Irish Chamber Orchestra - Connemara Suite - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Alkan / Katsaris / Hassan - Rarities of Piano Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/05/2018

Irish Chamber Orchestra and Jörg Widmann present the album Invitation, featuring masterworks by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. This album celebrates a remarkable ten-year creative partnership between the ICO and Jörg Widmann, who, while now pursuing new projects, remains closely connected with the ensemble. Marking the ICO's first recording with PENTATONE, Invitation captures the orchestra at it's most expressive, from the taut intensity and contrapuntal precision of Mozart's C-minor Serenade for Winds to the buoyant energy and intricate textures of Mendelssohn's String Symphony No. 8. Widmann's direction brings out the rich interplay of voices, the lyrical clarity of the winds and strings, and the dynamic contrasts that give each work it's distinctive character.The album concludes with Schumann's Overture, Scherzo and Finale, delivered with infectious rhythmic drive and exuberant lyricism. The ICO's finely tuned ensemble playing highlights the sparkling dialogue between strings and winds, while Widmann shapes the work's sweeping gestures and playful contrasts with precision and vitality. Across these three composers, Invitation offers listeners an immediate sense of drama, wit, and emotional depth, revealing the subtle humour, harmonic brilliance, and expressive contrasts that define each masterpiece, and celebrating a decade of collaboration between conductor and orchestra.

Piazzolla's La Cuarto Estaciones Porteñas ('The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires') takes us through the seasons Verano Porteño ('Summer'), alert and enigmatic, blustery Otoño ('Autumn'), the jittery liveliness of Primavera ('Spring') and a gently melancholic Invierno ('Winter'). We hear the pieces arranged for violin and strings by Leonid Desyatnikov, playfully incorporating elements from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Schubert composed his Rondo in A, D.438, in 1816, when he was still in his late teens. He never wrote a full-scale violin concerto, so this Mozartian Rondo is one of the closest things we have. Schnittke's Moz-Art a la Haydn combines an unfinished fragment by Mozart with the theatricality of Haydn's 'Farewell' Symphony, uniquely conveyed by the Irish Chamber Orchestra using audible movement and effects.