The art of Shakespeare was a recurring fascination for Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. In addition to two operas and numerous settings of songs and sonnets, he wrote 11 Shakespeare Overtures which here receive their first ever complete recording. Deploying all the resources of the symphony orchestra, these are some of the twentieth century’s most dramatic and tuneful orchestral works, spectacular evocations of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.

Renowned pedagogue and hugely popular performing personality, Josef Gingold made very few commercial recordings. This album presents him at his best, chosen carefully from various broadcasts and 78s

The Seventh Symphony marked Bruckner's international breakthrough: the Leipzig premiere on 30 December 1884 was followed by an acclaimed performance in Munich on 10 March 1885 that ushered in the work's triumphal conquest of concert halls all over the world. Bruckner dedicated the Adagio, the symphony's second movement, to the memory of Richard Wagner, of whose death he learned while he was working on the symphony.

Classical Music

Also available: Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Overtures, Vol. 2 / Penny, West Australian Symphony

CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Julius Caesar, op. 78. The Taming of the Shrew, op. 61. Antony and Cleopatra, op. 134. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 108. The Tragedy of Coriolanus, op. 135. Twelfth Night, op. 73 • Andrew Penny, cond; West Australian SO • NAXOS 8.572500 (65:07)

Who knew that Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote overtures to 11 of Shakespeare’s plays? Not I and apparently not many others either, as every one of the works on this disc is claimed to be a world premiere recording. Naxos labels it Volume 1, so a companion CD containing the remaining five overtures— The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale , and King John —is expected.

If you know Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968) by anything other than his famous D-Major Guitar Concerto, possibly his Violin Concerto titled “The Prophets,” and perhaps a few of his Jewish-themed choral works included in the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music project distributed on Naxos, you’re doing better than I am. Here is a composer with a catalog of more than 200 works—and that’s just the ones with opus numbers—who has simply never achieved recognition commensurate with the volume and quality of his output.

His “sin,” no more and no less than that of his close Italian contemporaries—Casella, Pizzetti, Malipiero, and Respighi—was to be born at a time and place where composing music in a late-Romantic and Impressionist style was regarded as regressive and reactionary by the modernists elsewhere on the Continent. Of this group, only Respighi seems to have enjoyed more or less permanent staying power. But Castelnuovo-Tedesco (hereinafter referred to as C-T for short) struggled against a second bias. Under Mussolini, Italy’s Jews may not have suffered the same fate as did their German, Austrian, and Polish co-religionists under Hitler, but fascist Italy was still not the friendliest place for a Jewish composer.

So in 1938, C-T left for the U.S., where he soon found work, as did so many other composers who fled Europe in those years, in the film industry. MGM Studios embraced him with open arms, and over the next several years he contributed to the scores of more than 200 films, all the while continuing to compose concert music. He became one of the most sought-after composition teachers in Los Angeles, taking on as students André Previn, Henry Mancini, and John Williams.

The first impression to strike one about these Shakespeare overtures is their made-for-the-movies character. This is not intended to be uncomplimentary; rather, it’s an observation of the vividly colored orchestration and the sweeping cinematic panoramas the music seems to encompass. Of the 11 overtures, six of them were written after C-T had arrived in the U.S. and taken up with the Hollywood crowd. Three of these— A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1940), Antony and Cleopatra (1947), and The Tragedy of Coriolanus (1947)—are on this volume. The earliest numbers—i.e., the five written while C-T was still in Italy—were The Taming of the Shrew (1930), followed by Twelfth Night (1933), The Merchant of Venice (1933), Julius Caesar (1934), and The Winter’s Tale (1935).

All of the overtures were conceived as stand-alone concert works, not as curtain-raisers to operas or incidental music to staged productions of the plays, and not as film music to accompany the rolling of the opening credits. As such, C-T’s overtures avoid storytelling; they do not attempt in a few minutes’ time to telescope the action of the plots. Instead, they take their cue from one or more specific events in the plays and develop a strictly musical narrative around them. This downplays programmatic associations and lends each overture a sense of structural integrity as a complete entity unto itself, worked out entirely in formal musical terms.

