Settings of poems by Emily Dickinson

Related Artists: Nadine Benjamin, Nicole Panizza

Catalogue No: 5060192780864

Reviews

Nadine Benjamin’s Summertime is one of the loveliest I’ve heard. (The Times)

Nadine Benjamin’s scene-stealing Musetta suggested a warmth and humanity that would serve her well as a future Mimì. (Sunday Times)

Nadine Benjamin nails it. (The Stage)

Cello sonatas by Lawrence Rose and Shostakovich

Related Artists: Katherine Jenkinson, Alison Farr, Nicholas Holland

Catalogue No: 5060192780895

Reviews

You compose with an impressively confident and clear voice. I can express nothing but admiration for your continued achievement. Bravo. (Gerald Elias, Boston Symphony Orchestra)

The string writing was very well-written indeed! Wonderful music. (Peggy Nolan, Eblana String Trio)

Everything seems to grow organically. (Jeremy Hulin, Maastricht Conservatorium)

Chamber music by English living composer Nicholas Simpson

Related Artists: Charlotte Trepess, Zelkova Quartet

Catalogue No: 5060192780871

Reviews

Now in his early sixties, Nicholas Simpson studied composition during the 1980s with John Tavener at Trinity College, London. However, one is more likely to detect the influence of late 19th- and early 20th-century tonality on the two string quartets heard here. The disc’s title, ‘Remembered Music’, is taken from a line by the poet Kathleen Raine, whose On a Deserted Shore forms the basis for the earliest featured work. Composed in 1988, Remembered Music for voice and quartet is an evocative setting that benefits from a thoughtful and sensitively shaped response to the text from soprano Charlotte Trepess. Simpson’s style has sometimes been compared with his older namesake, Robert, but his music bears as much the trace of Eastern European and Scandinavian influences. His predilection for developing ideas from small, germ-like motifs is evident in both quartets. Bartók’s late Sixth Quartet is suggested in the String Quartet in G minor (2013), which opens hesitatingly with a rising and falling two-note figure. Passed around between the ensemble in a question-and-answer-type texture, this two-note idea takes on a more intensive character as the movement unfolds. A three-note pattern is heard at the beginning of a dynamic, dancelike second movement, which soon transforms itself into a syncopated folk-like tune. A slow third movement revisits the first’s two-note idea against gradually rising, wedge-like harmonic shifts that call to mind the sound world of Einojuhani Rautavaara. The first movement of Simpson’s earlier String Quartet in C evinces a mosaic-like structure, while its Beethoven-inspired finale amply demonstrates the composer’s solid contrapuntal technique. The Zelkova Quartet display impressive control and command over the material throughout. Simpson reveals in the booklet notes that he only truly re-embraced composition during the 1990s, when ‘the great serialist terror was coming to an end’. Sympathetic listeners will no doubt identify with Simpson’s unfussy tonal style; others more willing to embrace modernist ideals and the spirit of the avant-garde may well dwell ruefully on the rather perverse notion that, as a point of comparison, James Dillon’s String Quartet No 2 was being written at almost exactly the same time as Simpson’s String Quartet in C. (Gramophone)

