Price / Lo / Biryukov / Wrobel - Oneness - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

SOMM Recordings announces the launch of a major six-volume series of Franz Xaver Scharwenka's transcriptions of Beethoven Symphonies featuring the tag debut of the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman Piano Duo. Formed in 2010, the Duo began their in-concert exploration of Scharwenka's four-hand Beethoven transcriptions in 2015 and now bring that experience to disc for the first time. Volume 1 includes the premiere recording of Scharwenka's piano duet transcription of Symphony No.3, the ever-popular Eroica, and Debussy's two-piano arrangement of Robert Schumann's Six Studies in Canonic Form. As Robert Matthew-Walker's booklet notes reveal, Scharwenka had a direct line to Beethoven, having been taught by Franz Kullak, who was tutored by Carl Czerny whose own teacher, in turn, had been Beethoven himself. A composer of no mean stature in his own right, Scharwenka's transcriptions were once widely admired, making masterpiece symphonies available to every home with a piano. Possessing, says Matthew-Walker, Inchsignificant qualities which are often overlooked todayInch, his Eroica transcription receives ardent, eloquently persuasive championing by Schoeman and Uys. Scharwenka wasn't alone in exploiting new developments in piano technology. Robert Schumann's Six Studies in Canonic Form made use of the then novel 'pedal-piano' (a standard piano with an additional bass pedal-board) even as he was looking back stylistically towards his idol, Bach. Debussy's arrangement for two pianos adroitly accommodates Schumann's original to Inchrescue this fine music from the obscurity of the pedal-piano repertoire.Inch Born in Cape Town and a Royal Academy of Music Associate, Tessa Uys has an impressive reputation as a concert and broadcasting performer, appearing at major venues throughout the world. Her multi-prize-winning South African compatriot Ben Schoeman also has a busy international profile

Parry / Gritton / Gilchrist / Williams / West - 12 Sets of English Lyrics V1 [COMPACT DISCS] Jewel Case Packaging date 01/08/2016

Bernard Parmegiani (1927-2013), the grand old man of French electroacoustic music, did not write much music for tape with live performers. Among them is InchStriesInch for the unusual combination of three live synthesizer players and tape. Until recently, InchStriesInch had not been played live for some 30 years. This is the first complete recording, only part of it had been previously released on LP on the INA/GRM tag. InchStriesInch was written for the three synthesizer players of the Paris-based electroacoustic trio TM+, Yann Geslin, Laurent Cuniot and Denis Dufour, founded at the INA/GRM. Over the span of the ensemble's lifetime, TM+ used a range of different instruments - analog synthesizers in the late 1970s and early digital synthesizers in the mid-1980s - and amassed a repertoire of about 40 compositions written especially for them. Fortunately, Yann Geslin, of the INA/GRM, archived the original score by Parmegiani, as well as the parts for the instrumentalists. Also in GRM's archives was the original analog reel-to-reel tape for the piece, as well as the analog 8-track recordings from the recording session. Armed with this material, the electronic music trio of Colette Broeckaert, Martin Lorenz and Sebastian Berweck, together with Yann Geslin, recreated the piece with the aim of bringing it back to the stage as well as producing generic scores that could help get the piece into the repertoire of many instrumentalists. Their work is realized on this .