ATOLL (New Zealand) -
ACD703: SZEKELY and DVORAK STRING QUARTETS

Zoltan Szekely: String Quartet (1937)
Antonin Dvorak: String Quartet in E flat major, Op.51

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl and Douglas Beilman violins, Gillian Ansell viola, Rolf Gjelsen cello)

Total time: 61.24

(GB pounds 14.50)

Rod Biss in 25 January 2004 Sunday Star Times: "The New Zealand String Quartet's latest disc is a fascinating postscript to its complete Bartok Quartets. When working on the Bartok, the quartet spent several summers studying with Zoltan Szekeley who was a close friend of Bartok and had for 35 years been leader of the legendary Hungarian Quartet. What the NZSQ then discovered was that Szekely had written his own quartet in 1936/7 but had put his wish to compose aside when it was rejected for a Coolidge Prize and also failed to find either a publisher or a group to perform it. It is a beautiful and resourceful work of eight short, interconnected movements that showed his inventiveness and how skilled he was at writing for strings. Undoubtedly it is a European work of its period, intelligent and intellectual, but it is only marginally like Bartok. Szekely was a composer with his own voice - how sad that he did not keep writing... The disc also includes the NZSQ's very fine performance of Dvorak's wonderful Quartet in E flat. It is such a charming and enjoyable work that it is much too easy not to notice that it is also one of the great chamber pieces of the century."

Ian Dando in 24 April 2004 New Zealand Listener: "NZSQ's radiant account of Dvorak's amiable Op.51 is self-recommending. The new face is Szekely. ..It betrays the vintage of Bartok's quartets No.3 and 4 showing much the same use of one permutating motive governing the total thematic discourse...Szekely is well worth a listen for some lively individual touches."

NORSK KULTURRAD (Norway) -
NMA3: HAUGTUSSA

Edvard Grieg: Haugtussa Op.67; Varen; Beside a Stream; Ved Rondane; The Goal; The Forgotten Maid;
Among Roses

Solveig Kringelborn soprano with Malcolm Martineau piano

Total time: 54.00

(GB pounds 14.50)

A stunning performance of Edvard Grieg's masterpiece about the mysterious Haugtussa. Solveig Kringelborn and Malcolm Martineau have performed the work all over Europe including three performances at the Wigmore Hall. Edvard Grieg wrote in a letter to a friend that the songs about the goat-girl Veslemoy was the best he had ever written. Veslemoy was a visionary shepherd girl who was abandoned by the boy she loved. She is fleeing from the reality of life and from the surrounding world that does not understand her. Through her visions, she is in touch with nature and the “underworld”.

NORSK KULTURRAD (Norway) -
NMA1: SOLVEIGS SANG - Songs by Grieg and Irgens-Jensen

Edvard Grieg: Songs with orchestra - Solveigs sang; En svane; Fra Monte Pincio; Varen; Henrik Wergeland;
Songs with piano - Solveigs vuggevise; Ved Rondane; Four songs from Fiskerjenten by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson op.21;
Prinsessen; Margrethes vuggevise;
Ludvig Irgens-Jensen: Songs with orchestra: Lutad mot gärdet; Bols vise; Altar

Solveig Kringelborn soprano; Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra, Lu Jia; Malcolm Martineau piano

Total time:

(GB pounds 14.50)

Listen to an extract

Following last year's all Irgens-Jensen release from Norsk Kulturrad, here Solveig Kringelborn combines some of his orchestral songs from that disc (NMA2), with more songs by Grieg, both orchestral and with piano accompaniment.

Dagbladet Norway: "...Kringelborn's soprano voice, as magnificent as ever..."

NRK Norway: "Kringelborn's lyrical voice allows these songs about love to glisten like pearls."

