Divine Art
141 products
Prevailing Winds / Stevens
Schubert: String Quartets / Fitzwilliam String Quartet
“The wide dynamic palette echoes a Schubert who wanted, with these two works, to "clear the flight towards the great symphony". The texture captivates, suggests individualities and unfolds beautiful lines, swinging between mystery, worry and melancholy.”
– Fabienne Bouvet (Classica)
Russian Piano Music Series, Vol. 13: Sergei Rachmaninov / Soldano
The major work in this second album of Rachmaninov’s works in the Russian Piano series is the First Sonata, a pinnacle of high late Romanticism. Less well known are the Moments Musicaux but they too are masterful pieces. Alfonso Soldano is professor of piano performance at the Giordano Conservatory in Foggia, Italy, following similar posts at Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome and in Trani. He was a student of Ciccolini and is renowned for his virtuosity. He was awarded the International Gold Medal for ‘Best Italian Artist’ in 2013 and has won many other competitions and is also a busy writer and transcriber. His previous recordings for Divine Art, of the music of Bortkiewicz and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, received glowing reviews. His Rachmaninov (Rachmaninoff for the American readers!) is equally magical.
Music for Organ by Carson Cooman, Vol. 11: Portals / Simmons
Carson Cooman is many things musical – organist and Composer in Residence at the Memorial Church, Harvard University; writer, critic and consultant, concert organist, and above all a highly prolific composer of music in a wide variety of genres, from orchestral to song. His organ compositions come in many styles, from liturgical models, to more gritty and substantial pieces such as his organ symphonies and preludes and fugues. This album contains several fine works including the Third Organ Symphony. Erik Simmons started playing the organ at age 10 when he was a chorister at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Glendale, California. His primary organ teacher was Richard Slater. Erik has furthered his studies by working with Lanny Collins, Barbara Baird, and Lee Garrett, and through master classes with various clinicians, including Harald Vogel. Erik holds a BA in applied mathematics and MS in mathematical modeling from Humboldt State University. He has recorded many albums, including an album of the organ music of American composer James Woodman.
Mozart: Piano Sonatas
Peter Hope: Wind Blown – Sonatas for Wind Instruments
Sawa: Music for Organ / Cooman
| Marian Sawa (1937-2005) began serious studies at the age of 14 at the Salesian Organ School, Przemyšl, Poland. He toured actively as an organ performer and from 1966 taught organ at several prestigious schools. As a composer he wrote about 800 pieces in various genres, centred round his music for organ. His music builds on the Polish post-Romantic tradition, knitting fragments from folk tunes and hymns into his work, drawing strongly on Gregorian chant and traditional Polish material. Sawa’s personal and individual voice makes his music very recognizable and though little known in the West to date, he can be considered perhaps the greatest Eastern European organ composer of the 20th century. The pieces on this album, composed between 1971 and 2005, demonstrate vividly the range, variety and often enormous power of his compositions. Carson Cooman (b.1982) is an American composer with a catalog of hundreds of works in many forms – ranging from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. His music has been performed on all six inhabited continents. As an active concert organist, Cooman specializes in the performance of contemporary music. Over 300 new works have been composed for him by over 100 composers from around the world, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of recordings of which this is his fifth for Divine Art. This recording of the exquisite Fleiter organ (2014) at St. Ludgerus, Billerbeck, was made using the Hauptwerk remote digital access system. |
How Great Our Joy!: Christmas Organ Music by Cooman / Simmons
Beethoven: Favourite Piano Music
Whitbourn: The Seven Heavens / Johnson, Cor Cantiamo
“From one piece to another, the language surprises with its variety, even if it remains suggestive, accessible, consonant, generous. James Whitbourn knows how to communicate. Remarkably interpreted… speaks to the heart and will conquer you.”
– Christophe Steyne (Crescendo)
“Imaginative…attractive… deeply moving. The performances could hardly be improved upon. Diction is clear, the choral sound is very well blended, and the music-making is both musically and dramatically satisfying. In sum, this release is one of the most enjoyable collections of new choral music that I have encountered in quite some time.”
