Elena Urioste and Michael Brown formed a recital duo in 2009 and have performed together extensively ever since. For their first recording together they have selected four works which have formed part of their repertoire from the very beginning, resonating throughout their entire musical partnership. All four are early works, written by composers in their twenties or younger- Michael Brown was only eighteen when he composed his own contribution. As the performers put it in their liner notes, the pieces they have chosen are “imbued with an ardour that is unapologetically, deliciously youthful.” The disc opens with the only multi-movement work of the program- Richard Strauss’s expansively melodic Sonata in E flat major, written around the time when the composer met and fell in love with his future wife. A few years later, in Paris, Ravel made a first attempt at composing a violin sonata while still a student at the Conservatoire. The resulting piece, in one movement, had a single performance during Ravel’s lifetime and was only published in 1975, as Sonate posthume. Between these two works we hear Michael Brown’s Echoes of Byzantium, inspired by William Butler Yeats’s Sailing to Byzantium, and an attempt to portray the meaning of the poem through music alone. The disc closes with a piece by another American composer and pianist, Amy Beach (1867-1944) The first American woman to compose and publish a symphony (first performed in 1896), she was best known for her songs, and her gift for melody is evident in the 1893 Romance for violin and piano.

Sueye Park is no stranger to solo violin recitals. After her recording of the Paganini Caprices (BIS-2282) and a recital entitled Journey through a Century (BIS-2492), both critically acclaimed, she brings us another solo project, Echoes of Exile, an undertaking that finds it's raison d'�tre in today's very turbulent times. Park offers us different perspectives on the topic of exile with works composed between the 1920s and 1950s, by great composers who left their country as a result of political circumstances as well as by others who went into their own inner exile. Two pieces by composers who left their native lands for artistic reasons, Enescu and Ysaye, frame three substantial and very contrasting works by composers forced into exile, either because their existence was threatened or because of a feeling of alienation within their respective countries. The works of Bartok and Ben-Haim show composers who, in their longing for their homelands, succeeded not only in emphasising the value of their culture even more strongly, but also in anchoring it within the environment into which they had entered. Zimmermann's sonata, with it's unique expressive language, evokes the concerns of a young composer in the devastated Germany of the post-war period.

Includes work(s) for gtr by Roland Dyens. Soloist: Elena Papandreou.

Includes work(s) for ob and org by various composers. Ensemble: Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Gordon Hunt. Soloists: Gordon Hunt, Leslie Pearson.

After tackling Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Schoenberg and Hindemith, Ulf Wallin and Roland Pontinen now focus their attention to the late-romantic English composer Edward Elgar. 'Mot d'amour', which takes it's title from one of his early compositions for violin, presents a substantial part of Elgar's output for violin and piano, which spans his entire career. Best known for his symphonic and choral works, Elgar is also the composer of chamber works that, although few in number, attain a high standard. The Violin Sonata, a mature composition contemporary with his two other major chamber pieces, is regarded by Elgar connoisseurs as one of his masterpieces. Inspired by Brahms's sonatas, Elgar's own, composed in the peaceful surroundings of his rented cottage in the countryside, is a work of wide expressive range and emotional impact in which every superfluous note has been eliminated from the overall design. As for the other pieces that appear here, they show a lighter side to the composer, sometimes playful, sometimes melancholy. Unashamedly belonging to the genre of salon music, these works testify to Elgar's versatility as well as to his melodic gift and his ability to turn a seemingly light genre into a vehicle for secret emotion, often charming but always devoid of sentimentality.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

