When Pablo Casals rediscovered the cello suites of Bach at the beginning of the 20th century, the novel thing about it was that he played them "senza basso", i.e. without piano accompaniment. In a time of music-historical over-maturity and experimentation, renowned composers soon came up with their own attempts, among them most famously Max Reger's "Solo Suites" and Kodály's "Solo Sonata", both written in 1915.
Julius Röntgen was born on 9 May 1855 in Leipzig, the son of Dutch violinist Engelbert Röntgen, leader of the Gewandhausorchester there, and German pianist Pauline Klengel. He started composing at an early age and took the stage with his own works in Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Leipzig as a child prodigy. At the age of fifteen he was introduced to Franz Liszt, who invited him to one of his famous soirees after he played two of his own compositions to him.
The Juilliard-level pianist and genre-hopping sideman with A$AP Rocky, Meshell Ndegeocello, and more makes his imaginative debut at age 23 with Let Sound Tell All. Rodriguez’s acoustic-jazz chops are formidable from the start of the hard-swinging “Blues at the Barn.” But already on this opener, there’s an intriguing blend between gritty lo-fi sound and more polished studio production, even within the same track. Rodriguez and co-producer Drew Ofthe Drew set ambitious goals and conjure a sonic atmosphere that avoids the obvious.
Ever since the operas of Handel started to return to the stage in the 1920s, Giulio Cesare has been one of the pieces held in high regard. Always known by name through the most famous of Cleopatra’s arias (”V’adoro, pupille” and “Piangerò la sorte mia”) and often produced successfully in Germany, it has gathered a reputation as the best of the composer’s operas-the reasons for which can now be verified by anyone who acquires RCA Victor’s current release of the highly successful New York City Opera production.
The Julius Project is an Italian music collective led by Giuseppe "Julius" Chiriatti, who, according to sources, started work on this concept album as far back as 1978! This would certainly account for the retro Canterbury vibe of Cut The Tongue. It also features some guest vocals from Richard Sinclair of Caravan and Hatfield and the North.
However, another classic band Camel comes immediately to mind with the opener "The Fog", the combination of flute and mellotron harking right back to the 70s. That Camel sound continues throughout "In The Room" featuring vocals by Chiriatti's daughter Bianca Berry…
Allan Clayton demonstrates his exceptional versatility with a Liszt programme of eighteen songs, all of which—in contrasting ways—make prodigious technical and musical demands of the performers.
The recital begins with Keats and ends with Shakespeare: that can’t be bad. But it also begins with Stanford and ends with Parry; what would the modernists of their time have thought about that? They would probably not have believed that those two pillars of the old musical establishment would still be standing by in 1999. And in fact how well very nearly all these composers stand! Quilter’s mild drawing–room manners might have been expected to doom him, but the three songs here – the affectionate, easy grace of his Tennyson setting, the restrained passion of his ‘Come away, death’ and the infectious zest of ‘I will go with my father a–ploughing’ – endear him afresh and demonstrate once again the wisdom of artists who recognise their own small area of ‘personal truth’ and refuse to betray it in exchange for a more fashionable ‘originality’.