Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of today’s most important American composers. The works heard here in their world premiere recordings are part of a growing legacy that one pundit has described as “The Power of Tower.” Strike Zones is tailor-made for percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s dazzling technique and impeccable musicianship. The work’s orchestration is crafted to enhance a stage filled with percussion instruments – while in Small they are contained on a single table, the soloist working like a brilliant chef. The piano concerto Still/Rapids was inspired by the glistening beauty and powerful force of water, and Ivory and Ebony, written as a test piece for an international piano competition, is infused with Tower’s “high-energy” signature.

REVIEW:

Another American Classics release features the music of contemporary composer Joan Tower. These fabulous premiere recordings give a good representation of the range of music Tower has been producing over recent years. It is particularly good to hear performances from Evelyn Glennie as one of a cast of top rate musicians here. The earliest work, Strike Zones, dates from 2001 and the latest, Small from 2016. Both these feature percussion. Still/Rapids combines piano and orchestra with the final piece, Ivory & Ebony being a test piece for an international piano competition.

-- Lark Reviews

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Through Puccini represents the late-Romantic apex of the Italian operatic tradition, his songs are much less well known and, in their pared simplicity and emotional restraint, could hardly be more different from his stage works. The nineteen complete songs for soprano (two in duet with a mezzo) and piano cover themes typical of lyric poetry including life, death, personal resolution, love, nature, home and religious faith. There are also rare salon pieces and examples of Puccini's secular juvenilia, written between 1875 and 1880.

Massenet: Werther

Pulitzer Prize- and GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis’s Flute Concerto was inspired by and written for Marina Piccinini. Its four movements explore darker and lighter elements in various dance forms, most of which begin calmly but end up spiraling out of control. Kernis describes the songlike Air as ‘a love letter to the flute.’ His Second Symphony was composed at the time of the Persian Gulf War and signified a powerful shift of tone in his music. Non-programmatic but linear and compact, it forms a part of his ‘War Pieces’ of 1991–95. Internationally renowned flutist Marina Piccinni’s rich artistic tapestry is woven from her multinational upbringing and vibrant, global perspective. Her extensive programs include premieres by Aaron Jay Kernis, John Harbison, Lukas Foss, and Paquito D’Rivera. She has appeared as a soloist with the Boston, Vienna, Tokyo, and Toronto National Symphonies, among others.

Recorded in the presence of the composer, Andrew Penny’s survey of the Complete Symphonies and Dances by Sir Malcolm Arnold has long been considered to contain benchmark recordings. Born in 1921, Sir Malcolm Arnold quickly established himself as a fluent and versatile composer, a gifted tunesmith and a brilliant orchestrator. His music is typically lucid in texture, rich in melody and clear in draughtsmanship yet there are frequent signs of a complex musical personality and dramatic tensions not far beneath the surface. The Dances are light-hearted, vivid and jaunty, yet the nine symphonies explore the composer’s darker side, painting a picture of his private ‘journey through hell’ as he struggled with physical and mental health issues. They are masterworks which exert continued appeal and stimulate repeated listening.

REVIEW:

These are performances of uniformly high quality made in the presence of the composer and recorded with more realistic balances and cleaner textures than any of their rivals. While all of these readings are first class, highlights include a superb Symphony No. 5 and interpretations of Nos. 7 and 8 in which conductor Andrew Penny sets tempos that allow Arnold’s fanciful orchestrations to register with maximum color and impact.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Federico Moreno Torroba composed about one hundred works for the guitar, thereby reinforcing his status as one of Spain's great twentieth-century composers. Homenaje a la seguidilla pays lively tribute to that characteristically Spanish song and dance, while the Tonada concertante is in turns playful and introspective. Concierto de Castilla features a free-spirited lyricism evocative of the folklore of Castile, a vast expanse in the middle of Spain with which the composer strongly identified. "You would expect Pepe Romero to excel at the Concierto en Flamenco...The piece is gorgeous, the performance vibrant and passionate...The soloist in Dialogos is Romero's gifted pupil, Vicente Coves, who plays as well as his mentor, and whose brother leads the orchestra vividly and sympathetically." (ClassicsToday.com on Volume 1, 8573255)