It was during the winter of 1900–01 that Elgar began to sketch what he hoped would turn into a symphony – his first. But the sketches were quickly absorbed into several shorter pieces, one of which was the Cockaigne overture. Although composed in the rural area of the Malvern Hills, the work is nevertheless an unashamedly populist portrait of ‘old London town’, complete with references to whistling errand boys and a marching band – the composer himself described the music as ‘cheerful and Londony’. As for the First Symphony, seven years would pass before its première in Manchester and subsequent London performance – a triumphant occasion, as described by Elgar’s publisher: ‘After the first movement E.E. was called out; again, several times, after the third… people stood up and even on their seats to get a view.’ For Elgar, the success must have come as an immense relief - the symphony is hugely ambitious in scale and scope, but also seems to have had a personal significance to the composer, who summarized it as follows: ‘There is no programme beyond a wide experience of human life, with a great charity (love) & a massive hope in the future.’ Conducting this all-Elgar programme is Sakari Oramo, the Finnish conductor who has been all but adopted by English music-lovers and orchestras – for ten years he was music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and since 2013 he holds the post as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Playing here, however, as on the acclaimed 2013 release of Elgar’s Second Symphony, is his ‘Swedish orchestra’, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. But lovers of Elgar’s music can rest assured: in the words of the reviewer on the British web site classicalsource.com ‘there is no need to be concerned that a Finnish conductor and a Swedish orchestra do not “get” Elgar’s music. They do – with power, passion, compassion and authority…’

Classical Music

Born into a working-class family, Anders Eliasson’s earliest musical experiences originated from within himself: ‘they were my own singing, and tunes I heard on the radio’. At the age of nine he began to play the trumpet, and soon after he became the leader of a jazz band for which he wrote arrangements. Aged 14, he found a local organist to teach him harmony and counterpoint, and at 16 he left his hometown for Stockholm to study privately. In 1966 Eliasson enrolled at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, studying the various techniques and trends of modernism, from dodecaphony to musique concrete. But in the end he found it impossible to ‘break away from more than a thousand years of tradition’, as he put it: ‘Music is like H2O: melody, harmony and rhythm are a single entity. And it has to flow.’ The three works recorded here – all for the first time – are examples of the highly personal idiom he developed as a consequence.

REVIEW:

Eliasson’s Symphony No 3 operates on a continuous weave, the saxophone often riding its surface, whose tightness can put a clamp on the music. To my ears the modality sounds restrictive, rather than a parameter to prompt greater creativity. There are some fine moments, none better than the celestial transition from the ‘Fremiti’ third movement to the ‘Lugubre’ fourth (of five).

Similarly, Eliasson’s Trombone Concerto is a work of deeper structural principle than the label ‘concerto’ might denote and one in which the composer instructed the dedicatee Christian Lindberg to ‘play like a caged bird’. Once more the music can chase its own tail, without the degree of structural fascination or universal vision – the sort Nørgård finds from even more restrictive means – that might have rendered such a chase thrilling.

Thank heavens for Eliasson’s Symphony No 4, in which the composer’s obsessive compositional personality yields embracing fruits. Here the tonal journey is better defined, the development of a single motif clearer and more ripe, the textures more varied and the feeling generally more visceral.

All said and done, a mixed bag. But the soloists give their works everything and the conductors don’t shirk on Eliasson’s firm principles, even if Oramo has more to work with.

-- Gramophone

The last years of Schubert’s life were clouded by illness, so thoughts of the afterlife cannot have been far from his mind. For their latest recital for BIS, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton present an all-Schubert recital themed around Elysium, the mythical idea of a blessed and happy eternal future, with texts that explore different states of the afterlife by well-known authors such as Goethe, Rückert and Schiller as well as by lesser-known ones. Opening with a hymn to the divine in nature, this recital in turn evokes distant realms, blissful eternity and dream-filled sleep, before concluding with a farewell to the earth; from the passion and doubt of Die junge Nonne (The Young Nun) to the beautiful and touching Du bist die Ruh (You are peace).

Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton have released several acclaimed discs for BIS, including Album für die Frau, a collection of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann and A Soprano’s Schubertiade, a Schubert anthology, named ‘Recording of the Month’ by MusicWeb International and ‘CD-Tipp’ by BR Klassik.

