Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) is among the most prominent names in contemporary music scene today. This new album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu includes world première recordings of three works by Saariaho featuring bass-baritone Gerald Finley and harpist Xavier de Maistre as soloists. True Fire is a six-movement song cycle that was written to a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France, for baritone Gerald Finley with an original idea to explore the scope of the baritone voice. The texts conclusively determined what the vocal expression would be like and how the details in the musical material would shape up. The disparate texts chosen by Saariaho in fact have a common underlying theme: the status of humankind surrounded by nature, our observations of it and our belonging to it. Saariaho’s orchestral triptych Orion (2002) is one of her most performed works. Orion as a celestial phenomenon is showcased in the middle movement, Winter Sky. In 2013, Saariaho rescored this movement for a smaller orchestra, and to distinguish it from the original she gave it a title in French with the same meaning, Ciel d’hiver. It joins the series of works by Saariaho that are in one way or another inspired by things in sky and space. Trans for harp and orchestra is the composer’s latest addition to a series of concertos. It was written to a joint commission from the Suntory Foundation for Arts, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, Radio France and the Hessen Radio Orchestra. The premiere was given by Xavier de Maistre in Tokyo in August 2016.

Best known for his gigantic orchestral masterpieces Johannes Brahms took equal pleasure in writing smaller miniatures. In fact, Brahms wrote a substantial number of pieces for vocal quartet and piano; this ensemble was for him a vehicle for expressing warmth and positive emotions, and as such this genre remains one of the most beloved in his output. This new recording by the prestigious Latvian Radio Choir under Sigvards Klava features a selection from his Op.. 52, 64, 65 and 92, including some of his famous Liebeslieder-Walzer. Brahms wrote his earliest waltzes for piano duet and published them as Op. 39 in 1865. Some years later, in 1868-1869, he went on to write the Liebeslieder-Walzer for vocal quartet and piano four hands, Op. 52. These, in turn, prompted a "sequel" in Neue Liebeslieder, Op. 65 five years later. These warm and vivacious songs are a happy marriage of Viennese waltzes and the love poetry of Georg Friedrich Daumer, and biographers point to a romantic impulse stemming from Brahms's amorous enchantment with the daughter of his close frien dClara Schumann, Julia. Brahms's vocal quartets with piano accompaniment represent an interesting chamber music approach to vocal music. They give the impression of being created for the purpose of intimate music-making at home, among friends. The Liebeslieder-Walzer quickly became one of Brahms's most popular works.

Lena Neudauer attracted international attention when at the age of fifteen she not only spectacularly won the Leopold Mozart Competition in Augsburg but also was awarded practically all the special prizes. And Matthias Kirschnereit has long enjoyed international renown, even though he eschews the glamorous world of stardom. We have now brought together these two most highly talented musicians for a recording of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Orchestra, a work with a tradition extending from Bach and Baroque music by way of Mozart and Haydn to early romanticism. In the second early work heard on this album, the Violin Concerto in D minor, the legacy of classicism and that of Bach's highly regarded son Carl Philipp Emanuel, are clearly audible. For Mendelssohn's teacher Zelter and contemporary audiences the musical aesthetic of the late eighteenth century continued to dictate taste. Both of these early concertos attest to an authentic boy genius and an acclaimed public favorite!

This solo album by cellist Wilhelmina Smith features works for solo cello by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kaija Saariaho. Both composers belong to a generation of modernist Finnish composers whose work has gained broad acceptance in musical culture throughout the world. While each composer has a clear individual artistic persona, as a group they are known for pushing sonic boundaries. In writing for strings and, in particular on this recording, the cello, Salonen and Saariaho exploit the outer reaches of the technical possibilities for both the instrument and the performer. Wilhelmina Smith is an artist of intense commitment, poetic insight and dazzling versatility. As a soloist and recitalist as well as a collaborative musician and festival director, Smith has consistently advocated for composers with whom she has developed vital relationships, to have their music creatively positioned within an intellectually engaging context and performed with the utmost passion and technical assurance.

