Bruce Heim was the Horn Professor at the University of Louisville from 1999-2021. He is an active recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and pedagogue. He has performed in Mexico, Venezuela, Poland, Belgium, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, and throughout the United States.
Regarded as one of Europe's leading horn players, Martin Owen appears as a soloist and chamber musician all around the world. He currently holds the position of principal horn at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, and Haffner Wind Ensemble, having served as principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and, on a temporary contract, as solo horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Mozart composed all of these pieces for the virtuoso horn player Joseph Leutgeb (or Leitgeb) (1732 - 1811). Leutgeb was born in Vienna and established his reputation as a soloist there before working in Salzburg, where Mozart made his acquaintance. Martin Owen writes: 'In this recording, we have attempted to portray a more youthful vigour in the earlier works (indeed, of Joseph Leutgeb himself, for whom they were written) compared to the Concerto in D, in many ways a swan song for both soloist and composer, in which I hope our performance shows more depth of tone and a higher level of maturity. I was intrigued by the fact that in 1990, sixty bars of music were uncovered in a Sotheby's auction, which were later confirmed as belonging to the concert Rondeau, KV 371 - when I was young, I only knew the work without these bars and always felt that there was too abrupt a change into the next section! Now it makes complete sense.'
SOMM Recordings is pleased to release their second recording with the Chamber Ensemble of London, a virtuoso group of hand-picked string players directed by violinist Peter Fisher, whom The Times counts amongst "a handful of the world's finest musicians." Following the ensemble's 2022 SOMM release, Eclogue - British Chamber Music, which Gramophone praised for it's "unfailingly sympathetic music-making throughout," this new release is Quiet Summer Evening - British Concertante Music, drawing on the rich tradition of light classical music. The programme opens with Rhapsody for Clarinet & Strings by Geoffrey Bush. He was initially taught by John Ireland and, on his advice, studied composition and classics at Balliol College, Oxford, emerging with degrees in both subjects in 1946. Bush's hauntingly beautiful rhapsody features the sought-after clarinettist Peter Cigleris, whose growing discography includes three previous releases with SOMM. He is also the soloist in 5 Pieces for Clarinet & String Orchestra by Clive Jenkins, CEOL's associate composer. Jenkins was born in Plymouth, and he shows his roots in many of his compositions-including these pieces, each of which has a name connected with Plymouth. Another work by Jenkins included here is Fantasy for Horn & Strings, featuring Alexei Watkins, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Dennis Brain Prize. Watkins is also featured in Orion (Serenade for Horn & Strings) by prize-winning conductor-composer Andy Meyers, as well as Lullaby, an expressive and programmatic piece by composer and BBC Radio 3 producer Luke Whitlock. Bassoonist Sarah Watts is a multi-instrumentalist who has become well known worldwide as a prolific composer of colourful and inspiring music. Here, she performs her composition Everywhere Is Somewhere Else. Additionally, she is the soloist for the contemplative Sunday Afternoon by notable arranger, conductor, and composer Nigel Brooks, excerpted from the broadcast series Stars on Sunday, and also A Little Waltz by the prolific mid-twentieth-century composer, arranger, and master orchestrator Gordon Jacob. Other pieces by composers from former generations include Canto popolare, extracted from Edward Elgar's concert overture In the South; Lennox Berkeley's single-movement Andantino, which he adapted from his Festival Anthem; and one of Frederick Delius's earliest surviving compositions, Romance. The soloist for Berkeley's Andantino and Delius's Romance is cellist Michael Mace, who pursues a wide and varied musical career as performer and teacher. Peter Fisher is the violinist for Elgar's Canto popolare and the appealing Vers le Sud (Towards the South) by Terence Higgins who, notwithstanding his early promise, decided against a full-time professional musical career and-like composers Wilfrid Josephs and Alan Rawsthorne-qualified as a dentist. Fisher also plays the CD's title piece, Quiet Summer Evening, a contemplative piece by composer-pianist Don Shearman, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career in light music.
Like gazing into a kaleidoscope, this double-CD album brings a treasure-trove of musical miniatures tracing the sweeping panorama and historic perspective of 10 centuries. A mirage-like journey through 1000 years - from the 11th Century until present day - introduces evanescent encounters with a dizzying array of epochs, genres and styles: from otherworldly chants half-whispered beyond ancient monastery walls, to the traditions of Indian Raga, Bulgarian folk tunes and Mongolian throat-singing, to rustic bagpipes and medieval troubadours, to the Baroque splendor of Bach, Handel and Rameau, to Mozart and Schubert, to Italian and French opera, flamenco and tango, jazz and blues, Stravinsky and Shostakovich, Piazzolla, Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner and David Bowie. This charismatic retrospective is a fascinating collection, brimming with world-premiere recordings (50 out of 51 tracks) and presenting a stunning variety of compositions - some original, some arranged by the performing artists - violinist Elmira Darvarova (first and to date still only ever, woman-concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra) and hornist Howard Wall (a former long-time member of two of the world's greatest orchestras - the New York Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra). 17 nations from 5 continents are represented, including by ten women composers (one of whom composed operas in the 17th C. and had her works performed for the likes of Galileo). The meticulous album notes cover the multi-dimensional, serendipitous and cross-pollinating nature of essential events and legacies, which endure and continue to fascinate and transport us.
