Glazunov: Chant du Ménestrel, Op. 71 (Minstrel's Song)

Cathy Berberian, avant-garde cult diva of the 70s, leading a unique and highly entertaining programme of vocal and instrumental Belle Epoque gems from David Popper, Gioachino Rossini to Anton Rubinstein, Gabriel Fauré and Reynaldo Hahn – served with ironic delicacy and assisted by Bruno Canino (piano), Ludwig Boettcher (cello) and Karlheinz Zöller (flute). A true Electrola Collection find, never released on CD before!

Produced by Steve Epstein / Engineered by Richard King

José Serebrier (b. December 1938) is a Uruguayan-born conductor and composer of European ancestry with an international reputation based in New York. He conducts orchestras all over the world in all continents, including South America, USA, Spain and Turkey and in the 2010-2011 season he will conduct no less than 3 series of concerts in mainland China. For Warner Classics José Serebrier has recorded all the Glazunov Symphonies with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to great critical acclaim, of which the most recent release is: Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 9 - 2564689042 (2CD)

In Moscow in April 2010, a live recording was made of maestro Serebrier conducting the closing concert of the 1st Rostropovich International Festival in the Tchaikovsky Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire of Music, featuring Rachmaninov’s great choral work ‘The Bells’.

The orchestra for this recording was the Russian National Orchestra (http://www.russianarts.org/rno/index.cfm), much recorded by Deutsche Grammophon, and regarded in a recent Gramophone poll (December 2008 : http://www.russianarts.org/rno/pressrelease.cfm?prid=081201.cfm) as one of the top symphony orchestras in the world alongside the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras.

Fedor Amosov is an exceptionally talented young Russian cellist who is fast becoming known worldwide. On his first recording for Bel Air, he performs a programme of Russian music accompanied by the Taiwanese pianist Jen-Ru Sun. Several short romantic pieces by Alexander Glazunov, including the wellknown Chant du Ménestrel (‘Minstrel’s Song’), Mélodie, Sérénade Espagnole, and Elegy in D flat major, preface a more substantial work, the Cello Sonata by contemporary composer Ivan Sokolov, dating from 2002.

Born in 1988 into a musical family in Moscow, Fedor Amosov started playing at the age of six, studying at Moscow Conservatory’s Central Music College. Amosov later studied with Natalia Gutman and has also taken lessons with world renowned cellists Mstislav Rostropovich, David Geringas, Natalia Shakhovskaya and Dmitri Yablonsky. He has performed regularly throughout Russia, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. He’s won first prizes in many international competitions, among them the WAMSO and Corpus Christi International Competitions in the US which led to several American concerts. He has appeared as a soloist with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia as well as symphony orchestras in Japan, Spain and the Czech Republic.

The Calvert-Turner Cello and Harp Duo gave their first concert in 2003 and have performed all over the UK to great critical acclaim. This disc is unique due to its combination of beautiful works for cello with piano or orchestral accompaniment, interpreted by Eleanor Turner at the harp, and original Cello and Harp duets. The release also features a premiere recording of an original Cello and Harp Sonata by the legendary Ravi Shankar.

The Russian master plays music for the cello including works by Beethoven, Glazunov, Davydov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rossini, Scriabin and Prokofiev. Yuri Semenov has compiled a programme that reaches across the centuries. As well as being one of the most sought after concert cellists in the world today Yuri Semenov also finds time to teach, conducting master classes around the world.