Though he was known primarily as a symphonist, and despite his large portfolio of piano works, Raff's first love was the violin and his pieces for the instrument were promoted by no less a virtuoso than Sarasate, The Violin Sonata No. 1 is a powerful work teeming with expressive intensity and lyrical beauty- it remained the most performed of his violin sonatas during his lifetime. The large-scale Violin Sonata No. 2 offers his characteristic lyric impulse and virtuoso fireworks. Laurence Kayaleh has performed as a guest soloist with many distinguished orchestras, including the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, the Russian National Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and many others. She has recorded the complete works for violin and piano by Medtner, Honegger and Catoire for Naxos. She plays a 1742 Guarneri which belonged to the eminent violinist and pedagogue Carl Flesch.

The Estonian composer Toivo Tulev has forged a unique sound world. His music, with it's almost obsessive focus on religious mysticism, can be sensual and emotional but also cerebral and technically demanding. Tulev often takes inspiration from his extensive travels, in particular from the city of Istanbul which, like his vocal music, bridges East and West. His meditation on the words of Sufi mystic Mansur Al-Hallaj, 'I said, Who are You?- He said, You,' conjures up a transcendent atmosphere, while his Magnificat departs from the text's traditionally solemn setting with it's stratospherically high string writing and wild percussion solos. The Latvian Radio Choir ranks among the top professional chamber choirs in Europe. Working under the leadership of Sigvards Klava and conductor Kaspars Putnins, the choir is renowned for it's tonal finesse and range of expression. The repertoire of the LRC ranges from the Renaissance to the most sophisticated modern scores. The LRC has participated in the top musical forums in Salzburg and Montpellier, the Baltic Sea Festival, Klangspuren Festival, and others, and has performed in many renowned concert halls.

Joseph Marx was an excellent pianist: the hugely demanding solo part of his Romantic Piano Concerto, a ‘symphonic duet’ between piano and orchestra, marks him as a true virtuoso who had also absorbed the heady impressionism of Debussy, Scriabin and Delius. While having no connection with film music, Marx left a multitude of intoxicating melodies that eclipsed the wildest of Hollywood’s dreams. His second piano concerto Castelli Romani was inspired by ancient ruins in the wooded hills outside Rome, and is a magical, pyrotechnic display of Mediterranean emotions and masterfully orchestrated atmospheric pictures. Franco-American pianist David Lively’s unique musical personality is drawn from his double culture, passionately attached to his two inheritances. Born in the United States, he went to France in 1969 at the age of 16 to study at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. His technical and musical prowess has brought success in a number of international competitions.

Claire Huangci proves herself to be a vividly expressive interpreter of Chopin, the first since Artur Rubinstein to offer a complete cycle of the Nocturnes by Frédéric Chopin. During her background research work into Chopin’s oeuvre she repeatedly came across poems by French authors such as Charles Baudelaire, Victor Hugo and Tristan Corbière. She began to form associations and found a poem contemporary to each of Chopin’s nocturnes. You will find the links between poetry and music in the booklet. Claire Huangci herself explains: “They may add a further dimension to your listening pleasure, so that everyone can conjure up an image of what I see as I play. I do hope that these lovely verses will act as an impetus to allow listeners’ fantasy to take flight and to create their very own Chopin diary.” This approach is proof of Claire Huangci’s artistic maturity – an approach that will open up new avenues in our appreciation of Chopin. Frédéric Chopin was a special pioneer in Claire Huangci’s eyes. The child prodigy became acquainted with his works at a very young age and grew up with them. They were decisive to her personal development and artistic career, which took off at an early stage on an international level thanks to concert performances, arts grants and a host of awards. This resulted in a virtuoso life of short-distance and long-haul flights, juggling appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Osaka’s Symphony Hall or the Gewandhaus in Leipzig with life at home in Philadelphia. She has played with a host of orchestras including the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Stuttgart, the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony and the Moscow Radio Symphony. Accompanying her on her journey, so to speak, were not just her teachers, such as Eleanur Sokoloff, Gary Graffman and Arie Vardi, but the composer Frédéric Chopin: she owes her artistic breakthrough to his music. Time and again she has analysed, documented and profiled Chopin. Claire Huangci has brought together all of this experience and these insights on her new album, forming them into a “Chopin Diary”. The Nocturnes are the epitome of Chopin’s artistic work. They attest to the composer’s emotions on the cusp of the Romantic era and are simultaneously evidence of a restless life that hung between his artistic popularity, his dire state of health and an uncertain future. Composed in an atmosphere of domestic security, as night fell, they reflect his stimulating artistic day-to-day life. They are deemed to be perfect in form, combining all stylistically defining moods in a virtuosic form that to this day is unsurpassed. Some of the total of 21 Nocturnes form part of the standard repertoire for young pianists, yet Claire Huangci’s approach to them is a highly personal, unique one: “With her differentiated agogic approach and superior technique, Claire Huangci proved that she is now the most expressive Chopin performer of her generation", according to Gerd Kurat of the Südkurier newspaper. She rounds off the program with the Nocturne Oubliée and the Etude in C sharp minor, recorded together with cellist Tristan Cornut.

