Norgard: Will-o'-the-Wisps in Town - Out of the Cradle Endle
Dacapo Classical
CD + DVD
$16.99Jul 31, 2012
The Will-o'-the-Wisps in Town is an extraordinary fairy tale cantata created by the Danish composer Per Nurgerd and his close friend, author Suzanne Brugger, on the basis of a little known fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. This world premiere recording focuses on the charismatic "Marsh With", sung by mezzo-soprano Helene Gjerris, who also premiered the work in Birmingham, UK, at the international celebration of the 200th anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen's birth. Helene Gjerris has captivated audiences and composers since the mid-1990s. Several new works have been written especially for her. In contemporary music in particular her charismatic performance comes into it's element.
Wisps in the Dell - Arrangements of Traditional Celtic Folk Songs
Olde Focus Recordings
CD
$20.99Oct 04, 2019
In the late-classical era, an Edinburgh publisher commissioned the most famous composers in continental Europe to orchestrate traditional Scottish folk songs in their original English. A lush sampling of this music is performed here by Makaris, a new early-music super-group headed by soprano Fiona Gillespie. (Olde Focus)
Austrian mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert, accompanied by expert pianist Joseph Middleton, presents a selection of Schubert lieder blending beloved masterpieces with lesser-known gems. Sophie Rennert's extensive operatic repertoire spans Baroque to contemporary works, encompassing Purcell, Rameau, Handel and Vivaldi, through Mozart and operetta - numerous recordings with leading figures in the early music scene further highlight the quality of her voice. Hailed by critic David Nice as "a mezzo of many colours, subtlety, dramatic intelligence and a crucially brilliant top", it was only a matter of time before she lent her voice to Schubert's highly dramatic songs. The title of this recital, Irrlichter (will-o'-the-wisp), her first for BIS Records, comes from Rennert's favourite song, "Des Fischers Liebesgluck". And much like a will-o'-the-wisp, the composer leaves us in a state of uncertainty. Is the song a memory or just a deep, unfulfilled longing? This feeling, which permeates all of Schubert's music, is in a sense the thread that runs through this collection of songs with their twilight atmosphere. Every single one of these Schubert settings depicts a different dream, a different longing to be discovered.
Malcolm Williamson: Organ Music - Symphony; Vision Of Christ-phoenix; Fantasy On "o Paradiese"; The Lion Of Suffolk; Fons Amoris; Offertoire
Toccata
CD
$10.49$20.99Save 50%May 27, 2014
•Malcolm Williamson (1931–2003), Master of the Queen’s Music from 1975-2003, was the first non-Britain to hold the post since its creation in the 17th century. A gifted pianist, organist and prolific composer, his music naturally includes a substantial number of organ works. His writing for organ is strikingly powerful in its originality and its eclectic mix of styles, ranging from lyrical introspection to fiery virtuosity. Two of the works on this CD are receiving their first recordings.
One of Parry's finest works, magnificently performed, and the best of the two available recordings of "The Sons of Light".
This was the first recording of "The Sons of Light". When I reviewed the second recording, by David Lloyd-Jones on Naxos, I found the Lyrita preferable, with more presence to the recording, more vital conducting and better choral diction. At that time there still seemed to be no prospect of the many Lyrita treasures ever seeing the light of day again. Now things are changing and this is the recording to get.
I referred in my review to the "coursing energy and phenomenal range of colour" of the work. It is, in its way, one of Vaughan Williams’s most impressive. You would certainly never imagine it was written to be sung by children – 1,150 of them at the first performance in 1951, with the accompaniment of the LPO under Boult. What worries me is that, every time I come to it, I find I don’t remember it. It’s not just that the themes don’t stay in my mind. As the work plays I don’t get any sense of recognition – "Ah, I remember that bit now". I hear it as a work I’ve never heard before. This is not a problem I have with Vaughan Williams generally.
Though I also had the LP containing "The Mystic Trumpeter" I never really listened to it often enough to say whether it sticks in my mind or not. I should think it unlikely. I find the same problem here as with Vaughan Williams’s "Willow-Wood", which was also on the Naxos/Lloyd-Jones disc. The composer has very skilfully set the poem line by line, with meaningful upward swoops for important words, pregnant key-changes and so on. He’s produced a nice wall-paper backing to a poem that is far more exciting when it’s simply read. But composition is about creation. It is a constructive process. If you start with an exhilarating poem and finish with a piece of music with about as much tension as a wet lettuce, is this to be defined as composition or decomposition? A work for Holst completists only. The performance is good enough, though Armstrong’s voice sometimes billows when it should soar. Holst seems to have a whopping Wagnerian soprano voice in mind and Armstrong, for all her virtues, was not exactly that. There is also a touch of opaqueness to some of her notes on the CD, though not on the LP.