Over time, the overtures grew, not necessarily in length—though the 1947 Antony and Cleopatra expanded to nearly 18 minutes—but in ambition of orchestration. Where the 1930 Taming of the Shrew employs strings, double woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, harp, piano, and percussion—hardly a modest-sized orchestra—the later overtures triple the winds and add English horn, contrabassoon, tuba, a second harp, tubular bells, glockenspiel, castanets, and a battery of various drums. Moreover, augmented string sections now find their parts frequently divided, and section leaders are highlighted in many striking solo passages. “The more grandiloquent moments,” observe Andrew Penny and Graham Wade in their booklet note, “anticipate the epic sweep of Miklós Rózsa’s film scores for Ben Hur or Quo Vadis of the 1950s.”

While certain parallels may exist, it should be emphasized that C-T’s overtures are serious symphonic works. They are not the stuff of movie soundtracks or, in arrangements, of summer-evening pops concerts. They are, however, not truly of their time—a statement that could apply to Respighi as well—in that they are big, bold, brightly painted musical billboards in a post-Romantic/Impressionist style that feature many of the same exoticisms and techniques one hears in scores like Respighi’s Roman Trilogy.

I take Naxos at its word that these are world premiere recordings; therefore, it is taken as an article of faith that other versions for comparison purposes do not exist. No matter, for the performances here by Andrew Penny and his West Australian Symphony Orchestra sound aces to me, and the recording has plenty of headroom for maximum impact in the music’s most massively scored passages. I can’t imagine why anyone would not be taken with these highly attractive scores. Definitely recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Thank God Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream doesn't sound anything like Mendelssohn: it's just a luscious bit of late-Romantic impressionism, and it's as lovely as it is concise. The big piece here is Antony and Cleopatra, nearly 18 exotic minutes of it, sounding rather like, well, the 1963 film score to Antony and Cleopatra (which was by Alex North, actually). The fact is that Castelnuovo-Tedesco had quite a successful career in Hollywood after swapping the fascism of his native Italy for the escapism of sunny California. The Taming of the Shrew is charming and witty, Coriolanus suitably somber, and Twelfth Night, rather like the play itself, mysterious and curiously elusive. All of the music is well played by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Penny--there are a few moments of iffy ensemble, but nothing to worry about, and the sonics are suitably vivid. Very enjoyable indeed.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Enrique Granados is best-known for his piano music, especially the ‘Danzas Españolas’ and ‘Goyescas.’ Little regard is given to his chamber music, songs and orchestral works. Earlier this year I reviewed Volume 1 of the present series of orchestral music for MusicWeb International and concluded that it was a worthy project that explored beyond Granados’s normal repertoire and I looked forward to hearing the second installment.

The CD opens with what is probably the only one of the composer’s orchestral works to become a hit – the ‘Intermezzo.’ It was derived from his opera Goyescas (1915), which was premiered in New York on 28 January 1916. It was a by-product of the great piano suite. The composer described his opera as displaying in the ‘rhythm [and] colour, a portrait of quintessentially Spanish life and a sense of emotion that leaps from the amorous to the passionate, the dramatic or even the tragic…just as in Goya’s works you find aspects of both love and tragedy, and both quarrels and flirtations.’ The delightful ‘Intermezzo’ was composed very quickly just before the premiere, to accommodate a longer than expected scene change between the first and second acts of the opera. Its mood is of passion, drama with a hint of sultry sunshine and romance in the ‘big tune.’

The delightfully named ‘Danza de los ojos verdes’ (Dance of the green eyes) was first heard in New York’s Maxine Elliot Theatre just a few days after the opera’s premiere. It was presented as a part of an ‘evening of dance’ performed by Antonia Merce (1890-1936), who was billed as ‘La Argentina.’ The present short dance was written for, and dedicated to, Merce. It is an uncomplicated little piece that uses the usual ‘mechanics’ of a Spanish dance – tambourines, castanets, and ‘gypsy tinged orientalism’. It is a magnificent little tone-poem that depicts the flamenco celebrations in the Sacromente district of Granada.

