Daron Hagen is widely acclaimed as one of the most performed American composers today. The Art of Song draws on a wide range of literary sources – from the Bible, to tweets by Donald Trump. Co-commissioned and performed by members of Lyric Fest in Philadelphia, this is a world premiere recording.

Alexey Shor's music is regularly performed at some of the world's most prestigious concert halls. His popularity comes from a signature style that includes neo-Classical clarity with a strong emphasis on lyricism and traditional harmonies, as can be heard in his First Violin Concerto. The Second and Fifth Violin Concertos are works that explore a spectrum of emotions, from profound sadness and loss, to exhilarating and uplifting passions, both of which require high levels of virtuosity from both soloist and orchestra.

Memorable melodies and a descriptive sense of place mark out Alexey Shor's two concertos. The Cello Concerto juxtaposes styles across the epochs in pursuit of a unique 'musical pilgrimage', while in the Violin Concerto No. 3 his focus is on 'seasonal' Manhattan, as he adds a contemporary vision to the historical precedents set by Vivaldi and Piazzolla. Phoenix is a rhapsodic fantasy, lyrical and full of variation, which evokes a sense of renewal and transformation, while Schubertango offers a celebration of playful contrasts.

This album presents eight of the most recent works by Peter Boyer, one of the leading American orchestral composers of his generation. Balance of Power was commissioned for the 95th birthday of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, while Fanfare for Tomorrow was composed for the inauguration of President Joe Biden in 2021. Each of these pieces displays Boyer’s vivid soundscapes and tuneful American sensibilities, from the cinematic sweep of Rolling River to Radiance, composed especially for this album. Boyer’s GRAMMY-nominated Ellis Island: The Dream of America (8.559246) has received over 250 performances and was televised by PBS.

REVIEW:

Boyer's description of [the London Symphony Orchestra] as “one of the world's greatest orchestras” isn't hyperbolic but rather accurate. It shouldn't be overlooked either that as conductor he was directly responsible for coaxing from the ensemble the inspired performances the recording features.

The fourth album by Boyer (b. 1970) and his third in the Naxos American Classics Series presents eight works, six of them world premiere recordings. The tone is often celebratory, even triumphant, as exemplified by the stately Fanfare for Tomorrow, commissioned for President Biden's January 2021 inauguration; but melancholy is also present in affecting settings such as Rolling River (Sketches on “Shenandoah”) and, naturally, Elegy. As performed by the LSO, the material packs a visceral punch that ensures no listener's attention will drift as the music plays. The orchestral sweep one hears in John Williams' music finds its place in Boyer's too.

All of the material on Balance of Power is of recent vintage, the earliest work dating back to 2014 but most from the last two to three years. It opens rousingly with the aptly titled Curtain Raiser, as ear-catching and exuberant an overture as one could ask for. Boyer's gift for orchestration is immediately apparent, as is the effervescence of the LSO's execution. Strings, percussion, and horns combine for a dynamic, five-minute exercise in uplift, the result a thrilling start to the album.

The evidence at hand suggests Boyer's name might be mentioned in the same breath as those of Barber, Bernstein, Ives, Adams, and especially Copland. Like them, he writes works that have popular appeal and engage with immediacy. They're also, however, impeccably crafted and in no way lacking in integrity. Boyer isn't calculating: while he's one of the most frequently performed American orchestral composers of our time (his Grammy-nominated Ellis Island: The Dream of America is now one of the most-performed American orchestral pieces), his writing is sincere, honest, and authentic[.]

--Textura

This is the first of two volumes of George Walker’s complete piano works, both featuring performances by Alexandre Dossin. The three sonatas heard here offer compelling contrasts. Sonata No. 1 (rev. 1991) is his longest and utilises folk tunes, No. 2 is darker and unified by tonal relationships, while No. 3 (rev. 1996) displays contrapuntal mastery and translucent elements. The album opens with the serene and majestic Prelude and Caprice, while both Spatials and Spektra are atonal. Bauble is heard in a world premiere recording.

REVIEW:

Judging by the compositions on this album, his piano music is communicative, colorful, expressive and, above all, characteristic. As a student of Rudolf Serkin, he was himself an outstanding pianist with an impressive career in Europe and the United States. This may have been conducive to his talent as a composer. 

