Divine Art Records, which itself has offices in both the USA and UK, is proud to announce a new album, recorded in London, of the ‘Spanish Meditations and Dances’ by the most excellent American composer Gregory Fritze. The works are performed by two of England’s most celebrated soloists and regulars in the catalogs of Divine Art and its sibling labels Athene and Métier: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano).
“Spanish Meditations and Dances” for violin and piano was composed and arranged especially for Peter Sheppard Skærved in 2021. It is a set of seventeen pieces that showcase the violinist in both expressive and exciting technical playing. The titles of the movements are from the many towns and regions of Spain that have been a great inspiration in the composer’s music over the years.
The six exciting dances – Tenerife Dance, Madrid ; Variations on a Theme by Luigi Boccherini, Bilbao; at the Guggenheim; Lliria Dance, Barcelona; Gaudi Dance; and Carcaixent Dance – are interspersed with eleven expressive meditations.
Gregory Fritze is a prize-winning composer and Fulbright Scholar. His compositions have been performed more than one thousand times in twenty-six countries. He has written over one hundred compositions for orchestra, band, chamber ensembles and soloists. He won over sixty composition awards including Menzione d’Onore (highest award given) of the Mario Bernardo Angelo-Comneno International Music Competition by the Accademia Angelica Costantiniana Arti E Scienze (Rome, Italy) for “String Quartet”, First Prize Winner of Reneé Fisher Composition Prize for “Piano Sonata” and others.
His music is published by several publishers in the US, South America and Europe and has been recorded on Albany Records, MSR Classics and others. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities and music festivals in the United States, Canada, Japan, South America and Europe. He taught at Berklee College of Music as Professor and Chair of Composition. He attained a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Composition from the Boston Conservatory and Indiana University respectively.
Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano) are both highly popular, talented and critically acclaimed musicians. Both have extensive concert and recording careers and have appeared together and separately on a number of recordings. More detailed biographies can be supplied on request.
The recording was made in London in the early part of 2022 and the album which will be issued on CD and all digital formats worldwide is scheduled for release between November 2022 and February 2023 (date to be confirmed).
“Spanish Meditations and Dances” (DDA 25239)
Composer: Gregory Fritze Performers: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano). Label: Divine Art ALBUM RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 22 – FEBRUARY 2023 TBC
Peter Sheppard Skærved & Roderick Chadwick Recordings on Divine Art
Following several well-received albums of Simon Mold’s vocal and choral music in recent years, a recording of his Lenten cantata Passiontide for soloists, choir and organ is currently underway in the UK. Premiered in Kent in 2009, Passiontide was conceived as an alternative to Stainer’s Crucifixion, telling the story of Holy Week in the manner of a small oratorio and including several hymns for choir and audience in a nod to the earlier composer’s well-known choral work. Simon Mold has compiled an eclectic libretto that combines some quirky 17th-century metrical Gospel narrative with a variety of choral and solo reflections; the result is a strikingly accessible work that explores a range of emotions with a sure feel for word-setting and an irrepressible tunefulness, while nonetheless capable of many passages of gravitas, poignancy and lingering beauty.
Highlights include dramatic moments in the Garden of Gethsemane and before Pilate, a searching setting of the Reproaches for choir and soloist, the heart-rending farewell duet for Mary and Jesus and a final scene that taps into the feelings of believer and non-believer alike.
The Gospel Narrator is Philip Leech, tenor (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), Jesus is sung by experienced song recitalist Stephen Cooper (Southwell Minster) and the soprano soloist is Helen Bailey (Royal Academy Opera), along with bass-baritone Jeremy Leaman (Loughborough University) as a taunting Pilate. Roxanne Gull (Christ’s College, Cambridge and Lincoln Cathedral) conducts The Knighton Consort made up of choral specialists. The organist is David Cowen (Oxford, Paris and currently Organist of Leicester Cathedral).
Passiontide (duration around 75 minutes is scheduled for worldwide release in February 2023 in time for the Passiontide and Easter season. It consists of 24 sections.
Simon Mold was born in Buxton, UK in 1957, and following success as a treble soloist in the North West of England became a chorister at Peterborough Cathedral under the legendary Dr Stanley Vann. After reading English Language and Medieval Literature at Durham University, where he was a cathedral choral scholar, Simon embarked upon a teaching career principally in the south of England, and sang in several cathedral choirs. Upon retirement from teaching he joined Leicester Cathedral Choir just in time to take part in the acclaimed Richard III reinterment ceremonies in 2015. His interest in composition began at Peterborough where he directed a performance of one of his own choral pieces in the cathedral whilst still a boy chorister. Subsequently Simon’s music has been widely published, performed, recorded and broadcast: for instance his anthem Come, praise the saints, for choir, organ and 3 trumpets was conducted by John Scott in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and his well-known Candlelight Carol featured in Lesley Garrett’s television series Christmas Voices. Three albums of Simon Mold’s vocal and choral music have been released in recent years, and his verse collection Poetry of the Peak was published in 2019. Simon has also been a regular contributor to various musical and literary magazines, and has written widely on diverse aspects of music, language and literature.
Simon Mold: Passiontide – a Lenten Cantata (DDA 25238)
Artists
Philip Leech (tenor)
Stephen Cooper (baritone)
Helen Bailey (soprano)
Jeremy Leaman (bass-baritone)
The Knighton Consort
Roxanne Gull (conductor)
Dates
Recording dates: April and June 2022 Venue: Mountsorrel Methodist Church, Leicestershire Release date: scheduled for February 10, 2023
Reviews of previous Simon Mold recordings
“Hush Little Child” – Christmas carols by Simon Mold and Antony Baldwin: “Warmly recommended” – MusicWeb International. “Simon Mod;s writing frequently reveals a fresh creativity whilst his settings of the texts are very convincing.”
– Cathedral Music Review
“Simon Mold: Song Cycles: “Mold’s music is unashamedly conservative, finding stylistic parallels with folk-inspired composers such as Vaughan-Williams. Mold’s song settings keep the home fires burning for highly approachable lyrical expression and amply demonstrate an unerring ear for rhythmic stress and a sure sense of converting feeling into sounds.”
– Opera Today
“The Beatific Vision” – Choral Organ Music by Simon Mold and Charles Paterson: “Bravo. There is much to enjoy on this CD. The musical language (of the Mold pieces) is immediately accessible and serves the text admirably.”
Divine Art will be adding another exceptionally talented composer to its roster soon. To be recorded later this year, the new album is a celebration of the chamber music of Devon-born composer Ian Stephens, who has made a name for himself with acclaimed works for choir, orchestra, brass band and small ensemble. A cellist himself, his deep love for string instruments shines through in these five pieces; his music has been described as containing “a fathomless richness of harmony, sumptuous depth of orchestration.”
The world-class Fitzwilliam String Quartet is joined by two outstanding guests, clarinettist Mandy Burvill and oboist Jonathan Small, in recordings of two string quartets, a clarinet quintet, an oboe quintet and a duo for clarinet and cello.
Born in Sidmouth, Devon, Ian studied music at Bristol University, and is based near Liverpool. His music has been performed by ensembles including the Brodsky Quartet, Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Northern Ballet Sinfonia, Salisbury Cathedral Choir and Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. He is active as a workshop leader, cellist and double bassist, and is a Composition Tutor at Chetham’s School of Music and a mentor for the Rushworth Young Composer scheme.
