so difficult to decipher that it had to be reconstructed after the composer’s death – a painstaking process which was crowned by a first performance in 2007. With the present recording the full cycle of Schnittke’s Symphonies is available on BIS.
(more…)