Tom Winpenny conducts this album of choral works by Elizabeth Poston (1905–1987) – an English composer renowned for her great sensitivity of word setting, a profound appreciation of ancient folk-song traditions, and timeless melodic charm. Performed by the Cathedral Girls Choir and Lay Clerks from St Albans Cathedral, located in her native Hertfordshire – this is the first album to be dedicated entirely to Poston’s work. Includes many world premiere recordings.

This new installment in the Naxos Lifestyle Series is titled Music for Book Lovers: Classical Music for Reading. This is an ideal special edition for book lovers. Nestle into your favorite reading spot and experience how this music speaks volumes as the perfect accompaniment to your page-turning. Works include pieces from composers like Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Boulanger, Ravel, Godowsky, and more. (Naxos)

Known primarily as a composer of choral music, Lorenzo Perosi was also a priest and much admired by Puccini. Stellar Italian pianist Matteo Bevilacqua is joined once again by members of the Roma Tre Orchestra in these 20th-century Italian chamber music discoveries. Includes world premiere recordings. Perosi’s piano quartets and String Trio No. 2 are available on Naxos 8.574375.

Claudio Santoro was one of Brazil’s most eminent and influential composers. Over a 50-year period, he wrote a cycle of 14 symphonies that is widely acclaimed as the most significant cycle of its kind ever written in Brazil. The two selected works in this inaugural volume of the first complete recording of his symphonies focus on the 1950s, a period when Santoro sought a more direct and communicative idiom using Brazilian elements. His use of folk-based material is nonetheless highly creative, sometimes indeed abstract, as in key moments of Symphony No. 5. The Symphony No. 7 is one of his most complex and intense works, a celebration of his country’s new capital Brasília in music of striking modernity.

REVIEWS:

Claudio Santoro (1919-89) composed fourteen symphonies over the course of about fifty years, making him one of the most noteworthy twentieth-century Brazilian composers in large forms. On evidence here, they are uneven in quality, with the problems occurring when you might expect – in the larger, more complex outer movements. I’m thinking especially of the Fifth Symphony, whose opening Andante mosso–Allegro moderato consists of a series of crescendos leading, essentially, nowhere. The thematic material isn’t too memorable either. The situation improves in the central scherzo and slow movement (a set of variations), but the same “sound and fury signifying nothing” returns in the finale. Santoro’s style incorporates obvious Brazilian elements without ever turning blatantly “folksy.” Clearly the idiom is his own.

This is even more evident in the Seventh Symphony, subtitled “Brasilia,” and designed for the dedication of the country’s new capital city. A more ambitious and successful work than the Fifth, this time with the scherzo played third rather than second, the music evolves from the relative harmonic simplicity of its opening to a more challenging language in the finale–from rural to urban, you might say. Whether this was Santoro’s intention I have no idea, but I like the result. There’s a good bit of stomping and pounding in this symphony–indeed in both works–with some enthusiastic use of the bass drum, but it all seems to be part and parcel of the music’s boldness and energy, and its confrontational gestural language never sounds merely gratuitous.

Certainly the Goiás Philharmonic under Neil Thomson has every reason to be proud of its achievement here. This is not easy music to play. Santoro’s writing for the violins, in particular, sounds positively wicked, with lots of passage-work at high speed, often reaching upwards into the nether regions of the instrument. The scherzos too offer plenty of rhythmic kinks to keep everyone alert, and the crispness of the orchestra’s response can only provoke admiration.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Neil Thomson conducts strongly committed readings of these fine works, and Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra play with confidence. The recording is very fine and the notes are exemplary. This first instalment of the Naxos cycle of Santoro’s symphonies augurs well indeed.

-- MusicWeb International

The journey is navigated with aplomb by Neil Thomson and the Goias Philarmonic Orchestra. Deftly woven counterpoint is contrasted with off-beat rhythms and expansive melodies that showcase each section of the orchestra to effect.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Much of Franz Joseph Haydn’s long career was in service as a court musician to the wealthy Esterházy family. It was early in Haydn’s time at the Esterháza palace that Prince Nicolaus took a liking to the hypnotic sound of the baryton – a bowed instrument with an extra set of strings that vibrate sympathetically or are plucked for tonal contrast. The baryton was considered the pinnacle of 18th-century aristocratic instruments, and the outstanding beauty of Haydn’s trios represent its final renaissance, placing this remarkable antique firmly into the poised and tasteful Classical style of the day. The Valencia Baryton Project comprises musicians from the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía opera house in Valencia and the Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, who came together with the vision of performing the almost 160 works by Joseph Haydn written for the baryton, a cross between a viola da gamba and a lirone. At the heart of the ensemble is the traditional baryton trio – baryton, viola and cello – for which Haydn wrote 123 works of outstanding beauty during his time as court composer for Prince Esterhazy of Austria. Members of the Valencia Baryton Project have performed in chamber ensembles including Quarteto Radamés Gnattali, the Elan Quintet, Gogmagogs and Trio Vanguardia and with orchestras including the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the BBC Philharmonic. The Valencia Baryton Project is the first ensemble to record the baryton for Naxos.

