Carl Czerny’s instructional exercises may be his lasting legacy but there remain numerous largely forgotten pieces that reveal important elements of his compositional range. The four Romantic Fantasies named after Sir Walter Scott’s famous Waverley novels are piano duets of epic breadth. In them Czerny ingeniously develops popular Scottish melodies, including the use of the ‘Scotch snap’, to generate a vivid programmatic quality that explores numerous genres. Scherzos, fugal passages, chorales and marches are all featured, and raise the music – full of beauty, virtuosity and unpredictability – to orchestral proportions.

REVIEW:

Though the majority of Czerny's more than 800 works were for solo piano, there were also works intended for use in public concerts, such as the four Romantic Fantasies for piano duet composed in 1832. Each is of sizeable proportions and based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, Czerny having been an avid reader. They used the stories that were recounted in Waverley, Guy Mannering, Ivanhoe and Rob Roy, and in his thematic material he appropriately used Scottish and English traditional melodies. Technically they are highly demanding, particularly in the many mercurial passages for the right hand of the ‘Primo’ pianist, and proved a very testing time for Pei-I Wang in Waverley. The second Fantasy, in a mood of quiet suspense, leads to the military atmosphere that opens Ivanhoe, and finally he cast Rob Roy as a weighty finale. Mid-way through the disc the North American-based duo exchange places, Samuel Gingher becoming the ‘Primo’, the young duo here offering World Premiere Recordings made in 2019. A discovery that has given me considerable pleasure.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

In his vast compositional activity Ferdinand Thieriot manifested himself first and foremost as a worthy representative of the German Romantic movement. The well-known music theorist and critic Hermann Kretzschmar definitively stated in 1895: “… His contribution to Romantic music is characterized by the way it unfolds simply and naturally, by its amicable elegance of mood, and in particular by the unsurpassed clarity of musical form and language.” In 2004 the Amadeus Verlag published his two string trios for violin, viola and violoncello in D major and in A minor. Both works are full of the lyricism so characteristic of Thieriot’s writing, while also manifesting a refined precision of musical language, elegance of form and irreproachable taste. Undoubtedly the two string trios make a valuable addition to the international chamber repertoire. On this album, the works are interpreted by the successful Trio Lubotsky (Mark Lubotsky, Katarina Andreasson and Olga Dowbusch-Lubotsky)

Social and musical life in Biedermeier Vienna during the first decade of the 19th century created a great demand for dances which took place in the residences of wealthy citizens. With their echoes of the Austrian countryside Schubert’s folk-type Ländler are dances in 3/4 time, precursors of the waltz. Composed towards the end of his life when Schubert wrote his greatest music, the sets of 16and17Ländlerare notable for their melodic inventiveness. The 16arededicated to the ladies of Vienna and known as the Wiener Damen-Ländler; while the Écossaises were intended for facing lines of dancers rather than couples. Daniel Lebhardt relishes the joy and ‘irresistible and sometimes quite delirious’ ingenuity of these jewel-like dances.

Janácek’s final decade saw an almost unprecedented creative renewal during which he wrote some of his greatest works. Among them were his chamber music masterpieces, the two String Quartets. The first was inspired by Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata, a torrid tale of adultery and murder to which Janácek responded with music of increasingly frenzied passion. The second was subtitled Intimate Letters, a freely evolving work full of yearning and amorous defiance. originally cast for four violins, the two youthful Sonnets date from 1875 and balance the archaisms of the first with the lyricism of the second.

REVIEW:

The scores of the quartets are liberally sprinkled with changes of tempi and dynamics, and nowhere are those more important than when capturing the mood of the ‘story’ being told in the opening two movements of the First Quartet. Maybe recordings from Slovak quartets are the most successful in making those moments really startling, but the New Zealanders offer very well prepared performances, full of well judged nuances, and suitably suave when required in the Second Quartet. There they question, without resolution, the contents of the letters, with undiluted searing moments of pain. In summary, with the impeccable balance between instruments, and squeaky clean intonation, these are among my recommended performances on disc.

– David's Review corner (David Denton)

Soon after his return from studies in Leipzig, Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote his second work, L’Île Enchantée. This was a ballet score on the subject of a shipwrecked mariner which debuted at Covent Garden in the form of a divertissement at the end of Bellini’s La sonnambula, where it was received with acclaim. This premiere recording restores passages Sullivan cut when presenting the work for concert performances. Thespis, a collaboration with W.S. Gilbert, is a flamboyant opera cum pantomime of which only fragments now remain – the work’s lost ballet has been rediscovered and restored by Roderick Spencer and Selwyn Tillett.

