dealer information service: no. 352 may 2021 highlights

MAY 2021 HIGHLIGHTS

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DEALER INFORMATION SERVICE: NO. 352

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Nicolò Paganini 24 Caprices

Alina Ibragimova

CDA68366 £9.00 2 CD 30/04/21 HYPERION RECORDS

The transcendental heroics of Paganini’s Caprices have presented the ultimate test for generations of violinists; Alina Ibragimova’s accounts of this most exclusive repertoire join a select few of the most celebrated.

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Felix Mendelssohn The Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol. 5

Howard Shelley


Howard Shelley continues to overturn the conventional wisdom about Mendelssohn’s unjustly neglected piano music, again demonstrating convincingly its claims on our attention.

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Pancho Vladigerov 6 Exotic Preludes Op. 17; 10 Impressions Op. 9

Nadejda Vlaeva


The rich profusion of musical idioms employed by Pancho Vladigerov, filtered through the prism of his dazzlingly virtuoso piano writing, makes for some exciting listening. Nadejda Vlaeva responds thrillingly to the extreme pianistic challenges.

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Richard Strauss, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, Anton Rubinstein, Robert Franz

Festmusik: A Legacy

Onyx Brass, John Wilson

CHSA 5284£9.00 1 HYBRID SACD 30/04/21 CHANDOS RECORDS

Described as ‘easily the classiest brass ensemble in Britain’ by BBC Music Magazine, Onyx Brass continues to be the leading light in establishing the brass quintet as a medium for serious chamber music, presenting it in the entertaining and articulate style that has become the group’s trademark. For this, its third recording for Chandos, Onyx Brass presents a programme steeped in the German romantic tradition. Arrangements for small ensemble of works by Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Rubinstein, and Franz demonstrate the musicality and virtuosity of the group, as well as a wide expressive and textural range. The programme opens and closes with three large-scale works by Richard Strauss, in which the quintet is joined by a host of other top UK brass players and the conductor John Wilson. Festmusik der Stadt Wien for brass and timpani, written for the city of Vienna, is the only original composition: all the others are arrangements made by members of the group. Captured in Surround Sound and available as a hybrid SACD, this is a must have album for brass music enthusiasts and fans of chamber music alike.

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Sir Arthur Sullivan The Harmonious Echo - Songs by Sir Arthur Sullivan

Mary Bevan, Kitty Whately, Ben Johnson, Ashley Riches, David Owen Norris

CHAN 20239(2) £9.00 2 CD 30/04/21 CHANDOS RECORDS

Although most widely remembered for his operettas in partnership with W.S. Gilbert, Sir Arthur Sullivan was the most famous of all British composers of the nineteenth century. He was revered as a composer of oratorios, and was urged by Queen Victoria to compose a grand opera. The result, Ivanhoe, achieved 155 consecutive performances (in an opera house especially built for it). Achieving equal success in his lifetime, his substantial legacy of songs fell into neglect in the twentieth century, but as this album demonstrates Sullivan’s endlessly fertile melodic gifts withstand comparison with those of any other song composer. David Owen Norris and his quartet of outstanding young British singers deliver this fascinating programme with terrific style and panache.

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Domenico Scarlatti, Napoléon Coste, Agustín Barrios Mangoré, Armand Coeck, isaac Albéniz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Enrique Granados, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Django Reinhardt, Luigi Legnani, Miroslav Tadić

Craig Ogden in Concert

Craig Ogden

CHAN 20159 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 CHANDOS RECORDS

Described by BBC Music Magazine as ‘A worthy successor to Julian Bream’, the Australian-born guitarist Craig Ogden is one of the most exciting artists of his generation. He studied guitar from the age of seven and in 2004 became the youngest instrumentalist to receive a Fellowship Award from the Royal Northern College of Music. He has performed concertos with many of the world’s leading orchestras and numerous composers have written works specially for him. Despite a diverse and extensive discography, Craig Ogden had never made an album based on his regular recital repertoire. This latest album consists of pieces he regularly plays in concert and includes a wide variety of music, spanning three centuries. Offering both transcriptions and original works, it is all music that he loves to play, and a programme that reflects the wonderful diversity within the repertoire of the modern classical guitar.

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Ludwig van Beethoven The Violin Sonatas 5-7

Frank Peter Zimmermann, Martin Helmchen

BIS2527 £9.00 1 HYBRID SACD 30/04/21 BIS

2020 saw the release of the first instalment in this three-disc traversal of Beethoven’s violin sonatas – a disc which has garnered distinctions such as Choc de Classica and Cum Laude (Luister), with performances that ‘wed classical verve to a profoundly Romantic spirit’ (Gramophone) in ‘recordings that are conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ (BBC Music Magazine). As Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen open the second disc, they do so with the iconic Spring Sonata, Op. 24. Completed in 1801, the work proved immediately popular with a second edition appearing only months after the first publication. There were also numerous arrangements for a variety of forces –including a song based on motifs from the sonata’s slow movement. Soon after completing Op. 24, Beethoven began work on a set of three sonatas of which the first two are included on this disc. Musically the Op. 30 sonatas continue the development that had begun with the Spring Sonata towards a contrast-rich, symphonic style. Beethoven originally planned to end the first and shortest of the three with the expansive movement that later became the finale of the great Kreutzer Sonata. As this would clearly have ruined the proportions of the work, he eventually replaced it with a set of variations. Closing this disc is the second sonata of Op. 30, in C minor. It is the most important of the set; a genuine Grande Sonate in four movements, and an early example of Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ style.

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Russian Spectacular - Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Night on a Bare Mountain; Balakirev: Islamey; Borodin: Polovtsian Dances

Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Lan Shui


This disc of orchestral showpieces features four of the five members of the Mighty Handful, a group of Russian composers who, during the second half of the 19th century, collaborated to create a distinct national style. The recorded works illustrate different aspects of their endeavours – both in terms of the musical means they employ and their subject matter. Orientalism is one of the typical features of the music of the group, as witness Balakirev’s Islamey –employing material from the Caucasus Mountains – and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, describing the revels of a nomadic eastern tribe during a 12th-century raid into the Russian lands. The most individual of the group was Modest Mussorgsky, with a musical language both powerful and startlingly vivid in imagination. His celebrated Pictures from an Exhibition was composed in 1874 as a tribute to a recently deceased artist friend, and takes in such specifically Russian elements as the fairy-tale witch Baba Yaga and the Great Gate of Kiev. Originally written for the piano it is here performed in the 1922 orchestration by Maurice Ravel. Also by Mussorgsky, the opening Night on the Bare Mountain paints a witch’s Sabbath in bold brushstrokes, and was re-orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov after the composer’s death. It is his version, with more sumptuous orchestral textures and a tighter formal plan that is heard here, performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Lan Shui.

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Spain Franz Halász BIS2565 £9.00 1 HYBRID SACD 30/04/21 BIS

In June of 1922, a cultural fiesta took place on the grounds of Granada’s Alhambra palace, organized by Manuel de Falla and Federico García Lorca. The aim of the event was to preserve the ‘purity’ of flamenco art and the opening performance was given by 29-year-old guitarist Andrés Segovia. Ironically, Segovia played de Falla’s Hommage to Claude Debussy (featured on this disc) – a work which can hardly be described as pure flamenco. But this can be seen as symptomatic of an important trait in the music of 20th-century Spain: Certain composers defended what they believed to be a noble, gallant and Castilian ideal, while others embarked on an quest to restore the ‘lost purity’ of the peasantry, but embracing Modernism and Impressionism as stylistic tools in order to do so. This is demonstrated on Franz Halász’s new disc, which provides a context – Milán’s Pavanes from the 16th century, Fernando Sor’s ‘Malbroug’ Variations from 1827 – while juxtaposing later works that embody the described, conflicting attitudes. This makes for a colourful and varied programme, taking in highlights in the guitar literature such as Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra as well as Joaquín Turina’s Guitar Sonata, here recorded –for the first time – from a copy of Turina’s original manuscript, and not Segovia’s published version with numerous changes. The winner of a Latin Grammy, Franz Halász is a highly acclaimed guitarist who here also makes his own contribution to the repertoire of his instrument, with his own arrangements of de Falla and Isaac Albéniz.

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Richard Dubugnon Klavieriana for piano and orchestra; Chamber Symphonies Nos 1 & 2

Noriko Ogawa, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Thomas Zehetmair


Born in 1968, the Swiss composer Richard Dubugnon writes music that has been described as ‘driven by a playful modern sensibility’ (New York Times). His work list includes all genres, from solo pieces to large orchestral works, such as the Helvetia Symphony, scored for the same forces as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He has also written for smaller orchestra, however, and this disc is bookended by his two chamber symphonies. Chamber Symphony No. 1 was composed in 2013, and in his liner notes the composer admits to influences from Arnold Schoenberg and Franz Schreker, as well as Olivier Messiaen: ‘if passionate gestures evoke the decadent Vienna of the turn of the 20th century, the overall harmonic colour remains quite “French”… Switzerland is, after all, half way between Vienna and Paris.’ In contrast, the initial inspiration for Chamber Symphony No. 2 (2017) was a visual one – a stained-glass panel from 1658 commemorating the first members of Musikkollegium Winterthur, for which the work was written. Dubugnon creates a chaconne based on the colours of the stained glass, but also includes a Bach fragment in allusion to a reference on the panel to Psalm 150. These elements are used in various ways throughout the piece, which ends in a big accelerando. Framed by the symphonies is the concerto Klaveriana for piano, orchestra and obbligato celesta. Featuring a wide range of piano techniques, the concerto is unusual in that it incorporates an important part for the celesta which functions as a mysterious reflection of the piano. The disc is a first on BIS from Musikkollegium Winterthur under its conductor Thomas Zehetmair, with Noriko Ogawa as the soloist in Klaveriana.

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Olga Neuwirth, Brett Dean, Uri Caine, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Steven Mackey, Anders Hillborg The Brandenburg Project: Twelve Concertos Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Dausgaard


Along with Vivaldi’s ‘Seasons’ or Beethoven’s ‘Fifth’, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos belong to those works that are so well-known that we risk taking them for granted. In order to (re-)discover the special qualities that can inspire us today, in 2001 Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra decided to contact six contemporary composer, asking each of them to compose a companion piece to one of the concertos. Seventeen years later, in 2018, it was time to present the result, with a performance at the BBC Proms of all the works – new and old. Recorded over a period of 18 months leading up to this event, the present boxed set provides a unique opportunity to experience six very different musical minds and idioms entering into conversation with Bach: Mark-Anthony Turnage, Steven Mackey, Anders Hillborg, Olga Neuwirth, Uri Caine and Brett Dean. Bach’s concertos are remarkable in that they are all scored for different instrumental combinations, and part of the brief to the group of composers was to reflect this. In her Aello, Olga Neuwirth has for instance used several ‘instruments’ to stand in for Bach’s harpsichord, including a synthesizer, a milk frother and a typewriter. Brett Dean, on the other hand, has stayed very close to Bach’s instrumentation, but has chosen to write his work as a preparation for Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 – an Approach to Bach’s extremely tight canonic writing. In performing the twelve works the orchestra and Dausgaard are joined by leading soloists including Clare Chase, Mahan Esfahani, Håkan Hardenberger, Pekka Kuusisto and Tabea Zimmermann.

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Petrus De Cruce, Philippe De Vitry, Guillaume De Machaut, Jacob Senleches, Jacopo Da Bologna, Francesco Landini

A 14th-Century Salmagundi

Blue Heron, Scott Metcalfe

BHCD1011 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 BLUE HERON

The vocal ensemble Blue Heron, winner of the 2018 Gramophone Classical Music Award for Early Music and a 2020 Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, presents A 14th-Century Salmagundi. A salmagundi is a savory dish composed of chopped meats, seafoods, eggs, vegetables, and condiments; a mixture or hodgepodge; an assemblage of miscellaneous components. Blue Heron’s Salmagundi is a pleasing miscellany of music composed c. 1300-1400, a delightful salad of ingredients gathered from our storehouse of French and Italian songs, including virtuosic music by Guillaume de Machaut, Francesco Landini, and Jacob Senleches. Seven vocal soloists are featured along with medieval fiddle, harp, and lute.

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Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 3

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons

900189 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 BR KLASSIK

The Munich concert year of 2005 began at the end of January with two highlights: the two performances of Bruckner’s Third Symphony with Mariss Jansons conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in the Philharmonie im Gasteig. The live recording makes it possible to experience one of the landmarks of the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire, conducted by an outstanding Bruckner connoisseur.Bruckner completed the score of the opening movement, the Adagio and the Scherzo of his nascent Third Symphony between February and July 1873, and sketched out its finale on August 31, 1873 in Marienbad, Bohemia. The composer then travelled to Bayreuth, and presented Richard Wagner with his Second Symphony and the already completed manuscripts for the Third. Bruckner asked Wagner to select the symphony he preferred, intending to dedicate it to him - but since both men drank quite a bit of beer during their thorough perusal of the manuscripts, Bruckner was later unable to remember which work Wagner had ultimately chosen, and this had to be clarified in writing. The Third Symphony was completed on December 31, 1873.

