Okko Kamu

This is the follow up to the extremely popular album Best Classics 100. The 6 CDs are themed differently from those in the first album and cover 'Spectacular Classics', 'Eternal Classics', 'Romantic Classics', 'Instrumental Classics', 'Nostalgic Classics' and 'Favourite Encores'.

A 7CD collection tracing Nigel Kennedy’s journey from the phenomenal Elgar concerto with Vernon Handley in 1984 through to his ground-breaking Vivaldi Four Seasons with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1989 – the recording which launched him to global super-stardom. “If it wasn’t for a spiky-haired Nigel Kennedy’s 1989 recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons,” the Classic FM radio station told its website’s readers a few years back, “you and I might not be listening to Classic FM today”. The station had launched in 1992 with a mission to bring classical music to a wider public, three years after the runaway success of young violinist Nigel Kennedy’s Vivaldi album had revealed an untapped audience just waiting for the right invitation.

The two concertos by Thomas Koppel (1944-2006) on the present disc are fresh, lively, and often moving works that, although written in a freely tonal idiom, never become anodyne. Instead, the ear is continuously challenged by shifting colors and harmonies, and most certainly by the virtuoso solo writing that Michala Petri handles with considerable aplomb.

Brigitte Meyer was born in Biel, Switzerland, where she experienced a happy childhood that, as far back as she can remember, was shaped by music. She gave her debut with orchestra at age eleven and went on to study at the conservatories in Biel and Lausanne, where she graduated at the age of nineteen with a degree in performance. She had already begun an active concert career but wished to continue her studies in Vienna – a decision that was rewarded by a personal invitation to the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna from Bruno Seidlhofer, who later spoke of three outstanding pupils: Friedrich Gulda (the genius), Martha Argerich (the great virtuoso), and Brigitte Meyer (the great musician). Meyer received the Bösendorfer Prize in Vienna and was a finalist at the Clara Haskil Piano Competition in Vevey.