Paul Graener was a “latest romanticist” with a strong inclination for French impressionism – which as a composer in the Germany of the first half of the twentieth century makes him a unique case. This month cpo is presenting three of his concertos on our fourth Graener album. Once again it is shown that this music more than deserves to be rediscovered. Hardly any other companion of Paul Graener’s so intensely supported his oeuvre as did the cellist Paul Grümmer, the dedicatee of this composer’s Cello Concerto and the soloist at its premiere in 1927. The critic Adolf Diesterweg wrote in a review: “Graener’s new Cello Concerto contains naturally invented, succinctly formed music enabling the cellist, thanks to the transparent orchestral part, to sound his instrument effectively. In my view the most beautiful movement is the highly cantabile and atmospheric Adagio. The Violin Concerto has harmonically original, fascinating sound elements showing us Graener at an absolute creative summit. The time of composition of Graener’s last finished composition, his Flute Concerto, coincides with the increasing bombardment and destruction of Berlin. Here it is above all the last movement that stands out and attracts our attention – and does so not so much because of its neoclassical guise, something already to be encountered in Graener’s works of the 1930s, but rather on account of his choice of the life-affirming folk song, which displays a cheerful mood that can be harmonized neither with the difficult circumstances of Graener’s life nor with the wartime events taking place at that time.”

The Echo Klassik prizewinner Elisaveta Blumina numbers among the outstanding female musicians of the younger generation who pursue their own paths, unaffected by any sort of “star cult.” Along with the classical piano repertoire, Elisaveta Blumina occupies herself very intensively with the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her internationally highly regarded recordings of the Soviet Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, to whose rediscovery she is tirelessly committed, are among the projects documenting this involvement. For cpo she has now recorded three sonatas by Weinberg. The clear proportions and modest length of the Sonatina op. 49 led Weinberg to rework it in 1978 in order to expand its structure, lengthen it into the Sonata op. 49, and to readjust its balance. In this sonata of classical design Weinberg further developed the spectrum of musical expression and increased the technical demands when compared to his Sonata No. 2 and the Sonatina. The Sonata op. 49 numbers among the few productions for the concert hall from this creative phase, which was reserved for intensive occupation with film music – and in particular for animated films. Emil Gilels recorded the Sonata No. 4 in 1960. Unlike the version by this dedicatee, which maintains a swift tempo, Elisaveta Blumina’s slower, more intensive playing lends greater expression to the work’s drama and grief.

Do you know Georg Schumann? No, he is not the unknown brother, nephew or grandson of his famous name father Robert. Nevertheless, he was a respected composer, pianist and, above all, a music teacher. The German Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, under the direction of James Feddeck, has recently dealt with some of his great orchestral works. Trained by Carl Reinecke, encounters with Liszt, Brahms, Rubinstein, Mahler or Bruch, head of the master class for composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin for more than half a century, Berlin Philharmonic's long-standing regular guest etc. All these are unmistakable signs of the importance of Georg Schumann as a composer, pianist, conductor and pedagogue. Musicians of the following generations would still have to be indefinitely grateful to him, since he and Richard Strauss, together with others, founded the cooperative of German composers, today's GEMA. And yet his name is nowadays no longer on concert programs, let alone in CD catalogs. It is all the more pleasing to see Georg Schumann again at cpo.

Franz Krommer (1759-1831) was a first rate composer. As you can see, he was three years younger than Mozart, and outlived both Beethoven and Schubert. During that time, he wrote hundreds of instrumental works: chamber music, concertos, nine symphonies (No. 8 is missing), and the wind ensemble music on which his reputation now largely rests. Interestingly, he composed almost no vocal music. The quality of his output is very high: he really sounds like the natural successor to Haydn in many respects. His symphonies are almost exactly contemporary with Beethoven’s, and rather than sounding conservative or reactionary, we can hear them as part of an evolving tradition–different but not necessarily inferior.

Krommer’s idiom evolved as he aged. These three symphonies date from the 1820s, and reveal a composer moving comfortably within the classical style (of which he was a charter member, let’s not forget), but extending its expressive range through vivid orchestration and an expanded harmonic vocabulary. In its rhythms and frequent alternation between major and minor modes, his music also sounds recognizably Czech. Consider the dance movements in each of these three symphonies. Although he calls them “Menuetto,” they are true scherzos (sound clip), full of harmonic and rhythmic audacities. You won’t find Beethoven’s bigness of vision here, but then you don’t find that anywhere else either. In all other respects, these are outstandingly fine works.

