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British Music – Conducted by Sir Charles Groves = ELGAR, DELIUS, VW, BRIAN, HOLST, WALTON, BRIDGE & Many Others – Warner Classics (24 CDs)

British Music – Conducted by Sir Charles Groves = ELGAR, DELIUS, VW, BRIAN, HOLST, WALTON, BRIDGE & Many Others – Warner Classics (24 CDs)

by | Jan 30, 2017 | Classical Reissue Reviews

True to its advertisement, this set brings together a fine selection of British music led by a devoted practitioner of his craft. British Music – Sir Charles Groves = ELGAR: Nursery Suite; Funeral March from Grania amd Diaramid, Op. 42; Severn Suite, Op. 87; Caractacus, Op. 35: Complete Cantata; Woodland and Triumphal March; The Crown of India – Suite, Op. 66; The Black Knight, Op. 25; Spanish Serenade, Op. 23; The Snow, Op. 26, No. 1; Fly, Singing Bird, Op. 26, No. 2; Imperial March, Op. 32; The Light of Life, Op. 29; Enigma Variations, Op. 36; Violin Concerto in b, Op. 61; Pomp and Circumstance Marches, Op. 39: No. 1 in D and No. 4 in G; DELIUS: A Song of Summer; Eventyr; A Dance Rhapsody No. 1; Paris: a Nocturne; Lebenstanz; North Country Sketches; Sea Drift; Songs of Sunset; An Arabesque; A Mass of Life; Koanga; The Song of the High Hills; VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Hugh the Drover; HOLST: The Hymn of Jesus, Op. 37; Short Festival Te Deum; Hymns from the Rig Veda – Second Group, Op. 26, No. 2; Ode to Death, Op. 38; Two Songs without Words, Op. 22: Marching Song; BRIAN: Symphony No. 8 in […]

TIPPETT: Symphony No 2* [ world première]; BLISS: Short works – Boult/Bliss – Pristine Audio

TIPPETT: Symphony No 2* [ world première]; BLISS: Short works – Boult/Bliss – Pristine Audio

by | Feb 23, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

An intriguing collection of English Music from both sides of the coin. TIPPETT:  Symphony No. 2* [ world première]; BLISS:  Welcome The Queen – March; March from ‘Things to Come’; Checkmate (excerpts); Theme and Cadenza for violin and orchestra; Overture: Edinburgh / BBC SO / Sir Adrian Boult*/ BBC Concert Orch. / Sir Arthur Bliss – Pristine Classical PASC460; 78:20 [www.pristineclassical.com] reviewed as a 24-bit download (24 & 16-bit download or CD-R available) ****1/2: Pristine Classical presents a very valuable Janus of a release, the two faces of which are clear from the contents. First we hear the world premiere, together with its unfortunate collapse early on the performance, of Sir Michael Tippett’s knotty and energetic Second Symphony, and then some of the urbane Sir Arthur Bliss’s music on the lighter side.  Widely differing music by widely differing composers make for an intriguing combination and a successful one. Sir Michael Tippett was inspired for his athletic and boldly rhythmic Second Symphony by the insistent rhythms of music by Vivaldi to which he was listening, captivated, while on holiday by the shores of Lake Lugano in the early 1950s. It took some years for the inspiration to gestate and assume the […]

Lydia Mordkovitch Tribute – British Violin Concertos = Works of BAX, BLISS, DYSON & VEALE – Chandos (2 CDs)

Lydia Mordkovitch Tribute – British Violin Concertos = Works of BAX, BLISS, DYSON & VEALE – Chandos (2 CDs)

by | Feb 22, 2016 | Classical Reissue Reviews

Chandos celebrates the late Lydia Mordkovitch, assembling her stunning performances of rare British concertos. Lydia Mordkovitch Tribute – British Violin Concertos = BAX: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra; BLISS: Concerto for Violin and Orch.; DYSON: Violin Concerto; VEALE: Violin Concerto – Lydia Mordkovitch, v./ London Philharmonic Orch./ Bryden Thomson/ BBC Nat. Orch. of Wales/ BBC Sym. Orch./ City of London Sinfonia/ Richard Hickox – Chandos CHAN 241-53 (2 CDs) 78:39, 77:36 (7/15/15) [Distrib. by Naxos] ****: Chandos celebrates the artistry of the late Lydia Mordkovitcxh (1944-2014), the Russian violinist who had served as David Oistrakh’s assistant before emigrating to Israel (in 1974) and then to Great Britain in 1980.  Besides having been voted Outstanding Woman of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, Mordkovitch became a Professor and Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and a founding artist for Chandos Records. The British concertos inscribed here derive from sessions of 1991-2006. The Violin Concerto of Sir Arnold Bax (1938, rev. 1943) had been meant for Jascha Heifetz, but that virtuoso expressed his disappointment with the solo part.  Rewriting the work for Eda Kersey, Bax found his long-awaited premiere from her and Sir Henry Wood with the BBC Symphony. The Concerto’s […]

MICHAEL TORKE: Concerto for Orchestra; Oracle; Bliss; Iphigenia – Ecstatic

MICHAEL TORKE: Concerto for Orchestra; Oracle; Bliss; Iphigenia – Ecstatic

by | Feb 1, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

MICHAEL TORKE: Concerto for Orchestra – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orch./Vasily Petrenko; Oracle – Quad City Sym. Orch./Mark Russell Smith; Bliss – U. of Kansas Wind Ens./Paul W. Popiel; Iphigenia – Camerata NY/Richard Owen – Ecstatic ER092261, 63:42 [Distr. by Naxos] (11/13/15) ***: Four fairly large-scale and energetic works from this American original. I have always enjoyed Michael Torke’s music going back to his series of ‘color’ pieces (such as the best known, Ecstatic Orange) from the mid-1980s or so. For the uninitiated, I highly recommend a recording of the whole dance-intended series of these works with David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony. His music is regularly very direct, uncomplicated and upbeat, with a style that draws upon minimalism and jazz but is wholly his own. A lot of composers seem to want to write a Concerto for Orchestra for the implicit chance to showcase each section of the orchestra and in a form with which many are familiar. So, among the many versions of this form out there, Torke’s is a very worthwhile addition. The whole piece revolves around a four-note motive first proclaimed in the opening trumpet fanfare and bounced all over the orchestra in various guises throughout the […]