There seems no end to the brilliance not only of the musicianship and pianistic skill of our top piano duo but also their dedication to re-discovering and recording lost or neglected masterpieces. Here we have the very well known Second Piano Concerto of Chopin, in a two-piano version by Chopin himself and his pupil Mikuli - and never before recorded. A host of other rarities and transcriptions complete yet another reference recording.

“This set is essential” concluded Gramophone of the Ring cycle when this 2008 production was issued complete. Christian Thielemann leads a performance of masterful pacing and burning conviction that features detailed interpretations from many of today’s most experienced interpreters of their complex and glorious roles.

This is a re-release within the new SWR series "SWR Century Classics". It contains two main works of Antonin Dvorak, his famous Symphony No.9 "From the New World" as well as the Carnival Ouverture, interpreted by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the SWR, conducted by it's former chief conductor, Sir Roger Norrington. Sir Roger Norrington was born in Oxford, and comes from a musical University family. He was a talented boy soprano, studying the violin from the age of ten and singing from the age of seventeen. He read English Literature at Cambridge University, and spent several years as an amateur violinist, tenor singer, and conductor, before attending the Royal College of Music as a postgraduate student of conducting, studying with Sir Adrian Boult. Norrington's work on scores, orchestral sound and size, seating and playing style has had a growing effect on the perception of 18th- and 19th- century orchestral music. He is in great demand as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras worldwide, working regularly with orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London. He is Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and of the Camerata Salzburg, and is closely associated with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment (which has taken over the work of the London Classical Players) and with the Philharmonia.

This excellent performance fills a significant gap. At bargain price no enthusiast should hesitate.

It is something of a double that Maometto II should receive its belated British premiere at Garsington as this, the first sensible recording of Rossini’s Paris revision of the work hits the shelves. This performance derives from the Bad Wildbad Festival; one that has become known as the Pesaro of the North. It not only makes a speciality of Rossini’s works but also presents those of often long forgotten Italian operas by German composers of similar vintage. Naxos has issued several commendable recordings from this source that allow appreciation of Rossini’s emerging genius to be heard at modest expense. This issue precedes by one month a performance of Semiramide from Bad Wildbad and recorded at the XXIV Festival (to be reviewed). Le Siège de Corinthe was the first opera composed by Rossini for the Paris Opera after his appointment as director of the Théâtre Italien in Paris in 1823. Semiramide, was the last opera he composed for an Italian theatre.
 
The genesis of Le Siège is complicated, however a little context is necessary for an understanding of the music. Rossini’s original version - Maometto II - was premiered at the San Carlo in Naples on 3 December 1820. It was his thirty-first opera and the eighth, and the most radical, of the reform operas that he had written for performance there. At Naples Rossini had the benefit of a full-time orchestra and chorus. It also boasted an unequalled roster of star singers engaged by Barbaja, the formidable impresario of the Royal Theatres, who had brought Rossini to Naples as Musical Director. This enabled Rossini to distance himself from the populist clamour of Rome and Venice for crescendos and simplistic orchestral forms, static arias, stage scenes and comic operas. The outcomes were highly dramatic bel canto opera seria with flights of coloratura and vocal decorations paralleled by greater orchestral complexity. This Italian format was not appropriate for Paris and Rossini needed to grapple with the prosody of the French language and re-align his own compositional style towards that of his new hosts. However, before tackling that problem Rossini had the unavoidable duty of writing an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X in Rheims Cathedral in June 1825. Called Il viaggio a Reims and composed to an Italian libretto, it was presented at the Théâtre Italien on 19 June 1825.
 
The “Coronation Opera” over, the works in French were a little slow in coming. However, when they did, first in the form of Le Siège de Corinthe, premiered on 9 October 1826, they were received with acclaim. Le Siège was a spectacular success in both musical and visual presentation and can be seen as the progenitor of the Grande Opera style. It arrived complete with de rigueur ballet that was to dominate at the Paris Opéra (Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique) for half a century.
 
