GM Recordings New Releases — Classical

Skalkottas' Thirty-Two Piano Pieces (originally titled in German 32 Klavierstücke) is one of the composer's most monumental creative achievements, this from a composer whose work often enough tended to monumentality (e.g. the gigantic seventy minute long Second Symphonic Suite, the Third Piano Concerto and Fourth String Quartet, the twenty-five minute overture, The Return of Ulysses, the monumental Sonata for Basson and Piano, and the evening-long Cycle-Concert).

Johann Sebastian Bach's well-known French Suites originated toward the end of his Cöthen period (1717-1723), and were revised many times over the enuing decades. The earliest version -- at least for the first five suites -- has survived in Bach's own hand. It is found at the beginning of a notebook the composer prepared as a gift for his second wife, which bears the title Clavier Büchlein vor Anna Magdalena Bachin [sic].

Edwin Barker is recognized as one of the most gifted bassists on the American concert scene. Acknowledged as an accomplished solo and ensemble player, Mr. Barker has concertized in North America, Europe and the Far East.