These two works present two sharply contrasting sides of Malcolm Arnold: his limitless resources of knockabout fun, and a sense of existential tragedy. But each score presents its own surprises: the jocularity of the Grand Concerto Gastronomique conceals some seriously good (though not seriously serious) music; and the delicately scored Ninth Symphony, written after five years when its composer had, in his own words, ‘been through hell’, irradiates its emotional restraint and elegiac tone with moments of light and warmth.

REVIEW:

Overall, this is a typically excellent disc from Toccata; first rate music receiving effective performances presented in an informative and valuable package. Even the rather sombre, indeed haunted, image of Arnold that stares bleakly from the booklet cover is well-chosen and apt. Given that it is two decades since we have had a new survey of Arnold’s magnificent symphonies, I hope that this will prove to be just the beginning of a new cycle – a warmly welcomed disc.

-- MusicWeb International

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Great fun! A new full-length ballet, especially one as tuneful as this, with an exciting story, is always a welcome addition to both the ballet repertoire and to recorded music.

José Luis Domínguez, who also conducts on this set, is a significant figure in Chilean music as a conductor. This ballet is his first large-scale symphonic work. It is little surprise that, like many conductor-composers, he has such a sure sense of orchestral balance and capability, something evident throughout this work.

The ballet tells a simple story – with plenty of action, set in California – of Joaquín Murieta, a nineteenth century brigand, perhaps the inspiration for Zorro. His origins are obscure, but he has been adopted as something of a folk hero in Chile from where he might have originated. Pablo Neruda wrote a play about him, later turned into an opera by Sergio Ortega. Those works end with a gruesome finale as Murieta is shot and beheaded.

Domínguez ignores that, instead creating a tale set during the Gold Rush, in which Murieta and his men come to the rescue of a town under threat from the villainous Galgos. There is no decapitation but rather the happy outcome of reunion with the beloved Teresa. Think of this as a blend between Robin Hood and The Magnificent Seven.

The comparison is apposite, as Domínguez is quite specific that his music is inspired by symphonic soundtracks of composers such as Korngold, Herrmann and Williams. That is a clue not only to its style, but also to his idea that it should work as a stand-alone piece. This recording is a must for anyone who enjoys the great film-scores: all the virtues of sweeping themes, varied instrumentation and memorable tunes are here.

Performances are committed and in the best Hollywood tradition, with good recorded quality.

If a great ballet company such as the Royal Ballet were to take this into their repertory, one could imagine it quickly becoming a popular hit, rather in the manner of Khachaturian’s Spartacus. A fine ballet conductor, like Barry Wordsworth, would relish this score.

– MusicWeb International (Michael Wilkinson)

Track Listing

Act I

Prologue [4.26]
The town’s people [3.53]
Teresa [7.12]
The Galgos’ Entrance (The imprisonment of the innocent) [3.17]
Joaquín Murieta’s entrance [3.20]
Teresa and Joaquín (pas de deux) [4.48]
Tresdedos [1.50]
Exit of the town’s people [1.30]
El Caballero Tramposo (The drunk variation) [2.04]
Murieta’s entrance (The freeing of the prisoners – The battle) [6.27]
Murieta and Tresdedos [3.25]
The leader of the Galgos interrogates the disguised Murieta [2.37]
The bustling town [2.04]
The women’s entrance (Variation) [4.40]
The leader of the Galgos flirts with one of the wives [6.07]
Interlude (Teresa’s Song) [3.48]
The town’s festivities and the Nobleman’s Spanish Dance [5.07]
The toast and the people’s dance [4.26]
The disguised Murieta’s intrusion [4.36]
Entrance of Murieta’s men and battle [6.15]
Teresa and Joaquín’s reunion (Pas de deux) [11.17]
Epilogue [2.31]

Estonian violinist Kerem (b. 1981) is both a performer and composer, with over 100 works to his credit, 3 symphonies among them. (Toccata)