In the days before sound recording, orchestral music was often arranged in versions for piano duet as a way for the public to hear, play and enjoy music by the great composers of the day. As a result, the number of arrangements made available soon exceeded that of original piano duet compositions. Robert Schumann, who loved to play duets together with his wife Clara, often supervised and occasionally created many of his own arrangements in the form. This is the penultimate album in this seven-volume series containing all of Schumann’s orchestral works arranged for piano duet. Mariko and Volker Eckerle founded the Eckerle Piano Duo in 2006. The cleverly conceived concert programs of the German-Japanese duo are very popular with critics and audiences alike. Along with central works of the piano duet repertoire, the Eckerle Piano Duo regularly plays rarely heard pieces and works together with other musicians, actors and ballet companies.

Another wonderful disc from Ilya Kaler.

Ilya Kaler’s new recording of the Brahms concerto on Naxos is eminently recommendable. When reviewing his recent recording of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto (see review) I remarked that Kaler’s performance was one “of elegance as well as brilliance” that “wears it war-horse status lightly, impressing itself upon the listener by virtue of its freshness and natural feeling”. Those comments are equally applicable to this recording.

Kaler’s conception of Brahms’ score is one that rejoices in its beauties. Ably supported by the warm sounds exhaled by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Kaler’s violin sings with a golden tone and sweetly inflected phrasing. He takes his time over the first movement, but maintains his rhythmic control and sense of the music’s overall architecture. In this his performance succeeds where, as Jonathan Woolf points out, Julia Fischer’s similarly conceived account fails. Kaler also lingers lovingly over the gorgeous slow movement – taking over 10 minutes. His pacing is more conventional in the Hungarian finale, which smiles more than it swaggers here.

The coupling of Brahms and Schumann is astute. Firstly it makes programmatic sense. Both concertos share the tonality of D – Brahms in the glowing major, Schumann in the dramatic minor. Both were written for Joachim, and the bond between Schumann and Brahms themselves is as well known as it is complicated.

Secondly, the coupling is an attractive addition to the Naxos catalogue. It complements an earlier disc (Naxos 8.550938), on which Kaler joins cellist Maria Kliegel in Brahms’ double concerto, offered as a coupling for Kliegel’s performance of the Schumann cello concerto. Buy these two discs, and you have the complete Schumann and Brahms string concertos at one fell swoop.

The coupling of the Schumann and Brahms concertos is also fairly unusual in the broader catalogue. While recordings of the Brahms proliferate, there are few recordings of the Schumann concerto and when they do appear they tend to be lumped together with more Schumann. Only Joshua Bell, to my knowledge, has coupled these two concertos on disc before. That disc now forms half of a mid-price twofer in the price bracket above this release (Decca – The Joshua Bell Edition – 4756703). Bell's recording is also available at bargain basement price on Australian Eloquence, but sundered from its Brahms coupling.

Schumann wrote his violin concerto very quickly in the autumn of 1853. Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann had reservations about the piece. In happier times Schumann would probably have revised the piece, but the rapid decline in his mental health prevented this and the score languished unplayed and unknown until the 1930s. It is an attractive piece, constructed along classical lines, and deserves more attention and respect than it is usually accorded. The first movement has a symphonic seriousness and integrity, contrasting the wild, surging argument of its first subject with a gentle, sensitive second subject. The central movement is quietly beautiful. The finale, in the form of a polonaise and with prominent wind writing, brings the concerto dancing to a close.

Kaler's performance is successful and offers collectors a distinct choice. Bell's recording has a straight forward brilliance and Kremer's EMI recording with Muti, like Menuhin's electric premiere recording of the uncut score, emphasises the drama of the work. Kaler takes a different view. Again favouring spacious tempi – his first movement at 14:28 takes a minute longer than Bell's and two minutes longer than Menuhin's – he presents the concerto very much as the classical conception of a poetic soul. Where the other interpreters listed above play for Florestan, Kaler takes Eusebius' part.

The balance favours the violin in both concertos, but there is air enough around the soloist, and the warm Lighthouse Concert Hall acoustic gives the orchestral sound a lovely glow. Listening through earphones can be disconcerting in the Schumann where either Kaler's or the conductor’s breathing is quite prominent. I did not notice this so much when listening through speakers.