Alberto Nepomuceno was a herald of Brazilian musical nationalism. He was one of the first composers in his country to employ elements of folklore in his compositions, he encouraged younger composers such as Villa-Lobos, and his music was conducted by Richard Strauss. The Prelude to O Garatuja, an incomplete opera, is one of his best-known works and an example of a truly Brazilian lyric comedy. Serie Brasileira is a vivacious suite that employs maxixe rhythms and ends with the feverish batuque dance, while the Symphony in G minor is one of the earliest such examples by a Brazilian, a heroic and lyric structure revealing the influence of Brahms.

REVIEW:

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) was a major force in the development of Brazilian music at the turn of the twentieth century. He worked as a composer, conductor, and educator, tirelessly promoting Brazilian music and the use of Portuguese as an “art language.” The three orchestral works presented here are typical of his work. The Prelude to O Garatuja (1904), an incomplete lyric comedy, uses obvious national themes and offers nine minutes of high-spirited fun as well as a lightness and elegance found in all of the pieces on this disc.

The Brazilian Suite of 1891 had me immediately thinking “Grieg,” and it came as no surprise to learn that Nepomuceno befriended the Norwegian composer during his studies in Europe and saw him as a model. All the same, the work is beautifully scored and in several places quite personal in expression–its four movements representing “Dawn at the Mountains,” a gentle Brazilian dance intermezzo, “Napping in a Hammock,” and a gutsy concluding “Batuque” with a notable part for some native percussion (a reco-reco, or guiro).

Nepomuceno’s Symphony in G minor dates from 1893, the same year as Dvorák’s “New World.” It’s a much more conservative piece than that, although the opening movement has a nice rhythmic swing to it, and both the slow movement and scherzo feature characterful melodic ideas. The scherzo, in particular, mixes a sort of Mendelssohnian delicacy with sudden military interjections from the trumpets and timpani that are very effective. The finale, though, as with so many late romantic symphonies, disappoints. It’s based on the rhythm of the first allegro in Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony, repeated endlessly. Despite a charming second subject, the movement never really gets off the ground, and the ending, with piccolo, cymbals and triangle making a predictable entrance, is unmotivated and ineffective. A good effort, in other words, but a true symphonist Nepomuceno evidently was not, and that’s no crime.

The Minas Gerais Philharmonic, a relatively new group founded only in 2008, plays all of this music very well under Fabio Mechetti. The ensemble has good discipline, and reveals some fine players occupying the principal woodwind and brass chairs. They are also quite well recorded in what sounds like a flattering acoustic space, the Sala Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. I look forward to further releases from these forces. Minas Gerais is a region perhaps best known as a source of gems and minerals for collectors, and I’m happy to report that the region’s jewels include more than just the rocky kind. Nepomuceno’s output may have been uneven, but his music is worth getting to know, and a disc like this offers an ideal introduction.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

The concertos and chamber works on this album show Villa-Lobos’s unceasing enthusiasm for new colors and sonorities in his music. The Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra was his last work for the instrument and written for Segovia. A cornerstone of the repertoire, it contains soaring melodies and rhythmic vitality couched in virtuosic writing. Exploring the instrument’s full harmonic and chromatic possibilities, the Concerto for Harmonica is also deftly orchestrated. New and daring sonic combinations are to be heard in the two chamber works demonstrating the composer’s extraordinary gift for seductive lyricism.

REVIEW:

The more you listen to Villa-Lobos, the more it seems as though he had a giant block of characteristic music that allowed him to cut off chunks of different shapes and sizes that he called “Guitar Concerto”, “Harmonica Concerto”, “Sexteto Místico”, etc. It’s not that it all sounds the same–it’s just so much the product of a single, unique personality. This splendid program consists of chunks featuring unusual instruments, or combinations of instruments. The best known work here is the Guitar Concerto, an almost impossible piece as regards balance of forces that’s marvelously played by Manuel Barrueco. The problems of audibility are easily solved on recordings, as here, by placing the soloist well out in front of the orchestra, but I’m happy to report that performance noises are still minimal.

