Classical Music

Berg: Lulu

Recorded in: Orchestra Hall, Detroit 28-29 January 1993, 26-27 March 1994 & 23 May 1994 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Charles Greenwell Leslie B. Dunner Sound Engineer(s) Dan Dene Robert Shafer

All proceeds earned by the Eaken Piano Trio from this recording will be donated to Habitat for Humanity, International.

Messiah was written with Handel's usual speed in 1741 for performance in Dublin, some of it rehearsed briefly by inadequate singers in Chester, as he made his way to Holyhead to embark for the voyage. The first performance was given at the New Music Hall in Fish-amble Street, Dublin, on 13th April, 1742, in aid of charity. The first London performance took place in Lent 1743 at Covent Garden, but the work failed to please, in part because of reservations that some held about the suitability of such a sacred subject for a theatre. Messiah only achieved it's lasting success after performances in 1750 in aid of the Foundling Hospital, established ten years earlier by Captain Thomas Coram. At his death in 1759 Handel left a fair copy of the score and all parts to the Hospital, an institution that continued to benefit from annual performances of the work. The Scholars Baroque Ensemble: The scholars Baroque Ensemble was founded in 1987 by David van Asch with the idea of complementing the "a-capella" work of the vocal ensemble The Scholars. This group, consisting also of the soprano Kym Amps, counter tenor Angus Davidson and tenor Robin Doveton, has had worldwide success during the last twenty years. The members of THE Scholars Baroque Ensemble are all specialists in the field of Baroque music and play original instruments (or copies) using contemporary techniques, singers and players work together without a director to produce their own versions of great masterpieces such as the St. John Passion by Bach, the 1610 Vespers by Monteverdi, Dido and Aeneas and The Fairy Queen by Purcell, the Messiah and Acis and Galatea by Handel, all of which are being released by Naxos. Concert performances by the ensemble have been highly praised by critics and audiences alike.

Classical Music

Nunkomm, der Heiden Heiland (Now come, Saviour of the Heathen) appears in three versions. The chorale on which it is based is Martin Luther's adaptation of the original Ambrosian hymn Veni Redemptor gentium. The first of these, for two manuals and pedals, opens with the first measures of the chorale theme in the tenor, imitated at once in the alto register, over a constantly moving pedal bass. The melody is then elaborated in the upper part to form an ornamented line. The second treatment of the chorale is in the form of a Trio, three melodic lines, one for each hand and one for the pedals. Here a contrapuntal imitative opening by the two lower parts is followed by the appearance of the ornamented chorale theme, to which the two lower parts provide a postlude in conclusion. The third version of Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland is described as in organo pleno, il canto fermo nel pedale (for full organ, with the chorale melody in the pedal part). An introductory contrapuntal passage derived from the chorale leads to the solemn appearance of the chorale itself in the lowest register, successive pedal entries preceded by similar prefatory passages. The canonic variations on Vom Himmel hoch (From Heaven on high) were apparently written in 1747 and offered by Bach when he was admitted to the polymath Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof's Correspondierenden Societ�t der Musicalischen Wissenschaften (Corresponding Society of the Musical Sciences). Bach was the fourteenth of a membership limited to twenty scholars and musicians, including, among those now better remembered, Telemann and Handel. The Christmas chorale by Martin Luther first appears in the pedal part of a Canon at the Octave that involves the two upper parts in such canonic imitation. The cantus firmus is again heard in the pedals, in the second Canon at the Fifth, followed by the chorale melody itself in canon at the sixth and in inversion in the lower voice, accompanied by a moving pedal part. Once the chorale has been heard in this form, Bachadds a canon at the third, with the upper part entering first with an inversion of the melody. A canon at the second follows, between the pedal bass and tenor in inversion, and then, at the ninth, between a pedal inversion and the top voice. This varied treatment of the cantus firmus itself leads to a Canon at the Seventh between the pedals and tenor. A Canon in Augmentation sets an augmented tenor part in canon with a more rapid upper part, with the steadier chorale melody introduced by the pedals. The Canonic Variations constitute a remarkable technical and musical tour de force.

