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Star British cellist Jamie Walton returns to disc on Signum with a programme Russian repertoire by composers Glazunov, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky. Joined by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Okko Kamu, the disc includes the original version of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. Jamie Walton's outstanding programme of Russian classics captures the music's soaring lyricism with impassioned eloquence and interpretative flair - The Strad Walton embraces Glazunov's tenderness with the warmth and suppleness of his tone...Walton interprets [the Prokofiev] with impressive, seamless sweeps and refined dynamic shading - The Daily Telegraph Seamless lyricism and glorious tone - Gramophone [Walton] delivers a particularly eloquent and virtuosic account of the work - BBC Music Magazine -
Following its nomination for a Gramophone Early Music Award in 2014, Contrapunctus releases an album of motets from the Baldwin Tudor partbooks, on the theme of mortality. Conducted by Owen Rees, the album includes Sheppard’s epic Media vita and works by Byrd, Parsons, Mundy, Teverner, Gerarde and Tallis, with Contrapunctus’s own reconstructions of the missing tenor parts. ★★★★★ Contrapunctus really knows what to do with these pieces and from the very first item the tuning is superb and the ensemble rock solid. Moreover, Owen Rees’s interpretations are revelatory and even visionary - BBC Music Magazine ★★★★ Whether you listen in Lenten penitence or in general hope of spiritual balm, the message is universal, the singing superb - The Observer Rees’s choir brings an intensity of sound and dramatic dynamics, in music that contemplates the pain of death in ecstatic elation and sublime devotion - The Sunday Times The undeniable jewel in the crown of this selection is Sheppard’s magisterial setting of Media vita … Contrapunctus is the ideal group for this superb repertoire, and I look forward with eager anticipation to future CDs in this series - Early Music Review There’s lovely balance and clarity of sound from as fine a clutch of voices - Choir & Organ -
The Choir of Jesus College Cambridge present this album of sacred works which follows events in the Church calendar. From Ash Wednesday, through to the final feast of the year – Trinity, the recording features works by Bryd, Purcell, Casals, Elgar, Stanford, Britten, Tallis and James MacMillan, all directed by Mark Williams. ★★★★★ Bairstow's The Lamentation is interpreted with marvellous subtlety here - Choir & Organ Brooding and refined - The Telegraph Fresh, engaging performances of works spanning the church year, from a choir moving swiftly up the Oxbridge pecking order. The Rorem and MacMillan pieces get especially fine performances - BBC Music Magazine -
The Temple Church Choir gives the world premiere recording of Nico Muhly’s Our present charter – a brand new four-movement work commissioned by the choir to celebrate 800 years since the sealing of the Magna Carta. Directed by Roger Sayer and featuring organist Greg Morris, the recording also features choral works by Parry, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Bairstow, Tavener and Haydn.
★★★★★ Sensitive interpretations enhance the excellence of the singing... Highly Reccomended - Choir & Organ ★★★★ Under their new director Roger Sayer the choir is obviously on strong form - Planet Hugill These superb recordings serve as sonorous reminders of the British choral tradition and its vibrant contemporary life - Opera News -
Flight is the stunning new album of works from British composer Oliver Davis (b.1972), composed for and in collaboration with violinist Kerenza Peacock. Flight captures the spirit of movement and energy present in many of Davis’s compositions, which have led to frequent collaborations with groups such as the Royal Ballet and a great number of TV commissions. On disc these works are performed by Kerenza alongside the London Symphony Orchestra under conductor Paul Bateman. [These] exuberant works are performed with charisma and sensitivity by Kerenza Peacock and the LSO - BBC Music Magazine The music is full over movement and energy. It's spirited, lively, and at times reminiscent of the music of Michael Nyman. Kerenza Peacock plays with great panache and verve - Classic FM No quibbles as to Peacock's commitment or panache, while Paul Bateman gets a disciplined response from the London Symphony Orchestra - Gramophone -
Chilcott’s mighty setting of words from St John’s Gospel is a dramatic yet optimistic retelling of the Passiontide story. The work combines 13th and 17th century English poetry with the King James Bible text settings and, as with Bach’s great Passion settings, the role of the Evangelist is taken by the tenor soloist, who provides a melodious narrative throughout. Including 5 well- known hymn texts set to new, original melodies, the work further confirms Chilcott’s status as one of the world’s most popular active choral composers.
