Divine Art Records

Product Cat: Recording

  • Heritage

    Heritage

    Violinist Aisha Syed Castro (b.1989) may well be one of the most remarkably gifted musicians to come from the Dominican Republic and the team at Divine Art are tremendously excited to have signed this young virtuoso for an album of works with principally American and Latin roots. She has been described as a ’virtuoso’ by the press on three continents, and has not only engaged in a busy and highly successful performing career but is tireless in her work for the underprivileged. Aisha is the Honorary Cultural Goodwill Ambassador of the Dominican Republic and works devotedly through charitable ventures (some of which she founded) to bring classical music to the underprivileged and socially disadvantaged.

    In her new album, Aisha has brought together a program of works that have special meaning for her, from Spanish/ Latin/ American sources, including extracts from ‘West Side Story’, works by the Dominican maestro Rafael Solano, music from black composers Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and William Grant Still, and well-known little masterpieces by Piazzolla, Granados and Albeníz. A special piece for the artist is ‘Aisha’s Dance’ from Khachaturian’s Gayaneh ballet, which she has played since she was 15. This recording was made in April 2019 in England and is a sparkling and exotic program of masterworks.

    Aisha’s musical partner here is pianist Martin Labazevitch who also arranged the closing track, a medley of hymns dear to Aisha including a beautiful rendering of the timeless ‘Amazing Grace’. Martin is a Steinway artist who has attracted rave reviews around the world for his lyricism and intensity of performance.

  • Jonathan Östlund: Imago

    Jonathan Östlund: Imago

    “Östlund’s 2019 double CD Voyages and 2020’s Mistral elevate him to the status of the 21st century’s Debussy.”– Jan Hocek (His Voice)

    Jonathan Östlund (b.1975) is a Swedish composer who has recently been living in Romania and before that London before returning to his home country in 2021. He has manifested an avid interest for music from an early age and has pursued his passion with a BA and MA in Composition at the Luleå Tekniska Universitet, in Sweden. He has studied under the artistic guidance of Prof. Rolf Martinsson, Prof. Jan Sandström and Prof. Sverker Jullander, among others, and has so far completed over 100 works, including several orchestral pieces, a Violin Concerto and a Piano Concerto, and has been awarded many prizes in international competitions.

    This new album follows the distinctive format of previous programs in that it features orchestral, vocal, choral, instrumental and chamber music. Östlund’s primary inspiration is nature which is brought out fully in beautiful Impressionist works such as L’eau de l’oubli and La nuit étoilee. He is also fascinated by the art of composing fantasies and paraphrases on classics and several are included here. A large team of soloists (several of whom also gave the world premieres of these works) were gathered in various locations, often having to work through lockdowns, to record this album. Östlund’s music is very accessible and tonal and often full of wit and humor, and is always atmospheric.

  • Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases and Transcriptions, volume 1

    Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases and Transcriptions, volume 1

    Saint-Saëns excelled as a composer, conductor, pianist and organist – his composition output is enormous, reaching over 160 titles of which many are substantial – operas, ballets, symphonies – yet today much of his work remains neglected and he is known by a few works only: the Organ Symphony, Samson et Dalila, Danse Macabre and Carnival of the Animals. His original piano pieces are generally light ‘salon’ works but are nonetheless delightful and well formed. His major contribution to the piano works is the equally neglected body of transcriptions (of his own works and those of others) where he was sadly eclipsed by the more outgoing and promotion-minded Franz Liszt. This album and its companion include a number of first recordings, introducing a large body of keyboard gems to a new audience. Volume 1 is divided into two sections: transcriptions from Opera and Ballet, and pieces inspired by specific places.

    Antony Gray is a London-based Australian pianist and teacher with numerous acclaimed recordings to his name on ABC and other labels including a 3CD set of Bach transcriptions and a 5-disc set containing the entire piano output of Poulenc. He has premiered many new pieces written for him and has often appeared on radio in the UK and Australia.

    Find volume 2 here

  • Robin Stevens: Music for Cello and Piano

    Robin Stevens: Music for Cello and Piano

    The British composer Robin Stevens (b. 1958) is a great talent who is being discovered by the global music community, due in part to the critical acclaim given to the two previous Divine Art albums of his music. His varied, stimulating and expressive work arises from many influences – from the music of the Romantic era, to mathematics, his faith and inspiration of his teachers, and he is now producing substantial works for varied instrumental groupings, which are modernist and original, but yet immediately accessible.

