Includes symphony(-ies) by Franz Xaver Richter. Ensemble: Helsinki Baroque Orchestra. Conductor: Aapo Häkkinen.

Includes prelude(s) for guitar by Manuel Ponce. Soloist: Adam Holzman.

The music of Fernando Lopes-Graca, one of the most significant Portuguese composers of the twentieth-century, went through several phases of development. Though rooted in folk music, it absorbed influences not only from much earlier composers such as Scarlatti and Seixas, but from contemporaries such as Bartok. These influences are potent in the Piano Concerto No. 1 of 1940, a highly personal, atmospheric and superbly orchestrated work imbued with bittersweet romanticism. Though the Iberian Baroque permeates it's finale, the Piano Concerto No. 2 is a much darker and more ambivalent work, marking a new milestone in his development.

VIVALDI: Recorder Concertos (Complete)

Jenó Jandó's Naxos survey of Beethoven's Bagatelles and dances for solo piano reaches Volume 3. Jandó's adroit and stylish readings have much to commend them, especially in their technical agility and clarity of execution. The greater part of this release is given over to the 12 Minuets--not normally the kind of music that lends itself usefully to cyclical hearing. But in these performances Jandó manages to get away from any repetitiveness and predictability, a potential danger in genre pieces, particularly when heard en masse. That he characterises each so effectively comes down to taut rhythms and clinical exactitude in matters of dynamics and articulation.



The disc opens with six more substantial items, including the two Op. 51 Rondos, the A major Rondo WoO 49, the so-called "Andante favori" (Andante in F WoO 57), and the famous "Rage over a lost penny", otherwise the Rondo a Capriccio in G Op. 129. Again, Jandó's performances are enjoyable and illuminating. Note for example how he highlights contrasts of mood and dynamics so effectively in the last of these works, sharpening the acerbity of its more fevered passages through a clarity of attack that owes more to keyboard articulation than to the pedal--commendable, given his brisk tempo. The two Op. 51 Rondos are also more tersely etched and rigorous than you'll often hear, so I'm inclined to rate Jandó's accounts more highly than Brendel's here. Another welcome addition to a useful budget series.
--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com

Guitar Recital: David Martinez

Bloch’s America may not be one of his greatest pieces, but then none of his “geographical works” (Israel, that Swiss thing) belongs in that category. Like the country itself, America the “musical” is big, ungainly, and lots of fun. It ends with an audience-participation sing-along, for those who are so inclined. This performance, originally released on Delos, is about as good as it gets, not that there’s much competition. Stokowski did it for Vanguard, and Naxos has another very good version featuring Dalia Atlas. Take your pick. If the couplings determine your choice, this release features an excellent version of the Concerto Grosso No. 1, one of Bloch’s best-known and most immediately attractive pieces

— David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by Healey Willan. Ensemble: Elora Festival Singers. Conductor: Noel Edison. Soloist: Matthew Larkin.

Paul Salerni' award-winning opera with a libretto by Dana Gioia takes place in a classical music radio station on the last night of it's operations.

William Alwyn was a consummate film composer, as capable of creating powerful marches as he was atmospheric waltzes. In these exciting arrangements by Martin Ellerby for wind band, the full variety of Alwyn' inspiration can be appreciated.

Superbly varied, brilliant and expressive … extremely valuable.

Now in his late forties Daron Hagen has been eminently successful for many years in a wide variety of musical genres: orchestral, concertos, chamber music, vocal and opera. He has received commissions from leading American orchestras like the New York Phil, the Philadelphia and the National Symphony and from numerous instrumentalists. He numbers among his teachers Ned Rorem, David Diamond, Witold Lutos?awski and Leonard Bernstein. With such diverse musical influences it's no wonder that his own compositional style is eclectic, a remark that is in no way deprecating. It only denotes that he is at home in a variety of styles and is able to adjust to the requirements for each specific composition. I have listened to excerpts from a number of his compositions and the remaining impression is that here is basically a warm romantic with ability and willingness to write gorgeous melodies. Romeo and Juliet for flute, cello and orchestra is a splendid example and the second movement from his third piano trio Wayfaring Stranger (2007) is extremely beautiful. He is just as adept at writing rhythmically fresh and rather naughty music for brass - the Invention from Concerto for Brass Quintet!. He is also accomplished when writing for the human voice. I haven't heard any of his solo songs - of which there are a lot - but his choral writing is extremely affecting. The Waking Father for six male voices is music to return to. His musical idiom is largely tonal though he employs various modern techniques for expressive reasons. Mixing styles - high and low - is one of his hallmarks and he is a splendid communicator, which his first opera Shining Brow aptly demonstrates.

