During the 1930s, Bliss, Britten, and Berkeley all contributed major works to the repertoire for string orchestra, following in the footsteps of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. They are joined on this album by Frank Bridge whose Lament was composed during the First World War. This is the fourth recording by John Wilson with his award-winning Sinfonia of London. Bliss composed Music for Strings after he had completed the film score for Korda’s Things to Come, driven by his desire to compose a piece of ‘pure music’, expressing his own ideas rather than those of others. Commissioned in May 1937 by Boyd Neel for the Salzburg Festival that summer, Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge was composed at great speed, and helped to establish the young composer’s international reputation. Dedicated to his teacher, Frank Bridge, the theme is taken from the second of Bridge’s Three Idylls for string quartet. Lennox Berkeley composed his Serenade for Strings at Snape Maltings, where he was living with Britten in 1938 / 39. By the time of its completion the nation was at war and the music seems to reflect the composer’s anxious mood as the world faced an uncertain future.

REVIEWS:

The players may have changed since Barbirolli but the spirit has not. And the sound. Sumptuous is one word – but because this is Wilson that goes hand-in-hand with the keenest articulation. There’s a rosiny immediacy about it all, like being on the podium, or better yet inside the sound.. Wilson’s way with strings has come a long way from Hollywood – but the lustre is inescapable.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, February 2021)

Here in the Bridge Lament is a prime example of the heartfelt precision and beauty of tone that typifies John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London. There’s plenty of heart, too, in their superlative treatment of Britten’s marvellous Bridge variations, warmly delivered even during the parody character pieces clustered together in the first half. Wilson’s team prove equally adroit in Berkeley’s Serenade.

– BBC Music Magazine

Four years after a highly successful Bartok recording with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner here returns to the composer on SACD, with James Ehnes as solo violinist, and his Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. The central piece in this recording is the Concerto for Orchestra, the largest work that Bartok completed during the last five years of his life and described by the composer, in the program notes for its 1944 premiere, as ‘a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.’ It is joined by the Dance Suite, the immediate predecessor, among Bartok’s few works for full orchestra without a soloist, of the Concerto for Orchestra, though by more than two decades; and by the violin Rhapsodies, the colorful folk influences of which are revealed by James Ehnes, a specialist in the repertoire, who already has recorded the complete sonatas as well as the concertos for violin and for viola to critical acclaim.

Like his friend and contemporary Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Medtner enjoyed a privileged and affluent upbringing, and was also exiled from Russia following the revolution in 1917. Unlike Rachmaninoff, Medtner could point to an ancestry that was part German, and his father’s passion for Germanic culture ensured that Goethe and Beethoven exerted as much influence on the young Medtner as Russian composers and writers, in particular Beethoven’s piano sonatas and string quartets. Medtner moved first to Germany, then France, before settling in London in 1935. The earlier songs in this programme, Opp. 36 and 37, were written against the backdrop of the revolution, shortly before he fled Russia. Opp. 45 and 46 (written to Russian and German texts, respectively) were composed in France. Praised for her ‘formidably striking’ and ‘stunning silvery’ sound, the rising star soprano Sofia Fomina has performed in Toulouse and Baden-Baden, at Bayerische Staatsoper, Seattle Opera, Hungarian State Opera, Paris Opera, and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Her Pamina for Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2019 received rave reviews. Alexander Karpeyev has performed throughout Europe and toured in the USA, Canada, and Russia as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. A prize-winner of several international competitions, he also completed a doctorate on performance practise in the music of Medtner, based on the Edna Iles Medtner Collection at the British Library.

REVIEW:

The Russian soprano’s lovely voice soars above the staff with ease – no wonder as she is a busy operatic coloratura soprano. But unlike many an opera singer, she is perfectly at home in the intimate world of art song, where her attention to the nuances of expressing the text are greatly in evidence. She is just as comfortable in the lyrical songs in 6 Stikhotvoreniy A. Pushkina (6 Poems by A. Pushkin), Op. 36 as in the rapturously dramatic Arion and in the intensity of Telega zhizni (The Wagon of Life.)

