These two Tenth Symphonies represent powerful statements by composers undergoing the greatest of crises in their eventful lives. Gustav Mahler’s last and incomplete symphony was kept a secret by his widow Alma for many years after his death, the desperate scrawl of ‘Almschi!’ on its final page an outburst at her betrayal of their marriage. Shostakovich’s intense and deeply symbolic SymphonyNo.10, considered by many to be his finest, was kept hidden by the composer for fear of Soviet reprisals, and was only performed after Stalin’s death in 1953.

Unless one lived in a major European center with an orchestra, the opportunity to hear large-scale works by the great composers of the age was well-nigh impossible. The insatiable demand for new chamber versions of famed orchestral works saw Hummel ar-ranging Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6 ‘Pastoral’ not long after the great composer’s death. Hummel approached his task with great care, bringing a fresh perspective to the works in his sensitive and compelling chamber music configurations. Hummel’s arrangements of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 ‘Eroica’ can be heard on Naxos 8.574039.

The collection of pieces by Anton Rubinstein is a mini-treasure trove. Delicate, tasteful and irresistible.

Anton Rubinstein has occupied an uneasy place in the history of Russian music, largely because of his Jewish origins, which led some to write him off, and the related perception of him as a ‘German in Russia’. In recent years his solo piano music has begun to be re-evaluated. This album focuses on the series of works written in the mid-1850s and reveals music of charm and flair. The Three Pieces, Op. 16 are conventional in form but attractive, and the Two Pieces, Op. 28 contain a strongly contrasted Nocturne and Caprice. More ambitious, and intended to be performed in his concert repertoire as one of the greatest virtuosos of the age, are the Six Pieces, Op. 51.

REVIEW:

Noted Brazilian, Steinway artist Sergio Gallo concentrates his effort on the Romantic era. One can hear his connection to these pieces, filled with ardor and efficiency: a delicate edging, yet mighty in pockets of dramatic regale. Each of the pieces inside opus 16 “sing” beautifully and contain delightful swells of pitches and turns, suffused by lyrical freedom.

A caprice, in the most literal term, directly translates into unexpected twists and turns. Certainly so, as there is much more tension inside the Three Caprices. Each of the three movements is independent yet totally connected. M. Gallo’s performance is beautifully nuanced, nudging notes where needed, yet retrenching where critically needed.

The opening “Nocturne” inside Two Pieces has strong lines into Frédéric Chopin, yet Rubinstein’s composition is more restrained and bold within. But there’s a beautiful contrast which Rubinstein chose to compose in the segue “Caprice”: undoubtedly, it is fresh with mild hints of flittering deviousness. Catapults are brisk, unannounced, and filled with delightful enclaves of devilish delight, and the closing denouement is understated yet ravishing. Smooth and sleek in parts, Sergio Gallo gives a spectacular reading of this highly vivacious and spirited œuvre.

Open the capsule of case studies as we turn to the Six Pieces with its journey inside a range of mild emotions. Sergio Gallo takes a dignified and thoughtful stance into these characterizations, each one eliciting precious thoughts and careful reflections. Nothing harsh hits the ear, so a 6-term journey through reflections is spectacular! Sergio Gallo exquisitely unfolds the thoughts with delicate discernment. Brilliant.

The collection of pieces by Anton Rubinstein is a mini-treasure trove. Delicate, tasteful and irresistible.

-- ConcertoNet.com (Christie Grimstad)

In the first volume of this series (Naxos 8571382), Matthew Schellhorn surveyed six decades of Herbert Howells’ compositions for the piano. This second volume reprises the journey, tracing the composer’s stylistic development from the charming poetic miniatures of his youth through to the resonant modal quirkiness of his later dances. The survey includes a centrally important work, the Sonatina of 1971, performed here in Schellhorn’s own edition compiled from the manuscript sources, which includes variants not heard for half a century.

