Choral music has always played a significant and central role at Belfast Cathedral, since its consecration in 1904. This strong choral tradition continues to this day with the recently formed all-adult, fully professional vocal ensemble. This ‘new’ cathedral choir brings together some of the finest singers in Northern Ireland who lead the liturgy and worship of Belfast Cathedral and are featured here in their debut album for Resonus Classics. Featuring a varied program of seasonal carols from composers including Elizabeth Poston, John Rutter and Philip Ledger, this album celebrates Christmas from Northern Ireland’s national cathedral.

Henry James’s novella has become notorious as at once the most stylish and elusively ambiguous of all nineteenth-century ghost stories. In June 1932, the eighteen-year-old Benjamin Britten heard a radio adaptation of James’s story and noted in his diary that it was ‘wonderful, impressive but terribly eerie & scary’. He read the novella for himself in January the following year, telling his diary that he still found it ‘glorious & eerie’ and judging it to be an ‘incredible masterpiece’. His subsequent operatic setting is unequivocally a masterpiece, and here receives a first-class production made for television with an outstanding cast led by Robert Murray and Rhian Lois, accompanied by Sinfonia of London and conducted by John Wilson.

Ransom Wilson and theOrpheus Chamber Ensemble present this new release of works for flute and chamber ensemble by composers Jean-Michel Damase (1928-2013) and Jean Francaix (1912-1997). The music of Jean-Michel Damase combines wit with gentility. His simplistic writing caused him to be frequently overlooked in favor of the avant-garde, thus little of his music is performed outside of France. The works chosen for this recording cover five decades of his oeuvre. Jean Francaix began composing at the young age of six. A child prodigy, he had already established a reputation during the 1930s for his ability to write for a wide range of genres. For this album, his Suite for solo flute and Divertimento for flute and chamber orchestra have been chosen. Ransom Wilson is recognized as one of the finest flutists of our day. He studied at the Julliard School, in Paris as a private student of Jean-Pierre Rampal, and has appeared on concert stages across the United States and Europe.

The Cremonese composer Marc'Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535/36-92) is chiefly remembered as the teacher of Claudio Monteverdi while, for well nigh 500 years, his own achievements were left to sit in the shadows. This pioneering recording reveals Ingegneri to have been one of the masters of his age, writing music of breathtaking richness and beauty: the polychoral works to be heard here combine learned, intricate counterpoint with the kind of sheer sonic thrill that brings a shiver of physical excitement. Girton College Chapel Choir is an international-prize-winning choir of some 25 members, which has grown in prominence over the last ten years, due to it's impressive musical standards, regular recordings, and ambitious, exciting touring schedule. During Full Term, the Choir's principal function is to sing the liturgy in Girton's Chapel. This includes Choral Evensong every Sunday, and Compline (a beautiful, meditative evening service) every Tuesday, and Vespers every Friday. For this, the Choir rehearses just twice a week. Recent foreign tours have included Israel & Palestine, Canada, Portugal, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, USA, Germany, Slovenia, France, Ireland, Switzerland and Spain.

Described as 'easily the classiest brass ensemble in Britain' by BBC Music Magazine, Onyx Brass continues to be the leading light in establishing the brass quintet as a medium for serious chamber music, presenting it in the entertaining and articulate style that has become the group's trademark. For this, it's third recording for Chandos, Onyx Brass presents a programme steeped in the German romantic tradition. Arrangements for small ensemble of works by Schumann, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Rubinstein, and Franz demonstrate the musicality and virtuosity of the group, as well as a wide expressive and textural range. The programme opens and closes with three large-scale works by Richard Strauss, in which the quintet is joined by a host of other top UK brass players and the conductor John Wilson. Festmusik der Stadt Wien for brass and timpani, written for the city of Vienna, is the only original composition: all the others are arrangements made by members of the group.

Marcus Blunt, who turns 70 years old this year, is a well established British composer with an international voice – his harmonic language is distinctive and varied; arising from the Romantic tradition but full of complex contrapuntal chromaticism -and also touched by the mystic in subtle ways, perhaps more apparent in his solo piano music. These works are firmly in the modern mainstream and deserve a wide audience; from the convoluted lines of the Concerto, the restrained small orchestration of the Symphony to the picturesque nature of the Bassoon Concertino, Blunt’s works retain an intense interest for the listener. Murray McLachlan, one of the UK’s most celebrated pianists, has long championed Blunt’s work. Lesley Wilson is one of Britain’s most seasoned bassoonists and the award-winning Manchester Camerata has recently risen to the highest ranking among British chamber orchestra.

