Pitch-perfect Prokofiev from the Pavel Haas Quartet... what comes through above all is a laser-like intensity and youthful brio... In the wondrous Adagio the cello line rises high, ghostly melodic statements in octaves can expose the smallest tuning difficulties and pizzicati needs must sparkle like. The young players pass every test before dispatching the inventive finale with equal aplomb, differentiating a wide variety of moods and timbres within a swiftish frame. Of the small clutch of classic performances of the component pieces, none is more usefully programmed than the present disc, nor so naturally recorded. Why hesitate?Gramophone
BBC Music Magazine - CD OF THE MONTH
Rather than trawl for forgotten manuscripts more widely through Latin America, Ashley Solomon and his group Florilegium prefer to concentrate their efforts on the archives in Bolivia. Solomon has founded a choir there, and both his groups regularly appear at the biennial renaissance and baroque festival in the Jesuit missions of the Chiquitos region. Their latest compilation includes pieces from those missions and from those of Moxos, together with music from the cathedral in La Plata, the present-day city of Sucre. Though the sources aren''t always made clear, it''s a lively, nicely varied sequence, mostly of works showcasing Solomon''s excellent Arakaender choir, interspersed with an anonymous trio-sonatas and organ pieces recorded on a wonderfully gutsy instrument at the mission church of Santa Ana in the Bolivian part of the Amazon basin. The Italian-born Domenico Zipoli is the best known composer represented, appropriately enough, perhaps, for he did at least make the journey from Europe to the Spanish colonies in the new world. The Guardian
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
Though period-instrument recordings of the Fantastic are not uncommon, none that I have heard makes Berlioz’s linear scoring so startlingly different. This, you feel, is how it would have sounded in the 1830s (Erard harps and pianos included). The woodwind and horns, in particular, leap out, but it is the sheer raw clarity of every line and colour in these Flemish players’ performance, and its effect on the rhythms, that strikes you, especially in their revelatory account of the opening movement. Van Immerseel is, otherwise, quite a sober interpreter, resisting the temptation that besets many conductors to whip up the animatos (and setting a rather slow tempo in the Roman Carnival), but only the Scène aux champs seems to me inauthentically heavy-handed. The finale is electric. The Sunday Times
- Prokofiev String Quartets / Sonata for Two Violins
The “classical” sounding work blends the easily distinguishable inspiration by Beethoven’s quartets and the typically Prokofievian pungency and lyricism. The duet, written in Paris, is an inconspicuous yet masterly small-scale work of art and alongside Bartok’s 44 violin duets ranks among the paramount opuses of this genre.
The multi-award-winning partnership of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Sir Charles Mackerras is reunited in this second collection of Mozart Symphonies featuring Nos 29, 31 (Paris), 32, 35 (Haffner) & 36 (Linz)’. This much anticipated recording follows on from the astounding success of ‘Mozart Symphonies 38 – 41’ which resulted in him winning the Critics’ Award at the 2009 BRIT Awards and led to ’Mozart Symphonies 38-41’ being named Disc of the Year at the 2009 BBC Music Magazine Awards.
‘MELLOW AND ADDICTIVE SOUNDS, PERFECT FOR THE
MODERN WORLD’.
MASK is actress/singer Sonja Kristina (Curved Air) and
modern classical composer /producer/Cellist Marvin Ayres. Both are established
innovators in music and performance.
This is MASK's first release since
their UK Top 20 Club hit single 'Waking The Dream'.
JULIEN K IS DEAD BY
SUNRISE (LESS CHESTERBENNINGTON) .
Enjoyed chart success as well as sold out tours as part of
Dead By Sunrise
Album production by Chester Bennington (Executive Producer) andTim
Palmer (co producer and mixer). Palmer, who worked with artists such
as HIM, The Cure or U2 in the past, finished the songs with his
high-standard skills.
The
band have played as main support for Evanescence and Mindless Self
Indulgence tours
·Envy- aka Nicola Varley, a 22 yr-old rapper/ MC from
Manchester.Already making big shockwaves on the grime and UK hip-hop scene, Envy
waxes deep lyrical over the cool, smoky beats of Medasyn (Lady Sov/ Shystie),
with a bold, unhurried flow that smacks of future
stardom.
·Writing lyrics from the age of 12, beginning with songs for
singers, it wasn’t until the age of 15, when she developed an interest in
hip-hop that Envy decided to put her lyrics to rap beats.Influenced by artists such as Nas, TLC, Missy
Elliot and Ms Dynamite.
Barb
Jungr
is more than just a great singer. She's one of the world's premiere song
stylists, drawing critical acclaim both sides of the Atlantic famed for her inspired recasting of material from
the likes of Bob Dylan, Jacques Brel, Nina Simone and Elvis Presly. Her
latest album, The Men I Love, her
first for Naim documents two
things,
Jungr’s l love
of American popular song and its songwriters.
As has come to be expected with Barb, the material displays her
impressive ability to re-imagine well-known popular songs, revealing deep
meanings and latent emotional content that comes to light when she dislodges the
songs from their original contexts:
“There is a body of great work which sits for me right
inside the classic Great American Songbook, where songs both stand the test of
time and also are able to be re-imagined and sometimes re-harmonised, allowing
them to grow and develop beyond original recordings”
• Rachel Podger’s first recording with orchestra since the landmark Gramophone Award winning disc of Vivaldi’s La Stravaganza • Follows eight volumes of the Award Winning Mozart Violin Sonatas edition • Rachel Podger challenges Pavlo Beznosiuk • Soloists play on real ‘Strads’
Martinu - 3 Fragments from Julietta
On 11 December 2008 the sold-out Rudolfinum in Prague heard for the first time Three Fragments from the Opera Juliette,a work which ranks among Martin?’s most significant and which the composer himself highly esteemed. Martin? originally composed the opera Juliette in Czech. However,so as to ensure appropriate publicity for the work,he wanted –
‘This extraordinary project confirms the robust health and endlessly varied landscape of Britain’s new music. There is no other document anywhere that has given such a snapshot of an artistic community that,while comprised of a hundred different ways of expressing itself,is of one voice when it comes to creative energy.’ JOHN ADAMS..Read More>>
Sacred Hearts + Secret Music
The repertoire featured on this disc features material that might have been performed by a convent choir in the 1570’s,in the Ferrara area. Both Palestrina and de Rore were celebrated in their lifetimes as two of the greatest composers in Italy,and both were strongly connected to the d’Este family,the rulers of Ferrara in 16th century. ...Read More>>
Unknown Britten
The ‘Clarinet Concerto’ was written for jazz star Benny Goodman, but Britten never completed it as the sketches were impounded by US Customs in 1941. It was Britten’s intention to resume work on the piece in 1943 but he never got round to it and so it remained a fragment, not performed until edited by Colin Matthews in 1990”...Read More>>
