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Barcelona Clarinet Players - Jack Stamp: Chamber Music, Vol. 2 (2024)

Posted By: ciklon5
Barcelona Clarinet Players - Jack Stamp: Chamber Music, Vol. 2 (2024)

Barcelona Clarinet Players - Jack Stamp: Chamber Music, Vol. 2 (2024)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 1:06:01 | 282 / 151 Mb
Genre: Classical

Celebrating his 70th birthday on March 5th, the American composer John Stamp (b. 1954) – universally known as ‘Jack’ – is a familiar figure in the worlds of the symphonic wind-band movement that flourishes in US universities and of the brass band on both sides of the Atlantic. When the Barcelona Clarinet Players asked him for a new work, and then proposed this album, he had to create the repertoire from scratch. The range of moods he has generated here is surprisingly wide, from gentle night-music that caresses the ear, via jaunty fugal textures and buoyant counterpoint, to catchy dance-rhythms that set the foot tapping.

Nicolas Horvath, Dimitri Malignan, Elizaveta Agrafenina - Hermann: Complete Surviving Music, Vol. 3 (2024)

Posted By: ciklon5
Nicolas Horvath, Dimitri Malignan, Elizaveta Agrafenina - Hermann: Complete Surviving Music, Vol. 3 (2024)

Nicolas Horvath, Dimitri Malignan, Elizaveta Agrafenina - Hermann: Complete Surviving Music, Vol. 3 (2024)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless +Booklet | 1:08:16 | 313 Mb
Genre: Classical

Pál Hermann, born in Budapest in 1902, was not only one of the leading cellists of his generation; he was also an important composer, one of the major figures in Hungarian music in the generation after his teachers Bartók and Kodály. But since only two of his works were published before his early death – in 1944, at the hands of the Nazis – and many more of them were lost, he has not had the esteem that he deserves. The kaleidoscopic variety of the works on this third, and final, volume of his surviving compositions – biting Bartókian piano pieces, Neo-Baroque essays of considerable contrapuntal ingenuity, songs with a French Impressionist flavour, even a sly transcription of a foxtrot – underlines how much was lost with his murder.

Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, The Western Wyndes, Gareth Wilson - Marc’Antonio Ingegneri Vol.4 (2024)

Posted By: ciklon5
Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, The Western Wyndes, Gareth Wilson - Marc’Antonio Ingegneri Vol.4 (2024)

Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, The Western Wyndes, Gareth Wilson - Marc’Antonio Ingegneri Vol.4 (2024)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless +Booklet | 1:16:45 | 363 Mb
Genre: Classical

The Cremonese composer Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535/36–92) is chiefly remembered as the teacher of Claudio Monteverdi while, for well-nigh 500 years, his own achievements were left to sit in the shadows. This fourth in a series of pioneering recordings from the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, presents a sequence of music for Holy Week and Easter, confirming Ingegneri to have been one of the masters of his age. The striking range of moods heard here will confound conventional expectations of Renaissance polyphony: Ingegneri’s emotional palette extends from tender intimacy in some of these motets to dancing, celebratory jubilation in the Mass setting – all of it music of breathtaking richness and beauty.

Hedvig Paulig, Ilmo Ranta, Jan Söderblom - Erkki Melartin: Songs to Swedish Texts (2018)

Posted By: tirexiss
Hedvig Paulig, Ilmo Ranta, Jan Söderblom - Erkki Melartin: Songs to Swedish Texts (2018)

Hedvig Paulig, Ilmo Ranta, Jan Söderblom - Erkki Melartin: Songs to Swedish Texts (2018)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 53:25 | 220 MB
Genre: Classical, Vocal | Label: Toccata Classics | Catalog: TOCC 0416

The Finnish composer Erkki Melartin (1875–1937) wrote around 250 art-songs, often grouping settings of different languages and different dates into unrelated and sometimes untitled opus numbers. But what might be a nightmare for the musicologist is a treasure trove for the enthusiast for Nordic song, as this recital of some of the best of Melartin’s Swedish settings will prove, with music that often sounds rather like Sibelius tinged with French Impressionism.

Tomasz Kamieniak - Niemann: Piano Music, Vol. 1 (2024)

Posted By: ciklon5
Tomasz Kamieniak - Niemann: Piano Music, Vol. 1 (2024)

Tomasz Kamieniak - Niemann: Piano Music, Vol. 1 (2024)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless +Booklet | 1:16:28 | 275 Mb
Genre: Classical

The largest part of the output of the Hamburg-born composer and writer Walter Niemann (1876–1973), a student of both Humperdinck and Reinecke, is piano music: an astonishing 1,000 or so pieces, divided into 189 opus numbers. Most of them are lyrical miniatures in a warm and approachable late-Romantic style, some evoking the music of the past. Occasionally, though, as in Hamburg, a recollection of scenes from his childhood, a degree of mild dissonance indicates his desire to stay true to his memories of growing up in a port city.