REVIEW:

L’Île Enchantée is an early (1864) ballet originally designed to be performed as a divertissement following a performance of Bellini’s La Sonnambula. Nights at the opera evidently ran long in those days, because this particular trifle lasts nearly fifty minutes. The music reveals the young Sullivan fully in command of his gifts for catchy melodies and colorful orchestration. It may not be great stuff, but it is extremely entertaining, and if you enjoy nineteenth-century ballet music then you’ll certainly take to this appealing example of the genre. Never mind the plot, which involves a shipwrecked sailor washed up on an island populated by nymphs and fairies and suchlike. The autograph score is lost, but the work was reconstructed from surviving orchestral parts and here receives its world premiere recording (originally issued on Marco Polo in the early 1990s)—and a fine one it is.

Thespis, Sullivan’s first collaboration with W.S. Gilbert, was a Christmas spectacular most of which no longer exists — Sullivan incorporated bits of it into later works, but a few ballet numbers appear to have survived. The five dances presented here total nine minutes of music, and make an apt filler to The Enchanted Isle. Again, they reveal Sullivan’s obvious facility at this sort of light entertainment. Andrew Penny and the RTE Concert Orchestra offer lively, refreshing performances of all of this music. There’s not a dull or routine moment anywhere, and Naxos’ clean and clear sonics leave little to be desired. This release represents an attractive and intriguing addition to the discography of England’s greatest nineteenth-century composer.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

John Ireland’s music is often a response to landscape and romantic sensitivities, and with its significant musical clues, broad, songlike melodies and turbulent finale, the Sonata in G Minor is one of his most expressive and passionate works. A Downland Suite is one of Ireland’s most attractive compositions, especially for its exquisite Elegy and popular Minuet made familiar through its use in radio and television. Ireland’s evocative piano works lend themselves well to string orchestra arrangement, including the poetic Soliloquy, and In a May Morning inspired by spring on Guernsey.

This album is the first to present an entire program of works by Debussy and Ravel, the greatest exponents of Impressionism in music, transcribed for two guitars. The arrangements bring new life to the rich canvas of sonorities and complex harmonies in these popular works. The reflective atmosphere in Debussy's famous Clair de lune and special upper-harmonic effects in La plus que lente contrast with the "merry romp" of the Golliwog's Cakewalk and Ravel's nod to Schubert in the Valses nobles et sentimentales.

Vaughan Williams withdrew or destroyed many works from his earliest period, but with its haunting opening and luminous polyphonic textures he considered The Solent as amongst his ‘most important works’. The Fantasia is his earliest known piece for solo instrument with orchestra and contains some of his most bravura writing, contrasting with the graceful geniality of the Suite. Depicting a sublimely pastoral scene and now one of the best loved pieces ever written, Vaughan Williams called The Lark Ascending a ‘romance’, a term reserved for his most profoundly lyrical utterances.

Alexander Moyzes was one of the most significant figures in modern Slovak music, synthesizing the national musical style inherited from his teacher Vitezslav Novak with wider European contemporary trends. Both of these symphonies were written in a happy period of the composer’s life- before his musical oeuvre was overshadowed by conflict. The eloquent and sprightly Fifth Symphony is a celebration of ‘the heritage of my dear father,’ who was also a talented musician and an important figure in Alexander’s development as a composer. The Sixth Symphony is notable for its clarity and symmetry, from the simple theme of its opening to the brilliant contrapuntal fugato in its closing movement. This is Volume 3 in a series of reissues from the Marco Polo label. These releases remain as the only easily accessible reference, and with recordings and performances that still sound fresh and invigorating. Of the original release, MusicWeb International commented: “There are definite folk inflections, all incisively propelled by the late Ladislav Slovak and his orchestra who presumably know these symphonies better than anyone.”

The versatility of the suite form proved well suited to Johann Sebastian Bach in his instrumental works, and the English Suites are no exception. These are distinct from Bach’s other suites with their quasi-improvisatory opening Preludes, and further movements encompassing a wide range of moods and styles from lively dances to the pensive intensity of the slow Sarabandes. The Montenegrin Guitar Duo’s fresh and historically informed performances of these works have been acclaimed as “simply ravishing” (American Record Guide). The Montenegrin Guitar Duo is frequently invited to venues such as the Philharmonia Hall in Saint Petersburg, Manuel de Falla Hall in Madrid, and the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. International festivals regularly engage the duo to give recitals, deliver lectures and masterclasses, and adjudicate major competitions. In 2013 their debut album was released by the Montenegrin Music Centre, featuring works by Domeniconi, Piazzolla and Bogdanovic. The first of their two volumes of Bach’s English Suites was released in 2015 and received excellent reviews.

Volume 7 of Rossini’s complete piano music, Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), ranges across six of the fourteen albums to include works for both solo piano and for piano and voices. Two of the pieces – Andantino mosso (track 3), recently discovered in manuscript, and La notte di Santo Natale (track 5) receive their first recording. ‘Alessandro Marangoni sounds completely at home… and he presents the music with style, good humour and no mean virtuosity’ (MusicWeb International on 8.573107 / Volume 6).