Robert Schumann liked to write music in cycles. 1851 was a violin year when, between September and November, he wrote the sonatas No. 1 in A minor and 2 in D minor. 1853 was the year of the Sonata No. 3 in A minor, the Violin Concerto, Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra and a violin version of the Cello Concerto. The three sonatas are performed on this recording by violinist Ulf Wallin and pianist Roland Pöntinen. Schumann was never happy with the First Sonata and wrote about it with self-deprecating humor, “I didn’t care for the First Violin Sonata, so I wrote another one that is, I hope, more effective.” The Second Violin Sonata is certainly the strongest of the three, but the First’s fevered first movement and energetic scherzo-like second are very effective. The D minor is called the “Grosse Sonate” (Great Sonata) and it lives up to its name. The longest of the three, it strikes a symphonic pose early in its stormy opening passages, which are played with beautiful violence by Wallin and Pöntinen. The Third Sonata is quintessentially Romantic with its virile boldness. But in its more restrained moments, the gorgeous second movement Intermezzo for example, it can tug at the heartstrings. I don’t know how much chamber music Wallin and Pöntinen have played together, but they sound like long-time partners. Wallin attacks the vigorous passages with hearty bite and Pöntinen responds with equal fervor. But both performers are also very convincing in Schumann’s more tender episodes like the slow movement of the Second Sonata and the sublime Third Sonata Intermezzo. This is an excellent recording of some very fine Schumann and is very highly recommended.

The album’s title packs a double meaning. The musical theme of the program is beginnings and endings. The opening of the Book of Genesis (Aaron Copland) and the Gospel of John (Gabriel Jackson) take care of beginnings. The endings are covered by three settings of the canticle associated with Christian evening services, the Nunc dimittis (“Lord, lettest thy servant depart in peace”). There are also a number of lamentations on the death of King David’s son Absalom. On another level, this is the first album by the newly formed Choir of Merton College, Oxford, so it’s a beginning for them. This is a marvelously well-constructed and brilliantly sung program. Jackson’s In the Beginning was the Word, commissioned by Merton College, opens the album and it’s another gem from this fascinating and highly accessible composer. Jackson’s setting has a hypnotic quality that’s never dull, harmonies that are slippery but beautiful, and a striking organ part that tastefully underscores the text. If you don’t know Jackson’s music, this piece should get you hooked (you can then move on to Not No Faceless Angel for more). The “David and Absalom set” opens with Nicolas Gombert’s Lugebat David Absalon (“David mourned for Absalon”) which is sung with color, warmth and clarity. Thomas Weelkes’ famous When David Heard really comes to life with those pained harmonies raising goosebumps. Contemporary composer Eric Whitacre’s When David Heard is heart-breaking beautiful with its sustained cries of “my son” and “Absalon,” here’s a composition that communicates a palpable sense of grief. Of the Nunc dimittis settings, I was most taken with Gustav Holst’s, which has a fetching lightness. A stirring performance of Copland’s a cappella mini oratorio In the Beginning closes the recording. With the Tallis Scholars’ Peter Phillips and Tewkesbury Abbey’s Benjamin Nicholas on hand as music directors you know what you are going to get from the choir; perfect blend, rhythmic precision and an overall stylistic intelligence that’s difficult to top. Mezzo-soprano Beth Mackay’s bold, clear tone is ideal in the Copland and organist Natasha Tyrwhitt-Drake plays Jackson’s spiky organ part brilliantly.

Cracow-born baritone Mariusz Kwiecien is enjoying a superstar career that has him regularly appearing at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Paris Opéra and other great houses. With the exception of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Szymanowski’s King Roger, Kwiecien has mostly made his name as a singer of Italian bel canto roles and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. With this album Kwiecien steps away from the Italian repertoire and sings music by Russian, Czech and Polish composers. Kwiecien is blessed with a dark tone that’s warm, rich and very well suited to the Slavic repertoire. His diction is impeccable and from what I hear on the album, he's also a fine actor. He reprises his Eugene Onegin with both arias from Tchaikovsky’s opera. Kwiecien’s silky legato makes his off-handed rejection of Tatyana in the aria, “Vy mne pisali” (You wrote to me), so chilling – how can such a cad sing so beautifully? When the tables are turned and he is obsessed with the girl, he sings, “Uzhel’ta samaya Tatyana?” (Can it be the same Tatyana) with a tortured intensity, capping the aria with a ringing top note. This is what opera is supposed to be, thrilling drama and vocalism all in one. I was delighted to see that Kwiecien honors his homeland with arias by Stanislaw Moniuszku and Karol Szymanowski. Moniuszku (who is not well-known outside of Poland) really deserves his day and Kwiecien sings arias from Halka, Straszny Dwór (The Haunted Mansion) and Verbum Nobile (The Word of a Nobleman) beautifully. Once again, Kwiecien impresses with his gorgeous rounded tone and swagger. Lukasz Borowicz and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra support Kwiecien admirably by just staying out of his way and letting him sing. This is a major recording of terrific repertoire sung by a superstar singer. How can you resist?