Fitzwilliam String Quartet: Lucy Russell & Andrew Roberts, violins, Alan George, viola; Heather Tuach, cello
The recording is being done in two sessions, both at Wyastone Leys concert hall in Monmouth. The first is 17-18 December 2022, the second is March or April 2023, to be confirmed.
Divine Art’s new-music label, Métier, is to release a new album of solos, duos and a trio by the Macedonian-born composer, violinist and educator Mihailo Trandafilovski — all written for close friends and long-term collaborators: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin), Neil Heyde (cello), Roger Heaton and Linda Merrick (clarinets), Hugh Millington and Saki Kato (guitars), Roderick Chadwick (piano), and Mihailo himself. The recording will be issued on CD and in all digital formats in November 2022.
This album explores idiomatic and uncompromising techniques which, like other aspects of the musical language, stretch in different but complementary directions: spectral / elemental sonorities and more traditional approaches to virtuosity are bound by both harmonic / formal systems and physical directness. “These are pieces”, Mihailo says, “which can only come to life through deeply dedicated performances, in which such techniques become integrated and natural; such are those by the maverick musicians on this recording”.
Peter Sheppard Skærved, Mihailo’s violin-partner in the Kreutzer Quartet, wrote: “Mihailo is a performer-composer in the mould of Telemann, Bartók, Joachim and Liszt. Like them, it is quite impossible to separate his compositional and instrumental imaginations. His contribution to the violin [repertoire] is extraordinary – his works are gifts for audiences and players alike.”
Divine Art CEO Stephen Sutton says that he is delighted to have this new recording in the quickly-growing catalog of contemporary music on Métier, adding “We saw from Mihailo’s previous album ‘Diptych’ (Metier MSV 28582) that within what we might call ‘mainstream contemporary’, that he has a style which is individual, gripping and rather special. That he collaborates closely with his chosen performers means that we have definitive performances from the start.”
Mihailo Trandafilovski studied at Michigan State University (BMus) and the Royal College of Music in London (MMus, DMus). His studies and research have been supported by the Open Society Institute, the Macedonian Ministries of Science and Culture and the British Government (with a Chevening scholarship); among other awards are the United Music Publishers Prize for composition at the RCM and the Panče Pešev Award for best new work at the contemporary music festival Days of Macedonian Music. His music has been issued on several labels and both performed and broadcast widely.
He is a violinist in the Kreutzer Quartet, with whom he has performed and recorded extensively (with many premiere CD and DVD recordings on Métier) and held residencies at Tate St Ives, University of York and Goldsmiths College, among others; he has an avid interest in the application of new music to pedagogy, for which he was awarded his doctorate; and has led a number of shared projects among the arts promoting contemporary artistic creativity to a wider audience.
Polychromy (MSV 29629)
Mihailo Trandafilovski
Chaconne (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Grain-Song (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Šarenilo (violin duo) – Peter Sheppard Skærved & Mihailo Trandafilovski
Polychromy (cello solo – Neil Heyde)
Weaxan (clarinet trio – Linda Merrick, Peter Sheppard Skærved & Roderick Chadwick)
Sandglass (clarinet solo – Roger Heaton)
String Dune(s) (guitar duo – Saki Kato & Hugh Millington)
Recorded in London in April 2022 (recording engineer Adaq Khan) Release date: November 11, 2022
Divine Art’s new-music division, Métier, is to release an album of music for flute by Irish composer John Buckley. All will be premiere recordings, to be made under the composer’s supervision with engineer Chris Corrigan, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Chris has produced several previous albums for Divine Art and Métier, labels that are developing a strong relationship with the first-class art-music scene in Ireland.
The composer introduces the new set:
“Compositions for flute constitute a significant aspect of my musical output as a composer and now span a period of fifty years. Between 1967 and 1974, I studied flute with the legendary Doris Keogh, in the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin and she greatly encouraged my early efforts at composition. In the interim I have written a wide range of compositions involving flute: solo flute, flute ensembles, various chamber music combinations, a flute concerto, and works for flute and piano.
Composed in 1973, the earliest flute work in my catalogue is Three Pieces for Solo Flute, while the most recent work is In Memoriam Doris Keogh, for flute and piano which was completed in 2022. Both works are included in this album.
Over the years, I have composed a great number of works for Ireland’s leading concert flautist William Dowdall. These include Two Fantasias for Alto Flute (2004), Sea Echoes (2008) for flute with glissando headjoint and Constellations (2009) for multiple overdubbed flutes (bass flute, alto flute, C flute, piccolo). All of these works are included in the current album.
There are two works specifically composed for the album: Five Études for Two Flutes and In Memoriam Doris Keogh. The études are reinterpretations of earlier pieces for two violins, while In Memoriam Doris Keogh is a three-movement piece for flute and piano reflecting on my flute teacher’s broad musical interests.
I am delighted to be able to work with such wonderful flautists as Emma Coulthard (another former pupil of Doris Keogh), Emma Halnan and pianist David Appleton, who also performs two short pieces for piano solo.”
Boireann (MSV 28628)
Five Etudes for Two Flutes
Boireann (flute/piano)
In Memoriam Doris Keogh (flute/piano)
Constellations (flutes)
Three Pieces for solo flute
Two Fantasias for solo flute
Sea Echoes (solo flute)
Airflow (solo flute)
+ Two solo piano works
(all by John Buckley)
Artists:
Emma Coulthard (flutes) Emma Hanlan (flute) David Appleton (piano)
Availability: CD and digital audio Recording dates: flute solos and duos: April 11 & 12. Other works: August 2022 Release date: to be confirmed, probably Jan/Feb 2023.
John Buckley
Born in Templeglantine, Co. Limerick, in 1951, John Buckley studied flute with Doris Keogh and composition with James Wilson at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. His subsequent composition studies were in Cardiff with the Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott, and with John Cage. He has written a diverse range of work, from solo instruments to full orchestra. The list includes numerous commissions, amongst them Concerto for Organ and Orchestra and Campane in Aria for the National Concert Hall, Rivers of Paradise for the official opening of the Concert Hall at the University of Limerick, Maynooth Te Deum for the bicentenary of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and A Mirror into the Light for Camerata Ireland’s inaugural concert, as well as many works for RTÉ.
John Buckley’s catalogue now extends to over 110 works, which have been performed and broadcast in more than fifty countries worldwide. His compositions have represented Ireland on five occasions at the International Rostrum of Composers and at five ISCM festivals. Amongst his awards are the Varming Prize (1977), the Macaulay Fellowship (1978), the Arts Council’s Composers’ Bursary (1982), and the Toonder Award (1991). In 1984 he was elected a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists. His music has been recorded on the Anew, Altarus, Black Box, Marco Polo, Lyric FM, Atoll, Celestial Harmonies, Divine Art and Métier labels. He has made numerous broadcasts on music and music education for RTÉ and Lyric FM, and his compositions are available on over twenty commerical recordings.
