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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Alison Balsom: Seraph
Alison Balsom is the world’s preeminent female classical trumpeter. She is an unique and independent artist who have broken through to the mainstream whilst retaining her integrity and core musical values. Exceptional talent, a glamorous stage presence and a witty and engaging personality make Alison one of the most exciting and bankable artists in the core classical world today. Alison’s new recording of modern and contemporary repertoire marks an important artistic stepping stone in her career. This labour of love features the world premiere recording of Seraph, James MacMillan’s trumpet concerto written for Alison, works by Takemitsu and Zimmermann and includes her long-awaited recording of the ever popular Arutunian Trumpet Concerto. “what really makes this performer so magnetic and distinctive is the quality of the notes that tumble so effortlessly from whatever trumpet she holds in her hands, and whatever music she plays....[Zimmermann's] stylistically eclectic, passionate plea for racial harmony makes an immediate impact, especially when jazz kicks in and the music excitingly hurtles forward two thirds of the way through.” The Times, 6th January 2012 “the highlight is James MacMillan's "Seraph", with the assertive opening brio giving way to a more reflective Adagio dialogue between trumpet and violin, before emerging refreshed for the animated closing movement.” The Independent, 6th January 2012 *** “[Macmillan's concerto] deftly combines trumpet and strings in music that ranges from the incisiveness of its first movement, via the 'seraphic' plaintiveness of its lightly textured Adagio to the robust interplay of the finale. Balsom takes its not inconsiderable demands in her stride, with the Scottish Ensemble unstinting in its support.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2012 “[Balsom] plays [the Macmillan] radiantly with the Scottish Ensemble. Concertos by Alexander Arutiunian and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, played with the BBC SSO, highlight Balsom’s technical and interpretative aplomb.” The Telegraph, 18th January 2012 **** “'Seraph' is concise and communicative, and, as expected from Macmillan, approachable. Balsom gets its (one hopes) long career off to a strong start...[in the Zimmermann] Balsom is in her element. She advocates for this music with passion and dignity, and the strength of her technique allows her to focus on communicating the work's emotional content...this disc speaks well of her continuing maturation as an artist.” International Record Review, January 2012 “Seraph may not quite be another Veni, Veni Emmanuel...But it's still very enjoyable, from the Haydn-tinged jollity of the first movement, through a mysterious and lyrical slow movement to the rousing finale...Balsom is a superb advocate, combining technical brilliance with penetrating musicianship - a true poet of the trumpet as well as a formidable athlete.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2012 ***** “Balsom’s glorious sound makes you forgive any musical shortcomings [in the Arutunian]...Less pretentious and more musically satisfying than one has any right to expect, [the Zimmermann] is possibly a masterpiece...there’s something calmly uplifting about good brass playing. And this disc, well, uplifts.” The Arts Desk, 24th March 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Alison Balsom: Italian Concertos
'She makes the trumpet sing with an irresistible exuberance and eloquence.' With the human voice a particular inspiration in the music of Italy, the words of The Times have a special resonance for Alison Balsom in these works composed or inspired by Italian composers of the 18th century. This collection provides an apt vehicle for the award-winning trumpeter's characteristic brilliance and grace. Following the popular and critical international success of her Haydn and Hummel concertos recording, Alison Balsom has recorded a programme of Italian Baroque concertos. The album has quickly garnered critics’ praise: “The fast movements are played with sparkling ease and technical brilliance. The slow movement [Balsom] forms delicately, tenderly, yet without denying she’s playing a brass instrument.” - MDR Figaro After the release of Caprice in 2006, Gramophone wrote, “It's not often that a young musician appears on the scene abundantly blessed with everything both an A&R and marketing person could dream of, but the young British trumpeter Alison Balsom fulfils just such a dream. She's a musician of prodigious talent with an inquisitive, fresh approach to music-making. She is connected to her public, and rewards their attention with playing of a winning ease and fluency. She has an engaging personality … and the intelligence to take her burgeoning career well in her stride.” In this new recording, Balsom, the 2009 Classical BRIT Artist of the Year, plays popular concertos originally composed for the violin or oboe by Vivaldi, Tartini, B. Marcello, Albinoni and Cimarosa, accompanied by the Scottish Ensemble. “The days are long gone when blowing a brass instrument was a male preserve. Even so, the young trumpeter Alison Balsom remains a singular figure. It’s not that she's long and blonde; it's the roar of her talent that makes her stand out, along with her knack for breaking down barriers and making the trumpet so much more than a toot machine.” The Times “It's a typically elegant affair: Balsom's bright tone and tight phrasing on the opening Allegro of "Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in A Minor" gives way to more subtle work on the Largo, with a series of delicate, feathery trills...her nimble fingering on the opening section of [the Albinoni] is supplanted by long, poised notes on the Adagio section. An eloquent performance.” The Independent, 15th October 2010 *** “This cheering disc features the brilliant talent of Alison Balsom and a spruce Scottish Ensemble in six 18th-century concertos...None of the concertos...were originally written for the trumpet. But Balsom’s flawless technique and glorious tone make them sound thoroughly natural.” The Telegraph, 15th October 2010 *** “Balsom, sweetly accompanied by the Scottish Ensemble, glides through the decorative slides with ease.” Financial Times, 23rd October 2010 *** “Her playing is breathtaking, first in the bubbling fluency of Vivaldi violin concerto allegros...while her fluent technique elicits some exhilarating tempos. No less arresting is her creamy tone in slow movements...Listening to it is nothing short of a life-enhancing experience.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 ***** “Balsom takes the first movement [of the Vivaldi] at such a lick that it's over before you know it; but the clarity and precision of her articulation make it an exhilarating experience...Her orchestrated version of an Albinoni violin sonata is notable for some nimble playing in the first Allegro.” Classic FM Magazine, December 2010 **** “suave, characterful performances...Wistfulness and exuberance combined come to the fore in the Cimarosa, while Balsom's clear, focused tone irradiates Albinoni's less exciting Oboe Concerto in B flat with a warmth and intensity that is carried over into the penultimate work on the disc, Tartini's D major Trumpet Concerto” Gramophone Magazine, December 2010 “This is above all a disc of virtuoso brilliance, with the soloist performing her pyrotechnics with consummate ease; her tone is bright and open yet possessing a creamy timbre throughout the range...Each of the concertos here presents something to delight the ear.” International Record Review, May 2011 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bach - Violin Concertos
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| |  | Luke Bedford: Wonderful Two-Headed Nightingale
The portrait CD of the Ernst von Siemens composer award winner 2012, with London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern and others. “A stimulating introduction to Bedford's sound-world. The title piece is a double concerto for violin and viola, yoked together by trying to break free. Vividly imaginative.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2013 **** “There's an expressive immediacy, a forthrightness whose small-scale repetitions suggest some affinity with minimalism...simplicity...is to be found throughout but always (in admirably polished and persuasive performances) with a distinctive blend of energy and eloquence.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2012 | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Thea Musgrave: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge & Green
2011 is the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil. War Wild Winter I was commissioned to commemorate the siege of Lichfield, 1643 British Civil War. Produced in association with BBC Radio 3. Rich, powerful musical language and a strong sense of drama have made Thea Musgrave one of the most respected and exciting of living composers. Born in Edinburgh in 1928, she studied at the University of Edinburgh then in Paris, where she spent four years as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger, before establishing herself in London with her orchestral, choral, operatic and chamber works. She has lived in the US since 1970. Musgrave’s ‘opera for radio’ sets a dreamlike tale of the American Civil War based on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, a short story written in the late 19th century by Ambrose Bierce. Thea Musgrave says .... These three works, though all very different and written decades apart, nevertheless share a common subject: conflict. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1981), a heart-breaking story from the American Civil war; Wild Winter I (1993), a setting of poems from many different countries and in several different languages about the inevitable losses and cruelties of war; and Green (2007), an abstract conflict of a life-giving force against its suffocating nemesis. “Musgrave claims it was conceived as a fully fledged opera and not as "a play with incidental music". But that isn't how it comes across in this recording, taken from the original BBC tapes...Musgrave's accomplished music is much better served by the other two works here, which link to the opera through their connections with conflict in its widest sense.” The Guardian, 31st March 2011 *** “As the victim, Jake Gardner is heroic and ardent, if not ideally lyrical; the London Sinfonietta, under Musgrave herself, plays with razor-sharp precision. The original 1981 studio broadcast (produced by Veronica Slater, who shoudl ahve been credited in the booklet) experty balances singing, speech, orchestra and sound effects, creating a genuine musical drama for the ear.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2011 **** “the ear for instrumental colour [in Owl Creek Bridge] really is remarkable, the more so since it is generally discreet...Musgrave sets [the texts in Wild Winter I] in what one might call an animated ritual, as if the human voies are caught up in something much bigger than them, something they can't control...the atmospheric music on this disc deserves your attention.” International Record Review, July 2011 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | The Eight Seasonslive from Queen's Hall Edinburgh
