The French composer Florent Schmitt was born in 1870, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, close to the German border. He studied music locally before entering the Paris Conservatoire aged nineteen, where he studied with Gabriel Faure, Jules Massenet, Theodore Dubois, and Albert Lavignac. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1900, Schmitt saw his post-romantic music regularly performed in France before the second world war, but subsequently his music became neglected and is now very rarely played (or recorded). This recording of his Symphonie concertante, featuring Peter Donohoe as soloist, is only the second commercial recording of the piece. Cancunik, 'Suite in Two Parts', was composed for a competition run by the Compagnie francaise de radiophonie which oversaw Radio-Paris. The suite won first prize, and here receives it's premiere recording. The other pieces on the album (Three Dances and Memorial) are orchestrations by the composer of his own works, originally written for solo piano.
Boris Lyatoshynsky is regarded as one of the leading Ukrainian composers of the twentieth century. He developed and established a distinctive musical style rooted in the traditions of nineteenth-century European romanticism and the modernism of the first third of the twentieth century. He held a number of important positions in the various committees and panels of Soviet composers' organisations, and also became professor of Music at the Kyiv Conservatoire. The first String Quartet is a student composition, written whilst he was studying with Reinhold Gliere, whose stylistic influence is clearly discernible in the thematic material. The second Quartet dates from 1922, when the composer, aged twenty-seven, had established his own musical voice. Like the first quartet, it introduces traces of Russian and Ukrainian folk music whilst adhering to the established four-movement form of the traditional string quartet. Founded in Kyiv in 2015, the NotaBene Chamber Group is a collective of musicians of the new generation, whose repertoire focuses on classical and contemporary music.
This second volume of Sakari Oramo's Bacewicz series features three rarely recorded works, played with conviction by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and featuring Peter Donohoe as the soloist in the Piano Concerto. Grazyna Bacewicz was a pioneering twentieth-century Polish composer, known for her vibrant and dynamic musical language. Her music bridges the gap between neoclassicism and modernism, and is extremely well crafted. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was written in 1949 in response to the Frederic Chopin Composers' Competition announced by the Polish Composers' Union to commemorate the centenary of Chopin's death. In the category of works for piano and orchestra it received the second prize - no first prize was awarded at all! The Second Symphony, finished in January 1951, was performed for the first time at the opening of the First Festival of Polish Music later that year. It is in fact the composer's third symphony, Bacewicz having discarded the first one. She described her four-movement, perfectly balanced work as referring to the tradition of the great classical masters and encompassing her own musical discoveries. Her Concerto for Large Symphony Orchestra was written a decade later, in 1962. Bacewicz herself regarded the work as part of the evolutionary process that led to the third stage of her compositional path.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet continues his survey of works by Beethoven's contemporaries with this second volume featuring works by Hummel., Clementi, Berger, and Czerny. The pianist comments: 'The deeper I delve into the universe of composers contemporaneous with Beethoven, the clearer I perceive the nature of his originality and the power of his genius, that which he was able to take from others, or that which inspired them. Would this series, The Beethoven Connection, then, not have any further aims than to magnify the genius of Beethoven? Of course it does! If I may make a geographical analogy, a great mountain never rises isolated in the landscape. It is always surrounded by other mountains, perhaps not so great but in the absence of which it would not appear so impressive! We had better climb all of them for from each summit we are offered a different view of the others! It is with great enthusiasm that I have prepared this programme, conceived, like that of the first volume, on the counsel of that eminent specialist on this period, my friend Marc Vignal - an enthusiasm which rests on the incontestable qualities of this music and the joy of the opportunity to rediscover it!'
