This new release from Vitaly Vatulya is an album of contemporary Saxophone and fusion with electronics. Internationally acclaimed soloist, Vitaly Vatulya became a prize-winner of more than twenty national and international competitions, among which are “Delphic Games”, one of the most prestigious competition in Russia, First prize at the International Saxophone Competition 'Marco Fiorindo' in Italy, International Saxophone Competition in Nova Gorica (Slovenia). Vitaly Vatulya performs as a soloist and an active ensemble player, gives concerts in Europe, Russia and abroad. He performs with the leading Russian and European orchestras, including the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg State Capella Symphony Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosovo Philharmonic and others. Vitaly is a soloist of the St. Petersburg House of Music. In 2018 Vitaly joined pedagogical team of 19th Habanera Academy of Saxophone and participated at the 19th “Saxophone in movement" Festival in Poitiers, France. Vitaly’s performances can often be heard on the Russian and European radio and TV.

Eugene Asti writes of this new release: "When I was trying to decide which solo pieces to record, I felt drawn to the late piano works as they seemed in some way related to his songs. Brahms's Lieder are some of his most intimate and personal compositions, and although small in scale, there is a wealth of emotional depth and poetic sensibility to be explored in them. The exact same thing can be said of the late piano works, which are likewise small in dimension and certainly not composed as virtuosic showpieces. They are also among the most beautiful and profound of all his works, possessing a truly vocal quality with which, as a song pianist, I can immediately identify (some could almost be called 'songs without words'). In the making of this recording, I was very fortunate that LAWO chose a wonderful reconditioned Steinway D dating from 1893, which is just a year after the composition of these late piano pieces." Eugene Asti is one of the foremost accompanists of his generation, and regularly tours and records as a solo musician. His many recordings have garnered him widespread critical acclaim.

Recorded for the first time on one album, this release features Hindemith’s complete works for violin and piano and the rarely recorded Kleine Sonata for Viola D’amore and piano. Hindemith’s reputation as a master composer, viola virtuoso and dominant pedagogue- who, being able to play practically every standard instrument (and a few non-standard ones), expected the same from his students- has tended to obscure the fact that he first came to attention not as a composer or violist but as a violinist. Roman Mints has had a lifelong love of the works of Paul Hindemith, which began when he was a young violinist, studying in Moscow in the 1980s. He says “This music, written not just before I was born but closer to the time of my grandparents’ birth, felt completely contemporary, and daringly advanced in its sound- and not just to me, as it turns out: 30 years on, Hindemith is still regarded by concert programmers as too difficult for the wider public. I put Sonata in D on the stand. I was gripped by the first subject, constructed from seconds and sevenths, marked to be played ‘with stony defiance.’ I was never the same again and he became my window into contemporary music.”

When you read the name German Brass, you know just where you’re at: here are musicians who can conjure up the most finely-honed degrees of timbre, volume and pitch that it is humanly possible to produce on brass instruments. It rings true: German Brass represents the hallmark of the highest quality brass music made in Germany – or as Concerti magazine put it: “Trailblazers of the Brass scene”. The ensemble’s last album was all about pre-Christmas anticipation, joyful messages and everything that revolves round Bach, Telemann and Handel. Brass Hommage takes us to the opposite end of the calendar spectrum. Things are colorful, rhythmic, exotic even. After a bombastic introduction by way of Strauss’s Thus spake Zarathustra it’s off to the south and the west, armed with a sun hat and shades with classics ranging from Black Bottom Stomp, via Quien Sera, As Time Goes By, Tico Tico to Oye Como va. This is the perfect programme for hot days and balmy nights. With their virtuosity, their brilliant musicality and their own special charm, they have definitely placed their stamp/made their mark on brass culture. Their declared goal is to reproduce the grand-scale resonant sound of an organ. That’s what inspires German Brass’s arrangers and members to produce that sound which has given this top-flight ensemble an inimitable edge for decades. They have been making German brass history now for more than 40 years. Founded in 1974, they seem not to have grown a day older since then. Proof of that can be seen in their full concert schedule. The fact that the ensemble recruits musicians from Germany’s top orchestras means that they can offer outstanding quality, and their collaboration over decades still has audiences gasping, wide-eyed and perking up their ears to hear this musical cornucopia.