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote four solo cantatas for alto and the excellent Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor performs two of them, “ Widerstehe doch der Sünde, BWV 54” (“Just resist sin”)  and “Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170” (“Delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul”) on this recording featuring the period instrument orchestra Tafelmusik under the direction of Jeanne Lamon. Rounding out the program are the Suite in A Minor, BWV 1067 and Concerto for oboe and violin in C Minor, BWV 1060 featuring oboist John Abberger and Lamon on violin. Scored for a modest ensemble of alto, two violins, two violas and continuo, the BWV 54 cantata is one of Bach’s earliest. Despite the cantata’s small scale it packs plenty of punch, particularly in the stirring closing aria with its energetic fugue. Taylor is terrific in the extended opening aria and rides through the rigorous finale with great verve. The BWV 170 cantata is also very well-sung with Taylor bringing drama to the recitatives and singing with  plenty of  athleticism when he pairs up with a very energetic solo organ (nicely played by Charlotte Nediger) in the final aria. While Handel was probably the most notorious re-cycler of his own music, Bach would also re-use passages or entire works in different settings. An extroverted concerto movement would turn up as a cantata sinfonia and so on. The BWV 1067 Suite is best known in a version for flute and strings. Instead, Lamon opts for a version for violin and strings based on the musicological research of Joshua Rifkin. I’m grateful for Rifkin’s findings because Lamon and Tafelmusik’s performance is gorgeous. Without the flute’s light tone the Ouverture has a new-found gravity and the famous Badinerie no longer sounds like so much high pitched twittering. The Concerto for Oboe and Violin is a transcription of the Concerto for Two Harpischords and while I love the latter, the former is very appealing too. Much of what makes this work is the marvelous duo of oboist Abberger and violinist Lamon. Both spin lovely solo lines and when those lines intertwine, as in the Adagio, the result is delicious. This is a very nicely programmed and very well performed album. Tafelmusik has been a preeminent ensemble for so long that we some times take them for granted, this album reminds us of how very good they are.

The album’s title, Music for a Time of War, forces the conceit a bit because, with the exception of John Adams’s The Wound Dresser and possibly Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, there’s nothing specifically wartime-related on the program. But that shouldn’t dissuade you from picking up this outstanding album of music by Charles Ives, Adams, Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams performed by the Oregon Symphony conducted by its music director, Carlos Kalmar. What does Ives’s mystical The Unanswered Question have to do with war? Not very much, but as Steven Kruger says in his liner notes, “Ultimately, a contemplative work is whatever the listener makes of it.” This is a superb performance of Ives’s mini-masterpiece. With their beautifully hushed well-articulated playing, the Oregon strings make the slow-motion opening chorale something that’s both mysterious and beautiful. Here’s an interesting listening exercise, listen to the Ives and then Ingram Marshall’s Fog Tropes and you will appreciate how prescient the old guy from Danbury really was. Mr. Kruger doesn’t have to sell the war connection in the Wound Dresser, Adams’s setting of Civil War poems by Walt Whitman. This emotionally riveting performance by baritone Sanford Sylvan (who premiered and absolutely owns this work) might even surpass his earlier recording with the composer. This is a heartfelt and deeply moving reading that’s a model of intelligent and beautifully crafted vocalism. Once again the Oregon strings are brilliant, making the agitated phrase “Hard the breathing rattles…” a pulse-stopping moment. Music by two of England’s greatest 20^th century composers rounds out the program. Written during some of the darkest days of World War II (1940, while Britten was safely in America) there’s no specific program (despite Mr. Kruger’s attempt to suggest one in the notes) for the composer’s Sinfonia da Requiem. This is a furious performance that opens with an inexorably paced Lacrymosa that’s pulsing and powerful. Kalmar and the orchestra push the envelope in the terrifying Dies Irae, a Shostakovich-like scherzo that features some of Britten’s most energized orchestral writing. The fury of the opening movements makes the closing Requiem Aeternam all the more moving. Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 4 is fueled by big orchestra adrenalin but is also a tightly constructed work that owes much to the classical symphonic form. The Oregon Symphony brings an edgy muscularity to this music, especially in the explosive opening movement and searing scherzo. It’s also a delight it is to hear an American orchestra program a Vaughan Williams symphony, a composer whose symphonies are shamefully rare in American concert halls. The recording was made at a live concert and there are some ever-so-audible audience sounds, but the overall sound quality is wonderfully realistic and just how you would hear it in the hall. With recordings like this, the future of the American orchestra is promising indeed.

Mozart albums are a dime a dozen. However, here is one that has it all: popular favorites, rare gems, a range of emotions and an interpretation that warrants inclusion in any collector’s library. Danielle De Niese—whose big break in the operatic scene was as Barbarina in the Met’s 1998 production of Le Nozze di Figaro—proves on this recording that she has not strayed far from the composer’s works. De Niese shows off the talent that has her consistently in–demand with such arias as the plucky “Una donna a quindici anni,” the sexy “Là ci darem la mano” (a duet which reunites the soprano with baritone Bryn Terfel) and the dreamy “Al desio di chi t’adora”—a concert aria replacement for “Deh vieni non tardar” from the final act of Figaro. However, she also looks towards her future roles with arias for Donna Elvira and Ilia (a highlight of the album) and non–operatic works like the mesmerizing Exsultate Jubilate and the sublime “Laudate dominum omnes gentes.” Sir Charles Mackerras and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are sumptuously in sync with De Niese. While not without the occasional vocal smudge, such matters are trivial in this fiercely compelling album.