Gifted Amateur

Quantum field theory is arguably the most far-reaching and beautiful physical theory ever constructed, with aspects more stringently tested and verified to greater precision than any other theory in physics.

2019 release from the Texas troubadour. Every now and then, a songwriter is gifted by their subconscious - or perhaps even a higher, more mysterious power - with a song in a dream. It might be just a fragment: a key line or chorus, a snatch of melody that lingers through the fog of waking up, or perhaps even a world-shaking riff on the order of "Satisfaction." Dustin Welch can attest to the phenomenon himself, having been blessed with not just a couple of legitimate "dream songs" over the years, but something on a far grander scale. Once upon a time, he dreamed a whole sound. Welch would spend the better part of his teens and early 20s chasing that sound/vision before finally cornering it on his 2009 debut, Whisky Priest - but he knew from the very start of that project that one album alone would not be enough to corral it's full sonic and thematic scope. It demanded, at the very least, a trilogy.

It is well known that Felix Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny was a highly talented musician, but fewer are familiar with the fact that there were two other musical siblings in the Mendelssohn family: Rebecka, a gifted singer, and Paul, a very competent amateur cellist. It is to Paul, a banker by profession, that we owe the existence of much of Felix’s music for the instrument, which in spite of Beethoven’s endeavours hadn’t yet become firmly established as a duo partner of the piano. Fitting comfortably on a single release, Mendelssohn’s works for cello and piano are here presented by Christian Poltera and Ronald Brautigam, who open with the Variations concertantes in D major, composed in 1829. Brautigam has recently released the composer’s Lieder ohne Worte, performing them on a copy of a piano by Pleyel from 1830, and plays the same instrument on the present disc. Meanwhile, Poltera has chosen to equip his 1711 Stradivarius cello with gut strings, and together the two musicians and their instruments create a sound which is both flexible, transparent and vigorous – ideal for Mendelssohn’s scores.

In this sumptuous group portrait of the six daughters of 'Mad' King George III, acclaimed biographer Flora Fraser takes us into the heart of the British Royal family during the tumultuous period of the American and French revolutions.