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.

Franz Hauk has spearheaded the rediscovery of Johann Simon Mayr work’s during the last two decades. This latest premiere recording presents the substantial Messa solenne in D minor which sets the full ordinary. The Simon Mayr Chorus and Concerto de Bassus are joined by a team of stellar soloists.

The guitar works on this album are by two towering figures of Catalan music – pianist Federico Mompou and cellist Gaspar Cassadó. Both shared a friendship with Andrés Segovia who inspired these pieces. Performed by Italian guitarist Eugenio Della Chiara.

John Adams’ City Noir was inspired by the cultural and social history of Los Angeles, with the composer himself calling it ‘an imaginary film score’, while Fearful Symmetries exemplifies his steamroller motor rhythms. The album ends with a capricious ‘Spider Dance’ of memorable rhythmic drive – a work dedicated to Marin Alsop who leads the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in these performances.

REVIEWS:

Marin Alsop has been quietly championing John Adams abroad—and now at the Met Opera conducting his El Nino— for decades. A new Naxos recording with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra demonstrates her flair and feeling for his distinctive idiom. City Noir, premiered by the LA Phil in 2009, is a vivid, multi-textured score inspired by mid-20th century urban California. With its jazz inflections and brooding canvases, the debt to the City of Angels and film noir are equally clear. This is the work’s third recording but well worth acquiring for Alsop’s theatrical bite and detailed interpretation. Punchier than Robertson and livelier than Dudamel (though Robertson’s ravishing sonics make for essential listening), she holds the attention with a sure eye for the work’s architectural twists and turns. The companion piece is Fearful Symmetries from 1988, one of Adams’s most infectious scores and yet only receiving its second outing on disc. Alsop takes the chugging basic pulse a tad faster than the composer’s own recording without sacrificing any of the infinite variety to be found in Adams’s orchestral details. It’s a joyous, carefree work and beautifully recorded. The same goes for the recorded premiere of Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance. Happily rehabilitated after getting the chop from Girls of the Golden West, this six-minute essay in wriggling cross rhythms is laced with sardonic wit.

-- Musical America (Clive Paget)

John Adams’s City Noir has been pretty well represented on disc in the fifteen years since its 2009 premiere: Marin Alsop’s new recording of the score with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony is the work’s fourth. In general, this celebration of the city of Los Angeles benefits from her approach. It’s swift and characterful...its structure emerges nicely intact in Alsop’s hands. The central “The Song is for You” boasts a series of idiomatic solos (especially from alto saxophone and trombone), at times seeming to channel Gershwin. [The] ORF’s woodwinds, trumpets, and jazz drummer really shine here. By about any measure, this is some brash and chill Adams.

Even more welcome is the pairing’s account of Fearful Symmetries, a half-hour-long study in rhythm and texture that’s only been recorded once before. Granted, that earlier release was led by the composer and it’s aged well. But Alsop’s new take is downright invigorating. The conductor brings a strong sense of drive to the music, drawing out a beautiful blend of colors – from invitingly swooning saxophone quartet playing to unexpected synthesizer colors – from her forces. What’s more, hers is a reading that manages to vigorously illuminate the sophistication of Adams’s compositional language, circa 1988. It’s a keeper.

-- The Arts Fuse

On this latest release in the Guitar Laureate series, Georgi Dimitrov-Jojo, winner of the 2022 European Bach Guitar Award, presents a selection of works transcribed for guitar from the rich repertoire of Johann Sebastian Bach. Dimitrov-Jojo’s beautiful sound and poetic interpretations bring an intimate connection to Bach’s boundless imagination, crowned in this substantial programme by the famous Ciaconna, BWV 1004.

This sixth album in this series is rich in music that ranges across Auber’s creative periods where finesse of orchestral detail and piquant harmonies are met by verve and wit. It includes some of Auber's least well-known music, some in world premiere recordings, as well as scores that explore vivid dance themes. Previous volumes can be heard on 8.574335 (Vol. 5), 8.574143 (Vol. 4), 8.574007 (Vol. 3), 8.574006 (Vol. 2) and 8.574005 (Vol. 1).

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.