Pianist Alexandre Dossin shows himself to be an accomplished interpreter, making Walker’s tonal language his own with his flexible and sensitive playing.

-- Pizzicato

A native of Ukraine, Alexey Shor now lives and works in New York. His music has received prestigious performances and recordings in collaboration with leading international musicians. Joining a long tradition of music inspired by literary sources, From My Bookshelf is a series of musical character portraits that range from the tortured soul of Quasimodo to the dashing D'Artagnan, with plenty of fantasy and romance in between. The engaging and virtuoso Flute Concerto No. 1 combines traditional Classical forms with unexpected harmonic language and intricate rhythmic vitality.

Alexey Shor was born in Ukraine but now lives in New York pursuing a distinguished career filled with prestigious performances and recordings in collaboration with leading international musicians. Childhood Memories traces a path from early childhood to adolescence in a nostalgic reflection on youth, while Verdiana is a musical tribute to Giuseppe Verdi that reworks his famous melodies into Latin dance styles including samba, bossa nova and tango. Both of these works feature Shor's trademark of melodic clarity and emotional depth.

Learn more about this release on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

Duo Duel, a concerto for 2 percussion and orchestra, is dedicated to the two percussionists who inspired it, Svet Stoyanov and Matthew Strauss. The work is in one continuous movement, but the pacing of the individual sections is: slow, fast, slow, fast-cadenza (one of the fastest cadenzas ever written for percussionists), fast (with dueling timpani).

The soloists sometimes play together, and sometimes they “duel” their way through the music. There is some seriously high-speed playing in this concerto, so don’t blink – you might miss something!

The Concerto for Orchestra is truly a concerto in that it requires virtuosity from the principal players, the individual sections and the entire orchestra. The first movement was the last to be composed. It took writing the other four movements to create a clear picture of what was needed to start this virtuosic tour-de-force. The second movement was written next, inspired by the string sound of The Philadelphia Orchestra. The third movement was written first, and it is this movement that allows each principal player a solo, before moving into section solos. The fourth movement is a tribute to rhythm, and the percussion section of the orchestra. The fifth movement, which begins with the entrance of the violins, highlights the entire orchestra.

"Heiko Quinto" is the sixth album release on Naxos by the award-winning composer Daron Hagen. Composed for Duo YUMENO, the piece is based on the Japanese medieval text "The Tale of the Heike." Scored for Japanese koto, cello, and two voices, the work presents a compelling and expressive narrative. World premiere recording.

Anton Bruckner 200 (1824-2024)

Released to coincide with Bruckner's 200th birthday in 2024, this 18-CD set brings together the entire recorded cycle of Bruckner's symphonies in the Capriccio label's The Complete Versions Edition. Markus Poschner's acclaimed recordings of Bruckner's symphonies feature all of the versions identified as having significant revisions and changes in the authoritative Neue Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe (New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition), making this the most comprehensive Bruckner Symphonies cycle available today.

Travel Notebook, Suite for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 by Ukrainian composer Alexey Shor is cast in a neo-Classical vein. It offers personal impressions of places he has visited, with music that is harmonically traditional and melodic. Violin Concerto No. 4, composed during the Covid pandemic, is a restless, passionate and romantic work, displaying Shor's trademark lyricism. Both works are heard in the composer's versions with string orchestra.

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.

The third volume in this acclaimed series features a selection of more highly original compositions from Luxembourg performed by Christoph Konig and his Solistes Europeens forces. All of the pieces are world premiere recordings.

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.

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.

Paul Reale is best known as an esteemed educator but his composing career blossomed in the latter part of his career. The three works on this album – the Cello Concerto “Live Free or Die”, Piano Concerto No. 1 and Piano Sonata No. 6 ‘The Waste Land’ – all display Reale’s signature use of expressive melody, Baroque counterpoint, references to many types of jazz, and extensions of tonality. World premiere recordings.

This album represents part of Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony's mission to expand the contemporary American concerto repertoire, with each of these three works spotlighting a different facet of the relatively underexplored brass instrument family. Brad Warnaar's Cornet Concerto draws on a rich heritage of 19th-century band music with wit and heartfelt homage, while Chick Corea's Trombone Concerto, his final completed composition, fuses lyricism, jazz spontaneity, and orchestral drama. Jennifer Higdon's Low Brass Concerto honors the spirit of this orchestral section through a majestic single-movement work of clarity and resonance. All of these pieces expand the expressive possibilities of the brass concerto in ways that are both surprising and deeply engaging.

