Given Tasmin Little’s previous explorations in the studio, it must have been tricky to construct a well-balanced series of British sonatas to record for Chandos. She’s well-known for her Elgar, Delius and Bax, naturally, but there is a body of repertoire she hasn’t yet recorded and her contract has allowed her to investigate more widely. This second disc of her series shows the fruits of that search, not least in the case of John Ireland’s Sonata No.1, the big work here.

In a thoughtful booklet note Little recounts that she had only just got to know the Ireland – not such a surprise as the companion A minor is the preferred port of call. She negotiates its moods, reflections, and tempo adjustments with great skill, abetted by Piers Lane’s astute pianism, and he clearly enjoys the slow movement’s rolled chords and those moments in the finale that sounds like one of Ireland’s impressionist piano miniatures. Ireland himself probably wouldn’t have approved of their tempi - he was a curmudgeon about spaced chords and preferred loftier tempos. Listening to his own recording with Frederick Grinke in 1945 (Dutton CDLX7103) rather makes the point, as they are nearly three minutes slower than the Little-Lane duo.

The duo has known the early Bridge Sonata for a good while now – and it’s not to be confused with the larger and later work. The H39 Sonata dates from 1904 and survives as a torso with the second of its two movements completed by Paul Hindmarsh. The duo plays it with a rich tone. There are, in particular, some finely executed dynamics in the second movement. Arthur Bliss’s own early Sonata, written around 1914-16, was dedicated to Lady Elgar and was edited for performance by Rupert Marshall-Luck in 2010. He indeed gave it the first recording with Matthew Rickard (EMR CD001). The Little-Lane duo is a touch slower and brings out the music’s largely unsullied lyricism and nostalgia with great conviction. The little March motif and the VW-like songfulness coalesce in a sunset close of some real beauty.

RVW himself is represented by his Two Pieces, written at roughly the same time as the Bliss. The Pastorale is the pick, tender and folkloric. The disc ends with William Lloyd Webber’s The Gardens at Eastwell, a premiere recording. It’s a thorough charmer, dolce espressivo, as noted.

This is a classy disc, with fine booklet notes – except for the misspelling of Marjorie Hayward’s surname – and a generously warm acoustic, which precisely reflects the nature of the music-making.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

This program completes the Comédie et Tragédie project with Tempesta di Mare, and consists of suites made up of orchestral excerpts from three dramatic works of the French stage, spanning seventy-three years, all highlighting the importance of dance as a part of drama.

The comédie-ballet was the brainchild of the French comedic actor, singer, dancer, and playwright Molière. After ten years of collaborating with Lully, a Suite from whose Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme features in Volume 1, he turned to Charpentier. The outcome was Le Malade imaginaire whose fourth performance would prove Molière’s last, as he died on stage.

Scylla et Glaucus is the only stage work by Jean-Marie Leclair, the foremost violinist of his generation and a composer whose late opera shows the clarity of his orchestration and places its focal point on the strings, as one would expect.

Les Fêtes de Polymnie is contemporary with Leclair’s opera but more forward looking in its approach, and famous for the ingenuity of Rameau’s colorful orchestration, particularly obvious in the overture.- Chandos

Review:

I particularly liked Tempesta di Mare's vigorous, spiky strings in Leclair's 'Air des silvains' and the 'Premier air de demons'…delightful music, delightfully played.

– Gramophone

The precursor to this album made a Critic’s Choice of the Year in Gramophone (2013). The program presented includes works by Benjamin Britten, William Mathias, Arnold Cooke, and Gerald Finzi. Michael Collins brilliantly walks the line between being a soloist and conductor, as he serves as both in this recording. The accompanying ensemble here is the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

After a "sublime" (BBC Music) complete set of Schubert’s violin sonatas with Piers Lane, Tasmin Little joins Martin Roscoe in this recording of the complete violin sonatas by Beethoven.

