Orlando García is one of the composers who has contributed to Martin Anderson’s ‘Music For My Love’ project of pieces in memory of his partner.…
Well, the end of the year also saw the end of my four-month sponsored slim, and I’m pleased to relate that when I got weighed…
The prolific compositional output of Elisabeth Lutyens includes 129 vocal pieces. The two pieces included on this album were written seventeen years apart: Nativity in…
Article in the University of Denver Magazine (magazine.du.edu)by Tamara Chapman, 31 January 2022; reproduced with permission Compared with its siblings in the violin family –…
See the full article in the July/August 2023 (46:6) Issue of Fanfare or online for subscribers at fanfarearchive.com All photos by Xiao Wei
The news of the death of Nikolai Kapustin – on 2 July 2020, at the age of 82 – has sent me scurrying to my…
The release of Wagner by Arrangement, Volume Three (TOCC 0673), is the first part in a personal masterplan of Wagnerianism that has been going on for the…
Music: A Connected Art/Die Illusion der absoluten Musik: A Festschrift for Jürgen Thym on his 80th BirthdayVerlag Valentin Koerner, Baden-Baden, 2023Reviewed by Niall Hoskin Jürgen Thym…
Author: Chris Walton
Extent: 328 pages
Size: 16 x 24 cm
Published: March 2017
Illustrations: 22 colour illustrations; 51 b/w illustrations
The Anglo Mexican Foundation celebrates its 75th anniversary with this programme of three of its recent commissions – from Mexican composers Alejandro Basulto and Arturo Márquez – joining the first recording of Márquez’s harp concerto Máscaras, in an album that interleaves nocturnal warmth with an infectious spirit of dancing energy.
Morgan Szymanski, guitar (Tracks 2–13)
Jamie MacDougall, tenor (Tracks 14–18)
Gabriella Dall’Olio, harp (Tracks 14–22)
Shakespeare Sinfonia (Tracks 1–14, 19–22)
David Curtis, conductor (Tracks 1–13, 19–22)
This remarkable recording explores an unsuspected soundworld – that of guitars, electric and acoustic, and chorus – in new works by four contemporary Estonian composers, whose styles range from the primitivism of ancient Estonian magical incantations via plainsong-like meditation to electronic sampling.
Marzi Nyman, guitar (Tracks 1 – 2, 6)
Andre Maaker, seven-string acoustic guitar (Tracks 3, 6)
Weekend Guitar Trio (Tracks 4, 6)
Ain Agan, fretless guitar (Tracks 5, 6)
Paul Daniel, electric guitar (Tracks 5, 6)
Annika Lõhmus, vocal (Track 5)
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Kaspars Putniņš, conductor
Robert Jürjendal, electric guitar, electronics
Tõnis Leemets, electric guitar, electronics
Mart Soo, electric guitar, electronics
This unusual album shows the contemporary trombone in a rich variety of guises – dramatic, lyrical, flirtatious, solemn, capricious and many more – in four recent concertante pieces for trombone and symphonic wind band, demonstrating the striking versatility of the instrument. It’s an international undertaking, too: the soloist is English, the band and conductor American, and the composers American, Danish, Belgian and English, all four writing in a language that is direct and immediate.
Brett Baker, trombone
Natalie Grady, voice actor (Tracks 5, 6)
Middle Tennessee State University Wind Ensemble
Reed Thomas, conductor
This sparkling collection of folk dances from Norway and Sweden, offset by two Estonian chorales and three improvisations, comes from two of the finest practitioners of this kind of material: Gunnar Idenstam, playing on the new Klais organ of Kristiansand Cathedral in southern Norway, and Erik Rydvall, on the nyckelharpa, the keyed folk fiddle of Sweden. The combination of rhythmic vigour, the harmonic ambiguity of Scandinavian folk music and the huge range of instrumental colour gives these tunes – all in spontaneous, semi-improvised performances – an irresistible and immediate appeal.
Gunnar Idenstam, organ of Kristiansand Cathedral
Erik Rydvall, nyckelharpa
Soghomon Soghomonian (1869–1935) took the name Komitas (or Gomidas) when he was ordained a priest in 1894; a year later he became Komitas Vardapet (doctor of theology) – one of the two names by which he is known to history. The other is ‘father of Armenian music’, since he collected thousands of songs from his compatriots, his fieldwork preserving and identifying the accent which makes the works of Armenian composers readily identifiable – as these piano trios prove: one twentieth-century classic and three new works, one of which completes the circle by recasting six of Komitas’ own folksong arrangements.
Trio Aeternus
Alexander Stewart, violin
Varoujan Bartikian, cello
João Paulo Santos, piano
*First recordings
Giovanni Battista Velluti (1780–1861) was one of the last of the larger-than-life castrati who had dominated operatic life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Velluti, though, spent his career almost entirely in the Romantic era, singing the music of his day. His style of ornamentation attracted widespread admiration and set the standard for the prime donne who were emerging as the stars of their age in operas by such composers as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Here the American male soprano Robert Crowe recreates Velluti’s extraordinary sound-world, in a recording that helps explain why such diverse luminaries as Stendhal, Mary Shelley and the Duke of Wellington admired Velluti as one of the most accomplished and inventive singers of his time.
Robert Crowe, male soprano
Iris Rath, flute (Track 21)
Joachim Enders, piano
ALL EXCEPT * FIRST RECORDINGS
The best-known piano studies are the 27 by Chopin, most of them composed in the 1830s. But Chopin did not create the genre: a number of prominent pianist-composers had already established the piano study, or étude, in the decades before Chopin sat down to write his. Although this repertoire is as good as unknown today, it is a treasure-trove of miniature jewels, many of them announcing the dawn of Romanticism in their combination of Classical delicacy and a new harmonic warmth.
Anna Petrova-Forster, piano
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