Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice

Isabelle Faust has gone back to the original manuscript sources to offer us her version of a masterpiece of the violin repertoire. In Bach’s time, music for solo instruments was still little explored territory, and his sonatas, partitas and suites immediately established themselves as a benchmark, technically challenging and brimming with creativity. Isabelle’s previous recording was our best selling title over the Christmas period.

This is the first complete recording of all thirty songs by George Butterworth, which are performed by devoted English song advocates Mark Stone and Stephen Barlow. The CD includes all 11 of the settings from A Shropshire Lad and the 1st complete edition of his Eleven folk songs from Sussex, 8 of which are world premiere recordings as are Haste on my Joys and Love blows as the wind blows.

Auser Musici’s recordings for Hyperion have been praised for their stylish period-instrument charm and lithe, flexible, elegant sound. They have rediscovered many hidden gems of the Italian baroque repertoire. Works featuring the flute are something of a speciality of the ensemble and their disc of Boccherini Flute Quintets was highly acclaimed. The baroque flute virtuoso Carlo Ipata returns for this latest release.

Previously concentrating on music of Tuscan origin, Auser Musici now turns to 18th century Naples. The city at this period was an extraordinarily fecund artistic crucible, with many commissioning opportunities for young composers. The composers recorded here are contemporaries of the great composers such as Porpora who were at the forefront of the achievements of Neapolitan music in the first half of the eighteenth century; and the startling quality of the music demonstrates the richness of the artistic life of the age.

This new recording by German conductor Thomas Hengelbrock, who will assume the position of Chief Conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra starting in September 2011, includes sacred works by three Baroque composers, Antonio Lotti (1667-1740), Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745), and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

“The Elias is the best young quartet I’ve come across in years.” Paul Driver, Sunday Times, Nov. 2009

The Quartet was formed in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, working regularly with the late Dr. Christopher Rowland, and subsequently studying at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet.

The Quartet received second prize and the Sidney Griller prize at the 9th London International String Quartet Competition in 2003 and were finalists in the Paolo Borciani Competition in 2005.

The Elias String Quartet have performed extensively in the UK, at the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Snape Maltings, Kettle’s Yard, Bridgewater Hall, Turner Sims and Fairfield Halls. They have also toured widely, playing at the Stockholm Concert Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre, Paris, and Jordan Hall, Boston, as well as in Germany, Austria, Italy, Australia and the USA. The Quartet have broadcast live on national radio in the UK, France, Australia and Sweden.

From 2005-9 the Elias were String Quartet in Residence at Sheffield’s Music in the Round as part of the Ensemble 360, taking over from the Lindsay Quartet.

The Elias Quartet were recently selected to join BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme.

Future engagements include concerts at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall, New York.

Ayres studied composition, electronic music, and trombone. He moved to Den Haag to study with Louis Andriessen on the postgraduate composition course at the Royal Conservatoire. He settled in Holland permanently and since2006 has taught at the Amsterdam Conservatoire. Ayres’ postmodern style is eceletic, comic and theatrical.

When asked what inspires his writing he replied ‘... consonance, dissonance, melody, texture, elephants, clouds, snowballs, anything, from any time andwhenever it is needed – bound only by the borders of my limited imagination’!

Ayres has won many awards, including the International Gaudeamus Prize for composition in 1994 during the Gaudeamus Music week and the Vermeulen Prize in 2003, the highest award for composition in the Netherlands.

This disc features two of Richard Ayres’ ongoing series of ‘NONcerti’ – a form he has invented which, he explains, is both an ‘un-concerto’ and an ‘uncertain concerto’. Rather than the traditional virtuoso soloist ‘battling’ with an orchestra, he explores ideas of collaboration, failure, imperfection and mortality, but expressed in a riot of melody, quotations and invented sounds.

His works often tell or illustrate a story, as the track-titles show, below: in No. 36 the solo horn player runs up and down ramps as part of its Alpine scenario, while No.37b, although not a NONcerto by name, draws on the same narrative ideas. Based in Ayres’s Cornish-Swiss fantasy world the later stages of the first movement sees the two percussionists try some carpentry, one with a saw, the other with a hammer, as if they are trying to nail the piece together.

This recital by renowned soloist David Russell presents the works of four Latin American masters of the guitar: Augustín Barrios Mangoré, Manuel María Ponce, Héctor Ayala, Armando Neves, and Jorge Morel.

One of the great pioneers of classical guitar, Augustín Barrios Mangoré was one of the first Latin American guitarists to appear successfully in Europe and one of the first guitarists to record. Featured on this recording is Mangoré’s “Maxixe” which is based on the Brazilian dance that became popular in Rio de Janeiro in the 1870s. Manuel María Ponce was one of the most distinguished and influential figures in Mexican music. He arranged Tres Cancíones Populares Mexicanas from 1925-26 for Segovia.

Two of the pieces on the disc written by Argentine-American guitarist and composer Jorge Morel are dedicated to David Russell, “Recuerdos del Caribe” is filled with the flavors and rhythms of the West Indies, whilst “Mangoré” is a tribute to Augustín Barrios Mangoré. Even though his career was focused on tango, Héctor Ayala still had a thorough understanding of other Latin American musical styles, as demonstrated by his “Serie Americana”.

Patricia Petibon, admired for her command of Baroque style, records her first album of Italian Baroque arias partnered by Andrea Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra

Saluted by the International Record Review for her “rare ability to inject into her performance vocal characterizations which . . . nullify the need to see these operatic characters in the flesh,” Rosso frames Petibon’s gift of transformation by purely vocal means

Petibon’s keen interpretive intelligence and gleaming tone summon into vivid life a wealth of characters tangled up in the power plays of gods, kings, witches, and devils

Rosso mixes beloved Handel airs like “Lascia ch’io pianga” with newly discovered arias by his contemporaries and predecessors. Sartorio’s “Quando voglio” and Porpora’s floating “Morte amara” are potential hits

Her Deutsche Grammophon debut, Amoureuses, won 2009’s BBC Music Magazine Award for “Best Opera Album”

This CD, almost entirely comprised of world premieres and original versions, gives Salieri a chance to be heard on his own merits as a composer. Fey’s first recording of Salieri was a huge success internationally; the quality of the music in particular gave rise to many very positive comments.

These recordings were first published on two Danacord LP sets and when released in 1983 met with international critical acclaim. With modern CEDAR technique Danacord have now transferred these all to CD. This 6CD set is released for the price of 3 and also includes ‘bonus’ material, making this a truly wonderful collector’s item.