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

"Ormandy gave the American premiere of the Fifteenth Symphony as well as a number of other Shostakovich works...The playing could hardly be surpassed. The recording sounds superb and stands up well against subsequent versions."

Penguin Guide [2003/4 Edition]

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

HOLST The Planets • Hansjörg Albrecht (org) • OEHMS 683 (SACD: 60:08)


The story of this organ transcription of Gustav Holst’s iconic orchestral masterwork starts with the duo-piano score—and perhaps an organ version of Neptune, the last movement—created by the composer to assist with orchestration. The keyboard original—a recording is available on Delos Facet—retains a surprising degree of the character of the eventual orchestral suite, and inspired, we are told, this organ version by renowned organist and period keyboard artist Peter Sykes. The transcription is extraordinary, conjuring up all of the color and intensity of Holst’s huge orchestral forces, and Sykes’s 1996 recording on Raven Records leaves one incredulous that anyone could surmount the many daunting technical challenges with just 10 fingers and two feet, and still create a compellingly musical performance of the work. And yet he does so, with little or no evidence of the compromises of pacing and flow usually associated with the sheer physical complexity of fingering, changing registration, adjusting the swell shades, and moving from one manual to another. The relative downside of the Sykes recording is the engineering with which, in truth, I have happily lived for years. It is very likely an accurate representation of the sound of the 100-plus-rank 1933 Ernest M. Skinner organ midway back in its Girard College, Philadelphia hall, but the (glorious) wash of sound produced in the louder sections does leave one guessing at the details.


Enter this new recording from the recording wizards at Oehms Classical. Recorded in the resonant spaces of the restored medieval Church of St. Nicholas in Kiel, Germany, it manages to be hugely powerful in the largest climaxes, while remaining transparent, detailed, and present in both the loudest and softest sections. This is particularly impressive as it can be assumed, since specifications for both are included in the notes, that both of the church’s two organs, located at opposite ends of the nave and playable from a single console, are being used. The 48-rank 1965 Detlef Kleuker organ is surely the lead instrument in the recording, as the 17-rank Aristide Cavaillé-Coll/Charles Mutin organ clearly does not have the pipes to produce such power. Currently lacking surround-sound reproduction, I cannot know if the engineers have clarified the issue of usage by placing the multichannel listener between the organs front and back as they did with the earlier Oehms Wagner: Der Ring—An Organ Transcription SACD produced in this venue. Yet in the end it does not matter, as the sound even in SACD stereo is so impressive and the organs are so well integrated that the effect is of a single instrument with breathtaking French symphonic articulation.


This new release pales in comparison to the earlier Sykes release only in matters of style. Hanjörg Albrecht, the organist in the aforementioned Wagner, as well as in a Poulenc release I lavishly praised in these pages (33:6), is in every way Sykes’s technical peer. What Sykes offers more consistently than Albrecht is not only the essential steak-and-kidney-pie Britishness of the thing, and its moments of wry humor, but also a telling subtlety of voicing. Albrecht is inclined to be a bit too stiff, as in the big tune of “Jupiter,” a bit too obvious in the misty domains of “Venus,” and to linger too long in the reflective passages of “Saturn” and “Neptune.” Still, absent the comparison, I suspect I would have overlooked it for the sheer brilliance of the playing.


And then, what a glorious sound he and his engineers produce. What a rush it must be to create these massive waves of sound, or these complex layers of counterpoint, from a single instrument. What a thrill it is to hear them so clearly. Sykes’s instrument is not so distinctly defined in space as this, though I was happy enough until I heard the new release. I would probably still choose Sykes’s recording if I could have only one. But I have both, and that is the best solution I can offer. Enjoy the sonic feast, and don’t leave it for just the organ buffs.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

"We have an enjoyable disc of a range of music from two talented and influential brothers who inhabited a transitional period between baroque and early classical. Their career paths were quite different, Giovanni being born and then dying in Milan while Giuseppe eventually settled in bustling London for the last twenty or so years of his life. Giuseppe’s more cosmopolitan existence is reflected in his music on the disc which displays a pragmatic ability to adjust his style. The violoncello piccolo concerto, for example, is very italianate, clearly influenced by Vivaldi whereas his delightful oboe concerto, excellently played by Hans-Peter Westermann, is more Handelian in style. His recorder concerto is also very tuneful and is a standard repertoire piece for skilled players. Michael Schneider is a distinguished performer and I thought his playing one of the best things about the disc which otherwise contains renderings that are highly competent but not particularly special. He features also in Giuseppe’s Trio in F major for 2 recorders which for me was the most enjoyable work in spite of its three movements lasting little more than five minutes. The slow movement with the recorders’ clashing semi-tones and tones is exquisitely intense.

