Joplin / Ratzkowski / Thomsen / Lenzberg - Ragtime - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

John Mark Ainsley's clever program highlights the connections of four of the best songwriters of modern day Britten, Poulenc, Heggie, and Berkeley. This variety in repertoire showcases the range, expression, vocal color, and understanding of text of this talented artist. Malcolm Martineau accompanies Ainsley, and is the dedicatee of Heggie's Friendly Persuasions. Ainsley and Martineau premiered the work in 2008 at Wigmore Hall, London. John Mark Ainsley has appeared alongside the world's greatest orchestras, and is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Classical Changes, a second disc by the Art Deco Trio which treats favourite classical pieces to delightful and often dazzling jazz-accented re-workings in variegated arrangements by Iain Farrington. Comprising three remarkable instrumentalists - Peter Sparks clarinet, Kyle Horch saxophone, Iain Farrington piano - the Art Deco Trio is a virtuosic powerhouse in performance and made it's acclaimed tag debut with Gershwinicity (SOMMCD 0631) in 2021. Also featuring five African-American Spirituals and three sea shanties, Classical Change takes the early-20th-century fashion for InchJazzing the ClassicsInch at face value with a collection of 20 first recordings of scintillating new arrangements, translating the works' Inchoriginal sober environment into one that was more intoxicatedInch, as Farrington tellingly comments in his booklet notes. Familiar pieces by Beethoven, Brahms and Rimsky-Korsakov are respectively refashioned in the, by turns, evocative, exuberant and ecstatic 'Elise's Blues', 'Hungarian High-Five' and 'The Bite of the Flumblebee'. Similar treatment is afforded Bizet (The excitable 'Jiffy Dance' and sultry 'One Night in Seville'), the ceremonial pomp of Handel ('Arrival Revival'), grandeur of Elgar ('Saturday in the Park with Elgar'), and grandiosity of Wagner ('Valerie Takes a Ride') alongside vivacious re-imaginings of Satie and Vivaldi. The trio of sea shanties in A Sea Shanty Shake-Up and the five-part Lay My Burden Down, drawn from African-American Spirituals, prove pleasingly amenable to Farrington's jazz-laced re-fashioning of their various messages and moods. Of the Art Deco Trio's Gershwinicity, BBC Music Magazine declared InchWhat's not to love? It's a winning combination and the arrangements are top-notch too. This is a recording that is guaranteed to get you movingInch. Fanfare approvingly commented InchN

This treasury of modern ragtime features 18 enchanting new piano rags performed by the composers. From the jaunty strains of InchSierra Nevada RagInch to the wistful lyricism of InchTiffany Lamp Rag,Inch this collection showcases the delightful diversity of this classic American music now enjoying a renaissance among a cadre of talented musicians. For the first time on one disc, InchRagtime WizardryInch brings together many of today's most popular ragtime pianists from around the world Terry Waldo, Tom Brier, Max Keenlyside, Martin Spitznagel, Bill Edwards, Bryan Wright, W. Brett Youens, Dalton Ridenhour, Larisa Migachyov, John Reed-Torres, Frank LiVolsi, Vincent Johnson, Monty Suffern, Kathi Backus, William McNally, Brian Holland, John Partridge, and Mitch Meador. Disc includes a handsome 28-page booklet. 72 minutes.