A unique disc from one of Scotland’s most dynamic and versatile groups: the Scottish ensemble is a tightknit band of outstanding string players from around Europe who perform regularly together under Artistic Director, Jonathan Morton. This disc, one of their first solo releases following acclaimed discs with artists such as Alison Balsom and Toby Spence, contrasts Vivaldi’s timeless Four Seasons with Piazzolla’s tango inspired The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. “The playing standard is excellent, with the strings of the Scottish Ensemble finding a light and suitably transparent texture in the Vivaldi, matched by bright, stylish solos from Jonathan Morton...if [Kremer]s Vivaldi is not particularly "Baroque" in sound, many will appreciate its richer string tone and personality.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2011 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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| |  | C.P.E. Bach - Cello Concertos
Raphael Wallfisch is one of the most celebrated cellists performing on the international stage. At the age of twenty-four he won the Gaspar Cassadó International Cello Competition in Florence. Since then he has enjoyed a world-wide career. Teaching is one of Raphael's passions. He is in demand as a teacher all over the world holding the position of professor of cello in Switzerland at the Zürich Winterthur Konservatorium and at the Royal College of Music in London. Versatile, enterprising and ambitious, the Scottish Ensemble is a tight-knit band of outstanding string players from around Europe who perform regularly together under Artistic Director, Jonathan Morton, who enjoys a varied career as a chamber musician, leader, soloist, and teacher. “…these performances are clean-lined and stylish. Wallfisch's cello… has a pleasingly light and singing tone, to which is added a depth and a dynamic range that may well be beyond most period instruments, and which is used to good expressive effect in those slow movements...” Gramophone Magazine, December 2009 “This delightful disc vividly reveals the mercurial characer of CPE Bach...Wallfisch is particularly alluring in the opening movement of Wq171, characterised by calm persuasive rhetoric rather than forceful passion.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2010 ***** | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Toby Spence and the Scottish Ensemble
Taken from a concert at Wigmore Hall on 13 October 2007 “…the biggest work… is Walton's Sonata for Strings… The slow movement is one of Walton's most beautiful here given a deeply expressive performance by the Scottish Ensemble. Toby Spends sings sensitively in Finzi's Dies natalis… among Finzi's finest works. The Romance for strings makes an attractive introduction to the programme.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2008 “Toby Spence's singing in Dies Natalis is… rather special. On the one hand his musical phrasing is beautiful: the lines hover and soar just as they should. Yet at the same time he brings freshness and fluidity to the recitative-like passages, combined with strong feeling for the expressive weight of each word, which gives these moments the urgency of impassioned speech.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2008 ***** “His vocalism was impressive, the rich sweetness and the legato line close to ideal for Finzi’s rapturous declamation” The Times “Tenor Toby Spence is the featured artist in this recital but the biggest work, taking up the second half of the programme, is Walton's Sonata for Strings, a fine work that has not been recorded nearly as often as it deserves. This is the piece, commissioned by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin, that Walton brilliantly adapted from his String Quartet of 1947, making a work for strings in the great tradition of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro and Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia.
Misleadingly, the Sonata opens with a passage for the string quartet alone, before developing into a full string piece when the opening theme is repeated. What comes out very clearly is not just how memorable Walton's thematic material is, but how clear the sonata-form structure is. In some ways this is the last of what one might regard as the pre-war Walton works, written when his partner, Alice, Lady Wimborne, was dying painfully of cancer.
The development section brings a strongly argued fugato, with the second-movement Scherzo, marked presto, bringing a dazzling arrangement of the quartet original. The slow movement is one of Walton's most beautiful, here given a deeply expressive performance by the Scottish Ensemble. Exceptionally for Walton, the reprise of the main material is extended, with the violas leading. The Allegro molto finale is vigorous with its cross rhythms and a more lyrical countersubject.
Toby Spence sings sensitively in Finzi's Diesnatalis, setting words by the mystic poet Thomas Traherne, starting with a prose poem entitled 'Rhapsody'. That leads to three more poems, with a vigorous, exhilarating movement, 'Wonder', separating the two more reflective movements.
It is among Finzi's finest works. The Romance for strings makes an attractive introduction to the programme. A first-rate issue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
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