This new recording captures the magic of the season as the RSNO and its Junior Chorus deliver a perfect selection of classic festive favourites in A Christmas Festival. These charming performances show why their joyous, fun-packed Christmas concerts, conducted by the inimitable Christopher Bell, are always a highlight of the Scottish seasonal calendar. The well-chosen programme finds traditional favourites, such as Jingle Bells, In A Cottage In A Wood and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, sitting harmoniously alongside contemporary tunes from Michael Head and Howard Blake (The Snowman, The Bear). An unexpected but brilliant instrumental mash-up up of The Little Dummer Boy with Ravel’s Bolero gives centre-stage to the award-winning RSNO. Two fantastic medleys provide a one stop shop of Christmas tunes both old and new which you’ll be hard pressed not to join in with! At turns rousing, sentimental, cheering and familiar this is the perfect present this Christmas.

Rory Macdonald conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the premiere recording of three orchestral works by 'the father of Scottish music,' composer Thomas Wilson. Wilsonw as an important figure in Scotland's musical renaissance, whose exceptional output established him as a composer of particular significance. Wilson completed five symphonies of which two are recorded here: Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 4 'Passeleth Tapestry,' both of which were premiered by the RSNO. The Third Symphony, a RSNO commission, was described in The Guardian as "one of the most impressive works written by a Scottish composer in recent years." The Fourth Symphony, written to mark Paisley's 500th anniversary, features masterly orchestration throughout and Wilson's treatment of the strings is especially fresh and inventive. Carillon was commissioned by Glasgow city council in 1990 as part of it's European City of Culture celebrations, as the inaugural work to celebrate the opening of the city's new Royal Concert Hall, where the RSNO is now based. This recording is a fitting tribute to the leading Scottish composer of his generation by an orchestra who inspired and premiered his work.

This recording is the first in a new series with Thomas Søndergård and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The programme features music by Richard Strauss: the concert suite from Der Rosenkavalier and Ein Heldenleben, a work they have performed together in concert to critical acclaim. The tone poem tells the epic story of an imaginary hero and offers a stirring introduction to the world of the German Romantics. Strauss demands uncompromising virtuosity from both the orchestra and the horn player who is tasked with portraying the bold hero. Following a concert performance of Ein Heldenleben in March 2018 The Scotsman stated: “From the swaggering confidence of Strauss’s bounding heroic theme to the gleefully grotesque carpings of his critics, Søndergård delivered a bold, utterly committed account – this is clearly music that matters to him.” Closing the recording is the concert suite from Der Rosenkavalier in which Strauss’s colourful and evocative orchestration recalls many favourite moments from his most popular opera.

Iain Ellis Hamilton (1922-2000) dedicated his life to composition after being awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in 1947. Three works are presented on this release, and are indicative of the wide variations in Hamilton’s catalogue. The Bermudas, Piano Concerto No. 1, and Cantos for horn, tuba, harp and orchestra are recorded on this album. The recordings on this album were taken in 1973, 1961, and 1965, respectively.

This recording is billed as the first totally, absolutely complete release of The Golden Age, Shostakovich's best ballet, in that you get all of the repeats, some of which are omitted in the only competing, more or less complete version on Chandos (with Rozhdestvensky). Having all of the repeats isn't necessarily a good thing, but with Serebrier and his Scottish players we are in good hands. Rozhdestvensky's recording also is very good, but his Swedish orchestra isn't any better than the Royal Scottish National--and it also suffers from some minor moments of scruffy rhythm in the strings. More to the point, the Russian conductor's reading isn't entirely free of the heaviness that often characterizes his conducting.


You can hear this quite clearly in comparing the two interpretations of the splendid Can-can in Act 3, one of the largest and most powerful extended numbers in the ballet. Serebrier actually is the slower of the two, by a few unimportant seconds, but his rhythms cut through more crisply, and the orchestra's brighter-toned brass and more vivid percussion make the music sparkle as it should--and terrify when it must (as at the end of this very piece). Otherwise there's little to choose between the two, but much else to enjoy here, including that splendidly romantic Dance of the Diva (a big Adagio) as well as all of the other numbers familiar from the popular suite extracted by the composer at the time of the original production. Terrific sound and a very reasonable price make this the clear version of choice.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

David Lloyd-Jones' new Bax Sixth is especially welcome since the only other modern recording is available only as part of a complete set of symphonies on Chandos. Even if that were not the case, Lloyd-Jones scores over Bryden Thompson with his generally more incisive reading. Both conductors make much of the first movement's melancholic rancor (in tempos that are virtually identical), but the central slow movement benefits from Lloyd-Jones' more rhapsodic approach, whereas Thompson seems content to languish (thereby adding more than two minutes to Lloyd-Jones' timing). The finale too finds Lloyd-Jones possessing a stronger sense of forward momentum as he reveals more of the music's dramatic architecture.