One of the first truly American-born and -bred composers, Leo Sowerby wrote organ music that came straight from the heartland. From his early studies in Grand Rapids, Michigan to his successful career in Chicago, Sowerby revitalized organ music with a body of work rivaling Bach in terms of both quantity and quality.
Sowerby was fascinated by traditional forms, and his 'Classic Concerto' explores many of these structures. Within its three brief movements, it gives an excellent introduction to Sowerby's playful sense of harmony. 'Medieval Poem' and 'Pageant,' both written earlier, also delve into traditional themes.
'Festival Musick' is an audience favorite, bright and playful. Its sense of humor is evident to occasional listeners as well as those more intimately versed in organ music. Composed during a single week in summer, it is one of Sowerby's last compositions.
Both organists involved with this album have the remarkable technical skill and performing panache to bring Sowerby to life. The rich sound of the organ at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City and accompaniment of the Fairfield Orchestra have been captured masterfully. WORKS FOR ORGAN AND ORCHESTRA is a well-performed and expertly engineered recording.

This recording celebrates Sousa's important early associations with dance and the music theatre. Picture a young John Philip Sousa, a tiny young man aged eleven, confidently standing in front of a group of much older musicians, playing his violin in the style of the famous Strauss and leading his own popular dance orchestra as Washington's society swirls and dances in front of him. It is impossible to overestimate the effect this interaction of the young man, his orchestra and the dancers was to have on the later Sousa -the composer to be. He was once quoted as saying, "I want my marches to make a man with a wooden leg stand up and dance." The dance never left him. Dancing rhythms for ever permeated his compositions, marches and dances alike. A young Dance Prince begat the March King. Soon also, his musical activities brought him to the theatre, where he began to experience the close and often raucous give and take of audience and performer that constituted the popular side of nineteenth century American theatre and early vaudeville. By the age of 21 he was the leader, arranger and concert master of the orchestra at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Later he led the Chestnut Street Theatre Orchestra in Philadelphia. Once again the magical chemistry of music and rhythm, as it reaches for audiences, became central to the composer's thinking. While many of the dances found here stem from this early period of Sousa's life, these initial encounters with the infectiousness of music and how it infuses dancers and listeners never left him. Throughout his long and sparkling career he continued to write music for each new craze: waltzes, gallops, two-steps, gavottes, tangos, cakewalks, rags, polkas, marches of course, and sometimes even a foxtrot or two.

The first real school of American composers arrived in the last quarter of the 19th century and were known as the Boston classicists. Comprised largely of well-to-do New Englanders who were trained in Europe by way of Harvard and worshipped Brahms, they were a pretty conservative bunch all around. Prominent among them was Arthur Foote of Salem, Massachusetts. His studies with John Knowles Paine at Harvard culminated in the first graduate degree in music ever granted by an American university and though he did not go on to study in Germany, he spent the following summer at Bayreuth soaking up the rays before returning to Boston to teach, compose and serve as choirmaster and organist of the First Unitarian Church.
Foote's chamber music is strongly influenced by Mendelssohn and Brahms, neoclassical in outlook, graceful and lyrical with little hint of storm or stress. This disc, featuring the Piano Quintet along with the Op. 32 and Op. 70 string quartets, is one of two of all-Foote releases which are part of Naxos' admirable American Classics series. The recordings feature the Da Vinci Quartet, a very good Colorado-based ensemble which has undertaken the performance of all of this composer's chamber works.

Classical Music

World premiere recordings of sacred music by a forgotten master of the Spanish Baroque. As maestro de capilla (Capellmeister/Music director) of the choir and music of the cathedrals in Seville and Cuenca, Alonso Xuárez (1640-1696) made valuable contributions to Spanish polychoral literature which have, as yet, barely been recognised beyond academic circles. This album of new recordings begins to bring his name to a wider audience with a selection of pieces discovered in the archives of Cuenca Cathedral, edited for performance and recorded by an ensemble with extensive experience in the field of the Spanish Baroque.

