Schubert composed his three sublimely alluring Sonatas for Violin and Piano in the spring of 1816, though they had to wait until 1836 for posthumous publication by Diabelli, who re-named them ‘sonatinas’. With their sometimes subordinate role for the violin and deceptively uncomplicated style, these pieces sidestep the influence of Beethoven and return more to the world of Mozart’s later violin sonatas, particularly with the Sonata D 384. The minor-key works develop Schubert’s gift for drama and vocal melody further, including hints of his famous song Erlkönig from the previous year.

Hatzis: Departures - Overscript

Renowned for his outstanding piano miniatures and solo songs, John Ireland is little known these days as a composer of partsongs. His deep understanding of choral forces brings a unique polish and artistry to the genre, his early style reflecting a deference to his masters Parry and Stanford, and deeply moving post-war masterpieces such as Twilight Night exploiting a more acerbic harmonic vocabulary. E.J. Moeran's inclination towards introspective melancholy blends with his knowledge of Elizabethan madrigal and renaissance dance, resulting in true gems on themes of love such as While She Lies Sleeping.

Tchaikovsky wrote music for the piano throughout his life. The flamboyant and witty Scherzo a la russe is dedicated to the virtuoso pianist Nikolay Rubinstein, but more often his piano pieces evoke a sense of nostalgia and longing, with even the dances of the Trois morceaux rich in minor key sensitivities. The remarkably varied and resourceful Six Pieces Op. 2 were dedicated to his former teacher Anton Rubinstein. Laureate of numerous awards, Andrey Yaroshinsky was also 1st prize winner at the 2011 Gabala International Competition.

Anthony Burgess, celebrated author of A Clockwork Orange, memorably filmed by Stanley Kubrich, once said, “I wish people would think of me as a musician who writes novels, instead of a novelist who writes music on the side.” Initially thwarted in his desire for a professional musical career, Burgess returned to composition in the mid-1970s, writing prolifically in many genres. His music is mostly tonal but sometimes dissonant, a hybrid of Holst and Hindemith. Mr. W.S. is an imaginative evocation of the Elizabethan era while Mr. Burgess’s Almanack is a variegated work of ingenuity and charm with a nob towards modernism. This is the first recording of Burgess’s orchestral music.

Both La Mer by Debussy and The Rite of Spring by his friend Stravinsky are now regarded as two of the most influential pieces of the twentieth century, although these achievements were accomplished in entirely different ways. The notoriously difficult solo piano re-arrangement of Stravinsky’s own piano duet version of The Rite of Spring by the Russian pianist Vladimir Leyetchkiss (1934-2016) met with the composer’s approval. The solo piano version of La Mer by Lucien Garban (1877-1959) reinterprets the work from the perspective of Debussy’s piano output, taking works such as Images, from the same period, as a model.

Musical transcription has a long and auspicious history, and Michele Mangani’s arrangements follow a tradition of recreating popular operatic tunes for small groups of oboes, clarinets, flutes and horns, supplemented on this recording by double bass. These works span some 77 years of Italian opera, from Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri to Puccini’s Tosca, taking in the verismo of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and the bel canto tragedy of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor on the way.

While the German tradition observes a strict distinction between sacred and secular styles, the 19th-century Italian Mass can feel more akin to attending an operatic performance. Donizetti's church music, consisting of at least a hundred items, has hardly been explored. Individual movements were often later recycled by the composer, in cantata-like fashion to form a complete Mass and it is this ad hoc technique that Franz Hauk has used to create a new work, the Messa di Gloria and Credo in D. This includes an expansive Qui sedes with its violin solo written for the famous violinist-composer Pietro Rovelli, and is completed with movements by Johann simon Mayr from whom Donizetti learned his compositional craft in settings of sacred texts.

