A Frauta de Pa, released in 1975 when Carlos Walker was only 19, stands as a cult masterpiece of 1970s Brazilian music. An album where MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) sophistication meets jazz-fusion virtuosity and psychedelic imagination. Featuring an all-star cast of musicians including Joao Bosco, Helio Delmiro, Jose Roberto Bertrami (Azymuth), Gilson Peranzetta, and Roberto Quartin, the record delivers a rich, orchestral sound that continues to captivate collectors and DJs worldwide.

Following the success of their previous album, English Music for Strings, John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London turn their attention to the music of Henri Dutilleux. His ballet Le Loup was composed as a commission for Roland Petit’s dance company and premièred in Paris in March 1953. Rarely recorded – this is the first recording by a non-French orchestra – the work unfolds in three tableaux and tells a convoluted tale of a bridegroom who jilts his bride (to run away with a gypsy) by persuading her that he has been changed into a wolf. Over time she discovers that the wolf is real, but her feelings turn from terror to love and when the alarmed villagers hunt the wolf, she defends him and dies at his side. The album is completed by three world première recordings of new orchestrations (by Kenneth Hesketh) of wind solos written for the Paris Conservatoire in the 1940s. Both the Sarabande et Cortège and Sonate pour hautbois are virtuosic tours de force for their soloists, as is the Sonatine pour flûte, which displays the lyricism, agility, and sparkling incisive qualities of the flute in what became Dutilleux’s most-performed work.

We're In This Love Together - Celebrating Al Jarreau was originally a kickstarter campaign project created by Chris Walker, Jarrea-u's protege and friend who spent twenty- years traveling the globe with the jazz- maestro. First released in 2019, it is now re-released by evosound. This musical tribute album, co-produced by Chris Walker & Larry Williams, features a stellar line-up of artists who came together to honor the seven-time Grammy winner from the jazz, R&B and gospel worlds; including Arturo Sandoval, Bob James, Dave Koz, David Foster, Gerald Albright, Kirk Whalum, Larry Williams, Marcus Miller, Nathan East, Regina Belle, Rick Braun and Will Downing. We're In This Love Together - Celebrating Al Jarreau is performed with admirable attention to detail and respect for the wondrous vocal craft and musicianship of Al Jarreau from open to close. Lifelong fans of Jarreau's work will take comfort and joy in the expertly delivered homage. Despite Chris adding his own flavor, the integrity of the music remains intact, creating a fresh take of some of Al's work. We're In This Love Together - Celebrating Al Jarreau is a Hi-Res Audiophile recording available on MQA-CD, hybrid SACD, 180g Vinyl LP and Hi-Res digital. MQA is an award-winning technology that delivers the sound of the studio. MQA-CD plays on all CD players. When a conventional CD player is connected to an MQA-enabled device, the CD will reveal the original master quality.

Havergal Brian's late creativity is almost unparalleled in musical history- in the last two decades of his life he wrote 25 symphonies. No. 7, the last of his truly large-scale symphonies, was inspired by Goethe's autobiographical account of his time as a student in Strasbourg. Symphony No. 16 is a tough single-movement work, evoking Ancient Greece and the savagery of the Persian Wars. In bright contrast The Tinker's Wedding is a sparkling comedy overture based on the play by J.M. Synge. The New Russia State Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1990. In 2002 Yuri Bashmet became it's director, opening a new chapter in it's history and bringing his own inimitable manner of interpretation, whereby each concert evokes the feeling that the music is being created anew.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a translation by Edward Fitzgerald of a selection of poems which were originally written in Persian and are attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. There are about a thousand poems in the complete volume. British composer Granville Bantock composed this choral setting of the works. Part 1 premiered in 1906, Part 2 in 1907, Part 3 in 1909, and the complete works were performed in 1910 at Queen’s Hall. This four disc set is the only complete recording ever made of the work, and is made up of original BBC Broadcasts from 1968 and 1979.

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REVIEWS:

Those who want to hear Omar Khayyam in all its glorious monumentality will need to buy the Lyrita set. it’s one of the monuments in British music that needs to be heard.

