Divine Art Records

Genre: Instrumental

  • Beethoven: Diabelli Variations

    Beethoven: Diabelli Variations

    Beethoven’s Opus 120, the 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, is an extraordinary and great work: in many ways ahead of its time, it is exceptionally complex but always accessible. The imagination Beethoven applies to Diabelli’s theme – itself ‘rich in solid musical facts’ (Tovey) – leads to a wealth of original structures and ideas. Incomprehensible as late Beethoven was to many, Diabelli himself recognized its genius and advertised the work as a ‘great and important masterpiece’.

    Diana Boyle is a fine pianist who records little but prepares each recording with years of thought, consideration and meditation on the music. Her interpretations are individual and thought-provoking, often delicate, not always conforming to the norm which pianists of lesser talent will follow, but looking to breathe new life and spirit into classic masterpieces.

    Like all of Boyle’s work this is a very carefully prepared and well crafted performance, an excellent addition to the library of recordings of this work.

  • Diana Boyle – Brahms Piano Works

    Diana Boyle – Brahms Piano Works

    This album focuses on Intermezzi and Capriccios from Brahms’s very late period – Op. 76 and Op. 116-119. All of these pieces are true ‘Songs without Words’ though not titled as such, and are reserved, rather intimate works, never ‘flashy’ or virtuosic for the sake of virtuosity. They carry a strong sense of mood or inner feeling that mere titles could not convey.

    Diana Boyle is a fine pianist who records little but prepares each recording with years of thought, consideration and meditation on the music. Her interpretations are individual and thought-provoking, often delicate, not always conforming to the norm which pianists of lesser talent will follow, but looking to breathe new life and spirit into classic masterpieces.

    Like all of Boyle’s work this is a very carefully prepared and well crafted performance, an excellent addition to the library of recordings of this work.

    The second of our new digital-only ‘Intangible Classics’ series and of the Diana Boyle edition; these works by Brahms remain much less familiar to many than his Songs without Words and Hungarian Dances, but are pinnacles of the Romantic piano repertoire. Though recorded in 1994, this recording is as fresh as today and was previously on Integra Records (CD).

  • Natalia Andreeva plays Preludes & Fugues

    Natalia Andreeva plays Preludes & Fugues

    After the highly praised recording of music by Ustvolskaya (DDA 25130), Natalia Andreeva presents a brief survey of the Prelude and Fugue – one of the most prevalent of keyboard forms over the centuries. From Bach to Shostakovich, this concert-format album is a useful introduction to the genre, and also a fine interpretation for the experts to enjoy. Two of Rachmaninoff’s Etude-tableaux are included as ‘bonus encores’.

    Companion album: ‘Piano Sonatas’ from Beethoven, Scriabin and Prokofiev (DDA 25140). Plus: Ustvolskaya’s Violin and Piano music on DDA 25182

    Natalia Andreeva is a Russian pianist who is currently Lecturer in Piano at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her 2015 recording of the music of Galina Ustvolskaya was very well received, and like that album, this new recording of better-known classical and Romantic works is the result of many years of study, developing her own mental picture of these masterpieces and of what the composers were trying to communicate.

    There are various links between the works – in fact Liszt, Franck and Shostakovich were all influenced by Bach generally, as well as composing in the Prelude and Fugue form that he made a staple of the keyboard repertoire.

  • David Matthews: Romanza

    David Matthews: Romanza

    World Première Recording

    This work was commissioned by Madeleine Mitchell, who also gave the first performance with Nigel Clayton in 2012, following her premiere earlier that year of a version for violin and orchestra. It is a beautiful piece full of emotional warmth and lyricism. This digital single is also from Madeleine’s album of lyrical contemporary music for violin “Violin Muse”.

    Foremost British violinist Madeleine Mitchell commissioned this piece from David Matthews. She gave its first performance in the version for violin and orchestra in October 2012, and in this violin and piano version the following month. It is a remarkable work, thoroughly of today but filled with lyricism and warmth.

    Madeleine Mitchell has performed in over 50 countries and is one of the UK’s most distinguished violinists; she is a ‘pioneer of new music’ (The Times) and specializes in new music of the more lyrical kind rather than the avant-garde. She recently premiered Guto Puw’s Violin Concerto with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales – another work included in the Violin Muse album.

  • Russian Piano Music, Vols. 1-15

    Russian Piano Music, Vols. 1-15

    25% PERCENT OFF USUAL PRICE

    A major series mixing familiar and less-known music, from the Russian Romantic school, from Rachmaninov to Ustvolskaya by way of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rebikov, Gliere, Lyapunov, Arensky, Weinberg, Mussorgsky and more.