A contemporary of Beethoven, Antoine de Lhoyer was a French royalist and professional soldier who was considered "the best guitar player in Europe", and whose complicated life story took him from anti-Revolutionary campaigns to a high position at the court in St. Petersburg. This collection brings together his elegant and virtuosic chamber works for three and four guitars, characterised by free dialogue between the instruments in music both dashingly brilliant and dreamily lyrical. The Air varie et dialogue can claim to be the earliest guitar quartet in the repertory.

Fikret Amirov is one of Azerbaijan’s best-known 20th-century composers in the classical tradition, and the inventor of the ‘symphonic mugam’ based on traditional folk melodies (as can be heard on Naxos 8.572170). Symphony ‘To the Memory of Nizami’ reflects the character of the celebrated and influential Muslim poet and philosopher Nizami, who was born in the ancient city of Ganga in Azerbaijan. Amirov’s skill in evoking fantastic worlds is heard in a suite derived from the ballet One Thousand and One Nights, in which this famous narrative about the seductive and perilous Orient resolves from a cinematic chase into a memorable love scene and final triumphant celebrations. GRAMMY Award-nominated cellist/conductor Dmitry Yablonsky has made numerous highly successful recordings for Naxos, and his connection with Azerbaijani music reinforced with releases such as Piano Concertos (8.572666) that are ‘Romantic treasures that reward repeated listening’. (MusicWeb International)

Although Australian by birth, Alfred Hill spent much of his youth in New Zealand before embarking on studies in Leipzig, where he met Brahms, Dvořák and Tchaikovsky. + A prolific symphonist and operatic composer, he also wrote a sequence of seventeen notable string quartets. + His style evolved constantly, the influence of Dvořák leading on to the impressionism of his mid-period. + By the time of the String Quartets Nos. 12 to 14 his mastery of technique – in his younger days he had played in a prominent string quartet – ensure that the music is balanced, subtle, and full of playful wit. + This is the fifth of six volumes of the complete Alfred Hill String Quartets.

When the 21 year old Rimsky-Korsakov’s Symphony No.1 in E minor was premièred in December 1865 it was hailed in some quarters as the first truly Russian symphony. The leader of ‘The Five’, Balakirev, favoured the use of eastern themes in the search for a personal symphonic path for national music and Rimsky seemed to signal an alternative to the German-influenced music of Anton Rubinstein. He completed Symphony No.3 in C major in 1874. Again it was cast in a thoroughly Russian manner, full of vivacious romanticism and revealing significant technical advances on the earlier work.

In 2014 Ekachai Jearakul became the first Asian guitarist to win the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition (GFA). Winner of numerous awards and an international artist, he has selected a recital that takes the listener on a journey from the baroque beauties of Weiss through nineteenth-century classics by Mertz and Legnani, concluding with three modern compositions influenced by jazz.

The brothers Eduardo and Regino Sainz de la Maza made significant contributions to the great lineage of Spanish guitar music in the 20th century. This selection of Eduardo's music reflects his technical and expressive breadth, whether in the magical tremolo study Campanas del alba ('The Bells of Dawn') or in the series of romantic and virtuosic homages paid to Haydn, Toulouse- Lautrec and his own instrument, the guitar. Platero y yo (Platero and I), a sequence of eight pieces narrating the activities of the donkey Platero, celebrates the beauty of nature, irradiated by glorious color, and is one of his greatest masterpieces.

A central element in Liszt's life was his religious conviction. Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, one of his most famous religious works, was inspired by the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine. Excerpts featured on Vol. 3 of this series were critically acclaimed. Vol. 53 presents the 1847 cycle in it's first version; one that follows the poetic works that inspired it more closely than the more frequently performed and recorded later version. Wojciech Waleczek is recognized internationally as a pianist with uncompromisingly high standards in performance. The artist, born in 1980, has been pursuing a robust concert career playing as soloist with symphonic orchestras, solo piano recitals and chamber music concerts in the 27 countries of Europe as well as in Kazachstan, Jordan, Tunesia, Palestina, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Guyana, Suriname, Canada and the USA.