Classical Music

Swedish composer Gunnar de Frumerie is considered one of the 20th century’s most important composers. Frumerie’s style is likened to that of Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Prokofieff, and Scriabine. These works have not been frequently recorded due to their difficulty. Performing these piano works is Swedish pianist Mats Widlund.

The 150th birthday of the Danish iconoclastic composer Carl Nielsen is celebrated with the second volume of his works for violin featuring one of Sweden's brightest new violinists, Cecilia Zilliacus joined by the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Blendulf.

Classical Music

Kristine West uses her Swedish folk music roots to take on baroque and contemporary music in a free and open-minded way. This debut album has been characterized as having easiness and aim to create an experience of presence - with extreme conviction. West wanted to encourage her listeners to interpret the music through their own experience and to constantly reconsider the music. This allows her music to be constantly alive with a sense of freedom.

Meet the Delos pets, Lucky and Leo. Lucky (our dog) is sweet and lovable, truly the best of all friends. Leo (our cat) is a ten-year-old tabby, a noble beast indeed. Both probably share much in common with your own pets. Leo loves napping, meowing, stalking, pouncing, kneading, and grooming. Lucky's favorite activities include: excited barking, non-stop panting, and sniffing everything in sight. Whether you consider yourself a cat lover or a dog lover, no one will be able to resist these adorable furballs. Classical music has long been heralded as the most perfect form of entertainment for relaxing, introspection, joyous moments, and as a booster to our ability to focus -- why should this music only be available to humans? It's with this in mind that Delos presents a wonderful collection of classical music to accompany you and your cat or dog during the day's activities.

Karl Nyhlin is one of Sweden's foremost lutenists. His debut CD was highly praised in Swedish and internatinal press, and this follow up album features renaissance lute "standards" by English and Scottish composers, including John Dowland, Daniel Bacheler, Philip Rosseter, John Danyel, John Sturt, and Robert Johnson. "Nyhlin plays sweetly, most beautifully, and with lovely phrasing. He always keeps the interest alive thorugh delicate nuances and subtle changes." - North Sweden Courier on Nyhlin's debut CD

Classical Music

Anna Petrini is one of Sweden's leading recorder players, and this is her debut solo album. On Crepuscolo, she performs contemporary works for the Paetzold contrebass recorder and electronics by Fausto Remotely, Malin B+�ng, Dominik Karski, Oscar Bianchi, and Mattias Peterson.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

It’s not often that one hears recorded organ transcriptions of major works originally composed for symphony orchestra. But that’s what we get here, in a transcendental program of orchestral favorites played to breathtaking perfection by Thomas Murray, an internationally renowned organist and Yale professor.

Murray is the latest in a long line of top-ranked players who have made outstanding solo recordings in keeping with Delos’s long-standing tradition of legendary organ albums. He is held in particularly high regard among his fellow virtuosos for his mastery of the grand “symphonic style” of organ playing.

Fans of great orchestral classics will immediately recognize both of the works featured here: Edvard Grieg’s ever-popular Holberg Suite and Ce?sar Franck’s monumental Symphony in D Minor – in stunning transcriptions for organ: the instrument best suited to recreate an orchestra’s power, nuance, and variety of sonorities. Murray plays the magnificent Schoenstein Gloria Dei Organ, St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Houston, Texas.

Continuing his long tradition of outstanding recordings with Delos, organist Thomas Murray presents this album of symphonic masterworks by Edvard Grieg and Cesar Franck. These outstanding arrangements of orchestral classics are performed beautifully on the organ- the instrument best suited to reconstruct the orchestra’s variances, nuances, and power. “…consummate skill and artistry in treating the organ as a great orchestra.” (High Fidelity)

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REVIEW:

The playing of Thomas Murray is faultless; his clear belief in these arrangements carries them through coupled with his sensible choices of tempo and his clear understanding of the Franck Symphony’s musical processes. Sonically, the disc is a treat.