The Parry is a far more memorable work. The composer had the good sense to choose a poem which provides a refrain. He does not repeat the same music every time but provides a new variation of it. The result is a sort of variation rondo form, combining continuous development with structural unity. Parry is at his finest and most eloquent throughout, from the lilting opening to the dancing energy of the later stanzas. There is a satisfying build-up which dies away to a touching close. There is also a lovely solo stanza, beautifully sung by Teresa Cahill. John Quinn noted in his review that her word underlay at the end of this stanza was at variance with the new edition he was using and wondered if the edition had been revised. I doubt it; I have a copy of the original edition and the textual underlay is different from what is sung there, too. Quite simply, the music as written calls unrealistically for a third lung, so I imagine Cahill herself changed the underlay in order to take a breath in the middle. Composers who aren’t singers miscalculate in this way more often than you’d expect – even Verdi did sometimes. Read John’s review, by the way; he has had the good fortune to sing in a rare performance of the work and his enthusiasm comes from within. But did the soprano at that performance cope with that long phrase in a single breath?
If Parry is at his best, so is Willcocks. It’s a thrilling performance from a great choral conductor. This is the only recording of the piece so far, but now it’s available again we hardly need another. Just for the record, I have always thought Cahill a little insecure in her opening phrase, but thereafter she is splendid. She has a lovely disc of R. Strauss and Rachmaninov to her credit and, unlike Sheila Armstrong in "The Mystic Trumpeter", her voice doesn’t billow, it soars.
Maybe in 1912 the Parry seemed old-fashioned. In 2007 it just seems timeless.
Outstanding recordings, as always with Lyrita, and notes by Ursula Vaughan Williams, Bernard Benoliel and Imogen Holst.
Miles Davis' Final Collaboration with Arranger Gil Evans Yields Watershed Innovations: Flamenco-Themed Sketches of Spain Spins Graceful Webs of Sound and Emotion Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 33RPM LP Set Brings Out the Record's Full Spectrum of Color: 65th Anniversary Edition Pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing Miles Davis and Gil Evans bridged styles and collaborated on high-concept projects three times during their celebrated careers. For their final act, they created Sketches of Spain, a peak moment in each legend's legacy. The transformative record weds Spanish themes, lush orchestrations, romantic timbres, and Davis' lyrical methods in a tender ceremony. Seldom, if ever, did Davis ever so expressively and liberally paint with color. And in Evans, he has a like-minded partner to help draw out tones, shades, and textures. Ranked #358 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, deemed 'a work of unparalleled grace and lyricism' by noted scribe J.D. Considine, bestowed a five-star review from DownBeat, and noted by Q to have taken 'jazz in a new direction,' Sketches of Spain remains universallyrenowned. Part of Mobile Fidelity's Miles Davis restoration series, the 1960 landmark has been afforded the ultimate white-gloves treatment for it's 65th anniversary. Sourced from the original master tapes, strictly limited to 5,000 numbered copies, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, this UltraDisc One-Step 33RPM 180g LP set dramatically expands the soundstages and eradicates a prior dryness that many critics found inhibitive to the record's enjoyment. You'll hear the full-range extension of woodwinds, strings, and percussion, all of which come alive with superior definition and detail amid ultra-quiet backgrounds. Sonically, the results are as breathtaking as the music, and a personal invitation to pull up a chair and enjoy what went down at Columbia 30th Street Studio decades ago in New York City. 1/4' / 15 IPS ANALOG MASTER DSD 64 ANALOG CONSOLE LATHE Numbered Limited Edition UD1S 180g 33RPM LP Box Set NUMBERED LIMITED EDITION OF 5,000 Track List Side One: 1. Concierto de Aranjuez 2. Will o' the Wisp Side Two: 1. The Pan Piper 2. Saeta 3. Solea
Rzewski - Night Crossing - Works For One And Two Pianos
Music and Arts Programs of America
CD
$19.99Jan 27, 2010
Because it's the most immediately accessible of the piano disc's works, let's begin with this two-piano version of Rzewski's hard-driving, viscerally affecting Winnshoro Cotton Mill Blues of 1980. (For the original, spectacularly recorded solo assault, see hatART 6089, North American Ballads & Squares, Frederic Rzewski performing.) The piece pictures its subject, a cotton mill at full tilt, as handily as any tone poem I can think of, working itself thence into a neat transition to the eponymous job-lament dating from the 1930s ("Old man Sargent, sittin' at his desk I The damned old fool won't give us a rest I He'd take the nickels offa dead man's eyes . . . ").