The mood of celebration continues in the Danza gitana (Gypsy Dance), which was composed in 1915 and was dedicated to the dancer Carmen Tórtola Valencia (1882-1955). It is full of vibrancy, instrumental colour and Iberian rhythms. The liner notes point out that the composer used a large orchestra for this short work, which succeeded in ‘limiting its opportunities for performance.’ This three-and-a-half-minute dance would make an ideal ‘encore’ for any symphony orchestra, in Spain or elsewhere.

A very different mood is evoked in the major symphonic poem La nit del mort (Night of the dead man). It was subtitled ‘poem of desolation.’ The work, which includes a tenor solo and a chorus, was composed in 1897. As I understand it, La nit del mort was left unfinished by the composer and remains unpublished. I can only assume that it was completed by someone unknown. It is very much a work of two parts. The first section, as Rob Barnett has pointed out, is almost Delian in its subtlety and soft impressionistic mood. However, about halfway through things change. It becomes almost a mini-opera, with a tenor aria ‘I am death, my girl…’ The chorus insists that the ‘horns of war are sounding’ and that ‘those who die defending their country will be glorified and will not die.’ The ‘libretto’ is by Apel-les Mestres (1854-1936). As a piece, I am only partially impressed. The first section (which I love) is beautiful; the second (which I do not like) is bombastic, over the top and sub-Verdi in its effect.

‘Dante’ was premiered during June 1908 in Barcelona’s then new Palau de la Música Catalana. It was remarkably successful at the time, with performances in the USA, as well as at the Queen’s Hall, London with Sir Henry Wood. It subsequently fell into neglect. As the titles of the two ‘movements’ suggest, Granados took two important themes from Dante’s great poem: the meeting with the great Roman poet Virgil and the tragic love affair between Paolo e Francesca. In this latter movement the mezzo-soprano sings beautifully Francesca’s story. The composer suggested that it was not ‘my intention to mirror The Divine Comedy line by line, but to give my impression of a life and a work; the lives of Dante and Beatrice and The Divine Comedy are, for me, one and the same thing.’ The listener must not look for an Iberian influence in the pages of the two-part symphonic poem. The liner notes quote Carol A. Hess, who has pointed out that this is ‘a vast and sombre work with little hint of the traditional images of a lively, sunlit Spain…’ There are influences from Richard Wagner, César Franck, Alexander Scriabin and even the romantic side of Arnold Schoenberg. The harmonies are chromatic, rich and ‘voluptuous’. Tantalisingly, there exists a third movement of this massive tone-poem, ‘La Laguna Estigia’ (The Stygian Lake) but unfortunately there are only sketches. The work was originally planned to be in four movements.

All the music is finely played and performed by the soloists, the chorus and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra under Pablo González. Mezzo-soprano Gemma Coma-Alabert gives a stunning performance in the ‘Dante’. The liner notes are helpful in approaching this little-known music. They are written by Justo Romero and well-translated by Susannah Howe. They are also given in Spanish. The text of La nit del mort and ‘Paulo e Francesca’ are presented in both languages. Details of the performers are included.

– MusicWeb Internationsl (John France)

The first section shows González and his orchestra at their best, with grainy strings, piquant soft-edged woodwinds and a natural, musicianly way of shaping a phrase. Those qualities are all in evidence in two short gypsy dances and the familiar Goyescas Intermezzo; the slightly hazy Naxos sound complements performances that are affectionate and characterful.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

HINDEMITH Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass, and Two Harps, op. 49. The Four Temperaments. Piano Music with Orchestra (for Piano Left Hand), op. 29. Kammermusik No. 2 for Piano, Quartet, and Brass, op. 36/1. Piano Concerto • Idil Biret (pn); Toshiyuki Shimada, cond; Yale SO • NAXOS 8.573201-02 (2 CDs: 136:15)


Idil Biret will be no stranger to readers; as one of Naxos’s most reliable house artists, she has recorded vast amounts of the piano repertoire for the label. The works on this two-CD set, however, may not be as familiar as she is. With the exception of The Four Temperaments , which has gained somewhat of a foothold on record and as a concert work—Hindemith was originally commissioned by George Balanchine in 1940 to produce a score for a ballet—the other four works on these discs may be new to all but those who are Hindemith devotees.


