Classical Music

The Norwegian Wind Ensemble
Mark Bennett - conductor
Nordic Voices
Arrangements by Stian Aareskjold

The point of departure for the Norwegian Wind Ensemble’s new CD is the meeting of serious European music and indigenous traditional music of the 17th and 18th centuries. The result is a vibrant mixture of lovely music, spirited dance rhythms, and Latin American temperament. The Norwegian Wind Ensemble is a professional orchestra based in Halden. With its 280-year history, it is Norway’s oldest orchestra.

Erich Kleiber Archives, Vol. 1

It was a debut that will long be remembered. It was in October 2006 that Yannick Nezet-Seguin first conducted the Dresden Staatskapelle, which with its invitations to younger conductors in particular was increasingly emerging “as a talent scout for the next generation of baton-wielders” (German daily Die Welt). The 31-year-old newcoming, whose very name was a tonguetwister for most, had hitherto attracted the most attention in his native Canada; since 2000 he had been directing the Orchestre Metropolitain, little brother of the Orchestre Symphonique in his birthplace of Montreal. After debuts with orchestras in Toulouse, Goteborg and Birmingham, he was now in the Semperoper, standing for the first time in his life before one of Europe’s long-established, tradition-steeped orchestras. Nezet-Seguin was no disappointment. In fact, he was just the opposite. Straight away at rehearsals, it was obvious that this young man knew exactly what he wanted in works by Britten, Ravel and Shostakovich; in concerts, he was in full command of musicians and audience alike with his energetic and precise conducting manner, his sens of sound and rhythmic structures. Word soon got around that news of “the Great Canadian Conductor for whom this country’s classical music buffs have been waiting” (Toronto Star) was more than a mere marketing device. And people believed him when he admitted that conducting had been “like a vocation” for him ever since he was ten years old. “Today I have the feeling that I am living the dream I had as a little boy,” he confessed.

REVIEW:

Making a major mark in this repertoire isn’t the easiest thing for any conductor to do, not with so many distinctive performances already on disc. But Alsop has a genuine affinity for the composer’s music, and can clearly deliver the goods. Alsop holds her own in terms of the big picture, leading a performance of the Seventh that ultimately carries substantial expressive weight. It is the same for Symphony No. 8, which emerges with lots of character and warmth. In both works, the BSO produces a vivid, disciplined sound.

– Baltimore Sun

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

It is also available on standard CD.

This selection is available for a limited time as a special import.

That Franz Schmidt's 1899 Symphony No. 1 met with greater success than Mahler's contemporaneous Symphonies Nos. 1-3 seems surprising to us today, until we consider the conservative tastes of the Viennese in that era. Schmidt, though not necessarily a straitlaced "conservative" composer, did early on dutifully (perhaps too dutifully) follow the path laid by Wagner, as his magisterial first movement amply demonstrates. It's similar in style and harmony to Wagner's Meistersinger, but with less interesting tunes. The following Langsam movement also evokes Wagner through its not immediately apparent tonality and its rather languid atmosphere (as well as the beautiful writing for strings). But again the melodic material is not all that memorable.

The scherzo is best: it features a catchy tune with beguiling turns of melody and harmony that foreshadow the Schmidt of the Fourth symphony (particularly in the colorful and distinguished woodwind writing), his finest work in the genre. The finale returns to the prosaic, though it does boast an affirmative if seemingly obligatory chorale toward the conclusion.

Vassily Sinaisky shows real belief in and affection for the piece, and he leads a convincing performance with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra. He's certainly more involving than Neeme Järvi, who with his Detroit Symphony gives the impression he's always in a hurry to get to the good parts.