The resulting portrait of Xuárez reveals a remarkably individual figure, pushing the boundaries of form and harmony for his time but always beautifully conceived for the rich forces at his disposal. Little is known of Xuárez’s early life and formation. His father probably educated him in music, at least until he became a pupil of Tomás Micieces in the late 1650s. By 1664, his talents were sufficiently developed as to be worthy of the post of music director in Cuenca. He appears to have retained some influence over the musical organization there once he moved to Seville in 1675, and then returned to Cuenca in 1684. His surviving work, as represented here, embodies the Spanish polychoral style of the time, blending Italianate counterpoint with spectacular antiphonal writing conceived for multiple ensembles to fill the space of the cathedral.

The Missa surge propera is written for a rich, seven-voice texture, and the motets are even more ambitious, exploiting the colours and effects made available by eight and even nine separate parts. The performances recorded here follow the style of the time in making use of instrumental accompaniment – not just organ but viola da gamba and harp. This is a superb addition to the distinguished Brilliant Classics discography of Amystis, which has already attracted international praise for its adventurous repertoire and polished performances. ‘Chenoll has an endearing way of letting his singers express the music with a natural flow free of effects.’ (Fanfare – Comes, 95231). ‘An original and enlightening album.’ (Fanfare – ‘Masters of the Spanish Renaissance, 96409).

Paganini was the first great ‘star’ of instrumental music, the precursor of the rock stars of today, able to induce collective hysteria as well as to dictate fashion and to influence the behaviour of entire generations. He did this by transforming the violin into an orchestra of multiple voices and timbral experimentation, in other words, stretching the very limits of what a single instrument could do.

This programme is particularly interesting, both for the quality of the performances as well as the new chamber-string versions created by Francesco Fiore and Salvatore Lombardo. It also juxtaposes extremely popular Paganini works alongside compositions not very often heard in the concert hall but which help flesh out our understanding of the artistry of a composer too often misjudged as merely an acrobat of the violin. In four of Paganini’s best-known compositions – the ‘Campanella’ (Bell) movement from the Violin Concerto No.2, the Moses Fantasy, the Witches’ Dance and the Cantabile – the solo violin is here accompanied by a string quintet. In the first three, the string quintet stands in for the orchestra with a consequent lightening of accompaniment. In the Cantabile, the original of which was for violin and piano (Paganini’s only piece to be accompanied by keyboard rather than guitar), the ‘heavier’ quintet accompaniment still manages to retain a discreet sense of enjoyable sophistication.

The next two works, Nos. 6 and 3 of the 6 Sonatas Op.3 for violin and guitar, are presented here in transcriptions for two or three violins. These two sonatas, written in the salon style typical of the age, delight the listener with the conversational nature of the violin writing. Finally come three compositions in their original versions, providing an excursion into a lesser-known, but still very interesting, area of Paganini’s chamber output. The three Duetti concertanti for violin and cello were written for the enjoyment of amateur players, each comprising two movements

‘I play Bach every day,’ said Shostakovich in 1950, at an event to mark the bicentenary of Bach’s death. ‘For us, Bach's legacy is an embodiment of flaming emotion, soulful humanity and true humanism, which stands in contrast to the dark world of raw evil and contempt for humanity.’

Taking their inspiration from these words, and from the palpable influence of Bach on the solid forms and fluent counterpoint of Shostakovich’s own music, this quartet of musicians presents an entirely original pairing of the two composers, in which cantata arias and a major song-cycle are linked and interspersed by instrumental interludes.

The German soprano Dorothee Mields is renowned for her piercing musicianship and luminous tone in the music of Bach, working with such illustrious conductors as Rene Jacobs and Philippe Herreweghe. Her contributions to recent recordings in this field have been called ‘sensational’ and ‘ravishing’ by Gramophone.