A revolution in art and literature swept through Europe and by the early 1800s Romanticism dominated the musical landscape. Such figures as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms exemplified the ideals yet maintained highly individual approaches. Now, our finest historically-informed musicians and scholars present this incomparable repertoire in a series destined by become an essential part of every serious music lover’s collection. Robert Schumann, the “herald of a new poetic age”, in the words of his biographer, John Daverio, carved out a unique position for himself in the world of German Romanticism, especially in the creation of a new genre of solo piano music, which consisted of a cycle of miniatures, often provided with evocatively poetic titles. The present recording features Schumann’s three-movement Fantasie in C major, Op. 17 and the playfully mysterious and kaleidoscopic Carnaval, Op. 9, a series of miniature character portraits with a wide range of moods and textures. Chi-Chen Wu performs these works on a copy of a 19thcentury Viennese fortepiano by Rodney Regier.

Solti conducted Don Giovanni in nine performances during the 1954 Glyndebourne season : on July 7, 9, 11, 14, 17, 21, 23, 25, 27. These performances of Don Giovanni were Georg Solti’s only Glyndebourne appearances. This complete performance was broadcast live from the opera house on 17 July 1954. The source recording is part of the ‘Itter Broadcast Collection’ held by Lyrita Recorded Edition Trust. This is the first release on Prima Voce for more than five years and we hope that it will once again stimulate interest in this critically acclaimed series. A new printed catalogue for Prima Voce is also available and our next release will be Berlioz, ‘The Damnation of Faust’ in a live performance from the Royal Festival Hall, with Joan Hammond conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent in 1953.

This album brings together a selection of religious compositions by Giacomo Meyerbeer, including several works presumed lost until their recent discovery. These rediscovered pieces stand out for their masterful quality and highly individual style, such as the Hymne An Gott, which demonstrates Meyerbeer’s sensitivity and skill with text. Other gems include the luminous Pater Noster and the melancholy Prelude et Cantique, which draws on the spirituality of the late Middle Ages and was of great significance to the composer. The soprano Andrea Chudak studied at the Hochschule fur Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’ in Berlin as well as the Institute Musiktheater of the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik in Karlsruhe, and attended masterclasses with Peter Schreier and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, among others. She has won many prizes in national and international competitions, and has sung as a soloist at the opera houses in Karlsruhe, Kaiserslautern, Stuttgart, at the Staatsoper Berlin, and the Theater an der Wien since 2001.

Saint-Saënss' favorite pupil, Gabriel Faure, wrote in his obituary of his teacher of the "serene regions" his music often inhabited, "where violence and paroxysms are unknown, where gravity, wit, charm, and smiling tenderness rule side by side." In this, he was echoing his teacher's own response to the world around him: "Are smiles and graces to be ignored by all"... Happiness is disapproved of in the music of our time... Long live sadness! Long live boredom!" To which Roger Nicholas responds, "Long live keys, tunes, clarity, and playfulness! Long live the music of Camille le Grand!" This release is the second of two volumes of original compositions and arrangements for piano duo and duets by Camille Saint-Saëns. "The two pianists are perfectly in tune with one another at all times. This is thoroughly enjoyable and well recorded with some interesting cover notes. I really look forward to hearing volume 2..." (Jonathan Welsh)

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was born in Weimar in 1714 where he grew up under the severe leadership of his father Johann Sebastian receiving a complete musical forming. In 1738 when he was 24 he introduced himself to the Prussian court arousing the admiration of the Crown Prince. In 1740 Federico II succeeded the throne and the new King wanted Carl Philipp Emanuel at his service. For the following 28 years he accompanied the king, who was a flautist, every evening on the harpsichord. According to the musical historian Charles Burney, Carl Philipp Emanuel was not sufficiently appreciated by the King that in terms of composition seemed to prefer Quantz and Graun. Even Carl Philipp composed for the Prussian King a certain number of solo sonatas, trio sonatas and concerts that increased his already vast repertoire whose manuscripts are nowadays preserved in the Berlin State Library. Many of these compositions are known in their “modern“ version- i.e. performed with a metal flute and with the piano instead of harpsichord - and it in is this version that Francesca Pagnini and Annibale Rebaudengo present these works to the audience, giving particular attention to the expressive and interpretative values the extremely modern Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s musical writing puts in continued evidence.

