• Includes the work of Dmitri Shostakovich and Mieczysław Weinberg, who were both friends and rivals. • Violinist Lyonel Schmit plays most often in chamber music settings. His international performance engagements have taken him to Japan, Argentina and Amsterdam. • Pianist Julien Guénebaut is a frequent solo and chamber music recitalist. • Booklet notes in French and English include performer biographies, Anton Chekhov's short story “Rothschild's Fiddle, and the impetus behind the music performed.

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)

• Milan-born pianist, composer and conductor Giorgio Gaslini is a jazz musician of international fame, who to his credit has given more than 3,000 concerts, recorded 100 CD's and is a ten-time Critics Award winner. The flute works were composed between 1955 and 2011. Their performer and dedicatee is Roberto Fabbriciani, with whom Gaslini has had a long collaboration."

• Il Trionfo di Dori was printed in 1592. A Venetian nobleman, Leonardo Sanudo asked 29 authors to compose a poem, then asked 29 musicians to compose a madrigal to each text.
• Il Trionfo di Dori describes idyllic scenes of a mythical past merged with a peaceful pastoral world. Each piece closes with the words “Viva la bella Dori!”,the collection's unifyng element. Dori, the lovely sea nymph, is the name that hints at the woman to whom the work was dedicated, Elisabetta Giustinian."

In the year 1580, a young Luca Marenzio published his first collection of compositions: Primo libro de’ madrigali a cinque voci, to all a supreme master. Thanks to these works, Marenzio won a position of primacy among Italian composers, his fame soon reaching other European countries. In England, Marenzio’s works were highly admired. This CD contains an overview of the profane musical genres of the late ‘1500's, of which Marenzio and his contemporaries were the leading figures.

"From 1970 to 2008, the Viennese Alban Berg Quartet was one of the most successful string quartets in the world. Their playing influenced an entire generation of subsequent quartets. The reason for their worldwide success lay both in their outstanding virtuosity and their unerring ability to perform live with the same precision and exactitude of a studio recording. A further highlight from the Schwetzingen SWR Festival concert series Unique interpretations of two extraordinary works"

C.P.E. Bach’s two collections of religious songs were among the most popular 18th Lieder publications. The songs selected for this CD have never been recorded before with their complete texts. The other work recorded here is the ‘Hamlet Fantasy’ which resulted when the poet Gerstenberg imposed his free translation of Hamlet’s soliloquy on one of C. P. E. Bach’s keyboard works. This CD is released to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

REVIEW:

These devotional songs by CPE Bach are culled from two major sources: Geistliche Oden und Lieder mit Melodien (1758) on poetry by CF Gellert; and Sturms Geistliche Gesänge mit Melodien on texts by Christian Carl Sturm (1780–1). More than half of the songs on the program are recorded here for the first time: ‘Bitten’, ‘Prüffung am Abend’, ‘Abendlied’, ‘Busslied’, ‘Uber die Finsternis Kurz vor dem Tode Jesu’, ‘Passionslied’, ‘Der Tag des Weltgerichts’, ‘Empfindungen in der Sommernacht’, and ‘Der Frühling’.

Meyn and Charlston perform the full text of each lyric (‘Prüffung am Abend’ has 10 stanzas) and in intimate surroundings that replicate the original domestic setting for the performance of these songs. It is the perfect setting for the clavichord (built by Peter Bavington), which is the instrument Bach had in mind. Meyn’s tenor voice is light, just right for this repertory and setting. Texts and notes are in English.

-- American Record Guide

OehmsClassics acknowledges the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss with this release highlighting music for horn from Richard Strauss and his father._x000D_ Franz Joseph Strauss, although far outshown by his prodigy Richard in posthumous fame was one of the best hornists of his time._x000D_ Also included on this release is Hasenöhrl's (1885–1970) cheekily-named Till Eulenspiegel – Differently This Time, Op. 28._x000D_ Hornist Xiaoming Han is currently principal Horn of the German Radio Philharmonic.

•Conductor Herbert von Karajan leads the Choir and Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera in this New Year's Eve performance of Johann Strauss's (1825-1899) ever-popular Die Fledermaus. This unique live recording insplendid sound features a spectacular cast of singers including Hilde Güden, Walter Berry, Rita Streich and a special guest appearance by Giuseppe di Stefano.

