Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

The works on this recording were written by four roughly contemporary Polish composers who settled and pursued their careers in different parts of the world. Grayna Bacewicz's first Violin Concerto displays her own glittering virtuosity as a performer, while Alexandre Tansman wrote his Baroque-infused Five Pieces for the great Josef Szigeti. Michal Spisak considered his neo-classical Andante and Allegro to be "a little story for violin and orchestra", while Andrzej Panufnik's wide-ranging Violin Concerto became a "pilgrimage into my past" and is richly suffused with Polish atmosphere.

Review:

There are four rewarding works to be discovered on this disc, although only two of them are technically concertos. Andrzej Panufnik's Violin Concerto, written in 1971 and recorded in concert in 2014 by ?ód?-born violinist Piotr P?awner, the Kammersymphonie Berlin and conductor Jürgen Bruns. The second movement, with its seemingly endless lines of melody, reminds us that the concerto was written for Yehudi Menuhin and his famous nonstop vibrato. P?awner does those long lines justice here, before wrapping up the piece in a spiky, frenetic Polish dance.

– Guardian

Ginastera: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

Maurice Ravel's incomparable skill in orchestration and command of orchestral color is evident both in his own works and in his orchestrations for ballet, while new life was given to his late friend Debussy's Sarabande et danse at the request of publisher Jean Jobert. Ravel's iconic orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition makes telling use of a large orchestra, vividly depicting scenes that range from the playful to the macabre.

László Lajtha was one of the leading Hungarian composers of the first half of the twentieth century. Of his nine symphonies, Symphony No. 2, from 1938, is an intense, sombre and brooding work as if foreshadowing the horrors of the war to come. Volume 1 of this original Marco Polo series can be heard on 8.573643. A Marco Polo reissue. With his contemporaries Bartók, Kodály, and Dohnányi, László Lajtha was one the leading Hungarian composers in the first half of the twentieth-century, and his position as the country’s greatest symphonist is unrivalled. Of his nine symphoniesSymphony No.2, Op.27 dates from 1938 and is an intense, sombre, and brooding work as if foreshadowing the horrors of war to come. Asked to compose incidental music for the film of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral Lajtha responded with a magnificent score, which can also be enjoyed as an autonomous composition called Variations, Op.44.

A beautiful and evocative combination, the flute and harp combine especially well in these modern romantic pieces by leading British composers of the mid twentieth century. Emily Beynon (flute) and Catherine Beynon (harp), both now leading and highly-regarded musicians, provide an exquisite performance in their debut CD which has been one of Metier's most popular recordings.

RUBBRA: Nine Tenebrae Motets / Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis

Paul Juon's musical education provided him with a direct link to the German Romantic style of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and he has even been called the 'Russian Brahms.' These three violin sonatas represent an important artistic statement by this neglected master, also showing his artistic evolution. The First Sonata is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky in it's melodic beauty, the Second Sonata enriched with Scandinavian flavor in it's mercurial character and chromatic intensity. The masterful and dramatic Third Sonata evokes an epic imagined landscape full of natural and supernatural beings.

Selections recorded at the Moscow State Broadcasting and
Grand Studio no 5, Recording House, Moscow, Russia.

The three previously unpublished and unrecorded chamber works in this programme were all written after Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s enforced move to the United States from his native Italy. Evoking the emotional day on which the composer sailed into New York for the first time, the Third Violin Concerto was composed for Jascha Heifetz specifically as a duo for violin and piano. Established as a highly regarded teacher and composer of film music, Castelnuovo-Tedesco rediscovered the joy of chamber music making as part of the Hollywood musical community. He considered the Sonata for Violin and Cello, Op. 148 his finest in this genre, while the String Trio, Op. 147 recalls the shores of the Mediterranean.

Throughout his musical career, Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera artfully incorporated the folk music and dance forms of his native land into increasingly modernist creations. From the populist to the avant-garde, his work was created using an architectural approach that effectively set his music apart. Ginastera: One Hundred is released in celebration of the centennial anniversary of Ginastera’s birth. The work serves as a musical ‘thank you’ from world-renowned harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, whose career has been heavily influenced by Ginastera. She has performed his Harp Concerto nearly 200 times. Alongside the Harp Concerto is Danzas Argentinas, with its themes that evoke Argentinean history and culture juxtaposed with modernist structures. This is the work which catapulted Ginastera into fame in his home country. Finally, Pampeana No. 1 shows influences from Aaron Copland, with whom Ginastera studied, and Sonata for Guitar, which is the composer’s only work for Argentina’s national instrument.

Pianist Anna Shelest was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She began studying piano at six years old, and later attended the Kharkiv Special Music School for Gifted Children, where she studied under Sergei Polusmiak and Gary Gelfgat. A multi-award winning artist, she won her first competition when she was only eleven at the Milosz Magin International Piano Competition. She has since gone on to win the Louisiana International Piano Competition, Kawai American Recording Contest, Bradshaw-Buono International Piano Competition New York, and many more. Recorded in the Czech Republic in 2014, this release features Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2. These works were written early on in Prokofiev’s career, and feature his virtuosic and wildly dissonant style which caused his first leap into fame.

