Various Composers - Clarinet Celebration [Johnson/Back] 

I have quite a number of these Clarinet & Piano albums, each one has a different flavour, some are French Music, others English Music, this one has a range of nationalities of Composers, it's called 'Clarinet Celebration', and seems to veer towards the fantasy / variation side of the clarinet, there's well known pieces, and some less well known, a good mix.

Emma Johnson is English, now 45 years, she won the BBC Young Musician Of The Year in 1984 at age 18, she made this recording in 1990.

Well the piece that surprised me the most was Bergmuller's Duo, i don't believe i've got this on any other recording, so i don't hear it often, plus it's been a while since i've listened to this disc, so it was like listening to a new piece, and what a wonderful tune it has, i really recommend it, but on this disc i feel that it has to bow to the piece that i find such an incredible fantasy, and it's the final piece Lovreglio's La Traviata Fantasy, 

Here's Anna Hashimoto playing the La Traviata Fantasy by Lovreglio on YouTube.

Debussy - String Quartet [The Keller String Quartet] 

About a couple of years ago the Ravel String Quartet came out of the 'like' department of my brain, and into the 'love' department of my heart, the Debussy String Quartet has lagged behind, not so memorable, not so... i'm not sure, but it hasn't hit me yet, i played the Ravel String Quartet on this disc just over a month ago [20th April 2011], now i turn to the Debussy, and slowly i'm getting there.

The Keller String Quartet were formed in 1987 in Hungary, and this recording was made in 1993, i like the booklet front cover, two thirds a close up picture of a leaf, showing green and yellow, a really sharp picture showing all the veins, really nice.

Both Ravel and Debussy make excellent use of pizzicato, it seems that Ravel based his Quartet on the Debussy, also employing a second movement that is an excellent mix of pizzicato and bowing, i really enjoyed Debussy's second movement Assez Vif Et Bien Rythme, it's short at under 4 minutes, but not short on excitement, just listen to the first Violinist [Andras Keller] play those opening pizzicato notes [0:08-0:37], it's those high treble plinks that really are lovely, and a nice jump to sweet bowing [0:57-1:26], and then to slightly more sour [2:10-2:26], the pizzicato of the opening returns [2:35-2:56], and right near the end a some clever lazy bowing by the lower strings [3:17-3:25], examining the Quartet more closely brings out dividends.

Here's the Brooklyn Ryder String Quartet playing the second movement on YouTube.

Mozart - Symphony 41 [Menuhin-Sinfonia Varsovia] 

Mozart's last Symphony is my favourite, you can hear him breaking away from the mooring of Haydn, in search of something greater, that Beethoven would eventually turn up and find, one of the first few works that i initially heard when i first got into Classical music, i feel that Mozart got better and better as he got older, his last / final works are his best.

Yehudi Menuhin is an American Violinist, born in 1916, and died in 1999, in the later years of his musical career he became a Conductor, and he recorded this work in 1989 in Poland, the front cover picture [by Richard Glover] shows what looks like a round drain cover in the road, whatever, i think it makes a great ambiguous cover, nicely symmetrical.

In the fourth movement there's a great sense of explosiveness in fortes, it's an incessant movement, Mozart uses and re-uses the same themes and devices over and over again, it's like waves and waves constantly pummelling your ears, and Mozart employs the excellent use of fast / slow, loud / quiet to create tension and release, it really packs a punch, Menuhin's recording isn't perfect, too much 'treble scream' in fortes, it needs some more bass to it, but it's still thrilling, and Menuhin knows how to keep it going at a great pace.

Here's Jeffrey Tate conducting the fourth movement on YouTube.

Various Composers - Popular Violin Encores [Chang/Abramovich] 

First of all, just a word about the cover, i didn't like the original cover that this came with, so i cut a picture from the front cover of a magazine [BBC Music Magazine - February 2004], rubbed some transfer lettering on it, and hey presto!, a really nice cover [it was originally called 'Simply Sarah'], but it's the music on the disc that's so good and varied, it's one of those discs, that even though it has 14 different Composers on it, there still feels this idea that they all belong together, there's this coherence here.

Sarah Chang is of course a violin superstar now, she finally hit her thirties, and shrugged off the child prodigy, she actually made this album in 1996 when she was still 15, my self made booklet cover is a close-cropped photo of Sarah in a thoughtful pose.

Well i found this so inspirational, it's full of lots of my favourites, one Encore after another i was thrilled, my favourite tracks were 1-2, 6 & 11-12, here's a short summary of each piece,

1 Bazzini - Dance Of The Goblins, a piece of sheer virtuoso brilliance, very fast playing by Chang [0:37-0:41], nice whoops of high sharp singing notes, and pizzicato strums too [2:22-2:43], and impossibly high notes [3:49-4:01], with a stunning bravura finale to it.
2 Paganini - Cantibile, the opposite of the first piece, sweetly lyrical, inflamed and impassioned, it's probably my most favourite encore, the sweeping flow of the piece right from the start is so compelling, and the sheer intensity of feeling that she generates at its climax [1:00-1:29], just an achingly stunning piece. 
6 Dinicu - Hora Staccato, a lovely agitated piece, it has a gypsy feel to it, lots of fast bowing, 'wrong' out of tune notes [0:33-1:06], especially by the piano [1:26-1:37], it's really short at under 2 minutes, and the ending is so inspired, very much an anti-climax on a soft yet abrupt pizzicato note, and yet so perfectly ends the piece on a nice controversy.
11 Gluck - Melodie, another highly inspired lyrical piece, much like the earlier Paganini Cantibile, it's also known as 'Dance of the Blessed Spirits', this is a mournful lament, with superb aching and longing [0:53+], long legato lines, a nice singing tone from Chang, there's moments of pure regret [2:07+], it's sad but makes me happy!.
12 Kroll - Banjo and Fiddle, an upbeat piece, the key is in its title, it switches from pizzicato 'banjo' to bowing 'fiddle', constantly going back and forth, and it certainly has humour too [2:17-2:25], with what sounds like a nice laugh at the end.
This is one of the very best violin and piano encore discs that i own.