Learn more about Elite Recordings and the revival of their VOX Classics albums on the Naxos Classical Spotlight Podcast!

The orchestral color and grandeur of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1 and Prince Rostislav is expertly captured in these naturally balanced recordings produced by the legendary Elite Recordings team of Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz. Newly remastered from the original analogue tapes in high-definition, these acclaimed recordings conducted by Leonard Slatkin were originally issued on Vox in 1977 and 1982.

The Kammerakademie Potsdam (Chamber Academy Potsdam) and it's principal conductor Antonello Manacorda will complete their new Beethoven cycle with the release of all nine Symphonies in a special 5-CD boxset out on Sony Classical on May 3. As the third and final installment in the series, the release will include their new recording of Beethoven's Third, Fourth and Eighth Symphonies as well as the composer's legendary Ninth Symphony. The release coincides with the 200-year anniversary celebrations of the premiere performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in early May. The first two installments in the ensemble's Beethoven cycle recording have been released to great critical acclaim.

For his latest release on Sony Classical, pianist Lucas Debargue turns to one of the unsung treasuries of the piano repertoire: the works of Gabriel Fauré.

In a remarkable undertaking, Debargue has recorded every note of his compatriot’s piano music, all on a newly designed piano rarely heard on record until now. Throughout each recording, he retraced Fauré's musical path, from his earliest works to his final compositions. "Recording it," says the pianist, has "transformed my life both as a person and as a musician."

Debargue’s recording of Fauré’s complete piano works is a major recording event of the Fauré anniversary, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1924. A comprehensive set of sleeve notes notes includes the pianist’s own commentary on each piece, an analysis of Fauré’s approach to writing for the piano, and full details of the Paulello Opus 102 instrument he plays on the recordings.

The son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Carl Philipp Emanuel, described his father’s Sonatas BWV 1014–1019 as among the best works his father ever wrote and continued to perform them extensively after his father’s death. This is music of implication and inference, the emotions no less real for their apparent lack of specificity. There is pleasure in the paradox: even without a text, the music sings. “They still sound very good and give me much joy, although they date back more than fifty years. They contain some Adagios that could not be written in a more singable manner today”, writes C. P. E. Bach. In these new recordings, some of the greatest exponents of Baroque music in the Nordic countries, violinist Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch and keyboardist Tuija Hakkila join forces. Tuija Hakkila plays copy of a Gottfried Silbermann fortepiano 1747 by Andrea Restelli — J. S. Bach played one of his fortepianos in 1747 in Potsdam for Frederick the Great and his court musicians.

Gabriel Fauré, a master of song, piano, and chamber music, particularly appreciated the modulation-rich sound of the Érard grand piano. Its rich overtones and clear bass tones made it the ideal instrument for the French salon. This release presents not only Fauré's musical vision but also the sound world of the Érard grand piano, which played an important role in the musical scene at the time. Marc Coppey fully embraces the fluid rhetoric of Fauré's musical language. His interpretation deliberately eschews stylistically unfamiliar permanent espressivo and instead delves deep into the nuances and facets of Fauré's compositions. "Fauré authentique" thus presents not only musical brilliance but also an authentic journey through the French composer's complete works for cello and piano, embedded in the beautiful sound of the Érard grand piano.

Vivaldi is the exceptional new recording of the much loved Vivaldi "Four Seasons" by rising Italian-Serbian-French violinist Luka Faulisi, taking on the piece with his bright, youthful energy. For this album, he collaborated with the excellent Polish baroque ensemble (oh!) Orkiestra Historyczna, directed by concert master and ensemble leader Martyna Pastuzka. The combination of Luka's romantic sound, formed in French impressionistic repertoire, and the ensemble's energetic and forceful take let the well-known masterpiece shine in a new light. Providing an additional feature, Luka has chosen three corresponding romantic pieces, sitting between the Vivaldi concertos to provide a change of perspective - the Catalan traditional Song of the birds, Lili Boulanger's Nocturne and Tchaikovsky's Autumn Song.

Cross-Genre Fusion: Stagioni transcends musical boundaries, seamlessly blending classical, jazz, blues, and rock elements. Mayke's composition acts as a bridge between classical traditions and diverse musical worlds, offering a symphonic ode to life and nature through four distinct seasons.�Versatile Sound Exploration: Mayke's use of the E-cello goes beyond traditional norms, showcasing a diverse range of sounds and orchestrations.

