Consistently enjoyable and exciting, glistens with personal touches.

This is another escapee from Marco Polo [8.225149] newly revivified by Naxos in their Film Music Classics series. There’s an hour’s worth of music here with short cues run together for reasons of continuity in the proper sequence. Steiner’s music is consistently enjoyable and exciting. It glistens with personal touches and little orchestral feats that captivate and evoke in the shortest possible time.

The Train Attack scene sets the pulse racing – all one hundred seconds of it – and Steiner cleverly uses percussion voicings to summon up thoughts of finding gold. There are opportunities for nostalgia and reflection as well – Steiner uses Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms as such a device in the sixth track here, Campfire, and it reappears later. The cave-in scene is excitingly but tersely done – for all Steiner’s symphonic depth and range he maintained a "go for the jugular" precision when necessary.

These are qualities strongly in evidence in the banditry and violence of the score as when, for instance, the remorseless gaining of the bandits is so trenchantly evoked by the slash of the strings and the throb of the rhythm. Steiner builds up tension with inexorable but concise precision. And there are of course plenty of moments for the unleashing of his lyric affiliations; the romantic string curve of the tenth track, Cody’s Letter, leads on to a reprise of Texas Memories and its evocation of the sentiment of Believe Me.

The more horrifying elements of the score are also targeted with his accustomed finesse and compact perception. The cue The Ruins for instance has an abundance of high string and harp writing that has a satisfyingly high spine-tingle quotient. The Chorus is used very sparingly, here to sing the Funeral Chant [track twelve] and it’s done in the usual accomplished way.

Talking of accomplishment the orchestral and vocal forces of the Moscow Symphony sound notably well drilled and on the ball in this performance. John Morgan’s restorations are part of the backbone of the whole series and his written notes are always worth reading. Production values are high, as always.

Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Victor Young was one of Hollywood's busiest and most esteemed film composers, his upbeat and engaging style ensuring that viewers left the cinema with a catchy tune in their ears. His lively circus march captures the spirit of The Greatest Show on Earth, and his Broadway-cum-Rachmaninov and eerie score for The Uninvited with it's hit tune Stella by Starlight was pivotal to arguably the best Hollywood ghost story ever produced. The animated Gulliver's Travels relied heavily for it's charm and dramatic impact on Young's fabulous orchestrations, while the tobacco dynasty drama Bright Leaf inspired one of his most restrained and thoughtful film scores.

Stellar violist Anna Serova pays homage to Sir William and Lady Walton, and to ‘La Mortella’ – the beautiful garden they created at their home on the island of Ischia. The album features Walton’s Cello Concerto transcribed by Serova for viola, plus three new works by Italian composer Roberto Molinelli dedicated to La Mortella; World Premiere Recordings.

The 20th-century Lithuanian composer’s dialogue between modern forms of expression and folk motifs is well represented in the four works in this recording. There is a sense of playful lightness in the Romantic aesthetic of Gruodis’s work, while Banaitis incorporates national lyricism with personal grief in his Sonata. Composed under the restrictions imposed by Soviet occupation, Vainiunas’s Sonata, Op. 38 is suffused with tragedy and sorrow, while Juzeliunas’s distinctive style had an enormous impact on the future of Lithuanian music. All of these pieces are symbolic of survival and represent being truthful to one’s creative identity while under the harshest of conditions.

JoAnn Falletta conducts the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic in works by four extraordinary mid-20th-century American composers who helped shape the country’s musical destiny: Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Paul Creston and Ulysses Kay. Includes two world premiere recordings – Paul Creston's Saxophone Concerto and Ulysses Kay’s poignant and elegiac Pietà.

Sebastian Weigle conducts this acclaimed Oper Frankfurt production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operatic rarity Christmas Eve. This CD version is taken from the same live performances as the DVD/Blu-ray, released in November 2022 (2.110738 and NBD0154V). Rimsky-Korsakov blends Christian and pagan elements, Ukrainian folk songs and carols, and atmospheric orchestral interludes in this vivacious and fantastical village romance.

