52 Poems

In the history of music, György Kurtág is a figure apart. Born in Hungary in 1926, he stood aside from the great ideological movements of his time and created his own personal language in solitude, thinking of music as he put it, "as an ongoing search". But while doggedly independent, he was also a man of culture whose language developed in the shadow of two great teachers: Bartók and Beethoven, the former following on largely from the latter. A champion of the small form, Kurtág also drew inspiration (when he wasn't revisiting them explicitly) from Bach, Schubert and Schumann.

Josef Suk - A Summer's Tale / Prague
BBC Symphony Orchestra - Jiri Belohlavek
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 3,83 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 1,23 GB | Full Artwork: 106 MB
Label/Cat#: Chandos # CHSA 5109 | Country/Year: UK 2012 | 5% Recovery Info
Genre: Classical | Style: Late Romantic, Early 20th Century

"…This new Belohlavek version gives us the best of both worlds by combining nobility of utterance and a passionate advocacy of this stirring music in glorious 5.0 multi-channel sound.
The committed playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in both works exemplifies their respect both for Belohlavek as arguably the finest interpreter of Czech music alive today and their enthusiasm for the composer's regrettably still neglected output. This SACD is a mandatory purchase for lovers of Suk's opulent scores and audiophiles alike." ~sa-cd.net

Josef Suk - A Summer's Tale / Prague
BBC Symphony Orchestra - Jiri Belohlavek
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 325 MB | Full Artwork: 111 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Chandos # CHSA 5109 | Country/Year: UK 2012
Genre: Classical | Style: Late Romantic, Early 20th Century

"…The committed playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in both works exemplifies their respect both for Belohlavek as arguably the finest interpreter of Czech music alive today and their enthusiasm for the composer's regrettably still neglected output. This SACD is a mandatory purchase for lovers of Suk's opulent scores and audiophiles alike." ~sa-cd.net

This Britten recital combines two of the composer’s major song cycles, Winter Words, from 1953, and Who are these Children? (1969). In them he explored themes of loneliness, transcience and war – difficult and harrowing material which would test any composer, but Britten is equal to the challenge. His music works its magic by bringing out poignant emotions and subtle insights, sometimes even more vividly than the texts on their own. The music’s emotional depth is grounded in compelling, quasi-naturalistic sound images, such as the whistling, rattling train in the setting of Thomas Hardy’s Midnight on the Great Western. Providing a lighter note between these gripping works are four settings of poems by Robert Burns, containing some of Britten’s most deft and delicate music. Composed on the request of Queen Elizabeth II in 1975, they originally formed part of a set of six songs for high voice and harp, and were later arranged for piano by Britten’s assistant Colin Matthews.

“At That Hour” showcases art songs by pianist / composer Henry Dehlinger set to poetry by James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Dante, Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Biblical and Hebrew texts.