Following the success of his 2023 Solo Piano Works album, with more than 1,5 million streams, Ulysses Arts releases Paul Henley's Works for String Quartet on 20 September 2024, performed by the Jarualda Quartet.
Press kit and listening links for reviewers available from Ulysses Arts.
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Lyrita Recorded Edition releases George Lloyd, The Works for Brass, on 2 August 2024, with The Black Dyke Mills Band conducted by David King, and the Equale Brass Quintet. ![]() George Lloyd was familiar with music for brass from an early age. One of his first musical recollections was listening with rapt attention to a Salvation Army Band with his mother in St Ives. As a student, he attended regularly brass band concerts at London’s Crystal Palace, where he heard the premiere of John Ireland’s, A Downland Suite at the National Band Festival Competition on 1 October 1932. Lloyd played the cornet when serving as a Bandsman in the Royal Marines, giving him invaluable practical experience as an executant within a group of players. His scoring for the brass section in his large-scale works is invariably idiomatic, impressively wrought and indicates a keen understanding of all the instruments’ range, character and versatility. Yet, despite all these indications that he was a natural composer of brass band music, he turned to writing music for brass instruments only in the last two decades of his creative life. Though music for brass band was the last major genre Lloyd added to his catalogue of works, his enthusiasm for the medium, once he had embraced it, was unstinting. The wide popularity of his music within the brass band movement was an enduring source of considerable pride and satisfaction for George Lloyd, as he once confessed: ‘To realise that the people who are actually doing it, the players themselves ... seem to like it, that is what pleases me the most’. © Paul Conway “Lloyd's early years in St Ives were spent surrounded by music as his parents were both accomplished amateur musicians, holding weekly chamber concerts with friends in the studio of their house. Despite being “seduced”, as he said, by the sound of brass instruments played by the St Ives Salvation Army Band, he took up the violin, going on to study with the great violinist Albert Sammons…. In 1939, when Lloyd joined The Royal Marines Music Service he became a Cornet player in the Band aboard HMS Trinidad. Asked by the Director of Music to compose a ship’s march he quickly obliged, only to find that the Captain had asked his friend Vaughan Williams to do the same. In the end both marches were played before a panel of the ship’s Officers for them to choose their favourite and George Lloyd’s won.” Phillip Hunt, Cornish National Music Archive “George was delighted to be commissioned by Boosey & Hawkes to provide ‘Royal Parks’ for the 1985 European Brass Band Championships. It seemed to open up other exciting opportunities as he then went on to compose works such as Diversions on a Bass Theme, English Heritage and King’s Messenger amongst others.” Bill Lloyd, 4barsrest Electronic press kit, pre-release listening links and CDs available for reviewers via Ulysses Arts. Lyrita Recorded Edition releases its George Lloyd Piano Works double album on 2 August 2024, performed by duo Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow and as soloists, Kathryn Stott and Martin Roscoe (SRCD 2423). ‘I just write what I have to write’. The artistic credo of George Lloyd conveys the directness and emotional honesty of his music. He wrote in a traditional idiom enriched by a close study of selected models, Verdi and Berlioz chief among them. His music is distinctive and written with integrity. There is a remarkable consistency to his output, most of which was created spontaneously and without the incentive of a commission. He was fortunate enough to discover his individual and versatile musical voice at an early age. The deceptively artless quality of his scores stems from a thorough grounding in composition techniques. As a violinist, Lloyd was drawn to stringed instruments rather than the keyboard. His wife, Nancy had a very different attitude to the piano, however. Having been brought up listening to records of Alfred Cortot, among other great pianists, she had developed a genuine passion for the instrument. She was always urging her husband to write a piano concerto, but it was not until the early 1960s that those years of persuasion paid off and Lloyd wrote Scapegoat, the first of his series of four piano concertos. Now the composer had overcome his previous aversion to the keyboard, as he put it, ‘Suddenly, everything I thought of, I thought in terms of the piano’. From this dramatic change of heart emerged several works for solo piano. © Paul Conway Electronic press kit and listening links available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts. LYRITA RELEASES GEORGE LLOYD'S COMPLETE VIOLIN CONCERTOS AND CELLO CONCERTOS ALBUM ON 5 JULY 202421/5/2024
Lyrita Recorded Edition releasesGeorge Lloyd's Violin Concertos and 'Cello Concerto album on 5 July 2024. The Violin Concertos are performed by Cristina Angeleschu and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Parry; the 'Cello Concerto with Anthony Ross and the Albany Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Alan Miller. The Concertos' printed scores (SRMP 0066, 0070 and 0074 and associated sheet music) will be published on 2 August.
