Darke / Sumsion / Pentcheff: King Of Instruments

   in Choir & Organ (Sep, 2015)
Curious title aside, of the three world premiere recordings here the point of interest is Richard Pantcheff’s op.74 Sonata for Violin and Organ. Composed in 2010 and cast in three movements, it offers a remarkably assured blending of the keening middle voice and skittish and silky high strings of the violin to the more grounded timbres of the organ. The characterful, often nimble dialogues that ensue (the lively Tarantella finale a case in point) prove exquisitely rewarding. Both soloists play with nuanced feeling, and Duncan Honeybourne is an articulate advocate both for the music and for the expressive II/33 Kuhn organ (2007) of Jesus College, Cambridge. Ravishing accounts, too, of violin …