Stephen Biggins

In a year of Handel celebration and many new recordings, this is a welcome addition to the discography. Stephen Layton, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a stellar group of soloists—in fact, the best in solo Handel singing that this country has to offer—present a disc of three of the Chandos anthems which is sure to achieve the same critical and public acclaim as the recent Dettingen Te Deum from Trinity.

Grainger’s mastery of choral textures shines out of this wide-ranging collection of folk-song arrangements, each highly individual and memorable. Plus his friend Grieg’s finely scored religious settings. Superior performances by Stephen Layton and Polyphony.

This is a fine recording of the requiem although shorter than norm due to it's revised construction. Nevertheless, it is very pleasing and well suited to the smaller ensemble. It hardly requires me to remark on the excellence of the King's College choir which adds considerably to the listening pleasure. In addition, this is a Super Audio CD (SACD) ensuring a high quality of sound recording.

The emotional sweep of these marvellous works, reflecting the vicissitudes of Schumann’s complex personal life at the time, calls for a pianist wholly responsive to their fervent Romanticism. The artistry of Stephen Hough proves ideal.

Michel-Richard de Lalande is regarded as one of the great composers of the French Baroque, and so it is not surprising that our prizewinning Boston Early Music Ensemble has now turned to him. Along with his many sacred works, Lalande also wrote for the various court occasions that required secular music. Les Fontaines de Versailles, the work occupying a central position on this CD, above all contributed to Lalande’s increasing popularity. It was performed on 5 April 1683, some weeks before Lalande was appointed to the coveted post of 'Sous-maître de Chapelle.' After the court had settled in Versailles with King Louis XIV in 1682, its musical microcosm also experienced a renewal.

This 2008 Hyperion disc called A Mozart Album programmed and performed by English pianist Stephen Hough is a model recital. The disc starts with pure Mozart, the Fantasia in C minor, K. 475, and the Sonata in B flat major K. 333, then moves to not so pure Mozart, a Fantasia in C minor, K. 396, begun by Mozart but finished after his death by Maximillian Stadler. After that, there are three Mozartian virtuoso pastiches, Johann Baptist Cramer's Hommage à Mozart and Ignaz Friedman's Menuetto in D major from the Divertimento for strings and horns, K. 334, plus Hough's own Three Mozart Transformations (after Poulenc): the Menuet, K. 1; Klavierstücke, K. 333; and Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling, K. 596.

Following on from his lauded recording of of Clavier-Übung III celebrated organist Stephen Farr continues his survey of Johann Sebatian Bach’s organ works with the four Chorale Partitas, BWV 766–768 & 770.
This volume also marks the first recording on a substantial and colourful three-manual Bernard Aubertin organ newly installed in a private residence in Fairwarp, East Sussex in 2015.