Anna 2019

In this imaginatively shaped and sensitively played album – her third for ECM - Russian pianist Anna Gourari explores musical connections and influences extending across the arts. Three suites of contemporary music are heard here. Alfred Schnittke’s Five Aphorisms (1990) draw impulses from the poetry of his friend Joseph Brodsky. Rodion Shchedrin’s Diary - Seven Pieces (2002) dedicated to Gourari and inspired by her playing, reflects the life of a pianist and composer. Wolfgang Rihm’s sequence of tombeaux, Zwiesprache (1999) pays tribute to musicologists Alfred Schlee and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, conductor Paul Sacher, and art sociologist Hermann Wiesler. Threaded between the cycles are two Giya Kancheli miniatures drawn from theatre and movie music, as well as Arvo Pärt’s early tintinnabuli-style Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka (1977). Gourari’s investigation of artistic affinities is framed with Bach’s transcriptions of Venetian composers Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello: “Anna Gourari makes these Bach slow movements, too, ours,” Paul Griffiths writes in the liner notes. “And the newer music is cherished and invigorated.”

Scarlatti et la mandoline : ce disque propose un rapprochement captivant et inattendu entre l’un des plus importants compositeurs du baroque et un instrument originaire de Naples qui a connu un véritable âge d’or à Paris et dans les capitales européennes au xviiie siècle. Le protagoniste de cet enregistrement est l’ensemble Pizzicar Galante, fondé à Paris en 2012 par la mandoliniste Anna Schivazappa et le claveciniste Fabio Antonio Falcone.

The Dubhlinn Gardens: an evening in the high society of 18th century Dublin, where traditional music was ‘civilising’ itself for the salon… This programme was inspired by the passion for traditional Irish music that flautist Anna Besson has felt since she was a child. Surprising as it may seem, it was playing the Irish flute that led her to study the baroque instrument… For the past few years Reinoud Van Mechelen too has begun to train himself in the traditional Irish song with Karan Casey and other singers who have specialised in the unaccompanied Sean-nós. This twofold practice of early as well as traditional music has led the ensemble A Nocte Temporis to offer a programme that is both vivacious and extremely touching.

Handel's Utrecht Te Deum HWV 278 was already enthusiastically received at its first performance in 1713 in St. Paul's in London. To celebrate peace after twelve years of Spanish War of Succession, Handel composed a captivating Te Deum and Jubilate. A British national composer was born!