The orchestral triptych of ‘Meditation, Nach dem Sturm’ and ‘Klage’ is award-winning composer Toshio Hosokawa’s response to the 2011 Tohuku earthquake and tsunami. Meditation mourns the victims with a quiet song of sorrow, Nach dem Sturm uses shamanic elements to suggest stormy darkness and the hope of light, while the healing Klage seeks to connect our world with the supernatural. ‘Autumn Wind’ unifies man and nature through the timeless sound of the shakuhachi. The collaboration between Naxos and composer Toshio Hosokawa has been very fruitful in recent years, and this new release follows on from two collections of orchestral works conducted by Jun Markl. Volme 1 of these “draws magically delicate colors and rich textural intricacies from what is a profoundly attractive score.” (Gramophone on Lotus under the moonlight), and volume 2 “reinforce Hosokawa’s commitment to poetic representations of human presences in the natural world.” (Gramophone). World-class vocal soloists in this recording include Danish soprano Susanne Elmark who has produced an aria recital for Naxos Denmark and mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura whose recordings include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as part of Christian Thielemenn’s Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra recordings on C Major. Tadashi Tajima is one of today’s most respected shakuhachi players, having performed around the world.

It’s the Roaring Twenties. That musical jack-of-all-trades, Sergei Koussevitsky, Director of Music with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for twenty-five years, commissions the orchestration of two world-famous works: Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky and the Études-Tableaux by Sergey Rachmaninoff. And who does Koussevitsky choose for this task? Why, none other than the two great composers Maurice Ravel and Ottorino Respighi. Their orchestrations lay the foundations for numerous other arrangements of those works. More than 80 years later, Dirk Mommertz, a member of and pianist with the Fauré Quartett, has arranged both of these works anew – this time for piano quartet. “A chamber-music ensemble, with piano and strings, is ideally suited to present the entire tonal spectrum,” explains Dirk Mommertz. Violinist Erika Geldsetzer, violist Sascha Frömbling, cellist Konstantin Heidrich and Mommertz at the piano have been an entity for over 25 years now and are justifiably acknowledged as one of the most influential piano quartets in the world. They are renowned for branching out into new territory; they are not afraid of leaving the well-trodden path, so it comes as no surprise that the Fauré Quartett have recorded for the first time their own arrange-ments of these works on one album. The mesh of relationships which binds Mussorgsky’s composition of 1874 and Rachmaninoff’s of 1911-1918 with Koussevitsky’s commissions to Ravel and Respighi, now ends 150 years later with the Fauré Quartett in the 21st century.

The Iranian conductor and composer Alexander Rahbari grew up with and trained in traditional Persian music with it's most influential maestros. His eight symphonic poems, My Mother Persia, of which this is Volume 1 of 2, are full of melodies, rhythms and improvisations in these traditional styles, brought to life with the colors of modern orchestration. The first of these is an emotional violin concerto in which the soloist plays the role of the Nohe Khan, usually a tenor who sings in traditional Persian style at various religious ceremonies. Mother's Tears refers to a gathering of orphans and to Rahbari's own experiences of tragedy, contrasting with a subtext of mischief in Children's Prayer.