Sofia Fomina is perfectly partnered by the protean pianist Alexander Karpeyev, a Medtner specialist who would be the ideal artist to create an album of piano music by the prolific Medtner.

– Rafael's Music Notes (Rafael de Acha)

The opera opens with a Wizard working his mystical ways and summoning the spirits of air, fire and water in the form of a brilliant ballet. His plan is to wed the Princess who is destined to select a husband that very day. An older Mother enters with a drowsy sleep-prone son in tow. The Mother is obsessed with a prophecy her son will woo and win the Princess. There is an elixir of course and once drained the man who does so will be loved by the Princess. The Wizard tries some of this on the Princess. The Mother has already switched it for pure water while administering the elixir to her yawning son. The Wizard flies into a fury promising to bring death and destruction on everyone. He departs. A troubadour and a wanderer have appeared and pay songful court to the Princess which she is having none of. When the Princess sees the Fool she falls in love with him and asks him to marry her. He answers with the word ‘No’ but the whole scenario leaves you wondering about their future. The Wizard returns with his horrors but after some stern and encouraging words from the Mother all the Wizard’s fell crew are burnt to a crisp.

A BBC studio recording, broadcast on 7 May 1967.

REVIEW:

The opening dances, the best music in the work, invariably overbalance things given they all appear at the start. Charles Groves directs, and his Holst studio recordings – The Hymn of Jesus, Short Festival Te Deum, Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda Group 2 and the Ode to Death – were always an index of his excellence in this repertoire, as indeed in all his recordings of British music. He finds the core of Holst’s rhythmic vivacity in the dances, those piquant cross-rhythms and jaunty use of his own instrument, the trombone, and he is just as good in the limpidity of the Spirits of the Water dance as he is in the vivid pounding, Planets-like, of the Dance of Fire, with its eventful touches of Spanishry and convulsive, well-balanced percussion.

The role of the Wizard is taken by the bass Richard Golding and you can imagine him in the The Dream of Gerontius though I see that he was active in opera and sang in a Scottish performance of George Lloyd’s John Socman and in a TV performance of Arthur Bliss’ Tobias and the Angel. Given the strange temperature of the opera, it comes as a surprise that Holst can turn in a seemingly straightforwardly fine scene – try track nine – where the words are well set and the choral role is sensible. There’s more than a whiff of G & S though in the subsequent passage, and when the Troubadour appears (John Mitchinson), Holst pokes fun at Verdian posturing allowing the Princess, the fine Margaret Neville, to pastiche the Troubadour’s own pastiche. In the twelfth track one finds another G & S chorus, Wagnerian vengeance and a stock peasant character. There’s a brief sonic cataclysm in the thirteenth track, trumpets and percussion to the fore, that shows that Holst couldn’t quite suppress his instincts for drama and in fact the orchestration throughout is always apt and colourful.

Contralto Pamela Bowden has a strong role as The Mother and all the characters, singing or speaking, acquit themselves well. In the service of what, precisely, I’m not quite sure. There are lots of operas that really aren’t operas so maybe if you think of The Perfect Fool as a pantomime-ballet-pastiche operetta rather as one thinks of Lord Berners’s The Triumph of Neptune as a ballet-pantomime-harlequinade, you won’t be far wrong and you won’t be disappointed. Full credit to Lyrita for this retrieval however, though you’ll notice a few deviations from the libretto in the actual performance. Talking of this, the notes are contained in one booklet, the libretto in another. The box artwork has been well selected. This work has never appeared in full on disc before and the archive sound quality is excellent.

– MusicWeb International

Neeme Järvi has been recording for Chandos for several decades now, especially with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with which he has made more than 100 CDs. Many of these recordings have received tremendous critical acclaim and include several Gramophone Award Winners.

This is his second Chandos recording with the Residentie Orchestra The Hague, of which he is chief conductor. The first, of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony (CHSA5080) was released in April to excellent acclaim. Gramophone wrote: ‘Järvi is too good a musician not to take his players with him. Indeed the Dutch musicians display a certain daredevil nonchalance as they breeze their way through the epic 635-bar finale.’

Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is perhaps the least well known of all Mahler’s symphonies. Its five movements were written over a period of two years, 1904 – 05, and scored and revised in 1906. The symphony has no programme, but the two serenade movements were influenced by the German romanticism of the poetry of Eichendorff, and elements of the fairytale, the macabre, and the sentimental permeate these movements.

Even though the symphony is imbued with a richness of melody, and bold and original harmonies, it is perhaps the most enigmatic of all Mahler’s symphonies. It begins with a striking funeral march, which develops into a powerful allegro, though the music is at the same time full of ‘dream-like’ elements. These dream-like fantasy elements pervade the serenade movements, which are separated by an exciting central scherzo, and the symphony ends with a vigorously contrapuntal finale. Perhaps the symphony can be seen as a journey from darkness to light, from the B minor gloom of the beginning, to the blaze of C major at the end. The journey is fascinating and very rewarding.

The Neoclassical Trumpet' poses the question: what if the chromatic trumpet and the modern Steinway Grand had existed a good century or so earlier and composers had recognized their duo potential? For this Linn release Mr. Freeman-Attwood reimagines works by Stravinsky, Leigh, Faure and Respighi in new arrangements by pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar. Each of the composers represented here wrote significant parts for the trumpet in various chamber and orchestral contexts. Jonathan broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio 3 and is in demand as an essayist for many major record labels.

This selection of Posthumous Songs covers the period 1889-1909, with one song from 1933. Here one senses Zemlinsky's earliest development and years of musical study, as he tests his skills on some of the finest German poets. That he was fully up to the task is immediately evident upon listening. The American baritone, Steven Kimbrough, studied at the University of Birmingham, Alabama, and at Princeton Theological Seminary (graduated in 1962). He had further studies in Italy. Kimbrough is well known as a recital and concert singer through many appearances at New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and with symphonies in the USA and abroad. He is the foremost interpreter of the "turn-of-the-century" school of Viennese composers (most of whom were effaced by Hitler's Third Reich), as is demonstrated by his many highly praised recordings. He has presented in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere a recital of their songs under the title "Forbidden Composers."

Recorded in: The Colosseum, Watford 24-25 October 2000 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Christopher Brooke (Assistant)

Classical Music

It's usual to say, somewhat condescendingly, that Leroy Anderson was a great "light music" composer, but the fact is that he was a great composer. Period. The ability to write a memorable tune is priceless, as Brahms (no slouch in the tune department) recognized in speaking of Dvorák, and it more than compensates for any amount of failings in other departments. Anderson had remarkably few of those: his orchestrations are masterly, his craftsmanship always top-notch. The three suites included here (Scottish, Irish, and Alma Mater) are beautifully put together and incredibly catchy.

The vocal items (see work list above) are fetchingly sung by Kim Criswell and William Dazeley, and here receive their world premiere recordings. The program ends with one of Anderson's larger works, the dazzling Christmas Festival. Leonard Slatkin, an old hand in this music, conducts with unassuming mastery, and the BBC Concert Orchestra sounds entirely at home in the idiom. Very good engineering completes this delectable package. Like the rest of this series, this is definitely worth collecting.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The final volume of Percy Grainger’s complete music for wind band once again respects his precise instrumental demands in pieces that span the breadth of his career, from his first large work in the genre, ‘The Lads of Wamphray March,’ to ‘The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart,’ his largest such work and one of his last. Also to be heard are ‘A Lincolnshire Posy,’ one of the genre’s most famous and beautiful works; ‘The Immovable Do,’ which contains “the most long-held pedal note in all music”; and the revolutionary ‘Hill-Song No. 1,’ which Grainger considered the greatest of all his compositions. All of the scores in this series follow, to the letter, Grainger’s specific instructions as to the instrumentation. The Royal Norwegian Navy Band have starred for Naxos before, not least on some Sousa albums. Bjarte Engeset has been music director of the Tromso Symphony Orchestra and The Norwegian Wind Ensemble, artistic director of Northern Norway’s Northern Lights Festival and Opera Nord, as well as permanent guest conductor of the Flemish Radio orchestra. His discography includes more than 30 best-selling recordings, including an eight-album set of Grieg’s complete orchestral works on Naxos.

