Griffiths

Tim Hugh, Mirjam Tschopp, Bilkent SO, Howard Griffiths - Ahmed Adnan Saygun: Cello Concerto; Viola Concerto (2007)

Ahmed Adnan Saygun: Cello Concerto; Viola Concerto (2007)
Tim Hugh, cello; Mirjam Tschopp, viola; Bilkent Symphony Orchestra; Howard Griffiths, conductor

EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 268 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 154 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: cpo | # cpo 777 290-2 | Time: 00:55:27

This disc strikes me as an ideal introduction to the music of Turkey’s greatest composer. Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s style might be described as “Szymanowski with a primal rhythmic feel.” If you love the composer’s First Violin Concerto then you will find here a very similar exoticism, nocturnal atmosphere, and love of voluptuous textures. The harmonic style is intensely chromatic, but also highly melodic. Like Bartók in his last period, Saygun’s handling of tonality mellowed toward the end of his life, which makes the Cello Concerto more consonant than the Viola Concerto, but both works are absolutely gorgeous and masterpieces of their kind. It’s positively criminal that no one plays these pieces regularly in concert. The performances here are excellent. Tim Hugh is a well-known cellist, and he pours on the tone with all of the rhapsodic abandon that Saygun requires. Mirjam Tschopp also is a superb violist, with a big, beefy tone that never gets swamped by the intricate orchestration. It’s also very rewarding to hear a Turkish orchestra in this music–and to find that it plays beautifully under Howard Griffiths.
City Light Symphony Orchestra & Kevin Griffiths - Spotlight On John Williams (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/88]

City Light Symphony Orchestra & Kevin Griffiths - Spotlight On John Williams (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Front Cover | Time - 100:13 minutes | 1,32 GB
Classical, Soundtrack | Label: Prospero Classical, Official Digital Download

The City Light Symphony Orchestra, founded in Lucerne in 2018, presents its debut album with the 100-minute program "Spotlight on John Williams“. For the project acclaimed soloists such as Valentine Michaud, Reinhold Friedrich and Paul Meyer could be assigned. Together with the 90 musicians of the City Light Symphony Orchestra and the up-and-coming conductor Kevin Griffiths, they recorded a selection of film music masterpieces by Hollywood icon John Williams in the concert hall of the KKL Luzern in September 2020 – with a deliberate focus on his great stylistic diversity.
Hilary Griffiths, Drottningholm Court Theatre Orchestra - Domenico Cimarosa: Il Matrimonio Segreto (2005)

Hilary Griffiths, Drottningholm Court Theatre Orchestra - Domenico Cimarosa: Il Matrimonio Segreto (2005)
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | Italiano (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | (Dolby AC3, 6 ch) | (DTS, 5 ch) | 153 min | 7.50 Gb (DVD9)
Classical | Label: EuroArts | Sub: Italiano, English, Deutsch, Francais | Recorded: 1986

Il matrimonio segreto is Cimarosa's most famous opera buffa and it is one of the few comic operas to have maintained its place in the repertoire until today. At its first performance in 1792, Austrian emperor Leopold II is reputed to have liked this masterpiece so much that he ordered the musicians to play it again from the beginning!
Howard Griffiths, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana - Franz Danzi: Complete Symphonies (2010)

Howard Griffiths, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana - Franz Danzi: Complete Symphonies (2010)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 527 Mb | Total time: 117:01 | Scans included
Classical | Label: CPO | # 777 351-2 | Recorded: 2007

Franz Danzi composed six symphonies in total. These highly original, masterfully instrumented orchestral works open the door to romanticism and show why Weber thought so highly of his friend.
Claire Huangci, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg & Howard Griffiths - Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 15, 16, 17 (2023)

Claire Huangci, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg & Howard Griffiths - Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 15, 16, 17 (KV 450, 451, 453) (2023)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 271 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 165 Mb | Digital booklet | 01:11:40
Classical | Label: Alpha Classics, Outhere Music

The Orpheum Foundation, which has been supporting young musicians for more than thirty years, has joined forces with Alpha Classics for a series of recordings devoted to Mozart’s concertos for various instruments. The finest soloists of the young generation have been selected under the artistic direction of Howard Griffiths, a renowned Mozart conductor, who considers that playing his music is like ‘looking in a mirror: you can hear if everything is in place, musicality, intonation, rhythm, phrasing’. For this fifth volume, the American pianist Claire Huangci joins the Mozarteum-Orchester Salzburg and Howard Griffiths, her mentor for the past ten years. For her, she says, these concertos are ‘true musical revelations, works full of virtuosity and imagination’.
Marcia Griffiths - Essential Artist Collection - Marcia Griffiths (2023)

