Chamber Music
SCHULHOFF, E
Chamber Music
String Sextet
The music of the Prague-born prodigy Erwin Schulhoff has become increasingly popular in recent decades. He moved through successive creative phases and, on this recording, Spectrum Concerts Berlin focuses on music written between 1924 and 1927.
The String Sextet contains violent contrasts and almost Cubist montage and was a key work in Schulhoff’s artistic development.
Benjamin Britten
Lachrymal
Artists
Philip Dukes – solo viola
Aerial Ensemble
The cd features the world premiere recording of Peter Maxwell Davies’ A Sea of Cold Flame, which seems to inhabit a similar musical language, these masterworks are complemented by the original John Dowland themes upon which Lachrymae is based. Here we have three generations of great British composers woven by a pure and unsentimental thread.
Mozart
String Quintets
The Nash Ensemble plays all six of Mozart’s string quintets here – the early B flat work K174, and the C minor quintet K406 that was a commercial arrangement of the wind serenade in the same key, form an upbeat to four masterpieces that follow on the later discs.
SCHULHOFF, E
Chamber Music
String Sextet
The music of the Prague-born prodigy Erwin Schulhoff has become increasingly popular in recent decades. He moved through successive creative phases and, on this recording, Spectrum Concerts Berlin focuses on music written between 1924 and 1927.
The String Sextet contains violent contrasts and almost Cubist montage and was a key work in Schulhoff’s artistic development.
Gabriel Fauré
Piano Quartet No. 1
Piano Trio
Kungsbacka Piano Trio, P. Dukes
Gabriel Fauré’s musical language bridges a gap between the romanticism of the 19th century and the new worlds of music which appeared in the 20th, employing subtle harmonic changes and a gift for melody to combine innovation with an entirely personal idiom. His First Piano Quartet is filled with characteristic French colour and lyricism, and the Piano Trio in D minor is a late work whose musical language is familiar from his songs. Both the Pavane and the popular Sicilienne express nostalgia for earlier times, and the short Pièce has great simplicity and charm.
Gabriel Fauré
Piano Quartet No. 2
Piano Trio (version for clarinet trio)
3 Romances sans paroles
Gabriel Fauré’s chamber works, long overshadowed by his popular Requiem (Naxos 8.550765), are regaining their rightful place. This new release from the Kungsbacka Piano Trio follows their recording of Fauré’s First Piano Quartet and other chamber works (8.573042), described by Gramophone as ‘a delectable way into Fauré’s chamber music’. The programme features the less frequently heard original version, with clarinet, of the Piano Trio, the Second Piano Quartet, which includes an evocation of the bells of Cadirac near the composer’s home, the Romances sans paroles, described by Marcel Proust as ‘intoxicating’ and one of Fauré’s most famous works, the Berceuse from the Dolly Suite
JOHANNES BRAHMS
THE STRING Quintets
The Nash Ensemble
Artistic Director: Amelia Freedman CBE
Marianne Thorsen (violin 1)
Malin Broman (violin 2)
Lawrence Power (viola 1)
Philip Dukes (viola 2)
Paul Watkins (cello 1)
Tim Hugh (cello 2)
JOHANNES BRAHMS
THE STRING SEXTETS
Les sextuors à cordes . Die Streichsextette
The Nash Ensemble
Artistic Director: Amelia Freedman CBE
Marianne Thorsen (violin 1)
Malin Broman (violin 2)
Lawrence Power (viola 1)
Philip Dukes (viola 2)
Paul Watkins (cello 1)
Tim Hugh (cello 2)
Klein, Krása & Schulhoff
Forbidden Music
Daniel Hope, violin
Philip Dukes, viola
Paul Watkins, cello
BEETHOVEN
Contemporary Arrangement
for Chamber Ensemble
Artists: The Locrian Ensemble,
Rolf Wilson & Rita Manning -Violins,
Philip Dukes & Morgan Goff – Violas,
Justin Pearson – Cello
Volkmar Andreae
The Locrian Ensemble of London: Rita Manning (violin), Warren Zielinski (violin), Philip Dukes (viola), Justin Pearson (cello)
“This outstanding CD, the second to feature Volkmar Andreae’s chamber music from Guild, contains his two string quartets and a delightful late Divertimento for flute and string trio. The performances are quite superb – as is the music, ranging in influences from Richard Strauss to the later French Impressionists – and the recording is one of the best we have issued in recent years. A most significant issue for Swiss music.”
Volkmar Andreae
The Locrian Ensemble of London: Rita Manning (violin), Warren Zielinski (violin), Philip Dukes (viola), Justin Pearson (cello), Fali Pavri (piano)
“Back in February 2010 I praised an earlier issue by the Locrian Ensemble of music by Swiss composer Volkmar Andreae (1879-1962). I immediately discovered that his writing was of high quality and beautifully crafted.” Gramophone 2011
Richard Arnell
Trio for Violin, Cello & Piano op.47
Music for Harp op.72a for Flute, Violin, Viola & Harp
String Quintet op.60
Trio for Flute, Cello & Piano op.168 (Threes for Three)
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Locrian Ensemble:
Lorraine McAslan (violin)
Philip Dukes (viola)
Justin Pearson (cello)
Sophia Rahman (piano)
Walter Leigh
Locrian Ensemble:
Rita Manning (violin)
Patrick Kiernan (violin)
Philip Dukes (viola)
Justin Pearson (cello)
Stacey Wotton (double bass)
Anna Noakes (flute)
John Anderson (oboe)
Martin Feinstein (recorder)
Sophia Rahman (piano)
CHAMBER WORKS
Romance for Two Violins, Viola, Cello & Piano
Reverie for Violin & Piano (1922)RM
Music for String Orchestra
Sonatina for Viola & Piano
Trio for Flute, Oboe & Piano (1935)
Air for Treble Recorder & Piano
Three Movements for String Quartet (1930)
Sonatina for Recorder & Piano
Student String Quartet
ALEXANDER BORODIN
ALEXANDER GLAZUNOV
ANTON ARENSKY
The Nash Ensemble
Marianne Thorsen, Laura Samuel – violins
Lawrence Power, Philip Dukes – violas
Paul Watkins, Alice Neary – cellos
“After a highly acclaimed series of Brahms chamber music releases for ONYX, the Nash Ensemble turn their attention to 19th-century Russian repertoire. Glazunov’s superbly crafted String Quintet in A of 1891 is coupled with Arensky’s Second Quartet with two cellos, and Borodin’s unfinished Sextet for strings in D minor, written according to the composer in Mendelssohnian style ‘to please the Germans’ while he was in Heidelberg.”
Mendelssohn
Beethoven
The Nash Ensemble
This concert by the Nash Ensemble was recorded live on 19 March 2005, part of the Nash Ensemble’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
Richard Strauss
The Nash Ensemble
violin Marianne Thorsen, Malin Broman
viola Lawrence Power, Philip Dukes
cello Paul Watkins, Pierre Doumenge
double bass Duncan McTier
piano Ian Brown
‘The Nash’s performance, angry and grieving, is faultless [Metamorphosen] … The real treat here is the Piano Quartet, dating from 1885, when Strauss, then aged 21, still considered himself a Brahmsian … the best of it anticipates the chamber-oriented scoring of such later works as Ariadne auf Naxos and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. The over-dominant piano part—Strauss wrote it as a showpiece for himself—is played with tremendous panache by Ian Brown’ (The Guardian)
Charles Villiers Stanford
Artists
Pirasti Trio
Philip Dukes
Piano Quartet No. 1 and Piano Trio No. 1
Max Bruch
– Kol Nidrei
– 8 Pieces Op 83
– plus other works
Planes Dukes Rahman Trio
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‘In this impressive collection of chamber music by Bruch, the Plane Dukes Rahman have once again attained the highest musical standards in their dedicated, sensitive performances…The final ‘8 Pieces’ for clarinet, viola and piano on this disc are full of crystal-clear melodies, highlighted throughout by lyrical sweeps of phrasing in an immaculate performance. Overall, a cd of simple, vivid, romantic beauty.’
BBC Classical Review 2003
Platinum Schumann Collection
Märchenbilder (4), Op. 113
Philip Dukes
Sophia Rahman
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Märchenerzählungen (4)
for Clarinet, Viola & Piano, Op. 132
The Plane-Dukes-Rahman Trio
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Adagio and Allegro in A flat major, Op. 70
Philip Dukes
Sophia Rahman
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Der Contrabandiste
Shura Cherkassky (piano)
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Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44
The Lindsays, Peter Frankl (piano)
