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Julian Perkins – Handel’s Attick: Music for Solo Clavichord (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:33 minutes | 1,48 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deux-Elles Limited
This album celebrates the delicacy and intimacy of the clavichord, the harpsichord’s quieter cousin, which was central to the daily life of musicians for centuries. The title is inspired by the story that Handel’s early biographer John Mainwaring tells, ab out the young Handel secretly going up to the attic during the night to practise on the clavichord, in defiance of his father. The pieces in the first half are by some of those composers mentioned in a notebook of 1698, now lost, which Handel used while he was studying in Halle with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. The second half includes pieces Handel might have played on such an instrument to himself later in life, for relaxation and maybe even solace, away from the demands and intrigues of his frantic public l ife. Dubbed ‘‘The Indiana Jones of Early Music’’ by BBC Radio 3, Julian Perkins brings a dynamic and adventurous spirit to all of his music – making. In 2022 he succeeded Monica Huggett as Artistic Director of the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Oregon, USA. B ased in the UK, he is also Artistic Director of Cambridge Handel Opera and the period – instrument ensemble Sounds Baroque, and enjoys a busy and varied career as a solo keyboard player, chamber musician and conductor/director.
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Julia Igonina, Maxim Emelyanychev – Jazz (Akhunov, Poulenc, Messiaen) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:41 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Aparté
When the composer Sergey Akhunov discovered the ground-breaking book of 1947, “Jazz”, by Henri Matisse – a collection of prints of his colourful cut-paper collages – he was struck by its almost surreal nature, and he conceived the idea of composing music with the title “Jazz”, but which, like Matisse’s book, has nothing to do with jazz. That inspiration finally took shape when Julia Igonina and Maxim Emelyanychev commissioned him to compose a work for them. The result was Jazz, a cycle for violin and piano: fifteen miniatures, bearing titles taken from the prints in Matisse’s book. On this new recording, those pieces are brought together with two French masterpieces of the 1940s by Messiaen and Poulenc (whose favourite painter was Matisse), performed by Julia Igonina and Maxim Emelyanychev on period instruments – violin with gut strings and a magnificent 1908 Blüthner piano (part of the collection of the Piano Museum in Rybinsk).
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Joanna Sternberg – I’ve Got Me (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 32:39 minutes | 525 MB | Genre: Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Female Vocal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fat Possum
Joanna Sternberg is one of the great songwriters of the day, with a unique ability to make the listener feel emotional and often joyous, while conveying universal human difficulties of anxiety and insecurity. A virtuosic musician, Joanna played every instrument on their brilliant new album, I’ve Got Me.
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Joachim Kühn – Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic – Komeda (Live) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:03 minutes | 1,46 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ACT Music
Krzysztof Komeda has legendary status in Polish jazz, and was also one of the pioneers of European jazz. His wider fame resides largely in his work as a film composer – he wrote the soundtracks for all of Roman Polanski’s early films, notably “Dance of the Vampires” and “Rosemary’s Baby”. Komeda died in 1969, tragically early, at the age of just 37, but left a hugely influential body of work. Joachim Kühn, now a jazz piano icon in his own right, is a great admirer of Komeda, whom he met in person in Warsaw in 1965. As part of the Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic concert series, curated by Siggi Loch, he performed a major tribute concert to him on 14 October 2022, at which he played in three formats: solo piano, with his New Trio, and alongside Poland’s Atom String Quartet.
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Joachim Carr – Numinosum: Works by Bach-Busoni, Liszt, Franck & Messiaen (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:17 minutes | 990 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Claves Records
This album features works by composers for whom the conception and creation of music was intimately bound up with a religious attitude towards the world. Before the birth of aesthetics in the 18th century, the symbolic or “external” meanings of music resided in the music itself; neither its expressiveness nor its purpose as an integral part of social and religious rituals were separated from a larger context of moral and spiritual considerations. In this sense, although their tonal languages and forms differ greatly, later composers such as Liszt, Franck and Messiaen followed the spirit of Bach, reflecting a musical philosophy in which musical means and theological ends were deeply intertwined, if not one and the same.