The Scottish National players yield nothing to their London counterparts--if anything their brass have the edge in terms of projection and rhythmic alacrity. Naxos' recording, while less opulently reverberant than the Chandos production, presents a sharper image that allows more of Bax's multilayered detail to emerge clearly (while still swallowing some of the top end, glockenspiel in particular). To top it off, Lloyd-Jones offers first-rate performances of Bax's lushly exotic Into the Twilight and the dreamy Summer Music. Certainly a must for Bax fans, but newcomers can unreservedly join in the fun too.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

This is an excellent Delius collection, as interesting for the repertoire as for the high quality of the performances. There are some real novelties here, including the American Rhapsody (later to become Appalachia in its expanded version) and the first recordings of Three Small Tone Poems, only one of which--Summer Evening--is at all well known. Sleigh Ride appears under its original title, Winter Night, as the centerpiece of the triptych, while Spring Morning wasn't even published until the late 1980s. So what we wind up with is three quarters of a Delian Four Seasons, with Spring Morning a wholly characteristic essay in the composer's early "Grieg meets Debussy" style.


As for the remaining items, The Walk to the Paradise Garden receives a beautifully flowing, ecstatic reading from Lloyd-Jones, while Two Pieces for Small Orchestra ("On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" and "Summer Night on the River") benefit from fine wind playing and tempos that never let the music meander excessively. A Song before Sunrise and Delius' last completed (with Eric Fenby's help) orchestral work, Fantastic Dance, complete this well-planned, career-spanning collection. Naxos' sonics rank with the finest work on the label, as is usually the case with its Glasgow recordings. Strongly recommended both for the novelties as well as for the more popular items.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

With this disc, Naxos completes its survey of ballet scores by Sir Arthur Bliss (1891?1975). Previously released were Adam Zero, generously coupled with Bliss?s A Colour Symphony in performances by the English Northern Philharmonia under David Lloyd-Jones (8.553460), and Miracle in the Gorbals, coupled with music from the film Things to Come and Discourse for Orchestra, with Christopher Lyndon-Gee conducting the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (8.553698). In each case, Naxos presents, for the first time, the full ballet scores rather than suites. Much as I have enjoyed recordings of suites from all three ballets, the music is of such a quality, and so symphonic as well as dramatic in concept, that listening to the suites is rather like hearing an abridged Mahler First, or excerpts from Strauss?s Don Quixote: pleasant, but unsatisfactory. The Checkmate Suite recordings I own on CD?Vernon Handley and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on EMI (1978) and Handley again with the Ulster Orchestra on Chandos (1986)?are excellent as to performance and recording, but sadly incomplete. The suite is the same in both, consisting of six of the first seven numbers, but none of the next five, which include the longest and most dramatic movements in the score. Both conclude with an abbreviated version of the finale.


Checkmate tells a grim story, fantastic in conception: Love and Death play a game of chess, but the pieces are human, and not endowed with equal powers. The Black Queen is beautiful, evil, and powerful; neither the Red King nor his Queen can stand against her. The Red Knight can, but falls under the Black Queen?s enchantment long enough for her to slay him. Naxos provides excellent notes by Andrew Burn, so one can follow this drama to its tragic dénouement. Checkmate had its premiere in Paris in 1937; like the First Symphony of William Walton and the Fourth of Vaughan Williams, Bliss?s score seems especially appropriate to the times. The much shorter Mêlée fantasque (1921), while not exactly cheerful, seems by contrast a robustly optimistic piece, even while memorializing a deceased friend and collaborator, the painter Claude Lovat Fraser.


The Scottish Orchestra plays with its usual energy and brilliance, and the sound is vivid, colorful, and, where appropriate, seismic. What a pleasure, at last to hear the complete Checkmate!


FANFARE: Robert McColley

Perhaps the best Hovhaness instalment so far from Naxos.

Naxos are moving with implacable determination around the towering edifice that is the Hovhaness catalogue. Disc after disc is added to their catalogue and discoveries are being made at every turn. This latest volume, set in the context of their American Classics series continues the track record established by: 8.559294 (Symphony 60; Guitar Concerto 1), 8.559207 (Symphonies 4, 20, 53) and 8.559128 (Cello Concerto, Symphony 22).

