Probably no other country turned out such a bountiful crop of minor masters as England in the first decades of the 20th century. E.J. Moeran was one of the best: his work is finely crafted, melodically appealing, colorful, and effectively structured, and this is the disc to own if you only have room in your collection for one sample of his output. The Symphony in G minor in particular stands with the finest works of the period. Yes, the music is derivative: of Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, and even Tchaikovsky (the start of the first movement's development section), but that doesn't matter. It's a terrific listen, and on balance Boult's is the finest performance of the work.

It has in abundance the qualities for which this conductor was rightly acclaimed: an effortless feeling of movement, ideal clarity of texture, firm rhythms, and all of this with none of the ensemble sloppiness that sometimes intruded on his interpretations. The performance also features Lyrita sonics that remain a touchstone to this day in terms of naturalness and impact. With by no means negligible couplings consisting of equally successful versions of the Sinfonietta (a substantial piece with a particularly imaginative central variation movement) and the Overture for a Masque, this disc is a classic any way you look at it.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

English composer Arthur Butterworth (1923-2014) began his musical career as a choirboy at the young age of 7. Eventually, Butterworth studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he studied trumpet, conducting, and composition under Richard Hall. Arthur Butterworth wrote over 150 scores for various mediums. This two-disc release features his Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 4, and Symphony No. 1. No.'s 1 and 2 are performed here by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and No. 4 is performed by the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra.+ Especially notable is the 4th Symphony, whose premiere performance is featured in this recording.

This third and final disc of our survey of the complete orchestral music by Norwegian composer Fartein Valen includes three shorter one-movement works from the 1930s, as well as his last two orchestral compositions, his Fourth Symphony and the Piano Concerto. Kirkegården ved havet ('The Churchyard by the Sea'), which opens the disc, is among the most played of Valen's works and has been the inspiration for ballets as well as for a poetic film. As so often with Valen's shorter pieces, the composer had found inspiration in another work of art, this time the celebrated poem Le cimetière marin by Paul Valéry. The piece was conceived during a journey to Majorca, a journey which also bore fruit in La Isla de las Calmas ('The Silent Island'), based on a view of Palma de Mallorca, as the ship Valen was on departed for the mainland. Ode til ensomheten ('Ode to Solitude') is firmly based in the Norwegian landscape, however, its title referring to the solitude Valen sought at his isolated family homestead on the coast of Norway, where he spent his time composing and tending his beloved roses, but also worrying about the state of the world in the late 1930s and 40s. Christian Eggen and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra continues with Valen's last symphony, which contains something of a greeting to Johannes Brahms: like Brahms Valen ends his Fourth Symphony with a chaconne. For the final work - and Valen's last completed composition - they are joined by Einar Henning Smebye, the soloist in the piano concerto. Valen prepared for it by studying concertos by Mozart, and the three-movement work is classically simple in structure. It is restrained, almost anti-virtuosic with a solo part that is woven into the music.

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Arnold Bax. Ensembles: New Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductors: Norman Del Mar, Vernon Handley.

Since 2015 young conductor Krzysztof Urbanski has been the principal guest conductor of one of Germany’s leading orchestras, the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg. He is also music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. For this album, Urbanski conducts works of Lutoslawski. The tracklist includes his Concerto for Orchestra, Little Suite (Mala Suita), and Symphony No. 4. Lutoslawski was one of the great composers of the twentieth century. Like Stravinsky and Shostakovich, Lutoslawski reveled in the sound and textures of the full orchestra.

For this second volume in the Haydn 2032 project, the complete recording of his symphonies, Giovanni Antonini has chosen to put forward the Symphony Der Philosoph. He associates with it a symphony by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, eldest son of the Kantor of Leipzig, who is generally considered the most gifted of his sons. Different reasons brought these two great composers the originality and sometimes eccentricity that characterize their works, one suffering from the fame of his father, the other from his own genius. Whereas Haydn’s symphonies differentiate themselves by form, orchestration and keys, W. F. Bach’s begins in the style of a Baroque overture, gradually turning into a tempestuous piece and perhaps already reflecting the transition from a ‘Golden Age’ to the more tormented world that will follow the Age of Enlightenment.

A Dutch-language oratorio from one of the pioneers of the Flemish music scene! Peter Benoit was a rarity in the predominantly French-speaking cultural landscape of Belgium, and a Dutch-language oratorio about the Scheldt River was of huge symbolic value. Depicting the river as a lifeline reflected the radical optimism of Benoit's cultural policy. He had chosen the subject well: few other European rivers had so often been the subject of cross-border conflicts, treaties, lawsuits, sieges, blockades, and battles as the Scheldt. For the libretto, Benoit collaborated with writer Emanuel Hiel, who had previously provided the libretto for Lucifer. Together they created a complex scenario, moving away from the narrative oratorio tradition, in which the river is used to depict a journey through national consciousness.

