Chief Joseph

Seeing a Sinfonia in B of Brahms in an online list of work titles will puzzle most listeners. A closer look reveals a work that's doubly unusual: Swedish conductor and violinist Joseph Swensen has made an orchestral transcription of the Brahms Trio in B major, Op. 8, and he has used the early and rarely heard 1853 version of the piece. Swensen is right that the early version, filled with effusive Schumann-like melody that was redone into complex motivic work in the revision, is worth more frequent hearings, and it goes well with the smaller pieces included: orchestrated versions of the three Romances for violin and piano, Op. 22, of Clara Schumann, and two movements of the even rarer F-A-E Sonata composed collaboratively by Schumann, Brahms, and Albert Dietrich (the initials stood for "Frei Aber Einsam," or free but lonely, the personal motto of violinist Joseph Joachim, the work's dedicatee).

Verlaine’s poetry lends itself well to music and many of his poems have been set successfully by numerous composers. Thus it was a brilliant idea to build a programme around Verlaine and include several settings of some of the poems. Since Carolyn Sampson has cast her net widely and included several rarely heard composers, we are offered a very comprehensive odyssey through the Verlainean waters.

Joseph Martin Kraus was born on 20 June 1756 in the German town of Miltenberg am Main, and died in Stockholm on 15 December 1792. Attended secondary school in Mannheim from 1768 to 1772, followed by university studies in Mainz, Erfurt and Göttingen from 1773−76. In 1778 he travelled to Stockholm, where he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1780, and a year later the second conductor of the Royal Court Orchestra at the Royal Opera. In 1782 Gustav III dispatched him on a four-year tour of Europe. In 1788 he was made director of the educational institution of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and chief conductor of the Royal Court Orchestra. Kraus is the most prominent figure in Gustavian music and was responsible for seminal works of opera, orchestral music and chamber music.

His multi-award-winning recordings and dazzling concert performances have long established Jean-Efflam Bavouzet as one of the most outstanding pianists of his generation. This latest album – the tenth – in his cycle of the complete Haydn sonatas is built around the Grand Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI: 50, a late work the first movement of which is one of the most highly developed that Haydn ever conceived for the keyboard. Bavouzet has surrounded this with less well-known works: Two very early sonatas (Nos. 3 & 4) provide a stark contrast to the later works (Nos. 28 & 45). The album ends with the Arietta con 12 Variazioni. Bavouzet notes ‘ The Variations in E flat major and the Sonata in A major, Hob. XVI: 30, were for me the marvellous revelations of this programme.

Volume 2 in a new collection of Charles-Marie Widor’s Organ Symphonies, performed by Joseph Nolan on the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ of L’église de la Madeleine, Paris. Bridging the generations from Mendelssohn to Messiaen, Empire to Republic, Widor was born to the organ. His Lyonnaise kinsfolk were organ-builders, he showed early talent for the instrument, and for decades was the embodiment of its might and splendour across the Gallic domain - his ‘Organ Symphonies’ were genre-defining in their influence.

The third volume in a new series of Charles-Marie Widor’s Organ Symphonies, performed by Joseph Nolan on the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ of L’église de la Madeleine, Paris. Bridging the generations from Mendelssohn to Messiaen, Empire to Republic, Widor was born to the organ. His Lyonnaise kinsfolk were organ-builders, he showed early talent for the instrument, and for decades was the embodiment of its might and splendour across the Gallic domain - his ‘Organ Symphonies’ were genre-defining in their influence.

Composer Joseph Guy Ropartz enjoyed a lifespan that cut across an enormous territory of French music; when he was born, Jacques Offenbach had just premiered La belle Hélène and the year he died, Henri Dutilleux rolled out his second symphony. Ropartz also achieved an astounding rite of passage in his own work, starting out deep inside the Franck school, but also embracing impressionist language and ultimately emerging as the chief tone poet of his native region, Brittany; late in life Ropartz flirted with neo-classicism. Before the advent of CDs, recordings of Ropartz's music were so seldom made that they were almost unknown; however, just 25 years into the digital era practically all of his 200 works have been recorded.