The plot is basically the same as for Maometto II but with the sacking of Corinthe rather than Venice the scene of the action. This shift had the advantage of topicality with the Greek struggle for liberty from the Turks commanding sympathy among Parisians in the 1820s. Pamyra, daughter of Cléomène, Governor of Corinthe, has fallen in love with Mahomet using a false name. Her father wishes her to marry Néocles, a young and heroic Greek officer. When she learns the truth about Mahomet’s identity she stabs herself rather than be the wife of the man who has conquered her country. With en travestie roles being unacceptable in Paris the role of Néocles is given to a tenor.
 
The musical adaptation involved Rossini in a considerable toning down of the Italian bel canto display arias, the rewriting of recitatives and the more extensive use of chorus. Display arias do not wholly disappear and certainly that for the tenor hero, Néocles in act two (CD2 Tr.6), and the contribution of Pamyra in the finale (CD2 Tr.9) are up there with the vocal demands in Maometto II. With that in mind Bad Wildbad fields two suitable voices, one relatively new, the other a well known participant in bel canto recordings from Opera Rara. The tenor is the American, Michael Spyres. In the UK in May 2013 Spyres made a big impression stepping in at the premiere of the new Covent Garden production of Rossini’s La donna del Lago, the composer’s immediate predecessor to Maometto II at Naples, when the scheduled tenor Colin Lee was forced to withdraw due to indisposition. Both Spyres and Lee, when the latter had recovered, featured in the live cinema transmission and matched Juan Diego Florez note for note in their respective roles. Spyres is up to the demands of the role in this performance too, singing with vocal flexibility and appealing tone. I note from the artist biographies - very welcome, thank you Naxos - that he has appeared at major houses in bel canto and lyric roles. I look forward to hearing more from him, not least in this repertoire.
 
In the second tenor role of Pamyra’s father, Cléomène, Bad Wildbad has another high-flying tenor able to handle the demanding tessitura in its cast. He steps forward in the person of Spaniard Marc Salsa; new to me. There are times, as in the act two trio of the two men and Pamyra (CD2 Tr.7), when distinguishing between the two tenors is not easy. It is preferable, however, to having a more distinct but less flexible voice in the role. It bodes well as interest in these operas increases in the present day in even the major operatic centres after nearly a century of neglect.
 
As Pamyra, the daughter who unknowingly falls in love with the enemy, Majella Cullagh has form in bel canto roles, singing in many recordings from Opera Rara including Rossini’s Elisabetta and Bianca e Falliero. Her strong characterisation allied to vocal flexibility is well in evidence in this performance. Her voice has slightly more edge than in some of her earlier recordings, of Donizetti as well as Rossini, but remains a formidable instrument. She handles the demanding coloratura with aplomb (CD1.Tr.7).
 
Lorenzo Regazzo as Mahomet II impressed me less than the other principals. He has sonority but also some unsteadiness. Otherwise his characterisation and diction are more than adequate. The chorus are well up to Rossini’s extended demands whilst on the rostrum, Jean-Luc Tingaud is fully at home in the idiom.
 
This recording presents a new edition for Rossini in Wildbad by Florian Bauer. It is based on a revision, by Jean-Luc Tingaud, of the original edition and on the parts for the first performance on 9 October 1826.  

Le Siège de Corinthe has not fared well in the recording studio. A 1969 recording of a later Italian translation featuring Beverly Sills and Shirley Verrett (EMI CMS 64335-2) hardly flatters the work. A film of a stage production, particularly if it included a spectacular visual finale as brought the house down in Paris in 1826 and as well sung as this recording, would be very welcome. In the meantime this audio recording does at least do Rossini’s creation full justice. It also allows enthusiasts to appreciate his first venture into the French style of composition which was to last all too briefly. A mere four operas followed before he laid down his pen in terms of operatic composition with Guillaume Tell in 1829, at the young age of thirty-nine; this despite living nearly as long afterwards.
 
