Presse

• BBC Music Magazine

"Ehnes's playing throughout mixes precision with expressive engagement. His unashamed use of vibrato adds undoubted appeal to such movements as the Adagio from the E major solo concerto ..."

• Panm360.com

"The tempos are just what you’d expect, and the nuances avoid the precocious Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) of some rival versions, helping to highlight the delicate, precise playing of the soloists’ voices and that of the orchestra. Bach’s music, all clarity and quiet refinement."

• Gramophone

"Ehnes is best in the Concerto in A minor, BWVI041. The second movement is simply sublime. His sound gleams, almost implausibly so, and stil there is copious nuance within the luminosity. Ehnes organically moves between the innocent and hyperbolically operatic, the heartfelt and triumphant - it is an entirely convincing performance."

• AllMusic

James Ehnes is one of the hottest violinists in the world as of 2025, known for exacting yet exciting, almost preternaturally bright readings of the great violin concerto repertory with top orchestras. Bach isn't what he has been most known for, although he did release a well-regarded collection of the composer's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. Here, he takes on the composer's "complete violin concertos," a troubled concept that involves the reconstruction of lost concertos that are thought to have preceded existing versions for other instruments, as well as double and triple concertos. Ehnes has quite a corps of fans, and they didn't hesitate to put this album on classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2025. In the slow-movement melodies and in the virtuoso fast-movement figuration, he does not disappoint. In addition to being a great virtuoso, he is a skilled collaborator with other players, and there are enjoyable interactions with the soloists from Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra. That orchestra is not a group specializing in Baroque music, and here, it is rather oversized for Bach. Further, the sound tends to mix Ehnes into the orchestral textures rather than showcasing his solo work, an effect especially noticeable in the concertos for multiple instruments. Few will choose this as a primary representation of Bach's violin concerto output, but for Ehnes fans, it will deliver just fine.

• The Strad

Bach’s violin concertos, comprising works with extant autograph sources and adapted compositions believed to have originated as concertos for the instrument, are presented here in clear, generally well-balanced recordings captured over three days. However, James Ehnes’s accounts of the solo concertos fail consistently to convince. Adopting a modern performing approach, his reading of BWV1042 is accurate and precise but smacks somewhat of routine. The opening Allegros of BWV1052R and BWV1041 fare similarly; but the florid solo cantilenas of these works’ and 1056R’s centrepieces, which showcase Ehnes’s sonorous ‘Marsick’ Stradivari of 1715 across most of its range, are particularly expressively rendered; and their brisk, energetic finales are exhilarating.

In the double and triple concertos, Ehnes and his partners alternate as principal voice in the texture or engage in canonic imitation. BWV1060R features beautiful oboe playing by Charles Hamann, with whose seamless phrasing Ehnes strikingly interacts in the lyrically intense Adagio. Yosuke Kawasaki, too, proves an admirable ally in BWV1043: their outer movements are powerful and vivacious and they interweave with lyrical intensity in the soulful Largo.

Jessica Linnebach joins Ehnes and Kawasaki as soloist in BWV1064R in an account most remarkable for its finale, in which each takes a turn at bravura display. Ehnes’s dramatic improvisatory cadenza eventually concludes the interplay. The least memorable performance is that of BWV1044, its outer movements feeling laboured. That said, the eloquent traversal of its central movement is a redeeming factor, along with Luc Beauséjour’s harpsichord cadenza before the finale’s closing ritornello, dispatched with commendable aplomb. The well-drilled orchestra gives sterling support throughout.

ROBIN STOWELL

Gramophone

Kent Nagano has recorded Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem as it was presented at the work’s Bremen premiere on Good Friday 1868, without the yet-to-be-composed fifth movement, but with musical interpolations and vast choral forces. Andrew Farach-Colton finds out more

Presto Music

Recorded in August 2022 at concerts given in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg under Kent Nagano, this version of Johannes Brahms’s celebrated choral masterpiece will come as a surprise to many. The German Requiem is heard not in its usual seven movement version, but rather as it was first performed in Bremen Cathedral on 10th April 1868 (Good Friday) under Brahms’s direction, without the fifth movement for soprano and choir that was completed later that year. On the other hand, there are numerous interludes, instrumental and vocal, secular and sacred, by Bach, Tartini, Schumann and Handel – including pieces that were then regarded as essential parts of a Good Friday concert. Such a programme might seem unusual today, but these musical additions shed new light on Brahms’s work, which in this version manifests itself as what Umberto Eco might have described as an ‘open work’. Presenting the work in the form heard at the Bremen premiere is more than just a reconstruction: it enriches our understanding of this unique music.