Keith Anderson's liner-notes live up to his usual high standard, but gloss over the circumstances of the Schumann concerto's rediscovery by Joachim's great-niece and avoid entirely discussion of the political wrangling over the concerto's premiere performances.

Another wonderful disc from Ilya Kaler and a bargain of the month.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition: Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets.

This exciting disc makes a very welcome return to the catalog on Naxos. The Respighi transcriptions reveal his typical mastery of orchestration, particularly in the larger pieces: the Prelude and Fugue BWV 532 and the great Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor BWV 582. The chorale transcriptions are also very lovely, and include the famous “Wachet auf” (“Sleepers Awake!”) BWV 645. In the Sonata BWV 1023, Ilkka Talvi proves a sensitive and musicianly soloist as well. However, the real treat is Elgar’s arrangement of the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor BWV 537. It’s insane. In the fugue, next to Elgar’s tambourine, glockenspiel, harp glissandos, and looney trumpet licks, Stokowski’s Bach might as well be the work of a period-instrument specialist. It’s wonderful, and Gerard Schwarz gets his players to blast their way through the piece with total conviction. The sonics also constitute one of the better efforts from this source and era (1990). Buy it and love it.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Internationally established musicians Hanna Shybayeva (piano), Utrecht String Quartet and Luis Cabrera (double bass) present on this album the rarely performed and even more rarely recorded chamber music transcriptions of Beethoven's piano concertos Nos. 3 and 4 by Vinzenz Lachner. Hanna Shybayeva started her international career at the age of eleven as a "child prodigy." She recorded for several labels, bringing out repertoire by Ravel, Prokofiev, Chopin, Takemitsu, Shostakovich, and the complete Etudes-Tableaux of Rachmaninov. Since 2008 she has been a member of the New European Ensemble, one of the most innovative, vibrant, and versatile ensembles for New Music. Since 2013 she has been a professor at the International Anton Rubinstein Music Academy in Dusseldorf and at Conservatorio Giacomo Puccini La Spezia.

Gerald Finzi made an important contribution to British twentieth-century song, choral and orchestral repertoire. His acute awareness of the frailty of existence found it's musical expression not only in his song settings, but in the Cello Concerto.

2000 release. The Nutcracker Christmas Eve narrated by Prunella Scales with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Michael Halasz & the Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by Igor Golovschin.

These composers were all affected by the carnage of World War I, and their elegiac music expresses regret and lost innocence, love won and lost, sacrifice and death. George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, conceived as an epilogue to his Housman song cycles, encapsulates the poet’s sense of life’s transience. Ivor Gurney was both shot and gassed in 1917, and The Trumpet pleads with mankind to set aside the folly of war. Heard here in a new completion, Gerald Finzi’s Requiem da Camera mourns the death of his mentor Ernest Farrar and those of other fallen artists, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s An Oxford Elegy recalls lost friends with an intense and magical nostalgia.

Henry Vieuxtemps was a violin prodigy who became a towering figure in a line of violinist-composers that stretches from Viotti to Ysaÿe, and whose playing led to Schumann’s statement that he “holds us in a kind of magic circle”. Influenced in part by Paganini, Vieuxtemps’s solo works demand the full arsenal of virtuoso techniques from lightning speed to the purest singing tone. The Etudes, Op. 48 include a piece subtitled ‘Torment’, while the Six Morceaux represent the composer’s homage to Bach in their polyphonic style.

Invented in Paris in 1846 by the Belgian-born Adolphe Sax, the saxophone was readily embraced by French composers who championed the new instrument through numerous ensemble and solo compositions. This tradition is celebrated in a program, performed by the young and exciting Kenari Quartet, that explores the saxophone in all of its colors and sonorities, from Pierre Max Dubois's light-hearted and jazz-inspired music to the lyrical and expressive world of Alfred Desenclos, and from Jean Francaix's witty "bantering" to the excitement and energy which closes Florent Schmitt's Quatour, Op. 102.

GERSHWIN (THE BEST OF)

WITT Symphony in C, “Jena.” Symphony in A. Flute Concerto in G, op. 8 • Patrick Gallois (fl, cond); Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä • NAXOS 8.572089 (69:37)


Born in the same year as Beethoven, the longer-lived Friedrich Witt (1770–1836) is acknowledged today, if a bit shamefacedly, as the composer of the so-called “Jena” Symphony once attributed to Beethoven. Not a single note of the score changed between the time it was believed to be by the great Ludwig Van and when it was discovered not to be; yet critical opinion of the work plummeted like the stock market on the report of bad news. Funny how that happens—yesterday buy, today sell, though nothing but the name of the note issuer of record has changed.


