Tchaikovsky: Album for the Young, Op. 39 (extracts)

An enchanting programme of Russian music for string quartet from the acclaimed Kuss Quartet. The multiple-composer 'Variations on a Russian folk song' has composers such as Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Lyadov rub shoulders with lesser-known names such as Vitols, Blumenfeld, Ewald, Winkler, Sokolov and Artsybuschev – each composer contributing a variation.

Selections from Tchaikovsky’s 'Album for the Young' frame two 20th-century works: Stravinsky’s effervescent 'Concertino', and Schnittke’s spare and sombre 'Canon in memoriam Igor Stravinsky'. • Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular First String Quartet concludes an ingeniously constructed programme.

Flash is Claire’s second recording for Tall Poppies - a charming compilation of miniatures for the marimba. Inspired by her formative musical years as a pianist and her two young daughters, Claire has chosen a program of new and transcribed gems for the mellow sonorities of the grand five octave marimba. The Australian works have, in the most part, been written especially for the project, and these sit cheek-by-jowl with transcriptions of well-known children’s piano pieces by Bach, Bartók, Corea, Kabalevsky, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. New works for the marimba have been written by Claire’s long-term friends and collaborators Elena Kats-Chernin, Stuart Greenbaum, Andrea Keller, Daniel Rojas and Matthew Hindson - their works are true gifts to Claire, marimba players of the future and future listeners of this CD.