Mention the pianist Earl Wild and you will conjure the term virtuoso, indeed, super-virtuoso. A pianist who in Liszt's definition is ''called upon to make emotion speak and weep and sigh. He creates passions he will call to light in all their brilliance...he will call up scent and blossom and breathe the breath of life.'' All in all a cornucopia of pianistic magic performed with grace, relish and fluency by Martin Jones, England's most recorded pianist. This second tribute follows his earlier disc of Earl Wild's Gershwin transcriptions. Wtih his own distinctive voice he nonetheless reminds me of a recital given by Wild in London in 1982. Writing of that occasion I told of how ''seemingly millions of notes sparkled and cascaded from those extraordinary fingers.'' Today, Martin Jones, like his predecessor, gives new meaning and a new lease of life to virtuosity, a tired term resurrected. (Bryce Morrison)

Prokofiev has generally been represented as a rebellious enfant terrible - an image that he himself relished and encouraged. Yet he had a genuine appreciation of more traditional qualities: most obviously melodiousness and, rather less often acknowledgedk, the late-Romantic style of writing for the piano exemplified by his celebrated older contemporary, Rachmaninov. Prokofiev was himself a talented pianist. He was just five when he wrote his first piece for his own instrument. Russian pianist Ilya Yakushev, with many awards and honors to his credit, continues to astound and mesmerize audiences at major venues on three continents. His three-concert series at teh San Francisco Symphony's Prokofiev Festival under Michael Tilson-Thomas was named one of the "Top 10 Classical Music Events of 2007" by the San Francisco Chronicle. As a concert soloist, Mr. Yakushev has performed in Lincoln Center's Great Performers SEries, at the Tanglewood Music Festival and many more.

PETER & THE WOLF Menuhin conducts Prokofiev Christopher Lee (narrator), Hu Kun (violin) English String Orchestra, Yehudi Menuhin NIMBUS RECORDS

"Philidor is a wholly unexpected but ravishing delight, coming as he does after long periods of studiously formal French court music. This is Paris not Versailles: intimate, colourful, unorthodox and as brilliant as a shaft of sunshine cutting through a day of cloud. The music is full of uncloying sweetness, unlaboured grace and unforced elan vital, and it's played to joyous perfection by the virtuosi of Ars Antiqua who hit every note with such sympathetic warmth that you feel they must all have known Philidor personally. We can all do with happy surprises and this delectable music, superbly interpreted is one of the best you'll ever have.”

Simon Schama, Art Historian & Presenter of BBC Documentaries.

Founded by John Wallace in 1986 to explore and perform the extensive brass repertory, The Wallace Collection is one of the world's pioneering brass ensembles with an international reputation for innovative programming. After a twelve-year sabbatical, the ensemble was relaunched in May 2014 at a Park Lane Group concert in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Currently it aims to achieve the extraordinary and exceptional in brass through focusing on the music of today in close juxtaposition with the lost repertory of the 19th century.

Brass instruments have been prominent in Peter Maxwell Davies’s music since his Op. 1, a trumpet sonata he wrote the year he turned twenty-one. The focus of this record, however, is on music from a long quarter-century later: the Brass Quintet he produced in 1981 and a spray of pieces that came in the immediate wake of that major effort, including not only two smaller items for the same formation but also a horn solo that, though so different in scale, is related in substance to the quintet. Trumpet tunes continue the story into the next two decades.

Arvo Pärt understandably has top billing for this stimulating recital of 20^th century organ works, but don’t be deceived. If you are expecting a disc of spiritual reflectiveness you will be in for a shock. Rautavaara’s Toccata opens with a blistering fortissimo, and while the piece is highly idiomatic for organ with plenty of flourishes and drama, you will find tonal ambiguity, clusters and angularity, all of which make for quite a demanding opening. His Laudatio Trinitatis later on in the programme also opens powerfully, the ‘Praise of the Trinity’ expressed in terms which are darkly evocative rather than celebratory in the outer movements. The more gentle upward reaching parallel chords of the central Et Filii are reminiscent of early Messiaen. ‘That which is from God’ or ta tou theou is a prizewinning work which has its affiliations with Laudatio Trinitatis, and while there are some pointers towards Messiaen’s influence Rautavaara’s serial techniques create an entirely different overall effect. This is a rugged and at times enigmatically mysterious landscape, which makes spectacular demands on the performer.
 
Sofia Gubaidulina’s Hell und dunkel or ‘light and dark’ is another powerful work, which explores some fascinating sonorities from the organ. Close intervals and dissonance are conjoined with quasi-playful trills and runs, and dramatic gestures create the effect of ripping holes in the air. Also using close intervals but in an entirely different way, Arvo Pärt’s Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler also appears in an orchestral version on excellent the ECM ‘In Principio’ album , and is a fairly lively layering of material played at different speeds, a typical and highly effective technique of Pärt’s, whose shifting patterns create almost coincidental sounding harmonic relationships, invariably transcending the mechanical initial conception and structure. Trivium or ‘three ways’ has a medieval, plainsong feel in what is in fact an original melody. This actual melodic shape isn’t immediately apparent due to the register used in the first section, but once the ear tunes in it appears from within the texture of the ranging upper chords, strong in the central section, and quieter again towards the end.
 
