JOY IN THE MORNING - EX CATHEDRA / JEFFREY SKIDMORE
ST MATTHEW PASSION - EX CATHEDRA / JEFFREY SKIDMORE
DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN - JAMES GILCHRIST / ANNA TILBROOK
ROZSA / KORNGOLD VIOLIN CONCERTOS - MATTHEW TRUSLER / DÜSSELDORFER SYMPHONIKER / YASUO SHINOZAKI
PARIS - MAYA KOCH / JULIAN MILFORD
BLUES - MATTHEW TRUSLER / WAYNE MARSHALL
THE PITY OF WAR - MATTHEW TRUSLER / MARTIN ROSCOE / SAMUEL WEST

		EX CATHEDRA / JEFFREY SKIDMORE JOY IN THE MORNING Classic FM Magazine Concentrated thought and artistic conviction inform Jeffrey Skidmore's eclectic repertoire selection for Joy in the Morning, twin blessings that govern its compelling cumulative impact. Ex Cathedra's latest album blends the nativity story's eternal mystery, eloquently expressed in Alex Roth's Unborn and John Joubert's title-track recording, with more earthy celebrations of Jesus's birth: the striking contrast between Britten's In the bleak midwinter and Gardner's evergreen setting of The Holly andd the Ivy, for example, works within the context of a programme clearly guided by related moods of reverence, contemplation, joyfulness and popular sentiment. Skidmore's ace chamber choir sings with great heart and intensity. The group's tonal warmth and collective ability to generate atmosphere add to the pleasures of listening. Choir & Organ November/December 2009 And finally, out of the bran tub comes my favourite Christmas choral disc of 2009 - Joy in the Morning (ORC 100008), another wide-ranging collection from Jeffrey Skidmore's excellent Birmingham-based choir, Ex Cathedra. There's entertainment aplenty ... And as well as 'standards' by BrittenWillcocks and Darke, there's seldom heard Mendelssohn, substantial Kenneth Leighton, and captivating novelties by Roth, Hakim and Bates. Birmingham Post 5 November 2009 Ex Cathedra’s “Joy in the Morning” brings an exhilarating mix of Christmas music from all periods and countries. There is a strong contemporary input, including John Joubert’s delightful Joy in the Morning, the Moseley composer appropriately providing the title for this delicious release from a choir which has performed his music with such devoted enthusiasm over many years, not least during his 80th birthday celebrations two years ago. Instrumental accompaniments are varied and colourful, and the whole feel of this disc is redolent of Ex Cathedra’s popular “Christmas by Candlelight” concerts at St Paul’s Church in Hockley and elsewhere (Orchid Classics ORC 100008). Musicweb-international.com 9 November 2009 It was with a Christmas disc that I reviewed six years ago that I first encountered the fine Birmingham-based choir, Ex Cathedra and their instrumentalist colleagues. Since then I’ve reviewed several of their discs and concerts and it’s a great pleasure to welcome this new Christmas CD. The programme is wide-ranging and full of interest. There are some familiar items dotted around the place - one is glad to see Sir David Willcocks’ splendid arrangement of the Sussex Carol in this, his ninetieth birthday year. Harold Darke’s little classic puts in an equally welcome appearance and receives an expressive and polished performance. It’s interesting to set this beside Britten’s response to the same Rosetti text, but combined, in his case, with the ‘Corpus Christi Carol’. In fact both the Britten items come from important larger Christmas works: ‘In the bleak midwinter’ is part of A Boy was Born, while ‘This little Babe’, here given a pulsating performance, is from his Ceremony of Carols. Many will be familiar with John Gardner’s jaunty Tomorrow shall be my dancing day; but how many know his setting for high voices of The holly and the ivy? I didn’t, and it’s a delight. Gardner provides a perky tune and the ladies choir eventually separates into several parts as the setting unfolds. Among other pleasures is an ardent, committed performance of Kenneth Leighton’s masterly setting of Herrick’s celebrated lines, ‘What sweeter music’. I’d heard Naji Hakim’s carol before but it’s good to hear it again with its lovely warm French harmonies Music from earlier times is well represented also. In his bi-centenary year Mendelssohn gets more than a look-in. I must say I wouldn’t have associated ‘For he shall give his angels’ (Elijah) with Christmas but it’s good to hear it so expertly done as here by members of the Ex Cathedra Consort. The other two pieces come from his unfinished oratorio, Christus. These are much more obviously seasonal offerings though I have to say the music doesn’t seem to me to be at anywhere near the same level of invention as ‘For he shall give his angels’. Going back further still in time Gabrieli’s O magnum mysterium is splendidly sonorous, the singing richly underpinned by sackbuts. The traditional Irish and Scots pieces are hauntingly beautiful, especially the latter item. Ex Cathedra’s