John Ireland was an exceptional composer for the piano, as was his contemporary York Bowen. He may not have been a "major" composer in a conventional sense, but his work deserves to be better known, especially outside of England. His Piano Concerto is a masterpiece. Sure, the influence of Prokofiev is obvious, but Ireland embraces it and makes it his own. Written in 1930, it offers a combination of romantic glamor, saucy wit, and lyrical expressiveness that's quite personal and memorable. John Lenehan plays it as well as anybody has to date, with a very winning combination of fluidity in passagework and an easy rhythmic precision in the finale that sounds just right.

Legend, a tone poem for piano and orchestra, lives up to its name. It's a brooding, dramatic work that, like so many short pieces for piano and orchestra, never will be heard in concert because of its brevity. Why doesn't some pianist put together a program of tone poems for piano and orchestra and turn them into a "mini" concerto? Anyway, what makes this program so attractive is the inclusion of the solo piano works. Lenehan already has produced several fine discs of Ireland's piano music, and there's no question that he understands the idiom. The pieces on offer here really show Ireland's range, from the passionate First Rhapsody to the poetic Sea Idyll and colorful Three Dances. Excellent sonics too.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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

The four English composers represented on this disc were all born within a generation, and were inspired by the pioneering violist Lionel Tertis. Bainton's 1922 Viola Sonata veers restlessly between autumnal song and militaristic intensity, possibly influenced by his wartime experiences. Theodore Holland's Suite in D is a theatrical, wide-ranging work full of ingenious themes, whilst York Bowen's Piece for Viola is brief but ardent. Bantock's Viola Sonata, by contrast, is a large-scale, powerful and rhapsodic statement full of profuse lyricism and romantic feeling. Since making her concerto debut with the Philharmonia in 1992, and as a recitalist at the Wigmore Hall in 1997, Sarah-Jane Bradley has established a distinguished international reputation as a soloist and chamber musician. She is a pioneer of new works and has given the premieres and recorded a number of new concertos for solo viola.

Very appropriately, Valentina Nafornita devotes half of her debut album released on Outhere to the composer who makes the highest vocal demands, with his incomparable dramatic complexity and inspired musical invention. Ever since she sang her first Papagena as a new ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera in the autumn of 2011, she has repeatedly enjoyed enormous success performing Mozart’s great female roles, which are so challenging in their diversity. The charismatic Moldovan soprano impresses with an astonishingly wide palette of expression and emotion. The second part of the CD is devoted to the Slavonic repertory. With her rich, bronze timbre, she is ideally suited to the tragic depth of expression of Dvorák’s ‘Song to the Moon’, with which she made her breakthrough at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and to Tchaikovsky, whose Iolanta she sang at the Opéra de Paris in May 2019. The recording ends with a song dedicated to Valentina by the Moldovan composer Eugen Doga, recounting the life story of this singer who has been known as ‘The Nightingale’ in her homeland since she was five years old.

Following the widespread critical acclaim of their first two recordings – including a BBC Music Magazine Award – John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London turn to Respighi’s Roman Trilogy for their third release. Born in Bologna in 1879, Respighi trained as a violinist and composer, and travelled extensively. His influences are therefore wide-ranging, from Richard Strauss and Debussy to Rimsky-Korsakov (who taught him orchestration) in addition to a love of – and fascination with – Plainsong and music of the Italian baroque. Fountains of Rome was the first of these three great tone poems, composed between 1913 and 1916, and inspired by a series of photographs given to him by the artist Edita Broglio. Intensely programmatic, the work sees Respighi setting out to evoke ‘sentiments and visions suggested… by four of Rome’s fountains contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer’. Pines of Rome was completed in 1924 – a particularly turbulent time in Italy, following Mussolini’s appointment as Prime Minister, in 1922. Like Fountains, the work is explicitly programmatic, set in four sections, and calling for extremely large orchestral forces – including a gramophone recording of a nightingale in the third movement. Roman Festivals was premiered in 1928 by the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini, who was a great supporter of Respighi and regularly performed his works throughout his career. Again, in four parts, Festivals calls for the largest orchestration of all, including a vast array of percussion as well as organ, four-hand piano and mandolin. Despite some negative criticism when they were first introduced, these works have found favor with concert goers around the world and been regularly performed ever since.