It was in July 1989 that Daron Hagen was asked by the Madison Opera to write an opera about the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Together with the chosen librettist, Paul Muldoon, Hagen worked out a synopsis and set to work with the first act, which fizzed along without problems. The second act was tougher and he met Leonard Bernstein several times for guidance. Bernstein died in October 1990, before the opera was finished, and it is dedicated to his memory.

Frank Lloyd Wright fell in love with a client's wife Mamah while outlining their house. They left their respective wife and husband, went to Europe. Eventually returning to the USA, they built a house in Wisconsin, Taliesin, which is Welsh for 'Shining Brow'. In 1914, when Wright was in Chicago, his manservant murdered seven people in the house, including Mamah and her two children and then set the house on fire. Two survivors managed to put out the fire but the house was seriously damaged. This is essentially the story of the opera. Frank Lloyd Wright lived until 1959 and probably his most famous creation is the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Musically Hagen's score is a conglomerate of the manifold styles I referred to in his other works, but wholly efficient and personal. Shining Brow is a number opera with arias, choruses, orchestral numbers and ensembles. The music is very varied to mirror the dramatic and emotional contents of the story. The chorus of draftsmen (CD 1 tr. 2) has 'go' and makes me think of Orff and Carmina burana. Wright's arietta (CD 1 tr. 5) is melodious and agreeable and his wife Catherine's aria (CD 1 tr. 6) has echoes of Broadway musical. The Sullivan Variations (CD 1 tr. 8) is hymn-like brass music and there is another chorus with plainsong character. In act II there is a barbershop quartet (CD 2 tr. 8) and the Canapé Variations (CD 2 tr. 9) is a long gossip scene at a cocktail party played against the waltz from Der Rosenkavalier. Initially there are quotations from the Presentation of the Silver Rose from the same opera. Symbolically this 'theft' of another composer's music is a parallel to Wright's 'theft' of another man's wife. Sullivan's arietta (CD 2 tr. 15) is a song that should be on many opera-lovers' list of the most beautiful opera arias. It is followed by an a cappella chorus that nods in the direction of Bernstein's Candide (the Westphalia chorus). The rhythmic elements are often very much in the foreground and there are no longueurs. To my mind this is a truly inspired and dramatically convincing opera and readers who prefer operas with melodies should know that there is a wealth of melodic inventiveness.

The cast is a good one and several of the members have taken part in earlier productions, including Robert Orth as Frank Lloyd Wright and Brenda Harris as Mamah. They are both excellent and Robert Frankenberry as Wright's one-time mentor and friend Louis Sullivan sports a fine lyric tenor. The Buffalo forces are splendid and JoAnn Falletta brings out the dark dramatic side of the work as well as the lyrical music of which there is also a lot.

The recording can't be faulted and the few stage noises only enhance the feeling of a real occasion. While writing the final paragraphs of this review I have been listening again to large portions of the opera and can report that it grows further with renewed acquaintance. The orchestration stands out as superbly varied, brilliant and expressive and the melodic material is organically interwoven with the story. The only regrettable thing is that there is no libretto available. We get only a synopsis that gives the outline but leaves you in limbo as far as detailed understanding is concerned.

Anyway, relatively contemporary operas are rare guests in the record catalogues. Shining Brow, like Carlson's Anna Karenina that I reviewed a short while ago, are extremely valuable additions to a repertoire that far too seldom reaches beyond Puccini. Daron Hagen has no intention to challenge Puccini; he has his own musical world that is just as valid - and it shouldn't be less accessible to opera-lovers.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

This recording should allow newcomers to enjoy this most melodic and romantic of Rossini’s opera seria.

La donna del lago is the twenty-ninth in the sequential list of Rossini’s operatic titles and the fourth of the nine opera seria Rossini wrote under his contract as musical director of the Royal Theatres of Naples. It was the first opera by a noted composer to be based on any of Walter Scott’s romantic works. Whilst nowadays the most famous is Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Scott’s popularity as a source of operatic libretti expanded rapidly after Rossini’s example. It was at the San Carlo theatre, Naples, with its professional orchestra and fine soloists, that the composer could let his musical invention find its fullest expression. He did not need to resort to the more static and traditional operatic conventions that still pertained elsewhere. In no other Naples opera seria does Rossini expand his musical invention more effectively than in act one of La donna del lago.

