This album showcases a selection of Ives’ shorter works for orchestra. Experiments, marches, arrangements, and enticingly incomplete fragments are included alongside the Four Ragtime Dances and Chromâtimelôdtune, one of Ives’ most startling creations. Ives specialist James Sinclair conducts. Includes seven world premiere recordings. Released to mark the 150th anniversary of Ives’s birth.

Florence Price reached her musical maturity in Chicago during the 1930s - the decade in which she made a famous debut with the city's orchestra and produced two substantial concertos. The Piano Concerto in One Movement contains some of her most beautiful music set alongside moments of Romantic bravura. Violin Concerto No. 1 seems never to have been performed during her lifetime but is the most expansive of her concertos and is richly orchestrated. The later Violin Concerto No. 2 is a much more compact work, cast in one expressive movement. Dances in the Canebrakes, originally for piano, evokes 19th-century African American life, heard here in William Grant Still's orchestration.

The guitar has established itself as a national instrument in Latin American countries. It's sonorities can be considered a miniature orchestra, but two guitars can generate an even greater range of possibilities. Each composer in this widely contrasting programme explores these qualities to the full, with elements such as the South American rhythms in Marlos Nobre's Três Dancas Brasileiras, and Guido Santorsola's blending of Baroque form with a Romantic aesthetic in his Suite all'antica. The works by Ohlsen, Coloma Casaula and Novoa were all specially composed for the Orlandini & Luco Duo.

Nkeiru Okoye's When the Caged Bird Sings is a 'musical celebration' whose compositional voice, though rooted in the African American church, also embraces minimalism and improvisational elements. Delivering a message of adversity turned to triumph, it celebrates the transformative ability of African American women, partly evoking the experiences of the author and activist Maya Angelou. The work functions as a communal ritual that, like oratorio, opera, and theatre, brings together vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra in an experience that both commemorates and celebrates hope and possibility.

East meets West offers a series of geographical and musical connections that bind the music of composers Ian Krouse and Ronald Pearl. The album includes the first recording of Krouse's Roderick Usher's 'Phantasmion' (in it's 2009 revision), as well as the eloquent tone poem La Petite Fille aux Allumettes("The Little Match Girl"), and his version of a Hassidic song. Pearl: My Name is Red is inspired by Orhan Pamuk's novel and reveals a range of Islamic influences.

Florence Price had an abiding love of literature, setting poets affiliated with the Harlem Renaissance as well as Byron and Robert Frost, among others. Her largest choral work is Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, which sets a poem published in 1914 imagining Lincoln surveying the modern world with dismay. It's chorale-like passages and fugal finale, allied to her use of spirituals, gives the cantata a thoughtful, sometimes introspective grandeur. Song of Hope, which uses Price's own text, is an emotionally intense supplication that also draws on spirituals. Charming smaller settings devoted to the natural world, and two sacred numbers, complete the album.

This recording of Corigliano's chamber arrangement of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan featuring soprano Laura Hynes, is coupled with Vincent Ho's virtuosic and mystical Gryphon Realms for piano trio. World premiere recordings. Corigliano's orchestration of Mr. Tambourine Man can be heard on 8.559331.

I had always heard, by reputation, of the high regard accorded the folk-ballad singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. But I was so engaged in developing my orchestral technique during the years when Dylan was heard by the rest of the world that I had never heard his songs. So I bought a collection of his texts, and found many of them to be every bit as beautiful and as immediate as I had heard – and surprisingly well-suited to my own musical language.

I chose seven poems for what became a thirty-five minute cycle. A Prelude: Mr. Tambourine Man, in a fantastic and exuberant manner, precedes five searching and reflective monologues that form the core of the piece; and Postlude: Forever Young makes a kind of folk-song benediction after the cycle’s close. Dramatically, the inner five songs trace a journey of emotional and civic maturation, from the innocence of Clothes Line through the beginnings of awareness of a wider world (Blowin’ in the Wind), through the political fury of Masters of War, to a premonition of an apocalyptic future (All Along the Watchtower), culminating in a vision of a victory of ideas (Chimes of Freedom). Several years after composing the vocal/piano score I orchestrated the work, and some years later transcribed it for Pierrot ensemble, a chamber group. This is the first recording of the chamber version. - John Corigliano

Gryphon Realms is a three-movement work, inspired by gryphon mythology, that explores the coloristic, virtuosic and expressive possibilities of the piano trio while highlighting my more personal musical language. - Vincent Ho

World premiere recordings of three new important choral works by American composers Richard Einhorn, Gilda Lyons and Joseph Turrin. The Musica Viva NY Choir and Orchestra make their Naxos debut with these recordings, conducted by their artistic director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez.

