Toshiro Mayuzumi was one of Japan's foremost 20th-century composers, enjoying a distinguished international reputation on a par with that of Toru Takemitsu, as well as that of an enfant terrible of the post-war Japanese music world. Versatile and prolific, he contributed music for films, the theatre, the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and broadcasts. His enthusiasm for avant-garde Western music led him to study in Paris, and the Phonologie Symphonique is a synthesis of Varese-like acoustical experiment and serial techniques. The jazz-tinted Bacchanale is Mayuzumi's attempt to produce 'a cosmos of sounds reflecting the vital energies of the origin of music,' and the symphonic poem Samsara is a musical expression of Buddhist teaching, an attempt to escape the seemingly endless cycle of birth and rebirth. This recording first appeared in 1984 on the Marco Polo label. The relationship between the label and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra has been one of the most fruitful from the early days of Naxos to the present, right up to their irreplaceable contribution to the brand new Wagner Ring cycle conducted by Jaap van Zweden.

Ali Arango, First Prize winner of the 2018 Tarrega International Guitar Competition, Benicassim, has selected the repertoire for this recital in tribute to his years in Cuba where he learned many of these works. He has chosen Tarrega's brilliant Gran jota, Barrios Mangore's masterpiece, La cathedral and the powerful Sonata No. 1 by his fellow Cuban, the contemporary master Leo Brouwer with whose music Arango is strongly associated. Also included is the guitarist's own Triptico para guitarra, a large-scale work that embraces sarabande-like motifs, polyphony and Afro-Cuban influences.

Ludwig van Beethoven stands as a giant in music history for his great symphonies, piano sonatas and string quartets, and the challenges of deafness later in life. This programme shows the younger Beethoven's facility as a creator of light and entertaining chamber works as enjoyable to perform as they are to hear. Taking their cues from Mozart, the 'Duos' build on sonata form and dance movements, the slightly later 'Serenade' taking the shape of a genial 18th-century divertimento. Flutist Kazunori Seo was born in Japan in 1974. He began studying music at age 6 with his parents before going on to study in Paris. He was the recipient of the Premier Prix in flute in 1998 and the Premier Prix in chamber music in 1999. His previous recordings for Naxos include the flute music of Leopold Hofmann, Karl and Franz Doppler, Ignaz Moscheles, and Carl Czemy.

British composer Douglas Weiland has long been acclaimed as one of contemporary music's most outstanding composers for the string quartet medium, and his evolving cycle has won much admiration. Composed between 2011 and 2012 the Fourth and Fifth Quartets show him at the height of his artistic powers, where he seeks connections across time, and shows a Classical commitment to form, invention and melodic beauty. His conceptions can be Schubertian in scale and scope, while also displaying the influence of Haydn and Bartok.

First Prize winner of the prestigious Eighth International Organ Competition Musashino-Tokyo, Amanda Mole has selected music that fully exploits every aspect of the excellent Marcussen & Son instrument at this venue. Buxtehude's remarkable Praeludium and Bruhns' chorale fantasia on the Advent tune 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland' connect with the old French traditions evoked in Alain's 'Variations,' while Reger uses the entire dynamic range of the organ in his Toccata. The programme is topped by Messiaen's expression of sheer joy in the rapturous conclusion to 'La Nativite du Seigneur.' Amanda Mole is the winner numerous awards. Since 2017, she has served as a juror for several organ competitions, and in 2016 was chosen as one of The Diapason magazine's 'Top 20 under 30.'

Bohuslav Martinu honed his songwriting craft in between composing larger orchestral works, his yearning for home reflected in the Four Songs to Czech Folk Texts written during desperate times in the Second World War. Sourced from previously unpublished manuscripts, this unique programme presents world premiere recordings of earlier songs written during summer holidays in Policka, as well as the Three Songs after Poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, long thought to e lost but miraculously unearthed just weeks before this recording. Pianist Giorgio Koukl regards these songs as similar to pearls, "born out of hardship, pain and discomfort and, after a while, becoming precious and admired."

