Bruckner: Symphony No. 4

Every so often a recording comes out that is so powerful, so comprehensive in its interpretive vision, that it not only makes the music sound completely new, it forces a complete reappraisal of the music's overall significance. Georg Tintner's Bruckner Third is one such recording. In fact, it offers such a fundamental reappraisal of this music that it's safe to say that until you hear this recording, you have not heard Bruckner's Third Symphony. In order to understand why this is so, it's necessary to understand something of the history of the work. First composed in 1873 and dedicated to Wagner, the symphony went through at least two major revisions in the wake of its disastrous Vienna premiere. For the most part, these revisions involved cuts, but also some recasting of the basic thematic material of the first and last movement in a heavier, more "late Bruckner" style. The final, truncated version published by Nowak is the one most frequently played today, but the slightly less cut Oeser edition (the "middle" version) has been gaining favor recently, and has been recorded by conductors such as Haitink and Sinopoli.

Because Bruckner's later thoughts on the symphony reflect his more mature orchestral practice, the Third has acquired a reputation as a hybrid, a "magnificent failure" that falls between the Schubertian world of the early symphonies and his monumental later achievement. This view was reinforced by Robert Simpson's unsympathetic account of the work in his important English language study of the Bruckner symphonies. Eliahu Inbal's first recording of the original 1873 version for Teldec did nothing to dispel this impression, being a rapid and not especially well played performance that merely set out the notes that Bruckner wrote. Tintner's spacious, epic conception of the symphony couldn't be more different. In the first place, it plays for more than 77 minutes, making it Bruckner's longest symphony after the Eighth (and in fact longer than many performances of that work). But the tempos never sound slow. Rather, Tintner gives each thematic group time to breathe, to present its themes in Bruckner's characteristic blocks of sound, and along the way we make some fascinating discoveries. The first of these reveals the exposition of the first movement to be the richest and most thematically diverse that Bruckner ever wrote, with no less than four complete subject complexes. The spaciousness of the exposition makes the development section sound unusually concentrated for Bruckner, the movement's overall form confidently poised and balanced.

After the 30-minute first movement, with its huge contrasts of dynamics and texture, the lyrical adagio comes as the ideal contrast, and Tintner's gracious phrasing, combined with his ability to find just the right tempo, keeps the music moving with a real sense of inevitability. The Scherzo has never been controversial, and Tintner captures its lightness and rustic dance qualities as have few others, but it's the finale that offers the final revelation. Here, Tintner's confidence in Bruckner's vision pays huge dividends in a movement long regarded as almost a complete bust, formally speaking. With all the "cyclical" elements that were later removed still in place (the recollections of earlier themes), and a tempo that gives the music time to reveal its clear derivation from the melodies and accompaniments of the first movement, what we really have is one of Bruckner's most ambitious and far reaching formal successes, an energetic and satisfying counterbalance to the epic expanses of the symphony's opening. Tintner's belief in this symphony reveals it to be not some sort of unfortunate hybrid, but the product of a fully mature (he was 49 when he wrote it!), even radical composer. This in turn makes its initial failure in performance all the more understandable: there was certainly nothing even remotely like it in 1873. The conventional wisdom that the "real" Bruckner begins with the revised Fourth Symphony simply will not stand. It's this work that is his symphonic manifesto, and no one hearing this performance will doubt it for a second.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra deserves a huge amount of credit for sharing Tintner's patience and conviction. The light tone of the strings, in particular, sounds especially "right" in this symphony, and in this case preferable to the darker, heavier sound of many Continental orchestras in this music. Tintner's Bruckner series has been almost uniformly excellent, but I think that this recording is the finest of them all. Its importance to our understanding of Bruckner's symphonic achievement is such that it amounts to nothing less than a premiere performance of a newly discovered masterpiece. Recordings this significant happen all too rarely. Don't miss it.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

This year, we celebrate the thirty-year conducting career of Neeme Järvi with Chandos records, as well as the conductor’s own seventy-fifth birthday. Chandos marks the occasion with this two-disc set of highlights, featuring a varied selection of concert hall rarities and core classics, along with some popular showpieces and examples of Järvi’s championing of Estonian and American music. Gramophone said of his recently concluded Halvorsen series, “Järvis finds in the music a drama and pathos that might come as a revelation even to the composer.”

Xiayin Wang just gets better and better; well worth your time and money.

The bar is set very high when it comes to these concertos, and that poses a formidable challenge for pianists brave – or foolhardy – enough to attempt them. That said, having reviewed Xiayin Wang and these forces in a splendid pairing of the Khachaturian concerto and the original version of Tchaikovsky’s G major one, I’ve no doubt she’s bold – and limber – enough to vault these three (with room to spare). And the presence of Peter Oundjian and the RSNO, whose latest John Adams release was so warmly welcomed by Simon Thompson, is a definite plus.

Usually, I list several of comparative versions of the work(s) under review, but this time I’ll select just one each. Starting with Tchaikovsky’s first concerto, I was much impressed by Alexandra Dariescu’s 2014 account with Darrell Ang and the Royal Philharmonic (Signum). As for the third concerto, I always return to Peter Donohoe, Rudolf Barshai and the Bournemouth Symphony, recorded in 1989 (Warner). Then there’s the Scriabin, as set down by Yevgeny Sudbin, Andrew Litton and the Bergen Phil in 2013 (BIS).

Given the legendary status of Tchaikovsky’s Op. 23 – and its long line of stellar soloists – it’s all too easy for lesser pianists to over-reach themselves with this one. That’s what turned me off two recent recordings, with Denis Kozhukhin (Pentatone) and Beatrice Rana (Warner). Indeed, one of the greatest strengths of the Dariescu/Ang performance is that it doesn’t punch above its weight. That said, there’s eloquence and insight aplenty, which, together with an attractive coupling – Mikhail Pletnev’s Nutcracker arrangement – and good sound, makes for a most enjoyable release.

That same judicious approach is very much in evidence in Xiayin Wang’s Op. 23, the famous opening still thrilling in its surge and sweep. She’s firm and focused from start to finish, Ralph Couzens and Jonathan Cooper’s recording warm and weighty. The RSNO are on top form, too, with liquid woodwinds and songful strings. But it’s the soloist’s imaginative phrasing and disarming manner that deserve the most praise here. Also, Oundjian, a sympathetic accompanist, allows the music to ebb and flow in the most natural and unobtrusive way. Tuttis are all the more satisfying for being so discreetly signposted and so sensibly scaled.