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Sir Charles Villiers Stanford Piano Quintet Op. 25; Fantasies for Horn & Clarinet

Members of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Nikolaus Resa

C5381 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 CAPRICCIO

Nowadays Stanford’s fame is largely based on his teaching activities in London, while his reputation as a ‘great composer’ has waned considerably. His students included renowned composers such as Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Frank Bridge and many others who helped shape England‘s classical music scene at the turn of the 20th century. His oeuvre covered a wide variety of sacred and secular music and his works carry within them elements of Irish folklore and mysticism. Many of his chamber works have a definite air of Brahms about them, never by way of direct quotation or paraphrase, but by making Brahms’ style his own.

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Walter Braunfels Don Gil. Prelude Op. 35; Divertimento Op. 42; Ariel’s Song Op. 18; Serenade Op. 20

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gregor Bühl

C5429 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 CAPRICCIO

‘The audience might remember that – as a descendant of writing tonal music – I am still alive and continue composing.’ – Walter Braunfels, 1946. Walter Braunfels’ music died twice: first, when the Nazis declared his music ‘degenerate art’; and again when postwar Germany largely rejected tonal music, with arbiters of taste declaring any form of romantic music (almost the whole pre-war aesthetic) to be tainted. This ninth volume in Capriccio’s Braunfels Edition also shows us an open-minded composer who experimented with Jazz elements in his Divertimento for radio-orchestra in 1929. The programme also includes the prelude to his comic opera Don Gil of the Green Breeches, Ariel‘s Song and the Serenade in E-flat major.

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Josef Labor Violin Sonata Op. 5; Cello Sonata Op. 7; Theme and Variations Op. 10

Nina Karmon, Floris Mijnders, Přemysl Vojta, Oliver Triendl

C5430 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 CAPRICCIO

The positive response to Capriccio’s first release of Labor’s Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet (C5390) enabled this series to be continued with three works representative of Labor’s output from the early 1890s. In Vienna, Labor was part of Johannes Brahms’ close circle of friends. Brahms particularly valued his composer colleagues who went their own way without copying him. Labor’s music is very skillfully composed, always sensuous, and first and foremost melodious; it does not require too deep a scrutiny. Around eighty of his compositions have survived. They include practically no occasional works, arising from the fact that he was blind. For him, composition was a luxury, insofar as he had to rely on the help of an amanuensis who had to commit the work to paper.

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The Polish Collection The Sixteen, Eamonn Dougan

COR16185 £20.70 5 CD 07/05/21 CORO

This spectacular collection comprises The Sixteen’s five acclaimed Polish recordings with the group’s Associate Conductor, Eamonn Dougan. Masters of the Polish Baroque such as Bartłomiej Pękiel, Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki and Marcin Mielczewski are celebrated alongside Italian maestri Giovanni Francesco Anerio, Vincenzo Bertolusi, Luca Marenzio and Asprilio Pacelli. These composers flourished at the court of King Sigismund III marking a new dawn for sacred music in Poland.

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Johann Sebastian Bach The Overtures BWV 1066-1069 (Original versions)

Concerto Copenhagen, Lars Ulrik Mortensen

555346-2 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 CPO

Concerto Copenhagen, the Danish National Baroque Orchestra, has developed into one of Scandinavia’s leading Baroque orchestras. The orchestra now turns to Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous Orchestral Suites. Although extensive research has been conducted for many years, it is not known when the suites were composed. Today everything indicates that the suites were written much earlier than is assumed and then merely had to be adapted to Bach’s new Leipzig circumstances. It is therefore not unusual for them to be performed – as on this recording – without timpani and trumpets. Although the especially popular third suite is a ceremonious, sumptuous work, the material contributed by the wind instruments is hardly of considerable significance. The suite enjoys a top ranking on the charts of Bach’s most attractive and best-loved works. Some of his most popular melodies can be found in their movements. Suite No. 2 in B minor ends with the immensely famous flute solo of the Badinerie (a ‘joke’ comparable to the Italian ‘scherzo’) frequently employed on television as a signature tune. Here the Johann Sebastian Bach we encounter is not the one who quests for deep spiritual knowledge or probes hidden aspects of the human soul. On the other hand, he rarely wrote mellower, more uplifting melodies or simpler, more elegantly designed dance rhythms than in these twenty-four movements brimming with magical variations, atmosphere, and rich color.

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Georg Philipp Telemann Easter Cantatas

Johanna Winkel, Margot Oitzinger, Georg Poplutz, Peter Kooij, Kölner Akademie, Michael Alexander Willens

555425-2 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 CPO

Our CD presents a selection of five works from the extensive, largely unexplored Easter Cantata oeuvre created by Georg Philipp Telemann during the course of his sixty years in Eisenach (1708-12), Frankfurt am Main (1712-21), and Hamburg (1721-67). Four of the works recorded here date from the 1720s and take us back to the years in Telemann’s creative life as a composer when he was the new music director of Hamburg’s five principal churches and was reorganizing the city’s church music and modernizing it in musical respects. The two cantatas from the ‘Annual Cycle without Recitatives’ refrain from use of larger ensembles with brass and woodwind instruments and concertizing instrumental voices; the focus is on the arias and quotations from the Bible, and of these it is above all the opening dictum that is very extensive and often elaborated with rich counterpoint. On the whole, the annual cycle has an intimate, subdued character. Its music does not score points with tonal effects; instead, it generates appeal with refinements in the musical setting of the texts. The cantatas of the ‘Second Lingen Annual Cycle’ are characterized by a fixed sequence of movement forms. The initial sinfonia is followed by an accompagnato recitative, and this weighty exordium is succeeded by two duets in alternation with chorale strophes. The duets are da capo arias and designed in such a way that one voice sings the A part, while the other voice sings the B part.

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Christopher Wilson, Sir Granville Bantock British Music for Strings, Vol. II

Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Douglas Bostock

555395-2 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 CPO

Our second CD with music for strings by British composers features most highly creative compositions by Sir Granville Bantock and Christopher Wilson. When Bantock reached the pinnacle of his fame, the Three Choirs Festival held in Hereford in 1912 ordered a work for string orchestra from him. The result was the four-movement Serenade for Strings, to which he assigned the subtitle ‘In the Far West’. Bantock’s string movements are distinguished by an impressive tonal richness. After the performance Douglas Bostock remarked: ‘I am truly amazed – this is anything but a ‘Serenade,’ as the innocuous title suggests. The succinct, symphonically developed music is nothing other than a string symphony with a demanding writing style representing a genuine tour de force’. Moreover, extensive recorded material documents the Scottish melodies used by Bantock in his Scenes from the Scottish Highlands. For them he chose the finely managed format of three fast dances separated by two euphonious slow movements. The six short movements in traditional or dance style forming Christopher Wilson’s Suite for String Orchestra made it something new and fresh when it was premiered in 1901, and it came over very well. It is thought that one of the composer’s goals was to connect with the tradition of Johann Sebastian Bach.

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Cipriani Potter Symphony No. 1 in G minor; Introduzione e Rondo alla militaire in E flat major for Piano & Orchestra; Overture to Cymbelene

Claire Huangci, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Howard Griffiths

555274-2 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 CPO

The highly esteemed Cipriani Potter bequeathed a rich compositional oeuvre to posterity. Born in London in 1792, Potter received his education as a composer from Thomas Altwood, William Crotch, and Joseph Wölfl. He later traveled to Vienna, where he continued his studies with Aloys Förster on Beethoven’s recommendation. During a commemorative event held by the Musical Association in London, he was praised for his nine symphonies – and in particular for the first, in G minor, which is heard on this new release. The first movement from the very start attests to Potter’s dramatic instinct; Potter was one of the first renowned composers from England to write symphonies based on his experience of Mozart’s late oeuvre and Beethoven’s orchestral music. The furious ‘Allegro con spirito’ first movement of his G minor symphony is a bold stroke of genius filled with powerful melodic invention in combination with masterful thematic development. The phenomenal pianist Potter also repeatedly presented cabinet pieces for the piano. He composed the ‘Introduction’ followed by a ‘Rondo in the Military Style’ of 1827 six years before his first piano concerto. Like the ‘Variazioni di Bravura on a Theme by Rossini’ for piano and orchestra also dating from the late 1820s or the ‘Introduction and Rondo Giocoso’ for solo piano, they offer listening pleasure in which Potter’s humorous side, a trait mentioned by many who knew him, is revealed.

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Felix Mendelssohn String Quartets op. 44, Nos 1 & 2

Minguet Quartett

555086-2 £6.90 1 CD 30/04/21 CPO

Felix Mendelssohn composed his three String Quartets op. 44 dedicated to Sweden’s crown prince and later king Oscar I during the years from 1837 to 1838. In 1840 Mendelssohn, who was regarded as an absolute perfectionist, revised these ‘Trois Grands Quatuors’, which he judged to be ‘some hundred times better’ than all of his previous works. Vol. 3 presents the first two quartets from op. 44. The first, the last of the series to be composed, belongs to the genre of the ‘quatuor brillant’ – a type in which it is the first violin that shines. Already the introductory ‘Allegro vivace’ is like a concerto movement by reason of the fact that the first violin is mostly accompanied by the three other instruments, often even with orchestral tremolos and timpani imitations in the violoncello. The second quartet, the first to be composed in this series of three, conveys an elegiac and passionate tone and displays expressive passages together with powerful accents.

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Max Drischner Sonnenhymnus - Selected Organ Works

Friedhelm Flamme

555376-2 £6.90 1 HYBRID SACD 30/04/21 CPO

Max Drischner’s ‘Neobaroque’ music is best understood when it is viewed in its context shaped by the youth music movement and the organ revival. Drischner wanted to write appealing music that would reach ‘the people’ and receive a positive response from its audiences. The selection of compositions recorded here on a magnificent, richly colored symphonic organ consists of free pieces and pieces set to chorales that can also be played on small organs or in some cases even on the piano. Among the free organ works, the impressive Passacaglia in E major occupies a special place in Drischner’s self-understanding because of his detailed comments on it and his suggestions for interpretation. Its title, Sonnen-Hymnus (Sun Hymn), owes to several factors: Drischner incorporates his experiences of sunrises in the mountains of his native Silesia into it and forms associations with creation hymns such as Psalm 104:27-28 and St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun. Drischner renders this into music based on a theme of eight measures developed from an E major chord and cited a total of thirty-four times. It typically occurs in triple rhythm and is elaborated in various registers, degrees of textural complexity, and forms of rhythmization. Drischner’s chordal doubling of the voices produces a hymnic character in the concluding part, and the registration with cimbelstern bells lends a special radiance to this segment.

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Johannes Matthias Sperger Double Bass Concertos No. 1 in D major and No. 8 in D major; Sinfonia No. 15 in A major

Roman Patkolò, Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, Douglas Bostock

555404-2 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 CPO

Johann Matthias Sperger, the standout double bassist among the leading forces of the Viennese School in Germany, honored his instrument with greater virtuosity and more compositional versatility than any other composer. This fact is documented by his eighteen double bass concertos, all of which have come down to us in the autographic scores and in some cases in the parts and are available for consultation in the Schwerin Library. On Vol. 2, which features Concertos Nos. 1 and 8, Sperger once again gives the double bass the solo space it needs to display its song qualities, often with extremely striking and exceptional themes. And as already on Vol. 1, our soloist Roman Patkoló ‘does complete justice to what are sometimes the breakneck demands of the concertos’ (klassik-heute.com of Vol. 1). The CD also includes Sperger’s Symphony No. 15, a work that has a tonal language very close to that of Haydn – and that here is being performed and recorded on CD for the first time, 239 years after its composition.

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Reinhold Glière, Richard Dubugnon, Alfred Desenclos, Adolf Mišek, Giovanni Bottesini Elegy: Toby Hughes (Works for double bass and piano by Glière, Dubugnon, Desenclos, Mišek and Bottesini)

Toby Hughes, Benjamin Powell

CHRCD162 £7.29 1 CD 30/04/21 CHAMPS HILL RECORDS

For his debut solo recording, double bassist Toby Hughes explores the versatility and musicality of the double bass as a solo instrument. Released on Champs Hill Records, and recorded together with pianist Benjamin Powell, Hughes presents some of the finest original compositions for the double bass, including Adolf Mišek’s Sonata no.2, Glière’s Four Pieces, and Giovanni Bottesini’s beautiful Elegia. Hughes comments: “These works represent some of the most important moments from my musical journey so far. The album is dedicated to the memory of Corin Long. He was one of my first, and most important teachers. Without a doubt, I would not be recording these works without the limitless inspiration, encouragement and enthusiasm I received whilst learning with him.