The title of the album, The Complete Piano Concertos , stretches the definition a bit of what constitutes a concerto, but Hindemith’s habit of writing for unusual combinations of instruments and setting them in somewhat unorthodox forms can make classifying his works subject to interpretation.


The program opens with the Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass, and Two Harps, commissioned by Elizabeth Coolidge Sprague and composed in 1930. The brass instruments called for in the “Brass” of the work’s title are four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, and tuba. In four movements, the piece is best described as being in Hindemith’s neobaroque style.


The Theme with Four Variations for Piano and Strings, commonly referred to as just The Four Temperaments , though originally intended to be choreographed for a ballet, works well as a concert piece because essentially it can be seen as a four-movement symphony with an introduction. The introduction in this case is the statement of the theme. Four variations (movements) follow, each representing one of the four temperaments or medieval humors—black bile for the melancholic, blood for the sanguine, phlegm for the phlegmatic, and yellow bile for the choleric. The bodily fluids are enough to conjure a scene from the embalming room in a mortuary, but Hindemith’s music is full of life and gorgeous sonorities.


As mentioned above, this is the main work in which Biret and the Yale Symphony Orchestra’s strings run into some significant competition in the numbers game. Two versions that have been long on my shelf are those by Carol Rosenberger with the strings of the Royal Philharmonic on Delos and Howard Shelley with the strings of BBC Philharmonic on Chandos. Biret on the present recording acquits herself well in the solo piano part, but the string players of the Yale orchestra, an ensemble made up of the university’s undergraduate students don’t play with quite the coordination and richness of tone as do their professional counterparts across the Pond.


Hindemith, like Ravel, was commissioned to write a piano work for the left hand by Paul Wittgenstein, the pianist who lost his right arm in the First World War. Quite a few other composers were enlisted in the enterprise as well, including Britten, Kornold, Prokofiev, and Richard Strauss. They all complied, but Wittgenstein ended up not performing all the works he solicited. Hindemith’s contribution was Piano Music with Orchestra (for Piano Left Hand) composed in 1923. It has gained nowhere near the exposure of Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand; in fact, at the moment ArkivMusic lists only one other recording besides this one, a 2008 live performance by Leon Fleisher with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra led by Christoph Eschenbach.


The Hindemith is a captivating score with a perky, jazzy first movement; a catchy, ostinato-driven second movement that periodically lapses into march-like, military fanfares; a haunting third movement in which the piano and a solo English horn (then later a solo flute) engage in a long, slow, lonely dance; and a Finale that once again is in the composer’s best neobaroque style.


The Kammermusik No. 2, for Piano, Quartet, and Brass, is the second in a series of seven Kammermusik works Hindemith promised to deliver to conductor Hermann Scherchen, who took an interest in promoting new music by contemporary composers of the period. It’s a bit difficult to categorize these works, for no two of them are scored for the same combination of instruments, but all of them feature a solo instrument and a varied ensemble of 11 or more players. Because the solo instrument—whether piano, cello, violin, viola, viola d’amore, or organ—is treated as it would be in a concerto, the seven works are loosely classified as chamber concertos, but the number of instruments in the orchestra pushes the definition of “chamber.” To confuse matters further, sandwiched in between the first and third of these seven Kammermusik scores, is a lone stray, if you will, that goes by the title, Kleine Kammermusik , so-called because it is scored for wind quintet with no soloist; yet it’s sometimes lumped together with its larger-scaled Kammermusik cousins.


