BBC National Orchestra of Wales reviews
Schmidt: Symphony No. 1 (BBC NOW/Berman)
Sibelius: Violin Concerto, etc
John Mayer • Jonathan Mayer: Concertos
Rediscovered – British Clarinet Concertos
Piazzolla Reflections
Träume (Wagner Arias)
Sibelius: En Saga; Finlandia etc
Beethoven Reimagined
Maw: Spring Music, Voices of Memory, etc
Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos 1-5 (Goodyear)
Standards
Ruth Gipps: Symphonies Nos 2 & 4; Knight in Armour; Song for Orchestra
Hesketh: In Ictu Oculi - Orchestral Works
Musgrave: Phoenix Rising; Loch Ness; Poets in Love
Clytemnestra
Christopher Gunning: Symphonies Nos 2, 10 & 12
Ruby Hughes performs a vibrant selection of vocal masterpieces
‘Ruby Hughes rises to the challenge with bombproof technical strength and control, plenty of firepower where needed, and a thrilling instinct for capturing the persona of this fearsome anti-heroine,’ writes Malcolm Hayes.
Clytemnestra
Berg: Altenberg Lieder; Mahler: Rückert-Lieder; Rhian Samuel: Clytemnestra
Ruby Hughes (soprano), BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Jac van Steen
BIS BIS-2408 (hybrid CD/SACD) 54:46 Mins
Ben-Haim • Bloch • Korngold: Cello Concertos
Violin Muse: Mitchell performs new commissions
Andrew Constantine conducts Chadwick's Symphonic Sketches and Elgar's Enigma Variations
George Chadwick, best known as a director of the New England Conservatory, was several years Elgar’s senior, and an enthusiast – with reservations – for his British colleague’s music. If Elgar became the quintessentially English composer, despite being in many ways an outsider to the establishment, Chadwick could lay claim to being soundly American, exploring a budding national style in the shadow of Dvořák’s New World Symphony.
Llŷr Williams takes on Mathias's Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 3
The remarkable listening experience here comes not just from William Mathias’s music alone, for all its enduring qualities, but from the combination of this and his own piano-playing. Fluent pianists are of course not rare in the composing world. Mathias’s performance of the world premiere of his Third Concerto, recorded at the 1968 Swansea Festival, shows that his artistry was on a totally different level from this.