My word, Xiayin Wang is a very thoughtful and engaging artist, the pliancy and soul of the ensuing Andantino especially pleasing. What a lovely touch, too, Tchaikovsky’s jewelled writing as lustrous as one could wish. Happily, she’s rhythmically supple yet suitably animated in the Allegro con fuoco, which burns with a steady flame rather than flares with magnesium heat. Then again, that’s the nature of this performance, which has none of the self-seeking pyrotechnics that so often mar this exhilarating finale. And so it is with the compact, closely argued Op. 75, where Xiayin Wang’s technical prowess, sensitively channelled, serves the music and nothing else.

How sensuous she is in the Scriabin, its rich harmonies superbly realised by soloist and orchestra alike. It’s a piece that’s apt to sprawl, and that it doesn’t here is a measure of everyone’s clarity and commitment. The Andante has wonderful poise and detail, the latter a reminder of how good the engineering is. It’s all so exquisitely washed and tinted, our painter-pianist showing exemplary taste and good judgment throughout. As for the finale, essayed with a strong sense of shape and approaching exultation, it’s even more rewarding when delivered with such assurance and style.

Would I want to be without Dariescu and Donohoe in the Tchaikovsky, or Sudbin’s Scriabin? No, but I’m happy to file Xiayin Wang’s fine performances alongside theirs. And while I’ve grumbled about the sound of some recent Chandos releases, I’ve absolutely no qualms about this one. Detailed liner-notes by David Nice complete a most attractive package.

Xiayin Wang just gets better and better; well worth your time and money.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan )

This is one of the freshest and most enjoyable accounts of Tchaikovsky 1 I have heard for a long time. In Xiayin Wang’s hands and supported superbly by the impressive Scottish players and their conductor, the concerto takes on the narrative of a tone poem in an account of commendable brio and clarity. This is among the most deeply felt and warm-hearted accounts of No. 3 you will hear.

– Gramophone

This ‘2-for-1’ reissue brings together the best performances by Neeme Järvi of the music by Bartók, taken from his extraordinarily prolific recording career with Chandos Records. The four works span Bartók's career and include some of the greatest music he ever wrote.

The Concerto for Orchestra has remained one of Bartók’s most popular orchestral works since its triumphant premiere in 1944. Its title signals that each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuoso way. According to Bartók himself, ‘the general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one’.

The ballet The Miraculous Mandarin is heard here in its complete form. Set in a seedy urban underworld, it tells the tale of a prostitute, the three thugs that control her, and their mysterious encounter with the eponymous Mandarin. In portraying this scenario Bartók creates an astonishingly vivid score with some of the most colourful music he ever wrote.

The Wooden Prince, an earlier ballet, could not on the surface be further from The Miraculous Mandarin. Lacking its daring modernism, it instead shows the influence of Debussy, Strauss, and Wagner. However, its outwardly sunny character obscures a strange and surreal undertone.

The Hungarian Pictures are skilful and imaginative orchestrations made in 1931 of five earlier piano pieces. Each with its own distinct character, these pieces give the impression of being an authentic folksong arrangement, although this is true only of the last of the five. - Chandos

The flourishing genre of the comic opera had its roots in eighteenth-century Italian opera buffa, whose irrepressible brio was soon taken up outside the country’s borders. In France it produced opéra comique and operetta, and in German-speaking countries Spieloper and Viennese operetta. Some of the world’s most popular comic opera overtures, filled with gorgeous tunes, brilliant orchestration and race-to-the-finish endings, are presented here. They include staples of the concert repertoire such as Hérold’s dramatic Zampa, the textual delicacy of Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna and the vivid colour of Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra teams up with its Assistant Conductor Kellen Gray to record works by three of the twentieth century’s greatest African American voices. Released to coincide with Black History Month, the two symphonies by William Levi Dawson and William Grant Still proved to be fundamental in the utilization of Afro-American idioms within the symphonic form. Each composer focused on one of the two original staples of African American music: folk and jazz.

William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony takes its inspiration from West African folk idioms, American Negro spirituals and early African American folk rhythms and songs from Gullah culture. William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 draws its influence from elements popular in jazz and pre-jazz popular genres. Although the latter is the more well-known figure in American music, Dawson was every bit as significant in the timeline of African American music, and his only published symphony is astonishingly mature for a composer’s earliest efforts at symphonic writing. This program also celebrates the centenary of George Walker’s birth with the inclusion of his Lyric for Strings.

All World Premiere Recordings!

Featured in the New York Times' "5 Classical Albums You Can Listen to Right Now"

William Grant Still, the “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” was part of the Harlem Renaissance and wrote nearly 200 works including nine operas and five symphonies. Still’s many awards included three Guggenheim Fellowships and eight honorary doctorates. His work combines Classical forms with jazz and blues idioms and was inspired by the rich tradition of African American spirituals. Still hoped that his music would serve a larger purpose of interracial understanding, and this joyous, moving and hauntingly beautiful program –featuring all world premiere recordings – is infused with Still’s love of God, country, heritage, and even his mischievous dog Shep.

REVIEW:

William Grant Still's music evokes the melting pot that makes up the American experience, incorporating sounds and textures from many genres, including blues, African-American spirituals, French impressionism, and more.

The three movements of the Violin Suite of 1943 fall in the traditional fast-slow-fast format, but the styles of each vary dramatically, with the second movement, "Mother and Child," a beautiful, passionate lullaby bordered by two dance movements. The final work, Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius, was commissioned for a celebration concert marking the composer's 100th birthday. This work displays Still's adaptability, infusing aspects of the Romantic symphonic sound with mid-20th century modern American.

--Allmusic.com (Keith Finke)

All the items on this program are world premiere recordings, so I think it would not be amiss if some information were to be forwarded for the benefit of all those interested in this very special music.

Can’t You Line ‘Em (1940) captures the rhythm and spirit of the construction gangs, particularly those lining up railroad tracks. A CBS commission, this piece was premiered on 17 February 1940 with the CBS Radio Orchestra on their network program American School of the Air.

Originally composed as the second movement of three Visions for solo piano, Summerland (1936) is Still’s delicate description of the serenity and purity of Heaven.

