Jewels indeed. And the singing ain't bad either. This is another in a very satisfying group of recent Christmas choral discs that strive to offer some terrific, rarely recorded "gems" along with a welcome mix of familiar--but mostly not too familiar--pieces. Beginning with Bach's "Break forth, O beauteous heav'nly light" from the Christmas Oratorio, the program proceeds with hardly a breath to Richard Dirksen's earth-awakening setting of William Austin's poem Chanticleer (why isn't this piece performed more?) and goes on to blend more Bach (Wachet auf) with Howells (A Spotless Rose), Reger (Maria Wiegenlied), more Bach (Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern), Mendelssohn (There shall a star come out of Jacob), and a regular carol arrangement or two--Here We Come a-Wassailing (Rutter), Deck the Hall ( a jazzy 7/8 version by James McKelvy). Well, perhaps Elizabeth Poston's Jesus Christ the Apple Tree is getting a little overworked, but it's beautifully sung and this a cappella setting fits nicely into the overall program, which also includes organ and orchestra. Soprano Janice Chandler sings nice solo versions of He's got the whole world in His hands and Sweet little Jesus boy (with piano accompaniment), and there's a cute little twist on Away in a Manger, written by Edmund Walters--it begins with a countermelody, sung by the women, that's nothing like the original tune, which we don't hear until the end, hummed by the men's voices.


Organist J. Reilly Lewis treats us to a brilliant performance of Bach's chorale prelude BWV 615 (In Dir ist Freude), and another Bach piece, O Jesulein süss (harmonized by Martin Shaw) gets a tender and lovely a cappella rendition by the choir. This is a very well-disciplined ensemble--and it has to be in order for this many voices (around 100) to sing with such precision and clarity. (The liner notes list only sopranos and altos--I swear there are lots of men singing too!) The sound, optimally recorded in an ideal church setting, is excellent. [11/3/2000]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Rob Keeley considers chamber music to be the most direct and expressive medium for him as a composer. The spirits of Haydn and Chopin can be heard in the Second Piano Trio, and there is a wink towards Mozart in the wonderful blend and agility to be found in the Clarinet Quartet. All of these works are the result of musical friendships, the faith and commitment of the players an integral part of each performance, with the remarkable sonorities of Distil as its still center.

The comic-heroic romp Matilde di Shabran was Rossini’s last commission for the theatres of Rome, the city where he’d had great successes such as Il barbiere di Siviglia. Rossini took advantage of the agile, sparkling style of librettist Jacopo Ferretti to create a narrative in which the ferocious Corradino, a declared misogynist, is introduced to the resourceful Matilde, who succeeds in melting his iron heart and winning his love. This premiere recording revives the original 1821 Rome version, which was conducted at the last minute by Paganini, and caused brawling in the streets between Rossini’s admirers and detractors.

 

REVIEW:

 

This splendid recording of the original Rome version of Matilde, recorded at the 2019 Rossini Wildbad Festival in Germany, relishes the almost comic tale of the melodramatic medieval tyrant Corradino conquered by love, or rather Matilde, with a score packed with some of Rossini’s most accomplished music.

 

Michele Angelini is magnificent as the villain, everything that you hope for in a Rossini tenor—fleet of voice in his runs and trills and with gravity-defying head notes. Sara Blanch’s Matilde matches him note for note. Their Act I duet ‘Ch’io fugga ha già timore…’ is a thrilling lesson in Rossini singing. There’s good work from the rest of the cast, notably the contralto Victoria Yarovaya as Edoardo, who Corradino has unjustly imprisoned and turns tragedy into comedy. Equally pleasing is the Passionart Orchestra conducted by José Miguel Pérez-Sierra. All scrupulously Rossinian including the celebrated horn solo at the beginning of Act II.

 

– BBC Music Magazine

Classical Music

Includes concerto(s) for keyboard by J. C. F. Bach. Ensemble: The Music Collection. Conductor: Susan Alexander-Max. Soloist: Susan Alexander-Max.

Rossini's ceaseless wit and invention are best exemplified in his series of operas. His colorful orchestration and command of both comic and tragic elements can be savored in this second of four volumes of the complete symphonic overtures. Guillaume Tell, with it's overture in four movements, includes a scene for five solo cellos. La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder), one of his most popular pieces, opens with an overture of charm and elan. Volume 1 (8.570933) was described by MusicWeb Internationals "an admirable start to what looks like being a very desirable series".