REVIEW:

Howells is renowned for his choral and organ music. His piano music is less well known and these releases are very welcome. As in the first volume Matthew Schellhorn surveys this music over the whole of Howells’ career. Mostly miniatures, there is much to enjoy here and it is interesting to see the development in compositional style throughout. The CD ends with the longest work, his 1971 Sonatina and also includes A Little Book of Dances from 1928. Beautiful performances of this well crafted music in what are, incredibly, almost exclusively world premiere recordings.

-- Lark Reviews (Stephan Page)

Archibald Joyce was known as ‘The English Waltz King’. The composer of delectable vignettes directed his own dance band which, depending on the size of the venue, sometimes numbered a hundred. Convinced that the Viennese waltz was not to British tastes he wrote smoother examples that included Dreaming, his most famous work, which sold over a million copies, and is a perfect example of the ‘hesitation’ waltz. His evocative music also included theatrical numbers, dramatic suites and the ‘concert valse’, designed for the silver screen.

Niklas Sivelöv has proved a prolific symphonist over the past ten years or so, with six completed symphonies and a seventh currently in progress. The Symphony No.1 (Nordico) was written in the summer of 2013, during a surge of creativity following the birth of the composer’s son on 30th July of that year. The title may be understood both as a reflection of Sivelöv’s upbringing in the north of Sweden, and of at least some of his strongest influences, most notably of Sibelius. The music is bursting with energy and momentum, infused with all the verdant colors of the Nordic forest, its deep blue sky, and – in winter – the all-enveloping snow. The work is in three movements of more or less equal duration, lasting in total around half an hour. The writing is highly virtuosic, making considerable demands upon a standard-sized orchestra, the forces extended only by a large percussion section and – as usual for Sivelöv – a substantial part for his own instrument, the piano.

The viability of the horn trio was definitively established by Brahms in 1865. He had learned the natural horn as a child and infused his Trio with a range of moods, including a deeply felt slow movement in honor of his mother who had died earlier in the year and a carefree finale which explores the horn’s hunting legacy. Inspired by this precedent, Lennox Berkeley’s Trio is lively and characterful with a sequence of ingenious and playful variations. GRAMMY-nominated Jonathan Leshnoff is one of America’s leading contemporary composers and his 2016 Trio moves from darkness to light, and is full of pointed syncopations, before arriving at a joyous conclusion.

Considered the most important Brazilian composer next to Villa-Lobos, Camargo Guarnieri had an inestimable impact on the musical life of his country, with a body of piano music that represents the composer’s most distinctive stylistic features. Guarnieri was a consummate improviser and many of his piano works reflect a sense of ease and intimacy, giving the impression that they were composed in a flash of instantaneous inspiration. This is particularly true of the ‘character pieces’ in this volume, from the autobiographical Improvisos and Momentos, to the intimate nostalgia of the Valsas. Volume 1 of this edition can be heard on Naxos 8.572626-27.

For Brahms, folk songs were sources of musical inspiration, not subjects for academic study. The songs from Books 6 and 7 of the Deutsche Volkslieder exemplify how Brahms’ distinctive and expressive accompaniments brought unique qualities to these songs, how he intensified certain verses to draw out their power, or allowed the piano its own revealing melodic phrases. In Book 7 the songs are divided between a lead singer and a chorus, adding fresh musical possibilities. In the Volkskinderlieder (‘Children’s Folk Songs’) Brahms’ economy and deftness turn lullabies into works of art.

Here are two very personal, immediately spontaneous and highly dramatic interpretations of the two concertos, in which so many things sound excitingly new.

For 19th-century audiences Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 was the most loved of all his piano concertos, a work in which the balancing of high drama, tenderness, lyricism and humour is most pronounced and in which a coda resolves inner tensions with brilliance and triumphant grandeur. Piano Concerto No. 4 is the most introspective and poetic of the concertos. The simplicity of its opening piano statement gives way to an unprecedented dialogue in the central movement between a heartfelt piano and an austere unison string orchestra, before the infectious energy of the dramatic finale.

