Marcello First Impressions

Although it is my second album, it feels like this is the first time that my true development as a player, composer, and bandleader will be on display.

Shrouded in mystery and regarded as a masterpiece of early spiritual jazz, saxophonist Shamek Farrah’s debut album First Impressions is one of the most sought-after recordings, not only from Strata-East’s catalog but in the entire genre.

Award-winning Michigan composer, Dinah Bianchi, shares an impactful creative vision on her self-titled album, DINAH BIANCHI: FIRST IMPRESSIONS. Performed by 10 world-class musicians, many of whom frequently showcase their talents with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Detroit Opera House, this collection embodies the composer’s belief that music should be sublimely beautiful and communicative. Spanning chamber and larger symphonic works, this Navona Records release is a captivating array of compositions that illustrate the fusion of intricate melodic content with a progressive, harmonically-charged palette, delivering a refreshingly unique yet easily approachable encounter.

From an early age Benedetto Marcello (Venice 1686 - Brescia 1739) proved to be a man of great versatility: a poet, writer, musician, lawyer, judge, administrator and philologist, holding important posts in these functions during his entire life. As a composer he wrote a substantial oeuvre, covering all important fields of composition: sacred and secular choral works, opera and a large body of instrumental music.

Impressions d'enfance, Ensemble Raro's and Gilles Apap's new recording, is dedicated to chamber music works of George Enescu. Piano Quintet in D is one of his earliest compositions. Written in 1896 at the age of fifteen during his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, it is certainly inspired by Brahms' chamber works. Enescu himself confessed about Brahms' enormous influence on his development: "the God of my youthful adoration is Brahms and I wrote my early works in the style of the immortal Johannes in an almost flagrant way". The Quintet was premiered in 1897, in Enescu's first recital of his own works in Paris at the age of sixteen; Massenet and Cortot were in the audience.

Bruno Maderna always attached great importance to insight and imagination, even during the period in which he followed the most rigorous serial procedures. Maderna’s preference for concreteness in sound images, his practical approach to composition problems, and his receptiveness to language diversity explain the extraordinary ascendancy he had over the Italian composers who visited Darmstadt in the Fifties and Sixties, including Nono, Berio, Donatoni, and Clementi.

The guitar music of eminent 20th-century British composer Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) comprises three works, all of them written with the great guitarist Julian Bream in mind. Two of these are sets of songs for high voice, for which Britten’s vocal model was of course the famous English tenor – and Britten’s long-time personal and professional partner – Peter Pears.

Born in Nagoya in Japan, Etsuko Hirose began studying the piano at the age of three. When she was six she performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto no.26 with an orchestra. After pursuing her studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Bruno Rigutto and Nicholas Angelich, she has received the guidance of Alfred Brendel, Marie-Francoise Bucquet and Jorge Chamine.

Benedetto Marcello was born in Venice in 1686 and died in Brescia in 1739. His vast musical output remains largely unexplored, but his most famous work is the Estro poetico-armonico a collection of 50 psalms, including 11 ancient Jewish songs (called Intonazioni) and two sacred hymns from Greek classicism. Marcello acknowledged the importance of Jewish and classical music heritage, and by blending these different styles he sought to underline their universal value.

Stylish new recordings of two expansive psalm settings from 18th-century Venice.
The catalogue boasts no shortage of fine recordings of the cello sonatas and other chamber music by the Venetian nobleman Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739).