Posts tagged as "iona-brown"

Sound the Trumpets

March 12, 2019

A trumpet and organ spectacular: three original Argo and DG albums on a generous, newly compiled 2-CD set. In Baroque works generally, the trumpet is always accompanied by drums both of these instruments having strong associations with military music. The organ, on the other hand, is primarily associated with the church and it is within […]

Aromatherapy – Vol. 3: The Magic of Mozart

May 25, 2016

Aromatherapy, the quiet moments of classical music. And the third volume, the Magic of Mozart, showcases of some of his most magical, gorgeous slow movements, several of which – from the Piano Concerto No. 21 (‘Elvira Madigan’) and the Clarinet Concerto (‘Out of Africa’) – have acquired popular status from their incorporation into films.

Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works; British Folk Song Arrangements

May 4, 2016

Sir Neville Marriner and his Academy made some of the most priceless recordings of Vaughan Williams for Decca and Philips and this collection restores to circulation his Philips traversal of music by this composer with the addition of five pieces made for Decca – the Romance for harmonica (with Tommy Reilly), possibly the best version […]

Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 3 & 5

April 29, 2016

Among the many recordings of the complete Mozart Violin Concertos, this one, with the late Iona Brown directing the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields from the violin, has lain dormant for far too long. Gramophone magazine welcomed it with the words: ‘a series which is outstanding for its freshness and spontaneity in a […]

Bartók: Piano Concertos Nos. 1–3; Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2; Two Portraits

April 22, 2016

This well-filled 2CD set – nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes long – presents Bartók’s major concertos (the Viola Concerto appears on another Eloquence CD). The three Piano Concertos appear in muscular and sumptuously recorded performances (one of the finest examples of Decca’s 1970s engineering at the venerated Kingsway Hall) by Pascal Rogé and Walter […]

Bach: Mass in B Minor; Cantata BWV 56

April 20, 2016

Long out of the catalogue, Marriner’s (Philips) recording of Bach’s B Minor Mass, with an array of splendid soloists, returns to circulation. Its coupling is the first release on CD of this recording of the deeply moving Cantata BWV 56 ‘Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen’. It was one of two (extant) Bach cantatas for […]

Music All Powerful – Music to Entertain Queen Victoria

April 20, 2016

‘Music All Powerful – Music to entertain Queen Victoria’ provides a delightful flashback of the British Royal Family and is the first release on CD of a delightful Argo LP. It offers solo songs, unaccompanied and accompanied choral songs and a handful of instrumental numbers such as would have been performed for and during Queen […]

Mozart: Serenades & Divertimenti

April 20, 2016

During the 18th century, it was common for noblemen to employ numbers of musicians to entertain themselves and their guests, and to add dignity and colour to occasions of Church and State. Music was frequently written to form a pleasant background to dinners and parties. Serious or complex music would clearly have been inappropriate for […]

Music of the Monarchs

March 12, 2016

More than 250 years of music celebrating the reign of the great British monarchs CD 1 – HANDEL: Coronation Anthems Handel’s four uplifting Coronation Anthems, including the epic Zadok the Priest with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and his beautiful Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, with its celestial invocation for trumpet and counter-tenor, ‘Eternal […]