Frith continues to lend his art to what is shaping up to be a survey of historical importance, with handsome tone and masterful technical command. Another remarkable project for Naxos.

Frith continues to lend his art to what is shaping up to be a survey of historical importance, with handsome tone and masterful technical command. Another remarkable project for Naxos.

Frith plays the Sonata, and the balance of the program, with clarity and strength, and follows the dramatic contours with vaulting confidence.

The multiplicity of notes in Mendelssohn's piano music sometimes lays him open to the charge of 'note-spinning'. So what higher praise for Benjamin Frith than to say that thanks to his fluency, not a single work outstays its welcome here. The unchallengeable masterpiece is the Variations sérieuses, so enthusiastically taken up by Clara Schumann, and still a repertory work today. Frith characterises each variation with telling contrasts of tempo and touch without sacrificing the continuity and unity of the whole.

A most solid release by a player of distinct gift and musicality… his performances are entertaining and colorful. All in all, this is tasteful, skilled piano playing at a very high level, and I was pleased to make Frith's artistic acquaintance. Good sound.

Irish by birth, John Field gained an international reputation as one of the finest pianists of his time, with an influential delicacy and nuance in his playing that is expressed in his innovative and poetically lyrical Nocturnes. Field’s earlier Sonatas are more classical in feel, but their sense of flow and dramatic narrative exhibit qualities that are developed and given added virtuoso panache in his fine Piano Concertos, works admired by Liszt, Chopin and Schumann. ‘Benjamin Frith has done a stellar job in bringing these concertos into the sunlight, brilliantly supported by the Northern Sinfonia under David Haslam’ (Pianist magazine).

Scarlatti's sonatas were originally entitled 'Essercizi' ('Exercises'), and their purpose was to provide musical études for the development of keyboard technique, primarily for his patroness, Queen Maria Barbara of Spain, who must have been a talented harpsichordist. In one of his published collections, he indicated that the Essercizi offer 'no profound Learning, but rather an ingenious Jesting with Art, to accomodate you to the Mastery of the Harpsichord.'

This EM Records release of British cello music performed by the Jenkinson Frith Duo presents World Première recordings by Cyril Scott, Ivor Gurney and Ian Venables: Cyril Scott’s monumental Cello Sonata is recorded here for the first time alongside Ivor Gurney’s unpublished one-movement Cello Sonata in E minor.

Fifteen years before Chopin wrote his first “nocturne”, Irish pianist/composer John Field composed his Nocturne No. 1 in E-flat major, followed by at least 15 more pieces in the same style. In these short works for solo piano, Field–who was one of the most celebrated pianists in the world during the first quarter of the 19th century–put form to the idea of a contemplative, lyrical composition, specifically tailored to the piano’s expressive capabilities. These “night” pieces are primarily characterized by a dominant, gracefully flowing melody, with most of the harmonic activity in the pianist’s left hand. Although other pianists have recorded at least some of Field’s Nocturnes–most notably John O’Conor (Telarc) and Miceál O’Rourke (Chandos)–Benjamin Frith’s own uniquely inflected, poetic readings have a satisfying aura of intimacy cast in the warm colors of his well-tempered, expertly recorded piano. Although O’Conor’s playing is more lyrical, with more fluid legatos, Frith generally takes more time–and these invariably lovely pieces blossom just as fully and brilliantly.