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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Anthony Payne: Phoenix Mass
Composer, writer, lecturer and broadcaster Anthony Payne was born in London and educated at Dulwich College and Durham University. His completion of Elgar’s Third Symphony in 1997 brought him worldwide acclaim and numerous awards, including the Elgar Medal and awards from the South Bank Show and Evening Standard as well as the New York Critics’ Circle. Its premiere recording on NMC is still our best-selling recording (NMCD053). Commissions include four major premieres at the BBC Proms and works for the BBC Philharmonic and London Sinfonietta. He has won British Composer Awards for his orchestral piece Visions and Journeys and his Second String Quartet, commissioned by the Allegri Quartet. His orchestrations include a suite of Warlock songs, Elgar’s Crown of India, and Vaughan Williams’s Four Last Songs. Phoenix Mass, written in 1965, was originally to have been a liturgical setting only for school choir but soon turned into something much bigger and more technically demanding. As Anthony Payne elaborated the project he experienced what he recalled as ‘the natural emergence of a new manner – long sought but previously only partly envisaged’ and despite the Medieval and Baroque connotations of its techniques and scoring, and a few passing resemblances to Britten and Maxwell Davies, this is the earliest of Payne’s acknowledged works that reveals a completely integrated musical character of its own. Also on this recording is the Horn Trio, a piece symbolising marital harmony, written in 2006; The World's Winter (1976) for soprano and piano, setting two early poems of Tennyson – Nothing Will Die and All Things Will Die and Paean (1971) for solo piano. Phoenix Mass, Paean and The World’s Winter have been transferred from LP in the absence of the original masters. The Horn Trio was recorded live for BBC Radio 3. “Payne’s English Romantic affinities (expressed in his realisation of Elgar sketches) are less evident in this enjoyable sequence of mostly early works than a brand of keen-edged postwar modernism.” Sunday Times, 21st April 2013 | 
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| |  | The Nash Ensemble: BrundibárMusic by composers in Theresienstadt (1941–1945)
"The greatest musical experiences radically alter our perspectives. This was very much the case with The Nash Ensemble’s Theresienstadt weekend. Concerts, films, talks and exhibitions examined the extraordinary cultural flowering in the ghetto-camp near Prague, set up by the Nazis in 1941, where, among thousands of others, the Czech-Jewish intelligentsia were held before transportation to death camps. The event’s force lay in its broadening of our contextual awareness, and in its revelation of the quality of the work produced … many works were outright masterpieces … the Nash, an ensemble of stars, played with great technical power and depth of feeling … the Nash should tour this internationally—it deserves to be heard around the world. (The Guardian) The Nash Ensemble presents a programme of works written at the transit camp Theresienstadt by four Jewish composers who went on to be killed at Auschwitz, their music forgotten. In recent years it has begun to be performed again and its extraordinary quality appreciated. One of the most popular works was Hans Krása’s enchanting children’s opera Brundibár, performed fifty-five times at the camp and presented here as a suite arranged by the composer David Matthews. Viktor Ullmann, whose chamber opera The Emperor of Atlantis is now frequently performed, is represented by his String Quartet No 3, a lyrical, sumptuous work with a wistful quality, influenced by the Second Viennese School. Pavel Haas studied with Janácek and his vividly atmospheric String Quartet No 2, ‘From the Monkey Mountains’, shows the influence of his teacher, but also a definite musical personality. “Both [the Ullmann and the Klein] are powerfully emotional works and they are performed here by the Nash Ensemble with passionate conviction and great attention to detail...The Nash Ensemble clearly relishes [Brundibar's] light-heartedness and its moments of poignancy delivering a performance that is witty and thoroughly engaging...the Nash string players are especially in their element in the exciting Finale subtitled 'Wild Night'...an impressive achievement.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2013 **** “[the sound is] slightly clinical though crystal clear. This shows the Nash Ensemble's subtly nuanced performance in the best light” Gramophone Magazine, April 2013 “It's hard to separate any of this music from the life histories of the composers. But these sharply contrasting pieces, played with typical Nash polish and intelligence, show there was no shared Theresienstadt style – just a collection of promising creative careers never allowed to reach fulfilment.” The Guardian, 24th January 2013 *** |
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| |  | Josef Suk: Piano Quintet & Piano Quartet
