IMAN: ALBUM II James W. Iman, piano (Divine Art Recordings) This second album from American pianist James Iman places Debussy’s evergreen ‘Images’ alongside works by Donald Martino (1931-2005) and contemporary composer Jenny Beck (b.1985), whose work ‘Stand Still Here’ receives its premiere recording on this disc. A specialist in music written since 1900 – with…
Category: CD review
Unbound: Mahan Esfahani & Carolyn Sampson on disc and in recital
For any listener, there’s a special kind of excitement reserved for when favourite artists – those you’ve been following separately for some time, collected their records and so forth – suddenly collaborate. Examples that spring to my mind include ‘The Marble Downs’, a masterpiece made by one of the UK’s greatest (and much missed, certainly…
Despax’s ‘Après un rêve’ is a dream of an album
Emmanuel Despax’s boyhood was spent discussing music and poetry with his poet grandfather, Jacques Charpentreau, over French patisseries. Memories of those perfect moments spent with his beloved relative, listening to Debussy, Poulenc, Ravel, Saint Saëns, has led to Despax’s latest piano release, Après un rêve. Some works are daringly familiar. Debussy’s Clair de Lune, for instance, is…
ECHOES: genre-busting inventiveness from Orchestra of the Swan
‘Echoes’ is the latest in Orchestra of the Swan’s ‘mixtape’ series, following on from ‘Timelapse’ and ‘Labyrinths’ (which has received over 8 million audio streams since 2021 and was shortlisted for Gramophone award in the Spatial Audio category). As with their previous mixtape albums, ‘Echoes’ is an eclectic mix of music encompassing a variety of…
Pretty good together: Barb Jungr and her Trio, ‘My Marquee’
To paraphrase Bob Dylan, one of her heroes and creative touchstones, Barb Jungr contains multitudes. Anyone familiar with her work will know what a versatile talent she is. She personifies what cabaret at its absolute finest can be. She’s a consummate jazz vocalist – commanding, beguiling and arresting whether working within that genre or careering…
BAGATELLES Piano Music by Bernard Hughes
What makes this album truly special is the culmination of many years of collaboration between Bernard Hughes and pianist Matthew Mills, who commissioned and premieres Partita Contrafacta on the disc. The two musicians have been working together for years, resulting in a deep understanding of each other’s artistic vision and an unparalleled ability to bring Hughes’ compositions to life on the piano, which he does masterfully with colour and vigour, humour and warmth.
Beat poetry: Rick Simpson, ‘Twice Shaded’
After a few listens, this album feels like a heroically original achievement: without doubt, a jazz record, but unpredictable in ways one wouldn’t have predicted. Warm yet inscrutable; modest in approach but confident and fizzing with ideas: it’s improvised music that feels as though it’s always existed. How can something so spontaneous feel so permanent?…
‘the music of evaporation’ – Música callada | Federico Mompou | Stephen Hough, piano
Federico Mompou’s piano work Musica Callada is a set of twenty-eight short pieces that were written between 1959 and 1967. It was the last piece of piano music published in the composer’s lifetime The title, borrowed from the Cantica spiritual by the Spanish mystic and Carmelite friar St John of the Cross, translates as “Silent…
A Bad Night in Los Angeles – piano music by Robert Matthew-Walker
The title alone invites further exploration of this interesting, varied disc of piano music by Robert Matthew-Walker, a British composer and an influential part of the classical music recording industry for more than half a century (he ran marketing and publicity departments for leading record labels CBS and RCA, and has been editor of the…
Light fantastic: Mary Bevan, ‘Visions Illuminées’
It’s always a delight to come across an album so richly crafted and ingeniously programmed, you get an overwhelming sense that you’re hearing something intensely personal, a snapshot of what the artist wants to say ‘right now’. ‘Visions Illuminées’ feels like one of those records. Soprano Mary Bevan has featured on numerous recordings, but on…
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