Classical Music

•These three early works of the French composer Maurice Emmanuel (1862–1938) show him emerging from under the influence of César Franck. The ambitious Violin Sonata is here receiving its first recording. The Greek Folktunes Suite attest to Emmanuel’s deep knowledge of Greek music. The texts of the song-cycle Musiques, here receiving only its second recording, are by the poet, geologist and historian Louis de Launay.

REVIEW:

The performances here are persuasive and committed. We of course don’t have any points of comparison, and I could perhaps imagine something even more successful with a violinist and a singer with more inherently beautiful timbres. But these are at a level that is more than serviceable, and they convey the essence of the music thoroughly. Pianist Killian is particularly strong. The recorded sound is very well balanced and natural in the violin-piano works, though I find just a bit too much air around the voice. But do not let that stand in your way. The helpful, informative notes and texts and translations round out what is a very important release of music that should be a wonderful discovery for most listeners.

-- Fanfare

American tenor and actor Mario Lanza (1921-1959) is the featured star on this two-disc set of newly re-mastered recordings from 1940-50, encompassing a time prior, on the whole, to his becoming a famed Hollywood star. +Features a varied menu of music from the Italian, French and American operatic and stage repertoire, including previously non-published recordings and rarities such as “Hallowen Suite”, “In A Persian Garden” and more.

Venetian musician and composer Antonio Caldara (1670-1736), unlike some of his contemporaries who today are quite famous but experienced little fame during their lifetimes, enjoyed enormous success, then faded inexplicably from music history. +Alongside a vast production of vocal music, his only significant instrumental works are two trio sonata collections published during his youth, as well as these “sonate a violoncello solo col basso”, composed in 1735, a year before his passing.

Orlando di Lasso, 16th century musician and composer, is one of the masters of 16th century polyphony, considered by many the most versatile. +For over thirty years from 1560, he remained at the court of Duke Albert V of Bavaria, becoming court choirmaster. +In this capacity he traveled widely, often to Italy. +This collection consists of 24 bicinia, a polyphonic instructional genre then in vogue. +Half the collection uses sacred Latin text; the rest have no text. +A world premiere recording.

The centerpiece of this program is the first ever recording of the Hiawatha Melodrama, a concert work for narrator and orchestra designed to show the kinship between Dvořák's New World Symphony and Longfellow’s poem The Song of Hiawatha, which Dvořák said had inspired him in the symphony. It takes music from the symphony, as well as passages from the American Suite and Violin Sonatina, and fuses them with the poem, which is recited by a bass-baritone. Also included is music by Arthur Farwell, who was influenced by Dvořák, and was a proponent of Native American music. This recording thus celebrates the crosscurrent of influences between the Czech composer and American music and culture.

The Austrian-born composer Egon Wellesz (1885-1974) is a barely recognized figure in the history of western music. + For his rarely heard two-act Die Bakchantinnen, one of his half-dozen operas, Wellesz wrote his own libretto based on the ancient Greek play The Bacchae of Euripides. + This Vienna, 1960 performance, conducted by Mitiades Caridis features at least two well-known singers, the baritone Paul Schöffler and the tenor Fritz Uhl. + A most enticing item for the opera-collecting completist.

The violin-accordion Duo ViA! (Sinn Yang and Harald Oeler) made their debut in 2009 with the program Seasons at the Heidelberg Spring Festival. + At that time, it required a great deal of courage to present to the public, in a sold-out hall, one of the most popular and most frequently played classical works, Vivaldi’s I quattro stagioni in combination with Astor Piazzolla’s Las cuatro portenas. + For the Duo, the program Seasons was and still is both an experiment and a daring feat.

The Fifth House Ensemble of Chicago chamber-music group aims for the stratosphere with Excelsior, its adventurous debut album on Cedille Records. The title refers to an experimental, extreme-altitude U.S. Air Force project of the Cold War era. Excelsior presents world-premiere recordings of works by Caleb Burhans, recipient of commissions from Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Library of Congress; prolific, award-winning composer Alex Shapiro; and Jesse Limbacher, winner of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. The disc also includes a work by Mason Bates, Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer-in-residence. Commissioned by Fifth House Ensemble, Burhans’ 30-minute title track depicts Captain Joseph W. Kittinger’s 1960 record-setting free fall and parachute landing from a height of more than 19 miles above the earth. Excelsior transports listeners through a seamless, ethereal blend of acoustic and electric instruments and voice, propelled by suspenseful, repeating motifs.