Here we present a new installment in the complete recording cycle of Dvor�k's Symphonic Works with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, containing not only the symphonies but also rarely recorded opera ouvertures of the Czech composer. The new chief conductor of the orchestra, Finnish maestro Pietari Inkinen, continues the Dvor�k Cycle begun under the baton of Karel Mark Chichon. In September 2017 Pietari Inkinen became Chief Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbruecken. Inkinen is also Chief Conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, a post he has held since the beginning of the 16-17 season. He has also been Chief Conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra since 2015. Also an accomplished violin soloist, Inkinen studied at the Cologne Music Academy with Zakhar Bron, winning various awards and prizes for his solo work, before taking further studies in conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He continues to enjoy play-directing and performing chamber music with his regular musical partners.

Following the 5-album box set of Claudio Arrau's solo recitals, this new installment focuses on his SWR recordings of piano concertos. The recorded works belong to Arrau’s most favorites and are now being released for the first time. These are stirring interpretations full of controlled virtuosity. Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. A child prodigy, he could read music before he could read words. “His sound is amazing, and it is entirely his own… no one else has it exactly that way. His devotion… is extraordinary. He ennobles that music in a way no one else in the world can.” (Sir Colin Davis)

This is re-release of a bestselling SWR album. It contains major but rarely played works for piano and orchestra by Ernest Bloch, in the interpretation of Jenny Lin, who is the ideal pianist for these demanding scores. The excellent sound quality makes this album of late Romantic and neo-classicist music a great listen. Jenny Lin studied with Noel Flores at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna, with Julian Martin at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and with Dominique Weber in Geneva. She currently resides in New York City where she serves on the faculty of the 92nd Street y Music School. She is one of the most respected young pianists today, admired for her adventurous programming and charismatic stage presence. She continues to receive accolades worldwide as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. The New York Times writes: "No one who has heard [her] will need to be told that Ms. Lin has a gift for melodic flow" and "remarkable technical command," the Washington post praises "Lin's confident fingers... spectacular technique... " and Gramophone magazine has hailed her as "an exceptionally sensitive pianist."

Kenneth Woods, who conducts this recording, writes: “Philosophers and musicians have argued for centuries about whether music is a universal language or a personal one. It seems that it can obviously be either or both, and that there is a huge continuum of language between those musical gestures that are truly universal and those which are almost as personal as a fingerprint. One of the things I find most compelling about Philip’s music is the extent to which it embodies the extremes of both the universal and the personal. As Philip’s output grows and our understanding of his work evolves, we can begin to see that there are musical threads which spill over from one work to the next. In this respect, he is part of a venerable tradition. Sometimes these recurring themes and motifs have profound personal significance, sometimes they are simply, as Philip once said to me of a particular rhythmic motif which appears in the vast majority of his pieces at least once, “very useful.”

Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy was the grandson of Felix Mendelssohn. He was also a polymathic intellectual a prestigious jurist, political scientist, and one of Germanys observers to the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. Conscious of his heritage he also wrote songs, taking texts from Eichendorff, Goethe, Heine and the folk collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn, as had Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. These ardent love songs were inspired by his student Magdalene Lena Schoch who, soon after her graduation, became the composers indispensable and trusted colleague and confidante. Through songs Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy was able to reveal and profess his true sentiments, in a form seemingly acceptable to his family. And by setting to music poets whom Felix and Fanny had chosen earlier (Eichendorff, Goethe, Heine, and the folk song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn), Albrecht paid tribute to his ancestors while consciously joining the lineage of the Mendelssohn familys musical tradition. Albrechts commitment to the cultural heritage of his hometown is reflected in his frequent choice of lesser\-known poets from Karlsruhe.

