Includes work(s) by Sir John Tavener (Composer), Gerald Finzi. Ensemble: St. John's College Choir, Cambridge. Conductor: Christopher Robinson.
Includes work(s) for choir by Herbert Howells, Sir Edward Elgar. Ensemble: St. John's College Choir, Cambridge. Conductor: Christopher Robinson.
Includes work(s) for chorus by various composers. Ensemble: St. John's College Choir, Cambridge. Conductor: Christopher Robinson.

The driving energy of Turkish/American composer Kamran Ince' Hot, Red, Cold, Vibrant recalls the motoric rhythms of John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine with some unexpected jolts added.

Impassioned and incisive performances of two of Chausson’s chamber masterworks.

Chausson did not commit himself to a musical career until he was twenty-six years old. The first fruits of that resolution were the fine songs of Op.2 and the Piano Trio Op.3. While the latter work possesses definite structural immaturities and is occasionally melodramatic, it also shows that the composer’s melodic gift and surpassing sense of thematic development were in evidence right from the beginning.

The introduction to Chausson’s Piano Trio is based on two themes that reappear throughout the work, generating other themes and insuring thematic unity. The stormy, almost morose, first movement proper demonstrates the composer’s already distinctive voice, especially in the development. The scherzo second movement has none of the drama of the first, being a rollicking and affectionate parody of the styles of some of the composer’s contemporaries. The massive slow movement starts out in a mood similar to that of the first, but becomes even more elegiac and wistful. The emotional level occasionally becomes strident, but the composer’s sincerity is unquestionable. The animé last movement starts off cheerfully, but themes from the first and third movements keep popping up, increasing the level of seriousness, and the movement ends quite austerely.

By 1889, almost a decade after the Piano Trio, Chausson had reached full artistic maturity. This is evident in the Concert, his best-known chamber work. The piece is not a concerto in the usual sense, but a sort of update of the concerto grosso, with the six instruments combining in different ways as well as playing all together. The first movement’s motto theme undergoes wonderful transformations in combination with a more lyrical second theme. The Sicilienne forms a gentle interlude between the weightier first and third movements, with the latter being something of a lament. The final movement continues the seriousness of its predecessor, but the overall feeling gr adually becomes one of tremendous vitality.

The Meadowmount Trio - their name derives from long-term residence at the music camp of that name - shows a of lot energy in their performance and Eric Larsen is especially to be commended for keeping things moving, although even he flags in the last movement. Larsen and the Meadowmount’s Stephen Shipps join the esteemed Wihan Quartet in the Concert and overall the six players form a cohesive unit, achieving quite a distinctive performance. Recording quality is fairly sumptuous by Naxos standards, although the violins are somewhat shrill. Altogether, a pair of moving and exciting performances.

-- William Kreindler, MusicWeb International

Eugene Z�dor was a remarkable colorist and orchestrator whose Hollywood film work was extensive. He described himself as a 'middle of the road extremist'. The Aria and Allegro is a beautifully crafted work brimming with rhythmic energy. Five Contrasts for Orchestra demonstrates his rich sound world at it's most vibrant; film noir jostling with a big-booted country dance. The lighter a Children's Symphony is one of his most popular pieces - communicative, witty, accessible. We also hear two small and captivating evocations of his native Hungary. Mariusz Smolij is a founding member of the Penderecki String Quartet, former artistic director of the Lutosawski Wrocaw Philharmonic and International Festival Wratislavia Cantans, Poland, and currently serves as Music Director of the Acadiana Symphony in Louisiana and Riverside Symphonia in New Jersey.

The viola, with it's plangent tone, subtle sonority and lyrical qualities, is often overshadowed by it's more brilliant-sounding sibling, the violin. An accomplished violist himself, Frank Bridge wrote little solo music for this instrument.

This album was nominated for the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
Recording information: Warsaw Philharmonic Hall (05/27/2003-06/03/2003).

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REVIEW:

Stylistically speaking, A Polish Requiem is remarkably coherent. Penderecki knows how to handle large choral-orchestral forces, and how to develop long paragraphs and build up to well-calculated climaxes, while drawing on a large stylistic palette. A Polish Requiem may not be without "longueurs", but it nevertheless contains many powerful moments that cannot fail to impress.

