Byrd: Pavana "The Earle of Salisbury"

When the Palatinate Prince-Elector Friedrich V married the English Princess Elizabeth Stuart on Valentine's Day 1613, the whole world spoke of the "marriage between the Rhine and the Thames". The Calvinist Electoral Palatinate led the union of the Protestant German princes at this time and the Palatinate politicians saw in Anglican England a powerful ally against the Catholic Habsburgs. Thus this marriage was, of course, politically motivated; but there is considerable evidence that the two young people were actually fond of each other.

In London, the wedding was initially postponed due to the state mourning at the sudden death of the brother of the bride, and of the English heir to the throne, Price Henry, but it later took place on 14 February 1613 following hasty preparations.

After the arrival of the newlyweds in the Electoral Palatinate, the festivities were resumed at Heidelberg Castle. The Ensemble I Ciarlatani has reconstructed the many musical highlights with the help of historical reports, and presents the "marriage between the Rhine and the Thames" as an exciting musical story enabling us to witness the events of those times.

This BARBIROLLI ENGLISH MUSIC ALBUM contains something of a scoop in that the recording of Elgar’s Enigma Variations was made on 12 May 1947, the first time Barbirolli recorded the work. For some undiscoverable reason, the discs were never issued and the work was re-recorded on 23 October of the same year (also issued on CD by the Barbirolli Society on SJB1017). His affection for this inexhaustible masterpiece shone through every performance of it he gave as he gloried in the piquancy of the illustration of Elgar’s “friends pictured within” — and he liked to remind Michael Kennedy that the Variations and JB were born in the same year, 1899. Elgar’s genius was to weld his series of vignettes into a large-scale composite portrait — of himself. This gift for writing a miniature which was a microcosm of a big work is illustrated also in the second (the exquisite Lullaby) of the Three Bavarian Dances, a previously unpublished take, recorded on 30 May 1947.

This recording of baroque music for the unusual combination of trombones and voice features the DATURA-Posaunenquartett and renowned bass singer Anton Scharinger. The music is by several major composers of the period including Schutz, Byrd, Corelli, and Praetorius. The DATURA-Posaunenquartett was formed by four trombone players in 1987. Each member of the quartet has won prizes at major competitions, including the “Concours International de Musique de Toulon” and the “International Competition Prague Spring”.

They have also all appeared as soloists, and been principal trombonist in top orchestras such as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a group The DATURA Trombone Quartet has also been the recipient of several awards including the much-coveted Jan Koetsier Prize in 1993. The trombones used on this recording are all high quality reproductions of sixteenth and seventeenth century instruments and boast an elegant sound full of carrying power.

This collection features some of the greatest composers ever to record, along with disciples playing pieces by their masters.

The disciples fall largely into two main ‘schools’: the Chopin/Schumann axis and the Liszt/Leschetizky group, offering piquant contrast in the piano styles that survived in the playing of Artur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz, respectively.

The recordings were selected for performance quality as well as historical and sonic considerations.

Audio conservation: Ward Marston

No conductor can aspire to greatness unless the works of Beethoven are firmly in his repertory. Sir John Barbirolli may be best known as an interpreter of Elgar, Sibelius, Mahler, Brahms, Vaughan Williams and others, but the symphonies and concertos of Beethoven were never absent from his Hallé programmes and he brought a keen temperamental interpretative skill to their performance. Although he declared that if he could choose the last music he was destined to conduct it would be Elgar’s Second Symphony, fate decreed that the last symphony he conducted in public, at King’s Lynn in July 1970, was Beethoven’s Seventh. No elegiac coda, then, but a joyous, frenetic outburst of rhythmical fervour. Strangely, it was also the last work conducted by the man who gave J.B. his first professional job in an orchestra, Sir Henry Wood. Although Sir John rejected the 1948 offer of the conductorship of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he remained one of its guest conductors whenever engagements allowed. He took it to Eastern Europe and Russia in 1967. Two years earlier he had conducted it in a performance of the Eroica Symphony which excited the players enormously and led to a recording in May 1967. If this lacks the extra frisson of the ‘live’ performance, it is still a remarkable performance. Barbirolli’s An Elizabethan Suite was the result of the time he spent, happily, in Vancouver in 1942. His friend, the composer Arthur Benjamin, drew his attention to certain examples from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, a remarkable collection of 297 early 17th century English keyboard compositions preserved in the Fitzwilliam Library of Cambridge University. Some would say that today’s passion for ‘authenticity’ and period instruments renders arrangements such as these redundant. But the tasteful scoring and musical sensitivity, comparable with Sir Hamilton Harty’s and Elgar’s Handel transcriptions, surely guarantees them a sympathetic hearing from all but the bigoted purists. Sir John recorded the suite with the BBC Symphony Orchestra also in May 1967.

Delphian’s first release: a stunning recital on a variety of keyboards from Edinburgh’s venerated musical museum. Repertoire includes works by Byrd, Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Greene, Couperin and Forqueray.

Photographs and descriptions of all nine instruments enhance the booklet. An essential purchase for early keyboard enthusiasts worldwide.