Andrew E. It's Andrew E.

Like many of England's finest musicians, Andrew Lawrence-King began his career in choir school, serving as head chorister for the Cathedral and Parish Church of St. Peter Port, Guernsey. He took an organ scholarship to Cambridge University, where he read mathematics, but finished his studies in organ and voice at the London Early Music Centre. A party at a harpmaker's house gave the opportunity for Lawrence-King to own his first early harp, modeled after a Medieval Irish instrument.

'Andrew Parrott's interpretation of these concertos is an imaginative one & ….effective. John Holloway is the solo violinist in each work and he gives stylish performances.’ –Gramophone
‘Manze’s feeling for detail, his lightly articulated bowing, in a word his sensibility, bring out the charm of Vivaldi’s music; and in this set, with its many affecting slow movements….. the charm is considerable’ –Gramophone

These two splendid concertos by Stenhammar are offered together on one CD for the first time. The original orchestration of Stenhammar's first concerto was long thought to be lost when the offices of the publisher were bombed during the second world war. However, in 1983 a copy of the original was found in the Library of Congress and this version is featured here. The twenty-two year old's opus one is a masterpiece. Majestic and virtuosic at its opening, the work explores a world of Nordic mystery in the third movement and ends with music of sad, reflective sweetness. The second concerto is a distinctly different work, with a novel structure and a steady tension between soloist and orchestra that is only resolved in the virtuosic finale.

Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony “Lobgesang [Hymn of Praise]” is highly original from a conceptual point of view, with its combination of three instrumental movements, followed by a cantata with three soloists and chorus. The piece is a milestone in the history of the symphonic form, stretching the seams of the symphony genre even further than Beethoven had dared with his “Choral” Ninth. In his Lobgesang, Mendelssohn achieved nothing less than the artistic destruction of the conceptual opposition of vocal and instrumental music. Here they enter into a relationship of constructive, mutual support in the service of music. Moreover, the Biblical lyrics express Mendelssohn’s deeply-felt religiosity.

Tasmin Little's 2013 release on Chandos is an exploration of lush and lyrical music for violin and orchestra, composed by the leading British composers of the early 20th century, and it is an album of remarkable depth and beauty. Opening the program is the Concerto for violin & orchestra by E.J. Moeran, which sets the mood for the disc with its long-breathed, melancholy lines and pastoral atmosphere. While this is a technically challenging work that shows Little to her best advantage as a virtuoso, listeners may come away from the piece recalling its sweet ambience more than its flashiness. The same could also be said for Frederick Delius' Légende, Gustav Holst's A Song of the Night, and Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, all three of which provide tests for the violinist's skills, yet are filled with such gorgeous music that listeners may only remember the general opulence of the scores. Also included are premiere recordings of Roger Turner's arrangements of Edward Elgar's Chanson de matin, Chanson de nuit, and Salut d'amour, which in orchestration, mood, and style fit the rest of the album nicely.

I doubt if many of us have found our ideal set of Brandenburgs, but most, I suspect, have settled on a favourite collection. The field is enormous, reflecting a wide range of performing styles as well as smaller discrepancies where some of the instruments themselves are concerned. These reissued recordings of the Brandenburgs are style-conscious, period-instrument performances. For sheer refinement of thought and elegance of phrase Parrott’s set has few rivals, though some of the intellectual and artistic excitement that must have gone into its preparation seems a little chastened in the finished product. Parrott never lets us down in his lightly articulated performances and stylistically consistent concept of the music.

The NDR Philharmonie and Andrew Manze continue their exploration of Mozart’s late orchestral works with a recording of the composers 38th and 39th symphonies. Nicknamed after Prague, where it was first performed in 1787, the 38th shares with its successor a solemn, “Romantic” slow introduction to the first movement, followed by lighter music that shares a kinship with the playful arias and ensembles of Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, composed in the same period. By playing all repeats, Manze underlines the ambitious, expansive character of these works, but the NDR Radiophilharmonie never drags, offering the same energy and sense of urgency as in their acclaimed interpretation of Mozart’s 40th and 41st symphonies, released in 2019.

One might expect Andrew Manze's interpretations of Johannes Brahms' four symphonies to adhere to ideas of the movement for historically informed performance practice, due to his scholarship and dedication to authenticity in his early music performances. However, and somewhat paradoxically, he and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra have delivered more or less mainstream readings on modern instruments; there are no signs of late 19th century woodwind or brass timbres, and the strings play with standard vibrato. Yet Manze's historical fact finding has gone to a deeper level than just replicating instrumentation or orchestral scale, and he has found numerous clues to Brahms' intentions in the composer's transcriptions of the symphonies for two pianos, which often vary with the published orchestral scores in accentuation, tempo indications, and phrasing. These are fine points that can be discerned with careful listening and great familiarity with many other recordings of the symphonies, both conventional and historic, but they may not be the main thing listeners will consider in appreciating this set. The playing and the recording quality are up to the extraordinarily high levels set by CPO in all its releases, and these resilient works sound as good as they ever did under any other conductor.

I doubt if many of us have found our ideal set of Brandenburgs, but most, I suspect, have settled on a favourite collection. The field is enormous, reflecting a wide range of performing styles as well as smaller discrepancies where some of the instruments themselves are concerned. These reissued recordings of the Brandenburgs are style-conscious, period-instrument performances. For sheer refinement of thought and elegance of phrase Parrott’s set has few rivals, though some of the intellectual and artistic excitement that must have gone into its preparation seems a little chastened in the finished product. Parrott never lets us down in his lightly articulated performances and stylistically consistent concept of the music.