Canadian-born Joel Hastings was the winner of the 2006 8th International Web Concert Hall Competition and the 1993 International Bach Competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He won particular acclaim for his performance at the 10th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Reviewers described his playing as passionate, mesmerizing, hypnotic, and transcendental. A Steinway Artist, he performed solo recitals and orchestral engagements across Canada, the United States, and in Europe. His discography includes live recordings of Liszt’s song and operatic transcriptions and Chopin’s 24 Etudes. His recordings received Canadian critics’ awards, and were praised in publications such as American Record Guide, Limelight magazine, and Musicweb International. His playing was featured on CBC national radio and numerous stations throughout the United States. In August 2014, Naxos released his recording of solo piano music by the American composer Carter Pann to much critical acclaim (8.559751). Joel Hastings died in 2016 at the early age of 46.

Spanish music has been enriched in recent years by a series of striking and exciting double concertos featuring the country’s emblematic instrument, the guitar. Leading composer Anton Garcia Abril has written prolifically for the guitar and Concierto de Gibralfaro offers three evocative vignettes for two guitars. Mistral by David del Puerto is written for the highly unusual combination of guitar and accordion, a single movement concerto of great color and dynamic palette. Guerena’s Concierto ecuanime, for guitar and vibraphone, embraces the rhythmic influence of jazz while employing the tuning used in the rodena form of flamenco. Miguel Trápaga was born in Cantabria, Spain. He studied at the Ataulfo Argenta Conservatory, and at Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid with Javier Canduela and Demetrio Ballesteros, respectively. He also received lessons from Jose Tomas, Miguel Angel Girollet, Manuel Estevez, and others. He has won top prizes in several international competitions, and has performed in broadcasts for Spanish National Radio, BBC, and others.

Francesco Morlacchi was a native of Perugia, but early success led him to become music director of the Dresden Opera where he remained for the rest of his life despite having an opportunity to succeed Rossini in Naples in 1822. He did make tours to Italy however, and Tebaldo e Isolina received its triumphant premiere in Venice, becoming the most successful of all his operas. Morlacchi’s gifts as a lyricist and for characterization are heard here at their best, with showpiece arias and duets in a version of the Romeo and Juliet story that ends in happiness and the victory of reason over vengeance.

The dignified bearing and quiet wisdom of Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881-1950) gained him the sobriquet "the conscience of Russian music," and those qualities are reflected in the unemphatic strength of his music. His orchestral, chamber and instrumental works are regaining the currency they once enjoyed, but his large corpus of songs, many of them understated masterpieces, has yet to attract systematic attention – a situation that this series hopes to remedy. The pairing here of his late Violin Sonata with his last two song-cycles for soprano and piano mirrors the Moscow concert in 1947 when all three were given their first performances.

REVIEW:

This disc can be recommended just for the vocal works. The late Violin Sonata is a bonus, especially in its final revised version – the work underwent two revisions after its 1947 premiere by David Oistrakh and Lev Oborin. Just a few years ago, there were no recordings of the piece.

The 28-page booklet contains very well translated informative notes and full song text translations from Russian into English. This outstanding release is highly recommended. For me, it is one of the finest discs of 2021.

-- MusicWeb International

Originally written as a set of piano pieces, Mussorgsky's splendid Pictures at an Exhibition translates the artistry of the composer's friend Victor Hartmann into unforgettable music. Peter Breiner's new orchestration creates a showpiece for our times, achieving contemporary sounds through unusual instrumental combinations, and right up to a spectacular Great Gate of Kiev performed by 104 musicians. Mussorgsky's remarkable song cycles contrast encounters with death against the often uneasy world of children in the Nursery.

Multi-award-winning composer Paul Reale has a distinctly American voice, enriched and given touches of familiarity through references to folk idiom and musical ancestors such as Bartok and Kodaly. This program brings together Reale's works for cello and piano. His earliest, S�ance, is a haunting combination of modernist sounds and Baroque melodies. The operatic Cello Sonata No. 1 daringly uses 'What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor' as the backbone of it's finale, and the recent 'Chopin's Ghost' explores the Romantic composer's long, weaving lines and evokes his poetic spirit. This is the world premiere recording of the aforementioned work.

