I had the good fortune, last week, to see someone buy this CD in my local music shop. She studied the back of it for some time, scratched her head, and tentatively handed over her credit card to pay for it. The man at the counter said. “You won’t regret this; it is lovely,” to which the lady buying it responded, “I hope so.” I hoped so, too: It promises so much with that glossy front cover.

It is quite a comprehensive anthology of overtures. There are 17 of them in total. The range of composers is also satisfying, from Albioni to Ziani. Music ranges from the outré and the slapstick, to the coy and simple. Alexander Pope, in his large epic The Dunciad, once called Italian opera a “harlot form, with mincing step and languid eye,” which is a witticism amply revealed here in the range of aural tricks. As overtures, they are designed to arrest, and like Pope’s “harlot form” the overture has enough to cover the subject, but little enough to remain interesting. We flit between composers, works, time periods, tones, methodologies, keys and characters throughout the course of CD, and it is a genuine pleasure to be thrown hither and thither. A highlight, for me, was Bononcini’s sad and threatening Cefalo, which is full of a cello player’s sense of darkness.

Great credit has to go to Charivari Agréable, the group whose technical proficiency has given life to a series of very obscure opera overtures. This CD is a worthy companion piece to other opera anthologies, both popular and obscure, since it nestles happily in the genre of “introductory” rather than “exhaustive”: an intention highlighted by the obvious fun the orchestra has with its solo moments and general camaraderie. As a window into the period, it makes one realise just how formulaic and repetitive the vogue for Italian opera could be, but it is also refreshingly representative of the variety and nuances composers could inject into the form. It is a confusing collection, in many ways: Scarlatti, Ariosti, Bononcini, Pasquini, and Ziani on one CD is a little baffling. But, I suggest, that is irrelevant, and that the CD is satisfying regardless.

– Dan Sperrin, Fanfare [5-6/2015]

The players have lived and breathed this music – the results are stunning.

The success of Philip Glass outstripped the first flush of celebrity in the 1980s and 1990s. This logical set serves further to consolidate his reputation in a world in which no single style has monopoly or ascendancy.

The Third Quartet owes its existence to a commission for the music for Paul Schrader's film of the life of Yukio Mishima. Mishima’s samurai life and death by seppuku made him almost as much of an iconic figure in the 1960s as Che Guevara. The music moves between a lulling iterative murmur (II) and a sense of rise and uplift (IV). The finale (V) is almost Schubertian or may remind you of a fragment from Smetana’s bustling Aus Meinem Leben. I have heard Company in two other different orchestral version recordings recently: the Naxos Glass set and the EMI ‘American Classics’ disc. The first and third movements are suggestive of a melancholic slowed fanfare. The third is chaffingly Sibelian. The finale is shot through with urgently propulsive power; angst and exhilaration meet and mediate. The early death of the artist Brian Buczak from HIV/AIDS was the spur for the Fourth Quartet. It is one of the longer quartets and has only three movements. It's a work of more complexity than its mates on CD1. There is a great tenderness here and the slow-rocking and piercing poignancy of the second movement is memorable. In the finale it is as if the lock-gates have been raised to release a surge of Schubertian melody.

The First Quartet is from the mid-1960s; pretty early for Glass. It dates from shortly after he had completed his not entirely comfortable studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Pierre Boulez. The work has some of his trademark iterative cell-patterning but the world he creates is more involved, varied, troubled and dissonant. The Fifth Quartet - so far his last - is contemporary romantic. Its second movement is launched with a typical sombre ostinato but other figures of passionate and sanguine weight are interleaved. Passion too drives the third movement which is thrillingly empowered. The fourth carries reminiscences, in Schubertian cotton wool, of those unhurried fanfares of Company. In a flighty finale high-pitched bustle and wonderfully inventive optimistic writing lead to a triumphantly winged episode. There's just a hint of Tippett at full throttle in this music which at the close moves into tender reflection.

As with the other performances you feel that the Smith Quartet have lived and breathed this music.

The set is well presented and the whole effect is very pleasing prompting curiosity about the other Signum/Smith collaborations - Different Trains (Reich) SIGCD 064 and Ghost Stories SIGCD 088.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb Internationl

Classical Music

GIUSEPPE TORELLI: Charivari Agreable/Kah-Ming Nh; Bojan Cicic, violin solo. GIUSEPPE TORELLI - THE ORIGINAL BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS: No. 1 in G major; No. 2 in E minor; No. 3 in B minor; No. 4 in D major; No. 5 in G minor; No. 6 in C minor; No. 7 in C major; No. 8 in F major; No. 9 in A minor; No. 10 in D minor; No. 11 in B flat major;No. 12 in A major; Sonata a 4 in A minor G 46.

