1. MAMA DO 2. CRY ME OUT 3. BAND AID 4. TURN IT UP 5. BOYS AND GIRLS 6. GRAVITY 7. MY LOVE 8. JACK 9. NOTHING COMPARES 10. HERE WE GO AGAIN 11. THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS 12. HOLD ME IN YOUR ARMS
Avie introduces the brilliant young guitarist Mattias Jacobsson who on his debut album invokes a guitar tradition originating with the influential Spanish composer Francisco Tárrega. The repertoire explores Tárrega’s influences and legacy, from the inspiration that Chopin had on his musical output through to his students Miguel Llobet and Emilio Pujol. Tárrega often turned to Chopin’s favored forms – Preludes, Mazurkas and Nocturnes – and also transcribed works in those forms by Chopin. Mattias has created a unique concept in the guitar discography by juxtaposing Chopin transcriptions with Tárrega’s most Chopinesque works. The “invocación” continues through works of two of Tárrega’s most prominent pupils in Barcelona and even extends to Mattias himself, whose first teacher Erik Möllerström studied in Barcelona and secured an instrument from the great guitar maker Ignacio Fleta e hijos, that now has been passed on to Mattias and is played on this recording.
Najnowszy album Maxa Richtera zawiera muzykę do baletu “Woolf Works”.“Woolf Works” to znakomicie przyjęty przez krytykę tryptyk baletowy z choreografią McGregora, inspirowany życiem i twórczością angielskiej powieściopisarki Wirginii Woolf.“Three Worlds: Music from Wolf Works” to nowy rozdział na muzycznej drodze kompozytorskiej Maxa Richtera. Ukazuje zamiłowanie kompozytora zarówno do bogatych melodii na smyczki i fortepian jak i jego wirtuozowskie władanie elektroniką. W utworze otwierającym album pojawia się wypowiedź samej Virginii Woolf czytającej esej : “Craftsmanship” (Rzemiosło) utrwalona na nagraniu BBC z 1937 roku.Oryginalny balet spotkał się z niezwykle pozytywnym przyjęciem krytyki podczas premiery w 2015 r., otrzymując Critics’ Circle Award w kategorii najlepszej choreografii oraz Olivier Award za najlepszą produkcję baletową. The Observer opisał ten balet jako “przekonujące i wzruszające wydarzenie”, a według The Independent jest to “ pełne ambicji, wspaniałe, przemyślane dzieło”, The Guardian określił balet jako “poruszającą medytację dotyczącą pamięci, szaleństwa i życia”. Każdy z trzech aktów baletu nawiązuje do jednej z kluczowych powieści Woolf: Mrs Dalloway,Orlando oraz the Waves, połączonych z fragmentami jej listów, esejów i pamiętników.McGregor i Richter często współpracowali ze sobą, między innymi przy takich uznanych produkcjach jak: Rain Rooms czy Sum. McGregor stworzył również baletową wersję słynnych albumów Maxa jak Vivaldi Recomposed czy Infra.Album jest 66 minutową wersją całej produkcji trwającej 110 minut. Przedstawienia baletu prezentowane będą w Royal Opera House w Londynie w styczniu i lutym 2017 r.
BRAHMS CLARINET WORKS SACD
The late seventeenth century was a period of great change in English music. This was a time when the influences of Italian music were ever-increasing, brought to England by Italian composers such as Draghi, Haym and Matteis, and their German contemporaries Pepusch and Handel. In this new release we explore how the English composers, Purcell, Weldon and Croft, responded to Italian music and incorporated the style into their own works. The two works by Purcell, Sonata in G minor and The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation, perfectly illustrate his mastery of the Italian style. This is especially evident in the latter, which Purcell wrote in the style of an Italian cantata. This distinctive blend of English and Italian influences also became evident in the works of many European composers in England, as they adopted the native English style and form. In fact the English legacy can be heard in the music of Draghi, Courteville, Matteis, Handel, Pepusch and Haym, almost as clearly as in the music of their English contemporaries. Draghi’s sonata is a prime example of this, it seems to have been influenced by English consort music, and its short, contrasted sections and unexpected harmonies are far removed from the sonatas composers were writing in Italy at the time. The works on this release are performed by Peter Holman’s early music group, The Parley of Instruments, which today is recognised as one of the leading exponents of Baroque music. The Parley’s trail-blazing work in English eighteenth-century music has led to collaborations with soloists such as Catherine Bott, Crispian Steele-Perkins and Elizabeth Wallfisch. On this release, the group is joined by soprano Philippa Hyde, with Peter Holman, conductor and founder of the Parley of Instruments.
