Both of the song cycles recorded here combine lyricism with powerful storytelling, covering a wide range of emotions that are well suited to the beautiful sonorities and vocal nature of the French horn. Schubert’s late ‘Schwanengesang’ conveys its pastoral setting, messages of love, pain of separation, and haunted loss so descriptively that the music is just as effective without words. Brahms arranged his ‘Zigeunerlieder’ or ‘Gypsy Songs’ from vocal quartets, their Hungarian folk-music character lending themselves superbly to further transcription. Tim Thorpe is gaining a reputation as one of the most accomplished horn players of his generation. He has received extensive orchestral experience as principal horn with several amateur and youth orchestras including the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the European Union Youth Orchestra. As an orchestral musician, Thorpe has played principal horn with all the major London orchestras and with other UK orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Northern Sinfonia.

Boris Tchaikovsky stands out as one of the most original composers of the post-Shostakovich generation. The three works presented here helped establish his early reputation for expressive lyricism and strong rhythms that embrace the deep-rooted traditions of his teachers Miaskovsky, Shebalin and Shostakovich. The elegant and emotionally searching ‘Piano Trio’ is considered by some to be a kind of self-portrait. The ‘Cello Sonata’ and ‘Solo Cello Suite’ were both written for Mstislav Rostropovich who declared, “I consider him to be a genius, whose contribution to the cello repertoire has yet to be sufficiently appreciated.” The Boris Tchaikovsky Society, a public non-profit organization, was founded in Moscow in 2002. Among the founders and members of the Society are composers, including pupils of Boris Tchaikovsky, musicologists, and music enthusiasts. The composer’s widow, Yanina-Irena Iossifovna Moshinskaya was also a founder of the Society. Among the Society’s goals are the study of Tchaikovsky’s legacy, the dissemination of his music and the support of events connected with his music.

The light and airy chamber-scaled divertimenti on this recording were composed in London in the early 1720s. They must have been among the first works with which Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747) sought to make an impression on the discerning audiences and business-minded entrepreneurs who, at the time, were instrumental to a music-rich environment that made the city one of the main centers of European culture. It is perhaps to the detriment of his posthumous reputation that Bononcini became known as Handel’s direct rival for the favor of London’s musical public: the rivalry between the two men was even immortalized in a piece of satirical doggerel which popularized the English expression ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee’. In fact these divertimenti scored a popular success as soon as they were published; so much so that these harpsichord transcriptions were quickly produced – and then republished two decades later, when they appeared as Suites de Pièces pour le Clavecin, placing them in direct competition with the collection of works under the same name by Handel. The divertimenti are three- and four-movement works designed not to place any great strain upon the listener’s attention: the longest movement here lasts barely three minutes. Even the slow movements are simple arias, originally conceived with a high melody instrument in mind – violin or transverse flute – and conforming to a serene and courtly character. By and large, however, they are filled with lively, dance-like quick movements, cheerful in temperament even when the tonality is minor, as it is in half the divertimenti. This is the debut album on Brilliant Classics for the harpsichordist Giovanni Paganelli.

Willowhayne Records presents the fifth volume in the critically acclaimed 'Experience' series, recorded on the 'Father Willis' organ of Hereford Cathedral. Played by Douglas Tang, this album shows this magnificent instrument to its full potential in music ranging from the early Baroque to the twentieth century, culminating in Whitlock's 'Plymouth Suite.' Douglas Tang is a sought-after British conductor and keyboardist. Currently based in London, he was previously Assistant Director of Music of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney and Chapel Organist of the UNESCO World Heritage site- the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich. He has also worked at Hereford Cathedral and Croydon Minister aside from having held the prestigious position of Organ Scholar of King’s College, Cambridge. The Hereford organ has been likened to a vintage Rolls Royce car, lovingly maintained, retaining its original and stately majest. Built in 1892 by ‘Father Willis,’ it replaced an earlier Gray and Davison instrument and its display case dates from 1863.

