Category Archives: On record

On Record – Philharmonia Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins – William Mival Orchestral Works (Signum Classics)

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Philharmonia Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins

William Mival
Vale – a pastoral symphony (2022-23)
Tristan – still (2003)
Pluen (feather) (2018)

Signum Classics SIGCD977 [57’13”]
Producer Stephen Johns Engineer Mike Hatch

Recorded 21 & 22 May 2024 at St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Signum Classics issues the first album devoted to William Mival (b.1959), featuring his three most significant orchestral works which also amounts to a representative overview of his output, all being heard in persuasive readings by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins.

What’s the music like?

Best known for almost two decades as Head of Composition at the Royal College of Music, as for his frequent broadcasts on Radio 3, Mival has created an output of a quality out of all proportion to its quantity. Many will first have encountered his music through the orchestral piece On the Ringstreet (1996), its lively traversal of Vienna’s Ringtrasse and acute punning on familiar passages from 19th century opera leaving a very different impression from these pieces and not least because of their preoccupation with interiorized emotional ‘landscapes’.

Premiered prior to a concert presentation of the third act from Tristan und Isolde, and what might be termed a ‘symphonic adagio’, Tristan – still finds Mival integrating elements from that opera in the context of a string quartet Wagner left unrealized in the mid-1860s and the speculative orchestral piece Stille und Umkehr by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. This is music which unfolds inferentially as it variously touches on without needing to embrace a musical Romanticism that, of necessity, remains tantalizingly and unself-consciously beyond reach.

Over a decade had elapsed before Mival returned to composition in earnest – his subsequent orchestral piece being Pluen. Its Welsh title refers to the three heraldic feathers in the Prince of Wales’s coat of arms, duly translated into three variations on the folksong Y Glomen (The Dove) with a brief introduction then a more extended conclusion. Here the composer places himself in a lineage of British musical landscapes, for all that his metamorphic thinking feels more audibly aligned with that of Austro-German composers at the start of the 20th century.

From here to Vale is to find Mival reinforcing his overt while never inhibited take on tonality in what he calls a ‘pastoral symphony’; one whose six continuous sections imply a Classical structure in outline as they draw inspiration from the region of Clywd, adjacent to where the composer was born. Here again, however, the music admits a distinctly European sensibility with its methodical progress toward an ecstatic culmination before concluding in the deftest transcendence. Suffice to add its first section’s ‘Senza ironia’ marking holds good throughout.

Does it all work?

Yes, assuming one responds to Mival’s often oblique yet always sincere response to musical Romanticism. Certainly, those who appreciate such as David Matthews, Philip Sawyers and the more recent works of Robert Saxton should find themselves readily engrossed with what is on offer. It helps that the Philharmonia is so attuned in its playing, and Martyn Brabbins’s direction so unobtrusive in its authority. A pity that earlier piece was not included, but it can be heard on the Royal College of Music YouTube channel

Is it recommended?

Indeed, not least as the sound serves the music ideally and the annotations are so informative. It is to be hoped the release of this album will encourage greater interest in Mival’s output as a whole, with maybe a collection of his various chamber and ensemble works as a follow-up.

Listen / Buy

You can explore purchase options at the Signum Records website, and listen to excerpts from the album at Presto Music. Click on the names to read more about composer William Mival, conductor Martyn Brabbins and the Philharmonia Orchestra

Published post no.2,913 – Wednesday 10 June 2026

On Record – Valerie Fritz & Nina Gurol: Pas de deux (NEOS Music)

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Valerie Fritz (cello), Nina Gurol (piano)

Clarke Viola Sonata (1919, arr. composer)
Debussy Cello Sonata in D minor, L135 (1915)
Höller Mouvements (2010); Piano Sonata no.3 (2010-11); Signe ascendant (2024)

NEOS Music 12526 [74’02”]
Producers Dominik Weinmann, Marie-Josefin Melchior Engineer Klemens Kamp

Recorded 14-16 April 2025 at Studio 2, Bavarian Radio, Munich

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

NEOS issues an album such as places three contrasted works by York Höller (b.1944) within the context of two sonatas from the earlier 20th century, which all adds up to an illuminating programme when realized with the artistry and perception of those musicians featured here.

What’s the music like?