That there is indeed something of the ethereal, of the timeless, and of the indefinable pervading all of the music heard on this CD instantly calls into question our shared notions of what the term Elegy actually signifies. Here the listener will encounter none of the unutterable despair of, for example, Samuel Barber's great Adagio for Strings, or the tortured valediction of Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, but rather an introspection and wistfulness of an altogether gentler sort. As the poet Thomas Gray expressed it in his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751), "Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, or waked to ecstasy the living lyre

As I have sought to elucidate, all of the concertos in my repertoire tell a unique story, driven by technical virtuosity and artistic vision. In the hands of Jan Michiels, who performs the piano concertos, and clarinettist Roeland Hendrikx - with whom I collaborate for the first time in this project, I find that these fundamental characteristics of my style come to life in the richest possible way. - Robert Groslot

East meets West offers a series of geographical and musical connections that bind the music of composers Ian Krouse and Ronald Pearl. The album includes the first recording of Krouse's Roderick Usher's 'Phantasmion' (in it's 2009 revision), as well as the eloquent tone poem La Petite Fille aux Allumettes("The Little Match Girl"), and his version of a Hassidic song. Pearl: My Name is Red is inspired by Orhan Pamuk's novel and reveals a range of Islamic influences.

First recordings of unpublished instrumental works by a master of verismo. Several recent albums on Brilliant Classics have expanded our understanding of Francesco Cilea beyond his status as the composer of L'Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. His piano music, chamber music and songs all bear witness to a quintessentially Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy. Cilea abandoned writing for the stage after the failure of his opera Gloria in 1907, despite the presence of Toscanini in the pit, and his lyric gifts cut against the grain of the prevailing trends of modernism. He turned to teaching, but he did not entirely abandon composition. Instead, he turned back to instrumental music, and the works on this album are among the fruits of this revived inspiration. Apart from Cilea's celebrated melodic vein, the Suite for Violin and the Piccola Suite for Orchestra reveal his (perhaps un-Italian) talent for counterpoint, as well as an approach to tonal harmony that reflects his awareness of innovation, especially among French composers of the period. Cilea orchestrated the Suite in 1946 from his Suite for violin and piano of nine years earlier. The four brief movements are cast in a neoclassical vein, enclosing an elegant minuet followed by an Andante sostenuto in the very un-classical key of C sharp minor. The Piccola Suite (1931) more thoroughly absorbs the idioms of French music of the period such as the early works of Messiaen, with it's modal harmony, whole-tone scales and sequences of seventh and ninth chords: again, far from what we would expect from the composer of Adriana Lecouvreur. The arrangement, revision and scoring of the Concerto in D major for cello by Leonardo Leo (written in 1737) bears witness to Cilea's deep connection with the Conservatoire in Naples where he had studied and where he became director until his retirement in 1935. It's generous orchestration, and yet respect for the 18th-century idiom of the writing, makes an intriguing and almost unknown parallel to the Cello Concerto in D recomposed by Schoenberg in 1931 after a 1746 work by Georg Matthias Monn. Completing this unique survey of Cilea's output is a modern work, the first recording of the Canto dell'amore by Raffaele Cacciola, born in 1965. The style of this sinfonia concertante in all but name is a homage to the example of Cilea: tonally unpredictable, yet always melodic. These Milanese musicians draw out it's intrinsically Italian character in the tradition of Cilea's verismo. - Italian composer Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) is best known for his operas, particularly "Adriana Lecouvreur." However, his contributions to instrumental music should not be overlooked. Though less renowned than his operatic output, Cilea's instrumental works exhibit a melodic richness and emotional depth characteristic of the Romantic era. - Cilea's orchestral works show his mastery of lyrical themes and dramatic expression. His works are imbued with a sense of Italianate warmth and passion, reflecting the composer's deep connection to his native land. - This new recording presents the Suite for Violin & Orchestra, Il Canto dell'Amore, Cilea's arrangement of a Cello Concerto by Leonardo Leo and the Piccola Suite for Cello & Orchestra. - Played by one of the foremost cellists of Italy, Enrico Bronzi, violinist Massimo Quarta, and the Virtuosi Della Scala, conducted by Filippo Arlia.