In all, Beethoven wrote ten sonatas for piano and violin, and seems not to have entertained ideas for other works in this genre. All but one may be regarded as early works: only Op. 96, in G major, which was composed almost a decade after the last of the other nine, does not fall into this category. As a group, then, the violin sonatas do not offer a conspectus of Beethoven’s stylistic development such as we find in the string quartets, piano sonatas, symphonies, and even cello sonatas. But each work is a masterpiece in its own right, original, full of vitality, idiomatic for both the pianist and violinist who are equal-ranking participants in the ensemble, and executed with consummate compositional skill.

Reviews:

One is very much aware of two distinct personalities, each with plenty to say about this music. There's even a sense of friendly rivalry - and all to the good. Little's expressive style is generous and extrovert, Roscoe's at times more inward looking…this is an impressive achievement, and beautifully recorded.

– BBC Music Magazine

Little and Roscoe come across as being very attuned to one another. The particular brand of fantasy in the Kreutzer suits them particularly well, and from its Bachian solo-violin opening onwards there's a real fire to the first movement.

– Gramophone

The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Neeme Järvi present this unusual collection of popular works by Saint-Saëns, for orchestra and piano or cello. Truls Mork, this season’s Artist in Residence with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, is the soloist in the two contrasted cello concertos. His ‘seemingly flawless technical command’ is tested in the suave, expressive, famous No. 1 as well as in the many taxing solo passages, huge leaps, and double-stopping flourishes of No. 2. The indefatigable duo Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier join in the posthumously published Carnival of the Animals, after a highly successful recording of Concertos by Poulenc with Edward Gardner, Disc of the Week in The Sunday Times. They offer the original version, which features a glass harmonica (normally substituted by a glockenspiel). Louis Lortie is also the soloist in the entertaining fantasia Africa, which incorporates folk tunes of the different countries in which it was composed and which is brought off with consummate zest, as well as in the most characteristic and probably challenging of the composer’s keyboard pieces, the Caprice-Valse Wedding-cake, written for the second wedding of the composer’s virtuosic pianist friend Caroline Montigny-Rémaury.

Review:

This is one of those recordings where it seems invidious to look for faults and which just encourages you to sit back, relax, listen and wallow. Mørk brings his characteristic incisiveness and mountain-spring tone to the concertos.

The Grande fantaisie zoologique receives one of its most successful performances on disc (sans narrator) with just the right balance of instrumental virtuosity, sensitive musicianship and, where the opportunity presents itself, fun. ‘Le cygne’ is elegantly phrased and gracefully paced.

Lovely program. Lovely recording. What’s not to like?

– Gramophone

Twenty five years after their last recording of piano duets on Chandos, the Canadien pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier return in a watershed collection of magnificently played duets by Rachmaninoff including the two suites and an arrangement for his Symphonic Dances. The Lortie/Mercier piano duo have known one another since their early teens, and have a considerable collaborative discography that showcases their affinity for the art of 4 hands and 2 pianos performances and repertoire.

After four volumes exploring 20th century British works for cello and piano, the Watkins brothers come together again turning their attention across the Atlantic ocean and the American contribution to this repertoire spanning four decades of seminal compositional activity in the United States. The inspired performances of the Welsh sibling duo, both highly acclaimed in their musical endeavors further illustrate the confluence of the unique American influences with the development of early 20th century classical repertoire.

The ensemble London Winds, praised by BBC Music for its ‘technical accomplishment, expressive commitment and warmth of timbre’, presents in this recording great twentieth-century works for winds.

It features music by Hindemith, Nielsen, and Janácek, and, from the next generation, Barber and Ligeti. Although not equally prolific (Kleine Kammermusik is Hindemith’s single contribution to that genre while winds are generally more prominent in Nielsen’s music), all these composers brought the wind repertoire back to prominence, after a quiet period of more than a century. The music is full of playfulness and European folk colours.

