Bbc Music Magazine 2019

“Humphrey’s utter absorption and delight shines forth at every turn… strong toned, easy fluidity and immaculate technique” - Gramophone. Since winning the BBC Music Magazine Instrumental award in 2018 Fenella Humphreys has been in demand throughout the UK and Europe. Post minimalist composer Max Richter has composed many successful film scores, most recently ‘Mary Queen of Scots’, ‘White Boy Rick’ and ‘Black Mirror’. His 2012 ‘Recomposed’ topped the charts in 22 countries. His beautifully crafted intelligent work based on the famous concertos by Vivaldi retains only a quarter of the original music; Richter skilfully employs looped and phased parts of pure Vivaldi which emphasise his postmodern and minimalist credentials. Fenella partners ‘Recomposed’ with the powerful ‘Lonely Angel’ by Vasks and Pärt’s popular ‘Fratres’.

John Baldwin was a lay clerk at St George’s Chapel, Windsor in 1575 and became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1598. The so-called ‘Baldwin Partbooks’, held at Christ Church, Oxford, were his creation – a very personal collection, representing his individual tastes and interests from a wealth of English and Continental polyphony and consort music.
As in their previous collaboration, an exploration of the similarly conceived partbooks of Robert Dow, the Marian Consort and Rose Consort of Viols have kept faith with Baldwin’s own intentions, bringing to light some of the rarer gems preserved by this great advocate and music-lover and providing the listener with ‘such sweete musicke: as dothe much delite yeelde’.

The much anticipated second volume of Peter Donohoe’s complete survey of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas for SOMM Recordings focuses on three sonatas produced during the composer’s ill-fated journey to Paris in 1777.