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'George Lloyd started to learn the violin at the age of five and he was a pupil of the violinist Albert Sammons for six years. Despite his facility in playing the violin and the importance he attached to his lessons with Sammons, Lloyd was slow to compose works for his own instrument. It was not until 1970 that Lloyd wrote Violin Concerto No. 1, his first piece with a leading role for his own instrument, but this achievement seemed to stir his enthusiasm and during the next seven years he completed a number of short pieces for violin and piano, a fully-fledged sonata and a second concerto. Violin Concerto No. 1 was written in 1970 and remained unperformed until the recording featured on this release took place in the summer of 1998. Seven years elapsed before Lloyd wrote a second concerto for the violin. One of Lloyd’s purest, most directly communicative melodies graces the Largo third movement.
The solo instrument’s poetic qualities are to the fore in music of supplicatory spirit. In a couple of ear-catching passages, the soloist’s scrunchy, dissonant chords have the raspy nostalgia of a squeeze box. Lloyd completed his 'Cello Concerto in July 1997, a year before his death at the age of 85 and in this autumnal piece, one can discern a wistful, valedictory quality, with feelings of sorrow and regret surfacing repeatedly. The solo instrument’s inherently lyrical aspect is suited to the composer’s expressive needs, and the one-movement format allows the musical narrative to ebb and flow naturally so that this work has a strong claim to be regarded as Lloyd’s most formally successful concertante piece. A small orchestra is required, consisting of double woodwind, three horns, modest percussion (for one player) and strings.' © Paul Conway 'These two works were recorded during the week before George Lloyd died on July 3, 1998. He was supposed to conduct these performances, but David Parry stepped in at the last minute with the wonderful Romanian violinist Cristina Anghelescu and members of the Philharmonia Orchestra to complete the project. The recording was made in Henry Wood Hall. George was even too ill to attend the sessions, but he was making suggestions as to the best placement of the players to achieve just the recorded sound he wanted 48 hours before his death. This beautiful recording is a fine and lasting memorial to this composer whose music brings such passionate joy to so many music lovers all over the world.' Presto Classical
'Those familiar with Lloyd's warm, spacious, big-hearted, sumptuously orchestrated symphonies won't be disappointed with his violin concertos.' American Record Guide
Electronic press kit and pre-release listening links are available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.
Lyrita releases Charles Villiers Stanford, Te Deum and Elegiac Ode (SRCD 435) on 5 July 2024 with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, sopranos Rhian Lois and Samantha Price, tenor Alessandro Fisher and baritone Morgan Pearse, conducted by Adrian Partington.
'By the time Stanford had received a commission from the Norfolk and Norwich Festival to write a choral work for them in 1884, he had, aged 32, already begun to assert himself as one of Britain’s leading composers. The Elegiac Ode was, however, his first mature foray into the world of major British choral festivals. Some of the Elegiac Ode had been sketched three years earlier in 1881, but after the Norwich commission, Stanford grasped the opportunity to complete it in July 1884. The words were taken from the last part of Walt Whitman’s elegy, ‘When lilacs in the door yard bloom’d’, written after President Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. (Stanford’s pupil, Gustav Holst, would use the same text for his Ode to Death after the First World War in 1919.) Taking the seven verses of the burial hymn, Stanford divided his chosen text into four parts, creating a four-movement musical structure more akin to a choral symphony with its substantial and thematically related choral outer movements flanking two shorter inner essays.
Stanford’s large-scale setting of the Te Deum Op. 66 was first sung at the Leeds Festival on 6 October 1898: its ambitious, opulent dimensions were a fitting commemoration of the accession to the throne by Queen Victoria (its dedicatee) sixty years earlier, as well as a tribute to the full-bodied, well-trained Leeds chorus of 350 singers. A particular feature of the Te Deum is the grandeur of much of its choral writing. Though also dramatic, a dominating feature of the Te Deum is its prominent use of the chorus, and the many fulsome sonorities Stanford was able to draw from the magnificent ‘instrument’ of the Leeds voices.' © Jeremy Dibble
'The performances on the disc have a sophistication and vigour that does full justice to the music.'