The music of Josef Suk, pupil of Dvorák and married to the elder composer’s daughter, is only now beginning to be recognized for its true worth. Presented here are three relatively early works, brimming with youthful enthusiasm but already showing considerable individuality, a highly developed approach to structure, and, occasionally, a touch of the melancholy introspection which was to inform many of the composer’s later works. A talented violinist, Suk lends to his chamber compositions a true understanding of the genre, while his thoroughly ‘Czech’ musical upbringing ensures strong representation for the folk and dance influences to be found in the music of many of his contemporaries. “All of the performances on this excellently recorded disc are exemplary” BBC Music Magazine “The Nash Ensemble play these richly rewarding works with style and feeling” The Independent “Lovely fare, performed with great polish and heartwarming dedication by The Nash Ensemble, and all cleanly captured by the microphones. This disc will surely provide much pleasure” Gramophone Magazine “The Nash Ensemble plays with all its customary skill and insight, highlighted by the remarkable pianism of Ian Brown” Classic FM Magazine “Even if the recordings featuring violinist Josef Suk (the composer's grandson) were easier to find, these fresh-sounding, light-textured Nash Ensemble interpretations would hold their own in the catalog. Excellent engineering and informative notes too. A magnificent release” Fanfare “This is Suk viewed from the 'dark side' and very much more impressive than he usually sounds. Brown balances the introspective sensibility and dramatic onward surge of this music to perfection, and his distinguished colleagues follow him every inch of the way. Enhanced by yet another first-rate Andrew Keener production, this exceptional release comes highly recommended” International Record Review “Dazzlingly violinistic and brilliantly played by Marianne Thorsen and Ian Brown” Sunday Times | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Lambert: Piano Concerto & other works
A fascinating selection of pieces by one of the twentieth century’s most original and perplexing figures. Constant Lambert is perhaps better known today for his strident views on his contemporaries, but was also as a composer of delightful, anarchic music, influenced particularly by Stravinsky and Ravel. A distinguished line-up of performers presents these works in the clearest light. This recording is a must for anyone interested in twentieth-century music. Many of Lambert’s other works are also available on Hyperion. “A distinguished release on all counts … immaculate production values throughout… this wonderful anthology deserves the widest possible currency” Gramophone Magazine “A fascinating and generous programme, superbly performed” Classic CD “Make haste to this collection. It’s a cracker” The Independent “Superlative” BBC Music Magazine “This reissue of recordings from 1994 affords a convenient distillation of Lambert’s genius...The Sonata and Concerto are wonderfully invigorating, inventive essays, tinged with a melancholy Lambert nicely evoked as “that four-in-the-morning feeling”. The Concerto stands with Falla’s harpsichord work among the great keyboard chamber concertos.” Sunday Times, 26th August 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Schumann: Chamber Music
Among Schumann’s inspired late chamber works is a collection of music for more unusual instruments, composed in a concentrated flurry of creativity between 1849 and 1853 and written specifically for particular players, and it is to these exquisite short works that the world-famous Nash Ensemble turns its impeccable collective musicianship. While Schumann modelled his music specifically to the timbres of the instruments he wrote for—piano, violin, horn, clarinet and oboe—he also arranged these pieces for alternative instruments with an eye to maximizing sales. Here, however, the soloists from The Nash Ensemble present the works in their original scoring in what are bound to be definitive performances—the delicious Fantasiestücke for clarinet, and the fiery and lyrical Märchenbilder, which feature star British viola player Lawrence Power. Other delights include the Adagio and Allegro for horn, a brilliant showpiece, the Violin Sonata No 1, Drei Romanzen for oboe and piano and the Märchenerzählungen for clarinet, viola and piano. “The Nash players are British chamber-music royalty, but it is always an especial pleasure to hear the voluptuous viola sound of Lawrence Power in such an eloquent dialogue with Ian Brown’s piano in the too rarely heard Märchenbilder...A gorgeous, unmissable disc of great, too infrequently heard chamber music.” Sunday Times, 29th April 2012 “This is an admirably compilation of consistently fine performances of almost all of Schumann's shorter chamber music for one or two instruments and piano, and as such is most valuable as a collection...The performances throughout...are each beyond criticism. In particularly I admire also the slightly varied balance between the instruments...another fine record from this consistently first-class company.” International Record Review, May 2012 “how thoroughly each one of these performers warms to his or her allotted task (perhaps 'role' would be a better word), though it's violinist Marianne Thorsen and pianist Ian Brown in the Sonata who steal the show. It makes a superb finale to a disc that works equally well whether you sample individual pieces or savour it as a whole.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2012 ***** “affectionate and technically irreproachable performances...The five woodwind and string players of the Nash Ensemble respond ideally to this music - music which surely they have known and loved throughout ther playing lives - and Ian Brown is an ever-sensitive collaborative pianist...Unique and compelling from beginning to end.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | The Nash Ensemble plays Glazunov, Borodin & Arensky