There are good parts aplenty in the Notre Dame excerpts. Composed only five years after the symphony, Schmidt's opera displays the composer's keen dramatic instincts and developing orchestral mastery (the colorful Carnival Music is quite captivating). Again Sinaisky and the Malmö players deliver a first-rate performance, captured in excellent sound by Naxos. If you're interested in early Schmidt, you'll do quite well with this release.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 3 DE WAAR

The first of two Haydn recordings from Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra presents a “D Major” overview of Franz Joseph Haydn’s symphonic repertoire. From Haydn’s early period the Baroque influenced Symphony No. 31, ‘Horn Signal’ has an almost Gothic tinged feel with highly contrapuntal elements. Counterpoint is found in abundance throughout Symphony No. 70, a work written in the devastating aftermath of a fire on the Esterházy grounds, destroying buildings, instruments and consuming music scores. One of the famous ‘London Symphonies’, No. 101, ‘The Clock’ has its focus firmly on the future. Robin Ticciati is in his fifth season as Principal Conductor of the SCO. Gramophone named Robin one of the top ten young ‘conductors on the verge of greatness’ and one of 'Tomorrow's Icons'. “[an] exhilaratingly free performance of The Clock…the tick-tock Andante had a fragile grandeur that was disarming and poignant.” (The Guardian)

Franz Xaver Richter actually wrote these symphonies before joining the celebrated group of composers and performers in the Mannheim court orchestra, but they are no less interesting for that. Two of these works (Nos. 10 and 12) follow the "church sonata" format in opening with a slow movement (out of four in total; all of the other symphonies have three). The quick second movement of No. 10 is a fugue, and a very good one, always an indication of the "learned" style. But even the theoretically lighter works are full of melodic and harmonic interest. The minor-key slow movements of Nos. 7 and 8, for example, really are gripping, and in the quick movements Richter strikingly anticipates Classical procedures by writing development sections that really do develop, exhibiting great tonal tension with no loss of coherence.

In short, these works are well worth getting to know, and happily the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra under Aapo Häkkinen plays them stylishly and with plenty of expressive force. The harpsichord continuo sounds a touch dry, but it happily doesn't overwhelm the larger string ensemble as so often happens in music of this period, turning the works into de facto keyboard concertos. Volume 1 in this set of 12 "Grandes Symphonies" already has been released, and it's equally fine, so if you're interested in the history of the classical symphony, and in that fascinating period in which the late Baroque mingled with the nascent style of Gluck (in "reform" mode), Haydn, and Mozart, then you will certainly want to hear this expressively pungent and attractive music.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Unfamiliar scores played with great conviction. A real treat.

Taneyev may not be high on most people's list of 19th-century Russian composers but that could change as this Naxos series progresses. The First and Third symphonies with the Novosibirsk orchestra under Thomas Sanderling - son of the illustrious Kurt - certainly impressed me and, if anything, this new release has heightened my admiration for composer and orchestra alike.

Taneyev's only opera, based on Aeschylus's Oresteia, was recorded by DG and Olympia some time ago, but neither version is in the current catalogue. Curiously, the overture was composed and performed several years before the opera was completed. It's a substantial piece in its own right, lasting around 20 minutes, and listeners may be forgiven for thinking they've stumbled on a little-known piece of Wagner or Richard Strauss. That said, this is more than musical mimicry, revealing a rich supply of motile Russian melodies and a symphonic sweep that wouldn't have disgraced Taneyev's great friend and mentor, Tchaikovsky. From that first Stygian string theme through to its restrained finale this overture is full of lovely touches; and even though there is a whiff of Scriabin in those aromatic harmonies Sanderling ensures they never cloy or overwhelm the senses.

Arguably the Act III Entr'acte is even more seductive - it certainly has a Straussian amplitude - which is probably why this piece was so popular during the composer's lifetime. I was particularly struck by the sheer passion and unanimity of the playing and Sanderling's firm, clear-eyed view of the score. The recording is just as satisfying, deep when it needs to be and suitably grand in the splendid climaxes. Indeed, any misgivings I might have had about this band and their conductor simply evaporated at this point.