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Friedrich Kuhlau Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 1

Marie-Luise Bodendorff

8.226204 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 DACAPO

Friedrich Kuhlau is known as Beethoven’s strongest advocate in Denmark and the man who wrote Elverhøj. But Kuhlau was first and foremost a pianist, one whose works for the instrument have a depth and character of their own. In the first of a new series, Marie-Luise Bodendorff reassesses Kuhlau’s contribution to the piano literature with fresh, muscular performances of music including the previously unrecorded Divertissement, Op. 37.

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Country Blues & Harmonica Kings (1927-31) - Matchbox Bluesmaster Series - Set 3

MSESET3 £16.85 6 CD 07/05/21 MATCHBOX BLUESMASTER

Volume 3 of the CD release of the iconic Matchbox Bluesmaster LP series from the 1980s with extensive notes from world authority on the blues, Paul Oliver. Memphis in the late 1920s was, by any standards, an extraordinarily musical city. On and around Beale Street the roster of guitarists, pianists, harmonica players, jugblowers, banjo pickers and the like was seemingly inexhaustible, And if it was the sidewalk musicians you were listening to, you might hear Noah Lewis blowing his harmonica for tips. In spite of the large number of records that he made and the similar approach on each of them to the blues he was singing, Texas Alexander continued to be one of Okeh’s best sellers and a highly popular artist... We know very little about Ramblin’ Thomas. In his way, he was a poet, with a use of imagery and turn of phrase in his blues which was far more inventive than that of many better-known singers.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 11, 12 & 13

Matyář Novák, Wihan Quartet

NI6419 £8.70 1 CD 07/05/21 NIMBUS ALLIANCE

As a pianist, Mozart performed at many concerts and music academies, for which he had to build a repertoire; similarly, he was in need of educational repertoire for his students. Between 1782 and 1786, Mozart composed, in addition to piano sonatas and variations, fourteen new concertos for piano with orchestra. He was certainly no novice in this field, already having no less than ten piano concertos under his belt (not to mention his violin concertos and his first collection of concertos for wind instruments). As such, Mozart’s Vienna period begins with a remarkable trio of piano concertos, K. 413, 414 and 415. Mozart undoubtedly wrote them for himself. His concert activity in Vienna was extraordinary, especially in the first years, where he met with success as both a soloist and as a composer. He therefore decided to publish this trio at his own expense (on a subscription basis), obviously with an eye towards having another source of income.

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Richard Blackford Niobe; Kalon; Blewbury Air

Czech Philharmonic, Tasmin Waley-Cohen, Raphael Wallfisch, Adrian Farmer, Albion Quartet, Ben Gernon

NI6420 £8.70 1 CD 07/05/21 NIMBUS ALLIANCE

Niobe is the story of a strong woman brought down by an even stronger woman, the goddess Leto. I have tried to portray in music Niobe’s sensuality, feistiness, pride, arrogance, remorse, defiance as the story of her blasphemy against the goddess Leto and her extraordinarily harsh consequent punishment unfolds. The relationship of the violin soloist to the orchestra is inspired by the dramatic unfolding of the myth. I am indebted to Tamsin Waley-Cohen for her encouragement and support as we developed the concept for Niobe and her brilliance as a soloist and interpreter of my music. Kalon is the Greek word for perfect physical and moral beauty, as conceived by the philosophers of Classical Greece. The three movements explore different aspects of kalon, also the context in which beauty can exist in ugliness and darkness. The two string groups (quartet and orchestra) frequently play in different tempi simultaneously, thereby producing complex and rich sonorities and textures. Each movement approaches the combined tempi differently, and each movement explores new antiphonal possibilities, new approaches to counterpoint, new definitions of rhythmic consonance and dissonance...

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George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel Pascal Rogé: George Gershwin & Maurice Ravel Piano ConcertosPascal Rogé, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bertrand de Billy

OC1901 £14.00 2 CD 21/05/21 OEHMS CLASSICS

The award-winning French pianist Pascal Rogé presents a programme of music by Gershwin and Ravel in a recording with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bertrand de Billy. Rogé’s affinity for the French style and empathy with jazz make him particularly suited to this repertoire. His recordings of French piano music have received Gramophone, Grand Prix du Disque and Edison awards. In addition to the classical-romantic repertoire of the Viennese and German schools, 20th-century French music is also one of his specialities.

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Magnus Lindberg Aura; Marea; Related Rocks

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hannu Lintu

ODE 1384-2 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 ONDINE

Composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is one of the leading names in today’s contemporary music. This album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra together with its chief conductor Hannu Lintu includes three works by the composer, including Aura, one of the most prominent monumental orchestral works of our era.

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Tālivaldis Ķeniņš Symphonies Nos. 4 & 6; Canzona Sonata

Santa Vižine, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Guntis Kuzma

ODE 1354-2 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 ONDINE

The first album of orchestral works by one of Latvia’s most prominent composers, Tālivaldis Ķeniņš (1919–2008), released in October 2020 has received a warm response from music critics around the world. This second volume by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra under conductor Guntis Kuzma includes two symphonies from the 1970s alongside another concertante gem, Canzona Sonata for viola and string orchestra.

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Boris Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Alexander Borodin, Sergei Taneyev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Elena Firsova

SPHINX

Hamish McLaren, Matthew Jorysz, Claudia Fuller, Nathalie Green-Buckley, Ben Michaels

ORC100161 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 ORCHID CLASSICS

Russia’s rich tradition of art song began with early 19th-century salon pieces: lyrical ‘romances’ that evolved to embrace grander themes yet never lost their intimacy. This selection explores some fascinating but less-trodden paths through this repertoire, inspired by the theme of distant lands and encompassing the enduring themes of travel, romantic landscapes, love and loss, life and death. In this recital, Borodin meets Taneyev, a Moscow composition professor from the next generation; Shostakovich stands alongside another major symphonist, his Moscow colleague Myaskovsky, and Shostakovich’s student Boris Tchaikovsky, a prodigy widely known for his film music, passes the baton to Elena Firsova, a post-Soviet émigré to England and a distinctive lyrical voice of today. Inspired by the songs of Taneyev, Myaskovksy and Firsova, countertenor Hamish McLaren embarked on distant travels of his own, journeying to Russia where he found two previously unreleased film songs by Shostakovich, heard here in their world-premiere recordings.

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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Heart & Hereafter

Elizabeth Llewellyn, Simon Lepper


Known for her vivid portrayals and full, distinctive voice, Elizabeth Llewellyn has established herself internationally as a dramatic and vocal artist of distinction. She has chosen to offer listeners something new by devoting her debut disc to the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, much of it never recorded before. Elizabeth Llewellyn is joined by pianist Simon Lepper, with whom she has collaborated closely in the development of this unique project. To poetry by Christina Rossetti, Coleridge-Taylor’s Six Sorrow Songs and A Lament are almost all world-premiere recordings. The Southern Love Songs evoke styles including Latin music and flamenco, and the African Romances, never recorded until now, are to words by African-American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar. Big Lady Moon is to poetry by West African polymath Kathleen Mary Easmon, and the sensuous Three Songs of Sun and Shade are followed by more previously-unreleased songs: A king there lived in Thule, Canoe Song and You’ll Love Me Yet. The recital ends with Life and Death, in which Coleridge-Taylor anticipates styles that would become popular two decades after his death. This was a composer ahead of his time who, at last, is starting to receive the recognition he deserves.

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Eugène Ysaÿe, Johann Sebastian Bach, Isaac Albéniz, Francisco Tárrega, Ruggiero Ricci (arranger), Patrick Loiseleur (arranger) Francisco Fullana (arranger)

Bach’s Long Shadow

Francisco Fullana, Stella Chen


Spanish-American violinist Francisco Fullana has taken the Partita No. 3 in E by J.S. Bach and built around it a programme of interlinked yet contrasting works, resulting in an original and intricately constructed album. J.S. Bach’s output has had a far-reaching impact, casting the Long Shadow that gives this album its name. Fullana uses gut strings, a baroque bow and historically informed ornamentation for his performance of Bach’s E minor Partita, creating a pared-down, immediate interpretation. Ysaÿe was inspired to write his Op. 27 Sonatas after hearing Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. Yet whereas Bach’s music demands restraint from the performer, Ysaÿe’s encourages virtuosity. There is darkness in this Sonata, too, and Fullana performs the work with electrifying energy. Fritz Kreisler’s Recitativo & Scherzo was dedicated to Ysaÿe, and Fullana feels a special kinship with Kreisler: he plays Kreisler’s first Guarneri violin, the 1735 ‘Mary Portman’ Guarneri del Gesù. The recital culminates in Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Two Violins. Ysaÿe wrote the work to perform with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, who gave her name to a violin competition that was most recently won by violinist Stella Chen, Fullana’s duo partner on this album.

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Johann Strauss II Johann Strauss II: Ritter Pásmán

Eberhard Waechter, Josef Hopferwieser, Sona Ghazarian, Trudeliese Schmidt, Artur Korn, Horst Witsche, Axelle Gall, Peter Drahosch, ORF Choir, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovac State Philharmonic Orchestra, Heinz Wallberg, Alfred Walter

C200062 £12.38 2 CD 07/05/21 ORFEO

When the court opera director Wilhelm Jahn commissioned Johann Strauss Jr to write a ‘genuine’ opera, the Waltz King readily accepted. The result was Ritter Pásmán, his only stage work to step into the more exclusive genre of opera, even though the plot is reminiscent of the world of operetta. Based on the narrative poem Pázmán lovag by the Hungarian writer János Aranyi (1817-1882), it deals with jealousy and reciprocity. The comic opera’s premiere at the Vienna Court Opera on New Year’s Day 1892 was a major society event, but its artistic success lagged somewhat behind; the reviewers of the premiere gave it a cool reception, even though they hailed the ballet music at the beginning of Act III as an absolute masterpiece. (It’s worth noting that this was the first time a cimbalom had been used in the court opera orchestra).

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José Serebrier Last Tango Before Sunrise

Málaga Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Gnessin Percussion Ensemble, Ilia Melikhov, Nadia Shpachenko, Nestor Torres, Gabriel Goñí, Sara Cutler, Solène Le Van, Jean Carlos Rodrigues, José Serebrier

FR-743 £7.68 1 CD 07/05/21 REFERENCE RECORDINGS

GRAMMY®-winning conductor and composer José Serebrier is one of the most-recorded classical artists in history. Reference Recordings is proud to present nine works of José Serebrier, including four World Premières and the first digital recording of his dramatic Symphony for Percussion, performed by the Gnessin Percussion Ensemble of Moscow. The album features a variety of musical ensembles ranging from solo piano and a percussion ensemble, to full orchestra, tangos, flute concerti and a harp concerto, written throughout the span of Maestro Serebrier’s long career.

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Francis Poulenc Aubade, Le Bal masqué, Flute Sonata & Sextet

Mark Bebbington, Roderick Williams, Emer McDonough, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Jan Latham-Koenig, Jan Latham-Koenig

RES10276 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 RESONUS CLASSICS

In this second album in his French series, pianist Mark Bebbington is joined by baritone Roderick Williams, flautist Emer McDonough, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conductedby Jan Latham-Koenig, in a further programme of music by Francis Poulenc. Featuring some of Poulenc’s most characteristic works, the programme begins with his 1929 chamber piano concerto Aubade originally written with a choreographed ballet element for a private fancy-dress party. The following year saw the composer set Surrealist poems by his friend Max Jacob in his work Le Bal Masqué, which Poulenc described as a ‘secular cantata’. Written in 1956 the Flute Sonata was described by the composer himself as being ‘simple but subtle’. Completing the album is the 1931 Sextet for piano and wind quintet, later revised in 1939.

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Johann Sebastian Bach, Christopher Schaffrath, Robert Smith Sonatas for viola da gamba & harpsichord

Robert Smith, Francesco Corti

RES10278 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 RESONUS CLASSICS

The cembalo-obbligato sonata reached its zenith in the middle decades of the eighteenth century; thought to date from the last fifteen years of J.S. Bach’s life, the composer was a pioneer of this compelling form, and for the soloistic role of the harpsichord in ensemble music. Critically acclaimed Amsterdam-based viola da gamba player Robert Smith joins with the celebrated Italian harpsichordist Francesco Corti to present a new recording of four prime examples of this genre, Bach’s three Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord along with a sonata by his close contemporary Christopher Schaffrath. Completing the album is a new work by Robert Smith – based on Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament this innovative new work for the instrument absorbs broad influences from both the eighteenth century and the heavy-metal band Metallica.

