Benedict on Admiralty

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Trio in A minor, Op. 50, was written in Rome between December 1881 and late January 1882. It is subtitled À la mémoire d’un grand artiste [In memory of a great artist], in reference to Nikolai Rubinstein, his close friend and mentor, who had died on 23 March 1881. It is scored for piano, violin, and cello.

Following on from their highly successful disc ‘A Winter’s Tale’, viola virtuoso Roger Benedict and renowned pianist Simon Tedeschi present a new studio album reimagining masterpieces by Debussy and Ravel for the rich, mellow tone of the viola – the ‘melancholy dreamer’, as Berlioz described it. With its wistful sound, the viola gives a new and fresh character to these pieces, which, even now, seem radical in their conception.

When one looks back through Caritas programmes over the years,an umber of meaningful associations quickly becom apparent; this album is no exception to that rule. Our mission to champion contemporary composers emphatically continues, with the vast majority of the works on this album being world première recordings. We ar truly honoured and humbled to have had the opportunity to record these works and hope we can bring them to as wide an audience as possible.

With Volume 48 of our groundbreaking Romantic Piano Concerto series we reach very uncharted territory indeed. Sir Julius Benedict has been all but forgotten today but he is yet another composer who gives the lie to the idea that Britain was ‘a land without music’ in the nineteenth century. Though born in Germany, Benedict settled in London in 1835, having already established a career as composer and pianist on the continent.

Cappella Records proudly announces the release of Frank La Rocca’s Requiem for the Forgotten – Messe des Malades, performed by Benedict XVI Choir and Orchestra, directed by renowned international conductor Richard Sparks.