Review quote:

"Prokofiev, himself a virtuoso, wanted to make sure that the piano part stood out, and where he recesses the accompaniment or provides cadenzas and solo passages Shelest’s playing is very present in audio terms. Considering his ambition to be considered a Modernist the equal of Stravinsky, I think Prokofiev came closest in his concertos, one genre where Stravinsky wasn’t dominant. Prokofiev’s piano writing remains fresh and powerful to this day, and Shelest can be proud of her achievement in exploiting every gesture to its fullest. Slimline cardboard packaging, and very readable program notes." - Huntley Dent, Fanfare

Lutoslawski: Double Concerto for Oboe and Harp / Dance Prelu

Classical Music

Classical Music

This release features nearly all of the compositions by Paul Hindemith, performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Philharmonia Orchestra with the composer conducting. The recordings presented here were made between 1955-1956. Since Hindemith could play nearly all the orchestral instruments, had perfect pitch and had the richest possible experience as an orchestral musician, he was an ideal conductor. With his European tours after the Second World War, Hindemith increasingly developed his conducting activities; these took up all his time after 1953 after he had given up his work at Yale University. He had indeed conducted in public for the first time in 1915 and repeatedly guest conducted exclusively his own music in the United States, but after 1947 he also included music of other composers - at first Bach, Haydn and Mozart - on his programmes.

This release features key works by Astor Piazzolla, the king of composed tango, performed by three outstanding musicians. Shifting between fiery and melancholic, the tango nuevo is just irresistible. Born in 1971 in Münster, Germany, Friedemann Eichhorn studied violin with Prof. Valery Gradow in Mannheim, Alberto Lysy at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland and with Margaret Pardee at the Juilliard School New York. He regularly performs with orchestras such as St. Petersburg Philharmonic or the SWR-Radio-Orchestra and has concertized with Yuri Bashmet, Saschko Gawriloff, Gidon Kremer, Yehudi Menuhin and Igor Oistrakh. The German cellist Julius Berger studied at the Musikhochschule of Munich, Germany under Walter Reichardt and Fritz Kiskalt. Later, he studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria under Antonio Janigro and at the University of Cincinnati under Zara Nelsova. When he was just 28 years old he was appointed to the Musikhochschule Wuerzburg and was one of the youngest Professors in Germany. A native of Buenos Aires, José Gallardo started piano lessons at the age of five, at first at the Conservatory in Buenos Aires, later continuing his studies with Poldi Mildner in the Faculty of Music at the University of Mainz, where he completed his diploma in 1997. Since autumn 2008 he has been teaching at the Leopold Mozart Centre at the University of Augsburg.

Classical Music

A grand collection of the most popular operetta arias featuring the best of opera singers.

United States Marine Band: Music of Richard Strauss

Recorded by the Air Force Band of the Golden Gate, Alla Marcia contains a series of marches for band. No other musical genre packs as much punch into a small package as does the march. The basic composition of the march is fairly simple: movement, dynamically portrayed, using the basic elements of rhythm, melody, and logical form. On Alla Marcia, Captain Chevallard and the Air Force Band of the Golden Gate illustrate these components with the power and subtlety characteristic of the march style. The tracks on this album represent eight nationalities, providing diverse music with universal appeal.

The works on this recording embrace a varied miscellany of Peter Maxwell Davies’ orchestraloutput from the early 1990s. The ‘choreographic poem’ The Beltane Fire pits the sternness of theReformation clergy against the pagan traditions of the Orkney Islands. Concerned withenvironmental pollution, The Turn of the Tide ultimately reaches “a triumphant dance of allcreation”, while the Threnody and Pavan are poignant memorial tributes for significant figuresin the composer’s life.

Emotional Soviet solo cello. If that’s what you’re looking for, this is hard to beat.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s solo cello sonatas are considerably more interesting than his preludes for the same instrument, which I reviewed here a few months ago. They aren’t a direct response to Bach, but very much Weinberg himself, a voice not far removed from Shostakovich’s, but with occasional added flavors of Jewish melody and jazz.

These sonatas are all very much of their composer: recognizably Soviet, emotionally quite austere, harmonically bittersweet. But they are written fluently and there are terrific moments: the transition from slow movement to impassioned finale in Sonata No 2, the uncommonly charming allegretto in No 3, the ethereal muted presto of the same sonata, and the otherworldly original andante to No 4, in which cellist Josef Feigelson (who also wrote the excellent notes) points out traces of Hindemith.

On the other hand, this music won’t have mass appeal. The occasional grayness of the writing — we don’t quite have Shostakovich’s emotional range here — and the fact that Weinberg’s style appears not to have changed very much between 1964 and 1986 means that this is the kind of disc you only put on the stereo when you’re in a very specific mood, or if you’re a very specific listener. That isn’t true of Weinberg’s stunning cello concerto, a rich, generous masterwork which works through a series of lush tunes in one broad emotional circle, and I think that my slight bitterness here may be due to the fact that I was expecting something along those lines and didn’t get it. The cello concerto is currently only available on Brilliant, in its live Rostropovich box, though Chandos has recorded a similarly good cello fantasy so there may be hope.

