Pianist Llyr Williams explores Wagner’s rich and evocative sound-world from a less well-known angle. Featuring insightful arrangements of Richard Wagner’s operas by Franz Liszt and Glenn Gould (as well as Williams’ own arrangement of music from 'Parsifal'), at the center of the program is a selection of Wagner’s own piano pieces – many of which were written earlier in his compositional career, hinting at the grand operatic masterworks which were yet to come.

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"Liszt’s transcriptions and fantasies on excerpts from Wagner operas are ingenious works that take you inside the music without the distractions, in a sense, of the orchestra and the voices, or 'Wagner Without Words,' to quote the title of this rewarding album by the splendid Welsh pianist Llyr Williams. Here he plays Liszt’s transcriptions ranging from the short, charming “Spinning Chorus” (from “The Flying Dutchman”) to the mesmerizing “Liebestod” (from “Tristan und Isolde”). Mr. Williams offers several of his own ambitious and impressive transcriptions, including his extended scenes from “Parsifal” and his tweaked version of Glenn Gould’s take on the Prelude to “Die Meistersinger.” There are also some piano pieces by Wagner, including a youthful 26-minute fantasy, a fascinating, if not great, work: you hear the 19-year-old Wagner beholden both to Beethoven and bel canto opera." – Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times

London Early Opera continue their new series of Handel's works with the second volume of pieces composed in Italy. Both volumes of Handel in Italy explore the young composer's Italian years through his cantatas, sacred pieces, operatic works and instrumental compositions. Featuring performances from internationally acclaimed soloists, the sopranos Sophie Bevan and Mary Bevan with their uncle, baritone Benjamin Bevan, conducted and conceived by Bridget Cunningham.

The two major organ works on these discs (his longest for organ) show Max Reger at the height of his powers; not only do they sustain a structural coherence over an impressive span, but they show an almost inexhaustible proliferation of invention. As well as the large-scale Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme and the Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue in E minor, this 2 CD Set includes a collection shorter preludes and fugues - the Five Easy Preludes and Fugues and two transcriptions of preludes and fugues by JS Bach from the Well-Tempered Clavier.

A unique disc from one of Scotland's most dynamic and versatile groups – the Scottish Ensemble is a tight-knit band of outstanding string players from around Europe who perform regularly together under Artistic Director, Jonathan Morton. This disc – one of their first solo releases following acclaimed discs with artists such as Alison Balsom and Toby Spence – contrasts Vivaldi's timeless Four Seasons with Piazzolla's tango-inspired The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

Combining Vivaldi and Piazzola together like this underlines the meteorological and cultural differences between Mediterranean Europe and the heart of South America. To have them performed side by side creates a fascinating programme of similarities and contrasts.

Bob Chilcott's Mighty Setting of Words from St John's Gospel Is a Dramatic Yet Optimistic Retelling of the Passiontide Story. The Work Combines 13th and 17th Century English Poetry with the King James Bible Text Settings and, As with Bach's Great Passion Settings, the Role of the Evangelist Is Taken By the Tenor Soloist, Who Provides a Melodious Narrative Throughout. Including 5 Well-Known Hymn Texts Set to New, Original Melodies, the Work Further Confirms Chilcott's Status As One of the World's Most Popular Active Choral Composers.

The fourth volume in our series of Charles-Marie Widor's Organ Symphonies, performed by Joseph Nolan on the magnificent Cavaille-Coll organ of L'eglise de la Madeleine, Paris. Widor showed early talent for the organ; for decades he was the embodiment of it's might and splendor across the Gallic domain - his 'Organ Symphonies' were genre-defining in their influence. Joseph Nolan is an internationally renowned organist, acclaimed as 'brilliant and such an astute musician' (Gramophone UK).

Composing over 150 works for piano and voice over a period of 44 years, the songs of Francis Poulenc remain consistently popular to concert audiences the world over. Varying in their individual style and character in a way that defies generalization, Poulenc set music to a wide range of different French poetry - both ancient and modern, and from the serious to the surreal. This is the fourth release in our series that will encompass the complete songs of Francis Poulenc, performed by some of the greatest singers of the day and accompanied by the exceptional Malcolm Martineau.