Planet Hugill, 24 July 2024
SRCD 382: Stanford, Mass 'Via Victrix':
'Rescued from obscurity nearly a century after its composition, Stanford's largescale post-war mass is definitely worth checking out. Impassioned performances here.' BBC Music Magazine Electronic press kit and pre-release listening link available for reviewsers from Ulysses Arts. Lyrita releases George Lloyd Piano Concertos album on 7 June 2024, conducted by the composer10/4/2024 Lyrita Records continues its 2024 George Lloyd Signature Edition releases with the complete Piano Concertos, on Friday 7 June, with soloists Martin Roscoe and Kathryn Stott, and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer (SRCD 2421). George Lloyd’s four piano concertos come from his time as a smallholder at Ryewater in Dorset during the 1960s and 70s. 'Lloyd was already thinking of writing a piano concerto when he heard the playing of John Ogdon, at that time one of Britain’s most promising and interesting younger pianists. Lloyd kept Ogdon’s playing in mind as he wrote his single movement Piano Concerto No.1 ‘Scapegoat’ in 1962/63… it has an improvisatory feel and…jazz variations…There are so many colours and shadings in the orchestral part that make it as important as the piano part. Lloyd intended to write a three-movement work, but the initial material worked itself into a single movement concerto. This remarkable work was first performed in October 1964 by John Ogdon with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Groves. This led to a friendship with Ogdon, with Lloyd helping the pianist with the orchestration of some of his own compositions.” © Bruce Reader, The Music of George Lloyd The effort of writing his Seventh Symphony, with its predominantly tragic tone, at the end of the 1950s had taken a heavy toll on the composer’s mental health and by the start of the following decade he was in a very negative frame of mind. Not for the first time in his life, the act of composing provided the key to alleviating the situation, as he explained: ‘... around the very early sixties, a few darker thoughts – tragic thoughts – began haunting me. With them musical ideas began to formulate, and I began to wonder if this might be the time for that piano concerto’. If the first three piano concertos have the heft and communicative power of Lloyd’s larger middle-period symphonies, the Fourth has a close affinity to the Ninth Symphony, which was completed the previous year. Both pieces exhibit an impish sense of fun, tempered by profound feelings of yearning and regret. George Lloyd approached the piano concerto form with imagination and individuality. His idiomatic solo writing avoids shallow virtuosity and empty rhetoric and there are no mighty tussles between piano and orchestral forces encountered in archetypal large-scale concertante scores. Instead, the composer offers a series of deeply personal attempts to reconcile time-honoured elements of display with symphonic preoccupations of long-range tonality, rhythmic energy and melodic growth. In sum, Lloyd’s four piano concertos constitute a compelling and distinctive branch of his creative legacy. © Paul Conway 'The interpretations are thoroughly committed. Martin Roscoe and Kathryn Scott prove to be wonderful storytellers at the piano, repeatedly creating great moods and revealing a wide repertoire of stylistic expression – from romantic virtuosity and impressionistic intimacy to exuberant jazz elements. The orchestras are also highly committed, shining with delicate string sounds, solemn tutti and dynamic rhythms.' Remy Franck, Pizzicato, 13 June 2024 Electronic press kit available for reviewers. Digital download and streaming links will be posted here.
Nimbus Records releases Steve Elcock, Symphony No. 8 and Violin Concerto on Friday 7 June 2024 (NI. 6446), with the English Symphony Orchestra and soloist Zoë Beyers, conducted by Kenneth Woods, as part of their 21st Century Symphony Project.