Another work originally written for solo piano, Quit Dat Foolnish (1935) conjures up a jazzy romp with the composer’s mischievous dog, Shep. Still also wrote a version for solo saxophone and orchestra, transposed for this recording by Dana Paul Perna.

Pastorela (1946) is a tone picture of a Californian landscape, peaceful but exciting, arousing feelings of languor in some of its aspects, and of animation in others, presenting an overall effect of unity in its variety.

American Suite (circa 1918) is the composer’s first symphonic work. Still sent the parts of the American Suite to Chicago Symphony conductor Frederick Stock. In 1998, Still’s daughter Judith Anne shared the orchestral parts with Dana Paul Perna, who created the present score.

Fanfare for the 99th Fighter Squadron (1945), which resonates with pride, courage, and patriotic resolve, was composed in honor of the Tuskegee airmen who during WWII gave everything for the cause of peace and justice. This work was premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on 22 July 1945 in commemoration of the end of war and the valiant service of those Airmen.

Serenade (1957) was originally intended as material for a cello concerto proposed by Still’s friend, the famous cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Instead, it became a commission by the Great Falls, Montana High School Orchestra, with its lush cello writing hinting at its conception.

The Violin Suite (1943) is a musical impression of three works of art. African Dancer is a stunning bronze statue by Richmond Barthe (1901-1989). Mother and Child is a poignant colored lithograph by Sargent Johnson (1888-1967). Gamin is a sassy bronze bust by Auguste Savage (1892-1962). These works were featured in The Negro in Art, a book published in 1940 by Still’s friend and champion Alain Locke (1885-1954). The book so impressed Edith Halpert (1900-1970), a Russian-Jewish refugee, visionary and art promoter, that she contacted Locke to promote an exhibition in her Downtown Gallery in New York. The exhibition opened on 8 December 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but despite the deep sadness that engulfed American society, this first major commercial showing of African American art in New York was a great success. Still rose to the occasion and translated the artists’ imagination into music full of verve, tenderness and very often charm.

The beautiful Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius (1965) was commissioned for a concert in memory of Finland’s national hero, composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. Still’s tribute is a noble and haunting farewell, channeling the spirit and mystique of Sibelius the man and the composer.

This is a marvelously exciting hour of music by a composer of substance whose recorded catalog is still only average. Hopefully, Naxos’s advocacy for Still’s oeuvre will induce more labels and listeners to turn to this uplifting repertoire which is as moving as it is entertaining. Do not remain still to Still’s sound world. You will be missing an experience and you might come to regret that. A peach of an issue, superbly performed, recorded and annotated.

--Classical Music Daily (Gerald Fenech)

Hugo Alfvén’s music has always been close to the hearts of the Swedish people, and ranks among some of the most significant and representative of the spirit of the country. Alfvén is known as a cheerful entertainer in compositions such as Den forlorade sonen (‘The Prodigal Son’), but his symphonies reveal a different, more elegiac and often more dramatic side. The success of Alfvén’s symphonies fundamentally changed Sweden’s musical climate and, with a substantial collection of further orchestral music representing his gloriously rich and varied style, these recordings sweep us into the remarkable world of Scandinavian landscape and culture.

Past praise for previously released volumes included in this set:

Symphony No. 5; Andante Religioso / Willén, Norrköping Symphony

The Norrköping Symphony plays with confidence and fervor. Alfvén was nothing if not expansive, and if his formal touch was never all that deft, he did know how to fill up time with arresting ideas, glowingly scored. A serenely lovely Andante religioso makes a perfect encore, one that puts the finale of the symphony’s straining for heroic effect in its proper perspective in the gentlest and most affecting way. Naxos’ sonics for this production are also excellent. Very enjoyable indeed.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

The Prodigal Son, Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 11 / Willén, Ireland NSO

Listen as Niklas Willén teases the skittish polka from “The Prodigal Son” ballet suite, or steers his players through the vehement fugue that rounds out his Symphony No. 2, and you’ll appreciate why this release commands unreserved praise. These works come to life in Willén’s hands.

Willén’s reading of the Symphony's Andante conjures a huge range of textures and sonorities, with the dark-hued horns and sombre lower winds particularly impressive. The players give all they have in music that’s probably new to them, and that extra effort is just one of the factors that makes these performances so compelling.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Symphony No. 3; Skerries; Dalecarlien Rhapsody / Willén, RNSO

If you haven’t heard these charming, folk-music-inspired gems of late Romantic music, then here’s an excellent place to start. The Symphony also sounds consistently fresh and lively, though it’s hard to shake the impression that the composer was happier writing programmatic works in free form than in indulging the more intellectual rigors of symphonic development. In Willén’s sympathetic hands, however, none of its four movements outstays its welcome. In any event, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra plays with confidence and evident enjoyment, and the recorded sound is very good.

-- ClassicsToday.com

Naxos is going head to head with Chandos in English repertoire, and while British critics no doubt will circle the wagons in defense of their home-grown product, the fact is that this newcomer beats the Brits at their own game. Not only do we have a British conductor with evident sympathy for the music (which is Bax at his opulent best), but one with an orchestra that Chandos, in its own innumerable releases, demonstrated was clearly superior to the London Philharmonic (led by the late Bryden Thomson in the case of Bax's symphonies). In addition, we also get a recording of excellent technical quality. In fact, Chandos' recording of this piece was cavernous in the extreme, and Thomson's sometimes slack way with the music was anything but ideal. (There's a superb version of this symphony on Lyrita conducted by Meyer Fredman which has never appeared on CD). In short, this recording offers top quality in both performance and sonics irrespective of price, and makes the perfect starting point for anyone interested in sampling the work of this lusciously Romantic composer. [10/3/1999]--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 2 - Overture Tsar Boris - The Cedar

Better late than never, these Rorem premieres are irresistible

How remarkable that two such delectable concertos should be receiving their world premieres on disc. Unapologetically romantic and accessible, those qualities may well have mitigated against acceptance among the industry’s fashion-mongers. The Second Piano Concerto (1951) was written for Julius Katchen (also the dedicatee of Rorem’s attractive Second Piano Sonata) and was given its first performance by that superb pianist in 1954. Since then it has lain dormant until its present revival by Simon Mulligan whose brilliance, ideally matched by José Serebrier, is worthy of Katchen himself. Here, the ghosts of Ravel, Françaix, Gershwin, Stravinsky and, most of all, Poulenc, jostle for attention. Yet Rorem’s idiom is as personal as it is chic. The final pages of the central “Quiet and Sad” movement, where the piano weaves intricate tracery round the orchestral theme, may owe much to the Adagio assai from Ravel’s G major Concerto but it maintains its own character. The finale, “Real Fast”, is an irresistible tour de force played up to the hilt by Mulligan.

