![BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Martyn Brabbins - Pickard: Symphony No. 5 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/10/16/7318599922614_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Martyn Brabbins – Pickard: Symphony No. 5 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:49 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
John Pickard is a respected English composer best known for his orchestral works. This release from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Martyn Brabbins features the engaging Symphony No. 5 as well as the evocative Sixteen Sunrises and Pickard’s arrangement of the Toccata from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo for modern orchestra.
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![Paul Watkins, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins - Scott: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra & Symphony No. 1 (2008/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/12/16/b95i8as4afmdc_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Paul Watkins, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – Scott: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra & Symphony No. 1 (2008/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:00 minutes | 977 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Chandos
Our survey of orchestral music by Cyril Scott comes to a close with the premiere recording of the Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 1. The BBC Philharmonic is conducted by Martyn Brabbins, with Paul Watkins as the cello soloist. From an early stage of his musical education Scott was influenced by German artistic ideas and his Symphony No. 1 is dedicated to the poet Stefan George. We have Percy Grainger to thank for preserving the score, in which Scott experiments with a modern rhapsodic style. The Cello Concerto is a later work and shows the influence of Ravel and Debussy. This is a virtuosic and extravagant work full of mysticism and haunting melodies.
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Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra & Pekka Huusisto and BBC Schottish Symphony Orchestra & Martyn Brabbins – Pictured Within; Jaakko Kuusisto: Symphony (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:06:32 minutes | 811 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
This disc is a double tribute. The first work, Pictured Within, is a collective effort conceived as a major project to mark the 60th birthday of conductor Martyn Brabbins, whose reputation in new music and British music is beyond reproach. Following the pattern of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Pictured Within is a series of 14 variations on a theme, each of which takes up the character of the equivalent variation in Elgar’s work, the difference being that here 14 different composers have each contributed a variation in tribute to Brabbins. Also on the SACD is Jaakko Kuusisto’s Symphony, a fitting tribute to the composer, conductor and violinist who passed away in 2022. Illness left Jaakko no time to complete his work, so it fell to his brother Pekka – who conducts here – and Jari Eskola to finish it. The result is a powerful piece, full of familiar themes and melodies derived from Jaakko’s existing compositions, to which are added autobiographical extra-musical elements. The moving conclusion is a collage of fragmented phrases inspired by the signals emitted by lighthouses and ships, as if Kuusisto’s spirit had been sent out to sea.
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BBC Singers & Martyn Brabbins – John Pickard: Mass in Troubled Times (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:12 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Previous BIS releases of works by John Pickard have mainly featured instrumental compositions. This recording presents another facet of the British composer’s work, with compositions for choir under the expert direction of Martyn Brabbins as well as two instrumental pieces. The five short Latin motets as well as Ozymandias, Pickard’s opus 1, can be described as ‘occasional pieces’ composed during the composer’s student years or for the choir he conducts at the University of Bristol. They display solid tonal grounding and mainly homophonic writing and provide a stepping-stone to some of the more dissonant style found in the latter works. Written for the BBC Singers, whose reputation is well established, the Mass in Troubled Times is an ambitious work bearing witness to a context of global uncertainty. The Mass is a collaboration with the writer Gavin D’Costa, who conceived a complex text based on multiple sources in five languages, combining Western and Middle Eastern religious texts with poetry evoking the plight of refugees. Orion for trumpet and organ, which is partly programmatic, evoking the most splendid constellation and allowing trumpeter Chloë Abbott to shine, and Tesserae for solo organ, with its dazzling virtuosity, played here by the work’s first performer, David Goode, complete this disc.
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Nash Ensemble & Martyn Brabbins – John Pickard: The Gardener of Aleppo & Other Chamber Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:19:22 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Four previous releases on BIS Records have all featured John Pickard’s music for large orchestra – or, in the case of the Gaia Symphony, large brass band. This new album, on the other hand, presents scorings ranging from a solo oboe to a chamber ensemble of eight players. The seven works cover just over 30 years; the earliest one, Serenata Concertata, was Pickard’s first paid commission written at the age of twenty. In his liner notes, Pickard notes that he has an aversion to repeating himself: ‘so each new work tends to be a reaction against the character, structure and technique of the previous one… The result has been a body of work with a wide expressive range and this disc gives some indication of that. The pieces on it are grouped in a broad progression from the serious to the more lighthearted’.
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Lawrence Power, Martyn Brabbins, BBC Philharmonic – MacMillan: Symphony No 4 & Viola Concerto (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:29 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
MacMillan’s viola concerto was written for Lawrence Power, who brings a unique authority to this, its first recording. The fourth symphony—a major addition to the repertoire—is a generous and appropriate coupling, both works incorporating and alchemically transforming musical elements from the distant past.
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Martyn Brabbins, BBC Symphony Orchestra – Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia antartica & Symphony No 9 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:44 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Two late, great Vaughan Williams symphonies: with the ‘Antartica’ and No 9, Martyn Brabbins and his BBC forces complete a cycle enthusiastically acclaimed by Radio 3 Record Review as ‘unmissable’.
Read more![Philippe Graffin, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Martyn Brabbins - Romantic Violin Concerto 18 - Jongen: Violin Concerto; Lazzari: Rapsodie (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/30/2UnAhpe.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Philippe Graffin, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Martyn Brabbins – Romantic Violin Concerto 18 – Jongen: Violin Concerto; Lazzari: Rapsodie (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:41 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
The Romantic Violin Concerto series reaches Belgium and the music of Joseph Jongen, a composer more celebrated for his organ music now, but who was equally admired in his day for his orchestral and chamber works. Jongen studied at the Liège Conservatoire where he heard the great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe and composer-conductors Vincent d’Indy and Richard Strauss.