Swimming Over London is a studio album of jazz-inspired hits and recent commissions performed by the King's Singers, and is a follow up to their Grammy Award - winning crossover album Simple Gifts. This album covers a huge range of pop and jazz-inspired influences-from old favorites (Nat King Cole's Straighten Up And Fly Right, Arlen & Gershwin's It's a New World and Hogey Carmichael's Lazy Bones) to modern hits (Michael Buble's Home, Jason Mraz's I'm Yours and Imogen Heaps Hide And Seek). Commissions especially for the album come from Bob Chilcott, Mia Makaroff, Ysaye M. Barnwell and Roger Treece. A special King's Singers arrangement of Mika's By the Time is also featured, inspired by their performance with him for the 2009 Mencap Little Noise sessions at the Union Chapel.

Paul McCreesh leads the Gabrieli Consort in a collection of works that explores the diverse and extensive body of works dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary over the centuries. Music by Tallis, MacMillan, Howells and Leighton frames the world premiere of a new work by the young British composer, Matthew Martin: a setting of the Magnificat, interpolated with verses from the atmospheric medieval poem ‘There is no rose’. The Gabrieli Consort are world-renowned interpreters of great vocal and instrumental repertoire from the Renaissance to the present day. Formed as an early music ensemble by Paul McCreesh in 1982, Gabrieli has both outgrown and remained true to its original identity through live performances and award-winning recordings for their Winged Lion label.

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REVIEW:

The vogue for pairing Renaissance and contemporary choral works is well established but this is a programme that draws the dialogue between the two repertories into fresh animation. McCreesh’s ear for a contemporary classic is unerring, and this is a programme to win new audiences for composers who aren’t (yet) household names. The Park and Lane, along with MacMillan’s Ave maris stella, are easy wins but it’s Martin’s A Rose Magnificat that demands a second and third return to the disc.

– Gramophone

The players have lived and breathed this music – the results are stunning.

The success of Philip Glass outstripped the first flush of celebrity in the 1980s and 1990s. This logical set serves further to consolidate his reputation in a world in which no single style has monopoly or ascendancy.

The Third Quartet owes its existence to a commission for the music for Paul Schrader's film of the life of Yukio Mishima. Mishima’s samurai life and death by seppuku made him almost as much of an iconic figure in the 1960s as Che Guevara. The music moves between a lulling iterative murmur (II) and a sense of rise and uplift (IV). The finale (V) is almost Schubertian or may remind you of a fragment from Smetana’s bustling Aus Meinem Leben. I have heard Company in two other different orchestral version recordings recently: the Naxos Glass set and the EMI ‘American Classics’ disc. The first and third movements are suggestive of a melancholic slowed fanfare. The third is chaffingly Sibelian. The finale is shot through with urgently propulsive power; angst and exhilaration meet and mediate. The early death of the artist Brian Buczak from HIV/AIDS was the spur for the Fourth Quartet. It is one of the longer quartets and has only three movements. It's a work of more complexity than its mates on CD1. There is a great tenderness here and the slow-rocking and piercing poignancy of the second movement is memorable. In the finale it is as if the lock-gates have been raised to release a surge of Schubertian melody.

The First Quartet is from the mid-1960s; pretty early for Glass. It dates from shortly after he had completed his not entirely comfortable studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Pierre Boulez. The work has some of his trademark iterative cell-patterning but the world he creates is more involved, varied, troubled and dissonant. The Fifth Quartet - so far his last - is contemporary romantic. Its second movement is launched with a typical sombre ostinato but other figures of passionate and sanguine weight are interleaved. Passion too drives the third movement which is thrillingly empowered. The fourth carries reminiscences, in Schubertian cotton wool, of those unhurried fanfares of Company. In a flighty finale high-pitched bustle and wonderfully inventive optimistic writing lead to a triumphantly winged episode. There's just a hint of Tippett at full throttle in this music which at the close moves into tender reflection.

As with the other performances you feel that the Smith Quartet have lived and breathed this music.

The set is well presented and the whole effect is very pleasing prompting curiosity about the other Signum/Smith collaborations - Different Trains (Reich) SIGCD 064 and Ghost Stories SIGCD 088.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb Internationl