The Carlock-Combet Duo return to SOMM RECORDINGS with a trio of ravishing Romantic Violin Sonatas by Schubert, Robert Schumann and Grieg. Formed in 2014, the Philadelphia-based Carlock-Combet Duo – Sandra Carlock and Guillaume Combet – has quickly established a reputation for “imaginative and intelligent programming performed with style, panache and polish” (MusicWeb International). The 20-year-old Schubert’s genial and outward-looking Violin Sonata in A major (D574) explores the expressive range of the violin to the full and is, says Robert Matthew-Walker in his informative booklet notes, “a masterpiece of the late Classical era worthy to stand with the finest examples of Beethoven”. The violinist Joseph Joachim considered Schumann’s Op.121 Violin Sonata in D minor to be “one of the finest compositions of our times in respect of its marvelous unity of feeling and thematic significance. It overflows with noble passion, almost harsh and bitter in expression, and the last movement reminds one of the sea with glorious waves of sound”. Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata in C minor (Op.45) was his last completed chamber work. Beginning and ending with passionately dramatic statements, it frames a central, nobly lyrical theme memorably shared by both instruments.

SOMM RECORDINGS’Belle Époque 1886 celebrates a golden age of French chamber music, uniquely coupling Cello Sonatas by César Franck and Benjamin Godard. Franck’s A major and Godard’s D minor Sonatas were both composed in 1886 when French composers were replacing Austro-German dominance with a native, vernacular style. Making their debuts on SOMM are cellist Corinne Morris and pianist Petr Limonov. Of Anglo-French heritage, Morris continues to reveal herself a formidable musician. She made a triumphant comeback after a shoulder injury forced her to withdraw from the concert platform for more than five years. She has been hailed by Mstislav Rostropovich as “‘Corinotchka’, my colleague” while Paul Tortelier wrote “My warmest wishes are for Corinne and her art”. With a burgeoning profile at the keyboard and conductor’s podium, Russian-British pianist Petr Limonov has been described as “an extremely multi-faceted, phenomenal musician who has an endless array of abilities” (Classical Music magazine). Franck’s Cello Sonata – an arrangement by cellist Jules Delsart of his Violin Sonata, originally composed for violinist Eugène Ysaÿe’s wedding and the only alternative version sanctioned by the composer – is notable for the lyrical, singing quality of its cello writing while boasting complex harmonies and sophisticated thematic devices throughout. A prolific composer, versatile musician and close associate of Franck’s, Godard’s Cello Sonata, says Gavin Dixon in his booklet notes, “demonstrates an innate knowledge of the instrument, especially of the varied expressive potential of its different ranges”. It is shot through with vivid coloring of the cello’s voice in shifting registers and Godard’s penchant for the operatic.

SOMM RECORDINGS announces a major new recording of songs by Charles Villiers Stanford including the first complete recording of Songs of Faith and 12 first recordings of other distinctively vital songs. Songs of Love, Faith and Nonsense continues SOMM’s widely acclaimed commitment to Stanford’s music with baritone Roderick Williams, tenor James Way (making his SOMM debut) and pianist Andrew West throwing revealing new light on his gift for word setting and the variety of his responses to matters of emotional ardor, spiritual fervency and the sublime nonsense poems of Edward Lear. Setting poems by Tennyson and Walt Whitman, Songs of Faith demonstrates Stanford’s ability to give unique expression to the profound and the arcane with music of dramatic force and harmonic ingenuity. Three songs by Robert Bridges (librettist for Stanford’s oratorio Eden) and four songs from the opera Shamus O’Brien tap into Stanford’s Irish roots to colorful and evocative effect. Composed to mark his 25th wedding anniversary and receiving its first recording, The Triumph of Love sets five sonnets by his close cousin, Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes, in richly executed settings. The delightful Nonsense Rhymes taken from Edward Lear’s inimitably playful, poignant and pointed limericks show a different side to Stanford, a “highly articulate, dry humor like many literary Irishmen of his era”, as Jeremy Dibble says in his authoritative booklet notes.