I am a comparative latecomer to writing isntrumental music, having devoted most of my creative life to choral and vocal composition. The works on this album are all written over the last decade, with the exception of my Violin Concerto which plunders material from an incomplete Violin Sonata written when I was eighteen. As well as the Violin Concerto this album includes: my darkly chromatic Clarinet Quintet," The Better Angels of Our Nature," a short concerto for oboe and strings; and "Goodfellow," for flute, oboe and piano. They are presented chronologically and I hope the listener will detect a logical sequence in their development. (Richard Blackford, August 2016)

Wolfgang Rubsam is one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Bach, and his extensive series of the composer’s music on Naxos has earned critical admiration. In turning to the Goldberg Variations, the culmination of Baroque variation technique, Rubsam has sought out a new approach. His use of the Keith Hill lute-harpsichord, especially built for him to period specifications, has enabled Rubsam to honor Bach’s conception of cantabile playing with appropriate baroque keyboard performance practices, including ornamentation and independent voicing of polyphony, thus not only making this complex score more transparent but shining new light on one of the great monuments of keyboard music.

Saint-Saëns’ operatic works contain instrumental music of vivacity and charm but have been undeservedly overlooked. Ascanio contains a substantial and elaborate divertissement that fellow composer Reynaldo Hahn termed ‘the entire Renaissance in a few pages’. Les Barbares, a tale of conquest and revenge, includes a vivid Prologue and joyful ballet, while La Princesse jaune with its pentatonic writing, and La Jota aragonese laced with Spanish vitality, show the composer at his most generously carefree. Jun Markl is a highly-respected interpreter of core Germanic repertoire and has become known for his refined and idiomatic explorations of the French Impressionists. His long-standing relationships with the state operas of Vienna, Berlin and Munich, the Semperoper Dresden and the Metropolitan Opera have been complemented by his music directorships of the Orchestre National de Lyon and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra. In recognition of his achievements in Lyon, he was honoured in 2012 with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Märkl has an extensive discography – among the over 50 albums he has recorded are the complete Schumann symphonies, works by Mendelssohn and Wagner, Ravel, Messiaen, and a highly-acclaimed Debussy set with the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is currently working on a cycle of works by Saint-Saëns and Hosokawa.

REVIEW:

Of Camille Saint-Saens's eleven operas only one, Samson et Dalila, still enjoys a place in the international repertoire. That was premiered in 1877, three years before Ascanio. That opera's thirty-minute ballet suite contains much that is pleasingly tuneful and suitably pictorial. The Les Barbares Prologue included here has the length and content of a movement from a very serious symphony. There is still more more music here, and all of it is played with the high quality of performance we have come to expect from the Malmo orchestra.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

This is one of those discs you’d be tempted to overlook: seven works by seven different composers, most of them unknown (except for Villa-Lobos and Guarnieri), scored or arranged for violin and piano, and played (very well) by performers who aren’t exactly household names. I dismissed it initially, but that was a mistake. My close friend was curious and gave it a listen. He was hooked. “Play track three,” he insisted, and so I did (sound clip). I was hooked too. It just goes to show that you can’t judge a CD by its cover. You’ve got to listen. If only there were more hours in the day!