All together then there are eight of these works, but the only recorded version I’m aware of that includes the whole shebang—and it’s an outstanding one—is the two-disc set by Riccardo Chailly leading members of the Royal Concertgebouw on Decca. If one or more readers are wondering why I’m omitting the equally excellent set by Claudio Abbado with members of the Berlin Philharmonic on EMI, it’s because that set, as well as all the others listed, include only the seven Kammermusik entries. Abbado fills out his set leading violist Tabea Zimmermann in an incomparably beautiful performance of Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher . But Chailly’s set, as far as I know, is unique in being the only one to include the lone Kleine Kammermusik score for wind quintet.


Perhaps it’s the other surveys that make more sense, because the Kleine Kammermusik is really a fish out of water that doesn’t go with the seven Kammermusik works. Still, it’s too delightful a piece to be without, and stand-alone recordings of it are mostly included on programs of wind quintet works by a mix of composers, though one, on Sony, does offer an all-Hindemith program of the composer’s other wind works.


Most of the Kammermusik scores fall into Hindemith’s neobaroque style, for which reason they have sometimes been branded the “ Brandenburg s of the 20th century.” I wouldn’t push that analogy too far, though, for it may be apt to the extent that the writing is contrapuntal in nature and that each concerto is scored for a different combination of instruments, but in harmonic, rhythmic, and textural makeup the music is very Modernistic. This is not the type of neobaroque treatment one hears in a work like Stravinsky’s Pulcinella , which really is based on late Baroque and very early Classical models.


Finally, we come to Hindemith’s formally titled Piano Concerto of 1945, premiered by George Szell, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the pianist for whom the piece was written, Jesús Maria Sanromá. Hindemith composed the Concerto while vacationing in Maine and Connecticut. Of the five works on the disc, this is the latest written and, frankly, if you’re not already familiar with the piece, it’s the one that’s likely to take three or four hearings before you warm to it. It’s not that its musical language is any more Modernistic or difficult to comprehend than what has gone before; rather, it’s that the work seems to proceed episodically, with sections following each other that don’t seem, on the surface at least, to relate. Thus, the logic of the score is elusive.


Current competition is slim, and what there is of it is mostly not very current, with a 1948 performance led by Sergiu Celibidache and a First Edition recording by the Louisville Orchestra led by Lawrence Leighton Smith. The most recent version—aside from the one at hand—is by Werner Andreas Albert leading the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra on CPO, and even that one dates back more than a decade.


For Hindemith fans, this new Naxos collection of the composer’s complete works featuring a solo piano in combination with various instrumental ensembles will make an excellent addition to your collection, even if you already have some of these works on other recordings. For Hindemith novices and the curious, at Naxos’s bargain prices, this new two-disc set offers much very attractive and enjoyable music in excellent performances, and it may just inspire you to explore more of Hindemith’s output. Recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

Arthur Fagen already demonstrated his credentials as a Martinu conductor with his generally excellent complete symphony cycle for Naxos, and this first installment of the piano concertos also is very fine. The Third concerto, Martinu's largest, is a magnificent work that Rudolf Firkusny made his own. Giorgio Koukl's performance is quite different. Whereas Firkusny is more "romantic", shaping phrases expressively and adjusting dynamics to create a more lyrical emphasis, Koukl, at slightly slower tempos, emphasizes the music's neo-classicism, with punchy rhythms and a drier overall sonority. Both approaches are perfectly legitimate when the playing is this good, and Koukl's interpretations give all three works a certain consistency of style, from the relatively early Concertino (not in fact all that small-scale) to the late Concerto No. 5--a sadly underrated piece that hardly deserves its neglect.

The Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, like many second-tier Eastern European ensembles, won't win any awards for seductive tonal allure, particularly compared to the support that the Czech Philharmonic offers Firkusny. But these players know the music, project it well, and have the composer's perpetually syncopated rhythms in their bones. The slightly dry but very clear sonics complement the rhythmic clarity of the conducting and the solo playing, and earn this disc an easy recommendation.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

The saxophone quartet is an incredibly homogeneous and flexible grouping, which was conceived more than 100 years ago, but little used outside jazz and is thus still to be explored. The Italian saxophone school has recently blossomed from the French school, and the technical quality of instrumentalists has much grown. In the meantime, in all of Europe an original chamber repertoire has begun to form around the various formations possible with this instrument. It was precisely the difficulty of combining something else with this composition that alerted me to a certain lack of identity in the saxophone quartet, since it cannot draw, as all other instruments can, on its own Pre-Romantic repertory. Therefore I have tried to make a real contribution to resolving the problem of repertory, in my view central, and I have thought not so much of the individual compositions as of cycles. In fact, I have conceived two programme halves, in which I have included some encore pieces. These half concertos to me seem ideal to approach as one wishes a contemporary goal, both mixed and unitary. The first proposal is called Pagine, an open anthology on different centuries and genres. In combining the pieces I have avoided stereotypes; in fact, I have aimed at the inexhaustible modernity of the masters of the past, which today it is fashionable shamelessly to ignore. I have never claimed to have said everything and I leave space for my friends, to whose wedding with the saxophone my efforts are dedicated. - Salvatore Sciarrino

This is probably the finest version of the Britten Piano Concerto available, notwithstanding Britten's own justly revered rendition with Sviatoslav Richter on Decca. Certainly that is a wonderful performance, one that no one who loves the work should miss. But many years have come and gone. Although I do not subscribe to automatic assumptions of musical "progress", and even if Joanna MacGregor is no Richter, she certainly knows this work and plays it beautifully, and in any case the qualities that she and Steuart Bedford bring to the piece are quite different from what we find on the composer's own recording. In particular, Richter and Britten treat the work more in the Romantic virtuoso tradition, with a clear spotlight on the soloist, with the orchestra in a decidedly accompanying role.


MacGregor and Bedford work more as equals. Bedford's snappier rhythms and lighter textures combine with a less prominent piano to create an elegant, neo-classical atmosphere that's equally in keeping with Britten's idiom, as well as with the work's suite-like construction and formal patterning. The fact that MacGregor isn't as powerful a solo personality when compared to Richter does not mean that she is any less in command of Britten's flashy keyboard writing. Her finger-work in the opening Toccata is dazzling, her rhythmic acuity clearly superior to Richter's, while her sensitivity in the third-movement Impromptu and her give-and-take with the instrumentalists of the English Chamber Orchestra are wholly winning. She also brings plenty of spirit and a real "kick" to the concluding march, aided in no small degree by Bedford's alertness and the absolutely first-class sonics.


You also get the concerto's original third movement, a Recitative and Aria, as a thoughtful appendix. Ondine's recording, featuring Ralf Gothoni, also includes this movement but foolishly puts it in the middle of the work, meaning you have to skip over it (or the Impromptu) so as not to get stuck with a spurious, five-movement conflation of both versions. The couplings, both rarities, are just as brilliantly played. The Johnson Over Jordan Suite is especially entertaining, particularly its jazzy centerpiece, The Spider and the Fly. In short, I couldn't be happier that Naxos has been reissuing these excellent Collins Classics Britten recordings. They were and remain marvelous, almost as interpretively commanding as the composer's own, and they deserve a long life. [4/11/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

In conceiving his inaugural season as Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony, Louis Langtree wanted to celebrate the Orchestra’s rich tradition of excellence and its legacy of introducing the world to new works. Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait had its world premiere performance by the Cincinnati Symphony at Music Hall in 1942. November of 2013 marked the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Those powerful words were delivered here by legendary author, poet, activist and humanitarian Dr. Maya Angelou, a mere seven months before her recent passing at the age of 86; Hallowed Ground is dedicated in her memory. Hallowed Ground also features live recordings of two new works commissioned by the Orchestra for the MusicNOW Festival in March of 2014. Nico Muhly’s Pleasure Ground is a musical portrait of the iconic landscape architect and designer Frederick Law Olmsted and David Lang’s mountain is a musical portrait of composer Aaron Copland, who had a strong connection with the Cincinnati Symphony. Both these pieces and the Orchestra’s overall collaboration with the MusicNOW Festival represent a true spirit of innovation in Cincinnati, and affirm this as a place of experimentation.