As is evident from the Saxophone Concerto Hovhaness can be unpredictable and so he proves here. The wonderfully titled Fanfare for the New Atlantis is more of a tone poem with aspects of fanfare in-built. His regal and confident brass writing has the trappings of antiquity - a touch of the Gabriellis - but there is also a sense of modernity, of prayer and of invocation. The most stately aspects of the fanfares at 5:10 recall the striding brass writing in Vaughan Williams' Pilgrim's Progress. The origin of the piece seems unknown though it may have some connection with the Francis Bacon Society which believes that Shakespeare was Bacon's pen-name. Hovhaness was a member of the Society. Amongst Bacon's writings is The New Atlantis. In any event this Fanfare defies clichés you may have absorbed from knowing the examples by Bliss, Walton and Benjamin. This fanfare is recorded, as are all three works, with lavish resonance yet with no loss in definition.

The Guitar Concerto No. 2 was commissioned by Narciso Yepes who gave the work its premiere at the Granada Festival in 1990, five years after its completion. This may have been delayed by the tragic death of Yepes' son in the year in which the concerto was completed. There were no other performances after the premiere. Javier Calderón who commissioned the First Guitar Concerto plays it here although David Leisner made the first recording of the guitar concerto (Naxos 8.559294). The Concerto No. 2 is in four movements. The first is an andante which is delicate, stately and Moorish in character. The allegro giusto recalls the Ravel string quartet in its pizzicato and Rodrigo's Aranjuez in the guitar writing. The andante misterioso makes use of the composer's trademark in surging and searching unison strings alternating with guitar solo. The two commune in invocation and response. The final adagio, allegro giusto combines the sinuous North African arcana of the first movement with a delicate heel-and-toe dance (2:06) over pizzicato. It will have most listeners wanting to play this piece again and again.

In the Loon Lake Symphony Hovhaness looks back in the first movement (Prelude) through the hybrid Celtic-Oriental cor anglais melody to holidays in New Hampshire. We should remember that Hovhaness spent time at his uncle's New Hampshire farm. The commission for this work came in 1987 from the New Hampshire Music Festival. The opulent yet understated carpet of the orchestra comprises a delicate interplay of harp, bells, and pizzicato strings murmuring and strumming. The contemplative and partially Debussian second and last movement includes an Andante misterioso which seems to wander in a trance through those countryside memories. The sound of the loon is quoted in this evocative movement (4:30 and 15:03). The co-commissioner of the Symphony was the Loon Preservation Society. The dialogue of woodwind and the steady dripping of harp hold the attention. The flute and oboe have a louche and jazzy character (12:46) over a pizzicato string backdrop. This develops into an episode which has the clarinet singing a Holstian melody which has something of the greensward about it (14:10). The rhapsodic curl of the woodwind solos resonates with Vaughan Williams - this time the Antarctica rather than the Tallis Fantasia. This is a most beautiful and naturally eloquent symphony. The grand Purcellian statements which are a Hovhaness watermark are here added silver livery by the harp’s expressive endowment. Over this grandeur the trumpet cries out in a further evocation of the loon.

The notes are helpful and specific - always valuable with Hovhaness – and add to the delights of this fine disc.

Naxos are in their element with the Hovhaness symphonies. Don't stop now; of a total of 67 there are plenty of unrecorded symphonies to tackle.

I cannot over-emphasise how attractive this music is. Hovhaness wrote in the 1960s of the importance of identifying our own kind of beauty. These three works bear him out completely.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Holst's The Planets received it's first public performance in 1919, and with it Holst achieved the first real success of his career. It is a remarkably effective work, very varied and brilliantly scored for the orchestra, with the character of each of the seven movements suggested by the astrological properties given to the various planets of the solar system. The new eighth movement, Pluto, was commissioned from Colin Matthews, as an 'appendix' to the Suite, the planet Pluto having been discovered on a few years before Holst's death. The Mystic Trumpeter is one of the most neglected of Holst's major works. The several influences on the work, notably that of Wagner, are welded by Holst's passionate feeling for Whitman's words into an integrated and convincing whole whose vitality and exuberance have few parallels in British music of the period.

This disc, superbly recorded in the Henry Wood Hall in Glasgow, makes a most welcome addition to Naxos’s growing collection of English music. In every way it provides formidable rivalry for the two excellent full-price Holst discs which substantially overlap with this in repertory – from Richard Hickox on Chandos and from Sir Adrian Boult on Lyrita in vintage performances from around 1970.

