Saturday 31 July 2010

Coda Bows Back in Stock

At last we have the Coda Prodigy bows back in stock, at least, we have for Violin and Cello - sorry Violas, your time will come!

These excellent carbon-fibre bows have become a really popular choice among professionals and good amateur players, as they offer the characteristics of seriously expensive pernambuco bows for what passes for sensible money these days.

We have to keep them behind the counter, as they tend to get nicked - seriously! - so don't be too shy to ask to see them.

Thursday 29 July 2010

Anyone for Tyberg ?

An interesting new release from Naxos - Symphony No3 and a Piano Trio by Marcel Tyberg. Yet another hugely talented composer who perished at Auschwitz, whose manuscripts have belatedly surfaced in Buffalo, USA.

The symphony is an attractive work, with echoes of Mahler and Brahms, and it's given its fiest recording by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic.

It is coupled with a Piano Trio that I haven't got around to hearing yet, but the blurb assures us that the work is "imbued with the spirit of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, his Piano Trio brims with a richly Romantic esprit. "

Buy it for yourself, or as a present - it's one CD you can be certain they don't already have!

Tuesday 20 July 2010

What's in a Name?

On Saturday, a lady came into the shop with an oboe. "I'd like to see Mr Ovary about my Oboe" . Mr Ivory was produced to see to the oboe, the lady apologising for getting his name wrong.

A little work was needed on the instrument, so the lady arranged to come back during the afternoon.

She returned after some hours, and said " I've come to see Mr Ivory - he's mending my Ovary"

Well, he's a very clever man, but he doesn't mend those!

Saturday 3 July 2010

Naxos Notes

July releases include Mendelssohn's complete incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream, with spoken text and melodramas in English. However, it might be in a New Zealand accent, as it's the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Judd. Whatever your feelings about antipodean pronunciation of the Mother Tongue, the music is wonderful !

Ian Burnside, recently removed from Radio 3 in suspicious circumstances, accompnaies Roderick Williams in a disc of Songs by George Butterworth, a wonderful composer cut down in his prime in the First World War. Another English composer who deserves to be better-known is Cyril Scott, and his three sonatas for Violin and piano make up an enjoyable disc from Clare Howick and Sophie Rahman.

Other rarities to emerge this months include Cimarosa's Requiem, Casella's Second Symphony, Franz Schmidt's third, and Havergal Brian's Eleventh and Fifteenth. Piano music on disc from Ferdinand Ries (Beethoven's student and assistant), Anton Rubinstein, and finally, one of Arensky's Piano Pieces and Etudes.

Lovers of the Clarinet will be pleased to see a coupling of Copland's Concerto (one of my faves) with a Concerto by Robert Aldridge, of whom I for one, have never heard, but it's said to be "a direct descendant of the Copland". If it has anything approaching the haunting, magical atmospher of the Copland, it'll be a treat !