How very different that all is to the delectable Adagio in C major, written during the composer's final year at the Moscow Conservatory. As Anastasia Belina points out in her liner notes, much of Taneyev's youthful work was only discovered years later. The Adagio, published in 1950, is a real gem, especially when it's played with such elegance and refinement. And how different again is the Overture on a Russian Theme, written for the All-Russian Art and Trade Exhibition of 1882. Taneyev makes use of authentic Russian songs - as collected by Rimsky-Korsakov - forging them into a piece that has all the cut and thrust of a Cossack sword. It's virile stuff, guaranteed to please those who like their Russians to strut and swagger.

The style of the cantata, written for the opening of the Pushkin Memorial in Moscow, is echoed in the celebratory music of post-revolutionary Russia, used to great effect by the likes of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. That's not to suggest this is merely a patriotic prole-pleaser, because it isn't; it may be just 64 bars long but it has all the passion and splendour of those great choral numbers in Alexander Nevsky. As for the Canzona it's a frothy little confection, complemented by the bright-toned playing of clarinettist Stanislav Yankovsky. A slight piece, perhaps, but enjoyable none the less.

The Overture in D minor, like the Adagio, is an early work and this time it shows. It has a bluff quality - and a tendency to outstay its welcome - that the other pieces in this collection manage to avoid. (I wonder if other listeners can hear Brahms in this music?) Still, one mildly disappointing piece out of seven isn't bad, and it certainly isn't enough to dilute my enthusiasm for this disc as a whole. Factor in committed playing and full-blooded sound and you have one of the year's most entertaining releases so far.

Go on, treat yourself.

-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

VIVALDI Bassoon Concertos: in a, RV 497; in C, RV 473; in F, RV 491; in C, RV 466; in C, RV 469; in g, RV 496 • Tamás Benkócs (bn); Béla Drahos, cond; Nicolaus Esterházy Snf • NAXOS 8.570798 (65:04)


For anyone wishing recordings of all 37 completed bassoon concertos by the Red Priest, there is currently only one choice: Daniel Smith on five ASV CDs (552). While this is hardly a bad deal—Smith and his two conductors and orchestras present the works with great energy and dazzling virtuosity—there have always been nagging irritations. Smith is an amazing performer, but every concerto seems like an Olympic event; faster is better—faster and louder better still. If, in the process, he produced a hollow tone—made coarse when overblown, barking low notes here and there, occasional dicey intonation, intermittent fudged figurations where the tempo was set faster than the fingers could fly, it was all in the name of the race. He and the orchestra always got to the end, together, and by golly it was exciting. And yet—and yet—!As much as it seems like ungrateful nit-picking and as much as one is thrilled just to have all of these inventive works so well played, or played at all, in the end one feels that there should be something more than mere pyrotechnics, however breathtaking they might be.


Enter the extraordinary Hungarian bassoonist Tamás Benkócs, principal of the superb Budapest Festival Orchestra. Here at last is the poetry, not the race. Here is elegance and wit and wistfulness and moments of repose to go along with the amazing technical virtuosity. Benkócs doesn’t have us on the edge of our seats, wondering if he is going to make it through a passage; rather he tackles the sometimes-staggering technical challenges with deceptive ease. The tempos are generally a bit slower than are Smith’s, but with that slight relaxation one starts hearing the extraordinary music instead of just the amazing rush of notes. The middle slow movements benefit the most—Benkócs plays them as if he were singing an aria—but the variety that he finds in the fast movements, not to mention the warm solid tone, impeccable intonation, seamlessly blended tenor and bass registers, and precise articulation of even the most demanding passages, is well worth a little loss in raw excitement. I like his playing as well as that of Klaus Thunemann on Philips, and that is high praise indeed. Béla Drahos and his excellent modern-instrument band provide sympathetic accompaniment: buoyant, transparent, restrained in use of vibrato, harpsichord dominated, but with attractive depth. I would have liked them a bit farther forward on the sound stage, but that is a minor quibble. Collectors who have a wider interest in this repertoire will want to sample some of the colorful period-instrument performances on Naïve 30379 and 30409, but there is still a great deal of vitality in these traditional modern-instrument performances, as well.