This 5-disc set features four outstanding 20th century conductors, William Steinberg (1899-1978), Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960), Igor Markevitch (1912-83) and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (b. 1931) thrillingly directing several Great Choral Classics of the 19th century, including Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Verdi’s Requiem. Sopranos Galina Vishnevskaya and Dame Janet Baker, among other stellar singers, feature prominently in these performances.

With the present CD, OehmsClassics releases the “Linz Version” of Anton Bruckner’s First Symphony. It is part of the complete symphony cycle being recorded by the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra under Ivor Bolton, its Chief Conductor since 2004. This live recording from the Large Festival Hall in Salzburg was realized in October 2013. The 91-regular member Mozarteum Orchestra is one of Austria’s leading symphonic organizations, presenting two concert series of its own throughout the year as well as playing the Sunday Matinees concerts at the annual Salzburg Festival.

RODRIGO Piano Concerto (rev. Achúcarro). Preludio para un poema a la Alhambra. Música para un jardín. Homenaje a la tempranica. Juglares • Max Bragado-Darman, cond; Castile and León SO; Daniel Ligorio Ferrandiz (pn) • NAXOS 8.557101 (60:17)

This is the fourth volume in Naxos’s series of “Complete Orchestral Works” by Rodrigo, but it is the first one to come my way. (I see no record of Volumes 1–3 having been reviewed in Fanfare, either.) My initial impression, though, is that this is yet another worthwhile series from a label that seems determined to leave no work unrecorded.

The glittering Piano Concerto is derived from a 1942 Concierto heroico, also for piano and orchestra. Pianist Joaquín Achúcarro revised the Concierto heroico “to achieve a better balance between the solo instrument and the orchestra, and to avoid some of the original repetitions,” in the words of annotator Enrique Martínez Miura. (Apparently, two “extremely virtuosic” cadenzas have been removed from the Largo too.) The new work was premiered in 1996, three years before Rodrigo’s death. What Rodrigo thought of all this is not indicated here, nor can I comment on the original work, as I have not heard it. I can say that the newer work is an attractive one, colorful to the point of being garish, and dramatic to the point of being hyper-emotional. Rodrigo’s original intention was to reflect on his hometown’s survival of the Spanish Civil War. If most of the Piano Concerto seems more like a marvelous circus than a commentary on war and the human spirit, it is hard to know whether to lay blame at the feet of Rodrigo or Achúcarro. That doesn’t make the work less enjoyable, though.

Música para un jardín (“Music for a Garden”) is Rodrigo’s own orchestration of two piano berceuses from 1935 (one for autumn and one for spring). When he orchestrated it, he added berceuses for the other two seasons, and a brief prelude. The finished work was used in a film documentary about Madrid’s El Retiro Park, but no visual assistance is necessary; this wistful and charming music stands on its own. The life of plants evokes an appropriately innocent response from the composer.

The other three works are less ambitious. Juglares, composed in 1923, was Rodrigo’s first orchestral work. After a brief drum tattoo, there is an attractive Allegro with an appealingly monotonous melody, a passionate slower section, and then a return to the opening section—short and sweet. The gorgeous Preludio para un poema a la Alhambra was written in 1928, while the composer was studying in Paris. The score is headed, “At twilight a guitar sighs, and beyond, almost within the Alhambra, ring out the rhythms that drive the dance.” That Ravel’s influence can be felt in this music is no surprise. Homenaje a la tempranica, from 1939, is another Parisian work, but more typical of the mature Rodrigo. “La tempranica” means “precocious girl,” and it is the name of a popular zarzuela by another composer. This was Rodrigo’s homage to that composer’s work, not to feminine precocity, per se (although the Homenaje was premiered by an all-female orchestra).

