CDs For Sale

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

Alfano: Cello Sonata; Piano Trio
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Known until recently as the composer who completed Puccini’s Turandot , Alfano is finally getting his due. These magnificent chamber works, never before recorded, are a unique blend of Ravel, late Puccini, Bartok and Bax. Extremely demanding technically, both are brimming with emotion and compositional complexity.

“Listening to these hauntingly beautiful scores it seems barely credible that Alfano’s music could have fallen into such unwarranted neglect. Darvarova produces a silky-smooth, voluptuous sound ideal for the concert’s meticulous opulence, while Magill’s husky, dark timbre matches the Cello Sonata’s yearning intensity to perfection.”

Julian Haylock, “The Strad”, November, 2009

“All three players are excellent and play with razor-edged accuracy, passion, and insight in these two world-premiere recordings.”

William Zagorski, “Fanfare Magazine”, November/December 2009

“Darvarova, Magill and Dunn make you wonder where-and why-these outstanding late romantic works have been hiding all these years. This is Italian romantic music at its finest, played with passion and commitment and beautifully recorded.”

Gene Gaudette www.blog.genegaudette.com “Ten Best Recordings of 2009″

In the US: Amazon

In the UK: MDT.com

In France: Abeille Musique

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Vernon Duke Concerto CD
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Composer Vernon Duke was originally named Vladimir Dukelsky, and was born in Russia in 1903. His Cello Concerto was commissioned in 1945 by Gregor Piatigorsky and Serge Koussevitsky, and they first performed it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1947. Dukelsky changed his name at the urging of George Gershwin, in order to become successful as a composer of popular songs and musicals. He went on to great fame in this field, with hits like “April in Paris”, “Autumn in New York”, and musicals like “Cabin in the Sky”. He died in Santa Monica, California in 1969. This CD is the Concerto’s first ever recording.

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“Hopefully, this fervent performance by Sam Magill will inspire other cellists to take it up. It’s well worth hearing.”
-Gramophone Magazine

“Especially in this very-well-recorded and flat-out magnificent performance by cello soloist Sam Magill and the Russian Philharmonic led by Dmitri Yablonsky, Duke’s Concerto seizes and rewards the listener’s attention…”
-American Record Guide

“The performances are totally committed, everyone playing for all they are worth. One of the very best, and, for me, most interesting, releases in Naxos’s American Classics Series”
-Musicweb International

“Performances on this CD are outstanding, and Sam Magill gives a masterful reading of the Cello Concerto.”
-classicalcdreview.com

“Cellist Sam Magill once studied with Piatigorsky’s pupil Laurence Lesser….Magill almost seems to resurrect the ghost of the great man himself.”
-Allmusic.com