This album presents a diverse selection of world premieres commissioned by the award-winning guitarist, Gabriel Bianco, from composers who have lived and worked in his native Paris. These range from the swirling Spanish motifs in Matthieu Stefanelli's Ellipsis for four guitars, featuring the Quatuor eclisses, to Camille Pepin's hypnotic Autumn Rhythm and Thomas Viloteau's festive A Night in Bastille - just a few of the highlights in this programme of new guitar music from the City of Light.

This second volume of George Walker's piano music joins its predecessor on Naxos 8.559916 (April 2024), together forming a unique complete piano works edition. On this new release, Steinway Artist Alexandre Dossin performs the cyclical Fourth Piano Sonata, which alternates between sections of virtuoso muscularity and lyrical repose, and the Piano Concerto, which integrates expansive Classical forms with inspiration derived from songs by Duke Ellington, something also cleverly hidden in Guido's Hand. The album closes with Walker's passionate Fifth Piano Sonata.

REVIEW:

Dossin makes much of the alternately moody and energetic first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 4. His ability to grasp the long line of Walker’s music is a really big factor in one’s enjoyment of his performances. The pianist's ability to use “space” in his interpretations makes these performances fascinating and ultimately rewarding.

— Art Music Lounge

Having sustained an injury to his left hand, Artur Malawski had to abandon his career as a virtuoso violinist and went on to become a successful teacher and composer in his native Poland. The Symphonic etudes of 1947 brought him international recognition with it's unorthodox design and powerful expression. The Overture shares something of his younger contemporary Lutoslawski's resourcefulness, while the Toccata shows a similar adventurousness of spirit. The manuscript of Mountaineers' Triptych has not survived complete - it is heard here in a realisation by Kazimierz Wilkomirski.

The prolific and internationally admired Jia Daqun is one of China’s leading composers. The Wave of the Surging Thoughts is a large-scale symphonic concerto-suite which achieves a high degree of unity through the use of formal variations. Bashu Capriccio is an ardent symphonic prelude that celebrates the cultural traditions and simple folk customes of Bashu, the ancient name of Sichuan province. Two albums of Daqun's chamber music can be heard on 9.70241 and 8.579011, with an album of percussion works on 8.579028.

Click here to listen to the Naxos podcast interview with Paul Jacobs about this release.

This release features organ concertos by some of America's finest contemporary composers: Horatio Parker's 'imposing and brilliant' piece is heard alongside Christopher Rouse's concerto of contrasting light and dark sonorities, which is dedicated to album soloist Paul Jacobs, and Wayne Oquin's Resilience reflects the human capacity for tenacity and perseverance. The program ends with Ives' Variations on 'America' for solo organ.

The Gershwin titles included on this album are from the new Gershwin Critical Edition which seeks to publish the definitive versions of the composer’s works. All are premiere recordings. Joan Tower’s 1920/2019 is a propulsive study in rhythm and texture, while ghostly waltz evocations can be heard in Steven Stucky’s Dreamwaltzes.

John Adams’ City Noir was inspired by the cultural and social history of Los Angeles, with the composer himself calling it ‘an imaginary film score’, while Fearful Symmetries exemplifies his steamroller motor rhythms. The album ends with a capricious ‘Spider Dance’ of memorable rhythmic drive – a work dedicated to Marin Alsop who leads the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in these performances.

REVIEWS:

Marin Alsop has been quietly championing John Adams abroad—and now at the Met Opera conducting his El Nino— for decades. A new Naxos recording with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra demonstrates her flair and feeling for his distinctive idiom. City Noir, premiered by the LA Phil in 2009, is a vivid, multi-textured score inspired by mid-20th century urban California. With its jazz inflections and brooding canvases, the debt to the City of Angels and film noir are equally clear. This is the work’s third recording but well worth acquiring for Alsop’s theatrical bite and detailed interpretation. Punchier than Robertson and livelier than Dudamel (though Robertson’s ravishing sonics make for essential listening), she holds the attention with a sure eye for the work’s architectural twists and turns. The companion piece is Fearful Symmetries from 1988, one of Adams’s most infectious scores and yet only receiving its second outing on disc. Alsop takes the chugging basic pulse a tad faster than the composer’s own recording without sacrificing any of the infinite variety to be found in Adams’s orchestral details. It’s a joyous, carefree work and beautifully recorded. The same goes for the recorded premiere of Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance. Happily rehabilitated after getting the chop from Girls of the Golden West, this six-minute essay in wriggling cross rhythms is laced with sardonic wit.

