Utopia, Limited, Gilbert & Sullivan's penultimate work, is a rarely performed gem that pokes fun at the workings of the British Empire, thoughtfully revived and now presented alongside Sullivan’s evocative incidental music for King Arthur. Expect dazzling patter, lush choruses, and moments of beauty performed by a stellar cast (many of whom performed in Scottish Opera's 2021 semi-staging) in this compelling pairing of satire and symphonic storytelling. Conducted by Derek Clark and featuring Neal Davies, Richard Suart, Ellie Laugharne, and Yvonne Howard.

Dmitri Shostakovich is first and foremost known for his symphonies and string quartets - works that contain some humor, but even more darkness, brooding, and desolation. But there is the jaunty side of the great composer, too, and nowhere does it come to it's cheerful fore than in these works, the Jazz Suites, the Tahiti Trot, and his Ballet Suites. This set, accompanying Capriccio's boxes of Shostakovich's Symphonies, Film Music, Orchestral Songs, and Chamber Music, is rounded out with two concertos. In the playful Piano Concerto, that humorous side comes through in the many quotations of songs, own works, and Beethoven. Only the grim Violin Concerto, held back, like the 4th Symphony, for fear of retribution, offers no smile.

Sinfonia of London and John Wilson start a new series of recordings of works by Sir William Walton with this album featuring Charlie Lovell-Jones as soloist in the Violin Concerto. Lovell-Jones has soloed with major orchestras internationally, broadcasting on radio and television. As leader of the multi-award-winning Sinfonia of London, he has performed at the BBC Proms and recorded numerous albums, and is the winner of a number of significant international competitions. Commissioned by Jascha Heifetz, the Concerto was premiered in 1939, in America, and was enthusiastically received. Inspired by Walton's friend and lover Alice Wimborne, the work is extremely lyrical and passionate in nature, sporting a wild, virtuosic Tarantella as the second movement. Alice was also a driving force behind the inception of Walton's first grand opera, Troilus and Cressida, composed over almost a decade, largely after her untimely death. Here we hear the four-movement orchestral suite compiled in 1987 by Christopher Palmer, at the instigation of Lady Walton and his lifelong publisher OUP. Walton's overture Portsmouth Point is the earliest work on the album, premiered in 1926.

The six suites for solo cello are frequently considered to be Bach’s greatest masterpieces and are a pinnacle of the Baroque cello repertory. This new album of Bach’s complete Cello Suites has the unique feature of being performed using two different historic cellos, one of them being a rare five-string instrument from the 17th century, which is used on Suite 6.

Cellist William Skeen is one of the world’s premiere Baroque cellists. He serves as Principal Cellist with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Voices of Music, and was Principal Cellist of the American Bach Soloists for nearly two decades. Mr. Skeen taught Baroque cello and viola da gamba at the University of Southern California for two decades. Mr. Skeen has received two GRAMMY® nominations for previous albums. He continues to perform regularly with major orchestras and Baroque groups around the world.

This new release of the Six Cello Suites was beautifully recorded by famed multi-GRAMMY®-winning engineer Leslie Ann Jones at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California. It was mastered by RR's own multi-GRAMMY®-nominated engineer, Sean Royce Martin. The album was produced by the outstanding San Francisco-based Lolly Lewis, who in recent years has been particularly focused on period instrument performance and has produced six albums with the New Esterházy Quartet.

Brilliant Classics have celebrated the 150th Anniversary of Reger’s birth last year by expanding their Reger Collection of a decade ago from 11 to 18 CDs. Added to the original set, which presented Reger’s best known works – the glorious orchestral Böcklin Suite, the Mozart, Beethoven and Hiller Variations, the mighty piano and violin concertos, the beautiful clarinet quintet (not in the least inferior to Brahms’ masterpiece), the complete Chorale Fantasias for organ (Reger, an organist himself, wrote extensively and superbly for his instrument) and a fine selection of choral music – is a new set of chamber music including the Piano Trio, Flute-Violin-Viola Serenades, Clarinet–Piano Sonatas and other works, and Reger’s compositions for solo viola and for solo cello. The transparency of the chamber music genre particularly highlights the composer’s absolute mastery of counterpoint. Also new is an expanded keyboard section, with more works for the organ – so associated with Reger – including the Sonatas and Fantasy–Fugues, and a new solo piano CD recorded in 2023 by Eden Walker featuring Dreams by the Fireside and the Bach Variations and Fugue.