With this volume, Mr. Benkócs has finished five CDs and 31 concertos. Assumedly, he will complete the series in one more volume. Two other Fanfare critics have weighed in on the series; David L. Kirk warmly welcomed Volume 2 (8.555938) in 28:6; but in 30:2, Laura Rónai found Volume 3 (8.557556) too polite by half, and non-descript to boot. I certainly side with Mr. Kirk, but obviously opinions vary. The nice thing about Naxos recordings is that one can experiment for a relatively small investment. That’s what I recommend. Then you can buy the other four, as I did.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ ballet Caroline Mathilde premièred in 1991 and has been highly acclaimed ever since. Its story concerns the tragic marriage of Caroline to Christian VII of Denmark and is cast in a musical language that embraces expressionism, drama, parody, and overt lyricism. The two concert suites chart the young queen’s fall from grace and her eventual banishment into exile. Chat Moss is a richly textured tone poem, while by contrast the Ojai Festival Overture is a lively and extrovert concert piece reflecting Maxwell Davies’ fondness for American landscape and culture. Recorded between 1991-95 and previously released by the now defunct Collins Classics, the Naxos label has been consistently lauded in the musical press for making available once again these and many other recordings by arguably the greatest British composer of the second half of the 20th c., that, in some cases, remain the only recordings of these works.

The works on this recording embrace a varied miscellany of Peter Maxwell Davies’ orchestraloutput from the early 1990s. The ‘choreographic poem’ The Beltane Fire pits the sternness of theReformation clergy against the pagan traditions of the Orkney Islands. Concerned withenvironmental pollution, The Turn of the Tide ultimately reaches “a triumphant dance of allcreation”, while the Threnody and Pavan are poignant memorial tributes for significant figuresin the composer’s life.

Domenico Scarlatti is renowned for his remarkable keyboard sonatas, some 555 of which are known. Written for performance on the various keyboard instruments of the Spanish court where he was employed for many years, they have long provided a valuable repertoire for pianists. On Volume 13 in Naxos’s highly praised and popular series, the young Chinese pianist Chu-Fang Huang, who in 2005 won First Prize in the Cleveland International Piano Competition and was a finalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, interprets sixteen of these influential 18th-century mini-masterpieces.

The Faroese composer Sunleif Rasmussen (b. 1961) let's the melodies of national songs become the musical DNA in powerful sound-evocations of nature; either as a basis for ingenious constructions of great sensuality, or so that anyone in the North Atlantic islands can hum along. Interpreted by members of Lapland Chamber Orchestra under the baton of John Storgards, Rasmussen's music is in strong fellow Nordic hands on this recording.

Classical Music

Selections recorded in February and March 1995.

A good introduction to Azeri music with riotous orchestral colours, wit and panache.

Fikret Amirov will likely inspire comparisons to Aram Khachaturian, as a result of his penchant for exotic folk-tunes and spectacular orchestration. But the comparisons will also likely be thanks to geographical convenience: both composers hailed from the Caucasus (Amirov from Azerbaijan, Khachaturian from Georgia) and both drew their inspiration from the musical traditions of their homelands. While it is true that anybody who likes Khachaturian, or Ippolitov-Ivanov, or indeed Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin, will love this music too, Amirov has a distinctive voice and to describe his work via comparisons is to shortchange it.

This CD compiles four of Amirov’s orchestral fantasies, entitled symphonic mugams. A mugam is, according to the booklet notes by Anastasia Belina, “a highly improvisatory … large rhapsodic musical form” alternating between song and dance episodes, popular in Azeri musical tradition. Amirov’s father was a mugam singer and creator of folk songs, and the younger composer, in adapting the mugam for symphony orchestra, seems to have taken the adjectives “large” and “rhapsodic” to heart. Shur and Kyurdi Ovshari, especially, are lengthy works which leap from one contrasting idea to another for quite some time before ending rather arbitrarily.

So I am afraid this is not music for those who like their works carefully structured, their tunes developed, or their transitions to lead with rigorous correctness from an idea to its logical counterpart. On the other hand, Amirov’s music is hugely attractive at the surface level, because many of the tunes are great, the dances are all energetic and brightly scored, and the parade of exotic sounds and colours never ceases.

