Percy Grainger was one of the great “originals” of 20th century music. Australian-born, he studied with his mother while a boy and later went to Germany where his career as a virtuoso pianist began. As a composer he was largely self-taught and strongly influenced by the folk music of Great Britain and Ireland, Many of his “miniatures”-such titles as Country Gardens, Handel in the Strand and Molly on the Shore-established his composing credentials very early on. But Grainger was also an inveterate innovator and experimenter in music, and the kaleidoscopic aspects of his compositional creativity-evident in highly imaginative works often with unprecedented rhythms, harmonies and scoring-are fully represented in the programme heard on this recording. The music was digitally recorded with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in February 1989, at the acoustically excellent South Melbourne Town Hall.

Recorded following an acclaimed solo concert tour, renowned performer, composer and conductor Thomas Adès performs a collection of Leos Janácek’s works for piano. Nearly all of the music for solo piano written by Leoš Janácek (1854-1928) dates from before the First World War and thus belongs to the period before the composer’s remarkable late creative surge, which was triggered by the hugely successful 1916 production in Prague of his third opera, Jenufa (1894-1903; rev. 1907-8), and facilitated by his retirement from his teaching position at the Brno Organ School. Nevertheless, all three of Janácek’s major solo piano works – On an Overgrown Path (1900-1911), From the Street 1 October 1905 (1905-6) and In the Mists (1912-13) – contain music that is both profoundly individual and also integral to the now widespread view of the composer as one the most original musical voices of early twentieth-century music.

REVIEWS:

Adès’s account of On an Overgrown Path eschews sentimentality and refuses to duck the suppressed violence that occasionally erupts. His care shown over Janácek’s inner part writing is often revelatory, and he seems very much at one with the near improvisatory nature of these pieces. There is perhaps less delicacy in his approach to the more elusive soundworld of In The Mists, but his performance is impressive for its clarity and cohesion.

– BBC Music Magazine

It’s apparent from the get-go that Adès is determined to check all expressive clichés at the recording studio door, accept Janácek’s plain-spoken syntax and lack of artifice for what they are, and simply play the music straight. Adès seems less interested in colour or moody subtext than rendering text with intensive clarity in the two-movement Sonata. An illuminating release.

– Gramophone

Ireland’s leading collegiate choral ensemble, The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin bring us their first recording on Signum. The program of this album is a blend of Scottish and Irish music, themed around water and farewell. Conductor Desmond Early says of the album, “It is happy coincidence that the title of this disc, Invisible Stars, and the motto of University College Dublin – Ad Astra (to the stars) - connect in this... This recording is our celebration of creativity, talent, and youthful energy, and at the same time a gesture of remembrance toward the many 'invisible stars' who went before us a century ago."

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REVIEWS:

Blending ‘folk’ voices with choral precision tight harmony isn’t easy but Desmond Earley has a passionate stake in both and doesn’t put a foot wrong here.

– Choir & Organ

For sheer beauty of sound and contemplative luxuriousness, this debut by the mixed-voice Choral Scholars of University College, Dublin is an altogether captivating experience. Lovers of elegantly crafted singing will find much to enjoy here in a survey of Irish and Scottish songs that also reaches across the Atlantic in the Appalachian-accented Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair … Vocal solos are pristinely realised, the ensemble sound gilded and glowing.

– Classical Ear

Michael Finnissy was born in Tulse Hill in 1946. He studied at the Royal College of Music with Bernard Stevens and Humphrey Seale, and in Italy with Roman Vlad. Much of his early work was first performed in France and the Netherlands, while he was working as a freelance repetiteur and pianist for dance-classes. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music, at the universities of Sussex and Southampton, and at the Katholiek Universiteit in Leuven. He has also given summer courses at Dartington, and been resident artist at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne (Australia). He has been featured composer at the Huddersfield Festival several times, at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and many other places across the world, most recently at SICPP in Boston USA.

In this new recording the Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge perform Finnissy’s deep, rich and fulfilling music – created as part of a residency, which combines evocative works directly inspired by Tudor Music from the choir's library with more free-form inspirations of this material by the composer. It has taken Conductor and Director Andrew Nethsingha four years to gradually learn the pieces on this recording. He says it “has been a deeply enriching experience which I want others to share”.

