Reviews

It would be hard to overstate the importance of this release. Sherban Lupu has gotten rave reviews on these pages, and the same technical skill, interpretive sensitivity, and exploratory commitment are on display here, with knowing support from Henri Bonamy. Paul Mann gets solid playing from the Liepaja Symphony; and Divine Art’s engineering leaves no grounds for complaint. All in all, a significant release.

This is a most valuable and welcome release. Sherban Lupu’s committed and musical performances are more than sufficient to allow enjoyment and appreciation of these welcome Ysaÿe discoveries. Lupu is ably partnered by pianist Henri Bonamy and, in the concerto, by the Liepaja Symphony Orchestra and conductor Paul Mann.

This is an important release which all fans of the Franco-Belgian violin school should hear. Everything I’ve heard convinces me that Ysaÿe is a composer of stature. The concerto in particular is a startling discovery which will be of interest to violinists everywhere.

Edward Cowie’s Bird Portraits is virtually unique. Cowie strives to depict the birdsongs as they really are, and they do often stand out with remarkable clarity. Pianist Roderick Chadwick is often there to provide atmospheric colour… Peter Sheppard Skærved creates astonishingly detailed renditions of the bird calls. These come across like dazzling cadenzas and include some real eye-popping violin virtuosity.

This warrants an absolutely wholehearted recommendation without hesitation. The sound vista created by Mulvey is vast. The sheer washes of sound Mulvey creates make an enormous effect purely on sonic grounds, especially when Hilliard’s silvery soprano floats ethereally above them. 26 fabulously realised minutes of music by a composer whose music absolutely demands hearing.

A rich feast to get your teeth into. Gemini’s latest release is one to indulge in. There is a lot going on, and stimulatingly so. This is a beast of an album… gloriously rich process… expertly spearheaded by Gemini’s director and clarinettist, Ian Mitchell. There even seems to be a glowing, molten quality in Mitchell’s playing here, reflected in the fullness and momentum of Gemini’s playing throughout.

A number of first recordings of Saint-Saëns music, introducing a large body of keyboard gems to a new audience. These albums [vols 1 & 2] are a fitting tribute to a composer whose music remains unfashionable, underrated and long overdue for reappraisal.

Fine playing and sound make this unhackneyed tuneful 17-track selection a worthy addition to the Joplin discography.

This stylistically uniform and yet versatile presentation of Schliessmann’s pianistic work succeeds, which, through the pianist’s highly personal views, brings us closer to masterpieces from different eras in a very human way and invites us to explore them. In the recordings he shows himself to be a pianist with a strong character who knows how to shape the works according to his ideas. These older recordings shine with new mastering in fresh splendor, so that they are now given the soundworld they deserve.

Successive hearings could reveal [Sonata Romantica] to be one of the great Romantic cello sonatas in English music. Cellist Nicholas Trygstad and pianist David Jones are sympathetic to Stevens’s complex, technically demanding and often wide-ranging music. The recital is helped by a vibrant and clear recording. An absorbing and satisfying combination.

As always, with Cooman, very musical. An interesting CD.

White’s latest opera is a dazzling tour-de-force. Technically complex, dazzling in its confidence at writing for just soprano and saxophone, philosophically deep this is a work that eludes definition. Poukens and Vanderheiden impress with their performances, both the technical grasp of the music and their sense of White’s idiom Stand back and simply enjoy the sheer variety on offer here.

Gráinne Mulvey produces a captivating vocal piece handling with finesse the sculpturing of musique concrète. The composer handles electronics with a highly masterful inventiveness to create a universe of psychic compression presenting these vocal expressions in a grand sonority.

Extraordinarily imaginative and diverse sequence of pieces depicted with the same precision and strength of emotional response as in the composer’s beautiful illustrated graphic sketched notes. A fantastically vivid musical illuminated bestiary, or aviary.

Eric Craven is a composer who knows his own mind but doesn’t impose his own will. There are no key signatures and the performer can decide their own tempo, dynamics, phrasing, articulation and pedalling. Mary Dullea is a distinguished musician and recording artist who appreciates the freedom this gives but she’s keen to let the music speak for itself.

The eclectic nature of the composer means that something interesting is never far away. In many ways the album is defined by the closing piece A Birthday Trifle, as you think that anyone who can write something this joyful deserves a listen, helping the listener get over the more challenging modern sections. Well worth a listen if you like some modernity.

Soldano… is good. [He] is obviously a world-class player, and his piano expressive and vibrant. A nice collection of romantic piano music played really well.

Abundant monumentalism but also soft, rounded brushstrokes, made crystalline. Burkard Schliessmann is one of the currently most appreciated and interesting German pianists at an international level. Artistic interpretation 4/5; Technical value 4/5.

Skaerved’s imaginative accounts of the music on a wonderful 17th-century violin are lovely airy readings, lightweight but eloquent. a genuinely intriguing musical journey and a fascinating window opened on the world of the early violin.

Cowie seems to neatly sum up a bird’s personality and behaviour, before almost invariably closing with some surprisingly close and accurate evocation of its song, as though giving his birds the last word. The results are imaginative, captivating and really very moving. Cowie could hardly have hoped for more committed, persuasive interpreters than Peter Sheppard Skærved and Roderick Chadwick. This is a disc of quiet wonders, captured in close, detailed sound.