The Art of the Baroque Trumpet � Vol. 5

"[Eklund's] virtuoso skills, consistently sweet tone, purity of intonation, and sense of ease rank him as the world's best." --American Record Guide, August 2002

Reviewing the first volume in Naxos's "The Art of the Baroque Trumpet", Gramophone magazine said of Eklund, "let me rejoice at playing of rare technical ability and musical panache."

Aho: Symphonic Dances 'Hommage � Uuno Klami', Symphony No. 11

�a superb coupling of two strongly communicative contemporary works�which demonstrate Aho�s comprehensive mastery of rhythm, timbre and drama. Again, the performance is a definitive one and BIS's engineering breathtaking in its realism.� --Gramophone, July 2004

Gramophone Magazine
Editor's Choice - July 2004

�Aho's Symphonic Dances (2001) bear the subtitle 'Hommage � Uuno Klami' � and therein lies the clue to the work's genesis. Klami (1900- 1961), one of the leading Finnish composers of the last century, had high hopes for his largescale, Kalevala-inspired ballet Pyr�rteit�, but by the time of his death had managed to orchestrate only the second of its three acts. Aho orchestrated Act 1 in 1988. During 2000, no material having come to light for the final act, he embarked on completing Klami's magnumopus, bolstered by the prospect of a production at the Finnish National Ballet. In the event, that belated premiere never materialised, and it was left to Osmo V�nsk� and the Lahti SO to champion Aho's 'Third Act' in the concert hall. A thoroughly approachable, 27-minute creation of exhilarating drive and colour, its four movements take their names from Klami's original synopsis. It's stunningly well served here by artists and production crew alike.

Symphony No 11 is almost as rewarding. It grew out of a commission for an orchestral work involving the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble, and is cast in three movements, the last of which distils a wondrous stillness and inner calm. It also serves as a perfect foil to the first two movements, both of which demonstrate Aho's comprehensive mastery of rhythm, timbre and drama. Again, the performance is a definitive one and BIS's engineering breathtaking in its realism.� --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Var�se: Ameriques, Arcana, Deserts, Ionisation

The whole of Var�se�s surviving output can be comfortably accommodated on a pair of CDs, as it is in Riccardo Chailly�s superlative survey on Decca, but Pierre Boulez�s single disc concentrates on the two orchestral works that Var�se wrote in the years after he emigrated to the United States in 1915, Am�riques and Arcana. Boulez is totally in his element in music like this, observing every teeming detail, controlling the massive up-wellings of sound with maximum assurance, and in the Chicago Symphony he has an orchestra that has all the virtuosity and panache to deliver it at maximum voltage.

Christopher Lyndon-Gee�s account of Arcana pales by comparison; there is neither enough security or weight of tone in the playing to compete on any level. The Naxos disc also includes equally cautious performances of the three pungent ensemble pieces of the Twenties, and Var�se�s final orchestral work, D�serts, in which he made one of the first attempts at combining electronic music with live performers. The tape sounds rather faded now, and it is not surprising that Boulez opts for the version of the score omitting the pre-recorded interludes, and makes a thing of wonder out of its intricate play of colours and textures.The only puzzle is why it has taken DG more than five years to release this outstanding collection.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Andrew Clements, BBC Music Magazine

Taneyev: Suite de concert & Ioann Damaskin

Inspired by a poem by Aleksey Tolstoy, Taneyev�s cantata John of Damascus was the first work that the self-critical Russian composer deemed worthy of an opus number, its sublime music drawing on an ancient sacred chant woven into rich passages of expressive counterpoint. A quarter of a century later, the virtuosic and scintillating Suite de concert, Taneyev�s first work for solo violin and orchestra, was also successfully premi�red. 