So, that delicious third track is the last of César Guerra-Peixe’s Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, and very fetching they are. The major works, though, are Guarnieri’s powerful Violin Sonata No. 4; a splendid transcription for violin and piano by these players of Léa Freire’s soulful Three Songs; Villa-Lobos’ curiously touching “The Martyrdom of Insects,” with a finale that gives The Flight of the Bumblebee a run for its money; and Ernani Aguiar’s inventive Meloritmias No. 4 for solo violin. The other pieces, Edmundo Villani-Côrtes’ “Clear Waters,” and Radamés Guattali’s “Night Flower,” would make terrific encores to any chamber music recital.

All that remains to be said is that violinist Francesca Anderegg and pianist Erika Ribeiro play all of this music with the same care and loving attention to detail that obviously went into choosing the program. You can audition the whole thing through at a sitting or take it in bits. Either way, you surely will enjoy this hour of vibrant, songful, alternately spiky and spicy music that’s consistently captivating and worth your attention. Fine sonics too. Thank you, Shawn.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

The impetus of the Mexican Revolution galvanized the use of Indigenous melodies in a new and original wave of musical compositions that loosened dependence on European models. José Moncayo’s infectiously joyful ‘Huapango,’ one of Mexico’s best-known works is, in its distinct national character, deeply rooted in folk music. Silvestre Revueltas’s ‘La Noche de los mayas’ is a symphonic suite derived from film music that employs Mexican percussion instruments in a vividly inventive way. The process of linking folk influence with classical techniques continues to the present day with Hebert Vazquez’s ‘El arbol de la vida’ which uses the folk style known as the ‘son.’ Mexican guitarist Pablo Garibay has established himself as a leading force on the international classical guitar scene with a repertoire that includes the great guitar concertos, notably those by Rodrigo, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ponce, and Villa-Lobos. As a concerto soloist, he made his debut with the Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico and has since appeared as a soloist with orchestras throughout Europe and the Americas.

REVIEW:

This youth orchestra — founded in 2011 by the conductor — sound magnificent here. They are associated with Eduardo Mata University, and they consist of the finest young musicians of Mexico. They play with real mastery and joy — ensemble is precise, no matter how difficult the music; and the strings, in particular, can sound really lush and lovely. Anyone with interest in Mexican music should have this—or guitarists who are looking for a new, exciting work with orchestra.

– American Record Guide

The musical 1600's represent a period of particular ferment: the birth of opera in music, the practice of continuo playing, solo singing with instrumental accompaniment. Musical settings change as well, they are no longer small chambers for ''musica reservata'' but great rooms and theaters calling for powerful voices capable of filling them. The harp and the chitarrone are two striking examples of how ancient instruments, still nearly renaissance models, become modernized if not designed ex novo to adapt the power of their sound to these large speces.

This very full compilation of Eric Coates’ most popular works is drawn from a seven-album set ‘The Definitive Eric Coates,’ containing all of Eric Coates’ commercially released recordings. In addition to a full discography the liner notes have a 1000 word article on Coates relationship with the Gramophone by Michael Payne. Eric Coates was an excellent conductor of his own music. Not only did he conduct many performances up and down the land during his lifetime and made many broadcasts with the BBC’s orchestras, he also made many fine commercial records. It is difficult to think of another composer of Coates’ generation, especially a light music composer, who left such a sizable legacy of recordings of their own compositions. Recalling Coates in the 1980s, Stanford Robinson spoke of Coates’ qualities as a conductor; these qualities can also sum up his recorded legacy: “He was always neat and immaculate and… did not bully the orchestra; but was always in control.”

Reflecting Hungary’s troubled times following the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, Lajtha’s last two symphonies are deeply emotional and dramatic works ranging from tragic intensity to optimism. Whereas the Eighth Symphony was aptly described by the composer’s wife as ‘a tragedy without consolation,’ the emotional power and the melodic beauty of the Ninth Symphony evoke suffering, happiness and hope. A huge success at its 1963 Parisian premiere, the work was acclaimed by the critic Claude Rostand as ‘the one that convinced us that Laszlo Lajtha was truly one of the greatest symphonic composers of the 20th century.’ The city of Pecs, in the South East of Hungary, is an important cultural center, with a symphony orchestra that continues a tradition of some two and a half centuries. After its reorganization in 1984, the Pecs Symphony Orchestra undertook a series of important concert tours abroad with performances throughout Europe and worked with a number of distinguished conductors. Orchestral repertoire was broadened particularly under the English conductor Howard Williams from 1989, with an increased attention to contemporary music. In 1993 Nicolas Pasquet, winner of the 1987 Besancon competition, was appointed chief conductor. The orchestra now performs as the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra.