Also Available: Lyrita - Celebrating Fifty Years Devoted To British Music - Set Two

In Set One strong choices are made time after time. Alwyn’s Magic Island is in fact Prospero’s island - from The Tempest. The English Dances beguile and enchant. They are drawn from an LP and then from an extended CD which found Lyrita orchestral recording standards at their utter peak. The Russian Scenes are well done although ultimately they are a collection of exotic postcards and dances. The Benjamin Overture is a playful piece in the manner of the lighter examples by Barber and Bax. It comes as no surprise to discover that it was used as the overture to Benjamin’s opera Prima Donna. Berkeley’s crisp Serenade for Strings is presumably authoritative with the composer at the helm. Bliss conducting a suite from his Adam Zero seems underwhelming as music and as a performance - Handley’s version is much better. The delightful Bridge Suite for Strings is lovingly done by Boult. Similarly sumptuous and achingly poignant is A Shropshire Lad. Finzi’s Eclogue, Howells’ Merry-Eye and Hadley’s One Morning in Spring speak for themselves. The Forgotten Rite by John Ireland is a subtle, poetic and completely convincing piece. It’s interesting that this first set has only one bleeding chunk from a larger piece and that is the second movement of Busch’s Cello Concerto. The Cello Concerto is a strong work and makes quite a discovery among the rich crop of new Lyritas in 2008. Although issued on CD in the early 1990s the Foulds Mantras - of which we here have the Mantra of Bliss - is amongst the most radical and impressive. Then again Foulds was an extraordinary composer whose significance is international. Light music is represented by shapely performances of Coates’ From Meadow to Mayfair, Gibbs’ Fancy Dress and the Coleridge Taylor Valse. Fredman’s reading of the famous Delius Walk is to be treasured. He would have made an estimable Song of the High Hills had the opportunity been offered. Lyrita are the only label to provide Holst’s tangy Japanese Suite and, audaciously enough, it’s here in this set. From the 19th century comes Sterndale Bennett’s Caprice and the remarkable Variations on a Hungarian Air by Hurlstone. Henry Wood’s orchestration of the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was originally presented under a pseudonym, Paul Klenovsky. Oh how those Russian names legitimise British talent! Gipps’ Horn Concerto is played by the very talented David Pyatt. Would that Lyrita had also recorded her other concertos. Don’t forget her works for Clarinet (1940); Viola (Jane Grey Fantasy, 1940), Oboe (1941), Violin (1943), Piano (1948), Violin and Viola (1957) and Contra-Bassoon (Leviathan) and the five symphonies (1942, 1945, 1965, 1972, 1982). Names much associated with Cheltenham are represented by the Yorick overture, the Jabez and The Devil and the only recently vinyl-liberated Hoddinott Welsh Dances (Set 2).

- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International


Lyrita - Celebrating Fifty Years devoted to British Music - Set One

CD 1 [73:53]
William ALWYN Symphonic Prelude - The Magic Island - LPO/Alwyn [10:11]
Malcolm ARNOLD English Dances - Set 2 - LPO/Arnold [9:49]
Bach orch. Henry WOOD Toccata and Fugue in D Minor - LPO/Braithwaite [9:49]
Granville BANTOCK Russian Scenes - LPO/Wordsworth [14:13]
Arnold BAX Northern Ballad No.1 - LPO/Boult [10:09]
Arthur BENJAMIN Overture to an Italian Comedy - RPO/Fredman [6:17]
William Sterndale BENNETT Caprice in E - Malcolm Binns (piano) LPO/Braithwaite [13:17]

CD 2 [75:21]
Lennox BERKELEY Serenade for Strings - LPO/Berkeley [13:14]
Arthur BLISS Adam Zero - Suite - excerpt - LSO/Bliss [8:53]
Frank BRIDGE Suite for String Orchestra - LPO/Boult [20:50]
William BUSCH Cello Concerto (II) Raphael Wallfisch (cello) - RPO/Handley [6:51]
Geoffrey BUSH Overture - Yorick - NPO/Handley [8:30]
George BUTTERWORTH A Shropshire Lad Rhapsody - LPO/Boult [8:38]
Eric COATES From Meadow to Mayfair Suite (excerpt) - NPO/Boult [8:14]

CD 3 [74:28]
Samuel COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Valse de la Reine - LPO/Wordsworth [4:32]
Arnold COOKE Jabez and The Devil - Suite - LPO/Braithwaite [18:02]
Frederick DELIUS The Walk to the Paradise Garden - LPO/Fredman [10:53]
Gerald FINZI Eclogue Peter Katin (piano) - NPO/Handley [10:32]
John FOULDS Mantra of Bliss - LPO/Wordsworth [13:06]
Cecil Armstrong GIBBS Fancy Dress - Dance Suite - RPO/Joly [17:20]