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Roman Zaslavsky – Ingenious Opposites, Vol. 2: Roman Zaslavsky plays works of Sergei Rachmaninov and Sergei Prokofiev (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:10 minutes | 889 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © EuroArts Music International GmbH
Roman Zaslavsky presents the artistic and historic context of two composers who left their indelible mark on the development of music in the 20th Century: Sergei Rachmaninov and Sergei Prokofiev, who where very different though being contemporaries. Prokofiev was open for the new, wanted to finish with Romanticism and turned towards Modernism, while Rachmaninov was rooted in Romantiscism and continued this tradition in his own way. Ingenious Opposites Vol. 2 is the second HD Audio production which is released by EuroArts. “This second production develops the theme further and picks up the thread where the first left off. Much as Schumann and Liszt left an indelible mark on the evolution of music in Germany, these two composers had a similar impact on composition and piano school in Russia, representing two distinctly different currents.”
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Rolf Kuhn – Yellow + Blue (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:01:58 minutes | 695 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
The legendary 88-year-old clarinetist Rolf Kühn presents his new single “Yellow And Blue”, the first foretaste for his upcoming eponymous album, which celebrates its release on June 1st via MPS Records. His first single “Yellow And Blue” is one of five new compositions. The single captivates with the contrast of soft, delicate, bluesy tones and stands next to the bright, the impulsive light, which turns the song into a new musical color. Blue and Yellow. Rest and awakening. Body and Soul. It all signifies intense life and love, as the kaleidoscope of colors merge to create something new.
As the album title suggests, the new album has contrasts for a theme. Besides new compositions he plays well-known ballads and legendary love songs. In doing so, he delivers new meanings and a fresh sound to the pieces. A sentimental look back is simply not his thing. Together with his new quartet of pianist Frank Chastenier, bassist Lisa Wulff, and percussionist Tupac Mantilla, Kühn contrasts his sensitive side with his unbridled desire to experiment.
Read moreRolando Villazon, Xavier de Maistre – Serenata Latina (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]
Rolando Villazon, Xavier de Maistre – Serenata Latina (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:50 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Rolando Villazón and Xavier de Maistre present Serenata latina, a rich and varied programme of Latin American songs
Album features vocal works heard for the first time with harp accompaniments, including iconic pieces by Carlos Guastavino, Ariel Ramírez and Alberto Ginastera
Serenata latina to be released by Deutsche Grammophon in October 2020
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Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams – Third Plane (1977/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 39:40 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Original Jazz Classics
Ron Carter served as sideman on so many Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams sessions, and now he brings his stalwart colleagues out on his own date. The results are everything you would expect from this stellar trio. Hancock and Williams were coming off a period in their careers during which they had focused on building a crossover audience with fusion music. But here they are back in a mainstream attitude, and you can sense the sheer fun of their music-making. A great track, and the whole Third Plane album stands out as one of the best trio recordings from a decade marked by outstanding threesomes.
„This reunion of Miles Davis’ mid-’60s rhythm section (bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and drummer Tony Williams) has its moments but is not particularly memorable. Performing three of Carter’s songs, one apiece from Hancock and Williams, and the standard “Stella by Starlight,” the solos are fine, but on the whole, little special occurs; the magic is missing.“ –Scott Yanow
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Ron Carter & Danny Simmons – The Brown Beatnik Tomes (Live At BRIC House) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 31:17 minutes | 321 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Blue Note Records
Blue Note has announced the 7 June release of The Brown Beatnik Tomes — Live at BRIC House by the great jazz bassist Ron Carter and novelist, poet and abstract expressionist painter Danny Simmons.The album was recorded at an autumn date at the Brooklyn location of the title by Carter — the veteran of Miles Davis’ band and more than 2,200 sessions — and the Tony Award-winning Simmons, the co-founder of Def Poetry Jam. The lead track from the project, ‘For A Pistol,’ is out now.