Claire Huangci went from being "clearly a pianist to follow" to the status of internationally established and acclaimed young pianist even before winning the Mozart Prize at the Concours G�za Anda in 2018. Following on from four successful solo albums from arrangements of Russian ballet music through Scarlatti to Chopin's complete Nocturnes and all of Rachmaninoff's Preludes she now releases her first orchestral album with Berlin Classics. Together with the aspiring young South Korean conductor Shiyeon Sung and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie she plays Chopin's Piano Concerto No 1 and contrasts it with Paderewski's concerto. Chopin's Piano Concerto No 1 is well established on the world's concert platforms. Huangci is well aware that there are two sides to Chopin the man who composed the piano concerto and the creator of the Nocturnes In comparison to Chopin, Paderewski is relatively unknown, yet he was an intensely interesting man and his piano concerto is rich in ideas and resources. The configuration of the recording is ideal- two artists who composed their works early in their careers, interpreted by an equally young pianist. Huangci perceives the youthful verve of the compositions:"Both composers exude a true joie de vivre, a love of life, attributable to their youth. The concertos were clearly written by men who looked with hope to the future." She brings the same youthful elan to her interpretation.

Classical Music

It is hoped that this selection of suites from Boyvin’s two important livres d’orgue will go some way to redressing the lack of awareness of the quality of Boyvin’s music. It is certainly different from the livres d’orgue of André Raison, François Couperin and Nicolas de Grigny, and it is wonderfully lively and attractive music, especially when heard on this historic organ. David Ponsford has spent much of his career studying this repertoire, resulting in his book ‘French Organ Music in the Reign of Louis XIV’ (Cambridge University Press 2011). The present series of recordings on the most important historical organs in France, including the music of Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, Louis Couperin, Nicolas-Antoine Lebegue, Andre Raison, Jacques Boyvin, and others up to the composers of the Revolution such as Balbastre, Beauvarlet Charpentier and Lasceux, is therefore the fruit of many years of research by a seasoned performer whose aim is to combine technical brilliance with intellectual understanding, to bring the music alive with authority and meaning.

The idea of arranging Janacek's two string quartets for string orchestra has implicated two different approaches for me. The first is timbral: while the quartets' ever-changing dramatics make it challenging to ''resonate'' with the solo instruments in a string quartet, the collective sound of the orchestra adds a new dimension to the music. The other approach was to incorporate Leo Tolstoy's novella The Kreutzer Sonata into Janacek's music of the same name, and thereby introduce a new form of drama. In his quartet, Janacek does not follow the storyline of Tolstoy's novella as closely as Arnold Schoenberg once did with his musical setting of Richard Dehmel's poem, Verklarte Nacht. However Janacek's writing brings on intense emotions with strong linguistic and theatrical gestures, which, in my opinion, would be further reinforced in direct connection with the novella. Tentatively, we introduced a selection of quotes from the novella in our concerts and this eventually led to the idea of developing a radio drama performance. In this arrangement, the quartet's four movements are performed in their entirety, ''strategically'' positioned in four crucial points in the story, while parts of the music also serve as a dramatic foundation for the text. In the process of text adaptation, the novella's plot and emotional aspects were given priority over its philosophical considerations.

Both Anton Arensky and Sergey Taneyev belong to the generation of Russian composers who came to prominence at the end of the 19th century, midway between Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. With its expansive themes and wonderfully elegiac mood, Arensky’s Piano Trio No. 1 is dedicated to the memory of cellist Karl Davydov. The subtle use of counterpoint in Taneyev’s Piano Trio in D major reveals his expertise in combining earlier techniques with the emphatically Romantic style that both composers inherited from Tchaikovsky. These two masterpieces summarize the development of the piano trio genre in Russian music of the 19thcentury, and subsequently laid the foundations for its further evolution.