He has been awarded both a PhD and a DMus by the National University of Ireland and was senior lecturer in music at St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University, between 2001 and 2017. A monograph on his life and work, Constellations: The Life and Music of John Buckley by Benjamin Dwyer, was published in May 2011 by Carysfort Press. Further information can be found at johnbuckleycomposer.com
Emma Coulthard studied Flute and Recorder at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with Doris Keogh, and Musicology at Trinity College Dublin. Emma took a keen interest in contemporary music from early in her career, collaborating with Irish Composers including John Buckley, Martin O’Leary and Paul Hayes in the early 1990s. Emma was the soloist for Paul Hayes’s Prix Italia piece ‘Mass Production” and as a singer worked with Michael Holohan on settings of Seamus Heaney poems. In 2018, whilst living in Wales Emma returned to her work with Irish Composers, commissioning and premiering several new works from Fergus Johnston, Paul Hayes, John McLachlan, Graínne Mulvey, Jenn Kirby and Anna Murray which led to performances in Tokyo, Sofia, Cardiff, Dublin and Maynooth. In 2022 she was part of Benjamin Dwyer’s SacrumProfanum project, which has been released on Farpoint, and the ‘Connected Skies’ project with Angela Slater funded by ACE. She has been broadcast on BBC and RTÉ radio and television, and has been published by Music Sales and Trinity.
David Appleton’s most notable body of performance experience has been with the six piano ensemble Piano Circus, with whom he was a co-director between 1994 and 2014. As well as extensive touring in Europe, South East Asia and the USA and South America with the group, notable recordings include the album Transmission (Observer CD of the week in 2001), Future Sound of London with Max Richter and Skin & Wire with the legendary drummer Bill Bruford (2009.) Collaborations also include Pete Townsend: The Lighthouse at Sadlers Wells, Michael Clark: Oh My Goddess, also at Sadlers Wells and touring, plus combining abseiling with pianistic endeavour with aerial theatre company Scarabeus. Work with piano duo partner Kate Ryder (1998-2008) included Three Little Scandals film and live music at the Barbican and critically acclaimed performances of Stockhausen’s Mantra.
Emma Halnan first came to prominence as woodwind category winner of BBC Young Musician 2010. She has since appeared at major venues worldwide, and has performed concertos with orchestras such as the London Mozart Players and the European Union Chamber Orchestra. Other competition successes include the Sussex Prize for Woodwind in the Royal Overseas League Competition 2019 and first prize in the Sir Karl Jenkins/Arts Club Award 2016. Emma was selected as a “Making Music” Young Artist 2018-20, and is a City Music Foundation Artist.
Emma studied at the Royal Academy of Music with William Bennett and Kate Hill, and afterwards with Robert Winn. She previously studied at the Purcell School with Anna Pope.
Emma was principal flute of the European Union Youth Orchestra 2014-16. She has also freelanced with orchestras including the London Mozart Players, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, English National Opera and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Emma is a highly reputed and very dedicated teacher. She teaches privately, for the University of Cambridge, and at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Her pupils have gained places in national ensembles and at various conservatoires (both junior and senior departments).
English harpsichordist Gilbert Rowland is preparing the third volume in his ongoing series presenting the complete Suites for Harpsichord by Johann Jakob Froberger. The album is to be recorded at Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire on 11-14 July 2022, with engineer John Taylor who produced all of Gilbert’s previous Divine Art and Athene recordings. The first two volumes attracted much praise:
“A glorious sound and enjoyable music recorded in a resonant acoustic, giving a truly luscious sound. Rowland plays with energy and a good forward drive.” —David Griffel (Harpsichord & Fortepiano) on volume. 1
“One of the finest recordings of Froberger’s harpsichord music I have heard, with a wonderful-sounding instrument and magnificent playing from Rowland.” —Stuart Sillitoe (MusicWeb International) on volume 1
“Froberger’s music is individual in nature and ground-breaking – he was one of the first composers to settle the ‘dance-movement’ style. These are thrilling and authoritative recordings by Gilbert Rowland of wonderful music.” —John Pitt (New Classics) on volume 2
“Froberger’s music – in this splendid rendition by Gilbert Rowland – reveals huge variety and baroque beauty. Clever, ingenious and melodious engaging and attractive works.” —Stuart Millson (Quarterly Review) on volume 2
Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667) was a highly accomplished composer of the middle baroque and is usually credited with inventing the ‘baroque suite’ used with variations by Bach, Handel and countless other composers; certainly it was his idea to set the ‘backbone’ of the Suite as the four dance movements of allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue. He was extremely prolific and indeed several works (including Harpsichord Suites) have been discovered only recently.
Gilbert Rowland first studied the harpsichord with Millicent Silver. Whilst still a student at the Royal College of Music, he made his debut at Fenton House 1970 and first appeared at the Wigmore Hall in 1973.
His mentors have included Kenneth Gilbert and Fernando Valenti. Recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, appearances at major festivals in this country and abroad, together with broadcasts for Capital Radio and Radio 3 have helped to establish his reputation as one of Britain’s leading harpsichordists.
His numerous records of works by Scarlatti, Soler, Rameau and Fischer have received considerable acclaim from the national press. The recording of the 13-CD set of Soler sonatas with Naxos was completed in 2006. He also recorded a CD of Sonatas by Albero for London Independent Records, which was released in 2009. He joined Divine Art in 2010 to record the harpsichord suites by Handel, followed by those of Froberger and Mattheson. Gilbert Rowland is assigned to Divine Art’s specialist early music label, Athene.
J. J. Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, Volume 3 (ATH 23213 – 2CD set, double digital album)
New signings to the Métier New Music division of Divine Art include composer Dorone Paris and saxophonist Noam Dorembus, both Israelis, though Dorone Paris has been resident in Ireland ten years.
They have collaborated on the recording of three modernist/experimental works for saxophone, to be released as a lower-price ‘mini-album’ CD, and digital /streaming options, under the title COAL. The recording, just made, is currently (March 2022) in post-production and will be scheduled for release in the autumn.
COAL explores the vast colours and possibilities of saxophones by examining and channeling the compounded challenges of the last several years: from a climate crisis to a global pandemic to the possibility of international nuclear war.
This album of saxophone works from Dorone Paris is performed by saxophonist Noam Dorembus. The pieces in the album include Hollow Memory for duo saxophones (performed together with Maayan James), Abyss for solo saxophone and loop and saxophone quartet (performed together with Maayan James, Eli Korman & Kim Kedar). The last piece in the album is All the Roads Are Blocked for solo tenor saxophone and echo.
Dorone Paris is a composer and artist specialising in Installation, Performance Art and Political Composition. Her work has been performed throughout West and Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Her international education and practice have gained her a unique approach to Music and Art in general. She also has a long track record of participating and lecturing in conferences, which are reflected by her varied and unusual connections in the New Music world.
Dorone holds a PhD in Music Composition from University College Cork in Ireland. Being raised in Israel influenced her political ideas and affected her musical creativity, aesthetics and philosophy. Her work focuses mainly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and women’s rights. She is the founder of PATH art: an organisation dedicated to convincing her people that a peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians is both possible and necessary. She, together with Sylvia Hinz, is the founder of ArtEquality: a non-profit organisation and an activist movement for equality and feminism that offers support to artists whose work concerns gender equality.
