A luminous, easily recognizable instrument, and a symbol of Italy's learned and popular musical tradition, the mandolin has been the subject of several major compositions throughout the history of music. First of all, the famous concertos by Vivaldi: two of them appear here on this intensely romantic album (‘Come une volta’) that Julien Martineau - one of today’s greatest figureheads of the instrument - has recorded for Naïve. We also finally get to hear, thanks to the world premiere recording by Julien Martineau, the legendary, virtuosic and poetic second concerto (of which the manuscript was lost) by Raffaele Calace (1863-1934), who was often described as "the Paganini of the mandolin". The instrument is in fact so close, in many ways, to the violin. The Caudioso concerto completes an album which, steeped in authenticity and musical excellence, honors and lends prestige not only to the art of mandolin, but also to Italian and musical culture as a whole.

Four years after CPO issued an initial volume of David’s invigorating symphonies (Nos 1 and 6 on CPO 777 741-2 – Gary Higginson’s enthusiastic recommendation can be read here), we now get a second helping in performances that were seemingly laid down some three years before those on that disc. In contrast to death and taxes, CPO’s recording and release schedule are a mystery to us all (and a source of frustration to some). Having said that, those of us who feared for the recording of rare repertoire when CDs first emerged should simply be grateful for the stalwart work CPO actually do; who, thirty-odd years ago, could possibly have foreseen complete recorded cycles of Searle, Frankel and Wellesz symphonies, to name but three ‘Brits’ off the top of my head?

I can only reiterate my colleague’s enthusiasm for David’s symphonies. On paper, an expectation of ersatz Hindemith or Hartmann would be quite understandable. Descriptions of David’s music have often suggested dry, competent academicism – the reality seems very different. There is a clutch of stylistic allusions and comparisons one could make, but there is a great deal that is fresh, inspired and enjoyable about these works. Above all, they don’t meander; they appear to be really coherent and well-formed. This was my abiding impression of the first disc, and it applies here too. Indeed, the splendid Second Symphony on this disc lasts almost three-quarters of an hour – and I would argue that is not a moment too long.

Scored for a big orchestra, this work was completed by David in the summer of 1938 while he was holidaying in the upper Austrian highlands. It begins with a mysterious, chromatic theme played on a solo flute, before other solo woodwind instruments take on the melody and the sound and structure begin to fill out. These understated chamber-like wind textures belie what is to come. There are a lot of exposed solo lines in this work, which hint at a hibernal solitude. However, frenetic strings eventually join the fray, projecting a virility which certainly evokes Hindemith. The material evolves naturally from the original theme (indeed David embraces monothematicism throughout his symphonic corpus) and is developed most skilfully. Vibrant colours are achieved via judicious washes of tuned and untuned percussion which sporadically perforate the fuller orchestral textures. The mood of this music seems untouched by the date and place of its provenance – although it’s neither ecstatic nor joyful, it instead projects a sense of cautious optimism. One passage at 9’13 strongly evokes Hindemith’s great Harmonie der Welt symphony - David’s work pre-dates it by 13 years! As the movement heads toward its conclusion, with more adroitly played solo clarinet and bassoon, the mood briefly becomes more melancholy and terse. But this is a momentary reflection; the busy string gestures soon return and see us to the movement’s energetic, meaty conclusion which, in turn, suggests this composer’s true hero, Bruckner. Notwithstanding David’s fiercely twentieth century idiom the spirit of the Linz master is rarely far away in this music.

The two central movements, largo e cantabile and scherzo, are both relatively brief. The note quotes a contemporary critic as detecting a hint of Pfitzner’s operatic masterpiece Palestrina in the slow movement. Adopting an arch-like structure, it is an enigmatic, ambiguous essay which generates an uneasy calm. The string writing at its centre is glowingly beautiful. Rhythmically speaking the Scherzo is even more Brucknerian; here I detect something approaching bucolic joy, albeit one that’s oddly claustrophobic. The central trio section delights in strummed string effects. Some of the wind writing is almost jazzy and certainly gloriously sophisticated. The main theme soon gets under one’s skin. It ends abruptly - seemingly a David trademark.

