The fourteen works for piano and orchestra of Ferdinand Ries stand alongside those of Hummel as the finest and most important of their kind from the early decades of the 19th century. Intensely lyrical and yet displaying at times a rugged Beethovenian grandeur, Ries’s eight concertos are works of impressive musical stature. In this fifth and final recording we encounter the first and last of his published concertos and the virtuosic Rondeau brillant, Op. 144. “Sparkling performances... the recording is first rate.” (Penguin Guide on Vol. 3, 8.570440).

This recording of virtuoso cello repertoire ranges from the work of the Mannheim cellist and composer, Franz Danzi to the British composer Buxton Orr' Carmen Fantasy, the cellist' answer to Franz Waxman' famous violin fantasy. Orr' work opens, unusually.

A gifted musician, writer and watercolourist, Hugo Alfven is regarded in his native Sweden as the most significant composer after Berwald. The Fifth Symphony occupied Alfven throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and draws on themes from his ambitious 1923 ballet.

This first volume of the complete Lieder by Hans Pfitzner spans almost his entire compositional life, focussing on songs for high voice written from about 1884 to 1923. Though often considered a late-Romantic, Pfitzner moved through successive periods of stylistic change and remains one of the most representative German composers of his time. Alte Weisen (Ancient Airs) is a concise yet highly varied song cycle, whilst the earlier Lieder are strongly characterised settings of some powerfully expressive texts.

Intimately bound up with the Lutheran tradition, Bach's sacred cantatas are among his greatest, most heart-felt and life-affirming works. Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, with it's repeated use of the metaphor of life as a voyage over troubled waters.

VIRTUOSO TIMPANI CONCERTOS Composer(s): Georg Druschetzky; Johann Carl Christian Fischer; Christoph Graupner; Johann Melchior Molter; Andr� Danican Philidor; Jacques Philidor Artist(s): Dresden Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra; Alexander Peter

YUN: Chamber Symphony I / Tapis / Gong-Hu

Paganini: Guitar Music

It is only in the last few years, largely as a result of the pioneering performances of the Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble conducted by Franz Hauk, that Mayr has come to be valued as one of the most significant composers of operatic and sacred music of his time. Il sagrifizio di Jefte (The Sacrifice of Jephtha), first performed in 1795, is a dramatic oratorio with a wealth of variety in both the vocal and instrumental writing, which foreshadows the operas to come.

Vivaldi was not the only composer to write a universally popular Four Seasons. Composed directly after The Creation (Naxos 8557380-81), Haydn's oratorio The Seasons features three peasant soloists who sing of the joys, trials and tribulations of country life throughout the year, complete with a chorus of villagers. Haydn's genius transforms many genre scenes - a summer storm, hunting episodes, daybreak, the gloomy winter fog and peasant dances - into something truly spectacular, joyous and life-affirming, in keeping with his deeply held religious conviction. Morten Schuldt-Jensen and the Gewandhaus chamber choir join forces again for this their second Naxos release.

The Unfinished is glorious music and this performance is moving and affectionate. The first movement is both dramatic and mysterious and the exposition repeat is given here, thank goodness. The Andante con moto flows nicely - definitely con moto - with good contributions from the solo clarinet, flute and oboe. Ensemble, judged by the highest standards, isn't immaculate. Halasz clearly loves Schubert and that shines through.

Composer and pianist Francis Pott is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. His dramatic and emotionally challenging music unites a distinctive personal voice with a versatile technique rooted in a keen awareness of the past.

Olivier Messiaen's uniquely distinctive and powerfully expressive musical voice drew strength from religious faith and nature. A prestigious commission, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum commemorates the dead of two World Wars through the transcendence of Christ's Resurrection. Scored for winds and percussion, the work is conceived for and conjures up vast spaces. Le tombeau resplendissant and Hymne are early works, but equally filled with mystery and symbolism. Fanfare magazine described Jun Me�rkl's previous volume in this series (Poemes pour Mi / 8.572174) as "the best recording around of a mesmerizing masterwork". Offspring of the Societe des Grands Concerts de Lyon, founded in 1905, the Orchestre National de Lyon became a permanent orchestra with 102 musicians in 1969, with Louis Fremaux as it's first musical director. Taking over from Louis Fremaux in 1971, Serge Baudo was in charge of the orchestra until 1986 and made it a musical force to be reckoned with far beyond it's home region. Jun Me�rkl was Music Director of the orchestra from 2005 to 2011.

The Suite symphonique, Op. 29, 'La nuit et le fou' (Night and the Fool) was written in Paris in 1982. Like the Image symphonique, 'La nuit et le fou' was inspired by a poem of Khalil Gibran. The two movements are strongly unified by the use of related thematic material. Remarkable in it's concision, the opening Lento soon exploits the impressionistic touches of the woodwind, a lyrical clarinet theme, a frenzied rhythmic idea, evoking, in a way, Messiaen, and later a solemn brass chorale. The Misterioso starts atonally. Here the clarinet theme from the first movement permeates the whole piece in various guises. The tense atmosphere is barely illuminated towards the end by a long phrase from the upper strings, which marks, through it's diatonic character, a serener contrast. The end of the work is starker in character. The Po�me symphonique No. 1, Op. 14, composed in Beirut in July 1980, with the subtitle Le Liban en flammes (Lebanon in Flames), is inspired by a poem by El-Khoury, written in the middle of the war, in 1976. It is the first panel of the triptych devoted to the dramatic events of the war in Lebanon. * The work reflects the composer's feelings of suffering as an individual facing the human folly that war and destruction brings. Centred on the tonality of C minor, the traditional key of dramatic expression, it unfolds in free form, in paragraphs broadly developed, and exhibits contrasted feelings stamped with sadness, revolt, melancholy and tenderness. The work makes use of themes decorated with melismas in oriental style and dance rhythms that are as it were evocations in the present of a past that has gone for ever. The Po�me for Orchestra, Op. 2, with the subtitle Le Regard du Christ, composed in Paris in 1979, at the age of 22 and dedicated to his parents, is the earliest orchestral work kept by the composer as part of his official catalogue of compositions. In this work El- Khoury wants to translate something of the mystical inspiration suggested by the look of Christ over life here below. Written in the dark tonality of B minor, this score already shows the characteristics of later works, glittering orchestration, and free form based on expressively contrasting episodes.

Organ music holds a special affection for leading UK composer Judith Bingham, and the repertoire in this programme reflects a cross-section of her themes and work both recently composed and newly arranged.