Bach's D minor Concerto BWV 1052 is one of his very greatest works, whether heard in its arrangements for harpsichord solo, violin solo, or even organ solo (first movement) as the prelude to one of the church cantatas. The music has a brooding, almost tragic intensity, partly the result of the tensely stern melodic material, partly due to the fact that all three movements are set in minor keys. It's also a very large work, at more than 20 minutes one of the largest of all Baroque concertos. Robert Hill gives a stunning performance of the work here, comparable to the great recording by his mentor and teacher, Gustav Leonhardt. Unlike many period instrument people, Hill's refusal to rush the outer movements gives the music an extra measure of grim strength, and his deft passagework allows every Bachian note to register with unforced clarity. He's also excellently accompanied by an orchestra of modern strings, and has selected an instrument that allows the music to cut through the accompaniment without the tone ever turning metallic. The antithesis of BWV 1052 is the sunny E major Concerto BWV 1053. It's equally well done by soloist Christoph Anselm Noll. In fact, all four soloists acquit themselves admirably, making this budget priced issue the equal of any other available version of this music. First rate. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Bach's three surviving violin concertos--the A minor, E major, and D minor ("double")--have long enjoyed standard repertoire status, and their continued popularity with audiences has made them fair game for almost every violinist of note with a recording contract. Fortunately for listeners, these works generally have been treated extremely well and the catalog consistently offers numerous fine performances, on both period and modern instruments. These new performances, featuring three outstanding young violinists, are part of Naxos' ongoing traversal of the "complete orchestral works of Bach", and they easily hold their own among the far more illustrious competition. Kolja Blacher, who performs the solo concertos, is a brilliant and commanding presence who makes Bach's not-to-be-taken-lightly lines really sing and dance and occasionally spark. His colleagues, Christine Pichlmeier and Lisa Stewart, deliver a D minor "double concerto" that's both agile and lyrical. The interplay is a real dialogue, especially rich through the second movement suspensions and dissonances, and especially exciting in the stretto-filled third movement.


Most Bach violin recordings fill out the program with one of the harpsichord concerto reconstructions--that is, a piece that modern scholarship suggests originally was a violin concerto but that Bach later reworked and for which the violin original is now lost. Here we get the D minor concerto BWV 1052, a famous harpsichord piece that is rarely performed in this version, and that in the hands of Blacher and his Cologne partners sounds every bit like it belongs with the rest of Bach's violin masterpieces.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

A substantial and accessible work by one of Lithuania’s foremost composers.

Onut? Narbutait? is probably one of the foremost composers of her generation in Lithuania. Her music is reasonably well known thanks to a handful of discs released by Finlandia some years ago. These may still be available. Her music also received national and international awards. There were also commissions including from the Brandenburg State Orchestra for her substantial Tres Dei Matris Symphoniae for chorus and orchestra.
 
This imposing work is in fact a large-scale choral-orchestral triptych framed by two short movements for a cappella chorus: Introitus using fragments from The Song of Songs and Oratio setting words by Hildegarde von Bingen. The main movements (or symphonies) deal with three important episodes from the New Testament involving Christ and Mary: the Revelation, the Birth of Jesus and the Crucifixion.
 
The first symphony, Angelus Domini sets parts of the Ave Maria and words from the Revelation. This movement - the longest of the entire work - opens with a long orchestral introduction. The music is dark, ominous at times and troubled, albeit allowing for calmer episodes. The prevailing mood is one of menace and tension. This is emphasised and reinforced by the scoring in which brass and string glissandi and piercing woodwind as well as heavy brass ostinati predominate. The music unfolds in waves reaching some massive, though short-lived climaxes. The chorus enters tentatively at first with a slow-keyed Ave Maria (at about 9:45), but bright fanfares spur the chorus into more assertiveness. This does not last long and the music momentarily dissolves into a short percussion-led section leading into a new choral section (“Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae”). This ushers in a new setting of words from the Ave Maria followed by an orchestral episode at the words “Ecce ancilla Domini”. The final words (“Et verbum caro factum est. Et habitavit in nobis”) are recited on one note by the chorus. A final massive crescendo brings the first symphony to its close.
 