exploration of music from the Latin America of the Conquistadores has won plaudits in recent years and the piece by Pascual, from seventeenth century Mexico, is another fine example of the genre. It’s an ebullient, dancing piece of music and Jeffrey Skidmore seasons the mix with a judicious amount of percussion. The recital takes its name from the setting by John Joubert, a composer whose music Ex Cathedra has championed over the years. This is a setting of words from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Primarily it’s an extrovert and joyful piece and I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed equally Jeffrey Skidmore’s own arrangement, Jubilate, with which the programme concludes. However, beyond saying that it’s both ingenious and entertaining I’m not going to say anything more for fear of spoiling the surprise. The standard both of singing and playing is absolutely first rate throughout the programme. Factor in excellent recorded sound and documentation and you have a most enjoyable and enterprising Christmas offering from Ex Cathedra. The Christmas CD market is overflowing but this issue has a very strong claim indeed on the attention of collectors. John Quinn
		EX CATHEDRA / JEFFREY SKIDMORE JS BACH - ST MATTHEW PASSION BBC Music Magazine December 2009 The St Matthew Passion was part of Good Friday Vespers, the biblical narrative and the chorales familiar to the congregation, and in their native language. Jeffrey Skidmore's Ex Cathedra forces, in this recording released to celebrate the group's 40th anniversary, reflect Bach's own practice in many respects - period instruments, soloists picked from the choir, and a fine sense of performance style. And, like Bach, they also sing in the language of theior audience - English. The translation is new, borrowing from Ivor Atkins in 1911 but updated. ... The result is theologically refreshed, matches the contours of Bach's musical lines and is contemporary without losing dignity. The Ex Cathedra performance is superb. Skidmore refers in his notes to Bach's incorporation of dance, and the large-scale framing choruses are saturated in it - and all the more poignant for not being lugubrious. He's finely balanced between the over-dramatic and merely prosaic. Jeremy Budd is an unaffected narrator of the Evangelist's story; Natalyie Clifton-Griffith's 'Break in Grief' is heart-rending; Mark Chamber's' 'Have mercy, Lord' deeply moving and, as choral singers, all the aria soloists are free of overly-distinctive vocal affectations. Obbligato instruments are excellent throughout, momentary blemishes of intonation and ensemble well worth the added exuberance of live performance in Birmingham Symphony Hall. [The 50-strong chorus'] denity suits the congregational chorales and they enact powerfully the role (all too familiar in today's strife-torn world) of a ravening horde. George Pratt Performance Recording Birmingham Post 5 November 2009 Two new CD releases from Ex Cathedra help us celebrate this expert chamber choir’s 40th anniversary season, and one of these is of immense importance. This is the performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion which Ex Cathedra gave at Symphony Hall on Good Friday afternoon this year, sung in a new (though Birmingham Bach Choir got there first), “contemporary” English translation by Nicholas Fisher and John Russell. The immediacy of the text is matched by the confiding intimacy of vocal projection under Jeffrey Skidmore’s direction, and Ex Cathedra’s traditional practice of avoiding any “star” aura surrounding their soloists works so sympathetically well here. Eamonn Dougan is quietly dignified as Jesus, and Jeremy Budd is the engaging Evangelist. Among the smaller roles, Natalie Clifton-Griffith is sublime – this singer who has risen through the ranks of Ex Cathedra from her Birmingham Conservatoire beginnings can never be anything else. Nor should the vibrant contribution of the young members of the Ex Cathedra Academy of Vocal Music be overlooked. The Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra plays with style and clarity, sprung from a light bass-line, and it is particularly gratifying to have the viola da gamba obbligati delivered with such verve and panache by Richard Campbell: a far cry from the purgatorial interminabilities of these movements in decades long gone. Generous sponsorship from the Grimmitt Trust, and support from Town Hall Symphony Hall, Birmingham City Council, and Arts Council England has made this enterprise possible, and for those of us who were present on this highly moving occasion this double-CD set has particular added value (Orchid Classics ORC 100007). Christopher Morley