The New York Times

The Good Friday premiere of Brahms’s “Ein Deutsches Requiem,” or “A German Requiem,” in 1868 at Bremen Cathedral was a major success for the 34-year-old composer, who conducted the performance in front of 2,500 listeners. But what they heard was not the “Requiem” cherished by concert audiences today. Brahms had yet to compose the fifth of what would, in its final form, become seven movements. And to appease local religious authorities who took issue with the texts that Brahms had set — excerpts from scripture about death and consolation that included no mention of Jesus — he interwove his own music with works by other composers.

That original version was reconstructed and recorded in 2022 at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, featuring 400 singers from eight community choirs. It is an unexpectedly moving testament to the living historical traditions and communal piety that influenced Brahms. Instrumental interludes by Bach, Tartini and Schumann create meditative pockets amid the austere tenderness of Brahms’s choral numbers. After offering a heart-rending aria from Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” Brahms gives the last word to Handel, concluding this “Requiem” — however scandalously to modern ears — with the radiant “Hallelujah” chorus. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM

Apple Music

"Canadian artists respond to Richard Strauss' works in majestic fashion."

A visionary recording uniting Canadian artistic excellence

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Now available – Jacques Hétu’s Symphony No. 5 by Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir led by Alexander Shelley

Performing live on tour at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, led by music director Alexander Shelley © Greggory Clark This project is more than a recording – it is a celebration of Canadian artistic excellence, a tribute to the late Jacques Hétu, and a reflection on the power of music to unite, inspire, and transcend. Two Orchestras, One Symphony is a benchmark performance of Jacques Hétu’s Symphony No. 5, his final work and a new milestone in Canadian orchestral music. The album is a tribute to Hétu’s epic composition and a testament to the unity and strength of Canada’s orchestral music community.

Celebrating the legacy of a final masterpiece

Symphony No.5 is undoubtedly one of internationally renowned Québecois composer Jacques Hétu’s most significant achievements. His final work draws inspiration from Paul Éluard’s Second World War poem Liberté, which explores themes of freedom and hope, to portray Nazi-occupied Paris, concluding with a choral setting of Éluard’s poem, celebrating the liberation of France. Unfortunately, Hétu never heard his masterwork performed live. He died three weeks shy of its world premiere by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2010. 

This landmark recording reimagines Symphony No. 5, featuring over 200 artists from the NAC Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. The result is a sweeping, emotionally charged performance that breathes new life into Hétu’s masterpiece.

This project was an incredibly fulfilling endeavour for Alexander Shelley, now in his tenth season as the NAC Orchestra’s music director. Shelley commented: ‘Hétu’s music has a refined elegance and craftsmanship that is both challenging and rewarding to explore. Bringing together two orchestras and a full choir for this recording was a thrilling experience, and the result is something truly special.’

A powerful collaboration

Having guest conducted the OSQ in several concerts, Shelley envisioned a collaborative project that would showcase the unique strengths of both orchestras. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, one of Canada’s oldest and most revered choral groups, added another layer of richness to the project. 

"It’s not often that we can bring together so many talented artists from different parts of the country. The combined energy and passion of the NAC Orchestra, OSQ, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir made this project something truly remarkable"

Alexander Shelley, NAC Orchestra music director

Following a critically acclaimed tour in Québec and Ontario, this new recording took place in March 2024 in Southam Hall at the National Arts Centre. The monumental effort involved hundreds of musicians and singers performing under Shelley’s inspired direction. The result is a technical achievement that symbolizes the unity in Canadian music, bridging different regions and musical traditions to create a shared work of art.

Opening night at the Grand Théâtre de Québec, the first stop on the Two Orchestras, One Symphony tour © Greggory Clark

A lasting tribute to Jacques Hétu

One of Canada’s most esteemed and frequently performed composers, Hétu’s catalogue includes some 70 works, including symphonies, operas, choral and chamber music, and concertos for numerous instruments. 

"It was a remarkable journey, one that not only honoured Jacques Hétu’s memory but also strengthened our artistic bonds. In these challenging times, Hétu’s work offers a profound sense of comfort and inspiration."

Astrid Chouinard, President and CEO of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec

 Hétu’s relationship with the NAC Orchestra stretches back nearly five decades. In 1977, the Orchestra commissioned Antinomi and performed the piece under former music director Mario Bernardi. Later, under Pinchas Zukerman, Hétu’s works featured prominently on the Orchestra’s European tour in 1990 and its Québec tour in 2006. This enduring partnership laid the groundwork for this grand-scale interpretation of Symphony No. 5, which marks a fitting conclusion to Hétu’s legacy.

A showcase of leading Canadian ensembles, Two Orchestras, One Symphony has the potential to make a lasting impression on listeners worldwide. Set for release on the Analekta music label, the new album is now available for purchase and streaming across all major platforms.

