Neville Marriner - Opera Suites - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

For his latest quintet recording, Chicago saxophonist and composer Geof Bradfield borrows inspiration from fellow Chicagoan Clifford Jordan's 1965 Atlantic album, InchThese Are My Roots The Music of Lead Belly.Inch The focus is on Black music of the rural south - the spirituals and blues of itinerant Texas preacher Blind Willie Johnson, ring shouts from the Georgia Sea Islands, and the prison farm work songs of Lead Belly. The absence of a chordal instrument allows the ensemble to explore the open-ended nature of these folk forms. Bradfield is joined on InchOur RootsInch by four of the premier musicians on the Chicago scene trumpeter Marquis Hill, trombonist Joel Adams, bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall. •InchGeo f Bradfield's writing is a revelation.Inch - Neil Tesser

Howard Blake, a living composer best known for his film scores (a.o. Snowman), presents his new classical compositions, all world premiere recordings. Sir Neville Marriner conducts.

This disc features works by three composers - Vincent d'Indy, Ernst Krenek, and Erwin Schulhoff - who in the mid to late 1920s adopted neoclassicism and wrote works in the neo-baroque concerto grosso style. Sir Neville Marriner conducts the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, one of the most recorded chamber orchestras in the world.