Suite de concert, written in 1909, is a novel, if rather disorganized, approach to a Romantic violin concerto. It�s an unusual conflation of serenade, neo-Baroque suite, and theme and variations that�in the hearing of it�seems to divide into movements or sections: an introductory Prelude, followed by a scherzo-like Gavotte, and then a slowish �Fairy Tale� movement marked Andantino. These three movements, in turn, set the stage, none too convincingly, for a theme and six variations with an extended variation-coda. But that�s not the end of this identity-confused work. The grand finale is a spirited Tarantella. In terms of style, I suppose some of the writing is suggestive of Glazunov�s A-Minor Violin Concerto that preceded the Suite de concert by five years; but there�s a passage beginning at 2:49 in the �Fairy Tale� movement that bears an uncanny resemblance to Chausson�s Po�me for violin and orchestra , written in 1896. It has long been the composer�s most widely known and recorded piece�Russian violinist Ilya Kaler has been one of Naxos�s long time and most dependable house artists, having recorded a respectable cross section of the Romantic violin repertoire. While Taneyev�s piece is no salon morceau, neither is it a virtuosic vehicle like the almost exactly contemporary Glazunov and Sibelius concertos. Kaler�s rounder tone and less excitable approach work well in the Taneyev, and I prefer his performance to that of Gringolts [on Hyperion].

When it comes to the cantata, Ioann Damaskin, Naxos[�s recording, with�] its Russian chorus, orchestra, and conductor� sounds convincingly authentic�At Naxos�s budget price, though, I�d say the new CD is well worth the modest investment. --Fanfare, March 2010

Villa-Lobos: Piano Music

'Magnificent. Easily the most sophisticated Villa-Lobos piano disc currently in the catalogue.' --International Record Review

'Marc-Andr� Hamelin�s transcendental sheen and facility bless everything he plays. He makes As tr�s Marias wink and scintillate with an inimitable verve � leaves all others standing.' --Gramophone

'Hamelin presents another hour of hair-raising (not to say spine-tingling) music in performances few could match � awesome.' --Classic CD

'An impressive disc' --BBC Music Magazine

�Enough technical dazzle to satisfy even the most virtuoso-hungry listeners� --Fanfare, USA

'Revelatory. In short, this is a must-buy release. It�s thrillingly exciting. Recommended with all possible enthusiasm' --Fanfare, USA

'Hamelin grasps [the music�s] sprawl clearly and delivers it with unrivalled perfection of pianistic mechanism. He relishes the delights of the lighter pieces with equal virtuosity' --Irish Times

�Marvellously iridescent in these magnificent interpretations � a fantastically varied succession of miniatures that will hardly fail to please� --The Magic Flute

Barber, Khachaturian: Violin Concertos

�Simonyan is a true virtuoso; his playing has a natural, unforced authority and, among other accomplishments, his clear, brilliant spiccato bowing is heard to great effect in the finales of both concertos...this is a performance [of the Barber] of notable power, Simonyan's confident presence - aided by strong support from Kristjan J�rvi and the LSO - generating considerable intensity as the climactic moments approach...All in all, a most impressive debut.� --Gramophone Magazine, February 2012

�Simonyan's intention was to bring out the qualities that embody the cultural roots of each composer: thus, he commissioned a new cadenza for Khachaturian's concerto by Artur Avanesov, to emphasise the Armenian flavour, and treated the dashing final movement of Barber's concerto in a looser manner than usual, suggestive of rustic American fiddling.� --The Independent, 20th January 2012

Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1, Etc

To celebrate Franz Liszt�s bicentenary, Lang Lang has selected some of the most famous, virtuosic and poetic solo pieces ever written for the piano, concluding with a fabulous new recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1 � accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev.

Alternating the lyrical Liszt with the bravura, Lang Lang�s tribute to his �piano hero� mixes old favourites with some lesser-known pieces, transcriptions with original works � and rounds off with the high octane First Piano Concerto.

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Franz Liszt's birth, virtuoso pianist Lang Lang has selected some of the composer's most characteristic pieces for his 2011 Sony release, Liszt: My Piano Hero. Prominent on this album is the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, which features Lang Lang in a high-energy performance with Valery Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic. Without a doubt, most of Lang Lang's fans will savor this Romantic showpiece, and for technical brilliance and drama, the performance doesn't disappoint. 