Noam Dorembus is an Israeli saxophonist and creator; he specialises in Classical and Jazz music. Among his performances, Noam has given the Israeli première of Ari Ben-Shabtai’s composition ‘Angel’s Tears’ for saxophone and orchestra, that was conducted by the renowned Mendi Rodan. Noam has also been performing together with harpist Ada Ragimov as part of the Dorembus Ragimov Duo, playing classical repertoire and with his Jazz Trio, playing jazz standards and originals. Noam is part of the Kerem Saxophone Quartet. He also plays with the Revolution Orchestra, The Haifa Symphony Orchestra as well as the Jerusalem East & West orchestra. Noam was a member of the Jerusalem Saxophone Quartet led by Prof. Gersh Geller and a founding member of The Apples, An Israeli based funk, jazz and groove band.
He graduated from The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and is currently teaching in the Conservatoire there.
COAL (MSV 92019)
All Works By Dorone Paris
Abyss
All the Roads are Blocked
Hollow Memory
Performers
All tracks: Noam Dorembus (tenor sax)
Abyss/Hollow Memory: Maayan James (alto sax)
Abyss: Eli Korman (soprano sax); Kim Kedar (baritone sax)
Following the January 2022 release of the critically acclaimed album of his cello and piano music (DDA 25217), Manchester-based British composer Robin Stevens is currently recording a programme of his chamber music for mixed ensembles, entitled Chasing Shadows. The major work on the disc is Robin’s four-movement Clarinet Quintet, featuring Hallé Orchestra clarinettist Rosa Campos. This piece embraces, in a contemporary idiom, all the sweep and ambition of Brahms’ own famous work in the genre.
The remainder of the album demonstrates Robin’s penchant for writing for unusual and neglected combinations of instruments. His Romantic Fantasy for Harp Septet – employing the same forces as Ravel’s ground-breaking Introduction and Allegro – is a powerfully original composition encompassing an unbroken twenty-minute span. The Fantasy Trio for Flute, Cello and Classical Guitar explores the exciting sonic possibilities latent in this felicitous grouping of instruments, and a further dramatic contrast in timbres is provided by two miniatures for double bass and piano.
This project is blessed with a stellar cast of instrumentalists, including guitarist Craig Ogden, harpist Clifford Llantaff (BBC Philharmonic Orchestra), and Hallé Orchestra principals Amy Yule (flute) and Nicholas Trygstad (cello).
Chasing Shadows (DDA 25236)
Composer Robin Stevens
Works
Quintet for Clarinet and Strings Rosa Campos (clarinet); Sophie Rosa & Rosemary Attree (violins) ; Alistair Vennart (viola) ; Nicholas Trygstad (cello)
Fantasy Trio Clifford Llantaff (harp) ; Craig Ogden (guitar); Nicholas Trygstad (cello)
Obsession
Chasing Shadows Alex Jones (Double Bass); David Jones (piano)
Romantic Fantasy Clifford Llantaff (harp); Rosa Campos (clarinet); Amy Yule (flute/piccolo) ; Katie Stillman & Rosemary Attree (violins); Christine Anderson (viola); Nicholas Trygstad (cello)
Sir John Manduell was a pivotal figure in British music, known for his fluent creative thinking, for his own compositions and for his devotion towards the teaching of music.As the founding Principal of the Royal Northern College of Music he led the college into being a world-leading institution, and is regarded as a most vital inspiration and influence on a great many British composers through his leadership and his pioneering work as a producer at the BBC and in his founding of the European Opera Centre. Indeed, Sir John’s outstanding qualities, character and achievements have been well recorded in the many assessments made during his lifetime and in the many tributes that honour his memory.
In 2020 Divine Art released “Songs for Sir John” – a tribute album featuring works by 16 composers in Sir John’s memory – composers who had been influenced, inspired or encouraged by the great mentor – a wonderfully constructed program of chamber music in its own right, cemented by each work’s connection to Sir John Manduell.
The sequel to that album is ‘The Fabulous Sir John’. Recording has taken place between June and October 2021 in Stockport, England, and the album is scheduled for release in July. This recording includes several pieces by Manduell as well as tribute works by Adam Gorb and Michael Berkeley (whose father Lennox was one of Manduell’s teachers), a piece by Sir John’s close friend and admirer Richard Stoker, and one by Sir John’s other teacher, William Alwyn.
Divine Art and Executive Producer John Turner are grateful for the financial support of sponsors Castlefield Investment Partners LLC and the Ida Carroll Trust, and for invaluable contributions to the programme notes from Kent Nagano and Bryan Fox whose words sum up the feeling of so many musicians: “There is no way of adequately describing someone who superbly filled so many roles; any list would exhaust the available space before encompassing its brief. He was unique, and we are all deeply in his debt.”
2022 sees the centenary of the death of the Yorkshire composer William Baines (1899-1922). He wrote in the region of 150 pieces in many genres in his brief and parochial life, but it is the piano with which he is most associated. As Gramophone magazine commented on an earlier album of piano music, “The name William Baines may be unfamiliar to many readers but I would certainly place him among the major figures in English piano music in the early part of this century. The output he produced during his tragically short life – he succumbed to incipient tuberculosis at the age of 23 in 1922 – is truly phenomenal.”
The distinguished English pianist Duncan Honeybourne, long a champion of Baines’ piano music, has put together a programme that includes first recordings of Seven Preludes – Set 2, and Pictures of Light, together with the established works Tides and Paradise Gardens amongst others. Duncan will be joined by the singer Gordon Pullin – whose seven recorded volumes of English Tenor songs sample the entire repertoire of the genre – in the Five Songs of William Baines, written by him within a week in September 1919, and never before publicly recited or recorded.
The disc will include At the Grave of William Baines, a substantial piece for piano written by Robin Walker as a tribute to the composer upon the centenary of Baines’ birth in 1999. The grave is in Horbury, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, but Baines had lived and died on the same street in York where Robin was brought up a generation or so later.
The recording sessions will take place in Hereford at the end of May 2022 and the album will be scheduled for release by Divine Art Records in the autumn.
Gordon Pullin
Gordon Pullin first sang the songs of William Baines in York, accompanied by Francis Jackson, the Minster organist. They also performed some of them at Nun Appleton Hall, where the piano was one that Baines himself would have played. Gordon Pullin has always specialised in English Song, making a number of CDs for the British Music Society entitled ‘The English Tenor Repertoire’, and giving recitals on the BBC which included songs by Parry, Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Ireland, Bax and many others (including Francis Jackson), as well as many first performances. He sang the first two of the Baines songs in the play about the composer, ‘Goodnight to Flamborough’, which was broadcast on the BBC.
Duncan Honeybourne enjoys a diverse profile as a pianist and in music education. Following his concerto debuts at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and the National Concert Hall, Dublin, he made recital debuts in London, Paris and at international festivals in Belgium and Switzerland. Commended by International Piano magazine for his “glittering performances”, Duncan has toured extensively as soloist and chamber musician, broadcasting frequently on BBC Radio 3 and radio networks worldwide. His many recordings reflect his long association with 20th and 21st century British piano music, and he has given over 70 world premieres, including works written for him by John Joubert, John Casken and Cecilia McDowall. For Divine Art, he previously recorded an album of piano music by Luke Whitlock (DDA 25121).