-- Musical America (Clive Paget)

John Adams’s City Noir has been pretty well represented on disc in the fifteen years since its 2009 premiere: Marin Alsop’s new recording of the score with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony is the work’s fourth. In general, this celebration of the city of Los Angeles benefits from her approach. It’s swift and characterful...its structure emerges nicely intact in Alsop’s hands. The central “The Song is for You” boasts a series of idiomatic solos (especially from alto saxophone and trombone), at times seeming to channel Gershwin. [The] ORF’s woodwinds, trumpets, and jazz drummer really shine here. By about any measure, this is some brash and chill Adams.

Even more welcome is the pairing’s account of Fearful Symmetries, a half-hour-long study in rhythm and texture that’s only been recorded once before. Granted, that earlier release was led by the composer and it’s aged well. But Alsop’s new take is downright invigorating. The conductor brings a strong sense of drive to the music, drawing out a beautiful blend of colors – from invitingly swooning saxophone quartet playing to unexpected synthesizer colors – from her forces. What’s more, hers is a reading that manages to vigorously illuminate the sophistication of Adams’s compositional language, circa 1988. It’s a keeper.

-- The Arts Fuse

Rhapsodies is the fourth album on Naxos dedicated to the lauded American composer Margaret Brouwer - renowned for her music's lyricism, imagery and emotional power. Marin Alsop conducts the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in this programme of world premiere recordings including Symphony No. 1 'Lake Voices' and the dazzling Rhapsody, Concerto for Orchestra.

Award-winning composer and educator Wenchen Qin's unique musical language is influenced by his multicultural background, integrating Eastern and Western elements. All the works on this release are infused with literature, mythology and a fascination with nature. The Cloud River revitalises the sheng - an ancient Chinese instrument - with new playing techniques. With the sheng also playing a leading role, Poetry of the Land ruminates on how the land provides great inspiration.

Singaporean composer and conductor, Darius Lim, incorporates theatrical elements into his choral compositions, taking audiences on an emotional journey. The 14 works in this album attest to his belief in the passion, joy and transcendence of the human spirit, whether as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, or to the beauties of nature and imaginary fantasy worlds. Lim's music embraces the mystical, the magical and the ethereal in ways that stir the imagination and touch the heart.

This is Naxos’s fifth album devoted to the music of leading American composer, Jonathan Leshnoff. He was GRAMMY-nominated for his album Violins of Hope (Naxos 8.559809) and is among the most frequently performed of living composers. The themes of these recent works are remembrance, memorialization, and hopefulness. Elegy addresses ideas of harmony and discord through contrasting thematic ideas. The Violin Concerto No. 2 follows the ‘symphony-concerto’ model with a resonant and lyrical slow movement inspired by Jewish mysticism at its core. Pulsating harmonies eventually subside into serene and hopeful writing in Of Thee I Sing, written in an act of creative transcendence to commemorate the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Learn more in this Roundtable Discussion, which Arkiv co-hosted with Naxos! 

 

...and learn more about the release on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

REVIEW:

Listening to Jonathan Leshnoff’s hauntingly beautiful Elegy, and then going on to listen to the superbly inventive Violin Concerto, one is again reminded that Leshnoff occupies a special niche among solidly established contemporary American composers: he inhabits a world of tonality and yet manages to say something unheard before with each note of music he pens.

The sterling violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley delivers an elegantly energetic reading of the concerto, supported by Alexander Mickelthwate at the helm of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

The orchestra and maestro Mickelthwate again excel in the emotionally charged Of Thee I Sing, accompanied by the highly accomplished vocal ensemble Canterbury Voices. Leshnoff sets the text of Samuel Francis Smith’s 1831 poem America to now anguished, now healing music that depicts the impact on the country following the tragic Oklahoma City bombing.

Many composers have rightfully refused to burden their art with any moral function. Inversely shunning art for art’s sake, Jonathan Leshnoff keeps company with some composers of the past by providing music that illuminates the human condition with art that compassionately heals the spirit. This listener cannot think of a higher calling.

-- All About the Arts (Rafael de Acha)

Even a cursory listen of Leshnoff's music reveals why his music resonates so powerfully with musicians and audiences. He's no iconoclast but rather someone who builds upon established traditions with works rich in harmony, lyricism, melody, and structural poise. His is an oft-eloquent music characterized by directness of expression, rhythmic propulsion, and introspection, and all such elements are accounted for in the recent works featured on the release. It also holds the distinction of being the Oklahoma City Philharmonic's first full-length album recording since its 1988 formation. It goes without saying that their superb presentation of Leshnoff's material flatters both composer and performer.