He is especially lively and vivid in this work, and his interactions with the orchestra seem spontaneous and playful, as one might well imagine Liszt would have been. But Lang Lang seems more introspective and personally involved with the solo keyboard pieces that make up the greater part of the album. Here also is the flashy side of Liszt, but there is a greater emphasis on the poetic and rhapsodic, so Lang Lang indulges in reflective pieces as much as the flashy encores. Highlights include La Campanella, the Grand Galop chromatique, Liebestraum No. 3, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, and the arrangement of Schubert's Ave Maria.

Hoffmeister: Double Bass Quartets Nos. 2-4

The novelty of Franz Anton Hoffmeister�s double bass quartets lies in his substitution of that husky-voiced instrument for the first violin in a regular string quartet line-up. Seldom heard in such a prominent position the double bass reveals itself as a good humoured and surprisingly expressive vehicle for Hoffmeister�s amiably melodic writing. It also gives an especially haunting melancholic quality to Schubert�s much-loved Arpeggione Sonata, not merely in the beautiful Adagio but also in the more agile outer movements.

"Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754-1812) was a quite prolific classical composer whose music has only been intermittently recorded so far. It isn�t particularly serious in mood, but it is well worth exploring. Duka is a remarkable player with a lightness of touch that must have seemed even more remarkable in 1980 when these pieces were recorded.

�I would recommend this disc for the Hoffmeister alone." --American Record Guide, July 2011

Chausson: Concert in D major for violin, piano, and string quartet

�Violinist Jennifer Pike, pianist Tom Poster and the Doric String Quartet have done much more than scratch the surface of this piece...it is their handling of the gradually building tension in the slow movement, from disquiet to impassioned pleading via reflection and agitation, that marks out as an especially fine performance.� --BBC Music Magazine, April 2013 *****

�[Pike and Poster] play superlatively - beautifully merging into the texture of the whole...The recorded sound is warm and resonant without being overwhelmingly lush...Anybody who is at all interested in late romantic chamber music should snap it up without delay.� --MusicWeb International, April 2013

�There are plenty of opportunities for Jennifer Pike to display her sinuous, tender tone, while Tom Poster reminds us yet again why he's so highly regarded as a chamber musician...A real front-runner for the Concert, and the most convincing of advocates for the more problematic String Quartet.� --Gramophone Magazine, May 2013

Casella: Triple Concerto; Ghedini: Concerto dell'Albatro

�Ghedini�s colours are so tastefully blended and applied that I found myself listening for a second time, and a third...Casella fans will want this concerto; the Ghedini is a real bonus, though.� --MusicWeb International, 9th January 2014

�a pair of radically different mid-century triple concertos...I Pomeriggi Musicali's fine live performances are scrupulously conducted by Damian Iorio... Violinist Paolo Ghidoni and cellist Pietro Bosna adopt a lyrical approach, in contrast to the more overtly virtuosic playing from pianist Emanuela Piemonti.� --The Guardian, 21st November 2013 ****

Both Alfredo Casella and Giorgio Federico Ghedini are featured in ongoing Naxos series of orchestral works, but this is the first release to couple the two of them. The pieces have much in common�not least, both are concertos using the rare combination of piano trio and orchestra, pioneered by Beethoven�but they are also beautifully contrasted. Casella wrote his Triple Concerto for his own Trio Italiano, who performed it five hundred times on three continents in less than a decade. Ghedini�s Concerto dell�albatro adds the voice of a narrator to the piano trio and orchestra, evoking, in words from Herman Melville�s sea story Moby-Dick, a remarkable encounter with an Antarctic albatross.