REVIEW:

I love it when a conceptual framework provides an occasion for performers to program music they might not always prioritize. This sagely programmed and beautifully sung (and played) recital of Schubert Lieder offers an attractive balance between Schubert’s most beloved songs and songs that rarely appear on recital programs – all connected via their texts’ exploration of the blissful attitude toward death exemplified in the concept of Elysium, from which this album takes its title.

This SACD boasts the superb sound quality that one associates with BIS. Hardly a damper sound or an audible breath intrudes on the performance; we are presented with the full dynamic range of each musician; and we hear the kind of warmth and resonance we might enjoy in a private chamber performance. I give this album my highest recommendation.

-- Fanfare

The percussion ensemble Kroumata has been astounding audiences around the world for over 25 years. The concert halls that they have visited during their tours of over 35 countries include the Lincoln Center in New York, Berliner Philharmonie and Wiener Konzerthaus as well as less conventional venues such as a quarry in Northern Sweden and their own headquarters, a former cinema in central Stockholm. Many audiences - and buyers of their several BIS recordings - have met Kroumata as soloists with symphony orchestra, others perhaps as an integral part in a performance of modern dance, performing works as diverse as Sofia Gubaidulina, John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Steve Reich, Toru Takemitsu and Sven David Sandström. On this disc we meet a different Kroumata, as the ensemble performs some of their favourite encores, ranging from a Bulgarian dance to foxtrot, from the lyricism of Alfvén's 'Skogen sover' to the sultriness of a tango. Most of the pieces have been composed or arranged by members of Kroumata, and fully exploit all colours, nuances and spectacular effects of this colourful and spectacular ensemble, supported by guest artists such as baritone Håkon Hagegård and the folk musician Ziya Aytekin, who adds his Turkish flutes to the palette.

The inspiration for this album came about from Ruby Hughes’ first collaboration with the Manchester Collective in the spring of 2020. During the first Covid lockdown, they built the programme of this recital for the purpose of touring the UK and uplifting their audiences at a time when we were all being confronted by challenging notions of mortality and isolation. As artists, they asked themselves what music might attend to the prevailing concerns of this time. Their answers came in the form of this offering.

The title of this album, End of My Days, comes from Errollyn Wallen’s song; a resounding celebration of life that embraces death without regret or sadness but with great verve and acceptance. The other songs, each in its own way, evoke silence and separation, but also love and hope and even the reassurance that we will return whence we came and light shall lift us into eternity. The concluding song, Deborah Pritchard’s Peace, is a message of hope, willingly received as the world emerged out of lockdown in 2021. Luminous tranquillity moves us into the light, towards eternity.

Classical Music

In their liner notes for this string of estrellitas (‘small stars’), Elena Urioste and Tom Poster admit to a shared love for ‘an old-world, golden sound and for melodies that tug at the heartstrings’. This has resulted in a deeply personal collection of miniatures full of winks, sighs and tears aimed at transporting the listener to bygone eras of fireside salon concerts. With a few exceptions, including Elgar’s Chanson de Nuit and Salut d’amour, the pieces are arrangements by the great violinists of that bygone, golden age: Auer, Kreisler, Zimbalist, Heifetz … while the originals they are based upon range from Gluck’s Melodie from Orpheus and Euridice and Liszt’s Consolation No. 3 to Beau soir by Debussy and Estrellita by Manuel Ponce. In a closing section Elena Urioste and Tom Poster also pay their respects to the Great American Songbook, with new arrangements, signed Tom Poster, of ‘Moon River,’ ‘When I Fall in Love’ and ‘Over the Rainbow.’