The finale is a massive and ambitious passacaglia. I found it deeply impressive, but it requires effort on the part of the listener. It portentously reconstitutes the main theme from the first movement, initially stated in lower strings, and presents 31 superbly contrasting and interesting variations, seamlessly woven together with richly imaginative orchestration and plenty of opportunity for the principals of the ORF band to show off. There is a suppressed and not necessarily benign power at work in this compelling and measured movement. The ORF orchestra may lack the weight and sheen of their better- known Viennese counterparts but they invest this strange music with real passion and exceptional commitment. I suspect it would require a cold heart for a keen listener not to be moved by it. While I certainly found David’s Symphonies 1 and 6 to be technically accomplished and compelling, I believe this Second Symphony trumps them both. Needless to say, one cannot help but repeat the oft-asked question: where has this music been all my life?

The Symphony No 4 is harder work; it is effectively David’s ‘War’ Symphony. He made three attempts at writing it: the second draft was destroyed with his home in Leipzig during an air-raid in 1944. In fact, according to the booklet note, David rushed back into his burning house and rescued his son’s parakeets and what he thought was the almost-completed symphony. As it turned out it wasn’t – he thus reconstructed it from memory in a third and final draft which he completed in 1948. The opening dirge-like theme emerges gradually in winds and strings in the opening, brief slow movement. The brass provide more ominous colours which add to the prevailing solemnity - given the circumstances of the work’s gestation, this material seems more than apt. Gary Higginson mentioned Rubbra in his review of the earlier disc and there is again a hint of that composer’s controlled power in this movement. The pent-up energy is released in the following Allegro moderato, a terrific and compelling fugue. It builds inexorably with ripe timpani rolls and imaginative counterpoint towards a brass-dominated conclusion which again ends abruptly. Another Brucknerian Scherzo follows. The first half of this is oddly wistful and as light as air, suspended by what the note describes as “…impressionistically shimmering sonic ornaments…”. The orchestration in the middle section thickens momentarily before serene harp figurations puncture the flowing strings and winds. The movement concludes with a mercurial sense of urgency. At the outset of the fugal finale, the material heard at the opening of the work returns, somewhat shorn of any residual sentiment. It generates a somewhat muted, but not unappealing momentum. The orchestration throughout the finale is both transparent and vivid although its ending is somewhat troubled and ambiguous.

David’s Fourth Symphony then is a terse and rather compressed affair. It doesn’t disclose its qualities immediately and is the archetypal tough nut to crack. I’ve given it a few listens now and although I am beginning to like it, I feel it lacks some of the easier-going charm of its coupling here. Wildner leads the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in searching and committed accounts of both works, although I didn’t find their efforts here quite as polished as those on their previous David disc. As mentioned, that was recorded three years later and I suspect the orchestra by then had better found their way with this composer’s distinctive idiom. The recording is faithful without being spectacular and I am happy to report that CPO’s documentation is first-class – there is a wonderfully detailed introduction to these works by Dr Bernhard A. Kohn (the keeper of the David archive) which has been translated into perfectly comprehensible English (not always the case with CPO). As with the previous volume it includes several musical examples of David’s thematic material. I hope we aren’t kept waiting too long for the next instalment in this fascinating series.

– MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)

“The two concertos are distinguished by their classical musical language rich in ideas and their colorful instrumentation. Eberl’s music radiates with a lightness similar to that of Mozart, which is why the later confusion about the authorship of their works comes as no surprise. The piano part has a glistening and brilliant sound, while the orchestra forms a richly instrumented accompaniment. The melodic invention and harmonic structure are of timeless beauty.” This is what klassik.com wrote of the Vol. 1 featuring the piano concertos of Anton Eberl. Vol. 2 with his Concerto for Two Pianos op. 45, a work highly esteemed by his contemporaries, has a stylistic design adhering to the ideals of Viennese classicism and stands out for its multifaceted instrumentation. Eberl too seemed to have had a high opinion of this work. Whenever it was possible, he performed it during his concert tours throughout Germany, for example, in Berlin with Giacomo Meyerbeer, who was not even fifteen years old at the time. The release also includes the two Sonatas for Piano Four Hands op. 7, works proving to be very demanding in their piano parts as well as in their compositional structure.

