Harry PARTCH (1901-1974), one of the greatest and most individualistic composers of all time, who created dozens of incredible instruments for the performance of his music, created one of the most amazing bodies of sensually alluring and emotionally powerful music of the 20th century. Closely connected with his name is NEWBAND, an ensemble founded by Dean Drummond, which received custodianship of the original Harry PARTCH Instrument Collection in 1990 and has since been involved with resurrecting PARTCH's great works.

Classical Music

Dawn presents Mike Osborne in both his earliest surviving recording, as a co-leader with John Surman of a quartet from 1966, and in 1970 with the first known recordings of his mighty trio with the transplanted South African rhythm team of Harry Miller and Louis Moholo. These unearthed recordings not only fill in important gaps in Osborne's own discography but in the history of British jazz as a whole. The first six tracks, recorded in 1970, are by his trio, his main vehicle as a leader and featuring his most long-standing partners in Miller and Moholo. The band only made two albums during it's lifetime, Border crossing and All Night Long. Dawn is significant for presenting the trio years before these sessions and demonstrating that the group's sound, marked by Osborne's tart melodicism, Miller's brawny lines and Moholo's propulsive freedom, was established at the beginning of their partnership. Listeners will then travel back four years earlier, with four recordings taken from a period when names now famous were just coming out from the shadow of Britain's traditional jazz scene. Osborne, 24, is there in his first recording, Surman, 21, in only his second, supported by Miller and drummer Alan Jackson. This was an era of formal suits and allegiance to the innovations in American jazz happening on labels like Blue Note and ESP-Disk', reflected in the performances and the material. In all, there is well over an hour of excellent quality, previously unheard and unreleased recordings here, as well as a 12 page booklet with informative liner notes and many previously unseen photos. This is an important document historically, but even more importantly, it's really great music.

LPO Principal Conductor Edward Gardner loves the music of Michael Tippett, he says, because of it's 'otherworldly, luminous and elemental' qualities, which 'strike right from his inspiration to a listener's heart.' In 2022 the LPO and Gardner released a landmark live recording of Tippett's opera The Midsummer Marriage, which won a Gramophone Award, and on this disc Gardner continues to shine a spotlight on this fascinating 20th-century composer. The ferociously difficult Piano Concerto is executed flawlessly by Steven Osborne, while the Second Symphony revels in the newfound clarity, intricate textures and formal rigor that would become the hallmarks of Tippett's later works.

Rachmaninov fans won't want to miss this was Gramophone's verdict on Steven Osborne's recording of the �tudes-tableaux, and this thrilling new release is an equally essential acquisition. Osborne proves a predictably fine exponent of the Faustian Piano Sonata No.1 and is no less compelling in the selection of shorter works which completes the album.