SOMM RECORDINGS’ acclaimed series of re-mastered recitals by the much loved, fondly remembered contralto Kathleen Ferrier continues with Kathleen Ferrier: 20th Century British Treasures. Featuring recordings made for Decca and the BBC between 1946 and 1953, it includes a previously unpublished recording of Ferrier’s passionate performance of Lennox Berkeley’s Four Poems of St Teresa of Ávila. Sir Thomas Allen, the distinguished interpreter of British song and Trustee of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, contributes an extensive booklet commentary that brings a lifetime’s experience to bear in an insightful analysis of Ferrier’s dexterous and treasured talent, accented by the distinctive tones of her native Lancashire. The earliest recording, from 1947, is of Benjamin Britten’s ‘The Flower Song’ from The Rape of Lucretia, the latest, from 1953 (both BBC recitals), includes Howard Ferguson’s lovely five-part Discovery, three songs by William Wordsworth and Edmund Rubbra’s Three Psalms, specially written for Ferrier. Pieces by defining proponents of British song including Parry, Stanford, Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, Frank Bridge and Peter Warlock complete a crucial celebration of Ferrier’s inimitable contribution to the genre. Pianist Julian Jacobson, son of composer Maurice Jacobson, whose melancholy but sensuous The Song of Songs is heard in a 1947 BBC broadcast, also provides a personal poignant note on Ferrier’s championing of his father’s music.

SOMM RECORDINGS is pleased to announce Entente Musicale, a celebration of Anglo-French music from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries that sees violinist Clare Howick and pianist Simon Callaghan return to the label following their well-received collection of British Violin Sonatas. Perhaps no composer embodied the new spirit of comradeship and collaboration between England and France more enthusiastically than the Bradford-born, Paris-domiciled Frederick Delius. His Sonata in B major offers a becoming portrait of the then 30-year-old composer; youthfully dramatic with a growing virtuosity and vigor that makes it seem, as Robert Matthew-Walker notes in his erudite booklet notes, like the “extended and manifestly symphonic composition” it is. Composed at the same age, John Ireland’s breakthrough First Violin Sonata combines Edwardian elegance with a hint of French Impressionism gleaned from Debussy – whose late, last Violin Sonata in G minor is a work of profoundly-expressed emotions – and Ravel, whose Pièce en forme de habanera is hauntingly memorable. While resident in Paris in the early years of the last century, Cyril Scott enjoyed cordial relations with Ravel and Debussy, who particularly admired his music. His Valse Caprice and arrangement of Cherry Ripe infuse well-mannered salon pieces with lithe French elegance. Similarly so, Arnold Bax’s ever-popular picture-postcard Mediterranean in its vivacious arrangement by Jascha Heifetz.

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the third volume in Leon McCawley’s much praised series of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Sonatas. Six Sonatas, spanning the years 1767-84, are featured: the earliest No.31 in A-flat major, the latest No.56 in D major while Robert Matthew- Walker provides fascinating booklet notes describing the multifarious effects on his music of Haydn’s enthusiasm for equal temperament. Sonata No.31 in A-flat major is, he says, a continuation of Bach that seems to bypass Mozart and anticipate early Beethoven: “Astonishingly original music, and not just for its time”. The two-movement Sonata No.32 in G minor is a unique and intimate work while No.34 in D major boasts an innovative tonal scheme that disguises its virtuosity with immediately approachable technique. The F major Sonata No.38, notes Matthew-Walker, is “full of that wonderful combination of inner life and directly human expression that is the essence of Haydn”. Two later Sonatas – Nos.55 (B-flat major) and 56 (D major) – arguably saw romantic sonata form tested to its expressive limits by “Haydn’s original genius” and his “thematic developmental-variation technique even today causing surprise for its profoundly original subtleties”. Volume I was recognized with a coveted Diapason d’Or from Diapason magazine, which enthused: “What a range in his interpretation and how many layers of gradation! McCawley ties these together in a special quality of inflexions which make their point with great intelligibility and sensitivity”. BBC Music Magazine declared Volume II “should stand high on any list” of quality recordings of Haydn, adding “the sparkle of McCawley’s touch is instantly apparent”. Gramophone also commended McCawley’s playing, describing it as “light of touch, stylistically assured and brimful of intelligence and wit”.

