D'Indy was a contemporary of Debussy and Ravel, and a pupil of César Franck. Fauré described him as 'The Samson of Music' for his multifarious and generous-minded work as a composer, conductor, educator and propagandist who greatly strengthened French musical culture. Today the music of d'Indy is sadly neglected, which is why Chandos and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra have decided to embark upon a series devoted to his orchestral works with conductor Rumon Gamba. With a style essentially eclectic and strongly influenced above all by Beethoven and Wagner, d'Indy particularly excelled in orchestral composition. He drew particular inspiration from his native region in southern France, and formed a body of post-romantic works richly orchestrated, often inflected with folk-like melodies and employing Franck's well-known 'cyclic method'. This is the first foray by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for Chandos into the realm of French repertoire after recordings of music by Malcolm Williamson. On the most recent Williamson release, American Record Guide commented, 'Rumon Gamba's direction of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra is superb, as is the shape and conviction of all these interpretations. The sound is vibrant and clear'. Previous releases with Rumon Gamba and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra: Williamson, Vol.1: CHAN10359 Williamson, Vol.2: CHAN10406

Bernard Herrmann, born in New York in 1911 to Russian immigrants, is best known today as a composer of film music. Most notably he worked with Alfred Hitchcock on classic productions such as North by Northwest, Vertigo, and Psycho, as well as on Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. But despite his strong ties to Hollywood, Herrmann always thought of himself as a composer who worked in film, and never as a ‘mere’ film composer.

It was during his years as conductor and composer with the CBS Symphony Orchestra that Herrmann got the inspiration for Moby Dick – A Cantata. Initially, Herrmann intended the work as an opera, but he soon concluded that the stage was not an ideal medium for a musical version of Moby Dick – and a purely orchestral work could not make use of Herman Melville’s prose. A successful compromise was the cantata form, and Herrmann completed the work in 1938. It was premiered by John Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic on 11 April 1940, the conductor describing the work as the most important work that he had heard from a young American composer.

For a short period in the early 1930s, Herrmann was inspired by the works of Arnold Schoenberg and his followers. The infatuation did not last long. It culminated – and ended – with the Sinfonietta for Strings of 1935 – 36, a work which never received a public performance. The Sinfonietta remained forgotten until the early 1960s when Herrmann adopted it as a model for the latter half of his famous film score to Hitchcock’s Psycho, which illustrates Norman Bates’s disturbed state of mind. This disc presents the premiere recording of the Sinfonietta in its original version.

The works are performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, joined by the Danish National Choir in Moby Dick, under the direction of Michael Schønwandt, Music Director of the Royal Danish Orchestra and the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, and Principal Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic.

Chandos presents the English language recording premiere of 'Wozzeck', Berg's powerful and fatalistic tragedy, now regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century opera. Paul Daniel and the Philharmonia Orchestra receive consistently excellent reviews in this series, and are aided by a superb cast and theatrical Chandos sound. Recorded in: Watford Colosseum 14-18 July 2002 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Michael Common (Assistant)

High Performance Review wrote of this recording at its original release, 'Prokofiev's ballet score [The Buffoon] was written for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, but it's doubtful that any ballet company ever has danced to such vivid, raucous playing as Järvi inspires in this concert suite. Chandos has blessed the Scottish National Orchestra with bright, airy, near demonstration quality sounds, and Järvi provides an enthusiastic reading that sparkles with an abundance of characterful wit and dances with good humour'. The music from The Buffoon is complemented here by two further colourful suites, that from the opera The Love for Three Oranges and the lesser-known, late Waltz Suite, which brings together music from the opera War and Peace, the ballet Cinderella and the film Lermontov. 'Järvi and his orchestra produce brilliantly exciting performances, which are stunningly recorded', wrote Australian Hi-Fi and Music Review.

