John Wilson’s first album in a series of recordings of the orchestral works of Eric Coates, using his own definitive editions of the scores. includes the suites The Jester at the Wedding and London, and the miniature overture The Merrymakers. Infectiously idiomatic playing from the BBC Philharmonic! Eric Coates was born on August 27th, 1886, at Hucknall. Coates showed an interest in music at an early age, studying first the violin and then the viola with George Ellenberger, a pupil of Joachim, and harmony with Dr Ralph Horner in Nottingham. At the age of twenty he arrived in London determined to make a career in music despite some family misgivings. He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where he studied viola with Lionel Tertis and composition with Frederick Corder. Eventually, in 1919, when neuritis in his left hand made playing the viola more and more difficult, Eric Coates turned exclusively to composition. Eric Coates' work is in the tradition of polished melodic light music started by Sir Arthur Sullivan and continued by Edward German.

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REVIEWS:

Wilson is relishing every second of the music. The BBC Phil is in great nick, and Stephen Rinker’s engineering brings sound of clarity and fidelity, every detail, dynamic, and subtlety captured perfectly.

– ClassicalSource.com

Volume 1 implies we are to get more like this and they can’t come soon enough. Eric Coates is surprisingly undervalued, even with the resurgence of interest in light music. There are some very familiar pieces here – The Merrymakers, By a Sleepy Lagoon, London Suite – alongside the ballet The Jester at the Wedding and two symphonic rhapsodies. All engaging and here splendidly played by the BBC Phil under one of the real champions of light music, John Wilson.

– Lark Reviews

'the performances are of outstanding imaginativeness and sympathy, the solo playing of great refinement, the atmosphere of each piece marvellously caught?A most distinguished achievement.' Gramophone 'With readings as affectionate and illuminating as these, Bax's music can rarely have been better communicated.' Hi-Fi News and Record Review Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 23-25 June 1991 (A Legend) Recorded in: Ulster Hall, Belfast 25-27 March 1986 (On the Sea Shore) and 10-12 February 1985 (other works) Producer(s) Tim Oldham (A Legend) Brian Couzens (other works) Sound Engineer(s) Richard Lee (A Legend) Ralph Couzens (other works) Peter Sheldon (Assistant: A Legend) Philip Couzens (Assistant: other works)

The renowned horn player Martin Owen is joined by the violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessandro Taverna in this varied and compelling programme. Mozart's Horn Quintet, KV 407 is one of the earliest examples of the horn in chamber music - although this partnership was embraced by Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Schumann among many others. The Quintet is unusually scored for horn, violin, two violas, and cello, but the majority of the melodic interplay in the work occurs between the horn and the violin, so replacing the lower strings with piano works very well. Brahms's Horn Trio was the first major work for this instrumentation, and remains one of the finest in the repertoire. The horn is often seen as symbolic of the forest - an important entity in German culture - and Brahms commented that his inspiration for the piece came to him whilst out walking though woodland. Ligeti's Hommage � Brahms was very much inspired by Brahms's Trio, although influences of Bartok and Hungarian folk music also play their part. In the final piece, Schumann's 'Duet' from Phantasiestucke, the horn simply replaces the original cello part in this ultra-romantic miniature.

One of the leading keyboard players of her generation, Sophie Yates is renowned as a performer, educator, and broadcaster. She writes of this programme: 'The Versailles of the seventeenth century was very different from the huge, opulent palace we know today... it was only in the last quarter of the century - after twenty years of work by architects, designers, and the landscape gardener Le N�tre - that Louis XIV moved there permanently... Music was extremely important at the court of Louis XIV (1638 - 1715) and, as such, provided work and patronage for a huge number of composers, dancers, teachers, instrument makers, and theatrical animateurs, supporting a whole artistic culture. The works in the present anthology are all drawn from this era of creative abundance... The cast of extraordinary characters who appear on this recording were all nurtured in the prestigious and wealthy court of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, their music is refined and intimate, prizing expressiveness over display and delighting in the colour and resonance of the harpsichord.'