A large number of saxophone concertos have been written, but only a handful are regularly performed. With these premiere recordings Olli-Pekka Tuomisalo showcases five works that, had circumstances been different, might easily have established themselves as repertoire pieces. John Beach Cragun’s beautifully voiced work is the first saxophone concerto by an American and, like Yrjo Gunaropulos’ concerto- which enjoyed celebrity in the 1930s- was only rediscovered in 2016. The concertos by Eilert Lindorff-Larsen and Leopold van der Pals are compact, varied and exciting, while that by Phyllis Tate is considered her first major work. Olli-Pekka Tuomisalo has performed over 100 times as soloist with different symphony orchestras. He has encouraged a rising number of composers to create a whole new repertoire for him; almost 100 works have been written. Tuomisalo has so far released 15 solo albums, including 37 works for saxophone and orchestra.

Louis Vierne is renowned as one of the most brilliant of all French organ composers. His piano works are little known despite their colourful, imaginative and inspiring treatment of the instrument. The early Deux Pièces owe their lyrical style to Mendelssohn, while the Suite bourguignonne exudes an atmosphere of joie de vivre and romantic contentment. Impressionism can be heard in the Trois Nocturnes, the third of which is considered one of Vierne’s masterpieces with its evocative use of birdsong, while the shadows of war echo in the solemn Poème des cloches funèbres. This is the first of two albums covering repertoire that deserves a place in the pantheon of French piano music.

REViEW:

The overall impact of Volume 1 is wide-ranging. The musical style stretches from the Romantic character piece to post-Impressionism. The compositions on this album are placed in chronological order.

The playing by Sergio Monteiro captures the magic of this music. He can seize Vierne’s “colourful, imaginative and inspiring” approach to the piano. The recording is superb. The liner notes by Peter Siepmann are excellent; they give a brief overview of the composer’s life and achievement, detailed notes about each piece, and successfully manages to fit them into Vierne’s overall achievement. Bearing in mind that there are few other sources of information about this music, they make essential reading.

I enjoyed this exploration of Louis Vierne’s piano oeuvre. To whom will this disc appeal? I guess that listeners who appreciate the great tradition of French piano music, from Alkan to Messiaen. It fills a gap that has been ignored by most recitalists and I look forward to the second volume soon.

– MusicWeb International

Paul Wranitzky moved to Vienna from his native Moravia at the age of 20, mixing with the likes of Haydn and Mozart. As the most important symphonist in Vienna in the late 1790s, his style influenced the early symphonies of Beethoven. The Symphony in D major ‘La Chasse’ reflects the popularity of hunting music, and is heard here for the first time in its expanded version. The overtures to Mitgefühl and Die gute Mutter represent Wranitzky’s skill as a composer for the theatre, as does the masterfully scored Symphony in C major in which the composer repurposes some incidental and ballet music.

Albéniz’s distinctive musical vocabulary, with its sensual harmonies, rich melodic lines and characteristic rhythmic figures, has ensured lasting popularity, not least in his music for the piano. This album of four-hand piano music reveals the composer’s love of Spain’s regional music traditions, whether in the glittering sweep of the Suite española No. 1or in the Rapsodia Española where a hypnotic dreamscape meets dramatic outbursts. Two movements from Iberia – one of which is a rarely encountered arrangement by the great Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha – reveal a daring modernity that aligns Albéniz with Debussy and Ravel.

The Belgian composer, Marcel Poot, was one of the most striking musical figures of his time, with a spicy compositional style that exemplified his zest for life. His cycle of seven symphonies, the earliest of which show the influence of Ravel, Stravinsky and jazz, reveal a clear preference for Classical balance and non-programmatic form. Predominantly tonal, the symphonies are notable for their rhythmic energy, colorful orchestration and lyricism. Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4-7 are first recordings.

David Popper was one of the most important cellists of the 19th century and is remembered for the etudes of his High School of Cello Playing. Popper premiered chamber works by Brahms and championed Schumann's Cello Concerto, and his own four concertos span an illustrious 50-year career. Each shares a lyrical Romantic spirit: the playful First Concerto, an enjoyable prelude to the more dramatic and virtuosic Second, and the single-movement Third, a masterpiece in melodic compactness. The Fourth Concerto was dedicated to 'my great colleague' Alfredo Piatti and is recorded here in it's version with piano.