Shur opens with an ominous drumbeat and extended dialogue between the bass clarinet and violas; over its course we encounter a good deal of sensuous music in the tradition of Scheherazade and Gayaneh’s Adagio, a tambourine-led dance episode, influences of Arabic music on the sleek string lines, solo episodes for flute and oboe, and a quiet ending. Kyurdi Ovshari opens with a sultry tease of a tune on the clarinet, but this melody only barely makes it to the fifth minute before being replaced by a full-string-section tune that actually reminds me of Gershwin and then a dialogue between the orchestra’s sections that is rather stop-and-go until a very surprising cadenza at 8:30 - I won’t betray the identity of the solo instrument. The last six minutes of Kyurdi Ovshari might be the most exciting music on the whole CD.

Gyulistan Bayati Shiraz begins quite ominously, with a moment in the spotlight for the double basses and a considerably more ‘modern’ tonal idiom. There are fewer tunes in this work, then, and more concessions to the music of Amirov’s western contemporaries, although his style is still very accessible. The surprise soloist from Kyurdi Ovshari returns to play a major role.

Azerbaijan Capriccio, the short final piece, bears a startling resemblance to many subsequent war movie soundtracks. The brash opening, then, makes me grin, as do subsequent allusions to Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto. There’s a lovely atmosphere in the episode after 2:40, and some really rip-roaring brass writing throughout. This shortest of the mugams quite concisely captures all the qualities that make Amirov’s music so much fun.

Several instruments of the orchestra benefit from more attention than usual due to their close connections with Azeri folk instruments: the violas, for instance, are called on to do their best to imitate the stringed kamancheh, and the flutes sometimes mimic the deeper, more soulful sound of the ney. The Russian Philharmonic Orchestra responds with enthusiastic, exciting performances, led by maestro Dmitry Yablonsky, who perhaps cannot save the first half of Kyurdi Ovshari from being a bit repetitive but who leads all the music with commitment and zest.

Sound quality is superb; in fact, this is one of the most clearly-engineered Naxos recordings I have heard. The parts of the orchestra are balanced very well, all of the dozens of solos sound quite natural without being artificially ‘enhanced,’ and the recording is close enough to make climaxes very exciting indeed. One can even hear the contrabassoon buzzing away like an intimidating insect in Kyurdi Ovshari. Several of Amirov’s symphonic mugams were previously recorded by Leopold Stokowski on the Everest label in the 1950s, and I have not heard those performances, unfortunately, but cannot imagine them being superior enough in playing or sound to justify the extra labour of trying to locate them.

This compact disc is well worth your time for several reasons: as an introduction to the lavish music of Fikret Amirov and as a free holiday through the sights and sounds of exotic Azerbaijan, and for a hilarious booklet photograph of conductor Dmitry Yablonsky. The music, the performances, and, yes, even the artist photo are each worth the price of admission, which means that for those interested in this type of music I can safely give this disc my strongest recommendation.

For those hungry for more Amirov, Naxos has recorded an elegiac symphony for string orchestra on a disc called “Caucasian Impressions,” and several works for flute and piano have appeared on BIS. But we are just scratching the surface. This album’s notes inform me that Amirov composed “operas, ballets, symphonies, symphonic poems, symphonic mugams, suites, piano concertos, sonatas, musical comedies … incidental stage music, and film music.” Looking online, I see there is a “double concerto” for violin, piano, and orchestra, a ballet based on the Arabian Nights, an “Azerbaijan” Orchestral Suite, and a handful of works for saxophone and orchestra. Naxos, please let this CD be only the beginning!

-- Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

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Let's face it, Shur sounds suspiciously like the third movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and if the opening of the Azerbaijan Capriccio isn't Lohengrin orientalized (Act 3 prelude), then I don't know what is. But who cares? The music is delightful, colorful, tuneful, and unabashed fun. And Fikret Amirov's style, even in these works, did evolve, sort of. The third of his Symphonic Mugams--Gyulistan Bayati Shiraz--features interesting writing for piano and saxophone, and has a more concise form and less obviously 19th-century harmonic patina. Amirov also wrote symphonies, and it would be interesting to hear them.

