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CLASSICAL DISCS
Despite the fact that the leading disc companies create, foster and market classical music superstars as the idols of our time, there are many other excellent musicians who wish to record a varied repertoire and do not always get the chance they deserve.
Israeli musicians have never really made it big as leading recording stars, apart from Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Gil Shaham, Daniel Barenboim, and these days Sharon Kam. But numerous local musicians do manage to record some of their exciting work. Some do it with local labels and others find a label abroad.
The Jerusalem Consort, for example, recorded its first album on the Belgian Arcobaleno label (AAOC 94332) and it is a real delight. Harpsichordist David Shemer leads his ensemble, which also includes Idit Shemer on traverso flute, Lilia Slavni and Kati Debretzeni on baroque violins, and Myrna Herzog on viola da gamba in most vivid performances of exciting, esoteric repertoire by composers such as Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Rene Drouard de Bousset, Marin Marais and Franois Couperin.
When Miriam Meltzer joins with her warm baroque soprano, the result is engaging and the beautiful playing gains an additional dramatic touch. This disc is a collection of baroque gems by one of the finest musical ensembles operating, rather in the underground, in the local music scene.
THE Israel Sinfonietta Beersheba, under former music director Uri Mayer, has recorded two chamber symphonies by Shostakovich (Arabesque Z6711),...