SOMM Recordings launches a revealing three-volume survey of One Hundred Years of British Song with tenor James Gilchrist and pianist Nathan Williamson. Compiled to reflect the rich variety of British song, Volume 1 throws a spotlight on composers who made a considerable contribution to the song repertoire but whose success in other genres often led to their songs being overlooked. All four featured composers – Gustav Holst, Rebecca Clarke, Ivor Gurney and Frank Bridge – were born in the late 1800s and lived through the horrors of the First World War and the extraordinary social, cultural and political upheaval that followed. Two songs by Holst – the liturgically-accented A Vigil of Pentecost and folk- infused The Ballad of Hunting Knowe – receive first recordings. Songs from Holst’s Twelve Humbert Wolfe Songs are also heard alongside Clarke’s macabre setting of AE Housman’s Eight O’Clock and John Masefield’s The Seal Man, which Williamson describes in his informative booklet notes as “one of the most thrilling English songs in the repertoire”. Also featured are Ivor Gurney’s powerful and poignant Snow and Sleep and his affecting treatment of WB Yeats’ Down by the Salley Gardens together with Four Songs by Frank Bridge including three romantically heightened settings of Rabindranath Tagore and the deeply moving, lullaby-like Journey’s End to a text by Humbert Wolfe.

SOMM Recordings announces the first complete survey on album of George Dyson’s music for solo piano including five premiere recordings performed by Simon Callaghan in a specially priced two-album set. Callaghan is joined by Clíodna Shanahan for the first recording of the two-piano version of Concerto Leggiero, a mature work originally composed for piano and string orchestra. Almost classical in its sense of economy, the two-piano arrangement boasts a remarkable lyricism. Born in Halifax in 1833, Dyson studied with Stanford and Parry before becoming one of the most prominent British composers and distinguished teachers of his generation. Best known for his choral work, his piano music spans his career. Heard in its entirety, it provides valuable new insights into his development as a composer. Other first recordings include the seven-year-old Dyson’s first work for piano, Untitled Piano Piece, the exam board commission for young pianists, Twelve Easy Pieces, and The Open Window and Six Lyrics, character pieces designed to help develop technique and musical imagination in young pianists. Among other works included are the Debussy-accented Primrose Mount, the dazzling set of fugues Bach’s Birthday and so-called War Epigrams, inspired by Dyson’s experiences on the Western Front before being invalided home. Dyson biographer Paul Spicer provides the authoritative booklet notes. Simon Callaghan’s recent SOMM releases include British Violin Sonatas with Clare Howick, and a survey of Roger Sacheverell Coke’s piano music, of which MusicWeb International said: “The commanding and virtuosic musicianship of Simon Callaghan allows this quirkily individual music to register with maximum effect – a fascinating and compelling album”. Making her debut on SOMM, Clíodna Shanahan has a busy performing and recording schedule for TV, radio, symphony and chamber concerts. A pianist and organist, she also records film soundtracks, most notably Howard Shore’s The Hobbit.

Lights, Camera, Action! as SOMM Recordings says “Hooray for Hollywood” with its second volume of Great Classic Film Music featuring the Scottish- born maestro Iain Sutherland directing the Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra of Hilversum. The first volume of Great Film Music (Ariadne 5006) was hailed by Classic FM for “bringing together the finest music cinema has to offer” and featured by John Brunning as his ‘Drivetime Discovery’. This second visit to the Golden Age of Hollywood and its unforgettable successors is taken from live and studio recordings from 1988-95 that conjure up all the drama and romance, poetry and playfulness of film music at its most gloriously entertaining. A half century of unforgettable music is captured here, from the swashbuckling romance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s The Sea Hawk to the sci-fi heroism of Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek: The Next Generation. Cinema icons John Williams (Back to the Future), John Barry (You Only Live Twice), Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia) and Lalo Schifrin (The Eagle Has Landed) are heard alongside the late, great Ennio Morricone’s ‘Gabriel’s Oboe’ (The Mission). Love and romance feature among the thrills and spills of Burton Lane’s Finian’s Rainbow, Kurt Weill’s September Song, George Gershwin’s Funny Face, Robert Stolz’s Spring Parade and Cole Porter’s sparkling songs in Evil Under the Sun. Two towering figures of the concert hall are also heard, with Elvira Madigan’s sublime borrowing from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 and rousing and lyrical themes befitting their Shakespearean settings by William Walton from the Laurence Olivier starring and directed Richard III and Henry V. Iain Sutherland’s previous SOMM releases include the “impressive... fully recommended” (Musical Opinion) Bernstein: Broadway to Hollywood (Ariadne 5002) and In London Town (SOMMCD 0117) with its “sparkling performances of some of the cream of light music” (MusicWeb International).

