[1]When I received this gift at the renowned Verbier Festival last summer, at first I didn't think much of it: I believed it was only another app for streaming music on line. But, after having tasted plenty of festivals, Aix en Provence, Verbier, Bayreuth, Innsbruck and more, with the feet at home again, approaching Idagio for the first time, I noticed I had had a whole year of streaming and I tried at last.
First, I've tried with Max Richter: I wanted to know if it worked with new composers too and it did: I found Infra, an album from 2010, and then various collections, monographic and not. Then it has been the turn of my beloved Shostakovich, searching for a refined edition with Weinberg, their 4 hands on the piano of Symphony No. 10, Op. 93, edited by Melodiya. Together with Wagner it always rings in my heart.
Two days ago I discovered a new female composer who lighted my longing for infinity: the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė (1975) performed by Gražinytė-Tyla and Kremerata Baltica – and Songs of Sunset and Dawn, a setting of texts by Rabindranath Tagore for soloists, choir and orchestra, performed by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Giedrė Šlekytė. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (born in Vilnius, 1986), conductor at the Salzburger Landestheater and at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has chosen to dedicate to another Lithuanian composer her second album edited by Deutsche Grammophon and in Midsummer Song and De profundis [2]– two works for strings – you can hear so profoundly the mystical experience which was intended to trascend the higher notes, just to remind you that our limits are not around us but above.
The second cd which I warmly advise to buy, or listening to with particular attention, is by a very well known female composer: the Finnish Kaija Saariaho (1952), of whom I have been so lucky to hear and review her first work at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Cinq reflets de L’amour de loin, a composition which dates 2000. At the time it was played by the Orchestra of Teatro Costanzi conducted by Kazushi Ono and with the soprano Caroline Stein and the baritone Otto Katzameier. This cd, instead is a world premiere with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu of three works. The first is True Fire [3], written in 2014 for baritone Gerald Finley, a post-romantic text on nature. Ciel d'hiver (2013) is arranged for a small orchestra with the triptych Orion. Trans is a harp concerto premiered by Xavier de Maistre, who is also the soloist here, as alive in 2016. The cd is published by Ondine.
I can really recommend Idagio, a german app fast working and functional with a supreme quality of listening and choices, both to critics and lovers. Founded in 2015 by Till Janczukowicz, a former artist manager, and Christoph Lange, Idagio assures you with a complete experience of classical music with catalogues coming from Sony Classical to Deutsche Grammophon, together with Decca, Philips and ECM labels, Warner Classics and Erato.