		JAMES GILCHRIST / ANNA TILBROOK SCHUBERT - DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN Gramophone Magazine October 2009 Editor's Choice Gilchrist and Tilbrook deliver a masterful Die schöne Müllerin James Gilchrist's Wanderer has been around a bit. Not enough to make him weary or wary, far from it - a first-kindled enthusiasm only burns itself out a little in the forth song, "Danksagung and den Bach" - but in place of the youthful impetuosity of Werner Güra is the anxiety of a man to seize what he can while he can. His jealousy - "Eifersucht und Stolz" = gains thereby a specially manic edge, and leaves him almost shouting at the nd of "Die Böse Farbe" before he takes his leave of love and life in both sorrow and anger over the ever-more-painful course of the last tryptich. In that brief account, and the timings, often very quick or slow, suggest exaggeration or melodrama, then they mislead, for I was never aware of a word being presented for my particular attention (never mind Bostridge and Johnson, think of the beloved's "laaangem Halse" craning after the hunter and away from Güra's Wanderer), and in some songs Gilchrist can barely get the words out in time, but line andd sense never falter. How aptly Anna Tilbrook's pedalling poses the question to the brook at the beginning of "Der Neugierige", and how graciously Gilchrit waits until the last verse before slowing down to ask himself. That his mix of chest and head registers tends more towards the latter than is usual mat disconcert some, but it allows for the most intimate and touching of quarter-voices at the end of his confession to the flowers, "Des Müllers Blumen", and brings uneasy rest indeed to the final lullaby: next to him, Christoph Prégardien sounds quite formal, almost disengaged. He and Güra and their pianists have made among the very finest of modern versions; and so, now, have Gilchrist and Tilbrook. Peter Quantrill Classic FM Magazine November 2009 Editor's Choice BBC Music Magazine November 2009 In a highly competitive field of ever more thought-provoking recordings of Die schöne Müllerin, this latest one is worthy to stand with the best. If Christoph Prégardien's embellished performance (reviewed June 2008) is not for you, then this is a fascinating tenor alternative, refreshingly free of mannerism. Recent recordings, like that of Matthias Goerne, have tended to probe long and deep into the psyche of the young apprentice's infatuated relationship with the miller's daughter, which takes place entirely within the mind. Gilchrist's light tenor, with its springing rhythmic life, makes us feel that the young lad is living very much in a wide-eyed emotional present, as elusive and ever-shifting as the delightful chiaroscuro of Anna Tilbrook's accompaniment. That dappled light is just one feature of some firmly supportive playing that highlights, too, the inner song of Schubert's piano writing. If Gilchrist's voice can reveal a lack of support at the top of his register, it expresses a touching vulnerability throughout. The 12th song, "Pause", becomes a palpable pivot point, thanks to strongly defined accompanying and highly sensitive vocal inflection. The affair really could, it seems, go either way. We know how it ends - and the drumming repeated notes in the accompaniment of "Die liebe Farbe" become a prophetic tattoo of anguish which lasts long in the memory. Hilary Finch Performance Recording bbc.co.uk 1 October 2009 Gilchrist’s performance encapsulates the naiive introspection of Schubert's doomed miller. When it first appeared in 1823, Die schöne Müllerin was unique: a set of twenty interlocked songs for voice and piano with a continuous, first-person narrative. There’d been nothing like it before, and a shelf-load of memorable interpretations has sealed the work’s legendary status since. But for all the detritus of performance history and commentary, DSM is first and foremost a story, as Gilchrist reminds us in his booklet introduction. The songs tell of an apprenticed miller, setting out to seek employment but discovering a joyous, obsessive and ultimately destructive love for the ‘fair maid of the mill’ he soon meets. It’s Gilchrist’s distinctive vocal qualities – his light but deep-grained tone, his shapely vowels and his English poise minus the tight aristocracy of Pears or Bostridge – that make him an ideal young miller. He’s audibly wide-eyed as he sets out on his journey, and palpable weary as he nears the despair of its conclusion. Throughout, he portrays a young man of innocence, introspection and naivety rather than bold self-belief. And his millstream – the pianist Anna Tilbrook – doesn’t go out of her way to help him. On the recent Harmonia Mundi recording from Matthias Goerne and Christoph Eschenbach, you feel pianist urging singer on: Eschenbach provoking Goerne into more protestation; indulging him in his despair. Tilbrook doesn’t do that. Instead she supplies an accompaniment that’s taut and ultra-clear. In the cyclic mechanisms of Das Wandern and Am Feierabend her playing