Oscar Wilde's play Salome was conceived for the actress Sarah Bernhardt and was originally planned for performance in London, in 1892. The play was blocked by the sensor (it was forbidden at the time to depict biblical characters on stage) and so first given in Paris instead, in 1896. Wilde never saw his play performed, as he was serving a prison sentence for homosexual acts whilst the only two performances in his lifetime occurred. Subsequently the play gained popularity in Germany, and having attended a performance in Berlin in 1902, Strauss determined that this would be the subject for his third opera. First performed in 1905, Strauss's Salome has gone on to become much better-known than Wilde's play, and is regularly performed at opera houses around the world. This live recording was made at a performance at the Usher Hall, in Edinburgh, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2022. Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra are joined by an outstanding cast of soloists, led by Malin Bystrom in the title role, Gerhard Siegel as Herod, Katarina Dalayman as Herodias, and Johan Reuter as John the Baptist.

The passage of time has perhaps been unkind to the English composer Maurice Greene. By 1730 he was one of the most senior musicians in England: Organist at St Paul's Cathedral, Organist and Composer to the Chapel Royal, and Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge. When he was appointed Master of the King's Music, in 1735, he held every significant appointment in the Kingdom. Of course, the overwhelming presence of Handel in London at the time most certainly played a significant part in Greene's relative obscurity. His second attempt at oratorio, Jephtha, in 1737, marks the first successful foray by an Englishman in this genre. Brimming with attractively varied airs and choruses, powerfully emotive accompanied recitatives, and spirited orchestral movements, it is an engaging work. Taken from the Book of Judges, chapter 11, the account of Jephtha tells the story of a fearless Israelite warrior recalled from exile to fight for his people, a man not only of great valour but, as it transpires - thanks to an impulsive and fateful pledge - of profound honour, too, destined to assume his place as their worthy ruler. Christian Curnyn directs his Early Opera Company forces with a dazzling cast of soloists: Andrew Staples takes the part of Jephtha, joined by Mary Bevan, Michael Mofidian, and Jeremy Budd.

One of the leading keyboard players of her generation, Sophie Yates is renowned as a performer, educator, and broadcaster. She writes of this programme: 'The Versailles of the seventeenth century was very different from the huge, opulent palace we know today... it was only in the last quarter of the century - after twenty years of work by architects, designers, and the landscape gardener Le N�tre - that Louis XIV moved there permanently... Music was extremely important at the court of Louis XIV (1638 - 1715) and, as such, provided work and patronage for a huge number of composers, dancers, teachers, instrument makers, and theatrical animateurs, supporting a whole artistic culture. The works in the present anthology are all drawn from this era of creative abundance... The cast of extraordinary characters who appear on this recording were all nurtured in the prestigious and wealthy court of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, their music is refined and intimate, prizing expressiveness over display and delighting in the colour and resonance of the harpsichord.'

For this third instalment in his survey of orchestral works by Ruth Gipps, Rumon Gamba, conducting the BBC Philharmonic, is joined by the horn soloist Martin Owen. The album opens with Gipps's Coronation Procession. The piece depicts the journey of the Crown(s), perhaps as observed from the Royal Coach, culminating in the entry to Westminster Abbey. Written in January 1953, the piece was not used at the coronation, and instead first performed in September 1954 in Melbourne, Australia. Ambarvalia is a memorial tribute of 1988 by Gipps to the composer and colleague Adrian Cruft, who had died in February 1987. Gipps wrote the Horn Concerto in 1968 for her son, Lance Baker. The piece was later championed by Frank Lloyd, who gave a BBC broadcast in 1982. Here the virtuoso Martin Owen brings the work vividly to life. The Lake District was the inspiration for the 'Impression' Cringlemire Garden, a pastoral miniature for string orchestra. Dated September 1942, the First Symphony is a direct reflection of the horrors of war. The work demonstrates Gipps's personal voice, and features some wonderful writing for winds.

This volume of modern premieres of works by Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688 - 1758) was recorded in concert, the programme opening the 2023 International Fasch Festival, in Zerbst, the city in which he was Capellmeister to the princely court. Tempesta di Mare has had an ongoing love affair with the orchestral music of Fasch that goes back to 2007, when the band received images of manuscript part books for several as-yet unpublished orchestral works held at the Dresden Library. They have been investigating, discovering, and performing works by Fasch every season since then, and recording those that have not already been recorded - this album is the fourth volume of such discoveries. One of the things that fascinate Tempesta di Mare about the music of Fasch, which goes beyond the craftsmanship, expressivity, inventiveness, and wit, is his very distinctive voice. Plenty of other central European composers of his time were content if their music could sound like that of Vivaldi, Corelli, or Telemann. Those influences remain clearly present in his music, but Fasch does not sound like any of them - nor, for that matter, like Bach, Handel, or any other of his contemporaries familiar to us.