    An accomplished cellist himself, Stevens has produced a body of work for the instrument which should become part of the regular repertoire. On this album, works for cello and piano stand alongside pieces for solo cello, from the substantial 27–minute Sonata Romantica to several compositions in a lighter, tonal style full of Stevens’ wit and humour. Written between 1994 and 2020, they present a diverse range of expressionist and gently modernist sound worlds

    American cellist Nicholas Trygstad moved to England in 1998 to study at the Royal Northern College of Music. He became principal cello of Scottish Opera and from 2005 the Hallé Orchestra, and is very active in both solo recitals, chamber concerts and his teaching duties both at the RNCM in Manchester and also now with NYO Inspire.

    David Jones is Head of Accompaniment at the Royal Northern College and pianist for the Hallé Choir, and has given premiere performances of works by a number of prominent British composers. His previous recordings include three albums of music by Jeffrey Lewis, attracting the comment “not to be missed”: by Gramophone. Both Nicholas and David have appeared on previous Divine Art / Métier recordings.

  • Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases and Transcriptions, volume 2

    Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Works, Paraphrases and Transcriptions, volume 2

    Saint-Saëns excelled as a composer, conductor, pianist and organist – his composition output is enormous, reaching over 160 titles of which many are substantial – operas, ballets, symphonies – yet today much of his work remains neglected and he is known by a few works only: the Organ Symphony, Samson et Dalila, Danse Macabre and Carnival of the Animals. His original piano pieces are generally light ‘salon’ works but are nonetheless delightful and well formed. His major contribution to the piano works is the equally neglected body of transcriptions (of his own works and those of others) where he was sadly eclipsed by the more outgoing and promotion-minded Franz Liszt. This album and its companion include a number of first recordings, introducing a large body of keyboard gems to a new audience. Volume 2 is divided into two sections: transcriptions from Cantata and Oratorio and original ‘occasional pieces’, transcriptions of two works by Luis de Milan and the Douze Transcriptions (of which there 13!) of works by J. S. Bach.

    Antony Gray is a London-based Australian pianist and teacher with numerous acclaimed recordings to his name on ABC and other labels including a 3CD set of Bach transcriptions and a 5-disc set containing the entire piano output of Poulenc. He has premiered many new pieces written for him and has often appeared on radio in the UK and Australia.

    Find volume 1 here

  • Metamorphoses

    Metamorphoses

    Alfonso Soldano is professor of piano performance at the Giordano Conservatory in Foggia, Italy, following similar posts at Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome and in Trani. He was a favorite student of Ciccolini and is renowned for his virtuosity. He was awarded the International Gold Medal for ‘Best Italian Artist’ in 2013 and has won many other competitions, and is also a busy writer and transcriber. His previous recordings for Divine Art, of the music of Rachmaninoff, Bortkiewicz and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, received glowing reviews. He has performed and given masterclasses all around Italy, and in Germany, Switzerland and Romania, and post-Covid is planning a wider international concert schedule, hoping to tour the USA.

    His Rachmaninoff is especially magical. He has transcribed 15 of the composer’s romantic songs for solo piano in three books of ‘Romances’ which he performs here with works by Debussy which Soldano has also transcribed. The album is a glorious, sumptuous immersion in late Romantic and Impressionist music which will appeal equally to classical experts and the wider general public. It is a collection of sheer beauty.

  • Eugène Ysaÿe – Violin Discoveries

    Eugène Ysaÿe – Violin Discoveries

    Belgian violinist, conductor and composer Eugène Ysaÿe (1858–1931) has been recognized as one of the greatest violin virtuosos of the 19th and early 20th centuries; regarded as the “King of the Violin” by Nathan Milstein, his legacy has inspired generations of musicians. Ysaÿe was also a true avant-garde composer whose works feature revolutionary modern violin technique, unique expressive devices, profound musicality and harmonic originality, which eventually served as the bridge between the era of the Romantic virtuoso and contemporary music. It is odd, then, to realise that many of his works remain unknown, unpublished and unrecorded. This album presents for the first time several works for violin and piano ranging from 1885 to 1924, and a previously unknown Violin Concerto in G minor from 1910, which was orchestrated by Sabin Pautza.

    Romanian violinist Sherban Lupu is internationally known; he studied in London with Yehudi Menuhin and other leading teachers and has a very busy career, being best known for his discovery, publication and performance of the music of Enescu, but also has held prestigious posts in Italy and Romania and as concertmaster of San Francisco Opera, USA. He is accompanied here by the bright young pianist Henri Bonamy (who was Professor of Piano in Seoul, Korea and now teaches in Munich) and the fine orchestra of Liepāja, Latvia. The conductor is Paul Mann who has made a name recently with many recordings for Toccata Classics.

