Rebecca Stuthers

Clarinettist Barnaby Robson performs a rich programme of 20th-century and contemporary music for clarinet and piano, including world-premiere recordings. The release opens with Barnaby Robson’s collaboration with BAFTA-winning sound designer Martin Cantwell: a recording of Steve Reich’s intricate New York Counterpoint, which involves eleven pre-recorded clarinet lines. Herbert Howells is celebrated for his choral music but his instrumental works are less famous; with pianist Fiona Harris, Robson performs the 1946 version of Howells’s Clarinet Sonata, never recorded before.

Rebecca Kilgore stars on all but four of the 18 selections on this excellent modern swing CD. Tone-wise she resembles Doris Day while having a straightforward style a little reminiscent of Maxine Sullivan and Lucy Ann Polk. The personnel and instrumentation differ on most songs, ranging from a sextet to a duet with pianist Keith Ingham on "How About Me." Many of the songs are real obscurities and are greatly uplifted by these performances. Of the instrumentals, trumpeter Joe Wilder shows on "Time on My Hands" why his pretty tone and lyrical style are rated so high. Ingham's trio's feature is Andre Previn's "In Our Little Boat,"; "Why Did I Choose You" has unaccompanied solo guitar from Gene Bertonicini and Coleman Hawkins' "Hamid" is a fine jam for Ken Peplowski. But otherwise, get this CD for the always enjoyable singing of Rebecca Kilgore.

Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series reaches its 70th album with this program of three concertos by women. The ongoing success of the series suggests that audiences are ready and waiting for wider repertoire, and pianist Danny Driver and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Rebecca Miller deliver a real find here. The Piano Concerto in C sharp minor, Op. 45, of American composer Amy Beach has been performed and recorded, but it's been in search of a recording that captures the autobiographical quality of the work, well sketched out in the booklet notes by Nigel Simeone. Essentially, Beach faced creative repression from her religious mother and to a lesser extent from her husband, who allowed her to compose, but only rarely to perform. These experiences, it may be said, poured out in this towering Brahmsian, four-movement piano concerto, which sets up an unusual quality of struggle between soloists and orchestra. It's this dynamic that's so well captured by Driver and Miller (who happen to be married to each other). Sample the opening movement, which has lacked this quality in earlier performances.