Divine Art is delighted to present Made in Germany, from Texas-based Olmos Ensemble, the first in an exciting series of albums catalogued by country, presenting rarely performed and unrecorded works for mixed chamber instrumentation. Originally formed by the principal players of the San Antonio Symphony, Olmos Ensemble has established itself as one of the premier chamber music organizations in Texas, and features leading musicians from across the United States. Made in Germany will be released as they open their 32nd Season. Each album in the series will feature a works of varied instrumentation, creating a unique collection of recorded chamber repertoire that only an ensemble like Olmos - through their remarkable access to top musicians around the United States - could bring together. The Ensemble's concert programming has won great acclaim for it's focus on showcasing neglected works by female composers, and Olmos is thrilled to bring this to their recordings as well, with each album in the series featuring works by women composers, including many premieres. Made in Germany features three composers of German origin: Richard Strauss, Rudolf Tillmetz, and Ruth Schonthal. The album includes the first recording of Laszlo Varga's highly regarded arrangement of Strauss' Don Quixote for six instruments: clarinet, French horn, violin, viola, cello and piano, which includes every core member of Olmos Ensemble apart from flute. As the original primary voices in the larger orchestrated work (all but piano), these six instruments work wonderfully together in recreating the thrilling tale of Don Quixote. Also included is the first professional recording of Rudolf Tillmetz's only chamber work, the Nocturne for Flute, Horn, and Piano, Op. 31. One of the few Romantic-era trios for this unusual instrumentation, the piece reflects the salon music tradition of late 19th-century Germany, emphasizing lyrical writing and equal interplay between instruments, and although not widely known is a valuable work in the horn and flute chamber music repertoire. German-born Jewish composer, Ruth Schonthal fled Nazi persecution early in her life, first moving to Mexico and later America to study with Paul Hindemith. Completing the album is a rare recording of her late-career Theme and Variations for Solo Flute, which distills her lifelong commitment to melodic expressiveness and emotional narrative into a unique work for solo flute. Future albums in this series will focus on the Czech Republic, America, Italy and Austria. 'We are excited to record music that has never before been paired together on an album and present to the classical music loving public a unique set of all-encompassing recordings that will range from solo works through nonets and possibly larger. With the group consisting of people living in entirely different parts of the US, Olmos Ensemble is unique in it's ability to maintain 31 (and soon 32) seasons of existence, all while presenting lesser known works in addition to insightful interpretations of the great standards.' Members of Olmos Ensemble on this recording are: Artistic Director Mark Teplitsky, Assistant Principal Flute of the Naples Philharmonic, previously second flute at Houston Symphony; violinist Eric Gratz, a soloist, concertmaster, chamber musician, and Artistic Director of the American Chamber Music Society in Chicago; Ilya Shterenberg, Acting Principal Clarinet of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (Canada), and Principal Clarinet of several orchestras across the US; cellist Julian Schwarz, first prize winner at the inaugural Schoenfeld International Competition 2013 and a founding member of the Frisson Ensemble; Jeff Garza, principal horn of the Oregon Symphony and the Bellingham Festival of Music; violist Colin Brookes, a founding member of the award-winning Ulysses Quartet, and award-winning soloist; soloist and chamber musician Elizabeth Dorman (piano), a regular guest Keyboard at the San Francisco Symphony, and faculty member of the San Fransisco Conservatory of Music.
Kraig Grady, an American based in Australia, is a microtonal composer. He explains it thus: 'Alternative tunings are a major inspiration for my compositional explorations. The pivotal point for me was meeting with tuning theorist Ervin Wilson and witnessing Harry Partch's U.S. Highball in 1975. I was convinced that working with different instruments and tunings was going to be a major artistic movement. I began studying tuning with Wilson which continued for as long as we knew each other. I'm interested in using acoustic instruments as sound sources to explore new acoustic phenomena that cannot be mistaken for electronic manipulation.' The starting point for the works on this CD was to record each performer playing individual notes in the given microtonal tuning with extreme pitch accuracy. The recordings are edited to capture the personal expressivity of the players and the individuality of their gestures in the recordings become inseparable from the composition process. These recordings of individual notes are then weaved together to form melodic lines and combined to build harmonies and shifting textures. Liner notes by Grady with illustrated samples.