Giovanni died a quarter of a century after his brother and his two chamber works here (he does not get a concerto on this disc of "concertos"!) were probably written after his brother’s death and are understandably more classical in feel. Both involve transverse flute and I liked the spirited playing in works that I found neatly formed but relatively dull compared with brother Giuseppe’s contributions."

-- John Leeman, MusicWeb International reviewing DHM 77852

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

KODÁLY Háry Janos: Suite. PROKOFIEV Lieutenant Kijé: Suite. STRAVINSKY The Firebird: Suite (1919) • Eugene Ormandy, cond; Philadelphia O • RCA-ArkivMusic 38125 (68:45)

"The LP coupling of the Háry Janos (1975) and Lieutenant Kijé (1974) suites—one describing imaginary exploits, the other the exploits of an imaginary soldier—was a natural, and one of the best-sounding Philadelphia RCAs. Of course, both are virtuoso show-stoppers played by a virtuoso orchestra. The bass drum in “The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon” will give your woofers a workout. The 1973 Firebird Suite is not captured quite so dramatically, but this Rimsky-influenced work was right up Ormandy’s alley, and the performance stands up just fine alongside the knockout versions of Kodály’s and Prokofiev’s musical fables. This has to be awarded 'Best in Show.'”

FANFARE: Richard A. Kaplan

Rebel’s trios compare favourably with those of his contemporary, Francois Couperin. They are full of interest, revealing many extended passages of effective part-writing for the violins. . . . These are stylish performances, full of spirit yet receptive to subtler, underlying expressive currents. . . . Few readers will be disappointed either by the music or by the recorded sound, which is sympathetic and intimate. [T]his new recording can be acquired with confidence. -- Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone

I like contrasts', Ibert was fond of saying. All six works on this CD show his absolute mastery of orchestral writing, each one of quite different form and inspiration.

KAISER-LINDEMANN: Hommage a Nelson M., Op. 27

Leroy Anderson's music once was so ubiquitous that anyone with even cursory contact with broadcast media could not help hearing it. So don't be surprised--especially if you're over 30--if you find your ears perking up quite often in recognition as you play this delightful disc. Those of us who played in high school bands and orchestras no doubt will have vivid memories of Bugler's Holiday or Trumpter's Lullaby, but for most listeners this collection will serve to attach names to tunes heard for years in supermarkets and shopping malls--tunes such as The Syncopated Clock, The Girl in Satin, and Blue Tango. Anderson applied his classical training to his love of jazz, which, combined with his uncanny instinct for good tunes helped him create a long series of "pops" hits. He was equally adept in both worlds, whether the European-style waltzing of Belle of the Ball (with its "blue note" trio), or the straight-from-the-dance-hall Jazz Pizzicato.


The disc opens with the Serenata (a cheeky knockoff of Gershwin's Cuban Overture) and closes with the ever-popular Sleigh Ride, here freed from those goofy lyrics and sounding more like its true self: a fine composition that can be enjoyed whatever the time of year. Anderson had a particular flair for musical depictions of everyday objects, such as the aforementioned clock, or the typewriter, or even sandpaper (in the Sandpaper Ballet). Whether object, animal (The Waltzing Cat), or body part (March of Two Left Feet), Anderson never abandoned his operative principle: make music fun! Richard Hayman's long experience in this specialized genre shows in his high-spirited, rhythmically smart, tonally tangy realizations with his orchestra. If you've been finding yourself bereft of smiles lately, purchase this Naxos disc and you'll get a whole hour's worth.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

This new release features popular Chinese violin works. The pieces included are Song of the Five-Fingers Mountain, Singing the Night among Fishing Boats Romance, Spring in Xinjiang, and Dance. Performing these lovely works is violinist Takako Nishizaki with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Lim Kek-Tjiang.

COUPERIN: CONCERTS ROYAUX, PIË

Howard Hanson, a composer of imagination and sweep and a colorist of huge eloquence, is one of the most approachable of all twentieth century symphonists. His guiding spirit was always Sibelius, and in the Symphony No. 1 ‘Nordic’ he used the same key as in the Finnish composer’s own First Symphony. The work is haunting, rapturous and serene, beautifully orchestrated and wholly commanding. The Lament for Beowulf, written for chorus and orchestra, dates from 1925. Its dark, brooding tension reflects its poetic inspiration with indelible force. “This is confident, generous, beautifully made music, richly (and sensitively) scored. Schwarz, and his splendid Seattle orchestra do not short-change us on any of this and they are beautifully, ripely, recorded here.” (Gramophone on the original Delos release)

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Benchmark recordings of Tchaikovsky -- many aspiring pianists may think of changing professions after hearing Graffman soar through these iconic works with such dazzling élan.

