Divine Art Records

Product Cat: Recording

  • Sappho, Shropshire and Super-Tramp – English Art Song

    Sappho, Shropshire and Super-Tramp – English Art Song

    The title ‘Sappho, Shropshire and Super-Tramp’ reflects three major threads (though not all) in this exceptional album of new English art-song made with the English Poetry and Song Society.

    Shropshire is represented by several settings from Housman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad’ which has been among the most popular sets of poems for composers since its publication in 1896. From the ancient world, Sappho’s writings were set by Ivor Gurney, recently discovered, edited and published by Richard Carder.

    Super-Tramp is the exceptional hobo-turned-gentleman poet W.H. Davies.

    Altogether 12 composers and 52 songs, some in cycles and some stand-alone items, make this a feast of new and fascinating work for the song lover. Performed by top soloists Sarah Leonard and Johnny Herford, accompanied by Nigel Foster, who has been described as ‘today’s Gerald Moore’.

  • Willscher: Organ Symphonies 19 & 20

    Willscher: Organ Symphonies 19 & 20

    German composer Andreas Willscher has won many awards for his compositions, which range widely from symphonic forms and oratorio to cabaret jazz and rock. His organ works are especially fine and varied – involving often a mélange of post-tonal modernism, minimalism, and jazz and rock elements. Willscher is also an active writer of literary and scientific articles and as a collector and preserver of ‘lost’ and forgotten music of the past.

    Organ Symphony Nos 19 and 20 were both composed in 2017 so are truly contemporary. They are lively, thrilling works with great rhythmic vitality. The third work is a suite – The Beatitudes – composed in 1974 at the beginning of the composer’s career.

    Carson Cooman is organist of the Memorial Church at Harvard University and also a most prolific composer, writer and teacher.
    His works have appeared in many recordings and have been played in every inhabited continent. This is his second recording of Willscher’s music for Divine Art as performer (the first was of Symphony No. 5), and the label has already released thirteen CDs of Cooman compositions with many more planned.

    The recording was made on the Schulze organ (1868) in St. Bartholomew, Armley, Leeds in a live performance using the Hauptwerk system.

  • Cooman: The Cloak with the Stars

    Cooman: The Cloak with the Stars

    Carson Cooman is many things musical – organist and Composer in Residence at the Memorial Church, Harvard University; writer, critic and consultant, concert organist, and above all a highly prolific composer of music in a wide variety of genres, from orchestral to song.

    His organ compositions come in many styles, from liturgical models, to more gritty and substantial pieces such as his organ symphonies and preludes and fugues. Much of the music here, tonal and accessible though never lacking in complex chromaticism, was written for and dedicated to the German composer Andreas Willscher whose works Cooman is also recording for Divine Art.

    Erik Simmons is a fine organist, making his sixth Cooman organ album for Divine Art. He is playing the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Abbey of Saint-Etienne, Caen, France in a live performance recorded through the Hauptwerk system.

    This is volume 6 of this highly praised series. (Now up to volume 13)

  • Violin Muse

    Violin Muse

    Seven world premiere recordings of works by British composers with a range of styles but all in a modern but approachable and often very lyrical idiom from the deep and heartfelt Violin Concerto ‘Soft Stillness’ by Guto Puw to the stunningly simple yet beautiful new work from Michael Nyman. Many of these works were specifically written for, and premiered by, Madeleine Mitchell so this is a very special album for her personally as well as being a fine virtuoso concert. Most works on the album are for violin and piano with Nigel Clayton; Cerys Jones appears in the super violin duet ‘Atlantic Drift’ by Judith Weir, and Puw’s Concerto is a BBC recording with the BBCNOW and American conductor Edwin Outwater.

    Madeleine Mitchell is an internationally acclaimed soloist with a fine discography and has been an inspiration to composers and painters, including Gerald Marks who created his artworks ‘The Madeleine Series’ between 1989 and 1991.

    Madeleine Mitchell talks about ‘Violin Muse’ on YouTube here

  • John Turner – Christmas Card Carols

    John Turner – Christmas Card Carols

    For over twenty years, Britain’s foremost recorder player, John Turner, has composed a carol and sent the score as his Christmas Card. Until now just a personal gift to his friends, John was persuaded to record a selection, which has led to this beautiful album.

    Presented by the chamber choir Intimate Voices and featuring sopranos Sasha Johnson Manning, Eleanor Gregory and Philippa Hyde in solo and duet pieces, with obbligato harp and oboe in some, this is a lovely mixed program of Nativity carols, composed very much in traditional style, in new settings of ancient texts.

    John Turner is a fine composer but is chiefly known as a recorder player and champion of contemporary composers, with dozens of recordings to his credit, many from Divine Art and Métier.

  • France Revisited

    France Revisited

    Piano-a-Deux – Husband and wife team Robert and Linda Stoodley are an adventurous duo with a very wide range of repertoire from the pops to major classical works which they present to appreciative audiences all around the world, spending much time as recitalists on cruise ships.