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Gordon Macrae: It’s Magic (A Centenary Tribute - His 24 Finest, 1947-1956)

Gordon Macrae

RTR4383 £4.50 1 CD 07/05/21 RETROSPECTIVE

Celebrating his centenary in 2021, Retrospective presents this splendid collection of the best of Gordon MacRae (1921-1986). He was the full-throated, handsome baritone, best remembered for the classic movie musicals Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956), but also a hugely popular recording artist from the late 40s onwards. It’s Magic (the title of his first big solo hit) is Retrospective’s anthology of his 24 finest tracks from the 10 years of his glorious heyday. There are 17 solos including many top showstoppers such as So In Love (Kiss Me, Kate), Younger Than Springtime (South Pacific), Ol’ Man River (Show Boat) and Stranger In Paradise (Kismet), and a magnificently ‘outdoor’ Mule Train (his biggest UK hit). Even more successful than his solo recordings was his great partnership with the smoothly stylish Jo Stafford (who has a 2CD set Make Love To Me on RTS 4112). There are five of their wonderful duets included here, among them the million-selling Whispering Hope and chart-topping My Darling, My Darling. The selection finishes with his great numbers from Oklahoma! (Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’) and Carousel (Soliloquy), with those two timeless duets with Shirley Jones: People Will Say We’re In Love and If I Loved You. The verdict on Gordon MacRae’s legacy? It’s Magic.

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Favourite Orchestral Classics Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Iain Sutherland

ARIADNE 5012 £7.291 CD 21/05/21 SOMM RECORDINGS ARIADNE

SOMM RECORDINGS is pleased to announce a celebration of Favourite Orchestral Classics by Iain Sutherland and the Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. Recorded in Munich in 1998 and Hanover in 1992, these glorious recordings bear the unmistakable stamp of the Scottish maestro’s reputation for emotion, colour and drama. Sixteen composers drawn from three centuries of memorable music range from the brilliant heraldic flourish of Charpentier’s Te Deum Prelude (made internationally popular as the signature tune of the European Broadcasting Union) to Stravinsky’s agenda-changing The Firebird, with its beautiful Lullaby. Completing the wide-ranging recital are Grieg’s festive Wedding Day at Troldhaugen and evocative Norwegian Rustic March, the haunting scene setting introduction to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, and Debussy’s vividly impressionistic En bateau.

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Jan Ladislav Dussek, Fryderyk Chopin Romantic Revolution

Michael Dussek

SOMMCD 0634 £7.29 1 CD 21/05/21 SOMM RECORDINGS

SOMM RECORDINGS is pleased to announce the return of pianist Michael Dussek to explore the music of his ancestor Jan Ladislav Dussek and its relationship to one of the piano repertoire’s most illustrious champions, Fryderyk Chopin. This fascinating recital reveals Dussek – a colourful character and favourite of Marie Antoinette whose talents took him throughout Europe and Russia – as “revolutionary in his approach to both composition and pianism” and makes a persuasive argument for Dussek’s influence on Chopin. In his informative booklet notes, Michael Dussek makes the case for his namesake’s music being the product of a composer “very much ahead of his time in the development of a Romantic piano style” (Grove Music). The disc’s centrepiece is the Op.35 Piano Sonatas (Nos.11-13), the B-flat major Sonata a crucible of ideas accommodating the rustic lyricism of his native Bohemia, a contrapuntal sophistication that would find full flowering in his later Messe Solennelle, and an anticipation of what would become a Chopin signature. Completing the disc are two pinnacles of the piano repertoire: Chopin’s exquisite Nocturne, Op.15 No.2, and the lyrical, rapturously intense Ballade No.1 in G minor.

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Ludwig van Beethoven Complete Cello Sonatas

Ailbhe McDonagh, John O’Conor

STNS 30181 £11.10 2 CD 07/05/21 STEINWAY AND SONS

Irish cellist Ailbhe McDonagh and world renowned Beethoven specialist John O’Conor celebrated Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with this recording of his complete sonatas for cello and piano, which span his entire compositional career.

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Joachim Raff Lieder

Marina Unruh, Frederike Schulten, Lisa Wedekind, Wolfgang Klose, Johannes Wedeking, Hedayet Jonas Djeddikar

CDA1853 £12.15 2 CD 07/05/21 STERLING RECORDS

Despite the abundance and the high quality of Joachim Raff’s songs, this part of his composition is little known and documented – in contrast to his instrumental works, which are recorded several times. Raff’s songwriting is still hardly a subject of music-historical research. We very much hope and wish that this recording, which consists exclusively of premieres, can interest somebody in Raff’s songs – so that we more often can find them in concerts!

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Essential Symphonies (live recordings from: Europäisches Musikfest, Stuttgart 2006)

Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Sir Roger Norrington

SWR19526CD £13.50 6 CD 14/05/21 SWR CLASSIC

The Mozart symphonies on this album were recorded over a period of two weeks at the European Music Festival Stuttgart in September 2006. More than 20 symphonies, ranging from the earliest to the last ten, were chosen to represent the superb range of the composer’s output. The aim was to recreate as far as possible the playing style of the period. Roger Norrington used exactly the same orchestral forces for each symphony as at their first performance (the smallest was a mere 18 players). The first and second violins sat opposite each other, the winds stood in lines either side, and a harpsichord played in the middle. Tempos followed the most recent research. Bow strokes, articulation and phrasing were carefully studied, and the orchestra naturally played without modern vibrato. All the albums in this edition contain a symphony from each of Mozart’s early, middle and late periods. The last four symphonies, however, which Mozart wrote for Paris and Vienna, were played in a much grander and experimental manner, using 24 violins and 16 woodwind instruments. Very occasionally Mozart experienced a ‘monster orchestra’ (almost equivalent to today’s normal size). It happened first on his extended visit to Paris, and then again in Vienna, where he considered one such large ensemble to be “magnifique”.

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William Wordsworth Orchestral Music, Vol. 3

Florian Arnicans, Liepřja Symphony Orchestra, John Gibbons

TOCC 0600 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 TOCCATA CLASSICS

The music of William Wordsworth (1908–88) lies downstream from that of Vaughan Williams and Sibelius; like that of his contemporary Edmund Rubbra, Wordsworth’s music unfolds spontaneously, as a natural process. This third volume of his orchestral works brings two major scores in their first studio recordings. Wordsworth’s Cello Concerto is a work of symphonic proportions, blending angular rough-and-tumble with a sober lyricism in a style that sits somewhere between Shostakovich and Bloch. The Fifth Symphony has an even grander sense of scale, its radiant first movement and the introduction to the confident finale unfolding as calmly and unhurriedly as a change of season; the martial tone of the gruff scherzo, by contrast, is laced through by an impish sense of humour. John Gibbons has conducted most of the major British orchestras. He has been Principal Conductor of Worthing Symphony Orchestra – the professional orchestra of West Sussex – with which he has given many world premieres of neglected works. He studied music at Queens’ College, Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, winning numerous awards as conductor, pianist and accompanist. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, vice chairman of the British Music Society, and choral director at Clifton Cathedral. His own music has been performed in various abbeys and cathedrals as well as on the South Bank, London.

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Corentin Boissier Two Piano Concertos and a Sonata

Valentina Seferinova, Ukranian Festival Orchestra , John McLaughlin Williams


The phrase ‘unashamed Romantic’ might not have been coined for the French composer Corentin Boissier, born in the Paris suburbs in 1995, but it certainly fits him well. As the titles of his Glamour Concerto and Philip Marlowe Concerto suggest, he revels in the full-textured sound of 1940s and ’50s Hollywood, the golden age of Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto, Rota’s Legend of the Glass Mountain and other such high-calorie classics. The Second Piano Sonata, the Sonata Appassionata, is no less Neo-Romantic, but has flecks of Russian colour, locating it downstream from Rachmaninov.

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Moritz Moszkowski Piano Music, Vol. 1

Ian Hobson


Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) wrote a considerable quantity of piano music, but it is generally remembered today only for a single piece, ‘Étincelles’, which Horowitz enjoyed playing. The early works on this first instalment in Ian Hobson’s survey of Moszkowski’s complete music for solo piano reveal a debt to Mendelssohn and Schumann, but the craftsmanship already justifies a later remark of Paderewski’s: ‘After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano, and his writing embraces the whole gamut of piano technique’.

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Ronald Stevenson Piano Music, Vol. 5

Christopher Guild


The personal generosity that made the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) such a warm and vibrant character extended also to his writing-desk: around a quarter of his enormous output is given over to transcriptions, mostly for piano, of music by other composers. Here he pays homage to three earlier colleagues whose music he particularly esteemed: Purcell, Delius and van Dieren. Stevenson described his version of Van Dieren’s String Quartet No. 5 (1931) as ‘transcribed as a piano sonata (which B. v. D. never composed)’ – and thus it became the piano sonata which Stevenson himself never composed. The album ends with Stevenson’s brief but achingly beautiful harmonisation of Purcell’s The Queen’s Dolour – as exquisite an example of the transcriber’s art as anyone could wish.

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Paul Lansky Angles

The Curtis Institute Guitar Quartet, Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio, Sō Percussion, Quattro Mani

BRIDGE 9532 £9.00 1 CD 14/05/21 BRIDGE RECORDS

Paul Lansky’s latest album brings together four virtuosic pieces, composed for widely varying ensembles. Four’s Company for four guitars combines lyricism, rich harmony, and transparent textures. Angles for piano, violin and cello alternately dances and sings, and ends with a beautifully simple, sad song. Springs for four percussionists tears the roof off, and Color Codas for two pianos winds up the program with rollicking dance rhythms.

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Johannes Brahms Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68

NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, Giancarlo Guerrero

ACD277 £11.10 1 CD 30/04/21 CD ACCORD

Programme:Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)Symphony No. 1 in C minor Op. 68[1] Un poco sostenuto – Allegro 16’42[2] Andante sostenuto 9’47[3] Un poco allegretto e grazioso 5’15[4] Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio 17’31[5] Academic Festival Overture Op. 80 10’29

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Józef Elsner Trois quatuors du meilleur goût polonois op. 1

Mikołaj Zgółka, Zbigniew Pilch, Dominik Dębski, Jarosław Thiel

ACD279 £11.10 1 CD 30/04/21 CD ACCORD

For every musician and music lover, discovering a new work is a great joy and satisfaction. Moreover, if it comes from the distant past, and we know that for some reason it was not available to contemporary listeners until recently, the emotions associated with its restoration grow.(...) It is no different in the case of the String Quartets Op. 1 by Józef Elsner. (...) Thus, 220 years after their publication, we can once again enjoy the exceptional, surprising and satisfying music. It should be mentioned that the three quartets ‘du meilleur goût polonois’ (in the best Polish taste) were written by a composer who was quite extraordinary a personality in the history of Polish music. The enormous effort taken to develop Polish music, the establishment of the first music conservatory in Warsaw, the organization of plethora of concerts, and journalistic activity – all these factors made the composer’s life unique. His love of Polish culture, especially folklore and musical tradition, had a significant impact on his entire compositional output, as well as on his place at the forefront of Polish composers. The String Quartets Op. 1 – recorded on this album for the first time in history – are a quintessence of the Polish style. This style is woven into fully fledged musical forms characteristic of the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.

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Jacek Różycki Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Andrzej Kosendiak

ACD280 £18.00 2 CD 30/04/21 CD ACCORD

We present to you an album with compositions by Jacek Różycki, who we know was one of the most significant figures of the royal chapels of John II Casimir Vasa, Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, John III Sobieski, and Augustus II the Strong. The fact that we could contain the entire output of the composer on just two discs proves how much Polish intangible heritage we have lost. We can assume with high probability that when he was associated with the royal court and worked between Dresden and Warsaw, Różycki composed instrumental pieces. However, they have not survived to our times. On the other hand, based on the preserved religious works, it can be concluded that he was well acquainted with the composing craft and techniques popular in Europe at that time. When I was preparing for and during the recordings, it was hugely interesting to navigate on the verge of historical truth, the performance hypotheses being considered and our inner musical sensitivity. I was particularly impressed by the hymns, mostly written in homorhythmic texture and intended primarily for the Rorantist ensemble in Wawel. We recorded some of the hymns with a quite extensive ensemble with strings, sackbuts and cornett. The size of such an ensemble would certainly exceed the spatial capacity of the Sigismund Chapel. However, we assumed that they could also be performed in other interiors, hence this deliberately extended line-up, presenting our vision of Różycki’s music.