-- Textura

Fernando Lopes-Graça was one of Portugal’s most prolific and innovative 20th-century composers. This third volume of Songs and Folk Songs explores Portuguese poetry alongside Old English and French songs. The pianist Nuno Vieira de Almeida is joined by soprano Susana Gaspar. Volumes 1 and 2 can be heard on Naxos 8.579039 and 8.579082. Orchestral works by Lopes-Graça can be heard on 8.572817, 8.572892 and 8.573461.

This recording presents brand new concertos from two vibrant and contrasting American composers. Adolphus Hailstork’s First Piano Concerto draws on his African American heritage to create a work brimming with energy and high spirits. The Violin Concerto “Eleven Eleven” by Danny Elfman – renowned for his many film scores including Batman – has its roots in the composer’s rock, film and television background, but also illustrates his love for the music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

REVIEW:

Two major works from contemporary American composers sit side by side here in this latest American Classics production from Naxos. Well-known for his prolific film score output Danny Elfman’s Violin Concerto “Eleven Eleven” has echoes of his early Batman. There is an interesting note about the subtitle in the accompanying words – apparently the number 11 has special meaning for the composer. Alongside this we have Adolphus Hailstork’s Piano Concerto No 1. This has influences from his Afro-American heritage. Both are in fine new live recordings here.

-- Lark Reviews

The Iranian composer, Reza Vali, studied in Europe and is now based in the US. Vali’s cross-cultural style fuses Persian modes and forms, Western classical music and the use of microtones – pushing the boundaries of orchestral playing in an exciting way. Mezzo-soprano Janna Baty is the soloist in the orchestral song cycle The Being of Love, sung in Persian.

Xiaogang Ye's interest in mysterious and beautiful plants has led him to write many pieces inspired by subtropical flora - The Faint Gingko, the oldest tree species in the world, represents an expression of Ye's care and concern for nature. Heard here in a version without words, Song of Farewell is an opera with exquisite textures, beautiful melodies and refined orchestration. World premiere recordings.

Justin Holland was an important African American figure in the national US anti-slavery movement as well as being a significant figure in guitar composition and methodology. As a composer he synthesized European models and embraced popular, church and parlor songs generating a rich variety of works. A master of virtuosic variations, his arrangements are witty, elegant, and colorful, culminating in Carnival of Venice, which shows the full range of his gifts, sweeping in breadth and dazzling in effect.

REVIEW:

Collectors of a certain age may remember this attractive pairing of Mozart’s 17th and 27th piano concertos through its original LP release on Vox’s subsidiary label Candide. It also turned up on CD as part of Vox’s long gone budget Prima series. Newly remastered for Vox’s new Audiophile Series, this 1978 Elite Recordings production supervised by Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz retains its vivid impact and vibrant detail.

Notice the orchestral ritornellos’ ebb and flow under Stanisław Skrowaczewski’s leadership, and how the forward woodwinds and singing strings conversationally interact. Even in loud tuttis one can take dictation from each orchestral strand. Pianist Walter Klien’s Mozart playing is a model of clarity, projection, poise, and proportion, and he never puts an unbalanced or uneven phrase forward. He’s also one of the few pianists on disc who doesn’t approach Mozart’s final concerto with kid gloves, meaning that his slow movement is full-bodied and fluent rather than ethereal and wispy, and that he doesn’t underplay the finale’s scampering thrust. Sometimes Klien’s phrasing falls into square and tinkly assembly line patterns.

You won’t find the witty inflections and dabs of color that you hear from Peter Serkin or Maria-João Pires in K. 453’s wonderful theme and variations finale. Nor does Klien’s clean yet regimented articulation in K. 595’s first-movement development section match Richard Goode’s harmonic subtlety and feeling for chamber-like repartée. Still, these interpretations won’t steer you wrong. And while I have the floor, we need a truly complete boxed set edition of Skrowaczewski’s Vox recordings!

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

This instalment in the Naxos survey of Vieuxtemps’ lesser-known chamber and instrumental works includes more unearthed gems for violin and piano, performed by Vilmos Csikos and Olivier Lechardeur. Among the discoveries is the world premiere recording of the Fantasy for Voice, Violin and Orchestra featuring the young soprano Manon Lamaison in a wordless vocalise.

REVIEW:

In the Fantasia for voice, violin, and orchestra, the voice has the task of wordlessly evoking memories of the composer. The lines of the violin and the voice entwine. This piece can be heard for the first time in a piano reduction instead of the orchestra. Ma marche funèbre and Souvenir d’amitié were also recorded for the first time.

Three young artists have taken on these discoveries and present their results. The soprano Manon Lamaison only appears in the fantasy at the end. Singing solidly, she masters her wordless contribution. 