Here's an imaginative and effective recital of piano music inspired by Christmas images and all manner of bells. The program's centerpiece is Liszt's Weinachtsbaum cycle, whose 12 movements interweave gentle musical portraits and paraphrases of traditional carols. From the frisky Scherzoso and tangy Ungarisch to the sparsely lyrical O Holy Night and Old Provençal Christmas Song, Roland Pöntinen's rich tone and patrician fingerwork perfectly points up the music's wistful sentiments and contrasting moods. Compare, for instance, Pöntinen's swagger in the Polnisch to Leslie Howard's old gray tread, and you'll almost be fooled into thinking that you're hearing a major Liszt work. Two contrasting movements from Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus are lovingly served up with ravishing color and rock-solid rhythmic poise: I hope Pöntinen will record the entire cycle in due course.


For sheer gorgeousness and harmonic allure, you won't easily resist Reger's Mariä Wiegenlied and Busoni's Nuit de Noël. Funny how these two composers are best known for their prickly upholstered large works, yet not many pianists take on their exquisite miniatures. Stefan Pöntinen, the pianist's brother, composed his three-minute Carillon for this recording. It recalls Messiaen's chordal asymmetry, but with leaner, less sensual sonorities. Two Wilhelm Kempff transcriptions of Bach chorale preludes, In dulci jubilo and Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, provide this program's introduction and coda. If you seek a holiday disc appropriate for any day of the year, look no further.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Paul Frankenburger left his native Germany in 1933 in response to the National Socialists' rise to power. Up to that point he had been fully immersed in the German tradition and his compositions followed in the footsteps of the great German post-Romantics like Mahler. Yet after arriving to the British Mandate of Palestine, not only did he change his name to Paul Ben-Haim, but his compositional style underwent a profound change as well. Devised by the young violinist Itamar Zorman, this album tracks how the music of the region gradually became an integral part of Ben-Haim's compositions. Six works spanning four decades represent different stages in this process of synthesis between East and West, the transformation of Frankenburger into Ben-Haim. Zorman, a prize-winner in the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition, is supported by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Philippe Bach in the opening Evocation (Yizkor) from 1942, and the Violin Concerto, as well as in the arrangement (by the father of the soloist) of a Toccata, originally composed for the piano. These are interspersed by Three Songs without Words and Berceuse sfaradite, one of Ben-Haim's most popular works, in which Itamar Zorman is partnered by pianist Amy Yang. Also part of the programme is Ben-Haim's last composition for the violin, the Three Studies for Solo Violin, written in 1981 for Yehudi Menuhin.

One of the great mystics of the early 20th century, George lvanovich Gurdjieff was born in Alexandropol on the border of Russian Armenia and Turkey. As a young man, he began to travel east as far as Tibet, Afghanistan and Central Asia, in search of spiritual enlightenment. Visiting ancient temples, Gurdjieff learned from spiritual teachers and absorbed music from all the places he visited. On his return to the West, he gathered a group of followers who were drawn to his charismatic personality. One of these was the pianist and composer Thomas de Hartmann, and a unique collaboration between de Hartmann and Gurdjieff ensued which would produce well over 300 piano pieces. Gurdjieff would play his melodies on the guitar or the piano and de Hartmann would write them down, harmonize and provide them with minimalistic accompaniments. The guitarist Gunter Herbig came across Gurdjieff’s writings and music in his youth. For decades he cherished the idea of transcribing these pieces for his own instrument, but it wasn’t until he began to experiment with an electric guitar that he found a way of doing so.

Classical Music

The title of Sebastian Fagerlund's Octet 'Autumn Equinox' derives from it's links with his opera Autumn Sonata, based on the Ingmar Bergman film. Some of the moods and musical material of the opera appear in the octet, as a kind of reflection. With the instrumentation of Schubert's famous octet in mind, Fagerlund has created an intense, sometimes almost explosive work. For Arcantio, a double bass concerto in variation form composed for and dedicated to Niek de Groot, Fagerlund imagined a musical atmosphere from some distant, archaic time. Throughout the concerto the soloist constantly guides the orchestra in new directions - at times a virtuoso, at times meditative, as if in a trance. Sky II, originally composed for baroque ensemble, consists of a single movement that presents a fast and flowing, almost playful musical idiom. The musical expression combines dance-like rhythms, minimalism and field-like soundscapes that sweep over the listener. The fast flow of the music is interrupted only by a repeated translucent harmony, which also opens and closes the work. No stranger to Fagerlund's work, John Storgards - who has also previously recorded the opera Autumn Sonata for BIS - conducts the Lapland Chamber Orchestra in two works, while the Octet is played by members of the orchestra.