Marais, Pettersen & Vivaldi: The Norwegian Seasons

Even nearly 200 years after Beethoven's death, his music still has much to discover. Pianist Ulrich Roman Murtfeld presents a curated selection of Beethoven's piano works on his new GENUIN album, including both rarities and famous pieces. He juxtaposes the magnificent "Waldstein Sonata" with the early Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 7, and the furious "Rage Over a Lost Penny" with the variation works on a "Swiss Song" and "God Save the King." Murtfeld's refined and precise piano playing brings both new discoveries and great classics to light!

This sequel to the Gramophone Award-nominated Americascapes album (ODE 1396-2) by the Basque National Orchestra and Robert Trevino is a thrilling and a deeply personal journey into the music of three American composers. All three composers had very unique aesthetic worlds and with two of the composers conductor Robert Trevino also had direct artistic collaboration. Where my first 'Americascapes' album looked at lesser-known major American works that had influenced European composers (rather than the other way around), for this follow-up, I went back to a more basic thought - "What is America?". Since America is many things to millions of people, I realise that my question had to mean, "What is America to me? (...) Selecting the composers for this American Opus took well over a year. Yet I eventually refined the list to these three composers, with all of whom I feel a close kinship and all of whom are deeply meaningful to me. Two of them I even had a direct artistic relationship with. As a group, they also embody some of the diversity and the radically different aesthetics that thrive in the Americas." (Robert Trevino)

REVIEW:

The hunt for buried treasure is quite an industry these days, but coming up with gold is far from guaranteed. No problem, it appears, for Robert Treviño and the Basque National Orchestra. American Opus is the sequel to 2021’s excellent Americascapes (Ondine ODE 1396-2) and once again the Mexican-American conductor demonstrates a gift for sorting the wheat from the chaff. With the Revueltas set beside the Crumb and the Walker, Americascapes Volume 2 is a complex, thoroughly satisfying national portrait.

— Limelight

As one of the world's leading baroque ensembles, Concerto Koln has won numerous prizes and has been delighting audiences with it's outstanding interpretations for decades. In their latest album "Most Celebrated", the renowned ensemble presents a selection of masterpieces by composers such as George Frideric Handel and the brothers Giuseppe and Giovanni Battista Sammartini. Oboist Clara Blessing is featured as a soloist on many of these works and enchants the listeners with her virtuosic and sensible playing. Baroque music in it's most authentic form.

The Ninth Symphony, which Antonin Dvorak himself titled 'From the New World', was a huge success when it premiered on 16 December 1893 at Carnegie Hall in New York: 'The newspapers say that never before has a composer enjoyed such a triumph.' However, it was by no means uncontroversial - Dvorak had been invited to the USA and given the task of creating an American national music. He therefore studied the music of the indigenous population, the descendants of slaves and various other inhabitants, and created the symphony with all these sources in mind. Though many critics did not consider that the goal of an authentic American national music had been achieved, the work itself belongs until today to the most popular symphonies ever written. Much earlier, Dvorak had composed the Serenade for Wind Instruments, Violoncello and Double Bass in D minor. He was probably inspired by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 'Gran Partita', and the unusual instrumentation of Op. 44 - with two oboes, clarinets and bassoons, a contrabassoon, three horns, two cellos and double basses - is a strong indication of this. Finnish conductor Pietari lnkinen has been principal conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie since 2017. He will step down from this position in the summer of 2025 to focus more on his international commitments. He has received numerous awards, including the Franco Abbiati Prize. In October 2023, the film portrait 'A Baton and a Passport - Pietari lnkinen Conductor' was released.

This album brings together music by two English composers who are also good friends –and both born in East Anglia: Nicholas Barton in Norfolk in 1950 and Christopher Wright in Suffolk in 1954. Moreover, they share a similar musical language: largely tonal, if loosely so, rhythmically alert, transparently but dramatically scored and with a natural feeling for symphonic argument and growth, and a powerful sense of scale. “Mark Forkgen and his versatile chamber choir Canticum are obviously fully committed to Wright’s music and have done him proud.” --Choir and Organ

Composers who orchestrate the music of earlier colleagues often serve them best when they add something of themselves to the work in hand. These three orchestrations by the English composer Robin Holloway (b. 1943) demonstrate his profound understanding of and affection for two of the most important Romantic composers – and his re-imagining of Brahms’ Sonata for Two Pianos (which Brahms himself recast as his Piano Quintet) as a symphony gives one of the greatest of all compositions a wild and thrilling energy, making it also a masterpiece of our own age.

