Reviews

A delightful CD, with some surprises as far as its background goes: Lydia Kakabadse has her roots in Greece, Austria, Russia and Georgia. Her interests include mediaeval music and you’d happily take this as a modern rendering of mediaeval church music, with exotic influences.

Kakabadse deliberately engages [the tradition of the Orthodox liturgy] in her music. She does this in a refined and careful way, always with an ear to the sounds of today. Despite their generally serious and solemn character there is also something invigorating and vivid throughout the music. The Alumni of the Choir of Clare College are on top form and their performance could hardly be bettered.

The work [Gran Partita] presents a mammoth design for chamber wind instruments, it provides a masterful display piece for any philharmonic’s principal players. Since answers to the questions of eingangen (little cadenzas), double-dotting, ornamentation, grace notes, tempos, and more can only be guessed at each conductor makes his own choices, and I must admit I find those by Mantas compelling. Conductor Mantas can rightly boast that his version of the E-flat Serenade, K. 375 (1781) gives us the premiere of its complete score as Mozart intended. The resultant performance gives us a model of Mozart’s large-serenade style. a model job by all principals. Lovely sound reproduction, courtesy of veteran Recording Engineer Tony Faulkner

Thoroughly pleasurable from the first minute to the last. The present recording has indeed restored the ‘second trio’ [of K.375] and has also excised the faulty bar. The European Union Chamber Orchestra and their conductor Santiago Mantas for this enterprise, give an excellent performance of these two works. There is excitement, occasional melancholy and almost constant delight and enjoyment… the above noted corrections to the score make this a valuable version to possess.

The music mixes classical, minimalistic and other modern techniques in a very artistic way. Henderson’s piece is fun and the performers take much pleasure in their exquisite interpretation in 78 minutes of pleasant listening.

There’s an osmotic connection between ambient pop and classical music and this excellent CD is most definitely the pop side in places. Henderson wrote the music for shows such as The Far Pavilions and this awareness of what the masses wants infuses this easy-on-the-ear classical album. It’s unsurprisingly an evocative album and [Henderson] creates mental images of the places the music goes. Fans of gentle classical music and theatre music will love it, but we’d suggest that fans of electronic music and the likes of Mike Oldfield would find much to like. Most excellent

In many ways Sergei Bortkiewicz’s music will remind the listener of Rachmaninov, however the stimuli are much wider. This is a fine introduction to Sergei Bortkiewicz’s piano music. The playing is impressive, technically assured and quite simply beautiful.

His tone is lovely and singing; his phrasing imaginative and probing. At his best – in the fast movements of the Italian Concerto and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue – he has no rivals.

A fantastic Bach recital all around, and in an SACD recording that projects the piano right into your listening space with a three-dimensional effect that spreads the keyboard in front of you from left to right and the full length of Schliessman’s Steinway concert grand from front to back. This earns the strongest of recommendations.

Schliessmann obviously is a major figure on the pianistic scene. On this fine new recording he offers a selection of Bach favorites playing with conviction and tonal beauty. A quality issue.

[Schliessmann] is extremely well informed as a musician. He knows not only the aesthetic maxims of the Baroque but also the performing traditions of the 19th century, a century which for its part had to rediscover Bach for itself. The music does not simply purr along but flows over unusual cascades… A different breath blows through the music from section to section, resulting in unusual changes of perspective.

German pianist Burkard Schliessmann is highly intuitive in his approach to the music he plays. His Partita No. 2 in C minor is as florid and poetic as it is colourful. Schliessmann surmounts all difficulties with zestful virtuosity. Schliessmann handles the textures of [the Italian Concerto], in which Bach imitates the roles of different groups of instruments, to perfection. In the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, Schliessmann relishes the abundant chromaticism. . Schliessmann injects a healthy amount of exuberance into the music, which makes this ever-popular work ideal for closing the program.

This is a major interpretative effort … there is no doubt that Burkard Schliessmann wanted to offer a personal reading altogether objective and highly rational avoiding the easy recall of pseudo-romanticism. The recorded sound is nothing short of excellent, giving us the ability to fully enjoy the wonder of the timbre of the Steinway D-274, whose crystallinity appears fleetingly to recall the sound of those harpsichord and clavichord instruments for which Bach originally wrote these works. Artistic quality : 5/5 Technical quality: 5/5

His interpretations are clearly structured, intellectually penetrating, but by no means academic or dry. Burkard Schliessmann has opened worlds of artistic expression.

Burkard Schliessmann opens this Bach release with a performance of the C minor Partita that far surpasses his earlier recording; he brings attractive lightness and clarity to the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. Every disc I’ve encountered by Schliessmann is impeccably engineered and well packaged, and this one is no exception.

Burkard Schliessmann interprets the various pieces with a lovely and singing tone, and his phrasing is imaginative and deeply probing. Schliessmann’s music making has much to admire, and his flawless pianistic sheen has an unfailing poise and lucidity that puts him at the forefront of today’s leading pianists. An innovative Chopin adventure in luscious sound and presentation which I recommend unreservedly.

Schliessmann emphasises the intimate essence of the music but without sentimentality. His playing is spirited and brilliant. Every sound is at the right depth, is illuminated in its context, never losing sight of the overall piece. But what most impressed is the almost Bachian clarity with which Schliessmann reveals the structures and lines of Chopin’s composition.

fabulous introduction to this composer’s music, in that it manages to be both highly personal, with a recognisable identity, whilst universal in a way for which the simplest formula is: if you love music you should love what Dr Wood and his world-class colleagues do here.

This is a rather wonderful album and will appeal both to people who like singing and choirs, and those who don’t care much about choirs but like nice music. It’s a rich album … meaty and heartfelt songs that were written to be performed for the Almighty.It’s a powerful CD … there’s much to appreciate.

This album is structured like a number of choral concerts of the present day: a variety of single pieces, with styles and centuries interleaved. When done well (as it is here), the result is a very enjoyable listening experience. Attractive performances of attractive pieces all around.