Annum per annum is another of Pärt’s works which creates the atmosphere of medieval ritual, while simultaneously bringing us music for our own time. The opening and conclusion are certainly unexpected, the first a full blast of the organ and the last a mighty crescendo on a single open interval, with the central five movements a set of variations on the same material, the letter names given as titles for each representing the Mass sections to which they correspond. Pari Intervallo is music pared-down to its essence: a progression which barely moves, but still holding a mighty emotive power. Written on the occasion of the death of a friend, it is a dark statement which nonetheless holds out hope and a sense of eternity – its position on the programme all the more poignant for being placed directly before a work by a composer we have recently lost.
 
The final work is Henryk Górecki’s Kantata, described in Christopher Bowers-Broadbent’s booklet notes as ‘tough and uncompromising’. Long before the days of the famous ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’, Górecki was an avant-garde force to be reckoned with, and this piece is a monumental, granite-like work filled for the first four and penultimate five or so minutes with block chords of impenetrable density. The central section is one of low grumbles, the pedals drawing out portentous sonorities which are relieved only momentarily by vocal comments from what sounds like a bassoon stop. These low textures also conclude the work, certainly leaving us sadder and possibly making us wiser.
 
As ever with Kevin Bowyer’s performances this is a superbly played programme, and the Nimbus recording is also vivid and deep. Perhaps Pari Intervallo is a tad less elegant and reflective than Bowers-Broadbent’s recording on ECM’s ‘Arbos’ album of Arvo Pärt’s music, but having all of these pieces together on one disc is a useful idea, showing sides of the composer both familiar and surprising.
 
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

The selections on this disc were selected from medieval sources of chant and polyphony associated with the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and the monastery of St. Martial in Limoges. Some of the works have been attributed to Magister Leoninus (Leonin) and Magister Perotinus (Perotin), but the authorship cannot be securely established from the surviving sources.
PARIS, 1200. The Catholic Church has a firm hold in Europe. Notre Dame Cathedral is going up on the Ile de la Cité. But Paris is not Rome, and the geographic distance allows creativity to flow.
Plainchant was the only sacred music allowed in the church at that time, so naturally musical growth stemmed from it. As a first step medieval composers and performers added a voice moving in parallel fourths or fifths--the natural distance between the tenor and bass ranges--above the chant. After the parallel voice technique (organum) became accepted, the next creative step was to add a voice that expanded the notes of the chant into long phrases, and then to add separate texts to the different voices. The new poetry might even be in French and on such secular topics as love and sex. By building on chants without altering their pitches and texts, the church rule was followed in letter, if not in spirit.
Lionheart's performances will appeal both to fans of medieval classical music and to listeners looking for something similar to the CHANT of the Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos and the music of Hildegard of Bingen.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

MY FAVORITE THINGS • Stephen Hough (pn) • NIMBUS 2540 (63:07)


MACDOWELL Hexentanz. CHOPIN (arr. Liszt) The Maiden’s Wish. QUILTER (arr. Hough) Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal. The Fuchsia Tree. DOHNÁNYI Capriccio in f. PADEREWSKI Minuet in G. Nocturne. SCHLOZER Etude in A?. GABRILOVICH Melodie in E. Caprice-Burlesque. RODGERS (arr. Hough) The Sound of Music: My Favorite Things. WOODFORDE-FINDEN (arr. Hough) Kashmiri Love Song. FRIEDMAN Music Box. SAINT-SAËNS (arr. Godowsky) Carnival of the Animals: The Swan. ROSENTHAL Papillons. GODOWSKY Java Suite: The Gardens of Buitenzorg. LEVITZKI Waltz. PALMGREN En route. MOSKOWSKI Morceaux: Siciliano. Caprice espagnole


The superb British pianist Stephen Hough is no stranger to contemporary music. He is a composer himself. And yet this collection of bon-bons is unapologetically old-fashioned, or to put somewhat less pejoratively, quaint. These pieces are of the sort that appeared as encores on solo programs generations ago. Of course, this is not intended as a challenging recital; they don’t all have to be. Many of the works are transcriptions made by concert pianists, such as Liszt, Godowsky, and Hough himself, or original compositions from such giants of the fin de siècle golden age of pianism as Paderewski, Gabrilovich, Rosenthal, Friedman, and Godowsky again, and so there is no little razzle dazzle here. Lots of notes! And yet Hough’s playing is lovely rather than showy, with great finesse, delectably shaped phrases, and a celebration of pretty melodies. Nimbus gives us warm and colorful sound. If this material appeals to you, you are not going to get a better presentation than we have here. A bit of candy now and again won’t kill you.


FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

Pianist and conductor Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time, whose vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to the 20th century. A regular guest soloist with leading symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad, he appears in the most prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world.

While there are many recordings by brass ensembles which reflect modern jazz-influenced ideas, this one is distinctively "classical". More the better, for there is no other context that would do justice to Russian nationalistic music, its folk melodies and emphasis on brass and percussive sounds. This recording by the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble knows exactly what it is setting out to do, and it accomplishes that. These are interesting arrangements, holding to the original character of the pieces, slightly lighter and more buoyant. Yet, Russian is Russian. The 'Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla' starts the disc with familiar melodic fanfare, while the Sextet for Brass by Böhme contains extremely lyrical passages, reminding one of the beautiful, plaintive qualities available from the trumpet.
The boldest work on the disc is a transcription for brass quintet of the piano work, 'Pictures at an Exhibition' by Modest Mussorgsky. The Ensemble catches the mood of each of the shorter pieces with great flair and cleverness. The playing is all virtuosic and deft, never heavy. This is a new light to shed upon traditionally heavy music, yet without loss of color, integrity, or mood.