The composer that Casella most resembles in his chameleon-like musical personality is probably Martinu, and this is nowhere more true than in the Partita for piano and small orchestra. Scored for the distinctive combination of oboe, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three trumpets, timpani and strings, the work is an unalloyed delight. Listen to the end of the first movement recapitulation, and you’ll be hooked. Like Martinu’s Sinfonietta giocosa, the lightweight title in fact conceals a work of genuine substance, lasting (in this case) just over half an hour. The central Passacaglia (a form much exploited by Casella) is profoundly beautiful, and its evocative use of trills reveals that Casella learned a trick or two from the first Nachtmusik of Mahler’s Seventh, which he arranged for piano four-hands.

The Introduzione, aria e toccata again recalls (or foreshadows) Martinu–in this case the Toccata e due canzone. Like that piece, this is a substantial, at times brooding work brimming with memorable invention. The music’s stylized, neo-Baroque idiom couldn’t be farther removed from the nearly contemporary orchestral fragments from Casella’s only opera, La donna serpente (The Snake Woman), after a play by Gozzi. These “fragments” are actually pretty extensive, lasting a full half an hour, and if they pay homage to anyone I’d have to mention Rimsky-Korsakov. The Military March that ends the first suite evokes a fairytale atmosphere similar to that of The Golden Cockerel or Tsar Sultan, but there’s nothing Russian about the melodic material, which is completely personal.

This disc marks the conclusion of Naxos’ Casella series, and it has been a wonderful journey. As with the other discs, the performances are excellent. Sun Hee You does a wonderful job in the Partita, offering effortless virtuosity and an aptly light touch. There’s only one other recording available, featuring the very good Joshua Pierce, coupled to concertante works by Respighi and Rachmaninov, but conductor Franceso La Vecchia proves himself more imaginative an accompanist the Anton Nanut, and he also has the better orchestra and engineering. Casella truly was a great composer. The evidence on this disc is incontestable.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Of all English oratorios Handel’s Messiah has always been the most overwhelmingly popular. It is the least theatrical of his oratorios and the most purely sacred in its choice of subject matter. The vivid choral writing- there are more choruses in Messiah than in any other Handel oratorio- coupled with the expressive density of the solo arias, have ensured its status as one of the greatest choral masterpieces in the Western canon. Since winning the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award and conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, Edward Polochick has attracted international attention as an orchestral, operatic, and choral conductor. He is the founding Artistic Director of Concert Artists of Baltimore since 1987. He is also in his 20th season as Music Director of Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra in Nebraska. From 1979-1999 he was the Director of the Baltimore Symphony Chorus, and since 1979 he has been at the Peaboedy Conservatory as Associate Conductor of the Orchestra, Director of Choral Ensembles, and Opera Conductor.

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REVIEW:

What we have here can be described as a ‘popular’ approach, using a large number of performers with a conventional modern chamber orchestra, and chorus capable of lifting the roof off the concert hall, as they almost do in Hallelujah and in a triumphal Worthy is the lamb. You will enjoy the passion he infuses into the music throughout, and he obtains a neat participation from his Baltimore musicians.

Jennifer O’Loughin's account of O daughter of Zion has joy as she negotiates the fast running passages, and there's a deep sincerity in her I know my redeemer Liveth. The tenor, Nicholas Phan, tastefully decorates his arias and slows down proceedings in his deeply felt account of the recit and aria, Behold, and see if there be any sorrow. Sidney Outlaw’s bass voice warms as the performance progresses and eventually gives an enjoyable The trumpet Shall Sound.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

You might accurately describe this program as a compilation of "great hits of Christian church music", including as it does Franck's Panis angelicus, Finzi's God is gone up, Mozart's Laudate Dominum, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, Lotti's Crucifixus, Howells' Magnificat, and the overrated, overwrought, overlong (and usually excruciatingly-sung) Hear my prayer by Mendelssohn. We also get a couple of Purcell anthems, O God, Thou art my God and Remember not, O Lord, Stanford's glorious motet Justorum animae, Duruflé's tiny masterpiece Ubi caritas et amor, and the choral setting of Elgar's "Nimrod" orchestral variation (Lux aeterna).


