Sinfonia Varsovia & Ian Hobson – Stöhr: Orchestral Music, Vol. 2 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:01 minutes | 640 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
This second volume of the orchestral music of the Austro- American composer Richard Stöhr (1874–1967) reveals further marvels: the first of his two suites for string orchestra encases a moving slow movement between a charming prelude and an elegant fugue; and the four imposing spans of the expansive First Symphony offer grandeur and heartfelt profundity – as well as irresistibly catchy tunes that will set the foot tapping. Stöhr writes in a musical language somewhere between Bruckner, Mahler and his exact Viennese contemporary Franz Schmidt – but it is a voice increasingly readily recognised as his own.
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Ian Hobson – Moszkowski: Complete Music for Solo Piano, Vol. 1 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:02 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925) wrote a considerable quantity of piano music, but it is generally remembered today only for a single piece, Étincelles, which Horowitz enjoyed playing. The early works on this first instalment in Ian Hobson’s survey of Moszkowski’s complete music for solo piano reveal a debt to Mendelssohn and Schumann, but the craftsmanship already justifies a later remark of Paderewski’s: “After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano, and his writing embraces the whole gamut of piano technique”.
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Ian Hobson – Moritz Moszkowski: Complete Music for Solo Piano, Vol. II (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:18:41 minutes | 701 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
Although Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) wrote a considerable quantity of piano music, only a single piece, ‘Étincelles’, made it into the repertoire, not least because Horowitz enjoyed playing it. The early works on this second instalment in Ian Hobson’s survey of Moszkowski’s complete music for solo piano reveal a debt to Mendelssohn and Schumann, but the effortless craftsmanship heard here already justifies a later remark of Paderewski’s: ‘After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano, and his writing embraces the whole gamut of piano technique’. Most of the pieces in Opp. 15 and 18 are attractive salon miniatures, but the Three Piano Pieces in Dance Form, Op. 17, are extended Lisztian essays that showcase Moszkowski’s mastery of the keyboard and his command of form.
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Sherban Lupu, Viorela Ciucur, Sinfonia Da Camera & Ian Hobson – The Unknown Enescu, Vol. 2 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:12:50 minutes | 684 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
Although Enescu gave opus numbers to only 33 of his works, he left an enormous number of pieces in varying stages of composition, from sketches and draft outlines to isolated movements and some scores that are almost complete. Working with a handful of composers and musicologists – fellow Romanians with specialist knowledge of Enescu’s style – the violinist Sherban Lupu has produced performing editions of a number of previously unknown works, heard here in the context of other Enescu rarities. One of these ‘rescued’ pieces, hiding behind the modest title of Caprice Roumain, is nothing less than a major violin concerto.
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Agnieszka Kopacka, Sinfonia Varsovia & Ian Hobson – Stöhr: Orchestral Music, Vol. 1 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:09:08 minutes | 654 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
These two works for string orchestra were composed on either side of the flight of the Viennese composer Richard Stöhr (1874–1967) from occupied Austria to the USA, and from prominence and danger to liberty and obscurity, and they reflect the change in his circumstances: the Concerto in the Old Style is expansive, witty, energetic and endlessly good-natured, whereas the Second Suite is introspective, understated and deeply felt. These first recordings allow the discovery of two major additions to the repertoire for strings; the Second Suite is also one of the last grand statements of late Romanticism.
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