The 21st Century Symphony Project The 21st Century Symphony Project (21CSP) is an English Symphony Orchestra initiative conceived by conductor Kenneth Woods. The initial goal was to commission, premiere and record nine new symphonies by nine different composers. The 21CSP has been called 'one of the most important musical initiatives of modern times' by Robert Matthew-Walker, Editor of Musical Opinion, and 'the most important series of commissions and recordings of our times' by musicologist and cultural commentator Peter Davison, former Artistic Consultant at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Alongside Steve Elcock’s Symphony No. 8, other works in the 21st Century Symphony Project include David Matthews Symphony No. 9 (NI 6382), Philip Sawyers Symphony No. 3 (NI 6353) and Adrian Williams, Symphony No. 1 (NI 6432). ![]() Symphony No. 8 'Following the weighty Sixth and Seventh symphonies, I felt the need to write a smaller scale piece before tackling the Ninth, the finale of which was already written and was monumental enough in character to require some substantial movements to precede it. I attempted to produce such a lighter piece by turning to an early string quartet written in 1981 when I was aged 24. I had dismissed it as juvenilia but thought it could perhaps be salvaged by arranging it for string orchestra and filling out the textures… While my first two symphonies still await either performance or recording after a quarter of a century, the Eighth was already on the programme of the Three Choirs Festival before I had even finished reorchestrating it… Symphony no. 8 was commissioned by the English Symphony Orchestra and first performed by them as part of the Three Choirs Festival in Kidderminster on July 28, 2021.' © Steve Elcock Violin Concerto 'With the first movement, I wanted to achieve a return to the classical momentum that had largely been lost throughout the Romantic era and onward. The energy is unflagging, verging on the desperate, relief being provided only by the two appearances of the expansive second theme; but even this is underpinned by a niggling rhythm in the violas. The second movement provides a welcome contrast. Its opening makes use of change-ringing techniques applied to slowly moving scales in violins and violas, evoking distant bells ringing across a valley.' © Steve Elcock
'Juxtaposing two major works which confirm his standing among the leading European symphonists of his generation ... This latest release warrants the strongest of recommendations.'
Richard Whitehouse, Arcana, 18 May 2024 'The more I discover and experience the music of Steve Elcock, the more I feel the need to recommend it to anyone who happens to read this review. If you enjoy classical music in general, with a preference for symphonic writing, this living composer ticks all the boxes when it comes to harmonic integrity, orchestration colors and textures, emotive power and structural stability.' Jean Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel, 13 June 2024
Electronic press kit available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts
Lyrita Records releases George Lloyd's A Litany and A Symphonic Mass, conducted by the composer, on 3 May 2024, with Bounemouth Symphony Orchestra/Brighton Festival Chorus, soprano Janice Watson and bass Jeremy White, and Philharmonia Orchestra with Guildford Choral Society (SRCD 2419).
‘I just write what I have to write’. The artistic credo of George Lloyd conveys the directness and emotional honesty of his music, which is distinctive and written with integrity. He was fortunate enough to discover his individual and versatile musical voice at an early age. The deceptively artless quality of his scores stems from a thorough grounding in composition techniques.
Lloyd wrote in a traditional idiom enriched by a close study of selected models, Verdi and Berlioz chief among them. There is a remarkable consistency to his output, most of which was created spontaneously and without the incentive of a commission. Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd’s late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output. Chris de Souza writing in The Independent, 1998, described the Brighton Festival commission of A Symphonic Mass as ‘perhaps the climax’ of Lloyd’s ‘astonishing career’. In his review of the original release of the present recording, Ivan March was moved to describe the Mass as ‘one of the finest pieces of English choral writing of the twentieth century’.
Electronic press kit available for reviwers.
Digital download and streaming links will be published here. Lyrita Records releases George Lloyd's Requiem and Psalm 130 on 3 May 2024, with the Exon Singers, countertenor Stephen Wallace and organist Jeffrey Makinson, conducted by Matthew Owens.
‘I just write what I have to write’. The artistic credo of George Lloyd conveys the directness and emotional honesty of his music, which is distinctive and written with integrity. He was fortunate enough to discover his individual and versatile musical voice at an early age. The deceptively artless quality of his scores stems from a thorough grounding in composition techniques.
Lloyd wrote in a traditional idiom enriched by a close study of selected models, Verdi and Berlioz chief among them. There is a remarkable consistency to his output, most of which was created spontaneously and without the incentive of a commission. Conceived on a grand scale, Lloyd’s late choral works build fruitfully upon his previous experience in other genres. They share with his operas an innate lyricism, natural affinity with the human voice and feeling for the long line, while their structural balance, intensive working out of motifs and rich orchestral palette owes a significant debt to his prolific symphonic output. Lloyd produced the final score of his Requiem a month before his death in 1998. It is inscribed ‘to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales’. Compassionate, reassuring and even, at times, joyful, this is a conscious leave-taking on the part of the composer. His compact and cogent setting of Psalm 130 constitutes, arguably, his most fluently effective use of a cappella choral writing.
