CLASSIC YO-YO

Except for one "previously unreleased" recording and two new ones, this is a compilation of segments taken from older Yo-Yo Ma CDs, perhaps to whet listeners' appetite to hear the entire records. The disc represents a triumph of performance over material. The program consists of short pieces and single movements of long ones and serves to display Yo-Yo Ma's extraordinary versatility, his spectacular instrumental and musical gifts, and his remarkable ability to invest everything he plays with the same commitment and emotional concentration. 

There is no logic to the sequence, except that it begins and ends with solo cello. Bach, whom Ma plays tuned normally when unaccompanied and tuned low with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, may justify the CD's title but seems out of place. Moreover, juxtaposing him with O'Connor and Piazzolla is jarring, though the Tangos are beautiful. The transcription of Dvorák's lovely E-minor Slavonic Dance, despite the participation of violinist Itzhak Perlman and his golden tone, sounds like a movie soundtrack: all bravura and cheap effects.

The playing's the thing, and it is stunning, not only Yo-Yo Ma's, but that of all his collaborators, from vocalists Bobby McFerrin and Alison Krauss to pianist Emanuel Ax, Ma's duo partner of 25 years. Ax joins Ma for the Finale of Brahms's second cello sonata; that is what you may find yourself humming at the end. --Edith Eisler

The Soul of LADY HARMSWORTH

 This album offers a selection of popular violin miniatures from the period of Romanticism. Listening to these pieces it is easy to comprehend why we all get enchanted by virtuosity and that beautiful melodies always capture the human heart, young and old alike. The recording also features music that has been composed by the performer to demonstrate his own remarkable capacities while the album also has pieces that sound more like honest confessions overshadowed by grandiose compositions. The works are performed by Kristóf Baráti on his Stradivarius Lady Harmsworth and he is accompanied by pianist Gábor Farkas. 

Release date: January 8, 2016

What a good title for this selection of famous 19th-century encores. The ‘Lady Harmsworth’ in question is a 1703 masterpiece by Antonio Stradivari, though for Hungaroton to imply that it belongs to Kristóf Baráti is misleading: he has it on loan from the Stradivarius Society of Chicago. It is as beautiful an instrument to look at as it is to hear, producing in the words of one connoisseur ‘a cheerful, forthcoming tone as rich as its varnish colour suggests’.

And for those who like to hear the violin played at its sweet and acrobatic best, then Baráti is out of the top drawer. Born in Budapest in 1979, he puts one in mind of Vengerov, with the same intensity of sound, unbridled athleticism and, when needed, searing leaps into the stratosphere that send a tingle down the spine. Pianist Gábor Farkas, too, is no wallflower – listen to the precision and crisp rhythm he provides in the three Sarasate pieces – and, beneficially, he has been given equal billing in the sound picture. The four violinist-composers on the disc, not to mention Tchaikovsky, wrote keyboard parts that are meant to be heard. Too often they are relegated to the background or separated from the violin. Listen to Ruggiero Ricci in some of the same repertoire from the 1950s (Decca), fizzing with exuberance and technical wizardry but with poor Louis Persinger and Ernest Lush reduced to mere ciphers. Baráti and Farkas operate side by side and to far greater effect, even when the tempi of pieces such as Zapateado and Moto perpetuo are slightly more measured than Ricci’s.

With a rare chance to hear Ernst’s take for solo violin on Schubert’s ‘Der Erlkönig’ and all three movements (for once) of the Tchaikovsky suite, this disc comes very warmly recommended.

--gramophone.co.uk

Music from the novels of LOUIS de BERNIERES

Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the Latin Trilogy

"This disc is pure joy… Craig Ogden… has always chosen his recital programmes with wisdom, and, as a performer in the specialised realm of the classical guitar, he has opened our ears to the instruments breadth of repertory and to its expressive potential." --The Daily Telegraph ‘CD of the Week’

There was a fashion throughout Europe and the USA for the mandolin between about 1890 and 1914, and this enthusiasm encouraged many Italian players (mostly from the poor south) to travel abroad to, hopefully, find their fame and fortune. They may have been quite successful for a time, but the fashion soon disappeared and many of the players simply returned to Italy to resume their daily lives where they left off. The mandolin’s cultural status was never high, and the mandolin fraternity was never well organised. Consequently, many of these players faded into obscurity.