The Harmonica Concerto is a rarity, and sounds atrociously difficult to perform. If you don’t know the instrument well, you would never imagine its wide range of pitch and expression, and surprisingly pleasant basic timbre. José Staneck must have lips of steel just to get through the piece, but he does much more than that, offering moments of real sensitivity and grace. The Sexteto Místico is a brief work in one movement scored for–get this–flute, oboe, alto saxophone, guitar, harp, and celesta. There’s nothing like it anywhere else, and the sheer sound of it is so captivating that it almost doesn’t matter what notes the musicians are playing. Fortunately, it seems that they offer the right ones.

The most “normal” piece here is the Quinteto Instrumental for flute, harp, and string trio, a substantial work in three movements as long as any of the concertos (about 17 minutes). Villa-Lobos revels in the music’s exotic sounds and luscious textures, and you will too. The uniformly first-rate performances by members of the São Paulo Symphony under the vital and sensitive direction of Giancarlo Guerrero are excellently engineered, making the whole disc a joy from start to finish–a true voyage of discovery and delight.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

This set consists of previously released recordings. - ArkivMusic

Heitor Villa-Lobos once confessed that he loved to write string quartets, stating ‘one could say that it is a mania.’ His 17 quartets form a substantial part of his chamber music output, covering a long career that embraced national pride and musical experimentation leading to the rarefied atmosphere of the final masterpieces. Often drawing on the musical folklore of Brazil, these quartets are an outpouring of spontaneous and daring invention. Ranging from austere polyphony to compelling expressiveness and virtuosity, they represent one of the most distinctive bodies of chamber works in 20th-century music.

REVIEWS:

Villa-Lobos once confessed that he loved to write string quartets, stating ‘one could say that it is a mania.’ His 17 quartets form a substantial part of his chamber music output, covering a long career that embraced national pride and musical experimentation leading to the rarefied atmosphere of the final masterpieces. Often drawing on the musical folklore of Brazil, these quartets are an outpouring of spontaneous and daring invention. Ranging from austere polyphony to compelling expressiveness and virtuosity, they represent one of the most distinctive bodies of chamber works in 20th-century music. 6 CDs. Danubius Quartet. Original 1992–1994 Marco Polo releases.

-- Records International

Established in 1983, the Danubius Quartet was a Hungarian group – this set was recorded in Budapest – so while they may lack the Latinamericanlo’s Brazilian ‘accent’, they nevertheless hail from Europe’s great centre of string playing. Their brightly projected sound is ideal for Villa-Lobos’s life-affirming music.

-- Limelight

Wolf-Ferrari is famous for his operatic works in which he invented a new idiom by transplanting 18th-century Venetian culture into the 20th century. But almost all of the composer’s orchestral music dates from his final years and occupies a different expressive realm. The Suite veneziana resonates with melancholy, and the Triptychon is a contemplative, passionate masterpiece of orchestration. Subtle use of counterpoint transforms the Divertimento into a playful exploration of themes, while Arabesken pays tribute to an old friend, the Venetian painter Ettore Tito (1859–1941). His own elegantly simple melody, known as ‘Tito’s theme’, is turned by Wolf-Ferrari into a sequence of sumptuous orchestral variations culminating in a powerful fugue.

Acknowledged by Sir Arthur Sullivan as his musical heir, Edward German enjoyed huge acclaim during his lifetime. His dances are ‘charged with the fragrant essence of the greenwood’ and the Overture to Nell Gwyn, with its richly English themes, explains Elgar’s liking for German’s music. The gloriously romanticized Gipsy Suite pays subtle homage to Dvořák; the dances from Henry VIII were responsible for his early celebrity; and Tom Jones (on 8.660270-71) and Merrie England were two of his greatest stage successes. Conductor Adrian Leaper is a prominent conductor in Naxos’ roster and in addition to those light music discs he has also recorded formidable recordings of Elgar and Wieniawski (8.572952), and Havergal Brian (8.572014), among many others.