The Art of the Baroque Trumpet � Vol. 4

"After three wonderful recordings by Niklas Eklund (Sept/Oct 1998:284), it is no surprise to hear more of the same here. Performing on baroque trumpet (valveless but with one or more tone holes for trills and intonation correction), Eklund shows exquisite taste, elegance of articulation, tonal purity, and virtuoso technique in these accounts of works by German composers. Each is given a reading full of nuance and attention to detail. This account of Telemann's familiar Concerto 2 has the best balance between trumpet, two oboes, and bassoon I have heard." --American Record Guide, August 2000

Arwel Hughes: Anatiomaros

"If there is a Cambrian folk aspect to any of the music on this disc it must be deeply subsumed. I do not detect any heart-on-sleeve use of traditional songs. What is clear is that this is the work of a most accomplished modern romantic-nationalist."  --Music Web International, September 2011

�sumptuously recorded...The suite for orchestra and stirring 'legend' Owain Glyndwr demand more frequent concert airings.� Classical Music, 10th September 2011 ****

Owain Arwel Hughes conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a tribute to his father Arwel Hughes, the Welsh composer and radio broadcaster.

A student of Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst among others, Hughes early on began to work for the BBC and had limited opportunity to compose. This CD brings together most of his oeuvre for orchestra, from Anatiomaros (1943) to the 'legend' Owain Glyndwr (1979).

As a broadcaster and conductor he was an untiring champion of his fellow Welsh composers.

Cpe Bach: Sonates en Trio

At the time when CPE Bach was engaged as court harpsichordist at Sans-Souci, Berlin discovered the pleasure of listening to a new type of music which could 'speak' without words, music which brought to mind the deepest of human emotions. The sonata 'Sanguineus & Melancolicus' illustrates a process which goes from opposition to reconciliation...from dueling instruments to counterpoint, from an almost recitative-like improvised style to sonata from, and from opposing to compelentary themes...in short, it proceeds from 'rhetorical music' to 'pure music'.

Faur�: Piano Music

�turning convention topsy-turvy, she reminds us in her vehement, brightly lit performances that Faure objected to pianists who play his music 'with the shutters down'� --Gramophone Magazine, September 2013

�an exquisite Faure recital...The purity and strong, supple backbone of her playing lets Faure's inventive genius, his extraordinary sensitivity to colour, harmonic shading, texture and eloquence, shine on its own terms...Hewitt can draw us into Faure's unique bubble and simply envelop us in his cool, self-sufficient gorgeousness� --BBC Music Magazine, October 2013 *****

 

�She brings not just an intimate grasp of the music�s harmonic and technical demands, but an essential refinement � most evident in the Theme and Variations, in which she finds �lan, lightness and grandeur without overemphasising the differences between the 11 variations.� --Financial Times, 7th September 2013 ****

�It's a very thoughtfully planned sequence, beautifully executed; the sharply contrasting characters of each of the variations...are perfectly focused, while the joyous exuberance of the early Ballade sweeps all before it...All these pieces are presented with exemplary clarity and wonderfully crystalline tone.� --The Guardian, 5th September 2013 ****

�Particularly masterly are the variations, the heartbreaking 7th and final 12th very lovely. Hewitt observes that Faur�, who did not die until 1924, was born in Schumann and Chopin�s lifetimes: the pianism and songfulness show their legacy.� --The Independent, 15th September 2013 ****

�She plays this repertoire with real vitality and extroversion...Her sense of phrasing and sense of continuity in the three Nocturnes is Collard-like in intimacy and sensitive proportion.� --MusicWeb International, 30th September 2013

Handel in Italy: Solo Cantatas

�Emma Kirkby� sings four solo cantatas� These showpieces make immense technical demands� But splendid though such displays are, it is her sense of characterisation which sets her apart. She can 'rejoice, laugh and hope' with palpable rapture (Un' alma innamorata, HWV173), change mood like quicksilver in the great Scena of Agrippina (HWV110) where the queen, condemned to death by her own son, swings schizophrenically from inconsolable despair to furious anger. Outstanding.� --BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 *****
 

�Emma Kirkby� is on superb form. Her interpretative intelligence and attention to words are a given but she can also catch a subtle mood, as in "Quel povero core" from Un' alman innamorata, whose sense of resigned torment is enhanced by a sensitive contribution from the solo violin.� --Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