    Each CD has been critically acclaimed. Featuring pianists Natalia Andreeva, Anthony Goldstone, Murray McLachlan, Alfonso Soldano, Stefania Argentieri and Sergei Dukachev.

    Explore the series :

    Digital downloads include all booklets in PDF format.
    This set consists of 14 single albums and one double.

  • Diana Boyle – Bach Goldberg Varations

    Diana Boyle – Bach Goldberg Varations

    The first of our new digital-only ‘Intangible Classics’ series and of the Diana Boyle edition; a superb rendition of this timeless masterpiece. Though recorded in 2003, this recording has never been available until now and demonstrates Diana Boyle’s deep and thoughtful approach to the works of Bach.

    Like Die Kunst der Fuge, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 899, have come to be seen as one of the pinnacles of keyboard writing, not only of the baroque era but of all time. The Aria with diverse variations for a harpsichord with two manuals as it is formally named is the capstone of the Clavierübung publication project which was finalised in 1741. Amazingly, like much of Bach’s work, it remained an esoteric and little-known work until introduced into the repertoire by Rudolf Serkin in the 1920s.

    Diana Boyle is a fine pianist who records little but prepares each recording with years of thought, consideration and meditation on the music. She moved to the Goldberg Variations after recording Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier as a stepping stone to the inscrutable Art of Fugue. She avoided listening to any other versions, because as she says, “I need to find my own voice when studying these masterpieces and then try to express those thoughts at the keyboard.” Like all of Boyle’s work this is a very carefully prepared and well crafted performance, an excellent addition to the library of recordings of this work.

  • Wind Blown – Sonatas for Wind Instruments

    Wind Blown – Sonatas for Wind Instruments

    Peter Hope is one of those remarkably talented composers whose music is far netter known than his name. An arranger and composer of light music for decades, working with the BBC Concert Orchestra and writing themes for public events, his music has been heard worldwide – and by millions of British watchers of BBC TV News which used Peter’s theme for over a decade.

    A selected set of wind soloists present the first CD devoted to Peter Hope’s compositions which are fresh, vigorous and enchanting – and as the composer says, ‘unashamedly tonal’.

  • Russian Piano Music Volume 12 – Sergei Bortkiewicz

    Russian Piano Music Volume 12 – Sergei Bortkiewicz

    It is quite puzzling why, until very recently, the music of Bortkiewicz has not been widely known and loved: his high Romantic style makes him a natural to the legacy of Tchaikovsky, and he was a close contemporary of Rachmaninov. Born of Polish parentage, and later an Austrian citizen, Bortkiewicz lived in many parts of Europe but always considered himself truly Russian. This recording gives a wide sample of his work and will surely whet the appetite for more. Performed by Alfonso Soldano in his CD debut for Divine Art, a professor at the Conservatorio G. Braga in Teramo, Italy; he is also the biographer of the composer, a role which has given him unique insight into the mind and spirit of Bortkiewicz.

  • Opening the Door to the Music of Roy Heaton Smith

    Opening the Door to the Music of Roy Heaton Smith

    A feast of music by the late Roy Heaton Smith includes chamber works for clarinet, recorder and viola, solo piano music, string quartets and songs all bubbling with inspiration and freedom of expression and style, in excellent performances from top Manchester (UK) musicians.

    As a bonus we include a recording made from a radio broadcast in 1958. This was recorded from an AM broadcast off-air to an acetate disc which became damaged; Richard Scott has done wonders to make it not just playable but in decent sound balance too, and it remains the only recording of Smith’s fine Divertimento.

  • Preludio – Organ music by Carson Cooman

    Preludio – Organ music by Carson Cooman

    Following two celebrated CDs of Carson Cooman‘s organ music (“benchmark recording” – Classical Music Sentinel), Erik Simmons now takes us to a special area of the composer’s work – music inspired by renaissance and early baroque music. This double album will be a delight to early-music lovers as well as followers of the modern organ repertoire.

    Organ of the Basilica Mariä-Himmelfahrt

  • Mozart: Piano Sonatas

    Mozart: Piano Sonatas

    Diana Boyle’s Mozart is special: recorded after years of deep thought and reflection on the spirit of the music, her touch is deft, light and delicate, well balanced and never disfigured by harshness. Fast passages trip along while the slower parts are wonderfully expressed. We believe this to be a landmark interpretation essential for even those who know (or think they know) these works inside out.

  • Sonnets, Airs and Dances

    Sonnets, Airs and Dances

    British composer Philip Wood writes in a beautifully lyrical and melodic style which is totally accessible, Here his work is profiled by top soloists in vocal and chamber works of great variety.