Edward MacDowell was the most highly regarded American composer of his generation, and the first to acquire a truly international reputation. Born in New York, he briefly studied piano as a teenager at the Paris Conservatoire, but quickly left to explore what he regarded as the more congenial musical environment in Germany. He studied piano and composition in Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, and then Frankfurt. After graduating in 1880, he remained in Germany for four years, before returning home, first to Boston, for eight years, and then finally to New York where he became Columbia University's first Professor of Music. The various romantic influences that shaped the style of the First Concerto include the music of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, and Grieg, whilst the technical demands on the soloist reveal MacDowell's prowess as a pianist. MacDowell's enthusiasm for the symphonic poem is reflected here by the inclusion of Lancelot und Elaine and Lamia. The former was inspired by the Arthurian legend as told by Tennyson in his Idylls of the King. The work is extremely narrative, and employs Wagnerian Leitmotifs to depict each of the characters. Lamia, written some two years later and based on the poem by John Keats, was neither published nor performed in the composer's lifetime. MacDowell had planned another symphonic poem, based on the French mediaeval tale La Chanson de Roland, but the work was never completed, and the two fragments included here are all that remain. Woodland Sketches, a set of ten piano miniatures, were inspired by the idyllic environment of the MacDowells' farm, in New Hampshire. The first of these - 'To a Wild Rose' - is by far the composer's most famous piece, and made MacDowell a household name in both America and Europe.

Barry Douglas's acclaimed survey of Schubert's piano sonatas continues with this programme pairing the Sonata in E flat major, D 568 with the Sonata in G major, D 894. Published posthumously, the E flat major Sonata is a revision and completion of the D flat major Sonata, D 567. The original was written in June 1817, the revision soon afterwards. This sonata stands out in the canon for it's light-hearted, easy-going character in contrast to the more serious nature of the other sonatas. The G major Sonata, the last to be published in Schubert's lifetime, was completed in 1826. The work holds a special place for many pianists, including Imogen Cooper, Sviatoslav Richter, and Paul Lewis; the latter two have declared it their favourite, whilst Robert Schumann described it as 'the most perfect in form and conception' of any of Schubert's sonatas. Douglas completes his programme with two Liszt transcriptions of Schubert songs: 'Gretchen am Spinnrade', and 'Wohin?' (from Die schone Mullerin).

Busoni: Violin Sonatas

Goedicke, Rachmaninoff, Schonberger & Weinberg: Resonance

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Sibelius studied the violin in his youth, and actively entertained the prospect of a career as a professional violinist for much of his student life. After graduating from the Helsinki Music Institute, in 1890, he went to Vienna to continue his studies, and while there he even auditioned (unsuccessfully) for a place in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. So, it comes as no surprise that the instrument plays an important place in his compositional output. What might be surprising is that he wrote only one concerto – this might perhaps be due to the difficult conception of the work. The first performance received mixed reviews, and led to extensive revision of the score. It was only when Jascha Heifetz in the 1930s started to perform the concerto regularly that it gained its place in the standard repertoire. Although there was no second concerto, Sibelius’s numerous other works for violin and orchestra are no mere miniatures, as the recordings on this album amply demonstrate. The acclaimed international virtuoso James Ehnes is accompanied here by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Mozart: Piano Concertos, Vol. 10

Sutton: Violin Concerto; Five Theatre Miniatures; A Fist Full of Fives; War Horse Suite; Short Story

For their second album on Chandos, Freddie Crowley and his Corvus Consort - joined by the harpist Louise Thomson - turn their attention to a rich vein of choral music written for women's voices and harp. Gustav Holst was a champion of women's voices and taught in several girls' schools, most famously at St Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith, where he worked for almost thirty years. His contribution to this genre is represented by three works: Two Eastern Pictures, Dirge and Hymeneal, and more substantially his Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda. These works provide a frame for the bulk of the programme - mostly written by British women. Works by Imogen Holst and Elizabeth Poston lead us towards the more recent generations - Judith Weir, Gemma McGregor, and on to Olivia Sparkhall, and Hilary Campbell. The Indian composer Shruthi Rajasekar was invited to compose for this programme in response to the Third Group of Gustav Holst's Choral Hymns. Both Ushas - Goddess of Dawn and Priestess not only add exciting new repertoire for these unusual forces, but explore directly Holst's engagement with ancient Hindu texts.