John Wilson and Sinfonia of London continue their series of complete recordings of shows from the golden age of Broadway with Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls. The show opened in 1950, ran for 1,200 performances, and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The book is based on short stories by Damon Runyon, written in the 1920s and 1930s. These stories concerned gangsters, gamblers, and other characters of the New York underworld. Runyon was known for the unique comic dialect he employed in his stories; mixing highly formal language, without contractions, and colourful slang. As in all previous issues in this series, John Wilson has gone back to the original orchestrations of the show's opening night, and the recording includes every note. In the case of Guys and Dolls, these originals were lost (subsequent productions had used a simplified orchestration calling for fewer players), but have been painstakingly reconstructed by Larry Moore. Wilson says of his soloists: 'Casting is so important, choosing singers who not only perform the role but who can make an impression on a record. I keep my eyes peeled and, on every recording, you see new additions, but at the core there is a group of artists who I know can turn up on a Monday morning for the recording and deliver the goods. That extends right through the ensemble which is a collection of the brightest stars in London.' The notable additions for this recording are Damien Humbley as Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Sir Thomas Allen (persuaded by John to come out of retirement!) in the role of Arvide Abernathy.
Estonian conductor Neeme Jarvi was born in 1937 in Tallin, where he studied music before moving to Leningrad to study at the conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky. He returned to Tallinn and held posts with the Estonian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and Estonian National Opera, before emigrating to the United States in 1980. For twenty-two years, he held the post of Principal Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, where he is now Principal Conductor Emeritus. His long career has included tenures at many other orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and Residentie Orchestra of the Hague. Jarvi was Principal Conductor of the then Scottish National Orchestra from 1984 to 1988, and named Conductor Laureate of the Orchestra in 2006. He has recorded more than 500 albums, almost 300 of those with Chandos Records, which released his latest recording (Alfven and Rautavaara) in February 2026. His recorded legacy with the RSNO includes Prokofiev and Dvorak symphony cycles, Richard Strauss's tone poems and symphonies, and the Shostakovich recordings presented in this collection, recorded between 1984 and 1988.
Granville Bantock was born into a wealthy family (his father was a highly respected gynaecologist) in central London in 1868. Poor health scuppered his parents plans for a career in the Indian Civil service, and eventually Bantock gravitated to music, studying at both Trinity College and at the Royal Academy of Music. Early conducting engagements took him around the world with a musical comedy troupe, before he was appointed as conductor of the New Brighton Tower concerts in Cheshire. He very quickly expanded the scope of the orchestra, and stage concerts featuring works by Joseph Holbrooke, Frederic Hymen Cowen, Charles Steggall, Edward German, Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford, Corder and others, frequently devoting whole concerts to a single composer. Edward Elgar commented that Bantock had 'the most fertile musical brain of our time', On Elgar's recommendation, he became the first Principal of the new Midland Institute School of Music, in Birmingham, and within seven years had succeeded Elgar as Peyton Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham, a post he held until 1934. His unique musical style combines the romanticism of Wagner with influences of English and Scottish Folk Music, as well as the exoticism of eastern music. He had many champions of his work, including Sibelius, who became the first president of the Bantock society formed after the composer's death in 1946.
Romanian composer George Enescu was a child prodigy, and in October 1888, aged seven, become the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna Conservatory (and the first non-Austrian), where he graduated at the age of twelve. In addition to his career as a composer, Enescu was also an acclaimed conductor and violinist. He made his American debut in 1923 conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, and frequently conducted both the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris. Enescu made numerous recordings as a violinist, of his own works and those of others: His 1949 recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas was very highly regarded, and as a teacher (at Mannes School of Music in New York) his students included Yehudi Menuhin, Christian Ferras, Ivry Gitlis, Arthur Grumiaux and Ida Haendel among many others). Enescu composed his Octet for Strings at the age of nineteen, taking a year and a half to complete, due to the complexity of the piece. The first performance was cancelled when, after 5 rehearsals, impresario edouard Colonne removed it from the programme as 'too risky'. The performers have chosen to complete the album with Enescu's early Piano Quintet, composed some four years before the Octet, during his time at the Paris Conservatoire. The work shows the young Enescu's reverence for his hero Brahms throughout, but also demonstrates his extraordinary command of form and texture at such an early age.
