A day's listening...

Several CDs newly received and sampled before a long awaited return to the old/new Royal Festival Hall for an exhausting Mahler III...

Far more enjoyable than that proved to be was a half hour session sampling Scarlatti sonatas from the latest Nimbus box, Volume VI including Venice XIV (1742) K43 - K93; Venice XV (1749) K98 - K138; ideal breakfast-time music to start the day, but avoid playing too many lest they recede to background listening!

The box hasseven hours of them on 6 CDs, played by marathon harpsichordist Richard Lester unflaggingly, and with apparent spontaneity maintained throughout [NI1730]. The complete project will add up to 38 CDs in 7 Volumes, only one to go and all gaining rave reviews !

For something new, a marvellous Composer Portrait CD of one of the younger members of the Wallfisch dynasty, Ben Wallfisch (previously noted as Ruth Palmer's hired conductor for her Shostakovich debut disc) shows himself an engaging 27 year old composer of huge achievement and with great potential for the future

And in some ways the most exciting discovery of all, the unfortunate Erich Zeisl's piano concerto (1952) which was never played in his lifetime. It brings to mind fleetingly Reger, more so Schmidt... But Zeisl is his own man, really original. The concerto could be a wonderful platform for a good pianist student of exploratory bent who has a possibility to play with the college orchestra? Or maybe for an aspiring BBC Young Pianist...

Peter Grahame Woolf
(Editor)