Planet Hughill

Canadian composer Jacques Hétu's remarkable final symphony in a stunning new recording resulting from the collaboration between three of Canada's major ensembles

• CBC

  "collectif9 are not only one of the most exciting chamber ensembles in Canada, for my money they are one of the most exciting in the world. The way they play is just electric [...] Outstanding new record."

• Panm360.com

  "It’s an album of music that’s soothing and nourishing, emotionally, intellectually and even spiritually."

• Online Merker

  "Mit „Rituæls“ hat collectif9 ein Album geschaffen, das in seiner Dramaturgie und musikalischen Vielfalt beeindruckt. Die kunstvolle Verknüpfung von Stücken aus verschiedenen Epochen und ihre fesselnde Interpretation lassen den rituellen Charakter der Musik deutlich hervortreten. Jede Komposition erhält durch das Ensemble eine eigene, tief empfundene Farbe, und gemeinsam formen sie eine Klanglandschaft, die den Zuhörer auf eine intensive, fast spirituelle Reise mitnimmt."

All Music review

Chamber Works by Frederick Block Review by James Manheim

Frederick Block was born Friedrich Bloch in Vienna and fled to England and then America as work for Jews rapidly dried up after Nazi Anschluss. Other Jewish composers headed for Hollywood and studied the language of American popular music, but Block went his own way. Writer Helmut Flechtner is quoted in the booklet here with a nice summary of his career: "He was a composer who didn't belong to any school of movement, who didn't want to prove anything by his composing, who was not abstract or romantic, but who with indefatigable industry finished work after work unconcerned about criticism..." Indeed, the chamber music here gives the listener the sense of entering a composer's particular little world. His music, even that written in America, has a Viennese flavor, and one influence is Mahler; if that composer had written more than a youthful essay in chamber music, it might have sounded a bit like this. Block can shift directions in the midst of a movement in an attempt to suggest a large canvas for small music, but he can also be quite concise. Sample the Suite for clarinet and piano, Op. 73, whose five movements take up less than eight minutes. Each work is different in structure, but there is a thread of Viennese lyricism connecting everything. Any one of the four pieces here would enhance a chamber music recital, and the ARC Ensemble deserves credit for its revival of Block's music in the Chandos label's "Exiles" series.

Music web international

All the works are beautifully performed and the recording has been splendidly balanced. The director of the ensemble, Simon Wynberg, he has contributed the customarily fine booklet notes, to which I’m indebted for all biographical details. Block seems to have been a composer with nothing much to prove. He is lyric, occasionally puckish, always professional. That said,  I can’t always detect real personality in his writing but perhaps I’ve not lived long enough with it.

Jonathan Woolf

Music Web International

I am very attached to Verklärte Nacht, the shorter of the two works here, and produced a survey of the major recordings in 2021. I have since endorsed a recording on the album Through the Night by the United Strings of Europe (review), and am always ready to audition a new version. I am much less familiar with the symphonic poem Pelleas und Melisande, evidence of the hold which Maeterlinck’s Symbolist play exercised over composers around the turn of the 19C into the 20C, but my go-to recording has been Karajan with the BPO in 1974.

This new release sounds every bit as voluptuously played and the digital sound is markedly superior, with individual instrumental strands more distinctly defined and greater depth. The surging climax to the violent second track (1b, Principal Theme) is just as telling and the whole score is suffused with a languorous eroticism alternating with explosive outbursts; the Love Scene which ends with Golaud killing Pelleas (iii b, track 7) and the ensuing Reprise (track 8) are taut with a mounting, ambivalent suspense hovering between the passionate and the violent. The eerie, descending flute figures, played against a brass chorale, depicting Melisande’s death chamber, are especially atmospheric here, then in the Epilogue, Payare manages to re-build a sense of tragic grandeur, with brass snarling over grumbling lower strings.

To my ears, the opening to Verklärte Nacht is decidedly more “Bewegt” than its marking, “Grave”, but that is characteristic of the way the piece as a whole is delivered here, its timing of 29 minutes indicating that this is one of the more propulsive performances. The sonority of the orchestra and engineered sound, however, mostly offset any sense of undue spareness, even if my own taste veers towards something a little more upholstered. The drama of the scenario is particularly emphasised but that does not prevent Payare really pulling back for the “Molto rallentando” second section to revel in its sensuousness. The “forgiveness” movement is tenderly played and concertmaster Andrew Wan’s solo is truly and sweetly intoned. When we come to the climax of redemption and transfiguration in the penultimate track it is clear how carefully Payare has gauged the gradual accumulation of tension and the coda is exquisitely delicate: the aural equivalent of sparkling flakes of starlight – just beautiful.

