Andrés Segovia Sonatina A Dur Sonatina in A Major: Allegretto

Acclaimed soloist and First Prize winner at the 2017 Tarrega International Guitar Competition, Alejandro Cordova has chosen a programme that presents five acknowledged masterpieces of the guitar repertoire, while also paying tribute to the great Andres Segovia- an inspiration to composers such as Manuel Ponce, whose Sonatina meridional evokes the lyrical warmth of Iberia. Covering a wide range of techniques and expressive forms that reveal the guitar’s sheer versatility, the distinctive Spanish moods and rhythms of Torroba, Jose and Tarrega are further contrasted by Johann Kaspar Mertz’s deeply eloquent Elegie.

A superb Canadian guitarist - Classical Guitar Magazine, 2017 Few national musical styles are as related to an instrument as Spain is to the guitar. It is an instrument that expresses wonderfully the colors and spirit of this beautiful country. We find this musical expression on Canciones, the excellent new album guitarist Adam Cicchillitti, whose program consists of works of the great Spanish composers of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Isaac Albeniz, Manuel de Falla, Joaquin Rodrigo and Joaquin Turina.

A superb Canadian guitarist - Classical Guitar Magazine, 2017 Few national musical styles are as related to an instrument as Spain is to the guitar. It is an instrument that expresses wonderfully the colors and spirit of this beautiful country. We find this musical expression on Canciones, the excellent new album guitarist Adam Cicchillitti, whose program consists of works of the great Spanish composers of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Isaac Albeniz, Manuel de Falla, Joaquin Rodrigo and Joaquin Turina.

As a young boy he was trained by his mother to play piano but later decided to exchange the instrument for the violin. In 1928, convinced by Bronisław Huberman (a friend of the family), Szeryng went to Berlin to study under Karl Flesch. His debut concert took place in Warsaw in 1933 when he performed Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major with Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Bruno Walter. In the same year he played in Bucharest, Vienna, and Paris, achieving acclaim both from the audience and the critics. In the years 1933-1939 the artist continued to learn violin under Jacques Thibaud and Gabriel Bouillon and studied composition under Nadia Boulanger.

This album presents classical chamber music including the well-known Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21 by Ernest Chausson, and the Violin and Piano Sonata in A major, Opus 13, by Gabriel Faure. Quartet-in-Residence at Emory University, the Vega Quartet is cultivating a new generation of chamber music lovers through dynamic performances and innovative community engagements. The Vega took four of the top six prizes at the 1999 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, including the International Music Critics’ prize and was also the first prize winner at the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition and the Carmel Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet’s major projects have included performing the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets, pairing Bach’s complete works for solo violin, viola and cello with the six Bartok quartets as well as a series of collaboration with dancers, singers, and theaters. They have toured throughout Asia, Europe, and North America.

We owe these two masterpieces to the musical friendships Mozart made during his years in Vienna. The celestial beauties of the Quintet K581 were tailor-made for the great clarinettist Anton Stadler, while the Quartet K421, more severe in tone, is one of the six Mozart dedicated to his ‘caro amico’ Joseph Haydn. Here then is the ideal programme for the four friends of the Arcanto Quartett to show their affinities with the Mozartian repertoire.

Pauline Viardot, daughter of the famous tenor, composer, operatic impresario and teacher, Manuel García, and friend of Schumann and Chopin, was a mezzo-soprano and composer. Her Violin Sonatina in A minor reflects her operatic background with its long melodic lines. Her son Paul, the dedicatee of Fauré’s great A minor Sonata, wrote three beautifully crafted, expressively rich violin sonatas over an almost fifty-year period.

In the third disc in their acclaimed series, Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society present a new live recording devoted to the master of the symphony – Joseph Haydn. This disc showcases Haydn’s Symphony No. 8 Le soir, which completes the trilogy written for Prince Paul Anton Esterházy. Also included is the later Symphony No. 84 which shows just how much Haydn’s symphonies had transformed from those early years.