In this live recording from the Royal Festival Hall the OAE shines its musical torch into the realms of some later repertoire, shedding new light on the music of Mahler. Conducted by Principal Artist Vladimir Jurowski, this CD includes Mahler’s 'Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen' (Songs of a Wayfarer), written in the wake of an unhappy affair with a soprano, and the extraordinarily exciting and powerful 'Totenfeier', Mahler’s first foray into orchestral music, and later reworked into the opening movement of his second symphony.

DMITRY SHOSTAKOVICH St. Petersburg Philharmonic ORchestra/Yuri Temirkanov. DMITRY SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60 "Leningrad".

Classical Music

John Jenkins (1592-1678) is perhaps the most popular English composer of the great golden era of music for multiple viols, ranging from William Cornyshe in 1520 through to Henry Purcell in 1680. The reason why is not hard to fathom: a rare melodic gift is married to an exceptionally deep understanding of harmony and modulation, and effortless counterpoint gives each part an equal voice in the musical conversation. Fretwork performs Jenkins complete consort works for four-part viol ensemble, in a new recording that showcases this composer’s rich and diverse compositions. In 2016, Fretwork celebrated their 30th anniversary. In these last three decades, they have explored the core repertory of great English concert music, from Taverner to Purcell, and made classic recordings against which others are judged.

The fifth in Signum’s series of Charles-Marie Widor’s Organ Symphonies, performed by Joseph Nolan on the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ of L’église de la Madeleine, Paris. Widor (1844-1937) was born to the organ, his Lyonnaise kinsfolk being organ-builders. He showed early talent for the instrument, and for decades embodied its might and splendor across the Gallic domain – his ‘Organ Symphonies’ were genre-defining in their influence. “…the Widor Organ cycle of the decade” - Musicweb Int’l

HOWELLS The Summer Is Coming. Sweetest of Sweets. Sing Lullaby. One Thing Have I Desired. A Spotless Rose. Antiphon. Walking in the Snow. A Grace for 10 Downing Street. Here Is the Little Door. God Be in My Head. Long, Long Ago. Te Deum and Jubilate (Collegium Regale). Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (Dallas Canticles). A Hymn for St Cecilia • Ralph Allwood, cond; Tom Wimpenny (org); Rodolphus Ch • SIGNUM SIGCD190 (69:02 Text and Translation)


Virtually all previous recordings of choral works by Herbert Howells have been exclusively devoted to his various sacred compositions—hardly surprising, given that Howells was arguably the greatest composer of liturgical music in the 20th century. This CD refreshingly adds to the mix a few of Howells’s secular choral pieces as well—specifically, The Summer Is Coming, Sweetest of Sweets , and Walking in the Snow , plus A Grace for 10 Downing Street , the non-liturgical invocation composed in 1972 for then prime minister and amateur conductor Edward Heath. Spanning some 56 of the composer’s 90 years, from 1918 to 1976, they present the full panoply of his compositional techniques, ranging from employment of church modes to the influences of French Impressionism, but are all recognizably the products of their maker, whose art became increasingly refined and complex over the years but remained thoroughly consistent in its fundamentals. Among the lesser-known works presented here, the most substantial are the Dallas Canticles . Whereas Howells wrote most of his service music for English cathedrals, this set from 1975 (the last of more than 20 settings by the composer) was provided instead for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Dallas, where a former Howells pupil was the organist and choir director, and a wealthy local philanthropist paid the commission fee. However, there is evidence suggesting that the works were originally intended for Durham Cathedral; such are the financial exigencies of musical composition.


The Rodolphus Choir is a polished ensemble of about 30 young singers, 16 to 25 years old, who are students and graduates of Eton. Its sonorities are bright and noticeably favor the treble end of the frequency spectrum over the somewhat subdued tenors and basses. Particularly noteworthy is its excellent diction, which makes it possible to follow most of the pieces without texts on hand; intelligibility is aided further by a well-considered recorded acoustic that is clear and not too reverberant. Texts are provided for all selections except Long, Long Ago and Walking in the Snow , omitted for copyright reasons. (The Naxos CD 8.554659 of music by Howells has the text of the former.) Rather frustratingly, only three of the four carol-anthems are recorded ( Like as the Hart Desireth is omitted), and the others are interspersed throughout the set instead of presented en bloc . For the Howells completist this disc has, so far as I can find, the only recordings in print of God Be in My Head and Walking in the Snow ; most of the other selections have only one other recording in print, though for several pieces that is the top-notch one of the Chandos two-CD budget set with the Finzi Singers under Paul Spicer, Howells’s pupil and biographer. Consequently, this disc will likely serve as a supplement for most Howells devotees; but as such it is a worthy one, as well as a welcome addition to any choral collection in general.