Robin Walker, who is contributing his work to this recording as a tribute to Baines, and is also producing the disc for Divine Art, is an established composer from Yorkshire, deserving also of a wider international audience. His work appears on three Divine Art CDs including one (‘Turning Towards You, DDA 25180) devoted to his chamber music which was chosen as one of his ‘Records of the Year 2019’ by Richard Hanlon of MusicWeb International.
William Baines: piano music and songs (Final Title to be Confirmed)
Label: Divine Art Catalogue Number: DDA 25234
Performers
Gordon Pullin (tenor)* Duncan Honeybourne (piano)
Works
William Baines
Seven Preludes: Set 2 / Pictures of Light / Paradise Gardens / Tides / Silverpoints / The Island of the Fay / The Naïad / Five Songs *
Among today’s most gifted pianists, few attract such intense praise and acclamation as Burkard Schliessmann. While not yet perhaps a household name internationally, his concerts and recordings continually receive the most glowing reviews and media attention.
In the last few months alone he has been the subject of special features several times in Fanfare (USA) and International Piano (most recently, a 9-page digital special (2021); and in Pianist UK and Pianist (Germany/Netherlands/Belgium, 2021) and he has garnered a host of awards including three silver medals at the Global Music Awards 2017 and a two Gold Medals as Awards of Excellence in 2018. His Chopin also resulted in Burkard being a finalist in the International Acoustic Music Awards – a fantastic achievement for a classical musician in this pop-driven event. Most recently Burkard was awarded the Goethe Plaque (2019/20) by the City of Frankfurt-am-Main. The Goethe-Plakette is commended to “poets, writers, artists and scientists and other personalities of the cultural life […] who, through their creative work, are worthy of a tribute dedicated to the memory of Goethe.”
Since 2015 Burkard Schliessmann has been recording for Divine Art; following his albums of music by Chopin and Bach, and the recent (September 2021) album ‘From the Heart of the Piano’ which has been incredibly well-received, Divine Art is now to re-issue Schliessmann’s recording of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’, originally released (on physical disc only) by Bayer in 2007.
On its original appearance, this recording was picked as one of MusicWeb International’s Recordings of the Year with comments such as “German pianist Burkard Schliessmann charts new territory in the Goldbergs, characterizing musical phrases like conversations amongst warm, human characters. Far from the flair of young Gould, the serenity of old Gould, the severity of Tureck, or the drama of Perahia, this is the most humane Goldberg I’ve ever heard.” The disc was also included in the Critics’ Choice 2008 by American Record Guide (“Schliessmann’s overall conception and realization of Bach’s last great keyboard work has so much distinction …”).
Scheduled for release in the summer (exact date to be advised) of 2022, this will be a double multi-channel SACD / hybrid stereo CD and will for the first time be available in digital formats including High Definition Dolby Atmos audio and Apple Digital Mastering. High-Definition Audio mastering is taking place in March/April 2022 by Teldex Studios in Berlin, which also produced the original SACD recording in 2007.
Album details:
Label : Divine Art Catalogue number: DDC 25754 Format: Multichannel SACD / Hybrid CD and all major digital formats Artist: Burkard Schliessmann (piano) Album program: J S Bach, Aria with Diverse Variations, BWV 988 (“The Goldberg Variations”) Release date to be announced – between July and September 2022 Original recording 2007 – HD remastering 2022
The South Downs is a range of chalk hills that extends for approximately 260 square miles across the southeast of England, from the Itchen Valley in Hampshire to Beachy Head in the East. This is a beautiful and justly famous landscape that has inspired poets, writers, visual artists and musicians for centuries.
A new album of chamber music by Ed Hughes explores and celebrates the relationship between music and the contemporary experience of this fragile landscape. The performers are the New Music Players and the Primrose Piano Quartet.
For Ed Hughes, walking the South Downs is both a physical and spiritual journey. It is a process that can open the mind to the beauty and fragility of nature. Like walking, Ed Hughes’s music is a journey of the mind involving pace, repetition and variation. The compositions on this album explore music’s affinities with ancient landscape and the effects of light and weather, imaginatively invoking paths and tumuli, forts and field systems, wild woods, with echoes of Sussex folk song, to create a series of vivid and contrasting chamber works.
“Ed Hughes’ refreshing, cultured, lovingly patterned music is built around a thoroughly contemporary theme; our present-day contemplation of landscape, and how we give it the attention and respect it deserves. Via music, the composer suggests, which works like the weather on a hilly walk in the South Downs. Our perceptions constantly change and re-energise as we encounter familiar objects while colours, shadings and vegetation are in a constant flow of development. The same can be certainly said of all the works in this rich collection, which surge forward with textural warmth and harmonic continuity. This is music for walkers, and people who love the earth.” – Judith Weir
Music for the South Downs (MSV 28623)
Label: Métier Composer: Ed Hughes Artists: New Music Players, Ed Hughes (conductor), Primrose Piano Quartet Recordings made in three sessions in March, October and December 2021
Divine Art Records is delighted to announce the new album from Andrew Brownell, one of the labels’ latest signings. Titled “Shades of Night” the album is a potpourri of exquisite gems with Romantic overtones though the music ranges from the baroque to the present day.
The pianist explains the ethos of the album:
“Since the invention of artificial lighting, night has been nothing more than that part of the day without sunlight. But before this, night was something altogether more alluring, particularly in the fertile imaginations of Romantic composers. The absence of the sun gave cover of darkness to magic and mystery; it was a time for drunken revelry, passionate love, and encounters with the supernatural.”
Shades of Night is an eclectic anthology of piano music that explores the theme of the night, from well-known works like Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata or Chopin’s Nocturnes, to lesser-known pieces from the French Baroque and 20th-century America. Debussy’s sounds and perfumes swirl sensuously in the evening air, icy arabesques float over hypnotic melodies in a nocturne by Liebermann, and a forbidden affair angers the gods in a heated tableau by Schumann. For most of human history, the night was a strange and mysterious time. Take a journey through its many hues with Shades of Night.
Andrew Brownell, a native of Portland, Oregon, was the first American pianist ever to win a prize in the International J S Bach competition (in 2002) and he is renowned for his creative programming and interpretive insight. Musical Opinion has described him as “potentially one of the most significant pianists of his generation”. He performs internationally and has appeared as soloist with major orchestras such as the Hallé and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and his performances have been broadcast on BBC TV and radio, Classic FM, NPR (USA) and several European stations. He earned his doctorate at the Guildhall School of Music, London. He is now (since 2017) a member of the faculty of the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas.
Shades of Night (DDA 25233)
Piano Sonata (Moonlight), Op. 27 No.2 – First movement, Adagio sostenuto (Ludwig van Beethoven)
Nocturne in D flat, Op. 27/2 (Fryderyk Chopin)
Suite 1922, Op. 26 – Nachstuck (Paul Hindemith)
Preludes Book 1 – Les sons et les parfums… (Claude Debussy)
Le Rossignol en amour (From 14ème Ordre) (François Couperin)
Nocturne No. 5 in D major, Op. 55 (Lowell Liebermann)
Double de Rossignol (from 14ème Ordre) (François Couperin)
Out of Doors – Musique Nocturne (Bela Bartók)
Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48/1 (Fryderyk Chopin)
Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 – In der Nacht (Robert Schumann)
Nocturne, Op. 33 (Samuel Barber)
Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 – 2nd movement, Andante (Johannes Brahms)
Suite bergamasque – Clair de lune (Claude Debussy)
Recorded in London 19-21 October 2015; Recording engineer Michael Ponder.