REVIEW:

This is a virtuoso piece of work in several respects. Composer Michael Finnissy was commissioned to write four a cappella works for the Choir of St. John's College and not only fulfilled but expanded upon that commission, writing pieces that comment upon works already in the choir's repertory. The four works -- John Taverner's Dum transisset sabatum, Thomas Tallis' Videte miraculum, Bach's cantata Herr Christ, der einige Gottessohn, and Michael Tippett's Plebs angelica -- are not presented in their original forms, but some of them receive double treatments from Finnissy in the form of "doubles," "commentaries," or an "alternativo" on the organ. The whole falls into a structure pertaining to the life of Christ, resulting in an intricate but wholly accessible triple set of commentaries. The whole idea would have felt very familiar to Taverner and Tallis, and probably to Bach as well. Finnissy departs from his models to varying degrees, maintaining the general mood of the original while adding difficult features like half-step intervals for the choristers, which they dispatch with aplomb. The album is beautifully recorded, and it will reveal a whole new dimension of this composer to those familiar only with this virtuoso piano music and political vocal works.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)

The Gabrieli Consort continue their series of award-winning collaborations with the National Forum of Music, Wroclaw, Poland with a new version of Haydn’s great oratorio The Seasons. Using a new performing edition by Paul McCreesh, this recording is the first to feature the large orchestral forces that Haydn called for, including a string section of 60, 8 horns and a choir of 70. As well as the combined forces of the Gabrieli Consort & Players, Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra and National Forum of Music Choir, the recording features solo performances from British singers Carolyn Sampson, Jeremy Ovenden and Andrew Foster-Williams. All physical and digital booklet texts are provided in both English and Polish translations.

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REVIEW:

In the cataclysmic thunderstorm, rasping, minatory brass to the fore, the terrified populace evokes Verdi's 'Dies Irae', while the autumn hunt, raucously fuelled by anarchic natural horns, has never sounded more uninhibitedly exuberant. In the wine harvest, with its final tipsy fugue, McCreesh conjures a Burgenland bacchanalia to rival Jacobs -high praise indeed. McCreesh and his massed Anglo-Polish forces have given us a Seasons that thrillingly catches both the work's bucolic exhilaration and its invocations of the sublime. And for sheer sonic splendour it's in a class of its own.

– Gramophone

This recording by La Serenissima was conceived when the ensemble was recording for an earlier release – always keen to record as much material as possible, several gems were unable to be included because of timing restrictions. As the group recorded more albums, the number of these works continued to increase, sparking the idea for this new collection – 'extra time' to include these lost treasures. Following on from their highly acclaimed ‘The Godfather;’ released on Signum last year, this release shows the class act that they are, with these recordings making for one incredible album. La Serenissima was formed in 1994 for a performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s La Sena festeggiante and has now firmly established itself as one of the leading exponents of the music of eighteenth-century Venice and connected composers. The entire repertoire of La Serenissima is edited by director Adrian Chandler from manuscript or contemporary printed sources, a testament to its vision to enrich life by sharing its passion for Italian baroque music.

Singing together binds us together. From the Protestant Reformation in Europe during the 1500s to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, there have been countless moments in history when songs have united nations, cultures and causes. This is still the case in today’s world. Finding Harmony is evidence that music has always been our common language. A unique collection of pieces that span the globe – including music that’s too often forgotten – each song is the key to a powerful true story about who we are and how we’ve got here. Together, Finding Harmony proves how deeply we can be moved by all kinds of stories when songs connect us to them, and to each other.

REVIEW:

For the most part, this album is a virtuoso piece of work. The Singers' vocal inflections and scoops are adaptable to a wide variety of styles, and they push themselves in that respect here, connecting pop sounds to the classic folk of Malvina Reynolds and to Eastern European traditions. In the main, it all holds together, and it is very much of the moment.

– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

Last year’s anniversary led many to explore CPE Bach’s music more widely – and this hugely enjoyable release is a highly recommended way to continue such a journey.

– Gramophone [5/2015]


One of the things that those particularly fond of the Classical era in music love is the formality, the predictability, and the changes that can be made within that formal structure. It gives comfort, and one admires differentiations in orchestration, combinations of and the highlighting of instruments and tempos. And then we encounter CPE Bach, Johann Sebastian’s second son, placed firmly in the Classical Era and almost impossible to second guess.

