Fifth label joins free classical downloads
mainRub your eyes, New Year, revellers, this is for real.
Yet another independent classical label has joined the Slipped Disc scheme offering free downloads through the holiday period. Several more labels have asked to be included and will be taken into consideration when we revive the scheme at the next set of holidays.
The last of the present batch is Avie, a co-op label founded by Simon Foster (ex-Virgin Classics) and Melanne Muller (ex-BMG, Universal). Their artists – who include such renowned performers as the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra with Michael Tilson Thomas, pianists Imogen Cooper and Luiza Borac and violinists Thomas Zehetmair and Augustin Hadelich – maintain full ownership and control of their recordings. What the label adds is production, marketing and promotional assistance. It’s an attractive home for many musicians who have tired of corporate label interference in their lives.
The first download is another world premiere – a work by Hans Gal, an Austrian composer, born 1890, who fled the Hitler annexation and settled in Edinburgh, where he was at the hub of musical life until his death in 1987. Never a modernist, Gal held Brahms as his role model and wrote in a tonal manner, with a contemporary, sometimes comedic twist. This is the last movement of the Triptych for Orchestra, played by the Northern Sinfonia,
Kenneth Woods (not as previously listed. To download, click here.
Kenneth Woods (not as previously listed. To download, click here.
If you’ll pardon my choice of words, this is just what a “Gál” needs to lighten the atmosphere while holding down the FM fort on a grey, rainy day in Syracuse! I recommend it to the guys, too. My voice teacher at Syracuse University always told me to end a set or a recital on an up note, and since she’s on my
e-mail list for these downloads, she’ll hear for herself that you did just that. BTW, on Thursday, one of the vice-presidents at WCNY told me that she’s been downloading all of the selections and enjoying them very much. I told her that I’d pass along her thanks, and I also send the thanks of various friends and colleagues. We look forward to the next series, and I have quite a list of new CDs we have to get for WCNY. Thanks ever so much, Norman, and a Happy New Year from me and all of us at WCNY!