new releases from Divine Art

[StephenSutton]

I don't think that the list of November and December releases appeared on here, and I have been disrupted by a critical family illness over the past few weeks so with apologies if this is repeating anything here goes for the new releases incluing the February ones which are now available for direct online sales..

The website has all the reviews received to date, all of which (from UK, US and European critics) have been VERY pleasing..

Divine Art dda25091 "Venice in Mexico" Baroque concertos by Vivaldi and Giacomo Facco (rare!) (Mexican Baroque Orchestra) brill.
Divine Art dda25089 The Jazz Age for Piano Duo (Goldstone & Clemmow) - Gershwin, Moyzes, Milhaud, Hill, Carmichael and Seiber - 1920s fun.
Divine Art dda25088 J S Bach Organ Music (David Hamilton) some rave reviews.. see we do some core repertoire sometimes!
Divine Art dda 25092 Music by John Rose (The Edinburgh Quartet/Robert Melling) - two string quartets and two major piano works, new but tonal and neo-baroque with touches of Shostakovich
Metier msv28519 (2CD) Music and Soundscapes by David Lumsdaine (Lesley-Jane Rogers, soprano; John Turner, recorder, Peter Lawson, piano, Gemini conducted by Martyn Brabbins). Nature based music by Australian composer
Diversions ddv24152 "Strings in the Earth and Air" English song by Moeran, Warlock and Stern (Paul Martyn-West, tenor/Nigel Foster, piano)
Divine Art dda25086 'Inspiration; (Anthony Goldstone) mainly well known classical works all linked to teh late Maria Curcio, and some premieres too.
Athene ath23016 Tchaikovsky 2nd Piano Concerto/Shostakovich 9th Symphony (Andreas Boyde/Freiburg Philharmonic) - one Fanfare critic said 'the best I have heard'
Diversions ddv24147 Beethoven and Mozart Piano Sonatas (Jill Crossland)
Metier msv28520 Chamber music by John Veale and Robert Crawford (John Turner, Linda Merrick, The Adderbury Ensemble) for those who want new but listenable material! Very lyrical

I have not put CD image links on in order not to grab too much server space. Reminder - subscribers to our newsleter get discounts (currently 15% off retail, for online purchases)

Greetings from a VERY snowy and windy Vermont and best wishes to all for 2011

[Chalkperson]

What about more of the Russian Piano Series...

[StephenSutton]

Volume 6 Rachmaninov is being mastered in front of me as I type - release April. Sonata no. 2, Variations on a Theme of Corelli and a number of Preludes and Etudes-Tableaux, played by Sergei Dukachev ( a real Russian!)

Volume 7 again by Dukachev, is for Prokofiev, sonatas 2 and 7, four sections from Romeo and Juliet, Visions Fugitives, to be released June

Vol. 8 Mussorsgky - still finalising program (Anthony Goldstone)

Relatively mainstrseam but each has rarities . Am talking to several American pianists about further sets

Cheers

[slofstra]

Athene ath23016 Tchaikovsky 2nd Piano Concerto/Shostakovich 9th Symphony (Andreas Boyde/Freiburg Philharmonic) - one Fanfare critic said 'the best I have heard'

Which one - best Shostakovich 9th or best Tchaikovsky 2nd?

[Chalkperson]

Volume 6 Rachmaninov is being mastered in front of me as I type - release April. Sonata no. 2, Variations on a Theme of Corelli and a number of Preludes and Etudes-Tableaux, played by Sergei Dukachev ( a real Russian!)

Volume 7 again by Dukachev, is for Prokofiev, sonatas 2 and 7, four sections from Romeo and Juliet, Visions Fugitives, to be released June

Vol. 8 Mussorsgky - still finalising program (Anthony Goldstone)

Relatively mainstrseam but each has rarities . Am talking to several American pianists about further sets

Cheers

Great, looking forward to their release, and I will order from you rather than J+R...

[StephenSutton]

Athene ath23016 Tchaikovsky 2nd Piano Concerto/Shostakovich 9th Symphony (Andreas Boyde/Freiburg Philharmonic) - one Fanfare critic said 'the best I have heard'

Which one - best Shostakovich 9th or best Tchaikovsky 2nd?

The Tchaik. Don't ask me which issue as the backup drive we kept such things on blew up.....

[StephenSutton]

Volume 6 Rachmaninov is being mastered in front of me as I type - release April. Sonata no. 2, Variations on a Theme of Corelli and a number of Preludes and Etudes-Tableaux, played by Sergei Dukachev ( a real Russian!)

Volume 7 again by Dukachev, is for Prokofiev, sonatas 2 and 7, four sections from Romeo and Juliet, Visions Fugitives, to be released June

Vol. 8 Mussorsgky - still finalising program (Anthony Goldstone)

Relatively mainstrseam but each has rarities . Am talking to several American pianists about further sets

Cheers

Great, looking forward to their release, and I will order from you rather than J+R...

Thank you kind sir. Buying direct means the artists get 3 times the royalty of a through-retail sale sp we feel as if we are supporting them more!

[slofstra]

Athene ath23016 Tchaikovsky 2nd Piano Concerto/Shostakovich 9th Symphony (Andreas Boyde/Freiburg Philharmonic) - one Fanfare critic said 'the best I have heard'

Which one - best Shostakovich 9th or best Tchaikovsky 2nd?