The boys' choir Knabenchor collegium iuvenum Stuttgart is based at the Stuttgart cathedral singing school. The ensemble's strength lies in it's very broad repertoire, which particularly includes works of sacred choral music from the Renaissance to the modern age. This is reflected in the varied selection of Christmas carols on this album: in addition to traditional carols, modern arrangements and new Christmas songs are also included. Instrumental arrangements by the composer and conductor Michael Culo for flute and organ as well as works for oboe and organ ensure a beautiful versatility of sound and style. Conductor Michael Culo studied church music and singing in Rottenburg and Tubingen. He has won prizes in organ, choral conducting, and composition competitions and has received numerous commissions. Since August 2013, Culo has been artistic director of the boys' choir collegium iuvenum Stuttgart.

Teddy Wilson - All The Hits And More 1935-39 Teddy Wilson is often referred to as the definitive swing pianist, stylish, elegant and technically and artistically brilliant, and adept in any setting, be it solo, small bands or orchestras, as a leader or sideman. He was renowned as one of the most sensitive and sought-after accompanists, especially by female vocalists of the day, and is particularly celebrated for his work with Billie Holiday. In the era before the introduction of the Billboard charts in 1940, Joel Whitburn's respected book "Pop Memories 1890-1954", which lists artists hits based on various sources, and also the Your Hit Parade chart published by the popular radio show, are treated as the most reliable guides as to what were "hits". This 47-track 2-CD collection comprises all Teddy Wilson's 38 career hits based on those sources under his own name, along with selected A & B sides from this era. It Includes the No. 1 hits "Carelessly" and "You Can't Stop Me From Dreaming", and other Top 3 hits with "The Way You Look Tonight", "Pennies From Heaven" "There's A Lull In My Life" and "Remember Me". It includes performances by featured vocalists Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Helen Ward, Red Harper and others, and recordings with major jazz names likes Roy Eldridge, Lionel Hampton, Ben Webster, Cootie Williams, Harry Carney, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Cozy Cole, Harry James, Buck Clayton and more, featured in his ensembles. Looking at his career from a particular angle, his hits, it's a great showcase for an important and influential artist.

Ransom Wilson has long been recognized internationally as one of the greatest flutists of his generation. After graduation from the Julliard School in 1973, he spent a year in Paris as a private student of Jean-Pierre Rampal. As a flute soloist, he has appeared in concert with some of the greatest orchestras and artists of our time, including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony, Frederica von Stade, Jessye Norman, Thomas Hampson, Susan Graham, Dolora Zajick, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Hilary Hahn, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Sir James Galway, and many others. Francois Dumont is a prizewinner of the most prestigious international competitions: the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Chopin Competition, the Cleveland International Competition in the United States and the Clara Haskil Competition in Switzerland. In 2012, he received the prize of Revelation de la Critique Musicale francaise. Born in 1985 in Lyon, Francois Dumont worked with Pascale Imbert, Chrystel Saussac and Herve Billaut before being admitted at the age of fourteen to the Conservatoire National Superior of Music and Dance of Paris in the class of Bruno Rigutto. With Virginie Constant and Philippe Aiche, he is a member of the Trio Elegiaque.

John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London release their second album, following widespread and universal critical acclaim for their first recording, of Korngold’s Symphony in F sharp. This new recording explores the unique sound world of French orchestral music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The programme juxtaposes well-known favorites, such as Debussy’s Prélude àl’après-midi d’un faune, Massenet’s ‘Méditation’ from Thaïs, with pieces far more rarely heard, for example Duruflé’s Trois Danses and Saint-Saëns’s Le Rouet d’Omphale). Whether specifically evoking the ‘exoticism’ of Spain or North Africa (as was the fashion in French music of this era), or creating a less defined, impressionistic atmosphere, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London capture the mood and spirit of these pieces with consummate skill and outstanding musicianship. Originally formed in 1955, Sinfonia of London was re-established in 2018 by the British conductor John Wilson to devote itself, at least initially, to recording projects, of which this is the second album.

REVIEW:

Wilson has the ability to make familiar music sound wonderfully fresh and new-minted, all the while carefully judging and calibrating the sound world of each piece. The enthusiasm that he elicits from his orchestra is very much apparent on every track, though what really impresses is the finesse as well as the virtuosity of the playing, the refinement of detail, the subtlety of texture and color.

