American pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, who has accumulated a catalog of outstanding recordings, performs five captivating and stimulating sonatas by Franz Joseph Haydn. In addition to these solo works, McDermott also joins the Odense Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Scott Yoo in two Haydn piano concertos.

“I've long admired Anne-Marie McDermott's unsurpassed performances of Haydn. Her understanding of his music is superb and her playing of it so apt and expressive that I could not resist her invitation to provide cadenzas for one of Haydn's concerti. It was a joy to write them, and reproducing my own thoughts in the language of this ancient composer was exhilarating. It goes without saying that their realization in sound is exactly what I had intended.” - Charles Wuorinen (The noted American composer who wrote the cadenza for Haydn's Concerto No. 4 in G major, Hob.XVIII:4)

Classical Music

Max Kowalski, who lived and practiced law in Frankfurt am Main, was from 1913 till 1933 a well-known, much esteemed, and frequently performed composer. Kowalski was born in Poland (then Russia) on August 10th, 1882 and grew up in Germany, to which his parents emigrated when he was a year old. Kowalski's reputation rests on his production of more than two hundred art songs, which have been in the repertoire of many leading artists, including Heinrich Schlusnus, Maria Ivog�n, Paul Bender, Joseph Schwarz, Alexander Kipnis, Karen Branzell, and Hans Hotter. The present CD is drawn from a recital sung in 2011 in Munich by the great Austrian baritone, Wolfgang Holzmair. It offers two song cycles and songs composed to texts by some of Germany's leading poets. The CD includes Kowalski's best-known cycle, his Pierrot Lunaire, which appeared the same year (1913) as Arnold Schoenberg's settings.

Classical Music

Tchaikovsky: 1812 Ouverture

The concertos of Karl Amadeus Hartmann exhibit a rich spectrum of formal and expressive possibilities, not only richly varied in relation to each other, but also a welcome addition to his more unified group of eight symphonies. Particularly with his departures from the classical-romantic concerto form, Hartmann discovered new and individual solutions that confirm the importance of his concertos as significant and original contributions to the development of this form in the twentieth century. The works compiled on this CD were written between 1931 and 1955, thus providing a superb insight into all of Hartmann's important creative phases.

Esthetic games as ends in themselves are far from the mind of the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. He believes in "L'art pour l'homme" (Art for mankind) rather than "L'art pour l'art" (Art for art's sake). He sees his music as a language of the soul. This program features elegant performances of Sala, Musica appassionata and Credo from the Liepaja Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Atvars Lakstigala.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Morton Subotnick is a living legend. A leading innovator of electronic music, he has used many important technological breakthroughs in his work as a composer. This release, originally recorded and released in the 80s on LP by Nonesuch Records, has been specially remastered for this reissue. It features The Wild Beasts, a work inspired by an exhibition of Les Fauves paintings, and After the Butterfly, a concerto-like work for trumpet, instrumental ensemble and electronics.

Let me say straight away that the Tokyo Quartet's set of the middle-period quartets is among the most impressive to have appeared in recent years. Although I would not necessarily recommend it in preference to the Vegh (Audivis Valois), the Talich (Calliope), or (in the case of the Rasumovsky Quartets) the Lindsay on ASV that have dominated the catalogue for so long, it is surely a set to reckon with. In terms of sheer technical perfection and ensemble it yields no ground to the Vermeer (Teldec), Orford (Delos), Alban Berg (EMI) or Guarneri (RCA). And their technical finesse, spot-on intonation and superb ensemble are all the more impressive for being at the service of the music. I started with the F major Rasumovsky, undoubtedly the greatest of the three, whose opening in the Tokyo's hands is magnificent in its breadth. They have a good feeling for the architecture and shape of each movement, and throughout the work they are fully aware of the depth of this music.

You may recall the hoary adage comparing a translation to a woman: if it is faithful, it is not beautiful, if it is beautiful, it is unfaithful. Similarly, if a performance sets greater store by beauty than fidelity, it risks gaining the former at the cost of the latter; if it sets its sights on truth first and beauty second, it stands to gain both. The Vegh and the Talich often risk beauty of finish in their search for truth. But at its best this sumptuously but truthfully recorded new issue has both ... I like it far more than any of the rival versions that have crossed the Atlantic in recent years.

-- Robert Layton, Gramophone [3/1992]

ALBINONI: 8 CONCERTOS PETRI,

This disc contains both ADD and DDD recordings.