Release date to be confirmed but between July – October 2022
English harpsichordist Gilbert Rowland is preparing the third volume in his ongoing series presenting the complete Suites for Harpsichord by Johann Jakob Froberger. The album is to be recorded at Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire on 11-14 July 2022, with engineer John Taylor who produced all of Gilbert’s previous Divine Art and Athene recordings. The first two volumes attracted much praise:
“A glorious sound and enjoyable music recorded in a resonant acoustic, giving a truly luscious sound. Rowland plays with energy and a good forward drive.”
—David Griffel (Harpsichord & Fortepiano) on volume. 1
“One of the finest recordings of Froberger’s harpsichord music I have heard, with a wonderful-sounding instrument and magnificent playing from Rowland.”
—Stuart Sillitoe (MusicWeb International) on volume 1
“Froberger’s music is individual in nature and ground breaking – he was one of the first composers to settle the ‘dance-movement’ style. These are thrilling and authoritative recordings by Gilbert Rowland of wonderful music.”
—John Pitt (New Classics) on volume 2
“Froberger’s music – in this splendid rendition by Gilbert Rowland – reveals huge variety and baroque beauty. Clever, ingenious and melodious engaging and attractive works.”
—Stuart Millson (Quarterly Review) on volume 2
Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667) was a highly accomplished composer of the middle baroque and is usually credited with inventing the ‘baroque suite’ used with variations by Bach, Handel and countless other composers; certainly it was his idea to set the ‘backbone’ of the Suite as the four dance movements of allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue. He was extremely prolific and indeed several works (including Harpsichord Suites) have been discovered only recently.
Gilbert Rowland first studied the harpsichord with Millicent Silver. Whilst still a student at the Royal College of Music, he made his debut at Fenton House 1970 and first appeared at the Wigmore Hall in 1973.
His mentors have included Kenneth Gilbert and Fernando Valenti. Recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, appearances at major festivals in this country and abroad, together with broadcasts for Capital Radio and Radio 3 have helped to establish his reputation as one of Britain’s leading harpsichordists.
His numerous records of works by Scarlatti, Soler, Rameau and Fischer have received considerable acclaim from the national press. The recording of the 13-CD set of Soler sonatas with Naxos was completed in 2006. He also recorded a CD of Sonatas by Albero for London Independent Records, which was released in 2009. He joined Divine Art in 2010 to record the harpsichord suites by Handel, followed by those of Froberger and Mattheson. Gilbert Rowland is assigned to Divine Art’s specialist early music label, Athene.
J. J. Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, Volume 3 (ATH 23213)
March 2022 will see the release of a piano recital album on the Divine Art label by the young virtuoso Tom Hicks, the principal works being the Sonatas of Franz Liszt and John Ireland.
Tom Hicks’ first disc featuring John Ireland’s Sarnia, ‘Tom Hicks: Ireland and Tchaikovsky’ has been described as ‘brilliantly evocative’ by Colin Clarke in International Piano, and ‘gorgeously creative’ by Scott Noriega in Fanfare. Hicks’ island home of Guernsey (‘Sarnia’) is his connection to John Ireland who visited the Channel Islands frequently in the early 20th Century and lived there for a period before having to be evacuated prior to the German occupation in WWII. Cover art by Wendy Heaume depicts Castle Cornet and the St Peter Port Lighthouse as Ireland would have seen them on that fateful voyage.
Ireland’s Sonata is the composer’s other major work for piano and is central to two historical explorations running through the programme of this disc. On the one hand, the Liszt B minor Sonata is contrasted with what Lisa Hardy described as the ‘outstanding example of all British piano sonatas’. Ralph Hill was the first to compare the two masterpieces and viewed the Ireland favourably, bemoaning its neglect amongst pianists. It was also Liszt’s pupil, Frederic Lamond, who gave the premiere of Ireland’s Sonata at the Wigmore Hall in 1920.
The second historical exploration is that of Charles Stanford’s Royal College of Music class. This is especially appealing because of the opportunity to feature traditionally underrepresented composers. Charming and varied character pieces by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Rebecca Clarke and Stanford himself introduce the two major sonatas that follow.
Recording began in early 2021 during Guernsey’s second lockdown at St James Concert Hall. The CD is backed by the John Ireland Trust and the Guernsey Arts Commission and is scheduled for release with Divine Art in March 2022.
Tom Hicks
Hailed as an artist of ‘magnificent pianism’, Guernsey-born pianist Tom Hicks has been praised for his ‘gorgeously creative playing’ that ‘transports the listener to another place and time’. Hicks is a gold medallist in numerous national and international competitions and holds degrees and awards from The University of Manchester, The Royal Northern College of Music, Yale University and Northwestern University. His teachers have included Mervyn Grand, Murray McLachlan, Boris Berman and James Giles.
As a recitalist and collaborator, Hicks has appeared at venues including The Wigmore Hall and St Martin in the Fields in London. He has appeared as concerto soloist on more than 50 occasions including complete cycles of the Rachmaninoff and Brahms concertos. His 2019 recording of Ireland’s Sarnia and Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons has been widely praised and he is currently collaborating with the British composer, Camden Reeves, on an album of Blues-inspired pieces for release with Divine Art’s new-music imprint Métier in 2022 (“Blue Sounds for Piano” – Métier MSV 28604)
Ireland – Liszt: Sonatas (DDA 25227)
Works
Charles Stanford: 24 Preludes, Op. 163 – No. 24 in B minor & No. 5 in D major
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Three-Fours, Op. 71 – No. 2 Andante
Rebecca Clarke: Cortège
John Ireland: Sonata for Piano
Franz Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor
Recorded in September 2021 at St James Concert Hall, Guernsey Recorded by Flexagon Mastering and editing by Mill Media, Manchester
The continuing torrent of new releases from Divine Art and its sister labels continues, after the many postponements in 2020 and early 2021 due to Covid restrictions. The label will be releasing in spring 2022 a new album of piano works entitled ‘Visions and Ventures’ – not as might be supposed avant-garde works but a programme of key works from the Baroque, Classical and early modern eras.
Internationally acclaimed pianist Stephen Beville performs a programme of music by three visionary composers: from the committed reverence of J.S Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E (Book II, Well Tempered Klavier) to the subversive irreverence of Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives, Op 22; from pre(Russian)-revolutionary escapades to the post(French)-revolutionary aspirations and fervour of Beethoven’s early Sonata in E flat, Op 7 (‘ the Grand’). In short, music of allusion, emersion and emancipation.
Stephen Beville was acclaimed in 2010 as ‘one of the most talented young musicians to emerge from the UK’ (Frankfurter Neue Press). He began to compose and study the piano at the age of eleven. As a pianist, he has performed throughout Britain and Germany, and has made recordings and given interviews for SWR (Southwest German) radio. Beville has performed at festivals including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the ‘Glories of the Keyboard’, and ‘American Reflections’ festivals at the Royal Northern College of Music and the London New Wind Festival.
