Nimbus Records releases Julius Röntgen Piano Music Volume 6, performed by Mark Anderson, on 4 April 2025 (NI 8117).

'I must confess that I’ve been following this series since it began and I’ve been very impressed with all of the discs so far.' Jonathan Welsh, MusicWeb International

This recording provides the listener with a chronological overview of Julius Röntgen’s creative output, from his earliest published composition, written in 1864—when he was just nine years old—to pieces written as a mature composer five decades later. The latter reveals a composer of outstanding skill, diverse influences, and a master of musical forms and compositional techniques. It has been said that “One would look in vain for anything truly original or shocking in Röntgen’s output....”. However, there are works included on this recording that dispel that assumption. This pianist would argue that three works stand out, which are truly unique and powerfully original. The first is a short Toccata, which is something of a mystery work having never been published and lacking a date of composition. The others are the Sonata in C Minor from 1877 and the Passacaglia and Fugue of 1911. It is the latter that most decidedly distinguishes Röntgen as having a truly original voice. Julius Röntgen composed over 600 works and is especially known for his concertos, symphonies and chamber music. His piano music has remained unjustifiably neglected since he died in 1932. © Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson
 
Pianist Mark Anderson’s recordings and performances have met with widespread critical acclaim. Since his successes at the 1993 Leeds (U.K.) and 1994 William Kapell (U.S.) International Piano Competitions, Mark Anderson has appeared frequently as recitalist, soloist and chamber musician. He has performed in Japan, throughout much of Europe and Great Britain, Ireland and North America. Mark Anderson has collaborated with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Nicholas McCegan, William Boughton, George Cleve, and Adam Fischer. Mark given recitals at New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Weill Hall, the Kennedy Centre and the Phillips Gallery in Washington D.C., London's Wigmore Hall and Zurich's Tonhalle and elsewhere throughout Europe and North America. His solo and concerto performances are complimented by chamber music work, most recently with the newly formed Röntgen Piano Trio.

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J.A. Monteiro's Limehouse Mass, performed by the Happenstance Singers conducted by Matthew Swann, is released by Ulysses Arts as an EP on 21 February 2025 (UA250020). The release also includes Monteiro's And Ruth said, Ave Maria, and Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem.

Pre-Release Singles

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Luminate Records releases Brett Dean's Eclipse (String Quartet No.1) on 24 January 2025, performed by the Slate Quartet (LR246707). This EP is Luminate's first recording released in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

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RFT Classical is a record label owned by the Richard Thomas Foundation, aiming to bring interesting and occasionally challenging pieces of contemporary music to new audiences. Our first recording of songs with Claire Booth and Andrew Matthews-Owen (and Susan Bickley) was Songs and Vexations (2019) including songs by Debussy, Fauré, Satie and Jonathon Dove, which went on to win the ALLMUSIC.COM “2019 Vocal Recording of the Year”.

Gavin Higgins’ music is bursting with authenticity. Everything he writes speaks in some way of where he comes from, of the land, of the community, of the family which formed him. He grew up in a working-class former mining community in the Forest of Dean, a borderland between England and Wales with its own dialect, a liminal place where Welsh songs and stories as well as English are in the air. It’s a place where brass band music is the chief legacy of the coalmines, the last of which closed a decade before Gavin was born and where the forest, with its sounds, its colours and its stories was a constant presence. Gavin has spoken evocatively - and perhaps romantically - about the music of the forest which surrounded him: sounds of foxes and deer mingled with brass bands, church choirs and occasional illegal raves. Nature and music, he says, are powerfully linked in his mind. © Gillian Moore
 
Horn Concerto
“… the pieces on this disc which feature the French horn -Horn Concerto and Fanfare, Air and Flourish- mark the first time that he has highlighted his own instrument in the solo slot. As ever, it was a personal connection which sparked the idea of the Horn Concerto - an approach from the horn virtuoso Ben Goldscheider, made in the full knowledge that this would reunite Gavin with his younger self. The Horn Concerto connects to the past in other ways. It’s written in E-flat, the key of famous Horn Concertos by Mozart and Strauss. It also amplifies and expands the sound of the solo horn by giving it a prominent relationship with the quartet of horns in the orchestra, calling to mind Robert Schumann’s blazing Konzertstuck from the middle of the 19th century and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Hamburg Concerto, written at the turn of the 21st.”