Percy Grainger admired the expressive intensity of the wind band and considered it a more suitable medium for the transcription of early music- such as the Bach and Ferrabosco pieces heard here- than the symphony orchestra. In this second volume of his music for wind ensemble there are further examples from the 23 ‘Chosen Gems for Winds,’ full of his unique elastic scoring, as well as two versions of the ‘Irish Tune from County Derry,’ one of his most beloved works, and a world premiere recording of Grainger’s arrangement of his friend Herman Sandby’s lovely ‘Intermezzo.’

Two giant works: the lesser played 1913 version of Op. 36, Piano Sonata No. 2, an epic piece in the truest sense of the word and Op. 23, 10 Preludes, an intimate cycle, both challenge the physical and psychological limits of the player and the listener. With the help of the Bösendorfer Concert Grand 280VC – Vienna Concert this recording dives deep into the rich, orchestral sound world, as well as the dark nature of these works, loaded with fine details, technical and emotional extremities, candid moments and explosivity. Emre Yavuz was born in 1990 in Izmir, Turkey. His talent for learning at a rapid pace was evident at an early age, eventually leading to a musical education. He started his education in music in 1998 under the “Educational Act for Prodigy Children”, studying with Kamuran Gündemir in Ankara. He continued his studies with Fazil Say and Sanem Berkalp at the Bilkent University, where he also studied composition. Later studying with Roland Batik in Vienna, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hannover, and with Arie Vardi in Hannover and Tel Aviv. Starting at an early age Yavuz played with major orchestras performing concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. With his interpretations of Chopin he won prizes in Sicily in 2007, and in Vienna in 2010. He became the first piano student of the Vienna Conservatory to graduate with full grades upon his final recital, performing works by Beethoven, Saygun and Rachmaninoff. In 2013 he performed Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3 under the conduction of Zubin Mehta. Emre has competed in a number of competitions, winning prizes internationally.

Olivier Messiaen's two-hour, 20-movement piano solo cycle on the Observations of the Child Jesus was written in 1944 after the 'Quatuor pour la fin tu temps' and the 'Visions de l'Amen‘ for 2 pianos and has established itself as one of the most significant piano works of the 20th century. Great pianists such as Anton Batagov and Martin Helmchen have documented outstanding performances of this extremely versatile cycle of musical offerings on recordings. Pi-hsien Chen recorded Messiaen's magnum opus for piano live for the West German Radio (WDR) in Cologne in 2005, which impressively testifies to her exceptional status in the contemporary repertoire. Her Schonberg, Boulez, Barraque, Stockhausen and Cage recordings are of almost intimidating sovereignty, flawless pianistic brilliance and sublime structural clarity, and thus at least as legendary as her playing of Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert. Born in Taiwan, the pianist has lived in Cologne since the age of nine and is praised by colleagues and the press for the sensual objectivity of her performances. After the 3-album-release with Schubert's 'Grandes Sonates', Aldila Records now presents her live cycle 'Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus', which is performed here with compelling authenticity and mastery. A living icon of modernity performs an immortal icon of modernity.

Rarely heard on recording, the songs of Florent Schmitt receive fresh exposure in this significant new survey of these neglected works including a number of world premiere recordings. The qualities that appeal in many of Schmitt’s larger works are found in abundance in this selection that spans his entire creative life: his music’s gorgeous sensuality, biting wit, laconic charm, and unleashed savagery. Pianists Fabienne Romer and Edward Rushton along with an outstanding lineup of soloists, explore this rich seam of complex compositional techniques, revealing a composer of extraordinary individuality along with a fascinating affinity with the darker side of human existence.