The present performance conducted by the ever-faithful Antoni Wit is as fine and assured as one may wish. He draws committed and convincing singing and playing from all concerned, to make the best of this substantial work.

– MusicWeb International

This may not be the most harrowing version of the Eighth, but of its type it's unquestionably a great performance. Often this symphony consists of hair-raising climaxes interspersed between acres of nothingness. Not here. This symphony also is one of Shostakovich's most formally masterly and imaginative, and this performance reminds us in the most compelling way. Petrenko's flowing tempos in the first movement and passacaglia keep the music moving, not lurching, forward at all times. The 25 minutes of the first movement seem to pass by in half that time. Its opening threnody in particular has even more expressive power than usual for being phrased in long melodic arcs that never turn static.

After an aptly gawky scherzo, the toccata is as brilliant and menacing as any (with a dashingly militant central section), but it's the finale that really sets the seal on this performance. The Eighth always is a tough piece to project convincingly, but Petrenko is at his absolute best here, pacing the music perfectly and timing the climax in such a way that (for once) it doesn't sound like a less impressive recapitulation of the first movement--and this isn't because its previous occurrence is underplayed in any way. Excellent playing from all departments of the orchestra plus vividly natural engineering complete what is easily the best installment of this ongoing cycle to date.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This album was nominated for the 2007 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (without Orchestra)."

Recording information: St John Chrysostom Church, Newmarket, Ontario, Canada (04/23/2009-04/26/2009).

Naxos' Takako Nishizaki Plays Suzuki Evergreens albums feature acclaimed violinist Takako Nishizaki who, as a child, studied with her father, Shinji, and with Shinichi Suzuki himself.

Astor Piazzolla' tangos, beloved around the world for their pathos, passion, longing and sensibility, are here given fresh interpretations in arrangements for piano by the Argentinean-born, Brussels-based pianist Aquiles Delle-Vigne.

It was not until his fifties that the fiercely independent Giorgio Federico Ghedini came to be acknowledged as one of the finest Italian composers of the 20th century. This first of Naxos' two-disc survey of Ghedini' complete piano music begins.

This dazzling collection of flute music demonstrates the powerful individualism of contemporary Greek composers. It ranges widely, from the dirge that incorporates folk material in Theodore Antoniou' Lament for Michelle.

Talk about rotten luck. Naxos has had these performances in the can for a couple of years, and have just released them, hot on the heels of Julia Fischer’s recent Tchaikovsky disc on Pentatone, containing exactly the same programme. The only difference is that Kaler plays Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d’un lieu cher in Glazunov’s orchestration, while Fischer plays the original version for violin and piano.

I fear that in all the excitement over Fischer’s album, Kaler’s will be ignored, and that would be incredibly unfair because this disc is excellent in every way. In fact, Kaler’s account points up the only deficiency in Fischer’s account: a lack of variety to her tone. Kaler's performance is full of contrasts, as he colours the violin line with subtle shading, yet maintains a lyrical virility throughout. It is clear that he has lived with this concerto under his fingertips for many years and that he still finds much to enjoy and inspire in the familiar turns of phrase. There is an artless facility to his playing of the big tunes as in the opening statement of the first movement or in the gorgeous Canzonetta, and a sweetness of tone that is quite disarming. As the violin writing gets busier, Kaler and the orchestra tend to pick up the pace quite significantly, yet the rapid passages are dispatched with effortless brilliance. Kaler's first movement cadenza has plenty of character, freedom and precision. Cadenzas apart, Yablonsky and his orchestra lend sympathetic support. This performance is not so much a full-blooded flood of romanticism as a blossoming account of elegance as well as brilliance. It also wears it war-horse status lightly, impressing itself upon the listener by virtue of its freshness and natural feeling. It is a tremendously satisfying account and one that bears rehearing.

Similar comments apply to the remaining pieces on this album. The quality of the music, both in terms of its inspiration and emotional content, makes this programme apt and it is hard to understand why it is not more common. The Sérénade mélancolique is quite a rarity, but it deserves to be far more popular. It was in fact Tchaikovsky's first piece for solo violin, written to a commission from the great Leopold Auer. The violin's part is so full of longing and achingly beautiful that it is almost a vocalise. There are striking effects of orchestration too, with some magical woodwind interplay underpinning the sighing of the violin.