The next instalment in this popular series now focuses on the life and music of Mendelssohn. This insightful biography explores the breadth of his achievements, the complexities of his privileged upbringing, and the reasons for the fluctuating nature of his reputation. Written by Davinia Caddy, narrated by Leighton Pugh, and featuring many musical excerpts include the Violin Concerto, String Octet and Elijah, as well as his choral works, symphonies, sonatas and songs.

Tom Winpenny conducts this album of choral works by Elizabeth Poston (1905–1987) – an English composer renowned for her great sensitivity of word setting, a profound appreciation of ancient folk-song traditions, and timeless melodic charm. Performed by the Cathedral Girls Choir and Lay Clerks from St Albans Cathedral, located in her native Hertfordshire – this is the first album to be dedicated entirely to Poston’s work. Includes many world premiere recordings.

This new installment in the Naxos Lifestyle Series is titled Music for Book Lovers: Classical Music for Reading. This is an ideal special edition for book lovers. Nestle into your favorite reading spot and experience how this music speaks volumes as the perfect accompaniment to your page-turning. Works include pieces from composers like Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Boulanger, Ravel, Godowsky, and more. (Naxos)

Beatles Go Baroque, Vol. 1

Known primarily as a composer of choral music, Lorenzo Perosi was also a priest and much admired by Puccini. Stellar Italian pianist Matteo Bevilacqua is joined once again by members of the Roma Tre Orchestra in these 20th-century Italian chamber music discoveries. Includes world premiere recordings. Perosi’s piano quartets and String Trio No. 2 are available on Naxos 8.574375.

Claudio Santoro was one of Brazil’s most eminent and influential composers. Over a 50-year period, he wrote a cycle of 14 symphonies that is widely acclaimed as the most significant cycle of its kind ever written in Brazil. The two selected works in this inaugural volume of the first complete recording of his symphonies focus on the 1950s, a period when Santoro sought a more direct and communicative idiom using Brazilian elements. His use of folk-based material is nonetheless highly creative, sometimes indeed abstract, as in key moments of Symphony No. 5. The Symphony No. 7 is one of his most complex and intense works, a celebration of his country’s new capital Brasília in music of striking modernity.

REVIEWS:

Claudio Santoro (1919-89) composed fourteen symphonies over the course of about fifty years, making him one of the most noteworthy twentieth-century Brazilian composers in large forms. On evidence here, they are uneven in quality, with the problems occurring when you might expect – in the larger, more complex outer movements. I’m thinking especially of the Fifth Symphony, whose opening Andante mosso–Allegro moderato consists of a series of crescendos leading, essentially, nowhere. The thematic material isn’t too memorable either. The situation improves in the central scherzo and slow movement (a set of variations), but the same “sound and fury signifying nothing” returns in the finale. Santoro’s style incorporates obvious Brazilian elements without ever turning blatantly “folksy.” Clearly the idiom is his own.

This is even more evident in the Seventh Symphony, subtitled “Brasilia,” and designed for the dedication of the country’s new capital city. A more ambitious and successful work than the Fifth, this time with the scherzo played third rather than second, the music evolves from the relative harmonic simplicity of its opening to a more challenging language in the finale–from rural to urban, you might say. Whether this was Santoro’s intention I have no idea, but I like the result. There’s a good bit of stomping and pounding in this symphony–indeed in both works–with some enthusiastic use of the bass drum, but it all seems to be part and parcel of the music’s boldness and energy, and its confrontational gestural language never sounds merely gratuitous.

Certainly the Goiás Philharmonic under Neil Thomson has every reason to be proud of its achievement here. This is not easy music to play. Santoro’s writing for the violins, in particular, sounds positively wicked, with lots of passage-work at high speed, often reaching upwards into the nether regions of the instrument. The scherzos too offer plenty of rhythmic kinks to keep everyone alert, and the crispness of the orchestra’s response can only provoke admiration.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Neil Thomson conducts strongly committed readings of these fine works, and Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra play with confidence. The recording is very fine and the notes are exemplary. This first instalment of the Naxos cycle of Santoro’s symphonies augurs well indeed.