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Karol Kurpiński, Stanisław Moniuszko and Ignacy Feliks DobrzyńskiWrocław Baroque Orchestra, Jarosław Thiel

ACD282 £11.10 1 CD 30/04/21 CD ACCORD

The protagonists of our recording lived and worked in a country that officially did not exist, dependent on the whims of sometimes less, sometimes more strict censors, dreamed of a career in a large, free Europe, and at the same time were doomed to struggle to raise the meagre level of local cultural life. Fate did not spare their legacy either – in the successive historical turmoil, a significant part of their output was destroyed or was subject to drastic fragmentation. And although we recorded this album 75 years after the end of World War II – the most tragic calamity in the history of Polish culture – and over 30 years after the fall of the communist dictatorship, the scale of the devastation was so great that it still has not been possible to recreate and bring back to concert life a significant part of the work of even those we consider to be the greatest, after Chopin, composers of the first half of the 19th century.

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Krzysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Meyer, Grażyna Pstrokoćska-Nawratil

Musica Libera

Marcin Danilewski, Grzegorz Biegas

ACD283 £11.10 1 CD 30/04/21 CD ACCORD

The programme of this album has several threads that allow you to listen to it in many ways. You will find on it a well thought through selection of works written in the second half of the 20th century (except Krzysztof Penderecki’s La Follia) by Polish composers – doyens of contemporary classical music. Anyone who wants to see their achievements in the field of chamber music, here has a wonderful opportunity to do so. The album shows the specificity of Polish music along with its many colours. These are virtuoso pieces, giving the performers a field to show off, and the listeners the pleasure of admiring their technical skill and musicality.

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Mieczysław Weinberg String Quartets Nos 1, 16-17

Silesian Quartet

ACD284 £11.10 1 CD 30/04/21 CD ACCORD

The String Quartet that Weinberg completed in May 1937 bears no resemblance to the music that young Warsaw composers were fascinated with at that time. It is devoid of any clear echoes of Szymanowski’s style or of neoclassicism, the latter being most appealing to the younger generation of composers at the time. It seems that Weinberg was writing from the perspective of a pianist. The result was a three-movement cycle with a slow central movement and a dance-like finale that brings back themes from the beginning of the piece. Weinberg wrote his String Quartet No. 16 (completed in January 1981) at the same time he was working on his Symphony No. 16. While the Symphony was penned in memory of his mother, the Quartet was composed with his sister in mind. He had parted with his loved ones forever in September 1939. His parents and sister were unable to get out of Warsaw in time and four years later they perished in Trawniki concentration camp. “Many of my works refer to the war” explained Weinberg. “But it wasn’t me who chose that topic. It was dictated by fate, the tragic fate of those who were dear to me. I believe it’s my moral obligation to write about the war and the terrible suffering that our century brought upon people.

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Son Elegante Raul Gutierrez and his Cuban Big Band

CLL007 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 CUGATE CLASICOS LATINOS

For this album, Raul Gutierrez gathered a huge array of skilled musicians in the studio, including percussionist Aristides Soto “Tata Guines”, pianist Adolfo Argudin, and percussionist Luis Conte, best known for his collaborations with Madonna and Santana. Recorded in 2008 and only available previously in Latin America, Son Elegante presents Latin American classics including Manteca, Mambo Inn, Cuban Fantasy and Perez Prado’s Caballo Negro, bringing the listener back to the golden age of the big band.

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The Gramophone Shop Celebrity Series Finn Viderø, Lorri Lail, The Danish Broadcasting Madrigal Choir, Mogens Wöldike

DACOCD 893-896 £12.80 4 CD 30/04/21 DANACORD

The Gramophone Shop Celebrity series: a first transfer to CD for five rare and exciting sets of records from the 78 era, made in the late 1940s for an enterprising record dealer in New York by Danish pioneers of early music performance. Finn Viderø’s earliest recordings, on beautifully preserved Danish organs, make a substantial and exclusive bonus. Featuring long lost mezzo Lorri Lail.

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Victor Bendix Klavermusic, Music for Piano

Isabel Carlander

DACOCD 901-902 £12.80 2 CD 30/04/21 DANACORD

The Danish composer, pianist and conductor, Victor Bendix, was a key figure in Danish music. He composed more than 100 works and performed as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor for over half a century. A controversial character who stood out from Danish society, there were rumours about his private life and numerous love affairs. He was the father of pianist Victor Schiøler, who later became the greatest Danish pianist in modern times. Bendix had an idiomatic feel for the piano and was much admired by Liszt. This is thefirst complete recording of all his printed piano music scores.

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Pietro Verna carne e poesia DIGR112 £10.00 1 CD 14/05/21 DIGRESSIONE MUSIC

CARNE E POESIA caresses dichotomies, contradictions and oxymorons, emphasizing nuances and details, with the care of a craftsman and the precision of a knife thrower. A record that sheds light on the stumbling blocks, fears, weaknesses and frailties of the human being, enhancing them with meaning and poetry. Stories of life really lived; stories of men on the margins of society, but still inhabited by a tenacity and an unequivocal hope; emotions that reveal the sacredness of small and simple gestures. “Carne e poesia” trusts in man, in the possibility to forgive or understand each other, in values and - above all - in his courage to stay, leave or start again.

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Clangori di Tromba, Vol. 3 Grande Orchestra Di Fiati “Francesco Peruzzi” Città Di Molfetta DIGR114 £10.00 1 CD 14/05/21 DIGRESSIONE MUSIC

Clangori di tromba (Trumpet chants), the third record that collects five more funeral marches from the rich and precious band repertoire played during the Holy Week processions in Molfetta, is now available. Clangori di Tromba is an arduous and impressive discographic work in which the transmission of funeral marches is not only part of a process of preservation and enhancement of an intangible cultural asset and identity heritage of a community, but is part of that phenomenon of popular piety in which, as Pope Francis writes in ‘Evangelii Gaudium (2013): “we can grasp the way in which the faith received has been embodied in a culture and continues to be transmitted.” Beyond that, this third volume proves invaluable in that it boasts the rediscovery and engraving of one of the lesser known and performed marches Ai Caduti d’Africa Orientale by Maestro Angelo Inglese (1918- 1990).

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Johann Jakob Froberger Suites for Harpsichord, Vol. 2

Gilbert Rowland

ATH23209 £11.20 2 CD 14/05/21 DIVINE ART ATHENE

This 2-CD set is the second volume in a projected complete survey of the Harpsichord Suites by Johann Jakob Froberger, whose organ and harpsichord music is individual in nature and ground breaking – he was one of the first composers to settle the ‘dance-movement’ style of Suite taken up by Couperin, Bach, and Handel among many others. There are 12 Suites in this collection. Gilbert Rowland plays a 2 manual French style harpsichord made by Andrew Wooderson after an instrument by Goemans (Paris, 1750)

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Carson Cooman Antiphonies, Organ Music Vol. 14

Erik Simmons

DDA25218 £7.95 1 CD 14/05/21 DIVINE ART

Carson Cooman is many things musical – organist and Composer in Residence at the Memorial Church, Harvard University; writer, critic and consultant, concert organist, and above all a highly prolific composer of music in a wide variety of genres, from orchestral to song. Recent counts show over 3000 tracks of his music available online with over 300 compositions written for him by more than 100 composers. His organ compositions come in many styles, from liturgical models, to substantial secular pieces such as his organ symphonies, preludes and fugues. On this album a range of works, most composed between 2013 and 2020, wonderfully realized on a fabulous instrument. Erik Simmons is a superb organist, making his 14th Cooman organ album for Divine Art. We hear the gorgeous voices of the organ of Propsteikirche St. Ludgerus in Billerbeck, Germany, recorded through the Hauptwerk system.

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Hafliði Hallgrímsson Offerto, works for solo violin

Peter Sheppard Skærved

MSV28616 £7.95 1 CD 14/05/21 DIVINE ART METIER

Hafliði Hallgrímsson (b.1941) is widely regarded as Iceland’s pre-eminent composer, as well as a highly accomplished cellist. He studied with Enrico Mainardi and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and was cellist with many leading chamber ensembles until devoting himself full time to composition in 1983. Also, in 1970, Hallgrímsson played the (uncredited) cello solo on “Atom Heart Mother” by Pink Floyd. His voice is extremely distinctive and within modernist styles can communicate ‘serious’ emotions of loss and sorrow and also intensive wit and charm as demonstrated so well by his Klee Sketches on this recording. The Klee Sketches are dedicated to Peter Sheppard Skærved, the performer here. Peter Sheppard Skærved is known for his pioneering approach to the music of the past and our own time. Over 400 works have been written for him. Peter’s exhaustive work on music for violin alone has resulted in research, performances and recordings of cycles by Bach, de Bériot, Tartini, Telemann, and, most recently, his project, ‘Preludes and Vollenteries’, which brings together 200 unknown works from the seventeenth century. His dedicated support of contemporary music (especially with his ensembles, the Kreutzer Quartet and Longbow), is considerable. He is also an accomplished painter and a published writer on many subjects.

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Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Henryk Wieniawski, Johannes Brahms, Ernest Chausson

Isaac Stern Live, Vol.5

Isaac Stern, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre National de l’ORTF, Leonard Rose, Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique, Orchestre National de France, Josef Krips, Eugene Ormandy, Emmanuel Krivine, Claudio Abbado

DHR-8135/6 £12.85 2 CD 14/05/21 DOREMI

MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, June 21, 1951. BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 Orchestre National de l’ORTF, Josef Krips, September 18, 1958. BRAHMS Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, Op. 102. Leonard Rose - Cello, Orchestre National de l’ORTF, Eugene Ormandy, Jan. 21, 1972. WIENIAWSKI: Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22 CHAUSSON: Poème for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 25 Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique, Emmanuel Krivine. June 14, 1980. BEETHOVEN: Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F Major, Op. 50. Orchestre National de France, Claudio Abbado, June 28, 1980.

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Enrique Granados Goyescas Op. 11

Viviana Lasaracina

CDS7887 £7.00 1 CD 21/05/21 DYNAMIC

Spanish music reached a peak early in the 20th century, with Enrique Granados’ Goyescas numbered amongst the crowning masterpieces of its day. Infused with the innovations of Debussy and Ravel, and inspired by the colours and emotional depth of Goya’s paintings and engravings, the Goyescas are like brilliant and psychologically elaborate improvisations filled with seductively ornamented harmonies. The cycle also conceals a narrative of love and death that Granados would later develop into an opera. Multi-award-winning pianist Viviana Lasaracina’s playing was admired for its ‘beautiful liquid tone’ and summed up as ‘breathtaking’ in the New York Concert Review. Viviana Lasaracina has received first place awards at important international piano competitions in Salt Lake City, Pretoria, Spain, Poznan, Germany, Finland and London (where she won second prize and the Best Performance of a Classical Work prize at the Open Piano competition in 2012). In March 2014 she debuted at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Lasaracina has an intense concert schedule, appearing as a soloist, with orchestra, and in chamber ensembles at important venues and major festivals in Italy and abroad. Some of her performances have been broadcast by Radio Vaticana, Rai Radio 3 and Rai5.

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Nicolò Paganini, Onorio De Vito, Giuseppe Austri, Bernardo Ferrara, Ferdinando Giorgetti, Carlo Bignami Paganini and Italian Genius

Marco Rogliano

CDS7903 £9.00 1 CD 21/05/21 DYNAMIC

Paganini’s works for solo violin are among the most important and demanding in the repertoire. In addition to his famed Caprices Op. 1, Paganini wrote a series of characterful solo pieces that reveal his melodic and rhythmic gifts. Those selected here are little-known. Some, such as Alla Spagnola, the five waltzes and the Duetti, have only recently been rediscovered. Paganini’s influence on Italian composers can be heard in the works he inspired from leading contemporaries and colleagues, where their preludes, caprices and études show the stylistic breadth and originality of Italian virtuosi. Violinist Marco Rogliano has appeared at the world’s most important venues, including New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Grosser Saal of Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Herkulessaal in Munich, and the Ciajkovskij Hall in Moscow. Particularly committed to Italian violin repertoire of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, his discography includes many world premieres of works by composers such as Paganini, Rolla, Respighi, Zanella and Sciarrino.

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Gerald Resch, Ludwig van Beethoven Attacca - Gerald Resch: String Quartet No. 3 “attacca”; Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59 No. 1

Aris Quartett

GEN21736 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 GENUIN CLASSICS

One of the most brilliant works in the quartet literature, an exciting new composition based on it, and a virtuoso award-winning ensemble: the Aris Quartet’s GENUIN CD “attacca” bursts with energy from the very first moment. Highly acclaimed with awards such as “Echo Rising Stars” 2019, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, and “New Generations Artists” 2018, the Aris Quartet juxtaposes Beethoven’s “Russian” Quartet Op. 59, No. 1, with Gerald Resch’s String Quartet No. 3. Gerald Resch’s intention was to build a kind of “adjacent property” to Beethoven. The Aris Quartet vividly brings out both the connections and differences with its nuanced playing.

