Elgar / Saint-Seans / Pihtipudas Quintet - Piano Quintet in a Major - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

One of the most exciting events I have experienced during a reviewing career approaching half a century, was the verdict of the Birmingham Post's critic after hearing the premiere performance of Elgar's Piano Quintet in a new orchestration by Donald Fraser, with Kenneth Woods conducting the English Symphony Orchestra. This version, which was also named a InchPremiere of the YearInch by Classical Music magazine, appears in a studio recording alongside Fraser's choral arrangement of Elgar's Sea Pictures, with Woods conducting the English Chamber Orchestra and the Rodolfus Choir. Fraser has frequently orchestrated works by Elgar at the behest of individuals and organizations including Yehudi Menuhin and the Elgar Society.

Beverly Glenn-Copeland began his musical career in the 1960s, when he studied classical singing at Montreal's McGill University and performed at Expo 67. A pair of self-titled, multi-genre albums released in the early '70s showcased his powerful voice and songwriting talent. In 1986, while living in rural Ontario, Glenn-Copeland taught himself to use digital synthesis and recorded the album that would ultimately alter the entire course of his career. At the time, he self-released Keyboard Fantasies via a 200-copy cassette run, selling just a handful while the rest waited in storage. In 2015, a Japanese record collector emailed Glenn-Copeland about selling the remainder; and a new generation had unearthed his art. In 2021, he released the remix album Keyboard Fantasies Reimagined, which featured reimagined versions of the album's songs from contemporary visionaries such as Arca, Blood Orange, and Kelsey Lu. His multifaceted body of work surrenders to the beauty, pain, and great capacity for healing that courses through life; in it's unguarded sincerity, it invites you to share in it's courage. Glenn-Copeland's new album, The Ones Ahead - his first collection of new music in nearly two decades - deepens these explorations, casting searching light into how all of us must dissolve the harms of this world and carry each other forward into the next.

Rubinstein / Shostakovich / Pihtipudas Quintet - Piano Quintets [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/01/1996