Classical Music

Complete Track List:

Disc 1:
1. Familiar Sound Of Baseball, The
2. Voice Of Babe Ruth, April, 1947, The
3. Bobby Thomson's Home Run To Win The Pennat For The Giants In The 1951 Playoff Game With Brooklyn
4. Ed Walsh, 40-Game Winner
5. Walter Johnson, Strike-Out Leader
6. Carl Hubbell Recounts Striking Out Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons And Cronin
7. Bob Feller's 348 Strike-Outs In One Season
8. Carl Erskine Sets World Series' Strike-Out Record, 1953
9. Cy Young's First No-Hitter
10. Johnny Vander Meer Gets Two No-Hitters In Consecutive Starts
11. First No-Hitter In World Series Play, Piched By Don Larson
12. Babe Ruth Recalls The Three Goals He Set For Himself
13. George Sisler Remembers "The Babe"'s Strength
14. Senator Ford Recalls An Exceptional Hit By Ruth
15. Will Harridge On "The Babe"
16. Ruth Talks About The Importance Of Getting A Youngster Started In Baseball
17. Branch Rickey Estimates The Influence Of Ruth
18. Jim Farley Sums Up His Feelings About Ruth
19. Andy Coply Remembers Lou Gehrig As A Boy
20. Jimmy Foxx Remembers Gehrig's Feats
21. Charlie McCarthy (Edgar Bergen) Kids Gehrig
22. Gehrig's Farewell To The Fans
23. Rogers Hornsby His First Year In The Big Leagues
24. Ted Williams Hits One Out Of The Park
25. Stan Musial's 1955 All-Star Game-Winning Homer And 3,000th Hit
26. Paul Waner Goes Six For Six In 1926 Game
27. Tris Speaker Gives Views On Hitting
28. Ty Cobb Talks About How To Make Your Own Breaks
29. Budy Blattner On The Birth Of The Baseball Hall Of Fame
30. Hall Of Fame Ceremony, Cooperstown, New York, The
31. Eddie Collins
32. Grover Cleveland Alexander
33. Babe Ruth
34. Hank Greenberg
35. Paul Kerr
36. Ford Frick
37. Kenesaw Mountain Landis
38. Willie Mays Makes A Sensational Catch
39. Jackie Robinson Hits To Win The Sixth Game Of 1956 Wold Series
40. Robinson Recalls Troubles When First Entering The Major Leagues
41. Robert Heyland Jr., Talks About His Father
42. Connie Mack And His Long Managerial Career
43. Mickey Cochrane Remembers One Of Mack's Mistakes
44. Mack And His Eternal Hope For "Next Year"
45. Sid Keener Remembers Hornsby Claiming Alexander By Phone
46. Frankie Frisch Remebers The "Mud Cat Band"
47. Joe McCarthy Pays Tribute to His Great Players
48. Leo Durocher Admits He's A Genius
49. Fred Haney Gets A Testimonial Dinner
50. Chuck Tanner Hits A Four Bagger To Tie One Up
51. Eddie Matthews Gets A Homer
52. Joe Adcock Adds His
53. Henry Aaron Clinches The Pennant With A Homer
54. Braves Win The 1957 World Series, The
55. Prayer Of Thanks By Francis Cardinal Spellman, A

Disc 2: Bonus Disc:
1. Casey At The Bat - Vincent Price
2. Baseball March, The
3. They're All Good American Names
4. Home Run Quick Step
5. Our Orioles Two-Step March
6. Hurrah For Our National Game
7. Our Champions March
8. Slide, Kelly, Slide
9. Live Oak Polka
10. Baseball Fever
11. Spectator March And Two-Step, The
12. Umpire Is A Most Unhappy Man, The
13. Baseball Polka
14. One-A-Strike
15. Baseball Quadrille
16. Jake! Jake! The Yiddisher Ball-Player
17. Una Schottishe
18. Tiger Polka
19. That Baseball Rag
20. Ball Club March, The
21. Who Would Doubt That I'm A Man?
22. Baseball Cakewalk,The
23. Take Me Out To The Ball Game - D'Anna Fortunato/The Triskelion All-Stars

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME is a collection of spoken vocal tracks by famous baseball players & celebrities and also includes a bonus disc of traditional baseball songs.

...The Strauss and Respighi collections are also exceptionally fine. It is conceivable, with music as spectacular and as colourful as Respighi's, that some collectors will want stereo—nay, digital sound in these works. But in doing so will they get sharper-focused, more brilliantly coloured, or more decisively projected performances than these by Respighi's earliest and finest champion? I very much doubt it. Certainly, I have never heard a stronger case made out for what is allegedly the weakest of the three pieces, Feste romane. Toscanini's performance is sensational. Happily, the recordings were all made in the Carnegie Hall and are very fine. Collectors who already have an LP version of Fountains and Pines may find the CD a touch more strident and lacking in bass. That was RL's reaction in last November's "Quarterly Retrospect". But it was a minor quibble. As he said: "these are such stunning performances that they must be strongly recommended".