Rossini had returned to Naples in the beginning of June 1819 after the premiere of Adelaide de Borgogna (see review) in Rome and by early September he had completed the composition of La donna del lago. Circumstances blighted the premiere on 24 September when the opera had a lukewarm reception. It was considerably more successful at subsequent performances and remained in the San Carlo repertory for a further twelve years. The Act 2 rondo, Tanti affeti, roused Naples audiences when sung by Isabella Colbran, Rossini’s mistress and in 1822 his first wife. Within five years of its composition La donna del lago was heard all over Italy as well as in Dresden, Munich, Lisbon, Vienna, Barcelona, St. Petersburg, Paris and London.

The vocal demands of Rossini’s opera seria for Naples have always been a challenge to later performances. He wrote to suit the superb company contracted by the renowned impresario Domenico Barbaja who had first tempted the composer to Naples. Alongside the vocally formidable Colbran, the roster included the tenors Giovanni David and Andrea Nozzari, both notable for their ability with stratospheric coloratura singing. Rossini’s writing for the two tenors has since proved problematic in a period when voices of the type seemed to have dried up. By 1860 La donna del lago was forgotten until its revival in Florence in 1958. It was heard at the Camden Festival, London, in 1969 and at Houston in 1983 in a production that was also seen at Covent Garden. The emergence from North and South America in the late 1970s of voices who could tackle the tenor roles written for the Naples duo stimulated the Rossini revival by the Pesaro Festival who presented La donna del lago in 1981 and 1983 and followed with other opera seria written with the duo in mind. A live recording from the Pesaro performances featuring Katia Ricciarelli as Elena, Lucia Valentini Terrani as Malcolm and Samuel Ramey as Douglas was issued by CBS on its Masterworks Label (M2K 39311 nla). An audio recording from the 1992 sequence of La Scala performances conducted by Muti appeared from Philips (PH 438 211-2 nla). A DVD version of this Werner Herzog production is available from Opus Arte (see review). The work is scheduled for a shared production by leading European opera houses in 2011.

The story of La donna del lago is set in 15th century Scotland at a time of regular border warfare and insurgency. Elena lives near the shores of Loch Katrine with her father, Douglas, who has been exiled by the King. Although her father has promised her to the rebel chief Rodrigo di Dhu, she loves the young highlander Malcolm, a ‘trousers’ role. After rowing over Loch Katrine, Elena meets and offers shelter to Uberto who had become separated from his hunting party. Uberto is in fact the King against whom Douglas and Rodrigo are in conflict. The incognito Uberto falls in love with Elena and later gives her a ring promising that if ever in difficulty or danger it will secure the help of the King. After the defeat of the rebels and the death of Rodrigo Elena seeks out Uberto and discovers his true identity. The King keeps his promise, pardons Douglas and gives Malcolm Elena’s hand in marriage. The opera concludes with much rejoicing.

La donna del lago opens without an overture, one of the few of the composer’s operatic works to do so. Instead, Rossini seeks to conjure up the atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands in sixteen bars of orchestral introduction followed by a chorus of shepherds (CD 1 tr.1). This is followed by a particularly effective reflective aria for Elena Oh mattutini albori with distant horns (tr.2) that also serve as a melodic motif for her. In the Opera Rara recording, Elena is sung by a soprano as it is on the CBS issue. In the present case we hear the experienced Rossinian mezzo Sonia Ganassi. Vitally, her more soprano-like timbre is fine for the contrast with her lover Malcolm, sung by the low mezzo Marianna Pizzolato, in their duet (CD 1 trs. 16-17) and elsewhere. I greatly admired Ganassi as a dramatic Sinaïde in Moïse et Pharaon (see review). In the role of Elena she encompasses the tessitura without difficulty whilst bringing her full range of tone to characterise the heroine’s many moods (CD 1 tr. 2 and CD 2 trs. 22-23) and particularly in her duets with Uberto (CD 1 trs 3-4 and CD 2 trs. 9-11) as well as in the ensembles. Her Tanti affetti is particularly affecting (CD 2 tr. 22). I did feel Ganassi was outgrowing the eponymous Cenerentola (see review) a fact wholly confirmed by hearing the younger, and lower-toned, Marianna Pizzolato live in the role in her British debut with Welsh National Opera (see review). Like Ganassi, Pizzolato sings with smooth, even, well articulated tone and excellent legato across her considerable vocal range. She exhibits no gear-change to the lowest notes. There are no rasping chest tones in her very musical and well-characterised interpretation (CD 1 trs 11-13 and CD 2 trs. 14-15). This duo reflects excellent casting and represents a significant strength in this performance.