Sebastian Fagerlund has made a name for himself primarily through his concertos and orchestral works. As demonstrated on previous recordings, his music displays a huge range of colors and an uncommon rhythmic vitality, as well as a sure feel for instrumental writing. He has nevertheless also composed a number of vocal and choral works, and in fact the first release on BIS of his music was the opera Döbeln (2010), based on a controversial figure in the war between Sweden and Russia in 1788-90. When Fagerlund received a commission for a second opera from the Finnish National Opera, he found his inspiration closer to our own time as well as to his own field. Ingmar Bergman’s 1978 chamber drama Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) tells of the celebrated pianist Charlotte Andergast, and how she is confronted by her daughter Eva, who accuses her of neglect and self-absorption. Bergman’s screenplay has been used as basis for numerous stage productions, but this is the first adaptation for opera. Höstsonaten was premièred at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki in 2017, with Anne Sofie von Otter as Charlotte – the role for which Ingrid Bergman was nominated to an Oscar as best actress. She is supported by a cast including Erika Sunnegårdh, Helena Juntunen and Tommi Hakala, and the chorus and orchestra of the Finnish National Opera conducted by John Storgårds.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Born in 1972, Sebastian Fagerlund was recently described on the website MusicWeb International as ‘yet another obscenely talented young musician from Finland’. The occasion was the release of his opera Döbeln (BIS-SACD-1780), with a score that the reviewer went on to characterize as ‘both forward-looking and audience friendly’. Composed in 2009, Döbeln is Fagerlund’s first and so far only opera, and on the present disc we hear three orchestral scores. The musicians of the eminent Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra revel in the composer’s striking gift for orchestration, in performances supervised by the rapidly emerging young conductor Dima Slobodeniouk, who has collaborated with Fagerlund on several occasions previously. The clarinettist Christoffer Sundqvist is also well acquainted with Fagerlund’s music, and his playing served as inspiration for the composer as he wrote his colourful and eventful Clarinet Concerto. Following that work here is Partita, consisting of three movements with titles that mirror the composer’s concerns: Cerimonia (Ceremony), Risonanza (Resonance) and Preghiera (Prayer). According to Fagerlund himself, the work is not associated with any specific religion but rather with an inner, spiritual struggle in general; the need for everyone to find his or her own ‘prayer’. Closing the disc is Isola (Island) which sprang from a visit by the composer to an island in the Turku archipelago formerly used to segregate lepers and the mentally ill from the rest of society. On admittance inmates were expected to bring with them the wood for their own coffins, an ‘isle of the dead’ which today is an idyllic holiday location. A similar alternation of darkness and light, of movement and motionlessness, of violence and sensitivity, permeates Fagerlund’s tone poem.

During the 2010s, Sebastian Fagerlund focused on a series of orchestral compositions and concertos, making one single excursion into vocal music: the opera Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata, 2017). One of his most important works, the opera has influenced his subsequent music, with an increase of long melodic lines alongside his signature rhythmic drive and energy. Dedicated to Nicolas Altstaedt, Fagerlund’s cello concerto Nomade consists of six movements played without a break – a journey by the cellist-wanderer through various landscapes, moods and events depicted by the orchestra. Fagerlund has enjoyed a close relationship with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Hannu Lintu, who has premiered several of his works, including Nomade. Among the fruits of this collaboration is Water Atlas, the third part of a trilogy for orchestra, also comprising Stonework and Drifts, which the same team recorded for BIS in 2017. As a whole, the trilogy deals with basic elements, albeit in an abstract manner: stone, wind (or currents) and water. In Water Atlas Fagerlund was interested in the ever-continuous water cycle: the evaporation of water into the atmosphere and its return to the earth as rain – a cycle that is currently under threat from pollution and climate change.