New York Times: "Hearing her is like having a bird warm in one's hand"

PROPIANO (USA) -
PPR224538: Reynaldo Hahn - Piano Works

Reynaldo Hahn: Premieres Valses; Portraits de Peintres, d’apres les poesies de Marcel Proust;
Orient, extrait de l’Album d’un Voyageur; Sonatine

Laure Favre-Kahn piano

Total time: 62:26

(GB pounds 14.50)

Born in Arles in 1976, Laure Favre-Kahn studied piano at the Conservatoire d’Avignon, and later entered the class of Bruno Rigutto at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, where she was unanimously awarded a Premier Prix. Since then, she has performed regularly as soloist and chamber musician, appearing in numerous festivals and appearing with many orchestras. Since 1997, Laure Favre-Kahn has been the Artistic Director of the Festival des Nuits Musicales, held in the Chateau de Fargues in the Vaucluse.

In May, 2001, she was selected at the International Pro Piano Competition in New York to give a concert at Carnegie Recital Hall. Following this performance, she was named “Pro Piano Artist of the Year” and this record marks her first release with Pro Piano Records.

PROPIANO (USA) -
PPR224537: Glazunov - Piano transcriptions

Glazunov (transc. F Blumenfeld): Concert Waltz for Orchestra Op. 47;
The Seasons Op. 67 (transc. by the composer)

Per Tengstrand piano

Total time:

(GB pounds 14.50)

Listen to an extract

Per Tengstrand continues to establish himself as one of today's most exciting young pianists. Described by The Washington Post as having "fearsome technique and the ability to blaze through a score without trepidation," Per Tengstrand was the First Prize winner at the 1997 Cleveland International Piano Competition.

The Swedish-born pianist studied in Geneva, Paris and Malmo, where his teachers included Dominique Weber, Romuald Sztern, Dominique Merlet and Hans Palsson. While at the Paris Conservatory, he received the Premier Prix and Prix Special du Jury and at the Geneva Conservatory he was awarded the Prix de Virtuosite.

CHATEAU (USA) -
C10002: A Leaf - Beatles Piano Transcriptions

Chitose Okashiro: A Leaf ; "billet doux";
Frederic Rzewski: Short Fantasy on "Give Peace a Chance";
Ichizo Okashiro: Hey Jude; Yesterday;
Toru Takemitsu: Golden Slumbers;
Barbara Monk-Feldman: Michelle;
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Aki 2.2 (Magical Mystery Tour)

Chitose Okashiro piano

Total time: 52.00

(GB pounds 14.50)

Listen to an extract

Following her outstanding first recording for her own Chateau label of her solo piano transcription of Mahler's Symphony No.1, for her second recording she has collected various arrangements and elaborations of Beatles tunes. Included are works by many celebrated contemporary composers including Rzewski, Takemitsu and Sakamoto.

TALL POPPIES (Australia) -
TP166: Bach for Christmas

JS Bach: Piece d’Orgue (BWV 572); Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her (BWV 606, 700, 701,738,769);
In dulci jubilo (BWV 608, 729); Christum wir sollen loben schon (BWV 611, 696); Pastorella (BWV 590);
Puer natus in Bethlehem (BWV 603); Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar (BWV 607); Wir Christenleut (BWV 612, 710);
Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ (BWV 604, 697,722); Der Tag, der ist so Freudenreich (BWV 605);
Jesu, meine Freude (BWV 610, 713); Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich (BWV 609, 732);
Wie schön leucht’t uns der Morgenstern (BWV 739)

John O’Donnell Jurgen Arendt Organ at Monash University

Total time:

(GB pounds 14.50)

For the first time - all of Bach’s organ music for Christmas on a single CD; the programme chosen and performed by Australia’s John O’Donnell, a world-renowned Bach specialist. From the festive Piece d’Orgue to the charming Pastorella, from the popular In dulci jubilo to the esoteric Canonic Variations, from the gentle Puer natus in Bethlehem to the powerful Christum wir sollen loben schon. Celebrate next Christmas with Bach! O.K., we know it's a bit early; but then Christmas weather comes in June down under!