Margaret Whitin

Pianist Margaret Fingerhut presents a collection of encore-like pieces that explore the way in which composers have transformed the piano, in essence a percussion instrument, into one that can sing. A highly personal album, it has come about after a recent period of injuries threatened Fingerhut’s own ‘song’ – her ability to play the piano.

This is an enchanting CD, every item a sheer delight. Margaret Leng Tan worked with Cage in the last decade of his life and her earlier recordings (1/92; 7/95) show a special sympathy for the magical world of Cage's keyboard music. The second of her New Albion CDs included the piano solo version of The Seasons, and Cage was honest enough to admit to her that he had help from Virgil Thomson and Lou Harrison in making the orchestral version recorded here. The result is recognisably Cage at his most poetic, evoking each of the four seasons in lovely changing colours. There are two realisations of one of the last of what are called Cage's 'Number Pieces', Seventy-Four, written specially for the American Composers Orchestra a few months before his death in 1992. Several hearings have confirmed for me that this seamless garment of sustained sound in two overlapping parts is an immensely moving document from a unique human being at the very end of his life.

Mendelssohn's songs with words are bound to invite comparison with his Songs Without. Those 48 elegant piano pieces have often been viewed as being a little lacking in variety and as being a walk on the mild side. This disc contains 24 songs carolled by Margaret Price to a tasteful accompaniment from Graham Johnson. The performers take us back to the familiar world of the Lieder Ohne Worte, and rightly so. The songs range from the composer's teens to late in his brief career, and to my ears the numbers selected improve in general as they go along, and the performances improve along with them.

A pesar de su relativa oscuridad, la música para piano de Dukas es muy interesante y la Sonata en cuatro movimientos sobre el modelo beethoveniano es una obra maestra sobre la que planea la sombra de César Franck particularmente en los pasajes para la mano izquierda que resuenan como un órgano y con unos argumentos musicales que ocasionalmente son interferidos por corrientes rachmaninovianas. De aquí saltamos al exotismo de La Périand para movernos hacia el impresionismo tipo Debussy.

Margaret Maggie is a Japanese instrumental progressive band with elements of traditional and classic music. "Tower" (2014) is their 2rd album.

Here is a major repertory hole filler: a decent cross-section of the piano music of Polish-born composer Alexandre Tansman on a single Chandos disc, featuring pianist Margaret Fingerhut. Tansman was himself a pianist of better than fair ability and produced much keyboard music for his own use; his piano music provides a snapshot glimpse of the various stages of development that Tansman went through.

BUXTEHUDE Trio Sonatas op.1 is the debut album of Québécoise violinist Noémy Gagnon-Lafrenais, who joins forces with viola da gambist Margaret Little and keyboardist Christophe Gauthier to form Ensemble Spinoza and celebrate the seminal work of 17th-century composer Dietrich Buxtehude.

Margaret Maggie is a Japanese instrumental progressive band with elements of traditional and classic music. "Go Away Gargantua" is their 3rd album. It took about 6 years from the 2nd work "Tower" (2014) and about 4 years to produce it. It's a concept album with a Huge and fantastic story. It's a story about a Hungry giant defeat the dragon with a human friend.