Back to The Future Iii

Innovative string trio Time For Three (TF3) – praised by Simon Rattle as “benevolent monsters, monsters of ability and technique surely. But also conveyors of an infectious joy that I find both touching and moving”– releases the new album Letters for the Future with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Xian Zhang on Deutsche Grammophon on June 10. The album comprises world premiere recordings of two technically demanding and musically virtuosic concerti for trio and orchestra by two Pulitzer Prize-winning composers, written fifteen years apart but both commissioned for the group: Jennifer Higdon’s 2007 Concerto 4–3 and Kevin Puts’s brand-new Contact, the first track of which is available May 20.

Like each of its two predecessors in Naive's bizarrely costumed, irresistible Vivaldi bassoon concertos series, Sergio Azzolini and his back to the future original instrument crew find beauties in the music written for the bassoon that defy gravity. Interleaved with the haunting minor key songs and harmonies are courtly B flat expressions of affection and pleasure. The recordings, made at the Church of the Madonna della Formigola, Cortifella Pieve, Brescia, are audiophile as always. The great notes by Sergio Azzolini are titled Mystery of the Bassoon. The bassoon is in fact the instrument assigned the largest number of solo concertos after those written for the violin, the composer's own instrument.