In the Cello Concerto Rorem happily eschews a conventional form, giving programmatic subtitles to each section. These range from “Curtain Raise” to “Adrift”, offering Wen-Sinn Yang a rich opportunity, whether playing primus inter pares or revelling in Rorem’s alternating nostalgia and effervescence. Finely recorded, it’s a clear winner for the Naxos American Classics series.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone [12/2007]

Naxos' ongoing series of Ned Rorem orchestral music recordings offers well-deserved recognition to a major American composer. This latest release is no less rewarding than the prior issues. The Second Piano Concerto dates from 1951 and shows the young composer writing with tremendous gusto. A large work (34 minutes) in the traditional three movements, its scoring is both vivid and at times a touch dense and "over the top", while the work's melodic generosity and rhythmic drive are undeniably infectious; its neglect must be counted a major mystery. Conductor José Serebrier's notes make much of the music's "American" qualities, particularly in the finale, but I was much more forcibly struck by Rorem's much-advertised love of French music. Whatever the answer to the "influence" question, this concerto is without doubt a major statement, and it's very impressively performed by Simon Mulligan, Serebrier, and the orchestra, who let the music speak with all of its delicious formal (in the first-movement cadenza) and textural excess.

Rorem's Cello Concerto dates from 2002, and like many of his late orchestra works it abandons traditional form in favor of a series of brief movements given cute names that may or may not have anything significant to do with their musical content. Frankly, I find this habit unnecessarily coy and distracting, but others may simply be intrigued; and if the listener's curiosity, once aroused, leads to giving the music more concentrated attention, then it's all to the good.

The sequence of eight movements is laid out for maximum contrast, and I particularly enjoyed the seventh, a characterful waltz. Indeed, Rorem is such a fine melodist when he wants to be that you have to wonder why he feels the need to venture into more aggressively "modern" territory now and then. Perhaps he's working a little bit too hard at being a "serious" composer. Never mind: this is a fine work, also strongly played by cellist Wen-Sinn Yang. Naxos' engineers have judged the balances very accurately between both soloists and the orchestra, while the occasional opacity at the climaxes of the piano concerto seems more a function of the heavy scoring than a suggestion of technical inadequacy. A fine disc.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Stéphane Denève's Roussel cycle is shaping up to be the finest available--not that there's a lot of compelling competition. All of the symphonies are shockingly neglected, but the First might be the least-familiar of them all, God only knows why. It's a gorgeous, impressionistic piece with evocative titles (Forest in Winter, Renewal, Summer evening, Fauns and Dryads) and shimmering, atmospheric music that lives up to its expectations. Denève leads a thoroughly committed, even inspired performance, sensitive to Roussel's detailed scoring but also fluent, lively, and attentive to each movement's symphonic architecture. It's a wonderful performance, excellently played and recorded.

There's very little "minor" Roussel. Even his short works have a certain seriousness and substance. This is certainly true of Résurrection, a symphonic prelude after Tolstoy, while the four-movement suite from Le marchand de sable qui passe reveals Roussel's expert scoring for small ensemble (flute, horn, clarinet, harp, and strings). Really this is an essential acquisition for anyone who loves French music and the late Romantic school in general. Don't pass it up.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Rachmaninov’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 3’ is a complex, epic narrative that moves from a simple opening melody to the triumphant apotheosis at its conclusion. The composer ingeniously links motifs, melodies and at times whole sections between the movements, unifying the concerto into a single overarching storyline. In the ‘Variations on a Theme of Correlli,’ Rachmaninov reworks the original theme using his unique harmonic language until there is no trace left of its Baroque or Renaissance origins. Pianist Boris Giltburg was born in 1984 in Moscow and has lived in Tel Aviv since early childhood. He began lessons with his mother at the age of five and went on to study with Arie Vardi. In 2013 he took first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, catapulting his career to a new level. His previous solo Rachmaninov recording was named Gramophone album of the month in June 2016, and more recently his first concerto album won a Diapason d’or for his account of the Shostakovich concertos.

-----

REVIEWS:

Boris Giltburg’s new Naxos recording of the D minor Concerto with Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra shatters the encrustation of reputational habit, offering instead a vividly imaginative re creation of a score that lives and breathes with irresistible vitality. Giltburg’s approach is fundamentally lyrical, rhetorically apt and, aided and abetted by Prieto and the Scots, sensitive to every marking in the score.

– Gramophone The opening bars of this Third Concerto performance set the scene for a very personal approach to the ones we have already on disc; the whole performance gives us a totally new approach where the choice of tempos is very personal, at times unusually relaxed, at other times are charging headlong. The first movement cadenza is almost improvisatory in every respect, and sets out his credentials as one of today’s most outgoing virtuosos. His finale is full of white-heat moments. The conductor, Carlos Miguel Prieto, is at one with his soloist, while the Royal Scottish National are on fine form. A very attractive account of the Variations on a Theme of Corelli closes the disc. The recorded quality of the concerto is excellent..

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Polish pianist-composer Tadeusz Majerski (1888-1963) wrote some of the most interesting Polish music of his day, bringing together late-Romantic sensitivity and the harmonic freedom of Schoenbergian modernism- although primacy of emotional expression was always his watchword. Majerski spent his entire life in Lwow (now Lviv in Ukraine) and so, despite his musical importance, he has been almost completely lost from sight. This first album dedicated to his work presents one of his major scores, the rhapsodic Concerto-Poem for piano and orchestra, as well as two powerful chamber works and a number of representative piano miniatures. Michal Drewnowski is the pianist who has discovered Majerski and is making him known to the outside world- a task in which this release is playing its part.

