Poison Point - Wandering Echoes - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Respighi Violin Sonatas, Composer Ottorino Respighi, Artist Fabio Paggioro violin, Massimiliano Ferrati piano, 1 CD, Ottorino Respighi is best known for his exuberant and expansive orchestral works, such as the Roman Trilogy, but he was also an important composer of chamber and salon music. His musical education began with him learning violin and piano as a child, and for the first 20 years of his career as a composer he only wrote for these instruments. He was an accomplished violinist, and his mastery of the instrument manifests itself in the idiomatic violin-writing heard in the works on this disc. Respighi's violin sonatas demonstrate the astonishingly wide range of his musical interests and the influences on his style from early music, through German Romanticism, to impressionist tone colors. They are also a showcase for his remarkable gift for melody. The D minor Sonata dates from Respighi's early period and contrasts lively and energetic outer movements with a gentle yet passionate Adagio. The B minor Sonata, composed 20 years later, is a grander, more intense and dramatic work, and is testimony to the mature Respighi's command of chamber music. The two violin sonatas are complemented by the Six Pieces for violin and piano these elegant and charming works show the lighter side O. Respighi. These works are performed by award-winning violinist Fabio Paggioro and acclaimed pianist Massimiliano Ferrati, who has been praised by the Corriere della Sera for his Inchhighly refined sound [that] turns to magicInch. Ottorino Respighi, gone into music history as a sorcerer of colorful orchestration, wrote a substantial oeuvre of chamber music works. A virtuoso violinist himself, he wrote two violin sonatas, which offer vintage Respighi an eclectic use of various styles, from modal early music, through romantic pathos, to impressionistic color experiments. Both sonata

Floating Spectrum is the moniker for Taiwan-born, Berlin-based composer and audio technologist, Mei-Fang Liau. Her debut album as Floating Spectrum, A Point Between - crafted from a combination of synthesizers, everyday household objects, and unique software synthesizers made by Liau herself - is truly a sound and vision unlike any other. Originally inspired by a dance performance for which Mei-Fang Liau created audio works that explored the recurring cycles of nature - how life emerges, flourishes and eventually decays, and metaphorically, how human emotions are associated with these ever-changing phases. That performance yielded two pieces that would eventually become the roots of A Point Between. To complete the album, Liau relied heavily on a self-made, fractal-inspired software synthesizer called Polyphylla, which simulates the way in which nature creates very complex and organic forms just by repeating slight variations of a simple form. It allowed Liau to create slowly evolving textures and sounds with complex dynamics, and thus the driving influence for the whole of A Point Between. The lone outlier is InchEruption,Inch for which Liau built a generative sound system that turns visual data into sound. In this hybrid system, sensitively fluctuating analog signals, fine-tuned data analysis, and human intuition perform together as one coherent living being. The technological marvels of Floating Spectrum are, of course, uniquely impressive. But the more astonishing and intangible triumph of A Point Between is it's singular ability to collect and shape such abstract sonic organisms into richly textured, immersive works of art. It's that profound resonance that makes A Point Between such an uncanny work of emotional and structural depth.

Born in Rome in 1678 into a family of German origins, Nicola Francesco Haym (1678-1729) was employed as a violone and cello player by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in the orchestra led by Arcangelo Corelli. Later he moved to London where he took a leading role in establishing Italian opera which was beginning to flourish, while serving as a continuo cellist in the Drury Lane theatre and the Queen's Theatre. In 1713, Haym started to work as librettist for Handel and the collaboration continued until 1728. During this period Haym acquired the role of secretary at the Royal Academy of Music. Haym's sonatas with flute are the first flute sonatas by an Italian composer to be published. The Sonate a Tre (Op.2) and the Sonate da camera a flauto traversa, haubois o violino solo, are strongly influenced by Corelli in the profound knowledge of counterpoint and the wide spectrum of expression of feelings and affects. From his familiarity with Corelli's music, Haym was able to assimilate the gravity of style and nobility of expression while retaining his own musical personality. Played by the Cappella Musicale Enrico Stuart, consisting of Chiara Strabioli (transverse flute and recorder), Romeo Ciuffa (recorder and transverse flute), Rebeca Ferri and Marco Vitale (harpsichord). Founded in 1998 the Capella Musicale Enrico Stuart specializes in 17th- and 18th- century repertoire in which wind instruments play a central role. They previously made for Brilliant Classics highly praised recordings of Boismortier and Valentini.