– Gramophone

One of the New York Times' 5 Classical Albums to Hear Now

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards

Perhaps nobody since John Barbirolli has been able to make strings sing like the brilliantly talented John Wilson.

Following their critically acclaimed album of English Music for Strings, Sinfonia of London and John Wilson turn to Germany and three outstanding works for string orchestra. Franz Schreker’s Intermezzo, the oldest piece here, was composed in 1900, before Schreker’s rise to fame in the opera houses of Germany and Austria, but shows strong indications of what was to follow. Korngold composed the Symphonische Serenade following his return to Vienna from Hollywood after the Second World War, and shortly before he wrote his Symphony in F sharp. Korngold effortlessly conjures a vivid range of colors and textures from his large forces (32 violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos, and 8 basses) in a work that explores the virtuosity of the players to the full. Composed in 1945, as a reaction to the horrors of the war, and the desecration of German culture, Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings seems to look backwards to the German Romantic tradition (a trait even more evident in his Four Last Songs, of 1948). The moving final passage, marked ‘In Memoriam’, leaves the listener to contemplate in silence.

"Wilson’s release wins hands down. Part of the victory is due to the conductor and string players’ panache…whatever the mood, the Sinfonia’s tone stays full-blooded and refulgent, just like Chandos’s recording." -Times of London

REVIEW:

What a fine and stimulating recording this is. Perhaps nobody since John Barbirolli has been able to make strings sing like the brilliantly talented John Wilson. Franz Schreker’s “Intermezzo” here has a sheen to it that is intensely delicate one minute and impossibly sumptuous the next. Strauss’s “Metamorphosen” has rarely had such an agonizingly drawn out, lovingly burnished performance as this. Even better is the rarity that accompanies it: Korngold’s Symphonic Serenade, a disfigured, difficult recollection of all that poignantly easygoing light music in the Austrian tradition, written when he returned to Vienna from Hollywood. The hush that Wilson finds for its slow movement is indescribably haunting.

-- The New York Times

Gershwin in Hollywood - Live at the Royal Albert Hall JOHN WILSON ORCHESTRA - For this release, Warner Classics is proud to present Gershwin in Hollywood, recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, at the culmination of this extraordinary orchestra's sell-out UK tour in 2015. It includes well-known Gershwin favorites of the American Songbook, such as How Long Has This Been Going On?, The Man I Love, 'S Wonderful and They Can't Take That Away From Me, as well as rarely recorded gems like Slap That Bass, Treat Me Rough, and the magestic orchestral Overture from the film Rhapsody in Blue. With superb vocals from regular JWO guests Matt Ford and Louise Dearman, and the rich orchestral sound so evocative of Hollywood's Golden Age, all under the direction of John Wilson, this CD captures the thrilling atmosphere of a night to remember.

Alto sax player in a quartet setting w. Bruce Barth-piano, Larry Grenadier-bass, Leon Parker-drums.

Session of hard swinging straight ahead neo-bop & Latin jazz by Wilson on soprano & alto w. quintet, Freddie Bryant-guitar, Cyrus Irwin-bass, Gregory Hutchinson-drums, Daniel G. Sadownick-percussion.

Recorded December 19, 1991, alto saxophonist's qui Tom Williams, Mulgrew Miller, James Genus and Carl Allen.

This CD contains music pianist Teddy Wilson recorded on June 4,1967 in Manchester while on tour in England. Here he's joined by bassist Peter Chapman and drummer Johnny Richardson. Song include "Undecided," "Satin Doll," "Medley: Sophisticated Lady/Take the a Train," "Honeysuckle Rose" and others.

FUN HOUSE

Charles Wilson is an exciting and captivating performer capable of launching an audience into a frenzy. Born in Chicago, he's connected to the roots of the blues tree. From the age of four, Wilson, the nephew of blues legend Little Milton (featured as a special guest on this CD), would go with his father to see Uncle Milton's performances. Wilson released a string of albums starting in the late 80's for Ichiban and Ecko Records. "If Heartaches Were Nickels" is Wilson's first Delmark album, and in addition to Milton, Carl Weathersby provides lots of excellent guitar playing. Like all great soul singers, Wilson expresses pleading vulnerability, and like the great blues singers, he delivers the grit.

Classic blues 20's style w. Little Brother Montgomery & the State Street Ramblers, 12 tracks.

MOVIN ON