Panfunik - Celestial Bird - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

So greatly did Ignaz Lachner venerate Mozart that he arranged twelve of the 27 piano concertos for performance by small ensembles. Lachner, who had known Schubert in Vienna and had met Beethoven, was superbly equipped for these arrangements ensuring that the string quintet of soloists, with the double bass largely doubling the cello role, sounds thoroughly idiomatic. The three selected works represent the different sized orchestras Mozart employed, K. 246 being the most lightly scored, and K. 488 the most complex. The anonymous arrangement of excerpts from Die Zauberflote proves equally vital and attractive.

Mazzaferrata / Ghirlanda Mosicale - First Book of Sonatas for 2 Violins Op 5 [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/21/2002

Since Westminster Mass (2000) established Roxanna Panufnik's firm place among today's leading British composers, she has often been celebrated for her choral music. Her instrumental and chamber works, however, are equally striking, filled with dazzling imagination and poetic lightness of touch. Her latest album Heartfelt encompasses compassion, tragedy and irresistible humor, while demonstrating her passion for exploring diverse musical cultures, from East Sussex to Myanmar. Featuring a stellar line-up of leading British soloists (including soprano Mary Bevan, pianist Charles Owen and baritone Roderick Williams) and led by the Sacconi Quartet, the title work includes a musical translation of the heartbeat of a young European Brown Bear named Albie captured by a digital stethoscope, Bristol Zoo was generously able to send Panufnik a recording of Albie's heartbeat whilst they underwent a small surgical procedure, the anaesthetic resembling the bear's hibernation. Albie himself is pictured on the album's front cover.