Arias

Cellist Fernando Arias and pianist Noelia Rodiles team up for this recording, portraying 30 years of Slavic masterpieces for this combination: From the still neglected Dohnányi’s Sonata, op.8 to one of 20th Century’s chamber music masterpieces: Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata op. 40. Intense and brilliant performances in this album which also includes Janacek’s gem “Pohadka”.

In this album Mauricio Arias-Esguerra offers a kaleidoscopic view of recent Colombian piano music, highlighting its striking stylistic variety. Germán Darío Pérez sees a traditional dance through a jazzy lens, and Blas Emilio Atehortúa takes a post-serial approach in his Preludio, Variaciones y Presto Alucinante. The influence of progressive rock music can be heard in Gustavo Parra’s Pavec Lingus, as can Jaime León’s love of US American music in his Made in U.S.A. preludes; and there is techno and angst in Ian Frederick’s Suite Catrina. Arias-Esguerra’s own contributions are highly contrasted, with lyricism in his Arizona Mirage and rhythmic drive in his Toccata Bachkovsky.

The glittering city of Dresden, whose painstaking reconstruction after it was reduced to rubble in World War II is one of the great success stories of architecture preservation, is a hot topic in the Baroque music field, and this 2000 recording, reissued in budget form in 2010, offers a taste of the excitement. As the seat of the Holy Roman Empire's Elector of Saxony, the city was musically significant even before the rise to power of the man who really made its cultural reputation, August the Strong.

This album of Handel vocal selections should delight the listener with its clear, bell-like soprano and its period orchestra, its Handelian melismas and reverential songs to God. Soprano Dorothea Craxton sings with such a beautiful, creamy sound and smooth technique that one does not hear her breaths. However, this album disappoints for the sole reason that the recording quality is off-balance, often relegating Craxton to sound like a member of the ensemble as opposed to soloist (or being overpowered by one of the ensemble).