Electronic press kit available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.
Digital download and streaming links will be published here. To coincide with the centenary of 100th anniversary of Kenneth Victor Jones's birth, Lyrita Records is releasing an album containing five première recordings on Friday 3 May 2024, performed by soloists from the London Mozart Players (SRCD 434). Jones, who also composed a substantial catalogue of film scores, wrote music in neo-classical style: direct and energetic, he stretches the boundaries of tonality without breaking them. The language is familiar - Françaix and Shostakovich come to mind - engaging, playful and immediately graspable.
Kenneth V. Jones's “love of music began at the age of ten, when he started composing hymn tunes. He began his musical career as a chorister at St. Nicholas’s College of Church Music, Chislehurst, under Sir Sydney Nicholson, and received his first newspaper review in 1935 for his participation in a children’s opera by Nicholson.
The Times’ critic observed that ‘Master Kenneth Jones must be mentioned for his playing of the harpsichord at an age when most of us did not know there was any such thing’… In 1947 he enrolled at the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition, theory, piano, organ and conducting… In his final year, he won the Royal Philharmonic Prize for composition with his Concert Overture, premiered at the College in November 1950. Only eight years later, in 1958 he became Professor of Music at the Royal College of Music and was also appointed an examiner to the Associated Board.” © Paul Conway London Mozart Players principal cellist Sebastian Comberti writes: “My first encounter with Kenneth V. Jones was in 2016 when our family moved to the village of Bishop stone in the Sussex Downs. Over the course of several months, I was able to learn more of Kenneth’s musical life. As soon as he mentioned having once written a string quartet, it was decided to programme the work during the following Season of Seaford Music Society, of which Kenneth was a long-standing member and whose programming I had recently taken on. Such was the warmth of the reception upon hearing the work that it was decided to explore more of Kenneth’s chamber music output, and thus the idea for this album was born. We have Kenneth to thank for the fact that the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music made the decision, at his suggestion, to include contemporary compositions in their graded examination syllabuses. Several of the short character pieces that Kenneth wrote for the ABRSM remain in the syllabus to this day, and a selection of these is included on this recording. It gave me huge pleasure to be able to present to Kenneth the first edit of the current album, just a few days before his death in December 2020. He was absolutely thrilled.” Maureen Buja,Interlude, 10 June 2024
Electronic press kit available for reviewers from Ulysses Arts.
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LYRITA PUBLISHING
Kenneth V. Jones: Sonata for Pianoforte | Wind Quintet No. 2 | Quinquifid (1980) | String Quartet (1950) | Piano Quintet (1967) Sheet music for all the works on SRCD.434 awre also published as individual volumes by Lyrita Publishing on 3 May 2024 (SRMP 0164 - SRMP 0168).
The world première recording of Andrew Smith's Old Irish Blessing, performed by Caritas Chamber Choir with soprano Catherine Futcher, directed by Benedict Preece, is released by Ulysses Arts on 15 March 2024, in partnership with Platoon. This single is the first pre-release for a new album of contemporary choral music launching in summer 2024.
![]() Andrew Smith (b. 1970) is a British-Norwegian composer with a growing international reputation for choral and vocal music that links tradition with a contemporary idiom. He read Music and English at the University of Oslo. Composing, a hobby since the age of eight, began in earnest in the late 1990s when he wrote a piece for the newly-formed Trio Mediaeval (Norway). The subsequent recording of this and other music for the Trio brought Andrew to the attention of the American audience and led the way to collaborations with groups such as New York Polyphony, Khorikos Chamber Choir and Gothic Voices. Andrew’s Requiem, composed for the Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir in response to the tragic events in Norway in July 2011, was first performed in Trondheim in 2012. The work features on the Nidaros Cathedral Girls Choir album LUX, awarded a Grammy for Best Immersive Audio Album in January 2020. Andrew has been commissioned and performed by numerous choirs in Norway and abroad. Recent commissions include Lukaspasjon, a setting in Norwegian of the Passion according to St. Luke for Oslo Cathedral Choir, and O Antiphons for the Khorikos Chamber Choir in New York, first performed in 2019. Andrew Smith’s music is published principally by Norsk Musikforlag, with some works published by Oxford University Press.
Lyrita Records releases Cyril Scott, Piano Sonata No. 1, performed by Simon Callaghan, on 5 April 2024.
