Bartolucci / Venturi / Scarponi - Chamber Music - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In his 80s, Jean Françaix (1912-1997) supervised this 1996 Dutch album of four pieces for varied forces, writing the engaging booklet notes and performing with undimmed skill in the Divertimento which he wrote back in 1953 for the flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal. As he notes, the title is somewhat ironic for those who play it 'if it is InchdivertingInch to listen to, it is not at all so to play it and requires great virtuosity.' Le Colloque des deux Perruches (The Dialogue of Two Parakeets) is a modern classic of the repertoire for two flutes a six-movement dialogue opening with a fluttering, swooping Allegrissimo, followed by a melancholy little Larghetto. Smiles and laughter are never far away in Françaix's music and the mood brightens with a darting Scherzando. The fifth movement is another plaintive Larghetto, with the parakeets in earnest conversation. As a 22-year-old composer of already remarkable fluency, Françaix composed the String Trio for the Trio Pasquier, who went on to play it in over a thousand concerts an inimitably bustling, weightless piece in four movements enclosing a wistful Andante and rounding off with one of those Françaix tunes that turns round in the listener's head for days afterwards. The ten-minute Cantate de Méphisto sets a text by Paul Valéry according to the composer, 'This 'Méphisto' is terribly authentic, cunning, subversive and perverse.' The devil wheedles and beguiles in a lyric parlando, accompanied by a string ensemble, spiced by the irony and satire of his operas and comedies such as Le diable boiteux, his first work for the stage. Valéry's text is printed in the booklet. Françaix's music features in countless compilations here is an authoritatively performed opportunity to immerse yourself in his world for 'une heure exquise'.

The pianist Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991) belonged to that tradition of German musicians - notably including conductors such as Furtwangler, Klemperer and Walter - for whom composition hardly less essential a component of their musical personalities than performing, even if it was an activity they largely undertook privately. Working day to day with imperishable masterworks by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, they did not expect to meet such standards, yet their own creative voices required an outlet through more than recreation of others. Left cold by the musical innovations and developments of their own time in the work of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, they wrote in a heightened Romantic idiom, and in genres - especially song and chamber music - which lay separately from their own professional activity as performers. Both chamber works presented here date from Kempff's youth. The Piano Trio was composed in 1911, when Kempff was 16, and bears a clear Brahmsian influence in thematic conduct and emotional landscape, through the guidance of Kempff's teacher Robert Kahn, who had himself been a student of Brahms. The Quartet is scored for the more unusual combination of flute, violin, cello and piano. It dates from 1920, and was composed on the island of Capri during a period of recuperation from a serious illness which had laid him low during a concert tour of Sweden. Thus the second movement is based on a Swedish folk theme and the finale ends with a whirlin Tarantella di Taormina, in the tradition exemplified by Mendelssohn's 'Italian' Symphony of German musicians letting Italian sunshine into their work. The Quartet is led by the flautist Ginevra Petrucci. Now based in the US, Petrucci has made several well-received recordings for Brilliant Classics, among them Romantic-era concertos by Briccialdi and a 'winning' (MusicWeb International) album of chamber music by the Polish-US i

Hindemith Chamber Music, Composer Paul Hindemith, Artist Valerius Ensemble, 1 CD, Paul Hindemith, considered the foremost German composer of his generation, believed in a strong link between music and social needs, and regarded the composer as a craftsman; someone who could provide for those needs. His chamber music is renowned for being unconventional and eclectic; the composer often experimented with a variety of styles and combinations of instruments. The Trio Op.47 uses the heckelphone, a baritone oboe used in several of the works of Richard Strauss. Op.47 is particularly notable for the atmospheric Arioso for this rare instrument. Unusual instrumentation is also found in the Clarinet Quintet, thanks to the appearance of the E flat clarinet in the central movement, leading the ensemble through a series of waltzes and a fugue of considerable length. The Kleinerkammermusik Op.24 No.2 is one of the composer's best-loved works, showcasing his humorous side through the use of playful dissonance. Our collection ends with the lyrical beauty of his famous Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. The Valerius Ensemble enjoys a successful calendar of performances in concert halls and for radio and television, having toured throughout the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil. With a special interest in contemporary music, the ensemble has had several works written especially for it, by composers such as Carlos Míchans and Leo Samama. In celebration of the Hindemith-year 2013 (50 years after his death in 1963) this recording presents a generous selection of his chamber music output. Written for a wide variety of instruments (heckelphone, flute, horn, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, violin, viola, piano) it represents Hindemith's eclectic, witty and vibrant style, in which neo-classical, expressionistic and jazzy elements fuse together in a very personal way. High caliber performances by Netherland