It is primarily for his large-scale orchestral works that Sebastian Fagerlund (b.?1972) has attracted attention, but throughout his career he has also composed chamber music. In his production, orchestral and chamber music have a fruitful relationship in which a chamber work may contain the germ of ideas that then appear in a new form in an orchestral score. One example of this is Fuel – a set of six miniatures from 2010 – which grows out of the same basic material as Ignite, a work for large orchestra completed in the same year, although they differ greatly in scale and in character. Common to the two genres is also Fagerlund’s firm grasp of the capabilities of the instruments he is writing for. Some of Finland’s leading instrumentalists join forces on the present album, with French horn player Hervé Joulain making an appearance in Transient Light, which is dedicated to him. The six works were composed between 2007 and 2013 and are all for different constellations and of varying dimensions – from a brief duo in one movement (Scherzic) to a quartet in six (Verso l’interno). But there are also common features that recur throughout the program; for example machine-like textures against which material with longer lines is reflected, and influences from other genres such as traditional music from the Middle East or rock. These do not appear as direct stylistic loans, however, but rather as elements embedded in Fagerlund’s own music.

Sebastian Fagerlund’s orchestral music, which has held a central position in his work, is known for its pounding rhythmic energy and the quiet, gripping intensity of the more static passages. The flute concerto ‘Terral’ was written in close collaboration with Sharon Bezaly. Referring to a land breeze in Spain, ‘Terral’ is like a constant variation in a transparent and airy soundscape reminiscent of the soil taking on a new appearance when blown by the wind.

Strings to the Bone for string orchestra features Fagerlund’s typically intense and virtuosic writing as well as elements of the musical heritage of Ostrobothnia. Finally, the Chamber Symphony came to existence thanks to his collaboration with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Ottawa-based National Arts Centre Orchestra, where John Storgårds has been principal guest conductor since 2015. According to the Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet, this work shows “a thematically consistent symphonic construction with an authentic symphonic tension integrated into the dramaturgical gesture”.

James Newby wished to dedicate his second disc on BIS - a recital of English song - to his sister Laura who passed away in 2015, her daughter, and his mother.

After singing Gerald Finzi’s ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’ at her funeral, he felt it fitting that the cycle from which it is taken, Let us Garlands Bring, would form the centerpiece of the program. Alongside this cycle, pianist Joseph Middleton and Newby have designed a program of English songs that reflect on themes of loss, grief and death – but also joy, love and healing with varying styles, sound worlds and atmospheres. George Butterworth, Rebecca Clarke, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Liza Lehmann and Errollyn Wallen are just some of the composers who complete the program, including Arthur Somervell with his cycle ‘A Shropshire Lad’. Like Heinrich Heine’s poems that Schumann used for his famous cycle Dichterliebe, these poems by Alfred Edward Housman deal with unrequited love in first person lyrics. This disc ends on a lighter note with the whimsical song, ‘The Green-eyed Dragon’ by Wolseley Charles, which often concludes live performances as an encore.