Just take the start of the CD–the symphony in D major. It begins with almost maliciously repeated stabs by the violins on D, then F-sharp, and then B, all while the other instruments toodle around the stabs. An entertaining allegro somehow grows out of it and at approximately the two-minute mark, the stabbing, starting on D but wandering elsewhere, returns, then more allegro and some wonderful play for the winds, and then the original stabs at around 3:50, which turns into a full-blown, good-natured allegro event for the whole band before weirding out about 30 seconds from the end by slowing down, entering another key, and melting into the Largo that follows. The calm, pastoral Largo lasts for 90 seconds and then plunges into the busy, presto finale. In 10-and-a-half minutes we’ve been on quite a journey.

These unexpected alterations in mood and tempo become trademarks, but “unexpected” remains the operative word: we know they will show up, but we never quite know when and where. The opening of the F major symphony is something Haydn or Mozart might have composed, but they would not have insisted on interjecting tiny episodes in another key; nor would they, 35 seconds from the end, leave a musical phrase in the middle to darken, shift keys and tempo at the same time, and transition into a very somber viola and cello introduction of the two-minute-long second movement, which then swiftly becomes a charming gigue in which we can practically see country bumpkins dancing about despite intrusions every so often of a note or three chugged out by the low strings.

You also notice his fondness for repeated notes on the strings, but they’re invariably used differently–sometimes to comment, sometimes as a theme (the finale of the A major, which repeats a nice, simple swirling of strings as a main theme, gets punctuated by the stabs as it moves from key to key). And then there’s the B minor, a study in solemnity for the first two movements, with a wild storm as a finale. I could go on, but you get the point: CPE may be stuck in an era, but he’s in his own, excuse the expression, groove, and won’t be boxed in. Always refreshing.

Rebecca Miller leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in fearless performances (at A=415, making the keys noted play at a half-tone lower than indicated), using everything from no vibrato to a throbbing warmth in middle movements. The strings are spectacular, at times playing with alarming speed and at others with comfort and tenderness; the winds, popping up all over, are just as good. The CD claims to have been recorded live, but there’s not a peep from the audience. Play these a couple at a time–they look alike but each deserves scrutiny. Like chocolate truffles.

– Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

This new release is a celebration of the music of the British Isles. Spanning the breadth and width of the Isles, this is some of the most beautiful folk music ever written. The arrangements by Geoffrey Webber and Toby Young are mesmerizing. Performing these songs is the Armonico Consort, directed by Christopher Monks.

Following her debut release of Baroque works by Vivaldi and Handel earlier this year, Grace Davidson returns to Signum with an intimate album of Dowland’s first book of lute songs, accompanied by David Miller. Blending melancholy with wit in his writing for both lute and voice, John Dowland’s songs have continued to enchant audiences and singers for nearly 400 years. The ‘First Booke’ includes some of Dowland’s less well-known works, and was recorded in the sensitive acoustic of Ascot Priory in Berkshire, UK.

Originating as a sexy dance in South America, the ‘chacona’ crossed the Atlantic and established itself in Spain as an irresistible temptation. In 1615, it was banned from Spanish theatres for being ‘lascivious, dishonest, offensive to pious ears’, but the attractions of the chaconne held sway. From The Ground Up traces its allure, from early Spanish chaconnes through to the worlds of Purcell and Piccini, and Bach’s magisterial example for solo violin. Adding a new lease of life to this classic compositional form, Purcell’s ground basses furnish a harmonic groove for Shakespeare readings by British actor Samuel West, which are accompanied by New York rapper Baba Israel.

Oliver Davis graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1994 and has since composed numerous concertos, ballet scores, albums, soundtracks and television scores working with many of the major London orchestras. The Infinite Ocean was composed for choreographer Edwaard Liang and was commissioned by San Francisco Ballet for the Unbound festival, 2018. Liang requested the work to be in six sections and to feature a solo violin. The aim of Arcadia was to create a piece which evoked an idyllic serene place. Gemini was specifically composed for violinist Kerenza Peacock and was designed to explore the contrasting styles of her playing.

The Suite for piano and orchestra was written for Huw Watkins on piano and heavily involves thematic development throughout. Inferno began life as a short orchestral sketch, which gradually evolved into a full, single-movement piece. Lastly, The Elements was commissioned by The Hanke Brothers, who specifically wanted a piece describing the four elements. The ensemble containing piano, viola, recorder and tuba, produces a unique timbre, and the piece explores the possible various aspects of this timbre.