conjures the workings of intricate oiled machinery for Schubert’s imagined millwheel. But even if she doesn’t overtly prod Gilchrist, she is exceptionally close to him. Her accompaniment has the same intense focus and front-of-the-mouth delivery. For the poignancy and effect of that, and Gilchrist’s treasure-trove of a voice, this performance easily fights for a place among the best available. If you want brawn, high drama and a marginally keener sense of overall architecture, then Goerne and Eschenbach can provide it. But if you’re wavering, sample the Gilchrist/Tilbrook handling of the change in mood that comes with the eighth song, Morgengruß (Morning Greeting) and continues into the ninth, Des Müllers Blumen (The Miller’s Flowers). You can hear the realisation of failure seeping into Gilchrist’s voice and Tilbrook’s piano. Acutely moving. Andrew Mellor "Cherwell" (Oxford University) “Brooklet, dear brook, please just sing on” When someone mentions “Classical singing”, the image that will come to the minds of most people is a well upholstered woman giving it so much that it looks like she’s making a conscious attempt to rupture her own spleen. However there is another style of classical singing that is not so familiar to many; song. Now these are not the type of songs that you hear the latest X Factor Idol Celebrity Star on Ice winner singing, but the nineteenth-century older brother of our modern pop songs. Unlike many of the wooden, overproduced songs that we hear today, this arresting music speaks to the soul with words that make Morrissey’s lyrics look mirthful. James Gilchrist and Anne Tilbrook have taken on the great challenge of recreating the emotional turmoil of this song cycle in the latest in a list of fine recordings by this superb English tenor. Gilchrist began his working life as a doctor, but his love of singing turned him to a full time to career in music in 1996. The task of recording this song cycle is a daunting task, with recordings from the great tenors such as Ian Bostidge and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau undoubtedly ringing in the ears of this duo. However Gilchrist and Tilbrook tackle this song cycle unphased, and the resulting sound is simply resplendent. Tilbrook’s flawless playing perfectly compliments Gilchrist’s stunning voice which dances and soars through Schubert’s melodies with a skilful ease. Particularly poignant is Gilchrist’s interpretation of the penultimate song in which the protagonist contemplates suicide by the brook. This recording will indefinitely go down as one of the great recordings of Die Schöne Müllerin. So put the Morrissey away, and let Schubert speak to your soul.
		MATTHEW TRUSLER / DÜSSELDORFER SYMPHONIKER / YASUO SHINOZAKI ROZSA / KORNGOLD VIOLIN CONCERTOS BBC Music Magazine Christmas 2009 BBC Music Choice Performance Recording Click here to see the full review International Record Review November 2009 Considered as a planned CD this is a particularly apposite coupling, for both composers found themselves in Hollywood in the late 1930s as immigrants from the gathering clouds in Europe. Both made significant careers as composers of film music... Musically they make a most suitable yet fascinating coupling and I welcome this new recording warmly, for Matthew Trusler is an excellent soloist who has clearly studied these works in no little detail. He is a splendid virtuoso, and has the measure of those scores throughout; his phrasing of Rozsa's first movement second subject is superb, and his sense of repose in the slow movement of Korngold and the manner by which it launches into the finale's high spirits in that work are wholly exemplary. This is really outstanding violin playing, of a kind that would surely have earned the praise of the composers themselves - and of Heifetz, I dare say, could he be persuaded to express such an opinion. The orchestral playing is of an equally high standard under Yasuo Shinozaki, and as the recording quality and balance between soloist and orchestra (as well as the conductor's internal orchestral balance) are also good, the result is an emminently recommendable CD, made more so by the inclusion of three Heifetz-related 'encores', which constitute a mini-collection of enjoyable bonuses. Robert Matthew-Walker Mail on Sunday 18 October 2009 Young violinists: Six of the best on CD It's a great autumn for fiddle fanciers, with new CDs from six of the world's best young violinists, three of them British. ... A short head behind [A baroque Journey] come two new recordings of the Violin Concerto of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, premiered just after the Second World War by Jascha Heifetz, a richly orchestrated, melodic work that draws on some of the tunes from Korngold's film scores. ... 