SR9 Trio promotes a creative vision of current Western percussion. Attached to the classical musical heritage, they are actively involved with careful rereading and transcriptions for 3 marimbas of emblematic scores. Since its creation in 2010 at the CNSMD of Lyon, the SR9 Trio performs in France and worldwide, notably in the United States, Canada, Germay, England, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. Paul Changarnier, Nicolas Cousin, and Alexandre Esperet are three young and curious musicians and they definitely express themselves in a wide range of performances. They like to collaborate with various artists to explore other artistic fields, including dance and theater, and create new projects where all disciplines merge into one creative expression. This programme follows their previous release “Bach at the Marimba,” and is conceived upon the theme of dance throughout music history, from Rameau to De Falla.

FRANCK Violin Sonata. DEBUSSY Cello Sonata. POULENC Cello Sonata • Anne Gastinel (vc); Claire Désert (pn) • NAÏVE V5259 (61: 20)


This is an excellent version of Poulenc’s Cello Sonata. It has a persuasive sense of direction and a well-judged series of tempo decisions. It’s also warmly played, and ensemble between Anne Gastinel and Claire Désert is watertight. If your classic recording of choice is that of Pierre Fournier with Jacques Février—and I suppose that 1971 LP disc looms large in the discography—then you should know that the newcomers have their own views about things, and they ensure a convincing milieu for the work. Maybe the older pair breathed more naturally at certain points in the first movement—one feels their paragraphal phrasing is the more natural—but that doesn’t limit admiration for Gastinel and Désert, who take a more incisive tempo for the slow movement and sustain it well. It’s a passionate point of view, but then it is a passionate movement and one of the most outspoken in all of Poulenc’s music. Witty badinage restores things in the Ballabile third movement, and while Fournier emphasizes some of the more spectral moments in the finale with greater impact and immediacy, the more up-to-date and natural dynamic range of this Naïve recording proves laudable. This then is a compelling and first-class account of the sonata.


The Debussy sonata reprises the virtues of the Poulenc, though it does so in a way that signals the players’ freedom from convention. They don’t play in as arresting a manner as those pioneering French musicians Maurice Maréchal and Robert Casadesus, who, in their 1930 recording, performed with unselfconscious directness. But they do abjure some of the more outré gestures that have accreted to, say, the Sérénade’s pizzicatos, which is well and good in my book. They play with assurance throughout, though my own preferences lie with the classic older statement and also with the more phrasally suggestive playing of Tortelier and Gerald Moore in their 1948 disc, now in a huge Paul Tortelier EMI retrospective box.


The last work is the transcription of the Franck Violin Sonata made by Jules Delsart, with the approval of the composer, in 1888. This has been an increasingly popular option for cellists, and Gastinel and Désert play with a canny appreciation of when to press on and when to fine-down tone. Gastinel’s vibrato speed is well judged, and the pianist, who shoulders most of the truly taxing demands, acquits herself estimably.


This fine recital has been warmly recorded, is well balanced and reflects well on all concerned.


