Two Miles High Music

Back in the studio after a four year hiatus Anonymous 4 returns withThe Cherry Tree an instant holiday music classic featuring medievalEnglish carols and Anglo-American spiritual songs. It is theeighteenth original recording for the renowned vocal ensemble andtheir first since 2006 s Gloryland which debuted at number three onthe Billboard classical chart. Anonymous 4 has been a perennialpresence on Billboard s Top Classical Albums chart and hit number onewith their folk-inspired American Angels in 2004. The Cherry Tree isnamed after the miracle ballad of Joseph and Mary, the earliest textof which survives from a Coventry Play from around 1400. The 'CherryTree' story persisted in many forms, making its way into medievalBritish carols of the mid-15th century and into British and Americantraditional ballads. In it, Joseph doubts the divine origin of Mary spregnancy only to hear Jesus speak from within Mary s womb, causing acherry tree to bend its branches and offer his mother its fruit. The2011-12 season marks Anonymous 4's 25th anniversary and the group willbe on tour in the US this fall.

Isabelle Faust has gone back to the original manuscript sources to offer us her versions of these iconic masterpieces of the violin repertoire. In Bach s time, music for solo instruments was still little explored territory, and his Sonatas and Partitas immediately established themselves as a benchmark, technically challenging and brimming with creativity.

Gabriel Faure was a remarkable pianist who included his instrument in almost all his compositions, but seldom as a soloist. Instead, he preferred to combine the piano with chamber ensembles to produce the intimate atmosphere he so favored. Faure's Piano Quartets are among the finest works of French chamber music. With the instrumental formula of string trio and piano, he set out in his own way to follow in the footsteps of Schumann and Brahms. Performed here by Trio Wanderer, joined by violist Antoine Tamestit, these works receive ideomatic performances that emphasize the 'French-ness' that makes them unique and special.

Jon Nakamatsu won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1997 and has made several fine recordings since then. This all-Gershwin program is probably his finest. He plays the Piano Concerto with great rhythmic sass, the Charleston always underpinning the melodies. Rather than opt for a showy reading of this or the Rhapsody in Blue, he and conductor Jeff Tyzik emphasize the music’s sultry quality; the smoke-filled nightclub is there right alongside the concert hall at all times. The clarinet solo that opens the Rhapsody is stunningly evocative. Nakamatsu and the horn player duet with a keen jazz ear, and the solo piano work is songful and elegant. If you’re looking for fireworks, there are plenty in the Concerto’s finale – it’s a thrilling reading. The Cuban Overture, a work so familiar that it’s hard to look forward to, is given a terrific reading here by Tyzik and The Rochester Philharmonic, with the Latin percussion sounding wonderfully at home with the "regular" orchestra. This is a splendid release. --Robert Levine

Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall especially for Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices, David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Setting Hans Christian Andersen's fable in the format of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Lang elevates the suffering of the little match girl with poignant, evocative music. Lang's piece is scored for four voices and a few percussion instruments, played by the singers. They sing the sad story of a little girl who freezes to death selling matches on the street during a cold winter's night. In notes Lang wrote to accompany the Carnegie Hall premiere last October, he says he was drawn to Andersen's story because of how opposite aspects of the plot played off each other. 'The girl's bitter present is locked together with the sweetness of her past memories, ' Lang says. 'Her poverty is always suffused with her hopefulness. There's a kind of naive equilibrium between suffering and hope.'