Reviews

A fascinating contemporary canon… bombast and whimsy with the odd Lisztian flourish…. quizzical collections of acute angles and irregular shapes that Dullea colours beautifully.

Peter Maxwell Davies, the enfant terrible of British music back in the 1970s, has since become an established composer. Psalm 24 … is quite quiet music, gentle and beautifully arranged. Economies of scale… does have an affinity with Messiaen. [In Ave Maris Stella] the composer creates some remarkable and fascinating instrumental blends. The generally quiet (one might say almost subdued) mood of this recital draws listeners inward rather than pushing them away.

ALBUM OF THE MONTH. Soldano’s daring and lack of compromise, his indifference to conventional procedure, are mesmeric…. Inimitable. This is Rachmaninov ‘through a glass darkly’, leaving you awed and shaken by such an eloquent and anguished interpreter.

I like their Schubert. Every movement has been rethought for tempo, phrasing, and sound. They almost erupt into view, so striking and original is the music-making on this disc. Forceful, highly expressive style, filled with variety and color… the interpretations are so musical that I’d have to reach back to the Busch, Budapest, and Alban Berg Quartets for comparison.

These modern recordings are cleanly and most listenably played … the music is conveyed with impeccable fingerwork and an admirable sense of style. This series could and should run and run. Meanwhile, snap up these albums without delay and bask in some unfailingly delicious playing.

Characteristically eclectic but approachable; light, attractive lyricism and politely pointed drama, voiced here with appropriate delicacy and fluency by Philip Hartmann.

Mary Dullea catches all the moods very well indeed. Certainly the music on this CD will be unfamiliar to practically all listeners, but there are elements of interest throughout the disc… genuinely intriguing.

Roderick Chadwick takes listeners on a journey to and beyond Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux, Book 1, which he plays with considerable panache; Chadwick plays the {Szymanowski} sonata with strength and understanding. An interesting intellectual exercise with some very high-quality playing.

The excellent Roderick Chadwick [plays] delightful pieces.. the Szymanowski is imbued with passion and longing.

Sometimes the sheer quality of music-making makes a disc worth having. Zeynep Ucbasaran and Sergio Gallo are such a wonderful piano-four-hands team that their new Divine Art offering is a genuine pleasure. Ucbasaran and Gallo make a formidable piano-four-hands team, and the quality of their playing will be enough to endear this recording to pianists and to listeners.

The attraction of this disc lies in its concept (three pianos) and the quality of the performances (excellent).

The unusual combinations of instruments intrigued me. The performers seem very skilled on their various instruments.

This is a very attractive collection of chamber music for trumpet and other instruments; the emphasis is not on brilliance but rather on lyricism. Chris Gekker’s playing is gentle and loving. Very natural recorded sound and helpful program notes by Chris Gekker round out this attractive release.

The Gekkers are excellent chamber musicians…. lots of things to enjoy here. Gekker is an exemplary musician, and he has chosen works that are likely to appeal to a broad audience.

Cowie’s strokes are clear and precise, his expression of sound via the orchestra, confident.

This collection of seven compositions spanning 50 years of creation is fabulous and respectful. The musicians all perform with thoughtful, precise musical detail. Lipkin’s works may be slightly old-fashioned but they are memorable.

This is good to have, as the clavichord was an important household instrument of the time, and certainly Froberger’s music would have been performed on it. Likewise, Charlton’s execution of these works is quite deft.

I find his original eclecticism rather refreshing in its direct straightforward musical candor. The music has the bark and bite of harmonic Modernity and chromatic open-field forwardness without necessarily straying into complete atonality. The music has the bark and bite of harmonic Modernity and chromatic open-field forwardness without necessarily straying into complete atonality; the music convinces without belonging to a particular camp. A valuable look at an English figure of the 20th Century worthy of exploring.

This is a most stimulating disc, one that encompasses a wide variety of music. A brass disc that concentrates on cantabile is clearly out to set new patterns. Although clearly a showcase for Chris Gekker’s trumpet and flugelhorn playing, it has an overarching feeling of collaboration throughout that lends richness to the whole experience; recommended.

A pleasant album… always interesting, the relatively novel sound of the bassoon always a pleasure, warm and quite often almost amusing while the flute and clarinet often add a dreamier feel. A clever mix of easy listening mood music and more intellectual classical.