Classical Music

The composer that Casella most resembles in his chameleon-like musical personality is probably Martinu, and this is nowhere more true than in the Partita for piano and small orchestra. Scored for the distinctive combination of oboe, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three trumpets, timpani and strings, the work is an unalloyed delight. Listen to the end of the first movement recapitulation, and you’ll be hooked. Like Martinu’s Sinfonietta giocosa, the lightweight title in fact conceals a work of genuine substance, lasting (in this case) just over half an hour. The central Passacaglia (a form much exploited by Casella) is profoundly beautiful, and its evocative use of trills reveals that Casella learned a trick or two from the first Nachtmusik of Mahler’s Seventh, which he arranged for piano four-hands.

The Introduzione, aria e toccata again recalls (or foreshadows) Martinu–in this case the Toccata e due canzone. Like that piece, this is a substantial, at times brooding work brimming with memorable invention. The music’s stylized, neo-Baroque idiom couldn’t be farther removed from the nearly contemporary orchestral fragments from Casella’s only opera, La donna serpente (The Snake Woman), after a play by Gozzi. These “fragments” are actually pretty extensive, lasting a full half an hour, and if they pay homage to anyone I’d have to mention Rimsky-Korsakov. The Military March that ends the first suite evokes a fairytale atmosphere similar to that of The Golden Cockerel or Tsar Sultan, but there’s nothing Russian about the melodic material, which is completely personal.

This disc marks the conclusion of Naxos’ Casella series, and it has been a wonderful journey. As with the other discs, the performances are excellent. Sun Hee You does a wonderful job in the Partita, offering effortless virtuosity and an aptly light touch. There’s only one other recording available, featuring the very good Joshua Pierce, coupled to concertante works by Respighi and Rachmaninov, but conductor Franceso La Vecchia proves himself more imaginative an accompanist the Anton Nanut, and he also has the better orchestra and engineering. Casella truly was a great composer. The evidence on this disc is incontestable.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Rossini's ceaseless wit and invention are best exemplified in his series of operas. His colorful orchestration and command of both comic and tragic elements can be savored in this second of four volumes of the complete symphonic overtures. Guillaume Tell, with it's overture in four movements, includes a scene for five solo cellos. La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder), one of his most popular pieces, opens with an overture of charm and elan. Volume 1 (8.570933) was described by MusicWeb Internationals "an admirable start to what looks like being a very desirable series".

MUSICAL JOURNEY - ITALY: A Musical Tour of the Southern Tyrol

The Places
The Southern Tyrol was in earlier times part of the Habsburg Empire, governed from Vienna, and ceded to Italy in 1919. The region remains largely German-speaking and enjoys a considerable degree of autonomy. Of particular interest are the rock-formations of the Dolomites and the many castles and fortified houses of the province. The tour shows two historic buildings, Scholss Velthurns and Schloss Runkelstein.

The Music Music for thebr> tour is by Mozart, born in Salzburg in 1756. With his father, Leopold Mozart, Vice-Kapellmeister in Salzburg, he made three notable visits to Italy, and on various occasions broke his journey at Bozen (Bolzano) and visited Brixen (Bressanone). The music heard here is the Posthorn Serenade, written in Salzburg in 1779, and the Notturno, another serenade, written there in the winter of 1776–77.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 59 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Sonate a Quattro are the brilliant compositions from Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, written during the summer of 1804 at the young age of 12. These works, at the time, were commonly performed by wind quartet and it wasn’t until 1954 when the original manuscripts were discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. showing their original arrangement for string quartet. The world premiere recording of Rossini: 6 Sonate a Quattro features two of Canada’s most respected and beloved performers - Mark Fewer (violin), and Joel Quarrington (bass) - and two of North America’s rising stars - Yolanda Bruno (violin), and Julian Schwarz (cello) and produced by JUNO award-winning producer John D.S. Adams. These performances, from November 2017, were recorded in collaboration with the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance using the newly released (2014) Critical Edition published by the Fondazione Rossini Pesaro.

