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)

The ‘Best Loved’ series of albums covers a wide range of popular instruments, each bringing together a substantial selection of works from the vast Naxos catalogue. Each compilation includes an extensive booklet which provides a full introduction to the instrument, an explanation of how its sound is produced, and descriptions of the pieces. Each album will serve as an introduction to a specific instrument, with musical examples from the Baroque to the present, and with a mixture of solo, chamber and orchestral works. The series is aimed at listeners who do not have extensive knowledge of classical music, but who are interested to find out more about the instrument featured and about popular repertoire written for it. The focus in these releases is a light and relaxed approach, rather than academic and theoretical: a joyful exploration and celebration of individual instrumental sounds. This series will be accompanied by supplementary online playlists that will have additional best loved tracks for each instrument beyond what can be included on a physical album. This carefully selected programme represents the key Romantic-era composer/players alongside more traditional pieces.

Enrique Soro rose to great esteem not only as Chile's leading composer but as a distinguished pianist, conductor and teacher. The Sinfonia romantica was the first symphony to be composed in Chile and remains the most important example of the genre in the country's musical history. Soro's melodic distinction, mastery of orchestration and his sense of form are equally distinguished. The Tres aires chilenos espouse a kind of nationalism, fusing Chilean folk music, specifically the tonada, with the European classical tradition. The rousing Danza fantastica is a perfect concert opener.

Georges Onslow is best known for a body of chamber music that follows the musical lineage of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. A master of the quintet medium, Onslow offered variations of ensemble to players, the two presented here being cast for string quartet and double bass. The tempestuous Quintet No. 23 in A minor is charged with almost ceaseless nervous energy and Schubertian lyricism; the mature Quintet No.31 in A major is both subtle and elegant, with a brilliant assemblage of details such as walking bass and violin-cello duets.

Nikos Skalkottas was the foremost Greek composer of the 20th century, and his 36GreekDancesisundoubtedly the most popular work of Greek art music today and a monument to the nation’s rich cultural heritage. The Sea describes the experiences of a trawler on waters both calm and stormy, while the Suite No. 1 is a cornerstone of Skalkottas’ symphonic output that balances the worlds of atonality and neoclassicism. The piece was amongst manuscripts Skalkottas left behind in Berlin in1933, and he later reconstructed it from memory. The first volume in this series from the Athens State Orchestra (8.574154) was considered ‘a revelation’ by ClassicsToday.com.

Stretching back from the stark Soviet soundscape of Shostakovich, to the early pre-modernism of Prokofiev, to the pre-revolutionary opulence of Scriabin and Rachmaninov, Septura redresses a lack of original music for brass by these great composers by charting a turbulent 70 years of Russian history. Brass instruments feature prominently in these composers' symphonic output, and Septura is a natural fit for their chamber music. The focus is piano music with one prominent exception: perhaps Septura's most ambitious transcription to date, Shostakovich's profound and deeply personal Eighth String Quartet.

This carefully selected program by the multi award-winning Mare Duo presents some of the best original music written for mandolin and guitar, showing both instruments as equal chamber music partners in works both challenging and beautiful. The Duo’s surprising range and variety of timbre can be heard from Funk Pearson’s highly atmospheric Mountain Moor, and the intercultural sketches by Thomas Allen LeVines, to Guido Santórsola’s lyrical SonataNo.6.Ernst Krenek’s Suite is a late masterpiece that embraces virtuosity, intimacy and quirky wit, with a dramatic mini-opera as its finale, while Monk Feldman depicts an elusive ocean landscape in ThePaleBlueNorthernSky.

This programme of four colourful, contrasting but complementary works for small orchestra celebrates the lighter side of four twentieth-century Italian composers, centring on Alfredo Casella’s Divertimento for Fulvia, composed for his young daughter. Casella’s friend Gian Francesco Malipiero wrote Oriente immaginario (Imaginary Orient) for a Futurist play by Achille Ricciardi (1884-1923). Franco Donatoni once called his simply-titled Musica (Music) ‘kind of Schoenberg gone a bit neoclassical’ – but also with a great sense of humour – while Giorgio Federico Ghedini’s Concerto grosso is a twentieth-century tribute to both Bach and Beethoven.