REVIEW:

Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto is a departure into a new era. And that’s what Boris Giltburg makes us feel in his interpretation with the Liverpool Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko. His first movement is very agitated and rhetorical, and the Largo is not a beautiful romance, but rather a reflection and lingering, a recharging of the batteries, so to speak, whose energy is used up in the last movement. On the whole, the contrasts are highly dramatic. Orchestra and pianist sometimes seem to want to go in directly opposite directions.

Excitement and contrasts between orchestra and piano also characterize the first movement of the Fourth Concerto in which Giltburg makes the cadenza particularly exciting and expressive. The second movement ends enormously sombre and hopeless, the Passagio experience is fearfully depicted. The last movement is jubilant and fluttering, extremely virtuosic and ravishing in its exalted manner.

So we have here two very personal, immediately spontaneous and highly dramatic interpretations of the two concertos, in which so many things sound excitingly new. And that makes us recommend these pianistically and orchestrally magnificent recordings without hesitation.

-- Pizzicato

Between 1953 and 1967, the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote a series of Greeting Cards. These 52 musical folios, 21 of which were written for the guitar, are pen portraits of admired performers, students, friends and composers, performed here by Andrea De Vitis.

Vitĕzslav Novák was one of the most important Czech composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Moravian-Slovak Suite is one of his most popular works, evoking an eventful and romance-filled day in a Slovakian village. Recorded here for the first time since its rediscovery by producer Jiří Štilec, the Two Wallachian Dances further invoke Novák’s passion for folk music. De profundis was written during the dark days of the Second World War. It includes an important part for organ which is unleashed with full force in one of the most triumphant conclusions in all of 20th-century music.

REVIEW:

Vitezlav Novak (1870-1949) described an eventful day in a Slovak village with his Moravian-Slovak Suite. It was recorded for this production for the first time since its rediscovery by producer Jiri Stilec.

Conductor Marek Stilec has his orchestra play in a tense yet sensitive manner to atmospherically reflect the character of the individual pieces (At Church, Among the Children, The Lovers, The Ball, Night).

This is followed by the Two Walachian Dances and, finally, the 22-minute De profundis, which was written during World War II and can be seen as a protest against Nazi terror. Novak dedicated the work after the war to all Czech victims of 1939 to 1945, commenting, "In Brno, where Czech citizens were shot and hanged by the Germans for fun, they went en masse to the executions, just as the Romans did in Nero’s time, when Christians were thrown to the wild beasts."

De profundis thrives on dark brooding sounds and, in contrast, abrupt effects "of almost apocalyptic expression," as the introduction states.

The important organ solo becomes especially impressive in the powerfully thunderous Grandioso and supports the orchestra in the triumphant coda.

-- Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

Anton Rubinstein’s remarkable virtuoso career during the 19th century coincided almost exactly with the final developments of the modern piano. The increasing popularity of the instrument combined with Rubinstein’s formidable execution earned him enormous popularity as a performer. The Six Preludes and Fugues in Free Style are major works, each piece dedicated and alluding to famous composers and performers of the day. The charming Three Pieces are small-scale character works, while the Concert Étude in C major is a witty display piece in which ‘wrong notes’ are instantly corrected, like an errant pupil attempting to disguise mistakes.

Much of Carl Czerny’s concert music for piano was considered ‘wild and almost unplayable’ in his day, but these world premiere recordings reveal inspired melodic writing, great skill in orchestration and colourful virtuoso challenges in a programme that includes his final Concertino, Op. 650. This is the final release in the Naxos edition of works for piano and orchestra by Czerny. Previous releases can be heard on 8.573998, 8.573688, 8.573417 and 8.573254.