--Robert J Farr, MusicWeb International

Antonín Dvořák’s huge popularity in England was built largely on the success of his Stabat Mater, which hehad conducted there in 1884 and 1885. It was well suited to the country’s choral traditions and ledeventually to a commission for a Requiem, which was premièred in Birmingham in 1891. Written in tenmonths during tours to Russia, England and Germany, its success was immediate. Sitting closer to thetradition of Cherubini than Verdi, its tone is compassionate and reflective, devoid of unnecessary drama,and movingly crafted with great sophistication.

It Was in Frankfurt Am Main on 16 September 1810 That Carl Maria Von Weber's Opera Silvana Was First Performed. A Box-Office Hit, Silvana Is Practically Forgotten Today, Even Though It Enjoyed a Very Respectable Performance History. CPO Is Now Releasing the First Recording of the Original Version of Weber's Heroic Opera. The Present Recording Now for the First Time Relies on the Materials for the Critical Scholarly Edition of the Work, Including the Dialogues, As Well As Many Changes Weber Made for the Work's Premiere. The Positive Final Result Is Can Now Be Heard on This Release.

This is the second disc of songs with Sally Silver and Richard Bonynge appearing on SOMM. The collection of songs on this CD ranges across the whole of Massenet's career as a composer. This selection also includes duets and other settings for solo voice groupings, of which Massenet composed many.

"What an adventurous move it is for a record company to provide listeners with the opportunity to hear songs that have not been committed to disc time and time again." - IRR

The veteran British piano duo of Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow present two major world premieres: the first recording of the piano duet transcription by lieder-writer Robert Franz of the ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet, and the first recording of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in a full four-movement performing edition for piano duet including arrangements by Anselm Hüttenbrenner (Schubert’s friend), Anthony Goldstone, and Friedrich Hermann. It includes a completion of Schubert’s part finished Scherzo and the Rosamunde Entr’acte, widely believed to have been the intended finale.

This recording is the final volume in Lars Vogt’s new cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos on Ondine. It includes Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 4, two outstanding examples of Beethoven's writing. Conducting Royal Northern Sinfonia from the keyboard, Vogt’s fresh interpretations of Beethoven concertos have been widely welcomed, and recently he was nominated for Artist of the Year 2017 by the Gramophone magazine.

Beethoven’s 2nd Piano Concerto was largely written before 1789. The work was premiered in 1795 with Beethoven debuting as piano soloist. This early work shows the influence of Mozart but at the same time it is a powerful evidence of Beethoven’s development as a composer towards maturity. Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto is considered by many as his best achievement in the field of piano concerto. Beethoven opens this work in a revolutionary way by means of a calm dialogue between the piano and the orchestra. The second movement includes some of the most dramatic music that Beethoven ever wrote – only to be contrasted by the boundless joy and freedom of the final movement. Lars Vogt was appointed the first ever “Pianist in Residence” by the Berlin Philharmonic in 2003/04 and enjoys a high profile as a soloist and chamber musician. His debut solo recording on Ondine with Bach’s Goldberg Variations was released in August 2015 and has been a major critical success. Lars Vogt started his tenure as Music Director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia in September 2015.

REVIEW:

It’s perhaps no coincidence, given that Vogt is currently Music Director the Royal Northern Sinfonia, that the rapport between the soloist and this highly accomplished band of musicians is everything it should be, and more. These are marvelous performances, and the recordings, derived from live performances at Sage Gateshead, serve them well.

– Gramophone

Lena Neudauer attracted international attention when at the age of fifteen she not only spectacularly won the Leopold Mozart Competition in Augsburg but also was awarded practically all the special prizes. And Matthias Kirschnereit has long enjoyed international renown, even though he eschews the glamorous world of stardom. We have now brought together these two most highly talented musicians for a recording of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Orchestra, a work with a tradition extending from Bach and Baroque music by way of Mozart and Haydn to early romanticism. In the second early work heard on this album, the Violin Concerto in D minor, the legacy of classicism and that of Bach's highly regarded son Carl Philipp Emanuel, are clearly audible. For Mendelssohn's teacher Zelter and contemporary audiences the musical aesthetic of the late eighteenth century continued to dictate taste. Both of these early concertos attest to an authentic boy genius and an acclaimed public favorite!