A stunning combination of virtuoso players who also enjoy active solo careers, the ensemble London Winds is renowned for its technical brilliance, interpretative vision, and joie de vivre. Founded in 1988 by the British clarinettist Michael Collins, the group rapidly became one of the world’s most prominent chamber ensembles.

Review:

There's plenty of personality in the playing here, with much wit in the Allegro ben moderato and the charming minuet. London Winds deliver an exuberant account, surpassing my previous favorite, the Michael Thompson Wind Quintet.

– Gramophone

This is the penultimate release in the Chandos series of Brahms works for solo piano, performed by Barry Douglas. | Brahms is often considered both a traditionalist and an innovator with his music being rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of Baroque and Classical eras. | These recordings are being performed in the finest international venues including the Wigmore Hall and Concertgebouw. | This fifth volume is the most virtuosic of the series, including the Scherzo in E flat minor, technically demanding variations, several intermezzi, and three Hungarian Dances. | Barry Douglas is gainging a reputation of one the few world-class piano virtuosi of the romantic repertoire. | Barry Douglas won the 1986 Tchaikovksy Competition in Russia.

The choral pieces brought together on The Call range widely, from ceremonial works associated with affairs of state to intimate compositions addressing moments of great personal significance. The composers are similarly diverse. They include an English composer of Polish extraction (Panufnik), an Italian who spent most of his life in Paris (Rossini), an Irish and a German composer who became leading lights in English music (Stanford and Mendelssohn). However, all the works recorded here have one thing in common: all are considered quintessential to the Anglican choral tradition.

Anybody with deep affection for the more noble anthems of the Anglican tradition will need no excuse to grab a copy of this tasty selection, especially so when it features performances of such tasteful restraint. You only need sample Oliver Browne’s unaffected treble in ‘O for the wings of a dove’ or Xavier Hetherington’s ethereal tenor in the Ave Maria to know that Andrew Nethsingha has musical integrity at the heart of these performances.

- Gramophone

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.

Following the success of The Dream of Gerontius in 1900 and The Apostles in 1903, Edward Elgar was commissioned to produce another large oratorio for a 1906 music festival. + The Kingdom continues the narrative of the lives of Jesus’ disciples, depicting the community of the early church, Pentecost, and the events of the next few days. + The Kingdom is considered one of his greatest choral works, fully deserving its ranking alongside Gerontius. + Recorded in 1989, and also featuring Sursum Corda and Sospiri, this Chandos re-release honors the legacy of the late English conductor Sir Richard Hickox.

This Chandos re-issue of Max Bruch’s Violin Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, recorded in 1998 by Lydia Mordkovitch (1944-2014) with Richard Hickox and the LSO is released in tribute to the late Russian-British violinist. • In the Violin Concerto No. 2, “Hickox draws radiant sounds from the LSO, and Ms. Mordkovitch ... plays with rapt dedication [and] breathtaking beauty…” (Guardian) • The third Violin Concerto’s robust, heroic opening concertante movement precedes a slow movement reminiscent of the same in the famous First Concerto and a rondo Finale dominated by a strongly rhythmic perpetuum mobile.

This 2015 re-issue of romantic chamber music recordings pays tribute to the late violinist Lydia Mordkovitch (1944-2014). • Featuring pieces originally for, or arranged for, violin by Wagner, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, and others, the CD centerpiece is Ernst Chausson’s lush Poème – an original violin work and an apt title for the entire collection. • It is further complemented by Ravel’s early one-movement sonata (Sonate posthume, 1897), his first chamber work and his first attempt at sonata form, and Sospiri, Op. 70, Elgar’s last short piece for violin and piano. Recorded 1989-96.

This two-disc set, offering four, fine British 20th c. violin concertos by the composers Bax, Dyson, Veale and Bliss, is released in tribute to the late violinist Lydia Mordkovitch (1944-2014). • After her 1979 British debut, Ms. Mordkovitch became one of the first artists to record for Chandos, founded the same year. • During her UK residency of nearly thirty-five years, she devoted many of her sixty recordings to British repertoire. • A “charismatic performer and a faithful interpreter of a composer’s wishes.” (Guardian) • “… real flair and richness of tone…” (Gramophone) • Recorded 1995-2006.