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Los Angeles based string quartet The Calder Quartet releases an album of works by Thomas Adès, including the British composer’s first ever work for string quartet, Arcadiana; The Four Quarters (World Premiere Recording) and Adès’s single movement Piano Quintet with Adès himself at the piano. A series of ingenious and alluring snapshots. The Calder Quartet perform all three with energy and sensitivity. Highly recommended - Financial Times Fine recorded sound as well; this is music and performances that repay repeated listening - BBC Radio 3 CD Review The players of the young American quartet seem so inside this music they might have been playing it all their lives - Classical Music Magazine -
The King’s Singers perform the complete Italian madrigal collection Il Trionfo di Dori. Commissioned by Venetian nobleman Leonardo Sanudo in 1592, the collection features 29 works, each written by a different composer and poet, and set for nine voices. Among them are Vecchi, Gabrieli, Marenzio, de Monte, Striggio, Anerio, Gastoldi, Porta and Palestrina.★★★★★ The King's Singers bring this great monument of Italian music history to striding life - Sinfini Music ★★★★★ The King’s Singers are on top form, singing with a sunny freshness appropriate to this happy music, blending beautifully, and moving as one into crescendos and decrescendos, ranging in dynamic from a whispering pianissimo to declamatory episodes of high drama - Early Music Review It is hard to imagine a group with greater potential to do justice to this music of love and mythology than they - Gramophone The King's Singers turn out their characteristic, highly polished finish: diction is razor-sharp, ensemble and intonation are well-nigh flawless - BBC Music Magazine A masterclass in delicate phrasing, elegant lines, exemplary Italian and effortless madrigalian expression with standards of intonation to languish after...delizioso - Choir & Organ If you have to make a single choice The King's Singers will appeal more and it's also beautifully recorded in a venue, which is at least new to this reviewer - Music Web International -
Harpsichordist Jane Chapman explores The Oriental Miscellany – William Hamilton Bird’s 1789 collection and arrangement of Hindustani airs for harpsichord. Bird’s collection, which was the first ever publication of Indian music notated for Western instruments, also features his own Sonata, incorporating original Indian tunes with flute accompaniment (here performed by baroque flautist Yu-Wei Hu). -
Tamsin Waley-Cohen, a violinist of ‘fearless intensity’ (The Guardian), explores post-1944 solo repertoire, pushing the instrument to its limits. Bartok’s Solo Sonata, an ‘Everest’ of the violin repertoire, sits at the heart of this recording which also includes Penderecki’s Cadenza, and miniatures by Carter, Gyorgy Kurtag and George Benjamin. Waley-Cohen never loses poise - The Strad Seventy-seven minutes of unaccompanied violin, and strenuous modern repertory at that, may make this disc a daunting prospect, but Waley-Cohen's devotion to her cause is palpable, and her interpretative flair likewise. This is a sequence bursting with vitality; and the choices, all interesting, compose a little map of modernism - The Sunday Times It's brave for a young artist to settle on a seemingly hard-core programme of solo repertoire, but it's a measure of Waley-Cohen's commitment and energy (not to mention prodigious technique) that it succeeds utterly - Classical Music Magazine The programme provides a fascinating survey of solo violin music of the last 25 years and her playing, often forceful and uncompromising...carries real conviction. The more delicate pieces, for instance the lovely Benjamin 'Lauer Lied', are just as persuasive - Gramophone The opening of the Bartok Sonata is powerful and arresting, and there's passion and musical imagination throughout, the fiendish multiple stops and alternations between bowed and plucked notes assured in tone and precise in intonation - BBC Music Magazine -