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Sonata for Piano Op. 66: composed 1908; revised edition from 1930s
'Cyril Meir Scott (1879-1970) is one of a group of British composers to have benefitted from three cultural features of recent decades: increased curiosity from performers and listeners; a more inclusive outlook from musicologists and critics; and the music industry spotting a gap and a demand. A much more colourful picture of British music in the first half of the twentieth century has resulted. Scott was a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction as well as a composer of several hundred pieces. His writings and music are deeply invested in mysticism and the occult. This element in Scott’s work, as Sarah Collins has noted, helps us to see beyond received notions of Scott as either a trivial exoticist or an unjustly-neglected pioneer, and to appreciate his music on its own terms.' ©Brian A. Ingis ![]()
Simon Callaghan performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, in parallel with a successful recording career. Simon Callaghan’s distinguished and eclectic discography includes recordings for Hyperion, Nimbus and Lyrita, among others. He is heard regularly on BBC Radio 3 and on multiple streaming platforms: his most recent single on Apple Music with Coco Tomita
surpassing one million streams in its first month of release. He is a strong social media enthusiast, using it to promotion for classical music in general and seeing it as a particular tool in his advocacy of the rare and unexplored. He is Director of Music at London’s celebrated Conway Hall, only the sixth incumbent since the Series's foundation in 1887. He was elected a Steinway Artist in 2012.
Eletronic press kit for press reviewiers available from Ulysses Arts.
Lyrita Records releases George Lloyd's complete symphonies and other orchestral works, conducted by the composer, on 1 March (SRCD.2417) and 5 April 2024 (SRCD.2418).
'Lloyd became a symphonist despite himself. When he was in his twenties he seemed destined to be a composer of operas and it is likely that, had the vicissitudes of war not intervened, he would have written music for the stage exclusively. In an article for the June 1939 issue of the Musical Monthly Record, Harry Farjeon wondered why music for Lloyd was ‘not centred in the concert hall but in the theatre’ and quoted the young composer as being ‘interested only in opera’.
There are strong traces in the symphonies of what might have been: the intensely lyrical, cantabile nature of the writing; the intermezzo-like movements; the opera buffa qualities of the finales and the feeling for the long line which runs through those supple and sweeping melodies all denote a born opera composer. In the event, his operatic aspirations were cruelly cut short and it is to his courageous, life-affirming twelve symphonies that we must look to chart his development, recovery and eventual triumph.' © Paul Conway Jean-Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel Symphonies Vol. 1, March 2024 Symphonies Vol. 2, April 2024
Electronic press kit available for reviewiers from Ulysses Arts.
Lyrita Records's album, releasing on 1 March 2024, gives long-deserved attention to three prolific but neglected British composers: Dorothy Howell (1898-1982), Pamela Harrison (1915-90) and Madeleine Dring (1923-77). Working in the same country at the same time, these composers had much in common. All studied at London's Royal Academy or Royal College of Music, and had dual careers as composer-performers. They wrote tonal music in a style that would fall out of fashion in the later twentieth century: this contributed to their disappearance from concert halls. And above all, they composed with a great sense of humour. The music on this disc sparkles with wit and energy.
In the mid-twentieth century the two piano combination was popular in the concert hall and for light entertainment. It proved a perfect medium for composers seeking to bring lightness of touch to their work, allowing them to write pieces that were fun to play and to watch.
'Callaghan and Takenouchi play with wonderful elan and relish, clearing enjoying the sound-worlds and having a great deal of fun. And they must be thanked for digging up these treasures.'
Planet Hugill, 6 March 2024
'This recording of three women composers’ music for two pianos is inspirational in its effect.'
Maureen Buja, Interlude, 25 March 2024 ![]()
Simon Callaghan
'A musician of curiosity and discernment, Callaghan’s robust piano-playing is also thoughtful, subtle and refined.' (Gramophone) Steinway Artist Simon Callaghan performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, in parallel with his career as a recording artist. Callaghan’s repertoire includes over fifty concertos including standard solo and chamber works of the 19th and 20th centuries, and much that is rare and unexplored. Hiroaki Takenouchi Heralded by The Times as 'just the sort of champion the newest of new music needs', and praised as 'impeccable in his pianism and unfailing in his idiomatic grasp' by Gramophone, Takenouchi’s curiosity and a natural penchant for integrity makes his playing and his vast repertoire unique. His love for the classical masters – particularly Haydn, Beethoven and Chopin – is equalled by his passion for the music of Medtner, lesser-known British composers and contemporary music.
