Resonus Classics has just released a recording of new music for violin and orchestra from Northern Ireland while Inventa Records has released a new CD to mark 400 years since Orlando Gibbons’s death.
Orlando Gibbons 400: An English Keyboard Legacy (INV1022) marks 400 years since the composer and organist’s death, harpsichordist Friederike Chylek presents a programme of English keyboard music from Orlando Gibbons, William Byrd, and John Bull.
The recital shows how Byrd’s vocal-inspired counterpoint, Bull’s virtuosic keyboard style, and Gibbons’s synthesis of both contributed to the development of English keyboard music.
This recording presents Gibbons as the ‘end of an era,’ and as a composer who brought together the ideas of his predecessors while exploring new possibilities for the keyboard. An accessible introduction for listeners discovering English keyboard music and a solid overview for those familiar with the repertoire.
On the CD Spin (RES1032) from Resonus Classics Irish violinist Darragh Morgan, a tireless advocate for new music, presents four concertos written for him over the past two decades by Frank Lyons, Brian Irvine, Bill Campbell and Ryan Molloy.
Recorded with the Ulster Orchestra under David Brophy, this compelling programme reflects the richness of Northern Ireland’s contemporary voice.
Electronic transformation, folk-inflected rhythms and lyrical introspection coexist with passages of dazzling virtuosity, each work revealing a distinctive sound world. Together they form a vivid, cohesive portrait in which solo brilliance and symphonic imagination are fused with striking assurance and colour.