Plath Blettenberg - Lost Times - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Only 20 years old, Johan Dalene has already been hailed as 'a musician of special sensibilities' (Gramophone) in possession of 'a rare fire' (Diapason), and his début disc, with the concertos of Tchaikovsky and Barber, was described as 'one of the finest violin débuts of the last decade' in the BBC Music Magazine. For his second album, the Swedish violinist has chosen repertoire closer to home, with works by six Nordic composers. This is music that lies equally well under the hands of his partner, the Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland, and together the two offer a program full of contrasts, and yet with a certain consistent sensibility. Nordic Rhapsody is bookended by two Norwegian composers, Christian Sinding and Edvard Grieg. What is interesting is that even though Sinding's Suite 'in the old style' was composed some 25 years after Grieg's Sonata No. 1, it is the latter work that is most forward-looking. Here the composer introd-uces elements of his national style, which in turn would contribute to the development of 'a Nordic style'. Following on the heels of Sinding is a Swedish-Finnish-Danish trio with personal ties - Wilhelm Stenhammar was a close friend of both Sibelius and Nielsen, whose music inspired him to free himself from Central European influences. His Romances and the three miniatures by Sibelius were composed during the 1910s, while Nielsen's Romance in D major is a youthful work offering Dalene - winner of the 2019 Nielsen Competition - the opportunity to send a greeting to the composer. Last but not least among these composers, Einojuhani Rautavaara represents a great leap in time. His music is often described as synonymous with a contemporary 'Nordic style', however, and the transition from Notturno e danza (1993) to Grieg's Sonata is as smooth as the ice on a Finnish lake in winter.

There were many highlights to her musical career the concerts she gave in the Netherlands between 1968 and 1989 feature prominently among them. This is a faithful rendition, thanks especially to the remarkable audio quality. Dearie masterfully performed in all the instrumental formations, from solo shows to the great Metropole Orchestra. She sang repertoires of every kind, from film music - she brought a new dimension to InchRaindrops Keep Falling on my HeadInch - to Joni Mitchell's InchBoth Sides NowInch, sensitively revisited. Not to forget a masterpiece whose music she composed, InchWinchesterin Apple Blossom TimeInch, with Marilyn Monroe-style boo-be-doops - two superb versions of which can be enjoyed here, as well as her other compositions, those mentioned, and InchBring All Your Love AlongInch, whose first recording, made in Laren, 1982, is featured here. Blossom, so aptly named, bids the audience adieu, and makes a graceful bow.

Giovanni Benedetto Platti was born in northern Italy and spent some of his youth in Venice, where his father was a violetta player at St Mark's, before he received his court appointment as an oboist and violinist at the court chapel of Würzburg in 1722. Two years later, the music-loving and cello-playing count of Schönborn, Rudolf Franz Erwein, had managed to secure him as a musician for his own household at his small residence in the county of Wiesentheid. Platti composed - in addition to his ordinary ouptut for worldly and spiritual occasions - for the cello, the Count's favourite instrument a dozen sonatas, 28 concerti, 6 duets and over 21 trio sonatas in which the two melodic instruments are not playing at the same height. The music collection of the counts of Schönborn-Wiesentheid very probably consists of Erwein's personal music library and is today an important historical music archive. Radio Antiqua present in partly world premiere six trio sonatas from that collection, which the count could presumably have played with Platti.