FANFARE: Jonathan Woolf

Peter Seivewright was amongst the first musicians to seriously research (in 1994) the 100+ keyboard sonatas by Venetian composer Galuppi, also famed as a pioneer of opera buffa. While others have since come to appreciate and record the fine variety and novelty of these works, for many personal and career reasons, Seivewright’s series was held up after volume 3 was released in 2004 but is now back on track with this intermediate album which includes also the G major Piano Concerto. Many of the sonatas have had to be reconstructed from single movement manuscripts. They show amazing diversity, from single-movement works to two- and three-movement pieces, and from basic baroque style to a Romanticism prescient of Schumann. Seivewright strongly believes that the works were specifically written for the pianoforte rather than harpsichord due to their frequent need for sostenuto and other factors. Peter Seivewright studied at Oxford then at the Royal Northern College of Music. He has performed extensively as recitalist and concerto soloist and has taught in colleges around the world, from Scotland to Trinidad to Afghanistan and most recently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Supraphon's properly pitched, 24-bit remasterings of Sviatoslav Richter's 1956 Schumann Fantasiestücke, Waldszenen, and G minor Marsch convey a richness in the bass and boosted midrange presence quite different from the brighter, leaner sonic image characterizing Deutsche Grammophon's Dokumente and Originals series transfers. Richter habitually omitted Grillen and Fabel from Fantasiestücke, yet he played the other six pieces beautifully. The pianist's gorgeous legato touch justifies his unorthodox stretching out of Warum's last section, while his supple and sharply honed fingers make easy work of Aufschwung and Traumes Wirren. Although Richter likened the recording studio to "the torture chamber", he sounds free as a bird throughout his ravishingly tinted, technically dazzling Waldszenen. Lastly, a live November 1959 C major Fantasy stands out for a sense of risk and forward impetus in the first two movements that's largely absent from Richter's 1961 EMI studio effort, despite the cramped sonics. If you've missed these recordings in the past, don't hesitate now.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

DVORAK; SUK; JANACEK; SMETANA; JEZEK; MARTINU; GRIEG; SCHUMANN;RESPIGHI; BRAHMS; SCHUBERT; DEBUSSY; POULENC; FRANCK; MOZART;HONEGGER; KODALY SUK (VIOLIN); HOLECEK, PANENKA, HALA (PIANO), SKAMPA (VIOLA);NAVARRA (CELLO) JOSEF SUK: EARLY RECORDINGS- ROMANTIC PIECES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANOOP. 75; FOUR PIECES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, OP. 17; SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO; SONATINA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO IN D MAJOR, OP. 137 NO. 1; SONATINA FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO; ETC.

I'm in Haydn heaven. This is the most remarkable set of "Paris" Symphonies since Bernstein's, and without question the new reference by which all others will be judged. I say this fully cognizant of the excellence of some of the competition, from the surprisingly robust Karajan (DG) to the thrillingly exciting Thomas Fey (Hänssler, which contains 4 out of 6 of the symphonies). But none of those previous sets comes as close as this one to realizing perhaps the most singular quality of the music: it's inexhaustible variety and range of emotional expression, both between the various works as well as within them. Recorded back in 2001 and 2002 in glorious, state-of-the-art sonics that give the music the dynamic range and "bigness" of scale that it requires, we can only be thankful that RCA and dhm picked up Harnoncourt's contract when Warner dropped him. The thought of this set not seeing the light of day is too horrible to contemplate.


Few moments in listening to new interpretations of well-loved classics (for me anyway) are more rewarding than hearing something totally different and personal, only to realize that what the conductor has done is simply realize the composer's clear intentions by playing what sits in plain view on the printed page. Let me share with you three examples. In the first movement of Symphony No. 85 ("La Reine"), every performance since the dawn of time that observes the exposition repeat returns to the beginning of the allegro. Harnoncourt goes all the way back to the beginning of the symphony, including the introduction. This so shocked me that I hastened to my score (Landon edition, and so a good scholarly text), and sure enough, there is no repeat sign bracketing the beginning of the allegro. Moreover, in the other two symphonies with introductions (Nos. 84 and 86), you will find those repeat signs in the expected place. So Harnoncourt probably is the first conductor in history, on disc at least, to play what Haydn actually wrote.


