New Releases
MET CD 1077 - Salvatore Sciarrino - Nicolas Hodges
Salvatore Sciarrino is one of the most prominent living composers in Italy. Born in Palermo in 1947 he now lives in Citta di Castello after many years teaching composition in Milan Perugia and Florence.
His work is certainly unorthodox. His music is not the product of a school of music, he is largely self taught. His music could be described as “psycho-acoustic” as it endeavours to re-discover space, the nature of sound and our mind’s experience of sound.
Nicolas Hodges has worked with Sciarrino over a number of years and the recording sessions took place with the composer present. This is the third recording on the Metronome label from Nicolas Hodges - whose reputation as a cutting edge performer of contemporary music for piano.
MET CD 1082 - Jan Dismas Zelenka - Fiori Musicali
A new release of the music of Zelenka (announced in our previous newsletter) is now available – launched at a reception in Oxford at Queen’s College on 6th September. For full details click
Fiori Musicali’s new recording features countertenor James Bowman as soloist in one of the Lamentations, as well as the first UK recording of the Requiem in C Minor, a work of scale and grandeur, whose origins scholars continue to be debated. Lasting some 38 minutes the Requiem is scored for choir, soloists, strings and sackbutts (with members of His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts) and its style is suitably solemn though curiously galant in the Dies Irae.
Penelope Rapson the director of Fiori Musicali has a personal interest in Bohemia (she has Bohemian antecedents) and this recording follows the orchestra’s recording of other Bohemian works on Metronome - the Wanczura Symphony no 2 “The Russian” (MET CD 1024) and the Zelenka Sinfonia in A minor (MET CD 1019. The programme involved research both in Dresden and Prague where the Requiem in D minor – which receives its first UK recording – has been languishing. The Requiem is the object of some scholarly doubt as to its attribution but the quality and the idiosyncracy of its writing point convincingly to Zelenka.
MET CD 1083 - Sacred Arias and Songs - Grace Davidson with Fiori Musicali
In November 2007 will be releasing a new recording of the voice of Grace Davidson – soprano
MET CD 107
In the Studio Piers Hellawell - Dogs & Wolves
Pierre-André Valade conducting the BBC Scottish SO, also on the recording Vanburgh Quartet and Schubert Ensemble of London: a large scale orchestral and chamber music production of the recent compositions of Belfast and Hebridean-based composer Piers Hellawell is nearing completion for release before Christmas 2007.
|
This autumn sees the release of Dogs and Wolves, a new collection of Piers Hellawell’s substantial orchestral and chamber works from the last ten years. This period has seen a number of major scores from Hellawell, including several commissioned by the artists appearing on this disc, to consolidate what The Gramophone called in 2002 “a steadily building reputation as a musical non-conformist”. International Record Review has written that “Hellawell’s industrious inventiveness is a whole lot more entertaining than many other composers’ rigorous motivic economy”, while BBC Music Magazine found “refined pathos, exhilarating song and something close to a sense of awe”. |
Other releases for release this winter are recordings of Richard Rodney Bennet piano and orchestral works (MET CD 1071) with Martin Jones at the piano. |