Recordings of Witt’s works represent but the tip of a sizeable iceberg; fewer than 10 of his works, as far as I can tell, have been recorded. Yet he is believed to have written as many as 23 symphonies, numerous concertos for various instruments, a considerable volume of chamber music, a number of operas, and an oratorio, Der leidende Heiland (The Suffering Savior), which secured him an appointment as Kapellmeister at the court of the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg in 1802.


Prior to this, however—sometime around 1792 or 1793—while Witt was serving as cellist at the court of Oettingen-Wallerstein and taking composition lessons from Antonio Rosetti, he laid eyes upon four of Haydn’s latest “London” Symphonies—Nos. 93, 96, 97, and 98—which Haydn had sent to Wallerstein. This, according to Keith Anderson’s booklet note, and other biographical sources I’ve come across, was Witt’s moment of dawning light, a light that, paradoxically, would eventually dim his own lamp in the pages of music history. Witt’s worst “crime,” it seems, was not simply imitating Haydn to the point of near plagiarism, but doing so at a time when Beethoven was busy “liberating music” from the strictures of classical content and style, if not quite yet classical form. In other words, Witt chose the path of the arch-conservative. History thereby ended up lumping him together with the lesser contemporaries of Haydn and Mozart instead of with the lesser contemporaries of Beethoven and Schubert, whom Witt outlived by the better part of a decade. Which lumping would have been better for Witt’s posthumous reputation I’m not sure; neither changes the music he wrote.


Witt’s G-Major Flute Concerto, newly recorded here, has been recorded before. It was included on an MDG Gold disc that also contained the composer’s Sixth, so-called “Turkish,” and Ninth symphonies. Johannes Moesus led the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, and the concerto was played by flutist Susanne Barner. That release, which I happen to have, was reviewed by Barry Brenesal in Fanfare 29:2.


As for the “Jena” Symphony, don’t believe everything you find, or don’t find, at ArkivMusic. As of this writing, the site lists only the current Naxos recording. But the work has appeared on disc before as far back as the 1950s. An LP on the Concert Hall label with Walter Goehr conducting the Netherlands Philharmonic has been transferred to CD, and there is a downloadable Deutsche Grammophon version with Franz Konwitschny. Versions on Urania with Rolf Kleinert leading the Leipzig Philharmonic and with Wolfgang Hoffmann leading the Rhineland Philharmonia on Musical Heritage Society also exist.


In hindsight, it’s hard to imagine how Witt’s “Jena” Symphony, written sometime before 1796, could ever have been mistaken for a work by Beethoven. Even Beethoven’s earliest orchestral works, namely the first two piano concertos, present an entirely different sound world from Witt’s symphony. Beethoven’s melodic contours are different, as is his way of writing for winds and of extending and developing his thematic material. Witt’s symphony is pure Haydn. Listen to the first movement’s second theme beginning at 2:13. In shape and style, it’s close to a dead ringer for the first movement’s second theme in Haydn’s D-Major Symphony No. 93, which was one of the four “London” Symphonies that Witt had access to at Oettingen-Wallerstein.


The Adagio likewise proceeds in Haydnesque melodic phrases and harmonic gestures, while the Menuetto is big on formal flourishes, curtsies, and that big ballroom-band sound common to so many of Haydn’s minuet movements. It contains none of the sprinting, whiplash elements that, in Beethoven’s hands, would transform the minuet into a scherzo. The last movement, a spirited Allegro, would have brought a London audience to its feet, just as Haydn’s finales did. If you love Haydn (and who doesn’t?), and his 106 symphonies aren’t enough for you, you can listen to Witt’s “Jena” Symphony and pretend it’s Haydn’s 107th, or you can listen to it and appreciate it for what it is, the work of a master copycat.


