The years 1898-1900 for Elgar saw the composition of The Dream of Gerontius which represented a new style of oratorio in which a continuous musical flow replaced the customary division into separate arias and choruses. He embarked seriously on The Apostles in 1902 and the first performance took place in October of the following year at the Birmingham Festival conducted by Hans Richter. Elgar himself conducted performances in 1914 and again in 1922 in Canterbury Cathedral where this performance was given. As with Handel's Messiah Elgar's work was to have been in three parts, though it soon became apparent that it was going to be far too long for one oratorio, and the third part became the starting point for The Kingdom. This piece grew in its turn and the project became one for three oratorios; the first The Apostles, concerned with the apostles' relationship with the earthly Jesus, the second, The Kingdom, with the period after the crucifixion and the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the third, which never came to be written, on Judgment and the Life Everlasting. Another influence is to be found in Wagner who built up his scores from a pattern of leit-motifs. In his analysis of The Apostles, Jaeger identified and named about sixty such themes, though he came under criticism from Ernest Newman (a leading Wagner authority) for being too obsessional in this respect, and even Elgar himself felt that Jaeger had taken this aspect of the work further than was really justified, since the themes, while being a strong structural element in the music, lacked the immediately identifiable symbolism of Wagner's motifs. The two composers' compositional methods were very different: Wagner completed his libretto first, allocating fragments of melody to particular ideas and incorporating them into the score at significant moments, for Elgar the musical development was pre-eminent he was by nature a symphonic, rather than an operatic composer.

This disc of pieces played by pianist Polina Osetinskaya brings together the music of Nino Rota and Leonid Desyatnikov. An odd combination? Actually, no! Rota lived entirely in the 20th century while Desyatnikov was born in 1955, but what these composers have in common is not just the century they lived in but the way their work challenges what academic music had become. Neither Rota nor Desyatnikov has ever been part of any musical movement, and they have written no theoretical tracts (as was all the rage in the 20th century), but we can still see their music as a riposte to contemporary isolationism, arrogance, and fear.

Evgeny Samoyloff writes: “Mussorgsky’s From Memories of Childhood cycle was never completed by the composer; in fact, he wrote only the first two pieces: ‘The Nurse and I’ and ‘The First Punishment’. An earlier cycle-to-be, entitled Children’s Games and featuring ‘Corners’ as its opening piece, was similarly never completed. I have taken the liberty of selecting what I believe to be the best of Mussorgsky’s miniature pieces – those that appear most complete – and of joining them to the primary cycle of Childhood Memories. I was guided by the music’s imagery and by its ‘childhood’ essence (as if seen through the eyes of a child), and I have endeavored to compile the set following the principles of contrast and artistic integrity, as well as those of tonal and architectural balance. This is how this cycle of eight pieces came into being, and I hope that it has a right to exist and to achieve widespread appeal.”

Recorded for the first time on one album, this release features Hindemith’s complete works for violin and piano and the rarely recorded Kleine Sonata for Viola D’amore and piano. Hindemith’s reputation as a master composer, viola virtuoso and dominant pedagogue- who, being able to play practically every standard instrument (and a few non-standard ones), expected the same from his students- has tended to obscure the fact that he first came to attention not as a composer or violist but as a violinist. Roman Mints has had a lifelong love of the works of Paul Hindemith, which began when he was a young violinist, studying in Moscow in the 1980s. He says “This music, written not just before I was born but closer to the time of my grandparents’ birth, felt completely contemporary, and daringly advanced in its sound- and not just to me, as it turns out: 30 years on, Hindemith is still regarded by concert programmers as too difficult for the wider public. I put Sonata in D on the stand. I was gripped by the first subject, constructed from seconds and sevenths, marked to be played ‘with stony defiance.’ I was never the same again and he became my window into contemporary music.”

This release is dedicated to one of the most esteemed musical practices of the Renaissance: the art of accompanying the voice with the viola da gamba. Cantare alla viola (singing with a viol) is the name for this practice, which was quite common at the time. The art of this practice lies in the ability of the “viola” player to arrange and play madrigals to accompany one single voice, as a lutenist or vihuela player commonly does. Cantar alla Viola has careful selected some of the finest pieces of the Italian Renaissance in order to illustrate the intimate and skillful musical practice of Cantare alla viola. The pieces vary from the subtle and transparent trecento 2-voice ballades of Magister Piero and Andrea da Firenze played on the viella, to the exquisite and virtuous madrigals for one soprano by Luzzascho Luzasschi, accompanied by the viola da gamba. The Renaissance villanelle and 3-voice madrigals by Luca Marenzio and Costanzo Festa, are adapted for the polyphonic playing of two different bowed vihuelas. Solo pieces have been added to the release to show the instrumental practice on a bowed vihuela through arrangements of lute and keyboard pieces by composers such as Marco Antonio Cavazzoni or Francesco da Milano.

Leonid Desyatnikov is one of the most respected Russian composers of our time. He first made a reputation with a number of film scores, then later achieved greater worldwide fame when the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow premiered his controversial opera The Children of Rosenthal. He is a graduate of Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied composition and instrumentation. He has written four operas, several cantatas, and numerous vocal and instrumental works. This release includes the world premiere recording of his 1992 chamber work Sketches to Sunset, as well as his 2000 work Russian Seasons for Violin, Voice, and Strings.

Lisa Oshima was born in Tokyo, Japan and began studying the violin at the age of four. She graduated with a soloist diploma from the Toho Gakuen School of Music college where she studied with Kenji Kobayashi. She continued her studies with Dr. Felix Andrievsky as a postgraduate at the Royal College of Music where she was awarded the Yehudi Menuhin Award, Ian Stoutzker Prize, and Isolde Menges Prize, and graduated with distinction in 2000. She has won numerous competitions including the 18th International Violin Competition ‘Premio Rodolfo Lipizer,” and the 20th Viotti International Music competition Valsesia. For her new release, she has brought together some of Prokofiev’s greatest compositions for violin. Each and every work on this recording has been chosen by the artist for very personal reasons- not only to show the multifaceted versatility of Prokofiev, but also because of the powerful emotions they summon. The artist writes of these selections, “These works by Prokofiev never fail to grab my heart. I hope you will enjoy…”