The orchestral music of the English composer David Hackbridge Johnson (b. 1963) is one of the most important discoveries to have been made by Toccata Classics. This second volume brings two mighty symphonies: the dark and tragic No. 10 (2013), cast in a single monumental span, and the three-movement No. 13 (2017), a fierce and fiery affirmation of life. They are complemented here by an orchestral ‘motet’ which passes plainchant in kaleidoscopic review. Writing in Gramophone, Guy Rickards said of Hackbridge Johnson’s Ninth Symphony: “what is so astonishing is not his ambition in attempting such large, big-boned structures… but that he possesses the compositional technique to achieve them so completely… This is a profound, complex, and visionary utterance.” Paul Mann, who here leads the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, is a regular guest conductor with many orchestras throughout Europe, the USA, Australia and the Far East. He enjoyed a famous collaboration with the legendary rock group Deep Purple and was a close friend of its keyboardist Jon Lord. He first came to international attention as first prizewinner in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, and as a result was appointed assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. This is his twelfth project with Toccata Classics.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Digital CD 16Bit 44.1Khz. Originally recorded in: DSD

"...In each of these performances the RSNO, keenly responsive to Denève after his seven seasons as chief conductor, confirm the absolute precision, transparency and - in Jeux as much as anywhere – passion required for these scores. The detail in Images is exquisite (with a lovely oboe d'amore solo by Katherine Mackintosh). The Nocturnes, especially Fêtes, achieve a shimmering, decidedly un-Monet-like glaze, and La Mer erupts and glistens."

- Fiona Maddocks, The Observer, 12, May 2012

SUPPÉ Overtures: Leichte Kavallerie; Boccaccio; Pique-Dame; Dichter und Bauer; Das Modell; Isabella; Die schöne Galathée; Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Aband in Wien. Boccaccio-Marsch. Humoristische Variationen. Marziale nach Motiven aus der Operette “Fatinitza.” Über Berg, über Thal. Juanita-Marsch • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Natl O • CHANDOS 5110 (SACD: 79: 42)


If your familiarity with Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere Suppé Demelli (Franz von Suppé to most of us) is limited to the Overtures to Light Cavalry and Poet and Peasant , then this disc is for you. It can be summed up in two words: GREAT FUN! Thirteen numbers spanning half a century (1844-1895) make up this 80-minute program, and few will disappoint. Right from the opening trumpet fanfare of Light Cavalry —bright, boisterous, splendidly assured—one senses that this disc is going to be a total delight. Tight rhythms, crisp articulation, immense verve, and Chandos’s vividly brilliant sound inform every number.


Unless you are already a die-hard Suppé fan, there are bound to be joyful surprises at every turn. The coda to the Queen of Spades Overture will have you positively jumping out of your seat and cheering with exhilaration. The March after Motifs from Fatinitza (arranged by the 20th-century Max Schönherr) is curiously reminiscent of the March from Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens . Listeners who know Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture will recognize one of its themes in the Humorous Variations , although it should be remembered that Suppé’s overture preceded Brahms’s by more than 30 years. And make no mistake, there is humor aplenty in Suppé’s work.


Exclusively Suppé discs are not common. Those that exist are almost all devoted only to the overtures, and I haven’t found any released since 2001, when Marco Polo issued Vol. 6 of its Suppé Overtures series (Volumes 1, 2, 4, and 5 have been reviewed in Fanfare 18:4, 18:6, 19:4, and 22:6). That makes the present item under consideration all the more welcome as it includes four marches and a variation set in addition to eight overtures, some well known, others not.


Extensive program notes by Calum MacDonald about each work add further sparkle to this outstanding release. Definitely a Want List candidate.


FANFARE: Robert Markow

On this disc Chandos bring together some of the highlights from Neeme Jarvi's five-volume Wagner series with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. As an added bonus, they included the Overture to Der fliegende Holle�nder, a piece not before released as part of their Wagner series.

WAGNER Symphonies: in C, WWV 29; in E, WWV 35. Huldigungsmarsch. Rienzi: Overture. Kaisermarsch • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Natl O • CHANDOS 5097 (SACD: 79:14)


Here’s a milestone of sorts for me. In my nearly 10 years with Fanfare , this is my first time reviewing anything by Wagner. Mainly, the reason, I suppose, is that I don’t do opera, and what else is there, really, by Wagner that isn’t opera? Well, quite a lot, actually. Prior to his earliest completed stage works dating from between 1833 and 1838— Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot , and Die hohe Braut —Wagner wrote a goodly number of works, including several piano sonatas, a string quartet, concert overtures and overtures to plays, study fugues, songs, a considerable volume of miscellaneous piano pieces, and the two symphonies on this disc. And even after he threw himself into music drama with a passion, he continued to compose in other genres throughout his life.


Thus, the Huldigungsmarsch of 1864 was written right smack in the middle of Wagner’s work on Die Meistersinger , and the Kaisermarsch of 1871 comes dead-center during work on Parsifal . Still, the composer’s non-operatic music on record—I count the large numbers of collections of just the orchestral overtures, excerpts, and fragments from the operas as operatic music—seems to be an endangered species.


Wagner’s two symphonies have received one review each in these pages. The more recent appeared in Fanfare 31:2. That review by James Miller dealt with a two-CD Decca Eloquence Wagner collection of opera overtures and preludes performed by a host of orchestras and conductors. Buried among the familiar nuggets was the C-Major Symphony with Edo de Waart leading the San Francisco Symphony. Miller hears influences of Beethoven and, even more strongly, strains of Schubert in the work, and I wouldn’t disagree with him. Wagner was 19 when he wrote the piece in 1832, so it can’t be said that he was a precocious genius on the order of Mozart, Schubert, or Mendelssohn. It’s a pretty formulaic score, strongly redolent of some of Beethoven’s overtures and, curiously, Schubert’s Ninth, which Wagner could not have heard, since its first public performance was given by Mendelssohn in 1839.


A review of the E-Major Symphony goes back even further, to issue 20:4. Submitted by William Youngren, it covers an EMI recording by Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. Wagner’s second attempt at a symphony dates from 1834, but he never completed it. An Allegro con spirito first movement and 30 bars of an Adagio cantabile second movement are all he wrote. Moreover, Wagner didn’t orchestrate it. That task fell to the conductor Felix Mottl when Cosima Wagner enlisted him for the job. The symphony opens with a gesture startlingly reminiscent of the overture to Beethoven’s Fidelio.