None—the conductor, the soloist, the orchestra—is familiar. Nevertheless, I have no complaints about the technical quality or the spirit of the performances. Ferrandiz, in fact, seems like a pianist worth hearing more from. The sound engineers have wrapped this gift with a bright and brilliant ribbon.

Do you like the Concierto de Aranjuez? (Who doesn’t?) Naxos and I ask you, each in our own way, to explore more of Rodrigo’s music. He was most definitely not a “one work” composer!

-- Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare

Edvard Grieg' idiom is firmly rooted in Norwegian folk music, especially in his numerous short pieces. The Sl tter are Norwegian folk dances and tunes, originally played on the peasant violin, and notated by Johan Halvorsen.

This tour starts with the ancient walled city of Pingyao, with visits to the Qu and Wang courtyard houses and the Shuanglin Temple. There are views of Mount Wutai, as well as the Hanging Monastery at the foot of Mount Heng.

The Places: In the peace treaty of 1919 the Tyrol was divided into three regions, Southern Tyrol being ceded to Italy. The Eastern Tyrol, Austrian territory, is bounded to the south by the Lienz Dolomites, with the town of Lienz the regional capital. The region is popular with summer visitors, it's climate relatively mild, in spite of it's height above sea level. There is also a glimpse of the Earth Pyramids at Ritten (Renon) in the Italian Southern Tyrol. The Music: Music for the tour is by Franz Schubert, the son of a schoolmaster who had settled in Vienna. Although his life was chiefly spent in Vienna, he was, nevertheless, able to enjoy the Austrian countryside, during country holidays spent with friends. The beauty of the landscape is reflected in his music and, in particular, in his songs. The tour of the Lienz Dolomites is accompanied by music by Schubert for piano trio, written towards the end of his short life.

Musicians ranging from Leonard Bernstein to the Emerson String Quartet have championed award-winning composer Richard Danielpour. Lacrimae Beati owes its origin to Mozart’s Requiem and was conceived after a perilous flight in 2002. Darkness in the Ancient Valley, a symphony in five movements inspired by recent events in Iran, utilizes a wide range of Persian folk-melodies and Sufi rhythms. A Woman’s Life, a cycle of poems by Maya Angelou, charts a moving trajectory from childhood to old age.

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REVIEW:

The program closes with A Woman’s Life (2007), based on a cycle of poems on that topic by Maya Angelou, who read the cycle, apparently unforgettably, to Danielpour and his wife in 2006. These songs are pitch perfect and memorably touching. I was enthralled from the start—a childhood poem of devastating innocence cloaked with an aura usually reserved for the likes of Barber—and if you love his music and American song repertoire in general you must hear this cycle. The finale is unspeakably beautiful. Ms Brown sings with loving understanding. The Nashville players sound great, as is usual these days.

–American Record Guide

MOZART, W.A.: Symphonies (Essential), Vols. 1-6 (Norrington)

The Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne with its Conductor Laureate Dmitri Kitaienko proudly present magical music illustrating the story of Nutcracker and Mouse King by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas. A Nutcracker performance can hardly be more authentic than this – especially since the artists are presenting us here with the entire ballet, not merely the Suite (Op. 71a). The ballet is complemented by the Suite from The Fairy’s Kiss by Stravinsky – composed in 1928 and arranged a number of times. It became world famous through the choreography by George Balanchine for the old New York Metropolitan Opera in 1937, later also for the City Center of Music and Drama as well as Lincoln Center, New York.

Classical Music

Conductor Neeme J�rvi is one of the world's leading exponents of the music of Gustav Mahler. This unique interpretation of Mahler's First Symphony bears the personal stamp of an artist who finds "the deepest inspiration in this incredibly innovative masterpiece." With the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and featuring the beautiful acoustics of the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn. Stereo, 53 minutes. MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 1 / NEEME JARVI