Recordings
DANCE!
Minerva Piano Trio
Annie Yim piano, Michal Cwizewicz violin, Richard Birchall cello
SOMM Recordings
Release Date: 21st October 2022
"A hugely reward disc…not just flawless technique but flawless musicality” – British Music Society
“Nuanced and imaginative creativity. Recommended.” – International Piano Magazine
“A shining new release” – BBC Radio 3 Essential Classics
Dance! features two ballet pieces by Stravinsky and Ravel, the former’s Pulcinella Suite arranged by the Minerva’s Richard Birchall, the latter’s Daphnis et Chloé heard in David Knott’s arrangement of three scenes that, says the Trio’s Annie Yim, illustrate “the discovery of love: innocence, awakening, touch, and passion”. Both arrangements are receiving first recordings.
Also making their debuts on disc are Birchall’s own Contours, described by Caroline Potter in her informative booklet notes as exploring “the notion and elastic meaning of its title in different ways”, and, in Annie Yim’s arrangement, Caroline Shaw’s Gustave Le Gray. Rooted in a Chopin Mazurka, it eloquently mimics its artist namesake’s facility for poetically layered voices and images.
Completing the recital is Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s My Fleeting Angel. Inspired by a short story about the dour, deadening domesticity of married life by the poet Sylvia Plath, Potter likens both composer and piece to Olivier Messiaen, hailing the work’s “logic and appealing sound world of its own” and Frances-Hoad as “a sound-colour synaesthete who associates specific colours with sounds”.
On This Recording
Igor Stravinsky (arr. Richard Birchall)*
Pulcinella Suite: I. Overture
Pulcinella Suite: II. Serenata
Pulcinella Suite: III. Allegro assai
Pulcinella Suite: IV. Andante
Pulcinella Suite: V. Presto
Pulcinella Suite: VI. Fuga
Pulcinella Suite: VII. Gavotta con due variazioni
Pulcinella Suite: VIII. Minuetto e Finale
Richard Birchall*
Contours: I. Moderate
Contours: II. Fast
Contours: III. Nocturne - Adagio
Contours: IV. Fast Waltz
Caroline Shaw (arr. Annie Yim)*
Gustave Le Gray
Cheryl Frances-Hoad
My Fleeting Angel: I. Larghetto
My Fleeting Angel: II. Allegro spiritoso e scherzando
My Fleeting Angel: III. Allegretto eleganza
Maurice Ravel (arr. David Knots)*
Scenes from Daphnis et Chloe: I. Nocturne
Scenes from Daphnis et Chloe: II. Pantomime
Scenes from Daphnis et Chloe: III. Danse Guerriere
* First Recordings