The Souvenir is, if anything, even more engaging. The first of its three movements was initially intended as the second movement of the violin concerto, with the spakling scherzo and intimate melodie added later. The dark romanticism of Glazunov's orchestration is entirely idiomatic and Kaler's playing is sweet toned and brightly coloured. The little Valse-Scherzo that closes the disc makes an excellent encore and Kaler plays it with gusto.

Microphone placement favours Kaler throughout, but this is generally not overly problematic except for the first movement of the Souvenir where Kaler's breathing is a little distracting. Keith Anderson's liner-notes are up to his usual high standard.

If you are in the market for a new recording of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto this year, have a listen to this one before just buying Fischer’s. You may find, as I did, that you want both.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

Naxos continues its championing of Hummel with a disc that regrettably also serves as an in memoriam to that fine British violinist Micaela Comberti, one of whose final recordings this must have been. She died at the early age of fifty-one.

We’ve come to admire Hummel’s concertante works recently and recordings of his choral music have opened up hitherto under-explored areas, greatly to our advantage. In fact it might be argued that we are now moving away from Hummel the virtuoso keyboard exponent, so beloved by pianists of the Golden Age, to a reflective transitional period in which his large-scale choral works are increasingly taking their place on the fringes of the canon. And not before time.

Which is not to overlook the reams of chamber music that he wrote throughout his life, and which is the raison d’être of this new release. Hummel was a gloriously fluent composer but that very articulacy could sometimes lead to a preponderance of note-spinning, repetition and a surfeit of what one might call concertante bluffness. That’s certainly the case here but only from time to time.

The Piano Quartet was published posthumously in 1839 and is cast in two movements. There is some languorous phraseology in the opening Andante cantabile, even if the fortepiano does sound rather recessed in this recording spectrum but there’s a concerto-sized Allegro to contrast with it. The string players provide the cushion – and the tuttis – for the sturdily striding piano part – all very attractive if not especially distinctive. The much earlier G major Piano Trio is a suavely laid out three-movement work that reveals Hummel’s consummate professionalism. The over-long opening movement is followed by a Minuet, with plenty of gusto in this performance as Susan Alexander-Max detonates some left-hand fortepiano fillips amidst a certain amount of trenchancy. The Rondo finale is light-hearted with a sparkling piano part - naturally, as Hummel was a leading virtuoso on the instrument - a sliver of a fugato, and a certain Beethovenian feel to some of the piano writing.

In 1826 Hummel completed a Cello Sonata, a big work, romantic, spacious and immediately attractive. The piano part has a touching nobility of expression, but also a welcome incision, one that here tends very occasionally to over-balance the more reticent cello in passagework. Again the material can be over-stretched but it hardly lacks for melodic interest, not least in the lied of the Romance, which possesses a suave beauty - the word ‘suave’ tends to rise unbidden when thinking of Hummel - but also a contrasting declamatory section. Easy-going, and full of strongly accented figures, Banda and Alexander-Max do well by the folk-like pages of the finale in particular, and they complete a successful traversal with a degree of panache.

The F major Trio is the earliest work here, dating from 1807, and reveals the powerful influence of Haydn. From the gemütlich opening, the unrolling fugal passages - which soon give up the ghost - and the variational second movement, this is very much in the Viennese tradition, solidly classical and topped by a fashionable - or maybe just past it - Turkish Rondo finale.

The sonorities evoked by the well-versed ensemble of baroque instrument practitioners are most attractive and add a certain tangy frisson. Sometimes the recording in Weston Parish Church loses a degree of focus and string instruments can be over-balanced by the fortepiano but this doesn’t happen too often. Spirited and lyrical, though not invariably convincing, this is another feather in the Naxos Hummel cap.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

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.

For more than two decades before he achieved fame and financial security as England' foremost composer, the young Edward Elgar earned a living as a violinist and violin teacher.

Joaquin Turina made an outstanding contribution to Spanish piano repertoire, along with Falla, Alb'niz, Granados and Mompou.

