Northern Soul's Modern Monsters

Lars Vogt continues his Ondine recordings with a new cycle of Beethovens Piano Concertos. Conducting the Royal Nothern Sinfonia from the keyboard Lars Vogt shows the brilliance and the beauty of these two majestic works of the classic piano concerto literature. Beethoven made an early reputation for himself as a keyboard player. Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 5 feature two opposite sides in Beethovens career: the 1st concerto is a masterpiece by a young composer in his 20s who is already looking into new dimensions of musical expression.

The second album in Lars Vogts Johannes Brahms concerto series with the Royal Northern Sinfonia includes Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto combined with a solo piano work, Handel Variations Op. 24, which was dedicated to Clara Schumann by the composer. Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 is a romantic 4-movement concerto written two decades after its predecessor and one of the cornerstones in the concerto repertoire. This remarkable opus with a great number of beautiful solo passages and with a duration of over 45 minutes has been interpreted by numerous pianists since its premiere in 1881. In this album, Vogt performs the concerto conducting from the keyboard.

Lars Vogt continues his cycle of Beethovens Piano Concertos with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. On this second volume, the recording also includes Beethovens Triple Concerto where Lars Vogt is joined together with his longtime artistic partners Christian Tetzlaff and Tanja Tetzlaff. Vogts recordings of chamber music with the trio have gathered astonishing reviews and recording awards, including a Grammy nomination for the recording of Brahms Piano Trios (ODE 1271-2D). Beethovens Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C major, Op. 56 is a work radiant with joy, described by many as a concerto for piano trio and orchestra. The work, completed in 1803, has standed unrivaled in its genre.

Avie inaugurates a new series with the Northern Sinfonia with the first commercial recording to be made at the spectacular Sage Gateshead, the landmark waterfront venue on Tyneside. In residence at the Sage Gateshead since its opening in 2004, the award-winning Northern Sinfonia's dynamic approach to programmes, performances and recordings have earned them plaudits aplenty. The poetic pianist Imogen Cooper has a close association with Northern Sinfonia and the Sage Gateshead, having chosen the Steinway piano for the venue which she performs on this live recording.

Constant Lambert like his colleague Peter Warlocktends to be remembered more for his personal charisma and tragically early death than for his music. Yet the twenty or so extended scores which he did compose (The Rio Grande and Summer's Last Will and Testament being perhaps the most well known) are every bit as worthy as those of his more famous contemporaries. The bulk of Lambert's output was directed at the ballet, and he was the first Englishman ever to be commissioned by Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes quite an achievement for a twenty-year-old. As a result of this, Nijinska commissioned Pomona, a ballet rich in the atmosphere of neoclassicism and the French dance music of the 1920s.

Following his CPO recording with the Tapiola Sinfonietta of Anton Bruckner's Symphony in D minor, "Die Nullte," and the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Mario Venzago presents the Symphony No. 2 in C minor, this time with the Northern Sinfonia. Unlike some contemporary conductors who favor the original 1872 version of this symphony, Venzago performs the more familiar 1877 version, edited by William Carragan. This is the first of Bruckner's symphonies where he expanded the form to an hour duration, and the fertile ideas it contains are appropriate to the greater time frame. Yet this work has never been accepted by audiences in the way most of the later symphonies have, such as the Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth, and the music falters over too many starts and stops, indecisive development, and repetitions. Even so, there is much attractive material here, and Venzago brings it off with a light touch, having the orchestra play delicately and sweetly, almost as if this were a Mendelssohn symphony.

There's no lack of glorious melody in Sir Johnin Love, and not just folksong cunningly interwoven. Musically, what comes over strongly, more richly than ever before in this magnificent recording from Richard Hickox, is the way that the writing anticipates later Vaughan Williams, not just the radiant composer of the Fifth Symphony and Serenade to Music, with keychanges of heartstopping beauty, but the composer's darker side, with sharply rhythmic writing.

The Huddersfield Choral society has one of the longest and most fruitful relationships with Handel s famous Messiah than perhaps any other chorus in the world: they first performed it in concert during their inception year of 1836, and have continued to do so annually since 1860 with concerts the world over as well as in their hometown of Huddersfield. Recorded live in concert in December 2010, this new recording combines the famous ensemble with the Northern Sinfonia and four world-class professionals, under the direction of Jane Glover CBE. The disc begins with John Wainwright s Christians Awake , a traditional addition to the Messiah programme at their concerts in Huddersfield.

The Bohemian composer Johann Stamitz, a versatile performer on a number of instruments, is chiefly known for his work with the Mannheim orchestra, which he built into what a later visitor, the English Dr Burney, described as an army of generals. He seems to have joined the musical establishment of the Elector Palatine, whose capital was at Mannheim, in 1741 as a violinist, and by 1750 had become director of instrumental music. The Mannheim orchestra became famous for its discipline, evident in particular in the ‘Mannheim crescendo’, an effective increase in volume and following decrease that became a feature of music written for the orchestra. It had other characteristic traits, too, including the ascending melodic figure known as the ‘Mannheim rocket’.