Hyperion

Franz Liszt - Liszt at the Theatre - Leslie Howard (1992) {Hyperion CDA66575}
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© 1992 Hyperion Records | CDA66575
Classical / Solo Piano

Whilst Liszt’s piano music derived from music for plays is a much smaller body of work than his catalogue of operatic pieces, the approach in his methods of composition, elaboration and transcription remains broadly the same. As far as present Liszt scholarship permits one ever to be categorical, this recording contains all of Liszt’s works in this genre.

Alban Gerhardt & Markus Becker - Rostropovich Encores (2017) {Hyperion CDA68136}
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© 2017 Hyperion Records | CDA68136
Classical / Cello / Piano

An album of encores once played by someone else, even someone as famous as Mstislav Rostropovich, might seem an overspecialized product, but German cellist Alban Gerhardt had some success with a similar album devoted to Pablo Casals, and is now back for more. Gerhardt does a reasonable impression of Rostropovich's songful style, overlaid with a bit of mysterious and gloomy Russian philosophy. But the really innovative feature of the album is the program, which draws out the breadth of the great Russian's musical interests, even in the seemingly restricted feel of the encore.

Schnittke - Chamber Music: Piano Quintet etc. - Sarah Leonard, Capricorn, Timothy Mason (1996) {Hyperion CDA66885}
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© 1996 Hyperion Records | CDA66885
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music

The chamber works on this recording encompass a variety of instrumental groupings and a range of moods from the humour and lightness of the Serenade to the serious magnificence of the Piano Quintet, a five-movement ‘memorial’ developing the tradition of so great a work as Shostakovich’s single-movement work for this combination. The Three Madrigals set a three-language cycle of miniature poems by Francisco Tanzer, poems which themselves encapsulates much that is distinctively Schnittke through their epigrammatic atmosphere of cryptic completeness.

Sir James MacMillan (b. 1959) - String Quartets - Royal String Quartet (2018) {Hyperion CDA68196}
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© 2018 Hyperion Records | CDA68196
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Chamber Music / Strings

Scottish composer James MacMillan is known for big public works, some of them inspired by his Catholic faith. But he is also the composer of a good deal of chamber music, largely avoiding the Scottish traditional influences present in his other work. Some is more abstract than his choral and orchestral pieces, although the String Quartet No. 2 ("Why is this night different?"), recorded here, is inspired by a Jewish Passover Seder observance. Chronologically that's the middle of the three works on the album; the earliest one, Visions of a November Spring, was one of the pieces that made MacMillan's reputation in the early 1990s, and it introduces the contrasts of light and dark that run through many of his works.

Berlioz - Harold in Italy and Other Orchestral Works (2018) {Hyperion CDA68193}
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© 2018 Hyperion Records | CDA68193
Classical / Romantic / Orchestral

This is a sensational disc - an exploration of Berlioz such as few others offer. The viola sound of Lawrence Power has a lot to do with it - it is such a beautiful sound, so close to actual singing, that as soon as he plays it is as if Harold himself is expressing his feelings directly; added to this, the orchestra is of unusual brilliance under Andrew Manze's direction. The range of sounds is thrilling, bringing together all these landscapes as vividly as any art can. Harold en Italie is an amazing score, but one that has suffered a certain neglect, even though viola concertos from the 19th century are so thin on the ground.

The Golden Age of English Polyphony - The Sixteen, Harry Christophers (2009) {10CD Set Hyperion CDS44401~10}
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© 2009 Hyperion Records | CDS44401~10
Classical / Early Music / Renaissance / Polyphony / Plainchant

When The Sixteen embarked upon their recording career back in 1982, few would have been able to predict quite how successful they would become, or how far they would go towards rehabilitating the little-known and barely recorded music of these four master composers of the sixteenth century. In this their 30th anniversary year, we join them in celebrating a Golden Age of Polyphony, and of music-making, by presenting their twelve discs of this repertoire in an attractively packaged (and priced) 10-CD remastered set.

Thomas Tallis - The Votive Antiphons - The Cardinall's Musick, Andrew Carwood (2018) {Hyperion CDA68250}
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© 2018 Hyperion Records | CDA68250
Classical / Renaissance / Choral / Sacred Music

Supplied as devotional music for the daily office, the votive antiphon was one of the principal choral forms of 16th century England, along with settings of the Ordinary of the Mass and the Magnificat. Thomas Tallis composed seven votive antiphons which are brought together on this 2018 compilation, and the fluctuations in religious practices under the Tudors are reflected in these works' subtle changes of style and differences of theology, whether they complied with the restrictions imposed by the Protestant reformation under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I, or the brief Catholic restoration under Mary I.

Sarah Watts, Laurence Perkins, Sian Edwards - The Princess & The Bear (2018) {Hyperion CDA68263}
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© 2018 Hyperion Records | CDA68263
Classical / Chamber Music / Concerto

This is not an indispensable issue, but one which is continually interesting and will give much pleasure. Both Perkins and Watts are technically assured, but, more importantly, characterful players. The title comes from the inspiration for Strauss’s Duet-Concertino, from 1947, a piece which deserves to be much more frequently played. Though Strauss left no descriptive synopsis, its origin was in Beauty and the Beast. If we know that, the clarinet and bassoon are clearly the two characters, against the background of strings and harp.