J.S. Bach: Cello Suites

For me, whenever I play the Bach suites, all of a sudden I find myself visualising Giacometti's hands incessantly moulding the earthen clay until a face appears. Getting to grips with the Bach suites is very closely related to that sense. You have to dig deeply into the string to give birth to the phrase, to make sure it breathes correctly: a phrase that is perpetually becoming, endlessly making and remaking itself. I waited a long time before recording these suites. Then one day, or rather one night, I began. Then there was my meeting with Sarah Moon. When I first felt my longing to record the Bach suites, I dreamt constantly of her images; because whenever I look at them I think of the creation of the world, the separation of the waters, the earth appearing, all before the beginning of history. Sonia Wieder-Atherton

There were various reasons why we decided to combine works by Antal Dorati with those of Matyas Seiber on the present CD. Both attended Zoltan Kodaly's composition class at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, both were highly regarded by their illustrious teacher. Kodaly passed on to his students a love of folk music and a particular appreciation of tradition through successive eras of music history. (Oliver Triendl)

Based on a story by Gogol, Modest Mussorgsky's unfinished Sorochintsi Fair is a comic opera in which amorous encounters intermingle with a devil's curse. Potentially a compelling and original drama, Salammbo was Mussorgsky's first attempt at an opera. Both works are world premiere recordings of chamber versions arranged by Fabrice Bollon, using only original material as their basis.

This is a great performance of the Triakontameron suite by Leopold Godowsky. This is a seldom-heard work that deserves a much larger footprint in the repertoire.

First recordings of unpublished instrumental works by a master of verismo. Several recent albums on Brilliant Classics have expanded our understanding of Francesco Cilea beyond his status as the composer of L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. His piano music, chamber music and songs all bear witness to a quintessentially Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy. Cilea abandoned writing for the stage after the failure of his opera Gloria in 1907, despite the presence of Toscanini in the pit, and his lyric gifts cut against the grain of the prevailing trends of modernism. He turned to teaching, but he did not entirely abandon composition. Instead, he turned back to instrumental music, and the works on this album are among the fruits of this revived inspiration. Apart from Cilea's celebrated melodic vein, the Suite for Violin and the Piccola Suite for Orchestra reveal his (perhaps un-Italian) talent for counterpoint, as well as an approach to tonal harmony that reflects his awareness of innovation, especially among French composers of the period. Cilea orchestrated the Suite in 1946 from his Suite for violin and piano of nine years earlier. The four brief movements are cast in a neoclassical vein, enclosing an elegant minuet followed by an Andante sostenuto in the very un-classical key of C sharp minor. The Piccola Suite (1931) more thoroughly absorbs the idioms of French music of the period such as the early works of Messiaen, with it's modal harmony, whole-tone scales and sequences of seventh and ninth chords: again, far from what we would expect from the composer of Adriana Lecouvreur. The arrangement, revision and scoring of the Concerto in D major for cello by Leonardo Leo (written in 1737) bears witness to Cilea's deep connection with the Conservatoire in Naples where he had studied and where he became director until his retirement in 1935. It's generous orchestration, and yet respect for the 18th-century idiom of the writing, makes an intriguing and almost unknown parallel to the Cello Concerto in D recomposed by Schoenberg in 1931 after a 1746 work by Georg Matthias Monn. Completing this unique survey of Cilea's output is a modern work, the first recording of the Canto dell'amore by Raffaele Cacciola, born in 1965. The style of this sinfonia concertante in all but name is a homage to the example of Cilea: tonally unpredictable, yet always melodic. These Milanese musicians draw out it's intrinsically Italian character in the tradition of Cilea's verismo. - Italian composer Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) is best known for his operas, particularly "Adriana Lecouvreur." However, his contributions to instrumental music should not be overlooked. Though less renowned than his operatic output, Cilea's instrumental works exhibit a melodic richness and emotional depth characteristic of the Romantic era. - Cilea's orchestral works show his mastery of lyrical themes and dramatic expression. His works are imbued with a sense of Italianate warmth and passion, reflecting the composer's deep connection to his native land. - This new recording presents the Suite for Violin & Orchestra, Il Canto dell'Amore, Cilea's arrangement of a Cello Concerto by Leonardo Leo and the Piccola Suite for Cello & Orchestra. - Played by one of the foremost cellists of Italy, Enrico Bronzi, violinist Massimo Quarta, and the Virtuosi Della Scala, conducted by Filippo Arlia.