Purcell’s ever-green chamber opera Dido & Aeneas, its story drawn from Virgil’s epic, the Aeneid, is performed by the Armonico Consort with an astounding selection of soloists. Armonico Consort is one of the largest and most innovative organisations of its kind in the UK, existing to inspire audiences with its unique programmes. ★★★★ Lithe, colourful, tastefully phrased and dynamically astute playing...[the cast] sing compellingly and inhabit their roles with the same sensitivity that distinguishes the whole performance - The Daily TelegraphA clean, uncluttered account featuring crystalline voices, good diction, safe tempos and well-defined phrasing...vocal ensembles are luminous and the instrumental playing is bright and streamlined. Best of all is Rachael Lloyd's dignified Dido, rich-voiced, poetic and flawlessly delivered - The Guardian The Armonico Consort and its musical director, Christopher Monks, capture this abundance of inspiration in a performance full of life and variety...Rachael Lloyd's dignified Dido and Elin Manahan Thomas's bright Belinda are well contrasted - Financial Times This small-scale version of Purcell's evergreen masterpiece has much to commend it - Early Music Today -
Carducci Quartet launches Shostakovich15 – its project to perform all 15 of Shostakovich’s string quartets in 2015. Commemorating 40 years since Shostakovich’s death, Carducci Quartet performs several complete cycles throughout the year and releases this recording of Shostakovich’s fourth, eighth and eleventh string quartets – all landmark works in the string quartet repertory.
Their warmly engineered release of three of the Russian master's quartets is undoubtedly a fine achievement, boasting excellent ensemble, musical insight and sensitive attention to detail - BBC Music Magazine [The Carducci Quartet] clearly have the technical measure of these three highly contrasting works from Shostakovich's quartet output...this well-recorded disc holds out much promise of things to come - Gramophone The performances are both polished and passionate - The Sunday Times Great musical flair...the Carducci's are superb here - Music Web International -
The three works on this 2CD set further confirm Chilcott’s status as one of the world’s most popular active choral composers. The Angry Planet was a commission inspired by conductor David Hill for the BBC Proms in 2012, and combines the precision and skill of the BBC Singers and The Bach Choir with the exuberance of a host of young persons and Children’s choirs including The Young Singers, London Youth Choir and Finchley Children’s Music Group. -
London Early Opera perform a unique programme of Handel’s Italian-inspired works, devised by conductor Bridget Cunningham and featuring a unique family collaboration from from world-renowned soprano sisters Sophie Bevan and Mary Bevan alongside their uncle, bass Benjamin Bevan. Editor's Pick: This is as polished an account as any on account of Sophie Bevan's unerring sense of decorum for what each movement requires - Gramophone The quality of the musicianship is high - BBC Music Magazine A dazzling disc from the Bevan siblings - The Observer An enjoyable showcase for Mary, Sophie and Benjamin Bevan - The Sunday Times A pleasant compilation, showcasing the considerable vocal talents of three of the Bevan family - Early Music Review -
Ian Venables’ reputation as ‘one of the finest song composers of his generation’ (BBC Music Magazine) finds voice in this disc of premiere recordings of two of his substantial song cycles. International baritone, Roderick Williams is joined by the Carducci String Quartet and pianist Graham J Lloyd in The Song of the Severn, a celebration of Venables’ home county of Worcestershire and The Pine Boughs Past Music, a poignant tribute to the poetic talents of Ivor Gurney. Other songs include those with solo piano and arrangements by Graham J Lloyd, for string quartet. Each work highlights Venables’ gift of being able to take poetry to a higher level of appreciation and at the same time create works of lasting beauty. Sharply memorable music of bewitching lyricism, idiomatic grace and rapt instinct - GramophoneThe Carducci String Quartet [are] exemplary in their interpretations - BBC Music Magazine -
"The most fun part of my job is figuring out what to play live. There’s an infinite choice of immense, immortal music and I always try and design concert programmes a bit like a setlist for the audience. For this compilation (of my personal recordings from the last six years) I wanted to carry on in that vein and so I’ve made it a mix tape - these are the pieces that come up in my head unwarranted at 4am to get me through another rotten night of insomnia. These are the ones that always give me hope and a reason to hang on in there – because if music like this can exist then there is simply no question that the good outweighs the bad. They are my inside tracks."