Variations: Piano
I am always lost in admiration for Clare Hammond’s playing. She seems to have invincible fingers and can tackle anything a composer throws at her…
Sir Adrian Boult: A Musical Legacy
These are not for the most part the extraordinary recordings Boult made in the late 1960s and into the 70s for EMI, produced by Christopher Bishop, that introduced him as an interpreter of the classics to a new generation – mine. In those years Boult emerged as the grand master, freed from the smothering of his reputation by factional music politics and his own tendency to accept whatever was thrown at him…
Louise Farrenc
Ironwood give these quintets the full period style treatment, the period being the middle years of the 19th century, when romantic practice was maturing and becoming more indulgent of special effects. If you don’t like spread piano chords, extensive portamento in the violins and a piano sound far more brittle than a modern Steinway, then this record is not for you…
Stanford
There is a sense that Stanford’s chamber music is at last getting the attention it deserves. Despite being recognised in his lifetime as an important late romantic composer the twentieth century programmers largely wrote him off as being second class…