Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is an arresting collection of music for cello and piano by British composers, ranging from such masterpieces as Britten’s seminal Cello Sonata (written for Rostropovich) to Joe Cutler’s brilliant new showpiece ‘2016 was a Bad Year for Music’, whilst taking in such superb recent works as James MacMillan’s Second Cello Sonata and the Sonata by Richard Rodney Bennett – written for Alexander Baillie and first performed by him – alongside shorter evocative pieces by Frank Bridge, Kenneth Leighton and EJ Moeran. The album adds up to a terrific programme of familiar and lesser-known works by a galaxy of British composers, making it the first choice album of British Cello Music for music-lovers and students everywhere.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

English pianist Leon McCawley leapt into prominence at the age of nineteen, when he won both First Prize in the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna, and Second Prize in the Leeds International Piano Competition. He has led a glittering career that includes recitals all over Europe, at Lincoln Center in New York, and appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony, Dallas Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra as well as several appearances at the BBC Proms. He has worked with Gatti, Paavo J�rvi, Kurt Masur, and Simon Rattle, among many others. On this, his fifth disc for SOMM, the pianist turns to Rachmaninov's Complete Preludes.

Classical Music

The much anticipated second volume of Peter Donohoe's complete survey of Mozart's Piano Sonatas for SOMM Recordings focuses on three sonatas produced during the composer's ill-fated journey to Paris in 1777. This new release follows remarkable critical acclaim for Volume 1 including the accolade of BBC Music Magazine's Recording of the Month which declared: "It was high time someone blew the cobwebs off this still under-appreciated repertoire, and Donohoe is clearly the person to do it." Volume 2 promises more revealing performances from Donohoe, applauded in Gramophone's review of Volume 1 for demonstrating "a personal involvement that is as touching as it is fascinating and finely considered". As if anticipating the mighty Jupiter Symphony, with uncharacteristically detailed tempo indications and an improvisatory quality in places, the Piano Sonata in C major (No.7, K309) may have been composed with Rosa Cannabich in mind, Mozart's 15-year-old student giving it's first performance in late 1777. In a relatively rare key signature for Mozart, the A minor Piano Sonata (No.8, K310) was composed in 1778 immediately after the death of the composer's mother. Intense and expressive, it shows, Christopher Morley succinctly suggests in his informative notes, "Mozart at his most grim". Spacious, full of grand gestures and animated display, the Piano Sonata in D major (No.9, K311) is "a big, spectacular Sonata, full of effect and color" that explores the full range of the keyboard with winning exuberance. The A minor Rondo (K511) was composed in March 1787 and, notes Christopher Morley, "unfettered by the obligations of orchestral constraints, [it] builds in chromatic intensity and melodic urgency to emerge as one of the most profound movements ever penned by the composer". Volume 2 of Peter Donohoe's Mozart Piano Sonatas delivers on the hope expressed by The Classical Review of it's predecessor to "surely make listeners eager to hear the next volumes".

Classical Music

Somm Recordings and former BBC Young Musician Competition prize- winner Cordelia Williams present two sublime voices together for the first time on album in a poetic and probing coupling of the solo piano music of JS Bach - musical laureate of 17th-century Protestantism - and Arvo P�rt, principal voice of contemporary Holy Minimalism. Although a quarter of a millennia separates their births, both share a conviction that faith in God, as Williams notes in her introductory essay, "is the foundation of the creation of music." This pioneering coupling of the two composers reveals a surprising latticework of connections in their constant, shared striving for economy and essence. P�rt's signature chiming 'tintinnabuli' style is beautifully evoked in three pieces designed to console and comfort their dedicatees: the tolling, melancholic profundity of F�r Alina; the quietly majestic and moving F�r Anna Maria and the limpid, liquid invention of Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka. Composed for his 10-year-old son, Wilhelm Friedemann (himself later a composer of distinction), Bach's twin sets of 15 Two-part Inventions (BWV 772-86) and 15 Three-part Sinfonias (BWV 787-801) are much more than mere pedagogic primers. Williams finds in them a richness of technical design far beyond their apparent simplicity. Here, Williams reverts to Bach's original ordering of the pieces to chart a subtly revealing way through music as intimate as it is illuminating.

Classical Music