Truly a remarkable pianist - The Times Pianist Mark Bebbington's long association with SOMM Recordings has produced a remarkable array of recordings championing newly discovered British music. Pairing the piano music of Arnold Bax and Harriet Cohen, his latest release includes eight first recordings and promises fresh insights into the music of a revered English master and revelatory performances of an overlooked composer who subsequently found fame as a pianist. The result, Private Passions, is an illuminating dialogue between one of the pre-eminent British composers of the last century and his muse who together shared a 42-year-long love affair. The eight first recordings here include Bax's vitally contrasted Four Pieces from 1947 and Cohen's evocatively colored Russian Impressions - the first documented public performance of which Bebbington gave in London in 2015 - a suite dating from around 1913 that variously hints at the influence of Mussorgsky, Debussy and Glinka. Heard here in it's original version, Bax's E flat Piano Sonata of 1921 (which prompted the composer's First Symphony) is as vivid and rich a statement as he ever made. Completing the album is Bax's In the Night (Passacaglia), an evocative piece that owes much to the intimacy of his relationship with Cohen, and Legend, boasting music of grandeur and poetry wholly suited to it's title. Mark Bebbington's previous release with SOMM featured piano concertos by Grieg and Delius - "A Grieg concerto the equal of any I have heard, the most enjoyable version of the Delius concerto I know and a novelty world premiere to boot. All round excellence" (MusicWeb International) - and was an Album of the Week for The Times, Classic FM and Mail on Sunday.

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Most widely known for his highly acclaimed recordings of British compositions, Mark Bebbington now takes on an all-American album, alongside Leon Botstein and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. This two-disc set offers a fresh interpretation of some of George Gershwin’s evergreens, as well as a bonus disc which includes the first integral recording of Gershwin’s Eight Preludes for Piano Solo. Mark Bebbington’s music has gained him seven five-star reviews in a row from BBC Music Magazine. He brings interpretive splendor to this recording alongside Maestro Botstein, who is currently in his 23rd year as Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra.

This debut album showcases talented 32-year-old Venetian pianist Alessandro Taverna, whose career began flourishing when he won First Prize in the Minnesota International Piano Competition, Second Prize in the London International Piano Competition, and Bronze Medal at the Leeds International Piano Competition. On hearing him, the late Lorin Maazel invited him to perform the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto with the Munich Philharmonic in Vienna's Musikverein last year. Alessandro particularly identifies with Russian composers and made a special study of Medtner's music, which he plays to perfection.

In the centenary anniversary year of Hubert Parry's death, the eagerly-awaited second volume in Somm's complete survey of his English Lyrics highlights a deeply-felt connection to the richly evocative language of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. There is breadth, too, ranging eloquently into the romantic realms of 18th- and 19th-century texts and the nascent modernity of the 20th century. Tenor James Gilchrist, baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Andrew West are re-united here, with soprano Sarah Fox contributing to the three-volume series for the first time. Plaudits for Volume 1 included The Classical Reviewer hailing it "an auspicious start to this series," while Gramophone approvingly declared "Roll on Vol.2!" Drawing on texts spanning five centuries, this second volume reveals Parry's wide reading of English poetry and includes Book 9 of the English Lyrics - featuring seven songs by Mary Coleridge (great-grand-niece of Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) - in it's entirety. Among the treasures it contains are 'The Maiden', a fantasy-accented hymn to Spring, the meditative love song 'Whether I live' and the sensuously melodious 'Armida's Garden' - described by Parry expert Jeremy Dibble in his booklet notes as "arguably the masterpiece of the collection".

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