    This new album features a programme of French music, including Debussy’s well known Petite Suite and the superb First Sonata for Piano Duet by George Onslow, contemporary of the young Mozart and on this showing an equal in compositional skill. Add to that Poulenc’s ‘Songs of Love and War’ arranged by Linda into a new suite of pieces, and we have a very entertaining and instructive album beautifully played.

  • The Operatic Pianist: Volume II

    The Operatic Pianist: Volume II

    In the mid to late 19th century, piano transcriptions allowed access to the classics for the majority of people who could not attend opera or orchestral performances. In the area of ‘grand opera’ specialists included of course Franz Liszt – and also composers such as Sigismund Thalberg. Andrew Wright is a rarity in the current day being an expert interpreter and also arranger of operatic themes, and as well as an astonishing virtuosity enabling the drama of the scene to be preserved, he also keeps alive the tradition by which opera tunes became popular.

    Following the critical praise given to the original ‘Operatic Pianist’ album, this set includes transcriptions and fantasies by Wright, Thalberg, Liszt, Kullak, Leschetizky and Jaëll and amazingly a fine work by Saint-Saëns receiving its world premiere recording.

    Intense, dramatic and full of action this will appeal to both opera lovers and piano afficionados.

  • Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Piano Music

    Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Piano Music

    Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is best known for two things – his evocative guitar music, and his work during his long association with the movie industry in Hollywood, where he produced some amazing scores though never quite receiving the fame of his compatriot Nino Rota. His extensive body of piano music has been largely neglected despite the fact that it is exceptional, impressionistic, and in the best post-Romantic tradition of ‘lighter’ music – though only relatively ‘light’ in that it is written in traditional harmony. Never shallow, but highly suggestive of moods, emotions, places and colors. Many of the works in this album are receiving their first recording.

    Alfonso Soldano is a brilliant Italian pianist, the last and highly- regarded pupil of Aldo Ciccolini whose debut recording (piano music of Sergei Bortkiewicz) attracted worldwide acclaim. He is naturally attuned to the Romantic which makes him an ideal interpreter of this music. He has just been appointed Artistic Director of the Aldo Ciccolini Academy in Trani, Italy.

  • Exordium: Organ Music by Carson Cooman

    Exordium: Organ Music by Carson Cooman

    Carson Cooman is many things musical – organist and Composer in Residence at the Memorial Church, Harvard University; writer, critic and consultant, concert organist, and above all a highly prolific composer of music in a wide variety of genres, from orchestral to song.

    His organ compositions come in many styles, from those inspired by the Renaissance, to liturgical models, to more gritty and substantial pieces such as his organ symphonies and preludes and fugues. The music here, tonal and accessible though never lacking in complex chromaticism, was all written either as a commission, or dedicated to a person who has known, worked with, or inspired the composer. Some works are overtly liturgical and all are endowed with a deep spirituality.

    Erik Simmons is a fine organist, making his fifth Cooman organ album for Divine Art. He is playing the organ of the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Saint-Omer, France (built 1855) in a live performance recorded through the Hauptwerk system.

  • The Piano At The Ballet: Vol. 2

    The Piano At The Ballet: Vol. 2

    Anthony Goldstone died on January 2, 2017 after a year-long battle with illness. This was his last recording, and is issued now also as a tribute and memorial to one of the greatest pianists of our age who never achieved the international recognition he deserved. His immense musical knowledge, assiduous research, and skilful artistry in both performance and also transcription brought him great acclaim in musicological circles.

    Following the critical praise and commercial success of ‘Piano at the Ballet’ this sequel focuses on transcriptions of ballet music with French connections – through the composer or subject matter and includes both well known works and some refreshingly unfamiliar pieces, including program works by Debussy and Françaix later choreographed.

  • Enigmas

    Enigmas

    A varied range of masterful works from English 20th century composers – some familiar and all major works of importance. Elgar composed his Enigma Variations at the piano; it was always suitable for a solo version and Elgar himself wrote this. Bowen’s Flute Sonata is well known – a Romantic staple — as is Leighton’s Elegy, which deserves to be better known. The piano solo work Folio I is lively and full of fun, while the two Sonnets of Rubbra are exquisitely gorgeous and absolutely essential listening.

    Fine performances by pianist Elspeth Wyllie who is an accomplished soloist and chamber musician/accompanist, working throughout the UK and other countries. The young set of musicians here show exceptional talent and musicianship in the recorded works which are very varied yet make up a coherent concert album.

  • Franz Schubert: Complete Piano Duets

    Franz Schubert: Complete Piano Duets

    The importance of this set cannot be over-stated. First released on 7 separate CDs by Olympia, it launched the international reputation of Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow as one of the world’s foremost duos, and it remains the only complete recording of Schubert’s original duet compositions including many little-known masterpieces and one Polonaise completed by Goldstone from Schubert’s unfinished manuscript. Each disc concludes with a Polonaise encore written by Schumann, inspired by Schubert. The set represents the whole stretch of Schubert’s output from D.1 to D.968.

    The performances are superb, exhilarating and perfectly integrated: the husband and wife team really do play like one person with four hands.

    Tragically, Anthony Goldstone died on January 2, 2017 while we were finalizing the design work, and did not live to see the re-issue of this marvelous collection, repackaged and remastered as a box set.