Night Crossing with Fisherman (1994), for two pianos (Ursula Oppens is the dedicatee), isn't quite as thematically coherent as its title suggests. The work divides into three parts, "Night," a moody introspection for piano solo; the aptly titled "Crossing," for two pianos in intense conversation; and "Fisherman," for piano solo and Rzewski's recitation of a passage from the Arabian Nights (politically relevant, of course) about a fisherman who labors through the night for a man asleep. (Presumably it is Oppens who takes the "Night" solo.)
Winnshoro Cotton Mill Blues makes its mark by kicking subtlety out the door. By contrast, Ludes I and 2, of 12 short pieces each (the longest, 1:41, the shortest, 0:38), insinuate themselves into one's affections, playful, will-o'-the-wisp creatures that they are, by degree. Rzewski does an excellent, often fascinating job of explaining his music's background and form. So I won't trouble to summarize his "how these delights came about." Suffice that they range widely in substance and mood, happily short of Rzewski's affection for maul-driven social panaceas.
Zwischen Leben und Tod (Between Life and Death) - Twenty-two
Metier
CD
$18.99May 15, 2026
In May 2026 Metier Records is proud to present Michael Hersch's monumental chamber work Zwischen Leben und Tod (Between Life and Death) performed by violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved and pianist Roderick Chadwick, marking the label debut of one of the most gifted composers of his generation. Hersch's music has been described by The New York Times as "viscerally gripping and emotionally transformative music.claustrophobic and exhilarating at once, with moments of sublime beauty nestled inside thickets of dark virtuosity". In January this year he was selected as the inaugural recipient of the John Hopkins University Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Zwischen Leben und Tod is a startling yet moving 22-movement cycle for violin and piano written in inspiration of paintings by the surrealist German artist, writer and filmmaker Peter Weiss, each movement corresponding to a particular image. It's duration of 100 minutes makes it one of the longest works for violin and piano. Peter Weiss was best known as a playwright of searing and often disturbing stage dramas, including Marat/Sade which features the assassination of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat in an asylum-set play by the Marquis de Sade. Weiss's little-known paintings and drawings share many of the same characteristics, featuring loneliness, violence and grief (themes of asylums, war, prisons, cannibalism) but also deeply meditative imagery (a string quartet, a garden concert, a boy in the grounds of a country house). Hersch found Weiss's spectrum of colour and motion, of proportion and spacing, particularly musical, and Zwischen Leben und Tod makes a deep and visceral engagement with these same explorations. The result is a complex, rich and multi-layered work featuring extremes of tempi, dynamics and technique making enormous physical demands on the performers, while being hugely rewarding. Much of the music is disturbing and raw, but the overall effect is affecting, offering the listener moments of solace. In David Hackbridge Johnson's fabulous booklet notes he says "The little modal chord figures, the open strings that plaintively grate over them, the wisps of folk song, the lullaby figures - all these are a welcome balm to sooth the sores of an atrocity exhibition. What tenderness amid the haunted landscapes!.. Despite these scenes of peril, after over 90 minutes between living and dying in Hersch and Weiss's world, a curiously cathartic sense is achieved; a procession of bleak images in sound that somehow resist despair." Violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved has known and collaborated closely with Michael Hersch for over twenty years, and this is their first recording together. His performance here alongside that of pianist Roderick Chadwick is hugely expressive, displaying extraordinary virtuosity. Michael Hersch is professor of composition at the Peabody Institute and is a composer of "uncompromising brilliance" (The Washington Post). His output includes opera, theatre, chamber, vocal and orchestral works, performed across Europe and the US, including UK premieres at the Aldeburgh Festival and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He is the recipient of many prizes and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, both the Berlin Prize and Rome Prize, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and the President's Frontier Award from the John Hopkins University.