Sir Arthur Bliss contributed two staples of the brass band repertoire - Kenilworth and The Belmont Variations, whose enduring success inspired arrangers to turn to his other compositions, for example Eric Ball and Four Dances from the ballet Checkmate or Phillip Littlemore's suite from the film score for Things to Come. Three new arrangements have been made especially for this album: Robert Childs' suite from the ballet Adam Zero, and Michael Halstenson's arrangements of Music from the Royal Palaces and Welcome the Queen. Collectively this program reflects the essence of Bliss's compositional style: the inherent drama of his scores for film, ballet, and television and his flair for the ceremonial, especially in the context of his position as Master of the Queen's Music.

Black Dyke Band, tracing it's continuous history back to 1855, is the most recorded band in the world, having produced a discography of more than 350 recordings to date. It is also the most successful contesting band in the world, having won the European Championships thirteen times, the British Open thirty times and the National Championships of Great Britain twenty-four times. In 2023, they appointed conductor John Wilson as their Honorary President.

REVIEW:

The ensemble balance is superb, the internal voicing clear and detailed, the execution punchy, delicate, breezily confident and heartfelt by turn. This is a wonderful album in every way, highly recommended.

— Gramophone

The program is well put together and demonstrates the essence of Bliss’s style.

— British Music Society Journal

The Catalan Roberto Gerhard studied piano with Granados, and was the only Spanish composer to study with Arnold Schoenberg. It was, however, over twenty years before he committed himself to writing twelve-tone music. In the interim, his output brought a new focus and precision (owing more to Stravinsky and Bartok) to the Spanish style. All the works on this album were composed in that period. Dating from the early 1940s, his ballet Alegrias was originally conceived for two pianos, but soon evolved into the four-movement suite heard here. The flamenco-inspired movements are linked in pairs, and show Gerhard's brilliance and humour in equal measure. During this same period Gerhard decided to mark the centenary of his first teacher, Felipe Pedrell (who had also taught Albeniz, Granados, and de Falla), with a three-movement symphony, Homenaje a Pedrell (CHAN 9693). Gerhard failed to secure a performance of the work, but in 1954 was invited to re-work the final movement for a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert, which became Pedrelliana. Gerhard's ballet on episodes from Cervantes's Don Quixote evolved for almost a decade, from a work for chamber orchestra, for a touring company (abandoned because of the war), via a version for radio and an expanded orchestral suite, to the work recorded here, in it's full and final orchestration for performances at the Royal Opera House in 1950, choreographed by Ninette de Valois. Robert Helpmann danced the title role and Margot Fonteyn Dulcinea.

This recording of Corigliano's chamber arrangement of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan featuring soprano Laura Hynes, is coupled with Vincent Ho's virtuosic and mystical Gryphon Realms for piano trio. World premiere recordings. Corigliano's orchestration of Mr. Tambourine Man can be heard on 8.559331.

