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Imagine Christmas
Sono Luminus

Imagine Christmas

$6.99
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Details

Composer
BERLIN COOTS ROLLINS
Artist
Levingston, Muresanu, Varga, Mcfarlane, Hills, Bates, Nei
Format
CD
Label
Sono Luminus
Released
Oct 27, 2017
Catalog #
DSL-92216
UPC
053479221629

About

Note the three striking elements on this album, from the minute you press play. The first is the quality of the performances. These are top-level musicians bringing their same superlative artistry to Christmas favorites that they do to a Schubert quartet or Taverner score. The second is the sterling quality of the recording. If there is a sonic equivalent to sipping a hot toddy while curled up before a roaring fire, it is Sono Luminus’s peerless mixes and captures. Third–and in every way as essential as the previous two–this is a kaleidoscopic collection of styles and interpretations of beloved songs and carols that keeps one eager for the next number. With such a fetching variety of artists and approaches, you will find yourself going top-to-tail on this one. Simplicity is an underrated avenue when it comes to holiday releases, so the entries by Irina Muresanu & Matei Varga, Bruce Levingston, Kathryn Bates, and Skylark Vocal Ensemble are a breath of proverbial fresh air. Muresanu’s seductive playing is a glimpse into the golden age of violin technique–lush vibrato and delicious sentimentality, which infuses “White Christmas” with every bit of nostalgia one could hope for.

CONTENTS:

  • Steve Nelson, Jack Rollins: Frosty the Snowman
  • Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b XII. December "Christmas"
  • Berlin, I: White Christmas
  • Marks, J: Holly Jolly Christmas
  • Blake, H: Walking in the Air
  • Cory Hills: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
  • Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie: Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
  • Guaraldi: Christmas Time Is Here (From "A Charlie Brown Christmas")
  • trad: Joy to the World
  • trad: Good King Wenceslas
  • Martin, Hugh: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
  • Gruber, F: Silent Night, H. 145

REVIEW:

This is a well-constructed program of solo piano music that valuably includes the premiere recording of Holst’s Brook Green Suite in Vally Lasker’s transcription and two pieces by Roderick Williams; one an original composition and the other his free transcription of John Ireland’s Sea Fever.

Britten’s Holiday Diary seems to be receiving more recordings and concert performances of late. I last movements from it in a highlights disc from the Husum Festival. The nippy flurries of Early Morning Bathe are finely projected by Maria Marchant, who ensures that the Sailing movement is by no means plain, though after the squalls one returns to its elysian introduction. The big contrast between the showy Fun-Fair aand the subdued Night could hardly be more potent. Ronald Stevenson tended to be more-than-somewhat dismissive of the solo piano writing of some senior British composers. His Peter Grimes Fantasy, which follows with inexorable programmatic logic, is a fugue on two subjects and Britten approved of it according to the paragraph in the booklet that preserves Stevenson’s own introduction to the piece. It’s driving, powerful music, idiomatically laid out, as one would expect of the prolific executant-composer. Maria Marchant’s metronome is set to ‘action’ when it comes to John Ireland’s Ballade of London Nights, which she takes at a real lick—the fastest recording of it yet to be set down, I think. If I happen to prefer the more insinuating tempi of, say, John Lenehan, Alan Rowlands and Eric Parkin, it’s certainly bracing to hear Marchant’s take, if only the once.

Roderick Williams’s Sea Fever transcription opens like Rachmaninov and is vividly accomplished, whilst his own Goodwood by the Sea fits the program delightfully: richly colored, rhythmically vivid, wholly delightful. Kenneth Leighton’s Six Studies are knottier by far, a sequence of so called ‘Study-Variations’, composed in 1969. The color and astringency of the writing is always exciting, the ‘e secco’ instruction fully realized here in the second study, and the way that economy of means develops gravity in the Adagio a particularly revealing example of Leighton’s skill. The garrulous quality of the capricious fourth movement and the dramatic energy of the finale study reinforce the rewarding merits of this brief but intense cycle. Holst’s solo piano music aspires to little more than charm, though the folklorically inflected Toccata is thoroughly engaging: the Brook Green Suite is similarly effortlessly charming and Lasker’s transcription—she was his assistant and ex-pupil—is fresh-faced and effective.