Remembered Music is a disc of chamber music by Nicholas Simpson, a one-time pupil of John Tavener (1944-2013). He was born in Manchester and studied (at Nottingham University) and practised law (in London). After a spell playing guitar in rock bands he moved to studies at Trinity College of Music. There he won the Chappell Prize for composition and the Ricordi for conducting. His worklist includes three very substantial symphonies, a piano concerto, chamber music and an oratorio, Recreation. Going by title alone (admittedly chancy) Simpson also has a well-tuned sense of humour. I have not heard them but the following promise well: orchestral works: Blighty, Ilkley Moor Sans Chapeau and Bachianas Mancuniensis. There is a piano solo called Dropping Anka and Four Reasons Why Jazz is Rubbish for wind quintet. He is currently work away at an opera on Jim Crace’s 1995 Booker-shortlisted novel Quarantine. Simpson is not a complete neophyte when it comes to recordings. His clarinet quartet Mardale Changes was issued by Delphian in an anthology project. This work refers to the bells heard from the now flooded and sunken Mardale Church. These world-première recordings are given with impressive skill and concentration by the Zelkova String Quartet. They are very much a family affair. The quartet is named after the Zelkova tree. Simpson’s two string quartets – each in three movements – lie almost two decades apart. They are not numbered; not yet. The character adopted by the composer or which has seized his creative imagination is deadly serious. Serious, yes, but frankly tonal and often melodic – witness the middle movement of the 1994 Quartet. At times he had me thinking of another Simpson: Robert. This is especially in relation to the older composer’s quartets 4-6 which are modelled after the Beethoven Rasumovsky quartets. Another composer evoked was Tippett but not the dense lyricism of the Tippett of the 1930s. My thoughts turned to two works where, in Tippett’s later years, he struck out in new directions and was gripped by an over-weaning lyrical impulse: Rose Lake and the middle movement of the Triple Concerto. The G minor work has a central Dvořákian hustle and bustle to it which is all the more affecting because it is framed by two meditative movements. In neither of the quartets is Simpson’s language likely to be an obstacle to discovering appreciation or even pleasure in this music. It is noted that in what can be a very severe genre Simpson has the music talking to the majority of modern listeners by keeping the total length of the works to less than 24 minutes and even then balancing the ‘plot’ in three movements. The 1994 quartet is at first convulsed by a jerky and persistent figure but this is followed by a cool and chastened lyricism. The finale of this quartet is at times smilingly lively and is very moving. Between the two quartets we hear Remembered Music to a text by one of John Tavener’s friends, Kathleen Raine (1908-2003). The words are rooted in the perfection of love, of loss and in the natural world of the West Highlands for which both Raine and Simpson had and have a deep affection. They are cradled quietly and sung with steady security and commanding control by Charlotte Trepess. Hers is a name we have heard before and you may also have heard her in Albert Herring. The sung verses are printed in full in the booklet. Remembered Music would go well in a concert with Warlock’s The Curlewand Butterworth’s Love Blows as the Wind Blows. All three Simpson pieces are recorded for Stone in pristine quality by David Coyle. The liner-notes, which are by the composer, are cleanly laid out. They’re quite personal, disarming and seemingly candid. The disc has a quite short playing time. This is a pity as the music is as engaging as it is serious. (MusicWeb International)

Chamber music for flute, oboe, clarinet, viola & piano

Related Artists: Juliette Bausor, Daniel Bates, Matthew Hunt, Adam Newman, Olga Jegunova

Catalogue No: 5060192780840

Reviews

Sonatinas for violin and piano

Related Artists: Fenella Humphreys, Nicola Eimer

Catalogue No: 5060192780826

Reviews

Christmas music from Ardingly College

Related Artists: Ardingly College Schola Cantorum, Richard Stafford

Catalogue No: 5060192780857

Reviews

John Cage’s music arranged for guitar

WATCH VIDEO

Related Artists: Aaron Larget-Caplan

Catalogue No: 5060192780833

Reviews

One scenario I yearn to witness is a quiz-master demolishing anotherwise unassailable contestant by asking him to name a work by John Cage, other than 4’33”. Possible answers are numerous, but known only to those who’ve done their homework. What Cage apparently didn’t do was compose for guitar, leaving a gap that is definitively filled by this ear-opening release from American guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan. Drawing on Cage’s catalog for piano and prepared piano, Larget-Caplan eases the listener into the proceedings with the hypnotic soundscape of A Room, the word “minimalist” being invoked for a second time in the performer’s notes, alongside a disclaimer that “Cage did not use the term.” Whatever the genre, the two-part textures have a transparency ideally suited to the guitar. This is enhanced by Larget-Caplan’s tidy and understated playing, the feeling of brightness and focus well-captured by engineer Steve Hunt. Likewise Three Easy Pieces, in which the tonal/modal language prompts Larget-Caplan to suggest the first two pieces “could easily be mistaken for 19th century guitar compositions.” Few are likely to confuse Cage with Carulli, but the comparison is not without merit. As the album progresses, occasional sharp edges emerge, most notably in the deliciously noisy Bacchanale, arranged for two prepared guitars. However, anyone hoping this CD will perpetuate the false image of Cage as merely a purveyor of the impenetrable will leave empty-handed. (Classical Guitar)