Harmonische Freude features chamber music by J.S. Bach and his extended circle, as played on period instruments by Austral Harmony, an Australian ensemble specializing in 18th c. music. • Inspiration comes from the organ preludes in Kauffmann’s collection Harmonische Seelenlust musikalischer Gönner und Freunde, which specifies use of an oboe so placed to give the impression that it is an organ stop. • Kauffmann’s pupil Tag illustrates the emerging 18th c. Empfindsamkeit (‘expressive’ style. • Krebs and Homilius were pupils of Bach who aspired to perpetuate the tradition of their great teacher.

In the wake of violinist Lydia Mordkovitch’s untimely death in 2014, Chandos has reissued and remastered several of her best recordings for the label, including this 1989 coupling of both Shostakovich violin concertos. The performances remain outstanding on every level.

It’s easy to slight No. 2’s often austere countenance and relatively sparse textures in favor of No. 1’s wider range of moods, textures, and greater surface virtuosity, yet Mordkovitch proves just as compelling and committed as her mentor David Oistrakh. If anything, she surpasses him in the brooding Adagio, where her slightly slower basic tempo, expressive discretion, and mesmerizingly controlled long legato lines grip you from start to finish. One might prefer a more incisive and playful approach to the Allegro finale, yet here the slippery thematic exchanges between soloist and orchestra convey a sense of gravitas and symphonic integrity that build to overwhelming climaxes.

These qualities also reveal themselves in the First concerto’s great third-movement Passacaglia, where the Scottish brass section achieves a smooth collective blend that still projects the music’s ferocity, matched by Mordkovitch’s perfectly tuned high sustained notes and octaves that both pierce and speak at the same time. Both Mordkovitch and Järvi revel in the Burlesque’s bleak brio and in the Scherzo’s rapid-fire chamber interplay, while the long first movement’s gloomy trajectory unfolds with carefully gauged dynamics and balances, from the low-lying woodwind rumbles to the ethereal celesta and harp intertwining at the end. Chandos’ resonant ambience closely approximates concert hall realism, especially if you’re listening via excellent quality loudspeakers or headphones.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Fabulous playing from a pair of completely on-form pianists, which lends The Rite of Spring’s rhythmic themes a quite thrilling intensity.

– Gramophone [8/2015]

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

Sterling advocacy for four sonatas of the past century.

This brilliantly recorded disc showcases some works from the grittier side of British music from the second half of the 20th century. Each of the featured composers came under formative European influences: Kenneth Leighton studying with Petrassi in Rome, Elisabeth Lutyens deeply influenced by Schoenberg, Alun Hoddinott by Bartók and Richard Rodney Bennett by the Darmstadt school and Boulez. Such an awareness of continental styles infuses all the compositions with a tautly conceived sense of structure and an emphasis on linear dialogue between the two instruments.

Of course, little-known works need championing, and in this regard Paul and Huw Watkins prove formidable exponents, providing incisive and well-characterised readings that eloquently convey the atmosphere of each piece. The most emotionally elusive work in this programme is probably Lutyens’s Constants, which juxtaposes introspective moments with passages of more fervent declamation. In contrast, Leighton’s Partita is far more accessible, offering a greater range of invention cast in a similar vein to Britten’s later Cello Sonata in C major. The opening two movements set the scene: an impassioned, unsettled tonality infusing the Elegy, before it is swept away by the edgy rhythmic motifs of the scherzo. Perhaps, though, the most persuasive work comes from Bennett, whose fluent Sonata (1991) covers impressively varied ground, ranging from the fierce rhythmic outbursts of the third-movement Feroce, recalling Bartók, to the more reflective Allegretto leggero, with its washes of almost impressionistic colour—aided here by a tremendously vibrant performance and vivid production.