The Faerie Bride
Gavin looks west ward from the Forest of Dean to a Welsh tale from the Red Book of Hergest, an important mediaeval manuscript of Welsh history, poetry and stories. The legend of The Lady of the Lake tells of a water spirit who emerges from Llyn y Fan Fach in the Brecon Beacons and marries an earthly man, having insisted on a clear prenup agreement: if he strikes her three times (she uses the curious and ambiguous phrase ‘heart’s blow’ which suggests mental rather than physical cruelty) she will go back into the lake and take everything she has brought to the marriage with her. Tales of watery spirits who take human form to lure men to doom are abundant in European culture… but, Gavin says, ‘The Welsh myths are empowering, with strong female characters who set their own agenda. There is no coercion, theft, or kidnap but rather misunderstandings and cultural differences.’

Lyrita releases its Chamber Music of William Busch album on 3 January 2025, with members of the Piatti Quartet, Simon Callaghan and Ashok Klouda (SRCD 439).

Three Pieces for Violin and Piano were written as individual works: as such, they can be presented separately or, if given collectively as a suite, played in any order. Busch wrote his Passacaglia for violin and viola in 1939: the score takes the form of a decisive, four-bar theme followed by thirty variants upon it. These mini variations range widely in character, from trenchant and forceful to airy and smooth.

A Memory for 'Cello and Piano was written for Elizabeth Poston. Busch subtly conveys the idea of a reminiscence suggested by the title with simple, lightly sketched ideas presented with an air of hazy nostalgia. Eventually, the feeling of distance and reserve created in the opening portion of the work is replaced by a more troubled mood. The music ends in sorrow with a heartfelt, steeply descending sequence for unaccompanied cello followed by the merest hint of the opening material.

The Quartet for Piano and Strings is the most substantial of William Busch’s chamber pieces. Although the composer’s lyrical gifts are much in evidence, the four movements are also rigorously concise. Considerable dramatic rewards are gained from the creative tension between the music’s unforced expressivity and the formal rigour with which Busch’s powerful themes are worked out.

The Suite for 'Cello and Piano is among Busch’s most searching and variegated instrumental works. In a postwar assessment of the score, The Times’ critic noted that its four pieces ‘reveal a sensitive and interesting mind’.

Elegy for 'Cello and Piano exploits fully the stringed instrument’s lyrical qualities and capacity for rich, autumnal colours. The work begins with an extended soliloquy for unaccompanied cello and the cellist continues to preside over the entire opening section, which features only a couple of brief interjections from the piano.  © Paul Conway

'The performances here are excellent. The members of the Piatti Quartet, violinist Michael Trainor, violist Zahra Benyounes and cellist Jessie Ann Richardson are joined by pianist Simon Callaghan and 'cellist Ashok Klouda. ... The recording in the Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys has been well judged and the notes, as mentioned, are in the best of hands – Paul Conway’s. Busch is a composer with a gift for expressive intensity.'
Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International, 25 November 2024

'This is wonderful and original music, superbly performed.'
Gary Higginson, British Music Society, 26 November 2024

'Aquest disc és per a nosaltres una revelació. La música serena de William Busch, interpretada impecablement pel Piatti Quartet, ens duu a un desenllaç emocionant i desafiant.'
Marçal Borotau, Sonograma, 29 December 2024