'More Korn than Gold,' one critic sneered at this most beautiful of concertos, which I have long loved and which is, at last, coming into its own, with six new recordings in 2009 alone. The two most recent feature the experienced Frenchman Renaud Capucon and a young English virtuoso, Matthew Trusler . ... [Trusler's] CD is better planned, with the main coupling the concerto of Miklos Rosza, another fine composer who wowed Hollywood. Heifetz premiered that one as well, and regularly played the three encore pieces that complete this enterprising disc. Trusler plays the almost forgotten Rosza with great fire and passion and, for that alone, this is an essential purchase. David Mellor OZartsreview 1 November 2009 Heifetz, the violinists’ violinist, had in life so glittering a reputation that his merest association with this or that concerto would instantly make whatever work it was a focus of international attention. And so it was with the violin concertos by two composers both of whose names, incidentally, are inextricably linked to music for the motion picture industry in Hollywood. Matthew Trusler is featured soloist in these two works – and what a splendid advocate he is for these concertos. With unfailing beauty and clarity of tone – and ushering in and tapering phrases in a consistently musicianly way – Trusler gives irrefutable evidence of his right to a position well to the forefront of living violinists. Trusler uses a bow that formerly belonged to Heifetz – and he is worthy of it; his bowing technique is near-flawless. He is no less worthy of his superb Stradivari fiddle that dates back to 1711. In Trusler’s hands, it sings with a voice that caresses the ear. But for all the persuasiveness of Trusler’s playing – and the concerto’s imaginative scoring – I remain unconvinced of the worth of the concerto by Rozsa. The latter is, of course, best known for his many fine scores for Hollywood movies. And it is difficult – near-irresistible, in fact – to listen to this work without thinking how suitable much of it might have been as background music for one or another classy 1940s film noir. Intriguingly, there are moments in the concerto that sound like a graceful tribute to Bela Bartok; Rosza was, after all, also Hungarian and an unabashed admirer of his great compatriot. Throughout, Trusler is near-faultless. Korngold’s concerto, however, is in an altogether different, much higher category and Trusler makes the most of soaring lines in the first movement. From first note to last, he brings extraordinary powers of expressiveness to his playing with notes invariably clothed in tone of the most appealing kind. Throughout, there’s pinpoint intonation. I particularly admired the finale with its fleeting obeisance to Copland in rodeo mood to which Trusler responds with fantastic agility and accuracy. Had the shade of Heifetz hovered over the recording session, I rather imagine he’d have given it a nod of approval, not least for Trusler’s immaculate presentation of three miniatures that Heifetz used to offer as encores. Trusler is near-faultless in the ubiquitous Jeanie with the Light brown Hair and Ponce’s Estrelita. Recorded quality is excellent. Neville Cohn www.scena.co.uk Lebrecht CDs of the Week October 2009 Two Korngolds and a piun-up violinist Virgin *** Orchid Like London buses, you can wait years for a Korngold concerto and then four turn up in a row. Nikolai Znaider (RCA) was sulky and Philippe Quint (Naxos) I haven’t heard, but both Renaud Capucon on Virgin and Matthew Trusler on Orchid bring fresh qualities to the work and good reason to reconsider its virtues. Capucon pitches the opening sweetness to perfection and underplays the finale’s recycled movie themes. Trusler takes a more nostalgic route, finding exquisite love and pain in Korngold’s yearnings for a vanished Vienna. Both are thoughtful, distinctive and engagingly personal. Capucon is disadvantaged by his paring – a solid account of the Beethoven concerto, conducted in Rotterdam by Yannick Nezet-Seguin – while Trusler in Dusseldorf (cond. Yasuo Shinozaki) offers the stunning and apt concerto by another film composer, Miklos Rozsa, as well two prime Heifetz encores. In Korngold, though, I cannot choose one over the other: I’m keeping them both. Norman Lebrecht www.classical.net October 2009 This fine CD features two late romantic violin concertos which are diligently played by a new kid on the block in the shape of Matthew Trusler. Miklos Rozsa's concerto is a tuneful melodious work which is slowly gaining a foothold in the repertoire for this composer who is infinitely better known for his epic film scores such as Ben Hur and Quo Vadis. Erich Wolfgang von Korngold was another prolific film score composer but his presence in the concert hall was also quite numerous as the various works in his oeuvre testify. This Violin Concerto is perhaps the most famous of them with long over arching melodic lines and a sturdy contrapuntal shape which runs through the work. Trusler plays both works with seasoned aplomb and you would never guess that he is relatively new to the scene. The three tidbits provided as fillers are also very pleasant to listen to especially the Stephen Foster/Heifetz melody. Trusler himself writes the excellent booklet note and the recording is of top drawer quality throughout. A fine coupling on this exciting new English label which is deserving of every encouragement. Gerald Fenech
