Firebird Ensemble Plot in Fiction Italian Music For Ensemble (2002)

“I have heard an angel sing,” wrote Schubert after he heard Paganini play in Vienna in 1828. Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, juxtaposes and links works by these two violinist-composers, who lived vastly different lives, yet are musically connected. Both found inspiration in the human voice and Frang sheds new light on Schubert’s demands for virtuosity and on Paganini’s sensitive musicality. Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, has assembled a programme that juxtaposes music by two violinist-composers of the early 19th century, Franz Schubert and Niccolò Paganini. While they lived vastly different lives and inhabited diverse aesthetic worlds, there are links to be found between them.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) is an English chamber orchestra, based in London. John Churchill, then Master of Music at the London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Neville Marriner founded the orchestra as "The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields", a small, conductorless string group. The ASMF gave its first concert on 13 November 1959, in the church after which it was named. In 1988, the orchestra dropped the hyphens from its full name.

As part of its Japan focus the 1999 Biennial Festival for New Music in Hannover also presented Toshio Hosokawa's exploration into the music of his "musical ancestors." This CD was recorded live during the performance and includes three works from the 17th and 19th centuries. Chidori no kyoku by Yoshizawa kengyô II (1808-1872) is based …..

“I have heard an angel sing,” wrote Schubert after he heard Paganini play in Vienna in 1828. Vilde Frang, partnered by pianist Michael Lifits, juxtaposes and links works by these two violinist-composers, who lived vastly different lives, yet are musically connected. Both found inspiration in the human voice and Frang sheds new light on Schubert’s demands for virtuosity and on Paganini’s sensitive musicality.

When Paul Hillier, an inspiring, English-born choral conductor, moved to Denmark in 2003, he reestablished his choir, Theatre of Voices, in his new country, and they’ve gone from strength to strength. This wonderful program is themed around the Advent star and the great burst of light that Christmas brings to the year’s darkest months. The German-Danish composer Dietrich Buxtehude and some of his German contemporaries provide the fare for this delightful celebration of Christmas, late 17th-century style. Allan Rasmussen intersperses the choral numbers with solo organ pieces, making for an engrossing album of high-class music-making, superbly recorded in Copenhagen’s Garnisonskirken.