Also available on Blu-ray

The opera La campana sommersa (‘The Sunken Bell’) is Respighi’s operatic masterpiece. A symbolist drama on a supernatural theme, it is steeped in beauty, mystery and foreboding, and orchestrated with the Romantic opulence familiar from his sumptuous trilogy of Roman tone poems. Its triumph at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1928 was repeated at La Scala, Milan, and this most recent production at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, world-renowned for its staging of rarities, was hailed for its ‘brilliant production’ and magnificent performances. Directed by Pier Francesco Maestrini, this production features a lineup of modern opera stars including Valentina Farcas, Maria Luigia Borsi, Agostina Smimmero, Angelo Villari, and more.

Let me first express my gratitude to Bo Holten and his team for giving us what it says in the title.

What Holten has attempted is not so much a reconstruction of what Lassus’ music might have sounded like when sung in Munich in 1575 but rather what he thinks ‘might be a way of making Lassus’ wonderful music accessible to a modern audience, making its natural and reticent telling of the story easy and appealing to follow’.

Be aware that despite Holten’s presentation, Lassus’ St Matthew Passion is very different from Bach’s masterpiece. It’s closer to the near-plainsong style of the early renaissance settings such as Richard Davy’s St Matthew Passion, contained in the Eton Choirbook. What Holten has done, however, is to set Lassus’ beautiful polyphonic choral music within the plainchant setting. Sample, if you can, track 16, the inserted Good Friday motet Animam meam dilectam tradidi (I have betrayed my beloved soul into the hands of the wicked). He even includes an excerpt from Lassus’ Italian madrigal collection Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of Saint Peter) at the appropriate point midway through the narrative.

That may well set you in search of the complete Lagrime, also very well performed by Bo Holten, with Ars Nova, on an earlier Naxos release (8.553311). Another very fine recording from Philippe Herreweghe and the Ensemble Vocal Européen is also recommendable (Harmonia Mundi d’Abord HMA1951483).

A third very fine recording, from Gallicantus and Gabriel Crouch comes at full price (Signum SIGCD339) but can be downloaded from Hyperion, with pdf booklet. Any one of these would do very nicely but the availability of the Signum in very good 24/96 sound from Hyperion, at a reasonable price – less than other download suppliers and less than the CD – may well clinch the matter. Lassus’ last known work, Lagrime makes a fitting supplement to the Matthew Passion.

I must also include a reminder another recording which features Lassus’ music for Passiontide. If you missed my strong recommendation of Stile Antico’s Passion and Resurrection (Harmonia Mundi HMU807555) in 2013 or John Quinn’s review of the same – Recording of the Month – now is the time to catch up. Lassus’ setting of the responsory In Monte Oliveti is only one of the treasures there.

It’s not clear why Lassus’ passion settings are so sparse, but this recording insets into the rather austere chant polyphonic jewels of great beauty, all rounded off with a performance of Agnus Dei. Austere settings of Passiontide music can be very moving, as in the case of Schütz’s St Matthew Passion, almost a century later (1666), but I found the pairing of austerity and beauty on the new Naxos Lassus recording extremely effective.

It’s less clear why Holten has decided to divide the music after the excerpt from Lagrime di San Pietro between the events of Maundy Thursday and those of Good Friday. There is no liturgical reason to do so: the St Matthew Passion would have been recited on Palm Sunday and the St John on Good Friday. There was no Passion reading at Mass on Maundy Thursday, the gospel for that day referring to the blessing of the oils.

That’s a minor niggle when the performances and recording are so good. Having listened in very decent mp3 via Naxos Music Library, I was pleased that the CD-quality press preview sounded even better. The full text and translation are included but that seems to have reduced the space for Bo Holten’s notes to just one side; I would have liked more.

The supposedly inviolable 80-minute limit for CDs was breached some time ago, but I don’t remember one so long as this. It’s certainly not a question of ‘never mind the quality; feel the width’, but it’s good to have this austere but beautiful setting, enlivened with polyphony, in very fine performances and all contained on a CD running to over 88 minutes. Complement it with the Lagrime di San Pietro.

