The song was Richard Strauss' lifetime companion, from Weihnachtslied written at the age of six and Nebel written when he was fourteen, to his masterpiece, Four Last Songs, that completed his life' work.

Alwyn' approach to writing for the piano was essentially that of a romantic, born out of the tradition exemplified by Liszt and Rachmaninov, through to the impressionism inherent in the music of Debussy and Ravel. Influences aside, however, Alwyn fou.

Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, became famous for two reasons: The bloody double murder of his first wife and her lover and his passionate and erotic view of profane love.

Michalis Kontaxakis, First Prize Winner in the 2005 International Francisco T'rrega Guitar Competition, is considered today to be one of the leading young Greek guitarists. He studied the guitar with Vassilis Mastorakis and Costas Cotsiolis.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Frost Wind Ensemble. Conductor: Gary Green.

Barto is the most eloquent of them all.

Robert Barto’s distinguished Weiss recordings for Naxos have now reached volume nine. As before he demonstrates a wide range of tone colours, immaculate technical address and an unerring appreciation of Weiss’ quasi-improvisational style. The result is a trio of performances that in every way meets the expectations now placed in the lutenist. And if none of these works approaches the majesty of those contained in, say volume seven of the series (see review) then one must also concede that they nevertheless contain all those elements that make Weiss so noble, so expressive and so powerfully important a composer in this milieu.

The C minor sonata, cast in six movements, is by some way the longest and grandest of the three here. The extensive French overture is beautifully nuanced in all three of its sections, Barto’s technical armoury entirely equal to the demands placed on it and his colouristic sense fully engaged from the start. The Campanella-like Bourée sees him emphasise the bell like articulation implicit within it and he does so with brilliant articulation. As ever he plays Weiss’s slow movement with affecting lyricism; the most impressive in this set is the Siciliana of this C minor, which is taken at a suitably slow tempo. The concerto-like flourishes of the Presto finale are despatched with aplomb, the writing rich and externalised, and the playing virtuosic.

The F major [No.32] is an earlier work written conjecturally some time between 1720 and 1725. It’s performed in the Dresden version as three copies survive, representing two different versions. Its Allemande is refined and leisurely and full of decorative assurance but for me the highlight is the Bourée. Not only is this an example of Weiss at his most uplifting but it also reveals some of Barto’s great strengths – an ability to infuse the music with the most buoyant and immaculate rhythmic incisiveness allied to great warmth of tonal resources. These qualities are heightened by the succeeding cantabile of the Sarabande and by the Gigue that concludes the sonata. One of the revisions undertaken by Weiss was to replace a Gigue in 6/8 with one in 9/8 and the result is engaging and buoyant.

The final work stands at a slight remove from its companions. The G minor No.94 derives from a manuscript in the Glinka Museum in Moscow, music conjecturally brought to Russia from Dresden by Weiss’ pupil Bielogradsky. Whatever the exact origin or derivation it’s a small, charming series of dances with a delightful Paisane and a rare, early use of the Polonaise in its penultimate movement.

The recording, made in St Andrew’s Church, Toddington, is once again first class and Tim Crawford’s notes enhance this characteristically fine disc. Barto has competitors in Weiss recordings – Imamura and Lindberg among them - but for my money he is the most eloquent of them all, and this comprehensive series is a tribute to his skill and involvement.

Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Nikolai Kapustin. Soloist: John Salmon.

John Tavener' piano works are less well known than his large orchestral, vocal and choral works, yet at times seem to mark his stylistic and spiritual development on a more personal level.

LES PLUS BELLES PAGES POUR

After the Second World War, the Polish composer Tadeusz Szeligowski settled in Poznan , where he was instrumental in the formation of the Poznan Philharmonic and served as it's first director.

Hisato Ohzawa, one of the foremost Japanese composers of the first half of the twentieth century, studied in the 1930s in Boston and Paris. This second Naxos disc of his music features two works premiered by the composer in Paris.

SCHUMANN String Quartets: op 41/1–3 • Fine Arts Qrt • NAXOS 8.570151 (79.05)


This offering unleashed a flood of nostalgia. At the risk of dating myself (a truly bizarre concept if one thinks about it), my very first exposure to the Brahms and Beethoven quartets was from the eight hands of the Fine Arts Quartet—at its 1946 founding consisting of violinists Leonard Sorkin and Joseph Stepansky, violist Shephard Lehnhoff, and cellist George Sopkin—as recorded on the no longer extant Concert-Disc label. Those recordings were budget releases; back in those halcyon days, they cost just under two dollars per disc. The early stereo sound was more than adequate for the time, and the range of repertoire was exceptional—from Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms through Hindemith, Bloch, Bartók, and beyond. Having been more than favorably impressed, not to mention enlightened, by their Beethoven and Brahms, I felt emboldened enough to dip into their Bloch, Hindemith, and Bartók offerings, and became a modernist despite my then musically conservative leanings. In all cases the FAQ’s high-energy playing seemed informed by an almost messianic zeal, a quality that became increasingly apparent as I later acquired LPs and CDs of this repertoire by virtually all of the name-brand quartets available. The Quarteto Italiano could be more sonically elegant; the Guarneri Quartet more impressively symphonic; the Emerson Quartet more analytically cogent, etc. etc., but . . . ! In preparation for this review, I hauled out a few of those ancient Concert Disc LPs, which I hadn’t listened to in almost 20 years, and was astonished at their riveting freshness despite their undeniably dated sound.


As to be expected, over the years the FAQ underwent personnel changes. I won’t catalog them here since that information is easily found on the Internet. In this current incarnation the violinists are Ralph Evans and Efim Boico, the violist is Yuri Gandelsman, and the cellist is Wolfgang Laufer. On this release, all four ably uphold the FAQ’s legacy by providing edge-of-the-seat playing marked by probing insights into Schumann’s naively innocent German Romanticism. These three works are, despite their occasional backward glances at Beethoven, love letters to Clara—elaborated spiritual extensions of his ardent Lied, Widmung —and that aspect is vividly conveyed here. The FAQ, as with all practicing string quartets, has the advantage of hindsight, and here it vividly shows the kinship between the first movement of Schumann’s Second String Quartet and that of Brahms’s op. 111 Quintet. Schumann celebrates the freshness of Romanticism’s morning; Brahms, its melancholy sunset.


The FAQ’s intonation and balances are beyond reproach. Its ensemble is razor sharp in the quicker music, and in the slower moments its phrasing breathes naturally (no mean feat). Given the competition by such ensembles as the Emerson, Melos, and Takács Quartets, they shine. The sound of this disc is excellent—capturing the quartet’s distinctive timbre and steering a judicious course between linear detail and ensemble heft and mass.


In short, this is desert island stuff.


FANFARE: William Zagorski

Includes work(s) by Ferruccio Busoni. Soloist: Wolf Harden.

This recording is the first monograph devoted to the eminent composer SebastiAn Dur n, one of the most important musicians in Spain at the turn of the eighteenth century, who held the post of royal maestro de capilla at the Court of Charles II.

This recording aims to provide Robert Parsons, who died tragically in his forties, with a memorial service he never received and aid his return to a place alongside the greatest English Renaissance composers.