Dimitri Kabalevsky's First Piano Concerto owes a heck of a lot to Prokofiev's Second--so much so that at times you might think you are listening to that work. But Prokofiev is more formally imaginative, edgier, and more melodically distinctive, and that explains why this Kabalevsky work isn't well known. Every movement goes on a couple of minutes longer than it should--but that said, it's still very listenable and often quite appealing. Pianist In-Ju Bang certainly can't be faulted for any lack of color or character; she brings plenty of freshness and no lack of virtuosity to the part. But this is perhaps better appreciated in the shorter and more distinctive Second Piano Concerto. Here, Bang is at least as interesting as Kathryn Stott on Chandos (though the latter has the more interesting couplings and slightly better sonics). Dmitry Yablonsky and his sometimes hit-or-miss band are in very good form here, in music for which they have a clear affinity. Okay, the music may not be uniformly great, but it's very enjoyable, and so are the performances.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

With this disc, Naxos completes its survey of ballet scores by Sir Arthur Bliss (1891?1975). Previously released were Adam Zero, generously coupled with Bliss?s A Colour Symphony in performances by the English Northern Philharmonia under David Lloyd-Jones (8.553460), and Miracle in the Gorbals, coupled with music from the film Things to Come and Discourse for Orchestra, with Christopher Lyndon-Gee conducting the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (8.553698). In each case, Naxos presents, for the first time, the full ballet scores rather than suites. Much as I have enjoyed recordings of suites from all three ballets, the music is of such a quality, and so symphonic as well as dramatic in concept, that listening to the suites is rather like hearing an abridged Mahler First, or excerpts from Strauss?s Don Quixote: pleasant, but unsatisfactory. The Checkmate Suite recordings I own on CD?Vernon Handley and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on EMI (1978) and Handley again with the Ulster Orchestra on Chandos (1986)?are excellent as to performance and recording, but sadly incomplete. The suite is the same in both, consisting of six of the first seven numbers, but none of the next five, which include the longest and most dramatic movements in the score. Both conclude with an abbreviated version of the finale.


Checkmate tells a grim story, fantastic in conception: Love and Death play a game of chess, but the pieces are human, and not endowed with equal powers. The Black Queen is beautiful, evil, and powerful; neither the Red King nor his Queen can stand against her. The Red Knight can, but falls under the Black Queen?s enchantment long enough for her to slay him. Naxos provides excellent notes by Andrew Burn, so one can follow this drama to its tragic dénouement. Checkmate had its premiere in Paris in 1937; like the First Symphony of William Walton and the Fourth of Vaughan Williams, Bliss?s score seems especially appropriate to the times. The much shorter Mêlée fantasque (1921), while not exactly cheerful, seems by contrast a robustly optimistic piece, even while memorializing a deceased friend and collaborator, the painter Claude Lovat Fraser.


The Scottish Orchestra plays with its usual energy and brilliance, and the sound is vivid, colorful, and, where appropriate, seismic. What a pleasure, at last to hear the complete Checkmate!


FANFARE: Robert McColley

Although best known for his film music, William Alwyn composed five symphonies (among other concert works). Symphony No. 1 unsurprisingly marries symphonic form to an engaging dramatic narrative. The first movement's slow, quiet introduction is pregnant with anticipation of the conflict to come, while the moving Adagio features one of those irresistibly hummable movie-style tunes. And connoisseurs of classic film cannot help but conjure cinematic images as they listen to Alwyn's triumphant, brassy Allegro jubilante finale. But even without such associations, the First is a fine symphony in its own right.


The three-movement Symphony No. 3 is even more compelling. Alwyn states that he used a "new kind of 12-note system", but the resulting music is certainly not atonal. Indeed, much of it has a modal quality similar to Vaughan Williams--a similarity that extends to the music's formal plan, warlike character, and sometimes even the orchestration (the brass writing in the first movement, and the woodwind/string interplay of the finale's "scherzo" section)--all of which are reminiscent of that composer's Sixth Symphony. But Alwyn's own voice predominates, and the symphony is enjoyable for its powerfully argued rhetoric and taut thematic construction. Conductor David Lloyd-Jones certainly believes in this music, as he demonstrates in these winning performances with the excellent Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Naxos provides first-rate sound.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire played with a keen advocacy.