Jan Lehtola, Mari-Anni Hilander and Henri Tikkanen - Axel Ruoff: Complete Works for Organ, Vol. 5 (2024)

Posted By: ciklon5
Jan Lehtola, Mari-Anni Hilander and Henri Tikkanen - Axel Ruoff: Complete Works for Organ, Vol. 5 (2024)

Jan Lehtola, Mari-Anni Hilander and Henri Tikkanen - Axel Ruoff: Complete Works for Organ, Vol. 5 (2024)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless +Booklet | 1:18:15 | 271 Mb
Genre: Classical

This final instalment of the organ compositions of Axel Ruoff (born in Stuttgart in 1957) presents two starkly contrasted sides of his musical personality: three of them, for voice and organ, are concerned with the spiritual – two even addressing head-on the issue of death itself – and are thus solemn and hieratic, whereas the concluding work is a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek set of variations on ‘Happy Birthday’, written as a present for Ruoff’s publisher on his 80th birthday.

Jan Lehtola & Petri Komulainen - Lux: Organ Works, Vol. 2 (2023)

Posted By: ciklon5
Jan Lehtola & Petri Komulainen - Lux: Organ Works, Vol. 2 (2023)

Jan Lehtola & Petri Komulainen - Lux: Organ Works, Vol. 2 (2023)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 77:26 | 177 / 273 Mb
Genre: Classical / Label: Toccata Classics

Friedrich Lux (1820–95) was one of those musicians who formed the fabric of musical life in nineteenth-century Germany: though he worked away from the major cities, as conductor, teacher, organist, organiser and composer, he was an indispensable element of the communities in which he worked. His large body of organ music, as good as unknown before now, brings together elements of the musical language of Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann, in works that range from the intimate to the grandiose.This second volume brings some of his many transcriptions to the fore.

Christopher Guild - William Wordsworth: Complete Music for Solo Piano (2023)

Posted By: ciklon5
Christopher Guild - William Wordsworth: Complete Music for Solo Piano (2023)

Christopher Guild - William Wordsworth: Complete Music for Solo Piano (2023)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 81:06 | 185 / 207 Mb
Genre: Classical / Label: Toccata Classics

The reputation of the Anglo-Scottish composer William Wordsworth (1908–88), great-great-grandnephew of the poet, has recently been restored by a series of Toccata Classics albums of his orchestral music. His piano music, too, was poorly known before now, none of it recorded since a handful of pieces appeared on LP 60 years ago – though his epic Piano Sonata is a work of major importance. This first ever complete recording reveals an honest, unfussy approach to the keyboard akin to that of two other major symphonists, Sibelius and Rubbra: like them, Wordsworth’s primary concern seems to have been the expression of deep feeling – which makes the gentle story-telling of his miniatures for children all the more surprising.

Ilya Kuzmin, Dzambolat Dulaev, Olga Solovieva - Myaskovsky: Vocal Works, Vol. 2 (2023)

Posted By: ciklon5
Ilya Kuzmin, Dzambolat Dulaev, Olga Solovieva - Myaskovsky: Vocal Works, Vol. 2 (2023)

Ilya Kuzmin, Dzambolat Dulaev, Olga Solovieva - Myaskovsky: Vocal Works, Vol. 2 (2023)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 1:02:40 | 200 / 144 Mb
Genre: Classical / Label: Toccata Classics

Nikolay Myaskovsky (1881–1950) was given the sobriquet of ‘the conscience of Russian music’ thanks to his dignified bearing and quiet wisdom – qualities reflected in the unemphatic strength of his music. His orchestral, chamber and instrumental works are regaining the currency they once enjoyed, but his large corpus of songs, many of them understated masterpieces, has yet to attract systematic attention – a situation this series hopes to remedy. This second album presents his entire output of songs for baritone and piano, most of them early works responding to Russian lyric poetry with the calm dignity typical of his compositions – though there is the occasional flash of passion.

Duo Praxedis - John Thomas: Complete Duos for Harp and Piano, Volume Two (2023)

Posted By: ciklon5
Duo Praxedis - John Thomas: Complete Duos for Harp and Piano, Volume Two (2023)

Duo Praxedis - John Thomas: Complete Duos for Harp and Piano, Volume Two (2023)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 1:16:38 | 240 / 175 Mb
Genre: Classical / Label: Toccata Classics

Harpist to Queen Victoria, the Welsh composer John Thomas (1826–1913) wrote prolifically for his own instrument, both for solo harp and for duos of two harps or harp and piano – a combination where the different sounds of the two instruments enhance the clarity of the texture. Thomas’ own compositions use the elegant Romantic style of his own day, but he also left a generous legacy of transcriptions, with no fewer than fourteen Schubert songs recorded on this second volume of his complete duos for harp and piano. Although some of his music was intended for the Victorian drawing room, other pieces require a virtuoso technique – and all of it has a thoroughly engaging melodic appeal.