Those recordings are still available. I’m afraid I don’t have either of them, but I do have a fine 1992 Denon CD containing both scores with Hiroshi Wakasugi leading the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, a disc you’ll find listed by Amazon but not by ArkivMusic. This new Chandos SACD, however, with Neeme Järvi’s tight grip on the reins and the recording’s deep stage and phenomenal spotting of instruments, is definitely the way to go, if these early works by Wagner interest you.


The Huldigungsmarsch is another item Wagner didn’t orchestrate himself, at least not completely. Purely out of a need for money, Wagner wrote the piece to pleasure the mad king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, originally scoring it for military band. He then began orchestrating the march for symphony orchestra but deferred to the advice of conductor Hans von Bülow to allow Joachim Raff to complete the task. One can’t help but wonder what this says about von Bülow’s opinion of Wagner’s abilities. Raff, you will recall, is the composer who also assisted Liszt with orchestrating some of his works.


Genesis of the Kaisermarsch is a little more complicated. In 1871, the Peters publishing house commissioned Wagner to write something upbeat and patriotic to cheer the troops and boost German morale during the Franco-Prussian war. Like the Huldigungsmarsch , the Kaisermarsch was originally scored for military band, but barely two months later, to celebrate the German victory and the coronation of the Prussian king as emperor of the newly founded German Reich, Wagner rescored the piece for symphony orchestra and added to the end of it a kind of community sing-along set to a sacred text for a strictly secular ceremonial occasion. As note author Emanuel Overbecke points out, “Wagner proved himself ever the political pragmatist, for only four years earlier he had dismissed the same monarch as feeble and ineffectual.” The choral finale is not included on the current recording.


Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen , or just Rienzi as it’s commonly known, was Wagner’s first real stage hit after a string of operatic works that were either left unfinished or that were completed and mounted but with little success. First produced in Dresden in 1842, Rienzi would also be Wagner’s last opera in which the Italian influence is strongly felt. Even before Rienzi premiered, Wagner had completed his next opera, The Flying Dutchman , in 1841. Rienzi’s overture is a staple of recorded collections featuring the overtures, preludes, and orchestral music from Wagner’s operas. Beginning at around 2:45, the slow-moving, chorale-like intoning of the brass, overlaid by striding, leaping figurations in the strings, anticipates the same technique Wagner used for similar effect in the overture to Tannhäuser two years later.


All of the works on this disc, with the exception of the Rienzi overture, have relatively few recorded listings and, to my knowledge, this is their first in surround sound. If you’re a Wagner fan, and your interest in his music extends beyond his operas, I can think of no reason for you not to be thrilled by this release. Neeme Järvi, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Chandos have teamed up countless times over the years to bring us many truly outstanding recordings, and this is another of them.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Of the works performed here by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the prominent Delius interpreter Sir Andrew Davis, the first three (Paris, the Piano Concerto, and Idylle de printemps) offer a fascinating insight into the early years of the development of Delius as a composer, when he was slowly and painstakingly honing his craft, and assuming the characteristic personal voice that is evident in more mature works such as Brigg Fair.

Paris, sub-titled ‘The Song of a Great City’, is strongly inspired by the composer’s many years of living and working in Paris. With large-scale orchestral forces, Delius paints opulent pictures of a city that he obviously loved. The slow opening portrays the still darkness falling over Paris; then the music changes pace and takes us through the teeming and intoxicating nightlife of the city, with impressions of exuberant dance music coming from the many cafés and music-halls. The opening material returns, culminating in the sounds of the awakening streets.

Until recently Delius’s Piano Concerto has been know exclusively in its final, one-movement form, which was first performed in London in 1907. The version recorded here, however, represents the composer’s earlier thoughts, from 1897. Performed by Howard Shelley, the work is brimming with full-bodied romanticism while showing the influences of Grieg and Liszt throughout.

The airy mood of Idylle de printemps points to later depictions of nature in Delius’s music, as in Brigg Fair, which Delius categorised as ‘An English Rhapsody’. Cecil Gray, the Scottish music critic and composer, described the opening of Brigg Fair as ‘evoking the atmosphere of an early summer morning in the English countryside’. The work is based on a folk-tune which came to light in a competition instigated by Percy Grainger in 1905 to find ‘the best unpublished old Lincolnshire folk song or plough song’. Grainger was immediately taken with the folk-tune, and having arranged it himself for solo tenor and chorus, he approached Delius to write orchestral variations on it – urging him on as the only composer worthy of the task. Delius was soon persuaded, and Brigg Fair became one of his best-loved works.

- Chandos Records

Neeme Järvi is back conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the third of four albums featuring Henk de Vlieger's bold arrangements of operas by Wagner. Of the first album (CHSA 5060), Classic FM wrote: 'Dutch composer Henk de Vlieger builds a penetrating symphonic poem that reflects the dramatic depths of The Ring.' In Volume 3, De Vlieger turns to Wagner's tragic romantic opera Tristan und Isolde, which is here treated symphonically. The key themes of anticipation, longing, rapture, separation, hope, death, and transfiguration are expressed solely through orchestral forces. A particularly striking feature of the lovers' duet, a movement entitled 'Nachtgesang', is the conspicuous presence of the violin and the clarinet, which pick out the sung parts of the two lovers. The movement ends on an unresolved chord followed by a compelling caesura, which symbolises the painful realisation that it will never be possible for them to fulfil their great love. This disc also includes the overture to Wagner's Die Feen. This was the composer's first great romantic, although less well-known, opera. The overall style of the work, based on La donna serpente by Carlo Gozzi, owes its essentials to Beethoven, Marschner, and Weber - something that Wagner himself never hid in the least. However, the opera also displays clearly audible foreshadowings of the composer's later works, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, in particular. Wagner based Das Liebesverbot on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, and included on this disc is the overture to the opera. It is perhaps the most Mediterranean-sounding of the composer's operas, something especially apparent in the brimming vitality of the overture in which the tone is set straight away by the sparkling contributions of castanets, triangle, and tambourine. Described as a 'große komische Oper', it was composed in 1834, and Wagner conducted the premiere at Magdeburg in 1836. The first performance poorly attended and involving a lead singer who forgot the words and had to improvise, the opera was a resounding flop and its second performance had to be cancelled after a fist-fight broke out backstage between the prima donna's husband and a leading tenor before the curtain had even risen. The opera was never performed again in Wagner's lifetime.