We know little of Benedetto Persichini. He was born around 1880/90, and was a gifted mandolin player with a beautiful Roman instrument. It had a very narrow fingerboard that enabled him to finger rapid passages more easily and execute the most difficult chord work. He used altered tuning a great deal to give a more full harmonic effect with six- and seven-note fhords.

In 1954, John Anson wrote in the BMG magazine:

Perichini was a very likeable person but temperamental and excitable. He must have been the despair of some of his landladies. He actually slept with his beloved mandolin at his bedside and thought nothing of trying out some tune that had entered his head at a time when most people were fast asleep.

Another mandolinist about whom we know little is Angy Palumbo. He may have been one of the many hopefuls who left Italy and found only modest success. His name appears on some published works, and it has been speculated that, as was common practice, that this is only a pseudonym for a better known player who was unable to publish works under his own name for contractual reasons.

(Thanks to Dr Paul Spark, author of The Classical Mandolin and They Early Mandolin)

For LOVERS Romantic Classics

Wild happiness, butterflies in your stomach, an all-consuming longing - anymore who has been in love knows the emotional ups and downs involved. No other art form can reflect and express romantic love as directly and intensely as music. This CD contains some of the most romantic compositions ever written - as background music for dreams filled with yearning, or to enjoy together with the person that sets your heart aflutter!

Kovacevich · Menuhin · Meyer · Haitink · Karajan · Marriner

PARIS

This disc was Gramophone's "Recording of the Month" for March 1998.

Brilliant, charming & versatile: When Emmanuel Pahud became the youngest member of the Berlin Philharmonic at the age of just 22, he was at the beginning of an unprecedented career. His technical brilliance and the exceptional musical versatility with which Pahud adapts "to the colours of the music or teh composer's ideas like a chameleon" have made the charismatic musician one of the most successful flautists of our time.

SOLO

“McCarthy offers good, solid, forthright interpretations, especially of the works that appear in their original form. It is an excellent opportunity to celebrate this unusual corner of piano repertoire. But where this CD wins most is in its symbolism: an unlikely candidate for piano stardom overcomes a massive obstacle and fulfils his dream despite everything. That can do more than offer pleasant listening; it can be an example and an inspiration” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2015 ****

“McCarthy is a fine pianist and the piano sings with a generous tone.” --Gramophone Magazine, October 2015

Nicholas McCarthy (piano)

Born without his right hand, award-winning British pianist Nicholas Mccarthy is a champion of the brave, dynamic world of left-hand repertoire. here, in his first solo album, he scales the heights of expressive and virtuosic possibility, presenting his own and others’ transcriptions of works – many of them classical favourites, such as Puccini’s “o mio babbino caro” and Gershwin’s “summertime” – alongside pieces written especially for the left hand. the result is a fascinating and absorbing programme which traces the history of this unique genre from its nineteenth-century beginnings to the present day.

VOCALISE

On her new CD "Vocalise" adds Olga Scheps the piano a beguiling voice with transcriptions and arrangements of vocal compositions of romantic composers such as Franz Liszt's "Liebestraum" and "dedication" (after a song by Robert Schumann), Rachmaninoff Song without Words "Vocalise" or Franz Schubert multifaceted "Wanderer Fantasy", quoted one of his art songs in Schubert. Even with further worth discovering pieces of Chopin, Brahms and Others succeeds in "sing" Olga Scheps adorable on her instrument.

Release date: 24th July 2015

 

Children’s CELLO

“Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough open with a beginners' open-string solo (Ludwig Lebell's Berceuse orientale) and continue with increasingly challenging material that culminates in Gaspar Cassadó's bravura Requiebros. The contemporary selections are especially satisfying. Gavin Bryars's With Miriam by the River pays homage to the composer's cello-playing mother in music of quiet, lyrical intensity. Howard Blake's Archangel's Lullaby, written to celebrate the birth of Isserlis's son Gabriel, has a Fauré-like sensibility... Hough's Angelic Song (yet another gift to Gabriel Isserlis) is a ravishingly simple meditation. 

Isserlis père's own The Haunted House may not merit repeated hearings but its silliness is sure to provide a chuckle or two, aided by Simon Callow's sly narration, and the cello's role a sound-effects machine could motivate many youngsters to pick up instrument. Delightful.” --Gramophone Magazine, July 2006