FANFARE: James A. Altena


From the very opening of this disc - a mixture of sacred and secular choral works - the Rodolfus Choir, under the astute directorship of Ralph Allwood, capture Howells’s idiom perfectly, and their understanding of this music is reflected in the high quality of their performances. They commence with The Summer is Coming, a brooding and complex work, written in memory of Arnold Bax, and the disc also features the much-loved Three Carol-Anthems – Sing Lullaby, A Spotless Rose and Here is the Little Door, here sung beautifully – although I found the soloist a little strained in A Spotless Rose. Howells composed his George Herbert settings Sweetest of Sweets and Antiphon very late on in life. Written for the Bach Choir at the suggestion of Sir David Willcocks, these are both brilliantly crafted works – harmonically adventurous and complicated, but one of my very few criticisms of this disc is that the male voices appear rather weak in Antiphon. The female voices are, in fact, stronger and more secure as a general rule throughout this recording, and they are particularly outstanding in One Thing Have I Desired, a work commissioned by St Matthew’s, Northampton. Other works presented include the Collegium Regale Te Deum and Jubilate, the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from the Dallas Service (commissioned by the director of music at St Luke’s Episcopal Church in Dallas – American Anglicans were great followers of Howells’s music at that time), and God be in my head. The latter was a composition demonstration that Howells gave to a pupil, written within the student’s hour-long lesson. The Rodolfus Choir here give a glowing account of this simple but incredibly effective piece. Another striking work on the disc is A Grace for 10 Downing Street. Edward Heath asked Howells to compose grace for a dinner to be held at 10 Downing Street in honour of William Walton - and at which the Queen Mother as well as other distinguished guests would be present. The performance here indicates how apt a start this Grace would have been to a truly impressive occasion. The disc concludes with A Hymn for St Cecilia, commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Musicians to celebrate Howells’s time as Master of the Company. It is a splendid conclusion to an excellent disc of exquisite and radiant singing.

-- Em Marshall, MusicWeb International

Tenebrae return to the sublime music of Tomás Luis de Victoria on Signum with this recording of his timeless Tenebrae Responsories. The works mix the words of the Gospels with other texts commenting on collective suffering written around the 4th century, and would traditionally have been performed as part of a moving service in which candles are slowly extinguished to mark the progress and suffering of Christ that forms the Passion story.

Also available from Llyr Williams on Signum Classics: Wagner Without Words

A stunning release, Beethoven Unbound is presented to mark the completion of Llyr Williams’ monumental Beethoven cycle at Wigmore Hall and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and was recorded live at Wigmore Hall over three years and nine recitals. As well as the complete piano sonatas, the release also features other works including the 32 Variations in C minor, Eroica Variations, Opus 126 Bagatelles and the Diabelli Variations, a total of almost 14 hours of music.

This is Williams’ fourth album on Signum Classics. Williams comments on the album and the partnership with Sherman: “Rather than adopt the chronological approach, I have arranged the works roughly in the order that I played them in the concerts... This has sometimes allowed for creativity in putting the pieces together. Working with Judy on this project has been a joy and a privilege. It was sad to reach the end – but at least we still have a Schubert cycle to look forward to!”

Williams has developed a reputation as one of the finest exponents of Beethoven, since giving his first Beethoven cycle in Perth in 2010, and winning a South Bank Sky Arts Award in 2012 for an epic two-week marathon in Edinburgh. The Guardian said of one of his RWCMD cycle recitals in 2016: “Williams’ already considerable stature as a Beethoven interpreter seems to grow with every performance” (Rian Evans, 25 March 2016) and The Independent commented on a Wigmore recital: “Williams treats it [the keyboard] as an extension of his body, and with the three Opus 10 sonatas plus the Diabelli Variations he took us onto an altogether higher plane” (Michael Church, 12 October 2016).

FRANCIS POULENC. TENEBRAE; NIGEL SHORT, CONDUCTOR. MASS IN G; LITANIES A LA VIERGE NOIR; SALVE REGINA; UN SOIR DE NEIGE; FIGURE HUMAINE; QUATRE PETITES PRIERES DE SAINT FRANCOIS D'ASSISE.

GIUSEPPE VERDI Carmen Giannattasio; Veronica Simeoni; Alexander Timchenko; Carlo Colombara; Mikhailovsky Theatre Chorus; St. Petersburg Philharmoic Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov. (2 CDs) GIUSEPPE VERDI: Requiem.

In a nearly unmatchable seven decades-plus of public exposure as a conductor of more than 150 orchestras that included nearly every major American orchestra, more than 5,000 concert appearances and 300 official recordings, Lorin Maazel can be said to have been one of the most important figures in 20th and early 21st c. music. His recordings of symphonic cycles of composer’s complete orchestral works include those of Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Richard Strauss, for which he won an astonishing ten Grands Prix du Disques. Another composer who figures prominently and importantly in his discography and concert performances is Gustav Mahler, to which this last of three issued sets of symphonies, recorded live with the Philharmonia Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall, concluding a much-lauded symphony cycle, sees release on Signum Classics. “... it’s wonderfully stylish: that hesitant Viennese-style playing-around and a lovely warm string sound ...” (BBC Radio 3) “This second volume, along with the first, is a treasured set on my shelves. I cannot wait for the final volume, Symphonies 7-9.” (ClassicalSource)