Arguably Britain’s greatest living choral composer, Sir John Tavener’s music is performed in churches and cathedrals throughout the land and at the most important state occasions. This glorious recording from the choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, includes The Lamb, perhaps one of the best-known choral works of the late twentieth century.
Following the resounding success of Jonathan Plowright’s 2010 Hommage à Chopin, the acclaimed British pianist becomes the first artist to record the album of works written and published in homage to one of the early twentieth century’s most fascinating figures, Polish pianist, composer and politician Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Of the twenty-two works on this recording, from composers including Bartók, MartinÍ and Milhaud, sixteen were included in the memorial piano album Homage to Paderewski published by Boosey & Hawkes in New York in 1942. A further six pieces written for Paderewski also feature, including a Mazurka for two pianos by Britten originally intended for the volume (Britten misunderstood the commission, which specified solo piano), for which Plowright is joined by Aaron Shorr. These diverse works are performed with flair and dedication.
The Polish-born Aleksander Tansman (1897–1986) enjoyed considerable international success during his long and distinguished career as composer, pianist and conductor. He contributed to almost every musical genre, his vast catalogue of works including nine symphonies, twentyone concertos, seven operas, an oratorio, three cantatas, eleven ballets, eight string quartets, a host of chamber works for diverse ensembles as well as solo instruments, and fi lm scores. He received numerous international honours and awards throughout his lifetime and his music was championed by the leading conductors and soloists of the day, including Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, Serge Koussevitzky, Eugene Ormandy, Andrés Segovia, Josef Szigeti, José Iturbi and many others. Tansman became a close friend of Ravel, Stravinsky and Milhaud, an acquaintance of Schoenberg and associate of many other major composers of his time, and the list of his dedicatees reads like a who’s who of twentieth-century music. Yet, since his death, the music of Tansman has been largely neglected and is only now beginning to receive renewed attention.
The process of diminution in the music of Giovanni Bassano (c1558-1617) should not be understood in an over-literal sense: the diminution of note values significantly increases the technical demands of these works. Around 1600, Bassano perfected the art of ornamentation in the melodic lines of polyphonic works through fast figuration patterns, particularly in his music for wind instruments, creating a dazzling display of virtuosity. He not only applied this principle to his own partitas and fantasias but also to the works of other composers; in a volume published in 1591, he compiled a collection of compositions by contemporary masters such as Palestrina and Cipriano de Rore reworked according to his own unmistakable style, creating instrumental and vocal works for virtuoso soloists. Monika Mauch and the Capricornus Ensemble Stuttgart set off on a voyage of discovery in this new recording of arrangements and original works by Bassano, highlighting this unfamiliar tonal world with the aid of their colourful instrumental palette.
Three years have passed since the release of the previous volume in this series, but now Miklós Spányi continues his traversal of the keyboard concertos of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, a series which in Gramophone has been called a ‘unique monument to one of the 18th century's most underrated composers’. Once again Spányi has joined forces with the Hungarian period band Concerto Armonico, and together they offer us the first four works in a set of six, the Sei Concerti per il cembalo concertato. Composed during the early 1770s, the Sei Concerti were among the few concertos that C.P.E. Bach didn’t write specifically for himself to play. In order to secure a large number of subscribers for the scores, he advertised their publication repeatedly, marketing the works as ‘easy’. He also included parts for wind instruments (‘for reinforcement’, thus optional): two horns in all the fast movements, replaced by flutes in the slow movements. Bach’s aim was to make the works appealing to both players and listeners, and the result is a set of highly attractive pieces, with approachable melodies and dance rhythms but also displaying a new freedom with regard to conventional concerto form. Particularly striking is the fourth concerto, the four movements of which are run together seamlessly, while continuity is further reinforced by the reappearance of thematic material throughout the entire concerto. For these works, Miklós Spányi has chosen to perform the solo part on a harpsichord, a copy of an instrument from 1745 by the Antwerp builder Joannes Daniel Dulcken. Inspired by the English harpsichords that were imported in great number to Northern Germany during Bach’s time, Spányi has had his instrument fitted with a so-called ‘swell device’, enabling the performer to achieve dynamic shadings and crescendo-diminuendo effects consistent with the various instructions in Bach’s scores.