There is much that the listener will find familiar in Radiant Dawn, the new release—and Hyperion’s Record of the Month for August—from Owain Park and The Gesualdo Six. The ensemble’s ‘matchless singing’ (BBC Music Magazine), for example, and the ‘beautifully sung and meticulously researched’ programme (Gramophone); both may be taken for granted. Yet here there is a difference: threaded throughout the album is the solo trumpet of Matilda Lloyd. Whether in the Renaissance motets to which she contributes ecstatic instrumental descants, or in recently commissioned works, her playing brings a thrilling extra dimension to the G6’s exploration of darkness and light.

The most famous depiction of a swan in music may be that by Saint-Saëns in his Carnival of the animals, but it’s by no means unique. Cellist Mats Lidström and his pianist son Leif Kaner-Lidström have taken it as the starting point of Swans, a homage to Saint-Saëns and a fascinating collection of swannish meditations. We encounter swans from the seventeenth century (by Orlando Gibbons) and the twenty-first (both Mats and Leif contribute their own original compositions); there are Polish swans by Szymanowski, Brazilian ones by Villa-Lobos and many others—no fewer than twenty-four in all, which take graceful flight in Mats’s sympathetic arrangements.

Irish National Opera continue their collaboration with Signum Classics presenting a double-bill of Trade & Mary Motorhead by Emma O’Halloran. These are what could be termed ‘cutting-edge’ operas—Trade depicting the awkwardness of a paid-for sexual encounter between an older and a younger man, Mary Motorhead giving the eponymous anti-heroine the chance to explain her moniker (she’s stabbed her husband, among other things). Elaine Kelly conducts, with Naomi Louisa O’Connell playing Mary, and Oisín Ó Dálaigh and John Molloy the guesthouse visitors.

It is probably fair to say that vocal music—or more specifically the songs/mélodies/Lieder of an age largely gone before us—was something of a passion for the late, great Ted Perry, founder of Hyperion Records. Right from the start albums were produced covering an extraordinary range of this repertoire, from complete cycles of Schubert, Brahms and the like, all the way through to wildly esoteric mixed-bag albums, their programmes as enchantingly crafted as their accompanying documentation was fastidiously curated (woe betide the unfortunate Booklet Editor who committed an inaccurate song text to print!). We’re pleased to be able to offer a diverse array of these treasurable albums at a reduced price until the end of September: CDs are just £10.00 each, with download prices reducing correspondingly, and we hope you will find albums to whet your interest. Some highlights are listed below and are included on Vol. 2 of our August sampler (free to download), and you can also » Click here for a full listing.

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There is much that the listener will find familiar in Radiant Dawn, the new release—and Hyperion’s Record of the Month for August—from Owain Park and The Gesualdo Six. The ensemble’s ‘matchless singing’ (BBC Music Magazine), for example, and the ‘beautifully sung and meticulously researched’ programme (Gramophone); both may be taken for granted. Yet here there is a difference: threaded throughout the album is the solo trumpet of Matilda Lloyd. Whether in the Renaissance motets to which she contributes ecstatic instrumental descants, or in recently commissioned works, her playing brings a thrilling extra dimension to the G6’s exploration of darkness and light.

The most famous depiction of a swan in music may be that by Saint-Saëns in his Carnival of the animals, but it’s by no means unique. Cellist Mats Lidström and his pianist son Leif Kaner-Lidström have taken it as the starting point of Swans, a homage to Saint-Saëns and a fascinating collection of swannish meditations. We encounter swans from the seventeenth century (by Orlando Gibbons) and the twenty-first (both Mats and Leif contribute their own original compositions); there are Polish swans by Szymanowski, Brazilian ones by Villa-Lobos and many others—no fewer than twenty-four in all, which take graceful flight in Mats’s sympathetic arrangements.

Irish National Opera continue their collaboration with Signum Classics presenting a double-bill of Trade & Mary Motorhead by Emma O’Halloran. These are what could be termed ‘cutting-edge’ operas—Trade depicting the awkwardness of a paid-for sexual encounter between an older and a younger man, Mary Motorhead giving the eponymous anti-heroine the chance to explain her moniker (she’s stabbed her husband, among other things). Elaine Kelly conducts, with Naomi Louisa O’Connell playing Mary, and Oisín Ó Dálaigh and John Molloy the guesthouse visitors.

It is probably fair to say that vocal music—or more specifically the songs/mélodies/Lieder of an age largely gone before us—was something of a passion for the late, great Ted Perry, founder of Hyperion Records. Right from the start albums were produced covering an extraordinary range of this repertoire, from complete cycles of Schubert, Brahms and the like, all the way through to wildly esoteric mixed-bag albums, their programmes as enchantingly crafted as their accompanying documentation was fastidiously curated (woe betide the unfortunate Booklet Editor who committed an inaccurate song text to print!). We’re pleased to be able to offer a diverse array of these treasurable albums at a reduced price until the end of September: CDs are just £10.00 each, with download prices reducing correspondingly, and we hope you will find albums to whet your interest. Some highlights are listed below and are included on Vol. 2 of our August sampler (free to download), and you can also » Click here for a full listing.

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There is much that the listener will find familiar in Radiant Dawn, the new release—and Hyperion’s Record of the Month for August—from Owain Park and The Gesualdo Six. The ensemble’s ‘matchless singing’ (BBC Music Magazine), for example, and the ‘beautifully sung and meticulously researched’ programme (Gramophone); both may be taken for granted. Yet here there is a difference: threaded throughout the album is the solo trumpet of Matilda Lloyd. Whether in the Renaissance motets to which she contributes ecstatic instrumental descants, or in recently commissioned works, her playing brings a thrilling extra dimension to the G6’s exploration of darkness and light.

The most famous depiction of a swan in music may be that by Saint-Saëns in his Carnival of the animals, but it’s by no means unique. Cellist Mats Lidström and his pianist son Leif Kaner-Lidström have taken it as the starting point of Swans, a homage to Saint-Saëns and a fascinating collection of swannish meditations. We encounter swans from the seventeenth century (by Orlando Gibbons) and the twenty-first (both Mats and Leif contribute their own original compositions); there are Polish swans by Szymanowski, Brazilian ones by Villa-Lobos and many others—no fewer than twenty-four in all, which take graceful flight in Mats’s sympathetic arrangements.

Irish National Opera continue their collaboration with Signum Classics presenting a double-bill of Trade & Mary Motorhead by Emma O’Halloran. These are what could be termed ‘cutting-edge’ operas—Trade depicting the awkwardness of a paid-for sexual encounter between an older and a younger man, Mary Motorhead giving the eponymous anti-heroine the chance to explain her moniker (she’s stabbed her husband, among other things). Elaine Kelly conducts, with Naomi Louisa O’Connell playing Mary, and Oisín Ó Dálaigh and John Molloy the guesthouse visitors.

It is probably fair to say that vocal music—or more specifically the songs/mélodies/Lieder of an age largely gone before us—was something of a passion for the late, great Ted Perry, founder of Hyperion Records. Right from the start albums were produced covering an extraordinary range of this repertoire, from complete cycles of Schubert, Brahms and the like, all the way through to wildly esoteric mixed-bag albums, their programmes as enchantingly crafted as their accompanying documentation was fastidiously curated (woe betide the unfortunate Booklet Editor who committed an inaccurate song text to print!). We’re pleased to be able to offer a diverse array of these treasurable albums at a reduced price until the end of September: CDs are just £10.00 each, with download prices reducing correspondingly, and we hope you will find albums to whet your interest. Some highlights are listed below and are included on Vol. 2 of our August sampler (free to download), and you can also » Click here for a full listing.

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