The performances here are pretty much the best available. Leopold Stokowski introduced most of us to Amirov with his Everest recording of Kyurdi Ovshari, a couple of minutes quicker than this one. Of the two other recordings of this work (and some of the others), the one on Olympia is rather droopy, while Antonio de Almeida on ASV is aptly lively, but his Moscow Symphony isn't as good an ensemble as the Russian Philharmonic. Dmitry Yablonsky (a scary picture of whom appears in the CD booklet), seems to get the tempos just right. He's exciting in the quick bits and lusciously romantic in the big tunes. The engineering is also very good. Very enjoyable indeed.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

KORNGOLD Violin Concerto. Overture to a Drama. Much Ado about Nothing: Concert Suite • Carlos Miguel Prieto, cond; Philippe Quint (vn); Mineria SO • NAXOS 8.570791 (53:40)


Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto once seemed the almost exclusive domain of Jascha Heifetz, whose recording remained for a long time alone in the Schwann catalog. More recently, Itzhak Perlman (Angel 47746), Gil Shaham (Deutsche Grammophon 439 886, 18:3), and Anne-Sophie Mutter (Deutsche Grammophon 000352602, 28:5), to name only several of the most prominent violinists, have recorded it, and they’ve been joined in the last several years by Leonidas Kavakos, Hilary Hahn (both on DVD), Nikolaj Znaider (RCA 710336, 32:6), James Ehnes (CBC 5241, 32:3), Paul Waltman (Daphne 1032, also 32:3)—and now by Philippe Quint, so that the work at last boasts almost as many recordings as Bruch’s First Concerto did in the early 1960s. Heifetz’s white-hot inspiration would be hard for anyone to match; besides his studio recording, there’s another live one from March 30, 1947, with Efrem Kurtz on Music & Arts 766.


Like the more recent violinists to tackle the Concerto, Quint emphasizes its sweep and lyricism, soaring to moments of rapturous intensity that make their point unmistakably, even if Heifetz’s indelible performance lurks in the background. Quint makes the first movement cogent, never either stale or derivative—and certainly not as percussive to the bone as Heifetz’s crisp staccato made it seem. In fact, if it sounds like one of the great Romantic masterpieces in Naxos’s recording, that may be as much due to Quint, or to Prieto and the orchestra, who provide a sympathetic and, in the slow movement, a magical accompaniment, as to the composer’s virtuosity. Quint plays throughout with a silvery tone that’s warm even in the middle registers and with a great capacity for expressive nuance; while it’s clear that he’s thoroughly in command of the work’s abundant technical difficulties, he never lets them overwhelm the score’s essential melodiousness. Prieto presents the finale’s boisterous first theme with a robust energy that hearkens unmistakably back to its cinematic origins, and he reaches a stunning climax several minutes before the end. That so many recordings of Korngold’s Violin Concerto have achieved so great a stylistic success, though hardly all poured from the same mold—or even from similar ones—attests to the understanding Korngold must have had of the instrument and its expressive resources. Quint’s stands near the top (though all the recordings I’ve mentioned can be highly recommended), not least because of Prieto’s sympathetic accompaniment and the lively recording, which places Quint farther up front, than, say, RCA placed Znaider.


