Junko Kobayashi - Nocturnes - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Halle and Sir Mark Elder follow their previous highly acclaimed DeBussy albums, with a stunning orchestral collection including a world premiere recording. This collection features works from across the composer's career, from his early winning of the Prix de Rome, as a result of which he composed the delicate cantata La Demoiselle elue in 1887. Recorded following the highly acclaimed Proms performance and featuring stand-out soloists Anna Stephany and Sophie Bevan, hailed by reviewers. The enigmatic Nocturnes date from 1897-9 and show the composer at the height of his orchestral powers, in music that is highly evocative of mood and which displays deft instrumental writing. Mastery of instrumental writing is further evidenced in the technically demanding Premiere Rhapsodie, which calls upon the full range of emotions from the soloist; here the Halle's Principal Clarinet, Sergio Castello Lopez. The album features a world premiere recording of Colin Matthew's orchestration of the piano piece Les soirs illumines par l'ardeur du charbon, unknown until it's discovery in 2001. This arrangement follows Matthews' universally acclaimed orchestrations of the DeBussy Preludes.

Nobuko Imai - Arpeggione Sonata / Nocturno [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/28/1992

Katsuya Watanabe was born in Japan in 1966. He began learning the piano at the age of three and the oboe at thirteen. From 1985 to 1989 he studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he won first prize and the grand prix in the Oboe Competition in 1991. In 1988, whilst still studying, he became deputy solo oboist in the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa and remained in that post until 1992. He held the position of solo oboist first in the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra from 1992 to 1996, then in Karlsruhe for a year and from 1997 to 2008 in the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. At present he is solo oboist in the Solistes Européens in Luxembourg and increasingly devotes himself to solo activities, giving frequent recitals and performing in concerts with the Philharmonic Orchestras in Bratislava and Zagreb, the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and other ensembles. In 2011, he was chair of the jury at the very oboe competition where he had once won first prize. Katsuya Watanabe is visiting professor at the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Tokyo.