-- MusicWeb International

The journey is navigated with aplomb by Neil Thomson and the Goias Philarmonic Orchestra. Deftly woven counterpoint is contrasted with off-beat rhythms and expansive melodies that showcase each section of the orchestra to effect.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Much of Franz Joseph Haydn’s long career was in service as a court musician to the wealthy Esterházy family. It was early in Haydn’s time at the Esterháza palace that Prince Nicolaus took a liking to the hypnotic sound of the baryton – a bowed instrument with an extra set of strings that vibrate sympathetically or are plucked for tonal contrast. The baryton was considered the pinnacle of 18th-century aristocratic instruments, and the outstanding beauty of Haydn’s trios represent its final renaissance, placing this remarkable antique firmly into the poised and tasteful Classical style of the day. The Valencia Baryton Project comprises musicians from the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía opera house in Valencia and the Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, who came together with the vision of performing the almost 160 works by Joseph Haydn written for the baryton, a cross between a viola da gamba and a lirone. At the heart of the ensemble is the traditional baryton trio – baryton, viola and cello – for which Haydn wrote 123 works of outstanding beauty during his time as court composer for Prince Esterhazy of Austria. Members of the Valencia Baryton Project have performed in chamber ensembles including Quarteto Radamés Gnattali, the Elan Quintet, Gogmagogs and Trio Vanguardia and with orchestras including the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the BBC Philharmonic. The Valencia Baryton Project is the first ensemble to record the baryton for Naxos.

Alberto Nepomuceno was a herald of Brazilian musical nationalism. He was one of the first composers in his country to employ elements of folklore in his compositions, he encouraged younger composers such as Villa-Lobos, and his music was conducted by Richard Strauss. The Prelude to O Garatuja, an incomplete opera, is one of his best-known works and an example of a truly Brazilian lyric comedy. Serie Brasileira is a vivacious suite that employs maxixe rhythms and ends with the feverish batuque dance, while the Symphony in G minor is one of the earliest such examples by a Brazilian, a heroic and lyric structure revealing the influence of Brahms.

REVIEW:

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) was a major force in the development of Brazilian music at the turn of the twentieth century. He worked as a composer, conductor, and educator, tirelessly promoting Brazilian music and the use of Portuguese as an “art language.” The three orchestral works presented here are typical of his work. The Prelude to O Garatuja (1904), an incomplete lyric comedy, uses obvious national themes and offers nine minutes of high-spirited fun as well as a lightness and elegance found in all of the pieces on this disc.

The Brazilian Suite of 1891 had me immediately thinking “Grieg,” and it came as no surprise to learn that Nepomuceno befriended the Norwegian composer during his studies in Europe and saw him as a model. All the same, the work is beautifully scored and in several places quite personal in expression–its four movements representing “Dawn at the Mountains,” a gentle Brazilian dance intermezzo, “Napping in a Hammock,” and a gutsy concluding “Batuque” with a notable part for some native percussion (a reco-reco, or guiro).

Nepomuceno’s Symphony in G minor dates from 1893, the same year as Dvorák’s “New World.” It’s a much more conservative piece than that, although the opening movement has a nice rhythmic swing to it, and both the slow movement and scherzo feature characterful melodic ideas. The scherzo, in particular, mixes a sort of Mendelssohnian delicacy with sudden military interjections from the trumpets and timpani that are very effective. The finale, though, as with so many late romantic symphonies, disappoints. It’s based on the rhythm of the first allegro in Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony, repeated endlessly. Despite a charming second subject, the movement never really gets off the ground, and the ending, with piccolo, cymbals and triangle making a predictable entrance, is unmotivated and ineffective. A good effort, in other words, but a true symphonist Nepomuceno evidently was not, and that’s no crime.