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Electronic press kit available from Ulysses Arts. Nimbus celebrates composer Richard Blackford's seventieth anniversary year with a major series of new album releases, music publications and concerts throughout 2024. 5 January 2024: Nimbus Music Publishing releases scores for Babel, a new cantata for chorus, soloists, piano, organ and percussion (NMP.1126) and Clarissa's Tango. The latter has two versions: for violin and piano (NMP.1172), and for violin and string orchestra (NMP.1255). Clarissa's Tango also will be released on the same date as an audio (NI.1580) and audio-visual single (NI.1581), performed by Clarissa Bevilacqua, violin, and Thomas Hoppe, piano.
1 March 2024: Nimbus Records releases Blackford's Songs of Nadia Anjuman, performed by The Britten Sinfonia and soprano Elizabeth Watts, as an EP (NI.6444):
Also on 1 March 2024: Lyrita Records releases La Sagrada Familia Symphony, with BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Richard Blackford, and Babel: A Cantata, with the Ikon Singers conducted by David Hill (SRCD.432):
New Works by Richard Blackford from Nimbus Music Publishing: 5 January 2024
![]() Richard Blackford writes about his new works: Babel is a dramatic cantata based on the stories of Noah’s Flood and the Tower of Babel, with a thrilling and colourful score using organ, piano and percussion. Babel uses the chorus extensively to narrate both stories, as well as to evoke the terror of the Flood, the exuberance of the construction of the tower, and of course the multi-lingual babble of languages to which they are condemned. In addition to set pieces, such as the Nimrod baritone aria, and the soprano aria, ‘Do not fear the largeness of the showers’, the three soloists often sing together as the other-worldly voice of God. The instrumental forces are relatively modest, with the piano duet supported by the sustaining power of the organ, backed by two percussionists. This sound world is redolent of those Britten masterpieces for amateur choirs, ensembles and audiences, which have inspired many composers since, and to which I too am gratefully indebted.' Babel's vocal score (NMP.1126) is for sale; full score and parts (NMP.1127) are available to hire. Approximate duration 38 minutes. ![]()
'In Buenos Aires, tango is described as the forbidden dance. In this performance the violin and piano capture not only the sound but also the essence of tango, creating an evocative dance between the instruments. The violin has the lead melodic material and the piano has some really exciting riffs and plays the supportive role guiding their interplay.
I remember seeing the amazing film Scent a Woman starring Al Pacino and Gabrielle Anwar. Pacino plays a blind veteran but he has an amazing sense of smell and he invites a beautifully young woman to dance a tango, something that he does supremely well. It's just one of the coolest most beautiful scenes that I can remember. After I saw it for the fifth time I just woke up one night with the idea of a tango which wouldn't go away, so I had to write it. Clarissa’s Tango starts with a short, cadenza-like introduction on the solo violin, the tango is cast in rondo form, with the central C section moving from the home key of D minor to D major. It’s an ebullient duet that makes virtuoso demands on the solo violin, from extreme high tessitura passages and multi-stops to fast passage work as the violin elaborates on the main tango melody.'
'Tango is very visual and we wanted to capture this as a part of our release. Alongside performing the première and making the audio recording, we also filmed a companion video in Berlin. Violin and piano, represented by red and black, are two perfect dance partners who find each other in this darkly lit club-like atmosphere, where the camera dances around them eliciting this Tango. But in the sunlight outside our red and black characters fail to find each other, only when they perform this Tango do then they finally come together as one. I performed Richard Blackford's Tango with the LGT Soloists throughout their tour of Europe, Asia and Australia from November 2023 to January 2024.' Clarissa Bevilacqua
Richard Blackford is becoming one of the foremost concert and media composers in Europe. His concert works are performed regularly around the world and his music for film and television is broadcast frequently in almost every European country. His acclaimed Pietà won an Ivor Novello Composer Award in 2020 for the Choral Category and has already received multiple performances.
'The music comes from the heart with integrity, and a technical assurance...There is a crying need for this kind of music.' The Independent on Sunday
Further Richard Blackford 2024 album, publication and live concert details will be published here.
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