This Varied Piano Recital Release from the Bella Musica Label of Keyboard Works Stretching Across Three Centuries and Spotlighting Six Composers Highlights the Playing of the Doyen of German Pianists, Prof. Manfred Reuthe. A Berliner of Impeccable Degree, He Has Taught for Over 40 Years in Addition to Giving Concerts and Recitals All Over the World, Yet His Playing Remains Fresh and Vigorous Still. His Recital Programs Often Feature the Virtuosic Works of the 19th C. Romantic Piano Tradition, Including Those By the Austro-German Romantics and the French Impressionists.

This selection of works by Gottschalk, Barber, Wild and Gershwin give vivid insights into the diversity of American music written during a period spanning almost two centuries, a diversity shaped by a uniquely American musical idiom. The young Georgian-German pianist Catherine Gordeladze’s has established herself as one of the most remarkable and versatile musicians of her generation. “…phenomenal technique, perfect memory, distinctive creativity.” - Frankfurter Rundschau

The Heritage of John Philip Sousa, Vol. 4

This programme presents the first integral recording of the complete published and manuscript duets by the Catalan master Jose Ferrer, last of the charismatic Romantic guitarist-composers, whose light-touched skill at creating music of elegance, charm and nuanced shading made him a darling of cultured society. Taking us from languorous dances to the glamor of Italian grand opera, this is mesmerizingly beautiful music redolent of a lost era of soirees and gallantry, Iberian salons and forgotten Parisian boudoirs. Norwegian guitarist, theorbo-player and mandolinist Jorgen Skogmo studied with Robert Brightmore and David Miller at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As solo guitarist he has won several prestigious international prizes including Admira Young Guitarist of the Year and the 2002 Ivor Mairants Guitar Award. Jens Franke trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and King’s College, London. An artist of eclectic taste, he has worked with English National Ballet, and was formerly orchestral guitarist of the European Union Youth Orchestra, in which capacity he appeared in concert with Bernard Haitink, playing well-known venues all over the world.

The Grammy-winning professional chamber choir The Crossing, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, and Navona Records present WORDS ADORNED. Conducted by Donald Nally, with Takht musical direction by Hanna Khoury, the combined forces interpret lush scores from Kinan Abou-afach and Kareem Roustom; the music is at times driven and passionate, at others mystical and lyrical, responding to ancient Andalusian poetry in the Muwashshah tradition. The takht – masterfully handling the oud, qanun, violin, cello, and percussion – guides the kaleidoscopic sounds and colors in these poems of love, revelry, and war, with additional solo work by the virtuosic singer Dalal Abu Amneh. True to their commitment to honor tradition while constantly blazing new ground, The Crossing’s latest offering is steeped in history, deeply relevant to modern listeners, and bridges cultures seamlessly.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

We have on this disc three highly entertaining orchestral works saturated with Latin rhythms and melodic motives. The Symphony No. 3 actually casts a wider net than just “Salsa.” The performances, featuring Sierra’s home town team under the capable baton of Maximiamo Valdés, do the music proud, and the engineering is vivid.

-- ClassicsToday.com

One is inclined to speak of soulmates after hearing Simon Höfele and Elisabeth Brauss play as a duo and after getting to know them both personally. It is like two people connecting with one another in music and in conversation when they either know each other very well or have forged a special bond for some other reason. The latter is sure to be true this album is their first joint recording venture. With his album Standards, a testament to his time as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and in collaboration with two BBC orchestras, he devoted himself to the core repertoire of trumpet and orchestra and the great trumpet concertos by Haydn, Hummel, Copland and Arutiunian. Spearheading a young, go-getting generation of artists and awarded an Opus Klassik, he now takes a look at the New Standards the 20th century chamber music for trumpet. Together with pianist Elisabeth Brauß, he interprets works by Arthur Honegger, Karl Pilss, Georges Enescu, Paul Hindemith, Jean Françaix and Alexander Arutiunian, which illustrate the mutability of his instrument in an astonishing way: The trumpet repertoire contains works by many unfamiliar composers, works which really hardly anybody knows, there are nowhere near as many as there are for violin, and we have no Beethoven or Brahms its very much of a niche thing, and yet its our standard repertoire and really great, wonderful music. The album is a kind of Best-Of of the chamber music literature for trumpet, its a good selection and shows off the many facets of this repertoire, says Simon Höfele.

Acclaimed Chinese/American composer Bright Sheng has been fascinated by folk music for his entire career and Northern Lights is his first work to use Scandinavian folk music, exploring its kinship with American sources such as Appalachian and Bluegrass music. Inspired by ancient Chinese poetry, Melodies of a Flute captures deep and sensuous moods of love and longing, while Hot Pepper refers to the spicy cuisine of Si Chuan province. Bright Sheng combines Chinese and Western musical ideas to create luminous, deeply expressive and rhythmic scores, giving new meaning to the idea of music as a universal language.