Here she sings recitatives and arias from seven cantatas, including the meditative opening movement of ‘Ich bin in mir vergnügt BWV204’. The trio-sonata accompaniment brings her expressive handling of the text to the fore, and prefaces the arias with the G major Sonata BWV1021 for violin and continuo, while Luca Quintavalle contributes the sixth Prelude and Fugue from Book 2 of ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’. Switching to piano for Shostakovich, Quintavalle plays the D major Prelude and Fugue from the Russian composer’s counterpart to the WTC. The early Piano Trio No.1 makes a Romantically yearning preface to the late settings of Alexander Blok which Shostakovich composed alongside the song-cycle Fourteenth Symphony. These songs find the composer at his most introspective, unsparing and yet rewarding of the subtlety which Mields brings to them. The idioms of Bach and Shostakovich complement as much as they contrast, and they are drawn together here by performances of powerful eloquence.

While Clementi’s sparkling music has been recorded by many celebrated pianists such as Arturo Benedetti MIchelangeli, few of them have paid much attention to the composer’s first published collection. This new recording by Carlo Alberto Bacchi is all the more welcome for being informed by his study of the composer’s complete oeuvre as part of the ‘Clementi Project’ which sees him performing many of the sonatas in concert as well as recording them for Piano Classics.

The inscription on Clementi’s tomb in Westminster Abbey commemorates him as ‘the father of the piano’. Clementi above all was responsible for devising a modern technique, of the kind still recognisable today, which would serve pianists on the larger instruments being manufactured in the early years of the 19th century. This technique is differentiated from harpsichord technique, and trained not just through lessons but through pianistic ‘methods’ and publications such as these sets of sonatas, which are arranged in order of progressive difficulty in order to introduced students to technical challenges step by step. Like Mozart, Clementi also manifested his musical talents at a very early age: at the age of 7, he was already studying organ, singing and counterpoint; he wrote a mass at the age of 11 and an oratorio at the age of 12.

The English nobleman and eccentric Sir Peter Beckford effectively bought the young Clementi on a seven-year contract and kept him at his West Country pile. When the contract with Beckford expired in 1774, Clementi moved to London and took off on a career that brought him fame across Europe – as a touring virtuoso, a teacher, publisher – and even sometimes composer. The six Op.1 sonatas were published in 1771, during Clementi’s period in service to Beckford. Although he was not yet 20 and almost completely self-taught, they show his mastery of material and his irrepressible invention. All the sonatas have a simple, playful and light-hearted character, and a two-movement form. The five Sonatas of Opus 1a, on the other hand, date from a decade later, even after the Op.6 Sonatas. They were published in Paris around 1781, and here we sense the stirrings of Clementi as ‘father of the piano’ in the cascades and doublings and expanded imagination.

Young pianist Philipp Kopachevsky has already gained an audience of admiration in his short career. As a soloist of the Moscow State Academic Philharmonic, he regularly appears in recital under the finest conductors and in the most renowned concert halls across the globe. For this recording Kopachevsky has chosen Alexander Scriabin’s Preludes Op. 11, as well as works by Franz Liszt. These recordings were taken in October of 2015 in the beautiful acoustics of the Westvest Church, Shiedam, The Netherlands.

This album features Christmas music for the piano in a timeless journey through the decades and centuries. These songs have been through a remarkable evolution over the course of several centuries, with the changes they have undergone reflecting the shifting musical styles and cultural influences that prevailed in various times.

In her new album "Solitude," soprano Katharina Konradi embarks on a musical journey to explore solitude. On this journey, she is accompanied by poets and composers from different time periods. The Cosmos Quartet from Barcelona joins her on her journey. Art songs by composers such as Robert and Clara Schumann, Franz Schubert, and Hugo Wolf, as well as folk songs and French chansons, are waypoints on this journey on which they explore the various facets of solitude together. Miniatures for solo soprano by the Hungarian-French composer György Kurtág serve as transitional elements, providing subtle and sophisticated coherence. Among the special rarities of the recording are the two Catalan songs by the violinist, composer, and conductor Eduard Toldrà.