– The Guardian

Del Mar’s soloists sing with urgency and passion. A hugely enterprising addition to Lyrita’s ever-growing catalogue.

– Gramophone

This lively 1979 revival of the complete work is well coupled with other less rare Bantock, especially Fifine at the Fair. Del Mar, an eminent Strauss scholar, has a sure feel for the orchestral writing of this era, well paced and translucent rather than weighty.

– BBC Music Magazine

Brian’s Sixth Symphony, subtitled “Sinfonia Tragica,” makes an ideal introduction to his music. It’s full of evocative sounds and unusually (for him) arresting thematic ideas, and its single movement takes less than twenty minutes. The last few minutes are a Mahlerian phantasmagoria of march and dance tunes not unlike the wild outburst in the development section of the first movement of the German composer’s Third Symphony, but the final bars are hauntingly elegiac. Very well recorded once before for Lyrita, this newcomer is also quite well done, and has enough differences in tone and texture to justify duplication.

Symphonies Nos. 28 and 29 both date from 1967, and both have four movements that play without pause, more or less. No. 28 is only fourteen minutes long in total. Late Brian is an acquired taste, largely because of the music’s relentlessly contrapuntal textures, heavy orchestration with lots of low brass and percussion, and lack of simple repetition to permit listeners to get their bearings. Indeed, these pieces, and the brief, single-movement No. 31 for that matter, sound as though Brian simply chopped off hunks of music from some larger overall blob of material. And yet, the opening of No. 28 has an innocent simplicity of tone and texture that the composer never lost, and all of this music sounds like no one else. That is why it retains its peculiar fascination. It may not be “easy” or “friendly,” but it is distinctive, and the work of a strong musical personality with a definite message.

As with No. 6, the performances under Alexander Walker sound remarkably assured given the unfamiliarity of the material, and they are very well recorded. The Havergal Brian Society and Mr. Godfrey Berry underwrote this production, and they definitely got their money’s worth.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Guitarist, singer and songwriter T-Bone Walker was one of the most important and influential pioneers of the electric blues sound, specially the style most closely associated with the West Coast - he was one of the first to amplify his guitar, which he had done by 1940, and was a key influence on B.B. King and Chuck Berry. This 2014 collection is about as comprehensive an anthology of his most important recordings as it is possible to achieve. It comprises 124 tracks in a terrific value 5-CD set, and effectively encompasses every track he recorded through to the end of the 1950s. Beginning with two early tracks recorded in 1929, it includes important performances from the early '40s with other leaders' bands before the many sessions he recorded under his own name for the Black & White, Capitol, Comet and Imperial labels through to the mid-'50s, along with the tracks from the LP "T-Bone Blues" which he recorded for Atlantic in 1956-7, and which many consider his finest work. It naturally includes the blues standards and chart hits for which he is best known, such as "Call it Stormy Monday", "Bobby Sox Blues" and "West End Blues". It is a fine showcase for his distinctive guitar style and sound, and an ideal purchase for anyone wanting a thorough insight.

Alexander Grechaninov (1864–1956), an eventual Russian exile following the Revolution, was a member of the second generation of nationalist composers – he was a student of both Rimsky-Korsakov and Taneyev – he never abandoned an essentially Russian lyricism. These attractive unknown viola works are as good as unknown: several remain unpublished, and two are in Elena Artanomova’s own viola transcriptions. The CD is released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Grechaninov’s birth this year.

REVIEW:

Primarily known for his orchestral music, Grechaninov also wrote a sheaf of chamber works. That for viola has remained obscure. His Op.161 Sonata for viola (or clarinet) is unpublished which accounts for much of its obscurity and this is its first recording. Its premiere was given by Elena Artamonova and Nicholas Walker in London only in 2013, the same year it was recorded. The premiere was given in December but the recording was made earlier in June. Couched in sonata-form, and written between 1935 and 1940 the work proves amiable, songful and engaging. There is a high quotient of charm in Grechaninov’s chamber music, and that is an element that figures prominently here. His penchant for vocal composition ensures that the melodies are at all times winningly warm, not least in the lyric effusions of the central Canzona movement. I hear hints of Spanish music in the finale though there is certainly a strain of Russian folklore buzzing merrily throughout, and some passages sound almost like Dvo?ák.