Born in Manchester in 1953, Peter Donohoe studied at Chetham's School of Music for seven years, graduated in music from Leeds University, and went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Derek Wyndham, and then in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility, and commanding technique, a critic concluding in Musical Opinion that 'I cannot imagine a living pianist capable of improving upon Donohoe's outstanding artistry'. Following his previous volume of Grieg's Lyric Pieces (CHAN 20254), this double-album presents the remaining 39 pieces, alongside the Ballade, Op.24. Born in Bergen in 1843, Grieg is widely regarded as Norway's 'National Composer'. Grieg wrote for the piano throughout his career, but eschewed the German Sonata in favour of miniatures, which he named Lyriske stykker (Lyric pieces). Often influenced by the folk-music of his native Norway, these works were published in 10 volumes. Rather than recording them sequentially, Peter Donohoe has arranged the pieces in an order of his own choosing.
Spice of Italy - Music for Violin and Continuo by Nicola Mat
Chandos
CD · 1 disc
$21.99Aug 14, 2026
Following our exploration of violin sonatas by Finger (CHAN 0824), immersing ourselves in the music of his London contemporaries was a logical next step. Although not wholly unknown nowadays, both Matteis Senior and his son lack the full recognition that they deserve, being overlooked in their countries of origin because they emigrated, and in their new homelands because they were foreign. Determined to put this to rights, we spent innumerable hours exploring their music, spellbound by their vibrant and ever-varying musical worlds. It was a struggle to choose which pieces to record, and plenty more remain, which we sadly had to leave aside. Violin playing today has it's roots in the Italian style of players such as Matteis, and we take it for granted that the violin can move us with abundant expressive colours and effects. The situation in Restoration London was different. Musical style was largely French and no one had heard playing like that of Matteis Senior before. The first significant Italian violinist to arrive in England, he must have seemed like a musical visitor from outer space. His influence, through his performing, teaching, and publications, cannot be overestimated. Violin playing and musical taste shifted wholeheartedly towards the Italian style, and in [Roger] North's words, which inspired the title of this recording, 'nothing in towne had a relish without a spice of Itally'. - Hazel Brooks / Duo Dorado
Sibelius's Scaramouche, a ballet-pantomime commissioned in 1912 by his publishers, for a play by Poul Knudsen. His story line reflects the immense early twentieth-century interest in clowns and the commedia dell'arte, and in erotic desire, death, and the macabre, the same phenomena that produced Stravinsky's Petrouchka and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Best known as a composer of piano music, Sibelius' younger contemporary Selim Palmgren also wrote music for the theatre, and his score for the fairy-tale play Tuhkimo ja kuninkaantytar (Tuhkimo and the Princess), dates from 1902-03. Larin- Kyosti's play recounts the adventures of a passionate youth, Tuhkimo, and combines features of the familiar Cinderella story with elements drawn from a wide range of folk tales and fables. Einar Englund studied composition with Palmgren (and later Aaron Copland). His soundtrack for Erik Blomberg's 1952 film Valkoinen peura (The White Reindeer) was particularly acclaimed and won best prize for original music in the Jussi Awards (the Finnish Oscars) in the year of it's release. Kalervo Tuukkanen taught for three years at Viipuri University before serving as Kapellmeister in Pori, on Finland's Baltic coast, in 1942- 44. He was one of the founding members of Suomen Saveltayat (the Finnish Composer's Association) and his composition Karhunpyynti (Bear Hunting) was awarded a silver medal in the 1948 Cultural Olympics in London (where Finland impressively topped the medal table). Joulusarja (Christmas Suite) is taken from his 1953 score for a production of the play Die Erzahlung des letzten Hirten (The Tale of the Last Shepherd) and it's five movements covers the key moments in the Christmas story.
