In this third volume of Liszt's Schubert song transcriptions, which includes some rare versions, the composer’s prodigious capacity for colouration, shifting textures and use of myriad pianistic devices brings refinement and beauty to each song. Follows Volume 1 (8.553062, Volume 5 in the Complete Liszt edition) and Volume 2 (8.554729, Volume 17 in the Complete Liszt edition) of the Schubert Song Transcriptions series. Goran Filipec also contributed to Volumes 42 (8.573458), 49 (8.573705) and 55 (8.573794) of the Liszt Complete Piano Music series.

Richard Strauss’s Josephs Legende is a ballet in one act composed for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1914. Fabrice Bollon conducts the Staatskapelle Halle in a work of alluring sensuality and soaring themes.

REVIEW:

All in all, the result is a thoroughly suggestive interpretation, which of course cannot completely take over the scenic element. Nevertheless, the dramaturgical contours are beautifully worked out, and everything leads up to the apotheosis, when Joseph and the Archangel disappear into other spheres. Once again, Fabrice Bollon allows the Staatskapelle Halle to make full use of its potential and to immerse itself in the story, which is not always the case in the tutti passages, which sound somewhat distant – perhaps in order to avoid any pathos. Nevertheless, this remains a rewarding recording of Richard Strauss’ first ballet score.

-- Pizzicato

This is the first of two volumes of George Walker’s complete piano works, both featuring performances by Alexandre Dossin. The three sonatas heard here offer compelling contrasts. Sonata No. 1 (rev. 1991) is his longest and utilises folk tunes, No. 2 is darker and unified by tonal relationships, while No. 3 (rev. 1996) displays contrapuntal mastery and translucent elements. The album opens with the serene and majestic Prelude and Caprice, while both Spatials and Spektra are atonal. Bauble is heard in a world premiere recording.

REVIEW:

Judging by the compositions on this album, his piano music is communicative, colorful, expressive and, above all, characteristic. As a student of Rudolf Serkin, he was himself an outstanding pianist with an impressive career in Europe and the United States. This may have been conducive to his talent as a composer. 

Pianist Alexandre Dossin shows himself to be an accomplished interpreter, making Walker’s tonal language his own with his flexible and sensitive playing.

-- Pizzicato

To commemorate the 75th anniversary year of Turina’s death, this album presents some of the composer’s most admired works heard in arrangements for strings, performed by Spanish ensemble Concerto Málaga directed by Gil de Gálvez. Two of his best-known works – La oración del torero (‘The Prayer of the Bullfighter’) and Orgía, from Danzas fantásticas – open and close the program. Other examples include a sinuous Andalusian Tango and a rare example drawn from his incidental music, Aparición del Arcángel.

REVIEW:

All eight works presented here originally had different instrumentation but could be transferred to a string section without any loss of substance, enabling Concerto Málaga to present a nice collection to mark the 75th anniversary of the composer’s death.

Two of the composer’s best-known works, La oración del torero and Orgia, can be heard at the opening and closing, interspersed with other pieces that illustrate Turina’s style.

The 12-member, Andalusian string ensemble Concerto Málaga and its leader and violinist Gil de Gálvez offer interpretations that are more subtle than extremely evocative of Spanish color. The predominantly short movements charmingly and elegantly presented. Despite the uniform instrumentation throughout, the different characters become clear.

-- Pizzicato

Franco Alfano possessed an innate melodic facility combined with a talent for unexpected timbres. From the neo-Classical Divertimento to the noirish post-war Nenia, the lightness of touch of Amour… Amour… to the impressionistic Una danza and luxuriously orchestrated Suite romantica, each work reveals a different aspect of this multifaceted composer. This release of world premiere recordings features the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano conducted by Giuseppe Grazioli who makes his Naxos début.

REVIEW:

Franco Alfano (1875–1954) remains a marginal figure in musical life despite a fair degree of coverage in record catalogs. Yet he is a thoroughly original composer, one who possessed an innate melodic gift combined with a talent for unexpected timbres, as can be heard in the lavishly orchestrated Suite romantica. The half-hour work is heard on this album in a very colorful and expressive, excellently performed interpretation.

With Una danza, completely different colors are expressed and one may hear an influence of Debussy. This is followed by Nenia, a somewhat melancholy solo piece for accordion, sensitively played by Davide Vendramin, which finds its counterpart in the Aria of the Divertimento, even if the outer movements are very lively and playful.