'William Busch (1901-45) whose Three Pieces for Violin and Piano (1943-44) and Passacaglia for Violin and Viola (1939) are among the gems of little-known English music. ... Confirming his reputation as an interpreter of 20th-century English music, pianist Simon Callaghan gives an impressive projection of Busch’s music. ... Full marks, too, for members of the Piatti Quartet: Michael Trainor, violin; Zahra Benyounes, viola; and Jessie Ann Richardson, cello — all beautifully recorded in the famously rich acoustic of the Wyastone Leys Concert Hall.'
Stuart Millson, Quarterly Review, 4 January 2025

'I have been most impressed by the music and performances here, and I live in hope that this composer enjoys the recognition that he truly deserves. ... Also to be commended are the accompanying notes and the excellent sound recording. I highly recommend this disc.'
Geoff Pearce, Classical Music Daily, 5 January 2025

'... die Symbiose aus ausdrucksvoll gezeigter spielerischer Linie und plastischer Ausarbeitung der Strukturen.'
'... the symbiosis of expressive, playful line and vivid elaboration of the structures is successful.'
Pizzicato, 9 January 2025

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William Busch (1901-45)  'developed a passion for music and took piano lessons at an early age, though he harboured no ambitions of a professional career as a pianist until his teenage years.' (Paul Conway). During many years he studied music with France Woodmansee and A. W. Lilienthal, piano with Leonid Kreutzer and Benno Moiseiwitsch, harmony with Hugo Leichtentritt, and composition with leading British composers Alan Bush, John Ireland and Bernard van Dieren.

'As the 1930s progressed, Busch began to focus increasingly on composition and soon forged his own personal creative language. This decade saw the first of his many songs, a widely acclaimed Piano Concerto, and on 1 June 1935, his marriage to Sheila, with whom he had two children, Nicholas and Julia. His life was cruelly cut short when he died of an internal haemorrhage at Woolacombe, Devonshire on 30 January 1945, robbing British music of one of its most promising and versatile talents.' Paul Conway

NImbus Alliance releases Bach-Centricity: Concertos, Trios & Sonatas arranged for two harpsichords, with David Ponsford and David Hill, on 3 January 2025 (NI 6454).

All the concertos, trios and sonatas on this recording are in some way associated with J. S. Bach, being composed, arranged, transcribed or copied by the composer. All are in the BWV catalogue; most have positive links with Bach’s first important appointment as Court Organist and Chamber Musician at the Ducal Court in Weimar (1708-1714).

The value of such arrangements is that they allow a wider perception into a composer’s compositional processes, and which have the potential for presenting new insights and different characteristics to particular pieces of music, which might not be evident in the originals. Hence these arrangements extend a practice that was normal in the early eighteenth century, and in this recording, they are played on instruments with which Bach would have been entirely familiar. What revelations they reveal! © David Ponsford

‘The Two Davids’, as they have sometime been called, began playing together in 2020 when they recorded Bach’s Six Organ Trio Sonatas (NI 6403) on two harpsichords. This recording elicited the following review in Choir & Organ: ‘The recording conveys a compelling sense of dialogue and sociability between two virtuoso musicians, equally at one with the material, and the alternation between instruments makes great sense of Bach’s antiphony and repeats.’ Since then they have played at the St Albans and Cambridge Festivals, as well as for music societies in various parts of the country, including The Athenaeum Club in London. © David Ponsford

David Ponsford is an organist, harpsichordist, musicologist and conductor, and an authority on keyboard music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries… David has an extensive discography, having recorded all four parts of J. S. Bach’s Clavierübung, the complete series of Bach violin sonatas with Jacqueline Ross, ‘Parthenia’ (1612), and the complete Handel recorder sonatas with Alan Davis… In March 2024 he was awarded The Medal of the Royal College of Organists, its highest honour, ‘in recognition of distinguished achievement in organ performance and scholarship’.

Renowned for his fine musicianship, David Hill is widely respected as an organist, conductor and educator. He has held positions as Organist of Westminster Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral and St John’s College, Cambridge. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists when he was 17 whilst studying at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester… He has given recitals since he was 10 years old and continues to do so. Away from the organ world, David operates a busy life as a freelance musician… as Musical Director of The Bach Choir, London, Music Director of the Leeds Philharmonic Society, Associate Guest Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and from 2013-24 he was Professor and Principal Conductor of Schola Cantorum, Yale University… He has made a number of discs as an organist, and a recent recording from Peterborough Cathedral was nominated as Critic’s Choice in the American Record Guide in 2021.