  • Seria Ludo – Piano music by Graham Lynch

    Seria Ludo – Piano music by Graham Lynch

    English composer Graham Lynch (b. 1957) is a master of his craft, a composer whose writing is exceptionally detailed, with specific articulations and layerings; not designed for show, but for better expressing the subject matter of his works, many of which are highly impressionist. Much of his work also refers to the baroque French composers such as Couperin, a particular subject of Lynch’s study. The two suites from the White Book series are based on artwork by Sir Christopher Le Brun and other major artists. The music here ranges from a work derived and inspired by the baroque keyboard works of Couperin, through pictoral suites to the flamenco-tango Ay!

    The music is played by two American pianists: White Book 2 is performed by Albert Kim who gave the US premiere in 2018. He was a Carnegie Hall Rising Star and has performed widely throughout the US and China, currently Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Central Missouri.

    The rest of the program is presented by Paul Sánchez, a Fulbright Fellow (2005-2007) and New Piano Collective artist whose concerts and recordings have amassed generous praise: “one of the most beautiful discs in my collection..” – Fanfare; one of his discs reached No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Album chart.

  • At the Heart of the Piano

    At the Heart of the Piano

    A special 3-CD / triple digital album of great Romantic works by one of the world’s most accomplished pianists specialising in works of that era. These stunning performances of Busoni’s Chaconne (after J S Bach) and Berg’s Sonata are receiving their first release; the other tracks were previously issued (on CD only, not digitally ) by Bayer and have been newly remastered.

    Schliessmann is a unique interpreter, never afraid to find a new expression and always searching for the heart of the music and the composer’s inspiration.

    On their initial release these recordings attracted great accolades: American Record Guide said : “The best pianist I know at entering the world and expressing the awareness of the German romantics. There is something personal and unique about Schliessmann’s Schumann. It does not sound like anyone else’s. He is better than any other pianist I have heard.”

    High Performance Review said of his Scriabin: “This is the most imaginative playing one has heard yet – on the level of Richter, Michelangeli, Wild, Gould – the highest order of artistry.”

  • ‘From Russia’ – music for clarinet and orchestra

    ‘From Russia’ – music for clarinet and orchestra

    Pure enjoyment is provided by this delightful new recording of popular Russian music arranged for clarinet and orchestra by Robin White. From Rimsky-Korsakov’s Clarinet Concerto – originally scored for military band – to the Andante Cantabile from Tchaikovsky’s first string quartet (a staple for arrangers for decades) this is a beautifully played album by one of Britain’s busiest orchestras. An interloper (but a welcome one) from Italy (but of Eastern European style) provides a superb finale.

    Ian Scott is the principal clarinet of the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and has been guest principal with several top London orchestras. He has previously made premiere recordings of Clarinet Concertos for ASV and Dutton. Arranger and conductor Robin White has enjoyed a very busy and varied career; his first recording (1992, Chandos) was very popular and he has made other recordings of light music for several labels. He has managed his own orchestra and choir and appeared, with his choir, in a pivotal episode of the British TV drama series EastEnders. As an arranger of light music, his work has been broadcast by BBC orchestras many times.

  • Il Maestro e lo Scolare

    Il Maestro e lo Scolare

    For the first time, here is an album full of piano duets written expressly for teacher and student, from the first in the genre, Haydn’s Il Maestro e lo Scolare, through many well known composers of the 19th and 20th centuries up to the current decade.

    Very few of these works have attained any sort of public awareness apart from Stravinsky’s Easy Pieces, but though written deliberately with one ‘easy’ part for the learner, the pieces are thoroughly delightful, tuneful and never simplistic: indeed they display all the hallmarks of Romantic, Impressionist (and in two cases jazz-inspired) music-making of high quality and all make for extremely entertaining and pleasant listening.

    Antony Gray is a London-based pianist and teacher with acclaimed recordings to his name. His work with students of all ages, those that wish to pursue advanced training and even those who do not, produces a wonderful rapport which shines through in these recordings. Over 50 of Gray’s students are represented on the album.

  • Marian Sawa: Music for Organ

    Marian Sawa: Music for Organ

    Marian Sawa (1937-2005) began serious studies at the age of 14 at the Salesian Organ School, Przemyšl, Poland. He toured actively as an organ performer and from 1966 taught organ at several prestigious schools. As a composer he wrote about 800 pieces in various genres, centred round his music for organ. His music builds on the Polish post-Romantic tradition, knitting fragments from folk tunes and hymns into his work, drawing strongly on Gregorian chant and traditional Polish material.

    Sawa’s personal and individual voice makes his music very recognizable and though little known outside Poland to date, he can be considered perhaps the greatest Eastern European organ composer of the 20th century.

    The pieces on this album, composed between 1971 and 2005, demonstrate vividly the range, variety and often enormous power of his compositions. This recording of the exquisite Fleiter organ (2014) at St. Ludgerus, Billerbeck, was made using the Hauptwerk remote digital access system.