“'Gnomus' rings out with compelling authority. 'The Old Castle' comes over with a ringing tone and in a clean style without a trace of mannerism; the phrasing is fastidiously controlled...[in the Rachmaninov] Francis plays too carefully. But the corollary of that is that in her hands this work is very finely controlled.” - BBC Music Magazine

Marcelo Bratke continues with Volume 3 of his series devoted to the complete solo piano works of Heitor Villa-Lobos.

"...Villa-Lobos gained significant prestige in the Paris of the 1920s, the period of his boldest and most creative work, before returning to a more orderly approach in the 1930s. In 1928, when the publisher Max Eschig commissioned a few works for students of the celebrated professor and pianist Marguerite Long at the Paris Conservatory, Villa-Lobos wrote one of his most charming and most original compositions, Francette et Pià. He imagined a little Indian boy called Pià befriending a little French girl, Francette. There is a “barbarian” mood from the beginning, with syncopated jazz à la Revue Nègre bringing in French children’s songs such as Au Clair de la Lune or Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre, reflections of Brazilian themes, the Marseillaise, and many other references scored in miraculously straightforward language." - Quartz Records, (From the album liner notes.)

A new release by the multi-award winning Russian violinist Roman Mints. Each piece on this recording has been chosen by the artist for very personal reasons. It includes the notable premiere of Dobrinka Tabakova’s Spinning a Yarn, for violin and Russian Hurdy-Gurdy (kolesnaya lira) written especially by the composer for Roman Mints. The recording premieres the use of Spatial Orchestration, a concept created by Mints to give the listener a unique understanding of each track. To find the right sound for each piece of music, Roman has used different place settings for the microphone, as well as moving his instrument around the studio, allowing his personal interpretation to enhance the final experience.

Evgeny Samoyloff writes: “Mussorgsky’s From Memories of Childhood cycle was never completed by the composer; in fact, he wrote only the first two pieces: ‘The Nurse and I’ and ‘The First Punishment’. An earlier cycle-to-be, entitled Children’s Games and featuring ‘Corners’ as its opening piece, was similarly never completed. I have taken the liberty of selecting what I believe to be the best of Mussorgsky’s miniature pieces – those that appear most complete – and of joining them to the primary cycle of Childhood Memories. I was guided by the music’s imagery and by its ‘childhood’ essence (as if seen through the eyes of a child), and I have endeavored to compile the set following the principles of contrast and artistic integrity, as well as those of tonal and architectural balance. This is how this cycle of eight pieces came into being, and I hope that it has a right to exist and to achieve widespread appeal.”

The present release is a programme of Schumann piano solos performed by Joseph Tong. The award-winning British pianist Joseph Tong enjoys a busy and varied career as soloist, duo pianist, chamber musician, Festival Director and teacher. Educated at Wells Cathedral School, Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, Joseph made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1997 as winner of the Maisie Lewis Young Artists Award. Other notable competition successes have included the St Charles International Piano Competition in the USA, the Citta di Marsala Competition in Italy, the ISM Sheffield Competition, 1st Prize in the John Lill Awards and 3rd Prize at the Tokyo International Piano Duo Competition. An English-Speaking Union Scholarship led to a summer spent at the Ravinia Festival near Chicago where he studied with Claude Frank and played to the legendary pianist Shura Cherkassky. Joseph Tong was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2008 and also appointed visiting teacher at Wells Cathedral School. He is also founder and Co-Director of the Bristol International Piano Duo Festival which is held biennially at St George’s Bristol and will next take place from 27th-30th October 2016.

Interviewed by Musical America in 1921, Rachmaninoff was asked: "would you agree that the heart should be the composer's guide through the labyrinths of accepted forms?" "Yes", he replied, "the heart above all. Of course, the head must aid in the building of great musical structures, but by itself the head is impotent. If a composer is devoid of heart or hasn't his heart in the right place, it is impossible for him to conceal his deficiency. This explains why Russian music is so superlatively great; it speaks so directly to the heart. That is what gives it it's vital beauty, it's universality of appeal, and thus all great art is universal and national in character- it were better to say local instead of national - at one and the same moment." It is perhaps for this reason that young pianist Nikolay Medvedev has chosen a program of Russian piano masterpieces for his debut album.

This new release from Vitaly Vatulya is an album of contemporary Saxophone and fusion with electronics. Internationally acclaimed soloist, Vitaly Vatulya became a prize-winner of more than twenty national and international competitions, among which are “Delphic Games”, one of the most prestigious competition in Russia, First prize at the International Saxophone Competition 'Marco Fiorindo' in Italy, International Saxophone Competition in Nova Gorica (Slovenia). Vitaly Vatulya performs as a soloist and an active ensemble player, gives concerts in Europe, Russia and abroad. He performs with the leading Russian and European orchestras, including the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg State Capella Symphony Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosovo Philharmonic and others. Vitaly is a soloist of the St. Petersburg House of Music. In 2018 Vitaly joined pedagogical team of 19th Habanera Academy of Saxophone and participated at the 19th “Saxophone in movement" Festival in Poitiers, France. Vitaly’s performances can often be heard on the Russian and European radio and TV.

A Tribute to Bartók from Wales

Sibelius: Piano Works Vol. 1

Blas De Castro: Complete Polyphonic Works (Cantar alla viola

Death and Waltzes is acollection of music for string orchestra by German-American composer Tom Schnauber. It is an extension of the composer's work with the Russian String Orchestra after winning their "International Homage to Mozart" Composition Competition in 2006. The nine works featured were written betrween 1995 and 2014; some specifically for the R.S.O. all linked by themes suggested in the album's title. Some are single-movement "in memoriam" - type pieces in fond and sometimes aching memory of other musicians: the vivacious violinist and conductor Henri Temianka; the gifted and underplayed composer Leroy Southers; and Schnauber's first musical "hero", J.S. Bach. Another is in memory of the composer's father, who died during the making of this album. Among the other works are two dances; mysterious and off-kilter waltzes, reflections of Schnauber's Alpine heritage and two left feet. Another two are stories told in music whose narratives involve both dancing and dying. They invoke experiences of the composer's fictional "alter ego", eminent musicologist Johannes von Marland.

Leonid Desyatnikov is one of the most respected Russian composers of our time. He first made a reputation with a number of film scores, then later achieved greater worldwide fame when the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow premiered his controversial opera The Children of Rosenthal. He is a graduate of Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied composition and instrumentation. He has written four operas, several cantatas, and numerous vocal and instrumental works. This release includes the world premiere recording of his 1992 chamber work Sketches to Sunset, as well as his 2000 work Russian Seasons for Violin, Voice, and Strings.

Schubert: Songs for Voice & Guitar

Lisa Oshima was born in Tokyo, Japan and began studying the violin at the age of four. She graduated with a soloist diploma from the Toho Gakuen School of Music college where she studied with Kenji Kobayashi. She continued her studies with Dr. Felix Andrievsky as a postgraduate at the Royal College of Music where she was awarded the Yehudi Menuhin Award, Ian Stoutzker Prize, and Isolde Menges Prize, and graduated with distinction in 2000. She has won numerous competitions including the 18th International Violin Competition ‘Premio Rodolfo Lipizer,” and the 20th Viotti International Music competition Valsesia. For her new release, she has brought together some of Prokofiev’s greatest compositions for violin. Each and every work on this recording has been chosen by the artist for very personal reasons- not only to show the multifaceted versatility of Prokofiev, but also because of the powerful emotions they summon. The artist writes of these selections, “These works by Prokofiev never fail to grab my heart. I hope you will enjoy…”

Schubert: Late Piano Works