George Fenton

Classical Chillout Gold is the follow up to Pure Classical Chillout, the highly successful. Spread over 4 CDs, and covering bases including musicals, opera, film scores and advertising themes, it is the perfect classical album.

Handels solo keyboard music has for too long been overshadowed by his operas, oratorios, and orchestral music. This comparative neglect seems unjust in view of the considerably large quantity of keyboard music which exists amongst his massive output. There are about 25 suites as well as numerous other single pieces including Fugues, Chaconnes, Fantasias, Preludes and individual dance movements. Amongst the suites there were two collections which were published in Handels lifetime. The Eight Great Suites first appeared in print in 1720 followed by a further six in 1733, often referred to as The Second Collection. There are also a number of miscellaneous suites.

Handel’s solo keyboard music has for too long been overshadowed by his operas, oratorios, and orchestral music. This comparative neglect seems unjust in view of the considerably large quantity of keyboard music which exists amongst his massive output. This third double CD set completes Gilbert Rowland’s survey of these groundbreaking works which began to free the form from the formal constraints of “Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue”. Gilbert Rowland first studied the harpsichord with Millicent Silver. Whilst still a student at the Royal College of Music, he made his debut at Fenton House 1970 and first appeared at the Wigmore Hall in 1973.

Clarinettist Barnaby Robson performs a rich programme of 20th-century and contemporary music for clarinet and piano, including world-premiere recordings. The release opens with Barnaby Robson’s collaboration with BAFTA-winning sound designer Martin Cantwell: a recording of Steve Reich’s intricate New York Counterpoint, which involves eleven pre-recorded clarinet lines. Herbert Howells is celebrated for his choral music but his instrumental works are less famous; with pianist Fiona Harris, Robson performs the 1946 version of Howells’s Clarinet Sonata, never recorded before.