Jacques Martin

Among the young British instrumentalists vying to pick up the mantles of the great soloists of a generation ago, flutist Katherine Bryan seems among the most promising, and she takes a major step forward with this, her second release. Her startlingly clear, bright articulation in the upper register is pleasing on its own, yet the real attraction here is that she approaches a repertory intelligently and brings fresh perspectives to it. The Flute Concerto (1993) of Christopher Rouse only seems to be the odd item in the set; Rouse's instrumental writing, with its intricate grasp of texture and register, is truly a descendant of the French (and French-Swiss) music on the rest of the album, and it was an inspired choice in terms of showcasing Bryan's technique as well. The three central movements have a memorial tone, with flute solos woven into Rouse's characteristically spacious chords, and Bryan has the stamina to stick with the long line here. Ibert's delightful Concerto for flute and orchestra (1934) receives an absolutely crackling performance from Bryan.

La Dame de mes Songes, Dulcinea, as sung by Alexandre Arnoux and Jacques Ibert in the third of the four Songs of Don Quixote (1932), is La Dame de mes songes. It could also be Spain, as dreamed of, at least occasionally from the 1830s to the 1930s, by most French composers who usually reduced it to Andalusia and what they believed to be flamenco. If they stop over in Andalusia, the performers of this disc also travel to Old Castile, Extremadura and Murcia with the help of composers such as Henri Collet, Federico García Lorca, Emiliana de Zubeldía or Raoul Laparra and Jacques Ibert.

“Autonomy” is a sensational addition to our Ace’s long-standing producer’s series. After cutting his teeth as a recording engineer for artists from T.Rex to Shirley Bassey, Martin Rushent broke through in 1977 producing the Stranglers. From that point, he helped give new wave bands a delicious pop edge helming seminal recordings by 999, Buzzcocks, XTC, Generation X and the Rezillos to name a few. As the 80s dawned he set up Genetic sound and armed with the latest technology his pioneering work with the Human League on “Dare” defined the sound of UK synthpop and brought him international recognition. After that, the hits and cutting edge production work continued.

​In this album Clara Andrada, solo flutist of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, performs three 20th century flute concertos together with the orchestra conducted by Jaime Martín. Malcolm Arnolds delightful Flute Concerto No. 1 makes a pleasant addition alongside Nielsens and Iberts flute concertos. Jaime Martín, himself an excellent flutist, is a perfect companion to these works. This is the orchestras second album for Ondine, and continues the fruitful collaboration between Jaime Martín and Ondine that has already produced three albums previously.

Things that don't fit neatly into pigeonholes have always had a hard time, and so it has been with the saxophone; Hoffnung's string-tuba would have had very big problems. Sax was a tireless inventor: his plans for a monster canon, and a device for playing loud music from Parisian high ground never bore fruit, but the former anticipated Saddam Hussein and the latter, scaled down, is with us as Muzak. Though the saxophone has never found a regular place in the orchestra it has nevertheless captured the interest of a long line of composers; a square peg doesn't need to fit into any orchestral round hole when it is centre-stage.

Une incroyable aventure au cœur de l’époque médiévale !
Entre conte et légende, réalité historique et fiction, cette folle histoire se déroule au haut Moyen Âge, soit à l’époque du règne de l’empereur Charlemagne. Elle raconte les péripéties d’un groupe d’aventuriers originaires de différentes parties de l'Europe, amenés à confronter le culte diabolique d’un mage sulfureux lors d’un périple qu’ils sont forcés de faire tous ensemble. Celui-ci ne sera pas de tout repos …

Though the saxophone has never found a regular place in the orchestra it has nevertheless captured the interest of a long line of composers; a square peg doesn't need to fit into any orchestral round hole when it is centre-stage. It is, too, one of the instruments whose technique has been advanced by players of jazz—a field in which John Harle remains active. There are now exponents of awesome ability, worthy of the attention of serious composers such as, in this recording, Bennett—who is also given to crossing the musical tracks.

When he wrote the cycle that was to change the musical course of the twentieth century, Arnold Schönberg wanted the 21 melodramas based on Albert Giraud's famous collection of poems to be 'spoken and sung' in the language of the country in which they were set, in keeping with the fledgling Berlin cabaret tradition… In doing so, he may not have appreciated the problems that the exercise would pose. The fate of Albert Giraud's verses is inextricably linked to Otto Erich Hartleben's free translation of them. It was in this version that they were most frequently set to music. Stripped of their rhymes and original metre, they are in fact another poetic work. When Darius Milhaud presented Schönberg with a French version recited by Marya Freund in 1922, the composer was disappointed and went so far as to say that he did not recognise his own work!