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The disc under review here is the first in a planned series of recordings of music by "musicians of Europe hosted by the Baron of Prangins", as the rear announces. Who was this figure who apparently attracted various composers? Louis-François Guiguer, Baron of Prangins – today a municipality in the Swiss canton of Vaud, on Lake Geneva – was bo...
The Italian pianist and composer Orazio Sciortino wrote the four works performed in this disc between 2012-13. He’s the only composer known to me to be able to wear the mantle of Krug Ambassador, the champagne firm having commissioned him to write a piece, which he has duly done: it’s due to be released by Sony. Let’s hope it’s sparkling. As h...
One of the features of the new style which was born in Italy around 1600 was instrumental virtuosity. Composers started to write music for solo instruments, which explored their technical possibilities. One of the main instruments at the time was the violin. Through Italian composers travelling north the stylistic features of Italian violin mus...
Schumann’s second sonata for violin and piano was written a few weeks after the first. The composer declared: ‘I didn’t like the first violin sonata, so I wrote a second, which I hope turned out better’. Clara certainly liked it, finding it ‘wonderfully original, with a depth and magnificence that I have hardly ever known before’. Also set in a...
On this Claves album, featuring a Serenade each from Mozart and Schoeck, the press information highlights how both composers were only twenty years old at the time of composition and how one hundred and thirty years separates the two works. This fascinating programme is played by the Musikkollegium Winterthur, a forty or so strong ensemble here...
On the face of it, to present a programme with three pieces that range over one hundred and fifty years might seem a strange thing to do. This is especially the case as they are only linked through the solo instrument, the harp, and are stylistically miles apart. However, in the hands of Anaïs Gaudemard this works well, showing the versatility ...
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s work Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) has enchanted and perhaps disturbed its readers, whether young or not so young, since its first appearance in 1943. Voted as the ‘Best Book of the 20th Century’ by the French public it has been animated, turned into ballet, dramatized, made into television and cinematic movies;...
The Stanford discography is steadily growing, yet when these performers gave the Second Piano Concerto its belated Proms première in 2008, the response suggested that the London critics still lived back in the dark age when Stanford was merely an Interesting Historical Figure, not a composer that one might seriously perform and listen to. Strang...
Two recent all-Mendelssohn releases, one on Claves and the other on Harmonia Mundi each including the Double Concerto, an infrequently heard score from the young composer. For Claves the Camerata Bern perform using modern instruments, metal strings and modern bows. On Harmonia Mundi early music specialists the Freiburger Barockorchester provide ...
At the end of last year, I reviewed a Chandos recording of Poulenc’s concertante works for piano and orchestra, concluding that it was a matter of some regret that I had waited so long to explore his music. Thus, when this CD appeared on the review lists, I took the opportunity to extend my exploration.
Poulenc abandoned his sonata in 1940, lac...
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