		PARIS - THE SPIRIT OF DIAGHILEV, COCTEAU AND STRAVINSKY MAYA KOCH / JULIAN MILFORD The Strad April 2007 Paris chosen as ‘The Strad Selection’ of the month Sumptuously engineered and glowingly played, this recital disc simply oozes class. The Poulenc Sonata (unaccountably neglected by comparison with its wind-instrument cousins) is often played very cool as though any hint of espresssivo indulgence would ruin the effect. Maya Koch and Julian Milford really have their fingers on the pulse, however, tantalisingly infusing this glorious music with about as much warmth and interpretative vim as it can take without losing its neo-Classical poise. The opening movement is no faceless 'non troppo' but a true 'con fuocco' while the Presto finale is played 'tragico', just as indicated. It was a suggestion of Diaghilev's that led to Stravinsky composing Pulcinella (1920), based on music that was then ostensibly thought to be by the Italian composer Pergolesi. He later arranged a suite of the most popular movements for violin and piano as the Suite Italienne, a work which is extremely tricky to bring off. Stravinsky's love of piquant wind articulation is ever-present, yet with so many wonderful melodies to wallow in it is difficult not to lapse into cantabile indulgence from time to time. Koch seems completely unfazed, however, playing with an elegance and natural warmth that is delectable. Milhaud's Le Boeuf sur le toit is one of the few pieces of music that really is genuinely 'laugh-out-loud' funny with a rollicking rondo theme that once heard is impossible to forget. It is also fiendishly difficult (with a firecracker solo cadenza), yet Koch and Milford hardly seem to notice, so infectious are their fine-honed musical responses. Bravo! Julian Haylock
		MATTHEW TRUSLER / WAYNE MARSHALL BLUES The Daily Telegraph 13 January 2007 Classical CD of the Week There have been plenty of discs surveying classical music's debt to jazz in the past, but few have been as scincillating as this one. Matthew Trusler and Wayne Marshall (himself a noted jazz performer) have put together an hour-long string of pieces that flow very happily into each other, from the "Blues" movement of Ravel's Violin Sonata and two pieces - Nocturne and Ukulele Serenade - by Aaron Copland to Debussy's Gollywog's Cakewalk, from two Scott Joplin Rags (in Itzhak Perlman's arrangements) and a short Improvisation by Marshall himself to the Second Violin Sonata of George Antheil. But it is the dazzling and seductive transcriptions of Gershwin by Jascha Heifetz that frame the recital and which set the tone for the disc as a whole: five hits from Porgy and Bess and the three piano Preludes. Trusler assumes the Heifetz (and Perlman) mantle with ease: his playing is by turns nonchalant, dynamic and rhythmically acute, while Marshall is never the mere accompanist, but an active collaborator at every turn - and contributing a final, unlabelled track of an improvisation on God save the Queen in the style of Antheil. Matthew Rye Time Out London 13-20 December 2006 TYCOON AND TUNESMITH TRUSLER 'It's the most exciting thing to be an artist-entrepreneur.' Matthew Trusler talking; Trusler the academic lecturer on playing period music on modern instruments, Trusler the acclaimed violinist, Trusler the recording magnate - that Trusler. In a profession percieved as ethereal, even precious, Trusler provides a blast of bracing twenty-first century air. His 1747 Guadagnini [now a 1711 Stradivarius] is owned by investors in a share-owning scheme that also provided Kennedy's first Strad, Natalie Klein's cello and Lawrence Power's viola, enlightened capitalism meeting art. And now Trusler's own record label, shows the way for classical artists after the giant companies' economic turbulence. 'In the next decade we'll see everyone doing it. It's not easy - not just popping up on a website and selling out of a shed. I wanted distribution, people to buy it in HMV...' Amazingly he managed this with his first project. 'The Pity of War', a WW1 anthology of music and readings with actor Sam West. 'If it hadn't ended up in shops, I would have sold 30 on the web. I'd have thought: Oh Christ, I'm barking up the wrong tree.' Trusler's an apostle of commercial savvy in the arts. 