In previous reviews, I've praised this excellent choir from Elora, Ontario, and its performances here are first-rate as well. The choir especially shines in the Stanford and Duruflé, singing these oft-recorded motets as well or better than anyone on disc, with every detail of phrasing, breathing, and dynamic change perfectly worked out and executed. The same goes for the Howells, a work we don't hear often enough. We also can appreciate the ensemble's extraordinary discipline in the Purcell pieces, successfully managing the difficult transitions and sustaining the momentum through vocal writing that usually just seems disjointed and cumbersome.


Top billing on the program goes to the ever-popular Mendelssohn, and it's here that the performance falters--not because of the choir or its top-notch organist, Matthew Larkin, but due to soprano soloist Karina Gauvin, who I've admired on several other recordings but who seems shaky, unsure, and less than convincing in this admittedly tedious and difficult solo part. That aside, this is a very satisfying program that choral enthusiasts will embrace, especially when they hear such highlights as Eleanor Daley's refreshingly traditional In Remembrance (from her Requiem), the aforementioned Stanford and Duruflé, and the spectacular rendition of the Elgar, the best version on disc by far. The sound, from the choir's home venue, is full-bodied yet well-balanced, detailed and cleanly articulated. (I'm still hoping that Naxos will include track listings/timings in the CD booklet, not just on the back of the CD box.) [4/7/2006]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Award-winning composer Chang Ping’s Oriental Wash Painting is a set of four concertos that showcases traditional and ancient Chinese instruments, each performed by renowned and influential soloists. The ‘wash painting’ of the title implies a relationship between music and Chinese ink paintings- masterpieces which are magnificent and unconstrained, revealing a noble personality and character. This recording captures the world premiere concert of these remarkable works at the China National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Chang Ping’s works feature a large variety of musical forms, including opera, symphony, concerto, ballet, chamber music and solo works among others. A prolific composer, his works are performed frequently both international and domestically, winning numerous prizes as well as garnering worldwide critical acclaim.

The Holy Grail has occupied a central place in Western life. It was believed by many to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper, and in the middle ages writers saw the Grail as a dish, or a chalice, or a precious stone. Songs and instrumental music celebrated its mystical power and were composed by some of the greatest troubadours, mystics and singer-poets of the age: Chrétien de Troyes, Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Hildegard of Bingen. This disc uniquely focuses on the common threads between Grail literature and music.

Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber’s music radiates both his amiable personality and the Parisian elegance of his times. The huge success of his operas resulted in a popularity for these overtures that rivaled that of Rossini, who was an early influence. Auber’s brilliant and energetic style infuses tales of romance both rustic and aristocratic, with moods ranging from dramatic heroism to dashing ballroom dances- all portrayed with the signature charm that made him a standard bearer of musical stylishness and good taste. Auber’s opera La Sirene can be found on the Naxos label as well. This is the first volume of a project to record all the overtures to his 31 operas-comiques, seven operas, three drames lyriques and seven other stage works.

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REVIEW:

The present disc covers Auber's early period from 1813 to 1826, and, with the exception of La Neige, ou Nouvel Eginard, all are receiving their World Premiere Recording. So we open the disc with Le Macon from 1825, and by far his most successful of that era, remaining on French and German stages for the next hundred years. From one extreme to the other with Le Timide, ou Le Nouveau Seducteur that had just a handful of performances before descending into oblivion. As you go through the sixteen tracks you will find pleasing music played with a suitable elegance, the performances using the bouncy tempos requested in Auber’s metronome markings. That we have these performing scores, I gather we owe a debt of gratitude to the conductor, Dario Salvi, who also obtains neat performances from his Czech orchestra.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Over the last few years American composer George Tsontakis, winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, has crafted three distinctive and exciting additions to the contemporary concerto repertoire. Anasa, for clarinet and orchestra, combines elements of the Klezmer tradition with dance themes inspired by the lyra and lauto, traditional Cretan instruments. In True Colors the trumpet journeys in harmonically vivid, jazz-tinged directions, while Unforgettable balances the meditative with the playful, moving from ballad to phantasmagoria in a double concerto of drama and drive.