Ralph Moore

It’s a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ star review for Winterreise from @lascenamusicale !

La Scena Musicale 5 étoiles

Gianmarco Segato on 8 November 2024

Fenlon is Berlin-based and her longtime German immersion pays off in diction that is idiomatic and clear. She has found a niche for her art, giving self-accompanied recitals all over Europe and Canada. As former Canadian Opera Company and current Paris Opera director Alexander Neef writes in his excellent program notes: “Fenlon’s performance echoes the Vienna of 1827 when Schubert first performed the cycle for his friends, accompanying himself on the piano.” The recording, produced and engineered by Carl Talbot at Le Domaine Forget de Charlevoix in May 2023, offers a wonderful ambience, well balanced between voice and piano. A beautiful, fresh addition to the Winterreise recorded legacy. 

BBC Radio

Classic 107

I feel especially touched by this: “Fenlon makes you feel as though you have someone who has experienced the depression and loneliness that the winter can bring, and can relate to your own seasonal struggles”. …. Because if someone can feel that in this record, then I couldn’t ask for anything more.

You can hear excerpts of Winterreise on Morning light every Wednesday this month at 7:30am on @classic107fm with @nolan_kehler

Virtuosi

A soprano e pianista Rachel Fenlon chega diretamente da Alemanha para trazer sua arte singular ao Festival Virtuosi. 🎶 Reconhecida por se acompanhar ao piano, Rachel apresenta o icônico ciclo Winterreise de Schubert, combinando técnica apurada e sensibilidade musical em uma performance memorável.

OPERA Wire

RF: Such a key question, thanks for asking that! So, the model for many record labels these days is such that the artist has to financially back a huge chunk of the recording and post production costs. Once I had decided I would record “Winterreise” and had secured the sound engineer and producer I wanted to work with–Carl Talbot, a Canadian legend–I got working on fundraising. I raised most of the funds for the album through a Kickstarter campaign, which was a huge gamble, because you only get funded on Kickstarter if you meet your fundraising goal. I had the fortune of having an exceptionally generous patron of the arts say he would match whatever the total of my campaign amount was so that I would meet my goal. In the end, I raised a total of $16,000 for the album. I have to say, I am pretty proud of that!

My Scena

François Dompierre’s Requiem is nothing short of cinematic in nature. Its 12 liturgical texts are set in a manner that takes the listener on a journey through a plethora of sonic environments that are unexpected but seamlessly blend with the character of the Requiem genre. The French horn carries the opening Kyrie with its moving response gestures to the choir. This, of course, comes after the magnificent string opening—two broken dissonant chords are closed by a grand perfect cadence before the choir enters. This setting preserves the ancient text with familiar conventions but explores new musical textures and timbres.

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben; Mahler: Rückert-Lieder Review by James Manheim

The Strauss and Mahler works on this 2024 release are both relatively often recorded, and listeners may have been surprised to see the album show up on classical best-seller lists in the spring of that year. There is the consideration that Rafael Payare and his abundant Afro are landing on many lists of acts to watch, and he shows signs of jelling with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in the Richard Strauss autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben. Hear the superb solo work from violinist Andrew Wan in the third movement, representing Strauss' wife, Pauline de Ahna, but the big news here, and what is probably drawing buyers, is the other work on the album, Mahler's Rückert-Lieder, which receive a revelatory performance from soprano Sonya Yoncheva. It is a distinctly different flavor from the usual Wagnerian sound, adding operatic emotionalism to Um Mitternacht and the gorgeous finale, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. Yoncheva was an inspired choice, whether by Payare or someone else, and the album is worth time and money for her alone. The PentaTone label adds nicely transparent sound from the Maison Symphonique de Montréal to the mix.

April 2024

An enthusiastic podium presence, Payare gets results that are by no means ‘flash’. He takes nearly 47 minutes to negotiate a score which Carlos Kleiber and the composer himself get through in under 40. The argument flows nicely if not always with galvanic force.

Richard Strauss’s critics – baiting 1898 tone poem Ein Heldenleben, so exquisite one minute, so overwrought the next, receives a middling performance by the Montreal Orchestra under Payare. There is an epic sweep to their playing in Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung and the orchestra leader Andrew Wan is superb in the passages for solo violin. But their account lacks a certain effervesance, although the recording balance is spot on. The Bulgarian operatic soprano Yoncheva’s reading of Mahler’s Ruckert-Lieder is a similarly mixed bag – haunting in Um Mitternacht and Ich bin der Welt abhanden Gekommen, perhaps a little too light in tone elsewhere. Much to enjoy though.