The Second Sonata was written in 1943 and is actually a clarinet sonata, whose dedicatee was the great Simeon Bellison. The arrangement for viola is the work of Elena Artamonova, who has taken her cue from the earlier viola sonata and has dealt persuasively with questions of articulation and register. The work sounds convincing in its new form. Once more there’s a fine balance between the instruments, and an uncluttered and jovial quality. Toccata has gone to the trouble of separately tracking each of the variations that mark the theme and variations, with coda, of the second movement of this bipartite work. Here Slavic folk affiliations are to the fore, and a vigorous and engaging variation for solo piano too. I was most taken by the third variation where the piano’s gruff enquiries are met by a pliant viola response. There’s a viola cadenza before the spirited and exciting toccata-like coda.

Early Morning is a cycle of ten pieces written in France in 1930 for cello (or violin) and piano. It has been arranged for viola by Sabine Stegmüller and this is its first recording in this guise. Primarily this is a work of instruction for children, adept and engaging teaching material with nice descriptive titles à la Schumann, two highlights of which are the pensive In the Twilight and the deliciously deft Burlesque. In modo antico is a suite written back in 1918 for violin and orchestra or piano. This arrangement is Artamonova’s. It opens with a somewhat showy cadenza but continues in a romantic vein rather more than anything too self-consciously modo antico, though the movements sport titles such as Sarabande, Gavotte – played with deliciously zesty lift here – and Jig. Finally there are the two Grechaninov transcriptions of songs by Debussy, first published in 1946, which would make excellent recital pieces. Once again these are premiere recordings.

These richly lyrical works, all pretty much unknown, receive highly persuasive and stylistically apt performances from Artamonova – who writes the excellent booklet notes – and Nicholas Walker. Well worth getting to know, in fact.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

This is Garry Walker's third CD for Toccata Classics after two well-received releases of Havergal Brian works with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. On this recording he explores Matthew Taylor's Viola Concerto, a work that "reinforced his status among the most significant living composers for string quartets" (International Record Review).

Principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra, Adam Walker presents a recital of alternately lyric and dynamic music for flute and piano. A lovelorn song from Die schone Mullerin forms the basis of a set of variations by Schubert, and reflective songs without words by Poulenc and Barber offer mellifluous contrast with the dancing energy of Bartok, Messiaen and Poulenc.

Cold Blue Two is an anthology of fourteen new, previously unrecorded works—many of them written just for this CD. Enthralling music by John Luther Adams, Gavin Bryars, Rick Cox, Michael Jon Fink, Jim Fox, Peter Garland, Daniel Lentz, Ingram Marshall, Larry Polansky, David Rosenboom, Phillip Schroeder, Chas Smith, and James Tenney. Performers include Sarah Cahill, Guy Klucevsek, ETHEL, Formalist Quartet, John Schneider, and other fine musicians, including many of the composers themselves. It was a WQXR Q2 Music “Album of the Week” in 2012. “Darkly lyrical, evocative.... Whether plaintive, hypnotic, or enigmatic, this is music that is cool but not unemotional—and always a rich, twilit blue.” [John Schaefer, host of WNYC’s New Sounds] “This record pretty much kicks ass—an alluring, arresting document from a brilliant cast of composers.” [composer-performer Glenn Kotche] “The music by Daniel Lentz that opens this anthology, a solo cello line harmonically enriched through overdubbing, is graceful, understated and tinged with melancholy. The closing piece, Jim Fox’s filmic Colorless sky became fog, shares those qualities. They seem to define a Cold Blue soundworld, although these 14 previously unissued tracks, some specially commissioned, accommodate diverse and individualistic composers…. This is a post-experimental label, presenting work that subtly channels lessons learnt from radical sources into music that is unapologetically attractive and accessible.” [Julian Cowley, The Wire] “Superb…music that exemplifies refinement without at the same time being overly burdened by formality and convention.” [Textura (Cold Blue Two was on Textura’s “Best of 2012” list.)] “Listen closely: there is almost always a sharp edge hidden among these glistening surfaces…. The most casual listen to this haunted music-box, as often eerie or melancholy as it is soothing, is an unsettling experience, a quiet disquiet. Cold Blue the label and Cold Blue the anthologies are aptly named: cold and like a glacier or a clear winter sky, this music is as shiver-inducing as it is lovely.” [Daniel Stephen Johnson, Q2 Music, WQXR] “A sampler that confirms the tradition of American experimental music to be alive, well and in safe hands.” [Int’l Record Review] “A panoramic view of Cold Blue’s offerings, which are quite varied and yet make a powerful unified statement. These works could be described as beautiful oddities—some even devastatingly gorgeous, but always with a twist. Even if unapologetic beauty is not your cup of tea, worry not—upon close listen each one of these works sports frayed edges, chipped corners, or other subtle disturbances that turn it into a highly personal proclamation…. Each work contains treasures to be discovered within, and the heart-on-sleeve honesty of the works is not something one hears often.” [Alexandra Gardner, NewMusicBox]