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Ulysses Arts releases Brazilian pianist Clélia Iruzun's recording of Chopin, Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, as an EP on 6 December 2024.

Clélia Iruzun’s endearing artistic personality, which combines her native Brazilian spirit with her exceptional musical gifts, has enabled this much-admired London-based pianist to build an enviable reputation for her performances of a wide range of music, from the great classical repertoire to works by significant figures from across the Americas. She has performed over 30 concertos for piano and orchestra, including the great classical, romantic, Spanish and Latin American works.

Clélia Iruzun studied initially at the School of Music in Rio de Janeiro before becoming an advanced student at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where she won the Recital Diploma and a number of major prizes. She has subsequently worked with Nelson Freire, Jacques Klein, Stephen Kovacevich and Fou Ts’Ong, among other international artists, and many important composers have written works for her including Francisco Mignone, Marlos Nobre. Mario Ferraro, Beetholven Cunha, Alexandre Rachid and Nimrod Borenstein.

Clélia’s busy life embraces frequent appearances across Europe, the Americas and Asia. She has performed widely on television and radio, including frequent broadcasts for BBC Radio 3.

Clélia has recorded successful albums ranging from Latin American composers to concertos by Mendelssohn and the British composer Elizabeth Maconchy. Her SOMM recordings include the International Classical Music Award-nominated Piano Concertos of Albéniz and Mignone with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jac van Steen. Concertos by Henrique Oswald and Saint-Saëns (No.5, Egyptian), also with the RPO and Steen, received excellent reviews such as: “Brazilian pianist Clélia Iruzun in a stunning performance” (Musical Notes Best of 2020) and “impressively executed… another rewarding disc from this team and this label” (Gramophone). Her recent CDs of Nimrod Borenstein’s Piano Concerto (dedicated to Clélia), Piano Quintet and the piano cycle Shirim and the third volume of “Treasures from the New World” have been receiving outstanding reviews.

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Ulysses Arts releases Stephen Horne's soundtrack to Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 silent film The Manxman, orchestrated and conducted by Ben Palmer wth the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone and soloists Louise Hayter, oboe, and Jeff Moore, violin, on 10 January 2025 (UA240130). The Manxman will be screened live at the 2025 San Francisco Silent Film Festival on 11 January at Grace Cathedral.

Silent London, 1 Oct 2024

One of the world's leading silent film performers, Stephen Horne is a house musician at London’s British Film Institute Southbank. Although principally a pianist, he often incorporates other instruments into his performances, sometimes simultaneously. He regularly plays internationally and his accompaniments have met with acclaim at numerous film festivals across Europe, North America and Asia.

Stephen has recorded music for many restorations of classic and rediscovered silent films. In 2011 and 2012, he was commissioned to compose scores for the London Film Festival galas of The First Born and The Manxman. In 2012 his accompaniment for Rotaie won first prize at the Bonn Sommerkino Festival and he was subsequently invited to repeat the performance at that year’s Beethovenfest. For ten consecutive years, from 2014 to 2024, he has won in one or more categories in Silent London’s end-of-year poll.

In 2021 he recorded Silent Sirens, an album of solo piano pieces based on several of his silent film scores. It was released by Ulysses Arts and has performed well across digital platforms. In 2022, his orchestral score for Stella Dallas, commissioned by MoMA, was premiered at the pre-opening night of the Venice Film Festival.

In 2022, with the help of conductor-orchestrator Ben Palmer, Stephen completed two fully orchestrated scores for films that he had previous scored for small ensemble. Stella Dallas, commissioned by MoMA, was premièred at the Venice Film Festival and The Manxman formed the closing gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone in Italy.

The Manxman: Pre-Release Singles

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