On Parts to Play, critically acclaimed violinist Moonkyung Lee turns from the symphonic environment of the critically lauded label debut, Tchaikovsky, on which she performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, to a more intimate setting, with only pianist Martha Locker as her partner on a selection of works that include both stunning solo performances and intricate yet simple duets. Choosing to include Prokofiev’s “Sonata for Solo Violin” amid compositions from six contemporary composers who collectively represent three decades of works is indicative of Lee’s ability to tease out the subtle nuances of every piece she performs. The three-movement suite moves from the simplicity of Moderato’s Classical sonata format through the more lyrically, introverted Andante Dolce to the clever finale, Con Brio. Similarly, her transit through Benjamin Ellin’s composition for solo violin, “Three States at Play,” is a nuanced journey through three movements, in which the more serene second movement is bookended by two outer movements that are quite rhythmically active. When performing duets with Locker, such as on Rain Worthington’s “Jilted Tango,” Lee’s violin seamlessly integrates with the piano to create an atmosphere both spirited and poignant, capturing the “push and pull in a dance of love” implied by its title. Another sort of dance entirely is captured on the duo’s performance of the vibrant and upbeat “Grand Tartanella.” Moonkyung Lee’s career includes numerous accolades, awards and scholarships including the Yale Chamber Music Celebration, and an NYU/Steinhardt Doctoral Fellowship for Doctoral Studies, of which she was the first ever classical string performer recipient. Her extensive array of performances, both in Europe in the US, include collaborations with many eminent ensembles, conductors and performers.

Bethany Beardslee is renowned as one of the great lyric sopranos of the twentieth century, and the inspiration for dozens of composers who wrote specifically for her voice. Born in Lansing, Michigan, she trained first at Michigan State College, and later at the Juilliard School. Accompanied by pianists Richard Goode and Lois Shapiro, Ms. Beardslee's performances of lieder by Brahms, Schumann and Schubert display her exquisite artistry. USC Professor of Music and Journalism Tim Page writes: "Her flexible, expressive voice, with its silvered timbre and warmly caressing middle range, was suited not only to the premieres and first American performances she sang (by composers ranging from Schoenberg to Stravinsky to Milton Babbitt) but also to the Romantic repertory." While she retired officially in 1984, she performed and recorded a number of times in the decade that followed. These recordings, from 1984 and 1986, have been remastered by Grammy award winning engineer Adam Abeshouse.

In 1805, on the basis of his brilliant yet expressive playing, the 21-year-old Louis Spohr was appointed Konzertmeister at the ducal court in Gotha. By this time he had also begun to make his mark as a composer, and during his years at the court he would add several pieces for the harp to his list of works, inspired by the young harpist Dorette Scheidler. Spohr later recalled his reaction to her playing: ‘I was so deeply moved that I could scarce restrain my tears... I took my leave – but my heart remained behind!’ Only months later, the two were in fact married and Spohr began to compose works which would form the repertoire during future concert tours. Dorette Spohr played a so-called single-action pedal harp of a similar type to the instrument used on this album. Soon to be replaced by the double-action pedal system, the single-action pedal harp was best suited for playing in flat keys. As Spohr preferred writing his violin parts in sharp keys, which allowed the resonance of the open strings, he adopted the method of tuning the harp a semitone lower, which had the added benefit of reducing the tension on the strings. The Sonatas Opp 113-115, in D and G major, therefore have harp parts notated in E flat and A flat major respectively. Because of its delicate construction and stringing, the single-action harp has a distinct silvery bell-like sound and these sonatas are among the last important works specifically written for it. They are also the most demanding, but it is clear that Spohr intended them to display not only the technical skill of the two artists but also their musical expressiveness. The performers here are Masumi Nagasawa and Cecilia Bernardini, who have made a particular study of Spohr's writings on performance practice.