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce the label debuts of two exciting young Slovenian soloists – flautist Boris Bizjak and violinist Lana Trotovšek – and 2015 Wigmore Hall String Quartet Competition winners, the Piatti Quartet. They come together for revelatory performances of six pieces for flute, violin and string quartet elements by Frank Anton Hoffmeister, all receiving their first recordings. Now overshadowed by his illustrious contemporaries, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven (music by all whom, including the Diabelli Variations, he published), Hoffmeister was himself a prolific composer in every form. Although the flute is often placed centre-stage in these six works, all demonstrate Hoffmeister’s eloquently proportioned, life-enhancing and integrated feeling for chamber music. The two most substantial works here are a taut, dramatically urgent Quartet for flute, violin, viola and cello in C minor, and an E-flat major Quintet for flute, violin, two violas and cello of Mozartian mien and mood. With echoes of Gluck, Mozart and Haydn, two Trios for flute, violin and cello (in B-flat major and D major) and a Duetto in G major for flute and violin offer superbly expressive examples of Hoffmeister’s music at its most effusive and engagingly virtuosic. Hailed in his native Slovenia for his “musicality [and] captivating performance”, London-based Boris Bizjak has won several international flute competitions and is in growing demand around the world. Lana Trotovšek, praised by The Washington Post for her “clean, refined tone with musical sense of phrasing and impeccable intonation”, is also a Professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. The Piatti Quartet – Nathaniel Anderson-Frank and Michael Trainor (violins), Tetsuumi Nagata (viola), Jessie Ann Richardson (cello) – have gained growing recognition for their “ferociously fine form” (BBC Music) and playing of “absolute authority and conviction” (Gramophone).

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce Elgar from America, Volume II: the first commercial release of three historic performances from 1940s’ New York featuring legendary Elgarian interpreters including violinist Yehudi Menuhin and conductors Malcolm Sargent and Arturo Toscanini at the helm of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The results offer a fascinating transatlantic perspective on a titan of British music while revealing his musical legacy in a country he visited annually from 1905-07 and again in 1911. The featured recordings date from the first half of the 1940s and have been restored and remastered by the multi-award-winning audio restoration engineer Lani Spahr, who also provides informative booklet notes. Menuhin, long associated with Elgar since his 1932 recording of the Violin Concerto, is heard here in a 1945 performance of the work, abbreviated to fit radio constraints of time. It is conducted by Sargent who also leads an account of Cockaigne (In London Town) Concert-Overture from the same year. Toscanini’s 1940 performance of the Introduction and Allegro for Strings marks the only time he conducted it with the NBC SO, joined here by Mischa Mischakoff and Edwin Bachmann violins, Carlton Cooley viola, Frank Miller cello. Elgar from America, Volume I (ARIADNE 5005) was hailed by Classical Music Daily as “a fine start to this historic cycle” while MusicWeb International called it “a model of one of the things the album should be doing: filling the medium to capacity with engaging and/or controversial interpretations that one cannot simply over-hear... Essential listening.”

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the return of the acclaimed partnership of pianist Clélia Iruzun and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jac van Steen with two colorful late-19th-century Romantic Piano Concertos from Brazil and France: Henrique Oswald’s G minor Piano Concerto, Op.10 and the Fifth Piano Concerto in F major (Op.103) by Camille Saint-Saëns. Iruzun’s Brazilian compatriot Henrique Oswald shared a long friendship with Camille Saint-Saëns based on mutual admiration for each other as composers and pianists. They occasionally performed together some of Saint-Saëns’ music for two pianos in public recitals. Saint-Saëns’ exotic Fifth Piano Concerto, the Egyptian, was composed during a North African holiday in 1896. Combining complex piano writing with a deft lightness of touch, it boasts a lyrical main theme (described by Saint-Saëns as “a Nubian love song”), hypnotic echoes of the gamelan and a finale bursting with virtuosity. Oswald’s Piano Concerto was composed in Italy a decade before Saint-Saëns’ Egyptian. With bravura passages recalling Saint-Saëns’ Second Piano Concerto, its richly Romantic vein carries allusions to Fauré while brimming with Oswald’s intriguing native Brazilian rhythms. Like Oswald, Alberto Nepomuceno was a Brazilian who studied in Europe, later succeeding him in a prestigious teaching position in Rio de Janeiro. Modelled on Grieg’s Suite from Holberg’s Time, his Suite Antiga (Suite in the Old Style) combines Baroque style and Romantic attitude with a bewitching savoir faire.