The soprano, born in Kyrgyzstan, captivates audiences and critics alike with her vocal brilliance and cultivated emotional depth. The Cosmos Quartet matches her with its honest elegance and compelling expressiveness. Although the Cosmos Quartet and Katharina Konradi only met at the beginning of rehearsals for "Solitude," a very special magic immediately revealed itself, inherent in the combination of Katharina Konradi's voice and the Cosmos String Quartet. "String quartet and voice blend incredibly well together – even though the four instruments already form a perfect sonic structure on their own. I always enjoy being surrounded by so many different colors while singing," describes Katharina Konradi about the collaboration.

The result of this collaboration and shared journey is an album characterized by emotionality, a variety of moods, and the highest musicality. It invites one to linger, to listen closely, to find tranquility in the beauty of music, and to draw strength from it.

Pavans and galliards by the Elizabethan master of melancholy, complemented by a new recording of Benjamin Britten’s magnificent Nocturnal inspired by both Dowland’s music and by the playing of Julian Bream. After the success of ‘The Golden Age of the Guitar in Europe’ (2CD, 96157), Brilliant Classics releases a second album by the French guitarist Pascal Boëls, a unique collection of music by 17th and 20th-century English masters. In a booklet introduction, the guitarist explains how he sees Dowland as ‘a universal genius, eternal wanderer who – already! – knew how to rub shoulders with all facets of the human soul.’ Pascal Boëls plays a personal selection of Dowland’s piece originally written for solo lute, pieces which embody a spirit of introversion such as the ‘Forlorn Hope’ Fancy and the ‘Lachrymae’ Pavan which became famous across Europe, much imitated and adapted by other composers of the day.

Lightening the mood are also the kind of courtly dances and romances which delighted the composer’s aristocratic patrons such as the Earl of Essex and King Christian of Denmark. The English guitarist Julian Bream played Dowland’s pieces on the guitar from an early stage of his career, and made a best-selling album of them for RCA. It was this antique palette of gentle, musing expression that inspired Benjamin Britten to write a Nocturnal for guitar which builds as a sequence of eight variations towards (rather than away from) the Dowland song on which they are based. The resulting work, according to Bream, was the greatest solo work ever written for guitar, exploring a slippage between wakeful and dream states with a subtle ambiguity between major and minor harmonies and a language that bridges the divide between the 17th and 20th centuries.

German pianist Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy is one of the leading pianists of his generation. His concert activities and recordings mark him as an extremely intelligent musician with immense technical powers. His recordings of Brahms, Schumann and Rachmaninoff have won him rave reviews all over the world. His Chopin interpretations on this new recording breathe an air of improvisation, vision and imagination. Listening to his interpretation of the Preludes evokes a synesthetic experience: The sounds, views and smells of Mallorca (where they were composed) merge into one feeling of beauty, bliss and melancholy.

BACH Preludium in C, BWV 846/1 . Toccata in c, BWV 911 . Praeludium in E? , BWV 1010/1 . Prelude for Cembalo, BWV 998 . Praeludium in c, BWV 999 . Partita in c, BWV 997 . Sonata in a, BWV 1003 . Sarabande in g, BWV 995/4 • Luca Guglielmi (fp) • PIANO 62 (66:47)


As a keyboardist, Johann Sebastian Bach clearly deserves the renown that he attained even during his lifetime, for his compositions and facile playing style. Although much has been recorded on both organ and harpsichord, Bach’s relationship with the newer or more unusual instruments, the fortepiano and clavichord (which, of course, was not so new in the early 18th century), has been the subject of some scholarly work. To be sure, the harpsichord came in a rather substantial variety of forms, and certainly the terms often used during the time, “cembalo” or “Klavier,” were mostly generic rather than instrument-specific, but Bach himself had some interest in the newer keyboards. For example, he sold a Silbermann fortepiano in 1749, a couple of years after he had performed on one at the court in Potsdam. His complaint to the maker about the quality of the fortepiano has often been quoted, but there is no doubt that he knew it well. Moreover, one of his students, Johann Friedrich Agricola, noted that he used to play the clavichord on occasion, mainly for improvising smaller chamber works.