This re-issue brings together the Violin Concertos of Prokofiev, along with Violin Sonata No.1, performed by Lydia Mordkovitch under Neeme Jarvi. 'Jarvi is an outstanding collaborator. His feeling for this composer's music is well established, and he brings out details that other conductors are content to overlook. Ms Mordkovitch has a powerful musical voice and a committed approach. I have returned to this recording with increasing fascination and would recommend it highly.' American Record Guide

Recent News Tasmin Little has scooped the Critics' Award at the 2011 Classic Brit Awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall, London on 12 May, for her recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis Recent reviews The CD received a string of superlative reviews on its initial release: 'Little tantalises with a winning combination of heartfelt passion and engaging simplicity that radiates beguiling warmth.' Julian Haylock, Classic FM ***** 'For sheer beauty of tone and expressive nostalgia, Tasmin Little and Sir Andrew Davis out-Elgar their rivals.' Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph 'Tasmin Little's [recording] goes right to the top of the class.' David Mellor, The Mail on Sunday Edward Greenfield in Gramophone ('Editor's Choice') described Tasmin Little's playing as masterly'. The long-awaited and much anticipated recording by Tasmin Little of Elgar's Violin Concerto will be released this November, 100 years after the work's first performance. In concert Tasmin Little is closely associated with this concerto, having celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Edward Elgar with performances of it on a major tour to Southeast Asia and Australia in 2007; she has also performed the concerto extensively in London: at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, and with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall. What makes this recording especially interesting is that she has included the cadenza used in the work's first recording, made in 1916 with Marie Hall. For that occasion, Elgar, amongst other things, added harps to counter the sonic limitations of the acoustic recording process. For those used to hearing the standard version, also included, the result makes for fascinating listening, and the recording will prove a valuable addition to the Elgar discography. The 1916 version of the cadenza has been tracked separately. Tasmin Little: 'I have waited a long time to record the Elgar Concerto, a work that I have been playing for twenty years and one which is so close to my heart. In the inspirational Andrew Davis and the RSNO's commitment, I found exactly the right partnership for this monumental work.' The Violin Concerto is complemented by another piece for violin and orchestra, the charming Interlude from The Crown of India, as well as the rarely recorded but imposing Polonia, an inventive and colourful work incorporating much Polish melodic material. This was commissioned by the Polish conductor Emil Ml~ynarski in 1915 and dedicated to Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the pianist composer and, later, Prime Minister of Poland. Since coming to prominence as a finalist in the string section of the 1982 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Tasmin Little has enjoyed an international career, making more than twenty recordings. Highly imaginative in her approach to classical music, she received the 2008 Classic FM / Gramophone Award for Audience Innovation in London for the project 'The Naked Violin'. Whilst she has made superb recordings of the great popular violin concertos, including those by Bruch, Brahms, and Sibelius, she has made a speciality of recording and performing less familiar repertoire, especially neglected British works. On Chandos, she has released a recording of Finzi's Violin Concerto to tremendous critical acclaim (CHAN 9888). Sir Andrew Davis is famous for his performances of British music in general, and of the music of Elgar in particular. Last year he had great success with the premiere recording of Elgar's The Crown of India on Chandos (CHAN 10570(2)). Chandos also has a long association with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Over the last thirty years the label, in partnership with the RSNO, has produced a string of award winning CDs, notable among much else for their sound quality. This new CD, recorded in five-channel surround sound, continues that tradition.

Almost forty years after his first recording on Chandos, this unique limited-edition release gathers some of the best and most-awarded recordings on the label by one of the most prolific conductors of all time: Neeme Järvi. It highlights a 200+ discography that explores an astonishingly wide repertoire, with selections from the legendary complete series of Prokofiev’s symphonies and Tchaikovsky’s ballets to the groundbreaking discoveries of composers such as Atterberg or Suchon. It features nearly a dozen of the numerous orchestras with which he has collaborated, including the RSNO, Chicago Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, all here celebrated at their best. Offered at a very special price and retaining the original covers, this product also includes very special notes by James Jolly, Editor in Chief of Gramophone, as well as exclusive photos and interviews with figures central to Järvi’s extraordinary musical life.

Past praise of previously released material included in this set:

Prokofiev: Symphony No 6, Waltzes Suite / Järvi, SNO

As in all of his Prokofiev symphony recordings–this was the first, by the way–Järvi really digs into the music. The engineering is as big and bold as the performances. This recording deserves classic status.

– ClassicsToday

Smetana: Má Vlast / Järvi, Detroit Symphony

Järvi and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra deliver an expansive reading of the complete work, and their feeling for the music's vivid imagery and richly Romantic expression is spot on.

– All Music Guide

For decades now the Dvorák symphony cycle sweepstakes has been dominated by three classic contenders: Kubelik (DG), Kertesz (Decca--and to my mind not quite as deserving of the attention it has received), and Rowicki (Philips). But there are other cycles worthy of consideration, including Neumann (Supraphon), Pesek (Virgin), Suitner (Berlin Classics), Macal (Koss), and this one. Its merits are considerable, and it may be that its previous incarnation on nine discs (with couplings) prevented collectors from making its acquaintance.

Neeme Järvi's fresh approach most recalls Rowicki's and results in very fine interpretations of Symphonies Nos. 1-4, 6, and 8; very good ones of Nos. 5 and 9, and a strangely dark and heavy performance of No. 7 that will not appeal to all tastes but bespeaks of a valid interpretive tradition (noted Czech conductor Zdenek Kosler always did it this way too). Sonically the recordings range from excellent to excessively reverberant, but they certainly equal or surpass most of the competition. If you collect these symphonies and want to explore beyond the canonical Big Three sets, you will find much to enjoy here.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

SAINT-SAËNS Samson et Dalila: Bacchanale. Le Rouet d’Omphale. Phaëton. Danse macabre. La Jeunesse d’Hercule. Suite algérienne: Marche militaire française. La Princesse jaune: Overture. Une nuit à Lisbonne. Spartacus. Marche du couronnement • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Nat’l O • CHANDOS 5104 (SACD: 77:40)


Here in spectacular multichannel surround sound is a brand-new recording of all four Saint-Saëns tone poems plus a stewpot of shorter orchestral works, some of them popular favorites, others, less widely known.