The Doric String Quartet continues it's cycle of Beethoven quartets with this third volume, featuring a mixture of works from the composer's early, middle, and late periods. Notable for the piano start of each of it's four movements, Op. 18 No. 3 also displays a more even distribution of thematic material among the four instruments than is normal for that time. Op. 59 No. 3 is the last of Beethoven's second set of quartets, dedicated to Count Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to the Viennese court, and also a fine violinist. Op. 74 is famous for the pizzicato, arpeggio passages in the first movement, giving rise to it's nickname - the 'Harp' Quartet. The final two quartets in this CD set, Op. 132 and Op. 135, date from Beethoven's late period. The late quartets are widely acknowledged as some of the most extraordinary music Beethoven wrote. Misunderstood and confusing to their first audiences, they have gone on to inspire countless composers and musicians, and are considered some of the greatest music ever written. As with the previous issues in the series, this double album is sold at two CDs for the price of one.
Saxophobia - Celebrating the Sax Craze of the 1920's
Chandos
SACD · 1 disc
$21.99Jul 17, 2026
Famously invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s, the saxophone quickly became an established part of French and British military bands, but remained a novelty instrument elsewhere until it gained a foothold in vaudeville and ragtime bands in 1920s America. From there, it became an essential part of dance bands and a prominent solo instrument in jazz. A great deal of this early development can be attributed to one musician-Rudy Wiedoeft. Born into a musical family, Rudy became a virtuoso clarinettist at an early age before becoming obsessed with the saxophone in 1914. Coinciding with the start of the dance craze, he was convinced he could make a better living as a saxophonist than as an orchestral clarinettist and spent the following years forming and running bands for nightclubs and cabaret, and writing and recording his own virtuosic pieces for saxophone. Concentrating on recording over performing, he became a household name, but the emergence of the jazz era and it's new star musicians eventually overshadowed his work, and his achievements and influence slipped into obscurity. Multi-instrumentalist, educator, and virtuoso saxophonist Chad Smith instigated this album both as a tribute to, and in order to shine a light on, this largely forgotten innovator. A veteran of Broadway since 2002, Smith has made an astonishing career which spans live and studio work at the highest level, featuring in a diverse range of soundtracks from Star Wars to The Simpsons. He has appeared as a soloist with most of America's premier symphony orchestras and has collaborated with innumerable artists such as Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Lady Gaga.
Conceived as a treasure trove of lesser-known French and Belgian repertoire, the works on this album span a forty-year period, from 1892 to 1932. A number of unifying threads run through the programme, perhaps the most significant of which is the influence of a composer whose music is not heard here at all: César Franck. Franck taught and championed Guillaume Lekeu and Mel Bonis; and Bonis in turn taught Charlotte Sohy, whose principal composition teacher was Vincent d'Indy, one of Franck's most devoted acolytes. The artists decided against including Franck's Violin Sonata in favour of the work by his fellow Belgian Lekeu, much more rarely recorded and hardly ever heard in the concert hall. A number of shorter works surround this sonata to form a uniquely rewarding programme, starting with Charlotte Sohy's Thème varié. Three works by Mel Bonis complement the duo's recording of her Violin Sonata on their previous album (CHAN 20275), whilst the two Élégies by Saint-Saëns have also been unfairly neglected. Fascinatingly, the second Élégie and Messiaen's Thème et variations are separated by just a dozen years, although they inhabit sound worlds seemingly decades apart. Elsa Barraine was Messiaen's contemporary and lifelong friend. Her haunting Nocturne seemed to provide a fitting conclusion to this programme.
Tchaikovsky: Hamlet, Etc / Simon, Kelly, London So, Et Al
Chandos
CD · 1 disc
$13.99Aug 01, 2003
"One of the recurring pleasures of the introduction of the Compact Disc is the unexpected appearance of rare repertoire—here for instance some virtually unknown music of Tchaikovsky—when not all the symphonies are yet available in that format. I praised the original LP set from all points of view—enterprise, first-rate performances (Geoffrey Simon is a splendid Tchaikovskian) and superb recording. The LPs (and tapes) were so good that one could not expect the CDs to be so much better. Yet they are very impressive... It is the Hamlet incidental music that resonates in the memory most strongly—there is some really lovely music here—especially the two entr'actes for strings, which show the composer at his most inspired and they are beautifully played. The recording gives the most natural and delicate effect, enhanced by the background silence, while the wide dynamic range is most effective in the more histrionic passages included here. This is a set not to be missed by any dedicated Tchaikovsky-lover..."
