Britten: String Quartet No. 3 & Simple Symphony

SCHOENBERG: Verklarte Nacht / Chamber Symphony No. 2

EASTON: Concerto on Australian Themes / An Australian in Par

Holst: Music for Two Pianos

FALLA: Popular Spanish Suite / Piano Pieces / Harpsichord C

This is a repertoire that's been surprisingly well represented on disc, benefiting from the glasnost/perestroika-inspired revival of liturgical music in Russia in the early 1980s and the coincidental CD-fueled resurgence of the classical recording industry. One of the beauties of the unique, harmonized chant forms that characterize Russian church music is the attention this music received from some of the country's finest composers, some of them well known--Grechaninov, Bortnyansky, Glazunov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov--and others more obscure but nevertheless highly skilled. Most of the composers represented here are among the latter category, but the music is first rate and the choir, from Moscow's historic Novospassky Monastery, is equal to the best on disc. It's also a plus that most of the selections, by Lvov, Arkhangelsky, Smolensky, Kastalsky, and others, aren't duplicated elsewhere. The program follows a service of the Divine Liturgy, which includes hymns, antiphons, the Great Litany, the Trisagion, Nicene Creed, a psalm, and the Doxology. I was pleasantly surprised by the exceptional quality of the singing, set in shimmering, vibrant sound made in a Moscow studio but with the kind of (artificial?) resonance that could just as well have come from the wood and stone environs of an ancient church. There are many excellent choices for recordings of Russian religious music, but if you want to hear what the real thing sounds like, you won't go wrong with this--and its budget price makes it especially attractive. --David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

HANDEL: Athalia

HANDEL: Saul

TCHAIKOVSKY: Songs (Complete), Vol. 2

Giselle is based on a legend according to which the ghosts of unmarried girls return to seek revenge on the living. The Wilis had already been described in a story in Heinrich Heine's de l'Allemagne, although Heine received no credit for Giselle. The immediate inspiration for the ballet came from Th�ophile Gautier, spurred by his infatuation with the dancer Carlotta Grisi. Elements from Victor Hugo were to be incorporated in a libretto that was realized by the writer Jules Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges in three days, while Adam took a week to sketch the music and three to complete it, making some use of earlier material. The choreography was devised by the Paris Op�ra ballet-master Jean Coralli, with Giselle's dances choreographed by Carlotta Grisi's teacher and lover Jules Perrot. Designs were by Pierre Ciceri, who had also designed the sets for La Sylphide. The ballet was first produced on 18th June 1841 at the Op�ra, the Th��tre de l'Acad�mie royale de musique, when Grisi danced Giselle, Lucien Petipa Albrecht and Ad�le Dumil�tre the Queen of the Wilis, Myrthe. Various changes have been made in the ballet since 1841, not least in a number of versions given in Russia, with an early re-staging there by Perrot with Fanny Elssler, a rival Giselle, and Marius Petipa. The latter later made his own choreographic contribution to the ballet in later productions. The score includes interpolated scenes by Friedrich Burgm�ller, who is best known for the peasant pas de deux in Act I of Giselle.

STAMITZ, C.: Clarinet Concertos, Vol. 2

STRAVINSKY: Firebird (The) / The Rite of Spring

William Walton's reputation rests primarily with 'Façade' and 'Belshazzar's Feast'. However, Walton was an accomplished composer who felt comfortable in virtually all genres whether it was film scoring or the delightful Concertos on this CD.
The first movement of the Violin Concerto is an extended dreamy andante that is punctuated by a dramatic and virtuosic middle section before revisiting the movement's secondary theme provided by flute and strings. The second movement consists of a nonstop presto of a technical level that must have proved quite daunting for the work's dedicatee, Jascha Heifetz. But it is the bravura and exciting finale that showcases both the felicity and virtuoso skills of Dong-Suk Kang for this recording.
The Cello Concerto, Walton's favorite of his three concertos, was written for Gregor Piatigorsky. Although this is a rather somber (but passionate) work, Walton's preference may have to do with his brilliant combination of harp, vibraphone and celesta in the final movement. And certainly the slow fade of the work's final measures for solo cello (beautifully rendered by Tim Hugh), a revisit to the work's opening movement, is the most stunning moment of all.

TEN YEARS OF SUCCESS

Bartók: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2