This re-release of the Spring Symphony, complemented by two smaller but equally life-confirming works by Britten, marks the composer’s centenary year. It also forms part of Chandos’ Richard Hickox Legacy series. Hickox conducts the London Symphony Orchestra with the soloists Elizabeth Gale, Alfreda Hodgson, and Martyn Hill and a number of UK choirs.

Nikolay Medtner’s 14 piano sonatas are considered the most significant achievement in this genre by any composer since Beethoven. After the success of his First Piano Sonata (GP617) he turned to Goethe for inspiration, and the life and love-affirming Sonata-Triad Op. 11 translates the poet’s words of passion, suffering and redemption into sound. The capricious, mysterious and beautiful Sonata-Skazka is a masterpiece in miniature and was once Medtner’s most performed work. Dating from his years of exile, the eloquent themes of the fourteenth and final Sonata-Idyll linger long in the memory.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Franco Alfano’s opera Risurrezione draws its inspiration from Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection and was the work that ensured Alfano’s considerable success as a composer. The plot narrates the story of Katiusha and her tragic love for prince Dimitri who seduces and abandons her, condemning her to a life of sacrifice and desperation. Seen here in Fancesco Lanzillotta’s acclaimed Florence production, Risurrezione recalls Richard Strauss and Puccini – the drama evolving in an uninterrupted flow with moments of soaring lyricism alongside striking and evocative orchestration. The work gives voice to an idea that Alfano left in his memoirs: ‘Recoiling from catastrophes, I believed and still believe in the renovation, regeneration, and final purification of human passions from evil to goodness.’

Classical Music

The music of the Prague-born prodigy Erwin Schulhoff has become increasingly popular in recent decades. He moved through successive creative phases and, on this recording, Spectrum Concerts Berlin focuses on music written between 1924 and 1927. The Cinq Études de jazz explore the “rhythmic intoxication” he described in a letter to Alban Berg, while the Duo for violin and cello and the Violin Sonata No. 2 offer striking parallels to similar works by Bartók, Kodály, and Debussy. The String Sextet contains violent contrasts and almost Cubist montage and was a key work in Schulhoff’s artistic development.

The St Catharine's Girls' Choir, Cambridge, with director Edward Wickham, celebrate ten years since their foundation with this album of works for upper voices. In marking the momentous occasion in 2008 when St Catharine's created the first college-based girls' choir, the current choristers of this acclaimed group present a varied programme of secular works from British composers including Britten, Bennett and a world premiere by Sally Beamish. The St. Catharine's Girls' Choir- the only college-based girls' choir in the UK- was founded in 2008. The choir sings weekly in the College Chapel, as well as giving regular concerts and it's repertoire extends from the early Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, with several works written specially for it. The choir is made up of twenty girls, aged between eight and fifteen, drawn from local schools; and for this recording is augmented by former choristers. The choir has performed in some of the UK's leading venues, and has performed live in Radio 3's The Choir and toured to Poland and Hungary.

Having previously recorded British repertoire on Chandos, James Gilchrist joins the pianist Anna Tilbrook nine years after their previous recording, in a lyrical journey through some of Vaughan Williams’s best songs and rarely heard chamber works. They are joined by Philip Dukes, ‘Great Britain’s most outstanding viola player’, according to The Times. This album captures the composer’s love for both the voice and the viola, bringing together five works for tenor and piano, two for tenor, viola, and piano, and two works for viola and piano alone. Central to the recording is the fresh, invigorating, and at times reflective cycle ‘Songs of Travel,’ composed between 1901 and 1904, of special interest is also an arrangement of ‘Rhosymedre’ by the chief music critic of The Times, Richard Morrison, recorded here for the first time and performed by the same forces who gave the premiere of the arrangement in St. John’s Smith Square in 2016 to critical acclaim.

Also available on Blu-ray

Franco Alfano’s opera Risurrezione draws its inspiration from Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection and was the work that ensured Alfano’s considerable success as a composer. The plot narrates the story of Katiusha and her tragic love for prince Dimitri who seduces and abandons her, condemning her to a life of sacrifice and desperation. Seen here in Fancesco Lanzillotta’s acclaimed Florence production, Risurrezione recalls Richard Strauss and Puccini – the drama evolving in an uninterrupted flow with moments of soaring lyricism alongside striking and evocative orchestration. The work gives voice to an idea that Alfano left in his memoirs: ‘Recoiling from catastrophes, I believed and still believe in the renovation, regeneration, and final purification of human passions from evil to goodness.’

