Wit and humour abounds in this collection of songs, sung by Ian Partridge with intelligence and lack of affectation, and piano music, most sensitively done by Len Vorster.

Berners has been very thoroughly and stylishly documented at the orchestral level by Marco Polo. Now they offer a complement to those four discs from among his songs and piano music. Berners, the eccentric, is very evident here. His links were not at all with British pastoralism or Celtic adventures or Oriental pictorialism. His world encompassed Stravinsky, Casella and Diaghilev. Rather than dwell in detail on this anthology let me say that the disc is well recorded and is the stronger for Michael Hurd's intelligent notes. I wish he could have been allowed more space to expand his comments. All the texts are present in the insert.

The variety of approach (excluding the British-linked styles mentioned above) is quite wide. Berners had the ability to breathe in and creatively reflect and modestly extend various styles. His sensibility is more nearly Gallic or, more accurately, Continental than it is British. He is a British composer only by accident of birth. Berg, Zemlinsky, Satie and Milhaud - all these names leap more readily to mind than any of his countrymen when listening to this music. If you must find Brits with whom to link him then he is most closely thought of in relation to the internationalism of Lambert and Goossens and early Walton (Facade).

The music is attractive and well sung. Ian Partridge is a singer for whom I have the highest regard. His intelligence coupled with clarity of diction and lack of affectation place him well above more venerated names. The idea of combining songs and solo piano music (most sensitively done by Len Vorster) is a good one. Wit and humour is to be heard in both genres. The Trois Petites Marches Funèbres (1916) complete with one march lampooning the fate motif from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (also jollied up by Peter Warlock in one of his uproarious Cod-Pieces) shows the linkage with Satie. Music-Hall songs such as Red Roses and Red Noses add to the flavour of quirky humour. While the Bartokian assaults of the Fragments Psychologiques give further depth and variety.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

The operas of Siegfried Wagner, first son of Richard Wagner and grandson of Liszt, are gaining recognition as important works in their own right, as this new recording of his thirteenth opera, Der Schmeid von Marienburg, shows.

Both stylistically and geographically, Frank Corcoran's music is literally a long way from Tipperary, where he was born in 1944. The Hamburg-based composer studied with Boris Blacher, whose feisty orchestration and logical cool rubbed off on his pupil. Corcoran's sound world, though, evokes the steel-edged structures of Edgar Varèse, as well as Elliott Carter's complex yet pliable metric schemes. Every shape and size of percussion dominates the thematic discourse, while the wind and brass players provide punctuating signposts. The lower strings grunt and groan in fractured, half-remembered melodies, trying to find their rightful corner within Corcoran's spacious, yet tersely woven canvasses. Descriptions, however, only hint at Corcoran's freshness of invention and superb ear for timbral contrasts. The performances are fluent, assured, and superbly recorded. Anyone who harbors doubts about the future of the symphony will find these three works quivering with possibilities. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Berners: Carrosse Du Saint-Sacrement (Le)

Herrmann: Snows of Kilimanjaro (The) / 5 Fingers

ZIEHRER: Selected Dances and Marches, Vol. 3

Includes song(s) by John Francis Larchet, Sir Charles V. Stanford, various composers. Soloists: Bernadette Greevy, Hugh Tinney.

Those who’ve followed Marco Polo’s Louis Spohr string quartet cycle from its inception will know what to expect from this final installment. Both the A major and B minor quartets are extremely well written for the medium, contain lovely tunes all around with lots of chromatic surprises, and feature the first violin working overtime in the virtuosity department. Some of the Op. 61 Allegretto finale’s modulations are as fancifully discursive as Schubert’s, while the Op. 30 Adagio owes more than a little to Mozart’s K. 428 quartet.

However, original touches leap out, such as the Op. 30 Menuetto’s full-bodied pizzicato accompaniments, and the D minor Variations’ ingenuous yet formidably difficult figurations. In fact, the long Op. 61 opening Allegro might be described as a violin concerto that gives no respite whatsoever to the soloist! The Moscow Concertino Quartet doles out plenty of warmth and expressive nuance in the way of vibrato and portamento, although the rather grainy sonics exaggerate the ensemble’s timbral stridency in loud passages and occasional intonation problems. Still, the performances’ virtues largely outweigh the drawbacks: sample the well-controlled transitions and sustained soft playing in the lengthy yet consistently interesting Op. 30 finale to hear the Moscow musicians at their best. Self-recommending to Spohr fans.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

LUMBYE: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3

VILLA-ROJO: Orchestral Music

This seventeenth volume in Marco Polo' popular Johann Strauss I Edition celebrates the internationally adulated Viennese composer' unflagging ability to create dance music for all occasions and to stimulate a public avid for ever-new entertainment.

Regarded as the father of Finnish music, Fredrik Pacius was the composer of the first Finnish opera, the Hunt of King Charles, which had it's premiere in Helsinki in 1852. At that time the language of the theatre and the opera house was Swedish.

ROPARTZ: Masses and Motets

With their melodic richness, sparkling instrumentation, originality of invention and irresistible momentum, Johann Strauss the Elder' compositions of 1845-46 are among his most memorable.

Ka Ta Mei Ling: Popular Chinese Orchestral Music