The Minas Gerais Philharmonic, a relatively new group founded only in 2008, plays all of this music very well under Fabio Mechetti. The ensemble has good discipline, and reveals some fine players occupying the principal woodwind and brass chairs. They are also quite well recorded in what sounds like a flattering acoustic space, the Sala Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. I look forward to further releases from these forces. Minas Gerais is a region perhaps best known as a source of gems and minerals for collectors, and I’m happy to report that the region’s jewels include more than just the rocky kind. Nepomuceno’s output may have been uneven, but his music is worth getting to know, and a disc like this offers an ideal introduction.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Saint-Saëns’ operatic works contain instrumental music of vivacity and charm but have been undeservedly overlooked. Ascanio contains a substantial and elaborate divertissement that fellow composer Reynaldo Hahn termed ‘the entire Renaissance in a few pages’. Les Barbares, a tale of conquest and revenge, includes a vivid Prologue and joyful ballet, while La Princesse jaune with its pentatonic writing, and La Jota aragonese laced with Spanish vitality, show the composer at his most generously carefree. Jun Markl is a highly-respected interpreter of core Germanic repertoire and has become known for his refined and idiomatic explorations of the French Impressionists. His long-standing relationships with the state operas of Vienna, Berlin and Munich, the Semperoper Dresden and the Metropolitan Opera have been complemented by his music directorships of the Orchestre National de Lyon and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra. In recognition of his achievements in Lyon, he was honoured in 2012 with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Märkl has an extensive discography – among the over 50 albums he has recorded are the complete Schumann symphonies, works by Mendelssohn and Wagner, Ravel, Messiaen, and a highly-acclaimed Debussy set with the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is currently working on a cycle of works by Saint-Saëns and Hosokawa.

REVIEW:

Of Camille Saint-Saens's eleven operas only one, Samson et Dalila, still enjoys a place in the international repertoire. That was premiered in 1877, three years before Ascanio. That opera's thirty-minute ballet suite contains much that is pleasingly tuneful and suitably pictorial. The Les Barbares Prologue included here has the length and content of a movement from a very serious symphony. There is still more more music here, and all of it is played with the high quality of performance we have come to expect from the Malmo orchestra.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The concertos and chamber works on this album show Villa-Lobos’s unceasing enthusiasm for new colors and sonorities in his music. The Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra was his last work for the instrument and written for Segovia. A cornerstone of the repertoire, it contains soaring melodies and rhythmic vitality couched in virtuosic writing. Exploring the instrument’s full harmonic and chromatic possibilities, the Concerto for Harmonica is also deftly orchestrated. New and daring sonic combinations are to be heard in the two chamber works demonstrating the composer’s extraordinary gift for seductive lyricism.

REVIEW:

The more you listen to Villa-Lobos, the more it seems as though he had a giant block of characteristic music that allowed him to cut off chunks of different shapes and sizes that he called “Guitar Concerto”, “Harmonica Concerto”, “Sexteto Místico”, etc. It’s not that it all sounds the same–it’s just so much the product of a single, unique personality. This splendid program consists of chunks featuring unusual instruments, or combinations of instruments. The best known work here is the Guitar Concerto, an almost impossible piece as regards balance of forces that’s marvelously played by Manuel Barrueco. The problems of audibility are easily solved on recordings, as here, by placing the soloist well out in front of the orchestra, but I’m happy to report that performance noises are still minimal.

The Harmonica Concerto is a rarity, and sounds atrociously difficult to perform. If you don’t know the instrument well, you would never imagine its wide range of pitch and expression, and surprisingly pleasant basic timbre. José Staneck must have lips of steel just to get through the piece, but he does much more than that, offering moments of real sensitivity and grace. The Sexteto Místico is a brief work in one movement scored for–get this–flute, oboe, alto saxophone, guitar, harp, and celesta. There’s nothing like it anywhere else, and the sheer sound of it is so captivating that it almost doesn’t matter what notes the musicians are playing. Fortunately, it seems that they offer the right ones.

