Category: Classical
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The Danish Piano Trio: Danish Romantic Piano Trios
This lovely debut album sees The Danish Piano Trio present a beautiful collection of piano based music and it was only when playing it after a long hard day that we appreciated its virtue. The trio is newly-formed and comprises three of Denmark’s top musicians: pianist Katrine Gislinge, cellist Toke Møldrup and violinist Lars…
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Vivaldi: Sacred Music, Vol 4, In Turbato Mare Irato
Another CD in the “nice for Christmas without being Christmassy” vein, and you can impress your friends with your erudition, saying: “Ah, yes, Vivaldi, seen as a one-hit wonder because of his big album Four Seasons but actually a prolific composer across a variety of genres”. The cover’s got Latin on, too. Antonio Vivaldi…
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Terence Charlston: Mersenne’s Clavichord
This pleasant album is more important for scholars of music and keyboard buffs than your casual listener, though it’s a nice enough collection. Early-music specialist Terence Charlston is playing Mersenne’s Clavichord, a clavichord built according to specifications left by Marin Mersenne – no examples of an original French clavichord survive. Wikipedia reports that Mersenne, a…
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EJ Moeran: Folksong Arrangements
We’ve been enjoying this collection of folk tunes, which doesn’t sound as you might think, neither stuffy nor reminiscent of a bearded man in sandals with one finger in his ear. A modern equivalent — CDs are like buses — is the Beans on Toast album (review next week); that band’s Jay McAllister being an…
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Moores Symphony Orchestra: Fortmann, Nelson, Lieuwen and Grainger
We can’t work out what links these four interesting pieces except the Moores Symphony Orchestra performed them between 2008 and 2013. It seems to lack a central theme and varies in tone and mood, but it is interesting. It’s an hour or so’s entertainment rather than a CD with a set mood. Admittedly, all four…
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Natalia Andreeva: Russian Piano Music (Vol 11) Galina Ustvolskaya
This double CD of piano music is for people who like a touch of bleakness to their listening. Galina Ustvolskaya was a shy and introspective composer known, according to the sleeve notes, as “the lady with the hammer” because of her unrelenting rhythms. The sleeve notes talk about her distinctive notation, which as far as…
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George Crumb: Voices from the Morning of the Earth; Complete Crumb Edition, Vol 17
More Crumb (it’s about the third this year — we’ve quite become fans) and the opening piece on this, the title work, has the strapline American Songbook VI, which is an early warning for avant-garde takes on popular tunes by the likes of Bob Dylan (Never mind “Judas” when he went electric!). It’s a hypnotic…
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