Mark Fewer - La Zingarella - Through Romany - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

We have to be honest, we don't know much about the mysterious Brazilian artist, Guto. We stumbled upon his 'Para Viver' album on Arlequi Records from 1979, by chance, during a digging trip to São Paulo. Once the needle dropped, we were hooked by 'Trânsito Livre', a charming MPB number with cool chorus changes and all-round soothing vibes. Light and breezy, and all the better for it. Tony Nunes Por Favor' shifts things up a few gears. It's a racing Hammond organ and wah-wah guitar-led funky groover. At just over two minutes long, 'Por Favor' doesn't mess about. It's pure energy firing on all cylinders. It was originally released in 1973 on Odeon Records, but the track has more of a 60s psyche-Mod-RnB feel and sensibility to it. Album Tracks 1. Guto - Trânsito Livre 2. Tony Nunes - Por Favor

Mark Viner's survey of the complete solo piano music of Alkan continues to turn up discoveries and reveal previously little-known or misunderstood sides of a protean figure in late French romanticism. Viner himself regards Alkan as 'the most enigmatic figure in the history of music as a whole'. The sixth volume of his survey focuses not on the grand cycles which have won this series such uniformly glowing reviews, but on sketches and miniatures which demonstrate Alkan's capacity to charm as well as astound and dazzle his listeners. All these pieces are further illuminated, as before, by his own comprehensive booklet notes. Several of them will be unfamiliar to all except the most dedicated of Alkan connoisseurs. Jean qui pleure et Jean qui rit is a pair of two 'chamber fugues' inspired by Voltaire's account of a man who goes, with great ease, from a state of depression in the morning to making merry in the evening. The Capriccio alla-soldatesca also has a poetic origin, as a paraphrase of an evocation of a night-watch - the subject of Rembrandt's most famous canvas - by Joseph Christian von Zedlitz. Le Tambour bat aux champs is it's companion piece, underpinned from the outset by a relentless ostinato of drum beats as a noble theme emerges, dignified and laconic. Better known, the Toccatina Op.75 can be counted among Alkan's finest shorter pieces for the piano, demanding phenomenal dexterity and lightness of touch. At the other end of the expressive scale, Désir is a little fantasy, one of Alkan's most homely-sounding miniatures, yet still coloured by his characteristic use of the ninth. Previous volumes in the series have demonstrated to listeners and critics that Mark Viner is the pre-eminent Alkan interpreter of our day. Jeremy Nicholas remarked in Gramophone 'It takes a certain kind of temperament and a superior finger technique to take him on. Those who cut the

Based on a poem written in 1827 by Alexander Pushkin, Zingari is a tale of passion, jealousy and crime in a Gypsy camp on the banks of the Danube. This one-act opera was a huge success immediately after it's creation in London in 1912 and had an incredibly long run, both in London and the United States. Marking Leoncavallo's return to the verismo style of Pagliacci, Opera Rara's version of Zingari showcases rich, colourful orchestral music with powerful choral moments and seductive arias. The great Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova brings life to the beautiful temptress Fleana, who encourages and later rejects the passionate advances of aristocrat Radu, powerfully sung by tenor Arsen Soghomonyan. The American baritone Stephen Gaertner completes the fatal love triangle as Tamar, the brooding Gypsy poet.