The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge has selected some of the best-known choral works of Samuel Sebastian Wesley for inclusion on this disc, interspersing them with one of his organ works as well as a psalm chant by his father, Samuel Wesley

Rovshan Mamedkuliev was first prize-winner at the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America Competition in 2012, and now stands as one of the world’s most exciting young instrumentalists. He has constructed a programme with several themes. Iberian music is represented by Falla, Albéniz and Turina, and by two of the titans of guitar playing, Miguel Llobet and Francisco Tárrega. He also includes music by his Azerbaijani compatriot, Fikret Amirov, whose folkloricinfluenced music is another thematic link. The kaleidoscopic Just How Funky Are You by Andrew York and Leo Brouwer’s An Idea explore the guitar’s contemporary vitality.

Bingham’s (b. Nottingham, 1952) music for chorus and organ has been previously released on CD, but this is the 1st recording of her piano music. She used to live near Westminster Cathedral, the inspiration for the opening work, The Moon over Westminster Cathedral. Bingham spent several years as a member of the BBC Singers, which may help explain the lyricism of her music.

REVIEW:

No fewer than five first recordings feature in this very special disc. Judith Bingham is a highly imaginative composer who, on the evidence of the booklet notes of the current release, writes eloquently on her own music. The recording (made at The Venue, Leeds, October 2009) is wonderfully present.

Byron, Violent Progress is a set of 13 variations on the song She Walks in Beauty in the Night by Bingham herself. The two-minute theme is rather dark and brims with promise for variation. Jones gives it out with a sort of restrained care, as if handling a precious object. Bingham segments the score so that it is in three movements. The ruminative first variation sets out the sense of space evoked here. Bingham refers to the opening of the second movement (variation 5) as a “bright Alpine landscape” and, with its upwardly-bound phrases and glinting, glacial gestures, it is easy to hear why. A change of texture to a skeletal counterpoint marks the onset of the third movement.

Jones plays with the perfect amount of concentration for Christmas Past, Christmas Present (1989), intended as adult reminiscences of Christmases past, delicate nostalgia weighs heavily here, while Chopin is an evocation of the spirit of that composer as opposed to any sort of pastiche. Annunication II, part of a sequence of works for various instruments that address a different aspect of the annunciation, is distinctly Lisztian in its holy aura as well as its use of tremolo. Jones gives a masterly account. The end hangs beautifully in the air.

Finally, Pictured Within (1981) a portrait of six people (one of whom is fictional) within four movements. It is a walk on the dark side of Bingham’s psyche (her booklet notes are quite open about the time of the work’s composition being a difficult one for her). One can hear the concentration of language throughout.

-- Fanfare

In his second solo piano recital disc for Signum, this release further demonstrates Alessio Bax's dazzling skill and flair in performance and interpretation - this time with Rachmaninov's piano works. The programme is centered around the Preludes op.23, but takes in a broad selection of his other studies, etudes, melodies and transcriptions - in performance, Bax describes the programme as being a collection of 'visions and landscapes'.

Chandos has been attentive in promoting the orchestral works of Alexandre Tansman, who due to the vagaries of fashion has to a great extent been ignored. We now embark on the piano music and a deeply personal project for soloist Margaret Fingerhut. 'My curiosity about the piano music of Tansman began over 20 years ago when I encountered the delightfully languid Berceuse he wrote for the album of Hommages to Roussel, and which I recorded for Chandos. The fact that he was born in Lodz, Poland, where my great-grandparents also came from, spurred me on to find out more about him, and since then I have been assiduously collecting his piano works - quite a task as it turns out that in the course of his long composing career Tansman was nothing if not prolific!' 'I feel his music deserves to be revalued and heard by a new generation of listeners, and so I wanted to create a CD to present an overview of his unique style and musical language. While the influences of Ravel, Poulenc, Milhaud and Stravinsky are apparent, along with jazz-inspired techniques, he himself professed his music to be rooted in his native Polish culture. So the starting point for this disc had to be his Mazurkas - after all, he wrote more of them than almost any other composer except for that other famous Polish exile-in-Paris, Chopin! Listen to his 2nd Mazurka to be transported to a world filled with gentle sweet melancholy. For me his piano music abounds in lyrical expression, tenderness, elegance, grace, good humour and exuberant virtuosity (he loved writing on three staves with huge leaps at great speed!). It seems such a shame that the forces of dogma and experimentalism which ruled Paris since the Second World War left so many casualties in their wake, composers like Tansman who determinedly stuck with neoclassicism and who were not afraid of melody. It is my hope that his individual voice can speak to us afresh'. Margaret Fingerhut displays her special artistry and élan to Tansman's music. Also Available: CHAN9887 Bloch Piano Sonata CHAN9818 Bainton Piano Works CHSA5041 Tansman Orchestral Works, Vol.1

Italian composer Riccardo Malipiero (1914–2003) was the nephew of Gian Francesco Malipiero. He was a pioneer of twelve-tone technique in Italy. His 6 published piano works encapsulate half-a-century of development, from the post-Respighian 14 variazioni (1938), to the classicism of Diario second (1985). This is the first-ever recording of this music.

REVIEW:

The present six works, tracing this Milanese composer’s piano music from 1938 to 1989, are made up of short, separately-tracked musical episodes—the perfect answer to a challenged attention span. There are 49 tracks so Toccata’s attention to detail is nothing short of lavish. In addition the pianist’s essay on the composer and his solo piano music encompasses nine closely packed but perfectly eye-friendly pages. The booklet is in English only. The works recorded here make up Malipiero’s published corpus for piano solo. They here receive their recording premieres.

The 14 Variazioni di un tema musicale are already fully formed in dodecaphonic terms and angular style. Costellazioni finds this composer at close to the peak of the avant-garde’s popularity. We hear awkward figures rumble, ripple and skitter, deep bass chords resound. The hypnotic writing evokes thoughts of distant galaxies. The work ends in a stutter that gutters and then finally peters out. He is the master of Stravinskian scurrying figuration; cool, cold with flourishing rhythmic thunder and grunt.

This is tough music presented with factual and technical diligence as well as artistic qualities. Credit to the pianist for carrying through this distinctive project from concept to execution. There’s no want of valour in choosing this music to champion.

-- MusicWeb International

This 2nd release continues Toccata Classics’ pioneering releases of music by Baltic, and Estonian, composers. Eller (1887–1970) was one of the founding fathers of Estonian music – the best-known of his students is Arvo Pärt. His huge output of piano music encompasses some 200 works, almost none of which have been recorded before.