Famous today for his Trois Gymnopédies, Erik Satie was an eccentric and solitary figure who was nevertheless viewed by some as a prophet of French musical modernism, his striking creativity championed by Ravel and Debussy. From tragedy and trauma in his early years, through his time as a pianist and Parisian provocateur at Le Chat Noir cabaret, and as house composer to the mystical Rose+Croix cult and beyond, Satie’s eventful life is told in this fascinating revue of a composer whose unique music is still influential today. The narrative, written by musicologist Davinia Caddy and read by actor Lucy Scott, is illustrated with musical excerpts from works including Gymnopédie No. 3, Gnossienne No. 3, Sports et Divertissements, Trois Morceaux en forme de poire and Relâche, among others.

Between 1879 and 1880, as he approached his 40th birthday, Giovanni Sgambati completed his Piano Concerto in G minor, a work on which he had been working for about two years. It was a significant moment for Italian instrumental music: it was, in fact, the first Romantic piano concerto by a composer from the country that had given the world both the instrument, invented by Cristofori almost two centuries earlier, and the genre itself.

The Piano Concerto displays an assured compositional hand. It constitutes not only a new beginning for Italian piano music but also a synthesis of the possibilities offered by the genre. An extremely difficult work to play, it is not immediately accessible on a first hearing, given the density of its material, but reveals more about Sgambati’s inventiveness and technical mastery every time you listen to it.

The Sinfonia festiva (Ouverture de fête) was composed in 1878 or 1879, making it contemporaneous with the Piano Concerto and proof of Sgambati’s growing dedication to orchestral music. It is a short but mature work, confidently written, clearly inspired by the dance-like character of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Three main themes, the first lean and lively, the second more lyrical, the third impudent and leaping, are organized according to the principle of sonata form, with a development section in which the initial motif pops up time and again, wandering between tonalities, sometimes giving the impression of formal freedom, sometimes of obeying rondo form.

REVIEW:

A pupil of Liszt, Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) stood out among 19th-century Italian pianists for his advocacy of the German school and classical models. His massive three-movement Piano Concerto in G minor (1880) might be described as a hybrid that fuses the similarly scaled Brahms D minor concerto with piano writing marked by Lisztian bravura.

Imagine Liszt reworking the echt-Hungarian finale of Brahms’ Violin Concerto for piano on his own stylistic terms, and you’ll get an idea of what Sgambati’s third movement sounds like. Similarly, the grandiose first movement owes much of its existence to the arpeggiated flourishes in Beethoven’s Emperor concerto first movement and motives from Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy.

Recorded live in 2013, the (late) pianist Massimiliano Damerini handled the daunting piano part with brilliance and confidence. He positively opens up and thrives in front of an audience.

Both conductor and orchestra make a splendid case for the delightful Sinfonia festiva (‘Ouverture de fête’), presented in its world premiere recording here.

  -- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Early music specialist Federico Maria Sardelli conducts his Modo Antiquo ensemble in this live performance of Cavalli’s Il Xerse – a highly innovative dramma per musica premiered in 1655. Recorded during the the 48th Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca, Italy, the cast includes the countertenor Carlo Vistoli and soprano Ekaterina Protsenko. A Blu-ray and DVD of this performance were released in June this year on the Dynamic label (DYN-57983 & DYN-37983).

REVIEW:

Francesco Cavalli’s Il Xerxe was first performed in Venice in 1655. The plot essentially consists of the efforts of the Persian Xerxes to win over the beautiful vassal Romilda, who is, however, in love with the king’s brother, Arsamene. The other main characters are also involved in the intrigues: Amastre, the woman already promised to the Persian king, and Adelanta, Romilda’s sister, who would love to see herself on the Thorn.

Countertenor Carlo Vistoli sings the title role with a warm and round, well-managed voice, which also convincingly conveys the character of the fickle figure. With her powerful voice, Gaia Petrone succeeds in interpreting Arsamene in a vocally worthy and credible manner. Ekaterina Protsenko sings a very attractive Amastre, and Caterina Lippo is also convincing as Romilda. The other roles are satisfactorily cast as well. Frederico Maria Sardelli leads the excellent Orchestra Barocca Modo Antiquo in a spirited, flowing and energetic performance.

-- Pizzicato

Angel Stanislav Wang (b. 2003, California), winner of the 2022 Jaén Prize International Piano Competition, presents his debut recital featuring Liszt’s monumental Sonata in B minor, and Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G minor accompanied by the Bretón String Quartet, plus excerpts from Granados's Goyescas and the competition imposed work Poema a un amor eterno by Laura Vega.