REVIEW:

These three Russian virtuosos present the two trios with equal conviction, summoning up different palettes of colours for some truly high-level music-making. In the Arensky, their natural, speech-like delivery of the melody and their flexible rubato tug irresistibly at the heartstrings. In the Taneyev, they play with great seriousness of purpose, and also rise to the occasion when the composer steps outside his normal boundaries in the ferocious Scherzo—perhaps a reflection of the violence that overtook Russia in the Revolution of 1905.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice;10/21)

The production of Siegfried Wagner's "Sonnenflammen" in Bayreuth was unanimously highly praised in the media, describing it as "a discovery, at least in musical terms. The two and a half hours of performance will not be long at any time. The music is pleasant, pleasing, very onomatopoeic, narrative, the composition is well done, the orchestration post-romantic revelling." (IOCO) About the effect of the music, Opera Lounge says: "There is wonderful music in Sonnenflammen. Perhaps more than anything else, the richness of colour and stylistic variety fascinates: even the secondary characters, the fortune teller announcing the end of the world, Fridolin's father cursing his son, each have their own idiom. When Fridolin remembers his homeland now forever lost, his singing is unusually simple and intimate. Some of it, like the mocking choir of the girls who shave the new court jester, is almost operatic." The artists involved are members of piano-pianissimo-musiktheater, which was founded in 1980 by Peter P. Pachl thanks to the encouragement of August Everding, director of the Munich Opera at that time. At the biannual Wagner-Spectacular in Upper Franconian Pegnitz, Richard Wagner's unknown works were staged for the first time, as were works by Franz Schreker and Alexander Zemlinsky, and works by writers such as Herbert Rosendorfer and Bernd Sch�nemann.

Plurimo tocar 'I first met vedova when I was eighteen. It was the beninning of a long journey with him, at times slow moving, at times fast and at time even subversive in the true sense of the word. Vedova lived in a warehouse studio at San Vio and at the age of sixteen had made some splendid drawings of great Venetian architecture through which he also in his own way laid bare historical reality as he pursued his development, typical of a completely self-taught artist.' This is how Luigi Nono recalled the beginnings of a friendship, joint interests and a project destined to endure and be renewed for ever. These roots also innervate and characterise the interior geography, the cleary distinguishable personality of Claudio Ambrosini. Of the four works featured on this record, composed from 1998 to 2015, Plurimo is offered as an explicit homage to the painter, a contant living presence in the composer's emotional and cognitive world because of their natural affinites.

On the album "Fantasy Worlds", Benyamin Nuss presents his interpretations of works by legendary video game composer Nobuo Uematsu, who was named one of the 100 musical innovators of our time by TIME magazine. The deep emotionality is what makes this solo piano album so unique. "The music in Final Fantasy tells stories, creates characters and scenes. This increases the immersion of the players, who are equally captivated by the music and the game and lose themselves in the digital world," says Benyamin Nuss. Benyamin Nuss began piano lessons at the age of six. He was inspired and encouraged by his father, trombonist Ludwig Nuss, and his brother Hubert, a pianist - both internationally renowned jazz musicians and composers. Thus Benyamin not only grows up with the music of different genres but makes classical music and jazz his passion. He studies at the Musikhochschule Cologne and lives his passion for music - in the conservatory, at piano concerts and on tour with jazz bands. At home and abroad Benyamin performs as a soloist with various top orchestras, from Berlin to Stockholm and London to Tokyo and Chicago."Today, thousands of people are captivated by the enchanting 'Final Fantasy' melodies in legendary concert halls such as the K�lner Philharmonie, the Royal Albert Hall or Carnegie Hall," says Nuss. "I have never experienced an audience like this in any other genre before. While the music is playing, it is quiet as a mouse and highly concentrated. Shortly after the final chord, thunderous applause sounds like in a rock concert".