After a highly acclaimed series of Brahms chamber music releases for ONYX, the Nash Ensemble turn their attention to 19th-century Russian repertoire. Glazunov’s superbly crafted String Quintet in A of 1891 is coupled with Arensky’s Second Quartet with two cellos and Borodin’s unfinished Sextet for strings in D minor. The latter was written, according to the composer, in Mendelssohnian style ‘to please the Germans’ while he was in Heidelberg. “The Nash Ensemble’s superior string players make a beautiful case for these not overfamiliar 19th-century Russian works.” Sunday Times, 15th April 2012 “gorgeously played by the Nash Ensemble.. while Glazunov's 1892 quintet is fluent and ingratiating if rather unmemorable. Like the rest of the disc, though, it's delivered with such energy and relish that hardly matters” The Guardian, 19th April 2012 **** “It’s the Arensky which actually contains the best-known music. Its central movement, arranged for string orchestra, has an independent life as the Variations on a theme of Tchaikovsky. The pieces are more focused on pleasure than profundity, and in these beautifully polished Nash Ensemble performances, fall agreeably, sometimes delectably, on the ear. The Arensky Variations are a delight in their original form.” The Irish Times, 27th April 2012 **** “This well-planned album offers three complementary works linked both by the genial spirit of Borodin...[his Sextet] has considerable charm...Both movements are played here by the Nash Ensemble with relish and conviction...Top of the bill in every sense is Arensky's Quartet of 1894, presenting a hugely inventive variety of textures.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2012 ***** “a delightful cherry-picking of 19th-century Russian chamber-repertoire...Their playing is characteristically sweet and bright, and they find the right balance between Russian folk-tune ponderousness and Slavic emotionalism.” METRO, 11th June 2012 “An original and attractive record” Gramophone Magazine, August 2012 “the Nash Ensemble give warm-hearted, lyrical readings of all these works, and there are too many highlights to mention.The engineering leaves nothing to be desired; the program, filling as it does three gaps in the average listener’s library, adds up to more than the sum of its parts. The cover design’s pretty terrific too. I could go on, but what more do you need to hear?” MusicWeb International, August 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Joaquín Turina: Chamber Music
The colourful folk melodies and rhythms of Spain knit seamlessly with twentieth-century French compositional sophistication in Joaquín Turina’s chamber works. Born in Seville, Andalucia, the young composer went to study in Paris in 1905, where he was greatly attracted to the forward-looking style of the likes of Debussy—however, his musical course was altered when he encountered countrymen Falla and Albéniz, who encouraged him to write in a style that fully embraced his Andalucian musical heritage. Later in life the composer himself explained ‘my music is the expression of the feeling of a true Sevillian who did not know Seville until he left it’. The acclaimed Nash Ensemble here demonstrate what a satisfying artistic homecoming he made. “Lawrence Power’s viola and Paul Watkins’s cello shine in, respectively, the Escena Andaluza and the songful tenor/bass melodies of the trio. It would be hard to imagine more compelling performances.” Sunday Times, 4th March 2012 “Congratulations are certainly in order to the Nash Ensemble and Hyperion for this excellent CD of chamber music by the admirable Andalusian composer...the performances throughout by these outstanding musicians, who are clearly wholly committed to Turina's music, are deeply impressive.” International Record Review, May 2012 “Bravo to the Nash Ensemble for championing these chamber works by Joaquin Turina...He could scarcely have imagined that one day an ensemble would produce an entire CD of his music but the Spanish traits by no means become wearing or predictable.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2012 “the Nash Ensemble's present collection includes some of his best works in [the chamber music] field, making this a highly recommendable disc for anyone who enjoys early 20th-century Spanish music. Everything here is performed with great warmth and a real sense of belief in the music - Marianne Thorsen and Ian Brown's eloquent and characterful account of the Sonata espagnola” BBC Music Magazine, June 2012 ***** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Oliver Knussen: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3
