The Toccata Classics Blog
Songs of Love, Sorrow and Satire (And Not Forgetting the Baboon!): Recording Hans Gál’s Music for Voices
One of the proudest, happiest and most surreal moments in my singing career to date has been uttering the final notes of a choral concert…
Hans Gál In Conversation
This conversation, first published in the Journal of the British Music Society (Vol. 9, 1987, pp. 33–44), was recorded at Dr Gál’s Edinburgh home in…
Some Thoughts on My First Volume of Philipp Scharwenka’s Piano Music
My contact with Philipp Scharwenka’s music came from my in-depth study of the great Portuguese pianist José Vianna da Motta (1868–1948), who, at the age…
A Selfie With Napoleon: Some Even More Modest Memories and ‘Previntable’ Mistakes on my Antheil Trail
Reading Martin Anderson’s ‘modest memories’ of André Previn brought to mind that, during my millennial research on George Antheil (bearing fruit, among other places, in…
Remembering Roger Smalley
A new Toccata Classics release restores to circulation the music of a composer who was both a cutting-edge modernist and an enthusiast for Romantic figures…
Cooking Up A Symphony: Steve Elcock Examines What Makes A Good Recipe
After I posted a recipe on one of the social networks, two composer friends suggested, jokingly, that I should come up with a recipe for…
Four Questions for Pärt Uusberg
An introduction from Martin Anderson: Toccata Classics has been promoting the music of Estonian composers since its early days, as I personally was, too, as…
Some Modest Memories of André Previn
It seems that the entire musical world has some memory of the gentle, warm and kindly man – and fabulous musician – who was André…
Announcing Toccata Next
Toccata Classics was born out of a desire to present the music of unjustly neglected composers, and to give them a chance to present themselves…
‘A Gigantic Bear Hug’ From Scotland
The third volume of Ronald Stevenson’s piano music (TOCC 0403, released on 1 February) has been probably the most interesting album of his music I’ve…
Remembering Cedric Thorpe Davie
Cedric Thorpe Davie was born into a musical family in London in 1913. His father, Thorpe Davie, was a remarkable Scot who had a successful…
Remembering Sasha: Alexander Ivashkin Honoured in Moscow
In Moscow in early November 2018, a series of events were staged to honour the memory of Alexander Ivashkin – cellist, scholar and champion of…
Rediscovering George Antheil — Not Such a ‘Bad Boy’ After All
When Martin Anderson of Toccata Classics first suggested a project of music by the American composer George Antheil, I immediately thought of the typically avant-garde…
Recording “An Outstretched Hand” and Other Chamber Works
At half past four on a Friday morning in May 2018 I set out from my home in south-eastern France to go to England. The…
An Infinity of Traces: Influence Without Anxiety
I often play a kind of party game with friends: each participant will offer a recording of a piece of music by a less-well-known composer,…
Introducing the Waldegrave Ensemble
The Waldegrave Ensemble established itself in 2009 as a flexible ensemble of wind, strings, piano, harp and brass, with a wind quintet at its core.…