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Johann Graf Sonaten für Violine und Basso continuo

Anne Schumann, Klaus Voigt, Sebastian Knebel


Johann Graf’s life dates are almost identical to those of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Rudolstadt court Kapellmeister was one of the most esteemed violinists of his time. Violinist Anne Schumann, violist Klaus Voigt, and harpsichordist Sebastian Knebel are now releasing a CD on GENUIN featuring his violin sonatas, which, although significant in music history, have rarely been performed. The works include passionate and virtuosic music in the Italian style, to which Klaus Voigt, in particular, gives a striking coloration: He supports the swinging and clear violin playing of Anne Schumann with the viola da spalla, a kind of small cello held with a strap in front of the belly.

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Biessonnitza Insomnia - A Mandelstam Album; Chamber music by Elena Firsova, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denissov and Valentin Silvestrov Maacha Deubner, Katia Tchemberdji, Ehrengard von Gemmingen, KAPmodern-Ensemble


The musicians working with soprano Maacha Deubner take us to exotic worlds of sound on their new GENUIN CD, which is exclusively comprised of world premiere recordings. These include works by the Russian composer Elena Firsova and fellow composers, set in dialogue with the oeuvre of the poet Ossip Mandelstam. In addition to Firsova’s works, we make acquaintance with music by Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denissov, and Valentin Silvestrov. Maacha Leubner and her colleagues from the KAPmodern ensemble of the Kammerphilharmonie Potsdam devote themselves to the invariably highly expressive music, performing it with great seriousness and mastery.

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female; Works by Rebecca Clarke, Clara Schumann, Louise Farrenc and Amy Beach

Lucie Bartholomäi, Verena Louis


The very young violinist Lucie Bartholomäi from the Ore Mountains presents an extraordinary debut CD. For her first production with GENUIN, she plays works written exclusively by great female composers. In addition to the romantic music of Amy Beach, Louise Farrenc, and Clara Schumann, the program includes sparkling miniatures by Rebecca Clarke. Bartholomäi and her piano partner Verena Louis devote themselves to this too seldom performed repertoire with great attention to detail, chamber music intimacy, and richness of color. A real voyage of discovery!

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José Antonio Bottiroli Complete Piano Works, Vol. 2: Nocturnes

Fabio Banegas, George Takei

GP871 £9.00 1 CD 14/05/21 GRAND PIANO

This world première recording of the second volume of JOSÉ ANTONIO BOTTIROLI’s complete piano music, is performed once again by his award-winning protégé Fabio Banegas. The nocturnal themes heard in this album were inspired by the clear skies over the composer’s holiday home in Los Cocos, Cordoba Province, Argentina – these spellbinding works transcend earthly romantic concerns and venture into the stillness of the universe. Dedicated to Banegas, the Album Pages represent Bottiroli’s distinctive impressionist style, while the unique Five Piano Replies connects music with poetry written by the composer, and read on this recording by the renowned actor George Takei.

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Svein Hundsnes Piano Sonata No. 2; Vinterdanser; Nuances de lumière

Laura Mikkola

GP843 £9.00 1 CD 14/05/21 GRAND PIANO

Norwegian composer SVEIN HUNDSNES has written a considerable number of works ranging from concertos to pieces for young musicians. His piano music is stylistically wide-ranging and occupies a significant place in his oeuvre. Piano Sonata No. 2 exemplifies his practice of working from tiny core motifs as he makes a series of connections between each vivid movement. Syncopated rhythms animate Vinterdanser (‘Winter Dances’) – a sequence of round dances; whereas torches swirling in the air, a cradle song and clouds of illuminated water particles are magically evoked in Nuances de Lumière (‘Shades of Light’). Finnish pianist Laura Mikkola, continues her critically acclaimed discovery, in this second volume of Hundsnes’ piano works.

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Tanya Ekanayaka The Planets & Humanity - Piano Reflections

Tanya Ekanayaka

GP879 £9.00 1 CD 14/05/21 GRAND PIANO OVERTONE

The eight works in this album explore reflections on the eight planets of the solar system and the earth’s seven continents. Most bear echoes of traditional melodies originating from indigenous peoples. Largely composed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tanya Ekanayaka’s passionate awareness of the connections and congruences between the past and present is reflected in her vision of harmonious co-existence. In this cycle she presents a tapestry of moods – tenderness, fantasy and vivid ‘trans-creations’ of ancient melodies. DR TANYA EKANAYAKA is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning Sri Lankan-British concert composer-pianist. Although trained as a pianist, her compositional skills are the result of a purely intuitive and natural development. Influenced by her multifaceted background, multilingualism, ambidexterity and partial colour synaesthesia her works which she describes as ‘deeply autobiographical’ and which evolve when she is at the piano (and at times in her dreams), have not been scored in any form but remain precisely frozen in her memory once evolved. Consistent with her interdisciplinary background, she holds a doctorate for interdisciplinary research involving Linguistics and Musicology from The University of Edinburgh, where she has also been engaged part time in academic teaching since 2007, as well as advanced academic and professional qualifications in Music Performance, Linguistics and Literature.

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Monody - Music for Cor Anglais Vol. 3 Martin Frutiger, Petya Mihneva Falsig

GM2CD7823 £18.00 2 CD 30/04/21 GUILD MUSIC

The focus for Martin Frutiger’s third album of works for cor anglais and piano is on romantic-impressionist French music, with works by Koechlin and Bozza, but also first recordings of the Quatre Pièces by Clémence de Grandval, a Saint-Saëns student and romantic virtuoso. There are also works by the legendary French oboe teacher Gustave Vogt and his students together with a few rarities from Florent Schmitt, François Rasse, Edouard Barat and others. This means that the entire European, romantic original repertoire for cor anglais and piano are covered in a trilogy of albums on Guild. Martin Frutiger was born in Bern and studied with Professor Hans Elhorst at the Bern University of the Arts. He continued his oboe studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich in the master class of Professor Günther Passin. From 2001 to 2003 he played in the Orchester-Akademie of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Since 2004, he has been principal cor anglais player with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.

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Ernst Gottlieb Baron, Paul Charles Durant, Bernhard Joachim Hagen

Duets for Baroque Lute and Mandolino

John Schneiderman, Hideki Yamaha

HC21006 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 HANSSLER CLASSIC

After enjoying several centuries of sustained popularity and relevance in European musical life, the lute family of instruments was undeniably falling out of prominence by the end of the 17th-century. There were, of course, exceptions: most notable of which are the baroque lute in Central and Eastern Europe, and the baroque mandolino in Italy. What we call baroque lute today, the 11- or 13-course Iute in its idiomatic D minor tuning, was developed in France in early 17th-century. The mandolino in Italy was given a tuning of mostly fourths, simiIar to that of Iute in Renaissance tuning. There is no known music for both instruments together. A strong case could be made for their pairing today. First, they complement each other range-wise. Second, they are a good match texturally and dynamically. Crit ically acclaimed virtuoso of plucked instruments since age nine, John Schneiderman specializes in the performance practice and repertoire of eighteenth-century Iutes and nineteenth-century guitars. Hideki Yamaya is a performer of lutes, early guitars, and early mandolins based in Connecticut, USA.

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Arvo Pärt, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, John Sheppard, Christopher Tye, Gregoria Allegri, Jean l’Heritier, John Tavener

The Erebus Ensemble - Live at the Clifton Festival

The Erebus Ensemble

HS200516 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 HOXA

The Erebus Ensemble revel in and interact with the clear, warm acoustic at Clifton Cathedral in these live performances from the Clifton Festival. The recordings on this release are compiled from the first seven years of their residency at the Festival, where audiences have grown to appreciate their emotional impact and sincerity. The Erebus Ensemble has, since its inception, enjoyed devising programmes that combine the musical treasures of the Renaissance period with sacred works by living composers.

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Per Voi Ardo (Italian Madrigals)Carlos Mena, Manuel Minguillón

IBS12021 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 IBS CLASSICAL

Per voi ardo presents a large number of Italian madrigals in the form they are preserved in Spain in the vihuela books of Enríquez de Valderrábano (1547), Diego Pisador (1552) and Miguel de Fuenllana (1554). They are complemented by settings by Alonso Mudarra, original compositions like Milán’s, using Italian texts of the same flavour, and with accompaniments that parallel the arranged madrigals in many ways. Some solo works by Mudarra and Fuenllana offer brief momeThe arrangements by Valderrábano, Pisador and Fuenllana, on the other hand, follow exactly the precedent of the 1536 Willaert-Verdelot collection. They are tablature arrangements of the madrigals without modification that are sung in exactly the way that Verdelot and Willaert envisaged. In the absence of parallel sources in Italy, they are important not only as evidence of the spread of this practice to Spain, but also as the main written evidence that confirms a continuing practice of singing arrangements of 1530s madrigals for decades after they first appeared.

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Pablo Ortiz, Marcelo Nisinman, Julio Viera Generación Cortázar

Marcelo Nisinman, Lisandro Abadie, Orchestre Musique des Lumières, Facundo Agudín

IBS202020 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 IBS CLASSICAL

Rocamadour, composed by Pablo Ortiz (1956) opens up an aesthetical enigma for the listener: the letter from La Maga (Rayuela, 1963) inspires an orchestral fantasy, abstract and virtuosic, stylistically akin to minimal music but strongly anchored in a disquieting, dark rhythmic obstinacy, close to Uruguayan candombe. La noche boca arriba, by Julio Viera (1943) is technically a melodrama: an orchestral composition that includes a narrative, meticulously rendered in the score. In our production, the text materializes in the voice of Lisandro Abadie, and Marcelo Nisinman is in charge of the subtle bandoneon part. The piece includes almost the totality of the original story. Viera’s colorful palette projects itself on every scene: the motorcycle on the damp Paris pavement, the accident, the repeated losses of consciousness at the hospital, the violent moves in the rainforest. Every instant is subtly and vividly described in an almost film-like language. Tercera Generación, by Marcelo Nisinman (1970) was inspired by a brief and powerful text, published in Último Round (1969). The piece is marked by a powerful rhythmic force. Nisinman writes without prejudice: one can sense Mahler’s stare hiding behind a dense tango-smoke.

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Milen Kirov Spatium

Milen Kirov

ICSM 014 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21ICSM RECORDS

The title of this collection of pieces some written specifically for the album, some older ones comes from Distance, a composition I wrote in 2001 for trumpet and piano. I reimagined and reworked the piece for solo piano in 2017 and decided to use the Latin word spatium, because besides suggesting the distance between two geographical points or two people, it also means ‘space’ (the English word comes from spatium), cosmos, an interval of time... I liked he depth of its meaning, the multifaceted connotations that it evokes, and how it represents not only the feel and spirit of the pieces on the album, but also the distances between the land of my birth and the land of my current home, and between the three music traditions that find common ground in my work - Bulgarian, Western Euopean ‘classical’ and American blues and jazz. - Milen Kirov

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Isabella Lundgren Look for the Silver Lining

Isabella Lundgren, Carl Bagge, Niklas Fernqvist, Daniel Fredriksson, Damon Taheri, Fred Lindberg, Henrik Naimark Meyers, Hanna Helgegren

79556857 £9.00 1 CD 07/05/21 LADYBIRD

Isabella Lundgren sings about grief, hope and human kindness on the new album Look for the silver lining. Few artists possess the ability to enchant their audience. Isabella Lundgren does this with an incredible presence and a voice that seems to hold a lifetime. Now Sweden’s most interesting jazz singer is releasing a new album: Look for the silver lining, an album with timeless songs from the American songbook. It’s a record of grief and hope. About the uncertainty and suffering that a human life contains, but with a confidence in human kindness.

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Louis Kentner PlaysLouis Kentner, Yehudi Menhuin, Quatour Pascal, Gaspar Cassado, Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, Harry Blech

PH20085 £25.00 10 CD 30/04/21 PROFIL

Louis Kentner was born on July 19, 1905, in Karwin, then part of Austrian Silesia, now Karvina in Czechia. He made his official debut at the age of 15 (1920) and began concert tours of European cities, attracting particular attention for his interpretations of Chopin and Liszt. It was in the year 1935 that the pianist made England his new home (settling in London) and he was given British citizenship in 1946. Kentner’s broad repertoire included Bach as well as the composers of the 19th and early 20th century. Regular concert tours led him all over the world - beginning in Europe, continuing to South Africa, the Middle and Far East, New Zealand and Australia, the USA and Canada, and more still. At the same time, Kentner was more than merely a brilliant soloist; he was an admirable chamber musician as well. His duo recordings and concerts with his brother-in-law Yehudi Menuhin are legendary. William Walton wrote his 1949 Violin Sonata for the two artists. Drawing on his insights as a performer, the pianist also composed. He died in London on September 27, 1987. The present 10-CD compilation illustrates Louis Kentner as a successful soloist, chamber musician and concert pianist.

