Berg et Beck Robert Bober

Grumiaux' version remains to this day one of the best available. He and Markevitch conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw have a total mastery of the idiom, and the Concerto's sections unfold naturally and organically: it doesn't sound like "modern" music, but as a language entirely congenial to the performers. Tempos are middle-of-the road, close to the metronome marks, and nothing more is required to bring out the composition's searing lyricism. Grumiaux has a luminous tone, the perfect mix of radiant lyricism and despaired vehemence. Markevitch, the Concertgebouw Orchestra (glorious brass!) and the sonic engineers bring out a wealth of orchestral details from Berg's subtle and delicately intertwined textures, maybe not as much as the best modern versions

The Jeff Beck Group was an English rock band formed in London in January 1967 by former The Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck. Their innovative approach to heavy-sounding blues and rhythm and blues was a major influence on popular music.

Polar sombre et riche en suspense, la série "Ilse Beck" est à couper le souffle, on ne peut plus la lâcher de la première à la dernière page. Un mystère fascinant et déroutant, plein de rebondissements et de secrets stupéfiants, qui vous fera aimer un nouveau personnage brillant, tout en vous gardant sous le choc jusque tard dans la nuit. …

Mark Padmore and fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout combine here to perform two of Schumann’s major cycles to words by Heine. They also throw in a selection of five Heine settings by the largely forgotten Franz Lachner (1803-90) from his Sängerfahrt (Singer’s Journey), which include the same text – ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’ – with which Schumann’s Dichterliebe begins.

An exact contemporary of Haydn, Franz Ignaz Beck (1734-1809) was a pupil of Stamitz in Mannheim, but lived and worked mainly in Bordeaux, where he was rated highly. Documented information about Beck is meagre and the 3-page introduction is unable to date this Stabat Mater, which is reckoned his masterpiece. It failed initially at Versailles and caused something of a furore, because of his forward looking harmonic modulations; the orchestra sabotaged his instructions for extreme dynamic contrasts. It points towards Berlioz in its originalty and I fully endorse the commentator's claim that Beck is another neglected composer whose music, once heard, demonstrates, yet again, that the accepted canon of 'great' composers, with most of the others cast into oblivion, is misleading and regrettable.

Jennifer Higdon is a masterful colorist whose music is immediately appealing, full of energy and dash, but also with lyrical movements that grab you and hold your interest with their variety and melodic freshness. She can be brassy and bold like William Schuman and lushly Romantic like Samuel Barber, to mention just two American predecessors her music calls to mind. She also has a strong profile of her own, as we hear in City Scapes, a musical portrait of Atlanta that captures the bustle of a metropolis on the move. It's centerpiece, "river sings a song to trees," is wonderfully paced and engrossing. Concerto for Orchestra is a grand workout for a virtuoso band, teeming with solo turns that can tax all but the best musicians, and passages that spotlight sections of the orchestra with opportunities to strut their stuff. It's a brilliant piece brilliantly played by the Atlantans. Add Telarc's usual terrific sound and this disc becomes a must for fans of accessible modern music.

Although highly productive and respected in his lifetime as a composer of Lieder, Robert Franz (1815–92) has since become a peripheral figure in music history. One reason may be that he avoids dramatic contrasts and instead aims at an emotional ambiguity: ‘My representation of joy is always tinged with melancholy, whilst that of suffering is always accompanied by an exquisite sensation of losing oneself’, he once wrote to Liszt. As a consequence his music appeals to those who are able ‘to admire the nuances of a charcoal drawing without longing for the colours of a painting’, to quote from Georges Starobinski’s liner notes to this recording. As they began to explore the songs of Franz, Starobinski and the baritone Christian Immler were moved by their findings to devise a programme which includes 23 of the composer’s often quite brief songs. Using the poet Heinrich Heine as their guiding star, they present these – all Heine settings but from different opus groups – in the form of two ‘imagined’ song cycles.

The first CD recording of the duo Benjamin Beck (viola) and Marie Rosa Günter (piano), released by GENUIN, extends beyond all horizons – namely, from a perspective that links this world with the hereafter and that asks about the possibilities of eternal love. Beck's velvety yet pithy viola tone coaxes out the nuances that make the thoughtful compositions of Robert Schumann, Ralph Vaughan-William, Sergei Prokofiev and Benjamin Britten so appealing. And with music from three centuries, this CD is by no means monotonous since it is about artistic realizations of borderline human experiences. Among these, a composition by Francois-Hugues Leclair, which is available on this CD as a world premiere recording and is dedicated to Benjamin Beck, is of particular importance.