For this third instalment in his survey of orchestral works by Ruth Gipps, Rumon Gamba, conducting the BBC Philharmonic, is joined by the horn soloist Martin Owen. The album opens with Gipps's Coronation Procession. The piece depicts the journey of the Crown(s), perhaps as observed from the Royal Coach, culminating in the entry to Westminster Abbey. Written in January 1953, the piece was not used at the coronation, and instead first performed in September 1954 in Melbourne, Australia. Ambarvalia is a memorial tribute of 1988 by Gipps to the composer and colleague Adrian Cruft, who had died in February 1987. Gipps wrote the Horn Concerto in 1968 for her son, Lance Baker. The piece was later championed by Frank Lloyd, who gave a BBC broadcast in 1982. Here the virtuoso Martin Owen brings the work vividly to life. The Lake District was the inspiration for the 'Impression' Cringlemire Garden, a pastoral miniature for string orchestra. Dated September 1942, the First Symphony is a direct reflection of the horrors of war. The work demonstrates Gipps's personal voice, and features some wonderful writing for winds.

Barry Douglas's acclaimed survey of Schubert's piano sonatas continues with this programme pairing the Sonata in E flat major, D 568 with the Sonata in G major, D 894. Published posthumously, the E flat major Sonata is a revision and completion of the D flat major Sonata, D 567. The original was written in June 1817, the revision soon afterwards. This sonata stands out in the canon for it's light-hearted, easy-going character in contrast to the more serious nature of the other sonatas. The G major Sonata, the last to be published in Schubert's lifetime, was completed in 1826. The work holds a special place for many pianists, including Imogen Cooper, Sviatoslav Richter, and Paul Lewis; the latter two have declared it their favourite, whilst Robert Schumann described it as 'the most perfect in form and conception' of any of Schubert's sonatas. Douglas completes his programme with two Liszt transcriptions of Schubert songs: 'Gretchen am Spinnrade', and 'Wohin?' (from Die schone Mullerin).

This volume of modern premieres of works by Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688 - 1758) was recorded in concert, the programme opening the 2023 International Fasch Festival, in Zerbst, the city in which he was Capellmeister to the princely court. Tempesta di Mare has had an ongoing love affair with the orchestral music of Fasch that goes back to 2007, when the band received images of manuscript part books for several as-yet unpublished orchestral works held at the Dresden Library. They have been investigating, discovering, and performing works by Fasch every season since then, and recording those that have not already been recorded - this album is the fourth volume of such discoveries. One of the things that fascinate Tempesta di Mare about the music of Fasch, which goes beyond the craftsmanship, expressivity, inventiveness, and wit, is his very distinctive voice. Plenty of other central European composers of his time were content if their music could sound like that of Vivaldi, Corelli, or Telemann. Those influences remain clearly present in his music, but Fasch does not sound like any of them - nor, for that matter, like Bach, Handel, or any other of his contemporaries familiar to us.

Edward MacDowell was the most highly regarded American composer of his generation, and the first to acquire a truly international reputation. Born in New York, he briefly studied piano as a teenager at the Paris Conservatoire, but quickly left to explore what he regarded as the more congenial musical environment in Germany. He studied piano and composition in Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, and then Frankfurt. After graduating in 1880, he remained in Germany for four years, before returning home, first to Boston, for eight years, and then finally to New York where he became Columbia University's first Professor of Music. The various romantic influences that shaped the style of the First Concerto include the music of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, and Grieg, whilst the technical demands on the soloist reveal MacDowell's prowess as a pianist. MacDowell's enthusiasm for the symphonic poem is reflected here by the inclusion of Lancelot und Elaine and Lamia. The former was inspired by the Arthurian legend as told by Tennyson in his Idylls of the King. The work is extremely narrative, and employs Wagnerian Leitmotifs to depict each of the characters. Lamia, written some two years later and based on the poem by John Keats, was neither published nor performed in the composer's lifetime. MacDowell had planned another symphonic poem, based on the French mediaeval tale La Chanson de Roland, but the work was never completed, and the two fragments included here are all that remain. Woodland Sketches, a set of ten piano miniatures, were inspired by the idyllic environment of the MacDowells' farm, in New Hampshire. The first of these - 'To a Wild Rose' - is by far the composer's most famous piece, and made MacDowell a household name in both America and Europe.