CD 4 [67:58]
Ruth GIPPS Horn Concerto - David Pyatt (horn) LPO/Braithwaite [17:14]
Patrick HADLEY One Morning in Spring - LPO/Boult [3:56]
Alun HODDINOTT Welsh Dances Set 2 - NYOW/Davison [9:04]
Gustav HOLST Japanese Suite - LSO/Boult [11:01]
Herbert HOWELLS Merry-Eye - NPO/Boult [8:52]
William HURLSTONE Variations on a Hungarian Air - LPO/Braithwaite [10:36]
John IRELAND The Forgotten Rite - Prelude - LPO/Boult [7:05]

rec. 1966-2007. ADD/DDD
LYRITA SRCD.2337 [4 CDs: 73:53 + 75:21 + 74:28 + 67:58]

Classical Music

Marked by the experiments of Luigi Nono or Helmut Lachenmann, and by his practice of seventeenth and eighteenth century music, French composer Brice Pauset is pursuing an original path, marked by his rhetorical questioning of earlier forms of music. This is music in tune with our own culture and, at times, would transmit its evidences. The vocal issue remains central, even in Brice Pauset’s catalogue: “The voice as an instrument,” he writes, “the voice as identity (and it then literally becomes human), and finally, the voice as an instrument of identity. It is only at this moment that the musical and political can carry on a dialogue, and that music can attempt to express its time.” Performed by the WDR Sinfonieorchester & Chor Koln, Ensemble Recherche, and Arditti Quartet, this is an album of great intensity served by first-rate performers!

This album is the third installment in Centaur’s cycle of the complete piano concertos of Anton Rubinstein (1829-94). +One of the great piano virtuosos of his day and a prolific composer, much of Rubinstein's musical output has long fallen out of public consciousness, only in recent decades receiving renewed performer and audience interest. +The Greece-born pianist Grigorios Zamparas is currently Associate Professor of Music, Piano, University of Tampa, FL., and an active international recitalist.

Bach: 6 Brandenburg Concertos - Mozart: Serenade, K. 525 "Ei

Classical Music

Classical Music

BEETHOVEN: OVERTURES AND INCID

L'ELISIR D'AMORE (DONIZETTI):

This first volume in a series combining Radulescu’s complete Piano Sonatas and String Quartets on Mode, performed by the superb JACK Quartet and pianist Stephen Clarke was released earlier this year on CD. It has been greeted with great critical acclaim and sales. And so, a natural starting place for Mode to reenter the LP market. In the 1970s, Horatiu Radulescu (1942-2008) began exploring and composing begun composing what he called “plasmatic music,” in which sound was conceived as an “endless ocean of vibrations,” as opposed to the traditional way in which music treats sound as a fabric of discrete scale steps. His music is linked to the “spectral music” school. Radulescu’s Fifth String Quartet is one of the key works in his output. It is in some ways the richest manifestation of the body of string techniques he had developed for his music. The Fifth Piano Sonata makes abundant use — more so than any of the other sonatas — of Romanian folk material, which is absorbed and integrated into Radulescu’s spectral language.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

LUMBYE: Orchestral Works, Vol. 4

From one of the most famous 19th-century families of musicians and known as “The Strauss of Berlin”, Hungarian-born Josef Gung’l toured widely with his orchestras, and the series of 61 concerts they gave at Hasselbacken, Stockholm in 1871 became one of the greatest events in the history of music in Sweden. This programme recreates such an evening at Hazel Hill, with waltzes such as Gung’l’s memorial to Johann Strauss I, Die Immortellen, dances by celebrated contemporaries, and nephew Johann’s famous march En Avant! - Naxos

Bach's concertos for multiple harpsichords and orchestra are beloved by some and drive others crazy. Perhaps no other music so graphically illustrates Beecham's famous description of the sound of the solo instrument as "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof." The performers must exercise great care in selecting instruments that are not too "clangy" sounding, and the recording has to balance a need for warmth and roundness of tone with contrapuntal clarity. In fact, most of this music was originally composed for melody instruments (violin and oboe, principally), and Naxos has obligingly reconstructed the original versions on another disc in this excellent series. One of the nicest things about this particular disc is the presence of the original version (by Vivaldi) of the Concerto for Four Harpsichords, an impossible work that is performed here about as well as it ever has been. In fact, all of these performances are uniformly propulsive, tasteful, and above all genuinely comfortable to listen to. A good listen, then, but best enjoyed one work at a time. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com