Rebecca Clarke

I've been spending the last few days getting to know the viola music of Rebecca Clarke, which I first heard "blind" so to speak, not knowing who the composer was.

She was born in 1886, and as far as I can see, must have been one of the first really professional female musicians, working as a violist first in London, where she'd been taught composition by Stanford, and then in the USA. She must have been hot stuff, because she appeared with the likes of Heifetz.

Her most famous composition was the Viola Sonata of 1919 - which was considered too good to have been composed by a "mere woman" - but there are other absolute gems in her admittedly rather small output. Try "Morpheus" or "Lullaby on an Ancient Irish Tune". Each one is a real pleasure.

Try them all - there's a good CD of her compositions on Naxos, played by Philip Dukes and Sonia Rahman, along with Daniel Hope, and our one-time customer Robert Plane (he bought his first wooden clarinet here.)

Ironically in this week of International Womens Day, Rebecca Clarke appears to have been ignored by BBC Radio 3. But her work is so good it doesn't need special pleading.

NAXOS - Going Up !

Naxos CDs have announced a price rise from January 2012. It's the second price rise in 14 years - the swine! From January 3rd the normal retail price will be £6-99, so stock up now with our Special Offer of Five Naxos Single CDs for £25 - that's a saving of £9-95 on the new prices !
Doubles count as two (obviously!) and special orders after December 31 won't be included in this offer.

A Discovery !

We received the June releases from Naxos this morning, including several copies of the world premiere recording of a Violin Concerto by Respighi.

If you don't recognise the name, you may already know some of his music, for instance the lovely orchestral suite "The Birds" that used to introduce "Going for a Song" the first popular TV antiques programme. "The Pines of Rome" is another superb orchestral showpiece, worth seeking out if you don't know it already.

The violin concerto just released harks back to the writing of Vivaldi and Mendelssohn, and foreshadows the orchestral technicolour of his later works. It's the first time it has ever been recorded, and its arrival is to be warmly welcomed. There are three very attractive fillers included on the disc, a snip at £5-99 !

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!