As part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series, violinist Anna Im has compiled a tender programme that includes Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and Amy Beach’s Romance. Entitled Rêverie , the album fosters feelings and memories from imaginary worlds: Fauré’s sonata weaves a tapestry of emotions that transcends time and space; Beach’s Romance is a tribute to love which conjures up bittersweet memories. For this recording, Anna was graciously loaned the ‘Maurin’ Stradivari violin.
Franz Liszt’s art songs form a fascinating repertoire. His lieder served as a vehicle for his own artistic and aesthetic development, but also as inspiration for his contemporaries, who soon followed in his footsteps in composing songs for voice and orchestra.
Donatoni makes a speciality of chamber pieces in which the players pursue and provoke each other. The sparks invariably fly, but they don't always illuminate larger perspectives. Etwas ruhiger im Ausdruck is the earliest work included. As the title leads one to expect, it's more restrained than the rest, though characteristic of all five pieces to the extent that fragmented, fugitive activity takes place within clearly defined limits. Even this is not young man's music—Donatoni was born in 1927—but it's subtle and fascinating in its inventive way with soft sonontles.
Over 30 years and many internationally successful albums, DIE KRUPPS have developed an unmistakable signature sound that is meant to stay…
This double-CD, released for the first time in 1996, has the 37½-minute performance "Sobra Una Nube" that was originally released as the LP S.O.S., plus five other previously unreleased selections (two of which are quite lengthy) from the same engagement. Recorded at a small club during the now-legendary loft period in New York City, baritonist Hamiet Bluiett (who also plays some effective clarinet and flute) is featured with pianist Don Pullen (who was really coming into his own during this era), bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer/percussionist Don Moye.