I had always heard, by reputation, of the high regard accorded the folk-ballad singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. But I was so engaged in developing my orchestral technique during the years when Dylan was heard by the rest of the world that I had never heard his songs. So I bought a collection of his texts, and found many of them to be every bit as beautiful and as immediate as I had heard – and surprisingly well-suited to my own musical language.

I chose seven poems for what became a thirty-five minute cycle. A Prelude: Mr. Tambourine Man, in a fantastic and exuberant manner, precedes five searching and reflective monologues that form the core of the piece; and Postlude: Forever Young makes a kind of folk-song benediction after the cycle’s close. Dramatically, the inner five songs trace a journey of emotional and civic maturation, from the innocence of Clothes Line through the beginnings of awareness of a wider world (Blowin’ in the Wind), through the political fury of Masters of War, to a premonition of an apocalyptic future (All Along the Watchtower), culminating in a vision of a victory of ideas (Chimes of Freedom). Several years after composing the vocal/piano score I orchestrated the work, and some years later transcribed it for Pierrot ensemble, a chamber group. This is the first recording of the chamber version. - John Corigliano

Gryphon Realms is a three-movement work, inspired by gryphon mythology, that explores the coloristic, virtuosic and expressive possibilities of the piano trio while highlighting my more personal musical language. - Vincent Ho

This recording features a work with a strange coincidence in it's compositional process and an astonishing dual authorship. Remarkably, Silvius Leopold Weiss's Lute Suite SW47 (which he named Suonata) also comes with a violin part that can be played over the top of it, composed by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. A recent comparison of sources revealed that the harpsichord part in Bach's Suite for Violin & Harpsichord BWV1025, long considered to be of doubtful attribution, perfectly matches Weiss's suite. The violin part, meanwhile, was indeed composed entirely by Bach and is an additional melody independent of Weiss's musical material. It feels almost like a 'free improvisation' above the suite and recalls a similar process carried out by Charles Gounod in 1859: his Ave Maria fits over the first Prelude from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier BWV846. The sole exception is the Fantasia movement in Bach's piece, which is not derived from Weiss's suite, meaning both the violin and harpsichord parts in it are unique to Bach. This recording presents Weiss's suite on it's own and with the addition of Bach's violin part, both versions arranged by guitarist Alberto La Rocca for his instrument in place of the lute or harpsichord. (The all-Bach Fantasia is not included in the version without violin.) Weiss's Suite (Suonata) is a high-quality work composed for a 13-course Baroque lute. It is rarely, if ever, performed by either lute or guitar players, yet it contains all the best features of the great German lutenist's oeuvre: a refined and elegant compositional style and a varied range of expression. Bach's 'added melody', composed with his usual superhuman ability, shines a new light on the original suite, as if dressing it up in extraordinarily elegant attire. The violin part comments on the original lute texture without suffocating it, almost like a free improvisation above it. It plays with the various elements of Weiss's music, extrapolating ideas for themes, imitating them or simply wandering freely. Bach's part is also highly imaginative and varied in it's expression, frequently adding complex rhythmic dovetailing and significant virtuosity while always staying true to the emotions of Weiss's movements. Bach and Weiss were friends and met on several occasions. Johann Friedrich Reichardt even describes them challenging each other to an improvisation competition: 'Anyone who understands the challenge of playing harmonic modulations and decent counterpoint on the lute will be surprised and amazed to hear an eyewitness say that Weiss, the great lutenist, competed with J.S. Bach, the great harpsichordist and organist, in playing fantasies and fugues.' While the origins of his 'transcription with accompaniment' of Weiss's Suite SW47 are still a mystery, the fact remains that we can now enjoy a unique and unusual masterpiece, which these two brilliant composers had a hand in writing.