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire, played with a keen advocacy by soloist Henning Kraggerud and Dalasinfoniettan. Excepting the works of Ole Bull, the remaining pieces were composed between 1910 and 1930. However, none of this music embraces the radically dissonant sounds found in Austrian-Germanic music of this period. Anyone with a love of Holst and Vaughan Williams, Grieg and J.P.E. Hartmann will positively revel in this repertoire.

The CD opens with six modestly arranged Norwegian folksongs by Carl Olsen. The first movement begins with violin alone, played here with great sensitivity and refinement. Olsen ensure that even when the orchestra enters, the melody always stands out, keeping the harmonic writing fairly simple so that it compliments, rather than competes, with the melody. Throughout these songs, Kraggerud’s sound is burnished and rich, varying his vibrato to give greater shape and ardor to his phrasing, while the orchestra led by Bjarte Engeset, prove to be equally sensitive partners.

Atterberg’s Suite No. 3 was originally intended for a violin and viola soloist; this arrangement, for two violins, is its premiere recording. Both solo parts are played by Kraggerud, and while there is nothing to fault in his playing or in the engineer’s dubbing, I found myself resistant to this idea, as I would have liked to hear him interact with another player. Nevertheless, the playing is stunningly beautiful, the forlorn atmosphere of the first two movements gently dispelled by the final movement’s more uplifting waltz.

The Two Sentimental Romances very much reminded me of Vaughan Williams, in both their use of modes and constantly shifting textures. The first Romance, in A Major, is bright and inviting, a perfect evocation of a beautiful summer day, while the second F-minor Romance, marked Allegro patetico, brings greater intensity and a return to that forlorn atmosphere that many Nordic composers easily inhabit.

Ole Bull was considered the “Nordic Paganini”, well known not only for his great virtuosity but also his improvisational abilities. Memories of Havana was composed during Bull’s 1844 tour of Cuba. The score and solo part are lost, but a complete set of orchestral parts survives, so Kraggerud has reconstructed the solo part. The work’s structure is similar to Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies: several sections based on a national folk tune, connected by interlude material that is meant to give the listener (and performers) a break between moments of virtuosic writing. Mountain Vision features a tune by Bull that became incredibly popular in Norway, so much so that a text was written for the tune, called “The Herdgirl’s Sunday.” Similarly structured, the work includes not only includes Bull’s melody, but four other folk tunes. Both are performed with plenty of fire and beauty, without ever becoming over sentimentalized.

The final selections feature the music by the better known composers, Halvorsen, Sibelius and Sinding. Halvorsen’s Norwegian Dance No. 3, as the title suggests, is predominantly light-hearted and joyful in its outer sections, though the middle section features gentler, less rhythmic music that features a long-breathed, arching melody. Sibelius’s Six Humoresques express what the composer called “the sadness of living a life that was only occasionally illuminated by the sun”. These are performances of great sophistication and delicate beauty, more affecting that the rather heavy-handed treatment they receive in the Mutter/Staatskappelle/Previn 1996 DG recording.

Evening Mood clearly shows the influence of Sinding’s four years of study in Leipzig, featuring warmth of color that gently dispels the somewhat despondent mood of the previous Sibelius set, making for a satisfying hour plus of gorgeous music-making.

The recording itself is truly excellent, the soloist well integrated into the sound-picture. The engineers have fully captured the room’s warm ambience without any loss of clarity and there is a good front to back perspective. Notes are excellent and informative, but printed in a font size that might actually be in negative numbers. I look forward to more recordings from these performers.

David A. McConnell , MusicWeb International

This disc brings us three of Vaughan Williams?s finest song cycles, and the single song Linden Lea , and the combination is very satisfying. Vaughan Williams wrote some of the 20th century?s most beautiful and evocative songs, songs that sound like no other composer and that stay long in the memory after one gets to know them. Vaughan Williams had a keen ear for text-setting, and is one of the rare 20th-century composers whose music amplifies the poems he set without overwhelming them.


This is a lovely compilation, featuring some of the composer?s most effective works in this form. The performances are very good, without erasing the best competition from one?s mind. Roderick Williams is an intelligent and musical singer, with a pleasant light baritone voice. The tone is a bit throaty, but not offensively so, and he sings with a reasonably strong feel for dramatic inflection. There is no question that those who find this repertoire appealing will enjoy this disc, although Naxos could have helped improve that enjoyment by providing texts.