In this new album Philippe Graffin (a welcome and familiar presence in this series) collaborates with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic and Martyn Brabbins in Jongen’s Violin Concerto, one of the composer’s first substantial works. It was described by his contemporary Florent Schmitt as ‘one of the finest violin concertos’; and he admired the ‘outpouring of warm lyricism’ and ‘lush profusion of themes and rhythms’.
Also included are other works for violin and orchestra, and a Rapsodie for the same forces by Italian Romantic Sylvio Lazzari (1857–1944) who was influenced—as was Jongen—by the music of César Franck.
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![BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Martyn Brabbins - Symphony No. 5 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/27/7318599922614_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Martyn Brabbins – Symphony No. 5 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:49 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BIS
John Pickard is a respected English composer best known for his orchestral works. This release from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Martyn Brabbins features the engaging Symphony No. 5 as well as the evocative Sixteen Sunrises and Pickard’s arrangement of the Toccata from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo for modern orchestra.
(more…)
Håkan Hardenberger & Martyn Brabbins – Stories (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:00 minutes | 1016 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Alongside his celebrated performances of the classical repertory, HåkanHardenbergeris also renowned as a pioneer of significant new trumpet works. The three works on this disc were all composed with him in mind, and illustrate his many-facetted musical persona. The most recent of them, ‘True Stories’ by Betsy Jolas, was written in order to give Hardenberger and Roger Murarooccasion to perform together. Its title springs from the fact that the work forms the composer’s first attempt to work with sounds selected from daily life and either ‘tamed’ through stylization or left quasi crude.
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Timothy Ridout, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Martyn Brabbins – Elgar: Viola Concerto – Bloch: Suite for Viola and Orchestra (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:56 minutes | 1,86 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Timothy Ridout gives us the opportunity to discover the splendid viola version of Elgar’s famous Cello Concerto – an arrangement approved by the composer, who conducted it’s premiere in 1930. In addition to this deeply moving work, he gives us a powerful, poetic reading of Bloch’s all too rarely performed Suite for Viola and Orchestra, in which the Swiss composer indulged his fascination with the Orient.
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Martyn Brabbins – Gregson: Blazon, Violin Concerto, Clarinet Concerto & Stepping Out (2003)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:44 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra bring to life the varied influences of Edward Gregson on this recording of four world premieres, combining the structural clarity of Bartók and Hindemith, the economy and incisiveness of Stravinsky, the rhythmic flair of Walton and the simple modality of Vaughan Williams. To that list, Tippett, Lutoslawski, Messiaen and John Adams could also be added. This is a consciously eclectic mix, informing an approach to writing which is rigorous, disciplined and rooted firmly within the symphonic mainstream. The soloists on the Clarinet Concerto and Violin Concerto are Michael Collins and Olivier Charlier respectively.
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BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – Elgar: Enigma Variations & other orchestral works (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:55 minutes | 1,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Two much-loved orchestral favourites representing the summit of Elgar’s maturity are coupled with three of the lesser-known wartime works, here receiving their first recordings with the original French texts. Kate Royal is the soprano soloist in Une voix dans le désert, a hauntingly tender masterpiece which every Elgarian should know.
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Howard Shelley, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra & Martyn Brabbins – Scott: Piano Concerto, Symphony No. 4 & Early One Morning (2006/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:13:06 minutes | 653 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Cyril Scott’s music inhabits a sound-world that is very much its own, despite the inevitable comparisons to composers such as Scriabin, Sorabji, and even the French impressionists. This new recording of the First Piano Concerto – the first one in over 30 years – takes a fresher, lighter approach that is absolutely thrilling in the outer movements.
Read more![Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins - The Romantic Violin Concerto Vol. 17 - Bruch: Violin Concerto No 3 & Scottish Fantasy (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/15/agPW4gy.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Jack Liebeck, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins – The Romantic Violin Concerto Vol. 17 – Bruch: Violin Concerto No 3 & Scottish Fantasy (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:35 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Award-winning violinist Jack Liebeck brings his impassioned tones, fulsome emotional display and formidable technique to the first of three albums of music by Max Bruch.
This programme presents one of Bruch’s most popular pieces for violin and orchestra, the Scottish Fantasy, alongside one of his least known, the Violin Concerto No 3 in D minor, Op 58. Anyone hearing Jack Liebeck’s performance may well wonder why this concerto has languished in the lumber room for so long—it has never been heard at the BBC Proms, for example. It was written for Joseph Joachim who gave the premiere in Düsseldorf and subsequently played the concerto in Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Breslau, Leipzig, Cologne and London (for the Philharmonic Society).
The Scottish Fantasy in E flat major, Op 46 (or more correctly ‘Fantasia for the violin with orchestra and harp, freely using Scottish folk melodies’), was written in Berlin during the winter of 1879–80 for Sarasate and reflected the Spaniard’s more colourful personality. Although Bruch never visited Scotland, he was typical of German Romantics in having a fascination with the picture of the country painted by such writers as Walter Scott. For the Scottish Fantasy he drew on James Johnson’s voluminous folk-song collection The Scots Musical Museum.
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