Over the course of five years, between 1872 and 1877, Saint-Saëns composed four tone poems, three of them drawn from Greek mythology: Le Rouet d’Omphale, Phaëton , and La Jeunesse d’Hercule . The fourth, though third in order of composition, and most famous is Danse macabre , a romantic horror that trades Greek gods for gamboling ghouls.


Omphale’s Spinning Wheel is often said to be the very first French tone poem, though note author Roger Nichols points out that Franck beat Saint-Saëns to the punch by almost a quarter of a century with his symphonic poem Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne of 1848. According to Saint-Saëns’s own preface to the score, the subject of the story is feminine seduction and the triumphant struggle of weakness against strength. To atone for a murder Hercules is ordered by the goddess Hera to serve as a slave to the Lydian Queen, Omphale. Nichols spares the reader the more indelicate description of the emasculated and feminized Hercules kneeling and spinning at the Queen’s feet clad in women’s clothing. In light of Saint-Saëns’s fetish for hosting lavish parties dressed in drag, one has to wonder if the legend of Hercules and Omphale didn’t hold some special fascination for him.


Phaëton , Saint-Saëns’s second tone poem, flirts with the subject of father-son relationships and the sometimes tragic consequences that result when the boy grows old enough to challenge the paternal authority figure. Phaëton , son of Helios the sun god, seeks to prove his manhood by piloting the sun chariot across the heavens. So, in effect, he takes the family Ford out for a spin. But he’s not yet the man he thinks he is. Losing control of the chariot’s horses, he draws the sun too close to the earth. To prevent the solar express from crashing and wreaking further catastrophe, Zeus strikes it with a thunderbolt, incinerating the vehicle and killing Phaëton in the process. A sidebar to the story is that the chariot’s near-miss trajectory across the Sahara scorched the land and explains why the Ethiopians are black.


Next we have Saint-Saëns’s answer to Berlioz’s witches, Mussorgsky’s demons, and Liszt’s diableries, the Danse macabre . But leave it to Saint-Saëns to paint his portrait of the dancing dead, to paraphrase Ogden Nash’s verse, as skeletons in the museum hall gathering at midnight for a ball. The scordatura-tuned violin, xylophone, contorted Dies irae , and android-like rhythmic repetitions caused quite a stir, prompting Debussy, one of Saint-Saëns’s most outspoken critics, to declare years later that the piece gave him hope that Saint-Saëns was a very great composer after all.


The three foregoing tone poems are among Saint-Saëns’s more frequently heard and recorded works and, in fact, a number of recordings, some more recent than others, have included two of them in one combination or another on the same disc. Less often does one find all three, and only one other recording I’m familiar with—a composite Saint-Saëns collection assembled from one or more other releases featuring Charles Dutoit leading the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras—includes the composer’s fourth and final tone poem as well. Having stripped Hercules of his manhood in Omphale’s Spinning Wheel , Saint-Saëns rehabilitates him in La Jeunesse d’Hercule . Both dramatically and musically, the work is the weakest of the four, which no doubt explains its poor showing in the listings. The story, if it can be called that, involves no action but is rather a depiction of the young hero’s internal philosophical struggle in choosing between a life of pleasure-seeking and a life of virtue. He chooses the latter. It has been noted that the Lisztian tone poem model was a strong influence on Saint-Saëns’s score.


The remaining pieces that fill out the disc are, in some cases quite well known, like the Bacchanal from the composer’s opera Samson et Dalila and the Marche militaire française , which comes from the Suite algérienne . Other pieces are not well known at all but are hardly insubstantial. The Spartacus overture, for example, is a 13-minute score that was written in 1863 but remained unpublished until 1900. It’s a stand-alone grand concert overture that contains some of Saint-Saëns’s most dramatically urgent music.


On a trip to Portugal in 1880, Saint-Saëns dashed off a one-act comic opera with a title that would no doubt offend today’s politically correct sensibilities, La Princesse jaune , about a Japanese princess transplanted through opera magic to the Netherlands. The Lisbon audience apparently loved it, and back in Paris the Opéra-Comique gave four performances of it before the curtain came down on it for good. I note a single recording of the work listed by ArkivMusic, a 1996 live performance from Lugano. Heard here is the six-minute overture to the opera, which provides a taste of what Saint-Saëns must have thought Japanese music sounded like. Don’t expect Puccini.


During the same visit that produced La Princesse jaune , Saint-Saëns scribbled out the three-and-a-half-minute musical watercolor Une nuit à Lisbonne , which he dedicated to Portuguese King Luiz.


The story behind the Marche du couronnement put me in mind of Thomas Beecham’s plaint about British orchestras employing so many third-rate conductors when there were so many second-rate English ones to choose from. Which raises the question, why would the Brits choose a French composer, Saint-Saëns, to write a march for the coronation of Edward VII? Apparently, they didn’t. Saint-Saëns took it entirely upon himself to compose the piece, which, according to the program note, caused a flurry of diplomatic activity at the ambassadorial level between the two countries. For the march, Saint-Saëns borrowed a tune from his opera Henry VIII . If you shouldn’t expect Puccini in Saint-Saëns’s La Princesse jaune , don’t expect Elgar in his Coronation March.


This is mainly a fun disc, but a useful one as well in gathering together all four of Saint-Saëns’s tone poems, plus a generous selection of some of his less familiar orchestral works. It’s also distinguished by outstanding playing from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra brilliantly led by veteran conductor Neeme Järvi, and as an added bonus, it’s recorded in stunning multichannel sound. Enthusiastically recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

The exhilarating conductor Kristjan Järvi exploits the style and panache of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in a festive programme of works by the American John Philip Sousa, ‘The March King’. This follows the spectacular recording of works by Julius Fu?ík, made by Neeme Järvi, Kristjan’s father. Including such famous pieces as The Stars and Stripes Forever (National March of the USA), Semper Fidelis (Official March of the US Marine Corps), and The Liberty Bell (theme tune for Monty Python's Flying Circus), this album is a celebration in its own right, enhanced by brightly coloured sound captured in high-quality surround-sound.

-----

REVIEW:

This fun album mixes the familiar — the thunderous trombone scales and tootling piccolo descants of The Liberty Bell (of Monty Python fame), The Washington Post, and The Stars and Stripes Forever — with elegant extracts from such forgotten operettas as The Irish Dragoon and El Capitan. It’s an infectious selection.

– The TImes (U.K.)