Mandolin Concerto, Trumpet Concerto, Ballet Music 'Das ZauberglAckchen'

"An attractive, offbeat programme that frames Hummel's popular trumpet concerto and his airy, Mozartian concerto for Mandolin with two rarities. Stylish, characterful performances from soloists and orchestra alike."
***** Five Stars BBC Music Magazine (Oct 2001)

Featured on this new disc are not only the premiere recordings of Ballet Music for 'Das Zauberglöckchen' and Freudenfest Overture, but, very importantly, the first recording of the newly discovered solo part of the Mandolin Concerto.

Alison Stephens (the mandolinist on this disc) performs on the soundtrack of the new film Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Hummel's Mandolin Concerto is featured in both the film and the book, but Corelli is stopped, in each, just as he is about to begin to play the mandolin part.

The only published edition of Hummel's Mandolin Concerto in G major was edited by the mandolin pioneer Vincenz Hladky in the 1950s. When Alison Stephens researched the piece, she compared Hladky's edition to a handwritten score which she owned, copied from the British Library manuscript in the 1960s. There were several discrepancies between the two, particularly in the string diction and the solo mandolin part, so, at the suggestion of Howard Shelley, she visited the British Library to make notes directly from the manuscript. There, she also discovered another manuscript in a collection labelled 'Supplementary Hummel Manuscripts'.

This 'new' manuscript is also in Hummel's hand and is labelled 'Violino Principale o mandolino'. There are a number of changes, especially to scalar passages and ornamentation of the main themes. Most of the changes reflect similar ideas found in his Piano Concertino in G. This uses the same themes as those of the Mandolin Concerto and is essentially the same piece, reworked for piano and orchestra. The scalar passages are frequently similar to those in the Mandolin Concerto's 'new' manuscript, implying that the extra manuscript dates from a similar time to that of the Piano Concertino.

Both Howard Shelley and Alison Stephens were taken with how fluent and natural-sounding the 'new' version was and for that reason they decided to this new version.

'…there is much to enjoy in this ornate, urbanely crafted music. And it receives eloquent advocacy from Howard Shelley.'
The Daily Telegraph on CHAN 9886 (Piano Concertos)

'…all credit to Chandos for continuing to show Hummel the respect he deserves…'
Gramophone Critics' Choice on CHAN 9687 (Concerto for Violin and Piano etc.)

'…The eloquent and agile mandolin-player Alison Stephens…'
The Daily Telegraph on CHAN 9780 (Music from the Novels of Louis de Bernières)

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The London Mozart Players is Britain's longest-established chamber orchestra. Founded in 1949 by Harry Blech (now the orchestra's Conductor Laureate), the London Mozart Players has a worldwide reputation for its outstanding and insightful performances and recordings of its core repertoire - the music of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven plus other composers of the late- eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The London Mozart Players also regularly plays music of this century and has commissioned and given the first performances of many works by British composers. Since 1993 Matthias Bamert has been the orchestra's Music Director and Howard Shelley is Principal Guest Conductor.