The most “normal” piece here is the Quinteto Instrumental for flute, harp, and string trio, a substantial work in three movements as long as any of the concertos (about 17 minutes). Villa-Lobos revels in the music’s exotic sounds and luscious textures, and you will too. The uniformly first-rate performances by members of the São Paulo Symphony under the vital and sensitive direction of Giancarlo Guerrero are excellently engineered, making the whole disc a joy from start to finish–a true voyage of discovery and delight.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Shostakovich scored dozens of films, starting in the silent era with a long, almost symphonic, accompaniment to Kozintsev and Trauberg’s New Babylon (1929). At the last minute the censors imposed heavy cuts on the film and there wasn’t time even to begin to try and make Shostakovich’s music fit what was left of the film. For his next film Odna (Alone) Shostakovich decided to make things easier for everybody and wrote music in easily assimilated portions ranging in duration from about 30 seconds to four and a half minutes. There are 48 cues on this CD – the complete score for the film.

Odna was planned as the first Soviet sound film but, due to the bulkiness of the sound recording equipment, it was shot, on location, as a silent with the soundtrack being added later at the Leningrad studios. As the soundtrack was poor, title cards were used as well as sound – hence the description of a sound/silent film. The plot is simplicity itself. Elena, a young teacher looks forward to a life with her husband-to-be in Leningrad but she is sent to the Altai, on the Mongolian border. She tries to teach the children, and they enjoy their lessons, but the parents need them to tend the sheep. Elena nearly dies in a snowdrift but is rescued “thanks to the Soviet State”, as a title card tells us. Finally, Elena leaves the Altai and returns to Leningrad, but we have no idea if her presence in the village has made any difference to the lives if the people she leaves behind. Shostakovich is much more positive in his closing music, giving a quite optimistic view.

The music covers a wide variety of styles and moods. There’s a lot of the kind of music we know from The Age of Gold, and the opera The Nose, circus music similar to that which appears in the first movement of the 4th Symphony, highly serious (but with a slight thumbing of the nose) for the village Soviet chairman waking up (track 29), but there’s also high drama, especially in the scenes where Elena nearly freezes to death, a very evocative use of the Theremin here.

The booklet tells us that this is one of Shostakovich’s best scores. It’s certainly one of his most varied and it’s easy to follow the slender plot. There’s also some delightful orchestrations – I particularly loved the duet for bassoons and harp and the duet for oboe and wood blocks! – ranging from full orchestra to chamber music combinations. You can hear the orchestral sound Shostakovich became famous for, sometimes in embryo, in almost every track.

The restoration of the score was obviously a labour of love. Much time and effort has obviously gone into the making of this disk. The performance is excellent: the orchestra is on top form and the soloists are, mercifully, lacking the kind of wide vibrato we used to get from Soviet singers.

All in all, an exciting release which finally does justice to a score we have only really known, in tantalisingly incomplete form, through Rozhdestvensky’s short Suite - which he recorded in the early 1980s, and which is now available in a 14 disk set from BMG/Melodia, or as a 2 disk set of Manuscripts from Different Years 74321 59058 2 - a version of the Suite by Dmitri Smirnov for wind ensemble (Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Meladina Record MRCD0021) and a Russian Disc issue of 1995 (RD CD 10 007) which included 29 cues from the score.

This is the real thing and it was worth the wait. Recording and notes are superb.

This Naxos series of Film Music Classics simply goes from strength to strength.

-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

From the mid-1820s onwards Auber’s career was filled with success. His opéras-comiques and grands operas won repeated acclaim for their myriad qualities of Parisian elegance. The fifth volume in this series features two of his Sicilian operas and both center on well-delineated female characters. Brimming with grace, charm and lyricism, the extensive ballet from Zerlineexemplifies why Auber’s music was so popular. Philippe Musard’s QuadrilleNo.2on themes from Zanetta shows the extent of Auber’s contemporary popularity and is a revealing cultural souvenir of the period.

