Felix Draeseke's early affiliation with the music of Liszt and Wagner permeated his own compositions of the period, not least his Sonata quasi fantasia in C sharp minor, a work of sumptuous Wagnerian candour as well as balletic lightness. It also marked a significant turning-point from a revolutionary style to something more conservative. As Liszt wrote to him, 'Since Schumann's F sharp minor sonata, I know of no more such significant work of this genre.' The programme also includes a virtuoso Grande Fantaisie, two characterful Fantasiestucke and Chopin-like gestures in the Valse-Nocturne.

Camargo Guarnieri loved writing for the human voice, composing hundreds of vocal works over the course of his long and distinguished career. The works in this programme all use texts by Mario de Andrade - a hugely influential writer who was Guarnieri's friend and long-term collaborator. The comic opera Pedro Malazarte is representative of an attractively unconventional and colourful Brazilian modernism that sets it apart from Romantic traditions. Alongside other powerful settings, A Serra do Rola-Moca is one of Guarnieri's finest dramatic vocal works, narrating the tragic story of two young people who die on their wedding day as they and their horses plunge into a ravine.

Fromental Hal�vy's five-act grand opera La Juive charts the forbidden love between a Christian man and a Jewish woman, and the tragedy that ensues. The work's pageantry, opulence, and thrilling music made it one of the most enduringly successful operas of the 19th century, with more than 500 performances in Paris alone. This acclaimed contemporary staging from Oper Frankfurt features Ambur Braid as the heroine Rachel and John Osborn as her father �l�azar.

In 2002, anticipating the 205th anniversary year of "The President's Own" Marine Band, the then-Directors of this beloved ensemble invited John Williams to conduct a gala concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The legendary American composer graciously accepted, noting that his own father, a percussionist, had taught his son to love and respect the Marine Band from a young age. Williams first appeared with the band on July 12, 2003, one day after the band's official 205th birthday, thus inaugurating a long collaboration sustained by mutual respect and admiration. Williams would return to the Kennedy Center for another concert, this time in celebration of the band's 210th anniversary, in 2008. Several of his most enduring works were prepared especially for the Marine Band for these concerts, from film soundtrack highlights to original concert works. These full-length gala concerts from 2003 and 2008 are, taken together, a tour de force of some of Williams' most popular and creative scores, and serve as the primary source for this unique new recording collection. "Performing with 'The President's Own, '" writes Williams, "has been one of the highest honors of my working life in music. My great hope is that listeners of this special recording will experience some of the exhilaration and fun that I enjoyed conducting these two memorable performances... this ensemble truly is a national treasure of which all Americans should be justly proud."

Legendary composer for stage and screen John Williams has admired the United States Marine Band, the "President's Own," since childhood - and in recent decades, the maestro and ensemble's mutual admiration has deepened amidst a series of collaborations marking the group's major anniversaries. The culmination of this twenty-year relationship was Williams' return to conduct the band's 225th anniversary gala concert in July 2023, along with the release of this 2026 album, John Williams and 'The President's Own,' Vol. 3. Completing a trilogy of albums issued by Naxos of America, this live recording brings the outstanding virtuosity, good cheer, and moving musicianship of that 2023 Kennedy Center concert to the world.

Internationally acclaimed performer, professor, and composer Larry Lipkis has written over 100 works for a variety of vocal and instrumental ensembles. Lipkis's love of commedia dell'arte stems from his career as a performer of Renaissance music, and these four concerti are musical depictions of characters from this popular theatre tradition. The impish and impetuous Pierrot is personified by the bassoon, while his love interest Columbina flits and charms through a mercurial violin. The gently youthful Innamorata, or female lover, is expressed through a translucently accompanied flute, and the romantic entanglements and acrobatic humour of Harlequin are a perfect fit for the outsized musical personality of the bass trombone.

Giuseppe was composed by Mayr in 1829 for graduation concerts at the academy of music in Bergamo over which he presided. His inspiration was a Biblical opera that had won great popularity, M�hul's Joseph, which had premiered in Paris in 1807, featuring prayers, hymns, and unassuming arias. Mayr, however, drew on a much wider musical canvas to include grand arias, duets, a cavatina, and a final chorus. He also repeatedly references popular melodies by his contemporaries Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini, as befits a pasticcio oratorio.

The name Pleyel is chiefly remembered today as a piano manufacturer, but the company's founding figure Ignaz Pleyel, a former pupil of Haydn, was one of the most acclaimed composers of the late 18th century. The success of Pleyel's finely wrought twelve string quintets, three of which are heard on this album, inspired Mozart to compose his own quintets in C major and G minor. Their appeal lies in their well-paced balance between crackling energy and lyrical expansiveness. These highly accomplished works are sprightly, good-humoured, and filled with such an intrinsic lightness and grace that they are guaranteed to delight as much now as they did centuries ago.

Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger's musical legacy can be found in his reputation as a renowned organist and professor, as well as in his extraordinary facility and productivity as a composer in all forms, including a considerable amount of solo piano music. From the high-spirited Second Sonata to his final Fourth Sonata, with it's defiant opening and hymn-like Romance, Rheinberger's piano sonatas are polished, beautifully balanced, and tasteful, drawing on established Classical-Romantic traditions while being especially effective in producing flowing and memorable melodies.

Famous for composing one of the world's greatest marches, Alte Kameraden (available on Volume 1 in this series, 8.574317), Carl Teike wrote a body of works that have enriched the German concert-march repertoire. They imbue the medium with both diversity and charisma, marrying thematic invention with clarity of structure and richness of tone colours. For the 43rd anniversary of his death, a 1918 march was disinterred and named Neue Kameraden, while Sorgenbrecher is a tribute from Teike to his contemporary, the admired composer Paul Lincke. This is the final volume in the series.