Richard Todd

Member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, principal of the New World Symphony, and partner of Renée Fleming on the CD Bel Canto, clarinetist Todd Levy is hot stuff. Actually and more accurately, Todd Levy is mellow stuff – rich, lush, full, deep, and sweet stuff. In this, his first solo disc, Levy takes on four of the most Romantic works in the clarinet repertoire, that's Romantic with both an upper and a lower case R: Brahms' two late sonatas in F minor and E flat major plus Schumann's Fantasy Pieces and, naturally, his Romances. It's a match made in heaven: Levy wraps himself around each piece like a coat in late autumn, playing with a cantabile tone and a flawless technique.

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett’s Gothic opera The Mines of Sulphur is reminiscent of suspense thrillers from Edgar Allan Poe to Alfred Hitchcock. Love, longing, and dark as well as light comedy abound in this macabre tale of greed and retribution set in a haunted manor house in the West of England. The title of the tale, taken from Shakespeare’s Othello, refers to the theme of gradual corruption.

Une histoire de réussite qui inspire l'espoir.
"J'ai écrit cette histoire, il y a quelques années, pour venir en aide à un ami qui traversait une période difficile. J'ai été très étonné, et extrêmement heureux, de la rapidité avec laquelle il a réagi à ce récit. Il est sorti de sa dépression et a commencé à vivre à nouveau."…