�Emma Kirkby, a seasoned Handelian, brings her considerable artistry to bear on some of [Handel's] most bold, moving and exciting music. Occasionally, particularly in the tragic 'Agrippina condotta a morire', one yearns for slightly darker shades than her naturally sunny voice can provide. Even so, here and in 'Notte placida e cheta', 'Un� alma innamorata' and 'Figlio d�alte speranze', she and the [musicians] of London Baroque relish to the full the dramatic genius destined shortly to take London by storm.� --Sunday Times, 24th August 2008 ***

Mozart: La Petite Musique de Nuit, Etc

"Concerto K�ln has a distinctive timbre and never-flagging excitement that are sometimes referred to as the 'Cologne sound'. These are qualities found in abundance in this recital. The ferocious account of the first work on the disc, the "Magic Flute" Overture, has the impact of an electric storm, which, with "Les Petits riens"; clears to brilliant pastoral sunlight . . . the joyous, roistering performances here should earn it many new admirers . . . Concerto K�ln's wind players are among the best in the world and they keep their sometimes truculent instruments immaculately." --International Record Review (London), September 2006

... Concerto K�ln conjuga todo el espectro de colores mozartianos con cristalina serenidad. ... las versiones aqu� recogidas ... llevan a los instrumentos hist�ricos al l�mite m�s �ptimo de sus posibilidades, sin incurrir en tempos r�gidos ni sonoridades metalizadas. --Record Review / Mel�mano (Madrid) / 01. June 2006

. . . haciendo interesantes y divertidas, vitales, intensas, las breves piezas que Mozart cre� para un ballet (Les Petit Riens) parisino. Un disco que es una sucesi�n de sorpresas, ant�doto contra las integrales y una forma diferente de interpretar a Mozart. La m�s adecuada, quiz�s, para el final de este a�o mozartiano. --Record Review / Ignacio Sanju�n, Audiocl�sica (Madrid) / 01. November 2006

Mr Corelli in London

 �Steger nicely sets the scene, telling of England�s obsession with Corelli�s music and of the convivial societies of amateurs who would gather in smoke-filled rooms to play it...Steger�s playing is unfailingly seductive; the English Concert under Cummings is equally delectable.� --The Sunday Times, 18th April 2010 ****

�Steger's performance is a thrilling hybrid, dazzlingly embellished yet pure and true of tone. The English Concert match Steger's �lan, with glorious solos from the ensemble.� --The Independent on Sunday, 11th April 2010

"Steger is a wonderfully deft player, with absolute clarity of note and line, even in the most virtuosic variations, of which there are many. Nonetheless, one of the most interesting pieces comes at the very end of the disc, when, after the torrents of notes in the seventh concerto, he plays the gentle variations by Jacques or James Paisible upon the Sarabande of the original sonata. This is a large-scaled ground-bass piece that increases in intensity as it goes along, without giving way to the flashy cascades that are a feature of most of the rest of the pieces. Steger�s tone is narrower than, say, Erik Bosgraf�s on his recent Handel disc, but it is not unpleasant for that. He is wonderfully backed by the English Concert. There is no direct competition for this program, but there are at least four recordings of all the op. 5 violin sonatas from which most of the material for these recorder versions comes. " --FANFARE: Alan Swanson

The Red Violin: Concertos by Corigliano & Kuusisto

"Two splendidly enjoyable modern concertos superbly performed and in the finest sound... Another magnificent recording from BIS and the Lahti orchestra, this time of very recent music." --MusicWeb International, October 2013
 
�Kuusisto's own Concerto (2011) is a colourful and dramatic score...The finale's rhythmic drive and alternating lyricism are immensely appealing...Excellent performances and sound.� --Gramophone Magazine, October 2013

John Corigliano's violin concerto 'The Red Violin' originated as the score to a film about a violin by one of the Old Italian master-builders, and its journeys around the world throughout three centuries. While working on the film score, Corigliano also produced a one-movement concert version of it, which he later expanded into a full-scale concerto in four movements. The son of a violinist, Corigliano�s aim was to write a concerto in a style his father would have wanted to play, and he has managed to do so without sacrificing any of the music's communicative qualities, or its wealth of colours, emotions and atmospheres.

