Practical Photoshop From Issue 51, June 2015

The pieces brought together on this CD range widely, from ceremonial works associated with affairs of state to intimate compositions addressing moments of great personal significance. Two of the three pieces by Parry best exemplify this contrast: if I was glad – written for the coronation of Edward VII and premiered in chaotic circumstances – fits into the former category, ‘My soul, there is a country’ (from Songs of Farewell) – composed in the year of his death – belongs in the latter.

It is a hefty box in every sense: 13 CDs, supplemented with two DVDs, accompanied by a gorgeous hardcover book and a variety of tchotchkes, including a poster that traces the twisted family trees and time lines of the band and, just as helpfully, replicas of legal documents that explain why the group didn't retain rights to its recordings for years…

Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited have returned with their sixth Dionysus album, "Spooky Sound Sessions," a collection of 14 brand new songs recorded entirely at the legendary Spooky Sound Record Store in Zurich, Switzerland. The elusive duo consisting of Ernest Maeschi and Karen Simpson have once more worked their magic and created a series of instrumentals which will take you onto a journey into The Great Unknown. Guitars, organs, sitars, Indian banjos, Moogs, bongos, and sounds of obscure electronic equipment exclusively available to the Spooky Sound Lab have been woven into the unique Sound experience that is Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited.

Of Philip Glass' conventionally scored chamber works, his String Quartet No. 5 is probably the best-known, in part because the Kronos Quartet and the Smith Quartet have given it first-rate recordings, but also because its more traditional approach and neo-romantic feeling hold a special attraction for a broad audience. This five-movement work has Glass' characteristic patterns and pulses, at least as they developed from his hard-edged, amplified minimalism of the 1970s to softer acoustic textures over the course of the 1980s, though the music is much more melodically contoured and expressive. This 2015 release by the Carducci String Quartet adds another title to the work's growing discography, and it is a wonderful performance by musicians who have a strong sympathy for Glass' idiom. It is programmed with the Suite from Dracula, a soundtrack Glass composed for the Tod Browning film, Dracula (1931), and Michael Riesman's arrangement of the Symphony No. 4, "Heroes," here presented as the String Sextet.