Ludwig van Beethoven stands as a giant in music history for his great symphonies, piano sonatas and string quartets, and the challenges of deafness later in life. This programme shows the younger Beethoven's facility as a creator of light and entertaining chamber works as enjoyable to perform as they are to hear. Taking their cues from Mozart, the 'Duos' build on sonata form and dance movements, the slightly later 'Serenade' taking the shape of a genial 18th-century divertimento. Flutist Kazunori Seo was born in Japan in 1974. He began studying music at age 6 with his parents before going on to study in Paris. He was the recipient of the Premier Prix in flute in 1998 and the Premier Prix in chamber music in 1999. His previous recordings for Naxos include the flute music of Leopold Hofmann, Karl and Franz Doppler, Ignaz Moscheles, and Carl Czemy.

Opera News Critic's Choice

Composed by multi-award-winning artist Michel Legrand and written by American poets Alan & Marilyn Bergman, this album is made up of a cycle of songs. It tells the story of a woman’s life from birth to death, passing by all of its highlights: childhood, adolescence, first love, and motherhood. Composed and written in the 70’s, the project was never completed. Thanks to Natalie's input, Michel Legrand rewrote the score and Alan & Marilyn Bergman rewrote the lyrics especially for her in order to give a second life to this project. This masterpiece was recorded last September in London at the Air Studio with the London Studio Orchestra, conducted by Michel Legrand.

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REVIEW:

Dessay is a worthy interpreter. The range of Between Yesterday and Tomorrow is well suited to her new voice, and she is able to delineate each of these songs—and each of these stages, from infancy to dotage—with the acting skills that have long marked her stage career. She is even called on at times to imitate the voice of a young child, and she does so without coyness. Legrand’s score is sweeping, reminiscent of the best of his film music, and it includes some irresistible jazz waltzes as well as low-key, conversational, closely miked passages.

– Opera News

An exploration of the unique timbral characteristics and technical extensions of wind instruments, Gregory Wanamaker's LIGHT AND SHADOWS, WAVES AND TIME is comprised of eight compositions that collectively illustrate the composer's ability to integrate various genre influences into a distinctive whole. His music has been lauded as "pure gold, shot through with tenderness and grace" by the San Francisco Chronicle and "achingly beautiful" by the Palm Beach Daily News. The album's first track, "des ondes et les temps," which translates to "of waves and time," explores the saxophone's full range of possibilities. A solo piece performed by Casey Grev, "des ondes et les temps" waxes and wanes and rises and falls. Wanamaker expands to a quartet setting for "... unsettled, unphased... ," whose rhythmic roots can be found in genres ranging from Eastern European folk and dance music to jazz and progressive rock. The somber, poignant "Elegy," written for and performed by the Akropolis Reed Quintet, was originally composed in memory of those who died in the September 11 attacks, while the virtuosic musical fantasy, "Ragahoro Breakdown" intricately weaves elements of North Indian Raga with characteristics of a Bulgarian Horo and subtle hints of American folk music. The track that represents the second half of the album's title is a sonata in two contrasting movements, the first a quiet nocturne, the second it's polar opposite, each exploring the extended timbres of the saxophone and extreme ranges of the piano, while the dynamic "Out of Mind, Into Body" travels a similar path taken by John Friedrich's solo bass clarinet. While less than two minutes in length, the spirited "Counterpunch" effectively alternates elements of driving American-style minimalist with a fusion of jazz and funk. The album concludes with a concrète version of it's opening track, transforming it into the form of experimental music in which sound identities are intentionally manipulated to appear unconnected to their source, creating an ambient, layered soundscape.

Orff: Carmina Burana

Louis Spohr's innovative approach to symphonic writing began with the programmatic Symphony No. 4 (8555398) and was further broadened by Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 121 which he subtitled "The Earthly and Divine in Human Life". Jettisoning traditional symphonic form, this work is in effect a daring symphonic poem in three movements with a small orchestra representing the "divine" and the full orchestra the "earthly". The more traditional Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 137 - enshrining both tragic lament and sweet serenade - enables us to compare Spohr the innovator with Spohr the formalist.

The American pianist Yvar Mikhashoff commissioned 127 of the world's leading composers to write tangos for him. Between 1983 and 1991 he received an eclectic, stylistically varied range of works that offer a unique body of contemporary tango music for the piano. Tango's origin was in the waltz and mazurka but has long embraced jazz and even electronic music. In this unique collection the span is international and individual, ranging from traditional evocations to include the twelve-tone approach of Milton Babbitt, the minimalism of Tom Johnson, and the very personal voice of Michael Nyman. Having commenced her international career at the age of eleven, Hanna Shybayeva has transformed from being a 'child prodigy' to the mature and exciting musician she is today. Her playing has been praised by both the public and the press for her deep musical interpretations, captivating energy, a great sense of form and a rich colour palette. Devoted to music in every form, Hanna enjoys her solo performances as much as being a partner in both chamber and vocal music.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner's personal curation of Easter Choral music inspired by his family's annual Easter Play at his home in Springhead, Dorset. A companion to the Monteverdi Choir's 1998 recording Once as I remember, which told the story of the Springhead Christmas Play. Structured around a series of tableaux, narrating through a combination of the different Gospel accounts, it is a dramatic retelling of the Resurrection story, employing disparate musical styles and frequent shifts of focus and perspective, all held together by the creative vision of a Dorset mother and her son. He writes: "This personal selection of music for Easter from the 11th to the 20th centuries tells the story of the Resurrection and Christ's appearances to his disciples. It is based on my experience of compiling and directing the music for a mimed Easter play, performed in village churches in Dorset every year between 1963 and 1984, the brainchild of my mother, Marabel Gardiner, to whose memory this recording is dedicated."

