One does not have to be religious to appreciate the depth, inspiration, and melodiousness of PSALMS, Eloise Hynes Stowe's new album from Navona Records. Scored for voice and piano, and occasionally supplemented by flute and violin, these psalms and hymns immediately demonstrate the literary and emotional grasp of the biblical texts and ecclesiastical interpretations. Stowe effortlessly manages to clothe the scripture into a tonal tapestry which is equal parts tender and listenable, in an appealing style which wouldn't be out of place in a Christian musical. Exuberant and optimistic, they are a testament not only to the church’s teachings, but also to the intuitive power of music.

This recording focuses on concertante works for two flutes and orchestra by Italian contemporaries of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. There is documentary evidence for Mozart and Cambini having met in Paris. Common to all three works are high-spirited introductory Allegros and brilliantly scored, virtuosic Rondos. The wonderful Largo in Cimarosa’s Concerto is particularly attractive: a true 'Dance of the blessed spirits for two flutes'. Flutists Domique Hunziker and Anne Utagawa have been working together for many years. They founded the group ‘les joueurs de flute’ in 1985. The ensemble features a line-up of eight outstanding performers from Switzerland, Germany, and Japan. For this release, Hunziker and Utagawa are joined by the Orchestre de Chambre Paul Kuentz.

The present release synthesizes some stages characterizing the composition path of Pier Paolo Scattolin: from a cappella vocality to instrumentalism with stylistic dynamics sometimes distant but all having in common the research on sound, from the linguistic phoneme to the eclectic and sometimes experimental use of instrumental emission. The path winds through almost forty years of continuous investigation and dissection of both choral and instrumental sound, the latter of a chamber/soloistic character and in some cases concerted and intersected with the voice. In the a cappella choral repertoire a varied anthology collects poetic and literary texts by Dante Alighieri, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Alda Merini, Umberto Saba, Emily Dickinson, Alessandro Striggio, Agnolo Poliziano, Alceo, Saffo, Ipponatte, Enzo Iacchetti, Agnese Troilo and the composer himself. Some choral pieces are concerted with the Ensemble of ancient instruments Circe from Bologna, whose presence stems from the search for a sound language proceeding towards the stripping and essentiality of a music and a sound coherent with the setting of the poetic texts in order to transfer their instrumental characteristics to contemporary musical expression. In some pieces the solo voices are added as an almost instrumental colour, a timbre enrichment of the sonorities of the organ, the recorders, and the trumpets.

Written over the course of a quarter-century, these four flute works reflect the individual approaches to the flute sonata taken by their composers. Hindemith’s aim was to offer new music of buoyancy and brio, tempered by elegiac moments. Prokofiev’s famous sonata has Classical formal elegance, while the sonatas of Denisov and Nagovitsyn are single movement works that explore the flute’s extreme registers, as well as its dynamic contrasts and virtuosic capacities. Denis Lupachev won First Prize at the International Festival ‘Virtuosi2000’ (Russia) in 1993, and in 1997 received the jury’s Special Prize at the Kobe International Flute Competition (Japan). In 1999, he was awarded First Prize at the ‘Leonardo de Lorenzo’ International Flute Competition(Italy). Lupachev gives many recitals and chamber music concerts in Russia as well as throughout Europe. Since 2016, he has organized the International Festival ‘Virtuosi of the Flute’ in the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. Peter Laul was awarded First Prize in both the Bremen International Piano Competition (1997) and the Scriabin International Piano Competition in Moscow (2000). Laul has given recitals at prestigious international venues such as the halls of the St Petersburg Philharmonic and the Moscow Conservatory, the Auditorium du Louvre, Lincoln Center in New York, the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and Suntory Hall and Opera City Concert Hall in Tokyo. He is a consummate chamber musician, who regularly partners with Maxim Vengerov, Ilya Gringolts, Valery Sokolov, Alexander Ghindin and the Borodin Quartet.

At the time of his death in 1870, Saverio Mercadante was known as a director and administrator first and foremost, who had steered opera houses and then conservatoires through choppy waters at an especially eventful time in Italian political history, rising to become the dominant figure in the musical culture of mid-19th century Naples. Secondly, he was acknowledged as an opera composer of distinction and fluency, if not ranked on the level of lyric geniuses such as Rossini and Bellini. A stroke in 1862 left Mercadante blind, and he began to concentrate his remaining energies on the field of instrumental music which had launched his career in the 1810s. Almost immediately after his death, however, Mercadante’s name became obscured, and only in the last couple of decades have his operas and other works been revived outside his native Italy. Most of the works on this album were composed at either end of his long career, but they are unified by the vocal style of writing for his chosen solo instrument. Perhaps because he valued it as a soprano without words, so to speak, Mercadante wrote much for the flute – concertos, trios, quartets and more – and it takes on the character of a bel canto heroine in his hands, exploiting the resources of the most accomplished performers with coloratura agility and elegant phrasing. Gian-Luca Petrucci’s choice of repertoire opens with a work specifically indebted to the lyric stage, a set of variations composed in 1759 and based on ‘La ci darem la mano’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. He continues with two more attractive variation sets and then a striking scena for piano, cello and voice, Il sogno, to a text by Guacci, with the obbligato cello part transcribed here for flute.

In the early 19th-century, a rivalry existed between two of Italy's greatest guitarists/composers, Francesco Molini and Ferdinando Carulli. This album features not only the complete Molino works for flute and guitar, but also the Carulli Concerto for Flute and Guitar. Both composers are wonderful, as are these performances. Diversity of styles is a hallmark of Roberto Alvarez’s concerts and recitals. As a matter of fact he feels just as comfortable performing classical, baroque or avant-garde music as well as Celtic, jazz or rock. He has received various international prizes, such as the Diploma of Honor in the Torneo Internazionale di Musica, Concurso Internacional de Música “Paper de Musica” de Capellades, the Ángel Muñíz Toca Award and the Ciutat de Manresa Prize. Born and raised in Singapore, Kevin Loh is a recipient of the Fellowship of the Royal Schools of Music, the 2018 Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award and the 2010 HSBC Youth Excellence Award for Musical Excellence. He was talent-scouted by The Yehudi Menuhin School via his YouTube channel when he was only 12 years old and was awarded a grant by The Rolling Stones to study at the prestigious music school as their first Asian guitarist.