The second symphony, Bethleem sets just the very first lines of the Gloria near its end. It thus opens with a long orchestral introduction, sometimes with wordless chorus. At first calm and mysterious the music becomes more animated with much contrapuntal writing although textures tend to thin-out chamber-like. However, halfway into the movement, the music darkens again until new rays of light dispel the sombre mood. After a big crescendo, bright fanfares - bringing those of the Sanctus in Britten’s War Requiem to mind - introduce the final choral section. This ends in utter peacefulness with a final blessing from a solo cello.
 
The third symphony, Mater Dolorosa opens hesitantly with bowed percussion, plodding strings with short brass punctuation. More angular material follows introducing the setting of the Stabat Mater. Compared to the preceding symphonies the third is fairly straightforward in that it mirrors the different moods suggested by the words. It ends with a beautiful, appeased coda.
 
This is a really imposing and accessible work that needs, but generously rewards repeated hearings, not because the music is ‘difficult’ but because the work as a whole is rather complex in its conception. The music is superbly crafted and the scoring is remarkably inventive throughout this long triptych. In her concise liner-notes the composer states that “it was a personal experience, not a ritualistic reiteration of well known truths, which induced the composer to approach issues that have been the subject of contemplation for centuries”. What this personal experience was, we do not know; neither do we know in what way it left its mark on the music. Anyway it may be better like that so that each listener may make up his or her own mind about the music and the work as a whole.
 
To me this substantial piece is the work of an honest and sincere composer whose music deserves to be better known.
 
Performance and recording are really very fine. One would hardly guess that this is a live recording.
 
In short, this is a most welcome release that will, I hope, bring Narbutait?’s music to a much broader audience.
 
-- Hubert Culot, MusicWeb International 

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Emerging from a cultural environment of silent resistance behind the Iron Curtain, Lithuanian composer Onute Narbutaite has become one of the outstanding Baltic artists of recent decades. Her output has developed from distinctive chamber music into the concerto-like symphonic style heard in the works on this recording. Described by conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee as music that ‘transcends time and place… [and] resists any attempt at stylistic categorization of pigeonholing,’ these works convey powerful forces that flow between symbols and associations while probing direct emotional connections. Narbutaite’s imposing ‘Tres Dei Matris Symphoniae’ can be heard on Naxos as well: “a mind-blowing listening experience.” (American Record Guide).

Myroslav Skoryk holds the title of People’s Artist of Ukraine and is one of his country’s outstanding composers. Both the Cello Concerto and the Seventh Violin Concerto combine bittersweet lyricism with explosive dynamic contrasts. With its swinging rhythms and folk music pungency the Carpathian Concerto is one of Skoryk’s most engaging and popular works. The pensive Melody for strings propelled him to the forefront of Ukrainian music, while the slapstick in his transcription of Paganini’s Caprice No. 19 reveals the composer’s humorous side. These live recordings were made at Myroslav Skoryk’s 75th anniversary concerts in Odessa.

Can you hear the music? Do you hear it play? It’s telling you the story of the first Christmas Day… Perfect for children of all ages, this album of classical and traditional works is a charming and engaging retelling of the nativity through music, song, and rhyme. Well-known composers like Mozart, Rutter, Lutoslawski and Brahms are included here, alongside traditional Christmas carols like “While Shepherds Watched their Flocks,” and “Mary Had a Baby.” Each of these songs has been taken from an album in the Naxos catalogue, and the works are performed by world-renowned vocalists and instrumentalists. Listen to this music, read the story, and enjoy.

Knit one, purl one…and press play on this album of specially picked classical works, stitched together to create a musical tapestry of pieces to sew and knit to. Lay out a pattern for a New Dress with Waxman, thread The Sewing Machine with Ibert, cross and twist the bobbins on the lace pillow with Johann Strauss I and prime The Darning-Needle with Boris Tchaikovsky. From the sublime Fantasia on Greensleeves by Vaughan Williams to the delightful Valse from Coppélia by Delibes, this playlist is the perfect accompaniment to needlework.

Music and art are inexorably bound together, and this playlist of inspirational and relaxing classical works provides the perfect background to time spent drawing and painting. From the iconic ? rst notes of Promenade from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, to Murphy’s sublime Scintillation from And then at night I paint the stars, these works span a multitude of hues and tones, from Higdon’s Pale Yellow to Bliss’s Purple. Prime your canvas, prepare your palette and immerse yourself in a world of colour and sound.

