Rachmaninov: Preludes & Melodies

“[Bax] has technique to burn but also has the unteachable ability to tug at the heart strings...In the transcriptions, Bax pays particular attention to the intricate weaving of separate voices, and is truly affecting in his own arrangement of Vocalise. This is one of the most intelligent and engrossing Rachmaninov recitals of recent years.” --Classic FM Magazine, September 2011 *****

 

“With this intricate and enterprising recital, the wondrously gifted Alessio Bax fulfils, in his own words, a long-cherished dream...he finds all of the composer's dark-hued melancholy, playing with an impeccable sense of vocal line and with an intense and stylish rubato...if his Op. 23 Preludes lack the classic quality of, say, Lympany or Osborne, his vividness and personality weaven their own intoxicationg spell.” --Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011

“He writes in the sleeve notes of a long-held desire to record Rachmaninov and [in the Vocalise] you feel he totally understands the composer's unique harmonic world. It's worth acquiring the CD for this track alone.” --The Observer, 31st July 2011

Música de España

Igor Markevitch was a leading conductor, known for brilliant performances, especially of twentieth century music. He was also a composer who attracted some interest in his own day. He was known for his performance of the Russian repertory and twentieth century music. He had a quick temper, reflected in his music in sharp emotional shifts, yet the music was meticulously prepared and nearly always followed the composer's directions with exceptional care. In the late '90s, his recordings came back into demand in re-release, and even his compositions were finding a small but interested market and were praised anew for their originality.

Mozart: Clarinet and Oboe Concertos

"This recording seems to me of a quite special excellence. The sound is beautiful... The soloist are strong musical personalities, as they need to be, not just expert players, and Anthony Pay's performance strikes me as outstanding." --Gramophone Magazine

Best of Grieg

Barbara Bonney · Anne Sofie von Otter · Mikhail Pletnev · Berliner Philharmoniker · Herbert von Karajan · Göteborgs Symfoniker · Neeme Järvi

This generous 2CD compilation of the most popular and beautiful music by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Here bringing their unique artistry to a diverse selection of masterpieces by Norway's beloved Romantic are such outstanding interpreters as Anne Sofie von Otter, Herbert von Karajan and Neeme Järvi, featured in some of Deutsche Grammophon's most acclaimed recordings.

Emile Waldteufel: Le Bal de Paris

Regarded as the Johann Strauss of Paris, Emile Waldteufel wrote some 300 dances (more than half of them waltzes) for French society balls and private functions. Although his music has been criticized for its lack of melodic and rhythmic variety compared to Strauss, it is generally less ceremonial-feeling than that of Waldteufel's Austrian counterpart, with smooth, singing themes epitomized by his popular Les Patineurs.

Waldteufel was born to a family of musicians; his Bavarian mother was a pianist, and his father was a violinist and dance composer. The family moved from Strasbourg to Paris in Waldteufel's early childhood, and while young Emile studied piano privately, he did not enroll in the Paris Conservatory until he was 16 (Massenet was one of his fellow students). There his emphasis remained on the keyboard, but he dropped out before receiving his diploma. Waldteufel supported himself as a piano tester for the manufacturer Scholtus, while also giving lessons and playing at private soirées.

With his father's orchestra popular in high society, Waldteufel managed in 1865 to land an appointment as court pianist to Napoléon III; he began conducting state balls the following year. He had already written a few dances (he published his first waltz at his own expense in 1859), but he became much more active as a composer from this time, especially after his service in the Franco-Prussian War. Manola, from 1873, was his first international success; he works from later in the 1870s are still recorded with some regularity, and his greatest hit, Les Patineurs (The Skaters), came in 1882. His later pieces are less enduring, but during the last phase of his career Waldteufel performed in London and Berlin besides presiding over the most fashionable and important balls in Paris, notably the presidential balls. He retired in 1899, coincidentally the same year that Johann Strauss II died; Waldteufel lived until 1915.

C.P.E. Bach: Sanguineus and Melanchilicus

“More than half a century separates the earliest and the latest of the works here. The C major Trio Sonata was one of Bach's earliest compositions, written at the age of 17 more or less under his father's supervision, and the D major Quartet was composed in the last year of his life, while he was Music Director in Hamburg. The remaining items date from his time at the court of Frederick the Great. The C minor Sonata is extraordinary, a programmatic work 'portraying a conversation between a Sanguineus and a Melancholicus' who disagree throughout the first two movements, but the former's outlook prevails in the finale. The talented Florilegium players bring out to the full the bewilderingly diverse character of this sonata.

 If the Sonata for unaccompanied flute was written for Frederick, as seems likely, he must have been quite skilled, able to cope with some virtuoso passagework. Ashley Solomon's performance is most persuasive. How far Carl Philipp developed is shown by the late quartet, an attractive composition which, besides promoting the keyboard (fortepiano here) from a mere continuo to prominent solo status, is already in the style of the Viennese classics in form, and links the first two movements. The whole disc is strongly recommended.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Penguin Guide - Rosette Winner
Radio 3 Building a Library - Highly Recommended - September 2005

Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas

A refreshing selection, starting with the A minor Sonata (Kk175) and its evocations of the guitar to remind us that all Scarlatti's maturer years were spent in Spain. And how apt to follow it with the extended C major Pastorale (Kk513), in which the composer returns in imagination to his homeland at Christmas time when (as Howard Ferguson's helpful note tells us) shepherds come down from the hills with their pifferari. Avoiding the over familiar, and always with a smooth progression of keys for the listener who wants to listen to the whole recital straight off, Schiff subsequently proceeds (except for the solitary G major Cantabile, Kk144) with pairs of adjacent works in the same key (major or minor) as if in support of Kirkpatrick's belief that Scarlatti himself conceived them for performance in this way.

Schiff makes no attempt to pretend that his instrument is anything other than a present-day grand piano. Nor does he ever allow you to forget that Scarlatti had a heart—as do some worshippers at the shrine of period style. But his tone and texture are as translucent as his ornamentation is deft. Incidentally, he plays all repeats, in slower tempo sometimes adding little extra embellishments of his own the second time to enrich the text—as in the searchingly chromatic B flat Sonata (Kk544). He is never more confiding than in the E minor Andante (Kk402), even making its companion in E major (Kk403) more thoughtful than some players might in view of its allegro marking. I also much enjoyed his romantically imaginative response to the strongly atmospheric Kk516 in D minor. Always the emphasis is on what lies behind the notes rather than mere keyboard play, though it goes without saying that Schiff's nimble fingers never fail him in more extrovert prestissimo or allegrissimo contexts.

The recording, made in Walthamstow Town Hall, allows you to feel that you are sitting right at the player's side rather than far away in the stalls. But its full, close warmth is achieved without any loss of clarity. All in all a welcome change from the harpsichords which have largely taken over Scarlatti in the CD catalogue up till now.

-- Joan Chissell, Gramophone [3/1989]