The A-Major Symphony, written perhaps a year or two before the “Jena,” seems somehow lighter and fleeter of foot. A passage or two in the first movement sounds as if it’s about to lapse into the bubbly, scintillating passagework one hears in Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony. The one surprise Witt has in store for us is that he places his Menuetto in second position, before the Andante. Though not unprecedented—Haydn did it in his C-Major Symphony No. 32—the practice was uncommon before 1830. Beethoven, in fact, didn’t reverse the order of the two inner movements in any of his symphonies until the Ninth, though it’s arguable whether the Eighth even has a slow movement at all.


Though Haydn wrote close to four dozen concertos for various instruments, the medium was not his in the way it was Mozart’s, and Witt seemed instinctively to realize this, turning instead to Mozart’s concertos as the model for his own G-Major Flute Concerto of 1806. With so few of Witt’s works available on record, it would be rash to say that this concerto is his crowning achievement. I think it’s safe to say, however, that it displays a wealth of melodic invention, ample virtuosic challenges for the soloist, a richness of orchestral writing, and an originality of ideas that seemed lacking in the symphonies. With as fine a flute concerto as this, I’m surprised that flutists aren’t lining up to add it to their repertoires.


Until I received this recording, I thought that Susanne Barner on the aforementioned MDG disc was perfectly fine, but compared to renowned flutist Patrick Gallois on this new Naxos CD, she sounds rather laid-back and a bit mechanical in her delivery. Gallois sparkles and tosses off Witt’s arpeggios, runs, and roulades with panache. The Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä, under Gallois’s direction, also sounds more spirited and alert, not to mention better recorded than the Hamburgers under Moesus.


Taking that into account, along with the fact that this, to my knowledge, is the only modern recording currently available of Witt’s “Jena” Symphony, Gallois becomes the entry of choice. A selling point of the MDG is that it contains two of Witt’s other symphonies not duplicated on the current disc. So, I shall be keeping both; but for those wanting to sample Witt’s work that has netted the most ink—the “Jena”—and what may be one of his most masterly works—the flute concerto—Naxos’s CD is a no-brainer and a bargain to boot.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins


Hands up who has heard of Friedrich Witt. Not many probably, for Witt seldom even makes it to the footnotes of musical history books. His main claim to fame is that his Symphony in C major - which is the first work on this recording - was once mistakenly attributed to Beethoven. In the early 1900s musical researchers uncovered the score and found the master’s name written next to two parts of the manuscript. Remembering that Beethoven himself had intimated that he had once attempted a symphony in C, the researchers put two and two together and got it wrong. It was left to H.C. Robbins Landon to prove that the work was really by Witt, a cellist and composer from Wallerstein.

Nevertheless, the Naxos tradition of bringing the obscure to light has paid off in this recording. The three works presented give a fascinating insight into the kind of music that was being written in the tin-pot courts of Germany while the likes of Beethoven were developing revolutionary new means of expression in Vienna. This does not mean that the music is poor. Quite the opposite. It is bold and attractive stuff.

The C major symphony (nicknamed ‘Jena’ after the city’s university, where the manuscript was discovered in 1909) was composed in 1796 and is clearly influenced by Haydn. This is no coincidence. It is known that in 1792 or 1793 Haydn sent four of his London symphonies - Nos. 93, 96, 97 and 98 - to Wallerstein, where Witt must have seen them. The opening allegro is upbeat and playful, with a touch of Haydn wit. The ensuing ‘Adagio cantabile’ contains an attractive melody, while the finale is a fast-paced race to the finish that makes good use of the comparatively large orchestra at Witt’s disposal - including timpani and trumpets, as well as flute, oboes, bassoons, horns and strings.

The Symphony in A major is less riveting. Written about six years earlier, it lacks Haydn’s positive influence and is hemmed in by simple and rather restrictive sonata-form structures. The Flute Concerto in G is much more satisfying. This work was published in 1806 and benefits from a fuller, heavier, orchestral sound. Nevertheless, it still inhabits the sound-world of Haydn and Mozart rather than ‘Eroica’ Beethoven. Patrick Gallois ably tackles the tricky flute solos while simultaneously conducting the Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä. There is a quasi-Romantic opening to the second movement, followed by a fine flute melody which is developed and decorated. But the final Rondo brings us safely back to the late eighteenth century.