The symphonies have been recorded previously (most of them, anyway), but these versions from Howard Griffiths are exemplary in their stylishness and alertness to every nuance that Krommer asks for. The findings of the period instrument movement manifest in the generally swift tempos and incisive accents, but this never becomes a fetish. Excellent engineering makes this release utterly irresistible. We badly need a systematic critical edition of Krommer’s works, accompanied by a wide ranging series of recordings. In the meantime, grab this and marvel.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Our gigantic edition of Carl Loewe’s complete song and ballad oeuvre proved to be a great success and revealed a genuine cosmos of great dramatic works and enthralling genre miniatures. However, it is known only to a few that Loewe not only composed some six hundred songs and ballads but also produced chamber music. In 1831 the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described his Piano Trio or Grand Trio op. 12 as “magnificent, finely invented, sustained, and intelligently developed.” Robert Schumann expressed himself in a similar vein: “It is perhaps one of the most fundamentally genuine and most imaginative works by Loewe, one of those worthiest of the best master. Every trio circle must have it.” In his last instrumental work, the Duo Espagnôla for viola and piano, the composer once again ventured onto national terrain and took with him the viola as a special expressive means conveying the Spanish character. The work is melodious throughout and shows both instruments in their best light. The Scottish Pictures for clarinet and piano from Loewe’s late period are demanding genre scenes inspired by the composer’s interest in the Scottish landscape and the country’s vicissitudinous history. At the time enthusiasm for the wild north of the British Isles was very fashionable.

The pieces on this album originate largely from the Christmette by Michael Praetorius. In addition, nativity hymns by a range of different composers from the same era have been compiled. In Lutheran style the compositions on this album include solo pieces, choir arrangements, double choral motets, instrumental pieces and of course the church organ repertoire. The listener can also hear pieces, which were not necessarily meant for Christmas, but fit the program very well. The function of some of the pieces is liturgical, like “Gloria,” “Our Father,” or the mighty Entrance-Prelude. Two other pieces are meditative moments about the name of Jesus. Many of the songs are well-known. However, the arrangements for soloists and/or choir from Praetorius and his contemporaries are rarely performed. The Early Music ensemble Margaretha Consort was founded in 2009. The ensemble is based in the Netherlands, but the singers and instrumentalists are from all over Europe.Over the years a very skilled team has been created, where knowledge, musicality, and congeniality go hand in hand.

Among Stephen Dodgson’s portfolio of more than 250 works are chamber operas, of which Margaret Catchpole: Two Worlds Apart is a most striking example. It is based on the true story of a woman who was convicted of the then capital crime of horse stealing and transported to Australia, and Dodgson conveys the romance and drama of the story with characteristic lyricism and rhythmic energy. Words are paramount for Dodgson, and his setting is vivid, immediate and tonal, with some swaggering rustic moments amidst the precise characterization and idiomatic instrumental writing.

The Seven Deadly Sins is a satirical parable and the last co-operation between Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht. The present album is a re-release of the SWRmusic bestseller 93.109 having the outstanding Anja Silja as Anna. The ‘sung ballet’ is in nine movements, and was written in 1933 as Weill watched the Nazis seize power following the Reichstag fire of February 1933. Both Brecht and Weill knew that as Jewish men, Berlin could no longer be their home. He obtained the commission for Seven Deadly Sins while in Paris. The scenario of the libretto mirrors Brecht’s own travels after fleeing Germany, expanded to one-year sojourns in each of seven cities.

The Loreley is one of the most famous figures of the romantic era, and even today the massive rock in the Rhine is notorious for threatening the river’s skippers with shipwreck. The legendary female figure with her seductive beauty today no longer haunts the river, but her story continues to resonate in the imagination. In 1861, when he was a mere twenty years old, Max Bruch, a Rhinelander born in Cologne, devoted an opera to the Loreley, a work based on a libretto by the great Emanuel Geibel himself. This opera in four acts is only rarely performed and until now has never been recorded on album. The Munich Radio Orchestra will now change this state of affairs: in a concert performance initiated by cpo the orchestra presented the work under the conductor Stefan Blunier, who was the General Music Director of the City of Bonn – that is, in the vicinity of the Loreley – when the recording was produced. The marvelous Michaela Kaune interpreted the title role in a top-quality performance, and Thomas Mohr was her male counterpart. Bruch set the Loreley story, in which everything, both in ambience and action, constituting a “Grand Romantic Opera” (thus the work’s subtitle) is present, in a highly romantic musical language. It is not without reason that Hans Pfitzner lent his support to this forgotten gem throughout his life.

