Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 12

“Superlative standards already set by this team's Shostakovich couldn't afford to slip in a symphony as great as the Sixth. In the first movement, at least, Vasily Petrenko and the Liverpudlians reach new heights of articulation and sonic beauty...In the inferior Symphony No. 12, Petrenko applies his usual standards of well-differentiated articulation and soulful playing” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 *****

“Petrenko makes a case that the Sixth could be amongst Shostakovich's most elusive puzzling creations...His solution to the Twelfth: stay out of the way, the RLPO's firepower is good in the telling...profound interpretative insights and stinging orchestral playing.” --Classic FM Magazine, December 2011 ****

“The RLPO woodwinds excel themselves in these gripping readings.” --Sunday Times, 9th October 2011

“Petrenko makes weird and wonderful sense of both...The RLPO’s sense of attack carries all before it, and the eerie Adagio [of No. 12] is traversed with subtlety and finesse. This symphony may not be top-drawer music, but by treating it seriously rather than as the soundtrack for a Bolshevik newsreel, Petrenko and the RLPO do Shostakovich a big favour.” --Financial Times, 8th October 2011 ****

“Petrenko leaves his stamp on the performances through his insight into the characteristics of each work...One particularly impressive feature is the fact that Petrenko seems to have instilled such a “Russian” sound into the players...Petrenko’s sense of the music’s structure is sure, both in the Sixth Symphony and in the Twelfth” --The Telegraph, 7th October 2011 *****

“[The] fierce, anguished first movement is one of Shostakovich's greatest achievements; in this superbly paced performance, it seems to echo the wracked Adagio that begins Mahler's Tenth Symphony. Petrenko and the RLPO are equally impressive in the movements that follow, with wonderfully agile woodwind playing in the Scherzo, and a perfect balance between vulgarity and exuberance in the final Presto.” --The Guardian, 20th October 2011 ****

“[Petrenko]’s not inclined to dwell on the ambiguous political complexities, but his purely musical approach is persuasive. He concentrates on energy and precision, paces each movement astutely, and elicits lean, thrilling timbres from his players.” --The Times, 26th November 2011
****

Fiorillo & Viotti: Violin Concertos

'A welcome reissue of a fine disc coupling a pair of delightful concertos, in performances of delectable poise and refinement. Recommended' --International Record Review

'One is at home with this music right from the start' -Fanfare, USA

Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras Volume 3

“The cellists of the São Paulo SOP give measured and beautifully poised accounts of Nos 1 and 5 and the performers catch the intimacy one expects of the medium. Donna Brown is in fine voice in No 5… No 4 may well be the most unfamiliar to those who know the standard "orchestral" version... evocative of Bach in its use of a keyboard. Jean Louis Steuerman... plays with great finesse and understanding...” --Gramophone Magazine, December 2007

The primary novelty here is the piano-solo original version of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4, an interesting alternative to the more familiar setting for orchestra. There seems little question that the latter is preferable on purely coloristic grounds, particularly in the second-movement chorale and the dance-finale. Jean-Louis Steuerman plays very well, however, and it's only in that energetic last movement that he sometimes gives too much emphasis to the left-hand accompaniment (at a tempo perhaps a touch too frantic). But then if you have the orchestral version in your ears, as I do, your expectations in terms of textural balance naturally will be different from what can be achieved on solo keyboard. It's a fine performance.

Both wind players sound terrific in the brief and quirky Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6, and soprano Donna Brown sings (and hums) really beautifully in the popular No. 5. I was particularly taken with her clarity of diction and accuracy of intonation in the rapid-fire second movement. Here, and in Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1, the cello section of the São Paulo Symphony plays magnificently, with incisive rhythms (check out the first movement of No. 1) and a big, rich tone. As usual, BIS's engineering is excellent. I look forward to the conclusion of this first rate series. It looks to be the Bachianas Brasileiras cycle of choice, assuming standards remain this high. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Walton: String Quartets

“The Doric gives outstanding, virtuoso performances of William Walton’s two string quartets. The first of them, formidable in its technical demands and harmonic language, is virtually unrecognisable from the Walton of maturity...but, when played with such panache, it provides a pungent contrast to the clarity and spry rhythmic sparring of the later A minor Quartet.” The Daily Telegraph, February 2011 *****

“Hats off first for the stunning recording. Every bow stroke hits home as if the players are there in your living room. Another bouquet for the musicians’ mastery of the three Ps: polish, passion, precision. Absorbing repertoire, too.” --The Times, March 2011 ****

“The Doric Quartet responds with great understanding to it and does well in making the most of the parts of the two works when, for different reasons, a good counsel for the defence is called for. The recording, too, gives an excellent account of music that, even when Walton was young and inexperienced, shows the keenness of his ear for texture.” --International Record Review, March 2011

“[a] blazingly committed and triumphantly assured rendering [of the early Quartet]...I was particularly smitten with the Doric's glowing treatment of the rapturous slow movement [of the A minor]...which they survey with a beguiling, almost conversational flow yet no loss of intimacy or piercing ardour...Make no mistake, this is a terrific disc in every way.” --Gramophone, May 2011