Korngold’s Overture to a Drama , from his 14th year, may not display the same maturity as his Violin Concerto, but it prefigures its sumptuous melodic style and its harmonic lavishness, if not the slickness of its brightly variegated orchestration. In fact, it may be a weakness in the orchestration itself rather than any aspect of Prieto’s performance that prevents the score from making a very deep impression. Korngold adapted the Concert Suite from Much Ado about Nothing for violin and piano, but the full score’s rich orchestral garb makes it even more effective in that more penetratingly witty original version. Prieto and the orchestra generously serve up the youthful and rambunctious good humor of the Suite. The recorded sound throughout combines depth and clarity, and places the soloist in a balance with the ensemble that’s natural if forward. Very highly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham


Philippe Quint turns in one of the most appealing, least "sticky" performances of Korngold's Violin Concerto yet recorded. If you usually find the piece too kitschy, then you really need to hear this. Like Heifetz, Quint adopts generally swift tempos, and this pays huge dividends in the opening movement--too often the piece sounds like it features two slow movements in a row. Here there is urgency along with passion, and a wonderful lightness in passagework that sustains the melodic thread even in the sections containing multiple stopping--and there are a lot of them. Quint's effortless technique also permits him to find all of the puckish humor in the finale. The tunes come from Korngold's film score to The Prince and the Pauper, after all.

A good bit of the credit for the success of this performance must go to conductor Carlos Prieto and his Mexican orchestra. It doesn't sound like a large ensemble, and that's all to the good. Korngold's orchestration doesn't need to be drowned in strings: it benefits greatly from the transparency on display here, both in terms of balance in the Violin Concerto and also in the Schauspiel Overture. Korngold was only 14 when he wrote the overture, and it's a fully mature and very enjoyable piece in its own right. The adorable suite from Much Ado About Nothing has plenty of charm, and some good horn playing in the finale. A slightly over-prominent, wheezy harmonium in the suite represents the only strike against this otherwise well-engineered production. Definitely recommended.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

SYMPHONY NO.2

Classical Music

The opening theme of Ernö Dohnányi's Violin Concerto No. 1 (1915) sounds strikingly like something out of a Harry Potter film, creating the same kind of minor-key-mysterious atmosphere--that is until the solo violin enters with its agitated pronouncements. Often it sounds as if the violin were not at all pleased with this introductory mood and does its best to dispel it. But then the soothing second theme steals in, and the violin is at least temporarily calmed. Dohnányi's solo writing is stunning in its originality and virtuosity, yet violinist Michael Ludwig presents it with confidence, poise, and polish. The serene Andante ushers in a beguiling tranquil mood before the lively scherzo dances about. Dohnányi's theme and variations finale blatantly borrows from the same movement in Brahms' Symphony No. 1, but happily, Dohnányi's less pretentious finale is a lot more fun, even with the return of the first movement's darker theme.

Violin Concerto No. 2 was completed more than three decades later in 1949, and right away the change in the composer's harmonic language shows in the dissonant opening violin cadenza. But far from being atonal or modernist, Dohnányi's work continues the tradition of consonant tonality, albeit a little stretched at the edges. This gives the music great expressive range, and the first movement surges with drama and emotion. As with the First concerto, this one also is in four movements, though they fit within the usual concerto duration (about 30 minutes--10 minutes shorter than No. 1). A charming intermezzo comes second, followed by a lovely and lyrical Adagio. The buoyant allegro finale brings the work to a happy conclusion. Again the violin writing is superb (wonderfully rendered by Ludwig), as is the accompaniment, fleshed out in the composer's robust and colorful orchestration, and beautifully performed by JoAnn Falletta and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Naxos' spacious recording has satisfying bloom, presence, and wide dynamic range. These are excellent pieces that ought to be in the modern performance repertory. If you don't know these works, you owe to yourself to hear this disc.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

“[Guido] certainly knew how to write attractive music, full of invention and lovely sonorities. If anyone is tired of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and I suspect many will be, then this new disc provides a refreshing alternative with thrilling playing. The recording made in New College, Oxford, is first rate.” – TheClassicalReviewer

“Here is a beautiful work, vigorously played by 'The Band of Instruments', a group based in Oxford that accompanies Caroline Balding who shows herself to be a great violin virtuoso . Giovanni Antonio Guido's 'Four Seasons' might not show the musical richness of Vivaldi's work, but this is nevertheless music extremely pleasant to listen to, in a fresh and sharp reading by The Band of Instruments.” - Remy Franck, Pizzicato