Marcia Griffiths - Essential Artist Collection - Marcia Griffiths (2023)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 896 MB | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 467 MB
2:34:40 | Reggae | Label: Trojan

Arguably the greatest female singer in the history of Jamaican music, Marcia Griffiths first made her mark in the Jamaican music scene with a number of popular singles during the late sixties, before finding international fame in 1970 alongside her long-term friend and sometime collaborator, Bob Andy. Bob & Marcia's uplifting reggae version of Nina Simone's inspiring song, '(To Be) Young, Gifted & Black' hit number 5 in the UK pop chart, with the single proving to be the first of two British chartbusters, with their exuberant interpretation of 'Pied Piper' just missing out on a Top 10 placing the following year.
David Griffiths - Stuart Greenbaum: a Trillion Miles of Darkness (2022)

David Griffiths - Stuart Greenbaum: a Trillion Miles of Darkness (2022)
WEB FLAC (Tracks) 177 MB | Cover | 57:42 | MP3 CBR 320 kbps | 133 MB
Classical | Label: ABC Classic

At its centre is Greenbaum’s Sonata for Clarinet – a work of plangent atmospheric sound; a journey that subsumes the listener. Clarinetist David Griffith’s interpretation is bespoke, masterful. With associate artists Timothy Young and Ken Murray, the album provides a rewarding arc of chamber music.
Howard Griffiths, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover - Louis Spohr: The Complete Symphonies (2016)

Howard Griffiths, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover - Louis Spohr: The Complete Symphonies (2016)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 1,46 Gb | Total time: 340:29 | Covers included
Classical | Label: CPO | # 555 105-2 | Recorded: 2006-2012

As a composer of instrumental music, Louis Spohr was second only to Beethoven in the category of widespread attention and recognition during the first half of the nineteenth century. After Beethoven's death in 1827 he was regarded by large segments of the music public as the greatest living composer. In 1828 the leading music critic Friedrich Rochlitz asked very rhetorically, 'Who else should now write symphonies?' Spohr was supposed to continue what Beethoven had begun. However, even then Spohr's symphonic music was recognized as the absolute opposite of the type of the Beethovian symphony. If genial musical license holds sway in Beethoven's oeuvre, then in Spohr classical order prevails.
Howard Griffiths, Camerata Schweiz - Johann Baptist Vanhal: Two Symphonies; Cello Concerto (2011)

Howard Griffiths, Camerata Schweiz - Johann Baptist Vanhal: Two Symphonies; Cello Concerto (2011)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 231 Mb | Total time: 55:01 | Scans included
Classical | Label: CPO | # 777 612-2 | Recorded: 2008

Johann Baptist Vanhal numbers among the most productive composers of the eighteenth century. Among other works, seventy-seven symphonies and sixty solo concertos by him are documented. He was for quite some time, especially before the works of Haydn and Mozart became more widely known, one of the most popular and even one of the most renowned instrumental composers in Germany.
Mélodie Zhao, Howard Griffiths, Camerata Schweiz - Joseph Haydn: Complete Piano Concertos (2020)

Mélodie Zhao, Howard Griffiths, Camerata Schweiz - Joseph Haydn: Complete Piano Concertos (2020)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 654 Mb | Total time: 144:20 | Scans included
Classical | Label: CPO | # 555 400–2 | Recorded: 2020

The Swiss-Chinese pianist Mélodie Zhao teams up with the Camerata Schweiz and Howard Griffiths on this complete recording of Joseph Haydn’s concertos for keyboard instruments – for harpsichord, for pianoforte, and surprisingly also for organ. Although Haydn’s organ concertos were originally intended for the sacred setting of the Catholic liturgy, during his lifetime and with his approval they circulated exclusively and more widely for »secular instruments,« which means that they are excellently suited for the modern piano. The recording is based on the instrumental assignments and score text in the musicological complete edition of Haydn’s works, and the compositions originally intended for the organ are heard here for the first time following the new edition of 2020.