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Ronald Brautigam – Mendelssohn: Piano Concertos (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:08 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
This is the ninth installment in Ronald Brautigam’s series of the complete piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As on previous discs, Brautigam whose ‘muscular yet sensitively nuanced command of Mozartian discourse’ (BBC Music Magazine) is supported by Die Kölner Akademie under Michael Alexander Willens. The opening work on this installment is the C major concerto, K 415, which was first performed on 23rd March 1783 in the presence of Emperor Joseph II. K 415 was composed in conjunction with the Concerto No. 11 in F major, K 413, which in contrast is a more intimate creation, especially in its Larghetto middle movement, in which Mozart achieves some of his most memorable writing, with the various textures of the orchestra providing a cushion of sound for a delicious cantabile aria for the piano a model that was to become almost a trademark of his later concerto slow movements. The disc closes with Concerto No. 8 in C major, K 246, composed some six years earlier. Mozart wrote it for Countess Antonia Lützow, one of his father’s pupils, and in terms of technical difficulty, it is among the least demanding of his piano concertos which nevertheless didn’t stop Mozart from performing it himself on several occasions.
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Roland Hanna – Gershwin Carmichael Cats (1982/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:35 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CTI Records
Pianist Roland Hanna interprets three famous Hoagy Carmichael tunes, two by Gershwin, and (unfortunately) the “Theme from Cats.” Each tune on this LP is played with a different instrumentation, ranging from Hanna’s duet with bassist Mike Richmond on “Embraceable You” to a trio, quartet, quintet, sextet and (for a poppish rendition of “Cats”) ten-piece unit. Best is “Skylark,” which has fine spots for trumpeter Chet Baker and guitarist Larry Coryell.
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Rohan de Saram, Druvi de Saram, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra & Anatole Fistoulari – Prokofiev: Works (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:06 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © First Hand Records
All recordings featured on this album are live studio recordings made in 1971 and 1972 for radio broadcast in Holland. Written for the great cellist Rostropovich and considered one of the most difficult cello concertos, Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto, Op. 58 is not often recorded and thus this FHR album is a welcome issue.
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Rohan De Saram – Bax, Ligeti, Dallapiccola & Cassadó: Works for Solo Cello (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:10 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © First Hand Records
The present album features four works which have come to the forefront of repertoire for solo cello from the modern era. Arnold Bax’s Rhapsodic Ballad is his only solo piece for this instrument. It is dramatic, inventive and full of atmosphere. Likely the most often performed of his earlier works, Ligeti’s Sonata for Solo Cello has for over a decade been used as a test piece for the Rostropovich Competition in Paris. Dallapiccola’s composition was written for the Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassadó. It is a substantial, powerful work, and an early serial composition of the composer, full of colourful effects and humour.
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Florian Boesch, Malcolm Martineau – Schumann: Dichterliebe & Kerner Lieder (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:03:26 minutes | 2,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Fourteen years ago, the baritone Florian Boesch released a disc devoted to Schumann’s settings of the poet Heinrich Heine. It included the nine songs of the Op 24 Liederkreis, but omitted the best known of all Schumann’s cycles, the 16 songs to Heine texts that make up his Dichterliebe. Partnered as before by the ever meticulous Malcolm Martineau, Boesch has now remedied that omission with a new recording of that pinnacle of the German lied tradition.
It’s a typically considered performance, in which Boesch’s stealthy, velvety tone and unfailing attention to words are used to superb effect. Whether darkening his timbre for the seventh number, Ich Grolle Nicht, or hollowing it out for the funereal lament of the 13th, Ich Hab’ im Traum Geweinet, he finds the perfect sound world to match up the expressive weight of each song.
Just occasionally he overdoes things, whether by choosing a tempo that seems fractionally too slow for the meaning of the music or the text, or by modulating his tone a bit too intensely, so that the song acquires a kind of gothic creepiness. By and large, though, this is as fine a recorded performance of Dichterliebe as any released in recent years.
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