Classical Music

Recorded in: Danish Radio Concert Hall, Copenhagen 18-23 & 25-29 August 1997 Sound Engineer(s) Jørn Jacobsen Producer(s) Brian Couzens Executive Claus Due

Recorded in: St George's Church, Bloomsbury, London 6,7 January 1984 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Brian Couzens

Everything is fine and dandy in these polished, bright-eyed performances

Paris-born Vincent d’Indy (a pupil of César Franck) is enjoying a remarkable renaissance on disc. This new disc from Rumon Gamba should win new admirers to the cause. These charming performances are beguiling, the sound unfailingly warm. I don’t think d’Indy will ever be a repertoire staple but he certainly deserves further exploration and I look forward to Gamba’s continuing guidance.

-- Gramophone [6/2009]

Víteslav Novák was a member of the talented "in-between" generation of Czech composers, making his name at the turn of the 20th century, after Smetana and Dvorák, but before Martinu and Janácek. By all accounts a somewhat forbidding figure as well as a highly respected teacher, his music shows not a trace of academicism or pedantry. Indeed, he's one of the very few composers of his era with a genuine sense of humor (check out his delicious ballet Nikotina, on Supraphon, if you want proof), joining contemporaries Gustav Mahler and Ernst von Dohnányi in this select company.


There's not much to laugh about in the three pieces presented here, though. Lady Godiva is a straightforward tone poem illustrating the battle between sexes as represented in two contrasting themes, one rigid and stern, the other feminine and rhapsodic. Toman and the Wood Nymph, which has seen a couple of previous recordings on Supraphon, is a lovely nature poem inspired by what is basically a universal myth: call them Sirens, Rusalkas, Ondines, the plot always depicts the erotic power of womanhood to lure a man, unknowing, to (a pretty good-feeling) death. De profundis is another matter entirely: an anguished protest (for large orchestra and organ) against the German occupation of Novák's Czech homeland during the Second World War. Both its composition and first performance were an act of musical bravery. As might be expected from conductor Libor Pešek, who knows all this music cold, the performances are first rate, the recording top drawer. Essential, late Romantic stuff.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

Recorded in: Stockholm Concert Hall 30-31 March1993 & 18 March 1994 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan Richard Smoker (Assistant)

Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 28-29 April 1994 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Richard Lee Richard Smoker (Assistant)

Classical Music

Recorded in: Forde Abbey, Somerset 17 November 1994 Recorded in: The Warehouse, London 28-30 November 1994 Producer(s) Adrian Hunter Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan Richard Smoker (Assistant)

Released in July 1940, 'The Sea Hawk' was Korngold's last swashbuckler, and is arguably the finest film ever made in the genre. Certainly it is one of Errol Flynn's greatest films, and had a lavish budget for its time of 1.7m. One of the most difficult assignments of Korngold's career, it required a score of extraordinary length and complexity. The music was superbly multi-layered and thematically complex, literally sweeping the film along and matching its extraordinary visuals. Composition began just two days after the filming had been completed: in a special projection room equipped with a piano, Korngold had the reels of film run for him repeatedly while he improvised his music on the piano to the running footage. Later, he would then complete a full, annotated piano score. His training in the late symphonic traditions served him well. This recording has been very much a personal project for Rumon Gamba who comments, 'as with the rest of the Chandos Film series I very much wanted to keep the music limited to a single disc, instead of being dogged reconstruction of the complete score, including every single cue - some being just a quick trumpet figure or drum roll. I felt it was more important to represent the symphonic sweep of the score which is one of this film's greatest strengths'. Gamba has created a comprehensive 'suite' of six 'movements' that follows the action chronologically and only leaves out some insignificant cues and general repetitions. He continues, 'I believe that hearing Korngold's score in this manner will make for a wonderful listening experience representative of the narrative and in keeping with the spirit of this marvellous picture'. The BBC Philharmonic performs these scores with a symphonic precision and energy familiar with the first volume of Korngold's film music, released in 2005. Reviewing Volume 1, 'Music from the Movies' observed that 'Chandos has been doing great things in the film score re-recording world over recent years...With this release, however, they break new ground...this Chandos CD is for me the crowning achievement so far of what was already an impressive addition to the Golden Age film music'.