For his second album for Chandos, the flute virtuoso Adam Walker explores the music of British composers with pianist Huw Watkins. Vaughan Williams’s Suite de ballet was commissioned by the French flute virtuoso Louis Fleury (who had given the première of Debussy’s Syrinx). The work uses eighteenth-century French dance forms, a common practice in ‘neo-classical’ composition. Bax’s Four Pieces rescue music from an abandoned ballet originally conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Sir Lennox Berkeley’s Sonatina was originally written for treble recorder; James Galway’s championship of the piece made it a staple of the flute repertoire. Howard Fergusson’s Three Sketches were composed intermittently over a period of twenty years. The theme of the third piece is a Hindu melody, ‘Koyalinya bole ambuvan’ (Cuckoos sing in the mango tree). Sonatas by York Bowen and William Alwyn complete this varied and engaging program.

REVIEW:

Seventy-seven minutes of British music for flute and piano might at first glance seem like 40 minutes too much. But that ’s without taking on board the nimble and dazzling skills of flautist Adam Walker, or the individual strengths of the works presented...a new pleasure is never far away in this most accomplished recital, full of the sounds of spring.

-- BBC Music Magazine

If Chopin ‘invented’ the Mazurka, then surely by the same token Grieg ‘invented’ the Lyric Piece. Over his lifetime he published ten volumes of Lyric Pieces, containing 66 individual works.

Born in Bergen, Grieg studied in Leipzig and became established as Norway’s leading composer, successfully synthesizing Norwegian folk music with the forms and conventions of the German tradition. While he was internationally acclaimed for his Piano Concerto and the incidental music to Peer Gynt, the vast majority of his output lies not in large-scale works, but in smaller, more intimate forms, especially songs and, of course, his Lyric Pieces.

Peter Donohoe writes: ‘as a teenager I expanded my knowledge of the music of Grieg to include many solo piano pieces as well as the better-known orchestral works. I was beguiled by his style, and the reason remains somewhat intangible. Although one is able to identify the originality of Grieg as a composer – the Norwegian folk element in his music, his natural gift for memorable melodic lines, his occasional diversions into unique and extraordinarily forward-looking harmonies, and, to some degree, his emotional naïveté – there is a unique, unidentifiable kernel in his output that defies analysis, as is true of the work of all the great composers... All these works are pristine examples of his diverse and original style – Norwegian with a Germanic flavour – and it has been a huge and satisfying pleasure to return to them to create this and future recordings.’

REVIEW:

Donohoe, with a devotion to Grieg’s music dating back to his early years, clearly has the measure of this repertoire. He gets inside the gentler pieces, such as ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Summer Evening’, with beautifully poised playing. Grieg in his more overtly national mood, as in the famous and virtuoso ‘Halling’, is presented with infectious enjoyment and the simpler pieces are never patronized.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Musical America’s ‘Conductor of the Year’ for 2015 Gianandrea Noseda continues his Chandos ‘Musica Italiana’ series with select works of Niccolò Castiglioni (1932-96), an intellectual and an aesthete who occupied a singular place in the profound renewal of Italian and European musical life of the 1960s-‘70s.Having a predilection for clear sonorities and airy, transparent textures, Castiglioni created his own unique and original artistic philosophy, from tonal harmonies to the more fragmented and experimental.Mr. Noseda leads the Danish National Symphony and guest vocalists.

Edward Gregson (b. 1945), one of Britain’s most versatile and prolific composers, has gained worldwide recognition for his approachable and engaging music. With the BBC Philharmonic, Bramwell Tovey conducts orchestral works, including two recently arranged for ensemble in the Horn Concerto and Aztec Dances, that take inspiration from an array of musical and extra-musical sources, revealing the breadth of Gregson’s musical imagination.

Bottesini has enjoyed a new lease of life recently, thanks to recordings by distinguished double bassists such as Rick Stotjin and Leon Bosch. This CD, featuring Davide Botto and an impressive cast of players drawn largely from the Philharmonic Orchestra of Turin’s Teatro Regio, provides yet another compelling argument for the composer’s sprawling repertoire.

Much of this music was written for the very specific purpose of demonstrating the extraordinary possibilities of what was then—as for much of the 20th century—tragically ignored as a solo instrument. Consequently, there is always the danger with these pieces that they become mere excuses for empty technical display. Thankfully, Botto’s mature, restrained style sweeps away these doubts, even when he is joined by the equally capable Davide Ghio on the recorded premiere of the Capriccio, a remarkable duet that is essentially structured to exhibit the various qualities of the bass.

The consummate fluency with which the pair tackle virtuoso passages is lightly worn, with deft use of thumb position to manage the dizzying array of harmonics and double-stopped notes, and a gorgeous bel canto bowing style. Also worthy of praise, Alessandro Dorella’s sensitive contribution on the Duetto for bass and clarinet suggests an unlikely kinship between these mellow instruments.

-- The Strad

The Norwegian vocal ensemble Edvard Grieg Kor is the resident a cappella ensemble at Troldhaugen, the home of Edvard Grieg. Displaying versatility across all musical genres, they perform regularly with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and also form the core of the Chorus for Bergen National Opera. They have had numerous works and arrangements written specially for them by leading composers including Jonathan Rathbone, and David Lang, both of whom are represented here on this the choir’s debut recording. Greig’s Fire Salmer, (Four Psalms) after Norwegian folk tunes (his final opus) and his shorter Ave Maris Stella (performed here in an a cappella arrangement made by the composer) are two rare examples of religion in Greig’s output. Works by fellow Norwegian composers Ole Bull and Agathe Backer Grøndahl, and a sensational and virtuosic arrangement of Greig’s Holberg Suite complete the programme.

On her second volume of Polish violin works, Jennifer Pike presents works by Bacewicz, Poldowski, and Szymanowski. Renowned for her “dazzling interpretative flair and exemplary technique” (Classic FM), violinist Jennifer Pike has taken the musical world by storm with her unique artistry and compelling insight into music from the Baroque to the present day. (Chandos)

Encapsulating the voluptuous sound of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s strings, Tasmin Little is both the soloist and conductor in this unique coupling: Vivaldi’s ever-popular ‘Four Seasons’ meets Roxanna Panufnik’s ‘Four World Seasons,’ the premiere recording of a set of highly inspirational pieces. As a complete cycle, ‘The Four Seasons’ offers a set of vivid tableaux, imaginative, enticing, and wonderfully contrasted, with ample chance for the violin soloist to display technique, sensitivity, and color. These are qualities that the British composer Roxanna Panufnik also sought for her own Seasons tribute, Four World Seasons, written for the violinist. Three of the pieces are dedicated to her, while the fourth, ‘Autum in Albania,’ is dedicated to the memory of Panufnik’s father, Polish composer Sir Andrzej Panufnik, who, his daughter says, was born, loved, and died in autumn.