Although Mozart composed them in his early twenties, the three symphonies presented here can in no way be regarded as early works. Written around the time of his departure from Salzburg for Vienna, these symphonies show that Mozart could deliver attractive, varied, orchestrally colourful and characterful music to suit a variety of public tastes. They also show a young and ambitious composer seeking to forge an impregnable reputation in Europe’s musical capital city. These symphonies truly opened a new chapter in Mozart’s symphonic output, as he demonstrated his absolute mastery of orchestral writing. In addition to the three symphonies as we know them, this recording also includes a minuet that may have been intended to form part of Symphony No. 34.

These three symphonies are performed here by the Philharmonia Orchestra, an ensemble that has performed them with the greatest conductors throughout its almost 80-year history. Here the conductor is the eminent Mozartian Michael Collins, whose recordings, notably that devoted to the Austrian composer’s clarinet concerto and quintet, have earned him the highest praise.

REVIEWS:

As a poetic exponent of Mozart’s music for clarinet, Michael Collins, unsurprisingly, shapes all three slow movements with a natural feeling for Mozartian line. His flowing tempos sound spot on.

— Gramophone

There is always room in the Mozart discography for new recordings of this stature.

— BBC Music Magazine

More than 300 years after Antonio Vivaldi composed The Four Seasons, the most famous work in the history of music is still as lively and invigorating as ever. Now Le Concert de la Loge has recorded this Baroque treasure with it's founder and director, the violinist Julien Chauvin, as soloist. For the occasion, the Chateau de Versailles has loaned him an exceptional instrument: a Neapolitan violin by Nicola Gagliano, adorned with fleur-de-lys and inlaid decorations. This instrument, which was played by Yehudi Menuhin in the 1970s, comes from the 'collection de Madame Adela�de', named after one of Louis XV's daughters. It has not left the Chateau for almost a century and is in a perfect state of preservation. The main work is complemented by Vivaldi's no less celebrated 'La Follia' and an aria that is now famous in it's own right, 'Sovvente il sole' from Andromeda liberata, the score of which was discovered in Venice in 2002. It is performed here by the countertenor Paul-Antoine Benos-Djian.

Attractive Classical-era duets for violin
and cello in world-premiere recordings
by a young Italian pair of brothers.
Despite his French name, Louis
Massonneau was a German composer,
born in Kassel in 1766 and dying at the
venerable age of 82 in MecklenburgVorpommern in 1848. His father was
chef to the Landgrave Friedrich II of
Hessen-Kassel, and Louis received his
musical training at the hands of the
court musicians in Kassel, soon
becoming a violinist in the court
orchestra. The Landgrave died when
Massonneau was 19, and the orchestra
disbanded, requiring him to seek his
fortune elsewhere. This he did in a
series of posts, as a concertmaster of
court and theatre orchestras in
Göttingen, Frankfurt, Altona, Dessau,
Hamburg and finally Mecklenburg, where he
settled for good and retired in 1837.
Composing all the while, Massonneau left
behind a fairly substantial catalogue. Almost
completely unknown apart from a trio of
oboe quartets, it includes three symphonies,
twelve symphonies and six violin concertos,
doubtless written with his own talents in
mind. These three Duos Concertante probably
date from Massonneau’s time in Altona, when
he came to know the cellist Martin Calmus.
Required to perform duets for the
entertainment of those attending ‘Musical
Academies’, Massonneau doubtless found a
dearth of such repertoire, and wrote it afresh.
Calmus himself must have been an
accomplished cellist, because both parts
demonstrate a virtuosity and experimental
spirit shared with the better-known music of
their contemporary Boccherini. Each duo is cast
in three movements, skilfully varied in form
from the others, in which lyrical expression is
tempered by a touch of irony. Haydnesque
touches of major-minor ambiguity lend
dramatic tension to the first duo, while a more
balletic spirit and Mozartian melodic charm
brings a quasi-operatic character to the second.
No.3 is the most innovative in its rapid
conversational interplay between violin and
cello and unconventional range of timbre.
Demian and Dylan Baraldi have made this
recording with the cooperation of the Edition
Massonneau, and authoritative booklet notes
from the Edition illuminate the composer’s life
and work.

This recording of Corigliano's chamber arrangement of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan featuring soprano Laura Hynes, is coupled with Vincent Ho's virtuosic and mystical Gryphon Realms for piano trio. World premiere recordings. Corigliano's orchestration of Mr. Tambourine Man can be heard on 8.559331.