Josef Feigelson recorded this disc, and its companion, as a compendium of Weinberg’s complete cello music in the 1990s, very shortly after the composer’s death - learning the sonatas from the original manuscripts. Certainly his playing here is not to be faulted, and, as was true of the first volume, a more impassioned advocate of the music is hard to imagine. The sound is not too close, the cello tone full and darkly rich. Weinberg’s masterwork for the instrument remains the astonishing Cello Concerto, but these sonatas are very good in their way too. If you’ve been waiting for moody Soviet solo cello work, your ship has come in.

-- Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra, Adam Walker presents a recital of alternately lyric and dynamic music for flute and piano. A lovelorn song from Die schone Mullerin forms the basis of a set of variations by Schubert, and reflective songs without words by Poulenc and Barber offer mellifluous contrast with the dancing energy of Bartok, Messiaen and Poulenc.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

REVIEW:

Flemming Dreisig is the organist of Copenhagen Cathedral, and thus is enrolled in the “royal succession” of Danish organists. He has been a pioneer in performing Langgaard’s organ works, and made the first recording of Messis on the Ronna organ for Danacord in 1997-8. His new performance can be regarded as authoritative. Given the huge resources of the five-manual 1995 Marcussen organ of Copenhagen Cathedral and DaCapo’s technically excellent multichannel recording on SA-CD, this 2-disc set is another valuable item in the current reinstatement of Langgaard’s music.

There is no doubt that although Messis might be off-putting on account of its length and complexity, it really does grow on you. A fearsome challenge to organists, it is certainly an experience which organ-lovers should have, although I would not advise newcomers to Langgaard’s music to start with Messis, its seminal status notwithstanding. But clear some space in your diary and schedule a three night organ marathon at home; you could not have a better organ and organist to convert you.

– SA-CD.net

Includes song(s) by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

1. O helga natt / Cantique de Noël 3:56
2. Rauhaa, vain rauhaa/Peace, Perfect Peace 2:13
3. En etsi valtaa, loistoa/We Ask for Nothing Rich or Rare 3:56
4. Jo joutuu ilta/O'er Hill and Dale 2:06
5. Dies est laetitae/Herraa kaikki kiittäkää 2:05
6. Hiljaa, hiljaa helkkyellen/Softly, Softly Ringing 2:31
7. Sylvian joululaulu/Sylvia's Carol 3:50
8. Hiljainen joululaulu/The Peace of Christmas 3:51
9. Maa on niin kaunis/Schönter Herr Jesu 2:43
10. Jouluyö, juhlayö/Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht 4:13
11. On hanget korkeat nietokset/The Shining Snows are Driven High 3:07
12. Arkihuolesi kaikki heitä/Cast Off All Care 2:05
13. Enkelien joululaulu/The Angel's Carol 2:12
14. Mökit nukkuu lumiset/The Snowbound Cabins Sleep 3:27
15. Kun joulu valkeneepi/Now Christmas Is Come 1:37
16. Puer natus in Bethlehem/Synnytti piltin Beetlehem 1:02
17. Panis Angelicus/Leivästä enkelten 3:39
18. O, Jesulein süß/Oi, Jeesus, lapsi armainen 2:09
19. Santa Lucia/Pyhä Lucia 3:43
20. O Tannenbaum/Oi kuusipuu 2:32
21. White Christmas/Valkea joulu 3:45

Ritva-Liisa Korhonen, soprano
Eeva-Liisa Saarinen, mezzo soprano
Raimo Sirkiä, tenor
Jorma Silvasti, tenor
Peter Lindroos, tenor
Jorma Hynninen, baritone
Esa Ruuttunen, baritone
Matti Salminen, bass
Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra
Savonlinna Opera Festival Chorus

Kyösti Haatanen, conductor

SZYMANOWSKI: Piano Works, Vol. 4

Agneta Eichenholz, Michael Volle, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Jennifer Larmore star in this Royal Opera production of the Berg opera conducted by Antonio Pappano and directed by Christof Loy.

The Czech Philharmonic Cimbalom Ensemble originated from a group of orchestra members who share passion for folk music and occasionally play it to give joy to themselves as well as their friends and supporters. They gradually started to perform in public- at a joint concert with Bobby McFerrin in Rudolfinum, at social events with orchestra attendees, and at other concerts in various places around the country. Their concert programs are unique- they usually combine folk music with classical music in their own arrangements. One of the paths chosen by the ensemble is the exploration of works by famous composers which were inspired by folk music. It comes as no surprise that each of the composers explored on this release has a different approach to folk and national music, and reflects it in their compositions in varying depth. These compositions have become a source of inspiration for many generations of musicians. The Czech Philharmonic Cimbalom Ensemble uses these scores as a launch pad, but strives to approach them with new ideas, invigorating the pieces and working with their own arrangements.