Various Artists - Spanish Guitar: Timeless Collection / Various - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Following their acclaimed collaboration in Percy Grainger's Folk Music, soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn turn to the Lyric Music of Edvard Grieg, an apt sequel as the elder composer befriended Grainger- who idolized the Norwegian's folkloric idiom- immediately on their first encounter in London in 1906. Interspersing intimate vocal miniatures with lyrical solo piano pieces, Claire and Christopher mirror many of the programmes that Grieg and his wife Nina performed on their many recital tours together. Each of the works on Lyric Music tells a story as does the album as a whole ranging in mood from bright, youthful innocence to shades of autumnal twilight. Sung in the original Norwegian, Claire's and Christopher's performances are as evocative as Norway's varied landscape.

Various Artists - Spanish Guitar Composers / Various [COMPACT DISCS] date 03/31/2009

The idea for this developed during a recording of the Fantasy No. 7, and quickly established it's own momentum. What began as a spontaneous thought experiment soon demanded fulfillment, and morphed swiftly into the desire to take part in the reawakening of this music. What followed was months of intensive dialogue with, and examination of, the 12 Fantasies. What would rank as of the greatest possible adventures for a gambist? To approach Telemann's 12 Fantasies which, having long lain dormant, were recently rediscovered. This is music which paints pictures, is sometimes melancholy and longing, sometimes wild, and often humorous - an inexhaustible wellspring of ideas, moods, sounds and colors.