From the GRAMOPHONE review of the original CD release (Chandos 8310/1)
In this third volume of Edward Gardner’s Walton series with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, James Ehnes leaves his violin to tackle the taxing soloist role in the Viola Concerto. In a recent Strad interview, Ehnes confesses: ‘This is a piece I have loved since I was a teenager, so it is wonderful that the opportunity has come my way to record it... With Walton’s Viola Concerto, none of the writing is impossible but a lot of it is close. And in a way that is exactly where you want it to be: on the edge of technical limitations. There’s a tremendous amount of excitement in that.’ This album in surround sound also features two much later works: the 1957 Partita for Orchestra and the Sonata for String Orchestra, adapted in 1971 from the String Quartet in A minor of 1945 – 47. There is a striking contrast between the uncomfortable modernism of the up-and-coming young composer’s Viola Concerto and the relaxed brilliance of the mature Partita. But the Sonata shows Walton late in his life re-engaging as an arranger with his earlier manner, and so with the characteristic vein of restless unease that runs through most of his output.
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Ehnes and Gardner take us back to pre-Menuhin tempos, only a fraction slower than William Primrose’s pioneering 1946 recording. There’s a grand sweep to the performance which is wholly engaging in its refusal to wallow. Ehnes’s burnished viola tone is noble and warm. Gardner conducts a lithe performance of the Sonata for string orchestra, and a suitably boisterous Partita to fill out the disc.
Buxtehude: Sacred Cantatas / Kirkby, Leblanc, Harvey, Et Al
Chandos
CD · 1 disc
$21.99Feb 01, 2003
Emma Kirkby, internationally renowned for her interpretations of early music, joins Canadian soprano Suzie LeBlanc, Peter Harvey, Clare Salaman, and The Purcell Quartet in this disc of sacred music by Buxtehude. This is the only available reecording of many of the works on this disc. Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 14-16 February 2002 Producer(s) Rachel Smith Sound Engineer(s) Jonathan Cooper Michael Common
Janacek: Orchestral Works Vol 1 / Bavouzet, Gardner, Bergen Philharmonic
Chandos
SACD · 1 disc
$21.99Oct 28, 2014
First some housekeeping. This version of the suite from The Cunning LIttle Vixen is allegedly the “final” edition prepared by Charles Mackerras, consisting largely of the Talich score (that is, most of Act 1) but with Janácek’s original orchestration restored. According to Janácek scholar John Tyrrell, who wrote the otherwise comprehensive notes, Mackerras planned to conduct the “final” version of his edition, but his death intervened and it was only premiered at his memorial concert in 2010. What Tyrrell does not make clear is that Mackerras played and recorded his “almost final” version of the suite with the Czech Philharmonic for Supraphon. It differs in no major way from that offered here. So if you think that this recording features something new, it doesn’t, for the most part.
That said, this release represents an auspicious beginning to a new series of Janácek orchestral works. Gardner really is a good conductor. He plays the Sinfonietta swiftly and, happily, without an inappropriate effort to polish the music’s rough edges. There are a couple of quirky touches. The second movement starts quickly and then settles down to a marginally slower tempo for the rest. The fourth movement, too, after those two sudden eruptions towards the end, is taken very slowly for the last appearances of the main theme. I’m not sure that I like it because it sits oddly with the overall spunky tenor of the performance, but it’s not wrong, and it may improve on repetition.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet plays a mean Capriccio, another swift performance, especially in the third movement, which the brass handle with aplomb. This is such a weird piece that you can do almost anything with it (or to it) and have it come out successfully, but Bavouzet’s fluidity in the spiky solo part, and the excellence of the ensemble generally, disarm criticism. Finally, Mackerras’ version of the Vixen suite is surely the way to play it, and Gardner doesn’t put a foot wrong. The SACD sonics are quite good–occasionally a touch low level, perhaps, but that’s easily remedied.