Gustavo Diaz-Jerez is one of the leading composers and pianists in Spain. His compositional output spans all genres, from solo works to opera. His works have been premiered by prestigious ensembles and orchestras. His orchestral work Ymarxa, commissioned by the XXVII Canary Islands Music Festival, was premiered by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit. In 2018, his first opera was premiered, La casa imaginaria. This album represents the culmination of more than ten years of compositional work. A unique endeavour in the history of music in the Canary Islands, it comprises seven symphonic poems – almost two and a half hours of music– which evoke the landscapes and natural beauty of the Canaries. The cycle takes its name, Maghek (“the one who creates brightness”), from the sun-goddess of the Guanches, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands. Each piece is inspired by a specific locale on a different island; some resurrect forgotten stories. Naturalistic tonal painting (the sea, the wind, the rugged scenery) is a constant feature throughout the cycle.

A frequent collaborator with both the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Jac van Steen, David Matthews’s new recording explores both the natural world and the symphonic idea, the second of which has, in his words, “obsessed me since I started composing at the age of 16.” As well the Sinfonia and Symphony No. 8, the programme includes Toward Sunrise; inspired by the sound of the sun (a rising fourth of C-F), as recorded by scientists at Sheffield University, and A Vision of the Sea; drawn from the sights and sounds of English Channel near the composers’ home in Deal, Kent.

With a singular body of work spanning almost 60 years, David Matthews has established an international reputation as one of the leading symphonists of our time. Born in London in 1943, he began composing at the age of sixteen. He read Classics at the University of Nottingham – where he has more recently been made an Honorary Doctor of Music – and afterwards studied composition privately with Anthony Milner. He was also helped by the advice and encouragement of Nicholas Maw and spent three years as an assistant to Benjamin Britten in the late 1960s. In the 1970s a friendship with the Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe (leading to collaboration and numerous trips to Sydney) helped Matthews find his own distinctive voice.

REVIEW

Here is a composer who writes music that connects vividly with the audience. He is a master of the modern symphony orchestra for which he writes with invention and great imagination. The BBC Philharmonic plays superbly throughout. Their performances are enhanced by magnificent recorded sound. Though Signum don’t make the claim explicitly, all these must be premiere recordings. This splendid disc is a notable addition to David Matthews’ discography. Admirers of this fine composer will need no prompting from me to acquire this disc but collectors who have yet to experience the music of David Matthews will find it a very good place to start.

– MusicWeb International

Some of the most atmospheric music from the numerous Liturgical settings in Holy Week is that composed for the Office of Tenebrae. Tomas Luis de Victoria’s are the most well-known, but equally beautiful and arguably more dramatic are the settings composed by Gesualdo. They have an intensity unrivalled in most music of that time owing to the extraordinary and sudden harmonic shifts, which at times sound almost contemporary, and rhythmic outbursts led on occasion by a single word. It is sung by a small consort of Tenebrae members – Grace Davidson, Julia Doyle, Jeremy Budd, David de Winter, Gabriel Crouch & Jimmy Holliday. They are paired here with Couperin’s beautiful and mesmerizing Leçons de Ténèbres – performed by sopranos Grace Davidson and Julia Doyle, alongside continuo players Steven Devine and Jonathan Rees (viola da gamba).

REVIEW:

The dividing line between historical performances of Renaissance and Baroque music is fairly sharp, as is the expertise required in each field. One rarely hears Bach and Josquin performed together, despite a certain easy density of polyphony common to both, but the small choir Tenebrae and director Nigel Short break the rule here, with striking results. The group has recorded settings of the Maundy Thursday musical Office for which it is named several times: the "Tenebrae," perhaps named for the darkness that followed the extinguishing of a series of candles, has called forth moody, atmospheric settings down through the ages, and it's ideal for an experiment of this kind. Short and Tenebrae, who have already recorded other settings of these texts, pair the three Leçons de Ténèbres of François Couperin -- surviving sections of a mostly lost set written for the aging Louis XIV and published in the early 1710s -- with the Tenebrae Responsories of Carlo Gesualdo. They're very different works: the Couperin pieces are for a pair of sopranos with continuo, here an organ and viola da gamba, and the Gesualdo for a choir that was probably, like Tenebrae, quite small. Yet Short delivers an intensity that links the pieces, and the Gesualdo is especially impressive. These settings are sacred counterparts to the extreme experimental chromaticism of the last books of Gesualdo madrigals. Many vocal groups tone these down on the theory that sacred music had a different language, but Short shows the virtues of bringing full intensity. The Couperin, with two slightly contrasting sopranos, is also highly atmospheric. This is an ideal album for Holy Week reflections, respecting the power of the texts, and it is a major sacred music release.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)