Italian piccolo virtuoso, Francesco Viola, presents this highly personal album of concertos for his instrument by Eastern European composers. Baksa’s Grande concerto piccolo and Viola’s arrangement for piccolo of Hida’s Oboe Concerto are both world premiere recordings. Viola is accompanied by the Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim conducted by Salvatore Percacciolo.

All World Premiere Recordings!

Featured in the New York Times' "5 Classical Albums You Can Listen to Right Now"

William Grant Still, the “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” was part of the Harlem Renaissance and wrote nearly 200 works including nine operas and five symphonies. Still’s many awards included three Guggenheim Fellowships and eight honorary doctorates. His work combines Classical forms with jazz and blues idioms and was inspired by the rich tradition of African American spirituals. Still hoped that his music would serve a larger purpose of interracial understanding, and this joyous, moving and hauntingly beautiful program –featuring all world premiere recordings – is infused with Still’s love of God, country, heritage, and even his mischievous dog Shep.

REVIEW:

William Grant Still's music evokes the melting pot that makes up the American experience, incorporating sounds and textures from many genres, including blues, African-American spirituals, French impressionism, and more.

The three movements of the Violin Suite of 1943 fall in the traditional fast-slow-fast format, but the styles of each vary dramatically, with the second movement, "Mother and Child," a beautiful, passionate lullaby bordered by two dance movements. The final work, Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius, was commissioned for a celebration concert marking the composer's 100th birthday. This work displays Still's adaptability, infusing aspects of the Romantic symphonic sound with mid-20th century modern American.

--Allmusic.com (Keith Finke)

All the items on this program are world premiere recordings, so I think it would not be amiss if some information were to be forwarded for the benefit of all those interested in this very special music.

Can’t You Line ‘Em (1940) captures the rhythm and spirit of the construction gangs, particularly those lining up railroad tracks. A CBS commission, this piece was premiered on 17 February 1940 with the CBS Radio Orchestra on their network program American School of the Air.

Originally composed as the second movement of three Visions for solo piano, Summerland (1936) is Still’s delicate description of the serenity and purity of Heaven.

Another work originally written for solo piano, Quit Dat Foolnish (1935) conjures up a jazzy romp with the composer’s mischievous dog, Shep. Still also wrote a version for solo saxophone and orchestra, transposed for this recording by Dana Paul Perna.

Pastorela (1946) is a tone picture of a Californian landscape, peaceful but exciting, arousing feelings of languor in some of its aspects, and of animation in others, presenting an overall effect of unity in its variety.

American Suite (circa 1918) is the composer’s first symphonic work. Still sent the parts of the American Suite to Chicago Symphony conductor Frederick Stock. In 1998, Still’s daughter Judith Anne shared the orchestral parts with Dana Paul Perna, who created the present score.

Fanfare for the 99th Fighter Squadron (1945), which resonates with pride, courage, and patriotic resolve, was composed in honor of the Tuskegee airmen who during WWII gave everything for the cause of peace and justice. This work was premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on 22 July 1945 in commemoration of the end of war and the valiant service of those Airmen.

Serenade (1957) was originally intended as material for a cello concerto proposed by Still’s friend, the famous cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Instead, it became a commission by the Great Falls, Montana High School Orchestra, with its lush cello writing hinting at its conception.

The Violin Suite (1943) is a musical impression of three works of art. African Dancer is a stunning bronze statue by Richmond Barthe (1901-1989). Mother and Child is a poignant colored lithograph by Sargent Johnson (1888-1967). Gamin is a sassy bronze bust by Auguste Savage (1892-1962). These works were featured in The Negro in Art, a book published in 1940 by Still’s friend and champion Alain Locke (1885-1954). The book so impressed Edith Halpert (1900-1970), a Russian-Jewish refugee, visionary and art promoter, that she contacted Locke to promote an exhibition in her Downtown Gallery in New York. The exhibition opened on 8 December 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but despite the deep sadness that engulfed American society, this first major commercial showing of African American art in New York was a great success. Still rose to the occasion and translated the artists’ imagination into music full of verve, tenderness and very often charm.