'No figure in British contemporary music is more respected than Oliver Knussen' The Guardian This release on the NMC mid-price re-issue label Ancora was previously issued on Unicorn-Kanchana Records. Composer/conductor Oliver Knussen celebrates his 60th birthday this year. Knussen's Ophelia Dances will be performed by BCMG at his 60th birthday concert held at the CBSO Centre (Birmingham, UK) A new release on NMC of works by Knussen is released this autumn, featuring BCMG, Ryan Wigglesworth and soprano Claire Booth. Knussen started composing at the age of 6 and aged 15 he stepped in to conduct his symphony's première at the Royal Festival Hall, London in 1968 after István Kertész fell ill. After that debut, Daniel Barenboim asked him to conduct the work's first two movements in New York a week later. This is a substantial sampler of Oliver Knussen's output in the 1970s. The two major works are the luminous Second Symphony, which takes the form of a 17-minute song cycle to texts of Georg Trakl and Sylvia Plath and Symphony No. 3, a symphonic poem about Shakespeare's Ophelia. “Here is the essence of him: his precocious song-cycle symphony (No 2) and arresting Symphony No 3 (performed by the Philharmonia)...and that locus classicus of ensemble virtuosity, the five-minute Coursing, with its long-sustained, leaping, complexly inflected unison line plausibly evoking Niagara Falls.” Sunday Times, 12th February 2012 “Knussen’s musical language is complex and post-serial, yet he has the knack of conjuring clarity, wit, emotion and memorability out of an idiom that produced so much forgettable cerebral sludge.” The Times, 4th March 2012 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.75) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bob Chilcott: Requiem & other works
Composer and conductor Bob Chilcott (born 1955) has been steeped in the British choral tradition since he was a boy chorister. A former member of The King’s Singers, he is now one of the UK’s most prolific and creative choral composers, writing appealingly direct and accessible music with memorable melodies reminiscent of John Rutter at his best. Of his most recent large-scale work, his Requiem (2010), Chilcott says he was initially ‘terrified by the idea’ of writing a work with such a weight of history behind it, but he has certainly risen to the challenge: his Requiem is characterized by a gentle, forgiving atmosphere clearly modelled on Fauré’s Requiem, with a crystalline, reflective Pie Jesu for solo soprano at the emotional heart of the work. This and the other works performed here, all first recordings, are beautifully performed by Wells Cathedral Choir and Matthew Owens, The Nash Ensemble and two superb young soloists. “His Requiem (2010), mostly set to Latin texts, pays homage to its great predecessors yet has its own distinctive, serene, meditative quality, beautifully rendered by the mixed voices of Wells Cathedral Choir, Laurie Ashworth (soprano) and Andrew Staples (tenor).” The Observer, 25th March 2012 “A listener to Chilcott’s Requiem will quickly identify that it is in the lineage of reflective, consolatory settings by such as Fauré and Duruflé...The solo writing is light and fluent and Andrew Staples, with his clear, easy tone is ideal for this assignment...Matthew Owens leads a dedicated, eloquent performance.” MusicWeb International, 12th March 2012 “Although this is music steeped in the Anglican mainstream, there is just enough of a French influence to prevent it from becoming anodyne and nebulous...The addition of a wind quartet and timpani brings a freshness and piquancy to the timbral palette...Matthew Owens draws impassioned and beautiful performances throughout this delightful disc.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2012 “Can something be too beautiful? It's a thought that struck me occasionally, listening to Bob Chilcott's new Requiem...there's plenty of fluid writing for the choir and two excellent soloists, whose interaction produces ravishing textures. By the end, however, I felt over-cosseted and in need of aural roughage...The Wells Choir attacks both pieces with evidence relish.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2012 *** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Brahms - Piano Quartet No. 2 & Clarinet Trio
Another release on ONYX from “Britain’s premier chamber ensemble” (The Times) completing the piano quartet recordings. Nos 1&3 were released to critical acclaim on ONYX4029. “...the playing, by Richard Hosford (clarinet), Paul Watkins (cello) and Ian Brown (piano), does...ample justice to the work’s passionate melancholy...The splendid performance of the piano quartet shows the young Brahms’s intellectual power and melodic abundance to magnificent advantage.” Sunday Times, 2nd May 2010 **** “An account of an early performance of the Trio said it was "as though the instruments were in love with one another" – which could equally fit this recording of the Piano Quartet No 2, such is the effortless mastery of the Nash Ensemble.” The Observer, 9th May 2010 “These are beautifully expressive, thoughtful performances of two unalloyed masterpieces, presented with all the sonic excellence and distinction that we've come to expect from Onyx's series of recording with the Nash Ensemble...The middle movements especially strike me as outstanding, with a wonderful sense of regret and melancholy in the Adagio.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2010 ***** “[this] new recording keeps its wilder emotions suppressed, ever simmering under the surface. It's an approach that works well in late Brahms, especially when the playing is as classy as this: listen to the swirling pianissimo scales that close the first movement - breathtaking.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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