The garden is a magical place to spend a day, and this playlist of cultivated classical pieces is the perfect accompaniment to working amid the flowers and foliage. Hear the sun rise in Grieg’s exquisite Morning Mood from Peer Gynt, waltz among the flowers with Tchaikovsky and watch the sparkling Fountain Dance with Elgar before drifting into the Haze of Noon with Alwyn. In the afternoon, shelter from the shower with Debussy and listen to the Birds in the High Hall Garden, exquisitely brought to life by Julian Lloyd Webber, before Gibbs’ Dusk falls.

Wooden spoons at the ready! Turn the oven on, weigh out the sugar and immerse yourself in a feast of classical music – from Tchaikovsky’s enchanting Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy to Clara Schumann’s delicious Notturno. Perhaps you fancy making a sweet French Pastry with Hayman, baking a pie with Bax – or maybe even conjuring up a wedding cake with Saint-Saëns? Whatever you’re baking, this album will serve as the perfect accompaniment to your culinary creativity.

For centuries, babies and children all over the world have been rocked to sleep with a song to calm them. Whether parents sing or play, or press play, they know that music so often soothes with success. Composers have written lullabies for different reasons—sometimes as standalone songs or pieces and sometimes as part of a larger work. Here is a variety of restful tracks to foster the sweet dreams of all!

Classical Music

An eclectic collection, colourful and often arresting.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures were originally composed for the piano. In that form he created a spacious canvas necessitating something of a symphonic sound from the piano. This proved exquisitely demanding and only a few brave pianists, including Prokofiev, dared to scale its fearsome crags. Maurice Ravel, to whom we owe its renown, was paid 10,000 francs to orchestrate it for Serge Koussevitzky. But as one might look at and interpret a picture in many different ways so then different sonic paint brushes might offer alternative views and insights? Thus Leonard Slatkin’s notion to bring together an eclectic selection of arrangements, some quite outlandish, might seem fresh and appealing?

D. Wilson-Ochoa is the Nashville Symphony’s Principal Music Librarian and former horn player. His neat opening ‘Promenade’ [1] was arranged, using woodwinds, at first, then pizzicato strings. This walking bass/cello line leads into the orchestral build-up, to give the impression of the visitor arriving at the gallery with mounting excitement and anticipation of seeing its treasures. Sergey Gorchakov’s portrait of Gnomus [2] is simpler, more sober and menacing than Ravel’s; his colours darker. Walter Goehr’s ‘Promenade’ [3] is calmly introspective as the visitor passes thoughtfully on; it features sensitive use of solo strings, double woodwind and muted brass. Emile Naoumoff’s entrancing arrangement of Il vecchio castello [4] has, at its heart, a glistening piano solo with woodwinds and cellos sounding the lilting Italian Sicilienne – absolutely gorgeous. Van Keulen’s ‘Promenade’ [5] is a much grander walk while his Tuileries [6] is a perky arrangement full of childish mischief and high spirits. Wind and brass are delicately mixed - woodwinds supported by muted trombones and trumpet – to create an appealing pastel. Conductor/pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy makes an impact with four horns in unison. Low strings and heavy percussion are used to underline the heaviness of Bydlo his picture of the Polish cart on enormous wheels [7].

Carl Simpson’s ‘Promenade’ [8] is brief and straightforward but with an unexpected cheeky cheep anticipating – Ballet of the unhatched chicks [9]. Lucien Cailliet was a student of Vincent D’Indy, His arrangement exerts his imaginative faculties to the full, out Ravel-ing Ravel. He makes exuberant use of wood-block, rattle and a flutter-tonguing blast from the trumpet. Sir Henry Wood’s vision of the Two Jews … [10] markedly underlines the differences between the two: the rich one glowering and overwhelming and the cowering pauper. The next ‘Promenade’ [11] (and the one that Ravel left out) is by Lawrence Leonard. It’s grand too , in terms of its rich harmonies and orchestrations; carrying on the self-regarded magnificence - one might say - of the rich Jew. Leo Funtek’s picture of French women arguing around a market square in Limoges, Le marché [12] makes for a snappy riot of colour. Funtek surmounts its challenges of articulation through its brief 1:26 of presto writing. The Catacombae [13] of John Boyd, demonstrates his experience with wind, brass and percussion. It is a haunted subterranean vision and is more menacing than Ravel’s portrait. It leads seamlessly into Ravel’s own arrangement of Con mortuis in lingua mortua [14]. As David Nice says, “the French master’s subtle halos and shadows remain uniquely evocative.’ That wonderful orchestrator, Leopold Stokowski, adds his characteristically vivid colouring to The hut on fowl’s legs (Baba-Yaga) [15]. This is a satanic portrait using four trumpets and eight horns supported by shrill whistling upper woods, to evoke Baba-Yaga’s terror-filling flight.