Wonderfully evocative British choral music written recently, from three fine but lesser-known composers and the better-known Michael Berkeley. For the Williamson Missa Tertia, the singers are joined by the Choir of St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford.

The late Sir Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child Of Our Time both re-affirmed and transformed the genre. + The most striking and brilliant transformation is the composer’s choice of the Negro Spiritual in place of the congregational hymn. + Composed between 1939-41 and premiered in 1944, it was born out of a very personal sense of human deprivation and hardship then afoot in 1930s England. + Recorded in 1992, this Chandos re-release, featuring an all African-American singing cast and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, honors the legacy of the late English conductor Sir Richard Hickox.

Classical Music

Founded nearly eighty years ago, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne enjoys an enviable reputation and has welcomed the greatest artists as its guests, from Clara Haskil and Alfred Cortot to Murray Perahia and Martha Argerich, from Paul Hindemith to Günter Wand. Despite its long history, the orchestra has had only six musical directors, including Armin Jordan from 1973 to 1985. The young American conductor Joshua Weilerstein succeeded Christian Zacharias in 2015. In addition to his conducting skills and his interest in rare repertory, he has also brought a love of musical outreach. His very popular podcast, ‘Sticky Notes’, discusses music in an accessible way. This recording is devoted to Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphonies opp.73a and 83a, which are Rudolf Barshai’s arrangements of the String Quartets nos. 3 and 4. Barshai, one of the leading violists of his time, was a friend of Shostakovich and their collaboration was long and intensive. The chamber orchestra arrangements of these famous quartets offer a completely different perspective on the original works and were praised by Shostakovich himself, who reportedly said of one of them that it ‘sounded better than the original’. As a complement to the two works, Joshua Weilerstein shares his interpretation in a bonus spoken word track.

Xiayin Wang just gets better and better; well worth your time and money.

The bar is set very high when it comes to these concertos, and that poses a formidable challenge for pianists brave – or foolhardy – enough to attempt them. That said, having reviewed Xiayin Wang and these forces in a splendid pairing of the Khachaturian concerto and the original version of Tchaikovsky’s G major one, I’ve no doubt she’s bold – and limber – enough to vault these three (with room to spare). And the presence of Peter Oundjian and the RSNO, whose latest John Adams release was so warmly welcomed by Simon Thompson, is a definite plus.

Usually, I list several of comparative versions of the work(s) under review, but this time I’ll select just one each. Starting with Tchaikovsky’s first concerto, I was much impressed by Alexandra Dariescu’s 2014 account with Darrell Ang and the Royal Philharmonic (Signum). As for the third concerto, I always return to Peter Donohoe, Rudolf Barshai and the Bournemouth Symphony, recorded in 1989 (Warner). Then there’s the Scriabin, as set down by Yevgeny Sudbin, Andrew Litton and the Bergen Phil in 2013 (BIS).

Given the legendary status of Tchaikovsky’s Op. 23 – and its long line of stellar soloists – it’s all too easy for lesser pianists to over-reach themselves with this one. That’s what turned me off two recent recordings, with Denis Kozhukhin (Pentatone) and Beatrice Rana (Warner). Indeed, one of the greatest strengths of the Dariescu/Ang performance is that it doesn’t punch above its weight. That said, there’s eloquence and insight aplenty, which, together with an attractive coupling – Mikhail Pletnev’s Nutcracker arrangement – and good sound, makes for a most enjoyable release.