The Neave Trio's program Rooted features a range of works based on folk music. Smetana's distinctive nationalistic style was largely based on the inclusion of bohemian rhythmic and melodic elements, and he was acclaimed in his native Bohemia as the father of Czech music. His Trio in G minor was composed in 1855 as a response to the death of his four-year old daughter and shows the influence of Liszt. Josef Suk was a favorite pupil of Dvorak's, and his early Piano Trio, whilst shorter in length and less intense than Smetana's, is embedded in that Czech tradition. Also deeply influenced by Dvorak, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was inspired by his African heritage, as well, and his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies for Piano was a prime example of his research. He subsequently arranged five of these pieces into the suite for piano trio that we hear on this album. The program concludes with Frank Martin's Trio from 1925, which is based on traditional Irish melodies.

REVIEWS:

These four chamber works explore music of a definitive national identity. The members of the ensemble brandish their considerable skills in the service of otherwise neglected composers and scores, with astonishing brilliance in their recorded sound.

— Audiophile Audition

The program's characteristically eclectic mix of works nurtures the Trio's well-upholstered warmth, attention to detail, and compelling rapport.

— BBC Music Magazine

Award-winning Baroque violinist Rachel Podger takes the resurgence of the Arts in England post -1660 as the compelling inspiration for her new album, The Muses Restor’d. Adopting its title as its theme, Rachel and her vivacious Brecon Baroque take the listener on a journey of captivating violinled chamber music from Jacobean to Early Georgian England. Ranging from the gentle intimacy of consort idioms to the full-blown instrumental virtuosity of the evolving Baroque period, this album uncovers little known glories of English instrumental music and its influences. This refined and intimately chiselled chamber music celebrates a rich tradition where the violin joins a plethora of keyboards, lutes, viol and continuo cello reinstating these sonatas, fantasies, suites, grounds and popular tunes to the mainstream of English cultural life of the time. Together with four musicians from Brecon Baroque, Rachel Podger performs works by Handel, Lawes, Blow, Locke, Purcell, Schop, Jenkins, Baltzar and Jones.

“This oeuvre provides a deeply satisfying kaleidoscope of musical expression over a century of British
musical life."
- Rachel Podger

Maurice Abravanel’s recordings of Grieg’s orchestral music with the Utah Symphony set the benchmark for these works in the mid-1970s. Newly remastered from the original tapes, these classic Vox recordings now sound better than ever.

The Elite Recordings for Vox by legendary producers Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz are considered by audiophiles to be amongst the finest sounding examples of orchestral recordings.

In 1907, Florent Schmitt composed music to accompany a ‘mimodrame’ danced by Loïe Fuller, La Tragédie de Salomé. His score is bursting with colour, energy, and voluptuousness – and also with oriental influences stemming from his travels to Morocco and Constantinople, where he discovered the howling dervishes. The final scene features the heart-rending ‘Chant d’Aïça’, an oriental melody sung by a soprano. This music, though bold and modern for the listeners of 1907, nonetheless aroused the admiration of another composer, Igor Stravinsky, to whom Schmitt dedicated the Symphonic Suite he subsequently derived from the work. However, Alain Altinoglu, at the helm of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra of which he has been Music Director since 2021, has chosen to record the original version of this landmark of early twentieth-century French music. The beautiful Chant élégiaque, in its 1911 version for cello and large orchestra, completes this programme.

12 years after his album entitled ‘Italian Virtuosi of the Chitarrone’ (BIS-1899), Jakob Lindberg returns to his magnificent theorbo, specially built for him by the luthier Michael Lowe, based on an instrument preserved in the Musée de la Musique in Paris.

One of the most spectacular instruments of the early baroque owing to its length and great number of strings, the theorbo was originally designed to accompany the voice but is also ideally suited to solo performance.

For this disc, Lindberg has chosen pieces by Robert de Visée, one of the great French masters of the lute, theorbo, and guitar repertoire and a favorite of Louis XIV. The recording features dances as well as character pieces, including a moving ‘Plainte’ in memory of his two deceased daughters. It also includes de Visée’s arrangements of compositions by Lully, Couperin, and Purcell as well as his own version of Les Folies d’Espagne, a very popular chord progression that inspired so many composers of his time.