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Artur Balsam Plays Artur Balsan, Nathan Milstein, Quatour Pascal, Yehudi Menuhin, Michael Rabin, Zino Francescatti, Szymon Goldberg

PH21004 £25.00 10 CD 30/04/21 PROFIL

Pianist and music teacher Artur Balsam was born in Warsaw on February 81 1906. After his academic studies Balsam matured into a sought-after partner at the piano: having won the Mendelssohn Prize 1931 together with the violinist Roman Totenberg, he toured the USA the following year with the brilliant young Yehudi Menuhin. He married Ruth Miller, who was a lso a todz pianist, in 1933. After the rise to absolute power in Germany of Adolf Hitler, Balsam emigrated to the United States . He was the pianist of the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini for five years. As a soloist, he favoured the Classical repertoire and the music of the 19th century. Balsam loved to play Mozart and wrote his own cadenzas for several of Mozart’s piano concertos. He recorded all the solo piano music of Mozart and Haydn. Artur Balsam’s discography falls just short of 250 recorded works. Teaching was another part of his career. He taught at Boston University’s Eastman School of Music and at the Manhattan School of Music He died of a lung infection in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City on September 1, 1994. This comp ii ati on presents the many-faceted musician in all his manifestations: as solo pianist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra.

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Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 9, arranged for Organ

Gerd Schaller

PH21010 £16.65 2 CD 30/04/21 PROFIL

Gerd Schaller: ‘The reason for this transcription was simply that - once again - I had been busy with the Ninth, this time with the intention of arriving at the essence of the work: I wanted to understand Bruckner even better, come to grips with the architecture of his symphonic thought. The organ i s Bruckner’s instrument, which stayed with him all his life. have never seen the organ as a substitute for the orchestra. And so when I wrote my transcription I was not at all interested in transferring orchestral effects to the organ.’ ‘When in 1984 the Passau organ workshop of Wolfgang Eisenbarth was called upon to rebuild the Ebrach organ, he augmented the two Baroque departments on the first and second manuals with two further organs, a Romantic Schwellwerk and a Bombardwerk. Thus the Eisenbarth organ now boasts 56 stops on four manuals and pedal - and in my view is admirably suited to Bruckner’s Ninth.’ Gerd Schaller is one of the most significant Bruckner conductors of our ti me. He is in constant demand from leading ensembles, concert halls and opera houses at home and abroad as guest conductor. Along the way, in 2008, he founded Philharmonie Festiva, a symphony orchestra with which he pursues his own ambitious projects. Among them his large-scale project BRUCKNER2024, in which he aims to record all Bruckner’s symphonies to CD from his personal perspective by the composer’s bicentenary in 2024.

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The Night and the Music Lina Nyberg, Daniel Karlsson

PCD249 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 PROPHONE

Two of Sweden’s most successful jazz musicians perform together for the first time. Singer Lina Nyberg and pianist Daniel Karlsson have both had brilliant careers in Sweden and internationally through the years. April 30, 2021 the duo album The Night and the Music will be released, containing a string of famous songs inspired by nighttime. A number of jazz standards and evergreens has been carefully selected, all taking us step by step through evening, night and finally to early morning. You will hear classics like Red sails in the sunset and Thelonius Monk’s Round midnight combined with modern hits such as Goodmorning starshine from the musical Hair, but also Samuel Barber’s famous composition of James Agee’s poem Sure on this shining night. With these melodies, the duo creates an inspiring musical experience for the listener and discovers new worlds in the music.

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Frédéric Chopin, Modest Mussorgsky Promenade

Andrea Kauten

SM354 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 SOLO MUSICA

The new Solo Musica recording ‘Promenade’ of Frédéric Chopin’s Préludes op. 28 and Modest Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ brings together two prominent piano cycles that are almost emblematic of their creators’ oeuvre. In the juxtaposition, pianist Andrea Kauten shows what unites them despite all the expected contrasts, which goes far beyond some obvious references by Mussorgsky to Chopin’s Préludes. Both large-scale cycles combine miniatures of partly aphoristic character. They stand in the tension between European art music and the national influences of Eastern European and Slavic traditions. For the time being, they seek different solutions. The cosmopolitan Chopin, rejecting any demonstrative patriotism, manages the seamless integration of his Polish idiom into a universally European expression. Mussorgsky, as a self-confessed post-cosmopolitan, emphatically recalled the folk-Russian, which he offensively opposed to everything ‘Western’. Both composers found their way to a personalised musical language which, while freely handling the form, allows the traditional harmonies to be broken up by deliberate instabilities. Both meet on the path to modernity. Even if emotional exhibitionism was alien to both composers and the works can only be related to the biographical snapshots of their genesis with extreme caution: Both cycles are set against the background of a confrontation with death that is as surprising as it is inexorable.

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Johann Sebastian Bach Metamorphosis: Bach Cello Suites 1, 2 and 3

Zachary Carrettín

DSL-92247 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 SONO LUMINUS

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Bára Gísladóttir, Skúli Sverrisson Caeli SLE-70020 £11.102 CD 30/04/21 SONO LUMINUS

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Gunnar Andreas Kristinsson Moonbow

CAPUT Ensemble, Siggi String Quartet, Duo Harpverk

DSL-92246£12.25 BLU-RAY AUDIO & CD 30/04/21 SONO LUMINUS

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György Kurtag Ligatura

Maria Grazia Bellocchio

STR37161 £10.00 1 CD 07/05/21 STRADIVARIUS

There is no doubt about it: György Kurtag is the greatest composer of our time. And this is not only thanks to his music, intensely sharp and exciting, written out of a pure and austere interior necessity. His figure as a man and artist, as well as musician, his ability to be constantly aloof from any fashions or cultural trends, his total lack of any wanting to be (because those who are don’t need to want to be) endured in a simplicity equaled only by his intransigence and depth, all this endows him with an absolute ethical, human and musical superiority, a model for all to follow.

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Gian Francesco Malipiero Complete Piano Music, Vol. 2

Aldo Orvieto


Within the context of the wide and multifaceted creative activity of Gian Francesco Malipiero (Venice, 1882 – Treviso, 1973), piano production represents a marginal branch, or at least one that was developed less systematically. However, there are about thirty titles – spread over more than sixty years – in which the most typical forms of Malipiero’s language find perfect expression: from the melancholy restlessness of the first works to the clear expressive intensity of the last ones.

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Carlos Salzedo Iridescence

Antonella Ciccozzi


Salzedo has done for the harp what Bach did for the organ, Paganini for the violin, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy for the piano, which is to enlarge the technical and expressive potentialities of their chosen instruments”. These are the words of the great conductor Leopold Stokowski when writing about the figure of Carlos Salzedo, who was born in Arcachon, France, in 1885 and died in Waterville, U.S.A., in 1961. A tireless organizer, performer of the harp and piano, and conductor, Salzedo was the co-founder with Edgard Varèse of the International Composers’ Guild (active from 1921 to 1927). He was also a member of the International Society for Contemporary Music and of countless other prestigious associations: his desire to promote the music of new composers and to inform the public remained constant throughout his whole life. The programme presented here provides the opportunity to couple the broad soundscape of the Variations sur un thème dans le style ancien (1911), marked by a virtuosity aimed at exhibiting all the resources offered by the instrument, with a more intimate collection like the Five Preludes of 1917, then concluding with the Suite of Eight Dances composed in 1943.

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4 by 4 DYCE STR37181 £10.00 1 CD 07/05/21 STRADIVARIUS

From October 2018 to January 2019, after dividing Europe in four big regions, each managed by one of the partners, DYCE announced a call for scores addressed to composition students and alumni from all European Universities, Conservatories, Musikhochschulen and Music Schools. About 150 scores from every European country were evaluated by an international jury made up of Hanspeter Kyburz, Brigitta Muntendorf, Johannes Schöllhorn and the four artistic directors of the DYCE partners, Sandro Gorli, Christian Eggen, Tarmo Johannes and Ignacio Torner. Eventually, 12 scores were selected, 3 for each region. On 28 April 2019, the 12 winning pieces were performed at four concerts, held by the four DYCE ensembles, at different times in their respective four cities, with an audio/video streaming broadcast from each concert hall to the other three. In this way, the audiences of the four cities were able to listen to all 12 pieces: 3 live and 9 streamed. After the concerts, the audiences and the ensembles voted to select 4 composers from among the 12 winners: João Ceitil, Andreas Tsiartas, J-T Vesikkala Wittmacher and Yiqing Zhu. These com-posers were then commissioned to write a new piece to be performed in 2020 by the four ensem-bles in their own cities. This CD presents the four new compositions, each performed by the ensemble in charge of the re-spective European region.

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20th Century Classical Guitar Duo Raffaele Putzolu, Victor Valisena


Piazzolla, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Bettinelli: the fil rouge that unites this apparently anomalous choice is to be sought, first and foremost, in the original character of the repertoire, composed purposely for two guitars, in other words conceived especially for this combination and for its ‘double’ and ‘specular’ sonic possibilities. This exploration of the sonic universe allows us to rediscover a repertoire whose leitmotiv can be found in the element of dialogue, in the capacity of the guitar to become ‘other’ than itself by reverberating in its own identity: the mirror image that reflects a vision that is identical and yet filtered by a reality, that captures the essence of the guitar duo as an extended form of the solo guitar, a vehicle of complementarity and of expression amplified in its sonic potential. But that is not all: the choice of three composers whose expressive forms differ widely from each other, in their genesis, in their syntax and realization, can nonetheless find coherence in their common search for a balance between the voices, in the crystalline clarity of the conduct of the parts and in the sonic representation of a singular unitarity, in an accomplished identity of intent.

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Andreas Hallén Missa Solemnis (world premiere recording)

Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble, Pia-Karin Helsing, Maria Forsström, Conny Thimander, Andreas E. Olsson, Lars Nilsson, Lars Sjöstedt, James Jenkins, Erik Westberg

SCD1178 £9.00 1 CD 14/05/21 SWEDISH SOCIETY

Missa Solemnis (1920-21) is a monumental, hour-long work for choir, a quartet of vocal soloists, organ, piano, and celesta. The work was premiered in 1923 at Engelbrekt Church in Stockholm but has since been seldom performed. The work is now available on CD for the first time. This recording is part of the Swedish Musical Heritage project sponsored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The goal of the project is to increase access to and promote the performance of hidden treasures from the Swedish repertoire. Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble is one of Sweden’s leading choirs. The ensemble reaches a large audience thanks to a large number of commissioned works, an extensive audio catalog, and an international reputation. Andreas Hallén (1846-1925) was one of the most important persons in Swedish musical life from 1870 until his death. He was known contemporaneously as an orchestral, opera, and choral conductor in Gothenburg, Malmö, and Stockholm, as well as a critic and ultimately as professor in composition.

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Volker Kriegel - Mainz Studio Recordings (1963-1969)Volker Kriegel

JAH-426 £9.00 2 CD 14/05/21 SWR JAZZHAUS

Born in Darmstadt, guitarist Volker Kriegel (1943–2003) was still a teenager when he made his debut in the late 50s, at a time when the guitar was still an outsider in the world of jazz. The instrument had few notable exponents, so it was still an open field when the self-taught musician from Hesse won first prizes for his solo performances at an amateur jazz festival in Düsseldorf. Südwestfunk (SWF) recorded the 19-year-old Kriegel’s debut recordings in 1963, when he performed as part of a trio at the Deutschhaus in Mainz; the studio sessions at the Kammersaal Studio were made in 1969. They stand worlds apart, since the guitar had started to carve out a niche for itself in the meantime, and Kriegel himself had gained in self-confidence. Above all, however, he had found a counterpart in Claudio Szenkar, who opened up perspectives not only in general terms of communication and composition, but also specifically through Kriegel’s own instrument. The combination of vibraphone and guitar was then still fairly new. In 1968, Kriegel decided to make music his main profession. Thanks to With A Little Help from My Friends and an appearance at the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt, he achieved his breakthrough into public recognition. Together with vibraphonist Dave Pike, bassist Hans Rettenbacher and drummer Peter Baumeister, he founded the Dave Pike Set, which became his artistic centre for four years and a beacon combo of European jazz rock.