'A friend of mine asked how could "music" and "business" exist in the same sentence - you can't put it in a paper bag and sell it. But you have to think of it as a business otherwise you'll end up playing to yourself... Businessmen get lampooned for running businesses' he observes sardonically. 'And woe betide an arts organisation that makes money!' The new label's 'project-based' character has 'kind of appeared'. 'The Pity of War' has been succeeded by two appealing releases, each with a theme. 'Blues' is jazz-inspired classical music with Trusler partnered by Wayne Marshall at the piano - ideally experienced for this range and not just a discreet accompanist? 'That's the understatement! He's exhausting to be around. He makes me feel a lot younger' - Trusler is 30. 'The sessions were unlike any recordings I'd done. He does Gershwin so well - he is Gershwin.' Also featured: Joplin, Ravel, Debussy and American George Antheil, the 'bad boy of classical music' who could prompt such audience hostility that he packed a revolver (or was he just pleased to see them?). An adopted Parisian, Antheil provides a link to the third release, 'Paris', the milieu of Picasso, Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Dali... Here Trusler gracefully makes way for the young German fiddler Maya Koch, 'my wife - a coincidence, believe it or not, in a project we originally thought up for another label.' The new CD evokes 'a place and time' when the arts were meeting: Cocteau rewrote Greek myths, Diaghilev reinvented ballet, Stravinsky composed tangos. This leads to Trusler's fantasy as 'an obsessive movie-watcher': an 'all-senses' form of recording - 'I'd love to include pictures and make it as multi-dimensional as possible. I want records that make you laugh, cry, shout, scream in fright...' In case you wondered, Trusler's conventional concert career is internationally successful. When we talk he's heading off to Mexico with the Philharmonia. Despite sounding unlike any other classical artist I've interviewed, he's superb at that as well; but you feel that the Orchid label holds plenty of surprises yet. 'It won't make my fortune - that's not what I did it for.' I wouldn't put anything past thoroughly modern Matthew. Martin Hoyle The Strad January 2007 Blues chosen as ‘The Strad Selection’ of the month On his enterprising new label Matthew Trusler follows up his fine accounts of the Janacek, Elgar and Debussy sonatas with a recital of blues-saturated miniature s accompanied by celebrated master of the idiom Wayne Marshall (who also contributes a two-minute improvisation guaranteed to get your feet tapping). This at times electrifying recital is book-ended by Jascha Heifetz’s celebrated arrangements of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and the three solo piano preludes. It’s usually almost impossible to listen to these fabulous pieces without having Heifetz’s unique sound ringing in one’s ears. Yet Trusler’s nonchalant, Grappelli-like asides (try the ’Tempo di Blues’), quicksilver portamentos, fabulous agility and genuine ‘cool’ are such as to have one almost forgetting the master altogether. The renegade George Antheil lets his hair down in typically eclectic style with his second sonata- a bit like Charles Ives on speed- and here Trusler and Marshall pull out all the stops, relishing the wild hysteria of Antheil’s quick-fire stylistic changes. No wonder Antheil claimed to take a gun on stage with him in order to stave off the storms of protest that invariably erupted following his appearances. By way of contrast Trusler includes a couple of Joplin favourites- Elite Syncopations and Ragtime Dance- which replace the laid-back glow of the famous EMI recording by their arranger, Itzhak Perlman, with a fizzing, edge-of-the-seat vitality guaranteed to brighten even the sternest of countenances. Ravel’s ‘Blues’ (the central movement of the 1927 Sonata) also sounds deliciously smoky and decadent. An outstanding collection, immaculately and imposingly engineered. Julian Haylock Gramophone December 2006 It’s fascinating to hear this release so soon after DG’s reissue of Heifetz’s wartime American Decca sessions (11/06), especially for comparison of approach in the Gershwin tracks. Here there’s the same dazzling playing; if less of the suavity of Heifetz; but Matthew Trusler offers an altogether more robust and more overtly jazzy approach. Perhaps an even bigger difference is that, where Milton Kaye was strictly accompanist to Heifetz, Trusler and Wayne Marshall are equal partners, their contributions more evenly focused by the recording. The whole thing has more the atmosphere of a jazz session, and Marshall ’s hyperactivity is given free range – not least in his own improvised finale to the Porgy and Bess items. Where one listens to and admires Heifetz, one feels one is letting one’s hair down with Trusler and Marshall. Of course, fascination lies equally in pieces not recorded by Heifetz – not least George Antheil’s fascinating, eccentric