José Antônio de Almeida Prado was one of the most admired Brazilian composers of his time. The two stylistically diverse works featured on this album exemplify different creative periods in the composer’s life. The prize-winning Pequenos funerais cantantes, which was Almeida Prado’s breakthrough as a composer, is a lament full of unique soundworlds forged from different combinations of choral and orchestral writing. The superbly orchestrated Sinfonia dos Orixás takes as its subject the Orishas (deities in the Yoruba religion) – and is a personal tribute to the rich Afro-Brazilian religious traditions, a sumptuous melodic and rhythmic feast celebrating the forces of nature.

REVIEW:

In his music, color and emotion were inextricably interwoven with the more technical aspects of his scores. His music can be described in words, but these words fail to convey its impact, which is not really definable. This music is never predictable. It always surprises the listener. It is a shame that he’s almost virtually ignored outside Brazil.

The Symphony of the Orishas, composed in 1984-85, is a masterpiece of extraordinary invention and complexity. Words do it little justice, you really need to hear and experience it for yourself. Nothing I say is going to convey the full power, richness and emotional impact of this score. Suffice it to say that I’ve heard absolutely nothing like it in a half-century of reviewing music. All I will say is that it is not at all a conventional symphony using theme and development, but rather a veritable cornucopia of sound, color and motion.

Neil Thomson is an excellent conductor who fully enters the spirit of these scores; he manages to sound Brazilian even though he isn’t. This is one of those very rare albums whose totality is greater than the sum of its parts. This is certainly one of the most interesting and culturally important releases ever put on the market.

-- The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

Orfa was Adolphe Adam’s penultimate ballet, with an intriguing scenario based on Nordic mythology. It shares analogies with Hesiod’s Theogony and Wagner’s Ring cycle in depicting the struggle between the older gods (Loki) and younger gods (Odin). Full of archetypal Romantic elements, Orfa was mounted with the lavish stage spectacle for which the Paris Opéra was famous, and featured Fanny Cerrito in the title role. Adam’s writing shows increasingly vivid orchestral imagination, drama and tonal colour, with roles for several instrumental soloists. This world premiere recording uses a new edition copied from Adam’s original manuscript score held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Imre Széchényi was a distinguished diplomat who rose to become the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Berlin, retaining the friendship and admiration of a gallery of leading figures of the age: Liszt, Johann Strauss ii, Suppé, Waldteufel, Bismarck, and many others. He was also a pianist and composer, and his diplomatic career ran parallel to his musical life. Széchényi’s métier was the dance, and his series of polkas, mazurkas and serenades – infectiously engaging and ardently lyrical – were popular pieces in their day but are now little known. orchestrations of many of these dances were made by the composer (Naxos 8.573807) but five that were never scored for orchestra are included here.

Croatian-born Lovro Peretić has selected a panoramic program that reaches back to the 18th century and forward to modern times. This recital includes Peretic’s own arrangements of a Brahms Intermezzo and two barely known works by Debussy, heard here in their world premiere recordings, alongside Karel Craeyvanger’s Weber homage, a sensually evocative piece by Barrios Mangoré, and Henze’s richly characterized Second Sonata on Shakespearean Characters.

Francesco Durante’s psalm settings stand out for their astoundingly modern contrapuntal tensions and expressive nuance. Coupled with Giovanni Salvatore’s uniquely inventive organ works, these world premiere recordings revive sacred works by a composer considered in his day to be ‘the greatest master of harmony in Italy’.

This world premiere recording of British composer Nigel Clarke’s symphony for violin and orchestra The Prophecies of Merlin is inspired by the 12th-century text De gestis Britonum by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and it casts the soloist as the maddened Merlin, in a score brimming with rhythmic drive and bravura orchestration. Clarke's music can aso be heard on 8.570429 (Samurai • Black Fire • The Miraculous Violin) and 8.574097 (Mysteries of the Horizon).

