BEETHOVEN: Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 3 / Piano Trio in E-Flat M

ORGAN MEDITATION

HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 42 and Op. 2, Nos 4 and 6

Bizet's opera Carmen was first produced at the Opera-Comique in Paris in 1875. The French genre of opera-comique had arisen in the eighteenth century as a Gallic counterpart of the Italian opera buff, injecting an air of contemporary realism into operatic form. The success of operetta in the nineteenth century offered a challenge to the form, which retained the characteristic of the German Singspiel, spoken dialogue taking the place of the recitative of opera serial or French grand opera, but increasingly lacked power or conviction. Carmen, in it's original version with spoken dialogue, derived largely from Prosper M�rim�e's novel on which the opera was based. Created something of a scandal, and opened the way to a new form of opera. While nineteenth century French audiences at the Opera-Comique might find in Micaela a recognizable character, Carmen, a vicious outcast from decent society, was not the ideal heroine for popular family entertainment.

Satie: Piano Works, Vol. 4

BEETHOVEN: Piano Trios Op. 1, Nos. 1 and 2

Grand Tango and Other Dances for Cello and Piano (Le)

Beethoven: String Quartets Op. 18, Nos. 3 and 4

Paganini: 24 Caprices, Op. 1

Symphonies Nos. 23 and 24 were written in 1764 for performance before Prince Nikolaus at Eisenstadt, where the Ester�hzy palace boasted a reception hall that could have held some four hundred people, although such numbers would not have been present at w hat was a purely domestic entertainment for the Prince, members of his family and entourage, and his guests. These symphonies form part of a group of eight symphonies written in 1764 and 1765. Symphony No. 23 in G major opens with a triple time Allegro, a lively and cheerful movement. It is followed by a slow movement scored for strings. To this the use of suspensions adds an element of poignancy, as the momentary discords are resolved. The Menuet is a canon between upper and lower parts, with a Trio that has motivic connections with the Menuet that frames it. The last movement makes use of dynamic contrasts, ending with a reduction of volume, instead of the expected emphatic conclusion. In Symphony No.24 in D major Haydn shows once more his ability to produce, even at this early stage of his career as a composer, music of infinite variety and invention, within existing formal limitations. The opening Allegro makes initial use of the wind and string timbres available in a sonata-allegro movement that has it's moments of stronger feeling in the central development. The slow movement makes use of the flute in apart apparently written for the Esterh�zy flautist Franz Sigl, for whom Haydn also wrote a flute concerto, now lost. Here he exploits the abilities of the player, allowing him a brief cadenza. The following Menuet is repeated after a Trio in which the flute again has apart to play. The two oboes of the orchestra return for a final movement of dramatic contrasts. Symphony No. 61 in D major belongs to a slightly later period of Haydn's life. It was written in 1776, at a time when Prince Nikolaus Esterh�zy's interests in theatre and opera predominated, with visiting theatre-troupes working at Esterh�za and a marionette theatre established there in 1773. Haydn provided music for operas on special occasions, but the seasonal presence of actors and the requirements of the marionette theatre involved the provision of incidental music for a variety of German plays, including translations of Shakespeare. Although the material Symphony No. 61 cannot be directly associated with any of the plays known to have been performed at Esterh�zy, it belongs to a group of symphonies that do make use of incidental music originally intended to accompany drama. These include Symphony No. 60, Il distratto, using music for Jean Fran�ois Regnard's play Le distrait and Symphony No. 63, La Roxelane, with music composed for Favart's Les trois sultanes. The vigorous opening Vivace of Symphony No. 61 is followed by a moving Adagio and a cheerful Menuet, with the customary repetition after a contrasting Trio. There is a particularly theatrical final movement that seems to tell it's own story.

Haydn: Symphonies, Vol. 7

This collection of classical favorites serves as a pleasant alternative to much of the music made available to children.

In the years before the revolution of 1917 and his departure abroad, Rachmaninov was earning himself a significant reputation as a conductor and composer, as well as in the role of pianist. The second of his three symphonies was completed in 1907, followed in 1909 by the symphonic poem Die Toteninsel, the Isle of the Dead. The latter was based on a well-known painting, or rather a black-and-white reproduction of a painting, by the Swiss-German artist Arnold Boecklin, the leading German Romantic painter of the late nineteenth century. The picture shows Charon, the ferryman of the dead of Greek mythology, who rows the dead across the River Styx on their journey to the Underworld and to the crags and cliffs of the ominous Island of the Dead of Boecklin's imagination. In the symphonic poem Rachmaninov makes constant use of fragments of the traditional plainchant Dies irae, a hymn that for centuries had formed part of the Catholic Requiem Mass and had inevitable associations with death in the minds of it's hearers, associations exploited by Berlioz and Liszt among others in the nineteenth century, and elsewhere by Rachmaninov himself, notably in the popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Here the listener may imagine Charon rowing his boat with it's passengers across to the Toteninsel, their arrival provoking a musical climax. As Charon returns to the hither shore, the music subsides once more into the ghostly stillness with which it had begun. Enrique B�tiz The distinguished Mexican conductor Enrique B�tiz has enjoyed considerable international success, with performances in England, Germany, South America and in North America at the New York Carnegie Hall and Baltimore Opera. At Carnegie Hall he directed a gala concert celebrating the centenary of the concert hall, in homage to Leonard Bernstein, and in Baltimore a production of Carmen greeted with considerable critical enthusiasm. Enrique B�tiz has conducted over 125 different orchestras. From 1983 to 1989 he was Musical Director of the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, preceded by a period from 1971 to 1983 as director of the Mexican State Symphony Orchestra, a position he resumed in 1990. Since 1984 he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. Born in 1942, Enrique B�tiz made his first public appearance as a pianist at the age of five. He studied at the Methodist University in Dallas and at the Juilliard School in New York, followed by further study in Warsaw, where he discovered his true vocation as a conductor.

HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 9, Nos. 2, 5 and 6

BACH, J.S.: Organ Transcriptions