Reviews for Stephen Beville:
“Stephen Beville creates a dazzling impression every time he plays. His performances are full of thrilling showmanship delivered with impressive skill. Another rousing recital of piano wonders.” – Classical Journey
“The young artist began with Beethoven’s Sonata in E-flat, Op 7. In the first movement he clearly realised the formal structure. Unpretentious and so well learned as to be self-expressed, he gave the Largo intensive shape. His economic and meaningful use of the pedal in the following movement was good to hear and in the hearty virtuosity of the Rondo finale, there was a fine conception. Outstanding pianism….” – Badische Neueste Nachrichten
“As much as I revere the playing of Arrau, Rubenstein and Ax, I found Beville’s way with the score refreshing…. His is a career to keep one’s ears open for.” – Fanfare
Visions and Ventures
Label: Divine Art Catalogue number: DDA 25230 Artist: Stephen Beville (piano)
Works:
Prelude and Fugue in E major, BWV 878 (Johann Sebastian Bach) Piano Sonata in E flat major, Op. 7 (Ludwig van Beethoven) Visions Fugitives, Op. 22 (Sergei Prokofiev)
Métier’s series of recordings featuring the superb music of Edward Cowie continues with the release of his ’24 Preludes for Piano’ in early spring of 2022. This album was originally issued by UHR (the short-lived label of the University of Hertfordshire) in 2008. Stephen Sutton, CEO of the Divine Art group, expressed his delight: “we’ve been in discussions with the University for a few months and I am very grateful to them for the opportunity to re-release this wonderful recording. I am hopeful that it will begin a larger collaboration to unearth other very worthy recordings from the UHR archive.”
The 24 Preludes are performed by Philip Mead, whose previous recordings for Métier have been highly acclaimed and who was the dedicatee of the set. The composer, Edward Cowie, describes this recording:
“My 24 Preludes for piano were composed between 2004-5 to a commission from the wonderful pianist, Philip Mead, and to whom the set is dedicated. Each Prelude is inspired by a different land-sea-water-or skyscape in many different parts of the world where I have travelled, worked, and explored. Of course there is a connection with the great Chopin Masterpieces by the same name though, in fact, it is the Preludes of JS Bach which probably had more influence! A 20th-century composer who decided to revisit the 24 major and minor keys might be treading on dangerous ground, but it was via Bach that I realised how deliciously plastic and interconnected an open exploration of those tonal regions could be.
Music has infinite powers to invoke and stimulate a sense of place. It was at this time that I first gave myself totally to making drawing an integral and essential ‘primer’ for rhythm; musical line; speed; different degrees of complexity and perhaps above all-colour. Poets write of the oft desire to sing in the presence of natural places. I certainly wanted these pieces to ‘sing’ and perhaps to guide a listener into opening all of the senses to the unique and captivating forms that inspire and move us in the great ‘out there’. No composer could ask for a greater executant for his or her music. I count myself fortunate indeed to have this fabulous recording to remind me what a truly great interpretation can evoke and conjure.
I am profoundly grateful to the University of Hertfordshire for granting permission for Métier/Divine Art to re-release this beautiful recording which received glowing reviews:
‘Philip Mead’s consumate skill and understanding is evident in every bar’.
—International Record Review
‘Mead seems sensitive to every nuance of Cowie’s imagination, and truly appreciates the beauty contained there…..Cowie’s imagination is remarkable. This is a fascinating, cogent set of Preludes…a startlingly successful whole’.
—Tempo Magazine
Philip Mead enjoys a very successful career as pianist, composer and conductor; he has been a regular performer on BBC Radio 3 since 1979 and his recordings have been widely praised: his recording of Charles Ives piano music was called by Gramophone ‘the best Concord Sonata recording’. He is a tireless champion of contemporary composers and has a very substantial discography including for Métier music by Charles Ives, George Crumb (the complete solo piano music) and Katharine Norman. He is currently visiting professor at the University of Hertfordshire.
Edward Cowie: 24 Preludes for Piano (MSV 28625)
24 Preludes for Piano by Edward Cowie
Book 1 (Water): 1. O brook (C major) | 2. Kiama Blowhole (C minor| 3. Cancleve (G major) | 4. River Dronne (G minor) | 5. St Maxime Beach (D major) | 6. Tennessee River (D minor)
Book 2 (Air): 7. Boscastle (A major) | 8. Hay Plains Twisters (A minor) | 9. 35,000 Feet (E major)| 10. Tapada (E minor)| 11. Lake Eacham (B major) | 12. Dartington Gardens (B minor)
Book 4 (Fire): 19. Sunrise at Loch Carron (E flat major) | 20. Bush Fires (E flat minor) | 21. Home Fire (B flat major) | 22. Blast Furnaces at Port Kembla (B flat minor) | 23. New Year Fireworks in Kassel (F major) | 24. Sunset, Dartmoor (F minor)
Artist: Philip Mead
Recorded 26 and 28 November 2007, and originally released on UHR in 2008 Projected release date: March 2022
British composer Robert Saxton will feature in a new album of his works to be released by Métier, the new-music label of the Divine Art Group, in the summer of 2022.
The four works on the recording were written between 2013 and 2019. They represent a continuing journey addressing a modal/harmonic goal-orientated narrative. The earliest, Time and the Seasons, for baritone and piano, commissioned by the Oxford Lieder Festival for Roderick Williams and Andrew West, is a song cycle to Saxton’s own texts relating to the Norfolk coast where he spent much of his childhood and, as the title implies, is both cyclic and progressive. Suite for violin and piano, first performed at the 2019 Three Choirs Festival by Madeleine Mitchell and Clare Hammond, charts a voyage across its five movements leading to a tentatively positive conclusion. Fantasy Pieces, commissioned by the Fidelio Trio, while not using material of Robert Schumann, has his Op. 88 as character pieces in mind, regarding both genre and variety of manner. A Hymn to the Thames for solo oboe and chamber orchestra was commissioned by James Turnbull, the St Paul’s Sinfonia and its Music Director Andrew Morley and, during the course of its four linked movements, sets the soloist as both wanderer and river spirit in conjunction with the ‘river’ of the orchestra from source to sea.
Robert Saxton was born in London in 1953. After early guidance from Benjamin Britten and study with Elisabeth Lutyens, he studied with Robin Holloway (Cambridge), with Robert Sherlaw Johnson (Oxford, as a postgraduate) and also with Luciano Berio. He was awarded first prize at the 1975 Gaudeamus International Music Week in Holland and spent 1985-6 at Princeton, USA, as Visiting Fulbright Arts Fellow.
Recent works include the opera The Wandering Jew; a song cycle for baritone Roderick Williams Time and the Seasons for the Oxford Lieder Festival; Hortus Musicae books 1 and 2, a piano cycle for pianist Clare Hammond; The Resurrection of the Soldiers commissioned jointly by George Vass for the 2016 Presteigne Festival and the English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods; Shakespeare Scenes, commissioned by the Orchestra of the Swan and trumpeter Simon Desbruslais; his fourth string quartet for the Kreutzer Quartet; Suite for Madeleine Mitchell and Clare Hammond, A Hymn to the Thames for oboist James Turnbull and the St Paul’s Sinfonia; and Fantasy Pieces for the Fidelio Trio.