Pianist Giacomo Di Tollo's New CD, Released on Andromeda, Is a Paean to Both Italian Opera of the 19th C. And to the Glorious Romantic Tradition of Piano Transcription and Virtuosity That Grew Up Simultaneously with the Technological Advancements in Piano Construction Across the Century. Mr. Di Tollo's Choice of Repertoire, Obscure Works or Otherwise, Intrigues and Delights in It's Insistence on Broadening and Deepening Our Contemporary Knowledge and Listening Enjoyment of a Nearly Lost Yet Proud and Insightful Art Form.

Verdi begun composition on his Messa da requiem on the occasion of Gioachino Rossini's death and finished it following the death of nationally revered writer Alessandro Manzoni; It received a full performance in 1874 and was an instant triumph. The work itself is stylistically varied, dramatically operatic in some parts and tending toward sacred polyphony in others. This classic recording features the excellent Rundfunkchor Leipzig conducted by the famed operatic and symphonic conductor, Giuseppe Patane.

·         The first ever German album of Natalie Dessay (Her first Schubert album – Her first Lieder album)·         4 Lieder have never been sung by a woman before·         Recorded with Philipp Cassard (piano) in Berlin, Siemensvilla on November 28th – December 3rd, 2016·         From Schiller and Goethe to Heine, the Schubertian Lied, which is based on the best German poets, is a reflection of the intimate thoughts of the composer who realizes an outstanding fusion between the poetic verb and the musical lyricism.

All the works on this recording were composed when Busoni was between the ages of eleven and fifteen. Full of charm and wit, they reveal his precocious absorption of earlier models- principally Bach, Mozart, Weber and Schumann- as well as exceptional technical finesse. Una festa di villagigio charts the day’s events of a village festival whilst Suite campestre, one of his most distinctive early compositions, possesses moments of inwardness that presage the mature works to come. Wolf Harden, who was born in Hamburg in 1962, is one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. He has enjoyed great success in the Trio Fontenay, an ensemble that he founded in 1980 and with which he has toured to all the world’s major music centres. Harden devotes himself not only to chamber music but, with the same success, to the solo piano repertoire. His concert tours have taken him to South America and India as well as to countries throughout Europe, and his special affinity with unusual repertoire is attested by numerous recordings. He was the first to record a complete version of Hans Pfitzner’s Piano Concerto and has recorded piano music by Erno Dohnanyi, Franz Lehar and Ferruccio Busoni.

FIGMENTS 2, which follows the success of 2016's FIGMENTS, is a compendium of chamber music that sparks the imagination. The album features the works of Yuan-Chen LI, Peter Dayton, Hans Bakker, Navid Bargrizan, and Charles Corey-innovative composers whose works draw inspiration from the world around them, be it the tribal dances of indigenous peoples, art history, 16th-century keyboard music, the science of acoustics, or the idiosyncrasies of language. The album opens with Tell by Yuan-Chen LI, a work commissioned and performed by saxophonist Jessica Maxfield, that joins the woodwind instrument in a holy dance with the leaping yips, gasps, and cries of the human voice. This is followed by Mar de Lurin, after paintings by Fernando de Szyszlo, in which composer Peter Dayton harnesses the creamy resonance of nylon guitar strings to paint vibrant studies in light and shadow. Hans Bakker's Tiento I for guitar solo and Tiento II for guitar solo are contemporary imaginings of a 16th-century Spanish form that are all at once aggressive, romantic and, at times, contrapuntal. Next comes Navid Bargrizan's 10 Aphorisms, a series of concise musical statements colored by contrasting timbres and scales that push the boundaries of music theory into the realm of psychoacoustics. A second piece by Bargrizan, Se-Chahar-Gah, is inspired by Persian classical music and performed on a custom-built microtonal guitar. The album concludes with Charles Corey's Syzygy, a four-movement work for string quartet, each one exploring relationships between tonality and dissonance; the last movement dramatically ends the album by slowly gliding to the extreme registers of the ensemble. FIGMENTS 2 invites listeners on a journey that is sure to both delight their minds and challenge their assumptions. The sundry pieces, each infused with the unique voice of their composer, come together to form a distinctive and cohesive album. FIGMENTS 2 offers listeners a brief taste of the breadth of sounds that Navona Records has to offer and is sure to leave them hungry for more.