-- John-Pierre Joyce, MusicWeb International

The ‘Best Loved’ series of albums covers a wide range of popular instruments, each bringing together a substantial selection of works from the vast Naxos catalogue. Each compilation includes an extensive booklet which provides a full introduction to the instrument, an explanation of how its sound is produced, and descriptions of the pieces. Each album will serve as an introduction to a specific instrument, with musical examples from the Baroque to the present, and with a mixture of solo, chamber and orchestral works. The series is aimed at listeners who do not have extensive knowledge of classical music, but who are interested to find out more about the instrument featured and about popular repertoire written for it. The focus in these releases is a light and relaxed approach, rather than academic and theoretical: a joyful exploration and celebration of individual instrumental sounds. This series will be accompanied by supplementary online playlists that will have additional best loved tracks for each instrument beyond what can be included on a physical album. This album features works by Vivaldi, Beethoven, Bach, Weiss, Albéniz and Febonio.

Composed between 1897 and 1905, this collection of Respighi’s earliest music for violin and piano, some from his student days, is notable for its openness to influences as diverse as German Romanticism, Russian Nationalism and the French school, as if he were trying out different styles in the search for his own personal idiom. No less evident are Respighi’s technical mastery of instrumentation and form as well as his delight in vocally inflected melodic lines. This is the first of two volumes of Respighi’s complete works for violin and piano. Emy Bernecoli and Massimo Giuseppe Bianchi have been acclaimed for their “impassioned, technically polished and rhythmically rock-solid interpretations”. (Gramophone on 8.572828 / Ghedini)

A. RUBINSTEIN Sérénade russe. 2 Melodies, op. 2. Souvenir de Dresde, op. 118. Romance and Impromptu, op. 26. Akrostikon No. 1, op. 37 • Joseph Banowetz (pn) • NAXOS 8.570942 (75:21)


Recently, I reviewed Joseph Banowetz’s first volume of music by Anton Rubinstein, declaring myself ripe for more at the end of it. Well, here is Volume 2, a mix of the new (five of the six movements of Souvenir de Dresde are world premiere recordings—No. 6 was recorded by Leo Sirota and is available on the Arbiter label—as are the Romance and Impromptu , the Sérénade russe, and the Akrostichon No. 1). Volume 1 contained music from 1871–90; this presents works written 1852–94. I also mentioned in my earlier review that only the Melody in F has gained the favor of the catalog, and here in fact it is, played with unaffected simplicity by Banowetz and bringing in tow its lesser-known companion, a Melody in B, a work of supreme delicacy. Rubinstein uses single-line melody to great effect, and Banowetz plays with supreme dignity and maturity.


The disc begins with a work minus opus number. The Sérénade russe was written around 1852, and was composed for a publication named L’Album Bellini . The melancholy feel of the work seems entirely Russian. Banowetz ensures that the lightenings of texture and mood register to maximum effect, and that the Lisztian arabesques contain hints of improvisation.


The sublime sweetness of the first movement of Souvenir de Dresde (1894) draws one into the work. This movement’s title is, in fact, “Simplicitus.” The music opens out into sequences of roulades (dispatched with remarkable ease by Banowetz). In contrast, the second movement, marked “Appassionata,” uses Brahmsian sonorities to bring a contrastive disquiet. Annotator Joshua Creek suggests that the opening of the third movement, “Novelette,” is pastiche Rameau, and it is easy to hear what he means. The movement is a delight. A light, almost Mendelssohnian Caprice leads to an extended Nocturne where the shadow of Chopin can be clearly felt. Drama is the characteristic of the final Polonaise. Banowitz does not quite project the full sweep of the piece, perhaps.


Dripping, slow descending lines that one might expect to encounter in late Brahms begin the Romance from op. 26. Rubinstein’s offering turns out to be a simple but expressive song without words, its melody exquisitely shaped by Banowetz. The Impromptu makes for effective contrast in its playful, busy nature. Finally, Akrostikon No. 1 (written around 1856). Each movement is headed by a letter, which when put together spell “LAURA” (Laura Shveykovskaya, a young lady evidently admired by the composer). All five movements are remarkably stress-free, liquid outpourings. Any hints of disquiet in the fifth movement (Con moto) are dismissed in the quasi-improvised final movement, a clear Lied ohne Worte.


Once again, Banowetz has succeeded in alerting the record buying public of the importance of Anton Rubsinstein’s music while simultaneously providing playing of the utmost clarity and beauty.