As I have indicated, the casting of the tenors taking the roles written for the Naples duo of David and Nozzari is always likely to be a challenge in this and other Rossini opera seria written specifically with them in mind. In the Opera Rara recording the two roles were sung with musicality and appropriate vocal dexterity as well as allure. But nobody knows the Rossini vocal scene better than scholar and conductor Alberto Zedda, the guiding light of this venture that was recorded at Bad Wildbad, but separately from the annual summer Festival there. That he has succeeded in the tenor casting here to the extent he has is a considerable achievement even if it does not quite match the vocal mellifluousness of the Opera Rara duo. Both tenors encompass the vocal demands. I admired Russian tenor Maxim Miranov in the DVD of Dario Fo’s hyperactive staging of L’Italiana in Algeri at Pesaro in 2006. I noted how he kept good vocal form as he was required to involve himself in physical activity and whilst not being distracted from the peripheral goings-on (see review). Here he has no such distractions and is able to show off his light, highly flexible vocal skills to maximum effect (CD 1 trs. 3-10 and CD 2 trs. 8-13). His slightly dry tone lacks the vocal allure of Kenneth Tarver for Opera Rara, let alone the likes of Juan Diego Florez. However the high Cs ping out with similar security and accuracy. This is also true of the German Ferdinand von Bothmer as Rodrigo, who is required to go down to a baritonal low. He achieves this feat as well as bringing strength and appropriate vigour and characterisation to his role. If he doesn’t quite match Gregory Kunde on the Opera Rara issue in the evenness across his considerable range, that is merely to compare the excellent with the very good (CD 1 trs 18-21 and CD 2 trs. 12-13).

As Elena’s father, Wojtek Gierlach sings strongly if without much distinction (CD 1 tr. 15). In the minor tenor role of Serano the Belgian Stefan Cifolelli sings well with a good Italianate squilla that differentiates him nicely from his tenor counterparts. The soprano tones of the Russian Olga Peretyatko as Albina is likewise well sung with purity and vocal strength in the ensembles. The highest compliment I can pay the Prague Chamber Choir is that they sound Italian and sing their many contributions with vigour. It is vigour, allied with a feel for the genre of the music, brought to the proceedings by Zedda, that is perhaps an even greater recommendation for this issue than the undoubted strength of the soloists.

The booklet has an introductory essay by the conductor, a full track-listing and separate track-related synopsis, all in English and German. Also to be welcomed are the artist profiles given in English only. There is applause after individual items and scene ends and this becomes more enthusiastic as the opera proceeds. The Opera Rara issue, from live performances at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2006, eliminates the applause, whilst benefiting from the frisson of a live performance. Perhaps Naxos could investigate this procedure for their recordings at Bad Wildbad. That is as may be. The applause did not destroy my considerable enjoyment of this excellent performance that adds another Rossini opera to Naxos’s burgeoning catalogue of the composer’s works.

-- Robert J Farr, MusicWeb International

A story of love, marital fidelity, the defeat of a tyrant and the triumph of the good, Rossini's Ciro in Babylonia is a bold fusion of biblical andsecular subjects set to brilliant, thrilling music.

As a boy during the years 1822–23 Liszt studied in Vienna with Czerny and Salieri, at the same time as Schubert was winning his reputation as a leading composer in the city. Many years later Liszt did much to introduce Schubert’s music to a wider audience, not least through his prodigious transcriptions. In the case of the Three Marches and Mélodies hongroises, Liszt selected music originally written for piano duet, but in Soirées de Vienne, a set of nine pieces of which some were to remain prominent in Liszt’s concert repertoire, he fashioned a sequence of truly memorable valse-caprices.

Daqun Jia: Chamber Works

Classical Music

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Symphony No. 3 / Sinfonietta Op. 31

Recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Pulitzer Prize, and a GRAMMY Award, William Bolcom is one of America’s most senior and internationally acclaimed composers. Commissioned to expand upon the under-represented horn trio repertoire, Bolcom has written a modern counterpart to Brahms’ Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, Op. 40, in which he incorporates multiple styles into a substantial composition. The Suite No. 2 for Solo Violin is by turns frenzied, melancholic and light-hearted. Bolcom states, “Both works are performed beautifully and well recorded. Bravi tutti!”