His most recent piece for an instrument prominent in his output, Signe ascendant has Höller paying tribute to Pierre Boulez on what would have been his 100th birthday via a miniature whose motivic content is derived from the latter’s surname – its lucid and eventful unfolding typical of this composer. Written for a competition organized by Kulturkreis der Deutschen Industrie, the Third Piano Sonata comprises a single movement which is in almost constant evolution; its improvisatory opening phase setting out motifs to be developed in alternately incisive and lyrical episodes towards a conclusion the more powerful in expression through being so methodically attained. Coming respectively 42 and 24 years after his earlier such works, the present piece is no less summatory of Höller’s music at its time of composition.

Its being an ‘abstract’ or ‘imaginary’ ballet makes clear the link between Mouvements and similarly designated works by Höller’s teacher Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Not that it could be mistaken for any other composer – witness the sardonic playfulness of its Entrée, duly intensified in the Pas de deux; the Interlude affords a measure of ruminative while by no means uneventful calm, before the Finale ties up any thematic and conceptual loose-ends via a purposefulness as makes this work more than the sum of its already impressive parts.

The first of a projected six sonatas (only three of which were realized) intended to reinforce his innately French aesthetic, Debussy’s Cello Sonata gets a restrained yet insightful reading – its ‘Prologue’ exuding a fugitive uncertainty brusquely countered by the Sérénade, whose disjunctive gestures are duly channelled into the tensile energy of the Finale.

Even finer as an interpretation is that of the Viola Sonata by Rebecca Clarke, in its highly idiomatic cello transcription. Whether in the restless though precisely gauged musings of its Impetuoso, the speculative dialogue of its central Vivace then rapt serenity of its final Adagio which builds unerringly to the bracing and affirmative close, this is a superb rendering of a work that has (rightly) come into its own during the past quarter-century as a cornerstone of its repertoire.

Does it all work?

Undoubtedly – even if, as a sequence, it might have been preferable to have commenced with the Debussy then continue with the three Höller works and ended with the Clarke. That said, it is easy enough to re-programme the order and this hardly detracts from the persuasiveness of what is heard here; Valerie Fritz and Nina Gurol conveying the specific qualities of the duo works while pointing up stylistic connections between them. Those who know Höller’s Third Sonata through Fabio Martino’s account (Oehms) will likely find Gurol even more insightful.

Is it recommended?

Very much so. Spacious but not lacking definition, the sound is well up to NEOS’s customary high standards and there are succinct if informative booklet notes by the musicians. Hopefully there will be further such combinations of modern and contemporary music from this source.

Listen / Buy

You can explore purchase options on the NEOS website. Click on the names to read more about cellist Valerie Fritz, pianist Nina Gurol and composer York Höller

Published post no.2,912 – Tuesday 9 June 2026

On Record – Moses Pergament Volume One: A Musical Miscellany (Toccata Classics)

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Martin Malmgren (piano) (all except Fantasia differente) with Tomas Nuñez (cello) (Meditations, Melodia romantica, Fantasia differente); musicians from Agora Music Collective [Sebastian Silén, Lea Tuuri (violins), Mathias Hortling (cello)] (Chanson triste); Helsinki Metropolitan Orchestra / Sasha Mäkilä (Piano Concerto); Helsinki Chamber Orchestra / Aku Sorensen (Fantasia differente)

Moses Pergament
Piano Concerto (1951-2)
Sorrow Op.5 (1908-09)
Lyrical Dances (1912-14)
King Solomon – Sulamith’s Dance
Chanson triste (both 1915)
The Feast of Esther (1936): Dance; Adagio
They Stakes their Lives (1939): The Mill, Minuet (both arr. Malgren), Valse lente
Festive Fanfare (1961, arr. composer)
For Nicole (1974)
Meditation (1974)
Meditation (1969)
Melodia romantica (1970)
Fantasia differente (1969)

Toccata Classics TOCC0728 [76’28”]
Producer Martin Malmgren Engineers Matti Heinonen, Sofia Riippi

Recorded 2021-2024, with full venue details here

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics issued the first in a series affording an overview of Moses Pergament (1893-1977), a Finnish-born Swedish composer, conductor and critic whose music received belated recognition in his lifetime and has received scant attention in the half-century since his death.

What’s the music like?

Not a few listeners (such as this reviewer) first encountered Pergament in Stig Westerberg’s recording of the ballet Krelantems och Eldeling, striking and eventful music which typifies his complex stylistic make-up overall. The present release ranges widely over Pergament’s output – thereby confirming his idiom to be less one of innate originality than a skilful and constantly evolving synthesis as draws on his Lithuanian ancestry, Finnish adolescence and Swedish maturity; all the while underpinned with elements drawn from his Jewish heritage.

