You can’t go wrong with 68 minutes of gentle, relaxing, and intelligent music.

Brazilian composers in the 19th century often sought state scholarships to enable them to study in Europe where they were to become influenced by the German, Italian and French compositional schools. They also became involved in the vogue for writing suites based on ancient dances, such as Nepomuceno’s delightful Ancient Suite, premiered at Grieg’s home, or Braga’s Madrigal-Pavana which evokes the belle époque ballrooms of Rio de Janeiro. Miguéz’s Suite in the Old Style is polyphonic and lively, while Gomes’ Sonata for Strings is his finest non-operatic work.

REVIEWS:

Though these Brazilian composers—all born from 1836 to 1868—aren’t household names, they’re well worth your attention. Carlos Gomes's perky, witty Sonata for Strings reminds me a lot of Rossini; the melodies are reserved almost solely for the violins, and they sound like they should be arias instead of a sonata. Alberto Nepomuceno studied in Italy and Germany, but his Suite Antique is a cousin to the Holberg Suite by his friend Grieg. Brass, winds, and timpani join strings in Leopoldo Miguez’s Suite a Antiga, and the oboe solo in the “Aria e Double” is spare yet beautiful. His tunes are fetching, and his countermelodies are inventive and attractively detailed. He gets more chromatically adventurous than the others, too. You can’t go wrong with 68 minutes of gentle, relaxing, and intelligent music. The sound is reverberant though not plush.

-- The Absolute Sound

The English Chamber Orchestra give suitably refined performances, its elegant sound being ideal for this repertoire.

-- Gramophone

The delightful Sonata for Strings by Carlos Gomes (1836–96) that opens the disc may remind some of, say, Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. The good humor continues thereafter in this enjoyable snapshot of the 19th-century Brazilian chamber orchestra music, all seemingly played with relish by the ECO.

-- BBC Music Magazine

An album combining works by Schubert, Piazzolla, and Lintinen, cellist Trey Lee is joined by the English Chamber Orchestra to perform compositions exploring the effects and impacts of climate change on both the environment and society. The album has two world premiere recordings of new arrangements for both cello and piano, and cello and orchestra by Trey Lee. “With the cello as a platform, I seek a sober yet trenchant means to tell the story of our seasons, and concurrently, create a musical narrative to account for how this crisis unfolds. This album is a journey across our world from the past to the present, and finally, to an increasingly plausible future through the prism of works by three composers from three eras.” – Trey Lee

2023 marks 25 years since the death of British composer Paul Reade. He is remembered for his delightful Victorian Kitchen Garden music (Ivor Novello Award) and television themes such as Antiques Road-show. However, he also wrote a huge range of equally wonderful but less well-known pieces, full of melodic invention, wit and fabulous energy. They are previously unpublished and unrecorded works that deserve to be heard.

These are premiere recordings (except for the Chants du Roussillon) and show Paul’s music at its best: tender, poignant, humorous and uplifting, full of wonderful melodic and dramatic invention. Philippa Davies has been hailed as a ‘first-rate virtuoso’, with ’winning charm’, ’exceptional eloquence’ and an ‘almost electrical response to technique’. Since her celebrated performance of Mozart’s Concerto in D major at the BBC Proms in 1988, she has gained an international reputation as one of the finest flautists currently performing.

Much of Carl Czerny’s concert music for piano was considered ‘wild and almost unplayable’ in his day, but these world premiere recordings reveal inspired melodic writing, great skill in orchestration and colourful virtuoso challenges in a programme that includes his final Concertino, Op. 650. This is the final release in the Naxos edition of works for piano and orchestra by Czerny. Previous releases can be heard on 8.573998, 8.573688, 8.573417 and 8.573254.

Carl Czerny penned an astonishing amount of music, including the numerous potpourris, fantasies, teaching pieces and studies for which he became known. This recording features the delightfully entertaining Concertino in C major, Op. 210/213, as well as the highly enjoyable Rondino, a work based on an enchanting theme taken from Daniel Auber’s opera comique Le Macon. A pupil and lifelong friend of Beethoven, Czerny was just 21 when he wrote the pastoral Second Grand Concerto in E flat major. Begun only twelve days after he had given the Viennese premiere of his mentor’s Emperor Concerto, the same choice of key seems a fitting homage to the grand master he so revered.