It’s evening, the end of a busy day. Aaron Larget-Caplan’s record is spinning on my cd player while I write this notes. It’s the third or fourth time that I listen to it, without interruption. I lost the count, I looped it. For the first two plays I remained focused, I listened to all the music in succession, with concentration and attention, then I let the music flow and I started to concentrate my thoughts on what I wanted to write. Bad day today in Italy, wind, rain, high water, while I write bad weather continues to scourge my country, so it’s nice to be at home, in the evening, to write and listen to this music. Aaron Larget-Caplan did a great job: he made the first complete monograph of music by John Cage for classical guitar. Cage has never written for guitar, we know, but this doesn’t really matter to an experimenter of his level. John Cage was one of the most revolutionary musicians of the twentieth century, whose work has been able to broaden the horizons of contemporary music. His innovative spirit, that has considered music as a sound, a sound that is also silence and noise, has been of unparalleled originality. He didn’t believe in the centrality of a single philosophical culture or current, and his use of indeterminacy and chance led to a wider, global relational dimension, rich in oscillations and contaminations between different cultures. The fact that Aaron Larget-Caplan decided to “enter” the structure of Cage’s music and “convert” it for his classical guitar doesn’t detract from the composer’s vision but interpenetrates his work by giving his creations the opportunity to be examined from other points of view. I suggest this record to those who have a mainly “noisy” idea of Cage’s music. These compositions, made between 1933 and 1948 show a much more intimate and even melodic soul and can be an excellent introduction to those who want to approach for the first time to his music. Highly recommended. (NeuGuitars)

This disc, quite properly, knows no fear in its blend of delicacy, complexity and amiable simplicity (MusicWeb International)

John Cage on guitar? Why not? Though the American maverick never wrote explicitly for the instrument, some of his early piano music was adaptable enough for guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan to arrange for his instrument. The results, out now John Cage: Guitar, are often enticing and plenty appealing. Larget-Caplan’s program consists of seven Cage pieces, all of which originated in the 1930s and ‘40s, a couple of which are remarkably prescient. The opener, A Room, for instance, anticipates the Minimalist procedures of a later generation or two. And the prepared-guitar closer, Bacchanale, sounds a couple decades younger than it is, almost like a kind of high-brow anticipation of Jimi Hendrix. In between come Cage’s Three Easy Pieces, which sound like just that: a set of short, contrapuntal exercises that exude not a little bit of charm, especially the central “Duo.” Chess Pieces and Dream are more substantial. The former is adapted from a composition that appears in a 1944 Cage painting while the latter, a ruminative essay, was originally conceived as a dance piece. In a Landscape is another affecting, resonant meditation. Then there are Six Pieces, a set of radiant miniatures for violin and guitar, in which Larget-Caplan’s joined by violinist Sharon Leventhal. Cage’s writing here is highly specific – the violin part, for instance, indicates which string each note is supposed to be played on – but the music itself is anything but restrained, ranging from the quiet ecstasy of “Melody 1” to the jaunty syncopations of “Melody 3” and the subdued glow of “Melody 6.” Larget-Caplan’s performances are excellent. Technically, he’s got everything under control, no matter how involved the arrangements get. What’s more, his playing brims with charisma and understanding: Cage can be a tough composer to really bring to life. Larget-Caplan (and Leventhal, in Six Pieces) manage the feat impressively. (The Artsfuse)

British choral music

Related Artists: Trinity Boys Choir, David Swinson

Catalogue No: 5060192780819

Reviews

Trinity Boys Choir sounded glorious (The Financial Times)

Choral singing of majestic splendour (The Guardian)

Trinity Boys Choir is uncommonly good (The Times)

Trinity Boys Choir couldn’t be bettered (The Daily Telegraph)

A superbly disciplined group in every respect (The Independent)

Classic film lullabies from your childhood

Related Artists: Máire Flavin

Catalogue No: 5060192780802

Reviews

Máire Flavin has a commanding stage presence, and she gave a moving performance of Mimí, beautifully sung. (Opera)

Recital of songs by Georg Schumann (1866-1952)

Related Artists: Mary Nelson, Mark Ford

Catalogue No: 5060192780796

Reviews

One of the highlights had to be Mary Nelson’s heartfelt delivery (Northern Echo)

Settings of sonnets by Britten, Liszt, Dankworth & Ellington

Related Artists: Daniel Norman, Christopher Gould

Catalogue No: 5060192780734

Reviews

PRAISE FOR NORMAN & GOULD’S PREVIOUS BRITTEN DISC ON STONE RECORDS:

Both sets of performances are very fine. Those from Oxford around Norman are easier on the ear … The Oxford performance has a wider-ranging essay by recent Britten biographer Paul Kildea … Both discs are well recorded. (International Record Review)

This release is  a valuable addition to the Britten discography (Classical Iconoclast)

Those expecting five “canticles” will not be disappointed (Fanfare)

English song cycles by Finzi and Vaughan Williams

Related Artists: Colin Judson, Richard Black

Catalogue No: 5060192780789

Reviews

Colin Judson’s clarion tenor shines as both the Schoolmaster and, briefly, a bloodlust-crazed Mosquito, eyeing up Hrůša for juiciness (Gramophone)

A recital of songs by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

WATCH VIDEO

Related Artists: Anush Hovhannisyan, Yuriy Yurchuk, Sergey Rybin

Catalogue No: 5060192780772

Reviews

With the exception of The Nightingale and the Rose, Rimsky’s art songs are less well known than they deserve, so it is astute of Stone to present two rising young artists in a disc entirely devoted to these beautiful Romances. The Armenian Hovhannisyan wraps her bright, sensuous soprano around this famous number, but it is the Ukrainian baritone Yurchuk’s wonderful legato and superb Russian delivery that make this collection irresistible. (Sunday Times)

Sacred songs, hymns and meditations by Holst, Rubbra and Vaughan Williams

Related Artists: Lawrence Wiliford, Marie Bérard, Keith Hamm, Steven Philcox

Catalogue No: 5060192780765

Reviews

Wiliford sings beautifully in what one might call the ‘Aldeburgh style.’ It’s light, clear, sensitive and every word is clearly audible…it does the music full justice. (Opera Canada)

The latest in tenor Lawrence Wiliford’s extensive discography is O Gladsome Light, released on Stone Records; the album is a collection of sacred songs by Gustav Holst, his friend and colleague Ralph Vaughan Williams, and his composition pupil Edmund Rubbra. “This project was largely inspired by my upbringing in the church (my father and mother are both pastors) and my musically formative years singing sacred works in the American Boychoir and the St. Olaf Choir.” O Gladsome Light groups together some of Canada’s best in song and chamber music. Wiliford is joined by pianist Stephen Philcox, frequent recital partner of the tenor’s and co-founder of the Canadian Art Song Project, violinist Marie Bérard, and violist Keith Hamm, both members of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. They play in varied combinations, and throughout the album the four musicians create a sound that is timeless and almost pan-stylistic, a beautiful and eerie effect. Wiliford’s own upbringing, strongly rooted in the church, is perhaps why O Gladsome Light is full of gorgeous surprises, no predictable survey of sacred music. The songs of Ralph Vaughan Williams are well-known among art song lovers, yet his Four Hymns for Tenor, piano and Viola are rarer gems. Philcox begins the set with a dreamy piano sound, and the set seems to fill out boldly, boasting a symphonic sound that belies the small ensemble. Rare and welcome too are the songs by Gustav Holst, a composer perhaps better known for his orchestral work. His Four Songs for Voice and Violin are haunting, with a sound that could be from any place, at any time. The simplicity of combining voice and strings – the purity of the harmonies and of Wiliford’s assured tone – feels like a nod to a very old tradition. The songs by Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986) are the real find in this album. His sound is unique, and his is style that’s difficult to place, but eventually emerges as English – yet with an edge. The selections of O Gladsome Light are dense in meaning, and the interpretation by Wiliford is magnetic. There’s humility in Rubbra’s Rune of Hospitality, the rock of a lullaby in A Duan of Barra, and something beautifully feminine about Jesukin. In a lovely nod to Rubbra’s versatility as a composer, the album includes two moving solo pieces: his Variations on a Phrygian Theme for solo violin (played by Marie Bérard), and Meditations on a Byzantine Hymn for solo viola (played by Keith Hamm). Throughout this album, Wiliford’s sound is strong yet gentle, always thoughtful. O Gladsome Light is a carefully crafted album that shows the tenor’s constant attention to detail, from the research and curation of this inspired collection of repertoire, to the music-making itself. (Schmopera)

That tenor Lawrence Wiliford’s voice is perfectly suited to English repertoire is clearly illustrated on this recording. In songs and hymns by Gustav Holst, his lesser-known student Edmund Rubbra and contemporary Ralph Vaughan Williams, Wiliford displays his gift for expressiveness, sensitivity to text and challengingly high tessitura. These qualities were assimilated through his experiences singing in the church since boyhood, roles in Canadian Opera Company productions and as co-founder of the Canadian Art Song Project along with pianist Steven Philcox (who also accompanies beautifully on this recording). Because Rubbra is relatively unknown, we are grateful for the singer’s inclusion of transcendent modal songs such as The Mystery and Rosa Mundi as well as Meditations on a Byzantine Hymn for solo viola played sublimely by Keith Hamm and Variations on a Phrygian Theme for solo violin on which Marie Bérard displays her signature sweetness of tone. (Both Hamm and Bérard are members of the COC orchestra.) Also of note from Rubbra is Hymn to the Virgin and Jesukin. Upon first hearing, I spent several minutes searching through liner notes for the name of the harpist. In fact, Rubbra had cleverly composed his accompaniment by the use of spread piano chords, resulting in a “harp-like rendition” played so rockingly gentle by Philcox that one is easily lulled and thus bewildered, but happily so. (The Whole Note)

This Canadian tenor has the kind of voice that could convince rock ’n’ roll fans to give art song and even opera a fair shake. Unlike the many classically trained singers who sacrifice texts on the altar of sound, Wiliford adds to his skillfully modulated purity of tone a clarity of diction that makes what he’s singing easy to understand. So although the printed lyrics of these 19 exquisite “sacred songs, hymns and meditations by Holst, Rubbra and Vaughan Williams” (the subtitle) are included, you won’t need them. (World Magazine)

Wiliford has become a matchless artist (The Globe and Mail)

Hits from the golden age of Broadway musicals

Related Artists: Rodney Earl Clarke, Christopher Gould

Catalogue No: 5060192780758

Reviews

The songs are performed throughout in an excellent style … always in fine vocal form … When a greatly gifted singer lends their artistry to such vocally-rewarding music as this, the result is a disc of much pleasure – which is what, surely, it was intended to be – and when partnered by the excellent Christopher Gould, one can only urge the disc’s acquisition. Comprehensively recommended (Musical Opinion)

Works by living composer Michael Stimpson, inspired by Charles Darwin

WATCH VIDEO

Related Artists: Michael Stimpson, Maya Iwabuchi, Tom Poster, Stuart Stratford

Catalogue No: 5060192780741

Reviews

PRAISE FOR STIMPSON’S JESSE OWENS:

CRITICS CHOICE – Jesse Owens (1913–1980), the legendary African–American track-and-field athlete, grew up in poverty in Alabama but went on to win four gold medals—an unprecedented achievement—at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. (This reportedly displeased Hitler, who expected the Games to be a display of Aryan athletic superiority.) British composer Michael Stimpson’s opera about Owens is represented here by five tracks of incidental music for full orchestra, and eight songs in reductions for soprano, baritone, and piano. The songs provide a good overview of both Jesse’s triumphs and his struggles. Stimpson’s expressive, immediately accessible music reveals hints of the blues and period popular music, but mostly it has a firm classical grounding, evoking the dignity and historical importance of Owens’s life and achievements. The haunting and mournful “Home” starts with a slow, steady bass ostinato as the middle-aged Jesse (baritone Johnny Herford) and his wife Minnie (soprano Abigail Kelly) pay tribute to Jesse’s hardworking father, who could barely make ends meet as a sharecropper. Both Herford and Kelly sing with stirring dramatic depth, and they blend well. Next comes a bouncy, breathlessly flirty number as young Jesse and Minnie meet in junior high school; Herford and Kelly do a nice job of lightening their voices to play the kids. The third number, “Minnie’s Song,” is a standout, set in the wistful mode of G harmonic minor, as she contemplates what exactly she loves in Jesse. Kelly gives an arresting, well-controlled performance of this gentle but emotionally probing number, all the way up to a very expressive high C. She also has a strong turn as the ghost of Luz Long, a German athlete who helped Jesse prepare for his long jump event. “Jim Crowe” (with Kelly singing the part of Jesse’s coach) features some affecting duet singing about “them poplar trees” that make no judgments about a person’s skin color. “Four world records” begins as an excited family scene just after Jesse’s historic showing at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships in 1935. It ends, however, much more fraught, as Jesse reflects, “It all counts for nothing / If the battle over myself ain’t the battle I win.” “Money lies” covers some of the indignities Jesse suffered upon returning home after his Olympic wins. Disappointment and domestic strife are treated with encroaching dissonance and starker textures. Despite unusual passages like this, all the deliberately paced, tonally similar laments run together after a while; as a result, the closing duet, “The empty stadium,” doesn’t have the impact it should. The five tracks of incidental music, however—sumptuously played by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Stuart Stratford—indicate that the complete work contains plenty of variety. This collection thus proves to be a good argument for a complete recording of the full opera. The five Preludes In Our Time, performed nimbly by the skilled and sensitive pianist Megumi Fujita (who is also the pianist for the vocal selections), offer further evidence of Stimpson’s versatility, and some welcome forays into rhythmically and harmonically spikier territory. (Opera News)

Live recording from the world-famous Oxford Lieder Festival

Related Artists: Sophie Daneman, Julius Drake

Catalogue No: 5060192780727

Reviews

Daneman’s graceful direction contributed to the splendid effects in both entertainments. A world-class soprano and stage director, she moved her singers behind and among the musicians, while understanding what the former are capable of, and the latter are comfortable with. (Seen and Heard)

British chamber music for flute, oboe and piano

Related Artists: Juliette Bausor, Daniel Bates, Simon Lepper

Catalogue No: 5060192780710

Reviews

Juliette Bausor’s flute- playing was mesmerising in its silken loveliness and magnetism (Classical Source)

Bates had a beautiful cantabile style (Classical Source)

Simon Lepper, whose prowess as a pianist is fused with a real sensitivity to words and to the voice, is a rarity indeed (The Times)

Australian art song

Related Artists: Katja Webb, David Wickham

Catalogue No: 5060192780703

Reviews

Young soprano Katja Webb, making her debut in the role, was at her best in Violetta’s more fragile moments, singing with well-judged, subtle inflections and a lovely warm tone. (The Australian)

Webb’s fruity soprano is lithe and adventurous, tackling this little-heard repertoire with thoughtful poise and relish; Wickham is precise and sympathetic. This is an important series noteworthy for its excavations of Modernism in mid-20th-century Australia (Limelight)

Internationally renowned organist Robert Costin performs JS Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier on the organ of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Related Artists: Robert Costin