English translation by Hugh MacDonald.

"...The casting shows the depth of ENO 30 years ago, with Eilene Hannan as Mélisande, more knowing, less naive than some portrayals, the baritone Robert Dean a Pelléas with just the right mix of muscularity and lyric grace, Neil Howlett the conflicted Golaud and John Tomlinson the pontificating Arkel." - Andrew Clements, The Guardian U.K.

Will be one of my discs of the year without doubt.

I have to admit to this being the disc I have most eagerly awaited hearing for some months. That being the case I am delighted to be able to report that it has fulfilled all my expectations if not exceeded them – let us all hope that the titling of this as ‘Volume 1’ really does augur well for an extended series of discs by this unique composer.
 
In recent years there has been a steady trickle of Brian’s orchestral works appearing on CD but when you dig a little deeper it becomes clear that these are in effect re-releases of performances where the originals date back some years. So in fact it is nearly ten years since the last ‘new’ recording – Psalm 23 on ClassicO [recorded 2002], then back into the 1990s for the abortive Marco Polo/Naxos ‘Brian Cycle’, the 1980s for EMI’s brief flurry of interest using the RLPO, and the 1970s for the Leicestershire and Hull Schools Symphony Orchestra’s brave traversal of several discs with Unicorn-Kanchana and CBS. This is by no means a complete survey but it gives you a sense of the piece-meal attempts to commit Brian to disc.  

Toccata Classics are proving to be valiant disciples of the Brian cause both on disc and in print. Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing the superb Havergal Brian on Music: Volume Two which Toccata have published. Both that project and this have been instigated under the watchful eye and guiding hand of the Havergal Brian Society and Brian expert Malcolm MacDonald. As part of the book review I commented - has ever a composer been so fortunate in their biographer / promoter as Brian with MacDonald? His knowledge, insight and understanding of this shamelessly idiosyncratic composer is little short of stupendous. That sense of dedication suffuses every element of this recording from the fascinating choice of repertoire on this well programmed CD to the fine engineering supporting excellent playing from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.  