FANFARE: Colin Clarke

The ‘Best Loved’ series of albums covers a wide range of popular instruments, each bringing together a substantial selection of works from the vast Naxos catalogue. Each compilation includes an extensive booklet which provides a full introduction to the instrument, an explanation of how its sound is produced, and descriptions of the pieces. Each album will serve as an introduction to a specific instrument, with musical examples from the Baroque to the present, and with a mixture of solo, chamber and orchestral works. The series is aimed at listeners who do not have extensive knowledge of classical music, but who are interested to find out more about the instrument featured and about popular repertoire written for it. The focus in these releases is a light and relaxed approach, rather than academic and theoretical: a joyful exploration and celebration of individual instrumental sounds. This series will be accompanied by supplementary online playlists that will have additional best loved tracks for each instrument beyond what can be included on a physical album. This carefully selected programme represents the key Romantic-era composer/players alongside more traditional pieces.

The ‘Best Loved’ series of albums covers a wide range of popular instruments, each bringing together a substantial selection of works from the vast Naxos catalogue. Each compilation includes an extensive booklet which provides a full introduction to the instrument, an explanation of how its sound is produced, and descriptions of the pieces. Each album will serve as an introduction to a specific instrument, with musical examples from the Baroque to the present, and with a mixture of solo, chamber and orchestral works. The series is aimed at listeners who do not have extensive knowledge of classical music, but who are interested to find out more about the instrument featured and about popular repertoire written for it. The focus in these releases is a light and relaxed approach, rather than academic and theoretical: a joyful exploration and celebration of individual instrumental sounds. This series will be accompanied by supplementary online playlists that will have additional best loved tracks for each instrument beyond what can be included on a physical album. This album features works by Sor, Tárrega, Bach, Paganini Rodrigo and Myers.

Robert Schumann considered Peter Joseph von Lindpaintner the most promising operatic composer in the country, yet despite his 21 operas he has been almost forgotten. Like most leading German composers of his time he took Meyerbeer's historical grand operas, conceived in Paris, as his model. Set in Sicily at the dawn of the 1848 revolution, 'Il vespro siciliano' ('Die sizilianische Vesper'/ 'The Sicilian Vespers') is a dramatic four-act opera that reveals why he was held in such esteem by Schumann, Spohr and Mendelssohn: expressive harmonies, folksong-like strophic songs, rich orchestration, the use of the latest stylistic devices, and tuneful bel canto melodies that point to the work's Franco-Italian lineage. This world premiere recording is directed by Federico Longo.

Classical Music

Mozart wrote his horn concertos, three of them complete and one lacking it's slow movement, for the former Salzburg horn-player Ignaz Leutgeb, who had returned to his native Vienna in 1777.

Jacques Castérède composed in almost every genre, from stage and symphonic works to competition pieces, with music that remained rooted in expressive melody. This third and final volume of his flute music presents witty neo-Classicism in the 5 Bagatelles, and the composer's delight in popular music with the post-Debussian 12 Études, works that are both communicative and vibrant. In the Divertimento we meet the composer at his most compulsively subversive, as an expert melodist, harmonist and contrapuntalist, in music as zany as it is disarming. South African native Cobus du Toit has performed in Russia, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, France, Australia and, as a concerto soloist, has performed with orchestras around the globe. Pianist Doreen Lee has appeared on all three volumes. She has performed with notable artists such as the Takács Quartet, violist Geraldine Walther, Colorado Symphony principal horn Michael Thornton, flautists Christina Jennings and Katherine Kemler, and cellist Johannes Moser, among others. She is also the pianist of the du Toit/Lee Duo, formed in collaboration with flautist Cobus du Toit.

Muzio Clementi’s legacy to pianists lies not only in his teaching studies and in his exploration of new levels of virtuosity, but in compositions that were widely admired by contemporaries such as Beethoven. This album explores a variety of pieces, a number of which focus on variations. ‘The Black Joke’ was a popular English tune garnished by Clementi with 21 successive variations. Musical Characteristics captures the styles of leading figures of the time, including Mozart, Haydn and Koželuch, while the Variations on ‘Batti, batti’ is a virtuoso transcription. Nicholas Rimmer plays on an original fortepiano made in Clementi’s own workshop around 1806. A pianist with a keen interest in chamber music, Lied, as well as in historical keyboard instruments, Nicholas Rimmer has appeared in many major concert venues in Germany and the UK, among others. His collaborative partnerships have resulted in acclaimed recordings of Brahms and Wolfgang Rihm; the latter (8.572730) received a Diapason d’Or, a Pizzicato Supersonic Award and an International Record Review ‘Outstanding’ Award.