Four sonatas from the middle period of this exceptional yet undeservedly overlooked composer reveal a distinctive musical voice, where echoes of Rachmaninoff's and Grieg's mature Romanticism intertwine with the shimmering colours of Impressionism and the refined sensibility of the English tradition. Though these works make undeniable virtuoso demands, it is their melodic and harmonic imagination that commands the foreground: long-breathed phrases, subtle expressive nuance, and richly intriguing sonorities. The recording brings together distinguished instrumentalists associated with the Academy of Music in Kraków, whose interpretations are marked by brilliance, passion, and a palpable sense of discovery as they illuminate the beauty, individuality, and enduring artistic value of Bowen's music.
Throughout history, the open landscapes and mythical cultures of the Nordic countries have triggered the imagination of artists. Finnish horn player Markus Maskuniitty and pianist Martin Sturfalt perform works which, although separated in time by more than a century, all draw their inspiration from from these areas of interest. The compositions gathered here approach these Nordic themes from different angles, blending traditional folk influences with contemporary classical techniques whilst exploring the horn's lyrical and dramatic capabilities and it's rich sound palette. Recent compositions by Piers Hellawell, Tryggvi M. Baldvinsson, Albert Schnelzer and Benjamin Staern are mixed with older works by Carl Nielsen, Hugo Alfven and Julius Rontgen, including the latter's Aus Jotunheim, a suite characterized by an irresistible Norwegian flavour throughout it's five movements, quoting everything from cattle calls to lullabies with plenty of rustic folk dancing in between. This imaginative program designed by Maskuniity and Sturfalt puts a spotlight on the unique character of the Nordic musical identity.
Clarinettist Peter Cigleris is adding another gem to the SOMM catalogue less than a year after the release of his Clarinet Concertos (with symphonic band) [SOMMCD 0705, October 2025], which featured two world-premiere recordings and was roundly praised by Gramophone's Guy Rickards: "Cigleris is possessed of a beautifully mellifluous tone. A hugely varied, enjoyable programme, then, superbly played and recorded; enjoy!" For this release, Cigleris again offers concertante works, and again two first-ever recordings, but here the tutti forces, rather than winds, are the luminous strings of the London Mozart Players led by John Andrews. The trio of composers is British, and along with Gerald Finzi, whose Clarinet Concerto is justly beloved, come two others keenly deserving of the light this recording sheds on their music. The three works, all composed in the late 40s, are bound together by the common thread of the eminent English clarinettist Frederick Thurston (1901-1953). Denis ApIvor (1916-2004), born in Ireland to Welsh parents, was a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford and then at Hereford Cathedral, where he also studied clarinet, piano and organ. As a teenaged medical student he heard the English premiere of Wozzeck under Sir Adrian Boult and his musical inspiration was renewed, leading to private composition lessons with Patrick Hadley and Alan Rawsthorne. While there is a later version of his Concertante for clarinet orchestrated for an ensemble featuring full strings, harp and celesta, Peter Cigleris opens this album with ApIvor's original chamber version for piano and two percussionists (one on timpani). This early work was conceived during the composer's wartime posting to India, and the premiere (with Frederick Thurston) was given in London after two years of peace, a repeat performance going out live on the BBC Third Programme on 27 January 1948. This recording, the work's first, shows an already impressive thread of musical argument and masterly writing from a 30-year old ApIvor, who would reach the peak of his success some eight years later with his score for the Royal Ballet's Lorca-inspired Blood Wedding. Many who know the name Freda Swain (1902-1985) will think of pedagogical piano solos and be surprised to learn of the Portsmouth native's catalogue of 450 or so serious works including large-scale operatic, orchestral and concertante music as well as varied chamber pieces, all regrettably neglected for too long. Presented here in it's premiere recording, Swain's "Lumine naturi" Concertino for Clarinet is an expressive work in language that draws on tonality yet is highly individual and sweepingly melodic. The genre-title's Italian diminutive belies concerto-worthy length (24 mins) and thematic substance. Each movement bears an epigraph by Algernon Blackwood evoking an ultra-vivid natural scene, hence the Latin epithet: "By the Light of Nature". Though Swain never published the work, it is likely that the tutti of string orchestra anchored by a lone horn accompanies a clarinet part intended for Frederick Thurston, a frequent collaborator and the dedicatee of her Rhapsody for clarinet and piano. Thurston did play the premiere of Gerald Finzi's (1901-1956) Concerto for Clarinet and Strings at the Hereford Three Choirs Festival on 9 September 1949, and the masterpiece has deservedly become the composer's most frequently heard concert work.
