Frédéric Lordopn

Catalan composer Federico Mompou wrote four volumes of brief, aphoristic piano pieces called Música callada, or Music of silence, between 1959 and 1967. He seemed to inhabit a musical world of his own, indifferent or hostile to many of the conventions of western music, particularly Germanic music, which he described as "phonorrhea," with an excess of padding, ponderous development, and numbing redundancies. His aesthetic is similar in some ways to Satie's, and their works have some similarities, particularly the use of a simple, but unconventional tonal language that is not shy of dissonance. Mompou's music is notable for the simplicity and clarity of its content and its expression – there are no wasted or unnecessary notes. Spanish pianist Javier Perianes plays with an unmannered delicacy and a self-effacing directness that honor the ephemeral character of these pieces and allows their poetry to blossom. The sound is absolutely clear and captures the intimacy of the music.

Canadian Works for Oboe and Piano is a sweeping 2-CD compilation of fine Canadian repertoire for oboe and piano from the past 70 years. A celebration in honour of Canada’s sesquicentennial, the collection highlights the oboe’s personal, singing quality and is unified by the lyrical essence of all the works. This recording includes several Canadian oboe classics, three new works created especially for this project, three new arrangements of existing pieces, and a few interesting discoveries, including the world premiere of a work written some 40 years ago by a major composer but never performed live. The two discs feature an even mix of sonatas, shorter stand-alone works, and what could be considered suites. With one exception, all the works on these discs are receiving their first recorded performances here.

From well-loved arias to new discoveries, this recording journeys through over a century of opera, with transcriptions for cello and orchestra stretching from Mozart to Puccini and including Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Offenbach. The curtain goes up on some of Ophélie Gaillard’s favourite pieces, which explore human passions through the voice of the cello, that most human of instruments.