Although Polish-born virtuoso and composer Karol Jozef Lipinski embraced the innovations of Paganini and other 19th century virtuosos, he disdained 'empty' technique devoid of musical depth, preferring the artistic ethos of Spohr, Tartini and Viotti. Described as 'lyrical Slavic folk tunes with elements of the ballad,' the expertly crafted G minor and A major String Trios are notable for their warmly expressive themes to go along with the bravura runs and doublestopping heard in the primo violin part. Adam Roszkowski plays first violin with the National Orchestra of Belgium. As a soloist he has performed with the Gorzow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bialystok Philharmonic Orchestra, the Camerata dll'arte Chamber Orchestra and the Carloforte Festival Orchestra. Violinist Voytek Proniewicz made his solo debut with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005. Since then he has appeared with the philharmonic orchestras of Wroclaw Dzczecin, Rzeszow, Kielce, and Gorzow, as well as the Sinfonia luventus Orchestra and the Sinfonia Viva Orchestra. Polish cellist Jan Roszkowski is a laureate of the 27th National Chamber Music Competition in Warsaw. He completed a master's degree in music performance at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.

Originally published in London in 1771, these six Sonatas for cello and basso continuo were arranged for cello and piano by the influential Italian virtuoso cellist Alfredo Piatti in the 1870s and are performed here on modern instruments.

When Xianji Liu became the first Chinese-born winner of the prestigious Francisco Tarrega International Guitar Competition in 2016, a new star emerged in the world of the classical guitar. Spanning the centuries and crossing the globe from Argentina to Britain, his recital includes some of the most beguiling and evocative pieces ever written for the instrument as well as four transcriptions so idiomatic to the guitar that they sound utterly natural on the six plucked strings.

Toshio Hosokawa, Japan's pre-eminent living composer, creates his distinctive musical language from the fascinating relationship between western avant-garde art and traditional Japanese culture. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's 1945 poem, Hosokawa frames his monodrama The Raven as a Japanese Noh play, with its interaction between the human protagonist and an otherworldly animal. Vividly exploring ideas of madness, The Raven conjures up a shadowy and unfamiliar world.

Not only do you get performances to rank with the best, but also a bonus of the splendidly played Rondo.

Beethoven’s first two piano concertos share an abundance of lyric and virtuosic qualities. Concerto No. 1 in C major is expansive and richly orchestrated with a sublime slow movement that is tender and ardent, and a finale full of inventive humor. Concerto No. 2 in B flat major marries energy with elegance, reserving poetic breadth for its slow movement and quirky wit for the finale. Also included is the jovial Rondo, WoO 6, which Beethoven originally intended to be the finale of Concerto No. 2.

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REVIEWS:

Here’s a very promising start to what I assume will be a new Beethoven piano concerto cycle, featuring performances not otherwise included in Naxos’ “complete” Beethoven box. Boris Giltburg plays both works with the youthful panache that they require–the kind that makes you forget about any formal issues and just revel in the virtuoso passagework and good tunes. The standard for comparison in this coupling is Argerich/Sinopoli on DG–you might think an unmatchable team, at least pianistically, but Giltburg more than holds his own. Indeed, in Concerto No. 2 he matches Argerich’s fleet timing in the finale (and other movements) almost exactly, and in the First Concerto he’s even a bit quicker, all without sacrificing subtleties of touch, dynamics and phrasing for mere velocity.

Of course there are difference–welcome ones too. In the first concerto, Giltburg adds a couple of minutes to the central Largo, producing a genuine specimen of that particular tempo designation. His legato playing is beautifully sustained, making this early example of Beethovenian lyricism a real gem. Petrenko accompanies with real flair, proving himself a true partner in both concerto first movements. It’s so much more satisfying to have a real conductor working with a gifted soloist, rather than the single-person-at-the-keyboard approach so frequently offered these days. There’s just no substitute for full-time orchestral guidance. Giltburg also includes the original “Concerto No. 2 finale version” of the Rondo WoO 6, a considerable bonus, as are his intelligent and detailed booklet notes. Fine playing, fine conducting, fine engineering–in short, a really fine release generally.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Giltburg is a subtle artist who, despite his all-encompassing technique, rarely, if ever, engages in virtuosic grandstanding, preferring instead to interpret the music for maximum artistic yield. Nor does he employ radical or eccentric interpretive approaches. Yet, his performances are never bland but rather quite individual, typically rich in nuance and meaningful detail, and containing insights missing in other versions. His accounts of the two concertos feature well-chosen dynamics, main lines and inner voices perfectly balanced, and judicious tempos. In addition, he realizes these are the works of a youthful Beethoven, not of the mature, profound and serious-minded master of the three concertos that followed. Thus, he points up their lighter, more vivacious characteristics, his dynamics appropriately less weighty and his pacing never too relaxed.

