Divas Prima Voce Nimbus Records

Martin Jones has been one of Britain’s most highly regarded solo pianists since first coming to international attention in 1968 when he received the Dame Myra Hess Award. The same year he made his London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and his New York debut at Carnegie Hall, and ever since has been in demand for recitals and concerto performances. He has made over 90 recordings with Nimbus Records exploring music that is not often played including the complete works of 18 composers. Adrian Farmer trained as an accompanist at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester following a music degree at Birmingham University. Adrian has made several recordings with other Nimbus artists: bass-baritone Shura Gehrman, pianists Nina Walker, Simon Callaghan, and Martin Jones. It is with soprano Charlotte de Rothschild that he has found his most enduring partnership releasing albums which include the premiere recording of the songs of her ancestor, Mathilde de Rothschild.

The late eighteenth century witnessed an explosion in the number of works written for multiple pianists, most of them for two players using one instrument. The majority were predestined for the domestic market, social gatherings or for pedagogical purposes, but some, including the two works featured on this disc, were intended for performance beyond the salon and ventured into the realms of virtuosity. The genre was to blossom further as a pedagogical tool by which generations of pianists became acquainted with the larger-scale, mainstream repertoire via transcriptions and arrangements of symphonies and other orchestral works, operas and chamber music.

Baritone Simon Wallfisch is in international demand as concert and opera singer. Highlights of 2023 include his debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as 5 Richter in Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane. He also makes his debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Deputati Fiamminghi in Verdi’s Don Carlos. In 2022 he appeared at Berlin Philharmonie Grosser Saal as baritone soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana with Choralspace and conductor Sergi Gili Solé, he also performed in the Berlin Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal as soloist with Kammerphilharmonie Berlin in Max Reger’s ‘Der Einsiedler’ with the JEB Choir (Weissenberger). In the UK, he curated the programme and appeared as soloist with BBC Singers at London’s Barbican Centre a programme of songs and choral works written in the Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944, he also performed a song recital with Julius Drake at Temple Music of Ullmann and Haas songs. In 2021 he made his Konzerthaus solo debut in Puccini’s Gloria with JEB (Weissenberger).

"Saint-Saëns Duos for Harmonium and Piano, is performed by award-winning acclaimed classical Accordionist Miloš Milivojević and Pianist Simon Callaghan. The rise in popularity of the harmonium in the second half of the nineteenth century brought with it a large repertoire of chamber music, especially in France, where the instrument had been developed and refined.

In collaboration with the renowned Bach Choir conducting by David Hill this recording features a sound that is distinct from the original Requiem, while still retaining the heart of the piece. “Who would not wish to perform Verdi’s Requiem in the composer’s masterful original orchestration!

Pianist and conductor Vladimir Feltsman is one of the most versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time. His vast repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to 20th-century composers. A regular guest soloist with leading symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad, he appears in the most prestigious concert series and music festivals all over the world. Born in Moscow in 1952, Mr. Feltsman debuted with the Moscow Philharmonic at age 11. In 1969, he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Music to study piano under the guidance of Professor Jacob Flier. His debut at Carnegie Hall established him as a major pianist on the American and international scene. A dedicated educator of young musicians, Mr. Feltsman holds the Distinguished Chair of Professor of Piano at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and is a member of the piano faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.

Kenneth Woods writes: “Matthew and I met not long after the ESO announced the 21st Century Symphony Project, and the work he told me he wanted to write sounded like a thrilling addition to the Project. Hearing these two powerful new symphonies side by side, one can’t help but be struck by the ways in which they complement and contrast one another. They are clearly songs from the same voice, and speak the same musical language. Although the two works are fundamentally different in structure and emotional impact, one can still see interesting similarities in how Taylor approaches symphonic form, particularly in his telling, but very selective, use of cyclic structures. The Fourth Symphony was written for a very large orchestra, the Fifth for a much smaller ensemble, using the same forces as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the other symphony heard at the concert in Cadogan Hall, London, where it was premiered by the English Symphony Orchestra in 2019. Stripped of percussion, harp and keyboards, the soundworld of the Fifth Symphony is more austere than that of the Fourth, but no less intense. And though the Fifth uses a string section about half the size of the Fourth, it is, in many ways, the more explosive, even violent, work.”

CANTAR ALLA VIOLA, the art of accompanying the voice with the viola da gamba, is the largely-forgotten technique of using a bowed instrument to play polyphony and harmony as an accompaniment to the voice. The rediscovery of these methods inspired Nadine Balbeisi, soprano, and Fernando Marín, viola da gamba, to create their duo of the same name.

The British pianist Martin Jones had been among the most versatile and prolific players on the current scene. He has specialized in, but not restricted himself to, British, Spanish, and Eastern European music. Jones was born on February 4, 1940, in Witney in England's Oxfordshire region. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his teachers were Guido Agosti, Guy Jonson, and Gordon Green. Early recognition came in the form of the Dame Myra Hess Award in 1968. That year, he made prestigious debuts at London's Southbank Centre and Carnegie Hall in New York.