This set consists of previously released recordings. - ArkivMusic

Heitor Villa-Lobos once confessed that he loved to write string quartets, stating ‘one could say that it is a mania.’ His 17 quartets form a substantial part of his chamber music output, covering a long career that embraced national pride and musical experimentation leading to the rarefied atmosphere of the final masterpieces. Often drawing on the musical folklore of Brazil, these quartets are an outpouring of spontaneous and daring invention. Ranging from austere polyphony to compelling expressiveness and virtuosity, they represent one of the most distinctive bodies of chamber works in 20th-century music.

REVIEWS:

Villa-Lobos once confessed that he loved to write string quartets, stating ‘one could say that it is a mania.’ His 17 quartets form a substantial part of his chamber music output, covering a long career that embraced national pride and musical experimentation leading to the rarefied atmosphere of the final masterpieces. Often drawing on the musical folklore of Brazil, these quartets are an outpouring of spontaneous and daring invention. Ranging from austere polyphony to compelling expressiveness and virtuosity, they represent one of the most distinctive bodies of chamber works in 20th-century music. 6 CDs. Danubius Quartet. Original 1992–1994 Marco Polo releases.

-- Records International

Established in 1983, the Danubius Quartet was a Hungarian group – this set was recorded in Budapest – so while they may lack the Latinamericanlo’s Brazilian ‘accent’, they nevertheless hail from Europe’s great centre of string playing. Their brightly projected sound is ideal for Villa-Lobos’s life-affirming music.

-- Limelight

Wolf-Ferrari is famous for his operatic works in which he invented a new idiom by transplanting 18th-century Venetian culture into the 20th century. But almost all of the composer’s orchestral music dates from his final years and occupies a different expressive realm. The Suite veneziana resonates with melancholy, and the Triptychon is a contemplative, passionate masterpiece of orchestration. Subtle use of counterpoint transforms the Divertimento into a playful exploration of themes, while Arabesken pays tribute to an old friend, the Venetian painter Ettore Tito (1859–1941). His own elegantly simple melody, known as ‘Tito’s theme’, is turned by Wolf-Ferrari into a sequence of sumptuous orchestral variations culminating in a powerful fugue.

Acknowledged by Sir Arthur Sullivan as his musical heir, Edward German enjoyed huge acclaim during his lifetime. His dances are ‘charged with the fragrant essence of the greenwood’ and the Overture to Nell Gwyn, with its richly English themes, explains Elgar’s liking for German’s music. The gloriously romanticized Gipsy Suite pays subtle homage to Dvořák; the dances from Henry VIII were responsible for his early celebrity; and Tom Jones (on 8.660270-71) and Merrie England were two of his greatest stage successes. Conductor Adrian Leaper is a prominent conductor in Naxos’ roster and in addition to those light music discs he has also recorded formidable recordings of Elgar and Wieniawski (8.572952), and Havergal Brian (8.572014), among many others.

Famous today for his Trois Gymnopédies, Erik Satie was an eccentric and solitary figure who was nevertheless viewed by some as a prophet of French musical modernism, his striking creativity championed by Ravel and Debussy. From tragedy and trauma in his early years, through his time as a pianist and Parisian provocateur at Le Chat Noir cabaret, and as house composer to the mystical Rose+Croix cult and beyond, Satie’s eventful life is told in this fascinating revue of a composer whose unique music is still influential today. The narrative, written by musicologist Davinia Caddy and read by actor Lucy Scott, is illustrated with musical excerpts from works including Gymnopédie No. 3, Gnossienne No. 3, Sports et Divertissements, Trois Morceaux en forme de poire and Relâche, among others.

Gioachino Rossini was only 20 when he was commissioned to compose La scala di seta. It is one of four farsa comica operas which fed popular demand for this genre in Venice in the early 19th century and was wildly successful with its original audiences. Assisted by the silken ladder of the title, the diverting romantic intrigues of the narrative revolve around secretive assignations and obtuse misunderstandings, by no means helped by the presence of the slow-witted manservant Germano, in one of Rossini’s most successful comedies.