Not only do you get performances to rank with the best, but also a bonus of the splendidly played Rondo.

– MusicWeb International

John Philip Sousa’s swift rise to fame and greatness came at a time when band concerts were the most important aspect of musical life in the US. The works on this recording range from the early Revival March of 1876 and the stirring Right Forward March from Sousa’s time as conductor of the US Marine band, to the “up-to-date” 1920s fox-trot Peaches and Cream and the 1923 Leaves from My Notebook, dedicated to the Campfire Girls of America. Music from Sousa’s operetta Chris and the Wonderful Lamp can be found alongside his medley of tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, which includes many of the hit tunes from this operetta, while The Honored Dead was performed at President Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral.

Steve Reich is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost exponents of minimalism, arguably the most significant stylistic trend in late 20th-century music. This chronological survey shows how Reich’s innate curiosity has taken his work far beyond such musical boundaries. One of the first fruits of Reich’s creative quest is ‘Music for Two of More Pianos,’ in which the influence of Morton Feldman and jazz pianist Bill Evans can be heard. The rhythmic and flamboyant ‘Eight Lines’ comes from the true heyday of minimalism, while ‘Vermont’ and ‘New York Counterpoint’ both explore webs of phased patterns created by multi-tracked instruments. ‘City Life’ is a dramatic set of impressions of New York, vividly weaving sampled speech and street sounds into a work with symphonic depth of range and expression.

REVIEW:

This generously filled new release includes compositions from a wide swath of Reich’s career, from Music for Two or More Pianos from 1964 to City Life from 1995. All of the selections are clearly minimalist in that they employ simple chord structures, rhythmic patterns that revolve around a discernible driving pulse, and an abundance of energy. The earliest piece, for pianos, is the most abstract-sounding, but after something of a slow start, it picks up energy as it as it moves along. Reich’s compositions and these spirited performers project an undeniable feeling of life-affirming joy, a sense of sheer exuberance, and an expression of gratitude for the ability to create, perform, and enjoy the sounds of music and integrate them with the with the rhythms of life. This is a disc well worth an audition even if you have listened to a Philip Glass recording or two in the past and concluded that minimalism was not for you…

-- Classical Candor (Karl W. Nehring)

Pauline and Paul Viardot were members of the famous Garcia family, Pauline's father the world renowned operatic tenor Manuel, and her son Paul a violin prodigy who rubbed shoulders with Europe's elite and became a friend and colleague of Saint-Saens. Pauline's 'Six Morceaux' were composed as a gift to her young son. Beyond his 'Sonatas,' much of Paul Viardot's music consists of the short 'salon' works on this recording. They are considered "a treasure of melodies" by Reto Kuppel, and an evocation of 1920s Paris and French elegance. Violinist Reto Kuppel has performed throughout Europe and the United States and has appeared as a soloist with many German orchestras, including the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Concertino Hamburg, the Ensemble Haar, and the Augsburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He studied with Andreas Rohn at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hamburg, and with Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School in New York. His solo albums have been highly acclaimed by both critics and audiences.

Mieczys?aw Weinberg – whose music was virtually unknown in the West until quite recently – composed, despite the incredible difficulty of the circumstances of his life, an enormous amount of music, including seventeen string quartets and no less than twenty-six symphonies, which puts him, in sheer prolificity among twentieth century symphonists close to Myaskovsky (27), but lagging somewhat behind Havergal Brian (32). Outstanding among Weinberg’s symphonies is the trilogy made up of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth symphonies, collectively entitled On the Threshold of War. This refers to what is known in Russia as The Great Patriotic War, or, in other words, World War Two.

So here we have no.17, ‘Memory’; it is a four-movement work with what might be thought a relatively conventional profile. But the way Weinberg handles the symphonic form and his material is, in all aspects, highly personal, and it is an unquestionably powerful statement. The movements are: an opening slow movement - Adagio sostenuto - of great intensity; then a fast, furious and lengthy Allegro molto; a much shorter Allegro molto, pesante; and another long movement, marked Andante, to complete the work.