Like Hickox, Lloyd-Jones has as his two weightiest items the Hardy-inspired Egdon Heath, arguably Holst’s finest work, as well as the prelude and fugue, Hammersmith, comparably dark and intense. But where Hickox has the latter in its usual orchestral form, Lloyd-Jones chooses the wind-band version, achieving a subtlety of shading in phrasing and dynamic amply to justify that striking choice. The Chandos recording is sumptuous, but the Naxos sound is at least as vividly atmospheric, while letting one hear more inner detail, particularly important in the fugue.

As to interpretation, Hickox is a degree warmer in phrasing and more passionate in his build-up of climaxes, where Lloyd-Jones, generally adopting more flowing speeds closer to those of Boult, is more objective, while bringing out to the full the tenderness and refinement of the writing. Particularly beautiful is the performance of A Somerset Rhapsody which opens the disc, with the cor anglais solo ravishingly played. Boult of course has unique authority in this music, and the Lyrita analogue recordings – among the finest of their period – still sound superb, with clean focus and separation.

Yet quite apart from the intrinsic quality of Lloyd-Jones’s performances with the Scottish orchestra, and the formidable advantage of price, his grouping of works is more generous than that on either rival disc. The six works are neatly balanced, three dating from before the climactic period of The Planets and The Hymn of Jesus, and three after. Particularly valuable – and not included on either rival disc – is the atmospheric Invocation for cello and orchestra of 1911, rather dismissed by Imogen Holst, but here given a yearningly intense, deeply thoughtful performance with Tim Hugh as soloist.

A highly recommendable offering, whether for the dedicated Holstian or the newcomer wanting to investigate this composer’s more characteristic work outside The Planets.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [6/1998]

Drawn from David Lloyd-Jones' excellent set of Bax symphony recordings, this collection competes in four out of five works with Bryden Thomson and the Ulster Orchestra on Chandos. Whereas Thomson has Summer Music, Lloyd-Jones offers The Tale the Pine Trees Knew, a more interesting and substantial work. In general this Naxos issue offers tauter, livelier performances than does Thomson, and this prevents the music from degenerating into a typically shapeless Baxian blob, as it has a tendency to do, particularly November Woods and The Garden of Fand. Lloyd-Jones also has the finer orchestra and a leaner basic sonority, less atmospheric than Thomson to be sure, but with a rhythmic crispness that puts a bit more muscle and sinew on Bax's opulent textures (check out Tintagel, which delivers a real rush of excitement in its central section). The engineering complements the performances, having fine clarity and impact. If you're in the market for a single disc of Bax tone poems, or even a single disc of Bax, then this one certainly fills the bill. [7/25/2005]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

In the golden age of vinyl, the English label Lyrita produced a series of Bax symphony recordings conducted by Myer Fredman, Raymond Leppard, Vernon Hanley, and Norman Del Mar that gave most their first exposure to the evocative, romantic symphonic music of Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953). It was one of the most distinguished series of audiophile recordings every chronicled. Lyrita only released two of the symphonies on CD (Symphonies 1 & 7) but that is probably out of print at the moment. There was an even better recording of the third symphony from the London Symphony and Edward Downes, also long gone. Chandos took a stab at the series during the dawn of the DDD era, but its conductor, Bryden Thomson, using slow tempos, took a loose and meandering view of these episodic works that caused them to seem disjointed. Naxos has now entered the ring with just the right conductor and orchestra and produced a series that is every bit the equal of that on Lyrita, but with a welcome twist, it is available to the public at less than half the cost. In this current installement, David Lloyd-Jones once again leads the excellent Scottish orchestra in a reading that is radiant and lyrical, and paced exacly right. The sounds of nature have seldom been so successfully translated into musical expression, and the superb engineering partners the performance hand in glove. If you like Vaughan Williams, especially his Pastoral Symphony, you will no doubt love this music. Start with this, the most popular of the composer's symphonies, backtrack to symphonies 1 & 2, already available on Naxos CD; then, along with me, keenly anticipate further releases in this magical series.--Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com

London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis. Philips 416 430-2 [Overtures: Roman Carnival, Benvenuto Cellini, Le corsaire, Le roi Lear, Les francs-juges, Waverly] (recorded 1965).

Davis and the London Symphony get a strong nod for Berlioz’s overtures, which they perform with great panache and striking brilliance and beauty of tone. The recording, considering its age almost miraculously fresh sounding, is impeccably detailed and well balanced. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.