The beautiful Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius (1965) was commissioned for a concert in memory of Finland’s national hero, composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. Still’s tribute is a noble and haunting farewell, channeling the spirit and mystique of Sibelius the man and the composer.

This is a marvelously exciting hour of music by a composer of substance whose recorded catalog is still only average. Hopefully, Naxos’s advocacy for Still’s oeuvre will induce more labels and listeners to turn to this uplifting repertoire which is as moving as it is entertaining. Do not remain still to Still’s sound world. You will be missing an experience and you might come to regret that. A peach of an issue, superbly performed, recorded and annotated.

--Classical Music Daily (Gerald Fenech)

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’.

Korean Tapestry

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).

The rich variety of colors and rhythms in South American culture and music are an essential feature of this program for concert flute and piano, which focuses largely on music by composers from the Ecuadorian Andes. Opening with Durán’s popular and crowd-pleasing Leyenda incásica, the theme of Ecuadorian dances continues in Jacinto Freire’s Suite, which also celebrates the flight of the condor. Virtuosity, evocations of landscape and expressive traditional songs can all be found here, concluding with Mexican composer Samuel Zyman’s internationally acclaimed Flute Sonata No. 1, which ranges from lyrical introspection to intensely contrapuntal dialogue.

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)

Takashi Yoshimatsu's wide-ranging musical influences often combine jazz and rock elements with classical, folk and world music. This album focuses on a unique series of three solo piano works for the left hand, inspired by his great friend Izumi Tateno. These lyric and beautiful miniatures are saturated in nature and birdsong, as can be heard in the evocative Tapiola Visions and in the seven bouquets that form Ainola Lyrical Ballads which are dedicated to Sibelius. In Gauche Dances, we hear a sequence that includes the tango and boogie woogie, displaying how eagerly and ebulliently Yoshimatsu breaks boundaries.

Part of the British Music Society series, this work presents Grace Williams’ songs and folk-song arrangements in world premiere recordings. The acclaimed Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams is accompanied by the Australian pianist and composer Wendy Hiscocks.

Like alchemists of old, attempting to recombine the four elements, here Fábio Brum presents four distinct musical languages in a program forged during lockdown. Gabriele Roberto’s Tokyo Suite charts the astonishment of a traveler dazzled by the vast megapolis, whereas Dimitri Cervo’s The Brazilian Four Seasons offers a colorful, energetic panorama of the natural and human worlds. Fábio Brum’s very personal musical journey is highlighted by the contrast between the Talmudic contemplation of Menachem Zur’s De Profundis and the abstract ruminations of Nicola Tescari’s Trumpet Concerto ‘Nine Moods.’

The trumpet has had many concertos written for it by composers from the Soviet era and beyond. Appealing in its unabashed melodies and colorfully nostalgic feel, Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto became popular in the West, while Weinberg’s emotive Trumpet Concerto in B flat major was summed up by Shostakovich as a ‘symphony for trumpet and orchestra’. Shostakovich’s own playful Concerto No.1, Op. 35 is recorded here with Timofei Dokschizer’s extended trumpet part, bringing it closer to the Baroque ‘double concerto’ model that the composer may initially have intended.

During the last decade of the 19th century a generation of central European composers emerged that was to exert a powerful influence on the current of contemporary music. Yet, for the most part, their works for flute remain little known and a number of pieces included in this album are world premieres. Kornauth, Weigl, Mittler and Petyrek were tied to Vienna’s cultural milieu, while others such as Harsányi, Mihalovici and Martinů gravitated to Paris. Prague-born Karel Jirák’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op. 32 a is without doubt an important addition to the recorded catalogue of flute music.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis was Lithuania’s leading composer at the turn of the 20th century as well as an internationally admired artist. The piano scores from which these pieces are transcribed are Romantic in expression, influenced by the beauty of his country’s landscape and its folklore. With this selection of works, Joana Daunytė has expanded the repertoire of Lithuanian harp works, presenting a new perspective on the music’s national flavor. Joana Daunytė is a distinguished harpist performing solo and chamber music. A prizewinner at several international competitions, she has performed in Europe, Russia and the US. She has been recognized for her achievements in music by Valdas Adamkus and Dalia Grybauskaitė, former presidents of Lithuania, and by the government of Lithuania.