Naïve is particularly proud to release the first recording from the orchestra recently founded by conductor Mathieu Herzog: Ensemble Appassionato. A favorite composer for the orchestra, who other than Mozart to bear witness to the recording debut from this ensemble? An ensemble born under the most auspicious circumstances, full of members from France’s major string quartets. The last three symphonies, a triptych as monumental as it is mysterious - we know almost nothing about the circumstances surrounding their composition - are probably the works that best symbolize the projects thus far of Mathieu Herzog and the Ensemble Appassionato. Their fresh vision, modern and chamber-like, plus a multitude of eclectic repertoire. A vision galvanized by the desire to share music with everyone. Listening to this recording nourished with as much passion and ambition as respect and humility, a more human and personified Mozart appears before us, more luminous than ever. Clear timbres, instrumental cohesion, balance, well-rounded characters, full-bodied tempi ... Mathieu Herzog demonstrates here a vision and an inherent know-how, placing him immediately in the pantheon of great conductors.

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REVIEW:

At root, these are modern-instrument performances that digest the historical discoveries of our time and offer a full-bodied chamber presentation. These three performances are, in their own ways, individual, minutely considered and thus, perhaps inevitably, not to every taste. The ensemble sound, however, is one of the glories of this set. As chamber players and therefore soloists in their own rights, the contribution of each player is palpable.

– Gramophone

It was in 1905, an entire decade prior to Wilhelm Stenhammar's second symphony, that Hugo Alfv�n completed his third symphony. In this work Alfv�n, like many other Scandinavian composers, found the typical Nordic tone of his music in the sunny south. Like Sibelius' second symphony and Stenhammar's Serenade for Orchestra, this symphony is Swedish through and through. In addition, it is pervaded by the longing for home repeatedly felt by Alfv�n during his years of wandering. He composed his Uppsala Rhapsody in 1907 for the commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great botanist Carl von Linn� (Linnaeus) held at the University of Uppsala in May 1907. Like it's counterpart by Johannes Brahms, this work turned out to be an �Academic Festival Overture� including some student songs. The Concert Suite from Alfv�n's ballet The Mountain King offers a masterful wealth of color. His excellent knowledge of the art of instrumentation was the product of his earlier activity as a violinist in the Royal Court Orchestra, which also served as the Opera Orchestra.

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Former Music Director Mariss Jansons returns to Amsterdam to conduct Pique Dame at the Dutch National Opera with “his” Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He encounters a noteworthy cast and under his baton the orchestra sounds “brilliant and splendid“ (Der Tagesspiegel). Renowned director Stefan Herheim staged Tchaikovsky’s much-loved opera about a young man who, for the prospect of earthly wealth, gambles away his chance for love and happiness. Herheim, whose stagings are famous for their multi layered levels of interpretation, attempts to reflect on the composer’s hidden love for men. “The Latvian maestro, the intriguingly performing orchestra, the smartly-chosen soloists, and director Stefan Herheim have succeeded in staging an extraordinary production” (Die Presse). “Stefan Herheim makes a great picture show out of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pique Dame’” (NMZ). “A masterpiece” (Der Standard).

REVIEW:

Superimposing the composer’s biography on to arguably his greatest opera works ingeniously. Musically, standards are extremely high, led by Mariss Jansons’s inspired presence in the pit. Aksenova sings a steely Lisa. Diadkova is remarkable as the Countess – singing rather than growling her role.