- Henry Fogel (Fanfare)
Handel: Suites for Harpsichord, Vol. 3
Zephyr (Carson Cooman Organ Music, Vol. 8)
Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge
Christmas Card Carols / Stokes, Intimate Voices
Statkowski: Piano Music
The Mystery of Christmas
The Harmonious Thuringian
Bach: Italian Concerto, Partita No 2 / Burkard Schliessmann
This album demonstrates once again the sheer genius of Bach but also the individual and highly considered interpretative style of the performer. Schliessmann is not a purist demanding rigid tempi and 'traditional' baroque styling but recognises the inner soul of the music and brings it to life in a new way - thus this recording will be welcomed as a new approach even to those who know the works very well.
Also a special inclusion on the disc is BWV 906, which Bach left as a Fantasia and an unfinished Fugue. The Fugue was completed by Busoni who also inserted the Adagio, BWV 968, which was arranged for piano either by one of Bach's sons or by the publisher Altnickol. It makes for a highly rewarding complete work.
English Piano Trios / Trio Anima Mundi
Of the five English composers featured on this release, only two are really known at all – Coleridge-Taylor for Hiawatha and Boughton for The Immortal Hour – but all wrote wonderful music in Romantic style – rather under the shadow of Elgar, Delius, other prominent figures. Rosalind Ellicott had much success and performances in the 1880s before moving from orchestral to chamber music; Forrester was less prolific, concentrating on his teaching career, but has a fine impressionist voice. Warner was very well known as a violist and member of the London String Quartet; he was very busy as a composer with several chamber works, two operas and over a hundred songs to his name. The Trio featured here won the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Prize. Trio Anima Mundi is one of Australia’s finest chamber trios; since its founding in 2008 it has won several international awards and made special efforts to unearth and perform forgotten but worthy works as well as the newest pieces of today. Their previous Divine Art album won rapturous acclaim.
Chronological Chopin
Gal: The Complete Piano Duos
Cooman: Antiphonies (Music for Organ, Vol. 14) / Simmons
Carson Cooman is many things musical – organist and Composer in Residence at the Memorial Church, Harvard University; writer, critic and consultant, concert organist, and above all a highly prolific composer of music in a wide variety of genres, from orchestral to song. Recent counts show over 3000 tracks of his music available online with over 300 compositions written for him by more than 100 composers. His organ compositions come in many styles, from liturgical models, to substantial secular pieces such as his organ symphonies, preludes and fugues. On this album a range of works, most composed between 2013 and 2020, wonderfully realized on a fabulous instrument. Erik Simmons is a superb organist, making his 14th Cooman organ album for Divine Art. We hear the gorgeous voices of the organ of Propsteikirche St. Ludgerus in Billerbeck, Germany, recorded through the Hauptwerk system.
Stevens: Strings Quartets & Quintet / Botbol, Behn Quartet
The British composer Robin Stevens is a great talent waiting to be discovered by the global music community. His varied, stimulating and expressive work arises from many influences - from the music of the Romantic era, to mathematics, his faith, and the influence of his main teacher in undergraduate days, John Joubert, and he is now producing substantial works for varied instrumental groupings, which are modernist and original, but yet immediately accessible. This album contains the premiere recording of the String Quintet, an early work from his student days, rich in allusions to early 20th century works, but already containing many of the elements of his later work: tangy harmonies, intricate counterpoint, modal lyricism and often almost neo-Romantic expression. Above all the works are a reflection of the composer and his perceptions of the world and the people around him, yet at the same time universal in their appeal. The two quartets are very different. The first was written in 2008 after the composer had recovered from a 17-year debilitating illness and while his style was developing considerably as he undertook his Doctorate. Its single movement is rich in variety, using a small few thematic ideas in constantly evolving forms. The second, from 2011, is a study of three character types (not necessarily real individuals) which are each distinctive but clearly related. The Behn Quartet is formed of players from England, the Netherlands, Portugal and New Zealand. The group was formed in 2015 and has given recitals at major venues and festivals across Europe. Previously holders of a fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music they are now Associate Ensemble at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
“I can recommend this release. For myself, I found much to enjoy. Outstanding performances. Excellent notes from the composer comprise the accompanying booklet, and the recorded sound is very well balanced and clean.”
- Henry Fogel (Fanfare)