Does this matter? Maybe not all that much, but including the introduction emphasizes the movement's hommage to the baroque French overture, and it's entirely in keeping with Haydn's love of formal variety and freedom from routine. It sounds "right". Another example: listen to the forcefulness with which Harnoncourt attacks the sforzandos in the development section of Symphony No. 83's ("La Poule") finale. Once again it's exactly what Haydn wrote, and the effect is electrifying. But Harnoncourt's eye for detail and ear for sonority are not limited exclusively to loud special effects. He can be subtle too, as when he lets us hear the long-held viola note supporting the whimsical second subject in the finale of the Symphony No. 86--a striking jet of color. Anywhere you might care to mention, from the vigorous dotted rhythms that open Symphony No. 85, to the ideal tempos that Harnoncourt finds in the variation slow movements in Symphonies Nos. 82, 84, and 85, to the delicious vignettes that he makes out of the trios in all six (thankfully lively) minuets--try No. 84--you can hear the notes leap off the page with all the freshness of a premiere performance, but with none of the uncertainty.


Harnoncourt honors all suggested repeats, including the second halves of the outer movements--and this also matters, because Haydn writes his endings with the expectation that the repeats will be observed, adding an additional element of surprise and drama. They are anything but perfunctory. In fact, the timing of the second-half repeat is different in every single finale: one and a half 2/4 bars in Symphony No. 82; three quarters of a 12/8 bar in No. 83; one eighth-note in a 2/4 bar in No. 84; half a 2/4 bar in No. 85; three quarters of a 4/4 bar in No. 86; one and a quarter 2/2 bars (plus fermata) in No. 87. Observing the repeats, and understanding what they mean, not only gives the music more substance by allowing listeners to follow the argument in greater detail the second time around, but it further emphasizes Haydn's individuality in each work, making us care about his imaginative approach to form. The result is more than three hours of music--on three discs priced as two--that never feels overlong. Just the opposite.


Finally, the playing of the Concentus Musicus Wien is extraordinary. The woodwinds are particularly gorgeous, whether in the lovely writing for the whole section in select slow movements--try Symphony No. 87, and the variation with pizzicato accompaniment in No. 84--or in solos such as the witty oboe that represents the hen in No. 83 and launches the allegro of No. 85. Harnoncourt even makes something special out of the string articulation in the repeated notes running through the first movement of No. 87 (and he's the first conductor since Bernstein to give the bass lines at the beginning of that symphony their full measure of weight and character). The trumpets and drums in Symphonies Nos. 82 and 86 play vigorously and always cut through the texture with clarity and festive brilliance, while the "dancing bear" finale of No. 82 is both exciting and rustic, the bagpipe imitations milked for all that they're worth, but never at the expense of the music's onrushing energy. You'll love the horns: rich-toned, but with plenty of bite where necessary.

I could go on, but instead let me urge you to buy this set as soon as possible and hear it for yourself. You'll be dazzled, even awed. It sets a new standard in Haydn performance--and trust me, you won't be able to stop listening. [4/28/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Artur Rubinstein. RCA RCD1-7156 [Ballades, with Scherzos]; 5613-2-RC [19 Nocturnes; 2 CDs]; 5614-2-RC [51 Mazurkas; 2CDs]; 5615-2 [7 Polonaises]; RCD1-5492 [14 Waltzes]

If there is one sure bet in the music of Chopin, it is Artur Rubinstein. His recordings of the composer’s music can be recommended without hesitation for their warmth, lyricism, and expressive point. Never over-interpreted, the music emerges with spontaneity and freshness in his accounts, always alive, always delightful and surprising. His fiery renditions of the Ballades and Polonaises combine drama and poetry in brilliant fashion, while his readings of the Nocturnes, Mazurkas, and Waltzes are notable for their Mediterranean color and unerring sense of mood. The sound of the 1960s stereo recordings for RCA may occasionally lack depth and seem slightly veiled, but it holds up well enough to convey unmistakably the tone and the touch that made Rubinstein one of the greatest pianists of all time. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

Svyati - Steven Isserlis plays the music of John Tavener

While the music world is getting ready for next year’s 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth, this year’s bicentennial of the birth of the Polish national composer Stanislaw Moniuszko has gone practically unnoticed outside Poland. For this reason, this new recording of his two string quartets is all the more welcome. The composer who would become the celebrated master of the operas Halka and The Haunted Manor wrote these quartets during or shortly after his Berlin study years and in a style continuing to draw on the vocabulary of classical models. At the same time, the twenty-year-old student displays a sense of humor, melodicism, and chamber finesse that not only make for a genuinely rewarding listening experience but also are worth hearing again and again. A “late” creation by Moniuszko’s young fellow Pole Juliusz Zarebski is being presented here together with the quartets. At the end of his life this favorite pupil and confidant of Franz Liszt wrote an absolutely “avant-garde” piano quintet that might have launched a bold and daring oeuvre but ended up serving as a farewell: when this virtuoso pianist and composer delighting in experiment died in 1885, he was a mere thirty-one years old.