The great hit at Venice's San Moise theatre in the autumn season of 1810 was Pietro Generali's Adelina. This 'melodramma sentimentale' was the latest work by an important contemporary of Rossini, who enjoyed a vogue in early nineteenth-century Italy. The plot concerns the trials of a girl who is seduced and abandoned by her lover, Erneville, has a child out of wedlock, and is rejected by her father who, thanks to the intervention of a kindly friend, then forgives her after she marries Erneville. Brimming with vivacious writing, Adelina reflects powerful cultural attitudes in vogue in early nineteenth-century Italy.

Classical Music

Aged only 17, Schubert conducted his first complete Mass setting, in F major, D. 105, in September 1814, gaining the approval of his former teacher Antonio Salieri.

Award-winning pianist Lance Coburn has been schooled in and inspired by the Russian pianistic tradition, and sees this 'potpourri' of rarities as something akin to a snapshot of Tchaikovsky's more famous works. Ranging from wistful sentiment to fiery complexity, the Theme with Variations comes from Tchaikovsky's period of studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, while the transcriptions include a medley of themes rescued from the early opera Voyevoda, the emotionally charged Aveu passionne, and a Coronation March that the composer described as 'noisy but bad.' The works in this charming and fascinating program fall into the category of 'rarities' that are more often found in complete editions but hardly ever beyond. The title 'Potpourri' is apt here in many regards, the works here spanning Tchaikovsky's student days to a Military March in B-flat composed in the year of his death. The only piece actually composed for solo piano is the Theme and Variations in A minor, but this takes nothing away from the collection which provides valuable insights into Tchaikovsky's less frequently explored output, and delivers a recital of unique attractiveness.

Villa-Lobos was one of the most prolific of all 20th-century composers. The works on this seventh volume of the complete piano works show the multilayered nature of Villa-Lobos' idiom, which is as exuberant as the Brazilian landscape that inspired hi.

A Yiddish Winterreise is a sequence of songs from the Yiddish repertoire devised by opera singer and cantor Mark Glanville, recreating the original, Schubertian journey in a Holocaust context.

In the last two decades of his career Eugene Zador, whose music fused Classicism with Romanticism to universal acclaim, wrote a series of works that reflected his Hungarian roots. Subtly flavored by folklore without any direct quotations, Zador's facility for melody, harmony and color is exemplified in the 'Rhapsody for Orchestra,' while his gift for lyricism and pithy concision is to the fore in the 'Fantasia Hungarica' for double bass and orchestra. The 'Rhapsody for Cimbalom and Orchestra' reveals his ceaselessly inventive imagination in music that is orchestrated with the deftest touch. Five of these works are receiving, on this album, their world premiere recording. The Budapest Symphony Orchestra MAV was founded in 1945 by the Hungarian State Railways. Since then, it has developed a wide-ranging repertoire from music of the Baroque era to works by contemporary composers, and is currently ranked among the best professional ensembles in Hungary. The orchestra has performed throughout Europe as well as in Cyprus, Lebanon, China, Brazil, Peru, and many other countries throughout Europe, Asia, and South America.

This recording presents chamber music by Krzysztof Meyer composed over a 30 year period and for a variety of instrumental combinations. The lyrical Canzona, the bravura cello solo Moment Musical and the atmospheric Misterioso are all miniatures, the latter a competition test piece demanding expressive melodic shaping and delicate sustained harmonies. The substantial Piano Trios develops over recurring motifs, taking flight through striking contrasts over a tonal centre of C. The Imaginary Variations suggest Classical form through constant change, with piano and violin interacting in a rich interplay of layers, rhythms and imitation.

Amir Mahyar Tafreshipour is a leading composer from Iran whose music reaches across time and continents, being at once universal, richly exotic, and filled with the composer’s own exhilarating joy in creativity. The first ever Iranian harp concerto, Persian Echoes, weaves together Western classical heritage with sounds associated with Persian traditional music, including evocative modes and the lively rhythms of the region’s folk music. Improvisation is used compellingly in the rhapsodic Lucid Dreams, the light and darkness of Yearning in C and the vast landscape of Alas.