Literally meaning ‘rooster song’ or ‘cock crow’, Gallicantus takes its name from monastic antiquity; the name of the office held just before dawn, it was a ceremony which evoked the renewal of life offered by the coming day. Dedicated to renaissance music and directed by Gabriel Crouch, the membership of this early music group boasts a wealth of experience in consort singing. Renowned for their critically-acclaimed and researched programmes, Gallicantus presents Sibylla. At the heart of the programme is Orlandus Lassus’s 16th Century Prophetiae Sibyllarum, which sets to music the texts of ancient Sibylline prophecies telling of the coming of Christ. One of the composer’s most renowned and celebrated works, it is performed alongside settings by the ‘Sibyl of the Rhine’ Hildegard von Bingen, as well contemporary responses to Lassus’s work. Dmitri Tymoczko’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum sets poems by Jeff Dolven which recast the sibyls’ role: this time to the teller of grim truths of present life in post-industrial America. As an epilogue the album finishes with Elliot Cole’s ‘I saw you under the fig tree’ (part of his suite Visions) – a simple 4-part setting beneath an extraordinary countertenor glissando, setting Jesus Christ’s response to Nathaniel.

In a letter to a friend Chopin described Pleyel pianos as ‘the last word in perfection’. What he identified as their ‘slightly veiled sonority’ suited his style. One observer remembered the composer saying that if he was not feeling on top form, he preferred to play on an Erard, for its bright and ready-made tone. ‘But if I feel alert, ready to make my fingers work without fatigue, then I prefer a Pleyel… My fingers feel in more immediate contact with the hammers, which then translate precisely and faithfully the feeling I want to produce, the effect I want to obtain.’ The Chopin-era Pleyel was notable for its graded timbre, topped by the silvery, ethereal quality of its treble register. Chopin’s appreciation for the Pleyel sonority of pianos is written into the very fabric of his music. When he travelled to Majorca with George Sand in the winter of 1838, a Pleyel piano had to travel with them, and the composer continued to have a Pleyel grand delivered every summer, which remained until November. This was at some expense to the company, but then the relationship was mutually beneficial: while the composer was inspired by the Pleyel sound, the company did well from his patronage and his personal recommendations, and indeed Chopin and Camille Pleyel were firm friends for many years. For this mixed recital, Hubert Rutkowski plays a Pleyel instrument from 1847, during Camille’s stewardship of the firm. The most substantial works are the G minor Ballade and the B minor Scherzo, which makes so much of that glistening upper register. There is also the C sharp minor Fantaisie-Impromptu, the B flat minor Polonaise and a selection of mazurkas, nocturnes, etude and waltz. The pianist is a President of the Chopin Society in Hamburg, and has also played and recorded under the theme of Chopin’s pupils: he is among the most distinguished Chopin pianists of our day.

The jazz legend Chick Corea and world-renowned Italian guitarist Flavio Cucchi have known each other since the late 1980s. This recording features Corea’s only work written expressly for the guitar, ‘Six Ruminations,’ heard in a new version by Cucchi, as well as Cucchi’s arrangement for two guitars of the magical, haiku-like ’12 Children’s Songs.’ The album continues with Alfonso Borghese’s charming ‘Habanera d’Autunno,’ the famous Egberto Gismonti piece, ‘Agua e vinho,’ Giulio Clementi’s evocation of bygone dance hall days and the folk-infused ‘English Suite’ by John Duarte. Flavio Cucchi has given hundreds of recitals all over the world and participated in radio and TV broadcasts for the BBC, RAI, ZDF, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and Radio Prague, among others. Many composers have dedicated works to him, and he has held masterclasses all over the globe.

Telemann was among the most admired and prolific of composers and his compositions encompass virtually all genres and instrumentations known in his lifetime. The ‘Six Ouvertures,’ strangely neglected for many years, reveal his inventive and imaginative writing for solo harpsichord. They contain elements that suggest an amalgam of French and Italianate influences, whether ‘ouverture-suite’ or three-movement concerto or sonata. Also evident, in the central movements, is Telemann’s preference for Polish folk music, of whose ‘true barbaric beauty’ he was an ardent admirer. Gaku Nakagawa was born in 1993 in Japan. He began playing piano at the age of four, and in 2012 entered the University of Tokyo to study philosophy. Without ever having a harpsichord lesson, he became the first prize winner of the 27th YAMANASHI, Japan, international competition for early music in 2014. This is his debut recording.