This is nowhere better demonstrated than in his Piano Concerto. Whether or not the musical content infers any concrete programme, it provides a refreshing take on the three-movement archetype – taking in a tensile allegro prefaced by a commanding Maestoso, an eloquent and often plangent adagio, then a lively and increasingly propulsive Allegretto with the deftest of resolutions. Standing in a notable linage of such concertos by Hindemith (1945), Tcherepnin, Blacher (both 1947) and Rosenberg (1950), this is a significant work whose revival is timely.

The remainder of this anthology unfolds, chronologically, from the inwardly elegiac Sorrow and the quizzical playfulness of three Lyrical Dances, to the charged sensuality of Sulamith’s Dance then suffused lamenting (abetted in its revised scoring) of Chanson triste. Two pieces from a seemingly unused score for the play The Feast of Esther convey a calmly simmering intensity, and three pieces for the film They Staked their Lives yield an imaginative response to what appears a well-meaning but unintentionally hilarious perspective on Totalitarianism.

The proclamatory Festive Fanfare and touchingly evocative For Nicole lead into a group of cello pieces inspired by the artistry of Gaspar Cassadó. Although the latest of these, the solo Meditation sounds inwardly pensive next to the overt volatility of the eponymous duo from five years earlier or the distinctly equivocal interplay of Melodia romantica. The final piece also makes the deepest impact – Fantasia differente emerging as a processional of mounting anguish then sombre evanescence, its ‘Ciélo e térra’ subtitle hinting at an existential subtext.

Does it all work?

Pretty much throughout – owing not least to the commitment from these musicians, for whom making this album was far more than just another assignment. Above all, those contributions of Martin Malmgren who not only tackles the Piano Concerto with aplomb but also pens the detailed and what might be called ‘positively contentious’ notes on this composer’s life and music; part of a booklet which also includes a pertinent consideration of national identity by Henrik Rosengren. Those new to Pergament could hardly hope for a more inclusive context.

Is it recommended?

It is. Anyone suitably enthused should investigate releases on the Phono Suecia and Caprice labels, not least the choral symphony The Jewish Song regarded as Pergament’s masterpiece. The second volume of this Toccata Classics survey, devoted to songs, has just been released.

Listen / Buy

You can hear excerpts from the album and explore purchase options at the Toccata Classics website. Click on the names to read more about composer Moses Pergament and pianist Martin Malmgren

Published post no.2,911 – Monday 8 June 2026

On Record – Flore Laurentienne: Volume III (Secret City)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

With Volume III, a trilogy begun seven years ago by Quebec composer Mathieu David Gagnon is complete. For Gagnon is the man behind the Flore Laurentienne project, looking to bring organs, analogue synthesizers and string ensembles together in a series of movements to fully appreciate the natural history of the Canadian province. As the press release states:

“The message, the shareable essence, on this third album by Flore Laurentienne, is light; it is the seed in the ground that becomes a plant and then a flower, blooming at its peak and then inevitably wilting so that the cycle can begin again; it is the quest for beauty in chaos, from which harmony is born. On Volume III, Mathieu David Gagnon and his Flore Laurentienne return to celebrate the magnificence of the river and its floral and sylvan surroundings.

This new milestone also marks the end of a trilogy that began in 2019 with Volume I – with the inherent and parallel aspiration of reaching a third volume in order to pay tribute to Volume 3, L’Infonie’s (a Quebec cult collective that blended jazz, prog, art music, and poetry) first album. The latter did not influence Flore Laurentienne’s music per se, but rather its conception of freedom in composition, combining classical and improvisation.

What’s the music like?

As fresh and as beautiful as the wide-open Canadian outdoors. Gagnon has an attractive style, and the interaction between acoustic and electronic is ideally judged.

Fleurs sets out the colourful and genial musical language, describing a flower’s life cycle with bright phrases that interact with instinct and skill. The musical patterns hark back to Baroque times but sound fresh while doing so, enhanced by the electronics bubbling up through the texture.

Régate is initially made of sterner stuff, with a granite outline laid by piano before being joined by warmer strings, which is then cleverly checked until becoming ever more thoughtful.

Le temps is a dreamy play led by the harp, before Fleuve VII begins with intimate piano thoughts before swelling into a joyous paean when joined by strings.

