Toccata Press

A real rarity from Hyperion’s Anglo-Australian artistic collaboration: music by an Australian composer who was once at the heart of the English establishment. Malcolm Williamson was one of many Australian creative artists who relocated to Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Within a decade of settling in London he had established a reputation as one of the most gifted and prolific composers of his generation. His stature as a leading figure within the British music scene was publicly acknowledged in 1975 when he was appointed to the esteemed post of Master of the Queen’s Music in succession to Sir Arthur Bliss. But today he is almost forgotten and his music virtually never performed.

SICHER (For Sure) is an obscure group from Zurich that only released one album. What makes this band interesting is despite the fact that their sole release is from 1981, the sound is distinctly early '70s. The eight man outfit featured Markus Sibler, Klaus Caspar, Beat Lustenberger, Kuno Müller, Peter Müller, Stefan Sieber, Paul Sieber, and Catherine Graf. The large number of musicians allowed for a lush sound including sax, cello and flute. It would be easy to pigeonhole SICHER as classic symphonic especially when hearing the oft-covered Bach Toccata. Other songs do reveal a jazzier almost Canterbury side. If any direct comparison were to be made, fellow countrymen Eloiteron might be the best place to look. The safer bet is to say that SICHER drew on the entire cannon of classic prog.

“This is harpist Şirin Pancaroğlu’s latest album which is based on the idea that it is possible to seize the variety one traditionally finds in a concert program within the frame of a single period…Pancaroğlu took up on the difficult task of transcribing from the baroque era for the harp…I listened and thought she is convincing: it does sound good.” Kutlu Özmakinacı, Hürriyet

Cherubini is not known for keyboard music, and, indeed, wrote very little of it. The six sonatas for keyboard were composed while Cherubini was living in Milan in 1780, studying with Giuseppe Sarti, the Maestro di Cappella at Milan Cathedral. They were published in Florence three years later and remained his only keyboard music to go to press. The sonatas are therefore early works, very much in the ‘Classical’ style and all consist of only two movements and all are in major keys. While the sonatas …….

Peter Wells @ musicweb-international.com

This special multi-media project in a limited edition illustrates the encounter between an artist and an exceptional venue. This museum quality publication, featuring Paradizo s elegant packaging and presentation, includes recordings and documents witnessing one of the most important projects of the entire harpsichord revival and Early Music movement.

It is a familiar fact that Antonio Vivaldi was a prime mover in the creation of the solo concerto, but what is less well known is that he also was the leading exponent of the older concerto a quattro – music in four parts, with several players to a part, intended for what we nowadays would call a string orchestra with continuo. As Vivaldi expert Michael Talbot explains in his informative liner notes, these works are notable not only for their beauty, but also for their experimental character and for providing the most important examples of fugal writing in Vivaldi’s instrumental music. It is not known when Vivaldi started to write them, but most of the almost fifty concertos probably originate from the 1720s and 1730s. .