Alon / Counterpoint Ensemble / Lilly - Ascend - Society of Composers, Inc 31 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The second album by the Danish recorder player Clara Guldberg Ravn completes the flute sonatas by Martinus Ræhs in a particularly exciting and colorful way. Together, the two albums represent the first complete recording of his flute sonatas. While a fortepiano was included on the first album (released in 2020), the ensemble decided to employ a completely original Swedish clavichord (Pehr Lindholm, Stockholm 1794) which, in contrast to the harpsichord, can produce crescendi, diminuendi and vibrato called bebung. Ræhs' sonatas have many different style elements, rhythmical patterns and syncopated motives. He presents himself as a composer well versed in the styles of contemporary Europe.

This album presents two major orchestral works by Claude DeBussy - Images and La Mer - alongside the delightful Danses for harp and orchestra. The French conductor Sylvain Cambreling highlights all the charm of these colorful scores. French-born conductor Sylvain Cambreling is a musician with big ideas. A thought-provoking, colorful and dramatic artist, he has a flair for grabbing the attention of audiences, yet his originality is rooted in thorough knowledge of musicology. As the Chief Conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, and Principal Guest Conductor of Klangforum Wien, he has offered ample proof of his gifts for imaginative programme-planning and persuasive championship of contemporary music.

Dmitri Shostakovich's long-lost Impromptu for Viola and Piano, Op. 33, recently unearthed in the Moscow State Archives, receives here it's world-premiere recording on Matthew Lipman's Ascent, the acclaimed young American violist's solo debut album, featuring, in the artist's words, Inchmusic enraptured by flights of fantasy.Inch Recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Lipman has created an album of uplifting and spiritually transcendent works for viola and piano, dedicated to his late mother. Hailed by The New York Times for his Inchrich tone and elegant phrasing,Inch Lipman is heard in the world-premiere recording of Clarice Assad's fantasy piece, Metamorfose, which the violist commissioned. It's a poignant commentary on grief and acceptance. Robert Schumann's Fairy Tale Pictures is dreamlike and fanciful. York Bowen's richly expressive Phantasy draws on the Russian Romantic tradition. Garth Knox's free-flying Fuga libre transfigures Bach-like fugal fragments through modern, coloristic performance techniques. The album's finale is the first-ever recording on viola of Hollywood composer Franz Waxman's popular violin showpiece, Carmen Fantasie. England's The Telegraph praised Lipman as Inchgifted with poise and a warmth of timbreInch for his recording of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and Sir Neville Marriner (Avie), which topped the Billboard classical chart. Lipman's collaborator on Ascent is pianist Henry Kramer, winner of the Second Prize at the 2016 Queen Elisabeth competition and top prizes at the 2015 Honens International Piano Competition and 2011 Montreal International Music Competition. His first commercial recording, dedicated to Liszt oratorio transcriptions, was recently released on Naxos.