Cyril Scott was an artists of immense standing amongst his contemporaries. Debussy wrote of him, 'Cyril Scottt is one of the rarest artists of the present generation...' and Elgar acknowledged Scott's influence in his treatment of harmony. Scott failed to receive attention after the First World War for he did not connnect with the msuical establishment as it developed. His posthumous lack of popularity is unfathonable as his music has a personality and integrity which demand, nearly half a century on, that we revisit it. This release places Scott's early masterpiece, the first Piano Concerto, alongside one of the larger orchestral works composed after the Second World War. Performed here by Howard Shelley, the large scale Piano Concerto was composed immediately before the First World War and premiered by Scott himself, with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of his friend Sir Thomas Beecham. Scott's static and exotic harmony, and his use of ostinati, repeated motifs, exotic orchestral colours and the bell-like effect of repeated fourths lend the work an oriental sound world. Scott himself said about it: 'It's as if Scarlatti had lived in China'. Symphony No.4 was completed in 1952 but has not been performed until now and with this release receives its world premiere recording. Clearly influenced by Ravel and Debussy, particularly at the climax points, Scott composes melodic lines that are richly chromatic, and his orchestration is colourful and constantly changing. This work is coupled with 'Early One Morning', a single-movement 'Poem' for piano and orchestra.
The Film Music Of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett / Gamba, Et Al
Chandos
CD · 1 disc
$21.99Nov 01, 2000
It is amazing to think that Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, knighted in 1998 for his services to music has written so much music: orchestral works, quartets, concertos, symphonies, operas, ballets, songs, madrigals, jazz pieces and much more - all totalling over 600 items! He has scored over 50 films (including some documentaries in the earlier part of his career). This album comprises a fair cross-section.
Usually we only hear Bennett's celebrated waltz from Murder on the Orient Express so the eleven-minute suite from the 1974 Academy Award nominated score is most welcome. Gamba, aided by Chandos's superbly dynamic and detailed sound, gives a thrilling reading of this glittering, sophisticated music for the smart set travelling on a mission to kill, on Europe's premier train. The music reflects the styles of that hedonistic era between the two world wars: waltzes, tangos and music played in the salon style. There is, as to be expected, an element of murky mystery and swift violence; but there is appealing elegiac material too. But overall, there is the glamour and urgency of the great powerful train itself.
From international sophistication, the prograame turns to a smaller world of rural romantic tragedy and to John Schlesinger's 1967 film of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd starring Julie Christie, Peter Finch, Alan Bates and Terence Stamp. Although the film had mixed reviews, Bennett's score was Oscar-nominated. Bennett wrote some beguiling pastoral themes, notably the poignant Bathsheba love theme. Opposed to this delicacy, is some very astringent, harsh, dissonant folk-like material that underlies the cruel reality of rural life like the loss of the shepherd's (Bates) flock of sheep (they throw themselves over the edge of a cliff) leaving him penniless and unable to pursue his love, Bathsheba. There is also bravado music for the proud, womanising soldier (Stamp), counterbalanced with elegiac material and music that, in its sense of chill isolation, recalls Holst's Egdon Heath.
Bennett has arranged his music for the 1972 film Lady Caroline Lamb as an elegy for orchestra and that Cinderella of the orchestra, the viola. His music for this film, which was about Lady Caroline Lamb's disastrous obsessive love for the poet Lord Byron, is distinguished by a very appealing tender romantic melody that is redolent of the Lady's yearning. The work is presented in two movements. Before the love theme is stated in the first of these, there is headlong skittish, neurotic music portraying the rash, foolish woman. Afterwards comes some comically ironical military music of some pomposity which includes (Lady Lamb's?) sighs before the mood darkens - perhaps signifying Lady Lamb's encroaching madness. The second movement reprises the love music, which becomes the theme for a set of variations: some dreamily nocturnal, some passionate, some troubled. Philip Dukes is a sensitive and refined soloist.