Violinist Vilmos Csikos and pianist Olivier Lechardeur are involved throughout. Csikos positively presents the music in a musical rather than virtuoso manner, whereby the radiant soloistic aura is not difficult for him. However, work titles such as Elegy and Romance also suggest such an approach.

Lechardeur finds his place in the duo as a secure and reliable accompanist. Overall, the impression remains that these rarities of the repertoire are presented here in a passable manner.

-- Pizzicato

Richard Danielpour is one of the most decorated, frequently performed and recorded composers of his generation. His commissions include works for some of the most celebrated artists of our day. Each of the Twelve Études is dedicated to a particular pianist with its own substantial technical demands, but all are conceived as concert pieces with a self-contained narrative. The variations in the Piano Fantasy are based on the final chorale of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. All of these world premiere recordings were made in close collaboration between the composer and acclaimed pianist Stefano Greco.

REVIEW:

In the 40-minute cycle, Twelve Etudes for Piano, the composer roams through a wide variety of moods, but also presents challenges to the pianist such as playing with the left hand on the keys and plucking strings inside the piano with the right hand. Stefano Greco masters all of this with aplomb.

In addition to two miniatures, the Piano Fantasy subtitled ‘Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden’ from 2008 is also heard. It is based in continuing variations on the final chorale from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, although the theme does not appear until the end of the work. This piece also shows Greco as an excellent performer.

-- Pizzicato

The three violin sonatas by Bortkiewicz, Kosenko and Skoryk featured on this album transcend the cultural upheavals from which these three Ukrainian composers emerged. Performed by Ukrainian violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv and the American pianist Steven Beck. Kosenko’s Violin Sonata in A minor is a world premiere recording.

REVIEW:

These are expectedly committed performances throughout. Ivakhiv has an excellent accompanist in Beck who is put through a variety of musical paces. The pieces here require a great deal of virtuosic display as well as careful interaction for shaping of phrases. Both musicians are on the same page here interpretively and these gestures come across well here. Ivakihiv has a rich sound in her lower register here and the virtuosic aspects of the pieces are handled beautifully as well. There is a great sense of energy throughout that enhances the intensity of the performances. The album is worth tracking down for exploring rarer repertoire that is given its due here. The acoustic adds to the warmth of the recording as well with the instruments set well within the overall sound picture.

-- SAKENNEDYMUSIC (Steven Kennedy)

The two cello concertos in this volume (Cello Concerto No. 1 is on 8.579142) reveal both the lighter and darker sides of Alexey Shor's musical imagination. Concerto No. 2 was composed during a Covid-19 lockdown, and for all it's lushness and soaring melodies, displays a profoundly melancholic element rare in Shor's oeuvre. The Cello Concerto No. 3 is a captivating, lyrical and harmonically rich addition to the repertoire. The charming Humoresque is an early work bridging Classical tradition with contemporary sensibility.

Kip Winger is a genre-bridging composer with a long and successful career in rock music. His celebrated ballet score Conversations with Nijinsky led conductor Giancarlo Guerrero to commission the two works on this album. Weaving four floriographical meanings into the musical arc, In the Language of Flowers is a violin concerto that celebrates a love story "no words could adequately express." Symphony of the Returning Light sits in the tradition of autobiographical fantasies stretching back to Berlioz. The symphony incorporates the use of Morse code rhythms and is centered around the theme of atonement.

The rediscovery of Florence Price’s music has revealed one of the most significant bodies of work by an African American composer in the 20th century. The variety of genres represented on this release place Price’s immense artistic imagination on full display. The two Concert Overtures explore her engagement with spirituals, both episodically and coloristically, in music that embraces the somber, the poignant and the ebullient. Songs of the Oak is a tour de force of Hollywood-influenced storytelling while The Oak offers amore anxious, ultimately tragic portrait. Price’s best-known work is the Suite of Dances–originally for piano it is heard here in the composer’s full, sumptuous orchestration.

REVIEW:

The rediscovery of Florence Price’s music has revealed one of the most significant bodies of work by an African American composer in the 20th century. The variety of genres represented on this release place Price’s immense artistic imagination on full display. The two Concert Overtures explore her engagement with spirituals, both episodically and coloristically, in music that embraces the somber, the poignant, and the ebullient. Songs of the Oak is a tour de force of Hollywood-influenced storytelling while The Oak offers a more anxious, ultimately tragic portrait. Price’s best-known work is the Suite of Dances — originally for piano, it is heard here in the composer’s full, sumptuous orchestration.

-- WFMT 98.7FM Chicago, IL (Lisa Flynn)