The concluding The Bogatyr Gate at Kiev [16] is the most substantial picture. Douglas Gamley paints this massive gate in resplendent colours using to fine effect the chorus of the Nashville Symphony and an organ. What magnificence - magnificence to rival 1812!

Liszt’s first surviving piano concerto was sketched out in 1832, when the composer was 21. It was only orchestrated 17 years later, with the help of the young composer Joachim Raff. Its first performance in 1853 at Weimar was conducted by Berlioz. Revisions followed in 1857. Its three movements are cyclically connected. This striking live recording of Peng Peng’s articulate and polished reading is sturdy in the portentous episodes and sensitively shaded in the quieter and more introspective passages. Slatkin gives sterling support.

Rob Mathes’s arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Leonard Slatkin. It was conceived as a eulogy on the tragedy of 9/11. This performance - part grandiloquent, part restrained - is affecting.

Instead of the familiar Ravel orchestrations of Mussorgsky’s Pictures here is an eclectic collection of alternatives, always colourful and often arresting.

-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International

Leopold Stokowski's transcriptions have been getting a lot of attention on disc lately. Most particularly, DG reluctantly released an excellent disc of Mussorgsky pieces featuring Oliver Knussen and the Cleveland Orchestra, magnificently played and very different in conception from Stokowski's own. That disc vindicated his work by showing convincingly that these arrangements can have a successful existence independently of the great old wizard himself. José Serebrier's interpretations, while not quite so radical in their emphasis on laser-like clarity of texture, achieve much the same sort of validation while preserving more of the physical excitement and cinematic flamboyance of the original recordings.


This isn't just a question of the exceptionally splashy and colorful use of heavy percussion at the end of A Night on Bare Mountain or Pictures at an Exhibition, impressive (and necessary) though that is. Serebrier, who worked as Stoki's assistant conductor at the American Symphony Orchestra for about five years, brings a keen ear for those luscious string sonorities that also give these editions much of their magic at lower dynamic levels. I'm thinking, for example, of the shimmering closing pages of the Boris Godunov Symphonic Synthesis, among other places. Serebrier also captures the tragic intensity of the Khovanshchina Entr'acte as well as Stokowski ever did: he's slower, darker, and heavier than Knussen, more raw and "Russian" sounding, as he also is in the terrifying Catacombs section of Pictures at an Exhibition.


There's further icing on the cake that you won't find on the Knussen disc: the two lovely Tchaikovsky transcriptions (the Humoresque will be familiar to knowledgeable listeners from its use in Stravinsky's The Fairy's Kiss), and Stokowski's own Traditional Slavic Christmas Music, a setting where once again Serebrier shows himself able to conjure a truly authentic "Stokowski sound". Mind you, these aren't mere imitations. Serebrier's flexible approach to tempo and willingness to inject a jolt of extra electricity make something quite special out of the climaxes in A Night on Bare Mountain, and it's very clear that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is having as much fun playing this music as you will have listening to it. The engineering stands among the best from this source as well. Spectacular, sensational, skirting the boundaries of "good taste"--this is the real deal. [6/17/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Hailed as among the most singular youthful compositions of their time, Igor Markevitch’s astonishingly vivid original works have been released to critical acclaim by Naxos. Markevitch outdoes Webern’s famous orchestration of the six-part Ricercare by arranging J.S. Bach’s entire Musical Offering for three orchestral groups and solo quartet, and creating a masterful, fully integrated symphonic interpretation which would remain a personal favourite among his many striking productions. ‘…expressive performance…a very valuable addition to the series’ (International Record Review on original Marco Polo release). This is the final volume of the complete orchestral works of Igor Markevitch.