Quite Imposing 5

Popa Chubby, born Ted Horowitz, has been hard rocking the blues in his fierce and soulful way for more than 25 years. Over the course of a career that dates back to 1994, he has been a force of to be reckoned with on the guitar, and his tempestuous, soulful playing has never been more powerful. An imposing figure with a shaven head, tattooed arms, a goatee and a performance style he describes as “the Stooges meets Buddy Guy, Motörhead meets Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix meets Robert Johnson," Popa Chubby is an endearing character who is one of the genre’s most popular figures.

The choral and instrumental parts for Gabriel Fauré's 1893 version of the Requiem, Op. 48, were discovered in 1969, and a score was assembled from them and published in 1994. Since then, this edition has been finding admirers, such as Laurence Equilbey and her hand-picked choir Accentus, who perform the Requiem with members of the Orchestre National de France on this 2008 Naïve release. The impact of the work is still quite strong and imposing in this chamber version, even when compared with performances of the full orchestral score of 1901, and it helps that the recording is full, deep, and vibrant, so textures are substantial and tone colors are rich, without giving the slightest impression that any forces are lacking.

Frank Martin's discography has expanded over the last few years. The most prominent of these new releases was the first ever complete recording of his opera Der Sturm which was issued last year by Hyperion. However, some of his most significant works have yet to make their way onto disc; one such is Pseaumes de Genève (1958). In that neglected vein we are now introduced to Le Conte de Cendrillon (Das Märchen vom Aschenbrödel).

Malcolm Sargent's reputation as one of the great popularizers of classical music in Britain arose not only through his long association with the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (1947-67), but was evident much earlier through chief conductorships of the Halle (1939-42), Liverpool Philharmonic (1942-48), and BBC Symphony Orchestras (1950-57).
By the time he became a fixture at the Proms in 1947 Sir Malcolm (he was knighted in 1947) his was one of the best-known names in England. In personality, showmanship, and energy he was ideal for the nightly concerts.

By ''Early Viennese School'' is meant the group of composers contemporary, in the capital city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Haydn and Mozart. Not all of it is particularly early; indeed Albrechtsberger, Vanhal and Salieri lived well into the nineteenth century. And it is arguable whether the Viennese of this period really represent a 'school' in the sense that the Mannheimers, or even the North Germans, clearly do; Vienna was a great musical clearing-house, wide open to influences (French and especially Italian opera were much performed there all through this period), and it is perhaps better to regard Viennese composition of the time as representing a wide spectrum of dialect within the late eighteenth-century lingua franca.

Hudson Hawk was an action-comedy vehicle for a post-Die Hard Bruce Willis, directed by Michael Lehmann. Willis plays Eddie Hawkins, a master thief who, on the day of his parole from prison, suddenly finds himself blackmailed into committing a series of elaborate heists. The complicated plot involves the Italian Mafia, an evil international conglomerate, the artwork of Leonardo da Vinci, and a machine that turns lead into gold, but it’s really just an excuse for Willis and his co-star Danny Aiello to engage in various globe-trotting escapades of comic tomfoolery. The film co-stars Andie MacDowell, James Coburn, and Richard E. Grant, and unfortunately was an enormous box-office flop; audiences seemingly couldn’t reconcile Willis’s tough guy persona with the film’s slapstick comedy action, bizarre sound effects, and surreal humor. Musically, Hudson Hawk is an enjoyable oddity. One of the conceits in the story is that the characters played by Willis and Aiello often spontaneously burst into song, as a way to synchronize the timing of their heists. The pair sing several tracks, two of which – Bing Crosby’s “Swinging on a Star” from Going My Way (which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1944), and Paul Anka’s “Side by Side” – are featured on the film’s soundtrack.