Busoni: Violin Sonatas

Goedicke, Rachmaninoff, Schonberger & Weinberg: Resonance

In a really committed performance like this Flavio stands out as one of Handel’s best operas.



HANDEL Flavio • Christian Curnyn, cond; Tim Mead ( Flavio ); Rosemary Joshua ( Emilia ); Renata Pokupi? ( Vitige ); Hilary Summers ( Teodata ); Iestyn Davies ( Guido ); Thomas Walker ( Ugone ); Andrew Foster-Williams ( Lotario ); Early Opera Company (period instruments) • CHACONNE 0773 (2 CDs: 146:23 Text and Translation)


Flavio , Handel’s fifth opera for the Royal Academy of Music, had its premiere in 1723. It was only moderately successful, achieving eight performances. One possible reason for this lack of success is the nature of the score itself. The music is written in a lighter vein than the heroic operas Handel had heretofore written for the Royal Academy of Music. Its style harkens back to his Venetian opera Agrippina . The music itself is of high quality, and the opera certainly does not deserve the neglect it has been subjected to over the centuries. Handel revived it only once, in 1732, for four performances, after which it remained unheard until 1967. This is only its second recording.


Christian Curnyn leads a very good performance that does full justice to this neglected work. He paces the work well and is respectful of Handel’s score. Although he occasionally tends to overuse the theorbo, substituting it for harpsichord at times, he is less guilty of this failing that René Jacobs in the competing recording. Da capo ornaments are generally tasteful and idiomatic. The orchestra plays with precision. Handel does not give the orchestra much of a chance to shine; most numbers are accompanied only by strings and continuo, with occasional use of flute or oboe.


The cast is also very good. Rosemary Joshua sings with accuracy and beautiful tone; she is dramatically involved in the role, as are the other members of the cast. Joshua’s performance is preferable to that of Lena Lootens on the Jacobs recording; although Lootens sings reasonably well, her voice has a hollow, white tone to it. Hilary Summers has a rather dark sound for a mezzo-soprano. She is quite good in her role, but she would have made an even better candidate for either of the two castrato roles; her tone is more masculine than either of the two countertenors on this recording. I prefer the more feminine sound of Bernarda Fink on the Jacobs recording. Honors are evenly divided between the Vitige of Renata Pokupi? here and Christina Högman for Jacobs.


Of the two countertenors, Iestyn Davies, singing Guido, the role written for the star castrato Senesino, is excellent, with an evenly produced voice of great suppleness. I prefer him to Jacobs’ Derek Lee Ragin, whose voice is not as well controlled or as attractive an instrument. In the secondary castrato role of Flavio, Tim Mead and Jeffrey Gall offer performances of equal value. The lesser roles for tenor and bass are capably handled by Thomas Walker and Andrew Foster-Williams.


David Johnson reviewed the René Jacobs recording in Fanfare 14:1. He found it to be a “splendid realization of this little-known Handel opera” but thought the work itself uneven. As usual, Jacobs fiddles with the score. At scene changes, he inserts a few bars of harpsichord improvisation or even orchestral sinfonia (but where the music comes from I’m not sure). His misuse of the lute is far more glaring than anything Curnyn does. But, like Curnyn, Jacobs’s da capo ornaments are mostly tasteful and idiomatic.


For any first-time purchaser of Flavio , I have no hesitation in recommending Curnyn as a first choice. Those who already own Jacobs’ recording need not rush to replace it. Both recordings give a very good account of an unjustly neglected work.