Also available: Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Overtures, Vol. 2 / Penny, West Australian Symphony

CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Julius Caesar, op. 78. The Taming of the Shrew, op. 61. Antony and Cleopatra, op. 134. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 108. The Tragedy of Coriolanus, op. 135. Twelfth Night, op. 73 • Andrew Penny, cond; West Australian SO • NAXOS 8.572500 (65:07)

Who knew that Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote overtures to 11 of Shakespeare’s plays? Not I and apparently not many others either, as every one of the works on this disc is claimed to be a world premiere recording. Naxos labels it Volume 1, so a companion CD containing the remaining five overtures— The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale , and King John —is expected.

If you know Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968) by anything other than his famous D-Major Guitar Concerto, possibly his Violin Concerto titled “The Prophets,” and perhaps a few of his Jewish-themed choral works included in the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music project distributed on Naxos, you’re doing better than I am. Here is a composer with a catalog of more than 200 works—and that’s just the ones with opus numbers—who has simply never achieved recognition commensurate with the volume and quality of his output.

His “sin,” no more and no less than that of his close Italian contemporaries—Casella, Pizzetti, Malipiero, and Respighi—was to be born at a time and place where composing music in a late-Romantic and Impressionist style was regarded as regressive and reactionary by the modernists elsewhere on the Continent. Of this group, only Respighi seems to have enjoyed more or less permanent staying power. But Castelnuovo-Tedesco (hereinafter referred to as C-T for short) struggled against a second bias. Under Mussolini, Italy’s Jews may not have suffered the same fate as did their German, Austrian, and Polish co-religionists under Hitler, but fascist Italy was still not the friendliest place for a Jewish composer.

So in 1938, C-T left for the U.S., where he soon found work, as did so many other composers who fled Europe in those years, in the film industry. MGM Studios embraced him with open arms, and over the next several years he contributed to the scores of more than 200 films, all the while continuing to compose concert music. He became one of the most sought-after composition teachers in Los Angeles, taking on as students André Previn, Henry Mancini, and John Williams.

The first impression to strike one about these Shakespeare overtures is their made-for-the-movies character. This is not intended to be uncomplimentary; rather, it’s an observation of the vividly colored orchestration and the sweeping cinematic panoramas the music seems to encompass. Of the 11 overtures, six of them were written after C-T had arrived in the U.S. and taken up with the Hollywood crowd. Three of these— A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1940), Antony and Cleopatra (1947), and The Tragedy of Coriolanus (1947)—are on this volume. The earliest numbers—i.e., the five written while C-T was still in Italy—were The Taming of the Shrew (1930), followed by Twelfth Night (1933), The Merchant of Venice (1933), Julius Caesar (1934), and The Winter’s Tale (1935).

All of the overtures were conceived as stand-alone concert works, not as curtain-raisers to operas or incidental music to staged productions of the plays, and not as film music to accompany the rolling of the opening credits. As such, C-T’s overtures avoid storytelling; they do not attempt in a few minutes’ time to telescope the action of the plots. Instead, they take their cue from one or more specific events in the plays and develop a strictly musical narrative around them. This downplays programmatic associations and lends each overture a sense of structural integrity as a complete entity unto itself, worked out entirely in formal musical terms.

Over time, the overtures grew, not necessarily in length—though the 1947 Antony and Cleopatra expanded to nearly 18 minutes—but in ambition of orchestration. Where the 1930 Taming of the Shrew employs strings, double woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, harp, piano, and percussion—hardly a modest-sized orchestra—the later overtures triple the winds and add English horn, contrabassoon, tuba, a second harp, tubular bells, glockenspiel, castanets, and a battery of various drums. Moreover, augmented string sections now find their parts frequently divided, and section leaders are highlighted in many striking solo passages. “The more grandiloquent moments,” observe Andrew Penny and Graham Wade in their booklet note, “anticipate the epic sweep of Miklós Rózsa’s film scores for Ben Hur or Quo Vadis of the 1950s.”