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Bernardo Pasquini Fifteen Sonatas for two harpsichords

Marina Scaioli, Francesco Tasini

TC 631804 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 TACTUS

The recording of the two harpsichord sonatas by Bernardo Pasquini, master of the Italian style of the organ and harpsichord in the period between the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, is a particularly interesting cameo in the panorama of the music dedicated to the genre of the partimento, advanced practice of the basso continuo that in Italy formed the basis of compositional and keyboard teaching in the 18th century Neapolitan school. In fact the sonatas consist of only the bass lines on which the two performers must create the entire composition thanks to the technical and expressive expertise obtained from a consummate knowledge and experience of the performance practice of the time. Marina Scaioli and Francesco Tasini face this instrumental ‘challenge’ on two Italian historical harpsichords copies: a Giovanni Ferrini and a Roberto and Federigo Cresci.

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Maria Teresa AgnesiArias from the opera ‘Sofonisba’

Elena De Simone, Ensemble Il Mosaico

TC 720102 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 TACTUS

This selection of seven arias plus the licenza (the closing homage to a sovereign) from the opera Sofonisba by the Milanese composer Maria Teresa Agnesi appears in the 300th anniversary year of her birth. This recording is thus all the more welcome. Even today, she remains in the shadow of her more famous older sister, Maria Gaetana, a mathematician celebrated throughout Europe. The sisters grew up in the house of their father, a rich silk merchant, and the French traveler Charles de Brosses recorded Teresa’s keyboard performances in the family palazzo. She continued to be active in private Milanese circles, and composed three operas along with serenatas, largely for events connected to the Habsburg rulers of the city. She also produced solo and concerted keyboard music. Immediately after her father’s death, she married Pier Antonio Pinottini she thus moved to his family’s castle in Cassino Scanasio (Rozzano, today the outskirts of Milan), but maintained some presence in the city’s musical life. The family’s fortune declined, and, after absence from public musical life, she died in genteel poverty. After the Arie con Istromenti (album TC720101), the voice of Elena de Simone becomes the interpreter of this new unpublished chapter dedicated to the rediscovery of the composer.

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Diego Conti, Robert Schumann Music for cello and strings

Antonio Mostacci, I Virtuosi di Minsk, Andreas Leisner

TC 950302 £9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 TACTUS

The cellist Antonio Mostacci is the protagonist of this album dedicated to the works for cello and strings by the contemporary composer Diego Conti; here he is accompanied by the Virtuosi of Minsk, a Belarusian strings ensemble whom with Mostacci performed this repertoire also in concert. The personal expressive language by Diego Conti passionately delivers the literary and historical themes inspiring the two main compositions of this CD: the ancient legend of the birth of the city of Minsk, and a science !ction novel by Bob Shaw from the famous Urania series published by Mondadori, an absolute cult for all fans of the genre. The album also includes the transcription by Conti himself of Robert Schumann’s concert for cello and orchestra, in a new premiere version for strings only, here replacing the orchestra.

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Igor Stravinsky Music From Tony Palmer’s Film TPCD202 £8.99 2 CD 30/04/21 TONY PALMER FILMS

After Stravinsky died in 1971, his widow Vera and amanuensis Robert Craft asked me to make a documentary profile to mark the centenary of Stravinsky’s birth in St Petersburg in 1882. We were incredibly lucky: we managed to reach Stravinsky’s three surviving children, the last two dancers alive who had actually performed in the notorious première of The Rite of Spring, Balanchine, Serge Lifar, Diaghilev’s secretary, Nijinsky’s daughter, Nicolas Nabokov, Rimsky-Korsakov’s granddaughter, and of course Mrs Stravinsky herself. Most of these first-hand witnesses were dead within a very few years. We had got there just in time.




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Igor Stravinsky 50th Anniversary Boxset

Igor Stravinsky

TPBOXSTRV1 £43.99 2 CD and 1 DVD 30/04/21 TONY PALMER FILMS

After Stravinsky died in 1971, his widow Vera and amanuensis Robert Craft asked me to make a documentary profile to mark the centenary of Stravinsky’s birth in St Petersburg in 1882. We were incredibly lucky: we managed to reach Stravinsky’s three surviving children, the last two dancers alive who had actually performed in the notorious première of The Rite of Spring, Balanchine, Serge Lifar, Diaghilev’s secretary, Nijinsky’s daughter, Nicolas Nabokov, Rimsky-Korsakov’s granddaughter, and of course Mrs Stravinsky herself. Most of these first-hand witnesses were dead within a very few years. We had got there just in time.




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Mark Barden Anatomy

Matteo Cesari, Helen Bledsoe, ensemble mosaik, Carl Rosman, Lorelei Dowling, Ashot Sarkissjan, Séverine Ballon, Joseph Houston, Brian Archinal, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Enno Poppe, Peter Rundel

WER 64342£9.00 1 CD 30/04/21 WERGO

Mark Barden’s music attends to the thresholds of our perception. Subtle deviations, ephemeral swarms of detail, and sustained sonic textures predominate on this portrait recording, as Paul Griffiths’ booklet text notes. In these works, which range from solo to full orchestra, Barden hunts for extremes.

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My Choice Noël Akchoté

9102722 £11.10 1 CD 07/05/21 WINTER & WINTER

“Noël Akchoté and born improvisation artist, convertible punk singers, cabaret singers and some easy excited friends ... Noël Akchoté, composer / guitarist from Paris, combines the incompatible on a CD: Zarah Leander’s hit from the Nazi era ‘Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt’, Serge Gainsbourg’s irony’ SS in Uruguay ‘, Ornette Colemans groundbreaking ‘Street Woman’, Kylie Minogue’s ‘Red Blooded Woman’ and Paolo Contes ‘Via Con Me’ and you are amazed, because his choice is brilliant. It’s wonderful, it’s wonderful, it’s wonderful!”

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Sergei Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet

Yasmine Naghdi, Matthew Ball, Valentino Zucchetti, Gary Avis, Benjamin Ella, Nicol Edmonds, Christopher Saunders, Christina Arestis, Fumi Kaneko, Kristen McNally, Jonathan Howells, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Kenneth MacMillan (Choreographer and Director), Pavel Sorokin

OA1314D £17.011 DVD 28/05/21 OPUS ARTE THE ROYAL BALLET

Kenneth MacMillan’s passionate choreography for Romeo and Juliet shows The Royal Ballet at its dramatic finest. Sergey Prokofiev’s famously evocative score is the driver for some of the most ardent pas de deux and powerful set pieces in ballet history. The vibrant crowd scenes with magnificent designs by Nicholas Georgiadis vividly recreate the colour and bustle of 16th-century Verona in this Royal Ballet classic.

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OABD7273D £20.41 1 BLU-RAY





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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Così fan tutte

Pavol Breslik, Stéphane Degout, Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson, Rebecca Evans, Jurgita Adamonyte, Orchestra & Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Jonathan Miller (Director), Thomas Hengelbrock

OA1331D £17.01 1 DVD 28/05/21 OPUS ARTE THE ROYAL OPERA

A classic story of love under the microscope is given a contemporary perspective in this performance of Mozart’s “school for lovers”. Così fan tutte is a compassionate examination of young love, full of wit and wonderful music which ensure its lasting popularity. Così fan tutte was Mozart’s final collaboration with the Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, and Jonathan Miller’s production, created for The Royal Opera, brings out the timelessness of this exploration of the human condition.

OABD7286D £20.41 1 BLU-RAY




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Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov The Snow Maiden

Aida Garifullina, Yuriy Mynenko, Martina Serafin, Maxim Paster, Thomas Johannes Mayer, Orchestra de L’Opéra National de Paris, Mikhail Tatarnikov

BAC186 £17.01 2 DVD 28/05/21 BELAIR CLASSIQUES

Snegurochka (Snowmaiden), the daughter of Spring and Winter, dreams of a life amongst the humans; but the bitter Sun, looking for revenge, plans to use the fire of love to make her melt away... The Snow Maiden, Rimsky-Korsakov’s third opera, draws its focus from playwright Alexander Ostrovsky’s eponymous play, itself inspired from National folk tales. This literary work was quite unexpected, given that Ostrovsky was better known for his political satires rather than his interest in fairy tales. But the composer found a clever way to spin this paradox, and applied himself in turn to reconcile traditional singing with a creative orchestration, bringing together heritage and modernity. Stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov, a highly regarded specialist in Russian opera, humanizes this marvellous and cruel coming-of-age tale, under the surface of which innocent eroticism and bitter jealousy boil furiously. He also uses this production to draw a parallel between this paradoxical work and the contradictions of modern-time Russia, by transposing the action into an intriguing backward-looking community which, and quite unlike Snowmaiden, does not seem to be quite ready to face the unknown yet…

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BAC486 £17.01 1 BLU-RAY





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Giuseppe Verdi Falstaff

Michael Volle, Barbara Frittoli, Nadine Sierra, Daniela Barcellona, Alfredo Daza, Francesco Demuro, Katharina Kammerloher, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin, Mario Martone (staging), Daniel Barenboim

757608 £17.01 1 DVD 21/05/21 C MAJOR ENTERTAINMENT STAATSOPER UNTER DEN LINDEN

Falstaff is Verdi’s masterpiece of comic opera, in which the behaviour of the ageing Sir John Falstaff, a devious freeloader and would-be ladykiller, causes uproar in the petty-bourgeois household of the Windsor’s. In this performance stage and film director Mario Martone updates the action to the present day and shows Falstaff as ageing rebel in dodgy sideburns and leather jacket. Among the “exquisit vocal cast” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Michael Volle gives his debut in the title role “with masterly dynamic shadings” (Financial Times) and “as if he had been preparing for this role for a lifetime.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) while “Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin are tickling out all the wit and all the momentum from this score.” (Online Merker)

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757704 £20.41 1 BLU-RAY




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57896 £17.01 1 BLU-RAY

George Frideric Handel Rinaldo

Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Carmela Remigio, Leonardo Cortellazzi, Francesca Aspromonte, Raffaele pe, Andrea Patucelli, Shixun Li, Marilena Ruta, Valentina Corò , William Corrò, Federico Maria Sardelli

37896 £17.01 1 DVD 21/05/21 DYNAMIC

Handel’s masterpiece Rinaldo is based on Torquato Tasso’s epic La Gerusalemme liberata, which tells the tale of the attempted seduction of the hero by the enchantress Armida against the backdrop of the First Crusade. Musicologists agree that Handel carried out a major cut-and-paste exercise with Rinaldo, as more than two thirds of his 1711 score was taken from earlier works. This particular production by Pier Luigi Pizzi, conceived in 1985 for Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia, has since travelled to some twenty major opera houses worldwide. Putting aside practical cuts and a few displacements of musical numbers, its durable attraction lies in the gorgeous costumes and scenery, a stylish paragon of ‘hyperbaroque’ that deliberately avoids both literalism and cheap provocation. This lavish production was performed at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, which was the first Italian theatre to re-open after the lockdown in 2020. The set design and direction were perfectly tailored to the health and safety requirements in force during the pandemic.

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802504 £20.41 1 BLU-RAY

George Frideric Handel Ariodante

Cecilia Bartoli, Kathryn Lewek, Rolando Villazón, Sandrine Piau, Nathan Berg, Christophe Dumaux, Salzburger Bachchor, Les Musiciens du Prince - Monaco, Christof Loy (staging), Gianluca Capuano

802408 £23.42 1 DVD 21/05/21 UNITEL EDITION SALZBURG FESTIVAL

At Salzburg Festival, Cecilia Bartoli shines as Ariodante with her dazzling coloratura in a highly acclaimed new production by the German director Christoph Loy, who is known for his clever psychological stagings. Loy turns Handel’s splendid baroque opera into an exciting and differentiated reflection on gender roles. A high-class ensemble, first and foremost a brilliant Cecilia Bartoli in the trouser role of the knight Ariodante who effortlessly switches between cheerful and lamenting virtuoso singing makes the production a true triumph. At her side perform audience favourite Rolando Villazón as Lurcano and young American soprano Kathryn Lewek, praised by critics as a’true discovery“ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). Gianluca Capuano at the podium of the Musiciens du Prince – Monaco’provides for elegance, richness of colour and a sensitive, stirring realisation of the ingenious score.“ (Kurier).’Cecilia Bartoli is a league of her own!’ (Der Standard). “The singing was sensational” (LA Times)

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Cosi fan tutte

Mari Eriksmoen, Katija Dragojevic, Andrè Schuen, Mauro Peter, Elisabeth Kulman, Markus Werba, Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

804108 £23.42 1 DVD 21/05/21 UNITEL EDITION THEATER AN DER WIEN

“He was out to to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed 2:6conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at). During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. “The culmination of Harnoncourt’s involvement with [Mozart’s Da Ponte operas] –’A Mozart drawn from historical sources and yet anchored in our own time.” (Die Presse) PART III: Cosi fan tutte + Documentary: Nikolaus Harnoncourt - Between Obsession and Perfection (Cosi fan tutte)

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dealer information service: no. 352 may 2021 highlights

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