Jakob Lindberg writes: ‘I can’t help but be seduced by the grace of the instrument’s lines, the resonance of its sonorities, and by the unmistakably French elegance of this remarkable composer.’

Claude Debussy wrote of Albéniz: ‘Never has music attained such diverse impressions and colors. One closes one’s eyes and is dazzled by contemplating so many images.’ Iberia certainly fits this description beyond doubt, with its vivid evocation of Spain. Composed between 1905 and 1909, the collection is divided into four books, each containing three pieces. Book I opens with ‘Évocation’, which combines the southern Spanish fandango with jota song forms. ‘El Puerto’ was inspired by El Puerto de Santa María, in Cádiz, whilst ‘Fête-dieu à Séville’ depicts the Corpus Christi Day procession. ‘Rondeña’ and then ‘Almería’ are both depictions of Andalusian towns, and are followed by ‘Triana’, which evokes the Gypsy quarter of Seville.

Goyescas, begun in 1909, reflects Granados’s admiration for the paintings of Goya. (Granados went on to compose an opera of the same name). Considered by many to be Granados’s masterpiece, the suite for piano comprises two books and was completed in 1911.

The collections by Albéniz and Granados are truly virtuosic pieces, placing extreme demands on the pianist. Peter Donohoe makes light work of the challenges, and presents his selection in deeply musical readings that are typical of this supreme artist. The album was recorded on a Steinway model D concert grand piano at Potton Hall, in Suffolk.

Manuscripts Don’t Burn is a famous line in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita – the retelling of Faust, the 20th-century cult novel of an artist surviving in a Totalitarian regime, the love story, the burlesque with giant, vodka-drinking cats, and vampiric theater administrators.

I first read the book as a kid, growing up in Soviet Odesa. I took it with me when my parents and I immigrated, as Jewish refugees running from antisemitism, through Austria and Italy, to the United States. Crossing the border, I worried that guards would discover my book, and I would be severely punished. Throughout the years, the book played a role in my life. My childhood best friend from Odesa reread the book in adulthood and decided to find me - we are now together for 20 years, with two kids. I read the book to my mother as she was dying from brain cancer.

Bulgakov’s novel weaves through my own newly published memoir, Weight in the Fingertips - A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage (Backbeat Books, October 2023). I consider this very personal recording to be something of a mirror image to my memoir, as it intertwines the literal images from Master and Margarita with more autobiographical themes and layers.

The five premieres, written for me and recorded here, are vastly different in styles and aesthetic. The understated, elegant Master and Margarita Suite by Veronika Krausas complements the wild, theatrical, brooding and extended techniques-filled “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” by Maya Miro Johnson. Mike Garson’s Psalm to Odesa, an improvisatory ballad, with bits of my own improvisation based on a well-known Odesan song, sets off “Voices” by Ljova, a piece for piano and historical recordings of Jewish cantorial and klezmer music. Both take me back to my home city, currently under vicious attack, like the rest of Ukraine. The poetry I recite, sing and hum while performing the four-movement Godai - the Four Elements - is rounded off by the propulsive bravura whirlwind of Hero. Fasil Say’s Black Earth takes the listener on a journey from Odesa across the Black Sea - a Turkish ballad and jazzy beats alternate with improvisatory melisma of a Turkish lute, played on muted strings of the piano. The rarely heard Notturno of Fanny Mendelssohn connects a gifted female voice to the others on this disc, as well as, perhaps, to the dark, impassioned character of Margarita. In Master and Margarita, “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” is spoken by Satan when he retrieves the manuscript of a novel presumed burnt – and in Clarice Assad’s “Godai”, Steve Schroeder’s poem depicts the loss of a manuscript in a fire.

The lieder of Schubert, transcribed for solo piano by Liszt, riffs on the mythical and the Faustian lore found also in Master and Margarita: Gretchen (Margarita) at the spinning wheel, a mystical love story by the sea, a monstrous Elf King and the death of a child, of innocence, of joy - one’s worst fear.