-- The Strad

“[Ehnes] is the protagonist in this all-Berlioz programme, but the disc is equally distinguished by the lucid, exhilarating, smoothly contoured playing of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under that experienced Berliozian Sir Andrew Davis.” - The Daily Telegraph (UK)

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The nine-time Juno-winning Canadian James Ehnes is centre stage in a new recording of orchestral works by Berlioz, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. This recording was made following an extraordinary concert in November 2014 with the same forces, in which James Ehnes played two instruments made by Stradivarius, respectively a viola in the solo part of Harold en Italie – ‘symphony with a principal viola part’, in Berlioz’s words – and a violin in the solo of Rêverie et Caprice, both of which works feature here.

Berlioz was never ashamed to recycle his music from one work to another, especially when the earlier work had been rejected by the public or by the composer himself. In 1834, Paganini asked Berlioz for a work in which he could display his prowess on a fine Stradivarius viola. Berlioz then composed the four-movement symphony Harold en Italie, incorporating passages from the Rob-Roy overture which he had recently rejected.

Similarly, Rêverie et Caprice was the form eventually given to an aria from the opera Benvenuto Cellini, unceremoniously booed in Paris in 1838. Berlioz transformed the aria into a piece with solo violin three years later. It is the only piece Berlioz ever wrote for solo violin. - Chandos

Digital CD 16Bit 44.1Khz and originally recorded in: 24Bit 96Khz.

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.

The electrifying and long-standing collaborative partnership of Tasmin Little and Piers Lane returns to Chandos for this double-album featuring Schubert’s complete works for violin and piano, combined with the ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata and the Adagio in E flat for piano trio, all highly emotive masterpieces.They are joined by cellist Tim Hugh, ‘a musician with compelling insight into the creative urge behind the notes’ (The Times). Gramophone praised this duo’s album (CHAN 10749) for the artists’ ‘complete understanding and spontaneity’ and ‘moments of true musical virtuosity’.

“***** The music of [The Kreutzer Sonata] is… an emotional maelstrom… a whole kaleidoscope of feelings that the Doric brings to bear in a vivid, trenchant and intuitively heartfelt performance… [A] disc of outstanding musical insight and dynamic presence.” – Daily Telegraph (UK)

This new recording by the Doric String Quartet pays homage to the Czech chamber music of the 1920s, featuring string quartets by Janácek and Martinu. Exclusive on Chandos, The Doric String Quartet is now established as one of the finest young ensembles in the world.

The chamber music output of Janácek is relatively small but often programmatic. As acknowledged by the composer, the two string quartets are a vehicle for his deepest feelings. The mounting tension of String Quartet No. 1, which culminates in a less anguished last movement, emphasises the heightened feelings of love, passion, and remorse with which he was concerned at the time of its writing. As he summed it up, the work depicts the ‘miserable woman, suffering, beaten, beaten to death’ from Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata. Titled Intimate Letters, the Second Quartet – the last work Janácek completed – fulfils an autobiographical function, being a no less ardent and personal composition.

The Third String Quartet by Martinc reflects the influences of his teacher Roussel as well as the night-life ragtime and jazz world of Paris in which it was written, in 1929. By far the shortest of his seven mature quartets, it yet gives a greater degree of independence to each of the four instruments, allowing for some striking harmonic clashes and colourful scoring.

The Central Band of the RAF and conductor Wing Cmdr. Duncan Stubbs here offer up some of the greatest British pieces in the repertoire.The first military band broadcast on BBC Radio, and still the most frequently featured on the airwaves, it is at the forefront of military band and contemporary wind ensemble recording.“The music represents some of the most iconic wind band repertoire, Holst’s Suites in particular having close links to our military heritage.Including Langford’s Rhapsody also continues our record of ‘firsts’ achieved by a British military band.” (WC Duncan Stubbs)