It ends a well selected work list that will reward close listening. Robert Matthew-Walker’s notes are very readable, though he has to strain to make connections between the works from time to time. Fine recording quality.

-- MusicWeb International (Bruce McCollum)

Tracklist 12 tracks

  1. 1 Frosty the Snowman (arr. for chamber ensemble) 02:36
    Track
    1
    Title
    Frosty the Snowman (arr. for chamber ensemble)
    Duration
    02:36
    Composer
    Steve Nelson, Jack Rollins
    Ensemble
    Ensemble Galilei
  2. 2 Les saisons (The Seasons), Op. 37b: XII. December: Christmas 04:08
    Track
    2
    Title
    Les saisons (The Seasons), Op. 37b: XII. December: Christmas
    Duration
    04:08
    Composer
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
    Performer
    Bruce Levingston
  3. 3 White Christmas (arr. J. Heifietz and D. Shen for violin and piano) 03:41
    Track
    3
    Title
    White Christmas (arr. J. Heifietz and D. Shen for violin and piano)
    Duration
    03:41
    Composer
    Irving Berlin
    Performer
    Irina Muresanu, Matei Varga
  4. 4 Holly Jolly Christmas (arr. Sae Chonabayashi for string quartet) 02:15
    Track
    4
    Title
    Holly Jolly Christmas (arr. Sae Chonabayashi for string quartet)
    Duration
    02:15
    Composer
    Johnny Marks
    Ensemble
    Jasper String Quartet
  5. 5 Walking in the Air (arr. R. McFarlane for lute) 02:54
    Track
    5
    Title
    Walking in the Air (arr. R. McFarlane for lute)
    Duration
    02:54
    Composer
    Howard Blake
    Performer
    Ronn McFarlane
  6. 6 'Twas the Night Before Christmas 03:56
    Track
    6
    Title
    'Twas the Night Before Christmas
    Duration
    03:56
    Performer
    Cory Hills
  7. 7 Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (arr. K. Bates for cello) 02:32
    Track
    7
    Title
    Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (arr. K. Bates for cello)
    Duration
    02:32
    Composer
    J. Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie
    Performer
    Kathryn Bates
  8. 8 Christmas Time Is Here (arr. C. Nei for piano) 03:06
    Track
    8
    Title
    Christmas Time Is Here (arr. C. Nei for piano)
    Duration
    03:06
    Composer
    Vince Guaraldi, Lee Mendelson
    Performer
    Caleb Nei
  9. 9 Joy to the World (arr. A. Bitrán, A. Bitrán, S. Bitrán and J. Montiel for string quartet and percussion) 01:45
    Track
    9
    Title
    Joy to the World (arr. A. Bitrán, A. Bitrán, S. Bitrán and J. Montiel for string quartet and percussion)
    Duration
    01:45
    Composer
    Lowell Mason
    Performer
    Lydia Lewis
    Ensemble
    Cuarteto Latinoamericano
  10. 10 Good King Wenceslas (arr. S. Goodyear for piano) 02:55
    Track
    10
    Title
    Good King Wenceslas (arr. S. Goodyear for piano)
    Duration
    02:55
    Composer
    Traditional
    Performer
    Stewart Goodyear
  11. 11 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (arr. P. Mansfield) 02:42
    Track
    11
    Title
    Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (arr. P. Mansfield)
    Duration
    02:42
    Composer
    Hugh Martin
    Ensemble
    Skylark Vocal Ensemble
  12. 12 Stille Nacht (Silent Night) (arr. for chamber ensemble) 05:54
    Track
    12
    Title
    Stille Nacht (Silent Night) (arr. for chamber ensemble)
    Duration
    05:54
    Composer
    Franz Xaver Gruber
    Ensemble
    American Contemporary Music Ensemble