I have to admit that I have not heard any of this music before so I have no frame of reference with which to compare the current performances. Suffice to say there is an air of ‘rightness’ and conviction that is vital to bringing off this often quirky music. Having read the two volumes of Brian’s critical writings has only increased my appreciation of him as a composer. I have a suspicion that even among his more famous composer contemporaries he was the most knowledgeable about the latest developments in the musical scene. His journalistic writing shows him as an enthusiastic supporter of an extraordinarily wide and diverse range of then contemporary music. This, to my mind, adds significantly to his stature as a composer in his own right for instead of producing a mish-mash of musical influences his own work remains strikingly independent. It is well-known that he was largely self-taught as a composer but the choices he makes; structurally, harmonically or melodically are never made through ignorance instead they are guided by a quirky individualism. And therein lies the rub for the listener new to his sound-world; it can often seem that musical material is juxtaposed in a random and almost obtuse manner. Here is where Malcolm MacDonald proves to be such a valuable guide. Whether in this liner or in his definitive 3 volume study of the Brian Symphonies he makes it clear that in what might initially seem ramshackle and even chaotic there is actually a very sophisticated control of form and structure. Brian is dancing to a different tune and it can take the listener some time to ‘hear’ his message. Conductor Garry Walker has become fully attuned to the Brian idiom. As mentioned before these are strikingly confident and convincing performances – orchestras are phenomenally skilled these days but to project such security and conviction as is heard throughout this disc requires those exact same qualities to be projected from the conductor’s podium. It is rare indeed that such complex and demanding music is first heard played as here and it adds considerably to the positive impact of the disc. On the evidence of this disc Walker proves himself to be an interpreter of distinction.

Another remarkable thought is the fact that the works performed here span an astonishing 65 years. The earliest work is the 1903 Burlesque Variations on an Original Theme. Never performed in Brian’s lifetime this is its first professional performance. But why? Some Brian can be tough to digest on first sitting but not this work – it has instant appeal. Written when Brian was 27 it represents his first effort at large-scale orchestral composition. He scored the work for a large romantic orchestra with triple wind, standard brass – but including four trumpets – extended percussion, two harps and organ. Lasting some twenty-five minutes and consisting of a theme and seven variations this is a well balanced and fascinatingly wide-ranging piece. Yes there are moments where the orchestration feels opaque and indeed clumsy but these are repeatedly offset by passages of remarkable power, mystery and beauty. Why Burlesque Variations? – MacDonald offers a fascinating opinion; variation form recurs often in Brian’s works and usually he chose to take a banal/simple tune and then expand the seemingly limited potential of that melody beyond all expectation. Hence the Fantastic Variations of 1907 – based on ‘Three Blind Mice’ or The Symphonic Variations of 1916 – based on ‘Has anybody here seen Kelly?’ are just two examples. It is as if Brian is trying a kind of alchemy transforming the base material of a simple song into musical gold. Yes, the influences are often clearer here than in later Brian and clearly Elgar provided a model but I am pushed to think of any other work by a twenty-seven year old British composer from around the turn of that century of such confident quality. Although I know others will disagree I find Josef Holbrooke’s music to have an empty bombast and reliance on musical effect to which Brian never resorts while York Bowen is interesting and appealing but never challenging in the way Brian is. The closing pages of these variations do try to lift the simple tune onto a grandiose level which is beyond both the melody and the composer (at this stage in his career) but elsewhere there are brilliantly achieved musico-dramatic effects. Try Variation 2 – Tempesto and the simply gorgeously poignant Variation 3 – Elegy that follows. The latter is the emotional heart of the work and opens as a gently regretful valse triste very much in the style of the Nedbal or Sibelius works of that name before building to a powerful strenuous climax way outside the remit of those pieces. The return to the reflective opening is typical Brian in the rapid change of emotional direction before he builds it back to a climax of cinematic splendour. Subtle it is not but hard the heart not to be moved on some level – I love it. Curiously the London publisher Bosworth published the suite which contains Nedbal’s work in 1903 and it became the composer’s biggest hit. But the similarity is one of form nothing more. But it does point up another fact worth considering here; Brian’s music never sounds “English” in the pastoral sense of the word. More ‘stout and steaky’ than ‘cowpat’.