Today, one finds that the various interpretations of Bach’s keyboard works on both older and more contemporary 20th-century instruments can be found in abundance. Luca Guglielmi’s disc adds a slight twist to this crowd by playing a number of small works on three instruments that would have been known by the composer; an Italian fortepiano modeled after a Cristofori original from 1726, a German Silbermann copy from the 1749 model; and a German clavichord after a 1784 Hubert instrument. All of these are tuned so that A=415 Hz, a tuning that would not have been unfamiliar to the composer. Given that these are familiar and oft-recorded works, the main purpose of this disc is to delineate how Bach’s works might have sounded on the three instruments with which he may have been familiar. The eldest is the Cristofori, which is used for the Toccata in C Minor. It has a somewhat stringy and transparent sound. Guglielmi doesn’t stress the action too much, preferring an easy-going tempo, particularly in the fugue. I find that the middle registers of the instrument sometimes are a bit thick, but this does not interfere appreciably with the delineation of the lines. The Silbermann, on the other hand, is a brighter, more resonant instrument. In the opening Praeludium, for example, the broken chords have each tone sustained, almost as if there was a resonating set of sympathetic strings. This may be in part due to Guglielmi’s stately playing, which allows for the resonance to coalesce into subtly dissolving waves of sound. In the C-Minor Partita, the texture is a bit darker, and perhaps a bit more harpsichord-like. The Gigue, for example, has a nice triplet figuration in the middle register, which sometimes outshines the bass line. The two pieces played on the clavichord are far more tinny and have a sort of plucked instrument quality of sound, almost as if they are being played on a mandolin. In the Fugue of the A-Minor Sonata, for instance, the soft sound is like being played through cotton, with little or no resonance at all, and yet the instrumental sounds have a nice attack that allows each line to come through.


As for the performance, Guglielmi is stately and cautious with his tempos, deliberately allowing for the tone qualities of his instruments to come forward. His phrasing is quite well done and conforms to the often subtle shifts in thematic structure of the works. Given the eclectic nature of the music, this may not be a disc for everyone, but certainly those interested in Bach and the fortepiano/clavichord will find this disc more than just an archival curiosity. It is a fine study in the timbre of Bach’s time.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

This CD (80 minutes!) contains the complete works for two pianos by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Substantial and impressive works, these are expertly and originally written in virtuoso style (as one would expect from one of the greatest pianists of the 20th Century), music of great imagination, poetry and passion.

This first recording for Piano Classics by Lukas Geniusas presents two 19th c. masterworks, sonatas of extraordinary length, scope and content. Brahms’ First Piano Sonata op. 1 (“a veiled symphony” according to Schumann) is a young man’s answer to Beethoven’s colossal ‘Hammerklavier’, a work of unprecedented impact which radically changed the concept of the sonata in the 19th c. The 24 year old Lukas Geniušas concertizes all around the world, playing his extraordinary programs, which sometimes feature performances of Chopin’s 24 Etudes and Rachmaninov’s 24 Preludes.

