May releases on Orchid

Brodsky Quartet session pics

This week the Brodsky Quartet were at Potton Hall, making their first album for Orchid.

Pictures: Patrick Allen

James Gilchrist blog

Jan 2010.

It's a few months now since Die Schöne Müllerin finally hit the shelves, and we have had a chance to draw breath and think about what we have managed to achieve. For Anna and me, the appearance of this disc was both an end and a beginning. An end for us, because we have wanted to record this piece for so many years, and have approached so many record companies to be turned down solely on the fact of my not being a native German speaker; and a beginning since, having found a company that seems to want to be bold and break out a little from the norms of the industry, we hope to be doing more!

DSM is a work Anna and I have performed more and more often through our (yikes!) twelve-year partnership, and recording it last year felt like the right time. It's the right way round to do things: to know a work inside out and then to set down a recorded version. In some ways the sessions themselves were the easiest bit: we knew what we wanted to say, and just had to hold in our minds the span and drama of a live performance. It is truly daunting to record such a well-known and well-recorded work. We felt that we had to hold onto our belief to do it how we felt right, and not worry about comparisons and critics and received opinion. We knew from our many live performances that though our approach delighted many, some were always troubled by the more drama-oriented stance, and felt offended that we couldn't "leave Schubert alone". I know what I think about leaving Schubert alone: he was 31 when he died, and did not have the Giant status he has rightly since acquired, and I'm quite sure that to demand a Schubertian "orthodoxy" is to lose the very heart of the passion that moved this young man to write such works of genius. Anna and I simply had to do it as we felt right, as we felt had moved the audiences we have stood in front of, and we had to trust our belief in the work and ourselves. To me, it's partly a mark of this music's greatness that it does really still speak through so many and such varied performances. But all this is easier said than done in such a cut-throat and public arena. So I must say, there was much nail-biting before the critical reception became known. And by and large, it did go down well. I think we haven't had such a consistently good field of reviews ever before, and we were really delighted.

Looking ahead, Orchid has asked us to record Winterreise and Schwanengesang. This is like a dream come true! The plan at the moment is to record in May, so now it's back to the huge task of coordinating another recording - booking venues, engineers, translators, coaches, writers, pianos and tuners. But the goal is in sight of setting down our vision of these works and to hope our freshness and belief in them comes out in a way that will move audiences and persuade them that English artists have something to say about great Austrian music. January in the snow seems like the right time to be thinking about a new winter journey.

Trio session pics

The as yet un-named trio consisting of Matthew Trusler, Lawrence Power and Simon Crawford-Philips was in the studio last week, recording works for violin, viola and piano by Bax, Brahms and rebecca Clark.

Lawrence


Lawrence & Simon


Simon


Someone thought it would be a good idea to switch instruments around for a while. It sounded suprisingly good actually.


Although Matthew still hasn't learnt the viola clef...

Conchord ask the questions...

Conchord members Maya, Dan, Emily and Julian ask each other some challenging questions:

Maya: What is your favourite city (after St Petersburg of course)?
Julian: Vienna
Emily: Spoleto, Italy (where I played two Russian operas, Eugene Onegin and War and Peace)
Maya: Paris (surprise surprise!)

Emily: What is your favourite Russian piece of music? (aside from Balakirev, of course:-)
Daniel: Eugene Onegin, Tschaikovsky. Devastating and perfect!
Julian: So many…but Evgeny Onegin is probably the piece I would take to a desert island
Maya: Glazunov String Quintet is certainly one of them. Rachmaninov 2nd piano concerto (with Rachmaninov). Tchaikovsky 5 (Happy Philharmonia memories with Muti). Stravinsky Firebird. Balakirev Islamey. Glazunov Violin Concerto (Milstein). And so many more!

Maya: What was your most memorable experience of this recording?
Julian: Looking at the night sky above Potton Hall!
Emily: Other than the recording of course(!) jumping on Jeremy Hayes' trampoline in recording breaks
Maya: Jeremy Hayes keeping a smile on his face after 11 hours of recording in one day... (and everyone else, too, actually!)

Emily: What has been your best seafood experience in Suffolk?
Daniel: lobster and chips, Aldeburgh fish and chip shop
Julian: The Butley Oysterage at Orford

Emily: Do they play wooden flutes in St Petersburg?
Daniel: Balakirev Octet would certainly have been played on a wood flute. So I will be helping to recreate original 19th century Russian sound!
Maya: Really???! I had no idea!

Maya: How long did it take you to read Crime and Punishment (718 pages..)?
Julian: Several months – the book is connected in my mind with a neighbour playing Mahler 10 over and over again at top volume, creating an unforgettable mixture of Austrian and Russian angst...
Emily: I'm embarrassed to say that have not read Crime and Punishment (yet), but have read War and Peace, which took about 6 weeks...

Emily: What is your favourite flavour of the Russian dumplings I make on Christmas eve? (a leftover of my Ukrainian heritage!)
Daniel: sauerkraut and mushroom

Maya: Have you ever seen more stars than in the Potton Hall sky?
Julian: No
Emily: I have only seen more stars in my homeland of Minnesota, where I've seen the Northern Lights.=

BBC Choice for Korngold

Matthew Trusler's new Korngold/Rozsa album has received five stars and is selected as 'Music Choice' in the Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine.

Gilchrist Gramophone Editor's choice

Congratulations to James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook on receiving the Gramophone Editor's Choice for their new Schubert recording.