Chronologically, the next work on the disc dates from exactly fifty years later. How typically perverse of Brian in austerity Britain to produce a work that by title alone would seem to belong to the light music world of Edward German or Percy Fletcher. For sure this is lighter music than much of Brian’s output but it has far more substance and muscle than the bulk of the light music repertoire. Not that it is at all in tune with the prevailing trends in 1950s contemporary music either. Again, one has the abiding sense of Brian writing music that suited himself when it suited him. This proves to be another piece of instant appeal with the heart of the work being the second movement Reverie. Throughout the whole work and the orchestral writing – angularly expressive but with awkward parts for solo instruments and some thrilling brass scoring – there is a scale and sweep that is very impressive. Clearly this is not meant to be a work uttering the profoundest thoughts and feelings of the composer but it does show the confidence and expertise with which Brian handled his resources. I would suggest ignoring the titles – I couldn’t help wondering if Brian has used such deliberately twee and diminutive headings in a provocative and ironic manner. Here is another curious parallel – the central pair of movements are scored first for strings alone – the aforementioned Reverie, and then wind and horns - Restless Stream. Vaughan Williams did much the same in his almost exactly contemporaneous Symphony No.8 – although the wind scherzo comes first before the string Cavatina. Not that we can accuse Vaughan Williams of any kind of plagiarism – Brian’s Suite was not to be heard for twenty years (neither can the accusation be reversed – the Vaughan Williams was not premiered until 1956). The closing Village Revels is also the final music on the disc – again ignore the title, this is quite unlike any revel I can imagine but it provides an exciting conclusion to all the works here.

MacDonald explains Brian’s recurring use of the term Elegy to describe movements or individual works. This was the title ultimately given to a 1954 composition originally called A song of sorrow. Brian renamed it some sixteen years later when reassessing his back catalogue with a view to publication. The rationale being that the original title implied a kind of emotional one-dimension that does not encompass the full range of this very impressive work. MacDonald points towards a definition that encompasses both the classical laments of Ovid and the romantic poetic works of Goethe and others. As a critic Brian wrote enthusiastically about Busoni and MacDonald sees a link with such works as that composer’s Nocturne Symphonique or the Sarabande and Cortege. But influence or inspiration is all this link should be seen as. Again Brian has produced a work as striking in its individuality as its expressive power. Jagged and rugged energy courses through this work. There are more of the typical Brian Symphonic fingerprints here, a sense of a restless quest the music searching and unstable. Yet at the same time there is an underlying feel of something grand and ceremonial. MacDonald sees it as a long slow struggle from C minor to the light of C major. Elsewhere on the disc I am a little uneasy about Brian’s penchant for almost hyper-active percussion writing. By my reckoning the percussion should point a moment in the score – dynamic alone need not be a factor – for Brian there seems to be a percussive ‘happening’ in nearly every bar. But here, massed side-drums set against tip-toeing xylophone creates some rather special effects. Again I have nothing but praise for the bravura confidence of the playing of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. There is some truly thrilling brass writing here dispatched with total aplomb. Much as I enjoy the discovery of the Variations on this disc if I had to choose one work to represent Brian it would be this Elegy. As this represents its first recording I would suggest that that alone is enough to merit buying this disc.

My only relative musical disappointment on this disc was with the Legend: Ave atque vale which opens it. In its own right it is remarkable because it is the work of a ninety two year old man. The title which means ‘hail and farewell’ is taken from Catallus’ poetic elegy to his drowned brother written in about 56 BC. MacDonald describes it as being ‘crammed to bursting point with disparate ideas’ which is a sympathetic way of saying perhaps it has not been edited or structured with as much discipline as earlier works. To my ear – given that this is NOT a judgment borne of extended familiarity – it sounds too rambling and disparate in its elements. Here the percussion has an absolute field day throughout without really justifying their continuous presence in musical terms. Possibly this is the kind of work that Brian’s detractors might single out as showing his weaknesses. However, it has the great good sense not to outstay its welcome and by representing just seven minutes of over an hour of vintage Brian no collector need hesitate on this piece’s account. On a positive note it does act as an extraordinary tribute to the undying vitality and individuality of Brian to very end of his long life.