Classical Music

‘Rencontre' is the first recital album of soprano Raquel Camarinha and pianist Yoan Héreau, new signings on Naïve. It crystallizes several years of passionate live music-making for the duo. From Debussy to Poulenc, via Ravel and the all-too rare Delage, we are invited on a journey akin to a game of mirrors between composers, music, poems, characters and performers, that is in turn amorous, dreamlike, mysterious and wonderfully evocative. The Portuguese soprano Raquel Camarinha was born in Braga in 1986. She began her vocal studies in 2000, completed the Secondary Singing Course in 2004, and in 2009 the Undergraduate Course in Music, at the University of Aveiro. In 2011 she took her master’s degree at the Paris Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et Danse, in the class of Chantal Mathias. Winner of several national and international awards, in 2011 she won first prize at the Luísa Todi National Singing Competition in Portugal, as well as the Best Female Performer Award at the Armel Opera Competition in Hungary.

Evgeny Kissin is an interpreter who tends to shoot from the hip in the big Romantic masterpieces, resulting in many moments of genius rubbing up against baffling gaucheries. Fortunately, nearly everything comes together for Kissin in his late-1990s recordings of Schumann's Kreisleriana and C major Fantasy. The latter virtually explodes in the face of Kissin's ardent, volatile virtuosity, which dwells at opposite ends of the scale from Pollini's ironclad, symphonically inclined steadiness. Particularly noteworthy (all puns intended) are Kissin's spectacular leaps in the second-movement coda, where he cleanly delineates the outer voices most other pianists are merely content to hit accurately. The whiplash articulation and huge dynamic range Kissin brings to Kreisleriana's faster movements are cut from the same Dionysian cloth that shrouds the great Horowitz (Sony) and Argerich (DG) recordings. In short, the catalog claims no stromger coupling of these works, and with Kissin on top form, who can resist? [6/14/2004] --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

In 1967 and 1969, en route to becoming the leading soprano of the 1970s, Montserrat Caballé recorded a trio of "rarity" discs for RCA, each concentrating on a single composer--Rossini, Donizetti, and Verdi--and focused on relatively little-known scenes and arias from similarly obscure operas. Thanks in part to Caballé's stage performances and recordings, the bel canto revival has rescued many of those works from the shadows, but they have not been better sung than by the great Spanish soprano, possessor of perhaps the most beautiful soprano voice of the 20th century. She's at her best here, singing with the fire that sometimes seemed to elude her, flaunting her ravishing pianissimos, and never breaking a sweat or taking an untoward breath as she tosses off difficult coloratura passages with ease.


The Rossini set dips into five operas and the "Inflammatus" from his Stabat mater. Donizetti is represented by four operas, but entire scenes are offered, putting the arias in proper context. Seven scenes and/or arias from Verdi's early operas are here, blending touches of those two past masters with harbingers of his own evolving style. Singling out highlights would be folly in a tightly filled double-disc set, but you know from the very first notes of "Tanti affetti" from Rossini's La donna del lago, which begins Disc 1, that you're in for a feast of great singing. Orchestras and conductors are idiomatic. The sonics, once deemed excellent, are only a bit dimmed by time. RCA provides full texts and English translations, a welcome departure from the usual big-label reluctance to accommodate consumers. This is a must for any lover of great singing. [1/28/2005]
--Dan Davis, ClassicsToday.com

