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.

Richard Strauss’s Josephs Legende is a ballet in one act composed for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1914. Fabrice Bollon conducts the Staatskapelle Halle in a work of alluring sensuality and soaring themes.

REVIEW:

All in all, the result is a thoroughly suggestive interpretation, which of course cannot completely take over the scenic element. Nevertheless, the dramaturgical contours are beautifully worked out, and everything leads up to the apotheosis, when Joseph and the Archangel disappear into other spheres. Once again, Fabrice Bollon allows the Staatskapelle Halle to make full use of its potential and to immerse itself in the story, which is not always the case in the tutti passages, which sound somewhat distant – perhaps in order to avoid any pathos. Nevertheless, this remains a rewarding recording of Richard Strauss’ first ballet score.

-- Pizzicato

"Merit[s] hearty recommendation." -- Textura

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

Naxos’s exploration of the works of Florence Price continues with this album of music for string quartet. Price and Leo Sowerby were contemporaries in the Chicago music community of the 1930s and 1940s, and they are known to have respected each other’s works. Sowerby’s String Quartet in G minor is a world premiere recording. Performed by the Avalon String Quartet – one of America’s leading chamber music ensembles.

Franz Hauk has spearheaded the rediscovery of Johann Simon Mayr work’s during the last two decades. This latest premiere recording presents the substantial Messa solenne in D minor which sets the full ordinary. The Simon Mayr Chorus and Concerto de Bassus are joined by a team of stellar soloists.

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.

Volume 61 of Naxos’s acclaimed Liszt Complete Piano Music edition features opera transcriptions from Les Huguenots, Il giuramento, Lohengrin and Jean de Nivelle. Performed by Martin Cousin, one of the most exceptional pianists of his generation.

César Guerra-Peixe was one of the most versatile Brazilian musicians of the 20th century, as well as one the leading composers associated with musical nationalism in Brazil, gaining a particular mastery of orchestration and creating his own inimitable sound through extensive work in radio, television, and cinema. This album presents three of his best-known compositions, all written in the early 1970s. Guerra-Peixe’s toe-tapping Symphonic Suites Nos. 1 and 2 can be heard on Naxos 8.573925, acclaimed by ClassicsToday.com as ‘absolutely world class.’

The Leopard is the latest opera by American composer Michael Dellaira. The libretto, by the distinguished poet J. D. McClatchy, is drawn from the 1958 novel written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Gerard Schwarz conducts the Frost Opera Theater, Chorus and Symphony Orchestra in this world premiere recording.

The guitar works on this album are by two towering figures of Catalan music – pianist Federico Mompou and cellist Gaspar Cassadó. Both shared a friendship with Andrés Segovia who inspired these pieces. Performed by Italian guitarist Eugenio Della Chiara.

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

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 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.

As a composer Czerny is best remembered for his pedagogical works. His Nocturnes are less known but they are sensitively shaped, small-scale Biedermeier compositions to savour. Performed by acclaimed pianist Roberte Mamou, the album also includes the premiere recording of Nocturne sentimental et brillant sur la Valse Alexandra.

Curated by pianist Ulrich Eisenloh, this series of Brahms songs has received widespread acclaim. As with Volume 4, this fifth instalment features soprano Alina Wunderlin and tenor Kieran Carrel, in a selection that contains one of Brahms’ best-loved songs, Minnelied.

Volume 9 of this series presents two substantial works. Bartók’s ambitious late-Romantic Piano Sonata, Op.19, BB 12, is an early work, heard in Goran Filipec’s performing edition, prepared from the manuscript. Zongoraiskola or ‘Piano Method’, was devised in collaboration with Sandor Reschofsky who contributed the exercises.