FANFARE: Ron Salemi


Flavio was one of the operas Handel wrote for the Royal Academy of Music’s company at the King’s Theatre on the Haymarket. It has a character all of its own, very different from that of “Giulio Cesare” which followed it in 1724. Although the plot similarly concerns power and sex, these subjects are treated in a wholly different manner. Some commentators have seen it as almost a comedy. Certainly there are moments that might bring a smile to the face of the audience. These include two successive revenge arias for outraged fathers at the start of the second Act. Also one of the main plot devices relates to who is to have the difficult job of Governor of Britain. There is little else that might be seen as comic to anyone other than many modern opera producers.

The plot is too complex to be set out in full, but in essence it concerns the rivalry of two elderly counsellors to the King of Lombardy. It is set in a legendary time when Lombardy ruled Britain. Their children and other courtiers are linked in various ways and the plot is set in motion by the King’s roving eye. The libretto was adapted by Nicola Haym from one by the Venetian Matteo Noris from 1682. Having heard and greatly enjoyed this recording I very much regret not having seen the version recently toured by English Touring Opera as part of their Handel opera series.

Nonetheless although it does not appear to derive from stage performances, the most distinctive aspect of this recording is its strongly theatrical feel. The recitatives in particular are paced and sung with real dramatic flair, and although my limited Italian meant that I needed to follow the text in the booklet there was at all times a feeling of real dramatic interaction. This is no mere concert performance and I felt as though I was watching a live event. Whilst always staying within the appropriate limits of period style (no verismo shouting here) all of the cast project a distinct set of characters with real feelings. The dramatic context is also projected in the arias - the only ensembles are duets at the start and end and a final chorus for all the surviving characters. All of the roles are well taken and it would be invidious to mention them individually, although the three female singers are particularly good, especially Renata Pokupi? as a courtier in love with the woman with whom the King has himself fallen in love. All of the singers reserve decorations for the da capos, leaving the first time round as the composer wrote them. This is much to be preferred to the alternatives of either omitting decorations altogether, which is dull, or decorating both times, in which case the listener is never able to distinguish which is by the composer and which by the singer. The decorations are well considered and for the most part the singers manage to avoid making them sound too obviously rehearsed. The orchestra, on period instruments, play with great panache under Christian Curnyn without indulging in the sort of exaggeration which some recent recordings of Handel operas seem to find necessary. The recording is clear if somewhat unatmospheric.

In the end it is the work itself that most impressed me. I had not heard it before, but I was wholly transfixed by it. Perhaps its relative brevity, and that of many of the arias, attracted me, together with a more interesting plot than most (albeit equally complex). Each of the three Acts has a distinct character, starting with a relatively light First Act, with many arias in triple time, but ending in a Third Act where the characters’ real feelings and difficulties are apparent. The very beautiful and affecting final aria for Guido is in the unusual key of B flat minor. There are composers who seem to gravitate towards remote keys when particularly touched by a situation - Sullivan is a prime example, but I had never thought of Handel in that way - I will look out for it in future. In a really committed performance like this Flavio stands out as one of Handel’s best operas. It should be in the collection of anyone who wants to experience the full range of his operatic creations. Collectors of recordings of his operas will obviously want this set, but it would be an ideal introduction to the riches of these works for anyone previously unconvinced of their merits.

-- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International

Sibelius studied the violin in his youth, and actively entertained the prospect of a career as a professional violinist for much of his student life. After graduating from the Helsinki Music Institute, in 1890, he went to Vienna to continue his studies, and while there he even auditioned (unsuccessfully) for a place in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. So, it comes as no surprise that the instrument plays an important place in his compositional output. What might be surprising is that he wrote only one concerto – this might perhaps be due to the difficult conception of the work. The first performance received mixed reviews, and led to extensive revision of the score. It was only when Jascha Heifetz in the 1930s started to perform the concerto regularly that it gained its place in the standard repertoire. Although there was no second concerto, Sibelius’s numerous other works for violin and orchestra are no mere miniatures, as the recordings on this album amply demonstrate. The acclaimed international virtuoso James Ehnes is accompanied here by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

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Sutton: Violin Concerto; Five Theatre Miniatures; A Fist Full of Fives; War Horse Suite; Short Story

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