The work is coupled here with a concerto of a similar broad appeal, composed by Jaakko Kuusisto, who is a highly respected violinist in his own right, as well as conductor. In his liner notes, Kuusisto recounts how he had toyed with the idea of writing a violin concerto for several years, but that the project only came into fruition after a commission from his colleague Elina V�h�l�, and the liberating prospect of composing a work for another performer than himself. Appearing for the first time on BIS, the acclaimed violinist Elina V�h�la has a wide-ranging career, both geographically and in terms of repertoire. She made her d�but at the age of twelve, performing as a soloist with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, which lends her spirited support on the present disc, and also performs the orchestral piece Leika. Using the Icelandic word for �play� as its title, Kuusisto�s composition displays a playfulness and wealth of colours that makes it a perfect curtain raiser for this appealing disc.

The Maiden's Prayer

�This repertoire is as delightful to listen to as it is to play � perfect evening listening� --Classic FM Magazine

�You may wonder when you last heard such beguiling, fine-toned fluency � this is a delectable disc finely recorded� --Gramophone Magazine

'Philip Martin is a pianist of great intelligence and much innate musicality; and the excellence of the recording is the final element in the equation for success' --musicweb.uk.net

CD OF THE WEEK (CLASSIC FM RADIO)
10 DE R�PERTOIRE

'A repertoire that makes for a welcome family evening around the piano; alas for us all that we cannot offer renderings of such sympathetic finesse and lyrical elegance as are here set down by Philip Martin �at home�' --Henry Kelly, Classic FM Radio

'77 minutes de bonheur pur sucre pour nous faire oublier la morosit� de la rentr�e!' --R�pertoire, France

J�rg Widmann: Violin Concerto

�In Christian Tetzlaff, Daniel Harding and the Swedish RSO, Widmann has found suitably uncompromising interpreters, and the recordings are as unvarnished and wide in perspective as the music itself demands.� --Gramophone Magazine, August 2013

�Widmann's Violin Concerto will appeal to those who like Berg's. Tetzlaff's performance is outstanding...An impressive collection.� --BBC Music Magazine, December 2013 ****

�[Tetzlaff's account is] so astonishingly vivid and secure that Widmann's impressive work at least has to share the spotlight with its dedicatee...Tetzlaff makes every second matter; one is carried along on the bleak journey Widmann invents� --The Guardian, 23rd May 2013 ****

Handel: Harpsichord Works, Volume 1

One of the world's preeminent harpsichordists, Sophie Yates is known for her critically acclaimed performances of Baroque music... In 1999, Yates released her first album devoted to Handel's harpsichord music. In the liner notes for her second Handel album, Yates remarked that Handel's harpsichord pieces not only exhibit such typicially Handelian features as rhythmic vitality and melodic inventiveness, but also "give us a fascinating insight into the composer's more private world." 

Mussorgsky: St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain, Etc

No work of Mussorgsky�s � even Mussorgsky�s � has a more tangled history than St John�s Night on the Bare Mountain, and the complexities are reflected in its recordings. A long and tortuous story must be cut short. In 1860, Mussorgsky told Balakirev that he planned a piece �on Mengden�s drama The Witches� (no one ever seems to have found a copy of this mysterious work). Rimsky-Korsakov, whose memory was not always reliable, claims in My Musical Life that in 1866-7 he had heard a version for piano and orchestra based on Liszt�s Totentanz (which Mussorgsky would not then have known). However, in 1867 Mussorgsky did write the orchestral Bare Mountain (which was first recorded by David Lloyd-Jones with the LPO for Philips, 6/72 � nla), but, 

dismayed by Balakirev�s withering comments, shelved it. Then, to the opera-ballet Mlada, commissioned in collaboration with Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui and Borodin, he contributed a scene, based on the orchestral piece and now lost, sometimes known as �The Sabbath of the Black Goat�.