Cynthia Miller adds an ethereal touch, playing her ondes martenot for Bennett's Enchanted April score. This 1991 Merchant Ivory production dealt with the lives and loves of a handful of English ladies spending an idyllic month in an Italian villa. Accordingly, Bennett responded with a mellow nostalgic score, in which the ondes martenot transports the characters, and us, away from the ordinary, everyday world - to somewhere that is extraordinary and enchanted. His music is very delicate, atmospheric and impressionistic; and very reminiscent of both Debussy and Ravel (Ravel in Chinoiserie mode). At one point this delicate fantasy is grounded by the strains of Elgar's Chanson de matin played on a cor anglais but the peaceful idyllic mood is soon reinstated. A lovely work that perhaps is too fragile for its 19-minute length.
The concert is completed by two shorter works: the Nicole's haunting theme from the 1985 TV production, Tender is the Night, although I would argue that this is not its premiere recording for I remember hearing it the soundtrack recording I purchased at that time. I would also argue that Nicole was rehabilitated by the man she married and it was the strain of that work which caused his destruction! The concluding item is the touching and plaintive love theme for Four Weddings and a Funeral that tended to be overshadowed by more familiar pop source music.
Gamba leads the BBC Philharmonic in committed, romantic performances. A delightful album and strongly recommended.
Brahms & Busoni: Violin Concertos / Dego, Stasevska, BBC Symphony
Chandos
SACD · 1 disc
$21.99Mar 01, 2024
The celebrated violinist Francesca Dego is joined by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and her regular collaborator Dalia Stasevska for this recording of the violin concertos by Brahms and Busoni.
A cornerstone of the repertoire, Brahms’s Concerto dates from 1878, a year after the Second Symphony, and was composed for (and dedicated to) the virtuoso Joseph Joachim. The Concerto takes the standard three-movement form, and as in Beethoven’s Concerto (considered by many as Brahms’s inspiration for the work) the first movement is significant in its length and its complexity.
Busoni’s Violin Concerto in its turn is inspired by both Brahms and Beethoven, and like both previous works it is in the key of D major. Premièred in Berlin in 1897 by the Dutch violinist Henri Petri, the Concerto is dazzlingly virtuosic. Francesca Dego writes: ‘To be able to record Brahms’s Violin Concerto is a dream and a milestone for every violinist and I feel that with “my” Brahms I do not want to compete with the many gorgeous versions out there but instead to declare my own love and history with my favorite violin concerto. Busoni’s Concerto, however, is a rarely performed work, brought to the studio only a handful of times. It represents a different kind of responsibility, one that pushed me to want to rediscover every detail of this music as if it had never been played before.’
Recorded between 2009 and 2021, this mammoth project drew the highest critical acclaim: ‘A project that began in 2010 is completed; what a journey it has been. Bavouzet’s gifts of insightful exposition and revelation are matched by the wisdom of his curation... A triumph’ -The Sunday Times ‘A recording worth rushing to the shops for. Bavouzet plays these inventive masterpieces with real love’ -Classic FM ‘Quite apart from his stylistic command and sheer delight in the music, Bavouzet’s mixing and matching of different periods in the composer’s awe-inspiring pianistic development ensures there is never a dull moment’ -The Financial Times ‘Bavouzet’s readings have a strong claim to be the finest Haydn playing of recent vintage on the modern piano. They are a work of an insightful musician of profound culture and wide interests, whose intellectual emotional identification with Haydn is unreserved, and whose playing, beautifully captured in technical terms, is a delight to listen to.’- International Record Review ‘A major modern recording landmark in the Haydn discography’ - Gramophone
British Works for Cello & Piano, Vol. 2 / Watkins & Watkins
Chandos
CD · 1 disc
$21.99Oct 29, 2013
Paul Watkins, an exclusive Chandos artist, returns to his series of British works for cello and piano, playing sonatas by York Bowen, John Ireland and Sir Arnold Bax. He is accompanied by his brother, Huw Watkins. International Record Review wrote of volume one, “This is a marvelous release: for the intriguing music, the superb performances and the first-class sound.”
