RECENT RELEASES

Welcome to the Meridian Records website.

MERIDIAN RECORDS are the original experts in ‘natural sound recordings’. Over thirty years ago, at a dinner party, our founders presented their vision for an independent classical label that would reproduce the concert-hall experience as closely as possible. Everyone said it would never work. Thirty two years on we hold a clutch of industry awards, including the honour of being the first independent label to win a GRAMOPHONE award, and we continue to astound listeners and artists with our stylish and captivating recordings using our revered ‘natural sound’ technique.
See Our ‘Natural Sound’ Philosophy for more.

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CDE 84568
Beethoven - Quintet in E flat major, op. 16
for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon

Poulenc - Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn

Strauss* - Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche op 28
Arranged by David Carp
for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano
Ben-Ari* - Sextet for piano and woodwind quintet

The New Israel Woodwind Quintet

Dudu Carmel - oboe; Yevgeny Yehudin - clarinet
Mauricio Paez - bassoon; Chezy Nir - horn
Itamar Golan - piano; Ohad Ben-Ari - Piano *

 

“One of the remarkable phenomena that have emerged in music life in Israel...”  - Hanoch Ron, music critic of Yediot Aharonot

 

The Quintet was founded in 1993. Its members have been performing as soloists with renowned orchestras in Israel and abroad, including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. They have been scholarship recipients by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and were awarded many prizes in local and international music competitions.

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CDE 84582
We are proud to announce the release of The Wandering Bassoon, a collection of attractive and melodic pieces for bassoon and piano played by the esteemed musicians Meyrick Alexander and Catherine Milledge.

In addition to well-known works by Mozart and Weber, the disc includes the world premiere of Guy Woolfenden's Concerto, in the composer's own piano reduction, which was written for this soloist. It has a quintessentially English flavour whereas Gustav Schreck's Sonata comes from the German Romantic school. This is the only major work of its kind for the instrument and is a fully fledged duo between equal partners. Surprisingly, it has seldom been recorded. The versatility of the bassoon is also shown to advantage in two transcriptions of popular violin pieces by Fritz Kreisler.   
 

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CDE 84572 The Brazilian Cello

Following Tânia Lisboa’s extensive Villa-Lobos collection, described in the Gramophone as “achieving a real and touching eloquence”, Meridian Records are delighted to announce her latest CD: The Brazilian Cello in which she is brilliantly partnered by the pianist Cristina Capparelli.

This Meridian recording features a thoughtful collection of Brazilian cello music by some of the most outstanding and respected composers from Brazil, including Alberto Nepomuceno, Francisco Mignone, João Octaviano, Luiz Henrique Levy, Henrique Oswald, Sérgio de Vasconcellos-Corrêa and Camargo Guarnieri.

“Cellist Lisboa made for Villa-Lobos: This kind of music suited Lisboa just fine. Her approach to Villa-Lobos was direct, sensitive and thoughtful, and her playing always seemed spontaneous, as if she had just found an old cello lying on the stage and decided to play it. In her hands, Villa-Lobo’s demanding Sonata N.2 seemed like an extended song without words, and her execution of a virtuoso trill and slide in the ‘Bachianas Brasileiras’ N. 2 sounded unobtrusive and lost in sensual melody” ...The Washington Post - USA.

 

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CDE 84580
CARL NIELSEN - Music for Wind and Piano
new london chamber ensemble and guests

With performers' notes on the new Carl Nielsen Edition of the Wind Quintet and additional tracks from the autograph manuscript

I am impressed, even  overwhelmed, by the superb quality  of performance, authenticity and  engineering...without any doubt, one of the finest Nielsen discs ever issued. Jack Lawson (Nielsen’s biographer)

a unique example of a serious introduction to matters of authenticity Niels Krabbe (Research Professor and Editor-in-Chief of the new collected edition of  Nielsen’s works)

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CDE 84575
FELIZ NAVIDAD
Christmas Music from Spain and New Spain

Musicians of the Old Post Road

The disc is an attractive compilation of vocal and instrumental works for the Christmas season by Baroque composers from Spain, Catalonia, and colonial Mexico. A wide variety of styles may be heard, from the "jazzy" rhythmically-charged villancico style of the mid-17th century, to the suave, Italianate cantata style of the mid to late 18th century. Most of the unusual works presented are previously unrecorded and offer a broad musical appeal that invites listening throughout the year.

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CDE 84584/5-2
We are thrilled to announce the release of The Primrose Piano Quartet’s third recording, a double album of chamber music by a true giant of the composing world: Richard Strauss.

This Double CD unites by far the three most significant works in Richard Strauss's Chamber Music output. The Piano Quartet remains a relative rarity in the catalogue, and although the Violin and 'Cello Sonatas often feature on recital discs for those instruments, it is the coupling of these significant works that is notable. From the relative clarity of texture and form in the 'Cello Sonata, movements become longer and more complex, and the piano writing considerably more orchestral, as Strauss's style develops through the Quartet and into the Violin Sonata. Contemporary with the early songs, but before the explosion of Tone Poems and Opera, these recordings speak of the domestic chamber music of the young Strauss in Munich, with his musical friends and inspirations of the time, not least among them the delectable Dora Wihan. A golden opportunity for those that love Strauss, but may not be familiar with his chamber music.

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CDE 84463

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Canticum

A selection of traditional carols and new arrangements including
The Truth from Above, Gabriel's Message, Sussex Carol,
Bethlehem Down, In Dulci Jubilo, The Shepherd's Farewell,
Angelus Ad Virginem, In the Bleak Midwinter, Coventry Carol,
Silent Night, Welcome Yule, Away in a Manger,
Ding Dong! Merrily on High, Quem Pastores, O Magnum Mysterium, Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day, Here is the Little Door,
Es ist ein Ros, Deck the Hall, Lullaby my Jesus, The Three Kings,
Noël Nouvelet, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, Jingle Bells.

 

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CDE 84571 Las Puertas Del Tiempo
“I was tempted to think of González in one breath with Bartók: his music has the same strength, along with the familiarity to fascinate the ear unfamiliar with the soil in which music is rooted,” wrote Wes Blomster, the music critic of the Boulder, Colorado, Daily Camera.   Not that the sound worlds of Bartók and González are all that similar, but both composers draw deeply on the folk and dance music of their native regions to provide the sonic foundations for their art.  In the case of Luis Jorge González, the dance music of his native Argentina and of other South American countries instills in his music a grace, vitality, variety, and intensity that is at once unique and universal.  The listener will hear sounds that are both familiar and unfamiliar; rhythms that are both expected and exotic; harmonies that are rooted in tonality but that also explore new and unusual tonal combinations.  González is a composer of great technical sophistication, but also one who is able to communicate with a full range of listeners from the neophyte to the connoisseur.
 

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Meridian Records  P.O. Box 317, Eltham, London. SE94SF  phone +44 (0)208 857 3213   email: mail@meridian-records.co.uk
For online reviews of Classical Music recordings, we recommend MusicWeb International