Includes concerto(s) for keyboard by J. C. F. Bach. Ensemble: The Music Collection. Conductor: Susan Alexander-Max. Soloist: Susan Alexander-Max.

When Xianji Liu became the first Chinese-born winner of the prestigious Francisco Tarrega International Guitar Competition in 2016, a new star emerged in the world of the classical guitar. Spanning the centuries and crossing the globe from Argentina to Britain, his recital includes some of the most beguiling and evocative pieces ever written for the instrument as well as four transcriptions so idiomatic to the guitar that they sound utterly natural on the six plucked strings.

Originally published in London in 1771, these six Sonatas for cello and basso continuo were arranged for cello and piano by the influential Italian virtuoso cellist Alfredo Piatti in the 1870s and are performed here on modern instruments.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s long-lost Impromptu for Viola and Piano, Op. 33, recently unearthed in the Moscow State Archives, receives here its world-premiere recording on Matthew Lipman’s Ascent, the acclaimed young American violist’s solo debut album, featuring, in the artist’s words, “music enraptured by flights of fantasy.”

Recipient of a 215 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Lipman has created an album of uplifting and spiritually transcendent works for viola and piano, dedicated to his late mother. Hailed by The New York Times for his “rich tone and elegant phrasing,” Lipman is heard in the world-premiere recording of Clarice Assad’s fantasy piece, Metamorfose, which the violist commissioned. It’s a poignant commentary on grief and acceptance. Robert Schumann’s Fairy Tale Pictures is dreamlike and fanciful. York Bowen’s richly expressive Phantasy draws on the Russian Romantic tradition. Garth Knox’s free-flying Fuga libre transfigures Bach-like fugal fragments through modern, coloristic performance techniques. The album’s finale is the first-ever recording on viola of Hollywood composer Franz Waxman’s popular violin showpiece, Carmen Fantasie. England’s The Telegraph praised Lipman as “gifted with poise and a warmth of timbre” for his recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and Sir Neville Marriner (Avie), which topped the Billboard classical chart. Lipman’s collaborator on Ascent is pianist Henry Kramer, winner of the Second Prize at the 216 Queen Elisabeth competition and top prizes at the 215 Honens International Piano Competition and 211 Montreal International Music Competition. His first commercial recording, dedicated to Liszt oratorio transcriptions, was recently released on Naxos.

Although Polish-born virtuoso and composer Karol Jozef Lipinski embraced the innovations of Paganini and other 19th century virtuosos, he disdained 'empty' technique devoid of musical depth, preferring the artistic ethos of Spohr, Tartini and Viotti. Described as 'lyrical Slavic folk tunes with elements of the ballad,' the expertly crafted G minor and A major String Trios are notable for their warmly expressive themes to go along with the bravura runs and doublestopping heard in the primo violin part. Adam Roszkowski plays first violin with the National Orchestra of Belgium. As a soloist he has performed with the Gorzow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bialystok Philharmonic Orchestra, the Camerata dll'arte Chamber Orchestra and the Carloforte Festival Orchestra. Violinist Voytek Proniewicz made his solo debut with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005. Since then he has appeared with the philharmonic orchestras of Wroclaw Dzczecin, Rzeszow, Kielce, and Gorzow, as well as the Sinfonia luventus Orchestra and the Sinfonia Viva Orchestra. Polish cellist Jan Roszkowski is a laureate of the 27th National Chamber Music Competition in Warsaw. He completed a master's degree in music performance at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.

John Philip Sousa’s swift rise to fame and greatness came at a time when band concerts were the most important aspect of musical life in the US. The works on this recording range from the early Revival March of 1876 and the stirring Right Forward March from Sousa’s time as conductor of the US Marine band, to the “up-to-date” 1920s fox-trot Peaches and Cream and the 1923 Leaves from My Notebook, dedicated to the Campfire Girls of America. Music from Sousa’s operetta Chris and the Wonderful Lamp can be found alongside his medley of tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, which includes many of the hit tunes from this operetta, while The Honored Dead was performed at President Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral.