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Parry: Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Blest Pair of Sirens

London Mozart Players

Choral Music (Choirs) - Released September 8, 2023 | Chandos

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone: Recording of the Month
Hubert Parry's Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, from 1880, here receives its world-recorded premiere. Perhaps recording companies thought there wouldn't be much of a market for a heavy 19th century choral work with, it must be said, a ponderous text by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Prometheus was a play intended to be read, not performed, just to give an idea). How wrong they were. This release made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023, and it is altogether enjoyable. At the time, Parry was under the spell of Wagner, whom he traveled to Bayreuth to meet. That influence certainly shows up in Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, with its basically declamatory text, partly through-composed music, wind-and-brass-heavy orchestration, and splashes of chromaticism. Yet what is remarkable is that the music does not come off as an imitation of Wagner at all. Rather, it uses elements of his style to match a specific kind of English literary text. The work gradually disappeared, but it would be surprising if Elgar, whom it clearly prefigures, did not know it well. The performances here are luminous, with William Vann using the lighter-than-expected London Mozart Players to create transparent textures against which he can set the substantial voices of Sarah Fox, Sarah Connolly, and other soloists. Parry did write some shorter pieces that remain in the repertory; one of these, Blest Pair of Sirens, is included here as a finale. However, the Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound are the main news here, and this performance, showing how this kind of thing should be done, may generate a new life for the work. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Beethoven: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1

Dover Quartet

Chamber Music - Released September 11, 2020 | Cedille

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Beethoven: Les quatuors, Vol. 1

Quatuor Végh

Chamber Music - Released January 1, 1987 | naïve classique

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Berlioz : Harold en Italie (Live) - Les Nuits d'été

Les Siècles

Classical - Released January 18, 2019 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama - Choc de Classica
A new aesthetic calls for new forms: such is the challenge the composer set for himself in the two works presented here. In Les Nuits d’été, Berlioz pioneered, well before Mahler and Ravel, a song cycle for voice and orchestra. In Harold in Italy, scored for large orchestra and solo viola, he experimented with the symphonic genre. These period-instrument performances by Les Siècles, led by François-Xavier Roth, with violist Tabea Zimmermann, also feature Stéphane Degout in the vocal cycle, heard here in the composer’s own version for baritone. File under: out of the ordinary. © harmonia mundi
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Handel: As Steals The Morn...Arias & Scenes for Tenor

Mark Padmore

Classical - Released December 21, 2012 | harmonia mundi

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Beethoven: Concerto No.3, Sonatas Nos. 32 & 14 'Moonlight'

Fazil Say

Keyboard Concertos - Released January 13, 2014 | naïve classique

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
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Granados & Turina : Piano Quintets

Javier Perianes

Quintets - Released November 6, 2015 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4 étoiles Classica - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
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Berlioz: Harold en Italie

Lise Berthaud

Classical - Released June 30, 2014 | Naxos

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Not quite a viola concerto and not just a symphony with an obbligato viola part, Hector Berlioz's Harold en Italie -- based on Lord Byron's poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and events from the composer's own sojourn in Italy for the Prix de Rome -- is a fascinating hybrid that embraces both forms and even anticipates the Lisztian tone poem. This performance by violist Lise Berthaud and the Orchestre National de Lyon, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, shows that they are fully conscious of the work's peculiar nature, so a degree of flexibility is observed, noticeably in the varied treatment of the viola. At times playing as a prominent soloist, at others merely providing filigree for color, Berthaud handles both sides of her part with grace and makes her presence felt, even when the viola's dynamics are extremely soft. Slatkin leads the orchestra with energy and humor, making sure that the picturesque aspects of the piece are vividly conveyed. For filler, two of Berlioz's most vibrant overtures are included, Roman Carnival and Benvenuto Cellini, along with the Rêverie et caprice for violin and orchestra, featuring Giovanni Radivo as soloist. This program is sure to please Berlioz aficionados, and fans of Berthaud should definitely take note of her appearance here.© TiVo
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Aulin, Moberg, Andrée: Orchestral Works

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Symphonic Music - Released June 4, 2021 | Naxos Sweden - Nilento

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Granados: Goyescas, valses poéticos, Allegro de concierto & Zapateado

Xiayin Wang

Classical - Released February 1, 2018 | Chandos

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A pianist of keen musicality and sweeping virtuosity, Xiayin Wang returns to solo repertoire with this fascinating exploration of works by Enrique Granados, revealing a technically challenging and complex musical language, yet full of colour and emotional intensity. Perhaps because the source of their inspiration was so close to the composer’s heart, the Goyescas piano pieces are the most liberated examples of the genius of Granados. ‘I have written’, he said, without exaggeration, ‘a collection of great sweep and difficulty’, which Xiayin Wang addresses with complete mastery. Across the repertoire featured here, this album reveals the genius of Granados, a composer of wide contrast whose music deserves to be heard more often. While the brilliance of Granados as a composer of piano music in a more conventional idiom is convincingly exemplified in the Allegro de concierto and in Zapateado, inspired by Andalusian flamenco, the Ochos Valses poéticos are unique and uncharacteristic in that they are neither virtuosic in their piano scoring nor Spanish in style.© Chandos
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Granados: Chamber Music with Piano

