SACDs - Milhaud

Winners of a number of awards, the sisters Mona and Rica Bard now present their first CD, a pas de deux though 80 years of French piano music. At one and at two instruments, they create a panorama of piano sound, ranging from the simulation of orchestral colours, percussive and motoric élan to the suggestion of an intensive song-like quality. With Bizet‘s Jeux d’enfants, Ravel‘s Rapsodie espagnole and Poulenc‘s Sonata for Two Pianos, this SACD contains three 'secret' masterworks by their respective composers. With its combination of elegance, irony and samba rhythms, the Scaramouche Suite quickly became Darius Milhaud‘s most popular work. Four hands, two sisters, one pulse – Mona & Rica Bard have won national and international awards at competitons; among them the German Music Competition, the Concorso Internazionale di Musica da Camera Palma d`Oro (Finale Ligure) and the Concorso Internazionale per Duo Pianistico Twenty Fingers (Rome). The Ensemble was accepted in the National Selection of Young Artists’ Concerts of the German Music Council and in the artists’ list of the association Yehudi Menuhin – Live Music Now. Extensive concert engagements have taken Mona & Rica Bard throughout Europe, to Asia the USA and to numerous festivals such as the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the NCPA May Festival Peking and the Chicago Piano Duo Festival.

Under the renowned conductor Milan Turkovic, the twelve soloists of the Selmer Saxharmonic are now for the first time presenting the symphonic dimension of the fascinating saxophone family.

After Jean Cocteau issued tracts such as Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918) and Le Rappel à l’ordre (1926), arguing against French Impressionism and German Romanticism and in favour of art for art’s sake and with prominence being given to accessibility, simplicity and structural clarity, many composers responded to his clarion call. The devastation and emotional misery caused by the First World War and the fear of an impending further cataclysm also struck hard at existing artistic certainties. Through their music Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud and Kurt Weill all endeavoured to make sense of this ‘new Europe’ which they were experiencing around them. For its latest Glossa release the Flemish Radio Choir (VRK) has selected an ideal quintet of works to demonstrate these tendencies as well as highlighting the vocal talents of this leading European choral institution. Kurt Weill’s 1928 secular mass for the dead, Das Berliner Requiem, represents the jewel in this crown, and the VRK is accompanied by I Solisti del Vento, who also offer Stravinsky’s 1923 Octet for Wind Instruments. Both ensembles are performing here under the direction of Paul Hillier, one of the leading choral directors of today.

1SACD+ DVD

Brother and sister, Karin Lechner & Sergio Tiempo have collaborated with Argerich, Barenboim, Abbado and Dudamel amongst other greats. Sergio is performing extensively in the UK with the Halle Orchestra.

The works featured on this new hybrid SACD, in which Mario Marzi is joined by the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and conductor Hansjörg Schellenberger, represent some of the most significant pieces ever written for the saxophone.

Several of them, including the Jacques Ibert’s Concertino da Camera, and the two pieces by Milhaud, the arrangement of his work Scaramouche which was originally written for two pianos, and the ballet La Création du Monde are influenced by the music of the early jazz pioneers. Claude Debussy in the Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra, and Alexander Glazunov’s in his concerto of 1934 are more interested in exploring the range of colour of the instrument within a more traditional framework.

For more than 20 years the saxophone player Mario Marzi has been working with the Teatro alla Scala and the Filarmonica della Scala under the baton of such leading conductors as Ricardo Muti, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. During this period he has won nine national and four international competitions.