Following a highly successful series 'Mendelssohn in Birmingham', the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with their former Chief Conductor Edward Gardner here presents the first volume in a new surround-sound series: Schubert Symphonies. This first volume comprises of three symphonies spanning across Schubert's short productive composing life. His Symphony No. 3 (1815), with it's extensive and evolving slow introduction modelled on late Haydn is followed by the culminating distillation of Schubertian classicism that is his 'little' Symphony No. 5 (1816). Scored for chamber orchestra, it tells of much more of an influence of Mozart, for whom Schubert seemed to have felt a special affinity with around this time. Completing the album is Schubert's much more intense (with a turbulent first movement and serene second) Symphony No. 8 "unfinished" (1822), of which only the first two movements and a skeleton sketch of a third Scherzo movement were completed.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s landmark series of Beethoven’s complete sonatas is now available as a complete set and at a very special price. Bavouzet has taken this programme to the most prestigious venues around the world and continues to perform it. Gramophone has nominated him several times for its Artist of the Year award, arguing that ‘Bavouzet’s chronological journey through the Beethoven sonatas has not been surpassed in the last 30 years. Yes, it’s that good.” Repackaged as a box of nine individual albums, and each including the original booklets with their usual personal ‘performer’s note,’ this is a must have.
Past praise of previously released sets that make up this complete edition:
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Vol. 2
His lean, pinpointed sonority, rhythmic directness, freedom from mannerisms, and strong linear awareness convey both a strong sense of classical style and expressive economy. Bavouzet’s dynamic range is not particularly large, yet his subtle variety of articulations, thoughtful accentuation, and very discreet use of the sustain pedal give the playing a distinctive profile that recalls other intimate, Apollonian Beethoven stylists like Wilhelm Kempff, Walter Gieseking, and Robert Casadesus.
– ClassicsToday.com
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Vol. 3
The meticulous workmanship and musical intelligence informing Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s previous Beethoven cycle installment are equally apparent throughout this third and final volume. Many pianists would be happy to claim Bavouzet’s authority and mastery
Marx: Orchestral Songs & Choral Works / Belohlávek, Brewer
Chandos
CD · 1 disc
$21.99Jan 27, 2009
The Austrian composer Joseph Marx was for much of his long career a musical authority of world renown. Within his large output, his songs were amongst his greatest musical achievements, unifying romanticism, impressionism and expressionism with revolutionary results. Many thought him the rightful successor to Hugo Wolf and yet today the name and music of Joseph Marx have fallen into obscurity. The 'Marx style' is unmistakable. It is characterised by a highly personal compositional technique displaying a polyphonic harmony of full sonority, allied to asterly contrapuntal skills, and frequent key changes which occur apparently at random but are in fact distributed with utter logic. The music strikes the listener as timeless, refreshingly modern and, above all, surprising, able to exploit tonal means of expression to the full and raise the spirits of every true lover of melody. Chandos' Record of the Month sees Ji?í B?lohlávek conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the long overdue premiere of four choral works, along with the first complete recording of Marx's orchestral songs for soprano, performed by Christine Brewer. Three works are of particular note. Herbstchor an Pan, a single-movement cantata written in 1911, lasts very nearly twenty minutes and was Marx's first, and for many years only, orchestral composition. It has inexplicably fallen into oblivion in the past five decades. However, it has turned out to be one of the masterpieces of its entire era. Ein Neujahrshymnus (A Hymn for the New Year) is richly orchestrated and demonstrates the profound romantic vein of Joseph Marx; it is here performed for the first time in its orchestral version. This disc represents not only the first recording of Berghymne but also its world premiere performance. We are indebted to the Marx Society for their efforts to promote this composer, and allowing the wider public to hear the outstanding quality of his works. The greatness of the music is indisputable and this recording will make for an important addition to the classical music catalogue. Also available: Joseph Marx - Piano Works: CHAN 10479