Catalogue No: 5060192780697

Reviews

This is an absolutely outstanding set of records which should form part of the library of every enthusiast for Bach’s music. There have been recordings in the past of the ’48’ in which various single preludes and Fugues have been played on a variety of instruments, including organ, but offhand I cannot recall a complete ’48’ on disc played throughout on the organ. We may be sure that Bach himself did, at various points in his life, and perhaps not only at the Thomaskirche. Robert Costin, in this beautifully recorded series of performances, makes the strongest case for this imperishable masterpiece to be included as a totality within the organ repertoire … This is a wonderful set of records, a true achievement of the modern gramophone, and is most enthusiastically recommended. It has been a rare pleasure to review this release. ***** (The Organ)

This project has clearly been a labour of love for Robert Costin, and one admires his consistently excellent playing. Any new recording of the ’48’ for solo organ is to be welcomed, especially with an outstanding instrument. The three-manual, 42-stop Metzler organ of Trinity College, Cambridge, is magnificent; combining it with the chapel’s warm but clear acoustic provides the ideal venue for this repertoire … There are some wonderful colours on these CDs: the Vox Humana in Book 1’s E major Prelude and the Dulcian in Book 1’s B minor Prelude are delightful. Equally enjoyable is the telling use of the Pedal Posaune towards the end of some of the Book 2 fugues … Listening to these CDs has been an invigorating and stimulating experience. Above all, we can rejoice again in the glorious music springing from Bach’s compositional genius (Gramophone)

An intriguing aspect of J S Bach’s solo instrumental music is that much was written for an unspecified “keyboard”. Today, the keyboard of choice is generally the piano or harpsichord, or occasionally the clavichord. In a series produced by the enterprising Stone Records, Robert Costin interprets Bach’s greatest works on the organ. Following on from the Goldberg Variations and the Trio Sonatas, Stone Records has now released The Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC) in a four-disc set. Robert Costin’s instrument is the beautiful Metzler at Trinity College, Cambridge, built in 1975 but incorporating ranks of Father Smith pipes from 1694 and 1708. Organ versions of WTC are few and far between (those by Christoph Bossert, Frédéric Desenclos, and Bernard Lagacé are the only ones I’m aware of) so I listened to this with some interest. As usual, Costin plays accurately and with sensitivity, and his performance is beautifully recorded. The set is nicely packaged with informative booklet. Even if you’re sold on one of the classic piano interpretations, this version is well worth a listen. (The Organ Club Journal)

J.S. Bach composed Das Wohltemperierte Klavier as two sets, with the first 24 completed in 1722 when Bach was 37 and the second some 20 years later. It was primarily intended as a teaching aid or, as Bach stated in his preface, ‘for the use and profit of the musical youth desirous of learning, as well as for the pastime of those already skilled in this study’. It was written for an unspecified keyboard instrument and numerous recordings have appeared over the years on a wide range of instruments including harpsichord, clavichord, piano and, more recently, organ. The English organist Robert Costin is well known to the musical fraternity in New Zealand, having held assistant organist posts at St Paul’s Cathedral, Wellington and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland, before returning to the United Kingdom as Assistant Director of Music at Blackburn Cathedral and continuing his musical career. Costin is also noted for his recent recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Trio Sonatas for Organ. For this recording of the ’48’ he chose the fine 42-rank Metzler baroque organ at Trinity College, Cambridge that is ideally suited for this music. This four CD set is as much a showcase for this beautifully voiced and versatile instrument as they are for the genius of JSB. Costin’s tempi have been carefully chosen to enable the fast-moving passages to remain crisp and precise. Appropriate microphone placement of his well-articulated playing has also ensured a high degree of clarity. Not only does his sensitive and imaginative choice of registrations complement each prelude and fugue admirably but the chapel’s lively acoustic also enhances the overall sound. The accompanying CD booklet is very informative and attractively produced, with an introduction to the piece, organ specifications and short notes about each track. In my opinion this new interpretation of the ’48’ will make an excellent addition to any organ enthusiast’s collection. (NZ Organ News)