“the early Quartet is a remarkable creation, with its searching chromaticism, huge technical strength, and formidable finale...The Doric Quartet play both works with an ultra-focused vividness that's very effective in bringing out the early Quartet's sophisticated, Schoenberg-influenced range of light and shade.” --BBC Music Magazine, August 2011 ***

Bax: Orchestral Works

‘Martyn Brabbins directs a set of performances as crisply polished as they are infectious, and Chandos’ sound is characteristically sumptuous to match’ --Gramophone

‘All of these pieces are genuine discoveries brilliantly played by the BBC Philharmonic and just as brilliantly led by Brabbins, who may be the next great Bax conductor.’ --American Record Guide

‘Chandos has provided its usual luminous sound. All in all an unexpectedly substantial release.’ --Fanfare

In 1903 while still a student, Bax wrote a String Quartet in E major, the second of two student quartets, and to the slow movement the young composer gave a programmatic force by prefacing it with a quotation from the Irish poet, W.B. Yeats. In 1904 this movement was performed in an arrangement for two violins and piano bearing the title Cathaleen-ni-Hoolihan, and seven months later it was orchestrated by the composer. The first performance of the orchestral version was given at the Royal College of Music in 1970.

In 1911 Bax sought to emulate the works of the Ballet russes with his own ‘Russian Ballet’, or rather ‘a Little-Russian fairy tale in action and dance’, as he called it. The ensuing work Tamara, was taken from a story by Andrew Lang about a king who is trapped by a water demon while hunting. In order to gain his freedom he promises to the water demon whatever new thing awaits his return, which inevitably, is his son, Prince Igor! The Prince, twenty years later, meets the enchanter’s daughter, Tamara. Her father turns her into a flower which is later recognised by the prince, who restores her to life.

Since the turn of the nineteenth century British Coronations have assume the character of festivals of new British Music. At the time of the Coronation in 1937 Kenneth Wright at the BBC remarked that such a piece as London Pageant would be bound to attract many performances and Bax took the hint. The work was written in December 1936, the orchestration completed in February 1937 and the work first played in a broadcast concert of the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by the celebrated Albert Coates.

The Concertante for Three Wind Instruments and Orchestra was written during November and December 1948 and was completed on New Year’s day 1949. It was commissioned for the Sir Henry Wood Memorial Concert given at the Royal Albert Hall on 2 March 1949. There it was played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. The music is unpublished and the manuscript full score was destroyed in Chappell’s fire in 1964; the work only survives because a photographic copy (before the days of photocopiers) had been made.

Pleyel: Symphonies Concertantes

“Innocent and attractive concertos from a contemporary of Mozart and Haydn. Performances are more than acceptable, with trim playing from the (modern-instrument) Baltimore band, and assured solo contributions from David Perry (Stylish and sweet-toned in the solo concerto) and his violin and viola partners.” --Gramophone, September 2009

Pleyel’s symphonies concertantes are characteristic expressions of his idiosyncratic style. They are expansive, leisurely-paced works, texturally transparent in their solo sections and rich in melodic invention.

Always sensitive to instrumental colour, Pleyel uses his unusual forces to weave a scintillating web of sound in these remarkable works.

The original and virtually unknown version of the Violin Concerto in D, composed in the early 1780s, is one of the earliest of Pleyel’s solo concertos but no less attractive and assured than its successors.

This recording includes the original first and second movements together with a new finale composed by Pleyel several years later.

Evening Songs

“Hearing the songs of both composers without the texts, and played with such attention to contour and gradation, reminds us just how masterly and diverse both composers were in their art of the solo song...As the title of the disc suggests, this is an ideal collection to while away the summer evenings.” --Gramophone Magazine, March 2012

“What emerges - as if we needed reminding - is the great gift of each man for melody: divorced from their texts, they work almost better in this form!” --International Record Review, February 2012

Julian Lloyd Webber (cello), Jiaxin Cheng (cello) & John Lenehan (piano)

Frederick Delius’s beautiful songs show his extraordinary gift for melody. John Ireland admired Delius enormously and his songs are inspired by a wide variety of literature, including his hugely popular setting of John Masefield’s Sea Fever. Renowned cellist Julian Lloyd Webber celebrates both composers’ remarkable melodic gifts in these sensitive arrangements, and pianist John Lenehan has received great acclaim for his Naxos recordings of Ireland’s complete piano music.

This recording revives a tradition which was common at the beginning of the last century, arranging the best of vocal music for instruments, of which the singing voice of the cello is one of the best suited. The performing cast here is something of a dream team. Julian Lloyd Webber’s large following will take little persuasion to explore his playing on this beautiful CD, and he is joined both by his cellist wife Jiaxin Cheng and Ireland expert John Lenehan, whose recordings include the Gramophone awardwinning Michael Nyman Piano Concerto (8554168).

Julian Lloyd Webber is one of today’s leading cellists. He has given the premières of more than fifty new works for cello and has inspired new compositions from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold and Joaquín Rodrigo to James MacMillan and Philip Glass. His partnership with John Lenehan began in the mid-1970s and they have since given recitals together all over the world. “…the doyen of British cellists” The Strad