– Gramophone

DETAILS:

Format: NTSC
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, German, French
Dubbed: English, French, German, Korean
Region: All Regions
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Hard to believe but true: it is here for the first time that Bohuslav Martinu’s concertante compositions for violoncello have been brought together on a double album. Along with the two Cello Concertos, Petr Nouzovský and the Plzen Philharmonic under Thomas Brauner also perform the Concertino and the Sonata da Camera – a richly colored portrait of this composer whose playful treatment of his musical creations continues to fascinate us even today. Deeply rooted in the Bohemian musical tradition, Martinu’s compositions combine rhythmic sophistication, traditional folk motifs, and a classical understanding of form. His concertante works were inspired both by the Baroque concerto grosso and the romantic virtuoso concerto. And of course by Paris: French neoclassicism centering on Stravinsky and the Groupe des Six has left behind clear traces. From the early Concertino- Martinu’s first concertante composition of all- to his second Cello Concerto, a work whose premiere the composer no longer lived to experience, Petr Nouzovsky and the Pizen Philharmonic cover an exciting spectrum depicting a rich and fulfilled artist’s life. Here we encounter a lyrical and pastoral atmosphere as well as rhythmic vitality of dance character- a delightful composer’s portrait of the highest entertainment value.

Johann Sebastian Bach's organ artistry made a powerful impression in St. Catherine's Church when he applied for the coveted organist's post at the Principal Church of St. James in Hamburg in 1720. Since Bach, unlike his rival, was unwilling to contribute the immense sum of four thousand marks as his "dowry," he did not prevail but instead found a new job in Leipzig a few years later. In Leipzig he initially discharged other duties before he again came forward as an instrumental composer with a dazzling cycle of organ chorales in 1739. Andreas Fischer has freshly recorded this "Third Part of the Clavier�bung" on his very own St. Catherine's organ - certainly in a rendering that would have brought joy to Bach, who could "not praise enough" this instrument "outstanding in every respect."

When it comes to Mozartian perfection on the opera stage, one needn't always seek it in Milan, Vienna, Salzburg or New York! At the Sferisterio Opera Festival in the central Italian city of Macerata, a rapt audience was treated to a production of Don Giovanni "that will enter the annals of opera" (ForumOpera. Com). This magnificent reading of Mozart's timeless masterpiece sweeps the viewer into a libertine, 18th- century society dominated by sensuality and erotic impulses. They are acted out on the stage's main prop, a large, unmade bed, not only by Don Giovanni, but also by just about everyone else in the "nearly faultless cast" (ForumOpera. Com). In his role debut as the title hero, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo is "incandescent" (Gazzetta die Parma) and "doesn't do Don Giovanni; he is the Don. Unsurpassable"(24 Ore).

The Ensemble Concertant regularly celebrates great successes with it's extraordinary instrumental forces. Since George Onslow alone dedicated dozens of works to the string quartet plus double bass, the ensemble has espoused the music of this Anglo- French composer with special interest. MDG is now presenting a special edition of two long sold-out albums at an attractive price with works including the Piano Sextet, a concerto en miniature that took the Parisian salons by storm. Onslow composed the Piano Quintet op. 79bis during the middle years of the nineteenth century- when he was at the height of his popularity- in the famous and just as rare "Trout Quintet" instrumentation with double bass. However, Onslow pursued a path different from that of Schubert; here the virtuosity of the piano with it's leaps, arpeggios, scales, octaves, and other daring technical deeds let's the other instruments know who is the boss. The Quintets for String Quartet and Double Bass- so to speak, Onslow's specialty- reveal a master situated between classicism and romanticism. Marvelously sumptuous melodies in classical form breathe the romantic spirit but refrain from virtuosity for mere show. Instead, the works go straight to the heart and make it beat to the big sound supplied by the double bass and it's profound foundation.

The grand Arp Schnitger organ in St. Jacobi (Church of St. James) in Hamburg is remarkable in several respects. This instrument with four manuals boasts of the largest extant inventory of original pipes from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Trompete 16’ in the great organ is the very oldest of its kind. Harald Vogel, the Nestor of the Northern German organ tradition and the recent recipient of the Buxtehude Prize of the Hansa City of Lübeck, presents this magnificently restored organ in conjunction with an unusual Hamburg “family reunion.” Hieronymus and Jacob Praetorius, Joachim Decker, Matthias Weckmann, Heinrich Scheidemann, and Dietrich Buxtehude- they were all closely associated with St. Jacobi and its organ and stood for the towering significance of Hamburg’s music culture over several generations. And, as luck would have it, Arp Schnitger, certainly the most important organ builder of the Northern German school, refrained from renovating some qualitatively superb stops by his predecessors Scherer and Fritzsche. Consequently, the development of the Northern German style can also be traced with special authenticity in the sound dimension. From individual flute stops to Schnitger’s famous reed-based plenum, Harald Vogel presents this album featuring numerous examples of the special tone-color richness of this extraordinary instrument.