SOMM Recordings is proud to announce the premiere recording of Ian Venables’ exquisite and moving Requiem with the Choir of Gloucester Cathedral conducted by the Cathedral’s of Music Adrian Partington and Assistant of Music Jonathan Hope playing the organ. Completed in 2018, the Requiem received its first performance in the imposing surroundings of Gloucester Cathedral, where this recording was made in 2019. Widely acclaimed for his songs and chamber music, the Requiem is Ian Venables’ most substantial choral work to date and is a compelling piece full of fine melodies and gorgeous harmonies. Adrian Partington describes the Requiem as “a significant addition to the choral repertoire. The music is eloquent, resourceful and exerts a strong emotional appeal”. Ian Venables comments: “Composing a Requiem is a daunting creative challenge because so many great settings have been written in the past. However, as a composer of songs, words are always crucially important to me and I found that the words of the Mass for the Dead came to appeal to me strongly. I felt an overwhelming desire to set them to music. I am delighted that Adrian Partington, his excellent choir and Jonathan Hope have brought my music so vividly to life.” The album also includes first recordings of Ivor Gurney’s God mastering me (arranged by Venables), John Joubert’s O eternal God and Venables’ O Sing Aloud to God alongside John Sander’s Dedication. SOMM’s long relationship with Ian Venables includes his chamber music (SOMMCD 0101), of which Gramophone declared: “Lovers of the 20th- century English music renaissance will derive much pleasure from this enterprising and rewarding SOMM anthology”.

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the second volume in the London Bridge Trio's revealing exploration, recorded live, of the influential musical fraternity known as The Leipzig Circle. Delving deeper into the coterie that coalesced around the husband-and- wife composers Robert and Clara Schumann as Leipzig flourished into becoming the centre of European music making in the 1840s. Composed soon after his 30th birthday, Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No.1 in D minor (Op.49) is, says Robert Matthew-Walker in his informative booklet notes, one of the composer's "greatest chamber music compositions... a fine and trenchant work, revealing his genius at getting the utmost definition and detail from a small group of instruments". Clara Schumann's Op.17 Piano Trio in G minor elegantly shows off her own admired facility at the keyboard as well as her gift for composing music that "shows no little originality and a charm of melody which is all her own". From the beginning of what was to prove to be his late period, Robert Schumann's F major Second Piano Trio (Op.80) moves from episodes of intense melancholy to Spring-fresh lightness to conclude with an engrossing discussion between all three instruments. Here, says Matthew- Walker, "is Schumann at his most endearingly human, the quintessence of Romanticism from a demonstrably original great composer". The Leipzig Circle, Volume I (SOMMCD 0199) was hailed by The Telegraph as "a total delight" while Gramophone admired the London Bridge Trio's "playing of sensitivity and conviction" and concluded "there's a lot here to enjoy".

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce 17 world premiere recordings of Songs by Hamilton Harty in a ravishing recital by one of today’s most exciting young partnerships – mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and pianist Christopher Glynn. Although best known today as a composer of orchestral music, Hamilton Harty was also one of the most accomplished accompanists of his generation, forming especially notable partnerships with the sopranos Agnes Nicholls and Elsie Swinton. It prompted, in turn, his increasing activity as an accomplished song writer. The 23 featured songs include settings that speak eloquently of Harty’s abiding engagement with his Irish heritage and point, in the technical demands made of vocalist and pianist alike, to his innate understanding of the song form in all its concentrated, emotional power. Favourite Harty songs such as Sea Wrack, The Blue Hills of Antrim and My Lagan Love are heard alongside settings of Walt Whitman (By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame), Thomas Campion (Come, O Come, My Heart’s Delight) and two texts by the composer himself (My Thoughts of You and Adieu, Sweet Amaryllis). Also included are two early, unpublished works for solo piano – Idyll and Arlequin and Columbine. Five songs are heard in new editions created from original manuscripts by British music authority Jeremy Dibble who also provides informative booklet notes.