Hopefully, it will be clear by now that I consider this a very special disc – exactly the kind of high quality combination of rare repertoire, performance and technical presentation that collectors hope for. For those as yet unfamiliar with the Havergal Brian I think this could act as an excellent introduction. On the recent Testament release of the famous Boult/BBC performance of Brian’s legendary Gothic Symphony the disc concludes with an interview with the composer where he underlines the fact that he wrote music with little or no expectation of hearing it performed. Instead he was responding a personal creative imperative that could not be denied. How gratified he would be to know that finally his music is beginning to receive the attention is deserves. A Volume 2 from this same team is essential and this current disc will be one of my discs of the year without doubt.

  -- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

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

Music by Jules Styne, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

Principal cast includes: Phil Silvers (Hubert Cram), Nancy Walker (Kay Cram), David Burns (Brains Berman), Nancy Dussault (Tilda Mullen), and John Reardon (John Henry Wheeler).

Recorded at the Manhattan Center, New York on January 8, 1961. Liner notes written by Steven Suskin and Mary Martin.

Swirling music with wildly branching roots that touch everything from Debussy and Delius to bop to techno. Sometimes lush and enveloping, sometimes brittle and percussive; sometimes suspended and motionless, sometimes agitated. This 16-minute CD EP features clarinetist Marty Walker with string quartet and electronic keyboards. “When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Daniel Lentz’s music is way out front.” [Kyle Gann, Village Voice] “With its slow, interlocking suspensions and white-note harmonies, Tigres brings to mind Sibelius, of all things—particularly the twilight pages of the Sixth and Seventh symphonies—with the exception of a contrasting section about six minutes in where the rhythmic intensity gets cranked up and the piece breaks into a manic Michael Nymanesque jitterbug…. But the jitterbug ends just a quickly as it began, ceding to a much more lyrical style that gives a prominent, concerto-like roll to the clarinet. If Lentz talked about some of his earlier cascading echo pieces as ‘spiralling forms of becoming,’ Tigres traces—with its expressive grand pauses—a more improvisational line of fragmentation…. By intriguing his listeners at the same time he wreathes them in smiles, Lentz always comes up with something listenable and worthwhile. That’s certainly true of this new release.” [Gramophone magazine]

This CD contains four of Adam's beautifully shimmering, texturally rich compositions for various combinations of one or two pianos and various percussion instruments. Features performances by noted pianist/conductor/new music champion Stephen Drury, who is on the faculty of the New England Conservatory and has recorded for Tzadik, New Albion, Mode and more.

Marty Walker performs music for clarinet and bass clarinet written for him by composers Daniel Lentz, Peter Garland, Jim Fox, Michael Jon Fink, Rick Cox, and Michael Byron. Performing with Walker are noted new music stalwarts William Winant, Wadada Leo Smith, Amy Knoles, and others. The music runs the gamut from a lush work for ten pianos and ten clarinets to a technically thorny solo and includes just about everything in between. Although the individual pieces are on their surfaces quite different from one another, they share a certain commonality—an embrace of music’s inherent sensuality. Critics have described Walker’s playing as “masterful,” “flawless,” and “true artistry.” Minnesota Public Radio’s Michael Barone called this album a “mild-mannered, soul-filling collection of contemporary ‘meditations’. . . think Satie and Morton Feldman, and you come close to the overall mood. Delicate textures prevail…the thinking-listener’s slow lane.” 21st Century Music magazine wrote, “If people are best known by the company they keep, then clarinetist Marty Walker is blessed indeed. He keeps wonderful company with an excellent series of composers…. Both the playing and the recording quality are sparkling.”

This recording brings together two of Los Angeles-based composer Fox’s haunting electro-acoustic works, The Copy of the Drawing, for spoken voice and electronics, and Last Things, for bass clarinet, pedal steel guitar, piano, and electronics. The Wire magazine called this CD “an austere, ethereal experience.” And International Record Review wrote of it, “Imagine a view of the sky on a brilliantly clear night, from an uninhabited part of the world: Fox’s music invites one to believe that if the stars, constellations and galaxies emitted sounds, these unearthly harmonics are what one might hear.” ClassicalNet commented that is was “Hypnotic…very impressive stuff.” The San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote that “the work is dreamlike, seemingly without beginning or end…it appears to exist outside of the realm of time.”