This he adapted for the never-to-be-finished opera Sorochintsy Fair, for chorus and orchestra, as �The Young Peasant�s Dream� (or �Gritsko�s Dream�). Despite the title given it on the record (as above), it is this operatic vocal and choral scene which is here recorded. Based on it, Rimsky-Korsakov made the orchestral transcription which has been so widely performed and recorded (a good 50 recordings currently available). There is more to it than that; but all that need be added here is that there have been various versions of the opera: Cui (1917) and Tcherepnin (1923) took a hand, but the best known performing score is by Shebalin (1931), and his is the version of the Dream Scenes recorded by Zdenek Macal and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (Delos, 11/97). Further versions of the orchestral work that can be heard on record include those by Rene Leibowitz and, famously, Stokowski; there are others which depart in one way or another from Rimsky-Korsakov.

Abbado is a fine Mussorgsky conductor, as admirers of his Boris Godunov (Sony, 5/94) and Khovanshchina (DG, 11/90) know. He gives the piece a formidable charge of energy here, a quality less hectic and exhilarating than Macal but strong, potent and dynamic. It is a powerful piece, especially in the original operatic scene rather than in the more appealing Rimsky-Korsakov orchestral guise which we know so well. He also gives a gentle, evocative performance of the Khovanshchina Prelude depicting dawn over the River Moscow, and accompanies his singers well in the two scenes from the opera, with Kotcherga a gloomy Shaklovity and Tarasova powerfully conjuring up the spirits of darkness in one of Mussorgsky�s greatest arias. There is also a lively performance of the dance, and a vivid one of the Intermezzo which Mussorgsky half-pretended was symphonic but was really a lively response to a scene he witnessed of some peasants blundering through the snow. His imagination was always pictorial and dramatic rather than symphonic. --Gramophone Magazine

Tony Banks: SIX Pieces for Orchestra

�Ex-Genesis member Tony Banks in classical mode, each of the six pieces majoring on rhapsodic feeling and bold melodies. Blade, featuring the solo violin of Charlie Siem, is the most impressive.� --BBC Music Magazine, June 2012 ****

�These six symphonic songs are full of openhearted melody and glamorous orchestration�Particularly pleasing is The Oracle, a serene bit of tunefulness that has harmonies, harps, and woodwind writing that sound a bit like early Delius. The orchestra has a big, brassy sound, with lush strings for the soupier lyrical moments�and there are plenty of those. Martin Robertson�s alto sax solos in Siren and Charlie Siem�s violin in Blade are smooth and stylish.� --American Record Guide, September 2012

Tony Banks, founder member of rock band Genesis, has already written a much admired orchestral work called Seven (8557466), in which he was praised for his �genuine melodic gift� (Gramophone). His new work consists of six evocative songs without words which may arouse in the listener ideas of seduction, journeys, heroes, quests, decisions and goals. Two of the pieces feature solo instruments � alto saxophone on Siren and violin on Blade � played here by elite soloists, which mesh into Banks�s orchestral tapestry with bewitching effect. The remaining pieces reveal his outstanding lyrical gifts and total command of musical narrative.

Tony Banks has a big following for his solo work outside the group. His classical compositions have been admired for their lyricism and melodic qualities, with some critics noting an affinity with the string works of Vaughan Williams.

La Voce Nel Violino

Music by CIMA, UCCELINI, FONTANA, MONTEVERDI, ROGNANO, CASTELLO, GESUALDO, BASSANO, FRESCOBALDI, MEALLI, F. M. VERACINI

Violinist Enrico Onofri, well-known concertmaster of Il Giardino Armonico, explains in his notes to the selection of works he and Imaginarium present that the early 17th century constituted a magical �borderland� between the vocal world and the instrumental one to come. In it, Giovanni Paolo Cima�s sometimes solemn and vocally conceived Sonatas (1610) 

rub shoulders with Giovanni Marco Uccelini�s more virtuosic type from 1645 (Uccelini would explore the sixth position in one of his works), with its fluttering rapid notes and its bolder declamation. Fontana�s sonatas from 1641, with long-breathed ornamented melodies punctuated by rustling passages, fall somewhere in between.