Fans of great violin playing naturally will want to hear this outstanding sampling of the art of the young Itzhak Perlman, most of which has never been released on CD. The violinist blasts through Paganini's Caprices Nos. 1, 16, and (of course) 24 with scrupulous technique and a total lack of inhibition. In the remaining works he's well partnered by pianist David Garvey, best known for his work with soprano Leontyne Price. Among the items represented are some truly uncommon gems, such as Ben-Haim's Berceuse Sfaradite, Hindemith's sweet little Sonata Op. 11 No. 1, and a smoking performance of Bazzini's La Ronde des lutins. Perlman gives a nod to the Baroque tradition (while remaining firmly within the modern school, obviously), with uncommonly exciting versions of Handel's Sonata Op. 1 No. 15 and Leclair's Op. 9 No. 3.

Rounding out the program are Bloch's Nigun (gorgeous tone here) and two Spanish favorites--Sarasate's Navarra Op. 33 and Kreisler's arrangement of Falla's Spanish Dance from La vida breve. The sonics balance the two players well considering Perlman's predilection for remaining front and center, though the violin sometimes sounds as if it's in a slightly different acoustic. Never mind. This is an outstanding tribute to one of the great names among violinists of any age, as well as a remarkably varied and interesting recital in its own right. As such, it's self-recommending.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Music from Symphony No. 1, "Jeremiah"; Symphony No. 2, "Age of Anxiety"; Symphony No. 3, "Kaddish"; Chichester Psalms for Chorus and Orchestra ; songs from on the Town; Peter Pan; Fancy Free and Candide ; the original Broadway recording of West Side Story, and more!

Track listings include: "Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco " "Stravinsky: Suite from "The Firebird" (1919 version) Finale Disc 2: "Mozart: Symphony No. 39 in E- flat Major, KV 543 "Copland: El salon Mexico" Disc 3: "Haydn: Missa in tempore belli in c major (Mass in Time of War) Hob. XXII: 9" "Sousa: Semper fidelis" "Barber: Adagio for Strings."

This selection is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording.

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

BK1 WELL TEMPERED CLAVIER

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op. 57 "Appassionata" - Op. 27,2 "M

Sarah Willis is a tireless ambassador for her instrument, the horn, which she champions around the world. Already a horn player with the Berlin Philharmoniker, in 2014 she launched for the German television channel Deutsche Welle what was soon to become a famous programme, ‘Sarah’s Music’, a series of interviews with personalities ranging from Gustavo Dudamel to Wynton Marsalis, which presents music with warmth and in all its diversity. But Sarah’s other passion was born when she arrived in Cuba to give a masterclass. The music and musicians she met there had a huge impact on her. Since then she has gone back regularly, founding an ensemble, The Havana Horns, that originated in a flash mob filmed for ‘Sarah’s Music’.

Now she has decided to make an album combining the most famous of classical composers – ‘Mozart would have been a good Cuban’, a musician told her one day in front of a statue of the Austrian genius in the middle of Havana – and the local pride, the Cuban music that is everywhere on the island . . . With the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and its exuberant conductor Pepe Méndez, she presents Mozart works for horn and orchestra (the Concerto no.3 and the Rondo K371) alongside a Rondo alla Mambo inspired by another Mozart rondo, a Sarahnade Mambo, a Cuban Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and other treats. A number of famous local musicians take part in this recording, which also pays tribute to Cuban repertory, with the song Dos Gardenias para ti made famous by Ibrahim Ferrer and the Buena Vista Social Club. Available in CD, 2-disc DVD+Blu-ray set, or vinyl! 

The Brahms interpretations of Paavo J�rvi, the Grammy Award-winning Estonian-American conductor, and his Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen have been receiving the highest public and critical acclaim. "A Brahms revelation" was the headline in the New Yorker, for the Zeit it's "a reference recording" and the Hamburger Abendblatt wrote "the greatest experts of Brahms come from Bremen (die besten Brahms Versteher kommen aus Bremen)". The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen perform Brahms nowadays exactly to the size that the composer himself was accustomed to at the time. This interpretation puts Brahms� symphonies in a new light, which is explored in the additional documentary through the eyes of the musicians and their artistic director Paavo J�rvi.