Clara Soft

Clara Ponty is one of those rare artists whose enticing voice and virtuoso level playing fuses her classical heritage with jazz and pop rhythms into a seamless stream of captivating sounds. Guest artists including Nigel Kennedy, Vincent Segal, Damien Smitt and her father Jean-Luc Ponty add their talents to this album. Clara Ponty s songs cover a wide range of subjects including her own spiritual path, her view on our modern life, and personal life experiences.

For her new album Plateaux, Clara Haberkamp chooses to work with infinitely subtle, high-caliber performers from a slightly older generation: bassist Oliver Potratz is one of the most sought-after instrumentalists in Germany; Jarle Vespestad has many years of experience with Farmers Market and Tord Gustavsen's trio. Each of them has released over 100 albums.

This is an album of songs from Guernsey, an island off Cornwall but much closer to Normandy, and the music is as odd and captivating as the particular brand of French in which it is sung. The music, even to a not-particularly-sophisticated ear, seems a combination of Celtic twang and French charm, with unexpected springs of rhythm amidst melodies that are as graceful as swans.

Like a shooting star, the French singer Sophie Gail filled her short life with music and passion. Publishing her first romances at the age of 15 in 1790, this divorcee who led a free life (with four children from four different fathers) achieved fame as a composer at the Opera-Comique in 1813, while having her romances hummed by all of the Empire's "Belle social. They are brought back to life with spirit and brio by the magnificent duo of Mailys de Villoutreys and Clara Izambert.

The developmental stages of the clarinet are marked by repeated interest in improving the instrument at crucial stages in its history, definitively accomplished in an ‘accelerated’ manner during the course of the 19th century thanks to daring projects that led to an extraordinary evolution. Consequently, interest in writing aimed at probing the peculiarities of the instrument was accentuated, with French composers' attention directed towards exploring the thousands of new expressive and technical possibilities, creating a catalogue of great interest demostrating both the instrumentalists’ mastery as well as musical effects to dazzle listeners.

In early 2007, both Decca and Brilliant released three disc sets of Beethoven's complete violin sonatas played by Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux and Romanian pianist Clara Haskil. Recorded in 1956 and 1957 and originally released on LP by Philips, these performances have stood the test of time. Grumiaux's effortless virtuosity, elegant phrasing, and impeccable intonation coupled with Haskil's soul and sympathetic if not always note-perfect accompaniment made for one of the most instantly appealing collections of these central repertoire works, and despite its age, anyone looking for a complete set should certainly consider this one.

Jozef de Beenhouwer offers Clara Schumann and listening audiences a special gift on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of her birth: an album including numerous recording premieres from this famous pianists extensive transcription oeuvre. He not only honors her compositional talent but also spotlights works with which she very deliberately and intensively occupied herself and in the process very attractively nuances our picture of the musical Schumann family. The focus is formed by selected songs by Robert Schumann.

Despite the new attention given to the music of Clara Schumann, and the fact that her husband not only encouraged but actually goaded her as a song composer, Clara Schumann's lieder remain underrepresented on recordings. This release from the German audiophile label MDG, featuring one female and one male singer, is one of the few complete sets of her songs available, and perhaps the only one where each song is sung in its original key. The complete cycle is a recommended way to hear her songs, for they come from various parts of her career and offer insights into her creative development, both as tied to Robert Schumann and as separate from him.