The program, pleasing and excellently played, ends with the Waltz Amour… Amour…, originally composed for piano in 1901 and orchestrated in 1928.

-- Pizzicato

The two new choral pieces in this fifth volume of works by Elisabetta Brusa offer a revealing look at her response to her own spirituality. The Stabat Mater was written as a trial for the Requiem and is the more expressively brusque work. Both works, heard here in world premiere recordings, follow traditional models, with the Requiem evoking an archaic atmosphere with luminous elements and transcendent effects. Previous volumes of Brusa's music can be heard on 8.574263 (Vol. 4), 8.573437 (Vol. 3), 8.555267 (Vol. 2) and 8.555266 (Vol. 1).

The prolific and internationally admired Jia Daqun is one of China’s leading composers. The Wave of the Surging Thoughts is a large-scale symphonic concerto-suite which achieves a high degree of unity through the use of formal variations. Bashu Capriccio is an ardent symphonic prelude that celebrates the cultural traditions and simple folk customes of Bashu, the ancient name of Sichuan province. Two albums of Daqun's chamber music can be heard on 9.70241 and 8.579011, with an album of percussion works on 8.579028.

Written for the Opéra in Paris, Gaetano Donizetti’s La Favorite contains some of his most famous arias. This superb production from the Donizetti Opera Festival in his birthplace of Bergamo returns the work to its rarely heard 1840 French grand opera origins, and uses the critical edition by Rebecca Harris-Warrick which includes all of the original ballet music and the cabaletta of the duet between Léonor and Alphonse. Set in 14th-century Spain, the tragic story is of a pious novice (Fernand) who falls in love with a noble lady and abandons the cloister. He becomes a war hero and asks the King for her hand, later finding out to his horror that she is Léonor de Guzman, the King’s beloved mistress.

All the arrangements on this album are of instrumental works that Astor Piazzolla composed for his Quinteto Nuevo Tango. Most prominent is the Vivaldi-inspired Las cuatro estaciones porteñas reimagined in concerto style for solo violin and string orchestra by Leonid Desyatnikov. The seven other companion pieces are heard here in world premiere recordings of arrangements by conductor Ken Selden, who leads the Martingale Ensemble.

The first volume in this series of Erich J. Wolff’s complete songs introduces a composer of astonishing gifts, whose Romanticism is as daring as his formal sophistication. Wolff’s serene, lyrical and masterful songs are interpreted here by soprano Samantha Gaul, tenor Daniel Johanssen and pianist Klaus Simon. 2024 marks the 150th anniversary of Wolff’s birth.

"Heiko Quinto" is the sixth album release on Naxos by the award-winning composer Daron Hagen. Composed for Duo YUMENO, the piece is based on the Japanese medieval text "The Tale of the Heike." Scored for Japanese koto, cello, and two voices, the work presents a compelling and expressive narrative. World premiere recording.

This recording of Corigliano's chamber arrangement of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan featuring soprano Laura Hynes, is coupled with Vincent Ho's virtuosic and mystical Gryphon Realms for piano trio. World premiere recordings. Corigliano's orchestration of Mr. Tambourine Man can be heard on 8.559331.

I had always heard, by reputation, of the high regard accorded the folk-ballad singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. But I was so engaged in developing my orchestral technique during the years when Dylan was heard by the rest of the world that I had never heard his songs. So I bought a collection of his texts, and found many of them to be every bit as beautiful and as immediate as I had heard – and surprisingly well-suited to my own musical language.

I chose seven poems for what became a thirty-five minute cycle. A Prelude: Mr. Tambourine Man, in a fantastic and exuberant manner, precedes five searching and reflective monologues that form the core of the piece; and Postlude: Forever Young makes a kind of folk-song benediction after the cycle’s close. Dramatically, the inner five songs trace a journey of emotional and civic maturation, from the innocence of Clothes Line through the beginnings of awareness of a wider world (Blowin’ in the Wind), through the political fury of Masters of War, to a premonition of an apocalyptic future (All Along the Watchtower), culminating in a vision of a victory of ideas (Chimes of Freedom). Several years after composing the vocal/piano score I orchestrated the work, and some years later transcribed it for Pierrot ensemble, a chamber group. This is the first recording of the chamber version. - John Corigliano

Gryphon Realms is a three-movement work, inspired by gryphon mythology, that explores the coloristic, virtuosic and expressive possibilities of the piano trio while highlighting my more personal musical language. - Vincent Ho