This album marks the second release of the Carducci’s Shostakovich 15 project, which includes performances of the complete cycles of the Shostakovich Quartets in cities including Washington DC, London, Oxford, Cardiff, Bogota and concerts throughout the UK to mark the 40th anniversary of the composer’s death. Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality”, the Carducci Quartet is recognized as one of today’s most successful string quartets. This release contrasts Shostakovich’s first two string quartets with the seventh – composed in memory of his late wife Nina. In composing his quartets prior to No. 7, Shostakovich had scrupulously followed a predetermined sequence of keys: according to this, the work should have been in E flat major. However Shostakovich, significantly, chose to break this pattern by writing his new quartet in F sharp minor, the key associated with such anguished music as Peter’s remorse in Bach’s St John Passion, and – particularly close to Shostakovich’s heart – Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony.

It’s no surprise that The King’s Singers have recorded a huge number of love songs on all kinds of albums over the last fifty years. Some of these were albums devoted to love songs like Chanson d’amour and Romance du soir. Other albums couldn’t help but include music about love, although their theme was actually different. This album, Love Songs, is a chance to revisit some of the ensemble’s favorite tracks that they’ve recorded over the last two decades, compiled from across their back catalogue with Signum Records. The tracks they’ve chosen have come from five different albums, released between 2008 and 2017. Rather than trying to take in any of the enormous number of classical love songs from the back catalogue, the group wanted to focus on some of the best folk songs, jazz standards, and pop songs that have featured in King’s Singers concerts throughout their history. This selection has been curated especially to celebrate the group’s favorite recent albums, and to show how rich and varied the tapestry of love songs we have today is.

REVIEWS:

[A] spirited, handsomely sung program of entries representing a number of genres. I enjoy the bass fiddle licks sung with such jazzy appeal in ‘I’ve Got the World On a String’ (Harold Arlen) and Jerome Kern’s ‘I Won’t Dance’. The softrock arpeggios in Paul Simon’s ‘April Come She Will’ and ‘Helplessly Hoping’ (Stephen Stills) are great fun, and I will happily make time for Simon Carrington’s radiant arrangement of ‘My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose’. For a union of the British choral tradition and the Doo-Wop style, look no further than this rendition of ‘At Last’.

A cappella groups singing in this style have proliferated like gangbusters on high school and college campuses. If a young musician you know is singing in one, why not get ahold of this and show them what the gold standard sounds like.

-- American Record Guide

James Rhodes has no formal academic musical education or dedicated mentoring. The title of the debut album “Razor Blades Little Pills and Big Pianos”, hints at the suffering that dogged Rhodes’s childhood and early adult life. Classical music became his solace and key to his survival. It was Bach, Beethoven and Chopin, not Faith Hope and Charity, that offered comfort. In 1993, mental health issues stopped him taking up a scholarship to the Guildhall. Suffering further setbacks due to health issues it was not until 2008, when Rhodes met his present manager, Denis Blais, that he was encouraged to record his first album. This enabled him to bare his soul and put many of the ghosts of the past to rest. With Blais, Rhodes also created a distinctive and unique approach to how the classical piano repertoire should be presented. Uncomfortable with the austere and traditional ‘white tie and tails’ recital they decided it was time for the performer to communicate directly with the audience. Rhodes was going to introduce his own programme notes and share what it takes to perform these works of art using fascinating anecdotes about the composers and his own life experience. Delivered in his unique trademark stand-up style he creates an immersive experience that has won him and classical music a dedicated new following. His new album, presented here, shows the same no-holds-barred approach to these time-honored classics.

Christopher Glynn continues his series of late Schubert song cycles in English, joined by celebrated soloists Sir John Tomlinson, Sophie Bevan, Julian Bliss and Alec Frank-Gemmill. Titled by the works first published following Schubert’s death, ‘Swansong’ D 957 sets the words of poets Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine and Johann Gabriel Seidl in songs that cover a variety of different emotional states. The lighthearted ‘Love Message’ with its rippling accompaniment, addresses a murmuring brook with the hope of true love. The bone- chilling ‘Doppelganger’ with its stark, slowly tolling chords, finds the protagonist crazed with a nocturnal vision of himself agonizing at the empty doorstep of his lost love. Renowned for his clear diction and powerful voice, Sir John Tomlinson brings his insight and nuance to these profound works. Reminiscent of the scoring for The Shepherd on the Rock and composed in the same year, ‘On the River’ combines soprano, clarinet and horn in a setting of a poem by Ludwig Rellstab. Originally given to Beethoven who did not live long enough to set it, Schubert took up the words in a work that is a subtle homage to the composer. The 1828 work The Shepherd on the Rock sets words by Wilhelm Muller and German playwright Helmina von Chezy, and was composed in gratitude to the soprano Anna Milder-Hauptmann. Here performed by Sophie Bevan and Julian Bliss, it tells the story of a shepherd lamenting the distance between him and his beloved before a reflection on loneliness and grief. The final section celebrates the arrival of spring in a hopeful conclusion.

Julian Bliss joins the Carducci String Quartet in performances of two seminal works – Weber’s Clarinet Quintet in B flat Major, Op. 34 and Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K.581. Both Mozart and Weber were inspired by the artisty of performers of their day (Anton Stadler in Mozart’s case, and Heinrich Baermann in Weber’s). Their technical prowess, tonal quality and imaginative range allowed each composer to expand the clarinet repertoire with these works, which remain pre-eminent in the genre. This is the second recording collaboration between Bliss and the Carducci String Quartet, following the 2016 release of David Bruce’s Gumboots and Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet: “Here’s a double delight. First, an engaging new work which deserves a place in the chamber repertory; second, a passionate account of Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet which can hold its head high against starrier competition…Bliss is in his element…for forthright Brahms and a toe-tapping new work, this is strongly recommended.” (Gramophone)

Founded in 1973 by Trevor Pinnock, the English Concert has been a leading light in the performance of Baroque and Classical music for for over 40 years. Under their present Artistic Director Harry Bicket and with distinguished guest artists they continue to perform with the passion, sophistication and technical mastery established at their creation. Such is the commitment and passion that their players bring to every performance. Drawn not only from home-grown talent, The English Concert can boast a truly international cast of musicians. Soloists in their own right, and backed-up by scholarly knowledge of style and genre, the close-knit relationship between their musicians makes for a truly special blend of sound. This new recording features the talents of these soloists in performances of Concertii by Telemann, Marcello, Dall’Abaco, Tartini and Porpora.

Continuing their complete Mozart opera recording cycle, Classical Opera’s latest release shines a light on two early opera works by Mozart. Grabmusik was reported to be the product of a test set by the prince of Salzburg, who: “... not crediting that such masterly compositions were really those of a child, shut him up for a week, during which he was not permitted to see any one, and was left only with music paper, and the words of an oratorio ... During this short time he composed a very capital oratorio, which was most highly approved of upon being performed.” Performed for Holy Week the title can be translated as ‘Cantata on Christ’s Grave’ (literally ‘Grave Music’), and the anonymous text takes the form of a dialogue between a tormented soul, who is desperately lamenting the tragedy of Christ’s death, and an angel. Bastien und Bastienne is the only one of Mozart’s operas to have been written for performance in a private house rather than a theatre. Commissioned at some point in mid-1768 by the renowned and controversial German physician Franz Anton Mesmer, it tells the tale of two young shepherds, Bastien and Bastienne, being reconciled in love the fortune teller and magician Collas after Bastien has briefly been lured away by the attractions of a noble lady from the city. This new recording is uses Mozart’s original 1767 setting of the libretto by F. W. Weiskern & J. H. F. Mu¨ller, the provenance of which was only established in 1980s.

Guitarist Christoph Denoth returns with a new album of works inspired by South America, centered on the iconic tango. The continent of South America, with its diverse countries and various lines of historical development, has stimulated the creation of many musical traditions. But throughout the heterogeneous patterns of culture, the guitar has a central part to play as a national instrument in all South American countries. This selection (titled tanguero, describing one who sings or dances the tango) brings together many of the styles and genres of that vast continent in a colorful blend of melodies, rhythms, and harmonies. Christoph Denoth was born in Basel, Switzerland, and spent an important part of his early life in the Swiss mountains. His extraordinary musical talent became apparent early on, at which stage he already loved the guitar. He began his concert career at age 15. His studies of the classical guitar led him to the conservatories of Lucerne, Basel, and Zurich. He attended master classes with Pepe Romero and others and trained as a soloist with Oscar Ghiglia at the Basel Musikakademie. He regularly performs as a soloist with chamber orchestras and ensembles such as the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (Peter Maxwell Davies) or the Offenburger Streichtrio, and at international music festivals such as that of Schleswig-Holstein. He has also performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in New York, at the Berlin Philharmonie, and at the Salzburg Mozarteum.

This release features one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century for the early music world. Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba were considered lost until the discovery of an original print in a private collection in Germany in 2015. Perhaps some of the composer’s finest work for solo instrument, they are described by soloist Richard Boothby as being “... by turns virtuosic and expressive, Telemann uses all the techniques of the instrument to create satisfyingly complete Fantasias that are full of diversity.” One of the UK’s leading exponents of early music, Richard Boothby founded the Purcell Quartet in 1984 was a founder member of Fretwork in 1985. Since then his career has been bound up with these two groups with whom he records and tours; and through whom he plays the broadest range of repertory for the instrument from the earliest music to the latest contemporary music commissioned for viols.

Renowned British composer Richard Blackford sets the Greek fable of Niobe to music in the premiere recording of his new violin concerto, performed by Tamsin Waley-Cohen with the Czech Philharmonic under conductor Ben Gernon. In the myth Niobe, who has seven daughters and seven sons, mocks Leto, goddess of motherhood yet mother of only two children, Apollo and Artemis. In revenge, Apollo murders Niobe’s sons, while Artemis kills her daughters and her husband, Amphion, king of Thebes, commits suicide. Niobe in grief turns to Zeus for help, who takes pity and turns Niobe to stone; she continues to weep, however, for eternity, her tears flowing as a stream from the rock. Comments Waley-Cohen, "The Greeks saw Niobe as a warning against hubris, but what happened to her can also be interpreted today as a tale about the overly severe punishment of women judged to have stepped out of line. Her punishment seems so brutal, as does the punishment that many women face today around the world. Richard’s concerto is an incredibly powerful piece and a story that is so relevant to women’s issues today."

Literally meaning ‘rooster song’ or ‘cock crow’, Gallicantus takes its name from monastic antiquity; the name of the office held just before dawn, it was a ceremony which evoked the renewal of life offered by the coming day. Dedicated to renaissance music and directed by Gabriel Crouch, the membership of this early music group boasts a wealth of experience in consort singing. Renowned for their critically-acclaimed and researched programmes, Gallicantus presents Sibylla. At the heart of the programme is Orlandus Lassus’s 16th Century Prophetiae Sibyllarum, which sets to music the texts of ancient Sibylline prophecies telling of the coming of Christ. One of the composer’s most renowned and celebrated works, it is performed alongside settings by the ‘Sibyl of the Rhine’ Hildegard von Bingen, as well contemporary responses to Lassus’s work. Dmitri Tymoczko’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum sets poems by Jeff Dolven which recast the sibyls’ role: this time to the teller of grim truths of present life in post-industrial America. As an epilogue the album finishes with Elliot Cole’s ‘I saw you under the fig tree’ (part of his suite Visions) – a simple 4-part setting beneath an extraordinary countertenor glissando, setting Jesus Christ’s response to Nathaniel.

“I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.” Arvo Pärt O/Modernt, Swedish for ‘Un/Modern’, is the concept devised by violinist Hugo Ticciati that explores vital connections between artistic and intellectual creations, old and new. At the heart of White Light is a dialectic between contemplation and ecstatic joy: a journey that leads within and without. The enso (Japanese for ‘circle’) drawn by Antony Gormley on the front cover invites us into the prismatic now of listening. (enso: a continuous brushstroke that expresses a moment in time when the mind is released, leaving the body free to listen and create.) Looking inwards, we embrace that which we find outside ourselves before finally returning to inner peace and silence. The sound worlds of Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Peteris Vasks, The Beatles, and the rhythms and melodies of India are woven together through improvisation to invite a two-way sense of reflection and surprise.

Drawing international media attention following their founding in 2014, the Girls’ Choir of Canterbury Cathedral have quickly become leading lights in the British choral music landscape. For their first recording with Signum – led by their director David Newsholme – they draw on the rich catalogue of what have become British cathedral anthems from the 16th Century to the 20th, performing works by composers including Tallis, Byrd, Stanford, Parry and Howells. They are joined on this recording by the Men of Canterbury Cathedral choir, as well as organists Aidan Bawtree and Nicholas Wearne. Canterbury Cathedral’s Girls’ Choir, formed in 2014, sings at Evensong in the Cathedral twice every month, frequently with the lay clerks. The majority of the girls attend local schools in Canterbury and they rehearse each Wednesday evening. Their first performance at Evensong, on the occasion of the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, in January, was attended by more than 600 people and widely covered by the international press.