That same judicious approach is very much in evidence in Xiayin Wang’s Op. 23, the famous opening still thrilling in its surge and sweep. She’s firm and focused from start to finish, Ralph Couzens and Jonathan Cooper’s recording warm and weighty. The RSNO are on top form, too, with liquid woodwinds and songful strings. But it’s the soloist’s imaginative phrasing and disarming manner that deserve the most praise here. Also, Oundjian, a sympathetic accompanist, allows the music to ebb and flow in the most natural and unobtrusive way. Tuttis are all the more satisfying for being so discreetly signposted and so sensibly scaled.

My word, Xiayin Wang is a very thoughtful and engaging artist, the pliancy and soul of the ensuing Andantino especially pleasing. What a lovely touch, too, Tchaikovsky’s jewelled writing as lustrous as one could wish. Happily, she’s rhythmically supple yet suitably animated in the Allegro con fuoco, which burns with a steady flame rather than flares with magnesium heat. Then again, that’s the nature of this performance, which has none of the self-seeking pyrotechnics that so often mar this exhilarating finale. And so it is with the compact, closely argued Op. 75, where Xiayin Wang’s technical prowess, sensitively channelled, serves the music and nothing else.

How sensuous she is in the Scriabin, its rich harmonies superbly realised by soloist and orchestra alike. It’s a piece that’s apt to sprawl, and that it doesn’t here is a measure of everyone’s clarity and commitment. The Andante has wonderful poise and detail, the latter a reminder of how good the engineering is. It’s all so exquisitely washed and tinted, our painter-pianist showing exemplary taste and good judgment throughout. As for the finale, essayed with a strong sense of shape and approaching exultation, it’s even more rewarding when delivered with such assurance and style.

Would I want to be without Dariescu and Donohoe in the Tchaikovsky, or Sudbin’s Scriabin? No, but I’m happy to file Xiayin Wang’s fine performances alongside theirs. And while I’ve grumbled about the sound of some recent Chandos releases, I’ve absolutely no qualms about this one. Detailed liner-notes by David Nice complete a most attractive package.

Xiayin Wang just gets better and better; well worth your time and money.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan )

This is one of the freshest and most enjoyable accounts of Tchaikovsky 1 I have heard for a long time. In Xiayin Wang’s hands and supported superbly by the impressive Scottish players and their conductor, the concerto takes on the narrative of a tone poem in an account of commendable brio and clarity. This is among the most deeply felt and warm-hearted accounts of No. 3 you will hear.

– Gramophone

There are a lot of performances of this remarkable symphony available now, but this one stands out as having a truly distinctive and persuasive point of view. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, however well it plays, isn’t an orchestral powerhouse like the Chicago Symphony (Previn) or Kondrashin’s Moscow Philharmonic, but Vasily Petrenko more than compensates for any lack of sheer heft with an extra jolt of energy and a razor-sharp rhythmic attack. Listen to the strings dig into the music right after the first movement’s “climax of fugal insanity”. If the preceding din isn’t exactly paint-peeling, it’s still very exciting, and as you can hear, Petrenko sustains the tension very well, providing an unusual degree of continuity to a movement that easily tends to break up into a sequence of disconnected episodes.

The scherzo also is unusually characterful—slower than the norm, which only makes it more gaunt and spooky. The “tick-tock” percussion at the end is especially clear, and disturbingly mechanical. As for the gripping finale, not only is the wacky ballet suite interlude remarkably fun, but Petrenko really unleashes the hounds in the form of some magnificently braying brass in the final chorale. This is one of those performances that justifies purchasing yet another recording of what is becoming a relatively well-known work. It confirms the piece as a true classic, in the sense that a variety of approaches reveals an endless series of valid interpretive possibilities. The performance is also extremely well recorded, naturally balanced, and vividly present. Wonderful.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Petr Eben is considered to be one of the Czech Republic's leading contemporary composers. His organ compositions explore new territory in regard to playing techniques, sound and subject matter. His goal is to convey a message to listeners, through commentaries or - as in his Second Organ Concerto - by prefixing his scores with a motto. Formal clarity and understandability are a requirement for him. His music is characterized by free tonality that always includes tonal sections. Gunther Rost was able to win two prominent guest musicians for this CD: Tine Ting Helseth (trumpet) and Babette Haag (percussion).