– MusicWeb International (Brian Wilson)

Blessed with a gift for musical invention and structural organization, Johann Stamitz was one of the pioneering figures in symphonic music before the emergence of Haydn. He drove the development of symphonic form via the assimilation of the new operatic overture style resulting in works of brilliance and skillful orchestration. His Op. 3 symphonies, though not composed as a set, showcase why Stamitz was held in such high regard and was so influential: outer movements fizz with energy, and contain virtuosic string writing with frequent dynamic contrasts, while slow movements are intricate and refined.

Carlo Domeniconi is a master of guitar composition. His fusion of Western and Eastern elements is a distinctive feature of his writing, and this album presents a body of work for the unusual combination of mandolin and guitar. The large-scale Durandarte charts a medieval knight’s wild journey through the countryside, which is accompanied by poignant love songs, elegies, and agitated cross-rhythms. In Tarantula precox he summons up a dervish-like dance; while in the kaleidoscopic moods of Zemrude the Orient and the Middle East merge dramatically. All but one of these works have been composed especially for the Mare Duo. The Mare Duo has inspired numerous composers to enrich the repertoire for their formation, including Carlo Domeniconi, Jaime Zenamon, Konstantin Vassiliev, Jürg Kindle, Frank Wallace, Thomas Allen LeVines, Lars Wüller, and many others. The Mare Duo is also interested in performing the classical repertoire for their formation as well as playing innovative transcriptions. Annika and Fabian have released several solo, duo and chamber music albums with labels such as Naxos, Schott Music and Gyre Records, and they have appeared on TV productions including MTV Unplugged.

Le Tombeau de Debussy: a fascinating compilation of works composed in 1920 by Bartók, Dukas, Falla, Goossens, Malipiero, Roussel, Satie and Schmitt as a tribute to Debussy who had died 2 years earlier, together with Ravel’s Duo for Violin and Cello and Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments, each a memorial to Debussy in its own right.

REVIEWS:

The sound quality is ideal. It allows listeners to appreciate the subtle sonorities of each piece...[this is] an often beautiful and always interesting piece of musical archaeology.

This remarkable disc not only presents Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy but includes three spin-offs from that project...Debussy died on 25 March 1918. Two years later, Henry Prunières (1886-1942), the director of the French journal La Revue Musicale, commissioned a joint memorial volume for the composer. He approached the great and good of European music, and asked for a specially written contribution. Ten composers responded with short works that balanced a celebration of Debussy’s musical achievement with each contributor’s individual style. A glance at the track listings shows a wide range of age and aesthetic. Paul Dukas, 55 years old, was the senior contributor, whilst the Englishman Eugene Goossens, at 27, was the youngest. Most of them had made their names before the Great War; some were just about to become successful.

[Dukas'] La Plainte, au loin, du Faune (Lament from afar, of the faun) evokes Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. The music is dense and numinous, with some foretelling of his pupil Olivier Messiaen’s “harmonic complexities”. Here, the Faun truly does lament his creator, Debussy.

Manuel de Falla’s elegiac Homenaje was written for guitar. A lugubrious piece, it uses the habanera rhythm, and includes nods towards Debussy’s Iberia. It is a masterclass in subtle chords, scale, arpeggios and dynamics for this instrument. The composer subsequently made versions for piano solo and orchestra.

The longest work in Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy is Florent Schmitt’s À la mémoire de Claude Debussy: Et Pan, au fond des blés lunaires, s’accouda. The latter part of the title translates as “Pan leaned on his elbows deep in the Lunar wheat fields”. There is stylistic variety here; Romanticism, post-Wagnerism and Impressionism contribute to this memorable piece.

Gian Francesco Malipiero left Italy in 1913 to work in Paris. He was fascinated by Debussy’s music. His Hommage à Claude Debussy: Lento echoes the dead composer’s La Cathédrale engloutie (The Submerged Cathedral) with its archaic Gregorian chant “giving the impression of sovereign majesty and greatness”.