Sonata No. 2. Copland’s Ukelele Serenade is another tour de force. Though there are fetching moments of reflection, too, it’s the stunning energy levels, combined with the amazing artistry, that makes this such a stimulating collection. Andrew Lamb The Independent on Sunday Dec 10, 2006 Ý Matthew Trusler's second recital disc explores classical music's heavy crush on jazz, with Jascha Heifetz's virtuosic arrangements of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess Suite and Three Preludes, Debussy's Golliwogg's Cakewalk ; and Itzhak Perlman's "spiccato" happy hommage to Joplin's Elite Syncopations. What could be a bon bon is given substance by Ravel, Copland, and George Antheil's glorious Sonata No 2 for violin with accompaniment of piano and drum. Wayne Marshall plays both instruments with panache, and lends the disc authenticity with a piano improvisation. Trusler shows natural style and an appealing vocal tone. AP Manchester Evening News 23/11/2006 Wayne Marshall, Matthew Trusler - Blues (Orchid) In Manchester, near his home town town of Oldham and where he gained his early musical training, Wayne Marshall is known best as virtuoso organist, classical pianist and conductor. But there is really almost no end to this man's talents, as he's also a brilliant jazz musician. On this disc he teams up with violinist Matthew Trusler to demonstrate their respective talents in a variety of blues-based music. The Heifetz arrangements of Gershwin and Perlman's version of Joplin provide the best known tunes, but there are lovely surprises in the two Copland pieces, and the Ravel is the second movement of his violin sonata. George Antheil, an American contemporary of Copland, was a jolly maverick whose sonata played here gets the pianist to transfer to drum at the end - carried off with panache by the aforesaid Mr Marshall. It's all life-affirming, wonderful music - and there are two bonus tracks.... It's fun time in the style of Marshall... Robert Beale
		THE PITY OF WAR MATTHEW TRUSLER / MARTIN ROSCOE / SAMUEL WEST Daily Telegraph 5/11/05 Trusler has aptly brought together three violin sonatas by Elgar, Janácek and Debussy, all composed in the period 1914-18. And it is a programme that further attests to the mature strengths and emotional sensitivity that anyone who has been following Trusler's career will recognise as key elements of his musicianship. While the three sonatas share a sense of wartime angst, melancholy and apprehension, there is a broad range of styles that Trusler and his pianist Martin Roscoe define with precision and subtlety of expression. There is muscle to the playing, but it is supple, poignant and perceptive of mood as well. As a complement to the sonatas, the second CD contains archive recordings of wartime songs, together with poems and letters by Wilfred Owen, beautifully read by Samuel West. All in all, a powerfully evocative set. Geoffrey Norris Independent 8/11/05 The Pity of War takes three emotive violin sonatas from the Great War period and programmes them alongside a sequence of poems and letters by Wilfred Owen, superbly read by Samuel West. Such humbling Owen masterpeices as "Disabled", "Smile, Smile, Smile" and "Futility" surface in the context of his selected correspondonce and the odd First World War song, all taken from contemporaneous 78s, including John McCormack singing "Keep the Home Fires Burning". ...These restless, deeply personal essays by Elgar, Janacek and Debussy- all signal, in their different ways, profound disorientation. Elgar is freshly animated but inwardly withdrawn; Janacek is desperate to reconcile pain with optimism; Debussy is already mortally ill and resigned to playful reverie. The violinist Matthew Trusler plays with impressive intensity, alongside his excellent pianist-collaborator Martin Roscoe. Rob Cowen Independent on Sunday 6/11/05 Timed to hit the shops for Armistice Day, this double disc of music and poetry from 1914-1918 is a fitting memorial to those who lost their lives in the Great War. ...Trusler's tone is cool, rangy, and brilliantly focused, Roscoe's accompaniment brilliantly shaded. With Samuel West's grave readings of Wilfred Owen's poetry and letters- interpolated with songs of the day- this is an excellent recording. Anna Picard Classic FM Magazine January 2006 Issue These remarkable sonatas all date from the First World War. Elgar hauntingly combines unbridled passion with hushed, introspective musings,while Janacek dwells on the horrors of war and Debussy recedes into a world of half-lit neo-classical obfuscation. Trusler and Roscoe play all three with the greatest sensitivity, and Samuel West provides the perfect filler with absorbing readings from Wilfred Owen. Julian Haylock 'The Pity of War' was also chosen as one of the week's 5 best CDs by the Observer.

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