This selection of transcriptions celebrates childhood in a variety of ways, featuring popular works – Schubert’s Erlkönig, Granados’s atmospheric Tales of Youth, Mozart’s elegant Sonata facile, Schumann’s Scenes of Childhood and Debussy’s Children’s Corner – presented in a totally natural and idiomatic manner within the guitar’s distinctly expressive soundworld.

Schumann’s studies into counterpoint during 1845 climaxed in what he described as a ‘Fugenpassion’, with the resulting character pieces becoming a significant cornerstone of the organ repertoire. They are performed here by Tom Winpenny, who has also written the booklet notes, on the historic and recently restored Furtwängler organ in Gronau, Germany.

Chinese Romance presents a selection of recent guitar compositions by three Chinese composers who were all born in the 1980s. These poetic and lyrical pieces explore the guitar’s delicate timbres with nuance and subtle detail, expressing a universal range of emotions. Xianji Liu is the first ever Chinese-born winner of the Franciso Tárrega International Guitar Competition, Benicàssim.

Known more widely as a composer of operas, Franco Alfano also composed a body of chamber music including the three string quartets heard here in world premiere recordings.

String Quartet No. 1 in D major was composed during the First World War between 1914 and 1918. The String Quartet No. 2 in C major In Tre Tempi Collegati, composed in 1925–26, is a smaller scale work than the first, and mostly much more tonal in harmonic structure. The String Quartet No. 3 in G minor was written in 1945 and premiered in Rome on 28 November 1947.

The Quartet comprises violinists Elmira Darvarova and Mary Ann Mumm, violist Craig Mumm and cellist Samuel Magill. The same ensemble can also be heard on the acclaimed Naxos album of Alfano’s Violin Sonata and Piano Quintet (8.572753). Alfano's Cello Sonata and Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano can be heard on 8.570928.

REVIEW:

The first two quartets date from a period that reached from the Great War to the mid-1920s. The opening of the String Quartet No. 1 is a Vivacissimo but the word stands feebly in the face of the torrid, angular tumult that is the first movement. An implacably melodious and fluently flowing Calmo was written as a memorial to his son who died while serving in the Italian military. It is followed by a Largo-Allegro Deciso. The first particle of this movement is a short extension of the mood of its predecessor but soon says a dry-eyed farewell with writing that is, at first, long on a tungsten determination. This is clearly relished by these four players. The music ends with a noble determination that seems to speak of a will to hold it together.

The tonality of the String Quartet No. 2 is placed under less stress than the First Quartet although it is by no means facile listening. It feels inventive. The second movement is marked ‘like a children’s song’. It is a delicate Thumbelina dance of a blossom. The final ‘danse villageoise’ accelerates all the way through.

The 1940s dealt blows to Alfano: much of his music was destroyed in the bombing of Turin and his wife died in 1943. It comes as little surprise that the writing of the first movement of the Third Quartet pierces a path into melancholy. Misty-eyed happiness is recalled but clearly it is not to be experienced again. Joy of a sort is grasped in the next movement, tipping over into the melodic complexity of the powerful Allegro finale. Alfano’s final String Quartet had a Rome premiere in 1947.

The CD’s notes could hardly be more needful – and incidentally meeting that need – when the music is otherwise unknown to all but a few. They are by the disc’s cellist, Samuel Magill. The performances are wondrously fervent, hot-house products. The sound is at your throat, heated and upon you with tiger-like ferocity.

-- MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)

The folk music of Greece is the ‘topos’ shared by the four composers on this album, part of Naxos’s Greek Classics series. Greek-Cypriot composer Solon Michaelides’s evocative Dawn at the Parthenon is infused with impressionist elements whereas Manolis Kalomiris, the leading figure in Greek national music, turns more to the voluptuous richness of Rimsky-Korsakov in his Island Pictures. Yannis Constantinidis’s two suites are notable for their subtle dance rhythms and expert orchestration while Nikos Skalkottas’s ingenious Greek Dances, one of his most popular works, are heard here in Walter Goehr's edition for string orchestra.