Category: Uncategorized
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Jean Sibelius: Symphony No2 in D Major, Finlandia, and Karelia Suite (live)
This CD (not for the first time, we’d guess) draws together the best-known tunes of Finnish composer Sibelius. It opens with Finlandia, composed as a protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, then in control of Finland. The number of great pieces of music written about Press freedom must number in the low digits,…
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Enrique Granados: Orchestral Works Vol. 2
Unlike the Portuguese album we reviewed recently, Enrique Granados Campiña, who died 100 years ago, was a Spanish pianist and composer whose music in places sounds very Spanish, its straightforward sound being immediately appealing. The CD opens with Intermezzo from his one-act opera Goyescas, apparently one of the best-loved pieces in Spanish music. It’s easy…
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Dario Castello: Sonate Concertae 1629
We always seem to getting CDs of forgotten geniuses; this time its Dario Castello, whose music was published in 1621 and 1629 and was so groundbreaking it continued to be reprinted until 1658. Castello’s music was popular throughout the c17th and beyond, too. Unlike some of the CDs reviewed recently, this was not music composed…
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Goo Goo: Dolls Boxes
Goo Goo Dolls have sold 10m albums but we bet 9m+ of those are in the States, where formulaic music goes down well. The British are more discerning. We’ve had several Goo Goo Dolls albums over the years, and it’s melodic rock we think we should like more but just never play. If you want…
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Bouche: So Long Solemn
This Kickstarter-funded debut album from Bouche is slow and with a lot of silence; if you half listen it sounds a bit sedate and quiet so you have to pay attention. The music is somewhere between jazz, blues and folk, though it was the mariachi-style trumpet in The Storm that first caught our ears. The…
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Kate Halsall: Miniaturised Concertos and Maché
In the paper, we lumped this together with John Metcalfe’s Appearance Of Colour because they seemed similar but they’re not really. Metcalfe’s album is soothe and calming and reflective of nature, Halsall is angular and unsettling, and more based in hardware. Like Metcalfe, Halsall, a pianist, mixes genres; the album stems from a project started…
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John Metcalfe: The Appearance Of Colour
We bought this after previewing a gig he was playing: he’s a violinist who was once a member of The Durutti Column, and has provided string arrangements for the likes of Morrissey, Blur and Bat For Lashes. He sounded interesting. You’ve got to listen closely to this, otherwise it drifts by. The music varies between…
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Hoffmeister/Beethoven: Duos for violin and cello
Franz Anton Hoffmeister worked as both a composer and a publisher. In 1778 he was appointed kapellmeister to Count Franz von Szecsenyi; in his publishing job he was friendly with Mozart, and published work by Mozart and Beethoven. He also composed himself. We’d guess he was workmanlike rather than a great composer so his publishing…
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Max Raptor: Max Raptor
We’ve been getting Max Raptor material for some years and the raucous punk/rockers get better each time. The opener on this new album, Keep The Peace, is excellent: it sounded like they poured the ingredients of high energy punk into a tube of toothpaste and what came out was more intense and focused than what…
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