At last. Gary Graffman's recordings of Tchaikovsky's Second and Third Concertos were the ones which introduced me to these works. They have remained my benchmarks ever since, the admirable couplings by Haas, Douglas, Gilels, Pletnev and others notwithstanding and despite the second movement of the Second being in the truncated Siloti edition. As Graffman makes clear in his entertaining memoir I Really Should Be Practicing (Doubleday: 1981) — among the best of pianists' autobiographies — Ormandy was a prince of accompanists. The two artists had known each other for 20 years and it shows. There are many memorable passages, among them the conclusion of the Second Concerto's volcanic central first-movement cadenza when the orchestra re-enters with the opening subject (15'58"), initially failing to subdue Graffman's ecstatic quasi-trill at the top of the keyboard; and a similar moment in the Third Concerto when Ormandy introduces (11'05") some crunching off-beat cymbal crashes.

Szell also proves a convivial, alert partner in the First Concerto, providing deft touches that lift this account above the ordinary. Listen, for instance, to the syncopated brass figure beneath the apotheosis of the last movement's second subject. If Graffman eschews the demonic brilliance of Horowitz, his reading is all about Tchaikovsky. Horowitz's is more about Horowitz.

To complete this all-Russian programme, there is Graffman's compelling Mussorgsky where once again he creates, well, pictures that live in the memory: 'Bydlo' appears in the misty distance, lumbers by and vanishes again (superb), while the unhatched chicks are played with a rare sense of fun. Finally, there is Islamey. Many aspiring pianists may think of changing professions after hearing Graffman soar through this iconic barnstormer with such dazzling élan.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone [1/2006]

This album includes the legendary recording of Michael Tilson Thomas conducting live musicians in the original jazz orchestra version of Rhapsody in Blue, with the solo part performed by a player piano operated by George Gershwin's own piano rolls.

This selection is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording.

Recording information: The Arkansas Best Corporation Performing Arts Center, F (05/23/2009-05/24/2009).

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, Kevin Puts now stands in the forefront of contemporary American composers. His powerfully conceived Symphony No. 2 is a musical illustration of the events of 9/11 and traces a movement from unsuspecting bliss and rhapsody through violent upheaval to a reflective epilogue that contains both uncertainty and hope. Possibly inspired by thoughts of the Mississippi, River’s Rush employs novel harmonies, while elegant transparency distinguishes the refined beauty of the Flute Concerto.



REVIEWS:

A fine introduction to a rising composer whose music is highly accessible, emotionally satisfying, and memorable.

– All Music Guide

LSO principal Adam Walker plays the solo flute part with exquisite grace and purity of tone, and Marin Alsop elicits an impressively polished performance from Peabody’s student orchestra.

– Gramophone

Saariaho: Maa (Earth)

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Hanson’s symphonic cycle is one of the most important in American music. The Third Symphony, composed between 1936 and 1938, is imbued with the rich Nordic sensibility that runs through the First. It owes its impetus to the pioneering Swedish settlements in America, and its expansive lyricism is beautifully calibrated, with a chorale theme acting as a hopeful constant throughout the journey. Hanson wrote his opera Merry Mount, possibly his most ambitious work, in 1934. Four years later he produced this vibrant orchestral suite. “[T]he power of Hanson’s earlier works lies in the unabashed hyperbole of their gestures, the unstinting lavishness of their orchestration, and, most of all, their sincere fervor and conviction.” (Fanfare on the original Delos release)

Inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of Superman' first appearance in the comics, Metropolis Symphony has been performed by orchestras all over the world. Hailed by the London Times as a "Symphonie Fantastique for our times."

