This disc is pure joy… Craig Ogden… has always chosen his recital programmes with wisdom, and, as a performer in the specialised realm of the classical guitar, he has opened our ears to the instrument's breadth of repertory and to its expressive potential. -- The Daily Telegraph "CD of the Week"

Recorded in: Mosfilm Studio, Moscow December 1996 Producer(s) Igor Veprintsev Sound Engineer(s) Igor Veprintsev

Recorded in: Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk 19-21 October 1992 Producer(s) Tim Handley Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan

Gian Carlo Menotti was sent by his mother from Italy to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and achieved nearly immediate success following his schooling: when he was just twenty-two, 'Amelia Goes to the Ball' was performed at the Metropolitan Opera. 'The Consul' followed several years (and operas) later, and was greeted with critical acclaim, both for its musical and dramatic strengths, but for its topical nature. The story of a young family yearning for freedom from oppression had great resonance in 1950.
Menotti writes both words and music for most of his operas, resulting in an extraordinarily well-suited marriage of words and music. His sense for setting the English language--particularly for a non-native speaker--is finely tuned, and his vocal lines are always sensitive to both the notes and the words, rather than the music dragging the text along.
This recording of 'The Consul' comes from a production produced and directed by Menotti at the Spoleto Festival in 1998. The presence of the composer and the keen musical and dramatic aspects of the conductor and performers make this an excellent set.

This admirable recital forms a sequel to Stephen Hough's Gramophone Award-winning Chandos disc of the A minor and B minor Piano Concertos (4/87). And although the music is less enticing and substantial, the performances less exuberantly virtuosic and elegantly inflected, these are decorous rarities played with an assured brilliance and affection. Hummel's Mozartian rather than Chopinesque bias declares itself most obviously in his Op. 73 Concertino, though even here, at 315" for example, the figuration has a recognizably Hummelian froth and sparkle. Too charming to be vacuous, such surface brio has little in common with Mozart's depth and subtlety, and for music of greater romantic range and ambition we turn to the A flat Concerto (music briefly in Jorge Bolet's repertoire), with its fuller scoring and lavishly decorated solo part. Lovers of a finespun, operatic cantilena will warm to the central "Romanze" and find the final Rondo alla Spagniola, even when it outstays its welcome, more than a prophecy of Chopin's E minor Concerto.

The Gesellschafts Rondo (offered here in a premiere recording) commences in solemn Adagio vein before turning to a more typically bustling and ceremonious Vivace. It may be that Hummel "puffed, blew and perspired" when he played but he won the admiration of Chopin (a hard master to please and one who turned Hummel's animation to rare poetic advantage) and his sheer style is infectious when projected with such unfailing expertise by Howard Shelley in his dual role as pianist and conductor of the London Mozart Players. The recordings are exceptionally well balanced, the acoustic pleasingly spacious.

-- Gramophone [1/1995]

Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 10-11 February 1992 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Richard Lee Jonathan Cooper (Assistant)

Recorded in: Dvorák Hall, Rudolfinum, Prague 21-22 September 1992 & 6-7 May 1994 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan Richard Smoker (Assistant)

Recorded in: Wessex Hall, Poole Arts Centre 9 June, 5-7 July 1996 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Richard Smoker (Assistant)

Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 6-7 February 1995 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Annabel Weeden (Assistant)

This disc received the 2000 Gramophone magazine award for "Best Choral Recording."
REVIEWS:
Fanfare (1-2/00, pp.213-214) - "...Yan Pascal Tortelier makes a completely convincing case for Boulanger as an outstanding composer, potentionally a great one. Good sound, and a most elegant design. This disc gets a very firm recommendation indeed."