WOMEN COMPOSERS + GUSTAV HOLST

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

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THREE RECENT RELEASES

• NAVONA (NV6254) – HOMAGE TO WOMEN COMPOSERS
Ruth Lomon & Iris Graffman Wenglin, piano
Piano music by Clara Schumann, Germaine Tailleferre, Louise Talma, Miriam Gideon, Barbara Penland, Thea Musgrave, Ruth Lomon, Jacqueline Fontyn, Marta Ptaszyńska, Shulamit Ran.

An interesting compilation of mostly 20th century music for the keyboard nicely packaged as a two-CD album. There is both one piano and duo piano music ranging from Five Caprices by Clara Schumann to a couple of charming collection of vignettes by Shulamit Ran and Thea Mugrave.

**** – Very good
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• CHANDOS DIGITAL (CHAN 29139) – HER VOICE
Neave Trio
Music for piano trio by Louise Farrenc, Amy Beach and Rebecca Clarke

Three 19th century obscure Romantic gems by three lesser-known yet highly gifted female composers flawlessly and feelingly played by Anna Wiliams, violin, Mikhail Veselov, cello and Eri Nakamura, piano. The accompanying booklet is excellent as is the limpid engineering.

**** – Very good
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• REFERENCE RECORDINGS (RR-146SACD)
Kansas City Symphony Orchestra Michael Stern, conductor
Gustav Holst – The Planets              Ballet music from The Perfect Fool

A hybrid Super-audio CD that offers top quality sound supporting a superb performance by Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, pulling all the stops in each of seven visits to the then known planets: Mars is given a massively bellicose sound and is then followed by a transparently crystalline Venus and on through a fleeting Mercury, a hyper-active Jupiter, a sulking Saturn, a mystical Uranus and a riveting Neptune that fades off into eerie infinity. The accompanying Perfect Fool ballet music is vintage Edwardian fluff – charming though it is.

***** – Outstanding

Rafael de Acha http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”