This is followed by the most modern-sounding piece in the collection. The Fragment from Symphonies of Wind Instruments is less than a 1½ minute long. This is a piano reduction of that work’s final choral. Naxos have included a complete recording of the orchestral version (23 woodwinds) [which] was derided at its premiere in London on 10 June 1921. We have learned a lot since then!

The only Englishman represented in the project was Eugene Goossens. His Hommage à Debussy, Op. 28 combines two sections: a dissonant Bergian prelude followed by a short impressionistic postlude. It is one of the loveliest pieces on this CD. Béla Bartók’s Sostenuto, rubato features a unison melody supported by shimmering chords which balances impressionism with an indigenous cradle song.

One of the recurring features of Claude Debussy’s music are references to Greek mythology. Albert Roussel’s L’accueil des muses (The Muses’ Welcome) is designed as a musical ascent of Mount Parnassus, the seat of Euterpe and her fellow goddesses. Much of this piece reflects grief, but towards the close there is a definite sense of optimism.

Compared to so much of his music, [Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello] is an acerbic piece that reflects his reaction to the First World War. The first movement was included in the memorial volume. The others were added in 1922. The liner notes explain: “the ultra-transparent writing for two melodic instruments corresponds with Debussy’s last works, and especially his late sonatas for violin and cello, where he gave up his trademark impressionistic multicoloured spectrum in favour of concentrated neo-Classical clarity.” The entire work is given a splendid performance here.

The pianist Tomer Lev was the driving force behind this realisation of Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy. He has provided exceptionally detailed liner notes: not only context but brief overviews of the composers, and an informed discussion about each piece. The usual biographies of the performers are included. The text is presented in English and French. Finally, it should be noted that Tomer Lev has rearranged the order of the pieces to that of the original score. In an essay for The Gramophone (December 2020), he wrote: “Le Tombeau is, to all practical purposes, well-nigh unperformable. Having not been given any precise criteria to write to, the composers had let their imaginations run free, and composed for a dizzying variety of instrumentations.” What has resulted from Lev’s realisation is an often beautiful and always interesting piece of musical archaeology. For me, the obvious diversity becomes a major strength rather than a dilemma.

-- MusicWeb International (John France)

The neo-romantic music of Richard Faith demonstrates compositional skill, craftsmanship, and moments that transcend sentiment, yet it is clearly human and at certain points “unavoidably sentimental.” Perhaps Faith’s ability to strike a balance between these two poles of expression is what many performers and audiences have found to be so alluring about his music. Scholar Walter Simmons has described American neo-romantic composers as “voices in the wilderness.” Throughout Faith’s career there was pressure to write music that perhaps distanced him from the academic establishment. Yet he has persisted and continues to hold to his unique voice at age 90. His latest compositions, Divertimento and Quintet, were written for the Woodsmusick Ensemble. A family of professional musicians, the Woodsmusick Ensemble has unofficially been performing together for more than 25 years, but they have been under their current moniker and instrumentation since 2012. The group’s inception in its present iteration stems from the opportunity to premier a new work written for them by composer Richard Faith. The first performance of Divertimento inspired an ongoing collaboration. In spite of its members’ wide-ranging and diverse individual performing and academic careers, Woodsmusick reunites often to perform and record. The Woodsmusick Ensemble is composed of Alexander Woods, Aubrey Woods, Garrick Woods, Rex Woods, and Christian Smith.

Despite the fact that this historical execution does not follow the recent philologic parameters, it offers an example of unmatched classicism for its cleanliness, strength of the performers and equilibrium in the recording. The works are performed by Henryk Szeryng. Henryk Szeryng was a Polish-Mexican violinist. Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, he studied piano and harmony with his mother before turning to the violin at age 7. He made his solo debut in 1933 playing the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. “One of the music's great aristocrats, violinist Henryk Szeryng was a perfectionist in all things. A man of phenomenal intellect, he combined exemplary musical taste with a super-refined technique and ravishing purity of intonation.” (Julian Haylock – THE STRAD July 2009)