Essential Puccini: Gianni Schicchi

Impressive throughout … an excellent way to explore his output.

This is a Naxos compilation of works by Thomas Tallis, originally recorded for a range of other discs, performed by the Oxford Camerata under the direction of Jeremy Summerly. The disc features a range of works, in both Latin and English texts, including shorter anthems and mass settings and more extended works. O Sacrum Convivium, written for Elizabeth 1st, features smooth flowing lines and gentle dissonances, and sets the scene for the rest of the disc, with the Oxford Camerata’s blended vocal tone full of expression and resonance. Audivi vocem features plainchant-style sections and choruses, while Discomfort them, O Lord is based on repeated sequences and has a complex monophonic style. Loquebantur variis linguis is a faster work, with imitative entries and rich polyphonic writing interspersed with unison chant settings.

The Sanctus from the Mass for Four Voices is a beautiful setting with strongly characterful word setting, including a bright, major key Gloria and Hosanna. I call and cry to thee, O Lord is an English setting of O Sacrum Convivium and it is interesting to hear the effect of a change of language. The Lamentations of Jeremiah are presented in two separate sets. Set I is well paced, with tempo changes well handled and clearly defined sections. Set II has a beautifully calm and expressive opening, with individual lines entering one by one to build up a stunning five part choral sound. This slow paced music gradually unfolds and provides one of the highlights of the disc.

Videte miraculum features some wonderfully dissonant harmonies, with tension and release an important element of the interaction between the parts. Another slow-moving work, this has a contemplative feel, using mostly simple rhythms and alternating between monophonic writing and polyphony.

The disc ends with the impressive forty-part motet Spem in alium, arguably one of Tallis’s most well-known and dazzling works, with eights choirs of five voices combining to create an elaborate tapestry of sound. Harmonic shifts come like waves, and the full force of all forty voices in the tutti sections has a sense of powerful expression. It is hard to hear definition in the individual parts in this recording (although some come through better than others) and it is difficult to capture the effect of this piece on a recording; this is one piece where a live performance holds an extra dimension, especially if the choirs can be separated around the audience. Nevertheless, the overall effect works well and this is an enjoyable recording.

The choir is impressive throughout this disc, although the blend of voices varies between tracks (presumably because the recordings were made at different times with slight alterations to personnel). Hearing this selection of works by one composer gives a fascinating insight into the range of Tallis’ music, both in terms of compositional style and textural use of the choir. His vocal writing has a sense of naturalness and paved the way for generations of composers after him, defining a style and creating a lineage of British choral music. This disc serves as an excellent way to explore his output, with some beautiful singing from the Oxford Camerata.

-- Carla Rees, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (11-12/97, p.156) - "...It is as if a mere reading
of the notes on the page in metronomic precision qualifies as a
performance. The result is enough to make one hate Mendelssohn organ
works..."

BAROQUE TRUMPET (THE ART OF THE), Vol. 2

In the golden age of vinyl, the English label Lyrita produced a series of Bax symphony recordings conducted by Myer Fredman, Raymond Leppard, Vernon Hanley, and Norman Del Mar that gave most their first exposure to the evocative, romantic symphonic music of Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953). It was one of the most distinguished series of audiophile recordings every chronicled. Lyrita only released two of the symphonies on CD (Symphonies 1 & 7) but that is probably out of print at the moment. There was an even better recording of the third symphony from the London Symphony and Edward Downes, also long gone. Chandos took a stab at the series during the dawn of the DDD era, but its conductor, Bryden Thomson, using slow tempos, took a loose and meandering view of these episodic works that caused them to seem disjointed. Naxos has now entered the ring with just the right conductor and orchestra and produced a series that is every bit the equal of that on Lyrita, but with a welcome twist, it is available to the public at less than half the cost. In this current installement, David Lloyd-Jones once again leads the excellent Scottish orchestra in a reading that is radiant and lyrical, and paced exacly right. The sounds of nature have seldom been so successfully translated into musical expression, and the superb engineering partners the performance hand in glove. If you like Vaughan Williams, especially his Pastoral Symphony, you will no doubt love this music. Start with this, the most popular of the composer's symphonies, backtrack to symphonies 1 & 2, already available on Naxos CD; then, along with me, keenly anticipate further releases in this magical series.--Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com

After finishing the work in 1980, Schiff rescued some of the music in a purely instrumental score Divertimento from Gimpel the Fool (1982), one of the great post-war chamber pieces, which is how I first heard it (available, incidentally, on Delos 3058; however, Delos has had such trouble in recent years, you'd better grab it while you can). Nevertheless, the opera is just as wonderful. There's not a dull scene in it. The singers are ideal for the piece. The ensemble is sharp (a fiendishly close canon on the words "Mazel tov" to a klezmer riff made my jaw drop). Above all, the performance involves a listener in the drama. The CD case proclaims this as part of the "American Opera Classics" series. From the Naxos marketing department, to God's ear.

