Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated

Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated - Ralph van Raat

This is the most exciting new CD I've heard in a long time. The main work comprises 36 variations on El pueblo unido jamás será vencido by Chilean composer Sergio Ortega. The cycle was composed by Rzewski in 1975, as a tribute to the Chilean people suffering under the military regime, after the US-backed coup in 1973. Irrespective of political connotations, the work is exhilarating, passionate, poetic, ingenious, laden with pianistic virtuosity, and spanning an enormous range of musical expression. The performance by master pianist Ralph van Raat is terrific.

Naxos 8.559360

Jacob TV: Shining city

Jacob ter Veldhuis (Jacob TV): Shining city

This is the second in a series of three boxes with Ter Veldhuis' music, each containing two CDs. The first two boxes also each contain a bonus DVD (which seems to be Region 0; in other words playable in all regions). While listening to the wealth of different pieces I went through a rare and wonderful experience of having to completely recalibrate the way I perceive sound and music. The pieces all consist of a collage made out of existing audio material, accompanied by various acoustic instruments, which play a mostly tonal part. What I found striking is how powerful the sounds from the collage are (e.g. snippets from a television commercial, a baby coughing, shouts from an 'evangelist' on Times Square, etc.) and how well these sounds blend together with the acoustic instruments. Highlights for me were the exhilarating The Body of Your Dreams, the raw Grab It! and the very moving May This Bliss Never End, a tribute to Chet Baker.

Basta 3091742

Messiaen: Préludes pour piano

Olivier Messiaen Edition Vol. 1 (17 CDs) - Willem Tanke, Peter Hill, Ingrid Kappelle, Håkon Austbø

Once again, Brilliant Classics defies the laws of market economy, by the release of this super-budget edition, with Messiaen's complete works for organ, his complete works for piano, and his complete songs, repertoire that usually wouldn't appeal to main-stream audiences.

One discovery for me that swept me completely off my feet was the Préludes pour piano, composed when Messiaen was only 20. The idiom is reminiscent of Debussy, but at the same time these eight preludes are unmistakably the work of an independent musical genius. Peter Hill's performance is first-rate.

Brilliant Classics 8949

Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus

Einojuhani Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus, Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphony No.3 - Laura Mikkola, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Hannu Lintu

Thanks to the Naxos series, Finnish composer Rautavaara (b. 1928) may finally receive the recognition he deserves. Cantus Arcticus combines bird sounds with a symphony orchestra, perhaps with more romanticism and less modernism than we would find with say Messiaen, but still very original and touching. Also the Piano Concerto No. 1 is exhilarating and illustrative of Rautavaara's personal style.

Naxos 8.554147

Schnittke: Faust Cantata

Alfred Schnittke: Ritual, (K)ein Sommernachtstraum, Passacaglia, Faust Cantata - Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam, James DePreist

This CD contains some of the scariest music you may ever hear. The Faust Cantata later became the third act of the opera Historia Von D. Johann Fausten, which Schnittke was not able to complete fully before his death. A recording of a truncated version of the opera was released by RCA (Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra, Gerd Albrecht) but is not available at the moment. It is a disgrace no record company has taken it upon itself yet to record a satisfactory version, comprising all the material that Schnittke left us.

BIS-CD-437

Corelli: Complete Works

Archangelo Corelli: Complete Works - Musica Amphion, Pieter-Jan Belder

These 10 CDs with all of Corelli's published work were quite a revelation to me. First because I found there was so much more delightful and highly inventive music than just the Concerti Grossi op. 6, and second because of the superb performance. What a joy!

Brilliant Classics 92118

Dvorák: Violin Sonata

Antonin Dvorák: Works for violin and piano - Gil Shaham and Orli Shaham

I've known the Sonatina op. 100 for a long time, and every so often I hear the Romantic pieces op. 75. For some reason however I'd always overlooked the Sonata in F major op. 57. This fabulous composition from 1880 can hold its own next to some of the more famous violin sonatas from the same era (e.g. Brahms, Franck, Fauré).

The performance of all three works on this CD is heartfelt and technically impeccable.

Deutsche Grammophon 449 820-2