Trio Rodin

Chamber Music - Released January 1, 2016 | Aevea Classics

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Granados: Goyescas, Op. 11

Viviana Lasaracina

Classical - Released May 21, 2021 | Dynamic

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There are dozens of active recordings of Enrique Granados' masterpiece Goyescas in the catalog, and the standard one by Alicia de Larrocha is still entirely viable, but this 2021 release by pianist Viviana Lasaracina has hit the charts, and it's easy to see why. The Goyescas (Pieces Inspired by Goya) tell a little love story; Granados specified paintings for only two of the seven movements, but the work is a bit like Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. It has hints of flamenco and other Spanish folk forms, and its glittering ornamentation brings to mind Domenico Scarlatti. However, the major influence is Liszt, and it is by appreciating this that Lasaracina manages to stand out from the crowd. Her technical equipment in this score, one of the most difficult in the entire piano repertory, is superb, yet it is her way with the improvisatory quality of the music that brings it alive. Her playing is charismatic even with no physical presence of the pianist involved. Listen to the fourth goyesca, "Quejas, ó La Maja y el ruiseñor" ("Complaints, or The Girl and the Nightingale"), for a scene that will unroll before the listener's mind's eye (and bring out the relationship to the song Bésame mucho besides). Lasaracina closes the program with the Allegro concierto, Op. 46, a showpiece work that resolves the Goyescas' dreamlike atmosphere. The Dynamic label's rather closed-in studio sound doesn't fit the ambiance in which Granados, a great touring virtuoso, would have performed these pieces, but Lasaracina's precision and power come through undisturbed. An entirely absorbing recording of these pieces. © TiVo
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Granados: Danses espagnoles, Valses Poétiques - Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha

Classical - Released September 25, 1995 | Sony Classical

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Mendelssohn: Octet for Strings and Piano Trio No. 1

Smetana Quartet, Janáček Quartet, Suk Trio

Chamber Music - Released January 21, 2002 | Supraphon a.s.

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Brahms: Trio, Op. 114 & Sonatas, Op. 120

Miguel Da Silva

Classical - Released March 26, 2021 | Alpha Classics

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Brahms’ Trio, Op. 114, originally conceived for clarinet (like the two Sonatas Op. 120), is presented here in its version with viola: "Like all Brahms’s works, this Trio is a vocal, melodic piece. And the viola is perhaps the instrument of the string quartet that comes closest to the human voice", says violist Miguel Da Silva. "This version with viola obliges me, as a cellist, to listen differently: our two stringed instruments must “breathe” together and match their articulation", continues Xavier Phillips. These three works from late in Brahms’s career testify to his modernity: "Brahms was often considered a classical composer who was impervious to modernity, the guardian of a certain tradition", says pianist François-Frédéric Guy, who agrees with Schoenberg that he was, on the contrary, highly innovative: "We have a fine example, in the trio, of the extraordinary modernity of his combinations of rhythm and timbre: he is a total innovator". © Alpha Classics
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Concertos pour violon & Scènes Poétiques

Chloë Hanslip

Classical - Released February 4, 2008 | Naxos

Booklet Distinctions 4 étoiles du Monde de la Musique
The combination of the violin works of Benjamin Godard and violinist Chloë Hanslip on an album is, in a way, quite a natural choice. Godard began his career as a child prodigy on the violin. He eventually turned his focus to composition and in his short lifespan churned out one piece after another, with opus numbers reaching well into the hundreds. His works for violin were among his most successful and were not subject to the same amount of criticism for rapidity and carelessness with which he sometimes composed. Like Godard, Hanslip began her life as a child prodigy. She managed to hold on to the momentum of her early career and is now a prominent figure on the world's concert stage. The brilliance and intensity of her playing immediately capture and maintain the listener's attention throughout what are likely to be relatively unknown compositions. From the deep, sultry reaches of her G string to the sparkling, piercing high notes on her E string, Hanslip is equipped with an impressive array of colors. The accompaniment provided by the Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra Kosice is noticeably less precise and nuanced, but Hanslip's beautiful interpretation of these deeply Romantic works more than makes up for any shortcomings in the orchestra. © TiVo
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Weigl: String Quartet Works

Albane Carrère

Quartets - Released April 1, 2023 | Urania Records

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Mendelssohn & Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos

Zino Francescatti

Classical - Released March 7, 1955 | Sony Classical