Three of these marvellous quartets for flute and string trio were composed in 1777/78 during Mozart’s first extended tour without his father. The three quartets K. 285; 285a; 285b are undoubtedly among the most outstanding works in the genre. They share a lightsome; carefree quality with the typical shades of melancholy in the slow movements. The sparkling Quartet in D K.285 is a virtuoso outing for all four instruments. Although the flute has the upper part in the lightning-fast opening concertante movement and the spirited concluding Rondeau; the string trio are also given strikingly brilliant; soloistic parts; creating a dense web of spirited; dazzling sallies and engagements. The central movement is a Romance with a melting flute melody against string pizzicatos – a sort of serenade with guitar accompaniment for his then love (future sister-in-law) Aloysia Weber; Constanze’s sister. The elegant second Quartet in G K.285a is indebted to Johann Sebastian Bach’s youngest son; Johann Christian; who wrote quartets that were very similar in concept and idiom. At the age of eight Mozart had taken lessons with J.C. Bach while in London; and as late as 1778 he wrote: ‘I love him… with all my heart and feel deep respect for him’. Following the ‘London’ Bach’s example; the quartet comprises a substantial opening Andante in sonata form and a lively minuet. The third Quartet in C K.285b is also in two movements. An effervescent movement in sonata form is followed by an elegant set of variations providing a solo variation for each of the four instruments. There follows a dreamy slow variation; before the music snaps back out of its metaphysical mood and into the here-and-now with a clownish minuet-cum-scherzo. The Quartet in G K.370; though originally an oboe quartet in F; was first published in 1801 by the Bureau de Musique; Leipzig; in the G major arrangement for flute and strings. Transposing an oboe piece up a full tone was then common practice in flute adaptations; but in this instance; we are dealing with a genuine arrangement involving substantial modifications. The Quartet in A K.298 is very different. It is of the Quatuor d’airs dialogués type; a popular Parisian form where each movement quotes an aria by a fellow composer or a tune that is widely known. The theme of the first movement is Franz Anton Hoffmeister’s song ‘An die Natur’. The central section of the ensuing minuet quotes the old French song ‘Il a des bottes; des bottes Bastien’. Finally; in the last movement; the theme is taken from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera Gli schiavi per amore. He used the aria ‘Chi mi mostra dolce amore’ (Who will show me sweet love) as the theme for the final movement. This piece completes our cycle of five Mozart chamber works; taking us from Mannheim to Vienna via Munich. Their five different conceptions and characters represent the quartet for flute; violin; viola and cello in its noblest form and set the benchmark for all subsequent quartets composed for these forces.

Romantic miniatures by a forgotten Italian cellist and composer: the first album ever dedicated to the music of Domenico Laboccetta. Born to a poor family in the Sicilian town of Messina, Domenico Laboccetta (1823-1896) was entrusted to the care of an orphanage where his musical talents rapidly revealed themselves as a child. At the age of seven he made an appearance in concert at the Teatro Nuovo in Messina, and soon won a scholarship to study gratis at the conservatoire in Naples. At just 18, he became principal cellist of the Teatro San Carlo, at a time when the opera house was known across Europe for staging and advancing the works of bel canto composers such as Donizetti and Bellini. Through this experience, Laboccetta developed a superb tenor voice alongside his cello playing, and soon began taking lead roles in those bel canto masterpieces such as Bellini’s La Sonnambula. He went on to tour Europe and America in the 1850s, but eventually settled back in his adopted home of Naples, where he became professor of cello at the conservatoire in 1877, and passed on his mastery of the instrument to students for almost the next 20 years until his death.

In Laboccetta, the cellist and indefatigable researcher Matteo Malagoli has turned up another remarkable figure down the byways of cello history. His booklet essay introduces Laboccetta’s eventful life, providing invaluable context to these miniatures written for salon performances among friends and patrons in Neapolitan musical life in the later decades of the 19th century – music written above all to charm and entertain. ‘deserves the attention of listeners intrigued by history and appreciative of fine playing. It’s an album that will make a genuine contribution to any collector’s album hoard. Album leaves, romanzas and instrumental songs are scored for cello and piano or cello and harp, but there is also a ‘Notturnino’ for two cellos and piano. More substantial is a cycle of four songs for soprano, tenor, cello and piano: all beautifully evocative pieces with an affectingly folk-like simplicity of expression.

Laboccetta was also a pioneer in the genre of cello quartets, and the album closes with several such works, ingeniously scored to exploit the full register and richness of the instrument. Malagoli’s previous albums for Brilliant Classics include a disc of music by Greco and Francone (96345), welcomed in glowing terms by Fanfare magazine: ‘Early Neapolitan Cello Music… deserves the attention of listeners intrigued by history and appreciative of fine playing. It’s an album that will make a genuine contribution to any collector’s album hoard.’