It is when we start comparing with the best competition that the limitations of these performances become clear. Benjamin Luxon?s richly colored and imaginatively inflected performances of the Songs of Travel and Poems by Fredegond Shove (Chandos CHAN 8475), Anthony Rolfe Johnson?s similarly effective recording of the Songs of Travel and The House of Life (EMI 75785) are both more satisfying recordings, not to mention Bryn Terfel?s remarkable reading of the Songs of Travel (DG 445 946), which is coupled with other English songs.


Still, if you own none of this repertoire and find this particular compilation an effective program, Williams and Burnside give good, solid performances that make clear the composer?s genius in this idiom.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel

Includes work(s) by Ferdinand Ries. Ensemble: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Uwe Grodd. Soloist: Christopher Hinterhuber.

This release champions two relatively unknown Neapolitan composers. Mario Pilati�s style was described by musicologist Gianandrea Gavazzeni as �southern Baroque, full of songlike whims and lively impulses�, and the rhythmically vital and deeply expressive Piano Quintet of 1927�28 is one of his most important early pieces. Pianist Aldo Ciccolini was one of Achille Longo�s favorite pupils as a child, and his close association with the healthily eclectic Quintet brings a special warmth to its rich timbres and joyously refined nuances. The Circolo Artistico Ensemble specializes in the revival of the unpublished work of Italian composers.

The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all of Schubert' Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him.

Despite the fact that new recordings of classical guitar music should be banned for the next several decades (if not centuries), there will always be exceptions. This is certainly one. Paganini wrote his 40-plus “whims” for a young lady guitarist. They consist of short vignettes, often based on music by famous operatic composers: Mozart and Rossini especially. They are delightful and wonderfully played here by Denis Sungho Janssens. The pieces make no apology for being simple and charming, and you can take them in small (or large) doses, as you please. The disc makes excellent background music but sustains the attention if that’s your pleasure. Indeed, pleasure is the entire point. Excellent engineering.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri was the most important Brazilian composer next to Villa-Lobos. Guarnieri’s piano music embodies his most distinctive stylistic features. One of his most beloved works, the Dança Negra shares folk-music inspiration with the Suite Mirim. The Ponteios are characterized by an enormous variety of Brazilian music styles and moods, and the Sonata can be seen as a summary of Guarnieri’s musical personality. Max Barros’s “unfaltering brio and a complete command of the idiom” (Gramophone) can also be heard in Guarnieri’s Piano Concertos (8.557666 and 8.557667).

This fourth volume in Naxos’s critically acclaimed series of Portuguese composer Luís de Freitas Branco’s orchestral music juxtaposes his magnificent Symphonic Poem in the form of variations on an Oriental Theme, Vathek, with his final symphony, an appealing masterpiece that combines Neo-classical stylishness with late Romantic richness. Álvaro Cassuto, Portugal’s finest living conductor and an authority on the classical music of his country, is an ideal interpreter of this eminently satisfying yet unaccountably neglected repertoire.

A glorious, joyous, tuneful celebration of the days of Silent Cinema.

Of course there were no soundtracks for films of the silent era. Music was provided, in situ, in cinemas, by pianists or small instrumental groups, and, very occasionally, by orchestras playing in large cinemas for important film premieres. Often the music played comprised odd snippets - frequently from well known classical compositions that fitted the locations, pace and mood of the on-screen action. Years later when these Silent Era classics were rediscovered, new original music was composed for them. Foremost amongst composers for silent films are Carl Davis – and William Perry. This Naxos CD is a celebration of Perry’s work.

William Perry’s Gemini Concerto draws cleverly on themes created for films of the 1920s; for example the ‘New York: Broadway and Finale’ quotes music written from: Show People (1928), Fine Manners (1928) starring Gloria Swanson and from King Vidor’s 1928 masterpiece, The Crowd. The Gemini Concerto was written for the Swiss identical twin sisters, Fiona and Ambra Albeck, featured on this recording. It was premiered in Greenfield Massachusetts in May 2010.