Drama spices the arching songfulness of these pieces, as it does in Cima�s Sonata for Cornet or Violin�the second of his sonatas in this collection�the last section�s scalar lines of which sweep upward�or as in Claudio Monteverdi�s piece from his 1638 collection of Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi from 1636, with its exuberantly rushing parts for two violins (Onofri is joined in this work by Alessandro Tampieri) and the pathos of its chromatic descending lines.

Richardo Rognano�s passegiato from his Passaggi, libro secondo precedes Monteverdi�s work by almost half a century, but in its swirling figuration it, too, though modal, sounds modern, especially by the standards of, say, Corelli�s solo sonatas as they�ve been so often played (without embellishments). The title of Dario Castello�s Sonata from 1640, with its passages in echo and the dramatic sighs near its end, explicitly identifies it as being written �in stil moderno.� It�s clearly instrumental in conception. Carlo Gesualdo�s work from Madrigali, libro quinto , 1613, brings Onofri together again with Tampieri in a chromatic fantasy that clearly offers a reworking of a searingly dramatic vocal piece. Giovanni Bassano�s Ricercata seconda , played by solo violin, the earliest piece (1585) on the program, sounds spare and regimented in this lavishly imaginative company, especially in such close proximity to Monterverdi�s brief Armato il cor d�adamantina fede . Frescobaldi�s �aria� features a solo part by Onofri on violino piccolo.

Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, whose sonatas Andrew Manze has recorded twice�Channel Classics 5894, which I had the privilege of reviewing in 17:6, and Harmonia Mundi 907241, which I also had the privilege of reviewing, in 23:2�may come near the end of this procession of Italian violinists, but the Sonata �La cesta,� from his op. 3, while it may demonstrate more obvious structural design (there�s a passacaglia at its heart), seemed almost crack-brained in its originality when Manze first championed it. Onofri plays it with rapturous ecstasy. The program ends with a work based on the ascending hexachord, an antique canonic fantasy by Francesco Maria Veracini from the next century (1744) that reflects on instrumental music�s vocal roots.

Onofri, who has demonstrated so rich an imagination in his performances with Il Giardino Armonico, endows these works, in collaboration with his ensemble, with an equally vibrant exploratory sense, not only of the richly varied forms, but also of the similarly kaleidoscopic instrumental colors and brilliant virtuosity. The colors may be generated by period instruments, but they flash so brightly that the message almost obliterates the medium. I�ve reviewed several collections of music from this period during the last decade and a half (for example, the brief 45-odd-minute survey, �Il violino in San Marco,� by the Trio Arcangelo Corelli, MDG 3476, which I urgently recommended in 17:1), and each time I�ve marveled at the music�s inventiveness�though never more so than in this recording. So again, urgently recommended.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham 

Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos 2 & 3

Lilya Zilberstein was born in 1965 and began her studies under Ada Traub at the Gnessin Institute in Moscow at the age of six. She has the stamina required for the hammered chords in the peroration of the Third Concerto�s finale and the dexterity to cope with the more mercurial fingerwork. Hers is a no-nonsense approach. She knows just how she wants the music to go, and the orchestra must stay with her.

Not that it always does. In places where solo instruments or sections accompany the piano,

they�re sometimes not quite together � or, at least, not at the beginning of the phrase (witness track 5 from 5:27 mins, and track 6 from 7:11, for instance), and at times there�s an element of living dangerously.

But I�m not sure that this is a bad thing in a concerto that so embodies the struggle between gargantuan forces.

The Berlin strings are incomparable, and Zilberstein is as good at milking the dark side of the drama as she is at relaxing into the less intense moments. Like Rachmaninov himself, in his classic recording, she takes the thinner, less tumultuous cadenzas.

-- Wadham Sutton, BBC Music Magazine