This collection of music speaks to my love of dialogue between music and words. As in my Music/Words series, where I pair poets with musical programs in the form of a recital/reading, the connections between text and sound here are not just literal but emotional, based on memory, intuition, dreams, and hopes.

- Inna Faliks

As with the previous volumes in this series, Trio Gaspard has conceived a programme of contrasting trios that works as a standalone recital. The musicians have again included a contemporary work commissioned as part of the project – in this instance the world première recording of Kit Armstrong’s Revêtements. The earliest trio on the album – No. 12 – takes its form from the dance suite, with an opening allemande and concluding minuet framing a minor-key polonaise. Trio No. 19 which opens the programme features two contrasting movements in the same tonality – a spirited Vivace offset by a graceful minuet. The long and complex first movement of Trio No. 25 is followed by two shorter ones. Whilst the outer movements of Trio No. 43 sit firmly in C major, the A major central movement (with an extended central minor key section) displays yet another form of contrast. Trio Gaspard is regularly invited to major international concert halls across Europe and further afield. Highlights of the 2023 / 24 season will include a residency at Wigmore Hall, a performance of Beethoven’s ‘Triple’ Concerto with Uppsala Chamber Orchestra, and recitals in Firenze, Lucerne, Bern, Helsinki, Gateshead, and Heidelberg.

New, fun-filled arrangements—with historical authenticity on their side—bring bright and breezy curtain-raisers by a once-celebrated contemporary of Mozart to life.

In a career not much longer than Mozart’s, Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) wrote an astonishing total of 64 works for the stage—as well as substantial collections of symphonies, concertos, and sonatas—that were performed across the length and breadth of Europe.

Cimarosa specialized in lighthearted comedies, for which he supplied stylishly upbeat scores, shot through with Italianate lyricism, and a kind of impetuous vigor which was all his own. This quality makes his overtures particularly suitable for transcription to the kind of plucked-ensemble chamber versions heard on this enterprising new album. During the period after unification, the mandolin became a popular instrument much as the ukulele and the balalaika did elsewhere: relatively easy to learn, highly portable, and well suited to being played in ensemble as a kind of instrumental choir.

The Anedda Quintet have devised a unique synthesis of the two approaches, adding a strong bass component to the classic quartet line-up. This collection of Cimarosa is mainly comprised of modern arrangements by the composer Michele Di Filippo, who had already collaborated with the Anedda Quintet for a previous Brilliant Classics album of Rossini arrangements (95904). In adapting these orchestral scores, Di Filippo aimed to make the melodies sing out while preserving a sense of dialogue, tension, and drama between instruments.

The apogee of the French harpsichord came in the 18th century with the publication of the musical works of François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, the two leading representatives of the French harpsichord school. These were followed by numerous livres de clavecin written by a new generation of composers such as Claude Balbastre, Pancrace Royer, Jacques Duphly, and Michel Corrette.

It is within this rococo-galant context, which marked the final glory days of the harpsichord, that we encounter the music of Jean-Baptiste Parant, a composer for whom only scant biographical details are known. Parant’s Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavecin, published in 1762, contains 16 pieces written in the light and carefree rococo style, which makes them a true reflection of the music that would have been heard at this time in the salons of aristocrats and patrons such as the Prince de Conti and Monsieur de La Pouplinière or at the literary salons of Madame du Deffand, Julie Lespinasse, and Madame Geoffrin.

The titles of the pieces allude to persons from Parant’s circle, such as La Angôt and De la Bauve, or to places such as Passy (most probably a reference to the Château de Passy, the residence of the aforementioned important and very wealthy musical patron Alexandre de La Pouplinière) and Lyons (‘La Lionoise’). His sources of inspiration are also to be seen in such evocative titles as ‘Les Cascades’, ‘La Majestueuse’ or ‘La Pétulante’. Running throughout his music are the dances most commonly found in French suites, such as the menuet, rondeau, allemande, gavotte, and lourée.