Much has been written about the compositional history of the Piano Concerto in D minor by Johannes Brahms: how the composer initially planned a sonata for two pianos and then a symphony; how Beethoven's overwhelming legacy inhibited him; how the young composer also as a pianist ended up delighting his audiences in Hanover but unsettling them in Leipzig. Dina Ugorskaja, performing with the Brandenburg Symphony under the conductor and Siemens Prize recipient Peter G�lke, is now presenting this work in it's essence: a magnificent contribution to the music literature that even 160 years after it's premiere continues to be filled with enigmas and marvels. As an encore, Dina Ugorskaja offers a highly poetic rendering of the three intermezzi from Brahms's op. 117, a work from his late period. This very personal interpretation moves listeners with it's flexible tempo and an enormous spectrum of tone colors. Lovingly produced and recorded under the finest circumstances, this ambitious program featuring these so very different works is an enriching addition to every collection.

Following Tatjana Ruhland’s cpo release with flute compositions by Carl Reinecke, which has just been awarded the OPUS KLASSIK 2018 for the best concerto recording of the year, music critics have described her as "the top class in her field" and as "a virtuoso and nimble flutist" with "a warm tone full of interpretive intensity." On her new cpo album she dedicates herself to three flute concertos by August Eberhard Müller. Beethoven esteemed Müller as an artist, and Goethe valued him as a music expert; contemporary lexicographers praised him as a composer and as an interpreter on the flute, piano, and organ, and Friedrich Rochlitz, the founding editor of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, described him as a composer whose works were "of definite, enduring value." Müller also did not have to beg for prestigious posts: he was the St. Thomas choirmaster and organist and Johann Sebastian Bach’s fourth successor in Leipzig from 1804 to 1810 and the court music director in Weimar, "seat of the Muses," from 1810 until his death. Müller’s flute concertos, eleven in all, were printed between 1794 and 1816, and two single pieces for flute and orchestra were published in 1804 and 1817. It thus may be said that he thoroughly occupied himself with this genre or instrumentation during his active years as a composer, and his flute concertos make no secret of his great admiration for Mozart.

Polish composer, conductor and teacher Stanislaw Moniuszko is widely known as 'the father of Polish national opera'. Halka tells the tragic story of it's title character, a peasant girl whose love for the noble Janusz is betrayed when he abandons her to wed Zofia, daughter of the Esquire. Recorded here in an acclaimed production by Poznan Opera House, Halka possesses a deeply lyrical character making it one of the composer's greatest works. The aria 'Szumia jodly na g�r szczycie' ('The firs are rustling on the mountain top') is considered one of the most beautiful of the 19th century. Moniuszko's opera Halka, with it's tragic tale but often light and uplifting music, is full of lively and distinctive Polish national character. This Pozn�n production was made during 'Moniuszko Year' in Poland, marking the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth. It also serves as a memorial to the distinguished conductor Gabriel Chmura, who was artistic director of Pozn�n Opera House from 2012 until his death in November 2020.

With its carefully planned yet complex dramatic structure and skillful transformation of a tale of heroic conflict between two enemies into a drama of impossible love, Maometto II is considered Rossini’s most radical and innovative opera. Against the background of the violent and cruel tumult of war as the Venetian colony of Negroponte is invaded and defeated by Sultan Mehmet II ‘the Conqueror,’ in 1470, Rossini contrasts this clash of civilizations with the tender emotions of a doomed romance expressed in some of the most beautiful melodies he ever wrote. Heard here in its original Naples version- the more conventional 1822 Venice version with its overture and happy ending can be heard on a separate Naxos recording- this is a movingly tragic drama in which the suicide of the main female role is not without a grim relevance even today.