This is volume three of Pablos Sarasate's music for violin and piano from Naxos, featuring virtuoso Chinese violinist Yang.
The composer was a superb violinist and Spain's answer to Paganini, so he often makes technical demands but his music is lyrical. The opening Bolero Op.30 is enough to convince that Yang will thrill and dazzle the ears as needed, while finding sensitive sympathies with the lyricism.
Other standouts are Serenade Andelouse, Reverie, Fantaisie-Caprice and Caprice sur Mireille de Gounod.
Bird-call harmonics in Los Pajaros de Chile are a delightful feature. Intonation is always impeccable, in double-stopping passages and those stunning displays of bowing in fiendishly difficult places. Yang plays all with ease - beautifully recorded.
Highlight: Another stunning virtuoso!
These two discs feature the singers' best-selling earlier record You'll Never Walk Alone, of popular songs, plus a new Live In Concert bonus album (with pianist Sharolyn Kimmerley.) The live album includes an Australian folk-song medley of four items in which the shears click and Matilda waltzes, and a "Celtic Medley" of five tunes.
Skye Boat Song, Loch Lomond, and The Wee Cooper o' Fyfe instill a strong Scottish emphasis. It also has several fine arias or art songs (listed on inner back cover with composers); unfortunately the accompanying booklet has no notes for the bonus disc, also audience applause can intrude. CD1 begins with Rodgers and Hammerstein's You'll Never Walk Alone; CD2 ends with it.
Highlight: Excellent singers, very popular fare.