Ina Kancheva, Ludmil Angelov - Pauline Viardot: Songs (2016)

Posted By: tirexiss
Ina Kancheva, Ludmil Angelov - Pauline Viardot: Songs (2016)

Ina Kancheva, Ludmil Angelov - Pauline Viardot: Songs (2016)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 69:05 | 379 MB
Genre: Classical, Vocal | Label: Toccata Classics | Catalog: TOCC 0303

Pauline Viardot (1821–1910) was one of the most extraordinary women in the history of music. Daughter of the Spanish tenor Manuel García and sister of the mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran, she studied piano with Liszt and counterpoint and harmony with Reicha, made her debut, also as a mezzo, at the age of sixteen and went on to inspire composers of the stature of Berlioz, Chopin, Gounod, Meyerbeer, Saint-Saëns, Schumann and Wagner, And she was no mean composer herself, as these passionate songs demonstrate.

Tom Winpenny - Gerald Hendrie: Complete Organ Music, Vol. 1 (2023)

Posted By: ciklon5
Tom Winpenny - Gerald Hendrie: Complete Organ Music, Vol. 1 (2023)

Tom Winpenny - Gerald Hendrie: Complete Organ Music, Vol. 1 (2023)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 1:19:06 | 250 / 181 Mb
Genre: Classical / Label: Toccata Classics

The organ music of Gerald Hendrie – born in England in 1935 but resident in France since 1996 – encompasses a huge range of influences, among them the organist-composers who went before him (not least Franck, Dupré and Messiaen), dodecaphony, mediaeval plainchant and modality and jazz. The resulting works are as varied as the styles that fed into them, from grandiose to gentle, from severe to whimsical, from lyrical to lively.

The Tippett Quartet - Steve Elcock: Chamber Music, Vol. 2: String Quartets (2023)

Posted By: ciklon5
The Tippett Quartet - Steve Elcock: Chamber Music, Vol. 2: String Quartets (2023)

The Tippett Quartet - Steve Elcock: Chamber Music, Vol. 2: String Quartets (2023)
FLAC (tracks), Lossless / MP3 320 kbps | 1:20:29 | 360 / 184 Mb
Genre: Classical / Label: Toccata Classics

The English composer Steve Elcock (b. 1957) spent years writing music without ever expecting it to be heard: based in rural France, he worked as a translator, composing in his spare time. The emergence of his orchestral and chamber music on Toccata Classics over the past few years has led to his being acclaimed as one of the most important composers at work today. This recording of his four works (to date) for string quartet confirms that judgement: all in single spans, they generate tension and energy in equal measure – animated, in one of them, by a lively sense of humour.

Bergen Barokk - Bertouch: Trio Sonatas (2005)

Posted By: tirexiss
Bergen Barokk - Bertouch: Trio Sonatas (2005)

Bergen Barokk - Bertouch: Trio Sonatas (2005)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 65:32 | 419 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Toccata Classics | Catalog: TOCC 0006

This is music from Norway, from Bergen specifically, written in the early eighteenth century. Composer Georg von Bertouch has an interesting biography; a German-born musician of French extraction, he was also a military leader who participated in 22 battles in Denmark (of which Norway was a part), Germany, and France. A bit older than Bach and Telemann, and geographically even farther removed from the fonts of Italian innovation, he did not (on the evidence of the music here) engage with Vivaldi or with Telemann's galant styles.

Alice Rossi, Das Neue Ensemble, Stefan Asbury, Kuss Quartet - Harrison Birtwistle: Songs 1970-2006 (2015)

Posted By: tirexiss
Alice Rossi, Das Neue Ensemble, Stefan Asbury, Kuss Quartet - Harrison Birtwistle: Songs 1970-2006 (2015)

Alice Rossi, Das Neue Ensemble, Stefan Asbury, Kuss Quartet - Harrison Birtwistle: Songs 1970-2006 (2015)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 60:43 | 218 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Toccata Classics | Catalog: TOCC 0281

Instrumental and vocal techniques are intertwined in the music of Harrison Birtwistle: he often treats the voice instrumentally and his instrumental writing has vocal characteristics. Many of his works for small ensembles, with or without voices, occupy this common ground, his highly individual style juxtaposing the static and the violently dynamic and intersecting with his fondness for ritual and myth – not least a recurrent concern with the figure of Orpheus. This recording presents some of these relatively neglected pieces, recorded live in the presence of the composer, who also talks about his songs in interview.