Musical settings of the Mass for the Dead have a tendency to dwell on the dramatic high points of the day of judgement and the trumpets of doom (Dies irae and tuba mirum) - partly for the reason that they are dramatic high points. With their respective 'Requiems', Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé wanted to express something different, something which Fauré himself described as a 'trust in eternal rest'. Indeed, when hearing the descpription of his work as 'a lullaby of death', Fauré approved of it. It is the eternal light and peace wished for in the Mass that both composers infused their Requiems with (to the point of actually omitting the more doomladen passages). These qualities are certainly part of the palette of the magnificent Swedish Radio Choir - the favourite vocal instrument of many of the world's greatest conductors, including Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti. The choir's previous disc on BIS (CD1157) consisted of works by Schnittke and Pärt and their performance was described as being 'of commanding, awesome brilliance...with a virtuosity and commitment that are astounding' (Int. Record Review) and 'refulgently passionate' (BBC Music Magazine). On this disc, the choir, directed by Fredrik Malmberg, is joined by three of Sweden's foremost singers - all of them represented on previous BIS recordings - as well as organist Mattias Wager, who has also supplied the organ arrangements of Fauré's orchestral scores.

This recital could almost have been entitled Around Fauré in Sixty Minutes, as the programme devised by Nicolas Stavy spans the entire career of the composer. In April 1863, when Gabriel Fauré noted down the Sonata recorded here for the first time, his 18th birthday was still a month away – the masterly Nocturne in B minor Op. 119, on the other hand, is Fauré’s final work for the piano, composed only two years before his death in 1924. Between them, and the other works included on the album, a fascinating trajectory takes shape. In the Finale of the sonata we hear a young man enjoying himself as he experiments with a Haydnesque idiom; a few years later there are traces of Mendelssohn and Schumann in 3 Romances, and of Chopin in Mazurke – also a world première recording. Especially when it comes to the choice of genre, Chopin is still an influence during the 1870s and Nocturne No. 1 and the Ballade, but both works testify to a composer finding his own voice. Fauré went on to compose another 12 nocturnes and two of these, No. 6 in D flat major from 1894 and the aforementioned Nocturne in B minor, serve as snapshots illustrating Fauré's later career and the composer's path towards increasing abstraction and a style characterised by timelessness and a detachment from fashionable trends.

In French music, Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) forms a link between Romanticism and modernism: in Paris in the year of his birth, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of his death, jazz was all the rage, while Stravinsky was championing neoclassicism. This present recording contains all of Faure's music for cello and piano, including the much-loved Elegie and Sicilienne - pieces that are sometimes described as ''salon music'', with qualities that caused Debussy to dub the composer ''the master of charms''. But interspersed with this lighter fare are also the two sonatas from Faure's later period when, suffering from increasing deafness, he developed a more pared-down style. Even though the sonatas came into being only a few years a part they are nevertheless quite different - appearing in 1917, Sonata No. 1 in D minor is very much a wartime work, at times almost violent. The G minor Sonata is altogether more accessible, with a vivacious finale that caused the composer Vincent d'Indy to remark to the 78-year old Faure: ''How lucky you are to stay young like that!''

Classical Music

Following their critically acclaimed albums of Schubert (BIS-2597), Mozart and Birchall (BIS-2647), works for clarinet trio (BIS-2535) and, more recently, Beethoven and Berwald (BIS-2707), the Wigmore Soloists now turn their attention to twentieth-century English chamber works which, while eschewing some of the continent’s modernist tendencies, are both deeply personal and supremely written, highlighting the specific colors of each of the instruments.

Howard Ferguson’s Octet, a direct and engaging work, was the first of his works to attract attention. Ferguson’s skill is brilliantly demonstrated in this tonally ambiguous work, which takes its instrumentation from Schubert’s famous Octet.

The main characteristic of Sir Arthur Bliss’s Clarinet Quintet, like those of Mozart and Brahms with the same instrumental line-up, is its intense, overtly emotional lyricism, but the sunny, extrovert aspects of Bliss’s character ultimately prevail in the brilliantly energetic finale.

Robin Holloway’s Serenade in C for octet is the most recent work on this disc, and also features the instrumentation of Schubert’s Octet, which the composer acknowledges as a model. Few contemporary composers display as keen a sense of humor as Holloway who wished here to give “an affectionate twist to tonal common practice and light-music clichés all the way from Biedermeier Vienna to Southend Pier”.

Classical Music