International Guitar Month, John Williams and a lot of cello highlight April releases

Every day, YourClassical’s programming team (music director Joe Goetz and associate music directors Jennifer Allen and Robin Gehl) listen to dozens of recordings as they create our daily radio playlists and on-demand streams. Here are some of their favorites for April 2024.

Rodrigo: Fantasía Para un Gentilhombre & Concierto de Aranjuez; Xianji Liu and the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra, conducted by Pedro Amaral (IBS Classical)
Two of the greatest pieces of Spanish guitar music have been interpreted and recorded by up-and-coming Chinese guitarist Xianji Liu. Spanish recording label IBS Classical was founded in 2012 primarily to showcase the musical heritage of Spain. Liu’s recording features Joaquin Rodrigo’s hallmark concertos, Fantasia for a Gentleman (composed in 1954) and the Aranjuez Concerto (composed in 1939). In 2019, Liu was invited to perform both works at the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, Spain, where the gardens first inspired Rodrigo to compose the concerto. Liu became the first Chinese-born guitarist to win the Francisco Tárrega International Guitar Competition, held in Benicàssim, Spain. He was honored at the 50th competition in 2016. Trained in China, he completed graduate work at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar, graduating in 2018. In addition to an international touring and recording schedule, he teaches guitar at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Along with Liu, the recording features conductor Pedro Amaral leading the Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. — Robin Gehl

Timo Andres: The Blind Banister; Timo Andres, Inbal Segev and the Metropolis Ensemble, conducted by Andrew Cyr (Nonesuch)
I was first introduced to composer and pianist Timo Andres in 2013 at a small dinner he hosted at his apartment in Brooklyn. What first impressed me was his Bolognese, but then I heard him play Frederic Chopin. And Thomas Ades. And then his own music. It was clear he was destined for great things, and indeed his piano concerto The Blind Banister was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize. Now, nearly a decade after its composition and first performances, it has been recorded with the Metropolis Ensemble with Andres at the piano. The Blind Banister, while an excellent work, wasn’t actually my favorite piece on the album. His 2017 concerto for cello and chamber orchestra, Upstate Obscura, grabbed hold of my imagination from its first notes. Cellist Inbal Segev, who commissioned the work, explores via ever-expanding motifs the curious tale of artist John Vanderlyn’s quixotic attempt to paint a panoramic replica of the gardens of Versailles. The final movement, “Vanishing Point,” has an aura of the resignation of an artist whose wild dream was never fulfilled or understood. — Joe Goetz

Anastasia Kobekina: Venice (Sony)
Inbal Segev isn’t the only cellist with fascinating music to enjoy this month. Russian cellist Anatasia Kobekina has a new album, Venice, that has two feet in different worlds, yet she finds a curious way to find common ground between them. On one hand, the Renaissance and Baroque traditions of Venice are explored through arrangements of Claudio Monteverdi and Antonio Vivaldi. On the other, Kobekina explores the modern sounds of Gyorgy Kurtag, Caroline Shaw and even her father, Vladimir Kobekin. Of particular note is her inclusion of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. A native of Yekaterinburg, Russia, Kobekina has been outspoken against her native country’s invasion of Ukraine. Silvestrov’s Evening Serenade, with its echoes of Franz Schubert’s Ständchen, serves as a poignant reminder of his nation’s struggle in the face of aggression yet ends with the slightest glimmer of hope for a better future. — Joe Goetz

John Williams: Violin Concerto No. 1, Bernstein: Serenade; James Ehnes and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stéphane Denève (Pentatone)
Two concertos by American composers are the focus of the latest recording by violinist James Ehnes with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and conductor Stéphane Denève. John Williams’ First Violin Concerto was written from 1974 to ‘76, and is one of his earliest “serious” works. While touches of his characteristic compositional sound can be found throughout (a shimmering harp glissando here, an atmospheric glow of strings there), this is not simply a score padded with extra material. Williams finds the opportunity to express a huge range of emotions — energetic excitement, frantic anger, tender melancholy — through the more modern neo-classical style of the mid-’70s. Like Williams, Leonard Bernstein blurs the line between music for the screen and for the concert stage in his Serenade on Plato’s Symposium. Composed in 1954 for violinist Isaac Stern, Bernstein was inspired to write this exploration of the Greek idea of love after re-reading Plato’s works. Both composers have such unique voices that the music is unmistakably theirs — but you’ll have to close your eyes and imagine your own movie. — Jennifer Allen