This second volume of George Walker's piano music joins its predecessor on Naxos 8.559916 (April 2024), together forming a unique complete piano works edition. On this new release, Steinway Artist Alexandre Dossin performs the cyclical Fourth Piano Sonata, which alternates between sections of virtuoso muscularity and lyrical repose, and the Piano Concerto, which integrates expansive Classical forms with inspiration derived from songs by Duke Ellington, something also cleverly hidden in Guido's Hand. The album closes with Walker's passionate Fifth Piano Sonata.

REVIEW:

Dossin makes much of the alternately moody and energetic first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 4. His ability to grasp the long line of Walker’s music is a really big factor in one’s enjoyment of his performances. The pianist's ability to use “space” in his interpretations makes these performances fascinating and ultimately rewarding.

— Art Music Lounge

Dario Salvi continues his exploration of Marschner’s overtures and stage music in this second volume in an ongoing series. Salvi conducts the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra in its first recording on the Naxos label. Volume 1 is available on 8574449. Discover the missing link in the German Romantic opera tradition, between Weber and Wagner, via this album of world premiere recordings.

Livre du Saint-Sacrement (The Book of the Blessed Sacrament) is Messiaen’s last and longest organ work, a thematic cycle based on the sacrament of Communion comprising eighteen movements, many based on his recorded improvisations, arranged into three thematic groups. Hailed for his prodigious technique, vivid interpretive imagination and charismatic showmanship, Paul Jacobs is widely acknowledged for reinvigorating the American organ scene with a fresh performance style and ‘an unbridled joy of music-making’ (Baltimore Sun). He has performed the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in nine-hour marathons in eight American cities.

Also available on Blu-ray

The works of award-winning composer Chaya Czernowin have been performed worldwide at significant new music festivals and prestigious venues, and she is the first woman to be appointed composition professor at Harvard University. Commissioned by Deutsche Oper Berlin and widely acclaimed in the critical press, ‘Heart Chamber’ uses voice and stage as internalized sonic and visual landscapes to create a genuine multi-sensory musical experience. With only two characters and a hint of a narrative, this is a grand opera on the smallest of transformations, focusing on the intense beauty and vulnerabilities of falling in love. ‘It is seldom that audiences at the Deutsche Oper Berlin have listened with such rapture to a new commission’ (Online Merker). Director Uli Aumüller’s feature film ‘I did not rehearse to say I love you’ is also included and takes a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the opera.