I had always heard, by reputation, of the high regard accorded the folk-ballad singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. But I was so engaged in developing my orchestral technique during the years when Dylan was heard by the rest of the world that I had never heard his songs. So I bought a collection of his texts, and found many of them to be every bit as beautiful and as immediate as I had heard – and surprisingly well-suited to my own musical language.

I chose seven poems for what became a thirty-five minute cycle. A Prelude: Mr. Tambourine Man, in a fantastic and exuberant manner, precedes five searching and reflective monologues that form the core of the piece; and Postlude: Forever Young makes a kind of folk-song benediction after the cycle’s close. Dramatically, the inner five songs trace a journey of emotional and civic maturation, from the innocence of Clothes Line through the beginnings of awareness of a wider world (Blowin’ in the Wind), through the political fury of Masters of War, to a premonition of an apocalyptic future (All Along the Watchtower), culminating in a vision of a victory of ideas (Chimes of Freedom). Several years after composing the vocal/piano score I orchestrated the work, and some years later transcribed it for Pierrot ensemble, a chamber group. This is the first recording of the chamber version. - John Corigliano

Gryphon Realms is a three-movement work, inspired by gryphon mythology, that explores the coloristic, virtuosic and expressive possibilities of the piano trio while highlighting my more personal musical language. - Vincent Ho

Arnold Schoenberg, one of the most influential musical figures of the 20th century, was born in Vienna in 1874. Sony Classical is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the great composer's birth with the reissue of 20 CDs of recordings from CBS/American Columbia. The company was a pioneer in documenting Schoenberg's achievements and already demonstrated that commitment during his lifetime (he died in 1951). In 1940, with the composer conducting, Columbia Masterworks produced the first recording of one of his most captivating and revolutionary works, Pierrot lunaire; and in the 1950s and 60s, the label undertook a ground-breaking multi-volume series entitled "The Music of Arnold Schoenberg." But arguably no recordings have done more to further the cause of Schoenberg's orchestral and vocal works than those of Pierre Boulez, while none have done more to promote his chamber music than those by the Juilliard Quartet. Sony Classical now presents all of Boulez's Schoenberg for CBS/Columbia in a 13-CD box, and all of the Juilliard's in a 7-disc set.

He went on to head major orchestras in Dallas and Atlanta and to guest conduct leading ensembles all over the world. But before that, Louis Lane honed his craft while working in the shadow of one of the great masters: in 1947, legendary maestro George Szell chose the young, inexperienced Texan to assist him in Cleveland - "I think you will do" was the gruff maestro's verdict, exceptional praise indeed from that notorious perfectionist.

Between 1959 and 1972 - with the full Cleveland Orchestra, the somewhat smaller Cleveland Pops and the chamber-sized Cleveland Sinfonietta - Louis Lane made a series of critically acclaimed recordings for Columbia. They display the "exceptional breadth and impeccable taste" for which this gifted but perennially undervalued conductor was lauded in a tribute by the orchestra's executive director. Sony Classical is pleased to present them now - many for the first time on CD - in a new 14-disc set.

Reviewers were effusive in their praise when these albums were originally released on LP. Here is a sampling: Pop Concert U.S.A. (1959) - music by Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein and other American composers: "If only all the pops (or, for that matter, all the classics) were as good as this!. The orchestra plays splendidly" (Gramophone). On the Town with the Cleveland Pops (1960) - selections from On the Town, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, The King and I and other Broadway musicals: "Scintillating. Under Lane's enthusiastic direction, the Clevelanders play these familiar musical comedy excerpts with such precision and virtuosity that they emerge with glistening freshness" (High Fidelity). Music from the Films (1961) - Henry V, Louisiana Story, Bridge on the River Kwai, Gigi, Exodus and other motion pictures: "This concert of music from the movies is so superior to most issues of it's kind that it calls for special commendation. Lane has coaxed some beautiful playing from the Cleveland orchestra, and the engineers have provided him with rich and glorious sound" (High Fidelity).

To celebrate his 80th birthday in 2023, GENUIN releases it's fourth album featuring compositions by the outstanding Christian Ridil. The Leipziger Symphonieorchester, under the direction of chief conductor Robbert van Steijn, has recorded Ridil's orchestral works, all world premiere recordings. FAZ once described this music as "rhythmically sophisticated, technically and formally perfect." These qualities are evident in the flute concerto "Les jardins de Pan," the First Symphony, and the bassoon concerto "Brahms en France" - contemporary music that leaves you wanting more!