While certain parallels may exist, it should be emphasized that C-T’s overtures are serious symphonic works. They are not the stuff of movie soundtracks or, in arrangements, of summer-evening pops concerts. They are, however, not truly of their time—a statement that could apply to Respighi as well—in that they are big, bold, brightly painted musical billboards in a post-Romantic/Impressionist style that feature many of the same exoticisms and techniques one hears in scores like Respighi’s Roman Trilogy.

I take Naxos at its word that these are world premiere recordings; therefore, it is taken as an article of faith that other versions for comparison purposes do not exist. No matter, for the performances here by Andrew Penny and his West Australian Symphony Orchestra sound aces to me, and the recording has plenty of headroom for maximum impact in the music’s most massively scored passages. I can’t imagine why anyone would not be taken with these highly attractive scores. Definitely recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Thank God Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream doesn't sound anything like Mendelssohn: it's just a luscious bit of late-Romantic impressionism, and it's as lovely as it is concise. The big piece here is Antony and Cleopatra, nearly 18 exotic minutes of it, sounding rather like, well, the 1963 film score to Antony and Cleopatra (which was by Alex North, actually). The fact is that Castelnuovo-Tedesco had quite a successful career in Hollywood after swapping the fascism of his native Italy for the escapism of sunny California. The Taming of the Shrew is charming and witty, Coriolanus suitably somber, and Twelfth Night, rather like the play itself, mysterious and curiously elusive. All of the music is well played by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Penny--there are a few moments of iffy ensemble, but nothing to worry about, and the sonics are suitably vivid. Very enjoyable indeed.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Between 1879 and 1880, as he approached his 40th birthday, Giovanni Sgambati completed his Piano Concerto in G minor, a work on which he had been working for about two years. It was a significant moment for Italian instrumental music: it was, in fact, the first Romantic piano concerto by a composer from the country that had given the world both the instrument, invented by Cristofori almost two centuries earlier, and the genre itself.

The Piano Concerto displays an assured compositional hand. It constitutes not only a new beginning for Italian piano music but also a synthesis of the possibilities offered by the genre. An extremely difficult work to play, it is not immediately accessible on a first hearing, given the density of its material, but reveals more about Sgambati’s inventiveness and technical mastery every time you listen to it.

The Sinfonia festiva (Ouverture de fête) was composed in 1878 or 1879, making it contemporaneous with the Piano Concerto and proof of Sgambati’s growing dedication to orchestral music. It is a short but mature work, confidently written, clearly inspired by the dance-like character of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Three main themes, the first lean and lively, the second more lyrical, the third impudent and leaping, are organized according to the principle of sonata form, with a development section in which the initial motif pops up time and again, wandering between tonalities, sometimes giving the impression of formal freedom, sometimes of obeying rondo form.

REVIEW:

A pupil of Liszt, Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) stood out among 19th-century Italian pianists for his advocacy of the German school and classical models. His massive three-movement Piano Concerto in G minor (1880) might be described as a hybrid that fuses the similarly scaled Brahms D minor concerto with piano writing marked by Lisztian bravura.

Imagine Liszt reworking the echt-Hungarian finale of Brahms’ Violin Concerto for piano on his own stylistic terms, and you’ll get an idea of what Sgambati’s third movement sounds like. Similarly, the grandiose first movement owes much of its existence to the arpeggiated flourishes in Beethoven’s Emperor concerto first movement and motives from Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy.

Recorded live in 2013, the (late) pianist Massimiliano Damerini handled the daunting piano part with brilliance and confidence. He positively opens up and thrives in front of an audience.

Both conductor and orchestra make a splendid case for the delightful Sinfonia festiva (‘Ouverture de fête’), presented in its world premiere recording here.

  -- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)