Earlier commissions include works for the BBC (TV, Proms and Radio), LSO, LPO, ECO, London Sinfonietta, Nash Ensemble, Northern Sinfonia and David Blake (conductor), Antara, Arditti and Chilingirian String Quartets, St Paul Chamber Orchestra (USA), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival/Opera North, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, City of London, Three Choirs and Lichfield festivals, Stephen Darlington and the choir of Christ Church Cathedral Oxford, the choir of Merton College Oxford, Susan Milan, Susan Bradshaw and Richard Rodney Bennett, Simon Desbruslais, Clare Hammond, Edward Wickham and The Clerks’ Group, Teresa Cahill, Leon Fleisher, Tasmin Little, Steven Isserlis, Mstislav Rostropovich, John Wallace and the Raphael Wallfisch and John York duo.
Recordings have appeared on the Sony Classical, Hyperion, Metier, EMI, NMC, Divine Art, Métier, Toccata Classics and Signum labels.
Robert Saxton was Professor of Composition at Oxford University and tutorial fellow in music at Worcester College until his retirement in July 2021. He has been Composer-in-Association at the Purcell School for Young Musicians since 2013 and was appointed Hon Research Fellow (Composition) at the Royal Academy of Music in 2021. He is married to the soprano, Teresa Cahill.
Robert Saxton: Portrait (MSV 2864)
Works and Artists
A Hymn to the Thames — James Turnbull (oboe); St Paul’s Sinfonia; Andrew Morley (conductor)
Fantasy Pieces — Fidelio Trio
Suite for violin and piano — Madeleine Mitchell (violin); Clare Hammond (piano)
Time and the Seasons — Roderick Williams (baritone); Andrew West (piano)
Recording dates: 2014-2022
Release date: Summer 2022
Robert Saxton Divine Art Recordings Group Discography
British pianist Peter Seivewright is this month (October 2021) recording a significant new album for Divine Art, the label to which he has been signed since the mid-1990s.
The album is focused on the premiere recording of the 1976 Vietnam Sonata by Cornelius Cardew, and also includes recent compositions by two of Cardew’s comrades in music: Michael Chant and Hugh Shrapnel.
The recording represents a tribute to Cardew following the 85th anniversary (in 2021) of his birth and the 40th of his untimely death at the age of 45. Cardew, Chant and Shrapnel occupy a unique niche in British music. All three progressed from the British experimental music scene to being part of the movements of the working class and peoples for their rights, nationally and internationally, and writing music accordingly.
This recording was originally scheduled to be recorded last summer for release in December 2021, to coincide with those anniversaries, but had to be postponed due to a tragic bereavement; Stephen Sutton, CEO at Divine Art, is hoping now for a release to be achieved in February or March 2022.
Cardew’s Vietnam Sonata celebrates the victory of the Vietnamese people in liberating their country in 1975 from US occupation and aggression. It also refers to the support provided by the people world-wide in organising against the Vietnam War.
Chant’s Piano Sonata: Transformations is an extended work based on the conception that to be human is to make claims on society, and is inspired by the line, “transform the world with a million songs”. It was composed specially for pianist Peter Seivewright.
Shrapnel’s Climbing to Heights Hitherto Unknown is a piano version of his original solo violin work, suggesting the call to move on which inspires people to scale the heights with all the twists and turns that entails. Kevin Barry is a version for piano of the song paying tribute to the young Irish patriot hanged by the British in 1920.
Cornelius Cardew was well-known as being at the forefront of expanding the boundaries of music-making in Britain and internationally, and then taking this quality into music which was inspired by the modern enlightenment movement. Michael Chant, born 1945, has been associated with Cardew since 1968, when he took the organ part in the first performance of paragraph one of Cardew’s The Great Learning at the Cheltenham Festival. He is the secretary of the Cornelius Cardew Concerts Trust, which encourages composers to follow Cardew’s path.
Hugh Shrapnel, born 1947, studied with Cardew at the Royal Academy of Music, was active in the Progressive Cultural Association, of which Cardew was Secretary, and has retained fidelity in his life and work to the path to society’s progress. Cardew, Chant and Shrapnel have all acknowledged the leading role of Marxist-Leninist Hardial Bains in pointing cultural workers in a positive direction, towards the world of the New.
Peter Seivewright is known for his wide-ranging repertoire, and has enthusiastically dedicated himself to promoting the work of these three composers, which transcends their political associations not necessarily shared by artist or label. He has performed extensively around the world, from the USA to central Aisa, and until retirement from Academic life held senior positions at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, the University of Trinidad and Tobago, the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul and at leading music schools in Cambodia and Thailand. His recorded output is extensive including the complete piano music of Carl Nielsen (Naxos), works by Victor Bendix (Rondo), and for Divine Art music by Louis Glass, J.S. Bach, four volumes so far of keyboard sonatas by Baldasarre Galuppi, and the first of a series of recordings of modern American piano sonatas. 2022 will see the release of Seivewrght’s recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and music by Max Reger.
With a million songs (DDA 25224)
Recording date: October 2021 at The Byre Studio, Inverness, Scotland
Pianist: Peter Seivewright
Works
Vietnam Sonata (Cornelius Cardew)
Piano Sonata: Transformations (Michael Chant)
Climbing to Heights Hitherto Unknown (Hugh Shrapnel)
Divine Art Recordings Group is delighted that the distinguished English composer Bernard Hughes (b. 1974) has joined the label for an album of his complete (so far) output of works for solo piano. The composer describes the works as “an eclectic collection” which covers a period of over 25 years. The oldest piece dates back to his student years at Oxford and the most recent is a brand new suite (simply named “Suite”) in which Hughes transforms Baroque dance forms into something quirky and new. The rest of the music ranges from the large-scale Strettos and Striations to little occasional pieces written for the composer’s children. The album represents the culmination of many years of collaboration between Hughes and the pianist Matthew Mills, who commissioned and will premiere the new Suite. The recording is to be made in the spring of 2022 in Belgrade and is scheduled for release in the autumn of next year.
Bernard Hughes studied music at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford and Goldsmiths College, London. He received a Ph.D in composition from Royal Holloway College and was then appointed as Composer-in-Residence at St. Pauls’ School. Bernard’s music has been widely performed and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and across Europe. His latest commission Birdchant was chosen to receive its premiere by the BBC Singers at the 2021 Proms; he has composed operas, choral and vocal works as well as piano music, to great acclaim. A recording of his choral music was issued on Signum Classics in 2016, and will be followed by a further choral album in 2022 on Delphian Records.
Matthew Mills is an established pianist and himself an accomplished composer and also the founder and owner of publishing company Wild Woods Music which includes Bernard Hughes amongst its roster of composers. He now lives in Montenegro.
‘Bagatelles’ (DDA 25231)*
Composer: Bernard Hughes
Artist: Matthew Mills
Works
Suite (in 7 movements) O du liebe meine liebe Bagatelles (12 movements) Beginner’s Guide to Boiling a Nourishing Egg Strettos and Striations Miniatures (12 movements) Song of the Walnut Song of the Button Three Studies Cradle Song
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