The Tchaik. Don't ask me which issue as the backup drive we kept such things on blew up.....

No worries, I believe you. These happen to be 2 of my favourite pieces on one CD so I might give this one a whirl.

[Chalkperson]

Athene ath23016 Tchaikovsky 2nd Piano Concerto/Shostakovich 9th Symphony (Andreas Boyde/Freiburg Philharmonic) - one Fanfare critic said 'the best I have heard'

Which one - best Shostakovich 9th or best Tchaikovsky 2nd?

The Tchaik. Don't ask me which issue as the backup drive we kept such things on blew up.....

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 2. SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 9 • Andreas Boyde (pn); Johannes Fritzsch, cond; Freiburg PO • MINERVA-ATHENE ATH CD16 (73:34)
MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition. RAVEL Miroirs • Andreas Boyde (pn) • MINERVA-ATHENE ATH CD17 (65:06)

Having interviewed Russian pianist Andrei Hoteev for the last Fanfare about his complete recording of the Tchaikovsky works for piano and orchestra, I hedged my bets in my review about Hoteev's cautious tempos—he says they are Tchaikovsky's originals, but they often fail to convince, even though they do allow Hoteev to project the detail of Tchaikovsky's piano textures with considerable clarity. Now here's undeniable proof that clarity does not have to be sacrificed to excitement: Andreas Boyde and his Freiburg fellows take Tchaikovsky's Second Concerto at much faster speeds than Hoteev and Fedoseyev, with enormous gains in conviction—and this performance likewise uses the uncut original version of the score. Indeed, Boyde turns in one of the best interpretations I have yet heard. It's a fabulous reading, tender and blisteringly exciting by turns, with a dexterity that suggests Horowitz himself—on more than one occasion I found myself holding my breath with excitement. Johannes Fritzsch, conducting the Freiburg Philharmonic, provides an accompaniment that would be acceptable from many a better-known orchestra, even if there's sometimes a bit of edge in the string body when it has to play out. And though the violin and cello solos prominent in the second movement aren't always in tune, the principal flute, who pops up all over the place, dispatches his (or her) solos with perfect aplomb.

The unpredictable coupling—Shostakovich's snoot-cocking Ninth Symphony, another instance of the incredible risks he took in maintaining his distance from Stalin—is explained in the origins of this disc in two live concerts, recorded on January 13 and 14, 1997 (which, incidentally, makes Boyde's technique all the more impressive); the concert is one of a series scheduled to appear as the "Freiburg Edition." But concerts and CDs are different fora, and after Boyde's electric Tchaikovsky, Fritzsch's Shostakovich, which in all fairness is a passable enough reading, is little more than filling: Tighter rhythms and a fiercer onward drive might have rescued it. The essence of all humor is concision, and Fritzsch doesn't tell this one with enough poise. The audience, by the way, is discretion itself—no a peep from them until the well-deserved applause bursts out at the end.

My initial reaction to yet another Pictures at an Exhibition was just that: Yet another? But that Tchaikovsky had warned me to listen with especial attention to what turns out to be a very satisfying reading indeed. Boyde's notes explain that he suspects a philosophical program underlying the work. Alerted by Mussorgsky's statement that his own physiognomy could be seen in the music, Boyde understands the Pictures as an allegorical representation of Mussorgsky himself, "organised as a sequence of two single pictures and four groups of two"—the first two, "The Gnome" and "The Old Castle," for example, "could be the reflections of Mussorgsky's physical appearance and his psyche." Likewise, the following images offer contrasting states: "Tuileries" and "Bydlo," Boyde argues, "may represent carefree childhood and the burden of age"; the "Unhatched Chicks" and "Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle" are unity and diversity; and so on. Not surprisingly, with these insights underlying his interpretation, Boyde makes the most of its contrasts. The opening "Promenade" (Mussorgsky himself, contemplating his inner being?) is measured, calm, making the broken lines of "The Gnome" all the more terse and intemperate in comparison. Boyde maintains this alertness to contrast throughout his performance, not so much by exaggerating differences in tempos (which tend to be moderate throughout) but by maintaining clarity so as to bring out variety of mood and color; he is, indeed, particularly attentive to keyboard voicing—you can hear him weighting chords to bring out middle voices or emphasize basses, as appropriate. For all Boyde's evident virtuosity, this is not a virtuoso's performance; instead, it's an illuminating attempt to get beyond Mussorgsky's words, behind the notes. And it succeeds admirably.

To couple Pictures with Miroirs is clever wordplay that also works on musical terms: Despite the obvious differences in language, Ravel is also concerned with projecting mood, evoking associations. And again Boyde's interpretation reaches beyond virtuosity to let the music speak through the contrasts realized in the clarity that his remarkable technique permits.

Excellent piano tone from Athene-Minerva's production team—there are some wonderfully sonorous passages, though Boyde's ferocious imitation of guitar rasgueado in "Alborada del gra-cioso" reveals that the piano itself is only just up to the mark (it doesn't show elsewhere). I don't often find myself writing about such mainstream material, but when something of this quality comes along, I am glad to be reminded of what I am missing. Martin Anderson