Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

David Matthews and Peter Sheppard Skærved have been collaborating on a series of works for violin for many years now, in a partnership that has resulted in over 30 works, from string quartets to many pieces for violin alone. Matthew sets Sheppard Skærved formidable technical challenges, and Sheppard Skærved surprises Matthews by finding way sof overcoming the difficulties in his path. Behind all the pyrotechnics, this collaboration is generating one of the largest, and most musically rewarding body of compositions for solo vioin by any living composer. The range of reference in this music is wide, from Australian magpies and European songthrushes, via an Alpine ranz des vaches, to Three Chants, where the violinist is requried to whistle and sing as he plays.

• Veress developed a lean and muscular style, evident in the Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra. This is its first recording. • In the 1930s he worked as Bartók’s assistant in his work on Hungarian folksong, with results audible in the two early string quartets. • The Basel String Quartet, founded in 1996, an established part of Swiss cultural life, premiering and commissioning many new works.

Enescu is one of the great composers, although the world has yet to realise the extent of his achievement. His small published œuvre of 33 opus numbers belies the amount of music he produced: he composed prolifically but, as he was both a perfectionist and a busy performer, much of his music is still unknown, allowing us to present herein, the Unknown Enescu.

For most of the past century the Russian composer Leonid Sabanayev (1881-1968) was known principally as a writer, not least for his publications on his close friend Alexander Skryabin (he was also a scientist and mathematician). It is only now that his own music is being rediscovered. This first recording of his monumental Piano Sonata, 'In Memory of Skryabin', cast in a single movement half an hour in length, is prefaced by a number of characteristic miniatures.

The Swedish pianist Niklas Sivel�v (b. 1968, Stockholm) joins the ranks and continues the great tradition of the pianist-composer with this first-ever recording dedicated to his own compositions. His 24 Preludes, written 2010-14, takes it's place in the tradition established by Chopin, Scriabin and Shostakovich. This recording presents some of Mr. Sivel�v's early work and some of his most recent, completed earlier in 2015, with music colored by a range of influences, from Bach to jazz. The composer supplies the booklet essay himself, explaining what he was trying to achieve in each piece.

Classical Music

Toccata Classics continues their overview of the Edinburgh composer Charles O'Brien (1882-1968) with Volume Two of his complete piano works featuring the young British pianist Warren Mailley-Smith. O'Brien's compositions reflected his heritage along with his Romantic era influences.

Although the instrumental and orchestral music of the Franco-German Romantic Théodore Gouvy (1819–98) is slowly being rediscovered, his songs remain largely unknown. Gouvy’s melodious songs, 105 in number, show a predilection for the 16th c. love-poems of Pierre de Ronsard: 40 of the songs set Ronsard texts. Of the 26 songs on this disc, only eleven have been recorded before, and none in the key the composer intended, as they are here for the first time. The other fifteen songs are first-ever recordings. Pianist Joel Schoenhals accompanies soprano MeeAe Nam and tenor John Elwes.

Anatoly Alexander (1888–1982) is a forgotten figure of the Russian school of pianism that embraced Taneyev, Rachmaninov, Skryabin, Gilels and so many other composers and pianists. + His fourteen sonatas and much of his work for piano is in an attractive late-Romantic style that owes much to his teacher and friend Nikolai Medtner. + Pianist Kyung-ah Noh (b. 1982, South Korea) ‘plays with immense power when called for, but is equally able to command the subtlest “pianissimo”’ + Continuing, “she has a real empathy for the style of this underrated composer.” (MusicWeb Int’l on Volume 1)

• Anatoly Alexander (1888–1982) is one of the forgotten figures of the Russian school of pianism. • Alexandrov's fourteen sonatas and much else for piano is of an attractive late-Romantic style that owes much to his teacher and friend Nikolai Medtner. • This first volume in the first-ever survey of his piano music presents a conspectus of works composed between 1939 and 1962, many of them first recordings.

Classical Music

Gara Garayev was the leading Azerbaijani composer of the twentieth century. His music fuses the western traditions exemplified by his teacher Shostakovich an the classical and folk heritage of his homeland. The two works recorded here illustrate Garayev’s stylistic range: his Violin Sonata (1960) is Neoclssical in manner, whereas the 24 Preludes (1951-63) combine influences from the Russian piano school (not least Prokofiev) with elements from Azeri modes and the rhythms of Arabic-Persian lyric poetry. This recording introduces the stellar violinist Vadim Repin to the Toccata Classics label. The presentation includes a bonus video of the film Sonates d’automne, shot during the recording of this album.