Gagnon saves the best until last, however, with the profile of Navigation VII resembling a bird on the wing, big sweeps of string sound flying overhead before diving beneath the listener. It is a thrilling listen, its mood maintained by the heady orchestral exchanges as (À travers les) Chablis reaches for the skies.

Does it all work?

Yes, and even more so when the first two volumes of the trilogy are included.

Is it recommended?

It is – and this listener, who began with the last part, will be purchasing the previous two. Flore Laurentienne stands for true appreciation of our surroundings, its music capable of transmitting the feeling and heady emotion of being at one with nature.

For fans of… Craig Armstrong, Olafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Sigur Ros

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Published post no.2,907 – Thursday 4 June 2026

On Record – Francesco Celata, Roger Benedict & Daniel Herscovitch – Peripheral Visions: Australian Clarinet Trios (Heritage Records)

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Francesco Celata (clarinet); Roger Benedict (viola); Daniel Herscovitch (piano)

Margaret Sutherland Trio in C major (1935)
Peter Dart Peripheral Visions (2021-22)
Roger Smalley Clarinet Trio (1992-99, rev. 2001)
Andrew Schultz Stick Dance no.2 Op.22b (1989)
Richard Vella Tango (1990)
Brett Dean Night Window (1993)

Heritage Records HTGCD119 [71’25”]English texts included
Producer David Kim-Boyle Engineer David Kinney

Recorded 27 & 29 November 2023, 14 & 15 April 2025 at Verbrugghen Hall, Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Heritage releases an enterprising anthology of pieces for clarinet trio from three generations of Australian composers that, in the process, demonstrates a stylistically varied while always imaginative approach at the forefront of these consistently assured and committed recordings.

What’s the music like?

Thanks to recent revivals (not least her tone poem Haunted Hills at last year’s Prom season), the importance of Margaret Sutherland in the context of Australian music is well established. Unheard for eight decades, her Clarinet Trio typifies the unforced Classicism of her maturity – whether in that modal tinge of its restrained opening Allegro, winsome poise of its central Adagio or the amiable impetus of its closing Allegro giocoso. It certainly provides a telling contrast with Stick Dance by Andrew Schultz which, as reworked from his earlier piece for larger ensemble, leaves a distinctive impression through often disjunctive contrasts and an ominously visual quality doubtless emanating from its inspiration in Indonesian puppetry.

At the forefront of new music in the UK and subsequently Australia, Roger Smalley latterly found a productive rapprochement with the musical past as demonstrated by his Piano Trio. Its concise sonata-form design is overlaid with that of variations in what becomes a process of continual development away from then back to that melodic fragment from the finale of Brahms’ Clarinet/Viola Sonata in E flat. From the intrinsically musical to the overtly visual – Peripheral Visions finds Peter Dart referencing poems by W. G. Sebald or drawings by Jan Peter Tripp as it unfolds from stealthy dialogue in ‘Reflections and Shadows’, via contrasts of darkness and light in ‘Above the Somme’, to emotive effects of colour in ‘After Cézanne’. The no less visual (and theatrically derived) immediacy of Richard Vella’s Tango makes for an ideal upbeat to Night Window, Brett Dean’s engagingly oblique take on the piano trio as genre or medium. Here an ‘Introduction’ of cadenzas for bass clarinet and viola leads into a ‘Fast, vigorous’ movement, with piano making its presence felt in music incisive and agile. There follows ‘Variations’, on a chorale-like theme whose otherness is as pervasive on the brief first four of these as on a more extended fifth variation that crystallizes the expressive essence overall. It only remains for ‘Return’ to bring about closure, its capricious progress drawing salient motivic facets from across the work into purposeful and inevitable accord.

Does it all work?

Very much so. What comes across most tellingly throughout this recital is a lack of inhibition, shared by these composers, when it comes to writing for a medium already much favoured by those in France and Germany during the previous century. The highly distinct nature of these three instruments is inevitably exploited; so too their timbral or textural similarities for what can equally become an ensemble unified as to its overall sound and conception. In touching on both premises, these three musicians convey the potential of all six pieces in full measure.

Is it recommended?

It is. Sound could hardly be improved on for clarity or definition, without sacrificing warmth, while the booklet note features succinctly informative commentaries by five of the composers as part of an overview that in itself segues unobtrusively between description and biography.

Listen / Buy

You can explore purchase options at the Heritage Records website

Published post no.2,902 – Saturday 30 May 2026