-- Gramophone [1/1991]

The musicians of the Ensemble Phorminx present central stations in Helmut Lachenmann’s oeuvre: from "Pression" for solo cello of 1969 or the clarinet piece "Dal niente", "Toccatina" for violin, or "temA" for flute, voice and cello to the trio "Allegro sostenuto" of 1986–88. These stations can be categorized by central questions and problems of composition, but they just as emphatically document a constantly progressing development that never comes to a standstill, much less settles down into a “style.” If in works like "Pression" or "Dal niente" Lachenmann worked out his idea of a “musique concrete instrumentale”, in works like "Allegro sostenuto" he permitted a series of approaches to design and procedure that he had categorically excluded from his early works.

Classical Music

Music for Stage and Screen: The Red Pony, Born on the Fourth

Adriana H�lszky�s music has a unique sculptural quality. "Where does the sound come from, and where does it go?" This question is central to her entire creative output and essential for the development of musical content in her works. H�lszky's third music theater piece, "Trag�dia (Der unsichtbare Raum)" [Tragedy: The Invisible Room] marks an extreme within her compositions: The changing constellations of the music bring the �Tragedy� to life - plot and language are radically excluded. The 18 instrumentalists, together with live electronic effects and pre-recorded material, produce a tremendous variety of sound recollections, shock gestures, and colors. �One is permanently aware of the absence of characters, constantly expecting someone to appear, but this state of anticipation is sustained until the end of the piece - and left unresolved.� (H�lszky) Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons & Other Concertos

The unique blend of Stephan Winkler's music and the images of the video artist Jesko Marx results in one of the first DualDiscs on the European continent! The DualDisc, an enhancement and improvement over the DVD plus, combines both audio CD and DVD on one disc. "I consider myself successful when I manage, despite my self-criticism, to write or record music that I myself love to hear." (Stephan Winkler) The present CD contains three works in which the diverse stylistic strands of Winkler's music are brought together in a different way each. "Gullinkambi" for 11 wind instruments forms a sort of habitat in which musical "creatures" collide to generate an evolutionary formal process. "Vom Durst nach Dasein" (Of the Thirst for Existence) for viola and instrumental ensemble is devoted to "attachment to the world," with a distancing commentary in the form of a concluding speech: a text by Robert Musil transformed into music. Finally, our CD rendition of the score of "Zigzag", for six saxophones, bursts the bounds of the medium: on the DVD side of this new DualDisc, the sextet unites with images from the video artist Jesko Marx to create "Zigzag: Pi mal R Quadrat" (Zigzag: π ∙ r²)- music which has really been written for DVD.

The proliferation of music for strings can make it easy to overlook the grand tradition of arrangements for brass. Italian masters Giovanni Gabrieli and Girolamo Frescobaldi are the featured composers on the re-mastered and re-released recording THE ANTIPHONAL MUSIC OF GABRIELI. A collaborative effort of the Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cleveland Brass Ensembles (along with E. Power Biggs on organ), this album evokes the majesty and charm of the Italian Renaissance.
No soloists take center stage; instead, the collaborative interplay of performers builds layers of harmonies through the melody. The superbly engineered stereo recording makes the most of this interplay, creating the impression of being surrounded by the orchestra; a diagram illustrating the seating arrangement used during the recording session is a useful tool in understanding the music. Understanding of the music aside, the clarity and precision of performance make this album a very serene and enjoyable listening experience.

DVORAK: PIANO CONCERTO JANAC

Bernstein's lecture "What is Jazz?" was recorded in New York City in July 1956. (Timing: 42:49)
Originally broadcast on October 15, 1955 as part of CBS's "Omnibus" series, Leonard Bernstein's eloquent deconstruction of jazz attains the near impossible: it achieves an understanding and appreciation of the essence of jazz that is attractive and informative to both lay persons and more experienced listeners. Using interesting musical examples, Bernstein abandons the usual historical approach and gets inside the elements of jazz. The most delightful aspects of the first half of this CD are the terrific performances by Louis Armstrong, Teo Macero, Coleman Hawkins, Buster Bailey, Buck Clayton, and Bessie Smith, among others. And where else could you here a modernist rendition of "Sweet Sue" by Miles Davis and John Coltrane?
The disc is rounded out by a live recording of Alfredo Antonini's concerto grosso setting of W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" featuring Louis Armstrong's Sextet backed by Bernstein and the Lewisohn Stadium Symphony Orchestra (the New York Philharmonic in its summer setting) and Howard Brubeck's "Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra." The former features Armstrong at the height of his powers in 1956, while the latter is a delightful piece of "third stream" jazz featuring the delicately swinging Brubeck Quartet.