The Composers Conduct

Internationally established musicians Hanna Shybayeva (piano), Utrecht String Quartet and Luis Cabrera (double bass) present on this album the rarely performed and even more rarely recorded chamber music transcriptions of Beethoven's piano concertos Nos. 3 and 4 by Vinzenz Lachner. Hanna Shybayeva started her international career at the age of eleven as a "child prodigy." She recorded for several labels, bringing out repertoire by Ravel, Prokofiev, Chopin, Takemitsu, Shostakovich, and the complete Etudes-Tableaux of Rachmaninov. Since 2008 she has been a member of the New European Ensemble, one of the most innovative, vibrant, and versatile ensembles for New Music. Since 2013 she has been a professor at the International Anton Rubinstein Music Academy in Dusseldorf and at Conservatorio Giacomo Puccini La Spezia.

CD Track Listing Cantique de Nöel (O Holy Night) 2. Adeste Fideles 3. Ave Maria, dolce Maria 4. Wiegenlied 5. Oh Tannenbaum 6. Tu scendi dalle stelle 7. Amazing Grace 8. White Christmas 9. Dormi, O bambino 10. Silent Night 11. Pregaría (El cant de l'ánima a la Verge) 12. Susani 13. Happy Christmas/War is Over 14. Wiegenlied 15. Carol of the Drum (The Little Drummer Boy) 16. La virgen lava pañales 17. I'll Be Home for Christmas 18. Sleigh Ride 19. Winter Wonderland 20. Un nuevo siglo 21. Feliz Navidad DVD Track Listing Medley: White Christmas, Let It Snow, Oh Tannenbaum, Ay! Para Navidad, Tu scendi dalle stelle, Carol of the Drum (The Little Drummer Boy), Medley: Ave Maria, dolce Maria - Video, Wiegenlied, Jingle Bells, Medley: Children of Christmas, La virgen lava pañales, I'll Be Home for Christmas, Adeste Fideles, Cantique de Nöel (O Holy Night), Amazing Grace, Feliz Navidad, Silent Night, Pregaría (El cant de l'ánima a la Verge), Medley: Winter Wonderland, Wiegenlied, Sleigh Ride, Susani, Un nuevo siglo, Medley: Dormi, O bambino, Happy Christmas (War is Over).

In what was one of the great modern feats of classical recording, American-born organist and harpsichordist Scott Ross recorded all 555 of Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas between June 1984 and September 1985. Released in nine volumes, these recordings were widely acclaimed by critics and the public alike; they appear here at a super budget price ($7 per CD before our discount)! "This is quite simply a magnificent recording of magnificent music "- Gramophone.

Gary Stroutsos honors the Hopi Tribe with solo improvisations on a reincarnated leena. Featuring the plaintive and haunting sounds of the Hopi long flute, these pieces are inspired by the landscapes of the American Southwest, and the people who have lived there since time immemorial. Songs for Leena is the follow-up album to Öngtupqa. The Hopi Tribe have maintained their flute tradition for thousands of years. Today, it is still actively cultivated with the help of The Hopi Long Flute Preservation Project, of which Gary is an honorable member. Due to his dedication to the instrument, and long-term friendships with cultural practitioners of the tribe, the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office invited Gary to join the project – an offer never extended to a non-native before. Profits from this album will go towards The Hopi Long Flute Preservation Project.

A swift and nimble account of Beethoven's 2nd Concerto paired with a fiery Bach D minor Concerto, showing how Gould could be far more animated live than in the studio.

The "Fourth Programme" of Sony Classical's Glenn Gould Edition contributes to the Beethoven deluge with a swift and nimble account of the Second Concerto, recorded live in Leningrad in 1957 (SMK52686). Ladislav Slovak conducts, and the coupling is a fiery Bach D minor Concerto—which is far more animated than Gould's studio version under Bernstein.

-- Gramophone [11/1993]


The [Beethoven] Second Concerto, which to my knowledge has only previously been released on Melodiya, is something very unique. Not only is the recording taken from a live concert (Gould gave up public performance in 1964), but it presents playing of consummate artistry in a work that often receives condescending attention from critics. But be warned—the orchestral playing, especially the strings, is dreadful. It is Gould's spontaneity in colouring the writing in different registers, in treating fast passages with an unmannered expressivity (where most pianists rattle off figurations)— in a word, his 'musicality'—that make this a memorable reading. There may be no real sense of peace in the Adagio, where Gould's sensuous use of piano tone is much to the fore, but the finale has an infectious humour that demonstrates how different was his playing in concert, as opposed to the recording studio.

-- Gramophone [9/1986]
reviewing the Beethoven concerto on LP, issued as part of CBS Masterworks 39036

Baroque & Classical Works for Flute

The nineteenth-century witnessed an almost insatiable demand for arrangements and transcriptions to be played on domestic pianos. Brahms himself wrote such works under the names GW Marks and Karl Wurth but friends and colleagues also contributed. The violinist, pianist and conductor Paul Klengel, brother of the eminent cellist Julius (whose three Concertinos for Cello and Orchestra can be heard this month on Naxos 8.573793), made solo piano versions of the Horn Trio and the Clarinet Quintet, transcribing with remarkable fidelity and sensitivity Brahms’ myriad expressive and technical demands. Born in Wales, Christopher Williams is a music graduate of Cardiff University and now leads a busy and varied professional life as a pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and arranger. He is currently assistant director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and is a pianist for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with whom he has performed at the BBC Proms and recorded for the Chandos and Hyperion labels.

Robert Schumann considered Peter Joseph von Lindpaintner the most promising operatic composer in the country, yet despite his 21 operas he has been almost forgotten. Like most leading German composers of his time he took Meyerbeer's historical grand operas, conceived in Paris, as his model. Set in Sicily at the dawn of the 1848 revolution, 'Il vespro siciliano' ('Die sizilianische Vesper'/ 'The Sicilian Vespers') is a dramatic four-act opera that reveals why he was held in such esteem by Schumann, Spohr and Mendelssohn: expressive harmonies, folksong-like strophic songs, rich orchestration, the use of the latest stylistic devices, and tuneful bel canto melodies that point to the work's Franco-Italian lineage. This world premiere recording is directed by Federico Longo.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The Austrian-born composer Egon Wellesz (1885-1974) is a barely recognized figure in the history of western music. + For his rarely heard two-act Die Bakchantinnen, one of his half-dozen operas, Wellesz wrote his own libretto based on the ancient Greek play The Bacchae of Euripides. + This Vienna, 1960 performance, conducted by Mitiades Caridis features at least two well-known singers, the baritone Paul Schöffler and the tenor Fritz Uhl. + A most enticing item for the opera-collecting completist.

Robert Still’s four string quartets vividly encapsulate his compositional career. The first two, of which No. 1 was first performed in 1948, display an early inclination towards folk-song and pre- classical models, while Nos. 3 and 4, written during the 1960s “without key”, reflect his later change towards a continental European-influenced method of composition that can be summed up by the abandonment of writing in a tonal style. These world première recordings owe a considerable debt to the editorial expertise of James Dickenson, leader of the Villiers Quartet, who prepared the performance material from the original scores.

Classical Music

This by now and long-legendary 1953 live recording of Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore features a cast, conductor and orchestra that makes it difficult to imagine better. Led by Maria Callas and Carlo Tagliabue as Leonora and Count di Luna, the cast also features Ebe Stignani, Gino Penno and Giuseppe Modesti, among others. The legendary conductor Antonino Votto, often partnered with Ms. Callas, in this period, leads the Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala, Milan, in this gripping, ever-popular operatic drama.