This 3CD collection highlights past releases by the young renowned recorder and blockflöte virtuoso, early music specialist and OehmsClassics artist Stefan Temmingh. CD1, ‘Corelli À la Mode’, features, among other works, the groundbreaking op. 5 sonatas in world premiere recordings of the 18th c. ornamented versions. CD2, ‘The Gentleman’s Flute, follows on with works by Handel and the last disc features select excerpts from the French and English works by J.S. Bach and other Bach miscellany.

Rivka Golani’s portrait album invites listeners on a musical journey spanning the 1820s to the late 1940s; its style ranges from early romanticism to post romanticism. Another of the music peculiarities is that it shows how the millennial heritage of Jewish culture enriched European art music. Rivka Golani is recognized as one of the outstanding modern violists. More than 300 works have so far been composed for her, including 77 concertos: a record matched by no other violist in history.

Described by Saint-Saëns as "the most remarkable of the young British composers," York Bowen was widely known as a pianist and as a composer, his fame reaching its zenith in the years immediately preceding the First World War. The writer and composer Thomas Dunhill described Bowen’s chamber music as "an essentially healthy and breezy phase in modern art." This is especially true of the 1922 Carnegie Trust Award-winning Second Quartet, and while both quartets are based on clear-cut classical models the Third is more elusive and intimate in feeling, revealing the composer’s rarely displayed private side. The atmospheric Phantasy-Quintet provides a rare opportunity to hear the beauty of the bass clarinet in a truly eloquent and expressive soloist capacity.

Karl L. King wrote more than one hundred and fifty marches over his lifetime, many of which live on and are frequently performed to this day. His name exists among a pantheon of American march composers, including John Philip Sousa, Henry Fillmore and others. King’s work is unique in its combination of the quick precision of circus marches, with the regality of a military parade. Now, the highlights of Karl King’s work are available on one CD.

Karl King’s Greatest Hits includes the very best marches from the composer’s repertoire, including Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite, The Big Cage and The Melody Shop, all performed by the bands of The United States Military. This album is one of the few collections of Karl King’s marches, and may rank the best among them.

Both Black Pentecost and Stone Litany share a symphonic scale and an Orkney setting. Premièred by Simon Rattle in 1982, Black Pentecost is an impassioned plea against environmental destruction, taking its words from Orcadian author George Mackay Brown’s novel Greenvoe, and cast in the form of a vocal symphony. Chamber-like restraint is matched by tense, dark writing that embraces threnody and cataclysm. Beautifully orchestrated and featuring elaborate melismas from the vocal soloist, Stone Litany, subtitled ‘Runes from a House of the Dead’, evokes the haunted landscape of a Neolithic burial mound plundered by Vikings.

This collection of rarely recorded Wagner repertoire, the master’s work for voice and piano, includes the famed Wesendonck-Lieder in both its original German and an Arrigo Boito Italian version. Also featured are the famed ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, ‘Melodram’, the complex ‘Dors, mon enfant’ and further works with texts by writers including Hugo, Heine, de Ronsard and Scheurlin. Michela Sburlati - ‘a fine dramatic soprano’ (NYT) and fellow Italian maestro Marco Scolastra perform. Booklet includes liner notes, sung texts and artist biographies.

The King’s Singers explore the folk songs and melodies of the world in a new program entitled Postcards. In their own words: “In our travels we have amassed a wonderful collection of folksongs and popular songs from numerous countries, many of which we use as encores when we visit. The influences and sources are extraordinarily far-ranging, and each song has its own local characteristics. To celebrate the diversity of music that we perform and the numerous countries we visit each concert season, we have recorded an album of some of our favorite folksongs from around the world.” One of the world's most celebrated vocal ensembles, The King's Singers have a packed schedule of concerts, recordings, media and education work that spans the globe. Instantly recognizable for their spot-on intonation, impeccable vocal blend, flawless articulation of the text and incisive timing, they are also consummate entertainers: a class act with a delightfully British wit.