There is, as far as I can ascertain, only one other recording of this symphony, that of a 2013 concert performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedoseyev. Though that is a committed performance, the sound is rather ‘raw’, and orchestral ensemble is often rough round the edges. The Siberian State Symphony Orchestra, on the Naxos recording, plays well, even if the strings do lack the bloom of a really top-class outfit. The recording is extremely well-balanced, so that wonderful moments, such as the entry of the harpsichord in the second movement, make the maximum impact. In fact, I found this the finest movement of the four; Weinberg constructs the movement so consistently from the various melodic motifs, and the scoring, particularly its use of the two keyboard instruments – piano and harpsichord – is outstandingly atmospheric. The way it eventually resolves into a searing elegy for the high strings is compelling, as is the sense of disintegration at its close.

This is certainly an impressive work, which deserves a distinguished place among the great World War Two symphonies – Vaughan Williams 6, Prokofiev 6, Shostakovich 7 and 8, Copland 3 and Honegger’s Symphonie Liturgique, to name a few of the best known. Inevitably not the most cheerful piece, and some will find it grim. I would prefer the word ‘bracing’, for Weinberg maintains the concentration and the symphonic argument strongly throughout the work’s forty-five minute duration.

But it is demanding, which is why it was such a good idea to begin the CD with something as hugely entertaining as the little Suite for Orchestra of 1950. This is pure delight, and I’d be very surprised if this piece was not now taken up by other orchestras (this is the first recording). The opening Romance has a gorgeously lachrymose theme, first heard in the trumpet, while the Humoresque has deliciously light scoring. The spirit of Shostakovich hovers very close; Weinberg’s third movement recreates perfectly the mood of those haunted and very Russian waltzes found in both of the older composer’s Jazz Suites.

An impressive and enjoyable disc then. And one other thing; we don’t often credit the writers of booklet notes, so I wanted to mention the exemplary notes provided for this issue by Richard Whitehouse. Genuinely helpful and informative, unlike some writers who sometimes appear simply to want to blind us with their musicological ‘insights’. After all, how many of us want - or need – to know what key the music modulates to in bar 63 etcetera, etcetera?

– MusicWeb International (Gwyn Parry-Jones)

These two concertos show the increasing importance of the guitar duo on the world’s concert stages. Leo Brouwer, one of the foremost Latin American composers, has written many admired guitar concertos but The Book of Signs is his first for two guitars, a double concerto of great virtuosity, with a majestic, songful theme in its central movement. A crucial figure in the global promotion of Brazilian rhythms for the guitar, Paulo Bellinati deploys luxurious harmonies and brilliantly effective techniques to pay tribute to the country music of Sao Paulo State in Concerto Caboclo.

Liszt turned to the composition of large-scale orchestral works after his success as a touring virtuoso and wrote a sequence of ground-breaking symphonic poems that in their narrative-driven structures directly influenced such composers as Richard Strauss and Sibelius. The piano transcriptions that Liszt supervised and produced saw these vivid scores transformed into the virtuoso piano medium in which form their pictorial richness could be enjoyed anew. This volume includes the memorably evocative Les Préludes and Orpheus.

Classical Music

Marco Antonio Cavazzoni- private harpsichordist to the Duchess of Urbino and Pope Leo X, friend of Titian and Bembo- composed some of the most important milestones in the history of instrumental music. They were published in Venice by Vercellese (1523), the second edition of Italian keyboard music after that of Andrea Antico. Usually assigned to the organ, they are restored here to the harpsichord where they originally belonged, as explained in an online essay by Glen Wilson. Contemporary examples further illustrate the fascinating development of Cavazzoni’s major form, the ricercar. The project celebrates the 500th anniversary of the harpsichord on the cover ( the world’s oldest), which was owned by Leo X and undoubtedly played on by Cavazzoni.

This third volume of the first complete recording of the Guerra Manuscript, a recently discovered anthology of seventeenth-century Spanish secular songs, features tonos, works for solo voice and accompanying instruments, by some of the greatest Spanish composers of that time such as Juan Hidalgo and José Marín. + These are framed by instrumental works by other composers of the period to set them in a richer context.

VERDI: OVERTURES & OPERA CHOIR

The idea of arranging movements from Prokofiev' popular ballet Romeo and Juliet for brass band and percussion is not as strange as it may first seem, since Russia boasts a great brass band tradition.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Enrique Granados is known for composing some of the most popular Spanish piano masterpieces. Along with these famous compositions, he also wrote a sequence of orchestral works. Marcha de los vencidos, which is the first track featured on this album, evokes the emotion of the painful march of "the defeated" from a lost battle. This album is the first in a series to be released in honor of the centenary of the composer’s death. The compositions on this album are performed by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pablo Gonzalez.