The Gemini Concerto begins with an ‘Introduction and Travel Music’ that is a fizzy, exuberant mix of styles beginning with a ‘we’re off’ train whistle sparking material evocative of accelerating train wheels; this sparkling Introduction has colourful harmonies and imaginative orchestrations and ensembles - piano and violin solos, chamber and orchestral segments - all in pursuit of adventure, discovery and revelling in nostalgia. The sense of the train proceeding continues with ‘Dublin, Celtic Air and Runaway Reel’ which is the Concerto’s second movement that has a typically Irish tune with a prominent violin solo. The third movement takes us to Berlin for a ‘Cabaret March and Berliner Lied’, beautifully evocative, reminiscent of that city between the wars. It has an exquisite poignant melody for piano and violin - the Berliner Lied – that speaks of sadness of parting. This movement is worth the price of the CD alone. On to Moscow for a ‘Twilight Troika and Romance’ horses trotting through a snowy landscape; sleigh bells a-ringing before bells of a different kind introduce a sweet Romance for piano and violin à la Rachmaninov. In Vienna there is a sparkling and gaily romantic ‘Polytonal Polka and Waltz ‘Wiener Wein’ that sends champagne corks a-poppin’. Finally we land in New York for the Concerto’s glittering, jazzy ‘Broadway Ballet and Finale’.

Perry has drawn together music from three of his scores to form the somewhat less original, less inspired The Silent Years: Three Rhapsodies for Piano and Orchestra. The first of these Rhapsodies is on music for the 1927 John Barrymore swashbuckler, The Beloved Rogue which was a film based on the adventures of 15 ^th century rogue and poet, François Villon. Fanfares announce a swaggering devil-my-care theme for Villon. The suite includes music for court pomp and majesty and the requisite love music - material that Korngold would not have sniffed at - Blood and Sand famously starred Rudolph Valentino and Perry’s score is suitably exotically Latin, including flashing flamenco rhythms and music reminiscent of de Falla, for this Andalucian-based torrid melodrama about the fortunes of bullfighters. The evocative score follows this story of bravery in the bull ring, passion and betrayal and ultimate tragedy. Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush inspired Perry to pen music suggesting labouring with pick and hammer, comic and poignant adventures of prospector Charlie, a New Year’s party dance, Charlie’s shy romancing and his big gold strike.

Perry explains that he sometimes conceives themes that could be used to score film assignments he might yet receive. Accordingly, from such a store of themes, he has drawn together another brilliantly coloured suite of music entitled, Six Title Themes in Search of a Movie. Number one is a Dance Overture for an imaginary film that might conceivably be entitled ‘Wild Nights in Toronto’. It’s wild alright, bright and breezy and jazzy redolent of the roaring twenties with gangsters and their molls. Next we travel to France for a typically Gallic waltz that could grace such a film called ‘Raincoats of Dijon’; the obligatory accordion is featured prominently. Then it is south to Italy for a Serenade for a projected film ‘Angelus for an Angel’. The orchestration calls for wistful use of tubular bells. The fourth theme carries us off to South America and another Perry dream film, ‘The Bridge on the River Plate’. This time he uses stirring quick march music that he had actually composed for a silent film about World War I, What Price Glory; the soldiers must be in a happy mood judging by their whistling! Now comes a Nocturne in jazz blues mode for a film that might be entitled, ‘The Black Marigold’ – possibly a film noire set in a Manhattan night club? The final theme is for an imaginary science fiction film called ‘Voyage to the Dog Star’. This is a glamorous score that reminds one more of those Ziegfeld musicals and Bette Davis tear-jerkers than a sci-fi epic. The music might remind one of the grand Late Romantic piano concertos and there is a grandiloquent solo Siren Song from Irish soprano Helen Kearns as the space craft nears the fiery surface of Sirius. A wonderful way-over-the-top finale.

The RTÉ Orchestra and Paul Phillips play these colourful and melodic works with great enthusiasm and panache and mention must be made of Robert Nowak’s brilliant orchestrations.

Naxos have really gone to town with the documentation for this release. The 16-page booklet includes colour pictures of the composer and all the artists, plus full notes and even musical examples. ’Pity then that the dates of composition and films are not always given.

A glorious, joyous, tuneful celebration of the days of Silent Cinema.



-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International