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…
Charles Koechlin is one of those composers that have suffered neglect mainly because his music was so individual it was hard to characterise, or so it seemed in his own time (1867-1950). With distance he mirrors those 77 years well, beginning in the aftermath of D’Indy and Fauré, independent but relative to Debussy and Ravel, ending in the world of film music and the ravages of World War II…
These are all world premiere modern recordings made in Paris of music by two composers who have largely slipped through the reputational net undeservedly…
The concept behind this release is to compare and contrast two cello concertos written a century apart, 1919 and 2017, and both imbued with echoes of World War I. There’s nothing wrong with the concept but from the buyer’s point of view once the point is made, the recording has only the quality of the music and performances left to offer…
The Basset instruments of the late 18th century, whether called clarinets or horns, were particularly delicious in tone, giving not only extra notes to the clarinet range but a rich and mellow tone that modern generations do not quite match…
Dynasties in music are not uncommon but the Couperin family was perhaps France’s most firmly rooted. Unlike the Bachs, though, they did not spread out across the country but cemented themselves in position at one Parisian church for a century and three-quarters; St. Gervais, on the right bank of the Seine, close to the Hotel de la Ville and the river itself…