Best Recordings of 2013 (#6)

High time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2013. My lists for the previous years: 2012, 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

# 6 - New Release

Ivan Karabits, Concertos for Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Kirill Karabits (conductor), Naxos 8.572633

Ivan Karabits, Concertos for Orchestra K.Karabits / Bournemouth SO Naxos

Ivan Karabits Concertos for Orchestra: I love thee. What imaginative, colorful creatures you are, and never pandering! There isn’t a lot of music completely unknown to me that I’ve felt as immediately and strongly about as the three concertos for orchestra that the Ukrainian composer Ivan Karabits (1945-2002) wrote in the 80s. Whether violent outburst or lyrical episode, everything sounds compelling, with harpsichords and Glockenspiel, clapping and whispering and all. Shostakovich meets Poulenc. The two Valentin Silvestrov pieces added are both moving musical memorials to Karabits. The Bournemouth SO plays it to the hilt; his son Kirill conducts: Rarely has nepotism sounded sweeter!

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# 6 – Reissue

Johann Sebastian Bach, L'orgue concertant - Sinfonias, Sonates & Concertos, André Isoir (organ), La Dolce Volta 118

J.S.Bach, Organ Concertos et al. A.Isoir La Dolce Volta 115

André Isoir’s Bach organ cycle has been very much out of print on the Calliope label. Only his Art of the Fugue was reasonably available for a bit longer. For a good reason, too, as it’s an outstanding achievement and the crowning highlight of his Bach survey. There’s another real set of gems in that set, too, and that’s the collection of the organ concertos of Bach’s, which are easily overlooked next to the more famous original solo pieces—presumably because they are ‘only’ parody works, which is to say arrangements of either violin concertos by Vivaldi (BWV 593, 594, 596), himself (BWV 592a), adaptations from yet other sources (BWV 592, 595, 597), reconstructions (BWV 1059a) or even arrangements by another (CP.E. Bach) of J.S.B. (BWV 1052a). But since Bach makes originals out of anything he touches, by way of superadding to its essence (a point every ionarts-reader has been harangued with, with mantra-like repetition), these works are marvels, too. Isoir, playing on two Lëtzebuergesch Georg Westenfelder (1977, 1990) and a German Gerhard Grenzing organs (1982), is particularly effective in them and throws a splendid set of Trio Sonatas into the mix.

-> Best Recordings of 2013 #10
-> Best Recordings of 2013 #9
-> Best Recordings of 2013 #8
-> Best Recordings of 2013 #7