– Fanfare

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Delos International brings to the classical consumer and organ enthusiast alike its debut release from Cherry Rhodes, one of America's greatest organists. Cherry Rhodes in Concert was recorded live at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, on the feast day of St. Cecilia "Patron Saint of Music" and offers a unique opportunity to hear and enjoy this special recital. Cherry Rhodes is the first American to win the Munich organ competition and has played recitals at Notre Dame, Bologna, Nurnberg and Vienna. She made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age seventeen and subsequently performed with them many times under the baton of Eugene Ormandy. Ms. Rhodes performed for the opening of the Kennedy Center and is currently Adjunct Professor of Organ at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music. The Royal College of Organists selected her International Performer of the Year. Most recently, during October 2005, Cherry Rhodes was one of the featured soloists at the Virgil Fox Legacy 25th Anniversary Memorial Events in New York City, a three-day festival commemorating his achievements, and later gave a stellar recital at the Festival International d'Orgue Bridel in Luxembourg. This varied and unusual repertoire highlights Ms. Rhodes' power as a performer and her breathtaking talent as an interpreter of both historic and contemporary compositions. This release is perfect for any season. It combines the sacred with the current, and debuts the Larry King composition dedicated to Ms. Rhodes.

Classical Music

Referring to her specialty in piano music of forgotten pioneering American composers, ClassicsToday wrote, “Johnson's loving mastery of this music and skillful, nuanced pianism are a delight.” On this release she fills the long-standing gap in Foote’s discography of complete piano music—much of it receiving its first recording.

REVIEWS:

Where has this delightful, well-crafted, thoroughly idiomatic, tuneful...and unpretentious piano music been for the past century? Listen to any piece at random, blindfolded, and you’ll agree, although you’ll be hard-pressed to identify the composer.

Because most of these works have been out of print for decades, pianist and longtime keyboard rarity advocate Kirsten Johnson had to do considerable detective work in order to obtain the scores. More importantly, she appears to have put in comparable practice hours, borne out by her consistently sonorous virtuosity and tasteful musicianship, abetted by a first-rate Steinway grand and an appropriately resonant yet never muddy recording venue. A major addition to the catalog.

-- ClassicsToday.com

Kirsten Johnson…shows special sensitivity to the composer’s brand of restrained emotion—moderately expressing the underlying feeling as the composer himself would have wanted. Ms. Johnson has a bright tone which is ideal for Foote’s out-of-doors works and enough sense of fantasy for Omar Khayyam…Ms. Johnson’s discs are highly to be commended both for bringing us some wonderful music and as another milestone in the rediscovery of America’s early musical heritage.

-- MusicWeb International

This beautiful new release is a live recording of Tatyana Nikolayeva’s 1989 Herodes Atticus Odeon Recital, and this is the first time the recording from that even has ever been published. Russian pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva was the greatest Bach performer of her generation, as well as an undisputed authority on the piano music of Dmitri Shostakovich. This recital was made in an open-air venue, and displays Nikolayeva’s impeccable technique and her interpretive sensitivity. Her chosen repertoire crosses genres and periods, and includes works from Bach, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Schumann, and more.

Classical Music

• Rachmaninov's Two Suite's and the Symphonic Dances are crucial works in his oeuvre and major works in the two piano literature. • Pianist Frédéric D’Oria-Nicolas, noted for his sonorous piano sound and assured manner, has recorded several critically acclaimed albums for Fondamenta. • Pianist Alexander Kobrin concertizes internationally and recently joined the Artist Faculty of Steinhardt School for Piano Studies at New York University. • Booklet notes in French and English.

The manuscript MS 73 Klagenfurt was found by baroque-violinist Veronika Skulpik and is a little treasure of baroque violin music. Almost all of the manuscript pieces are for a violin in scordatura tuning, although this is not always indicated. With some degree of certainty, the above-mentioned manuscripts can prove that the anonymous authors moved in the circle of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.

This album emerged from the idea of bringing together some very different works by Kapsberger for solo theorbo in order to present a more diverse overview of the German-Italian virtuoso performer and composer. The pieces of music are taken from Books I, III and IV d’intavolatura di chitarrone, currently the only printed sources of theorbo music by Kapsberger available to us. Book I was printed in Venice in 1604, Books III and IV in 1626 and 1640 respectively. - Fra Bernardo