In 2018 I was delighted to accept the challenge of writing a Christmas song for clarinet and higher voices and decided to set one of my favorite medieval poems, I Sing of a Maiden that is Makeless. The poem tells of the miracle of the divine birth and is a paean to the mother of Christ. I became so fascinated with composing for clarinet and upper voices that I found myself writing three more songs, all celebrating the Christmas story. All four songs are grouped under the title, Songs of Celebration and they can be performed separately or as a suite. Oddly, the lyrics for Precious Gift, came to me whilst waiting in an NHS hospital waiting room. Perhaps influenced by my surroundings, I focus on the pain inherent in baby Jesus’ story! An epilogue from the clarinet expressing grief completes the story and turns the mood around in readiness for the final carol. There is No Rose of Such Virtue is another early 15th century poem equating Mary with a vigorously growing rose, a popular metaphor of the time. It was very gratifying to see the children in Gloucester cathedral choir singing this carol with gusto, relishing its beat boxing and glissandi which felt at once incongruously modern and yet perfectly apposite in the cathedral surroundings. (Emma Johnson)

Charlotte de Rothschild writes: “I never imagined, when I learnt my very first Japanese song Karatachi no hana -Quince Flower – by Yamada Kohsaku in 1991, that thirty years later I would be bringing out my fourth release of these beautiful songs. This is the third CD with piano accompaniment and like the other two, is a mixture of “kakyoku”, the Japanese equivalent of Lieder or Chanson, and of “douyou”, popular songs that are sung in schools and then throughout life. It has truly been a wonderful journey of discovery and the songs on this album show that the art of composition of these western-style songs continues on into the present day.”

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Utterly convincing performances in resinous sound.

The polarities of the life of the composer Egon Wellesz are to be found in Vienna and in Oxford. That there are these polarities is down to the rise of Nazism. The Third and Fourth quartets are products of the Vienna years. The Sixth belongs to Oxford written after he had spent almost a decade in that city.

Wellesz dallies with 12-note technique but despite having studied with Schoenberg his musical expression is much freer than superficial assumptions might indicate.

The Third Quartet bustles with ideas and styles. The second movement looks to the airy blossom-laden sweetness of the Ravel quartet where the first is more densely intense and with a much wider embrace of atonality. The Sehr gedent is openly lyrical - heavy with a probing and slightly tense cantilena. A chuckling and largely unclouded Anmutig bewegt concludes proceedings with some of the will-o’-the-wisp caprice of the much later Bliss Violin Concerto.

The Fourth Quartet was premiered by the Kolisch in London in 1922. Here incursions from France and Hungary are absent. Instead the work is more completely rooted in the Second Viennese school. The fourth of the five movements is spiky and excitingly guttural.

These are utterly convincing performances in resinous sound. Only those averse to the occasional intake of the players' breath will find anything to grumble about.

The Sixth Quartet was premiered at the Library of Congress by the Loewenguth Quartet on 12 November 1948. It is a concentrated four movement work - the shortest of the three here. The third movement is an affecting rocking-lapping Andante pressed forward with considerable power.

There are nine Wellesz symphonies all tackled by CPO and there are nine string quartets. The big Third Quartet dates from the dying throes of the Great War.

This disc offers three of the nine quartets. I hope that the Arttis and Nimbus will record the rest and will complete the Karl Weigl quartets begun with numbers 1 and 5 on NI 5646. After all they have recorded all four Zemlinskys across NI5563 and NI5604.

The excellent notes for this issue are by Calum Macdonald with assistance from Hannes Heher who also prepared this edition of the Third Quartet.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

"Although these works were written for lute or mandolin, Eliot Fisk has arranged them for the modern guitar. In an interview with him, printed in the booklet, he explains exactly what he has done and how he has created these works, always with a mind to the period of the compositions.

For many people, too many perhaps, the name of Vivaldi means The Four Seasons and the Gloria, but his output was huge including over 500 Concertos and 46 operas!

This is a very pleasant disk which presents some delightful music in suitably small-scale performances. Fisk makes the point that the lutes and mandolins of Vivaldi’s time probably had metal strings and this sound would add a certain percussiveness and piquancy to the faster movements – indeed, it would make a very welcome variety of tone colour if we had this sound in these works. As it is, with the modern guitar and its softer, usually nylon, strings which are plucked by either the fingernails or the fingertips, what Fisk has done is to round off the edges of the music, making it easier on the ear, but also robbing the quick music of, what could be, some very exciting sounds. Thus the opening movement of the Mandolin Concerto in C, RV425, which is delightful musically, does sound rather like a popular music group serenading under the window of the beloved. I wonder if this is wrong? It does seem to be a somewhat hybrid sound which I doubt is what could have been made of the music with a stronger sounding, metal strung, instrument. The slow movement, a soliloquy for the guitar, accompanied only by chords from the string orchestra, is a superb example of sustained playing, keeping an eye on the line, and taking time to allow the music to speak...

The Lute Concerto in D, RV93 has some fine string playing, the orchestra is much more prominent here than before, and there is a good sound spread between soloist and band. The finale is a real joy to hear. Without a doubt the highlight of this disk is the Double Mandolin Concerto in G, RV532, which works very well for two guitars. There is a real Venetian splendour to the slow movement and the outer, fast, movements are great fun."

-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

Selections recorded December 27-29, 1984 and December 18-19, 1986.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music