Listen to a Sound Sample (Grand Tarantelle)

Listen to a Sound Sample (Night in the Tropics)

" A perfect delight of a disc, of music from that grand pioneer Louis Gottschalk, who charmed the crowds here and abroad up through Civil War days with flamboyant, virtuosic display pieces. From last year’s Hot Springs (Arkansas) Festival comes a whole disc of Gottschalk’s orchestral works, and it’s a hoot. It includes the hilariously lovable Célèbre Tarantelle and Night in the Tropics, guaranteed to lift you off your seat on first hearing, and Gottschalk’s own arrangement for five pianos, nine horns and 112-piece orchestra of The Young King Henry’s Hunt (don’t ask). There’s even an opera, 13 minutes long, something Cuban... " -- Alan Rich, LA Weekly

A child prodigy pianist who was touring Europe as a virtuoso concert soloist while still a teenager, Louis Moreau Gottschalk provides one of the most colorful chapters in the history of American music. Dubbed ‘the Chopin of the Creoles’, he was, above all, the first to capture the syncopated music of South Louisiana and the Caribbean in enduring works that anticipate ragtime and jazz by half a century. His orchestral works show a composer of considerable skill who could create memorable and catchy tunes. Included in this disc of the complete surviving orchestral music are several works recorded for the first time in the composer’s original version, as well as the world première recording of La Casa del Joven Enrique.

Symphony No. 2, 'À Montevideo' RO257
Restoring the Symphony No. 2 for modern performance posed many of the same challenges as the Symphony No. 1 ( A Night in the Tropics ) and Escenas Campestres Cubanas in that Gottschalk rarely notated complete percussion parts. For this performance and recording, the timpani part was reconstructed according to the stylistic pattern Gottschalk used to excellent effect in other works of the same period, such as the Variations de concert sur l'hymne portugais.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Célèbre Tarentelle pour piano et orchestre, RO259
During his lifetime, the Célèbre Tarentelle was Gottschalk's "warhorse", the work he presented whenever he needed to dazzle concert-goers. The composer was notorious for his practice of publicly performing his own works but leaving it to his disciples to notate them for publication. Of the more than 25 versions of Célèbre Tarentelle that appeared following Gottschalk's death, the best known was notated by his friend Nicolas Ruiz Espadero (1832-90), who published his edition in 1874. Very recently, however, Gottschalk's own original manuscript has surfaced. Thus, both his solo piano part and his orchestration appear for the first time on this disc.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Escenas Campestres Cubanas, opéra en 1 acte, RO77
As with many of the works that Gottschalk created for his Havana concerts, Escenas Campestres Cubanas (Cuban Country Scenes) brilliantly combines high art, populist sensibilities and mass appeal. For example, the manuscript indicates that Gottschalk intended the use of timpani, but there is evidence that a Caribbean güiro and the three-string tiple added local spice at the first performance. For this performance by the Hot Springs Music Festival, the nearly illegible libretto was painstakingly deciphered by renowned musicologist Marcello Piras, so that the original Ramírez text could be paired with Gottschalk's music for the first time since its première. The score's final five bars, which appear only skeletally in the manuscript, were also orchestrated to match the full instrumentation.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Variations de concert sur l'hymne portugais du Roi Louis I, RO289
The march tune on which Gottschalk based his Variations de concert was written by the grandfather of the Portuguese King Luís I (1838-1889), the Brazilian Emperor, Pedro I. Were it not for the political capital it afforded him in both Brazil and Portugal, it is unlikely that Gottschalk would have given the tune any attention whatsoever. Gottschalk enlivened the Italianate march with frequent chord substitutions and contrasts of mood. The music truly comes to life during the first slow variation, bringing to mind similar works by early Bohemian national composers.
Evident in the manuscript of the Variations de concert is its hasty composition. Although the orchestration is fully fledged, Gottschalk simply neglected to jot down the solo piano part after the first variation, with the exception of one dramatic scale leading to the finale. The present performance edition represents the interweaving of Arthur Napoleon's (born Arthur Napoleão dos Santos, 1843-1925) solo piano arrangement of the work (c. 1873) into Gottschalk's orchestra. Since Napoleon made some chordal modifications in order to claim the piano reduction as his own and reap the financial benefits, this restoration to the original required extensive editing with the collaboration of pianist Michael Gurt.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Ave Maria, RO10
(c.1864, arranged by Richard Rosenberg for two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, harp and strings)

Ave Maria, gratia plena.
Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris.
Ave Maria, gratia plena.


Hail Mary, full of grace.
Hail Lord, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
Listen to a Sound Sample


La Caza del Joven Enrique por Méhul, Gran overture
( La Chasse du jeune Henri or Young Henry's Hunt, overture) arranged by Louis Moreau Gottschalk after the overture by Étienne-Nicolas Méhul (reconstructed by Richard Rosenberg)
A prejudice against Americans kept the thirteen-year-old Gottschalk from being admitted to the Paris Conservatoire (" America is only a land of steam engines", he was told by the school's director), but he stayed in Paris to study privately with Charles Hallé, Frederic Chopin and Hector Berlioz. Thus inspired, he wrote in 1849 a highly original and elaborate fantasy on Méhul's La Chasse du jeune Henri overture.