GRÉTRY Le magnifique • Ryan Brown, cond; Emiliano Gonzalez Toro ( Octave, Le Magnifique ); Elizabeth Calleo ( Clémentine ); Jeffrey Thompson ( Aldobrandin ); Karim Sulayman ( Fabio ); Marguerite Krull ( Alix ); Douglas Williams ( Laurence ); Opera Lafayette • NAXOS 8.660305 (80:00)


The operas of André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, once wildly popular, are virtually unknown today—this is the world premiere recording of this 1773 work—even though his most famous work, Richard Cœur de Lion of 1784 was still occasionally performed in the late 19th century. In order to fit the whole opera on one CD, conductor Ryan Brown and his forces chose to omit all of the spoken dialogue, which some may see as a demerit and others a plus.


This CD production duplicates the cast that Brown used when he gave the modern world premiere of the opera at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in February 2011, reviewed by Charles T. Downey in Ionarts. Interestingly, the descriptions of the singers in that review virtually matched my own reaction, particularly the description of soprano Elizabeth Calleo as having “some lovely high notes but an overall vocal production that was tight in the jaw…and sounded a little shallow at the top,” but overall this cast is good.


The plot is a typically silly “rescue” opera mixed up with the usual love triangle. Put as simply as possible, the dashing young Octave, known as “Le Magnifique,” has just rescued the wealthy merchant Horace and his servant Laurence from the slave market where they mysteriously appeared. Meanwhile Horace’s daughter, Clémentine, is being wooed towards marriage by her tutor, Aldobrandin, while Alix, Clémentine’s servant and confidante, has rushed into the street having spotted Laurence (who is also her husband) marching with the slaves. Le Magnifique offers his best racing horse as a free gift to Aldobrandin if he is allowed 15 minutes alone with Clémentine, which the latter agrees to. Clémentine tacitly agrees to marry him, and in the course of time, of course, it is revealed that Aldobrandin and his servant Fabio actually kidnapped Horace and Laurence and sold them into slavery nine years ago. Reunions occur, Aldobrandin is dismissed, and Octave/Magnifique gets the girl.


What makes this opera interesting, however, is the music. Stuck stylistically somewhere between the baroque and classical styles, Le Magnifique has some very innovative and interesting moments, such as the slow march of the slaves which acts as the overture, a splendid duet for Clémentine and Aldobrandin, and a wonderful comic aria for Fabio, who sings of the glories of the horse Octave has promised his master. In fact, there ensues a trio for Octave, Fabio, and Aldobrandin—all of whom, incidentally, are tenors—singing for four minutes of how they’re going to go out and have a look at that horse! (All I could think of at that moment was Mr. Ed. ) By and large, Le Magnifique ’s style is that of a comic opera but, as I say, the style is very forward-looking. It much closer resembles Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor than it does Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. I was particularly struck by the musical invention in his extended act II finale, which lasts an astounding 17:22. Not until Mozart wrote the act I finale to Le nozze di Figaro did a composer, particularly in a comic opera, write something even more involved and complex.


All the singers have excellent voices, bright yet full (save Calleo whose voice is not bright on top but constricted). Sulayman has a rather over-bright and somewhat unsteady tenor, but since Fabio is a comic-comprimario role, Sulayman does a good enough job. In fact, his rendering of the “horse aria” is absolutely delightful. Brown conducts with a light, deft hand: He evidently understands the French galante style very well. Despite her slight vocal deficiencies, Calleo is called on to drop an octave into what would be her contralto range in her aria “Quelle contrainte!” Both the first and second acts end with an ensemble for the three tenors (I’m a little surprised that Plácido Domingo never dug this up for his Three Tenors concerts), and here one can discern the tonal difference between their three voices. This recording is an unexpected delight, and I commend both Ryan Brown for his superb musical direction and the foresight of Naxos to record this. Bravo, one and all!


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

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.