Maestro Yan Pascal Tortelier celebrates his twenty-five-year recording career and seventy-album discography on Chandos with this album of three of Roussel’s most remarkable compositions. It follows a highly praised Birmingham concert with the same forces, namely the exceptional BBCPO and CBSO Chorus, and three revelatory soloists: Kathryn Rudge, 2017 BBC New Generation Artist, the young tenor Alessandro Fisher, joint first prize winner at the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, and François Le Roux, famous for his award-winning performances of French operas. Although very rarely recorded, Évocations stands as a monument in the compositional life of Roussel, depicting scenes, sounds, and colors from his experiences of India. Also featured are the audacious Pour une fête de printemps, originally composed as a Scherzo for his controversial Second Symphony, and the later Suite in F, which was performed in Paris several times after its Boston premiere, to critical acclaim.

Expert in Baroque repertoire and making period discoveries, the Philadelphia-based ensemble Tempesta di Mare extends the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death with this unique album played on historically authentic instruments. This recording is the first to bring together Telemann’s three surviving concerti-en-suite, from the intimate Concerto di camera to the more extravagant and impressive Concerto-Suites. Like many seventeenth-century German composers referring to their national idiom as a blend of French, Italian, and German styles, Telemann, who added rustic Polish music to this stylistic soup, quickly became the standard-bearer for this ‘mixed taste’ during the early eighteenth century, writing Italian concertos with a French accent, French overture featuring moonlighting concerto soloists, and Polish folk tunes that exuberantly dance their way into arias, concertos, sonatas, songs, and suites. One of his more interesting mixtures is the concerto-suite, a subgenre in which a soloist is featured in an opening concerto-allegro and in a following series of French dance movements. The three surviving works of this genre are brought together here for the first time.

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REVIEW:

It’s all top-drawer stuff. Not least thanks to the beautifully blended sound of the whole: crisp strings, mellow woodwind, subtle-but-there harpsichord and theorbo and a gorgeous soft-focus halo of horns. In short, every instrumental timbre is beautifully looked after.

– Gramophone

The wings of fantasy, paired with a sense of tonal color, keen dramaturgy and a sense of style: All this distinguishes the new GENUIN release by flutist Anna Garzuly-Wahlgren, on which she has compiled Baroque solo works for her instrument. There are not only well-known works of great Baroque composers, but also a "Suite imaginaire" composed in the spirit of the times with rarely performed works by Johann Martin Blochwitz, a friend of Johann Sebastian Bach. This production by the associate principal flute of the Gewandhaus cannot be praised enough: highest marks for repertoire and performance! Hungarian flutist Anna Garzuly-Wahlgren studied in Budapest, Munich and New York, completing her studies with highest honors. While still a student, she won numerous prizes at renowned music competitions in Geneva, Scheveningen, Kobe, Markneukirchen and Budapest. Anna Garzuly-Wahlgren has been Associate Principal Flute with the Gwandhausorchester since 1995 and was acting Principal Flute from 2006-2017. In 2017 she was appointed professor of woodwind chamber music at Leipzig's Univeristy of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy."

The history of writing music for the piano is linked to the creation, in 1711, of the prototype of the present day piano and to its evolution from the pianoforte- an instrument suited for salon music-making- to the modern concert grand. The tradition of home music-making dates back therefore to the middle of the 18th century, with piano-playing for four hands very soon becoming its all important element. This gave rise to the development of a repertoire that lent itself to arrangement and performances in such a chamber environment. Compositions of this type had already been penned by Johann Christian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. By the end of the 18th century, compositions for piano four hands had achieved extraordinary popularity. However, only a small amount of the output by Polish composers was published. Thanks to the interest of present-day Polish publishers these forgotten pieces, several of which are presented here, can now be enjoyed by performers and enthusiasts alike.