Early in 1861, seeking material to include in a "monster concert" he was staging in Havana, he recast the La Chasse du jeune Henri fantasy as a gigantic concerto for multiple pianos and huge orchestra. Owing to confusion over rehearsal arrangements for so large an ensemble, the performance was never completed. In 2003, the manuscript of this concerto was rediscovered in the New Jersey basement of the composer's great-great-grandnephew. Thus, it was discovered that there were only five separate piano parts (three pianos, ten hands), which Gottschalk had divided among the forty pianists. For the sake of clarity, the work's première performance in Hot Springs on 8 June 2006 and this subsequent recording used one pianist a part and an orchestra of "only" 112.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Symphonie romantique, 'La nuit des tropiques', RO255
(Symphony No. 1, 'A Night in the Tropics'), edited and completed by Richard Rosenberg
Gottschalk's A Night in the Tropics (1859) had only been performed since his death in condensed and 'corrected' versions. My reconstruction of this work is based on the composer's autograph manuscript, with instrumental forces not quite as large as those employed at Gottschalk's own performances (which featured over 650 musicians) but quite large nonetheless. It retains Gottschalk's unusual voice leading and notation. I believe that the meticulous care Gottschalk took in consistently adding rests and dotted rhythms is a key to the 'tropical' passion he sought to evoke. The arrangement of this symphony for two pianos by Gottschalk's friend and colleague, Nicolas Ruiz Espadero, provided the basis of my orchestration of the lost forty-two bars at the end of the orchestral score. I incorporated the sound of 'harmonieflautas' at the end of the first movement (based on Gottschalk's own account of where and how it was employed), using an antique South American concertina. In the final movement of A Night in the Tropics, Gottschalk indicated only the first measure of the Afro-Cuban percussion, using the notation 'Bamboula'. He fully expected the ensemble to improvise the remainder of that samba movement in a manner that places it as a sort of 'missing link' between nineteenth-century concert music and a musical language that would soon evolve into that of Jazz.
Listen to a Sound Sample

Richard Rosenberg, 2006

REVIEW:

It's so comforting to know that these excellent performances will have a new lease on life courtesy of Naxos. David Diamond's First Symphony (1841) is a compact, three-movement work lasting 22 minutes that stands with the best American products of the period. Characteristically springy rhythms in the outer movements make the music quite refreshing and emphasize the touching lyricism of the central Andante maestoso. The Violin Concerto No. 2 was receiving only its second performances ever when this recording was made. The talented Finnish violinst Ilkka Talvi proves an able exponent of this grandly conceived and marvelously scored work (listen to the imaginative violin/xylophone writing at the opening of the finale). It's a major statement by any definition and it surely deserves to return to the repertoire. The Enourmous Room, a fantasia for orchestra after the book by e.e. cummings, drives home Diamond's fundamentally Romantic outlook and caps a wholly winning disc that is as well played as it is well recorded. If you missed this the first time around, here's your chance to make up the loss.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Richard Strauss once famously remarked: "I may not be a first rate composer, but I am a very good second rate composer." The same might be said of Ferde Grofé. He's not going to win any medals for formal ingenuity, expressive depth, or contrapuntal mastery, but he knew how to orchestrate, he could turn out a good tune, and, like Gershwin's, his particular take on symphonic jazz remains irresistibly attractive. What once may have sounded cheap and glitzy now has period charm, and we can only hope that this second Naxos disc devoted to his symphonic suites won't be the last.


There's some great stuff here. The opening Hollywood Suite contains a dazzling movement called "Carpenters and Electricians" and a delightfully toe-tapping "Production Number". The Hudson River Suite offers evocative nature sounds and some authentic dog barks in "Rip Van Winkle", and concludes with a calamitous, Ivesian tribute to New York City. The Death Valley Suite features a vivid portrait of a wagon train, and like the more famous Grand Canyon Suite ends with violent weather (in this case a sandstorm). William Stromberg leads the Bournemouth Symphony in totally enjoyable performances, vividly recorded, with some particularly brilliant work from the brass section. If you like the Grand Canyon Suite, you'll be pleased to know that there's a lot more where that came from, and it's no less worthy of your attention.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com