Set just before World War I, Sinclair Lewis’s incendiary novel Elmer Gantry tells a story of old-time religion, illicit romance and revenge. Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein’s operatic adaptation is a ‘marvelous amalgam of toe-tapping accessibility’ (Opera News) full of hymns, gospel songs, marches and dance, evoking the period in a score which echoes Gershwin and Copland. This all-American production combines a first-rate cast of singers and a world-class orchestra for an intoxicating experience.

RACHMANINOV: Piano Transcriptions and Arrangements

"She leads the score with grand sweep and understanding, and her Colorado forces bring out its colors vividly; moreover, she inspires her cast to sing as if they're having a great time with this no-longer-new but still odd opera."


Nonesuch's 1987 recording of this opera, produced when the work was new, was revelatory. Though clearly a piece of mimimalism, it did not rely only on endless repetition; indeed, Adams' musical language was varied enough to make Nixon in China a fascinating opera despite very little action and a somewhat unrevealing text by Alice Goodman. The Nixons and the events of the 1972 visit came across as oddly shallow. It's clear now that that was the point: Nixon's first-act rant, "News has a kind of mystery", is much the key to the opera.

It also seems wittier and more purposefully ironic now, with Kissinger's villainy almost overshadowed by his ladykilling; Pat Nixon's innocence almost charming (we've seen worse since); Madame Mao's berserk aria even more pointedly wacky and funny; and the contrast between Chou En-lai's philosophizing and Richard Nixon's simplemindedness clearer than ever. During the toasts in the third scene of the first act, Chou's toast, an eloquent paean to the future ("Our children race downhill unflustered into peace..."), is accompanied by even arpeggios; when Nixon's clichés take over ("a vote of thanks to one and all who made this possible"), we're jarred into paying attention to his mundanity by disconnected, disparate tones. It's masterly.

Each scene in the first act still strikes me as a few minutes too long, but Act 2, particularly with the spectacular and varied music for the surreal opera performance, is riveting. The frustrating last act is oblique in its dramatic thrust (it features personal reflections from all of the characters except, tellingly, Kissinger), but it is food for thought even if it is a dramatic anti-climax. It's a strange, quiet way to end an opera--but take it for what it is.

This new recording, taken from a live performance at Denver's Ellie Caulkins Opera House in June, 2008, is brilliant. It is sonically way ahead of the Nonesuch (which was recorded at a very low level), thus making it possible to understand almost every word, and Marin Alsop's tempos are slightly slower than Edo de Waart's, which also helps comprehension. She leads the score with grand sweep and understanding, and her Colorado forces bring out its colors vividly; moreover, she inspires her cast to sing as if they're having a great time with this no-longer-new but still odd opera.

Robert Orth's Nixon has just the right amount of self-parody that "playing" Nixon requires--the distance between 1987 and now is very long and we can sense ironies from our vantage point that we were blind to then. Maria Kanyova's Pat also seems more sympathetic while remaining as publicly simple as she always was, and Kanyova's voice and diction are splendid. Marc Heller handles Mao's high tessitura, sometimes bordering on madness, with great character and flavor. Chen-Ye Yuan's Chou is beautifully sung and he captures both the character's joylessness and intelligence. Thomas Hammons (also on the Nonesuch recording) uses his dark, growling bass to show us everything we need to know about the cynical Kissinger, and Tracy Dahl, as Madame Mao, is pretty frightening, even while delivering her Queen of the Night-like aria.

There's not much to decide between this set and the Nonesuch, which is still available. As mentioned, this new one is sonically superior (and cheaper), but otherwise it's pretty much a tie. Naxos, like Nonesuch, supplies a libretto; Nonesuch's booklet has superb essays and a better synopsis.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com (10/10!)

Guitar Recital: Jose Antonio Escobar

BUXTEHUDE: Organ Music, Vol. 2